fireship4
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Posts posted by fireship4
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This board serves double duty in discussing modern warfare, with details about Russia and NATO in particular, and seeing unconventional russian military units at funerals is pertinent as it is relatively rare to have soldiers in uniform (official, open) but masked (unofficial, special forces and spies). It is evidence of how much unofficial or illegal fighting Russia is doing abroad.
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Do battalions have organic spotters at all?
As I understand it, Russian army (and related) artillery are their own arm with their own brigades and divisions, parts of which are then attached to manoeuvre battalions or brigades.
In a motorised rifle brigade with attached tank company, each battalion has an attached battery of 120mm mortars (8 tubes), the support of the brigade artillery group (comprised of 2 battalions of 152mm artillery (36 guns) and 1 battalion of 122mm MLRS (18 launchers)) plus any other attached artillery (that I've read is normally attached for a specific purpose) and perhaps support from the brigade antitank battalion's artillery (6 100m guns).
In the case of a BTG or similar formation (perhaps a brigade forward detachment or advance guard, but I am not sure), one mortar battery (8 tubes) and an artillery battalion (18 tubes) seem to be the standard, and I would guess (perhaps depending on doctrine/precision indirect fire ability) no artillery from the antitank battalion, but one of their three antitank platoons.
It seems to me that each artillery battalion provides a spotter (with vehicle if they have it) to the battalion or brigade it is attached to. If this is the case, a BTG or similar would have a spotter from the mortar battery and one from the artillery battalion (what we see in game). Battalions forming part of a manoeuvre brigade (I mean here a brigade fighting as some kind of formation on the front line) would have a spotter each for their attached mortar battery, and the brigade artillery group would have 3 spotters to split between the battalions of the brigade's first echelon (often 2 battalions) plus a spotter from the artillery battery in the antitank battalion.
Therefore it seems to me that two spotters (one for the battalion mortars, one for the brigade artillery, what we see in game with BTGs) would be what I would expect to see in a first echelon battalion. Are these the attached spotters you mentioned? If that is the case it seems my point still stands. It seems a bit fragile not to have more spotters in a force that apparently focuses on artillery (manoeuvre to enable fires, as opposed to fires to enable manoeuvre), and has caused me a bit of trouble in a scenario where I had to split a battalion's two forward companies each side of a terrain feature. Or do I have you wrong and there are other common attachments (like reconnaissance-fire groups perhaps) we should be seeing as part of the front line?
PS further to the BTG point, from "The Russian Way of War", linked on the previous page, a short quote I happened to read while researching this post:
Quote"The fragmented battlefield has become common following the Gulf War.... How do peer forces fight conventional maneuver war on a fragmented battlefield? Permanent combined arms battalions appear to be an important component. For decades, the Soviets and Russians have struggled with fielding, training supporting and fighting a combined arms battalion [sic] with its own tanks, motorized rifle, artillery, antitank, and support subunits capable of fighting and sustaining independently over a large area. The Russian maneuvre brigades now have one or two battalion tactical groups and are working to achieve four".
In addition, a subsequent (2018) short paper on Russia's View of Mission Command of Battalion Tactical Groups .
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Ok, thank you.
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4 hours ago, The Steppenwulf said:
Why does the UK need to 'remedy enforcing VAT on domestic products'? That is not the case!
You misread my post or I wasn't clear enough: in a situation where VAT is paid on domestic purchases, and is due yet regularly unpaid on imports, enforcing the current law should not be cast as "protectionism", as it is a correction toward neutral from entirely the opposite.
4 hours ago, The Steppenwulf said:The net effect of the new VAT model is that the UK consumer will be discouraged from making purchases outside the UK. Do you agree?
What new VAT model? VAT is 20% and is due just the same as before. LVCR is no longer in effect, and the EU will be doing the same in July.
4 hours ago, The Steppenwulf said:The word protectionism is not so narrowly defined as merely imposition of a tariff or charge levied at imported goods, it can take many different forms including simple policy decisions - anything in fact that serves to restrict imports. Do you agree
Protectionism is a pejorative carrying it's own ideological baggage. I agree somewhat in that it can be used correctly to describe a broad range of policies, but not that such policies are limited to those that restrict imports.
