Vanir Ausf B

Another great interview:
 

Warehouses and headquarters are destroyed, after which the Russian army gets a temporary knockout and the Ukrainian army has a window of opportunity to break through the Russian defense. After that, Russia withdraws warehouses and headquarters beyond the range of the new superweapon and a new expansion of the range of Ukrainian weapons is required.
If Ukraine, for example, receives ATACMS, the warehouses, headquarters and airfields will again be within the reach of Ukrainian troops, which will again sharply worsen the condition of Russian troops and again lead to defeat.
The days of glorious defeats of huge Russian columns are over, the war has changed a lot. Russia has shown the ability to adapt to new conditions. The only way for Ukraine to win this war is not to lose heart.
Whoever is able to take a hit gets a window of opportunity for success.

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/

I think you're nitpicking here. Any mechanical/digital system can be circumvented given time and/or money, so of course any security measures could, eventually with great cost, be nullified. The technical ability of Ukrainian engineers and scientists is well documented and accepted, they're clever and resourceful gits so I'm certain they could have done something eventually.
That wasn't the issue, it was the nasty warhead material itself. Ukraine had specialists sure, but it didn't have the comprehensive and integrated industrial, research and development architecture to maintain the warheads it had, keep their own country safe from accidents or make new ones, or store/get rid of the old material. Dismantling the damn things is insanely risky as it is.
Plus Chernobyl gave everyone the willies and if I remember correctly from my reading ( a long time ago), the fact of already having one nuclear accident to clean up helped with the argument against holding onto a decaying stockpile of actual warheads. Plus, lets face it - the corruption at the time was nutso, so holding onto extremely dangerous weapons-grade material was just inviting trouble down the line.

But... what if we like the strap?
 
 
giggity

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/

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/

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/

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/

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/

To pretend that the collective West faced an easy decision in 2014 is as absurd as pretending that the collective West handled it perfectly. It's also simply not true that Putin thought the West was a paper napkin, tiger or any other flimsy metaphor. Every step he took was correctly calculated until last February to approach the line that might trigger a strong US/EU response but not cross it. Then, quite obviously, he did. It's not *our* miscalculation that led to Russia invading Ukraine...it was Putin's. And it's worth noting...between Western actions and sanctions...Russia's geopolitical situation was *declining* steadily before he made the decision to invade. That's *why* he did it. 
 
 

I'm 66 and a cancer survivor. I still run 4 times a week, bike, and swim at the Y. Took a bit to get back to seriousness after chemo but feeling strong now. One thing they told me was that they see that people who are in good health and good shape have the fewest issues handling chemo. Gotta' say I'm glad I WAS in good shape because chemo was a b1tch. Don't recommend. Zero stars out of 5.
My wife is also a runner. She's 68 and looks like she's about 50. Our ultra running days are behind us but I can't stop running. 
Dave

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

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

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".
 
 

That has already been the case for a long time. Every tyrant in the world has seen what happened to Saddam Hussein and what hasn't happened to the the Kims. The fact that not everyone has nukes is due to some not needing them (because they get protection from others) and others can't afford them. Nukes make you untouchable, fact of life.

But "many" is not necessarily a majority (afaik German society is pretty evenly split on this), what the head of the defense committee thinks is in no way binding and it is also not up to the US government to decide. (The wording was also more like "we don't have any objections", support is a bit far fetched).
It isn't.
No. That is just your opinion. The West so far is not even committed to getting back all Ukrainian territory.
 
Well, Putin certainly can still make us all lose.

