Halmbarte
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Posts posted by Halmbarte
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Well, I guess that's better than a pointed stick...
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57 minutes ago, Combatintman said:
Having written the TO&Es I can guarantee you there are a bunch of differences - the US and British mechanised infantry units will be very different indeed. No .50 cals on the AFVs, no Dragons and no TOW equivalents in any great numbers prior to the introduction of MILAN. So before that you get Wombat which will be a very much more tricky system to employ against T-64 than TOW. I also wouldn't expect to see CVR(T) en masse and of course the clue's in the name as to how they should be employed.
What are the UK infantry equipped with to deal with tanks? No HMG or ATGMs is going to be rough.
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On 1/4/2016 at 11:18 AM, womble said:
That does seem to be reflected in the tendency of BMP 3 to detonate catastrophically in the game.
BMP 3s are the best VBIED in the game!
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Will the boiling vessel be modeled and if it's destroyed or damaged will the AFV crew take a morale hit?
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2 hours ago, Pinetree said:
A bit late to the party but you should give Children of a Dead Earth a go. Turn-based but very realistic and a great challenge too. Working out the optimal orbits is great fun.
I wouldn't say COADE is turn based, although it can feel like that at times. Realistic space combat is even more of wait until something happens and then something happens at 50km/s and it's all over until the next encounter.
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1 hour ago, Simcoe said:
That is something I've noticed about the US in Cold War (without Bradley's). I find the majority of the firepower is in the tanks. They are absolute monsters but if the Soviets can disable them it's game over. The Soviets feel a bit more rounded in that regard.
US infantry doesn't have that much organic anti-armor capability. They have a mediocre ATGM with poor warhead, short range, and an absurd failure rate, and a few one shot M73s that are better volley launched at ranges much over 75m, further reducing the number of kills they can make against Sov armor.
The one flavor of Soviet infantry squad comes with an organic BMP that has a lot of potential armor kills on board, as well as providing reloads for the squads organic RPG7.
The BTR flavor loses the BMP's anti armor capability, but makes up for it with AT-7s and AT-4s.
I think of AT-7 as being what the Dragon wants to be, while the AT-4 is pretty much a shorter range TOW that's man-luggable. Either can be devastating in the defence or if pushed forward on the attack. plus the carrying BTR for either carries a large number of reloads.
Sov squads aren't as flexible as the American ones and they really need their carriers to be very useful but they are organized to perform their function in the Soviet combined arms army.
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13 hours ago, Combatintman said:
This - not sure why people think that the Leopard approach is a winner on this basis. Comes back to rule one of combat - don't be seen.
If my tank won't keep out sabot or HEAT anyway I might as well have a fast tank where I can use the speed to either a) minimize my exposure time or b) relocate to another firing position. Make the Sov go through the whole target acquisition cycle from scratch.
It's not like the slower M60 can tank hits from pretty much anything the Sov brings in '79. The frontal arc might keep out T55's 100mm sabot but if I''m remembering right 100mm HEAT will take out a M60 from the front.
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9 hours ago, IICptMillerII said:
Glad to have helped!
I think you will find that the M60A1 and M60A3 are more than a match for the T-62. Not a cakewalk, especially considering all the other assets the Soviets get (ATGMs, artillery, etc) but certainly much less of a "Panther vs Sherman" dynamic.
The big problem I have with the M60 series is they are really big, really slow, and can't hardly handle hits.
I think the Germans had the right idea with Leopard 1. If you're limited to steel only (no composite) make the armor just thick enough to keep out auto cannon fire. Pretty much any HEAT is going to be able to penetrate any reasonable thickness of steel so why try? Focus on firepower and mobility i instead.
With the M60 we get a tank with thick enough armor that it's slow, but the steel still can't keep out HEAT from pretty much anything the Sov can bring, including RPG-7s.
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17 hours ago, lcm1947 said:
I am in a game against an AI Russian T-64B tank where it took at least 8 each heat ricochets and 7 each ricochets from (as far as I can tell) either a M60A3 or M60A2 and it's still alive and a threat although immobilized. Is that even possible?
Going up against T64s in '79 can feel like a return to WWII with 75mm Shermans vs King Tigers.
Except the Sov made a whole lot of T64s...
Much like Shermans vs King Tigers you don't want to attack them head on. Get them to button up to reduce their situational awareness and hit them from the flanks whenever possible. If you can immobilize them move to make the tank useless or to a position where you can hit them from the flanks or rear.
