akd

Pretty interesting vehicle on paper. Shame to leave it out considering how little diversity and capability there is amongst most other Syrian AFVs. Isn't the Syrian military boring enough in its backward Sovietness? Would be nice to have a more mobile and concealable platform for the gun-launched ATGMs, and this is also supposedly the intended carrier for Syria's (reported) SA-18 acquisition. [ January 09, 2006, 09:03 PM: Message edited by: akd ]

Yes, the "S" word, and also "Sharpshooters," "Designated Marksmen and "Squad Designated Marksmen." From "Precision Shooting in the Global War on Terror," Small Arms Review. Vol. 9, No. 5, February, 2006. (edit: added some pics to go along with abridged article.)

If you are in a position to put a CS round into the enclosure, wouldn't it be better to send some HE in and injure/kill a few soldiers, rather than just pissing them off?

Motor drives are pretty fast nowadays.

n/t

No civilians means...no civilians. The clothing is not so important. Combatants have weapons. Where they go, their arms have to go too. They don't get to be "cloaked" as they move about the map because their in civvies. However, any sort of irregular unit should have increased abilities to infiltrate closer to U.S. forces (because they are light, independent units able to easily move through abundant urban cover). Combatants in civilian clothes that don't have weapons are, in the context of a tactical engagement, civilians. In game terms, if you see a unit moving, then you know it is enemy. If you don't see it, then it doesn't matter.

I think camouflageing themselves as small ground squirrels would be at least two times as effective.

Stryker Slays Duck http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v101/He219/He219/more/ea3fe7d7.jpg

I guess you are unaware how close Israel came to retaliating against Iraq during the first Gulf War. What is so different about this hypothetical scenario? And why would Israeli forces need to be racing past NATO/U.S. (assuming they were not staging out of Israel)? Look at a map. Look where Syria can place assets that directly threaten Israeli soil. Do you really think that Israel is not prepared to strike and seize those areas if sufficiently provoked (i.e. massive conventional or any form of WMD attack)? I'm not arguing for the inclusion of a such scenario in the scope of CM:SF, but I do think that you can't posit an invasion of Syria without answering what would be happening concurrently in Israel and Lebanon. It's just part of putting forward a realistic storyline for the game. [ January 08, 2006, 02:50 PM: Message edited by: akd ]

That report is a U.S. military study on Russian experience in Chechnya. As such, it is interested in and reflects what the Russians actually did with thermobaric munitions, not what the Russians say their thermobarics are capable. Dismissing information simply because it contains the word "Russian" seems a bit arrogant and unwise. And furthermore, since you have so far decried the information as seller-produced marketing and Russian proganda, neither of which is the case, this brings in to question whether you even looked at the sources. Please withold your criticism of sources until you've actually examined them. [ January 08, 2006, 02:17 PM: Message edited by: akd ]

You are quite right. Even the current regime would likely openly decry any invasion as an attack by Israel/Zionists. If Syria then struck Israel with chemical weapons in response to the attack, Israel would enter the conflict no matter how much NATO/U.S. begged and pleaded for them to stay behind their borders. That Syria would pursue such a strategy is not unthinkable now, and even less so under the assumption of a more extreme/ideological regime.

None of those are reports from manufacturers.

There are a lot of things I'd take over a Javelin in that scenario, but then you might be wishing you had 1 Javelin over your 10 RPGs when you take fire from a building over 300m away. Javelins are just neat anyways. Here's an interesting bit of market analysis: http://www.forecastinternational.com/press/release.cfm?article=83 [ January 08, 2006, 09:52 AM: Message edited by: akd ]

An Israeli officer on using multiple TOWs against a building: Take some victory points away from that man!

The wiki entry suggests that the effects within the detonation cloud would be pretty severe. Even outside of confined spaces, the blast effect of a thermobaric is much more significant than military HE. http://www.defence.gov.au/dpe/dhs/infocentre/publications/journals/NoIDs/adfhealth_apr03/ADFHealth_4_1_03-06.pdf At a minimum, you could probably assume blast effects on unprotected vehicle components within the actual explosion several magnitudes greater than an equivalent amount of HE. I would assume that this lengthened period of overpressure within the blast radius would also have significant effects on the passengers of an unbuttoned armored vehicle. I'm not entirely certain that detonation against the exterior of the vehicle would result in the same blast deflection that occurs with HE. For example, this report cites effectiveness versus field fortifications: But the report also cites Russian experience using the RPO system against vehicles: http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/fuelair/fuelair.htm This article from Infantry Magazine notes thermobarics as a threat to armored vehicles: (And also says that Russian sold RPG-29s to Syria in 1998. News to me. ) http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0IAV/is_3_90/ai_82009549 Also, I was not aware that Bulgaria was exporting a thermobaric warhead for the RPG-7 launcher: http://www.janes.com/defence/land_forces/news/jidr/jidr010104_2_n.shtml [ January 07, 2006, 09:35 PM: Message edited by: akd ]

The great advantage of the RPG-7 is that the warhead diameter and overall size and shape are not limited by the characteristics of the launcher. This has meant improvement over the years in the armour-piercing abilities of available rounds, and a variety of other warhead natures becoming available. It would normally be a safe bet to predict that a weapon is reaching the end of its useful life when it is has been in service for 40 years, but for the RPG-7 that was five years ago. I see no reason why the weapon shouldn't go on almost forever; there will always be a need for infantrymen to project some kind of anti-tank, anti-personnel or anti-material munition a top a range of a few hundred metres, and as long as suitable warheads are available, the launcher need not change.</font>

