jirik

Hi, yes that can be very interesting debate but I am afraid it is very context dependent and it is also important to answer few basic questions in advance. 1) What is the difference between IFV and APC? In CW era the distinction is pretty easy, APC is tracked or wheeled armored vehicle with usually HMG armament whose task was to transport and unload infantry. IFV is a tracked armoored vehicle whose task is to escort tanks into the battle. Its armament is either anti-armour cannon or autocannon. The side efec was that IFV has usually 30 % less dismounts than APC. So what makes IFV to be IFV? Its role or armament? Today the boundaries are blurred. Is Stryker with HMG APC and woth autocannon IFV? Or is it still APC just with upped weapon system? I suppose the latter and IMHO in this case you can eat your cake and have it too. There are sill 9 dismounts, you have bettwr firepower. Still the doctrine is the same as for APC. 2) What is the ability of armed forces to pay for hardware and its ability to field the manpower? If you have a lot of manpower then IMHO it is better to have less expensive APC but field more units. 3) What is the predominant terarain to fight in? I am looking at it from closed hilly terrain with forests, villages, visibility usually 1 km. Here the 30 % more infantry is more IMHO more valuable than autocannon. Of course Stryker with autocannon would be the best but that goes ack to question 1). 4) And now purely gaming PoV. What is the price ratio between APC and IFV equipped unit. If I can have for the same amount of points two platoons of APC infantry vs one of IFV what is more cost effective. I suppose comined arms deployments so infantry with tanks. In that case I have more eyes on the ground to spot the enemy allowing tanks to eliminate it. (One side note - I don't play CM as the 3D does not suit me but I am Armored Brigaed player) 5) And last but not least and it just dawned on me as I read your comment. What exactly is flawed - vehicles or doctrine and organizational structure? J.

Hi @Jim Storr, I read your book twice and I believe it is really valueable piece of work. I learnt a lot from it and it is definitely thought provoking material. I served couple of years in nineties in a former Eastern army and I had opportunity to speak to quite a lot of Cold War officers and I'd say that a lot (even if not all) your opinions and ideas about Soviet and Eastern armies is correct. I loved the discussion about IFVs. What is interesting that I (as a gamer) progressively moved from IFV based infantry to prefer APC based one. The reason is that I feel that larger squad (usually +2) is more resilient and usually for the same amount of resource points you can obtain larger infantry force. For forest and urban work it seems to be indispensable. From my side it was mostly subconcious process but it seems that it fits well to your analysis. I'd like to ask you for one thing. As you mentioned you translated Middeldorf's books. Is there a chance you'd be able to publish the translations? It seems to me that they are really valuable source. I was able to find them online in Russian in which I am very weak. At the same time publishing them in English would improve the English-language discourse as well. Thanks a lot for your answer and I wish you luck in your future publication efforts! J.