Vanir Ausf B

As someone with off-road driving experience in 4-wheel drive vehicles and motorcycles, IMO driving over any unmodified terrain involves an element of risk. Dry grass and dirt tiles should not be treated essentially the same as roads, which they were prior to the bogging changes mentioned above. Given the lack of real world data, reasonable people can disagree on how much difference, but the bottom line from my point of view is that roads are not there to be used only when it rains.

2.9 killed/wounded ratio. Interesting that refuseniks outnumber casualties, by a lot.

Of course it's not. If you follow the Twitter link the time stamp for the second video is September 15th.

More like a rat. In a series of interviews published as a quasi-autobiography during his rise to power two decades ago, Putin recalled chasing big rodents with a stick around his dismal, communal apartment building in St. Petersburg, then known as Leningrad: “There, on that stair landing, I got a quick and lasting lesson in the meaning of the word ‘cornered.’ There were hordes of rats in the front entryway. My friends and I used to chase them around with sticks. Once I spotted a huge rat and pursued it down the hall until I drove it into a corner. It had nowhere to run. Suddenly it lashed around and threw itself at me. I was surprised and frightened. Now the rat was chasing me. It jumped across the landing and down the stairs. Luckily, I was a little faster and I managed to slam the door on its nose.” https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7dxax/the-new-russia-anxiety-what-putin-might-do-if-he-feels-cornered

Agreed.

A couple of interesting tidbits from the Donbas. _______ Ukrainian soldiers near the front say that Wagner’s ranks are bolstered by prison inmates from the separatist regions who were drafted into service. One Ukrainian soldier, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for security reasons, said Wagner’s forces attack only so far before sending inmates with little support forward to face Ukrainian guns like “cannon fodder.” These tactics have left Ukrainian forces in the region with a flood of prisoners as the inmates frequently surrender. Another soldier, who also spoke anonymously, said Russian forces would not trade captured Ukrainian forces for inmates: the onetime Russian prisoners, now Ukrainian prisoners, are seen as deserters. ... Ukrainian commanders in Bakhmut said recently that even the presence of U.S.-supplied rocket systems, known as HIMARS, have failed to put much of a dent in the Russian supply chain. That’s a marked change from Ukrainian commanders’ accounts over the summer when the weapons first arrived — suggesting that Russia had adapted to the strikes by better dispersing its ammunition stockpiles. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/world/europe/ukraine-donbas-russia-lyman-bakhmut.html

Well, BFC has not done a bug fixing patch (aside from PBEM++ issues) in a long time, so we can write reports until our fingers bleed and it doesn't matter until they do. As someone who also plays the game for fun I share your frustration, but I have faith it will happen. Eventually

The bug report did note that "all" M2 .50 machine guns in the game were affected. So the issue was accurately reported even if not every affected unit was listed by name. Then you'll be happy to know that aside from getting a free copy of the game to test we are not paid anything for finding/reporting bugs.

A T-90M sighting.

Sounds more like an excuse than a reason. Ukraine has already been given systems they can't maintain themselves.

Know why I rarely post here? Bright red text. You've been here as long as I have, which means you have survived far worse than this kerfuffle

Lengthy thread by Shashank Joshi interviewing unnamed "Western official". https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1570029079704866816 UA "far more inventive and experimental...it's much more mission command and ...devolved activity taking place that shortens decision-making cycles and allows for greater responsiveness on the battlefield. RA "for some decisions, are still reverting all the way back to Moscow. And back to the front line, which speaks to a lack of agility." 20,000 Russians on the Dnieper right bank "in strict military terms" the Russian retreat in the east is more of a withdrawal than a collapse. Doubles down on the 20,000 Russian KIA number, "we've got some confidence in these figures"

Ukraine is asking for more tanks, specifically from Germany. Predictably, the answer so far is "nein". WaPo (probably paywalled) https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/13/ukraine-tanks-russia-germany-offensive/

wrong thread

Not impossible, but pretty extreme by historical standards.

That's a fair assessment, but it circles back to the question of how believable the 50k number is. 50k at 20% loss rate means a million Russians cycling through Ukraine in 6 months. That is why I have been skeptical of the 40-50k Russian KIA numbers.

Well, yeah I remember Girkin predicting last spring that Russia could raise a few "tens of thousands" of volunteers that would get swamped by the Ukrainian horde of millions. I'm sure he was spitballing, but still. I don't know what the number is but several hundred thousand would surprise me.

I can't escape the feeling that some of the "lessons" we are seeing are artifacts of this war's peculiarities and may not be transferable to other conflicts, even near-peer. Is it that mass doesn't work or is it that you can't mass without denuding vast swaths of frontage, as the Russians are discovering to their chagrin. One can hope

I'm not sure where the 250,000 number comes from. The numbers I have seen are more like 140,000, or maybe 190,000 if you include DPR/LNR and Rosgvardiya. That would be 300% turnover if we're excluding DPR/LNR. I just don't see where they got that many replacements.

I keep thinking about the video posted yesterday of the Humvee leading an assault on a village, .50 cal blazing and AT4s popping off. This is exactly what tanks were designed for. Have the Ukrainians discovered that light vehicles are just as good or are they making do with what they have because tanks can't be everywhere?

500,000 seems improbable to me. Unless the Russian "stealth mobilization" has been far more successful than we thought. RE: Tanks Ukraine has about 5 armored brigades to cover a frontage of somewhere around 1800-2000 km. I think this is why we see tanks penny-packeted in company-size units and also why we are seeing wheeled vehicles used in assaults. It's not so much a deliberate decision to avoid mass as it is a condition imposed by this war. At least that's my guess

I'd love to learn more about what the Gepards are doing. Because prior to this article the last we heard was that the ammunition painstakingly sourced from Norway didn't work.

Ouch