Ultradave

IAEA concerned about safeguards again. Specifically, the verification of nuclear material by on site inspections. Realistically I doubt there is a problem because Ukraine would have no use for diverted material and really neither would Russia. They already have plenty of weapons making material. Spent fuel is dangerous to handle and doesn’t lend itself well to the manufacture of say, an improvised dirty weapon. There are much easier methods, like medical sources. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-82-iaea-director-general-statement-on-situation-in-ukraine?fbclid=IwAR2jL3BDTN7CxjCRCLmWDsfC20qzwL7wZG-kze0-XrB4uQ4xAj6Lt7xFCDA

I have had a similar problem with Black Sea. It would suddenly no longer run - same symptoms. Deleted everything I could find related to it, fixed permissions using OnYx, reinstalled, no joy. What worked (I have no idea why and I'm very OSX savvy), is renaming the .app file to Black Sea 1.app Added the "1" and it runs like it always did. If you wanted to try this (it won't break anything to try) it's a way to save your original user account. Dave

Senator John McCain used to joke that he was not a hero, because all he did was completely destroy a $50,000 AA missile by ramming it with his multimillion dollar F-4 Phantom. Always got a laugh. Dave

This is not a valid comparison Dave

I would expect not. Reloads take a little while, so you just can't fire them as fast as pumping out 155mm shells, which can be quite fast if you don't have to change firing data. Dave

From the article: "The Ukrainian artillery barrages have been so intense that several dozen of the M777 tubes have burned out and are being repaired." Yes, exactly what that means. They are being put to good use. Every type has a maximum and then a sustained rate of fire. The sustained ROF would theoretically keep the barrels in good shape, but, if you need the fire support, you do what you gotta' do at the time. Dave

I'm not sure if I'm using the correct term. Perhaps not. Mac users always get a message that the software can't be checked for viruses when attempting to install, and the default response is to move it to the trash (this is if you double click on the installer). The only other response is Cancel, which aborts. If we use the right-click, Open method, then the same or similar message appears but it asks if we want to open anyway. These happen when unpacking the installer, and again when running the installer. A lot of Mac users new to Battlefront question this and have to be told how to go about the installation because many aren't even familiar with semi-bypassing that check by right-click Open. Hope that helps figure it out. It would save some questions if it worked like most other software. Dave

Oh, right. The Steam (and also Matrix/Slitherene) versions are Windows only. For Mac versions you order directly from Battlefront. They aren't "signed" so when you install and when you run the first time, right click and open to bypass the security stop, and answer one "open anyway" answer and you'll be all set. Not to worry - Battlefront is perfectly safe, just that they haven't got the Apple blessing Been playing Combat Mission on a Mac for many years, and all titles are available for Mac and run really well. Dave

I didn't read far enough down the Twitter thread. I would point out that numbers wise, whether there is a separate DIVARTY or the battalions are with the infantry in brigade combat teams makes no difference. Either way, one artillery battalion supports one maneuver brigade. The BCT just makes the direct support more permanent - but there was normally a permanent direct support relationship between artillery battalions and brigades in divisions anyway. Dave

I love Gen. Hertling, but his math is off. He went from saying that each battalion has 16-24 howitzers and 9 rocket systems to a whole division having 24 howitzers and 9 rocket systems. A division as 3 artillery battalions so for example an all gun, no rockets division would have 6 guns/battery x 3 batteries/battalion x 3 battalions per divarty = 54 guns. So the whole active Army is about 500-ish guns and fewer rocket launch systems. These 500 or so guns are a mix of M109s, M777s with a sprinkling of M102s (105mm) mixed in. None of that corrected math changes the overall point however, in that 1000 guns aren't coming. They don't exist, or not without totally stripping ALL of the artillery from the biggest NATO armies. Of course it never hurts to ask for the moon and then maybe your benefactors will scrape together as much as they can, right? BTW, though, Gen. Hertling IMO has done a masterful job in interviews providing realistic assessments, at least as far as the knowledge he has available, and the ability to put things in terms the average viewer, listener, or reader can easily understand with no military or technical background. I always thought he was an excellent officer, but he has really been shining, I think, as a military expert to call upon. Adm. Kirby, the DoD spokesman until just recently, has that same ability. It's been my experience in general that flag officers in the US military have been outstanding. There are exceptions of course, but there is a HUGE weeding out that occurs first from O-5 to O-6 (LtC, to COL) and again from COL to BG. I have yet to meet a General who was not an outstanding individual, as an officer technically, and as a leader and a person. Dave

