Vanir Ausf B

Nice to see the "5 bar" off-road rating in Combat Mission is accurate.

Something to keep in mind is that Dyagilevo and Engels-2 air bases are well outside of ATACMS range.

Good thing Ukraine is developing alternatives to ATACMS. __________ The U.S. secretly modified the advanced Himars rocket launchers it gave Ukraine so they can’t be used to fire long-range missiles into Russia, U.S. officials said, a precaution the Biden administration says is necessary to reduce the risk of a wider war with Moscow. The U.S. has refrained from supplying Ukraine with long-range ATACMS missiles. But the modifications ensure that Ukraine couldn’t use the Himars launchers the U.S. has provided to fire ATACMS missiles if Kyiv were to acquire them from other sources, such as foreign nations that have purchased the weapons from the U.S. Nor could Ukraine use those launchers to fire other types of longer-range missiles if Kyiv somehow managed to produce or acquire them, officials say. __________ Probably paywalled, but... https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/u-s-altered-himars-rocket-launchers-to-keep-ukraine-from-firing-missiles-into-russia-11670214338

They expand on these numbers in the report. Despite the prominence of anti-tank guided weapons in the public narrative, Ukraine blunted Russia’s attempt to seize Kyiv using massed fires from two artillery brigades. The difference in numbers between Russian and Ukrainian artillery was not as significant at the beginning of the conflict, with just over a 2:1 advantage: 2,433 barrel artillery systems against 1,176; and 3,547 multiple-launch rocket systems against 1,680. Ukraine maintained artillery parity for the first month and a half and then began to run low on munitions so that, by June, the AFRF had a 10:1 advantage in volume of fire. Evidently, no country in NATO, other than the US, has sufficient initial weapons stocks for warfighting or the industrial capacity to sustain large scale operations.

It's a gold mine of information and lessons learned. Required reading. At the height of the fighting in Donbas, Russia was using more ammunition in two days than the entire British military has in stock. At Ukrainian rates of consumption, British stockpiles would potentially last a week. Of course, given that the UAF fielded more than 10 times as many operational artillery pieces as the British Army at the beginning of the conflict, it might take more than a week for the British Army to expend all its available ammunition. All this demonstrates, however, is that the British Army lacks the firepower to deliver the kind of blunting effect that the UAF achieved north of Kyiv. The oft-cited refrain of the UK Ministry of Defence that these deficiencies are not a problem because the UK fights alongside NATO allies would be more credible if the situation were much better among any of the UK’s European allies. It is not, except in Finland. Nor – as Ukrainian troops discovered to their surprise – are ammunition, charge bags and other essential consumables consistent between NATO artillery systems; there is an inadequate capacity to draw on one another’s stocks.

I would not have guessed this.

I was triggered. Because it reminded me that grenade launchers are still direct fire only in CM

On a similar note, an interesting interview with someone from the Russian side. __________ There is a thesis that the lion's share of drones used by soldiers are supplied by humanitarian orgs. Is that true? Many experts say that our military-industrial complex has "missed" small drones. Yes - the bulk of small UAVs are supplied by volunteers, including our org. The problem with the (quadcopter) drone is the fact that these are consumable products, and the life of a drone on the front line is very short - literally a few weeks from the first flight to its destruction. This is true even if the drone is piloted by a trained operator. And if the operator has not had the appropriate training, does not have relevant combat experience, then this is 1-2 sorties - and the drone will be lost. But at the same time, it is necessary to clearly understand the whole story with drones, and its not exactly true that our Armed Forces were not ready for the very appearance of this type of weapon. We are witnessing a unique situation - the first mass use of small drones in history. I agree that up to this point, small drones have been used in various military conflicts, for example, in Syria, Yemen, and during the military conflict of 2014-2022 in the Donbass. Our military-industrial complex periodically paid attention to this, but it either did not have resources, or did not have direct orders from the government (to mass produce small drones). As a result, our military-industrial complex was engaged in the production of heavier drones with a narrower specialization, such as Orlans, Zala Aero products and the like. They (Russian military drones) just have a different purpose, are more narrowly specialized, are more expensive and require a different attitude to their use. Do small drones exist in the US Army? No, they don't exist there in larger numbers either. Their (American) military-industrial complex missed this (drone) moment in the same way, and by and large, none of the modern armies of the world was ready for the Mavic phenomenon. To say that only we missed that is fundamentally wrong. The bottom line is that there was no such massive drone as the Mavic in any army, and not a single military even imagined that it would be needed in such volumes. To what extent has this war changed the idea of small drones - should we expect them to appear in all armies now? Speaking philosophically, this war has changed many views on the Armed Forces, not only in terms of drones, but also in terms of command and control. Flaws in the organization of communications, high-precision weapons became visible. I'll give you an example. For example, the American HIMARS themselves are rather mediocre multiple launch rocket systems, they don’t shoot well, they don’t hit so far, but when satellite-guided precision munitions are used in this system, it turns from mediocrity into a first-class tool for suppressing and destroying enemy rear lines. All this works when it can hit the given targets with high accuracy. We also have similar systems, like Uragan and Smerch, which have precision-guided munitions, satellite guidance, and so on. The problem is that the Americans, in addition to high-precision guidance, have a satellite reconnaissance complex. It allows real-time tracking of targets on the surface of the earth. We have the components of multi-domain integration, communications and control, but, unfortunately, the components of multi-spectral spatial reconnaissance have not been given due attention. We thought that the Americans were spending crazy money, sawing the budgets into some kind of meaningless toys. But we proudly open the 1980s ground force combat manual and everything is "fine" with us. But it turned out that these gadgets actually work. It suddenly became obvious that our army also needed them. This is also a matter of worldview. It is necessary that generations of officers, generals, those who promote military science, change their worldview in terms of applying new modern technologies. We need gadgets that allow us to increase the effectiveness of conventional weapons, the speed of information processing, and combat control. Old weapons that could no longer be upgraded and effectively used, once equipped with "gadgets", can be very effective. In this sense, the war made it possible to look at these approaches with different eyes, to show that those approaches that dominated military science and the military-industrial complex for decades turned out to be outdated and inappropriate. Now it is necessary to develop new solutions that will allow Russian Armed Forces, our military-industrial complex to come together, and to rethink the national security... ...I would advise you to pay attention to communications, because traditionally (I can’t say why) our army is always bad with them. Buying some kind of radio station, albeit an analog one, is probably helpful in this conflict. https://twitter.com/SamBendett/status/1595788630206849024

