rocketman

I place more of the blame on the monied lobbyists who represent the companies/unions/special interests who own the legislators.  Nothing happens without their input up to and including the crafting of bills.  They have far more influence than any voting block. Most of the general public has no idea what any single piece of legislation contains, unless some PR group representing even more money tells them what is in the bill and how they should feel about it.

Yeah, very ugly. The whole "American politics is ONLY right and left" is the sort of thing that is ripping this country apart. FFS I hate seeing these types of posts more than anything around here.

Exactly why I think supporting them is the right move. 80 years of Nato military spending in anticipation of this war. I'm not saying it's right or wrong to fund militaries nor am I downplaying the cost of life. The only thing I'm saying is they've sort of managed to accomplish their mission at a significantly cheaper cost than by blowing tons of money on military budgets every year.

I don't know the details, but I very strongly suspect that 'a small town in Ohio' *could* get aid if certain *cough*qanon*cough* senators and congressmen pulled their heads out of their asses.
It's not a financial binary - Ukraine or Ohio. It's a political binary - Biden doing good makes me look bad.

Actually I don't disagree, but the problem isn't that we are giving money to Ukraine, it is that we don't support our own folks.  We could do both.  Why we don't take care of our own people is a domestic issue and really has nothing to do with Ukraine.  Frustrating?  Yes
As someone who's COBRA benefits are about to run out and I am now researching the medical care marketplace I have a strong opinion about how we take care of our own and who has effed that up, but that is for an offline discussion.

Name: The Battle for Lozove
Map readiness: 50%
Play: Blue vs AI or PBEM only.
Location: Kherson region.
Mission: cross the river and assault Lozove Village. (More information will be added soon)
Friendly forces: 35th Marine Brigade, 5th Tank Brigade. 406th Artillery Brigade.

Enemy forces: 70th Motorized Rifle Regiment
Help: Need some people who are good at English for writing a Briefing.

Tsk - do you zink ve are some 26 letter alphabet peasantz? Ve also have Ä, Ö, Ü und ß to choose from.

Some proof that this doesn't only feature in CM 😉

 

I came up with a simple test that I think proves that the position of the TC matters a lot and thereby that the 3d model for infantry/TC is also the hitbox. I went back to @kohlenklau's fixes for FI and used the Firefly one. Unmodded the TC was barely visible and if my hypothesis was right, he would be impossible to hit with rifle-fire. I put 10 Fireflies at 50 m range from sniper and scout units (submachine guns). I ran the test with modded and unmodded. The unmodded variant suffered no casualties in one turn. What would be an easy target. With the modded visible TCs, they suffered 5 casualties in 7 seconds. So I don't think much more testing is needed.
It would now be interesting to see what else can be modded in Blender. Can optics be blocked? Can the breach to the gun be blocked. Can armor be made full of holes?
Back to my earlier statement about if this makes cheating in PBEMs possible - it seems like it might be (unfortunately) but that needs to be tested as well.

I ran some tests using @kohlenklau 's Firefly mod for FI - the one that raises the TC to a normal position (slightly vulnerable) from the completely lowered position (stock model) where he can't be hit by fire, but probably can't spot much either. I used this for a proof of concept for all mods that changes the TC/HT gunner position by changing the model in Blender.
In single player mode, the mod loads and the TC is easily hit while in the stock version he is near invincible.
In PBEM - if the player that starts the scenario HAS the mod but the oppo doesn't, then the mod IS NOT loaded and doesn't affect the game.
In PBEM - if the player that starts the scenario DOES NOT have the mod but his oppo DOES, then the mod is loaded in in effect. My guess is that the second player who inputs is moves/orders is the one that triggers the simulation of the coming turn and his 3D models are used.
This testing is pretty tedious so I can't say with certainty if this applies to all cases, but it is what makes sense to me, unless Battlefront chimes in on the issue.
So, in conclusion, if you have any of these mods and plan to play a PBEM, let your oppo know. Problem is that fog of war etc means that you'll never know if a tank will appear in the scenario or not so maybe the prudent thing is to only use these for single player games. 

Between the idea
  And the reality
  Between the motion
  And the act
  Falls the Shadow
Old T.S. knew a thing or two.
 

That's not universally true.

