panzersaurkrautwerfer

We were talking about something cool, and then nooooooo, another student of military history knows better. Just in short, I do enjoy how impenetrable Russian IADS is, and how NATO will struggle with it, but supremely unstealthy last generation Russian fighters will zip on through NATO/Ukrainian IADS and kill all the mens. Carrying on in good order though! Who died and appointed you to be thread-Stalin? It was off track and we were happy there talking about much more relevant topics like how cool Longbow 2 was. Re: IADS examples. Super-off topic! The question was never "will NATO bomb the Russians?" because the answer to that is fairly well agreed by all parties to be "Yes, eventually." The million dollar question was if the Russians could bomb NATO. And apparently given your able defense of large SAMs and the 2S6, the answer is "no, all Russian pilots will die shrieking in their canopies as they are violated from every direction by PATRIOT and 2S6 fire because IADS is the end all" However I do not think that was your intent, so carrying on in good order. Effectively the realistic outcome of any ADA component is to raise the difficulty of bombing something, but like all defenses, given effort and proper equipment they can be breached. Anyone with a basic understanding of military workings understands defense is the stronger form of military operations, but it is never the decisive one (or, even if the defensive fight was important, what decided the matter was the follow-on offensive, or threat of same no matter how anemic it was). The Israelis had to suffer through the slings and arrows of both first generation ATGMs and SAMs once they'd moved beyond babby's first missile stage. However, as time and time again has proven, the IADS builds complexity into the operation, but to act as if they were the be all end all is a shallow reading of military history. Hanoi still rocked with bomb blasts, Israeli jets still snake and naped their way across the desert. Like all defensive, reactive ways of warfare, they're only good if you can follow up the breathing room they've given you. Which gets to relative strength. Here's what the Russian Air Force can muster circa around now: 830 "fighter" type planes (includes multi-roles and assumes the Russians would potentially commit MIG-31s offensively)+60 additional PAK-FAs maybe+100 claimed MIG-35 starting initial small number service claimed 2016 535 "Strike" type planes (planes with unambigiously strike-only role, chiefly SU-25 and SU-24)+89 claimed SU-34s For amusement: 16 A-50 AWACS type planes 19 IL-78 aerial refueling planes+31 on order Here's what the USAF brings to the fight: 1,473 "fighter" type planes (F-16, F-15s minus Es, F-22, F-35s in inventory)+1763 F-35 on order) 534 "Strike" type planes (F-15E, A-10C) 32 E-3 Sentry (AWACS) 16 JSTARs (Sort of AWACS for ground) 417 refueling planes (KC-135, not bored enough to look up KC-46 procurement) USMC could bring if invited 229 Fighters (F/A-18s, to be replaced by F-35s) 99 Strike (AV-8, also to be replaced by F-35s) USN if they get sick of the ocean 998 fighters (F/A-18A/B/C/D, and F/A-18E/Fs) 117 Dedicated SEAD (EF-18G) Here's what our special relationship would show up with should Her Majesty deem fit: 125 Fighters (Typhoon) 102 Strike (Tornado) 6 AWACS (E-3 Sentry as operated by RAF) Deutchland 109 Fighters (Typhoons, to eventually become fleet of 143) 116 Strike (Tornadoes) Merde. It is time for zee French: 135 Fighters (Rafales, remaining Mirage 2000s in fighter role)+37 additional Rafales if the Navy shows up. 84 Strike (Mirage 2000s in strike units) 4 AWACs (French owned E-3s) Za naszą i waszą wolność! 