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Ultradave

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Everything posted by Ultradave

  1. Quite the visual effect of the shock wave there. Would not have wanted to be anywhere in the neighborhood! Dave
  2. For me it's been specifically ones with very large setup zones, combined with dense forest. Large setup zones in open terrain don't seem to affect me much that I've noticed. Once the action starts though, I've not had issues, even with large scenarios. It may make a difference that I'm on a Mac and not a PC. Different graphics processing. Dave
  3. I can't remember if I posted this once before when CW first came out, but I have still a small pocket handbook that was issued to all FIST Chiefs in the 1/320FA back then. At the time I got this book I was a FIST Chief in A Btry, 1/320FA (Abn), later a Fire Direction Officer at battery and battalion level (in 2/321FA (Abn), and later still a Fire Support Officer (at both Bn and Bde level in 1st Bde). It's 5 separate pdfs. The first one has a lot of info on how a Soviet MRR would operate in the attack, which may help with tactics opposing them. It describes the recon element, the advanced battalion, with tactics and TOE. There is a nice table on how each element is organized and fights, along with (importantly!!) vulnerabilities. There is a lot of fire support information which will be more useful for background information, but does include a lot of specs of both US and Soviet equipment - rates of fire, shell weights, even airlift requirements to move a battery and supply it by air. In those tables DRF and DRB refer to the Division Ready Force, and Division Ready Battalion, referring to the artillery units associated with the infantry brigade that is on "Mission" cycle - the ones who are always ready to fly away at a moment's notice. One battery is direct support for an infantry Bn, one artillery Bn in direct support of an infantry brigade. Back then those direct support roles remained rigid, so that the same units batteries always supported the same infantry. For example as a FIST Chief, I supported C Co, 1-325 Inf (Abn). We trained with them in the field all the time, so we built a good working relationship. The TOE for US is specific to the 82d Airborne so you can't really apply it to a US mechanized unit. More men per squad, limited vehicles, etc. The 82d is kind of unique, and keep in mind that it's walking infantry, and the tactics for defense are described as the 82d being put in a position to oppose a mechanized Soviet advance, but in general terms, they still apply pretty well. Hope you find it useful. Feel free to download and save copies for yourself. This was freely given out, never classified in any manner, and we carried them around. They may help with tactics opposing Soviet advances, which in the AI scripting are pretty well based on how it's described here. Any fans of Flashpoint Campaigns (either Red Storm or Southern Storm) may also find them useful there - easier to see the larger scale Soviet organization unfold. Enjoy. Dave Fire Support Handbook -5.pdfFire Support Handbook -4.pdfFire Support Handbook -3.pdfFire Support Handbook -2.pdfFire Support Handbook -1.pdf
  4. https://wapo.st/3M5cxQv You should be able to read this. I have a subscription and can gift 10 articles a month. There is a running update so you should be able to come back to this posting, click on it, and see newer updates. If you scroll on down a fair bit, there is a very short video of the rocket/missile hit, said to be verified by WaPo. Sounds like the zzzipp of a rocket (of some kind) passing close by the video taker, and then hitting. The article lists chronologically the conflicting claims and news updates. Take it for what it's worth. Doesn't prove anything, but *to me* it sounds like a rocket, and not an air to ground missile with a large warhead. Could be a Hamas rocket, could be an aircraft fired rocket. Whoever fired it, the rocket might have hit something explosive. I agree it would be supremely stupid to do something like this right before Pres. Biden gets there. Doesn't mean mistakes or misfires on either side don't happen. We have enough evidence of that from Iraq and Afghanistan. Dave
  5. Pretty dumb plan then, because a limited Russian counterattack that got absolutely NO coverage anywhere except obscure sites that chronicle day-to-day Ukraine activity (I include this forum in that description), compared to a horrendous terror attack that outraged the entire world, with a couple of notable exceptions. I'm not buying it. They are not even remotely close in impact, making it not a diversion, not a multiplier, not really anything. Dave
  6. Redoubt from CW is the one scenario that really taxes my computer. On my old one, I couldn't do anything with the setup. Too painful to move the camera anywhere, if it would even move. However, the initial US setup is good enough to work with, and I started rmodifying once I was on turn 1 and the setup zones were gone. The Russians start far away so there is room and time to move units in game after the start. Is it perfect? No? Useable, yeah, pretty much. My new computer, a shiny new M2 MacBook Pro, handles even that beast well. I think Redoubt, with a huge setup zone, on a densely forested large hill, really pushed the limits. Dealing with it though, is worth the effort. Dave
