Ultradave

They are. And they are good scenarios in themselves, increasing in complexity. You won't just waltz through them. You can, but you'll pay. Dave

Spent the day at our 82d Airborne Association Chapter "Rumble" (Annual picnic) . Guest speaker was Marty Schweitzer, from the McCrystal Group, former ADC of the 82d, among (many) various other things. He provided a few thoughts on Russia's invasion of Ukraine. He's had apparently a bit of contact with the Russian Army over the years. His evaluation: 1. "They are terrible. Really terrible" (meaning their competence). 2. They have a lot of artillery, always have, and they use it. 3. Their maneuver elements are "absolutely awful" at tactical maneuver ops. 4. If they ever get to where they are going they can't fight well -- because -- 5. They have nothing resembling western army' professional NCO corps. Their NCOs are NCOs in rank/name only, have almost no authority, are discouraged from exhibiting initiative, and even if they could, are not given the whole picture of the op - objective, assets. In his opinion this more than anything else cripples them. And the UA has quickly learned that by taking out as many officers and HQ units as possible, everything grinds to aa halt. None of this is any revelation, but another analysis by someone with experience that confirms a lot of what has been seen and said here. He discussed aa a few other things, but the rest were not really relevant to this discussion. Except maybe one. He spent time on the Joint Chief's staff. He said that when there is a crisis somewhere, the president (any president) has two questions. a) where are the carriers right now?, and b) how soon can the 82d get there if they have to? Other than that, it was a day of good camaraderie with a bunch of former paratroopers of all ages and really good food, on a spectacular afternoon. Dave

Oh, yeah, well aware of that. My body tells me every day because I'm stubborn and continue to run even at the age of almost 66. (The Army made me run and surprise! I found out I was good at it and like it) I do have friends with more recent first hand experience though. We started getting Blackhawks about a year after I arrived at the 82d Airborne. Man, what a ride after thumping around and jumping (falling really) in Hueys. It was like trading in your VW Beetle for a BMW 7 series. Not that there is anything wrong with a Beetle but what a difference. All this time later and the sounds of a Blackhawk, a C-130 and a Huey (don't hear many but very occasionally) are instantly recognizable and make you look at the sky. We have a couple of USCG C-130s that fly over south to north going to somewhere, or returning. I know them when they are barely audible - so used to the sounds. Dave

The point was to illustrate what I said at the end - the versatility of a lightweight 105mm howitzer to move and set up quickly, fire a bunch of rounds quickly, and then scoot somewhere else. The movement doesn't have to be by helicopter. A 105 isn't hard to tow around. Maybe I should have just said that. Dave

By TOE we were supposed to have 9, one detailed to the ammo section. We usually had 7, with one to ammo sometimes. Always a bit short of TOE at the time. Dave

When I was in the 82d, one mission we practiced over and over and over was the 2 gun raid, a fast quick hitting mission for a 105mm battery. I was the Fire Direction Officer for our battery as one of my assignments in the Army. Best job in Field Artillery (I may be biased). The "raid" was to move 2 guns forward by UH-60 to a position close to the front lines to fire at a lucrative target in the enemy rear. Since a 105mm is relatively short ranged compared to a 155mm, we needed to move up close, get dropped off, lay the two guns, fire the mission, pack up, call our rides and get out of dodge. In a hurry. But it was a quick strike at an important target of opportunity. These guys are firing at a leisurely pace. In a pinch, a 105mm can be fired almost as fast as a mortar. Almost. The gunner in the video is checking his sight on the aiming stakes to make sure the gun hasn't shifted with each round. We'd have a crew of 6 or so too, so the new rounds would come fast. It's cased ammo so loading is very quick, as you can see. Much more effective once we got UH-60s to replace the UH-1H choppers. 2 UH-60s could sling a gun under each with ammo strapped onto its trails, the gun crew, and me and my assistant one of us each in one of the choppers, and the "Smoke" (Chief of the Firing Battery - a SFC, the senior NCO in the battery next to the 1SG). As the FDO, I also had to act as XO on the spot and survey the guns while my "Computer" (E-5 SGT who normally calculates elevation and time), set us up a temporary FDC to calculate from - just me and him - and then after surveying in the guns run over and finish the calcs and safety check them. The XO stayed back with the battery of 4 remaining guns, and my FDC team sergeant (a SSG), stayed there to run the full FDC back in battery. A lot of action in a real hurry, we'd be in and out in about 20 minutes after slinging 10-20 rounds per gun out. I don't know what these guys are doing but a M102 and this comparable UK howitzer are highly mobile and versatile. The shells don't pack the punch (about 1/3 the weight) but this is what they shine at. Note: No one checked the barrel between rounds. Bad form, and potentially extremely dangerous, although a little less so with cased ammo than separate. Need to check there's no obstruction in the tube. Dave

