Vanir Ausf B

BTW, to echo @Anthony P.s excellent points above, the guy in the video has a website (linked in the video description) containing a wealth of Soviet primary source material. But he is absolutely not an impartial investigator. He presents information that supports his narrative, ignores everything that doesn't, and is hostile to anyone who questions the data.

That's the issue I wasn't going to raise by myself, but since it's been broached...
Samsonov's written some interesting bits based on translations of original documents but he sorely lacks a historian's background, and it shows in some ridiculous methodology. I'm not going to trawl through years' worth of his blog posts to provide an extensive list of examples, but some which come to mind:
"Disproving" the notion that the T-34 was a cramped tank by comparing a T-34 and a Panzer IV's manuals, and measuring the headroom available to the crewmen illustrated in said manuals. Since the illustrated T-34 crewman had a millimeter or so more space between the top of his head and the roof in the manual's pictures, he'd "proven" that the T-34 actually had a roomier crew compartment than the Panzer IV.
"Proving" that Soviet helmets provided superior ballistic protection to German helmets based on a 1942 report testing half a dozen completely random, captured German helmets from the battle of Moscow against new Soviet helmets. Ironically he'd also translated the part of the report which noted that the methodology was so flawed that no conclusions could be drawn from it.
Basically, anything he reads in original Soviet documents, he takes at face value with supreme confidence. It seems he doesn't realise the point of studies beyond those he is already capable of, i.e. translations.

This is reportedly a Tiger I mantlet hit by an IS-2 in Romania. Granted, we don't know the range, but the close grouping suggests it was not super far.


 
 
 

This is reportedly a Tiger I mantlet hit by an IS-2 in Romania. Granted, we don't know the range, but the close grouping suggests it was not super far.


 
 
 

Can’t speak to the reliability of this report from Telegram, but it does potentially provide some details on what’s happening on the ground at Avdiivka:
AVDIVKA UPDATE
 
Russian forces in the south west salient they created have effectively been cut off as Ukraine has regained the key fortified area of the restaurant services area.
Russia tried to send a column to reinforce their troops in Avdivka’s lower streets, but this was annihilated.
The Russians used a 2km waste water service pipe to get behind the restaurant and into south Avdivka. It’s very narrow and they had to crawl through it, so supplying and reinforcing the now cut off island they’re in in south Avdivka is near impossible, if not pointless.
The tunnel needs to be destroyed at both ends and it’s deep so this hasn’t yet happened.
Eradicating the Russians in the housing they occupied is well underway.
Overall the Russian operation was quite imaginative and it gave them a major gain -  taking the southern defences completely and the Ukrainians by surprise. In some ways the Ukrainians should have expected use of the tunnel, or at least taken precautions to block it. It’s far more likely they just never expected it could be used if they even remembered it was there.
Russian success  - and it was, there’s no getting away from that, it was a daring and imaginative operation, was simply not followed up. Senior commanders doubted its likely success and no one was ready to exploit it until it was far too late. By then the Ukrainians had snatched back the restaurant’s fortification, because nobody reinforced the Russian forces, and now the few remaining Russian troops are more or less trapped, and the whole thing has turned into a Russian disaster. It’s not something Ukraine will fall for again and they’re probably looking to make sure nothing like happens anywhere else either.
This could have been the most consequential move the Russians made in months.
If they had been ready to exploit the success and acted quickly, given it the support it needed, they could have surrounded Zenit and have broken deep into Avdivka. It would in all likelihood have been the beginning of a much faster end for the town which would have quickly become untenable.
Instead their own handful of competent people were as usual, let down by hide bound commanders with zero imagination. Ukraine has always worked well against such opponents and did so again. That they were just as quick to see what had happened and responded with lightning pace to retake the initiative says it all.

They literally only need ~3 Republicans to go all in on supporting this, and threaten to vacate the chair and vote in Jeffries. Not saying that will happen but if any Republicans do it I hereby promise to donate to their campaigns, and buy their books.

