panzersaurkrautwerfer

I cannot think of a stupider thing to do if you want a short victorious war than an an unambiguous conventional attack against Americans on American soil. Literally the one thing that I can think of that will virtually ensure the American people support a war irrespective of casualties would be exactly the "limited" strikes against port facilities. Even from a military perspective, there's enough ports you would need many times more missile launch platforms to really justify even merely in terms of disruptive results, a strike against port (or airport) type facilities. With the paltry number available all you are doing is generating a delay, while providing the backing for an actual full fledged military counter-offensive into Eastern Europe which will simply lead to the sort of loss Russia could not survive with the status quo intact (while a loss of Donbass or something would be seen as unfortunate, but could still be spun as victoriously drawing a line in the sand). The three month window becomes irrelevant if the popular will of the west is in murderdeathkill mode. Even strikes against Europe would be disasterous. Modern Russia relies much more on global trade, and would even in the event of victory be ensuring those lovely materials they would like to see elsewhere sit embargoed somewhere. Because frankly even the fairly dovish Germans would be sitting around chanting "remember Bremen" if the Gazprom lines stayed open. Short Ramble on The Soviets Where I think we're seeing a breakdown in talking to Lucas is as follows: 1. He's confusing things Russia would like to be able to do, with things they have the means to accomplish. The US military has a dangerous and well trained special forces community. We would in the event of war, like to be able to arrest Putin and decapitate the whole corrupt box of lies etc etc. But we would not drop SOF wholesale onto Moscow in the hopes one or two of them leak through to Putin's lair and successfully kidnap him because that's frankly absurd and well beyond the capabilities of even the capable SOF forces available. Russia has a Navy more powerful than some. Russia would like to be able to conduct complete sea denial in the event of war with the west. Russia however does not have the assets to reasonably disrupt western shipping in proportion to the losses it will sustain. Honor, and frankly knowing we're going to be trying to snuff it out use or no use will lead to the Black Sea forces being committed, but a wider naval conflict is just Russia putting its genitals out where they can get cut off. 2. There's a very Cold War mentality that credited the Soviets with being able to accomplish literally everything. It sounds like they're building a space laser. IT WILL SURELY BE OPERATIONAL BY 1987 WITH NONE OF THE FRICTION WE ARE HAVING IN THE WEST, DESPITE HAVING A SMALLER BUDGET, LESS EDUCATED WORKFORCE, AND MORE LIMITED RESOURCES. There's a new Soviet tank? IT HAS A CANNON THAT WILL EXPLODE THE ABRAMS FROM SPACE AND THE NEW MISSILES WILL ACTIVELY SEEK OUT CAPITALISTS USING ESP DERIVED FROM MONKEY BRAINS. There's never a practical questioning of if it was possible, it was just taken for granted that it is the Soviets, so of course everything they claim is perfectly reasonable and doubtless possible. That of course, was incorrect, there was a lot wrong with the Soviet military, and a lot they compromised to accomplish some of their "better" things. But it made a mentality that makes it very easy to imagine eight Russian submarines destroying dozens of cargo ships, while launching strikes that debilitate every East Coast port city, while the surface forces put up a good show instead of being literally buried under every anti-shipping missile in the US inventory because every squid wants to be able to claim THEY sank a ship for reals yo. In understanding Russia today it is important to remember 1991 happened more than a few years ago.

And hands in pockets. And tattoos.

