Peter Cairns

YankeeDog, All of the above is interesting, but it still allows the inferior defender to play the shell game. The hardware, and indeed the software, for GPs and other jamming may be quite expensive and sophisticated ( though not necessarily) but aerials are dirt cheap. As anti GPS jamming, and Harm home on the omitted signal, then having a central unit linked to numerous remote dumb dishes or antenna, can draw US fire, repeatedly and effectively. The problem for the US is that if it is transmitting the right kind of signal on the right frequency in the right area, they probably have to hit it to make sure. It's not quite as easy as clipping some leads from a generator to a sheet of concrete reinforcing mesh stood on end, and hey presto you have a mock radar sight, but that's the kind of idea. Peter. [ May 12, 2006, 02:25 AM: Message edited by: Peter Cairns ]

LongLeftFlank, Pretty much with you on this one, but it is still an intersting picture. If the idea put forward here about the test airframe is correct, then what they seem to be doing is a sort of Non-CAD version of what was done by Airbus, Boeing and Lockheed, (who built and flew the JSF, 787 and A380 on computer before building protypes and used the CAD process to not only refine and test the design, but also to streamline the manufacturing process) As a Scottish nationalist I shouldn't really fly the flag for the UK but a big part of the computer design suite for the JSF design was developed from the British one used to design the Eurofighter. If this is the case it shows that the Chinese are both picking up ideas and learnibg but also a very long way behind. The idea that they could have " 40 or 50" in service by 2010 is fantasy as far as I can see. Peter.

I've never been able to figure how people on the right in America who hate the idea of big government telling them what to do, also hate so much of the press and media that challenge the same big government every day.... Peter.

Beastttt, Out of curiosity how does a plane at 10,000ft know that the GPS bomb it's just dropped is going to be jammed at below 2,000ft. And exactly what artillery is going to be used o fire accurately deep inside Syrian, that doesn't itself use GPS to aid terminal guidance. Peter.

Almost certainly the cheapest and most effective thing would be western thermal sights for existing AA assets particularly 23mm. Given that the slant range for a basic quad or twin 23mm is about 2,000m the ability to track and hit a helicopter at range day or night would greatly restrict the way the US could use not only Apache, but also the likes of Kiowa and ARH which do vital flanking recon for ground forces as they advance. They'd also have the ability to engage Strykers in the ground role. In terms of SAM's they should stick to IR because despite it's limitations it is passive and fire and forget. There is no way they can win the electronic battle so they shouldn't waste time and resources trying. Cheap ground based decoys and IR or laser jammers would be useful, and as with the shell game, if they could adapt a standard $250 satellite dish to give of a signal similiar to a ZSU, then the could make the US fire off a lot of HARM's for no good reason. Blocking local GPS is also worth doing. Peter.

Tagwyn, And of course if you hadn't have left "Nam", Iraq would have been so much easier because you'd have had that extra 30 years experience of fighting a bloody pointless insurgency. Peter.

That's the problem with light and medium forces, given time in combat they quickly become medium and heavy forces. It can even get to the stage where the up armoured "light" option is heavier and more expensive than the heavy it was supposed to replace, and has lots the speed and mobility it was bought for. Peter.

Is the way they fnally got t to work, by havng the infantry cart about a metal ramp for it to back up on to..... Peter.

Well you know the family moto... IF IT'S NOT SCOTS, IT'S CRAP..... Peter.

