The Steppenwulf

Tiresome and boring! Stop trolling!

This is certainly true! Johnson's Govt is desperate to demonstrate that the UK is leading in Europe. Brexit has been a disaster, exposing many short-comings of British policy introduced on the back of the change, although this hasn't been fully recognised by the electorate YET.... so the Govt is trying to head off the fallout now with any contingency measures it can employ to prevent the inevitable landslide in public opinion. Very specifically, a strong criticism of Brexit, as pointed out by the remain camp during the campaign was the likely diminished influence of the UK at the European table. The current crisis has obviously threatened to expose this vulnerability. This explains the UK Govt's approach to the crisis, as it attempts to cover up this prevalent weakness in UK diplomatic power. It's a form of over compensation intended for domestic consumption. With that, and other issues that are currently plague the UK Prime Minister, he needs consistently good newspaper headlines.

Of course this is true but you took this out of context of the post. The point I was making is that the whole world knew that RU was going to pull out of Kiev region 48- 24 hours before they did. That's not sound military practice because it invites the enemy to plan pursuit ops. The fact that UA did not exploit this advance knowledge may indicate that a RA withdrawal absent of UA military action was agreed as part of talks. Is it merely a coincidence that the Russian announcement about the withdrawal without UA response has all occurred after talks in Istanbul? I think not! And Zelensky would agree to this, since it means Ukraine could swiftly but peacefully re-patriot the region (than they might otherwise), relieve the local population given the huge numbers of casualties, besides the fact that they are no UA maneuvre units in that area that are equipped to take advantage of such a pursuit and/or encirclement opportunity.

Specifically, Ukrainian forces in Isyum are in critical danger of being cut off due to successful Russian river crossing further to the south of the city, this RA bridgehead is being reinforced by other Russian units and advanced to secure a number of villages expanding that bridgehead and cannot be dislodged due to insufficient UA units. This explains the fall-back. The concern is how the RA might develop this breakthrough attack into a full exploit given that the whole UKR line is up against the Severskyi -Donents river all the way to Slovyansk. Apparently, UA does have a couple of uncommitted units sitting deeper in defence in this area so I expect they will be thrown into this developing battle shortly. Perhaps @Haiduk can provide more info on this development over the past few days.

Yes I think this was a quid pro quo situation and as I alluded to in my post earlier this morning, I suspect a mutual commitment was agreed in Istanbul along the lines of effecting a rapid Russian withdrawal for a UKR guarantee not to instantly advance on Ivankiv and kettle in Russian forces. I just don't see why the Kremlin would have made this withdrawal public knowledge without something in return - it would have otherwise been a cataclysmic own goal inviting huge military losses. Also for UA, those forces around NW of Kiev (being mostly militia units) don't appear well equipped for a mobile op, so on UKRs part, they probably didn't consider it realistic to advance and seize ground in the manner that would be required.

This is precisely the strategic approach of NATO that I think has been adopted from the start and is being slowly played out, and to which I related some 3-4 weeks ago in this thread. I think you've expressed it much better than I did though in this sentence. 'Death by a thousand cuts' gives Putin time and space in which to realise that the course must change, his ambitions are devolved and slowly diluted, rather than suddenly be presented with a dramatic change in military circumstances, which being harder to swallow for himself (even undermining his own position), he might blame wholly on NATOs meddling, and react unpredictably as a consequence. In short, if this is NATOs game plan, it's underpinned by a psychological profile of Putin and how he is likely to react in this situation. You consider how the Kiev drive has failed (slowly), took time for that realisation to sink in as such for Putin, and then time to secure an 'offramp' (possibly an arrangement fixed in the Turkey talks) and the gentle landing achieved in the first phase of this conflict, fits this hypothesis very neatly.

I think it's fair deduction that campaign designers will develop campaigns tuned for PvP play. In fact most community players I know do not play many AI scenarios they only play H2H, so they probably aren't getting anything out of AI campaigns either. Implement this feature and H2H campaigns would fast become the dominant design, just as H2H scenario design already is now. Asserting that they would be "hard to balance" is just that, an assertion and should not preclude the option even if it were true.

