Heirloom_Tomato

I take offence to the term "research".  I have reviewed your thread and clearly you had a conclusion and then set about picking information to support it.  This is not "research" it is "spinning" - I have failed staff college students for doing what you are proposing as "research", applying half the facts, largely out of context.
For example: "Russia already controls large swathes of Ukraine with valuable minerals..."  and linking this back to Chinese motivation to keep Russia in this war.  This is one enormous theory hanging on very little substance.  We have been through the "Ukrainian goldmine" theory before and it was categorically debunked.
Let's take Metals:
https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/Country/UKR/Year/LTST/TradeFlow/Export/Partner/by-country/Product/72-83_Metals
So before this war Ukraine was already selling Russia about $1B a year in metals and about 345M to China.  A quick scan says it looks like Ukraine was doing about $10B in metal globally.  
Meanwhile China is importing $144B a year in metals globally. Mostly from Indonesia, Congo and Japan:
https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/metals/reporter/chn?redirect=true  
China does not need Ukrainian metal, they already have global access an order of magnitude beyond the entirety of Ukraine production.
The we get into detail like Titanium.  Yes, Ukraine has got healthy Titanium reserves:
https://inventure.com.ua/en/analytics/articles/titanium-in-ukraine:-military-and-economic-context#:~:text=What are the reserves of,%2C rutile – 2.5 million tons.
About 8.4 million tons.  Wow, sounds like a big number and no doubt Russia and China want to get their greedy hands on it.  Whoops:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/titanium-reserves-country-10-biggest-155049656.html#:~:text=China is the largest producer,largest vanadium-titanium magnetite deposit.
China is the global leader in titanium production. Why on earth do they want more Titanium from Ukraine on the market?
Lithium? Yes. Ukraine has about 500k tons which are largely untapped. Wow that is a big number:
https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/news-insights/lithium-the-link-between-the-ukraine-war-and-the-clean-energy-transition/
Well unless one considers global Lithium reserves - Ukraine has about half as much as Canada:
https://natural-resources.canada.ca/our-natural-resources/minerals-mining/mining-data-statistics-and-analysis/minerals-metals-facts/lithium-facts/24009
You will note that China is sitting on 2M tonnes.
And then there is the thorny issue of where that lithium is located in Ukraine:

https://www.renewablematter.eu/articles/article/ukraine-all-lithium-reserves-and-mineral-resources-in-war-zones
This is where these wingnut theories really break down.  Russia was already occupying a couple of these deposits in Donetsk.  Lets be generous and say they took enough to grab 4 new deposits.  Woo-hoo.  Now a few thorny questions:  what shape is the infrastructure in these areas look like right now?  How much is it going to cost Russia to get these sites up and running?  How much actual money are they going to make from this sweet lithium?  When can they expect to see any money?  And finally, the big one, how much does all that compare to the costs of sustaining this war?  Last count the war in Ukraine was costing Russia between .5-1 B$ per day. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_impact_of_the_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine#:~:text=In November 2022 it was,%24500 million to %241 billion.)
So your theory here is that China is going to spend effort, money and diplomatic points to secure access to lithium, which they do not need and is costing Russia likely far more than it is worth at this point?  In fact the same could be said for just about all Ukrainian metals.
Comparing modern day China to Nazi-Germany is just plain dumb.  Maybe pre-WW1 Germany - ignoring socialist ideologies and about four thousand years of history and culture.  The idea that China somehow masterminded this whole thing (with zero proof, I might add) is laughable.  China is stuck on the other side of this mess and is trying to deal with it on their end. They are going to pursue and promote their interests, just like we are.
Russia and Putin are throwing up all over themselves in some weird attempt to rebuild an Imperial Russia...and are failing brutally.  Sure, Russia could "hold on" until we see some sort of Armistice.  They will have gained a grand total of an additional 6-7% of Ukraine from what they controlled on 21 Feb 22.  It only cost them around 500k men, most of their modern military equipment and diplomatic/geographic isolation that may last several decades....brilliant. 

