Yair Iny

Absolutely awesome vid Vark, but in fairness to the pilot I didn't take him to have lost his cool. The heavy breathing is standard fare when pulling Gs, you can see the G indicator on top of the left (airspeed) scale. From my (very modest) personal experience flying light aircraft, 3g is quite a bit, so imagine what the 5-6g he was pulling must feel like, especially since he was doing it on and off for quite a long time. Must have been a really stressful environment, the constant beep that can be heard most of the video is an continuous lock indication from the threat warning receiver, and that was only interrupted by the loud beeping which is a launch indication, I'd be ****ting myself .

Well, it's all relative you know. After lugging around a Galil, both long and short versions, (3.5 and 4.2 kg) throughout my regular Army service. When they finally gave us M4s in the reserves, I couldn't wipe the smile off my face the whole time I was there. Not only is the weapon way lighter, so are the mags!

Hey, shouldn't the Toyota say "Technical" instead of "Pick Up"? Damn misleading labels.... Also, it looks like they slightly misjudged the minimum range of those missiles, I mean you don't have to be THAT close to the airplane to hit.

Dietrich - very interesting article, thanks for the link! Bodkin - If CMx2 models the squad too bunched up, imagine how much more CMx1 did. In CMx1 it was a single point, but in CMx2 a squad can occupy 3 action spots. So perhaps the MGs were too powerful in CMx1 as opposed to underpowered in CMx2...

For sure you will, but the 2010 chrissie

Sorry, but I have to disagree. I think MG lethality in game is modeled more or less OK. I think that the opposite view is not taking into account changes to the rest of the weaponry, combined with a slight over-admiration of all things German in WW2. Bottom line, as I see it at least, is that MGs haven't changed all that much since then. Not in terms of effective range, ammo lethality, firing rate, etc. On the other hand, in WW2 a squad of 12 marines armed with Garands had little "leverage" to exert on an opposing MG42 nest 600m away. Nowadays, with the effective range of a trained Marine with an ACOG equipped M16, coupled with underslung GLs, I wouldn't want to be that lone MG42 against them.

The article is a bit heavy on hyperbole and a bit inconsistent. You'll notice in the photo of the Magach (M60), that it was one of TWO confirmed kills by AT teams. So it wasn't really "great punishment". Unfortunately, at least to the IDF, the heaviest losses in that part of the war were actually suffered when the IAF mistakenly dropped cluster bombs on an IDF battalion. This by no means intends to denigrate the Syrian commandos, who at the time were a very credible fighting force. But the Syrian airforce did not exactly cover itself in glory and when the IAF destroyed the Syrian IADS network in Lebanon, they actually lost 82 fighters to 0 IAF losses in one day. The bulk of the IDF ~800 losses in the 3-year long 1st Lebanon war were inflicted by the PLO and Hezbollah/Amal, not the Syrians. In fact it would be fair to say that nowadays Syria depends on Hezbollah to defend it's Lebanon flank, and quite rightly so, given the outcome of the 2nd Lebanon war.

Make sure you didn't lose the squad leader. In the first marine campaign mission, I discovered that if the team leader goes, the squad cannot call arty or air anymore. Mind you, these are the sniper squads from the first marine mission, but maybe it's different with the proper full infantry squads because they have more team leaders.

If the ammo is in a box, then it's just grabbing the box. Don't know if in the US Army, they have pre-loaded mags, in the IDF we didn't and reloading isn't so much about grabbing ammo, but more about putting into your empty mags (Galil has 35 rounds per mag, which doesn't match up to the standard 30 round packet, and also has a nasty strong spring which makes stuffing the last rounds quite annoying). Mind you, I never did this anywhere outside of training, so in real combat conditions, there might be preloaded mags, but knowing the IDF I doubt it Any US/Brit/Syrian () serviceman care to chime in?

Thanks Steve, that's wonderful news!

Steve, Jon, thanks for the info, very informative and interesting.

Steve, just to satisfy my curiosity, from the information given to you by the large number of US armed forces personnel (current and past), can US spotters really regularly call in accurate fire in under two minutes? Do they transmit the requested target information by speaking over the radio or by systems communicating? I'm just thinking that even speaking, reading back, and making sure you got the right info would make it go over two minutes...

Bigduke, I don't know about Syrian commandoes, but when I was in the IDF, in an artillery unit that had some fairly sophisticated weaponry, we didn't have GPS. This was '93 thru '96. Even as a reservist, we didn't have a plethora of GPSs, though I know they are now prevalent. Considering the state of the Syrian economy and its armed forces, I wouldn't take it for granted that every unit has GPS, NVG and LRF. I don't know what BF's sources are, and it's not like I have any better ones, but I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised if they were haphazardly supplied and thus their availability and the knowledge of how to use them would be haphazard too.

