.com.unity Forums - US Army OOB

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I as wondering about the US Army OOB. There is a lack of National Guard units listed.
The is NG Mech and Lt Mech, Tank, and Artty units but no Engineers, Cav, or Helo units.

The NG 30th Heavy Brigade that left NC for the Iraq and returnd had the Engineer and Cav units. The Attack Helo unit didn't go to Iraq.

Was hoping some could help fix that. I was hoping to do a campaign involing a US NG unit and its a huge difference between the Reg Cav units and the NG Armour units.

I'm working on doing an Army oob covering 1990 - 2020, but it's likely to be a human user only thing. (This is my first time, I'm not good enough to make the oob AI-pick friendly). I planned on Engineer and Helo units (in fact most Army Helo units are now reserve and guard if I'm not mistaken) I can include CAV too if you like, but you'll have to tell me what the TO&E difference is.

none I can see. the unit is a Cav troop and just with the NG as far as I can find out. all the 30th HSB eqipment is stored in Raeford, NC or at Bragg

from defence-aerospace

Quote:

Bell Submits Bid for US Army's 368 Aircraft Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter Program

(Source: Bell Helicopter; issued June 24, 2005)

FORT WORTH, TX. --- Bell Helicopter today submitted a bid for a militarized version of its enormously successful Bell 407 single engine light helicopter in response to a Request For Proposal (RFP) issued by the U.S. Army for an Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH).

The ARH decision, expected in late July, calls for a total of 368 aircraft to be delivered between fiscal years 2006 through 2011.

Bell Helicopter believes its Bell 407 is the perfect aircraft for meeting the Army's current and future ARH mission requirements. The Bell ARH, which will be built at Bell's Military Assembly and Integration Center in Amarillo, Texas, will draw from a large and talented supplier base for its sophisticated sensors, weapons and defensive systems.

In anticipation of the bid proposal, Bell has been flying an ARH demonstrator helicopter at the company's XworX facility to flight test handling qualities for the aircraft.

The ARH will replace the Army's OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, armed reconnaissance helicopter which has proven to be one of the most reliable and capable combat aircraft in the history of US Army aviation. Bell designed and performed the systems integration on the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, the Army's first fully digitized helicopter which has accumulated over 1.1 million hours of flight time, including 200,000 combat flight hours.

Bell Helicopter is teamed with a number of world-class aerospace suppliers in support of the ARH program in the areas of Mission Equipment Package (MEP) and training systems integration. Rockwell Collins, Honeywell, FLIR Systems, L-3, Flight Safety (FSI) and Computer Sciences Corporation round out Bell Helicopter's team in bringing the best of industry to the Bell ARH program for the Army.

Capable of being equipped with a wide variety of weapons, the Bell ARH will provide the Army with exceptional mission versatility and flexibility to accomplish the armed reconnaissance, light attack, troop insertion, and special operations missions with a single aircraft. The Bell ARH will provide this flexibility during the day and at night as well as during adverse weather or periods of poor visibility.

The Bell ARH provides the Army's aeroscouts survivability features that include low IR signature; warning and active countermeasures; armor protection of crew and flight critical systems; and unsurpassed crashworthy improvements and the ability to carry three Warfighters. These features increase the likelihood of survival in the most extreme battlefield conditions.

The Bell ARH will be powered by the Honeywell HTS900 turbine engine that is based on proven, mature commercial and U.S. Army T800 technology and design. In additional to being designed for extremely low Direct Operating Costs (DOC), the HTS900 turbine engine will be equipped with a sophisticated dual-channel full authority digital engine control (FADEC) system, based on T800 technology. The HTS900 provides the power needed today with growth to accommodate changing missions and mission equipment packages expected in the future.

One of the key requirements of the Army's RFP is deployability. Two Bell ARH helicopters can be deployed aboard a C-130 and be unloaded, flyable and ready to fight within 15 minutes.

