MOS:96B2P

If they are staying home while their nation is fighting for its life, and whining that Ukraine is losing this far into the war. They are cowards. Sorry, but that's the truth.

Umm, I don't know your lived experience, but mine teaches me that no sector of society -- any society -- is any more or less emotional and gullible than any other, overall.
Other than the benevolent, wise and rational philosopher rulers *I* voted for, of course. (Assuming I had in fact voted in the last 30 years)

Hey Karl! Yes, that is definitely the typical way to tackle it. But Gary will probably play the NKPA and will be doing his cabbage chomping best to nail the crews before they get into the tanks or "man the guns". The vehicle crews can be set up as dismounted and off a ways from their tank. Thus the NKPA might nail the crew as it tries to get to their tank. That matches nicely with the intent of the ASL scenario. Guns cannot be remanned once abandoned so this might be solved by having each gun on a small circular arc but crew not on hide. US player (me?) is on an honor system to not go to normal arc until a certain PBEM turn for each gun. The NKPA can then try and nail the guns/crews during this initial period. That matches as close as I can get with the intent of the ASL scenario.

Should I bore you with my Israel story? Skip over it if you want.
I am not an army guy. I was a navy guy. Diving & Salvage, ship repair, dry-docking. I had the job as 6th Fleet Salvage Officer in Naples and in late 2000 my old Nokia banana phone rings in the middle of the night. Long story short. An FFG ran aground off of Alexandria. yada yada yada. Israel Shipyard In Haifa got the contract to do repairs. Sonar Dome gone. Rudder and single screw all effed up. Towed to Haifa. I was there 6 weeks to do the drydocking (floating drydock). What a great time. Haifa reminded me of Carmel, California. I was lucky to be there during a peaceful timeframe. I drove all over Israel with shipyard buddies. Went bowling in Israel? Yep. As usual, I learned a little of some language. Hebrew? Yiddish? Maybe both. Alcol beseder! I saw all the young soldiers walking around with their weapons slung. Almost all the guys at the same shipyard had been in the IDF. Moshe was a paratrooper. He got sent to Ghana to guard the embassy after Yom Kippur 73 and banged some local girls. Love the local food. 
Sonuvabidge but I was right back there a few months later when a big amphib ran aground in the Great Bitter Lake. Like a reunion back at the same shipyard. I visited the Golan Heights and saw some cool stuff. I was a tourist I guess but we fixed those ships. When I was in my hotel room I always talked out loud and said hello in case "they" were listening to me. At the airport when I left the 2nd time I rattled off a bunch of answers to the very pretty female questioner. I had already heard all their questions of why I was there, etc. She said "I will ask the questions!" 
I never have met any Palestinians or Hamas guys. But I love the Israelis I met. SHALOM! 🇮🇱

Bridges are in the scenario editor in the left hand column. Just like roads etc. They may be on page two of the map features. 

pretty much totally off tangent other than being a guided vehicle of sorts, but this is what NASA developed to deflate the tires on the space shuttle.  The tires PSI was so high that it was the equivalent of 2.5 sticks of dynamite if it blew.  This engineer took a Tamiya Tiger II motorized model, stuck a DeWalt drill on it and Voila!  It actually served for a bit successfully deflating .. and surviving 9 tires.

Yup, I think we have closed the loop on that.
Let me PM you a brandy from the Luminous Globe in the Skeptics Lounge. I am partial to Duque d'Alba Oro.

...My sources are countless late nights BSing with Chinese business folks in tony bars in various glittering capitals (preferably on their dime). Money talks and bizdev drinks.

