panzersaurkrautwerfer

Surely this will all happen because it must happen and work this way.
 
On a loop.  With occasional photos.
 
That's pretty much this thread for the last twenty pages or so.

Surely this will all happen because it must happen and work this way.
 
On a loop.  With occasional photos.
 
That's pretty much this thread for the last twenty pages or so.

Contrary to hollywood, most of the US ones are still reported as combat or otherwise, but information may be withheld depending on operational needs (so someone might be reported as KIA in support of Operation Enduring Freedom which is 100% totally true...except maybe they weren't on the right side of the Afghan-Pakistan border by a fair margin when killed*).  That SFC Bob Boberson was in Afghanistan conducting missions, or deployed in support of the Philippine Army and is now no longer alive makes him having died in a "freak gasoline fight accident" ring a bit hollow.   In an open society it's pretty much impossible to realistically do what Putin just did, and given the sheer bureaucracy that follows even SOF...details might be blurred, but the fact someone done got shot would not be.
 
As the case is I don't know why Putin even bothers at this point.  No one believes Russia is not at least heavily involved in the Ukraine, it's just a question to how deeply and how many assets.  Having a significant uptick in dead Russian soldiers isn't exactly something that just magics under the rug either even if you hide the cause either.  
 
*Purely hypothetical.  I have no direct or confirmed information about US operations outside of stated above table operations.  It's just an example that I know that jives with my understanding of US security affairs as an observer vs direct participant.  

Re: Airborne 
 

 
In all seriousness good luck.  If you can roll with the stupid its a pretty fun job sometimes.  

Yeah, we've already talked about it briefly. Honestly, previous plan for field trials and feedback/correction cycle to take 3-4 years (2016-2019/2020) was kinda too much IMO. Especially knowing how fast electronics age in our time. New field trials time-frame is "at least a year", which should still be enough. Rushing stuff due to being ordered to would indeed be catastrophic, however, I hope they understand that. Good thing is that most of the stuff is modular and common, like IFV turrets or chassis. Operating T-15, Kurg-25 IFV and Boomerang weapons should be identical, just as operating Kurg IFV or APC chassis, thus there'd be a lot of testing overlap, which is a good thing.
 
T-14s/T-15s being moved somewhere by rail:
 
http://otvaga2004.mybb.ru/viewtopic.php?id=1164&p=10#p562676

The advantages to fixed wing are chiefly in weapons I believe.  The various bombs will do a number on ANYTHING if they hit.  This is especially useful when dealing with infantry in buildings or urban environments.  Direct hits on AFVs tend to be quite dramatic too.  Additionally the sort of ATGMs carried on fixed wing assets are a good deal "beefier" than rotary wing and offer fairly minimal chance of survival or escape once they're on track.
 
On the other hand the ability of rotary wing to find its own targets better, and often respectable ATGM loads makes them pretty handy.   

Eeeeeh.  Picking a side in the Bosnian conflict is much like picking which person with Hitler as one of their multiple personalities you like best.  To classify the Bosnians or the Croats as "islamists and nazis" is to show a pretty severe bias to say the least.  The historical alignment of the Croats with the Nazis is no worse than the Vichy French policemen, the various Hungarian/Romanian/etc German allies or the Germans themselves.  The Croats had their own reasons to want to leave Yugoslavia, and to dismiss them out of hand by historical association says a lot about your position.  Doubly so on the "islamist" position given the fairly small role of the wahhabist type fighters vs nationalists who just happen to be Muslim.
 
As the case was, the Serbs made themselves "the tallest nail" when it came time for hammers to drop given their belligerence towards UN forces, the actual Serb run concentration camps, and the bloody mess of Sarajevo.  The other factions might not have been clean, but they're sort of a dark charcoal dirty vs the pitch black the Serbs managed to pull off.  
 
I won't even dignify the organ trade thing with a comment.  However the abuses of the Serbian forces in Kosovo are fairly well documented, and while the acts of the Kosovar forces are not exactly stellar examples of human rights and moral pillars of the community, they fought with the advantage of being less able to do damage to Serbian civilians, being aligned with the historical US support of self determination in government (when it does not strongly affect US foreign policy for the negative of course), and the stigma the Serbs still had after the early 90's fighting.  
 