The Bell ARH will be supported by Bell's industry-leading product support organization with over 180 locations throughout the world. The Bell 407 is one of most popular and reliable aircraft in the commercial helicopter market. Since its FAA certification in February 1996, Bell has delivered 625 Bell 407's to customers throughout the world, making it the fastest selling turbine powered civil helicopter in history. In fact, Bell demonstrated its capability for high production rates with the 407 by producing 140 aircraft per year in both 1997 and 1998.

The 407 has proven to be the perfect aircraft for customers in virtually every conceivable helicopter market including: Corporate, Law Enforcement, EMS, Electronic News Gathering and Utility. Operators fly Bell 407 helicopters in over 50 countries around the world. The current fleet of Bell 407 helicopters has logged over 1.25 million flight hours, with the high time aircraft topping 10,000 flight hours.

Bell Helicopter is a subsidiary of Textron Inc. Textron Inc. is a $10 billion multi-industry company with 44,000 employees in 40 countries.

-ends-

In future, could we have a brief summary, and then the URL to the report?.

Cheers
Andy

I searched the Bell site for the press release but couldn't find it and if one posts a link to a defence-aerospace story it just takes you to the d-a main page not the story itself, something to do with frame I think?

Daniel

Linka

EADS North America selected to provide U.S. Army&#8217;s Light Utility Helicopter

UH-145 to be produced in Columbus, Mississippi

Arlington, Virginia, June 30, 2006 &#8212; EADS North America today announced that the EADS North America today announced that the UH-145 military helicopter has been selected by the U.S. Army as its next-generation Light Utility Helicopter (LUH). The LUH requirement is for up to 352 aircraft with a potential total program life-cycle value of $3 billion.

The LUH award is a continuation of EADS' 20-year heritage as a helicopter supplier to U.S. national and homeland security agencies including the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, DEA and the FBI. The decision, announced today by the U.S. Army, marks EADS North America&#8217;s first major system win as a prime contractor for the U.S. military.

"We're pleased that the UH-145 was chosen by the U.S. Army for this important mission and gratified that this selection demonstrates the service's confidence in our ability to meet the fast-paced delivery schedule and support requirements of these critical Army aircraft," said Ralph D. Crosby, Jr., EADS North America's Chairman and CEO. "We look forward to a long association with the U.S. Army....

F-35 JSF has been named the Lightning II

Linka

(Snipping the full article to a short version)

August 8, 2006: All future MLRS rockets will be "smart" (GPS guided), and older, unguided rockets, will be upgraded to "smart" status.

...

There have been no reliability problems with the GMLRS, which has a range of 70 kilometers and, because of the GPS guidance, it has the same accuracy at any range. Unguided rockets become less accurate the farther they go.

What makes the GMLRS most useful is not just its accuracy, which is about the same as air force JDAM GPS guided smart bombs, but because the 200 pound GMLRS warhead produces a smaller bang than the smallest JDAM (500 pounds). When it comes to urban fighting, smaller is better. Less collateral damage, and your troops can be closer to the target when the explosion occurs.

....

In order to get more GMLRS, all new MLRS production is being switched to GMLRS, and a retrofit kit, that will turn unguided MLRS rockets into GMLRS, has been introduced. The army believes that GMLRS will remain the most useful smart weapon, even with the introduction, later this year, of the hundred pound 155mm GPS guided Excalibur artillery shell, and the U.S. Air Force's 250 pound JDAM (the SDB, or small diameter bomb).

From a Defense Analyst friend: Stuart Slade

MTHEL is actually doing quite well. My understanding is that the pre-production systems are due to be deployed in 2009, only a year behind schedule. They were going to go to Korea but I guess Iraq is a better bet now.

Basically, battlefield lasers will arrive pretty soon (at least for the US)

This has some game engine implications for WinMBT. You can actually now shoot down artillery shells and rockets in flight; I don't know how you could represent this, except as a special "counterbattery" class which can intercept rockets, etc.

I don�t know about smaller is better in urban environments.. collateral damage will occur anyway, so bigger is better at blowing up buildings and stronpoints etc.

IMO Destroying whole buildings with large charges is the best way to proceed anyhow.

"Basically, battlefield lasers will arrive pretty soon (at least for the US)

This has some game engine implications for WinMBT. You can actually now shoot down artillery shells and rockets in flight; I don't know how you could represent this, except as a special "counterbattery" class which can intercept rockets, etc."

