panzersaurkrautwerfer

The notification process, and return of human remains is a super-solemn process, even for MIA partial remains recovered decades later. Eventually some legislator fought to allow cameras to cover the return of remains from Iraq/Afghanistan....but it was very much restricted to ensure someone wasn't getting super artistic shuts by standing on a coffin or something. As Los pointed out, the fact said servicemen were dead, and the nature of their dead was never concealed, just the pictures of the actual dead. So in that regard, the casualties were known, existed, broadcast (once the family had been notified, and as I pointed out, even notified at great cost and expense). Yeah but the key part of "plausible" is that it's believable. You really overestimate how often western SOF does something that "never happened" usually the key is US SOF is "somewhere" in country, but the actual trigger units are usually local forces that have been trained by the US. Because THIS provides enough plausibility that US forces were never there, it just happened that some not Taliban friendly tribesmen happened to attack a rival tribe the day that a Taliban HVT was visiting said rival tribe, and the fact a US drone strike blotted out the security element five minutes before the raid started all just happened to occur. Russia has mounted a low order invasion of the Ukraine with significant SOF, regular forces, armor, and artillery and SAMs fired from Russian soil. There's no plausible involved, no deniability, and pretending the various dead Russian servicemen simply keeled over in the mess hall from bad borscht is simply insulting to everyone's intelligence. The only deniability is Putin using the toddler defense of repeating "Nuh-uh!" at various volumes on a loop when confronted about Russians in the Ukraine. Are you worse served on crime reporting by not getting full page glossy photos of the victims? Does not getting to see the crispy remains of airplane crash victims make you less aware of the plane crash? It's simple human respect to give dead folks, and their families some privacy. Soldier's are not some how less human and less deserving of that respect. The facts of their deaths, and often the details of their deaths are publicly available and always have been. This is the stuff Putin is withholding and where the issue arises, and is the stuff that's relevant to the discussion on if it's "worth it"

It's like....I'd like a more consistant story. The tanks change types (I have no idea what American would ever call a Sherman a MK IV, as that's the British way to refer to a M4A3...but they never actually USED those nor was it something your average yankee would refer to a Sherman as), there's epic acts of derringdo etc. There's clearly an M41 there, but that's quite different from the battalions' worth of armor from the original link. It's really sort of a mess of a historical event.

Speaking as a possible KIA/WIA, I'd like it if my body wasn't a prop to a political agenda of whatever idiot news reporter that got to hop in and out of country at will. It's like having a vulture hang around, and honestly you do not understand the impact of finding someone you love is dead because Geraldo is showing "genuine pathos" over their splattered corpse (not a personal story mind you, but such things have happened). As much as the people have a right to know....it's not really an honest "telling of the truth" it's an attempt to package life/death as a means to sell advertising and win Pulitzers. And even worse...it's presented without meaningful context. It's small little snapshots of things assembled into a story to fit a narrative that existed before the pictures existed. So no. Given a chance to opt out of being a prop for someone's run at showing how serious of a reporter they are, I'll take it. And the bloodshed of Vietnam did next to nothing to educate people about the conflict....it just suited the moral outrage that keeps folks glued to the screen. Questions that mattered were not asked, or answered. The carrion birds feasted, grew fat, and are now retiring from illustrious careers of broadcast news. Not to mention reporters are idiots. Hey, let's add another liability who's going to do whatever they want because they have "press" on their flak jacket! Oh boy, I know what I need, someone to ask me questions that if they really wanted a meaningful answer, they should be in Washington DC, not asking some 1LT who's really hot, really tired, and who's area of influence is quite limited at the moment. Having the information is different than enabling ambulance chasing reporting downrange. And reporters were always free to report whatever they liked from Iraq, show all the bodies and dead stuff...just they couldn't do it if they were an embed with the US forces. Which is only fair given we'd be risking US lives, using US dollars to protect them that we rather avoid them trying to show us as baby eating monsters, or shoving cameras into people's chest wounds to satisfy the reality TV generation.

