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Stuart wrote:The people working in Free Hell are supposed to be a mixture of the Peace Churches that won't fight but want to do their share. I deliberately mixed Quaker, Amish and Mennonite characteristics so the person speaking is a sort of composite representation of the group.

It sounded very Quakerly to me. I cannot comment on the Mennonite or Amish influence, but I could hear ol' Otto Hoffman speaking those lines. Then someone said "Amish", and my good senses left me for some strange reason.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:I think they're jokes by people who wish/hope it weren't the case. Can you tell us how many troops the Pentagon thinks it would take to occupy vatican city, or is that classified

Sorry, I missed this in the kerfuffle. The troops used to occupy the Vatican would be from the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team. The most probable scenario for the use of this plan would be the Vatican gets attacked by terrorists who then seize "prominent hostages" (read The Pope) who need to be rescued. The presumption is that Italian troops would not be available for some reason (this is a contingency plan after all)

So, what's the oddest plan you've ever seen that you can tell us about?

The oddest? In the sense of purely weird, probably plans for operations in the Antarctic.

Are there scenarios in place for military operations against an orbiting space station?

Very much yes.

A lunar installation? Mars?

Not to my knowledge although "plans" were the subject of late-night discussions while we were doing other things and waiting for numbers to crunch. We pretty much concluded that Robert Heinlein was a great author but he didn't know squat about how to fight a war. We'd have cracked his moon revolt in a few days.

Stuart wrote:We pretty much concluded that Robert Heinlein was a great author but he didn't know squat about how to fight a war. We'd have cracked his moon revolt in a few days.

Now that sounds interesting... details?

Stuart wrote:We pretty much concluded that Robert Heinlein was a great author but he didn't know squat about how to fight a war. We'd have cracked his moon revolt in a few days.

Let me guess, there'd be a few more craters on good 'ol Luna. Luna would then be a major exporter of plate glass, yes?

Stuart wrote:We pretty much concluded that Robert Heinlein was a great author but he didn't know squat about how to fight a war. We'd have cracked his moon revolt in a few days.

Anyone could have done it!

Just start tossing rocks or nukes at the moon, causing ground quakes, which fracture and destroy the atmospheric domes or whatever that the colonists use to keep the air inside. Repeat as necessary; then when everyone's breathing vacuum, send in the French Force de Lunar Rapide to kill the survivors.

If that's too nasty; institute a Lunar blockade with the warships you no doubt have; and starve the lunarians out; while some things can be grown or made on the Moon, quite a lot of high tech things needed will have components that only come from Earth.

Of course; Step 1 of either plan is to drop a nuke or rock onto whatever Linear accelerators or whatnot that the Lunarians have, to prevent them from flinging rocks at Earth.

(yes, I have considered this for my own SFverse; let's just say that the Lunarians fire a rock at France, and it slightly misses Paris; and the arriving Force de Lunar Rapide spaces everyone. )

About those AGS-17s on the BMP-2s, a couple mounts on the engine deck would be awful hard to operate, but Russia already sells kit to put one in a pod on the side of the turret.

Rear deck != engine deck - remember the engine on the BMP-1/2 is at the front *wags finger*

I'm surprised they even needed to bring WW2-vintage guns - the oldest guns I've seen the Russians use in battle are the D-44 85mm guns that they brought out of storage for short range bombardment in Chechnya.

Otherwise their favorite kind of towed gun for short-range work is the MT-12 100mm "Rapira" gun.

Vympel wrote:

About those AGS-17s on the BMP-2s, a couple mounts on the engine deck would be awful hard to operate, but Russia already sells kit to put one in a pod on the side of the turret.

Rear deck != engine deck - remember the engine on the BMP-1/2 is at the front *wags finger*

I'm surprised they even needed to bring WW2-vintage guns

Say it with me. You. Can. Never. Have. Enough. Artillery.

Chris OFarrell wrote:

Vympel wrote:

About those AGS-17s on the BMP-2s, a couple mounts on the engine deck would be awful hard to operate, but Russia already sells kit to put one in a pod on the side of the turret.

Rear deck != engine deck - remember the engine on the BMP-1/2 is at the front *wags finger*

I'm surprised they even needed to bring WW2-vintage guns

Say it with me. You. Can. Never. Have. Enough. Artillery.

Artillery is like RAM. You can never have enough.

You know, I think we could protray god as a person who thinks he is doing everything for mankind's good, instead of a evil maniac laughing at his own deeds...

