Undaunted

Not sure if this has been discussed. In Ukraine: Oct 6: Russian began bombarding the Avdiivka area. Oct 10: Russian started major ground attack around Avdiivka. In the Middle-East: Oct 2: Allegedly at a Beirut meeting Iran gave Hamas the green light launch attack on Israel, according to WSJ and other news outlets. Oct 7: Hamas attacked Israel If both of these were carefully planned offensives, their timing seems too much to be a coincidence, and begs the questions - Did Hamas knew the Russian plan, and vice versa? - Were they meant to be simultaneous to amplify their morale impact, to overwhelm Western reaction, and/or to achieve other effects? - Was one of them meant to be a diversionary attack for the other? - Or was one side just wanted take advantage of the chaos it think the other offensive would create? - For Hamas, their attack was certainly special enough for them to seek external coordination or special timing, but for Russian, was the Avdiivka offensive special enough? This is all conjecture, but I think it is interesting to think about.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a44775604/air-to-air-missiles-shooting-at-russia-helicopters-drones-in-ukraine/ Seems like ASRAAM on truck is a viable counter to Ka-52s.

Vs choppers How about drone? Killer drones, drone + PGM/arty, drone mounted manpad?

It seems like the failed mine breaching at Orikhiv and Vuhledar had one thing in common: the breaching lane got blocked by someone hitting a mine or get disabled by enemy fire, and then as other vehicles moved to bypass the wreck, they hit more mines, and the carnage grew side way. If the breaching path could be done in a double-width manner, the problem could be improved, eg. if a vehicle block one lane, then the others could safely bypass it, or have a safe space from which to push the wreck out of the path. Is such thing feasible/attempted before? I have no military experience and not familiar with military engineering, so these are just some wild ideas: 1. An extra wide mine plow for the leading tank. 2. A normal-width V shaped plow in front, plus a two-piece plow that branches out at the rear of the tank, for better front-back weight distribution. 3. Two tanks in front, left tank plows to the left, right tank plows to the right, the tanks could be abreast or in echelon. 4. Two tanks with V shaped plow, but since half the mines would be shoved between the two lanes, someone follow up would need to check/clear/mark safe lane change locations. All follow up vehicles stick to the right lane except when bypassing a wreck. There are some problems I could think of: - Such plows would be too heavy for a standard tank. - It seems mine plows could flip the mines, and maybe plowing a flipped mine again would detonate it? The_Capt pointed out that when doing mine-breaching, you are supposed to keep going forward (often in a straight line?). If so, how about making unmanned mine breaching vehicles? Without a crew, it can be make more compact, meaning more armor/ERAs per volume, or maybe have a flat/boxer engine to make it super low profile. And no one need to be evacuated when it got hit.

An interesting but very long interview with the famous wargame designer Mark Herman, on Nov 3, 2022, a bout a week before Russian withdrew from Kherson. The discussion jumps between wargame design, his works at Pentagon, Ukraine and Taiwan, etc.. Here are the bits related to Ukraine, but I am sure I missed some. 27:45 about munition based warfare 55:35 about battle at the Antonov airport, suggesting he is working on a game about it 57:45 about his initial opinion about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Ukraine-Russia historical tie 1:02:00 about where Ukraine war is heading 1:07:45 about infowar and cyberwar 1:12:00 about cooperations between state and non-state actors with varying levels of capabilities and interests 1:23:00 about Russian mobilization 1:25:00 about possbility of an army coup in Russia 1:27:40 about whether nuclear-armed Russia can lose 1:51:00 about possbility of Ukraine war, potential Taiwan war, Korea situation to connect into a global conflict 1:53:40 about recurrence of bad leaders like Putin Xi Hitler 2:19:10 about strategic surprise and nuclear weapons

Well, easier to crack down on protests during the day. Less drunk people too.

