Drusus
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Posts posted by Drusus
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If the US side had lost 10 wounded and 2 dead in the battle it would still have been a victory for them. I think CMSF is going to have victory conditions based on the idea that even if you won the battle, you still wasn't good enough given the situation. You are given result based on the point of view of the batallion commander, for example. I think there are examples of battles that were won by the side performing badly. Two different things, again.
Example from CMx1. Put 10:1 odds in a meeting engagement. The 'ten' side will almoust always win. Still, if the 'ten' side plays poorly, it is possible the 'ten' side takes too much losses given the situation. CMx1 doesn't take this into account, CMSF propably will. But to lose a battle like that means you tried to lose...
So, it is possible to claim that the US side didn't do as well as was expected given the situation but that doesn't mean they lost the battle. In my opinion they did well enough. If they did well enough or not is an open question, we really don't know enough of the battle.
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In Vietnam the ultimate problem was that there were very few local people who were willing to support the USA and the majority of the population was against the USA. Now, the reason for this might be part in what happened at the tactical level but mostly in the setup of the war. USA was trying to plant a government which wasn't exactly popular amongst the people, etc. The reason was also partly in air bombings and what the troops did between the battles and so on. But to claim that the tactical level battles were a failure because US lost the war is just not correct. If the USA would only have used air bombing and artillery in tactical battles the view we have of the war might be much different. If they hadn't used them at all the result would have been a disaster.
To win the war I think it would have been necessary to end up in some kind of reasonable political decision. Now, the really interesting question is, if they had ended up in some political decision which could have been described as a draw, would every tactical battle been a draw also? BTW Vietnam era history isn't my strongest area, so, as always, feel free to correct...
The same in Iraq. The insurgency is coming from different sources, but I think the most important reasons are in the setup for the war. The WMDs and all. And what was done and more importantly what wasn't done in the first months after the mission was accomplished. Ofcourse USA in middle east is red herring to most of Arabs. And then the major one, the problem that the Sunnis don't exactly like Shiias. Now if we take all this into account, it is very much possible that it is impossible to win the war with the style USA is currently trying (I am not claiming it is impossible). So, should we conclude that every tactical battle is lost even before they started? I don't think so. And what happens if we claim that the tactical battles were lost and it turns out the USA won the war? Should we change the result of the battles?
One could take into account also the amount of collateral damage done. But it is a case of considering if there was too much collateral damage vs the damage done to the enemy. In Tal Afar this might make the victory less total, but the amount of damage done wasn't excessive.
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It is said that the USA never lost a battle in Vietnam, jet they lost the war. Now according to bigdukes definition actually they lost most of the battles. Also we could claim that the Russians actually won most of the summer 41 battles and operations because they eventually won the war. And yes, it is in a way true. If they had lost even more quickly in the summer, the Germans might have won the war. But in reality claiming that the Russians won the summer 41 battles because they won the war is just silly.
So, to claim that the USA lost the battle because it might be that they are going to lose the war isn't correct. But there is a more valid claim, and that is that while winning the battle (which they did, like it or not) it might be that they caused too much damage to the city considering the overall cause. Ofcourse one has to take into consideration the amount of damage done to buildings and civilians vs the amount of damage done to the enemy. I could start another thread on this...
Another thing is that the insurgents could also claim that they won the battle. The thing is they didn't have any mission beforehand and after the battle they can claim that they succeded in defending the mosque. Only problem is that the mosque wasn't a target for the US side. BTW mixing the downing of the helo in the end results isn't fair. It was the reason there was a battle, not part of it.
Last thing: Of course the report was onesided and it is clear that it is. But it is not the same thing as saying it is false or that the meaning of it is to hide the real end result.
You are welcome to call me biased or anything, but one thing is sure: my punctuation and grammar isn't that good.
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That is true. Everything can be treated as either wave or particle.
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Interesting things from CMSF point of view.
There has been complaining about the thing that any opposition there might be will be destroyed quickly and painlesly by air support. Well, from that report it seems that this is not the case. It took about 30min for the air support to arrive, which means there is plenty of time to fight on the ground. Ofcourse things might be different when fighting the conventional part of the war.
