panzersaurkrautwerfer

I didn't even get past the link before discarding it. Then I read it just for the sake of giving an honest opinion on it. Then my nose began to bleed, and I think I've got a tumor as a result. Been a while since I've read such rubbish.

I'd recommend reading Steeds of Steel anyway. Great book, and excellent perspective on the evolution of the Cavalry.

There's a marked difference between "hullo Luftwaffe mechanic I'm a jeep covered in automatic weapons!" and "infantry with a variety of automatic weapons and explosives" Gun trucks, MG armed transports and the like are great mobility assets, not so much great fighting platforms.

There's a single patch. It's not too bad.

My tiny digital Germans are allergic to bullets! THIS IS TERRIBLE. I don't know of many armies using any sort of APC/PC/Halftrack in a direct assault role and the same going well. Virtually every manual, historical and modern emphasizes dismounting before the objective in a covered and concealed position, and the sheer amount of fire even real AFVs draw on the assault on more than a few occasions led dismounted units to reject armored support in world war two. The PC assault isn't totally unrealistic though. In cases where the enemy is fairly modest or disorganized, an aggressive posture might make sense, especially in the sense of conducting a bypass. But by god you roll a halftrack at a position that's halfway dug in and you by rights should get your butt handed to you. All halftracks had pretty serious protection issues, they were great at getting infantry as close as was safely possible in a semi-aggressive manner, but despite the wide availability of halftracks, there seems to be only some manuals and a few training photos.

I had an RPK and RPG in Iraq. True story*. *They were both captures from an earlier unit that had been posted up on the wall in the plans shop I worked in at the time. I was really envious of our HHT as they had a Sterling SMG and it was way cooler than anything we had as trophies.

Nah. If there's an AK within 20 meters of a US soldier it must be looted as a souvenir. It is simply the way of things.

Fair enough. In a lot of ways I'd not cared if it was HE delay or a cannister round firing jujubes (the worst of all candies!) so long as the result was dead dismounts). Just seemed to recall it was pretty much VT if you weren't aiming to put steel on target (or DPICM back when that was allowed)

Re: Camouflage. It might just be the old property book holder side of my brain, but every time I see one of those camo arrays I always see statements of charges and 15-6 investigations. Wouldn't want to take it many places, although if it's cheap enough I suppose you could just accept burning through a few of them every year or so. Re: Stryker What's interesting to consider is the Iraq war basically interrupted Stryker Doctrine and R&D. So while as a COIN platform it has continued to evolve, as a rapid deployment "bigger than airborne, faster deploying than tanks" force it's been pretty neglected since 2004 or so. With some new exercises and training however areas of growth for the platform as a conventional warfare tool have been identified. This is one of the reasons the Company MGS platoon has faded away, while things like an autocannon armed model or platoon level ATGM carrier capability has started to make itself known (or in so many words, most FSV roles can be better filled by a 30-40 MM gun, the 105 MM isn't so great for anti-tank work, but it still is handy for the occasional too tough for autocannons type target).

Well hell. I guess I can be wrong about something. Either way in game I've always personnelled troops. Didn't CMSF used to have a "mix" option for general and anti-personnel?

I think one of the greatest forces on military reform and improvement is the failure of your military to perform. In that regard I think it's difficult to talk in terms of "smartening up" nearly as much as a lot of the inertia of "the old ways" and systems* that were impractical for combat went away and it became okay to throw a lot of stuff out the window in favor of what worked. Further the Russians gave a boatload of push towards a broader Ukrainian nationalist identity, and pairing this with the earlier revolution you have the transformation of the Ukrainian military from a force that's trying to mirror the Soviet army of 1989, largely manned by folks who do not want to be there, to a force that's discarded anything Soviet that didn't work, kept anything that had a purpose, gone asymmetrical (such as crowd sourced equipment) in novel ways, all the while now having a clear national purpose. So in that end of things, smart is not the correct term, a lot of the things that were broken about the old Ukrainian military were known to be broken all along, there just existed neither the will or justification for the sort of efforts to fix them. The war has provided both the will and the justification and now we're seeing old problems getting addressed often with novel or at the least outside the box solutions. Doesn't hurt the Ukraine is getting help on the backend from various Western partners. Non-lethal aid sounds really weak until you realize what a big deal radios are in the military context. Same deal with organizational-doctrinal type training vs the "shoot a rifle like this!" training. *Like how different parts of a military interacts vs equipment systems