Hello, I used to lurk these forums in the CMx1 days. Thanks everyone for the great thread, I did not remember to check here until a few hundred pages in. (Kinda sad to see a few familiar names permabanned or even passed away, RIP Michael Emrys). As far as I can tell, Ukrainian's will to fight remain very strong. Without full mobilization, Russians probably cannot militarily win as long as Western support persists. At this point Russian's main mean to win is more like to wear down the will of the West, and we are just beginning to see the attrition on that front in the form of inflation and economic woes. I think in some European countries it has been the public opinion that drags their government forward, so it is relevant to track the public opinion. This is an interesting poll report: https://ecfr.eu/publication/peace-versus-justice-the-coming-european-split-over-the-war-in-ukraine/ Regarding China, don't overestimate the factor of economic concerns in China's policy and behavior. In the past few years it has been making a sharp turn to the left and steadily moving towards totalitarianism. I think the ultimate goal of the CCP is not money, or well being of the people, or even nationalism. It is the eternal survival of the CCP and its eternal grip on the control over China. Economy is one important factor, but "national security" has been the keyword of the day for the past few years. A thing of note is that in the later half of this year, Xi Jinping will seek a third term and possibly a term for life. There has been speculation that Xi will seek to "resolve" the Taiwan question during his term, as well as speculation that China will attack in the next few years (not necessarily full invasion, possibly attacking outlying islands like Kinmen/Matsu or some islands in South China Sea that is controlled by Taiwan. When a few months ago some unconfirmed FSB letters mentioned that China was to attack Taiwan some time this year, I think it was not far-fetched (or at least it is not far-fetched that China might led Russia to think they are doing it this year instead of the next). There is a worrying trend that many in China seems to think that a war with US is inevitable, that the West is in decline and China should push US influence out of the western Pacific. In that line of thought, a defeated Russia is not in the interest of China, and instead if the West finishes off Russia then they will threaten China through defeat in detail. In some sense it is similiar to Russia's stance, that you threaten their national security by merely existing. The fierce resistance of Ukraine and unexpected solidarity of the West in this war probably stunned China, but recently tension around Taiwan intensify again, and it has been aggressively diplomatically pushing into the Pacific (it got sort of a foothold in Solomon Islands and unsuccessfully strike a deal with a group of Pacific states). Maybe CCP smells blood and thinks the West is weakening. Apparently there is no one in China that can keep Xi in check, because everyone high up was more or less corrupt in the past and vulnerable to Xi's weaponized anti-corruption campaigns, and they are especially heavily monitored under state surveillance. He grew up during cultural revolution and is fond of it as well as Mao himself, so better don't count on his sanity. Xi has just signed a "outline of non-war military operations". Sounds familiar? It is supposed to provide a legal basis for China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to “safeguard China’s national sovereignty, security and development interests". https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/15/tensions-heighten-in-taiwan-strait-as-china-acts-to-extend-military-operations China a few days ago claimed that Taiwan Strait is not international waters. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-strait-is-an-international-waterway-taipei-says-rebuff-china-2022-06-14/ Reuters had an interesting piece on the wargaming the Battle for Taiwan https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/taiwan-china-wargames/ I haven't read the rest of the series but it seems interesting https://www.reuters.com/investigates/section/taiwan-china/

I've checked a few chinese sources, Old Book of Tang, New Book of Tang, Zizhi Tongjian, which have similiar words on the event. The accounts stated that Chai Shao ordered someone to play PiPa, and had two women to do couple dance. No other mentions of how the girls were dressed or the nature of the music though.

Just one thing to add: Genghis Khan did not conquer China. By the time he died, his armies in the east had not overcome the defense of the Tong-guan area in northern China, IIRC.

Apparently the Chinese Army used flamethrowers in border skirmishes with Vietnamese during the 80's. The following pics are captures from a footage about the so-called "Operation Bluesword Plan B" in 1984, a company-sized attack on vietnamese positions. This was one of the first combat footage of the PLA, and was (ineptly) edited into a propaganda. You may find this mpeg (poor graphic quality!) floating around on the web.

The allegro con fuoco of Dvorak's New World Symphony is pretty good too!

FYI I also posted a little muzzle flash mod on CMMODS. I simply brightened the original bitmaps for the first two frames of the explosion. It was lame, but I like the result. UD

Thank for the mod it sounds great! BTW I've some questions about gun sounds in general. From the media we have two types of gun sounds. In computer/video games and movies we have gun sounds that tend to be very detailed and clear, and difference guns make distinctly different and recognizable sound. On the other hand, in news footage (of events like the coup in moscow years ago or the recent war in iraq) we have guns that have generic popping sounds. Furthermore, in some civilian shooting incidents, people in the area often have difficulty telling the difference between gunshots and firecrackers. So, my questions are: Which of the above styles of gunshot sounds is more realistic? And when game developers and mod makers are creating the sound effects, how do they tell if a given gun sound effect is acceptable?

The two overcast sets are alternative skies so you have to choose between them. However, you can use one version for say snowy scenarios and the other for summer scenarios and so on. See the readme file to find out which bitmaps you need. For example to use the plain overcast sky for snowy scenarios use the 1413.bmp, 1433.bmp and 1453.bmp (overcast-snowy-east, north, west respectively) from that zip file. As for using the bitmaps for CMBO I don't have CMBO installed and don't know which bitmap is for which sky. But I can tell you how to combine the 3-bmp sky into a 1-bmp complete sky (which iirc is needed for cmbo). Use paintbrush to append the 3 bmps (eg. 1400.bmp, 1420.bmp, 1440.bmp for summer clear day sky) into in the following order: [east sky][north sky®][west sky][north sky] where north sky® is a horizontally flipped version of the north sky. The resulting bitmap would be 4096(!) x 512. You may need to somehow shift the bitmap left or right to get the right orientation, and find out what is the bmp number for that sky in cmbo.

