LongLeftFlank

LOL, 101st Airborne sitting directly opposite Crimea is an even more direct FA->FO signal. Notice Uncle Sam doesn't even *bother* putting naval assets into the Black Sea (are you taking notes here, China?) ***** Winter is, umm, Here.... https://turcopolier.com/allies-dig-in-to-give-ukraine-winter-edge-over-ill-equipped-russians/ Also read the comments by the bloggers (Pat Lang and TTG).

When something mysteriously shows up in the Caspian and shoots down a bunch of TU95s as they lazily maneuver to release their ALCMs at Ukrainian cities.... then vanishes just as mysteriously, without trace.... THAT will be one for the record books! Philadelpia Experiment, anyone?

yeah, Kilcullen has had a few holes shot in his various boats on the CMSF boards over the years. He's a super smart guy, spent enough time getting shot at to have cred, and also a good writer. But his papers also tend toward that 'just so' Journal Article Unifying Theory, which I guess ensures a lucrative career for him. Not a condition unique to the MIC by any means.

Places to store pickled herring are very important!

Good info, thanks, and there are similar reports from as far away as Portugal (Croatia just declined to participate, while stating support). Probably sums to well over 25,000 all-in although don't hold me to that. ... But it seems like the overseas programmes are more for 'upskilling' the existing 1 million force (those who aren't at the front now). That would seem to make more sense in terms of impact and force integrity. I'd think they'd have the new recruits do their basic in Ukraine; giving newbs the advanced training they'd get in the West seems suboptimal. Otherwise, integrating a cadre with state of the art Western training but NO combat experience with seasoned combat veterans who know only the old system seems... problematic. But I have no personal experience with any of this. Just seems like Ukraine would want to have another 250 - 500k guys (and gals) who at least know how to handle a rifle on tap in the event they might be needed (and I don't mean poor old guys like the Russians are pulling in -- that's a desperation move).

Many thanks. OPSEC is all very well and good, but you'd think they would make SOME kind of high level 'we must gird our loins' statement to the populace. 5 million under arms is of course well beyond what would be needed here. I'm thinking more like 1/10th that number. **** https://jamestown.org/program/lessons-of-the-ukraine-war-thus-far/ This piece from late Sept is interesting, although like most think tank pieces it's very handwavy high level and doesn't give specific answers as to what they're doing NOW: The idea of a peacetime small contract army was quite popular in Ukraine before 2022... Developments since the February 24 invasion have made clear that the peacetime strength of 215,000 troops in the Ukrainian Armed Forces was not enough... In 2021, reform of the territorial defense forces (TDFs) was quite popular. This was done through institutionalization of a separate command chain responsible directly to the commander in chief, with each region having its own brigade [but] deployment of TDFs was [only] completed during the actual fighting. In the end, TDFs enabled the addition of approximately 200,000 troops to regular formations quickly. Currently, Ukraine has a government-estimated 1 million men and women under arms that include the defense and security sectors.... Ukraine needs an enlarged peacetime contract army numbering approximately 300,000 to 350,000 men...it is telling that Poland decided to increase the strength of its armed forces from 143,000 to 300,000 in the next five years. An increased number of regular contract troops demands an overhaul of the Ukrainian army’s command structure. One possible variant might be the creation of an intermediate level of command similar to the use of military districts during peacetime. **** https://harpers.org/archive/2022/07/searching-from-the-ukrainian-foreign-legion/ I also ran across this long form colour piece from July, relating the misadventures of the many Western volunteers who showed up in Ukraine in March and April. Hemingway stuff.

Request: Does anyone have any coherent and current info on Ukrainian manpower readiness and buildup? (Written sources much preferred, svp) 1. It seems things are going all right with the volunteer army they've built up (MacGregor's fever dream of 400k casualties/100k KIA aside). And anecdotally, volunteers have been turned away. 2. But you'd think that with 1/5 of your land still under invasion from a much larger neighbour also threatening to exterminate your people, you'd want a bit more safety margin. 3. With a manpower pool of about 5 million men, say, half a million additional lads trained up to TD standard and ready to go, just in case? 4. I can't imagine the UKR wartime economy is offering scads of job opps right now... be keen to hear more about that as well. So even if they're not needed on the fronts, it might seem wise to get them organised, just in case? even as 'weekend warriors'? 5. Zelenskiyy 'canceled the fall draft' according to some recent reports, but I don't know what to make of that. As in, replaced it with something else? or doesn't need new recruits? Google search is drowning in the usual stuff about Russia's recruiting woes. What gives here? ***** ....This is from July-Aug, which is about an aeon ago in this war. https://www.npr.org/2022/08/15/1117605630/ukrainians-express-worries-over-conscription-following-russias-invasion https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/25/world/middleeast/ukraine-soldiers-recruitment-draft.html Cheers!

Pairing this thread with Mick Ryan's latest on the practicalities (for RU) of evacuating the Kherson bridgehead. Great synthesis here. We might expect the later stages of their withdrawal to be chaotic.

Come on, our Echo Chamber is the Best Echo Chamber! I suspect he meant bleaching, but wow, quite a segue there from nuclear Armageddon. Mind you, Lugnutz is totally in the mainstream for political press conferences these days.

MacGregor, for those who care. In the name of the 'Friends Don't Let Friends Echo Chamber'...

