panzersaurkrautwerfer

Pretty much. Which gets to the heart of why this discussion is amusing. The west shouldn't tell Russia what to do inside Russia. Russia should be allowed to intervene wherever Russian ethnic populations are, regardless of borders. The west is being provocative by military exercises that often have nothing.to.do.with.Russia, but hey, here's a full Russian run-up to starting a nuclear war with literally every country on the earth. Everyone is an American puppet, including countries that frequently clash loudly, and decisively on nearly every American policy. Russia is surrounded by enemies, but it has also invaded, raped, and pillaged its way across all of said enemies several times in the last two decades. Russia objects to NATO expansion in the face of a treaty that never existed, but violates real treaties it signed because don't tell me what to do. It's like if everyone treats you like you're an untrustworthy a-hole, you should start asking questions about if you're acting like an untrustworthy a-hole. If no one is your friend, the question isn't "how did the people I not like turn the whole world against me?!?!?!" it's "what have we done to so sour our world image?" You cannot simply blame everything on "the west" or "America," as much as Russia Today tells you it isn't your fault. Russia dug its own hole, and holds a parade to celebrate how deep it has dug said hole. More than tanks, more than missiles, if Russia simply stopped treating the rest of the world like it was something to push around (and honestly without the muscle to do much of the pushing in the first place), it'd be a lot more secure. But no. We'll keep getting garbage about the Russian right to shoot Ukrainians for being closet Nazis, how America should move Alaska father back (or give it back to Russia) and stop being so threatening with arming Inuit, and Denmark will be reminded how irradiated it could be in lieu of actual foreign policy. Anyway. I think the Armata pretty much looks as good as any Soviet/Russian military first rollout, and I expect it to perform accordingly.

Not going to lie, I did laugh out loud at the last post at several times.

As much as I am a part of the military-industrial complex: I've always liked Eisenhower. And I feel his speech on the dangers of the military-industrial complex to be both meaningful, and very important to preservation of our way of life. We cannot trade our future to the iron mongers. There's a time and place for defense, and a powerful military is important to that future, but it must support the culture, rather than consume it. And looking at Russian priorities, it's clear which route they've chosen, and certainly not to the betterment of their children's future. Russian cultural contribution to the world needs to be more than AKs, T-72s, Russia Today, etc. Its future needs to be more than isolation for marginal goals. It could very well claim a spot in the sun if only it was a member of the global community, rather than expecting the world to revolve around it. As much as I joke about it, it's actually something that makes me more than a little mad. There's plenty of NATO countries that underwrite their own social welfare and discretionary spending using money that has been promised to collective defense, who will then turn around and expect 24-7 on call military support at all echelons because they're scared/need to go beat up former colonies. If the defense burden was better shared, perhaps the US could get away with a smaller military, and more schools, public works, etc. But as the case is, most of NATO will sit around looking down their noses at American militarism while fully expecting American dollars to replace withheld Euros, American boots to replace military forces downsized to appease short sighted populaces, and American blood to be shed for their freedom and liberty all over again. The point of NATO was to keep Europe collectively safe. Not have America ensure the security of Western Europe, and shoulder the defense burden for the free world.

In terms of homeland defense, yes. In terms of international interest, no. Russia doesnt have the international defense/security burden the US has, nor the sort of commitments we carry. The US military has not seriously planned for conventional thtreats against the US soil for a long time.

Partly as a result of how much of an IED our MRAPs could shrug off, and partly because of our various jammer/spoofers, the Iraqi IED cells in our AO more or less stopped trying to bomb American convoys, and instead focused on the Iraqis, as they were still rolling with like fiddy guys in the back of a F-150. The really big IEDs are still going to do some serious damage/get kills, but placing the one similar to the one in the GIF is a major investment of time and resources, unlike the common IED which is quite a bit less impressive.

