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Sounds like we're in agreement as I also posted: I've been disputing the actual paradrop stuff because of the following: Which is pretty unambiguously dropping behind the FEBA. This is not a realistic mission set against NATO. Rapid deployment, and deployment on a flankish-axis (I doubt the Belarus border, or any possible approaches will be unsecured to the degree to make them "rear" although hitting the flank security in some strength is likely) is pretty reasonable though.. On the other hand, now we're getting into geopolitics and the question might just migrate into "would Russia retaliate with nuclear weapons against NATO attacks into Belarus" given the weird twilight state Belarus is in.

Conversely, again, the similar US Army truck mounted recon forces in the same theater wound up being used for convoy security chiefly because they simply did not have the ability to survive first contact with even a poorly motivated and equipped armor force. The Marine effort was down a much less defended route, and what was more relevant was "can we drive through here?" than "where are the bad guys?" (not to be confused with a lack of opposition, there were plenty of people to shoot, just not as many of the remaining Iraqi regulars with heavy equipment type formations). And to that end, in a higher threat environment in 2003 the leading with tanks and IFVs was very effective, in that it plowed the enemy under on first contact. When fighting weakness, or an enemy that is less much less mobile, highly mobile light forces can have positive effects, however, what kept Marine Force Recon from being tanked to bits was the fact that what Iraqi armor was available was tied up fighting the US Army heavy forces, not some sort of Hooah fist bump superiority of morale and human factors. And even at that, despite being lighter and faster, and facing less opposition, the Army "heavy" forces still beat the Marines to Baghdad, so take from that what you will. Again, this would be reasonable in the face of an enemy force that was not a peer threat. As the case is, conducting it into the face of NATO would be a great way to conduct significant manpower reduction in the VDV, and save the Russian government a lot of money on pensions in the future. The drop is still amazingly vulnerable, NATO commands an overwhelming capability in terms of air power (by all reasonable estimates, the question is "how much can NATO do over the Russian side of the FEBA?" not "Can Russians fly in a few regiments of VDV into NATO's rear?"), and it's just not a reasonable capability to exert. If Russia just out and out invaded the Ukraine without NATO kicking around, it'd likely result in some pretty high causalities (I mean, one or two planes going down is still 50+ soldiers a pop), but against very important targets I wouldn't rule it out. That said, if there's a 2S6 operating on the DZ (or even just a few dudes with MANPADS) it's going to be ultramessy. Same problem. Massed transport helicopters are not especially easy to conceal, and against an enemy with peer capabilities it's going to be sadface. Both Air Assault and Airborne type operations are good when you're dealing with an enemy that's defending a very wide area, or is unable to rapidly reposture on your movements. If we're talking about the CMBS scenerio, that's not something Russia has to work with, and again if you think a few dozen MI-8s trucking along is going to get the job done, even with air cover, I have to question your understanding of how lethal airspace will be on both sides of the FEBA. This closer to what I'd expect. They are strategically very mobile. If the war went from NATO and Russia having a genital measuring contest, to all out real war, both sides would be rushing in air-transportable assets. For the US, just as an example of the other side of the fence, this would likely be Stryker Brigades given the ability to realistically move them by strategic airlift. For Russia flying in the VDV to the region, then mounting up and operating as mechanized infantry "light" is a very reasonable choice, and less wasteful than scattering dead paratroopers about eastern Ukraine.

Bullets usually care more for armor than they do morale. Force Recon went as far as it could against light opposition. They'd have had to stop if the remaining Iraqi armor was in their AO (or at least drive around it and have someone else handle it).

Re: Oblique The reality is that in a shooting war against peers, airborne operations anywhere except for the far periphery of operations is going to be a suicide mission at best, an abject and total disaster at most likely. It boggles my mind anyone would even think that waves of big fat transport planes, flying through a radar rich environment, where there's enemy forces with entirely modern and functional fighters is remotely a good idea. I was taking the oblique route because telling people the previous is generally caustic and not especially helpful in conversation. This and this alone. Against an intelligent enemy, if you just punched a hole in this ADA network, and you're now pumping the air with jammers, what do you think you've just told him about your plans? What do you think the outcome would be against an enemy that is comprised of pretty much the 8 out of 10 of the world's largest air forces? It's not feasible, or viable, it's just a way to rapidly feed regiments better used on the ground into said ground at a few hundred miles an hour. Marine Force Recon was forward not as an assault force, but instead to basically determine where the enemy was, or was not, and to destroy lesser forces where available. Force recon is such a light force that it's really good at rapid movement, and it has some good recon tools, but in terms of overcoming the enemy, it was much more reliant on the regular Marines behind it (and further, the US Army advance dispensed with light scouts all together and instead led with tanks and IFVs given the limits on "light" motorized element capabilities)

