John Kettler

akd, In my 11+ years as a Soviet Threat Analyst, I never saw the Ivon Ivonovitch (sic) pub. Had no idea such a thing existed and asked retired SFC Army Scout brother George whether he ever had one. He'd never seen one but liked the idea. The T-62 side view is off, for the turret more nearly resembles the T-55 than the T-62, whose turret is pretty symmetric front and back when viewed from the side. Indeed, it was a point of instant recognition, being referred to as the inverted frying pan. Ivan is clearly talking about the T-62 when mentioning the 115 mm gun. The aiming point chart is a travesty, for the BRDM-2 is labeled BTR-60 and the BTR-60 a BRDM-22! Clearly, this document wasn't properly proofed, if proofed at all, before being sent to press. Had one of these full size posters in my office. Don't recall the scale, but it was donme in such a way that you could use a dollar bill to measure the items depicted. and one of these in my desk drawer. Used it many times. Got one of these from a former RAND nuclear weapon expert. Unfortunately, my Nuclear Effects Weapon Computer No. 2 somehow disappeared after I left military aerospace. It was pretty slick, because it allowed you to determine the effects of weapon A, in delivery mode B, against target C, of hardness D, with a CEP of E, to achieve a given result F. IN practice, it typically took less time to set up and run a given calculation than it did to type this description using two fingers. This manual computer neatly illustrated the value of decreasing CEP, which was the US approach to ICBM and SLBM design, as opposed to the big Soviet warheads and really bad CEP. ng cavscout, Never saw those, but as a kid in elementary school, got to read the USAF maintenance and safety mags via a USAF sergeant in maintenance who lived down the street from us. His daughter was our babysitter a number of times. Through those magazines, I learned about FOD, what sort of damage a screwdriver or flashlight left inside a jet engine could do, the importance of correct lube, PM and more, including the dire consequences of improperly safing or utterly failing to safe ejection seats before working in the cockpit! Had great stark b/w cartoons memorably illustrating what to do and what not to do when it came to taking care of your assigned aircraft. Regards, John Kettler

markus44, The accounts I've read said that the M72 wasn't very effective vs the PT-76 because the flotation chambers acted as spaced armor against the relatively weak warhead. Believe much the same thing happened during WW II when US troops tried to kill the Ka-Mi amphibious tank frontally, only to be defeated by the big bolt-on flotation chamber. My recollection is that the only sure kill frontally by the LAW was a direct hit on the low, small conical turret. By contrast, the M19 106 mm recoilless rifle was a sure kill, since the ammunition grossly overmatched the PT-76's protection. LukeFF, Rather than jump on me, how about you go find the book I referenced and see what Cockburn wrote? May've misattributed the author, but the story is burned into my memory. As for deliberately not reporting a serious deficiency or even lying to Moscow, go look at Kursk, where the Russians LOST (as in didn't know its location) an entire division for hours. Believe an assistant chief of staff for the owning Army was quietly sent to go find that unit. This was with the STAVKA emissary in the CP! That one was in Zamulin's phenomenal Destroying The Myth. Zamulin also reported severe losses being totally buried and not reported to Stalin himself, who was closely following the Kursk battle. Red Army commanders flat out lied to Stalin himself about the combat state of their units. You also need to understand what Russian military personnel call the vertical stroke. This is a system in which a defect, failure or screwup further down the chain of command cascades vertically upward. This creates tremendous pressure not to report problems, for that blights the owning officer's career and that of his superiors. Going along to get along is the rule. And just look at all the non-reporting and other matters that led led to Mathias Rust flying with impunity from Finland all the way to Red Square. This was a textbook case of the vertical stroke at work afterwards, for both the head of Air Defense and the mighty Minister of Defense himself were sacked, but so were some 150 lower ranking officers. The heaviest air defense system on the planet was penetrated and operated in for almost seven hours by a young idealist with 50 hours' flying time under his belt in a single-engine Cessna with added fuel stowage. Rust would've landed on Red Square, but there were too many people, so instead he wound up landing on a road near Lenin's tomb. His single act, intended to promote peace, made the Russian military the laughingstock of the world. https://lflank.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/mathias-rust-and-his-flight-to-moscow/ The US has had similar problems, with an ongoing one being sexual abuse of female cadets at the service academies, abuse of women aboard ship and in various Army, Marine and Air Force units. Speaking of Marines, back when the V-22 Osprey was in development, the Corps was found to be gun decking the flight test logs to make the tilt rotor seem far safer than it was. The US Army rigged the survivability tests for the Bradley and got caught by Congressmen, resulting not only in a scandal but highly undesirable lampooning in a black comedy about the Bradley's development starring Kelsey Grammer. That film was called The Pentagon Wars. https://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/18/us/tests-of-bradley-armored-vehicle-criticized.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pentagon_Wars With things like the above as context, it seems to me entirely possible, especially if the radar antennas are already iced up, thus high drag, that a powerful storm coming in at full force straight off the Pacific could indeed wreck those radars, especially if maintenance corners had been cut on them, something we know went on in the Soviet armed forces. Knowing what I know of the Soviet military, militaries in general and how organizations behave, the scenario wouldn't shock me. Before closing, would note that for seven years, the US Navy had a massive cheating scandal in its Nuclear Power Systems Program. https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-navys-nuclear-cheating-scandal-is-worse-than-you-think-d0557a91f13 while the Air Force had a a huge scandal in proficiency testing of Minuteman missile crews and a senior missile officer who got drunk in Moscow! https://news.yahoo.com/34-missile-launch-officers-implicated-nuclear-cheating-scandal-042221654.html Regards, John Kettler

