Hapless

Another CM relevant one:
About halfway through, the tanks start to experience familiar pathfinding issues.

Also, someone has dumped a lot of artillery on that area and- took me a minute staring at the pixels- at least one of the tanks starts off with tank riders aboard.

@Suleyman @Combatintman
Many units of Central and especially Eastern military districts are still using BMP-1. They were both in NW "V" group (35th MRB, which also crossed Siverskyi Donets), 5th tank brigade and  in NE "O" group. 

35th Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade, 41st CAA.
https://altyn73.livejournal.com/1388817.html

The number of BMP-1s is interesting but what most interested me was the BMP-1KSh ... that's an HQ of some description gone ...

 

Second video is pretty good.. maybe at the end there, if the tank had used target light it would have had a better chance of suppressing that retreating SOF solder.    The Russian lack of infantry really hurts them in these types of engagements obviously... and that is something that is not going to be easy for them to address.

Quick recap in ISW maps:
Really striking how fast the area NW of Kyiv changed once the Russians hit the tipping point.

Quick recap in ISW maps:
Really striking how fast the area NW of Kyiv changed once the Russians hit the tipping point.

Quick recap in ISW maps:
Really striking how fast the area NW of Kyiv changed once the Russians hit the tipping point.

Another Reddit link: https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/upz9f6/mz21_9m22s_fired_from_a_bm21_landing_on_the/
Russians firing incendiary cluster munitions on Azovstal. Not sure how effective that's going to be at setting things on fire in a steel works, but it certainly looks unpleasant.

The main reason for linking it though is that you get to see the individual submunitions falling and it looks remarkably similiar to the cluster munitions in CMCW, what with the orange/red projectiles: obviously Battlefront nailed it!

On this note, back on Day One over the CM Discord we watched the Russians rolling up to the bridge at Nova Khakova on live Ukrainian traffic cams. I recorded some footage the morning after and at one point there was at least a couple of VDV companies stacked up on the road in a traffic jam. One air/arty strike and they would have a seriously bad day.

[Edit: And here it is:]


(Then some Russians climbed up the poles and started knocking the cameras out. Which was also fun, because you could chart the progress of this one truck camera disabling team going down the road.)

The sheer volume of OSINT at the start of the war was crazy, the tricky part as always is how to deal with the information overload and exploit it in a timely fashion (if possible).

That line made me think of something else. Obviously there's a risk of clutching at straws, and trying to justify the cold war mentality as being about something real, rather than a waste of time, but if we assume that's not the case, and the above is accurate:

This reminds me of a conversation around the British army in Iraq and Afghanistan. Throughout the Cold War, it's been a common statement that the British infantryman has the benefit of experience in patrolling Northern Ireland - that they had all of the potentially-mundane-but-still-vital experiences of being deployed and operating as a team, in a potentially hostile situation. That's the same army that went into the Falklands, and that experience has been suggested as one of the reasons why Goose Green was saved from being a complete disaster. Certainly the army would have gained some solid, practical COIN experience.

The conversation around the more recent deployments was that the army went into them assuming that they had this same institutional knowledge of counterinsurgency operations - without acknowledging that this really belonged to the previous generation, and that experience just wasn't embedded anymore, and an awful lot of it had to be relearned, quickly.

So, yeah, I wonder. I wonder if there might be many Soviet principles which are based on a sound foundation, and may at one point have actually worked extremely well... but now aren't matched by the depth of experience to be practical.

On this note, back on Day One over the CM Discord we watched the Russians rolling up to the bridge at Nova Khakova on live Ukrainian traffic cams. I recorded some footage the morning after and at one point there was at least a couple of VDV companies stacked up on the road in a traffic jam. One air/arty strike and they would have a seriously bad day.

[Edit: And here it is:]


(Then some Russians climbed up the poles and started knocking the cameras out. Which was also fun, because you could chart the progress of this one truck camera disabling team going down the road.)

The sheer volume of OSINT at the start of the war was crazy, the tricky part as always is how to deal with the information overload and exploit it in a timely fashion (if possible).

On this note, back on Day One over the CM Discord we watched the Russians rolling up to the bridge at Nova Khakova on live Ukrainian traffic cams. I recorded some footage the morning after and at one point there was at least a couple of VDV companies stacked up on the road in a traffic jam. One air/arty strike and they would have a seriously bad day.

