Sandokan

Great news! The bomb shelter under Drama Theater in Mariupol survived the hit of 500 kg bomb. Now the rubbles removing have started to reach the entrance of shelter. There is still unknow about possible casualties among people which were inside the buiding and out of shelter. 

Great opinion piece in the Atlantic which I strongly agree with :
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/ukraine-united-states-nato/627052/

Heard this multiple times here and elsewhere so I think it is time for us to have a Pause talk.  We pretty much know the Russians have pretty much halted operational level offensives and are stalled, that is all over the place and even mainstream media has picked it up.  So the theories on what is happening to the Russian forces now are roughly assembling around 3 possibilities:
- Stopped, cannot start so digging in for a long haul, which will see broad operational defensive operations with limited tactical offensive actions designed to terrorize the population.
- Stopped, will never re-start and are heading towards total collapse.
- Stopped, conducting an operational pause to consolidate/re-org before re-starting the massive offensive to surround major cities and begin the Russian Grind strategy. 
I am going to leave off the first two and focus on that third one.  A military war machine is a really big system built in layers, we do this for both C2/span of control and sustainment reasons.  Normally a modern military will lay itself out in echelons of some shape or size in depth, the Soviets had a really organized system for this, the Wests was a bit more fluid but we all are set up to fight in what are essentially structures waves since the Roman legions (somebody google the opening of the HBO Rome series and you can see it in action).
For arguments sake let's go with the rule of three and say the Russians are setup in three tactical layers (the West kind of does it as well with "2 up, 1 back and the last one as "Reserve", bit more of a pyramid scheme).  The first tactical layer will be given main objectives and then some stretch ones, unless they are using mission-command then it gets a bit more opportunistic, but the concept is the same; whistle blows first wave into the breach. 
That echelon/wave is expected to be able to fight for a certain period of time based on a lot of factors like attrition, distance, logistical consumption; however, the old rule is that in human based systems you can get about 72-96 hours of action (i.e. little to no sleep) before people start to break down ("beware the 5th day" by Moltke (I think)).  So that first wave can theoretically do up to 4 days of intense action before it needs to be relieved by the second wave.  This can change based on conditions but it is important to understand that it can get shorter but not longer because we are still fighting with human beings as the basis of the system.  So no matter how tough the guys might think they are, or how many chin ups they can do, after 4 days without sleep their brains start to shut down (trust me, been there and done it).
Then the second wave is supposed to conduct some sort of passage of lines and process continues for another 72-96, and then the third wave (if you have one).  While the second and third are doing their thing the first wave is supposed to be going through a tactical consolidation which include resupply/reinforcements/replacements and reorganization.  This is also when things like vehicle and weapons systems maintenance happens because vehicles will break down like people.
Now that whole system, which for arguments sake we can call the "operational system" is designed to be able to keep this up for weeks to months.  However after a certain amount of time all the losses and wear & tear start to add up and you need...wait for it...an operational pause.  [Aside: eventually, all these operational pauses add up and you see a strategic pause but that can take much longer].  This pause is basically an entire system overhaul to do all sorts of things that look like refitting a ship.  Replacements, rotations and re-organization of tactical units.  Planning and boring stuff like orders.  A lot of logistical and ISR scene setting for the next phase, and lastly...don't let your opponent know you are doing an operational pause until it is over.  So you will still see tactical action such as feints, tactical offensives but with short small gains - more jabs than actual punches - are often employed to try and make it hard for an opponent to figure out that you are in fact pausing...why?  We will come back to that.
Ok, so how does that apply to the current situation.  Let's accept that this is an operational pause for a moment and the big nasty Russian Bear is just cleaning the blood out of its fur before going back to ravaging Ukrainian bunnies.  Well first off it was not a planned pause, it happened too quickly.  Based on the big maps and overall tempo, it appears like the Russians were really advancing hard for the first 3-4 days.  We did see a likely echelon flip on the next 3-4 days as they pushed depth forward but by about day 10 of this thing everyone was starting to notice that the big red blotches on the map had stopped moving.  So let's give the Russian the benefit of the doubt and say they actually managed to use all three echelons effectively, well what likely did not happen was that 1st wave reloaded while waves 2 and 3 continued.  Remember formations are designed to be able to do this for weeks and out to months if the situation allows. So having the whole operational system come to a stop in 10 days is a very good indication that this was not in the plan.
10 days into this war was 5 March, a week and half ago.  Even the most uninformed journalist (and here I cast a baleful eye at our own CBC because it is harder to find a more uninformed bunch when it comes to warfare) is getting the drift that the Russians are not moving.  Now remember when I said "don't let your opponent know you are pausing"?  The reason for this is that you do not what them to try and grab the operational initiative, it is bad if they do because you are now on the defensive pretty much by definition.  Now if you plan for this, you can do all sorts of clever things like pull you opponent into over reaching etc, not sure I see a masterful design on the Russian side here.  But the UA has shown more offensive actions and c-attacks.  We have all been talking about a big UA operational strike, not sure if it will happen but the Russians are leaving the door open to one because of this pregnant operational pause. 
So to summarize, the Russian operational pause: 1) came much earlier than it should have, why?, 2) has lasted the length of an Old Testament reading in modern warfare timelines, and 3) is handing initiative over to their opponent.
So what?  Well if this is a Russian operational pause (at this rate, and with rumors of those other 40 BTGs it could be strategic) it is not a good one.  The conditions that led to that are very likely really poor pre-planning, ample evidence of that, and systemic failures that happened very quickly.  This speaks to a brittle operational system that they are having to almost re-tool from the ground up.  I have serious doubts that the Russians, who have lost some of their best troops, can come out of this as a new "super-force" able to mass joint effects and cut through the UA in days.  The types of planning and quality organization/preparations, from logistics to C4ISR, that a military force needs to do in order to pull off what the Russians are attempting takes years to prepare and build.
So if this is an operational pause, it is probably a master class in "how not to do this" and I doubt it will solve much for the Russian forces who are now coming up on two weeks of time they have given their opponent to prepare, supply and continue to hit them as they are pausing.