True.  But please note how much control the US has exerted over Kosovo.  You'll find it was generally limited to peace keeping operations (which at least tried to equally protect remaining Serbs). Kosovo could hold an election to rejoin Serbia, or join Russia or New Zealand for that matter and the US would be limited generally to disapproval (and much confusion needless to say in the case of Russia or New Zealand).
 
 
I have to say, having read up on Milosevic, his secret support of the ethnic Serbs was about as subtle as a sledgehammer falling through a skylight.  
 
In terms of the actual conflict, I'll grant it's entirely possible BOTH sides were pretty wrong, but the Serbian ability to do harm greatly outweighed the Kosovar ability to resist.  And this inevitably lead to a lopsided view of affairs.  As the case was the Serbs could have simply toned down the campaign a bit, but the resulting refugee crisis, combined with imminently believable accusations of Serbian atrocities (which certainly did not happen to the extent claimed, but in the context of Serbian actions circa 1993 were not out of line to believe) then paired with the concerns of a re-ignition of the wider former Yugoslavia fighting led to a fairly strong anti-Serbian response.
 
Looking back on it in 2015, there's a lot apparent that 1999 couldn't see or anticipate.  However in refering to the NATO involvement:
 
1. There was verifiable "bad" things being done to the civilians in Kosovo by the Serbian military.
2. There was a strong case even worse things were being done.
3. The conflict was occurring in an area that was widely viewed as a powder keg, and that continued fighting might spread throughout the region.   
 
All the reasons for getting involved in Kosovo, minus the "wag the dog" allegations stemming from Clinton's sexscapades revolved around reacting to a humanitarian crisis, with at least some verifiable crimes against humanity.  This is a strong difference from something like, say the Russians swooping into the Crimea to save Russians from a total lack of actual actions taken against ethnic Russians, before adding a major port to Russia proper through a fake election thank you very much.
 
 
Rather famously, a French dude I actually respect somewhat said "France has no friends, only interests."  The inconsistencies are only inconsistencies if you forget that.  That said, the US is a strongly idealistic nation that's heavily paired with often very pragmatic decision making.  So while we extol freedom justice and the usual, there's a practical limit to how much we can do to bolster those things in many countries.  And often we have to work through governments or groups of people we genuinely do not like, but represent the only point of leverage we have in a region (see the Saudis).  
 
So to that end, I'm actually quite sure Clinton did care, and quite possibly does care deeply about the Serbs and Albainians.  But he's the leader of a country, and having led stuff (on a much smaller scale!) you're frequently asked to pick the best of the worst set of choices.  And given the historical portion of the Clinton administration in which the US missed the chance to head off several mass killings (and indeed, one of the few recognized genocides!) reacting strongly to what appeared to be another set of mass killings in the same damn region that just got done with the last round of mass killings must have been setting of some alarm bells.
 
When it comes to no good or bad guys, I disagree strongly.  We all fall broadly on some scale of morality, with the overwhelming population falling somewhere in the middle.  All humans for the most part broadly chose to make the most moral choice available given the circumstances (and when they do evil , it's frequently justified in a moral context).  This whole "only the alive and dead" mentality to me is a cheap copout from having to recognize the results of one's actions and the consequences of choices.  I strive, and will continue to strive to have been a positive influence to the world at large, because that is what's "right" and I will refuse to accept the world simply falls into dead/not dead.
 
 
The US is George Reeves.  The rest of the world at large sees us as Superman, and expects Superman level performance and capabilities, while totally ignoring its still just George Reeves in a suit trying very hard to be Superman.  When Russian troops steal parts of Ukraine?  Eh.  That's what Russia does.  France kills a bunch of Africans while meddling?  France has always done that.  Etc, etc, etc.  But there's this expectation America is "better" than those things, and by virtue of being the one remaining super-power level nation in the world, is capable of accomplishing anything if it tried, that is often the first step on the road to massive disappointment because, again at the end of the day we're just George Reeves (if George Reeves helped end both World Wars, was the number one provider of international aid, a strong supporter of free elections, and in general a  deeply flawed person with a mess of skeletons in the closet, but often decent enough man most of the time).
 
