Schrodi Posted December 17, 1999 Share Posted December 17, 1999 AP is reporting that in a Russian Tank attack today, the Russians lost 7 tanks and a number of personnel carriers as well as over 100 dead. What do you suppose the Rebels are using? Anyway, if they do a modern version it would make a interesting couple of scenarios. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted December 17, 1999 Share Posted December 17, 1999 RPGs obviously TacOps blurb (which I happen to agree with) is that this was just a small recon force which went in and got cut off. Seems a standard recon company is 6 tanks and 12 BMPs/BTRs which jibes well with what is reported here (reporters often call BMPs tanks ). It all sounds like just another thing the media is blowing out of proportion, calling it a major attack etc when its nothing of the sort. Casualties (even if an entire recon company was wiped out there) couldn't have topped 100 which is a little disturbing for the Soviets but nothing they can't deal with. In fact, some later reports speak of a couple of BMPs and a few trucks which means it mightn't even have been a recon element. It might simply have been a supply convoy which took a disastrous shortcut (happens in war) since not even the Russians would send trucks into Grozny ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted December 17, 1999 Share Posted December 17, 1999 Hey, was that confirmed? The Russians are saying that it didn't happen, and CNN's take on it is that it wouldn't be keeping with Russian tactics and strategy to date. Theories floated are: 1. Feeler "probe" 2. Wrong turn (it did happen at night) 3. Some Captain got the idea that he could make a difference by doing things his way. And to bring this back on topic... a modern version of CM has not been rulled out. But WWII comes first because it is what we know best and it is what CM's engine was built for. Personally, Charles and I would like to see one made sometime. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Major Tom Posted December 17, 1999 Share Posted December 17, 1999 So, I guess you guys better not die or something soon then, eh? Seriously, I am looking forward to what you guys are capible of doing in the near future, let alone this amazing game here. I mean, with the progression of computer speed as it is currently you could create an almost to life version of the game! You guys have the skill and dedication to make it happen. In fact, you could probably go up do Brigade or Divisional scale! Imagine that! Commanding every single squad, no wait, every single individual soldier in an entire army corps! It will take years just to initiate the setup!!! What have you guys unleased upon the world!! Indeed, keep good health, may you live a long and productive life to see your dream of simulating the entire history of modern warfare down to the individual soldier by the year 2053. I know I am going to be on life support waiting for that one! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted December 17, 1999 Share Posted December 17, 1999 Well here's the current state of events: "AVN, an unofficial military news agency, said officials in Mozdok, the staging area for the war, acknowledged that 50 soldiers died overnight in central Grozny. They had entered the city in 15 armored vehicles--eight tanks and seven armored personnel carriers--from Khankala, a small town at the city's southeast edge. The Interfax news agency said that an "intelligence unit" was ambushed in Grozny's downtown Minutka Square. Twenty-five soldiers were killed, Interfax said. The Chechen rebels captured four out of eight armored vehicles used in the mission. "This reconnaissance operation was aimed at identifying bandits' firing and fortified positions in eastern Grozny," Interfax quoted its sources as saying. A spokesman for Russia's Federal Security Service intelligence agency labeled reports of 100 deaths "misinformation," but added that there may have been a "reconnaissance in force" operation in Grozny. He said such a probe by a small unit would not have resulted in heavy casualties. The three-hour battle occurred in and around Minutka Square, an open roundabout in the central Grozny, according to accounts from the city. Reports said that charred chassis of tanks and armored cars lay strewn with dead bodies on the square. They apparently were hit from all sides; streets nearby are framed by high and mid-rise apartment buildings. Russian forces shelled Grozny through the night and this morning; distant blasts could be heard as far away as the border with Ingushetia, another Russian region 30 miles west. At Mozdok, Su-24 and Su-25 ground attack jets took off every few minutes, either for Grozny or targets in the mountainousn south." So what does seem clear is that an "intelligence unit" (which jibes with the divisional recon theory) went in to find targets for jets etc BUT the Chechens were waiting for them that day and managed to hem them in and anihilate them. Why no help was sent is an open question but might have something to do with the division of responsibilities. It appears Spetsnaz and paratroops are being charged with the actual taking of villages and suburbs etc since the conscripts would be woeful at that. This unit sounds like it was from a staple infantry division and thus it wouldn't have been on the same