panzersaurkrautwerfer

Bees are now simulated in bee suitable enviorments.

I will respond in time but am currently trying to get my retinas to reattach after catastrophic eye roll from the merkava comparison.

I didn't care enough for in depth research for the post. Honestly more tired of the stalwart deutchmen never really being defeated when in reality they got their teeth kicked in pretty often.

Dunno. The fact it reappears as a Kampfsgruppe and is referred to as "remnants" seems to indicate it was pretty destroyed.

That was seriously the most fun I've had on the internets. Fond memories all around. I wish he'd discovered this game.

It will also include all the minor axis powers, only if they'd had large budgets. It will also include a special World of Tanks supplement that's full of tanks that only existed in fevered dreams, or maddened scribbles. Also I will never quite understand the whole gripe about everything before the game comes out thing. If Bulge comes out, and it's literally Normandy's terrain with a color swap of white for green, then go nuclear. Right now, I'll just enjoy the thought of M4A3E8s, and the whole gotterdammerung vibe that comes with the last months of the war.

Not sure what capability you are talking about, I mean there was a wide range of systems that did electronic whispers, but most of the ones we used simply made enough noise to drown out the trigger signal. There were more than a few death by mis-dial/spam SMS moments though. Not that I don't appreciate the jamming, just we had some pretty major prohibitions on doing anything that might set off an IED (our AO was Baghdad, even small IEDs could do a lot of collateral). Anything that cooked off on its own was bad insurgent worksmanship or "operational" losses to the best of my understanding.

Pretty much. Going all the way back to the Soviet era equipment, it was always going to literally destroy everything, this is the apocalypse for anything without a big red star painted on it, and then it: 1. Doesn't happen, mysteriously fades into the land of bad photographs and tarps 2. Appears. Is broadly on par with western equipment (superior in some ways, inferior in others). It's pretty easy to retain some sense of skepticism with a record like that. This is something that seems to come up pretty often with countries that hold their capabilities very close to their chest. Chinese tank fans are just as bad for claiming capabilities not even possible with current generation of technology, or using what limited information to inflate something that's actually on it's own merit, not a bad piece of technology, however with all the inflated capabilities, becomes a bit of a joke.

Yes but the SMAW is usually only a USMC piece of kit. They've been loaned out to the army more than a few times though.

There's a grain of truth in this statement. Destroyed in the military sense does not mean "no survivors has ceased to exist" it means broadly "unable to function until reconstituted." Plenty of destroyed units would go on to fight another day, but many German units slogging back on foot after burning their remaining vehicles could truly be called destroyed. Excited for the Bulge to VE day. It's an interesting mix of forces, men, and locations, and Normandy is a bit overdone sometimes. Also promise of future Pershings

Simply sarcasm at the dubious nature of the western threat. No, but they don't need a military force to ensure their domestic territorial integrity. Samples: 1. American military: Entirely built around expeditionary operations to support foreign policy objectives 2. British military: Entirely built around supporting other people's foreign policy objectives. 3. French military: Operates chiefly in former colonial areas of influence 4. Chinese military: largely internal security actually with growing force projection capabilities. In fact of all the major nuclear powers, the Russians are the only ones that have large conventional military ground forces oriented on repelling a major land invasion. No. I meant smaller teams with a greater focus on supporting arms. What was distinctive about the American ACR was how much firepower it brought in smaller parcels, including things like howitzers at company level organizations, BDE organic rotary wing aviation etc. "heavy" generally refers to in the US use to the armor-infantry mix, a "heavy" organization generally has more tanks than IFVs, or failing that a strong emphasis on AFVs over dismounted forces (the sample Company level organization had 9 MBTs, 13 IFVs with scouts for instance, with organic mortars, forward observer, recovery assets and habitually attached artillery and aviation). It's a force largely designed to use space and time as its primary tools, given the mobility to properly exploit both. Re: Good stuff And the Maginot line was quite well oriented to deal with the last war too! I'm aware. The 30 MM equipped BTRs are neat, but that's not the same building dropping sort of capability that comes with larger weapons. Nona is a good choice to give that direct fire support/low echelon fires piece. There should be a better AT tool, but honestly against armor anything wheeled is going to be at best a "defense" tool, but all the same there should be something organic to the BTR organization to deal with tanks on the move. Re: Wheeled ATG Concur. Not a fan of the MGS. A more modern missile equipped Stryker ATGM, and a turreted 120 mortar seems like a better choice, as does a larger RWS type weapon system on some of the ICV versions. How do a few thousand T-72s and BMP-2s achieve this? They're not optimal for nuke defense, they're not that great for COIN operations (or there's a practical roof to what AFVs can do), and they're forces that would be pretty easily brushed aside in the face of someone conducting a conventional attack. Russian army can get a lot smaller before it's unable to accomplish any of those missions, and the utility of what it continues to retain is questionable. Re: Robot tanks Hah.