The Battle for Highway E97
Size: Small
400m x 1000m
https://www.mediafire.com/file/at4xaiw54kjqeqs/Battle_for_E97_v1.zip/file
THIS MAP WAS MADE WITH CMBS ALL IN ONE MOD ASSETS 
Hello All,
A few days ago I saw a video of a Russian element, perhaps platoon sized, ambushing two UA BRDM-2s and dismounts. The video can be found here if youre interested. I had thought that the are looked interesting, the Ukrainian commander was confronted by an exception circumstance, and it appeared a sharp firefight resulted from the contact. To me these all seem like the ingredients for an interesting CM map, so thats what I made. In testing though I found that there isn't actually much to it. The firefight is intense, but short. Either the RA crushes the convoy before the BRDMs return fire, or they get suppressed and picked apart. The scenario exists as an interesting 'test' of the TACAI in a real world inspired situation, but ultimately it was my conclusion that TACAI on both sides often overperformed what the video suggests that actual results were. Looking at what I was making I think the map and the tactical situation lends itself to an interesting CM fight if I was willing to deviate a bit from the footage I was referencing. Therefore in the .zip file you will find 3 scenarios, two serious and one for fun, all based on this real world engagement. 
Scen 1- As it Happened (AIH): This scenario is based on the video footage as seen, as well as some normal mapmaking tools like Google Earth. It is possible to play either the RA or UA side, both are recommended. I find it is easiest to replicate the simulated engagement with the RA side. My suggestion is to wait until the BRDMs move into the kill zone and then push your forward to the crest of the berm. DO NOT SET TARGET ARCS OR MANUAL TARGETS. Either gives your forces a big advantage, especially against the BRDMs. In most of my testing what happens next conforms, more or less, to what happened in the video. For the UA, if you wish the pursue the historical plan, Set up a path of 'FAST' movement orders through the arcing portion of the highway. On the first action square of the 'straightaway' set your BRDMs to either 'quick' or 'move' (I prefer quick). Once the Russians start hammering you, dismount and engage. I find that from the UA perspective, results tend to skew towards either extreme. Either you get wiped out in a turn, or your BRDMs turn around and open fire, pinning the Russians. Really I find this scenario to be an interesting test of TACAI against a real world scenario. Its a case study of just one, so its results dont really mean anything, but I found that both the Russians and the Ukrainians tend to be more lethal, shoot more accurately, than what we saw in the video. This is doubly true if the player interacts even a little bit with their forces, as the Russians its not hard to wipe out the BRDMs if you want to do that. 
A couple notes regarding scenario design: First, there is no right or wrong way to play it, but there is an intended way. The intention is to give you an encounter like is seen in the video. You can try multiple approaches if you'd like, but if you diverge too much from the premise you can quite easily break the AI and produce unusual results. Second, the force composition may look a bit....odd... for both sides. For the RA, I wanted scout teams that had no RPGs. None appear in the video and obviously at the ranges were talking about RPGs would be murderous. But I would have to drop the ammo levels to 'severe' to do it and found that had a negative impact on the Russian's ability to ambush the BRDMs. But I realized that if I swapped scout squads for 1 FO and 1LMG squad each, I maintained the same weight of fire without either bringing RPGs. For the UA the problem is a bit different and relates to the BRDM's modeled carrying capacity. BRDMs are modeled with a crew of 2 and a carry capacity of 4 dismounts. I have no idea where this