Jump to content

CM Black Sea - Beta Battle Report - US/UKR Side


pnzrldr

Recommended Posts

pnzrldr,

Forgive me, but I'm mightily confused. Your description of the second Skif's flight path seems to suggest a pop-up followed by a dive, but I see absolutely no reference to such behavior on the actual manufacturer's page for the missile.

http://en.uos.ua/produktsiya/vooruzhenie-i-boepripasi/31-nosimiy-protivotankoviy-raketniy-kompleks-skif

The way it was described in your DAR, I thought it was something like a Javelin. Over and above that, the linked doc self-contradict in describing the guidance method. Somehow it's not MIL and is MIL.

(head explodes)

John,

Apologies for my description. Many modern ATGMs execute an initial pitch-up maneuver at main engine ignition. In the Jav's case, this is extended into a full climb/dive flight profile, but in most other missiles it is used for simple obstacle avoidance during a phase of flight where the missile is being 'brought under control' by both its on board gyros and flight controls, and is acquiring and aligning itself with the directional guidance from the actual control unit. Helps it acquire the laser which guides it to its target. The Skif at any range beyond very short pops up ( a dozen meters? +/-?) then drops back down into a horizontal flight profile direct to target. Because the range here was so short, it popped up, and then the dive which would have brought it onto its normal flight path resulted in immediate diving impact. Hope this helps with the cranial brain housing unit spontaneous detonation issue you are suffering.

I am not personally sure what the results of full-auto 'dusting' of an ERA equipped target would be with 30mm. Not sure what ammo the Tunguska would have on board in this instance. If it has dual feed, and packs APFSDS, I would not want to be in the T-90 that got hit by a 40 round burst from directly behind. However, APFSDS of this caliber would likely not detonate most ERA. HEDP on the other hand will eat a tile per hit, so spraying an ERA CV with, for example, an Mk-19, would do quite a job of stripping away protection, and possible thus gaining a penetration. But the HEDP round would still have to possess sufficient pen to hole the base armor package. Regular HE rounds would have a chance of eating a block, but the explosive in gen III/IV ERA is VERY stable (like, you can cut it with a blow torch). It requires extreme levels of heat and pressure to detonate, usually only found in an actual shaped charge jet. HE rounds might detonate one or two with luck, and might degrade the performance of blocks through deformation, but would not denude the whole side of the vehicle.

Thanks to everyone for their support on this, and glad folks are enjoying. I am currently two turns behind (just got back from a trip to FT Benning), and I must warn you, things will get worse before they get better! Still 10 minutes or so before we get our US reinforcements. Until then, expect a rough time handling the Russian BMP-3s, especially where they can manage to hit us from two directions. I expect Bil to... not enjoy... the arrival of our US Tank/Mech Company Teams. The Abrams maneuver enabled by Jav covering fires will be hard for him to deal with, especially if we can get onto the map alive. Primary concern right now is I suspect he has some overwatch into the arrival zones, hence my invented commo issue between Power 6 and his forward company commanders!

SGT Cox is going to have a pretty bad time too, sorry to say... as is LT Leysenko, though neither is KIA at the point I am at right now. More to follow.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Almost forgot. Okay. Forgot but belatedly remembered! The Tunguska shows conclusively that there are simple weapons which can defeat both ERA and APS. Last I checked, ERA wasn't immune to 30 mm fire. Therefore, I imagine it would simply remove at least one brick per impact on the ERA array.

Interesting as it suggests a useful tactic. To wit, spray target with a burst of chain gun before sending in the kill shot missile.

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

pnzrldr,

Very much appreciate the explanation! It occurs to my twisted mind that maybe, for certain engagement geometries and ranges, the low pop-up, if you will, might come in at a steep enough angle to avoid the deadly embrace of Arena, which has pretty poor vertical coverage, much worse in Arena-E.

While we're on Skif, I'd like to request any readers in the Ukraine neck of the woods or surrounding region contact the manufacturer (phone only in contact info) and explain the product description may be hurting sales, since it lists the weapon as being able to defeat AIFV armor, then goes on to talk about penetration of 800 mm RHA behind ERA. Obviously, this is a tank being talked about, but Western readers will not be thinking tank as soon as they read AIFV. This significant oops is in several of the missile pages there. Would also observe that the text is rather wooden and, worse, unclear.