Hmm. I'm really not sold on this dronetopianism.
Granted, that is partly cap-badge tribalism. Mind you, in Commonwealth-style armies - and probably most Western-style armies - drones are likely to end up in fires units (that is, artillery units) anyway, so it'd be a change but not a loss of organisational influence. As an example, look at how rockets were absorbed by the artillery fraternity.
But I don't think tribalism is the only reason influencing my thinking.
To start with, it seems like a version of the old argument "if snipers are so great, we should just train every rifleman to be a sniper!" Yes, snipers are great, but the personal attributes required to be a sniper a rare, they're really expensive and slow to train, and the final product is also of niche utility. A notional 18th Sniper Brigade would either be tactically and operationally useless, or a very very expensive hammer being used to crack grapes. Drone operators seem to suffer from the same limitations, and without good drone operators all you'd have is a ToyWorld's-worth of spare parts sitting behind battalion HQ.
Drones are really good at hitting and destroying the specific point they're aimed at, but appear to be pretty terrible at damaging or even annoying anything else. That's kind-of ok as long as you have really super great - and really super reliable - tac ISR. 'Dumb' artillery is good at damaging the thing it's aimed at, and great at suppressing that as well as everything else in the general vicinity. PGM artillery shifts that seesaw towards damage and away from suppression, but retains both effects. Also, the drills required for a single artillery forward observer to remove an entire grid square from your "worried about" list are fast (ie, minutes), simple and well trained. Trying to do the same thing with drones would be extremely slow (ie, hours), require hundreds of operators, and consume the entire cognitive abilities of at least a bde HQ. Hopefully nothing "interesting" happens while they're busy with that.
Logistically, artillery ammunition is famously "heavy", but it is also very compact and simple. The rounds come packed in geometrically simple tubes, they stack really well, and are insensitive to heat, cold, dry, damp, and being bounced around and generally careless treatment. Drones appear to be light and simple and easy - hell, I can carry two in boxes under my arm, and get a dozen in my car! Well, sure, but how does that scale? When every rifle company is firing off 100 munition-drones per day, and every battalion is burning through a thousand ... where are you putting all the dunnage? Who is assembling them? How many trucks are running about in constant loops to bring them forward from Div HQ? Drones are also kinda fragile. That's partly why they are so comparatively cheap, but what is an acceptable dud-rate for drones?
Drones are definitely a problem for conventional artillery, as a supplement to traditional CB. They're also "competition" for conventional artillery, as a supplement to traditional fire support. And that's the key word: supplement. Not replace.
Incidentally, part of the reason 'mil-spec' kit tends to be so expensive is that wars are rare and peace is normal. Most kit spends most - like, 99.something% - of it's time sitting around waiting for a war. But it isn't really just sitting there, it's being used on a regular basis to support training and exercises, and that kit needs to stand up to that regular use and abuse, and then be ready to transition to war-use at a moments notice. That ruggedness and decades-long reliability costs money. COTS drones offer none of that. I get that the flash-to-bang time for drones in Ukraine right now is probably being measured in weeks at best but, again; wars are rare and peace is normal. For a standing army that is mostly at peace - like, oh, all of NATO for the last three quarters of a century - that $1000 COTS drone is going to have to last a lot longer than a few weeks. It's going to have to support multiple courses and exercises, over many years. Occasionally one will be expended in training but, as with Javelins or VLLAD missiles, that's going to be the exception rather than the rule. The rest of the time it just gets lugged around as make-weight.

Example that a tank is not always easy target for drone dropped HEDP and thermobaric grenades. ERA and weakness of charge makes own work, if this is not sniper drop in open hatch or lucky hit in engine area. 
Here compilation of several drone attempts to finish of abandoned Russian tank. HEDP and two thermobaric grenades in the puddle of fuel can't set the tank on fire. Only last dropped thermobaric grenade penetrated inside the turred and caused fire. Several grenades were defeated by ERA - it's good seen how blocks dissapeared afer activation. But in one case ERA didn't activate 
 

All complaints about pathing in the game will be refrred to this video forevermore.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-2-2024
 
Open-source investigations indicate that Russian forces are benefitting from Ukraine’s ammunition shortage and inability to conduct sufficient counterbattery warfare. Ukraine-based open-source organization Frontelligence Insight stated on February 1 that Russian forces previously established stationary artillery firing positions for long periods of time from late 2022 to early 2023 when ammunition shortages limited Ukrainian counterbattery warfare capabilities.[20] Frontelligence stated that Russian forces began to concentrate their artillery in a similar way in January 2024, suggesting that Ukrainian forces are again running low on artillery ammunition. Frontelligence stated that Ukrainian forces can sometimes strike Russian artillery but overall lack adequate ammunition for effective counterbattery fire. Frontelligence stated that the lack of Ukrainian counterbattery fire allows Russian artillery to largely destroy settlements, making it nearly impossible for Ukrainian forces to defend the settlements. Frontelligence stated that many of Ukraine’s FPV drones lack the range to strike the numerous Russian artillery pieces deployed 15 to 24 kilometers from the frontline.