You really could kit out the Russian army with only sharp sticks, and not recruit anyone over an IQ of 85 or so and get to the same end so long as there's a credible nuclear deterrent, and that's assuming an interest in military action against Russia. There's simply not the will or motive. In terms of not going to war with Russia, Russia conventional forces have, and will likely play a role in that decision somewhere around disruption of caviar exports. The various countries that are claimed to be the target of these new capabilities hardly could go toe to toe with Russia anyway. Which all rather doubles back into it being more than a little wasted effort, for a program that there's a lot of reason to have doubts about.

Uh. It was already politically impossible to initiate military operations against Russia (minus something like Russia invading Latvia), and highly impractical for China. So I guess good job? They call it firepower kill for a reason man. It doesn't need to detonate the tank, it just needs to be unable to shoot back, which as discussed seems pretty likely to occur with the Armata's current setup. And replacing cannons/optics is only something you can do so much before it's impractical. While the crew's survival is neat and important, if there's a line of "decapitated" Armatas parked outside the repair depot, they're just as out of the fight as their turret ejection charged T-90 comrades.

re: petasusavor It was my being silly. Stagler has been very insistent that Armata skeptics have had to eat their hats on a few occasions, when in reality he's been tilting at strawmen. I've started implying that he has a "thing" for hat consumption. Which leads to the made up word. Petasus is hat in latin (or at least a kind of hat), avor perverted from vora which in turn is from vorare which is to devour. Anyway. I'm too busy lawling at a certain poster to make much more comments than that. Oddly enough Russia remains the source of its own insecurity.

Because it's armor. What our resident petasusavor is referring to is simply a metal box filled with air around the working parts of the turret, that rounds will zip through without harming the tank. It's also the angles of the armor on the add-on package that gives it utility (or at least is the optimal shape for such things), the shape of the Armata's exterior wouldn't do much at all against a conventional penetrator strike, might give stand-off to HEAT, but there really needs to be an armored structure under the outer metal shell for that to work. It's more likely that its an armored structure, or even possibly NOT armored all and it's simply the engineering test bed for the turret. Especially in terms of the frontal profile, a smaller, more radically angled turret would make sense if it's a Leo 2 type solution, but as the case is it's much too poorly shaped, and much too much volume to really make terribly much sense as either. There's likely more than a few support systems located in the turret (gun, APS, optics, sensors, etc, etc) and those all need room.

Note, I was not critical of the engine placement. I've always viewed anything to the opposite on an IFV/APC to be idiotic, the rear troop ramp is the only "good" choice. Simply that one of the highlights of the whole line of vehicles was commonality, and to a degree, this does not appear to be as true as first let on. I compared it to the CVRT line which is pretty much same drivetrain, suspension, and a lot of the sub assemblies, but different hulls and weapons installations. Again, rear entry IFV=great improvement over the BMP3 exit plan. But there's less common parts between the various new vehicles than originally let on. It really does not have to be cheaper. The Stryker which logically is a lighter, wheeled platform SHOULD be less expensive than the tracked and better armored Bradley platform, but it costs more per unit largely because of the more advanced components and internals (the "new" Bradley stuff like the CITV is still largely bolted on top of vintage 80's era electrical harnesses, and much of the automotive systems are still dinosaur simple). The cost is in the complexity of the system vs the mass of the armor, and an unmanned turret is going to be much complex. This to the nth. The Russian military isn't working so hot in a lot of ways in terms of training and manning. A stronger focus on those, plus modest improvements to the T-90 line ought to keep them better able to fight non-western foes if that really is the objective. I think the first is the more likely/better option. It's certainly the cheaper/low risk one, if the Ukraine breaks through tomorrow and puts everyone in Donbass against a wall Red Army style, then it's no big loss to Russia at large. It's also low "heat" enough that it's not like it'll bring NATO or the UN in beyond sanctions which hurt, but are not the same as edging towards conventional war. As far as option 2....yeah I might have loled at that.

Uh. No. You don't add weight, bulk, or much of anything on a tank unless you have to. This isn't your Honda, adding spoilers and sweet sheet metal trim isn't a thing. There's either something in that space, or it wouldn't be there. Not to mention even if it's just sheet metal, a frontal hit is still welcome to firepower/total optics loss town. Sounds like a certain giraffe-horse hybrid better start buttering up his hat though! Which is interesting, as much as commonality keeps getting touted, it's getting closer to low order CVRT commonality than anything else, some shared parts but not quite the common series of hulls originally claimed.

