Holien

Hmmm how would you code that?
Would you ask Charles to code that in the game ahead of any other work?
Are you asking for some one to manually review each tourney game at the end?
BTW - I do get your point but the CM games and the scoring system just might not suit tourney play.
FOG2 is I think the top tier of tourney play and they have the best of breed approach to many of these issues. I am glad Elvis is looking at that to see what can be done if anything.
FOG2 has player to player comms nailed. At the start of every turn you get a text message area to read what the other player has said to you and then at the end of the turn you get the chance to reply and send text back. This was clearly designed and implemented into the code.
FOG2 has a clean method to deal with players that don't send turns and allocates points to those players that did send turns in a timely manner. (Not sure if this is code for the PBEM module - which is what Elvis is checking (I guess)).
So yes it is unfair on those players that did not get any turns sent to them, in effect they are likely out of contention.
Yes it is unfair for those players that don't enable a CeaseFire before the tourney round ends, in effect they are likely out of contention.
The round ends on Wednesday morning I had hoped a simple e-mail would help lift some players out of one of the issues, but we are dealing with different support teams, different time zones, different views on how to achieve things, different works schedules and workloads...
Such is life...
We can offer solutions but they have to be able to be implemented.
I hope in round 2 I get a completed game but who knows I could be paired with someone who gets frustrated that they are out of contention and just don't bother playing...
Such is life... (1st world problem compared to some other serious **** happening at the moment around the world...)

Eniced73 has valid concerns and if they can be addressed then you are more likely to get your wish to play more CM games Vs humans.
If you are running a tournament scores do matter to the players.
Let's hope with some tweaks it can be enhanced.

Good post.  This line here is hypocritical BS of the highest order.  We spent 20 years during GWOT doing extrajudicial targeting killings and drone strikes all over the planet.  Ukraine does the same thing during an existential war and suddenly we grow a conscious?
Do two points on all this.
- The primary role of special activities/active measures/executive actions is to create negative decision pressure, not positive.  This throws off most military experts and traditional policy makers with respect to warfare.  Conventional military capability, strategy and policy is designed to create positive decision.  We compress reality down to a node we want and collapse all alternatives that favor an opponent.  Normally we create chaos and destruction upon an opponent while imposing our own order over any situation...we call it "superiority".  "Special" acts as the inverse of this and very often why conventional military thinking has so many problems with it. 
What the Ukrainians are doing here is undeciding already established decisions within the Russian framework.  Moscow is supposed to be outside of the war.  A submarine captain who lobbed missiles at Ukraine is supposed to be out of it.  Why? Because Russian certainty says the war is happening "over there".  By conducting these sorts of activities, Ukrainian special forces are undeciding that certainty within the Russian sphere.  This has enormous power.  It projects uncertainty onto an opponent which can cause powerful inductive effects.  All war is communication, and this communicates that "it is not decided they way you thought". 
- Uncertainty can cause collateral damage.  I leads to over corrections for certainty.  Russian's may run to Papa Putin when things start blowing up and people start dying while jogging.  But deep down many will still be uncertain that he can protect them.  Others will just remain uncertain and hope it stays out of their micro-social bubbles. 
Regardless, it looks to me like Ukraine is waging an special activities campaign.  What is missing in this article is the really big shoe to drop: have they been successful in undeciding some elements of Russian society itself?  We are talking about subversive warfare.  Penetration of Russian society and activation of Russian resistance.  You can shoot submarine captains all day but when I read this article what is glaringly missing is the real fight in the backfield - undeciding Russian social fabric itself. 
Now I know Russia is a "monolithic, apathetic homogenous block"...yeesh, that one has been beaten to death.  No, they are not.  They are a human society, which means that it has fissures, cracks and seams like any other.  Finding and exploiting those gaps and seams is tricky business.  Needs time and patience.  It was in fact the Russian playbook right up until this little dance.  I guess we will see where it goes.  Problem may be too big, or it might be happening right in front of us.  That is the thing with these sorts of efforts - you don't see them until they are already done.

https://frontelligence.substack.com/p/avdiivka-russian-losses-from-october?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

Thanks it's a limited number of customers and hopefully not seen as spam.
Fingers crossed 🤞

Russians are testing new type of kamikdze drones of long range, but much smaller than Shakheds. Yesterday two were launched on Kyiv oblast and one of them struck Vyshhorod town, also one explosion probably was in Irpin'. No significant damage, this is a sound of this small sh...t. 
Now again drone attack alarm in Kyiv oblast an reportedly again against Vyshhorod
Press-secreter of Air Defense Command told that they investigated fragments of these two drones of unknown type - they had engines, being ordered on AliExpress. 
 

