womble

I think that's where the geneticists would disagree. The gene pool won't hardly have a ripple in it, given the timescales involved. All that conditioning leaves marks on psyches, not DNA, not in centuries.
The difference, if you like, between Russia and the "Liberal West" is that in Russia, the crazies are the only societal element left that's allowed to speak, whereas in the West, both parties still get to voice their opinions, and the difference between "then" and "now" is that the Internet gives the crazies' voice a volume, connectedness and cohesion [chortle] it could never hope to achieve when media had actual sane people watching over it.
And because in Russia, "the only way is crazy", even people who would otherwise dismiss the nonsense have to get on board, to get ahead, and any human has the capacity to rationalise their self-interest as moral, in order to live with themselves, while only some have the fortitude to refuse to deceive/delude themselves.

It's much more complex than that, obviously, since there are different classes of crazy, from the sociopath-manipulator, to the violence-obsessed bully (none of which are entirely genetically determined; it's all "predispositions", and the system taps into those), and they all play their role in the dysfunctional "family" that Vova wants to be Patriarch of.
If the cause for the "Russian mentality" were genetic, you'd have to characterise German mid-20th-Century Nazism as similarly genetic, because the societal acquiescence to the rise of National Socialism has broad parallels in post-Soviet Russian Nationalism. I don't think anyone here believes that the German genetic makeup predisposes them to Nazism, indeed the empirical evidence would indicate very much otherwise. So why assume the Russian mentality is any more based in DNA than Hitler's was?
I'm sure there are analogies between the action of human biological inheritance, and the development of theories of Society (pace Ser Dawkins), but we should not confuse one with the other in its expression in populations.

I think that's where the geneticists would disagree. The gene pool won't hardly have a ripple in it, given the timescales involved. All that conditioning leaves marks on psyches, not DNA, not in centuries.
The difference, if you like, between Russia and the "Liberal West" is that in Russia, the crazies are the only societal element left that's allowed to speak, whereas in the West, both parties still get to voice their opinions, and the difference between "then" and "now" is that the Internet gives the crazies' voice a volume, connectedness and cohesion [chortle] it could never hope to achieve when media had actual sane people watching over it.
And because in Russia, "the only way is crazy", even people who would otherwise dismiss the nonsense have to get on board, to get ahead, and any human has the capacity to rationalise their self-interest as moral, in order to live with themselves, while only some have the fortitude to refuse to deceive/delude themselves.

It's much more complex than that, obviously, since there are different classes of crazy, from the sociopath-manipulator, to the violence-obsessed bully (none of which are entirely genetically determined; it's all "predispositions", and the system taps into those), and they all play their role in the dysfunctional "family" that Vova wants to be Patriarch of.
If the cause for the "Russian mentality" were genetic, you'd have to characterise German mid-20th-Century Nazism as similarly genetic, because the societal acquiescence to the rise of National Socialism has broad parallels in post-Soviet Russian Nationalism. I don't think anyone here believes that the German genetic makeup predisposes them to Nazism, indeed the empirical evidence would indicate very much otherwise. So why assume the Russian mentality is any more based in DNA than Hitler's was?
I'm sure there are analogies between the action of human biological inheritance, and the development of theories of Society (pace Ser Dawkins), but we should not confuse one with the other in its expression in populations.

I guess you can't count North Korea since they are just beaten into submission in the most overt way. But how about China? Don't they have this thing called social credit system? Suppression comes is several forms and degrees. When the day come when I can't replace my natural gas stove tops with the same there will be hell to pay. 

If the biological tic exists in a multitude of societies, it's not really a tic at all. It's just the human condition filtered through a particular culture.

I mean allowing "everyone" - including that 50% of the population on the left of the bell curve access to the internet - is I think the main cause of all this . Normally I could not care less if my idiot neighbor  believes in  some crazy idea about pizza parlors and pedophilia rings  - he is just my crazy neighbor .  The internet allows the village idiots access to a loud speaker to trumpet forth their idiocies  to the rest of their ilk .

The only reason I can think of not to do this is the concealability of the platform. A tripod mounted weapon is easier to hide "in a bush" than an ATV-class chassis with a tripod-mounted weapon strapped to it. You could make the weapon demountable, but that's additional engineering and potential complexity, if the weapon is automated, on its carrier platform.
But, if the tripod-mounted weapon can operate from full defilade, its concealability matters much less. If all that has to happen is that some "sneaky eyes" get forward and find the target, and feed the coordinates to the weapon system which automatically orients itself and lays its weapon, then the weapon itself doesn't need to be concealable at all; you just need to find a large enough lump to stick it behind. AGL can fit that bill, with the right mount and FCC; I'm sure other systems can be worked that way too.

