Lethaface
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Posts posted by Lethaface
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18 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:
Finally got to watching the last (for now) K2 video of "Cyclops"
There's something I've seen over and over again in these clearing ops. I'm curious why they throw grenades around a corner or into a bunker and then wait to do something after. I'm thinking the best time to do something is the second after the grenade has detonated. What that something is would be tailored to the situation, of course, but something other than falling back and repeating. Obviously harder to coordinate with a grenade drop from a drone, so I'm mostly talking about the guys right there with the grenade.
Thoughts from the pros?
Steve
Not storming bunkers for pay either, but I thought there was still outgoing fire coming from the bunker and that was why they didn't move for the clear. Also 'they' was like 1 guy throwing the grenades around the corner, he threw them pretty nice though, with the rest of the troops being further back / dispersed.
The bunker also turned out larger than I first thought it was; at first I also expected them to creep forward with grenades like they were doing, and storm/clear the bunker. One of those drone dropped grenade seemed to degrade the position but not necessarily taking out that guy with his mug on drone footage, even though he seemed to be exactly where that grenade went off and I thought I saw some blood on his face. But he was still fighting later. -
9 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:
Nice package. That's more RCH 155 than the total Pzh2000 Germany has send so far AFAIK.
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1 hour ago, sburke said:
I think the plan is to let one drive onto the Kerch bridge and watch it collapse from the weight.
In that case I guess add as many as K-1 ERA as is physically possible. Also good for the memers
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8 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:
Another reason why Battlefront needs to make CMSU. I really need these Ukrainian style Challenger 2s.
I for one don't know whether adding Kontakt-1 would actually have much effect for a Chally-2, maybe on the sides for extra rpg protection?
Sorry if I spoil the meme
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12 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
On a related note, we are possibly working with a group on battlefield psychological modeling (funding isn't certain at this stage). You had better believe those guys are watching the same videos we are. In fact, we've shared links occasionally during casual discussions because there is obvious value in them.
Steve
Fortunately many of the footage has scrambled the 'less pleasant' bits.
Anyway that related note sounds very interesting, at least to me. Psychological modelling of the battlefield effect on troops etc is imo an aspect which most wargames/sims don't have too high on their prio. While it is certainly a significant factor in the conduct of war.
Good luck on the funding!
I'd expect some professional customers to also be interested in such features.
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9 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:
I for one do not know this to be true. In fact, I know it to be completely false. When I watch these videos I am looking for things which I can not get from ISW, AP, or any other source. Even niche military themed reporting by people like Perun.
Each video shows something useful. Every. Single. One. The best way to understand something novel is through repeated experimentation and/or observation. It's a basic tenant of the scientific method. Even seeing the same thing repeatedly has value.
The more videos I watch, the better I get at understanding the range of actions, limitations, effects, outcomes, etc. If I see 1000 videos of grenades getting dropped right onto people's heads, I'm going to form a different opinion than watching 1000 videos where it only happens once.
For sure few people reading this thread have as much reason to watch everything posted as I do. However, few people also have a reason to follow the daily details of politics, economics, military procurement, technology, or any of the other topics raised here. They are all "keyholes" in their own ways. Even ISW's reports are keyholes as each day's report is nothing more than a tiny window on the war and, taken on its own, largely meaningless. It is only by reading ISW every day that one starts to build up a bigger picture.
For sure there are some people like that, as can be easily seen looking at the comments section where the videos are posted. However, I do not think that's the sort of crowd we have here. I know I don't giggle when I see a head blown off. In fact, I rather not see anybody die at all. But since dying is a pretty central part of warfare, it really is hard to avoid when studying it.
Steve
Agreed. When I was younger I didn't mind to watch more gorey stuff war footage, but because of life experiences I now refrain to view too much of those type of stuff (my soul has enough scratches
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However watching footage of the war, not necessarily the gorey focused ones, does indeed provide more information than the ISWs etc do sec. Plus I always look to verify information from various sources and not only stick to one source, even if that's a good one like ISW.