@BFCElvis told us to go ahead and provide our impressions. George = Evil surprises lurking around every bend, and fantastic maps. This battle pack delivers on these in full. A number of the battles feature wide open spaces and room to maneuver. You'll need to make careful use of tree lines and folds in the ground. Engaging scenarios, with @George MC's typical "storytelling" briefings that put you there as one of the participants. $10 is an amazing bargain. You won't be disappointed. Dave

Used to be half. That program ended however. But it ended because we "burned up" thousands of nuclear warheads. See my post on this. Dave

We've done it before. (not crowdsourced of course, government funded) Look up "Megatons to Megawatts" for some interesting reading. It's a little known fact that for 20 years, HALF of all US electricity production from nuclear energy (So about 10% of total) used to be Soviet/Russian nuclear warheads decommissioned due to arms control treaties. The project was a solution to the maintenance of security over thousands of nuclear warheads to prevent diversion of the SMN (special nuclear material). Through various processes it was downblended into harmless (from a "go boom" standpoint) useable fuel for regular nuclear power plants in the US. Thousands of warheads. What better way to make use of old warheads than keeping the heat and lights on. Beats burying them somewhere. Dave

Expecting a poor reaction from the public to some very bad news perhaps? Dave

IAEA to visit Zaporizhzhya power plant this week. While they can't do anything, they can make a thorough evaluation of any damage and the integrity of safeguards and safety systems. Sounds like the offsite power supply TO the plant is back on line, which is good news. A couple of caveats - unknown how cooperative Russians occupying the plant will be with the IAEA, and the off site power of course is vulnerable to being cut off at any time. For now, all is well. Tomorrow? https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/iaea-support-and-assistance-mission-sets-out-to-zaporizhzhya-nuclear-power-plant-in-ukraine Dave

Listening to MSNBC talking about nuclear power plant in Ukraine. It would have been better to have some kind of expert to talk to and not just a reporter and the host discussing it. Their general mood was, OMG they are distributing iodine tablets because a leak could occur at any time. Potassium iodide (KI) is what they are talking about. It's actually standard procedure that people living in the immediate area of a nuclear power plant have them on hand. When I lived in Niantic, CT we had them in our dresser drawer because the 3 unit Millstone power plant was across the bay in Waterford, CT. Potassium iodide when taken in the immediate aftermath of a radioactive release involving spent nuclear fuel will flood the thyroid gland with stable iodine, leaving any radioactive iodine-131 no place to attach too. The biological half life of iodine is pretty short, so it's quickly excreted from the body if it has no place to attach itself. This is also the reason that it must be taken immediately, 1) before the radioactive iodine can be ingested, and 2) any remaining excess iodine of any isotope is quickly eliminated. Saying all this, it's a very good precaution to go around and make sure everyone has them. If they were ever issued, they may be misplaced, there may be refugees from other areas living there, etc. Or who knows, maybe they never had them. Thyroid cancers resulting from I-131 ingestion are the most common long term effect from exposure to radiation stemming from a spent fuel accident. "Fortunately," these days it's also one of the most treatable and survivable. Fortunately in quotes because cancer patients/survivors kind get peeved when you tell them how lucky they are that they have a "good" cancer. Cancer sucks, no matter which kind. Most of the rest of the spot discussed Chernobyl and how it was run by the Russians and look what happened to it (paraphrasing). Yup. It was on Ukrainian soil and they suffered for it. A lot. Still do. Chernobyl was caused by a combination of poor reactor plant design and incompetence. This reactor design is more robust. Russian competence? There is obviously still a severe problem there, Russia wide - nuclear, military. Chernobyl would have been much more vulnerable to combat damage had there been combat around it as an operating power plant. They have no containment. At all. Russia claimed no containment was needed since their stringent operating procedures would assure safety. Then they violated about 6 of those stringent operating procedures, did not understand the problem they were having and made choices that aggravated the problem, leading to the almost simultaneous steam explosion followed by hydrogen detonation. (there was no nuclear explosion - that's physically impossible), and release of millions of curies of activity to Europe. Dave

Decommissioned plants have been disassembled and the sites returned to green space successfully. One is only about 15 miles from me. The storage/disposal/conversion of spent fuel waste is a political problem and not a technical problem. And with that, I'm done with this, which Steve will be happy for. Dave

You might want to read over again what I wrote. Two subjects - cutting off electrical supply FROM the plant to Ukraine's power grid, which was what I was originally replying about, and cutting off grid supply TO the power plant which they need for cooling, which I also addressed. Dave PS - the condescending tone is quite unnecessary, especially considering things change day by day. You could even go read the IAEA report I linked to YESTERDAY instead of cherry picking something from a few days ago.