command channels as the special infantry fighting anywhere nearby. I can understand a divisional commanders unwillingness to send more conscripts into the firing line and the unwillingness of paras and special forces to undertake an operation which involves them walking into a trap to rescue the few survivors of the recon group (since by the time they were informed of what was going on you can bet that a good amount of time had passed). What I don't understand is that the firefight lasted for 3 hours (until 11pm local time) BUT the commander of the force didn't try to retreat. Maybe he was taken out early and the conscripts didn't know what to do but if I was in a load of tanks and APCs and was fired on in a square from all four sides I sure would just retreat and tell the divisional artillery officer that the square and all building around it should be levelled. CM modern (or near-modern) would be excellent. I don't think anyone has done it half-way properly anytime recently... I've always had a soft spot for the AT8 through the barrel ATGM (anti-helicopter too of course). I keep thinking people write off what the Soviets do too quickly. They usually have some excellent ideas. Pity their tech base was so poor and small. ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nijis Posted December 21, 1999 Share Posted December 21, 1999 Glad to hear of the interest of a modern CM some time in the not-so-distant future. I would love to see Fionn apply his expertise to exotic armors, particularly with regard to infantry weapons. Hezbollah has a website in which there's an essay on taking out a Merkava with TOW missiles. Apparently you plink it once to set off the reactive armor, then once again in the identical spot to get through. One scenario I'd quite like to try would be a platoon of M1A2s versus as many motivated irregular infantry, equipped with whatever kinds of AT weapons your friendly neighborhood rogue state could acquire, as the game engine could handle, in moderately infanty-friendly terrain. Any thoughts on how that might come out? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Deych Posted December 21, 1999 Share Posted December 21, 1999 The things I've heard suggest that the company may have been trying to extricate some other unit from ambush. If that is the case,I can definitely see the commander not wanting to feed another unit into the ambush. If this happened like I imagine it did (at night, ambush, in the middle of a square), the soldiers probably got pinned in the middle of a very nicely designed killing zone. Other then not getting there in the first place, even a special forces unit would have a hard time extricating itself from that. Combine this with quality of Russian troops, and you have a disaster on your hands. I've been reading a first hand account of an ambush of a supply column by Chechens in 1996 in Russian edition of Soldier of Fortune, and it's a pretty harrowing thing. The key point comes at the end: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>As the guys from the 324th regiment told us later, when they reported that the supply column is getting trashed in the mountain pass, they were told to sit tight. The help arrived two and a half hours later, when it was already too late.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I'm going to include a link to the diagram of the ambush, because it's was very nicely done. If you ever get a chance to pull off something like this in CM, your opponent will be screaming bloody murder. [This message has been edited by Greg Deych (edited 12-20-99).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted December 21, 1999 Share Posted December 21, 1999 Nijis, Actually that Hezbolla tactic isn't too bad but it depends on a few things. 1. Israel came up with an anti-HEAT warhead protection system which they label "blazer-reactive" armour (or at least used to).. Nowadays everyone who uses it calls it reactive armour though. Anyways the thing about blazer reactive armour is that it basically works on a variation of the basic physics principles of reactions. E.g. If I push you with a force of 10 KiloNewtons and you push back at me with a force of 10 KiloNewtons the net result is neither of us move (assuming that the vectors of the forces we generate are exactly the reverse of eachother). Now what the Israeli's thought (and it is brilliant in its simplicity) was that if a HEAT warhead explodes when it hits the tanks armour what would happen if something on the outside of the tank exploded at the same time (almost). Wouldn't THAT explosion pushing AWAY from the tank reduce a lot of the force of the other explosion pushing towards the tank. Basically it was saying.. If a Heat warhead cvan penetrate 300mm and kill our tanks who only have 200 mm of armour what will happen if we put a bit of blazer reactive armour there which explodes when the nozzle of the HEAT warhead hits it? Answer, if you design it right that explosion can rob the HEAT warhead of enough penetrating power that it now only penetrates 100 or 150 mm of armour. Hey presto the tank survives. BUT since blazer reactive armour is simply a single layer of explosive boxes lining the outside of the tank once they explode NO more boxes remain at the point of impact and a little area around it. The end result is that if you hit in exactly the same