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Azure Lion

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Dalager,

 

Thanks for confirming my research.

 

As regards being obsolete, I came across a news item online claiming that the G4 had technical problems in Afgan, and as the basic vehicle was "50yrs old", saying  something better was needed!

Will try and find the link if you are interested, or can refute this. The article was in English. My attempts to auto translates Danish articles failed as even the Danish word for amphibious confuses Google.:( 

 

Out of interest, was the amphibious capability of other Danish equipment lost/reduced over the same period? I have not visited Denmark in person but thanks to Google Street View can explore it a bit. There seems to be a fair number of lakes and rivers between Aalborg and Horsens, and on Sjaelland too.

 

Thanks again.

 

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Are you sure the M1064A3 is amphibious? There has been a trend to remove amphibious capability from vehicles for many years now - for the British Army this happened in the 70s. I can't see the point of a 120mm mortar carrier being amphibious if the IFVs and tanks it is supporting are not. Also could it carry anything like its normal ammo load and still be amphibious?

 

As to the utility of amphibious capability, it really depends where in the world you are and how well you have reconoitered in advance. Many rivers have swampy banks with reed beds, or have mature trees along them or canalised vertical banks (to prevent flooding and facilitate use by watercraft) and vertical banks are not uncommon in nature. You are not going to want to go charging into a deep, lowland river in Western Europe. There is also the question of what you will do once you get to the other side as, in the UK and US armies, amphibious resupply vehicles were done away with decades ago. Here are some pictures of the Weser to  illustrate my point.

 

weser-hoexter.jpg

 

Weser-1074.XL.jpg

 

44775033-weser.jpg?ver=6

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by ChrisWerb
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Well, I agree that the G3 and G4's are "obsolete" when it comes to stuff like COIN where the IED threat is big, but when you're talking conventional warfare, it actually does a pretty good job for what it is. Piranha 5 is set to replace it, so of course we found something better, but it is still debated internally whether or not it'll be better for the MECHINF role, as we've not used the Piranha 3 in this role that much. But it gets the job done :P

 

I don't know much about what amphibious capabilities we had(except the m113 which we converted to G3 in 1999 with the last converted in 2003, so I don't think we have had any other swimmers in our arsenal.) but maybe Major Duck can answer this more in depth.(Pun intended)

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As a general rule the Danish M113 lost their amphibious capabilities when they went from a "A" number to a "G" number if it had any in the first place.

Also note that as DK bought a lot of the original petrol driven versions these where prolly never upgraded as the the danish army downsized and where mostly kept in the Zeeland units while the diesel ones where in the Jutland units but this was a general rule there where also diesels on zeeland and petrols in Jutland.

 

1st, 2nd, 3rd Jutland BDEs where mostly diesels

1st Zeeland BDE where petrol

2nd Zeeland BDE where diesel

 

All 5-6 battlegroups as general where MOT INF or INF and had no armor if vehicles at all except 6-10 centurion 84mm which later became 105mm 5/2 dk2.

 

The problem as i know is that as the "G" versions have gotten increasingly larger and weight have increase what with armor etc.. its gotten slower and slower even with more engine power and it still retain a flat aluminium button which IED just like, when i was in i saw a 200g charge detonate against the side of a M113 and it made a 10cm diameter dent in the ramp so even though its classified as armor it issent very strong :/

 

And just a note we worked with the german landing craft flotilla and danish m113 have been landed from those regularly while i was in just so we where capable of going from island to island denmark tend to have a lot of those. 

 

MD 

Edited by Major duck
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Chris,

M1064A3. Thanks for making me work harder, for a more detailed understanding.  I was initially basing my observations on the fact that the SB M113A3 is modelled as amphibious.  According to multiple sources the M1064A3 is amphibious too. However digging down through FM-23-90  (March 2000), on page 7-17 it states "..(M1064A3) has fording capabilities in up to 40 inches of water",  but on page 7-19 the tabulated data states "Speed in water, with track......3.6mph", suggesting amphibious operation is possible in some configuration (unloaded?). This would also explain the discrepancy in derived sources. This is further confused by the Vulcan trim vane in the glacis of the A3.  I note there was an old thread about A3 and G3 M113 models not being "cleared" for amphibious operation.  Missed that.  So it looks like I have come to this from the wrong end!

 

Nils

CORRECTION: M113A3 floats but should sink! M1064A3 stays sunk! 

Oh bugger! Therefore *all* SB M113A3 or later Variants should sink, including Medic, FISTV and ITV. This will make some people happy.:(

 

How do you simulate earlier amphibious versions of the M113 without remodelling the entire fleet? Perhaps make a scenario timeframe setting in Mission Editor to govern the actual capabilities available at that date ( set "1970s," you get A1s, "1980s" -A2s"etc). This could also work for items like ammo types. Perhaps this idea is already in place to speed up mission design!