Respectfully, it was only eight on active duty and a little shy of a year so far in the National Guard. Anyway, back to Lucas This is where you are confused again. This is not World War Three. This is a regional conflict that has boiled over thanks to itchy trigger fingers. In a war of national survival that either ends with a Russian landing in Colorado, or a NATO victory parade past the Kremlin, the sort of expectations you have are less unreasonable. However any sort of Naval or Air war is Russia directly playing against American strengths, and losing assets they cannot replace (there are minimal remaining Russian shipbuilding facilities, Russian air industry relies on imported components etc). Not to mention the Russian Naval capabilities are even worse decayed than the rest of the Russian military which is bloody well saying something at this point. It will take less time to achieve a build up of air assets than ground assets. This is relevant because again, you think there needs to be various LAAD type systems or the US military will be crushed by raining blows of Russian CAS. The ground deployment will lag well behind the air, and if you've got even a preposition yard equipped ABCT in country, you've had at least 7-10 days from orders to deploy to first elements of the ABCT mission capable. USAF squadrons flexing to europe is simply much faster because they're falling in on existing NATO logistics. The air battle may not be won for a bit, but it certainly will not be some totally anarchic flow of random planes swooping and diving all over the place, with only LAAD standing between NATO forces and skyassault. So here's the situation with LAAD: If it existed, it would only be available in numbers that would be commiserate with the forces deployed. A Brigade level ADA asset will simply be overwhelmed and crushed if the Russians are able to blow through the amount of fighters than can (and would) be deployed within the ten day prepo draw window. PATRIOT is different because PATRIOT can be better mobilized as it's just a series of large trucks, there's even PATRIOT batteries aligned with airborne units (likely meant to be flown in as a follow-on vs dropped). But in terms of a ABCT, some mythical ADA asset simply would not be enough to ward off a Russian attack that again, plows aside some of the most effective fighters and theater level SAMs in the world. The US military dumped horse cavalry, coastal artillery, dive bombers etc all because it found other better ways to accomplish those unit's missions. We don't have 40 MM bofors strapped onto ships any more in spite of the dire threat of enemy aviation that leaks through SM-3 missiles and CIWS, which frankly might as well be suicide really. The total lack of rearward facing machine gun turrets on the existing generation of strike fighters ensures they will be partially helpless when the hun bounces them from the sun after sneaking through radar, BVR engagements etc etc. Tankers must be equipped with sabers to allow them to ride down dismounted enemy fusiliers in case the machine guns don't catch them first! Seriously. You've played some video games. There are some risks to not having an LAAD system. In a land of infinite money we'd likely have one. But the risk is simply not that high when you take into account the US military's role as Largest Air Force's of the World #1-3 and is close buddies with #6-22, and we don't have money for every project ever, and red air is, and likely will remain a distant threat to the American serviceman, unlike direct fire, IEDs, mortars, and poor dental hygiene.

Again it's added metrics and reality to capabilities. The capabilities themselves, or the Russian intentions to use them were never in doubt. Now we better understand however what they can and cannot do.

It's a sort of Imperial Japan vs US correlation. Russia is dangerous, and it could do a lot of damage on a world that is not prepared for it....but Russia is not able to conduct a long war. My concern is there is a government in Russia right now that is focusing on the following messages: 1. Russia is powerful 2. Russia is surrounded by enemies. Given this message on a loop, along with the silly Russia irredenta concepts, all combines for a concern that ultranationalist sentiments might lead to a combination of objectives, perceived means and perceived justifications, which might just lead to a lot of dead people. I like to leave some education out there, or at least a counter-narrative showing the frailty of the strength, and when possible the illusion of objective and justifications for military conflict against the west. Simply put there's no reason why any of us should go to war, and Russian belligerence in Eastern Europe is selling the Russian people's futures in exchange for trinkets for its ruling elite. This is not to say America is somehow better, but our folly is somewhat less likely to result in full scale conventional warfare in an otherwise fairly peaceful place.

Re: The Truth I'm not the most knowledgeable person on here, I'm just one that has a fair bit of knowledge, and is sufficiently underemployed these days to write long winded replies. I'm always surprised to find on here a not small number of folks who've done seen things and been places. If Battlefront found itself looking for a junior analyst and commentator though, I think you'll find my rates are quite reasonable (I accept product and tacos as payment). You mistake my meaning. It is not "marginal importance" to the battle but marginal importance in terms of novelty and tactics. Russian employment of fires has not effectively been any different than we expected them to be. Russian EW is interesting, but it is not working against the sort of communications systems we employ, much of it is hardened against what we have seen so far. So for the Ukrainians, certainly not marginal. For lessons learned, interesting but not likely how the Russians would choose to fight against NATO. Some of the capabilities are interesting in giving hard numbers vs best estimates though.

