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acrashb

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  1. Upvote
    acrashb got a reaction from Lethaface in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    I've seen that many armoured vehicles stacked up in CM only when I'm playing the AI, have lots of drones, and on top of that know what route the AI will take because I've done the scenario before.
    We keep talking about the RA learning.  It's certainly learning some tactically (Lancets, drone ISR, artillery and supply chain dispersal, etc. ), but it remains stone-cold stupid in other ways.  At least from what we see and how we assign value and the definition of success.  It may well be that funnelling all that juicy armour through one spot secured a senior officer's promotion for being aggressive, or prevented his humiliating dismissal for lack of aggression / obedience to plan.  In which case it was very successful for said officer even while being obviously not for the RA - kind of like big corporations where staff optimize their personal outcomes at the expense of the bigger picture.
    In modern war, artillery arrives in near-real time, and you can't even drive out of it because it adjusts in real-time.  The C4ISR or overall OODA loop is that tight, as described in more detail by Haiduk a few days back.

    And of course the CONOPS of all armour - essentially that significant threats will come from the front, so tactical and operational doctrine is designed to see that they do - is completely broken by real-time artillery and/or smart and/or area-effect artillery, copious and rapidly re-laid mines (wait until they have legs), long-range man-portable top-attack AT missiles, and drones.

    PS: the Charge of the Light Brigade was a problem of communications, not tactics.  "The charge was the result of a misunderstood order from the commander in chief, Lord Raglan, who had intended the Light Brigade to attack a different objective for which light cavalry was better suited, to prevent the Russians from removing captured guns from overrun Turkish positions. " - Charge of the Light Brigade - Wikipedia
     
  2. Like
    acrashb reacted to Splinty in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    My back and knees will testify to that.
  3. Like
    acrashb reacted to Lethaface in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Well they already haul massive loads, especially the SF type of forces, with obvious consequences later on in life if not already during operations. But yeah probably only human organic power is too limited. But with the use of tech, engineering, tension and lever effects I'd say there is more to be gained from the human basic strength. Especially if you add 'hybrid' power. 
  4. Like
    acrashb reacted to The_Capt in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    You are no doubt correct…but he is contained.   Pragmatically the West political calculus is that this is a problem that cannot be solved.  If we destroy Putin/Russia we have a whole other set of more dangerous possibilities.  If we let him get away with murder (literally) we set ourselves up for worse.  Russia just took “the 2nd most powerful land army” on the planet and smashed it to a pulp in Ukraine. Putin might not care about convicts and country rubes, but he does care very much about nearly 3000 tanks and a submarine.  It will take the RA decades to come back from this mess.  However, they still need to be enough of a threat to justify NATO spending targets and positioning.  Conveniently a stalemate outcome supports this.
    A lot of you in Ukraine/Eastern Europe think we in the West “don’t get it”.  We actually do, very well.  What you do not understand is that our level of investment has a different end-state.  We never wanted to see the complete and utter defeat of Russia as a state.  The hazards of a nuclear power in complete free fall are simply too high.  Putin can lie to himself and his people all he wants, but he knows that any hopes of Russian imperial expansion died North of Kyiv…he did that and everyone knows it.  Will Russia be back?  Sure.  Or maybe we will get lucky and when Putin dies we get a more moderate jerk we can do business with.  But for now, the US and Canada sell more oil and gas to Europe.  We sell more weapons to Europe. And we contain Russia, just enough.  Act 2: China.  
    Would it have been nice to drive home the “point” a little further?  Sure.  But now Ukraine can support an insurgency in the occupied territories for a decade instead of Russia doing other way around.  We know Putin doesn’t care and will continue to play his game.  But the outcome of this war, even if it stops today, made want Putin “wants” irrelevant.  He shattered is military means to achieve it.  He also broke his Diplomatic and Economic means in the bargain.
    So we fall back on Plan Korea.  We can live with that.  Optimal?  Definitely not.  But when I said back last May that if the UA offensive goes nowhere over the summer and fall that “there would be difficult conversations”…well this is that conversation.
    I personally don’t actually think we are done yet to be honest.  Let’s see where winter takes us.  But the UA CHOD basically admitting we are at “positional warfare” - which is just code for slow grinding attritional warfare - then it is clear we can see those hard conversations coming.  Next will be to see if there is any political movement on either side.
  5. Like
    acrashb reacted to The_Capt in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    I don’t think it is nearly as cut and dry as the average person thinks.  There are upsides to a stalemate at this point.  To be totally brutal an endstate where both sides can claim victory (and defeat) often makes for the best outcome.  Ukraine is still a free nation, our support ensured they stood up against an illegal invasion and largely repelled it when there should have been no chance of that success.  
    Russia and Putin can claim victory as they took an additional 7% of Ukraine at an eye-watering cost.  But this will likely keep ol Flat Face in power for a few more years before Time does its thing for us all.  This avoids a Russian free fall experience, and we get the added bonus of Europe buying our oil and gas (or alternatives) while we righteously continue to isolate Russia -this is why it won’t matter who is in the White House post-war. 
    A lose-lose starts to look like a win-win.  US administration can point to all the upsides going into ‘24, plus we are looking at Armageddon in the Middle East which keeps the Bible Belt focused elsewhere.  We hopefully do a whole bunch of reconstruction in Ukraine and go all South Korea on the place.  Russia continues as downward spiral but slowly enough they don’t start WW3.  And we can all focus on China as the next big threat worthy of trillions in defence spending on bloated military capabilities that probably won’t work.
    So you see, a stalemate is not the end of the world.  In fact I would not be surprised if in some circles they are kinda pushing for it.  The total and utter crushing of Russia has some serious risks.  This outcome sidesteps a lot of them.  Now everyone is both happy and unhappy.  Sometimes no decision is the best decision.
    I for one am not convinced we are there yet, but we definitely can see it from here.
  6. Like
    acrashb got a reaction from CAZmaj in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    For general interest, "Timelapse of every battle in history".  It should say every _recorded_ battle, but is still interesting.  And the final frame showing all of them at the same time makes Europe look truly dangerous.
     
