The_Capt

Then why not exploit all of the other splodey stuff that has been happening for two years in the same manner? They haven't. They have been downplaying internal insecurity and writing it off to smoking accidents. If Putin wanted "more control through chaos...because 'Russia'" 1) why wait until after the sham election? and 2) why down play a string of deep attacks inside Russia up until now. Not buying it. Either something has changed, or this too will get sidestepped. In fact this entire narrative is contradictory: "Russians as sheeple who will do whatever they are told." but "Putin needs to run a major false flag to get support for mobilization." If all Russians are a bunch of bloodthirsty killbots who just do what they are told...then why go through the freakin theatre? Just mobilize and go all in? No. I am not buying the "ah, poor western mindset...you just don't get X." It gets tossed out way too often and never lands anywhere. Russians are human beings who live in a different cultural and political paradigm, but we have seen behaviors that are consistent with divided political will and Putin having to balance realities. To suddenly deliberately throw in a major (successful) terror attack into that mix does not make a lot of sense unless conditions have changed.

Maybe, but Russia has already had a lot of opportunities to play that card. Instead we get "industrial accidents," "airplane malfunctions" and Priggy "miscommunications." Putin has been downplaying and sidestepping stuff exploding all over Russia for two years. Why suddenly wake up after winning a fake election and go "you know what, lets try for a Russian 9/11, now"?

I think this one is far trickier than first glance. If Putin spins this as somehow a US/Ukrainian operation then he looks weak and incompetent. This was downtown Moscow, not some outer berg. This is clearly a security failure so pinning it on a war opponent makes that opponent look competent and effective. This is counter narratives of “we are winning in Ukraine” which they have been continually pushing. So while it may drive support into Putin’s arms for the war, it may very well create a lot of doubt as to his ability to protect Russian in this war. In fact a terror attack is just about the worst false flag op to run here. A massive explosion complete with ATACMs debris along with dozens of others “shot down” makes far more sense. An asymmetric terror attack by a few armed gunman simply looks and feels like bad housekeeping and a massive intel failure, no matter how hard one tries to spin it. I have no doubt they will link this back to Ukraine, but already here this is a soft link. “Ukraine was providing haven, but did not mastermind the whole thing.” I am sure the real wingnuts will come up with all sorts of conspiracy theories but in the end Putin cannot lay this entirety at the feet of Ukraine without making Ukraine look much scarier and effective. So what will be interesting is whether or not he does. If he does, then things are likely worse internally for Russia than we can see. He is willing to take the risk of making Ukraine look like they “got in a good one” because support is seriously flagging and he needs to leverage this any way he can. If they downplay and sidestep, things might be tighter and more stable because Putin is not entirely backed into a corner. Putin has already called Ukraine “Nazi-terrorists” it was his entire excuse for the war. Demonstrating of given credence to just how effective Ukraine still is at being as such, after two years of war, really runs counter to the entire Russian narrative thus far.

During the Cold War almost every terror organization was influenced, supported or at least talking to one side of the other. So as we get deeper into whatever this thing is I suspect we will begin to see the relationship between terrorism and the state evolve beyond “we do not negotiate”. We will very likely see all sorts of backroom deals and “freedom fighters” in proxy nation struggles. That said, ISIL is very likely going to wind up alienated by all great powers as simply too unstable - this is not the first time this has come up. The US spent a decade actively hunting ISIL down all over the MENA and any drug deals with them are pure political poison. Not to mention they are full fledged loons who really can’t be rationally negotiated with. So in this case I suspect it is simply a “duck”. What is odd is why ISIL is picking a fight with Russia now? Russia did side with the Assad regime and is no friend to ISIL or Islamist extremism; however, why wage a high profile attack now? Are they thinking Russia is overextended? Oddly, ISIL could become a point of cooperation between Russian and the US, much like some terror groups did during the Cold War. This one is really kinda strange.

I am old enough to have watched the original. This one is much better so there may be hope for humanity yet.

I am pretty sure this sentiment has been expressed every time in history a disruptive technology hit the battlefield. “Damn gunpowder/cannon/muskets/rifles/machineguns/baloons/aircraft/tanks etc, war is hard enough why can’t things just go back to the way they were?” The good news is that I am not sure we have hit a change in the nature of warfare yet…maybe…. Character shifts we can deal with. We are still reeling from the last nature shift back in 1945. Another one so soon could break us.

Considering that the UA is taking 100k FPVs per month I am not sure the traditional suppression of fortified positions paradigm holds up. The UA have already demonstrated that through the use of PGM they can employ far less gun rounds to shoot up trenches. Extending that to FPVs, essentially precision flying mortar rounds, I can see no reason why these could not be employed in an offensive manner. Further, we are not looking at a stovepiped system here. FPVs are going to be employed in cooperation with artillery. Each a sub-system in an overall Firepower capability. FPVs have advantages that artillery does not and vice versa. What FPVs do is take the load off of artillery. We do not need massed guns in order to successfully conduct offensives. We are able to achieve the same effects via other means, or combinations of means. Upscaling FPV employment has just as much offensive potential as it does defensively. What is missing is an ability to exploit and break out past an enemy defensive system…because they are using UAS as well. What we really need is local UAS superiority as a concept.

