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Vanir Ausf B

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Everything posted by Vanir Ausf B

  1. It's interesting to watch this debate play out in the UK. ________ In 2021 the defence secretary announced plans to reduce the number of tanks from 227 to 148 and shrink the army to 73,000 troops, its smallest size since the Napoleonic era. The decision was made before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and proved controversial with Tory MPs. General Sir Patrick Sanders, the chief of the general staff, said that pursuing the cuts at a time of war in Europe would be “perverse”. But with Nato allies including Poland, Germany and Finland increasing spending on their land armies, ministers believe that Britain is not under significant pressure to change course and can modernise the armed forces with investments elsewhere. Senior figures in the MoD believe the war in Ukraine has exposed the vulnerability of tanks to shoulder-launched weapons such as Nlaws and Javelins, justifying the original decision in 2021 to upgrade only 148 Challenger 2s to Challenger 3s. “We have too much infantry — a legacy of the counter-insurgency wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We need more artillery. The jury is out on whether you need main battle tanks,” a Whitehall source said. There are 75,710 full-time and fully trained troops in the army, and Wallace has previously admitted that it is unable to deploy a war-fighting division. In a private meeting last autumn, the US commander of Nato forces in Europe warned that the British army was no longer regarded as a tier-one fighting force. Senior army figures have argued that planned cuts to the number of tanks and troops would be a mistake. “The main lesson from Ukraine is you need mass,” one army source said. “The truth is we don’t have enough infantry and we don’t have enough artillery.” The source also said it was naive to think that the war in Ukraine justified the decision to cut tanks and suggested poor Russian tactics explained why the Kremlin had lost over half its operational fleet in Ukraine. “If you’re being hit by Nlaws in an urban environment, your tank is probably in the wrong place,” the source said. As part of the military overhaul the army is expected to field more assault groups armed with drones, reflecting the important role played by artillery spotters in Ukraine. _______ https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ben-wallace-resist-reverse-british-army-cuts-gd9pzd62j (paywalled)
  2. I have explained why that is a contrived number. I'm done talking about it. Sturm-S vs M60 RISE+ @800 meters. Outliers not excluded. Median M60: 29 seconds Sturm: 17.5 seconds Average M60: 29.8 seconds Sturm: 25.5 seconds Since you attach so much meaning to the single largest time, for the Sturm it was 88 seconds. That's a 49.4% advantage in median spot time for the Sturm-S. WTF @The_Capt, how do you sleep at night?
  3. Careful. You're comparing maximum outlier vs. maximum outlier to get that number, essentially cherry-picking the two most extreme numbers out of a 100 number data set. Using that to claim a "300% difference in spotting" is incredibly misleading. The typical difference is about 22%. Not all Soviet vehicles are worse at spotting than all US vehicles. For example the Shturm-S is very good at spotting, much better than a M60. I am going to reiterate that the CM spotting model has worked this way in every CM game from Shock Force 1. There is nothing "abnormal" about the spotting in CMCW compared to other CM games.
  4. It isn't particular to T-64s or Cold War. I have done a lot more testing in CMBN and have seen very rare examples of tanks taking nearly 10 minutes to spot another tank at 1000 meters. One of these days I may suggest to Battlefront that they tone down the variance a little, but I doubt it's going to change dramatically and I don't know if it should given the real variability of human behavior and performance.
  5. I just ran a better test than the one I did a few years back, since that one was at 150 meters. This one is a more typical 800 meters. T-72A vs M60A1 RISE+. It unsurprisingly shows a larger difference in spotting, although not massively. The biggest difference was in the number and magnitude of outliers produced. A quirk of the CM spotting system is that it can produce huge outliers from time to time, which probably account for most of the "my tank is totally blind!" anecdotes. For example, the median spotting time for T-72 was 36.5 seconds but the single longest time recorded was 270 seconds. Because of that the average changes a lot depending on if you include outliers or exclude them, although the median doesn't change much. n=50 Outliers excluded median M60: 27.5 seconds T-72: 34 seconds Outliers excluded average M60: 26.9 seconds T-72: 39 seconds Outliers included median M60: 29 seconds T-72: 36.5 seconds Outliers included average M60: 29.8 seconds T-72: 53.7 seconds What does this tell us? Nothing we didn't already know, frankly. But #1, and perhaps most importantly, CM spotting is highly variable and the result of any given encounter is usually a function of the situation combined with sheer dumb luck rather than the vehicle characteristics. For example, the fastest spot time for the T-72 was 8 seconds and the longest spot time for the M60 was 101 seconds. Second, while the difference in spotting ability in identical situations is around 21-23% most of the time the M60 is more consistent and therefore less likely to throw out an extreme result.