Sounds about right then. A lot of stuff never left the boats that day. And considering there's no wrecked shermans as symbols of the crushed Imperialists, it's a bit less likely they actually went ashore.

Oddly enough I skimmed the article on wikipedia, didn't see the reference to landing armor. All the same not exactly a resounding victory against the odds for the T-34.

The radio code word we used at the time was "River City." We didn't lose many folks, but you'd usually have 10-30 seconds to finish what you were doing before the call centers, internet, and even the official DoD connections to the "real" internet got shut down (the military intranet stuff kept going, but it's not like you got on gmail with that). Our Artillery Battalion had a mascal and one of the dudes who died was first generation immigrant from Guatemala. We did not have normal contact with our families until they'd found the dude's family in his home country so a real human in a US Army uniform would tell them their son was dead and we are so sorry. Which is why this Putin mess pisses me off so much. Oh. Your son is dead. SORRY it didn't happen really but he's just as dead. HEY. There's your kid on youtube getting probed by Ukrainians. HE SHOULDN'T HAVE GONE ON VACATION! It's like my god, I knew if I died Baghdad wasn't going to know peace until my body was brought back, and some Captain and a Chaplain were going to have to tell my family that I died serving this country I love. Or if I went missing my country was going to do literally everything it could do to get me back or ensure I was really dead before it gave up trying to get me back (even if I was a crapbird like Bergdalh). Russia? Pffft. Their soldiers are cheaply sold for questionable goods, and are quickly forgotten when they're broken. Someone's son is worth more than that, but it's readily apparent Putin's concern for that son, and for Russia's children's future only carries as far as ensuring his corrupt buddies have places to build casinos, and a tinny hollow version of "russian glory." Whore's makeup on a corpse if you will.

It's still a true statement, sneering Russian imperialism aside. Until Russia invaded the Ukraine, the amount of "give a damn" of what happens in Russia fell somewhere below someone else's third favorite sports team, or what star trek rerun was on tonight. Ukraine ranked somewhere around the common person's concern for knowing the proper scientific name for the spider on the wall. I'm pretty sure Russia could set up camps to contain the homosexual menace and we'd only eyeroll and go back to reality TV shows. It's just once the boots of Russian troops trod on countries that are not actually Russian, and then the russian government pretends we're all as stupid as you think we are to believe the dump truck of lies that followed that invasion, that we get a little more interested.

