Ultradave
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Posts
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Days Won
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Posts posted by Ultradave
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11 hours ago, dan/california said:
Yes, but you trusted everyone not to get drunk or disappear. the second they were out of sight of an officer. I don't think the Russians can make that assumption. And actually they did a little better than most of the Russians we have seen caught on the bullseye, some of them floored it an attempt to be anywhere else when things went boom. That is above average for a mobik.
True, we did. And we had the BEST NCOs. I'm sure every trooper and officer would agree. The professional NCO corps is not really a thing in the Russian system.
Dave
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2 hours ago, Haiduk said:
UKR artillery or HIMARS has struck Russian supply convoy in Hladkivka village, 25 km south from Kherson, this is Hola Prystan' direction - relatively calm area, distant from Krynky. Russians got too much relax and...
Claimed losses 8 trucks destroyed and damaged, up to 25 killed and up to 30 wounded.
Judging on angry posts among Russian milbloggers, these losses can be close to the true.
I wonder if they could get MORE bunched up along the road? They might try but I don't think so. What discipline.
You'd think that if you were going to stop for some period of time - even 20 minutes - you'd disperse all the vehicles. It's not like UKR has never used drones for artillery spotting before. At this point it should be SOP anytime there is a halt.
Hell, we did that when there were no drones and we had air superiority!
Dave
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21 hours ago, Chibot Mk IX said:
I think this was discussed long long time ago, maybe in CMSF 1 but I cannot remember the details
When you choose fire mission in CMSF 2, at effect parameters there are three options: personal, general , armor.
What is the type of ammunition used in "for armor" mission? Delayed fused?
If no precision munitions are available, a shell with a "Quick" or "Point Detonating" fuze would be fired. The other choices would be "Time" or "VT" (Variable Time). Those two are airbursts and wouldn't have much effect on tanks unless they were all unbuttoned (unlikely for Soviet and Soviet client armor formations).
When an FO makes a call for fire, he identifies the target - "Tank platoon in line" "BMPs in road column" "Infantry company in the open" The Fire Direction Center uses that description to decide what and how many to fire for Fire for Effect. The adjusting rounds, if any, are always Quick, never airbursts, unless the adjusting rounds are lost in heavy woods and an airburst is needed just to see the adjusting round (rarely but it's possible to do).
An FO can request a specific FFE, but it's the FDC decision. They are the ones that know how many of what type rounds are on hand, and have a better handle on the overall situation - priorities, what's happening to adjacent units, etc.
In game, I think what you see is no air burst, just ground bursts, which is "Quick" fuzed rounds. If you select General, or Personnel, you I think get a mix of both, although I'm not much of a SF2 player. The munitions in each case are the same. Just the fuze is different.
Precision rounds are a whole 'nuther story.
Dave -
On 11/6/2023 at 2:21 PM, Harmon Rabb said:
Tis But A Scratch.
Yeah, that'll buff right out. I little Bondo, a little elbow grease.
Dave
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30 minutes ago, Haiduk said:
Video of "Askold" is being hit with three missiles
Lots of pieces and bits flying off that! Looks like (but hard to tell) the missiles all hit the top surface of the superstructure.
Dave
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On 11/3/2023 at 8:54 PM, geobf said:
While I haven't played it much, I do think CM:BN works under MacOS 13 (Ventura). Thinking about upgrading to MacOS 14 (Sonoma) - not seeing anything in the forum on if CM:BN works or not with the new OS - any one out there with any experience either way? Thanks!
I have an M2 MacBook Pro with Sonoma (Mac OS 14.1), and all the CM titles work just fine on it. No problems at all.
Dave -
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13 hours ago, PIATpunk said:
The bug was first reported in early 2020. It took at least 2 attempts to fix later that year.
Although, in some titles at least, it's only just been fixed in the latest release.
eg CMFI 2.20 patch notes (patch released Sept 12 2023):
"FIXED: Infantry no longer flees toward enemy."
Rando
It was a tough bug to squash.
