TheVulture

The other important point is that modelling in general (thinking in terms of scientific modelling as a whole, rather than anything military specific) is often not about "predicting the future" in the sense that most people think of it. More often, i is about seeing how outcomes change with changing assumptions and input conditions.
You might find that parameter A barely matters at all - you can change it by a factor of 10 and it makes 1% difference to the outcome. So for parameter  A, don't waste too much time trying to evaluate it precisely. While parameter B might have a large effect on the outcome for relatively small changes, which means that your prediction is only as good as your ability to measure B accurately (and tells you that you need to know all of its interactions very precisely). 
So often it isn't about predicting the future, it is about determining which the critical parameters are in your model, and what information you therefore need to be able to find out in order to make any kind of relevant prediction at all. It is about identifying the critical factors and understanding how they interact with each other.
We've all seen factors in this war that probably wasn't in many military models before, or were only just starting to be appreciated. The willingness of Russian troops to abandon important equipment. The ability of light infantry with modern ATGMs to be able to hit high value targets. The use of drones in reconnaisance, fire control and as weapon systems. Crowd-sourcing intelligence from a friendly population. Modelling can (hopefully) be used to figure out how important each of these are and how they interact with each other.

The other important point is that modelling in general (thinking in terms of scientific modelling as a whole, rather than anything military specific) is often not about "predicting the future" in the sense that most people think of it. More often, i is about seeing how outcomes change with changing assumptions and input conditions.
You might find that parameter A barely matters at all - you can change it by a factor of 10 and it makes 1% difference to the outcome. So for parameter  A, don't waste too much time trying to evaluate it precisely. While parameter B might have a large effect on the outcome for relatively small changes, which means that your prediction is only as good as your ability to measure B accurately (and tells you that you need to know all of its interactions very precisely). 
So often it isn't about predicting the future, it is about determining which the critical parameters are in your model, and what information you therefore need to be able to find out in order to make any kind of relevant prediction at all. It is about identifying the critical factors and understanding how they interact with each other.
We've all seen factors in this war that probably wasn't in many military models before, or were only just starting to be appreciated. The willingness of Russian troops to abandon important equipment. The ability of light infantry with modern ATGMs to be able to hit high value targets. The use of drones in reconnaisance, fire control and as weapon systems. Crowd-sourcing intelligence from a friendly population. Modelling can (hopefully) be used to figure out how important each of these are and how they interact with each other.

I think there's also a political component to what the MoD puts out. The goal right now is to rally countries to put as much diplomatic pressure on Russia as possible, and so they are not interested in saying "The Russian Army is pretty much beaten at this point".

This is wrong photo. If this not our PsyOps operation, Russian tank driver brought to us T-72A. Knowingly, Russians use robbed cell phoes, so our ELINT units of SBU or Intelligence Directorate are sending on this cell.numbers SMS with a terms of surrender. As if one Russian tank driver communicated with Ukraianian side and told he is ready to surrender with own tank. As if other two crewmens alredy deserted, their unit have lack of food, chaotic command&control etc. Their commander threat to all other to shot out if anybody else will deserted.
Our SOF gave to him a place of rendezvous and when the tank appeared, the drone was took off to make shure this is not ambush. The tanker was captured and brought to safe place. Russian trooper reportedly will be interned to the end of war in comfort room with bath and TV. After war will over, he will receive 10 000$ of award for tank and he can apply for Ukraianian citizenship. 
Here the photo of catpturing. 
 

Anyone want to bet that after the war, some people in Russia will point to the absence of young men in LDNR as "evidence" that they were right about Ukraine committing genocide? 

Specially made medals for each city? Sounds like Russian war preparations and logistics were concentrating on the important stuff then.

Specially made medals for each city? Sounds like Russian war preparations and logistics were concentrating on the important stuff then.

It's from 11 days ago, so it's probably relatively safe. Although it might let the Russians know where some of their units are that they lost contact with
 

UKR soldiers destroyed Russian command center and seized situation maps for 10th of March in Kherson - Mykolaiv direction. Probably this happened around this data and was allowed to issue just now.