[Edit: And here it is:]


(Then some Russians climbed up the poles and started knocking the cameras out. Which was also fun, because you could chart the progress of this one truck camera disabling team going down the road.)

The sheer volume of OSINT at the start of the war was crazy, the tricky part as always is how to deal with the information overload and exploit it in a timely fashion (if possible).

Stryker's Attack
By: Beeron

B/1-24 Infantry conducts a movement to contact against a reinforced SLA armored battalion, October 2004.
Introduction
Armor Attacks might be one of my favorite scenarios in Shock Force 2. Created by the great GeorgeMC, the scenario puts a US Army heavy company team against a reinforced Syrian armored battalion, but their equipment and training level really puts them more at a generic OPFOR level. While not an unbeatable challenge for an experienced/competent US Army player, the scenario tests your fundamentals while making sure to punish any rookie mistakes you might create on the way. Inspired by IICptMillerII's excellent after action report on this scenario (which you can find here), I was extremely curious to see how a Stryker infantry company would fare in this scenario. We both concluded the Stryker infantry would mop the floor, the firepower US Army dismounts can produce is unmatched. To add on, the Javelin missile and the heaps of ammo the Stryker can carry would allow the infantryman to control the decisive terrain on the map (which we shall get into).
Mission
B/1-24 Infantry is to conduct a spoiling attack against an SLA mechanized battalion heading into the sector. On contact Bravo company is to develop the situation as is deemed appropriate by the commander by destroying the enemy units or fixing them to allow the battalion to move around their flanks.
Objectives
Destroy/fix in place SLA mechanized battalion between the LD and LOA. Occupy decisive terrain on OBJ Bear Deny the enemy access to OBJ Elk Desired End State
SLA mechanized battalion rendered combat ineffective Bravo company in control of OBJ Bear Bravo company reaches LOA Tennessee  Breathing space for battalion Maintained a 50% ammo load 85% of Bravo company still intact Tactical Map

(The tactical map from the original scenario)

(Another graphic from the original scenario)
Enemy Forces
Information from the battalion S2 states the following:
Enemy mechanized units in reinforced battalion strength are expected to be attacking in force into this sector from the north/north east. Elements from these units have been attacked by our air support, suffering heavy casualties. However this does not appear to have slowed their advance although it has split the unit up into smaller parcels. 
The S2 templates that threat forces will establish counter recon units, armed with ATGMs to counter and neutralize our recon assets thereby screening their main effort which will be from tank and mech infantry units. 
The small town of Al Quasimli is believed to contain an enemy mechanized rifle platoon supported by several tanks, possibly T72s. Exact locations are currently unclear.
Terrain & Weather
The terrain in this scenario might be the single most important thing in it, one look at the map will tell you all you need to know. He who controls the decisive terrain at OBJ Bear, wins the battle. This especially applies to the SLA commander, who would enjoy a turkey shoot at my poor Stryker company. The other piece of key terrain on the map is OBJ Elk, which also gives a very nice view of the valley. The downside is that it is across the map, a risky movement for my men dismounted or mounted through complex terrain. Other key terrain features include a town to the northwest and another west out of my deployment zone. An oasis with a building and lots of trees and vegetation is also located in the middle of the map. 

(The view from OBJ Bear)

(Overview of the map from deployment)
Troops 
I have Bravo Company "Bulldogs", 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, under my command. These men have great leadership, high motivation, and are excellent soldiers. However, they lack combat experience since their deployment to Iraq in early 2004 was cancelled to respond to the SLA threat in this country. Bravo company consists of 3 rifle platoons, an MGS platoon, and 2 Stryker mortar carriers. In addition the company headquarters team, XO team, FISTer, and Sniper team are present on the battlefield. Note the MGS platoon is technically anachronistic (wish I remembered that before committing to the scenario), having not been deployed into combat until 2007. For the sake of this scenario, it shows up three years early. The Bulldogs have priority fires from A/2-8 FA, and CAS from a 2 ship F16 flight in the area.

