This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

Just out of interest how many Players have served/ currently serve in the Military?

Im only 15 so Kind below the age requirement but I am an Air Cadet with 2387 (Pudsey) Sqn. ATC (UK).

If you have or still do serve please post a comment.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

You don't have the security clearance for me to answer that question. Many apologies, mate.

Just kidding ... no service here but I've read lots of Tom Clancy!

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

South African Army, infantry, back in the mid '70's before things really heated up in SWA (God sy dank).

I tried to volunteer with every other man in the Southern Cross Club after 11/09/2001 and was told we were too old.

troopie

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

10 years in the Canadian infantry. The avatar is me on excercise in Norway, May 1997.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

I am a Major in the USMC, Field Artillery officer. I have served 16 1/2 years total(4 1/2 enlisted, 12 years commissioned). Notable experiences include DESERT SHIELD/STORM and OIF I.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

Served my national service in the Royal Norwegian Airforce. Did order tickets and load/unload som C-130. REMF-duty I think it is called in English.

Halstein.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

I've served as a volunteer ... 2 years as a Trooper in the Royal Hong Kong Regiment (recce regt.), 10 years in the Royal Hong Kong Auxiliary Air Force (ending up as Flt. Lt.). Of course, that was when I was much younger http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Nowadays I get my adrenalin rush from SPMBT and SPWW2.

jaywalker

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

Did my duty in the Swedish armoured forces in 1993/94 as a commanding officer over ATGM-team.

The company I where in was a test company, which was testing vehicles like Leo-2A4/A5 (strv-121/122), Strf-90, T-80U, M1A1 and Leclerc.

Did get also a short education on the Swedish centurion tank (104) and the famous "S" tank (Strv-103).

cheers/
niklas

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

4 years in the U.S Army Infantry, Charlie Co. 3/15 Inf. 24th Inf. Div. (M). Started out as a dismount on the M2 Bradley, then went to the driver position and finally to gunner. Served in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

I'm surprised that soo many of you are in the combat arms considering 50% of the people in the army do rear-area stuff. Or maybe it's just because WinSPMBT dosen't appeal to logisitics managers and tank maintenance people.

Very interesting that you were in a test company, Niklas.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

My duty was 12 months in the finnish army Karelian Brigade 2000-2001, Jaeger squad leader, nowadays Sergeant First Class, Platoon 2nd in command. As grunt as it gets.
[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_Finland.gif[/img] http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/Penguin.gif

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

Hey Mustang who are you to judge the trusty maintenance guys that keep the AFVs up runing and guning http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif, at least I'm appealed by this game.

Served as conscript in Bundeswehr 4th Maintenance-Btl for 12 months. Mostly Staff work, you know shuffling around papers and hours of doom at a photocopy machine. You really learn to hate these things after having to do 6 copys of a 150 page manual one page at a time.

Regardless of this staff stuff managed to get two times into winter/alpine-skiing course, some rangetime and some opfor duty for bootcamp, nice change to the boredom.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

How was the German Army? I heard after 1945 it was made more beaurucratic along US Army lines and lost a lot of its old Prussian and WWII skill. Is this true?

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xUHI6w87y3c

see the German Army in action :>

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

Anyone here serve in the Austrailian Army? I was reading about the Australian army sending troops to the Soloman islands and I noticed in a picturetheir infantry weapon was some form of the Steyr-Aug system.

Do they manufacture a licenced version of their weapons or do they buy them from a supplier?

Just interested.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

I served an exchange in Bosnia with the Kiwi contingent in 1995. Yes, both NZ and Australia use the Steyr as their service rifle and carbine. I am also fairly certain that they produce them on license. To round out their small arms package they use the FN minimi 5.56mm as an LMG, the FN-MAG 7.62 as GPMG, 9mm Sig Saur as pistol and browning .50cal HMG. Popular opinion among them was that the steyr rifle was a good service rifle but was a bad match for use with the minimi because they use different magazines.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