80 Fighters (MIG-29, F-16) 23 Strike (SU-22) "I swear guys! THIS time we're going to pick a side and stick with it!" 76 Fighters (Typhoons) 134 Strike (Tornadoes, AMX International) Ukraine: 50 Fighters (operational and on hand, others broken/in storage) 15 Strike (remaining operational SU-25s) NATO 18 AWACS (E-3s "owned" by NATO) These numbers: Total commitment by all parties involved. Obviously not the case in event of war, each of these parties to include Russia will be forced to commit platforms to protecting other fronts It's safe to assume this will equally effect all countries involved, and NATO is much better able to spread forces around at this point. The only numbers that include F-35s are the USAF simply because I got bored of adding those in quickly Russian "new" planes only count confirmed orders. Only USAF tankers are counted, again this is a boredom thing on my end. Russian and USAF strategic bombers are excluded. It's doubtful any of those assets would be used for CAS, and very likely, at all for fear of causing some sort of "is this B-1 heading towards the Russian border dropping bombs on a bridge, or is it carrying nukes?" situations. This excludes a large number of NATO countries. I simply stuck to countries we've gotten some indication might show up in CMBS. You can see the massive disparity in air power, capabilities, and numbers. There are more USAF F-16s alone than all fighters in the Russian inventory, and significant numbers (nearly 50%) of Russian strike fighters are SU-25s, which given how everyone's crowing how dead the A-10 would be over Ukraine, I think it's safe to say they're not any more likely to survive terribly long either. Additionally the 60 or so AWACS type platforms vs the 16 or so A-50s is a massive disparity in surveillance and command and control capability. And bluntly russian SOF can only get lucky so many times, while risking the fact that "Chechen separatists" may suddenly appear in western Russia and do the same before disappearing to never be heard from again. Some more random one off key points: Who knows, there's only about 180ish of them I think, there's going to be a TON of other high end fighters in the air though, and the stealth isn't going to be as important for CAP over friendly lines. If memory serves, West Germany isn't a country any more, and the hypothetical war of 1988 is not the hypothetical war of 2017. Irrelevant to a painful degree. Finding a tank company gone to ground is something much harder to do than finding a CVBG. While standoff is going to be important, the defender's ability to acquire Russian aircraft will be much greater than Russian aviation's ability to acquire NATO ground forces. Simple reality of finding a plane in the cold blue sky over a tank on the cluttered green earth. Says the man who thinks tanks are aircraft carriers. As I have shown there is a MASSIVE difference in NATO capabilities and Russian capabilities. And we know unambigiously USAF/USN/USMC avaitions, and several of their NATO counterparts fly significantly more than their potential Russian opponents. 830 Russian fighters to the 3,312 fighters NATO could call on, even assuming mirror capabilities is simply not a fight the Russians are going to be able to manage. And ESPECIALLY something the Russians will not be able to manage over PATRIOT (from various NATO allies and US Army sites), MANPADs, Ukrainian ADA, etc, etc, etc. The idea an SU-25 is going to live long enough to make a pass is possible, leakers can happen. The idea it's not going to be part of his posthumous medal for valor is positive madness. Even assuming leakers, the odds that an SU-25 or SU-24 is going to get over US forces, make more than one pass, and survive to return to friendly lines is even more insane. With Russian IADS, it's going to be hard for US forces to bomb Russian forces as much as we'd like. Russian strike pilots would do well to jettison their landing gear on takeoff to save weight, because god knows they wouldn't be needing them again if they make it to the FEBA. The war in the Ukraine is not a war of national survival. The Russians would not be desperate enough to simply throw away aircraft they cannot afford to lose by the dozens to achieve tactical level strikes (especially considering each of those 830 fighters that follows the SU-25s it was trying to protect crashing to earth is one less fighter to stave off the 991 dedicated strike craft+ 3000ish now bomb carrying fighters from NATO). Given this force, this literal swarm of current generation airframes, something like a yankee imperialist 2S6 is a stupid, stupid, stupid waste of money. We're best served by the might of our winged bretheren, and saving our pennies to make sure those flyboys get all the crew rest they need instead of pretending it's still 1989 and paying for Chaparral 2 or Son of Linebacker.