The other thing to remember is that those non-penetrating hits are still reducing the effectiveness of the T64.
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Really great points by domfluff.
One of the things I try to do playing as the Soviets is run by recon pull. Investigate the back ways and push through the gaps to flank and bypass the Americans. The Americans almost never have enough assets to cover every avenue of approach and you avoid rolling up into the planned American kill zones.
There are other ways to play the Soviets besides the 'stick you dick into the meat grinder until it stalls' methodology.
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The artillery is important to be sure. One of the things it does is forces the US tankers to button up, reducing their spotting advantage, and if you're lucky, breaking tracks and immobilizing them.
In the case you're talking about, as I remember I used infantry firing RPGs to take out the tanks. RPGs will penetrate M60s from the front pretty reliably.
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The wheel on the bus goes round and round...
I've seen the bug reported in the forum before. It is an annoyance, for sure.
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At what kind of ranges?
At 2km out the Russian tank commander is probably using binoculars to scan with, and those do have a limited field of view.
Don't put tanks w/o thermals where they can see for long distances. If they can see 4km away, they can be seen 4km away.
Use scout teams to watch for approaching armor. Infantry hiding in buildings is a lot harder for thermals to spot. Once they are spotted ambush M1s from the sides or rear whenever possible (with ATGMs too).
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47 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
Seriously? Is Kofman still grinding on this theme?
So "winning" in 6-12 months for Russia is:
- Likely heading towards 100k dead
- A Sweden and Finland in NATO
- A Ukraine negotiating to enter NATO and EU, and better armed than 3 out of the 5EYES nations.
- International Isolation for a generation - which is starting to look like it may include India and China
- A looming economic reset that will drop Russian standards of living dramatically
- An increasingly hostile domestic minority, likely with western support
- Possibly a few extra sq kms than they had in 2014. They are not generating a military capable of offensive operations and cannot in a 12 month window - at least not by 21st century standards.
- At least two new regions in the Donbass that have been blasted to pulps and need a massive reconstruction bill.
- All of their proposed and real strategic and political objectives are fails.
I am sure I missed something.
[Edit}
Oh yes a smashed military apparatus and zero power-credibility for at least 30 years.
Another* 'victorious' war like this and the Russia will cease to exist as a nation state.
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*Or maybe from this one, the jury is still out.
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2 minutes ago, sross112 said:
Has anyone else noticed the lack of ATGMs on the IFVs? I was always under the assumption that almost every Russian BMP had one and I've seen very few of them in pics and videos. If I'm wrong and just having an elongated situational awareness fail, please point it out to me. If I'm not, any idea why they aren't there?
The logistics guys & the crews stole them to sell on the black market?
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1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:
Woke up, couldn't sleep, and wound up thinking about my alleged favorite topic... bridges and river crossings
In an off-forum discussion about Hrim-2 I've been having I suddenly came to some thoughts about the strike on Saky that I wanted to run by you.
Hypothesis - Ukraine used Hrim-2 to strike Saky airbase
Many thoroughly examining both the variables at play and the visual evidence have concluded the most likely cause of the explosions at Saky were missiles. Since there are no known missiles in service of either Ukraine or the West that match the apparent capabilities of the strikes, it seems fairly obvious that whatever was used is something brand new. The only system anybody seems to be aware of to match the observed effects is Hrim-2. And the effects seem to match perfectly in terms of range, accuracy, and warhead size. It also matches what little information we have, including the recent espionage case, about probable readiness level.
The attack happened and therefore something was used. Since there are no ready explanations, we must accept that whatever happened it was caused by something "novel". Not only does Hrim-2 fit the known facts, it is the ONLY thing that fits. If Ukraine has some other way of causing the damage done to Saky, then it is so secret that nobody even knows to put it down as a possibility. That is highly unlikely.
Confirmed Facts - Hrim-2 exists
Hrim-2 has been under active development for many years and open source information indicates it was ready for production as early as 2019 and more than likely by 2021. It's development stages and recent status are fairly well documented. The only reason it seems it wasn't put into active service prior to the war isn't because of issues with the system itself, but because the Ukrainian government didn't fund acquisition of the systems.
Additionally, open source information indicates that there are at least two launch systems in existence. Each launcher has a two missile capacity. The 10x10 wheeled launch vehicles are unique to the Hrim-2.