If I were Saddam I'd have taken the money and ran, but I think that's...just not Saddam. The "House of Saddam" for being something that appeared on HBO is actually really good in terms of understanding the man vs the character. It's still a TV drama series MOSTLY based on fact, but in a world that either ignores Saddam because the insurgency took the spotlight, or simply views him as a silly desert dwelling mini-Hitler, it's worth a look. It was one of the many things we were prepared and trained to deal with that totally 100% did not come to pass. In a lot of ways it speaks well to the lack of sophsitcation and well, really "smarts' the insurgency had. They often weren't that good, it's just a lot easier to make a bomb and blow up a restaurant than it is to stop such acts.

Again, didn't quite work that way. It was your average sized vehicular bomb that just happened to be a truck with noxious chemicals in a tank. A lot of the internals (cab, often fuel tanks) or even externals (nestled into the truck's frame) would be full of explosive funness. It'd be less dangerous than a comparable sized truckbomb, but likely about as lethal as your average VBIED (like bongo truck or mini-van sized) which was still bad juju. I liked the ones that went off by themselves, and early though. Those were the best by far. Sometimes the remote detonator would be whispered to just right by another remote device, sometimes circuits would be completed, other times, home made explosives just couldn't hold it in any more. It was pretty much the ultimate in schadenfreude.

Still came with a whole truckbomb attached. Those can be rather bothersome.

