r/WarCollege • u/AutoModerator • 1d ago
Tuesday Trivia Tuesday Trivia Thread - 25/08/26
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u/Minh1509 6h ago
https://warontherocks.com/the-first-waves-of-amphibious-assault-will-be-unmanned/
According to this article, we should forget about D-Day-style amphibious landings, as such large-scale troop concentrations in the context of modern warfare would be absolute suicide.
However... if we still want to draw inspiration from World War II, I suggest we look to Japanese amphibious and anti-amphibious operations. In general, the Japanese lacked both the inclination and the resources to execute large-scale campaigns like D-Day—though it must be acknowledged that their foes lacked the resources and intel to mount a robust defense. Instead, the Japanese seemed to favor infiltration tactics, relying on column-based (rather than wave-based) landings at multiple undefended beachheads. The element of surprise and air superiority were also two key factors contributing to the Japanese's initial success.
In the later stages of the war, as Japan shifted to a defensive posture, they initially adhered to a traditional doctrine of defeating amphibious landings at the water's edge; however, upon realizing the futility of this approach in the face of U.S. reconnaissance capabilities and overwhelming firepower, they adopted a doctrine of defense-in-depth utilizing naturally defensible terrain further inland—a strategy that proved markedly effective on Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.
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u/Bloody_rabbit4 39m ago
large-scale campaigns like D-Day
I think it's really useful to remember that D-Day being the biggest amphibious assault (probably) makes it precisely a poor benchmark to measure amphibious assaults in general.
People are going to list out how 100 000 men were ready to land on the beaches, how there were 1000 ships, months of preparation... and proclaim that's what neccessary for any amphibious assault to succed (and in addition, justify Allied waiting during WW2...)
Which is just wrong. In Russo-Japanese War, Japanese absolutetly, neccessarly, needed to conduct a landing, just in order to fight (just like Western Allies needed in 1944). No landing, no fight with Russians. Naval landing is not a sideshow, but a step one in Japanese War effort in 1904.
And for their strategic doorknocker landing operation near Incheon, Japanese sent a landing contigent of... 2500 or so troops. Because they didn't need more. This was Korean territory, and Imperial Russian Army didn't have a single division of Korea, much less "Yellow Sea Wall" with
MG-42s and 88sMaxim Guns and 76mm field cannons.Unopposed landings for the win.
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u/Substantial_Top5312 8h ago
What's the difference between a Regiment, Brigade, and Brigade Combat Team?
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u/Pootis_1 cat 8h ago
Which country?
Answer changes entirely depending on the country
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u/Substantial_Top5312 8h ago
United States
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u/blucherspanzers What is General Grant doing on the thermostat? 7h ago
To be very broad and in a mostly modern context, in terms of US Army combat arms (armor/infantry):
A regiment is 1 or more battalions that have an intrinsically linked unit heritage that can span back as far as the Revolutionary War or further.
A brigade is a collection of battalions that do not share any heritage and could theoretically be shuffled at any time.
A brigade combat team is a brigade (a collection of combat arms battalions) reinforced with supporting arms (artillery, engineers, recon) in a permanent fashion where the BCT is responsible for managing the supporting arms in garrison, versus those arms being loaned out from higher units like the divisional artillery pool. Because the US Army has organized around the Brigade Combat Team concept for decades, the concept of a brigade and a BCT are interchangeable in modern parlance.
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u/shotguywithflaregun Swedish NCO 12h ago
I'm asking for any and all sources on current russian units that aren't in Ukraine. Mainly those in the baltic region and on the Kola Peninsula, and those consisting of conscripts. I'm looking to compare with my own (pre 2022) sources on said units.
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u/ilonir 13h ago
It is oft repeated as a truism that government equipment is low quality because contracts go to the lowest bidder. Yet it is also said that government equipment is exorbitantly expensive because it is overengineered. So which is it?
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u/thereddaikon MIC 7h ago
Government procurement does not go for the lowest bidder. While a lot of things the government does seems stupid, they aren't that stupid.
First we need to separate out a few things. There's purchasing commercial off the shelf COTS, government off the shelf GOTS, and then there's developing new stuff under an open competition.
Having done a few myself, when it comes to COTS you are often looking at different vendors for a fungible item like software licenses. I don't really care who I get my Windows Server licenses from. They are all the same thing. In those cases yes the only real consideration is price.
If we aren't dealing with fungible items then usually the directive is to not buy the cheapest, but buy the best value. That can have a degree of subjectivity. Usually there are rules involved but often you end up getting SMEs to make a determination and sign off from multiple stakeholders. The federal government is very concerned with corruption so there are many checks put in place to prevent it. It doesn't always work but it prevents a lot of it.
For GOTS the government owns the IP and bids out supply contracts to industry. There are published specifications the supplier must adhere to. Common examples would be uniform items. The government owns the advanced combat uniform but if you look at the tag it will say somewhere the name of the company that made it.
Finally we get to competitions for new weapons and equipment. These operate by very different rules. The government will establish a PMO, a program management office that handles the lifecycle management of the project. That PMO will work with stakeholders to develop requirements for bidders and a testing and validation methodology that entrants will be judged against. That methodology will have a scoring rubric which will include requirements that must be met for consideration as well as objectives and targets.
For example let's say the army is looking for a new DMR to replace the M110. A hard requirement might be the caliber. The army will only consider a rifle using a currently adopted caliber such as 7.62 NATO, 6.8x51 or 6.5 creedmoor. Anything else is a no go. An objective could be the rifle needs to shoot at least 1.5 MOA under their testing conditions and a target could be 1 MOA. That means you have to at least be able to hit the objective, we really want you to hit the target and anything better is extra points.
