The Grand Mazian Army is at dawn.

[SoSp]

Pics from my bed in the Camp. (I'm with Xenofon at the same Artillery group by the way.)









P.S Most preferably I'd like to have posted this in the Private forum but I couldn't find it. Dunno if it's appropriate to post publicly pics from inside the camp.

[PlutoNick]

that helmet rules!

[Tzatzikias]

The helmet has my approval.

[Nathrezim]

hahaha oraios re psara
Ego to mono pou eixa kanei htan na xarajo ena ''Maza'' se ena dentro sto kevop.
Poses kai shmera?

[SoSp]

326 Μέρες
23 Ώρες
33 Λεπτά
53 Δεύτερολεπτα

[Kaju]

Άντε, και καλός πολίτης


Kaju

[blackdog_kt]

Oloi mazi? Egw kleinw se ligaki 2 mines stin Tripoli, anti-aircraft artillery ki etsi 

[Northrop]

isnt camoflage supposed to hide you, to make you look like a tree or bush or something? and the Greeks use blue?? when everthing is dry and yellow?? eh, am i missing something? 
on the other hand, the greek army is still using flak, so... 

[PlutoNick]

Good point, I thought that these were navy people, but i was wrong.

Anyway, I doubt that camo has any significance nowadays. The technology is such, that they can track you even if you are inside a building.

[Nathrezim]

isnt camoflage supposed to hide you, to make you look like a tree or bush or something? and the Greeks use blue?? when everthing is dry and yellow?? eh, am i missing something? 
on the other hand, the greek army is still using flak, so... 

Army, Navy and Airforce have different types of camo.
Army has the typical brown+green/whatever camo, Airforce has the one in the pics BlackDog posted and Navy has... Jeans and a shirt. Really.
But those are non-combat uniforms anyway. Incase of war or anything like that, everyone wears the Army-Camo one. (brown,green), apart from some Airforce (ground)units which still use the dark blue + green one, cause its a night-forest-camo in actual warfare for A/A operators in the wild. (See the pattern?).
On a side note, the flag gun BlackDog mentioned (Rheinmetal 20mm flak gun) is the only weapon so far in modern history that has downed a U.S.A. stealth bomber (during the war in Serbia a few years ago), because.. it's not 100% dependant on radar. (Basically its 0% dependant on radar, but with radar coordination it gets better).

Also, its the only A/A gun that Military lets us non-perma-military people use (aka those who do the 1-year mandatory army-service like blackdog, SoSp, me and every other male -almost- in Greece) cause its the oldest and cheapest one around (5k Euros per piece, ammo included for a full spree). The Patriots, Tor-M1's, SU-300s' and other *expensive* goodies are only for Junior Officers and Officers to operate (and i always wanted to fire an SU-300!!)

Below are pics of the flak gun Blackdog was talking about(that one is my personal baby after spending like 30 minutes to deploy her on the field and then we realized we didnt load her up ), and a pic of how Blackdog will look like more or less when he's near to end his time in the Airforce (well, he wont look as cool and hot as i do, but at least the uniform + badges )

Oh and what Pluto says is a fact. Camo makes so little difference nowadays.. Unless if you're like a big, wealthy, high-tech country/army fighting some kids in dirt with slings and then you boast about it *coughUSA*coughVietnam*cough*Iraq*cough*Afghanistan*coughEtc*.
When a modern army comes vs another modern army, those armies never meet. The one with the strongest AirForce wins without setting a single boot of troops on the hostile territory (most recent example NATO vs Serbia. Not one soldier ever set foot on Serbia during the war. Ever. Cause they'd be slaughtered like lambs and everyone knew it. They would win, but the oil rigs and plutonium deposits werent good enough reason to justify hundreds of thousands dead troops.) So, one side plays dead, while the other spends trillions in bombing wooden tanks out in the open and the winners live happily ever after on TV shows and CNN.
Oh, and they lose a Stealth (to an upgraded WWII flak gun,latest high-tech upgrade was during the 70's) during that aswell, meaning no sales to occure at any abrupt prices ever and also the biggest moral victory in modern warfare that a ''defeated'', overwhelmed army/nation has to boast about. hundreds thousands wooden tanks for a Stealth bomber. Fair nuff

[blackdog_kt]

When talking about artillery and flak, in Russians and Germans we trust, Nath knows his stuff 

BTW i got the badges too, i'm just waiting to be posted at the guards squad in a week or so to apply them. As for the camo, i was thinking about it too up until the first time i saw another platoon marching out in the open and guess what, from a distance of 30-50m you appear grey like a ghost in that outfit, so it's not bad at all. When at night and going to replace another guard in his post, the guy is practically invisible.