 
Thing is, we've wandered into this weird realm where terrorism is now bigger than simple law enforcement.  If we were at war with Cuba or something, and flew drones all over blotting out Cuban soldiers left and right, no one would bat an eye.  However because the fighters we're facing, no matter how deadly their intent or desires are, are not uniformed, somehow that's different.
 
We're effectively at war with their organizations, if they're nation states or not.  We've been directly attacked by the folks we're meatsaucing all over the landscape.  I don't feel the lack of nation-state makes them somehow more deserving of due process than someone wearing a uniform for Cuba.  
 
 
It's again, not a "new" concept, just new tools.  Looking at the French and Brits during the Cold War in their colonies (or recently former colonies) there's still a pattern of targeted killing vs arrest and apprehension.  Same deal with nearly every COIN campaign in history.  The only difference this time is technology allows for a wider more distributed insurgent network, and allows for a more active "kill" network from the other end.
 
Same game, difference pieces if you will.
 
 
That's fine, but how is international affairs a reasonable justification for flying planes into the World Trade Center?  Does European hypocrisy justify American terrorists shooting up cheese factories because we're not allowed to sell "Parmesan" cheese now?  
 
The west is a handy thing to blame for internal problems.  You listen to many of the anti-American, anti-Western speakers, and it's well beyond objections to current events, and well into the realm of fantasy and make believe levels of US/Western crimes.
 
 
That is not at all what I said, or believe.  I said the anti-western folks will be anti-western regardless of what we do or not do.  There's a significant population that might sway one direction or the other, but my experience in Iraq amounted to while they might hate the US for being in Iraq, they equally hated the insurgents who were planting the bombs.  We rarely dealt with the "I was cool with America, but then you came and destroyed everything!" terrorist that seems to keep showing up on TV and in the media.  The majority hated us before 2003, or even 1991, and were going to hate us if we gave them reason to hate us or not (we were accused of importing "special insect" to eat all of Iraq's crops.  I really cannot make up the distinct detachment from reality we dealt with).
 
And it did not change based on how kinnectic we were.  My first deployment we were ripping doors of hinges, and still dropping bombs in places.  If you cut into our convoy during our road movements, you were going to be staring down the barrel of a .50 cal in short order (we did not open up on anyone, most folks got the message).  Second deployment?  We couldn't enter a building without being invited in,* nothing had fallen off a plane and exploded in well over a year.  We let the traffic just flow in and around our movements, no big deal.
 
And the hate and hostility was there regardless of how nice we were, or rough we were.  We were the infidel invader of terrible to that population of people.
 
So to that end the folks we actually worry about, the actual "going to try to kill people" folks are largely, and almost entirely the sort of folks who'd hate us and try out the whole terrorism thing anyway.  It happened before drones, it'll keep happening after drones, with the overwhelming majority having an opinion on same, but the number of "new" anti-American folks is negligible.  
 
 
*Unless it was self defense, like we'd been shot at from the building, or needed cover

I swear to god simply burning every dollar, ounce of construction material, all military equipment given to the Iraqis in a giant pit would be a less wasteful use than what the Iraqis have done with it. 

Nothing wrong with being weird.  I compulsively rename units in QB after units I'd been assigned to.
 
I like keeping a timeline though.  It keeps me on track if I'm 23 minutes in, and I really need to start accepting risk vs making ultra sure every Russian is dead on objective A.

I miss the ambiance of "test fire test fire test fire" followed by the BRAAAAAAPPPPPPP and then the popopopopopop that came with dinner sometimes.  I got to watch a for real rocket get shot down, which was cool though. 
 
But yeah.  Iraq has more issues than National Geographic.  The US intervention as I've said a few time simply shook free some that were going to fall anyway.
 
