LongLeftFlank
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Posts posted by LongLeftFlank
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Sadly, you're right. Wouldn't take much to tip the balance though.
Chadian militias handed Gaddafi's ass to him in the 1980s using US-supplied TOW launchers on Toyota 4x4s - they could also move faster than the T55 turrets could traverse.
Gaddafi's son's praetorian brigade has matching uniforms and a better paint job on their vehicles but strip away or checkmate that heavy firepower and they're no more combat effective than the rebs -- less, probably.
The rebels could even live with the fixed wing threat (which looks pretty inaccurate) if they could just gain a ranged AT capability.
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What's floating offshore now? Is there a Marine combat unit on the Kearsarge?
Another source of heavy armour is the Egyptians. But as we've discussed previously the Libyan rebels would look askance at them - they would definitely need to leave promptly upon victory.
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Yes, airpower aside my guess is the Yanks are probably out of pocket other than SpecOps advisers / FACs.
That's why I suggested the French; they have a solid track record in Africa and know how to coordinate with local militias. They are also unlikely to overstay their welcome.
So what's the leanest AdT force I could airlift / sealift over to Benghazi (or Tobruk) that could reliably take down Gaddafi's brigade-sized force of T-72s, Shilkas and Grads? Once Gaddafi's heavy weapons are gone, (along with his air force which the Enterprise CAG could exterminate in 3 days), the better motivated rebels will make short work of his infantry.
Work with me here. Let's go shopping!
1. For the core force, my pick is the French Marines' light mech regiment (RICM). In addition to the Milans (jeep and ground mounted), their AMX-10 armoured cars combine a tank-killing 105mm punch with high mobility and low maintenance in the desert. They're eggshells with hammers, sure, but if they stand off in the desert they're likely to be pretty safe. I doubt Gaddafi's forces have much reliable ATGM.
2. For artillery support, those CAESAR wheeled 155mms might work but may be overkill -- I'd go with a couple of batteries of good old fashioned towed 120mm mortars. Easier resupply too.
3. For air support, unless Malta or Italy can be persuaded to host the French ALA, we're probably best leaning on the Enterprise CAG. So some US FACs are needed on the ground to coordinate. That would probably suit Uncle Sam anyway, to know what's going on firsthand.
Helos (Gazelles and Pumas) are tempting for tank killing and medevac, but create a huge incremental logistical headache. I'm assuming the battle is going to move several hundred miles fairly quickly (Benghazi to Tripoli) and can't be supported from a single base.
4. A reinforced battalion of combat engineers, able to perform a full range of tasks (including combat!) as the force advances towards Tripoli, and to provide essential services both for the French force and the rebels. Everything from mine clearing to restoring local utilities. These guys will likely have the most challenging job of all!
5. Logistical train, which per the above, needs to be fully mobile and able to pull its own security (this is bandit country). Probably heavily dependent on helicopter airlift flying in by night from either Sicily or ships offshore (maybe that's where the medevac is). Although Gaddafi has Exocets and the like.
OK, that's my force. I claim I can be boots on the ground in a week.
What am I leaving out (lots of course)? What would you bring? Bring it!
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Will you look at that ^^
Ajdabiya is the last refuge of the rebels right?
so this a Reb Forces shilka?
No to both. Ajdabiya is the last town of significance before Benghazi, the second city of Libya and the heart of the rebellion. And both sides claim to be holding the place.
The picture is next to a BBC story about the above, but there is no confirmation that this vehicle is in Ajdabiya.
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Come to think of it, having an additional single man unit in the platoon would come in handy now and then -- running up to rooftops to take a quick looksie for example. Or staying behind to provide buddy aid in the absence of a dedicated medic without needing to keep a whole team back. Kind of an all-purpose Sergeant Rock.
The commander of the US Army humvee Escort platoon is the only single man BLUE unit, (RED has Combatant Snipers and Spies) and I've used him for those purposes.
Of course, you probably want to have him convey some kind of in-game leadership to troops he was leading, and I don't know whether/how that would work within the existing chain of command. This is all programming spaghetti for Charles.
And before anyone stomps on me, I'm NOT asking for this or whingeing about its absence.
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And the big question; Why no platoon sgt. attached to platoon HQ sections? I just had a platoon leader get it, and noticed a PFC took over HQ section. That doesn't seem right.
Your "big" question kind of got missed. AFAIK, the platoon leader's mate is generally his RTO. And in combat, isn't the platoon sergeant usually attached to one of the squads? (there's also a designated squad leader, but the platoon sergeant likely calls the shots depending on the situation).
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That's my thought. There's a thread on Libya in the General Forum that's better suited to the whys and why nots.
I'd rather discuss just how small/light a Western force could reliably break the back of Gaddafi's son's "Second Security Brigade" and its T72s and Grads.
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Mate, you keep dragging this back into politics; we understand your reasoning at this point and most of us seem to disagree with that on some level. Let's get back to wargaming.
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BTW, I hope the BAR team (gunner and his mate) can be split off from the squad.
I love the announcer: "Nothing but the best for the Master Race!"
And unless the adjective "swell" is used in at least one of the US voice clips, this game is fundamentally flawed dammit!
EDIT: OK, I know the "
" sketch has been posted here about a jillion times, but there are definitely a few moments in this video that are nearly identical. I am waiting for "Mrs B Smegma of 13 The Crescent, Belmont" -
I like spaghetti.....