Thewood1, If your skills are up to it, may I suggest you play the fantastic Trappenjagd scenario--if you can find it! Was on scenario depot, but it's defunct. Regards, John Kettler

Since they're in CMBB, thought it might be useful to provide some solid info on these critters, which were used for much more than we imagine. Back when the English side of IRemember.ru was every bit as useful as the Russian side, I read a bitter veteran's account of serving in them. He was told it was a tank. The armored ones were pathetically protected, and some models had none. Here's a bit of weirdness, too, for the aerosans (tranliterated Russian aerosani) were part of the Armored Troops! https://www.warhistoryonline.com/military-vehicle-news/aerosan-war-sleds-red_army.html Regards, John Kettler

Coll shot indeed! Regards, John Kettler

Quick note! Several sources I looked at did, in the most cursory way, mention the AT-1 SNAPPER was used in Vietnam, but none provided details. Some made no mention at all, starting the combat use reporting at the 1967 War and going forward from there. So far, have failed utterly to find the account which explicitly detailed that use in Vietnam and the results. Regards, John Kettler

CaptainTheDark, Are you referring to Cockburn's The Threat: Inside The Soviet Military Machine which, I believe, was based on interviewing Russian Jews who'd expatriated post Red Army service and gone to Brighton Beach, New York? My recollection is that they'd served chiefly in construction and maintenance units, not line combat formations. Believe this was because they weren't trusted politically. There was a lot of discussion of drunkenness, lousy food, thugs, the grandfather system, corners being cut, and I forget what else. Had a copy and found it dwelt on the far left side of the threat bell curve, the antithesis, if you will, of the worst case (scariest Bear) scenario. Had most of my library stolen years ago, so can't go back to that book and check to see what I missed. Believe there was something said about a suppressed truth regarding how KAL 007 was able to penetrate Soviet airspace without being detected much sooner and intercepted. As I recall the story, shortly before the KAL 007 event occurred, there'd been a massive Pacific storm which trashed the radar site's antennas, rendering the radars nonfunctional. But rather than admit this and take the heat, the truth was hidden from Moscow, leaving a gap in the homeland's radar coverage. MikeyD and Jabble, Am aware of the two attacks you described, but those weren't the ones I had in mind. These are. http://grunt-redux.atspace.eu/arvn_armour41.htm This one covers attacks on the Special Forces' camps and later tank battles. The second link is from an NVA perspective. https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2017/05/30/armor-employment-by-vcnva-forces-i/ https://cslegion.com/vietnam/comrade-giaps-clever-nuggets-4-nva-armor/ Nothing but the M41! https://mikesresearch.com/2019/03/24/m41-walker-bulldog/ On a separate note, am still hunting for the account of the engagement in which the NVA tankers thought they were in an antitank minefield, and I'm still trying to sort out the what an when of ATGM use vs ARVN armor. Want to say that there was a failed or minor success AT-1 attack in 1968 and effective AT-3 attacks in 1972, a year before the Yom Kippur War. Regards, John Kettler

