Lethaface
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Posts posted by Lethaface
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11 hours ago, Butschi said:
Rotterdam was a contested city, so the bombing pre May 14th was not indiscriminate bombing, I think (though I'm really no expert on the topic). The most devastating bombing run happened after the Dutch has started negotiating the trend of surrendering.
Afaik the levelling of Rotterdam with indiscriminate incendiary carpet bombing was done in order to force surrender of the city/Dutch government, because German troops were held up in fierce urban fighting for the city.
Although like you say, iirc the Dutch government already agreed to negotiate for the surrender of Rotterdam/general surrender for not wanting to have it's major cities laid to waste. Allegedly Because of miscommunication among German high command / air force the bombing still went ahead even though order to do so had been cancelled.
Anyway those were different times, carpet bombing / destruction of whole cities to break enemy will was relatively more acceptable compared to current norms.
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6 hours ago, Carolus said:
Eh, there wouldn't even be need of invasion. They would likely happily join a Russian bloc, along with Serbia, if Putin proposed it.
Austria didn't get even the weak denazification process Germany experienced after WW2. Its political institutions are weak and riddled with corruption, and half the population would gladly embrace the kind of reactionary conservativism Putin is preaching. If you go to a rural taverns in Austria, it is not unlikely to find SS and swastika flags hanging casually in the backrooms where the "local patrons" meet with local politicians, as of recently sometimes next to Russian flags.
Orban has successfully removed democracy from Hungary. He would join without even blinking.
Serbia? Vucic, the current president, was a government minister while Serbia was still in the casual rape camp and ethnocide business. The average Serbian is filled with nationalist revanchism because "NATO attacked us for zero reason at all", "the genocide is a dirty lie but they deserved it" and "we must reunite Yugoslavia". Half of Bosnia is for Serbia basically what Donbas was for Russia, except with a far better point, because there are actually Serbs living there who threaten to genocide the other half of Bosnia every other month.
Turkey might stay neutral or decide to join. Aggressive, religion-infused nationalism is rampant in the country, Erdogan has removed democratic institutions, and the economy is in the gutters. He might see an advantage in joining the "living piss-poor in dirt-huts but believing in the absolutely superiority of your nation" club of Putin.
That attitude actually the big connecting factor between all these nations, even when we look at Trumpists in the US. An absolute belief in national superiority coupled with the absolute willingness to be pissed on by corrupt oligarchs.
I foresee the "GDR separatists of Eastern Germany being liberated by Russia" as more likely than an attack on the Baltics. Russia already has its fingers dug in firmly in these countries, they just need to be connected by a land bridge.
Let's not forget, Russian nationalists don't think in "Ah, of we can't get Kiyv in 2026 we might as well give up".
Even soft-spoken commenters on Russian politics like Vlad Vexler are very clear on this. "If we don't get Berlin in 2030, we try in 2035. If we don't get Berlin in 2035, we try in 2040...." The whole nation of Russia is building itself for a permanent conflict with the West through all means. Putin's brainwashed children will do it in 2100 and beyond.
That doesn't mean that Russia will succeed, we just have to be real about their mentality and how many in the West would join them. Even a 5% separatist movement (completely realistic numbers in Austria or Germany, if they could get weapons) that locks shoulders with the Russian Army is a good way to massively disrupt a country.
I wholeheartedly DISagree with most what you are saying.
Erdogan likes to play power politics, nationalist hubris but the Turkish economy is rather deeply intertwined with European Investment.
It's the economy, stupid. Some extreme rightwing Austrians preferring macho style leadership over the 'woke' variant of the West doesn't mean they'd like to leave the EU and join the rubble union.
I think Orban isn't much different, when he needs to choose between economy and his 'friend' Putin he will choose the EU Bn and the Nato security/armanents. They all know very well that if they leave the NATO/EU bloc and join Putin, they'll be served on a dinner plate whenever Russia's leader**** has the appetite.
