Rise of the Reds Release: A New Beginning Options

[Knjaz.]

Actually, there has been an earlier occurence in history during which the US pretty much HAD total nuclear supremacy over the rest of the world. This was during the late 40s/50s, when the American nuclear arsenal grew exponentially while the Soviet one was still in the earliest stages. And unlike the Soviets, the Americans would have had plenty of heavy strategic bombers to deliver the bombs to any Russian city of their choice. To top it all of, this was during the 1950s, i.e. the time when McCarthyism was in full swing and rabid 'red scare' anti-communism was at an all time high......And yet, not a single nuke was dropped even though the Americans could have ended the Soviets right there.

Well, thing is, in the mentioned period their supremacy, the delivery methods, nuke production capabilities and nuclear warheads strength, amount of available intel, other factors - weren't overwhelming enough to guaranteely stop Soviet war machine, in their eyes. It was far, very far from what can be called "Overwhelming".

Afterwards Soviets got their own nuke, and total uncertainty about Soviet nuclear and delivery capabilities during early 195x made such endevour extremely risky as well. The amount of knowledge they had about each other was nothing compared to how it is now.

And even with that in mind, USA, up until to the point where it became clear that Soviets got their own nuke, had multiple first strike plans against the USSR during the years of their nuclear monopoly, from 1945 to 1950.

Naturally, we cannot guarantee that the -entirety- of our universe holds up to total professional scrutiny, but the basic premise of this mod (i.e. Russia invades) has been around since its inception a decade ago and these are all things that you have to accept as a given, suspension of disbelief and all, because otherwise there wouldn't be a plot.

As for the game itself, and it's plot - well, that's why I specifically said I'm talking about Real Life. It's your game (your modification), it does not promote realism too much, and you can shape the story and the way things work as you wish, nothing against that.


As for Black-out nodes/Particle Cannon, again - inRL, it'd be impossible to use them against enemy superweapons/incoming ballistic missiles.

Particle cannon targeting system is nowhere near being enough to track a target going at hypersonic speed, especially when each of that target turns into 10-20 more with same signatures that makes target selection a real nightmare (that's the basic ABM penetration methods that Soviets were using in 197x, and this is something Russia paid special attention even in 1990s, when country was in catastrophic situation, so the R&Ds were still going.), and I doubt it can take out few hundreds of missiles even during their boost phase, (that takes just few minutes), being launched from the area as big as 1/6 of the world, including polar regions. Realistically, even if you create a laser capable of taking out ICBM, it's a nightmare to make it work against technologically advanced opponent, when you take everything into equation.

Not mentioning simple trick of blowing up a nuke on the orbit not far from that satellite, or ramming your satellite into it, or just plain shooting it down with a missile (even Soviets had these anti-satellite things launched from planes, as rumored - and S-500 is confirmed to have a requirement to reach low orbit with one of it's missiles)

And EW nature of Black Node... well, to say that it can prevent Particle Cannon from being used against it can mean 2 things - either it works on the principle of some sort of "focused rays", so it "targets" Particle Cannon satellite, or that thing is so tremendously strong it can actually cover a small country, along with frying up it's electronics.
Or it's some sort of extraterrestrial tech that just shut downs everything around it. Most plausible explanation, btw. (well, it can explain warheads not detonating - warheads that are designed to withstand EMP wave from Nuclear blast and the blast itself, but can't explain protection from Particle Cannon)


But then again, it's just a game, and I have nothing against the Sci-Fi weapons or something like that. I just pointed out some differences of RotR Russia's logic from the one it's usually using, if we accept that USA advanced THAT much in energy weapons and ABM tech.

P.S. That being said, the RotR Russian faction quite well represents the actual Russian Army. With the exception of lack of nukes, that it'd really heavily rely on in case of large scale conflict (but that's in case of defensive war. The explanation of why Russia does not want to use nukes on Europe makes sense, partially.), and units like Sentinel/Tesla stuff.

Even the Golem, that you draw off from old Soviet experimental model, very well represents the requirements for the actual future MBT Russia is making in its stats (i.e. high level of autonomy in very hostile environments - which translates into requirements for crew to be able to stay in the tank for up to 2 days without leaving the vehicle) also special armored capsule in which crew sits, very heavy armor combined with mobility and firepower.
I'd only add the "radiation/toxin" resistance upgrade for Russian vehicles since Russia and Soviets always emphasized on their abilities to conduct military operations in the enviroment of global thermonuclear war, and make the Sentinel into the way Object.195 should've been, and it'd be it. Although, Golem with it's stats is literally the equivalent. (no, I'm not proposing you to change anything at this stage of the mod development, just saying. Plus, I'm not sure how some of this would affect balance, probably in the bad way. Realism is good, balance is better.)

