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Steel Beasts: Content Wish List


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Cost savings and the relatively limited engagement envelope of two to three kilometers, essentially. The Bundeswehr considers itself an alliance army that won't operate without NATO or UN context, so the assumption is that it'll operate under conditions of air supremacy with a relatively low air threat. These days, of course, the Gepard would be highly welcome again as a tool against drones (even if it would require a different kind of AHEAD/KETF ammunition, I suspect).

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15 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

Cost savings and the relatively limited engagement envelope of two to three kilometers, essentially. The Bundeswehr considers itself an alliance army that won't operate without NATO or UN context, so the assumption is that it'll operate under conditions of air supremacy with a relatively low air threat. These days, of course, the Gepard would be highly welcome again as a tool against drones (even if it would require a different kind of AHEAD/KETF ammunition, I suspect).

At the time they looked at what is the least usefull system for our current deployments?

Flugabwehr...and then they listened to the Luftwaffe saying: "oh, we can do this job on the side..."

Damn, didn't we learn NOT to believe promisses by the Luftwaffe in 1941 already??

 

To get the Gepard up to speed against current threats, it would have needed:

- new ammo (KETF)

- new muzzle programming units (it only had MV sensors)

- new search and tracking radar

- new FCS

 

But gun and turret would still be great for these purposes...

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10 hours ago, Grenny said:

In germany, most.

But we sold quiete a few to Romania and Brazil...so they could make use of that 😉

If only they had been smart enough to throw a tarp over them and park them in a warehouse...

 

I can understand making a massive cut to the total number of units in operation if you think they just aren't as useful, but if you remove 80% of them from service why not keep them around as a source of spare parts?  You can keep cannibalizing them, or using them as replacements, until you get the new system up and running.

Also I bet those things would be quite effective against insurgents...

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The cost is less in the maintenance, and more in the personnel. And even then, cannibalization drives up the maintenance costs. Not so much for the spare parts, but every part that you need you need to disassemble first, and some parts are in higher demand than others, so you'll quickly end up with a boneyard of more partially gutted vehicles than working ones.

In the past decades, the Bundeswehr learned everything about cannibalization, to keep operations abroad running.

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5 hours ago, Maj.Hans said:

If only they had been smart enough to throw a tarp over them and park them in a warehouse...

 

I can understand making a massive cut to the total number of units in operation if you think they just aren't as useful, but if you remove 80% of them from service why not keep them around as a source of spare parts?  You can keep cannibalizing them, or using them as replacements, until you get the new system up and running.

Also I bet those things would be quite effective against insurgents...

For the economy, saving money keeping old equipment when not really needed, like the post cold war, is less worthy than purchasing brand new later on. On the other hand, selling obsolete equipment to third world countries is such a good deal because its new operator is eventually forced to sign servicing agreement with the donor/seller party, paying at least twice as much for obsolete and in most cases, rare parts and man power. In some cases it can even keep the donor/seller factories alive producing products that were long capitalized upon.

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At the end of the day, practically every country has the army it's willing to pay for, and the army needs to decide what gives the biggest effect within the given budget. The decision to abandon AAA was made well before drones emerged as a mass-produced pastime, and within the system of air defense, despite otherwise being capable, it promised the smallest overall contribution. So even from a strategic perspective the decision was reasonable.

Okay: In hindisight, it was also a questionable decision. So we'll have to figure out new ways to counter the drone threat. Even if we had kept the Gepards, it probably would have required a relatively costly modernization effort, and we would probably still require additional defense layers since the drone threat is highly diverse, ranging from DJI Mavic style multicopters to Global Hawk jets cruising well above airliner travel altitudes in the upper stratosphere.

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image.thumb.png.6be500a27ad8c01e33357f341d8faf0f.png

 

Functional interiors - example photo - giving waypoints via the BMS in the M1A2 instead of having to jump to the F5 screen.

 

The developers always talk about how long, and how much effort that modelling the interiors take -

 

I think its pointless if they're not functional. I spend 0 time looking at interiors and 100% of my time split between sights and outside of the hatch.

 

I think vehicles like the CR2 are fine- I was also a huge fan of games like Armored Fist and M1 Tank Platoon - their approach to use an actual 2d photo of an interior but with added functionality. Low effort, high reward versus high effort and low reward for super-modeled interiors. 

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15 hours ago, Apocalypse 31 said:

image.thumb.png.6be500a27ad8c01e33357f341d8faf0f.png

 

Functional interiors - example photo - giving waypoints via the BMS in the M1A2 instead of having to jump to the F5 screen.