Hi! Saw this post and thought it was high-time to sign up!
I served in the Australian Army for 7 years, RAEME attached to infantry bn and recon/mech regt. Did a 4-month jungle-warfare training tour to RMAF Butterworth with MOUT training in Singapore.
Yep, we use the Steyr and Minimi, both licensed-produced in Australia. Aussie designations: F-88 (Steyr) and F-89 (Minimi). When I discharged (2001) we still used M-79's; the MAG-58 (FN GPMG) was being reintroduced at the section level to provide more hitting power (rumour had it 1 Minimi and 1 MAG-58 per section); 9mm Browning; 66mm M-72 LAW; 84mm Carl Gustav. The Australian Army doesn't train soldiers to use the magazine slot on the F-89 so there aren't really any gripes about the weapon, at least none that I heard. The Steyr is also fairly well liked due to it's light weight and optic sight (just put the target in the black circle and squeeze the trigger). The under-slung grenade launcher was introduced for Timor in 2001. It was being trialled at the time and was rushed into service. The Kiwis had it before us! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
A question for the old salts on here: what do you think of repair/recovery units? They could work the same way as ammo units: placed near the damaged/immobilized vehicle for a number of turns and then you get a repaired/recovered, battle ready vehicle. I know the time frame of 3-5 turns isn't realistic. It would be for playability and interest, and if you didn't like it you wouldn't have to use it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Any thoughts DRG and Mobhack? Also, how do I make icons? I saw a post on here where someone made an AH-56.
Thanks!!

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

Yeah, it takes 6 admins to put 1 marine grunt in the field. But every1 in the Corps is a rifleman. Did DesertShield/Storm/OpRestoreHope as M249 gunner and was a Fire Team Leader. Did Panama as FAST Co. 6th Platoon out of Norfolk(Fleet Anti-terrorist Security Team). Did L.A. Riots and the Virginia Beach Riots a few years before that.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

Hallo
I served as conscript in Czech army in 1998/99 (one year). Since 2004 I am in active reserve as squad leader.
I was originally trained for mechanised squad but now I am in pure infantry unit with sentry duties.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

I've spent 10 months in the French air force in 1998, in the time we still had conscript.
But I was detached in the French Civil Aviation University programming software, so not a very "military" role.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

The German army still is one of the best. These days its a bit small (like most European armies) but conscription Wehrdienst/Militaerdienst is still going strongish. The equipment is pretty damn good too and it has a post-war history that is a good indication of how good it could have been. It was reformed after all to fight the mightiest threat Europe has ever known. I am fairly sure it would have acquited itself very well on the battlefield against the commies.

Hell, when I finally get in then out of Uni and I have been repatriated I will probably do a stint in the Bundeswehr (if they will let me).

Give it a few years and the German army will regain more of its previous elan (most likely through further deployments). As for Prussian militarism... well military skill can be taught too and young men with the right leaders in the field can become good warriors without Prussian militarism.

Just out of interest how many Bundesheer men are on this forum and playing SPMBT? What do you guys think of the G36 assault rifle? More to the point did you prefer the G3 and its variants? What do you guys think about the army these days in general (or can't you say)?

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

I´ve heard stories about the G36 not beeing such a good weapon, because it´s aiming point is so much higher than the barrel, causing aiming errors at ranges, when holding the weapon a bit tilted, as sometimes happens in combat situations.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

I think this is another example of modern weapons designers thinking more about space-age materials etc and less about the creation of a decent combat weapon. In my opinion, based on what I have heard and read, it is just a little too accurate up close and not as accurate as you would expect over distances.

Do you guys think that some of the infantry weapons that are being designed these days have taken more ispiration from Star Trek and less from what history has taught us about firearms?

My above questions still stand btw:

"Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering... [Re: Bishop746]
#457638 - 10/14/06 06:38 PM"

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

@ RecruitMonty: Why should the Bundeswehr get back their WW2/prussian elan ? For what ? Starting another war or defending against China, Russia, Switzerland, Luxemburg or Terroists ? IMHO Iraq, Afghanistan, also to a decree Vietnam have shown that you cannot fight certain enemies with a "normal" army. All these wars are huge failures. The russians already tried to occupy Afghanistan with probably 5x the force and much more violent than NATO. The result was ? We need to understand that those countries don´t see our soldiers as friends but as indruders and occupiers.

Also i don´t agree the conscription system for the BW is still good. It is now 9 months, or ? In 9 months you cannot teach recruits the secrets of all the modern stuff and even more important the hardness/willingness to suffer in wars.

So that was my answer to those statements from you....2nd. ppost will be more on topic http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

Hi,

i served 90/91 in ther german Luftwaffe.12 months + reserve duty.

Units:
- Luftwaffensicherungskompanie 143F (3.Zug)
- 14./V.TSLW2

both Erndtebrück.