This post has been edited by Knjaz.: 6 Jun 2012, 15:41

[aeroth]

P.S. That being said, the RotR Russian faction quite well represents the actual Russian Army.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lITBGjNEp08

The actual russian army is made of light cheap easy to mantaign tanks. The russian t 90 series and the t 80 are way lighter and slower and outgunned compared to the nato tanks (m1a2,lepard2,challenger2,leclerc)
Russia does not uses a big tank because it does not need one, nobody is gonna invade russia with tanks anymore.
They're only concerne is air, look at they're investments pak-fa, s-400, they even cancelled 2 tank designs the black eagle and the t 95 because of funding problems.

in the georgian war russia only used old t 72's not even one t 90 or t 80 because russia does not afford to deploy them

So you are wrong the rotr russia is actualy the opposite of current russia army. No big tanks for real russia

[Knjaz.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lITBGjNEp08

The actual russian army is made of light cheap easy to mantaign tanks. The russian t 90 series and the t 80 are way lighter and slower and outgunned compared to the nato tanks (m1a2,lepard2,challenger2,leclerc)
Russia does not uses a big tank because it does not need one, nobody is gonna invade russia with tanks anymore.

Wrong. Very wrong. Term "armored volume" tells you anything?
And about not uses a big tank cause it does not need one - nobody is gonna invade russia with tanks anymore, thats just blew my brain away.

They're only concerne is air, look at they're investments pak-fa, s-400, they even cancelled 2 tank designs the black eagle and the t 95 because of funding problems.

in the georgian war russia only used old t 72's not even one t 90 or t 80 because russia does not afford to deploy them

So you are wrong the rotr russia is actualy the opposite of current russia army. No big tanks for real russia

Again, wrong. Maybe I'll explain few things later, but I'd better give you this link.
http://www.defencetalk.com/forums/army-sec...-armour-5288-3/

That's a discussion you can consider unbiased. There're another ones, but you'd consider them biased, because they're in russian, and nobody believes people when they're talking about their own tech.
While they did miss out few things, or plainly didn't have access to them (just like I don't have access to them and can only speculate on what people who have that access say, and they'll never give you exact info, cause they don't want to end up in a jail), you can still create a good enough picture.
Start reading from Page 3, this is were more or less unbiased discussion starts.

This post has been edited by Knjaz.: 6 Jun 2012, 22:05

[Alex1guy]

For the record, the Particle cannons act a missile shield because they can blast launch sites and naval capital ships in an instant, assuming there is coverage is what I think is meant.

[MARS]

They're only concerne is air, look at they're investments pak-fa, s-400, they even cancelled 2 tank designs the black eagle and the t 95 because of funding problems.

in the georgian war russia only used old t 72's not even one t 90 or t 80 because russia does not afford to deploy them

So you are wrong the rotr russia is actualy the opposite of current russia army. No big tanks for real russia

The in-game Russians may have given up on the Black Eagle and T-95, but in return the -entirety- of their forces is now equipped with tanks that are at least equivalent to the T-80. Fun-fact: A looong time ago, we actually considered having the T-80 as their standard MBT and the T-90 as a special replacement for General Zhukov. But since the vehicles are relatively similar, we largely based our Kodiak on the T-80 and gave it a generic name that allows the possibility that it's still somehow an upgraded T-80. What we might do at some point though would be to create a purely visual Kodiak variant that resembles the T-90 with its differently shaped turret and randomise them akin to Technicals. That way, -all- Russian MBTs would be at least as good as T-80s or T-90s.

[aeroth]

ahahaha formul link ))) that's so cute

let's look at leopard 2 and t 90

leopard 2 -> 62 tons , 72 km/h
t 90 -> 45 tons 60 km/h

mobility goes to leopard 2


gun:

t 90 - 2A46 (D-81T) is a 125mm/L48 shorter gun so lower penetration ,accuracy and range (usualy the first tank to hit wins)
leopard 2 : Rheinmetall L55 120mm better gun in all possible way

the extra 5 mm only make the round heavyer and shorters range that's why russian tanks now shoot atgm rounds

gun goes to leopard 2

ammo :

german uses DM 53 round at 1 750 m/s more then enough to turn any tank on the planet in molten mettal

russian tank uses 9M119 Svir and 9M119M Refleks witch are laser guided missles. the new leopard 2 a7 has lower radar and termal signature so the atgm can't lock on it
also the smoke countermeasures are overpowerd against any atgm round

so rounds goes to german tank also


armor :
Against Kinetic Energy
leopard 2 - > turret 590-690 , glacis 600, lower front hull 600
t 90 -> turret 420 (920 with era), glacis 670 (710 with era), lower front hull 240

and era was renderd useless by tandem rounds so the era only counts if it fights another russian or chinese tank.


http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/main.html
http://www.tanknutdave.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

greek trials tank

Leopard 2A5: 78%
M1A2: 72%
Leclerc: 72% t
Challenger-2: 69 %
T-84: 47 %


challenger 2 was using old rounds at the trials

and you can google other info

Mostly i used numbers not opinions

[MARS]

Ugh...The RL tech talk again...

let's look at leopard 2 and t 90
leopard 2 -> 62 tons , 72 km/h
t 90 -> 45 tons 60 km/h
mobility goes to leopard 2

