Wicky

Actually the bone was going to be an announcement of a game about the US invading North Korea but they decided not to do so at this time.

pnzrldr,
 
Great battle coverage, engrossingly written and quite disturbing at times. What I want to know is when Bil's AFVs start exploding en masse? The slaughter of your force is becoming rather dreary, though it's doubtless worse for you. Russian thermal sights are, I think, winning the battle for him. They provide an enormous acquisition and targeting  advantage over the Ukrainians, one Bil's using to telling effect. Thank heavens the Russians didn't have this tech during the Cold War. Could've been disastrous had war come. Are IR-suppressing ghillie suits in the game? Seems to me they're desperately needed. Don't know whether you've ever encountered one of these (starting 2:00), nor do I know what it does to IR emissions, but it looks real to me, makes tactical sense, builds on known US work (not the misdirect in the front end of the video, which presents it as a possibility) and has been confirmed to me as real by a retired four star (who still is operationally involved on several fronts), one of my contacts. Also, YT has suppressed this vid, was only the combat footage, at least once already, on an unsupportable pretext.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zKQe-1BUFQ&spfreload=10
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

akd,

The problem was that Gen One ERA turned even a T-55 into a big problem, especially if it had the Kladivo radical upgrade for the T-55 I discussed in the Russian and Ukrainian weapon thread. Gen One ERA alone effectively nullified much of NATO's antiarmor capability, and thereafter it would've gotten worse. The nastiest ERA configurations would've been on the Sunday punch best tanks held in the Western Military District and Carpathian Military District under strict secrecy and far away from prying eyes, waiting for a disrupted defense to drive home the Tank Armies and win the war. Meanwhile, the ignorant would naively presume that what the GSFG had in its sheds was the worst threat to be faced. Nyet! I remember quite well reading with horror in Armed Forces Journal International about the Russians stacking ERA to defeat even precursor charges. At the time, TOW-2A was the best we had in the TOW family. Consequently, TOW-2B was created because smashing through the ERA was simply not viable anymore. While you blithely dismiss the M829 problem, the fact is the XM829 "silver bullet" of ODS fame was already characterized and countered before the round could even be standardized. Indeed, the CIA briefing I attended in 1985 directly addressed the issue of ERA with moving plates which defeated HEAT and long rod penetrators. The latter was accomplished by generating shear loads the projectiles simply couldn't handle. Not to mention the Russians had DU the fielded two years before us and that lots of other nastiness--Krasnopol, laser-guided Grad, laser-guided lots of stuff, Granit SFW and more--were also in service. They could kill our HAS with air-delivered 240 mm rockets and several types of guided munitions, while all we could do was jam the massively protected hangarettes' heavy doors. No I-2000 then! They had rocket-boosted runway busters deployed en masse, while we were trying to get Durandal from France. Thanks to hexagon standard sections, they could fix bomb cratered runways at rates which were embarrassing to us, and they were far less dependent on them in the first place. The MiG-27/D ground attack aircraft had specially shields to keep the dirt out of the intakes and had rough field landing gear.The MiG-29 had sealable primary intakes and secondary topside intake slots, allowing it to ignore FOD as an engine hazard altogether. To operate our birds, we needed a minimum clear stretch 5000' long and 50' wide. A meticulously clean swept down stretch at that. This was for tactical aircraft only and with light loads. I know, because i spent many weeks investigating the rapid runway repair issue, to the point where I practically dreamt about it. In closing, I'd note that in Hackett's Third World War August 1985, as originally written, NATO lost. HM the Queen personally intervened before publication, turning the book into a "We barely scraped through and urgently need to fix, well, everything" clarion call to action.

dan/california,

I don't know what you're talking about. Please explain. Did I miss something?

Regards,

John Kettler

From time to time I go rooting around in the CIA's FOIA Electronic Reading Room. Here is a link to a now declassified 1980 SECRET article in the classified CIA quarterly Studies in Intelligence. Written in Summer 1980 by then MG Paul Gorman of the US Army, this speaks directly to how dire our situation was then and what the IC (Intelligence Community) could do to help deal with a crisis which had already influenced multi-billion dollar decisions regarding TOW, XM-1 and tank ammo programs. When this was written, neither the M60A3 "Starship" nor the XM-1 had entered service and things were looking grim indeed.
 
US INTELLIGENCE AND SOVIET ARMOR
 
http://www.foia.cia.gov/document/0000624298
 
Starting on p. 22, there is a series of charts which I saw in one of the UNCLASSIFIED FMs circa early-mid 1980s at Hughes. The charts summarize a whole series of technological and performance improvements, comparing them to both a US tank (Sherman 76 mm) in WW II and Korea (Pershing). In WW II, it took 13 rounds, from a standing tank to a standing tank at 1500 meters, to obtain a 50% chance of a hit.  By Korea, that dropped to 3 rounds. By the mid 1970s, it was only 1. 
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

With the first major snowfall in the Northeast US, I felt compelled to share the Winter Wonder with my Panthers and StuH 42s.

