Vanir Ausf B

That's what I interpreted him as saying. Asking when Russia will run out is like asking when the world will run out of oil. The answer is never, it just becomes more scarce. In fact the IISS estimate I posted above does not actually predict a run dry date, but rather how long Russia will be "able to sustain its assault on Ukraine at current attrition rates".

I think he means that technically speaking, Russia will probably never exactly run out of war material, because before that happens it will reduce consumption/exposition to risk when faced with a shortage. Therefore one can not just draw a graph with one line representing average production, the other average consumption and at the point where they meet, the Russian army will stop firing guns or have no more tanks. He says this in all his podcasts in particular whenever ammo production is discussed, so I am fairly confident this is what is meant here as well.
And whereas the Russians can decide to reduce the firing rate/usage rate pretty much at will, they cannot increase the production rate by will alone, therefore the replacement rate is the more objectively observable variable.
 

On the forum and in various discords, the topic has been raised more than once as to whether there was a ground-based radar on the BRM-1 in our gaming time of 1979-1982. Last week I started researching the topic and came across a reconnaissance vehicle operating manual from 1982. All that is known about the radar itself is that it began production in the mid-1970s. Perhaps the information provided will give us in the future a ground radar on the BRM-1K in one of the patches, since I can judge that a ground radar could initially be on all reconnaissance vehicles.
Documentation of BRM-1K operation

 
 
In addition, I studied the topic of thermal imagers in the USSR and learned some interesting things.
The first Soviet zero-generation thermal imager to go into small-scale production was 1PN59 "Posobie-1", which consisted of 50 sensitive elements and had a scanning frequency of 16 Hz, and a target recognition range of 2000 m. This device was installed on PRP-4 (1984) - a mobile reconnaissance point used for reconnaissance and target designation of missile and artillery systems.
The second thermal imager of the first generation was 1PN71 "Posobie-2" with 64 sensitive elements and a scanning frequency of 33 Hz. The target recognition range increased to 3000 m. This device was installed on PRP-4M (1988).
The first two thermal imagers did not find widespread use in sighting equipment and were used only for monitoring the terrain on highly specialized reconnaissance vehicles. However, even if one wanted to, 1PN59 could not be used as a sight due to the low scanning frequency.
Directly for equipping tanks, work was carried out on "Agava-1" thermal imager, which already had 100 sensitive elements and could recognize a tank-type target at 2000 m. "Agava-1" successfully passed tests, but the military abandoned it due to unsatisfactory characteristics, so the timing equipping Soviet tanks with thermal imagers moved back again. After this, the development of an improved version, "Agava-2" began. The number of sensitive elements was increased to 256 pieces, and the target recognition range increased by 20-30%. “Agava-2” suited the military, but its mass production took place in the early 90s, when the country no longer had time for thermal imagers, however, this sight will be installed on some Russian T-80U/UK tanks.
 

Image from the screen of thermal imager 1PN59.
 
 
 

Some good vision here of Challenger 2 on the training range.  Includes an example of one of the things that the reporter says is an issue fielding this vehicle in Ukraine when it gets bogged in a ditch.  He comments at the end re mobility and maintenance being the main problems they've been facing.
 

https://twitter.com/wolski_jaros/status/1766460369357168921
He modified after consultations. More discussions here, sorry but have little time to translate now. Mandarins on the matter seems to disagree, except that these are likely MAN KAT trucks (which could also be used outside Patriot battery) and that convoy was likely carrying some rocket assets; some afterexpolsions are visible, reportedly (I don't see any though).
Russian claim in clip in not necessarly valid, description could be made by anyone and TASS and other ragencies claimed Patriot. I guess we will need to wait, probably milnets close to AFU circles in many coutries will have valid rumours in incoming weeks.
What is concerning and Wolski is right about is that we have plenty more videos with precise Russian strikes deep behind Ukrainian lines in last weeks/months, where they fly pretty unmolested with their drone assets.

Russians are reading the forum.
 

Russians are reading the forum.
 

