Lethaface

Best thing about Oryx is that every “kill” can be clicked on and you get a pic.  Now is every pic legit?  Is every kill accurate?  I would be surprised if it was 100% but even at 80% this is open source intelligence that simply has never been available, this early, for any war in history.

This man has truly had his "road to Damascus" moment. Either that, or he suffered a massive stroke.

(evidently, this too is a UL)
Steve @Battlefront.com can you special flag that post somehow so folks don't miss it?

Give this as read:
https://static.rusi.org/202303-SR-Unconventional-Operations-Russo-Ukrainian-War-web-final.pdf.pdf
Especially from about page 14 on.  Weirdly the Russians had a far more detailed plan for occupation than they did for the initial invasion - they basically made a bunch of assumptions, that let to more assumptions, that became “facts” over time.  But for the occupation they had put in a lot of effort.  Their plans were brutal, as demonstrated on how they have been managing the occupied territories.   They had no intention of pulling back after making a point.  This was a full on grab, smother and control job from the get go.
There is a part 2 for this but I have not read it yet:
https://static.rusi.org/SR-Russian-Unconventional-Weapons-final-web.pdf

Grozny Vs Gaza is again not a fair comparison. Yes similar square Km but totally different building density and the approach by the IDF has been methodical destroying any cover before taking an area over.
They have incrementally destroyed an area before moving on to the next area.
Russia just sucked at its approach in Grozny until they realised they needed to level the place.
As for the extensive tunnels it depends on how they have been designed. The Vietcong design was more harmful to the Americans. The Gaza tunnels don't seem to have been designed in a similar manner.
So imo it is not an example that holds weight for tanks being effective in urban combat.
Sure if you can kettle an area and build a wall around it before attacking, blockading for years before you attack.

Wow you really don't have a clue as to what Hamas has available to them. Want to cite any sources as to how well equipped Hamas are with modern AT weapon systems?
Home grown? Yep Hamas has a fantastic R&D section...
The IDF have a pretty good ring around the area and what's left is a small barrel which is slowly being destroyed bit by bit.
Apples and space monkey comparisons....
Not even in the same planet the two forces...

I think the difference there is that Russia is fighting a war, America is not. Russia is running its tank factories on triple shifts. America is not. I imagine if you flipped the circumstances American tank production would skyrocket. (Also America has no real need to actually make many tanks right now, they have so many of the buggers in storage as it is. Production currently is really more just to keep the factory running than anything else) 

This is full scale Russian tank production, its not getting any better without new factories. Its only 'keeping up' because of a cold war inheritance its spending at a frightful pace. The sh*t show element is tied to new weapons development in particular but also the fact it took them a while to even properly get their factories on gear and even then we hear some bizarre reports about how they are still not staffing properly. Peruns video on the Russian defence industry probably does a better job of explaining this better than I can. 
 
 

My take on things is that #1 and #2 were initially far more of consequence in the first year of conflict, especially in the first few months. As things stand now? Its clearly more weighted towards #3, though I would argue there is still plenty of evidence for the Russians doing a lot of questionable things and that Ukraine is still largely outperforming prior expectations in its ability to resist. 

The fact of the matter is, everyone expected Russia to launch its own version of desert storm, at least when it came to ground based capability and to see otherwise was a profound surprise. This stage of the conflict featured limited amount of NATO weaponry for Ukraine (especially high end stuff) while the Russians were entirely fresh with their new BTGs and clearly had at least some well equipped and trained units (VDV for instance) Drones for recon were certainly a thing but it was still very much adhoc, and of course there was nothing close to grenade dropping drones, or FPVs at all. In essence this phase of the war was about as conventionally 'traditional' as any other conflict prior outside of scale.

The Ukrainians were taken by surprise (At least in some areas) which allowed the Russians to make a pretty large scale attack on numerous fronts within the first twenty four hours.

Yet the Russians almost immediately suffered tonnes of horrendous reverses and were making a lot of questionable choices, while the Ukrainians clearly showed a resolve that -no one- was expecting even if it was not all going their own way in some areas. Things like  not having your AD network turned on properly to allow TB-2s to strike your air defence assets as one example of many is clear incompetence and it cannot be framed in another other way. Expecting your opposition to not fight back properly is another good example of how arrogance is a horrible trait for the battlefield and it was punished accordingly. 