Tentatively, what's the doctrine for it?
Is it supposed to protect some high value target from artillery shells which were going to fall too close to it?
Because I have an hard time trying to imagine such system coping with a decent BM-21 barrage, for example.

Based on current news from Afghanistan and northern Israel, there is still a long way to go for anti-missile missile or radar systems.
But from what I understand of doctrine, aerial platforms would give the widest area coverage as an operational or strategic level asset.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see US Army employment of guided artillery in the next version of MBT; you'll have artillery with unpreceedented accuracy, and the targeted Hex will become known as the "hex of death"

Quote:

MarkSheppard said:
Anyway, it will be interesting to see US Army employment of guided artillery in the next version of MBT; you'll have artillery with unpreceedented accuracy, and the targeted Hex will become known as the "hex of death"

Are you saying that it will be possible to simulate the various Excalibur,Copperhead, Smel'chak and Krasnopol in the next SPMBT release?

It is possible now... Just make TOP Attack ATGM with HE warhead with stats of Copperhead and give it to FIST-V and FO units. Same effect with minimal chnges to the code...

Are you saying that it will be possible to simulate the various Excalibur,Copperhead, Smel'chak and Krasnopol in the next SPMBT release?

Well, Take US Weapon Slot 76

155mm M777 VT
It's got an accuracy of 10

Simply copy and paste it into a blank slot and rename it to

155mm GPS Guided
and give it an accuracy of 93 (Same as 1000 lb JDAM)

There are only about 15 weapons slots free in the US OOB though...so it's entirely possible that SPCAMO will decide to condense as many of the "guided" artillery shells into a single round for each major calibre; like 155mm Guided, 105mm Guided, etc.

ATGM metod would be better, because you always fire a copperhead to a target, one M109 fire one Copperhead, but with 155mmGPS guided gun for M109 you will always fire 4-5 shots in one salvo...

Hmm. That's because Copperhead's laser-guided; but with GPS guidance, you can just keep firing them and achieve a high bracket barrage.

Hmm - and the accuracy figure is only relevant to the weapon firing in direct fire over open sights. The acc figure for arty weapons is used when an SP mount or field gun is firing direct fire with that weapon.

To simulate laser-designated rounds in SP the ATGM route is probably best (if the observer moves, he tends to lose his shot - so needs to stay still to lase target/ set up the designation kit etc) . It is not ideal, but there is no way to simulate a desigator/missile pairing any other way really. Not without a new game engine.

Cheers
Andy

Quote:

MarkSheppard said:
Are you saying that it will be possible to simulate the various Excalibur,Copperhead, Smel'chak and Krasnopol in the next SPMBT release?

Well, Take US Weapon Slot 76

155mm M777 VT
It's got an accuracy of 10

Simply copy and paste it into a blank slot and rename it to

155mm GPS Guided
and give it an accuracy of 93 (Same as 1000 lb JDAM)

There are only about 15 weapons slots free in the US OOB though...so it's entirely possible that SPCAMO will decide to condense as many of the "guided" artillery shells into a single round for each major calibre; like 155mm Guided, 105mm Guided, etc.

I tried that method in the past.It did not work.
I was told that the accuracy rating worked only for direct fire and had no effect on indirect fire.Is that going to change?
What I was looking for was more the ability to target accurately a given hex (imagine hitting a suspected building in urban warfare scenarios without the collateral damage or friendly fire deriving from shell dispersion), with the capabilities and constraints of artillery fire (delay etc) rather than an other antitank weapon, although they can perform in that role.I am aware of the atgm method but it does not fit my needs.I guess that if you are playing antiarmor battles it might be good enough.

EDIT
Oh well, never mind.

With HE warhead it will be very usefull against infantry... Just imagine 90% hit propability with 155mm shell to the infantry squad or ATGM team...

Quote:

JaM said:
With HE warhead it will be very usefull against infantry... Just imagine 90% hit propability with 155mm shell to the infantry squad or ATGM team...