Especially in the early beginning of the war a lot could be learned from watching the footage posted all over the internet. Another drone video might not always add to the already established picture, but without analyzing them one won't know.
Plus nobody is obliged to watch 'war porn' if they don't like to watch it. It's a bit of a holier than thou discussion imo. -
41 minutes ago, Elmar Bijlsma said:
Certainly seen my fair share of troops seemingly sleeping or feigning death in the hope of avoiding the attention of the drones bombers.
But in my viewing of drone and combat videos these last few weeks, there's a very constant theme of trenches littered with Russians that are obviously dead. And not infrequently, as far as it can be determined, some of the dead are a bit ripe.
That does seem to point towards a certain psychological breaking point being reached. Not recovering your dead or even chucking them over the parapet are indicators of a very grim mindset having set in. Of course, that is not an indicator of fragile morale. It may even be evidence of a fatalistic mindset amongst Russians that they will endure whatever they need to. OTOH I think troops that let their dead buddies lie where they fell aren't first in line to take the initiative in a fight.
All in all, I have confidence that the Ukrainians will be able to break through wherever they decide to launch their big attacks. And I have very little faith in the Russians in their current state being up to the task of slowing or stopping an advance once they break through. If the reserve trenches fail to stop the Ukrainians, the latter can keep going until logistics or the Azov sea forces them to stop, I think.
Good points and I have the same idea although I don't want to expect too much.
Although I do think it is fair to say that there is a correlation between 'not even throwing the dead bodies, of what were once ones squad mates, over the parapet' and developing an 'unhealthy morale' condition.
I still have difficulty believing that a large majority of the Russian troops is really convinced that this is an existential war for Russia and will fight till the bitter end en masse. But the house of cards has held up almost magically. Why haven't they given up on their attacks while it is obviously not going to end in a victory anytime soon? How long will there be 'willing' to feed the grinder in never ending forlon hope attacks? Basically by now their operational efforts amount to a distributed forlon hope attack, while holding on the rest of the AO. It is not the most sophisticated way of fighting a war of attrition (although without caring for loss of life it might be), even though much of the study about war originates from Russia.
Still rationally Russians are humans and everyone has a breaking point. When enough individual breaking points have been achieved, there are the conditions for a systemic collapse.
I hope your observation of a psychological breaking point being reached is correct and this is one of the early signs of a larger collapse. It sure could be one. -
8 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
It is also important that we acknowledge that as much as Putin had this targeting his domestic audience, it sent a strong message to the world audience. It projects an image of weakness which the misplaced criticism of the lack of armor only enhances.
It is also important that these parades used to be as much for foreign as dometic audiences. The huge show of military force marching in sync was supposed to make EVERYBODY quiver in fear, home and abroad, with a dual message to local would-be troublemakers that the Kremlin is all powerful. The only people that got the warm and fuzzies this year are the brainwashed locals who want to believe in Kremlin power.
Steve
One talking head I heard today was smirking (as well) and made a reference to 1941: even while the battle of Moscow raged rather close, Stalin held a grand Oktober military parade in Moscow.
I thought it was very fair to do so given how Russia likes it's historical references ;-). -
28 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
My thoughts on maneuver warfare cutting off and destroying large enemy forces:
Both sides have repeatedly failed to achieve anything resembling force destruction through surrounding and reduction. Like others, I wonder why this is. I think I have a glimmer of an idea as to the underlying cause. And The_Capt is going to be pleased to know that I think it is corrosive warfare
What does a force require in order to conduct an encircling operation? The ability to move faster than the enemy can withdraw. What is the most important element for achieving that speed? Vehicles. What is the second most important element? The defender having little warning or knowledge of where the enemy's "pincers" are. Historically speaking nothing was more destructive than a force trying to withdraw and finding the enemy already blocking its route of retreat.