Also, it seems that the ground forces had a pretty good idea when and where that strike was coming in, unfortunately it is not clear who targeted the attack. But there is one thing that would be really nice to have as a tool to help coordinating movements. To link barrages (or CAS) and troop movement, that is "as soon as that bomb hits, I’m going to flank around and take those buildings." I know this is a standard way of doing things in Finnish Army. Not with CAS (because we don't have any...) but with artillery barrages. Actually the one in charge of the attack knows the exact stopping moment of the barrage. Don't know how it is in US Army.
Next, there is the thing about ammo resupply, I am just wondering how will this be simulated. Maybe something like the "In Command" system in CMx1? If the unit is "In Contact" (shown with a line) with its Stryker, then it can resupply itself? And maybe they can resupply from any of the Strykers? Resupply is one thing that allows for much different tactics to be used, one doesn't have to worry too much about ammo. For me ammo has always been the hard part in CMx1. Along with having enough living soldiers, that is
And last, the situation seemed to be that they had no idea whatsoever before the fight what their opposition might be, even if they had UAVs and all. But during the fight they were able to use their UAV to spot enemies.
How did they know how many enemies they killed? It seems that they left the place after they had control of the helicopter? Maybe the report just doesn't tell about what happened after 11:30.
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Even a rational decision maker can do things that seem irrational afterwards. This happens if you calculate wrong or don't know all the facts.Originally posted by Bigduke6:The world is laughing at the Russian army for being unable to arrest a few Chechen bandits (the world, inaccurately, thinks that should be easy), and instead of a stable Russian frontier on the Caucauses - which you need to transport fuel to places like Turkey - you have a war zone. And this is the result of rational decision-making?
Well yes, if part of your reasoning assumes Russia must assert its power, and challenges to that power should not be ignored, if at all possible.
Ofcourse the decision making is based on some values. It seems that keeping Chechenya is highly valued. But what can the Russians gain from sending troops to Syria? Popularity. What can they lose? Well, a lot. For example what happens if their forces are completely overrun by the US? Bye bye popularity...
Sending equipment is much more likely, though I don't think that they would do even that in a large scale. There is the risk of losing all relations to all of the west and ending up in a new cold war type period. Not good for Russia. Sending some equipment? Could be likely, for example some AT & AA missiles, maybe some modern artillery ammunition. Things they want to test against western equipment. But not big amounts of airplanes, tanks or something like that.
I don't think Putin is losing his sleep because of the elections.So if it were possible to stick an airborne brigade in Syria, and thereby forestall a U.S. invasion, I bet the Kremlin would consider it. Think how great they would look, if they could pull it off. You think that wouldn't put the popularity of the Russian government with the Russian masses in just about the triple digits? Don't they have an election coming up pretty soon? Hmmm.....
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I would just like to take a quick look at basic logic. Lets take for example Project Rainbow. You claim that is is highly likely that they tested invisibility technology. And that the result was a disaster. Now, you try to prove that with the fact* that there was some pages missing from the log book. Now, we have a situation that the official story isn't true. And therefore invisibility technology was tested. Unfortunately this logic doesn't make sense.
In the same way I could claim that they were trying to fly with that ship. It ended up in a disaster and they covered it up by altering the log. Or that they were testing the blowjob machine. In the same way I could claim that the Nazis killed Kennedy. Or aliens. We take that there is something fishy in the original story, and therefore my version must be true. The logic conspiracy theorists are using is: Not A => B is true, where A is the official story and B is something that could replace the original story. In reality the fact* that the official JFK story isn't true doesn't say anything about the truth value of the Nazi version. Expect that if the official is true, then ofcourse the Nazi version can't be true. Often used is also the logic that something a conspiracy theorist claims is found to be true, and then they claim that everything they say must be true.
One claiming anti-gravity technology or making something undetectable by any means must have _really_ strong evidence. I would believe it only if I didn't see the ship with my own eyes, and even then I would think that it is likely a trick. But what do you have? You have missing pages from a log book. BTW I don't think that the conspiracy theorists always believes their own stories. It might only be business for them.
* I don't know if this is really a fact or not, but it doesn't matter.
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Hmm, maybe I don't understand something about the relations of Syria and Russia and Iraq and Russia, but why isn't Russia sending weapons to the insurgents? If there were a conflict between Syria and West, why would they then send weapons?
