Colin

The AK-74 which would probably be used more commonly in a 2007 Syrian Army The AK-47 featured the short 7.62x39mm round that leaves the gun at about 700M/sec. The 74 uses a 5.45x39mm. It leaves the gun at 900/m second and has much better penetrating tendencies then the AK-47 does because it has a better flight. The 47 is in use in places where there is little money, training and resources. The 74 is standard in the Russian forces. If you look at the Russians in the last 10-15 years there has been a tendency toward quality (esp. in the airforce) instead of large numbers. The Syrians may also have AN-94's.

Well 2 pages of discussing whether you should shoot to kill with a 5.56 or shoot to kill with a 7.62. Fun. Wasn't the issue whether the 5.56 puts an enemy on his ass fast enough, specifically when compared to the 7.62? Seems that the argument can be summed up easily. The US and NATO 5.56 weapons absolutely depend on their higher quality of training and better accuracy and ROF to displace the fact that there are more powerful rounds available. If a soldier has a 3 second window to put a man down they are banking on the fact that 6 or 8 5.56 rounds is better then 3-4 7.62mm rounds. Now if you only hit him with one, the .30 cal is a better weapon but if you use the weapon/training to it's advantage you should be able to utilize the high ROF to your advantage. There are also times where the stopping power and penetrating capabilities of the larger round are preferred. I would propose a couple of squad attached UMP45's and man with an M21 in every squad (as marksmen). I think I've got a picture of some US weapons leaning against a wall and there is an UMP among them. Also what about JHP rounds? Is there a convention that says it must be FMJ? Seems that the insurgents would most likely be unarmored. Finally, I think the idea of antiseptic's in the armour/clothing could be a workable idea. Thoughts from you vets would be nice because I am a young textbook warrior.

Bullpup is with the breach behind the trigger. This moves the barrel back a few inches so you get a shorter design with the same length barrel and a better weight dsitribution.

Gimme an XM177 over those beast anytime. They just seem bulky. It's be neat to have an OICW as a squad attached asset but they are too ridiculous to field in a more common way.

It has absolutely nothing to do with a political standpoint. On every forum I have ever posted on, it is considered bad form to post a link to another page with no content to your post. Also we all know where to get videos of fighting. This really isn't anything new. We don't need an M1A2 video and a thread titled 'why does the rest of the world even make tanks anymore?!??!' followed by three 'wow look at that ownage' posts. Thanks for the link though, it's working now. What sort of rotorcraft will we see in CM:SF? Obviously CAS will be simulated to some extent but what about the things like Kiowa's or Pave Hawks? Obviously not out of scope as if you call for a rocket strike there are a few vehicles that could deliver. The UH-60G is also up-armored and can be fitted with 50's and a minigun and would make for a nasty CAS surprise. Any thoughts BFC?

Bigduke, I do see where you are coming from. My standpoint is a moral one. It is a shame things operate as you say they do. It is completely accurate to suggest the UN wouldn't want to help repair a situation that the US created after ignoring the UN. Now realistically, who is punished by the UN not helping to repair? Is it the US or is it the Iraqi populace? It's been three years. Bush has flown onto a carrier and announced the end of combat. The fighting continues. If you didn't notice, the majority of combat is extremely low intensity (IEDs, a sniper or two, an RPG) with the odd exception. The problem is policing now, not soldiering. The fact is the US troops are probably the worst to do this. They are unpopular. They are seen as serving a political/economic agenda at the cost of Iraqi lives. Wow. The idea the UN is allowed to pick and choose which nations they penalize for breaching the charter is the nonstarter for me. On Sept 15 04 Kofi Annan said the US invasion was illegal and breached the UN Charter. Nothing has, or will ever result from that. I'll let you speculate why that is ($ ). UN Charter in brief You Hitler analogy is so convoluted it's hard to dissect it to criticize it. If you follow your analogy, the US(Bush) would be Hitler, the US National Guard would be the UN, France would be Iraq and Russia is Iran/Iraq/NK. I don't think what your saying applies here at all, no offense intended. Now for your Iranian troops. First off, the US would never have another nation guard Iraq's oil for them. In addition, the vast majority of Iranian's are Shi'a not Sunni. Maybe your not understanding what I'm suggesting. I don't think any one nation's troops should be doing this job. The US has had free range on the situation for too long. The best way to have troops without a political agenda to serve is a UN force. Shoot outta battery.

