ng cavscout

For being so outnumbered, and it definitely is, Israel seems to have done alright in the last few instances where the Muslims tried to take a bite out of them. Are we protecting the Israelis from the Arabs? or the Arabs from the Israelis? Is there an Arab nation that could stop the Israelis on the battlefield? And I know you have to win the peace as well as the war, believe me, I know, but we are talking limited circumstances here. As for gaining support in the Muslim world, we rescued Kuwait from Iraq, protected Saudi Arabia from Iraq, have built up the Kuwaiti and Saudi militaries, but where did most of the 9/11 hijackers come from? Saudi Arabia. I wonder what an honest public opinion poll in Kuwait would say about their attitudes towards the U.S.? I think sometimes that, at least for the hardcore "islamo-fascists" and their supporters, the U.S. can do nothing right. I remember seeing a picture of an Indonesian man, right after that big tsunami they had, getting relief supplies from an American service member, while wearing an Osama Bin Laden t-shirt. Do you really think it is possible for the U.S. to gain any measure of popular support in most Muslim countries? How long did it take after 9/11 before western Muslim leaders came out with a Fatwa against terrorism? but I begin to delve into the political realm, and that is a no-go. Administrators, I apologize. And yes, we did back some very bad guys during the cold war. Could we of handled it better, definitely. We could of also handled it worse, the Soviets could of won.

Those are nasty. We have lost some soldiers to those down in my AO.

It's called "realpolitik" I believe. Welcome to the real world. And the terrorist strikes you speak of are notoriously ineffective in acheiving their goals. The IRA didn't acheive anything by bombing, the Munich Olympic operation by the PLO did nothing but encourage the western nations to implement effective anti-terrorist organizations such as GSG9 and Delta. I am not saying that if I could make the rules in an ideal world that it would be like this, heck, it would be great if we could all get along, and the weak were treated just as the strong, and wealth was distributed equally and when the fat guy in the next booth at Applebee's farted it smelled like roses, that would all be great, but it isn't like that.

On the following grounds; #1 International consensus, ie a unanimous vote by the Security Council. Pity, could of used one of these for Pol Pot in Cambodia, or in Rwanda in the 90's. Too bad the international community can't seem to rally behind opposition to Genocide... #2 Relative power. No one is powerful enough to successfully invade the United States, whatever evils you may feel it has committed, Syria on the other hand, is nowhere nearly as powerful as the U.S.

If we are able to rein in the Syrians, without military force, so much the better. What happens though, when they realize that by many accounts, the US has no force to spare to invade them, and even if it did, many would say that it lacks the will. Does the international community really think that the threat of economic sanctions is enough to bring the Syrians to heel? If not, does anyone really think that the major Western powers with uncommited military forces, ie the French and Germans, would actually use those forces?

So... MST, booze, food, my place, tomorrow night? -dale </font>

A young Seanachai ready for a night on the town.

Dalem That is an utterly wonderful website. I see they even have a picture of the Cesspool on Olde One night.

UNO: I said ‘sort of’ stolen either way it was v42belows current serf… v42below ‘took him’ whilst I was still ‘probing’ the young lad… all technically legitimate but it’s just not the kind of thing proper knights do (so doesn’t really apply to v42below anyway). DUO: Stormsebber… say’s ‘he’s busy’ which is complete nonsense as he’s a fecking Belgian blah blah blah </font>

Speaking of S.M. Stirling, anyone read his "Dies The Fire" book? Quite an interesting read I thought, not the most even quality, but when he is on his game, I really like his writing. I also liked "The Peshawar Lancers".

Niven/Pournelle!!!! Sauron's on Haven!!! Collapse of the 1st Imperium? I am not at all familiar with licensing and all that. Anyone have an idea how much it would cost to license something like the Niven/Pournelle Codominium universe for a game setting? [ October 28, 2005, 06:17 AM: Message edited by: NG cavscout ]

...the bullsh*t. </font>

Sure is nice to be referred to as a "young fellah", haven't heard that in years... so potentially interested new individuals should challenge individual serfs or squires for a duel? .. sounds like the feudal system. As I recall, serfs were poorly armed peasants, while squires were young lads who were usually paralysed by fear in their first battle, sounds more like target practice than a duel. sure is hard to get a PBEM game going around here.. </font>

He's got it all wrong, sigh, reminds me of a time, many moons ago, when a much poorer, and a much younger NG Cavscout came into the cesspool, and did, well, pretty much the same thing. Brings a tear to my eye it does. But I had an excellent crack about Australians as I recall, something about them not being quite good enough to be British as I recall. hmmm, applies to Canadians as well I would think... Anyway, listen here young fellah.... you have to pick one and insult them, not the entire board. and not a senior Kanniget for Peng's sake. If, that is you can even find a squire or serf about the place, we need some new blood I say. sigh, I guess we should blame it on Dalem for the rather pathetic rules he posted at the beginning, hardly up to snuff old man, what? I mean really, the old Peng threads used to be started with some verve, some dash, some pizzazz. Lately, it seems kind of blah and unimpressive, well, kind of like Dalem. How about a little more effort next time, what do say? Sweat a little for the team, what?