 
From the map Russian OOB here is next:
- 49 CAA (Southern Miliatary district, Stavropol)
---- 2 x BTG of 205th motor-rifle brigade
--- 2 x BTG of 34th motor-rifle brigade (mouyntain)
--- 2 x BTG of 108th air-assault regiment
--- 10th Spetsnaz brigade
--- 1st missile brigade
--- 90th SAM brigade
--- 227th artillery brigade
--- 66th control brigade
--- 32nd engineer-sapper regiment
--- 17th NBC-protection regiment
--- 512th separeate EW battalion
 
- 22nd Army Corps (Crimea)
--- 126th Coastal defense brigade (with 8th artillery regiment, 1096th SAM regiment)
--- 20th motor-rifle division (33th, 255th motor-rifle regiments, 944 SP-artillery regiment, 358th SAM regiment )
--- 127th separate recon brigade (recon batatlion + ELINT/EW battalion)
--- 11th air-assault brigade
--- 25th Spetsnaz regiment
--- 291st artillery brigade
--- 439th reactive artilelry brigade
--- 20th SAM regiment
--- 11th engineer brigade
--- 4th NBC-protection regiment
 
VDV forces of 7th air-assault division (mountain)
--- 2 x BTG of 56th air-assaulr regiment
--- 2 x BTG of 247th air-assault regiment
--- 1141st artilelry regiment
 
 

Actually there is one area where CMBS  might be overmodelling the Russians in a way that players can't do much about: ERA and active defense systems. The t-90s and upgraded t-72s in CMBS tend to come fully stocked with ERA packs and Shtora. On the evidence of what we've seen in Ukraine so far, they are significantly lacking in ERA coverage, particularly on the hull sides. Tanks in Ukraine seem rather more vulnerable to infantry AT weapons (aside from the Javelin) than the in-game counterparts. At least when it's my guys committing suicide by using their AT-4s to achieve nothing but drawing fire.
On the other hand, it's hard to say how much of that is selection bias. By definition, the ones we see photos and videos of are the ones that have been successfully knocked out, not the ones where someone missed, where a hit didn't penetrate, or where ERA was present and worked,

I think it is because Putin its assuming that everyone is operating in the same world view that he has. Countries "applied to join" the Warsaw Pact because Russia had a strategic military use for them, combined with an ability to force them. I suspect he genuinely believes that e.g. the baltic states had pro-western governments put in and then instructed to ask to join NATO so that NATO could expand. In this world view the governments of 'minor'  countries are chosen by the covert decisions of the 'major' ones, and the idea of being responsive to the wants and needs of the population doesn't come up. 
In this world view, since the givens government of Ukraine wasn't chosen by Russia, then of course it was imposed and forcefully maintained by the west.  And the west have no legitimate military strategic interests in Ukraine unless their goal is to be able to threaten Russia.
The Western view of course is that countries get to choose their own governments,  and that countries can freely decide to join a security alliance (if they meet the entry conditions), and that this is a good thing because ultimately mutual defence reduces the chance of wars and leads to rising prosperity for all. 
As an aside,  Putin also has the "American disease" of assuming everything is about Russia, in the same way that Americans think that everything is about America ("why did Russia invade now? Let's look at what has changed in the USA recently to see what has caused this..." Ukraine might will view NATO membership as directly related to Russia, for obvious and entirely valid reasons,  but for the west,  Ukraine joining NATO isn't really about Russia. I'ts about extending the "peace bubble" to protect the lives and enhance the wellbeing of everyone inside it. 
But that's not something Putin would do,  so it's not something that he believes anyone else does either. 