What happens when ISIS gets mad that no one wants to believe it was them and keeps blaming Russia/Ukraine? 

If the guys they are parading around with missing bits, broken bones, and worse are in fact the guys that did it? Then my only question what were they thinking letting themselves be taken alive? The scary thought is that the guys they are more or less publicly torturing to death are four random guys they grabbed off the streets who had the misfortune o resemble the guys in the video. That would be uhm...BAD.
That said the treatment these guys are getting in Russian detention is no different than what they have done to tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of of thousands of others in both Ukraine and Russia. They are just posting video of it in real time. That of course is the reason why Russia is going to get to pay a thousand casualties for every square kilometer of Ukraine they even temporarily occupy. Because the Russians have demonstrated beyond clearly that giving up is just not an option.
Edited: for clarity
 

What happens when ISIS gets mad that no one wants to believe it was them and keeps blaming Russia/Ukraine? 

What happens when ISIS gets mad that no one wants to believe it was them and keeps blaming Russia/Ukraine? 

What happens when ISIS gets mad that no one wants to believe it was them and keeps blaming Russia/Ukraine? 

The Boeing guy in charge of doors just got a job there.

Lies, damn lies, statistics, and economic statistics. Reminds me of the old joke!
Two economists are walking in the park. As they're walking, they come across a pile of dog ****.
One economist says to the other, "If you eat that dog ****, I'll give you $50". The second economist thinks for a minute, then reaches down, picks up the ****, and eats it. The first economist gives him a $50 bill and they keep going on their walk.
A few minutes later, they come across another pile of dog ****. This time, the second economist says to the first, "Hey, if you eat that, I'll give you $50." So, of course, the first economist picks up the ****, eats it, and gets $50.  
Walking a little while farther, the first economist looks at the second and says, "You know, I gave you $50 to eat dog ****, then you gave me back the same $50 to eat dog ****. I can't help but feel like we both just ate dog **** for nothing."
"That's not true", responded the second economist. "We increased the GDP by $100

Just came across this and thought maybe everyone could use a chuckle.
 

New stuff for the Stalingrad Mod V-2

As there are no Barns used in the Stalingrad i've made them into a factory building.

Also i've adapted the Indie buildings to fir Stalingrad better.

The grain Silo is ok but the main office part needs to be about 12 -14 stories high?

A Soviet patrol near the western Railway.

Love this new indie factory office building.
 

