panzersaurkrautwerfer

@Holms Dude. Look at this link. You'll see how seriously I am taking the information you are posting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ The truth is there.

It is sort of a fascinating. Like those folks who think they've disproved the holocaust because there's some ambiguity about whatever particular event they're harping on, while ignoring the greater body of evidence. Figuring out where Russian regulars vs Russian irregulars is tricky, they're not exactly labeled, and there's no small amount of deception going on. However that there are Russians, and have been Russian troops is not disputed anywhere in the world that doesn't start with R, and end with "ussia under Putin" Back to the original topic: The reluctance of the Russian armor to deploy could be both a crew quality or equipment issue. I think it was a Kettler post of all things that had some reporting from a guy who bailed on the Russian volunteers (or maybe just did his time and left, not sure). The T-64s were provided to maintain the fiction that it was "captured" equipment, but they often came without basic equipment (like crewman headsets) or proper maintenance. Regardless of "volunteer" or "regular" crew, it's going to be a tank that's not really FMC. Also the performance of the Russians in the town suggests a level of timidity anyway so perhaps it was just that organization on a whole. Again a bit of a cripple fight, you'd imagined if the Russians were any good in this one they'd have knocked out the Ukrainians when they were still pretty much broken, while the Ukrainians had an Army a 2003 Iraqi would have laughed at and it's clearly going to take a while to sort out entirely (although I'd contend it's improved beyond the point of the Russian "volunteers" to handle and would require a full on Russian intervention to defeat).

Think the broken laser warning receiver makes more sense. I don't know the specs on Russian rounds, but if you're shooting M829 type rounds it doesn't deviate in any meaningful way from the crosshairs out to about 1200 meters (think it's 800 meters or so for HEAT, not sure about MPAT, let alone AMP), and there's even an FCS control that basically rigs the whole mess to operate without a laser input. Back when CMBS came out there was some idle discussion about having tank crews not employ laser range finders at close range. I think it'd be fair, but best linked to crew quality (a veteran crew being more likely to be confident enough in their gunnery to engage without the laser, while a green one would do what a lot of new tanks do, and burn out the laser from overuse before switching to manual).

A good manual is the Armor and Mechanized Infantry Company Team FM, which is ATP 3-90.1 I believe. The Bradley Platoon FM is good, but a lot of it is stuff that's more focused on stuff that the game will more or less do for you. The Armor-Mech team stuff is much more the operations side of using both armor and mechanized infantry. Some short stuff: Re: Dismount The right answer is wherever is best. The real answer depends on what you want the infantry to do. The US Army for instance, considers dropping infantry before, on, or even after the objective acceptable as theoretical answers...but it depends on what you're doing. Broadly you're trying to balance the speed offered by the IFV/APC vs the increased vulnerability of the infantry when buttoned up and in a vehicle. Ideally you want to create conditions to allow the carrier vehicle to move the infantry practically onto the objective. This of course is normally impossible. However by using terrain, smoke, indirect fires, and support by fire* you can often get the PC much closer than otherwise. Re: Positioning Visualize a 90 degree angle. The objective is where the two lines meet. Ideally, the end of one of the legs is where the vehicles shooting at the objective is firing from. The end of the other leg ideally is where the infantry is assaulting from. In real life, this allows for the infantry to flank the enemy, and also allows for shifting of friendly fire to keep the enemy under fire....while keeping the attacking infantry safe**. This is less of an issue given the reduced threat of errant rounds, sabot petals etc in CMBS, but it does present the ideal situation. A good practice, using a tank-infantry company team, would be to establish an attack by fire using your tanks and one platoon of infantry to fully engage the enemy on the objective (preferably with artillery too). Then use the remaining platoon's IFVs to move the infantry to a safe dismount point within less than say, 500 meters or so***. Once the infantry has taken the objective, call forward the tank platoon to help secure the objective, while preparing the infantry for follow on operations (either remounting the supporting infantry platoon to help defend the now taken objective, or remounting all the infantry to prepare for the next attack. Re: Tanks vs infantry leading In more open terrain, leading with armor is likely the best. The sensors on the tanks, firepower and armor will likely let them deal with things more effectively than infantry. In wooded or urban terrain, lead with the infantry. In this environment, basically your infantry is making a "safe" path for the armor. Once the infantry encounters heavy resistance, pull the tank (or IFV!) forward to engage the enemy (using an area fire command in CMBS usually, often you'll be able to figure out which building needs to drop before your tank does). *friendly forces dedicated to shooting at the enemy on the objective. This usually is a suppression sort of deal, prevent the enemy from engaging the assault force. You can focus on more of an "attack by fire" which is more reducing the enemy and trying to push him off the objective by firepower before taking it. **This is often coordinated through pyrotechnic flares or radio code words. Once the infantry signals it has begun its assault, the supporting element shifts its fire outside of the area the infantry is about to assault into. Often reference points are used to coordinate this to allow fire to continue on the objective, but allow both the infantry and supporting elements to know where it is safe for infantry to travel without fratricide. ***I've forgotten the doctrine, but within infantry weapons range is best, standoff favors the defender, closer the better