Hello, I am currently am working on a campaign for Black Sea. totally new to the scenario editor and learning as i go.
The campaign has the player command core units of the U.S. Army National Guard 33rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team. It's unofficial nickname being "Golden Cross". This brigade actually had elements of it deployed to Ukraine prior to the 2022 invasion advising and training the Ukrainian army under the name "Task Force Illini". The brigade is based in the state of Illinois under the Illinois Army National Guard.
My goal is to have the player follow the journey of this brigade and preserve it as best they can to get it through its tour on the eastern front. I liked how I got attached to the various units of Task Force Thunder in CMSF2, following A, B, and C companies of the stryker units and trying to preserve the pixel truppen through the war.
Background: 2025, The Ukrainian army is worn down and has lost most of its professional contract servicemen, the vast majority of the army is mobilized conscripts with an average age of 45. The US government is unwilling to allow a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, and decides to commit American troops under the premise of preventing RU from gaining a foothold in Europe. Unfortunately for the US, they have also deployed troops to the middle east again and are also preparing for a fight for Taiwan after significant signs China is about to invade. This leaves the US stretched thin with its active duty force. Desperate to avoid a draft, the US begins to mobilize the National Guard to fill in the gaps. The entirety of the 33rd Infantry Brigade is one of those brigades selected. The brigade had recently finished its culminating training exercise known as JRTC and is considered "ready" to deploy during its availability window. The 33rd will relieve beleaguered Ukrainian brigades and is expected to hold static positions due to the Ukraine theater commander hesitant to commit National Guard brigades to offensive action.
33rd IBCT Order of Battle (open source info) core units
2-106 Cavalry squadron
3 Infantry Battalions:
2-130 INF RGT
1-178 INF RGT
1-196 INF RGT (Puerto Rico Army National Guard)
766 Brigade Engineer Batallion
2-122 Field Artillery Rgt (1 BN, 3 Batteries)
State of the Brigade:  The majority of the GWOT vets have gotten out so all of the battalions are "green", this will be most soldiers first combat deployment. The battalion cmdrs and Platoon sergeants are "veteran" to reflect soldiers that stayed in and have deployments under their belt. the 33rd faces recruiting and retention issues like the rest of the US army, all of the battalions are at varied levels of being understrength. The war's are unpopular with the american public and the US is struggling to retain and recruit people. The brigade also suffered a series of AWOLS after news of its mobilization hit the force.
The Campaign so far: the condition of the eastern front worsens, it is decided to send in the 33rd to conduct offensive action on its assigned sector of the front. The player will face the understrength 200th MRB, which is set to "conscript" experience to reflect the brigade's destruction in 2022 and subsequent reconstitution.
1st mission "Tow the Line":  elements of A Trp 2-106 CAV conduct reconnaissance on positions of the RU 200th MRB.  The players ability to spot and call artillery on the RU force will determine the condition of the RU positions in the next mission when the infantry assaults.
2nd mission: "Blackhawk Batallion": elements of 2-130 infantry conduct an attack against RU trench lines after recon by the 2-106. player will have the brigades Arty battery in support. This mission will show the current reality of trench warfare in Ukraine. with the 2-130 having to take two trench lines from the enemy.
3rd mission: "Hold the Line": Player will have to hold the captured trench lines, facing an initial wave of RU disposable infantry (Storm-Z, Wagner prisoners). Follow on waves will be RU VDV in BMP 3s. This is to reflect current observed russian tactics of "recon" of positions with disposable infantry and then attacking weak points with dedicated assault infantry.
overall, I want the campaign to be brutal but also fun. I've tried to balance things by making the RU force severely understrength or at conscript status, at least for static positions. The player will face more experienced forces when terrain is taken. The player will have limited or no replacements, to reflect the US having not set up the infrastructure of a combat replacement system due to no draft in place.
I welcome any suggestions or questions!

More footage from the IDF:
 

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

Ukraine to Putin: You cut our power, we kneecap your biggest economic driver (yahoo.com)
Ukraine is open to the possibility of attacking Russia’s oil and gas infrastructure if Moscow ramps up its targeting of Ukraine’s electric system this winter, Ukraine Energy Minister German Galushchenko said in an interview.
Galushchenko, speaking with POLITICO in Washington, D.C., after meeting with Biden administration officials and lawmakers, said Russia has regularly perpetrated cyberattacks against Ukraine’s electric grid and is expected to ramp up physical attacks as temperatures fall and people depend more on energy to heat their homes.