The CIA report on the T-64B is available at the CIA site's FOIA reading room, and it was quite specific about what we knew and when. The T-64 was NEVER paraded, and I, after a quick glance through the CIA T-64B doc I saw years back (link below), was late by a few years for the T-64B. According to that CIA report, the first indication the US had of the T-64 was when an agent for the CIA (spy, not US intel type) got his hands on a wargame manual for a pending exercise. In it, were the ratings for the various weapons. The baseline T-62 was rated 1.0, but this previously unheard of tank was rated 1.5. As it happens, though I didn't have access to CIA docs, I did have access to DIA docs. For a long time the T-64 was kept inside the Soviet Union. Suvorov/Rezun, who participated in the 1968 Operation Dneiper extravaganza said it was brought in and was going to be in the exercise, but then the plan was scrapped. Here is the T-64B doc, and there's much more to be had in the CIA's FOIA reading room. Among other things, it says when the T-64B showed up in the GFSG. Though heavily redacted, it's a treasure trove. The Soviet T-64 Tank: An Updated Assessment https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000498140.pdf Couldn't tell you the year, but in the mid-80s, I did see an overhead image of T-64s being worked on in company strength outside some GSFG tank sheds. Thus, they got there eventually, but were almost certainly very late in the game. By the time Major Nicholson was shot and left to die (which he did) in March 1985, GSFG had T-80s. Spook sources told me he'd previously gotten into one of the sheds and spirited away the operating manual found inside one of those T-80 tanks. Not sure what he was looking for on his fatal visit, but he was again at the tank sheds. Made up nothing in what I stated, and what was stated when I first heard it, saw the slides, etc., nearly made me vomit, so dire was the news. The Army's General Gorman did a SECRET level piece for the CIA's classified journal Studies In Intelligence where he looked at the armor-anti-armor situation and also concluded things were dire. Further, the 1984 Summer Study of the Defense Science Board found the same situations to be true. Was at Hughes Missile Systems Group then (we made TOW, Maverick, etc.), and there were some deeply distressed people in the halls as we were forced to rapidly evolve TOW, as shown in pic. TOW 2 gave us not only a more powerful warhead but the ability to operate in bad WX and battlefield obscuration, which the visible band only earlier TOW could not do. TOW 2 could be used by every TOW launcher, but only those with advanced FLIR could use its full capabilities. By the time TOW 2A (complete with double trumpet DU liners and precursor charge to defeat ERA) was in the mill, we already knew that wasn't going to cut it, which is why we fielded TOW 2B with two separate tantalum SFFs for top attack. Regards, John Kettler

MikeyD, US-trained ARVN tankers and M41s and later with some M48s tore NVA armor apart in several engagements, doing it from ranges so extreme radio intercepts from panicked crews of PT-76s and T-54s indicated they thought they were in antitank minefields! In one of these engagements, the NVA employed Russian-supplied AT-1 SNAPPER ATGMs, well before the AT-3 SAGGER captured the West's terrified attention and led to declaration the tank was dead. Regards, John Kettler

