AlexUK

Yes, agreed. He was warned. About conventionally invading a non-NATO country. However those warnings were about sanctions and sending modern *defensive* weapons to Ukraine. Light years away from warning about “catastrophic” consequences that can in no way be assumed not just by Putin, but by his military and civilian leadership that this time they would not face the full force of the military arrayed against Russia. And I imagine the private and back channel communications we know have taken place to have been much less diplomatic.  And couched in the context of crossing the one single red line that *all * the powers that be have insisted not be crossed. 
 
Here in the cheap seats, we cannot know the final decision policy of Washington or the Allies. But I would bet on general agreement that the punishment for using a nuclear weapon in anger today must be so clearly “catastrophic” for the attacker that other nations watching with interest have zero doubt about just how very very bad an idea that would be. In fact, one could imagine the core message to Russia:being just that: We are so sorry. This isn’t a civilized, gentlemanly proportional response situation. Understand, this is nothing personal. It’s just not good for business. Which you won’t be in any longer. Because this will not stand. 
 
Here in the cheap seats, I realize this is just an opinion, one without the weight and responsibility that weigh on those who must make such a monumental decision. 

I wrote a little python script to set the elevation in the editor according to a digital elevation model. Those come in various resolutions, for instance, in Germany data for the whole of Northrhine Westfalia is available for free with a 1mx1m granularity. I then use PyAutoGui in order to automate setting the correcting height and clicking/scrolling in the editor. The script currently sets the height information for every square in the editor, not just contours.
An example height map:

The resulting terrain in the editor (3328mx1920m):

Vista somewhere in there.

The script is not terribly fast, making this map took about 7h, but it beats doing all the clicking yourself. The limitation, btw., is the editor, the script could go faster. The advantage is that you can do much better micro-terrain, I think, the disadvantage is that you can't just use an old topographical map and draw the contour lines. It would be possible to do contour lines but you'd need to have those in a machine readable format.
Anyway, if people here are interested, I could polish the code a bit and make it available to everyone, e.g. via github. If there is additional interest, I could imagine doing other stuff that way, like, for instance, drawing roads from Open Street Map.

Lucky Strike gave me the whole collection of BMPs for CMRT... so i've been busy updating loads of files... Cheers bud. New updates for the upcoming Phaze 2 for The Battle for Berlin...

Urban Bridges texturized...

Made a Red, Red Cross car from the awesome mod by JM Stuff...

My favourite German weapon of WWII, the Sturmgewehr, texturized...

OMG I just found this beast a 128mm Pak...  had to get it into battle...
I always loved these buildings but thought they were a bit flat and lacked texture...solved all indie builds texturized...

Found a great set of windows for the buildings...

The new files already in the new maps and old ones...
Cheers for looking...
 
 
 
 

My advice having now owned the entire series of CM WW2 titles since May 2011 when I first stumbled across CM Normandy, is to not think about it and just enjoy all the current titles. Before you know it a new module, battlepack or much anticipated updated engine will be upon us like an ambush in a French hedgerow. 

Now I would like to catch up with some military staff. 
Previously I was asked if AFV-tanks are valuable/can be used in current UKR-RU Arty ping pong. I sniffed around and the answer is they are used more as long-range direct fire support and less as shock force. They are used as mobile protected long range direct fire support.
Mobile - they can be held in a safe place and pop up in unexpected places then get away before retaliation. RU especially is having difficulty with hitting in timely manner unexpected tanks in unexpected positions  Protected  - blind arty fire cannot stop tanks (unlike jeeps with ATGMs) Long Range - tanks survive staying as far away from target as possible. Actually, it applies to every fire support weapon. Keep in mind that the majority of commercial drones have limited range and endurance. We are talking about 2 km from the frontline. So, if you find position let say 3 km from front line then you have up to 2.5 minutes (given 20 mps speed) before drone arrives on top of your head. With 10 rounds in carousel (see below) and 10 seconds per shot you will be long gone before drone will be able to bring pain. Direct fire - unlike arty tank can hit moving target or respond immediately to fleeting target So, here is my impression on the entire process:
Tanks are kept in a safe place a few km back from the front line. Preferably in urban areas (one of the reasons current fights gravitate toward urban areas) - they park directly behind tall buildings, like this:

Obviously, NATO NLOS ATGM gunners must be trained to deal with these targets as per image above.
Next, based on intel and appreciation, tank commanders select several possible firing positions, preferably as far away from targets as possible (keyhole positions are the best). 
In case of defense, when enemy reaches desired kill zone tanks move to a required position. They quickly pin moving attackers so attackers lose momentum and the drone adjusted arty can crush them. Keep in mind that once attack momentum is lost drone adjusted arty will either annihilate attackers or attackers will run back to cover.
In case of attack tanks wait for assault groups to reach a specific point (often beaten zone of a strongpoint) then they move to the required position overwatching the strongpoint and either hit it or (if it was already hit sufficiently with arty) watch for any sudden enemy appearances, allowing assault group to move safely through the danger zone. 
To minimize the danger of fire tanks load as minimum ammo as possible. So, around 20 round carousel becomes 10 round carousel but it does not matter much as tanks spend little time on the frontline. On other hand once you have done a fire mission then even if enemy hit you, it is unlikely to cause catastrophic fire and loss of tank.
Keep in mind this is not a universal tactic. You can find RU regulars who are still using classical shock tactics (AFAIK they still trying it at Kharkiv direction). But I believe eventually they will adopt it just like they adopted commercial drones for arty.  

Yes, I have the impression Stug mantles are too vulnerable too. Often see penetrations there. Seems dubious to me. I thought the mantle was effectively up-armoured on the Stug, plus there is more of an angle for deflection.

Page 1000 incoming... I think it's only right to mark this milestone with a bone  

Boeing Yard, Fort Irwin, California
CPT Wren could feel a very strong headache coming on. It wasn’t the unbearable, searingly-dry heat, (well, it was the heat in part) so much as it was the logistical nightmare his company, and his Battalion Taskforce writ-large, had been dumped into. They had just arrived at the Boeing yard, serving as an initial assembly and equipment collection point for their rotation at the National Training Centre. The officers and senior NCOs were in absolute, collective shock at what greeted them. They had left most of their equipment behind at Ft. Stewart, with the promise that they would be provided with well-maintained, pre-positioned gear on arrival at Ft. Irwin.
The sight of the Battalion XO standing amidst the metaphorical wreckage, hands on hips, with an evil countenance on his face revealed how stretched the truth of that promise had been. If looks could kill, the MAJ would’ve struck down every civilian contractor in the yard by now. The displeasure radiating out of the Battalion XO was echoed by the companies’ XOs. Wren’s second in command, 1 LT Booth, looked like he was contemplating homicide whilst talking with the civilian contractors mounting MILEs gear to the Company’s M150 tank destroyers.
They had left behind relatively cutting-edge equipment, which they had left in top shape, back at their home posting. What greeted them were older models of M60 tanks and TOW launchers, lacking the excellent thermal sights they had come to rely on. The TF’s sister battalion that had just come back from rotation had never warned them about this. They had been put through the wringer and had warned his unit that the infamous OPFOR didn’t play by the rules.
Looking over at the rundown, dated equipment in poor repair, Wren couldn't help but feel that this was part of an elaborate plot to put them off balance before the rotation even began...
Chapter 1.1: The Hasty Attack
 
