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On the use of weapons... Syrian Armour


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Originally posted by Peter Cairns:

Interesting defensive feature if you head towards Damascus where the main road runs roughly east west between the Airports at SAYQAL and DUMAYR from a height of about 25miles you can clearlt make out a long ridge with marked peaks running roughly parrallel and to the north....

Maybe we should start a thread on Invasion routes using Google Earth, to plan the invasion.

use those Soviet topographical maps of Syria that i have linked a couple of times. there's lot's of good defensive terrain. Syrian invasion would certainly not be just battles in flat desert. you will also soon notice how vulnerable the US logistics would be, unless new main roads have been built to Iraq.

though of course from CMSF perspective it all depends on Steve's plans. if he wants a Desert Storm 2 thru the Syrian Desert, then it shall be just that. i just don't find such scenario realistic.

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Originally posted by Nidan1:

Your own words in another post show you are in agreement.

yes, but for different reasons. Syrians would be wiped out because of US skill in all levels, from tactical to strategical, and especially at levels above tactical. Syrians would have the best chances at tactical level, and that's where CMSF takes place. it's up to the player to make Syrian or American forces perform well. just like you can kick German ass in CMBB in June 1941, you can serve the fascist Sturmtruppen... oops, liberating Shock Force i mean... a bitter dinner.

I am trying to fathom what the challenge would be fighting as US Military in a game where the opponents are so over-matched.
i honestly don't see how they would be that overmatched in the game. Syrians have plenty of good equipment.
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Originally posted by undead reindeer cavalry:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Nidan1:

Your own words in another post show you are in agreement.

yes, but for different reasons. Syrians would be wiped out because of US skill in all levels, from tactical to strategical, and especially at levels above tactical. Syrians would have the best chances at tactical level, and that's where CMSF takes place. it's up to the player to make Syrian or American forces perform well. just like you can kick German ass in CMBB in June 1941, you can serve the fascist Sturmtruppen... oops, liberating Shock Force i mean... a bitter dinner.

I am trying to fathom what the challenge would be fighting as US Military in a game where the opponents are so over-matched.
i honestly don't see how they would be that overmatched in the game. Syrians have plenty of good equipment. </font>
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There is no way that the Syrians will be able to mount any sustained offensive against US Forces with armored vehicles, let alone T-72 and 55's.

ANY thought of that would be suicide as the USAF and Naval aviation wings would not only have intel on almost any large armored troop movement, but that would be thier first strike assessment and the secondary targeting packages. I am pretty sure that 80% or better would be handled by Hellfires from the air with the balance from Apaches and ATG mounted AFV's and Abrams. In the event anything did slip by, I am not sure how effective a few platoons of tanks could be when JSTARS and sat relays would most likely get the attention from the rest of the air wings. Hell even if they did get to that lone Abrams platoon, they would need more than a few platoons to even kill 1 or 2.

-Ray

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ASL Veteran and to a certain extent Nidan1:

I can't see any anti-american bias in Peter's post, taken in context of this thread. What I see instead is a huge and hypersensitive pro-US paranoia.

I'll lead you through what I read, and I suspect is actually a truer reflection on reality than the Kettleresque plane yourselves and Abbott appear to inhabit.

First off, you'll note that Peter and I were discussing the effectiveness of suppressive fire, where I claimed that there would most likely be too much cover to effectively suppress US Javelin teams. Peter was claiming that a T72 carries a very large amount of firepower, sufficient to suppress all likely ATGM positions. Thus we get:

Oh and there is a strange belief that US infantry, will somehow be immune to or simply ignore huge volumes of incoming fire. That folks is rubbish, all infantry in on the modern battlefield get down and stay down under heavy fire from support weapons, those that don't die, regardless of how good there own support weapons are.

Note how 'huge volumes of fire' relates to the allegedly fearsome firepower of a T72.

Apart from anything else, almost every piece of combat film I've seen from Iraq or Afghanistan shows US troops heading for cover in droves at the prospect of half a dozen kids with AK-47's
True of any army, I would have thought. I certainly wouldn't stand out in the open if anyone started waving a kalashnikov at me. They only need to get lucky once and it's rumoured that being shot hurts. Perhaps the offended parties would like to post a counter, that shows US troops manfully standing up in the open and returning fire in the face of withering MG fire rather than taking appropriate cover. I doubt that there will be such, as I strongly doubt that trained US soldiers are that stupid.

Your re-writing doesn't make any impact in context. In fact, the unquantified 'heavy fire' is meaningless. If we look at "a half dozen kids with AK47s" as the lower limit of suppressive fire, and that professional soldiers (I won't limit to US soldiers, so as to avoid inflaming delicate sensibilities) will take cover to avoid it. Therefore, by unwritten implication a good deal clearer than your intepretation and a very great distance removed from pulling it out of your arse, the suppressive effect of a number, n, of T72s roaring about dispensing burny hot death, TNT, napalm and molten cheery waffles, is bound to have a significant detrimental effect on the combat effectiveness of US troops.

