benpark

I so want the UA to do an assault water x-ing op south of Kherson.  There are a lot of pluses to this op - bold and dramatic for international audience not being the least of them.  However, it is the pre-conditions that remain the rub.  The UA would need local air superiority, or at least total denial - including UAS, which is really hard.  They would need to effectively silence the guns on the RA side. And then there are c-moves which is a campaign of deep strike.  Finally the ISR problem, they would need to make that sector basically “go dark” for RA ISR. 
If they could pull it off it would be epic and likely collapse the entire Kherson front and maybe even roll up the RA in the centre.  But it is a very tall ask, maybe outside the envelope of the UA…but a boy can dream.

"Night at the Opera" changes (both sides) involve giving extra to the carry-over percentage for the AI side. If you wiped them out previously, you wiped them out. The new one should offer a more active fight now in the second half (from either side, as is the concept).
Axis AI plans adapted accordingly, with a few extra tweaks in the AI plans here and there that I'll leave for you all to uncover while you are storming the castle in Berlin.
You could always back up your current versions if you liked the strict carry-over "short-term, single area of front-line campaign" STSAFLC (pronounced "STSALFC") concept for this battle, or want a slightly easier variant if you find it tough from either side.

"Night at the Opera" changes (both sides) involve giving extra to the carry-over percentage for the AI side. If you wiped them out previously, you wiped them out. The new one should offer a more active fight now in the second half (from either side, as is the concept).
Axis AI plans adapted accordingly, with a few extra tweaks in the AI plans here and there that I'll leave for you all to uncover while you are storming the castle in Berlin.
You could always back up your current versions if you liked the strict carry-over "short-term, single area of front-line campaign" STSAFLC (pronounced "STSALFC") concept for this battle, or want a slightly easier variant if you find it tough from either side.

"Night at the Opera" changes (both sides) involve giving extra to the carry-over percentage for the AI side. If you wiped them out previously, you wiped them out. The new one should offer a more active fight now in the second half (from either side, as is the concept).
Axis AI plans adapted accordingly, with a few extra tweaks in the AI plans here and there that I'll leave for you all to uncover while you are storming the castle in Berlin.
You could always back up your current versions if you liked the strict carry-over "short-term, single area of front-line campaign" STSAFLC (pronounced "STSALFC") concept for this battle, or want a slightly easier variant if you find it tough from either side.

What am I watching? This is filmed at the 2023 St Petersburg Economic Forum apparently. 😁

Aprobotos
 

Of course! The original. Over-engineered, for engineering.

I'm just surprised in view of the extensive use of mines across the planet *since* WWII and their danger to successive generations,  that at least SOME advancement of this tech might have been tested and deployed where needed in and by some of the various countries and conflict zones. In the past 80 years or so. 

Of course! The original. Over-engineered, for engineering.

Are UKR are developing a dual Push south?
Where the "inside" flank of each Push squeezes the Russians between, forcing them to defend in two opposing directions and so dividing the forces that can threaten the UKR inside flanks? 
If so,  then neither Push will want to impale itself on a large urban fight and might instead keep going for the coast. 
They could corral a large chunk of the Russian defenders between them, cut the land bridge.  The Western Push could then push along the coast and isolate Melitopol, while the Eastern Push pressures along Donetsk <-> Mariupol. 

Following up on that, from this page:
https://asc.army.mil/web/portfolio-item/cs-css-m160-robotic-mine-flail/

The contractor is a Croatian company and looks like they already gave 8 of one of their systems to Ukraine:
https://dok-ing.hr/news/donation-of-dok-ing-deming-robotic-systems-for-ukraine/

I'm not sure that it's suitable for combat conditions.

Apparently there is one design, created of by an enterprising Ukrainian farmer. Who else?
 

This is the problem of where we were as western militaries; we never thought this sort of war would happen again.  We have been fighting dust wars against VEOs and insurgents for nearly 20 years, before that were interventions against opponents that had all the capability and operational art of a tethered goat with learning disabilities.  So here we are neck deep into a peer-on-peer proxy war of extremely high intensity sustained combat....who would have thunk it?
So defence industry and militaries have a complex relationship.  Those on the left would have us believe it is all the corporations "being corporationy", and there is some truth to this but in reality defence industry takes signals from defence itself and invests and develops in these highlighted areas.   We highlighted "demining" and AP threats and promptly forgot all about major combat breaching operations because ISIL does not build mine belts km long.  So now we are pushing what we have into Ukraine but a lot of it is last gen and sub-optimized because we are sub-optimized for this sort of war.  The big question after this war will be where to completely re-tool and where to be more conservative.  If history is any indication, we will talk ourselves into "well it is an eastern European anomaly", "Russia Sux" and "We would do it right", so we really do not need to do major overhauls.  The European powers did the exact same thing after observing the US Civil War (except it was "America Sux") which led to that little whoopsie we call WWI.
Here is hoping we go in other directions. 

