Is Syrian Equipment Fixed? Same with C2?

[Battlefront.com]

There are a ton of good resources on the Internet, but there is no one good source for any of the things you're asking about. For example, to find out how poor the state of readiness is of Syrian forces requires looking for that subject all on its own. Reading things like "Arabs at War" gives some historical perspective and shows a general quality trend in Middle Eastern militaries. Sources on US forces and their readiness are huge and very easy to find.

The best book (in English) on post-war Soviet vehicles is authored by Stephen Zaloga, one of the best known experts on Soviet weaponry. The best book on the Abrams is written by R.P. Hunnicutt. But it is out of print and copies generally sell for a couple hundred US Dollars each... so I don't really recommend that one

The thing that is most important is to understand the basics. The US military is extremely expensive to make and maintain. The reason is that it is more complicated, diverse, trained, and equipped. The Syrian military is a conscript force, equipped with vastly outdated stuff (for the most part), using strategies/tactics with a proven failure rate against Western forces, and political interference that affects just about everything negatively. This means that you should expect to find that the Syrians, if modeled realistically, won't have a 1:1 chance against a competently led US force. The initial invasion of Iraq shows that to be true, as the first war with Iraq also showed.

But take the best items available to the Syrians, give them good Experience and other favorable ratings, put them in a tactically fair situation, then see how things go. The results will be VASTLY different when things like AT-14s, RPG-29s, and Squads with more firepower are used effectively with T-90s and BMP-3s (as well as artillery support).

Or take a decent Unconventional Force in an urban scenario with victory conditions which reward the Syrians for causing casualties and penalize the US for taking them. As the Syrians you might lose most of your forces, but if done right you'll still win the battle.

Again, before assumptions are made one has to really examine what it is they are seeing which is "wrong". Generalized statements never work well here because, more often than not, they are incorrect. Or at least largely incorrect. We need specific things to talk about and then we can really start to compare apples to apples, oranges to oranges. That's the only way the game gets better.

Steve

[MikeyD]

I'm reminded of the knock-down, drag-out fights that used to occur on the CMBB forum over the topic of the Soviet 45mm anti-tank gun. Fights - let me remind you - fought by people who had never actually seen one up-close, certainly never fired one, and probably didn't even have reliable reference material on its characteristics! But still we had knock-down drag-out fights. I've often thought that was the reason why so many 'grogs' were against a modern war title - Because they'd no longer be able to argue in a vacuum. At any point a real-live Stryker commander may pop up on the group and deflate their arguments!

[Other Means]

If I may; re-test your results in 1.11. As mentioned in the release notes things have been tweaked that will affect them.

[Apocal]

I've often thought that was the reason why so many 'grogs' were against a modern war title - Because they'd no longer be able to argue in a vacuum. At any point a real-live Stryker commander may pop up on the group and deflate their arguments!

I'm pretty sure that's happened here, with StrykerPSG pulling the debate equivalent of a total victory against some die-hard treadhead.

RE: friendly armor causing blue on blue, how many times has your Abrams been firing passed a friendly building and "clipped" it with a 120mm HEAT? How many times have you been thinking the Brad would fire a 25mm, when the BC chose TOW? How many times have you been laying down some real ****ing hate and discontent on a building thengiven the order for your infantry to take that building down, but forgot to lift the heavy stuff?

If you're like me, your answer for those questions are many, often and too many times to count.

[Battlefront.com]

MikeyD,

I've often thought that was the reason why so many 'grogs' were against a modern war title - Because they'd no longer be able to argue in a vacuum. At any point a real-live Stryker commander may pop up on the group and deflate their arguments!

Yup, that's my conclusion as well. I think another one is that there's a lot less to argue about. Think about the amount of WW2 hardware used by the Germans alone! Then add the Soviets, then toss in the Arsenal of Democracy. Brit stuff brings up the total even more, and for giggles add in some obscure stuff that was used here and there. The quantity of stuff used is staggering! Not only that, but documentation about most of the stuff is poor to non-existent. Detailed accounts from first person usage even worse. Carefully documented engagements of many of these don't exist unless there was a Waffen SS guy involved.

So, with all of that... pretty much anybody with an opinion (and everybody has one, just like arseholes as they say ) can enter into a WWII centric debate and at least have a shot at being taken seriously. Not so when a half dozen guys can log on and say "I've driven that" or "we never did that" and put an end to the Grog debate. Even more so, some guy in Iraq or Afghanistan can come here while still in the war zone to offer some perspective. Without a medium, that just ain't going to happen for WWII stuff.

I have to say that from a game maker's perspective, CM:SF was a breeze to make compared to WW2 in terms of sourcing reliable data.

Apocal,

How many times have you been laying down some real ****ing hate and discontent on a building thengiven the order for your infantry to take that building down, but forgot to lift the heavy stuff?

