panzersaurkrautwerfer

Been tempted but I've got enough 1:35 to last me a while. Might be where I pick up once I can get the stash to fit in the closet again.

I actually started doing the 6mm for training aids. I used to bring in my platoon leaders and XO and demonstrate doctrinal stuff on a large whiteboard I'd place on our conference table (I would just draw the graphics and terrain on). I found I liked painting as a result though so I just kept adding to the collection. Picked up force on force and fist full of TOWs but haven't played them yet. I invested pretty heavily in the Flames of War stuff for 15mm, but discovered I enjoyed it more for making the miniatures than the game, which is when I transitioned more to 1:35 scale models.

3:1. Go big or go home. Kidding. I do mostly 1:35 these days (I've got a Normandy era M4 that's about 80% done on the bench now), but I've done a lot of 1:100 and 1:285 too.

The AVLB would be something interesting to see, but if put it well below mine plows (every US tank platoon has one), rollers, or the ABV. Also I think Lucas doesn't understand what the platform can actually do which mildly annoys me. I keep pondering doing up an M4A3E2, but my stash o' kits needs to get smaller before I go for more.

Wasting my breath, but no. Like I keep saying I don't think you have a realistic vision of what any AVLB can accomplish. If you just surgically extracted the "bridge" from that acronymn and thought of it as "ditch crossing ramp" it'd likely save you some confusion. Not sure if you're unaware of Cobra King on a whole or the fate of the tank itself, so I'll answer both quickly: Cobra King was an M4A3E2 "Jumbo" Assault Tank (heavily up-armored Sherman tank) in 4th Armored Division circa winter of 1944-Spring 1945. It achieved fame because it was the spearhead tank that led the element that broke through the German siege surrounding Bastogne to rescue the cut-off 101st Airborne Division. As a result of this feat it was widely photographed, and achieved some measure of fame. Cobra King was ultimately knocked out and abandoned during the Task Force Baum fiasco in 1945, but recovered sometime after the war, and put on display without any context at a US Army installation in Germany (likely it was recovered because it was an uncommon model of Sherman vs any knowledge of which specific tank it was). It took until 2008 for someone to identify the tank as having been Cobra King and I believe it's undergoing some level of restoration/being returned to the US now.

It was more a snipe at a certain someone who, regardless of having no actual training his lengthy wargaming career makes him the SME for all things involving military affairs. The irrelevancy of actually knowing what I'm talking about and what not. I've pretty much left combat arms behind at this point for a newer, weirder career field in the National Guard, so I almost welcome the chance to let all my old maneuver stuff leak out sometimes. Gives it slightly more relevance. The more specific explanation is the guy in the photo attached. I was initially weirded out because unlike all the other media guys, he only seemed interested in the tanks. If I had to guess he was Academy or Dragon's photo dude because they seemed to be the first models with a Cobra King II SEP v2. C Co 2-9 IN seemed to attract all the attention in any event when it came to such affairs.