The globe is covered by a lot of submarine cables.  In theory Russia could cut many of them and cause mayhem.  However, they can be repaired (as they often are).  Russia on the other hand has only two cables going east to Japan. To the west it's all terrestrial or to Kaliningrad.  They can transit China but that's expensive.  They could connect to the south but all of those countries are difficult and/or expensive.  Basically a NATO + Japan blockade (for as long as required) of telecoms to Russia would be crippling.  They could still get services via some countries to the south but they are known for being expensive at the best of times.
Bonus fun fact: telecoms is a sanctions exception (AFAIK) and a source of hard currency income.  Probably nothing compared to oil but still.
So if they want to do this in a significant way the west could retaliate in kind, but a lot harder and longer.
 

The situation is confusing; all sides are keeping quiet about what is going on, with the exception of Ru Nat reporters, who I believe are being deceived by RU the command.  I believe the RU situation is bad, but they are sort of holding the line by hurling reserves at UKR (first local reserves, now main) and because UKR are not advancing in real force. 
 
According to UKR, their pushes (including the fight with Bradly and Leo) frightened RU low-level commanders. They became anxious and began calling RU higher command, asking for any support they could get. The RU upper command became spoked and activated hidden arty batteries exposing them to UKR counter-battery fire.
 
RU aviation. UKR AA moves at a slow rate as well.
 
I am always surprised by the amount of RU copium from you. Let's look at what RU side does:
Russian defence chiefs have been mocked for claiming to destroy a German-supplied lethal Leopard 2 tank - when in fact they had blown up tractors in Ukrainian fields.
Let it sink in: RU MOD officially lies in the most blatant way possible (wheels are clearly visible). Nonetheless, you complain that we demand all RU claims to be validated, at the very least, with photos.
FFS, I do not accept even photos unless they are really clear. Recently RU destroyed another Patriot and even displayed a hazy photo of the Patriot launcher. Except it wasn't a Patriot launcher, but an IRIS-T launcher. They did not destroy it, they hit and damaged the IRIS radar (AFAIK it is fixed and working again)
Finally, shortly before the Bradly-Leopard fight, RU released hazy photographs of a destroied Leopard. Except it's not Leopard, but who knows what (maybe an AMX-10) and it might not be even destroyed.
Never accept RU word. Rarely accept RU photos. Demand full video. End of story. 
 
RU are experiencing severe shortage of shells (and ATGMs). RU arty is systematically destroyed by UKR CB becasue RU suck at CB (they cannot make proper CB radar). Capt is right - RU have issues with arty. End of story. 
 
Why probably? Right now, RU is sucking at several Directions, including Bakhmut and RU border territories (RDK raids). Worse, the primary plan they had for a defensive battle in the southern direction has collapsed since UKR are not advancing as RU expected. 
 
Ignorance is bliss, I guess. Back to reality: UKR emulated a big attack by performing recon in force (by platoons or 1-2 companies at most). For the cost of a few vehicles (a couple dozen Bradly/APCs and several Leopards at most), UKR managed to utterly confuse RU command and compel it to:
reveal the bulk of concealed artillery reserved for big UKR offensive begin deploying the majority of reserves (and now committing them to combat) commit aviation to battle I do not really understand all the fuss about UKR losses. 

As in CM, combat engineering (less C-IED) has been largely sidelined and unloved in favour of big shiny new tanks and AFVs in modern military force development.  That is because we largely have written off this sort of war ever occurring..whoops.
To answer your question more directly -  do not think such a system has been invented yet, at least not for this sort of combat environment.  

Not much context but still an interesting short clip.

https://t.me/strelkovii/5310
 

I think this is part of the wider strategy behind blowing the dam. @Haiduk has posted twice in the past 24 hours the Russians are trying to blow up the ammonia pipeline. This pipeline provides ammonia for fertilizer. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/how-un-plan-russian-ammonia-export-could-help-global-fertiliser-market-2022-09-14/
The reservoir currently draining through the blown dam provides the irrigation water to 80% of Ukraine's irrigated crop land. 
So if the fertilizer supply is impacted and prices for fertilizer go up, either the price for crops needs to increase to cover the extra expense or farmers will use less fertilizer and yields will decrease. Either way, the consumer will pay more for food. With the water supply for irrigation impacted until the dam can be repaired, the supply of food will go down and prices up. As @billbindc says, governments fall rather quickly when food prices get out of control. I think the Russians are hoping the rest of the world will put increasingly more pressure on Ukraine to accept a ceasefire to stabilize the price of food.
If you have a garden at home, or room for even a few plants, it is not too late to plant a few more rows or a couple of extra tomato plants. Every extra pound of food you can grow for yourself this season, will not only secure your food supply, it will free up food for those who can't grow their own.