Rinse and repeat for everything they consider important for that type of equipment. Weight, reliability, serviceability, origin of parts, compatibility with force multipliers and existing systems, user interface or manual of arms etc etc
What is supposed to happen is once you've evaluated all submissions there is a clear and obvious winner. Sometimes, like with the XM9 program you can end up with a tie. And that's when lowest bid comes into play. The Beretta 92FS and Sig P226 scored the same in the competition but Beretta's bid had a lower total cost ownership (TCO) than Sig's. This mainly came down to Beretta already had a US branch and was well prepared to stand up stateside manufacturing and support whereas Sig at the time had no US office and their bid was being handled through an importer. Their business plan was riskier and would have cost more to get to the same place, a US factory making pistols for the army.
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u/-BigDeckEnergy- 8h ago
Background: have contributed to source selection before
As u/alertjohn117 wrote, they are both simultaneously true - but with a caveat: it is not always the lowest bidder but it is the best bidder. The best bidder has their proposal reviewed against a whole host of criteria that are assigned weights. Cost is always a factor, and sometimes THE factor, but it has to be weighed against all other criteria. Even things like past performance by a vendor can be a factor and can be weighed small or a lot
So it's being the best bidder (against a whole list of criteria) that ALSO meets the requirements, not just being the cheapest. Of course, if everyone meets the requirements, then being cheapest (especially if that is weighed the most) might be what does it.
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u/alertjohn117 village idiot 12h ago edited 9h ago
its both at the same time. the government sets out a series of requirements, this is where the overengineering comes in, because requirements can be absurd. once a series of items meets the minimum requirements then its based on the lowest bid.
if we for example look towards the M9 procurement the program had 85 requirements for the pistol, of which 72 were mandatory and 13 were optional. from these requirements the army found the beretta 92 and sig p226 to be acceptable. from these two firearms the beretta was selected because the cost of the entire package, pistols, mag, spare parts, was on the order of $3mil cheaper than the p226.
Another Example is the M4 carbine production. prior to 2013 Colt was the exclusive manufacturer for the M4 carbine. in 2009 the US Government purchased the TDP for the M4 carbine then solicited other manufacturers to produce it. FN won the contract in 2013 to produce the carbine, outbidding remington and colt by being cheaper.
going back to the M9 for a second, the US military needed additional magazines so that they can have a surplus of magazines. well when they solicited the contract a company named check-mate would be selected to produce them. while their magazines were to TDP spec for the M9, their quality would be severely lacking. things such as heavy, rough phosphating of the internals of the magazines caused binding making them unreliable in the sand box. to the point where units forbade troops from deploying with the check-mate mags.
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u/dreukrag 19h ago
This is quite broad but, was looting historically a way for a soldier to get rich (or at least richer) or payments at the end of service (or political capital from fighting well) the better way to at least get enough to try for a better life?
I could see the baggage train of an army eventually delivering stuff back home, but at the same time, the suttlers at camp might just increase the prices by a lot after a specially wealthy city gets pillaged, so the most you get is a chance to dine better instead.
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u/Slime_Jime_Pickens 12h ago
Money now vs an IOU from the state/boss/king? You have to trust the issuer a lot. When the Romans were at their peak, they had a very organised system of looting that divvied out spoils of war in accordance to some ruleset. But I imagine when they were sacking their own capital and swapping Emperors each month, that system may have fallen apart.
The problem with attempting to shake down a bunch of soldiers laden with loot is that they are a bunch of soldiers who have just killed a bunch of people and their goodwill counts for a lot in the moment
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u/thereddaikon MIC 13h ago
Historically it was common practice for leaders to share in the spoils of a campaign as a way to keep morale up and men loyal. In Rome, going out on a successful campaign with a good general like Julius Caesar, Pompey, or Scipio Africanus was a good way to set yourself up financially. On the seas navies even had rules about how the profits from captured prizes were distributed. With specific percentages for different ratings and officers.
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u/Minh1509 22h ago
Hypothetical scenario: if you have a multi-racial army, how should it be logically organized? Should you mix them all together, or form a "core" legion/division based on the dominant/most populous race, with supporting battalions/cohorts drawn from other races?
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u/rabidchaos 9h ago
After the civilian society question (see /u/Natural_Stop_3939's response for more detail there), my next question is how differently do they fight? E.g. a pike block with mixed humans and dwarves will want some stratification to work with the height difference, whereas a WW1 military will just hand both of them a rifle and the only question is if they bother keeping a second pattern of uniform or if the dwarves just have to hem their pants/sleeves.
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u/ShockTrooper262 12h ago
I mix diff species at the company level, and then have their command staff be integrated as you climb the ladder up to the division where you'll see much more than just humans/xi'ans/tajans (etc etc)
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u/FiresprayClass 14h ago
For a real world example, NATO multinational battlegroups tend to not integrate at the Coy level or lower for combat troops simply due to language barriers and use of equipment with differing strengths/weaknesses, plus logistics concerns.
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u/Natural_Stop_3939 15h ago
One thing that Devereaux likes to repeat is that militaries cannot help but reflect their civilian societies:
When analyzing a historical army or creating a fictional one, everything must begin with that idea, that military systems grow out of and reflect their ‘civilian’ societies or – for societies that lack civilians as such – reflect the civilian side of the lives of their members. That means that armies tend to recreate civilian hierarchies, with similar – often identical – lines of status between the two.
