DougPhresh

A few years ago where some bones came out for FI, there was discussion about possible roadmap.
iirc, a pack containing Commandos and partisans was mentioned as being a possibility after R2V, as well as adding the RSI, Italian Co-Belligerents and fleshing out the existing Italian roster to add dismounted Breda Model 35, Solothurn and Cannone da 90/53 as a module. Is this still possible? 
I would gladly pay for a pack with partisans, commandos and goumiers and would certainly pay for a module expanding the Italians from '43-45
e: I had no idea that an Italian Co-Belligerent unit liberated Venice. They made pretty significant contributions to the Allied cause.

Anecdotally, even though the exercises we go on now are force-on-force and the Battlegroup deployment is to Latvia, pretty much everybody still has their habits from Afghanistan.
For example, my last exercise was a mechanized brigade opposed river crossing, which is about as conventional as you get. The mission and doctrine was thoroughly conventional. We fired illum and smoke missions to help the engineers build bridge sections and operate assault boats and ferries, missions we hardly, if ever shot in Afghanistan. We also fired full battalion missions which we haven't done in anger since Korea. We camouflaged the guns, dug gun pits, the artillery recce and OP dets used LAVs, and we took precautions against counterbattery fire - all things that did not happen in Afghanistan.
However, in practice anything that wasn't explicitly ordered defaulted to how things were done in Afghanistan. Our road and foot patrols were done how we did them there, the M72s and Carl-Gs stayed packed up in echelon, the battery GPMGs and GMGs were left in the trucks, our medical drills assumed easy medivac and casevac by helicopter instead of road ambulance to a casualty collection point, that sort of thing. Guys still wear shemaghs and don't put on campaint.
It's the opposite of how when we first went to Afghanistan, everybody was doing drills from Bosnia or West Germany. 

A few years ago where some bones came out for FI, there was discussion about possible roadmap.
iirc, a pack containing Commandos and partisans was mentioned as being a possibility after R2V, as well as adding the RSI, Italian Co-Belligerents and fleshing out the existing Italian roster to add dismounted Breda Model 35, Solothurn and Cannone da 90/53 as a module. Is this still possible? 
I would gladly pay for a pack with partisans, commandos and goumiers and would certainly pay for a module expanding the Italians from '43-45
e: I had no idea that an Italian Co-Belligerent unit liberated Venice. They made pretty significant contributions to the Allied cause.

NATO and Warsaw Pact both forecast heavy urban warfare from at least the '60s on. I can only speak of my own experience but I trained in a replica of a "typical" West German town and that has been expanded to include a replica Afghan Village. I'm an artilleryman and we still do extensive CQB and FIBUA training even though you would never place the guns there.
I agree that  "conventional armies are doomed!" reminds me of the Popular Mechanics hardware fetishism that has been a problem since the 50's. The missile age was supposed to end surface combatants, manned aircraft and AFVs and 60 years latter here we are!
A cynical person might suggest that Raytheon, General Dynamics and our other good friends in the MIC like to drum up sales by exaggerating threats and inflating their own capabilities. That cynic might also suggest that the defense staffs might tell the public and politicans that their militaries are doomed without massive spending to protect their own interests. 🙃
 

Anecdotally, even though the exercises we go on now are force-on-force and the Battlegroup deployment is to Latvia, pretty much everybody still has their habits from Afghanistan.
For example, my last exercise was a mechanized brigade opposed river crossing, which is about as conventional as you get. The mission and doctrine was thoroughly conventional. We fired illum and smoke missions to help the engineers build bridge sections and operate assault boats and ferries, missions we hardly, if ever shot in Afghanistan. We also fired full battalion missions which we haven't done in anger since Korea. We camouflaged the guns, dug gun pits, the artillery recce and OP dets used LAVs, and we took precautions against counterbattery fire - all things that did not happen in Afghanistan.
However, in practice anything that wasn't explicitly ordered defaulted to how things were done in Afghanistan. Our road and foot patrols were done how we did them there, the M72s and Carl-Gs stayed packed up in echelon, the battery GPMGs and GMGs were left in the trucks, our medical drills assumed easy medivac and casevac by helicopter instead of road ambulance to a casualty collection point, that sort of thing. Guys still wear shemaghs and don't put on campaint.
It's the opposite of how when we first went to Afghanistan, everybody was doing drills from Bosnia or West Germany. 