It is not in terms of the politics, but it is essential to understanding the "why" of Russian defense planning. Clauswitz was pretty clear on the link between the politics-military affairs relations, and that is still quite valid. Russian force posture will continue to reflect is political beliefs and orientation, just as much as a nation who's defense priorities include "brain slug defense" will invest heavily in hats made of salt. Which is really why asking me to array Russian forces is silly. I know there's no conventional threats to Russia, and that much of the thousands and thousands of T-72 and BMP-2 type stuff is simply underutilized scrap metal at this point. Into the smelter with all of them, buy the six or seven Armatas with the proceeds. Nuclear modernization is honestly the only "defense" project Russia needs at this point because it is, and remains, a defense to which there's no effective counter (the current generations of ABMs being great for ensuring the three missiles or so Iran/DPRK has get shot down, but doing about zero against anything more than a handful of missiles). There is also a total and abject lack of countries with a reasonable intent to invade Russian soil, legitimately Russian or otherwise. But if I believe Merkle is about a very small mustache away from releasing the "real" German military which is hiding in the cellars of Berlin to come and eat all our babushka wearing grandmas and to rape the soil itself in a physical sense (the soil was asking for it, dirty whore soil!), then simply waves of obsolete, wastes of money, time, and soldier equipment will be essential in the forthcoming struggling of patriotic fervor! I must keep all the tanks! Or else! Something! Really! Which paradoxically makes Russia less secure in the long run, because this narrative of constant threat against the Russian people is equally met by the historical narrative of Russians coming west with equal terror and rapey nature to the eastward invasions. And to that end it ensures the only way to really make a threat to Russia is for Russia to give the west a reason to suspect it which by god Russia has been just great at that from about 1946 on with tanking a short break circa 1991-2002 or so. Anyway. Acting like defense exists purely in some sort of apolitical vacuum is simply not enough analysis to be worthy of the name. Russia needs conventional defenses like we need more reality TV shows at this point. And it's already a poor return on investment if it's tromping around in outdated hardware "just in case!" nuclear deterrence fails. I imagine you could get away with 500-600 and not feel less safe. There's simply no realistic mission for any of them (troops coming in being doubtful in the extreme, and an offensive into NATO is already pointless, with the "forces" arrayed in the East China could likely take what it wanted already if it was simply a matter of force imbalance). The realistic mission for Russian ground forces is limited warfare conducted against neighbors, and being the extreme end of internal security matters (as there's already more than a few internal security agencies). Simple as that. The US military has something like 700,000 active "ground" branch personnel but that is with global commitments and a logistical branch to match. With no global reach outside of what is done with nuclear weapons, and no realistic missions that do not share a land border with Russia, 700,000-1 million is having a suitcase full of parkas in the Sahara. Wasteful, pointless, and a burden to the person who has to carry it. Smartass answer: I'm going to scrap it all, build the biggest dacha I can, and sleep comfortably under a nuclear umbrella. Less smartass answer: I'm going to seriously assess what parts of Russia are essential to Russia being able to exist as a functional country. I'll align assets against those first. Then I'm going to assess what routes from the proverbial hinterlands to the heartlands are most able to support military operations. A simple reality is that while tanks can go all over, the logistics train cannot, there's going to be something that a potential invader will tie his logistics to (or potentially a network of lesser routes). From that, I'll build a comprehensive asset denial plan to make transiting those hinterlands difficult (demolition, flooding etc etc) that can be carried out by local security forces or even civil servants. Then I'll allocate some manner of forces to cover these approaches. Basically mirroring the old American type ACR, armor heavy but all arms under the same BDE/REG structure, their job would be to keep the enemy from being able to advance rapidly, or threatening flanks and rear areas. The only realistic way to defend Russia is a mobile type defense. Right now in so many words you have the "good" stuff concentrated regionally but not against threats. Then you have lots of stuff that still costs money that is of minimal value against a force that can actually invade Russia. This is dumb. If in a few years the western thing settles down, but by god China is getting uppity it requires a much more pronounced realignment. Having forces that may be garrisoned centrally, but that are capable of rapid movement is by far more optimal, and instead of simply wasting region's forces away, instead having a smaller Cavalry style organization who's job is to die gallantly while giving time for mobile forces to mass in theater (as again, this is not 1941 and there are simply not the forces to have more than one primary theater) for the counter attack is a better use of money, and resources. Anyway it's a moot point as the whole nuclear weapons thing makes this about as likely as discussing the Mexican invasion of Texas. But right now it's forces spread thin, often protecting "space" vs "things." A smaller, mobile force with more cutting edge equipment that can be massed while screening forces buy time is the best solution. I don't. It's just marginal utility without more wheeled assets in terms of AT or direct fire support. I think there's like 50 Nona-SVKs for the entire Russian military? There really needs to be something that can fill some tanklike roles in the BTR formations without being a tank. Or else you can move rapidly all over and get your teeth kicked in by Type 98s or whatever. We have been invaded through Canada, and Russian Imperialist claims are still voiced by members of the Russian government! It is at least as serious of a threat as NATO is to Russia. Also Sarah Palin can totally see you guys and that stuff you're doing.

Fair enough. I still don't see it as dramatically better or changing the flow of battle often, it's simply a "different" capability like the M-25 or M110.