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">1 < n < 10</pre>

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urc,

Each components of the Kornet masses more than the complete Javelin system, so it will be less mobile. The Metis is heavier than the Javelin as well, but only by a few kg. Both are direct attack, so there are portions of the M1 that they will not penetrate and neither are available in the same proportions as the Javelins.

Time to target is 8 seconds at maximum range for the Metis, and since these things use sustainer motors, the speed will be less the closer in you get. That's between 1 and 4 seconds at shorter ranges where the crew must keep their heads up. It's not long, but it could well hurt.

Plus, the Kornet has something like a 1 min in/out of action time. Not great for shoot and scoot.

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In Steves plan, the syrians have six months to prepare, and you can build a lot of decoys in that time, not to mention mines and pre positioned charges ( are there twin minerets in Damascus).

JSTARS can detect tanks by their electrmagnetic signature over miles, but they can't tell a tank from a tractor. In addition put a box that mirrors a vehicles ignition in ever lamp post ( with a back up battery) and run them in sequence, and you've got a phantom convoy.

Syria has to play the shell game on a massive scale, effectively giving the US what it wants, thousands of targets. They know full well that the US has eyes in the sky that can call in strikes night and day, what they need to do is give them the targets and draw the US sting.

An interesting game twist might be for support for invasion to be under real political pressure at the UN, that way the US and supporters wouldn't have the kind of build up time they had in the gulf or Iraq.

As to my anti-US bias, it it exists it is not towards America, and certainly not towards the US forces which I hold in the highest regard, but rather those Americans on this forum, who seem to think that all the US has to do is turn up.

IF I had made a comment about Iraqi insurgents or even the new Iraqi army scattering under fire, instead of Americans, no one would have battered a eye, if I had questioned the ability of Syrians to use ATGM"s effectively under 0.5mm from a dozen Strykers, I doubt anyone would have picked it up.

But unfortunately I dared to suggest that US troops would react like anyone else. Those accusing me of Bias seem to have missed the reference to Goose Green.

The British Paras their were as good as anything the US has, and in the Argentinians they were facing a defender probably on a par with the Syrians.

The result it took them more than twelve hours to go about two miles, why, because they crawled. As I said at the start the Javelins weakness is that it can't fire on the move and the crew are unprotected so that is what you exploit.

The notion that that won't work because it's to hard to find the troops or that it's anti-american to suggest that US troops will duck for cover when under 30mm cannon fire is just daft.

Two phrases I have used repeatedly are that you never fight the same war twice and never underestimate the enemy. Most of the criticisms here seem to come from people who think that an invasion of Syria would be just like Iraq and that you can right off the Syrians.

Both of these assumptions may be correct but they are still dangerous assumptions.

The British armies phrase is "Train Hard Fight Easy",

This is on the basis that it is far better to be prepared for a hard fight and be plesantly surprised by the lack of an enemies effectiveness, than to get a shock when they turn out to be a lot tougher than you expected.

I will make one prediction and that is that at the start a lot of US Players will lose a lot of CM:SF games to the Syrians, because even though they will clear the map of Syrians before the scenario ends, they will take far to many casualties in doing so, mostly because they think the Syrians can't win or even hurt them.

Peter.

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Your last is an interesting point Peter.

Everybody is still assuming that this game will be like CMX1. It is not neccesarily true that there will be points values, or even quick battles as we know them.

An interesting concept will be if the US victory conditions for a scenario are highly restrictive. You may be able take the hill easily, but can you do it without getting private Homer all shot up?

Perhaps your victory conditions will only allow you to fire Javelins at specific high value targets.

Perhaps you fail your mission if you fire over $60 million in ordnance.

We really have no idea, but these sorts of possibilities would make things very hard for a US player.

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What about a CMSF version of the Gamey Jeep Rush (Gamey BTR Rush maybe??) As Syrian player, buy scads of the cheapest crud vehicles you can, drive them at high speed at US positions. They all die, big time. Hope that US player has shot off most of the javelin & other AT stuff, then bring your T72's into play, and now with smoke cover from your Gamey BTR Rush.

As for Peter Cairns being anti-american. Pah, he's Scottish and a SNP member. He's anti-everyone!

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Originally posted by Wisbech_lad:

What about a CMSF version of the Gamey Jeep Rush (Gamey BTR Rush maybe??) As Syrian player, buy scads of the cheapest crud vehicles you can, drive them at high speed at US positions. They all die, big time. Hope that US player has shot off most of the javelin & other AT stuff, then bring your T72's into play, and now with smoke cover from your Gamey BTR Rush.

