Lethaface
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Posts
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Posts posted by Lethaface
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1 minute ago, chrisl said:
I haven’t had time to check the video- do they look like hipsters?
Yup, they even got mud on their faces.
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40 minutes ago, Taranis said:
As I understand it those mines are harmless pieces of material until you insert the denotator part. (edit already explained by theCapth with actual RL knowledge :D)
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What would you say knowing your time has probably come? If I'd be fighting in some dodgy war for my country and knowing I'd be dying soon probably I guess my last words would be Heil Holland or sumfink (hopefully guns blazing instead of cowering though)
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46 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:
I'm not saying it's good propaganda - I'm saying it might be that crew's attempt at making lemonade after being dealt a highly kinetic lemon.
nice one
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4 hours ago, Butschi said:
No need to hurry, currently only the elevation feature is publicly available (or supported, I should say, since you can always check out the corresponding branch on GitHub). I am trying to spin both plates at once at the moment, i.e. tool and campaign. I am using the maps I'm making for this campaign to find bugs and tweak the algorithm while gathering feedback and doing research in between. I can't code nonstop, anyway. I'll make an announcement over in the general forum once it's ready to be released (soon(tm) but that depends mainly on how long it takes me to make a tutorial video. No way I'll be releasing the new features without one, again, if only for the sake of my mental health).
Don't want to rush you either!
Just wanted to say wow that's nice.
RL (should) always takes precedence, as does mental health. I'll follow the thread and maybe have a look at github if I'm impatient. A tutorial video is always nice but some of us probably can make do with some basic documentation. Although some would probably not and create a flood of questions :).
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Recently discovered this thread @Butschi. Sure looking very interesting!
Your script tool opening up map making for people (like me) who struggle with the effort of building a map from scratch but have some technical affinity seems like a potential great step easing the workload.When I have spare time outside doing my turns and following Ukraine (including reading 'the thread' :D), I'll have a look setting it up and see if I can produce something with it.
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8 minutes ago, holoween said:
If we were to give credit to the russian army they might have planned their offensive to end with the spring mud to inhibit ukrainian counteroffensives.
If Bakhmut culminates into such a situation they've been planning on that for quite a while lol. With meteorology not being an exact science it would indeed be quite a feat.
Anyhow the mud can indeed be a (large) factor for any Ukraine (couner)offensives.
It would be great if Bakhmut can hold, or Ukraine being able to counter attack and undo all the gains it has brought. But even if they have to give up Bakhmut without immediate counters, I guess they still have been able to contain the Russian offensives for a long time. Which probably has value in and of itself, for Ukraine (although at a cost, but who knows what the cost of not containing the offensive would have been).
And even with Bakhmut Donetsk province and thus Donbass as a whole isn't yet fully taken, so I guess too early for Putin to roll out the 'Mission Accomplished' flag. -
IIRC ceasefire will take affect the turn after both sides have pressed ceasefire. Due to the WEGO system it can look like >1 turn.
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Back in the day I had good fun playing those campaigns, looking forward what you can come up with now!
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The reports from Bakhmut not looking too bright, but at the same time several thinktanks/etc have been expecting for a while that Ukraine might not be able to hold on to Bakhmut.
I was thinking whether it could be that Ukraine is setting up a trap? As in UKR actually retreats from Bakhmut and let it looks like a chaotic mess / rout and lure in the Russians to overextend themselves.
Then close the jaws and strike at both flanks in the rear, trapping the advancing forces and cutting them off.
Now this is very speculative and perhaps much too rosy, but I'm sure Ukraine is planning something and probably they won't try the exact same trick they tried with Charkiv/Kherson. I mean even the Russians won't fall for that one again, right? But they might fall for other traps.
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16 hours ago, dan/california said:
So, taking The_Capt's excellent advice about step one, these are bunch of zoomed in maps and street view photos along the road that Jomni's map calls the m18, and Googe seems to call the E-105. Because nothing could ever be easy. Free terrain analysis, what worth you paid. It is unbelievably flat, the distance between meaningful tree lines seems on the order of one kilometer +/- and the single densest tree lines seem to be on both sides of the E105 itself.