To a mind boggling extent. I had a professor who believed he legitimately tried to get rid of all WMD and WMD related activities because they weren't worth the trouble internationally....while strongly hinting he still had them to ensure folks still feared getting gassed for being uppity. I'm of that mindset, and it explains why the validation teams were able to fairly securely say there were no WMDs left, while some not-crazy intelligence agencies (including non-US ones) were still claiming WMDs existed. Re: Chlorine It's an old trick. We actually went pretty heavy on the MOPP (well. JLIST) gear going to Iraq in 2008 because chlorine trucks were being used as VBIEDs. The efficiency of the bombs was very marginal. The actual effects were generally a fairly wide blast area from the truck going up, but a very small area that was pretty unhealthy to be around, The open air detonations and lack of dispersal generally meant it was a mess to clean up, but not a lethal threat from the chemicals with only modest precautions (like not rolling in the wreckage while hyperventilating sort of precautions). There were a fair number of people treated for chlorine exposure but most were returned to duty, or simply given some time off (like a day or two) to recover.

Not really? It still kills stuff pretty darn good. We still have "instant" smoke which is very different from the base discharging smoke mentioned earlier. We're lacking some of the secondary effects but broadly it does what it is supposed to do, minus setting things on fire, which is not really a thing in the game (yet?) for any of the possible fire causing agents.

Of course my bias is I play more armor centric games so its possible there's just fewer infantry engagements for me to get a feel for the anti infantry RPGs.

I'm talking about in game. I did not notice an exceptional level of lethality from RPG equipped squads over grenade launcher users, and in terms of fragmentation type weapons. IRL OG-7 especially they're pretty darn good at exposed troops, but the same sort of cover that protects from small arms and smaller grenade launchers does just fine against them. They're a lot like the M-25 in the sense that within their niche they're quite handy, but it's not something like the armor eraser Javelin, or semi-automatic rifle vs bolt action rifle units in the WW2 type games were it works well enough to be worth noting as an advantage.

From my experience they're not much better than the M-25 or M320 fire. Like it's a bigger warhead, but the kill/wounding radius isn't vastly superior, and it's not going to bring down a building. Also requires getting close enough to reliably hit which can be dicey.

Re: Chemical weapons in Iraq There's some fluffiness on this, ranging from for sure and reals, chemical munitions turned up in IEDs (mostly mortars). Given the numbers and age of the weapons involved its more likely they were simply forgotten about and in a box at the back of the Al Saddam Base of the Glory of Saddam's base of Saddam Defense's storage bunker, and got looted with everything else in there in 2003. There's some other stuff floating around of similar nature, and some evidence that there might have been some sort of stockpile, or knowledge retention program (i.e. burying all the research stuff in a 50 gallon drum in the desert somewhere), but the vast stocks of flagrant UN violation CBRN stuff clearly did not exist. On the other hand Iraq did violate the hell out of a lot of provisions of the 1991 ceasefire, and follow-up disarmament verification stuff so go figure.

