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Post by norseman on Apr 19, 2019 20:51:31 GMT -5
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2nd Bat
Master sergeant
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Post by 2nd Bat on Apr 19, 2019 23:41:04 GMT -5
That is pretty cool. I suspect it is pretty spendy.
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Post by norseman on Apr 20, 2019 1:12:33 GMT -5
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shiftysgarand
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Post by shiftysgarand on Apr 20, 2019 10:45:19 GMT -5
Pre-orders apparently start at 99 euros, which is pricey but honestly better than I might expect for something like this. If it is reliable, it would be a really cool asset for any team.
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Post by volkssturm on Apr 20, 2019 12:21:53 GMT -5
Very nice design.
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Post by Rekkon on May 9, 2019 12:19:42 GMT -5
I have two on pre-order. I think deliveries were supposed to have started by now, but I am guessing there were delays. At least a few early ones are out in the wild. A few of the big-name European Youtubers have gameplay videos of them in action.
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Post by hunterj on May 11, 2019 14:07:24 GMT -5
Rekkon definitely give a review when you get them, I'm curiouis to see how they actually perform. They look incredible.
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2nd Bat
Master sergeant
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Post by 2nd Bat on May 11, 2019 17:30:04 GMT -5
I too am impressed. I bought six spring powered Claymores back in the day. They looked great and were powered quite simpky by a spring powered mole trap and a canvas hammock that held the BBs and dust that hurled the Bbs when activated. They could be initiated with a trip wire or command detonated from about 30 feet away. They hurled the BBs about 25 feet directionally but so flimsily that people typically couldnt feel the impact. They also had no report to speak of so the sould of a "rat trap" going off didnt do much to cause your opponent to know much of anything happened. The final disappointment was the face plate that swung open on a hinge broke after about 3 detonations. Given that they were $120.00 each made them a "bust" in my book. They did work well at a couple very well set up ambushes but one other challenge was you couldn't put brush or any kind of camouflage in front of them as that impeded the Bbs flight, hence they only worked against very inattentive opponents. Fortunately that describes most airsofters.
I hope these are far better and based on the video and they appear to be! Boobytraps add a significant new dimension to our simulated combat. Grenades for example certainly reduce the effectiveness of campers as a few well placed lobs into likely lagger positions discourage the practice. The explosive pea greanades work well although I wish they looked more authentic.
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Post by Rekkon on May 15, 2019 13:14:10 GMT -5
The videos do look good, though I wonder why they bothered with the bounding bit when it basically ejects the BBs immediately. Regardless, it will be cool to have a mine that is basically "video game" deployable. Set down, turn on, walk away. I have messed with traps and such far more than most airsofters, and while "minefield" sounds cool, you very quickly realize how time-consuming (and airsoft-ineffective) they usually are. The Enimine looks way more efficient, covering a larger area with less setup time, making them much more attractive to deploy.
Speaking of which, I finally got an update from the company. Apparently they are working on a patent extension and a manufacturing partnership and hope to start shipping in July.
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2nd Bat
Master sergeant
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Post by 2nd Bat on May 15, 2019 20:39:49 GMT -5
Nice that they kept you in the loop. These absolutely look skirmish worthy for the reasons you cited. I have perhaps a dozen step on CO2 powered mines that either squirt paint for paint ball a spew a blast of talc powder when initiated. A trip wire is decidedly more likely to be triggered than being stepped on. I remember setting up all 12 on a very logical and very channalized area literally on both side of a log that crossed a stream. They had to be 2 to 3 feet apart and well hidden. Six opponents crossed that stream with dry feet and NO One stepped on any of the mines. I was so bummed. On another occassion we placed mines all throughout an abandoned VC camp in a NAM game where the US had to search and clear the camp. They ended up setting up their own overnight camp there. It wasnt until the second day that a mine was stepped on and then within two or three minutes a second one detonated. Soooo random. These look very cool and should be awesome.
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Post by volkssturm on May 16, 2019 11:35:35 GMT -5
That reminded me of a movie from the '70's I think ("Midnight Express"?) about an American guy who got caught smuggling drugs in Turkey and thrown in the slammer with a seriously heavy sentence. He escapes from prison and makes his way across the Greek border, and the Greek border guards all say "How did you do that? You walked across a minefield." I don't recall if that was in the movie, but I saw an interview with the actual person the story was about and he mentioned it. Some days you're just lucky.