The reality is if something brushed aside the USAF/USN air component plus NATO allied aircraft, went through PATRIOT without suffering enough losses to be crippling, I'm dubious to if an American rendition of the 2S6 would matter. Again as a wargamerism, we accept exceptional losses to achieve victory. If the Russian air force is literally destroyed blunting the NATO counter-offensive, when the rest of the USAF shows up, there's simply not going to be any red air left to make the Russian IADs that key integrated piece, which then leaves the defenses formidable, but much easier to overwhelm and dismantle. Which then leads to something similar to the Persian Gulf or Normandy 1944, where moving any ground forces invites bombs. Every MIG or SU turned into a smoking hole trying to claw through to those ABCTs is one that cannot contribute to air defense later. And the Russians are by far in more danger from massed air attack than from two or so ABCTs. Which really gets into playing into NATO's hand. NATO doesn't have to physically re-take the Baltics immediately, a lengthy stand-off blood letting plays to NATO advantages, and if Russian air is defanged that becomes much easier. It might mean the Baltic region takes it on the chin in terms of economic and infrastructure damage but the west can sustain a long war fought largely with stand-off weapons. The Russians cannot. They also stand to lose the most by expanding the conflict in that they will have to mass most of their modern assets to the Baltic theater, while stripping other regions. While there's nuclear deterrence for Russia proper...all of it's little semi-fictional friendnations it has carved off from its neighbors do not. And taking those with the Russian military largely engaged with soaking up air strikes to hold onto real estate of marginal value would allow for things like a Georgian counter-offensive or a Ukrainian restoration of borders. At the very least the conflict removes any aversion to actually putting NATO literally on the border of Russia which would negate most Russian foreign policy goals in Eastern Europe. Simply put Russia has no (real) friends and many enemies. This is a creation of its current government rather than the usual Russian nationalist drivel, however it does place a Russia at war in greater peril from many directions, while Russia in turn will be forced to pick its fights, and will not be able to win more than a few of them.

The HBCT is gone. The designation went out of use circa 2012, with ABCT simply being the new terminology, but seeing as the ABCT has gone a revision in strength (up to three CABs, more tubes in the artillery battalion, 100% more engineers) it is worthwhile to consider the HBCT the "Iraq era" MTOE for armored units, with the ABCT representing the post-Iraq and into the near future composition. They are up there, but behind the both the USAF and USN (the USAF dwarfs the Russian Air Force in numbers of multi-role fighters, the Navy has about a 100 more multi-roles than the Russian airforce, but if you add in the USMC the size difference is even more pronounced). The average USAF/USN airframes are also more capable and flown by better trained more experienced aircrew. Once you start adding in major US allies in region you're basically increasingly the gap in capabilities and size a few hundred airframes at a go. So equally so we cannot dismiss the Russian Air Force out of hand, we cannot simply assume it will be successful because it is one of the larger air forces in the world. In regards to the scenario, the Russians having initiative might be doubtful outside of the very unlikely total surprise situation. More likely the Russians would fire the first shot, but the platform doing the shooting will have been observed all the way to the launching point, with NATO assets preparing to receive. Initiative will be contested, this is not going to be a pure bolt form the blue (or there wouldn't be NATO forces on hand to receive it anyway). Let's try an experiment: To assume, as Panzerkrautwerfer Lucas does that US air superiority Russian airstrikes, let alone air dominance CAS will be achieved instantly, as he appears to believe is arrogant to the point of hubris. And even when you have dealt with the Russian NATO air forces you have to deal with the Russian NATO air defense network which includes systems such as the much feared S-300 PATRIOT. Remember what happened to the Israeli Arab air forces in the opening days of the Yom Kippur War? Well, the same thing could happen to a overconfident USAF Russian Air Force in the opening days of a war with Russia the west. The inability of the NATO forces to conduct airstrikes and control Russian air space does not defacto result in Russian air superiority or even parity over NATO formations. This is quite possibly the most confusing thing about Lucas's arguments: 1. Russian Air Force is strong and so are their strategic SAMs so it will be a long time before NATO can control the skies. 2. The reverse does not apply to NATO, despite having a much stronger air force, and equal if not superior theater level SAM capability. I have never assumed regional air superiority. I simply have stated a CAS type mission, as in a plane loaded for bear with AGM munitions, loaded on a supremely unstealthy platform (like the SU-25 or SU-24) will be in mind boggling amounts of danger flying at what could very well be one of the largest collections of AWACs, modern air superiority fighters (including the F-22), and flying towards missiles with accuracy and speed to shoot down objects falling from low orbit. Could some Russian planes make it through? Maybe. But they're going to incur enough losses "leaking" to make whatever is accomplished in the CAS role at best a phyrric victory, but more likely effectively a very costly defeat in terms of the air war (trading 6+ planes for banging up a tank company is a poor deal, and with how Russian bombers have performed in Syria, it opens the question to if they'd be any good with an F-15C trying to murder them while trying to find US forces that have gone to ground). This might be the root of the problem, it's not the USAF and the Russians starting at 0 and racing to air dominance, it's starting at what is likely air superiority, if not dominance within each other's own lines, and then a period in which both parties try to force the issue. In world war one no one was concerned about the lack of machine guns located inside the field kitchen because the enemy had to claw his way through all the other defenses to get there. There was no need for an armed and armored stove to provide local area defense to the kitchen. Both US and Russian forces will have to first claw through each other's defenses before CAS becomes an issue, and the Russians simply do not have the numbers or means to overcome those defenses.

