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Artemis258

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Posts posted by Artemis258

  1. 4 hours ago, cool breeze said:

     

    The real solution to all of this is in Starship Troopers.  If/when the USA fails (1000s of years from now ;)), liberty should rise again like a phoenix; but in the more robust form talked about in the book.  Civilians are normal free people with rights but they can't vote.  Serving in the military makes you a citizen which let's you vote.  Seems to be a fairly limited government that's focused mainly on protecting humanity from the existential threats.  If you did it this way you'd have lots of woman soldiers but they would all be volunteers.

    You've misread the book there my friend. Military service was far from the only way to acquire citizenship in Heinlein's universe, just the easiest. Unless you're talking about the movie in which case the political side of it is the director painting a different picture - that such a topic would inevitably trend to Junta, not democracy. 

  2. That is a strange use of the English language right there, a "friendship shoot". I know it refers to a friendly day at the range (not rated for competition?) but the construct is weird... 

    immediately conjures, in my mind, either; 
    "We became friends, so I shot him" 

    "we became friends, so we went and shot (someone else)" 

     

  3. My .2 cents, as this is an area I've been trying to develop myself over the past few games; 

    1. Pre-registered fires and, more explicitly, pre-registered target points, are fantastic if you get them right. I've taken to buying many TRPs in battles that they are 'fair' to use on (attack/defend types normally) and putting TRPS in ANY key terrain... This is ESPECIALLY important for ruskies and Ukrainians. 

    2. Fire type for me is dependent on the force I'm fighting with. Accuracy and high speed on-call times with the Yanks make the artillery a precision tool for them  - even when not utilising precision rounds I'll emphasise short point-fires to destroy key enemy positions, vehicles and emplacements. Longer ones from the big stuff to bring down buildings. 
    For the eastern forces, I tend to go with 'splat tactics'. I've deployed entire fire-fronts in a recent game in order to delay, disorganise or destroy an advance and it seemed to be reasonably effective, in another ww2 game I used a similar tactic against a German assault to an incredibly bloody effect, though it didn't secure me the win. 

    3. With the new 'fleeing from fire' mechanic, I've found slightly larger target areas with airburst can be stupidly lethal at higher firerates. This is from single player experience only mind you, but catching moving infantry in the open with airburst is just nasty. 

  4. 5 hours ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:


    As to if Australia needed a tank, I'm biased, but I think if an IFV or something like the MGS had been selected, it'd have been a few years down the road before the same conclusions the Canadians had would kick in as far as tanks being a generally good idea.

     

    There was a lack of serious belligerent state actor threats, we were in an era that 1991-2000ish seemed defined by small brushfire wars, best handled by light rapid response forces, then the 2003 interlude followed by COIN fought most ably by light fighters.  What made not just tanks, but armored formations in general strong did not manifest itself in this dynamic.  Now that we've got a Russia doing silly stuff, it's something not dissimilar to the sort of wake up the Korean War brought about, that the light forces of the savage wars of peace, nor the nuclear curtain dropper adequately answer the mail for defense purposes.

    No serious state threats to Australia mate, hasn't been for a long time (though we do have a fetish for being invaded - we really want to matter. Makes us feel important on some cultural level). Last time we deployed tanks at all was Vietnam, and these days we certainly don't have enough for it to really matter. 

  5. On 4/8/2017 at 11:19 PM, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:


    As to upgrading the Leo 1s, Vanir is pretty spot on, they're older tanks using spare parts that are increasingly uncommon.  Also while a Leo 1 upgrade would have to at best, be underwritten by the Australians, at worse, fully funded and developed in house ("worst" speaking strictly in terms of cost, not technical ability), there's going to be surplus US parts, and families of upgrades available likely for decades to come (the same could have been said for the Leo 2 of course).  

     

    Oh, yeah the Leos were getting older but we could have gone for the Leo 2s imho.... Or a larger group of IFVs of some kind... We have a succession of governments that insist on buying american surplus, even of equipment we don't really need. 

    Mind you, we're wondering way off the garden path at this point! 

  6. *shrug* Not something I have direct experience with, so I can't comment from experience, simply the experience of those I talked with. The diesel is almost certainly a factor, and makes me wonder why we didn't upgrade our old Leopards... I do know a lot of the equipment we purchase is 'refurbished' and there are often changes that have to be made to fit with Australian requirements, though what exactly that entails I'm not sure. 

    Thanks for the thoughts PzSkW!

  7. 1 hour ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

    I'm not discounting what you're saying, but I'm looking at the places the Abrams is stationed (29 Palms, NTC, Forts Hood, Bliss, YTC, the USMC tanks that are in Australia), deployed (hello middle east, Afghanistan), and I haven't seen anything that indicated a higher rate of failure relative to other equipment.  It's possible Australian dust is a unique breed that conquers all filters unless said filters are guarded by Marines, but I have to wonder if there's not other factors at work.

