US Army AAA in T2K

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Tegyrius

It looks like they're down to Stinger teams and Avenger HMMWVs. Gun systems seem to be completely dead... which, if true, bespeaks a high degree of (over?)confidence in our air superiority.

Indeed. It seems that the U.S. military has forgotten the lessons that the Brits learned the hard way in the Falklands, '82.

[TiggerCCW UK]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Indeed. It seems that the U.S. military has forgotten the lessons that the Brits learned the hard way in the Falklands, '82.

Have the Brits remembered? I don't even know what AAA we're fielding these days.

[pmulcahy11b]

Although it's a vehicle that never was, I always liked the M990. It's fast, light, but reasonably armored, and carries a decent ammo load and decent-caliber guns. I put my own writeup of it on my Best SP Antiaircraft Vehicles that Never Were page, and gave it the name of "Chamberlain," after one of my heroes, Joshua Chamberlain of the Civil War.

[Panther Al]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Although it's a vehicle that never was, I always liked the M990. It's fast, light, but reasonably armored, and carries a decent ammo load and decent-caliber guns. I put my own writeup of it on my Best SP Antiaircraft Vehicles that Never Were page, and gave it the name of "Chamberlain," after one of my heroes, Joshua Chamberlain of the Civil War.

I'm totally behind you on that choice, of both fondness and the name for it. While I can't see anyway for it to exist in the real world, I felt that it was in game terms a very good example of how to put together an SPAAG: Base it off of a light vehicle for mobility, cost, and ease of production, and give it solid amounts of firepower, and armour it to the point where light cannon fire, from say a wild weasel, has to get lucky to put it out of action - but no more. As to the name, I spent more than a few years growing up in Maine, have relatives still living there, and the name you picked was pure win. Gotta love the civil war period for one thing: it was the last war where an amateur can leave college, having taught nothing even remotely close to anything military in nature, and still be able to lead troops not only well from a leadership point of view, but actually very successfully in end results in a battlefield environment.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Although it's a vehicle that never was, I always liked the M990. It's fast, light, but reasonably armored, and carries a decent ammo load and decent-caliber guns. I put my own writeup of it on my Best SP Antiaircraft Vehicles that Never Were page, and gave it the name of "Chamberlain," after one of my heroes, Joshua Chamberlain of the Civil War.

I'm with you on this one too. Your assessment is spot-on. Good call.

[schnickelfritz]

The Linebacker was withdrawn from service. I believe that the current solution is the HMMWV based Avenger.

Some times I believe it would be useful to have the idiots at the Pentagon who make decisions like the total clusterXXXX that has been the post cold war US forward AAA situation listen to Iraqi and German verterans of Gulf War 1 and Normandy who can tell them how paralyzing it is to be under relentless air attack.

If you can find a surviving German vet of the Eurpoean campaign, ask him what it's like.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/TWQ-1_Avenger

-Dave

[pmulcahy11b]

I'm personally mystified by the decision to withdraw the Linebacker. I'd love to hear the thinking at the top on that decision. It seems like the perfect vehicle for its mission, since it's almost entirely a Bradley except for its mission fit and fits in perfectly with a mechanized or armored division.

[Panther Al]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

I'm personally mystified by the decision to withdraw the Linebacker. I'd love to hear the thinking at the top on that decision. It seems like the perfect vehicle for its mission, since it's almost entirely a Bradley except for its mission fit and fits in perfectly with a mechanized or armored division.

Indeed, they went with us (3d ACR) for the invasion/OIF1 and they made a very effective regimental fire brigade/reserve manpower pool that the regiment was able to flex where-ever and however when needed. True, not much need for the stingers, but the 25mm was still able to shoot stuff up just fine.

The Avenger on the other hand... What good can be said of it other than it exists so the Army can claim they have an AA platform. At 40k a missile, and assuming only 1 miss out of the 8, its a hell of lot more expensive than say, a 40mm cannon would be for the same level of effectiveness. Sure, it can be said that the stinger can reach out farther than a gun, but outside of the open desert, or down into mountain valleys from ridge line firing positions, not going to be much chance for that, for I think most shots will be hip shots at a threat that pops out of (relatively) nowhere. So, give a SPAAG platform a good gun system: 30mm, 40mm, 25Gat, 30Gat (Ohh... GAU8 anyone?) or whatever and tack on a brace of missiles for when you do have those money shots presented to you.

*edit*

More I think about it, the more I like the idea of mounting (if possible, I don't know for sure) a goalkeeper system on a tank chassis, add in a four cell stinger box, do a little tweaking to the programing for a logic circuit to decide if its a missile engagement or gun for effectiveness, and you get something that *I* don't want to get in the same zipcode with.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by schnickelfritz

If you can find a surviving German vet of the Eurpoean campaign, ask him what it's like.

-Dave

That may be part of the problem -- except for a little bit during the Korean War, the Western militaries of the world know little of what it's like to be on the receiving end of air power. Perhaps we need to talk to the Israelis, but they haven't seen much on the receiving end of air strikes since the 1973 War, either.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Seems the Pentagon ponies should ask some of the British veterans of the Falklands War.
Ask them how they learnt to operate Argentinian AA guns they'd captured so they could fire back at the aircraft strafing them.