It really depends on the time, the place, and all sorts of other variables. AK-47s were quite popular with US troops in Iraq in the early days not because it was superior to yankee bad gun M16, but a lot of folks who normally drove tanks, or trucks that were assigned pistols suddenly found themselves being asked to man checkpoints. There were a lot of AKs laying around with rounds, so therein more than few folks solved their rifle problem until additional US rifles could be sent. I also knew of a tanker who'd use an AK as a "door knocker" and would spray suspicious buildings with it, as usually it'd trigger whatever ambush was waiting for them as the ambushers would assume they were "made" and had to do it now or not at all. I also heard of some limited RPG-7 use, but that tapered off largely because of the accuracy issues, quality of Iraqi captured rounds, and increasing availability of AT4s and such. There's no real uniform nature to use of non-standard weapons beyond that it certainly occurred sometimes, sometimes more than others. With the Germans in World War Two towards the end, it simply because almost a requirement given the lack of German equipment to fill the gap. Some Allied and Soviet units certainly employed German weapons where it filled a gap (I once read a book written by a Soviet Assault gun commander, and he made it pretty clear having and MG-42 and pile of stick grenades was likely why he survived on a few occasions). As long as it can be kept reasonable or as a neat surprise (hey one of my rifle squads has an MP-40!) I don't think it'll be too annoying, but if it goes overboard (doing a QB and facing a German opponent with a Sherman Company) it'll wear out its welcome fast.

The whole thing gives me flashbacks to Homage to Catalonia. The Ukrainians started with a criminally broken military, but have evolved to a somewhat functional force (emphasis on somewhat, but they're leaps and bounds above where they've started). I'd contend the Russian volunteers have not gotten much better, but instead have some reliance on overmatch, basically they haven't had to get better, they have regular Russian support to make up for their failings. Which gets into an odd sort of balance, the Ukrainians until they right sort themselves out or start dropping rounds on Russia itself (the first is somewhat likely, the second not so much) are going to be hard pressed regain their territory. On the other hand, if there's ever a Russian leader who decides Donbass isn't worth the effort, it's going to end very poorly for the Russians within the invaded areas. On the other hand, training or equipping the Russians in Ukraine better is a bit of a lost cause, they'll never be able to hold their own without a high level of Russian support, short of being given their own nuclear weapons or something. In that regard it's a lovely setup for a sort of eternal war. The Ukraine is doubtful to ever surrender claims on it's eastern regions (and rightfully so by most accounts), but short of Russia doing a total about face, or becoming so weak as to abandon it's semi-imperial ambitions, it's doubtful it will ever be able to restore its territorial integrity. On the other hand, the Ukraine is now strong enough and angry enough that the Russian-fakestates will never be safe without lasting Russian support, but they come with a heavy price of sanctions, international condemnation and establishing a wide (and likely justified) ill view of Russian intentions in Eastern Europe. The current situation is desirable to no one, but no one has or is likely to gain the mains to restore a stable solution. I contend the most likely situation is in some years (could really be decades) Russia will likely become weak to the degree where it tries some sort of exit strategy from the region ("hey Donbass, here's a pile of Armatas, and some artillery from storage. GOOD LUCK YOU ARE NOW SAFE") followed by a messy ethnic cleansing of the region that everyone in the west ignores because we like Ukraine, while Russians make it appear like a second holocaust ("three million innocent republic of Donbassians are slaughtered by cackling jackboot wearing cyrogentically frozen nazi strumtruppen!" vs "You don't belong here. You have 24 hours to fix this" which while not "good" will fall well below anyone outside of the Russosphere's level of care).