As the weeks went by it was clear that something was deeply wrong as initial gains withered, supply columns measured in the dozens of miles were spotted from orbit and dozens upon dozens of videos of destroyed Russian columns appeared. This was a war that Russia should have been perfectly capable of fighting and yet it was not. We got snippets of what was going on as time went on, from Russian unit coordination between BTGs being shockingly poor, to the claim that most soldiers were not even aware they are in Ukraine until they were being shot at. I still remember the pictures showing Russians were relying on cheap Chinese radios instead of the fancy Akveduk systems they were supposed to have. You cannot tell me that Russian incompetence / lack of preparation was not key when Russian officers were struggling to contact their soldiers and having to resort to unsecured mobile phones to do so.

A lot of it I suppose was the propaganda bubble bursting, that the image of the Russian army with its modernisation efforts like Ratnik would be a credible peer adversary to NATO. Certainly the Russians seemed to think so. In reality of course, its clear that severe corruption has been a cancer to a lot of these efforts, and the results were clear just from 2022 how bad it had debilitated the entire force. These corruption issues are not things that go away easily. As Perun said quite well. It is a feature, not a bug. 
 

One of the big blockers for Ukrainian initial attempts to break into the Russian lines last summer was ATGMs from KA-50s/52s and *not* drones.  To some extent drones are reshaping the battlefield but we are also getting a ton of drone footage because their means of implementation means that you get a lot of video evidence. That video evidence is also fairly clear as compared to an ATGM hit which is usually just the launch into a field.
 

To some extant there is going to be the impact of industrial erosion. Russian Susna sights were rate limited for a while because they utilized French parts. The U.S. had shortages of fairly simple items during Covid because they were imported. With Susna I believe the Russians found an alternative but without knowing the production pathway of Arena its hard to say why these systems aren't in use.

- key parts are hard to acquire?
- production can be shunted to something else that is needed now that tank production has increased dramatically?
- Arena isn't effective against Javelins?

Not rambling but I would encourage you to widen your aperture - you clearly have demonstrated the potential in these discussion but I fear you remain somewhat restricted by conventional boxes.
The aim here is not to create "and all drone force" or "all APS c-drone force." and have them play smash-smash until one side wins.  The aim here is to evolve our land warfare systems to best effect. Hcrof has already outlined some very good ideas on how to do this and none of them include "and all drone force".
So I for one would stop investing in heavy metal...period.  We can find way to repurpose the metal we have, and yes, that will include protections for it.  But heavy metal - and here I am talking armor, IFVs and AFVs will need to be re-rolled to a greater or lesser degree.  So what do I want?
- C4ISR - best in the world.  I want a fully illuminated battlefield in real time that can integrate all my shooters in a cloud-like concept.  I see targets early and can pull from that cloud of a self-healing network of offensive systems.  From sub-surface, surface, air, space and cyber - I want See, Hear, Understand superiority.  With that I can beat just about anyone.
- Precision (see C4ISR).  I want a precision based force.  300 bullets means 300 kills.  I want that precision linked and able to swing on a dime to bring massed precision to any point on the battlefield.  I want to be able to melt an opponents operational system in quick time from front end to industry.
- Unmanned (see Precision and C4ISR) - I want humans doing what they do best - battlespace management.  I want fewer of them but they are the owners of the nodes, not mass.  Mass needs to be machine based because it is 1) sustainable as dead metal has much less effect on human will, 2) cheaper in the longer term (humans are very cheap in the short), 3) much less prone to errors and friction.  I want unmanned to be the front edge of battle. I want it armed with Precision and ISR.
- Fires.  Strike is not going anywhere.  If someone told me I have 5B dollars..."where do you want it?"  A good slice would be into over-the-horizon fires - guns, missiles and loitering.  I do not want an "unmanned force" - I want a Firepower Force.  See it, kill it, repeat.  I want to use fires as manouevre.  
- Infantry.  Not for mass but there is a reality that people will be needed forward. Likely paired with machines but the human brain is still the most powerful processor in the universe (that we know of) and war is still all about people.  I want light, fast and dispersed infantry.  Crawling into everything like sand up the bikini, and they can take the machines with them.
All of that means Denial at worst and crushing corrosive warfare at best.  I would take that up against any military on the planet right now.  I do not care if an opponent comes at me with f#cking dragons with wizards on them; I will be able to see and hit from so many different angles that there is no force protection in existence that will allow them to advance.  Wrap your tanks in bubble wrap, I will hit logistics back to the break rooms. Further, that advancing would be capable of terrifying offensive effects.   
I want mass precision beats everything.
Now I am not going to get that, but I want investments to take us in that direction and not backwards.  Why?  Because there is a lot more evidence coming from this war, and the ones before it, that this is the direction where things are heading. More than any way we have fought in the past. As a student of military history, I can see the writing on the wall - we are looking at a shift, again. We will continue to negotiate with the future, everyone does, but we can at least be smarter about it. 