Years of playing CM have taught me that LOS through trees is less static than the LOS tool indicates. What trees in CM really seem to do is reduce spotting chances rather than prevent spotting altogether. When the tools says "no LOS" that is true at that moment but it could change at any time. I have had vehicles suddenly spot enemy vehicles through trees (and vice versa) when both vehicles have been stationary and out of LOS of each other (according to the target line) for several turns. You can't trust trees for concealment unless there are A LOT of them. It's kinda random and unpredictable but it's not a bug. __________ The game does make some gross generalizations about foliage in order for it to work. The big one is the same one that is pervasive throughout the game. Specifically that LOS is not pixel by pixel, millisecond by millisecond. There is no home computer on Earth that can do that and be a viable game. Which means the LOS is determined by more-or-less the same sort of rules that one expects to see in a paper and dice game. More sophisticated and nuanced, for sure, but inherently similar. The way it works is the LOS line is "degraded" as it is drawn from point to point. The more cumulative crap in the way the less strong the line becomes. The quality of the spotter, the less restrictions on view, etc. give the line a higher starting value than a LOS line drawn from a unit with negative factors. Some of the factors are specific (restrictions on range of view or height for example), others are general (optics of X type vs. eyeballs is the best example). Each piece of terrain has ratings which determine how much the line is degraded when it comes to that piece. At some point the line is so degraded that it is considered "blocked".

Stephen Biddle paints a target on his forehead. Fire away. __________ First, offensive maneuver is apparently far from dead. Even in the face of modern weapons, breakthrough is still possible, and especially so when astute offensive operations on interior lines pose dilemmas for thinly stretched defenses like those of the Russians in Kherson and Kharkiv since mid-summer. Those offensives would have been even more successful with improved Ukrainian training and equipment, but Ukraine’s ability to succeed with what they have is a powerful demonstration that offensive maneuver has not been rendered impossible by new technology. But second, while offensive breakthrough is still possible under the right conditions, it remains very hard to accomplish against deep, prepared defenses with adequate supplies and operational reserves behind them. This is not a novel feature of new technology — it is an enduring consequence of the post-1900 lethality of ever-evolving weapons that has been observed repeatedly over more than a century of combat experience. Exposed defenders are increasingly vulnerable to long-range weapons and sensors, but covered and concealed positions remain highly resistant to precision engagement. Shallow, forward defenses can be ruptured with well-organized combined arms attacks, but deep defenses with meaningful reserves behind them still pose much harder problems for attackers. Overextended positions without secure supply lines can be overwhelmed, but consolidated positions with viable logistical support are still much harder and more costly to overcome. Third, neither shallow, vulnerable defenses nor deep, robust ones are universal features of modern war. Both have occurred regularly since 1900, and both have occurred, at various times and places, in Ukraine since February. And this in turn casts doubt on the advisability of redesigning modern militaries around an assumption that new technology has made effective offensive maneuver either impossible or available on demand. Successful offense has long been very difficult, and it has normally required both demanding preparations and a permissive defender. But it offers decisive outcomes when conditions allow it, and such conditions recur with enough frequency to suggest that its demands are worth meeting. https://warontherocks.com/2022/11/ukraine-and-the-future-of-offensive-maneuver/

Short interview with a Ukrainian drone operator.

With all the talk about light forces being the future of warfare this video speaks volumes about what matters in the present.

That's interesting. We've heard very little about S-400s.

There is one: maneuver. APSs don't counter artillery directly, but by enabling movement without getting insta-gibbed by ATGMs you should theoretically be less vulnerable to indirect fires. That's the idea, at least.

Dunno. There's definitely a hole there.

That is not what happens when I click on the link.

Yes. It flows north to south.

Interesting that the Ukrainians appear to see or hear the drone in time to run away (EDIT: in the FH70 video)

The harder part is getting the pixeltruppen to properly utilize a moving object as cover, especially spread out as they are instead of glued to the rear of the tank.

Except the one in CMBS has much lower dispersion

I thought we already had default values for these things for each branch in CM2, e.g. the default values for US and Russian forces in Black Sea quick battles are markedly different, at least for Leadership and Experience (Equipment seems to always default to best).