I don't know what I'm even typing this. 1. AVLBs are not really water crossing systems under most circumstances. This is the case for most all "launched" bridges, that your entry/exit points have to be fairly close, and things like wide banks will really ruin your day. Also soft soil pretty much buggers the whole thing. 2. The main targets we were taught that AVLBs were good for were: a. AT ditches (deep, but generally pretty narrow) b. Damaged bridges (gapping a fallen span between two supports, again, deep but pretty narrow) c. Canals (small ones, usually irrigation or drainage type). 3. It isn't to say that AVLBs will not be ever used for water crossings, just that the system has a fairly limited capability, and the sort of gaps it crosses effectively do not align against what most waterways have. I know of a FOB in Iraq that used one as a means of crossing the largeish canal next to it (the bridge was simply left in place for years), but I'm hard pressed to think of many other examples, especially of gapping natural waterways. 4. Water crossings are really painful. Like if anyone ever talks to you about "dynamic river crossing" check them for genitals growing out of their head. Even amphibious vehicles which seem to offer some sort of quick solution, have some pretty nasty restrictions on actual crossing abilities (current direction and speed, bottom conditions, entry/exit conditions will all ruin an amphibious crossing). The best analogy I can come up with is crossing a river is a lot like crossing a prepared obstacle belt. It needs extensive recon, preparation, rehearsals, specialized equipment and tools, all of which impose a massive amount of complexity, and thus Clauswitzian "friction." I had the pleasure of planning the US Army's first river crossing in Korea since 2002 (this was 2013 mind you, also I'm not sure what other qualifiers might enter that, or if it's just hyperbole on my old BN CO's part), and as a result I had to do a lot of research for this stuff. Like in a nutshell the river crossing is a Division level event, with extensive fixed wing and rotary wing augmentation. The "far side" of the river can expect to be hit by virtually every kind of artillery or CAS asset in the US inventory, with extensive direct fire support (basically tanks and mech infantry firing from the river bank). It will literally rain smoke shells for likely the next few hours. MRLS and other deep fires assets will fire in support to isolate the crossing area (although some of that deep fires will likely shift to counter-battery fires for the remainder). Even prior to this it's entirely likely the crossing site itself has been checked out by combat divers/scouts to ensure the crossing site is "good," and the exit bank+approaches will be hit by pretty much every echelon of recon available. Prior to the bridging itself, the far side will likely have some sort of security in place. The preferred US option is the air assault because it places a reasonably large infantry force on the far bank, and it often benefits from how "sudden" it is (basically it can happen right after the initial suppressive fires end, and the isolation fires are at their height as the crossing element is on approach), although assault boats may also be used (rubber rafts or other engineering craft). As for the bridging itself more is always better, so having 1-2 "extra" bridging units working and one or more units in reserve would be beneficial. The first step would be establishing a "ferry" type setup, which uses ribbon bridge segments, pushed by engineering boats to move vehicles across. The ferry setup is MLC 140 tons, so safely each trip could carry 2-3 Bradley type vehicles, or 1-2 tanks (urgency and condition dependent, 2 tanks is unlikely unless it is really required because of risk-risked asset imbalance). Ferry "turns" really depend on the width and river conditions, fast current means more horsepower devoted to keeping the ferry on-course slower speed, slow current obviously less so, BUT slower rivers tend to be the wider kind, and also often have the sort of soft silty banks that preclude most amphibious operations. Ribbon bridges would eventually be established, again, more is better, at least two, more preferred. Once the bridges are established combat unit hands the site over to an MP/engineer team to keep traffic control functional, but a common setup would be two bridges "forward" traffic, one bridge "rearward" (keep in mind supply vehicles will need to return to the rear. Additional bridging units should be placed near the crossing site (proximity adjusted to safety, low enemy risk, closer, high enemy risk, farther to prevent loss of bridges and spares in one strike). Optimally the ribbon bridge should support taking a "real" bridge simply for load/durability options but this may not always be possible. In practice the crossing unit shouldn't be in much of a fight, simply because it's not practical to assault-land against enemy forces. The enemy on the immediate far side should be fairly small to begin with (to make the crossing practical in the first place), and heavily suppressed. Basically the Brigade or so that's doing the crossing itself might see a platoon worth of enemy forces, but the whole point of crossing not-at-a-bridge is to get across without attacking directly into enemy opposition thus the enemy on the far bank shouldn't be too much to deal with. I think "Combat Mission: ENGINEERS UP!" would be an awesome game, but it'd likely be better played as a turn based resource management simulator (hours of blade type, men to task, CL IV supplies etc) rather than a traditional CM type game. 5. Just because I'm further bored, in practice the best crossing sites for all means (Boats, amphibious vehicles, ribbon bridges, barges, whatever) tend to also correspond to existing bridges (same conditions that make crossing possible make building easier). It's also worth keeping in mind the exit bank location needs to be somewhere useful too (HURRAY! You have a Battalion of troops in their tracks on the far side! Sadly the only way out of the crossing area is a narrow cut easily defended by boyscouts with sharp sticks/far side terrain is very poor off the bank and precludes rapid movement. 6. See attached photo. This was one of the tanks we moved for that river crossing operation I planned on a ROKA Improved Ribbon Bridge in ferry/raft configuration. I also take all the blame for nearly every M1A2 SEP v2 model kit having "Cobra King II" as a marking option, as apparently various photographers for several model companies were at this event, and Cobra King was the first tank in the chute for the trip over and trip back. TLDR: AVLB is a very good tool for crossing engineered obstacles as part of a breach operation. It is not really much of a river crossing operation, and river crossing operations and while I feel CMBS is a great game, I do not feel it captures the complexity of crossing water obstacles (nor should it, as it's something much better suited to an operational-strategic level game).

