Ultradave

Game? (looks like RTFR?) Is there a saved game? Best way to get someone to look at it. Is this mentioned somewhere else where there is more info? (link?) You sound frustrated like this is one that has been going on for years, but I haven't read it (of course I don't read everything in the forum all the time). Dave PS - No way I would walk on top of that causeway myself, under fire or not under fire. I'd be crouching, hopping from one bush to the next, hugging the dirt in between.

If he has a security clearance due to defense work, he is bound by security rules to report the foreign contact and the contents of the discussion. I have no idea if he does have one - might not be necessary for him - launch this package, it's X" x Y" and weighs Z kilos. Doesn't need to know anything about it's function I wouldn't think. Dave

Plus they were taking MG and rifle fire from both sides of the other end of the causeway. The road was probably the worst place to be. There is really no good real world choice there either Dave

Part of this is suffering what we used to call a "beyond design basis accident" A structure is designed to accommodate the weight of anything attached to it, moving across it, the vibrations associated with those (no resonance), and likely, or even very unlikely shock effects, and of course it's own weight. Take an earthquake for example. An earthquake will impact a structure in known ways and directions. So the decision is how much intensity you design it to take. If a beyond design basis event hits it, all bets are off. The Kerch bridge would not have been designed for a 8.0 earthquake. There is no evidence of that kind of earthquake being a reasonably possible event there, compared to say, Japan. If, let's say, a missile warhead explodes at the top of a pier, well, no bridge is designed for that. Bad things are going to happen. Truck bomb - probably a small one is within the envelope of earthquake shock. A big one is going to be a problem. It's a different forcing function. High frequency short duration as opposed to low frequency longer duration of an earthquake. And it's at a specific location, rather than affecting the structure as a whole, where it can flex together. Submarine structures that I worked with of course, are designed to withstand massive shock in multiple directions. But even we have what we would term "beyond design basis" There is a point, where it's not practical to strengthen things any more - the sub still has to operate. That's about all I can say about that subject. I wouldn't necessarily fault the Russian engineers and designers. If you did the same thing to the brand new shiny Tappan Zee bridge on the Hudson, the same thing would happen, I'd imagine. Dave

Nice quality. Looking at the exact moment and just after the explosion it *appears* to be coming from just under and to the right of the bridge, and not a truck. In fact it looks like it happened in between the two trucks, and not coming from one of them. Also, that's a LOT of explosive, but it's a strong bridge so you'd need quite a bit to drop a span. Makes it look like maybe the bridge pier or more than one, had been demo'd. Just my take. I could easily be way off Dave [edit1] After seeing more pics and videos now I'm even less sure. I still think it happened between those 2 trucks, and given the info about checking each truck for explosives, hard to see how this could have happened. It does look like the span in the water was blown OFF it's pier supports by something. [edit2] To what Steve said about 500kg warheads - I've watched 1000lb dumb bombs hit and they make a VERY impressive bang - something you don't want to be anywhere close to, so that explosion *could* be consistent with a 500kg warhead, given the light saturation effects. Hard to tell. It would be great to see a video from far back like the ones showing the burning train from a distance, but right at the moment of impact - better scale and also might show where the root of the explosion was. Note that I am not a combat engineer, but a field artilleryman. I blew stuff up, but differently. And got mad at our engineers for blowing holes in dirt roads we were using and blowing trees across them. Those guys love their C4 and such.

Screenshots are VERY helpful. A save game too if it's a behavior that is best illustrated by watching the turn (things like pathing issues are a good example - helps to watch it real time and maybe play with it). Along with the save game a very specific description of which unit to watch. Bigger the scenario the more important this is. If I could make a suggestion it would be to be VERY specific - game, exact vehicle version if it's a vehicle (e.g. PzIIIG, PzIIIM, PzIVH, all PzV versions, etc.) year of scenario - makes it so much easier to set up a quick and dirty scenario to verify. Year makes a difference so we can find certain vehicles - they come and go in the TOE. So basically anything and everything you know that nails down the problem so that it's easy for someone else to find and write up in a report. A second suggestion is before reporting anything remove ALL mods and try it again. It may not make a difference, but it might. When we beta test we all do it without mods so that we don't have BF chasing things that are caused by mods. Thanks. Dave

Well, I heat my home (as do many). Hot air gas heat. Cheaper than oil or electric here. Dave

T90 is in the system. Can't say what the status is. Dave

I added a bug report for the PzIIIG turret axis of rotation. There are several other existing PzIIIG animation issues, but I didn't see this one. They are all linked together in the reports, so hopefully they'll all get fixed at once. Dave

I've done that a number of times when trying to hit ALT-something else. Easy to do accidentally without realizing it and only affects that game. Dave

Going back to my previous post which mentioned the US withdrawal from the IRBM treaty, this right here was the entire reason for the treaty in the first place. The extremely short flight time of IRBMs to Moscow or European capitals required instantaneous decision making, which makes the weapons a destabilizing factor. IT was a good idea to eliminate them, and now we are back, with Russia with nuclear capable IRBMs and the US discussing nuclear warhead cruise missiles. Bad ideas all. Dave