Assumption 1 - Production is happening
Open source information makes it very clear that the missile was ready for purchasing in 2021. Money seems to have been the only stumbling block. As the war talk ramped up in late 2021 something might have been done "under the table" to get things going faster ahead of February 2022, but if not it's a given that once the war started production of Hrim-2 got a boost. There is just no way Ukraine would leave this system off the table, especially with billions in aid coming in from the West, especially because the US is publicly adamant that it won't give Ukraine a similar long range weapon (i.e. ATACAMS).
Assumption 2 - Production time sufficient to produce 4 missiles
It is unlikely that full scale production capacity was established ahead of the war due to the lack of certain funding. So the initial rate of production would be quite slow compared to what it theoretically could be. Production time is likely measured in many months per missile even with nearly 24/7 manufacturing.
We do not know how long it takes to produce a single missile under wartime conditions and incentives. We do know that there was a strike on the production facilities that disrupted activity there, but apparently that is all that happened. Given how ineffective Russian strikes have generally been, and how hardened the facilities are, it is probable that production was not significant impacted by the strike.
Whatever components Ukraine doesn't have on hand could be sourced from the West, thus potentially removing production bottlenecks. There are other instances of the West supply parts for Ukraine's weapons systems. Certainly this is the sort of project that would get priority attention, especially from the United States. The US is under pressure to provide Ukraine with long range weapons and doesn't want to take the political risk. Helping Ukraine produce its own takes pressure off of the US while maintaining its pledge to not provide ATACAMS (or similar) to Ukraine.
Assume 4 months of production time between the start of the war and the strike plus some number of partial missiles built prior to the war, especially if production was started after rumors of war came into being. It seems possible Ukraine could have had 4 missiles built in time for the strike.
Assumption 3 - Saky was an operational test of Hrim-2The missile system had, up to this point, not been operationally used. That much we can be certain of. How much testing had been done ahead of August 2022 is not well know, but it does seem that the missile itself had been tested extensively, yet there is no evidence a full system test against a distant target was ever carried out. Such a launch would have been noteworthy and there is no OSINT that it happened. Therefore, Ukraine wasn't entirely sure the system would work as designed.
Given the uncertainty of the performance, the Saky strike is probably best characterized as full scale live fire test first and a military/political strike second. This could very well explain the rather unusual strike pattern that was witnessed (see next point).
Question 1 - Why the strange firing pattern
The attack on Saky was Missile #1, significant gap of time, Missile #2, significant gap of time, then Missiles #3 and #4 within seconds of each other. An accurate accounting of the gaps between strikes is not readily available, but it seems to have been in excess of an hour each. This pattern is odd because the normal strike pattern would be successive launches with very small gaps of time, all at once, or some combination (e.g. two pairs with small gaps between).
There could be some pragmatic reasons to space them out, for example killing emergency service personnel and equipment, but if so then targeting the same spot after a pause would be the optimal solution rather than targeting different parts of the base. Unexpected events, such as glitches in the launch systems, could explain maybe one gap, but two glitches requiring two gaps seems unlikely. Yet random firing seems highly unlikely, therefore some sort of logic was likely employed.
Plausible Answer 1 - Firing pattern was to facilitate test requirements and prudent caution
Imagine that Ukraine has only 4 missiles built in total and so far none have been used in full combat conditions. It seems highly implausible that anybody would fire them all at once not knowing what might happen to them. Maybe they all fail in flight, maybe they all strike way off target and hit dense civilian areas, maybe they all behave differently and there's no way to know what went wrong, etc. Instead, the optimal solution would be to fire them cautiously, observe, then make a determination if the test should continue or be ended.
Going under the assumption that this was a test first and a military/political strike second, Ukraine would want to pick a target that fit certain test criteria.
- the strike terrain should be something that provides easy observation of effects. Especially accuracy. A wide open airfield with explicit aim points would be an ideal choice. Easily observable by satellite.
- the location should minimize the risk to civilians. The Saky airbase is situated on the coast, limiting the radius of risk. It is also in the middle of a large swath of terrain that is not densely populated. There are some settlements encroaching on part of the northwestern portion of the base, but a hit there would only happen from a major systems failure of some sort and that could land it theoretically anywhere within a couple hundred KMs. So not a huge concern. However, it does explain why the hardened bunker (a more valuable target) near the civilian area wasn't targeted because a significant targeting error or accuracy design flaw would be more likely to hit a civilian area compared to the chosen targeting area. Also, if it did hit spot on the resulting detonation of the bunker would most definitely have destroyed civilian infrastructure.
