NATO module; why I think the dutch should be in.

[Aragorn2002]

Quote from Quora (not my text, but I agree in general, although it's clearly a bit blinded by nationalism ):

 " In the fiftees, we started to invest in our Armed Forces, at the same pace as our allies. Thank to our longstanding ally Uncle Sam, we received money to build up our conventional forces. Like another answers already stated, we also made preparations to dam the major Rhine rivers. If the Soviets would invade our country, we could make sure that they would face an impassable mudbarrier. This is of course not effective against paratroopers, but would be quite an effective answer to the Soviet tank waves.

Our navy began to regain its former glory, and was expanded with an aircraft carrier, twelve destroyers, two cruisers and eight submarines.

The aircraft carrier was acquired in 1948. The Dutch population consisted of 9,7 million people. This makes us the smallest country in population to ever have an aircraft carrier.

In the sixties, our navy began to produce more modern vessels of its own design (side note: the United States of America did not allow us to nuclear propulsion). The army became fully mechanized - however - our conventional firepower was therefore neglected.

In the seventies, which was a good year for our armed forces, we decided to adhere to John F. Kennedy’s flexible defence strategy in which we started focussing on conventional defence. While the Belgians, French, British and Canadians reduced their forces, we decided to go along with Germany and the United States of America to enlarge our forces. This meant the following (according to Wikipedia):

·       In the mid-eighties, the Dutch heavy units equalled the British in numbers.

·       The Dutch Corps (main components: 1st division and the 4th division) sector at Elbe was the only one to have its own reserve division (5th division).

·       It was conceived as to be able to hold an attack by nine reinforced Soviet divisions (10,000 AFVs).

o   This is, however, undermined by foreign media.

·       The Royal Netherlands Navy had over thirty capital vessels.

·       The Royal Netherlands Air Force had about 200 tactical planes.

·       At the height of the Cold War, the Netherlands had almost 1,000 battle tanks at its disposal. To compare, West Germany had about 4,907 tanks and France had about 1,868 tanks.

To summarize it, I think we did a great job for the size of our country. Our troops were motivated, and like the other answers already stated, the individual quality of our soldiers was at least on par with other conscript armed forces in Europe. If the Cold War had become World War III, the Dutch Armed Forces would have played a considerable role in the defence of West Germany.

Anecdotes and silly stories aside: overall, the Dutch army was considered to be as good as other NATO armies, a bit above average perhaps. It was certainly better equipped than most.
In 1978 (for example) the army was 75,000 strong, including 43,000 conscripts, with 800 main battle tanks. Conscripts served for 14 months; there were 145,000 army reservists. (Air Force: 17,500 with 162 combat aircraft, Navy: 17,000 incl. 2,900 Marines, Gendarmerie/Marechaussee: 3,800). In case of war the Dutch 1st Army Corps was to defend a sector of the North German Plain, about 100 km wide, with two divisions initially and a third filled out with reservists if there was time to call them up.

Some people made the mistake of thinking that soldiers with long hair could not be good soldiers. Apparently they had never heard of Alexander the Great and his Macedonians. Or Napoleon's hussars, who even sported braids.

Anyway, the excessively long hair appeared during only a relatively short period in the mid-late 1970s. I might note that the US Army had serious discipline problems in the years after the Vietnam War, when morale was at a low ebb.

There was at the time a tank gunnery competition between NATO countries called the Canadian Army Trophy. Tank platoons of moderately long-haired Dutch conscripts won it twice, in 1985 and 1989. The Belgians (another conscript army) also won it twice.

America's proud professional soldiers (1 Platoon, D Company, 4/8th Cavalry) only won it once, in 1987, I am sorry to say. British and Canadian professional soldiers were not doing markedly better. And that was not because they weren't trying, this competition received a lot of publicity and had a definite impact on procurement policies worldwide.

It is also noteworthy that by the early to mid-1980s the Dutch army was in some respects better equipped than the US Army (Leopard 2 vs M60A3, YPR-765 with 25 mm gun vs M113, twin 35 mm AA guns on tank chassis (Gepard) for which the US Army had no equivalent after the Sergeant York project failed))." 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 12, 2022 by Aragorn2002

[chuckdyke]

Meantime 'Down Under.'

[Aragorn2002]

6 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

Meantime 'Down Under.'

Pre-WW2, the time of the "Broken Rifle"- movement and the economical crisis. But yes, very stupid. Same as our present defence situation. More investments are coming,  but much too late. Some people never learn.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Aragorn2002

[chuckdyke]

1 minute ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Pre-WW2, the time of the "Broken Rifle"

The Dutch have water and the Australians have space. That is what beat the Japanese in World War 2. They started at the North Coast of Papua New Guinea and by the time they closed in on Port Moresby they were knackered. The weapons same as the British basically WW1 gear. I like cartoons no offence intended and the Dutch Corp of Royal Marines have an excellent reputation. 

[Aragorn2002]

1 minute ago, chuckdyke said:

The Dutch have water and the Australians have space. That is what beat the Japanese in World War 2. They started at the North Coast of Papua New Guinea and by the time they closed in on Port Moresby they were knackered. The weapons same as the British basically WW1 gear. I like cartoons no offence intended and the Dutch Corp of Royal Marines have an excellent reputation. 