As I've several times noted in the last two decades, regardless of appearances, the PT-76, armed with the same gun as the T-34/76, was a potent tank killer, thanks to a HEAT round designed specifically to defeat the highly advanced steel-glass-steel armor planned for the T95 MBT, which was never produced because the US went the M48 route. The Israelis captured some of these rounds in the Yom Kippur War, but didn't provide any to the US until 1984. The only way the Egyptians could've gotten them was for these first to be declared obsolete and replaced with something even nastier. That was when live fire tests found that it would frontally pierce the mighty XM-1 which had highly classified siliceous cored armor, the same thing the T95 had. Great was the consternation, and this is why the M1 HA was crash developed and fielded. Worse was to follow, for historically the US static fired HEAT warheads to test penetration. But the US discovered the Russian HEAT rounds, when tested dynamically, could penetrate as much as 40% better than static detonation showed. This was because their HEAT was specifically designed to take advantage of the velocity from the cannon launch. Source for these shockers was Dr. Joseph Backofen (world class HEAT expert and the CIA's SME on HEAT) at the Soviet Threat Technology Conference (U) 1985. This was a SECRET//NOFORN /WNINTEL (No Foreign,/Warning Intelligence (Sources and Methods) Involved) no notes conference in which a terrified CIA, in the Year of the Spy, brought in its top Soviet weapon experts and told the defense industry threat people how bad things really were. Please understand that because its reports drew on contractor data and other proprietary information (PROPIN), we contractors hardly ever got to see what the CIA knew. During my 11+ years as a Soviet Threat Analyst, the only CIA reporting I saw was at that conference. What we saw, in topic after topic, was terrifying, and it's a wonder no one died from one horrible shock after another. Not kidding! At least one guy was removed from the auditorium after getting into some sort of health difficulties. To give you some sense of how bad it was, thanks to great memory and specialized memory training, I came back and wrote up the entire conference, topic by topic. The resulting 40-page report turned the Operations Analysis Department manager's face paper white and moth agape. He was my boss's boss there. After reading it straight through and surfacing from that reading visibly traumatized, he decreed that only I, he and his boss were cleared to read it in its entirety, and others in the department were permitted to read only that part directly pertinent to their work--under his direct and constant supervision. Stated simply, in practically every military field, the Soviets had us dead to rights, and that was without factoring in the devastating crypto penetrations resulting from getting the crypto gear from the seizure of the USS PUEBLO and the key cards from the tremendously effective Walker-Whitworth spy ring. In the armor-anti-armor presentation, not only could they penetrate us and we couldn't penetrate them (T-64/T-72/T-80), but every anti-armor weapon in the inventory other than the Hellfire and the Maverick was judged useless frontally. The get well program cost the US billions. As if that wasn't bad enough, by the time we found out about a particular tank, it was often a decade or more before we got to really learn about it. The T-64 was kept in the interior military districts, well away from western eyes, to such effect we didn't see it for 20 years, dubbing it the M1984! Am hoping that CM: Cold War reflects these and other grim realities. Regards, John Kettler

Friends of the Tank Museum posted on Toyota pickups being used by insurgents and posted this one, whose significance I didn't get initially because my eyes were blurry and I wasn't expecting to see what I did. Even without detonating, the RPG projectile had considerable penetration power. Would say, based on angle of impact and depth of penetration, this shot was fired from very close range and possibly from an entrenchment or foxhole. Regards, John Kettler

Here'an extensive (not kidding!) discussion of the above. Regards, John Kettler

E5K, You're most welcome. As a point of interest, during the war in North Africa, it became apparent German antitank projectiles were highly effective. Testing found that a German or Italian AP shell (47 mm and up) which penetrated halfway into the fighting compartment usually knocked out the tank for good (brew up) and played hob with the crew, killing or wounding most of the men. By contrast, 2-pounder shot generally did not brew up the tank on a single penetration and didn't cause many crew casualties. This was when Allied ammo wasn't in armored boxes and Shermans (which showed up much later) didn't have wet ammo stowage either. But all that really need be said of Allied AP ammo ineffectiveness is that Major Jarrett, American Ordnance Liaison to the British and who made the statement about what German AP shell did, was decorated for an extremely dangerous process of extracting 7.5 cm PzGr39 shells from their casings, turning down the driving bands on a lathe (spin armed shell fuze!) of the German shell to fit the also shell removed American cartridge, then fitting it into the US 75 mm cartridge. This gave the British an effective AP round for the Grants. Regards, John Kettler

E5K, Welcome aboard! The standard anti-armor round for the Panther was PzGr39, which was AP SHELL, not SHOT. Offhand, I don't recall whether the highly potent Panther ever had PzGr40, which was SHOT, known in British service as APCR and to the US as HVAP. Regards, John Kettler