In practice the AVLBs of various makes are actually mostly used for anti-tank ditches similar gaps. There's not a lot of bodies of water that are the right combination of narrow and deep, and non-bypassable to make an AVLB the right choice.

Sort of? You look at Soviet cold war doctrine for urban centers, and those battles in Grozny and you might question if they clung to those lessons terribly well.

I remember pulling my hair out at a CMSF scenario that was basically a Stryker Company+ (MGS platoon, snipers, and I think AH-64s) vs what felt like the entire Syrian insurgency plus a SOF BN on something like a 45 minute time table. Wargames tend to trend to "The worst day of the war" missions because they're exciting. It's situations that doctrine often needs to be dramatically adjusted, while a training aid wants to build basically a showcase how to do it "right' with much more modest improvisation (with of course, once the doctrine is well understood, then the OPFOR tap turns on and things go sideways, but you want to start from "the book is right" and move to "The book was right about these two things, and I'll use what I've learned in earlier training to improvise solutions to these twenty things")

As mentioned before, the M113 fleet is old, and has realistically reached the end of how much you can upgrade it before it's more expensive than a new vehicle. We were still using M113s in HQ units/as ambulances when I was active duty, and they were kept functional mostly by stripping those warehoused M113s for parts. Last I checked there's a plan to make an M113-like vehicle out of the Bradley chassis, and if we're talking tracks, that is the superior option. That's why I said they'd be collected under a "regiment." It'd fill all the various staff functions for the subordinate units, just on a smaller scale on account of not being required to conduct actual combat operations as a cohesive unit (while 3-4 armor battalions sounds awesome, it'd be smarter to augment an existing ABCT with an armored BN or two vs trying to get enough pieces from other ABCTs to make the Armor regiment functional). This is already common with things like Fires Brigades, which might have MRLS, or ADA Battalions that in the event of war function as battalions directly subordinate to Divisions or Maneuver Brigades, but they have a sort of administrative HQ that keeps them training and runs all the HR/day to day logistics stuff. It's exactly where I got the idea. There were a lot of units that needed some sort of armor support despite not being armor formations. We have fires/sustainment/whatever units that attach to augment a unit's capabilities now, having a tank unit to loan that maneuver/anti-armor capability seems like a good deal to me. The Army uses Brigades to denote self-supporting units, basically like the Combat Commands, all the logistics, infantry, armor (where applicable), artillery etc under one distinct HQ. Regiments are used by the Cavalry (just another name for Brigades) but they're also used for historical purposes (basically tracing the history of that particular Battalion). I chose a regimental structure to hold the Tank BNs because if it was a "Brigade" then it'd be a similar name to the all-arms Armored Brigade Combat Teams, while a Regiment is clearly something else and would also lend a distinctive designation to the subordinate Battalions to again avoid confusion with other "Armor" (read Combined Arms Battalions). In my crazed vision, the Armor regiment would loan out tanks (or tank crews for prepositioned tanks) to non-armor units going on European rotations at the pre-deployment NTC certification. Basically it'd be where they picked up the tanks, trained alongside them in a realistic setting, etc. The allocation of course could vary. Like a mostly COIN mission that needs occasional armor support (like Iraq when it was bad) might just take a tank company with a Brigade, while an ABCT being deployed to spearhead an attack into Iran or something might take an entire Battalion with. Some other tweaks might be worthwhile (say four platoon companies to make a company able to support all three "line" BNs and the CAV SQDN with a platoon each in a BCT, or putting a M1068 type platform in the Company HQ to serve as sort of a "tank HQ" at the supported unit's CP, building a logistical element to provide the heavy cargo/fueler/recovery assets in small self-supporting packages), but it's all crazed former tanker speak at this point.