I think it is because Putin its assuming that everyone is operating in the same world view that he has. Countries "applied to join" the Warsaw Pact because Russia had a strategic military use for them, combined with an ability to force them. I suspect he genuinely believes that e.g. the baltic states had pro-western governments put in and then instructed to ask to join NATO so that NATO could expand. In this world view the governments of 'minor'  countries are chosen by the covert decisions of the 'major' ones, and the idea of being responsive to the wants and needs of the population doesn't come up. 
In this world view, since the givens government of Ukraine wasn't chosen by Russia, then of course it was imposed and forcefully maintained by the west.  And the west have no legitimate military strategic interests in Ukraine unless their goal is to be able to threaten Russia.
The Western view of course is that countries get to choose their own governments,  and that countries can freely decide to join a security alliance (if they meet the entry conditions), and that this is a good thing because ultimately mutual defence reduces the chance of wars and leads to rising prosperity for all. 
As an aside,  Putin also has the "American disease" of assuming everything is about Russia, in the same way that Americans think that everything is about America ("why did Russia invade now? Let's look at what has changed in the USA recently to see what has caused this..." Ukraine might will view NATO membership as directly related to Russia, for obvious and entirely valid reasons,  but for the west,  Ukraine joining NATO isn't really about Russia. I'ts about extending the "peace bubble" to protect the lives and enhance the wellbeing of everyone inside it. 
But that's not something Putin would do,  so it's not something that he believes anyone else does either. 

Update on the mystery Croatian Tu-141 drone crash from the Wikipedia summary
 

If it was a Soviet era nuclear storage facility then I'm imagining that it was more of an underground heavily strengthened stockpile than a warehouse l

Low speed can be a problem for some systems. There is a real world anti-missile tactic of pilots called "going in to the notch" or "notching a missile", which basically involves turning to move at 90 degrees to the incoming missile and descending. This doesn't work against IR tracking missiles, but can be effective against radar tracked ones.
The reason this works (when it does) is because radar needs to filter out all of the crap in its field of view to decide which bit is the plane. One component of this is "Doppler filtering". This uses the Doppler effect, which is sensitive to the component of the objects speed along the line of sight. The idea is that all of the ground clutter (which is at a variety of distances, and so hard to filter on that basis) is all moving at the same speed relative to the plane (i.e. the ground is stationary). So everything that is moving at the same speed as the ground is filtered out, which in theory just leaves you the fast moving aircraft.
Except if the aircraft happens to be flying exactly across your line of sight, with no speed (relative to the ground) towards or away from you, when it also has the same Doppler speed as the background and gets filtered out, which makes it vanish as far as the tracking is concerned.
The reason to descend while doing this is so that the missile tracking you is above you, so that you are in front of the ground from its point of view. If you are above the missile, then the background to your aircraft is the sky, and that's not giving any Doppler return so the aircraft sticks out like a sore thumb. Obviously ground based radar isn't going to be too affected by this - all the aircraft are above it.
A lot of modern missiles use radar within the missile for the final approach to target - they may be guided by the launching aircraft or ground station for most of the flight, but often the missile's radar takes over for the last few seconds, during which Doppler filtering can cause it to lose its tracking.
So its certainly plausible that a slow moving drone could get itself lost in the Doppler filtering for radar tracked missiles, depending on the nature of the attacking missile system. Missiles that gain altitude to take advantage of the reduced drag to increase speed and range will end up above the drone and if the have terminal self-guidance they could lose the drone in the background. But its going to do depend a lot on the nature of the tracking and the missile flight profile.