It's like Wilders from NL, he likes to encroach Russia's/Putin speech because it's popular among some circles and he's a populist; he can't get votes from people who aren't naive about geopolitics. But he's not seriously considering joining the 'Warsaw' pact 2.0. he knows very well it's political suicide.
Now the only countries playing with such thoughts imo are countries like S. Arabia. They have a lot of cash on hand and don't like our ways of telling them off for the way how they're running their country. They like Russian/Chinese attitude better, which don't have any problems taking their money/business without questions asked.
Nobody knows how the world will look like in a hundred years and we won't be there to observe it, but for the foreseeable future I think even S. Arabia and the likes talk that talk because they feel it's in their interests and they will probably get something out of it, but I don't see them walk that walk the whole 9 yards.
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5 hours ago, Haiduk said:
Ukrainian MLRS "Vil'kha" have been struck Belogorod about hour or less ago. Russians claimed AD intercepted 20 missiles, but locals write after explosions the electricity and water were cut off in several districts. Reportedly there are wounded after impacts in residental areas.
Good. Now hopefully some of the new drones are ready to roll against oil & gas infrastructure and Russia can eat some of it's cookies.
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55 minutes ago, Zeleban said:
Only against an enemy ready for defense (including morally) and entrenched.
Let me remind you that the depth of penetration of mechanized columns deep into Ukraine at the beginning of the war amounted to tens of kilometers per day (in areas not ready for defense).
But what about working in a team, negotiations among alliance members, etc.?
And by the way, no one is saying that Russia needs to fight a war on two fronts. This can be implemented immediately after the defeat of Ukraine
What units / troop concentrations does Russia have along the border of Estonia? 200-300k with armor, artillery park, etc?
Like before 22 these will be detected. On top of that, there are actual NATO forward detachments in Estonia. No shocking numbers, but IIRC they have been enlarged since 22 and now amount to a couple of thousand troops (again iirc) and also include airforces.
Russia invading and coming into contact with NATO troops inside NATO land WILL actually directly invoke a larger war and response, among which the Very High readiness taskforce and air force / standoff. The articles involved will be more of a formality in such a case.
A couple of missiles (accidentally) landing on NATO terrain, not striking military installations or critical infrastructure, aren't the same.
That doesn't mean we or NATO should be smoking big sticks believing all will be alright because the stuff is good
Vigilance is good, overreacting isn't helpful.
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8 hours ago, Eddy said:
I've been thinking about the Storm Shadow/SCALP attack on the ship in Feodosia. That is right on the edge of Storm Shadow/SCALP's range which means that the SU24 either went over the Black Sea or very near to Russian controlled air space in order to deliver those weapons. Either way, normally that would put them at risk of Russian fighters and the Ukrainians don't have enough SU24s to take many risks. And they need those SU24s.
However, with the downing of 5 Russian jets (from whatever source), the Russian have to pull back before they work out what the hell happened, thus creating gaps.
So, for me, this a planned operation. First shoot down the Russian fighters and then exploit those gaps created with a Storm Shadow/SCALP attack as part of the same operation. I can't see it being an opportunistic attack. The timescales are too tight.
Secondly, it creates a dilemma for the VVS. Do they go back to employing their fighters the same way prior to the shooting down and risk further losses. Or do they protect the fighters but leave themselves open to further Strom Shadow/SCALP attacks?
Another factor could be that F-16 are also able to fire these munitions, lessening the weight of potentially losing an SU-24.
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Cheers! A worthy toast
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2 hours ago, The_Capt said:
It is interesting that CM modern titles were actually pretty conservative in modelling near-future warfare. I can recall playing CMBS and seeing a lot of these sorts of phenomenon but if one could establish a level of superiority manoeuvre was still possible. Next-Gen ATGMs alone would be game changers but add in UAS, ISR and other PGM and one can quickly see where this goes.
Of course if BFC had modeled modern warfare correctly the hue and cry from the community would have been epic. Well the next title should be interesting. Or we could all just go back to our comfort zones…like CMCW!
