dan/california

Except Putin is massing forces on the Ukrainian border RIGHT NOW, 11/23/2021 and there is unpleasantly large chance of some version of this thing happening by Christmas. Given the optimistic force mix in Black Sea, I would even say the units are extraordinarily close. Battlefront had better hurry up with the winter weather module. Whether the U.S. actually wants to fight over Ukraine, or will do it anyway, is an unanswered question...

Iron mode should probably set all ECM settings to max automatically . No one has any clue how hacked they are among other things. Clearly every satellite in orbit will be a cloud of debris in the first hour. The Russians and Chinese are trying to cause a cascading series of disasters in orbit just testing their toys.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/15/science/russia-anti-satellite-missile-test-debris.html Like mean satellite survival being measured in hours.

If you can't shoot down drones by the dozen, or even by the hundred you are not going to last long on the modern battlefield. And nobody has any idea what stuff is going to work and what isn't between hacking, jamming, non nuclear EMP, and who knows what else. It could easily wind up that both sides are fighting virtually blind by recent standards.

But the amount that is just completely unknown without high level clearances is at least a factor of ten great for an air/sea conflict around Taiwan. I would argue that it is more like two or three orders of magnitudes greater. The effects of multiple levels of electronic warfare systems being cranked up to full military power would be the mother of all unpleasant experiments.

Taiwan is an air/sea battle, if the PLA are landing mechanized forces in any strength you have already lost. And virtually all the determinants of how that sea/air battle would play out depends highly classified electronic and cyber warfare factors. Neither side has the slightest idea how hacked they actually are, so have no realistic ability to depend on their their stuff to even sort of work. So it is a fascinating subject for a game, but a VERY different one from CM, and it also very hard to claim it is a credible sim without a vast library of information that a favorite book mine refers to as 'suicide before reading" classified, because it will hurt less than the alternative.

First post in forever but this is one of my little hobby horses. Stryker development should concentrate in indirect fire, not better direct fire on a platform that is made of spun sugar. If the bad guys ever get to see the Styrker you are doing it wrong. To be specific, they need a vertically launched Javelin equivalent, and the need either an AGL or a 60mm mortar that every squad leader can call on for indirect fire in about thirty seconds. For extra points said mortar/grenade launcher should use electromagnetic propulsion instead of gun powder to give full, and complete control of the trajectory. It only needs a range of a ~2000 meters. Think about the absolute rain of devastation that Marine 60mm mortars cause in CMSF. You have the 120mm for longer range targets. And for the love of god please tell me they are working on a way to shoot down small drones wholesale. because the other side is going to bring them by the container load.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/americas-killer-m1-abrams-tank-now-has-its-own-shields-22720, A brigade of Abrams with APS makes the games backstory/equipment mix look a lot better, the Army must have gotten tired of waiting for the mythical American made "better" system.

There is a lot of foliage around that LOF. That never makes missiles happy.

I have been completely overwhelmed trying to sell one house and by another one, but a quick two cents. You need a 40 mm AGL kitted out with all the electronics for accurate indirect fire, or some way to pump out 60 mm mortar rounds at close to the same rate. Tie every squad leader in the unit in with an almost completely brainless way to call it in. Then all the Stryker has to do is hide. A dedicated vehicle could carry a LOT of rounds for something that size. Stick a mast on it so it can fire over convenient walls and small buildings by itself. The idea is to never show it to the enemy if you can help it. If the bad guys were dug in like badgers somewhere you drop low rate harassing fire on them for hours while you brought up something else. Go full rate and you could make an entire football field very unhealthy. Single rounds don't have a large collateral radius. Its COIN focused solution, but I pretty much agree with Herr Krautwerfer that the Stryker is a COIN focused platform anyway. That, or a burning wreck. My silly side would propose propelling said rounds with an electromagnetic system rather than gunpowder, but it would get lost in development He#%^^&# somewhere.

So are the problems with the F-35, by and large. How is that working out?

The green experience level pretty much covers it. They do NOT have a clue.

And the other big effort is?

The specific thing I was thinking about was Trophy's ability to give an azimuth to the threat on the FCS, and spread that through the net so the entire platoon or company knows which way to look. its a neat trick but it wouldn't be a deal breaker to leave it out of a crash install program. There were a few glimmers of the U.S. APS program in another thread a while back, but it is just really quiet overall, at least in public sources.