Near Brown Pass, National Training Centre, Fort Irwin.
The operations group had gathered around a sand table, essentially a scaled-down presentation of local terrain, to plan how they would kick off the mock war for the barren, craggy desert. Wren could feel the sun beating down on his exposed neck as he looked down. He had wisely kept his steel helmet off for the briefing, preferring a patrol cap. It offered some slight relief to the sensation that he was in an oven, and that he particularly was being burned in the pan.
The immediate mission was straightforward, in principle. Brigade had informed them that the lead elements of an enemy Motor Rifle Regiment (MRR) had entered the area of operations and was suspected to be heading towards one of several passages through the corridor. The enemy’s general intent was not difficult to divine: secure one of these features and allow the regiment to debouch onto the desert and deploy for an attack. The TF was to establish contact with the enemy’s forward elements, fix them and, if possible, destroy them. Follow up operations would then commence against the main body of the MRR.  
These first fights would devolve to the companies. The NTC was intended to train the army to fight a step down, that is, a company was expected to go toe-to-toe with an OPFOR battalion, and a battalion with a regiment. It was a tough ask. It put a lot of pressure on guys like Wren, but it also forged these junior leaders into the backbone of America’s army.
The NTC’s entire concept was one big, tough, ask. It had thus far put units, sometimes inadequately trained, always under-equipped, against a dedicated opposing force, or OPFOR. The US Army had played around with the idea of an opposing force before. What had resulted was a hokey B-movie routine simply called the “Aggressors.” They had no foundation in reality, no equipment that bore any relation to something in service, and failed completely to reflect any one of the many likely enemies the United States would face. The Aggressors, like the men who were tasked to portray them, had nothing worth fighting for. Units that rotated in to display them liked getting killed early and often, so they could get a hot meal at the mock casualty clearing stations. It was schlock, and the army had known it.
Fort Irwin, it’s dedicated OPFOR, and the MILEs system (think one giant game of angry laser tag) had changed all that.

This OPFOR had one task: play the Soviets better than the Soviets themselves, and brutalize their enemy whilst doing so. The fact the OPFOR was also expected to meet training standards as a US unit made it a nightmare opponent: a ruthlessly competent enemy that knew your playbook back-to-front.  The first bunch of battalions that had rotated through the NTC had come away shocked, and not infrequently in tatters. Wren’s TF had the advantage of learning from these initial rotations. Two TFs from sister brigades in their division had already gotten their NTC-issued hidings and had diligently and openly disseminated their experiences. They were, theoretically, the best prepared unit yet to come prepared for the fight.
This was their first opportunity to prove that. The Battalion S-2, a highly competent officer with a Master’s in psychology, had put his money down on the idea that the enemy’s lead elements would head for Brown pass. Wren’s area of responsibility. Considering this, the TF Commander had indicated he was willing to throw significant weight behind his company team. Combat aviation, and armour retained under task force control for support of his team, if need be. There were two courses of action: let the lead MRB come through the pass and hit them hard in the bottleneck or push through and find them in the open. The resources his CO was willing to allocate would change depending on the decision, but he trusted his CPT enough to reach one on his own and held his peace as to which he would have preferred.
Wren thought for a moment…Allowing the enemy to come through the pass was the “textbook” solution. It was canalizing terrain and would allow him to get the most out of his company team. It would be a mainly defensive operation, greatly aiding his chances of avoiding heavy losses. Thing is, textbook was obvious. The textbook made for poor reading in this situation, thought Wren. The first option ceded initiative to an OPFOR he knew was lean and mean on the offensive, especially one going to plan. He interrupted his thoughts with a question:
“Are you able to allocate me any of the scouts?” he asked his CO.
“No can do. We need them to tie into the armour battalion TF operating in the Southern Corridor, they can’t put dismounts in those hills as readily as we can.”
If he fought in Brown Pass himself, he would need to seriously contest the high valley mesas, or else the OPFOR would get observers up there and make any type of hasty defence untenable due to artillery fire. He wanted scouts for that, rather than have to put too much load on dismounted foot patrols taken from his platoon. The CO’s answer settled the dilemma. Wren reached over and pushed the little blue block representing his company team through the pass on the sand table.

He could see in his mind, the actual terrain leaping up around him. Wren had always had an eye for terrain, and he knew he could make the most of it here. The “open” ground north of Brown Pass was anything but. It was a series of plateaus, a giant natural staircase, that provided good cover to all but the tallest of vehicles and would allow a commander (on either side) to switch from a long-range engagement to a close-in one at a moment’s notice. The exit of the pass also had a craggy pair of mountains, impassable to vehicles, but perfect for dismounts. Pushing through would make that terrain all his. He intended to use it to its fullest effect.

