shift8
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Posts posted by shift8
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4 hours ago, akd said:
This is the most concise summary I have found:
Interesting. Certainly food for thought, although without knowing his source it is hard for me to take it as gospel. Although if that last bit is correct, it would certainly lend credence to my suspicion that T-80 numbers spiked between the late 1980s to 1990. In fact, that 800ish number matches extremely well with the 15% zaloga wrote in 1989.
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Also this discrepancy got me rummaging, and I dug out Zaloga's extremely recent book on the T-64.
T-64 variants west of Urals sept 1990"
64A---------------------1386
AK----------------------220
B-------------------------1192
BV------------------------159
B1-------------------------420
B1K/BV1K-------------------27
R--------------------------578
Total T-64-3982
In addition paraphrased: "the t-80 began to replace the 64 in 1983. initally in the southern sectors. Before the time of GSFG withdrawal, it also replace the northern sectors. 64 remained in 2 divsions and 2 tank brigades at the time of withdrawal. at time of collapse, 3982 64 were east of urals, with addtional 2000 in ukraine. "
So as indicated, at some point after 1983 the T-80 began to supersede the 64. By 1991, we would be about 50/50 as you indicated. Curious how this would have looked in 85 o 87.
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1 minute ago, shift8 said:
Tank War Central Front------By Zaloga
1 minute ago, Ivanov said:That's ironic that we both quote the same author. However Central Front was published in 1989, so some data was incorrect and not up to the date. The T-80 book I'm referring to is from 2009.
Undoubtedly. I did say the numbers were approximate. I also have a copy of "T-80 standard tank" by the same author.
However I think it is important to note that the book states the numbers were for "currently" meaning 88 or 89, or whenever the writing took place. Changes could have occurred in the space of 2 years. Especially since we don't know exactly what date Zaloga's source was for the first book. For example, he might have been using whatever the most up to date estimate or source was, etc. Not necessarily from the year of publishing.
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53 minutes ago, Ivanov said:
I realize this is CMFB forum and I apologize for an off topic but I have to respond
This looks pretty accurate for the first half of the 80's. One thing I'm glad, is that there are no mythical T-72's in your GSFG equipment summary. Secondly, if we agree, that there were about 5700 tanks in GSFG and take into the account the CFE treaty documents cited by Zaloga ( which state that in 1991 there were 3020 T-80B/BV's deployed in East Germany ), you'll get over 50% of T-80, with the rest being T-64 ( a tank for some reasons ignored by many western military enthusiast and I suspect often confused with T-72 ) and a small number of T-62's. Again, this is not author's imagination or fantasy but an official Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe document. BTW I'd like to know your sources.It doesn't mean that the Soviets had any significant numerical advantage in number of modern tanks. It just means that by 1989 T-80 become the most common Soviet tank in Germany and that there were no damn Soviet T-72's there
Tank War Central Front------By Zaloga
The numbers, as I stated, are for the late 1980s. Not 1991. Which is probably the reason for the discrepancy on T-80 numbers.
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Already some really good posts on this subject, so to piggy back on what Miller and Krautwerfer have already touched on....
Late 1980's Pact Tank inventory(values are approximate):
Soviet:
T-55/54------------38%
T62-----------------24%
T-64----------------18%
T-72----------------16%
T-80----------------- <10%
NSWP:
T-55--------------85%
T-62--------------none
T-64--------------none
T-72--------------5-10%
T-80--------------none
Group of Soviet Forces-Germany
5700 tanks in units
T-64 A/B------------------65%
T-80-----------------------15%
T-62-----------------------15% mainly in independent tank regiments and training units
2000 tanks in reserves
Summary:
Total in Place Forces Tank Divisions Motor Rifle Divisions Old Tanks New Tanks Total
(GSFG, CGF, NGF, EGNVA, 26 29 8325 9125
CSLA, LWP)
Total tanks-17450
NATO Tank Divisions Mech Divisions Tanks
15 13 13750
US Tank Forces Breakdown (1987) : 1700 M48A5, 2525 M60 and M60A1, 4810 M60A3, 2374 M1, 894 M1IP, 3270 M1A1
(In Europe) 1750 Tanks. All of but 200 of which are M1 Abrams of some variant.