Re: Independent Tank Battalions It's really just formalizing what is already done. I never had the pleasure but COIN or the drive to Baghdad, it was commonplace to see armor borrowed to augment the light formations, and later Strykers, and coming out of NTC, that's pretty much what the plan is for SBCTs facing tanks, is to augment them with armor. I just believe having some pool of tanks to draw from that are not at the expense of other armor units would be wise. Not to mention they'd be handy to make "heavy" armor units. If they wound up being a division level asset (like MRLS or rotary wing), that's fine too. I'd envisioned it being something like an "armored regiment" who was a non-deploying HQ unit that would hold the 3-4 tank battalions for the US Army, and keep them trained and ready. If we stuck the whole unit out at NTC too, they'd basically have a massive amount of "play" time while also getting to train with a wide variety of different kinds of units (or perhaps even attaching at NTC and following the trained unit home for pre-deployment activities). Fort Lewis might work as a home station too, just with the armor living out at the Yakima Training Center (the facilities already exist thanks to the old 81st BCT's footprint, and there's a Marine Reserve armor unit that uses YTC too).

If the problem to Strykers being relevant against tanks was simply bolting on a TOW system, then you'd see TOWs strapped to Strykers. One of my friends was in a Stryker Battalion that had the misfortune of training against my home state's national guard, which at the time had some tanks to spare. A single platoon of folks who train once a month kept the entire Battalion, even with AT Strykers and MGSes totally bottled up. That some of the Strkyers had AT missiles was irrelevant. The tanks were able to engage faster, with greater effect, and better exploit maneuver than the Strykers were. Now it wasn't really a fair fight, the Strykers were unable to employ fires, be it artillery or aviation, and the terrain was such that infantry had no infiltration routes. But it is patently illustrative of two things: 1. The Army is very aware of how Strykers do or do not handle tanks. 2. Simply strapping a TOW to a Stryker is not going to change the equation. Stryker with TOW on the offensive is going to lose most of the time against a tank in any aware posture. On the defensive, the Stryker is better off kept away to lower the profile of the infantry, who are very lethal with their missile systems. The push to add ATGMs to Strykers is to give them some capability against armor, either on the move, or augmenting on the defensive. In response to your articles, I am genuinely unsure if you read the articles you post. Re: ADA Oh not again. It's readily apparent you think "not having air dominance" equals IL-2s taken out of the museums cutting a bloody swath through the entire US Army. It means the US will not have total air control. It will result in a air situation that is stupidly lethal, and will murder planes much more capable than anything the Russians fly for CAS. Russia will need to establish at the least air superiority in order to reliably risk CAS birds, and that is something outside of their capabilities. Re: "Lessons" Having learned lessons, done things, gone through a variety of educational formats, military, civilian and otherwise, and having had over a decade of various flavors of military service, I think I have some experience in what the military looks like when it's not cardboard counters or blips on screens. If the Stryker was just an ATGM away from being unstoppable and able to handle tanks, it'd have an ATGM. But it's not. And no matter how much everyone of every profession and background explains it to you in simple english human words, you remain frustratingly stuck in this logic loop that somehow, you and you alone are the only one seeing this clearly. If anyone isn't learning their lesson, it's you. It's not "arrogance" when people with real world experience look at someone who thinks their hobby of pretending to be a commander, and obsessing over rulers and LOS rules fully qualifies them as a subject matter expert. If that was the case we wouldn't waste time training commanders, they'd just send elite teams to kidnap Warhammer 40K nerds from the hobbytown down the road to lead America to greatness. Your continued insults to the profession of arms, and the people who have had to dedicate themselves to the art and science of war is just one of the things that draws me back into your threads, because it's just so outlandish. It's like watching a neckbeard talk about how he'd do surgery because he's the captain of the ER fanclub, or the countless internet specops master warriors who shamelessly ape call of duty. You can be outside the military and well educated in it. But the arrogance of sitting outside, condemning it all as "group think" because SOMEHOW no one in the Army sees that bolting a TOW to the back of a Stryker makes it into something able to realistically challenge an MBT...it's just staggering.