I also had a reserve duty in:
Flugabwehrrakengruppe 38 (I-Hawk)

in Burbach.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

I was a tank driver in the Israeli army, 1997-99 and drove the Magach6B Gal - a modified M60 American tank.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

I know that the G3 is a good weapon (well "good" might be wrong word for a weapon, but you know what i mean)...we had old rifles, but they still had fair accuracy, reliable, easy to use, compared to the G36 (which i didn´t shoot only held)the G3 is quite heavy.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

Hey,maybe some ppl. that were in the infantry or know the infantry of their countries if it was a Nato or WP army, can poist their opinion (personal experience)in the thread about the Nato/WP capabilties. Thanx.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

I never said they needed to get their "Prussian militarism" back just the élan and high standards that it entailed. An army needs good morale to be effective in any kind of deployment be it a humanitarian one or one involving combat. Hearkening back to some of the older German military traditions (obviously not the unsavoury ones) will help to bolster that.

What it will be used for is anyone’s' guess. Just because we are on a defensive footing and/or fighting "rogue-states" and terrorists today does not mean that we won't be facing bigger and better equipped forces tomorrow. Trying to predict the sort of opponents we will face in the future by just focusing on present conflicts and then throwing all our eggs in one basket (as the modern Western military establishment seems to enjoy doing) is a stupid and ironically short-sighted way of running the military.

It would be best to maintain training standards and practices at a high level (in Germany that would mean lengthening the time conscripts had to stay in the service, something I believe you would support, and increasing the quality and scope of their training and pay). Focussing on Symmetrical warfare and operations of an offensive and defensive nature should be the norm for regular units.
Recruits and/or conscripts that show promise or are in special units should also be trained to fight A-symmetrically. If the defence budget is high enough then even regular units can be trained in similar ways (depending on the combat they are likely to face).

As for the right way to run counter terrorist deployments, well there are two ways I can think of for dealing with that sort of operation: one is messy, inhumane, expensive and long and drawn out. This would involve the deployment of large amounts of combat troops and equipment to the region where the terrorists etc were (like the USA and NATO forces are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan)

The other is equally expensive, smaller in scale, equally brutal but less likely to involve large numbers of your (whichever counry you represent) troops. Instead specialist troops can act as "advisors" to a local force the counter-insurgency).

Both methods have been used in the past (the Germans fought a fairly succesful if somewhat brutal anti-partisan campaign against the Russians and the Yugoslavs, the Americans used special forces to train Montagnards in Vietnam, the Russians fought the Afghans by using similar anti-partisan tactics as the Germans did in WWII in Afghanistan). Neither way is clean and neither way is quick. That is something the West is no longer willing to come to terms with, I fear.

With that said let me return to the subject at hand. Thank you very much for your answers Alpha. Anyone else here an old Bundesheer Soldat?

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

Okay.

Btw. BundesHEER = Austria !
http://www.bundesheer.at/

So you were talking the whole time about austrian forces, then i agreee, they need more ELAN. Lazy austrian http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

German armed forces = BundesWEHR.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

I was talking about the Bundeswehr. I heard that some units had a problem with morale. I also thought that Bundeswehr was the collective term for the whole military in Germany and that Bundesheer was the name for the army. My mistake.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

I maybe wrong, but I think that what history thaught us with Viet-Nam or Iraq is that victory in a war is not a military but political problem. Soldiers won fights, General won battles and politicians won wars...

Just imagine what will if in Afghanistan there was a real war, OTAN will send 10.000.000 troops from USA, 4.000.000 from Germany, 3.000.000 for each Italia,UK and France ...etc... What would happen? I am sure that in one month there wont be any taliban alive. With such an amount of troops, you don't need to bombard anything, so, no collateral dammage. But in order to get such a deployment you have to justify a war and not only a 'peace-keeping/war on terror' badly defined and conducted operation.
That's why I don't like tha therm of asymetrical war: it's asymetrical but certainly not a war, because in a democraty a war involves the country and not only a little group of unlucky professionnal soldier...
But this clearly off-topic, so, shame on me... [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Bomb.gif[/img]

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

Good point though. I never really considered it a war either. I don't mean any disrespect to the troops when I say that by the way. They are indeed in a war! Back at home in the UK and the other Nato states you really wouldn't think a war was on at all though.

It used to be the case that if a country was at war you could see that much in the streets, in the way people behaved and in the language used on the radio, tv and even in the language used by the people. But today in the UK and in Germany (and maybe even in the USA too, I heard someone saying that the USA didn't feel like it was at war) you really cannot tell at all.

The fact that everyone, and I mean everyone, has a bloddy opinion on wether the war is right or not or on how best to pull out etc also doesn't help create that unified fealing.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

Yup! For them, the political problem doesn't matter. That's the problem of professionnal armys: only some take all the risks for everybody.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

Oooh, them fighting words. Funnily enough we think you guys have compeltly gone down the drain. Last couple of joint exercises in the alps was your gebirgsjaeger (crack unit) against a normal dirt-infantry (jaeger) unit of ours - guess who won.