Missed this first go-around The technology just is not ready for field maintenance. Like if you're forward, the solution to a major problem is usually to replace an entire mechanism and to send it to the rear (like really rear, sometimes out of theater) for repairs, while the replacement part is again, generally an entire assembly. Which is to say, you don't replace the broken shaft in the generator, you replace the generator with a complete generator. 3D printing at the moment can make the shaft...but the sort of time, space, and conditions to tear down the entire generator (not to mention the trained personnel to do so, while mechanics are well trained there's a practical limit to how trained they can be) just do not exist, and simply put the replacement parts for modern AFVs are complete assemblies, not printed wrenches, etc. Might be handy for making little things like fasteners and the like, so there's certainly a future, but it is a long way from being able to fix tanks in the field. In terms of industrial work, there's still the end assembly of very complex parts that might be 3D printed, but will still require skilled labor or high tech assembly tools. It's like that old cliche about amateurs reading up on tactics, professionals studying logistics. New weapons and equipment has way more to do with everything but the weapon that people give credit for, and the things that have made Russian procurement problematic simply have not changed since the USSR, and possibly even the Czars (the US isn't any better with fixing its terribly broken procurement, but for the US military at least, money isn't the biggest problem). But here's the thing, if it's not designed to go toe to toe with M1A2s and Leo 2s (and it will almost certainly not be fielded in the sort of numbers to drown a potential enemy in Armatas), how are things going to look in 2030 when the Ukraine's trucking around with Leo 2A5P+s from Poland, and Georgia is outfitted with M1A2 SEP V1s? The reason we have not replaced the M4/M16 family in the US military is not because there are not better rifles, it is because there is no rifle better to the degree to make the investment worthwhile. If the point is simply to outmatch the T-72/T-64 equipped neighbors, then I feel the expense put in will simply ensure the Armata will merely ensure Russia is 10-15 years behind the west for another few decades, because once the Armata is in motion for procurement, it's doubtful they could afford another, better, greater tank. Well, honestly the answer for most of the NATO/West is count on the US military being strong enough to bail them out. I'm of the mind we should go into the "border insurance" business, and for a modest fee (effectively the cost of stationing US troops plus a few billion or something) we'll be there if someone invades. It's basically what most of NATO minus Poland seems to count on now, might as well make a buck doing it! I concur for the most part. Not to mention plenty of US tankers and troops never saw any German tank, let alone Panthers/Tigers/etc, while nearly every frontline German soldier had an encounter with US armor. I'd rather have enough of a tank everywhere, than more than enough tank in select locals only.