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Yes, you Europeans sure have that paralysis thing down, don't you? You'd think you'd been ravaged by two world wars plus 45 years of being occupied by nuclear-armed foreign armies or something....
Except for those "perfidious" Anglo Saxons of course. And the Poles, at least until recently.
Actually, it would be nice to see the French move in unilaterally... hell, what does Sarkozy have to lose? La Coloniale plus some light mech and helos moving down from Benghazi would make short work of Gaddafi's brigades. Let the rebs do the messy MOUT stuff. Leave promptly after the engineers have cleaned up Benghazi port and got the water and lights back on. Au revoir, bon chance.
Although it's probably easier if the the "Big E" air group just neuters the Libyan air and naval forces first. Skip the no fly zone.
(NOTE: the above will never happen of course -- idle speculation)
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What's even more funny is in this case the guy driving the BMP also probably calls it a tank.
At this point, I am reminded of the lines from Buckaroo Banzai:
It's like driving a truck.
Good! What is a truck?
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So I don't know much at all about the IDF TO&E, but tell me: what's stopping you from doing a pretty decent approximation of them by cobbling together existing kit and units? What's so fundamentally different please? Fine, the Merkava engine is in front and they either do or used to use turretless tanks as APCs (and still have a lot of M113s). What else? Are their infantry squads fundamentally different? Just curious.
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Thanks Ryujin, I'm glad I was able to repay you for the pleasure I've gotten from your excellent mods!
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Is that a reference to the Second Amendment of the American Constitution? For the Founding Fathers of America, the right to self-rule was inherently entwined with the right to self-defense. The Indians were still relatively close by, and hostile. The French and Spaniards were not far away. And then there was, of course, the English Crown.
(in contrast, we Canucks stuck with the Crown since in the 1770s we were still badly outnumbered by Indians and recently pacified Frenchmen, and got bloody good value out of those redcoats)
Moreover, the Founding Fathers were big admirers of the Athenian demos, which was itself essentially a corps of free landowners who could afford the armour of a hoplite and the time to drill in it.
Are such notions obsolete in our era of long established representative government and professional and generally non-corrupt military and police forces? We can all answer that for ourselves, I think. I don't intend to argue politics here. I'm a history guy.
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I was eventually able to solve the problem when the scenario came up, but it gave me some anxious moments today. Maybe it wouldn't bother some people, but it bugged the hell out of me.
In my experience, websites that ask you to provide your real name as well as a username when you fill out a profile don't default to the former when you publish or upload. That was both unexpected and highly unpleasant for me. I strongly suggest you change it to protect our privacy better.
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Yes, there should be a bunch of them. I saw some just now in the CMSF Marines / Mods section of the Repository. If the Repository doesn't produce results, try GreenAsJade's site (link is in my sig).
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I've deleted and resubmitted the file because it published under my real name which I don't want used. The new version -- same as the previous one -- should be up shortly. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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Interesting -- I shall look into it. James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg formulate a similar hypothesis in their books, although (as with much of their other analysis) they take it too far, e.g. crediting the success of labour and womens suffrage movements to the widespread availability of revolvers which made assassinations easier and thereby intimidated the politicians of the day into accommodation.
They call this phenomenon "diminishing return to violence" and generally view it as a good thing socio-economically as it diminishes the coercive power of the state relative to the sturdy Jeffersonian yeoman. The only problem with this notion is: what if the sturdy yeoman is more of a bandit? But yes, we are indeed digressing into a swamp of libertarian politics (to which I do not subscribe) here....
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Well you know how it is. For certain people, if you admit to playing D&D you're clearly a satanic worshipping child murderer. If you admit an interest in wargames or WWII history, you're clearly a racist Nazi fetishist child murderer.
You can be as ornery as you please using a secret identity, but these days you really need to watch what your real name gets associated with. Executive search firms and the like can dig up some very obscure stuff and you will likely never learn the real reason you didn't get called back. Sad but true.
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Any chance of uploading this to the Repository? I can't seem to register at GaJ's.
I submitted the scenario along with the 2 mods I recommend (shopfront building and Islamic cemetery) to the Suppository this morning, but I am now going through some major agita since the stupid friggin form defaults to your real name not your screen handle. I am fairly paranoid about publishing my real name on the Net. Hopefully this will get resolved.
In the meantime though, PM me with an email address and I'll send you the files.
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I have version 1.21 never bothered getting the latest as dont have nato yet what patch do I need?
I never bought Brits or NATO either -- I just own Marines (although if BFC offers a Brits + NATO discount I may reconsider). There are 1.31 patches specific to the Marines and Brits modules, and the patch has a lot of useful tweaks (e.g. lower volume of hand grenading).
Basically, once you edit a map on a machine that uses a specific patch, it no longer shows up on any machine not yet patched to that level. You can run maps created in an older version though. No idea why that is.
Battle for Libya!
in Combat Mission Shock Force 1
Posted
And that's why I advised against heavy mech; it just takes too long to deploy and sustain. Sure it's the "safe" thing to send per the Powell doctrine but in the absence of time a light force with robust AT capability should get the job done.
I just realized the 105mm Strykers would make a nice standin for the AMX-10s. Which NATO infantry most closely matches the French Marines? (where have all the French players gone btw - you'd think they would chime in).