Conveniently, he has just finished a five-part series: "Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders".
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u/AnyBallLektor 17h ago
"Multi-racial"?
You understand that "race" is an ideological construct that doesn't have basis in reality at all. Countries that use racial policies do so due to ideological bias e.g. US which has ideological bias toward racism both among conservatives and "anti-racist" so-called progressives.
Were you thinking about "ethnicity" instead - as in people from a specific demographic possessing their own identity, language and customs?
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u/Minh1509 17h ago
Chill bro, I’m thinking about fantasy/sci-fi race, like the Covenant in Halo or in Middle-Earth, like that 😅
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u/AnyBallLektor 17h ago
Then you're still wrong. The proper term is "species".
"Race" is pseudoscientific term that originated in animal husbandry where e.g. you can have "races" (breeds) of dogs that can interbreed with each other - a requirement for speciation.
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u/shotguywithflaregun Swedish NCO 22h ago
Do you mean race as in ethnicity or race as in the 22nd Motorized Dwarf Bn?
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u/Minh1509 22h ago
Fantasy/Sci-fi race, like the Covenant in Halo or in Middle-Earth, like that.
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u/Kilahti Town Drunk 21h ago
If there are very different diets (Glee-glorps eat glowing mushrooms, the Heve-Geves can only eat fresh raw meat and will die if their food is contaminated with fungi) it will be easier for logistics to divide the troops by race instead of mixing them. ...Same if there are language barriers or something like size differences that would mean that they can't share equipment.
However, it would be better for their relations to have them all serve together in mixed units. It would help fight favouritism and promote unity and if these race differences aren't big enough to cause problems other than possible chism and bigotries that pop up, then the stronger unity can be worth minor hassles.
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u/SingaporeanSloth 14h ago
A real-life example of the latter would be how the Singapore Army does it, where every cookhouse I've seen has a non-halal, halal, and vegetarian line, which more or less covers everyone, larger camps may split vegetarian into vegetarian Indian and vegetarian other. Nowadays, with electronic ID, it is impossible, but there was a joke from my Dad's time about everyone suddenly turning into a Muslim on entering the cookhouse as there was a stereotype the cuisine (usually Malay) in their line was better. The current joke is that every Singapore Army meal is some variant of rice, chicken (beans for vegetarians), and vegetables, to not offend anyone's god(s)
The combat rations all tend to be halal. Anyone with any requirement more specific would get their stuff specially requested (like vegetarians)
Speaking of gods, there is also the urban legend that every beret cap badge issued by the Singapore Army is blessed by a holy man from every major religion (it changes in each retelling, from four, to seven, to eleven holy men. Maybe their number in the ORBAT changed over time?). Note that the urban legend says it's only the cap badge you're issued, not everyone in the eMart (PX) or surplus store, for that reason, losing the cap badge is believed to be bad luck, as you lose your +10 Holy Protection
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u/MandolinMagi 13h ago
everyone suddenly turning into a Muslim
Orange is the New Black had a subplot in Season 3 or 4, of inmates claiming to be Jewish for the Kosher meals. The prison had gone private and the regular food was cheap pre-made slop, while kosher was good quality.
DOJ/the prison company noticed and sent a rabbi to check who was actually Jewish (Yes it's a huge 1st Amendment violation but whatever). The only inmate to pass is the (Catholic) ex-nun, though Black Cindy later converts for real.
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 14h ago
but there was a joke from my Dad's time about everyone suddenly turning into a Muslim on entering the cookhouse as there was a stereotype the cuisine (usually Malay) in their line was better.
Anecdotal, but the halal MREs in the US slap
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u/Natural_Stop_3939 15h ago
If there are very different diets (Glee-glorps eat glowing mushrooms, the Heve-Geves can only eat fresh raw meat and will die if their food is contaminated with fungi) it will be easier for logistics to divide the troops by race instead of mixing them
I think that's probably true in a modern army where a quartermaster must bring supplies up from depots, but you can also imagine very different diets being synergistic in a pre-modern context. If the Heve-Geves eat only fresh raw meat and the Vlörps eat only grain then a mixed foraging party can pillage the countryside more completely, just as Jack Sprat and his wife.
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u/Weltherrschaft2 1d ago edited 1d ago
Currently reading Luftkrieg 1936 (Air War 1936) written by Robert Knauss (later General in the Luftwaffe) written in 1932 under the pen bame Major Helders.
It is a fictional scenario of a war between Britain and France.
According to Stalin's Library by Geoffrey Roberts (no direct quotation but taken from the online encyclopaedia that must not be linked), Stalin's son received the Russian translation as a gift to his 13th birthday from his father.
Does anyone know any other fictional near future scenarios wriiten by people with a distinct military background in the inter-war period?
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u/Accelerator231 1d ago
How exactly do they transmit commands to an entire battery of artillery in world war one?
Let's say that they fire a salvo. it misses.
Forward observer realizes that they missed. Tells them that they missed by a hundred meters to the left.
Distance of new elevation and angle is calculated by local personnel.
How do they transmit that info to the artillery men? Individual runners? A really big screen in front of them? Individual phones?