It is not in the least.
There is one very big caveat to this that everyone is glossing over- who is developing the targeting packages, and with what?
The risk of escalation is not so much weak-kneed western resolve it is trying to avoid direct acts of war between the US and Russia. Of course Ukraine can hit legitimate military targets in Russia, particularly if they are part of this “special military operation”.  And the nuclear escalation equation is also part of all this but the spin here is that the US is avoiding direct involvement in this war because then it turns the war into something else.
For the same reason the US is not conducting airstrikes, they are pretty cautious with their ISR data. So Ukraine get ATACMS or whatever - whose data are they using to hit the right targets in Russia?  If the UA fires blind they could wind up hitting a civilian neighbourhood, which is going to harm their cause - and I get the unfairness as Russia pound civilians in Ukraine but as we discussed before one warcrime does not justify retaliation warcrimes.  And there is the risk that a Google Earth long range fire hits something Russia does take seriously enough to escalate over.  
For those in the “Russia is full of crap on escalation, always” camp - ok Tex, what is the Russian red line then?  Would a NATO ground invasion of Russia set them off?  If you answer is “yes” - ok, let’s walk it back from that and in your professional opinion tell me when to stop. A direct strike on Russian political leadership?  A strike on Russias nuclear arsenal?
 If your answer is “no” - please leave for a bit because you are no longer part of a rational conversation.
Regardless, we are back to “where is the ISR coming from?”  If the US or any other western nation is developing targeting data or packages for direct strikes on another nation it is an act of war.  Imagine if Russia or China was a third party in a conflict and was providing targeting data into a western nation…ya, that. I am pretty sure the US ISR architecture is tying itself in knots to avoid being pulled into Russia right now.  If the UA can use their own ISR - and I suspect HUMINT is being employed - good on them and please don’t do something dumb. However, Ukraine is a free independent nation defending itself with its own resources.  The US developing data and packages on Russian targets, in Russia, is an escalation on our end - a pretty serious one. It definitely shift to strategic offence which is a pretty severe line to cross just because we will feel better.  Further, it may not shorten this war, it may lengthen it.
The single biggest fear in the west is that Russia will widen the conflict and directly strike out at a NATO nation.  Why? Because we would have to respond, NATO is too big to fail.  If Russia calls our bluff and we do directly respond the whole thing gets crazy fast. Now Putin has justification for broader escalation and that is a train we might not be able to get off.  Further it may split resolve in the western world - I am not sure how keen the rest of Europe is on dying for Ukraine. The evil truth is that Ukraine may be more important to Russia than it is to the West when we get into that sort of calculus…maybe.
The US president was pretty clear and I agree with him - the second this conflict widens into the western sphere, pulling NATO in, we are talking about WW3. And that will involve strategic nuclear escalation because it is all Russia really has left in the bag for a conflict of that scale.  We might get lucky and Russia blinks and someone shoots Putin in the head before it comes to it - but that is a hope, not a plan.

It is reported that Morocco is now providing spare parts to Ukraine for the T-72 per the United States.
So here is the interesting part about potential spots for a Ukrainian offensive. One, the urban Donbas is pretty nil. Two, Svatove is possible. But I think a offensive into Melitopol is most likely. Once you cut the land bridge, any transfer of Russian forces from Donbas to Crimea, or Crimea to Donbas will take a significant amount of time. Meanwhile, Ukraine will be able to transfer units with superior interior lines.
Russian air power, Russian artillery is the biggest issue right now, the continued supplies of anti air and counter battery artillery by the west attests to that. Remove Russian air power from striking at a Ukrainian mechanized push, and silence Russian artillery and we may see a gun run down to Melitopol.
I definitely think invading Crimea is possible, and more importantly, the ability to launch a offensive into Crimea will absolutely force Russia to juggle both defending the Donbas and Crimea via one very at risk bridge and a very long supply tail. That will open up new possibilities for Ukraine to choose where to push.
 

While parsing Telegram posts found small tactical tidbit about Wagnerite experience fighting at Bakhmut
 

Prince Heinrich XIII is 71 years old.
Who else is 71 years old?
Putin.
Coincidence? I think not.
 
And what about this number 13, the unlucky number?
How many letters in "Vladimir Putin"?

typical use of the BMP-1. As you can see, this type of military equipment is used as a self-propelled gun. The gunner conducts massive fire at a pre-targeted place