I am now in the process of chatting up a girl via the telephone. Wish me luck. Im suspecting that the phone is unable to communicate body odors, maybe that is why I am so successful on the phone. Genious invention that phone... </font>

Just for starters, how about the Soviet airborne drops? this is from http://www.rickard.karoo.net/articles/weapons_russianairlong.html The VDV See Action Despite being part of the Air Force, the 212th Airborne Brigade was deployed to the Far East and saw action in the Battle of Khalkin Gol against the Japanese Army in July and August 1939, while the 201st, 204th and 214th Airborne Brigades took part in the invasion of Poland during September 1939. The first full-scale combat jump in history occurred in November 1939 near Petsamo, Finland during the Russo-Finnish War and were again in action during the occupation of Rumanian Bessarabia. The reasonable success and good combat record, along with the success of the German Airborne forces in Western Europe meant that the five airborne brigades based in European Russia were earmarked to be expanded to corps status, while the sixth remained in the Far East. When war broke out in June 1941, the technical assets of the VDV (Vozdushno-Desantnaya Voyska - Air Assault Force) were totally inadequate to start with, and what they had was devastated by the air attacks early on in the campaign. This shortage of air assets meant that the VDV spent most of the war fighting as elite infantry. A number of operations were conducted during the winter of 1942 / 1943 with the 201st Airborne Brigade dropping near Medzyn on the 2 / 3 January and again near Vyazma on the 18th January, with the 204th Airborne Brigade near Rzhev on the 14 - 22 February. An ambitious plan was formulated to drop the entire 4th Airborne Corps near Vyazma behind German lines at the beginning of February, but with the lack of air transport assets meant that the 22 TB-3s and 40 PS-84s would have to fly two or three sorties a night for a week. The Corps started dropping on the 27th January and about a quarter of them were dropped into terrible weather conditions and the operation foundered. Another operation later in the month against Yukhnov also failed. These heroic but ineffective operations led the Soviet High Command to convert the Corps to Guards Rifle Divisions and they fought with distinction in the northern Caucasus and Stalingrad. Eventually however, the Air Force managed to have them reformed as Guards Airborne Divisions and a large scale operation was planned in September 1943 to drop and air-land 10,000 troops from the 1st, 3rd and 5th Airborne Brigades and establish a bridgehead over the Dniepr River. The operation, however was a costly failure. "By a cruel irony, the only successful airborne operation by Soviet forces in the Second World War were small-scale drops by special Naval Infantry paratroopers in the Crimea, and operations by improvised Army units during the campaign against the Japanese in Manchuria in 1945." [note 1] not the most successful operations, but they did occur.

I haven't gotten that from the posts on this forum. Hammers Slammers would be human vs human. The Starship Troopers universe is not unbalanced, as I recall. Some of the fictional universes put forward in this thread would be quite interesting to play in a CM type game.