1400 other pre-positions tanks
2,300 tanks in war reserve stocks
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Honestly my complaint is the AA in game is that it is so binary. BUT, I also dont think there any way around this unless you added (and this is obviously not feasible) some kind of additional game to manage A2A and SEAD etc.
Essentially, each mission has to either assume SEAD has already been done, or that it hasn't. Or that you have local air supremacy etc. Ban AA vehicles or dont, given how OP they are right now.
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1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:
Fortunately there are few examples of "jollies" as an example of separation. Brexit is about as close as I can think of. Most countries either repress secession enough that it can't possibly be done for "jollies" (ask the Kurds in Turkey, for example), others simply make acceptably high bars for leaving (Canada, UK, and more extreme Spain). Crimea was separated from Ukraine by an act of war, so in that case it doesn't count as secession.
Steve
To be clear here, I am on your side of this argument as of the subject of the thread. My point here had nothing to do with Crimea or Ukraine in so much as their separation of Russia. My point is that Crimea itself cannot re-decide to leave the Ukraine because it now thinks its Russian ( and I am not even saying thats the case). Russian cannot point at Crimea and go "oh look they want to be Russian now" and then invade to please those people.
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4 minutes ago, kinophile said:
No one suggested there is anything light hearted or random about seceding.
And the point stands - if a governing system cannot control, literally or morally, then it does not deserve, should not be given control. And no one should have to stay and suffer under that situation.
I think maybe we misunderstood each other. I of course agree that a nation can rebel or separate over a major moral grievance if there is no other recourse.
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58 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
I knew my country did crappy things well before 2003. Even my humble public school made me aware of things such as the Vietnam War and fun stuff like genocide against the native peoples of the US. No need for self righteous foreigners to lend a hand for this guy.
Er, no. He didn't.
And thank you Hattori for once again demonstrating the power of Whataboutism. Do you see now what you started and why I pointed out the folly of your post right from the start? This is the tactic of distraction even if you didn't intend it to be. So how about stopping it?
Government is a social contract. The contract requires government to behave in a way that is in the best interests of everybody within its borders. Everybody. If it fails to do so then the social contract is broken and there is grounds for divorce. Government rarely, if ever, provides an explicit "out clause" for failure to do it's duty to a particular people in part because governments are inherently interested in retaining control. Even the more benevolent ones.
As an American, if Texas wanted a divorce I'd be fine with that provided the process was free and fair (i.e. not what happened in Crimea) and that the US government would get some monetary compensation for the investments it's made in Texas over the last... oh I dunno... 50 years. The compensation could be done over a long period of time, I'm fine with that. If it were done like that, no problemo.
Someday the United States will break apart. It's inevitable. I just hope that when it comes to it that the breakup will not be like the 1860s US civil war or the 1990s Yugoslav civil war. That's in nobody's best interests.
Steve
Yes, if the government fails to act in a ethical manner this is of course grounds for divorce. What I do no agree with though is the arbitrary separation of sections of a nation state for "jollies." The efficacy of the laws of said nation state would mean nothing if groups or even individuals could randomly decide to secede whenever they wanted to. It would also make it impossible to have nation states at all, since they could theoretically dissolve into individuals ie: anarchy. There are reasons for separation: but they should not be arbitrary whims.
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8 hours ago, kinophile said:
Actually you're totally wrong, and very uninformed. They can. Try telling that to Catalonia. It's a human rights to decide your regions future.
The key is secede PEACEFULLY.