Yeah especially with the M1A2SEPv3 + trophy and it's lightning target acquisition on probably too small maps for optimal ATGM engagement ranges, (and Bradley / Java / faster arty) getting heavy forces gaining superiority against RA is well possible.
Or with the RA against Ukr in CMBS.
But some sneakily employed ATGM groups could be very deadly against anything without APS.
Any move through open sight lines would be hit hard from as long range as available. And artillery incoming fast onto dismounted infantry.
On the more 'balanced for H2H scenario's' I felt trying to maneuvre before dealing with ATGM and AFVs was asking for heavy casualties against an experienced Oppo. The type of casualties only fine for when playing a game or if your RL Russia
I wonder what the upcoming change to artillery lethality will do. Let alone combined with a wider proliferation/ modeling of drones.
And certainly looking forward to the next game, although CMCW certainly keeps it's spot for the now more 'classical' modern warfare. Besides It would be great for modeling the old fashioned breaching ops!
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On 12/23/2023 at 6:04 PM, poesel said:
So the winch assembly is about 50kg that you need to bring to the other side of the minefield and deploy it there. By deploy, I mean you need it to fix it to the ground to withstand at least 3t of pulling force (or 30kN for those who care).
I frankly have no idea how to pull that off apart from sending a human to do it. Which is a showstopper here.The winch doesn't necessarily need to be on the other side, although you'd need a 'lussed' (English? :D) line with something anchoring it on the other side. Connect the sectors to one end and pull the other end.
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On 12/20/2023 at 9:18 PM, Battlefront.com said:
Thinking about traditional airborne ops in the context of our jetpack discussion, should we really be so surprised that ground based maneuver warfare has suffered so horribly at the hands of the combination of detection and PGMs? Air and airborne force projection has been under strain from this combo for decades, to the point where helicopters are largely held back from the frontlines and airborne ground forces are largely restricted to SpecOps and rear logistics.
Steve
Not really if one extrapolates/values experience from modern CM games.
Especially h2h battles between forces with thermal optics, modern ATGMs and accurate, fast falling artillery with PGM.
I mean nobody plays games with dense and deep minefields for fun, partly because there's no breaching modeled. But even with some pre-cleared lanes through minefields an attacking force will suffer heavy casualties trying to move through the lanes. And that's with limited modeling of fortifications. Thermal blocking smoke is the only way not to get spotted/targeted and shot up on the advance, if there's no blocking terrain allowing to move up.
My usual strategy is to try and find+shoot up all enemy heavy weapons before committing serious forces, with smoke covering the eventual movement of any assault forces moving through open terrain.
That and blazing away from all barrels obviously.
Anyway, my view would be no we shouldn't be surprised. Minefields and drone directed artillery alone seem scary enough, let alone combined with atgm/air, attack drones and mlrs laying mines ad-hoc.
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Fwiw in Malaysia the view you sketch is not accurate (posting from now). The Ukraine war gets less attention/focus here, it's far away and limited impact. However the agressor is clear.
China isn't seen as favourable as you sketch it to be, although US foreign policy isn't always either. They don't see the need to get mixed up in the conflict, mainly looking after own interests.
The Palestine/Israel conflict gets more attention, overwhelming majority support a free Palestine state and see the lack of that as the main reason for the conflict there. And that Israël can get away with almost anything, where other countries wouldn't.
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On 11/4/2023 at 12:14 PM, Kraft said:
And so Putin and China are affirmed, the west will get tired and throw the towel long before them, despite suffering not a single casualty and mostly dumping expiring cold war storage.
How depressing, but I guess this solves some information asymetries, namely how much security guarantees of 1994 are worth, about 1.5-2 years of drip-fed and postponed support, we cant risk escalating after all, only god knows which city Putin will nuke if a dozen Taurus are send.
But I guess it will all be different when the peace is broken some years down the line, regardless of political climate, economic hardship or other wars..
Yes I'm long behind on the thread
However I wanted to react to this. Your perspective in imo the glass half empty variant, explaining a selection of geopolitical level examples from a citizens perspective.