The only reason I can think of not to do this is the concealability of the platform. A tripod mounted weapon is easier to hide "in a bush" than an ATV-class chassis with a tripod-mounted weapon strapped to it. You could make the weapon demountable, but that's additional engineering and potential complexity, if the weapon is automated, on its carrier platform.
But, if the tripod-mounted weapon can operate from full defilade, its concealability matters much less. If all that has to happen is that some "sneaky eyes" get forward and find the target, and feed the coordinates to the weapon system which automatically orients itself and lays its weapon, then the weapon itself doesn't need to be concealable at all; you just need to find a large enough lump to stick it behind. AGL can fit that bill, with the right mount and FCC; I'm sure other systems can be worked that way too.

An AGL platform (especially with laser rangefinder-timed-airburst fused rounds) would be even better than the AC for clearing trenches, wouldn't it? Or is there an airburst fuse for the 20mm ammo?
UGVs would be even lower profile, since they don't have to provide volume for the meat to sit in. And that would reduce their visual signature, and possible even the thermal visibility, since it wouldn't need to be expending energy to haul the extra superstructure around.

When it was announced, it was for 200 "now", plus 200 per year ongoing. Sounds like "manufacture rate" to me. Complex things, but should be able to manage 8 a week, surely... So, a quarter of our current stock, and half the factory output for the forseeable.

When it was announced, it was for 200 "now", plus 200 per year ongoing. Sounds like "manufacture rate" to me. Complex things, but should be able to manage 8 a week, surely... So, a quarter of our current stock, and half the factory output for the forseeable.

And an even bigger real estate bubble that will cause direct pain down to quite low levels and to quite a lot of Chinese. Add that the real estate bubble also has an element of being created not just by overoptimism and bad judgement, but by "bad actors" who knew exactly what fraud they were perpetrating (to a greater degree than Japan, I get the impression) and the impact on their society may well go far beyond the pure economic disaster.
And if Western AD-at-sea is as effective against China's "ustoppable" hypersonic ship killers as Patriot-on-land has proved so far against Russian "unstoppable" hypersonic cruise missiles, it won't matter how many troops there are in the PLA, because the PLAN won't be able to get them ashore, except as floating corpses.

When it was announced, it was for 200 "now", plus 200 per year ongoing. Sounds like "manufacture rate" to me. Complex things, but should be able to manage 8 a week, surely... So, a quarter of our current stock, and half the factory output for the forseeable.

When it was announced, it was for 200 "now", plus 200 per year ongoing. Sounds like "manufacture rate" to me. Complex things, but should be able to manage 8 a week, surely... So, a quarter of our current stock, and half the factory output for the forseeable.

I disagree strongly. It's anodyne generic pap. It adds almost nothing to the original premise offered to the engine.
It includes almost nothing (actually I think it's absolutely nothing, but I'll hedge my bets) specific to Combat Mission. It mentions nothing about the relative morale and experience of the two forces, let alone getting into detail about CM 'soft factors'.
It understands nothing about the necessary force ratios to make a hasty attack-to-overrun a "fair fight" for two human players given the single objective. Conversely, it offers no insight about how to make the AI defender work.
It completely neglects to mention any indirect fire assets, even the organic mortars each company will have. Smoke would be invaluable for the Soviets, and if it's offering "Briefing hints", that should be mentioned. The briefing hints it does give are so generic as to amount to "Use your forces and terrain to defeat the enemy," and it mentions "AT weapons" in the Russian half, which don't really exist outside the tanks; AT Rifles have specific limited effects, at this stage of the war; just assuming that because they might have "Anti tank" in their name they can "take out" a PzIVH while on the offense is perhaps dangerously misleading. I'd also expect some Panzerschreck on the German side, as well as Panzerfaust; looks like they got cut  by the "list 4 infantry weapon systems for each side" rule.
There's more, but I really can't be bothered. It'd be impressive if you could ask that question and it posted the scenario file to you. Whether it was a good fight or not, that'd be impressive.
 

This is where we hope that the UKR advantage in ISR will tell. It would seem from the dominant narrative that UKR high command should pretty much have a handle on where all the snake eaters live, and even what snakes they had for breakfast. And those locations should have "bypass and isolate" pins stuck in them, along with "extra helping of 155mm" orders.