Ok, enough banter.  Time for serious talk. You have probably noticed that you are not that popular here?  Now I am sure you are telling yourself is is because you are “too real” and enjoy flying by to shake up the “liberals and Europeans”.  But that isn’t why people don’t like you.  No, they don’t like you because you really don’t add anything to the discussion.
You see, people here do a lot of things.  Some are really good at collecting information very quickly.  Others ask really good questions and some of us try and make sense out of this whole crazy thing because we have spent decades in the war business and can contribute that experience - and I do not just mean military vets, I mean dedicated wargamers who are all historians, theorists and philosophers to some extent.
So what this thread is trying to do is understand better.  Before when I poked you to find examples of me “being wrong” about a prediction, well it was a trick question.  I rarely ever make firm predictions because frankly things are simply too dynamic.  I see trends, big ones.  Trends that are becoming unavoidably large and looming.  These trends point to the fact that we are very likely within an RMA right now.  It started back in the early 90s and has been progressing for 30 years.  The effects that information technology, miniaturization and energy density - along with dozens of others, all have on warfare is emerging with increasing speed and impact.  So when I say “unmanned systems are not a temporary thing” well you can take it or leave it but that judgement is based on about 35 years of observations on the changes within military affairs.
Your problem is that you do not come with new information.  You do not come with good questions.  You don’t even come with good analysis and arguments to back things up.  You come with opinion and positions.  And the come on this thread like an evangelist - this is not discourse, it is preaching.  You are trying to make a lab into a chapel and it just makes people angry.
But we should be about forgiveness.  So here is a fun thing we can try: what don’t you know?  What questions do you have about this war that you do not understand?  Maybe we can start there and help you understand better.  Because right now it really looks like a lot of very uninformed “well let me tell you college boy” BS.  You want to make an argument that unmanned systems are a flash in the pan? Why not go out and find some actual analysis that supports that.  We have got hundreds of pages of social media videos, professional analysis links and expertise that disagrees with you.  But do some proof of work and come back with some solid analysis and assessment and we can discuss.
If not, well there are a lot of other forums on the internet where everyone will agree with you, or really lose their minds if that is your kink.
Finally as to the point at hand…the issue is not “counter-drone gear”.  Of course counter-systems will be introduced, and the  counter-counter systems as we will see primacy shift back and forth.  The issue is that this competition will profoundly change how we wage war, it already has.  Data superiority, AI superiority, Silencing, deception, redesign of land units and formations for the first time since WW2…these are all on the table.  We cannot assume dominance based on where we were..we will need to earn that dominance and frankly accept that we won’t always have it.  This will mean hard fights and harsh calculus.  The lazy days of air supremacy are likely over as a minimum. Bilindc noted that one would need to “Deny ISR”, he is right, and I have no idea how to do that on the modern battlefield.  And trust me, if I don’t, you don’t either.  So we can discuss how that could happen or you can keep hand waving and going “aw shucks…airplanes”.  Or you can keep getting tossed onto everyone’s ignore list until Steve comes along and chases you away again.

Using "their" in a sentence like that has been around for decades, possibly over a century.  Its not some new development. And not exactly on topic either.

There's a book called No Triumphant Procession that covers this battle, with a good deal on the fighting in Rethem. This battle as designed hews close to the actions depicted, down to the placements of units and rendering of the map.
The battle is a question of whether or not a player can do better than the UK force did.

There isn't a listing for the big maps I made for the DF module included anywhere, but I'll attach some images of each them here for some visual reference for people looking to use them for their own purposes. These were either chopped up for the campaigns, QB's, and for the Rethem scenario that I made. There's a good deal of territory that wasn't used, as well.
Rethem:

Cologne/Koln:

Heister:

Kleve/Materborn:

Remagen:

Kranenburg:

Erft Kanal:

Elsdorf:

1. Load the tutorial mission into the editor and go to the purchase units screen. Once there, look for the "codes" behind the purchased units. These will indicate which AI plan they belong to, if they are reinforcements or belong to a unit objective. Next purchase the units you wish to be in the mission and assign them the same codes as you see fit. Now go to deploy units. You should see all the "old" units already deployed and the "new" units in a big lump at one end of the screen. Using your best judgement, swap out the old with the new. Once you are done, head back to the purchase screen and delete all the old units. Double check the deploy screen, to confirm everyone is still where you want them. Save the scenario with a new name and you are good to go.
2. Make your purchases in the unit screen and then delete out whatever you can. Then set all other remaining units you don't want to appear as reinforcements. Set their incoming time to be after the end of the battle and they will never show up. While the units will be there on the "deploy" screen in the editor, they will not appear in your actual scenario. 
3. Ask questions. Seriously, there are no dumb questions. Pick your favorite scenario of all time and the person who built it was once like you trying to figure things out. The "pros" at scenario building got good through information sharing and trial and error work. Soon you will find yourself sharing your tips with the community as well.
4. Share your work, please. There are far to many scenarios out there on hard drives never to played because their creator felt they were "not good enough". If you take or modify an existing scenario or map, give credit where it is due, but share your work. The feedback from those willing to offer constructive advice will help you to build even better scenarios.