Just because the Leopard is faster doesn't necessarily mean it's better in this regard. The fact that the T-90 is significantly lighter also means that it
would probably be a lot more controllable when changing directions at high speed than the Leopard which has greater inertia due to its sheer mass.

gun:
t 90 - 2A46 (D-81T) is a 125mm/L48 shorter gun so lower penetration ,accuracy and range (usualy the first tank to hit wins)
leopard 2 : Rheinmetall L55 120mm better gun in all possible way
the extra 5 mm only make the round heavyer and shorters range that's why russian tanks now shoot atgm rounds
gun goes to leopard 2

Unlike the Leopard, the T-90's gun is actually fed by an auto-loader, which eliminates the need for a fourth crew member, allowing the turret section to be significantly smaller and thus giving it a lower profile, which
is an advantage that may not apply to the effectiveness of the gun, but works in favour of the tank as a whole. It also means sending only three rather than four grievance letters to families if the thing gets fucked up.

ammo :
german uses DM 53 round at 1 750 m/s more then enough to turn any tank on the planet in molten mettal
russian tank uses 9M119 Svir and 9M119M Refleks witch are laser guided missles. the new leopard 2 a7 has lower radar and termal signature so the atgm can't lock on it
also the smoke countermeasures are overpowerd against any atgm round
so rounds goes to german tank also

Some of the T-90s payloads are also DU-based though and unlike the Leopard, it can fire ATGMs -at all-, which may prove to be an advantage under different circumstances.
For example, they can be used against low-flying helicopters which, again, may not place it above the Leopard in a pure tank-on-tank comparison, but it's a situational advantage nonetheless.

armor :
Against Kinetic Energy
leopard 2 - > turret 590-690 , glacis 600, lower front hull 600
t 90 -> turret 420 (920 with era), glacis 670 (710 with era), lower front hull 240
and era was renderd useless by tandem rounds so the era only counts if it fights another russian or chinese tank.

Tandem rounds are nothing new; the Russians use them as well and the Leopard doesn't even -have- explosive reactive armour to begin with.
The T-90 can also use the Arena system to protect itself from AT-missiles. It uses both active and "passive" armour whereas the Leopard is pretty much entirely reliant on the effectiveness of its composite armour.
This is due to the fact that Russian tanks are designed to be lighter, so their lack of "passive" armour needs to be complemented with active protection systems, which also makes it easier to mass-upgrade them rather than building entirely new tanks.

greek trials tank
Leopard 2A5: 78%
M1A2: 72%
Leclerc: 72% t
Challenger-2: 69 %
T-84: 47 %

Of course the Russian tank -has- to look really shitty by comparison, because unlike the NATO models, it's designed under a completely different premise: Cheaper, lighter, smaller, easier to mass manufacture. This isn't just a video game thing: Since the Cold War, NATO tanks have been designed to have greater survivability and be overall better in every category than Soviet/Russian tanks, but at the same time more expensive and a much greater loss if you lose them. Russian tanks were designed to outnumber NATO tanks and overwhelm them, not go toe-to-toe with them. Losing a few T-80s probably wouldn't have hurt the Soviet Army as much as loosing -fewer- Abrams tanks would have hurt the US Army if things had gone sour in the 80s. This isn't only about who has the better tank in a 1-on-1 comparison. Total warfare is about who has the greater industrial output, the greater ability to replenish losses to create the illusion that they are meaningless, the effect casualties have on the morale of your people etc. You're making quality comparisons and come to the conclusion that the Russian tank has to be inferior to every Western tank in a 1 on 1 situation, but that's pointing out the obvious because it wasn't even -meant- to be used like that. You have to understand that there are entirely different doctrines and design philosophies in place here, so it's an 'apples and oranges' comparison.

[Knjaz.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lITBGjNEp08

The actual russian army is made of light cheap easy to mantaign tanks. The russian t 90 series and the t 80 are way lighter and slower and outgunned compared to the nato tanks (m1a2,lepard2,challenger2,leclerc)
Russia does not uses a big tank because it does not need one, nobody is gonna invade russia with tanks anymore.
They're only concerne is air, look at they're investments pak-fa, s-400, they even cancelled 2 tank designs the black eagle and the t 95 because of funding problems.

in the georgian war russia only used old t 72's not even one t 90 or t 80 because russia does not afford to deploy them

So you are wrong the rotr russia is actualy the opposite of current russia army. No big tanks for real russia

Now, I'llcomment a little more on that. Let's start from the end.

in the georgian war russia only used old t 72's not even one t 90 or t 80 because russia does not afford to deploy them

One of countless myths.

58th Army (the one that was positioned in North Caucasian Military District, currently called Southern MD), due to the nature of the operations it was conducting, was the least equipped army in the RA, with most outdated arsenal. You see, you do not need tanks with latest thermal imagers, top-notch explosive-reactive armor combined with latest APS to bash poorly armed and scattered guerilla formations. Old T-62 (currently phased out, completely), and T-72s were doing the job just fine. In short, the active part of military operation was long over, and it was mainly SpecOps job at the time, that were, sometimes, calling for heavy fire support (for example, when bandits would fortify themselves in a house, they could just call in the tank and blow it away)

After the 888 it changed, though, and it got re-equipped. Russia considers that there still is a probability of conflict with regular army, on that Direction. The process of re-armament of 58th is also meant to prevent that from happening.
One of countless myths.

