British Tactics

[sdp]

Anyone know how these differ from US Tactics? Will we have to change our tactics when playing with British units?

regards/

sdp

[Chainsaw]

yeah, tactical tea breakes ewery 30mins, just hold where you are and you will get a morale bonus as well =)

[Bobario]

British units will have a lot less firepower available. Use Elan and Esprit de Corps to defeat your enemy. Unless you have some a10`s on station, in which case you can zoom in and see the joy on your pixeltruppen`s faces.

[donnieitaly]

British units will have a lot less firepower available. Use Elan and Esprit de Corps to defeat your enemy. Unless you have some a10`s on station, in which case you can zoom in and see the joy on your pixeltruppen`s faces.

Assuming they don't fire on our chaps that is.

[flamingknives]

Less firepower, eh? On what basis do you figure that?

[Bobario]

Assuming they don't fire on our chaps that is.

Whoa? Dodgy territory or what? American planes and helicopters flying sentry missions have saved many more lives than they have taken. If it wasnt for US airpower us Brits would take far more casualties than we do at the minute. Matty Hull was killed by A10`s but the British Army in general LOVES the US airforce.

[Bobario]

Less firepower, eh? On what basis do you figure that?

Less automatic weapons (Ma Duce or Mk 19) and less integral fire support (i.e. Battallion mortars) soft skinned vehicles, no air support. Etc etc etc.

[flamingknives]

The British Army operates plentiful L111A1 (M2 QCB) and L134A1 (H&K 40mm GMG) these days, nine 81mm mortars per battalion, plus direct support from the Royal Artillery as appropriate and Harriers, Apache AH Mk1s, Tornados and Typhoons, provide air support although the Typhoon is currently a fairly austere capability.

Did you have anything else?

[Bobario]

Heavy arty and fast movers come from where?

[Lethaface]

Guess they come from the same airbase as the USA army planes, arty can be shipped through (turkey, iraq, israel, etc)

If we, the Dutch, can deploy F-16's, AH-64's and Panzer Howitzers in Afghanistan then surely the British can deploy their Bogeys the same place the US army does.

[Bobario]

But you Dutch wouldnt put troops on the ground, would you?

[flamingknives]

As Lethaface says, deploying artillery and jets is no particular hassle since:

It has been done before, with CR2, WR, AS90 deployed to Iraq and MLRS, WR and Apache AH Mk1 deployed to Afghanistan. In fact, the heavy armour is much harder to deploy than artillery or aircraft, as it weighs twice an MLRS and nearly 1.5 times an AS90. 105mm light guns are trivial by comparison.

For one thing, the RAF does have five of its own Globemasters if you have a particular fetish for air transport, and there is any number of sea and land transport options into theatre.

Tornado and Typhoon would be based wherever US fighters can be based, and Harriers can be based nearly anywhere, including on the RN's remaining Invincible class carriers

[sdp]

So what about the british platoon compared to its US army and marines counterpart? Any strength or weaknesses?

[flamingknives]

It's a bit smaller - three sections of eight and a HQ of three, but has a bit more in the way of small arms in each sections (four SA80s, two with UGLs, two LSW and two LMGs) SA80s come with 4x sights and a barrel length marginally greater than the M16, and considerably greater than the M4.

The L9A1 mortar has been listed for inclusion, so that gives HE at least, while in reality it supplies Illum and Smoke as well. If set in the same period as the US modules, the AT capability will be based on the ILAW, which is the latest AT4 but there may be LASM as well (M72 optimised for attacking structures rather than armour) NLAW has been mentioned, which is like a mini-javelin, but otherwise anti-armour is a battalion level asset (Modified version of the Javelin).

[Bobario]

less firepower, more marksmanship.

[Dietrich]

three sections of eight and a HQ of three, but has a bit more in the way of small arms in each sections (four SA80s, two with UGLs, two LSW and two LMGs)

Section = two four-man fire teams? 1x SA80, 1x SA80+UGL, 1x LSW, & 1x LMG per fire team?

SA80s come with 4x sights and a barrel length marginally greater than the M16, and considerably greater than the M4.