Last I checked the UN was not a nation. The US is a Member State of the UN. The United Nations is a group of nations that align to progress civility on earth. <http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/index.html> For a brief if you'd like. Now, I didn't recall saying at any point that the UN should have gone to war. I mentioned a policing force deployed after the major combat, as was being discussed in the thread. The UN is, or would like to be responsible for promoting humanity and equality. I personally believe, the UN should have units in Iraq. Multinational units. Comprised of members of the UN. There is a volatile situation that could use a little humanity. People are dying and need security. The US has proved that they are capable of handling the combat situations but not the policing of a nation that is unwelcoming in more then one way. As was also mentioned, its hard when the guys killing are dressed the same guys handing out food. Now the analogy you make up is hilarious. If anything it's more like: 'you and your friend are walking through the bad part of town. A few rough looking guys are nearby and your buddy picks a fight because he think one guy knocked up his sister. He knocks 4 of the 5 guys out and you have to work the scrawny kid in the back' Sure maybe the last guy puts on a decent fight but it ends a lot quicker then if it was just one of you. EDIT to add this: I guess if that situation were applied to Iraq, it'd be your friend alone after his buddies take off because he's crazy to go to that part of town. The last guy would drag the fight on for hours and then in then end you'd find out it was the wrong guy and he didn't bang the sister. And I promised not to post at 4am.

If a officer has to leave a soldier behind, he better have a damn good reason. I know this is beaten into units. I think the idea of increased casualty values makes a lot of sense. I really think it's imperative that this wounded thing be simulated. It is absolutely not outside the scope of combat. In a tactical situation, if you have a man down, the mission is get him out, then complete the mission. If a grunt in the street has to deal with it on the short term (and they undeniably do) it should be simulated. What should not be simulated is how you get them out of the combat zone. Look at BHD, 2 men go down in a chopper and it becomes an absolute priority to get them out and make sure the equipment isn't compromised. If a squad was wiped, there SHOULD be a huge penalty for not having another unit go over there to police the dead for bodies/ammo/tags/intel. In a single casualty situation, it may not be worth simulating. Perhaps an increased command delay to simulate retrieving a WIA before they relocate. If a unit has a wounded man, perhaps it's immobile/impeded until a 'Evac Sercured' message is on all the wounded. A company commander isn't going to have the knowledge to say 'okay, we can't afford to lose the 4 minutes of time it takes to get these wounded out of the house, just keep going'. This is SOP. Casualties are dealt with on the battlefield.

Well, if you have a legitimate war you don't have to worry about raising a second policing force. It's called your UN allies. If the UN wasn't so impotent they would have recognized that Bush would go in anyway and tell them that the US could do the heavy lifting but it would have to be UN troops on the ground for the restructuring. It should have been the UN's job to stop Bush, and I do really blame them not the US. No one thought 'hey these guys have never liked the US, let alone having their troops in the streets, maybe we shouldn't have these guys in the country or a lot of people could die!'. No one has the answer here.