 

Chris,

Fair comment about need to recce. Any crossing point would still give an amphibious force an alternative to assaulting a heavily defended bridge. No amphib capability, no options.  Crossing points are always pre-surveyed and prepared to some degree, the near banks can be remodelled by dozer tanks in minutes, and I am not suggesting lemming-like leaps at full speed. That's just for propaganda newsreels. Ah resupply across the Weser... I really miss the Stolly too, but not all the transmission wind-up that went with them!  Lastly, if you are discounting counter-attack and the retaking of terrain as part of the conduct of war, then you are only left with escalation. You have no other deterrent.

 

Major Duck, Dalager

Thank for your detailed replies. From this might it be fair to say that scenarios pre 2000 can generally have amphibious M113s, and post 2000 probably not? This is where being able to select unit amphib capability "on/off" in the Editor would be handy with mixed capability forces.

 

Arcane but illuminating!

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Hi Trackpin

 

Sure, you can rapidly remodel this side of the river, assuming it's not under enemy surveillance or covered by direct fire weapons. So you get across the river with some of your older M113 APCs and some mortar carriers with a significantly reduced ammo loadout. You have left your tanks behind - they are not amphibious and deep fording takes preparation and is problematic if you discount Soviet "How we concreted the Elbe" propaganda videos :) Your IFVs have been left behind too, unless they're Russian or Chinese of those nifty Korean ones with the inflatable sponsons. At the end of the day amphibious capability is a tradeoff against other things - and particularly armour protection because things that are heavier than the water they displace tend to sink and things without boat shaped hulls tend not to fare well hydrodynamically :) No Western Army that I am aware of still thinks it worthwhile. You also have no resupply except helicopters which may be problematic due to enemy AD systems or aircraft. Rather than make your armour (dubiously) amphibious, why not invest the money in more assault river crossing capability so you can get everything across rapidly? The transmission windup thing with FV6xx vehicles was annoying, but the thing I could never understand was why they never fitted them with cross axle diff locks. You could have all three axles have one wheel spinning and get stuck. Odd!

 

 

Edited by ChrisWerb
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Chris

Fair enough. Full deliberate river assault crossings, as laid out in FM-90-13, were not what I have been talking about. Company level hasty crossings probably is about as ambitious as SB could handle.  Looking at the value of evening-up the amphibious capability between Blue and Red, with a view to making interesting scenarios is my hope. If you read my last post you will see I recognise that doing this with 21st Century BluFor is not realistic. Hence my suggestion to allow more recent A3 and G3 based specialist variants to pose as the earlier amphibious versions for education value.

We all  agree that NATO has dispensed with its capability, but do you see the modern Russian Army as having maintained, expanded or degraded its amphibious river crossing capability in the same time period?

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I agree that amphibious operations are by and large overlooked by the West. I think though that if advanced amphibious operations are added, the first step should be ensuring that the new terrain engine is able to give a more shallow slope to the sides of rivers. I have experienced plenty of occasions where it looks like a BMP "should" be able to cross the river, only to discover that the banks of the river are way too steep below the water line. The end result is that your vehicle gets stuck sitting in the middle of a small river.

 

Alternatively, add in a method for the AI to determine where a usable crossing point is, or at least determine if the banks of the river do not support crossing.

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6 hours ago, Trackpin said:

 

 

Thank you Trackpin. I think the Russians hanging on to amphibious capability is twofold.

 

1. They have lots of old generation amphibious IFVs and APCs.

 

2. They will potentially train and operate in huge relatively undeveloped areas with rivers that have not been canalised and generally lend themselves more to crossing.

 

However, I don't think the T-15 Armata IFV is amphibious and most (all?) HAPC's/HIFV's lack this capability - if so, going forward, tank formations will not have amphibious IFVs. The Kurganets 25 is amphibious, but I suspect only in its baseline configuration and not with the armour package that you see it wearing in most of the videos out there - interestingly the one video I found of it on Youtube swimming had the vehicle itself blanked out with censor boxes. The Bumerang appears to be amphibious in all configurations. So wheeled motor rifle formations or battlegroups will still have a wheeled APC/IFV element capable of river crossing. I do feel wheeled vehicles are the most problematic in terms of angle of bank, bottom substrate etc. however.

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Mirzayev,

 

Thanks for the vote. I think the recce aspect (finding a suitable entry and exit point) adds to the challenge. Trying to survey an entire river is clearly not practical within a reasonable SB game length. When I get round to having a go at designing a scenario, I will add some indicators as to possible crossing points but leave it to the player to decide which to go for based on METT-T. If the crossing points are, say, 50 or 100 metres long, some recce still will be needed to pin point the optimal entry/exit. This has the potential to disrupt the tempo, and requires flexible planning/thinking.