Re: Korea I'd really like to see your sources. I'm using "T-34/85 vs PershingL Korea 1950" which is a neat little Osprey book written by Steven Zaloga, who's pretty much one of the most respected armored thingy writers out there at the point. The damage survey he's citing are from the Operations Research Office, and written using real blown up tank hulks left behind by the NKPA in the fighting. Most of the tanks counted in the numbers I cited came from UN battlefield recovery efforts, which netted a total of 239 T-34/85 tanks destroyed until October 1950 (which is to say the start of the war through the weeks following the breakout from Pusan). Then an additional 17 or so wrecks were located some months later to fully fit out the BDA tables I provided (I might have been incorrect in including the Naval Gunfire kills, they do not show up in the table itself, but were included as part of a paragraph about earlier kill claims). As the case was, despite there being "only 40 tanks" left at the end of Pusan, US tanks destroyed: August 5 tanks (2 to M4A3E8, 3 to M26) September 48 tanks (23 to M4A38, 21 to M26, 4 to M46) October 33 tanks (20 to M4A3E8, 8 to M26, 5 to M46 November 11 (1 to M24, 10 to M46) Note the kills by type count "damaged" and recovered by UN forces as "destroyed" the earlier numbers I threw out includes the damaged and destroyed breakdown. Additionally the survey accounts for nearly every tank the NKPA had on hand for the 1950 fighting (which we know from Soviet records, although the fate of the remaining pair is unknown (perhaps they were either retained in the North for training purposes, lost during training, or remain rusting on the bottom of a river). Now, either the Army is a bunch of morons, and mistook large rocks for tanks, and there's a tanker conspiracy to look sexy and cool, or a large portion of the NKPA's armor was tanked to bits. In regards to aerial claims, they need to be taken with a grain of salt the size of a small planet. The USAF claimed to have destroyed 857 tanks during the 1950 fighting (which is to say the period in which the NKPA had significant armor assets). This is several times more than the total 258 T-34s the NKPA had on hand for the initial 1950's fighting. This is on top of the 123 tanks destroyed claimed by the USMC and other UN land based elements, and then the 163 claimed killed by carrier aviation. This is worth discussing for several reasons: 1. Aerial claims are entirely and totally wrong. Top to bottom. There's several times as many "dead" NKPA tanks than there ever were in NKPA service. 2. Each of those 1,000+ kills claimed can only be accounted for in the four of approximately at absolute most 90 kills (Again, assuming all "cause undetermined" kills were napalm kills, a few were certainly catastrophic detonations from other sources, or abandoned vehicles burned by their crews). That's frankly appalling, and a good indicator of how ineffective the UN air effort was at counter-armor operations (screwdriver as a hammer basically, yes it did the job somewhat, but the effort required to achieve effects was widely out of proportion for results). The UN air efforts were great at keeping the skies mostly friendly, and making logistical resupply of the NKPA forces in the field harrowing, however again for every 1000 "for sure we did kill this thing 100%" attacks, there were only a 1:10 success rate (and this is ignoring attacks conducted that obviously missed or with no claimed kills). Re: Tank performance Again you're mostly right. Pusan is also much flatter and open terrain within the perimeter, and much of Southern Korea is less difficult for armor operations meaning the Pershing was less problematic for the initial fighting, but past Seoul it did start to become a liability. Of course by that point the T-34s were largely extinct for reals. So in that regard, I'd like to see where your information is coming from, as mine seems to check out. Re: Bay of Pigs Again, I'd like to see some references, the links provided do not appear to have sources. A platoon of tanks seems a bit odd given what I know about the various CIA plans, and while I'm not a Bay of Pigs expert, I've seen some stuff on it and there wasn't a mention of armor, and I'm greatly puzzled how the "official" US timeline of the events (according to the internet at least) refers to the Shermans as MKIVs.

Actually if anything his argument is equally valid for the Poles redressing the issue of lands stolen from them by the Soviet Union, a return of Konigsberg to Germany and someone annexing Chechnya. The corrupt Russian state simply shouldn't be allowed to hold onto those things someone else could put to much better use, so it's the moral imperative unmarked military personnel and purchased street thugs come solve that!

The value of your arguments is granted by the statements you make. Which is to say I agree with your self assessment of their validity.

Sublime has it spot on. If I bought it I didn't want CNN sitting there like vultures filming my corpse in a box, so it can be spliced into someone's youtube channel etc, etc, etc. Which is 100% NOT what Russia is doing. Russia is simply making it so there's no war, and raking the bodies of its soldiers under the rug. Which really is pretty much the status quo for Russian soldiers from Czar to Commissar and beyond. Using them phrases you don't understand. If you've got dead SOF guys, you're past that point. Plausible deniability is contingent on it being plausible. If suddenly you have a few dozen dead SOF guys, a neighbor that's reporting Russian troops, it's over man. You need a lot more cut-outs, a lot less dead people, less ones captured and displayed on TV, and just honestly repeating you are not doing it over and over again, and then doing the dead a disservice by magicking them away to a "this guy died! Somehow" realm is disgraceful, and insulting to the world at large's intelligence. Filming bodies? Graphic photos of the deceased? Bad mojo. Shouldn't be done out of respect (although maybe seeing their cold dead sons would put some reality into this nationalistic chest slapping exercise the Russians are up to). But the public has a right to know how the government is spending blood and treasure. Putin's actions simply show he views the Russian soldier as another tool to use and throw away once he's done with it.

