Peter Cairns

There has been a fair bit of discussion about a US Marines follow up to CM:SF. One way to do the TOE would be to base it around a ship, like a TARAWA class ( or a smaller Harpers Ferry). You would have available an amount of accomadation, lane space, landing craft and aircraft/helicopters, up to about 1,000 men for a campaign. It would then work on two levels, Firstly you would decide on the mix of aircraft, more helicopters would let you transport more, but you'd have fewer AV-8B's to commit for dedicated support. You could do the same with landing craft etc to a certain extent, and then it would be down to choosing the types and numbers of troops and vehicles etc. This would form your campaign pool. For each scenario you would choose appropriate forces, but the amount you could use would be restricted by the transportation available, so that although you had upwards of 1,000 available, in parctice with say a dozen Sea Knights, you could only deploy about 150 men at a time. Depending on how far out you were it would effect your reinforcement times and you would lose equipement and men that might not be replaced. Of course as a lone ship is part of a bigger operation it is a bit stylised if not unrealistic, but I just wondered if people liked the idea. Peter.

As I recall BF"s logic was pretty straight forward. If it didn't happen , We don't do it. As CM:SF is a "future" war, and in effect designed to let us use current weapons and tactics, and recreate current conflicts in the Middle East then it gets in by default. What we can get is Korea, or Arab v Israel. or GW1, which gives you a fair range of the equipment on offer, so you can make Cold War scenarios galore if you want. Peter.

Problem witha .50 cal from ahelicopter is that it's not a particularly stable gun platfrom and the round has very good penetration. If someone makes a mistake when fired at from insurgents in a built up area, you could get a lot of dead civilians. As ever it's a hard one to call. the best weapon for war isn't always right for peacekeeping and vica versa. You have to be careful as you are there to protect these people and make them feel safe, not to injure them or put the fear of god in to them. Peter.

Interesting piece from "The Guardian" on the press release for this years military balance. Guardian Unlimited. It cover Iran, Iraq and China, so it's interesting to see how the assessment of one of the worlds top independant security analysts assess these situations compared to the views expressed here. Peter.

There has been some discussion of points values for CM:SF, What factors do people believe should go in to it. If we took a tank then the obvious three would be protection, firepower and mobility, but also fire control, or accuracy. On a very simple level if the three basic were rated from 1 to 10 and multiplied together you would get a maximum value for the best tank of 1,000. So where would people ut the following with a maximum at 10,10,10. M1A2, Chllenger 2, Leopard 2, T-90, T-72, T-55. and what kind of ratios for tanks would that give you in a game . for example if an M1A2 came in at 750, and a T-55 at 150, do you think 5 to 1 would make a balanced game or not. Daft topic, but I am bored. Peter.

Found this on the BBC web site "From Our Corrospondent". Syria story Peter.

The AMOS mortar system has a neat ability to alter the trajectory and speed of rounds so that the first half dozen or so all land similtainously. That can give people a nasty surpriese and is also usefull for hitting concentrations in shoot and scoot. I think it can also fire direct. Peter.

It must be especially rough for people if things keep up the way they are, as it seems there are a lot of scare stories about the US economy right now, be it gas prices going up or house prices going down. Add to that just the general strain of deployment especiallly when it becomes multiple ones and it can take it's toll. The last thing you want when you are abroad is to be worrying about whether you will have a home to go back too. Peter

I wondered what that white stuff was....... Peter.

M1A1TankCommander, We've been missing you, hope everythings going ok..... Peter.

What you need to deal with B-52's is something that as far as I know no one makes, a sort of SAM/Javelin that uses a fire and forget discriminating seeker without radar. As far as I know there isn't an IR SAM effective above about 15,000ft, so what you need is a IR/thermal visual ground tracking system that is passive, that can fire a long range SAM in the direction of a B-52, which will then tutn on it's shrouded seeker at above 35,000ft. But as no one but the US has B-52's and no one won't to take them on there isn't much of a market for such a system. Peter.

Given relative spotting we could see you limited to views from units within Command, which might be a similar thing. Peter.

Syria don't have SA-10's so that's hardly an issue, biggest thing they seem to have are SAM-9 Gaskins. This might be interesting. Syrian SAM sites Peter.

Tagwyn, Joking aside the Falklands would be a good module... Peter.

It sort of takes us back to the shell game to try to get the B-52's to hit something worthless, staying close to civilian areas as much as possible, and the giants belt. Peter.