</font>

The only footage that the "Syrian-embedded" media could use towards a strategic end would be: 1. Dead civilians. Seeing as there are no civilians in the game, letting the other side pretend fallen combatants are civilians seems a bit unfair. Under the artificial victory conditions imposed by such a system, the Syrian player could simply choose to get all his forces killed as quickly as possible without even an attempt to accomplish a tactical goal or inflict U.S. casualties. The U.S. side then "loses" because there are 200 combatant bodies on the battlefied that the Arab media has magically transformed into civilians with their +2 Camera of Spinning. 2. Footage of U.S. casualties. Personally, the casualties are enough of a loss, and as a player, I don't really want to hear that I extra-lost because my casualties were filmed. Anyways, if you put media on the battlefield, you put civilians on the battlefield and now we're right back where we started.

But would the decision to use three TOWs against the structure really be deemed a mistake: given that 1.) the commander must have had some cause think the structure posed a threat and 2.) the commander knows there are no civilians in the structure? I think you are heading down the path of creating a game world with artificial restrictions where commanders are punished for decisions that in the real world would not even be questioned. This is, of course, assuming you are creating a system that presumes the player is a rational commander and not a lunatic blowing up a town for ****s and giggles. Do we really need a game that accounts for such behavior? [ January 07, 2006, 05:21 PM: Message edited by: akd ]

The reality is that the RPG-7 family is reaching the end of it's useful life. They can keep making the warheads bigger, but range and accuracy suffer. They are cheap, and that is a big advantage, but next to not long-out weapon systems like the Predator, the RPG-7 looks like a pointy stick as a tank-killer. The U.S. military has no need for the RPG-7s AT abilities, even the impressive PG-7vr warhead. The RPGs anti-personnel / anti-structure abilities are not particulary impressive, and effectiveness is typically achieved through volley fire rather than precise employment of a single round. I don't believe there is a thermobaric round for the RPG-7 system, the Russians turning to tube-launched systems for their current weapons.

Fort Bliss, not Fort Hood, and I think the poster was inferring that new Stryker systems would be tested there before fielding to the SBCTs, but I have no idea if Stryker is even considered part of the current FCS program.

Yes, but in way you are just adding abstract complications to pretend there are civilians present on the battlefield. I'd rather not play a scenario where I have to pretend there are civilians in the line of fire when I know there are not (reduces a real and difficult judgement call to a gamey restriction). Not that ROE could not still play a very important role, or that excessive damage to civilian structures should not count against you, just that without civilians present, it should be the absolute last of "victory conditions" considered, after accomplishing mission goals and minimizing or preventing any friendly casualties. Even the importance of holy sites is being somewhat exaggerated when you consider the tacticial nature of a CM battlefield: 1. The immediate area around the, for example, mosque is already a battlefield. 2. You know there are no civilians present in the mosque or surrounding area and that there are definitely enemy combatants present in the area. 3. If the enemy gives you any reason to engage the mosque, you would more the likely be able to do so without your decision being judged a "failure" (at least, similar situations have played out in Iraq, even post-OIF I). [ January 06, 2006, 09:20 PM: Message edited by: akd ]

Sadly, BFC has said no civilians whatsoever. Obviously, this removes a lot of the possible complexity you outline above.

http://jccc.afis.osd.mil/images/hres.pl?Lbox_cap=1281490&dir=Photo http://jccc.afis.osd.mil/images/hres.pl?Lbox_cap=1281376&dir=Photo (nice Minimi Para pics below) http://jccc.afis.osd.mil/images/hres.pl?Lbox_cap=1281361&dir=Photo http://jccc.afis.osd.mil/images/hres.pl?Lbox_cap=1281373&dir=Photo http://jccc.afis.osd.mil/images/hres.pl?Lbox_cap=1281367&dir=Photo (hires of image posted yesterday) http://www.defenselink.mil/photos/Jan2006/051230-A-2718K-010.jpg (direct links to Stryker MGS pics mentioned in another thread) http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/baumgar/AUSA%2010-05/StrykerMGSFront-Right.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/baumgar/AUSA%2010-05/StrykerMGSGun.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/baumgar/AUSA%2010-05/StrykerMGSFLIR.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/baumgar/AUSA%2010-05/StrykerMGSLoader.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/baumgar/AUSA%2010-05/StrykerMGSRear-Right.jpg (other future U.S. vehicles on display) M1A2 SEP: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/baumgar/AUSA%2010-05/M1A2SEPAbramsFront-Right.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/baumgar/AUSA%2010-05/M1A2SEPAbramsTurret.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/baumgar/AUSA%2010-05/M1A2SEPAbramsRear.jpg Bradley: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/baumgar/AUSA%2010-05/BradleyFront-Right.jpg ASV: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/baumgar/AUSA%2010-05/ASVFront.jpg And finally, a somewhat relevant Army press release: [ January 06, 2006, 05:58 PM: Message edited by: akd ]

I assume this means when used against a buttoned armored vehicle.