Vanir Ausf B

Again, the no-fly zone argument. If the premise is that there is no downside to direct conflict all sorts of possibilities open up. Indeed one would then have to ask why not begin airstrikes on Russian forces immediately. That's where you'll end up eventually. Might as well cut to the chase.
But we had this discussion six months ago. No matter what you or I think of it's merits there is a zero point zero percent chance of it happening.

You can cut and paste the no-fly zone debate. Bottom line is that NATO is a collective action organization, i.e. a blockade would have to be agreed to by all member nations. There is no chance of that.

You can cut and paste the no-fly zone debate. Bottom line is that NATO is a collective action organization, i.e. a blockade would have to be agreed to by all member nations. There is no chance of that.

UKR BM "Bulat" (or last version of BM2 "Bulat") was hit in top turret with HEAT shell from enemy tank. "Nizh" ERA saved the tank - no penetration, but explosion of the shell and ERA inflicted next damages - HMG, commander's cupola (triplex broken), radio equipment (probably antenna was destroyed), wind sensor
 
 

Absolutely hilarious rant:
 

my yesterday's post about the BMP-3 but with English subtitles

Lucky UKR mortar crew. Probably 82 mm mortar shell hit very close, but only one wounded
 

Slight taken - and highly inaccurate assessment to boot.
First off we are not just talking about “electronics” we are talking about the entirety of Russian trade as the West won’t do business with Russia until some renormalization conditions post-war are met…right? Stuff like reparations payments and war crimes prosecution?  Looking at Europe pointedly here.
As for Canada, we do about .5 trillion dollars in trade with the US per year.  If that all walked over to China I am sure it would register as a “blip”.  The shift in oil and gas alone would likely freak everyone out even with the size of the US economy.
https://globaledge.msu.edu/countries/canada/tradestats
As for Russia, well the news is not great.  Russia sells about $221B in oil and gas per year, and only about $45B of that to China.  If Russia can only sell oil and gas to China due to sanctions and this war it will quadruple the amount of exports available to China and other “outside” markets.  China is not stupid and will take advantage of Russias position to secure cheap energy.
https://globaledge.msu.edu/countries/russia/tradestats
https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/exports/china
Now I am no business expert, but I am pretty sure pushing cheap energy in the direction of a competitor is never really the best outcome.  Now China has to access that energy, which will mean serious investment.  Or they could also buy the oil and gas companies in Russia and export the stuff back to Europe through loopholes.  I am sure there are very clever economics people who can hack the system here to ensure China comes out on top.
Point being is that Russia has the 11th largest economy on the planet and if it is pushed into Chinese orbit it will not exactly help the western cause.  Of course Russia will also be a social and political train wreck so making them China’s problem has a possible upside there.
I think LLF’s point is that the post-war geopolitical shift is going to have serious repercussions and we might want to put that in the old mental wheelhouses.

First off thanks to all those who have supported the Battlepack by purchasing it, and a shout out to those who have provided their support in the creation of this project – and a huge shout out to those who have freely given their feedback and additional support publicly via various means – online streaming vids, DARs, AARs and various forum posts etc, Its truly heartening to read and see these. 

It’s just as well, being Scottish, that we are renowned for being slow to anger and not prone to unprovoked outbursts. On a personal note a mahhoosive amount of work went into the battle pack, at my end. Work of which I am truly proud off. The lion’s share of research, mapmaking and AI plan stuff was devoted to the two campaigns and the Rakow and the Dying Sun scenario. These all involved painstakingly creating huge new maps from primary sources. Research turned up several ‘loose’ ends regarding accepted historical narrative and I’m as chuffed with these as the scenarios!

I digress… In short this sucked up a huge amount of time and I was also involved in several other projects (which I was keen to be involved in including CMFR and CMCW). Creating new content, AI plans etc for the Battlepack was a significant endeavour. So yup I used bits of various previous maps (which were my own creations and made available publicly) which I then significantly tweaked – mainly because I could not positively ID RL locations, or the fact is I thought the map – like Der Ring (which by the way took nearly a year to produce) to have a new life after some major tweaking. I’ve done this on previous game families with other maps. A few astute observers might have spotted them. 

But, and I should stress this, in the case of Der Ring it was heavily reworked and I created brand new AI plans (I had to as I’d chopped and reused bits) etc. So yes whilst some stuff is based on sections of der Ring they are more the offspring – rather than the map wearing a false wig and a pair of dodgy specs…

Re the rather offensive swipes about scamming, well,  re the master maps it’s pretty clear that as stated on the BFC website that they are “New maps based on maps from the Battle Pack missions”. 