BRDMs are excellent reconnaissance assets, but they're divisional assets, not battalion ones. Their job would usually have been to scout ahead of the main body, confirm the route is still valid, bridges are intact and unmined, and to find approximate enemy position - essentially they're there to let you know that there are enemy forces somewhere on the map before you start, so for a red player in a cm context their work has typically already been completed.
Recce then is done throughout, but typically initiated by a mechanised infantry platoon, sometimes reinforced with a single tank. These are not dedicated recce assets, these are just guys from the battalion who are taking point.
In the Soviet context, you start with a centralised, top down plan. The entire battalion will have a single task, with perhaps three objectives - an initial objective, a further objective, and a line of further advance. Thinking of things in this structure forces you to always think of "what's next?", you always have an idea what you're doing afterwards, which helps to avoid being paralyzed with choices. Importantly, it also helps gain and maintain tempo (used in the chess sense of the word, of being some moves ahead of your opponent).
The problem with this kind of top-down structure is that it can be a big gamble. If you roll the dice on a single COA, then you can win big or lose, either way pretty quickly.
One of the methods to round out this dice roll is to echelon - have successive elements, where each element can set the conditions for the following, and each following element can adapt to the preceeding. These aren't "reserves", these are committed troops who are working towards the same goal, just not all at once.
The role of Soviet recce is then to set the conditions for the following element.
At game start, the divisional recce has let you know there are enemy somewhere on the map. The battalion recce (CRP) then have the role of finding specific lines of resistance and enemy locations.
Their job is to scout aggressively, take key terrain and find enemy positions. This is not necessarily "recon by death",  but it's fast, and it's risky, and the entire crp dying isn't a major problem, if that uncovers key information.
Recce will be both mounted and dismounted. You do want to survive long enough to report back information, but the important thing is that it's fast.
A winning state here is spotting the enemy, regardless of your losses. A losing state is if the CRP is wiped out and no information is gained on enemy disposition. This is why recce screens are so important for blue, and why a tank may be part of the recce force, to overmatch blue recce elements.
The following element to the CRP should be a combined arms company. This will be tanks, mech inf and artillery. A mech inf version would be a tank platoon, infantry company and one artillery battery.
This is a strong, capable force, but it's not the main effort just yet. This forward security element (FSE) will have the job of setting the conditions for the follow-on force.
If the CRP has died leaving no information (read: you are losing), then the FSE needs to take over the recce job. The FSE typically follows the same route as the CRP, but not always. If the CRP vanished, then the FSE needs to transition into a cautious, probing attack to gain the same information, for the main body.
In an ideal situation, the CRP has found the enemy, possibly with their face, and the FSE then can set the conditions for the main body. This FSE ideally creates a base of fire to fix the enemy, restricting their movement and controlling their possible responses. You cannot do this effectively without sufficient information, so the CRP sets conditions for the FSE, which sets conditions for the main body.
All the while, the FSE is also gaining information, and this all feeds into where the main body goes in.
That decision will likely be pre-planned, and there will be multiple COAs defined. One could be to attack along the same axis as the FSE, one could be to flank elements that the FSE is engaged with, or to attack in a completely different sector, since the FSE will be fixing the enemy somewhere else. Again,  all of these decisions will be based on the recce picture built up by the lead elements, but the tension here is that this is all *fast* - it's important to keep moving, keep pushing, and keep steps ahead of the enemy at all times.
 
In an ideal situation then:
Lead platoon finds enemy positions through any method they can.
Lead company then fixes these positions.
Main body then uses this recce and fixing to win the battle.
 
CMCW is most interesting in 1979/1980, since the later stuff ends up looking more like CMSF.
Thermals and any of the later kit make this a little harder, but they do not change the fundamental scheme or what the battalion has to do.
Relying on equipment to spot for you is nice, but ultimately dismounts with binoculars in good concealment are always going to be an invaluable asset, regardless of your time period or level of equipment.

The problem is that Ukraine, even if provided with ATACMS and whatnot,  hardly has a chance to seriously affect the RU missile campaign. Engels base in Saratov is 700km from UA eastern border, and even if they got some JASSM or similar system, RU can re-base their strategic bombers to Murmansk, or even freakin' Vladivostok without serious degradation to their ability to launch the strikes.
Now striking back at RU in eye for an eye manner, while certainly appealing and in my (non-Christian) opinion morally justified, wouldn't really achieve nothing except quenching the thirst for vengeance. No way Ukraine could launch a campaign significant enough to physically destroy RU warfighting capability. And anything less than that will just rally public support for the war in the RU civilian population, as proven by multiple historical analogies. It would also feed RU propaganda and could diminish the moral highground that UA currently occupies, which int turn could have really serious impact on the Western support, at least from some countries. IMO the best course of action for Ukraine is to just take it, shoot down as many missiles and rebuild as fast as possible, while kicking Russian *** on the ground.
I really have high hopes for the GLSDB though - it seems to have just enough range and destructive power to completely wreck RU rail GLOCs leading to Ukraine, forcing them to channel all rail traffic through Volgograd and Rostov, basically strangling them. It will put entire land-brigde in range, and after it's broken allow attacking the whole Crimea including the bridge and base in Sevastopol. IMO this is as much long range firepower as UA needs to wreck RU logistics beyond the point of usefulness and push them out of it's territory.
In the meantime, let's see how mobilized Russian masses do during the winter. IMO the endgame of all of this, apart from UA physically re-taking it's territory, is creating enough instability in Russia to force it to concentrate on internal problems (meaning threatening, or even toppling the regime) as more immediate and agreeing to humiliating peace - and achieving that should be done is as non-volatile way as possible, which unfortunately means the "boiling the frog slowly" approach.
In the meantime, B21 unveiling ceremony is taking place:
https://www.northropgrumman.com/what-we-do/air/b-21-raider/
 