Corrosive warfare makes it quite difficult for the attacking force to achieve rapid movement because loitering munitions, long range ATGMs, mines, and the ability to direct accurate artillery fire (PGM or dumb) at the right place at the right time. Both sides have these capabilities, therefore both sides know they have to advance far more cautiously than in previous wars because bold moves are more likely to result in disaster than in the past.
There is a solution to this, but neither side has it. Yes, I'm talking about TacAir. Much of the corrosive warfare concepts I mentioned above require the defender retain some degree of flexibility in redeploying assets, in particular artillery, to thwart the advancing forces. If the attacker has the ability to find and destroy those assets while they are on the move, then the defender's ability to effectively confront bold advances is decreased. The destruction and disruption of such efforts also creates significant command and morale challenges on top of the stress that comes with withdrawing under pressure.
Since neither side has effective TacAir, the defender has the opportunity to conduct retrograde ops with a fair number of variables in its favor. A bold attacker may get lucky, but is perhaps more likely to suffer significant degradation instead.
Steve
Interesting discussion. Unfortunately only have time for drive by posts, I just noticed some rumors about Ukraine having begun a counter offensive in Bakhmut. Could just be local stuff / rumors.
But in my brain it kind of make sense to do so. Some of the better informed talking heads overhere predicted it a while back.
Imho not necessarily from a classical 'maneuver to attrit' perspective, but from a perspective of attack where the enemy is the weakest, plus, perhaps more important, where success has the most effect (on 'National Ethos' or however one wants to call it).
If UKR manages to undo the progress made by Russia over 3/4 year, at heavy costs, in a short time and at a fraction of the cost; how can RU nationalists still maintain they can win this war? Of course the easy answer would be 'the same ignorant way they have been doing for quite some time now', but not the only answer.Put in another way, what other result, achievable with equal or less resources, will have a larger impact on Russia's strategy of continuing this war until UKR / Western support gives in?
(taking into account opportunity costs and maximizing effect per life put on the line).Even in a successful Bakhmut offensive Ukraine might not be able to destroy / encircle large parts of Russian/Wagner forces. But it will destroy the myth of Bakmuth/Wagner/Russia.
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6 hours ago, MeatEtr said:
Yeah getting that same temp scoring glitch as we finished one game. Expecting it to fix itself when we finish the other game shortly.
Looks like I might be knocking @Lethaface off his scoring pedestal!
By the way whats up with the leader board, that anodia player should be 3rd place with his 2830 pts. But he's at number 1?
Hehe who else could it be ?
Good job if you manage, I think I had a major Victory as Syrians.
I noticed the issue with Anodia too, seems something weird with his profile if you click on it the page doesn't exist. He's on top of the list but his trophy is bronze colored.
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47 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
Yes, and this is a very disturbing trend in all democracies even today. Some of the absolute worst people on this planet become police officers because they seek power. In the best cases they get filtered out early or, if they somehow manage to thwart all the checks and balances until they retire (sometimes not by choice), leave at some point without causing too much harm. Worst case they commit some crime that uncovers who they really are. There are so many examples of this in all democratic states I shouldn't need to cite any to back up my statement.
So it is not difficult to imagine a generally benign police force quickly turning into an instrument of terror if the governmental authority fundamentally changes its form. The good cops either quit, are forced out, or themselves "taken care of" in typical autocratic fashion. The cops who do it for a job probably stay, even with strong personal reservations. The bad cops, which used to be a minority that was largely kept under control, sudden get put into positions of power and influence. Instead of being subjected to control they now are in control.
Unfortunately, the reverse is not true. A repressive government turning into a democratic one takes years and years and years to reform its police force into something resembling the current standard amongst democracies. Which is another reason why we shouldn't expect anything happy out of Russia if it should have a coup or break up into separate states. It will take 2 decades of GOOD stewardship to get them to be anything other than the corrupt thugs that they currently are.