I just happen to think that if Russia waged a proxy war, then Chechenya could be _much_ harder for them. The Russians have seen what can happen when USA starts sending equipment to insurgents... I don't know what you mean by saying governments are nasty people, but if you mean that Russia would send equipment to Syria just to tease USA, then I disagree. If you mean that the thing that sending equipment is a nasty thing to do doesn't weigh much in their decision making, then I agree. But I also think that governments behave usually somewhat rationally (in their context, that is), and for Russia the situation is that they would risk much for little gain.
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If USA would try to Thunder Run Damascus and fail, then it might take really long to take all of Syria. When succesful, Thunder Run can make the morale of the enemy collapse, but if it ends up in a disaster (big losses + nothing gained) it can make the morale of the enemy much better.
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There must be more reason to send arms to Syria than just to tease USA. The people in Kremlin aren't stupid, why would they risk their relations with west? In 1970 the situation was a lot different, USA and Soviet Union were in a war, although a cold one, but still. To send weapons, Russians must think that the gains they are likely to make are big enough. The thing that Syria is where it is might be enough. But Russia doesn't want to make USA angry, it might be that there would be a great amount of fourth-generation AT weapons in Chechenya... I have a feeling that the situation in Russia-USA relations is that both are happy that they can fight their own wars.
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[conspiracy theory]Originally posted by Bil Hardenberger:The US Military are fools for not investing in these games' development... CM:SF I have always thought sounded a lot like it was targeted directly at the US military... program it and they will come.
BFC decided to do the game with modern US equipment because they know they can sell it to US Military. It will turn out that the military isn't interested in CMSF as a training simulator but as an enlisting tool. They let people play CMSF for a while and then it is only possible to play more if you enlist.
[/conspiracy theory]
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If the European Rapid Deployment Forces would somehow take part in the battle... I don't know what is the current status of the ERDF and in case they would be ready in 2007 there is still two more problems. First the amount of time it would take to make the political decision of committing the forces would take about two years and several national referendums. In 2009 ERDF could then rapidly deploy to Syria... But seriously speaking I think it is going to be impossible to model something like ERDF where every batallion is propably going to have different organization and different equipment. Ofcourse you could cherry pick some nice equipment, like AMOS and 81 krh 71 Y Tampella... One thing is sure, ERDF is going to be logistical nightmare.
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If there would be a module with French forces it could mean that it would be possible to play USA vs France. I hope BFC is going to allow not only playing USA vs USA but also USA vs the other Nato countries introduced later.
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The thing Russia could realistically do to make the situation for the USA much worse is supplying Syria with all kinds of equipment. But even doing that would be unlikely. And if I recall correctly the war in CMSF is not about Hariri murder but something else.
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It is hard for me to believe that the main reason for bayonet training is teaching people to be killers. I believe it is more about tradition. And knowing that you have that last resort is a psychological advantage. I don't really know if there is any use for bayonets in the real fighting, but I must say that it would seem likely that the soldiers _could_ end up in a bayonet fight. And it is important that the soldiers have a feeling that if that happens, then they know what to do. We were teached to clean our equipment with a branch of pinewood if we ended up in a nuclear weapons fallout (propably we were also supposed to do this with chemical weapons too, don't remember), then we would end up quickly in a cleaning tent that was ofcourse ready and able to take all the fighters in a big unit simultaneously. There was one tent in batallion or more likely one in a brigade. No reason to fear nuclear weapons... The reason we had this training is the same for there being dug & cover teaching.
In my military training there wasn't much close combat training and I never saw a bayonet during the year I was in army. If you end up in close combat you are most likely to go with your primitive reactions anyways. The teaching we had was first some moves and then we were told that in reality it is more effective to just kick & rip & scream and so on... You must be a professional close combat fighter to use effectively the moves you have learned. The thing that the primitive reaction might be to thrust with a sharp stick is a different matter.
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I only want to compare the way people are seeing the forecoming war. And the possible effect of thinking that Syria would be as easy to take as Iraq. In 1939 the Red Army was sure they could crush Finnish Defence Forces (FDF) in less than a month. And people saying that this would not happen were (propably) few and (propably) mostly Finnish. Yes, I know there are MAJOR differences between Red Army vs FDF and USA vs Syria. But, IF the mentality of the US Army is that they are just going to take Damascus with the same plan they did take Baghdad it could end up in a disaster. In WWII some countries collapsed suprisingly easily (France) and some countries resisted the attack suprisingly well (Finland). In 2003 Iraq's defence collapsed suprisingly easily. This doesn't imply that the Syrian defence must collapse as easily. It could happen, but jet again, trying Thunder Run to Damascus could end up in a disaster. There are some differences between Syria and Iraq: Saddam's regime was based on the minority of Iraqs. The Iraqi army was bombed (more or less) for ten years and before that some of the forces were already destroyed in GWI. There might be differences in the training. And maybe the biggest difference is that the mentality of the defenders of Syria could be much better. And ofcourse the equipment of Saddam's Army was ten years outdated.
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I would like to know more about the restraints there will be for the Syrian forces in QBs. For example in CMAK the forces of differen nations are different only at the level of equipment and organization. At least I think they are. Is it going to be like that in CMSF? What I mean is that will it be possible to have an elite T72 crew that is as good as an elite M1A2 crew? Will there be commands not availabe for the Syrians? At least one more difference there is going to be is that in CMSF there is a lot better modelled command structure, so this gives the US forces an advantage. It could be interesting if you could do CMx1 style QBs where the difference would be only in the equipment. Not realistic, but QBs arent supposed to be.
A quick teaser: What would happen if a Stryker company trained in the Syrian way would attack a US trained T72 platoon? Wouldn't it be nice to try that out?
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My point was about the mentality that the US forces are going to win by doing only easy fighting. That there aren't going to be any interesting battles to play in CMSF because the Syrians can't do anything but either go home or die without a chance of winning even a single CMSF sized battle. That mentality is very much the same the Red Army had in 1939. If the US would attack with that mentality (lets drive to Damascus and the war is over), there could be some disasterous results. If there would be is more about the mentality the Syrians would have in the war than equipment & training. If I have understood the reason for Thunder Run correctly it was to give Saddam's Army a decisive blow. But what happens if the blow isn't decisive? You have lost a huge gamble. Here is a really interesting link: Thunder Run (www.tankmastergunner.com) I don't know if that is accurate description of the battle, but interesting anyways
I think it could even be possilbe to just drive to Damascus. But the real problem is what to do when you get there (propably with high losses). What if you can't hold the ground you just gained? You are (relatively) alone in the center of a huge city and there are hostile forces everywhere, if you run out of supplies you are in real problems. If I remember correctly the Russians tried their version of Thunder Run in Groznyi. First they drove to the center of Groznyi and lost some tanks doing it. Then they saw that it was impossible to stay there and drove away. And lost even more tanks doing that. Now, there are propably more informed people to tell how the battle at Groznyi really went. That is just how I remember hearing about the attack. Compare Groznyi to Thunder Run. If the Syrians are any better trained or equipped than the Iraqis, then doing Thunder Run to Damascus would end up as in Groznyi. From that description of the Thunder Run it was close enough to end like Groznyi in Iraq, too.
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There was once this war in which a small country with an army equipped with outdated weapons was able to stop the attack of one of the major powers of the time. I am of course talking about Winter War. If the US side is going to have some troubles attacking, the reason is going to be the same it was in 1939: being overly confident in their superior war machine. You know, Finland was supposed to fall in less than a month (two weeks to take Helsinki is what I remember was the plan), but Finland was able to survive for over 3 months. Ofcourse if the war had continued, the Finnish defence would have collapsed.Originally posted by Battlefront.com:To get back to the topic of this thread...
I think another Thunder Run style move will be anticipated by the Syrians. The two reasons it worked in Iraq was a) they weren't expecting it (few could say they were!) and
there was little indication that the Iraqis could do much against it. Both elements are lacking now, at least in theory.What is the counter to a Thunder Run style attack? Easy... ambush teams armed with heavy ATGMs, RPGs, grenades, plentiful small arms, and perhaps a few other nasties like IEDs positioned along likely routes. I think it is highly likely that some urban areas will see these types of defenses waiting for an invasion. It is easily within Syria's current means, and therefore should be considered plausible.