This one right here is what I am not sure of.  So let’s take this war and transplant it to a fictional country but the Opposition are backed and supported by China.  Chinese ISR and smart weaponry, unmanned…the whole she bang.
We play our A-game and do Gulf War part deux all heavy and electrified.  So first things I like to think we would establish operational conditions but in a decade that is going to get harder and harder as counters to a lot of our systems continue to develop…because China.
But let’s just assume we do a better job of it in-country.  Well none of that solves for Chinese ISR outside the country and into space unless we really want to automatically widen the conflict - eg what would our reaction be if Russia started hitting western ISR assets outside Ukraine?
So what?  Our opponents in this proxy-Chinese country still have access to hi resolution multi-spectral ISR being fed to them in real time.  We, being the mighty west are 1) big, 2) hot and 3) hungry.  We are easily visible from space, our logistics tail is larger than the RAs in this war and we are more vulnerable to shortages because everything we have burns energy like nuts.  Our opponent may also very well start asymmetric hits outside their country that look a lot like Russian depots spontaneously exploding over the last 9 months as well.
Air power.  It is a fundamental assumption we have air supremacy in any war we will fight in the west.  To the point Canada abandoned air defence entirely as a capability.  Problem is that air superiority below 2000 feet is not a thing.  The RA is baking the air with EW and cannot keep UA UAS from seeing them and pooping HE on them.  If our opponent has cheap Chinese autonomous drone swarms with submunitions our multi-billion dollar air platforms are not going to matter.  And that is if we can even get those platforms into theatre.  SEAD is now every jerk with a MANPAD, which can hit up to 20+ thousand feet and is fed into all that Chinese ISR.
Indirect fires.  Last I checked, western hardware is allergic to MLRS as the Russians.  So if our opponent has highly dispersed but integrated deep precision strike capability they are hard to find, while we very definitely are not.  Our fuel and ammo is on trucks too and Chinese HIMARs hiding in a barn linked into persistent ISR we can’t do anything about is going to make us run out of gas…and we will do it faster do to consumption rates.
Anti-armor/vehicle.  So our opponent in this fictional war is armed with a whole bunch of Chinese Javelins and NLAWs etc.  Dispersed they can hit us at nearly 3kms, fire and forget.  They also have one-way loitering munitions…again all hooked into that ISR problem.  Our hot, heavy and concentrated heavy formations are going get hit effectively at really long ranges.  “Ah but we will have APS which will sweep those pesky ATGMs from the air”.  Ok, assuming they don’t do sub-munitions, decoys and a raft of work arounds, sure.  Next question: are we mounting APS on our entire logistics tail?  Because we are back to it getting seen and hammered.
Urban areas.  We have been extremely lucky that all our opponents (Iraq) were dumb enough to mostly meet us in the open.  An urban fight soaks up our western advantages really fast.  An opponent who has time to prepare and is set up to defend home urban areas is going to really hurt us badly…and we are also back to logistics support to that urban fight.  I have no idea what a modern or near future urban fight is going to look like with unmanned in the mix but “easier” does not spring to mind.
Now maybe we have counter UAS and drone swarms of our own.  Problem, our opponent is designed to fight dispersed…we are not.  A few unit types are set up for it, but the main are not designed to fight as light infantry.  In this little war our opponents are designed for this kind of work.  So we will have a steep learning curve and in war most learning is thru dying.
So what?  Well western superiority is challenged in this scenario, on more than one level.  Assuming we can get enough forces, and if we go the traditional route we are going to need a LOT of our forces, keeping them in the fight is going to be incredibly hard.  This will be sticking a steel gauntlet hand up to the shoulder in a beehive.  You would need to armor the entire length of the arm and you are still going to get stung badly as the bees get in behind things.
The cost is very high as casualties in this scenario are going to be a shock.  I am not sure we can even sustain let alone win urban combat.  As you note, the insurgency, if we make it that far, is going to make the last ones look adorable in comparison. The political calculus for this in the west makes my head swim.
In short, I see a side in this war that fights along the same approaches we do - and it isn’t the one that is winning.  “Ya but we will do a better job” makes me really nervous as I am not sure what “a better job” really looks like given some of these trends.  We may have stalled later.  We may have pulled it off with fewer casualties and taken ground faster but I am not sure terrain matters when there is an urban fight at the end of a rainbow and you are getting hit along the entire length of your operational system.  I like to think we could have isolated the country from its strategic support but that is not a sure thing either.  I would be willing to bet that even with the western powers in place of the RA the war would last longer and be far bloodier than anything we have seen since Korea.  To the point I am not convinced success is guaranteed if we continue to play be our current rule set.
In the west, in some circles, I am seeing echoes of the European powers as they observed the US Civil War - “interesting but of course we do things better”…which they believed right up to 1914.  If we are smart we will be op researching this thing to death and binning all our assumptions until they are confirmed or denied one way or the other.