Chibot Mk IX

Maybe this is another round of Maskirovka.   
Remember this one?
 
 

Maybe this is another round of Maskirovka.   
Remember this one?
 
 

Hmm still perhaps there is a hope it may be intentional leak. If true however: 12 brigades is pretty high, it seems they may quite visibly not enough APC's to furbish them (250 tanks and 350 arm. vehicles is stated) but thisnumber may include extra artillery brigades (?).

No such thing as enough grenades,

T-position continued, in which the Russians all get squished:
 

Okay, that's it uploaded. The picture failed to load but I don't care about that too much at this point.
https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/tsd3/cm-shock-force-2-2/cm-shock-force-2-campaigns/cmsf2-usmc-gung-ho/
This is a six mission campaign featuring Bravo Company of 1st Battalion 8th Marines. I should mention that it's a rework of my much earlier CMSF1 campaign of the same name but it's so reworked that it's really an all-new campaign that takes advantage of all the CMSF2 features. You'll need the NATO module to play this as the Syrian Airborne features in one of the missions. Sorry about that but I guess most folks reading here already have the full Monty.
It's designed primarily to have fun with one of the most unique factions in the game, the USMC, a light infantry formation that punches far above its weight even without the air support that you'll have in these missions. It should also be quite challenging but not too challenging. Mission 3 - CAAT among the Pigeons is intended to be very easy, to allow you to let rip with a rather unique formation within the MEU. 
I look forward to hearing how you get on. Perhaps you can tell me how many kills HITMAN got in your campaign? You're not beta testing this - I've already played this myself but that's a potential issue, it's been tested by one player with a particular play style and skill set. I try to break these missions but I'm not as creative about that as some of you will be  If you find any typos, let me know. I've been scanning the texts these last couple of days and can't see any but that's likely fatigue. Unless something egregious is found, you should be safe to complete a campaign before a revision comes up. I'm hoping that won't necessary but I've done this before and it can always be improved.
With the exception of CAAT among the Pigeons, each mission has several AI plans to give the campaign replayablity. So, if there's enough interest in it, I will return to this to make a new version featuring the German Gebirgsjagers which look like they'd be a blast to play with as well and not need much work to be done beyond making a core unit file and importing the units into each mission. And finally, I want to make a Brit forces Light Infantry version but that will need more work to do.

1. Smoke screens used by mortars and with smoke grenades for local purposes. In this war we have seen multiple clashes of relatively small units (maximum 1-2 reinforced companies, very rare whole battalion at once) on relatively longer front line, than in WWII and as it was intended in Cold War times. In order to set so large smoke screen you have to concentarte enough number of artillery pieces - maybe even a battlion. This is too risky - to gather many assets in one place for long time. So, on battalion level usual mortars or armor can set smoke for local needs. Though, I have seen one video with artillery shot several smoke shells. Usually videos are filming to show elimination of the enemy, but smoke is not interesting. 
Except artillery there were in use special vehicles smoke-generators like TDA, from composition of CBRN-protection units. But they have speciphic tasks, for example to cover the bridge or crossing or some object. 
2. We discussed this question as far as in 2014-2015. But in this time enough number of UKR BMPs and especially BMDs, have driven with launchers on the top. But gradually ATGMs were almost desappered. Just specific of this war turned out them mostly useless. Also in 2014 many mobilized BMP gunners had poor training in ATGM shooting (the same thing was in separatists forces and often in Russian army). In current war is no sense to keep BMPs on first line to repelling of tank hordes. Even no sence to set portable launcher from it pack. The role of close AT-weapon crossed to infantry AT-assets like NLAW and Javelin, which have much more effectiveness, than old Konkurs. Also during ATO/OOS we probably used lot of Fagot/Konkurs missiles (and then so far many of them were outdated and often didn't work properly). Though, we still see Fagots and even Metises in the hands of infantry. 
Russian side doesn't use launchers on-the-top by the same reason. Though, I've seen several times they used portable launchers of BMP/BMD pack. 
Since 2014 and to present time I've seen maybe about dozen+ videos of ATGM usage by light armor and only in two applications - a launch from covered position when there is enough guaranties that you wil not be spotted first and attack of bunker or truck (some shots were in the night). But I never seen that BMP shot ATGM in "cavalry-style" meeting engagements or being in LOS of enemy tank or hypotetical ATGM in tree-line.  