info comes from, but I generally think BFG's modeling is pretty reliable. The video claims a UA strength of 14+ which, to me, just seems way to high. Unless they were also riding Desant, but I dont think the video establishes that. The issue for the UA force in the scenario is that it doesn't all fit onto the BRDMs. The TOE force would be a six man recon squad plus a two man HQ. But the recon squad splits into three and three, meaning it doesnt fit into the BRDM with the HQ team. So either I deleted the HQ to fit in the squad, or I developed a different option. Ultimately I made a decision to make the scenario a bit more interesting, but a little less like the video. I kept the HQ platoon mounted in the BRDM and added an attached LMG squad, increasingly slightly the firepower for the recon squad. The leftover three man team I put into a building marked 'Survivors!' The objective ultimately is to extract the survivor team. The survivor team CAN interfere with the if put on the 2nd level or roof. If you want to keep them out of the action, put them on the 1st floor, restricted target arc, and on hide. 
Scen 2- Enhanced (E):  The second included Scenario is called 'Enhanced' and tries to make a traditional CM mission out of what footage we saw. The objectives are the same, though point values have been rebalanced. Scout the convoy route and extract survivors for the UA, destroy follow on forces for the RA. But the forces have been increased to roughly Platoon vs. Coy (-). The Russians have received two more scout platoons, complete with RPGs, as well as some light armored vehicle support. The UA received the support of a 'Quick Reaction Force' made up of the leftover squad from the 2nd recon platoon as well as the entirety of the 1st recon platoon. These are mounted mostly in BTR-70s, though one BTR-4E has also been included for heavy lifting. The QRF also comes with an MT-LB for the player to use extracting the survivors, which have also increased in number. Both sides get mortar support. Ultimately the UA has an advantage here in mobility and vehicle support, but the RA has infantry numbers and the stronger position. This scenario is best played either HTH or Blue vs AI. It has both Red and Blue AI plans, but I spent way more time working on the Red AI than the Blue. TBH I just dont think any blue AI would be capable of doing what I want them to do, the survivors would be sitting ducks in an extraction to any human with half a brain. I do think though that this scenario would be really interesting for HTH play, it could be worth a try. So I did make sure every scenario contained an equivalent red briefing. 
The VPs have also been rebalanced here to reflect the new forces. Mostly the UA is working to deny the RA VPs. They gain points by touching the recon objectives and by hitting the listed casualty threshold. The RA gains points by killing UA soldiers via unit objectives. Survivor squads are worth the most, then squads in the BRDM platoon, then the lowest value is the QRF force. As the UA player, you want to risk your QRF troops while your Survivors the least. OTOH the RA is going to want to squeeze the survivor's position BEFORE the QRF can relieve them. 
Scen 3-UA is OP plz Nerf (UAOP): This is a joke scenario but I thought some might like a little catharsis. If you just want to blow the hell out of some Russians this is for you. It uses Scen 2 as a base but further modifies the UA force. The QRF has been reinforced to two platoons mounted in BTR-4Es. Two tanks from the commanders reserve have also been included as immobile bunkers. They have excellent FOV and can smash everything the Russians throw up. Oh and the Mortars have been upgraded to 122mm arty. And a little surprise from the UAF. 
If you keep the .zip around, you can just drop the single scenario you want to play into your scenario folder. No mess, no clutter!
I will follow this thread up with a thread of screenshots, stay tuned! 

