The Military Thread

I have to say, the most interesting part of that article was that there are apparently Trump administration officials arguing that we should withdraw from the region in order to confront "Russia and China." I was unaware that Islamic Fundementalism was being replaced by Russia and China as the new bad guys, though I suppose I should not be surprised.

"Pivot to Asia" was an Obama thing, and Russia has been an issue earliest in 2008 (Georgia). 2014 at the latest.

Edited by TerminusEst on Mar 30th 2020 at 2:06:36 AM

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele

That's a huge part of why the TPP was a thing in the first place. It was ultimately meant to limit mainland China's ambitions to buy their way into being the new superpower.

Disgusted, but not surprised

Wait, the NY times is paywalled?

Inter arma enim silent leges

More than ever before.

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele

Speaking of locking down the West Pacific: the JGSDF is deploying SAM and ASM batteries to the island of Miyakojima, near the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Guess that if you can't get ahead in the naval race, the next best thing is area denial via land-based weapons, and Japan can play that game just as well as China could.

Also, anyone knows what's happened to the USMC's ACV program? Just occurred to me that getting rid of the M1s and their logistics baggage might not be such a bad idea if they've still got a decent fleet of amphibious armour to fall back on.

Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)

I guess I never noticed, I stuffed my browser with a lot of anti-ads and anti tracking apps, I guess one of them is messing with the NY times paywall.

Inter arma enim silent leges

Admittedly, despite being by far the most mechanized of all Asian armies at the time, Japan had the finest light infantry and engineers in their area of World War II. Japanese fortifications are nothing to scoff at.

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Mar 30th 2020 at 6:19:03 AM

Serbia joining NATO, huh? Teenage me wouldn't have bet on that possibility back in the nineties.

Speaking of, I recall Russia being, if not trouble, at least problematic during the Clinton administration. There was a whole thing where they decided to join a NATO peacekeeping operation without letting NATO have a say in the matter, basically just barging in and landing their troops, I want to say during the whole Kosovo affair with the Serbians.

It was more than joining an operation, Russia troops came in and took a local airport, the American general then ordered the nearby British troops to charge the airport, it could have caused WW3.

The British troops (with the backing of their general) then told him to get stuffed, having been put near the possible Russian entry-point specifically so that someone sane would be the first ones to encounter the Russians.

Kosovo almost got split in two over it, the US was able to get Eastern European nation to close their airspace and thus force the Russians to work with NATO rather than takeover their own bit of Kosovo.

Edited by Silasw on Mar 31st 2020 at 10:35:26 AM

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_NATO

This wiki has a detailed page on NATO's relations with other countries that may or may not join it, but worked with them in peacekeepng and training ops.

Currently IIRC, Cyprus and Kosovo want to join, but the latter has a bumpy road ahead.

I heard talk as far as 2008 that a proposal was made to make NATO global for countries to join like Colombia, Australia/New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Japan.

Edited by Ominae on Mar 31st 2020 at 3:47:18 AM

The problem with a global NATO concept is that you have to define everyone’s territory, right now it’s everything north of the Tropics of Cancer, if you go global than attacks on Guam, the Falklands, French Guiana, British Indian Ocean Territory, United States Force Korea, Japanese outlying islands, ect, all count.

You’d be better off making a new global defence pact.

Edited by Silasw on Mar 31st 2020 at 10:42:24 AM

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

These maybe the most atrocious berets I have ever seen.

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele

...Do the Yanks not teach y'all how to shape the damn things?

"Yup. That tasted purple."

This is definitive proof that the American Revolution was a mistake.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

That's just embarrassing - and funny given how Airborne is always going on about their berets and jump wings.

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

In Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, there are a couple of occasions where the player's spec-ops team are forced to fight while moving in a tight formation against a numerically superior but thankfully rather scattered enemy force, more or less forced by circumstances to forsake any available cover (of which there's admittedly little to none in the occasions in question), either because staying where they are would be a death sentence for both them and the VIP that they just rescued (they'd get encircled and wiped out otherwise) or they're pursuing a high-value target that cannot be allowed to escape (he'd go underground and it'll be years at best before the CIA could sniff him out).

Examples to illustrate:

• First scenario (10:53)
• Second scenario (28:30)

Is there a particular name for this in military jargon?

Edited by MarqFJA on Apr 1st 2020 at 1:02:30 PM

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

The first one they are using the formation to escort a rescuee but a "diamond" formation in a four-man fire team is the same thing as a square. They simply lack enough numbers to really utilize the wider variety of formations or even the one they have. Also, you would put the VIP in back not upfront with the rest of the squad acting to shield them from the direction of the biggest threat and also present the greatest amount of firepower and fire angles. Diamond formations are more cavalry and aircraft formations. I would call that more of a flying wedge or a V formation using the small formation to shield the four Ghost and VIP.

In the second one, I would classify that as a rolling cluster fuck. They don't really stick to a formation just try and stay near each as they basically blitz through the combat zone. They sort of stick to a line abreast like formation but formation cohesiveness is almost non-existent because they have to keep moving.

Who watches the watchmen?

Clusterfuck seems like the appropriate term for both of those. A single fireteam getting sent by itself to do something like that is almost unthinkable, the smallest organizational unit SOF typically deploy in for direct action is a platoon.

They should have sent a poet.

Personally I think the diamond formation bit from the first mission was much cleaner than the one from the link you posted.

They do a much better job of covering the VIP and acting like Tuffy says.

Oh really when?

Were it me, I wouldn't use a formation, because that is too predictable. Better to have everyone zig zag back and forth, staying within an assigned zone as they move forward so that no one gets in front of anyone else.

Why didn't they just shoot him from that little ledge they were on

Oh really when?

I presume that they didn't have a clear shot.

Well, they are equipped with active camo, a rather stealthy mini-drone with sonic blasts for a last-resort weapon, helmet-integrated Augmented Reality Heads-Up Display, and what amounts to X-Ray Vision tech.

Edited by MarqFJA on Apr 1st 2020 at 7:26:11 PM

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Which is all very well and good, but they need to go at it in proper formation first. Loose formation if it goes to hell. Firepower and tech is cool, but unit cohesion is tightly valued for a reason.

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Apr 1st 2020 at 9:29:29 AM

To be frank, the lack of proper formations can be also said of the enemies that hail from factions that should know better (looking at the Russian army and Raven's Rock elite mercs).

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.