womble

Somebody mentioned Russian "hypocrisy" upthread. Here, if we need it, is another example: "We will accept no preconditions to talks (except those we stipulate)." I put "hypocrisy" in quotes, because I don't think the word quite does justice to the level of two-faced mendacity that Russia brings to the world. Wagner's another one. I'm pretty sure that way back when they first impinged on my awareness (Syria, maybe?), it was asserted that mercenaries are illegal in Russia, and the official powers-that-be in the Kremlin pretty much denied that Wagner existed at all, much less that they were doing the heavy lifting for Al-Assad. But there they are, mercenaries backing up state troops, drawing on State institutions (prisons). Oh, and probably expecting (and actually getting, I'd warrant) the protections afforded to legal combatants that Russia denied to those it (falsely) accused of being mercenaries in the service of Ukraine who were captured in Mariupol. And not only is the illegal-in-Russia mercenary company employed by the State, its felon-leader is a "player" in the factional politics of the Kremlin itself, either an heir-apparent, or potential usurper to Putin, depending which way the wind is blowing on any particular day. I know you guys probably register this already, but I just had to vent...

The Russian people in general aren't. Their kleptocrat masters, though... at least they were; perhaps that's changed now.

Do we need to get the exterminators in? We seem to have an infestation of Peng.

It will annoy everyone here. "Wait til you see the power of the twin vickers machine gun [on the jeeps I've got coming]". Nope. Those are Lewis guns, not Vickers. And that Ma Deuce is more powerful than about 4 of them put together. But it's fun nonsense, rather than a docudrama.

"Tovarich, hold my vodka, and watch this!" I think they probably could/can, at least relative to the tasks they're asked to accomplish. Generally, offense is considered more challenging to undertake than defense... they've failed at the hard job, and it seems entirely likely they're going to fail at the easier task, while Putin expects them to "freeze the conflict". It's entirely possible that the weather is going to close in for at least a few weeks until the ground freezes in enough places for UKR to get back to grabbing back territory, so it may look like the Russian Way of War has started working, but I don't think that's going to last very long. They won't fail as hard as they would on a broader front, perhaps; it seems reasonable to suspect they'll do better there than they would have on a more dislocated deployment, for the reasons given, but better than last year? That's really difficult to assess; so much has changed in both force correlation and strategic posture.

Possibly, but comparisons will be difficult to scale, given the other confounding circumstances imposed on the RUAF since the beginning of their latest criminal adventurism (loss of trained personnel, loss of equipment, loss of officer corps, loss of air superiority). And it's arguable that shorter supply lines just means easier HIMARS targets now that UKR has seemingly started to approach parity in long range fires (at least in effect, if not actual tonnage). The BTG concept leans heavily on that indirect fire superiority, too, so missing that is another reason we may not see the BTG perform "as well" as it did in '14, as they are compressed by the UKR's corrosive offensives.

Then let them rot. It's a kind of "justice", so long as everyone else who's threatened by them gets to live well.

I would hope that the world's sanctions would just keep getting cranked tighter and tighter on the gangsters in the Kremlin, until they accept that they must pay reparations and submit to war crimes trials. And that the West keeps the Ukrainians supplied with all manner of things such that Russia will never be able to come back across the border.

Thing is, it doesn't (help the cause). Smart comms would have been to defer judgement and 'fess up if it was, indeed, UKR munitions that caused the explosion. Just asserting "it must've been Russians" when they didn't know for sure one way or the other makes them look unfortunately like Russians. Sure, in just this one case, and it's not going to break anything, but their approach was suboptimal. Unless they have clear tracking data to show it was a Russian bird, though why the rest of NATO would cover that up, I don't know; concrete excuses to extend an AD umbrella across the border would be gleefully welcomed, I'd've thought.

Also, I interpreted that particular mendacity as blaming the Ukrainians for the attack. Obviously, Poland should expect no better from its ally than to be targeted during a false-flag attack meant to escalate the war. Of course, it's nonsense. But it's the kind of sick kick the scumbags that support Putin's adventurism get off on. As to Article 5 and looking weak, there's a whole lot of difference between a stray missile killing NATO citizens on the territory of a NATO member state and a missile deliberately aimed to do the same thing. As it stands, I'd (if forced) bet on "screw-up" rather than "deliberate". We've seen drones go much further astray, IIRC. Russia continuing to deny, once there's evidence that it was their birds, just swings the pointer nearer to "deliberate" and demands a response. Though I, too, wish this could be some sort of trigger to get behind the brave defenders of our way of life, properly, and with some actual conviction and understanding that this is a war to determine the world order for the next generation (or until China starts coming off the rails and begins to think that a "short victorious war" across the Taiwan Strait is just the thing to distract their mutinous population from their woes).