Nice to see we're still tap dancing around economics and logistics. Points still stand about the ability of the Russians to afford this stuff in the short term, and the viability of what is increasingly looking like adding more families of vehicles to a military that already has three or four different things to do one mission. Realistically the best way to get past the bloat and redundant systems, and get a better more effective military at this point remains accepting strategic deterrence is sufficient for homeland protection, and right-sizing the Russian forces to better serve their expeditionary/internal security missions that nuclear weapons simply cannot do. Less military, less money wasted on T-72s, more resources for building fewer, but much more capable forces to do things like invade Georgia or beat up Ukraine (which honestly even with a one for one system upgrade to functional A/K/B tomorrow is about what Russia can realistically swing). As much as folks bemoan the US drawdown in the 90's, we did not need as many heavy divisions with large scale conventional warfare in central Europe being at that time, no longer a reality. The cost of keeping an additional four divisions or so worth of armored vehicles up to date is really something that with post 80's defense priorities just was not practical. So if Armata was the consolation prize to a smaller, leaner Russian Army, I'd feel more confident that it'll see mass fielding, but again and again, Russian hardware upgrades have been hamstrung by Russian budgets, and nothing has been done to fix those, so again, skepticism is warranted. Further, I have to wonder if the BMP3 might just be a good model of what'll happen with some of the new vehicles, a troubled R&D, limited procurement, continued teething issues, all the way to the point where when they're starting to work right, they're now facing the M5A2 McMasters, and the Lion 1A7 or whatever. Re; Yankee imperialist upgrades As pointed out already, the M1, M3 and M2 upgrades actually went along quite quickly, most of the front-line units had whatever was most modern. M113 based platforms have hung around so long mostly because they were both plentiful, and in roles were the platforms shortfallings were less noticeable. Same deal with the M88s, if a support vehicle still works fine, and still has years in its expected service life, there's not really a reason to get rid of it. We're looking at a M113 replacement now because now we're at the point where the M113 part stack has gotten a lot smaller, and most of the vehicles based on the chassis are very old and no longer able to keep up to serviceability rates. Re: Design The real advantage to unmanned turrets is size reduction, and crew protection. A sabot or other munition striking it will still ruin the inside of the turret pretty well, and if you can find and name some bloated metal superstructures that just exist because yolo on other armored vehicles, I'd be interested to see them. The turret is as big as it is to contain what it has to, plus the equipment requires to keep it operational. In terms of APS, it really needs to be a guided type APS projectile with those sort of mounts, or the real possibility they're well painted coffee cans/it's a much less comprehensive system. I have to wonder if several of the flat spots/cutouts though are simply mounting locations for equipment not ready/not cleared for observation yet. Dunno. Will be interesting. Might not be a trainwreck, but that's not an endorsement of success either.

Given the way a lot of the troop quality stuff is "under the hood" a loose set of guidelines for what "crack" represents vs "regular" might be nice in terms of letting the scenario writer know the sort of fight hes building. The weight of that chart isn't important, but it might cut down on elite German volkstrum or less green allied units that had fought more or less June 44 to May 45 in well meaning but misguided scenarios

It's one of the things that always drives me nuts about other games. The enemy is done. They've got maybe a tenth of my remaining forces, I'm on the decisive ground and still in pretty good shape, but no, victory is not secured until I have gunned down every remaining vehicle crew/surviving assistant MG gunners/mail clerks. It's a bit abrupt though, like we're still at this point of "I'm about to kick his teeth in" then suddenly poof, battle is over gg. In some sort of alternate reality CMBS, it'd be neat to give some incentive to losing well. Like perhaps surrendering is wrong, but instead having a condition to move forces off the map after certain conditions are met, and to that end if you can pull enough forces off the map deny the enemy a major victory/perhaps even force a draw.

Think there's some bridges that might need their trolls disposed of too. Steve summed up what I was getting at in a more orderly/coherent manner at least. Sure it's only so much of the budget, but if you struggled to afford fairly upgrades when the economy was similar/better at the height of oil prices, and now the economy is not doing as well, it lends to a skepticism that if accomplishing a small goal was hard with more money, why accomplishing a big goal with less money is reasonable. Nothing has changed to make the Russian economy better, and nothing has changed to make large scale procurement of brand new trackpad to antenna AFVs cheaper. So if things go according to plan, interesting. But clearly there's more than a few reasons to have doubts, both economic and technical about the program.

Self inflicted. You look at where the Japanese losses spike, and it's either in the "Banzai" attacks once the US forces took the decisive upper hand, or suicide in same situation. Unless the Ukrainians were throwing themselves into separatist machine guns, or cutting themselves open before a painting of the Ukrainian emperor, it's a poor analogy.

The battles of antiquity are not a good model for modern fighting. Given the separatist line about the outcome of the battle, they lack the POWs to support a flaming cauldron of doom, but an inflated kill count supports that to a large degree. Either way that sort of losses is something that the Ukraine couldn't keep under wraps, simply in terms of human mortality. That's something like 5% of total Ukrainian ground forces KIA/WIA, and 2.5ish Brigades down. There's reason to have some pretty serious doubts.