This. One of the worst things about a Soviet legacy is poor small unit leadership training. This is not exactly a condemnation of the Soviet model, but it was a system that relied on being the Soviet Army (with the larger mass, massive artillery arm and great number of Battalion level maneuver units). More training in small unit leadership and tactics, with the associated greater initiative of Company-Platoon-Squad* leadership should allow for more mileage out of what the various post Soviet military forces have (as, after all the Ukraine would struggle to field the sort of force required to make the Soviet model work). So in that regard the training is not "this is how to conduct a platoon level mechanized infantry attack against an enemy rifle squad" it is "this is how you, the platoon leader build a plan to accomplish a mission and you the squad leaders fit into the process. We are using a mechanized infantry mission because you guys are mech infantry and already know how to do that much" It doesn't translate as well outside of the military simply because so much of what we as wargamers do ignores the planning/human element. 3rd platoon moves because we tell it to. We did not have to conduct rock drills and a mission briefing to give 3rd platoon enough information and confidence to accomplish the base mission, let alone react to a changing battlefield, its just taken for granted our pixeltruppen junior officers and NCOs did their jobs before SP. But this kind of thing is a pretty big deal, and as such it is much less relevant what vehicles are used, and more relevant that you're working with motivated, educated troops (which thanks to Russian belligerence, the first is rather handily taken care of, and the Ukrainians are well educated enough as a country to allow for a good selection of leaders). Re: Training the Trainers Any good training mission is a two way exchange of information. However Russian artillery and electronic warfare assets deployed to the Ukraine are of marginal importance, and are not especially well exercised.

Sounds about right to me. I just remember in the old Close Combat IV game that a few of the US formations had infantry squads with Panzerfausts, always struck me as weird until some later readings indicated it was not an entirely unheard of act. I do think the acquirable thing makes the most sense for actually implementing them however.

This for sure. Occasionally adding a captured Sherman or M8 to a German formation during the Bulge counter-offensive would be highly historical. Also I believe the US Army at some point established a few units with captured German artillery tubes owing to a shortage of 105 and 155 MM rounds in theater. Not essential by any stretch of the imagination, but having provisional artillery batteries would be cool. I'd also like it if there was some option for a variable amount of captured small arms. I don't know how often the Germans employed US/UK weapons (I mean, they obviously stuffed Volkstrum units with captured French/Italian/etc guns but that's different), but I've seen at least some history showing US units operating with panzerfausts, or MP-40s and the like*. If it's too regular (like if you set unit quality to "high" a rifle squad will have 2 MP-40s and 6 panzerfausts every.time.) then it'll be suck, but as a random chance that your little 101st pixeltruppen have acquired an MG42 to help even the odds at Bastonge, or for some reason the commander of one of your M4A4E8s looks like Brad Pitt and is blazing away at Nazis with an STG44 from the hatch, it'd be a neat touch. *Same deal with excessive amounts of automatic weapons. It seems like the longer a unit was in combat, the higher the BAR to Soldier rate went. Having it be strictly consistent would be odd because again, it's a unit scavenging up additional weapons, but maybe the higher the unit skill, the more robust the weapons selection, like a regular unit would merely have the authorized weapons, while an elite unit has somehow snagged up an extra BAR and a M1919A6, a few extra SMGs and three panzerfausts

It is sort of the business of wargames in the military sense to make it so the following on planning is as bulletproof as possible. In terms of making a realistic outcome, they're doubtful. Frankly anyone who's survived a major Brigade+ level exercise, or an NTC rotation will tell you horror stories about how badly they're defeated. But in that regard the intention is to build a capability so far beyond what the enemy can overcome, that it either prevents a conflict entirely (as we've now reactivated 2 AD and it's comprised of 3 ABCTs and an SBCT stationed outside Warsaw, and the Polish military has reoriented nearly entirely to the East or something) or ensures that when the war goes off and we hit some major friction, that we are prepared to survive and overcome it (the attack comes during the 4th of July so most of 2 AD is still sobering up and moving slow from being stuffed with BBQ) without even getting close to a margin of error. It makes for bad wargames though, and I for one, used CMSF with my subordinates on a few occasions as it is a better rendition of what small (platoon through battalion) units can accomplish on the battlefield.