Low speed can be a problem for some systems. There is a real world anti-missile tactic of pilots called "going in to the notch" or "notching a missile", which basically involves turning to move at 90 degrees to the incoming missile and descending. This doesn't work against IR tracking missiles, but can be effective against radar tracked ones.
The reason this works (when it does) is because radar needs to filter out all of the crap in its field of view to decide which bit is the plane. One component of this is "Doppler filtering". This uses the Doppler effect, which is sensitive to the component of the objects speed along the line of sight. The idea is that all of the ground clutter (which is at a variety of distances, and so hard to filter on that basis) is all moving at the same speed relative to the plane (i.e. the ground is stationary). So everything that is moving at the same speed as the ground is filtered out, which in theory just leaves you the fast moving aircraft.
Except if the aircraft happens to be flying exactly across your line of sight, with no speed (relative to the ground) towards or away from you, when it also has the same Doppler speed as the background and gets filtered out, which makes it vanish as far as the tracking is concerned.
The reason to descend while doing this is so that the missile tracking you is above you, so that you are in front of the ground from its point of view. If you are above the missile, then the background to your aircraft is the sky, and that's not giving any Doppler return so the aircraft sticks out like a sore thumb. Obviously ground based radar isn't going to be too affected by this - all the aircraft are above it.
A lot of modern missiles use radar within the missile for the final approach to target - they may be guided by the launching aircraft or ground station for most of the flight, but often the missile's radar takes over for the last few seconds, during which Doppler filtering can cause it to lose its tracking.
So its certainly plausible that a slow moving drone could get itself lost in the Doppler filtering for radar tracked missiles, depending on the nature of the attacking missile system. Missiles that gain altitude to take advantage of the reduced drag to increase speed and range will end up above the drone and if the have terminal self-guidance they could lose the drone in the background. But its going to do depend a lot on the nature of the tracking and the missile flight profile.

Low speed can be a problem for some systems. There is a real world anti-missile tactic of pilots called "going in to the notch" or "notching a missile", which basically involves turning to move at 90 degrees to the incoming missile and descending. This doesn't work against IR tracking missiles, but can be effective against radar tracked ones.
The reason this works (when it does) is because radar needs to filter out all of the crap in its field of view to decide which bit is the plane. One component of this is "Doppler filtering". This uses the Doppler effect, which is sensitive to the component of the objects speed along the line of sight. The idea is that all of the ground clutter (which is at a variety of distances, and so hard to filter on that basis) is all moving at the same speed relative to the plane (i.e. the ground is stationary). So everything that is moving at the same speed as the ground is filtered out, which in theory just leaves you the fast moving aircraft.
Except if the aircraft happens to be flying exactly across your line of sight, with no speed (relative to the ground) towards or away from you, when it also has the same Doppler speed as the background and gets filtered out, which makes it vanish as far as the tracking is concerned.
The reason to descend while doing this is so that the missile tracking you is above you, so that you are in front of the ground from its point of view. If you are above the missile, then the background to your aircraft is the sky, and that's not giving any Doppler return so the aircraft sticks out like a sore thumb. Obviously ground based radar isn't going to be too affected by this - all the aircraft are above it.
A lot of modern missiles use radar within the missile for the final approach to target - they may be guided by the launching aircraft or ground station for most of the flight, but often the missile's radar takes over for the last few seconds, during which Doppler filtering can cause it to lose its tracking.
So its certainly plausible that a slow moving drone could get itself lost in the Doppler filtering for radar tracked missiles, depending on the nature of the attacking missile system. Missiles that gain altitude to take advantage of the reduced drag to increase speed and range will end up above the drone and if the have terminal self-guidance they could lose the drone in the background. But its going to do depend a lot on the nature of the tracking and the missile flight profile.