- the target locations need to be long term immobile. A lot of assumptions need to be made in test scenarios, therefore they would not want the possibility of Russia moving things around to be in the mix. The four chosen targets were well established and extremely unlikely to be moved for the foreseeable future.
- the range of the target needed to be far, but not too far. The further the distance traveled the more pronounced any errors in guidance or flight systems will be. The reverse is true for shorter distances, which could mask problems when later trying to hit further out. Selecting a target area in the middle of Hrim-2;s performance range appears to be ideal for a test.
- because observations of the effectiveness of the hits could only be reasonably achieved by satellite (reliability and logistics reasons) the chosen day would have to be crystal clear atmospherically. Because the target wasn't at risk of moving and there were no other operations dependent upon the strike, Ukraine could wait for the optimal weather conditions to exist. The day of the strike was effectively cloudless and clear of significant atmospheric moisture from the looks of the videos taken at the time.
- pausing after the first missile impact allowed the engineers time to evaluate how effective it was prior to launching any additional missiles. If the first missile failed in some significant way they could call off the test and retain the precious few missiles, figure out what when wrong, then try again at a time of their choosing. The gap between #1 and #2 provided enough time to evaluate that it both hit the target and detonated within expectations. Certainly it performed within OSINT design parameters.
- the first missile tested not only the missile itself but the launch complex (system) it was fired from. That consists of the launch vehicle and various supporting vehicles/systems. The second missile was likely fired from the second system in order to test it for the first time and get a second confirmation on missile performance. As with the first launch, it was deemed a success.
- the third volley had both launchers firing their second missiles in coordinated way. This not only provided two more missile results to examine, but it also tested both systems as a coordinated launch scenario. Just the sort of thing a battery would do under normal circumstances. A large number of variables could be tested, such as having the two launchers many KMs apart and seeing how closely they could time the impacts to each other.
To summarize the possible launch sequence:
- Fire Missile #1 from Launcher #1
- Evaluate launch from Launcher #1 and assess impact of Missile #1
- Fire Missile #2 from Launcher #2
- Evaluate launch from Launcher #2 and assess impact of Missile #2
- Fire Missile #3 from Launcher #1 and Missile #4 from Launcher #2 to hit target simultaneously
- Evaluate coordination of launches and impacts of Missiles #3 and #4
- Launch champagne corks
Question 2 - Why not strike the Kerch bridges?
Wouldn't it have been better to hit the bridges at Kerch?
Answer 2 - Kerch is a bad choice for a test scenario
The obvious answer is that the bridges made for a very poor test scenario. If the first missile had performed only a little off its performance parameters it would either have missed the bridge entirely or done nothing effective to it. This would have been more difficult to analyze and evaluate, especially if they did not have access to real time satellite imaging. Water disturbances are time sensitive and more difficult to evaluate compared to craters in the ground.
Less obvious is what sort of political considerations Ukraine might have had if the missiles worked or didn't work. If they worked then they would cut off Russians from fleeing in panic in well observed lines of cars. If it didn't work then Ukraine would have shown its hand without having something tangible to show for it.
The airbase was a much more sure bet because if one missile didn't hit exactly where they wanted it they could just say it was special forces or a drone strike. With missiles impacting water near the bridges there would be no plausible cover story
Plus. there's more in production so Kerch can theoretically can get hit in the future.
Conclusions - Everything went very well
The results speak for itself, but when viewed as a test it's even clearer how important this strike was. It validated a weapons system that can reliably and accurately attack anything within the occupied territory of Ukraine and a large swath of Russia. We can be very sure that production of more missiles and launchers kicked into high gear after this test. We don't know how many more missiles might already be ready for use, but it's likely Ukraine will once again save them up for something big. The most likely candidate is the Kerch bridges.
Some Reference Links
Here are some links I referenced about the Hrim-2 system itself. The strikes are from research I did earlier:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hrim-2
Enjoy!
Steve
P.S. too tired to proof read what I wrote, so going to bed now and will edit later to smooth out problem spots
Is there a reason to rule out a commando raid? Sneaking into an air base and blowing stuff up is a classic special forces tactic.