I am not comparing the equipment or training or leadership or anything like that of the US army and the Red army. But, in the Winter War the Soviet plan was to just drive through Finnish defence and win the war. It turned out that that was (not suprisingly) a bad plan. I think that there are people on this board showing the mentality that the war against Syria would be just driving through the Syrian defence and winning the war. In case the Syrians are going to defend their land to the last man (I really don't know if this would be the case) then the US Army would have to do some real fighting. And this gives us interesting battles to play. As Steve pointed out, the Syrians propably have the tools for stopping Thunder Run type attack(s). The question is if the mentality to do so is there.
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There are two separate issues. If I have understood correctly there is first the stage of more or less conventional fighting where the US Army fights against the Syrian Army. And US are going to win this one. The question is how much casualties they are going to take. It seems that there would be some CMSF scale battles that the Syrian Army could win. But winning even something like one CM operation style battle is going to be hard. That is, the Syrians will propably be able to hold some location for the first encounter, but if the US Army wants to take that location, then it is going to happen. It might take more than one try, but it is going to happen anyways. (I am not talking about taking Damascus, but a small village or something like that).
Then there is the 2nd stage of fighting. The insurgency. Now, this could be really hard or even impossible for the US to win. Or then not. It depends of why the forces are there.
Just one interesting question: How likely is it that the fighting goes in clear stages? As I have understood in Iraq there was clearly the Army vs Army stage, which was over fast. And then, _after_ that, the insurgency started. Now, if in Syria 1) the insurgency would be a lot stronger 2) the insurgency would start immediately and 3) the Army and the insurgents would work together, then the mission of taking Damascus could turn out to be really, really hard. Ofcourse then there is the question what it means to take Damascus.
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I really hope they are going to have some European country in the first module. The thing that would be really cool to have is European Rabit Deployment Forces (can beat any hamsters out there...) as that way one could play with almoust any European military. But I don't think it is going to happen,as modelling the units in ERDF is propably more work than the modelling of units in CMBB was. The great think will be playing some European country vs the US.
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I think Madmatt is the one who chooses the beta testers. If I have understood correctly they have already enough testers and even if they would need more they will contact you, not the other way around. Ofcourse if you have some really special skills then they might be interested. If you have been to the Rim and seen the technology yourself or something like that...
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I think maybe even more important is that in Iraq if you do something against the Sunni insurgency, then it is very much possible that the thing is considered anti-Sunni and not anti-Insurgency. If you do something to help the Sunni population, it might be considered pro-Sunni and anti-Shia (for example more Sunni security forces). If you have a country with unified population, then a) if you do something to help them, there is nobody who thinks that it was against them and
democracy has much more hope of actually working. -
There is a nice video of firing a spike here. www.mil.fi
there was little indication that the Iraqis could do much against it. Both elements are lacking now, at least in theory.
Was it a victory? You decide!
in Combat Mission Shock Force 1
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I am claiming that winning a battle should not be confused with the winning of the war. But this debate has gone to the point that everybody should define what they mean by winning a battle. Else there is not much point continuig. As I see it a battle is something in which you have a set of missions (or objectives) you are asked to accomplish. Hopefully with acceptable losses. There might also be other considerations like avoiding civilian casualties but they rarely are really key objectives. And generally you are allowed to do collateral damage but not excessive collateral damage.
The thing is that the missions could be impossible with given forces, and it is sure that you are going to lose the battle even before it is started. Even if you manage to do more losses to the enemy that was expected you have still lost. Ofcourse if you manage to do _really_ big losses to the enemy but not accomplish your objectives you may actually be considered winner, but even this is stretching the definition. This is in other words the CMx1 view of victory. CMSF will propably also have the "losing more than expected given the situation" way of viewing things.
I don't see any point in a definition of winning that says that every battle of the war will be judged by the end result of the war. A soldiers performance is separate from the battle. Or do you think that every german soldier was a piece of junk because germany eventually lost the WWII? The logic is: They lost WWII so this means that they lost every war, which means that they lost every operation and this means that they lost every battle. Thus every soldier didn't do well enough.
My point is that if we are talking about winning a battle, we shouldn't talk about the end result of the war. Just the one _separate_ battle. In short, there is a thing called Pyrrhic victory.