Please lobby for Player vs Player campaigns. This would still be a significant step forward which would vastly enhance the CM experience. It would also be a lot easier and more realistic for BF to implement in CM2 (in the next engine upgrade ) than multiplayer.

Jeez that's some list for just one day. How much longer can this go on for? Simply unsustainable losses! Mainstream media only just recognised that Russia might be losing this war.

In addition Putin will not want to see large scale casualty evacuations back to mother Russia. The true scale of the losses and resistance that troops are facing will quickly reach the escape velocity of the Kremlin's information control. Sound familiar? These are the exact circumstances that weighed in on US public opinion against the war in Vietnam in the late 60's onwards. But in this case, the Kremlin is lying wholesale about what the army is enduring - multiplying the shock factor when reality is finally exposed.

+1 An Englishman firmly agreeing with a Scot!

It's easy this: UKR ask the Poles what price (x) they want for their MiG 29s; UKR sell the Russian command centre to the US for x amount; UKR purchase air assets from Poland for x. Everyone gets what they want .. and Russians get what's coming to them!

Wot... BF have a release schedule? Sorry cheap shot, just couldn't resist!

Nice! Me too - 16 square km of city of Luhansk - shame it's not figured much in this conflict. There's certainly a lot of stuff going on in this conflict to inspire some really interesting scenario and campaign ideas for a long, long time.

What idea? For a CM campaign?

In which case they would be the Kalibr 3M-14 (long range versions) due to the sheer distances involving launches from the Caspian Sea. I think the Russians fired some during Syrian conflict from ships in Caspian. I'd be surprised if they have too many of these, they are the best of the Kalibr range. And yes, as I suspected a few days ago, this corroborates other evidence that they've run out in local theatre.

This is a warning to slow down! Once a thread reaches 999 pages the entire BF forum will become quickly unstable and descend into an irreversible crash.... this will spell a terrible omen for the world!

Those "retreating Rus forces" repositioned to form a shoulder against UA 17th Tank Batt. @sross112source suggests that this is Rus 10th Spec Forces and has moved in to occupy key forward areas in anticipation of a other Rus forces arriving for a northerly attack. This could be wrong though, my take on situation is that the 10th Spec Forces moved recently to impede potentially dangerous counter attack thrust of 17th Tank Batt since Rus forces surrounding Mykolaiv in past few days would have found themselves cut off.

Reminder that this is what the German defending forces did in the Cotentin peninsula in Normandy '44. It was a very effective tactic that greatly slowed the Allies advance.

Big unknown - as I've previously queried, we simply don't know what functioning UA forces and TD battalions are out there in the west of Ukraine and, in this case, could move to form effective blocking force in Volhyn oblast.

A large number of whom have been incinerated in their vehicles, they will in most cases still be recorded as MIA.

Yes point taken. On reflection perhaps there could be an answer to this that lies somewhere between the two. That is; on the one hand, the Russians are running low on cruise missiles and are fully aware that they have not been as effective as hoped, due to sheer number of interceptions. So if the target is important to neutralise, why expend half a dozen Kalibrs (that are running low) with no certainty of success anyhow, when only a single Kinzhal can be employed and provide greater certainty. With the bonus of sending a powerful message about the advanced capability remaining in the arsenal.

If a) is correct then why did they not use them before now? Leaves you with b) as the most reasonable answer, given all the other indications that Russian combat power is on the backfoot and there appears to have been a dramatic fall in use of Kalibr missiles. But "running out of everything else" also critically includes IDEAS. In addition there are plenty of political indications that Putin knows full well that the special operation is not working out, and there could be all kinds of other ramifications coming down the track if it's not over soon. As posted by Steve: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/03/17/putin-russia-state-tv-news-00018304 And to underscore the point quoted from the article:

+1 doing their bit for the "humanitarian aid" effort . The sight of flattened towns and cities must be getting some public attention in Russia then.

Given that the battle initiative, especially around Kiev, appears to be slowly shifting in UA favour, supplies of TI equipment would support coordinated UKR counterattacks taking place under cover of darkness. If the Russians are not getting most basic stuff right, then there must equally be all kinds of tactical vulnerabilities that night attacks could exploit.