Vanir Ausf B

There is far too little attention paid to the interplay between Chinese actions and US aid to Ukraine. In this particular case, I suspect that the shoe that dropped was North Korean aid to Russia. Kim quite literally exists at the courtesy of China. He can't do his banking or feed his country without the acquiescence of Beijing. In the last week it has become clear that Xi has agreed to let him send arms to Russia. The US was holding back ATACMS in order to have a card to play to stop that sort of thing from happening. Now that China has decided to allow it, the US is letting them go.

I wanted to have a better understanding of the effect of weather conditions on CMBN's clear (blue line) line of sight ranges. I created a map that was perfectly flat, had only short grass and no features. Then set up a U.S. rifle platoon on one edge and drew target lines down range under various conditions for both day and night. Attached is a pdf showing the results for your use. Measurements are not perfect but good enough.
This is very helpful for me when creating scenarios. I find the night-time range for overcast conditions to be hugely excessive when compared to veteran's accounts.
CMBN LOS Weather.pdf

Word budut is future; they will be ours. Mistranslation.

I think those Twitter posts are bit over the top.
https://newsweek.ro/actualitate/sea-breeze-233-fortelor-navale-romane-si-cele-ale-sua-fac-exercitii-in-marea-neagra-si-delta
 
 

There was a Ukrainian military source quoted in an interview late last year (which I now cannot find) that said the Oryx numbers for tanks under count Russian loses by 50% and Ukrainian loses by 60%.
What is more difficult to wrap my head around is the aircraft loss numbers. Ukraine claims 315 fixed wing kills and 316 helicopters. Oryx counts 89 and 105, respectively.

Fascinating insights into NATO training for Ukraine; what worked and what didn't.
https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1699193558685618235
 

Fascinating insights into NATO training for Ukraine; what worked and what didn't.
https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1699193558685618235
 

Fascinating insights into NATO training for Ukraine; what worked and what didn't.
https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1699193558685618235
 

The difference is between 'smart' and 'wise'.  And there's the issue of values - good or bad. poor values lead to a lack of wisdom, and poor outcomes when 'smart' is used to accumulate wealth.  Not that there's anything wrong with wealth, if honestly achieved.

You wrote earlier that Prig had enough money to retire in grand style.  But for people like him that's not the point - the point is power, and you don't get that in retirement.

Fascinating insights into NATO training for Ukraine; what worked and what didn't.
https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1699193558685618235
 

I think this was occasional encounter and drone operator hadn't task to hit Ka-52. He just spot it and probably thought: "Damn! What a fortune!". But, alas, the speed even of FPV race drone, using for strike purposes is not enough to chase a helicopter, so interception have to be trained.
Drone interception is also hard, because drone operators havn't information from radars. This is not their level and nor their tasks. I have a suspicion, even our MANPADs and SHORADs havn't proper radar info and operate on own lucky.  

Fascinating insights into NATO training for Ukraine; what worked and what didn't.
https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1699193558685618235
 

Fascinating insights into NATO training for Ukraine; what worked and what didn't.
https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1699193558685618235
 

Fascinating insights into NATO training for Ukraine; what worked and what didn't.
https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1699193558685618235
 

Fascinating insights into NATO training for Ukraine; what worked and what didn't.
https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1699193558685618235
 

Fascinating insights into NATO training for Ukraine; what worked and what didn't.
https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1699193558685618235
 

Fascinating insights into NATO training for Ukraine; what worked and what didn't.
https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1699193558685618235
 

Fascinating insights into NATO training for Ukraine; what worked and what didn't.
https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1699193558685618235
 

Fascinating insights into NATO training for Ukraine; what worked and what didn't.
https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1699193558685618235
 