  7. Doubling the population of the southern half of Gaza while Israel removes Hamas from the north, possibly followed in a couple weeks? by an evacuation order for the southern half of Gaza so they can remove Hamas from the souther half. So all 2 million people then displace back to the north? To Egypt? Build rafts? On top of the blockade, this has the makings of a humanitarian catastrophe. Dave
  8. Usually someone would also post a link to where this information came from, especially considering how large the claim is. "Just heard" is kind of nebulous. Dave
  9. Without a Speaker no business gets done. The Speaker Pro Tem's (the interim Speaker) one and only responsibility is to preside over the election of a new Speaker, after which they can get down to business. There's been some talk on voting to give him more responsibility in order to pass aid bills, but I can't really see that happening. Opening a can of worms unless it's very restrictively written. The large aid package is unrelated to the Speaker election or lack of a Speaker. The one time large aid package is a proposal to avoid dickering about aid every 2 months with smaller appropriations bills, and just get enough aid to last until the election (next November). Biden can't do it himself. Both houses have to pass it, which they may do. There is still good support in both parties for aid to Ukraine, although recent news has showed lessening support among Republicans. But their majority is only 5 seats, so it would only take 6 Republicans and all the Democrats to pass a bill, or some similar combination. The big however to this might be getting it to the floor in the House to vote on, depending on who the next Speaker is. Hope that helps. My gut feeling is that sanity will prevail. Someone recently quoted the Churchill saying about Americans being counted on to do the right thing, once all the other possibilities are exhausted. Very perceptive, he was. Dave
  10. Umbrella of what? They have about enough material to make ONE uranium warhead nuclear weapon. They have a missile program, but really no way to mount and deliver a U weapon on a missile. They have NO capability at all of creating a Pu warhead weapon, which would be required for missile delivery. A Pu warhead is significantly smaller. Their one and only method of possibly getting Pu was the Arak reactor and that was permanently reconfigured under the terms of the JCPOA to not be a source of Pu for a weapon. They could process enough U for a weapon, do a test, then have to start processing more U for another weapon, which will take some time, although not a year as under the terms of the JCPOA. But even so, should they do so, I would expect an immediate and violent response by the US and UK at a minimum, to cripple their nuclear infrastructure. A lot is buried and it wouldn't all be destroyed but certainly would be significantly set back. Highly, highly unlikely. Russia is a party to the JCPOA. They have no interest in having a nuclear armed Iran that close to them or their former -stans, which is a big reason they were a party to the agreement in the first place. The Bushehr power reactor in Iran is under IAEA safeguards and part of that is that Russia provides all the fuel, and they receive the spent fuel back. Iran has no capacity to reprocess fuel to extract Pu even if they held on to the spent fuel, and even if they did have that capability, Pu from spent fuel from a PWR is wholly unsuitable for nuclear weapons use. (That's why the DoD has special purpose reactors to do that). They would have needed the spent fuel from the Arak reactor and that is no longer in play. Even though the US withdrew from the JCPOA (a supremely stupid act, IMO), many of its requirements still exist. Dave
  11. Oh, there will be, for sure. Maybe not 5 minutes after it happened. This video post is the first I saw this (partly because I've been driving around a good part of the day). In the US, there is a broad antipathy to the policies of the Israeli government and that has been so for years. But there is also very strong support for them as well. What there also is is VERY widespread support for the Israeli people. Most people can separate governmental policy from the people. Others will unfairly malign the critics as lacking support for Israel. It's complicated Dave
  12. Just my own opinion, but I think this is the most likely argument. If Trump had won, Putin could have waited. Ukraine would not have gotten aide from the US and without that the rest of NATO would be less likely to go it alone. With Biden in office, he knew that Biden would build up unified opposition and a good case for aide, so the sooner the better (or in reality, the sooner the less bad ) Interesting how the disinformation campaigns take root and are hard to weed out. My cousin stopped overnight on his way back from a business trip a few weeks ago. My wife was out of town so we went out to dinner at a local Irish pub and he brought up some of the issues in Ukraine. First on his list was the "secret US run bio warfare labs that the Russians had liberated". Ugh. I thought that was put to bed long ago. He recommended that I not listen to the "mainstream media" and instead go to "trusted sources". He named a few - all of them completely unreliable rumor mills. I won't bother to give them any print here. Now this is a guy, middle aged (mid 50s), who is well educated (University of Florida, then Oxford), in economics, has worked in oil and gas futures and resource evaluation for a couple decades. He's no dummy. But he's been led astray by all the BS that is spread. I explained the "bio-labs" and how the US has been for years helping Ukraine and others better secure facilities, and that rather than following his sources, he should actually read the state department agreement that details exactly what has been done over the years. Slack jaw. There was more - Ukraine and the US started everything. There was a treaty that the US would not expand NATO at all after the USSR fell. There was no guarantee of Ukraine's integrity, yada, yada, yada. I love him to death. I only have 2 cousins and with my parents and my younger brother all dead, 1) I'm the oldest in the family, and 2) he and his sister are the only peer family I have left (we all have "kids"), but ugh, we agreed to talk about other stuff. Dave