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2nd Bat
Master sergeant
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Post by 2nd Bat on May 16, 2019 19:42:26 GMT -5
General Swartzkopf earlier in his career was an advisor to a unit of ArVN Rangers and later a Battalion Commander. In the early stages of this new command he angrily (over the radio) insisted that a unit on the ground more aggressive!y pursue two apparent VC through a clearing and into the jungle. The on the ground platoon sgt advised the young lt in command that the actions by the enemy was a classic tactic to draw the Americans into a heavily boobytrapped area and the platoon leader advised his higher up that this was the source of his hesitation. Hearing this communication thread then Lt Col S chwartzkopf demanded that they get after the VC making it a direct order. The platoon complied and almost immediately started detonating mines and crude VC IEDs. Several men were wounded and in the midst of a minefield. Shortly there after a chaplain and medic arrived and attempted to save the wounded men only to themselves become casualties.
Storman Norman had made a tragic mistake in not listening to the sage advice of a sharp platoon sgt and he knew he had screwed up royaly. To his credit he orde red his Loach command chopper to land and offer his assistance. "Bear" which was a nickname he preferred over Storman Norman which was a nickname he hated walked out into the minefield and rescued two severely wounded men. It was miraculous that he didnt trigger trip or step in anything as they were everywhere. Once the excitement ended he was ordered by the division commander to fly directly to the Division TOC and report directly to the Commanding General. He was sure he was going to be relieved and that his career in the Army was over. Instead he was put in for the Silver Star which he was awarded. A medal that throughout his career he had mixed feelings about. Sometimes its better to be lucky than smart. Full Colonel H Norman Schwartzkopf was my last boss in the Army when he was Brigade Commander of the Recondo Brigade 1st of the 9th at Ft Lewis. He later became post commanding general and ultimately lead our forces at the 1st Gulf war. He died of Altzheimers which is why for a very long time dropped out of public view. I heard the story directly from him while monitoring radios in the middle of the night while on a brigade exercise.
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Post by Rekkon on May 19, 2019 9:10:53 GMT -5
Ya, it is statistics. Your minefield has X area of activation plates, and the person traversing it will step on Y area of ground. Apart from Eastwind, all my mine success has come from either heavily mining a short section of trail and then constructing the scenario such that one or both teams are funneled down it or placing individual mines in high step-probability locations (like on a building corner exactly where people would plant their feet to peek). I have posted it before (and it was filmed with a 2010 potato), but here is a video of one such instance of the former setup. I was attempting to give the US team a "patrol" experience by making them walk a long, circuitous route through the field. VC "ambushes" were only in two locations, resulting in a lot of "dead time" between actions. You can see the lead two guys missed the mines entirely (until hitting a tripline trap). Both sets of casualties walk back through the remaining mines without hitting any (there were six total on the trail if memory serves, plus four more on the shoulders). You can tell the respawns were cautious but not really worried (and they had correctly guessed the mines were concentrated in the wheel ruts). That changed after the second and third detonations. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo-No71U2wcJump to 1:50 and 5:15 if impatient.
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2nd Bat
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Post by 2nd Bat on May 19, 2019 21:35:57 GMT -5
"oh wow I didn't even see it.". And if you had seen it? These players did not have Mensa cards in their wallets did they?
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2nd Bat
Master sergeant
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Post by 2nd Bat on May 19, 2019 21:40:05 GMT -5
It would have been interesting to see the effect and response to these bouncing bettys had they been employed. I suspect more than two players at a time would have been casualties. Had the mine shown been actual mine given their proximity to one another even if it was a grenade pulled out a can at least four would have been out of the fight.
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Post by Rekkon on May 20, 2019 21:18:01 GMT -5
To be fair, it was the first time I had used my mines, and most players never encounter mines of any stripe.
They entered the minefield in pairs, so an Enimine would probably have just killed the first two, unless someone had waited for them to pass and command detonated between pairs. Originally I was going to be overwatching the minefield with a rifle to give them even more problems, but a snafu at an earlier event made that weapon unavailable. Got video instead.
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Post by Rekkon on Jul 3, 2019 11:20:55 GMT -5
Another update from the company. Basically just "still in discussion with production company, sorry for delay."
