womble

It's not just The_Capt that wants it. It's Ukraine, too. Who do you think would be the preferred target of fractious warlords (other than each other) with nukes? Who's right next to said warlords if they start lobbing nukes at each other? That is, if you assume there's an actual threat of thermonuclear explosion. Once central authority has collapsed, who's going to be able to actually maintain these things in working order, and bypass the failsafes that certainly exist to stop random custodians of Armageddon from getting frisky already? Assuming that Putin doesn't press the Big Red Button (or perhaps that him attempting to press it is what gets him a Makarov Ear Wax Removal (9mm or .380). Perhaps the bigger worry for Ukraine is a spiteful Putin (or whomever) giving the launch order as a desperate attempt to "win" the "SMO". Whether it's a Tac Nuke or something bigger, that's a city, probably Kyiv. Maybe several; depends on how spiteful the launch-order-giver is feeling, how many fail to launch, how many get intercepted and how many fizzle. Whether the risk/result numbers make it "better" to have a rapid win with the risk of nukes or a slow frog-boil where nukes aren't a consideration is something that's very hard to know, and we certainly should be grateful we don't have to personally enumerate that dreadful calculus. Obviously, to a rational view, nuking anywhere isn't going to get Putin a win, but we keep having to remind ourselves that our definition of rational doesn't necessarily apply to the criminal insane asylum that is the Kremlin.

No, not really. You still have to sustain the airborne drophead, which means reaching it with land forces, which means breaching the minefield anyway. Sure, you could maybe keep the paras fed and supplied by airdrop, but if you have that much control of the airspace, you can probably win the way NATO always hoped to: by destroying the enemy from the air. The minefield can be dealt with later, once the covering units have been eradicated. Either way up, airborne troops don't really enter into that sort of equation, I'd say. Mines are a problem anywhere. Especially when you've got the resources of an army the size of the Russian one to lay continuous, dense, deep belts across the defensive front. So "specific" in that "it's the Russians", but the various flavours of Islamic terrorist that "The West" have been fighting for the last 3 decades seem to make quite good use of "buried bombs" for area denial and casualty-causing. I wouldn't think it's a big factor, beyond the whole "need to stop the other guy's TacAir hitting our MCLIC units". Air-launched FAB overpressure isn't a "standard" minefield clearance approach, from what people are saying, and just putting some airborne across the obstacle isn't going to make the obstacle go away.

Is that not what happened? Wagner remains "more or less intact", just based in Belarus. It's still operating in Africa (raking in the moolah), its European personnel will be available to Prig. What Prig has lost is his MoD connections, the ones that provide the special assets, the replacement tanks and vehicles. It seems a bit soon, though, for the regime to be reneging on the deal. Has Prig already skedaddled to Minsk? Maybe he has, so no one is worrying about him rallying a force to go back to Rostov and say "Hang on a goddamn minute, we had a deal." Or maybe enough of Wagner are pissed off at the whole debacle that Prig's leadership is meaningless now. We still don't know what happened to Utkin. I know he's pretty camera-shy (that's what Prig is for), so perhaps it's not surprising. But finding out will be a clue as to what happened just south of Moscow.

I agree with others that Luka would rather not have Wagner breathing down his neck. I think Wagner have been foisted on him rather than him wanting to give them safe haven; it's not realistic to expect Prig to change allegiances, even now. Maybe they'll be acting as security for the nuclear weapons that have been deployed to Belarusian territory. Wouldn't that be a great thought? They've had the option of moving forces into Belarus ever since they ran away last summer. If it's a "ruse" it's a thin one. UKR will know whether all the enabling assets (AD, artillery, logs etc) have been moved into place by the MoD, and Prig's Wagner doesn't have those assets in sufficient numbers to make a southward drive to Kyiv, without MoD help. If they were going to do it, they could just do it (to the extent to which they have the assets to do it), without any of this theatre.

I think you've hit a nail on the head, there, in the bold bit and answered your own question. Being seen to be "actively involved" is important to Kadyrov, probably both personally, and in the maintenance of the image of the mighty warrior that helps him stay in charge in Chechnya. So he's happy to play (emphasis on play) along so long as he doesn't have to sacrifice any of the other thing that keeps him in power: the brute force of his men.