Which is why I hate the Micheal Moore rendition of peaceful Iraqi children kingdom until the big bad Americans came and destroyed everything.  I think what we're seeing now would have played out much the same, it's just we'd have seen Saddam or his kids boasting about how dead the ISIS dudes in Ramadi are going to be in a few weeks instead of the current administration (as Sunni as Saddam was, ISIS is way crazier, and the radical Islam-Saddam link never really existed).
 
Re: Obama vs Bush
 
They're both pretty marginal in their own ways.  I always felt Bush's getting us into Iraq was his greatest blunder (and a vast, huge one worth raking him over the coals for), but by the surge Bush was a lot smarter than most folks give him credit for, and put us on a glide path to exiting Iraq as gracefully as we could have.  
 
On the other hand I've always felt like watching Obama do foreign affairs is like watching armature hour, and would be improved with a slide whistle at the proper times.  It feels like the only times he's done something right has been when "doing nothing' was the correct answer, and rarely was it on purpose, it was simply not coming to a decision).  Also the use of hashtags in lieu of meaningful action will always boggle my mind.
 
 With that all out of the way, I was on the ground in Iraq 2008-2009, and then again 2010-2011.  The training mission stuff to the Iraqis...it could have gone on until 2030 and gotten not much better results.  There's a lot wrong culturally with the Iraqis (or if you're being all nice about it, a lot that isn't compatible with modern military efficiency), and as long as you're building the Iraqi military from Iraqis, it's going to be pretty marginal (unless Iraq's security situation gets to the point where you can form a small, very selective force, and also have an external body to shoot/fire the Iraqis that fail to perform).

The Iraqis shouldn't be allowed to use tanks.  It's simple as that.  In terms of behavior that might lead to a turret blow off:
 
1. Iraqis frequently disabled or turned off the armored doors to the ammunition compartment because it "slowed them down"
 
2. Iraqis almost always stored several rounds inside the troop compartment.
 
3. The short of it is it's rather likely it was abandoned, and then blown up by ISIS.  
 
There's nothing like the the carousel autoloader, or the hull stored ammunition that historically leads to turret flippy floppy behaviors.  Fuel burns, vs catastrophic explosion usually.  There's nothing in the Abrams hull when combat loaded that should cause the turret to blow off.  And in the event of Iraqi operated turrets, even with the armored doors disabled the explosion will still vent upwards, the amount of force required to blow the blowout panels, and the hatches etc clean off, while the downward force is still largely reflected by the bottom of the turret.
 
 Given the distance and lack of other apparent damage I'd say it was filled full of explosives and blown in place for whatever reasons ISIS deemed fit (might have been beyond their ability to repurpose, or they simply want the world to be superscared of them or something).  Looking at the hull in the background it's really hard to pin much on it, but it's clear stuff has been also manipulated after the explosion (the front skirts are clearly propped up against each other off to the right).  

Steve. Russia never ever lies. Ever. Did I mention Russia never lies? Ignore those Spetznatz guys, all a Ukrainian psyops campaign.

The difference is the LOSAT was capable of sufficient speed to be designed to function as a kinetic energy weapon.  It was a missile that traveled fast enough to bypass any APS or jamming systems of the day, and ignore ERA, that fit on a HMMWV.
 
The 9M123 on the other hand, is just a very fast conventional missile that's still subject to APS, ERA, and the like.
 
Re: APS
 
The rose colored glasses went out of style some years ago.  Need does not indicate capability.
 
Re: The economy stupid
 
It still boggles my mind.  The limiting factor to Russian military ambitions has been economic.  The Russian economy is doing poorly and the Russian government is cutting into stuff it shouldn't to maintain the semblance of functionality.  The fact this is occurring somehow magically doesn't apply because it's the Armata!  The Armata cannot fail because it's Comrade Armata!  The Armata could very well meet all standards and the like.  But it will be at the expense of something else, and Russia's running out of it's children's futures to burn.

