SgtMuhammed

I want to know why the Elephants felt they had to get involved.

I'm not exactly sure why people regard this as some sort of accomplishment. Any country willing to spend the money can put a satellite in orbit, it's not like they have to invent anything, just build it. So good for Iran, they managed to do something only 52 years after the first time it was done.

Yeah, there is nothing like thinking you have everything set and then turning it on and staring at a blank screen.

I have seen tankers avoid large puddles because they didn't want to risk becoming mired. Yes tanks can bull their way through some fairly substantial obstructions but as a rule it is usually not worth it because of the risks noted by Dietrich and others. Here are a couple real world examples from my time with tracks. As OPFOR in Hohenfels we were using M113's as BMP's (I know they don't look anything alike but the Army has a lot of them not being used anywhere else and they don't look like most other BLUEFOR vehicles). The 113 is only about 13 tons soaking wet but that is still pretty hefty when compared to a typical young tree. Anyway, my Lt. asked me to clear a patch of sapplings, about 5 or 6, each about 2 inches thick, that was in front of one of our fighting positions. He didn't want us to get out and chop them down because we would have to get permission for that but running them over can always just be explained away as a training incident. So we ran them over center mass and they just flexed under the hull and popped back up behind us. I figured we needed to actually crush them to get them to stay down and so I told my driver to run one of the tracks directly over the trees. It worked but it damn near flipped the track! The sapplings lifted the side of the track up so high that my driver nearly panicked and I had to talk him through some fancy steering to settle back down. On another occasion I decided to see exactly how big a tree I could knock over with my 113. Not wanting to just zoom into one, I moved up to about an 8 inch thick 30 foot pine and began to push. The tree fell all right, right onto the top of my track! I had to tie the top to another tree to pull it off. So yes tracked vehicles can squash trees but it is often best to avoid doing so.

Crews are almost never big fans of the crate that replaces theirs. My uncle flew B52's in 'Nam and used to say, "B1?! That's not a bomber, it's a bingo number." I never got to play around with AC-130's. Lots of A10's and other fast movers but never the Spectre.

That one getting shot down reminded the airforce that the bird is still a big fat C130. There was a major stink around the SF community because the bird was missused by flying a daylight mission.

We told you guys that fighting with the Marines would be pretty different from fighting with the Army. AAV is not an IFV.

A big part of that decision depends on the general military philosophy. One school of though is more police like. You shoot one of ours and we will attempt a surgical strike to get those specifically responsible. The other mindset is that by responding with overwhelming force to even the smallest incident you can overawe your opponent and make them reluctant to act. Both have their good and bad points. One thing that terror organizations have learned is that even the most militaristic of Western type powers have nearly zero ability to sustain losses. States and NGOs without the Western regard, in many cases fanatical regard, for casualties know that they have the upper hand in any long term action as long as they can survive the initial hammer blows. It is only the West that is at all concerned about the loss of civilian lives in Gaza. For Hamas the civilian population is simply a goldmine of recruits and press releases.

Spam is big in Hawaii.

If I recall correctly, one of the layers of Chobham armor was a perforated plate. Can't remember where I saw that though.

It happened, they had to slingload an M88 from an OH58 to clean it up. Like TC said. You can airmoble pretty much anything, it just depends on how much you are willing to dedicate to it. Moving a company of M1s into western Iraq presented a significant force in that area. Against a 1st rate power, not so much.

They aren't really meant for the actual WAR part of a war but more for the police action that follows. If something is suspicious during major operations you just call in something that goes boom.

I always wanted to see if we could do a LAPES drop with a crewed hummer. Just throw that sucker in neutral and roll off the back ramp onto the runway. Rapid Deployment baby!

Well outside the scope of CMSF. The Stryker is strategically air moble, meaning that you can get it into theater by air in numbers that can actually be operationally significant. Oppose this to the M1, for instance, which can be flown in aircraft like the C5 or C17 but not in significant numbers. In any case they would not be tactically mobile, like Airborne or Air assault infantry, meaning that you can't insert them onto the front line by air.

(Cue the Vikings) Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam Spammitty Spam! Oh wonderful Spam!