Yes but it still does not fill those needs.There is no delay and it is limited only to the units issued with it.I would like a company commander, for example, to be able to call for a couple of rounds to be fired on a suspected position in a building across the street.
I know you can fire missiles even with z key, but as I stated it is not quite the same.
Don't ge me wrong, it is a semidecent workaround.But it does not do for me.

It is not ideal, but there is no way to simulate a desigator/missile pairing any other way really. Not without a new game engine.

What about GPS guided rounds? They don't need a designator pairing, you just radio off a string of target co-ordinates over the radio like you would with normal artillery, the only difference is that the shells coming downrange are really really accurate.

I think it could be represented by creating another weapon class which uses the accuracy rating for both direct and indirect fire to represent Excalibur or GMRLS.

--------

Linka

Summarized

Maybe a third of the guns and rocket launchers [In Iraq] are actually put to work.

...

The MLRS has been particularly popular for the last six months, since the new GPS guided rocket became available.
This fall, a GPS guided 155mm shell (the Excalibur) will enter service, giving the M-109s more to do. In most operations, unguided 155mm shells are too inaccurate to use because the fighting is in urban areas. The Excalibur is a different story. The MLRS launchers have used so many GPS guided rockets that these new items are in very short supply, and are rationed.

On the down side, the GPS guided shells and rockets mean that much fewer shells and rockets are needed. It's pretty much, "one target, one shell." With these "smart shells," the number of rounds needed will decline by over 90 percent.

Quote:

Mobhack said:
It may be better to approach this as a special data item for FOO units (FC or RF or EW maybe with a special code, or a new data item) which brings super-accurate fire IF the target is in LOS of the FOO, for maybe an added 500 points per such an FOO?.

I will look into this, and see if something can be done.

Cheers
Andy

Personally I would consider good enough just any solution (a separate artillery class,anything) which could make the shells fall within the designated target hex, without dispersion except eventually for occasional malfunctions and such.
Anything more than that would be a bonus,of course.

It may be better to approach this as a special data item for FOO units (FC or RF or EW maybe with a special code, or a new data item) which brings super-accurate fire IF the target is in LOS of the FOO, for maybe an added 500 points per such an FOO?.

That's actually a pretty ingenious solution in many ways:

1.) Gets around the issue of running out of weapon slots; especially an issue with Russian OOB.

2.) Imposes cost limitations on it, because even the US won't be able to afford Excalibur and GMRLS in every single battlefield and location for quite some time.

the next EXE will have GPS and laser RF additions to arty spotter accuracy in calling fires.

Laser RF (rf 20+), if in LOS to the target hex, will tend to reduce initial drift hex. i.e the plot hex will tend to be more on-target.

GPS is represented by an EW value of 15. Art observers with GPS will have initial drift halved, even if the target hex is out of LOS. If the arty skill roll for way off target is failed - GPS will reduce the max size of this effect as well, whether the call was on a priority target or an impromptu one. (GPS accuracy on out of LOS hexes which are impromptu will be about the same as for calls on a registered tgt at the moment).

The most accurate call for arty fire therefore will be an art observer unit/vehicle with laser RF at up to 2 times RF value range who is in LOS of the target hex and who also has GPS. Mostly - unless a skill roll is failed - the max drift here will be 0 or 1 hex max.

The added cost will come from the cost calculator (additions for range finder and for 15 EW points).

This will have to be playtested by the test team to see if it is working etc, (just coded it today), and added to units in the OOB etc. We will also have to look at cost adjustment if these things turn out to be "Thor's Hammers" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif!

Cheers
Andy

Wow, you never stop surprise me, Andy...

Sounds like the Hammer of God. Poor grunts.. they are sure getting it this time. And no merkavas anymore sitting on hilltops, blasting away with ease, huh? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Frankly even if it turned out somewhat imbalanced I would still say keep it, even if for scenario design purposes only.This is an important aspect of modern warfare which is currently missing in the game.

Linka

Aug 29/06: A General Dynamics release says that the U.S. Army has awarded General Dynamics Land Systems $45 million to produce and install 505 Tank Urban Survivability Kits (TUSK) for Abrams main battle tanks supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.