They're only concerned is air, look at they're investments pak-fa, s-400, they even cancelled 2 tank designs the black eagle and the t 95 because of funding problems.

Black Eagle was never meant to be an actual tank that would go into production. At best you can call it a technology demonstrator. Also, such designation was created by journalists or the factory, and never existed in official MoD documents.
Now about Object.195 (that is called T-95 by journalist, while at same time proper designation is Object.195), fully completed it's R&D cycle. But due the complexity of the vehicle it could not be effectively mass produced at current technological level of MIC (Military Industrial Complex), that translated into requirement for insane amount of investment into industrial base. The prototype itself was also extremely expensive - 400 million roubles, that translates into 12 million dollars. The tank featured (compared to current designs)

-152mm smoothbore gun. (that thing is a guaranteed kill for any tank in the world, even when hit into frontal armor)
-Uninhabited tower
-Very advanced FCS systems.
-Crew being located in the armored capsule inside the tank, to increase it's survivability in case of penetration (becuase in many cases, when tank's armor is penetrated, crew is being wounded by shards from the tank armor itself, not from the penetrator)
-Autonomy - i.e. crew could stay in tank, without leaving it, for 2 days. That requirement directly corresponds with the emphasis Russian army puts on it's ability to fight in the environment of nuclear war with the mass use of WMDs.
-very heavy armor.
-stronger engine, obviously.
-Don't remember about remote controlled machinegun - if it was standard 14.5mm, or 30mm autocannon.

It was decided that the need in new tank is not THAT great, to spend (tens) of billions of dollars on MIC, and then insane amount of money on the production of new tank. More then that, RA always pays special attention to cost-effeciency, that's why "overkill" solutions are unlikely to find their way into the troops, if they cost too much. This tank was an overkill in it's firepower, armor and electronics.

Instead, it was decided to create a downgraded version of that tank, currently known under the name "Armata". Why do we know it's downgraded version of Obj.195? Because you can't create a tank in 3-4 years, and that was exactly the time during which Armata is being "created". Afaik, it should go to trials in 2013.

What will be different from Obj. 195?
-125 smoothbore gun.
-Less advanced FCS. (Obj.195's were too expensive/complex).
-No 30mm autocannon. (afaik)
-Protection will get slightly downgraded (but as people say, right now they ended up with almost identical one to Obj.195)
Everything else stays the same (not sure about engine)

Funnily, as people say, the price won't change that drastically. Well, time will tell.

Russia does not uses a big tank because it does not need one, nobody is gonna invade russia with tanks anymore.

*facepalms*

The actual russian army is made of light cheap easy to mantaign tanks. The russian t 90 series and the t 80 are way lighter and slower and outgunned compared to the nato tanks (m1a2,lepard2,challenger2,leclerc)

Aha, and the main tactic of Soviet/Russian army are tank swarms that try to overcome enemy defences in frontal assault by burying them under own wrecks. *facedesks* Hollywood indeed produces epic movies that are pleasure to watch on large screen, but they shouldn't be taken seriously, you know.

Now, to the subject. I'll try to make it short, not to end up walls of text, so it may look a bit chaotic.
Your impression of lightly armed and armored russian tanks, most likely, comes from Iraqi monkey models and early T-72M1 models. Well, no sh, Sherlock, those tanks, sometimes locally produced, made out of steel ( I think I don't need to explain what does it means?), and using 40-year old Soviet ammunition are unlikely to stand up to M1A2s.
And even then, bulk of Iraqi's armored forces were T-5x, both Soviet and Chinese designs.

But that's unimportant, largely. What is important, is that most of those tanks were killed by aviation or artillery. In those conditions, even if you'd give em Leo2A6 (that is considered better then Abrams) they'd end up with same results.

Now, to the tanks of RuArmy itself. I'll start with armor. Do you know the term armored volume? It describes the amount of space that you have to cover up with armor. For T72-90 series it's 10.8m3-11.04m3, for M1 series, it's 19.7m3.
Now imagine the amount of armor and the resulting weight to provide same levels of protection for T series and M1 series. Then compare the weight of T and M1 series. Then add reactive armor on T series. And if you wish, you can add APS there as well (although, not many tanks were equipped with Arenas, afaik). It may surprise you, but T-90 has a frontal armor thickness comparable to Abrams.
You can tell me stories about cases of armor penetrations, that lead to ammo detonation (that has it's own nuances, btw. detonation pretty rarely happens instantly.), I can tell you stories (I think I'll be able to dig some photos as well) of T-72s survivng multiple RPG hits in Checnya. Even, if I remember correctly (not sure), without reactive armor.
M1 series are not THAT well armored, and have pretty high vulnerability from sides and rear.

http://s39.radikal.ru/i086/0904/53/c7400db98b64.jpg
The left zone you can penetrate with more or less good RPG (not 40 year old RPG-7 ammunition, ofc, and I'm talking about modern RPGs, not ATGMs), the right zone can be penetrated by 30mm AP rounds. A modern 120/125mm round will guaranteely penetrate side/rear projection.

