Apocal

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH*cough*sputter*cough*HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH Whew, you guys kill me. Seriously, someone get the video of the RM hipfiring a FN MAG. I can't get on YouTube to dig it up right now, but suffice to say, if I ever caught my gunner doing that I would ****ing kill him.

You can split Syrian airborne squads.

Thanks for all the tips. Just one thing: I'm talking about the Mechanized Infantry as in HBCT, Bradley-mounted types. Marines in AAVs I have few problems handling, because they have the organic firepower to handle most things that come there way. With Strykers, the two 240s provide just enough to get me by. It's the fact that the HBCT mech types are pretty much dependent on their Brads for fire support that has me staring at burning tracs entirely too much.

I'm having quite a few issues when fighting with US Army mechanized infantry formations in cities. Playing as BLUFOR I'm pretty cautious with vehicles normally. So initially, I'd park my Brads behind a building, in a defile, etc. Of course, anyone who's knows Mech Inf knows the emphasis is on Mech, not infantry, so the dismounts are criminally short on firepower. They get their lunch eaten by any reasonable defending force, leaving four IFVs with no I. So it goes. Then I started getting aggressive with the vehicles, but all too quickly they are knocked out by AT. If I place them too far back, their fields of fire quickly become limited to the point of complete uselessness. It'd be different if there wasn't so much deadspace, but there is and getting close enough to open it up means I'm eating RPGs. Any tips on effectively using Mech Inf in MOUT?

It's a fairly popular look in the region. I'm being serious.

ISTR one of our abandoned Abrams being blown up with a 2000lbs. JDAM during the Takedown.

I can co-sign on this. It's a thermo nailing some jackasses. Overpressure FTW.

And you're COMPLAINING?! Minor nitpick, time-on-target corresponds to multiple firing units, each having their first round impact at the same time. Multiple rounds-simultaneous impact (MRSI, pronounced "mercy") is what you get when one firing unit lands all it's rounds at the same place and time. Either way, it's knocks cocks stiff.

I support this notion.

Yes it will.

Maybe. On the other hand, that muzzle will be a lot hotter than anyone's face or hands would probably ever be and possess a halo in the thermal sight. Unfortunately, I'm having problems getting volunteers to stand down range and let me test that theory.

No problem. The aircraft pods weigh hundreds of pounds and are quite a bit bigger than anything I've seen carried. Horizon is too much of a factor, assuming you have line of sight, it's around ten miles away. But you so very rarely have line of sight that far unless you're at an elevated position. If you look around a bit, you can find pictures of T-series tanks with fresh cut vegetation attached to the turret and hull. That's because they cut down on the IR signature a bit. Not perfect camo, but the effect is noticeable from what I've heard. Regarding urban environments, here's a fun fact about IR: It can't see through glass. For the same reason shutting the window helps keep your house warm, a thermal imager looks at glass the same way it does a wooden door. A muzzle is pretty small and resolution on most thermal systems leaves a lot to be desired. I could see if the guy was going absolutely nuts and his barrel was glowing white it'd be more discernable. Heh, it's not a huge deal.

Well, think about where you would place an IED. Probably on a road, maybe intersection to double the odds of getting something to cross, right? So go slow, building to building, and don't travel down streets.

Isolate the building or city. Suppress or surprise the defenders inside. Seize it by speed and violence of action.

My Sony Vaio AR-series runs it fine.

The AN/PAS-13 Light, Medium and Heavy variants. I got to play with some (light and medium) a few days ago as part of a 240 shoot. The light and medium were good out to about 300 and 600m, respectively. The Heavy version apparently has longer range. That being said, the light version is like four pounds, and the medium is five or six and both are large, unwieldy and eat batteries like a fat kid eats cake. Some yes, but remember that the countermeasures to IR sensors can be as simple as throwing a blanket over yourself.

It goes in waves. We'll eventually threaten their ratlines to Pakistan (again), they'll get big down south (again), we'll probably tear them up (again), they'll lay low for 24 or 36 months (again) and they'll be back (again).