In Steves plan, the syrians have six months to prepare, and you can build a lot of decoys in that time, not to mention mines and pre positioned charges ( are there twin minerets in Damascus). JSTARS can detect tanks by their electrmagnetic signature over miles, but they can't tell a tank from a tractor. In addition put a box that mirrors a vehicles ignition in ever lamp post ( with a back up battery) and run them in sequence, and you've got a phantom convoy. Syria has to play the shell game on a massive scale, effectively giving the US what it wants, thousands of targets. They know full well that the US has eyes in the sky that can call in strikes night and day, what they need to do is give them the targets and draw the US sting. An interesting game twist might be for support for invasion to be under real political pressure at the UN, that way the US and supporters wouldn't have the kind of build up time they had in the gulf or Iraq. As to my anti-US bias, it it exists it is not towards America, and certainly not towards the US forces which I hold in the highest regard, but rather those Americans on this forum, who seem to think that all the US has to do is turn up. IF I had made a comment about Iraqi insurgents or even the new Iraqi army scattering under fire, instead of Americans, no one would have battered a eye, if I had questioned the ability of Syrians to use ATGM"s effectively under 0.5mm from a dozen Strykers, I doubt anyone would have picked it up. But unfortunately I dared to suggest that US troops would react like anyone else. Those accusing me of Bias seem to have missed the reference to Goose Green. The British Paras their were as good as anything the US has, and in the Argentinians they were facing a defender probably on a par with the Syrians. The result it took them more than twelve hours to go about two miles, why, because they crawled. As I said at the start the Javelins weakness is that it can't fire on the move and the crew are unprotected so that is what you exploit. The notion that that won't work because it's to hard to find the troops or that it's anti-american to suggest that US troops will duck for cover when under 30mm cannon fire is just daft. Two phrases I have used repeatedly are that you never fight the same war twice and never underestimate the enemy. Most of the criticisms here seem to come from people who think that an invasion of Syria would be just like Iraq and that you can right off the Syrians. Both of these assumptions may be correct but they are still dangerous assumptions. The British armies phrase is "Train Hard Fight Easy", This is on the basis that it is far better to be prepared for a hard fight and be plesantly surprised by the lack of an enemies effectiveness, than to get a shock when they turn out to be a lot tougher than you expected. I will make one prediction and that is that at the start a lot of US Players will lose a lot of CM:SF games to the Syrians, because even though they will clear the map of Syrians before the scenario ends, they will take far to many casualties in doing so, mostly because they think the Syrians can't win or even hurt them. Peter.

Dan, thermal or IR nothing can see through a hill. from a syrian perspective the working assumption must be that the US can deploy any weapon in it's arsenal day or night at it's full range. That means the Javelin is effective to 2.5km 24 hrs a day. If armour is to survive it has to be hidden as well as possible from air observation and attack, and on the ground positioned as much as possible so that it is covered by terrain that blocks sight from anything over 500m. If it can also be positioned so that it can get a shot off at something comming in to it's field of view before it is seen all the better. Ideally two or three together should try and engage Strykers on the move by closing range and attacking before the infantry can properly deploy. I think the question asked at the start is how should Syrian armour be used. The line some people have taken is that there won't be any by the time the Strykers arrive, but thats not the question. I've from the start taken the view that anything not dispersed won't last long, so the issue is how do you use whats left, which is why I've focused on plans for getting the most out of twos and threes. Peter.

Interesting defensive feature if you head towards Damascus where the main road runs roughly east west between the Airports at SAYQAL and DUMAYR from a height of about 25miles you can clearlt make out a long ridge with marked peaks running roughly parrallel and to the north. The road height is roughly 2,200ft and fairly level, the ridge around 3,600ft. Unfortunately i can't figure out the distance from the road to the ridge but it looks as if the it could be within direct engagement range, and force the road to cross numerous gullies from the mountains. You could avoid it by comming in towards DUMAYR from the south, but there are some wierd at the cross roads to the SE. Maybe we should start a thread on Invasion routes using Google Earth, to plan the invasion. It would kill more time till the game arrives. Peter.

Abbott. As you clearly missed the obvious point I'll re state it even clearer. All troops go to ground when they come under fire and the heavier the fire the more they do it. I used America as an example, because thats what most of the people on this site are, thats what you have mostly been watching and like me thats what you will have seen. As to the point about covering all 2.5km. I have repeatedly pointed out that you avoid the advantages of the enemy so as the defender you deploy so that to the best of your ability you negate your enemies range advantage. While you are at it go on to google earth and type in damascus, then zoom out till you find the corner of the Iraq, Syria, Jordon border, If you set the eye altitude( Bottom Right) at about 100 miles, you'll see a major road intercection just NE of the point where the borders meet, and three Iraqi Airfields to the SE. This is an obvious start point for invasion. Now all you have to do is follow the road to Damascus and as your cursor moves you can see the height change, (End of the pointer line in the Bottom Left). Like the road overlays if you have it in composite the heights aren't that accurate, but along the way you'll find more than enough cover to be going on with. Peter.