Gautrek: Have posted at the modding forum. Panzerman: I've re-uploaded the overcast version at cmmods. I tested downloading this twice, first time I got a corrupted zip, and the second time it's ok. I am not sure why this happened , my only suggestion is to try to download it again. Mr. Die Easy: I'm not sure if that's possible, given that the sky bitmaps are used and organized differently. CMBO uses one bmp for the whole sky, where CMBB uses three.

Thanks for the support guys! BTW how about the black and white screenshot? I jacked the contrast way up to make it more look like a historic photo.

I've posted a few hi-res sky mods at CMMODS. The textures are made using Terragen. The clear day is my favorite of the bunch, with almost unnoticeable dithering: Dawn: Dusk: May be too "peachy," I may redo this one if I have enough time. Overcast (light coloured). This is my first attempt at the overcast. I like the way the raindrops realistically blend to the sky, but I think it is to light, especially during dawn/dusk overcast scenarios. This version is not posted at cmmods. Overcast. This is a darkened version of the previous one. The rain still blend to the sky to some extent. For some reason I think this version is the best for the snowy times. Overcast (Dark). This version is less blueish and imitates the colour scheme of the original skies. Can't Resist: I've "found" some wartime photos and it seems that world war 2 armies did adopt my clear day mod. German Panzers just after taking out a Soviet tank in southern Russia, June 1943. The Russians lost 1 KV-1 and 3 T-34 in this tank battle. The Panzer on the left was credited with two kills.

There are three versions of each sky in the game, one with green horizen, one with brown horizen, and one with snowy horizon. The sky itself is identical for all three versions. Each version is composed of three bitmaps: For dawn: Green: 1402.bmp(east), 1422.bmp(north), 1442.bmp(west) Brown: 1408.bmp(east), 1428.bmp(north), 1448.bmp(west) Snowy: 1414.bmp(east), 1434.bmp(north), 1454.bmp(west) In CMBB, the northern sky bitmap is flipped to create the southern sky. IMO this setup makes it tricky to make a sky mod. I tried to make a sky mode before, but my 24-bit bmps always suffer a loss in colour-depth when the game is running, resulting in some sort of ugly "colour contours". I tried to convert the bmp into 256 colours to introduce some dithering, but does not totally eliminate the problem. Does anyone has a solution to the problem?

A little update: I've added one more texture to the mod. This time with orange border, which seems to be less intrusive than the brown border. It's been submit to CM Mod Database as v1.01. I promise I will not make another update in any time soon! Screenshot (see lower right corner):

Glad you like it. I've submit it to CM Mods Database titled as "UD's Muzzle Flash/Explosions". Has all four variations included: monocolour normal/small, textured no border/with border. UD

MikeyD and Zimorodok: The muzzle flash animation uses the first frame of explosion and then a smoke texture. So the new muzzle bmp will make the vehicle and some other explosions "flashy" as well, and the smoke is not affected at all. BTW I've tried to brighten the original bmp to retain some of the texture on the flash. I've also tried to add a brown border to it, and here's the results: Without border: With brown border: These screenshots are currently hosted at a yahoo group page and the link can go broken and any time. But they can be accessed on this link .

How about this (texture size reduced by 50%): Night: Day: [ May 20, 2003, 08:27 PM: Message edited by: Undaunted ]

Probably the cheesiest mod ever! I simply took the 1720.bmp texture, picked the lightest shade of yellow from it, and filled it to every pixel, and voila! This results in a nice, more dramatic muzzle flash, more visible from afar. It somewhat matches what I saw in footages of firing modern tanks, so maybe I'll even call it photo-realistic™! But seriously I don't know that much about muzzle flashes of WW2 tanks so it may or may not be historically accurate. This texture also make tank explosions a little bit more flashy. I was quite surprised by the results of this simple little change. Has this been done before? The texture file and screenshots are here. Here are the screenshots: Zoom In: Zoom Out: [ May 20, 2003, 08:27 PM: Message edited by: Undaunted ]

http://www.tradoc.army.mil/ It is the US army training and doctrine command website. Go to the publication, and there are links to many field manuals, ranging from corps operations to legal guides for commander! It's great fun to read. UD

Hi everyone This morning I put a sniper team on the edge of a wood, facing outward, and then tried to sneak a rifle platoon from behind to attack the snipers. It turned out that the sniper spotted the platoon during its approach and kept it suppressed with killing hits until the last infantryman died, receiving no return fire from the platoon. Is sniper fire a bit too effective for suppressing in Tacops? Or is there other correct ways to kill snipers with infantry? In addition to this, I found out that snipers can receive infinite amount of ammo resupply because when one is adjusting its resupply level, it starts to receive ammo before the required supply point go above zero. About the vehicle armour. Isn't it that the front armour figures only refer to the turrets of the vehicles? I always thought that the hulls of the tanks have less armour and gunfires should be able to damage a tank by hitting its hull or treads, even if its penetration value is less the the front armour value. UD