Well, yeah, you shouldn't be doing that no matter what type your guns are or who you are. Dave

Thanks. This is a good look at how the system works. The ultimate hipshoot weapon. Set up, fire, break down, all in a few minutes. That makes it very survivable from counter battery radar location. Your worry remains just if a drone has tracked you to a position and can get that data to a firing battery fast enough to react before you are gone. Possible, but challenging for the enemy. Dave

This is one "advantage" of being a nuclear engineer. I am pretty much bilingual in unit systems. All the physics I learned was early on Imperial, but when getting into nuclear/atomic physics, then metric. Heat transfer, thermodynamics an fluids mechanics were always taught in Imperial units. Radiation effects, health physics are always in metric/SI. As far as I know there are no Imperial units for that, at least not that are used by anyone. The odd thing about that is that there are "metric" units for radiation dose/exposure like rem, millirem, etc, which is what I am more used to, spending my career associated with the Navy Nuclear Program, and then there are SI units, Seiverts, Grays, etc. Both are based on the same base quantities but at different levels. (ergs/g). So for example you average yearly background dose is 300 millirem, or 3 milli Seiverts. (which I don't care for because it makes it sound psychologically like you are allowed much less radiation ) Had to become more fluent in SI radiation units when I went to England to help with their submarine program for a few years. Dave

Pres. Macron floated the idea of a "EU Army" and alliance a few years ago, when the US commitment to NATO was being held in doubt. Didn't go anywhere at all that I've seen since then and even at the time it seemed to be greeted with yawns. Dave

Yes. They were all over Cotentin trying to figure out where they were ! Dave

Yeah, don't know. I had just recently downloaded this set and done nothing more than open the scenario as US to see what the map looked like. Here's a pretty good account with a lot of detail. https://www.forces.net/d-day/la-fiere-bridge-d-day-battle-you-should-have-heard Dave PS - I didn't realize there was an Iron Mike statue at La Fire. The one at Fort Bragg is famous, in the center of the post. https://www.army.mil/article/96925/fort_braggs_iron_mike_statue Band of Brothers fans will recognize the name of LTG (then LTC) Robert Sink in the first paragraph

In the real invasion, that causeway was a major exit point from the beach areas into the interior countryside, so holding the interior end of the causeway was a key objective. In real life they weren't able to and were forced away, which resulted in having to later force the causeway, which is a pretty famous action in the history of the 82d. Regardless of game VP costs, the end of that causeway was pretty important. For Amfreville (sp?) I'm assuming but don't know for sure that it's the first village/town with road intersections that would allow easier dispersal of forces into the interior (kind of guessing on this one but looking at the game map it makes sense). Dave

By coincidence really, this is much what I've been doing (I'm the 82d in the game between @Vacillator and myself). The first force has not moved for a while and I've been concentrating on the new arrivals since they came in. I was moving fairly cautiously in general, except when I sprinted across an open area, but that was after spending the time with a scout section to check that the coast was clear. So I think I've been living to the spirit of that, if not perfectly following. Not having any idea where the Germans are or how many or what kind of equipment, I've been pretty cautious. I've also been roughly following the instructions provided in the briefing for movement. I won't state that here so as not to give anything away but @WimO will probably know what I'm getting at. Dave