The Tunguska carries 1904 rounds, types HE-T and HE-I, according to Wiki and several other sources. This doesn't square, though, with other information indicating T's guns are stretched versions of the BMP-2 gun, and the BMP-2 fires AP-T, APDS and APFSDS-T in addition to the above. If, as all the sources aver, the 2S6 was designed to defeat the flying tanks A-10 and AH-64 with their very much known to the Tunguska designers (CIA explicitly stated this was the case at a 1985 classified presentation at a Soviet threat conference) heavy armor protection, why on Earth would blue spot producers be used, rather than something able to penetrate most of the plane and destroy vital internal systems?

http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/row/bmp-2.htm

And now we know the answer. The 2A42 and relatives have dual feed, with the first holding AP-T (or better; see above), and the second firing a 4:1 mix of HEI-T and HE-T.

http://ofbindia.gov.in/products/data/ammunition/mc/6-cm30bmp_apt.htm

This makes sense, because the BMP-2's armament is dual purpose and thus designed to deal with the flying tank, too. In fact, I've done threat analyses for a Stealth CAS bird which looked at the firepower BMP-2s brought to the air defense party. Impressive and scary, especially with modern fire control. Speaking of which, did you know that during the Cold War, attack effectiveness evaluators for the JAWS (Joint Attack Weapon Sytem) exercises made the shocking discovery that A-10s were being engaged and "hit" by DF 125 mm gunfire from the OPFOR tanks? This turned up when the engagement videos shot every time a weapon "fired" were analyzed.

Regards,

John Kettler

Link to comment
Share on other sites

goign for Moscow would transform both Russia and the US into glass parkings lots... not a good idea ;) Not to mention Putin is very popular and fighting an insurgency in occupied Russia (if we are lucky) would be a nightmare (it was in Iraq and Afghanistan and they dont have 1/100th of the means that would be available to RUssian insurgents)

Anyway, all cold war NATO infrastructures dont exist anymore. Deploying the massive army it would take is out of the question. I completely disagree with the fact that we have numbers on our side. We dont have the political will nor the resources and infrastructure to deploy such an army offensively (especially an opposed deployment). The Russians have 2.3 million men in reserve + tens of thousands of pieces of equipment in storage all around Russia and it would still be effective in numbers against older NATO equipment (which we would also need). Forget about it. It would ruin both sides at best and destroy the freaking planet at worst.

H.R Mcmasters said that deploying 100 000 soldiers in Ukraine would be necessary just to prevent being wiped out and defend the country. HE also said such an army doesnt exist. Now imagine invading Russia LOL

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was wondering... would putting a slat cage over the top of vehicules hamper top attack missiles like the javelin ?

Probably not. The Javelin uses a tandem-HEAT warhead. The first charges destroys the slat armor or triggers the ERA packs, the second charge penetrates the actual armor.

figf-2.gif

On the above pict.ure you can clearly see how the 2 HEAT charges are arranged inside the missile.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Exceptional craftsmanship with you Beta Battle Report Pnzldr.

Entertaining and Educational.

Arrival of US Tank/Mech Company Teams is gong to be a tough hill to climb for Bil but I could not imagine a more proficient adversary.

Maybe we all get a crack at our own Black Sea Battles... for Christmas :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

goign for Moscow would transform both Russia and the US into glass parkings lots... not a good idea ;) Not to mention Putin is very popular and fighting an insurgency in occupied Russia (if we are lucky) would be a nightmare (it was in Iraq and Afghanistan and they dont have 1/100th of the means that would be available to RUssian insurgents)

Anyway, all cold war NATO infrastructures dont exist anymore. Deploying the massive army it would take is out of the question. I completely disagree with the fact that we have numbers on our side. We dont have the political will nor the resources and infrastructure to deploy such an army offensively (especially an opposed deployment). The Russians have 2.3 million men in reserve + tens of thousands of pieces of equipment in storage all around Russia and it would still be effective in numbers against older NATO equipment (which we would also need). Forget about it. It would ruin both sides at best and destroy the freaking planet at worst.

H.R Mcmasters said that deploying 100 000 soldiers in Ukraine would be necessary just to prevent being wiped out and defend the country. HE also said such an army doesnt exist. Now imagine invading Russia LOL[/quote

In reality that would probably be the case. I think the US/NATO would only consider regime change and marchng on Moscow if Putin did something very nasty like employimg Russian chemcal weapons such as the Novichok range (something I only see Putin doing in desperation having alrweady suffered a big military defeat for example) Anyway, since this is a wargame we could say that something of this nature happens for scenario purposes.

And since the 2008 Suvarov reforms it would take a while for Russia to mobilise those reserves, give them refresher training and distribute equipment.

Since this is a wargame we need not worry about the possible consequences of marching on Moscow. Occupation. insurgency and indeed nuclear Armageddon may be a little beyond the scope of BS. We just fight some battles on the road to Moscow and perhaps some really nasty urban meat grinders in Moscow and St Petersburg Assuming the whole war hasn't gone nuclear :eek:Maybe I read Arc Light one time too many! :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why are you quoting my boss to me? I have to brief him again next week!

hehehe it was in an article at the beginning of the year during Crimea .. I tried to find it but couldnt.. I remembered it was the guy from Calvary during the battle of 73 eastings.. doesnt leave many options... send him my greetings ! LOL

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All - apologies for the delay, but I am in the midst of transitioning rigs. A fellow beta tester convinced me to take the plunge and try building my own system. I now have an operational new desktop:

- Intel i5-4690K 'Devils Canyon' 3.6ghz - 3.9ghz boost CPU

- 16gb DDR3 2133 Gskills Ripjaw RAM

- Asrock Z97 Fatal1ty Killer motherboard

- Nvidia GTX-970 4gb GPU from Gigabyte

- 256gb Corsair SSD

- H75 Corsair liquid CPU cooler

- 1TB WD Black data HD

- Raidmax CobraZ case

- Seasonic 620w Power supply

- Old model LG Blueray R/W

- Win 8.1

Driving my Dell Ultrasharp 24" IPS monitor (now I need to get another one!)