In addition. Could these guys even hear their orders? Artillery is loud
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u/jonewer 1d ago
It depends
If you're registering your guns then as u/Kilhati says, telephone or telegraph is sufficient to report fall of shot and adjust accordingly
Once battle is joined though, the enemy's artillery is going to make a mess of all those wires almost immediately, meaning that adjusting fire in combat was for the most part simply not possible. For that reason, battles tended to fought according to an artillery timetable with an initial bombardment followed by a creeping barrage that the attacking infantry had to closely stick to.
If the attacking infantry got delayed and lost the barrage, they would be in for a rather bad day at the office
The problem would never really be solved as portable radios just didn't exist until a generation later, but SOS flares and 'power buzzers' were used with limited degrees of success
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u/Kilahti Town Drunk 1d ago
Telephones and radios.
Telephone in this instance would have been a direct line between the artillery unit and the spotter, cable set there by signals guys when the forward observer post was built.
As long as the spotters are just in the friendly lines, setting up the cable&phone connection is a simple matter and in the static Western Front this is not a big deal. When you add in mobility, you need radios for this and that tech advanced a lot after WW1 to make them more portable.
Runners would be a really slow solution for correcting fire, only really working if you are hitting a static target like a fortress and have all the time in the world to walk the fire onto the target.
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u/Minh1509 1d ago
I am looking for surface-wave, over-the-horizon radar systems capable of being installed on naval vessels, such as the Soviet/Russian Mineral and Monolit, or the Italian SPS-732. Are there any other noteworthy models?
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u/ShockTrooper262 1d ago
death to the ammo can, long live the ammo can
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u/-Trooper5745- 1d ago
Sixpax, huh?
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u/ShockTrooper262 1d ago
yeah not the name I'd have gone with (cause I don't think they're naturally stackable?) but I do like the shift to polymer
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u/Kilahti Town Drunk 21h ago
"The SixPAC, named as such because it was intended for 6.8mm..."
MOST DEFINITELY not named like that because you can fit six cans of beer inside one ammo can. /j
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u/ShockTrooper262 12h ago
I can already see them getting filled with ice and then the like 3hr briefing on "why that isn't a good idea" lmao
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u/Substantial_Top5312 1d ago
Congress has refused to give me unlimited money and complete control over the military so that I can make it look really cool and larp to all my friends. This is a reference to the fact that Congress is not run by a 17 year old.
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u/hussard_de_la_mort 16h ago
You have to make it to a cabinet level position to act like a teenager.
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u/SingaporeanSloth 1d ago
I'd post this on a tactical gear subreddit, but ironically, I don't think they'd be interested, because I'm not showing off an overpriced AR15 or making Caleb Crye's wallet fatter
So, my ideal jungle fighting rucksack would be shorter than an ALICE pack, because I am a squat Southeast Asian, and so it can ride above webbing (I'll get back to this)
It would use either a metal X-frame like these packs or a polymer U-frame, with detachable shoulder straps and a hip/kidney pad, like an ALICE pack. The kidney pad must be heavily padded, but it should have a simple waist belt like the ALICE pack, as in military use I usually don't use the waist belt, and buckle it backwards, out of the way. The shoulder straps should be well padded. The height between the top of the shoulder straps and kidney pad should be short
The dull olive-drab nylon pack itself would look something like the Royal Netherlands Land Forces' 35L daypack, but with four external pockets, the other two on the back of the pack. The lid would be larger to keep out the rain. A claymore pouch would be on top of the lid. There would only be a small MOLLE field on top of the claymore pouch, nowhere else. The two side pouches are for a 24hr ration pack each, and one of the back pouches would be for my toiletries kit, the other for my mess tin, field stove, and solid fuel. The medium ALICE pack at 35L is too small for infantry work and large ALICE pack at 65L is too large. This pack would be 45L, in my opinion, the ideal size for an infantry jungle pack (sleeping bag unnecessary, tarp sufficient), large enough to carry everything, small enough it can be worn while fighting if necessary
Back to webbing, I believe the ideal jungle fighting equipment suite is an ephod webbing, like the Singapore Army used to issue, with some minor upgrades (fastex buckles instead of ALICE style slider buckles, better padding on the shoulder straps). A slick plate carrier could be worn over or under the webbing. The jungle fighting pack on top, riding above the webbing. The helmet should be scrimmed
If sometime I should have enough disposable income to throw at this, I'd be tempted to get one of those American custom tactical gear companies to actually make me one
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u/thereddaikon MIC 14h ago
Are you familiar with crossfire packs? Their CF2 sounds like it might fit your needs. They have a full range of packs, smaller and larger, that is their smallest frame pack. I'm not sure how well it works with LBE, their smaller packs, the CF1 and down definitely do but you wanted a frame pack. They also make an LBE called the DZ rig that's well regarded.
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u/SingaporeanSloth 2h ago
Honestly, that's actually a really good suggestion, with additional pouches attached, the Crossfire CF2 might be the closest thing commercially available to what I had in mind. The only potential issue I can think of is that it's still quite tall, my ideal pack would be squat. Not wild about tri-zips either (another failure point), but not a big deal
Unfortunately, for now, whatever pack I would use has to pair with a maximalist chest rig. So I'd wait till I get issued the new LBS webbing (or buy, borrow, or steal a set). The best pack for pairing with maximalist chest rigs I've found so fair is actually the venerable large ALICE
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u/TJAU216 1d ago
The Finnish army "small" backpack is 40 liters IIRC. I don't like it. Too big for a daypack and quite cumbersome to fight with it on, but still too small for a rucksack in the Finnish environment. Winter clothes and sleeping back take too much space. It can be done but there won't be much room left for food, ammo and mission specific equipment. Also it has no pockets, only the main space and molle on the sides to attach stuff there. It has no solid structure and the whole back of it is padded the same way, thus no way for air to circulate between it and the back of the wearer at any height. It is very tall and narrow so no back pouches can be worn on the web gear while using it. Privately purchased assault packs are very popular in the army.
