Chat Hels Chatroom IV: Helen High Water

Nope. They get attached to some sort of rail system and fired from the front door. Ever seen Black Hawk Down? Watch the scene where they fire on the insurgents on the construction site, you can see a Black Hawk with a door-minigun. The small hatch is, I believe (I am not an expert on russian helicopters) for fuel.

 

Had to google it, but I see what you mean.
Couldn't google for the Russian fuel hatch location though.
What I did find was a picture of the MI-26 T. Jesus, that thing is huge.

 

Yeah, soviet doctrine. If it's large and heavy, it must be good. Meanwhile, Mi-24's - the only helicopter to ever need a runway - were shot down by US delivered Stinger MANPADs in Afghanistan in the 80's and 90's by the Mujahideen who later became both al-Kaida and the Taliban.

 

For the most part, large and heavy would work, because that's either armor, sheer size, or weaponry. It worked with their tanks in WW2. But for helicopters, I can't see it working anything but the opposite. You can make the shell as heavy as you want, but it would require larger rotors, which would make it an easier target. And you can't really reinforce them or they'd become too heavy.
Not to mention the Russian Coaxial rotors, which are amazing to me in the fact that they made it work, and which seems like one of the worst ideas in rotor development, since you take a normal rotor (which in itself is already a delicate thing) and then put another one on top of it, spinning in the other direction, making it an even larger and more delicate piece of engineering - and thus an easier target.
Or well, that's how it looks like to me. I have no experience with helicopters or shooting at their rotors.

It's also a shame, the Mi-24 is one my favourite helicopters, even though my experience with them is entirely limited to BF: Bad Company 1.

 

Large and heavy is actually bad in modern warfare, since modern warfare is mostly urban warfare, and one dude with an anti-tank weapon (and all modern infantry level AT weapons can be operated by one lone soldier) can wreck it anyway. Small, nimble and fast is where it's at. It's why we didn't even bring Leopard 2 tanks to Afghanistan, they were useless there anyway. Marders were the heaviest we had, and when we moved in, there wasn't much left of the enemy.

 

I can't imagine any tank being of much use in urban warfare. Like you said, AT weaponry have been improved much. Portable one-man fire-and-forget missile tubes are plentiful and they pack quite a punch. Not to mention it's easy to flank an armored vehicle in a town and just hit it from behind.
Mobile AA vehicles pointed at ground level, inasmuch that is possible, could be useful, but even then you're still at a high risk of being outmanoeuvred.

Too bad there's innocent civilians there, and laws against the use of flamers, because they work really well in urban warfare.
Although this is a Hellhound from W40k, there have been flamer tanks in the past.
I took a look at a few and it seemed pretty terrifying, both to be facing it and to be in it. Older tanks weren't known to have very thick armor, so if someone scored a lucky hit and hit the fuel tank...

 

Flame-based weapons have been largely replaced by thermobaric weapons/vacuum bombs. They kill quicker, are more efficient and don't pose any threat to the person firing them. The thing is, urban warfare is 95% infantry ops, and that will never change. And trust me, it's terrifying. I kicked in my share of doors, and I never knew what was behind them. One time it was an IED factory that sewed explosives into dead bodies because they knew we had to investigate any bodies we found on the roadside. I won't go into details here, and you sure don't want me to.

 

I won't deny that thermobaric weapons are powerful, but I'd say flamers are also effective since they can just hose down buildings when there's troops there. But that's just me.
Urban warfare can't be anything else than infantry ops, because in most urban situations there's simply not enough space to manoeuvrer large vehicles around. The streets I live in are too small for any tank to be effective in, let alone the often even narrower streets of the villages in Afghanistan and such.

As for the door kicking, a scene from a game, which I'm pretty sure is one of the earlier Call of Duties, comes to mind. It was a scene where an American squad forms up around a door, one guy tries (and fails) to kick it in, and then gets hosed down by a German MG43 laying behind the door. Such things can easily happen in real life too, and I have great respect for those that do kick in doors regardless of what may be behind.

You had mentioned the IED thing before. It shows just how far gone those people are - and how little mercy we should have for them.
I mentioned it to someone else before, but I don't think just "resolving" the threat is enough. It should be eradicated.

(Should we maybe drop this? It's a bit of a bleak topic )

 

We quit having ANA and ANP do door-to-door searches real quick. No tactical training whatsoever, those guys died in droves.

It's all about risk vs. reward. A thermobaric weapon dropped from a plane 10km above the target is much safer than a guy or a tank with a flamethrower.

Unfortunately, I cannot publically state what I did to that body-bomb maker, but I can assure you it did not involve a nice dinner and tea.

Eh, any topic is fine with me.

 

Let's continue the topic then.

I bet they did. Do you now just open the door from the side and throw in a flashbang/smokebomb/handgrenade? Maybe a molotov?
And I guess you're right. If you put it like that, I'd rather they dropped the bomb than send in the walking firebomb (which is the biggest risk with flamers, along with it's bulkiness.). They're a bit indiscriminate about what burns, but in the end flamers would be entirely the same. And it might give the terrorists ideas.
And why not a nice dinner and tea? A nice plate of gunpowder followed by a cup of burning fuel? Please tell me he at least didn't make it out of the door alive. I'll cry if he did.

