dan/california

So much of the Pre war problem was actually the combination of the Russians not really understanding how BAD their problems were, and Western intelligence being so impressed with their ability to read the Russian General Staffs email that they believed the Russians own projections about the war.

But then we get back to the question of does that make any military sense. In Kherson, Russia is fighting with its worst logistics, and where Ukraine has its best logistics. Himars, Excalibur, and NATO ISR seem to be decisively swinging the artillery fight in Ukraines favor. If Russia wants to lose a huge portion of its ever deteriorating, and probably irreplaceable, fires capability in a losing fight on bad terms, Ukraine will oblige them. Losing several Ka-52s a day trying to hold a fundamentally impossible position is not going to work.

Wagner/the Russians seem to have been building fortifications all the way back at the 2/24 lines north of Luhansk City, and along the Siversky Donetsk river. Hopefully Ukraine can roll them ll the way back to there before Christmas.

The hardest problem in human history is how to take a country that is a complete mess and make it a minimally decent place to live, and then get from their to at rule of law, human rights and so on. Ukraine was well on its way to making that transition when Russia decided it simply couldn't abide that happening in one of its former colonies. The utter transparency of Putin's attempt to smash Ukraine back down to its own level is why Russia has lost the information war about as badly as humanly possible, at least in "The West". Speaking of books that need writing, for all of it flaws the ability of the IDEA of European Union to motivate countries in the right direction is no small thing. How the EU actually works, and how the folks inside feel about it is a different question. I would postulate they feel that way because being on the inside gives them the bandwidth to complain.

And the bigger the round the bigger the problem. Land based C-RAM gatling guns use an he round that is set up to blow itself into small enough pieces that the inevitable rain of metal isn't terribly dangerous. The navel version uses DU slugs and they would be tearing clean through buildings miles away. Unfortunately there is at least a rumor the explosive rounds are in even shorter supply that the land based systems. I always go straight to War-Monitor3. He seems to be the fastest of my continuous follows. Also the least accurate, which is probably related.. He is good enough to tell me if I should attempt real consciousness though. Write a book, preferably with Combat-Infantryman. Doesn't matter which war you guys want to write about. You two have too many lessons learned floating around your heads not to get it all down on paper for people smart enough to read it before the next round. Iran has set about proving that everything their enemies say about them is true. Or should I say they are proving it AGAIN. Fingers crossed he gets an antibiotic that expired in 1999.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/10/24/1062039/us-navy-swarms-of-thousands-of-small-drones/?truid=0664831fc7d6a10c183bbe706f36ff4a&utm_source=the_download&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&utm_term=Active Qualified&utm_content=10-24-2022&mc_cid=1cc458b67f&mc_eid=4e7f8c9a8f More evidence people are at least really thinking about what the NEXT war will look like.

Two requests to anyone who might have this at their fingertips. 1) The L/DPR order of battle on 2/24 and where those units went initially 2) The article on L/DPR forces training the Russian regular army in how to do drone adjusted artillery fire with quadcopters. The recent developments with Iranian drones have made the earlier stuff about the L/DPR impossible to google my way back too easily. Many thanks in advance if someone had the sense to save either one.

100% agree with all of this. BUT, you did an excellent post on military Darwinism years ago in Iraq/Afghanistan. Specifically that if a war goes on long enough the less competent side will improve by the simple expedient of the incompetent ones getting killed. I realize the Russians have gotten many of their better pre war units trashed so badly it has blunted this effect, but on some level, and at some rate of speed it is still happening. Ukraine and friends want to WIN this bleeping thing before this process results in some sort of minimal competence on the Russian side at a scale that might matter.

I hope he receives the VERY BEST in Russian medical care.

Poor guy, I hope his liver makes it thru....

This makes by far the most sense of all the half baked ideas, But sending them a brigade set of modern NATO MBTs, and IFVs, and all the trucks to keep them running makes a lot more. The point where the boiling the frog approach to this war made any sense is over. The pot needs to be blown completely out of the kitchen with enough force to just send the Russians home. The slow boil approach is just running up the body count on both sides.

They had to edit the tape of the gunstabilzation test so that "quality control" of the beer could be performed. followed by further testing, with more beer.

Hopefully regardless of how the election comes out the lame duck session can fund Ukraine VERY generously for the whole year (2023), It seems like McConnell is willing to be sensible on the issue.

The thing that would really move NATO closer to Moscow is Belarus switching sides, after Lukashenko has his appointment with a lamp post of course. From eastern Belarus Moscow would be in ATACMS range. i suspect they won't like that very much.

Makes Kraze on a bender seem positively reasonable.

All the models can be used in the new post war game can't they?

Further evidence that the penny is starting to drop for the Russians/L/DPR soldiers that things are NOT going well.

The last 20 seconds are the most interesting. The Russians are VERY aware they got their heads handed to them in Kharkiv. If Ukraine can inflict a real blow at Kherson, and not just squeeze them out...

I demand tank riders in the modern game!

Ru Nats getting seriously out of sorts of the prospect of losing Kherson. Positively cheery reading, even if not much of it is new information

I don't get the connection between blowing the dam and trying to hold Kherson city. Indeed blowing the dam would make it harder to support a force besieged in Kherson city because it would force Russian units on the far side further away, and make the supply situation even more impossible. Really that seems like an either/or question , they can try to withstand a siege in Kherson City, or they blow the dam. Doing both is idiotic, which of course means that Russia will probably do exactly that.

No, I am just asking for a somewhat easier way to set/adjust what seems a fairly common real world condition in the current war. I am at least positing that this might require adding a new stat. But I am quite open to the suggestion that what I am proposing is doable with some spreadsheet jujitsu I haven't sorted out. I am definitely not arguing for less of anything in the editor. I am saying changing an entire battalion one squad at a time is less than pleasant. Edit: It may be that laying out some mobik/ultra low quality units from scratch and having them available in the editor would fix most of this for most people. I freely admit it there so much news from the actual war I haven't sat down and REALLY tried. It has been hovering at the top of the list of things I never quite get too since you put up that excellent new map, which is much appreciated, by the way.

That would bring the dam, the ferry crossing, and everything else around Nova Khahovka in range of 52 caliber 155, depending the exact front line it might even be in 777 range. I would posit that means everything the Russians have north oh the Inhulets is now untenable. Assuming information is accurate, of course. Truly excellent news.

Yes, exactly! There should be a seperate force, or at least battalion wide modifier that reflects NCO quality, doctrine and training. Idea being that forces with a high rating respond better to being out of command than forces with a low rating. Think of it as rating how capable the force is of independent operation. A NATO special forces squad would be at one end of the spectrum, and batch of DPR three day mobiks at the other. The idea ias to make killing the officers/coms of low rated units as valuable as it is in real life. A perfect implementation would also force low rated forces to push their officers further forward to get anything done, which certainly seems to be a real thing for the Russian side.

Not directly related to Ukraine, but to big of a deal not to post. Xi has Hu Jintao forcibly marched out of the party congress!