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Secondbrooks

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Everything posted by Secondbrooks

  1. It's been atleast decade since i last time read the manual so take this with grain of salt. With lakes and such there was mathematical formula how to calculate if wires has change to touch water before reaching target. But i don't think there was anything mentioned in TOW's manual of general wetness causing issues, thou who knows? I keep writing wires, i'm 90% sure that it's individual wire. And thus short circuit isn't probably correct terminology. With sun issue is that IR-strobe in missile's tail (which is tracked by sight's IR-optic for guiding commands) gets sunk into sun's IR-radiation and launcher might loose track of missile. Similarily to IR-emiters used by Russians and Chinese.
  2. Oh boy, don't get me started on dismounted TOW! Served in Finland where that was the main method of using it. We had 7 guys hauling the whole system (TOW2 with thermals) + couple missiles. With highly drilled squad (yes squad not team) it took 3 minutes to set it up. Same amount to disassemble. Man, i've spent my years in reserves (20 years now) trying to think how to move it around faster, sleds or something. Maybe even carry it assembled and hope we don't break anything vital. Because if we'd end up into sights of opponent while in firing positions we are not moving anywhere and are going to be practically ground meat. Whole dis-/assembly process is such a hassle with guys running here and there while delivering/retriveing their pieces from firing position and getting into their close defense positions. There were guys issued with Russian AT-4, those were whole another beast on this aspect. 3 man teams could operate them and if ****e hit the fan they could just pick it up and run, or hobble. No even close to similar hassle we had to have. I never had change to work with them, but our officers were kinda envious of how fast they were to move around. Did complain about this with Shock Force once Marine pack was released and dismounted TOW was introduced, and Steve had it changed. I think they made it 3 and 7 minutes... It became practically stationary weapon system at that point. We didn't have but one missile per squad to fire and it was reserved for gunner (i was squad leader) so i can't much talk about it's reliability or how it was to fire, but at times you heard that someone had mechanical with missile. Yes, powerlines and large bodies of water are an issue, causing wires to short circuit. Also sun (if firing directly at sun). I don't see how undergrowth should be an systemic issue, wire is inside missile unwinding itself as missile flies along so if everything goes along well there should not be problem. But it's 20 years so maybe i've forgot something.
  3. Atleast one veteran in his memoirs tells that Molotovs in his sector was just to blind and stop enemy armor so that it could be finished off with high explosive charges. Idea was to make it stop by obscuring it's vision so that charge could be lobbed under or in near vicinity of the armor. If i recall in his account correctly Molotovs were just shipped to troops so use must have evolved and maybe they were used as a main destructive weapon, as you described, somewhere at sometime. I don't actually know what was primary intended use by all-knowing high ranking officers*, but that text was written by man who actually did it like i described. In fact there's not many accounts describing use of molotovs, i've read maybe couple hundred memoirs and battle descriptions from Finnish ww2-veterans and can remember just that one first hand account... Sadly for our Finnish speaking arschlochs, who might be interested in said memoir, i don't remember name of the book or writer. *Those all-knowing high ranking officers also figured out to use Suomi SMGs as SAW to support assault teams advance (mainly because they were often only automatic weapon in squads)... It didn't take too long for guys in front lines to figure out better way to utilize them. Like in point of assault team. John Kettler mentioned Finnish Snipers.. We had one, Simo Häyhä. His example did encourage others to dabble in art of sniping (atleast couple accounts mention that his example made others to try it). Overall we had no proper equipment or training (Finnish homeguard Suojeluskunta did give pretty good sniper training but Army to my knowledge did not and staff-officers knew nothing about sniping). There were no good optics and few poor guality optics were forgot into some shady warehouse corner to be re-discovered after Winter war. Hayhä himself was leader of riflesquad by his training in Army and that was what he trained in Suojeluskunta aswell (no sniper stuff for him, to my knowledge), but his CO judged that he would suit better as a sniper. Being former Legionaire of French Foreign Legion might have broaden he's (=CO's) perspective on use of snipers. On other hand Soviets had tons of snipers and could provide equipment for them. I've read that Soviet union at dawn of WW2 had more snipers that whole western Europe or even western world. Finns were pretty much loosing sniper war against them in all fronts in both wars. There's Sulo Kolkka poping out in some 'best snipers'-lists as another Finnish sniper along with Häyhä, but he's either made-up propaganda figure or someone mixed up Häyhä with him in international press. Or something along those lines. No such man has been found to serve in Continuation War.
  4. I be-...b-b-b-b-b-b-belif...-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-believe! May he ever ride with donkey and hold Rubber Gnome high! Even we filthy SSNs recon that.
