NationStates

Infected Mushroom wrote:

Thermodolia wrote:No Just no. Like everyone else already said. War isn’t a video game

Do the Greek modern assault rifles outrage WWII guns?

Not particularly. A Mosin–Nagant is a pretty good sniper weapon. Modern weapons shoot faster, and tend to use smaller high-velocity rounds that are easier to carry around. There's no particular range advantage except that modern optics are better.

Dogmeat wrote:

Infected Mushroom wrote:
Do the Greek modern assault rifles outrage WWII guns?

Not particularly. A Mosin–Nagant is a pretty good sniper weapon. Modern weapons shoot faster, and tend to use smaller high-velocity rounds that are easier to carry around. There's no particular range advantage except that modern optics are better.

the better optics would allow for better picking off of targets right? Since you'll be able to aim.

Spirit of the Communists wrote:I think attack helicopters and modern fighter jets would be able to inflict serious damage on any forces. All a fighter jet has to do is fly high enough that the modern fighter jets can't reach them, and then start bombing I guess.

I think so yes.

Infected Mushroom wrote:

Dogmeat wrote:Not particularly. A Mosin–Nagant is a pretty good sniper weapon. Modern weapons shoot faster, and tend to use smaller high-velocity rounds that are easier to carry around. There's no particular range advantage except that modern optics are better.

the better optics would allow for better picking off of targets right? Since you'll be able to aim.

Better optics will make it easier, yes. But I don't know if it matters since the Soviets - for example - will be able to deploy a thousand sharpshooters for every one of yours.

Your main advantage with modern rifles is going to be rate of fire. Which is an considerable advantage. Until you run out of ammunition. I'm guessing the Greeks probably have a decent ammo stockpile, but probably not enough to take on literally tens of millions of soldiers.

Neanderthaland wrote:

Infected Mushroom wrote:
the better optics would allow for better picking off of targets right? Since you'll be able to aim.

Better optics will make it easier, yes. But I don't know if it matters since the Soviets - for example - will be able to deploy a thousand sharpshooters for every one of yours.

Your main advantage with modern rifles is going to be rate of fire. Which is an considerable advantage. Until you run out of ammunition. I'm guessing the Greeks probably have a decent ammo stockpile, but probably not enough to take on literally tens of millions of soldiers.

The main assault rifle of the Hellenic army is a modified version of the HK Gewehr 3, a weapons design from the fifties, so barely a decade away from WW2 tech. I doubt the tech level difference would make much of a difference in that regard.

New Baltenstein wrote:

Neanderthaland wrote:Better optics will make it easier, yes. But I don't know if it matters since the Soviets - for example - will be able to deploy a thousand sharpshooters for every one of yours.

Your main advantage with modern rifles is going to be rate of fire. Which is an considerable advantage. Until you run out of ammunition. I'm guessing the Greeks probably have a decent ammo stockpile, but probably not enough to take on literally tens of millions of soldiers.

The main assault rifle of the Hellenic army is a modified version of the HK Gewehr 3, a weapons design from the fifties, so barely a decade away from WW2 tech. I doubt the tech level difference would make much of a difference in that regard.

I wouldn't go that far. It is a huge improvement on standard WWII armaments. Basically every standard infantry weapon in the world today is some variation on 50s and 60s tech. Weapons technology came very far during WWII, but the limitations of industry meant that a lot of that wasn't able to be implemented until a decade or so later.

It's just not enough to matter. The Greeks can't win this if they merely kill 10 enemy soldiers for every 1 of theirs that is lost.

Modern artillery would be overwhelmingly superior.

Infected Mushroom wrote:Modern artillery would be overwhelmingly superior.

No it wouldn’t. Artillery hasn’t really changed much since WW1

Thermodolia wrote:

Infected Mushroom wrote:Modern artillery would be overwhelmingly superior.

No it wouldn’t. Artillery hasn’t really changed much since WW1

What????

Infected Mushroom wrote:

Thermodolia wrote:No it wouldn’t. Artillery hasn’t really changed much since WW1

What????

Your continued surprise that technology isn't as advanced as you thought it was in the modern day is a hilarious cornerstone of these alternate WW2 hypothetical threads.

Kannap wrote:

Infected Mushroom wrote:
What????

Your continued surprise that technology isn't as advanced as you thought it was in the modern day is a hilarious cornerstone of these alternate WW2 hypothetical threads.

So they had computers in WWI for targeting, self-propelled guns, the same rates of fire, the same range, same accuracy and rocket artillery among other things?

Saying artillery hasn’t substantially changed since WWI is like saying mobile phones haven’t substantially changed in decades. It’s not plausible.

Infected Mushroom wrote:

Kannap wrote:
Your continued surprise that technology isn't as advanced as you thought it was in the modern day is a hilarious cornerstone of these alternate WW2 hypothetical threads.