He's telling them they're right to be deeply offended at the west, and after a long stretch of Russia being weak, he's offering them a "Strong" Russia. It's confirmation bias at this point. He's telling them he's making Russia strong. Aramatas will be trotted out (although I think they might be less operational than let on), Ukrainians shot, NATOs ignored, Russia must be strong now....while totally ignoring the basket case economy, reliance on effectively western goodwill for prosperity and a lack of meaningful foreign policy except for flipping the west the bird and cuddling up with despots. But hey let's talk about those sweet guns and that butter that is totally coming one sunny day!

Peacekeepers unless they're Russian invaders with "peacekeeper" written on their PCs are pretty outside of reasonably likely outcomes. Not to mention peace must exist in the first place for there so the peacekeepers are peacekeepers vs peacemakers. And from that, looking at the recent "peace" it's pretty doubtful anything short of a military combat deployment by an outside force with a mandate to shoot the everloving hell out of separatist or Ukrainians I guess if they acted up first for a change would be able to change the situation at all.

They'd have less to cry about if a certain someone to the East hadn't started a war I imagine. I imagine there's some very sad Dutch women and children, and some very dead ones that would have been more joyful had someone kept BUKs out of the hands of terrorists.

Was it going anywhere good though? Christ. Most game forums I feel like a dinosaur. This is the one forum I've run into where there's more than a few posters I have to address as "sir" if I ran into them offline. To be fair, at that point in time I wouldn't have known what was authentic or not, I just knew tanking was cool, and it was less fruity than Mechwarrior (and as much as I liked Mechwarrior, the setting was something that always annoyed me deeply). Roaming through Iran or Bosnia turning T-72s inside out was pretty awesome. On the other hand, ripplefire Hellfires is pretty much as close to an apocalyptic event as a flight simulator will give you, so Longbow 2 was good for that much. Re: Sims in general I lack the patience for them these days. Especially flight sims with all the fiddly physics and systems. What I liked about the old Janes sims was you could adjust how real intense the simulator was going to be, so if you wanted Firehawks: The Game, Longbow would do it for you, or the other way around. That's also the bigger gripe I had with Steel Beasts. If I just wanted a tool for my LTs to practice things in it, it felt like they had to genuinely know what they're doing with both tanks and the sim, while stuff like Combat mission you need a little guidance, but something straight forward like platoon vs platoon movement to contact is pretty intuitive once you know what the buttons mean. (Which is why I shared CMSF with thems all) If I could have turned the realism down more on Steel Beasts to focus more on the "higher" level stuff, I'd oddly have gotten more training value out of it. At least that's how I remember it. Honestly haven't touched it in years.

I used to think that too. Depends. We started doing it because the Iraqis also had HMMWVs when I was in Iraq, so being the "five HMMWV element at the intersection of Jackson and Miami" or whatever was no longer a giveaway of which HMMWVs (and it didn't help some of ours had been painted up in Iraqi police colors as a sort of urban camouflage) I was referring to when talking to rotary wing. VS-17 panels are more or less used how the unit sees fit. They're less common on AFVs because at this point nearly all Bradley/Abrams have "CIP" (Combat Identification Panels) that are obvious under thermal (basically they adjust the emitted thermal signature, so if you're looking in white hot, they'll appear as black boxes on the outside of the tank). Some units use them to mark "important" vehicles like the PSG's vehicle. Other units specifically do not mark single vehicles with them for fear of giving some indication that one vehicle may be more important than the others, while others reserve it only as a signal (I only put the VS-17 out to indicate I have wounded on board/the vehicles is abandoned and doesn't need to be searched/whatever the SOP is for us). They're not uncommon on HMMWVs though so having them as something to add flavor to the HMMWVs isn't the worst idea.

1. No APS is perfect, and there will be occasional leakers. Remember you're basically shooting bullets at bullets*, even a small failure might totally bugger the intercept. Also Russian APS is unable to deal with high angle approaches like the Javelin. 2. Shtora in game is only reliable against Ukrainian systems. It is simply not even capable of confusing a Javelin given the methodology of the jammer and the seeker (shtora confuses SACLOS type systems that use a flare to track missile location, Javelin "remembers" the thermal profile of its intended target** and tracks it accordingly), and the TOW-2B has been updated after someone got a shtora into US hands (which doesn't make the TOW-2B immune, nearly as much as it makes it much less likely to accept the shtora's jamming as legitimate signals) *Okay not quite bullets, but it's still fast moving pieces interacting, even fairly modest problems or delays can cause an APS to totally whiff. **It is not a heat seeker in that it is not looking for any source of heat, as much as it's like if I showed you a picture of a person and then told you to go find them in a room.