Combat radius for an F-18 trucking along with 6,000 lbs of bombs is something like 330 miles. So missions out that far, but with in flight refueling, or just choosing to base the planes ashore would be possible and lower risk. Onto the Lucas however There are currently zero armored divisions in the US military. Just so you understand this much, there are division HQs which carry various lineages (1st Armored and 1st Cavalry) but there are no longer concrete division sized units. The whole concept of the Brigade Combat Team plan was to basically have lego-type divisions built of Brigades for the mission. So in that regard, a response to Korea might have been 2 ID comprised of 1 ABCT and 1 SBCT from 2 ID, with 1 IBCT from the 101st and the 82nd respectively, with 1 CD comrpised of 1 ABCT from 1 CD, an SBCT and IBCT from 25th ID, and then another ABCT from 1 ID. So just the way you keep talking about armored divisions seems to apply a lack of familiarity with modern operations. Not so much. They're either deploying in Poland under blue air umbrella and massing to go in theater after air superiority has been established, or they're establishing defenses in the field 1-2 weeks after half the USAF showed up to Western Europe. There's just no practical way that ABCTs arrive in theater and commit to missions before there's an air threat that dwarfs what Russia can reasonably deploy. The point is the US can trade a few tanks for a lot of MIGs. The Russians don't have the ability to establish the kind of air superiority needed to accomplish CAS safely in the face of NATO aviation. If they cannot do it safely it will be a fairly short period of time before there's simply no CAS for the Russians at all, because it is scattered in pieces across the Ukraine. This is another flaw of wargamer logic, so long as the mission is accomplished this sort of loss rate is acceptable. However trading 1:1 planes for tanks against NATO is a losing proposition, and even in the event of leaker CAS, the S-3 to F-15C/F-22/other NATO fighter complex makes it very doubtful that CAS will survive another run, be able to loiter close enough to the battle to continue mission, or even escape back to friendly lines. If you're doing a cost benefits analysis, inflicting some losses on US forces in exchange for rendering Russian strike fighters totally combat ineffective, or even worse, sacrificing multi-role fighter than might help hold off US CAS just doesn't make any sense. The damage done to ensure a modest number of losses is totally out of proportion, and will simply hasten the ability of NATO to achieve total air superiority (and perhaps even dominance). CAS is just so far down what you can accomplish in contested air space that it really genuinely confuses me how you seem to think it is a realistic threat. Not even the Americans in environments much more permissive than what Russia would face expect CAS to work until air superiority is established to a degree the Russians are simply unable to accomplish. Only in a world devoid of higher strategy and operational level thinking would a Russian CAS campaign be considered, let alone effective. If it's a bridge, there's likely a CAP mission associated with it, so whoever is trying to bomb it will have to be dodging F-15C/F-22s starting at about 30 miles out. Allow me to assure you an SU-24 or SU-25 is not especially able to dodge much of anything loaded with bombs. Which generally results in bombs being jettisoned as the CAS package goes "nopenopenope" and flies away dumping counter measures. If it's a bridge more to the rear, then it'll also likely have Avenger coverage and be under a PATRIOT system too. As far as a platoon going into the open, it's doubtful simply because the ability of S-3s or even the radars on F-15Cs/F-22s to spot enemy CAS (or determine something is up from the amount of jamming coming in) to give a "red air" warning, which means we'll hold tight for a spell. The best defense for a ground unit facing CAS is to remain low profile, opening up with LAAD simply ensures they now know where you are at, and the p/k for even advanced LAAD platforms is low enough to make it an emergency effort only. Simply put you're giving the Russian air force much too much credit, while not having a grasp on what the USAF/USN/NATO air component is capable of. This for the hundredth time, no longer 1985 and the rules have changed. Sensor systems and weapons standoff has made LAAD increasing irrelevant nor is there any air force on earth than can accept the sort of losses a highly opposed CAS campaign would incur.

Never change.

