Reforger Nostalgia

[fireship4]

7 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

Hehe corn grogs.

Everyone who has mentioned corn is now subscribed to my monthly email #CornFacts as part of my role as EIC of Corn Digest: "Separating the Wheat from the Chaff".

Please note, Chaff Gazette is a sister paper of ours (as part of the UniLever publishing family) available at all good newsagents.  As they say, "there are enough grain derivatives for everyone".

[chuckdyke]

57 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

Hehe corn grogs.

I see that basically all 'cereal grain' can be called 'corn', didn't know that. Indeed I thought corn to be stricly 'maize'.

Guess it depends where you live. Koren or graan in NL doesn't usually mean Maize or Rice. However it does include 'wheat', 'rye' and 'barley'. However in Asia rice is the dominant grain, while corn is the dominant corn/grain of choice in Mexico.

So when I read a 'Corn' field I read a 'Maize' field and that sure ain't what's in the picture with the tanks. I'm no farmer but have some in the family and have seen plenty of Maize / corn fields from very close. You can hide very well in the corn fields hehe:

 

Yep, I talked Dutch for 15 years and English for 55 years. Depends on where you are in the English-speaking world. I knew what you were thinking when I read the post. Some words you must be careful with: Ledikant, vak and kok probably a few more. 

[A Canadian Cat]

1 hour ago, Splinty said:

To me Germany was a country completely designed for war.

Indeed. I remember in High School getting a tour of the Rhine from my father and seeing sections of the Autobaun that were designed to be converted to air fields.

Got that from here: https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a22063161/warthogs-nato-jets-autobahn-cold-war/

 

[slippy]

On 2/18/2021 at 10:01 PM, Wicky said:

https://www.subbrit.org.uk/features/target-dover/

https://www.subbrit.org.uk/features/struggle-for-survival/#5-nuclear-targets-in-the-uk

and Operation Square Leg big map

Good info Wicky, takes me back a few years!! Out of interest i left the Army in 1988 and joined the Fire Service. Part of our duties every Saturday morning were to go into the cellar of the Fire Station which had been built in 1966 as a nuclear fallout shelter for the duty watch. We had to test a comms link, by which they would allegedly allocate us to fires, incidents etc after the initial attack. We were still doing this up until about 94 i believe. Funny how at the time it seemed so 'normal'

[MikeyD]

[IMHO]

 

[MikeyD]

This isn't Reforger but '73 war. Note how the aluminum roadwheels have entirely melted away leaving nothing but the steel track guide disk inserts in place.

[Sequoia]

What type of tank did that used to be? 

[MikeyD]

1973 there was only one flavor of basic M60A1 at the time. Israeli tank losses were so high (more than a thousand tanks) that the US ferried tanks from their own warfighting stocks into Israel and simply handed them over to make up numbers.

[danfrodo]

speaking of 1973 war, did anyone watch Valley of Tears on HBO?  Some good tank action -- fast forward through the rest.  but they were using chieftans -- which I am sure we will see in a CMCW DLC one day.

[mjkerner]

1 hour ago, danfrodo said:

speaking of 1973 war, did anyone watch Valley of Tears on HBO?  Some good tank action -- fast forward through the rest.  but they were using chieftans -- which I am sure we will see in a CMCW DLC one day.

Me, and I've used the same viewing tactic: Watch the action, FF through the rest.

[StieliAlpha]

On 2/16/2021 at 8:52 PM, Aragorn2002 said:

Well, of course there should be. Best army in the world at that time.

Oooff, I recollect the time indeed more like @Dr.Fusselpulli 

What sticks most, is how annoyed I was, when many of our „professionals“ decided to quit for „ethical reasons“ during the Falkland War. When they were asked to replace the Brits in NATO missions, like the AWACS planes or during navy patrols in the North Sea.

Edited February 24, 2021 by StieliAlpha

[Aragorn2002]

1 hour ago, StieliAlpha said:

Oooff, I recollect the time indeed more like @Dr.Fusselpulli 

What sticks most, is how annoyed I was, when many of our „professionals“ decided to quit for „ethical reasons“ during the Falkland War. When they were asked to replace the Brits in NATO missions, like the AWACS planes or during navy patrols in the North Sea.

Well, you know better than I of course. Me and my comrades at the time had a very good impression of the Bundeswehr, especially during joint exercises. But decades of pacifism and other dangerous nonsense takes its toll, I guess.

[StieliAlpha]

1 hour ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Well, you know better than I of course. Me and my comrades at the time had a very good impression of the Bundeswehr, especially during joint exercises. But decades of pacifism and other dangerous nonsense takes its toll, I guess.

I served between 1980 and 82, at a time when other „dangerous nonsense „ threatened the world...

 

[AttorneyAtWar]

Pacifism is now "dangerous nonsense".

As far as I'm concerned everyone should be a pacifist, war should always be the last resort to anything. Idealistic? Maybe. But I think everything should start from that view point, millions of people didn't die as recently as the 20th century for us to fall back on "war is necessary" nonsense.

[MikeyD]

AT-3 Sagger ATGM hits. 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

What's that turret.....I'm normally pretty good at tank identification, but that one baffles me!

PS - Scratch that I reckon it's a M48 with the rangefinder missing.

Edited February 24, 2021 by Sgt.Squarehead

[MikeyD]

That's our good friend the M60A1 again. A vehicle you will soon become intimately acquainted with 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Well, I was pretty close. 

[StieliAlpha]

11 hours ago, AttorneyAtWar said:

Pacifism is now "dangerous nonsense".

As far as I'm concerned everyone should be a pacifist, war should always be the last resort to anything. Idealistic? Maybe. But I think everything should start from that view point, millions of people didn't die as recently as the 20th century for us to fall back on "war is necessary" nonsense.

Rest assured, not everybody in this forum agrees with Aragorn.

He certainly has the habit to make statements, which many people in Germany would start with „Das wird man jawohl noch sagen dürfen...“

[37mm]

On 2/18/2021 at 9:19 PM, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Tried to find an accurate hit-list for the UK, but nothing I'd call plausible has come to light (could have sworn the (post?)Soviets declassified one). 

I found that a number of Soviet Warplans have been leaked (they're, apparently, quite fantastical) but the most famous (& relevant to CMCW) was the "Seven days to the Rhine plan" leaked by the Poles.

There doesn't appear to be actual Soviet hit lists of UK or French targets... probably because both Nations had nukes themseves.

This is said to be the original WP map...

https://www.deviantart.com/polandstronk/art/Seven-Days-to-the-River-Rhine-Orginal-WP-Map-679551939

Modern "recreations" also seem to indicate that France was considered as a target but the plans were dropped...

 

Although this is said to be an earlier map for "The Seaside front" which does envision hitting France...

https://www.globalsecurity.org/jhtml/jframe.html#https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/images/map-sea-front-1970.jpg|||

So who knows?

[IMHO]

@37mm,

I had a course at the university taught by the guy who had been the head of the Analytics Division of the KGB's First Directorate (Foreign Intelligence). He had obviously been very much into the deliberations of the highest echelons of the Soviet Union as he personally was the Politburo's primary source of information and assessment of the West's intentions. And the guy was quite frank and direct in sharing his views on the mindset prevalent there. He said by beginning of 80s these war plans existed in a kind of parallel reality. In 60s and 70s they served as a very much needed conventional deterrent to the US's superiority in nuclear weapons. But by the beginning of 80s the Soviet Union caught up in nuclear capabilities and political leadership understood the moment you would really need to open these plans it would be pretty much the end of the world. So there were plans how the Soviet Army steam-rolls to the Channel but there were no serious planning on what to do AFTER. Even how to feed these millions and millions of soldiers thousands kilometers away from the borders of Soviet Union. It was somehow tacitly assumed that were these plans to succeed no one would really care by than. Soviet army (together with the Military Industrial Complex) was a huge and very influential part of Soviet economy. So as every other army in the world the Soviet one should be allowed to plan however fantastical these plans may look like. And to train to execute these plans.

And there was a clear understanding how much Soviet economy of 80s depended on the inputs of the West (primarily the Western Europe). So these plans were a kind of a specter of a mad dog one should not mess around with. Because denying the Soviet Union access to world markets would dealt a VERY severe blow to the Soviet Union. With no military action whatsoever.

Edited February 25, 2021 by IMHO

[37mm]

@IMHO

From a quick scan, that seems to be the gist of the PHP analysis of the 60's/70's Warplans... they were fantastical but, in the event of things going hot, the military would still attempt to carry them out.

[Lethaface]

18 hours ago, AttorneyAtWar said:

Pacifism is now "dangerous nonsense".

As far as I'm concerned everyone should be a pacifist, war should always be the last resort to anything. Idealistic? Maybe. But I think everything should start from that view point, millions of people didn't die as recently as the 20th century for us to fall back on "war is necessary" nonsense.

Not that I always or usually  agree with @Aragorn2002, however to look at this subject from Dutch perspective after WW2:

Basically after WW1 The Netherlands put pacifism in practice. The idea was that neutrality would save/protect us from war, there was a large 'broken rifle' movement. The only tank we had was in a museum and had to be driven out to help defend the coutry after our neutral strategy didn't work.

So, from there the perspective of 'dangerous nonsense' is nuanced I guess. I don't think Aragorn likes war or something.

6 hours ago, StieliAlpha said:

Rest assured, not everybody in this forum agrees with Aragorn.

He certainly has the habit to make statements, which many people in Germany would start with „Das wird man jawohl noch sagen dürfen...“

Well I think that the history of our countries are in a large way responsible for these differences. We took some different lessons from WW2, so to say

Personally I'm happy for Germany to take a more outspoken role with regards to EU / NATO defense and geopolitics. We shouldn't forget what happened, but the past shouldn't burden the present with feeling of shame or guilt. At least that's my opinion. 

Edited February 25, 2021 by Lethaface

[chuckdyke]

8 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

Not that I always or usually  agree with @Aragorn2002, however to look at this subject from Dutch perspective after WW2:

Basically after WW1 The Netherlands put pacifism in practice. The idea was that neutrality would save/protect us from war, there was a large 'broken rifle' movement. The only tank we had was in a museum and had to be driven out to help defend the coutry after our neutral strategy didn't work.

So, from there the perspective of 'dangerous nonsense' is nuanced I guess. I don't think Aragorn likes war or something.

Well I think that the history of our countries are in a large way responsible for these differences. We took some different lessons from WW2, so to say

Personally I'm happy for Germany to take a more outspoken role with regards to EU / NATO defense and geopolitics. We shouldn't forget what happened, but the past shouldn't burden the present with feeling of shame or guilt. At least that's my opinion. 

World War II was triggered by the Polish corridor. Gdansk was called Dantzig since the Hansa League. Their claim must seen in the perspective of the 19th and 20th century. The British 'owned' Singapore and Hong Kong and the Dutch owned Batavia today's Jakarta. The 20th century was the century that Europe imploded, I see it as a completely wasted century. Hitler belonged in an asylum seen from hindsight. The man saw active service in the trenches was gassed and probably a lot more was damaged. Nowadays we call it PTSD.