Couldn't find the right article, but these should give at least some sense of relative capabilities.. ARVN armored units in good order, using M41A3 and M48A3 tanks, shot up NVA armored forces from ranges so extreme the NVA tankers were screaming in clear they were in a minefield. This last was in the article I couldn't find but described an action to stop the NVA armor from fording or swimming (PT-76) the river near a destroyed bridge. ARVN tankers were superbly trained (to full US standards) compared to the NVA tankers, and it definitely told in tank duels. Soviet doctrine for T-54s and T-55s was single engagements to 1000 meters, with platoon volley fire or even company at greater range. T-62s extended that solo tank engagement distance to 1500 meters. Contrast that with an M36 during WW II that got a kill at almost 4 kilometers, and others that got kills at nearly 3 kilometers. The first link is about the performance of ARVN armor, with both the M41A3 and M48A3 included. http://grunt-redux.atspace.eu/arvn_armour41.htm The second link exclusively concerns combat by the M41A3. https://mikesresearch.com/2019/03/24/m41-walker-bulldog/ Apparently, the definitive work on ARVN armor in battle is Steel and Blood, by Ha Ma Vieta former ARVN colonel who spent a decade doing research for the two-volume series. http://mcvthf.org/Book/ANNEX G-8.html Regards, John Kettler

Considering the foe of the US and NATO was the Red Army (direct translation from the Russian), would have to say Reds in Blue would've been bizarre at best. Regards, John Kettler

By a sheer fluke, I happened to notice there was a forum for what I thought was a new title for the much desired CM Fulda Gap. Oh, was I ever wrong! Had NO idea there was anything but Modules and maybe Vehicle Packs in the development pipeline, so this was quite the shock, combined with elation and dismay. Was thrilled to see a game coming out covering the sometimes terrifying period when the Soviets and Warsaw Pact were my bread and butter as a Soviet Threat Analyst, but was greatly dismayed that, after what brother George just asserted was two years, am still not CM functional. Indeed, there are times when I'm not even CoC functional. Immensely frustrating to have such a marvel come out, yet not be able to play it. May do the pre-order anyway and dare to believe I WILL be CM capable again! Congratulations to those who made this game happen. Shall get up to speed by reading the initial AARs which ever precede game release. Regards, John Kettler P.S. Over on the product page, it says this is a CM 4 engine game. Already have the hard copy Engine 4 manual from CMBS, so is all that remains is to DL once the pre-orders can be received? Will there be a dedicated CM Cold WAr Manual as there was for CMBS?

LVTs needed even before then--Scheldt Estuary Campaign. Regards, John Kettler

Falaise, Well done, sir! Judging from the texture, I thinks it's plywood, not sheet metal. Regards, John Kettler

Screwed up badly! The armored car was completely flubbed by my brain and is absolutely not a Dingo, a notion that now seems ridiculous. Per a CoC colleague, it's a Humber. My brain failed to properly process the light upper hull and thus registered the lower hull and the stowage only. Something I also missed when I first saw the pic is the motorcycle to the AC's left. Regards, John Kettler

Kind of made up the descriptor, but am out of my element here. This is a March 1945 pic showing everything from PBI to Churchills at/near Kervenheim, Germany. There appears to be an armored jeep behind the Dingo, there are T-handled shovels in plain view on the backs of some of the infantry, and there's a PIAT team front left and center. The Churchills seem to be equipped with varying wildly in position and quantity spare track, presumably as additional armor protection. This was originally posted by Gordon John Smith in the Bolt Action International FB group. Regards, John Kettler

In trying to find the 60 mm mortar squad ammo load (what the squad carries directly with it) to make a point over on the CoC FB page, I found this, which, I believe, can be both useful to putting together scenarios, but also understanding combat accounts when reading about US Army, US Marines, Germans and Japanese troops in action. https://www.battleorder.org/post/us-ammo-load-ww2 Regards, John Kettler

HUSKER2142, Since you listed a pack by what seems to be a 7-liter fluid volume, is this pack the Russian equivalent of the US Camelbak hydration system? Regards, John Kettler

T-64B1M (ID by Alexey Tyuzhin on his FB page) with what I suspect may be field expedient engine protection vs. field artillery and MRLs. Haiduk, what do you think? Regards, John Kettler

Haiduk, Mnay thanks for the explanation. All I did was copy an uncaptioned Tumblr pic and took a swing (circa 4 AM local time) at what it might be. Regards, John Kettler