ITS YOUR FAULT I HAVE TO INVADE YOU AND TAKE PARTS OF YOUR COUNTRY AND ANNEX THEM TO MINE. BUT I AM NOT AT WAR WITH YOU. I AM PEACEFUL. PLEASE SURRENDER TO THOSE GUYS THAT ARE TOTALLY NOT MY TROOPS, JUST HAVE MY GUNS. While the "World without America" is an alarmist self important book designed to make yankee imperialists feel good about themselves, a "World without Russia" book would rather be a utopian novel in which Eastern Europe actually gets to thrive, and various tin pot dictators find themselves out of friends, time, and Russian guns.

But whatever nonsense contained within is simply something he's found vs created, and this ALSO turns into a great chance to discuss the T-34/85 as a tank vs Comrade Tank of Fascist Destruction. Re: Korea Here's what Zaloga says, which is from the official post conflict BDA on NKPA tank losses. It's based entirely on recovered hulls which is important given some of the cray-cray USAF claims of destroying several hundred tanks. The NKPA also lacked meaningful recovery assets, so generally if something was "killed" it wasn't going anywhere. All claims are T-34/85s to the best of my understanding (the only other NKPA armor being the SU-76). Additionally it's on target analysis vs crew claims: Total Kills by tanks: 89+8 Damaged (but recovered by UN forces) M24: 1 M26: 29+3 M4A3E8: 41+4 M46: 18+1 Artillery: 20+8 Bazooka (both M20 and M9): 11+11 Recoilless rifle: 9+4 Land Mines: 1 Grenades: 3 Aircraft: 27+2 Naval Gunfire: 12 "Unconfirmed" 63 Unconfirmed includes anything that was difficult to identify beyond reasonable measures. This includes likely napalm kills, vehicles that catastrophically blew up to the degree where finding a clear cause was simply impractical, but enough pieces could be found to rule out it being a collection of T-34 parts vs a full wreck. From that even if all unconfirmed kills were from aviation, US armor was still the most lethal thing on the battlefield vs the T-34/85. The M4A3E8 did quite well, but this likely stems from it being more common. For the Pusan fighting the M26 and M46s were the preferred tanks given the remaining threat from NKPA T-34s. Pusan also is much more friendly to tank operations. as pointed out, later fighting as the war moved north increasingly fell on the Sherman. The Centurions did quite well with infantry support, but did not encounter T-34s to the best of my recollection (I seem to remember the only commonwealth tank kill to be knocking out a Cromwell that had been captured by the PLA). The larger M20 Bazooka was not quite so hastily created having roots going back to 1944, but the end of the war and the silliness of the post war Nuclear focus meant it remained fairly uncommon, and the units that deployed to Korea from Japan lacked many of their MTOE heavy weapons either way.

The great tragedy of Eastern Europe is having Russians for neighbors.

I'm thinking it's pretty rubbish. The Korean part is a whole mess of wrong, the highest leading cause of T-34/85 losses was US Armor, with Shermans making the slim majority of kills (I'd have to look up the specs, but it's something like 55% knocked out by Shermans, 45% M-26/M-46 kills). The T-34/85 was about on par with the late model Shermans (worse surviability, marginally better firepower, etc), but it was handily outclassed by the Pershing and Patton. I am fairly certain the author also could not tell a Chaffee from a tractor too. Also Task Force Smith didn't have armor, their only AT was the smaller early model bazookas, and 105 MM howitzers. Let's see....uh the only armor at the Bay of Pigs was Cuban government, none was landed by the Americans, let alone the 30+ AFVs described, the Arab-Israeli stuff is only right if you accept fictional "we totally didn't lose this one guys!" Syrian numbers.....and actually yeah pretty much the whole thing is crap. Sorry man.

Surely this will all happen because it must happen and work this way. On a loop. With occasional photos. That's pretty much this thread for the last twenty pages or so.