It's always been questionable in my mind that some economists and commentators reckon that globalisation is a force that prevents war. It adds a layer to the decision making but trade as an absolute block on major powers not going into conflict due to economic loss? Seems like economic study/dark arts trying rationalise human decision making, that wealth is all that matters to everybody, especially at a time of violent crisis?
If I cast my mind back to my Uni days about 20 years ago (I'm old now), you have three primary causes for conflict to break out:
- Nationalism / Territorial - "I disagree with you owning that piece of land"
- Ideological - "I disagree with the way you think and do things"
- Ethnic - "I disagree with your religion, language, upbringing, race... I disagree with who you are."
The idea was conflict in 19th and early 20th century was primarily driven by the first point. This switched over to ideological in the run up to WW2 and the Cold War. The post Cold War era has been focused more on Ethnic issues driving conflicts. Now they are generalisations and it's pretty easy to argue that for many conflicts there are more than one driver in play or one is in play while others are used as political smoke screen by political elites to justify entering a conflict. Not to mention outliers or the belligerent sides having different perceptions on what is driving the conflict.
There was no reason not to think ethnic driven issues would continue to be the primary driver most conflict into the 2020's but I think the dangling of the idea of USA pullback/isolationism during the Trump years emboldened a bunch of other global players to start pushing against the west as the 'world cop' was potentially off the beat. Nationalism and Ideology (latter a smokescreen?) have been able to pop up again as a result. If we find ourselves in another 1939 situation but this time the world opts to let it happen because, "we want our trade numbers to stay strong", I think is a bigger cross against humanity and our political systems. The fallout of not responding to unwarranted aggression is also likely to have a bigger impact on global stability.
Mark Twain may have been right all along... "The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog."

I just saw in the news that Zelenskyy has invited Xi to visit Ukraine. I think this is a very clever move. It'll be hard for Xi to turn down the invitation while still trying to maintain China's self-appointed image as "arbiter of peace". However, I find it unlikely that Xi accepts. If China did though, Russia will scream like a stuck pig when Ukraine takes advantage of the opportunity to talk one-on-one with China. I can only image what clever things Ukraine might offer or what opportunities they might use to generate positive press.

Another tank thread from Suyi 控
 

Even if conceding territory were a good idea (a very big 'if') you don't walk into negotiation already telegraphing your concessions. The starting point is 'Russia entirely out of Ukraine, the abducted population repatriated and substantial war reparations', plus throw in some war crimes handovers to boot. That's where you start from. Then Russia can haggle to try to get it down.

Poor M1

 

1917 had a preclude, 1905, caused by Russian humiliation from the Russo-Japanese War.
Tho comparisons are already ehhh, I would say 1905 is closer than 1917 now.

Video of K-2 battalion of 54th mech.brigade how Wagners assaulted small UKR position near Verkhniokamyans'ke (Lysychansk direction, between Soledar and Siversk). 8 UKR soldiers against 30 Wagners, which likely approached to position along dense tree-line and started assault, outflanking UKR position.  UKR infantry called mortar fire on themselves - shells hit in approx 20 m from our trench and several airburst explosions eliminated most of Wagner group (dead Russians are blured dynamcally on the video)
This is the same location, which we already could see on previous videos - with single tank attack and Wagners attempt of advance. For this time as it seen, UKR troop advanced along the tree-plant and seized T-crossing of it
Part 1. To be continued...
 

Just-in-time manufacturing is largely about process optimization in a world where total cost of ownership and time-to-market are key in global competing industries. If we both manufacture X, but you are continuously stuck with a large stock of deprecated parts and paying for a lot of warehousing those, while I am able to deliver the required parts 'just in time' as the production facility requires them; I win.
If suddenly some stuff happens which disrupts the supply chain of parts and you still have that big warehouse of parts and can keep selling the previous year generation of products, while my 'just in time' factory is running dry because of no parts; you 'win'.
Those aren't zero sum games though, it's not like one can't come up with a way to have the means of production of 'parts' redundant or in control so that no global supply chain issue can affect it (or limit the affect). Producing large quantities of everything 'just in case' is one way to address the issue, not necessarily the brightest way imo.
The problem was more that 'we' lost track of what critical capabilities we allowed to be outsourced/offshored and thus have became dependent on complex global supply chains over which we don't have control. 
It was rather ironic to read folks on twitter (and here) go all out on Germany for being so stupid having become dependent on Russian gas (which was stupid), but failed to see the big elephant in the room that isn't limited to Germany and is more critical compared to gas.
It's not necessarily about 'just in time', it's about actually doing competent risk analysis and looking at redundancy / dependency from a pov of critical thinking. Instead of (out)sourcing things on the cheap / profit maximization and not looking beyond the length of ones nose.