Preparing for tomorrow’s operations meant it was going to be a long night. Wren, his hard-pressed XO and the platoon leaders had a lot of work to do to make the plan a reality. Wren also had to find the TACP, frustratingly absent at the briefing, and try to integrate the combat aviation into the plan, as he wouldn’t be able to have it “on call” and flexible once the rounds were flying back and forth.
***
16th October, 0900 Hours

They were through Brown Pass, without any enemy air interdiction. At least, 1st Platoon was through. So narrow was the defile, so real the threat of OPFOR air attack, that the Company team was deliberately strung out. This meant that, for 2LT Bunting’s forward group, if there was a fight, it would be his alone for some measure of time. His job was to fix the enemy for the rest of the Company team to manoeuvre aggressively. It was an important, high-risk task and a sign of the trust Wren put in his senior platoon leader. With Bunting’s platoon was the two M150 TOW vehicles, on loan from 1LT Benner’s platoon. The group was moving in staggered column, along a sandy trail, towards a low ridge that denoted the northern mouth of Brown Pass.
Bunting, riding in the lead M113 with a Dragon team and the assigned forward observer, looked over his shoulder. A pair of Cobras was providing intimate support and were hovering just behind Hill 165.5. Suddenly, one of the Cobras raised itself up a bit more and fired off a TOW missile with a hiss and a pop. Contact?

Contact! Urging his track forward, his driver cautiously nosed the M113 in fits and starts up the ridge. Calling a halt, he could see high, hanging dust clouds in the vicinity of PL “Yazoo”, one of several reporting lines to help the TOC track the advance of both B Company and the OPFOR. It quickly became apparent that multiple enemy BMPs were moving fast towards the mouth of the pass. More than he could handle in an open fight. Bunting reacted fast, and with clear-headedness. They had expected this. The Cobras were making the enemy squirm and push with haste, that could play to his advantage. The little bowl his group was in was excellent defensive terrain from which he could pin the enemy. Signalling over the platoon radio, as well as with his hands from the cargo hatch, he ordered his squad tracks into an umbrella-shaped defence.

The flying column cover being provided by the Cobras was showing its worth. Behind excellent positions, the Cobras took turns launching TOWs, which raced at knee-height over the desert to slam into BMPs’ flanks. Wren, hearing Bunting’s contact report, got the word back to TOC quickly. The planned F-16 strike went in 5 minutes after the initial contact report, and they laid their clusters in, presumably with devastating effect.


The OPFOR recon leader stayed calm. He must have known his best bet now was to get forward and to grab the enemy by the belt. The BMPs surged forward. They would be in Bunting’s perimeter within minutes if the Americans didn’t react strongly.

The TOWs weighed in, however, at Bunting’s command. They fired from excellent hull down positions along the low ridge he established his fighting position from. To Bunting’s chagrin, their first few shots are wildly off target. The TOW crews were inexperienced and clearly a bit awe-struck at the sight of a company of BMPs ruthlessly pushing through air attack. It takes two engagements to finally find their nerve – and their targets. A BMP burns.

Then the enemy weighs in with their own fire support. A thunderous crush of artillery impacts just to the left of Bunting’s track. He buttons up to avoid the angry, buzzing shards of shrapnel. The OPFOR artillery is off target but still denies a large part of this excellent battle position to him. More alarmingly, it kicks up the high, hanging dust Bunting has already learned defines the NTC’s desert terrain. Soon his attached TOWs are telling them they can no longer actively engage threats through the dust. ****, this is going to get close and messy, thinks Bunting.
“Earl, get that ramp down and get your ass out with the Dragon, get up there!” he screams to the mounted Dragon team, ducking back down into the cargo compartment.  “Evans, get posted somewhere on this ridge and the Chucks going!” he continues, calmer now, to the attached FO.