  5. Yeah. This. Not that it would necessarily make grand scale impact but i think it hasn't got attention it deserves. From Finnish warhistory and personal accounts i've read one could say that capacity of personel reached it's peak at first (or second) major campaign, since then men simply started to loose their edge. Finnish Army at winter -44 after main fightings thru 5 years had tons of experience on war (and not as beaten as Germans were) but personel on all levels were weary and lost their edge long time ago. Even at war this could be seen as Finns mainly sat on their arse from winter -41 to summer -44, personel in all levels became less and less professional and discplined. Yes, they might have become more experienced but if their training was already proper (as Finns were) it didn't make that big impact on performance as enlisted and NCO plus Junior Officers started to think more on their own terms (=mainly survival and getting it easy). Again i'm talking about company/battalion/regiment levels. On higher levels there were lots of things to learn thru out WW2 and for them question of experiences of war is much more important. I simply doesn't notice similar 'level up'-attitude on accounts of those persons whom served from -39 to -44. Infact alot of them does think -39 and -40 as their prime, not so much because of Soviet incompetence (which on front lines wasn't as obvious) but because back then they were much more motivated and committed to fight, while in -44 they were much more interested in fleeing and surviving and it required quite harsh acts from officer level to force men to fight. I don't wish to enter pissing contest with this because i do think that forexample -44 German army was overall better than -40, but like to bring it out because one could think that with German army things were far worse than that. Bigduke6 once wrote about how experienced units can become real trouble for their superiors as they start to get smarter and smarter on subject of how to spare themselves from unpleasant things. While green units/individuals are more willing to do what their command wants them to do. So veteran units might infact be among last who gets to objective, probably doesn't make main push, evades it's responsibilities/duties as it sees fit and possible flees when it sees right moment for it. And so on. ¨ On wargames it's much more black-white, veteran unit is always better.
  6. In CMSF all that counted in CQB was pretty much size of magazine/belt weapon used and which bullet it shot. Basically that meant that M240/PKM was better CQB weapon than M4/AK as it kept on rocking for longer time and put it's target down better, there wasn't difference in weapon handling speed or anything between LMG and carbine. Steve gave me answer more or less like this this when i asked him about weapons and their differences in CQB. If this stays true also in CMBN then SMGs aren't as good as they historically were. Large capacity magazine still gives them edge, but that would be about it... Well for Germans SMG still probably is great CQB-tool as they lack semi-automatic rifles. But i still haven't bought the game, so i'm guessing mostly. Ps. Are there kneeling/standing deep trences in CMBN where SMG would historically really be at it's own play ground? Were there such in Normandy? I'd guess that answer to both questions would be: Not.
  7. Man i wish they would improve their tactical side of game, get more microdetail in terrain and improve AI behavior under fire (mainly by adding Combat Mission kind morale model). Don't care so much about armored warfare, but they probably could do something about that too, atleast in improving their hitpoint system. But i'm pretty sure there will be just improved graphics and multiplayer stuff in final product. Much same as what happened with both ArmA and ArmA2. Both were let downs for me as i searched more wargameish experience and it came quite clear that ArmA-series has improved little in these terms since OFP. Two let down have left me very little to hope for. I could be surprised i admit.
  8. And still armies often tried/ties to instill such attitude to trainees that they are supposed to move under indirect fire and last mistake they can do is to stop from moving. Just been reading Beevor's book Normandy and there he mentions same thing which Brits started to (re)train to their soldiers. I had same instructions during my time and as far as i can tell it's decades old practice, keep moving from cover to cover in between of explosions. Which sounds bit insane, atleast under intense firemission like 60mm or 81mm during which intensity of explosions is high. In CM Afganistan i had two 82mm Mortar platoons hitting same area at the same time with high intensity. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. One lone grenade (clusters) dropping in harassing manner from time to time is ofcourse totally different matter... Even more so if that is just the spotting attempt. So i can figure out that there's two different cases which requires different method of reaction. I just wonder why they don't seem to train two different behavior modes for such. There has to be good reason to not to.
  9. Go suck your mother's c0ckzors! Game in good thou, as usual from BFC.
  10. Yeah. Same in Beevor's book, Normandy 1944. From that book i get impression that killing prisoners were very regular in both sides atleast during start. 101th Airborne was seen as exceptionally blood thristy unit at their drop night when men would go searching for Germans to kill at their own initiative in small groups. And allied mostly killed Germans. Troops from "Ost divisions" were typically spared.
