panzersaurkrautwerfer

Weeeeeird. I'd gotten used to just staying a few hundred meters back from Syrian SOF units in SF and dropping the building to avoid those things. Life is a little easier I guess. It's actually condensed George S. Patton fury, and explodes with the violence of a thousand novas so that thine enemies may be smote and our blessed tracks greased with their guts. In confined spaces the sort of force a small themobaric weapons makes becomes catastrophic. Like the old concussion grenades were pretty much gen one less than lethal grenades in the open, but drop one in a bunker and everyone's guts are jello, folks bleeding from all orifices etc. What makes the 25 MM neat is it fires in a fairly flat trajectory so putting it though a window is pretty much point and click. Then the airburst option means you can fuse it to go off 1-2 meters in the room, and the overpressure sorts things out. Makes for wrecked faces I imagine

I think shooting protesters did more to fuel the riots than the big ol' thumbs up and good luck the west gave.

So there I is. Surrounded by HATO SPECFOR Delta SAS Rangers. I has only knife, and my bear comrade sasha. Sasha good comrade. Drinks with the boys. Mighty fine bear, but thens out of nowhere come fine foxy bear lady! Sasha run off and I alones..... But why? It's like flying across the ocean to buy a Ford from the other end of the Atlantic, AR-15s aren't magic doom cannons, and you're just making your supply situation worse by not buying Ukrainian as it were. .

Well then. Someone apparently has been on vacation. re: NATO weapons for Ukraine It really doesn't make sense to send them M4s. We've got a small mountain of Soviet/Russian stuff that we could send and no one would be the wiser. That said the Russian government did capture a large pile of Bushmaster AR-15s the Georgians had purchased. Wonder where they all went.

That was the joke. "oh, look, we discovered we still have 716 or so "F-117s" we didn't scrap somehow. We will just go get rid of them before anyone realizes it's just an A-10 spraypainted black"

It is a TOW missile. However it's from a batch that could have gone anywhere from Saudi Arabia, to Turkey, to Italy and beyond. It's no more a sign of US involvement than finding an RPG-7 is a sign of Russian infiltration. In terms of applying lethal force the onus is on the government to control the violence. The police in Ferguson, the security apparatus of the Ukraine are all examples of doing it wrong, responding with violence simply starts an action-reaction interaction in which violence response to increasing violence. To put it in perspective across the United States of America in 2013 had a net total of 320 police killings. In January 2014-March 2014 the Ukrainian security forces killed 100 people alone through largely gunshot wounds, in just Kiev. Given the difference in population, short "killing" window there's simply not comparing the two. Virtually none of the 100+ protestors shot down by the Ukrainian government realistically had to die, while on occasion the US police kills low single digit numbers of people who did not need to be shot. There's simply no comparing a "bad" shooting of one teenager to the dozens of people shot down in the streets of Kiev to ensure Putin's favorite puppet could still squander his country's resources. In terms of Syria, I'm sorry where are the Syrian government's tanks and attack helicopters coming from? If you're going to talk about fueling a civil war, Russia was pouring arms in well before the west was offended enough to send what little it has sent.

It's a matter of progression however. The Ukraine went from "Yanukovych out!" to Russian special forces carving off part of their country overnight. Syria had plenty of time to bomb and torture civilians before even fairly modest non-lethal aid showed up, and even then the lethal stuff has been directed to the Kurds and FSA fighting ISIS at this point (and I eagerly await the photo of a TOW missile that keeps making the rounds showing it's a USMC missile blah blah blah NSN is not a serial number).