Initial Scheme of Maneuver

  The plan is simple, since I do not have much battlefield intelligence, my plan will remain flexible and help develop the battle further. 3rd platoon moves dismounted and secures OBJ Bear. 2nd platoon will cover the flank dismounted, fending off any flanking movements or targets of opportunity they might encounter there. For now, 1st platoon and the MGS platoon are the company's reserve. In addition, a platoon from A/2-8 FA will pound the reverse slope with their M198s. The 2 ship F16 flight tasked to support the Bulldogs will find targets of opportunity around the map, hopefully killing enemy armor.
Fun times ahead.....
This thread will likely consist of three parts, the deployment, battle, and conclusion. I am well aware that I have not finished my other AAR, but I practically already have this one written already. Anyways, this battle ended up being probably the coolest engagement I have ever had in Combat Mission, and is again a great example of the excellent scenario design GeorgeMC blesses on this community. Also, after I wrap up this AAR, keep your eye out for a Battle for Normandy write up! Stay tuned for the next update!

Let me say, this is also good discussion because it has led to dilemma, and in my experience that is a sure sign we are onto something.
So let me paint things out a bit (begs for patience):  So back in 1945, infantry could basically effect about 200m versus tanks, and maybe 1000m vs other infantry.  They had ISR in the form of intel feeds, which were often daily, and what they and those in radio range could see.  Now in 2022, those same infantry, in modern militaries, are able to effect armor of all types out to 80kms (Switchblade 600, NLOS ATGMs such as Spike) and employ UAVs and other sensors to see at least as far.  They also can do the same to other dismounted infantry; however, those are harder to find than armor, and infantry still need armor in the modern battlefield in order to attack (maybe?)
So what?  Well this means that, as we have seen in this war, that infantry - light infantry in particular - have far more range, lethality and accuracy than at any other time in human history.  They are also just as hard to see.  What has appeared to have happened in this war, at least as far as I can tell, is Ukrainian defence has relied on light infantry to do most of the heavy lifting.  I have no doubt Ukrainian conventional mech has been engaged, particularly at key points; however, Ukraine did not, and does not have anywhere near enough conventional mass to defend the frontages it has - enter hybrid warfare.  This is a game changer, as light infantry can essentially deny swaths of the land domain battlespace.  Further, they now have ranges that inflict attrition and friction well past the formation level.  When combined with integrated ISR, and their own through UAVs along with effective comms, and UA artillery, they have hammered Russian logistics to the point I suspect it broke - leading to the collapse of an entire front in the North.  This demonstrates a much higher level of both tactical and operational levels of precision than the Russians have been able to muster.
So What?  Russian mass, in all its forms is not working.  And based on this entire discussion, I am coming to a hypothesis as to why and it jumps from your statement up there: that is exactly how Russia fought and won in 2014, and likely thought it could fight and win in 2022.  In 2014 they demonstrated repeatedly that they could bring their assets to bear faster and with more accuracy than UA forces.  They believed they could suppress and then kill in detail with superiority like they did in 2014...so what changed?  Well Ukraine developed an C4ISR system apparently, and one that can do one helluva better job at bringing assets to bear.  I also suspect an organic C4ISR system emerged within local Ukrainian defence; Haiduk has already described how everything from sensing to logistics to killing has been crowdsourced in this war.  This created a major dilemma for the Russians, and it would be for us too - how can we bring our assets to bear to achieve effects when they were designed for another opponent?  You noted that we use mass fires to hit moving armor - what happens when your opponent offers you no moving armor?  What happens when an opponent can hit your operational LOCs from that treeline?  They can take out  your lead F ech armor at a nearly 1-1 munition kill ratio?  And because you are carrying so much mass, for miles behind you, they can see you coming for days...and you can't see them at all?