Also relevant is the fate of Utkin, who is, AIUI, the real founder and head of Wagner (though I might've oversimplified or got the wrong end of the stick). He was the one leading the column to Moscow, presumably to pow-wow for the future arrangements of Wagner, and closest to the grasp of the security forces. How do him and Prig get on? Wagner's troops might all decamp to Belarus, or some of them might sign up with the MoD, like they're supposed to. Either way up, until the Russians decide to reopen the northern front again, Prig isn't going to be doing anything to help Russia in Ukraine. His (former) employees might, if they sign on the dotted line. Another question: does the MoD demand that volunteers (which included Wagner) sign MoD contracts apply to the proliferation of other PMCs that are, somewhat, outside the control of the MoD, currently? Or was it solely directed at Wagner (or did that become a limit of its scope since Wagner's antics over Saturday)? And if it does, how does that affect the likelihood and nature of future power grabs by other parties? Could those who have been bankrolling these private armies have been among the shadowy backroom figures who might've sponsored Prig's adventure, with one of their goals being to not be swept up in the MoD collectivisation?

Light mortars are great everywhere. Italians, Kriegsmarine et al. 60mm. Get them firing in direct lay, and soft targets don't last long. I don't know whether that's because of some overmodelling (though BFC have toned down HE effects generally, AIUI, for "gameplay reasons"), or whether we're just more pushy with our mortar crews than historical commanders were, so the effects are more obvious. Or maybe we're judging by kills rather than suppression (though "dead" is pretty thoroughly suppressed), and the ammo supply for MGs lets them pin targets for much longer than mortars can maintain their bombardment, even on Target Light.

I get that. It's still not the question. The question is: has the recent event with Prig taking over Rostov and dashing up the M4 unopposed changed that calculus any?

Yes, your platoon leaders need to be in voice or close vision communication range of their mortar teams to connect them to the comms net. They also need to be stationary, perhaps for a minute or two, so their radio operator can get set up. Though if the platoon leader is calling the mission, their comms to higher level is irrelevant. The fact that they can't plot an indirect fires mission from their own mortars suggest they aren't in close enough proximity.

That would depend very much on how I treated the two groups. If I was to piss them off equally, I'd fear the ones doing it for fun: they might want to have their "fun" with me, whereas the other platoon would just bugger off home. But that's not the point. The question is whether the 30 random guys who are upset and want to go home will be less upset and less inclined to go home, now they realise how helpless the country is to defend itself inside its own borders. Because, as you agree, that's the question which is stopping Putler setting in progress another wave of mobilisation. Unless it isn't.

Wagner aren't really mercenaries, though. They're, or at least they were, a PMC that has a single dominant client: the Russian Government. You couldn't pay them to fight against Russians any more than you could pay Blackwater to fight against US troops. I have a feeling that Prig is, at heart, a True Believer in the sanctity and superiority of the Rodina, and even now you won't get him or his to fight against their countrymen for another employer.

Oh. I was thinking that MoD "draft centres" would send tropps to the MoD, rather than to all the independent power groups. It's obvious that someone has to get more bodies into the fight, and Shoigu seems to have remained more loyal than the others. The alternative is just to let the entire Russian army die or surrender in Ukraine, then no one will have any soldiers to overthrow anyone... which seems like a... counterproductive approach. I thought the consensus was that Putin wasn't mobilising because it might piss off the populace, rather than because it might make potential usurpers more powerful.

Does Prig's (or Utkin's) Thunder Run past Voronezh give Putin more cause/ability to undertake a further mobilisation of the general Russian populace? It's demonstrated what "could happen" if UKR break the current lines, and with the "loss" of chunks of Wagner, there's gonna be personnel holes to fill. If there were to be a mobilisation wave, with half going straight to the front after a fortnight's Basic, and the rest getting "proper training", would that put UKR onto a tighter clock, with (slightly) stiffer headwinds? Or would it make no difference to the Summer's activities? It's such a shame that Kadyrov and his TikTok Toy soldiers are so shy. Would have been nice to see them charge into Wagner and both their numbers start ticking down, even if it was only for a day. That said, could they have been instructed to stand clear until the situation resolved a bit more?

I'm basing the idea that OMON are present in Russia on reports of their presence in posts in this thread. They seem like the only internal security forces which might have the demo expertise and equipment to drop bridge spans. If they aren't there, then I'll agree, there's nothing much likely to be able to stand the armoured column of Musicians off. There won't be any ATGMs in the backfield if there aren't any on the front line, after all, and the armour and artillery is all in UKR too. They would have had to be fetched back once engineering works stymied the advance.