So they had computers in WWI for targeting, self-propelled guns, the same rates of fire, the same range, same accuracy and rocket artillery among other things?

Saying artillery hasn’t substantially changed since WWI is like saying mobile phones haven’t substantially changed in decades. It’s not plausible.

Modern artillery crews still have the same sheet of paper with firing tables on them that with a bit of math can let you hit anything you want within range. The computer is their to do that math for you.

Sort of like how ships will still have a sextant on them because the computers are there to streamline the process, but the old systems still work.

Heloin wrote:

Infected Mushroom wrote:
So they had computers in WWI for targeting, self-propelled guns, the same rates of fire, the same range, same accuracy and rocket artillery among other things?

Saying artillery hasn’t substantially changed since WWI is like saying mobile phones haven’t substantially changed in decades. It’s not plausible.

Modern artillery crews still have the same sheet of paper with firing tables on them that with a bit of math can let you hit anything you want within range. The computer is their to do that math for you.

Sort of like how ships will still have a sextant on them because the computers are there to streamline the process, but the old systems still work.

The targeting is way more precise, the range is way greater, counter-battery fire is way more sophisticated and you can actually do real shoot-and-move.

Infected Mushroom wrote:

Heloin wrote:Modern artillery crews still have the same sheet of paper with firing tables on them that with a bit of math can let you hit anything you want within range. The computer is their to do that math for you.

Sort of like how ships will still have a sextant on them because the computers are there to streamline the process, but the old systems still work.

The targeting is way more precise,

Maths is maths.

the range is way greater,

Not really.

counter-battery fire is way more sophisticated

Not really.

and you can actually do real shoot-and-move.

Yes a tactic used for hundreds of years and really perfected in the Second World War… Clearly the Greeks finally have an advantage here when everyone can do it.

Heloin wrote:

Infected Mushroom wrote:The targeting is way more precise,

Maths is maths.

the range is way greater,

Not really.

counter-battery fire is way more sophisticated

Not really.

and you can actually do real shoot-and-move.

Yes a tactic used for hundreds of years and really perfected in the Second World War… Clearly the Greeks finally have an advantage here when everyone can do it.

The laws of Newtonian physics as applicable to artillery and the math hasn’t changed. It doesn’t mean we haven’t grown exponentially better at exploiting them in warfare.

Next you’ll tell me a catapult to an artillery shell doesn’t demonstrate substantial tech advancement because the trajectories of both projectile types can be calculated in a middle school physics class.

It’s misleading.

Thermodolia wrote:

Infected Mushroom wrote:Modern artillery would be overwhelmingly superior.

No it wouldn’t. Artillery hasn’t really changed much since WW1

We have super computers, they didn’t. Counter-battery and targeting is godlike compared to those days.

We have modern mobile rocket artillery platforms, they didn’t.

We have self-propelled artillery, they didn’t.

And so much more had changed.

What do you count as “really changed”? If we had these things in WWII, we could have won the war much sooner.

Infected Mushroom wrote:

Heloin wrote:Maths is maths.


Not really.


Not really.


Yes a tactic used for hundreds of years and really perfected in the Second World War… Clearly the Greeks finally have an advantage here when everyone can do it.

The laws of Newtonian physics as applicable to artillery and the math hasn’t changed. It doesn’t mean we haven’t grown exponentially better at exploiting them in warfare.

Next you’ll tell me a catapult to an artillery shell doesn’t demonstrate substantial tech advancement because the trajectories of both projectile types can be calculated in a middle school physics class.

It’s misleading.

If you don’t understand basic artillery that is a you problem. These systems were perfected in the First World War and their tactics were perfected in the Second. You having a false impression that technology is the sole winning key when sometimes that increase in the last century has only be negligible. Technological progress is not tied to something inherently being better and falling for that trap will damn you when it will hurt the most.

Infected Mushroom wrote:

Thermodolia wrote:No it wouldn’t. Artillery hasn’t really changed much since WW1

We have super computers, they didn’t. Counter-battery and targeting is godlike compared to those days.

Barring GPS-guided trickery that the Greeks don't even have, a 155mm round fired in 2022 is going to drop in the same place as it would in 1942.

We have modern mobile rocket artillery platforms, they didn’t.

Katyusha says hello.

We have self-propelled artillery, they didn’t.

Soviets alone literally built like 20k...

And so much more had changed.

What do you count as “really changed”? If we had these things in WWII, we could have won the war much sooner.

Has it though?