The firepower. If we won't take 40-year old export model soviet ammunition into account, then there's a single problem with T series, that is connected with it's autoloader, that prevents the use of longer ammunition - and with the current lenght we almost reached physical limit on it's AP capabilities, and it's very hard to increase those without increasing the length of shell, as it was done on American tanks, as example. Still, the AP capabilities of latest ammunition are high enough to penetrate even frontal armor.
As for autoloader round length-limiting problem, it's being fixed on the latest T-90 series and, as far as I remember, even on T-72 series. (don't remember the exact name of that upgrade designation. Either Burlak, or smth else.)
And, just for your education, this is how frontal armor of the average tank would look like, with all the weakened zones.
http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbwiki/images/9...T72frontLOS.jpg

(it's export T-72M1, old soviet export model, and I'm not sure if numbers are right because they wrote complete BS about M1A1 on another picture, but it's not about that)

So... few last points, and I'm, hopefully, done here.
T-72 has been initially produced as a tank that you can deploy in large numbers and mass produce cheaply (downgraded version of it, of course. In peace time it was produced at different quality/complectation, then it'd be at war-time), it's the continuation of T-62 concept.
T-80 is a continuation of T-64 (very advanced tank of it's time), and is designed as a "heavy, elite units". It's heavier armored, and it's more expensive.

T-90 is a continuation of T-72 legacy, as a transition design, until the new MBT arrives, but due to the events of 1990s, it had to become the main battle tank of RuA, being intensively upgraded in the process (for example, currently produced T-90s and T-90s from early 199x are very different in it's armor protection).

Why relatively light of Russian tanks? For higher strategic and tactical mobility. You see, there're not so many bridges in Russia that would be able to hold 60-ton Abrams, at same time, if you look at the map of European theatre, you'll notice the amount of rivers there. Same reasons go for BMP series, that are required to have amphibious capability, and have enough protection from artillery round shards. That's why they suck so much against IEDs, because in a war against regular army, % of losses from IEDs/mines is about 0.5-1% of total losses, and most losses are being inflicted by arty.

Uhh... I think I'll finish here. I definitely didn't describe some (or quire many) things - like doctrine, the way it affects vehicle requirements, Russian IADS and they logic under which they operate, etc, but if you want to read about the tanks - go read the link I provided. It's relatively good quality discussion. I don't want to post wallz of text here, nor I have time for it.


P.S. Yeah, forgot to say. Any correct info on tank protection levels and round penetration capabilities are secret, in both Russia and other countries. Especially in Russia.
You won't find open correct info on penetration capabilities and protection levels of Russian tanks and their rounds, and you can only compare export stuff

This post has been edited by Knjaz.: 7 Jun 2012, 12:48

[Knjaz.]

let's look at leopard 2 and t 90
leopard 2 -> 62 tons , 72 km/h
t 90 -> 45 tons 60 km/h
mobility goes to leopard 2

You know, that there's a difference between terms "Maximum Speed" and "Mobility" ?
About ranges - average engagement range on the European TOP does not exceed 3km, afaik. Or even less then that.

armor :
Against Kinetic Energy
leopard 2 - > turret 590-690 , glacis 600, lower front hull 600
t 90 -> turret 420 (920 with era), glacis 670 (710 with era), lower front hull 240
and era was renderd useless by tandem rounds so the era only counts if it fights another russian or chinese tank.
Mostly i used numbers not opinions

You won't find correct numbers on such tank characteristics. That's why I'm not providing any, they're meaningless anyway. You can compare armor thickness, but you can't compare the level of protection that thickness provides. As an example.

And, I don't want to turn it into another "X vs Y", I know very well what it turns into. So I'm out of this.

This post has been edited by Knjaz.: 7 Jun 2012, 10:39

[Darkfire Angel]

Le sigh. Not this again, these discussions have nothing to do with the actual game and frankly certain people involved in them refuse to accept any alternative to their arguments. I'm pretty sure there is a forum for you guys to discuss theses matters in, so maybe move the discussion there, instead of throwing up walls of text that actually have nothing at all to do with RotR. This is a game, not RL

Now that's over with. What are the actual political situations in the various areas of Africa? I would assume that Gla controlled areas are small areas controlled by rival warlords, fundamentalists, and the like. China and Russia keep a fairly firm grip on things and try keep those they support in power or in Chinas case maintain the illusion of a socialist one party state. Europe takes a similar approach but is more or less subtle about it as the need requires and the USA tends to allow a much more open and free democratic system and is the money behind the throne.

