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RedWardancer

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Played the Rolling Thunder RT Mission 1 (GE) 2017 mission today.  We were overrun by a beehive of HINDs which inflicted considerable problems upon us.  We only had 2 ADA's for defense. 

 

So, I wonder if SB can install Stingers and other man-portable surface-to-air unites.  Sure could have used them today, and any other day for that matter.  Indeed, tanks do have some rounds designed to take down air units.  Some PC's have chain guns for this as well.  But the effective chances of shooting down a moving, flying unit is slim to none.  Missiles are much better, particularly the Stingers and whatever else is out there.  They are a part of modern warfare just as the air units are. 

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2 hours ago, RedWardancer said:

Played the Rolling Thunder RT Mission 1 (GE) 2017 mission today.  We were overrun by a beehive of HINDs which inflicted considerable problems upon us.  We only had 2 ADA's for defense. 

 

So, I wonder if SB can install Stingers and other man-portable surface-to-air unites.  Sure could have used them today, and any other day for that matter.  Indeed, tanks do have some rounds designed to take down air units.  Some PC's have chain guns for this as well.  But the effective chances of shooting down a moving, flying unit is slim to none.  Missiles are much better, particularly the Stingers and whatever else is out there.  They are a part of modern warfare just as the air units are. 

 

"Overrun" and "considerable problems"?

 

Perhaps we use different definitions but looking at the AAR:

 

Timestamp 19:41 Luchs suffers light damage

Timestamp 19:59 Luchs destroyed

Timestamp 27:45 Leopard suffers light damage

Timestamp 32:59 Marder destroyed

Timestamp 36:34 Marder destroyed

Timestamp 41:12 2S6 (Gepard proxy) destroyed

Timestamp 79:24 Marder destroyed (same one hit earlier at 32:59)

Timestamp 85:56 Leopard suffers heavy damage

Timestamp 86:10 Leopard suffers heavy damage (same one as 85:56)

 

Things in blue are "our" units. Others were covering force or bridge defenders outside our control.

 

So "we" lost 2 x Marder destroyed, 1 x Leopard destroyed, 1 x Leopard with light damage out of a starting strength of 27 Leopards, 10 Marders and 6 Jaguars

 

If you count the "light" damaged Leopard in the kills, that's 4 out of 43 or roughly 9%.

 

Now if they gave you something to think about / soil your pants type moments then that's fine but as the CO, I was more interested in the wall of T-90s and BMPs than the MI-24s. :)

 

In addition, to be accurate you had no ADA.

 

The Gepards were Brigade assets "in location" to protect the Bridges on the WESER and not owned by us.

 

In addition as far as I know a German Panzer Battalion in 1991 had no shoulder launched air defence weapons nor any vehicle mounted ones either.

 

British, Australian, Canadian and other armoured units didn't have integral air defence then either. Pretty sure the US didn't as well.

 

In the game you can certainly have RBS-70 type manpads, but as the units we were using didn't have them in real life, we didn't have them in the mission. People want realistic missions so this is realistic. If you want to make "what if" stuff then go right ahead.

 

If anything the Soviets are the ones who miss out as they had (if memory serves) a SA-7 manpad per BMP and they don't get them in SB.

 

Edited by Gibsonm
Reviewed the AAR to provide some facts.
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Its well above my pay grade.

But i could never understand why Nato forces did not have more ADA type assets.

I realise the assumption was that Nato air force assets were superior and air dominance would be attained quickly. 

But look at the Yom Kippur  war.

As a example the Israelis got one hell of a surprise with the amount and effectiveness of the soviet supplied Sams.

 

 

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Bundeswehr structure (HS IV) in 1990/91 would have had, normally, one Gepard platoon per combat battalion (tank, or mech) as the regular detachment, IOW, one Gepard per company. TECHNICALLY the Bundeswehr inherited a lot of Strelas and some Iglas (and decided to keep the Iglas), but of course in 1991 due to the turmoil of reunification they wouldn't have been distributed to more than a handful of ex East German formations. And of course, none of them would have been given to tank battalions, only mech.

 

Bundeswehr had a considerable amount of ADA (Roland, Patriot, Hawk, and Nike, also Stingers in the mech battalions). US forces did not have that many systems in the mech and tank formations, but they counted on the US Air Force for cover (and probably rightfully so).

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Typically a single M163 Vulcan was attached to each tank-mech team or cavalry troop in that time frame.  Besides the 20mm, it carried 4-6 shoulder fired Stingers, but they were a pain to deploy since the vehicle lacked the internal space to store them. Avengers were in service then, but were retained at Brigade and higher to protect TOCs and larger command posts.  As an aside, the Vulcans were only attached when we went to war, and we never trained with them during maneuvers.  This made their employment at the company level...less than optimal. 

Edited by MAJ_Fubar
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In the old days, before the german army scrapped Air-defence in total (very foolish IMHO) there was the following strukture:

 

AD units are a brigade asset, one battery got attached to each BN, as Ssnake said the (kind of) equals 1 Gepard Group per company.