I guess I'll have to break it down Gomer Pile for you. The USSR bankrupted itself on unrealistic military expenditures in an attempt to stave off a Western invasion that frankly was not happening. The Russian military is currently expanding at a rapid rate (while maintaining significant military reserves) in an attempt to stave off a Western frankly is not happening. There's simply not a mission for what exists these days. The conventional threat from the west is negligible, about the only way there's going to be a NATO-Russia shooting war involves Russia invading a NATO country which appears to be a bit beyond Russian ambitions these days. Same deal from the Pacific. And further the Russian deterrence policy of "any invasion of Russian territory=nuclear war!" rather puts a damper on the possibility of external threats to Russia proper. This goes to two points: 1. The military district system as is, is increasingly obsolete. No one is going to drive across the Ukraine and drive to Moscow humming panzerlied. Having a smaller, better equipped, more agile military force, aligned against strategic movement assets (such as the highly functional rail system) better matches the current Russian military realities of covertly invading neighbors reacting to regional crises with fairly small forces. 2. The Russian military, and the Soviet military before it was the biggest threat to the peace and security of the Russian people. Simple as that. The troubles of the 1990s have very little to do with what the west "imposed" on Russia, and everything to do with the rows and rows of T-80Us rusting away, and thousands of missiles intended for global holocaust. The only route to Russian security, true Russian security is meaningful economic development which as this drop in oil prices has shown, is something that has not happened (indeed, minus weapons the Russian exports are largely raw materials, to be made into much more expensive, and valuable goods elsewhere), Under the current nuclear umbrella the threat of actual invasion, or hostile beyond reason action (refusing to trade with Russia, or be engaged with Russia as a result of objection over Russian actions is something any nation has the right to do) from outside is about nil. Simple as that. Whatever ground or air forces Russian maintains has no value against the west compared to the nuclear element. It is certainly tempting to point at the US defense outlay and claim it to be: 1. A threat 2. An example of how Russia is spending quite reasonably. This would be a mistake. The first is easiest to deal with. The US economy is the abjectly most powerful on earth. Russia's is about on par with Italy's. Because your neighbor buys a larger sports car than you do does not make your spending more reasonable if he owns a company, and you are the manager at Starbucks in terms of spending capabilities. The first is a bit more complicated, but looking at what the US does have, it is largely focused on force projection (which is expensive, but is simply the reality of putting what combat power you have forward), and remains almost entirely focused on status quo enforcing missions short of full spectrum conflict. While its pretty easy to object (and not without good reason!) to the US global presence, the numbers on the ground, it is not forces allocated to offer much more than a token threat (see the idiot maps that show Russia encircled with US bases that neglect to show that all told those have something like 3-4 Brigades total worth of combat power) unless massed in one location , which again could be equally met by a smaller more agile Russian force moving on internal lines. So to that end the Russian military shouldn't be a giant pile of cold war castoffs like the BMP-2 (which frankly without some major overhauling is pretty much as obsolete as the BMP-1 at this point), some newerish hardware like the 90's T-90As and BMP-3s and a small handful of Armatas and KA-52s, it should be going for broke with newer systems with a much smaller endstate manning level. When pairing armor with infantry/infantry with armor proximity and rate of march is pretty important. They're not always riding in the same column, but having worked with mixed organization, your wheeled/tracked vehicles have very different needs and capabilities. One of the reasons why the fully-tracked APC was so revolutionary was infantry could now operate literally alongside armor, and keep pace with them over the marginal terrain. Conversely motorized infantry remained attractive because of the speed and strategic mobility involved. By combining the two, even at higher levels you're basically negating both their mobility advantages. A wheeled AFV "pure" organization is much better at strategic mobility (which is honestly the one advantage wheeled APCs have IMO), while a tracked "pure" organization is best suited to the sort of high intensity combat that goes hand in hand with tanks. Oh I did, but I took it to be a sign of how wasteful the Russian defense plans are. The thousands of BMP-2s have long since passed the point where they're really "useful" against peer threats. However they're available in numbers than can only really be justified in a real shooting war against someone who is equal to or stronger than Russian capabilities. The BMP3 despite being honestly the only in service PC the Russians have that's worth bringing to a shooting war, is available in the sort of numbers that simply do not support a high intensity conflict at this time. So either a BMP-2 fleet modernized (as contemporary designs like the Bradly, Marder, Warrior etc have all kept more or less up to speed with modern warfare) enough to be worth using, or a BMP3 fleet large enough to support a conventional war makes sense, but not this odd split that's ongoing right now. It does not need to cover its borders with men any more than the US military is at dangerously low force levels in Alaska. The threat of invasion is met by the cost of invasion being so great as to make it simply unfeasible or irrational. The Russian threat of nuclear war, or even the threat offered by seriously modernized forces is more than enough without the currently bloated Russian defense structure. Again I'd argue that simply not having them is the more rational choice, if NATO went crazy and invaded that force would likely be overrun in the mothballs yard if not simply crushed because lol bmp-1, and much the same for China. It's like looking at old battleship armor arrays. If you're looking at it simply as a question of armor, some armor>no armor. However if you're looking at the overall picture of cost, weight and how the armor affects the rest of the ship, the cost in those factors often outweighs the value of putting anything but the best in place, over what is most important. So to that end these packets of thousands of vehicles that frankly in a shooting war would be grease stains on contact, no matter how "small" the cost, are still too expensive for the abject lack of meaningful protection they provide. And that small amount could totally buy I don't know, like 1.5 Armatas or something would WOULD be much more meaningful in the broader sense of preparedness. It's really fallacy to put much stock in mothballs stuff. If it's not well maintained and kept at a pretty advanced readiness state (and are rarely actually less expensive to maintain) it is going to take longer to get combat ready than a force already activated that simply has a few long train rides ahead of it. The US prepo stuff has either pretty extensive maintenance standards (someone is keeping the lights on on a pretty frequent basis) or they're set up with the understanding that it's going to be a few days to a few weeks from boat docking to first tanks rolling downrange, and there's all sorts of lift assets aligned against getting the parts, equipment, and men to them. Just as addendum: Again looking at the post-1985 upgrades, from the "super" M60, to the ERA arrays, to the more dramatic Israeli and Turkish upgrades, a 2015 M60 force would be just as reasonable as a 2015 T-72 force given different priorities. The statement is not at all M60=T-72 and much more to do with keeping obsolete tanks running and "ready" just to have more tanks. Which again, given numbers of BMP-2s and how hard it was to replace them with BMP-3s makes me believe we're simply looking at a 3000 BMP2, 500 BMP3 and 230 Kurganets fleet vs a truly modern fleet without major cuts.