The BMPs were only 600 meters or so away now. The vagaries of the terrain were making themselves felt. BMPs were flitting in and out of sight, and the TOWs continued to have trouble engaging, only managing to pick off the occasional BMP.
SPC Earl, the platoon’s Dragon gunner, calmly sets up on a bit of the ridge, determined to cover the short front of the Platoon’s BP. He ignores the artillery, as best he can, and adopts the awkward cross-legged firing position, waiting for the first enemy to pop up over the plateau. A pair of BMPs shortly obliges him, even halting momentarily, to his delight. One is shortly burning. The TOWs catch a lucky break soon afterwards and tally two more BMPs.

In a furious five minutes, Bunting’s small force and air cover appeared to have mauled an enemy company. There was no time to rest on their laurels, however. Another platoon of BMPs, seeing the carnage to their front, smartly pull to their left, disgorging dismounts and creating smoke, and then surge past Bunting’s right flank, towards Point 199.1. Through gaps in the smoke, Bunting is able to track the line of enemy dismounts, and he spots in the distance even more BMPs – the enemy’s main security element?
The Cobras have ceased fire, displacing so as to avoid enemy anti-air fire. A wise move, to be sure, but a poorly timed one from Bunting’s perspective. He has no way of raising them quickly again, lacking a direct communications line to them. It was entirely his fight now.  
Movement is key to any defence, but especially a hasty one. The TOWs were ordered to displace to cover the burgeoning threat on the right flank, but this takes them dangerously close to the enemy artillery fire. The TOW crews find themselves constantly ducking back down to avoid shrapnel.

Nevertheless, they can re-engage, picking off a few of the flankers. 

Then, out of the smoke - and through its own artillery - surges a single enemy BMP. Bunting, too focused on the immediate fight, had never strictly given orders to his squads to dismount in the reverse slope. Luckily, his experienced NCOs read in between the lines and dismounted on their own initiative and had liberally handed-out LAWs to their men whilst doing so. The BMP is engaged effectively by these disposable rockets and is swiftly knocked out.

 
***
This is a beefy chapter, and I don't want to bore you to death...bite sized chunks. To be continued (as for the Normandy DAR, the backlog of photos do was larger than thought, apologies). 

