Rubberanvil wrote:The U.S. Mil. have or had a couple of brigades trained to fight there, but keeping the UNAF, USN and USM aircraft from attempting to bombed everything looking remotely(sp) hostile is the toughest part.
I can imagine that they would have serious mobility problems though, as the tundra is not conducive to moving fast by any means other than snowmobile.
I fore see a shitload of grunts especially tankers on both sides wanting to hang their commanding officier(s) by the testicles ordering armor into the swamp.
Basically the whole of the tundra is a swamp, so that would be a problem. The ground never melts, so any water just sits on the surface, and you get near jungle levels of mosquitoes.
"I have also a paper afloat, with an electromagnetic theory of light, which, till I am convinced to the contrary, I hold to be great guns."
-- James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) Scottish physicist. In a letter to C. H. Cay, 5 January 1865.
Graeme Dice wrote:
I can imagine that they would have serious mobility problems though, as the tundra is not conducive to moving fast by any means other than snowmobile.
That's why the US Army bought the BV-206 just like the rest of the world.
But really there's nothing to fight over and simply bring the massive bulk supplies for a heavy mechanized force into the area of operations would be extremely difficult, nor would such a course of action force be pointful. Though if it summer and the weather was good the USN might bring up its gators and Marines, and they could bring armored vehicles into action along the coast.
But what your generally going to end up with is the USAF winning air supremacy and isolating the OPFOR. The US Army or Marines then could launch overwhelming air mobile operations pretty much at will and defeat them in detail. The lack of human settlement and the difficultly of digging in also makes carpet bombing an attractive solution to the resulting pockets as well. The cold terrain also makes FLIR rather effective, so while some munitions will be wasted on caribou any attempt to move around by the OPFOR is going to be very screwed unless its masked by a storm. While those are fairly common, I don't think a military force could expect to make any progress moving in one either.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
Graeme Dice wrote:
Basically the whole of the tundra is a swamp, so that would be a problem. The ground never melts, so any water just sits on the surface, and you get near jungle levels of mosquitoes.
It varies from frozen swamp like you said, to terrian where even the shuttle carrier (crawler) can travel on without going through or getting stuck in.
imho tundra warfare is really not for anything larger than light IFVs and APCs.
I did lived in Alaska for a couple years I do have a pretty good idea of land and wealther up there.
Rubberanvil wrote:Graeme Dice, I just realize you were talking about the spring and summer months in the tundra, right?
Of course. Winter is easy for the modern army, beccause the ground is frozen. It's summer without roads that's the interesting problem.
"I have also a paper afloat, with an electromagnetic theory of light, which, till I am convinced to the contrary, I hold to be great guns."
-- James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) Scottish physicist. In a letter to C. H. Cay, 5 January 1865.