  13. Well, that was the bipartisan budget deal that was ALREADY made to get the debt ceiling passed. It already existed. McCarthy reneged on it in an attempt to placate the far-right group. What good did that do? Dave
  14. They delayed things long enough that they could actually READ what was in the bill, instead of immediately voting on an unseen bill. Either that or trust McCarthy, and they already have experience at that. That's not obstructing the passage. Obstructing the passage would have been not voting for it, in which case it would not have passed. Not even close. The fire alarm thing? One guy. One idiot. Ukraine aid is going to be a tough balancing act. The next Speaker is going to have to promise the 8 to 20 rebels that there won't be any, and yet, if they try to NOT include Ukraine aid, it won't pass, because no one is going to trust a new Speaker to push a separate Ukraine aid bill after the budget, and not renege on the promise. They could, I suppose, propose both at once, so the bills are all on the docket to vote for - not sure of the exact mechanisms for all that. Basically the Speaker and his minions control what actually gets done in the House. The end result is that I have NO idea why anyone would even run for the job at this point. What a mess. Dave
  15. Can't find any link to actual rules but this short article lays it out pretty clearly. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/03/us/politics/kevin-mccarthy-house-speaker.html
  16. The dynamics of a Democratic House Speaker with a Republican House majority could be.... interesting. Basically nothing happens that the Speaker doesn't want to happen, and yet, he wouldn't have the majority votes without some help (which might be part of the bargain I suppose, if, and BIG if, you trust the agreement made to get there). Plan? I don't think there is a plan. Has anyone heard any member of Congress say "once we get rid of McCarthy, we'll nominate Rep. XYZ for Speaker?" Hah, now that they have him out, getting someone else in is going to be tough. McCarthy only got in by the skin of his teeth as the candidate they could hold their noses and vote for after he promised them the Moon. Now what? Someone similar who will have to do the same thing. Meanwhile the budget clock is ticking, and no Ukraine aid bill until there is a Speaker (for those not in the US, no business can be conducted until a Speaker is elected). Dave
  17. Well, with CANDU reactors, the nuclear material is not an issue, other than the NPT of course, and all the safeguards agreements and monitoring that have been agreed to. Dave
  18. I didn't realize it was that high, but not surprising, really, when you think about it. The ATGMs of the day that opposed the Israelis needed to be flown to the target by an operator. The defense against that was to spot the launch, and then hit it the position with suppressing fire immediately - MGs, tank rounds, whatever is handy. Artillery would be too slow. Standard tactics of the day, both there, and against any other Russian equipped force. So it wasn't *too* hard to spoil the aim of the ATGM operator, while a tank round is roughly instantaneous. Dave
  19. Good point. Resolved in the Senate negotiations anyway. There is broad support for Ukraine in the Senate, and I don't think that's going to change, even to placate the House crazies and get something passed. Dave
  20. Yes, McCarthy is no leader. At all. And that is not a partisan remark. He just is not up to the job he's in. It's like the title of Speaker was his goal, but not performing the role of Speaker. I gather from remarks made that Democrats are not eager to prop up McCarthy. It may come to that though, if the alternative is such chaos that Democrats feel they just have to in order to avoid a lot of damage to the public. I have to say I'd LOVE to see the sputtering and indignation from the "insurgents" if that happens. It will be epic! As a general comment, there are a LOT of politicians that need to be reminded of their oath of office. Maybe they should recite THAT every day before business starts, rather than the pledge of allegiance. To stay somewhat on topic, it seems that US aid to Ukraine is still safe for the foreseeable future. Whatever happens with the above, there appears to be plenty of pro-Ukraine aid sentiment to overcome any opposition. Dave