Lee_DiSantis, A ZSU has an effective range of about 8,000 ft, less than that verically, so anything above a mile (5,000 ft) is effectively safe. The B-52 can fly and accurately bomb from over 40,000 ft ( 8 miles high). The Syrians may have some older twin 57mm guns and even some old heavy ani aircraft up to about 100mm. but nothing that will bother a B-52. B-52's would be able to cruise at will and even if they were deployed from Diego Garcia would have ample loiter time. The only issue might be overfly rights, but as the CM:SF scenario involves international support, if you could use Turkey and Saudi Arabia, you could quite literally have them on call on station above advancing Stryker units. Peter.

Does the sign mean "DANGER, Do Not Walk Under Gun Tube" or " DANGER, Do Not Walk Under Gun......."Tube". ( tube being the scottish term for a person of limited mental ability, and I can guess the next post so Iam braced for it) Peter.

Are those warheads thermobaric or thermador... Peter.

Sergei . Could do with abit more colour, Oh and which one is the Syrian.... The nutter with the wierd hairdo, or the dumb lump on the table. Peter

cassh, The Mig 35 isn't really much more than an updated Mig-29 and if that is what is going in to the J-12/13/14, it's not in the F-22 class. As to cutting the development time Lockheed had the F-22 as the template for the F-35 plus CAD and thats going to still take a decade. It's interesting to look at the L-15, as it's basically an up enegined version of the Yak-140, which had it's first flight this year. It's roughly in the class of the Korean T/A-50, and has been developed quite quickly (very in fact), but to that you have to add the development effort that the Italians and Russians had already done. Peter.

cassh. I am going back more than a decade, but the rule of thumb then was twelve and eight. It was in the time of F-15/16 era taking us about twelve years to from design to in service for a new plane. In contrast things like the Mig-23 were taking in the region of only eight years. In part it was because the Soviets did a lot of reverse engineering and copying of basic ideas. If anything those times have lengthened in fifth generfation aircraft if you look at Wikipedias entry on the French Rsfale it is first flight 1984, in service 2000. If the Chinese are at mock up stage in 2005, having 40 plus in service in only five years would be the aerospace record of all time. The First flight to service of the J-10 is down as seven years and the J-12/13 is no where near as far on as that and is a more complex aircraft, all be it one that may use the same engines and much of the avionics from the J-10 and J-11 (SU-27, particularly the vectored thrust nossils). If it is to be anything more than a twin engined J-10 or a J-11 in a new skin, which it would have to be to be a match for an F-22, you would be looking at closer to 15 years than five. Peter

flamingknives, I think the key thing would be command delays. If we assume that it's 10 sec for veterans but 30 sec for conscripts, then standard US v Syrian would be like that, make the US just respond faster to commands. That seems the simplest way to do it. As for the game I think the best would be to keep it that simple, and that 's where if it's not to much, the beauty of CM lies, because it comes down how the players make the best of what they have. The US has speed of response and mobility, but might not have the most firepower on hand immediately, but they can deploy and can bring it to bear fromon and off board sources. What the player has to do is use it effectively and that could well be a lot harder to do than many people think. For the Syrian player it's about accepting your limitations, and not trying to out fight the US player. If I had Volksgrenadiers against the 82nd Airborne I wouldn't try going head to head with them in a manouvering battle, I'd dig in and try to let them get in close and hit them before they saw me. As to attacking That will be really hard for the Syrian player and I suspect it would be a case of KISS... Keep it Simple Stupid. Bring as much firepower as you can to bear as quickly as possible in the easiest most direct way while avoiding anything that involves complex manouvers or coordination over a large area. keep it tight and focused and try to get in close, as if you stand off the US off board assets will pulverise you. Given C&C, troop quality, and moral expect to take heavy casualties as amatter of course. Peter.

YankeeDog, But the point is that it doesn't have to actaully have to work well or even at all, the US can't take the chance that it does so it has to hit it. The US purchaesd 19,000 HARM at almost $300,000 each, thats almost $6 bn. I don't know how many they have left but even if it's 10,000, a network of radar mimicing cheap antenna could take weeks to take out and tie down a huge amount of US airpower. If you can't shoot them down or stop them firing HARM then getting them to waste as many as possible is the best strategy. Peter.

Moon, Lets all hope CM:SF or rather CMx2, is like CM1, a jet fighter, between being shown the drawing and the think actually being built and making it's first flight there is a long period wher nothing happens, but once it flies, it's in service for years. Peter.

Notice any similarities in layout and overall design...... Mig designs Russian Mig 1.42/1.44/MFI Peter.