Auto-targeting, along with full autonomy is an emerging technology. I suspect plenty of bugs as they continue to evolve. I think it is more likely that we will see humans doing the target selection from a distance and then the UAS will do the “last mile”. This essentially makes an FPV a flying Javelin - which is pretty much what Spike NLOS is. Targeting errors etc are all just part of the package. The good news is that the FPV is no longer susceptible to standard EW on its kill-run. And considering that airborne ISR can see out kms a controller/sight drone could designate multiple targets 5-10kms back and then launch an autonomous swarm at an entire target set, essentially immune to EW. Considering that this swarm has been queued by higher level ISR going up to space, it will mean that the ability to deny the RA is likely on an upward trajectory.

Did he say why? To my mind it may appear the case right now because the defensive side of this war is employing them better and at greater scale. I cannot think of a reason why fast, highly mobile highly precise firepower is not useful on offence as well as defence. The problem is likely more one of scale. For offensive operations one needs concentrations of drones that we have not seen to break a defensive position. Offensives have always come with higher risk because one has to move, the offset has been tempo, mass and speed. I think that we need new concepts of how drones fit into those three in order to solve for modern offensive operations. In simpler terms, drones appear to support defence better right now because we are conducting offensive operations in a way that does not work on the modern battlefield. We need to fix that.

Come now...be honest...was it really "the cat" peeing all over the place?

So basically right where we were before this election? Personally, I have zero interest in "fixing Russia" and I am pretty confident that I can speak for most westerners on that point. What I do want to know is just how badly we need to bend it without breaking it and making the situation worse. But it appears we are back to - we really do not know yet.

Gotta be honest, I am not even sure why this is still a topic of debate. The posters who have come out and claimed that the last Russian election was “pure as new driven snow” do so with an agenda of heaping as much responsibility and culpability for this war onto the Russian population as possible. Bizarrely, this means voicing support for the “democratic” process in Russia because it shows what they want it too - everyone in Russia hates Ukraine and supports this war. We have seen zero actual evidence that this election was anything but a sham in the tradition of the NK election process, beyond the rantings of some very angry (old, I am guessing) Ukrainian men. They are justified in that anger but not justified in pushing disinformation about the Russian election process, in my opinion. We have seen and heard from both mainstream news media, and my own federal government that this last election was a complete sham. The basic mechanisms for an open and fair election are missing or suppressed by the incumbent. This was not a transparent mandate from the people, it was Putin voting for himself…and surprise…he won! So what? Well it basically means that we have little actual insight into how much Russian’s really support (or not) Putin, nor do we really have insight on support for this war based on this last bit of theatre. We do know that it is not zero, but it is also not “110%”. Nor has it led to answering the real question: how does support turn into opposition? Instead we get the usual pre-genocidal nonsense of “only good Russian is a dead one” and hand wringing from the sidelines.

“Why didn’t they just fly the Giant Eagles all the way to Mordor?” ”ISR Billy, ISR”.

We won’t really know until final TO&Es are put in but we had planned pretty much the full gambit of UK units - if it was in the BAOR or had a chance to get pulled in, we put it in for submission to the game. For the Canadians, I basically recreated 4 CMBG from the old ‘76 redesign - beefed it up some and tried to get some cool stuff put in. Not sure I can post much more than this - BFC has a pretty uptight policy until we get the thing entirely baselined.

First answer to “Did NATO forces plan etc?” Absolutely, yes. The 11 ACR (V Corp) owned this ground: had war gamed it, exercised over it and planned for a Soviet attack in this area for decades. They had PTPTs (peace time prepared targets) already sketched in, in some places only needed to add mines or explosives to obstacles pre-sighted. In game I was probably too forgiving for levels of US/NATO prep but there was a strategic surprise element built into the backstory. Soviet doctrine actually had a fair amount manoeuvre built into it, however, it was normally only ever exercised at operational levels. An MRR or TR was really considered a tactical munition - point at enemy and pull trigger. One had to go up to divisional level before anything resembling manoeuvre warfare kicked in. The Soviets were hampered by centralized control however, so we really do not know how things would have really panned out. Mission 3 is extremely realistic from a Bn or Regt COs point of view. This is day 3 or 4 of the war so recon would have largely been stripped away in the forward Recon Battles. So formations and units would be relying on their own recon/FSE’s. An MRB CO would have been pointed and ordered at a primary objective with limited recon against an opponent how really knew and owned the ground. A collision of this sort (I.e. rolling straight into a KZ situation) is very realistic for the forces and time of the battle. Removing the Soviet players ability to shape or pre-position was by-design to reflect this situation. You are an MRB CO smashing forward. If you die, there are entire echelons behind you that may bypass but you are stuck with this situation. We really were aiming to put the player in realistic Soviet shoes, not simply allow them to fight as westerners in Soviet kit. Is it unfair? Most definitely. Is it realistic. Absolutely.