Update on the mystery Croatian Tu-141 drone crash from the Wikipedia summary
 

Low speed can be a problem for some systems. There is a real world anti-missile tactic of pilots called "going in to the notch" or "notching a missile", which basically involves turning to move at 90 degrees to the incoming missile and descending. This doesn't work against IR tracking missiles, but can be effective against radar tracked ones.
The reason this works (when it does) is because radar needs to filter out all of the crap in its field of view to decide which bit is the plane. One component of this is "Doppler filtering". This uses the Doppler effect, which is sensitive to the component of the objects speed along the line of sight. The idea is that all of the ground clutter (which is at a variety of distances, and so hard to filter on that basis) is all moving at the same speed relative to the plane (i.e. the ground is stationary). So everything that is moving at the same speed as the ground is filtered out, which in theory just leaves you the fast moving aircraft.
Except if the aircraft happens to be flying exactly across your line of sight, with no speed (relative to the ground) towards or away from you, when it also has the same Doppler speed as the background and gets filtered out, which makes it vanish as far as the tracking is concerned.
The reason to descend while doing this is so that the missile tracking you is above you, so that you are in front of the ground from its point of view. If you are above the missile, then the background to your aircraft is the sky, and that's not giving any Doppler return so the aircraft sticks out like a sore thumb. Obviously ground based radar isn't going to be too affected by this - all the aircraft are above it.
A lot of modern missiles use radar within the missile for the final approach to target - they may be guided by the launching aircraft or ground station for most of the flight, but often the missile's radar takes over for the last few seconds, during which Doppler filtering can cause it to lose its tracking.
So its certainly plausible that a slow moving drone could get itself lost in the Doppler filtering for radar tracked missiles, depending on the nature of the attacking missile system. Missiles that gain altitude to take advantage of the reduced drag to increase speed and range will end up above the drone and if the have terminal self-guidance they could lose the drone in the background. But its going to do depend a lot on the nature of the tracking and the missile flight profile.

So I gotta start by asking: are you honestly engaging in a discussion here and want to explore ideas?  Because you are coming across as a guy whose mind is made up and no amount of rational discussion is going to matter.  I am honestly going to try here, you get exactly one shot based on your tone so far:
1 - Absolutely true, plans definitely do not survive contact, as old as warfare.  However, what is important is how fast one can re-plan and pivot.  In this the Russians have not demonstrated an ability to come up with a "new plan" and re-org to it.  They have had a pregnant pause which has allowed their opponent to organize/mobilize, arm up, dig in, dominate the narrative, and access billions in military support.  And then there is the quality of that initial plan.  Failing to establish some key operational pre-conditions (e.g. why does the internet still work for Ukraine?) is also not a very good sign. So let's see the quality of the second (or third) plan and then we might now better what is going on.
2 - You said "The Russians have taken losses, but they remain free to operate combat aircraft and helicopters over most of the country." That is not true, in fact it is very not true below about 10k feet.  The fact that Russian forces did not set the basic pre-condition of gaining air superiority is a demonstration of their problem, not Ukraine's.  Plenty of evidence of Ukrainian UAV strikes online to demonstrate that we really are in more of an airpower stalemate and that is bad for an invading force.
3 - The Russian Navy is definitely still a factor.  They have sea control and are hitting with missiles but 1) like everything else the Russians are doing, there appears little integration between naval, air and land power at this point and 2) the Russian amphibious capability is in serious question. If for the sole question, "why have they not used it yet?  that said sea control will likely not be decisive, nor has it been decisive so far.
4- Evidence of defeat (https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html), so that is coming up on 24 BTGs of tanks, look at the logistics vehicle, coming up on 485...that is bad.  But even if you refuse to believe this, then one has to ask "what losing looks like".  Over to you as you asked the question.  However, it is a layered issue.  Political defeat, military defeat, economic defeat - if we are talking military defeat, well then an inability to influence or shape negotiations in the direction of national interest is near the top for me.  And as we watch the bubble slide on the Russian side of the table, it is not looking good, but I will give you that the jury is still out. 
5- Well backwards, as on a map, is kind of a one dimensional view to be honest. The primary way Russia has "gone backwards" is in the will of the Ukrainian people.  This is not about terrain, it is about their willingness to fight.  I think if Russian had one a quick and fairly clean fight that will might have stayed relatively dormant; however, that "plan did not survive" and now the entire nation is galvanized in an existential fight...that is definitely "backwards" from a Russian perspective.  Economically, narrative and just about any other non-military metric you want to apply Russia has gone backwards severely and let's not even start on the diplomatic front as it has been a complete disaster.  But if you only want to measure ground, then I guess we have to see.
So we have discussed a lot on forces and comparisons.  Right now, conservative estimate is that UA and Russian manpower is pretty near parity in theatre.  Russia does have equipment advantage but it has failed to be able to really leverage that.  Why?  Well that is a million dollar question.  What we have seen is that Russian mass is not working, if it was that map would look a lot different.  I suspect it is either because the Russian war machine simply is not setup for this complexity and has fallen under its own weight, and the Ukrainians help them along with that.
You are correct on one point, this is coming down to Will.  The Russians can keep pouring men into this fight, even if they are dismounted and have no ammo or food but if they have the Will that is an option.  What you seem to be sidestepping is the other issue, the Ukrainian Will to fight.  They see this as existential and are acting as such, so that is a problem right there for the Russians, unless they want a decades old resistance blowing up in their face but frankly I can't even seeing them getting that far as that would mean the Russians actually have to control the entire country and not about 15% of it.  Until then arms and support will flow in from the west and Russians will bleed...but we will see who blinks first.
 Lemme just close with a very important point - this is not an internet argument that anyone can "win".  I know the reflex is there to play forum games and try to "out argue each other" but that is not what is happening here.  For the most part no one really has a full picture of that is going on so we are sharing information and trying to build the best picture we can.  So the usual internet argument games do not apply here.  If you have a different assessment based on information you have, present it and we can all get a better picture.  This is a real war and people are dying in droves, so I frankly do not care who is "right or wrong" on a given Thurs because the situation is too dynamic.  But if you honestly want to contribute then do so, but this is not a contest...it is a really violent and scary puzzle.  Finally, there are people posting here who are actually in range of all those guns so let's also try and keep that in mind.

