Peter Cairns

kipanderson, Team play will really make a difference, as you will have to make decisions as too who's respomsibility that AT gun is. Everyone could engage it, but then you could have an entire company stopping to blast one HMG. A better response might be for the players to decide to allocate it to the platoon on that flank. I am looking forward to a five player team sort of game, with three infantry platoon players, a company commander with support and artillery spotters, and a fifth player controlling an attached armour platoon. I don't know how team TOE's will work, but I'd quite like it if you couldn't mix armour and infantry. Ie if you had two players on a team one would be infantry and the other armour, as opposed to each player having a mix of each. By keeping them separate it would better simulate the C3 difficulties of commanding armour and infantry. I remember years back playing a six player game of Squad leader, ( three each side). I was German Infantry on the offensive, and the Guy who had the Panthers was one of these Ober Freaks who loved German equipment. Problem was we had to take part of the town map, and he wouldn't put his precious Panthers anywhere near it in case they got hit. The casualties I took, bloody coward. Peter.

The economic news justs keeps getting worse. BBC on Price Waterhouse Report on Chinese growth. Peter.

Dirtweasle, And if you do the exact same thing and check the surface temperature of a steak at the edge and the centre, you will see that the centre is hotter. I have no and never did say it heats from the inside out, only that more radiowaves get focused at the centre at than at the edges. There are TWO things at work here, the focus of the radio waves and the amount of penetration of the material. The surface of a uniform material will get hotter the closer it is to the centre. If it is a brick little will penetrate but the narrow sides nearer the centre will still get hotter than the further from the centre ends. because they will get hit by radio waves more often as they are closer to the focal point where the radiowaves converge. If it is a large flat dish of custard, with little ability to stop penetration and no real convection current to disperse heat, then the centre will boil before the rim, again because thats where the radio waves are focused. You people really seem to struggle when you have to deal with more than one concept at the same time. Peter.

I never said they cock from the inside out, I said things in the centre cook faster than things at th edge, thats why the rotating ones are better, as they move the meat rather than have it all on the same spots all the time. The comment on cooking from the inside out was made by someone else. Peter.

I'd quite like it if they could have some concealed "graphics". so that a hidden AT Gun at the start of a scenario, had a camo net over it or something. I also think that with relative spotting these weapons should be slightly harder to spot the first time a new unit has aline of sight, even if they have already fired, as it would still have better concealment that a weapon or vehicle that had moved. Peter.

On the media in general I think both the pace of news and competition are now factors. In the electronic age you need to be first with the story and if you don't print it a competitor will. With far more diverse and cut throat media the race to be both first and boldest takes over. At the end of the day the paper that doesn't get the scoops tends to fold and the journalist that doesn't get the story gets replaced. If you look at Road deaths compared to rail deaths cars are far more dangerous, but when was the last time you saw a car crash that killed five get more headlines and photo coverage than a train crash that killed three. More people were killed at the Union carbide plant at Bhopal that in 9/11, We are hunting down Bin Laden while the Head of Union Carbide is in the US with Washington refusing Indian requests to extradite him. The media responds to what excites and alrms, amuses and amazes the public, and before people shot the messanger they should maybe take a closer look at the opinions and tastes of the good folks around them. The Media provide products to meet consumer demand, and what they produce says more about us than them. Peter.

We call it " A Hollow charge round with a copper liner". Peter.

Cpl Steiner, You are of course making the assumption that people in Basra, were blissfully unaware of what was happening in there own city. Few if any of the 103 UK deaths have been as a result of an a media induced backlash. As to censorship you either have it or you don't. In the UK we have a state funded broadcaster that is independent of the government. That means that short of something like operational information that would endanger national security it can pretty much say what it likes, and that for me is better than the US system where the public seem to be getting a sanatised version of the war because the networks and advertisers seem to be scared to say anything that will be deemed up patriotic. Don't forget that the majority of the UK public didn't support the war and that there is a big difference between the national interest and government policy. No one wants to see UK service people killed but if you allow politicains to use them as a human shield, to protect themselves from scrutiny or criticism the death toll may well ultimately be a lot higher. Peter.

Dirtweasle, No it is true, sure some of the radio waves are absorbed by the meat, but the stuff at the centre of the oven still cooks faster as it is at the focal point, just like a magnifying glass burns things. Put a large steak flat in a microwave and I bet the centre is cooked solid long before the edges. Peter.

Steve, This in a way points back to the 105mm v TOW debate, in that if you use a $50,000 missile when a $200 shell would do, you are going to have an expensive war. When you look it, you can probably do as much good in Iraq with a ARH as an Apache, except that you can buy three ARH for one Apache and it's a lot easier and cheaper to maintain and keep flying with a few systems out. Again as with the Stryker arguement, when it comes to a long war, the lower initial costs, cheaper maintainance and smaller logistic footprint all start to add up when compared with a Abrams/Bradley mix. As to the comments on the strength of the US economy despite the war, well I saw the last set of figures that had the housing boom still running at 13% ( in some areas over 30%), and now almost a full quarter with the saving rate at zero. Expanding... Yes, Sustainable.... NO WAY. Peter.

