The_Capt

So this is what shaping looks like. If true, this would be a very effective way to get Russian forces moving away from the areas of a planned major offensive. Indirect approach of employing Russian insurgents is a brilliant stroke, a proxy war within a proxy war. Not sure if this is just hopeful rumor but we could be seeing the start of the offensive.

Here is the full document: https://static.rusi.org/403-SR-Russian-Tactics-web-final.pdf First time I have heard any credible reporting that the RA is capable of intercepting HIMARs - albeit within a pretty narrow context. All other sources of RA AD on HIMARs is a cesspool of Russian propaganda. However, a lot of this report does ring true on what needs to be prioritized in supporting the UA - and it is not tanks or F16s. It is artillery, counter-battery specifically along with ammunition. EW - particularly C-UAS. Assault Engineering. And training. The authors themselves put a lot of provisos up front. What is curious is that if the RA has solved for a lot of UA capability, then why have they continued to fail on the offence? For example if thermal camouflage is so effective then why are Russian tanks still staying back kms? If they have created advanced tactical C4ISR networks, why are those tactical units still unable to really make gains? Of course the UA, which is the primary source of the information of this report are not stupid. It is in their best interest to emphasize the challenges in order to build up sufficient support for the upcoming offensive. I would not accuse the interviewed pers of outright lying but emphasis in a certain direction does make a lot of sense. I recall hearing similar stories back last summer as well. One way or the other we are going to find out just how robust the RA defence is or is not. I strongly suspect the RA is as capable as described in this report, however, only in selected and prioritized locations. That is a massive frontage that they are trying to hold with a severely mauled force. The ability to create and sustain a massive HIMARs-proof wall of AD in depth along a 850km frontage is highly doubtful. As is an ability to sustain indirect fires superiority, everywhere. Now if Russia is able to do this, however, it can only do it on static defence. And if the UA cannot crack it. Well we truly have entered into a defensive warfare primacy era. Corrosive warfare for the UA will have been blunted and we are back to slow grinding attrition that could take years. Personally, I do not believe this is the case. Too many signs of systemic failures within the Russian military machine. I also do not see the RA able to match or cope with Ukrainian C4ISR superiority at operational and strategic levels. Out of all of this the largest threat is evolution of Russian AD - if the RA can start to create scions of Iron Dome then a key pillar of the UA capability suite starts to fail - long range precision fires. If that goes, then the ability to interdict LOCs/C-moves, hit RA C2 nodes and hammer logistics becomes challenged. So I am not sure what advanced SEAD capabilities we have in the back but I would start shouting about them far more than tanks, F-whatever’s and better missiles. That and other long range systems that RA AD cannot solve for, like stealth mesh net drone swarms. The authors also hit on the primacy of evolving tactics and training. The problem here is that the west doesn’t have that. We have our tactics and training, of which there is little proof of their effectiveness on these battlefields. The experts on whatever this war has turned into are in the UA fighting it. We can support them on the basics, such as field craft, small unit organization etc. But the larger evolutions are well outside out experience - that one is going to have to be the UA, and then we can hire them to teach us once this war is over. In warfare the answer to an evolving opponent is very simple: evolve faster.