There are more perspectives imo. Not only on explaining the why behind things like Taurus, whether one agrees with the reasoning or not. There are also glass half full perspectives on the geopolitical front.
Just one example I want to lay down: look at WW2 at end of 1940 / 41. Half of Europe was effectively overran and defeated on the battlefield. Things looked very gloom, there was plenty of issues between allied parties.
Not all is well in Ukraine obviously, there is plenty of issues both in Ukraine as among those supporting Ukraine. One can focus on these issues, but it is only fair to put it into perspective that there actually is wide support for Ukraine. Also, Ukraine was able to defeat most of Russia's large offensives. Both weren't to be taken for granted before Feb '22. Of course that doesn't mean things couldn't have been better or can't be improved; it is imperative to remain vigilant and critical.
But at the same time, it is also imperative to value achieved accomplishments and realize those weren't a certainty; almost nobody predicted the current status quo as favourable for Ukraine as it is now.
Or maybe I just prefer half full glasses
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If NATO would be smart it would go on a truly 'joined effort' from R&D to deployment & training.
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3 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:
Yeah that’s exactly it. We don’t need to go full Mobile Infrantry all in one go, as much as everybody wants that. “Marginal Gains”!
If we can build an exoskeleton or armor that gives soldiers even 25W per hour sustained for 24h, that’ll be an enormous leap forward. And then if you have 1000W on tap for short duration, it adds another dimension to the capability. Given current technology, there’s probably a sweet spot for system weight vs boost to soldier “power” available.
I don’t think there are any practical problems other than the actuator problem I’ve mentioned a few times. Molded carbon fiber is incredibly light and strong (or even aluminum if you are poor country that can do the 21st century properly), batteries have sufficient energy density, single chip computers have enough power to actuate everything safely so the person inside the armor doesn’t get drawn and quartered by accident etc.
There will be many practical problems but indeed 'it could be done today' imo. Obviously not for every soldier, but given that we will probably see more high tech enabled 'SF' type of light infantry utilizing drones/etc, there doesn't need to be funding iot equip every grunt.
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7 hours ago, akd said:
More views of Oct. 10 Avdiivka assault:
These clips you keep posting give me some WW2 east front vibes.
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7 hours ago, Kraft said:
This is not Putins autocrat perspective.
He wants to restore a great empire and make history books, costs are calculated differently
Putin does not care about a few hundred thousand dead convicts, immigrants, muslims, whatever
Economic damage is only an issue if it reaches a nations breaking point. Look at conditions in Venezuela, absolutely abysmal, child death rates are at 25% due to starvation etc etc etc - where is the regime change? - it will take far far more until apathetic russians will roam the streets demanding change, they are content with a bag of Potatoes for a dead son, after all.
When he feels weekness due to instability, or other autocrats occupying the mind of the west, this will all start again, maybe in Ukraine, maybe someplace else and it signals exactly this to China, sacrifice a few peasents and get to paint the map.
This is already a confrontation between the West and East and just like when the soviet union keeled over, the first thing the west wants to do is to get back to business as usual, as if Putin will just Accept Minsk3 and will behave like a dog in his corner, this kind of irrelevance to the world fueled his whole empire restoration motives
Venezuela might not have a regime change, but it isn't doing 'good' from whatever pov. So not sure if that is an example others will want to follow.
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Besides Zalushny's statement has probably more intents outside of what is in the statement, than inside. After all it is coming from a General directly involved in a hot war. He isn't writing op-eds for a career opportunity.
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7 hours ago, The_Capt said:
I don’t think it is nearly as cut and dry as the average person thinks. There are upsides to a stalemate at this point. To be totally brutal an endstate where both sides can claim victory (and defeat) often makes for the best outcome. Ukraine is still a free nation, our support ensured they stood up against an illegal invasion and largely repelled it when there should have been no chance of that success.
Russia and Putin can claim victory as they took an additional 7% of Ukraine at an eye-watering cost. But this will likely keep ol Flat Face in power for a few more years before Time does its thing for us all. This avoids a Russian free fall experience, and we get the added bonus of Europe buying our oil and gas (or alternatives) while we righteously continue to isolate Russia -this is why it won’t matter who is in the White House post-war.