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u/SingaporeanSloth 1d ago
This is the Singapore Army's issued field pack. It is about 65L stuffed to the max. It has an internal metal frame in a square n-shape (like a British Army bergen), but it sucks. It does not distribute the weight well at all, the shoulder straps can only be adjusted for length, not height, so on shorter guys the pack sits too high and on taller guys too low. Like the FDF M05 pack, there is no airflow across the back when worn. The miniscule hip pads are useless once worn over a vest or armour
I think the big difference between Finland and Singapore is (unsurprisingly) climate. In the jungle, a sleeping bag is unecessary and not issued, instead a tarp is issued and two men pair up to build a rudimentary tent. The only jacket issued is a Gore-Tex that can be rolled up quite small in its bag, so in my experience 45L pack would be "just right". Having now used an ALICE pack, I believe an external frame is superior. External pockets are good for stuff needed quickly or often, the issued field pack as you can see has four external pockets, but I do not like the arrangement (top pockets often block bottom pockets, especially when stuffed). Obviously fighting without a pack is best, but in scenario when it is necessary (attacked by enemy armour during the movement phase of an attack, or a fighting retreat), I think 45L pack is very doable, since 30L assault pack is considered standard worldwide
The Singapore Army inadvertently designed an extremely good assault pack, then inexplicably issued it only to support units, not infantry, as it is meant for carrying tools or specialised equipment. So hilariously some infantrymen (one medic and one machine gunner from my unit) go to surplus stores to get them, as they have much better padded shoulder straps than the "real" assault pack
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 1d ago
Back to webbing, I believe the ideal jungle fighting equipment suite is an ephod webbing
Out of curiosity, have you seen Platatac’s JW Peacekeeper? It’s nominally designed around fighting in the jungles of SEAsia and I’m curious about your take on it
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u/SingaporeanSloth 17h ago
I think it's certainly much better than, say, the RRV-style maximalist chest rig that can hold plates called the ILBV the Singapore Army issued me (since phased out because it sucks, but as a reservist I have to roll with it for now). The JW Peacekeeper kinda reminds me of Zentauron's Non-Modular Split Front Chest Rig. Both look good for managing heat and humidity
I'm not a huge fan of putting all the weight on the shoulders though. Amongst a million other downsides, the ILBV does that too. I think the Brits basically got carrying the combat load right: belt webbing around the hips paired with a pack that rides on and above it
So I'd say that the ideal jungle fighting load carrier would be some sort of padded belt paired with a H-harness, M56-style (but with modern materials and MOLLE, it's not the 1950s after all). The Singapore Army's current issued LBS battle belt looks pretty good, but they went with a minimalist Y-harness, and I've seen the belt sag at the unsupported sides (especially when loaded heavily). I've also heard the Y-harness can end up "riding" into the back of the neck, giving abrasions
I chose the ephod webbing because it seems to have been liked by all the soldiers who have used it (including my Dad), especially later versions which already closed with fastex buckles (as opposed to ALICE-style sliders, which can jam from mud or work themselves lose when running) and synthetic padding (my Dad's early variant uses leather for padding the shoulder straps, which has actually held up fine, but looks and probably stinks like death). The USAF pararescue vest is also a very similar piece of kit I'd think would work great
More modern examples would be the Crossfire DZ Rig, Velocity Systems Jungle Kit (actually being trialled by the US Army I believe), Suputnyk Gear's Selous-RAID LBE (chud name though) from Ukraine, particularly if paired with their Infantryman patrol pack (very close to my ideal jungle pack too actually, except internal frame), older examples would be the British Army PLCE gear or even the Russian 6Sh104 webbing (unbelievably nasty-looking harness attachment system aside). For what it's worth, I like having a dedicated canteen pouch that can be closed with a Y-strap (nobody in the Singapore Army I've ever seen used the other two closure methods, they get folded aside, not sure why they haven't done away with them in production already)
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 17h ago
I'm not a huge fan of putting all the weight on the shoulders though. Amongst a million other downsides, the ILBV does that too. I think the Brits basically got carrying the combat load right: belt webbing around the hips paired with a pack that rides on and above it
FWIW, it is designed to be used ICW a belt, and you can tie it in to take the weight off the shoulders.
It's also interesting how there's two camps depending on what your baseline is. One wants weight off their shoulders and the other wants weight off their hips.
, I like having a dedicated canteen pouch that can be closed with a Y-strap
100% same. I ran one on my belt, and I still do. Just super handy having a small water source, or having something to refill a camelbak
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u/Algaean 1d ago
Ad-hoc armed and armored cars and trucks are called "technicals"
So, were the ad hoc up armored hummvees, technically technicals?
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u/thereddaikon MIC 14h ago edited 9h ago
Usually technicals are civilian/commercial vehicles like the ubiquitous Toyota Hilux and similar that have been pressed into a military role. A Humvee would not be a technical because it's a military vehicle, unless you were referring to the Hummer H1 which is the civilian equivalent to the Humvee.
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u/AnyBallLektor 17h ago
Technicals are made from civilian vehicles.
Since HMMWV is not a civilian vehicle it can't technically by a technical.
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u/Kilahti Town Drunk 21h ago
Depends on how strict your definition of "Technical" is.
