Ultradave
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Posts
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Posts posted by Ultradave
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5 minutes ago, B2-Spirit said:
I bet the satisfaction factor must be massive when you pull off a successful operation.
I'll need to give it a go when I have more time
It is. Yes.
and yes we finished the WitE. The highlight I recall, was me getting a whole Russian tank army surrounded on frozen Lake Ladoga and unable to move. Then spring came. Oops. Much glee and laughter from the German players as my tank corps sank.
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1 hour ago, B2-Spirit said:
I've always wanted to give the Gary Grigsby games a go
Played the original War in the East on a Zenith 8088-2 PC years ago (many years). Never really got into the newer WitE, but I love WitW, and have a number of satisfying PBEM games of that, from both Allied and Axis side. From the Allied side, the planning and execution of invasions is fun, involved and nail-biting when they are executed. The air war in WitW is more involved too (or can be - you can automate most of it if you want). Haven't played it in a while, but I really like it. There are some good player aid charts for it that give you the basics of how to do almost everything important in the game.
Dave -
Not sure. Kind of a gradual progression. Started way back in Junior High School with AH Midway, Jutland, Blitzkrieg, AK. Lots of SPI titles from the mags, lots more AH games, PanzerBlitz, Panzer Leader, Squad Leader and its add ons. Never played ASL. Had a semester long game of War in the East set up in a guy's dorm room in college. Took the whole semester between all of our classes. 5 of us played different roles. Also had a LOT of 1:1200 metal naval miniatures, with rulesets Kriegspiel, Seapower 1, 2, 3, and Harpoon miniatures. Had the first Close Combat, but it didn't do much for me. Found CMBO on the shelf at the local game shop and was hooked. Sad when the later titles were PC only and glad they came back to the Mac (been a Mac user since the mid later 80s).
Today, I play mostly, CM, CMO, Flashpoint Campaigns, and some sports games (OOTP Baseball on line, and some Action PC! games solo).
Dave
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23 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
They either do what the minority of their party wants or get tossed out of their leadership positions. This effectively means about 10% of the membership of Congress control national policy.
One thing I could add to this. That 10% may (or will) force the leadership to propose a vote to cease aid to Ukraine, but it will not pass either the House or Senate, based on current feelings among Representatives and Senators. There currently are more than enough to support aid to Ukraine, with supporters coming from both parties. That could also lead the 10% to force a leadership battle, even though they did what the 10% wanted, but it failed (the reasoning being the leadership cannot lead).
Democracy can be very messy
Dave
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If it's a Mac, select the .app file, right click and select Open. Then wait. You might have to do that twice to get it to respond. It can take a significant amount of time to open the first time, and you'll have to say OK, or OPEN or some such in response to the malware/virus warnings. It's not saying there is one, just that it can't check. You can trust Battlefront software, so tell it to go ahead.
Once it has gone through this once you won't have to do it again. It will open in about 1 second flat, with no questions.
Dave
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16 hours ago, Kinophile said:
As a former Architect I second @JonS' note - Engineers are unsexy.
Whoa, there buddy.
Both my wife and I are lifelong runners. She once described my legs to someone else as dangerously sexy. The same can be said of her. Even today at age 68, she has the legs of a 30 year old. (I'm 66 and we both still run). Last week I was halfway through a 5 mile run, passed a lady on the sidewalk, as I moved out into the street to pass her (I don't like brushing past people as they seldom here you coming and you can scare them half to death by saying "On your left"). Got about 50 feet past her, hopped back on the sidewalk, and she yells out "Great legs!!!"
Still got it.
So, engineers CAN be sexy. Even retired ones.
Funny thing was I was right near my turnaround point so I got to run back past her face-to-face this time. She did not seem embarrassed in the least, just smiled and waved.
Dave
PS - Our first date was a lunchtime run. We worked at adjacent companies. I ran to her front gate, we went for a nice run down by Long Island Sound, and chatted a lot along the way. Very public, so very safe.
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3 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:
Behind their lines in the North German Plain....That line may explain a slightly different take by our German members
Like I said - no guarantee all civilians would evacuate and therefore not have to worry about unexploded munitions. We know that wouldn't happen. I'm just relating what the expected usage was back when they were first put in service and how it was related to us (to which many of us said, "yeah, right
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When I was in the Army DPICM was *just* being fielded in any significant numbers. The original idea for usage was to fire it at a target of opportunity - a mass of armor forming up to attack in front of you, but more likely a mass of armor/vehicles in the second echelon that was forming up to exploit or continue the advance, in order to halt that advance through lack of support. We didn't have unlimited supplies so it was planned to be used when it could be most effective, usually in a Time on Target, Battalion FFE.
