panzersaurkrautwerfer

Quoted because I am just that worth quoting: We keep acting like there's tiny little digital mens in the tank, and their behavior is largely regulated by tiny digital eyes and brains, when in reality it's a whole mess of numbers and systems that are trying to replicate inherently chaotic, non-system results. That said: 1. The T-90 in a treeline will be as obvious as it would be in the open with thermals. 2. T-90AM optics are still pretty "Eh." The engagement range you selected is beyond the range of the Cathrine FC to be able to tell a M1 and a BMP-2 apart, but well within the M1's ability to tell you if the commander is out of the hatch and wearing sunglasses or not. 3. The GSR on the Russian vehicles sees really well through fog, and dark, but has a lot of problems with pretty much anything else. Trees, piles of trash on the ground, buildings, exposed rock faces, the target even being partially masked by terrain can all result in a "something is there!" but not a confirmed target* So basically this is sounding like someone is rageful their Russian stuff is performing like Russian stuff performs. *GSR is best used as a sort of tripwire, like it's your first warning something is there, but generally ground mounted radars are best to let you know where you look, vs the be all end all of spotting

There's systems to plus up units as required. Some of these were exercised in the War on Terror nonsense were they took active duty instructors out of training centers, and replaced them with "contractors" (who were generally retired senior NCOs too old or too broken to send back to war, great subject matter experts, 30 years of experience sort of folks....just worn out and showing all the results of being a tanker/scout/infantryman for those 30 years*) So school house units can be scraped for trained replacements. Also there's a system of "Active" reserve units which are whole generally support units called to action to support military operations that might not be so important in peacetime** but there is also the "Individual Ready Reserve" which basically is a soldier on a recall list, if we're short on 19K 30 series MOS dudes, we've got a lengthy list of folks to call back and put through refresher training. In terms of building new ABCTs, I don't think anyone can sustain a war these days long enough to field a from the ground up new unit. This is not 1943, the mechanical complexity, and expense of ammunition alone is sufficient to make a long war pretty ruinous, and the industrial capacity to ramp up just is not there any more. Any war will be settled by folks more or less available within months of the start of the conflict, and it's worth noting we're not at the point of wars of national survival (or a successful hypothetical NATO offensive in the Ukraine to push the Russians out ends at the border, just as much as a successful Russian offensive is not going to pause before turning on Warsaw), the sort of national will and perceived realistic threat just is not there. Re: ABCTs It's also worth noting that while overall BCTs are getting reduced, most of the combat Battalions are simply being reassigned to other Brigades (so going from the template being a Cav Squadron+2 CABs, to 3 CABs +larger artillery battalion and engineering elements) *This was especially true at Armor Officer's course circa 2008 when I went through, we had real army folks for the tactics instruction and evaluations, but all the technical stuff was done by a cadre of retired tankers and scouts. Quality did not suffer, and we got wicked sweet stories about Sheridans and other bygone army things. **Think like laundry units, or specialty engineering teams, unless we're at war and overseas we don't really need someone to do the laundry or build a bridge. The reserve lets us keep those training personnel, but it does not cost as much to have a unit that does not really need to be at "go to war tomorrow" readiness.

M-36 is pretty much a must-include for anything that covers the post August 1944 timeframe. After looking it up, the first time an T26E3 (as they were called until March) went into combat the last week of February. If the Bulge module covered the final reduction of the Bulge itself and the follow on offenses, having them in would be pretty cool. Of course the other thing would be figuring out just how they were supposed to be included, the ten or so tanks that went to 9th Armored were deployed in platoon elements, while the 3rd Armored ones wound up being basically deployed as a replacement for one tank in an otherwise Sherman-ed up platoon. So I guess at that maybe it'd be something like a super high rarity upgrade for a platoon (much in the same way you can upgrade M4A1s to M4A3 76s or something), or an option to include it as a very expensive platoon with a rarity discount (basically you should either see one Pershing, or five, and nothing in between, or more)

I think they left the amount of armor units in theater ambiguous intentionally. Looking through the scenario there's simply mention of a mechanized unit on training rotation. This could be anything from the current CAB sized training vehicle pool with flown in forces, to an entire Armored Brigade. Then the follow on stuff is pretty much left at "stuff is arriving in theater at increasing rates. The fact is if you've got a US armored unit colliding with a Russian armored unit in Ukraine, locally at the Company-Battalion level, M1A2s won't be especially rare.