The battery got onyl attached...they where not TACON of the BN. The difference is, that the battery CO will sit in the BN briefing, but he will not receive orders from the BN CO...he only get requests for AD from the combat units which he then may or may not follow IOT keep in mind the overall AD plan made by brigade an higher up...So often the AD plan would not shape to the BN's planned course of action, but the other way around.

 

Also one Gepard group would consist of:

1x AA-Tank Gepard+1x Gepard crew

1x2to Truck (UNIMOG) +2x Gepard crew +1x Stinger AD-missle system

So the Gepard could operate in a 3 shift system 24/7

 

For the average Gepard crew on Ex with the combat troops the day looked like this:

8-hours inside the Gepard=> 8 hours outside the Gepard with a Stinger on their Shoulder and a MG3-on AD tripod next to them => 8 hours rest...rinse and repeat

 

As it is very very warm inside the Gepard(big as computer and 2 Radars inside the turret) and they quiete cold outside ware they stand around for hours sans moving...you could usually recognize the AD soldiers by their running nose/cough etc etc

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Just did some research in to how effective manpads are.

Read some conflicting views but it seems the singer  was quite effective the British blow pipe not so much so.

The soviet manpads seem to be effective against there own planes helos, they have had some success against western airframes and have some kills credited to them.

 

 

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The Igla was rated rather favorably by our AD instructor on officer's course after the reunification of Germany. The Strela, he called a "revenge weapon" because you were limited to engaging the hot rear of a jet bomber (when the damage was already done). Blowpipe didn't perform well during the Falklands. Assuming that the British soldiers were well trained, this leaves the option that either the missile itself wasn't too great, or that the Argentinian Pilots with their extreme low level flying managed to evade much of the engagement envelope. In that case it would arguably have been an operational success because they had to fly so low that the bombs they dropped didn't have time to activate their fuzes before impact. Whether the Stinger would have performed so much better under the same conditions (fast air / low level) rather than when the target has zero chance of escaping (slow helicopter at high altitude) remains up for debate.

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Quote

 

The downside of shoulder fired IR-homing missles like Strela/IGla/Stinger, is that you have to cool down the warhead(SB players know this from the Javelin)...so you need some warning before the aircraft pops up, if you start readying the missle once you SEE the aircraft yourself, it is usually to late. SACLOS missles like Blowpipe had an advantage in that regard.

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23 hours ago, Grenny said:

The downside of shoulder fired IR-homing missles like Strela/IGla/Stinger, is that you have to cool down the warhead(SB players know this from the Javelin)...so you need some warning before the aircraft pops up, if you start readying the missle once you SEE the aircraft yourself, it is usually to late. SACLOS missles like Blowpipe had an advantage in that regard.

Form what i have read blowpipe had a bad track record the Afghans did not score a single kill against the soviets

This was attributed to poor training.

But by all accounts it did not perform well in the falklands conflict against low flying aircraft either.

And UK special forces were issued stingers.

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I think whether a tank battalion had organic AD is a bit moot considering that battlegroups would have been created with AD assets devolved into them. For the UK this would, at various times, have included Blowpipe (MCLOS), Javelin (SACLOS), Javelin S-15/Starburst (Laser Beam rider) and Starstreak (Laser beam rider) and Tracked Rapier (SACLOS with TI from 1991) and Stormer mounted Starstreak.

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2 hours ago, ChrisWerb said:

I think whether a tank battalion had organic AD is a bit moot considering that battlegroups would have been created with AD assets devolved into them. For the UK this would, at various times, have included Blowpipe (MCLOS), Javelin (SACLOS), Javelin S-15/Starburst (Laser Beam rider) and Starstreak (Laser beam rider) and Tracked Rapier (SACLOS with TI from 1991) and Stormer mounted Starstreak.

 

I'm afraid there just isn't enough to go around for every Battlegroup to get their own "slice".

 

If you look here (yes I know its open source): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORTHAG_wartime_structure_in_1989#7th_Panzer_Division

 

You'll see that 7th Panzer Division has 36 Gepards between some 12 Pz or PzGdr Battalions and a mass of soft targets.

 

Those rare AD assets go to protect large high value targets like Logistic hubs, HQs, key routes, defiles, etc. even if your Battalion got say 2 (say 6% of the Division's allocation), the CO is going to use it to protect the same stuff, his CSS and HQ. Your Tank Company has bu**er all chance of getting its own.

 

Across NATO its a similar story:

 

1 British Corps (4 x Divisions) gets 2 Regts of Air defense - 24 Tracked Rapier (suitable for non static roles) and 72 Towed (key point defence).

 

Fighting units, by and large, need to fend for themselves.