You wanna back that up with some expertise or are we just gonna sling stuff here?
This has been one helluva "temporary".  Those maps have not moved in coming up on two weeks. Why don't you go back a few pages and read my post on what an operational pause actually is (or is not) and then come back.
As demonstrated by the dozens of abandoned vehicles, you know easy to replace stuff.
True, at least not entirely; however, the Russian's can't either.  This has led to an air parity situation.  Russians can and have been using air power but it is limited and has not been effective in interdicting western support or internal Ukrainina logistics.
I would love to see the Russians try an amphibious operation.  So far easy stuff like heliborne and basic mechanized has eluded them completely, so why not go for an amphibious landing to round out the experience.  Based on what I have seen they will die on the beach, if they can even make it that far.
They already have.  The US just announced $800 million of lethal aid, is that just window dressing?  You can google the aid coming in from Europe
 Ah, now I get it.  You are that guy, one in every bar.

Think again.

There is a video on youtube, if you search his name youll find it, from 11 days ago where he predicted now that the Russians had fixed the mistake of being "too gentle" they would win within 10 days. He also said that Ukraine should be neutralized, Zelensky isn't a hero but implied he was a murder for letting the people suffer needlessly, and said that a neutralized (with a few "border adjustments") Ukraine would be good for the US as well as Russia. The video I watched was tagged in Cyrillic, and the comments well. We wont called them unbiased.
This is a man whose cashed in his credibility so that he can get his face on TV. Fox likes him because they can wear his reputation and he sounds good. He knows the lingo. But you think about what he says is any number of clips and none of it really passes the smell test. Hes just towing a party line because its popular. He is about as credible a source at this point as Putin himself, because clearly hes one of these talking heads that will say whatever is in vouge right now to get attention.  

Actually there is one area where CMBS  might be overmodelling the Russians in a way that players can't do much about: ERA and active defense systems. The t-90s and upgraded t-72s in CMBS tend to come fully stocked with ERA packs and Shtora. On the evidence of what we've seen in Ukraine so far, they are significantly lacking in ERA coverage, particularly on the hull sides. Tanks in Ukraine seem rather more vulnerable to infantry AT weapons (aside from the Javelin) than the in-game counterparts. At least when it's my guys committing suicide by using their AT-4s to achieve nothing but drawing fire.
On the other hand, it's hard to say how much of that is selection bias. By definition, the ones we see photos and videos of are the ones that have been successfully knocked out, not the ones where someone missed, where a hit didn't penetrate, or where ERA was present and worked,

Ukraine say they've regained control of Posad-Pokrovske village halfway between Mikolaiv and Kherson
https://t.me/ukrpravda_news/10770