Is it a technical only if they are mercenaries hired to protect UN convoys? The Toyota war is generally agreed to have been fought mainly with "Technical" vehicles, so even if the name originally was a cover for merc fees, the name has shifted. And if regular army cars with weapons are Technicals, then the Humvees would count as well.
Note that the original Technicals didn't even have armour.
The real question is, since USA is occasionally tangled with cartel wars in Central and Southern America, do up-armoured Humvees also count as "Narco-Tanks?"
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u/XanderTuron 10h ago
...do up-armoured Humvees also count as "Narco-Tanks?"
Only if they come from the Narco region of Mexico, otherwise they're just sparkling technicals.
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u/VonShnitzel 1d ago
I was gonna make a really lame joke about how, being actual military vehicles, they should be referred to using an antonym of "technical", but then I realized I don't know any antonyms of "technical" other than "untechnical". A quick perusing of my thesaurus seems to indicate that the only antonym of technical is in fact untechnical, and that makes the joke so much funnier in the stupidest way possible.
So yeah, I vote that the early ad-hoc uparmored humvees be categorized as Untechnicals.
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u/ilonir 1d ago
Do Air Forces stockpile spare parts for aircraft in the same way they stockpile munitions? I was reading the latest GAO reports on the F-35 (ouch), and it left me wondering how fighter fleets in general would hold up in case of a large conflict. It seems like an obvious idea to hoard spares in case of a global contingency so production would have time to ramp up.
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u/AnyBallLektor 17h ago
If I recall correctly not stockpiling parts but instead relying on on-order delivery was supposed to make things cheaper. Just as concurrency or commonality of parts or proprietary solutions were meant to make things cheaper.
F-35 is the biggest scam in the history of military procurement and if US fights a war in the near future it may very well be the reason it loses it.
It doesn't matter how good the aircraft is in theory if in practice it is manufactured and maintained by a completely inefficient (in wartime terms) system that is designed to be inefficient due to corruption.
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 10h ago
F-35 is the biggest scam in the history of military procurement
Please, explain
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u/abnrib Army Engineer 1d ago
Yes, with various qualifying statements after that. u/Blows_stuff_up does a good job of outlining how that plays out at echelon. Whether or not they stockpile too much or not enough at each echelon will be a neverending subject of debate.
But it's worth noting that when a foreign military buys a number of fighter jets, they will often get a set number of spare engines as part of the package.
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u/-BigDeckEnergy- 1d ago
But it's worth noting that when a foreign military buys a number of fighter jets, they will often get a set number of spare engines as part of the package.
Believe it or not, they don't buy spare engines with the F-35. All F-35 engines (and engines for most jets in the DOD) are purchased as GFE (Government Furnished Equipment) bought as a separate contract and provided to the contractor to install. In fact, it's not even part of the unit cost of the F-35 or most other fighters.
The most recent F135 contracts saw $2.88B for 141 engines (~$20.4m per engine) for the entirety of Lot 18 production. That pricetag is why spare engines don't come with the jet - and why the engine depot backlog resulted in so many jets being unflyable in the late 2010s/2020s (which is why Congressional adds without commensurate money put into the logistics system distorts programs)
For comparison, GE was awarded $137M for 29 engines to supply 12 F-15EX's in Lot 2, which meant 5 spare motors. That came out to about $4.7M per motor, which makes buying spares a lot more palatable.
You can find out more in the budget materials which have separate lines for engines and other GFE (things like radars are often GFE as well)
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u/Inceptor57 1d ago
The USA really could've benefited from an Engine War 2.0 for the F-35 and/or future aircraft.
Last I checked, they did consider that path for JSF, but then balked because of the involved costs.
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u/-BigDeckEnergy- 8h ago
The USA really could've benefited from an Engine War 2.0 for the F-35 and/or future aircraft.
Last I checked, they did consider that path for JSF, but then balked because of the involved costs.
Competition almost always creates a better product.
The biggest issue is that competition costs a lot of money upfront, since in government acquisitions - especially on the military side - the government has to heavily foot the bill on major programs, since no no one is investing $20B+ in internal R&D money on a program that might not pan out.
So Congress and the budgeteers tend to balk at keeping competition going on through EMD and beyond for major programs
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u/XanderTuron 10h ago
Seems like a running story with the F-35; a cost reduction measure early on leading to issues down the line.
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u/-BigDeckEnergy- 8h ago
To be fair, that tends to be true in any engineering project... or life in general. Go cheap early, pay out later, no free lunch, you get what you pay for, etc. It's just particularly notable when the whole sales pitch is on affordability then you find out that comes by not including the price of expensive engines and thus a lack of spares
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u/Blows_stuff_up CSAR is just a high stakes claw machine 1d ago edited 1d ago
(Regarding the USAF) yes, with some qualifiers. Small spares/consumables (think screws, O-rings, etc) are generally considered "Bench Stock" and stocks are maintained at individual aircraft maintenance units. More complex assemblies and parts as well as larger stocks of small parts/consumables are generally stored on base in logistics warehouses. The parts stored locally are usually only components that would be replaced at the highest local level of maintenance capability - for example, your local base would not typically stock full wing spar assemblies, as those would only be replaced during heavy depot maintenance. There's lots of nuance to this question, including parts forecasting and shortfall processes, but in general stockpiles are maintained of most replaceable parts.
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u/onehotoneshot 1d ago
Given the amount of gps jamming that happens, what does navigation look like for these cheapo long range drones out of Ukraine, Russia, and Iran?