I do that too.
It is also super useful for pathing around through obstacles. For example a small gape in the bocage can cause guys on other teams to get tried of waiting and seek another way around. If you use the assault command the only one team at a time is trying to go through the gap. Cuts down on taking the long way into trouble.
For the same reason it is my default for building entry too.

Nope. 
 
Not an all in one. You can check stuff out at https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/cm-mod-warehouse/ and see what you prefer though @37mmdid a grand job of curating an all in one that ticks a lot of boxes off the bat. 

The riflemen are basically ammo carriers for the MG42 and keep their eyes open for enemy forces to snipe at them to protect their firepower which is the MG42. Also keep them as long as practical in their Hanomags aka Halftracks they are mobile Foxholes to keep formation with the Panzers. Against enemy infantry especially Soviets keep their tactical range at 300 meters and avoid allowing enemy infantry inside 200 meters. 

It's too bad that the Begleit-Grenadier squad found in the Sturmartillerie brigades is as rare as it is. It's basically the perfect German infantry squad as far as CM is concerned, with three elements totaling 7 StG 44, 3 Gewehr 43 + 1 LMG & rifleman, for 12 soldiers total. It's size and loadout mean that it can effectively engage infantry at any range whether on offense or defense, and like most other German infantry squads of this time there's also a couple Panzerfausts per squad.
Probably the best choice to go with for frustrated German players when playing either quick battles or PBEM. 

Yes, but not out of direct support of each other. Usually the platoon would be tasked with a mission which the squads would move and fight in concert with each other to achieve, so the opening post of "Panzergrenadier squads are awkward because a squad can't scout for itself as it moves to contact" means it's handled incorrectly in my opinion.
Even if you could detach 2 man scout teams from their squads without lumping the remaining 6 men into a single team, that'd be a poor choice. 2 men scout teams are basically "there's a X% chance that those two will get rinsed by the first shots, but at least that'll give the rest of the unit time to fight back". That's a ratio which makes sense if they're scouting for a whole platoon (or larger units)... but if they're just scouting for their own squad? That means that you're putting 25% of a unit at risk of becoming casualties in the first few seconds to protect the rest of it. I'd say that that's just too large a risk to call sensible: mathematically it would be like using two entire fireteams or an entire squad bunched up in a single action square to scout for a platoon. If those two scouts become casualties and the rest of the squad survives intact (unlikely), that means you're now left with just 6 men to carry on with a mission. That's not effective.
 
I think my main argument is that Panzergrenadiers aren't dismounted infantry. Landsers can have scout teams moving ahead of them into the attack, but Panzergrenadiers should be attacking well established objectives mounted up (preferably alongside Panzers). If something needs scouting in that scenario it should ideally be a platoon/company commander or someone else with shiny things on his shoulder peeking up above that rise before mounting up again. That's quite different from a two man scout team marching ahead of its squad or platoon as it moves to contact and on foot.
 
@Centurian52: true, I rephrased that part to be clearer/more accurate. Ta!

Platoons were typically the smallest unit sent off to achieve anything on its own (there's a reason that radios weren't issued until you hit platoon level) in combat. While squads (and fireteams, if we want to go lower) wouldn't always move and fight in a literal line or always physically in a set other physical formation, they wouldn't move far away from the rest of the platoon, and certainly not away on their own missions.
Squads might might have split up to fight in mutual support, but not (far) away from their platoons... especially not the Panzergrenadiers, who were meant to accompany tanks in breakthrough operations (e.g., a scenario in which tanks wouldn't have been sent off on their own either).
 
Panzergrenadiers weren't meant for just any offensive operations, but for breakthroughs with the Panzer divisions. Hence they were quickly worn down in sustained combat, for much the same reason you're hitting upon even on this lower level: they are inherently quite small formations in regards to manpower.