Re: Kasserine Pass It's relived by a different unit virtually every month at NTC. I'm really stunned by the supreme arrogance in some of the replies by a certain someone on this thread. The anti-armor capabilities, or lack therefore of on the Stryker are well established within the Army. However the solution isn't to try to make it into a Bradley because that is precisely not the missionset it was designed for. There is a push to add some ATGM capability to the vehicle to give it a sort of "bear mace" level anti-armor capability. But speaking as someone who'd done Bradleys vs tanks in training, an ATGM really isn't enough unless you're in a good defensive posture (while a Javelin likely would work better than the TOWs I had to play with, the engagement cycle for a tank is so much faster than an ATGM, so in a "I'm moving/he's moving we see each other same time" the party in the tank will win full stop). In more practical terms if a Stryker unit is called upon to fight around significant enemy armor, it will be augmented by armor (as in Abrams), CCA, or other assets. There's just not a lot of tools that handle tanks on the offensive as well as tanks. Re: .50/40MM turret Big downside to that turret is that it is not stabilized, doesn't have thermal optics, or a LRF. The RWS on the Stryker will get you first round on target, and when you're using it in overwatch or supporting positions, that's pretty valuable. If I ruled the world: I think the Army needs to bring back a few Tank Battalions, as in independent units. Both IBCTs and SBCTs often need armor when they're called on to do a lot of higher intensity missions. However when tank are used to augment these units, they come out of an ABCT that might like to have more vs less tanks. Having a separate tank battalion able to slice out self-supporting company sized elements (tank company+maintenance team+logpac augmentation if required) would enable giving an SBCT a lot more maneuver punch, or IBCT some close armor support without impacting ABCT capabilities (or make "Ultra" ABCTs with their three organic CABs+one tank BN). Also rounding out ABCT ARS's with a DIVCAV/ACR style D Company* would be wise. *The old DIVCAV/ACR Squadron had three "Troops" which were a mix of tanks and scout vehicles, with a fourth "Company" that was tank pure. I'd keep the existing three troops in a modern ARS Bradley/sensor focused, but then having the tank company squadron internal would allow for non-augmented completion of the cav's "security" mission set.

You really ought to do more researching: http://breakingdefense.com/2016/02/army-to-upgun-all-strykers-30-mm-javelin/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a19710/army-stryker-vehicle-weapons/ Like I said, the conventional aspect of Stryker Brigade operations has come a long way over the last four or so years. I'd assumed you'd educated yourself, somewhat, but apparently not. You shouldn't ever be going toe to toe with armor in an IFV or ICV anyway. The missiles are there to give some AT capability, but on an armor-centric battlefield, if you're rolling Stryker pure, you done screwed up A-A-Ron. If I had to visualize technology and weapons systems, it'd be a "maturity wave" in which equipment goes from "novel, but totally outside of being militarily useful" to a peak of optimal efficiency (strong compared to peer technology, reliable enough for common employment) before trailing off into obsolete and lowered readiness due to system age. Picking where your country rides that wave is tricky, as you don't really get to ride the wave nearly as much as you pick a spot where you get to dwell until the next major weapons procurement cycle. You're also competing with peer threats who are trying to pick their spot to dwell for the same reasons. Pick a spot too soon, and your stuff is immature and breaks often/doesn't live up to full specs. Pick a spot too late and you're fighting against someone who's had the capability for a few years, or after the technology was at peak relevance. Precision fires, and automated gun laying is almost certainly the way of the future, as is smaller gun crews. If those trends are at a point where the technology reliably supports it, or it is realistic given modern capabilities of course, is an open question. I would contend the M777 is somewhere near the wave as it curves towards "mature" but it hasn't quite gotten there yet relative to the capabilities of conventional towed artillery units. The 120 MM isn't a bad idea at all! It's just I don't think it's as probable in the current generation of AFVs. If whatever AFV for IBCTs that gets kicked around as a loose concept every few years kicks off, I think that might see a turreted 120 MM mortar, or whatever AFV happens after the next generation will likely have the mortar carrier with a turret.