Unfortunately, the timeframe being the latter stages of WW2, a lot of Ukrainians are being "killed" too." And I bet a lot were fighting against their will. 
According to researchers, during 1943-1945 about 4.5 million Ukrainians became Red Army soldiers. After June 1944, almost 40% of the Soviet Red Army consisted of Ukrainians. The losses of the Ukrainian people during World War Two account for 19-35% of the total losses of the USSR.
- Wikipedia

Some of these T-55 might be younger than the T-72 and might still be in a good shape.  Soviets kept the T-55 production running until 1981. The newly produced T-55s were sent to Far east military district to buildup the strength of catalog D divisions. Due to the catalog D divisions’ low combat readiness, these T-55s were barely used even on the training ground. I won’t surprise if they have good engine hours left and are in good condition.  

Some of these T-55 might be younger than the T-72 and might still be in a good shape.  Soviets kept the T-55 production running until 1981. The newly produced T-55s were sent to Far east military district to buildup the strength of catalog D divisions. Due to the catalog D divisions’ low combat readiness, these T-55s were barely used even on the training ground. I won’t surprise if they have good engine hours left and are in good condition.  

My overall impression is of a disciplined and competent unit. Everyone was clean^, and actions were carried out deliberately and without stress or haste. Everyone appeared calm and relaxed (except that one guy), and they were all comfortable with each other – some banter, but a lot of pretty frank comments about how they’re feeling. The new guys seemed a little stiff, but that’s probably to be expected.
The fact they had some new guys was interesting in itself. Why are the new guys needed - casualties? Promotion? Courses? Relief for leave periods? Siphoning off some experience to raise a new battery?
A lot of the guys seemed pretty old, and kind of chubby? I guess that’s to be expected with mass mobilisation.
Overall this was a very tidy gun position with no trash or dunnage to be seen which is a sign of good discipline, and also an fairly comfortable looking position which is a sign of good morale.
They are carrying personal weapons at all times, which struck me as odd. Could be for the cameras, or could be because of the local ground threat.
I think they’re using encrypted radios? The blerp at the start of each transmission is a bit of a give-away. That’s not super surprising, other than that encrypted radios are not available COTS.

From a specifically gunnery perspective, they were firing at a very low trajectory, and with a time of flight of 29 seconds, which implies they were firing at around 10km (29 seconds time of flight, firing Charge 1 so probably around 300 m/s). But that’s a hearty guess since I don’t know the specifics of the gun/round/charge combos for the D-30. Low trajectory is good practice since it makes it harder for the enemy to sense any outgoing rounds.
The battery was set up in a woodland, which was unusual since it severely restricts your traverse - you can’t just bang a round away in any direction since it’ll probably slam into a tree a few 10s of metres away and really ruin your day. Given a static front that kind of makes sense – “all our targets are in a narrow arc in that direction” - but it does mean that this battery can’t really support any units to the flanks of the one it’s been assigned to.
It looked like they were using time fuses, although again I’m not really familiar with Russian ammunition. There was a shot where a guy was fiddling with a tool on the nose of the round at around 6:39, and the tool he’s using appears to have calibration marks on it. On Western ammo that’s the kind of thing you’d use to set the time fuze length^^, whereas switching between PD and Delay is a simple screwdriver turn between two positions and would be a completely different fuse (you can turn a time fuze into a PD fuse by zeroing the timer, but they usually don’t also have a Delay setting. Also, time fuzes are relatively rare, so you’d only use them when air burst was called for.)
It seems they are concerned about counter battery (CB) fire, since they moved into a shelter immediately after the mission, but not THAT concerned since they’ve been in the same positions for several months. There also didn’t appear to be much ground churn (from incoming rounds) but that could be due to fresh recent snow covering any wounds to the ground since there also didn’t appear to be many random tracks about the place. Mind you, that – the lack of tracks - could alternately be due to really good discipline and morale, and the guys really sticking to the track plan. Or discipline + fresh snow.
I didn’t see any evidence of vehicles – either trucks dug in or hiding under cam nets, or vehicle tracks anywhere. That implies the battery isn’t moving anytime soon, and also that the guys are having to hump ammo in from some distance away. It also implies that they – or rather their higher command – are confident that the Russians will not be breaking in or through anywhere nearby anytime soon. Raids; yes – they specifically talk about that. But no movement of the FEBA.
Given they’ve been there for a couple of months, I would expect that they have a very long list of pre-registered targets, which greatly reduces (effectively eliminates) the need to adjust before going to fire for effect (FFE).
Although only one gun was show I would expect that there was a whole battery (probably 4 guns) hidden in the trees thereabouts, although probably very dispersed. I think that because the battery commander was there, and the command post (CP) looked fairly substantial for something that was only controlling a single gun. I am assuming here that the film crew walked between the gun they filmed at, and the underground battery CP and the underground CB shelter. If, on the other hand, they drove between CP and the gun then all bets are off, but I think driving is unlikely given the radios being used – those small handhelds don’t have great ranges, especially in trees.
All the round detonations you hear are of single rounds. That suggests that this gun could indeed be a pistol gun off on it’s lonesome away from the rest of the battery, OR that they are engaging a very small or point target like an isolated building, OR in response to a very local probe. But given the weather – bright sun, middle of the day – I’d be a bit surprised if the Russians were up and moving about with small numbers of light infantry, so my guess would either be a destruction mission on a building or the like, or they’re doing a technical shoot to figure out exactly what the weather conditions are doing to the flight of the rounds right now. Those technical shoots are important since it means that engaging any targets off the pre-registered list can go to FFE immediately, which decreases the response time from ~5-10 mins to ~1min including time of flight. That would also explain the generally unhurried and relaxed attitude of the guys – when a battery is firing in support of friendly forces in contact there is a certain ... tenseness, which is absent here.
Jon