So just how many Iraqi tanks were taken out by Javelin or any infantry ATGM or indeed antitank weapon is the invasion of Iraq. You all seem to be forgeting the the US is on the offensive in CM:SF. A straight frontal assault across more than a mile of open terrain against lightly dug in Javelins teams is suicide, but no one has suggested that. I am talking about keeping your T-72's deliberately behind cover till they are within 500m or so and then pulling forward quickly to engage Strykers before the infantry deploy. I don't know if the 0.5 HMG on a Stryker can fire on the move, but it hardly matters as it can't hurt a T-72 anyway. Even if a T-72 at 800-1,000m has only a 1 in 3 chance of hitting a moving Styker, the Stryker has to stop to get the Javelin crew out, and that will take longer than it does to fire three rounds from a T-72. Of course Dan is right but what are you expecting the Syrians to do, ambush you at 750m and then sit and wait for the US to dig it's Javelins in before firing a shot. The Tactic for Javelins people seem to be employing here only works if the US invade Syria at walking pace, and take a month to reach Damascus. Keep Syrian Tanks hidden as long as possible, hit Strykers on the move and then withdraw and disperse, that and ambush with individual tanks as it they were very long range road side IED's. People love affair with the Javelin seems to be based on the Syrians going for the traditional Soviet tank wave that the Javelin was designed to defeat. Oh and there is a strange belief that US infantry, will somehow be immune to or simply ignore huge volumes of incoming fire. That folks is rubbish, all infantry in on the modern battlefield get down and stay down under heavy fire from support weapons, those that don't die, regardless of how good there own support weapons are. Apart from anything else, almost every piece of combat film I've seen from Iraq or Afghanistan shows US troops heading for cover in droves at the prospect of half a dozen kids with AK-47's. Thats why battles like Goose Green see thousands and thousands of rounds fired and few casualties even though they take all day. the vast majority of the time the vast majority of the people are flat on the ground stationary. Peter. [ May 08, 2006, 01:54 AM: Message edited by: Peter Cairns ]

Janes are reporting that their designs have been selected for portotypes, not that there prototypes have been selected, Peter.

I don't see why a javelin should have a high points value, the points value should take in to account rarity and effectivesness, but to put a high value on such a basic piece of equipment would be wrong. The fact that a javelin is fire and forget doesn't make it invisible, Even if you class it as a very good bazoka, you can still effectively suppress positions ahead of you. In addition compared to a T-72 a javelin team isn't very mobile at all. As iI said it can cover 500m in about 30 secs and has a hull mounted MG that is accurate to almost twice that. Add to that artillery even if it is just mortars and it becomes a very dangerous enviroment for Infantry. It's easy to say wow, when you watch that film of a Javelin hitting a T-72,, but if the T-72 had fired first, 125mm HE or proximity cnister, backed by hull 7.62, and the turret 12.7mm, the three guys would have been dead before they got a shot off. At 500m the Russian 14.7mm HMG has better penetration than a 23mm. The Syrians if they fire first have plenty that can make a mess of Strykers and if they get in close and follow up fast with armour no infantry is mobile enough to disembark evade and mount a javelin attack within clkear site of a platoon of T-72's at under 500m bearing down on them at 40mph. Peter.

cassh, I've seen those pictures before, and don't believe them for a minute, they are extremely poor quality and given that I've seen moked up pictures of a shark leaping out of the water at a helicopter and a very good piece of film of a submarine launched F-15. i'll stick with what "JANE" are saying. F-15 from below the waves... Peter.

Sun Tzu "The Art of War". Avoid your enemies strengths and exploit his weaknesses. The Javelins strength is that it has a range of over amile and a half and is highly accurate. So avoid long range engagements, that means pick terrain where he can't get a clear shot from more than a few hundred metres. Steep sides roads with cuttings, rolling hills, sand dunes, urban areas.. The Javelins weakness is that it can't be fired on the move (crew are in the Stryker when it's on the move} and that it has an unprotected crew ( when they get out to deploy it). Try to engage strykers on the move and have at least one in three (or two in three assuming a standard soviet style three tank platoon) armed with anti-personel rounds. The Russians make a number of proximity canister style rounds that they think will down a helicopter, so at a couple of 100 metres it will probably shred a javelin crew to confetti. I have advocated since the start that the Syrian Player should stay hidden and hold fire as long as possible. Even if you had an ATGM that can take out a Stryker at 3,000m, you shouldn't fire till well under 1,000m and probably about 500m if you can. This gives them the minimum time to react and means that they can't just slip back out of range and let their airpower and artillery do the job for them. As the Chinese used to say, "If you are fighting a giant hold on to his belt". Similiar tactic for armour, try to get within 1,000m and then fire first and exploit it with everything you've got. It's like fighting Archers with infantry, it's no good atanding off, they'll just kill you. At 30mph across country a T-72 can cross 500m to be in contact in about 30seconds, firing canester and it's MG's as it goes. If it's backed up with BMP-2's with a 30mm gun and hull MG's plus infantry, thats a formidable amount of firepower for an unprotected ATGM crew to face. Also local direct observed mortar support with plenty of smoke would also help. All this would be hard to do especially with the quality of the Syrian forces, but waiting till you see the whites of their eyes is the best tactic for me. Just because you have a weapon with a range of nearly 2km, doesn't mean you need to use it at that range. Who here if they have standard Shermans with a 75mm gun, ever decided to go toe to toe with tigers at long range. Maybe you should treat Javelins like 88mm flaks, what tactics did you use in CM against them? Good topic FK, this is something we can discuss. Peter.