Scotland held a a referendum and peacefully voted to stay part of the UK. Now that the UK has list Ursaki mind and voted to leave the EU, where as SC thank voted heavily in favour of staying in the EU, it's very likely that there will be a second referendum. Weather it succeeds is wide open, but it can be held, the Scots have the natural right to hold it, and by golly the UK had better let them or there could quickly be an escalation to Maidan-esqe protests.and it's not like the Rangers and Celtics don't know how to fight.. :-)
Catalonia is well along its own path to secede/regional autonomy from Spain, but they face a tougher prospect as legally (through laws specifically put in place by Madrid) they can't even hold a referendum on holding a referendum! They can poll, but it has no legal status, according to Madrid. But that's not stopping them. They're pretty damn committed.
A good contrast is Northern Ireland. There, the idea of holding a referendum on joining the Republic would cause a gmstorm of violence and bombings. For it to even be mooted the current generation will need to essentially die off, as the pro-UK of the population are very determined to stay. This is a situation where there is a strong popular sentiment against leaving, as opposed to laws/edictsemplaced and enforced by an outside, far off government.
Now, I don't know myself, but I think secession is legally banned in the US? But the flip side is that there is strong local/state autonomy, which provides a release of pressure.
In the case of Catalonia they do not have that autonomy. Scotland now has much more control over its affairs, through Devolution, but still - independence is desired.
I'd vote that if a Government has managed to piss off an entire region of people the it's doing something profoundly wrong and needs to pause and reassess.
O
Now, this sounds like a vote in favour of the Separatists in the Donbass, and it would be, if they were actually separatists. But Russia manufactured, inflamed and prolonged the unrest to cover an invasion. Which moves things out of the realm of political discourse a la Scotland/Catalonia and into preventing an illegal, foreign agitated seccession and foreign invasion.
Which is the whole rationale for the ATO.
This is illogical rubbish.
Secession can only be done legitimately if either the formation of the nation was not originally self determined, or if the nation state as a whole agrees with the secession. Or if at time of formation the seceding portion had a clause granting it the right to separate if it so desired later. The seceding portion cannot secede on its own. Otherwise you would have endless disintegration until you have defacto anarchy. Period. End of Story. Full stop.
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Once established, portions of nations states cannot legitimately secede. Unless there was foul play in the initial formation. Once self-determined: permanently determined. Otherwise the laws of the nation state would have no logical efficacy, and the state would continue to micro secede until you had anarchy.
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Just now, VladimirTarasov said:
Okay thats whay you can believe in, unlike hitler I dont hate anyone and I support a defensive role in the crisis. A legitimate voting process where majority voted to join Russia, if you dont believe go do some searches on the internet. So dont come to me with "OMG YOUR HITLER" demonization. Quite irrelevant.
Ukraine already made that decision back in 91. It voted to be independent, as did Crimea vote to be apart of Ukraine. The decision has already been made, and it is not the prerogative of your nation to bully the Ukraine into "do-overs" where the votes are cast by your tanks.
Ukraine is a sovereign state. Estonia is a Sovereign state. Lithuania is a sovereign state. Poland is a Sovereign state. Your empire is over. Get over it.
You dont have some kind of "jurisdiction" over your neighbors just because you you have some ethnic overlaps.
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11 minutes ago, VladimirTarasov said:
What you want me to say we didn't break international laws? You can condemn us all you want and ignore every little event up to the Russian intervention if you'd like. You do know violent coupes are illegal by international law too? IF you will play with the rights of my people who've been living in your country for centuries I will defend them no matter what. There is no international law that can justify this other than morality. I'd also love to condem a bunch of countries for destroying the middle east. I'm sick of this attitude grow up and face the reality, Russia is not gonna let its people get abused like that.
International law doesn't even need come into play here. Your nation has consistently violated the natural rights of the nations in its region for hundreds of years.
Your justification to invade Crimea or any other section of Ukraine as about as valid as Hitlers justification to invade Czechoslovakia in 1938 or Poland in 1939. Or your nations decision to invade lithuania, estonia, and latvia.
Ethics Russians living in the Ukraine are NOT Russians any more so than I am British or Italian because of my heritage from American immigrants. EVEN IF you had a legitimate human rights complaint against the Ukraine (which you dont) if does not give you carte blanche to invade them and annex their territory.