Much greater range than the M4 while only slightly larger overall -- sounds good to me.

[cabal23]

Less automatic weapons (Ma Duce or Mk 19) and less integral fire support (i.e. Battallion mortars) soft skinned vehicles, no air support. Etc etc etc.

SA80a2 Assault Rifle...nuf said.

[flamingknives]

Section = two four-man fire teams? 1x SA80, 1x SA80+UGL, 1x LSW, & 1x LMG per fire team?

Correct. The US calls it a Squad, the British call it a Section.

Much greater range than the M4 while only slightly larger overall -- sounds good to me.

Only one inch longer than an M4. When the M4's stock is fully collapsed.

More than two inches shorter compared to an M4 with an extended stock.

[Dietrich]

Correct. The US calls it a Squad, the British call it a Section.

Yes, that I understand.

The loadout looks like a good amount of firepower -- each fire team looks roughly equivalent to a Marine fire team (minus the AGL, obviously), but with what seems to me to be about 40-50% more full-auto-type firepower.

[donnieitaly]

Whoa? Dodgy territory or what? American planes and helicopters flying sentry missions have saved many more lives than they have taken. If it wasnt for US airpower us Brits would take far more casualties than we do at the minute. Matty Hull was killed by A10`s but the British Army in general LOVES the US airforce.

All true and not contested. I was merely pointing out that we had more troops killed in Gulf 1 by the American airforce than by the Iraqis.

I won't venture that man for man the Brit. Army is vastly superior to any other army in the world as that might start an argument :-)*

And anyway we have our own Harriers. Oops so does the USMC :-) !

Ooops I have <giggle>

[-Eddie-]

We may have our own Harriers but they're worn out and have no cannon, something I'd prefer a CAS aircraft to have.

As for the American's CAS, their A-10's have come a long way since GW1, with upgraded weapons systems and avionics, not to mention the A-10C upgrade programme to add a better capability of finding and targeting their targets.

[Apocal]

less firepower, more marksmanship.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH*cough*sputter*cough*HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Whew, you guys kill me.

Seriously, someone get the video of the RM hipfiring a FN MAG. I can't get on YouTube to dig it up right now, but suffice to say, if I ever caught my gunner doing that I would ****ing kill him.

[Secondbrooks]

Germans seems to be doing it in modern times during traning. Walk at target while firing MG3 from hip. Is right name for it "walk by fire"? I believe idea is to keep enemy down with enough accurate fire while getting closer to opponent at the same time.

I'd be interested to hear how this worked in ww2, as to my understandment at least Germans and Brits had it as their official tactic or SOP, whatever is correct term. Enfield's bolt has been said to work well for that as one could rifle with middle finger and at same time keep thumb and forefinger on bolt.

[flamingknives]

Yes, I was going to bite on that one, but thought better of it.

Firing MGs off-hand is a bit of a tradition with British forces. It's difficult to fire a Bren or GPMG from the shoulder whilst standing, so firing from the hip is a useful way of getting the rounds down for suppressive effect.

Just to add to that, and to complain about Secondbrooks being to flipping fast, but the British Army has not really gone for marksmanship but rather musketry, which is the principle of getting effective group fire applied to the target.

[Apocal]

Secondbrooks, in English it's referred to as "marching fire." Patton mentioned it explicitly in "The War as I Knew It."

My personal opinion is that the only reason it seemed like a good idea was because the American infantry had a serious deficiency in both number and mobility of their machine guns. This isn't to say it's completely useless, but it's certainly a niche technique when you have machine guns in a decent position to support your fight.

I'd like to further elaborate that the video was from a behind a wall (presumably) solid enough to stop bullets and wide enough to support a bipod. Normally, I'd let it slide, but certain individuals like to trumpet on about "superior British marksmanship and fire discipline" when IRL, they have habits and use techniques just as crappy as anyone else when under fire. But in the case of MGs, it's even more egregious because machine guns alone make up the overwhelming majority of the infantry's direct firepower. Using them as some kind of unwieldy assault rifle is like using a Rolls-Royce to haul garbage.