Mashovets offers a long analysis of how  Avdiivkafail to the Russians:
https://t.me/zvizdecmanhustu/1688

He concludes with:
 

I stumbled across this article about using face-hardened and RHA armour, specifically for the Panther. It seemed to align with my basic knowledge, but I wanted to pick the group's wisdom on whether the article was accurate and your thoughts on the site's quality overall. Thanks!
https://tankhistoria.com/wwii/panther-armor-quality/

The typical drone attacks tend to be:
At least 1 (usually more like 3+-1) spotting drone to find targets in the first place and to allow coordinating
When a target has been found the fpv drones get send out to attack usually limited by operators. Depending on target and availability arty and drone bombers are also used.
Where SHORAD helps significantly here is in pushing back those spotting drones or shooting them down.
 
The tanks in COIN is funny to me because ive seen them or more exactly IFVs be highly useful and well worth their money.
 
So as per this scenario the SHORAD would be able to deal with an attack that otherwise has the potential to take out an entire battalion. So even taking your scenario at face value that seems like great value.
This also Throws up a dilema. If youre defending against an attack do you attempt to attrit the air defense first which means the attack might go through mostly unharmed by your supporting fires or do you focus on the attack itself which leaves the air defense free to do its job.
 
 
So we bring FPV drones and SHORAD and our enemy brings just FPV drones. As per your example we lose a few vehicles while they lose a battalion. This seems like a reasonably sustainable attrition rate.
And as per your scenario you dont need 2 per platoon but more like a platoon per battalion so 15 vehicles per brigade.
This entire calculus also get a whole lot better once you actually enable your normal vehicles to engage drones aswell which isnt that much of a problem either.
It gets even better when you include your own drone operators hunting down enemy drone operators and fire support.
 
 
UAS at the current capability will become cheaper. Those for military use will become more expensive.
Want them hardened against EW? Thats another hundred bucks for each.
Want them with more than a few km range and still good payload? You just doubled the price.
And all that is only necessary because you introduce countermeasures.
 
Your ideal counter uas weapon simply doesnt work with physics.
For ballistic weapons youre looking for a 30mm gun with a good fire control system so a few tons at least.
For directed energy weapons you need the emitter itself and a power supply to sustain it aswell and thats another few tons.
For infantry to carry more, move faster and go longer without resupply you need an external powersource. The most effective way to provide what you want is to give the infantry a vehicle. And if youre thinking exoskeletons then you might aswell forget about cheap in the first place.
 
And while im not trying to understate the effectiveness of drones and i absolutely see them as a vital part of combat there are ways to mitigate their effect.
Starting from low level simply having someone as a dedicated air observer to spot drones and getting them a shotgun or mg on an aa tripod gives a slight chance to deal with them.
Provide each vehicle with a weapon capable of shooting down drones. Already starting btw
Get some dedicated SHORAD vehicles for more effective fire and to protect vital points
 

Yeah, but also record deliveries of equipment. 
https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/russian-military-objectives-and-capacity-ukraine-through-2024
"This has led to significant increases in production output. For example, Russia is delivering approximately 1,500 tanks to its forces per year along with approximately 3,000 armoured fighting vehicles of various types."
Generally expected to match the loss rates this year.

Along with this I'd like to be able to click a sound/tentative contact and have it highlight which of my units has that contact, just like it works for a solid contact. That would tell me who I need to maneuver to get a better contact on it. I think this is realistic. For example, a squad gets a tentative contact. Squad leader splits off a scout team "See if you see what that is."  As long as they still remain in C2, that would then tell me what I'd need to do to fire on it. Sometimes it's only a small change in position or cover, but right now we don't know WHO needs to do that. We just have lots of tentative conctacts and have to guess who MIGHT have a LOS to one.
Dave

Claims to show moment of impact against the "Sergei Kotov" patrol vessel.
 
 

That isn't actually what it says.  It is more about where we stand now with a complete reversal of where things had been when the US and Soviet Union began a drawdown in weapons and moves to limit the risk of nuclear war.  It is only saying anything about Ukraine as a tangent to the overall global risk and specifically brings up the rumors Russia started about the Ukrainians doing a "false flag dirty bomb" which the US and Ukraine felt was a cover for Russia to use a tactical nuke.  It never once suggests a Ukrainian negotiation or even a discussion of the state of the war there.
The overall article is about the increased proliferation and development of new weapons in a world with an increase in conflicts.  You really should read this stuff before stating what it is about.