The help of our ancestors. It's became knowingly, several days ago Russian forward groups, searching the ways couldn't overcome ancient Serpent Ramparts (ukr. Zmiyevi valy) near Bilihorodka village,west from Kyiv. Theese ramparts were built in 10-11th centuries against steppe nomads attacks on the base of more early fortifiacations.
They girds Kyiv outskirts from the west to southern east in several lines. This was huge alot of work in that times. Now many of them plowed up, but theese save itself and came useful again since 1000 years
   

Marching like men who expect to win

Thanks.  Made me go buy his book.  He should owe you a cut.

There's a McMaster interview on France 24 English here.
 

There's a McMaster interview on France 24 English here.
 

There's a McMaster interview on France 24 English here.
 

So we should here no more complaints about CM modelling of rounds impacting trees now (the 2nd ambush AT round hit a tree....)?  😜

[From "elsewhere", apologize for repeat of some terms - I only have some many clever turns of phrase in the bank]
Can Russia win a war of attrition?  I think that is the question the Russians are asking themselves right now.  My assessment is "probably not" based on a couple dimensions:
- Quantitative - Russia is quickly coming up on 20% of declared invasion forces lost. As of this morning, Oryx is reporting 18 BTGs worth of tanks gone from the Russian side, they cannot sustain that indefinitely.  On paper Russia has 12500 tanks but some serious questions as to how much of that fleet is actually in any state of readiness need to be asked. Russian assessment is 200 BTGs in total or there abouts,  so they likely have between 2-3000 actual battle ready tanks or 25% of their total fleet.  I would think they may have another 2-3000 they can spool up, but from what we have seen about corruption I am willing to bet half that 12500 are basically wrecks maintainer-wise or museum pieces and will not be seen in this fight.  This extends well beyond tanks obviously and the Russian logistics losses are even worse, in what was already recognized as a weak system. 
   In the end it comes down to loss ratios, right now assessments are somewhere between 3:1 and 4:1 with Ukrainians being the "1".  In infantry numbers the Russians and Ukrainians are near parity in trained troops and Russia is upside down in manpower numbers once you take into account Ukraine has conducted general mobilization (listed as high as  900,000) while Russia has not.  Equipment wise, Russia has the recognized advantage but that is rapidly diminishing.  At those loss ratios Russia will likely lose it advantage as an offensive force (e.g. trying to keep 3:1 in their favour) fairly soon, the may already have.  Either way they need to reduce that loss ratio substantially to quantitatively have a hope of attriting the UA to the point of collapse. 
  Further if you look at the Oryx page an even more disturbing trend appears to have occurred, the Ukrainians have made a "net gain" in MBTs since this war started.  They have lost "46" tanks (and here we only have social media which is likely tightly skewed) while having captured "83".  So even if the Ukrainians have lost double what is being reported they are still at something like 9 tanks as a net loss.  This skews the loss ratios into crazy directions.  This is not just for MBTs, it carries over to just about every vehicle system.
- Qualitative - the Russians need to learn and "get better" faster than the Ukrainians and there is very little evidenced of this.  They will learn and adapt, war is Darwinian that way, however, the Ukrainians are producing veterans and evolving as well.  The question is what is the competitive equation?  The Ukrainians came in with a serious advantage (e.g. home ground, western backing) and appear to be learning very fast as we see integration of UAVs with ambushes etc.  Russia may be learning but it is much slower.  As late as yesterday we see complete cluster-f#$*s in Russian columns as they get hit, best thing for that one Russian unit on CNN was the commander getting killed.  In the logistics battle the Russians need to learn faster and better than the Ukrainians are learning how to kill Russian logistics, again not seeing it. 
Looking at those two pieces together, it is not looking good.  I mean Russia can keep conducting zombie muscle twitches for some time but tying those into some operational gains is a long shot.  As to "grinding", I think this is actually going the other way, Russian will can only be sustained off the power of one man for so long, especially one that does not have an ideology on his side.  Everyone keep wondering if Russia is willing to "double down" or "go all in", when in reality the Ukrainians are already there.  So when we get to attrition of will, the thing that really matters, time is also not on the Russian side.  Things are in balance, but I go by "follow the options" and right now Russian spaces are compressing while Ukraine is sustaining theirs, and in some places expanding.   The real battle of attrition is in that space and one of "how long can the Russians last?"