It's the end result of when you abdicate planning for contingencies and instead attempt to simply order results into existence. You order someone to mow your lawn, but the only tool they have is a shovel, it's going to look ugly. However it's not his fault for using the tool and training he has to try to mow the lawn, it's your own damn fault for not planning for the eventuality that you will have to mow the lawn and that will take specialized equipment and training. You order a tank company to police a neighborhood, it's going to look ugly. They only have a small number of people (compared to normal infantry units) but a massive amount of capabilities to break things. Which gets into my major critique about "big Army" and the American government writ large. We rarely realistically plan for things, and instead simply believe by virtue of being Americans we will accomplish it because we're Americans, and then place the burden on making ends meet on lower echelons who are now improvising to be successful. Luckily enough for the larger body, they are well served by their subordinates and the sheer amount of resources we can wield as a country. It does however lend to a vicious cycle in which the top makes stupid choices, the bottom makes stupid choices work anyway (or scams the system effectively*) which then the top pats itself on the back for being so damned smart and then finds new idiot choices to make. *Case in point, imagine how much actual time for meaningful work your average unit would have if it did all the various sexual assault prevention/drug abuse awareness/excess drinking deterrence/cultural awareness/etc etc crap to the literal letter of the book. The intent is hours of training on how to be the new socially aware wonderperson, the end result is usually some irate E-7 grumbling something about "there is only one color here and it is green, and any of you $%#^s piss hot or get a DUI and I'm going to gut you" before the unit is dismissed back to real army stuff. The training is reported as completed to spec however to avoid invoking the wrath of the higher echelon demons, and whatever nosemining rocket scientist who decided all these classes was a good idea gets a high five, a promotion, and gets to continue their vacation from reality.

Tragically, I never had the chance. Running over things while in the tank is oddly anti-climactic, the suspension and lack of near visability makes it just feel like another bump in the road. Watching it however is always cool as seen in this classic example of COIN gone terribly wrong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJC1unnuwds

One of the issues in understanding Russian EW is the claimed capabilities are often irrational to the point of mockery. They emit so hard vehicle engines cannot start. All computers fail. It is the EMP! The reality is they're highly capable systems, with an understanding of the exact functionality ranging between fairly precise (we've listened in on them/have one of the units ourselves), to largely conjecture (limited over the horizon electronic collection, broad understanding about antenna size and power output). EW that jams so hard....it kills is doubtful simply because most collection or sensor platforms have some sort of failsafe as that's just a prudent thing to have. Not even in terms of EW, but there's enough emitters out there that are powerful enough that it's a smart choice to build in a safety element to it. One of the bigger questions about Russian EW equipment however, is how well it deals with counter-measures, or the increasing array of "home on jam" type guidance packages. While it's not a simple easy fix by any stretch of the imagination, it is something that there is an interplay between capability and counter-capability that goes less advertised than SU-24s shutting down entire US fleet with one simple trick doctors don't want you to know about.

Only rocket science. That's pretty much just a step up from burger rotation tbh. I don't really know much about the science behind it, or much science at all, the Sabot could have released a million tiny armor eating gnomes for all I knew. However in training and planning, something north of a 80% kill rate was expected against a T-90 type target at 2500 meters against the frontal target (with rounds missingr, mobility/firepower kills, goes through things that don't kill the making up the .2 notakill). This of course should be taken with the grain of salt that rarely does anything actually approach a .8 p/k in reality, but the armor array of most Russian tanks is exhaustively understood, and does not appear to present an undue challenge to modern sabot type rounds.

The custom OOB would be nice. I usually wind up playing with the same sort of forces in QB over and over again, and it's tiresome to have to make the same tweaks. I have stated it before, and am doing it again now obviously but: There really needs to be a way to simulate one side's air superiority or lack of it. Fixed wing interception is as much a part of air defense as local ADA weapons, and it's a bit odd to see forces with historically weak air forces able to bomb forces with historically near total air dominance with impunity. Being able to add that extra level of friction to air strikes makes it more interesting, and historical (and allows for the historically small chance of German CAS showing up, without making an a historical Stuka happy hunting day).

I like the "near miss" stuff, like having the ability to have a "US Tank Company, 1945" outfitted with T26E3s would be cool, or early run Centurions, and night vision equipped Panthers, because again it was practical stuff that was simply a boat ride away from being part of the war, or even in use, just in numbers in the high single digit low double digit range. There's no mystery, we don't have to handwave insurmountable engineering issues, it's just gear that missed the big show. I think that's a lot more compelling than the E100s or Mauses because again, those were never going to be really practical, and a short hop out of reality is merely taking the next few steps from May 1945, rather than inventing a whole year of world events.