LtCol West, I am pretty sure it's not your bias or the BBC's but the US media. I have a brother and brother in law in Australia who is an engineer and a brother in law Canada. They all visit the states and Europe, and they all say the same. The version of the war you get on US TV is different from the rest of the world. It's not just the BBC, but anywhere in Europe, or Australia, Japan and Canada. The BBC gives pretty balanced coverage of the situation in Iraq, and if it tends to focus on the bad news and goof up's that's not because it is bias, it's because as the journalists say, "Bad News makes Good News". I have a friend just back from two weeks in Texas and they were amazed at US coverage of the war, they even said to the people who they were staying with " Are there Two Iraq's, because I don't recognise this one". Peter.

soory ment to edit and qouted myself. it's midnight here I am off to bed. Peter.

Looking back to before Sept 11th, Bin Laden had already tried to attack the Twin towers once. Why the same target again, what made it so key. well one possibility is money, or "it's the economy stupid". If you look at their targets not from a human but an economic perspective, they have been trying to undermine economies. Kenya, Indonesia, Egypt, all had attacks on tourists, but all were pro western Islamic countries with Tourism orientated economies that went down the tube. Look now at attacks on oil facilities, not just in Iraq and now Saudi, but also Islamic involvement in Nigeria. Add the economic impact of the current cost of oil to the running cost of the war on terror, and you get a picture where "IF" their long term objectve is to undermine us economically, then they have done a damned good job so far. If it is economic, then we could be fighting the wrong war...... Peter.

Interesting reports in the UK press today about the attrition effects of the war on the UK. Guardianunlimited Good background reports on the same site too. John you'll like the LSD one. Peter.

More news from the BBC BBC News BBC Background. Things could be hotting up sooner than we thought, and if the US is tied down elsewhere..... Peter.

I'll happily stand corrected if most people think the size fits. as to an RPG I was thinking something bigger than an RPG-7, but again I would be more inclined to an ATGM, than a Maverick. If nothing else I might have expected more signs that it came in at a higher angle. It all depends of the range of engagement, but if it was launched from 10,000 ft and say 4 miles then it would come in at 20 to 25 degrees. Certainly the "Splash" on the T-72 is mostly below the impact point, but whether the shape of the turret or the angle of impact accounts for that I can't say. The M1 impact seems mostly to the left of impact I've already shown my (very) limited knowledge of Shape charge effects already. Peter.

Well I am no expert but that doesn't look like a Maverick hit. Given the diameter of the hole compared to the gun or the smoke dischargers, I'd say it was a far smaller calibre shaped charge, more like a RPG or some sort. If it had been a surfce explosion from over 50kg's of HE I doubt there would be much left on the surface. Peter.

I've only started to read through the 113 pages, but It seems to ahve quite a few ideas that relate to how a CM:SF campaign will be thought, although you need to wade all the management speak to figure ut what it means. Peter.

John, I doubt that in the kind of mobile warfare that the CM:SF invisages that the Syrians would be able to find any US CP's at all, as they would be highly mobile. They could however assign SS-21's to particular target areas covering either choke points or likely routes of approach. In this way it's not unlikely that a stryker force might become a target of opportunity for such an attack. The plan might well be to use conventional forces to force an advancing US force to halt and debus in or around a predetermined position. Unlike conventional massed artillery the SS_21 has a far better chance to shoot and scoot as it is a single round long range attack rather than multiple vehicles that need to sustain fire to have an effect. Peter. Peter.

Oh on the heavy hitting thread, the Syrian do have a dozen or so highly mobile and hideable ss-21's. With a range of about 60 miles, they can put a just under half ton warhead to within 100m of a target, so maybe the US player might have to face the occational one of these. If you had a dozen or so Strykers supporting infantry advancing along a couple of hundred metres with about a 100 metres depth ( not unlikely given the scenario BFC is portraying), then an SS-21 landing anywhere amoungst it could really ruin your day. Peter.

Only other explaination Ican think of then is that it just detonated on impact with the first thing it touched, ie a turret storage box and the blast disperesd over the surface. Either that or it just didn't go off. Peter.

A couple of possible explainations for the lack of penetration. The delayed fuse must work by either decelleration or a set time delay afy=ter contact to allow time for penetration. To do this effectively we would need the fuse to be set to extremely fine tolerances. If for some reason the T-72 turret was to be "harder" than expected such as,just better than we thought, it hit reactive armour, slates or even an external storage box even, then the charge might detonate early or further out dispersing the blast over the turret rather than penetrating. If this was an effect then you could have an odd saftey feature, in that you could design a warhead that would penetrate and destroy a T-72, but which not penetrate an M-1A2, because the charge would detionate prematurely because of the better armour. Peter.

Do people think that over the last few years the syrians through normal intelegence, and contact with insurgents will have built up a far better understanding of US tactics and capabilities than the Iraqi's had, and if so how should it be portrayed in CM:SF ? Peter.

Michael Emrys, Well if I had been ten miles down the road taking incoming and found out that the Cobra that was supposed to be protecting me was on the ground because the pilot had decided that he wanted to be Mother bloody Terresa, I know what I'd be saying. I may not know much about Jarheads, but I recognise a dickhead when I see one, what was the guy thinking, and how did he get away with it. Peter.