Infected Mushroom wrote:

Thermodolia wrote:The Soviet military during WW2 at its peak had roughly 20 million troops. Modern day Greece has 10 million people. And this is just the Soviets. Throw in the other 11 nations and Greece is fucked, hope you like genocide

But we have 21st century weapons and tech

If you had made the scenario a modern power like the US, Russia or China then this would be more applicable, but it's not in the case of Greece. Modern weapons production is very expensive and Greece does not have a large domestic military industry in the first place. Any of the aforementioned modern powers could probably win this with some difficulties in the beginning but Greece gets flatly rolled over because it doesn't have the industrial base or technical knowhow to really press the time advantage.

Washington Resistance Army wrote:

Infected Mushroom wrote:
But we have 21st century weapons and tech

If you had made the scenario a modern power like the US, Russia or China then this would be more applicable, but it's not in the case of Greece. Modern weapons production is very expensive and Greece does not have a large domestic military industry in the first place. Any of the aforementioned modern powers could probably win this with some difficulties in the beginning but Greece gets flatly rolled over because it doesn't have the industrial base or technical knowhow to really press the time advantage.

Modern China’s on the Greek side though.

Infected Mushroom wrote:

Washington Resistance Army wrote:
If you had made the scenario a modern power like the US, Russia or China then this would be more applicable, but it's not in the case of Greece. Modern weapons production is very expensive and Greece does not have a large domestic military industry in the first place. Any of the aforementioned modern powers could probably win this with some difficulties in the beginning but Greece gets flatly rolled over because it doesn't have the industrial base or technical knowhow to really press the time advantage.

Modern China’s on the Greek side though.

They're too far to be of much aid to Greece in the scenario, you could easily navally blockade Greece from the wider world even with 1930's and 40's tech. It's simply not a position Greece could ever win, it would need to have everything it needs to fight off the assortment of nations in Greece proper, not coming from overseas, and even then Greece would still probably get rolled because it's small and doesn't have a large population.

Really the only useful help Greece has is Turkey and maybe Poland but there's again a numbers issue, even if both are qualitatively superior they could eventually just be run down by German and Soviet manpowers.

Infected Mushroom wrote:

Thermodolia wrote:No it wouldn’t. Artillery hasn’t really changed much since WW1

We have super computers, they didn’t. Counter-battery and targeting is godlike compared to those days.

We have modern mobile rocket artillery platforms, they didn’t.

We have self-propelled artillery, they didn’t.

And so much more had changed.

What do you count as “really changed”? If we had these things in WWII, we could have won the war much sooner.

Mobile rocket artillery and self-propelled artillery existed in WW2.

Washington Resistance Army wrote:

Infected Mushroom wrote:
Modern China’s on the Greek side though.

They're too far to be of much aid to Greece in the scenario, you could easily navally blockade Greece from the wider world even with 1930's and 40's tech. It's simply not a position Greece could ever win, it would need to have everything it needs to fight off the assortment of nations in Greece proper, not coming from overseas, and even then Greece would still probably get rolled because it's small and doesn't have a large population.

Really the only useful help Greece has is Turkey and maybe Poland but there's again a numbers issue, even if both are qualitatively superior they could eventually just be run down by German and Soviet manpowers.

Though modern PRC would be a pain in the side of the USSR.

Thermodolia wrote:

Washington Resistance Army wrote:
They're too far to be of much aid to Greece in the scenario, you could easily navally blockade Greece from the wider world even with 1930's and 40's tech. It's simply not a position Greece could ever win, it would need to have everything it needs to fight off the assortment of nations in Greece proper, not coming from overseas, and even then Greece would still probably get rolled because it's small and doesn't have a large population.

Really the only useful help Greece has is Turkey and maybe Poland but there's again a numbers issue, even if both are qualitatively superior they could eventually just be run down by German and Soviet manpowers.

Though modern PRC would be a pain in the side of the USSR.

It would be, but not enough to save Greece in time. Siberia is big after all.

@Infected Mushroom Let's talk about technology a bit:

First, most of the advancements we've experienced since WWII are very marginal. We're talking small improvements to range, rate of fire, armor, and reliability. The only place where modern weapons are really mechanically different than WWII weapons is if we're talking about flight, either with jet engines or guided missiles.

Second, the most significant advantage of technology is information and communication. A modern nation would be able to monitor enemy troop movements far more accurately than a WWII nation. They could see attacks materializing further in advance than the enemy could have anticipated.

For ground troops, these two facts imply a couple things: First, in the heat of battle, individual soldiers on both sides are in roughly the same danger to be shot, blown up, burned, or gassed. Second, for soldiers on the technologically advanced side, they are less likely to be ambushed, and more likely to be the ones carrying out an ambush. Basically, the advanced nation will tend to use their forces more efficiently and avoid tactical blunders. Perhaps individual soldiers that end up in bad situations will have more options at their disposal, but they aren't going to have massive advantage. Even at the most optimistic, in a battle of attrition I'd say the modern soldiers only have a two to one advantage over WWII soldiers. The main strength of the modern soldiers is they are more likely to be in the right place at the right time.