 

The developers always talk about how long, and how much effort that modelling the interiors take -

 

I think its pointless if they're not functional. I spend 0 time looking at interiors and 100% of my time split between sights and outside of the hatch.

 

I think vehicles like the CR2 are fine- I was also a huge fan of games like Armored Fist and M1 Tank Platoon - their approach to use an actual 2d photo of an interior but with added functionality. Low effort, high reward versus high effort and low reward for super-modeled interiors. 

+1, and in the case of the M1A2 specifically, a way to assign buttons for the different CITV modes.  Unless I'm mistaken currently you can only change CITV mode from the interior, but I would like hoy keys for that.

 

18 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Okay: In hindisight, it was also a questionable decision. So we'll have to figure out new ways to counter the drone threat. Even if we had kept the Gepards, it probably would have required a relatively costly modernization effort, and we would probably still require additional defense layers since the drone threat is highly diverse, ranging from DJI Mavic style multicopters to Global Hawk jets cruising well above airliner travel altitudes in the upper stratosphere.

 

The personnel cost you can kinda reduce...  If I'm not mistaken, the USAF actually uses the national guard to keep lots of specialized skills around.  The idea being something like if you let them have lots of time off and stay in one place, you can keep people with special skills in the Air Force, focused on maintaining those skills, pay them less money, worry less about training other missions, etc.  And I guess that explains how we wound up with ANG units flying F-4G Wild Weasels, RF-4C recon aircraft, and so on.  They fly less so it costs less on equipment too.

Why not do the same thing with your ADA instead of tossing it all?  You can throw a tarp over hundreds of the suckers and park them in a box, and let your best crews keep a dozen or two running, maintained, updated, upgraded, keep them trained, and have them keep updating the training docs and manuals.  If you ever actually NEED some Gepards, you'll have what you need to start training the crews and bringing the reserves online.

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On 1/8/2021 at 2:21 PM, stormrider_sp said:

For the economy, saving money keeping old equipment when not really needed, like the post cold war, is less worthy than purchasing brand new later on. On the other hand, selling obsolete equipment to third world countries is such a good deal because its new operator is eventually forced to sign servicing agreement with the donor/seller party, paying at least twice as much for obsolete and in most cases, rare parts and man power. In some cases it can even keep the donor/seller factories alive producing products that were long capitalized upon.

Doesn't help much just keeping a few vehicles. The Gepard is part of a System and is near useless without that System. Other components where the Roland mounted on a Marder chassis, and the HaFlaFüSys connecting serval sensors and the shooting units...

Maintaining and training in this framework, is a huge effort

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Could not agree more with Apocalypse , would also like to see some love applyed to the tank interiors , maybe the mighty T62 ? 

Also i remember from the tank *sim* Steel Armor , from the Graviteam developers , a strategy/simulation game , where you could also be in the loader position , select and reload with the animation yourself the gun ,  i say this bc would be really cool to actually see the gun/reload animation from the interiors , but thats only my dream :) 

Happy New Year everyone , this community might be little , but really active ! 

Cheers Tom.

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personally i would like to see popups when mousing over different switches. it could contain a short description of the switch, and the hotkey. e,g "laser, RMB" "autoloader, V" also, the ability to switch to an alternate overlay system, with more detailed information about each switch, sort of like a short tutorial. 

this would make it easier to jump from vehicle to vehicle, and you could study the switchology while driving to contact, if you need to brush up on some vehile-specific skills. 

Edited by dejawolf
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10 minutes ago, dejawolf said:

personally i would like to see popups when mousing over different switches. it could contain a short description of the switch, and the hotkey. e,g "laser, RMB" "autoloader, V" also, the ability to switch to an alternate overlay system, with more detailed information about each switch, sort of like a short tutorial. 

this would make it easier to jump from vehicle to vehicle, and you could study the switchology while driving to contact, if you need to brush up on some vehile-specific skills. 

That's how DCS works.

 

Very helpful in the cockpit, but even MORE helpful in the keymapper!

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19 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

...and insignificant details like implementing a new GUI middleware. Which we're doing.

...could imagine the usefullness for CUA("computer assited training") settings by the MoD customers as well

 

Hey, have an option where the trainee must fill out the blancs for each switch (for pro PE this would be a tanknut-mini-game 😉 )

Edited by Grenny
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55 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

...and insignificant details like implementing a new GUI middleware. Which we're doing.

cool. i'll be looking forward to seeing it in about 10 years time, once the programmers are done stuffing their faces with truffles in their mansions, and going on expensive vacations. 

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