Recall that virtually no time elapsed between the fall of the very Russian friendly government and the invasion of internationally recognized Ukraine by Russian forces and Russian armed criminal elements. The 1999 Kosovo fighting was only after demonstrated crimes against humanity committed by the Serbian forces, after nearly a decade of off and on again conflict. And when the NATO forced did deploy they were stuck protecting both the Albanian and Serbian elements of Kosovo. Russia's actions in the Ukraine fall so far below even a modest standard of international scrutiny and decency that virtually every country on the planet has condemned them without a hint of debate as to if they were moral or not. Even the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 which should stand as a classic example of unilateral action against the interests and desires of the world at large was more accepted and supported than virtually anything Russia has done since the start of the conflict (which frankly was not a conflict until Polite Men and others started showing up from somewhere). Prior to the Ukrainian conflict, I believed Russia was to an extent, a contributing member of the world at large (although a rather transparently self interested one) that could be part of a greater global community as an equal. Now? Not so much. Russia, and the Russians behind Putin are digging their own graves and gleefully jumping in. And it won't be NATO, Ukrainians, Black people, or secret space jews, but when Russian blood is spilled again and spilled in quantities, both the killers and their victims will be "true Russian patriots" of some manner. And all your weapons, all your various stupid little fake republics you've carved off from your neighbors won't mean a damn when the monster you've all kept in your closet, and diligently fed for the last twenty plus years comes out. So again, this is the last time I'm going to address the Russian element of this forum's rendition of reality in the Ukraine, in that I hold it in such contempt that I find it both laughable, and a damning statement on the direction of the Russian nation.

Far as I know it's air bursting. An impact fused artillery shell doesn't get the sort of fragmentation coverage that airburst does, and the explosion in the trees vs on the ground also tends to drive bits of tree downward and into people which is a messy business. You're pretty well protected against ground burst artillery so long as you've dug a good hole, not so much air bursting. If there's concerns about enemy armor in there, it might be firing a mix of both point detonating or air bursting rounds, but if the target is enemy infantry almost always the mission is going to be an air burst.

BREAK THE DEAL FACE THE WHEEL. I think the third option was Russia's calculus when they kicked off this mess. However I believe they overestimated how important Russia was to the rest of Europe, while at the same time counting on a less economically challenging landscape. And I'll also contend that the Ukraine given more time will simply complicate the problemset for Russia to a degree where it is not solvable on the acceptably cheap (and may have passed beyond that point already). The longer Russia is disengaged from Europe, is the longer Europe gets friendly with Iran, shale oil, and other petrochemical sources, and the longer it is to realize how unpleasant Gazprom is/was. There's nothing Russia offered that wasn't replaceable or available elsewhere and only at coming in with an even more modest profit margin (which is something very challenging to do with how high Russia needs oil to be vs how much the rest of the world is paying). I don't think it's a matter of more will, but Russia loses more than the west does with disengagement. There's not much Russia has to coerce the west back with as evidenced by the more or less non-impact of it's counter-sanctions (and the willingness of the Russian people to flaunt same). Dunno. Just calling it like I see it.

I think I see exactly where this train is going. However just to chip in one last little bit: 1. This is an asymmetrical conflict. It won't be decided by attrition, or even strictly speaking areas controlled. It will be decided by which side quits Eastern Ukraine first, and the low level of bloodshed (at the macro level at least) and amount of pretty meaningless terrain (I'd contend most of the "strategic" locations are pretty far out of each other's grasps for now) makes a strictly military success outcome doubtful. 2. What is most likely is either the Ukraine cannot sustain itself in the face of Russian hostility and simply must accept Russian intentions or face dissolution as a functioning state (and even accepting Russian interests, might just be effectively dismembered anyway), or Russia can no longer afford the investment in Eastern Ukraine and leaves the Donbassian Patriots to the mercies of the Ukrainians. I'd contend the first is unlikely because in effect this conflict for the Ukrainians is just short of a war of national survival. And if it is not, then it is still perceived as such by the Ukrainian leadership. It will take some dramatically successful offensives from the Russians (which is exactly what has not happened) or other external pressures for it to buckle down (economic issues are troubling...but the drift towards the west keeps it from being a total collapse issue for the time being given the resources offered). The second is more likely simply because Russia currently has something like nine to ten number one priorities, and a shrinking economy to address them. The difference being here is the Ukrainians have much more to lose by allowing Russian domination of its eastern poriton, than the Russians have to lose by Donbassian rebels lined up in front of ditches at the hands of Negro-Nazi-NATO funded murder teams. Given that: a. The best Ukrainian strategy is denying Russia a decisive military victory that could threaten the remainder of the Ukraine, while also denying Russia the justification for overt Russian military involvement in the Ukraine. This plays best to the Ukrainian strengths (preventing full Russian investment, while still forcing the Russians to commit major resources to preventing a Ukrainian counter-attack), while avoiding Russian strengths (as until there's an unambiguous reason to invade, the Russians are only able to employ a modest amount of their strength). b. Russia is in a classic military dilemma. It has effectively two bad choices. It can either fully invest in the military situation and effectively invite NATO to park on its borders while driving plenty of its nominal client states right into the waiting arms of the EU/NATO (and negate it's entire war aims), or it can withdraw and accept defeat as again the Nazi hoards of Ukrainians feast on the babies of good Russian families. This might also have major political repercussions thanks to the ultra-nationalist element. The third option of maintaining the status quo is a false one, Russia cannot afford to prop up, let alone make the fakestates stand on their own, eventually it will be unable to support either unless it forces a Ukrainian recognition of the two, which frankly is very unlikely at best. So if you're talking about "heavy casualties" or "major losses" or "Russian military prowess" I'd argue all of those are entirely irrelevant if they do not cause a Ukrainian capitulation of some kind. And right now I feel and I get the impression I'm not alone in this, that Russian efforts are unlikely to create that capitulation.