Congratulations on your Hitler-esque justification for annexing other nations or parts of other nations.
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Just now, VladimirTarasov said:
Of course you can interpet it that way instead of discuss in detail a true face of reality. You cannot use that and compare it to what happened in Ukraine, for many reasons I've listed. But anyways, lets use totally different analogies not pertaining to any similarity on the history of what happened in Ukraine. But go ahead run me by the stereo types.
Sure, no analogy needed. Lets keep this real simple.
Your nation is a corrupt autocratic bully who has considered eastern Europe to be its playground since the middle ages. The current situation in Ukraine is just another example of Russia bullying the smaller eastern European nations around it.
So a simple, no analogy version of what has happened: Ukraine, a sovereign nation, ousted a corrupt leader who was the toy of your government and when that upset Russia, you invaded the Crimea and annexed it. Then you incited and covertly aided rebellion in the eastern section of the Ukraine. (You do it in this manner btw, to obfuscate your involvement because you know you stand a snowballs chance in hell against NATO if there was ever concerted demand to foil your designs) This is just another example of the Russian state continuing to act as if eastern Europe is its property.
I think that about sums it up.
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1 minute ago, Aragorn2002 said:
You are so wrong. FDR gave in much more than Stalin ever expected. But it is obvious you know little about this subject, so better to leave it at this. Just read the books.
Nope. Your making inferences that dont exist.
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1 minute ago, Aragorn2002 said: Okay, you win.
Yes I do. Thanks for admitting your cognitive dissonance.
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2 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:
Who was stuck to the Yalta agreement and FDR's poor choice of pro-communist advisors.
No.
And second, its ridiculous to insinuate the FDR handed eastern Europe over because he was pro-USSR. It was done because the Western allies didnt have the inclination to fight WW3.
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14 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:
Believe me, it was more than 'a bit more'. FDR's surroundings were totally infiltrated and pro-communist, as you can read in these two books. He practically gave away half of Europe and other parts of the world to Stalin and his criminals at Yalta. And with it condemned millions and millions of people to death, torture and misery.
Right.........Except he was dead by the time the war ended. Final decisions rested with Truman.
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If they had had true honor or loyalty, they would have either rebelled against the Third Reich or deserted.
Plus I think we all have better things to do than watch a bunch of mid-life crisis Nazi wanna be's make a movie about their lost dreams and sexual frustrations.
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German armor quality deteriorated towards the end of the war mainly due to molybdenum shortages. Because of the reduction in its use to make certain alloys, German steel could sometimes be overly brittle. However, it should be noted that the effects of this were not consistent or particularly predictable. Nor would it appear that it had any significant impact on the combat effectiveness of the vehicles in a general. The Americans conducted tests on several captured Panther G's and the effectiveness of their armor was completely in line more or less with what would be expected. As noted in the tests, sometimes there were weak points in the plate, and if a round struck that point, you might penetrate otherwise immune plate. As the testing indicated though, and as CM also does, this is the exception not the rule.
You can see this in game as well. Every once in a blue moon (like 1 in 15) you will see something kill a Panther that shouldnt have.
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On 7/13/2016 at 6:04 PM, kinophile said:
I'm a little curious why so specific about the first wave.. Surely my forward platoons will be Mechanized....I'd never send dismounted infantry forward without some close support. If the enemy has IFVs they're dead.
That was done just for fun purposes. I want the tempt to start slow.
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41 minutes ago, JonS said:
Irony?
Yes. That was the point.
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37 minutes ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:
Re: "Appeal to Authority"
What I find interesting is military affairs is the one place random people seem to think their opinion carries equal weight to professionals. You wouldn't argue what sort of knife the your surgeon uses, you won't debate your truck really needs a V-16, but gosh darn it, people will line right up to argue the M113 is superior to the Abrams or something.
You're stating over and over again that the Lewis has a larger magazine. The US Army/Marines were likely aware of this. And yet, given this apparently massive advantage they still opted to go with the BAR. This might be indicative that the specifications for a squad level automatic weapon did not value having a large pan style magazine over other factors. Then when it became apparent some sort of light machine gun was needed, the Lewis wasn't even looked at, and instead the conversion of a medium machine gun into some sort of frankenLMG.