I at least did not think it was disrespect, and Dildo is totally something a tank crew might try to name their track, I'm just saying CPT D Co commander type would have rejected it. Dracul (Dracula would have been sort of lame, but Dracul just looks like a typo, and after Twilight, vampires are lame) Dragon's Breath (NERD ALERT. Also our sister Battalion had a Dragon on its unit crest, so I generally shot down Dragon related names to avoid the confusion) Daddy (just weird) I can't remember the rest too well, this is a conversation I had nearly a year ago. One of my PLs was rather attached to the game "Bioshock" and I remember having to tell him "dude, just no" over some name related to that game, but I can't recall the name now. I also rejected anything that was just "Da' XXXX" on principle. On the other hand I did allow an appeal if the entire crew wanted a name I considered dumb. I just did not want the crew to be stuck with a stupid name their LT dreamed up. I made sure my dudes were okay with it when I renamed my tank just because at the end of the day, they're the one doing most of the work on it. Here's some markings that sometimes occur: 1. Driver's and vehicle commander's names on the front window (this is common on all trucks, but it's done in black so it's not super-obvious. Honestly think it's more of a way for the Battalions CSM to know who to yell at if the truck is parked poorly) 2. Bumper number and Battalion number on the front/back. Also worth skipping unless you're making a mod to spectically put C Company 1-72 Armor into the game though. 3. Sometimes a "VS-17" Panel will be displayed on the "trunk" lid. It's a two sided canvas deal that's got an orange side or a pink side, and is a very common recognition symbol, usually mounted on the top of a vehicle to ensure the USAF doesn't shoot you. I have not seen a named HMMWVV. I am also zero help on Strykers. I spent my entire career in the armor type recon units, or combined arms battalions. Yep. Dildo is already out, but it had more to do with I had a QB with an entire platoon of Dildos. I'm just contributing what I know in the hopes it's useful.

Minor pet peeve of mine. The Iraqis used the Polish/East German level export tanks, not some sort of mythical subgrade pure cardbonian T-72. There's some pretty strong doubts that the Asad Babil was anything more than one of those T-72M or T-72M1s from earlier shipments that had been modified locally. A lot of the confusion might come from the fact that many of the tanks were locally assembled, but it was locally assembled from effectively the world's biggest model tank kit, the actual armor protection would not have been worse than again, any other T-72M or T-72M1 that at the time represented the top shelf of the Polish or East German military. Which is not to say it was as well armored as a T-72B or something, but there's this sort of myth that Iraqi T-72s had sabot attracting cardboard plating, when their armor protection was equal to what anyone who wasn't a Soviet T-72 operator had at the time. Re: 25 MM vs tank I've heard claims of people killing T-55s and T-62s frontally from sources I considered reliable (guys who were kicking around in 1991/2003 on Bradleys vs "guys who knew a guy who totally did it") but never heard the T-72 story. We had a grizzled old timer who'd been a Bradley gunner with 2 ACR at 73 Eastings. He came up over a rise, spotted T-72, engaged with TOW, T-72 exploded (he used hand gestures to express to the degree it exploded). Then they spotted another T-72, engaged with TOW, and the missile went out about five feet and then plunked nose down into the sand. He then engaged the tank with 25 MM AP while the the driver attempted to back up. The T-72 had already started to draw down on them before the first 25 MM left the tube, but likely because the crew was operating in manual to keep their heat profile down, was still traversing when it too, exploded in a high order explosion, with bits of turret and tank splattering about the desert. The guy I knew popped the hatch to get some fresh air, likely convinced he was the best Bradley gunner on earth to have killed a T-72 with 25 MM. Then he saw a wire tangled up over the front deck of his Bradley. Then he realized while he was engaging the T-72, his wingman had seen what was happening, and made a shot with HIS TOW right over the front deck of the Bradley. Dude was pretty awesome. He'd also done a lot of stuff in Afghanistan (there's no seperate MOS in the US Army for "light" scouts or "heavy" scouts, so you can easily be a Bradley crewman, guntruck commander, Stryker section leader, and then a Bradley equipped Platoon Sergeant), half of Fort Riley knew him or owed him favors. All the same, engaging a T-72 frontally with 25 MM didn't seem to make an impression on the tank, and he was hoping at best to knock out optics, maybe chew up the gun tube which is about in line with what we expect to happen. Re: Topic I think it's a bug too. The sort of frontal impacts I can see a 25 MM DU doing doesn't lend itself to killing the driver outside of some magic bullet stuff (impacting surfaces under the tank and bouncing back up through the bottom of the hull, striking the driver's vision device in a way as to cause it to cause the device to fragment and kill the driver) are pretty doubtful. It'd be cool to see some sort of "CSI mode" for replays that shows a line of penetration. The "problem" with CM is the damage model is so detailed that it can be hard to tell if you put a round through the driver's heating duct and the materials of the duct were enough to direct the penetrator right into the driver's gonads, or if there's some sort of odd glitch with smaller penetrators.