Naval Combat is a pretty poor analog. I'm not trying to be antagonistic, but active and passive sensors in direct fire combat roles are equally limited by LOS. Which is say they may work differently, but if you're planting a radar beside a thermal optic, they're both very much bound to the same limitations (they're both going to find the tank at 6 KM on the far hillside, but miss the tank company behind the lowground at 1 KM). The inconsistency and short detection to shoot cycles are also at odds, as is the interplay between counter-measures. Basically apples to lobsters. From an M1A2 tank, the biggest issue was not the capability of the sensor, but the coverage of your sensors. One tank attempting to cover a complex or wide sector of fire is going to be basically reviewing a 180 degree arc a few degrees at a time. The more sensors you have oriented on a narrower sector, the less the difficulty. Which is to say I guess is if a tank is pointing at where the infantryman is presenting himself, there's a pretty good odd of spotting said infantryman. The difficulty comes from when the infantry guy is in terrain that presents a lot of possible places for an infantryman to realistically present himself (so urban settings) because the sensors can only cover so many of those places at a time. If we're dealing with a monty python "how not to be seen" moment, and there's only a few places someone could be camped out without simply being in the middle of a field, then the problem is obviously much less pronounced. In regards to the gap between east vs best tanks, I contend it has less to do with the sensor itself, and more to do with the number of sensors. Effectively most US AFVs have two more or less state of the art thermal optics capable of covering different sectors per vehicle, while most Russian ones simply have the gunner's thermal, and a day/passive IR commander's optic, and when they do have a CITV it is a much earlier generation* *The 1990's vintage stuff was always a bit of a Rorschach test discerning rock vs head, like unless it moved it was hard to tell. The newer western thermal optics have the sensitivity to tel the difference between the face-heat and the helmet-heat which makes small object identification easier. Russian stuff is not incapable of making that sort of determination, but it less sensitive to the degree that it is a less pronounced visual difference, and it has difficulty maintaining clear returns on the move which makes it difficult to rapidly cover sectors of fire. Which wherein I'd argue that the difference isn't return quality, but instead the ability to rapidly process and return a greater kind of situational awareness.

Which is neat and all, but I will again ask the question that you cannot seem to be able to answer: If US Carrier aviation cannot get close to the Ukraine, USAF forces are not deployed to theater yet, and there's a virtual blockade of everything thanks to overwhelming Russia plane super-strong or whatever, how in the hell is an Armored Brigade Combat Team getting into the Ukraine to get hit by Russian CAS? Which therein gets to why local air defense is largely irrelevant. If Russian airpower is so strong as to have effective air control over an area, US heavy forces are not going in until there's some sort of air parity if not superiority. On the defense, US heavy forces will arrive sometime after significant USAF/USN air superiority tools, and PATRIOT batteries are installed, making Russian air superiority very doubtful. There are virtually no reasonable scenarios in which an armored or Stryker unit rolls into a country alone and unafraid* *The only unit that realistically could have gone from waking up for PT one morning, to at war that night was 1-2 ABCT 2 ID in Korea. 2 CR is not a bad unit, but it is still positioned and postured in a way it'd be a few days before it showed up to much from a cold start. In the event of a Russian build up of course, it could be deployed in time to be on the ground at the start of a conflict, but in that event the shot to bang time for USAF deployments is faster simply because they're flying over an ocean to existing bases with all the support equipment already in place. So again, in summary, on the offense heavy units are not on the move until some sort of air superiority has been established. On the defense, you won't have the sort of units that would come with Russian type of ADA networks if they existed for the US, until well after there's already a sizable number of air superiority assets in theater.

