panzersaurkrautwerfer

Not really. Part of my anti-VBS2 rage comes entirely from when the Army tried to use it for a Company mission (Company, platoon, and squad leaders were real humans), and it was terrible. The command interface is so poor, and the AI too dumb to act on it's own that it basically just turned into an FPS deathmatch. Our instructor stopped the tomfoolery by dropping a warship of some kind onto the hill we were taking to signal the end. There's some other 2D map icon type things that I've seen get used, but they're poor for the combat end of things. It's worth remembering in larger exercises a lot of what's being trained isn't "3rd Platoon takes hill 303" it's after 3rd platoon takes the hill, how do we get them more ammo, replace the tank they lost, evacuate the 1 KIA, 2 Urgent Surgical WIA they received, and running stuff like IADs. CMBS came out after I was out of command, but I used to push CMSF on people pretty hard, as it's quite user friendly compared to most simulators. If I had a millions dollars and was in a procurement kinda place I'd just buy up a mess of licenses for CMBS and give it out to folks graduating armor/infantry basic officer's course and maneuver captain's career course as those would likely be the audiences best able to use CMBS as a learning tool.

Actually, not so much. Some unit, somewhere, some time must have used it. But the only time I ever saw a sign it'd been employed was on the "customer satisfaction" card you'd get if you ran an exercise through the simulation center. There was a series of tickboxes to select which services you were commenting on. One of the possible selections was indeed, Steel Beasts. However I never saw it actually running on a Army computer. I purchased it for myself though, but ultimately did not really use it much (it's good if you're trying to get a tank simulator, less good if you're trying to simulate tank units if that makes any sense). The primary tank simulators were: CCTT: Basically a big 1990's simulator unit. One "box" was the entire turret interior, the other was the complete driver's station. Graphics would have been pretty so-so for 2000 or so, but they were functional, and you could put a whole company's worth of tankers into one scenario across a fairly large battle space. There were also Bradley and other vehicle simulators that operated on the same system, and could share the same scenario. It was a good tool, the amount of effort that went into setting up a mission was pretty modest. It wasn't "perfect" but man if you had a fairly free day, it was a great way to fill it with good training. Downside was it was housed in a building the size of a medium warehouse, and required some contractors to run. It was still present on every post with ABCTs stationed nearby. It also used a less complicated, but more restrictive model for gunnery so hitting anything in it was much harder than in reality. MAGTS (Mobile Advanced Gunnery Training System): The mobile came from the fact it was built into a semi-trailer, but in practice one placed it did not leave. It replicated the complete commander and gunner's station for the tank, and was used for gunnery specific training. It did not do anything else, the "tank" only moved where the simulator operator told it to or on a pre-programmed path in the simulator. Virtually all crews had to spend hours and hours doing simulated tank ranges in it before firing real bullets for qualification. These are usually allocated one to a Company (not like, it was "owned" by that company as much as each company was assigned a trailer of their own to use), and unlike CCTT, was operated by personnel within the Company. Given the nature of the "rush" times prior to going to gunnery, it wasn't uncommon to be in the MATGS at 2 AM which is really peak awesome for insanity.

VBS2 and similar platforms are pretty crappy training aids. For vehicles, they're just bad, none of the switchology works and the capabilities of vehicles in the VBS2 system are fairly unrealistic. CCTT was a much better trainer given it came with all the switches and was positively punishing in vehicle performance. It did suffer from being a dinosaur system though. For dismounted stuff, VBS2 required too much "learning" how to operate in. Like any time you put someone in with it, it was going to take an hour of your three hour block to sort of learn how to move and issue commands. And it didn't practice anything that was especially relevant to the rifleman level of things. Never got good results from it. For virtual mounted options CCTT was the only way to go, for dismounted stuff, there was more cheaper and effective training by finding a small bit of land to run around and yell "bang bang" at each other on.