Steve
Unfortunately I agree on all accounts.
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51 minutes ago, JonS said:
I get your point, but it's possibly a bad example? AIUI, the mass of Cubans currently in Florida are there because they don't want to be art of Cuba as it is currently constituted. So, a plebiscite after your hypothetical invasion would probably come back overwhelmingly to stay as part of the US.
If, say, Putin had declared back in 2015 that Russian policy henceforth was that anyone unhappy with Russia could move down to Cuba, with their relocation costs part-funded by the state and accommodation and employment provided on arrival, and then there was a plebiscite over whether Crimea would stay part of Russia or revert to Ukraine ... then the analogy would hold, I think. But that poor thing is getting pretty tortured by now, worse than the random civilians picked up and deposited in Guantanamo Bay, to circle back to Cuba.
Perhaps, but sometimes bad examples have to make do
I had some interesting thoughts about binary choices between getting intermittently waterboarded for 15 years while being forced to listen to loud disliked music versus being conscripted/pressed into service as cannonfodder for the Russian Federation in Crimea. I came up with option C : Escape to Ukraine. Another bad example that will have to make do.I mean doing any kind of plebiscite in a territory one has recently annexed, as a form of justification for the annexation, is a good example of getting high on ones own supply.
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On 4/20/2023 at 10:28 PM, Battlefront.com said:
My perspective as a historian (of sorts) is that society's general attitude towards life dictates its approach to war. The more lawless and brutal the society, the more barbaric the behavior on the battlefield. Exhibit A right now is, of course, Russia.
What is already in the mind of the soldier makes matters worse. If the soldier is violent and disrespectful of others in civilian life, then he's primed to do horrible things in war. Exhibit B is Wagner.
It is important for people to understand that Einsatzgruppen were not random samplings of Reich society (remember the members were not just Germans). Instead the men manning these murder units were, by and large, the mental misfits that served no positive role in society even under the best conditions. They were given uniforms, weapons, and instructions to be who they really were. I have the same sense about Arkan's Tigers, which drew from pre-war violent criminal elements.
This is why political and/or religious extremist movements are so dangerous. Even before a conflict they have already discarded most of the things which keep people from being violent towards each other. They also disproportionally draw from the same pools of recruits as Einsatzgruppen, Ustaše, Arkan's Tigers, Wagner, etc. Unfortunately, this is timeless.
Steve
One of the 'interesting' findings is that (some of) the worst of these units where 'ordinary men' (yes I have that book) mostly consisting of small boring village policemen with, probably, some power fantasies which turned into killing machines.
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1 hour ago, Seminole said:
Self-evident. I just mean the people who live there. Who should decide? People that don't live there?
I consider myself a Floridian, but it's not a nationality and we don't have a Floridian language.
So if Cuba invades Florida and claims it is Cuba now because many Cubans live there, will a referendum, among the mainly Cuban people remaining in Florida after the invasion, be 'legitimate' ?
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9 hours ago, panzermartin said:
I've watched quite a few of those close action videos posted from both sides and I'm coming to the conclusion that modern soldiers have become even less densesitized firing at the enemy than what was described in the book "on killing". Some of you might have read about it. There was a theory that in WW2 most soldiers didn't fire their guns at all or didn't shoot to kill but mostly injure the enemy. That changed the coming decades, particularly from wiki :
"As a result of Marshall's work, modern military training was modified to attempt to override this instinct, by:
- using man-shaped targets instead of bullseye targets in marksmanship practice
- practicing and drilling how soldiers would actually fight
- dispersing responsibility for the killing throughout the group
- displacing responsibility for the killing onto an authority figure, i.e., the commanding officer and the military hierarchy (see the Milgram experiment)
By the time of the United States involvement in the Vietnam War, says Grossman, 90 % of U.S. soldiers would fire their weapons at other people.
He also says the act of killing is psychologically traumatic for the killer, even more so than constant danger or witnessing the death of others.