An interesting article from Yahoo news about Asymmetrical Warfare. Note the discussion of China as a potential enemy in a future "real war". Iraq war forces Western military rethink: report By David Clarke 2 hours, 59 minutes ago LONDON (Reuters) - Western military powers are being forced to rethink strategy because conflict in Iraq has shown the limits of their conventional armies, the International Institute of Strategic Studies said on Thursday. In its annual report on global military might, "The Military Balance," the London-based think-tank said strategists had hoped new technology would let them target enemies accurately from ships and planes, avoiding protracted ground battles. But it said conventional armies have been sucked into messy conflicts, often in towns, where they face enemies invulnerable to the advanced gadgetry that was supposed to dissipate the fog of war and herald a new era in warfare. "Iraq, Afghanistan and Chechnya demonstrate the limitations of modern conventional forces in complex environments that demand more of them than traditional warfighting," wrote Editor Christopher Langton in the introduction. The United States has some 137,000 troops in Iraq more than two years after crushing Iraq's conventional army in a ground invasion. Nearly 2,000 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq since March 2003. The Military Balance said that rather than winning "network-centric warfare" using electronic sensors to find targets and direct fire, Western forces were enmeshed in "netwars," based on "agile and adaptive human networks." "The conflict environment of the early 21st century certainly does represent a new era in warfare: but not the era that Western military planners expected," it said in its handbook which lists the size and capabilities of the world's armed forces. INERTIA IN U.S. Using suicide bombers and roadside bombs, Iraqi insurgents have killed U.S. and British soldiers and thousands of civilians. U.S. campaigns to dislodge fighters embedded in Iraqi towns have also involved losses. "Dealing with this new conflict environment has caused a rethink for many Western forces," the institute said. It said British and Australian special forces and the U.S. Marines were adapting to the new era of "asymmetric" conflict used by non-state actors such as al Qaeda by creating smaller fighting groups. But it said there was unlikely to be any major shift in U.S. strategy, or spending, for two reasons. First, because it feared the rise of large conventional armies in countries such as China and wanted to maintain air and sea supremacy. "China's military is rapidly modernizing. This is of concern to the U.S. and some countries in the Asia-Pacific region as the modernization of the People's Liberation Army is no longer directed solely against Taiwan," Langton wrote. The second reason was the immense inertia of the industrial groups that helped build U.S. military might and the fact that it would take time to move away from decades of strategic thought. The institute said one bright spot for Western conventional armies was that they were still unrivalled in their ability to respond quickly to natural disasters, such as the Tsunami.

CM: Zombie Apocalypse?

I was hoping for a "Hammers Slammers" setting, although I imagine the licensing would be a pain. Anyone familiar with the Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle books? How about one of those settings? Footfall? Saurons versus First Imperium? Warworld? Ringworld? Man-Kzin wars!!!!! I think these would all be excellent settings. Once again, licensing issues, although I am not sure of the nuts and bolts of that stuff. The thing about Sci-Fi, I think you need something to set it apart from WW2 or contemporary settings, besides just the eye candy. Maybe an incorporation of some kind of fleet combat a la Starfire?

I actually thought they might represent Red Nekkid for a Dollar's family tree?

So here is a kick in the nuggets. We get our combat patches last week, and we are part of the 32nd Infantry Brigade, a historied unit, with roots in the Iron Brigade of U.S. Civil War fame. It even has a very manly and virile patch, which you will see below. Any self respecting trooper would be proud to wear it on his right shoulder. Do we get it? What do you think. You would amost believe this whole thing was set up by a Cesspooler. Instead, since we escort trucks belonging, some of them, to the 143rd Transportation Command, we get the honor of wearing this combat patch. Looks like two worms mating. I guess Jimmy Dean Dollar might dig that, I don't. It is a plot worthy of an Illannoyingan.

Lookie here, G.I. Joesephine, I haven't used that word here as far as I can recall. As far as you and by-laws, I am a Seniour Kanigget and Lord High Hullabalooster of the MBT - by-laws mean nothing to me. After all, I ignore the beam in your eye and the fall of every sparrow - have I not the power to ignore you too? </font>

Thanks, sometimes it is difficult to put my position into words that don't make me sound like a complete gibbering idiot. Mongolian and Georgian troops recently arrived in theatre, the Mongolians were issued US IBA, I believe that the Georgians brought their own. This is just from observing them, I don't have an official source.

The thing I like about being mounted, in todays conflict, is the RV aspect of it. We can bring coolers of Gatorade, extra ammo, radios, sleeping bags, extra chow, everything you could want, and just leave it in the HMMWV. I see your point about collateral damage, and civilian casualties, but in todays world, with instant video feeds on CNN and Al-Jazeera, I am afraid that is just not an option any more. And I think that may be a good thing. The whole reason I am able to support our effort in Iraq, and I am over here right now, is that we are (hopefully) trying to make the country a better place for individual Iraqi's. The WMD argument, which I believed at the time, fell through, and I don't think Saddam was a player in 9/11. If I can't believe that we are at least trying to give Iraq democracy, then I am left with nothing but revenge for what the enemy has done so far, and I don't think that is enough. There is the argument that better to fight the terrorists in Iraq than in the US, but I don't know if I buy that or not. I do know that if we leave Iraq as it is now, we will be abandoning those who have stepped up to a hideous fate, and we will have a bigger mess than we started with. A failed state is against everyones best interests. I do know that if we (the troops) stopped looking at Iraqi's as people, as hard as they make that some time, things would get even uglier over here, very quickly. Anyway, back to my point, I don't think that we can, either in Iraq, or in a hypothetical Syria, afford to ignore both world opinion and the "hearts and minds", by ignoring civilian casualties. The good news is that with modern technology, and good tactics, you can at least minimize friendly casualties. just my 2 cents, sorry for the speech, incoherent as it was.