Same pattern on both sides.  Try big, get hammered…go small.  Have western commentators go “silly [insert side], why are you going small?  Be more manoeuvry!”

MOD with thoughts on RU casualties
 
(4/5) It is likely that Russia has suffered 150,000-190,000 permanent casualties (killed and permanently wounded) since the conflict began, with the total figure including temporarily wounded (recovered and due to return to the battlefield) in the region of 240,000-290,000.
(5/5) This does not include Wagner Group or their prisoner battalions who fought in Bakhmut.

link to translated threadreader :https://threadreaderapp-com.translate.goog/thread/1715419274582356325.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fi&_x_tr_pto=wapp
 

Something I can't believe I never thought of before: distant low flying aircraft can be engaged by MANPADS at a shallow angle... for example, out a window. Maybe best finding a much bigger room to absorb that backblast though.
 

Thanks Andrew,
I have found a way within in Slitherine system to e-mail the oppo I hope he picks up and sees my e-mail.
We are averaging a turn a day and have I think 16 left to do plus or minus so it seems like we will have to do a CF...
This really does need to be clearly stated in the Tourney text if it is not there?

I understand that the CM games have no means to provide accurate interim scoring (such as final game scoring type scores) to the Matrix server.  so as a workaround they award scores of 3-1 when there are casualties in a turn, with the person whose side gets "more" casualties against their opponent getting a 3, and the opponent gets a 1.  If no casualties at all in a turn then it is 0-0.  No idea what happens if a tie (e.g., 1 soldier per side is a casualty).  If it scores 1-1 or 0-0 or if infantry units also can score higher than one another (e.g., Regular BTN CO is KIA, vs green private KIA so BTN HQ is worth more points internally, therefore the other side wins that round 3-1).  If you look at the tournament scoring you will see all the low scoring game scores between opponents can be calculated by various combos of 3-1 and 1-3.  So for example in my CMCW match with gkersh I am currently down 10-14 in one game and up 22-10 in the other.  Meaning in first game I won two turns and lost four with all others being ties.  So scoring is 2 x (3-1) = (6-2) + 4 x (1-3) = (4-12) with overall total = (10-14).  In the other game I won seven turns and lost one.
This "3-1" scoring system does not factor into the final score (which is the BFC final scores you see on end game screen).  It is just for fun during the tournament as BFC Elvis told me.
You are therefore better to ceasefire as you will get whatever type of BFC score would show up on their final game screen when you ceasefire in game considering total points in most these matches are on order of 2,000 or so per scenario.  So maybe you get 334 points.  That would be better than 78 points that might be showing on screen with the 3-1 system.  And if you (both) don't ceasefire then the game never ends, and Matrix's server has no way of knowing what the "real" score is, so you are stuck with whatever just for fun (3-1 system) points that Matrix has on their system.
But if you cannot communicate with your oppo, and he is not returning turns or is not aware of this then I am afraid you are pooched.

I am confident we will not see that either at all or maybe sometime in the last month of the war. In the present conditions, it is about as likely as the grand cavalry charge prepared in expectation of breakthrough and exploitation before the Loos offensive, the Somme offensive, the Cambrai offensive etc. in WWI. Finally, when the Entente were in position to exploit a breakthrough, they did it with hundreds of tanks and the war ended in a few weeks.
I like the brief summary from a new Wavell Room article https://wavellroom.com/2023/10/13/countering-tactical-kamikaze-drones-ideas-urgently-needed/:
"Ukrainian counter-measures: keep your distance
A tactical counter-measure (employed by both sides) is the withdrawal of platforms and systems from the frontline i.e. 10-15km where they are at least out of range to FPV drones.  This has created an inverted frontline. Units in contact are now dug-in infantry with their supporting organic weapons such as mortars and anti-tank missiles; drone operators; and the ECM detachments seeking to disrupt or down the other’s drones.  Communications are constantly degraded by the saturation of jamming systems.
Self-evidently, such an abnormal frontline is the opposite of manoeuvre warfare.  Neither side is daring to manoeuvre, except in very favourable circumstances, because the cost is too high.  ‘Going over the top’ has become prohibitive in lives and materiel."
I think it is exactly to the point. Now a large number of troops on the attack can be stopped by a very low number of troops on the defence, extremely dispersed and supported by massed fires.  There is therefore no sense in  massing units on the attack, unless to increase own losses, because it is so extremely easy for the defender to achieve sufficient force ratio for a successful defence anyway. The numbers on the attack are used for rotation and replacement, not for overwhelming the enemy. 
In these circumstances, how can an attack look like? Theoretically, speaking Infiltration and probing by dismounted infantry +counterbattery+ deep fires on the enemy rear to interrupt the flow of ammunition to support the counterbatery effort +ECM, again to support the crucial counterbattery effort. Once the counterbattery battle achieves success, then fires can be partially shifted more to the enemy's first line so that those dispersed, camouflaged and fortified infantry outposts can be whittled down.  Then repeated infiltration and probing combined with indirect fires is carried out until those infantry outposts either withdraw or can be stormed. Then the process has to be repeated on each new defence line because its inherent slowness means that the defender will ALWAYS be able to create and man another defence line behind the previous one.
Which to me seems exactly how the Ukrainians are fighting in Zaporozhe. The only potential way to progress from this to a more efficient system I see in 1) massive attrition of RUS artillery combined with some way to degrade RUS drones AND discovery of technical means to deal with RUS obstacles, AP mines included;. if the RUS finally run out of tubes AND become unable to substitute them with Lancets and FPV drones, AND the Ukrainians find a way to quickly go through even massive minefields, then the attacks can be started instead of lengthy  counterbattery battle, with a simultaneous engagement  of many defensive outposts over several defence lines with supressive, not necessarily destructive artillery and PGM fires, and Ukrainian attack hopefully will be able to continue without too much of a pause through several of those lines. Either by way of mechanised assault or on foot, Keiserschlacht style.
The 2nd way out is IMHO  the general morale failure caused by combination of massive losses cumulated over years on the entire frontline with the war weariness on the home front. The "1917 moment".
PS. I am aware of the ubiquituous caveats, that all historical analogies are deceitful, and this is not World War I, etc. but taking them in stride I think that at this moment, it basically this is recreated World War I. And the technical and organisational developments which happened since 1918  have combined to make it even more of a stereotypised World War I than the real World War I was.
 
 

Let’s not make too long leaps here. (And I know you are just summarizing)  Russia may have reserves.  Or it may well have taken risks along line units as well.  Avdiivka was a tactical offensive, that failed - not D Day.  Russia is learning, there is no arguing that.  The question is: are they learning at a competitive rate compared to the UA?
UA takes ground continuously for months = “well ya but it isn’t fast enough”
RA does a post mortem twitch = “Holy Crap, it is the end of days!”

Pretty impressive counter battery work of a sort - track a GRAD to it's base.  Then destroy everything that's there - vehicles, ammo, personnel.
 

Current ATACAMS version range. In theory Dzhankoy airfield can be next.

Further confirmation (not really needed):
 

The Ukrainian SOF has posted info on the operation and named it, so it was a missile attack or...?
Full Google translate of the SFO Telegram post
 
 

Random image from Israel, but 1.) MBT Cope is spreading and 2.) confirmation of vertical limits of Trophy engagement (could be less, of course, but can’t be more):

Ugh, can we not.  Unless we can see some hard evidence that links these two events, then we are basically in “bio-lab” territory.
A tactical counter offensive in Ukraine somehow linked to the largest terror attack in Israel’s history (might largest since 9/11) is just too much of a stretch with what we do know.  It opens up the door to all sorts of pro-Russian, or pro-Ukrainian conspiracy theories that have no grounding in facts.  