Grossman further argues that violence in television, movies and video games contributes to real-life violence by a similar process of training and desensitization."
I know the brutality and hate of this conflict may have surpassed any training needed to reach those levels and not sure if those videos represent the general rule but there is something in this war that I haven't seen before. From that video with the russian drone dropping a grenade to an injured Ukranian pleading for his life to the close Call of duty action trench clearing videos I find it disturbing to see perfect killing machines, or find that people from both sides enjoy the video clips with techno and dance music.
I mean, how normal is that?
Normal is relative. If you live in war, normal is different compared to when you don't live in war. Regardless, (accidentally) killing people will usually be a traumatic experience for every person with a 'normal' functional psyche although it can be 'treated', either by the person itself or with support, so that the traumatic experience doesn't become a chronic problem.
People engaged in brutal disturbing violence during wars usually have some mental condition, which either existed before they engaged in war or developed during. They will probably never become 'normal' again, if they ever were normal. Psychotherapy might help them deal with the issue.
This by the way isn't 'new'. People have been brutally killing eachother since we evolved from apes.
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14 hours ago, Zveroboy1 said:
Another pet peeve: human waves attacks.
I don't even know how you would describe what Russians and Wagner in particular are doing when they send these squad or platoon sized elements forward with barely any support at all but for me that's not really what a human wave attack is. Soviets in front of Moscow sending companies or whole battalions of conscripts yelling hurrah at German positions (instant cmbb nostalgia) en masse or Iraq-Iran war okay.
I think the correct term is repeated 'forlon hope' type attacks.
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Anyway obviously those in power should have been making plans about what NATO's reaction would be when/if China blockades or invades Taiwan. Biden was rather outspoken about it. I guess some people had some 'follow up' work about that.
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3 hours ago, dan/california said:
You are making the same assumptions about Xi's rationality that everyone made about Putin's. That assumption is at least somewhat debatable. Xi might decide he could care less about the economic damage, and that he is determined to go down in the books as the guy who took Taiwan back. Apparently it is a disorder that aging absolute dictators get. The only real guarantee he won't do that is the U.S. having the ability to sink the Chinese navy in a weekend and maintain at least air denial over Taiwan.
No I'm not making that assumption. At the same time I'm not making any conclusions to the contrary. Both the general and military intelligence services over here are of the opinion that China is the 'main threat'. They are playing our game with their own rules. Perhaps it's just that we aren't as gun savvy / gung ho overhere, but we aren't looking to solve the issue in a 'saving private ryan' moment. China is steadily building up it's navy, but without power fantasies one can conclude that their prowess hasn't been put to the test yet. They don't have a dozen Carrier strike groups power projection. They have hypersonic anti ship missiles but their accuracy isn't assertable. Can they reliably sink/neuter an aircraft carrier (strike group) without nuclear warheads? For their own carriers, show me thousands of sorties and precision. Paper capability versus proven capability and experience (US has got plenty). That isn't to say that they (CN) are crap; nobody knows for sure really, including whether we'd be crap against them ;-).
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3 hours ago, Haiduk said:
More and more videos how militaries of different countries honorably see off UKR soldiers after their training course... Now Norwegian instructors on Polish training ground
One man, mobilzed and trained in UK (he is still in UK) told they have very hard and extreme course. Interesting how match NATO trainings to Ukrainian war realities...
Nice to see, I can imagine the people giving the training will feel rather involved with how the, often fresh volunteer/mobilized, 'trainees' will fare at the frontlines. They will feel a sense of responsibility.
Hard and extreme sounds appropriate for such a (short) training. I hope it will make the difference! -
10 hours ago, dan/california said:
Unfortunately it takes two parties to dial it back in a geopolitical situation like the current one. China's government is utterly amoral and expansionistic. The way they have crushed Hong kong, and Xinjiang is simply beyond the pale. The west can have arms race with China, or lose a war with China. I rely don't see a third choice, and a AI graded six month course in Xi Jinping thought every two years just to stay out of a labor camp sound like a lousy proposition, at least to me.