Years back I used to be with a punk band – another life another story…. One of the bands (way more successful than we were) we did some gigs with, had their singer on one of their records state this quote, it was along the lines of – “Whatever you do they’ll slate you off and criticise you to the ground…” It’s stood me in good stead through life.
So aye happy to take the constructive knocks, but I’m less inclined to give credence tae whingers.
 

Volodymyr Yezhov "Fresh", one of creators of S.T.A.L.K.E.R game from UKR GSC Games company (also developed known RTS "Cossacks") was killed near Bakhmut. In that time, when Russia is grindering own crimimals we are losing many good creative people...
 

I'm back. Week ago Kyiv and Kyiv oblast were under heavy attack of Shakheds. More than 30 in one launch. Alas at least five could breakthrough and hit several important substations in Kyiv, so our quarter for three days had only five hours with a power supply,mostly at the night. First day we also hadn't a water and heating. Latter was repaired on second day after the strike and this was in time,because we had -5 at that night. 
In other days electricity appeared some more, but anyway mostly at the nights or at the morning for 2-3 hours. So, we had opportunity to cook something and charge our phones. Several times we heated food in large can with dry spiritus and kept it in heating bateries. We were very angry, when have seen other districts around us with a light at the evening, but our several quarters were almost in full darkness.
Special thanks to Kinophile and other for notebook - it has powerful battery, so it's using as powerbank too ) 
Without electricity all cell towers around were either dead or had  so big abonents load, that internet almost didn't work. Sometime I cought Starlink, deployed by Emergency Service, but it was too far and connection was unstable - about 1-2 minutes. Single place,where I can catch cell phone internet was subway and streets, having power supply. But I had too much work out of my workshop, so almost hadn't time to track   news thoroughly.
At last at weekend, maybe in honor of Christmass our quarter got almost 24hours power 
Damn, I have to read a week of forum )

You're full of Christmas cheer aren't you.  Der Ring der 5 Panzer you got for free in the first place as @George MCreleased that as a community scenario .  So let's say 30% is 'old content.'  Looks like you're owed $3.  Let me know where to send the money to or maybe we'll set up a crowdfund.

A good demonstration of the features of the use of tanks in the war in Ukraine. There are no bold attacks by tank columns. Instead, single vehicles are used for rapid shelling and subsequent retreat.
Also, this video perfectly demonstrates one of the main drawbacks of Soviet tanks - a slow reverse, which makes the tankers turn their backs.

Not just some Lady, Massicot is a smart one. Careful analyst. I don't think she was on the Kyiv Doomed bandwagon,  for example. 
Good link, thank you

from some lady tweeting from RAND, by way of /r/credibledefense, of the changes spoken about in MoD-Putin conference. Interesting premise, Russia might not reform the way at least most in the West would consider "correct". 
 
 
 
 

Insane clip. Soon helicopters could be equipped with mine plows, they fly so close to the ground anyway.

Just a bit... Since the Pumas won't be repaired until April '23, we will have to use Marders for our NATO obligations. Now you know why we don't give them to Ukraine.
If you needed to know how ****ed up the Bundeswehr is - now you do.

Well that is just a tad embarrassing...

So, you're not wrong, it would be great to have more control over artillery ammunition loads, and have a deeper artillery model in general. What's in CM is significantly better than most representations - it's broadly a good model for how things work - but that doesn't mean it's without fault.

I do think it's worth doing some numbers on this, however:
 
A BTG might typically be supported by a regiment of artillery - so three batteries of something long ranged, alongside it's own organic 120mm mortars. The supporting fires would typically be a mix of 152mm Howitzers and MLRS in the modern period, but since we don't have rocket artillery in CMBS we're left with the SPGs. 122mm howitzers would be more typical for Cold War, and these do exist in CMBS, but are being phased out.
2S19 is then the standard artillery piece for CMBS, either the base, M1 or M2 versions, which all have the same ammunition loads and similar characteristics.
They all carry:

180 Rounds HE
18 Rounds Precision
60 Rounds Smoke
Per battery. Maximum rate of fires differ, but their sustained rates are all 1 round per minute.

Medium fire missions are the lightest fire mission that actually maintains the sustained rate (after starting at a "medium" ROF, whatever precisely that means), so should be your default. and this works out in-game to a 152mm battery fire mission that lasts 16 minutes.