This stuff, I think? (Zoka is a pro-RU Serb who rage quits Twitter on occasion) Claimed to be from Soledar, north of Bakhmut: middle aged bougie Wagnerites getting into the TikTok scene? shooting up random stuff that doesn't shoot back. Including an (unmodified) T62 just rolling up and firing off a round randomly, without the TC even moving. Mainly interesting for the conditions: wet and muddy, fogs. Be advised: this guy posts months old footage, or UA material showing Russians getting blown up and claiming it's 'hohols'. He used to be a touch more selective but doesn't seem to care now. **** Also, didn't realise the Saheds are largely ineffective against (hard) military targets. Sound is eerie.

Amazed nobody has found these yet.....

A lot of that functionality is already built into the game; scenario designers just don't tap it that often unless they're representing historical engagements with elite or heroic named personnel. On the defects of NCOs in nonWestern armies, the root causes are fairly simple and universal: 1. Career NCOs are selected and promoted not for their MOS or command skills or ability to lead men in battle (if they DO have those skills, it's incidental); but rather 2. for their peacetime usefulness to senior officers: misappropriating military property, skimming draftees' pay, falsifying reports, general toadying, etc. Their base pay rates are virtually starvation wages (junior officers aren't much better off), so they simply have to graft to make ends meet. It's expected. Yes, the basic military jobs DO get done: there's only so much you can get away with before the higher ups start to look bad. But the shortcutting and inattention definitely show up in combat, with results we see now. That's pretty much true of all non-Western armies, including China, although the PLA command at least doesn't rent out its draftees as factory labour so much anymore, or so they claim. 'Good iron is not used to make nails, nor good men to make soldiers.' Soldiers in much of the world are viewed by the citizenry as little better than bandits; neither a source of pride nor security. That has been true for most of human history.

Floods their side, but also makes an assault crossing that much more problematic. And impacts on Kherson city would also be nonnegligible.

New long form interview with Kamil Galeev, for those (like me) who like him. Much of it is familiar to readers here. https://www.chinatalk.media/p/kamil-on-nukes-and-civil-war-in-russia?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=auto_share&r=r0yx Key points: 1. Russia’s nuclear status depends on the goodwill of the West.... the continuous import of hardware and software from developed countries. 2. Russia is not so much a nation-state as it is basically the last European colonial empire that wasn't decolonized. 3. in the beginning of this year, almost all armed people in Russia were included in formalized bureaucratic structures directly answerable to Moscow, now it's not really the case.... a number of regions, which I'm not going to specify, formed battalions, armed them, equipped them, and didn't send them anywhere.... These are not ethnic republics: they are regions perceived as ethnically majority-Russian. At this point it seems that some of these actors are basically preparing for chaos. 4. In this war, for the first time in Russian history, common soldiers are really being paid. In a small town, you could be earning 30,000 rubles per month, but on the front line you could easily earn 200,000 or 300,000 rubles.... Pskov, for example, is a really poor Russian region bordering Estonia that hosts VDV.... Some local girls married one VDV guy after another, because they're dying quickly enough that you can get several compensations in a few months. But in a sense it's a Ponzi scheme: the Russian government compensated lavishly the families of the first dozens of thousand killed in action, incentivizing the rest to comply with this mobilization, but it cannot continue indefinitely. I think those families that now are enthusiastic about their family members being sent into Ukraine are going to be cheated mostly.

[I notice the BFC forum is starting to chug on all the embedded tweets or sumfink (it doesn't reliably save 'draft' posts anymore). So I need to paste something, post it and then keep updating.] Conflicting reports: are they evacuating or reinforcing? Maybe both....

Wonder what the Austin narrative to Shoigu was? toss a nuke boys, and Crimea is 100% joining NATO.... 2. Meanwhile, on the RED team: We will need new unit animations for the new CM game, Charles! to go with the 'national characteristics' Steve is contemplating lol.... PS, these bungalows gotta provide units about *zero* in the way of hard cover.

From WarMonitor3

Ooh, are you being tempted by the long forbidden CM fruit of 'national characteristics' (aka ubermensching?) [EDIT: Ninjaed by @sburke!] One could argue that this kind of behaviour might be modeled more generically by having an option to give a unit a 'home zone' it would tend to retreat to / not leave unless its morale was shattered. Representing mission orders or simply that unit's assigned position.

Intriguing! Do you discuss this elsewhere on the boards?

Speaking of 'flipping' Can we empty out the vintage warbird museums in a good cause?

Yeah, this is one of these places where if I somehow had the time to do a CM map it would really aid understanding of what both sides are grappling with. It's nothing dramatic but just well chosen ground, defended by highly professional soldiers.

Sounds like Stalingrad: Commissar's House, Chemist's shop, etc. This last one is one for the future map files. Curious whether it is (or was) a wine shop or an actual winery: Chateau de Azovstal? This is the region's 'sun belt', so certain hardy grapes will grow there. Never seen vineyards though, in my various map perusings. I always thought of it as more a Sochi / Crimea thing. Topos, a week old. River, though tiny, looks like it makes these defences tough to flank or envelop. So Ivan needs to plough straight ahead along the streets.

OK, ya got us! A sinister cabal of Canucks has been pulling Steve's strings the entire life of this board. What, you actually still believe Vermont is a US state? ....And as for @BFCElvis? Ha! he's been our sock puppet all along. Just post an Eighties hit and that poor sap rolls right over.