Putting it in your regular scenario folder once you are done editing?

In Fallujah, after the first few days of relearning the truths of streetfighting, we went back to A). And there are three or four high level AARs that, wiht 20/20 hindsight (few civilians in town) basically say we should have done . You did it right. The way the book would like you to take a town is first surrounding and isolating it from support, probing inside to determine how the defense is orientated, then pounding the hell out of it, sending forces in to clear it methodically, while maintaining a force to keep it isolated and prevent the enemy from immediately counterattacking. The only way I managed to do it with less was by replaying the scenario, to be honest.

Well, to be honest, they are being confined to the south. If you look at a map of Afghanistan, in the southern part, especially Helmand, there just isn't much there. It's basically a impoverished backwater region who's main source of income is poppy and mercenaries. Been that way for centuries. The north, where the government, cities and most of the people are is pretty much Taliban-free, random acid-chucking asshats notwithstanding. And on top of that, in 2006, Operation MEDUSA, we utterly crushed them. Killed thousands of fighters and an overwhelming majority of what we would call mid-level leadership. The few survivors have been coming back in the last few summers, but mostly they are in what sports teams call "a rebuilding phase." I haven't been over there personally (yet), but the concept of a far (300m+) ambush isn't lost on the Taliban. Not the majority, by any stretch, but another tool they'll use. One big thing they emphasized was how good the Taliban are at concealment. One of the instructors had just come back and said in seven months and probably fifteen bad firefights, he never once "saw" the Talibs that were shooting at them. At most, at very most, you'd see some small amount of dust kicked up, a tree branch swaying crazily or the glitter of shell cases falling nearby. Instead you had to "sense" ("That's where I'D be") where the shooters were or put suppressive fire towards anything that could conceivably hide a grown man. Much of that is probably due to a Darwinian evolution of Taliban after MEDUSA.

Apparently it's already on "the List" of features to be implemented.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/59479.html Obviously I can't post actual AARs, but the article is relatively accurate regarding Afghanistan. There is some scaremongering (it's been SOP for a good long while to designate one vehicle as wrecker in a convoy, nothing new there), it's mostly on point regarding the differences between the two. One thing that wasn't quite expanded upon was the reason the Taliban is highly active after the poppy harvest. The majority of their actual fighters are mercenaries of one degree or another. Once the harvest is in, the money comes to Taliban coffers AND young, fit men are free to go around waging war. I missed the implications of that myself until someone I know through another forum really beat it through my head that Taliban activity is seasonal. As for the fieldcraft, skills, etc., the Airborne conceded COP Wanat to the Taliban. They control that territory. We never went back in. That was after cleaning off several aircraft of all their ordnance and something like a dozen fire missions trying to hold the perimeter and still the Taliban involved in the attack conducted a relatively orderly withdrawal with all their wounded and a good number of their dead. Long story short, tactically, there is nothing low-intensity about southern Afghanistan.

Err... haven't read up much on the Taliban in Afghanistan? Prepositioned arms and drug caches (epinephrine, atropine, DMA(?) for steadier hand while sniping), fortified bunkers, trenchlines, foxholes with overhead cover and concealment, and several camo'd fallback positions. We shoot it out for HOURS with those guys and not kill one. !!!

So can I expect to see an option for AFVs to reverse their gun and breach the walls of a house next patch? We've been doing it for years, I remember seeing the Kool-Aid Man demonstrate this back in the 90s!

Graphically, I have to turn my eyes off to play CMx1. Immersion-wise, I can't get into WW2 the same way I can with modern warfare. Gameplay-wise, they are both fun, but slicing everything into 1 minute chunks gets frustrating for me at times. Superior scope and variety are definitely held by CMx1, even as varied as the terrain of Syria is, it just can't stack up to the diversity of WW2. It was a world war after all. Honestly, out of the people I've put up on CM:SF, the typical one who likes it is a relatively young wargamer, 'raised' on Close Combat or various FPS or RTS, who couldn't tell you the day of the Normandy landings but can give you a two hour lecture on local politics in one Iraqi or Aghani community.