The Czech Republic just designated the current Kremlin administration as "terrorist". I'll quote the reportage, since it's on a "live page" and will move/get swamped by later developments:

Target Reference Points do a few things: They make fire at targets within the area of the TRP more accurate. They allow you to use any eligible "Forward Observer", from a Platoon HQ to a full-on specialised FO to call in fire missions anywhere within the area of the TRP without needing Line Of Sight to the area you're firing at. You can even have the centre and edge (or the two ends, if you call a Linear mission) in different TRPs. They make any fire missions called arrive without needing any ranging rounds. So the mission will Fire For Effect much more quickly. There might be a couple more effects, but I think those are the main ones. But to use artillery on a target you can see in the area of the TRP, you still have to use the artillery interface to call a mission. The advantage here is that even if the only element that is aware of the potential artillery victim is a lowly two-man scout team with no right to call arty, you can use a "good" FO to drop ordnance where that FO can't see.

Am I correct in thinking that Ukraine would be entirely within their rights under the "Rules of War" (that they do seem to be trying to adhere to) to shoot these guys at dawn tomorrow? Soldiers who try and disguise themselves as civilians forfeit their rights, AIUI, and can be treated as saboteurs/spies...

With the ISR advantages that UKR has, it doesn't seem surprising that they're pasting the withdrawing retreating fleeing massed Russians. Anything leaving Kherson will be fair game, for sure. It's only a matter of how much UKR has in range of any given crossing point as to how badly the target will suffer. I got the impression that the whole stretch of river is in reach of rocket arty, that Saints HIMARS and MLRS have pushed RUS arty out of CB range of UKR arty, so any guns that can bear should be able to fire fairly freely. But it'll be nice if the news arrives on a weekend, so celebrations don't have to be measured enough to work the next day... for those of us lucky enough to still be able to set weekends apart.

This reminds me that "way back when", the consensus was that even if UKR regained Kherson, they wouldn't be able to use the Antonovsky bridge to get to the left bank, because RUS would have demolished it comprehensively upon giving up the territory. They have full control of the bridge and perfectly competent demolitions guys in their armed forces; it "should" be wired to become a very long pile of rubble at the push of a button. Russia are blowing bridges in the "hinterlands" of the city and they obviously have resigned themselves to being unable to restore the Antonovskiy to their use: why have they not dropped the thing into the river yet?

Well, there were riot police and other "specialised" forces mixed in with the initial bum rush that Russia tried to pull. So it does look like they were at least somewhat aware that elements equipped and trained to kill people and break things aren't the best tools for maintaining control of a civilian population.

Obviously neither did this lot... An attack of sense breaking out in the ranks?

I think one of Ukraine's "stretch" goals might well be to ensure that Russia never* again threatens to take any of their lands. They also certainly want the repatriation of all their kidnapped citizens and children. And reparations for the damage inflicted on their lands and people. And accountability for war crimes committed. So regaining their lands is not their only goal. And a bunch of those goals are even less likely to be conceded by Putin than Putin is to be unseated as leader. * for a given value of "never".

Are there any approaches based around blinding the drone's sensors? Won't stop a drone that's been sent on a GPS-guided attack, but anything that's "autonomously selective" or relies on an operator to aim it, or is being used as a sensor platform would be at least mission-killed. Wouldn't take very long dwell time for a laser to fry a CCD chip, and the rules on lasers are about blinding people. Most drones are optically directed, aye? Not many with radio-spectrum primary sensor sets, and those are probably the big 'uns loitering up high.

I've been meaning to mention for a while, another RPG source for such future combat inspirations... Traveller (specifically Classic Traveller, Little Black Book 4, Mercenary) had this concept included in the late 70s. The suit had coolant loops built into it, which dumped their (and thus the user's radiated) heat via canned refrigerant gas. Or you could use a "hose" like a water-cooled MG that could lead back into defilade (not so much use for defeating overhead observation) or a convenient heat sink like a stream or pool. Seems like a totally doable technology, though bulky... similar clothing tech has been used for warming for many years. IIRC (my copy of the book is in storage) the Combat Environment Suit included the requisite ballistic body armour and a sealable environment for NBC protection and could function (due to its seal and the thermoregulation abilities built in) as a spacesuit for a limited time, if provided with breathing gases.