It is uncertainty, which is toxic to humans. We mostly do one of two things with uncertainty, we push out and explore to remove it, or we pretend it does not exist. We were never apex predators in nature, middle of the food chain in reality. However we had a big enough brain to be aware of where we sat in the food chain which created fear. We then leveraged that to survive and evolve. The fuel for a lot of our fear is uncertainty, the unknowns because in nature those unknowns could easily kill us for food. So we will work very hard to remove uncertainty, it is a primary impulse. To over simplify and dumb thins down, particularly when faced with highly complex unknowns is a very old human strategy. One of the first things we did was to try and use substances to cope - alcohol, narcotics etc. Than when we constructed faith and religion. And now we have whatever the hell this era has produced with echo chambers and ideologies that embrace obtuse and willful ignorance as dogma. Better to embrace safe lies and face unknowable truths. And to be fair there is also a caloric strategy at play here as well. Brain chews up a lot of calories so in one embraces dogma one can stop burning calories on worrying about unknowns. Certainty and uncertainty are also central to warfare. I describe all warfare as a violent collision of human certainties. It creates enormous uncertainty as social structures are fractured. Uncertainty is a weapon in itself and can be projected onto an opponent. We have been wrestling with uncertainty since 23 Feb 22. We have all created mental frameworks that aid us in reasserting certainty - I know I definitely have. This is not a bad thing so long as those frameworks remain on speaking terms with reality and the facts on the ground. If the space between my mental certainty framework and reality becomes too wide, I am in an unreality space and that is when decisions get really shaky. Now for any 8th graders out there. We are afraid of the dark because we can imagine all the bad within it. So we can either build flashlights or cover our heads and pretend it is daytime until the sun does come up.

Here is another: “full of sh#t and bad manners”. You posted ignorant drivel, got called out, basically told the moderator to “shut up cause you can’t tell me what to do” like an over entitled millennial. And are now pushing post-truth fanboi lines like they are scripture. Dunning-Kruger: “The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias[2]whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a certain type of task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge.” I just posted a half dozen reasons why you foundational premise is weak, your original post has zero merit, and you come back with “college boy eh?” It is a big internet there are all sorts of sites that will appeal to where you are coming from - good ol folksie wisdom and hard workin practical experience that “tells it like it is” in simple easily digestible one liners that will make you feel all sorts of clever. They distill the complexity of human conflict to 140 characters and offer easy answers to this scary complex old world. You can learn all about “Elitist this and globalist that” and will no doubt hear all sorts of down home simple solutions that are so obvious. And then we here can muddle along as best we are able because clearly “we just don’t get it”.

Ok let’s play “How Many Reasons Why Russia May Open Up Negotiations That Are Not An Immediate Sign Of Defeat” - all the College Boys chime in. I will start: - Shifting the strategic narrative/reframe the war in an attempt to demonstrate that they are the reasonable ones and start down a road to victimology that may appeal to certain political parties in the west who have their heads in warm dark places while they listen to “experts” with big mics, empty heads and a serious lust for more money and power. - To create uncertainty in the European alliance and NATO as some nations just want this to be over and renormalize. - A ploy to pull China into this in some sort diplomatic tag team. China enters the side of “Putin the Reasonable” and leverages it towards a win for them both. - The Russians simply stall for time in a hope to slow down the UA in a hope for a battlefield reverse. - To play up to a domestic audience, with never any real intention of ceasing the conflict. - Because Putin is finished and we wind up negotiating with a bunch of separate goons, none of whom actually represent the Russian people. - Putin is not finished but wants us to believe it and over reach. Link to playing for time and dumber political machines moving into power. - Random irrational objectives that we can only guess at. Now just for you - go look up Dunning-Kruger and think about it for awhile. And did you just walk into Steve’s house and tell him to shut up and sit down? Seriously, how does that get right on any political spectrum? And we are at Ignore.

Ok, how cool would it be of Bakhmut turns into a Russian Stalingrad? I mean a lot to ask for but a boy can dream…