A few years ago where some bones came out for FI, there was discussion about possible roadmap.
iirc, a pack containing Commandos and partisans was mentioned as being a possibility after R2V, as well as adding the RSI, Italian Co-Belligerents and fleshing out the existing Italian roster to add dismounted Breda Model 35, Solothurn and Cannone da 90/53 as a module. Is this still possible? 
I would gladly pay for a pack with partisans, commandos and goumiers and would certainly pay for a module expanding the Italians from '43-45
e: I had no idea that an Italian Co-Belligerent unit liberated Venice. They made pretty significant contributions to the Allied cause.

I know this is hyperbole, but the community has been exceedingly patient with missed deadlines and a major patch breaking infantry behavior for a year.

I know this is hyperbole, but the community has been exceedingly patient with missed deadlines and a major patch breaking infantry behavior for a year.

I know this is hyperbole, but the community has been exceedingly patient with missed deadlines and a major patch breaking infantry behavior for a year.

Exactly right. At least on LAVs and RGs. I wasn't up on tanks.

I was serving at that time, in Afghanistan. We didn't carry Carl Gs when/where I was but a tonne of LAWs to bust grape huts. I'll ask around.
Also 8 man section is absolute. Sometimes we were shorthanded, but most often not. Is the LAV commander considered a dismount?

I was serving at that time, in Afghanistan. We didn't carry Carl Gs when/where I was but a tonne of LAWs to bust grape huts. I'll ask around.
Also 8 man section is absolute. Sometimes we were shorthanded, but most often not. Is the LAV commander considered a dismount?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Another thread heading for a lock.  @DougPhresh as you see those types of threads developing just ping someone at BF. Easier than trying to argue with someone. Just have Steve shut it down. 

We've all seen threads go rapidly downhill, so I was wondering if we could get general guidelines on:
Clean Wehrmacht Clean SS Holocaust Denial  Major Warcrimes denial Nazi/Imperial Japanese apologia I like this place and the community that has formed around it. I know, as most of you do that military history is itself  often contentious and WW2 history in particular attracts certain types of people. I'd rather not have this go the way of the axishistory forums where whenever I want to look up a unit history I have to read past David Irving quotes at best, and outright Nazi propaganda at worst.

I don't think this is an issue of "political correctness" I'd just rather not read about how unfair Nuremberg was when someone's Opa was fighting for Volk und Vaterland.

We've all seen threads go rapidly downhill, so I was wondering if we could get general guidelines on:
Clean Wehrmacht Clean SS Holocaust Denial  Major Warcrimes denial Nazi/Imperial Japanese apologia I like this place and the community that has formed around it. I know, as most of you do that military history is itself  often contentious and WW2 history in particular attracts certain types of people. I'd rather not have this go the way of the axishistory forums where whenever I want to look up a unit history I have to read past David Irving quotes at best, and outright Nazi propaganda at worst.

I don't think this is an issue of "political correctness" I'd just rather not read about how unfair Nuremberg was when someone's Opa was fighting for Volk und Vaterland.

Has military history gotten so bad that we've moved on from Clean Wehrmacht revisionism to Clean SS?

Forget about the Eastern Front for a second, their crimes there are too numerous to count. 2 SS Panzer was late arriving to action in Normandy because they stopped to massacre entire villages. Anyone thinking of defending the SS should read Ordinary Men.

As for what soldiers knew and thought, the British secretly recorded them in POW camps. Far from "not knowing" and "believing in defending home and hearth" their recordings show them casually discussing war crimes, the extermination of the Jews, rape and murder. It caused a sensation in Germany when published because it shows all of those lies for what they are. Soldaten

Has military history gotten so bad that we've moved on from Clean Wehrmacht revisionism to Clean SS?

Forget about the Eastern Front for a second, their crimes there are too numerous to count. 2 SS Panzer was late arriving to action in Normandy because they stopped to massacre entire villages. Anyone thinking of defending the SS should read Ordinary Men.

As for what soldiers knew and thought, the British secretly recorded them in POW camps. Far from "not knowing" and "believing in defending home and hearth" their recordings show them casually discussing war crimes, the extermination of the Jews, rape and murder. It caused a sensation in Germany when published because it shows all of those lies for what they are. Soldaten

Has military history gotten so bad that we've moved on from Clean Wehrmacht revisionism to Clean SS?