HAHAHAH! Wow. That would be good. The AI in CM is pretty dang good, IMO. It is dealing with a lot. The balance between an AI that is good and one that is too good is a fine line to hit. The CMx1 AI had to make abstractions to find out what each units should know and see. CMx2 will take care of that and that is the biggest issue. The other issue is making an AI that is good in all terrains/scenarios for the purpose of QBs. This is something that CMx2 will handle by having a narrower scope. The AI doesn't need to be as complex because there aren't as many possibilities. Now I have no idea if the AI checks for this in CMx1 but imagine before making a decision on placing the units the TacAI must consider: The weather, terrain of the map, cover available, cover with decent LOS to objectives, force composition (who should be near who) and probably a myriad of other things. What is better this plowed field 300m from the objective or this heavy tree 500m away? CMx2 will be far more complex of course but also things like terrain and force composition decisions are reduced. The limited time frame allows more SOP sort of AI decisions. These troops are positioned this way because they are a Styker unit in Syria in 2007 is much easier then these troops are a (German/US/Brit/Polish) (armored/infantry/SS/FJ/mech) unit in (France/Holland/Germany) in (June 44-May 45). That entire post was made up but hopefully is along the right lines.

Mortars are meant to pin and supress the troops rather then kill them. One round doesn't do that extremely well. Now some sort of single use CBU mortar could be interesting but I really don't see too much advantage to doing that.

no results from that link anyway. also not a real topic. please post some substance rather then just a link to someone elses stuff. do you have any insight beyond this? we are all aware that the US has some technology that is far superior when compared to it's enemies.

Germany, Japan, Italy....I think they were done alright by, no? </font>

Are we talking about the US market or world wide? I believe the world wide figure is closer t 6%. Maybe its 3% in the US, I don't know. </font>

Hey Nidan, Now I know your post was directed at BigDuke (which BTW has singlehandedly put this thread back on track) but I have a couple thoughts also. Re: the guy killed in a mosque. Mosques are holy so maybe this would have more meaning to someone concerned with Islam. I think a big part of is the limited access of embed. Perhaps the WP allegations would have come out earlier. If you are hearing about a major firefight on CNN you know the Americans came out on top. If you know there's a firefight going on and your only hearing about 1 Iraqi death you know the censors are working. The problem is the US chose to go to war and has NEVER given any more information then what they could get away with. Any positive reports often appear staged and negative ones are always ripe with 'spintalk'. The US is fighting a media war as many have pointed out. Now what gets me is the fact the US gets to, for the most part, choose what media is released. If there are no good reports coming out of Iraq through Western media channels, it comes down to two things. Either the US doesn't want good reports coming out, or there are none. Occam's Razor applies here. Now I know as of late there has been more journalistic freedom in Iraq and the reports haven't improved. I think this is even more telling. The problem with stories that shed the US in a good light is that the only group interested in reading them is a minorty that continues to support the US despite all the evidence that it's an illegitimate and poorly executed war. Again some personally opinion will come into these discussion, simply because I believe that the US should have focused on grassroots reconstruction. I agree, that 'US soldier dies when insurgents attack aid distribution post' would be better then another 'IED attack on convoy, 3 dead' article. I would suggest that its been 3 years of this and the focus has never changed from a blind 'remove the insurgents' plan. I believe that it should have been 'remove support for the insurgents by doing things that will make our troops popular' rather then play directly into the US World Police stereotype. Now just to put my view's in perspective I'm a 20 year old Canadian hippie so I don't have years of experience in this stuff. I've got my head on my shoulders and definetly am aware that there is a youth generation with a very different outlook on the US then the generation before. I know sometimes I come across poorly but just put me back in line and I'll learn from my mistakes. Ohh just read that post about permanent US bases. When will the US administration admit the war has been a lie? Or at best a horrible series of mistakes which exposed a lie. [ November 28, 2005, 08:28 AM: Message edited by: Colin ]

Okay Sergei I am off topic. In one post. I just don't like having to scroll down several posts to skip yours. I should have just posted that it isn't really a surprise that the US has it's troops in another unpredictable,extremely questionable and potentially unpopular combat situation. I should not have suggested that it is totally inline with this administrations war making policies. Steve, You do make good points about Venezuela, but I am curious if you've seen the documentary 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised'. It was shot by an Irish team which was in the country during the a coup in 2002. The US blatantly spread the lies of the Venezuelan media. Now it's clearly meant to portray a certain POV but the footage is real and the film crew is in the palace to see it all. It strikes me as odd when the US supports a media mogul that uses a questionable coup to dissolve the democracy. I just think it's interesting that there are such differences in two democratic countries. I do personally think that the US democracy is so archaic that a refreshed democratic shift in a nation like Venezuela should bring about changes everywhere. It's interesting that the poor are more concerned about politics then most middle class North Americans. [ November 27, 2005, 04:48 PM: Message edited by: Colin ]