A lose-lose starts to look like a win-win. US administration can point to all the upsides going into ‘24, plus we are looking at Armageddon in the Middle East which keeps the Bible Belt focused elsewhere. We hopefully do a whole bunch of reconstruction in Ukraine and go all South Korea on the place. Russia continues as downward spiral but slowly enough they don’t start WW3. And we can all focus on China as the next big threat worthy of trillions in defence spending on bloated military capabilities that probably won’t work.
So you see, a stalemate is not the end of the world. In fact I would not be surprised if in some circles they are kinda pushing for it. The total and utter crushing of Russia has some serious risks. This outcome sidesteps a lot of them. Now everyone is both happy and unhappy. Sometimes no decision is the best decision.
I for one am not convinced we are there yet, but we definitely can see it from here.
Plus Ukraine can, at least theoretically, also do 'cease fire' / 'frozen conflict' type of games. Rogue entities could still make Russian occupation feel like Iraq on steroids while officially blaming Russia or at least denying any involvement. From some perspectives that would be more difficult for Ukraine than for Russia, but why should they play into the Russian game as long as they aren't inside NATO or EU?
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15 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:
This was the excellent point that ISW made a couple of days ago. It can be argued that at the tactical and perhaps operational level Russians have learned a few significant things since this war started, but strategically... there appears to be almost nothing learned. Imagine a scenario where Gerasimov stipulated that subordinate commanders needed to come with innovative solutions on their own or be shot for incompetence, I think you'd see the Colonels and Majors that weren't shot dead for failure would probably come up with some pretty creative solutions. However, the same corrupt and incompetent leadership that is responsible for all of the Russian failures is still the ones in charge. Which is good!
Steve
The last bits of your post is imo why we don't see real 'learning & improving' on the side of the RA. And also links to what was missing in another post linking to a video about the changing world order which was too limited in its vision, at least imo. The thing the 'West' or rather democracy has going for it is the advantage on the side of learning and improving. We probably owe Napoleon some slack on this account and we are in danger of losing this advantage, corporate culture being one of the biggest threats imo.
Ps Napoleon wasn't really democratic, but imo the only durable/sustainable way of enforcing learning & improving is in the dimension of what democratic freedom actually entails. Our democracies are in the risk of losing this, as the 1% gets more and more influence and wealth to the detriment of the 99%.
(Does one actually have the chance to make a difference for the better by giving it all, or does whatever one do not make an iota of difference).
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3 minutes ago, Splinty said:
My back and knees will testify to that.
That by itself (you're not alone I'd say) should be enough reason for investment in those areas. Also, many potential recruits for 'elite' type formations (and beyond probably) don't make the cut because of injuries during the recruitment camp training/selection. This is an existing problem for those type of forces, especially in countries without drafts/professional only armies.
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25 minutes ago, acrashb said:
From wikipedia, "150 watts for an hour of vigorous exercise", or 75 watts sustained for eight hours. Not sure that's enough to do anything useful.
So we'll need swappable batteries and better armour than this:
Well they already haul massive loads, especially the SF type of forces, with obvious consequences later on in life if not already during operations. But yeah probably only human organic power is too limited. But with the use of tech, engineering, tension and lever effects I'd say there is more to be gained from the human basic strength. Especially if you add 'hybrid' power.
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20 hours ago, kimbosbread said:
I think we are closer to being able to rely on at least some battery power than is commonly accepted. V1 powered armor is likely just mobility, where the soldier can now jog at 10kmph with a full combat load for 1 hour without destroying their joints. Let’s say takes 1kwh. If the solider is packing along a few kg of tesla-style batteries, that starts look less sci-fi and more real.
I think the major challenge is engineering a suitable actuator (ie artificial muscle) for this suit.
It’s all about the economics. If 10 soliders cost as much as one tank, but each one has similar destructive capability by themselves relative to the tank, then things are ok.