I think you'll see it if there's an expansion to the rumored Battle of the Bulge CM that's supposed to be coming up. All of 20 of them saw combat, but only in the March-May 45' timeframe (although 300 or so of them made it to Europe in time for the V-E parades more or less), but they're a must-do if we're going to cover up to Remagen,

Yarp. Thermals work a lot better than NVGs on a good day, which stands to reason they'll do a lot better on a bad day too.

Perhaps. But speaking in terms of ability to get tanks to the fight, if someone's going to make a few Armor brigades magic into theater, it's going to be the US. Further his statement was to the economy of the T-90 and how that allowed for greater numbers of T-90s. There's no greater number of T-90s, and I do not consider Russia being next door to the Ukraine to be really a design feature of the T-90 which sort of nudges it out of the realm of strictly tank vs tank. It's interesting to look at loss breakdowns across conflicts. Tanks are, and likely remain the most potent anti-tank weapons oddly enough. Most of the other systems are more to prevent tanks being an "I Win" card vs realistically tackle armor in a tank-hunter sort of role.

You might want to do a check and see how many M1A2s there are vs how many T90s there are in Russian service before you say such things.

So my sabot was pretty much a stop-stick for tank speed traps?

That'll certainly do it for building a scenario. For folks building said scenerios, at least in US Armyland: You have the following flavors of fighting positions: 1. Primary. This is where it is optimal for you to shoot the heck out of the enemy and where you would like to fight from. 2. Alternate. Still focused on the same engagement area as primary, but in a different position. Usually intended as where the tank displaces to once the enemy identifies the primary position 3. Supplementary. If there's two avenues of approach, the primary will focus on the most likely of the two, while a supplementary position will be available if the enemy does the unexpected 4. Subsequent. This is where the tank goes to once the first set of positions is threatened, or conditions are met to merit moving back. Often part of a defense in depth (so the enemy gets attritted to some degree, company withdraws to a subsequent position while the enemy is disrupted, crosslevels ammo and then gets ready to do it again). This can take a LOT of engineering work and time, so in practice not all of these are full on fighting positions, like the Primary position might be a hull down position, while the alternate is simply a handy berm, with the supplementary is some low ground that offers cover, or might be fighting positions to different degrees (primary is turret down, alternate is merely hull, supplementary is a simply a scrape made by the company's M88) All the same just an idea if you want to do it right, and it'll leave a convincing number of positions scattered around the map as effectively decoys.

Tank operations in urban areas for dumbys: 1. Use your infantry to lead. They can better move through hard cover, and are good sensors (or their eyeballs and situational awareness is pretty good) 2. Clear on line, everytime. When you move your infantry forward, try to keep infantry broadly in a line across the front. This achieves two things: a. IRL, it's clearance of fires. If I know the next squad over is literally 90 degrees to my right, I'm not trying to guess if the shadowy figures in the windows to my 1 o'clock are friendly or not. b. It keeps enemy AT assets from slipping through. If you're advancing unevenly, or bypassing buildings, there's a chance the last remaining conscript with -2 leadership with an RPG-7 is going to smoke your Abrams with a rear shot. By clearing on-line you ensure that behind your troops there's nothing but ruins and bodies 3. Hold your armor back, and identify armor-friendly avenues of approach. This prevents the enemy from trying to mass AT assets because he knows broadly where your tanks are, but you should know how to get your tanks to the front as fast as possible. This pairs well with the clearing on-line because it ensures that all these avenues of approach are clear of hostiles, so fast moving your tank is a no-threat exercise. a. Alternately, do not hold it back, but keep it just behind your infantry as an overwatch piece. Infantry clears to the next intersection, then tank moves up to said intersection and holds there until the infantry gets to the next intersection up. Repeat until in Moscow. 4. When your infantry identifies something worth tanking to pieces, then bring the tank forward to start using direct fires. Often the best technique is use the infantry to suppress the target while using a "target" command on the enemy position (assuming it's a building) to bring it down on the OPFOR's head. Then keep the tank in overwatch while infantry moves in. Some things just to remember: 1. No one likes it when a building falls on them. Don't be afraid to flatten a few buildings you can see tracer fire from, or even knock a building down to give your tank a new LOS (this is historically pretty common, in Aachen US engineers would blow up buildings, or otherwise knock down walls to open new firing angles for tanks) 2. There's no infantry carried AT systems in CMBS that reliably can kill most tanks from the front. Javelin is the only one that could but it is not so hot from close ranges. As long as you clear, and secure the flanks your tank will be king of murder mountain. 3. All of these tactics also apply well to IFVs, just be mindful the IFV is still likely to respond poorly to the AT4/RPG type threats from the frontal arc. Conversely autocannon fire is murderously effective against infantry. 4. Tanks are great spotters for artillery given their robust coms, and unlike an infantry type spotter, he's not going to get suppressed by small arms fire from the target. Suppressing with the tank's MG's, then doing a full battery precision strike on the enemy who's pinned down in the target building is often very effective (I'm not sure I really need all six shells hitting, but I find it tends to ensure building destruction, and rarely leaves survivors). The American military has remained successfully fairly apolitical. The only military coup type situation I could see is a civilian government that is either in flagrant violation of the Constitution (King Barack* the 1st kind of flagrant), or if called to do really bad mojo (King Barack* decrees the state of West Virginia will be decimated for its insolence!). The military has remained rather loyal regardless of who's in charge (with the Bush and Obama years offering a good contrast between super-supportive, and not supportive of the military) and outside of some crazy stuff, will likely remain so. *This is no way an attempt at sniping at the current president. If this was 2002 I'd be writing "King George W the 1st" or 1998, "King Bill." I don't really like the current president, but I recognize he's the legitimate leader of the country, and concede he's at least trying to do what's best for America in a legal and moral manner, I just differ with him on a lot of issues just what the "best" is. Which gets further into the mindset, if he ordered me to go to Hati in my few remaining weeks on active duty, I would do so without question because it's my job to obey the orders of the commander and chief (within the confines of the Constitution) and he has the authority to do so. I just don't think there's that feeling in the military of being a part of the government with a say in how the country is run, vs being a tool of the government to carry out policy set by the civilian administration within a legal framework.