Austrian Army, 12th JgBN and then wonderfull wonderfull green slime duty.

Regarding the use of the Steyer in NZ / Oz, I heard from a colonel who did a stint as a G-1 that the improvement over the m-16 was so great that had to recalibrate the ranges complety. True? Also, how's the grenade launcher? You know the thing was designed for a "motor" type sitck-gernade that was never purchased. Still, the gas adjust feature is pretty handy for other nasty tricks, anyone use it ( if you know what i mean?)

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

I served in the US Army, 1966-1969. Guess that makes me an old fart compared to the rest of you.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

They had to recalibrate the rages! Wunderbar! What do you Bundeswehr and Bundesheer guys think about all the so gennante "Skandals". I personally think its a load of fuss about nothing. Just a load of crap that the pacifists are cooking up to try and stop the Bundeswehr (and Germany) from taking a bigger role on the world stage.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

slightly extreme wording and perhaps not completly attune to the reality of our history and culture...but yes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

the joke is that the skull that was photo'd and all the fuss is about lie all about in afghanistan, litteraly by the road. so no oppening graves or anything like that.

also, i heard that one poor KSK chap was kicked out of the army for having purchased an ak and putting in his locker (in afghanistan - not germany).

OTOH, some of those KSK guys have been driving around with the the old DAK emblem. it's a bit of a tounge-in-cheak joke that, but so very un-PC that it could very easily be misunderstood.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

Whoah - let's hope for those guys that no so-called journalist working for BILD is roaming around internet forums such as this one - their next cover-story would be made up, and some guys would be kicked out of the army, damaging its image once more! DAK then stands for Deutsches Afghanistan Korps, huh? Well, you can't really blame the guys who invented this, blame the acronym, as well as the commanders who let them put their sign on the vehicles, if this is true! But in a politically-overcorrect Germany (+ Austria), that's all you need to have another army scandal, with all consequences!

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

Don't blame anyone. Its not like the Bundeswehr in Afghanistan are going to assumt the personas of a bunch of DAK veterans and tear up the place is it.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

This is getting somewhat off topic for this forum.

Andy

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

Quoi?

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

This seems to be meandering into name calling betwen (I think) Austrians and Germans, and some stuff about silly goings-on in Afghanistan.

Therefore nothing to do with the game, and more to do with politics.

If you want to discuss such matters, then there are "political" message boards or usenet groups elsewhere more suited to such.

Cheers
Andy

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

Name calling? We love the Austrians. They love us too, I am sure.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

Ja we love our cousins dearly, we all need to have difficult family members http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

little note: in europe: we-see-things-differently.

also i have no idea why this topic is supposedly so O/T, did you see the isreal to attack iran thread?

my advice is to spend a little time on the paradox forum for Europa Universalis or Victoria - might give you some ideas..

culture matters http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

The topic was that have any of you served in the armed forces, and where, not what nation is currently doing what in given areas, for example NATO countries in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

Oh right. We better take special note here. I mean its clearly the first time someones gone off topic ever. The topic is effectively over anyway. We were just having a little chat.

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

When I was still serving in the IDF, I was a squad leader in the Shayetet 13.
By the way, why are there no Shayetet 13 units in the game? Must make some!

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

Formations

103
120
381

Written "Sayeret" which gets 59,000 hits when entered into Google as opposed "Shayetet" to which gets 984

Don

Re: This may be O.T but i was just wondering...
 

Uh.
That's because a sayeret is an SF unit here in the IDF.
We have oh so many -

Shayetet 13 (Sea commando, much like the US SEAL's. Also, where I served. They work alot with Sayeret Matkal on joint operations)

Sayeret Matkal (Uh, best of the best commando? Can't realy explain, but they were the ones that participated in Operation Entebbe and many many other important missions like the killing of Black September terrorist leaders in Beirut, they also trained the German anti-terror team GSG 9 after the Munich incident. They have many stuff under their belt.

Duvdevan (These guys don't fight in wars, they are a counter-terrorism unit that does only that. They consist of two parts, the grey and the red [I think] one is for assassinations and only assassinations and the other is for arrests and the like, I think [Again, not sure they are kinda secret].)

Shaldag (The air force's special forces, these guys come in choppers to kick ***, much like the US Rangers.)

Anyway, there's much much more Sayerot, you can view alot of them in http://www.isayeret.com , just go to Unit Profiles and view for your pleasure.

So they kind of merged all of the Sayarot in one unit in WinSPMBT.