Well, there goes pretty much every book in 18th and 19th century literature in every tradition folks...

Well ...  I'd kind of disagree that that is an overriding theme in any Russian Novels I have personally read ... but I can imagine  you are not really interested in conflicting opinions on this subject so I'll leave you to your own (de)illusions .

I think it's related to the amount of handwritten and filled-in-by-actual-typewriter stuff we see when there are photos of official Russian documents, like some IDs, passports, shippers for the kerch bridge splody truck, etc.  Despite pretensions to modernity, RU is just not digitized to an extent anywhere near what the west is, and because it's such an alien concept it doesn't really register in your brain.  Their vehicles have mixes of a few modern radios that support digital encryption and a lot of ancient fully analog radios that don't.  They seem to get paid with some sort of actual cash - that's presumably how the military unit scams work where they have more soldiers on paper than actually exist in a unit and the commander pockets the pay of the ghosts.  At small unit levels, reliable radios are probably still relatively rare (and if not, they're probably compromised by being analog and so not used).  They really are mostly technologically backward at the mass production level, but with the ability to cobble together small numbers of modern-ish electronics if they can get them.  
So if you have to coordinate an assault involving ~200-500 guys on foot, a half-dozen tanks, some artillery 10 km back, and a couple of helicopters, but you have compromised trash for communication systems, about all you can do is give instructions and specify a timetable.  Imagine playing a game of networked CM where you're commanding a platoon in a battalion level action, but you not only don't have borg spotting, you only have view 1 and the rest of the people on your side are similarly commanding platoons in view 1.  You're all in separate locations so you can't talk, and there's no chat function in the game or on your computer.  Basically you're playing CM with slightly more feedback than Tommy.  You get a map and a timetable, and if any of your squads get out of sight you have to communicate via runners. 
You half-expect them to be using mimeographed instruction sheets, with some lucky mobik back at brigade HQ cranking the handle on the mimeo machine to get the instructions out.

UKR artillery of 128th mech.brigade has destroyed with precision strike the vehicle of newest Russian EW complex "Palantin". This happened near Vasylivka, Zaporizhzhia oblast.
This complex was adopted in 2019 and probably exists in several items. 
Each complex includes four vehicles based on KAMAZ and can deploy 22 portable EW/ELINT stations along frontline. "Palantin" also can work as control center for connecting in one network of older EW/ELINT complexes. This comples is positioned as operative-tactical level and has a task to detect and supress battalions/brigades HQ radio in VHF and UHF ranges and wifi networks, including digital radio comms and SDR-based comms. Also this complex can supress UAV control channels in 20 km.
"Palantin" complex vehicles

Photo before strike

Video of hit. Interesting that moment of strike is filming with fixed-wing UAV Leleka-100, which this complex had to supress %)
 

They ARE working NOW for me.
Here is the fixes folder for your CMFI Z and maybe you will hear them "more" often.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zna1uamdphgqtsm/AADex4KQR43T05lAb361KX37a?dl=0

So here we are coming up a year into this thing and I think it is fair to say that the impact of this war on a global scale has been significant and very likely permanent.  The fact that it came on the heels of a the worst global pandemic since 1918, and that on the heels of the end of the Cold War and 9/11 all speak to one helluva crazy ride...and I suspect we are just getting started. 
So I am seeing the same question, of variations thereof, being asked all over the internet as we come up on the 1st anniversary of this war:  When will this war end?
This is a reasonable and perfectly predictable question.  However, it is really not asking when this war will actually end, it is really asking "when will we go back to normal? The way things were?"
Well the short answer is that this war will likely not end, it will turn into the next one. 
For this war to end, Ukraine and Russia would have to accept a lasting peace between their two nation states - and I am pretty sure that ship has sailed for a few generations at least.  Watching the Ukrainian and Russian political levels, something has dawned on me - they have already figured this out and are waiting patiently for the rest of the world to catch up.
It would be a serious mistake to think that once the killing abates that we can all go back to whatever we were doing before this thing broke out.  Too many fundamentals have been impacted.  The power balance in Europe, the role of Russia and its orientation, some deeper elements of warfare itself.  We are off the cliff here and in freefall, so no point arguing about the upholstery.
We can debate when the RA will fold, or freeze or whatever.  But the reality is that after this conflict a second one between the West and Russia is waiting in the wings.  Or if Russia completely implodes, another major (and very dangerous) conflict there.  And all the while we have the escalating competition between the US and China.  My sense we are at the beginning of a global scale collision, but it will not likely be WW3 (at least not yet), nor will it be a rehash of the Cold War - although it will share elements of it.  No this will more likely be something else entirely, but in so many ways the same.  A Tepid War, a Hot Peace, an Impressionist War with Baroque outbreaks.  This might just be the first war for full control of the human race and building the edifice for what comes next.
Regardless, the violence and dying in Ukraine will end or taper off, and that is not small.  But all war is an irreconcilable collision of human certainty that contains an element of violence, and we are headed for a big one on many levels.  We have horizontal collisions between the people and the state, between people themselves and between states.  The war in Ukraine is a very real and brutal manifestation of things that have been simmering under the surface for years.
So this war will not end, it will morph and evolve.  Everyone needs to get used to that idea because I suspect our grandkids will be still fighting it.  Everyone needs to start thinking about sacrifice - something we are not very good at doing in the west.  I mean we understand it on some level, and some have had to sacrifice everything in the last 30 years.  However, on a broad scale I think we will need to be ready to make a lot more sacrifices in order to keep a voice in what happens next, and Ukraine is just the opening shot.   