I always shoot anti-personnel in woods. The fragmentation effects aren't degraded by foliage as far as I can tell. The improved effects against cover I feel are worth it. I'll still use general if I'm just looking to rock the woods/kill/damage anything in it, but if I'm going for suspected ATGM positions, or I'm prepping a woodline for an infantry assault, airburst seems to give the best effects.

Pretty much. In the Clausewitzian perspective of war as a continuation of politics, it was a pretty bad defeat for Russia. All the Ukraine has to do is continue to exist and refuse to accept Russian invasion of its east. Russia must force the Ukraine to accept that there's now some Russian fakestates carved out of it. The big setbacks to Russia were: 1. The "rebels" they're supporting were pretty heavily mauled, and showed a general lack of efficiency. If they fought well but sere mauled, okay still got something done, or were still intact, cool there's a plausible denial shield to hide behind, but as the case is any future operations will require increasingly obvious Russian intervention, which works strongly against Russian interests globally. 2. There was no decisive victory to crush the Ukrainian military. It's still functional and operational and by some measures becoming more effective. It's no longer as exposed either. This effectively forces continued Russian investment in supporting the fakestates of Eastern Ukraine, or the Ukrainian military will simply walk in, shoot whoever they deem to be traitors before bringing the whole mess to a close. 3. Increased Russian efforts and bad faith negotiating has led to unpleasant global consequences. The sanctions are not funtimes, and there's a lot more neutral powers leaning towards NATO. There's also a lot more NATO build up and presence in Eastern Europe (current and planned). For a conflict largely intended to secure a Russian sphere of influence, Donbass is a poor substitute for turning a lot of other countries strongly west, and moving the dreaded HATO swarms into Eastern Europe in increasing numbers. So in a nutshell, Russia is committed enough that it must be in the Ukraine, but unable to be involved enough to bring the war to a successful conclusion, while the geopolitical goals that led the war being kicked off in the first place are frustrated, if not out and out defeated as even Belarus is distancing itself from Moscow. Edit: Or think of it like Dunkirk with higher consequences. The Germans held the port, but utterly failed to accomplish a decisive victory of destroying the BEF, which ensured continued British resistance, which then put the Germans into an unfavorable position of having to contend with the Brits while trying to deal with the Soviets (which ended swimmingly obviously enough).

Eh. I think the rule of thumb is whatever your tanks are, they're easily penetrated and exploded readily, and the enemy's are surprisingly resilient to everything you throw at them. If you're going for the historical norm though, the M4A3E8 beats the standard German lack of tanks.

Re: tank crews Ideally I'd like it if you gained victory points for evacuating tank crews. Like they're trained specialist crews. Their value isn't being throw away adhoc infantry (well, most of the time), it's in returning to the rear and getting on a different tank (right away or in a few days). Maybe it'd be a refund thing, like if the enemy gained 100 points for killing one of your tanks, you'd get back 10 points per crewman returned to the rear by retreating them off a friendly map edge. Re: Unauthorized guns Totally. It got discussed earlier, but having it either be something more experienced soldiers have a chance of occurring for (so a veteran skill level US Squad might have several BARs sometimes) or having the extra weapons in one of the various supply caches in game so you can plus up squads as required.

That too. The other ones that are interesting to work around is the whole "T-34 is comrade super tank of massive goodness" school. It's effectively the Sherman*, just with propaganda backing it up. *Which is not at all an insult, both of the tanks were war winning designs. It's just they're both tanks that generally were VERY good at introduction, became long in the tooth circa 1943-44, saw some upgrades before becoming competetive and effective again after the later models received some upgrades. T-34 might have been a bit better armored with better cross-terrain mobility, Sherman was way more reliable with better situational awareness. But the perceptions of each of them, the Sherman remains a deathtrap in a lot of opinions with the T-34 pretty much saving the world singlehandedly and being a competitor with the best tanks of World War Two.