I assume you are talking about tactical nuclear weapons here. 1. I would assume they would have the skills. Short and medium range missile units are most likely better trained, manned and are not used for cannon fodder on the front lines. There is not too much more to firing off a tactical nuclear weapon than a conventional one, once the release authorization is received. In fact, there isn't the time pressure to calculate data. It's slow and carefully checked. Same with "setting" the warhead. 2. Depends. Tactical nuclear weapons are low yield (everything is relative) compared to ICBM warheads. As such the warheads are of a simpler design and require little in the way of maintenance. Even old weapons should still work. 3. Artillery: the US doesn't have any more and haven't for quite a while, but the Russians may. Same range as the artillery they are fired from, in their case, most likely 152mm. A 122 wouldn't have a big enough warhead size to fit a nuclear charge, kind of like a 105 for us. Also, you don't want to be that close. Rocket artillery also - a nuclear warhead can fit rocket artillery warheads.The US used to have 155mm and 203mm nuclear artillery shells. Simple design, pretty much foolproof. Bombs are considered tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons. You need jets that are nuclear capable. You'd want to be sure that you have local air superiority to use one. Then there are IRBMs (Intermediate Range Nuclear Weapons). We foolishly withdrew from the treaty because of accusations of cheating by Russia, and their complaints that the proposed Bush era BMD for Europe could also be used for IRBMs. This was correct and was fixed during Obama's administration. As for Russia's cheating, some certainly was. Some was a debatable or semantics. In any case, the US withdrew from the treaty rather than try harder to fix the issues. Russia's Iskander missiles are nuclear capable and pretty long ranged, and pretty new and shiny. No need to be up close and personal. 4. Kind of covered by the above - there's a wide variety. 5. (added by me). We don't really have a good handle on exactly how many and what types of tactical nuclear weapons Russia has. They aren't covered by a treaty. Back when GHW Bush was president he unilaterally eliminated our tactical nuclear weapons, and the Russians followed suit because they are destabilizing and both sides realized that getting rid of them was a really good idea. However that was quite a while ago now. Many were destroyed/dismantled, and many are in storage, just not deployed, (we think) and we don't have visibility into what they may have been doing since then with new or updated/replacement weapons, like we do with strategic nuclear warheads and delivery systems, which are covered by extensive verification as part of the treaty terms.

Doh! Read his screen wrong.

Well, then it could be just a Matrix server issue. I'm play testing a different game, and occasionally I just get a spinning wheel when it says it's uploading to the Matrix server. I've had to leave it overnight a couple times and sometime during the night it uploaded. Had the same thing happen occasionally with WiTW and that's been a while, so I'm not sure what the problem is on the Matrix end. They've certainly been told about it enough times.

Oh, wait, this is CW PBEM++ game. So, not exactly a "debacle". The patch is being final tested which required that games be at 1.06 for PBEM++ Unfortunately that means that existing games will be on hold for just a little bit. I don't think @BFCElvis has had any luck in getting Matrix to work around that somehow. Dave

Anyone can still use the "old" system of using dropbox or emailing turns to each other. No one is required to use the PBEM++ system. And if you use a Mac or play against someone who does, you HAVE to use the old system. Dave

The second screen shows the vehicle pack is unlocked. If you start the game, the icons on the bottom should look like this (background picture is from a mod so yours will look different but the icons are the same). The second to last one is the vehicle pack. Some scenarios require it. Dave

That's *usually* an issue with the Matrix/Slitherene servers. I"ve had that in other games that use the system. It usually clears up after a delay (which can be lengthy). Dave

Note also in the article (besides the complete lack of any valid reason to detain him), is the IAEA expressing concern over land mine explosions just outside the plant perimeter. One yesterday (day before?) cut a 6kV power line leading into the plant. There are redundancies so there was no safety issue, however, these land mines have been exploding recently, most likely because of local animals finding them. It's been luck so far that nothing important has been disabled due to this. Dave

Don't they know that it's time to leave when that happens? They aren't reacting. The next command is going to be Drop 200, FFE, or maybe Drop 400 - hard to tell. In any case, the next rounds are going to be on top of them. Time to scoot. They've got about 30-45 seconds to get moving. Dave

Well, yeah, but I was field artillery, not a maneuver type. But in artillery school we had to learn all the mech stuff, then when I arrived at the 82d had to learn the Airborne way. There used to be a joke (probably still is) that it was the 82d Airborne Army, because we tended to have so many of our own procedures, tactics, organizations. When you get right down to it though, Airborne units are light infantry. We just arrive in style. (and probably better trained and higher readiness than average). Dave

Great Big Sea. My wife and I were vacationing in Glacier National Park and took a 3 day side trip to the adjoining Waterton Lakes National Park over the border. Rainy afternoon and CBC was re-running a Great Big Sea concert - same one as the "Great Big CD & DVD" album (seriously, that's the name, live show from Ottawa). Great show and we were sitting there thinking "Why have we never heard of these guys?" We've since been to several of their concerts here in the US. They are best live. So much fun. Dave

I did a lot of that checking too, to (hopefully) avoid losing a bunch of Stugs to M4s on the first turn or two

Yeah, ok. Sure. Glad you aren't in charge of any big red buttons. Another to add to my ignore list before I say something I'll regret.

They know the details. The JCPOA was to prevent them from having enough material to enrich far enough for a weapon. The US withdrawal eliminated that restriction and now we're back where we were 5-6 years ago when they were 3 weeks away from doing so, and everyone was yelling to do something. As to the rest, the idea that there is some binary decision to be made, either put up with the status quo, or some variation of that, or turn the whole world into a smoking cinder, is just ridiculous. You all are not saying punish Russia if they use one nuclear weapon. You are saying **** it, blow it all up. All of it. Everyone dies because we couldn't do anything else about Putin. Crazy talk. Dave