[Marek_Tucan]

Originally Posted by shilka77

There are no official tank losses reported from the 2006 clashes but one can only speculate that it was enough to get IDF to turn back home. I have here a movie that speaks a bit about the 2006 conflict. As back in 1982 conflict no official records about lost Merkava tanks are to be found as Israelis has kept this secret, as the mighty Merkava has been a great deterrent on the modern battlefield.

Somewhere on Tank-Net the official figures for tank and crew losses from 2006 war floated, I will try to dig them up. Anyway, most of Merkavas hit were older types and most casaulties seemed to be Commander or Loader, and hit while unbuttoned.
Here is an article by Defense Update: http://www.defense-update.com/analys...anon_war_3.htm
Another article:
http://www.combat-diaries.co.uk/diar...non%202006.htm
AFAIK only two Merk 4's were total losses (and with all hands) but those fell victim to extremely large IED's - there is no tank that can survive a 250kg of explosives going off right under its belly.

I noticed new things with WIN SPMBT that defends the RPG-7 theory of still being effective as a anti-tank weapon. There is of course not many official sources for the RPG-7 development but I have a Soldiers of Fortune magazine from 2000 or 2001 that explains this development is southeast asia in particular.

I will try to scan the pages and upload it for your display.

I am pretty well aware of RPG development. However even Russian troops are still being issued large quantities of the "classic" PG-7M and similar older warheads. Stockpiles and costs have a lot to do with that. Just that a new warhead is available does not mean it gets into widespread use or that it gets exported just into the correct country. And despite few "silver bullets" in Lebanon 2006, most weapons were old Malutkas for ATGM's and PG-7/PG-7M/Type 69 for RPG-7.And even these "silver bullets" generally failed to penetrate the front armor.

The 125mm gun that is used on the T-72s is due to ballistic reports capable to penetrate all our armoured vehicles and main battle tanks with the right round issued. A lot of 125mm equipped tanks fielded by today’s armies in the game still use steelhead propellant ammunition in the game. This is not true on the modern battlefield today.

The 125mm gun used by countries not under the embargo that Iraq was under for 15 years did a lot to re-armament as clearly the old ammunition was amongst the smallest adjustments you could do to make even a basic T-72A deadly in ambushes.

Perhaps you missed all the 2A46 with improved ammo in-game? Anyway, export of modern munitions is pretty recent thing and pretty limited as well. Despite being in WarPac, Czechoslovakia got BM-15 rounds at best from USSR, and had to develop own 125mm APFSDS after the end of the cold war, based on Israeli designs. BM-15 was also the best Iraq had access to. Dunno about other countries but if you'd check OOBs you'd find that most of them have much better than basic ammo for 125mm weapons. As for ambushes, you can in-game pretty well ambush Abrams SEP with T-34/85.
Most mentions I caught appear to report that BM-42 is usually exported for 125mm weapons (atleast to those users shopping in Russia or Ukraine), that is in-game roughly "125mm Gun 88".

North Korea got one of the worlds best ATGMs and is competing with several European systems such as the Eurospike and the French MILAN that failed to penetrate Russian T-72s in the Chechen conflict a few years back. The MILAN was also drawn back by several nations after this had been made public and as such above questions is hard to handle over solid facts and documents and sources from otherwise restricted areas of the arms trade. No one wants to loose his or her face. The public may easily panic.

Me thinks that pulling Milan out of service has more to do with newer alternatives being available. As for North Korea, what missile that would be?

To quote former Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld:
"As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time."

Buit that's just the matter. You may have option to buy tons of gold-plated super RPG's or BM-44 APFSDSDU, but if you didn't, you cannot expect to use them in-game.

The Georgian crisis I think reflects the most worrying development up to this date, the Russians effectively smashed a NATO and US trained and backed army within a matter of days.

US trained just the light infantry going to Iraq, not much use in mech warfae esp. if most of the force is away, but reportedly it was those guys who managed local counterattacks even pretty late in the war.

The Georgians had about the same equipment as the Russian border forces that went in from South Ossetia so this with training is I think history by now.

58th army being "border force"? And even Russian observers noted that the performance of Russian troops was quite sloppy - only the Georgians were even sloppier, but I heard quite a lot of voices saying that discipline, OPSEC etc. shown in Georgia was significantly lower compared to 1980's.

The 1991 Gulf War was won because there was so much new technology involved that it completely crushed the battle harden Iraqi soldiers it encountered.

Battle-hardened troops do not always equal competent troops. Iraq was engaged in a war that consisted mostly of trench warfare with tanks serving as mobile pillboxes - for that neither great skill or proper maintenance are critical.

Though the best forces was still found in close proximity of Baghdad and only special units of the Republican Guard saw any real battle with the US forces head to head. The most vicious battle in that war took place a few days after that Bush Senior had declared that the war was over and aggression defeated.

What battle would that be? Given that ground ops lasted for 100 hours. 73rd Easting happened during those 100 hours.