Ollie1983

IE TAW NEWYORK/ EU etc. Not sure if any of you guys frequent this place but I've had an absolute ball on the TAW New York server these last few weeks. Generally transatlantic player mix, but the American guys who run the servers or TAW clan members always play seriously, last night we were in convoys playing domination, excellent team play with some top notch helo and CAS pilots. Fully recommend these guys to anyone whether novice or veteran players, if you are looking for a sensible, mature style of play, with a good enjoyable and straight forward server setup, then look no further. I was the one driving the Abrams most of the time, me and a buddy really made an impact on the game, taking out hard targets in most AOs, and supporting our infantry in Hummers etc. Generally had a good time with minimal friendly fire for a change too (everything looks like an enemy on IR). Much better than some of my games I played in last month- you know the ones, senior clan members hope into clan only Apaches and A10s and then proceed to absolutely level every AO and leave nothing for anyone else. Instead TAW had convoys of support vehicles and hummers etc on scene, following my Abrams and a Bradley, with some occassional A10 support. It was amazing just to watch all the guys deploy on foot and spread out and sweep the AO, A10 taking down bad guys, snipers shooting from a far, someone launching a TOW from the back of a hummer etc. Just really good old fashioned team work. I think a lot of it is down to the server not being set on ridiculous difficulty levels? It was unusual to see pilots and people just driving trucks to keep the armour and vehicles repaired and rearmed, so I guess to finish up this post I'd like to say a thank you to those guys who frequent the TAW servers.

Thanks, very interesting. Quite an interesting vehicle, and very effective by the looks of it, or potentially so.

Yes, I find the TAW servers are usually quite stable, popular and frequented by the same people. Unfortunately there seems to be major trouble with hackers in them recently. I was in a game the other day when suddenly a hail of laser guided bombs fell out of the sky and completely levelled the base. Then the screen went black and it said: 'you've been pwnned muhahhah' or something similar. Other times we would get into vehicles and fly or drive for a minute or so and then it would automatically run out of fuel.

Oh well, that is tough. On a slightly different note, I seem to remember the Canadians have a mobile anti aircraft SAM launcher that also doubles as an anti tank system, does anyone know the name of it and its abilities??

You're getting a bit worked up over nothing, really. I shoot T-72, it is killed, job done. Next target, please. F35 will be a beast of an aircraft when fully operational and deployed, I love flying it, absolute joy to fly.

You aren't funny. If you feel unable to comment on the subject at hand, I'd generally recommend not posting at all. Personal attacks and other useless vitriol, are best posted via PM so people don't have to read it or have perfectly good threads spoilt by children.

Soldiers are advised not to smoke at night. The tiny glow of a cigarette can be an ideal cue for a sniper. I am buggered if I would want a light on my head at night.;)

It would be nice to have a complete loadout feature for all vehicles including all the variants of the ammo they can carry. I believe the thermobaric hellfire is a later model.

Finally, someone with some genuine understanding of the wider subject. The Russians had massive advantages with numbers, and also had more of their units closer to the battle line- West Germany was simply a matter of starting a tank engine and ploughing forward. The West realised this long ago, the West were very afraid of the walls of soviet armour not least their front line units but also because the Soviets had a tendency of storing away old equipment for years- they never threw anything away. It is highly likely that losses would have been high on both sides, but the Russians would have probably got their tracks across most of Germany in the early days. Then the problems of resupply of all those vehicles would have mounted up. There is also the nuclear option and the West had a serious plan for using nukes against the armoured columns which is why things like the Davy Crockett were dreamt up (obviously a very old example, soon replaced by much more sensible designs later on by the Lance etc). A quick bit about the T-34 though, it was a war winning machine. Firstly, it had sloped armour and was physically smaller than the German designs. This made it a bit more resistant to German shells, without the weight penalty, and also harder to spot. In addition it had a relatively light weight with broad tracks- giving good flotation in the sodden battlefields of the East. It was also reliable and had good cross country performance. The Russians also perfected tank and infantry combined operations- they rode on the back of T-34s. German tanks might have had incredible firepower (that 88 high velocity gun was a beast) and tough armour but they were too few in number, and spent half their time bogged down or broken down. The IS series of tanks was even more devastating, I have read many anecdotes about them, again, curved armour was used, they had good mobility and excellent protection for the crew. The close support version was also heavily armoured and caused a lot of mayhem in the East. A lot of the successes the Germans enjoyed was because of their training and mindset- the 88mm cannon was a prime example. Absolutely devastating weapon in all theaters, and used to good effect. The British had a comparable weapon which was actually superior- the 17pdr but it was never deployed or used in that role or in those numbers. They wised up to it later on with the introduction of machines like the firefly but it was getting a bit late by then. On yet another aside, Hitler should never have invaded Russia. Stalin was frightened of him, he could have got all the concessions he wanted by using diplomacy and threats, but he was too egotistical and went off against Russia despite the fact that countless armies have perished in the cold wastes there for all the same reasons.