Like a misguided idealist who refuse to accept other's point of view...

Stuart wrote:

So, what's the oddest plan you've ever seen that you can tell us about?

The oddest? In the sense of purely weird, probably plans for operations in the Antarctic.

What's the biggest possible threat America could have to contend with in the Antarctic? Were we expecting a soviet task force to sieze MacMurdo?

Nazis

That's who America will fight in the Antarctic. And the moon.

Chris OFarrell wrote:
Say it with me. You. Can. Never. Have. Enough. Artillery.

You can never have enough ammunition, having more tubes with nothing to shoot is not particularly useful in the absence of giant bayonets. Even at just 2rpm it doesn’t take very long to fire off ~250 rounds per gun in a day, and yet for any normal battle that would be an incredibly high rate of expenditure.

Sea Skimmer wrote:

Chris OFarrell wrote:
Say it with me. You. Can. Never. Have. Enough. Artillery.

You can never have enough ammunition, having more tubes with nothing to shoot is not particularly useful in the absence of giant bayonets. Even at just 2rpm it doesn’t take very long to fire off ~250 rounds per gun in a day, and yet for any normal battle that would be an incredibly high rate of expenditure.

Didn't Stewart comment earlier that the Russians WERE crazy enough to store a gigantic amount of ammunition for their big tube arty as a matter of course? And I'm sure there are lots of other nations who could 'donate' shells for this battle, I don't know much about the PLA arty doctrine, but I'd daresay they would have a lot of overlap in terms of ammunition...

ray245 wrote:You know, I think we could protray god as a person who thinks he is doing everything for mankind's good, instead of a evil maniac laughing at his own deeds...

Like a misguided idealist who refuse to accept other's point of view...

I would be intrigued in this idea, but that would seem to be for another fic -- unless somehow it wouldn't break the fic for Yahweh to have both of these as sides of his personality.

Chris OFarrell wrote: Didn't Stewart comment earlier that the Russians WERE crazy enough to store a gigantic amount of ammunition for their big tube arty as a matter of course? And I'm sure there are lots of other nations who could 'donate' shells for this battle, I don't know much about the PLA arty doctrine, but I'd daresay they would have a lot of overlap in terms of ammunition...

He said they have a lot of old empty shells, but you’ve got to fill them to use them and that’s not the quickest or safest process, I’d be sure more then one hastily mobilized shell filling plant is going to blow up. I don’t actually expect the Russians to run out of ammo by any standard, even the US has something like 30 million artillery shells in the stockpiles today, but I was just pointing out that artillery is not just about number of guns lined up. The US military in the Korean war for example fired off as many shells in combat as it did in all of WW2, despite deploying only about 8 vs. about 100 divisions.

I’d bet for this battle, the Russians have gone so far as to stockpile a spare barrel (or two) for every artillery piece they do have. The need for rapid fire is going to overheat many barrels and ruin them long before they shoot off a ‘normal’ expected lifetime.

Edward Yee wrote:

ray245 wrote:You know, I think we could protray god as a person who thinks he is doing everything for mankind's good, instead of a evil maniac laughing at his own deeds...

Like a misguided idealist who refuse to accept other's point of view...

I would be intrigued in this idea, but that would seem to be for another fic -- unless somehow it wouldn't break the fic for Yahweh to have both of these as sides of his personality.

I thought that using this idea is because of how christians often view their intention. Most of the time, even christian fundies will view themselves that their actions is a good one and they are 'helping' people who do not believe in god.

This idea seems to fit how god protray himself in the bible...every thing is done for the 'greater good' of mankind...

Are the Russians still using 7.62mm M43 and 5.45mm? Or have they moved to a large bore battle rifle?

Sea Skimmer wrote:

Chris OFarrell wrote: Didn't Stewart comment earlier that the Russians WERE crazy enough to store a gigantic amount of ammunition for their big tube arty as a matter of course? And I'm sure there are lots of other nations who could 'donate' shells for this battle, I don't know much about the PLA arty doctrine, but I'd daresay they would have a lot of overlap in terms of ammunition...

He said they have a lot of old empty shells, but you’ve got to fill them to use them and that’s not the quickest or safest process, I’d be sure more then one hastily mobilized shell filling plant is going to blow up. I don’t actually expect the Russians to run out of ammo by any standard, even the US has something like 30 million artillery shells in the stockpiles today, but I was just pointing out that artillery is not just about number of guns lined up. The US military in the Korean war for example fired off as many shells in combat as it did in all of WW2, despite deploying only about 8 vs. about 100 divisions.

