abneo3sierra

Good points. One quick one though..planes are as you said far more expensive, but A)are reusable, where a tomahawk is gone when fired, and B)planes bring a fail safe to the table..a tom will hit its target, a pilot can change mind or target up till the very last second. Anyway, as I said, good points.

Alright, Bigduke Thank you for answering my question for the..third or fourth time, I will answer yours..Nowhere, in any of my posts, have I said I know how to make Afghanistan safe. What I have said, repeatedly, is that the military effort has been won. This is from my first post on the topic, and continued to my last. What I have also said, repeatedly, is that the effort now, is in the hands of the politicians, both US and Afghan, to make something solid out of the sacrifice our troops gave them. I have said this repeatedly, and grow weary of it. Go back and read my posts before you insist I have not answered you. Yes, I know Chechnya as well..wandering a bit off topic here, but that is closer to the effort, as you said also, of what I meant when I said they could have won in Afghanistan. I am in no way condemning for not winning, or for not having the "stomach" for casualties. I have seen many casualties, and in many ways am one myself. I understand that mindset. I simply was saying, the USSR *could have*won, they *could have* crushed the opposition in Afghanistan. As for the will back home..the reporter types, with all due respect, seem to be doing their part to make sure that doesn't happen. I think, from what I can usually see, anyway, that Afghanistan is sometimes just forgotten about. The only time it shows up to the average American is when the media wants it to, as when there is a rash of casualties. It does not show up when locals cheer our troops and bring food after battles with al qaeda..it does not show up when we build schools, and the children and their families thank us because their old school was destroyed by the Taliban before we arrived, and they have gone 9 years with no school in the village. Of course, those are not bad enough to receive coverage, so amazingly, no one in the US will hear them, until their unit goes home, and the kids wonder why everyone is seeing things they never saw while they were there, and not seeing how it really was.

There are some plausible scenarios. Many of our allies in the region use US/western weapons systems. Most of those allies could have very plausible scenarios where the government fell and more radical elements took over..Saudi Arabia one huge example there. It does make for an interesting tactical game when both sides have essentially the same equipment and you cannot depend on your opponents equipment being inferior or having weaknesses

I very much hope they stick to historical or current topics. I know in reply to the ww2 thread last week Steve said they would be in the ww2 time frame for the foreseeable future, for which I am glad. That said, you probably could use this engine to make some great sci fi games.

Good shots M1

I would not. A few women sitting in on the national council in Kabul doesn't count for jack. What counts, is when the warlords in the sticks either (a) are afraid of the government that you are supporting so much, that they do what you want, starting with an end to opium production, followed by signing on to accepting laws promulgated by the central government or ( the warlords for whatever reason decide to do that, of their own volition. That isn't happening. Opium production is going through the roof, the border with Pakistan's Tribal Territories is not policed and completely porous, and the ability of the Karzai government to enforce its will outside of Kabul, is next to nil. Banditry is rife, and the only law that counts is the law of the clan. Al Quada and the Taliban are still around but what's much worse, even if they were gone the chaos would continue. It's the tribes calling the shots, and the tribes answer to no one but themselves. If another terrorist nut shows up with enough money tomorrow, there is no question Afghan tribes will be happy to support him. The objectives of the 2003 campaign was, as I recall, to punish Al Quaeda and the Taliban for supporting them. Those objectives were achieved quite rapidly - but that's not the objective now, and that's the problem. The objective now is to turn Afghanistan into a stable place. Efforts to reach that objective are an abject failure, and history makes clear that any effort towards that end, by any nation or concert of nations, will fail. Since that is the case, what is the point of spending lives and money trying to civilize Afghanistan? Why have the military "professionals" failed to read their military history? A cynic would say, some probably have read their history, but a war is a war and combat duty helps the career. In spite of the dead and maimed subordinates. And others are just ignorant, they haven't read the history and aren't interested in doing so, they just want to shoot weapons and tell each other how professional they are. It's a nice little war of course, but fighting a war and winning it are two different things. Deploying several thousand ridiculously expensive troops to the region who control little more than the ground that they stand on, and claim that's proof of success, is not imposition of political will by any Clauswizian standard. That's just waste of lives and money. As to evidence, for starters, consider the historical record. To repeat, the last time any military imposed its political will on the Afghan tribes, it was the Mongols using the technique of blotting entire cities off the map. The Moghuls failed, British failed, the Soviets failed. There are absolutely no grounds to expect that the Americans and NATO could do any better. </font>

BigDuke.. Let me see..from the top.. Not sending your soldiers to fight, sometimes causes more death than when you do..the deaths you mention in Iraq are very debatable, and remember, before we went there, Saddam had gassed whole towns, and many political executions, numbers in the many thousands. If the US had sent troops earlier, to, say, Europe in WW2..it is likely many of the millions would have been saved, although it would have been hard to prove..Iraq today is the same, there is no way to prove how many would have died if we had not gone in, but it would have been an extremely large number as well. Second point..a large percentage of the 'insurgents' in Iraq, are not from Iraq..so the argument they are defending their country, holds no water. In hundred of cases, in hundreds of cities and towns, the locals are seeing the light and turning on the REAL invaders, who grab civilians out of their homes at night and execute them. Third..the 85% number is personal experience, along with sharing notes with other units. Fourth..I speak 5 languages and have 2 degrees...nearly everyone in my unit spoke at least a couple, and was working on or had a degree. And, again there, most all got along famously with all real civilians. The media took off with the insurgency idea, and really ran with it, because it seems to play into their preconceived ideas. It is not how I would classify MOST of the operations there however. I do enjoy a real discussion, but do yourself a favor and lose your own preconceived ideas of the area and conflict there. There is a lot to it that you are not seeing, but it is there if you look hard enough.

