Is swimming realistic?

[charliegrs]

Something Ive been wondering about lately is this. Of all the aspects of vanilla that have been removed im still surprised that you can swim. The reason being, that I understand as a modern day soldier with body armor and all the other gear that can add up to 70-100 pounds of extra weight on a person. I would think that in water you would sink like a rock, not to mention all the water the uniform would soak up and weigh you down even further. So I think that in PR, when in anything over waist deep water yuo should sink and die {if possible} or just die.

I dont suggest this simply for the sake of realism, but I believe theres a tactical aspect to this as well. Right now, a blown bridge is only a deterrent to vehicles. Infantry will simply just swim across. Which imo, is not realistic at all. This makes it so the defense and repair of things like bridges is now important. And blowing up bridges to deny the enemy team another route to a CP is also now way more important.

I would suggest that no conventional factions be able to swim, however, factions like the insurgents,taliban,hamas I say should still be able to swim as they typically not wearing any body armor and carry much less gear. Not to mention the more guerilla way they do things, swimming would not be out of the question to get into a good position to launch an ambush or place an IED.

If anyone here is in a military and can clue me in to the realism of swimming soldiers on the battlefield then by all means, correct me if im wrong about it. But one thing I remember is hearing about all the soldiers who drowned in the ocean at normany on D-day due to swimming with all that gear.

[Maverick]

Well, Marines learn to swim with 70+ pounds of gear on during Boot Camp, in the event they fall off a ship, they know they can still survive

[Solid Knight]

Well, Marines learn to swim with 70+ pounds of gear on during Boot Camp, in the event they fall off a ship, they know they can still survive

I'm sure that also involves removing dead weight to restore your buoyancy. I've swam with some extra non-buoyant weight before and even at ten pounds it becomes substantially more difficult to keep your head above water. Anything above twenty makes me sink like a rock. And I'm not exactly a noob in the water considering I can swim 1.2 miles.

[charliegrs]

Well, Marines learn to swim with 70+ pounds of gear on during Boot Camp, in the event they fall off a ship, they know they can still survive

You have a point, however, when you think about how PR operates right now, where if the quickest path to a destination is through water then usually the squad leader will just say screw it and have his squad swim across. I dont think this would happen in real life. Theres a big difference in being trained in how to swim with 70 pounds of gear in the event you fall off a ship, and using swimming as a regular mode of transport like walking.

[=Toasted=]

You have a point, however, when you think about how PR operates right now, where if the quickest path to a destination is through water then usually the squad leader will just say screw it and have his squad swim across.

Good logic, but I hardly ever see squads enter water for some kind of tatical advantage. When your in water, your slower, have no cover, cannot be healed/revived, and cannot fight back. It already is almost a death sentance as is.

[Maverick]

well, also in reality, you don't have choppers crashing by bad pilots forcing the infantry to either swim, or use APC support(assuming that they are still ferrying infantry or going on a killing spree...) Then again, I don't know how to swim and I live in an area next to the ocean

[Solid Knight]

Good logic, but I hardly ever see squads enter water for some kind of tatical advantage. When your in water, your slower, have no cover, cannot be healed/revived, and cannot fight back. It already is almost a death sentance as is.

Eh, it always depends. A lot of the time, for the very reasons you stated, you can sneak up on people because they don't expect squads to be swimming in the water thus they never look. I know on Muttrah I used to swim along the wall from the docks to the objective in the giant building and nobody ever saw my squad coming because they're too busy looking for helicopters and people running down streets.

[Startrekern]

Is there.. is there not already a thread about this? Like, recent one? Still in the top threads?

...

[charliegrs]

Is there.. is there not already a thread about this? Like, recent one? Still in the top threads?

...

yeah i just saw the other thread. wow not only is this a resuggestion but on the very same day as the first suggestion. ops:

sorry mods, you can delete this thread ops: