IMHO

Actually the funniest thing is UKR boats broke not the Russian procedure of passing Kerch Strait but exactly their own Ukrainian regulation The procedure is laid in the decree of the Ukrainian Ministry of Tranportation of 2002 (http://zakon3.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/z0973-02) Anyone can google-translate it and see for themselves that this is exactly what RUS Coast Guard was demanding over radio and PA from UKR boats. In a pre-2014 situation it was UKR coast guard that should have stopped and detained these three UKR boats for their transgressions, by force if the need arose.

May be it wouldn't be so bad for Petro Poroshenko personally. These boats are the only new ships built for UKR Navy after independence - no other has ever been budgeted. And, bingo, they're built and sold by the shipyard belonging to Petro Poroshenko himself. One gives away two boats one has to replace two boats... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyurza-M-class_artillery_boat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuznya_na_Rybalskomu

The names are all overe the press here - both RUS and UKR. I'm curious how do you do your original analysis if you don't read the sources?

Yes, they did. At first the Commander of Ukrainian Navy denied this, he said "They (POW sailors? Russian side?) can say we came in from skies in space ships" but in few hours the head of SBU did confirm the presence of two officers. Seems like SBU has more information about this operation than the Navy Commander.

Luckily they had no plans to commit suicide so it didn't end in loss of life. They are overmatched like 10 to 1 in those waters and that's not counting Russian air support. The whole affair had no chance to succeed for Ukrainian side right from the start. It was planned as a pure PR stunt and the bloodier one the better. PS The rumour is though unconfirmed yet is that one of the sailors was wounded not through ship-to-ship fire but for disobeying the order to open fire on the Russian ships by Ukrainian Security Service officers present onboard. Why did they need Security Service officers?

Do not mislead people Russia does honor this. According to the marine traffic regulation put in place long before 2014 and that exists regardless of the territirial dispute Kerch marine port is responsible for the traffic in Kerch straight. The procedure is if anyone wants to pass they request in advance and (pay for) civilian pilot services from Kerch port. September, 23rd, 2018 two Ukrainian military ships - Donbass and Korets - sucessfully and uneventfully passed to Mariupol honoring this procedure. But Ukrainian Navy took a lot of heat in Ukrainian nationalistic press for using Russian pilots and looks like "uneventful" was not what Ukrainian side expected from the operation in general. So this time Ukrainian Navy decided to break the procedure. But you do have a previous instance when Ukrainian Navy has no problems the straight straight should they follow the procedure. Surely the whole operation has nothing to do with "sanctions" against Russia and has everything to do with Presidential elections. Poroshenko now lags behind Yulia Timoshenko in polls by a wide margine of 1.5-2.0 times.And it's remarkable how Poroshenko's request to impose State of War was phrased. He said he wants a State of War yet he does not intend to use it for any war-related preparations. If it has nothing to do with war-related matters then why does he need this first? State of War or no State of War r it will hardly affect foreign powers decisions on new sactions if any. The answer is State of War gives him a) an option to suspend elections indefinitely, b) ability to impose censorship in media. His Security Council staff specifically mentioned they'd rather not use State of War as a pretext for censorship yet they expect a "prudent position" from media. And as you may deduce from Haiduk's posts Ukrainian media is very critical of Poroshenko as of now - they report massive graft etc.

Are you sure about them not being armor? They look very much like Leclerc/Leo spaced armor modules.

@Artkin, you're genius! This is a goldmine!

I've made a (hopefully ) flame-free topic for talking numbers. I did detection test and posted the results there. And I'm kind of hamstrung by the results

Hmmm... Are we talking about the same event?

Infantry detection test Objective: To understand how detection capabilities of US and Russian infantry units match against each other. Test setup: 40 isolated lanes of 200m each. Lanes are plain and only grass-covered. TOD is midday, the weather is clear, sunny and dry. On either side of the lane there's a three-man breach team - US and Russian. The teams are veteran, normal motivation and no leadership bonus. Teams are not hiding and facing each other. What we track: how much time each team needs to detect AND identify the opponent. Graph: Axis X is the number of seconds passed after the start of the test. Axis Y - the number of units detected by this time. Surprisingly RU team is almost as good in detection as US This is my first take - feels like more tests at larger distances wouldn't hurt

I believe it would be interesting to discuss how behaviour of CMBS units and equipment compares to their what they demonstrate in real life and how different sides in CMBS match against each other. To keep as far away from useless flame as possible I suggest we argue only quantifiable data that can be traced either to real life sources or comparable in-game datasets.

Oh my... Turkey shoot

So we leave this thread for heated discussions and I'll make another one for numbers? @Rinaldi, it was not a military operation at all. Local warlord raised Arab militia for a raid against Kurdish controlled installations and bribed or promised mountains of gold to some Russian PMCs to join in. Russian military command in Syria didn't have a clue what was in the works. So this ragtag party went about their business having done no proper reconnaissance, without air support and having just one howitzer of 30s as an artillery support. This Russian PMC is mostly staffed with wanna-be-tough freaks that served in the Army some decades ago. They are not equipped to the Russian Army standards of today - no vests, no night vision, almost no optics and small arms produced in 60s. Against US reconnaissance drones and full bunch of air support in the form of AH-64s, F-15s (if I'm not mistaken) and AC-130. PMC's low level commanders intentionally didn't speak to Russian HQ in Syria. Have they done so they would have been immediately sent home at best since Russian HQ in Syria could have easily predicted how it would end. They have permanent A-50 coverage of the skies so they would have seen what's coming. When Americans called Russian HQ to ask what the f%ck is going on Russian HQ honestly said they knew nothing and had no idea who's doing this. So the raid party was annihilated. When the truth came out Russian MoD was furious as hell as this meant gross insubordination and a blatant attempt to conduct their own private version of state policy in Syria. The guys in Russia who were looking after this PMC had a swift and painful punishment befell their heads. So no, I don't think it's comparable to a proper military operation of the modern Russian Army.

Yepp. I'll finish testing some detection in an hour or so and will make another thread as IanL advised.

I'm sure we all want an accurate representation of reality. So if you believe I'm wrong in my assessment may be you can offer your logic of calculation and input checkable to the actual specifications or tests. Then we can discuss the numbers instead of who wants what...

Any input on the difference between RL and in-game 2A42 behaviour?

@Rinaldi, I believe that case is kind of irrelevant. Here we have a fully controlled lab experiment where CMBS demonstrates behaviour that differs from the verifiable real life to the tune of over a hundred if not two hundred percent. Certainly a margin this wide can explain a general sentiment about CMBS that RUS forces are considered unplayable agains US PS I didn't test by I believe UKR BMP-2 results could be even more... Remarkable...

2A42? Not 2A72? We hit a vertical wall rather than a horizontal plane so we don't have the distance error magnification. AFAIK for HE-I/HEFRAG the accuracy of M242 and 2A42 are comparable. It's APDS that makes M242 1.5-2.0 times as accurate. So for HEFRAG for a vertical wall we're talking about decimetres with lethality radius of 7m if I remember the latter correctly. I don't know about the US philosophy but the Soviet one is exactly you've got as much ammo as you can and then you're on your own. I really don't understand how it explains the 2A42 in-game parameters

Like on this pic? Except for the second pic there trees next to roads. My guess it would be even more difficult if not outright impossible to try to break though the forest. Tankers with hands-on experience are welcome to correct me.

Which one? US decimating tribal/PMC raid party? Does "0 outcome" mean no US casualties?

Quick test of BMP-2 vs. Bradley M2 Test setup: 10 IFVs firing on 10 three storey buildings placed at ~390m. IFVs are veteran, normal motivation, no leadership bonus. IFVs fire for ten and fifteen seconds at the second storey each having 3 three-man breach teams hiding. Teams get immediately suppressed and stay put. IFVs don't have enough time to break the walls they are shooting on. Conclusions - all IMO: CMBS RoF being lower than the technical RoF IRL is normal as this represents the effect of bursts. But 2A42 is 2.0/2.4 times slower than M242 by this parameter. IMO M242 RoF accurately represents actual RoF or even exceeds it whereas 2A42 looks unnaturally retarded. Higher barrel sway of 2A42 should not produce such a chilling effect at mere 390m to require such a degradation of RoF. A universal measure of lethality for HEFRAGs is Kg of ammo shot at the enemy per minute. Here every Kg of ammo delivered by 2A42 is only 78% as lethal as M242. To me that's hard to explain as both rounds are not a rocket science and were created at about the same time and technological level. At technical RoF 2A42 should be 2.6 time more lethal than M242 by Kg/min due to higher caliber and comparable RoF whereas it's represented in game as having similar or lower lethality. So for BMP-2 in short distance HEFRAG application instead of soft skinned vehicle with a immensely more powerful armament - something totally matching traditional Soviet doctrine - we have still a soft-skinned vehicle with inferior armament. Please comment... 26.22%

Just a collection of the day RUS SOF PR vid

Turkey says Russian S-400 missile delivery brought forward to July 2019 ISTANBUL (Reuters) - The planned delivery of Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile batteries to Turkey has been brought forward to July 2019, the Turkish undersecretary for defence industries said, from the first quarter of 2020. Turkey and Russia signed the S-400 accord in December, finalizing a deal which deepened military ties between NATO member Turkey and the Kremlin. The deal, reportedly worth some $2.5 billion, has worried the West because the system cannot be integrated into NATO’s military architecture. “We brought forward the delivery date in the accord signed with Russia to provide the S-400 system and got a date of July 2019,” Turkish Undersecretary for Defence Industries Ismail Demir wrote on Twitter overnight. His comment came after the two countries’ presidents held talks on Tuesday and marked the official start of work to build Turkey’s $20 billion first nuclear power station at Akkuyu on its Mediterranean coast. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-turkey-missiles/turkey-says-russian-s-400-missile-delivery-brought-forward-to-july-2019-idUSKCN1HB0IU

Just as a side note - you don't need to explain much if it's old stuff. I had to read a lot up to year 2000 - that was a kind of job of mine. Very particular angle - not from a fighting point of view - but I still had to read most of TRADOC stuff, all information related to weapons programs etc. Airforce and Army.