Since we expected in Europe to be completely on the defensive as the Soviet Army advanced into West Germany, unexploded munitions were not really seen as an issue, since they would be the Soviet's problem, behind their lines. (of course the pie-in-the-sky projection was that all civilians would have evacuated west in advance of the Soviet Army, and we know that wouldn't be the case - not everyone anyway.)
In Ukraine with a more static, back and forth front line, this is much more of a concern, for obvious reasons.
Just a little background from the olden days
Dave
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21 minutes ago, FancyCat said:
I've seen videos of medical and emergency personnel prepping to deal with nuclear incidents from Ukraine, so thats covered seemingly.
I am noting that if a incident were to occur, its likely that it wouldn't become immediately cross-border issue, therefore, we shouldn't be so gib to Ukraine urging Western priority and focus on preventing a disaster at ZNPP. And like I pointed out, it needs not enter a escalation ladder, things like more sanctions threatened, urging a consensus for a demilitarized zone at ZNPP under UN auspices, empowerment of the IAEA to gain full access to the entire plant, etc, these are entirely reasonable and non-esculatory actions that wouldn't risk nuclear bombs hitting Washington or some such.
All good unless Russia decides to do something stupid before those things can be considered.
Dave
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7 minutes ago, FancyCat said:
imo, if ZNPP is unlikely to cause a widespread cloud or beyond the borders of Ukraine, then i would say Russia is more likely to undertake faking attacks on it by Ukraine.
I agree in general terms with this analysis although a couple points to make are:
1) In regards to spent fuel pools, yes, they have additional means of cooling, but so did Fukushima until the you know what hit the fan. So postulating what might or might not be operational or usable after some sabotage or battle damage is really being hopeful.
2) Yes, the Fukushima containments were somewhat less robust, but there was also an inner containment which was quite robust. Those failed in varying degrees.
3) The explosions seen at Fukushima were from hydrogen buildup in the containments. All plants have "sparklers" for lack of a better term, that will safely burn off excess H2 (>4% in air is explosive if I remember right, >~95% is not oddly, because not enough O2 for combustion!). Unfortunately the sparklers at Fukushima were of an older design, due to be replaced, and instead of safely burning the H2, they caused the explosions. (Rolls-Royce evaluation at the time). I believe worldwide, new systems have been put in to safely burn. Why is this important? That's where the spent fuel pools were at Fukushima, and the explosion and subsequent fire is what caused aerosol/particulate plumes of fission products, so the result of a mechanical explosion COULD have wider consequences (which the article doesn't mention or explore). Again however, though, the containment here is more robust.
4) Side note - USSR stated that the RBMK reactors did not NEED a containment because their strict operating procedures and extensive training would preclude an accident. The root cause of the accident, regardless of the design, were multiple failures to follow operating procedures, performing an unapproved test, and the complete failure of the operators to understand what was happening in order to take the proper steps. Everything they did made it worse. We were taught "Believe your indications, because they are all you have. If you have an indication of a problem, acting on that will only put the plant in a more safe condition" They can complain later about wasting time or money, but my response was always. "I was there. I had the watch. My responsibility. My decision." They cannot argue with this. Naval Reactors will back that 100%, even if you get grief from your management. THIS is the difference between our power plants and the Russians, more so than the design. As a senior Naval Reactors officer said to us once - "and uncompromising attitude toward safety" which in our terms meant. "When in doubt, shut it down"
Bit of a ramble on that 4) but bottom line, that article is a reasonable summary, with some added explanation from me, for those who like that sort of thing.
Dave -
I realize many of the players are drunk on power, but if I was anyone of consequence in the middle of this and they wanted me to resign, I'd say, "Sure, absolutely. No problem. You won't hear from me again. I'll be playing chess in the park."
Bail out while you can.
Dave
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5 hours ago, kevinkin said:
I used CMO last night and came to the same conclusion. I never got around to posting since this thread moves at light speed. Thanks for posting in detail. I think this is a finding that we just have place in the back of our minds for now. Send me PM, I would enjoy looking at your CMO sandbox. There are a lot factors in play. But they are easy to adjust with that software. BTW, did you give the Ka-62 ground targets to engage?