30 MM is hardly knocking on doors, and it's a lot easier to use around troops (smaller "danger" areas while moving, superior against enemy light vehicles). As far as a turreted mortar, again, does it do it better enough to justify spending the money? Semi-autoloading sounds fun, but is it a much better loader than the 11C system? Is the automatic lay much different performance wise from the existing precision systems? Etc. Basically if it's 10% better, but 60% more expensive, it loses a lot of the performance value unless you can make the pitch the 10% better performance is decisive.

Re: Reasoning I know, but at the same time, sometimes you just read something that so boggles your mind you need to reply. Re: "Stuff" I wouldn't want to take an airborne Platoon against a tank either. I would not be especially happy trying to handle tanks with a Bradley platoon too. About the only took I really feel reasonably capable of dealing with tanks on the offensive would be another tank. Which is why debating if the Stryker is a good vehicle based on it's tank-worthiness is again, missing the point. It's a vehicle with a set mission. It's a mission that makes profound amounts of sense if you're the US Army circa 1995-201X. I think the military/warfighting is one of the few fields total amateurs regularly wander into with the idea that they somehow know more than the professionals. Re: 120 MM mortars The mortar platform already exists though, it's a 120 MM, and while it's not a breach loader, it is fully digital and does some spooky stuff as far as servicing fire missions. While I'm past the point of being combat arms/ground force commander/whatever, I'd have swapped my BN's M113 based mortars for the Stryker platform in a heartbeat (although best option would be the Stryker's mortar system mounted in a Bradley chassis for mobility-parts commonality with the rest of a CAB). As far as the direct fire role, given the capabilities of precision fire mortars, and their existence at the Company level, I don't think an additional mortar platform makes a lot of sense. The autocannon mount, and the various other firepower enhancements seem to offer a distinct capability vs capability duplication. There might be some value to replacing the existing mortar vehicle with a different kind of mortar, but I think the issue you run into over there is the capabilities of the existing platform are perceived as adequate weighed against the cost of replacement.

The only thing the US Army ever does is high intensity, high tech battlefields. It virtually never deploys to situations short of high intensity conflicts. Those never happen. They're really a rarity and the Army shouldn't prepare for them. We need to build armored battle mech SPAAG Corps for fighting head to head with China and nothing less! Sigh. Okay here's some more: 1. I use anyone saying positive things about the M113 post 1990 as a sign I'm talking to someone who doesn't know what they're talking about. Some exceptions, but the M113 represents the worst of a lot of things. 2. The SBCT is a modern rendition of Dragoons. Full stop. The IBCT deploys fast, but once it hops off the helicopter or plane, it's going at footmarch speed. This is not that great in many scenarios. The ABCT is a muderwagon express....but it'll take a few weeks to get into theater, and is way too much firepower for a lot of fights, and it's light on boots on the group relative to invesement. The SBCT is great at getting into theater faster than an ABCT, and unlike an IBCT, it is capable of rapid strategic-operational level movements, and mounted operations against inferior enemies. The SBCT is a infantry formation. The vehicles exist chiefly to provide mobility, and fire support. If you're an idiot and lead with the Stryker, then it's going to end badly. Congrats. You've proved something most military professionals have known for decades. If you lead with the infantry, and then bring the Stryker forward to support them as required, then congrats! Gold star! 3. The Stryker's conventional conflict doctrine is still maturing. The SBCT was envisioned as this high tech interim step. It was supposed to test bed a lot of stuff that'd been brewing since the Persian Gulf War. Then it got pushed into combat, and used chiefly as a counter-insurgent platform. A role it did really good at (you'll note SBCTs alone deployed, and fought with their MTOE kit, while IBCTs needed to draw MRAPs, and ABCTs often had to scale down and leave M1s and M2s stateside). There never really was the whole operational testing and design refinement that was supposed to happen to shape the SBCT into a credible force on the conventional battlefield. Basically the first real "conventional" tests for the Stryker picked back up again in 2012, and the doctrine and design has simply exploded from there. The battlefield agility of the Stryker Brigade is proving to be something that is very hard to pin down and direct fires against. It's something that brings the strengths of "leg" infantry, and then whips them around the battlefield at 45 MPH, while keeping extensive firepower close and at hand. There's just so much the SBCT offers, and if you're hemming and hawing about the armor on the platform, you're really missing the point. 4. BUT WAT ABIUT ARAMAMATAS?!?!?!!? Brigade Combat Teams are designed to be self contained, self supporting. However they are not designed to be exclusionary. Some of the more effective TTPs for when Strykers are called to perform high mobility-high intensity operations involve cross attaching ABCT assets to serve as spearheads to make initial contact, or serve as a hammer to the SBCT's anvil. SBCT assets also offer a lot of strength to the ABCT, in that the larger dismounted infantry force is much better at handling complex terrain, while still having the mobility of mounted forces. The SBCT may be deployed alone and unafraid sometimes in the face of possible "heavy" enemy forces, but it's intended to be the initial investment, and it is light years ahead of what the Airborne was able to do in say 1991 as far as providing that deterrent/economy of force measure. The Stryker system isn't perfect. The MGS has been a disappointment. The AT version could really use a non-SACLOS missile (a super-Javelin would be interesting). A lot of the weirdo 2001 era ISR and wizbang stuff didn't pan out like it was hoped for. But the Army invests, and will likely continue to invest in the system because it has value to meet Army missions.