  11. One thing i've been told time after time again is that German Army, as most Armies of that time, practiced mostly offence. France might be one of the few which were focusing on defending. I've read some accounts from Eastern Front that Germans atleast at start (late -41, early -42) often were somewhat poor at setting up defensive perimeters... Well i'm pretty sure Germans had most of their lessons learned by -44 in area of defending, atleast defensive instructions based on experience they gave to us at -43 were good but which our boneheads ignored based on their own outdated experience from -39 and -40. Anyways one statistical thing i've noticed is that when talking about casualties in ww2 it often goes so that attacker has 1 guy KIA/MIA when it looses 3 WIAs. On defending side it's 3 guys KIA/MIA to 1 WIA. This when attacker is successful. However exceptions i know in this rule are such where attacker's speed of advance was just about 10 km per day, so defender had enough time to react to attacker's moves by pulling back. Usually, by my knowledge, such slow movement of front-line also means terrain which doesn't favor fast moving mechanical warfare, so escaping usually is possible even in grim looking situations but heavy equipement such as artillery has to left behind due successful encirclement attempts. In areas like eastern front or North Africa thing seems to be bit more different and amount of prisoners and captured equipment are high on successful offence.
  12. Maybe you don't buy it because you don't understand what i mean? It's factor just as anything else. Ability and equipment to function in particular terrain and weather is one key feature of quality and it's directly related to individual and unit effectiveness. I have book written before ww2 discussing also this factor to quite small degree. Let's just say that whole officer training in common European military academies was in many parts wrong if one expected to fight in terrain which Finland had. WW2 showed that writer of that book wasn't wrong. Finnish units were better in quality than Soviet or Germans when it came to backwood tactics, skills, mentality and so on. When terrain was more typical Northern European, Finnish quality over Germans and Soviets naturally diminished (it were these areas where Finns usually had their arse kicked by Soviets). There's lots of example how German and Soviet training/equipment simply didn't work in Finland because it was terrain type which required special training which both Germans and Soviets were lacking. Yeah this goes bit extreme for bocage as both sides were pretty fresh with it, Germans had just few years of experience at most compared to US. But Germans still were mostly trained, organized, equipped for typical Northern European terrain.
  13. I'd say that for Finns it's mostly their terrain where they fought, which was same nature in where Finnish army had trained for last few decades and where Finnish men had lived their lives. Germans or Soviets both fared much worse in Finnish terrain both as military units and as individual soldiers, they didn't get close to Finnish skillz even after several years of operating in that terrain. I'd say that this is big factor atleast with Finns... And factor which very often seems to be forgotten here.. Bocage was foreign terrain type for US so potentially that would be one thing in which German units and soldiers could be better in quality, but were most German units familiar with bocage?
  14. And check movie version(s) of it, i favor colored version, but black and white is usually liked more. Was selected to be official training movie for Italian Army back in 50s or 60s. I believe it was used for officer training :cool:
  15. Does anyone know the idea why it's been done like that? And was this instructed in training? Is it supposed to give more speed and balance that way to runner. Alteast weapon handling readiness is poor in that method, opposed to carrying it by two hands.
  16. I've heard there will be no such thing. But instead Fausts can be mounted on to Opel Blitz, behaving similarly to Stryker MGS and UAZ with SPG. They even get 10+ meters into their effective range as they are being fired from tall vehicle, instead of being fired from ground level. Think about all the possibilities in there! I can't wait.
  17. Intersting topic, we have those Belgian made. Had already at my service time 10 years ago. Large fuss was made that we now have rifle grenade option for our new rifles. Well, as far as i can tell no-one except for some staff memebers have shot them. I dont' think many have even seen live or practice model of one, i haven't heard that anyone would have been trained to use rifle grenade in their rifle. Soldier's guidebook which descrpibes all basic operations of Jaeger squad's weaponry doesn't mention rifle grenades but by few words (to explain what for their is valve in gas port of rifle). There is no picture or anything about it! So rifle grenades in our army seemed to be lots of fuss about nothing... :cool: Dunno was recoil similar to those French rifle grenades (Mecar were they?) or were those deemed to be otherwise too dangerous for peace time training. It comical as at later time they have bought HK's grenade pistols to do same stuff which rifle grenades were thought to be used for, those are being used in training all the time by troops having them. So i guess that in practice rifle grenades didn't work out as well as in theory I wonder how much that option cost for our already too expensive rifles.