Water is incompressible. The force from an underwater explosion is transferred more or less directly through water with minimal loss of energy. As such, a near miss underwater produces nearly the same effect as a direct hit.
A small surface drone with a similar sized payload does less damage because a portion of the energy from the explosion is transmitted through the air, which cushions the blast by virtue of its compressibility. Thus, the best place to hit a ship is below the waterline, where there is no air.
Additionally an underwater explosion will generate a bubble as it pushes water outwards. The bubble eventually collapses, and as it does so the water that takes up the space no longer supports the ship. In certain scenarios where a ship is heavy enough and there is a large enough bubble, the ship will bend as the bubble collapses. This is referred to as "breaking the back" of a ship. The impact of this is somewhat mythologized and often gets blown out of proportion, but is nonetheless noteworthy because at the end of the day it's extra stress on a ship that wouldn't be produced with an above water explosion.

Hah! This was BTR-50!
 

UKR Naval Forces press-service issued official statement, that UKR naval drones attacked twice patrol ship "Pavel Derzhavin" and resque sea tug of BSF "Professor Nikolay Muru", which arrived to tow damaged patrol ship and also was attaked herself. Press-service didn't confirm attack on "Buyan" missile corvette and nothing told about allegedle attack on "Alrosa" submarine, claimed by SBU, who in cooperation with Naval Forces conducted drone strike operations. 
More and more Russian TGs write now that attack of UKR naval drones took place at all 2-3 days ago. According their statements attacks more likely were conducted by new underwater drones ("Marichka"?). Looks like these were deep underwater detonations, which hit hulls of ships with water hammer. "Pavel Derzhavin" for short time got damage of propeller controls, "Nikolay Muru" was disabled and needed assist of other tugboat. One of TGs claimed "Pavel Derzhavin" lost two sailors, which fell overboard in moment of explosion and drowned.
According to UKR official statement "Pavel Derzhavin" now left Sevastopol and heading likely to Feodosia, where Russians moved part of ships. Most of large ships now based in Novorossiysk and come to Sevastopol only for misiles reloading, because of Novorossiysk hasn't proper infrastructure for this.
On the photo "Professor Nikolay Muru" resque sea tug (pr.22870, comissioned in 2014). Black Sea had four vessels of this type. One of them "Vasiliy Bekh" was sunk with two "Harpoon" missiles in 2022 near Zmiinyi island.
  
On the screen of video after incident - tugboat approaches to disabled "Nilolay Muru" (right)

 

Well Steve did a pretty good job already.  I would say your view is definitely skewed.  I am not sure this last RA offensive was “strategic” or “massive”.  We really have no idea how hard the RA is “sweating” but did it occur to you they did this to try and project the narrative you are buying into?  
As to massed fires, well you do not cite a single source or fact in your entire analysis so it is really hard to follow up on what is essentially an opinion piece.  Do you have stats on the levels of fires?  Haiduk just posted some that show RA fires dropping, which kind of matches a lot of observations.  Also I would offer you go back and look at Severodonetsk last summer, the level of fires there was surpassing WW1 concentrations.  Do you have credible sources that show they exceeded this at Aviidka?
My thoughts are that this is a local tactical offensive designed to demonstrate and signal that the RA is not solely on the Defensive…but the cost of this demonstration likely exceeds its actual impact.  It shows the UA employing the same elements of Denial they themselves are facing, and they appear to be just as effective.  
We seem to be at a point where neither side is able to achieve operational levels of offensive success - no break throughs or break outs.  In a war of attrition it is very hard without detailed inside knowledge to see breaking points.  Back in WW2 Germany was doing counter offensives nearly to the end, even though it was clear they were broken at Kursk.  In this war the UA currently has offensive initiative and has been trying to string a series of tactical offensives into operational conditions setting.  We will see if they are successful.
I guess my “analysis” is that the first tactical twitch out of the RA since last Winter does not merit the level threat that you have assigned it.  I think some of your basic assumptions are skewed in RA favour -  likely not out of support to RA but honest concern - and you need to revisit them.  Further, you may want to provide some citations or links that are shaping your thinking so we can check them for ourselves.