Rybar's report on the Crimean events:
https://t.me/rybar/56611
 
 

It seems that at least some Russians have come to similar conclusions about war as this forum:
https://www.armystandard.ru/news/2024129114-TnO1s.html
No comment really, except that we should not stereotype the Russian general staff as a bunch of drunks and incompetents stuck in the soviet past. They are learning, even if implementation is the hard part, not theory. 

In certain specific circumstances, US scout teams seem to spawn in with only a single clip of rifle ammunition (5/8 rounds, depending on Springfield or Garand).
To replicate: pick an FO section as parent unit, set quality to Excellent, add a couple of scout teams as Specialist Teams to the FO section. The rifle armed scouts will seemingly at random be short of ammo.

Any unit can deactivate a mine or IED. 
 
Once. 
 
H

Other bug I just cached, is that the Ostwind does not appear as a choice in the single vehicles list, althought it is available as an option in the Antiaircraft (light) formation. Hopefully you can fix it for the first patch as well.
Also, even thought in the manual is stated that the PSW234/4 is available from January 45, it is not really so until April, so either a typo or a bug.

I've found a Battle Order video that goes into depth about Soviet artillery tactics. Basically they heavily concentrated their artillery for major offensives. Up to 150-200 guns per kilometer in a breakthrough sector. They also apparently made a lot of use of artillery in the direct-fire role (which helped to save ammunition). I can't find the video that I remember watching a few years ago which does a comparison between Allied and Soviet artillery usage. But I remember that, by weight of ammunition expended per year, the Allies used a lot more artillery overall. I'm working my way through James Holland's books right now, and he never misses an opportunity to emphasis how firepower-heavy Allied tactics were in WW2. My guess is that the Soviets probably concentrated their artillery more in major offensives, while the Allies probably made greater use of artillery in smaller actions.
 

An AVRE with a 3-man crew is a one shot weapon because there is no one to reload the petard mortar. The 6-man unified crew was a deliberate choice to ensure a fully-functional vehicle without having to buy a separate unit.

Kofman: 
https://warontherocks.com/2024/01/hold-build-and-strike-a-vision-for-rebuilding-ukraines-advantage-in-2024/

About the tunnel- seem it is admittedly  badass operation. Here sum up from one of better analytical accounts, with translated excerpts from Russian TG sources:
Awdjijwka - Tunnel. Discovered by RUS about three months ago. Partially flooded and buried, it was cleared by technical and sapper units. At the end, we had to dig through and create an exit - a very narrow one. The technical tunnel has a diameter of about one and a half meters, so you can only move around it by crouching. According to rumors, several RUS have already suffocated in the pipe and one person committed suicide. Up to 300 people could pass through the tunnel at one time.   17/01/2024 Everything is prepared, the walking time of over 2 kilometers, the routes of UKR patrols and their numbers. RUS special units quietly prepared a bridgehead, the so-called safety buffer. The UKR 110th Brigade was surprised and probably did not even know where the RUS had come from and why there were so many of them. Losing position around the restaurant was only a matter of time. "They immediately told me that I could say goodbye to the large backpack. I realized that if I leave my backpack at the unloading point, I will never see it again, there is always something to eat in the backpacks. To whom is war and to whom is mother loved..."   20/01/2024 On that day, UKR learned about the existence of the tunnel, as the Rus had already occupied private houses at the fork of Soborna, Sportivna and Czernyszewska streets Additionally, 2 Battalions were brought from reserve and a new defense line was created. At the same time, a counterattack began, aimed at driving RUS out of this bag. "We moved in a group, the commander stopped us every 20-30 meters. Thank God, the commander encountered the same problems as me - shortness of breath. Otherwise, I would most likely simply not survive and suffocate or have a stroke. It looks like. You walk 20 meters, dragging a bag behind you, which is already half wet with water and therefore twice as heavy. Then they start having slight cramps in their legs and they don't want to walk. Legs wet up to the waist. You touch and walk another twenty meters, you're out of breath again, your legs and spine hurt, you don't want to go, three hundred times in a row anyway. It's about 1,200 meters to the landfall point.   22-23/01/2024 UKR conducts a large counterattack and secures the area of the former restaurant, but they fail to expel RUS from the tunnel area and the streets of the residential district. The houses are defended only by infantry, about 200 RUS soldiers. They are trying to evacuate and deliver ammunition through the now famous tunnel. "At the end of the tunnel, we are waiting for the guide on a string. We waited about an hour for him to come. You can't go out with a machine gun and a backpack. One person helps. You give him a backpack and a machine gun and into the hole vertically up, to a height of two meters, you climb stairs made of boxes on which you can only lean with your leg. You climb out by pulling yourself up on your hands through a narrow circular opening less than 90 cm in diameter.   25/01/2024. For me it's a stalemate. RUS is defending, and UKR cannot counteract much. Elements of the 110th Brigade and tanks of the 116th Zakhar Brigade attempt to push the RUS infantry away from the residential area. On the other hand, in the south, the UKR is engaged in heavy fighting in the area of the station and Dubrava and the Tsarska Ohota complex. If it turns out that 40,000 RUS are waiting for a signal to attack, it is difficult to predict what will happen in the next two weeks.      