I agree. IMHO, my tax dollars being spent wisely. Our men & women in the service are priceless. On another note; I'm working with some of the REAL Rangers from "Black Hawk Down" fame on two websites. They will be set up to aid ALL U.S. VETS, from ALL WARS. They are about done with the non-profit paperwork & meetings with the right important people. Just asking the Mods & owners, can I post those links when they are ready? Not selling anything at all, just setting up aid & networking to our heroes. The guys said something about leg units being invited too... </font>

dp sorry

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Ah, I come back to see this turned into somewhat of a flame war. Sorry. A few points though. 1. The US tries harder, by far, than any other country in the history of the planet, to hold ALL casualties down, ours as well as enemy. 2. Often we lose troops because of concern for innocents. My unit lost a handful, all to avoid killing innocents, who quite obviously were not 100% innocent, as they were providing places for the enemy to engage us. 3. As someone above pointed out, Europe has not needed our help in about 65 years, so of course, the countries that did, are mostly not Caucasian. 3. Gibson is accurate. There was a war before we went there. There was also Saddams gas attacks on his own people in the north. This shows that a) these people were killing each other long before we were there, and It explains why we are viewed by 85% of the population still as liberators. I am certain that if it was a European who decided to gas the Netherlands, Elmaar, you would be begging for American help, just as your ancestors did 65 years ago. Germany certainly was not doing anything against the USA, and even tried very hard to keep the US out of the war. 4. Our Army is made up of professionals who do not sit around getting high all day, so no thank you on the smoke Sorry for the rant, but I too just would like this forum to be about the game, not about a bunch of uninformed political %%^ thanks. [ March 22, 2008, 07:40 PM: Message edited by: abneo3sierra ]

As to your post, you misunderstood mine. I did not say nothing is worth a soldier's life, what I said was that in a choice between the two,money or soldiers, I would spend the money, sadly, war is not always going to let you choose. As to mine,, we have not lost a single engagement in Afghanistan, and the relative stability there compared to before we were there is a bonus to the civilian population that was in the middle of a long civil war before our arrival. Politicians, ours as well as the Iraqi and Afghan, have really not done their end of the job as well as I personally would have liked to see. By militarily won, what I mean is that in every situation where there is a firefight, the tangos retreat with usually heavy losses. I personally do not think that militarily won is enough though, but it is all that we can do. The overwhelming vast majority of civilians in both countries are glad we are there, but are becoming impatient with the political situation, and the incessant, uninformed leadership in our congress which every week talks about withdrawing, has them on edge that if they support us now, what happens to them when we leave.

I think this is what you are looking for: http://users.erols.com/chare/cm/ </font>

Actually, both wars are being militarily won. What the politicians do with the victory is another issue. Your last paragraph is insulting, and entirely inaccurate.

For sure, it is either spend money or spend lives. I vote money.

I do very much like BB also. I have had plenty of experience with soldiers irl even making poor choices, so that is actually , although annoying, realistic. Would be good I guess if the experience level could affect that though, but that starts to get extremely complex. Hadn't noticed the fight to the death angle..now that you mention it, that probably should be altered at some point I hope.

Good guys. And yes, still am with 2-502 when I get on my feet again.

Why not? Claymores and their derivatives exist, they are not banned under the Ottawa Conventions, they are widely issued and are damned useful in an ambush for starters. </font>

The model didn't change. There is cover. At the moment it is a desert environment, basically, so he was saying you would have to wait till they got out of the desert to compare, unless you just put them in N Africa..and even then, with each person here equaling one person instead of 1 squad and thus individual LOS rules, you will still have differences. From what I can tell, there is no 'subtile'level of cover, no need for it though, when you are doing individual soldiers, they each can individually find cover.

I lost a few good men in my unit to that tactic as well in Iraq. I have only messed with this game really a few days. Are you saying they programmed the AI to use that tactic?

Ah, I had not really messed with protect yet, but that answers my question about it. Good deal. Bad luck on the Brad..we have lost plenty IRL, usually not to helos though, usually the fast movers are what you worry about as far as "friendly"fire..bit ironic, that term.

Which army is yours combat? And yes, more possible collateral damage, more IFF decision making would be alot more realistic as far as simulation goes...if they are just marketing 'game' rather than 'simulator' however, this engine is fine.

LOL this thread is one of the best laughs I have had in a long time. Thanks