1. Load the tutorial mission into the editor and go to the purchase units screen. Once there, look for the "codes" behind the purchased units. These will indicate which AI plan they belong to, if they are reinforcements or belong to a unit objective. Next purchase the units you wish to be in the mission and assign them the same codes as you see fit. Now go to deploy units. You should see all the "old" units already deployed and the "new" units in a big lump at one end of the screen. Using your best judgement, swap out the old with the new. Once you are done, head back to the purchase screen and delete all the old units. Double check the deploy screen, to confirm everyone is still where you want them. Save the scenario with a new name and you are good to go.
2. Make your purchases in the unit screen and then delete out whatever you can. Then set all other remaining units you don't want to appear as reinforcements. Set their incoming time to be after the end of the battle and they will never show up. While the units will be there on the "deploy" screen in the editor, they will not appear in your actual scenario. 
3. Ask questions. Seriously, there are no dumb questions. Pick your favorite scenario of all time and the person who built it was once like you trying to figure things out. The "pros" at scenario building got good through information sharing and trial and error work. Soon you will find yourself sharing your tips with the community as well.
4. Share your work, please. There are far to many scenarios out there on hard drives never to played because their creator felt they were "not good enough". If you take or modify an existing scenario or map, give credit where it is due, but share your work. The feedback from those willing to offer constructive advice will help you to build even better scenarios.

1. Load the tutorial mission into the editor and go to the purchase units screen. Once there, look for the "codes" behind the purchased units. These will indicate which AI plan they belong to, if they are reinforcements or belong to a unit objective. Next purchase the units you wish to be in the mission and assign them the same codes as you see fit. Now go to deploy units. You should see all the "old" units already deployed and the "new" units in a big lump at one end of the screen. Using your best judgement, swap out the old with the new. Once you are done, head back to the purchase screen and delete all the old units. Double check the deploy screen, to confirm everyone is still where you want them. Save the scenario with a new name and you are good to go.
2. Make your purchases in the unit screen and then delete out whatever you can. Then set all other remaining units you don't want to appear as reinforcements. Set their incoming time to be after the end of the battle and they will never show up. While the units will be there on the "deploy" screen in the editor, they will not appear in your actual scenario. 
3. Ask questions. Seriously, there are no dumb questions. Pick your favorite scenario of all time and the person who built it was once like you trying to figure things out. The "pros" at scenario building got good through information sharing and trial and error work. Soon you will find yourself sharing your tips with the community as well.
4. Share your work, please. There are far to many scenarios out there on hard drives never to played because their creator felt they were "not good enough". If you take or modify an existing scenario or map, give credit where it is due, but share your work. The feedback from those willing to offer constructive advice will help you to build even better scenarios.

"Children nowadays are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food and tyrannise their teachers."
-Socrates
“They think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it.”
- Aristotle
I was a High School Teacher for 40 years and my colleagues would occasionally come up with comments about how standards of behaviour/study/anything at all had changed dramatically for the worse ... nope. Not in my experience. And, as you can see, this sort of complaint has, shall we say, a long grey beard and should be put down with extreme prejudice.
YMMV

To follow up.  I also do not think most people realize just how weird this moment in history has become from a military power standpoint.  The Cold War came off the back of WW2 and was actually an exercise in downsizing to fit the requirements of the intense strategic competition between the two global power poles.  Defence and Security architectures were largely scaled down from their WW2 architectures to fit the Cold War environment.  The competition then became sustaining competitive advantage in that context, along with negotiations with an evolving social calculus that occurred rather slowly (eg civil and gender equity).
We then won the Cold War and re-scaled again.  We first created military power to intervene in sustaining the global order. And then after 9/11 built the architectures aimed narrowly at a problematic niche.  Social evolution continued but began to accelerate as the Information Age emerged and began to deepen.
And then in just a few short years - let’s take 2010 for arguments sake and say 14 years - we saw the re-emergence of a Cold War-looking strategic competition, a hyper acceleration of the Information to whatever the hell this thing is now and, the largest pandemic in over a century.  This has driven social change pressures to crazy levels - like “let’s storm capital hill/defund cops/cancel-mob rule” levels.
And suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, we are seriously talking about military requirements we have not seen in over 35 years. NATO has just run the largest exercise since the Cold War and we likely had to build things we forgot entirely how to do.  HQs and staffs, force generation, and military capability have all changed dramatically but we are still looking at a massive upscaling requirement to align with strategic realities.  Don’t even get me started on intelligence and security architectures, which have been entirely focused on hunting terrorists and now are being asked to consider under the threshold strategic disruption against other states - those are enterprises that take decades to get right.
We may look “ok” but we are not “ok”.  We have a very significant expansion in front of us in order to 1) create deterrence,  2) contain expansion of influence, and 3) create new strategic options…on top of an already stressed out social situation - f#cking “woke” is the least of our problems.  Rebuilding entire defence and security strategic power structures to be able to do what we found challenging over 30 years ago while the fabric of warfare appears to be rippling under our feet; while our domestic populations appear really intent on losing their f#cking minds in about 30 different directions at once…is our new Tuesday.
At this point senior military staff don’t care if someone is gender-fluid, multi-racial and bestiality adjacent - if they can fill a chair better than the forest of traffic cones that we currently have…welcome aboard!
(did that video get all that?)