You realize that this sentiment is really the problem, right? I mean there is nothing categorically wrong in what the ambassador said for an objective point of view. Russia has not demonstrated that it will act in good faith during the conduct of this war - the systemic warcrimes are a big hint. So it would be a very good idea to approach any peace negotiations very carefully. You do not have to like someone nor agree with their politics, but that does not automatically mean everything they say is incorrect. Statements or positions need to be weighed against the facts, not affiliations, no matter which end of the spectrum the come from. There are exceptions of course, for example if someone has demonstrated habitual lunacy or use of mis/dis-information, sure go ahead and burn them as a source, but the Ukrainian ambassador does not fall into that category as far as we know - unless you have proof beyond her possible post-secondary education? You are burning her based in affiliation alone or at least it appears that way, and that is intellectually lazy to be blunt. Finally this whole line of thinking is a significant fracture point that has, and will be exploited by all sorts of players. It is in fact step 2 in the subversive warfare playbook - widen the fractures that were already there and make them unsealable; the death of compromise. Step 3 is to harden elements from either side of the fracture into organized and connected collectives that are able to self perpetuate and metastasize - a carcinogenic operation. This is a long standing recipe on how to destroy a society from the inside out. This is exactly the type of operations Russia did before 2014, and was attempting before this war started. Every nation that borders Russia is combating this sort of influence. And it will very likely be what Russia falls back on once this war is over - assuming there is a functioning Russia left. China is also very good at this game, it is also out of their playbook, but they are much better at it. So you do not have to agree with the current US president - and sure go ahead and insult him based on ageism. But it is hard to disagree with the results in Ukraine, so far. This has been one helluva tough one to steer through from a strategic and political level. And it has not been perfect. But for navigation through the first real proxy war of the 21st century I gotta give it a B+ so far. As to the rest of the politics, well you Americans can go argue that - preferably on another thread.

Huh? Didn’t we just hear that the UA was pushing back at Bakhmut by kms? Now it has fallen?

And what is the quality of those new systems? Given shortages in tech supply within Russia these systems will likely have issues with guidance systems and flight controls. They will be then plugged into a 3rd rate ISR architecture that is being eroded as well. Which is plugged into a Command and Control system that was a mess to start with. This is what it looks like when organized crime tries to fight a conventional war. We have been watching the one-way erosion of the RA for over a year now. The symptoms of systemic failure are written on the walls, underlined and bolded. I am getting a growing sense that the upcoming collapse may be spectacular. All war is communication, and Russia has been sending out signals of failure since this thing began. All war is violent, but it has to be effective violence. Simply doing disconnected or ineffective violence only reinforces an opponents resolve because they get angry, not despondent. You never create a curve they feel they are falling behind. Russia has been a testament to ineffective violence in this war - it has not been focused or connected, a flailing windmill of murder and rage that looks scary for the first few seconds and then everyone realizes it is in fact a seizure. Russia has already lost this war, they likely already know it. We have already won it, but some refuse to see it. All that remains is how do we end it?

https://www.shephardmedia.com/news/landwarfareintl/idex-2023-kamikaze-combat-ugv-enters-production/ This with legs and autonomous targeting. Cheap and many of them, a minefield that can walk. Denial of land battle space. Next 5-10, maybe sooner.

A few impracticalities and very likely illegal executive actions but I like the spirit.

I think you kind of answered your own question here. There is more of the things that really mess the RA up. There are longer range and nastier systems such as ATACMS - I am willing to bet that is being held back for specific reasons. We have a number of options that could be explored in Russias Near Abroad, as Russia appears weaker the cracks are definitely going to start showing. Third nation interest are always another great way to put pressure on. And then there are places with direct Russian interest like the Arctic. As to subversive warfare inside Russia itself, I do not believe for a second they are immune to this. It is likely already happening but we cannot see it…kinda how subversive works. The real coup would be to convince China to cut Russia loose, however, we also need to engineer a Russian defeat that does not see total collapse. And then there are scary doors - no fly zones, sea denial, cyber and finally direct involvement either in Ukraine or on another border but these are a ways up the list. The real question is “what does Russia have left for escalation room?” They are basically at WMDs. Conventionally they could not raise a viable million man army right now even if public will got behind it. Oil and gas were a threat but Europe did not freeze in the dark over winter so that ship has sailed. We have got the options space and Russia does not…and that is how wars are won.

Ya but SDI was a bluff. Patriots are definitely not. We need some of that good ol Cold War thinking right about now. We got all post modern “let’s all agree or do nothing” and “what are they gonna do next”. How about we get them worrying about we are going to do next.