spot again then you should achieve burn-through. Heavy tanks like the Leopard 2 and M1 don't have blazer-reactive armour since they rely on Chobham (discovered by the British) which basically is a very effective anti-HEAT armour and has had its anti-KE penetrator effectiveness increased by the addition of depleted uranium sleeves etc. I once posted a big discussion of how Chobham would probably develop based on what is publicly known about its composition to a discussion on a military group when they were discussing what would happen to armour in the future vs expected ATGM and KE developments and there was not a single response from any military men there. Man, they've got that secrecy gig down. Once you start talking about Chobham discussion quickly gets "guarded" and once you talk about its composition then they drop out . Anyways, I digress... The point is that Hezbollah is right BUT I think they'd : a) do well to hit a Merkava 2 or 3 twice in the same spot unless it is absolutely stationary. I always felt the Merkava was quite survivable. I think they'd only kill it with a TOW to the sides and rears. An ITOW might do it from the front but they wouldn't have any of those since they weren't around when Reagan etc sold Iran TOWs. c) In the middle of a moving battle you can forget about hitting in the same spot again intentionally. d) ONE thing that causes a lot of problems is that a lot of the early and some of the later blazer reactive armours could be exploded by heavy machinegun bullets and shrapnel SO those early types were not very useful since, by the time they got into DF range one could expect much of the hull front and front-sides to be unprotected ( Blazer reactive is pretty expensive and so usually only the front 180 degrees of the tank is protected). After a while in combat tanks which started off very well protected with blazer were virtually unprotected as shrapnel, MG fire and ATGM hits all removed huge chunks of the blazer reactive armour. First person to say what is special about the ammo compartment of the Merkava gets to make a picture request for me to make and have Matt post to CMHQ . Answers in this thread. The person who tells me how this was utilised in the early 1980s to capture a PLO mid-level leader get to make a request too. As for the infantry question:... Well the M1s would simply sit back, fire all MGs on assigned sectors and mow down whoever tried to stand up and fire the RPGs etc against them in daylight. At night-time of course the odds of the infantry getting closer are better but unless the M1 tank platoon leader is a bit of a moron and willingly gives the irregular infantry flank and rear shots he should be fine. BTW I'm assuming that irregular infantry means they have no complicated ATGMs etc, just RPGs, LAWs and other such "plausible deniability" weapons systems. Greg, go to CMHQ.. I set up something which resembles that a little which Matt is doing some great work on posting.. It was tank-heavy of course since I wanted to show off some cool tanks. BTW do you know where I could get a transcript on that article? I think it'd make an interesting read. ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Ps. Yes, I know my explanation of blazer isn't really correct but it gets the idea across to a lot of people who might never have heard of blazer before and would be confused if I started talking about the complexities involved. A simple... one small explosion outwards helps counters the HEAT warheads explosion inwards gets the gist across IMO . (Just posting that since otherwise people usually think I'm telling fibs about reactive armour etc .. We got to remember that a lot of people here don't even know what face-hardening is never mind blazer reactive ). [This message has been edited by Fionn (edited 12-20-99).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Deych Posted December 21, 1999 Share Posted December 21, 1999 It's in Russian, Fionn. As far as I know Babelfish doesn't do Russian-Anything translations yet, but the url is: http://www.roline.ru/sp/sof/0598/02.rhtml Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrodi Posted December 21, 1999 Author Share Posted December 21, 1999 Hmmm, I can't remember for sure, but I think the MK1 has evert compartment extra protected and the ammo comp can be fit to carrry extra infantry...or PLO leaders I suppose. It was designed my General Tal, great designer...Tal was my favorite chess player, that's why I remember it at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrodi Posted December 21, 1999 Author Share Posted December 21, 1999 Ohh yeah, there is an opening in the hull about 2/3 back under the turret(the engine being in front for more protection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted December 21, 1999 Share Posted December 21, 1999 Greg, Yes I figured that but I know some intel guys who could translate it from Russian for me if it looks interesting enough. Schrodi, Correct ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomm Posted December 22, 1999 Share Posted December 22, 1999 Dear Fionn ! I know that a lot of kids out there read this board and we do not want to spoil them physics-wise: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Anyways the thing about blazer reactive armour is that it basically works on a variation of the basic physics principles of reactions.