As for the gun, we got 2 groups of Patriot missiles where i'm stationed right now but these are operated by people who won't leave the army in 12 months, it's all about being cost effective. Our little 20mm is actually the last line of defence in a chain that goes from long range missiles (Patriot, S300), to medium range (skyguard batteries with sparrow missiles, Tor-M1), to radar controlled guns for point defence that can actually shoot down a guided bomb/missile before it impacts on the target (35mm oerlikon guns, paired with the skyguard batteries under a radar, the whole thing is called "arrow"). If someone gets through all that, well, the guy deserved it 

So, the radar relays target info to the officers in charge of the guns and they tell us to set a couple of rotating buttons to match this data (speed and altitude of target). Then, when the enemy guy is close we start tracking him through the external sight and when he's close enough to center we look through the periscope/zoom sight. This is because the zoom sight has a narrow field of view and you can easily lose a fast jet if you don't use outside reference. If  you track him with the external sight first though, he will be close to center in the periscope sight too, you line him up in the crosshairs and push the little joystick downwards. This gives the gun the command to adjust its aiming point according to the target data we input before to the direction we've been moving it.

In practical terms, if i'm tracking a target moving from left to right and push the stick inwards, the gun will give a nudge (or swing, depending on the target speed i have set) to the right, so that i'm shooting ahead of the target just enough for my shells to catch up with him and go boom in his face 

If no radar guidance is available or it's night, the officer in charge designates guns as external and internal, which as the name implies fire outside and inside the friendly sector respectively, at an elevation of 50 to 60 degrees, while moving the barrels left and right a bit (about 10 degrees either way). This is essentially blind barrage fire, but with 6-7 guns at 1000 rounds per minute, you're bound to scare them off (the shells can be set to explode after 3km or so, so the shrapnel gets flying even if you don't score a direct hit) or even hit someone that gets close.

The thing is, a modern jet that ventures that close to a low-tech gun like this (max range is 7km) will either be already injured or engaged by other more sophisticated systems/friendly aircraft. This means he'll be maneuvering aka losing precious speed and you can track him. The target speed dial can be set for a maximum target speed of 350m/sec, which is a bit above the sound barrier (330m/sec or 1000-1200km/h). Normally, a jet on a low level bombing run with unguided bombs will be doing about 800km/h so it's well within the gun's boundaries. If he's shooting with high tech weapons from far out he'll be having to deal with the long range systems mentioned earlier plus friendly interceptors plus the oerlikon guns that are well capable of destroying his guided weapons before they impact. So, the best way for him to score hits is to saturate our defence with multiple guided weapons from afar. Eg, if they are coming with 30 jets, 15 get through and each one launches a couple of guided bombs/missiles, then yes, something is bound to get past the oerlikons.

[Nathrezim]

The ''tracking'' is 350km/h. Not 350m/s. (WWII plane-speeds). A Rhm cant track a modern jet. All it can hope to do is hit it (indirectly with the auto-exploding shells) by using 6-7 Rhms covering an ''angle/area''. Known as umbrella (1000+rpm x7 guns = alot of shit in sky). Also it can hit a jet when it has delivered its payload and is *starting* to speed up to gain alltitude. That's when a Rhm is effective and can actually hit something flying at 500-800km/h (<--jet when speeding up after close-range bomb release).

Cause when the jet starts climbing, for a few precious seconds its stalling/remaining ''immobile'' (gaining enough speed/power to overcome gravity and fly upwards). THATS the moment you track it and are capable of hitting it with a Rhm that is close to it for direct impacts (my father is a combat pilot of the Hellenic Airforce nearly 20-something years now and he's telling me this shit, im not making it up) - thats how the stealth bomber got shot down in Serbia back then. It had delivered its payload close to the mountain side a Rhm was on. And it shot it down from 3km distance while the stealth bomber was climbing up again.

Also Rhm (umbrella tactic above^) is a ''fear'' factor.. When you're a pilot and see millions of small things exploding all over the place, infront of you, left, right etc, you shit your pants if you're not war-experienced, thus your judgement is fucked, thus you may not hit your target when releasing the bombs. Thats why we still have it.. Not cause it has the potential to ''kill'' something.
A Rhm can only hit helicotpers (even Apaches etc) and carriers (C-130's) with very much ease. For jets, its luck + umbrella + pray.
Oh also, you can point it downwards to -5 degrees if i recall correctly. And yea, it fucks up anything with ''tank-armour'' and below Totally So, its awesome ground-defence aswell (something that super-high-tech-missiles cant do virtually).
All in all, i totally fell in love with that weapon. I have a used shell from the practice-shooting aswell.. Got any of those big-ass shells Blacky? Its cool

[PlutoNick]

Stratokavloi ftw

[Kaju]

You know what they say Pluto,
"If you can't avoid it, at least enjoy it"



Kaju

[blackdog_kt]

You know what they say Pluto,
"If you can't avoid it, at least enjoy it"



Kaju

Lol exactly. Nath, i agree with you 99.9% except for the tracking. I still have the manual lying around,i might take a look to make sure if it's 350m/sec or km/h. 

Too bad they wouldn't let us keep any shell casings, all i got is a 7.62mm casing from the small arms shooting exercise.