Anyone picked this one up yet?

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/a-ukrainian-drone-attack-on-an-oil-depot-inside-russia-causes-a-massive-blaze-officials-say-1.6733097
I expect the Canadian representative to the UN to soon call on Ukraine to wage this war with carbon neutrality

I like to imagine that people who get their panties in a bunch over stuff like this must have separate, clearly marked, and strictly enforced toilets in their homes.

Or the tow vehicle also gets stuck and now you have two vehicles out of the fight. This is one possibility you have to be open to if towing is introduced. 

Gee, what can't Ukraine do with a drone? Previously we saw them use drones to take prisoners, now they're using them to free prisoners. Pasting the text here since the site is a quagmire of ads.
A prisoner of war tied up in Russian trenches believed this was the end as he was dragged to enemy territory – until a drone came to save him.
Footage shared by Volodymyr Zelensky’s air assault forces shows the incredible rescue of the soldier.
In a video published on Telegram on Tuesday, he can be seen in a dugout, with his legs and arms wrapped in rope.
Ukraine’s 95th brigade had deployed three crews of drones to help neighbouring units being stormed by Russians.
As one of the operators approached the area, he spotted the captured soldier and began flashing his lights at him, trying to get his attention.
It was a miracle he had survived at all as the Ukrainian forces had just bombed the trenches, the military said.
As soon as the PoW realised the drone was Ukrainian’s, he began following it as it led him to safety.
‘The paratroopers were working in an area controlled by the enemy,’ a statement from the 95th brigade said.
Many invaders were successfully eliminated. When the Russians were destroyed, they noticed a Ukrainian serviceman tied up in the trench. It was a fighter from another brigade.
‘Our drone operator with the call sign Kevin began to attract the attention of that captive – flashing lights on the Mavic drone.
‘The guy on the ground got his bearings, realised that it was his own and started following our drone.’
Running away from the scene, the PoW was faced with another Russian soldier, but the drone dropped its last grenade, killing him on the spot.
Video of the rescue:
https://metro.co.uk/video/captured-ukrainian-soldier-details-unbelievable-escape-russian-trenches-using-drone-3093593/?ito=vjs-link
 
 