Yeah we have to differentiate between the various benefits of powered armor, and how much they cost. For example, improved mobility, vs more weight, vs better camouflage, etc.
Ugh I’ve only finished part 1 and a week or two of 12 hour days has put a halt to more reading.
Human powered exoskeleletons could already help with the 'joint destroying' aspects; if the load isn't burdened on our skeleton, humans can already produce enough energy needed for the motion. But our skeleton isn't build for carrying 2x our body weight for long periods. Add some batteries with smart recharging and these might be already significant improvements over the 'human skeleton mk1'.
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1 hour ago, Beleg85 said:
Opinion about Avdiivka situation from Butusov:
interesting opinion, thanks.
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20 hours ago, Vergeltungswaffe said:
The timing is certainly sub-optimal sometimes, but at least they don't overpromise and underdeliver on content.
Imo there is a 'holy trinity' between quality, budget and time. You can't change one without impacting the others, so if one or two are fixed, the other need to be flexible. With BFC committing to quality (this is not necessarily mainly about bugs, but rather realism and authenticity of the game engine and depicted period/battles), them having a sort of fixed budget, the result is that time needs to be 'subject to change'. This is about the big picture, not individual releases/bugs or investing a couple of (10)thousand extra to get some things done outside the core team.
Personally I'm also happy they sacrifice 'time' over quality. They could probably dumb down the game / new games and deliver faster. But that's not how they roll, in my experience since 2007. The result is that releases come when they are ready, it is what it is; still the lesser evil imo. -
On 10/30/2023 at 3:03 PM, Centurian52 said:
I understand the impatience. I really do. We all want our new toys sooner rather than later.
But my day job is testing software, and I've dabbled in a bit of programming in the past. So please trust me when I say it's not a good idea to rush these things. Some bugs are harder to squash than others. Some features are harder to work in than expected, and will frequently cause new bugs. It's always better to wait for a good product than to get a rushed piece of garbage. There is plenty of Combat Mission already out to keep us busy in the mean time.
I believe everyone at Battlefront is probably working diligently. Battlefront releases have always been slow. In part I expect that's a result of the limited resources they've always had to work with, and in part that's just because properly developing and testing any product takes time. But the releases have always come. We will get our new toys when they're ready.
Indeed everyone wants their new toys rather earlier than later. And when one has ordered them, almost all humans can be diagnosticised with the 'when is it ready/is it there yet?' syndrom. Some jobs role is basically to perform this role (PM ;-)).
Orwell called it 'time neurosis'.
Since time is relative, 'slow' is also relative. Some companies/games might come with updates every week/month. Some people will still call that slow. Other games might come with updates on a yearly/longer basis. One can find that slow on the 'expecting' side, those on the 'producing' side might disagree.
Then we also have different preferences for news updates.
I think Steve and BFC have commented very often in the past that they are weary of communicating news, as almost any communication will create expectancy, which will then have to be managed. They could probably hire a communications manager who's job it would be to update the community about ongoing stuff.
However, that in itself wouldn't do anything in the sense of 'faster' game development or releases. Instead it would probably be slower because the communication manager would need to be informed about progress on a regular basis. It would also soup up some of the budget now allocated towards development.
Give or take, that's how I understand BFC's hussle and I'm fine with it personally. Of course it is also fine if others would desire more information or more and faster releases, and post about that.
I don't think things will change because of that. We can also ponder about the question whether it would be a good idea for BFC to grow by a large amount, potentially increasing development capacity and more releases in shorter time. That is one option, the other option is the risk that the extra releases don't offset against the extra costs and is a real potential business risk.
I think the ones best to make that decision is people inside the business themselves, because they have the knowledge. It's also their decision.But yeah I'd also like to see game engine 5 rather sooner than later, or CM3 for that matter. SO, WHEN IS IT READY!!???
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
Look at the actual available metrics and events which took place surrounding China's visit to Russia earlier this year, and you'll know this is bullshik.
BTW Russia isn't a communist nation anymore.