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2nd Bat
Master sergeant
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Post by 2nd Bat on Jul 3, 2019 15:14:35 GMT -5
Hmmmm? Lots of legal, distibution, patent and other issues no doubt.
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Post by volkssturm on Jul 4, 2019 0:17:27 GMT -5
Totally off the topic, but speaking of mines, I enjoyed the movie "Fury," but it had a lot of nonsense in it. Like the tank getting a track blown off by a mine. Apparently the only mine with in hundreds of meters, because they get off the tank and stomp around. Then a battalion of Germans stomps around and nobody else sets off any mines. Sure, it was an AT mine, but you never lay AT mines by themselves. You put AP mines around them to get the crew and anyone trying to repair or recover the tank. So I guess some German engineer had just one AP mine left and decided he didn't want to schlep it around anymore and buried it in that spot and Fury was just unlucky enough to run over it. End of rant.
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Post by norseman on Jul 4, 2019 1:13:12 GMT -5
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Post by Rekkon on Jul 4, 2019 19:13:02 GMT -5
There was plenty rant-worthy in Fury, like the utterly incompetent Tiger crew and Shermans jack-in-the-boxing while not buttoned up. I made a Hafthohlladung with actual magnets several years ago. It stuck nicely to our BA-64 but was a giant pain to haul around in the field. I stuck with panzerwurfmines mostly. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzerwurfmine
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2nd Bat
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Post by 2nd Bat on Jul 5, 2019 12:32:39 GMT -5
I absolutely loved Fury (I had been longing for a WW2 movies built around armor). While there was much to be critical of (the final battle being ludicrously over the top) there were so many great details that were spot on. I actually thought the TIGER confrontation was quite good) I never considered that "lonely mine" concept.
I have a dozen step on mines that are powered by a Co2 cartridge. They spew either paint or TaLC powder. No where near as cool as these seem to be. Anxious to see these in reality. Sadly to be effective you need quite a few of them unless you command detonate.
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Post by Rekkon on Jul 5, 2019 13:44:41 GMT -5
The problems with the Tiger confrontation were manyfold. 1. The Tiger engaged the trailing Sherman first when it should have shot the leader. Knock out the front and rear vehicles to trap the column in the kill zone. This one I can write off given the terrain let the Shermans quickly and easily get off the road. 2. The main reason to kill the leading Shermans first was they were the ones with 76mms. You kill the enemies with the most dangerous gun first. 3. Unbuttoned Shermans jack-in-the-boxing as previously mentioned. I suppose I could fault them for having all three Sherman kills be TPKs as well. Sure, it would be possible, but statistically speaking, knocked-out Shermans had a pretty high crew survival rate (milder steel does not resist projectiles as well, but neither does it spall as much). 4. The Tiger continually advancing on the Shermans. Getting clear of the smoke? Fine. As soon as that happens, stop and get good shots. The Shermans are the ones needing to close distance, not you. 5. Except 50% not. The 76mm was perfectly capable of defeating Tigers frontally at combat ranges, especially if we assume they had any HVAP ammo (which is reasonable given the timeframe). No need to charge, just shoot. 6. Having to get behind the Tiger to kill it. The rear armor on a Tiger is 80mm, same as the sides. If you can penetrate the rear, you can penetrate the flank. I can only assume someone watched Kelly's Heroes too many times.
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2nd Bat
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Post by 2nd Bat on Jul 5, 2019 23:12:13 GMT -5
70 years of hindsight does wonders for all of us armchair tankers. Everything you said I believe to be accurate. Certainly there should have been survivors from most if not all of the knocked out Shermans and six to 8 spare foot troops would have made the final scene way more credible(okay maybe a little more credible). There were many cases of Tigers aggressively wading into a close in melees especially on the Eastern front where tank on tank action was far more common (even though it wasnt as wise as taking advantage of your stand off capabilities)
The doctrine of the day emphasized the weaknesses of side and especially rear shots and given that there were only 3 known US Sherman vs Tiger tank engagements I suspect the invulnerability myth about the TIGER suggested to all tankers that only a rear shot would knock it out. I heard actual WW2 Sherman veterans express that belief and when I suggested otherwise they quickly said that wasnt what they heard.