[MARS]

Now that's over with. What are the actual political situations in the various areas of Africa? I would assume that Gla controlled areas are small areas controlled by rival warlords, fundamentalists, and the like. China and Russia keep a fairly firm grip on things and try keep those they support in power or in Chinas case maintain the illusion of a socialist one party state. Europe takes a similar approach but is more or less subtle about it as the need requires and the USA tends to allow a much more open and free democratic system and is the money behind the throne.

Central Africa is pretty much under uncontested control of the Sulaymaan's GLA with him and his two big-shots Yusuuf and Ibrahiim on top of a hierarchy and several smaller cell leaders, warlord and dictators in the lower ranks. The fighting between them, however, is relatively limited since they're all working towards the GLA's overarching goals: Profit and to be a pain in the arse for the foreign superpowers. Anyone who steps too far out of the main line would probably get a visit from Sulaymaan's enforcers at some point. This is basically the heart of darkness: You can do whatever you want as long as you can phyisically stand up to what someone else might do to you in return with only one cardinal rule in effect: Don't piss off Sulaymaan.

As for Russia, they use the local governments of their territories as "partners" whereas the Chinese outright invaded and occupied their colonies and imposed their own order by virtue of Somalia being de-facto ungoverned. Their ideology has been purged of all references to socialism, for there is only 'the Party', and the overarching idol-like entity that is China itself. As a result, they'd probably face a lot of opposition in their colonies, but as always, they can resort to their standard tactic of throwing more men at the problem.

The main US territory is South Africa whose government is not to be regarded as a puppet, but as a close ally of the United States and by extension the NAU. Anything outside South Africa that is under US-control could be interpreted as being run by shady pro-US strongmen who allow the CIA to perform whatever black operations need to be performed outside the grasp of international authorities in their territory. Finally the Europeans...Well, we did learn that they got a hold of their African territories by conquest, but how they treat the countries will be left blank until we do an update about them; this particular question, however, has already been addressed in one of our internal drafts.

[Dangerman]

Aha, and the main tactic of Soviet/Russian army are tank swarms that try to overcome enemy defences in frontal assault by burying them under own wrecks. *facedesks* Hollywood indeed produces epic movies that are pleasure to watch on large screen, but they shouldn't be taken seriously, you know.

Now, to the subject. I'll try to make it short, not to end up walls of text, so it may look a bit chaotic.
Your impression of lightly armed and armored russian tanks, most likely, comes from Iraqi monkey models and early T-72M1 models. Well, no sh, Sherlock, those tanks, sometimes locally produced, made out of steel ( I think I don't need to explain what does it means?), and using 40-year old Soviet ammunition are unlikely to stand up to M1A2s.
And even then, bulk of Iraqi's armored forces were T-5x, both Soviet and Chinese designs.

But that's unimportant, largely. What is important, is that most of those tanks were killed by aviation or artillery. In those conditions, even if you'd give em Leo2A6 (that is considered better then Abrams) they'd end up with same results.

IIRC i've heard that Iraq's military is horrible even without considered the training and here's two funny quotes regarding Iraqi military effectiveness:

If you stick 4 monkeys in a T-72 you're probably just slightly under the level of the average Iraqi army grunt in 1990...

Well, as far as I understand the average Iraqi army tank crew could drive the tank to a certain point, fire in a certain direction and do some basic maintenance like putting fuel in it. I could probably train chimps to do the same...

Iraq was just plain awful.

[Warpath]

Jeez can you stop the Real Life military discussions, this is forum us about the SWR mod not a RL military vehicles and weapons forum.

Anyway is Taiwan part of GAPA, a US ally or neutral?

This post has been edited by Warpath: 7 Jun 2012, 11:48

[aeroth]

i gave u numbers u come with oppinions.

challenger 2 nitro spring hydropneumatic suspension. best accuracy at full speed.

the t-90 is lighter and slower so low engineering, and uses an old torsion bar suspension so low acuracy when moving + low speed when turning.

leopard 2 has the best mobility as far road speed,offroad speed,trench crossing,vertical obstacles,sloaps,warding and fowarding.

russia black eagle and the t 95 are soo good....that's way there are cancelled

the leopard 2 mounted an 140 mm for test since late 80's so think again about who's got the more advanced tank technology
nato tanks do not need a bigget gun yet. there is no armour on the planet that can stand a one direct hit from a m1a2,challenger 2 or leopard 2 a5+ !

