Hapless

Quick TLDR:

Inundation is an ancient defensive measure- if the Russians are worried about Ukrainians crossing the Dnieper in the south then it makes sense to make improve the river as an obstacle. This obviously works below the damn because of rising levels, but also above in the Khakovka reservoir because as the water level drops it's going to make it potentially less navigable (ie. anyone crossing now has to worry about running into silt beds, rocks, wrecks etc that are now closer to the surface).

If the lack of water for the nuclear power plant makes a melt down more likely then, well, bonus. The risk might encourage Ukraine to be more cautious around the plant and an actual (if particualrly catastrophic) melt down might make the area a real no-go zone and secure the Dnieper flank even more.

What's really interesting is that Russia has only now blown up a major dam. It could be that dams are such chunky hardened structures (and that Russian stand-off precision weapons are not precise enough) that sneaking in overnight and packing the interior of the dam with explosives is the only way to blow one up.

The Dnieper has plenty of dams with an awful lot of water behind them all the way up to Kyiv. If the Kyiv reservoir is opened up, the mass of water might (big might, I don't know how the dams are rated) be enough to overwhelm the dams downstream, resulting in sequential dam failures all the way to Black Sea. That would not only obviously be an atrocious ecological and human disaster, but cut the country in half and sever Ukrainian logistics. Oh, and if that's not bad enough there are layers of radioactive sediment in the bottom of especially the northern reservoirs that could get churned up and added into the mix to make things even worse.

So I assume the Russians haven't done that because they can't... and hopefully it wonudl never work because all the dams along the Dnieper are massively overengineered Sovet megaprojects.

Quick TLDR:

Inundation is an ancient defensive measure- if the Russians are worried about Ukrainians crossing the Dnieper in the south then it makes sense to make improve the river as an obstacle. This obviously works below the damn because of rising levels, but also above in the Khakovka reservoir because as the water level drops it's going to make it potentially less navigable (ie. anyone crossing now has to worry about running into silt beds, rocks, wrecks etc that are now closer to the surface).

If the lack of water for the nuclear power plant makes a melt down more likely then, well, bonus. The risk might encourage Ukraine to be more cautious around the plant and an actual (if particualrly catastrophic) melt down might make the area a real no-go zone and secure the Dnieper flank even more.

What's really interesting is that Russia has only now blown up a major dam. It could be that dams are such chunky hardened structures (and that Russian stand-off precision weapons are not precise enough) that sneaking in overnight and packing the interior of the dam with explosives is the only way to blow one up.

The Dnieper has plenty of dams with an awful lot of water behind them all the way up to Kyiv. If the Kyiv reservoir is opened up, the mass of water might (big might, I don't know how the dams are rated) be enough to overwhelm the dams downstream, resulting in sequential dam failures all the way to Black Sea. That would not only obviously be an atrocious ecological and human disaster, but cut the country in half and sever Ukrainian logistics. Oh, and if that's not bad enough there are layers of radioactive sediment in the bottom of especially the northern reservoirs that could get churned up and added into the mix to make things even worse.

So I assume the Russians haven't done that because they can't... and hopefully it wonudl never work because all the dams along the Dnieper are massively overengineered Sovet megaprojects.

I suspect the intent of targeting energy infrastructure was to try and freeze Ukraine to the negotiating table: now that we're past Winter, there's not much point turning the heating off.

Not that it was a fantastic strategy to begin with- chalk up yet another failure for strategic bombing to achieve strategic effects.

I suspect the intent of targeting energy infrastructure was to try and freeze Ukraine to the negotiating table: now that we're past Winter, there's not much point turning the heating off.

Not that it was a fantastic strategy to begin with- chalk up yet another failure for strategic bombing to achieve strategic effects.

I suspect the intent of targeting energy infrastructure was to try and freeze Ukraine to the negotiating table: now that we're past Winter, there's not much point turning the heating off.