CIA has lobotomy squads these days, they retired the killsquads for budget reasons in 1999. What offended me, and I am sure I am not alone is the total denial of Russian troops being in the Ukraine, because it's pretty obvious to all impartial observers that there is some sort of Russian presence, and some level of Russian supply of the separatists. The actual number is somewhere more than a few spetznaz teams, and much less than several battalions of tanks, but they're there, and that's a pretty serious violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and honestly likely the only reason the separatists came into being, and still exist. Also the fact that artillery is being fired from the Russian side of the border sort of sets up actually having committed no bones about it acts of war against the Ukrainian people. They really shouldn't be there and the Ukraine should be left to sort itself out so long as they're not setting up death camps for Russians/flagrantly violating human rights. Just as much as we all have to accept the Russian people keep choosing Putin, Russia needs to accept the Ukraine really does not want to be best friends anymore, and move on in life. It'd likely be easier to keep Ukraine out of NATO anyway if you stopped invading or scaring the hell out of them. So if the Ukraine outlaws being Russians, and forms special camps to make Russians work to death making inferior vodka? Yeah I can see getting involved. But this all just stinks of being annoyed the Ukraine did not want to march lockstep with Putin's plans for it, and that's just beyond what I feel the world at large is willing to accept as legitimate cause for conflict. This is also incorrect. The right wing made up part of the protesting group, but it was a percentage of it. Really the more unifying factor was wanting to be closer to Europe, not wanting to be close to Russia, and the fact the president at the time was especially corrupt and ineffective even by Ukrainian standards. Then he started shooting people and it all went rather downhill from there.

Which is missing my point. I'm not arguing for NO airforce, I'm arguing that instead of the Army relying on the USAF to throw it a bone, the Army should have the control of the air assets that directly support it (CAS, short range interdiction, light transport), and the air force should be left to focus on the strategic/theater missions it already prioritizes So to that end the USAAF would be some number of A-10s, some of the more strike-centric F-16 airframes, and C-130s, while the USAF would be all the F-22, F-35, B-52, B-2, C-17 type platforms, with the nuclear and cyberwarfare missions they already run. There's no good reason to separate Army-supporting aircraft from the Army, just as much as there's zero reason the Army should have a say in the air superiority fight beyond "please handle that." In many ways it'd just be a larger, likely green painted version of the current USMC fixed wing fleet It had more to do with the assumption that future wars would be dominated by nuclear armed strategic bombers, or at the least massed bombings of cities again. The USAF has always focused on its strategic role to the detriment of the tactical mission. And from that it really makes sense to give the tactical missions to the people who are most interested in tactical missions, and again, letting the USAF focus on the strategic missions that are by far more part of its core focus.

The other possibility is they reclassify the F-35 as the A-10, the A-10 as the F-117, and just hope no one actually looks at the planes they're sending to the scrapyard/that the A-10 now costs about as much as it would to simply just buy Russia whole and avoid the war nonsense.

I think it's going to be worse than CMSF for griping. People who played around with red in CMSF didn't expect an elite force capable of destroying anything they ran into. Outside of the one or two Syrians who came onto the board to post what I recall were some very uh, interesting versions of reality they were a minority. So most of the ventsplode raging was people who'd driven their Abrams into the middle of a city and had it get crushed. A lesser ventsplode for each DLC as WHY ARE NOT MY CHALLENGERS IMMUNE TO BULLETS? CMBS will have both people confused at why the M1A2 CAN be destroyed and what do you mean red has an airforce, and enraged that all of their T-90s are burning because is impossible strokest tank Ukraine cannot shoot into thing.

Okay so here's more or less why the topic exists: I think this has been answered quite effectively. A lot of the capabilities for the Russian forces discussed here are either future-not-included-in-game-for-lack-of-detail, not organic parts of a rifle squad, or inferior/have parity with American hardware. Given what CMBS currently laid out, the basic American squad/infantry unit appears to be the superior one in capabilities. Yes. My apologies, I've been writing off and on between attempts to sleep before finally giving up. There are US weapons of similar design that can, and are issued when blowing up bunkers and the like become a priority. They're much less prevalent than their Russian counterparts, but they're still systems that if we were dealing with US troops in a situation that collateral damage is not a concern, would be operating in number. The USMC used the SMAW-NE round extensively in Iraq during Fallujah, and both the 40 MM and 25 MM grenade families have thermobaric rounds. They're not especially frequently issued because at this point we're no longer digging Taliban out of caves (partly because we buried a lot of them in caves the first time, so they've stopped using them so much). So to that end any squad with a M320 or M25 (which is to say all of them) is capable of employing small themobaric weapons. What's it's NLOS dead space?