cassh, Where did you get the information that the J-XX is in service, as far as anything I have read or heard it hasn't left the drawing board let alone flown. Peter.

Actually it was Donald not David and It was published in 1975, I just checked it out on Amazon, and can you believe someone wants $185 for it. We got it out of the libaray and it must have cost about £1.50 then. Still a great little book though. Ah Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.... Peter.

I started out doing much the same thing with friends some 30+ years ago, and we actually used rules from a book called "Skirmish" by a guy called David Featherstone. To this day I can tell you that at short range theirs a 60% chance of hitting someone running, and that at Short Mreium and long ranges an SMG gets +30, +10, -10, on chance to hit. The book had a core set of rules and a set of special rules for periods from I think the Romans, through to WW2. Great days, for a kid in his very early teens. Peter

sgtgoody (esq), Water?????? Peter.

lucero1148, I just don't see the US hitting the Chinese mainland first, China is a far bigger target than anything the US has taken on before, Iraq and bosnia are tiny in comparison, and it also opens up the hour glass aspect. For the tactic to succeed the US would have to launch hundreds of cruise missiles over a sustained period and hope that a nation of 1.2bn didn't have the manpower to keep it repaired. By comparison, less advanced or not, to stop the US air offensive, the chinese only have to disrupt about a half dozen sited in the pacific. Again I think for a nation the size of China to keep planes fueled and flying over it's own airspace is a lot more sustainable than the US trying to do it 8,000 plus miles across the Pacific from California. US avaiation fuel would have to be shipped in oil tankers or by air toislands under attack. We got through the entire Korean war killing each others troops in droves while the US never attacked the Chinese mainland and the Chinese never once tried to bomb a US carrier. If the US could avoid attacking the Chinese mainland it would be in it's own interests. Just because it could cruise the Chinese mainland doesn't make it a good idea. Broadening the conflict is a bad idea because fighting over thse distances through so few instalations is hard enough without them being under attack. Peter.

mav1, I always thought the view that CM had a sort of density view of trees a bit like looking through fog, rather than calculating how many individual tree trunks a line of site went through. In that respect I would be looking at at most two LOS calculations, Low, for crouched Infantry v Crouched infantry , which looks at ground cover, and high which is over the top of ground cover. I don't know how different that would be to what CM1 does. As for buildings, I had hoped that M:SF would let you mix levels so that you could have an open sided base and solid above, to represent the likes of a block of flats that had shops at the bottom but apartments at the top. To do this different levels would need different LOS characteristic for seeing in to and through, so that would mean some Vertical LOScalculations just like tree cover. Peter.

I can understand Norway cutting production in 2002, at under $15 a barrell it was costing more to produce that they were getting from it. $15 a barrell is about North Sea production cost. It's more like $10 or less in the Gulf, but why should you use up your countries non renewable resources quickly at a low rate of return so that someone else can have cheap fuel. It's a bit rich for the EU and the US to complain about Opec, when they both subsidise their farmers and use tarffs to control agricultural prices. Free trade is fine but as we have seen over the last few years there has been a reaction against the "globalisation" of world trade, with countries increasingly reasserting their soverign right to control the level and price of their own natural resources. That might go down like a lead ballon with countries who's consumer and manufacturing sectors need cheap raw materials but we in the west don't really have any right to demand they go against there own national interest. I've never been particularly keen on the International trickle down theory where if the economy in the devloped world booms, their will be benefits for all, because domestically the benefits to the poorest seem to be extremely small. Sure in the UK and US poverty has slightly diminished, but the gap between the rich and poor has got wider. Peter. Peter.