Forget about the Eastern Front for a second, their crimes there are too numerous to count. 2 SS Panzer was late arriving to action in Normandy because they stopped to massacre entire villages. Anyone thinking of defending the SS should read Ordinary Men.

As for what soldiers knew and thought, the British secretly recorded them in POW camps. Far from "not knowing" and "believing in defending home and hearth" their recordings show them casually discussing war crimes, the extermination of the Jews, rape and murder. It caused a sensation in Germany when published because it shows all of those lies for what they are. Soldaten

Has military history gotten so bad that we've moved on from Clean Wehrmacht revisionism to Clean SS?

Forget about the Eastern Front for a second, their crimes there are too numerous to count. 2 SS Panzer was late arriving to action in Normandy because they stopped to massacre entire villages. Anyone thinking of defending the SS should read Ordinary Men.

As for what soldiers knew and thought, the British secretly recorded them in POW camps. Far from "not knowing" and "believing in defending home and hearth" their recordings show them casually discussing war crimes, the extermination of the Jews, rape and murder. It caused a sensation in Germany when published because it shows all of those lies for what they are. Soldaten

A 155mm round is about 100lbs compared to the 30ish lbs of a 105mm. In the early 2000's a lot of NATO planners assumed artillery would be standardized to 155mm but operational experience has shown that cheap, light, mobile guns are valuable. I'd rather have a 105mm on call than a 155mm tied up supporting other units. More tubes are generally better than fewer state of the art tubes with precision rounds.  I think the Russian way of war is on the right track in that regard.
See also the return of 60, 81 and 120mm mortars to NATO after all those theorists thought precision CAS would replace organic fires.
When I joined the military as a field artilleryman, even at the school staff were bemoaning the End of Artillery because everybody was reading about how armed UAVs, small diameter bombs on CAS, land-based CIWS, Hell even tactical lasers had made artillery obsolete. I think NATO thinkers get tied up in the latest and greatest until the next conflict. Look at all the loony ideas before Vietnam, or even throughout the 70's and 80's.

These are basically the same patches I had with ISAF: Canadian IR Flag, Canadian IR Patch, Task Force Patches


A lot of guys had CP Gear patches on ARPAT backings, but depending on your command you might get jacked up.
http://www.cpgear.com/blank/Branches-Brigades-Services-Corps-?c=3957968

A 155mm round is about 100lbs compared to the 30ish lbs of a 105mm. In the early 2000's a lot of NATO planners assumed artillery would be standardized to 155mm but operational experience has shown that cheap, light, mobile guns are valuable. I'd rather have a 105mm on call than a 155mm tied up supporting other units. More tubes are generally better than fewer state of the art tubes with precision rounds.  I think the Russian way of war is on the right track in that regard.
See also the return of 60, 81 and 120mm mortars to NATO after all those theorists thought precision CAS would replace organic fires.
When I joined the military as a field artilleryman, even at the school staff were bemoaning the End of Artillery because everybody was reading about how armed UAVs, small diameter bombs on CAS, land-based CIWS, Hell even tactical lasers had made artillery obsolete. I think NATO thinkers get tied up in the latest and greatest until the next conflict. Look at all the loony ideas before Vietnam, or even throughout the 70's and 80's.

Without reigniting the BTG discussion, you can lavishly equip units with organic fires on a small scale but that wouldn't be sustainable for generating a larger force.
 

A 155mm round is about 100lbs compared to the 30ish lbs of a 105mm. In the early 2000's a lot of NATO planners assumed artillery would be standardized to 155mm but operational experience has shown that cheap, light, mobile guns are valuable. I'd rather have a 105mm on call than a 155mm tied up supporting other units. More tubes are generally better than fewer state of the art tubes with precision rounds.  I think the Russian way of war is on the right track in that regard.
See also the return of 60, 81 and 120mm mortars to NATO after all those theorists thought precision CAS would replace organic fires.
When I joined the military as a field artilleryman, even at the school staff were bemoaning the End of Artillery because everybody was reading about how armed UAVs, small diameter bombs on CAS, land-based CIWS, Hell even tactical lasers had made artillery obsolete. I think NATO thinkers get tied up in the latest and greatest until the next conflict. Look at all the loony ideas before Vietnam, or even throughout the 70's and 80's.