Second

I see this to be somewhat wrong statement. [joking]Ain't it just about opposite. MG-gunners look bored thru their optics or ironsights and feed their 10th belt into LMG to blaze it at their designated target, while manly riflesquads goes thru enemy ranks like hot knife thru butter, lobbing hand grenades to left and firing deadly and accurate bursts to their right, smoking gigars and talking about ladies... Or lie in their own pools of blood shouting for medic and mom. [/joking] To be honest i don't know about war-time statistics too much, i've seen few from ww2, but would seem reasonable to think that on defense MG's in general are main killers, given that they have enough space to use their firepower efficiently. But in offense escpaciely against dug-in enemy it's those who get close to enemy which causes most damage (and/or suffer most damage). MG's "just" burns powder so that enemy would keep their heads down, which of course is very important thing for assault element and reason why base-of-fire element is part of successful infantry unit tactic.

That is true.

Harshest i've seen was where certain guys cut certain person's throat in certain war. Camera recording from 1 meter how helpless victim looked at blade closing him and then blade sunk into his throat and cut it open. They kept recording how he died. Probably choked into his own blood. Sounds like bad movie, but it wasn't. Horrible video full of other horrors of war, but that was worst.

Here's few Georgia's problems which i've heard. These were major issues and which probably destined Georgia to perform as poorly as it did. 1. Focusing on COIN-wars instead of Conventional wars. And whole military was still changing it's mind-set and practices. Mobilization plans for reserves and readiness to mobile them were poor. Not to speak about their training. 2. Too young military and/or possibly going thru too drastic changes. Bad personel quality, at least in sense that they had junior officers manning positions which should belong to senior officers. I don't know did whole Georgian army prepare it's personel for conventional war anymore... I have heard that this is habit also in various militaries in Europe which main priority have became COIN and stability operations instead of conventional war (on own soil).

I think i said something about these things being situation-based. However if i've found MG-nest which is unaware of me that is one good spot to use as advantage, even more so if i'm less than 100 meters away from it and it's clearly covering main elements flank. Scouting can be two sided-blade (even more if enemy is the one who has dug-in and has camoflaged it's positions), it just might be that T-90 is the one who does spotting and *BANG*ing. Then we don't have unaware enemy which can be taken by surprise, lying and farting in their tents and i've lost major deal of my forces already. Besides in ArmA i don't need to charge at MG before it's crew lies in their own blood... dead. At first i'd take care that MG-nest in empty and then i'd still scan enemy's reactions. If forward sector still seems empty and enemy doesn't seem to react to my opening move, then i'd start my charge. In reality? Hell yeah i would scout things up at least to some degree again based of situation. Doing things hasty and without planning against (semi-)prepared opponent usually seems to lead right into disaster.

There in the flanks could be T-90 or rifle squad in their foxholes... And this time it's they who spot us... Good bye to flanking element. Few accurate sniper shots could be enough to take out MG-nest, at best there would be hole in enemy defenses if MG-nest alone took care of that sector. Of course there could be exposed flanks, in that case it might be better to sneak to flank. So it's situation based thing. In shooters i'd usually go for MG-nest. In OFP and Arma MG-nests were easy to take out: they are static. I can see new gunner mounting MG (with his fixed head&shoulders plainly visible) and before he can do anything i've popped hole into his head. Rifle squad or tank ain't that simple to deal with.

Sure it's nice to think that flanks are empty but that generally happens only in rulebooks and in badly designed missions. It's nice to think that MG is alone there with exposed flanks... Changes for that to be true are quite small. Leading two AI-elements which requires great amount of indepence and ability to judge things right from AI... And then you suggest that only way to lead AI is to micromanage... Strange. Best way to foil things up in ArmA was to split squads into smaller independent units, like US rifle-team would work. Why? Player can't hold their hands. I'd just pop gunner down myself and would start to see how things starts to unfold.

LOL. Don't own Arma2 (and seems that i won't in a long while), but these are classics! Had my share of those in OFP and ArmA. One has beautifully planned system and then, like lighting strikes in middle of bright day, it just starts to rumble because AI doesnt' work the way one planned it to work. Oh that sweet "OMG!"-feeling when one isn't able to do anything but to see his plan to dissolve. :D Sometimes it leaves dirty feeling, sometimes it just makes me laugh. Back in OFP days i did fallback from superior enemy after ambush. I ran like madman for 100 meters to get deeper into forest and started to wait my men... Terrible gunfire blazed still as my squad kept engaging enemies in front of them. It took about minute for them to get to me while they slowly pulled back under heavy fire. Two got killed. My original idea was to open fire for 10 seconds and disappear into forest like ghosts... Maybe AI thought that i ment Zombies instead of ghosts. These things happens.