So would I if you can post the scenario somewhere. I know I could do the same but I'm happy to steal yours and play around with it
Dave
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26 minutes ago, Vacillator said:
Thanks Dave, I think that's more or less what I thought. What most of us don't have sight of is of course the tracking system, so it's good to know you and others are checking / updating / whatever.
Now I must get back to Italy, your boys will be waiting for me
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That they are, yes.
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I think some of us catch sight of things here or elsewhere in the forum, and try to reproduce it or ask for more info so we can. When I do, and it's something I feel confident/competent to evaluate, I'll either make a new bug report in the tracking system, or verify it's already in there.
As far as when things might get fixed, none of us beta testers have any control over that other than to add our voices, which we do.
Dave
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On 6/16/2023 at 9:47 PM, Artkin said:
Thanks a lot for the bug fixes, in particular the Pz III which I whined about. Much appreciated!
Yep. I checked that out and it looked good to me.
Dave
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8 hours ago, dan/california said:
Don't actually know of a case, but NATO has an enormously detailed and robust procedures to ensure that our artillery doesn't accidentally hit one of our own aircraft. The quality of the Russians manual, and the adherence to it would have to be considered questionable given their performance at almost everything else, but if they have done it they haven't admitted it. Getting hit by the other sides arty is pretty much just plain bad luck, and again I don't actually know of a case.
Their have been at least a couple of cases in this war of Russians planes getting shot down by their own sides SAMs because the crews were twitchy and/or incompetent.
This is true. When I did it (as artillery) we had to provide confirmation of "Check Fire" before the air support would make its run on the target. Whether there was a FAC that I went through, or I was doing it myself as the FIST, we were in contact with the aircraft. Being artillery we used to joke "Big sky, little bullet." This does not amuse pilots.
But yeah, nothing you can do about the opposing artillery. If your aircraft and an artillery round collide, well, it's a bad day and very bad luck. Two things moving very fast through the air on different paths - the chances really are pretty remote.
Dave
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6 hours ago, sburke said:
ahh man, this is worthy of a Monty Python skit.
Kremlin decides that goal to "demilitarise" Ukraine has largely been achieved (yahoo.com)
So apparently Russia just wanted Ukraine to not have any of it's old legacy weapons.
Worthy of Baghdad Bob!
Dave -
Yes, and initial CFF on turn 1 is one way. Many times that's frowned upon in H2H play however, if you are playing a stock scenario. If you are playing solo though, go for it and hit it hard.
A request for the future is to include the ability to make a CFF on a target not in LOS of the observer, by using "map coordinates" In game mechanic you'd just point to the spot. And the FFE would be subject to more inaccuracy if it was fired into the open (say, at a sound contact in the woods). IMO, though, if you targeted a bridge, crossroads, church, school, there shouldn't be an accuracy hit. Those items are all marked on maps and it's easy to send an accurate target coordinate location to the battery. That's my opinion of course, no telling what might make it into the game eventually.
Dave -
16 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:
You just saved 32 minutes of my life. I don't know who Scott Ritter is, so I had opened the video in another tab to get to later (that tab has since been closed). I will gladly trust your word that he isn't worth my time.
He really went off the rails after doing some pretty good work in Iraq on WMD searches. His book about the struggles of weapons inspections in Saddam's Iraq to try to prove or disprove WMDs is good reading, and was written before he went bat**** whacko.
Dave -
36 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
Dave, brilliant nuclear analysis (I do not even want to know what your hourly is) as always, but you are talking to a ghost. Of course he can still read it from the side…wow, I think you might be the first nuclear medium in history.
I see that now. Hadn’t caught up yet, just responded to his “critique”
in any case, it’s good info to put out for anyone not too familiar with the terms or status of the agreements. Nothing to do with Ukraine off course, so back on the rails again.
As far as my rate, you get it all for free I’m comfortably retired now and there will be things I’m never allowed to talk about, but a lot I can, because it’s just my evaluation of available info.
Dave.
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11 hours ago, Seminole said:
The U.S. withdrawal was subsequent to the unearthing of radioactive material (via Israeli spying) that Iran wouldn’t explain and actively tried to cover up (they bulldozed the site of the ‘carpet warehouse’ before allowing inspectors - wasn’t good enough).