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

I have surrendered to Gary. @Heinrich505 He was able to get me out of 4 of the buildings. Everybody is broken or in panic mode.

 

Lovely* mapwork here.
https://nitter.net/Pouletvolant3/status/1722548700281528536#m

 
* My brother once told my nephew:  "Son, the only time a man should ever need to use 'lovely' or 'fabulous' in a sentence is in describing the legendary city of El Dorado."

ezCMBN German Uniform Mod
If interested, you can find the last full set ezCMBN uniform mod at the below link. It is not packed in a .brz file, so after unzip you can see what is in the mod, just no helmets.
Down Load Link
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ib6l1fwzhs76vq75x701t/CMBNGermanUniforms.zip?rlkey=t1kxxdlbqauzc5d012v55iceo&dl=0
 
ez
 

I like him too, but SecretSqrl has also been caught out in some Chuck Pfarrer/Igor Sushko level wayyyy-over-the-skis exaggerations in the past, so all his claims, including retweets, should be taken with significant salt.
That said, his map analysis is pretty good, which I think is his mil background. 
Mind you, it would be nice if the map grogs in general could use smaller icons for Bn or Bn-strength formations, to distinguish them from  parent formations, and perhaps 'blur' or dotted outline deployments that are only rumoured.
...Otherwise, all these icons are just eye candy (it's probably too much to expect actual unit frontages from OSINT sources given Opsec), if not downright misleading as to relative force strengths (hmm, there seem to be more little red boxes than blue ones, therefore....?)
P.S.  I miss our own @Grigb's mapwork from last fall. That was quite outstanding, giving the terrain context for the movements and positions.  Shout out, brother, let us know you're OK?

Recent huge flash in the Sun caused Aurora Borealis in southern latitudes, so it can be seen in Ukriane too even in Odesa oblast.
Red evening sky caused many jokes about Russians used nuke %) 
Soldiers pose on background of such rare phenomena  (though this is second Northern Light in this year in Ukraine - first was in spring)

Lots of doom and gloom here.   Also, every once in a while someone complains about their X feed not providing sufficient coverage of the war.
Both issues may be solved by following the Ukrainian Front account.  This will help to drive more relevant posts to your account, as well as getting you the daily 'good morning world' posts followed by the equally marvellous 'good night world' posts:
 

For folks freakin out about the expenditure from the west, it might be good to have perspective,
In Afghanistan the US alone spent some 2 TRILLION dollars.  The gov't sitting in Kabul right now is the umm err Taliban.  As of July we had spent about 76 billion in Ukraine.....  For the return on investment, it is hard to say the West hasn't got a financial windfall in kneecapping the Russian military.

Just created my first CM scenario that I am publicly sharing. It is for CMSF2.
I wanted to try and recreate The Battle of 73 Easting from Desert Storm in 1991. It is meant to be a historic simulation and the Iraqi's of course are meant to lose. I gave them the base level T-72m1 (early) while the US has M1A1HC's.
You can find the download link on discord here
Let me know what you think. It's pretty quick and just meant to be a good time.
Enjoy!

You want tactical discussions?  Try this.
https://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/17301-the-story-of-a-merkava-company-co-on-october-7th/
 

This video covers the translation of one section (Section IV) from a larger pocket-sized booklet, printed by the German military during the later stages of the Second World War titled 'Panzer Hilft Dur!' translates as 'Panzer Helps You!' 
Section IV in ‘Panzer Helps You!’ covers the mittlerer Schützenpanzerwagon (Sd.Kfz.251), known as the m.S.P.W. or just S.P.W. To provide context I have included a couple of primers regarding the Sd.Kfz. 251 and German SPW advice on correct use and deployment of SPW.
 

Just recently started following this Twitter account. Like it so far, good info on both Ukraine and Israel.
Relatively new account, was only created in 2023.