(raises hand) Uhm, yeah, I've done that. I've also dropped a few JDAMs on my own position or watched a helo punch up some of my guys by mistake. And I've also learned that "Danger Close" is not just an abstract concept, it's something to pay attention to!

Now, that is not to say that there aren't some things we should penalize a bit more for Blue, because we might need to make a tweak here or there. It's just that at this point the game's data is "innocent until proven guilty", so to speak.

Steve

[rune]

Steve,

Don't forget the Bradley book by Hunnicutt that I gave ya. An excellent resource.

Rune

[Battlefront.com]

Heh... yeah, no way I'm ever going to forget the 2nd biggest book in my collection, nor where it came from Thanks again for that one!

If you want to know the biggest book I have, it's Stantons US Army Order of Battle. About the same thickness as the Brad book, but taller format. Equally painful to bare footed toes when accidentally left on the floor in a dark room.

Any of Hunnicutt's books are a huge boost to someone's library. Just remember to have some room left on your home equity account and leave enough left over to build a bookshelf sturdy enough to hold 'em!

Steve

[-E]

... then toss in the Arsenal of Democracy. Brit stuff brings up the total even more ...

So many one liner replies, so little time. *grin*

[SgtMuhammed]

In regards to spotting here is a real life example:

When I was OPFOR at Hohenfels we were fighting a meeting engagement against a Bradley unit. One of our guys was pinned in the woods about 500 meters from my position on the other side of a valley. My group of 4 BMPs began to engage to render assistance. I was a little farther down the side of the valley from the other three and behind a big bush so I was just going to wait for the other guys to take out the Brad. After about a minute or two or watching them peer through their sights and point and wave about (our BMPs were actually M113s with a simulated cannon on the pintle mount so everyone was unbuttoned with full fields of view) I figured that the Bradley must be in some deep cover and hard to spot. So I pulled around the bush and turned to have a look.

There on the hill, half way up a snow covered slope and on the clear ground about 50 meters from the woodline was a NATO cammo painted Bradley desperately searching for our companion. You could see the turret slewing back and forth as he scanned the woodline. THE THING STOOD OUT LIKE A NEON SIGN. I turned around to look at the rest of my guys and just shook my head. It took me about a second to kill the Brad and immediately begin to berate the other crews for fighting with their eyes closed. As soon as the kill indicator light on the Bradley went off all three of the other vehicles said, "Oh, there it is."

These were all highly trained crews with lots of experience on that exact piece of land. One of the vehicles was the LT's track and had three additional sets of eyes sticking out of the troop hatch in the back. NONE of them saw a thing till I killed the Brad. So strange things happen.

Game wise, I have had multiple instances Syrian forces firing at US forces and not being spotted in return. I just played through my Schwend scenario and had a single T90 destroy an entire M1 platoon and half a Bradley company without taking a round of return fire and all engagements were from the front arc. Things happen.

[cool breeze]

Its sounds like we made it about as far as we can on the vehicle spotting discussion front; until someone does some more tests showing that the old eyeball is really not doing as well as it should (which I suspect but of course I leave it to you experts). The artillery isssues raised in the russian equipment thread han not been adressed at all. The arty delays do seem overly long. much longer than ww2 and I think that isnt giving enough credit to the new tech that syria does have. And this patch is like the best thing ever!!!! I can play on my laptop now and Im on vacation! WHOOOIE!! edit to add. Oh and thanks for responding to the unfairness charges!!

[Apocal]

The artillery isssues raised in the russian equipment thread han not been adressed at all. The arty delays do seem overly long. much longer than ww2 and I think that isnt giving enough credit to the new tech that syria does have.

WW2 or CM1? Because CMx1 was exaggerated with how fast arty could be called in.

[cool breeze]

That might explain it all. my only relevant experience is with CMx1. But the in prelude to this thread people were talking aboout actual ww2 artillery also being faster than syrian in game artillery, but I might have missunderstood or believed a falsehood.

[cool breeze]

Thought I should do the work and find some quotes like iwas talking about but Im tired and didnt see them so hears something else thats relevant that I found.

About the artillery delays - I served in a 120mm mortar platoon during my military service. I don't know what equipment the Syrians use, but I assume it wasn't more primitiv as the one we have used, which was not very different from the stuff that was used back in the 1960/70s. With a trained FO we needed maybe 3-4 minutes, and I wouldn't call us better then 'conscript'.

I can't comment about other artillery as the Battallion attached mortars, but I must agree that the delays for the Syrians are MUCH to high here.

To contrast this with the game,bolt found that mortars in the same battalion as the FO with a vetran FO was 7-8 minutes, 8-9 with a regular FO, another minute if the mortars arnt in the same battalion. Bigduke says in the same thread that syrians just bought moddern fire control systems a few years ago, making theres 30 to 40 years more modern than what scorpio was using.