Which is cool and all, but again anything on a Stryker should not have "direct fire" as part of its job description. If you want an assault gun, you really need something that'll take being shot a lot better. Conversely by god canceling the XM8 AGS was a stupid choice. There'a light tank shaped hole in our IBCTs, and with the add-on armor it'd be great choice for the assault gun type role elsewhere.

The little "boop" mixed in with the radio chatter is enough to give me flashbacks. *edit* This is a compliment, not a complaint.

One teeny, tiny quibble for future naming of names type mods: Names that are too profane or sexual will get shot down by their Company Commander (I also shot down names because "They were dumb" but I reserved that judgement only for Platoon Leader's tanks). It's not really a prude thing nearly as much as the last thing you need is an irate phone call from the Brigade's SHARP (basically your sexual harassment person) representative because "Dildo" drove by the BDE HQ on its way to the washrack. That's like my one complaint, just played a QB to ogle all the pretty eyecandy. The dirt level is awesome, and honestly the game's visuals are much improved by your efforts. I check this thread whenever I come on the forums to see what's about to get improved.

HA! As a high school student I spent hours playing Jane's F/A-18*, dropping dem' JDAMS on Russian ultra-nationalists. Ultimately my poor eyesight and so-so math scores led me to realize I wasn't likely to become a pilot, but found that I still wanted to be in the military which led down its own winding road. Re: Steel Beasts It's a good training tool, but it's really built to have a trained operator building your scenarios or missions that are fairly basic exercises. It breaks down when you approach it like its a simulator-game. Which is why I'm sad, because looking back at the mid-late 90's simulators like Longbow 2 and iM1A2, those were much better sims in terms of being "playable" vs being the civilian version of CCTT. *To be fair, middle school I played iM1A2 like it was a religion.

Even less capable than the MGS then I suppose.

Just as an aside, you have a mighty sweet ride. Wouldn't trade a tank for it, but always like the F/A-18 line.

That's the MGS replacement I alluded to earlier. Something better scaled to what the platform is capable of.

Already have two of them per rifle company. Nah. ,50 cal and MK-19 are better in terms of damage potential. Also given the external mount of the weapons system and limitations on how much you can strap onto a CROWS, your crew would be at risk pretty often to reload. You'll see all the US LAV models if there's a USMC module, Canadians also use the 25 MM equipped LAVs.

Pardon the double tap, but I missed a not SHORAD silliness post that was worth talking about. I agree right now it's very "if any ADA piece is in the game, you better park the planes until further notice." As a stupid idea: Have a new set of strike options. Like how you set "heavy medium or light" you'd have another tab that would be something like "close" or "standoff" Close is what happens now. The platform closes to attack and destroy things and enters the ADA envelope. Standoff is the platform launching weapons from outside of MANPAD range. For rotary wing, only helicopters with standoff type weapons (like the radar guided Hellfires) can do this, and weapons like cannons or rockets will not be employed. They also can no longer self spot (picture it that they don't see enough of the battlefield to engage targets without someone being able to talk them onto it) Fixed wing is similar, "dumb" weapons are not employed, missiles and guided bombs only (assuming idiots loop type attacks for the bombs). Fixed wing will only do point targets (again, at standoff they're going to struggle to spot a tank motoring around, they need the spotter to find the target, and likely designate or feed GPS coordinates to them). In standoff, MANPADS would simply be useless. Vehicle ADA (missiles only) would engage at a much reduced efficiency. The counter to this would be something like the EW level. There'd be an "air threat" level, with settings like "Blue Air Dominance, Blue Air Superiority, Air Parity, Red Air Superiority, Red Air Dominance" to simulate the fighter and larger SAM effects. Dominance is basically one side owns the sky and can fly whereever it wants. Superiority means the side that holds it has an advantage, but the other side can still push out strikes and attacks occasionally. Parity means the battle is ongoing and it's no man's sky. The effects on air strikes would be one of the following: Successful Strike. Bombs away! Evasive. Airstrike is aborting to avoid being engaged, will be available again later. Engaged. Airstrike is under attack, it is no longer available for the mission as it has jettisoned munitions and is bugging out Destroyed. Some F-22/SU-27 pilot is smiling like an idiot right now. The different air threat levels would dictate which one of these was more likely. Under Blue Air Dominance, unless a MANPAD or on map ADA piece gets a shot off, Blue Air Strikes will arrive. Under Air superiority there's like a 10% chance of engaged, 20% chance of evasive, while under air parity it'd be 5% Destroyed, 15% Engaged, 25% Evasive, with it getting worse under the Red superiority/dominance (launching an airstrike in enemy Air Dominance should be something nuts like 20% destroyed, 30% engaged, 30% Evasive). Edit: I do have to add, those numbers are just as examples. It's not like I did any more to come up with them than think for a second and ask "what sounds good?" It'd allow for a more realistic Blue-Red air strike dynamic.