The dilemma is that, and you are correct here, all-precision is not practical.  Your slide example demonstrates that. However, mass as we understand it is not working and it is likely because how we have designed it was for a centralized mass-v-mass war...and people don't need mass to stop mass anymore, or at least that is what I suspect we are seeing here. In order to combat what we are seeing, yes we would need to blast every treeline OR we really up our ISR game to the point we can see a person in every treeline 40 kms out, which as far as I know is also not an option.  In your case up above, those infantry died in their vehicles before we could even figure out which treeline to hit.  I suspect that is why, as we have seen in other post the Russians are employing WW2 style approaches of "recce by death" to try and suss out Ukrainian defence.  All this adds up to a really slow and grinding advance, while ones logistical trains are being destroyed.
Ok, so I am not a Logistician either, but I do have a fair amount of experience in this field - I went through an Operational Support phase for about 5 years. Your example is perfect.  Since WW1 Army's have been firing "unfathomably large amounts"...it is also exactly how Germany lost that war. 
It is trite to go with "professionals talk logistics" (I think Bradley was really saying professionals see the entire system); however, logistics is the critical path for warfare, and has been for a long time.  Why?  Because it is how one can sustain all that mass.  Without it military mass breaks down and fragments, so many historical examples of this, a the Russians have re-affirmed this truth.
Back in the day, I had the same sentiment - "they always winge about that but someone will figure it out."  I suspect some Russian commanders had the same idea.  Problem is that based on all that stuff I pointed out before re: light infantry -and frankly we should know this from 20 years of small crappy wars- there is no such thing as a rear area anymore.  Russia has lost nearly 1000 logistical vehicles (https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html) and it shows.  I strongly suspect they keep stalling out because their logistics system strains and then fails, which directly effects the Russian A-game of mass.  This makes mass unaffordable, mainly because it is not working anywhere near quickly enough - it is in an upside down battlefield calculus.
So what is our dilemma?  We do not have an answer to what we are seeing in Ukraine right now.  We have excellent C4ISR but it has limits and finding light infantry in bushes is one of them - we learned that one the hard way.  We have mass but it won't help if we cannot find the thing to hit with it, and it creates weight we need to support.  We have excellent logistics to support it; however, it is highly visible and vulnerable at the ranges we are talking about.  We have airpower, but we even saw in Iraq that we can lose air superiority below 2000 feet.  This lead me back to something that has been nagging me for about 20 years...what does superiority even mean anymore?  We had all of it and it did not seem to matter.
We do not have the precision to combat this type of fight, and our mass will not work either.  We would no doubt do better than the Russians for all the reason we have explored here but I am more and more convinced that warfare has been shifting for some time and has shifted here again.  This shift has pushed us into a dilemma space we need to figure out.  Maybe it is not that bad, and we can mitigate with what we already have.  Maybe it is worse than we think.  All I know is that we need to figure that one out because the Chinese are watching this as closely as we are and if I wanted to really mess up a western proxy nation intervention in 5 years I already know what I would do.