I think in the Bulge it was a bit harder for everyone. Dust tends to stay in the air for a while, the heavier stuff, not so much Heavily greened areas tend to have less signature too. We didn't have to police much in Korea. Usually whoever had the range detail would go look for souveniers. Some of my dudes asked if they could borrow my HMMWV's fan grill to sift for canister round pellets. I told them they could if they brought me back something pretty, which turned out to be canister pellets, carrier, sabot penetrator (training of course) and a complete set of petals. I miss those dudes.

True, but it's still a far cry from Armatas replacing all Russian tanks in the near term. It also seems to undermine the point of universal platforms if the fielding is going to be protracted. 2020 seems ambitious, the sanctions are unlikely to go away soon, workforce training will still take time, and now it sounds like there's going to be an interim Armata, which makes sense (see M1/M1IP for a good example of withholding some upgrades to ensure a better tank now vs a perfect tank later), but will complicate a final fielding (and add another tank design to the Russian maintenance system). It is frankly amazing.

I'm not shocked if it's true. It's a very ambitious program to say the least, and a lot of those certainly lean towards the sort of economic-industrial problems that got handwaved earlier in this discussion.

The engineering work was done likely years ago (someone already sat down and crunched the installation configuration, there's an existing demonstration model showing the mounts on a M1). In terms of purchashing/installation, again looking how fast the MRAP/DUKE systems went from "the system exists!" to "every unit has them" was notable. So in terms of possibility, given a need, and a choice to go-ahead, it's quite likely. As far as "go-ahead" the last ASUA confrence revealed APS as one of the major Army lines of effort for the next few years. There's a lot of chatter about Trophy either being an interim system in regards to outfitting a few Brigades worth of Abrams, Bradleys, and Strykers with them, while a US "smart" APS matures more. Nothing for sure, but again, as always it's a more realistic inclusion than the T-90AM, BMP-3M, BMP-2M, Oplot, etc, etc, etc. Re: Sublime In a nutshell, if Russia invaded Turkey without military provocation (like the Turks weren't shooting down Russian planes over Russian soil, or Turkish commando teams weren't operating in Moscow or something), then it'd trigger a NATO response. Turkey may be the less loved of all NATO...but the US would certainly show up which is the part that really matters, Eastern NATO countries would respond because if NATO sits out a Turkish conflict, they certainly wouldn't show up to a Latvian crisis, etc, etc. NATO is built like a moustrap for a reason. There was a lot of concern starting off that some nations might just decide that really, West Germany wasn't worth a war over anyway and sit it out, so a whole host of mechanisms were built to make it less likely that NATO could be split by deft diplomacy (which frankly was never something the Soviets were good at, let alone the Russians), or by NATO state antagonism (see Greece and Turkey).

Pretty aware of how modern tank guns work. I've got an aft cap upstairs with some sabot petals in it I hang my Order of St George medal from. However the whole point of the video wasn't to show "smoke" it was to show what a flat trajectory weapon will do. Firing a cannon of any size on a flat trajectory tends to pick up anything near the front of the gun. So this image of dimly seen positively smokeless German guns is pretty unlikely given the amount of dust/turf/leaves etc it's throwing up. There might be a perception of German shots being fairly stealth, but again looking at the Germans on the defensive nature of the combat, the Germans will be able to generally choose when they opened fire, at ranges best suited to them. The massive dust plume from the video I posted might seem like it'd be a dead give away, but at ranges of 2+ KM it's going to take a second to spot, and look fairly small. American tankers might tend to perceive German guns as smokeless because they're seeing firing effects from a distance, while seeing the fairly massive effects from their own tanks up close (especially on the early run 76 MM tanks). But as all the videos shown have demonstrated, you shoot a cannon and it's going to leave a pretty big signature.