Contrary to hollywood, most of the US ones are still reported as combat or otherwise, but information may be withheld depending on operational needs (so someone might be reported as KIA in support of Operation Enduring Freedom which is 100% totally true...except maybe they weren't on the right side of the Afghan-Pakistan border by a fair margin when killed*). That SFC Bob Boberson was in Afghanistan conducting missions, or deployed in support of the Philippine Army and is now no longer alive makes him having died in a "freak gasoline fight accident" ring a bit hollow. In an open society it's pretty much impossible to realistically do what Putin just did, and given the sheer bureaucracy that follows even SOF...details might be blurred, but the fact someone done got shot would not be. As the case is I don't know why Putin even bothers at this point. No one believes Russia is not at least heavily involved in the Ukraine, it's just a question to how deeply and how many assets. Having a significant uptick in dead Russian soldiers isn't exactly something that just magics under the rug either even if you hide the cause either. *Purely hypothetical. I have no direct or confirmed information about US operations outside of stated above table operations. It's just an example that I know that jives with my understanding of US security affairs as an observer vs direct participant.

Re: Airborne In all seriousness good luck. If you can roll with the stupid its a pretty fun job sometimes.

Anyone can call for helicopter support. Seriously. No really. The Army is alone in that it makes a distinction between CAS (fixed wing and other people's rotary wing) and CCA (Close Combat Aviation if I remember right, Army attack helicopters). The intent behind that is that the Army aviation elements have been more or less trained to talk directly with dudes on the ground. While often the CCA may be routed through the forward observer/fires cell at Battalion*, the guy on ground is usually just a platoon leader, or NCO that has a radio and knows what's going on. When talking to CCA generally you just give them a task and purpose, and some orientation. There's a preferred format, but generally looks sort of like this: Helicopter: Blue 1 this is Mustang 64, I am two times AH-64 with eight Hellfires 38 rockets 300 rounds 30 MM each. Ground: Mustang 64 I am four times M1 tanks located vicinity <insert grid or graphic control measure here) with orange VS-17 panels on rear deck Helicopter: Roger see you Blue 1 Ground: Mustang 64 I need you to attack to destroy enemy armor located on <Objective/control measure/grid coordinate/smoke etc> in order to allow my element to advance. Helicopter: Roger, see targets. Attacking with missiles Or something like that. The amount of sexy guidance that a FIST or COLT team will give to other CAS simply is not often used with CCA. Sometimes the conversation is even more truncated. During an NTC exercise I was interrupted by a passing Kiowa who reported seeing "some dudes with RPGs" ahead and asking if I wanted him to "wax them." I replied to the affirmative and the Kiowas then dive bombed some low ground ahead of us (I think they were simulating gunpod type attacks, so had to dive on the target), gave a BDA and wished us a nice day. So in that regard, there's no required MOS, or equipment outside of a radio (or even BFT) with the right freqs and a good comsec load. In terms of 13F MOS guys, they're a bit better trained at CCA, and they've got more precise gear for processing artillery missions (and the ability to link into other people's fires nets, so not just "your" artillery, but if they need be they can talk to your Brigade's artillery, they next Brigade over's guns, USMC guns, Naval gunfire, etc etc etc), and are the ones trained to legit give terminal guidance to CAS (although the Air Force will refuse to support your training event unless it's their JTAC doing everything), but of all fires assets, Army rotary is the one that requires the lowest amount of coordination and training to operate. *Often helicopter support will be "held" at a higher level and then committed for either a certain phase of the operation, or to the unit that needs it most at a given time. The Battalion is usually the last level the helicopter is "held" before being passed off the troops in contact

34, 45, 02, 45, 20, 56, 89, 95, 10, 75. 45 02 10 45 56 89 75 10 42 87 41 34 12 44 12 freq 34100.02 Jun 03 68

The advantages to fixed wing are chiefly in weapons I believe. The various bombs will do a number on ANYTHING if they hit. This is especially useful when dealing with infantry in buildings or urban environments. Direct hits on AFVs tend to be quite dramatic too. Additionally the sort of ATGMs carried on fixed wing assets are a good deal "beefier" than rotary wing and offer fairly minimal chance of survival or escape once they're on track. On the other hand the ability of rotary wing to find its own targets better, and often respectable ATGM loads makes them pretty handy.