And that really isn't a joke, the CCCP is just getting started with AI as an authoritarian tool.
So at the moment an arms race really seems like the least bad choice, unless China comes up with a whole new government system. Which seems about as likely as my old, fat, slow, and broken self winning this year's Tour de France.
Without trying to start a semantic discussion about what an arms race is, I have a different outlook. 'We' need to be able to posture a credible defense against a China imposing their will/narrative over Western interests. That mainly revolves around making sure they understand a blockade or even an invasion of Taiwan is a bad idea and harmful for China.
Military build up to answer China's developments is surely a part of that. But most of it is (geo) political / diplomatical and economical.But an arms race to have a bigger and better military compared to China on every imaginable front is stupid. China might even win such an arms race without fighting a war, as they have the means of production in place while we might ruin our economies trying to outproduce China (with a different type of economy system. And yes I know and have known about China's policies both national/international and I'm not a fan).
We need to have better / good enough tools to give China a bloody nose if they decide to try their luck. And enough of it / scaleable means of production, so China can't just calculate the losses as acceptable before we run out of pointy sticks.
If US wants to start a war with China just to see who has the largest ......, I think that US will have to go for that one solo or without NATO at least. I would wholeheartedly opt-out on behalf of NATO if I could.
And on Russia, more relevant for this thread, we need to have the capability to posture a credible threat against any Russian invasion of European (NATO) countries.Over the past few decades we f'ed up and lost that capability. It needs to be rebuilt, but with the lessons of the current war in mind and aimed at the next (defensive) war.
But that doesn't mean we now need a big and military able to conquer a country like Ukraine or Russia against a foe being a clone of the current Ukraine and it's capabilities.Such differences matter because they influence the required capabilities and consequently the (conceptual) requirements coming from those.
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1 hour ago, JonS said:
And strategy. And intelligence. And jointness. And unified command. And ...
The Eastern Front rather puts the lie to that old canard about history being written by the victors.
The post-versailles wehrmacht had a large, well trained, cadre of (nc) officers, many of them fulfilling a 'life long' professional duty in a tradition predating the Nazi regime (not that I think that's new for you
). That allowed them to enlarge the cadre into a relative large and competent armed force pre WW2.
So at the start of the war they were a rather formidable fighting force (compared to other forces at the time), although that also eroded over time for (among others) the reasons you mention. The same reasons dictate that a sustained war against the Allies was never going to end well.
Still at a mid - low level parts of the German armed forces remained a force to be reckoned with until the bitter end, while national/military strategy, intelligence and command were passing around the crack pipe (fortunately).Some of the never ending research and discussions are about a zero sum game whether the WW2 Germans sucked or not. I think one don't needs so much extra research to conclude that in some aspect they sucked while in other aspects their performance was above par. The rest of the details are food for military history academics, but often consumed/regurgitated by people having some pride/ego on the subject without the proper context.
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On 4/15/2023 at 6:52 PM, The_Capt said:
Even if we could develop APS umbrellas, they are going to be making a lot of noise in protecting our mass, which is hot and highly visible. We manage to create a great ATGM wall - which is a tall freakin ask when one considers sub-munitions, stand-off and decoys. But let’s say for a second we could do it. Well it will feel great for about 5 mins before the long range fires come lobbing in. A combination of unmanned loitering, artillery and high trajectory missiles…we don’t have an answer for that. And this is before we start talking UGVs, freakin EFPs with legs and a brain.
So in a fight against a comparably UA empowered force we are talking adversaries ISR outside the theatre so “no touchy” or we run escalation. So we create a force protection dome to protect our combined arms mass. Surprise is dead at that point. And we would need to load up the FP to the point it starts to get uneconomical to try and protect those same formations. Logistics and technical support, sustainment etc all stack up really fast to try and build a mobile Iron Dome. There will come a point that trying to defend our current formations stops making sense. We are not there yet but I can definitely see it from here.
