Somehow I missed the continuation of this thread…but…
I have a “Kill Box” Armed Recon-like mission for the player where you go to a grid square (3X3 at the moment, configurable - no map markers) and look for a “Reported -thing-” (arty, tank, etc).
Of course I like to put them in the trees, under bridges, tween buildings - when I can.
With no ‘eyes’ on the ground (JTAC - using only my eyes and the T-Pod) it’s a real Easter egg hunt.
One eye on the T-Pod; one looking out the window; one looking at the gas gauge (is that too many eyes?). And there are MANPADS about! (very deadly in DCS). So I’m up kinda high (> 12,000 AGL). But as time goes by, and the gas gauge gets lower, I start creeping lower…
All that to say - I really get an appreciation for how difficult this must be in the RW. And I’ve more than once exclaimed, to no one in particular, “Oh, oh, there it is! Got it! Now mark it, Kill it! Hawt dawg!..dang it, I need to go back and hit the tanker first”. Very satisfying.
Apologies for the delay in responding. The ice storm we had this week has been playing havoc with the power and internet connectivity. You would think 31F weather wouldn’t shut the capital of Texas down?
I agree that the inherent human terrain in non-nation state (or close) conflicts is extremely difficult to replicate. And I’d say for most people inherently unsatisfying to have to address in both the real world and an in entertainment. I will say there are lots of parallels in law enforcement as well, but I’ll leave it at that to prevent self derailing my own thread.
Absolutely, the USMC does things a bit different.
Agreed completely. I’d say it can probably best be simplified to Marine airpower is used to directly support the rifleman on the ground as effectively as possible in a given situation. For lack of a better phrasing, I’d say it’s a much more tactical application of airpower then strategic. For a pretty good overview of the real world application of this during the initial invasion of Iraq:
Lets talk some of the real world limitations we faced in asymmetric warfare.
First as s @Harry_Bumcrack addressed above, one of the key elements is who are we actually fighting? This is a universal issue across the COIN environment for all combat arms. If we look at a purely asymmetric conflict where we have clear ID on who exactly we’re supposed to be shooting at, we still have the issue of finding them to engage. Labels default to off in the real world obviously, and even something like an MBT can be hidden a whole lot of places.
Second is achieving a concentration of enemy forces to force a decisive engagement, so that the employment of high value assets such as attack helicopters make sense. With usually a limited number of assets in theatre, allocating them to where they will be most effective can be challenging.
The US can afford to spend several million dollars or more to kill a single enemy combatant, but even with our massive GDP there is a limit to this.
Third preventing collateral damage and causalities that would transition the conflict from asymmetric conflict to a counter insurgency.
Fourth, unless the enemy has gathered for a decisive engagement we are spread out trying to locate them (see point 1), with normally limited numbers of units to accomplish this task (see point 2). The geography of the conflict zone can dramatically effect what airpower assets we can employee in the fight, and when we can get them there (Afghanistan for instance).
Last, we (the West) are averse to casualties and extremely averse to POW’s. I personally think this isn’t a bad thing at all, but it is certainly an exploitable piece of cultural knowledge for our enemy. Using an initial ambush as the bait for a AAA ambush, knowing that we are coming back to recovered a downed aircraft, all present opportunities for the enemy.