Think of it this way, the effects of artillery remain equally valuable, but the amount of munitions required to achieve those effects is much higher. So using artillery to suppress/stun/kill the enemy on an objective is a great idea, it'll just take 20-40 shells instead of the 5-10 it takes in CMBS.

Same here man. It's the sport of kings and scoundrels alike. Although sometimes you just have to realize you're well past reasoning with them, so you have to go for causing an aneurysm by claiming Saving Private Ryan shows the inferiority of ubermench vs plucky American smarts and thus you're right. Also pointing out who won the war is pretty much a sure fire nuclear option for causing some really amazing mental gymnastics.

In literally every game that has somewhat realistic armor vs anti-armor performance and World War Two, I gleefully await the angry forum post demanding how it was possible that a Sherman/T-34 killed their Tiger and how it's impossible unfair a sign of hollywood blah blah MICHEAL WITTMAN IS A GOD blah blah blah goosestepping moron etc etc.

As to your first comment, it depends. A unit's formation may vary wildly based on terrain or circumstances. As a rule you want the formation that best masses firepower on the enemy. This can vary, a line is the best example, but a wedge might be better when dealing with an uncertain enemy location, or even an echelon (diagonal line basically) if you're moving with a flank to the enemy. There are of course limitations and sometimes (often?) scenario design compromises to accommodate these. The term you're looking for is "unit boundaries" which can exist at all levels of military organization. As far as allocating objectives, it really depends on the mission. In the US Army sense, it might be difficult for a platoon to secure two villages, because that implies taking it, and preventing the enemy from taking them back. On the other hand a platoon might "clear" several towns because that's just making sure there's no enemy in those towns before carrying on. The mission you describe for a Company likely is more of a "clear" than "secure" so in that regard it's not asking to use one platoon to clear each village, it's asking the company to clear a village three times. There's some adjustments to this (like the assault platoon for the first village likely will be in support for the next village). On the other hand, against a fairly weak enemy all three villages may be attacked by a platoon each to overwhelm the enemy in the area of operations by not allowing him mutually support his positions, or to force him to choose which positions he will be unable to support and abandon those.

It's more the linking of the nation with the piece of hardware. When you get the blatant appeal to patriotism from Boeing, it's a picture of one of their products, an American flag, and usually has some link to whatever patriotic holiday it is. It's pretty modest. The Russian style might be effective, but it does lend itself to very boastful, often rapidly disproved statements, or very optimistic claims that do not come to fruition. While this is not divorced from the western way, it usually has less of a finality to it, or the claims are more ethereal to begin with. It also helps that the west still claims a very strong technical edge in many areas, so even the claim of maximum awesome might not be true...it usually means its still better than your non-BAE/Northrup Grumman/EADs choices. As far as tank analogies, I really am more inclined to directly compare the Armata to the Sheridan/M60A2/MBT-70 generation of AFVs, in that they're very technically innovative vehicles that largely rely on that technical innovation for success, being trialed and built during a time of austerity. I'm of the mind the Abrams model of innovation was the most sensible (not because "AMERICA IS AWESOME" reasons, but more it's a good model I know well) in which there's a few revolutionary concepts (gas turbine engine, armor array), some advanced evolutionary concepts (more modern FCS, thermal optics), and then a lot of proven stuff (weapon, ammo, suspension, a lot of the auxiliary systems). Giant leaps with lots of revolutionary stuff tends to get very MBT-70 quickly simply because there's more room for immature concepts let alone technology to fall apart. If all you have is a few areas you're leaping ahead in, it gets less friction. So in that regard I'd have gone with a more modest jump, a new bustle mounted autoloader with the new gun and rounds, finally mounting the existing mature and effective ERA the Russian military has had for a while, and existing APS. With that you'd have a tank that'd scare the hell out of anyone who's not literally a major western member of NATO, but that would still be open to generational improvements in optics, ERA and APS as they matured. The only real gamble is the autoloader, but there's a lot of technical experience with autoloaders, both Russian, and foreign (I mean you could just shamelessly rip off the French or something, or license their design, but I think there's enough smart Russian engineers to make a bustle one work). Then I'd just go with a modernization plan for BMP-2s, scrap the BMDs en masse because mechanized airborne is dumb, buy a mess of Bumerangs because that's a good idea/good match for Russian security problems and then retire to my dacha.