Thermopylae

MM, single round precision artillery has been sued to some advantage in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Mostly for hitting UAV/air spotted targets and destroying shoot and scoot mortar technicals where a regular QRF would have no chance of getting there in time.

We would really have to know more about how FISTs/FOs work before getting further into the topic. But mainly, a CO can use his FIST (and will) to process a platoon fire request because it is so much faster/better/more likely to get someone's attention than his own. Of course then there becomes the issue of priorities of fire and that tar baby.

Cinderblock won't stop 7.62 x 54mm either.

Well, a well trained company team (CM:SF standard unit) will all be sharing information. Vast amounts of it. At least the US side. I'd imagine the better syrian units would work that way too. As for no LOS arty: you could just model it after real life. No US commander is going to release fires on an unobserved company level fire mission unless its a known pre-plot to cover a displacement or a planned interdiction mission. So, no firing unobserved except preplanned targets. Even then, with no one to observe the rounds, it'd make sense that the rounds just kept falling in the first sheath. A really cool questiona bout suppression is how it affects wire guided missiles. If a Tow takes, say, 10 seconds to fly 2km, if the Syrian player suppresses the launcher while the missile is enroute, will accuracy be degraded?

Red 1 is pretty low on the chain of command. Thats the first platoon leader in a mech company team. (4 is his PSG by the way). As long as someone in his platoon spots the target, he knows about it. Indeed it could be red three adjusting the fire when it comes down. Red 1 may just be going off 3's word that there are guys at 123 456, without eyes on himself if the situation were dire. 3 calls 1, Red 1 calls 6, Black 6 calls the FDC in proper artilleryese, FDC pushes buttons on a computer and break out their rulers, FDC calls the battery with fire info, battery sets and fires. FDC calls 6 to let him know rounds are coming, 6 puts it out on company net. Correction flows back up the chain. Or: FDC denies Black 6 because Saber 6 is: using his stuff elsewhere/saving his stuff/worried about collateral/thinks a different company is going to need it more pretty soon...etc.

Tar that wouldn't be gamey at all. Target hand-off for observation is a definite cornerstone of using artillery. It might go like this: "6, Red 1, got a couple guys in a truck offloading RPGs at 123 456, I'd be firing across a town, but you could try indirect." "Red 1, 6, roger." <6 calls for fire..wait a bit...> "Red 1, 6, you see those rounds go in?" "Can't correct them 6, a mac truck just stopped in front of me." "6, White 1, saw the impact..direction....135 degrees....left 200...drop 50, fire for effect" ON PLT NET "4, 1. Thanks for the heads up, didn't even know that was happening. Now where are we?"

Dark, in theory TCs sense the round, but in reality the blast from your gun more or less washes out your vision or obscures it with smoke/dust. Only on long shots would you have a chance of seeing it.

c3k: Several 14.5mm type hits would probably disable whichever one of those three systems they struck. I'm not sure what the effect would be of a single hit, but a sustained burst on target (or enough single hits over time) would almost certainly knock out one or more of those systems. It would definitely not be a good thing for the tank. As a side note, machinegunning the doghouse is harder than you might think. First off, its about the size of a head turned sideways. The doors open sideways, meaning you literally have to hit the optics front on, because the doors block off the 45 degree type shot. Your weapon has to be relatively in front of the turret. The doghouse is also three meters off the ground and recessed a bit on the turret, meaning close range shots from ground level have a much reduced potential angle of entry. You'd have much better luck firing from an elevated position, though if you get too far above you obviously cut down you potential angle again (theres a small flap on top too, but not nearly as much of a block as the hull/turret or the side doors.) Flamingknives: From what I've heard is that an RPG, type unknown, went through number one skirt of an abrams, missed the roadwheels, penetrated at a weak point and pierced one of the aux fuel tanks, which obviosuly was bad. It was more of an oblique strike on the flank, but fired from the front. I haven't heard of any other frontal RPG kills, but I could be hideosuly wrong. MikeyD: Yes, the commander's traverse handle will automatically ovveride the gunner's. He can fire the weapon, has a sight extension of the primary, and his CITV (SEP only, though the A1 has a 3x MG optic for the commander). In the SEPs he can also change magnification with a little thumb doo-dad on his handle, but not in the A1. He has to reach down to the gunner spot to switch between thermals and optics in either though. The commander has no access to the auxiliary sight.