 

Flash. After detonation, half the squad moves in and secures the ground floor, the other half moves up and secures there, then the first half moves up and so on.

He did. In a bag.

 

Ah, the by-the-book systematic way. Not that that's a bad thing. If it works, why do it differently?
I presume he wasn't alive while in the bag. Which is good.

Also, I've just noticed I've been subconsciously writing "Flamers" all the time. I might be too far into W40k.

 

I can say as much without going into the classified details: He was definitely not alive. Living tissue does not move that way.

Anyhow, I gotta go for a while. Take care, soldiers.

 

I'll just imagine his spine making a U-turn, it's a satisfying mental image.

See you later, sir!
*salutes*

 

Nirning guys and waffles.
Nirning Valak.
Nirning CHarlatan.
Nirning Surnue.
Nirning EMag.
Nirning Hidari.
Nirning Firepaw.
Nirning Milkcalf.
Nirnign Blaze.
Nirning Metaface.
Nirning Hel.

 

As a special treat celebrating my escape release from the hospital, I present the following super ridiculous Pathfinder character build, originating from a character build done by someone else, but personally adjusted for just a little more lols in your PFRPG.

1) Be a half-orc character. Take a level in Barbarian, utilizing the Invulnerable Rager archetype. Make sure your stats not only has you with average STR, DEX, and CON, but also CHA. A 14 in each of those should suffice, and you'll get a +2 STR from being a half-orc. So your stats ought to look (in standard progression): 16, 14, 14, 10, 10, 14. For your first level, you'll automatically get Fast Movement (+10 base speed) and Rage (+4 to STR and CON, -2 AC, plus bonus health for 4+CONmod rounds per day) as normal. Take the feat Power Attack (trade attack bonus for damage bonus).

2) I haven't talked much about traits yet, but most builds don't need them. This one, however, will--and all in order to be truly absurd. Here's why: Take the traits Berserker of the Society (Additional +3 rounds added to your Rage/day limit) and Optimistic Gambler (effects that give you morale boosts persist 1d4 rounds longer than they otherwise would). Furthermore, declare that you are going to take the alternate racial trait, Toothy (grants a 1d4 bite attack instead of having the Orc Ferocity trait). Okay, so what did we just do?

Your CONmod with 14 CON is +2. You can rage for 6 rounds at 1st level (remember that 1 round is 6 seconds, so 36 seconds at this point). BotS boosts that to 9 rounds (54 seconds). Furthermore, whenever your rage ends (whether it's manually ended or your time runs out), you get an additional 1d4 rounds adding to that (because Rage's +4 STR and +4 CON and HP boost is considered a morale boost), for a grand total of up to 10 to 13 rounds (60 to 80 seconds). With two traits, you've effectively doubled your rage use.

Oh, and you can also deal 1d4+3 damage for free for each attack action. Neat!

3) When purchasing gear and equipment, be sure to save 40GP -specifically- for your weapon: Earth Breaker. (2d6+1.5*STRmod/x3 crit, Bludgeoning, two-handed martial melee hammer). Note that we're specifically going for a blunt weapon.

4) Take a second level in Barbarian, still using the Invulnerable Rager archetype. This nets you the ability Invulnerability (gain DR/-- up to half your Barbarian level. This bonus is doubled vs nonlethal damage). So what's this mean? DR is damage reduction. Since there's no specification for overcoming this DR, you take 1 less damage from literally everything, 2 less if it's nonlethal. It may seem insignificant, but trust me--it adds up. You also can select a Rage Power. Take Intimidating Glare. It'll shake up your opponent for 1d4 rounds plus 1 round for every 5 points you exceed the Intimidate DC by. Also note that your Base attack Bonus is +2.

5) Take a level in Rogue. Wait, what? Rogue?! We're dabbling in my favorite class for this? Yup! Specify that you are using both the Thug and the Scout archetypes. Since both replace completely separate skills, you CAN do this. Please note we will be using the vanilla Rogue and not the Unchained Rogue. Now you'll get Sneak Attack +1d6 and Frightening. The former is additional damage whenever your opponent is considered flatfooted, including the surprise round of combat. The latter gives you 1 extra round to any opponent you give the shaken status to via Intimidate.

Wait, one extra round for using the Intimidate skill? Why does this sound familiar? Oh! Intimidating Glare! That's right, they stack. What's more, if you get a total of 5 rounds or more (which you currently have a 25% chance of doing with a 1d4+1), you can change it to the frightened status instead of just shaken, but for 1 round. Which means the opponent will now try to run from you instead of trying to attack you. ...Options!

(Will continue in my next post--I've gotta run for now!)

 

Now, I got a wonderful 2 bedroom house here for sale that I'm sure you'll all LOVE. I dun wan anyone fightin' over it.

All it needs is a new.... Roof.

 

A roof, a new door, couple of windows, maybe a couple hours spent in the garden.
At least you have a nice view though! And next to you is a pile of wood for a fireplace!

I like the beige house off to the right though.

 

P O T E N T I A L

Always gotta have that firewood.

Found an even better house tho. I think it's move in ready, you even have a neighor too.

The dog may or may not be deceased.

 

I'm here, I'm not quite queer, but I like fear the impending future.

Also I guess I'm queer.

And I still won't answer the previous question from my last post.