The communications is pretty killer, as it can be paired with very precision fires. It also helps with spotting I think in that neighboring squads will alert each other better to targets. Also a lot more high end optics. If you're put either unit in a fog or other degraded spotting situations, the US squad will still be marginally effective, while the Russians can go pretty Helen Keller. While Russian squads do not lack for the ability to fight at night, the passive type systems they use are not as effective at basic spotting, or as mentioned working at all in foggy/rainy conditions as the thermal type optics employed by the US. These are really your decisive elements. The ability to better spot targets, and engage them first is pretty much the definition of how to win any engagement (basically the first person to get a round broadly on target tends to win engagements more often by a level of several magnitudes). The communications piece means that your idiot dismount squad can drop some serious artillery hurt in a pretty timely manner, and at the least feed your situation awareness piece pretty well. In terms of weapons, I'd say the only real meaningful difference is the availability of the Javelin to US squads. The small arms offer no meaningful difference outside of optics, same deal with grenade launchers (M-25 is not "bad" but it is not quite the infantry eraser it is against unarmored troops). Light AT RPG type weapons are all equally marginally useful (Russians get more to shoot, but I have not seen many situations were I've slapped the desk and cursed the ability to feet another AT4/RPG into an APS system, or watched it just go "nope!" after striking armor, it's either a situation where it is enough to get the job done with 1-2 rockets, or not worth doing at all). Armor is also again, about the same, both survive and die from about the same sort of weapons.

It's less optimism and more...like there's a practical limit to what people believe overtly, like some insurgent secretly believes the last battle, they defeated the entire US 25th ID, and captured a Stryker secretly modified to look like, and perform exactly the same way as a BTR-70, but he's not so sure as to claim it out in public. Claiming the noises I heard behind the house are actually tigers which are neither native nor have a reasonable means to appear here, and not the deer that I've seen just beyond the fence on several ocasions would be similar. Or branching further down the route the first stop is "there's some very not-Ukrainian looking tanks out there!" followed by figuring out if it's a T-64 with bolted on armor, the Poles shipping in some Leo 2s, or by god, the 2nd Armored Division has been reformed, and will be collecting the blood of all Russian babies in Donbass to that we may awake Patton from his slumber, and set him upon all the peoples, animals, and plants of Russia, so that all may go to grease his tracks, and all that lay before Him and His Power may be laid to ruin.