So lets say you have a couple of what I assume Ukraines better mechaized brigades are going to look like for the spring offensive. Each brigade has a battalion of bradley's, and a battalion of PT-91s filled out with Ukraines usual mix of post soviet stuff MRAPS, and HUMVEEs. The Russians are dug similarly to what they were were in Kherson, but with a much lower average troop quality. Because the better troops they got out of Kherson are dying in Kreminna and Bakmuht as I type. How do you cross a kilometer wide pan flat field with the lowest casualties, so that you can cross the one behind that tree line too.
The one thing I keep coming up with is something we have seen very little of in this war. Heavy and effective use of artillery delivered smoke. Put the Bradleys on overwatch, and roll out what ever you are clearing mines with, followed by the PT-91s, with MRAPS closing up behind, as soon as you you have lanes cleared close enough to defenses for the infantry to be useful. Tell me where I have it wrong? Not that you gentlemen are ever shy about that. Yes I am assuming they wait until the ground is really dry, can't figure out how to even attempt this otherwise.
While I love smoke in CM I guess it is quite hard to organize effectively with large formations because the smoke doesn't last that long (while the same barrels could be firing HE). Plus drones can see over the smoke and direct/correct (artillery) fires behind it.
I guess the answer to your question is what we have seen before when UA launched offensives.
If the RA has on call artillery with enough ammo on hand and communications with those in the trenches or OPs, that's what's going to cause lots of casualties. As will tanks/AFVs/ATGMs with LOF on the advancing formations.So first HIMARS the logistics and HQs, excalibur the AFVs and strongpoints while continuously barraging the forward and rear fighting positions/trenches. When the defense has stopped being an effective fighting force, press the attack and insert your last paragraph.
Of course that's the ideal situation.
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On 2/25/2023 at 5:16 PM, The_Capt said:
The exact opposite actually. MC provides advantage the less control you have, while DC favours higher control and communications. That is why as we enter into the totally integrated battlefield DC starts to make a lot of sense. People are conflating DC with “attritional warfare” but that is not entirely the case. You can do dislocation warfare with DC, you just have to really be wired in and higher command needs to have full situational awareness.
You can absolutely achieve annihilation through dislocation this way - proof = air campaigns. Air power is far more tightly controlled than land power for a lot of reasons, but we have seen deliberate dislocation campaigns work in this domain. They also have a lot of C4ISR, traditionally far more than land forces, but that is changing.
MC is specifically designed for losing control but sustaining command, two different concepts. However as the battlefield becomes digitized higher commanders will lose control less and less (in theory).
While MC provides advantages for less control, imo it doesn't necessarily mean an organization utilizing MC will not benefit from direct communications with higher ups and some form of control.
Ensuring that authority is delegated to the lowest capable level is probably more a challenge for higher ups than it is for the lower levels, but does still require a 'lowest capable level' for authority to be trusted upon. If you don't have capable cadres for that, more rigid and detailed command and control is required. In my opinion this is the same for any type of organization.
One example of how even fully digitized forces become difficult to command effectively from a DC perspective is playing Combat Mission in 'realtime' with a battalion worth of troops. Sure it would allow for more 'detailed command', but having a better 'TAC-AI' would beat the opposing force given that everything else is equal.
DC as a concept is more brittle compared to MC, not only because of the risk of losing control and the consequences that has for DC, but perhaps even more because favoring DC over MC is imo defacto a choice for an inflexible culture ('system says no', 'tell me what I need to do now') and wasting human potential. Although probably no organization(al unit) is ever pure one or the other in practice, imo for the better.
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On 2/25/2023 at 4:18 AM, LongLeftFlank said:
Then the Anglosphere (US-Canada-Britain) sponsors a new 'Amber Alliance*' taking in Norway + Sweden + Finland + Baltics + Poland + Ukraine... keeping a seat warm for a free Belarus.
Pass the pickled herring....
* IIRC, amber was a key commodity traded down the Dnipr, from Neolithic times. @Beleg85?
Although I sort of fully agree on your China position, I don't know who has been passing around the 'koolaid' that central/south/west and parts of east Europe are married with China or Russia and will tear up their family/most important long term allies (EU/NATO). For what exactly?
Not that I even know what Koolaid tastes like so I might be missing something ;-).