Ken did you miss the report where the U.S. tobacco industry came up with a soft kill APS cigarette brand? The object is we export a ton of cheap cigarettes to Russia, they develop a nicotine habit and die in droves before they can launch ATGMs. Cancer studies prove it to be effective.

Meanwhile my company just decided to cut my salary by 50%. I however really felt I needed a new car for my mid life crisis so I went out and bought one I could barely afford under my old salary. I don't see any problem with that financially. By not having money for food I will ensure I stay slim. Chicks dig me now though I feel a bit too weak to drive.

The difference is the LOSAT was capable of sufficient speed to be designed to function as a kinetic energy weapon.  It was a missile that traveled fast enough to bypass any APS or jamming systems of the day, and ignore ERA, that fit on a HMMWV.
 
The 9M123 on the other hand, is just a very fast conventional missile that's still subject to APS, ERA, and the like.
 
Re: APS
 
The rose colored glasses went out of style some years ago.  Need does not indicate capability.
 
Re: The economy stupid
 
It still boggles my mind.  The limiting factor to Russian military ambitions has been economic.  The Russian economy is doing poorly and the Russian government is cutting into stuff it shouldn't to maintain the semblance of functionality.  The fact this is occurring somehow magically doesn't apply because it's the Armata!  The Armata cannot fail because it's Comrade Armata!  The Armata could very well meet all standards and the like.  But it will be at the expense of something else, and Russia's running out of it's children's futures to burn.

I swear to god simply burning every dollar, ounce of construction material, all military equipment given to the Iraqis in a giant pit would be a less wasteful use than what the Iraqis have done with it. 

I swear to god simply burning every dollar, ounce of construction material, all military equipment given to the Iraqis in a giant pit would be a less wasteful use than what the Iraqis have done with it. 

Yeah, but what I'm saying is you're describing the sort of mission that doesn't translate out to being worth playing in a game.  If you're going to model the SOF doing a mission that is well replicated by CMBS it's going to be the high energy raid sort stuff, or they're going to have to allow for mission timers that go out to days to replicate how slow infiltration actually is, and weeks to show how long duration observation rolls.

And I'm saying the "bonuses" are off base.  SOF isn't harder to stop vs some regular infantry dude, they're just allocated with the time and resources to accomplish their given mission accordingly.  So if they're doing a movement to a hide site, they've got the 12 hours to go 2 KM sneakily.  Having some baseline "harder to spot" thing is dumb, as it's not like SOF is trained to run on their tip toes sneakily or something, the kind of stealth movement training they do is the long duration infiltration stuff, which is not something done in CMBS.  
 
Whatever advantage in skills or fitness can already be played out using the tools CMBS has, its just we lack the proper SOF type organizations to use those tools

ISIS has about as much to do with theologically correct Islam, or reality as middleearth, so it's a pretty fitting statement.  

Re: Saddam's army

Here's more or less how the cycle went:

US military plans on having Iraqi army and police intact to help maintain security.

Bremmer half reads a book on occupying Germany. Decides zero baathists are to be in new government, and being baathist is pretty much something that happened if you bought a pack of gum this is bad.

All the people with guns and idea how to use them and a mild antipathy to Shi'a and US are now unemployed. Results predictable.

Actual sunni militants show up. Start killing lots of everyone. Former saddam era police and military have second thoughts. Start killing sunni militants.

US military starts finding dead terrorists. Puts two and two together. Offers to pay these former sunni terrorists to kill present terrorists. Results are actually pretty great. Goodwill between former terrorists and US restored.

US gets ready to leave. Offers to continue paying former terrorists but through Iraqi government. Hashes out deal to find employment or job training for former terrorists.

Iraqi government pockets the money. Arrests former terrorists more or less at random. Won't hire the ones it was supposed to.

Sunnis become re alienated and turn to anyone who offers to put shia heads on pikes. Enter ISIS.

Basically these former Saddam guys were more or less bought off. Basically tigers in a zoo, dangerous, but not so much as long as you fed them and kept the gates closed. Iraqi shia government ate the tiger food and sold the gate in turkey to pay for gay porn. Results predictable.