I think we have been slowly amping up the targeting list pretty effectively. By doing slow, steady and increasingly costly deep strikes Putin has been responding with “nothing to see here” because to actually admit to defence failures hurts his position. They also have not been shock and awe, which risks both escalation and driving support into Putin’s arms. I suspect we are going to see more of the same with a steadily expanding target list. The Western Powers definitely get a vote as they essentially own the majority of the C4ISR architecture that enables a lot of these strikes. The current strategy is effective as it projects a dilemma onto Putin: deny and suffer continued strikes or admit weakness to rally a broader response. He, of course, has picked the middle ground and uses these instances to blame NATO and reframe this war as such, but that also has strategic potholes. Ukraine (and Western) strategy of death-of-thousand-cuts is smart…so long as we actually back it up with resources to drag this thing out to a “win”. I think any hope of a “quick war” are basically over short of a strategic collapse of the RA; however, as we have discussed that will likely mean a sudden violent political collapse in Russia itself - which is something no one who has a clue actually wants.

We actually have no idea what Putin’s real base of genuine support is or is not. First off he controls any and all “polls” either directly or indirectly so trying to gauge who really supports him, who is pretending simply to avoid trouble and who opposes but is afraid to say anything, in real terms is basically impossible to do inside Russia, let alone outside looking in. “Look a bunch of people lined up to support him” is not a viable basis for deductions. Second problem is that support, in a functioning democracy, is founded on a basis of “informed decision”. This means that all sides can spin, argue and slant but in the end the news media and objective journalism is supposed to provide a voter with a range of diverging viewpoints and facts. Voters can then decide who to support, or not support based on their own personal perception and understanding. This is damned hard to do in a functioning liberal democracy; however, in Russia it is likely impossible. Putin controls the mainstream media - we have heard endless stories of dissenters being arrested or charged, hell he passed laws making criticism of this war illegal. He also has a lot of control within social media, suppressing sites and flooding the RUSNet with stooges. We have seen enough outright lies and insane claims out of Russian media in the last two years to know that the average Russian simply is not able to access much beyond what Putin wants them to see and hear. Under these conditions “real support” is nearly impossible because no alternative facts, ideas or even options are ever presented. Finally, as our Ukrainian friends like to point out continually, the average Russian is poorly educated, poor wealth and largely ignorant…this is why they keep signing up for this war. To now accuse these people of “knowingly supporting Putin” as if they have access to alternatives is short-sighted at best. Further, Kraze’s continued insistence to call every living Russian on the planet as vicious war loving murders is not only disingenuous, it treads dangerously close to genocidal narratives that have no place on what is supposed to be a rational objective forum. We know Russians opposed this war, a few hundred thousand ran away. Others are resisting passively. We also know that many really do not even understand what this war is or is not because Putin is preventing them from seeing any truth but his own. We also know some Russians also buy into this war and Putin fully even knowing the reality. In the end we are going to have to deal with all of them in some form or another because as much as some people are acting out emotionally here, we are not going to wipe Russia off the face of the earth and salt the ground on their mass graves. So be pissed off, but do not come here and promote outright disinformation in some sort of weird attempt to get us to all buy into some “every Russian is evil and must die” nonsense. There are all sorts of sites on the internet where people on both sides can engage in that emotional orgy, but it should not be here. The second this forum becomes one of those places, I for one, am out.

I can fully understand and sympathize with their positions and sentiments. But lies are lies, no matter who is pushing them. We either try and hold onto objective truth or we can just become another echo chamber showing one sided war porn and offering weak analysis. We are challenged enough to avoid our own biases without completely abandoning what this entire thread was supposed to do in the first place. I oppose disinformation no matter the source.

Considering that he basically: controls the media, makes real opposition disappear (or kills them outright), has central control of internal security who are arresting anyone who even has a whiff of real dissent, and anyone running against him is basically approved by him - Russia isn't even close to a functioning democracy at this point anymore than North Korea is. To come here claiming otherwise is disinformation of the worst sort.

BS of the highest order. You have zero proof of this and just about no one who knows anything about election processes outside of Russia agrees with you.

I thought RA FPV usage and effectiveness was on the rise. To the point there was fear of UAS parity. These charts would suggest otherwise.

Depends on context of the kinetic environment (there are many variations of that environment). If we are talking disciplined well coordinated response any of those three would be great. If you need “zero to f#cking 60 at the bat of an errant eyelash” go with the less traditional partners like Jamaicans or Afghans.

Very good point. I have said before and will re-state here and now, a free fall Russian collapse will make the current war a fond memory compared to what would likely happen next. Our best case scenario is a slow and steady decline of an isolated Russia until they are pretty much a client state of China, who will of course recognize “being shackled to a corpse” and all that entails. I think a full Russian failure is in the cards without a major regime change in a direction that simply remains extremely remote - I.e. full Russian pivot back towards democracy and a European facing political ruling class. The question is really “how fast?”

There you go. You finally landed on it. So this is pretty much what they tried to do. In fact they started to tie the hands of the Red Team to stop them from winning.