I'm just going to stop being oblique about it. The only way a VDV regiment would be dropped anywhere is somewhere a little inside the range of whatever ADA/NATO combat air patrol is on station, and the majority of the troopers involved would be falling at terminal velocity. It is as simple as that. If you're looking for historical parallels, read up on Operation Varsity, which was the last time paratroopers were dropped in anything resembling contested environments. Despite the defenders being generally war weary Germans, relying on optical guidance only ADA assets, with no air cover, significant air, and paratrooper losses still occurred. Moving forward some 70 years, the chief advances in air dropping are: 1. Transports are faster to arrive at drop zone 2. Precision of drops is much more reliable. Neither of those overcome the vast leaps and bounds in air defense or fighter aviation. It's still a huge mass of slow, unstealthy planes, that arrive over a spot, slow to speeds that won't kill paratroopers when they leave the plane, or strip chutes off of cargo pallets, and generally present the world's absolutely best target for anything that is designed to kill planes. Expecting this all to fly in the face of the NATO air arm, or ground ADA platforms is just, lawl. The same standards of course apply to US paratroopers. Which is really getting into another discussion about the utility of paratroopers in the first place. Re: Spearheads That's not really what the Marine recon did. It's closer to whiskers on a tiger than the teeth if you will.

TRP is just sometime before the battle, you gave that location to the artillery unit, and they sat down and ran all the numbers ahead of time, maybe even fired a round to check for accuracy, then wrote it all down for later. That's about it. There's no real reason why an artillery TRP would have any other effects except for faster and more accurate fires.

Yeah, but given a narrow front like the Ukraine, where are they going to insert from? It's going to be airspace that's dangerous to be a small high performance fighter, let alone a transport. Unless they're going to drop outside Warsaw because YOLO, seems doubtful given the concentration of air defense.

I think measuring the success of Russian forces against the Georgians is to take the success of US forces against the Iraqis in 2003, then kick it up a few notches.

Think he just meant in the sense of the platform, not the overall mission. The A-1, and the various World War Two bombers did really well against the sorts of targets that were presented in the COIN environment

China would hurl Russia under the bus the second Russia becomes a nuisance. Europe, the US and honestly the rest of the world at large are more important to China's economy (which is really what they care about). Russia and China are certainly not friends, nor could Russia count on any sort of support from China (and indeed, their past historical interactions have been at best, mutually exploitative).

Yeah. Again, it's not a bad vehicle, but it is one that makes some pretty clear compromises in capacity and surviability. It certainly is not a BMP, and it is the sort of vehicle that has to be mindful of 40 MM HEDP and such (I'm just going to assume it's going to have side armor fitted as a matter of course given the sort of conditions it would deploy under).

Re: Teal Group Which is all fun and good, but the SU-25s that are already in the game are even less likely to last more than a few seconds over target. Clearly conditions can be met in game, or options that involve scenarios where a dedicated CAS platform can survive. Why not include the A-10?

On the other hand, he's literally alienated everyone who's not Belarus, NATO is actually getting serious about military rebuilding, US forces are returning to Europe, countries that previously had no interest in NATO are starting to make rumbles about if not joining, at least extensive cooperation. and he's shown that Russian agreements mean literally nothing. If his goal was to become a pariah, and make Russia's position in the world marginal? Hang the mission accomplished banner. His BFFs are the Syrian president and that's about it, and people who previously followed the "Russia is our partner" line are deeply discredited. He's destroyed any room Russia had to maneuver, all to in so many words, achieve another fake-"People's Republic" Which again, makes him that infection. He hasn't asked how far he should go, he's simply gone as far as he can, and the rewards for this is a bunch of dead Ukrainians and a smattering of dead Dutch folks on the side.

Basically they're better trained, but have worse PCs (the BMD's in so many words, usually offer similar firepower, worse carrying capacity and "armor" if you get my drift). The selling point of the BMD is something that isn't well told by the capabilities it mounts. In so many words its trying to be the one eyed man in the blind, an armored vehicle in the enemy's rear area. On the other hand it will be straight up murdered by anything with "AP" in the round description, to include by some accounts, small arms. The reason the VDV in Afghanistan used BMP-2s was because the surviability of the BMD was so low that it simply did not endure much of anything well. Which will go back to the scenarios to use them in. A big airborne attack against the rear NATO areas is really strongly doubtful, but hey if you build it someone will play it. If we're talking about a VDV force facing a US heavy force, it's going to be a very bad time. If you're pairing them up against Strykers and non-tank supported USMC, you ought to be fine.

It does seem like a lot of risk from land based platforms to not a whole lot of gain. I'm not really convinced that physically parking the USN in the Black Sea offers an advantage you couldn't gain through safer options.

Oh he could, just I think Putin is closer to an opportunistic infection. Looking at the progression from trying to have Ukraine as a puppet through it's president, to suppressing opposition to said president, through the crimea and beyond it's more a statement of Ukrainian weakness (thanks to previous puppet) and European unwillingness to commit than any sort of deft handling (see the hamfistedly stupid MH 17 shootdown response for a good example).