Some more about the power plant. Russia seems more likely to cause a problem through stupidity or ignorance than through malice (IMO) Dave https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-94-iaea-director-general-statement-on-situation-in-ukraine

The USAF may not have but as a (at that time, when they were first introduced) US Army FIST Chief and "occasional controller when no FAC around" my response to it, as well as all my peers, was, "Holy *(%#&*, that thing is the BOMB!!" Of course that was quite a few years ago and the air environment has gotten more lethal. But man, when they first showed up..... Dave

Reduce power levels to very low level, disconnect from the grid, shutdown the plants, either leave them in hot standby for restart or cool them down to cold shutdown. Done. 20% of UKR electricity cut off. There is no danger to the plant, or to the environment to do that. None at all. Nuclear plants, and for that matter ANY electrical generation plant, do that ALL THE TIME. There's absolutely no reason to cut the plant off from the electric grid to stop it from operating and providing electricity. I would think by cutting it off they mean cut off IT from supplying electricity to the grid. It can still draw from the grid for it's own power loads. But if they did do that (cut off completely), there are backup diesel generators to supply power for cooling, unless of course someone blows those up. Fukushima was a problem because the DGs and their fuel were located above the design basis tsunami water level. They had what they call a "beyond design basis" accident. Dave

Here's a link to the latest IAEA statement on the nuclear power plant situation. Concern. Good that all the safeguards data is being received, but that's not really the major concern. For review, when they discuss safeguards, they aren't talking about the safety of the plant. What they are talking about is monitoring facilities to ensure that nuclear material (for example, spent fuel) is not diverted for "other" uses. All nuclear plants have them. Saying that, new fuel is a poor material for say, a dirty bomb, and impossible for a nuclear weapon. Spent fuel is so highly radioactive that while it might make material for a dirty bomb, handling it to do so would be incredibly difficult and dangerous, requiring a lot of special equipment and shielding. And while there is Pu in spent fuel, the processes to extract it are only owned by a few countries. The bigger danger by far is significant damage to the plant, which could cause a radiation leak. Breaching both the containment and the reactor vessel is not too probable. More likely disabling safety systems that control spent fuel pool cooling (a la Fukushima), leading to the breakdown of the fuel and radiation release. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-91-iaea-director-general-statement-on-situation-in-ukraine Dave

Exactly. Easy to come up with places where you can get by. I think it's the second scenario of KG Peiper? where you start out in a long road column in the woods with a large setup zone. The only way forward for a bit is down the road until you (I believe?) cross a bridge, then it opens up. It's waypoint tedium, and selecting all and clicking out of the set up zone is pretty much impossible. Waaaay too many paths to pick out the one you want to edit next. When I've played this one I just sat for one turn so there was no setup zone and then start the click fest. Less frustrating. This one would benefit hugely from a convoy order. Just to pick one example. Dave

Convoy feature was tried. In testing it worked sometimes, but didn't work enough times that it was decided that people would be more aggravated by it than helped. Maybe someday, because I (and many others) sure would like it too, especially where a force comes on map in road march. Dave

Asked on the beta forum and this is something that has been reported long ago that Charles looked at and was unable to remedy. I had not known about it or noticed it. Dave

But that might only affect the accuracy of the mission, and not the dispersion. The rounds shown are on-target but much more widely dispersed at short range than long. This seems counter-intuitive. This is possible in real life but just in very specific instances. If a mortar (or artillery high angle fire) is fired at an extreme high angle which corresponds to shorter range on map, it is going to fly a higher arc, IF it's fired at the same charge as the longer range off map ones. Wind direction varies at different levels and a high elevation round will pass through more layers. Artillery accounts for this by using the "Met" data and applying appropriate small corrections. I don't know if company mortars do that, and to get an evenly distributed wide dispersion you'd have to have winds moving at evenly distributed random directions at different levels of the atmosphere. 1) that's highly unlikely, 2) on map close range would probably use a lower charge and not fly has high, negating that argument, and 2) pretty sure that's not in CM's modeling, even abstractly. None of that helps answer the question of why it's happening in game, and it does look odd. I'm going to take those tests and see what others on the beta boards think about it. Thanks for the specific tests. Those should help to look at it. Dave

And you can add the PACT act to the list, as a whole slew of Senators "changed their mind" after initially voting for it, then voting down the slightly changed House version. Nothing in it beyond expanded medical eligibility for veterans exposed to toxic substances. Clean bill. Sorry for the continued off-topic but as a veteran, I'm struggling to understand the logic here with the "we support the military" crowd. I'll shut up now. Dave

That "group" in the House seems to have one purpose in life. Make as much noise as possible and vote against EVERYTHING, no matter what the subject, no matter how beneficial it might be. Dave

While that is true many times, for this bill this was not the case at all. (and also for several other recent bills). I read the bill to see if there was some reason they might have voted against it. It's just a few pages and deals only with human trafficking prevention and survivor support. That's it. It really is that simple. Dave