One of my pet peeves with alternate history/World War II 1946 is that whatever the piece of fictional hardware is, it performs more or less as intended, usually without regard to the assorted technical issues, or operational-strategic issues. Also invariably it turns into "German army 1946 with super science!" vs Allied Army 1944, or the very real (and thus, with very real limitation) 1946-1950's stuff tossed in. I mean the E series is cool and all, but a Western Front 1946 is going to have Americans whipping around Pershings (and some super-Pershings) like they were Shermans, British armor is going to be Comets if not Centurions, a sky full of P-80s and Meteors (with B-29s bombing anything worth strategically bombing), and functional nuclear weapons. And that's where things start to slip away more than a little. A Fall 1945 throw down between West and East seems a bit more reasonable simply because we know where the starting forces were at around then, and about where the R&D for real equipment and production numbers were at. But the wunderwaffe in a vacuum remains one of my pet peeves.

Not trying to be all "this is impossibru!!!!!!" but speaking as a non-engineer, something is up. The T-90 hull has been a pretty well known variable for a while, and it has reached enough export proliferation to be considered on the threat tank list (unlike say, the T-64 post cold war). The M829A2 is still widely issued, let alone the M829A3. The A4's main push is ERA defeat. If the frontal slope of a T-90 without ERA could handily defeat a sabot, there'd be some major motions and shake-ups, war on terror distraction or no (or see the A4's development cycle basically). The Army was also fairly honest, if not at times aggressive about asserting what could, or couldn't kill threat vehicles,* and historically has used the danger posed by enemy vehicles as a way to lobby for more funding. This has not happened. Which leads me to believe that there might be other forces at work, or at the least, modeling penetrator vs armor is tricky to say the least. *It took until post 1991 for .50 caliber to be considered as effective against BTRs and BMPs for exercises, because someone could point to the various well ventilated BMPs out in the desert and point to where the .50 cal penetrated. While the MPAT and older HEAT rounds would out and out kill a T-62 and down without breaking a sweat, you couldn't get away with using it in the simulators.

I'm trying to go for more brevity in my responses, so here's an honest go at it: It's not "generally don't take care of it" it's "has no investment in the equipment, is ruled over by a cultural and social elite with no investment in soldier care, and lacks a middle level of management provided by NCOs." There's just this very frustrating lack of understanding that wars are readily lost by poor leadership, but they never won by good leadership alone. If you read Arabs at War there's a very interesting trend that often, the military performance of the higher level officers is acceptable at least, they're making good choices given their understanding of the conflict, have intelligent plans etc, etc, etc. However once you get to the lower level, junior officers are rarely afforded much training, and troops are treated quite literally as numbers, in as far as if your platoon has 16 soldiers it is good and ready for war, while if you only have 12, then we must draft four more folks on the way to the front. This is a wider cultural issue in that there simply is no middle ground between "dirt poor" and "elite ruling class." There's not that pool of high school graduate level, patriotically aligned mid to lower middle class that signs up for the Army because they want to kick doors down and run over cars in a tank. Because it's that pool that generates your Sergeants and up. And frankly in modern, highly technical fighting without that professional "blue collar" element, you're well and truly **** out of luck (profanity included and obviously censored for emphasis). You need those Sergeants to be the systems experts and keep the tank crew on task and help it make low level choices internal to the tank instead of needing to mother may I to the platoon leader. You need that "smartest man in the room" in the mechanics pool to problem solve and triage bent tanks. You need that "follow me" kind of guy to be an example to the junior enlisted of who they could be if only they cleaned the goddamned tank and did their jobs. Of course, a middle class would threaten the social and societal norms of these places, or worse, there's a middle class but it consists largely of folks emulating the ruling class so they can no longer be considered one of the poors vs being a distinct group of its own.

Sounds about right. That's where simply by numbers the majority of the Saudi M1A2 fleet sits anyway.

The way SACLOS works in a nutshell is the guidance end tracks the missile via some sort of emitter on the back of the rocket, usually some sort of flare. What Shtora tries to do is con the guidance system into thinking that the Shtora IS the flare so instead of trying to correct the flare on the missile onto where the crosshairs are, it's trying to guide the Shtora's emitters which quite obviously are neither missiles or listening. Late 90's vintage TOWs on would not likely be confused by Shtora given some tweaks to the system. Should still work against Soviet legacy systems and some other less modern SACLOS systems.