I got that much. I suppose I just did not articulate myself well. The big difference between Russia and the US is the lack of reloadable rocket launcher at the squad level, while the Russian Army lacks an organic squad level ATGM. In terms of higher level control and task organizing AT assets, that's exactly how the USMC runs it's AT assets both TOW and Javelin. US IBCTs operate their TOWs in a similar holding unit (the Battalion's Weapons Company), while SBCTs and ABCTs do it a bit different (SBCTs have a special brigade level AT Company, ABCTs have enough AT assets at the platoon/company team level to not require additional agumentation). The Russian use of disposable launchers is similar to the US one, although we tend to issue them a bit more freely it would appear. In terms of themobarics you're still looking at specialist weapons. There's a number of dedicated bunker busting/assault/whatever type weapons that fill a similar, although less frequently employed role

The US military hands out M136 (AT4s) as mission requires too. That's a bit more....like it's very much mission requirements based vs a solid number. They're not tracked as a weapon system but as simply ammunition so your mileage varies on what a squad allocation may look like (a squad in the defense for Fulda Gap 2.0 might have more rockets than soldiers, a unit in Afghanistan might have 2-3 in a platoon).. USMC operates closer to the Russian style, they tend to be very heavy on the disposable AT rockets, one platoon level SMAW (similar in use to the RPG with a heavier emphasis on anti-bunker/anti-personnel) and then if I recall they've got some number of dedicated Javelin teams at the Battalion level. Re: Avtonomia Again, it's something we know next to nothing about. I don't doubt the Russians have the ability to make something a lot like the Javelin, but there's a lot of Russian programs that have just sputtered out. Expecting something that largely has been vaporware for the last 25 years to come into service in the next two years is, optimistic.

Excessive amounts of Deutch speaking airsofters start appearing in Kaliningrad?

As much as I liked doing the big tank on tank battles in CMSF in which M1A2s killed everything (the mens, the tanks, the lizards), I had a special spot in my heart for doing red on red "cripple fights" in which I pitted uncon vs uncon, or T-62 on T-62 action. There's just something more challenging and interesting when the results are less certain, and when the battle is more of of a slugfest than 10 minutes of getting in position, and 10 seconds of pure lethality and the AAR screen that happens sometimes.

My insomnia is totally paying off tonight! Re: Themobaric weapons The point of the thread was looking into the baseline standard non-special weapons squads. In that regard the US Army by exception and USMC as a rule both employ thermobaric weapons as augmentation type weapons (fired mostly from SMAWs), but again it's a specialist weapon/round that is usually reserved for special occasions. Re: Javelinovich I get that the Russian Army is undergoing some major changes, and it will look pretty different in a while. That said when we're getting to the point of "this is something we're working on that doesn't have names or specifics yet" it's getting sort of out there. Like US Railgun and laser program out there. I don't doubt Russian technical abilities, but even looking at the US military on several occasions we've been poised on dramatic changes that either simply evaoprated (FCS) or evolved into a totally different system (like Land Warrior's transition into other C3 systems). Until Russia has these new weapons systems in quantity I'm not exactly holding my breath. Re: Javelin issue For infantry units it's generally one CLU (the Command Launch Unit) per squad, and two per Cavalry platoon last time I looked. Missile allocation is theater dependent but 2-3 per squad is not an unreasonable assumption, with more obviously for mechanized and Stryker units given they don't actually have to pack the system. Re: XM-25 SCAR was never intended as a mass purchase, it was a product pitched to the SOF community, used by the SOF community, and then abandoned by the SOF community because it wasn't cool enough/hell if I know SOF gets distracted by new toys on a weekly basis. XM-25 remains very much part of the planned future squad layout, and again, if we're talking about CMBS, it is in the game in that role. Given that it is fully functional at the moment it is one of the more reasonable "future" systems in the game. Re: Only 1/3 in Bradley Yes, but again, if we're talking about a high intensity conflict, we're not putting 10th Mountain Division on a plane to go fight tanks. So to that regard the preponderance of infantry units in a shooting war with a near-peer to peer power is going to be those 11 ABCTs, some of the SBCTs, and an IBCT or two. So to that end, your original statement remains incorrect, and the majority of the conventional warfare aligned units operate M2A3 type Bradleys. Re: Machine guns The thing is that US infantry units don't lack the 7.62 MGs. The SBCT/IBCT organization allocates two M240s with dedicated teams per platoon (so three "rifle" squads 9 soldiers) and one "weapons" squad, which again is two four man MMG teams. Mechanized infantry lack the weapons squad, having only the three rifle squads, but they retain the weapons themselves (at least the weapons themselves, it might be there's a M240B/L on every Bradley, but I can account for at least two per platoon). There's no real hard fast rule to the actual squad makeup, some IBCT/SBCT units use the weapons squad as just a fourth rifle squad and issue the M240s to augment the rifle squads, some mechanized infantry units train their third squad as a weapons/AT squad in addition to its rifle squad duties. As the case is, in addition to the M249s though there's still 2-4 M240s per platoon. Re: APS If the US Army needed APS, it could have it in a few weeks. There's off the shelf systems that are compatible with the M1/M2 series vehicles, it's just a matter of buying them. Or maybe Quickkill will come out. Who knows. But off the shelf APS in preperation for a conventional war is not a huge leap at all considering some of the other crash upgrade programs the Army has done (see the rapid conversion of several hundred M1A1s to M1A1HA standards before the Persian Gulf war, fielding LRFs and IR jammers to Bradleys for same conflict), and the hardware already exists. Re: Javelin vs Kornet But the Jav does it all in a handy portable by one or two guys package with a high possibility of one hit one kill. Kornet is scary, but it's definitely a dedicated team sort of weapon, vs the Javelin which is just a standard squad level weapon system.