Re: Tank riders It's one of those things you do in the absence of other vehicles, or in a low threat environment. It's really dangerous for the riders, and gets in the way of the tanker. The inside of an IFV is a cramped, loud, smelly place. None of them are comfortable, and a BTR/BMP operating at capacity is pretty much a solid block of soldier in the troop bay with equipment wedged in (Bradleys are not much better, but were designed to barely fit a larger soldier to begin with). In low threat environments, like riding from place to place behind friendly lines, being on top of the IFV in the fresh air, with room to spread out would be pretty attractive, which is where you see most of these photos and videos coming from. Also in places where mines are a bigger threat than direct fire, getting standoff from the mine, and having the floor and roof armor between you and a possible mine detonation is a pragmatic trade off to being more vulnerable to rare/uncommon gunfire.

I am no fan of Bismarck, but that's a pretty big insult to the German party here.

I seem to remember it being anti-personnel, anti-armor, or mix for some reason.

I'd buy pretty much anything realistically going to show up to a war in the Ukraine. That said: High priority: Germany UK Poland Unconventionals Moderate priority France VDV Italy USMC Meh Supersmall NATO countries (OH BOY THE NETHERLANDS HAS SHOWN UP WITH ALL ZERO TANKS!) Russia Marines (BTR pointed it out, they're really nothing that interesting that couldn't be packed with a better module) Super-out there participants (non-NATO western countries, the pretty much fictional at this point Russian allies)

Re: Breach by tank The optimal way to defeat a wall in a tank is to shoot the wall. HE/HEAT works well. Canister is actually pretty good too, the amount of force it inflicts at close range will blow holes in walls, or damage the wall to the point where it's fairly easily breached. Running through things is always a bit tricky. The two big nogos are: 1. It's like Hedgerows in Normandy. You really don't know what you're about to roll into, while the enemy is pretty clear what you are, and where you're coming from. 2.Hitting things with your gun tube is a bad idea. I know the Russians require their tubes take some level of abuse for punching through things, but I wouldn't want to test it (knowing how impacts can effect recoil mechanisms, misalign optics, or warp the guntube). This means you either go gun first, and risk damaging your main weapons system, or turret rear which means you're not going to fight on the other side. If you have a tank, and you want to go through a wall, give it a shot or two. It works better, and is the more authentic answer to the question.

Oh I 100% understand the general apathy towards a red dawn type scenario for many European audiences. I'd just like a 1985-1991 era Combat Mission game with terrain and props that could pass for parts of the US if you didn't stare at it too long.

The round is still going to destabilize after going through some solid surfaces. Yeah I guess it might be lotto win odds it keeps going through buildings, but it's Pittsburgh Pirates go to the Superbowl level odds to do it with accuracy. It's sort of a silly thing anyway. Until now I'd just seen it result in the occasional multi-PC kill, seems more like a quirk of the game than a serious issue.

Massive OT standby: Nothing especially exciting, most of my tank knowledge isn't much better than a really enthusiastic student of history. I've operated: M1A1HC, M1A2 SEP V2, M3A2 I've been inside of/have hands on experience with a functional: M1A2 SEP, M3A2 ODS BUSK, M2A3 I've been up and close with the following to some degree of "closer than in a museum" M48, M60, K1, K1A1, K200, BMP-1, BMP-2, T-55, and T-72M1 I've omitted boring stuff like M113 based vehicles, or HMMWVs. When I was a young LT, the Armor fleet was still something like 60% M1A1s, so when you went through Armor School, if you were going to one of the M1A2 units (mostly 1st CAV and 4th ID at this point), you got to roll around on M1A2s. If you were like me and going to someplace less modern, you got some vintage of A1 (mine actually had a large decal for emergency numbers to call in West Germany in the event something happened, just to give you an idea of vintage). Our Bradleys were of even older vintage, they had the A2 armor upgrade, but none of them had LRFs. LTs of that time period still had to do Bradley gunnery though, so that's why I have time on that platform In terms of tanks though, after my first years in the Army, I went to an M1A2 SEP V2 equipped unit, and did my company commander time there. Which is the long way of saying "I know late-model M1A1s okay, and M1A2 SEP V2s really well." If you've got other questions, there's some sort of "sericepeople talk about military stuff' thread on this forum, it's likely a few pages down, feel free to drop them in there or personal message me or something. Don't want to derail this much more.

If there's ever CM: Fulda Gap I hope they make some sufficiently small town American looking buildings so we can recreate the 1989 US drive from St Louis, and the final encirclement of Soviet Forces outside of Portland Oregon in 1991. Not trying to harsh on people's more modern scenarios, just if there's a time period that meshed well with "America under attack" for me I feel it was the 1980's.