Until the new deformable terrain engine is implemented, tweaking the riverbed (to permit "old-school" wading T72s or Leos) or grading the banks is impossible. So we just have to work with what we have.

 

Chris,

Many thanks for your helpful appraisal of current Russian river crossing capabilities. Given that they still exist, given that they are training using them, then logically SB is a suitable tool to conceptualize how they are carried out and the tactical value of thinking how to counter them. I think we are done here.

 

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I would like to add 2 things
Tank Range:
       Would be nice to have a version where the targets react to different types of damage as to see the results of your aiming. To actually know if you killed the tank and not have the shell just 'touch' it.

AAR:
     Would like to see more details of the condition of each vehicle in the event report.... basically what each player would see in their status on the right of their screen. There could be an added check box for the extended details.

AI: 
  Would like the AI to report if it is stuck

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10 minutes ago, Zaphod said:

I would like to add 2 things
Tank Range:
       Would be nice to have a version where the targets react to different types of damage as to see the results of your aiming. To actually know if you killed the tank and not have the shell just 'touch' it.

 

The tanks range is meant to simulate shooting at "paper-targets", so hit=target down.

If you want something else: use the instant action scenario.

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Just now, Grenny said:

The tanks range is meant to simulate shooting at "paper-targets", so hit=target down.

If you want something else: use the instant action scenario.

That is not enough , all you get is light damage . or heavy damage. Would like to know what damage it was.

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1 minute ago, Zaphod said:

That is not enough , all you get is light damage . or heavy damage. Would like to know what damage it was.

I was talking about the tank range comment not your AAR point. Was that clear?

 

Hmm, the only thing is that the idea would inflate the AAR size a bit as these options need to be enabled in the *html file.(an quiete some work as you'd switch from 3 options to 20+ options)

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9 hours ago, Grenny said:

Apart from a shoot RPG-here option, wouldn't it be cool to have boats in steelbeasts? Like patrol boats on a river or at a coast line or something?

 

 

StRD_boat 90.jpg

 

If we ever get a way to make amphib operations possible (My vehicles can go into water, but never out of water) then yes, boats might be a useful feature!

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  • 2 weeks later...

It would be really nice to see an Map Object representing a typical Hardened Aircraft Shelter (HAS). With so many 1980s Airbases on the maps, simply having barns at the end of the dispersal taxiways is a bit of a let down ( and don't try telling me they have been camouflaged:)!)Bitburg_Air_Base_aircraft_shelters_1988.thumb.JPEG.7c54f2bc9804f13127f1555003a320c3.JPEG

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Bitburg_Air_Base_aircraft_shelters_1988.JPEG

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More advanced fire control options. At this moment you can choose at what distance your tank will open fire for all weapons. I wish that option for every weapon/ammo on the vehicle, and what kind of targets Ai is allowed to engage with that weapon/ammo. For example, on a brad:

TOW  0-3500 Tanks

25mm-AP 0-2500 Pc

25mm-HE 0-3000  Soft,Air

Coax      0-1000   Soft

                            

 

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39 minutes ago, Colebrook said:

More advanced fire control options. At this moment you can choose at what distance your tank will open fire for all weapons. I wish that option for every weapon/ammo on the vehicle, and what kind of targets Ai is allowed to engage with that weapon/ammo. For example, on a brad:

TOW  0-3500 Tanks

25mm-AP 0-2500 Pc

25mm-HE 0-3000  Soft,Air

Coax      0-1000   Soft

 

Perhaps we could have a more general range category of "effective" for each weapon?

 

So instead of each player choosing a figure per mission, using the TOW figure above: 0-3500 this time, 0-3459 next time, 0-2500 later (due to bad weather or something).

 

We could have the right mouse click with "effective" as a choice (say >75% chance of a hit) and the AI would apply that to each weapon and ammunition nature it fired?

 

Otherwise you'd be pretty much replicating the ballistic computer and punching in a different number for say each APFSDS option available on a given vehicle.

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I think the problem with that is the way crew members instantly teleport into each other's stations; what this means is that a crew which should be shocked or stunned with serious damage taken recover too fast and are able to turn the ables on the attacker. This happens enough to notice: attacker gets the first shot in, maybe one or two of the enemy is killed, but the crew member(s) remaining sometimes get the return shot in and kill the player. How many times have you guys seen a situation like this: "Gunner, sabot, tank (PC, or whatever). Fire. Target. Re-engage. Fire. Target. Re-engage. Fire. Target. Rengage." Then at some point in this sequence, the enemy target gets in one lucky hit and kills you. The ultimate blue balls. Check the AAR, and it does appear the enemy vehicle was taking damage to components and crew, but whoever is left all too quickly recover, and the attacker ends up the victim. So you can imagine a tank where the driver is killed, but the practical effects are not really shown if the tank keeps maneuvering because a crew member teleported into the driver's station the way it works right now.
 

Edited by Captain_Colossus
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