As for Peter Cairns being anti-american. Pah, he's Scottish and a SNP member. He's anti-everyone!

You have guessed the WWII version. Same game in 1945 Germany, US troops vs kids with MP40s.
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It sounds like it would be really advantageous for the Syrian side to be able to distinguish high value U.S. targets in the game. Does a blown-up command Stryker mean no Predator overflights afterwards? If you see soldiers advancing down the street do you shoot at the SAW team first or the Javelin team? CMx1 already has a crude version of this. The Ai takes particular delight in killing-off my spotters, bazookamen and officer corps.

So if Javelin turns out to be a particularly efficient weapon in the game it might turn out to be a priority target with low life expectancy too!

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I think the thing that my half of this discussion is trying to say is that the U.S. defeated the Iraqi conventional forces with a casualty rate that was extremely low. Furthermore almost none of those casualties were from heavy units or artillery. Iraqi tanks that moved to contact just died. And the Iraqis had a lot more recent combat experience than the Syrians

What are the specific factors that will make the Syrians do better?

Peter is right about U.S. players getting reminded of the laws of physics early on, but then what happens once the U.s.payer gets his tactics straight?

I don't recall the Iraqi version of the jeep rush working very well.

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Originally posted by Hoolaman:

Perhaps your victory conditions will only allow you to fire Javelins at specific high value targets.

Perhaps you fail your mission if you fire over $60 million in ordnance.

This is an interesting point. Presumably even a country as rich as America gives it's troops restrictions on what they can fire expensive ordnance at - or am I mistaken?

For instance, although everyone goes on about laser-guided munitions, I think I saw a statistic somewhere that said that ordinary unguided bombs are still the majority of those dropped, simply to keep costs down.

In some ways, if the US player calls in an expensive air strike to achieve a somewhat limited and unimportant objective, he has already lost the mission.

A scenario could play out as follows: -

US player comes under fire. Has the option to push on or call in an air strike.

Plan A: No air strike.

Best Outcome (70% chance): -

US player succeeds in reducing the enemy position and achieves a very good victory for his tactical skill and economy of force.

Worst Outcome (30% chance): -

US player takes heavy casualties and suffers a very bad defeat.

Plan B: Air strike.

Best Outcome (90% chance): -

US player cremates the enemy and achieves his objectives, but only a marginal victory is possible because an expensive aircraft was put at risk and a lot of expensive bombs and missiles were expended in the operation.

Worst Outcome (10% chance): -

US player cremates the enemy but also kills a number of civilians and a journalist when a bomb malfunctions. The objective is achieved but at such cost that the mission is actually a very bad defeat.

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Flamingknives,

it's true that Javelin is lighter and in almost every way better ATGM, but i don't think the differences matter that much in battles of CMSF scale. both Kornet and Metis penetrate all Abrams variants from from all parts & sides except the turret front, and at all ranges between 80 and 5500 meters.

i don't think it's that certain that there are more Javelins around than Syrian ATGMs. if the US player really has a full Stryker Company + at least a platoon of M1A2s, then the Syrian side should have quite a massive number of points to use for all kinds of equipment. special AT hunter groups are a historical Syrian "specialty" and should be available with low point cost. and of course one doesn't need stuff like Kornet and Metis to deal with light vehicles like Stryker. or any kind of ATGM. ZSU-23 will do the trick just fine. even Abramses have been lost to ZSU-23 fire.

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Originally posted by dan/california:

What are the specific factors that will make the Syrians do better?

i think the most important one is: we command the Syrian troops.

Peter is right about U.S. players getting reminded of the laws of physics early on, but then what happens once the U.s.payer gets his tactics straight?

i think the battles will still be quite even. i really believe the game will be easier for the Syrian side, because for the cost of one Stryker you should get 2-3 BTRs or BMPs. for one M1A2SEP you should get a platoon of T-72s or one T-72 with Western modernization pack. it shouldn't be any different to one Panther facing three Shermans or T-34/85s.
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Living Horse**** Eskimo: Nothing with wheels will be alive on a battlefield more than a few hours, much less have any combat. Only chance for rag-heads is to blow up civilians and set mines along public roads, ambush children and old ladies, kill innocent people etc. Their only hope is that an

American will get a sprained ankle and the cowardly, left-wing, kool-aid drinking, ACLU licking American media will scare us out of the war, like in 'Nam, Rememeber?

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Originally posted by Tagwyn:

Living Horse**** Eskimo: Nothing with wheels will be alive on a battlefield more than a few hours, much less have any combat. Only chance for rag-heads is to blow up civilians and set mines along public roads, ambush children and old ladies, kill innocent people etc. Their only hope is that an

American will get a sprained ankle and the cowardly, left-wing, kool-aid drinking, ACLU licking American media will scare us out of the war, like in 'Nam, Rememeber?

By Jove, I think he's got it!
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