I was talking long term. I'm sure the Russians have more then enough shells to fight a sustained engagement with everything they have, then they can work on rebuilding their inventory using all those older shell casings as a jump start. Because for THIS engagement, against a WAY bigger force then the US faced in Iraq from a static position, you need every gun you can get your hands on.

Hm, time to say good-bye to Detroit?

Out of interest what mobilisation category is that Russian MRD? It's use of BMP2s rather than BMP-3s makes me think it is not a first-line unit, or do most first-line units still use the -2?

JN1 wrote: Out of interest what mobilisation category is that Russian MRD? It's use of BMP2s rather than BMP-3s makes me think it is not a first-line unit, or do most first-line units still use the -2?

Most still use the BMP-2, and heck in 1991 many Soviet units still had the BMP-1 or more often BTRs only. BMP-3 production only started in 1987, so not all that many rolled off the lines before shutdown in 1991. Production since then has been sporadic, a couple major export orders but only handfuls more for the Russian Army. As a result the Russians only have about 1,500 BMP-3s for themselves, which is enough to fully equip only about a half dozen divisions.

I guessed as much. I've also read that the -3 is not all that good a vehicle, certainly not much of an improvement over the -2.
It's certainly not easy for troops to debuss out of the back.

Thanks for the info.

Sea Skimmer wrote:Most still use the BMP-2, and heck in 1991 many Soviet units still had the BMP-1 or more often BTRs only. BMP-3 production only started in 1987, so not all that many rolled off the lines before shutdown in 1991. Production since then has been sporadic, a couple major export orders but only handfuls more for the Russian Army. As a result the Russians only have about 1,500 BMP-3s for themselves, which is enough to fully equip only about a half dozen divisions.

The Russians only have 12 regular divisions, so a half dozen divisions is half their standing army (not counting independent brigades.)

Fyrwulf wrote: The Russians only have 12 regular divisions, so a half dozen divisions is half their standing army (not counting independent brigades.)

True, but that probably means they just have one BMP-3 equipped regiment in each of those divisions, though some likely have none. In the old Soviet army is was pretty typical for a motor rifle division to have one BMP regiment, and two of BTRs, though by the late 1980s many had converted to have a second BMP unit. Front line Tank divisions usually had only one motor rifle regiment with BMPs, but the B and C units usually had none at all. Equipment could get even more confused though, because sometimes a random MR regiment would be taken and broken up to provide a battalion to each of the tank regiments in a tank division, and it might have different equipment in turn.

So at the end of the day, any way the Russians are likely to be organized would see BMP-3s and BMP-2s in the field alongside each other, even if the total Russian presence is in fact small enough that it could be fully BMP-3 equipped. That’s war for you; you fight with what you have, not what’s ideal on paper.

Are there scenarios in place for military operations against an orbiting space station?

Very much yes.

Created before, or after Moonraker was filmed.

Most still use the BMP-2, and heck in 1991 many Soviet units still had the BMP-1 or more often BTRs only.

It wouldn't be very Soviet to take the BMP-1 out of service simply because it had been replaced by a better model - heck, I'd expect the Russians to use BMP-1Ps here, 73mm HEF would work wonders on Baldricks. If it's good enough to use in Chechnya, it's good enough to use in Hell.

(Heck, if you look at the "peacekeepers" Russia sent to Abhazia recently, they're riding around in BTR-70s. Probably so as not to look to threatening to the Georgians)

BMP-3 production only started in 1987, so not all that many rolled off the lines before shutdown in 1991. Production since then has been sporadic, a couple major export orders but only handfuls more for the Russian Army. As a result the Russians only have about 1,500 BMP-3s for themselves, which is enough to fully equip only about a half dozen divisions.

Woah. Huge overestimate there. The Russians have a few hundred BMP-3s at best - most of them being the ones produced from 1987. Production recently restarted at around a few dozen a year in recent years so Kurganmashzavod is much more happy lately.

The BMP-3 fleet has been upgraded to be a lot more capable than the original 1987 model, however (new FCS etc, though the proliferation of KBP's Bakhcha-U turret among the fleet versus simply improved gunner's sight with II + PL-1 laser searchlight is up for debate - the BMP-3s at the 2008 victory parade were all of the latter kind). The BMD-4 / BMD-4M seem to be getting priority for the Bakhcha-U turret. I suppose with so little armor they figure it needs all the fire control edge it can get.