Not that it was a fantastic strategy to begin with- chalk up yet another failure for strategic bombing to achieve strategic effects.

I suspect the intent of targeting energy infrastructure was to try and freeze Ukraine to the negotiating table: now that we're past Winter, there's not much point turning the heating off.

Not that it was a fantastic strategy to begin with- chalk up yet another failure for strategic bombing to achieve strategic effects.

Meanwhile...
 


https://www.eucom.mil/pressrelease/42314/russian-aircraft-collides-into-us-unmanned-system-in-international-waters

Meanwhile...
 


https://www.eucom.mil/pressrelease/42314/russian-aircraft-collides-into-us-unmanned-system-in-international-waters

Meanwhile...
 


https://www.eucom.mil/pressrelease/42314/russian-aircraft-collides-into-us-unmanned-system-in-international-waters

This whole line of thinking got me onto the idea of information mass.  The old rules of physical mass have largely fallen part in this war in may instances.  But perhaps mass still applies but has been offset into another domain.  I would bet a pretty large wager that the UA has got an information-mass advantage right now.  If we measured the raw data coming in (e.g. bits), being analyzed and turned into information, and then integrated into knowledge leading to learning advantage the UA looks like the Colossus, not Russia.  Further information is much harder to attrit.  You either attack the repositories (nearly impossible in this day and age) or you let time render it less relevant.  All you can really do is attrit the mechanism of information collection and analysis/processing, and the RA simply cannot do this.
So if information mass counts as much as bullets on the modern battlefield, it may go some way to explaining why the UA has crippled a far physically larger foe.  Mass may still very well matter but just not how we traditionally think about it. 

Can't see that this has been shared before
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?ll=50.46236913639948%2C31.009234156915404&z=9&mid=1hit_p7DptnwsFEyv5g_sD2dE-SH0vvc