Could you not make k variable, perhaps even dynamic? The complexity of the observation is mitigated by a series of factors both hard (equipment) and soft (experience, condition). So the k for the M60 would be different than the T72 based on these factors?

I am pretty certain the game can tell the difference between forest terrain and open grass. Open grass is not really "open", Steve has said this many times. It is filled with dimples and dips etc. He has said this since CMx1. My guess (engine IP is held very tightly and I do not blame them) is that there are layers that effect the spotting curves. Heavier terrain makes spotting dice rolls harder. The only thing I can see about the US crews is that they have the TTS system. The M60 has far better FCS and ergonomics (it is why it is so big) so they likely factored that into the outliers. However 3.5 minutes for an M60 TTS is still a pretty damned long time.

Remember when everyone was all a twitter about Russian escalation dominance? Interestingly, and something I never considered, denial is a form of escalation. In hindsight it is obvious, denial compresses an opponent options spaces - very effectively as it turns out. It also neutralizes an opponents ability to escalate. Russia earned this one with all of its terror missile attacks, however in the end the West held the escalation high ground…and still does. A whole lot of this war has been us relearning that we are indeed powerful, very powerful as it turns out. We kept seeing the nightmares in Russia but I think we are slowly realizing that we are the nightmares. (Nod to Chuck Norris I believe).

Minutes go by ”Hey you guys still awake? Anybody see anything?” ”Nothing sarge. Except a rabbit that I am pretty sure is inbred. I watched the stupid thing run headfirst into a fence pole…twice” ”Heh, I think I saw the same one, its fur is messed up, bald patch on its butt.” Pause ”Hey what are you covering right now?” ”90 to 12 degrees like you said sarge.” ”I said to cover ‘9 to 12 o’clock!” ”Ah crap..” Electro-mechanical sounds “Ah ffffuuu…Contact!!” And we get 700 seconds in a spotting delay.

Excellent, far better than anything I ever did up. So from this I am less concerned with the far outliers - crews doze off or any number of reasons can have long lapses (eg miscommunication between crew is a big one). What is odd is that the far outliers are only happening to the T72s. I mean US crews can doze off or think the other guys is keeping eyes out as well. (however you do mention a 3.5 min lag, which for a TTS equipped system is pretty darn long). Perhaps the extremity of the outliers is linked to the platform equipment? I think the “too long” impulse is 1) based on unrealistic assumptions with no real world experience and/or 2) 3 mins is an eternity in a tense game. The reality is that in combat conditions spotting is hard and it is very possible to roll a natural “1”. The answer to this is not to scratch off natural “1”s as it would make the game less realistic, not more.

Heh well we definitely saw this argument coming. It comes back to how much was a result of “Russia sucking” and how much is due to the impact of modern technology on the battlefield? Of course conventional militaries are doubling down on what they have, the alternative is truly frightening. But clearly the politicians can even see what is happening. I am not fully in the “abandon conventional stuff” (e.g tanks p, mech etc) we are likely to see what it can still do once conditions have been properly set. But I am also not a fan of spending billions on more conventional mass when we really have no idea of it will even work, or worse we have to layer so much defence on it that it prices itself out of existence. I also would not be looking for deep savings or spending cuts, in fact it may very well take spending increases however that money needs to go into the right capabilities, the ones that can ensure wins up to and including peer opponents. These arguments are going to continue for some time and each side is going to see what they want in what happens next. I think it will be some time until things become fully clear, but to my eyes after watching this thing at very high resolution for over a year, it is clear that some fundamentals shifted. Now how much is just a result of this specific war and how much are enduring? I will put down very good money that C4ISR, PGM, unmanned and denial systems are major growth areas no matter what the post game report comes up with.