Two things caught my eye there. First off, the US had ample SPECIFIC warning. C'mon, 'airliners will be highjacked during the week of September 10th and flown into US national monuments' is pretty specific. We know what warning Bush had. Second, I'd suggest Venezuela is nation without double standards as the US has. You can contact me personally I'd you like to send me a copy. Sergei, Nidan. Stop, it's dumb **** like that which ruins on topic threads. You are both old historians. Congrats. You are awarded no points, cool points or social standing points. Finally, I think that through all of this it's just clear that the US administration is a war machine. This is their focus. The citizen's no longer support a very questionable war. The administration has threatened action against how many states? 3? 4? Iraq, NK, Iran, Syria and you can watch them spout bull**** about Chavez also. They operate in clandestine ways and are more about manipulating mass opinion then winning it. I know all politics have a certain secrecy and manipulative aspect but the this American administration has managed to win the worlds hate more so then any other nation. The point I would be concerned about, if I were an American (any maybe I'm missing some POV because I'm Canadian), is that your government is willing to encroach on another nation's soil to attack for reasons that are questionable at best. And they managed to do it at least twice in 4 years. **** got to go so I can't finish the post

I'm thinking more of these border guards that were apparently shooting at. You shouldn't legally be able to ask them to increase border security (and hold them responsible for the lack thereof) while you actively engage their troops. Obviously these are dynamic borders for the most part but when you are fighting another nation's armed forces you've gone to far. I just believe that US policy is called US policy for a reason. Too often do they protect 'American interests' and rile their citizens with patriotism. That's just an opinion that I've formed personally in the last few years, and I will not post at 4:13AM again. Thanks for listening.

Wow. I love how the US gets to pick and choose the portions of international law that they get to uphold. It's too bad the UN has become impotent. Do you think the US would do something like kill borders guards if they were at all concerned about international repercussions? I think that using your armed forces against the border guards of another nation is an informal declaration of war. The US has no respect for other nations. Edit to trim off my US/Nazi comparison. [ November 25, 2005, 10:04 AM: Message edited by: Colin ]

3% is probably closer. However, go to a campus or a scientist's lab. Very very different story. The iPod has changed thing a lot actually. Apple is changing to Intel in the next 18 months. They are also a hardware company. Their product is an operating system/hardware solution. If there was a Dell OS do you think they'd support MS? Thanks for coming out. I'm glad your not my investment agent.

IIRC mouse-holing is the interior walls. It was of course used in Stalingrad moving warehouse to warehouse. As far as CM is concerned however, I believe they are the same.

We have the dualcore in stock but the quad cores haven't shipped to us. I also have seen January as a date on a few orders.

Hmm...so are those all electrical lines? My first reaction was that they were guidance cables from ATGW but obviously those are much thinner. Is that just poor urban planning or is this a result of combat some how?

Definitely correct. Didn't we figure out that the average age was 35ish? This forum has always had a higher standard of literacy then most. Been posting since I was 14 myself, and having every word subjected to grognards makes you watch your WW2 stats and grammar.

Did anyone else think that article was done by a high school student? Look at the formatting. Paragraph outlining your thesis statement ("What made the Stryker a battlefield success was; speed, stealth, protection, maintainability and gadgets.") Then he tries to prove his statement with a paragraph trying to prove each point. The only thing even close to being a fact in that article is that Strykers could catch SUVs while Bradley's can't. Everything else is just vague statements based on the fact that the Stryker is smaller, faster and newer then the current AFV's. That M1TP article is interesting.