Rather this. I don't think either side expected their neighbor to be quite so belligerent. It's pretty tragic in the regards that the primary driver for the fighting does not really care about what happens to eastern Ukraine so long as it is not under the control of Kiev. Don't think it's going to be worth much to anyone for some time to come.

Yep. But as you'll note especially in my commentary I'm not discussing strictly tank vs tank, I'mk talking about tank A performance vs tank B performance overall. Tanks are actually very useful in urban fights when used with great care, good tactics and good training however so often folks will make a Grozny of it. Better examples for tanks doing urban well would be Aachen 1944, Hue 1968 and Fallujah 2003. 1. The US Army uses tank simulators on computers as something like a last resort after the simulators (CCTT for tank operation and MAGTS for gunnery mostly). It's a good training tool, but it is a bit like claiming using the same exercise equipment as a major sports team. It gets you in better shape, but you still have not closed the gap between what you are capable of vs something who's on a whole different tier of experience and training. 2. All my statements were in reference to the T-90A. There's spots were the tank has been improved, but in terms of firepower, armor, optics, crew ergonomics it is still quite far behind current generation Western MBTs. 3. Invar-M basically can penetrate in the same place the Refleks can, and it's defeated by the same armor arrays that kept the Refleks out. It is better, but not in a way that suddenly changes the name of the game. 4. T-90AM. Doubtful honestly. There's still a finite amount of resources the Russians have, and doing a T-90AM overhaul+Armata+T-72B3 etc etc is really stretching what any country could reasonably do. If a war broke out in 2017, and we weren't looking at the first Russian Army T-90AMs rolling out of the factory in a few days, it'd be pretty doubtful we'd see more than a handful. ACs are neat. The M1 finally got an AC as standard circa 2000's as the TMS (Thermal Management System) but that's more to keep the computers happy than the crew. I was talking more about the size of the crew's space and crew workload. Russian tanks are really something you endure vs ride in and that places a burden on the crew and their ability to keep conducting operations over the course of hours. Also if you work the crewload right you can conduct crew rest and keep moving on an Abrams. Re: Conscription There's certainly a social arguement for conscription, but if you are looking for which one makes the better tank crewman, an all volunteer force is likely the best choice.