I am however not up to a discussion on the definition protectionism at the moment further than saying it was misused in this case, for the reasons I stated above.
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3 hours ago, ikalugin said:
"Fires are normally controlled by forward deployed artillery officers, hence why separate spotters are rare".
Ok, good to know, but it seems what I said holds true at least for the battion mortars, unless the forward spotters are attached to the battalion. I presume they are attached to brigade artillery though, and that brigade fires are (at least in the main) planned on an objective and as part of an offensive, not used to respond to recently spotted targets.
3 hours ago, ikalugin said:"In a high intensity war BTG is actually going to be a rare unit..."
Yes I remember someone (possibly you) saying that in a "proper" war battalions as part of brigades/divisions would be used and not BTGs, and I have kept that in mind, and imagine anyone in the field understands this.
However it should be considered that (as far as I have read) BTGs may not be there only because they work well in specific conflicts, but because Russia may have trouble maintaining brigades/divisions throughout long conflicts (during which troops must be rotated home). This may mean that BTGs would be used more often in more types of conflicts outside total war.
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That's my coin you skelpie!
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I tell you what, I don't envy any BTG commander going up against dug in infantry with Javelins. A full battalion of artillery (18 155mm) tubes is not enough, lacking MLRS, the tanks would have to storm forward or sit back as their spotting won't do, smoke would have to be used liberally, or troops would have to creep foward and be mortared. Company mortars would have to be called in by platoon commanders for the most part, since there is one spotter per battalion.
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I know what Elvis said, I am saying that nothing relevant has changed, VAT was always applicable, charging it now (if that is what they are doing) is not the fulfllment of a new law. You can further the discussion by disproving this, as his assertion is not UK tax law, nor did he in fact mention VAT, it is simply presumed by the percentage increase. After all that I've had to repeat myself and waste a fourpence.
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6 hours ago, The Steppenwulf said:
The whole idea being essentially protectionist by taking away an advantage some imported goods were enjoying.
Enforcing VAT only on domestic products when it applies to all would be opposite of protectionist, and remedying that should not be cast as protectionist. However, no changes that would apply to the digital sale of the game have in fact been made. Any changes to import of the game physically are changed to the point at which VAT is charged, and would only affect someone who was evading tax in the first instance.
39 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:But the reality for most people who have purchased stuff from outside of GB, who want to carry on doing so, is that there are now extra costs involved, whether it be the addition of VAT (plus admin fees in many cases) to the purchase of a CD or coat or game, or delays whilst RM or DPD, or whoever, wait for the payments to be made.
10 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:Again, nobody is saying that LVRC is applicable to buying CMWE, I was just drawing attention to the fact that it no longer applies to anything, as of 1 Jan, make of that what you will, I am pretty certain that I know why it’s stopped.
We are talking about the game, to which no new charges apply. However I will say again that VAT has not been added to anything. The relief for consignments under £15 has been removed, the EU will be doing the same thing in July 2021, so it would be disingenuous to say it happened because we left the EU. You have not mentioned any specific charges that have changed, VAT nor customs. These non-existing changes are here being related to a narrative of protectionism and making leaving the EU look better, I am not interested in speculating on this.
10 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:As to whether VAT was included or not in the game price BEFORE 1 Jan and is added on top of the price now, well let me see, before it was $60, now it’s $72, either BF didn’t have to charge VAT, didn’t want to charge it, didn’t care to charge it, or it was included in the price, and now they are going to charge it. What’s changed since 1 Jan ... let me see ... ooh can’t mention that might cause an upset.
Battlefront has always had to pay VAT, and it had to be charged at the point of sale on the digital product, unless someone can show a relevant exemption. If you are correct that the 20% increase is VAT (again this is not obviously correct as you suggest) then that would suggest Battlefront had not been meeting this requirement up to now.