Yes to all your points. The nature of mass as we know it is likely to change dramatically - what it consists of, how it is distributed and how we manoeuvre it around the battlefield. In a pan asymmetric fight the side without the best mass (not the most) is going to lose very quickly. Now in the case of China, a peer force, the competition will very intense as smart-mass comes up against another smart-mass force. That is the knife fight we all are wondering about. When you opponent has C4ISR and PGM parity, then we may have a whole new ballgame. We could wind up like the Russians with a lot of mass simply not smart enough to compete, no matter how much infantry or tanks we throw at the problem. Smart-mass combined with information and precision all connected is the future of the battle space. Spending billions on more infantry and tanks right now could be exactly the wrong way to go, at least until the smoke clears and we can figure out what has really happened.

Not buying the mass argument in the least. Traditional military mass has gone to pieces completely in this war. I do not think it would have mattered how much infantry the RA could generate - it did nothing for them at Bakhmut. They had firepower mass at Severodonetsk and it mattered little. They have overwhelming mass advantage in the North in the first month and it got stopped cold by a much smaller force. Kherson, Kharkiv, mass ratios all over the place and none I can recognize. One thing with respect to mass that does seem to matter is it 1) distribution, 2) its connectedness, and 3) its information empowerment. We have seen again and again where the RA concentrates higher traditional military mass and gets hammered because of the ISR asymmetry. If I was going to draw a lesson on mass for this war it would be “less physical, more effective information, more AI, more synthetic”. The author of this piece is drawing exactly the wrong conclusions in my opinion.

Thanks for running these. Well I think that pretty much puts to bed this round of “CM Spotting is broken!”. As a game lead/designer I make it a policy never to ignore a player but there is one that is really testing me on this thread. As to how do I sleep? - on piles of dirty cash and hookers, just like Steve and Charles (but smaller piles and uglier hookers).

Completely irrelevant? In describing the real world conditions of trying to spot in combat? I will admit to the buttoned/unbuttoned confusion but you keep slipping from one point to the next it is impossible to keep up what is relevant. Let’s see, we went from T72s, to T34s and T72s, to buttoned vs unbuttoned, to T64s and now 5 min nil spot outliers. You have done “thousands of test” yet have not posted a link to any of them and then have been insulting and downright prickish throughout the discussion…all we know from your point of view is “something is wrong”. Oh and then you had the audacity to ask for a “bone” to do any real work on this. Well that is very helpful, we will get the lads working on that right away. Why don’t you go play another CM title for awhile then until we get it all fixed up for you.

So if this is your idea of a sale pitch for your services someone should have told you a long time ago this is a very poor way to go about it. Why on earth would I reward acerbic attitude and a pretty crappy attitude to just about anyone who posts something contrary to your point of view? That is the antithesis of objective testing, and makes anything you would do suspect with respect to biases. We have been around this tree many times and if we wish to explore it further I would definitely look in other directions. Well if you had read the threads that VAB posted you will see that I too have done some testing in the past, quite a bit in fact. The results always are the same - average times are reasonable, outliers exist. The game has been this way since way back in the day. We will keep at it, it would appear that we have finally landed on your specific gripe, the T64A (which was odd because we were talking about T72s a moment ago and it was the only tank the OP mentioned in the opening post. So you dropped by to just let us all know that CM spotting on the T64 is broken? The term for that is “oblique”. And so we land on hyperbole. A 5 min lag-to-spot report. Obviously a wide outlier, I personally have never seen one and if I did I would reposition because I likely have a LOS blockage. Now if these happened all the time maybe, and I believe they might actually be possible. The question is what caused it. Under normal circumstances that should not happen, so what were the circumstances? Was it a piece of terrain, something in how the tank was positioned? There could be a bug or it could be something the player missed, or it could be BS. Either way, your immediately jumping on this one extreme as mainstream indicative would also ensure that you never see the inside of the CMCW Beta Team.

I am not so sure Russia could annex a small suburb right now let alone a country of 9 million people. A second SMO could just as likely shatter the Russian Federation…which means of course it must be on the table as an option given their strategic track record.