Secondbrooks, Thanks for you detailed reply. In my experience, you don't walk around with your finger on the map, when you have a good idea of where you are, you can turn that good idea of your location into an exact coordinate, but it can take a bit of time to orient yourself in order to find that exact location. I wasn't in the infantry, but in the artillery, and not in the kind that shoots the regular 155s, so I don't have much personal experience with fire missions from either side. But communicating anything precise over a military radio is fraught with errors, hence the readbacks required and verifications that take time. Note that this is done for far less dangerous tasks than requesting fire support. It just takes some time. Next, figuring out an azimuth and distance on a regular paper map also takes time, maybe 30 seconds, and again, you want to double check because you are going to fire in close proximity to friendlies, this takes time too. As I and others have said, if anything, 2 minutes seems like a very fast (maybe too fast) time to me, not the opposite. Only explanation I can think of that makes this realistic is good GPS equipment on both sides, maybe some LRF to figure out the distance to target (from the calling side) faster, etc. Cheers

5 minutes is not a long time actually. If anything, the 2 minute US times seem a bit short to me. Think about it, what is being abstracted here into those 5 minutes? 1. Finding your exact location on the map, and from that the exact location of your target point. 2. Transmitting the information and making sure it has been received correctly (i.e. readbacks, etc). 3. Mortar crew needs to know their own exact location and figure out azimuth and distance to target. 4. Then fire spotting rounds and correct. All in all, this could easily take 5 minutes in real life, even by well trained crews. I guess having GPS for both the requesting and the firing sides, helps a bit, so might some equipment on the mortar side of things that would help with azimuth (i.e. something better than a magnetic compass). So all in all, I could maybe see how if all things went perfect (i.e no transmission errors, or readback errors, etc), the US could pull off two minutes, but 5 minutes for Syrian crews who probably don't have GPS equipment, doesn't strike me as excessive at all. BigDuke, it was Mount Hermon, not Hebron, and Syrian commandos beating the regular (and small) garrison of the Hermon post is no big deal. They aren't exactly the cream of IDF infantry either. That notwithstanding, the Syrian commandos have a very good reputation in the IDF for basic infantry skills. This, however, has little bearing on their supposed fire integration skills, which is affected by doctrine, specific training and equipment.

Nicely done! Cool style of AAR, keep 'em coming

Elmar, i'm not american, so hopefully you don't see this as a jingoistic response. But I'm not sure what you mean about the bang for the buck thing. Of course, the higher the budget, the more wastage is going to be and the less properly exploited it will be (in relative terms). But this military budget, with as much bang for the buck as so happens to be, supports the strongest, most sophisticated armed force in the world, one that, let's face it, is the guarantor of peace and stability for all Western countries, the Netherlands included. And as an aside, in regards to bang for the buck, the Marines, specifically, don't have that big a budget, but I doubt there are any finer regular infantrymen in the world. If the US Army was able to operate at the efficiencies and coordination levels of the Marines (which it can't due to its size), it would be far more powerful than it already is. And I doubt other armed forces are at the level of the USMC, I know the IDF first hand from my service there, and I can tell you, for example, most certainly, that it doesn't reach the same level of Air Land coordination.

Well, for what it's worth, I enjoyed your vids greatly. After watching them I switched from WeGo to RT, let go a bit, and now enjoy the game heaps more than before. Nearly finished the US Army campaign now, whereas before I couldn't muster the patience to sit through anything but small scens. Not trying to pressure you or anything like that. If you make more I'll definitely watch and enjoy them. But even if you don't record anymore, I just wanted to say thanks for the effort and that it's appreciated! Cheers

Can't wait to see your videos (hint, hint )

Agree with your point, with just a couple of notes.. Firstly, Merkava is an MBT, but you probably mean the IFVs developed on a Merkava chassis, i.e. the Namer. Secondly, and this is just to add to your point, IDF lost several Merkava tanks to IED in 2006, in fact most or all of the catastrophic losses were to IEDs and not to ATGMs. Right after the patrol was attacked and the two wounded soldiers taken by Hezbollah, Israel rushed forces into Lebanon to try and interdict them (according to their SOP Hannibal) and lost one to an IED, basically aborting the operation.

AFAIK, the surrender is based on percentage of the original force (inc. reinforcements), and not on the AI force being made completely combat ineffective.

Thanks. I was thinking about it and thought maybe the solid "walls" formed by the tracks would capture more of the blast, but your explanation makes far more sense

Why is that? Is there an advantage to a wheeled vehicle over a tracked one, given all else being equal?

The M113 APC of course. It has never really been called Gavin, but that name is being promoted by the looney that is Mike Sparks. One of the darker corners of the internet, to be sure

Yeah but the GAVIN is the best APC in the world, and is in fact the solution to everything, silly Douglas Adams thinking it was 42, when in fact it was 113! But on a more serious note, ERA surely weighs quite a bit, and protects the Brad from most RPGs (except for dual warhead new-gens).