  6. Well, there is no reason to assume a T-62 has any better spotting than a T-72. If you don't like my data, get your own. Otherwise, good luck with your rant.
  7. I did share an opinion. You just didn't like it. Too bad. Personal experience? Well, I have actually done some testing in the past. Nothing extensive, but enough to suggest that the differences in spotting between M60 and T-62 are in the 10-20% range, at least under the testing conditions... ... which would be reasonable given the real-world differences I have documented (albeit for T-72): Thank you. I agree
  8. Pages of claims about the spotting performance of various vehicles, but with no data backing it up. I wouldn't call it ridiculous but I would call it useless.
  9. Perhaps there should be an option to disable the RNG and make all spotting checks 100% successful, LOS permitting. I would not use it but I suspect there is a vocal minority of users who would.
  10. SU-24, most likely. SU-27 is also possible but not MiG-29.
  11. "The office of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, our country’s president, is in charge of the ultimate decision regarding the dates and directions [of the counter-offensive]. When people start talking, even people from respectable Western institutions, trust me: there are no people who know the full extent of our plans. Because the final plans have not yet been approved. We have several options [for the counteroffensive]. They are all being considered. Decisions will be made depending on the circumstances that prevail at any given moment. There’s no need to expect, or not expect, anything. We have already proven that we are an invincible nation, and we will definitely [win]. In no small part, thanks to the help of our partners. -- Oleksii Danilov https://finance.yahoo.com/news/secretary-national-security-council-zelenskyy-171659645.html
  12. Yes. Obviously. But as you pointed out, those 9 brigades won't be everywhere at once. That's why it's going to be a contest of ISR and logistics.
  13. I presume from others sectors of the front not under attack. At least in theory. That's how these things work. Russia can't defend everywhere at once. But at the same time Ukraine can't attack everywhere at once.
  14. Hey Skeptical, I would ask him but I don't have a twitter account. I suspect most of these fortifications are unmanned or lightly manned. Many of the experts, or "experts" as the case may be, say it will come down to ISR and logistics, which is why some of them are predicting major breakthroughs. But they are guessing, like everyone else. _______ Western partners have told him, he said, that they now need a “next example of a success because we need to show it to our people. … But I cannot tell you what the scale of this success would be. Ten kilometers, 30 kilometers, 100 kilometers, 200 kilometers?” https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/06/ukraine-counteroffensive-expectations-hype-russia/
  15. Reznikov said that Ukraine’s “first assault formation” is more than 90 percent prepared to begin but that some designated troops are still finishing training programs abroad. ... Russian forces in Kherson knew that Ukraine lacked long-distance strike capabilities, so “they withdrew all their command posts, fuel depots, ammunition depots, more than 120 kilometers away,” Reznikov said. “That’s why we need something interesting with a range capability of 150 kilometers,” he said. “It’s become more difficult for them logistically. But we need to push them deeper and deeper.”
  16. India has surpassed China in population but it's economy is structured very differently. It's manufacturing sector is relatively small, which means it can't follow the cheap labor/massive export- driven growth model. It's female workforce participation looks more like Middle Eastern countries than China or the west.
  17. Depends on how we define cannon fodder. Publicly available numbers (which are probably less than half of the actual total) suggest about 31% of casualties Dec - February were prison inmates. Most of the rest were mobiks of various types.
  18. Apparently those numbers were supposed to be for the whole war since December.
  19. I don't expect to see many if any US forces stationed in Finland on a permanent basis. They would have to be pulled from elsewhere in Europe. Maybe a Patriot battery.
  20. Rarely. In the early Combat Mission days circa 2000 he would pop in a little more often but it's never been his thing.
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