The dutch navy had to sent it's few ships with hundreds of navy men to certain death in the Java Sea. One of my uncles was among those brave men. So I completely agree with the cartoon.

[chuckdyke]

7 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

The dutch navy had to sent it's few ships with hundreds of navy men to certain death in the Java Sea.

The name of that formation was 'Het halve minimum'. Half of what are the minimal requirements. Only the Dutch could come up with an expression like that. It is 11 pm here time for some sleep. 

 

Edited January 12, 2022 by chuckdyke

[Aragorn2002]

2 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

The name of that formation was 'Het halve minimum'. Half of what are the minimal requirements. Only the Dutch could come up with an expression like that. 

 

De kosten gaan voor de baat uit. That's a lesson we could have learned by then.

[The_Capt]

44 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Some people made the mistake of thinking that soldiers with long hair could not be good soldiers.

LOL.  The crap we used to worry about...

[Aragorn2002]

7 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

LOL.  The crap we used to worry about...

My father simply stated to my brother and me'"You can go to a hair dresser, or I will let your mother cut your hair". After that we simply went. I dearly love my mother, but she was a terrible hair dresser.

[danfrodo]

Heck yes Dutch should be in!!  Why should they be spared from my ongoing tactical blunders

[Aragorn2002]

1 hour ago, danfrodo said:

Heck yes Dutch should be in!!  Why should they be spared from my ongoing tactical blunders

Or mine.

[zmoney]

I really enjoy playing with Dutch forces in CMSF2. So I would love to see if them in this. In fact if the mods for CMSF2 came out for this plus a French mod I think that would be perfect.

[danfrodo]

The French would be fun also, I agree, they have unique gear.  Always fun to have a whole new set of toys.

[Aragorn2002]

51 minutes ago, zmoney said:

I really enjoy playing with Dutch forces in CMSF2. So I would love to see if them in this. In fact if the mods for CMSF2 came out for this plus a French mod I think that would be perfect.

Brits, Germans and Dutch. The rest is bonus.

[Redwolf]

What standard rifles would British and Germans have in the current CMCW timeframe?

Is it all still 7.62x51 NATO?

[Kevin2k]

I wondered, it seems to be like this

British - L1A1 to L85A1 -> in service 1985

Germans - G3 to G36 -> in service 1997

Dutch - FAL to Diemaco C7 -> selected for service 1994

 

[Bufo]

1 hour ago, danfrodo said:

The French would be fun also, I agree, they have unique gear.  Always fun to have a whole new set of toys.

Yes, the French would be much more interesting to have than the dutch. They mostly have german equipment mainly anyway afaik. French is much more unique.

[Aragorn2002]

13 minutes ago, Bufo said:

Yes, the French would be much more interesting to have than the dutch. They mostly have german equipment mainly anyway afaik. French is much more unique.

It certainly is.

[BeondTheGrave]

The Dutch and other NATO countries would be a good addition IMO after the German modules since, AFAIK, there is a lot of overlap between the German and Dutch kit. IMO a NATO non-specific module would actually be pretty cool, you could have the Dutch, Belgian, Danish, and maybe even Canadian armies all rolled up into one pack. Nationalism aside, Im not sure any one of the countries could support a module by themselves, especially if were already fated to get a West German module. I mean how many unique vehicles would you really be able to squeeze out of the Dutch army by itself? And is it's TOE that unique compared to other NATO forces? That I genuinely dont know. But if you rolled a few of those countries together, had some light decal/camo color swaps, and then modeled in a few of the vehicles which were unique to each (some of which have already made it into SF2?) I think that would be a pretty worthwhile module. Especially if it comes with, as is my hope, a bit of extra Soviet/Pact gear as well. 

But then I'm not a game designer and maybe what I've just described is a hell of a lot more work than just ctrl+c, ctrl+v. What I want, what is possible to make in a reasonable timeframe, and what is profitable from a business sense can be three totally different things. 

[Sequoia]

I was hoping someday there might be a CMN module that included the Princess Irene Brigade. Rangers and Commandos for CMN are on my wish list too.

[Aragorn2002]

Well, I guess the countries for the NATO module have already been selected (and hopefully more than that), so we will see.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I vote for an expansion to Soviet forces, plus the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, Mujaheddin & Tribals.....CM:A2 with working Stingers!  Oh my! 

[ratdeath]

Engine 5 with performance updates and many, many expansions for Cold War.

Middle East, Scandinavia, South Europe, More nations in central Europe, Soviet invasion of US mainland, they wont run out of hypothetical battlefields for a while

[chuckdyke]

What happened with the DAF APC? It was an eight wheeler.

 

[Bearstronaut]

On 1/12/2022 at 6:03 AM, Aragorn2002 said:

Some people made the mistake of thinking that soldiers with long hair could not be good soldiers.

When I was a PFC at the US military language school 12 years ago there was a Danish officer I knew who looked like Brock Samson from the Venture Brothers cartoon. I posted an image if you've never seen the show (which is hilarious BTW). Dude was an absolute badass and we all knew it. There was also an American Green Beret warrant officer who used to go to the coffee shop around the same time I did everyday who had a permanent 5 o'clock shadow and longish hair that was completely out of regulation. Nobody said **** to him about it.