Modern British Army

[BattlerBritain]

I spoke to a British Army officer who was on Bosnia and he spoke of the problems of operating in this area.

One of the main problems is that not only are there very few roads, as your map clearly shows, but that nearly all the bridges can only take vehicles that weigh upto 24tons.

That makes even taking loaded lorries a problem on these routes, let alone Bradleys/Warriors/Marders or the odd 70-ton M1/Challenger/Leo2.

So nearly all bridges have to be reinforced with deployable bridge assets. That makes any advance real slow.

Also the terrain is very mountainous and a defender can hide really well and cover any approaches.

[ROGER_HOUSTON2EMC-ENG.COM]

This terrain kept the Germans pretty much tied up throughout the entire war. There were like 12 divisions that stayed in Yugoslavia trying to subvert Tito and his resistance fighters. That rough mountainous terrain was a great combat multiplier. Those 12 divisions with the right conditions and the right schwerepunkt could have changed the situation greatly in Italy, or the Russian front or in Normandy had they not been deployed and engaged in the Balkans.

[opsctr]

During the last war almost all the main road bridges were destroyed. Since the end of the war most of the main road bridges were replaced including route 17's new higher load capacity bridges. Many of the smaller roads still suffer from the same problem but that can be overcome by modern forces fairly easily.

The terrain "is" difficult, ...which is what makes fighting with modern weapons in the area particularly interesting. The high iron content in much of the rock makes communication from valley to valley difficult so commanders must plan for that with relay stations, etc... It is a challenge but it allows for more company/battalion battles thus keeping a gamers expenses down even if you do one-for-one as we do.





Will