There was a LOT of testing to determine all the circumstances where it happened - what was happening in game, what was the cover. Then surprises when a game that we didn't think was affected, suddenly was (testing a campaign for Red Thunder and suddenly Russians in front of me bolted toward from a perfectly good building).
It's much better now. MUCH. But no one ignored it. It just took a lot of testing and fixing.
Dave -
51 minutes ago, dan/california said:
Another TOS-1 departs for the afterlife with a TRULY spectacular boom. I wonder what they have to threaten the crews of these things with to get them to even go near them. The guys behind this one, perhaps the people charged with making such threats? Any way I am guessing they will double the follow distance to the next one, if they aren't to concussed to do anything besides drool.
Quite the visual effect of the shock wave there. Would not have wanted to be anywhere in the neighborhood!
Dave
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On 10/14/2023 at 4:44 PM, Vacillator said:
So is it the trees or the size of zone, or both? Dave, we've played a few big games before and we had no issues?
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 -
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
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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
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3 hours ago, Undaunted said:
- Did Hamas knew the Russian plan, and vice versa?
- Were they meant to be simultaneous to amplify their morale impact, to overwhelm Western reaction, and/or to achieve other effects?
- Was one of them meant to be a diversionary attack for the other?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
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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
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4 hours ago, Carolus said:
Israel has apparently called for an evacuation order for the civilian population of northern Gaza, to leave the area within the next 24 hours.
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 -
15 hours ago, THH149 said:
Just heard that the Ukr 110th Mech was destroyed around Avdiivka.
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 -
11 hours ago, THH149 said:
Anyway, I'm not an expert on US congress but if there's no Reps speaker, can the House pass laws to fund the US gov (and Ukr with it) without a Speaker? Is that why Biden is thinking of a one off $100bn gift to finance Ukr for 2+ more years to kind of firewall Ukr war finances?
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 -
12 hours ago, dan/california said:
What if the Iranians planned this as a prelude to doing a nuclear test? They could pronounce Gaza to be under their Umbrella/Protection.
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.
12 hours ago, dan/california said:Have the Russians GIVEN Iran enough nukes to really make them a nuclear power
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
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2 hours ago, Haiduk said:
No internatinal indignation and will not be
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
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1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:
There was definitely speculation that Trump getting booted from office was part of Putin's calculation that non-kinetic solutions weren't going to work. With Trump in office for another 4 years NATO might have been wrecked. With Biden (or pretty much anybody else) it was likely to regain some of the strength Trump had taken from it. Better to strike while the alliance is at its weakest point ever vs. waiting and having it be stronger..
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
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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
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39 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:
If the moderates on both sides would work together and sideline the far left and far right extremists the world would be a better place.
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
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1 hour ago, MOS:96B2P said:
He did say the Democrats tried to obstruct the passage of the continuing resolution bill. He went on to provide examples of how the Democrats attempted to obstruct.
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
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45 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
Yup. Apparently the only two powers vested into this temporary position are to facilitate the vote for a new Speaker and to take Nancy Pelosi's office for his own. Now that he's accomplished the most important priority (taking Pelosi's office), it's time for him to get to the less important stuff like restarting government.
Steve
Very petty, that.
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11 hours ago, MSBoxer said:
I am not sure that is true, the speaker pro tempor takes over immediately upon the speaker vacating the position to ensure that normal operations of the house continue.
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
CM:BN and new MacOS version(s)
in CM2 General Tech Support
Posted
Very true. That will never happen. Not really my thing though, and there are a number of other reasons I've always been a Mac user. You *can* install Parallels Desktop and install CM games in Windows and participate in tournaments that way. I find the experience to be very unsatisfying though. The graphics don't translate over well to Parallels. EVERY other game I have in Windows on Parallels works great - just like you were sitting at a W11 machine, but not CM. Maybe someday.
For @Apache, my new M2 MacBook Pro is amazing. I bought it to replace a 6 year old i5 MBP with screen issues from my dog knocking off my lap and onto the floor several times. Still got $400 trade in for it.
Flawless transfer of everything from old to new. The M2 is a screamer. Is it expensive - yes, it was pricey, even with the $400, but you have to consider it is a very high end laptop and will last for many years without being outdated.
Dave