I hope that im right about this being a problem because Im not really clever enough to successfully use mortars with an 8 minute delay. but 4 minute mortars are soooo helpful

[Combatintman]

There are still the soft factors to consider though - the Syrian artillery organisation is similar to the Former Soviet model in that there are 6 x guns to a battery and 18 x guns to a battalion. Within those structures the numbers of FOOs are less than those that you will see in a Western organisation - for example each British Army Battery will have between 3 and 4 x FOOs whereas the Former Soviet organisation had only one per battery meaning there are less people available to call in the guns.

[cool breeze]

Shouldnt that mean shorter delay? less competition to get the guns.

[cool breeze]

And Merry Christmas!

[stikkypixie]

I thought the biggest part from the delay was getting authority to fire the battery.

[Combatintman]

Shouldnt that mean shorter delay? less competition to get the guns.

It means that there are less observers to cover the ground - one FOO is not going to give the same situational awareness as 3 or 4 for starters. If you're in the Syrian Army and you spot a target but your FOO doesn't it means you have to call in the Fire Mission. The likelihood is that your target indication and correction drills are not going to be as good and you're probably going to have change nets to the arty net to do it. It all adds up to more friction and slower response times.

[Combatintman]

Could you detail what you think is broken? I don't quite understand what you mean by the REAL problems. Command and Control? Equipment? Movement? Specs? TO&E? Interface?

Now you mention TO&E - a couple of things bug me now that I've been picking through it in detail.

1. If you pick a Guards Mech Inf Bn with BMP-2 - not all of the members of the 4th Platoon (MG) of the Mech Inf Coy fit in the vehicles allocated to it.

2. I can't figure the logic of some of the unit picks. The default Coy-level mortar is the 120mm M-1943 but in certain formations (Regular Infantry if memory serves) if you go for the lower level equipment quality ratings the Bn Mortar Platoon ends up with M-1937 82mm mortars. That surely can't be right. Personally I'd go for 82mm as the default Coy-level mortar pick and then let the quality settings determine whether the Bn Mortar Platoon gets the M-1943 (Good) or M-1937 (Poor).

[Taki]

*throw in*

What about C2 very very short delays?

[stikkypixie]

*throw in*

What about C2 very very short delays?

Check out the part about FBCB2 in the manual. That might explain why the reaction time is so fast.

[Battlefront.com]

There are a ton of differences between the Syrian and US artillery capabilities. Not just C2 related.

The US basically allows anybody to call in a fire mission. However, it's not like Squad Leader Joe Random can talk directly to a battery of 155s, which in theory would be the most efficient way to do things. No, instead he has to go through whomever is tasked with responsibility for fire support for Joe Random. And to get to that guy he might have to talk through one or two others. It's quite messy. FBCB2, if present, can greatly decrease problems, however it's still not as efficient as a dedicated FO doing the call himself.

The other thing is... what is the relationship between the firing unit and the guy calling it in? Company mortars being called in by someone within the company should be pretty quick since that's the expected (normal) way it works. Someone from Company A can request Company B's mortars, but that means hopping over to mortars which aren't usually assigned to do that. The delay might not be all that great, but it isn't the same as when using organic mortars.

The other thing is that guys calling in fire that aren't fully trained FOs need some hand holding. This takes the form of someone else having to set up the fireplan instead of the guy making the call. A dedicated FO, on the other hand, has the authority and training to make the calls himself. They might still have to be approved/checked by someone else (usually at the FDC) to make sure it's compliant with the overall battlefield commander's SOPs, so that adds some time to things as well.

Now, the Syrians have other problems. Their artillery and procedures are based on Soviet practices. Namely, a high degree of centralization. A low level commander can not direct artillery fire because he's not allowed to or probably even physically capable of doing so (artillery and infantry don't operate on the same radio networks). Combine a generally poorer level of C2 with more ridged and limited doctrine... you get some pretty hefty restrictions.

Actually carrying out an artillery strike is also more difficult (i.e. time consuming) because of less capable fire direction equipment. A US unit, for example, can digitally pass on GPS coordinates directly into the fire control computers directing a battery of howitzers. Not only is this nearly instant, but the chances of error are greatly reduced. The computers can then do things like adjust for wind, range, temperature, and other factors nearly instantly so that when the gun goes to fire it does so with great accuracy. Syrians do not have such capabilities, therefore it's a slower process with greater room for error.

The Soviet concept for artillery is quite practical. It's designed to provide ground forces with a generally good level of artillery support without the technology, logistics, and training costs that a Western force has. The problem is the same problem that the Soviets had during WW2 using the same concept... it works fine when hitting known enemy positions when there is time to get all the "paperwork" sorted out ahead of time. It works very badly when the battle is fluid and timing is everything.