I think most of the questions you had for me have already been broadly covered, and I don't have too much to add. JonS answered the quadcopters question with exactly what I had in mind - currently, they don't have the technical capabilities to produce effective and targetable data. Now granted, I have some bias myself, as I have spent the last two years observing training in a desert, and it's much harder to terrain associate you quadcopter footage with Google Maps in a barren wasteland, as opposed to Ukraine with it's clearly defined fields and villages. But adjustments become a problem as you don't have a firm grip on your observer direction, and then there is the vulnerability to small arms as you have to get much closer to produce more accurate data. You could certainly kit up a quadcopter to achieve those effects, but then you run into weight issues, and power issues, and size issues; is your quadcopter now something that you can hand off to an infantryman and have him stuff in a truck? I think it will be a useful tool for observation and mortar fire on enemy battle positions, but not something you can routinely use to target maneuvering formations.
I wouldn't describe a lot of opinions on drones as "pushback", but more along the lines of hesitancy. Militaries are quick to tout the capabilities of their new systems, but when the soldiers get a hold of them, reality rears its ugly head and the ground truth of their real capabilities becomes apparent. The US Army is full of such examples, some that you probably wouldn't even realize. Yes, at some point in the future we may be able to solve some or even most of these problems, but you also can't write doctrine based on a future capability that isn't even fully realized. Look at something like Nett Warrior, which has gone through many iterations and different equipment sets but has yet to be realized in the extent originally envisioned. The Army could probably dump a lot of time and effort on developing doctrine for an infantry platoon that has the capability to seamlessly network with every rifleman, but why would we, when we don't even have a system of record that can achieve that. You don't want to fight the previous war but you also can't pretend the next war is going to be fought with systems that haven't even been proven yet. Not saying the UAV isn't proven - clearly they are effective systems in the current operational environments - but more along the lines of things like micro UAVs or UGVs.
I'm not foolish enough to believe that war never changes and things will always be the same, but I'm also not going to buy off on having to completely change up our doctrine to counter threats that haven't even been fully realized. Drones  are dangerous and units will have to adapt their procedures to survive, but at the end of the day countering UAVs is about reducing the enemy's ability to observe you, and HEY, maybe you should figure out how to make the thing flying around and looking at you go away first, before completely changing up how we do things. Right now there is certainly an equipment gap when it comes to dealing with UAVs that is making things difficult, but a slow, poorly armored aircraft, with limited sensors and payloads, and a critical requirement to maintain comms to do its mission, and that has no effective means of cover or concealment and relies solely on a small signature and distance for survivability, certainly strikes me as system with vulnerabilities. Drones may be cheaper then manned aircraft but there is a limit on how many can be shot down before UAV operators have to start changing their tactics.
But I'm a pessimist I guess, and have burned by plenty of equipment that didn't hold up to what was promised. If you're gonna tout the next new thing that's going to change war, you need to prove to me that it's actually achievable first. I guess I won't be applying to Army Futures Command any time soon. 😁
In regards to a question I can't find anymore, about what I think potential solutions to the UAV problem may be:
I think there are a couple options out there. We can already target mid-size drones (think TB-2 or RQ-7 equivalents) fairly easily with current equipment, the main issue is probably range. So maybe we need a UAV specific missile that sacrifices speed and payload for range, as they aren't chasing down high performance jets at altitude anymore.
Where are the anti-UAV drones? We need a new Fokker Scourge, with drones swooping out of the sun to shoot buckshot at loitering quadcopters. I mean it sounds cool, right??
If we can track a small mortar round traveling hundreds of feet per second through the air with counterfire radars, how come we can't utilize similar technology to locate small UAVs? I am not a radar expert by any means, but it sounds feasible? Tie in a decentralized UAV finding radar with Avenger style systems operating down to the company level, and anytime a UAV comes within your bubble, rollout of cover and shoot it down with missiles or - even cheaper - proximity fuzed 20mm cannon rounds. Provide some sort of optical assistance and you can maybe even forgo the radar except for early warning.
Maybe some sort of weapon system that takes advantage of the noise a drone creates? Quadcopters have quite the unique sound profile, maybe there is some sort of way we can take advantage of that. I don't know, I'm just a dumb artilleryman.
Thank you for these insights! Good to see the mortar still has their traditional place on the battlefield. I imagine the infantry fight is much harder to turn into sexy Twitter videos and we won't see a lot of this on OSINT channels.
So honestly some of the hits do look like ATGM hits. The "B Roll" footage interspersed shows a much closer view of the convoy that seems to be well within ATGM range, you can clearly see the lead vehicles engaging something with their main gun, and (gonna channel my inner Trent here) some of the hits on the vehicles have a very distinctive "plume" of rising smoke I see with a lot of ATGM hits. And near the end, one of them definitely hits a mine. I think what we may be seeing is a perfect doctrinal example of an Engagement Area - artillery and mortars to disrupt movement and keep infantry in cover or in their vehicles; dismounted ATGM teams engaging lead vehicles of the convoy to stop forward movement; all in concert with an obstacle plan.
This is an excellent observation, and one I hadn't really internalized! I agree that this is probably due to survivability requirements. 
Digital Fire Control Systems are not so much about precision but rather speed. Digital systems greatly speed up the ability to lay and shoot howitzers. The howitzer is firing the same data that it would be if it were using optical systems, the difference is that the crew can just lay the howitzer faster and easier. If anything, I would argue that the digital FCS's greatest advantage is in fact the ability to mass even more. A wide range of howitzers unit could mass quickly on a single mission, displace and have the ability to conduct a quick "hip shoot" at any point during their survivability move - theoretically at least. Reality is, as always, more complicated.  But still, digital fire control systems have probably been the largest gain in capability for executing indirect fires in the last 100 years, I think even more so then the introduction of computing software to calculate firing data.
I'm sorry, but I don't buy the logistical issues. Army's have been firing unfathomably large amounts of howitzer rounds since World War I, with much worse logistical transportation equipment. I'm sure the invention of the machine gun and automatic rifle greatly increased small arms expenditures beyond what militaries were used to but I don't think the answer was reduce our ability to output small arms fire. You couldn't have replaced German machineguns at the Somme with snipers and achieved the same effects. Large volumes of artillery fires brings a certain suppressive effect that can't be matched with other systems. And mass isn't about blasting every treeline - it's about bringing all your available assets to bear at the same time to achieve a desired effect- sometimes that's a rear area command post, sometimes that's a platoon in a trench in a treeline. And a lot of times it's not even about killing the platoon in the trench - it's about keeping their heads down until my infantry can maneuver in and shoot them in the face.
In regards to GOs and obsession with precision, in 2014 the Field Artillery Commandant laid out a standard that 80% of targets acquired should have a Target Location Error within 10m to 5m