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Anyone know who is Kees ? Going on his name he seems to be a fellow countrymen but don't know if he's on the forum (he seems to have missed start round 3)
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30 minutes ago, jheinrichk said:
I regularly get notifications saying I downloaded the same turn multiple times. Doesn't seem to impact the pbem++ or any of my turns or opponent's turns....that I'm aware of. I do play on different PC's depending where I'm at.
I also got some emails with warnings, sometimes I look at the turn but it's too late to play it (or something else comes up) and I quite the game.
I don't see how loading up a file and looking at the turn more than once can be considered cheating. In the end I just made sure to not close the game after loading a file / only load if I was sure I can play. But indeed no impact on our games.
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4 hours ago, Redwolf said:
But the question is - don't you have to cover some new area/timeframe? If you already did all the attractive ones you can only do them again with a CMx3 game. As long as it is CMx2 engine v5 you have to move [i]somewhere[/i], no? Is there a 100,000 copy theater left?CM:YK, Middle East '73?
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That's just a wild guess after googling Jazreel and Israel came up.
To be fair it's not a German sounding name and I had actually downloaded the scenario but never even contemplated the egg was in the scenario name lol. Well played. If it's indeed a CM featuring in the middle east during 70s I guess that will get a lot of people hyped. Most of the resources (terrain, vehicles) should be there so why not? -
8 minutes ago, BFCElvis said:
The_Capt used a map that was made for the Cold War module. The location of the battle is outside the Cold War area of operations.
Lol I just checked the forums after busy workweek (not finished yet unfortunately) to find this news posted a few minutes ago, CM:MiddleEast 73 confirmed!
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it is reassuring to observe we Europeans aren't alone with regards to political bashing among ourselves
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2 hours ago, BFCElvis said:
@The_Capt and I had an email exchange this morning and he was cool with me putting this out there. He designed the first round's scenario. We didn't mention it at the time but there was an Easter Egg in that scenario. We wanted to see if anyone noticed. No one did. Which surprised us a little because you guys never miss a thing. Welp, here it is:
https://battlefront.sharefile.com/d-s4ec9cae2481448d2a85e5b17454b1fd3
Remember....This battle is for H2H ONLY. There are no AI plans for either side.
Might as well spoil the beans if none of us found it. We can blame it on that we couldn't finish our battles
and limited post battle AAR options.
Thanks for the scenario, I had fun with it.
First impression was a bit off because both side start in potential LOS/LOF, but imo RED just needs to grow a pair and push forward while using their support in a smart way for it to develop in an interesting battle. -
10 hours ago, jheinrichk said:
red team in round two sucks. i can count the number of round two red players who won any of the game 1 & 2 battles on one hand. round two should be called camper's delight or pipin' hot poppin' off Popov
Round one I was doing great with USSR :). Round 2 you put a stop to that, although my USSR troops are doing quite some work. But indeed RED is more challenging in the 2nd battle. Still it's not impossible as @MeatEtr got a win, job well done and looking forward to pics!.
I have a video of our game when you moved a platoon of T-80B forward against my Abrams Tentcamps with their bbq smokers ;-), while artillery was falling everywhere. I'll upload it on YT in a bit. While I picked a different area to stage my main effort I don't think yours was necessarily bad, but you spread out your attack in waves and didn't continue moving. That helped me arranging my forces against your attacks.Video done (HD will probably take some time). Full spectrum engagement!:
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15 hours ago, Beleg85 said:
Also, France seemt to give their Akeron MP (saw some discussions as to how valid this news was, but seems legit):
The capabilities of that ATGM are interesting.
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26 minutes ago, sburke said:
is it Slovakia bashing day yet?
It's probably also Germany fault
Just wanted to say wow that's nice.
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted · Edited by Lethaface
I remember part of that footage from the start of the war.
Who knows what Oleksandr (and the other Su-25 pilot) did manage to prevent by their sacrifice/efforts. Whatever it was, a show of defiance against the aggressor at the outbreak of war.
Outnumbered, outgunned, whatever; he went for it all in. I guess occurrences like these (across all branches) made the difference in the early days. I don't really know what to say about such things but they impress a fellow human being.