The problem with that is that the DPRK is a terrible craphole. It's broken as a country, has massive problems with literally every measure of human health and services. If China swoops in to pick up the pieces, the DPRK becomes their problem. Right now they can just Alfred E Newman every time the DPRK does something dumb and the blame/attention remains on the DPRK because its the DPRK and no one expects them to do a damned thing right. China takes over, even through a puppet, it becomes their albatross around their neck. They want nothing to do with "owning" the Korean problem, and by most understandings would rather it bankrupt the ROK. Basically the value of the bufferstate is outweighed by the cost of having direct control over it. The old "priority" of keeping Korea divided doesn't wash in the face of the amount of trade and increasing ties between the PRC and the ROK. A better "long" game would be allowing reunification, using financial aid to the new Korea as leverage while conducting a campaign to highlight how pointless American forces in Korea would be post DPRK. Basically the DPRK is a feces sandwich and no one but parts of the ROK really want a bite. The US military has 4 ABCTs, two SBCTs, and at least one SBCT, in addition to major reserve and guard assets all aligned in Texas facing down Mexico. Does it mean they're standing by to go to war in Mexico? The positioning of Chinese forces in proximity to Korea has many different possibilities. However again, the expense of assuming the DPRK seems to indicate it's more likely they'll want to make it someone else's problem. My ultimate issue with most of your assessments is you might correctly identify friction, tension, or even a possible conflict, but your assessment is almost invariably the total national commitment to a full spectrum of warfare with all echelons fully engaged, ending with one country utterly destroyed by the conflict and the other running a victory parade through their capital (see your assessment of a Ukrainian conflict ending with a NATO invasion into Russia). In a Pacific conflict, outside of a ROK-DPRK type war, it's doubtful we will see ground combat between two near peer foes simply because if the various air forces/naval forces are so shot to pieces as to allow for such things....it's doubtful the US, PRC, whoever is going to keep fighting the conflict. We've entered an era of limited conflict. This isn't to say a "big one" is impossible, but the treshhold for such a conflict has not been met, and we're still a few crises back from being on that much of a razor's edge.

@Codename Duchess Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. There's enough stuff I learned in classified boxes that I cannot share, but the jist of what I can share is China will not aid the DPRK in attacking the South, and in the event of a DPRK collapse and ROK/US intervention, it will fortify its border to keep North Koreans out because that's the last thing they want is North Korean refugees wandering around on its side of the border. The DPRK's value to China is limited to being a captive market. Once it goes to war it loses all of that value, and China is more inclined to try to curry favor with the ROK to maintain regional influence. This isn't a time of great powers and wars of national survival. A US-China land war in Asia is about as likely as a Chinese assault landing in California.