It shows actually. Some of the greatest flaws of wargaming as a mechanism for understanding conflict: 1. Often the capabilities of forces are tweaked, or scenarios written to create a "good" fight over a "realistic" fight. As the case is in the modern era it is usually by making the western forces much smaller than the opposition, placing unrealistic restrictions on same, while giving a significant number of forces to whatever the OPFOR is, while assuming favorable performance of same. 2. The wargaming conflicts are in effect, always wars of national survival level priorities. The only thing that really matters is meeting the game's priorities for winning. However those priorities are set in a way that is artificially aggressive, and frequently divorced from real capabilities or intent. So tying that all together, as to the first point the Russian air arm, and Navy are both simply not up to the task of aggressively attacking NATO forces. They're smaller, less technically capable, and by most estimations worse trained/prepared for high intensity combat. As to the second, in a limited war like the Ukraine, in order to keep the US Navy out (for a time), the Russians would be looking at losing a significant portion of their surface and subsurface fleet (that they do not have the resources or facilities to construct replacements with) for fairly limited odds of lasting success. The same applies to their air force. An aggressive 1989 style deployment of either the Russian Air Force, or the Navy is really only likely in situations were the choice is use the asset, or lose (the asset, or the country) and a limited Ukrainian type of war does not present that sort of situation, nor does current NATO manning, and strategic orientation indicate a march on Moscow. Wargaming is fun, and can teach important tactics in the right context. But even the most lazy reading of Clausewitz leads to the conclusion that war is a continuation of politics by other means. Weapons systems do not exist in a vacuum to be hurled at each other until enough are broken, they exist to further national level objectives. And the total destruction of the Russian Navy in the west, and likely evisceration of the Russian air force for the marginal gains of accomplishing some CAS do not support Russian national objectives. Employing fixed wing only when local air superiority can be accomplished against worthy targets, or keeping the Navy as a threat in being vs the newest black sea diving locations are much more likely and much more in line with a strong Russia, victory or no. Either way it remains unaddressed how improved local air defense for US forces would be relevant in a fight where Russian air power from Lucasworld is powerful enough to sweep aside the much more potent and much larger western Air Forces.

I believe what the Stugs were supposed to be remains a mystery to this day. I imagine the Germans just hoped if it was olive drab enough with sufficient stars it'd pass for American.

Re: Belarus I think regardless of what treaties they sign, they will firmly try to carve out a middle route that pleases absolutely no one. Only Russia unambiguously has supported their weird little state, while at the same time, Russia as a trading partner/ally is a bit of a white elephant. It neither has money or true international reach, while alienating the entire west effectively closes off access to anything really meaningful in terms of economic ties. They'd likely somehow want to avoid being caught up in the inevitable straight up embargo of export/imports to Russia and allied states, while avoiding an out and out Russian invasion. Either way I would not hold out hope for truly honoring any agreements they've made to any parties at this point. Re: Baltics on a whole Subtopics a-way! a. Outside of a true unambiguous non-green manned provocation from the Baltic states, a Russian victory is going to be a sour one indeed. Russia is not the Soviet Union, and this recent oil price drop combined with the existing sanctions highlight that it is no longer an Eastern Block capable of independent operation, but instead simply a link on the global trade chain. That offers very little outside of MIGs and AKs you cannot buy elsewhere. While Georgia and even the Ukraine are in weird ambiguous places conflict-wise, the Baltic states are not. "Welcoming" any of those states back into the Russian federation, or even establishing puppet states would go well and beyond sanctions and likely into a straight up comprehensive embargo (and perhaps even blockade). And that will hurt given how much Russia relies on import/export matters, without causing much of a hiccup to economies elsewhere. b. Eastern Europe is rapidly becoming a priority for the US in a very concrete and real military sense. And Russia only has itself to blame for it to be honest. There used to be some historical resistance to deploying troops and equipment for fear of offending the Russians/upsetting regional balance...but that apparently left no impression with the Russians. There is no remaining good will, or sensitivity in any event. There is also fairly limited desire to become more deeply involved in the Middle East. Fairly limited forces, largely light expeditionary ones are involved at all, minus last time I checked, an ongoing "heavy" unit rotationally deploy to Kuwait. This is likely where things get capped off in the ME. Conversely, there's a lot of underutilized facilities and historical infrastructure in Europe, and now there's suddenly a clear and possibly present danger to allied and US interests in Europe (unlike the Pacific, while tensions or no demands fairly limited ground forces). c. As to who'd win in a fight, it's really a question of if it'd be "worth it" for the Russians to win. It will certainly not be easy, and it will certainly be costly in terms of equipment and personnel. For NATO, this is a problem, but defending three fairly free countries from invasion by pan-Slavic ultra-nationalists is somewhat of a noble cause, there's no sympathy for Russian claims in the Baltic outside of Russia. If a few thousand Russians come home in boxes, and there's not insigifncant damage to the Russian military in exchange for land that doesn't want a Russian presense, that doesn't offer assets that easily translate out into a more prosperous Russia, and comes with universal condemnation and a pariah status....will Russians accept that as a good trade? That is of course, assuming a Russian "victory." The more surprise the Russians have obviously the better for them, but they've shown their hand, and we are all quite sensitive to the sudden appearance of airsofters and PMCs in T-80s now. A longer delay, or more early detection will make likely simply result in too daunting of an objective for the Russians to attempt, let alone take.