Hitting the doghouse head on: If the doors are closed I don't know, probably have to look up the thickness on the doors. Anyhow assuming doors open, you would hit one of three things: the main optics, the thermals, or the laser range finder with the subsequent degrading/destruction of that piece depending on what you hit it with. A piercing RPG hit could very well take out all three. Now, this isn't as horrible as you might think, if one sight were to go out, the gunner would just switch to the other, though it may be less suited to the situation, and the sights are separate. And you'd still have the CITV and auxiliary sight regardless. As a side note, it'd be possible to leave a sight functioning, but zoomless (i.e, stuck on whatever zoom it was on when it got hit, or reduced to a the basix 3x) whihc could be problematic. A sight stuck on 50x isn't much use for scanning, and thermals are a hip shoot at 3x as there's only a large box, and no reticle proper per se. It'd matter most for long ranges and the gunner's ability to scan. The LRF would be a serious loss, but once it went down the commander would immediately jam his battlesight button to jump the gun to whatever battlesight range was for the selected round/weapon, and you can still manually enter range into the computer. It would slow the engagement speed down though. Not massively, but a few extra seconds. The chance of a first round hit would still be extremely high within a couple klicks, but would go down signifcantly beyond 2km and at night (the aux is daysight only, so you couldn't choke the target). Once again, long ranges would be most seriosuly affected.

The doghouse with the main thermals/optics is mounted on the turret top with angled entry innto the actual turret. You would pretty much have to shoot out the sights (literally dismount the entire TIS/Optic combo) and then pour some sort of burning liquid down the hole in signficant quantities (enough to melt through the sights on the other side). You might alos have luck firing large caliber rounds directtly down the shaft. All very difficult to do, especially as the the doghouse doors are going to be closed after the mains go out. The CITV being destroyed by small arms/RPG would have no physical effect on the TC. He's on the other side of the tank watching the it on a TV screen. It'd go black/fuzzy/whatever. Even if you destroy those two there's still the auxiliary sight which, despite being non computerized, is still pretty easy to use and hit targets with out to about a klick and a half thanks to high speed ammuntion and the miracle of hydraulics. You can use the HEAT sight for coax on the auxilairy as well. That one is mounted in the turret, back a ways. So, in short, yes, eventually, you could knock the sights out, but its unlikely you'd live long enough or have enough artillery ammo. Vision blocks are still susceptible to degradation, especially the driver's. The turret has a lot of ways of looking out at the world, and TCs can rotate their vision blocks to keep the best ones pointed at whatever. The driver does not have this luxury, so every crack, blur, etc makes him less effective at spotting/driving. In a night fight if you knock out the night vision periscope, the tank will have to slow down a lot or risk some unpleasant landings, As to electronics, shearing antennas and the MSR would be your best bets, because everything else is internal or coincides with the sights. With the MSR gone, long range (2km+) accuracy would be degraded after 5 or 6 shots. The antennas would pretty much negate FBCB2 and of course normal commo, the latter being far more important than the former. Rather than go for the hail of death, much easier to go for a mobility kill or abandon. An RPG to the track or a molotov on the back engine deck would be a lot simpler, and an easier shot to make too.

Doctrinally speaking; Air Mobile: Helicopters get you there, helicopters maybe take you out. Otherwise they mostly do their own thing. It may happen that the LZ/PZs are contested, but ideally no. Air Assault: Helicopters get you there and then work in conjunction with the ground forces to do whatever needs doing. So allt he fire support, flexibility, etc. inherent in having a bunch of helicopters on call comes with it. It does not indicate a hot LZ or PZ, and indeed that sort of thing they try to avoid. At least thats the definition they throw around in AASLT school nowadays.

Of course, somewhere where technology has been so far lost that they now rely on basically upgraded 20th century tech, I severely doubt brains in jars are in the making.

Lets see: 102 insurgent dead, 17 insurgent wounded. (confirmed anyhow) 5 US Wounded, unspecified ING troops wounded. 1 Kiowa destroyed, 1 Stryker disabled/recovered US Pilots safely recovered. US Hardware safely recovered. Tabs up to a US victory to me. Now, if you want to say "look, the insurgents were praised for defending a mosque, and held up as a shining example of driving out Americans" I would think the real answer would only be obtainable from asking the surviving insurgents. Chances are, you get hit that hard, you start having second thoughts about the Cause, no matter how your leaders dress it up.

I recall the story they tell about the interceptor body armor: A ranger was clearing a short stack room and runs into two enemies. He shoots the first one, then gets shot somewhere on his upper torso, and his body armor saves him. However, he drops his rifle due to the impact. The ranger then hip tosses the insurgent, both scramble for their weapons. The Ranger wins. And that is why you wear heavy ceramic plates in your OTV.

I realize I've only been in training, but personally, I find that the females I've worked with are on something of an S curve. They tend to be the top 30% or the bototm 30% so to speak. Take the example of 2 female SAW gunners during an FTX. One of them was quite good, managed to single handedly hold a position long enough for us to counterattack (and inflict 65% casualties on the OPFOR company with just our platoon), could be relied upon to act as a team leader, and actually helped haul one fat POS's gear. The other one surrendered her spare barrel, spare ammo, and eventually weapon to male squad members within a day, was prone to flights of hysteria, lacked tactical discipline, and required constant supervision to make sure she was eating so that she didn't pass out in the field. The few other females in the platoon pretty much gravitated towards one of these spectrums or the other, with very few center of mass. Just my experiences, as incredibly limited as they may be.