There's a lot I wish I could say. Here's some considerations: 1. DPRK is a poisoned chalice. It's terrible. It's broken. Whoever winds up with it is going to be committed to decades of undoing all the damage that like, it's not "underdeveloped" it's "maldeveloped" in that it's poorly thought out and set up in ways that are directly counter to being a functional country. There's mass malnutrition, no "functional" industry (nothing that isn't done elsewhere for many times better and cheaper once you remove unfree labor forces), disease, infrastructure, all terrible. Right now? it's the DPRK's problem. China can tut and then disapprovingly and maintain it's buffer zone. If it all burns down though? Do they really want to inheret that dumpster fire? They won't have the old "It was Kim's fault!" excuse, it'll be their terrible DPRK zombie baby. And the PRC is too smart for that. 2. Once the DPRK is no longer intact it loses its value as a buffer. Using non-intervention as a negotiating position makes more sense ("Okay we sit this one out, but no US forces north of ## parallel and everything from the old State Mines 1-8 you'll sell to the PRC exclusively!) than placing blood and treasure on the line to become the king of craptown. I wouldn't rule out a narrow "humanitarian" buffer strip to keep the North Korean refugees out of China (as that's high on their heartburn list), but nothing that'll get their hands too dirty or obligate them to nation building.

I for one am profoundly doubtful of an Asian land war that is fought with equipment that Battlefront reasonably can simulate. Re: Fulda Gap I think it'd be really enjoyable. The capabilities of the hardware is fairly well understood, and it's been a long time since a company worth a darn has seen fit to pay it a visit. Re: Korea Having been there for a spell, it just never felt like a likely scenario in modern times. This is not a statement on our readiness, we'd have murderivated our way clean through the DPRK etc, but the DPRK is so broken these days it's really hard to imagine it summoning the credible forces to invade the South, and if we're going North it's because the DPRK has totally and utterly folded and we're looking at some sort of stability operation+cleaning up what parts of the old DPRK disagree with this sort of operation.

It's still scary quiet. Like you'll hear the mech infantry guys tearing around from miles away, and even wheeled vehicles from some distance, but a company of M1s a few dozen feet away sounds like someone's running a vacuum cleaner upstairs. Strykers are pretty quiet too.

It's not quite that straight forward. I as an officer had/have it "worst" in that I was issued nothing from my commissioning source, and had to buy all my dress uniforms doubly so because I was at that awesome point in which I had to have the greens to commission in, but less than a year later I was in blues to graduate armor officer course (I cheaped out and went with the low end blues, which ironically enough are the only ones I can still wear). Basically you wind up buying however many sets of fatigues you think you need, plus boots. I tended to go for three "nice" sets for days I knew I was going to be in the office, two pairs of boots, with my "field" uniforms being the "nice" sets that had been around the block too many times. Same deal with boots. Dress uniforms are variable, as an officer in some units you wind up with a wardrobe, but I basically rocked my greens unless ordered to wear blues, and then just the blues once the greens were retired. Then toss in PT uniforms (5+set cold weathers) and you're pretty much set. Everything else, fire resistant fatigues for going to Iraq (plus weirdness like "combat shirts"), cold weather gear for both of my cold weather stations, tanker specialty gear (coveralls, nomex hoods, gloves), fire resistant cold weather gear (which is crazy expensive!), was issued to me in some way or the other (some of it I got to keep like the fire resistant fatigues, some of it the Army reclaims when you leave active duty). If you're enlisted you get a clothing allowance yearly (something like 300-400 bucks I think) for the expressed purpose of buying whatever uniform bits you've worn out (officers get some sort of allowance only when we commission, but it's been almost ten years so I don't recall much detail there). Anyway. New uniforms are pretty much universal on active duty. Guard side of the house is a little more uneven, like I know a few people who are waiting for their next promotion to upgrade, are short timers before retirement, or just have a mountain of ACUs left over they want to wear out first.

I don't see how any of Russia's counter terrorism forces hope to last 20 seconds in front of an armored brigade!