And the Russians have proven that the Antonovsky Bridge makes a good mask for a pontoon bridge... Or did they drop all the spans and piers? Do the Russians have the capability to interdict that kind of crossing, if the UKR AD umbrella covers it?

Entirely possible, I'll warrant. And now we hear tales of elements of "capable" (although who knows how reliable?) units being airlifted around the RUF, so is Prig on a clock: get safe before those arrivals can shake themselves out into fighting formations and close the noose? There are internal security elements though, which should be reliable supporters of the regime. I would have thought OMON formations would have the engineer capacity to deny river crossings to the rebels. Maybe they're moving so fast that the high-ups can't get their heads around the idea of destroying Rodina infrastructure to slow the progress of malcontents.

Having seized the SMO (and thus the regime) by the jugular in Rostov, it makes no sense that they send a "flying column" north, unsupported, unless they have cast-iron certainty that they won't be opposed or cut off. For me, this signals that Prig is confident he has friends in high places. Stalling them at a river crossing and blocking them from withdrawal, reinforcement or resupply shouldn't be beyond even Shoigu and Gerasimov's limited conceptual and physical resources, which seems to still include the RU air force, and definitely includes more artillery and shells than the flying column could possibly be carrying alongwith themselves.

Those bridges would likely be dropped by the Russians as they are driven back anyway, so perhaps the UKR policy makers aren't too concerned about infrastructure surviving the liberation of the land it's built on.

All pTruppen are lazy. If you want them to move through difficult terrain, when there is any easier option, you have to give them orders where going the hard way is easier than leaving the hard terrain, crossing the easy terrain then re-entering the difficult going. The best example of this is when you want to advance up a swampy ditch: you have to give them a waypoint every AS, in the ditch, or they'll clamber out, jog along the lip of the gully and dive back in at the end. And sometimes that won't even work. Different movement modes can sometimes make a difference, because they apply different priorities to "getting to point B". Might be an occasion to use Move instead of Quick. It might be worth some experimenting under controlled conditions so you won't be surprised once the lead starts flying.

It might have been clever of the Russians to keep a "plausible" hammer ready to fall on a pre-planned sector of the front once the UKR offensive started for real. Would provide a distraction and potential siphon for UKR reserve formations that were supposed to be poised for breakout. Might even offer some actual territorial gains to crow about, if it catches UKR off-guard.

Oh yeah. That's a telltale of "unlucky with tanks" alright. Maybe that's why Russians send a platoon to do a single tank's work!

Do you operate your tanks buttoned or unbuttoned? WW2-era tanks especially spot much better when the TC's head is out the hatch.

My recollection of previous times the penetration model has come up tells me that there's something to do with the ratio of the calibre of the round and the thickness of the armour. If the round is sufficiently larger than the armour is thick, the armour just may as well not be there. So yeah, a 37mm will probably spang off the top of a PzIV turret at shallow angles. Personally I prefer the more deterministic method, flaws an' all. BFC have taken a whole host of factors into account, and their interplay is what a RNG in a less sophisticated model would be abstracting.

That sounds like an incredibly specific exercise of placing the fixed wing in the most disadvantageous situation possible vis a vis the rotary. Nobody here, for sure, has suggested that F-16s go hunting Russian attack helos with cannon. AMRAAMs by look-down radar from 50km is more the speed we're talking. Beyond Visual Range. Do Ka-52 (or any AH) have the avionics to compete in that field?

I'm a bit puzzled as to why these four things will be true. Surely the liberated areas won't be so huge relative to the already-defended lands that moving the AD and CB umbrellas forward (judiciously, once the superior CB of the UKR has whittled the Russian artillery down to local ineffectiveness) to cover the crunchies' advanced positions, will they? Maintaining artillery superiority is another reason for a broad advance. If you generate a salient, you have to put your CB assets into the salient to be able to reach the enemy's batteries that are "in front" of the projection in your lines, which brings your long-ranged CB assets into range of shorter-ranged enemy fires to the sides of the pocket. Which is obviously suboptimal. So you need a broad, uniform front of advance, so that the enemy is always "in front" of you, not to the sides. Patton would have a fit.