P

Ok and @Kinophile can jump in on this one too.  So we are muddying up some stuff here, so to clarify:
- The original point on MC vs DC was to point out the cultural constipation of conventional services and how they are nowhere near as innovative or open to disruptive thinking as is often sold.  Over the military generations, military doctrine becomes dogma and counter-thinking in an organization that literally exists to create uniformity in behaviour is not well accepted.  We in the west have built a democratic myth of "empowerment and gumption" but it really does not translate well into actual military reality.  We can debate this but I know what I have lived for the better part of 3.5 decades. 
- The UA is a hybrid mix of Soviet and Western schools, and for them I think this was a major advantage.  It was not because we peppered them with western doctrine and training, it was because they had both worlds to pull from.  If we had an all western force in this thing, with the same restraints/constraints and capabilities as the UA, my hypothesis is that we would have done worse because we would have tried to apply an all-western approach.  I can definitely see in Phase I where this would have gotten us into a lot of trouble.  The UA is already outside of boxes and pulling in so much from the civilian side so quickly also helped in breaking doctrinal group-think and creating whatever this has turned into.  As to which school MC or DC, that the UA employs I do not think we have a clear idea but it is also likely a hybrid - which was how the entire thing was actually designed to work.
- MC vs DC schools of thought.  Ok, this is a whole other thing.  Mission Command is a essentially (and I will just use my own descriptions, feel free to go look up others) is essentially empowered command.  It arms subordinates with context and intent, "why we are doing this and here is what we are looking for".  This, plus allowing them to exercise initiative to exploit opportunity - the alignment of circumstance, context and capability, theoretically provides a force with higher potential for tempo advantage.  The thinking goes that empowered tactical commanders can see opportunity well before formation level and as such if they exploit it without waiting to be told the entire force can OODA faster than an opponent.  This is a cornerstone of Manoeuvre Warfare which is really a strategy of Annihilation through Dislocation.  We seriously bought off on all this and drank the Kool Aid on it about 40 years ago, to the point it became so dogmatic that it left little room for counter thought.
DC is one of mission control being held at higher levels.  Subordinates are empowered to do a task (The terms are actually derived from the Germans largely because Depuy and Starry really were hot for German warfare - Auftragstaktik and Befehlstaktik, The first meaning "mission tactics" the second "detailed orders tactics").  They then wait for further direction before exploiting opportunity.  They can still execute initiative in execution of the task but not the overall mission. 
So was born the Great American Military Myth (and frankly almost every western nation jumped onboard).  We were a democratized military built on "good ol 'merican innovation and initiative."  Further this All-Yankee Doodle (sorry but we really got beat over the head on this one back in the day) approach is very economic as it yields quick nearly bloodless wars.  The Persian Gulf became the poster child for this type of warfare, but more than few put up their hands and asked if it wasn't a false-positive.  The Gulf War was highly attritional and mostly driven by air supremacy - the land battle of mission command and manoeuvre warfare was basically executed against an already beaten foe, and one crushed by far more Detailed Command approaches of the Air Force. (This brings up the other problem with the Kool Aid, it really does not work for either the Navy or Air Force - and does not work enough for SOF, kinda).  
The truth is far more complicated.  The largest problem with Mission Command is that while it is great in theory it runs into serious problems in full execution because of all those pesky enablers.  Tactical commanders can run all over the place all empowered but there is only so much ISR, artillery, engineers and logistics to go around.  So what really happens is far more control in practice.  The Main Effort gets a lot more empowerment but if you are on a side gig, well you might very well get held back because the boss simply does not have the stuff to support you if you go all manouvrey.  Detail Command it far to restrictive and you get into micromanagement, so in reality neither systems works in extremes.
The future.  Well the problem was seen coming way back during the RMA days.  "What happens when a higher level commander knows more than a tactical one?"  I suspect if the UA has created a sort of ad hoc JADC2 system then this has already happened.  If a higher formation commander knows more than the tactical level, then DC starts to make a lot more sense.  And then what does Manoeuvre Warfare turn into? Well a form of Corrosive Warfare is one option apparently.  There is a lot of sense to this, we already do it with unmanned systems, which are going to expand in use not contract.  Detail Command that controls the battlespace like a production line and not a jazz band is not totally out of the question.  
So at one end we have "lets go all DC because higher can see all".  While at the other end we have "remove higher command entirely."  This is hyper-Mission Command, or self-synchronization.  Here tactical units are loaded up and basically command themselves with their peers - this gets a lot of traction in SOF circles. They then share enablers in a hand-off system where "higher" is really coordination and not command and control.  Here we get into military effects clouds and inverted command systems.  This also makes some sense but many are shy as to human nature.  How are enablers going to be shared?  This is always a friction point, and higher commanders are the referees.  What happens if we get rid of them.  Some have suggested AI does the job as it can calculate requirements far faster than a human can, or a human AI pairing because human can do context.
So in the end there is no "answer".  We should continue to try both, and maybe have a C2 system that can swing wildly from one to the other based on good ol human art of war.  But service cultures and equities already get in the way.  This is way tanks got resisted, the machine gun and even unmanned systems.  We make idols of our history and sometimes it gets in the way of evolution.  Experimentation and paying attention to wars like these are absolutely critical as we can start to get some idea of where things are going and then plan to adapt at a better rate than an opponent.      

Mine will be much better.

Some of you may have noticed that I've poked my head up again after a very long absence. I've just been very busy with real life and wanted to spend some time playing games rather than designing content. But this game is a bit like crack for me, it's just so addictive and watching Usually Hapless play this campaign on Youtube got me back into it. (Yes, it's ALL your fault Hapless  )
I've done a bit of work fixing things and now want to turn my attention to my first campaign for CMBN, the Montebourg campaign. It's the oldest and was made using v1.0 of the engine meaning that there are only 8 AI groups and no air support. There have also been a number of changes to the game which mean that I can experiment with some of the new stuff while reworking this one.
It's not going to be a total overhaul but it will no longer work for players with only the CMBN base game so it's a Repository jobbie. I'll let you guys know what you'll need but it will probably require the full Monty as I want flamethrowers in it. It's also worth saying that anything new in it will be historically accurate and not just added in for the laughs. So no SS with JgPZIVs. Pity.
So, I'll keep you up to date with my progress on this. I'm not looking to do a LOT of work. It's mainly to reacquaint myself with the scenario designer and writing AI plans.
 