Well i started to see Ancient Vampires, daedras etc. very bad-ass monsters when i started to gain good weaponry and levels, so there seemed to be some sort autolevelling... but not as idiotic as Oblivion has it. In Oblivion whole world follows player, while Daggerfall seems to throw leveled monsters now and then at player for challenge. I could be wrong, haven't ever checked it and it's about 10 years since i last played it! And generated dungeons were full of monsters, no room to evade. But i did liked to serve mostly in different knight-orders, maybe their missions just had more monsters spawned... Thieving would be interesting to try out as i never didn't much do that in Daggerfall, now days i mostly play thief-focused characters in Oblivion and Morrowind. ---------- Post added at 10:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:05 PM ---------- Well i started to see Ancient Vampires, daedras etc. very bad-ass monsters when i started to gain good weaponry and levels, so there seemed to be some sort autolevelling... but not as idiotic as Oblivion has it. In Oblivion whole world follows player, while Daggerfall seems to throw leveled monsters now and then at player for challenge. I could be wrong, haven't ever checked it and it's about 10 years since i last played it! And generated dungeons were full of monsters, no room to evade. But i did liked to serve mostly in different knight-orders, maybe their missions just had more monsters spawned (i didn't have access to patches so my main quest, due bug, halted)... Thieving would be interesting to try out as i never didn't much do that in Daggerfall, now days i mostly play thief-focused characters in Oblivion and Morrowind.

Nice thing. Had fun with that game. I doubt i'd be up to play that game much. I'm more interested about very rich lore of Elder Scrolls than i'm interested of actual games... Well Morrowind rocks, i love the world. Problem with these games is that they are heavily fighting focused as most computer "RPGs" are. Just played Shivering isles thru and i, again, got fed up by intensity of fights, mostly in dungeons. There should be option to drop amount of enemies to one tenth of current amount and increase their difficulty by some amount (get rid of auto-leveling). Each fight should feel more unique. But many seem to enjoy it. I quess Daggerfall's dungeon generator is quite interesting option for them.

Not that simple. Same as with heavy body armors same with heavy Helmet: It will get you hit. It will slow you down, it will strain you (which has direct influence on how you do your task, poorly or well), it will make you uncomfortable and limit your agility. These all are very vital factors in sense that you do not get hit in the first place. Besides most biggest threat to man in conventional battlefield are fragments from indirect fire. They are the main casualty makers.

And for that reason in OFP and ArmA you had to issue them Combatmode "red" (in other words open fire, egage at will). Reason being that they will go into cover and wait for engage orders... Which never will come. And this applies only if they have 'engage at will' issued as during then they will seek hiding places in contact... Otherwise they just keep doing those brainless things they do. Dunno does this work in ArmA2, i don't own ArmA2... To be honest it didn't work in ArmA very well due .FSM related reasons which required quite much scripting to overcome and BIS didn't fix it ever. In OFP it did work quite well.

MBot: try to give AI 'this enableattack false' code (on init-field) and give it 'open fire, engage at will' kind behavior on waypoint. If this is same as with ArmA then he won't engage you but will remain in cover and shoot you only if opportunity rises: you expose yourself to him.

Considerning ArmA2: Is aimpoint still cubersome chunk of optics which covers about third of player's FOV when aiming? And in that way limiting it's usefulness in CQB? ... What i mean with this is transparency = both eyes open = No blind spots in FOV... sure this applies to all sight types (ACOG, ironsights), but due some reason i think that aimpoint definedly should have this feat. + that large dot limits it's usefulness also in long shots. In ArmA i basically i threw every M4 with aimpoint away and replaced it with any weapon available with out aimpoint. More accuracy to long shots and more situational awarness and reaction speed in CQB... even with ironsights.

Funny thing as reservists here are speaking is same tone about regular troops, who are 20 years old kids. Not enough life experience, insecure, the usual. Of course reservists might have pretty few deployment under their belts, while these young lads are sent to their first. Naturally training usually is overlooked. I've circled in quite few training-courses designed of reservists and it's clear that many has hard time to adjust to things, me myself included at start (after several years of break). Skills are more or less rusty, mind-set isn't what it should, no familiar group around every one being strangers. Problems which needs time and practice. And of course problems with those who's rank exceeds their skills, but still as they have higher rank they are capable... Well i have had change to evade that as in voluntary training organization ("national defense training"-organization) we don't usually wear ranks. And it's good thing: Private may instruct Major on how to operate heavy machine gun and they both are happily unaware each of others rank... Hopefully things remains like that in future.