No weapon is perfect. All of them are a series of compromises to try to find a weapon that's strong where it matters, and weak where it matters less. This sometimes turns out wrong as it turns out there compromises did not mesh well with reality. Classifying weapons procurement missteps as "stupid" is simply not understanding the problem or solution set. As the case was, a large number of people who knew guns, infantry tactics, and the like rather well did not seem particularly attached to the Lewis, and went with the BAR.
Were they right? Dunno. There's certainly a debate to if the BAR was the right weapon. But the Lewis certainly failed to make the sort of impression you'd think an obvious superior choice would, politics or no.
Re: Reloading
No. I mean the reloading drill for the magazine on the BAR is superior. There's a reason most weapons have their magazine located around that spot of the gun vs coming in through the top.
Re: M240B
It was too heavy for a squad weapon full stop. That's why the M240B is NOT a squad level weapon, it's used by machine gun teams. Squad machine guns are M249s which mysteriously weights much closer to the weight of the BAR than the Lewis. The most current model of the M240 went through significant weight reduction measures to make it more reasonable for squad level use.
Again. Was the BAR the right too for the job? That's an interesting debate. I lean towards "mostly." Was the Lewis a better choice? Jury is pretty solidly on "nope."For starters, I am in the military. As I understand it so are you. Although honestly I see both of these things as being irrelevant to who is right etc. Just letting you know.
No, not everyone's opinion is equal. But an appeal to authority means very little for the purpose of debate. Many "experts" have pointed out before me that the BAR was not the greatest lmg, for the same reasons I stated. I have not seen anyone specifically mention why the Lewis was ignored. On top of this, history is full of accounts of "experts" who did very stupid things militarily. That doesnt meant I completely discount their opinion, on the contrary, my opinion on this matter derives much of its information from experts etc. This is an entirely moot conversation point, as it will eventually devolve into us finding experts with opposing views. Essentially meaningless. No one gets to ride their own coat tails. And I agree with you on the 113. The cult of Gavin is completely insane. However, there are plenty of myths that float around inside the military that are nonsense. I take peoples opinions on reason alone. I dont really care what credentials they have. By way of comparison, last time I checked, people who degrees in political science and years of time in congress does not necessarily make them good at their jobs. Being an expert is a largely unique characteristic in certain fields. Hence why we have been institutionally training officer corps since the 1800s but only produce handfuls of truly capable commanders. It is also why people who graduate at the top of military academy's are not always the best.
Re Magazine: Objectively, it has a much larger magazine. The BAR was criticized by the Army and others for its deficiencies, the magazine size being one of them. If you want to make a appeal to experts, this is not a new opinion. The Army makes mistakes all the time. Need I point out the post WW2 insistence on 7.62 Nato? Or the decision to keep the P-40 in production throughout the war for absolutely no good reason? I mean come on. This isnt an argument.
RE: perfect: Obviously. However that does not mean that someone who questions a procurement decision somehow misunderstands the decision making process. The BAR was found not to be adequate, regardless of the Lewis guns merit. Hence why the 1919A6 was made and the decision to double up on BARs later in the war because 1 was seen as insufficient. Also again there I am hearing an appeal to something that is not being back up with anything concrete. You are simply assuming that the decision makes decided right, and that they must have had some unknown reason to make their decision. The point of this thread was to dig up said reason, if it exists. You can justify any weapons system, not matter how bad, with the logic you are using.
Re "were they right": Good, lets have this debate then, based on the actual merits of the guns. It would hardly be the first time someone cocked something up. The WW2 US Army was good, but it is not immune to criticism.