8 years later we didn't even come close to achieving this as an Army and the goal is long forgotten. Why? Because the ability to achieve that Category 1 and 2 TLE required cumbersome additional steps that are completely unfeasible for forward observers to accomplish in LSCO environment. You'd be hard pressed to make these requirements go away as well due to the physical and geographical nature of the target mensuration steps required to achieve CAT 1. Is it worth generating that CAT 1 grid for a command post? Absolutely, you wanna make that round count. But the infantry commander on the ground? He doesn't have time to wait on his FSO to mess around with his target mensuration software, squinting at a blurry satellite image and making sure that he is picking the right tree in the forest that's hiding the machine gun position. He needs suppressive fires now, and needs it for the next 30 minutes so he can organize his troops and maneuver on the enemy. Precision munitions are not as simple as point laser, shoot PGM - when you're dodging incoming small arms fire, you don't have time to make sure you have the right grid for the machine gun position, instead of the bush that's 50 meters in front of it that your laser clipped. For a precision round, that's enough distance to greatly limit your effectiveness, no matter how cheap they are.
 

Yes. Our grandfathers also did horrible things, incl. against their very own here. Which I also mentioned. Ukrainian SSR was a DPR project that became "legit".
And that's a trauma Ukraine still deals with, but our people are more willing to accept this truth now, even though it is incredibly hard to stomach for many.

I much preferred this thread when it was discussing the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

ROFL, no, no one has the right to rape and pillage as retaliation. That's the same sort of effed up logic we are seeing the Russians use right now in Ukraine.
C'mon, get your head on straight.

And then there's this.
As a onetime consultant who hates the entire profession with the heat of a million suns, I think this is a terrible idea.
...In fact, send the entire global McKinsey, BCG and Accenture teams to the Donetsk front and issue them Mosin-Nagants.

Are you ready to start a thread on what the next modern game might look like? In particular, and related to the above, do most scenarios just have to assume that both side unmanned ISR bubbles have more or less annihilated each other in order to have an interesting game? The lesson of the Ukraine War seems to be that if one side has a drone in communication with 155/120mm mortars, and the other side doesn't that pretty much decides a given tactical action right then and there. So to build a decent scenario, either both sides have it, and things play rather quickly, or neither side does. And it is worth pointing out that for the most part neither side in the current war are using drones that are anywhere close to the state of the art. 
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/the-spy-in-the-sky-that-sees-backwards-in-time/21809102
There are MUCH better sensor packages out there that to my (limited and public only) knowledge have not been deployed in Ukraine by either side. The Nato strategic level ISR that is being supplied to Ukraine is a different question. But for the most part they are not circling directly over the Donbas and passing intelligence in real time. 
 

@Paper Tiger Just wanted to pop in here and give my thanks to the author of The Scottish Corridor campaign.
having a hell of a good time. Finding the computer A.I. plans quite crafty and unpredictable, which is a feat in itself.
Lately, as I drift of to sleep at night, I'm thinking about how I could have done better by that lonely platoon leader. Or which way I should plan my attack on the morrow.
Cheers!
Gpig

The "we were going on exercises" is a legend they were all told to tell when captured similarly to "we didn't know anything". In fact it got so ridiculous when in just a week the number of POWs was equal to several BTGs and they were all repeating the same thing word for word - that even russian command and FSB with its troll farms, that were spamming Ukrainian parts of social media with "poor innocent 18 y o boys sent here by evil putin" that whole week in support, had to cancel that legend. You don't hear it anymore.
So yeah, they all knew they were going to Ukraine. In fact on Feb 21st all russian soldiers signed papers, agreeing to perform military actions on foreign soil. 3 days before they got here.
But that's just a formal thing. You don't stay near a border of another country for 3 months with field hospitals and stuff and not figure out what's going to happen.