 

Edited by Gibsonm
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Mark, thats not fully correct. At later stages the Rolad SAM system would do much of the "in depth AD"

Also the "rear areas" where meant to be guarded against Airthreats by dislocation, cover camoflage and their own AD assets. CSS and HQ units had "security platoons" armed with 4-6 20mm AD canons (basicly the Marders gun mounted on a gun carriage)

The Gepard groups where indeed intended to move and fight with the line units.

 

They where not kept in reserve though, so units on the front line, had them, those just behind in reserve, not. But they where NEVER under TACON of the BN commander. They just happen to operate in his AOR and coordinate with him.

So if the brigade(or division) decided its more important to protect bridges or other area...thats it.

 

 

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On 1/8/2017 at 1:24 AM, Gibsonm said:

 

 

 

British, Australian, Canadian and other armoured units didn't have integral air defence then either. Pretty sure the US didn't as well.

 

 

 

 

British Forces had rapier integral air defense system. And is still in use today most recent use was 2012 Olympic games as part of air defense system.

Usually operated by the Royal Artillery air defense sqn and royal air force regiment  

During Gulf War One, 12 and 16 Regiment Royal Artillery tracked batteries, combined to provide Tracked Rapier support to deployed armoured regiments. 

 

th?id=OIP.M9e9771edfcd43ddd2d698283e187b97eo0&pid=15.1&P=0&w=264&h=177LC14_r0077_02.jpg

Edited by wilso845
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On 15/01/2017 at 0:53 PM, wilso845 said:

British Forces had rapier integral air defense system. And is still in use today most recent use was 2012 Olympic games as part of air defense system.

Usually operated by the Royal Artillery air defense sqn and royal air force regiment  

During Gulf War One, 12 and 16 Regiment Royal Artillery tracked batteries, combined to provide Tracked Rapier support to deployed armoured regiments.

 

Sure, the key word is "integral" in my quote.

 

That means under command of the supported unit.

 

I suspect you are confusing that with "integrated" where the radar, fire control system and missile are all on the one vehicle?

 

How many tracked Rapier batteries under command (i.e owned by) CO 2 RTR or Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, or QDG?

 

Zero.

 

Sure the Brigade commander might allocate some of what he receives to a given BG, but the BG CO can't rely on having them 100% of the time.

 

Edited by Gibsonm
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Interestingly the UK arms company Marconi Electronic Systems built a (SPAAG).

The turret can be fitted to many different types of hull.

It was called the marksman but was never bought by the MOD. the only customer was Finland

Just another example of the MOD Not buying the equipment they actually needed to busy spending billions then cancelling the projects

Or like some of Nimrods they ordered building them then scrapping them before they were ever used.

 

Originally the turrets were on T-55 hulls but the Finns wanted the system to be able to keep up with there armoured formations so have been placed on Leo-2 hulls

Since there were only seven built in total, not much point looking for there addition in SB. Lol

 

Kalustoesittely_itsenäisyyspäivä_2015_17_Leopard_2_Marksman.JPG

Kalustoesittely_itsenäisyyspäivä_2015_17_Leopard_2_Marksman.JPG

Edited by Marko
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Mark, you also left out the shoulder fired MANPADs. We actually purchased something like 156 Self propelled starstreak systems to cover a force that was susbstantially smaller than we had in place in the Cold War. In 1991, hastily upgraded Tracked Rapier (added TI) from 12 and 16 AD Regiments covered movement of armoured units which is what they were designed to do.

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Well the scenario was set in 1991 and all my comments have been about that issue as it related to the scenario and the OP's comment.

 

The only time I've strayed from that time frame was in response "Wilso845"s comment.

 

1 hour ago, ChrisWerb said:

Mark, you also left out the shoulder fired MANPADs. We actually purchased something like 156 Self propelled starstreak systems to cover a force that was susbstantially smaller than we had in place in the Cold War. In 1991, hastily upgraded Tracked Rapier (added TI) from 12 and 16 AD Regiments covered movement of armoured units which is what they were designed to do.

 

I assume when you say "1991" above you mean OP GRANBY? That's not relevant to the scenario that started this discussion which is set in Germany in 1991 and has those same assets deployed throughout BOAR, not the one armoured division sent to the Gulf.

 

The UK "emptied the shop" to ensure they had everything in theatre for GRANBY, even cannibalising vehicles in Germany for spares. So of course there are more AD weapons per fighting units. Just like in other smaller recent conflicts Bn units have Div sized allocations of ISR resources, etc. because only Bns were deployed. But that's another topic.

 

If you want a tracked rapier with your tank troop, then SB lets you do that (albeit using a proxy for the Rapier). If you want manpads, place a bunch of RBS-70s in some APCs and have them move with the Infantry Platoon.

 

But:

 

1. It's not accurate for 1991 - in Europe with a Cold War gone hot.

 

2. It's not how they operate in real life, where "scarce resources are controlled at the highest level".

 

I suspect further comment on this from me is a waste of time.

 

Edited by Gibsonm
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