Bought most of the components from Newegg, and total cost w/ new keyboard/mouse (low cost snazzy TI gamer stuff) came in under $1200 after extensive mail-in-rebates (which I assume will all go through!)

If anyone is thinking of doing this, I based the build mostly off of Newegg TV's 'How to build a PC' parts 1 & 2 video, with some great mentoring from my fellow beta. It was a blast, but caused some necessary delays. Rig is fully operational, and am cross loading stuff and reinstalling software at this point. If I get any benchmark numbers or anything I'll let you all know, but my friend assures me that this CPU/GPU combo will absolutely smoke CMBS. With the continued (from CMRT) large map sizes, shaders, extensive use of smoke, and good looking models, expect CMBS to stress less capable rigs. I am coming off of an Alienware MX-15 laptop with 6GB RAM, an older i7 processor and a GTX-260M GPU, which struggled, especially with load times. Hopefully my screenshots will reflect the new investment, and the time/to/turn will increase as I can get more done w/o waiting on 15 minute turn loads.

Hopefully more from PdPK Levchenko tonight, but maybe not until tomorrow, as he watches the wheels come off... counting the turns until 'Speed and Power' arrive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sounds like a good rig. Hope the transition goes well as I have similar new rig (i-7 not 5) but I think same video card. Was hoping to get rt and fi up but they fail to play. Hoping the ticket I raised will give me some clues on how to solve it. Looking forward to more of the aar!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do you think you deployed the Ukrainians to aggressively? Or did the map just not give a a place they could have tried to last until relieved? You have inflicted meaningful losses on the attackers, perhaps enough to tilt the scales if this looks as much Kursk on steroids as I currently expect. Do you think APS will move IFV design back in the auto canon direction? Or is the Tungunska's effectiveness just a quirk of this particular battle?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dan,

1. Yes, I deployed the UKR too aggressively, and failed to visualize the fight fully from Bil's perspective. However, I think had he let the UKR fight into a carefully constructed security zone, he would have chewed them up just as badly as he has thus far, and would be postured with more depth to fight what is coming. Now we will see a pretty close range fight for the slopes of Hill 374, and since my reinforcements come in from two directions, I may have the opportunity to oppose his forces from fairly close range with a full company against attrited elements of his MRC, some of which will have to posture north, and some south. The wildcards are the effectiveness of the MRC in the south, and whether he has other undiscovered long-range ATGM shots set up. While the Abrams has the advantage at longer range gun duels, he has effectively taken ATGM effectiveness off the plate here. His missiles will likely be APS intercepts on the first round, and I deem it unlikely he will get a lot of second shots, now that the AMP round is debugged. However, I understand from fellow betas that they have remodeled Abrams front aspect protection to be less than proof-positive against Russian KE at close range, so we'll see how it goes. Again, if I get them on the map first turn or two intact, time to offload my mech Jav teams with their Bradleys unmolested, I like my chances.

2. At the point I am now, the Tunguska has eliminated only two BMP-3s and damaged a T-90. This is meaningful, but still not significant. Losses to the UKR CO is approaching 70%. They are effectively done, so at this point it is trying to save the Scout PLT section, sneak in a few keyhole shots, go reverse slope in most spots and dare him to come over at close range, and hope that the reinforcements can do something effective. Really regretting not putting an ATGM team - like a Corsar which can fire from inside - at the Power Plant. There is no effective LOS anywhere near the ATGM teams set up in Krichek. Not sure that relief of encircled forces equates to Kursk - was thinking more along the lines of Hube's Pocket in March 44 in the south.

3. On APS, I am not sure which direction it will go. As APS evolves, countermeasures will evolve also. Jammers, stealth missiles, decoys, saturation, etc... all have promise to negate this capability in a (nearly) man-portable package. However, I do believe that medium cal autocannons will continue in development and fielding across the globe as their firepower and capability are hard to beat. While you may not kill an MBT outright (though I know of several who have w/ Bradley 25mm in Iraq) you would not want to be the MBT crew who gets dusted off by a sizable burst of, oh, say 40 or 50mm APFSDS. That coupled with the lethality and overall target capability of a medium cal solution against troops, aircraft, fortifications and urban terrain are hard to overstate. I suspect that all first-tier AFVs in the future will have APS, but it will not negate the need for smart, comprehensive protection packages, and vehicles will continue to trend heavier.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...