Positive (the question below specifically mentions heavy weapons), with some interesting differences along party lines.

The latest - and last - update of spotting ability, with German tank destroyers and assault guns added. No big surprises there.

It is the last update because my old computer started complaining loudly about the ordeal I've been putting it through. I still want to squeeze a few more miles out of my old friend, so I promised him no more CM testing.

Romanivka was not captured by Russian troops. Throughout the battle for Kyiv, a humanitarian corridor was organized there, which allowed the evacuation of civilians from Irpin Bucha and Gostomel. I myself evacuated along this route on 03/05/22, when the Russians entered Irpin and street fighting began. This route was under heavy artillery fire for about 3 weeks.

How would a policy of neutrality towards Ukraine have enabled it to defend against Russia?
2014+ Ukrainian Army was slaughtered by Putin.
Western support built what is working today. Without western Intel, all these ambushes would not be happening. Without western financing, no Ukrainian drones would fly, no NVGs, no nothing. Without western leadership the Ukrainian army would still fight with Soviet doctrine and lose.
What we are seeing right now is a result NOT of Minsk and Putin appeasement but of US/UK policy to bolster Ukraine in case of evident Russian aggression, despite concern of "worsening relation with Russia".
He does not care about economics. He does not care about his or our People. He cares about the past and everyone west of him is an enemy complicit in that "greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century" to quote Putin himself.
Neutrality towards Ukraine would have in fact put Putin exactly where he wanted to be.

^^^ (and fixed that for you with the bold)
This.  It's nauseating at (most?) times.
Someone, in this thread, posted a picture of a horde of "journalists" clustered around a cat and rabidly filming it, while they were in the midst of some destruction in a Ukrainian city. To them, the cat was more important than anything else in that situation.

Except right now the message is - if you are a despot and have a nuke - you can invade, occupy, do horrible war crimes in a whatever non-nuclear (protected) country you wish.
Better yet - if you also have oil and gas - other countries will keep supporting your warcrimes with hard cash

Hi everyone. Nikita here.
I'm still in Crimea. I have to be careful with every word, especially after being detained on 24th by police and FSB, so I will be brief. I am literally shaking as I type due to adrenaline, but we all need to be strong these days.
1) Ukraine will be free. The bastards will fail. I can clearly see it.
2) We witness an insane amount of heroism. Which is truly inspiring.
3) Thanks to Steve and other people from here who were kind to me in the past and took time and patience to communicate with me. It made a lot of difference in the end and made me a person who I am today.

Torture chambers.  Mass rape.  Genocide.  Threatening their neighbors.  More and more I have to admit this old sailor from the cold war is coming around to the fact that maybe we need to call Ivan's bluff and enter this.  I know it means world war and further the threat of Nuclear war.  I lived through that era and spent 5 years on an aircraft carrier preparing for it and am well versed that there are no winners in that.  But at some point the red line has to get crossed and the world has to say no more.  When the Soviet Union fell I had honestly hoped in the modern world we had seen all the evil that humans could preperatrate on one another, but the reports coming out of "occupied" Ukraine the last couple days have brought me to tears and filled me with so much anger I can hardly control myself.  If I was younger Id already be there doing something carrying the wounded and help the civilians (as I was no soldier) but god damn how much more can we see before we raise our fists?
There has to be more we can do.

It's all pure speculation of course, but let's just say I wouldn't be surprised when in 20 years some biography comes out mentioning that US military assistance was quite a bit more extensive than it seemed at the time.
There's just a few things that make me go "hmmmm", like the almost perfect situational awareness that Ukraine seems to have, or a number of incidents where Russian stuff mysteriously blows up and everyone quickly agrees that it was probably a Ukrainian Tochka missile that got a lucky hit.