It doesn't matter. If forum predictions are correct unmanned/autonomous is going to solve everyone's recruitment problems.

For sure there will be huge demand for those skills, but if you're not paying for machine gunners, tanks crews and fighter pilots that should free money for a smaller number of technical specialists, at least enough to compete with the private sector.

While approach to Russian propaganda is reasonable, this time I think false flag option is not even remotely plausible. Il-76 is valuable military asset they are short of; if they want to stage an accident in order to hide murdered POW's they have dozens different ways (at this point they don't care about them anyway to even hide such fact). Also military aircraft as potentiall "negative MH370" to show West perfidy is very weak explanation; they would use civilian airliner for it.
Thus we are here with 3 plausible causes:
1.Something accidently blow off on the board, regardless if indeed Ukrianian prisoners were there or not.
2. Somebody in Russian air defence made mistake- rather unlikely, it's close to Belgorod airport and big, slow moving transport has very different signal and look than fastmovers that could potentially come from Ukraine.
3. Indeed Ukrainian work, by longe range AA asset or somebody with Manpad.
3rd seems most logical as for now. The question regarding Ukrianian prisoners seems murky now, and if they indeed were there, officials from AFU responsible for mission will likely prefer to keep it quiet, as question of prisoners seems rather touchy in Ukrainian society now.
It's also not impossible it has nothing to do with any swap and Russians simply routinely carry dozen or so POW in their planes as hostages; that would fit them frankly. Simple solution to several problems at once.

Latest on Avdiivka and Helicopters Operations.
https://twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1749922739467477072
1/ By late 2023, Frontelligence Insight noted a stabilized situation in Avdiivka. However, recent developments have worsened the situation for Ukrainian troops, especially in the southern residential area.
2/ While the northern part of Avdiivka is shielded by the AKHZ (industrial buildings), the southern area is comprised of one to two-story houses susceptible to artillery fire. If unable to capture the area, russians erase it with artillery, deploy infantry, and seize the rubble.
3/ The visible artillery strikes, moving from the outskirts to residential areas, indicate the shift. Eventually, the damage makes defense challenging. The same problem extends to nearby multi-story apartment buildings targeted by previous Russian FAB hits.
4/ The situation on the flanks remains more stable, enabling Ukrainian forces to defend Avdiivka. Sattelite imagery shows a continued shift of artillery fire north of Avdiivka, targeting areas near Stepove, Berdychi, Novobakhmutivka, and Novokalynivka.
5/ In summary, Avdiivka's situation has worsened due to limited artillery ammo, a decrease in counter-battery fire, and a lack of reinforcements. Russia exploits these gaps, leveraging its personnel and ammo numbers advantage.
6/ Resurgence of Helicopter Operations
Our team previously identified a FARP (Forward Arming and Refueling Point) helicopter base in Strilkove. Following Ukraine's ATACMS strikes on airfields in Luhansk and Berdyansk, the base was abandoned and remained unused until recently.
7/ Recent imagery from January 2024 reveals the presence of Russian helicopters at the base. Analysis over multiple days indicates that Russians keep no more than 3-4 helicopters at a time. Additionally, the helicopters appear to be more dispersed.