There's a long history of infantrymen having issues engaging targets at any range. It's not consistent, but: 1. Again, there's lots of gunfights and engagements that are done at very close range, with lots of shots fired, that result in fairly few losses. This isn't a standard response, but sure happens sometimes. If infantry combat was as hyper-lethal as we expect it to be with accurate rifles and good shot shooter men, we'd have run out of infantry pretty fast in all wars. 2. In a game that attempts to simulate the unpredictable nature of combat, there will always be times were an outlying outcome (total wiff at 25 meters, catastrophic tank kill with RPG from 300 meters etc) occurs. The circumstances may not be as transparent as some of it in reality, as it's not like "freaking out because this is the first time they've seen the enemy at close range/they were distracted by talking about how attractive Vanya's sister is and how collectively the squad would like to put their tube steaks in her" is a status message.

Even in a training event, you're going from exertion to "I will be shooting at these target things" Actual gunfight transition is "I hate this place, this smells terrible. I hate this place, this smells CONTACT CONTACT CONTACT" It's not really something you're easily prepared for. And while it might not make sense, or seem reasonable, all realistic surveys of infantry combat seem to indicate there's a major disconnect between range/training performance, and actually putting lead into things.

What? I mean it's just pinging off the frontal slope of your... Oh. Ooooooh. Okay yeah that'd be a problem.

The US military conducted a series of surveys and studies during the Iraq war based on infantry combat, and generally found that there was limited correlation between range and combat experience in regards to bullets hitting targets. Only the very best good on the range hit reasonably well in combat (so the folks shooting something like 36+/40 targets on the qualification range), and even then that was not so much a guarantee of performance. One of the training events we started doing towards the end of Iraq (so 2008-2010 timeframe) was the stress-shoot, which involved doing some heavy physical activity before engaging usually a more truncated range (so something with targets going out to 100-150 meters at most instead of the usual 300 meters) to help be less of a better shot, and more of an okay shot that is not as strongly affected by the battlefield. There was also a lot more shoot house/close quarters type training because realistically that presented the most critical environment for the infantryman's personal weapons. Which is to say infantry combat is a lot less concrete than it overly appears. While shooting at 25 meters on a range might as well be blasting fish in some sort of wooden container, in combat, poor sightlines, cluttered spaces, high chaos, stress etc all introduce increasing levels of difficulty, which makes a total wiff entirely possible.

Iraq was going to invade Iran. This was a policy objective of the Iraq regime. Regardless of if we helped or not, Iraqi troops were going to go into Iran and do things. Iran at the time endorsed a revolutionary outlook that favored making the entire middle east into Shia theocracies. It had done some stuff that generally was held as not okay. If the US pushed Iraq to invade Iran, then I'd see your point. But much more than any sort of US aid or pressure, it was a Sunni vs Shia throw down with the US tossing in an assist because hey remember that whole hostage crisis thing? Ascribing it to all be part of some US master plot is missing out the regional actors, and giving US foreign policy and intelligence work way more credit than it is due. We helped Saddam do something he was doing anyway because it served our purposes for 1980-1988 or so. Then Saddam bit the hands that fed him (Sunni gulf states) while offending western sensibilities/threatening regional stability. On the other hand if Saddam was stuffed with any more hubris he would literally burst at the seams so of course he would see the logic, and the justice of attacking Kuwait because those sonsoffemaledogs are stealing HIS oil, being unreasonable about loans they gave him, and shed not a drop to contain the Iranian menace. I'm dialing down the antagonism. But the US is not nearly as hidden in every bush, pulling at the strings as is believed.

Ah yes, I missed that part where Iraq-Iranian tension were entirely manufactured by the West, as was the invasion of Kuwait, and that really, chemical and nuclear weapons are best held in the hands of small middle eastern dictatorships. He was useful in the 1980's because Iran was being aggressively anti-everything not Iranian. But his designs on Iran were his own. The Kuwait conflict was again, his own manufacture, as was refusing to stand down in the face of what was surely a massive overwhelming array of forces. A fairly reasonable precaution after the end of the conflict was ensuring the Iraqi chemical weapons and nuclear arms were secured. All of these things may have lined up to make a no-win scenario if you are Saddam Hussein, but you give yankee imperialists by far too much credit in being puppetmasters. Which is my personal irritation as a yankee is that we are stupid arrogant idiot fat Americans who somehow also secretly run everything, and are the source of all the world's ills.