dan/california

"A human player will launch Kornet missiles into marine-occupied buildings." Would the Syrians start with these in place or would they have to set up under observation and fire? It changes the number of them you need by a factor of three or more.

The presence or absence of choke points in the terrain would also be hugely influential. If the Syrians could crest an entire company of Turms at the same instant they would have a chance at establishing superiority of fire with good combined arms tactics. If they have to dribble in its a shooting gallery.

It depends a LOT on how artillery you are willing to give the Syrians for an opening barrage. Three modules of MLRS would go a long way to making an attack doable, especially considering the current limits on fortifications. In the absence of said opening barrage, and assuming good defensive terrain, you are basically looking at having to attrit away the heavy weapons at an exchange rate that would be mind boggling. If the Marines in question had even good mortar fire support, much less anything heavier, you would have to be willing to stack a HUGE number of bodies and burning wrecks to get anywhere. Whole companies of Syrian infantry could just vaporize. flamingknives is certainly correct about one of the minimum standards though.

Air Power... Speaking strictly in game terms, airpower is both less responsive and much more inclined to friendly fire problems than artillery. Therefore it is often wise to call it as early and as far forward of your own troops as possible. At this point helicopters and Fixed wing get very different in my experience. For fixed wing assets they tend to have massive overmatch against point targets so if there are building that are obvious problems and/or objectives, just flatten them. An JDAM into the bottom floor usually brings the whole thing down. No building, no problem. I get excellent results with helicopters by giving maximum size area targets specifying armor. But this is a blunt instrument and requires a LARGE separation between the specified area and your own troops. This has frequently resulted in the choppers killing AFVs I hadn't spotted yet. The chopper will also provide a certain amount of recon. Helicopters are much less effective against buildings in my experience.

Would any Hungarian really want to be reminded of the Eastern Front? Fighting for the wrong side, badly, doesn't make for the most rousing story after all.

I'll just go spray Round Up on all the landscaping now. It will be kinder than letting it die slowly of neglect. The cats are looking quite concerned as well.....

Google earth is going to be so confused about the sudden interest in northern France.

The far bigger issue with gun based AA is it has a fairly serious altitude limitation. And you can drop most precision guided weapons from a lot higher than said limitation. If your opponent can't afford PGMs they probably can't afford the zillion other wildly expensive things it takes to run a real air force and probably aren't a real threat anyway. Two of the most important expenses are fuel and maintenance support for sufficient training by the way.

I seem to recall the historical version of one of them being based entirely around a bridge the English got caught on both sides of in marching, as opposed to battle order. Unfortunately the movie was unable to get, or make, a bridge, so they just fudged it.

A few of them have been posted as such. Pooh is one of them, I thought.

The two overwhelming imperatives as res are reduce the engagement range to the absolute minimum, and remember that the RPG is all that matters. If you can get flank shots so much the better, but I would take close from the front over long from the side any day. It can also be very worthwhile to leave troops on hide if you think blue is not going to be in engagement range soon. It reduces their urge to pop off random rounds that scream "kill me please! Yo over here! Yes here". This applies to MOST red forces, Kornet equipped Airborne is a completely different beast. Have you played the Pooh scenario yet? I would LOVE to play it against you as red in a PBEM.

And they are more dangerous than Al Queda!

How does grenade chucking work of these "special" columns?

I think Steve's last translates as "Brit Mod sales are excellent, and we can afford to have Christmas without getting Normandy out".

The vast percentage of small arms ammunition just gets sprayed in the general direction of the enemy, and that is for very well trained troops. The hit rate for poorly trained troops must infinitesimal. So there is a real debate to be had on the merits of both sides of weight vs lethality. The Army seems to be trying to put the whole argument off until DARPA or somebody like them comes up with a truly revolutionary "something".

Almost the entire original rationale for the 5.56, as I understand it, was that you could carry more bullets for the same weight. Whether or not this is the correct primary consideration in the current conflicts is a different question.

I just can't comprehend the mess that would make in real life. Everybody within 50 feet would be suppressed for a month.

Ouch is an inadequate description!

What is the minimum arming range for that missile again? You might literally have been to close. What happened to the BMP?

The CLU would be a wonderful toy even without the attached hammer of Thor.

Steve, the board is still trying to deal with the fact that the earth is round, and disease isn't caused by "vapors" or "humours". Dealing is not our collective strong point.

HistWar might show up before you go from blue to unconscious. But probably not.

A lot of people just seem to hate the Syrian setting with a passion. Many of them will wander back shortly when Normandy arrives. The Normandy launch should be smoother for a vast array of reasons among other things.

In fact, as I understand it the Russians never quite comprehended why NATO insisted on setting up defenses in range of Russian artillery. It made less than no sense to them. The concept of militarily stupid but politically necessary just didn't register. It contributed somewhat to their paranoia about NATOs intentions.

BFC perhaps wants to encourage the Pixeltruppen syrians to get out of their rolling coffins ASAP. Loaded AFVs are probably the juiciest target in the game. The Syrians are not usually playing with the kind of massive artillery suppression that the Russian tactic envisions. I don't think something as nasty as the Javelin was common when that tactic was thought out either.