First German FPV drone for military purposes, delivieries will go to Ukraine. Called "tank destroyer" Maus.
We will see if it will turn out to be over-engineered and unnecessarily maintenance intensive. 
But the manufacturer claims to have been in communication with Ukrainian soldiers during the design process.
Released features:
- Weaponry: modular via "clamp-on" system
- Effective range (combat): 5-7 km (3-4 miles)
- Effective range (recon): 12-17km (7-10 miles)
- Max. flight time: 25 min
- vertical speed: 17,5-22.0 m/s
- Weight (empty): 700g
- Max. total weight: 6,5kg
- Frame: Donaustahl-M-V1 (inspired by "De Havilland DH.98")
- Max. speed: 140 km/h (86mi/h)
based on 10.000mAh battery.
Seems like a speedy but low-range drone. Maybe it will have good electro-magnetic shielding? I would hope so.
 

A (probably paywalled) WaPo article about Ukrainian recruitment efforts. It largely echoes @Haiduk's comments from yesterday.
_____
Syrsky has been tasked with auditing the existing armed forces to find more combat-eligible troops, after Zelensky’s office recently announced that of the 1 million people who have been mobilized, only about 300,000 have fought at the front lines. But nearly a month after his promotion, no one in the military leadership or the presidential administration has explained where those 700,000 are — or what they have been doing.
More than 4,000 amendments have been made to the mobilization bill, and some lawmakers see the measure as an attempt by Zelensky to pass off responsibility to parliament for inevitably unpopular decisions.
“It’s time to start an adult conversation with society and not to be afraid of it, ” Bobrovska said. “It’s not 2022, when emotions took over.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/04/ukraine-mobilization-zelensky-russia/

More light on the story with destroyed M1150 - likey it tried to tow damaged and abandoned M1A1
 

Russians started to use new 122 mm HEFRAG shells OF56IM-1P for D30/2S1 howitzers. They have a range on 4 km longer (19....20 km), than Soviet shells (15,2 km). This shells very similar to Chineese 122 mm ammunition with the same parameters, but unknown either this direct Chineese supply with Russian markings or Russian produced.
 

As is ever the case, the real-life utility of these is often because they are there.
To take the Soviets, and Soviet-derived forces (so, Syrians and Russians in CMSF and CMBS), the 120mm mortars are a battalion asset, so each battalion would have a battery of mortars embedded within them, and these will always be available to the paper structure of this formation.
122mm and 152mm artillery are brigade-level assets, so will be assigned to the main effort. That's often, but not always, what we're representing in CM scenarios. Call-in times will typically be longer, but not necessarily long enough to matter. 122mm and 152mm howitzers have a significantly longer range than mortars, so there will be tasks they will do which mortars are unsuitable for.
A CM battle is an extremely limited perspective on a wider task. In that specific case, the roles of 152mm howitzers and 120mm mortars are very similar. They are providing the same four basic tasks that artillery carries out, destruction, suppression, obscuration and denial. The HE in a 120mm shell tends to be larger than the 155mm/152mm artillery, so bigger boom for less accuracy. This means that laying smoke for obscuration is the task which mortars are generally strictly better at, but most tasks can be done more or less equally well with either system. There will be some differences in things like the angle of incoming fire. Whether that matters will be terrain dependent.
Accuracy is for the most part unimportant for suppression and denial, and only really matters when you're trying to actively destroy targets, which is a task that 152mm and 155mm artillery will be superior to 120mm mortars at... but still not ideal, since that's a task better suited for rocket artillery and more specialist munitions (sensor-fused munitions, for example), which are often not really a close support artillery role (and hence not necessarily something you'd see a lot of in CM terms).
So, sure, if you want to phrase the question as "Why should I pick this system in a Quick Battle?", the answer may come down to points values, rarity and available ammunition. Mortars tend to be a little cheaper, but that will vary.
If you want to phrase this question as "Why would you put this in a scenario?", the answer is (or should be) that this is something that is available to this unit, in this context.
If you want to phrase the question as "How do I best use this unit?", then there's very little difference in how these are employed, they both do similar tasks to approximately the same degree of effectiveness, with minor differences.
 