  21. Resolved. There is money in the Senate continuing resolution for Ukraine aid (and US disaster relief as well). Now, the real question is whether the House will even consider it for a vote that way. I don't think there is much doubt that the Senate will continue to support Ukraine. And really the House as well, EXCEPT in the House, there are ~20 who will not under any circumstance, at least as yet, and that 20 of 435 can hold up everything, since there is only a 4 seat majority. In the past, dissenters had "permission" to vote against, to satisfy their constituents, because when the votes were counted there were sufficient without the dissenters. This isn't the case now, and 20 are dictating terms to the entire 222 majority. And Speaker McCarthy is in a bad situation, of his own making. If he tries to pass the Senate bill, it may pass with Democratic help, since the Senate bill was bipartisan, but he'll be voted out of the speakership because he will supposedly have reneged on the agreement made with the 20 to get to be Speaker. If he tries to put forward his own resolution, and includes ALL the demands of the 20, it *might* pass, but will NEVER pass the Senate. It might not even pass the House, because there are plenty of Republicans who don't support the positions that the vocal 20 member minority hold. I'm using 20 because it's *about* that many and fluctuates day to day - we all know who the MOST vocal minority of the minority are and they seem to hold the power, a pretty amazing spectacle for first term Congresscritters to display. Been watching all this with a feeling of both interest and horror. Not that it hasn't happened before, but in the past no one was holding the Speaker's job hostage at the same time. The Pentagon has stated that in a shutdown, aid to Ukraine would continue as a priority measure not to be interrupted. So that's good anyway. Dave
  22. Apologies if this has already been covered but if so I missed it (not unlikely). What we are seeing in Ukraine is pretty much the first widespread and numerous usage of drones, both for observation and for attack - sniping really, even if the sniping is dropping a grenade down a turret hatch, which is pretty impressive to me. What we aren't seeing is the widespread deployment of drone countermeasures.... yet. Of course there are many types of drones, but most have some characteristics in common, such as optical sensors, a datalink, and an operator on the ground. And by their nature the smaller ones require the operator be reasonably close and not say, in Las Vegas, like some of the US UAVs. Once a force devises and deploys some countermeasures on a wide scale, this drone effectiveness/tank replacement argument may well die down a lot, with drones becoming another complementary weapon system. Could an autonomous system be developed to track and then laser blind small drones that could be mounted on a vehicle, or even small enough that individual AFVs could carry their own? A laser powerful enough to actually disable the drone might require a dedicated vehicle. Don't know - not up on my laser technology. EW capability that could scan for the drone signal (you know it's emitting VERY close to you), and jam it. And yeah, I know all about frequency hopping transmissions, but that doesn't mean there isn't an effort to follow or counteract that, at least enough to disrupt, if not negate the transmission. Can Russia develop and deploy systems like this in the midst of this war, in enough concentration to be very effective? I'm very doubtful of that. Could other countries already be working on solutions like this for the next conflict? Probably. Like tank and anti-tank weapons, it will become an another arms race, with more capable and resistant drones and more effective countermeasures against them. There is a constant similar race in the submarine world (which I'm more familiar with). Sound detection capabilities get better and better, and noise silencing technology gets better and better in order to better hide. Silencing technology is the US submarine world's most closely guarded secrets. Dave
  23. The nice thing about being FA is that we stay out of all that branch rancor because we know we just support. In fact our DIVARTY motto was "We Support." I know on occasion moving with the barrel facing rear is as mentioned, protection from damage, especially maneuvering in close quarters like city or town streets where no enemy contact is expected. Hard to get around corners with that main gun leading the way. Hit something hard and your gun is toast. Hit something soft and the soft thing (wooden building) is toast. Let the gun follow and you can tweak the turret to follow around the corner and not swing into something. Dave
  24. I think this is a key point about the situation. The majority (in both houses) is so tenuous, there isn't room for "permission" being given to vote against something to make the points of the extremists. They need every single vote or nothing will happen. I'm not as optimistic that a shutdown will be averted, based on the inability to even get a defense budget to the House floor so far. And at that, I defense budget that probably won't pass the House, and definitely won't pass the Senate. There is little time left to pass a continuing resolution, as a minimum. And if McCarthy gets one passed, it will have to be with the help of Democrats in the House, and that will be the end of his speakership, causing even more chaos before a serious budget can be passed. Ugh. Something tells me I'll be dipping into savings for expenses for a bit (even if we get it back eventually). Good to hear though that aid to Ukraine will be considered essential by the Pentagon. Dave
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