Search:

The grenade is low density and relatively low velocity. Its effective range drops dramatically if there's some wind.

Effective range against moving targets sucks as well, for the effective frag...

There were three more major reasons in Germany:

# A national myth about how conscription ensures that the military is loyal to the democracy (sure, as if Hitler had not re-introduced...

It takes about half a year to train an infantryman fully, including short-range scouting. Make that 9 months in peacetime due to weekends and lower intensity.

The problem with conscript armies is...

You didn't get my "it's luxury" point.

Compare your Vietnam IDs with foreign IDs and you'll see that their army aviation support is anywhere from non-existing to much smaller.

Sure, army...

Infil for 500 km cannot be done with helicopters if the enemy is well-equipped. That's far too risky even over Southern Chinese mountain terrain. The helicopters would take four hours even if they...

I mentioned casualties because the need for quick exfil was the very best explanation for why anyone would consider helicopters a necessity for LRS.

Speed and time are only critical if the...

Have a look at any given scenario, compare the area and the forces involved. In most scenarios you could infiltrate and exfiltrate in a Lada Niva without unacceptable risk.

You're too much...

Oh come on. Army aviation is the luxury version of LRS insertion and LRS exfiltration.

Competent and motivated LRS can their job do without such support, even if that means that the losses rise by...

There's no real need for a Div level and LRS should be assigned to Corps (I'd say a Bn or Rgt each).

Modern operational theory is very mobile and expects long marches of Bdes with short notice.
...

I thought the NTC mock battles were rigged to overemphasize recce & counter-recce by adding a static early phase for recce (till sometime around 2005)?

I personally tend to favour a mix for the...

Question:
Wasn't 1980-1992 supposed to be the great period of the U.S. Army resurrection after Vietnam and pot, before the bad, bad peace dividend a.k.a. Clinton??


Remark:
Cav Scouting should...

Wilf, such figures are for units, but large units need to march on a street one after another.

Thin of pre-20th century armies setting up amp at the end of a day's march when the last units were...

I used the search function and only found 40 kph (Wilf) and 40 km/h (me), not a single one mentioning 40 km/day.


About the speed of the German units in the 2. Ardennes battle:
Are you aware...

The originality is not so much in the concept as in the gluing together of its parts. There are historical examples and analogies for pretty much every bit.

And I guess I'm not gonna help the...

1 Take a map of a potential conflict region, take the quantity of arm units that would fight there. Now take away one third as reserve.
2 Look at the force density along an imagined "front".
3 Now...

And that will change once change is necessary for survival. Major warfare is an evolutionary shock for military organizations. They change a lot.
We couldn't even triple our brigade count without a...

I do partially disagree.

Historical info is valuable in pointing out the impossible under certain conditions and it's a rich source, but it's not very useful if you want to develop something new,...

I'm working on that answer - it's exactly my area of research. Few parts of it are (anywhere near) ready to be published.


We should exploit this great time of no pressing conventional threats...

Average and median are really of little interest.

A WW2 armoured corps with 40 km/h tanks* advanced 400 km in quite exactly four days- against the opposition of several conventional divisions in...

the link didn't work:
link

That's something I have said for years, but I've scaled it down to a more practical approach.

Infantry should in fact place a much greater emphasis on camouflage to enhance its survivability.
The...

It's all about the mix. You need some centralized courses to dissipate innovations quickly.

The German Army detected many shortcomings in its 1939 Poland campaign.
The lessons learned (that were...

I always thought it's common sense that all combat (sub-)units (down to squad Ldr and his 2nd) that move independently (at minimum platoon) should be able to call for fires.

The officers of...

The need for expensive rifles is gone. There's a sub-MOA rifle in 7.62mm available on the civilian U.S. market for less than 500 US-$. The scope would be separate, but doesn't need to be more...

Most systems rely on the supersonic crack created by the bullet.
That supersonic crack is not being caused by subsonic bullets, which can be powerful nevertheless by being heavy.

Look at this,...