I like this thread too, because I do take everything seriously, these kinds of topics are of good academic interest. Whereas others just seem to want to argue because they are pro-soviet fanbois. For the record, I'm not American and could not give a flying fig about the equipment used by east or west. What does concern me are those who seem to think the Soviets were supermen or had invulnerable equipment. When clearly, that is anything but the case. I had a great time on Arma 2 OA at the weekend, in an M1 Tusk, I was hammering town after town, it is great fun hitting Taki armour with Sabots and watching them catch fire or explode. Then you use HEAT rounds on the M113 or BTR type vehicles, cripple them and then machinegun their crews!! :D I'm uncertain which exact vehicle it was but I think I had a go in a captured BMP the other day, using its cannon I really hammered some enemy gear with that, the smaller auto cannon being particularly useful for soft skinned trucks and APCs. Anyway, my reign of thunder was brought to an abrupt end because in one of the later towns there was a full arty battery that our air power had not zeroed out and they hit us by firing over open sights, leaving us seriously damaged. Then we promptly ran out of ammo for all our weapons and had to go on foot.

lol! Another Soviet fanboi who is apparently so set in his mindset that he can't face reality. I could not care a damn about east vs west, I have no interest in their equipment, specifications or costs at all beyond a mere academic one. What concerns me is this daft notion that somehow a backward and economically crippled nation managed to produce vastly superior equipment to anything the west has fielded when the amount of money spent by the latter was many times the former!! I do laugh at the pro Russian folk here on this thread, and I wonder just who is living in 1980. Despite actual fact being thrown in their faces at every turn they STILL refuse to accept that their view point is wholly and utterly 180 degrees out! You reckon the Russians sell more arms than anyone else? What by volume, total expenditure, units sold, number of customers etc etc??? You haven't a clue have you? What basis did you arrive at that opinion from then? Every man you see on the news is armed with an AK-47? Obviously they all came from Russia then, weren't built under license or copied or anything... Really now, how old are you characters? When someone posts a clearly amateur website and claims it is on an equal footing to Janes, it does smack of foolishness. But what do I know, apparently the T-90 is utterly kick ass and the people who made Arma 2 were just biased or something...:D Many thanks for the great discussion and fun I have had here on this thread. The one about the Elbe river was just comedy gold in particular.

The way CQB is handled in Arma 2 is utterly pants and one reason not to get involved in it. Its like two men trying to box each other when half buried in thick treacle. The game just can't do it. Its far from rainbow six. In reality the defender of a building would have a massive advantage and the attackers would need a massive advantage in numbers and firepower to succeed. A smart defender is going to fire at you long before you even get outside the door or walls of a building. The way I clear buildings in Insurgency is by holding the walk button and having my weapon down the sights all the time, using full auto I put brief bursts through door ways and walls. Grenades are a waste of time because there is never enough of them. The problem is having a rainbow 6 style mechanic to the game for CQB would make the longer range engagements (IE the bread and butter of the game) much too easy, so its a question of balance i guess. Having more firepower or load outs is not an option, having blufor level an entire town to clear it of hostiles is unrealistic because it would never be done and they would never have the resources for it.