Obviously not quite there yet, but I wonder how long it'll be until you can dump AI controlled recon drone swarms on the enemy a la cluster munitions.

Plus, they sound scary.

Well that is how to ISR a treeline, give them small DPICM charges and now we are onto something.
And we haven't even started in on UGVs

Obviously not quite there yet, but I wonder how long it'll be until you can dump AI controlled recon drone swarms on the enemy a la cluster munitions.

Plus, they sound scary.

Obviously not quite there yet, but I wonder how long it'll be until you can dump AI controlled recon drone swarms on the enemy a la cluster munitions.

Plus, they sound scary.

BINGO!



I didn't see Gerasimov, but could easily be that I just didn't recognise him

An excellent piece on an Ukrainian artillery unit, videos like this make me miss being a commander. The first several minutes are what really caught my eye, and I'll share some artillery minded observations with you.
First, this is obviously a direct contradiction to my previous claim that most units I see are in the open! I think that's still the case but highlights that drone footage isn't necessarily the ground truth of what is happening - maybe we aren't seeing the videos of artillery in treelines being hit because the UAVs aren't finding them. More on this later however.
Second, it seems that the officer, who I am assuming is the Battery Commander, is the primary person responsible for fire direction. This is a very European way of doing things, and is not really a surprise. The American military (to my knowledge) is one of the few militaries that has a dedicated fire direction section with its own officer that computes firing data. Of note, the American style FDC was "invented" during the interwar period, and allowed a single FDC to control multiple batteries or even battalion. There are stories during World War II of an entire American Corps worth of artillery conducting Time on Target missions. This is contrasted with other nation's FDCs, who had difficulty massing batteries on dynamic targets due to the decentralized nature of battery level fire control. History notes aside, observe that he is using a tablet and phone for what I assume is the calculation of firing data. Presumably this would be the GIS ARTA app discussed early, used to compute a technical firing solution to lay the howitzers. The actual computation of data is not hard, with enough time and patience I could take the American firing tables for a howitzer and put it all in a spreadsheet that spits out an answer as well. A pretty robust solution on the Ukrainian side.
Howitzers begin firing at about 30 seconds in. They are firing off the traditional optical fire control systems, and at 40 seconds in you can see the gunner looking through his pantel (panoramic telescope) to re-lay the howitzer after firing. Note that is highly unlikely that he is receiving new firing data as the narration later on suggests. I have yet to meet a howitzer crew, fire direction crew, or observer team that could accurately and rapidly re-direct fire on a maneuvering vehicle and have it land directly on top. I think this was a nice coincidence that was emphasized in editing to create a better narrative. A little example of the power of video editing that can lead to incorrect conclusions for those not in the know.
I'll take this opportunity to segue briefly into my previous comments about howitzers having to remain close together. One of the most crucial aspects of achieving effective indirect fire is accurate location and direction for the firing unit. Every howitzer in a firing unit needs to be facing the same direction, accurate down to the miliradian. It greatly simplifies firing data calculation, as you only need the data for one howitzer as opposed to 4 or 6 or 8 - all the other howitzers, since they are pointed in the same direction and generally in the same area, can fire that same data. The close you are to your "base piece", the more accurate the fire. So how do they get all the howitzers pointed in the same direction? Enter the aiming circle:

If it looks like a theodolite used by engineers for surveying, you aren't far off, the concept is the same. Through math, multiple rotating dials, and lots of shouting, the aiming circle operator relays direction to each howitzer until every gun is pointed in the same direction. A key part of this step is the pantel that I mentioned earlier, which is how each howitzer references the aiming circle for proper direction. If you firing is spread out in a tree line, or over a great distance, the ability for each howitzer to see the aiming circle with their pantel can be lost. This greatly complicates laying the battery. Additionally, units spread out or in odd formations reduces the accuracy of your barrage - remember, each gun is firing the same data, regardless of their position! Now, with modern computing technology, the ability to calculate firing data for each individual gun can be trivial - assuming you know the location of each gun, down to a 10m or 1m radius. In a GPS degraded environment, that can be quite difficult and time consuming. It's much easier to have everyone located together in a formation that can see the aiming circle and in close proximity to your base howitzer. Then you only need the location of one howitzer.
How do digital systems change this? Well, in a digital system like the Paladin and M777, each howitzer has a GPS and inertial navigation system that accurately tracks the location, but also the direction. The requirement to be laid by the aiming circle goes away, assuming your equipment is working, as the howitzer ALWAYS knows which direction it is pointing. Laying the battery and executing fire missions become simple tasks. You can have howitzers spread out over a kilometer and calculate firing data for each one at the press of a button. The reality is of course more complicated however, and the aiming circle and our "manual" methods still have a role even with fully digital howitzers, but I don't think I will get into that here for a variety of reasons.
Moving on from my not so brief segue, one more point I would like to highlight - at the end of their mission, they all jump into bunker, as a precaution against Russian counter battery that never comes. They have obviously made the decision that taking cover is preferable to displacement - a notion that goes against a lot of Western doctrine. And their cover is not overly complex - enlarged foxholes with trees to stop shrapnel. I suspect the reason we see videos with "abandoned" howitzers sitting in fields reflects exactly the situation illustrated in the video - crew live in bunkers in the treeline and occupy howitzers only when firing. If your howitzers are out in the open, they will be going for that, not you! Again, not something you'll see in a lot of Western doctrine or training. Still, I suspect the level of counterfire doesn't justify the time or effort required to conduct rapid displacements of artillery on a routine basis.
For counterfire I think a lot of what we could be seeing would be probably be described as cross-cueing of intelligence assets in the American military - firefinder radars pickup an enemy battery, but instead of unmasking your own artillery to conduct immediate counterfire, you send a UAV to confirm target location and disposition - greatly enhancing your ability to bring effective fires down on the enemy.

BINGO!



I didn't see Gerasimov, but could easily be that I just didn't recognise him

BINGO!



I didn't see Gerasimov, but could easily be that I just didn't recognise him

BINGO!



I didn't see Gerasimov, but could easily be that I just didn't recognise him

BINGO!



I didn't see Gerasimov, but could easily be that I just didn't recognise him