Re: XM-25 The XM-25 has entered combat use. It's earned the nickname "the Punisher" and the Taliban hates the hell out of it. If we're talking about a 2017 game it's going to be a common issued weapon as much as any of the other cutting edge hardware in the game. Re: M2A3 In 2017 there will be something like 11 ABCTs, 8 SBCTs, and 14 or so IBCTs of all types (airborne, airmobile, and strictly "leg"). Which is to say actually quite a lot of US infantrymen ride in the BFV, certainly more than Strykers, and more than the non-existent HMMWV transported units referenced. Re; Marksmen Not in 2017. Already most IBCTs and many SBCTs at least operate one DRM type rifle per squad, either a M110 or M14 at this point. They're less common in ABCTs but certainly more common than one DRM per platoon. Actually at that the "M4 with optics" is much closer to several men in a squad as ACOG style optics are everywhere at this point (I had an ACOG on my rifle and I was a tanker). Re: PKM So at best parity in machine guns then? Re: BTRs float Yes they do. Re: Javelins I think the difference is that it's a real at range MBT slayer ATGM at the squad level. Especially with the sort of APS or ERA in CMBS, it's a capability that the Russians simply lack, as while the RPG-29 is scary, it's still fairly short range and subject to ERA/APS. Ukraine even more so. The Javelin can punt out a missile to 2.5 KM and achieve catastrophic kill against ERA and APS equipped vehicles. When working with mechanized units, the launch profile for the Javelin is much smaller than a TOW. Using it to knock out some tanks before committing the Bradleys is often not a bad idea, and additionally when "hunting" tanks often the lower profile of infantry better allows you to sneak into position than risking the Bradley (which would have to move into LOS and remain stationary for the missile flight). If it was issued instead of ATGMs on a IFV, then yeah we'd be talking about parity, but it's a whole different tier of capability on top of the vehicle mounted ATGMs.

