A Canadian Cat

Hey question for those that might know. I hadn't really thought about but a friend asked me and all I could say was "beats me": How are they keeping these long range drones in contact with the remote pilot? The US has said they don't want the UA doing this so they probably are not using the US satellite network and starlink has been denying them usage in Russia. So how are they doing this? Clearly for 10s of Kms and maybe even 100s of Kms you can just use a radio carried by the drone to stay in contact to a location in Ukraine. Over 1000Km wouldn't that just take too much power and be too weak a signal?

I listened to this on my way to work this morning: https://pca.st/episode/4f1c5971-2b30-4198-9047-da1050e9f673 It's a good podcast. They don't always have things right but it is interesting to listen to them talk about politics in various eastern Europian countries. This episode is about Turkey, China and Russia battling for influence in the Asian former USSR republics. Gives some glimpses in the internal rot inside Russia and China's growing influence.

Honestly I always felt that this was Putin's hope all along. It's not even Trump specific. Putin has done everything he can to just sew chaos (I call him a Chaos Monkey). If he can get an adversary focused on something else he's happy. If he can get allies to squabble his double plus good happy. Not exactly a grand planner just create as much chaos as possible and throw your weight around while everyone else is busy trying to figure out who did what to whom. It never was a grand 4D chess game with. Not exactly a new thought here.

OK perhaps but I don't he needs that. There is one other thing that is consistent about Trump though: - is an incompetent manager and has even lower skilled people surrounding him. This means that if Putin decides to make a move he kinda doesn't care if he annoys Trump because he's all bluster. Plus, see ego line above, a little BS and platitudes his way would probably be enough to keep Trump feeling like a winner and Putin gets to do what he wants anyway. Look at some of the interactions between them in the past. Putin utterly embarrassed him and he didn't even notice (I'm thinking Helsinki). Trump then spend the week talking about how great Putin was. Any other leader would have noticed the slight and been pissed. It is likely not relevant though because it will take Putin longer than four years to get his army's **** together. Unless.....

This sounds about right. Yeah it does. I seriously doubt that Putin gives a rats *** about how Trump looks. The fact is he will need at least 4 years (really more as you point out) to even begin to contemplate mounting a new invasion. Indeed. Even a lower level of support from the EU would mean trouble for a weaker RA. As several people have pointed out Ukrainians would still fight on their own even. Clearly the less support the harder it gets but even with Putin's collapsed options it looks pretty bleak for his success.

What?!?? We would never, ever stoop to that level. What a gross mischaracterization!

Other than the alternate history where you are still alive that is

I believe this is a problem of compatibility. The old version of the code doesn't run in Win 8 (or maybe 10 I forget). One of the updates fixed this issue. I recommend contacting support - they know exactly which version works with what and can help you figure out what upgrades you might already be entitled to. Battlefront Helpdesk

But, but, but I want to feel better :-< I say use the new ammo and missiles to mess up as many attacks as possible and hit as many logistics and HQ targets as you can find. Rinse and repeat.

Yeah, I have had occasion where my method did not work as expected too. I usually figure I messed up but now you are making me want to test it

My understanding is that the low and high bocage blocks movement in CMBN. CMRT and CMFB both have low bocage (but not high) except it does not block armour. Having said that if you want your armour to cross it you need to place a order way point just on one side and the next one just on the other. Otherwise the pathing system might decide to go around or through a gap some distance away. When i am trying to get vehicles to cross any obstacle I always place a way point around 5m away from the obstacle and another way point 5m or so on the other side. That tells the TacAI "I want you to drive through / over this". I do this for streams, hedges, walls, bocage etc. So, also for jeeps, trucks etc. not just tanks.

Exactly.

Yeah, its an abstraction that covers field phones. It, clearly, looks goofy in your situation though.

Sure but will they come here for that based on this thread title?

LOL you heard right

LOL. I don't think your link pointing to a digital scan of an actual news paper (remember those, me neither) article makes it feel more recent.

Which landmarks are those again? To be fair, you are correct, for sure landmarks are a way to go etc. My point is its not a solved problem yet and how well it works will govern how people ultimately feel about it. Both those in the armed forces - who's opinion counts and those in the civilian population - who's opinion counts in a different way.

Yep. Oh I agree. I think your bundle of assassination drones are way scarier for the civilian population and media even though X number of civilians targeted and killed is not really different. The bad actors are going to like the extra scare feature.

My point is you cannot do that. How do you define the kill box - remember it needs to work when GPS is denied by EW systems. Yes, artillery are using maps and can make mistakes. I realize that. Like I said though statements like "my friend died in an artillery strike" and "my friend died after being hunted by AI drone" land very differently. We can argue that it shouldn't but no one else cares

Also there is nothing special about meeting engagements having touch objectives. Any type of objective can be used in any type of battle.

There are various types of VP locations - some can be seen by both players, others only one. Touch objectives are your side only so there is no such thing as "both of you touching it". Now having said that you can also make a player side only touch objective for both players and place them in the exact same location so you can get the same effect as both touching it but really it is two separate objectives. I was recently playing a battle that had a bunch of touch objectives and those closest to me where worth 50 points, some further away were worth 100 and others deep on the map near where the enemy started where worth 150 points. My opponent had a similar set with the exact opposite points spread. The ones worth 50 for me had one worth 150 placed in the same location for them. In all cases there were two touch objectives in the same location - one for me and one for my opponent.

This where I see an issue with autonomous drone usage - namely friendly fire and civilian casualties. I'm not sure how big the issue will be, that will be based on how these automatic targeting systems work. Friendly fire or killing of civilians could be a serious problem with autonomous drones if this isn't handled well / correctly. The comparison to the Navy CWIS autonomous systems doesn't really work because there is a clear exclusion zone around fleets and warships to the point that if some civilian wondered inside that area they would get no sympathy when they get whacked. So, those systems can be weapons free and autonomous for certain ranges without risking civilian or friendly casualties. In other words humans have managed the space those autonomous systems work in so that they can target anything that comes with in them "safely". Autonomous drones hunting enemy soldiers, tanks and other vehicles do not have that kind of space. They have to operate in a much messier and chaotic environment. Lots can be done, make the targeting smarter, geo-fencing, range cut offs etc. but the issue is none of that is as clear cut as "get within 100m of a destroyer you die". All of those problems have solutions of varying degrees of effectiveness some of which can now be attacked (geo-fencing really should not be relied on for this) or have short comings that have unknown or known failure points (targeting only enemy AFVs is not actually easy and since these systems are actually trying to kill people that problem is more important to deal with). I'm not saying there will not be autonomous drones or that we should try to ban them. I don't think we can do that. I am saying that these systems are going to have problems that human controlled systems don't. Or perhaps a better way of saying it would be they are going to have different failure issues and those failures are going to hit the public's ear differently and that needs to be managed. Or not I suppose

Yes, you found the command. The way it is modeled is the smoke discharge goes off at a set distance. That distance can vary per vehicle but I am not sure it does much (one example is BMPs throw their smoke lots further than 20m). Do you have sources that show the smoke mortar discharge distances and if / how they were controlled for a Sherman?

Check out @Bil Hardenberger's blog: This older thread has some good discussion too: Here is a play list the includes the afore metioned Armchair General videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ6dDlqye9Q&list=PLmW_vcwM_qxukdDjpfUEerpICUzTrTKek&index=1