Yule Party in the Town Center in 15 turns !


Assuming we don't all get Bogged first

With the police all over the news and being seen in a generally unfavorable light, I thought the Forumites might enjoy seeing this. Really got to me--in all the right ways! See how you feel. Vid is from ABC News feature called "On the Road."
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

pnzrldr,
 
I'm glad you found my comments helpful. What is RW ATK, please? Am quite confused on CM game engine issue. My understanding was that we first had CMx1 (then revolutionary, now old engine) for CMBO, CMBB and CMAK. After that came the new engine, CMx2, which got off to a very rocky start in CMSF, then went into CMBN and CMFI. Whereupon we eventually got CMx3 in CMRT. We now have retrofit options to put CMx3 for CMBN and CMFI. I thought CMx3 was supposed to be the carefully thought through basis for many games to come, one with the flexibility to properly model conflict spanning at least WW II-Near Future? Now you tell me, though, we can't do what we the gamers were told was doable, until CMx4, yet another engine, is brought forth well down the road. How is it that we wound up still so short of the mark when it comes to depicting modern warfare? What am I missing here, please?
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

HUSKER2142,
 
Welcome aboard!
 
That is most interesting and useful information about Russian NV gear and weapon optics you provided. Would you please tell us where you got it, since it's obviously some online source.
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

Wait, what's this?  It can't be!!  But it seems it is!  My very public sources are indicating Obama not only did not veto the Sanctions bill, he signed it!!!  Gasp!!!!
 
 
http://news.yahoo.com/obama-signs-russia-sanctions-bill-says-no-penalties-200956484.html
 
 
President Barack Obama said on Thursday he had signed into law a new Russian sanctions bill passed by Congress but did not intend to impose further sanctions against Moscow for now.

The Teacher,

I find your maniacal cackling to be distracting. Please confine expressions of evil glee to rubbing your hands together vigorously! I congratulate you on putting together such a clever tactical situation. To my mind, it treads new ground in terms of originality.

c3k,

Coming from you and your oft expressed sanguinary views, I feel as though I've suddenly entered the "Twilight Zone"™ and find my brain is melting. Which is bad, since I need the what's left of it currently on hand. Do you really believe that with gunnery accuracies while shooting on the move that exceed most Cold War static firing accuracies, terrifyingly accurate, presumably responsive support support fires, ERA, APS and more that this crowd is suddenly going to become a collection of Bil Hardenbergers scrutinizing the map with greater concentration than a Zen archer? Somehow, I doubt it. Will some follow that model? Certainly, but I think we'll see a lot of freewheeling maneuver, of gun while run, but I fervently hope it doesn't start to produce WoT type ridiculous visuals. Neither Bil nor pnzrldr is acting with abandon, yet the havoc is already considerable--with combat barely begun. When they really get cranking I expect we'll see a lot of flaming wrecks in very short order. Of course, there won't be enough to satisfy your bottomless need for blood (which rivals zombies' hunger for brains), but it should cause others to quail a bit and turn bilious green. And if those two create carnage while playing prudently, imagine what happens when the mere mortals have at it!

Regards,

John Kettler

Probably not helped by Steve Job's memorial in St Peterburg getting dismantled after current CEO Tim Cook came out as gay.
 
“In Russia, gay propaganda and other sexual perversions among minors are prohibited by law,” a statement issued by ZEFS reads.
The memorial, it continued, was “in an area of direct access for young students and scholars”.
 

 

ChrisND showed off some Black Sea footage Live today and posted it on Youtube, so I thought I would make sure everyone gets to see it!



Enjoy!

ChrisND,
 
I've looked all over, to include my Profile (what's up with the bizarre Reputation rating?), but I can't find a way to get to my PMs, which are now just north of the 90% mark and require some action by me. It used to be trivial to get to them, but I'm baffled. Am I simply not noticing an icon, or what? Goodness knows I've looked.
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

I just noted a something that could be unintended and/or maybe a future problem: Wehn you go to User CP->profile customization->background it allows you to upload images of unlimited size. I just uploaded a 1,6 MB image. I am not sure but couldnt this be used by an attacker in a DoS attack? Choose a 500GB file, click 'upload' and block all traffic.The lack of a limited for the size of an expendable background image also strikes me as odd given that the maximum attachment size is 500kb. I 'd rather have unlimted attachment size but a 500kb limited for my profile background.