Well, one thing I was going to expand on was my comment about RBMK reactor designs being as they were partly (or maybe mostly) to be used not only for power but for weapons material. I started to but then stopped.
RBMKs have low U enrichment, easy access to swap out fuel, and therefore fuel is removed for reprocessing after short burn-up time. All of these things are necessary for Pu weapons fuel, and RBMKs have it all.
Pu-239 is created in fission, as a decay product from neutron absorption, and so is Pu-240 (absorbs another neutron from Pu-239). Pu-240 is not suitable for weapons warheads - too much spontaneous fission. So you want (ideally) pure Pu-239. This is not possible, because Pu, unlike U, cannot be enriched. It's physically impossible. It can't be chemically separated because it's all Pu. So your only choice is to NOT create much Pu-240. Short burn-up times accomplish this.
All of this is the reason that "normal" light water power reactors are not proliferation concerns. There was a lot of talk about Iran's Bushehr reactor in regards to proliferation. It's a LWR, with fuel provided by Russia and spent fuel given back to Russia. Even if Iran somehow reneged and kept the spent fuel, it would do no good. 1) they have no Pu reprocessing capability - it's a complex process and few countries have it, and 2) too much Pu-240 to make it useful and weapons material. Iran's Arak reactor was reconfigured to no longer be a possible source of Pu as part of the JCPOA.
Oh, wait. We stupidly withdrew from that agreement freeing Iran to do what they want. (I guess I'm diverging from my diverging here)
The US has and has in the past, specialized reactors run by the DOE for weapons production. No civilian power plant is involved in that in any way.
So there - geek out all you want. 
I love physics and especially nuclear physics. It's the way the universe works, and it's kind of cool that we can observe and determine it all not because we can see the particles and waves, but because we can detect the effects they have and determine the characteristics from that. Some of it is really mind-bending.  Like pair production in gamma radiation - direct conversion of waves into matter and back again. My favorite phenomena. Just hard to wrap your head around.
Dave
 

It's been a quiet couple of weeks due to other stuff going on but I'm still plugging away at the village buildings. I've been using the grid to help placement.

Basically what @George MC says towards the latter end of this is perhaps the key piece.  To knock out a decent AI plan you have to have a fairly good appreciation of time and distance - eg, how long does it take for a dismounted unit to move from one end of the map to another, when is it likely/feasible for it to arrive at objective X etc etc.  Then you test the hell out of it and adjust as you go.  I rarely use triggers due to the combination of struggling to get them to work and because there is huge potential for them to have unintended consequences which then become a sh1t fight to unsnarl.  I'm actually in the early stages of an AI plan right now in between checking in on the forum.  To get to this stage, I've listed all of my AI groups and their individual components, drawn a scheme of manoeuvre for them and that scheme of manouevre graphic is now my Special Editor overlay.  I've painted out the full move sequence for half of the AI groups and am plugging away at the rest.  Next step will be to assign a couple of timings for those groups and then hit play in Scenario Editor mode.  I will then see what happens and firm up the move timings, adjust any that are wonky and add more move timings further down the orders sequence.  Then ... I'll test again, then I'll see what happens when I properly lay out the defender's forces.  Then I'll test again.
The image below is the scheme of manoeuvre - I've stripped out the underlying base map that it has been drawn on in order to avoid any spoilers ...

Yeah, no - I've not found this to be a limitation using triggers. Thats why you need to test your AI Plan. You can achieve what you are after but you need to test your plan. I've never managed to create a plan off the bat without lots of testing and subsequent amending. Even then players can do weird **** that totally whacks your plan, but then good luck to them for getting within the AIs ODA loop!!
You're trying to fight this - just go wi the flow man
 

Two other things that may help, from looking at the image-
-You have a lot of "ditch lock" usage. That cuts down on the engine's ability to make smooth transitions. Useful, but overkill in many situations.
-The water has various heights. It's always at the lowest elevation set, so that may be confusing extra numbers in what can start to look like The Matrix scroll after a while. The types of tiles you place alongside the riverbanks will impact how gradual a slope you may get going into the water. IIRC, mud is the most gradual. Look at real terrain as a guide on how to do it, and whatever images you can find of the actual areas. That helps the most, and gets evaluated in the 3D view, rather than just placing it and hoping for the best. It looks like you have rocky terrain set. That may also be bumping that terrain a bit.

Two other things that may help, from looking at the image-
-You have a lot of "ditch lock" usage. That cuts down on the engine's ability to make smooth transitions. Useful, but overkill in many situations.
-The water has various heights. It's always at the lowest elevation set, so that may be confusing extra numbers in what can start to look like The Matrix scroll after a while. The types of tiles you place alongside the riverbanks will impact how gradual a slope you may get going into the water. IIRC, mud is the most gradual. Look at real terrain as a guide on how to do it, and whatever images you can find of the actual areas. That helps the most, and gets evaluated in the 3D view, rather than just placing it and hoping for the best. It looks like you have rocky terrain set. That may also be bumping that terrain a bit.