Ref: COL Reese

I was on the ground when he wrote that. His status reports were all like that just most of them didn't have distro off of SIPR. we used to read the really funny ones out loud.

Hes totally right top to bottom left to right. But even as broken as the Iraqi army was in 2010, if it just kept being that level of broken in 2014 it'd have been okay.

But yeah. Iraqis are the sorts to prove that you were wrong about having hit rock bottom.

I swear to god simply burning every dollar, ounce of construction material, all military equipment given to the Iraqis in a giant pit would be a less wasteful use than what the Iraqis have done with it. 

Re: Saddam's army

Here's more or less how the cycle went:

US military plans on having Iraqi army and police intact to help maintain security.

Bremmer half reads a book on occupying Germany. Decides zero baathists are to be in new government, and being baathist is pretty much something that happened if you bought a pack of gum this is bad.

All the people with guns and idea how to use them and a mild antipathy to Shi'a and US are now unemployed. Results predictable.

Actual sunni militants show up. Start killing lots of everyone. Former saddam era police and military have second thoughts. Start killing sunni militants.

US military starts finding dead terrorists. Puts two and two together. Offers to pay these former sunni terrorists to kill present terrorists. Results are actually pretty great. Goodwill between former terrorists and US restored.

US gets ready to leave. Offers to continue paying former terrorists but through Iraqi government. Hashes out deal to find employment or job training for former terrorists.

Iraqi government pockets the money. Arrests former terrorists more or less at random. Won't hire the ones it was supposed to.

Sunnis become re alienated and turn to anyone who offers to put shia heads on pikes. Enter ISIS.

Basically these former Saddam guys were more or less bought off. Basically tigers in a zoo, dangerous, but not so much as long as you fed them and kept the gates closed. Iraqi shia government ate the tiger food and sold the gate in turkey to pay for gay porn. Results predictable.

Ref: COL Reese

I was on the ground when he wrote that. His status reports were all like that just most of them didn't have distro off of SIPR. we used to read the really funny ones out loud.

Hes totally right top to bottom left to right. But even as broken as the Iraqi army was in 2010, if it just kept being that level of broken in 2014 it'd have been okay.

But yeah. Iraqis are the sorts to prove that you were wrong about having hit rock bottom.

I swear to god simply burning every dollar, ounce of construction material, all military equipment given to the Iraqis in a giant pit would be a less wasteful use than what the Iraqis have done with it. 

Re: Saddam's army

Here's more or less how the cycle went:

US military plans on having Iraqi army and police intact to help maintain security.

Bremmer half reads a book on occupying Germany. Decides zero baathists are to be in new government, and being baathist is pretty much something that happened if you bought a pack of gum this is bad.

All the people with guns and idea how to use them and a mild antipathy to Shi'a and US are now unemployed. Results predictable.

Actual sunni militants show up. Start killing lots of everyone. Former saddam era police and military have second thoughts. Start killing sunni militants.

US military starts finding dead terrorists. Puts two and two together. Offers to pay these former sunni terrorists to kill present terrorists. Results are actually pretty great. Goodwill between former terrorists and US restored.

US gets ready to leave. Offers to continue paying former terrorists but through Iraqi government. Hashes out deal to find employment or job training for former terrorists.

Iraqi government pockets the money. Arrests former terrorists more or less at random. Won't hire the ones it was supposed to.

Sunnis become re alienated and turn to anyone who offers to put shia heads on pikes. Enter ISIS.

Basically these former Saddam guys were more or less bought off. Basically tigers in a zoo, dangerous, but not so much as long as you fed them and kept the gates closed. Iraqi shia government ate the tiger food and sold the gate in turkey to pay for gay porn. Results predictable.

Ref: COL Reese

I was on the ground when he wrote that. His status reports were all like that just most of them didn't have distro off of SIPR. we used to read the really funny ones out loud.

Hes totally right top to bottom left to right. But even as broken as the Iraqi army was in 2010, if it just kept being that level of broken in 2014 it'd have been okay.

But yeah. Iraqis are the sorts to prove that you were wrong about having hit rock bottom.