Re: T-90 Article It's actually pretty bad. There's some howlers in there like comparing the M1's loading process to a bolt action, while the T-90 is a "semi-automatic" (if we're using small arms analogies, the M1 is a bolt action, and the T-90 is a bolt action with a machine that operates the bolt at near human speed), claiming the T-90's smaller size makes it more urban capable (it doesn't, the size/weight difference comes chiefly from the turret, which has only limited effects on the actual ability to fit in places, and both suffer about equally from gun tube length, while the Abrams has much better gun elevation factors). It also praises the Russian focus on evolutionary designs vs revolutionary designs, while totally neglecting the M1 is pretty much exactly what he's extolling in the progression from M1 to M1A2 SEP v2. It is pretty bad. I could go on further if you would like however! Addendum: M1 tanker time in service Here's a loose estimate from time in service starting from graduation from basic by crew position: Driver: 0-3 years* Loader: 0-4 years* Gunner: 3-9 years ** Commander: 7+ years + *A lot depends on the unit. Certain units consider the loader the entry position to tanking, while others prefer the driver to be most junior. However both are good entry level positions on a tank, and most soldiers will serve as both before moving on to being a gunner. Average rank is PV-2 through Specialist ** Nearly all gunners are Sergeants who've been both drivers and loaders. Some units that are short on Sergeants will put more junior ranks in the gunner's spot if the soldier is especially good. For instance my Company had several PFC/SPC gunners because they were that good, and the Army hates Korea and just opted not to send new Sergeants to us for a few months. Some gunners will stay in position longer, especially if they're the sort of dude who is a good sergeant but who've done something to make them less likely to be promoted to Staff Sergeant. + The two "wing" tanks are commanded by Staff Sergeants, frequently promoted from internal to the organization. The Platoon Sergeant is usually an angry dinosaur of a man with something around 14-20 years of tanking under his belt, and he will be a positive terror if you do "tank thunderdome" like we used to do with MILES. The Platoon leader frighteningly enough has something like 1-3 years in the Army, but usually will only be in the platoon for 12-24 months at most. Generally his gunner is the most senior gunner in the platoon, and serves as sort of a co-tank commander, keeping the tank in good order and fighting it when the platoon leader needs to attend to the platoon. Tank commander is much the same, although he may have prior experience from his platoon leader/XO time, or being a Cavtasitc dude like yours truly who has not been in a tank since officer's school. Regardless, the tank has a lot of experience contained within it, and troop quality is certainly something the US Army hopes to leverage into the future. Addendum: I do envy the sort of unrestricted training areas the Russians have though.

He comes. The lamentations of the ground dwellers will be heard to the heavens, and all laid low at His passing. It has been foretold in Prophecy.

The T-90A in its current incarnation is...basically the ultimate T-72. It is a good tank, compares well to many mid-90's tanks. However: 1. It still has issues with the autoloader effectively limiting the length of main gun rounds which ensures it will have inferior conventional gun performance compared to similar western guns. 2. The armor array heavily leans on which ERA is equipped. Newer ERA like Relikit or whatever it is still offers some good performance, but the majority of it is kontakt of various vintages, which largely has been surpassed by modern AT systems. The base armor array under the ERA is not effective against most threat systems. 3. Russian optical systems are based on a French downgrade system. This is not a positive sign. It also means while it has hypothetical stand-off capabilities with the through the gun ATGM, it will not be as able to leverage that range because it does not have the systems to readily acquire targets in battlefield conditions at that 4 KM+ distance. 4. As is common with Russian vehicles, it has packed a lot of stuff into a tight space. Any penetration stands a fair chance at causing either loss of vehicle or at the least mission kill level damage. 5. While the commander has his own optic, it is not as capable as western CITV style systems. 6. As with most Russian vehicles, god help you if you're tall. Even if you're small crew comfort is limited, which detracts from being able to conduct long duration operations (such as the US march to Baghdad in 2003). To the positive end of things: 1. It is fairly cheap for what you get. You should not expect it to perform miracles, but if you're India and you're staring down the finest Chinese export tanks from Pakistan, it is a very potent tank. 2. While it is not magically more reliable, it is however designed to be repaired and maintained by a much lower standard of maintenance. This should not be confused with better readiness (see the various Arab military forces and how their Russian hardware is broken as often as the western stuff) but the "replace the whole unit and put in a new one" design is well suited to forces that lack a large pool of mechanics. 3. It is quite light for its performance, and its small size has its advantages. While disastrous in a penetration, it does mean that it is a smaller target, and better able to cross bridges and somesuch. 4. It can hypothetically scale protection with ERA packages, which is to say unlike western tanks, which need depot level work at the least to upgrade their armor (see the M1A1 to M1A1HA conversions in Kuwait 1991 for a good example), mounting better ERA blocks is much easier as long as the blocks are similar to the previous generation. 5. Respectable firepower. While it does not stack up to western MBTs, it does hold its own against peer tanks, and there isn't much short of a western MBT that it cannot defeat through firepower It's not a bad tank, there's just a false understanding that it is a one for one peer for western tanks, when the reality is that the current generation of in-service T-90s lag somewhat behind the other top tier tanks.