Well reservists have to work and stuff in their civilian life!? So i really can't see them being in different level: both have regular jobs and they have to train out side their jobs, being lazy doesn't cut it. Yes regular troops are enough fed up with military things so they are more prone to go boozing than training. Key word for success is motivation and quality of individuals and organization in whole. Switzerland has been said to possess good organization for gathering&preparing able&willing guys to competitions and they usually are quite successful.

Bit offtopic but anyways: Soldier skill test in Lombardia 2009 is over. Results were pretty interesting. Reservists took 2nd and 3rd place among professionals, reservists and all that. At least in 3rd place was gained by (Finnish) conscript reservists. Muahuahuahua!!! :p Pretty wicked eh. And all were reservist officers. Which makes it double wicked! 2nd team was RAID TEAM OBERFRANKEN A... Switzerland maybe? They have always been quite tough in these kind contests. And winner is named ECOLE MILITAIRE INTERARMES... From where is that? anyone cares to guess. Can't get it in English, but anyways here is da link about subject. http://www.unucilombardia.org/unucilombardia/mainlombardia.htm

Former active, active former. Closer examination in other military service thread.

It was bare minimum with US troops to carry 30 kilograms worth of equipment which was considered vital for their success in combat, in Afganistan. There is quite complete research made conserning it. In Iraq where they can rely on vehicles it is few kilograms less. Probably meaning that they have few liters of water less carried in combat gear. Problem probably is level IV bodyarmor, heavy and doesn't breath -> sweating -> increased need for water. Dunno how fragment vests works... They probably causes same thing, just in smaller scale. Yup. It has caused quite deal of discussion. Yet, quite many nation's troops in for example Afganistan carry same loads if they are equipped with high level of protection (level IV). I personally carried bit over 10 kilograms + AT-launchers (or parts of ATGM) and had just 0.6 liters of water in where i served. Amount of water was way too small. Naturally we had 20-40 liters of water in platoon's reserves. But not all the time we were able to take that along us. If that happened incidents of dehydration became quite high. Later on i heard that 1 liter canteens became standard issued items for each soldier :D

By research i read about it was that at least 5 liters were carried in combat gear, 3 in camelbak and 2 in canteens. Sure depends of situation how much of that water is left in combat or in mission overall. I think 3 liters would be fine average. If they require 7 liters of water daily (there has been instances when that amount haven't lasted even half of day, if conditions gets hot enough) then going below 3 liters even for few hours might be bad mistake, if those few hours are exhausting combat. Rest of water, aprox 2 liters, are in "little" "assaultpack". Regular rifleman carries about 30 kilograms of combat gear. Additionally to this there comes backpack in two versions; heavy (weight is ~50 kilograms) and extra heavy (~60-70 kilograms).

When talking about weight we also should take body armor into account. Body armor is escpaciely neat is fact that it increases water consumption lots. I believe US troops regullary carry 7 liters of water per day when out in field. That and vest with plate inserts and hmm... about 15 kilograms of additional weight right from start, not to speak about all other things he carries. Some irregular soldier's whole combat gear probably would weight about same as body armor alone. If he has shovel then more :cool:

And still one's freedom fighter is another one's terrorist. It simple really: If you fight against freedom fighters that makes them terrorists. Always has been, always will be. It's really hard to try to keep civilians out of the harms way when occupying force blends into them and means and ways are limited. Guerrilla wars, escpacely if it is also part of civil war, have always been very ugly, long-long way from war of gentlemen. Terrorists or freedom fighters? Depends from whom you ask.

Somene's freedom fighter is terrorist to someone other. It goes other way around too. French Resistance, Soviet union's partisans, Vietcong etc... For that i personally like to use mix terrorist/freedom fighter (or resistance) every so often.

Like i said 60 liters backpack carrying 100 liters + 2 meter long skis. I can use cord to attach mag punches to my carrying system. If i get some sort of bag it's even better. Heck i need just long piece of string to haul all kinds of stuff along. Like Javelin missile tied into full rucksack. Or Shovels etc attached to backpack. I really don't need official carrying systems to carry something special. So i really don't see reason for specialized backpacks. You should read more with thought. Seems like you miss half of my points. If i have last 100 rounds left for MG, i'm not necessarily dying from load of few additional rockets in my backpack, which weights bit more than full belts for my MG. So yes. It's artificial limit. Simple.