6 hours ago, Grey_Fox said:The only people who benefit in this additional taxation are the handful who can't compete with foreign goods. Everyone else suffers by having to pay higher prices. That's why free trade is good and I can't understand why people think that limiting cheaper imports is a good thing. Cheap imports increases peoples' spending power, which makes people better of.
I don't get why people think international free trade agreements were causing some sort of tax fraud. This new tax is an example of double taxation - taxes were already being paid at the point of sale, and now people in the UK are having to pay VAT on imports on arrival. People in the EU now also have to pay local VAT on British exports too.
What additional taxation? Again VAT is applicable to all goods, and customs duty was present before. No-one here has said a free-trade agreement is tax fraud, nor is VAT being charged twice - it is either charged at the point of sale or on import, or deferred to a later date, and can be reclaimed if the product is sold on. I will avoid discussing economic theory with you, this discussion is too broad already.
Can we plese try to narrow this discussion back down, and sharpen it up. We were discussing the reason for the 20% increase in price of the game in question for customers in the UK. Rambling paragraphs with unsubstantiated or vague assertions should be avoided. Discussion of the benefits or otherwise of one or another trade policy should in my opinion be avoided also.
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58 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:
What’s changed since 1 Jan ... let me see ...
You are assuming that because the change was made around the UK's departure from the EU, that it was necessitated by it. However, I am saying that there has been no change to the relevant tax law, which can be easily disproven by posting the relevant legislation.
Quoteooh can’t mention that might cause an upset.
Who is upset? I am saying you are wrong to ascribe the payment of VAT to the UK leaving the EU. An academic argument for the sake of rational discourse.
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Did you have mods installed before? Are your graphics settings the same? Just making sure until someone who knows the default models better comes along.
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According to "The Russian Way of War", a first-echelon motor-rifle company with attached tank platoon has a frontage of up to one kilometer and narrows to 500m in the breakthrough sector.
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You shouldn't have to delete it, just make sure Steam is pointed at the right folder, delete the .exe and then tell Steam to recheck the game files. That should work if the folder structure and the files are the same, and any differences should result in replacement. The game files in your user/documents folder might need moving too, I'm not sure. Worth a try at least, if it saves you time.
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2 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:
Well yes, VAT was included in the price to the consumer. As a normal consumer of something like a game one doesn’t see the VAT, the price is just the price. So when purchasing the game previously from BF the VAT was not seen. Now it’s there on top of the price. So whereas previously we may have purchased the game inclusive of VAT now we purchase the game with VAT added. Whether this was correct previously or not is irrelevant, we are now expected to pay the added VAT which is a causal effect of Brexit. BF could choose to swallow the VAT to keep the elective price the same for GB buyers, but why should they? I postulated that the reason we didn’t previously pay added VAT was because BF previously used a distributor in the EU or had a registered office in the EU. However one wants to look at this we (GB customers, can’t speak for NI) are now having to pay an extra 20% for the game. Might be insignificant to some, but not to me.
VAT has not changed, so the price increase cannot be the addition of VAT, unless it was not paid previously. Whether or not a registered office in the EU was used or not is immaterial as VAT is still applicable in that scenario. Again, VAT was always supposed to be payable on the game, whatever country it originated from. It is not exempt from what I can tell.
2 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:declaring something with a value of over £39 as a gift, regardless of who it’s for, is not tax fraud, one can receive gifts of any value. Not declaring the true value and not paying tax that is due is tax fraud, or probably tax evasion, not sure which.
According to gov.uk: "To qualify as gifts, goods must be:
- described as gifts on the customs declaration
- for a birthday, anniversary or other occasion
- bought and sent between individuals (not companies)
- intended for personal use"
2 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:I think the article is saying that anything imported with a value under £39 that is a gift will not attract VAT or import duties
The quote you used says: "Under the new rules, anyone in the UK receiving a gift from the EU worth more than £39 may now face a bill for import VAT - with many items charged at 20%."
VAT was always payable, this just means the VAT is charged at a different point (at import as opposed to point of sale). VAT relief for gifts is not applicable to this discussion, and was £39 since at least 2016.