Evidence? As I said, I believe that Mr BFC himself, Steve, has said that it doesn't give any "assaulty" benefits. It's a pure convenience to reduce micromanagement. There's a verb or some punctuation missing from this statement, depriving it of clarity. Can you elucidate? Ah. I understand what you mean. However, since there will be two AS highlighted at the waypoint, and (assuming a two team squad) only one of them will stop there (the other will bound on past without stopping), how do you get the stopping team to stop anywhere other than the AS that's on top of the waypoint? Frankly, I'm not sure you can, and I don't think this approach will achieve what you hope for, except at the last waypoint, where all elements will "rally". Ah, so I think you're suggesting that BFC incorporate some of the refinements people already use when they're using split teams into the TacAI's own SOPs?

Was that the drone zooming its optics out, or being hurled a hundred further metres into the air by the shockwave?!

The information in this thread is devolving into confusion. Why? Why do this: ? You've already got them split, you can control what they do. Why leave it to the TacAI after having micro'ed your approach? If you're talking about RT, then maybe this has some mileage. But, in WeGo, using your squads split is almost always better: your "own fire support" can be tailored better to the situation by choosing your team splits; you can tailor your wait times at each waypoint to change the emphasis placed on fire or movement and control your troops' fatigue rate/recovery; you can incorporate different movement modes (Slow, Quick and Fast all have their place; Move has no place in an assault evolution and Hunt is of very limited use, since it cancels all following waypoints if it's triggered). This is simply untrue. It takes time to do, and so probably isn't practcable in Real Time (if you don't/cant pause), but it's entirely possible to do in WeGo or if you can freely pause your game. In fact, in RT-with-profligate-pausing, if you're crisis-managing a squad, you can (if you're prepared to do the micro) do "better" than in WeGo, since you don't have to use "guesstimated" pause times and can perfectly coordinate the actions of the firing and moving elements. The methodology for WeGo has been ably described by IanL. You can use Face, or Target Arcs, for sure. But this is probably an edge case, since if you're under fire, you probably know where it's coming from and want to hose it down without having to wait for your pTruppen to acquire the target; having them seek a target might well give that target time to suppress the team that just stopped moving. Erm, wut? The TacAI in CM is a very simplistic rules-based system. It has no capacity to learn anything. And what "scripting" are you referring to. Or did I miss something. IanL described the procedure pretty well. Some supplementary points: split your squads so that the short range weapons are in one team and the support weapons are in another. choose your movement modes for the movement legs wisely. Fast is good, especially if you're using short legs, with longish firing pauses for the pTruppen to get their wind back; you might not want individual members of the moving team to pause to return fire, especially when they'll be stopping soon anyway. Quick is good if you want some responsiveness in your moving teams. Slow is good for one AS if you want your team to drop into cover and throw the opposition's target acquisition off, or for the actual last leg where you're chucking grenades and bayonets might notionally become involved. you can give the "Assault team" (with the grenades and SMGs) Target Arc orders if you want, so they don't spaff their precious ammo on suppressive efforts at long range. if your squad splits into three teams, you can have two covering and one moving, or the other way round, depending on the situation. you can coordinate teams that are not part of the same squad (either different squads or independent teams) in the same evolution. There are probably other things that you'll pick up for yourself when you start using this method. The Assault command is confusingly named. It is just another movement mode, and has no direct relationship to "dislodging the enemy from their positions and taking their place". It is, as far as I can tell, a pure convenience, mostly in place for the purposes of unpaused RealTime players, or those who prefer not to have to micromanage. Any other movement command can be used to get up close and personal to the enemy's positions, with varying degrees of efficiency, both inherent to the inbuilt priorities of the mode chosen, and the context in which the choice is made. Slow can be the best way of assaulting through a door into an occupied building, for example. As far as I know, the Assault command doesn't bestow any particular attitudinal bonus for "attacking the other guy". I think that was confirmed by Steve "way back when". As I recall, it uses the same speed and priority set for the TacAI as "Quick" (so sometimes they'll return fire during a movement leg), and alternates movement between teams of a squad.

Only seen Ep 1, and all the "bad" guys have been in uniform so far. Not all on the "other" side, either. I put "bad" in quotes, cos there haven't been any really bad baddies yet.

That sounds like another application for a battlefield mesh "shot spotter" acoustic detection system, to me. If there's a mic in every squad in an AO, and they know where they are, what time it is, and can talk to each other or a base station quickly enough, they should be able to DF anything that more than a couple can hear, given a bit of processing power and some locality peculiarity learning time. Shouldn't take an hour (if the 60mm isn't displacing after every 6-bomb salvo...)