6 new Cesars to UA, while ramping up production to circa 6 per month.
Very possible, both gentlemen were from paratrooper/SOF branch and gen. Pavel served as NATO chief of military comitee.
 

https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2023-02-13/russians-wartime-exodus-9127629.html
Pretty good summary of what's going on with the brain drain and exodus of talent from Russia. A lot more options for the people fleeing this time around. I guess due to the interconnected world. I suppose Putin could slip a few agents into the mix and send them off to do no good pounding away at a laptop. 
Russian President Vladimir Putin's war has set off a historic exodus of his own people. Initial data shows that at least 500,000, and perhaps nearly 1 million, have left in the year since the invasion began — a tidal wave on scale with emigration following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991.
And ...
"This exodus is a terrible blow for Russia," said Tamara Eidelman, a Russian historian who moved to Portugal after the invasion. "The layer that could have changed something in the country has now been washed away."
Like the white Russian emigres of the Bolshevik era and the post-Soviet immigrants of the 1990s, many of those leaving Russia because of the war in Ukraine are likely gone for good.
Eidelman, the Russian historian, said that the longer the war, the deeper the scars. "Every extra month leads people to get used to a different country," she said. "They get a job there, their children go to school, they begin to speak a different language. The longer the war lasts, the longer the dictatorship in the country continues, the fewer people will return."
In our lifetime? ...
Matthew Rojansky, president of the U.S. Russia Foundation, a Washington-based group, said the Russian expats could become "a repository of relevant skills for a better, freer, modern Russia." For now, though, Rojansky said, the outflow sends an clear message.

Guys you have to play CMBS more  RUS vs US or Excellent RUS (BMP-3/T-90) vs UKR  Thermals teach to:
Never ever move armor to a place that can be fired at from a place that has not been under observation by two observer teams for at least a minute (and two-three minutes is much-much better). Count seconds for your vehicle exposure. 3secs for APs, 5secs for HEATs, 10secs for TL/ATGMs at medium distances. That is the time for the actual exposure - vehicles take some time to drive out of the view. Use pop-and-hide multiple times to trigger a shot and thus force a lengthy reload for an enemy armor. That reveals enemy armor position as a bonus if you have eyes to look at  Find unconventional observation angles for observer teams. Putting even 1-2 psn observation teams in front of enemy armor with thermals is a sure recipe for disaster. Even 1.0-1.5km distance is not enough - thermals can sometimes acquire targets pretty quickly. Be greedy with the number of people in observation teams. One guy is waaaay better than two and two is always better than three. Yes, you'd need more time to dwell upon the battlefield but you'd keep your guys alive. Hopefully How CMCW is easier than CMBS (so far ):
No Javs that can be fired from inside the buildings with impunity. No thermals for US infantry. Relatively few thermals for US armor. PS
CMCW is a really great game! Czechmate is a really great scenario

Norway checks out in its support. If everyone would do as they...
Only 12 but depending on counting it is 25-40% of their total fleet