If it's a hole in the ground in July, means you can't do anything with it in August, or it's not something you can threaten Estonia with later.

The point isn't how many USAF planes were lost over North Vietnam, the question is why, given the total absence of tactical or strategic ADA (again, minus obsolete M42 type platforms being used as anti-infantry weapons) in South Vietnam, did the North Vietnamese not simply bomb the US out of the war. By your statements the lack of this air defense should have been decisive. They could have been sinking US ships left and right, and taking out whole companies at once if only they'd done so by your assertions. SSMish, not TBM. The 9K52 type rocket that hit in Iraq was effectively just rocket artillery. It has a range of something like 43 miles. Anything coming from Russia to NATO bases outside of the Ukraine (which was the question asked) would have to be a much larger system, or some matter of cruise missile. Additionally again, in talking about air bases, that's exactly the sort of thing that's going to receive a PATRIOT battery to defend it. So an errant FROG landing somewhere near US forces? Wouldn't rule it out, although the CEP is something crazy. A Scarab or Scud type weapon flying towards Poland? That's doubtful.

I was somewhere within about 10 feet of the photographer when that shot was taken. I had no idea that stupid river crossing was going to generate like 90% of every M1A2 SEP v2 photo on the internet.

Here's some names from my last unit's Infantry Companies Able and Ready Awesome All American Apocalypse Bieber Fever Baker Boys Beast Beastmaster Here's some tank ones from my company and our sister company Canifex Carnivore Chingon Cobra King II Cobra King was a famous World War Two tank. I'm sure there's actually closer to Cobra King XXXIII at this point Chaos Driven Can't Miss Calvin n' Hobbes Choot em' Choot em' The commander had a super-thick accent Darwinian Selector Democracy Inaction Darling Gray Eyes Dr. Evil Dr. Jekyll Dr. Feel Good Demented Dr Seuss Dante's Inferno Downeaster Alexa Dropkick Murphy Dracula Darts Degraded Dereliction of Duty Dennis Rodman Note this one changed after he turned traitor and started hanging out in the DPRK Damage Control Display Only This was the original name for the Company Commander's tank Desmadre Das Boot Deus Irea I almost went with this, but did not want to have to explain what it meant on a daily basis Just some off the top of my head.

I think they'd be safe. The Russians wouldn't likely be able to get aviation that deep, and using TBMs would be very risky in terms of possibly triggering some massive escalation/the French uncork a nuke or something because This Is It, and Patriot stands a good chance of shooting down that sort of missile. NATO likely has the political will to fight in the Ukraine, but not to start a shooting war with Russia, in Russia, and no one wants to find out if Russia is serious about the whole "get on Russian soil and we're shooting nukes" stance. I think the bigger issue will be Russian artillery and long range SAMs on the Russian side of the border, and that'll be a more interesting question in if Russia would threaten retaliation for counter-battery fire, or a HARM missile through aS-300's radar. Most NATO artillery and SAMs will be in Ukraine proper to do their job so that's less of an issue.

Sweet. I'll give it a whirl once I figure out how to make mods work in the first place! (reading manual, part of my brain just isn't quite wrapping around it!) Tank/IFV name addendum: 1. The name is supposed to match the Company the tank belongs to. Given that tank companies now only exist as the second two line companies in a Combined Arms Battalion, I hope you like C and D names (I went with Darwinian Selector myself). There's H names too, but that's generally the Battalion Commander's tank. 2. Bradleys if they have names (this is uncommon) have them across the rear bustle rack under those ammo cans. Infantry companies in a CAB (so all Bradley infantry companies) are all A or B companies (most awkward name combo goes to "Beast" and "Beastmaster" in the same platoon) 3. Tanks are rarely un-named as a rule. Bradleys are rarely named, but there's nothing forbidding it. 4. Some units buck the names having to follow the A/B/C/D convention entirely, and especially when it comes to deploying, a vehicle might be "Dauntless" in the motorpool, but "Murder Inc" when it's about to cross the berm into crapastan.

Just goes to show you what cease fires mean these days.