These 3 nato tanks have best accuracy and can fire on the move with greath accuracy while russian tanks are way behind on that aspect.
Challenger 2 and leopard 2 have longer guns so longer range better accuracy = > they hit the russian tanks before they can even fire.


t 90 is a good tank but when compared to m1a2 tusk,challenger 2, leopard 2 a7 is way behind in every aspect possible
firepower,mobility,armour

the leopard 2 is a modular hi tech tank with state of the art in countermeasures, electronics it's a command center

leopard 2 a5+ also uses spaced armour vs heat rounds and tungsten vs darts

m1a2 uses uranium armour and chobham from the brithish challenger 2, chobham is by far the most advanced armour on the planet.
era is useless, tandem heat rounds !
also m1a2 and leopard 2 uses nera plates and era (and the russian do not use tandem rounds to counter it)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chobham_armour
http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/Leo2_Files...m-gun.kruse.pdf



so you're telling me that the most hot spot zone for russia the caucaz, army has older t 72 because they don't need better tanks there?
then were do they need the t 90's?
get real mate the t 90 and t 80 is too expensive for russia right now to deploy !

why did the americans didn't send patton tanks in afganistan ? they did not need better tanks


the russians are currently going for
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Combat_Platform_T-99

witch nobody knows what's going to be, but i'm ready to bet it's gonna be another cheap light tank
russia based on tank numbers not quality.

this is the last post about real life tanks

This post has been edited by aeroth: 7 Jun 2012, 11:52

[aeroth]

Central Africa is pretty much under uncontested control of the Sulaymaan's GLA with him and his two big-shots Yusuuf and Ibrahiim on top of a hierarchy and several smaller cell leaders, warlord and dictators in the lower ranks. The fighting between them, however, is relatively limited since they're all working towards the GLA's overarching goals: Profit and to be a pain in the arse for the foreign superpowers. Anyone who steps too far out of the main line would probably get a visit from Sulaymaan's enforcers at some point. This is basically the heart of darkness: You can do whatever you want as long as you can phyisically stand up to what someone else might do to you in return with only one cardinal rule in effect: Don't piss off Sulaymaan.

why not make gla more undeground, i mean that they should not have teritory and they can pop out everywere ?

[Warpath]

why not make gla more undeground, i mean that they should not have teritory and they can pop out everywere ?

They would if the superpowers don't use tunnel detecting and counter tunneling techniques like (which won't be seen in game) the East Germans during the Cold War.

This post has been edited by Warpath: 7 Jun 2012, 12:13

[Knjaz.]

russia black eagle and the t 95 are soo good....that's way there are cancelled

Challenger 2 and leopard 2 have longer guns so longer range better accuracy = > they hit the russian tanks before they can even fire.

then were do they need the t 90's?
get real mate the t 90 and t 80 is too expensive for russia right now to deploy !

the russians are currently going for
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Combat_Platform_T-99

witch nobody knows what's going to be, but i'm ready to bet it's gonna be another cheap light tank
russia based on tank numbers not quality.

*facepalms*

Just these 4 points show that
1) you didn't read my post
2) you don't have a slight understanding on how the things in Russia are going, will be going, and were going.
3) you don't have a slight understanding on European TOP. (well, that again implies that you didn't read my post)

As for numbers and other points that you provided, I can ask certain people to give em to me. but then we'll turn this thread into complete nightmare, since it'll take time to go through all of them But why don't you go and read the link I provided above, with actual western military personnel discussing these matters, uh? Including battle-experienced personnel. I knew you'd consider me and my sources biased "per se", so why don't you go there?
EDIT: The tower has mock-ups placed on it, to cover it's contours. The real view of this vehicle is still secret. It's higher then T-series, but lower then it looks on these photos.
Obj.195 Obj.195 Obj.195


Does this forum engine supports proper "spoilers" ?
The ones when you can hide large amounts of text under 1 button. I'd like to hide walls of text I left here, but still leave them readable, if needed.

Central Africa is pretty much under uncontested control of the Sulaymaan's GLA with him and his two big-shots Yusuuf and Ibrahiim on top of a hierarchy and several smaller cell leaders, warlord and dictators in the lower ranks. The fighting between them, however, is relatively limited since they're all working towards the GLA's overarching goals: Profit and to be a pain in the arse for the foreign superpowers. Anyone who steps too far out of the main line would probably get a visit from Sulaymaan's enforcers at some point. This is basically the heart of darkness: You can do whatever you want as long as you can phyisically stand up to what someone else might do to you in return with only one cardinal rule in effect: Don't piss off Sulaymaan.

Are existing world powers making any attempts to root him out?

why not make gla more undeground, i mean that they should not have teritory and they can pop out everywere ?

Because even USA scrapped their underground tunnel network plans for their ICBMs as cost-ineffective.
GLA would have no means to deploy tunnels on strategic level.

As a tactical defense grid in a small town - yeah, possible. Hard, requires ALOT of work (even if you're planning to use them for infantry only). But not on a higher level.

This post has been edited by Knjaz.: 7 Jun 2012, 13:35

[Alex1guy]

Can we stop with the tech talk please?!? Because there are a thousands of forums across the internet that discuss a tank's real life armour, tonnage, weapon capabilities, track type, smell, sound, ventilation exhaust shape and and the preferential color of the operator's caps. This is a discussion about a game that has gigantic laser beams shot from space, a China that uses nukes as liberally as one uses salt on chips and in a world Europe has been punched in the face and conquered by a group of hyper-organized super-terrorists who use weapons from the second world war. Much pretense of realism was thrown out the window a long time ago and is now festering on the pavement ten stories below!