Re 240: I am well aware of the US Armies squad structure. Couple of things there though. While the 249 is much closer to the BAR's weight, it is also alot more akin to a full GPMG in terms of capability. IE: belt fed, changeable barrel etc. IF you have such an ideal weapon, it makes sense to break it up as it has been. But if all you could choose between was a BAR and a 240, the 240 is the clear choice Full Stop. The WW2 US Army has neither of these things. For much of the war it has no GPMG, until the A6. And as you stated, franken gun. Instead it has a nearly 50 lbs medium, and a Auto Rifle that isnt really all that well suited to being either a lmg or a rifle. Clearly we have come a long way. A GPMG would have been a far better happy medium between the previously mentioned extremes. Hence MG-34 and 42. And that everyone copied this idea after the war.
I am of the opinion that the BAR was a right idea but with bad implementation. Clearly there is need for a SAW type weapon. But the BAR wasn't really there. Having the right idea doesn't mean much if the tech you use doesn't do it right.
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6 hours ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:
So. Here's the thing. Literally dozens, if not hundreds of people were involved in making the choice to not use the Lewis gun. Could you point to some sources that show there was any desire to retain the Lewis, or in the case of the US Army, actually adopt it as standard? Are you somehow smarter than they are?
As far as reloading, it's actually really rather important, and equally important to practical rate of fire, again it doesn't matter if you're whapping out 400 RPM if you're losing suppressive effects for the 30 seconds it takes you to bring the weapon back into service. We've discussed the 97 round pans were rubbish.
Also how many pan type magazines have you seen used since 1940? This should be an indicator the pan was a suboptimal engineering solution. Belts are not at all subject to the same restrictions of pans, in that they are easily linked, de-linked, unboxed and wrapped around things, etc, etc etc. A pan is literally all of the weight, none of the flexibility etc.
Simple as this:
As a light weapon for the infantry squad, the Lewis was too heavy, too hard to reload quickly, and required more than one man to effectively operate. The BAR/Bren did the job better.
As a light machine gun it was vastly inferior to belt fed designs.
This appears to the the historical conclusion made by plenty of fairly intelligent military professionals in the 1930-1940's. While many memoirs and essays have questioned the utility of many weapons systems, this is the first time I've seen anyone arguing what the US infantry squad really needed was 30 lbs of World War One relic.Please refrain from appeal to authority fallacies. The governments in ww2 made tons and tons of mistakes during the war. It is hardly unreasonable to question their logic. Armies have been making stupid decisions since the beginning of time.
Reloading is important. Reloading the magazines or drums in the middle of a firefight is not. The point made was about reloading the individual rounds into the magazines. If you are doing this in a firefight then we are beyond debating any real merit of the weapons. And speaking of reloading, its kind of hard to be a lmg when you are changing magazines every 20 or 30 rounds. This is not a new criticism. The BAR was not a good squad auto because it lacked barrel change and large enough magazine capacity, among other things. The Bren was better, but slapping on change in barrel is only part of the solution.
Sorry but the Lewis is not too heavy, unless you somehow think the Mg42 or 240B are too heavy. 25-28lbs is pretty standard fair for the GPMG. Kind of the whole point actually, since it makes the MUCH lighter than mediums like the 1919. Yes, belts are better than Pans. But the point made was about their awkwardness to carry. Belts can be plenty awkward on their own. Whatever the problems with the drum, it fed reliably and being somewhat more annoying to carry doesn't suddenly make a bunch of tiny box magazines a better idea. And as for its use after the war, Im not making an argument for the Drum as some kind of replacement for the belt. But I will point out that you dont see any LMG's these days using 30 round magazines except as a backup.
And the BAR is a ww1 relic, one that is far too heavy for the firepower it delivers. And since were leaning on expert opinion, the Army clearly found the firepower of the BAR unsatisfactory. Hence why you see lmg versions of the 1919 very late in the war. Or doubling up on the BAR since 1 was not enough. And like I said, "experts" have been criticizing the BAR as inadequate for ages, it is hardly inconceivable to think the BAR was a mistake whatever approach you make at it.
Russian army under equipped?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
Ah yes. Now that we have actual Russian IADS and AF, the NATO attack can now go from being described as a curb stomp to simply a mere seal clubbing instead.