I believe section in British terms generally refers to a "squad" in US. In US terms generally it's only used for vehicles (tank/scout sections) and sometimes refers to organizations split up below their normal HQ (so if a Battalion was loaned out two artillery pieces, that element of guns would be called a section). US Army does have a fairly confusing set of rules and guidelines for what is a "team" vs "section" and some other ultra-small elements. If I'd taken better notes I might have even remembered them beyond the "section" stuff I've already written about. Anyway. Sort of on topic, CM has always done aviation fairly well. The eyecandy would be neat, but even slow moving planes are going to be a short flash above even fairly large maps, or possibly thousands of feet in the air above the target. I can't think of many maps that would allow an Apache to work at its normal range to target without it being stupidly close.

It's also commonly used to refer to smaller than platoon sized elements of tanks (a two tank element is called a "section") or Cavalry sub-elements (a bit more flexible though, so depending on the mission, a six M3 platoon might roll as a platoon, two three Bradley elements, three two Bradley elements, two, one of two, one of four etc etc etc)

It certainly does not offer anything especially "new" vs weapons packages carried by other RU/UKR assets and given the high threat environment simulated, it seems less likely for realistic employment as an attack helicopter.

Totally. I just think the BCT lineup should look like: ABCT: As is, although possibly with armor augmented Cav squadron. Also possibly the third Battalion (post BCT reduction) being custom-fit for BCT's mission (like a 1st CAV BCT might have a tank-pure Battalion if it's mission is to be the "in case of war" force, while an ABCT assigned to Korea would have a leg infantry battalion to better deal with complex terrain) EBCT: Expeditionary Brigade Combat Team. Tracked PCs, light tanks, designed to better go toe to toe with third world military forces in a stand up fight, or represent the extremely violent end of low intensity threat. Also potentially replaces the old ACR concept as an all-arms formation to serve as a larger unit's security force (so an EBCT would conduct a cover type mission while ABCTs built combat power on the defense, or would serve as the recon element for a Division sized element) MBCT: Motorized Brigade Combat Team. Basically the leg infantry BCTs we have now, with most of the Stryker fleet available if the mission supports it (MGS and Cav versions ditched in favor of a true light tank, and the current IBCT recon squadron). AABCT: Aerial Assault BCT. Basically the IBCT as implemented. Would be chiefly the current paratrooper/air assault BCTs. In terms of force transformational stuff, the ABCT count would more or less remain same, with mirrored MTOE for Guard. EBCTs would chiefly be 2 and 3 CR (for Europe and the Middle East. You'd deploy 3 CR as required, and 2 CR flexes from Germany were required), plus maybe 1-2 more (thinking perhaps one each from 2nd ID and 25th ID to better augment the pacific trouble spots). MBCTs would be remaining Stryker units, plus "leg" infantry BCTs in the active force, and an increased number of National Guard BCTs. IBCTs would make up the remainder. It's all pretty much pure crackpipe at this moment, but I like thinking about these things. The issue we had in a lot of COIN environments from my end of the stick was it was too much gun. As the case is in Full Spectrum it's not at all enough gun. Then add in again, it's too much gun for the chassis. Recoiless wouldn't have been a bad choice. Keep in mind the more weapons you add to a vehicle though, the heavier it becomes (or the less "effective" ammunition you carry) so rocket pod and TOW might be a bit too far. Given that statement, maybe a recoiless mount like the old M113 used to have for the top hatch. Strykers already have the hatch itself, would be risky to shoot, but really not much worse than when the ATGM Stryker got used to blow up buildings in Iraq (forward to shoot, back behind cover to reload). For a dedicated FSV though a larger caliber autocannon seems about spot on, and the airburst 40 MM rounds Bofors cranks out are supposed to be pretty cool.