The scenes with the Infantry were the most credible to me. The fact that the vehicles and uniforms were 90% accurate was a huge plus for my 68 year old eyes as I grew up on US M47s and M48s as Kraut tanks (painted grey I might add) and walker bull dogs as US tanks.
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Post by norseman on Jul 6, 2019 0:13:55 GMT -5
It’s kinda like Nam vets I know who are calling a magazine a clip...... probably went through basic with a Garand.
No way in hell I would correct them.
My favorite interview was a Army Tanker who was at Normandy. He said in Texas they told them they had the best damn tank in the world. When they got into the hedge rows and turned a corner there sat a Kraut tank and the tank commander was outta the hatch combing his blonde hair. The turret was not pointing at them. When the blonde saw them he dropped and closed the hatch. They let the krauts have it and the round went out and bounced off the armor and straight in the air. Their tank commander started screaming to get out of the tank. And as they scrambled into the hedge row the Krauts blew their tank to holy hell. He said.... that’s when I knew that I had been LIED TO! Lol.
But it’s kinda like the fruit cake story at the battle of the bulge. America was the manufacturing powerhouse of the age. Our tanks were not great, but we could build 1000 to 1 German one. We simply overwhelmed our enemies with mass production. A war of attrition. I was definitely still of the generation of tang, spam, canned peaches, etc.
The mind blowing thing is that through lend lease? We were supporting the Soviets as well! Incredible amount of muscle!
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Post by norseman on Jul 6, 2019 0:59:18 GMT -5
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stuka
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Post by stuka on Jul 6, 2019 11:17:34 GMT -5
Our tanks were mostly fine but the late adaptation of the 76mm cannon pry cost more lives than needed. Here is a video explaining why the sherman was how it was youtu.be/TwIlrAosYiM
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Post by Rekkon on Jul 6, 2019 11:43:17 GMT -5
The Tiger was designed as a breakthrough tank. On the offense, sure, you charged into things. Wittmann in particular was known for driving over Russian AT guns, but that was on the attack with support. It would also have been mid-war on the Russian front where there were fewer guns that could deal with a Tiger. The Sherman was a really good tank overall, but some of its best qualities are not of immediate concern when you are in the situation of "I shoot Tiger/Panther, and it not die." But all those production, transportation and reliability factors ultimately add up to you having more tanks on the field than the other guy. US tank production outpaced Germany about 1.6:1, and the Russians by closer to 1.8:1. Add in the British, and you are looking at about 4:1 in favor of the Allies overall. If you have not already seen it, The Chieftain's presentation on the Sherman is a really informative watch. www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwIlrAosYiM
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Post by Rekkon on Jul 6, 2019 11:48:51 GMT -5
Ninja-ed on the video. Back when I was still playing World of Tanks, the The Chieftan posted a good article talking about the US 76mm. Tigers had been captured in north Africa, so the Allies were well aware of its armor thickness prior to D-Day. Someone threw a 100mm slab out on the range, and the Sherman's 75mm dealt with it just fine, so they thought they were good to go. Except they used US steel which was a lot softer than the stuff on a Tiger.
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2nd Bat
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Post by 2nd Bat on Jul 6, 2019 14:00:46 GMT -5
The early war German steel was definitely better (by a lot). With shortages of exotic alloys the German degraded their build quality to the point that many late war Panther tanks started experiencing cracking of the armor from solid shot. There were several occassions where penetration didnt occure but the resulting cracks forced the abandonment of the tank.
The Sherman was an excellent design given what it had to do. (Be mass produced, cross oceans, traverse miles of roads and varied terrain, burn fuel reasonable, be repairable in the field. And shoot scoot and communicate) As mentioned the trade offs required didnt give the tanker much consolation or comfort if they were facing a Panther or especially a Tiger but 85% of the rounds they fired was HE at Infantry target and the 75 HE round was noticeably more effective at that than the 76mm. In those relatively rare occassions where it was tank on tank typically who ever spotted their opponent first and especially whoever got off the first round usually won.
Terrain in Western Europe dictated that contact range was usually close enough that the stand off advantages of German armor and higher velocity guns was mitigated substantially. No doubt Allied were frustrated and terrified at their vulnerability while the German tankers had to be extremely frustrated by breakdowns, small numbers, and allied air superiority. The second your perfectly aimed shot bounced off their armor all the strategic upsides no doubt shrunk in significance.
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