K! http://www.worldstopexports.com/russias-top-10-exports/2350 As of last month, 58% of Russia's net import income came from oil. The next biggest contribution to their imports clocks in at 4.1% with steel and iron. Here's how that 58% is doing: http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/31/investing/russia-gazprom-profit/ Profits are down 70% for gazprom. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29643612 Which is working out swimmingly for the Russian economy! Which is lovely as even by Putin's sockpuppet admits: And by and large, the predictions are the Russian economy is chugging along into another recession. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-12-30/ruble-gains-as-russia-seeks-to-curb-worst-annual-drop-since-1998 Which is another rosy picture that the Russian economy is doing worse than it has for a long time, and doing significantly worse than the "good" years of high oil prices. All of these point to a country that is less able to operate at max capacity. Further it's not just the Russian tank fleet that's best served in the museum, it's the Navy. It's the Air Force. It's other AFVs, it's pretty much every piece of equipment is either obsolete in the strictest sense, or qualitatively well behind the west by a measurable degree. THEN with the reduced ability to import technology and parts (see the MIG-35 article posted) and the need to set up industry to replace said parts...it's getting to be an increasing question of where the money is coming from. Frankly if Venezuela announced it was going to set up a space program, build its own fighter planes, while oil is tanked and the economy wasn't that great in the first place, and now they're building their own family of AFVs, you'd be just as doubtful about their prospects as I am of the Armata. The money isn't there, and something has to give. It might not be the Armata, but something is going to have to be cut to accomplish Russian plans, or the economy is going to have to get a lot better. Perhaps some economic reinvestment and improved quality of other industrial exports is in order? I trust the US DoD, General Dynamics, Boeing, etc, etc, on par with your average lawyer, sales person, or politician. Which is to say I think your faith in those agencies is entirely misplaced. They all have their own agenda which is you believing they are performing as well as they claim. And to that end I wouldn't put it past them to have parade floats vs tanks, or claim milestones that will be handily forgotten as they pass because look!! It's a S-400 on an Armata chassis! Russia strong! It's the fetishization and sexual nature of the thing. They're selling you this beautiful wonderful hardware as if it is a sign things are good, and you're okay. It's paranoid state that leverages your fear as a means of glossing over how much it has failed the Russian people. There was no threat to Russia in 1946 until it invented one. There was no threat to Russia in 1992 until you invented it again. There's no military threat to Russia in 2015, and here it is being invented again. The parade itself isn't the problem, it's stealing the blood and sacrifice of the soldiers that the USSR left to fight and freeze, to sell this image of a strong Russian state, while pulling those same soldiers out of their old folks homes to serve as props in an advertisement for this amazing future of facing down the great and many enemies manufactured by the Russian state. It's disgusting, cheap, and bread and circuses at its best. Try this one on: Just as functional as the Armata is now. Just as vulnerable to being a lot of cutting edge technology not quite working out, at a time in which the country building it couldn't afford to keep pouring money into it. Development cycle is similar to Armta in terms of length. Just as needed to replace increasingly obsolete tanks. Unless there's a fundamental superiority to Russians, there's just as much reason to see the MBT-70 as the Armata of the 70's (or perhaps even the Sheridan, cutting edge, but never quite working right), as to see it as hitting the goals for it set forth.