Mission 1
I have no plans to change anything at all about the opening mission at all. It's fine as is.
Mission 2
There is a 'new' short 'Brecourt' mission. It's not really new though as it was in the revised version on the Repository. I'll need to tweak this one as the game seems to have become more lethal since I last played it but otherwise, it's good to go.
Mission 3
The first mission to get a full rework is Turnbull's Stand. I'm reworking the AI attack as there were only two AI plans and they were terrible. I've made a number of revisions to the map itself to reflect the reality of the day so it's a bit more open with less bocage and more hedges.
I've spent pretty much all morning and most of the afternoon learning how to script an AI attack using the new tools and the first AI plan is almost done. I want a second one with an entirely different focus but it should be much faster to do as I'm not 'learning' anymore. Then, I'll mix it up so that there's four attack plans.
 
And that's where I'm up to. There's no timetable on this. I'm not in any hurry but by posting about it here, I've kind of declared my intentions and am far more likely to stick with it.

Well, Russian strategic decision making mysteries solved, I guess:
 

Well, Russian strategic decision making mysteries solved, I guess:
 

Well, Russian strategic decision making mysteries solved, I guess:
 

Duh, it's Hearts of Iron THREE where you command any kind of troops but I guess for russians anything but selecting a whole stack and clicking on an enemy is too American.

Well, Russian strategic decision making mysteries solved, I guess:
 

I'm definitely a proud member of the obscure content faction! Although I'm not part of the faction asking for North Africa or early Eastern Front, mainly because those theaters were already covered in CMx1 and I still find CMx1 to be perfectly playable (CMx1 is still the second most realistic tactical wargame engine in the world after CMx2 after all). But any war or theater that has not yet been covered in either CMx1 or CMx2 is absolutely on my list of content I would like to see in the future (Poland 39, France 40, Pacific, Korea, Vietnam, etc...*). But I also understand that your time and resources are limited and that my interests need to be balanced with the interests of your other customers. I am just grateful for what you have delivered, and will be excited if and when you release a game covering a previously uncovered war or theater.
*My obscure content itch even extends into time periods that Combat Mission is poorly suited for anyway (there are loads of 19th century wars I want to fight, such as the Crimean War, Franco-Prussian War, and Anglo-Zulu War). I have a particularly strong itch for WW1, which no company in the world seems to have developed an appropriate engine for. It is hard to describe how badly I want a WW1 tactical wargame (almost as badly as I wanted a Cold War tactical wargame prior to the release of CMCW), but I am captivated by the image of entirely rifle-armed companies advancing by rushes in huge extended order lines in 1914 giving way to platoons advancing by fire and maneuver with specialist weapons sections in 1918 (I blame you @Hapless, thanks a lot for making me obsessed with a time period that is not covered by even a single tactical wargame).

At the end of my last video I promised to upload the bits of the conversation that @domfluff and I had and that didn't make it into the video, as a podcast. That's up now. Also included is an extra bit that we recorded later, where we answer some of the questions that were frequently asked in the comment section.
So, if you've got a long commute ahead of you, or it's your turn to do the dishes, or there is some other reason why you can't play CM.... here you go 😉.
 
 

Now this is great:

Now this is great:

It's worth to explain for other. UKR drone recons of K-2 unit of 54th mech.brigade have spotted dead Russian soldier with radio. They picked up radio with special equipment, attached to drone and could listen during nine days all radio traffic of Russian unit. Only since nine days Russians have suspected that something going wrong and changed settings of own radionetwork.