It also might have just been part of the day's training objectives, practicality of that particular camo net be damned.

Re: Smoke That looks a whole lot like just the end result of driving a tank fairly fast on dirt to me. Tanks leave some epic roostertails (and it's why you want to be the first tank in formation on drives on dirt roads, and god forbid you're doing it in the mud).

Generally a lack of warfare is preferred in both polite, and professional circles. Re: Leo 2 I do hate the fan club. It's a good tank. Not even a "good" tank, nope, it's quite well designed and capable. But it has this following wherein simply repeating Deutch qualitat at increasing volumes, and talking about German armor in World War Two is enough to prove the Leo 2 is the best tank to ever tank. Statement: "Best Tanks" Entirely depends on who you are, and what you're doing, and what your military is capable of supporting. The Abrams is awesome, but I wouldn't want to try to support an Abrams fleet as Columbia or something. The Merkava is a great example of something that's very powerful in its niche, but pretty "eh" outside of it (granted, 100% it's going to do all its fighting in said niche, so that rather makes sense). The more practical reality is if the Leo 2 was the M2A5 Leopard, and the M1 was the <insert german name here>, in the hands of similar personnel, the US Army wouldn't be stronger or weaker for having Leos, or the German Army much worse off for being M1 users (Green party objections to DU, and fuel consumption excepted)

Weight. It's the same reason the Rangers did not like the base model, and why MGL type launchers haven't got much traction. If you've thrown body armor, rifle, 300ish rounds, water, NVGs, optics and batteries on a guy, he's already pretty weighed down. Adding an entirely different weapon system and ammunition might make the guy simply fall over. The weight of an M320 and rounds is not insignificant but there's a lot less than an XM25 or a larger system. Re: Rangerjection The Rangers work in a way that could best be described as raid-centric. Basically they're going to be whatever transport is mission proper (often helicopters, but in Iraq they borrowed Strykers pretty often because of how quiet and fast they could be), get booted out, and then do whatever they're there to do (generally seize HVTs, although hostage rescue, or high risk cache/insurgent node seizure pops up sometimes). To that end most of the fighting they do is with the initiative, and rapid movement onto and through the objective is of the paramount. They also tend to have priority on support assets to a rather insane degree* Elsewhere in Afghanistan, being suddenly under fire from a covered position while on patrol is a reality. This makes the weight trade off more attractive because while the Rangers use the grenade launcher a fair bit, they're often using it as a launcher for other things (flares, LTL, etc), and often they're attacking the enemy in his hole where he is less likely to be behind hard cover. Some 10th Mountain platoon however is much more likely to be checking out the local villages to see if they're still living in the 13th century, and as part of that wander into an ambush from the sort of positions the XM25 smites well. *In what I view as a giant mistake, the course you take prior to being eligible for command or senior staff positions as a Captain is shared between Armor, Infantry, and Special Forces types. My class tragically was a mix of one former scout (me), one tanker, two international students (one from Ghana, the other from Croatia), one lost aviator (they could take our course too) seven light infantry type guys, and then a whopping seven special forces bound dudes. One of the SOF dudes had been in the Rangers from 2LT until he showed up to the course. And I kid you not, every scenario revolved around "well we can just use our air support for that" for him. It's like his brain just couldn't comprehend that not everyone was followed by a platoon of Apaches, an AC-130, and an element of F-16s just waiting for the word to do something. I was about ready to kill him when he said "well in a real war, the air force would handle this!" during our heavy mechanized defense scenario which involved holding off a enemy mechanized battalion with our assigned mech infantry team.

I didn't exactly hate all of it, the cucumber based stuff was okay, but with korean dining if the question is "should I waste space in my stomach on kimchi or more bulgoggi?" the answer is obvious to any sane person. And don't get me started on Egg and Cheesy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

Which really means we're like, five seconds out from Godwin.

I think your lack of response is more telling. You can see several attempts where the Germans did attempt to achieve local parity, or did mass aviation on objectives, but it's directed against assets like bridges, assembly areas, and similar targets. The Luftwaffe as a CAS force only operated in the much more permissive eastern AOs. I'm trying to have an intelligent discussion on this, however, if you're just going to pfft I'm going to assume you lack the capability. re: Burke I'm stating the Luftwaffe was generally unable to conduct CAS in the west in the face of Allied air superiority, and when they did conduct strikes it was against rear-area or infrastructure type targets vs CAS missions.

In the west? Please do tell about legions of JU 87s effectively reaching the front and the CAS type missions flown.