  18. Your first sentence could be said like this Ultimately just as marksmanship is useless so is individual soldier pretty useless... Unless he happens to be hero material. At that time both soldier and marksmanship counts very much. What you speak is true for long time trained soldiers with lots of resources to put into their training. But for guys with at most couple months of training things aren't like that even more so if unit cohesion is poor, they simply don't have enough time to improve alot with their fitness and marksmanship. They probably can't establish automation for most of basic soldiering skills like squad weaponry, formations, movement etc. This is reason why our conscript/reservist based system tries to filter suitable men for suitable slots. If persons hobbies will support his training/duty it usually counts. I can understand that for professional military which seemingly has years to put into individual soldiers it seems odd, but when soldier is being trained from 6 to 12 months things has to be sorted out bit differently, for reservists refreshment training can mean just weeks and in here hobbies and occupation really counts when selecting who gets slotted where. Heck, it easily can be so that former military training doesn't count at all if guy himself isn't up to task anymore, poor physical fitness and some overweight. I don't agree about training being ONLY important factor as far too many long line instructorstaff and ww2 veterans have said what i've said eariler on. City boys are simply worse than country boys, it piles down to artificial urban enviroment which give different things for yougsters to do than rural areas. I'm mostly talking about days of ww2 or days before urbanization of (whatever) nation. Later on things have changed atleast with fitness levels when cars and motorbikes have become common, hunting and firearms are much more related to culture. Back to cityboys. Typical examples are that city boys don't handle simplest tolls such as axes, making of fire, how to ski etc. etc. etc. Urbanization for most parts has been almost curse word for military. 50 years ago they didn't need to train use of axe, crowbar, shovel, how to keep knife sharp. How to wear suitable clothing!!! Nowdays they do and that wastes precious training time from more important matters, such as actual combat skills... Back then there were handicapped people too but they were in very marginal role. Surely mostly problem is urbanization and it has reached it's currupting touch from cities to rural areas as well. So today it presumably isn't as clear as it has been some ~50-60 years ago. An example of pre military experience put into use: WW1 and snipers should display this, Germany with it's strong "northern European hunting culture" seemed to get much more out from it's snipers than Brits or French. For these two it seemed to take years before they reached Germany's level in "ways of snipership". Then again US reached level of Germany much faster. I wonder does similar hunting culture have something to do with it? By some experts: Yes it does. Because forexample Germany could easily find guys with good fieldcraft and shooting skills. Brits tried to put sport shooters against them but they didn't match German snipers. Later on Brits understood to gather their own hunters as snipers and voila their success started to improve against Germans. Watch the mighty aufttraghtigntaktik (or something like that) put into use! Ps. I'm firm believer for this what i've writen here conserning rural and urban boys. I mostly look this thru Finnish colored classes so i must admit that in some other nations things can be different, mainly in US which was totally different nation than some pesky undeveloped little swamp-land in Northern Europe in which most people still lived from farming and woodcutting. But i have discussed and listened quite a deal with people who have seen the change in our society and competence of young men over the decades. Almost everyone underlines same facts. I will not write no more about this.
  19. One factor which is quite important is that does culture support privately owned firearms and their use? If this is true then it's usually rural areas where firearms are being owned and used. Quite often it seems that shooting/marksmanship training is one of worst lacks which infantry soldiers tends to have, and that is what they seems to usually whine about. And good shooting skills takes years to build and bullet to shoot so it's challenging skills to improve even in long run. Not to speak about times of war when resources and time to spent in marksmanship training can be close to nothing. And another is that rural areas tends to produce more fit (endurance) person than urban areas. Which is even more important thing than marksmanship when it comes to overall capacity of soldier. I've heard sentence that battle is like running two marathons in row.
  20. I probably shouldn't be doing this but what the heck. It's da Internatz!!! Da Video But what do i know. I've had just one woman in my sex life and she's my lively wife. Other than that i'm poor sod with ladies, have always been and probably will be. Must admit that i find "classic" backwood man identity closer to my true self. Hermit who triumphs in solitude (or in my case with my family). Poor social skills and lack of charisma in eyes of fellow humans belongs to package.
  21. I myself have reached conclusion that German side is not German side if it can't have Tigers at -43 and later. It would be Half-German side. Simple as that. Wrath Of Dagon: I like to compensate my lacks as a man with big Tigers. And i simply like to ram in without boring foreplay. So Tiger is must for me.
  22. As we remain in question concerning morale i wonder how big effect Battalion/company commander's leadership has to do with squad/platoon level morale? In another words: Worthless captain with -2 leadership (or morale) could affect negatively to his whole unit. Lets say captain is serious boozer and tends to lead from behind without risking his own neck too much. I wonder was this in CMSF already without me noticing/considering it
  23. err... Yeah. Swifted isn't probably even words Like JonS said: shifted. Steve: True. From opposite point of view: One major success Finns had at -44 was that when they finally were able to start resisting Soviet offences and halt it's progress creating rather stabile front line. Which ment that Finns got artillery working at full potential. And when artillery started to work Soviets pretty literally started to bang their heads into wall. Firepower up to 200 tubes could be consentrated in 5 minutes to places where enemy presence was detected, all this by lone FO. Radio intelligence found out that whole batallions were rendered useless with-in minutes. More often Soviet units were repelled already at their assembly area than they managed to get into contact with Finnish front lines. But earlier when fighting was more mobile, artillery just couldn't back infantry enough even when tubes were there. Soviet didn't seem to be needing to advance but few kilometers per day to render this kind of firepower useless. So system seems to pretty fragile for changes in situation. Well, Finnish method was rather raw at that point of time (it basically still was under testing), if fighting would have continued for longer use of artillery could have become more agile than it now was, but not much. I'd think.
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