^ that could also be because they tidied up the house, washed and had haircuts before visitors came over. But I don’t think it’s just that – you can tell a soldier to go have a wash, but that wouldn’t explain the calmness.
^^ although the fuzes I’m used to have the time setting marks on the fuze itself, rather than the adjusting tool, so … ?

Looks like yesterday strike on Dzhankoy was conducted with Mugin-5 (or similar type) long-range drones. Probably several of them didn't carry HE and were false targets for AD. One of such UAV was intercepted over the town
Acoording to posts of local citizens very doubtful that cargo of "Kalibr-NK" missiles was destroyed as calined GUR, but indeed theer were impacts in railway station area, were military echelone with vehicles stood in that time. Local publics claim that railway depo, power infrastructure were damaged, also some small fuels dtorage was hit, but there are no photos - police and military closed acces even to approaches to railway stattion. Probably something was destroyed of military vehciles, so they are removing it now.  Also no info about probable dameges on airfield, because there were several explosions in that side. 
Russian propaganda instead emphasizes as if Ukaraine attacked civilian targets. During low-altitude interceptions explosions of Pantsyr's missiles and debrises of shot down drones and missile fragments damaged several buildings in Dzhankot and outskirts, including building of technical college.
Drones carried "trollface" pictures ) 

 

+1, 
I have a bunch of save file on my disk, all feature the BMP-3’s ammo cook off obliterate the infantry squad in the adjacent grid.
They are also dangerous to other AFVs nearby.
I remember there was a game I fired two Stugna-P in one turn, and that caused four BMP-3’s destruction. 😄
 

Now that I got the time to test it too I must say you are right: The evade button functions much like the same as the "withdraw" button in the older games.
I remember that I´ve tested it at the beginning of my CM career and there it seemed not to work as intended for whatever reason. So I didn´t bother with it anymore and thought it was a short cut for the Real-Time players, especially because it isn´t an obvious command in the command panel, like everything else... 🤔
 
But yeah I made a simple test: 2 Platoons of german grenadiers get area fire from american MMG in bunkers. After a full minute they are all pinned for good.
Now I gave one platoon the fast order to another location and the other platoon I gave the "evade" button, while they are all still under fire.
 
The first platoon (with the fast command) didn´t move an inch, occasionally (I did more of the same test) one soldier will try it´s luck and ran but in general they were fixed to the position.
The second platoon (with the evade-command) will try to get up and sprint to the destined position. Some may lay on the ground for a while, while others get up sooner and run but at the end of the turn all the soldiers are transfered to the safe location.
 
Most of my tests I did on open ground with a wall as cover for the soldiers. I also did some tests in houses and witnessed that the withdraw order don´t always work even when they are in the upper floors.
 
So I can confirm that the evade command isn´t the same as the fast command and that the evade command is somewhat buggy in buildings. Another difference is that you will hear special audio if you press the withdraw button: The soldiers will yell "Retreat!" or something like that.
I would be glad if battlefront would attend to the problem in the next patch or so, since it is a very powerful tool.
 
Thank you for the revelation, @Chibot Mk IX !
 
 

😄
 

AQ-9

 
https://aquacarts.com/products/aq-9
 
 

BTW, that is not CCTV. the screenshot is coming from a stock market analysis TV show aired on the Shanghai Dongfang/Dragon Television. 
It’s fake, but the guy on the screen might have a better credibility on predicting future wars than predicting stock market.