This is actually incorrect. There's three kinds of Brigades currently in the US Army: 1. Infantry BCT. Infantry squads have no assigned transport, but each battalion has sufficient light trucks to move around one company at a time. Several of these brigades are also oriented on either airmobile or paratroop missions 2. Stryker BCT. Infantry rides in Strykers. This is the only BCT that uses Strykers as transports 3. Armored BCT. Infantry rides in Bradley Fighting Vehicles. HMMWVs are not generally used as infantry transport, they saw use in Iraq/Afghanistan as patrol vehicles, but this should not be taken as the way the US plans to fight in a high intensity conflict. The only real front line HMMWVs still in use are that the Infantry style brigades have weapons platoons in each infantry company, which is some number of HMMWVs allocated to carry heavy weapons (M2 HMGs, MK-19s, TOW-2Bs etc), and both Armored and Infantry recon units have some number of HMMWVs (Armored Recon platoon is currently a 5 scout truck, 3 Bradley mix, although it's likely going back to a "pure" six Bradley configuration, Infantry scout platoon has six scout trucks). Next closest is the Stinger MANPADs teams usually have an uparmored cargo HMMWV to move around the battlefield. The remainder are all used for light cargo, transporting support or command type troops. In terms of firepower in absolute terms the US infantry has significantly more in a squad for squad, platoon for platoon fight. As I stated in my original post, the XM-25 and Javelin are both capabilities the Russian Army just lacks entirely in the dismounted role, and the allocation of designated marksmen systems and light machineguns (true belt fed ones vs magazine fed) is significantly higher. Additionally US fire support systems are traditionally allocated one to two echelons below their Russian counterparts (especially so with heavy mortars and similar systems). In terms of transports, BTR and Strykers are both fairly similar in terms of practical performance, the base model Strykers have superior fire control (turret really, and the MK-19 on a Stryker is pretty wicked), better protection, while the BTR-80A has superior firepower and all BTRs are much lighter and able to handle poor terrain better. In terms of Bradley vs BMP-2, Bradley wins easily, Bradley vs BMP-3 really comes down to who's shooting first, BMP won't hold up to current generation AP rounds from the 25 MM, but the BMP-3 has overmatch against the Bradley's armor package. Optics package, basic armor, and troop bay are all superior on the Bradley though. 100 MM with airburst is some nasty fire support, and the through the gun ATGM at least offers a better rate of fire (although the Bradley does have the ability to plop out two missiles in short order) however. In terms of communication, there's a bit of an embarrassment of riches. At the least each squad (9 man) and team (4 man) leader has encrypted short range communications, with longer ranged radio in the hands of the RTO at platoon level. What is not at all uncommon is Squad leaders actually having their mitts on longer ranged radios, and encrypted HF type radios for Platoon and Squad leaders. In practice our infantry guys seemed to have more radios than they could practically use, so usually it was picking the right radio for the mission (larger manpack style ones for missions in fairly spread out environments, the smaller ones for urban operations or the like). Re: Ukrainian Quality They've managed to bounce back pretty good. I'm willing to credit at least the top quarter of Ukrainian units with comparing to the 60-40% percentile Russian forces. The average Ukrainian unit isn't going to be up to snuff, but the better trained and equipped out to hold their own just fine. Missed this on the first pass. Maybe Russian optics, but US thermal optics are entirely able to maintain resolution for all engagements, on the move or not. Daysights are the backup sights, or used when you've got some crazy-weird thermal crossover going on.

It'd be better as a weirdo ovoid three part venn diagram. US infantry will likely trend towards better, between some really awesome capabilities (XM-25, Javelin, every squad is a spotter for fires as part of the boring old standard rifle squads) and likely a higher quality due to uniformly volunteer "lifer" type units in play. However some of the better Russian units will likely touch into the realm of US squad for squad functionality. And while not as sexy hardware decked out, they do have some good stuff (more night vision than Ukrainian forces at least, RPG-29s, functional dismounted coms). Conversely some of their dudes are going to be the not as well trained "Russian modernization is still catching up" guys, which will likely be closer to on par with the Ukrainians. Ukrainians will have some really good units that stack up well against peer level Russian forces, but almost none of the cool sexy gadgets, and more than a few Ukrainian units more or less magicked into existence in the last few months, so while doing a-okay against well armed separatists, might struggle against the full force of the Russian military. Don't think you can dispute the squad for squad aspect of the US on top, just for the technical capabilities alone, but I'm sure the other countries will have some force structures that are not SOF but still worth a damn.