Personally, I didn't think the guns were too tight to begin with. There are trade-offs with everything, obviously, and with a gun position you want it to be as dispersed as possible, and no more.
Arguing for wider dispersion is the counter-battery threat, which itself varies by enemy, operational situation, tactical situation, and terrain. In general, the Ukrainians seem to have been following an active CB policy (ie, going after Russian artillery assets whenever they get a chance) over the last ... year? But it is unlikely that policy is consistent across the entire front, due to a lack of ammo, deception measures, and lack of sufficient CB C2 infrastructure everywhere. But as a rule of thumb, I expect the Russians would probably want to be more dispersed than perhaps their doctrine would suggest.
Arguing against wider dispersion are a bunch of factors.
Local defence - I'm not sure how porous the front is, or how often Ukrainian raiding parties are hitting battery positions, but a small tight position is MUCH easier to defend against a ground threat that a dispersed position.
Fire mission command and control - in my experience, each section (2 guns) is managed by a junior officer, and he has to keep shuttling between his guns to ensure they are doing the right things in the right way (bearing and elevation is correct, correct ammo, charge and fuse, etc). If the position becomes too dispersed, either those firing checks have to be reduced or overlooked (with consequent increase in risk), or the pace of fire missions drastically reduced. That's on top of the points @BlackMoria made about limited wire and/or radios. A lot of this can be mitigated with fancy-pants new kit, but these are D-30s. I doubt they are very fancy-pants, and I expect they are using methods and equipment that a gunner from the 1980s would feel intimately familiar with.
Terrain - @BlackMoria has noted that this clearing is quite small, which is true, but FWIW to my eye it doesn't appear to be too small for the number of guns being employed*. It's really hard to eyeball, but it looks to be at least 50m between guns, which is a pretty standard dispersion. Also, the entire clearing isn't available for use due to cresting issues with the surrounding trees - get too close to the trees at the front edge of the clearing and you can't safely depress the barrels enough to engage targets - you'd be firing rounds through the trees just in front of you and, um, that's a really bad idea. That's also why you can't just hide your guns in the forest to begin with.
Edit to add: Terrain part 2 - we can't see the wider area around this position. It could concievably be that this is the only, or one of the few, practical positions for this battery to be. Aside from out in the desert, the battlespace rapidly gets clogged up by all the things you want to be there - ammo and logistics dumps, engineer stores dumps, artillery areas, medical areas, helicopter landing zones, reserve fighting positions, staging areas for units moving forwards and backwards, maintenance area, routes for stuff moving forwards, backwards, and sideways, etc. Given that this area also seems to be heavily wooded and sparsely tracked**, there just mightn't be any other good spots for the guns to be, and the battlespace managers at the higher HQ haven't given this battery commander enough ground to be able to disperse they way he might want to.
 
Interestingly, there seems to be only three guns in this battery. I wonder where the fourth is? I'm guessing it is out of action - either broken, or perhaps destroyed in a previous CB engagement - although it could jut be tucked away somewhere out of sight.
Also, the CB mission as shown seemed focused on the guns themselves, which is fair enough because that's what the unaided eye (or drone cam) can see. But somewhere, not too far away - probably within 100m of the centre gun - is a command post. It's a shame they couldn't identify and target that either instead of one of the guns, or in addition to all of the guns. There is probably also an echelon park nearby - probably not more than 200-500m from the command post - with a bunch of trucks and mechanics and technical equipment and other paraphernalia. Replacing a couple of guns is hard. Replacing a couple of guns AND all that other junk, along with the training of the specialists you find there, is really hard.
 
* although, I suppose you could argue that it really was too small, given that all three guns seem to have been taken out. On the other hand, the Ukrainians seemed to be adjusting between the three guns as if they were three point targets. At that point it wouldn't have mattered if the guns were twice, thrice, or ten times as far apart - once the enemy gunners have the intel and time to accurately adjust between your positions you're screwed, regardless of dispersion. It doesn't matter whether that's a battery of guns or a dug in platoon.
** artillery units need access to good routes - ammo is heavy, and in a sustained battle an artillery unit needs a LOT of trucks coming and going to keep it fed.

Fascinating insights into NATO training for Ukraine; what worked and what didn't.
https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1699193558685618235
 

Fascinating insights into NATO training for Ukraine; what worked and what didn't.
https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1699193558685618235
 

It was never going to be different. Hanyang (now known as Seoul) was the capital of the Joseon kingdom since the 14th Century and was the capital of the earlier Baekje kingdom during the Korean Three Kingdoms period. It is far too important in their history to not be the capital no matter what cold, military logic would say. Also, as an aside Busan is a phenomenal city. It's probably my favorite place I've ever been and if any of you get the chance to go there you absolutely should.

Fascinating insights into NATO training for Ukraine; what worked and what didn't.
https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1699193558685618235
 

Fascinating insights into NATO training for Ukraine; what worked and what didn't.
https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1699193558685618235