 
It's interesting to compare this to other close-support artillery historically, at a similar scale. During the Somme, 4th battalion, Duke of Wellington's Regiment was part of an attack that had a supporting fires plan in two phases, one to support the trench they were assaulting, and one to suppress the trench behind that, to fix any supporting assets. This first phase was a three minute bombardment, and the second was an eight minute bombardment. And this was the Somme.

As a rule of thumb, you essentially need artillery as an enabler to do anything, or at least to do anything properly. Part of the reason for the three-battery approach is that a BTG should be able to take on three sequential objectives in the space of a CM battlefield, and as such each of those moves should be supported by an artillery battery, whether that battery is providing suppressive fires, denying fires, obscuring fires or actually destroying things.

These tasks should be pre-planned, either literally with the interface, by laying down TRPs on the needed areas, or just giving yourself enough time in the plan to wriggle an FO forward safely and call in fires. "pre-planned" doesn't have to mean "fixed" - those three objectives might actually be marked with five TRPs: 1, 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b, with branching paths and flexibility as to how they're used.
 
So... yes. Whilst it should be possible to stockpile more ammunition beside the vehicles, the hand-waved explanation is that SPGs have to remain mobile, so can only carry what they actually have with them, particularly in the context of CMBS which is a significantly more mobile and high-tempo operation than actual-Ukraine has turned out to be.

In general though, 3+1 batteries of the stuff is doctrinally correct, and usually gives a good representation of what this should actually look like.

 

Keeping the nukes was not a realistic option for Ukraine.
__________
Ukraine never had the ability to launch those missiles or to use those warheads. The security measures against unauthorized use were under Moscow’s control. The Ukrainians might have found ways around those security measures, or they might not have. Removing the warheads and physically taking them apart to repurpose them would be dangerous, and Ukraine did not have the facilities for doing that. Nor did Ukraine have the facilities to maintain those warheads. For only one example, the tritium in those warheads has a 12-year half-life and needs to be replaced regularly.
Ukraine did not have the technical infrastructure to maintain a nuclear arsenal. It would have had to spend billions to build that infrastructure.
__________
https://nucleardiner.wordpress.com/2022/02/06/could-ukraine-have-retained-soviet-nuclear-weapons/

He sends me emails urging me to collect a very large amount of money, if I just follow a few simple steps. Credible?

Keeping the nukes was not a realistic option for Ukraine.
__________
Ukraine never had the ability to launch those missiles or to use those warheads. The security measures against unauthorized use were under Moscow’s control. The Ukrainians might have found ways around those security measures, or they might not have. Removing the warheads and physically taking them apart to repurpose them would be dangerous, and Ukraine did not have the facilities for doing that. Nor did Ukraine have the facilities to maintain those warheads. For only one example, the tritium in those warheads has a 12-year half-life and needs to be replaced regularly.
Ukraine did not have the technical infrastructure to maintain a nuclear arsenal. It would have had to spend billions to build that infrastructure.
__________
https://nucleardiner.wordpress.com/2022/02/06/could-ukraine-have-retained-soviet-nuclear-weapons/

Regarding the "death of the tank", I'm just listening to a Twitter room with general Jarosław Gromadziński, who used to be a commander of 18th Mechanized Division (one that is being rearmed with M1s), and now is vice-chief of Ukraine Defence Contact Group. You might assume that he knows a thing or two about tanks, and how these work in UA from sources other than accessible to us. And his points are:
- war in Ukraine proved that the tanks is anything but dead, in fact tanks are indispensible and form a core of any serious action
- the tactics of tank usage have changed and times of whole battalions rolling through an open field are definitely over, but there's no offensive operations without tanks
- regarding Polish army adaptation of K2, he favors the "light" for the future K2PL, sacrificing some (side) armour for mobility
- hard-kill APS is a must and non-negotiable going forward
The whole discussion was about something else and these points weren't argued for, but he treated them as axioms when answering other questions.
Edit: 
He made an interesting indiscretion - according to him, there's more than 600 NATO-caliber artillery pieces in Ukraine at the moment. That is way more that I thought, I was placing the number at ~400.

It was hard to maintain and upgrade due to lack of spare parts and other issues with industrial cooperation between PL and DE. Without getting into too much details, it seems that both parties are to blame for it, to various degree, but in the end the main reason for Poland choosing M1 was political not technical.

And this is good, too:
https://www.economist.com/syrsky-interview