Or:

"All these people are leaving. My job is to tell people to do something to make them stop leaving. I have done that. If people keep leaving, I will have someone shot. That'll get the best results out of the ones that are left. Job done. I remain a master strategist."

This demonstration of new capability (if it is longer ranged missiles, rather than just clever tactical use of existing ones) by the UKR AF is important for the upcoming offensive. If they can engage Air-to-Air at that range, they're back to being able to (?more than?) compete on an element-by-element basis, and that could make any Russian CAS missions sent to stop breakthroughs much more risky than they had previously considered them to be. Even if this was a special circumstance, it has to feature in their risk analysis for future missions. Might mean standing off further from the target, at least, or greater weight of EWAR needing to be committed to any given mission, either of which could degrade the effectiveness of Russia's "airpower as artillery" approach even more than their sclerotic C4ISR arrangements would.

This demonstration of new capability (if it is longer ranged missiles, rather than just clever tactical use of existing ones) by the UKR AF is important for the upcoming offensive. If they can engage Air-to-Air at that range, they're back to being able to (?more than?) compete on an element-by-element basis, and that could make any Russian CAS missions sent to stop breakthroughs much more risky than they had previously considered them to be. Even if this was a special circumstance, it has to feature in their risk analysis for future missions. Might mean standing off further from the target, at least, or greater weight of EWAR needing to be committed to any given mission, either of which could degrade the effectiveness of Russia's "airpower as artillery" approach even more than their sclerotic C4ISR arrangements would.

So it's better than Google. Yay. And by "better", I mean "chattier". What does it give you, beyond the initial question, that wouldn't naturally arise from taking the initial proposition and opening the scenario editor? I see: dimensions; several villages crammed into too-small a space. What else?
I'll reiterate that nothing  I can see in that response is specific to CM. What am I missing that is? It could equally well be a scenario generator for Flames of War, or any other computer game that works at Company level and lets you make up scenarios. And still it ignores vital elements of the "experience" (force ratios for D v A; ; the difference between H v H and vs AI; mortars). It has just added a lot of useless verbiage to the original proposition.

What about this constitutes "impressive"?

I disagree strongly. It's anodyne generic pap. It adds almost nothing to the original premise offered to the engine.
It includes almost nothing (actually I think it's absolutely nothing, but I'll hedge my bets) specific to Combat Mission. It mentions nothing about the relative morale and experience of the two forces, let alone getting into detail about CM 'soft factors'.
It understands nothing about the necessary force ratios to make a hasty attack-to-overrun a "fair fight" for two human players given the single objective. Conversely, it offers no insight about how to make the AI defender work.
It completely neglects to mention any indirect fire assets, even the organic mortars each company will have. Smoke would be invaluable for the Soviets, and if it's offering "Briefing hints", that should be mentioned. The briefing hints it does give are so generic as to amount to "Use your forces and terrain to defeat the enemy," and it mentions "AT weapons" in the Russian half, which don't really exist outside the tanks; AT Rifles have specific limited effects, at this stage of the war; just assuming that because they might have "Anti tank" in their name they can "take out" a PzIVH while on the offense is perhaps dangerously misleading. I'd also expect some Panzerschreck on the German side, as well as Panzerfaust; looks like they got cut  by the "list 4 infantry weapon systems for each side" rule.
There's more, but I really can't be bothered. It'd be impressive if you could ask that question and it posted the scenario file to you. Whether it was a good fight or not, that'd be impressive.
 

Or:

"All these people are leaving. My job is to tell people to do something to make them stop leaving. I have done that. If people keep leaving, I will have someone shot. That'll get the best results out of the ones that are left. Job done. I remain a master strategist."

Or:

"All these people are leaving. My job is to tell people to do something to make them stop leaving. I have done that. If people keep leaving, I will have someone shot. That'll get the best results out of the ones that are left. Job done. I remain a master strategist."

Or:

"All these people are leaving. My job is to tell people to do something to make them stop leaving. I have done that. If people keep leaving, I will have someone shot. That'll get the best results out of the ones that are left. Job done. I remain a master strategist."

Or:

"All these people are leaving. My job is to tell people to do something to make them stop leaving. I have done that. If people keep leaving, I will have someone shot. That'll get the best results out of the ones that are left. Job done. I remain a master strategist."

Thats not true at all.  The lua is some very generic code that someone who knows nothing about coding or lua tried to feed into ChatGPT.  The AI is not some miracle of all known info and data.   Without training or access to APIs that are specific to the game/app/whatever, it will always be generic and 99% unusable.  CHatGPT is great at generating in-context text through Large Language, but without access to specific data, it is still very generic in its output.