Warsaw Pact and TI

[Marek_Tucan]

Kuklinovsky said:
Two remarks about Warsaw Pact's visual observation abilities:

1. You seem to forget about Soviet battlefield radars at all.

They were already discussed just several posts earlier Besides these were proliferated also in Western armies so either both or none So far they are mated on Soviet side with BRM-1 recon vehicles (that use them IRL) and by FO vehicles, in he West just by late FO vehicles.

2. Lack of TI in WP armies wasn't so important because they could always illuminate battlefield by flares and flash bombs at night. In fact Mi-24s and Soviet armor were to act that way.

The same can be done by NATO (and would be employed with older non-TI units) but cannot make for TI. TI was supposed to be night sight but it is almost as a rule used even in daytime as it offers on most occassions better battle-range target acquisition than daylight branch of the system.

Moreover Central Europe isn't Persian Gulf desert. Almost all WP-NATO tank battles would be waged here at less than 2 km distance, pretty much enough for IR and LLTV sights capabilities.

Maybe "pretty much enough" for theoretical acquisition distance, but the TI equipped units would have always edge due to lesser effect of obscurants and better ability to ID what's that in sights. If you're trying to recognise something on the edge of LLTV's envelope or well within TI's envelope, it'll make a difference.
Besides the 2km distance is just an offhand average. Judging by my country, anyone trying to get to the capital or most of other major population centers who'll rely on the 2km average will find himself in big trouble as he'd enter a flat and open terrain around main rivers, controlled usually from both sides by a great overwatch positions. For example a rather minor hill not so far from my home (ca. 2 clicks) offers a great, relatively unobstructed field of view as far as to some 20km distant Prague airport