Central Africa is pretty much under uncontested control of the Sulaymaan's GLA with him and his two big-shots Yusuuf and Ibrahiim on top of a hierarchy and several smaller cell leaders, warlord and dictators in the lower ranks. The fighting between them, however, is relatively limited since they're all working towards the GLA's overarching goals: Profit and to be a pain in the arse for the foreign superpowers. Anyone who steps too far out of the main line would probably get a visit from Sulaymaan's enforcers at some point. This is basically the heart of darkness: You can do whatever you want as long as you can phyisically stand up to what someone else might do to you in return with only one cardinal rule in effect: Don't piss off Sulaymaan.

So basically, it's a GLA "State" in name, but it's still far from anything anyone would call centralized based on the fact it is divided up among warlords and whatnot. Kinda like Tatooine from Star-Wars or something where the rule basically is do whatever you please just don't piss off the Hutts?

This post has been edited by Alex1guy: 7 Jun 2012, 14:19

[MARS]

Anyway is Taiwan part of GAPA, a US ally or neutral?

Taiwan is actually a part of China itself in-universe. General Fai's description in the original ZH manual mentions him being involved in the "Taiwan conflict of 2018", preventing it from escalating to the point where it would involve other global powers. We basically just took that as a short-hand to have Taiwan annexed by China in universe. It's something that would have happened before even Generals, so we won't bother elaborating on it any further. So yeah, 'One China' policy for real now it seems. Do note, however, that our version of 2040's China actually annexed some other countries as well, making it look very much like the actual territorial claims of the ROC.

why not make gla more undeground, i mean that they should not have teritory and they can pop out everywere ?

They've placed their shelters, command facilities, armouries, provisions and logistics underground, but this obviously doesn't extend to literal underground cities. Still makes it hard enough to find the actual GLA installations in Central Africa even if someone tried real hard though.

Are existing world powers making any attempts to root him out?

As it stands, the various factions occasionally do venture into GLA territory, but none of them goes on a major offensive. This is due to the fact that the GLA is literally in full control of Central Africa, which for all we know has been turned into a literal hell hole. No one, not even the Russians, wants to face the prospect of sending people in there because god alone knows what the locals might do to them and a total strategic bombardment is out of the question because as silly as it may sound, no one would want to deal with the political fallout of carpet bombing the entire Central African rainforest. Even though he's draining the country for oil, diamonds etc, Sulaymaan does seem to be clever enough to leave large forest preserves and endangered animals alone, if only to protect himself with the knowledge that no one wants to have that particular Shoot The Dog moment on his hands for the time being. As such, everyone's mostly trying their best to keep the GLA isolated and contained as long as they don't stage another massive attack on Chinese/Russian/American/European cities. Do note that this policy is regarded with a degree of skepticism in-universe as well, as we're going to highlight at some point.

PS: Yeah, basically like Tatooine.

[GeneralCamo]

Does the Core Periphery Model still apply in this world? Or is it outdated here?

[MARS]

That's...delving just a bit too far into political systems theory to be addressed by our story.

[aeroth]

Mars this mean that the campaign will be like the dune 2000 campaign? afther each mission you can choose were u attack or defend?

if that is not the case the map with areas is not really important, only for matters concerning the story

[MARS]

That's not how it works. The campaigns are basically just set up like the ones in Gens. You pick one and it starts a series of missions that will likely have some sort of intro video between each.
The other game mode that will be similar to the generals challenge however will use a large world map from which you select the faction you want to play for the challenge

[Alex1guy]

Does the Core Periphery Model still apply in this world? Or is it outdated here?

Well in regards to China, I'd say it's more relevant than ever. They seem to be annexing everything around them as they get make more $$$.

[Nemanja]

QUOTE
greek trials tank
Leopard 2A5: 78%
M1A2: 72%
Leclerc: 72% t
Challenger-2: 69 %
T-84: 47 %

Of course the Russian tank -has- to look really shitty by comparison, because unlike the NATO models, it's designed under a completely different premise: Cheaper, lighter, smaller, easier to mass manufacture. This isn't just a video game thing: Since the Cold War, NATO tanks have been designed to have greater survivability and be overall better in every category than Soviet/Russian tanks, but at the same time more expensive and a much greater loss if you lose them. Russian tanks were designed to outnumber NATO tanks and overwhelm them, not go toe-to-toe with them. Losing a few T-80s probably wouldn't have hurt the Soviet Army as much as loosing -fewer- Abrams tanks would have hurt the US Army if things had gone sour in the 80s. This isn't only about who has the better tank in a 1-on-1 comparison. Total warfare is about who has the greater industrial output, the greater ability to replenish losses to create the illusion that they are meaningless, the effect casualties have on the morale of your people etc. You're making quality comparisons and come to the conclusion that the Russian tank has to be inferior to every Western tank in a 1 on 1 situation, but that's pointing out the obvious because it wasn't even -meant- to be used like that. You have to understand that there are entirely different doctrines and design philosophies in place here, so it's an 'apples and oranges' comparison.

Just to say that T-84 is Ukrainian made tank.