So on and so forth

Steve

[Apocal]

The computers can then do things like adjust for wind, range, temperature, and other factors nearly instantly so that when the gun goes to fire it does so with great accuracy. Syrians do not have such capabilities, therefore it's a slower process with greater room for error.

Not disagreeing with the delay for the Syrians, but it would be downright odd if they didn't have (basic) computer systems in place to do the calculating. The oldest date back to the 60s and 70s. Admittedly, this doesn't mean first round FFE type accurate (because you need all sorts of nifty gizmos for that), but there shouldn't be a penalty for having some cat having to sit down and work out the fire control problem with a pen and paper.

The Soviet concept for artillery is quite practical. It's designed to provide ground forces with a generally good level of artillery support without the technology, logistics, and training costs that a Western force has. The problem is the same problem that the Soviets had during WW2 using the same concept... it works fine when hitting known enemy positions when there is time to get all the "paperwork" sorted out ahead of time. It works very badly when the battle is fluid and timing is everything.

I always took this as my cue to not give the Syrians much of anything but preplanned, high intensity barrages with tube and rocket arty, while the FOs mainly directed company and battalion mortars. Scope of the game as you always say .

[Lampshade111]

No offense, but if the Russians were to have their a single T-90S would demolish a horde of M1A2 SEP main battle tanks and along with the BMP-3M it would be immune to everything fired at at.

[Bolt]

Hello all and Merry Christmas to you guys!

It means that there are less observers to cover the ground - one FOO is not going to give the same situational awareness as 3 or 4 for starters. If you're in the Syrian Army and you spot a target but your FOO doesn't it means you have to call in the Fire Mission. The likelihood is that your target indication and correction drills are not going to be as good and you're probably going to have change nets to the arty net to do it. It all adds up to more friction and slower response times.

Here's the situation: a FO observer (yes, of the few Syrians have, but it was a lucky day and it's a FO who is calling for a fire mission this time) actually sees the target. He (the Forward Observer, mind you, not just some grunt) decides to call in artillery support. About what net changes are you talking about if he (and only he in his Company) has the dedicated support of the guns?

AFAIK, CMSF doesn't let usual Syrian grunts or even commanders to call in arty. Only Syrian FO can do it.

A low level commander can not direct artillery fire because he's not allowed to or probably even physically capable of doing so (artillery and infantry don't operate on the same radio networks). Combine a generally poorer level of C2 with more ridged and limited doctrine... you get some pretty hefty restrictions.

We don't mention low level commander, we were talking about long time intervals when a Forward observer who was sent on a mission specially to provide eyes for his artillery unit tries to get fire support from his very own battalion has to wait from 7 to 9 minutes to get it.

It's centralized system. Only few lucky guys on the ground get to get the arty support. And those are Forward observers who have guns somewhere behind their backs sit and wait just for his call, they know that they will give support only to this guy and can say "F you" to everybody else. Why does it take so long to to fire 82mm mortars then?

"Limited doctrine" is limited to usual Ivan or in this case - Achmed, but not to a guy with a radio with direct connection to artillery unit which awaits for him to sent them coordinats, map and binocular who was sent to do the forward observation.

The computers can then do things like adjust for wind, range, temperature, and other factors nearly instantly so that when the gun goes to fire it does so with great accuracy. Syrians do not have such capabilities, therefore it's a slower process with greater room for error.

Syriand DO have computers in their artillery units.

I don't want to sound like an ass, if I do, then please excuse me.

You said that if someone feels that something with this game is wrong, he should say what and provide evidence why does he thinks the thing is not OK. As was pointed out in my thread, we think time to call in artillery is too long. I wrote that 155mm guns were called in in 3 minutes in late 80s during some training. If I try to search and provide the norm time (I mean, the time that is mentioned in the military regulations) for modern Russian artillery, will this be enough?

Also, I'd like to ask how you guys want us to make tests? Create scenario, save it, make tests and then send via email to you? Dima mentioned few times that he needs "replays" and can't judge anything from screenshots. How can I create such "replay" when palying in Real time mode? Did he mean just a save game? Before or after weird thing happened?

No offense, but if the Russians were to have their a single T-90S would demolish a horde of M1A2 SEP main battle tanks and along with the BMP-3M it would be immune to everything fired at at.

Looks like words of a real expert on Russian psychology.

I totally agree with you. We, Russians, are the most unfair and lying people on the planet. As long things fit our agenda, we are happy.

One more thing, not connected with Syrian/Russian vehicles. Is there any information how many Javelins does US Army have at the moment? How many Javelins (CLU and the rockets) does Stryker company have? DO CLU really come with every Stryker? I've tried to search but with no luck. Can anyone help?