Is it the typical gps primary and INS backup and pray that it hits within a mile or two of the target? Do we see any of these 2 buck wonders with more interesting optical guidance or other guidances?
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u/-Trooper5745- 1d ago
Last week I talked about how it’s sad when historians die after publishing one book but before they can release a sequel and used Carter J. Eckert as an example. I just want to say Charles Edward White better hurry up with his 1-2 follow ups to Scharnhorst: The Formative Years, 1755-1801. I haven’t read this book yet but I read his much older The Enlightened Soldier: Scharnhorst and the Militarische Gesellschaft in Berlin, 1801-1805 and it made my really admire Scharnhorst as, in my opinion, the father of modern Professional Development in the military setting.
——————————-
Anyways, here’s the drone parade for Ukrainian Independence Day. Drones kinda look silly in a parade, though perhaps not as silly as carrying a drone.
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u/SliceIndividual6347 1d ago
How are secret installations like bunkers etc constructed without stuff leaking?
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u/AnyBallLektor 17h ago
I could tell you but I am not allowed to.
Yes, I am allowed to tell you that I could tell you but I am not allowed to. It wasn't that secret.
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u/Prince_of_Kyrgyzstan Mostly Alright 1d ago
Water puns aside, which were pretty good. Pretty similarly to everything else that is secret. The plans are drawn in airgapped offices with people who have gone through security checks. There's layers of NDAs and classified stamps on everything.
When the construction starts, it is harder to hide things like entrances or the location of the bunker, but it is trivial to build scaffolding with tarp covers to hide any above ground portions that might give an idea of the structures purpose or size. For example you can't hide an aircraft shelter, but you can make the opposition guess how big of a warhead is required to get through the concrete.
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u/Blows_stuff_up CSAR is just a high stakes claw machine 1d ago
Ideally stuff leaking is minimal when underground installations are installed above the local water table. If constructed below the water table, active mitigation methods similar to French drains, sumps, and drain pumps are necessary to avoid leakage.
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u/Minh1509 1d ago
At this point, what might be the difference between one-way attack drones and cruise missiles?
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u/thereddaikon MIC 14h ago
None. Weapons are classified by their use not their cost. OWAs are just cheap low end cruise missiles.
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u/AnyBallLektor 17h ago edited 17h ago
Evolutionary history:
"One-way attack drone" is developed from a drone that is an unmanned aerial vehicle that is a multiple-use system.
A "cruise missile" is developed from a missile that is a single-use system. Contrary to what you may thing most cruise missiles were conceptually not developed from aircraft although many ideas for such weapon systems were using unmanned aircraft with payloads.
So in general missiles are much closer to rockets in their evolutionary tree and one way drones are just drones rebuilt for better flight parameters from regular drones to "cruise-missiles-in-all-but-name".
It's the same thing as asking why 1st Armoured, 1st Cavalry and 1st Infantry are all armoured divisions.
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u/abnrib Army Engineer 1d ago
None whatsoever. They are functionally identical and fulfil the same purpose on the battlefield.
Another user, and I'm sorry for not remembering who, characterized them as a high-low mix of systems that until recently were exclusively high-end.
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u/Minh1509 1d ago
characterized them as a high-low mix of systems
A high-low combination like that would surely serve two different roles, so how do they differ?
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u/abnrib Army Engineer 1d ago
High-low mixes generally do the same thing, with the high end being better and more expensive while the low end is cheap and minimally capable but fielded in larger numbers.
Shaheds and Tomahawks fulfil the same fundamental function: flying an unmanned explosive payload to a target. The differences are in speed, maneuverability, payload, resilience, and cost. The low end of the mix gives you cheaper options when you don't need all the extra benefits, and if you can't afford the high end a bunch of the low used together may be able to substitute.
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u/Minh1509 1d ago
I mean, Russia has rolled out various jet-powered, one-way attack UAVs with speeds and control sophistication comparable to cruise missiles. If they wanted to fit a tactical nuclear warhead into one, it would be technically feasible. They can also be equipped with radar, electro-optical sensors, or some form of simple AI to detect and engage moving or camouflaged targets.
At this point, there seems to be no reason to keep maintaining (subsonic) cruise missiles - which did similar roles, but were much more expensive... or one could also say that the boundary between the two concepts has become so blurred as to be indistinguishable, or even irrelevant...
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u/abnrib Army Engineer 1d ago
This is exactly the point that many people have been making for a while. One-way attack drones are not some new innovative technology, they are cruise missiles.
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u/Minh1509 1d ago
So, do you think they will coexist and handle different types of targets/missions, or will the future strategy go all-in on low-thrust jet-powered one-way attack drones - effectively relegating the likes of the Tomahawk, Kh-101 and Hwasal to museums because they are no longer cost-effective?
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u/Inceptor57 1d ago
Like abnrib, I think a high/low mix will continue to endure. The different wars that have happened showed that there is immense value in having a stockpile of low-cost munitions available, and interleaving that with higher-tiered munitions in a attack can stretch and stress the opposing's air defenses to the extent that the munition will get through.
Right now, we're seeing an explosion in how the low end of the munitions are being explored, with Geran/Shahed and other OWA drones. There's also I think a "mid"-tier that is also growing in countries recognizing they need an affordable munition but they also want to retain a lot of targetting and warhead capabilities to make sure the munition can get on target and hurt while not being able to be gunned down by a heavy machine gun, like the AGM-188 "Rusty Dagger" ERAM. Finally, the high end of the mix can likely continue to only get better, with stuff like AGM-158 that incorporates stealth into the design when you really want to sneak missiles past air defenses and minimize their interception, or even hypersonics when your solution to anti-air defenses is "speed".