    Army Head of Modernisation and Strategic Planning Major General Gus McLachlan recently hosted personnel from the US Army’s Tank and Automotive Command (TACOM) in Michigan to investigate what he describes as ‘very significant and reliability issues’ with the Abrams fleet in Australia.

    “At the end of it the Americans back-briefed me, saying we are using our tanks at 10 times the rate of a similar American unit and also, we use them on terrain that our soldiers would never contemplate crossing,” he told delegates at the SimTecT 2016 conference in Melbourne recently.  A further difference between the two Abrams operators is that the Australian Army runs the AGT1500 engine on diesel, where US forces use Aviation Turbine (AVTUR) fuel.

     
     source - 

    http://www.australiandefence.com.au/news/tae-cuts-abrams-engine-overhaul-times 

    *shrug* we like to push ours a little hard p'raps? 

  8. 52 minutes ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

     

    The best export Abrams would be the Australian models in my assessments. No CITV but newer vehicles with some post Iraq refinements. 

    ...And a hell of a lot of work getting them to function reliably in our conditions, btw. From a few chats I had at the air show a few weeks back, it seems Aussie dust is very different to the dust you folks considered it for... 

    Ours probably come with eskis too (cannot confirm however), and if so the beer inside is remarkably superior to anything you lot stash in them... @Ithikial_AU  

  9. Related to this debate is the issue of LWS on vehicles... I wonder, how difficult would it be to patch this so that, like APS is currently, it was a variant available to the player, but not fitted as default? This would allow players the choice of fitting or not depending on their balance considerations and desire for 'probable future' or 'present now' technology, and might go some way to reshaping the popular perception of Blue on Red battles in PBEM? @Battlefront.com might have some comment on this? 

     

  10. 18 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

    Getting closer!  At least this weekend's testing round was not followed up by testers using a stinking poo edmodocon :D  First time since we started, so that's a good sign we're in the final stretch now.

    Steve

    Ahh, modern software testing/feedback cycles have an interesting change in language it seems... 

  11. Been playing an opponent on the few good men in a ruski defence against a US probe... it's early days yet, but I've lost a bit of armour, but he's down 4 (5?) brads and maybe a mission kill on one Abrahms, with hits on two others and a real failed opportunity that cost THE PERFECT flanking shot at 600 meters... 


    Bottom line; play ambush tactics against the US. Don't get drawn into open, long range firefights - it's what they do best. Get in close, get on their sides, take single targets or crush them with overwhelming force. Be prepared to take casualties. Use hard cover to block thermals (buildings, REALLY dense forrests, ect). 

    it's not easy, definitely a disadvantage, and increadibly punishing of your mistakes. 

  12. Re the video: Wow that's a hell of a hit... @panzersaurkrautwerfer would I be right in assuming those objects that go flying off and up either side are the blow-out panels...? The M1 stores it's ammo in the rear of the turret, yeah? hence the immediate burn? Would such a hit necessarily be a crew kill or is it possible the cook-off and the pannels would work as some sort of last-ditch ERA (IF the fire doors in the turret are down) ? 

  13. Yeah, it was great to get formation information in the black sea manual was fantastic... I understand part of the reasoning might have been the stark difference in moderin combat formations and operational size as compared to WW2, but for the uninitiated it might be handy to have a quick reference for the differences between, for example, panzergrenadiers, grenadiers + fusiliers, a brief description of aufklarung formations (for those that don't speak German!) ect... 

    If you're stuck currently though, the formations are as historical as the research team can get them so some googling will go a long way... but it should be in the manual :S 

  14. You can still attach single vehicles and teams,, and rename them, but it messes with the command structure a bit... I tend to either buy a seperate command structure and whittle (say for the stock standard med engagement coy inf + tank platoon, I'll buy the infantry from an infantry battalion and then whittle out a platoon of tanks from a tank battalion), or build my own platoon out of single vehicles and put them directly subordinate to the highest level commander I have... though that tends to be more expensive in points :S

    Being able to buy formations and intergrate under a single command structure would be cool...

  15. Hi all,

    I'm currently working on a small scenario as part of DutchGrenadier's scenatio design competition and I'm going to need a couple of play testers for the scenatio. It's short and sweet, designed for H2H play at about 20 min long, semi-historical. Can't go into much more than that due to competitive secrecy! 

    Playtester requirements:

    -NOT A REGISTERED MEMBER OF THE FEW GOOD MEN

    Has CM:RT v4

    Willing to give feedback on the scenario

    Bonus points if you've ever been in or around eastern Latvia, though this is not a requirement.

     

    Cheers!

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