     
  7. Upvote
    acrashb got a reaction from chris talpas in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    For general interest, "Timelapse of every battle in history".  It should say every _recorded_ battle, but is still interesting.  And the final frame showing all of them at the same time makes Europe look truly dangerous.
     
     
  8. Upvote
    acrashb got a reaction from Lethaface in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Nice.  "no one specified dead or alive".  Little gaps like that lead to - great movies
  9. Like
    acrashb reacted to LongLeftFlank in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
  10. Like
    acrashb reacted to The_Capt in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Mass.is.broken.
  11. Like
    acrashb got a reaction from Lethaface in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    For general interest, "Timelapse of every battle in history".  It should say every _recorded_ battle, but is still interesting.  And the final frame showing all of them at the same time makes Europe look truly dangerous.
     
     
  12. Like
    acrashb reacted to The_Capt in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    A little Eurasian centric, but then again these were the people "recording history".  If (and it is a big if) I ever do a PhD, it will be on pre-historic warfare.  That map would see a massive mist of small lights that was the background warfare of pre-civilization.  Also there were very likely some very big battles in North America pre-contact...but of course no one wrote them down.
  13. Like
    acrashb reacted to The_Capt in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Big microwave oven trying to bake the sky goes boom.  Good for point defence against asymmetric attack.  Suicide in a conventional war.  A lot of this technology sprang up when ISIL started messing with UAS about 5 years ago.  It was built for a very different environment.
  14. Like
    acrashb reacted to The_Capt in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Not if they are fully autonomous.  This is why autonomy is a race to the bottom.  And we are currently losing.
  15. Like
    acrashb reacted to dan/california in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Krugman had a good day.
  16. Like
    acrashb reacted to Hapless in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    If we're looking at a battlespace where high signature vehicles are prohibitively vulnerable and low signature infantry is simultaenously survivable and lethal (via calling for precision fires), maybe the way forward is less to try and proof AFVs and more to boost infantry mobility and load carrying ability.

    Or, in short: Heinlein probably nailed it.
  17. Upvote
    acrashb got a reaction from Mindestens in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Another indication that MBTs are finished.  Up to nearly 30km away, if the C4ISR loop is tight, boom.  Try APSing your way out of this.
    Then the surveillance drone will fly to the next target, and boom again.
     
  18. Like
    acrashb reacted to The_Capt in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    That was a standoff EFP.  Maybe one of these? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMArt_155
    Ya, tanks are screwed...calling it.
    Edit: akd beat me to it.
  19. Like
    acrashb reacted to sburke in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    heh this Ukraine thread keeps edging towards "let's solve all the world's problems"
  20. Like
    acrashb reacted to dan/california in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    The new reality is breaking thru, at least a little bit.
  21. Like
    acrashb reacted to kimbosbread in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    There others who are more subtle about destroying our society! Lucy Calkins for example has done more harm than just about anyone by destroying American literacy: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/22/us/reading-teaching-curriculum-phonics.html
    On the left, I’m going to say the doors-wide-open immigration policies and the reformist-minded-approach to crime, which are both weird because in the end, they hurt the big liberal cities the most while the conservatives are just puzzled that if you wanted to live in a big city, and that’s where your voters are, why would you trash it.
  22. Like
    acrashb reacted to dan/california in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    For all of his vast array of flaws, McConnell has gone all in on the right side this time.
  23. Like
    acrashb reacted to Aragorn2002 in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    What is left of 'The West' anyway? Discussing about whether childeren have the right to chose their gender and emptying our churches, so they can be turned into mosques. And as one of the commentators so rightly put it, only interested in our wallet and the size of our car. We're in a Cold War, a collision of systems and ideals. What happens in the Middle East is peanuts compared to the war in the East. Part of Vlad's masterplan to divide and conquer. And it works, because of our stupidity and lack of focus.
  24. Like
    acrashb reacted to The_Capt in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    APS ain't doing squat against that.
  25. Like
    acrashb got a reaction from CAZmaj in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Another demonstration of the fragility of MBTs.  Down the hatch:
     
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