I'm torn in a lot of ways in terms of favorite missions, Pine Valley was awesome because at the end of it, all you've really got is a scorched ruined pile of rubble and some roads. But it's not at all scripted, it's just the inevitable outcome of a shootout between tanks and a boatload of artillery. On the other hand, the last mission really just feels perched on the edge of destruction, and as the B-52s swoop in to cut things up and give your tanks some breathing room, it just was pretty awesome for a mere video game. It's really again where Wargames totally failed to be a Cold War game. It's not about having all the T-62 models neatly arrayed, or ensuring you can play as Norway, it's about capturing what would have likely been the most destructive event in human history. And it just did not resonate as you pushed blobs of tanks across nearly flat pristine fields, and even the artillery spam felt less apocalyptic and more just yet more idiot cheese tactics from the RTS crowd. I think Combat Mission would do it right because it'd skip out on having a million units and stick to the ones that counted (or what place does a base model T-55 in a 1986 Fulda Gap game?), and the lethality of CMBS would be only little reduced. It might not capture Cascade Falls, but it would certainly be the various problemsets faced by NATO or Warsaw Pact elements, stripped of idiot spam tactics.

The muzzle brake helped reduce the amount of visable "bloom" but arguing for stealthier cannon fire signature is a bit like arguing which hippo is more likely to fit in a suitcase.

I loved WIC. Like it in my opinion remains the best Cold War game simply because it captures the feel so well. The Wargames series is sort of okay in a realism lite way, but it totally fails to have any personality. However speaking as someone who grew up where some of the game took place, the map geography was amusing (although the Kingdome got a better send off in WIC than reality). I was the one still calling B-52 strikes on the Soviets as they tried to surrender. The only good communist is a dead communist. Remember Cascade Falls. Death to the hated aggressor war criminal Soviet military. WOLVERINES.

It's not the powder. It's weapons size and lack of muzzle brakes. The 76 MM that was being discussed by the US soldiers lacked a muzzle brake and it was infamous for how big of a plume it kicked up as a result. This lead to the later model M1A1C and M1A2 76 MM guns which were fitted with muzzle brakes and did not have the significant plume issue. German "smokeless" powder was from my understanding no lower signature than US weapons, it's just the flash and smoke is positively negligible compared to what a large caliber gun can do in terms of tossing debris. See modern tanks with likely much lower "smoke" signature and how irrelevant the powder is to the firing signature. It's less pronounced with wet ground, but it'll still throw up a big signature.

Pfffft. Nothing compares to the universal paratrooper song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It2jlKdeJI4

Frankly, every one of those "Dare to Compare" videos are amazingly stupid. Through a perfect storm of hyperbole, an honest rejection of anything that does not match his exact idea of what that piece of equipment should do, and just plain ignorance he comes up with an analysis that makes M113 Gavin Air-Mech assault teams seem like a rational product.

No problem. I basically dusted off a class I gave to my LTs for that post, although you all missed on the employment of microarmor and whiteboards to demonstrate it. Sorry.

When my tank company operated as a Company Team* we were supposed to receive an engineer squad in a EFV (which is just a Bradley with tool racks). For us that generally would have meant someone who knew what they were doing to set up mines, wire and other obstacles, and help build fighting positions for the attached infantry platoon. If we were called to occupy a position generally we'd get so many hours of time with a heavy equipment element. Again the "blade time" would vary widely. They might show up with enough time to dig a hull down position for literally every piece of equipment in the company, but discover the earth was too hard for more than hull scrapes. As a Commander you generally figured out which platoon positions needed the defenses most (or would best benefit from them). Then you worked your way down until you'd planned out a position for pretty much every piece of equipment in the company. Basically you hoped they'd get through enough of the high priority stuff to maybe get all of your primary positions dug, and then maybe make some alternate, supplementary and subsequent positions**. However in armored units many units will be more "concealed" than in defensive positions. Ideally in US Army logic, the point of the defensive is to gain time to resume the offensive. In that regard, in the new MTOE at the Brigade level, the Cavalry Squadron occupies forward positions to deny the enemy reconnaissance objectives, and identify the enemy main effort, and to disrupt the enemy attack*+. One Combined Arms Battalion occupies a series of defensive positions along the most likely enemy approaches. The other two remain uncommitted to the rear to counter-attack once the enemy attack has lost momentum (leaving them at their most vulnerable), or initiate pursuit if the offensive is very successful. Armor simply is designed as an offensive weapon, even in defensive missions its mobility and firepower are its strongest tools. * TM D would have looked like had North Korea attacked South Korea circa 2012-2014: D HQ (2 M1s, 1 BFIST, 1 M113, 1 M113 Ambulance, 3 HMMWV, 1 Cargo Truck+rotating logistical element, usually 1x HEMMIT Fueler, 1x HEMMIT with ammo) 1/D (4 M1) 2/D (4 M1) 3/B (4 M2+3 Infantry Squads) 1 Engineer Squad 1 Stinger team ** Primary is the main position to fire into an engagement area. Alternate is different position still firing into the engagement area, think of it as a position you go to when the artillery gets too thick on the primary Supplementary is a position covering a different engagement area. Like if the enemy is most likely to go through EA Tiger, Supplementary positions cover the approaches through EA Leopard which is a possible, but not as likely enemy avenue of approach. Subsequent positions are sort of like Alternates on steroids. They're where you go once you've retrograding for the next engagement. *+ Basically inducing chaos early. You want the least chaos on the approach during an attack because as stuff becomes unhinged, it's harder to fight and control a unit. Ideally the screening scouts induce that chaos, and make it more difficult for the enemy to effectively mass fires and forces on friendly elements. Or in a simple analogy, they're there to punch the bad guys in the face, bloody their noses, and then slip out of the way to let the unbloody and fresh defenders continue the fight.