As to AirPower and “the might of NATO”, c’mon we are at risk of sucking and blowing at the same time here. On one hand we are 20 minutes from running out of munitions and equipment to support this war, but in a comparable next-war, we now would have bottomless weight? We would not be stumped at Bakhmut for months…because we likely would have run out of ammo in the first 6 months before we ever got to Bakhmut.
As to AirPower, good lord, Russia had the 3rd largest Air Force in the world and got stumped hard: https://www.wdmma.org/russian-air-force.php
At the higher ends of readiness (always a contentious one for Russia) they have as many fixed wing aircraft as the Gulf War:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_air_campaign
Orxy has Russia with only 79 aircraft lost, so a pretty small fraction of their fleet. Yet we are not seeing a lot of Russian air action beyond lobbing well back from front lines. The reason for this, cited by many, is denial. Air forces are like navies, extremely expensive and insanely long build times. No one is going to throw them into a denied space because the costs just get too high. Does anyone think that if entry costs escalate in a NATO war to the level we see in Ukraine that “national caveat” light are not going to light up like an Xmas tree?
At the same time fortunately NATO usually doesn't have plans of the special military op type: a major war of aggression against a well motivated and decently armed defender, who has been preparing for war for 8 years. Featuring several axis requiring at least a million men (and other stuff), which weren't available. Topping it of with a brief 'preliminary bombardment - morning' for shock and awe, not mentioning the lack of plans regarding what to do about those pesky urban centers.
I mean if we would think of starting such a war I'd hope someone would at least start worrying whether there is even the munitions / hardware etc for such a fantasy.
In any case I'm sure US/NATO would come up with a different plan to tackle 'Ukraine invasion like 2022' then the one Russia came up with, if it had to. And actually prepare for it (it would take long). But tbh it wouldn't be 'nice', imo it would include bombing from standoff distance for a loooong time. If anything else even. When the stone age would start to kick in, boots on the ground. Although even then the task at hand would still be very different from OIF.
Probably more like CMSF2 with decent-good trained and highly motivated fighters using Kornets and RPG-29s but then much better organized and with good comms, loads of IEDs, etc, defending guerilla style from hardened positions (so urban centers in CMSF2). It would still be ugly, because that's what fighting against a people always turns out. Even after the conventional phase ends, 'mission accomplished', and blends into an indefinite insurgency on steroids.
One could mention Iran and US but the US had itself concluded 'bad idea' regarding a ground war in Iran, let alone a full scale invasion/annexation. I'm in the 'bad idea' camp as well, for various reasons, and leave it at that.TLDR, do we really need the capabilities and matching stocks for a war playing the role Russia is playing now?
Not saying / thinking nothing should be done, it's definitely time for wakey-wakey but the goal is not to start a new arms race (or rather should not be). -
15 minutes ago, Andrew Kulin said:
We are now currently both tied for 4th place after 4 minutes of game play in each battle. Ian's Syrians just put a world of hurt to my US forces in the last turn. Attached is our current scoring. Very odd to say the least.
That's the same glitch I had with the 'running score'. But don't worry it will correct itself and when you finish your games it will be the final score.
Now just get on with suppressive fires and take those objectives!
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5 minutes ago, IanL said:
Priests and ministers come to mind. And they cannot even be jailed.
I think every country has their own rules. Over here various types of employment have some form of 'job secrecy', implications differ between the jobs. Journalists have the right to protect their sources but the court can take them hostage as a witness. Doctors/psychologists etc usually also have protection, with certain limitations. For example if a patient/client tells them about a planned terror attack, she/he has to inform the proper authorities.
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
Interesting video. I'd seen some of it but now it was combined with drone footage. And happy to see those YPRs doing more work.