Re: Air conditioning Again worth keeping in mind the M1s through the M1A1HA were intended for Central Europe or Central Europe. The SEP if I recall got a cooling unit for the electronics, and there was a bolt on AC unit for Iraq, although it's now standard on all SEP v2s. On the downside it does take up a goodly portion of the old bustle rack, although the expanded bustle that comes with v2s makes up for it. Still sort of an odd thing to pack around. Re: Saudi M1s Having looked at it a bit further, there's a lot of squirrelly stuff on what exactly they do, or don't have. There's an M1A2S out there that's supposed to incorporate some of the widgets from the original SEP. However, it certainly remains the US armor package remains off the table. Even straight up NATO allies were not offered the normal US armor package, seems doubtful the export licenses to Saudi Arabia would be forthcoming (especially now with their tendency to leave Abrams sitting around). Optically I would be interested to see what they wound up with, gen 2 FLIR isn't as much of a close hold, although there might still be a downgrade in the system somewhere again, given the Saudi tendency to leave things laying about and residual bad feelings towards them outside of the contractor end of things. Either even the commander's station in all of the examples I've seen is distinctly older generation. I'm virtually certain about the armor, and the various C3 systems are definitely not included. Fairly certain the late model M829 rounds are also off the table. Optics I'm dubious about, or at the least what I've seen doesn't look like what a v2 has. Of course it's got (had) Saudis in it so it might as well been an M4 Sherman with "Abrams" chalked on the side of it.

They're the earlier model. SEP v2 has an entirely different configuration at the commander's station, CITV screen and controls inclusive.

Yeah but it all depends on your ability to keep the uneducated people happy. One of the issues I feel with an uneducated populace is all it takes is someone promising them a better more awesome way that's perfect to cause all sorts of sadface (See Putin, Trump, Hitler, ISIS etc). It removes any sort of critical worldview and supplants it with a population that's based its reality on whoever is in charge is lying, and some strong guy who says things that sound good (and often are "good" for a time) becomes very reasonable. Saudi Arabia traditionally had enough money to just fling at it's native Arab population to keep it fat and happy, while importing laborers to do the gross stuff from Pakistan/the Philippines*/Bangladesh or importing educated people to do the stuff they weren't able to have "smart" blue collar workers for (the back of the Army Times always includes an advert from whatever company the Saudi military uses for its vehicle maintenance offering good bucks to M1 or helicopter maintainers to come work in Saudi Arabia). It is however approaching a point where it faces a decreasing ability to pay for either of those courses of action which I am sure will end splendidly.

That's about on par for a turret inside that hasn't been cleaned recently from what I saw. It'd look a lot worse if something actually burned for reals.

It's an issue of both. 1. Russian tank design since there's been Soviet tanks to design prioritized smaller, lighter vehicles for a variety of reasons (smaller targets, better mobility, lower infrastructure requirements). Smaller, and lighter are not things that the kind of armor arrays on western tanks can do well. 2. Economically speaking a new MBT program, or a massive passive armor upgrade were simply not feasible in the post cold war era. The Russian preference for ERA comes out of the fact that: 1. They're pretty good at it 2. A super-advanced 2017 bit of ERA could hypothetically be strapped to the outside of a T-55 as well as a late model T-90, with fairly modest engineering work. It's marginally more complex than that, but it certainly is much less dramatic of an upgrade and solution than an advanced passive array.

I think the best way to describe it is you work with smaller teams (max of 6) and there's not a lot of granularity in what you do (you get two actions for each operative, shooting always ends a turn vs an action point system). Some people say it's "simpler" which to a degree it is, but I'll contend that compared to most squad level turned based games, it only presents you with choices that matter, and doesn't bog you down with micromanaging how many APs it'll take to cross the street, get behind cover (and if it's squatting or kneeling!!!!) and reload, it's just "can I move across the street with my first move? If yes and there's cover your dudes get down behind it, and if you didn't use up both moves with a long movement action, congrats! Reload away. Thematically it's still brilliant. However: There's XCOM: Enemy Unknown which is the modern remake, quite brilliant and quite cheap now (it came out in 2012) which thematically is the same idea as the original XCOM. Then there's XCOM 2, which assumes humanity got its teeth kicked in and has you running 20 years on with a resistance based on survivors from XCOM. They both play quite well (as I've already said), there's neat throwbacks to the original, and they're still punishing on even the medium difficulty. Highly recommend you snap up XCOM EU with it's quite nice expansion pack first though, as it'll set you back less, and quickly tell you if new xcom is something you'll enjoy.

For the best really, I only have eyes for Xcom 2 right now, although I'm about to start on a 1:35 scale M4A3 76W, so likely about to get my WW2 on again.

To be fair, the Washington did not hit the destroyer, and the Indiana was at fault in the 1944 collision. Ship on ship collisions though seem appallingly common in World War Two histories. Too many fast moving ships under difficult conditions I suppose.