LVCR similarly does not apply, and VAT relief designed to stop wastage on checking low value consignments has little to do with leaving the EU. The same goes for customs duty, which does not apply either in this case.
2 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:1. I think this is somewhat fanciful. I somehow doubt that a small company like BF would be willing to swallow a 20% hit, even for a relatively small number of customers, and are they still doing it for our EU friends? This is a decision which has been instructed by the UK government. BF are seemingly complying with it, and will therefore be collecting VAT on sales to GB customers, and, presumably, sending that loot to the UK government, along with keeping those VAT receipts/records for six years.
2. A possibility, after all how were the UK, or EU for that matter, going to pursue the collection of VAT by a company based in the US? How would they pursue it now? What’s changed? Why only for GB customers? Only BF could answer that one @BFCElvis maybe comment. Was BF fleecing the UK taxpayer, or were they sucking it up for us? Or is this something to do with them working indirectly for UK Gov, conspiracies, conspiracies...?
Again, VAT was always payable as far as I understand, it is collectable by the seller unless they determine the buyer is exempt, with a VAT number for example so they can sell the product onwards. How it is enforced is somewhat irrelevant, it is the seller's responsibility to collect.
Case in point:
Battlefront will remain liable, and if everything is not in order HMRC will come for those little thumbies sooner or later.
2 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:When people are playing computer games all day they aren't working. It's the same with smiling at old ladies.
Please explain? I tried Google to understand but only got presented with this:
Finally (please god), it was simply a humorously funny joke. You asked "which UK business is disadvantaged when we buy something from BF?". I jovially suggested the tax man was trying to disuade us from playing computer games, which generates little revenue, from which the state may take it's share. I then furtively suggested smiling at old ladies, of which an exemplar:
was in a similar category, and should perhaps be taxed also. All in jest of course, since smiling at the aged produces little monetary gain, yet does as much good to the heart of the smiler as it does to that of the smilee, and digital products are not sent to all and sundry via your face. All clear? Because this is becoming a quote-storm.
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On 1/11/2021 at 6:50 PM, IanL said:
It is not at all reasonable for a squad leader getting his men out of harms way to have multi minute delays just because a lot of order segments are involved. I realize the command delays are good at representing communication delays and experience for higher up commanders. It utterly fails for lower level officers and NCOs. Since in CM you play all command levels it just do not work.
Sorry to pull out a post from earlier in the thread, but this is well put. This is one of a couple of big issues that the Graviteam games suffer from. They designed a great engine, but in the name of playing at a higher tactical level, they remove fine control over individual units and add command delays. These are both good ideas but as implemented they made the game less realistic not more. AI is not advanced enough to do what you would do in the place of a soldier, squad or platoon leader, and they end up doing frustrating things.
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Double post. Delete if possible thanks.
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32 minutes ago, BFCElvis said:
But you somehow you feel like we owe you more. I have no idea how to respond to that.
And all that own the base game can get it for free.
I don't think you owe me anything, "people want things for free" is not the appropriate form to deal with my criticism of charging for patches, or making them free via a platform, yet still charging full price (I would understand server costs) for them if people can't use that platform. You've got a community here who post every day and help your other customers and talk up your games and make maps and skins etc. etc. without having to spend a penny either.
Either way I didn't intend to gum up this thread with a rant, it has run it's course and I think we've both said what we wanted to say. Time to cook for the evening.
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40 minutes ago, BFCElvis said:
we had no interest in giving away the 4.0 Upgrade to Steam players. But, logistically, it was the most simple solution between us and Slitherine. We are working on ways to avoid this with the future releases. At the risk of putting too fine a point on it, if it required 30 seconds of work (which it doesn't) we wouldn't be interested in doing it.
56 minutes ago, BFCElvis said:The glass half full: "cool, I got the 4.0 Upgrade for free with my Steam version."
