Vanir Ausf B

I rather doubt any "audience" was in mind when they chose the code word. I think you're reading a whole lot into it that was never even considered.

LOL From what I've read, they were not 100% sure bin Ladin lived there at any time prior to the raid. But the circumstantial evidence was compelling.

No it is not. My position is that choosing not to kill him out of fear of reprisals would have been a mistake. How you got from that to thinking that I believe killing him is terrorism is... well, I'd like to know how you came to that conclusion.

EDIT: ninja-ed by Steve This clarifies a lot. Thanks.

You consider killing bin Ladin to be an act of terrorism?

If I understand correctly, non-smoking wrecks never block LOS, only LOF. If that is the case I assume the TacAI is smart enough to know it can't shoot though the wreck even though it can see through it. I think Steve was pretty clear that vehicles have LOF to each other through non-smoking wrecks, and that vehicles do not have LOF through non-smoking wrecks to non-vehicular units. What's not clear to me is if that last part is reciprocal, i.e. would those non-vehicular units have LOF through the wreck to the tank. My guess is that they would because it seems that only the target's unit type matters (vehicle or non-vehicle). The firing unit type is irrelevant.

Who did we kill to motivate bin Ladin to take up his jihad in the first place? Bin Ladin's death will not change anyone's opinion of him or his cause. I'm sure there will be reprisals, but they will be committed by those who already shared his cause. They would likely have done the same thing had be been captured instead. The point of terrorism is to change the behavior or policies of the terrorized. If we refrain from killing terrorists who have attacked us in the past purely out of fear that doing so will motivate terrorists to attack us again then their attacks will have succeeded, at least to that extent. To put it succinctly, if we are too afraid to kill bin Ladin, then the terrorists have won

Steve said that it blocks LOF both ways and doesn't block LOF both ways. Obviously both cannot be true. From the contradictory scraps of information I've been able to find, this is how I think it works in various siturations: Friendly Destroyed Vehicle Smoking LOS blocked for all units Friendly Destroyed Vehicle Not Smoking LOS not blocked (all units) LOF blocked from vehicles to non-vehicles. Presumably is reciprocal.* LOF NOT blocked from vehicles to other vehicles * This is just an assumption and may be completely wrong. In Steve's post he says "Dead vehicles do NOT block LOF only when the target is another vehicle." Taken literally that would mean that, for example, a towed AT gun would have LOF to an enemy tank but that tank would not have LOF back to the AT gun (because the AT gun is not a vehicle.) Perhaps that was the old behavior, and now LOF is always blocked in both directions? In some ways that would make more sense, although it begs the question of why dead friendly vehicles block LOF but living ones do not... Friendly Vehicle -- Undamaged LOS/LOF not blocked from friendly vehicle to enemy vehicle. Is reciprocal with regard to LOS but NOT with regard to LOF i.e. friendly tanks can shoot through each other. I have no idea if the same holds true for non-vehicles. My guess is that it does, which if true means the OP's tactic of advancing infantry behind friendly tanks used for cover will not work. It would be so much simpler if vehicles always blocked LOF/LOS whether friendly or not, whether dead or alive. I'm not sure why it doesn't work that way. Then again, maybe it does work that way?

It's going to be like shockwaves.

That he was found in Pakistan is a surprise to nobody. That he was in a building so conspicuous that you couldn't help but not notice it, in a part of Pakistan with an unusually strong military presence is a surprise to me. The walls were ringed with barbed wire and security cameras for god's sake, and in a residential area to boot. They might as well have posted a sign out front stating "IMPORTANT PERSON WHO DOESN'T WANT TO BE SEEN INSIDE". Frankly, if that doesn't raise your eyebrows a bit you're probably in the wrong profession.

That is most likely how it is, if I had to take a guess. The confusing part, to me, is where Steve says "That's been long since changed so that LOF is blocked in both directions." I'm guessing he meant to say NOT blocked in both directions.

Or maybe you could stop putting words in my mouth? That would be much quicker.

You may be right, but I think LOS is blocked. My only issue is that friendly undamaged vehicles block neither LOS or LOF. I think :confused:

This post As I pointed out in my reply, what he said was contradictory.

There must be some confusion here (probably mine). If friendly tanks can fire through other non-damaged friendly tanks (LOF/LOS not blocked) and LOF is reciprocal, then enemy tanks could fire though friendly non-damaged tanks also, i.e. all tanks could fire though each other making them invulnerable.

LOS may be reciprocal, but LOF couldn't possibly be. Unless I'm misunderstanding your point.

Oh, so you actually expected him to be living in a very conspicuous fortified compound almost in the shadow of Pakistan's most prestigious military academy? Right where the smart money said he would be...

That is some good news

That's unfortunate. I'm not one of those people that cry "gamey!" every time someone does something unconventional, but I have seen some truly gamey tactics made possible by the game allowing friendly tanks to shoot through each other. I remember it being said somewhere that friendly smoking wrecks DO block LOS. I wonder why for LOS purposes vehicles can't be made to pretend all other vehicles are continuously puffing smoke.

I can't wait for the CMx2 Ostfront game so I can relive the experience of my IS-2s fleeing in terror from every German tank I command them to fire upon.

So tanks block LOS/LOF now? Do they block it from both enemy vehicles and enemy infantry? What about friendly units? I've seen statements made that suggest vehicles sometimes block LOS and sometimes they don't.

Ah, I didn't know it was raised to 50 million in 2007 Certainly there was a lot of intelligence work involved in ferreting him out, but the seed that led to him was taken from al-Qaeda detainees: NY Times

$25 million. But it sounds like nobody will be collecting. The information that eventually led to him came from members of al-Qaeda captured after 9/11.

Yep, the initial speculation that it was a Predator drone was wrong. He was shot in the head during a firefight. The most surprising detail is that he wasn't hiding out in a cave in the mountains. He was living in a nice big house in Islamabad.

It's debatable how relevant bin Ladin has been for some time outside of symbolic value. Nevertheless I suspect there's going to be some discussion that this would be a good opportunity to declare victory in Afghanistan and get out.