In regards to the engineering involved in fitting Trophy to U.S. vehicles I would bet a fair amount of money that a lot of it has been looked at by the Israeli producer, and maybe the U.S military as well. There is a LOT of money to be made if Uncle Sam came calling in a hurry, and the systems integration work involved is something that can be estimated in advance, unlike the basic R&D of making the widget work in the first place. You need mounting brackets, you need electrical power and control wiring, you need FCS integration. Some of that isn't simple, but its not blue sky research either. Having a first pass at the various bits setting on a hard drive would save a LOT of time.

On any reasonable interpretation of current trends every U.S. soldier whose primary job is to fire a weapon will have thermals by 2035. There is no point in paying the vast cost of deploying the U.S. military and not providing equipment that is so obviously useful. Likewise the only reasonable interpretation of why every U.S. armored vehicle doesn't have Trophy mounted currently is that some defense contractor has convinced some congressmen they can do better. Both systems are so overwhelmingly, and obviously useful the case for their deployment is overwhelming. It almost doesn't matter what APS cost, smoking wreckage is expensive too, and bloody useless as well.

I think for most modern artillery the three single biggest sources of variation are atmospheric effects ( wind, density, and moisture all matter), propellant variation between shells, and placement of the round in the tube. Some systems measure the muzzle velocity of each round to correct for some of this as they go. The weather part can be very tricky because it matters for the entire path of the shell.

There is thread after thread, and threads about the threads, all the way back to CMSF. The rather unpleasant calculus involved seems to be that its as much work as a full up module to do, and simply wouldn't bring in enough new sales to justify itself. The Pentagon can of course fix that any time it wishes.

The other major element of the Soviet doctrine was to use units until they were used up. They planned that a battalion which carried out a major attack would simply be combat ineffective when it was pulled out, and wouldn't be combat effective again until it had been completely refitted and the the replacements trained up and integrated. The casualty levels in Black Sea imply this was not badly thought out.

It compares remarkably well the experience of foreign volunteers in the Spanish civil war doesn't it? The side which shows up with more of this wins. " Artillery, tanks and infantry under united command dominate everything. No modern ATGMs in the proper amounts? You can chill in encirclement. Once the UAF accustomed a little war, it became clear that tanks rule in Donbass summer plains. " I must say the basic tactical rules of CMBS seem rather well validated.

If the Chechens had had the missiles that Hezbollah was using it would now be an independent country, or perhaps a sheet of self heating glass. Hezbollah was READY, and much better equipped than anyone thought. If Trophy works as modeled though they will have less fun on the second go.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-an-iran-nuclear-deal-may-mean-for-crude-oil-prices-2015-04-02 Relevant breaking news. Nobody thinks oil is going higher, some people are predicting $30 per barrel

I did not write a masters thesis on the subject, but those numbers, from a well known and relatively apolitical international organization, provide a pretty good indication of how dependent the Russian economy is on oil revenue. If you wish to provide your breakdown of the Russian budget I would be very interested to read it. You clearly have excellent sources and speak the language. I am very curious why you think those numbers don't give an accurate impression of the situation. I really want to see the current Russian budget compared to what they said it would be 3 years ago. % change in projected spending as a percentage of 2012 GDP in constant dollars comes to mind. Do please do charts if you have the time.

M1s seem to be near the upper limit in terms of size and weight, on bridge limits, logistics, and a number of other factors. They can only withstand first line ATGM and saboot hits to the frontal arc, and then not always. Unless you are predicting a major materials science breakthrough that comes pretty close to setting an upper limit for what can be accomplished. For a real war as opposed to counterinsurgency that seems to be the price of admission for a heavy IFV. APS is going to be standard on the tanks and IFVs of a first line fighting force very soon. The difference is makes is too big to ignore. It all but obsoletes a LOT of current munitions. So the entire discussion becomes what level of threat can your side/ top armour deal with. A 25mm apdsdu round like the bushmasters? A 50 mm shaped charge submunition? You pretty much have to fill out your budgeted limits in terms of mass and cost and hope its good enough most of the time.

RUSSIA Its oil and other energy exports total approximately $300 billion annually. TheInternational Energy Agency estimates that 68% of Russia's foreign currency earnings come from the oil-export business, and around 50% of its annual budget is underwritten by the industry.