Glass half empty: developer would like to continue charging for a patch but it is too hard so far, wouldn't take 30 seconds to de-fragment the multiplayer base if it took that long, or reduce the price of a patch for those that cannot get it for free via Steam (or heaven forbid poorer people) for one reason or another :P
0% fat milk: developer loosing playerbase due to poor business and productivity decisions, despite having best-in-class engine at release, a lack of progress has led to competitors in a relatively small niche ending up ahead.
To be clear, I am saying this as a fan of the game, who hopes the best for the game and the team.
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16 minutes ago, Grey_Fox said:
Well it's the latter since the UK no longer has the same trade agreement they had with the US as they had when they were in the EU. Purchases under a certain value from the US don't have additional tax applied for me, whereas it does in the UK.
VAT applies to US imports, the US seller does not charge sales tax, but should charge VAT to the consumer as 20% is payable on import. If there is a separate importer they pay the import VAT (the same) and then get a rebate after they sell it on to you. This is all separate to customs & excise, which may be what you are referring to when you say that purchases under a certain amount are not charged.
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1 hour ago, BFCElvis said:
The logistics of getting everyone with only Game Engine 3 a 4.0 Upgrade for free isn't worth the time and effort it would take for something that we are still selling.
Makes sense, right?
Ok sorry, I misunderstood this.
By logistics I assume you mean server costs/admin time of allowing downloads of something they can now get for free via Steam? Why then continue selling it at full price even though users would only now buy in their right mind if they couldn't use Steam?
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1 hour ago, Grey_Fox said:
This is a high-level FAQ (parts 4 and 5 seem most relevant): https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/sites/taxation/files/2021-brexit-top-50-faq.pdf
This goes into more depth: https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/brexit_files/vat-goods_en.pdf
UK/US trade is also impacted (you can see from the screenshots in my first post as well as Elvis' comment) byt changes to taxation.
As far as I know, nothing relevant has changed. The 20% increase added for UK purchases means either:
- Battlefront were paying VAT before on digital sales to UK consumers, adjusting the base price of the product to make the final price the same between US/EU markets, and have now decided to increase their prices by 20% for the UK.
- Battlefront were not paying VAT before on sales to UK consumers, and now they are.
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13 minutes ago, BFCElvis said:
The only way to get your Battlefront version to Game Engine 4 is to purchase the 4.0 Upgrade.
OK, any plans to change this and make the patch/"game engine upgrade" available to non-steam users, or update their available base-game downloads?
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19 minutes ago, BFCElvis said:
Yes, if you only own the Game Engine 3 version you now have Game Engine 4 on Steam. The logistics of getting everyone with only Game Engine 3 a 4.0 Upgrade for free isn't worth the time and effort it would take for something that we are still selling.
Makes sense, right?
Sorry Elvis, I said through battlefront.com, not Steam. For example, it seems I can download the latest Black Sea patches through battlefront.com (though the base-game download is still 1.03 on my account, and my game is patched to 1.04).
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26 minutes ago, Grey_Fox said:
British consumers were getting tax-free purchases on imports up to a certain value, at which point tax was applied.
I am unaware of this, could you point me towards the legislation? As far as I'm aware this isn't true, unless you mean customs duty, which is different from VAT. Customs duty is applied to adjust the prices of foreign goods in relation to domestic goods (correct me if I'm wrong) for one or another end. While part of the EU customs duty was not paid on products bought or sold across it.
11 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:I think this depends on whether BF had an EU distributor/registered office. I recall in the past when I purchased CMBN in a metal tin that it came from Irish Republic. However no one has commented on it now so who knows.
I think there was a system in place for EU countries so that VAT was paid once (or paid and then reclaimed) on a product sold across borders, like the in-country systems. Therefore the VAT was paid on it one way or another.
14 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:Under the new rules, anyone in the UK receiving a gift from the EU worth more than £39 may now face a bill for import VAT - with many items charged at 20%.
If the game is for yourself, declaring it as a gift is tax fraud. Otherwise import VAT can be reclaimed by the importer, and is charged to the consumer. This is effectively same as all products regardless of origin that VAT applies to.
T-72B3 tanks conducting live fire exercise
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
That smoke grenade looks like it went quite a way.