Errr, all their data and intelligence is open source. The very fact they have been at their game and are respected internationally and in many industry circles, I think, makes them 'experts' in my understanding of the term. Perhaps you have data to suggest the contrary, though. please do share it. Again, apparently western manufacturers are all corrupt and produce utterly crap designs and are forced to fabricate performance reports. That being the case, one does wonder why foreign powers spend so much money with them... Corruption and deceit was basically a way of live in the Soviet union. Such was their fear of the West. It would appear that even non-FSU residents are prepared to accept their claims. Thank heavens Beagle is not responsible for defence procurement.

You do have some peculiar views mate. There is a simple reason why Western designers had to to be very specific and careful with their claims about their products, not least because their competitors (IE other western companies) were trying to sell similar equipment and any illegitimate claim would be torn to pieces very quickly, which looks bad to your customers when you are trying to sell them multibillion dollar defence projects.... I'm going to have to admit I had a great laugh at your .RU website and your claims it was as equally valid in subject matter and evidence when compared to Janes- an international organisaton of certified experts who use verified data and sources. Unlike some Soviet fanboi website written by a collection of guys all dreaming of the resurgence of the soviet union...

Oh right. So a Russian website reporting the performance of Russian equipment, you would say this has the same gravity as say Janes?

You have to excuse me for laughing, but do you really think a website with the prefix .ru might be a wholly impartial source of information about the performance of Russian military equipment?:D And Wiki, the Dagestan war thing, not a lot mentioned there about the T-90 mate.

Lol!! Okay so the reports about M1s having extreme difficulty in destroying their own disabled vehicles, are all rubbish then? The Russian MBTs suddenly are invulnerable to Sabots, yadda yadda yadda, M1s must be pants because they were lit up by A10s... Put it simply. There is no armoured vehicle in existance that could take a salvo from the A10s GAU, being attacked from the top, not the front or the side, puts all armoured vehicles at a disadvantage. The same can be said of Hellfire and Maverick type weapons, both of which are huge and rather heavier than a mere tank shell. I am in no doubt that a T72 even an early version could withstand RPG hits, the uprated versions, even more so. As reports in Iraq etc have stated M1s and Challengers and also Warriors were being hit by DOZENS of RPGs with no major damage, the ratio of vehicles hit and their number of hits were tiny compared to the number actually knocked out or killed. The T72 or above models must be similarly resistant or otherwise Nato armies would deploy hand held ATGMs more readily- they don't. Because you can't equip an infantryman with anything really heavy enough the Javelin only works by attacking top armour.

Fine but that is why NATO troops have things like the M203.

Excuse me, what the hell are you on about? Troops aren't transported in tanks..? What on earth does that comment relate to? RPGs can be targetted at many targets, your point being??

Oh, obviously you have firsthand experience of this then.... please do share some convincing anecdotes with us or perhaps you have material efficiency reports to hand you can quote from?:rolleyes: ---------- Post added at 11:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:08 AM ---------- What makes you say that? It is worth noting that it is very difficult for the tank designer to proof a tank against the larger variety of ATGMs- hellfire/Maverick, they are of much larger throw weight and size than the more hand held versions, and tend to attack from a higher angle. The Infantryman cannot carry, much less deploy, something the size of a hellfire effectively, even the TOW is a beast of a thing, limiting their ability to kill tanks. Hence Western armies are not equipped with RPG type weapons, they are considered a waste of time. The copperhead is an interesting weapon, never understood why it was binned. Obviously cost, but the ability to wipe out a tank formation merely by firing artillery in its general direction has got to appeal. Interestingly NATO did copy soviet ideas in some other areas- the MLRS system for example, was late arriving to the party but the Soviets had rocket launchers for decades before.