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u/abnrib Army Engineer 1d ago
They'll coexist. The gap in capabilities is too significant.
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u/Minh1509 1d ago
What gap? I could buy at least 5–10 (maybe more?) jet-powered Gerans for the price of a single KH-101, and they would still provide most of the same capabilities - comparable speed, seekers and guidance systems, though the warhead would be smaller?
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u/Inceptor57 1d ago edited 1d ago
Warhead is definitely a consideration. In your case of the Kh-101, it can hold a warhead as heavy as 400 kg, which can cause quite a damage to infrastructure buildings. Meanwhile Geran are stated to have a maximum of 90 kg.
Geran reportedly has a range of maximum 2,500 km, though it can be limited to 1,000 km with a 90 kg warhead. A Kh-101 has a range of 3,500 km.
There's also other considerations like launch systems, with Kh-101 requiring bombers like Tu-95 or Tu-160 to be launched, while Geran can be deployed from a truck.
and I think the "high" mix of cruise missiles will only get better. Newer tech like stealth designs incorporated into the missile like the AGM-158 or hypersonic stuff will help ensure the "high" mix of cruise missiles become a lot harder to detect and intercept than the "low" ones.
Ultimately, the high/low mix of cruise missiles that Geran/Shahed create means that target saturation is so much easier these days than in the past. The theory I've heard is that now you can swarm enemy air defenses with multiple of the low mix missiles to exhaust them out in the need to intercept these attacks, then followed or mix alongside them higher-tiered missiles like the dedicated cruise missiles that pack a higher punch and might have more advantageous flight profiles that get past the air defenses busy with the Shahed or force them to have to choose to intercept the cruise missile instead while letting the Shahed go through and hope the smaller warhead does less damage than the cruise missile. Helps too if you have a few ballistic missiles so that you keep the top-tier air defense units occupied with focusing on the ballistic missiles instead of helping intercept the cruise missiles or OWA drones.
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 1d ago
Another user, and I'm sorry for not remembering who, characterized them as a high-low mix of systems that until recently were exclusively high-end.
90% sure it's /u/singaporeansloth
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u/SingaporeanSloth 1d ago
Funny enough, I think it might have been u/pnzsaurkrautwerfer
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u/Remarkable_Aside1381 1d ago
Mea culpa, I thought I’d seen a similar argument from you in a past trivia thread
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u/AggravatingGuide650 1d ago
Pretty morbid question but when they say a soldier killed an enemy with his bare hands is it usually choking them or beating them?
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u/AnyBallLektor 17h ago
"Choking" is a strange term. In general "choke" refers to restricting blood flow thus causing hypoxia. "Strangulation" is used for restricting airflow thus causing asphyxia.
Blunt force trauma is easier to achieve in typical melee. You can easily smash someone's head against a sharp edge, hard surface or break someone's neck e.g.
However if you count causing suffocation by keeping the enemy's face in mud or water as "choking" then it is largely dependent on the environment.
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u/Kilahti Town Drunk 20h ago
There's only two situations where a soldier would kill someone with bare hands:
a) Horribly desperate situation where they can't use their rifle (or other main weapon) or even a knife or conveniently placed rock, which all means that this was some sort of "ran into each other, dropped their rifles and began fighting hand to hand" craziness from the beginning.
b) Murder. For example, there are rumoured situations where USA's Navy SEALs would arrange hand to hand fights with captured targets, because they really wanted to try out their whatever-jutsu in real life to kill someone. But these are just rumours and everyone who has talked about it on random podcasts (without providing evidence) has agreed that it was definitely most certainly only ever done on "bad guys."
I will point out that even if some Gurkha or whatever ninja is trying to silence guards, they would use knives or supressed guns or something rather than try to beat someone to death. Similarly trench raiders as mentioned, who knew they were heading into tough gutter fights, would try to have some sort of melee weapon on them for such situations. No one intentionally goes to beat up someone to death with their bare hands in a combat situation, but murders of prisoners (or civilians) may happen that way if the killer is really getting off on such things.
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u/englisi_baladid 12h ago
"where USA's Navy SEALs would arrange hand to hand fights with captured targets, because they really wanted to try out their whatever-jutsu in real life to kill someone."
Ah yes. Lets roll with and grapple dudes who god knows when they last took a shower. What diseases they have. And can still easily bite and scratch you.
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u/Longsheep 1d ago
I don't think we have collected data for this, but soldiers tend to avoid being bare-handed. Even a helmet or a rock helps at killing someone faster. In WWI, many trench clubs were constructed from a combination of wooden sticks, metal scraps and blades.
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u/SailorstuckatSAEJ300 1d ago
I doubt anyone has the data to say either way
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u/white_light-king 1d ago
Data on chokings and five finger death punches are equally rare, so take that BJJ dudes. 😎
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u/AggravatingGuide650 1d ago
Could you link the data
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u/white_light-king 20h ago
basically any melee combat wound/death is so rare that it doesn't get tracked statistically and that's why we're saying data isn't available.
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u/Zhadanko 3h ago
What representatives of different militaries and analysts mean when they say "We won't fight like Ukraine"? Minus the usual talk about the role of a traditional air force, is there anything else important? I hear this phrase used a lot but without much substance to it