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Hmmm. I think the correct principle is the preservation of momentum. A fully inelastic collision of two bodies with equal mass and opposite velocity vectors causes both bodies to come to an halt. This principle could be applied to the atoms in the incoming plasma jet and the shockwave from the reactive explosion. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> E.g. If I push you with a force of 10 KiloNewtons and you push back at me with a force of 10 KiloNewtons the net result is neither of us move<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Not exactly. The result would be that we would start to move away from each other (acceleration = force / mass, Newtons Law of Motion). For the above to be true you have to ensure static force equilibrium. This, however, can only be achieved by imposing ground reaction forces. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> (assuming that the vectors of the forces we generate are exactly the reverse of each other).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>You do not have to assume this It is guaranteed by Newtons First Law (actio est reactio). Regards, Thomm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Los Posted December 22, 1999 Share Posted December 22, 1999 The whole Chechnya war is quite fascintaing to study. What I find interesting is that the Russians think by pulverizing Grozny with Air and Arty it will make it any easier to take. I guess they must have slept through the last hundred years of military history, much of which their ancestors wrote themselves. Their intent to turn the Chechnyan population against the rebels by all this destruction is no doubt having the opposite effect. Anyway WRT ground fighting there have been no appreciable upgrades to the training or capabilities of Russian ground forces between 1995-6 and now so they are stuck more or less with the same quality forces that the had then. (Though they are capable of putting together some sound tactics particularly the "stormgroup" concenpt of block clearing whne the put their minds to it, and they have improved the lessons learned collection- dissemination cycle that was so sadly lacking earlier.) Even their supposed airborne and spetznaz units are of mixed qualities. The airborne divisions are operating only regimental-sized battlegroups in Chechnya due to the fact that they have had to basically comb through their divisions to find troops of at least the bare level of competence to flush out a Rgt BG. As of 1997 Russian Airbore forces were already 27% understrength which aggrevated the problems. And then they are contantly getting raided for recruits to other Spetznaz units. (Just like a large portion of SF recruits in the US come from either the Ranger regiment or the 82d) No doubt though with a full blown war supported by the gov't and the people there's is less difficulty in getting the resources to flush these out a little better. In Russia any unit that you have to get selected for (usually a volunteer/appointment combination style of selection) and has any special equipment, uniforms, pay or reporting structures is considered "Spetznaz". Every little agency has their own Spetznaz. It's how they ensure at least having a few loyal troops in their back pocket. The level of quality of these forces, though normally above that of the internal or Army conscipt types, is very variable. By western standards most of them would not make the cut of what you would consider special forces. However there are some very good Spetznaz units particularly those working at the national level. Underfunding or military reform has been the greatest contributor to their problems.(in all their forces, not just specops) BTW if you can't find anything to read on this very fascinating war (there are a few very good written sources but I'm at work right now and those books are at home!) then here's a few online resources: 1. The MOUT Home page Chechnya section: http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6453/chechnya.html 2. About the degradation of Russian Special Forces: http://www.jamestown.org/pubs/view/pri_002_010_004.htm 3. An interview with two key the Chechnyan rebel leaders (Since all we ever hear about are the Russians) http://www.muslimmag.org/webversion/caucasus/paris_match_interviews.htm Cheers... Los [This message has been edited by Los (edited 12-22-99).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted December 22, 1999 Share Posted December 22, 1999 LOL Thomm, Yes, I was assuming that both people would be standing on level ground with ground reaction forces present (friction ensuring that they won't float away from eachother as it were). Again though, this is getting into the realms where some peopl (especially those who don't know English so well) are just gonna get incredibly confused and pick up the wrong message. As for Newton's 1st law.. When I said "we" I was not talking in the 1st person but rather about the "two people pushing". hence I was referring to the two people's vectors cancelling eachother out (not necessarily guaranteed by Newton (the original nutty professor ) ). Anyways, Great articles Los.. They made interesting reading. ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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