seeing as we've adopted the kindergarten level of rebuttal, I will say yes times infinity. Thereby I am the winner of this internet debate. It doesn't matter if they're helicopters, pulse rifles, or super sonic ball breakers. They're good illustrative points in terms of the ability of Russia to support high dollar weapons systems (PAK-FA's inability to not catch fire, and dependence on the Indians buying it being another good example). The list goes on that generally for the last two decades the Russians have had great difficulty getting even fairly modest equipment upgrades out the chute. There's a reason there's still legions of BMP-2s and T-72Bs out there dutifully manned. It is not lack of intelligence or ability but lack of resources that has caused this, and frankly you have done virtually nothing to dispel the doubts I, and the world at large have about Russia's ability to keep motoring along. Which goes to the Potemkin tanks joke I made earlier. They've promised you your army would stop looking like 1988. They've told you your country is mighty and HATO fears it. They've told you Russian power is returning and the pendulum is now swinging back your way. What better way that showing off a new series of super-high tech AFVs? And how much of a disaster would it have been had they not shown up? Which is generally why I discard most Russian accounts out of hand. What's being broadcast is usually a mix of purposefully wrong, hopeful estimates and nationalistic chest beating. Getting some tarps on parade floats is no accomplishment. When/if it enters serious production, we'll be able to tell if it's just going to be the land KA-50, or Russia finally can live up to it's boasts. I've always thought the Russian one to be in poor taste. We will remember the sacrifices of the last generation by showing how little we've learned about living in a peaceful world. See? We can still kill millions. It's so beautiful. Please disregard the pensioners freezing to death this following winter. Honestly disgusting. Anyway. I don't doubt Russian engineers. I just doubt the ability of the Russian state to support what they've designed, because historically from Czar forward, there has not been a lack of smart Russians, but there has been a lack of resources. And to that end nothing you've said, nor the need of new vehicles is enough to get over the cold hard reality that Russia will either be hard pressed to produce as many platforms as is claimed, as fast as claimed, or it'll have to find the money elsewhere. And after the PAK-FA, I do think the Indians might count themselves out of this one.

Re: Red Dawn YOU KEEP SHOWING CLIPS FROM THE WRONG MOVIE WOLVERINES! Re: NTC I think it'd almost be worth just making it the desert, but with blue vs blue. Just have the OPFOR guys have one of the many camo schemes 11 ACR has used over the years. It's a great, thematic way to have the QB symmetry lots of folks seem to crave. Bonus points if you can make the connex villages too.

That it is. However it is about 90% of what CMBS focuses on. It's why we don't see the 1SG's M113 or M1068s and the supply sergeant's truck simulated in game. Done by MPs in M117s and HMMWVs, or FSC internal HMMWVs. In a high intensity fight there's not time for the enemy to set up insurgent cells, start burying IEDs, etc. You're worried about die-hard enemy leakers, bypassed small elements, or locals that would really like some of your MREs and they're not partial to "no." HMMWV is more than good enough to do those sort of missions. Our BN QRF for a shooting war with the DPRK was a tank platoon. Just sayn' once armor enters the picture, some big truck isn't going to mean much. They're good if you're QRFing to guys with AKs and sandals though! HMMWVs serve the following remaining purposes: 1. Some scout formations. They're a good way to move optics around, and for IBCTs, keep scouts a few terrain features ahead of the main body. They were however always a bad match for ABCT scouts so they're rightly going away. 2. IBCT weapons carriers. It's a thing that needs to be air-transportable, and generally able to follow dismounted infantry off road and into difficult terrain. MRAPs can do neither of these things. 3. Battlefield mobility for small teams. Chaplain's got to get around somehow. 4. Rear area security. Again this isn't 2003 Iraq or Afghanistan last week. An MRAP is just as likely to have this fate. Again, much tougher against some threats, but not well designed for a high intensity fight. Army recognizes this, and it's why the MRAP is going into storage for the next time it looks like Iraq all over again.

That's fine, but: 1. It still won't do terribly much against modern AT weapons. 2. The drawbacks of the rest of the vehicle far outweigh the improved surviability against certain threats 3. It's a really poor match for what HMMWVs do in the not-OIF/OEF operating environment (it's a bad scout vehicle, and it's simply too big for the weapons carrier roles, and not even worth considering for the "jeep" type missions). The Army has come to a similar choice and has cut slingload on nearly the entire MRAP fleet. There's really no place for them in CMBS unless we get into some Russian insurgents after Ukraine retakes Donbass sort of scenario.

Missing the point. The MI-28 was announced to replace all MI-24s in 2003. It entered service in 2006. And now, nearly a decade later you've still got three times as many MI-24 based platforms as MI-28s. Simply announcing the system is in service is a long way from reaching reasonable numbers of platforms. And again, Russia is not in a great economic place right now. I think in part the Armata exists mostly to wave something in front of the Russian people though. See? We are still relevant! Fear us please don't look at the state of everything outside of these few modern vehicles.