Operation Flashpoint: Later On.

I figured out that the trick to commanding a tank is to stick to the target-designator viewscreen ("V" command) and let the driver do the negotiating; it makes the most sense to just issue a "Stay In Formation" order and use the strategic map to move if necessary. Assigning targets and getting the gunner to fire is finicky, but it mostly works. I still haven't figured out how to manually rotate the turret -- my tank is generally the one with its barrel pointed slightly off from due aft, as opposed to towards the enemy -- but it seems the gunner will rotate it into proper position to fire anyways. Still a pain, but made up for by the impressive power of the tanks themselves.

By the way, look at this. It turns out from Iraq that an M1 Abrams pretty much can't be stopped by anything short of a 155mm artillery shell going off _underneath_ the tank -- it's pretty much impervious to RPGs, for one thing (a point also mentioned in passing in Imperial Life in the Emerald City, a book that has exactly the merits and flaws that its title implies, but certainly is worth reading). But the main point to consider here is that no army issues its infantry a weapon that can stop an Abrams equipped with reactive armor. Light infantry warfare is predicated on the idea that suitably-equipped and adequately skilled infantry can defeat anything they oppose; what does the presence of invincible tanks mean for this style of fighting?

Then again, the question is probably academic: light-infantry warfare, Vietnam-style, is very far removed from things like the war in Iraq, and even in Afghanistan -- where it's a little closer, and the Soviet-Afghan War was certainly a light infantry conflict -- there's much more COIN (where the main challenges are rebuilding the infrastructure, protecting it, and not blowing one's top when an insurgent snipes one's squadmate) than there is open-field warfare of any sort.

But back to Operation Flashpoint: there were only two tank missions, than a special-ops one (which took me more tries than it should've to get right; how did I forget that firing on the tanks from a hill with an RPG was not a very special-ops way of handling them? But that said, I discovered a possible flaw in the engine: you can't knock out tanks with a single RPG shot to the turret), and back to infantry -- where the US side has gotten significantly better, and the Russians have gotten significantly worse, than they were when last we met. The US troops are now fighting at the same level as the guerillas I mentioned earlier, still advancing in line but using cover (and hitting the dirt as soon as shots come in); the Russians are walking around fully exposed, routinely silhouetting themselves over ridgelines, and moving in squads with embarrassingly little concern for cover. One time through a mission where I was carrying an M60, I managed to sprint to a group of bushes early on and slaughter six Russian troops who were standing in a village crossroads -- even though they knew that fighting had already begun.

Having more or less learned how to engage with an M203, I've now tried learning to use RPGs. They're a lot more useful than they are in Far Cry 2, but I need some practice in judging how much elevation to give the round to impact usefully, and how many seconds I should expect it to stay in the air. I've managed to enfilade a group of Russians and wipe them out with RPG fire a couple of times, though; at least the rocket can be launched more or less straight, as opposed to lobbed underhand like an M203.

By the way, something I've discovered in this game: if there was just one thing I could do to improve a US squad skirmish line, it would be to throw out flankers -- to have the rightmost and leftmost members of the squad equipped with high-firepower weapons not heavy enough to compromise their mobility (probably the M249 SAW, which was explicitly designed to be like this), and have initiative to either remain with the squad or advance to cover ahead of it, with each flanker looking forward and inward towards the line. Flanking fire is incredibly valuable in a firefight; it's fairly easy to find cover against threats in one direction, but not in three.

That said, do we still use formations like that? I was unable to determine that via Wikipedia and Google (which is actually a good sign -- Poole says that the Chinese treat their infantry doctrines as just about as confidential as their nuclear technology, and we should be doing the same), and I know at least that we now focus on four-man fire teams -- but Poole, writing in the '90s or the 2000s, did complain that we were still using pre-machinegun tactics, skirmish lines in particular.

(Also, disclaimer to those concerned: I think that all parties involved in the recent use of torture by the United States should be punished appropriately, and I'm disappointed that Obama is trying to rule out the punishment of some or all of them; "moving on" will only be appropriate once all culpable for violations of international treaties are jailed or dead. The US Army, and the FBI, would agree on that, although probably not the "or dead" part. I'm beginning to wonder whether it is appropriate to disband the CIA, given that extraordinary rendition is also forbidden by the UN Convention Against Torture -- very, very explicitly at that.)