You’re dropping relevant context that I assume not everyone knows.All very interesting but was not the reason the US withdrew from the agreement. The above had to do with Iran's previous activities, which the whole world knows involved research and development into nuclear weapons. They are supposed to account for all of it, but haven't come completely clean. Acknowledged. They are bad actors and likely always will be.
Before the Prelim JPA, Iran was 3 weeks away from being able to create enough material for one nuclear weapon, and there was worldwide carping to "DO SOMETHING". Hence the Prelim JPA followed by the JCPOA, which pushed that timeline back to one year+. There are many safeguards in the JCPOA, not the least of which was limiting Iran's stock of enriched U to 300kg. This is only a fraction of what would be required to create even one weapon. Reconfiguring the Arak reactor eliminated their potential source of Pu, probably more important than enrichment restrictions.
Now that the US has withdrawn, Iran has resumed enrichment activities, put more centrifuges in operation, and has some U enriched to 60%. You need 90-ish% for a weapon. But the work required to get from 60% to 90% is much, much less than the work to get TO 60%. So here we are again. Iran is now a couple/three weeks away from amassing enough material for a weapon, should they choose to do so.
The JCPOA was working. Withdrawing from it was stupid, because we are now right back where we were years ago and there is no new agreement in sight.
Dave
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4 hours ago, Kinophile said:
Hey man, we've been able to drivel on for many, many pages about tenuously related and stupidly contentious topics so please, feel free to info-dump on us!
I for one geek out on this stuff.
Well, one thing I was going to expand on was my comment about RBMK reactor designs being as they were partly (or maybe mostly) to be used not only for power but for weapons material. I started to but then stopped.
RBMKs have low U enrichment, easy access to swap out fuel, and therefore fuel is removed for reprocessing after short burn-up time. All of these things are necessary for Pu weapons fuel, and RBMKs have it all.
Pu-239 is created in fission, as a decay product from neutron absorption, and so is Pu-240 (absorbs another neutron from Pu-239). Pu-240 is not suitable for weapons warheads - too much spontaneous fission. So you want (ideally) pure Pu-239. This is not possible, because Pu, unlike U, cannot be enriched. It's physically impossible. It can't be chemically separated because it's all Pu. So your only choice is to NOT create much Pu-240. Short burn-up times accomplish this.
All of this is the reason that "normal" light water power reactors are not proliferation concerns. There was a lot of talk about Iran's Bushehr reactor in regards to proliferation. It's a LWR, with fuel provided by Russia and spent fuel given back to Russia. Even if Iran somehow reneged and kept the spent fuel, it would do no good. 1) they have no Pu reprocessing capability - it's a complex process and few countries have it, and 2) too much Pu-240 to make it useful and weapons material. Iran's Arak reactor was reconfigured to no longer be a possible source of Pu as part of the JCPOA.
Oh, wait. We stupidly withdrew from that agreement freeing Iran to do what they want. (I guess I'm diverging from my diverging here)
The US has and has in the past, specialized reactors run by the DOE for weapons production. No civilian power plant is involved in that in any way.
So there - geek out all you want.
I love physics and especially nuclear physics. It's the way the universe works, and it's kind of cool that we can observe and determine it all not because we can see the particles and waves, but because we can detect the effects they have and determine the characteristics from that. Some of it is really mind-bending. Like pair production in gamma radiation - direct conversion of waves into matter and back again. My favorite phenomena. Just hard to wrap your head around.
Dave
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1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:
I think I can speak for just about everybody here... and all day we'd make a special point of reading everything you wrote
I know that every time the NPP gets brought up I wait to see what you have to say before getting into a tizzy. I sleep much better.
Steve
If there is more news on this later or if things change, I'll be sure to provide some commentary/perspective.
Dave
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1 hour ago, Butschi said:
I did realize that (from the answer to that, I admit). And damn, now you highlight it, I see that I should have phrased it the way I meant it: that certainly there are people here who know better than me. @Ultradave sorry if that came over in a wrong way.
No, not at all. We're good.
I didn't take it in any wrong way.
Dave
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
Excellent summary.
All this and Putin still decides, "Ah, what the Hell, I'm doing it anyway"
What could be done that wasn't? Put 3 US divisions in Ukraine before he attacked (not happening)? Doing anything AFTER he attacked, like US airpower to try to neutralize Russia's military, or massive Tomahawk strikes into Russia itself, is just insanity (both ideas have been floated by various people).
There's really no good way to stop someone like that.
Dave