And I say it's full of counter-revolutionary hitlerite agents! Emperor Putin will purge with fire! On a more serious note we are wandering back into the realm of things that'll get this thread shut down. I do have to say this is actually a pretty valid position. We cannot trust what the Ukrainian press says to be reality. But to that end it's a matter of low fidelity, we can certainly doubt the hell out of it, but with other corroboration and past trends sometimes we can say they're not all bull feces. Russian press...I mean if someone showed me a Russian news report saying pizza was tasty, water was wet, and disco is dead, I would not believe it out of principal. It'd be like if collectively the US media insisted Iraq's WMDs were camped out somewhere in Syria as a result of secret ba'athist trysts or something. There's not much reason to trust Russian media when it is literally the state owned press with no additional oversight. I do hope this never changes though. I still get a chuckle out of the less morbid stuff.

Dunno, Russia wasn't taking potshots at airliners, Ukraine wasn't shooting down airliners, as far as any one knew the seperatists only had access to captured Ukrainian stocks, which did not include that echelon of anti-aircraft asset. It's almost like people expected a good faith effort not to put very dangerous, long range anti-aircraft weapons under the control of folks who can't tell the difference between an SU-25 and an airliner or something.

Eeeh, it's still going to be trucking along at least into 2016, and the sort of conditions on retirement Congress have dropped make the USAF simply setting the planes on fire in a very large "accident" the only really reasonable way we're at A-10s retired by 2017. Either way I wouldn't have batted an eye if the SU-25 wasn't in the game either, I can't think of a way they'd be able to complete a mission outside of a strictly RU-Ukraine throw down, or if we started recreating airport fights and all.

Tangent: I just recalled my one disciplinary action in the military was for actually striking a soldier, but that was rather a long and silly story. But yeah in line with what Splinty was saying, taking people to the woodline or "wall to wall counseling" was referred to, but usually as a reference to what we would have done with someone back in the day when men were men, and stuff was hard. The only NCO I ever knew who out and out struck a soldier was heavily disciplined for it, lost rank and likely only stayed an NCO because outside of hitting that one guy, he'd been a stellar soldier and excellent tanker (and still was when I was working with him). He used to tell the whole thing as a cautionary tale about how beating soldiers never fixed anything, and was a failure to be a good NCO. Sharp guy. Great tanker. Hope it pays off and he gets promoted again. While I was usually the end of the line for most things, I usually followed the "everyone gets their one" philosphy and stuck to assigning extra duty and restricting folks to post. Guys tend to offend less when they still have things to lose, and I always found the "I am disappointed in you and you're smarter than this" line to work better than the "you are a terrible soldier and I hope you get herpes from the ville" Re: Field kitchens Related field kitchen rambles: 1. The newer US Army field kitchens are called "Assault Kitchens." It's actually not a terrible idea in that it's less a kitchen and more a large heating vessel in a small trailer (if I remember right it's about the size of the smaller utility trailers. You plop in whatever the warm parts to the mean are in vacuum sealed bags, and then tow the thing behind a HMMWV. Serve on arrival. Kinda neat in that it's not really cook intensive. On the other hand, whoever thought "assault" and "kitchen" belonged next to each other is a special person. 2. One of the benefits to doing field exercises in Korea, is most Company sized elements had a "mah" from the Korean word "Ajumma" (Old Lady) that would follow them to the field. Your mah milage varied, but as a general rule they'd set up a camping style grill and make food for sale. Our mah was pretty awesome in that she had a full on tent with a heater, and in addition to food brought along cigarettes, and other similar comfort type items. I mean if we went to war we knew we'd be eating MREs, crapping in bags and the like. All the same I do like my bulgoggi egg and cheesy, and the training value of eating MREs for a week is dubious.

Re: USAAF I think it'd really be better in the long run for the Air Force to divest itself of the CAS, battlefield interdiction and smaller (like C-130 and down) transports. The ultimate end users for the A-10 and nearly all the C-130 platforms are the Army and sometimes Marines. Those planes exist for those dudes. Also if we sliced off the F-16 to fill a similar role to what the USMC uses its F/A-18s for, it would allow the USAF to focus on what it views as its larger strategic mission, without having to either retain or maintain assets it honestly only is obligated to have them for the Army. So to that end aligning CAS and interdiction type planes (A-10, F-16 post F-35 adoption in the USAF) against an Army fixed wing element, and moving the C-130s in a similar role, Army now only has itself to blame if it doesn't get CAS/regional airlift, while the USAF can focus on the strategic/theater type missions.