The mail bag did indeed go over the side, but I get the impression neither party to the exchange paid the bag much mind. In either event, that was the fourth plane destroyed while assigned to him, and the second of three airplane crashes he was involved in. Needless to say when he drove out to visit us from the Midwest, he drove. On the other hand, from the cool junk perspective he pried the dataplate off every plane he rode in, likely committing some UCMJ punishable act, but leaving a trail of destruction only a 17 year old tail gunner can make. On Topic: It'd be neat if we could have in future games "Hasty" and "Deliberate" positions, reflecting the difference between a hole dug by an etool over the course of a few hours, vs a deliberate position made by engineers and a lot of time. Deliberate would obviously confer a better cover and concealment advantage.

My granddad was a radioman-gunner on a variety of US Navy aircraft, mostly TBFs and SBDs. He was assigned to a land based Navy unit that did a lot of courier and transport type missions, which meant he got sort of a tour of the Pacific. One of the unit's more common missions was delievering mail from New Caladonia where it entered theater in bulk, to ships out at sea. One run granddad's SBD arrives over the selected mail drop area for a US destroyer that was passing through on it's way forward. There's a ship right at the correct spot and time, looks a little big, but whatever, they swoop in low and slow to drop the mail. Right about the same time, the pilot spots the rising sun on the ship, and the Japanese figure out it's a US plane. Plane goes evasive, the Japanese let fly, and while unsuccessful in shooting granddad's plane down, inflict a whole mess of damage. Granddad is pretty cut up from fragments, the plane has a laundry list of inoperable systems, landing gear inclusive, so the pilot limps towards the nearest US locations, which eventually happens to be the USS Barnes, a CVE. Plane "lands" hard, and all the assorted leaking fluids start to smoke. Pilot gets out okay, but granddad's canopy is jammed shut, and he's lost a lot of blood at this point. A corpsman with the rescue party gets up on the plane (granddad described him as "massive") and starts going at the canopy with the blunt end of an ax. First swing simply bounces right off. Second swing smashes through hitting granddad in the noggin. He's in a coma for two weeks, and someone decides to shuffle him back to the states. Once he recovered, he was sent back stateside where he flew as a radioman on a Navy operated B-25 doing warbond tours. There's a few glamour shots of various Navy aces you can kinda see him the background of as a result.

The answer is it really depends on time available and needs. Digging in deep takes a lot of time and effort, and rarely are those available. When we did our defensive planning at the Company level at least, it was generally picking a limited number of positions in the most valuable locations and that's it. So as an example if I had three tank platoons, I might be able to build enough hull down positions for six of the twelve tanks I had, or three to four turret down positions. So then it was all about picking what I needed and where they'd do the most good (likely the platoon that would initiate firing, or even possibly the position that would support our retrograde).