Pretty awful place to get hit, very little cover from ground fire and presence of drones means completely vulnerable to overhead attack and observation. 
I'm not convinced a top grade NATO squad could have done much more. Run across the road across from the vehicles? Sure, better chance v Brads - but Drones overhead. There was one guy rolled out right, kept down the entire time - until naded by a drone. 
I suspect they lost their leadership in the first few minutes and after that, well... 
The entire mission was a death ride. No squad could have come out of that in a functional state, then somehow cross 1km of open terrain. 

40 minutes and filled with details appears to me pretty genuine, especially considering russias "quality" in other faked content so far.
- Taurus discussion starts at 5 minutes in
- No one has a clue why Scholz is blocking Taurus
- They hint at US soldiers being there and confirm UK troops on the ground overseeing the targeting.
- They also confirm the UK troops would be willing to work with Taurus so German troops dont have be there. So thats another blatant lie from Scholz.
- UA learned patriots within weeks and surprised the crews how good they are used
- Stormshadow/-- mounts can be modified to fit Taurus relatively easy
- hitting easy targets: few weeks
- Hitting the bridge seems difficult, Stormshadow/-- got shot down quite often? Training will be 4-6 months
- Stormshadow and Scalps are pretty much all used and UK/FR want Germany to deliver Taurus before sending more themselfs
- Only single digits amount of Su-24 are left 
Next question, how the **** does russia get access to this?

Yes, those comments tend to come more from people not involved at all with the war who mostly base it on common stereotypes, while I feel most of the russia sucks crowd is following the war but for the most part just what ends up on twitter.
I would argue current russian army in relation to ZSU is the best it has been since before the war. They have found strategies with which to overcome large defenses, poor troop quality and low morale. Those are btw higher than during the first year of the war, while those who volunteered to defend are now exhausted or dead and followed by people who are less eager.
Furthermore, the western supplies have essentially dried up - majority of what is being pledged now is 2 - 3 years away from being delivered - what had been pledged is being missed, like the million artillery shells - all the resources are currently commited and getting pushed back [although current mass charges arent sustainable for rus but rather an opportunistic reaction to the current state of the defense].
There is ofc the occasional T-54 meme driving around but the commanders know that they are good enough to successfully fullfill current russian strategy, and since having showed up a year or more ago, still not in large quantities but rather the odd tank here and there in a long list of T-72s and T-90s, I doubt it is an indicator of desperation and rather someones little side project restoring these lol. 
As for who breaks first, I hope the weak politicians who are bowing down to putins nuke extortions, because they still react like scared little deer whenever putin lets a supposed nuke drive around the block and get replaced with men who know how to deal with that obvious behavior.
This war can be won decidedly with putin backing himself into his little contained reich playing happy dictator in his golden palace, but instead they risk Nato troops ending up in situations like the picture I posted today.
Of course and there are lines where putin will receive a bullet in the head by his own people but that line has been drawn up time and time again until everyone realized that it likely wont happen when all the people thinking it fell out of windows.
This has to be evaluated within the context, so far russia has surpassed any imaginable amount of absolutely pointless suffering, anyone a year ago seeing hundreds of wagner convicts die painful deaths asked why are they still signing up for this?
The question arises just the same now. I watched more than a hundred dead russians today, yet the question why they do it still has too many answers. russians were willing to spend more than an entire decade of afghanistan misery on a frontline city that in peacetime could be walked through in 2 hours and the reaction in russia is a few people on the street, singing, thinking woe is us.
Imagine this amount of death and destruction on the Nato side, without overwhelming US airpower winning the war before it started. Because the amount of graves the west is willing to dig is the literal worth of article 5. If we take ww1 as a guideline, we are still short a million dead russians, famine and a civil war before the time is up.

This entire debate about boots on the ground is interesting one...like everyone pretends that Texeira papers didn't mentioned specific numbers of operators already in the country or French gandarmerie (and likely many others) protecting Zelensky. 🤫
Btw. is it true that Taurus needs trained NATO crew to feed targets to its systems that SCALP does not (sorry if answered, I have week-long lag on the topic)?
Jesus, what we are even looking at.
Offensive is going pretty well I see.

First rule of Aerial warfare. Divide the wartime claimed kills by 3 (sometime even have to divide it by 7)
 
Also, Russia could develop then filed something similar to ADM-160 MALD decoy missile/drone.

It is my biggest gripe in this forum. Closely followed by the idea russia is hanging on by mere threads, collapsing any day now.