Not if you want to maintain any kind of C2 they aren't. Unless it's a recon team with a radio (i.e. a specialist) then the smallest unit that should be assigned a task, IMHO, is the platoon. Of course the Red Army did things a bit differently as you allude to but if you send a fireteam or squad off on their own then they can and will suffer from not being effectively led.
MMM

I think previous posts have covered your query in detail. This vid I made gives an overview of how the Germans viewed the SPW and panzer grenadiers being used.
though doctrine evolved through the war it’s worth noting that dismounting from the track was seen as either situation dependent eg close terrain, and that fighting from the track itself was preferred. The later does not work so well in CM and arguably in RL (I’ve read complaints from panzer commanders of grenadiers being reluctant to dismount and do their job!). 
 
Their tactical flexibility given by the vehicles was their key strength. Also assuming operating as part of battalion a pzgr SPW company had some serious mobile firepower in its heavy weapons platoon which served as the base of fire for any attack.  
 
Though for obvs reasons by late war with fuel etc at a premium and allies and Soviets having operational upper hand on both fronts the opportunities to exercise this tactical flexibility were very local and tactical in nature. 
 
 

Riiiiight, and what do these bone heads consider strategy? IGN is complete garbage and has been that way forever. 
"Capes, a gritty turn-based strategy role-playing game about villains ruling the streets"

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This is such a weird take to me as to be somewhat incomprehensible. Like, we seem to be operating in different factual universes. Italians bogged down in Albania? How is that an apt comparison?
What particular weapons systems are we depleting the reserves of? We've been culpably stingy with our second and third tier weapon systems. Your points contradicts one another. If China is learning to fight a western military that doesn't use any of its airforce, any of its modern deep strike capability, any of its naval capability, any of its modernized mech force... learn on, I guess?
On the contrary, everyone is learning that the shape of the battlefield has changed, and changed in ways that seriously favor the defender. The PLAN has to be looking at the videos of the SeaBaby double taps and thinking hard about what their losses crossing the Taiwan strait would look like.
Everybody is looking at the rise of low-energy precision fires and wondering how totally that's broken mechanized mass.
Everybody is looking at the totally illuminated battlefield and wondering how complete their ground-to-space ISR system is.

Crocus saga and very accurate comic. How, tell how one cannot think in stereotypes about Russian state apparatus :
Still worth to note he wrote "tsar" twice not by capital letters; he is getting out of from. Also, I think it is more "Dove Book" in English, but Pigeon sounds nicer.

There was all sorts of jiggery-pokery going on with UK force structures at the time involving the usual suspects - cap badge rivalry and saving cash on the defence budget.  In essence this played out along the lines of all recce assets being owned by the RAC and anything that the RA could claim being owned by the RA.  Recce regiments are a good example - all armoured and infantry regiments lost their recce CVR(T) platoons/troops to RAC recce regiments and all infantry/MBT-equipped tank regiments lost their antitank assets to the RA.  In the case of anti-tank stuff, the RA formed independent antitank batteries (all RHA) followed by the inevitable discussion about how they would be employed - as batteries in their own right, parcelled out etc etc until ... surprise, surprise, everyone changed their minds again and all of the stuff returned from whence it came.  Have a look here ...
(69) Swingfire 1977-1984 | Army Rumour Service (arrse.co.uk)v
 

How is this really a problem, though? I mean, it's not like we paid money up front or something. Sure, we don't get our curiosity satisfied but that is all the hurt that is done, right?
Some do, some don't. Communication costs money, either because the devloper can't spend the time used for communication on finishing the product or because a dedicated communications guy is hired. You invest the money if you think it pays off. You keep potential customers up to date to get the hype train started, to get feedback early on or to find investors, for instance. But this is a double-edged sword. The hype train, once going, is hard to stop or to steer in another direction and customers, especially in gaming, get hyped about what they want to hear not what was actually said. Feedback is rarely representative because it is usually a loud minority that demands X and claims to speak for the whole community. And then there is always the danger that people form a negative opinion based on a product they've never actually seen and won't buy it later when it is released.
I just develop a stupid little tool in my free time and I am very cautious about when and what to tell you guys. 😉

Also, while we all want to know how long we have to wait, I'll take "when it's done" over a fixed release date at which the product has to ship at all costs every time if it ensures the product is properly finalized.