Ok so let's end all this horsesh#t.  The great thing about the US is that they put everything out to the public.  No other nation on earth is as transparent.  So here is what Miller actually said:
https://www.state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-january-4-2024/
First as to "no more money"
"QUESTION: Thank you. Let’s discuss Ukraine a little bit. How long will the latest package that you guys have sent already in December will give operations until they run out of funding again?
MR MILLER: I will let Ukraine speak to that because that pertains to – and my colleagues at the Pentagon may have some additional insight to offer on this. But ultimately, that’s a question to Ukraine to speak to because it goes to their rate of expenditure and other really military questions.
But I will say that we do need Congress to act. We are out of funding here. We know that we need to continue to support Ukraine. They need – they rely on this assistance. They rely on it to continue to fight what is a brutal Russian assault that continues, even over the – that continues every day. And so it’s important for Congress to act to continue to fund this democracy that is continuing to defend itself."
That is all about pushing Congress to act.  Inside DC baseball, not a US intent to cut off all funding.
As to current state of the war:
"QUESTION: And would you say that, given the latest developments, that the war is turning in Russia’s favor?
MR MILLER: No, I wouldn’t say that at all. I think people forget oftentimes the actual stakes of this war and what Vladimir Putin’s actual goal was, and what Ukraine has actually achieved and what it continues to achieve. Remember that Putin launched this as a war of total conquest where he wanted to take over Ukraine. He wanted to throw the government out of power. He wanted to subsume Ukraine inside Russia. Not only was Ukraine able to prevent that from happening, which everyone sort of takes for granted now but it was very not – it was very much not a settled question at the start of this war – they have managed to retake around half of the territory that Russia seized in the opening weeks of the war.
And even in the past few weeks, they continue to make battlefield gains. Remember the – over the last summer we were talking about the difficulty when Russia pulled out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, and it looked like Ukraine wasn’t going to be able to continue to export grain. Well, because of advances that Ukraine made to open a Black Sea lane and expel the Russian fleet from certain parts of the Black Sea, they are now able to continue to export grain, which is critical to their economy.
So there are going to be battlefield developments back and forth, where you see each side gaining or losing territory. But when you look at the ultimate stakes of this war, it’s quite clear that Ukraine is going to exit this war independent, strong, with an improved economy, and looking west when what Russia wanted at the outset was not just a Ukraine that was looking east but Ukraine that was actually part of Russia."
Boy this sounds familiar...because some on this thread have been saying it all along.
And as to the statement that has some people running around like the panicky idiot in a bad plane crash movie:
"QUESTION: As long as it takes?
MR MILLER: As long as it takes. That does not mean that we are going to continue to support them at the same level of military funding that we did in 2022 and 2023. We don’t think that should be necessary because the goal is to ultimately transition Ukraine – to use the language that you repeated back – to stand on its own feet and to help Ukraine build its own industrial base and its own military industrial base so it can both finance and build and acquire munitions on its own. But we are not there yet, and that is why it is so critical that Congress pass the supplemental funding bill, because we are not yet at the point where Ukraine can defend itself just based on its own. And it’s why that it continues to be important for Congress to support Ukraine and continues to be important for our European allies and others throughout the world to support Ukraine."
From a State Dept talking head no less.
Oh, ya that totally says that "Ukraine is totally cut off and will have to build its own tanks from here on out."  You know we should totally freak out now and point to every Russian leg twitch as a major victory, while screaming "Ukraine is doomed!!" From the heights of the thread.
So "yes" I am saying the US will backstop a Ukrainian MIC as it plans for a transition away from tactical handouts to long term strategic sustainment...just like they did in South Korea.  But hey you wanna be "soundbite panic guy" on the thread, go right ahead.  
 

Yay…Defeatism Day!  You are correct the RA has been a shining example of offensive prowess last year.  They also proved that Ukraine definitely needs more really expensive heavy metal for “just one more push over the top”.
Russia is barely able to push out 50+ tanks per month and most of those are being pulled from war stocks.  UA defence industry should likely start with all the stuff to kill Russian tanks, IFVs and artillery at really advantageous ratios.  And stop trying to beat Russia at their own game.
We are going to have to figure out offensive operations, that much is true but the traditional and conventional approaches are unsound and unsustainable.  We cannot play WW1 with modern mechanized forces.  We are watching Russia do this and it is breaking them.
The UA needs a new game at this point. Creating a Ukrainian defence industry is key to this and smart - it is a defence and security welfare state right now, suffering at western political whim. Unmanned and PGM are the likely best way to go as we have already landed on air superiority below 2000 feet, with denial above that, as essential for whatever comes next.