If I had to guess, he was lost, and trying to figure out his way back to his position. The fog of war is pretty impartial to rank (case in point my granddad picked up his second purple heart attempting to complete a mail drop on a Japanese cruiser). Re: Topic Spotting the disturbance of even a well done position is more likely than spotting the troops contained within. You might find it because of muzzle flash, but it'll again be the not quite right leaves vs the machine gun team that gives it away.

And I was talking about weapons used in the Bulge in limited amounts that did not make the cut into the official weapon's list. 37 MM AT guns were retained by some US units mostly for fire support purposes. It wasn't common but there's a few photos of those guns towed behind halftracks into 1945 or improvised into vehicle mounted weapons.

Odd where that all shows up. I always have a sort of finding a lost Inca pyramid reaction when I find something rare like that, usually followed by the disappointment of being the only one in the immediate area that cares. There really ought to be a German word to describe that feeling.

Re: Tanks are Sexy Armored fighting vehicles always have way more sex appeal than a static gun. It's a simple fact. Also when you're going for more bang for your buck in terms of programming, I imagine a Jadgtiger gets more attention than a 90 MM AA gun. I've heard references to them being pulled off of AA duty in places, but more often in reference to the same general panic that led to folks being asked the capital city for Illinois. I don't think anyone doubts they played a role as an AT weapon on some occasions but it just was not especially common. Errata: 1. It's worth noting they're not the only low density weapon to not make it into the Bulge. I mean some US Armored Infantry units retained their old 37 MM AT guns, either towing them or making an improvised mounts for them on a halftrack. I've got photos of both methods and some commentary. This does not mean the game is really worse off though, just demonstrative that not everything will make it in. 2. The Germans wound up using the 88 extensively because they always had a bigger tank problem than the Allies. This may sound counter-intuitive, but German armor was simply not that common in the wider picture of things. Locally it could become very common, as was the German practice of schwerpunkt, but most German units had very little armor on hand if anything at all generally Stugs and Panzer Jagers (they never had anything like the Allied/Soviet infantry supporting armor BN/BDEs). And facing this fairly armor light collection of forces was frankly the largest collection of armored vehicles in history (there were twice as many Shermans produced than German AFVs of all types). Which is not to wander back into the Deutchland Uber Alles mythos of superior tankers killing waves of tanks. Not at all, German armor was frequently mauled, defeated, and destroyed by "inferior" tanks and tankers. But if you're the German Army you've got enemy Panzers coming from EVERYWHERE and in number. If you're the Allies, you might very well never see much German armor at all. So in that regard the Germans had to answer the question of how to deal with thousands upon thousands of enemy tanks on the offensive. And that was pretty much anything that could be AT had to be AT (see some of the various attempts to keep things like the PAK 50 relevant). The Allies and specifically the US in this case never had to think of ways to go max anti-armor at the expense of other weapons and missions.

When the Jadgtigers showed up, they made an impression. They were a terrible waste of resources and ultimately not that effective for reasons you mentioned, but again, they still saw service and fairly extensive combat for their small number. While thousands of 90 MM anti-aircraft guns were produced, a very small portion of them (perhaps even less than the Jadgtigers) saw direct fire employment, many of them tied up keeping Seattle WA safe from Japanese bombers, shooting down V1s, deployed protecting rear areas etc. They just were not commonly employed for a variety of reasons. Again they were present, and they were employed used although not frequently. I was surprised not to see them, but I don't exactly feel like a key, or even very significant part of the winter 1944 battlescape is missing.

I think I get the official party line. 90 MM AA guns did play an important role in a few places but they're a really complex thingy to add into the game. Might be neat if they showed up in a module. I think the fewer and far between line is hard to establish. Jagditgers might have been rare, but they left a pretty big impression in the consciousness of WW2 nerds. The 90 MM AA guns did not show up that often, were not as "sexy" and did not play a major part in the US direct fire capability.