This one is still going eh? Unsurprisingly the soviet fanbois are still bumping their gums about their apparent supremacy of arms despite basic facts, like, for example, the fact that the Abrams is a lot heavier than the Russian counterpart to it, and the claimed lethality of hand held ATGMs being rather negated by the fact, that in Iraq, HUNDREDS of RPGs had to be fired at MBTs to have any meaningful effect. No western weapons designer would tolerate such a ridiculously low success rate. The point I made much earlier still stands, the apparent survivability to enemy fire displayed by armour in ARMA 2 is based on the reality in real life. The M1 being vastly heavier than the T72 or any variant thereof. Whilst the fanbois might well point out that the T80 or whatever is better armoured etc etc etc is an irrelevance since I hardly think forces operating in a fictional environment like Takistan would be armed with front line equipment, even if they could afford to purchase it in the first instance, maintaining and supplying such high technology equipment would be nigh on impossible. It is worth nothing that a number of the armoured surfaces on an Abrams and indeed the challenger are sloped... Curved surfaces are generally avoided these days because of the complexity involved in producing composite materials, they can't be cast into intricate shapes.

I class them as a nusiance because in battle reports vehicles were being hit with DOZENS of RPGs and suffering no serious damage BECAUSE of things like spaced armour and slats. There is nothing handheld really that can defeat a modern MBT. The Javelin is hardly handheld really and again, only works because it attacks the TOP ARMOUR. RPGs are useful for firing at point targets but then NATO forces have the M203 which is less bulky and perfectly capable of dealing with soft targets. I do get sick and tired of soviet fan bois.... I would also point out the shape or size of a projectile is an irrelevance where mass is concerned, you could have a shorter, fatter KE round that using the mass times velocity equation had as much kinetic energy as a longer one. Longer dart shaped objects would provide better stability in the case of fin stabilization though. I would guess the overall length is limited mostly by handling considerations inside the vehicle, also tempered by the need for a penetrator to be thick enough to avoid breaking or shattering on contact with a target, I am unsure of the tensile or otherwise strength of materials like DU. Obviously tungsten carbide would be an ideal material.

If one tank is heavier than another, you can fairly deduce that the heavier one is carrying a lot more powerpack, ammo and armour. The theory with KE projectiles is that weight times velocity equals energy. Denser materials that are hard and even self sharpening put a massive amount of energy into a very small area to defeat materials used as armour. There comes a point when spending on tanks to make them better armed or armoured becomes prohibitive and you're better off having cheaper tanks but in greater numbers. Judging by the number of M1s deployed in Iraq and how many were destroyed by enemy action, I'd say the Americans have surpassed that level already. RPGs are really nothing more than a nusiance. They are inaccurate, crude and have limited range. Their effectiveness really is questionable when dozens of them are fired at MBTs to no effect. No western weapons designer would tolerate this, it would be pointless to equip soldiers with them, and ask them to carry the weight if they were not effective any more. The effectiveness of modern tank armour is when weapons like the Javelin were developed- for a start they take armour on at vastly greater distances because if a tank is close enough to target with a plain RPG, the user is seriously putting his life in danger. The Javelin is much longer ranged and has a high flight path with the aim of striking tanks in their top armour which is usually a lot lighter. Firing anything at very high velocities becomes impractical beyond a certain point because of the recoil involved and the fact you can wear out barrel rifling very quickly, unless it is smooth bored anyway.

The M1 is way heavier than the T72, how the hell you can deduce that the latter is better armoured is beyond me. :rolleyes: Cast vs forged or rolled steel- not that simple. You can't cast materials that are composites. You can weld sections together though. If you had seen megafactories you would see how they reassemble damaged or even destroyed M1s. There is a unitary central core which can be repaired and the remaining sections are simply attached or welded to this. Modern tanks are designed to be repaired quickly, hence the modular design. Having top notch armour is immaterial because it is the crew that are easy to kill or force them to abandon it. The M1 is not RPG proof all over nor is any tank. If you hit it enough times as many of them were in Iraq you are bound to see a hit that causes enough damage to damage it severely.

This has now become rather academic and off on a tangent. It is of no good discussing theoretical projectile vs armour effectiveness even that tested under laboratory conditions, it is in the field that counts. I wonder if modern soviet armour technology has found a way to counter LGBs filled with good old concrete yet.