On a lighter note, this is priceless. Had I still been eating when I saw this, I would've choked.
  Ukrainian Memes Forces   @uamemesforces · 6h



Regards,

John Kettler

Been done before - I'm sure there's a meme/quote about studying history and learning from it ...

13th day of war, but our jets still flying. From where? We will know that after the war

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The government of the Republic of Poland, following consultations with the President and the Government of the Republic of Poland, are ready to move all their MIG-29 aircraft to the base in Rammstein immediately and free of charge and place them at the disposal of the Government of the United States of America". - the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has just stated in a communiqué. This could mean that the planes will be handed over by NATO to Ukraine.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and why will countries increase their production?  TO MAKE MONEY.  Oil prices very high so there's big opportunity.  If country X says "I'll wait to increase to drive up price" then country Y says "I'm gonna pump a bunch of oil right now and rake in the bucks while the others are waiting.'  This ALWAYS happens, where some country needs to make money while it can w/o the increased competition from the other suppliers.  So, despite the very funny meme above, countries will increase production.  Because holding back will simply lose them a lot of money, and make no mistake, they love money just as much as US & EU. 
There's an empty hole b/w supply and demand w/o russian oil.  If any one country can fill that hole by themselves, they are gonna get rich fast.  So pretty soon they will all be trying to fill that hole, whether they admit it or not.

I need to make a complaint about this forum.  I have a ton of work to do and need to deliver results every day right now.  And the people here are mostly providing thoughtful, insightful, and well reasoned posts which are significantly impeding my productivity.  So if you could all instead make inane posts w worn out cliches, I would greatly appreciate it.  🙃

Yes. Reminds me of a very good movie. The Death of Stalin a 2017 political satire black comedy film written and directed by Armando Iannucci.
The scene where Beria met his fate. BÄM and hes gone.

Hey all, there's so many posts that it's easy for someone to miss something.  So there's some duplication.  But multiple posts duplicating complaints about multiple posts then me saying let's not worry about posts about multiple posts takes up more space than simply ignoring multiple posts and posts about posts about complaining about multiple posts. 

Since the Bundeswehr also will be playing a major role in the defence of Europe, this might be of interest too.
 

If the transfer of planes is going to occur, could get into an almost Battle of Britain feel to it .  One important aspect of that historical success was that shot down British pilots were parachuting into friendly territory unlike the Germans.  Same situation could apply here.
We'll see

You and us all, man ! 🤪

Hey guys, you managed to lure out another long time reader only.
First of, I want to thank you for all the insights and explanations! Very informative. Currently, I am still a bit worried that MR Putin and his Gang have much bigger goals and don't hesitate to throw nukes around, but only time will tell. So far, the bundeswehr isn't ready.
In the German defense podcast "Sicherheitspod" that is released monthly by members of the European Council on Foreign Relations, the university of the bundeswehr in Munich and a German journalist specialized on defense, one guy said that of the 100 billion Euros 30-40 billion are needed to get basic supplies like ammo, plate carriers and other stuff in order to achieve the NATO goal of a 30 day war stockpile of supply, so that rules out a short term NATO intervention.
Regarding the shot down pilot. The guy who is alive looks to be a bit out of shape. You have to wonder how he is able to sustain high g maneuvers.
I am also wondering why the Russians still field all the different T- series tanks that put extra pressure on the logistics. If i was in charge, I would have gradually replaced especially the T80s with upgraded t72 tanks and put more money into crew training or logistics 😀
To all you guys directly involved i wish you all the best. Stay save!

Haiduk is in the same horrible predicament, and in all these years on this Forum I've never heard him utter spiteful words or ask him for revenge or show hate.
He must have the same feelings of bitterness, resentment, horror and yes, maybe an intense hate for the Russians, but he always kept his reactions on this Forum civil.
Maybe I am too sensitive about the spitefulness of one Forummember, but if that is so, than my admiration for Haiduk grows even greater.