Yes, please do if you feel comfortable doing so. I think many would be interested in your thoughts on what you describe as the "whole system" There have been a lot of discussions or comments about the lack of effectiveness of Russian NCOs and junior officers, but little from real first hand knowledge. And welcome!! Dave

Propellent issue combined with the round's warhead being somehow jammed in the barrel - some combination of the two. The actual warhead is very unlikely to explode. To arm fuses in US artillery requires "setback" (the shock of firing) PLUS a couple of rotations of the round. There are 1.5 turns in the barrel of a 105mm. If I remember correctly it takes 3 turns to arm. But let's say the barrel got "dented" somehow so there was a projection or bump on the inside. Now this would be hard to do. More likely a barrel will crack than deform. But that could jam the round. All that propellent gas has to go somewhere. The breechblock is most likely stronger than the barrel, so the barrel is going to give at wherever it's weakest point is. Small flaw, crack. Dave

Several times in my career (well, two different careers), it was brought home to me how much can be determined with a few pieces of information from varied sources, when presented to subject matter experts. And we have some of that here as well - a number of people who have real life experience at certain aspects, in which I include a comprehensive knowledge of history, military or otherwise. In the Army we routinely and on "special occasions" got intelligence briefings on things. Sometimes it was political/military situations in general because being in the 82d always meant you were on call to be sent to the next hot spot, like, this afternoon if necessary, so we were briefed a lot on what was going on in the world. Some general, some classified. Then there were briefings on new equipment. One time in particular we got a picture of a new Russian tank in a factory. Someone mentioned seeing the exact same picture in Newsweek. But what the Newsweek pic didn't show was the factory. The tank was on a white background. Including the factory would have given a clue (maybe pointed right at) WHO took that picture. Sources. We got to see the assembly line. Newsweek readers saw the tank. At Electric Boat (US nuclear submarine shipyard for those not familiar) I had occasions to participate in some studies for the Office of Naval Intelligence. I can't say a lot about these but let's just say we were trying to reverse engineer new Russian sub designs from bits and pieces of data the ONI would feed us. We could ask questions too, and sometimes in a week or two we might get an answer, sometimes they'd say not available, use your judgement. What was impressive was that when you put 20 experienced submarine design experts from various fields together, and with just a scattering of facts provided how scary close you can get to the answer. And we know how close because several years later we could compare our "guess" to what we could see of the real thing from open sources. My part was determining the reactor shield design, which is a significant weight account. Had to do this using what we knew from Russian naval reactor designs, and some assumptions on what Russia allows for radiation exposure (more than the US/UK and I assume France). But I designed reactor shielding for a living. Physics doesn't change and there are limited materials that are useful. That in particular emphasizes how easy it is to have something compromised by just feeding a few bits of good info to real experts and having them analyze and collate. And many times individual facts are not classified, because they don't show the whole picture. But given enough individual facts you can find the big picture, which makes you think that more facts should be classified . Bottom line is that even data from open sources, put in the right hands or group of hands, can come remarkably close to classified secrets. Dave

Beat me to it. That's exactly it. He didn't say anything that hasn't been US policy for many administrations, he just put it more explicitly than it usually is. Biden isn't much for diplomatic veiled speech. He never has been. It's only a "gaffe" in the sense that he was more blunt about the truth. Dave

This graph looks "bad" but when if you plotted the GDP or defense budget of each of the same countries, it would look similar - GDP a little higher percentage of the US GDP, but defense budget somewhat less a percentage of the US. So the graph is actually proportional to readily available resources (leaving aside the issue of what has been promised vs actually delivered so far). Dave

Yeah, that too. Resurrecting it at this point is not really practical. Man that thing was a beast! Dave

I believe the impetus behind replacing it was the MRLS system's lesser vulnerability to expected counter-battery fire while delivering the same-ish size round to the target. The MRLS system is much more mobile than an 8" howitzer battery. Dave