Although the UA hinting towards special forces would hint that it was something else.
But do the Ukrainians know the Russians know they never give a useful official answer so the way to deflect attention from the special forces is to say it was the special forces? Of course, this way lies madness...
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2 hours ago, Centurian52 said:
Already a thread on that
Yeah, I was in that one too.
I want the West Germans but would be happy with the Brits too...
Who am I kidding?
I'm going to buy the module pretty much whatever the content* is. I get hundreds of hours of entertainment time so the expense per hour is very low.
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*If we get the Brits we could use the Shock Force maps and make Iran/Iraq war scenarios.
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1 hour ago, billbindc said:
Here's the thing...Xi holds every single card here. Russian gas is badly situated for China's market and years/billions in investment away from being...even then...a pricey alternative to what they have. Russia doesn't have much of anything China wants and is a shrinking percentage of China's foreign trade...especially compared with the US and EU. Russia is also a would be competitor in Central Asia and has differing interests in Southwest Asia, Africa, etc.
Russia's value to China was as a distraction to and a thorn in the side of the US and the EU. Xi needed the latter to have a big, dangerous security threat that could be activated to disperse their forces. In short, Russia was supposed to be Xi's pitbull. The dog might be still vicious but it's turned out to also be decrepit and the US is, through Ukraine, knocking its teeth out.
So what does Xi do? I think close to nothing. A Russia that is more Austria-Hungary than useful is not worth investing in. China will do the bare minimum to maintain Russia's territorial integrity while asking the world in return in terms of trade deals, diplomatic access to the -stans and ultimately economic control in the Russian Far East. Unequal Treaties can go the other way, in time.
If I were in the Russian government my long term worry would be the Chinese deciding to 'protect ethnic Han Chinese' that happen to live over the border in the oil and gas fields in Siberia.
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Purchased.
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21 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
Work has also started on a Module for Cold War. No details at this point, just preliminary work. We’ll let you guys know more when there’s more to say.
Let the speculation begin!
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Well, their luck ran out the next turn. The 2x M113s and Eng teams that were chasing them finally got a clear line of sight and got another M72 into them as well as a bunch of .50 cal. The gunner bailed but found surrendering to be problematic.
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Luckiest BMP in the Soviet Army?
2x 105mm tank gun hits (in the wheels), took a LAW72, and a 40mm HEDP grenade. Still driving around too.
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1 hour ago, chuckdyke said:
I would have made the production of precision munitions a priority. But I have the impression that laser guided munitions are out of date. The warning systems on AFVs seems to be effective. I don't know what goes on behind the scenes in regard to digital warfare but information operations have the priority. What will decide is that the support of the population is on the defenders side.
The modern Russian govt hasn't made actual serial production of weapons a priority. They are surviving off the remaining stocks of the Soviet Union, and the Sov couldn't afford mass production of precision weapons.
Not that NATO has massive capability to mass produce precision weapons either. More capability than Russia, for sure, but western stockpiles are being drawn down heavily too.
Modern warfare consuming more munitions than planned for is not a new problem. It happened in WWI, in the various Arab-Israeli wars, and probably wouldn't have been an unknown problem to Caesar.
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32 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:
Now we are in the 21st century not much has changed turn beautiful cities into rubble. Playing Black Sea, you need units with laser pointers to use precision artillery which in the Recon Units are on the IFVs even from Hull Down positions difficult to use. Not hard to see why they still use WW2 tactics.
Not to get too much into current events & politics, but when you have an abundance of artillery and a serious shortage of infantry, it does make sense to use the artillery to pulverize everything in front of you so the few grunts you actually have have a walkover.
Not that that makes the Russian tactics any less of a war crime, mind you.
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In an off-forum discussion about Hrim-2 I've been having I suddenly came to some thoughts about the strike on Saky that I wanted to run by you.
Combat Mission Cold War - British Army On the Rhine
in Combat Mission Cold War
Posted
Every Marder in SF2 & every BMP should be able to dismount its ATGM too, but we can't.
Carl & MILAN should be doable for anti-armor weapons. I remember the MILAN has a 400m(!) min range and I'd expect Carl to cover what the ATGMs can't. Although I'm suspicious of the ability of an unguided rocket to hit moving targets at 400m. My preference when I have RPGs is to set the engagement range to ~200m for better chances of actually getting a hit.
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