Hapless

I always loved that painting.

I always loved that painting.

I always loved that painting.

I always loved that painting.

Excellent reply - better than some staff college students I know.  I would add that is also puts additional strain on the entire Russian military enterprise as they now have to worry about replacing what they have lost (they still have eyes on the bigger global game). 
And last but not least, it may give a level of freedom of manoeuvre for Ukrainian forces on the sea.  Even modest raiding and SOF capabilities could drive the RA nuts and pushing their naval capabilities back is nothing but good news.  My personal hope would be an amphib operation but I do not think that is under the tree for this year.
Back to a central thesis, this creates Ukrainian options while taking options away from Russia…and that is how wars are won.

One way to look at it is to consider what the Russians get out of the Black Sea Fleet:
Roving air defence/radar pickets that are much harder to track down than land-based assets. Strike capability with a much easier avenue of attack on Ukrainian grain exports- whether at sea or in port. As we've seen recently with Poland, forcing Ukraine to seek other means of distributing it's grain can create political friction within supporting international structures. Logistics back-up for the Kerch Bridge. A fleet-in-being: because naval forces can move faster and with less restrictions than land-based forces, Ukraine constantly needs to worry about what the BSF might do and where it might be today. That uses up assets and bandwidth that Ukraine could be using elsewhere, as well as impinging on Ukraine's freedom of action. Remove the Black Sea Fleet and Ukraine should have an easier time striking Russian logistics infrastructure in Crimea (only having to deal with comparatitvely predictable land based air defence (which they've been striking)), which should significantly degrade Russian forces in the south and lube up the counter-offensive.

That's on top the psychological benefits- we all saw the reaction when Ukraine sank Moskva. That wasn't only an important boost for Ukraine, but demonstrated Ukrainian abilities and resolve to the world.

Stuff like that.

One way to look at it is to consider what the Russians get out of the Black Sea Fleet:
Roving air defence/radar pickets that are much harder to track down than land-based assets. Strike capability with a much easier avenue of attack on Ukrainian grain exports- whether at sea or in port. As we've seen recently with Poland, forcing Ukraine to seek other means of distributing it's grain can create political friction within supporting international structures. Logistics back-up for the Kerch Bridge. A fleet-in-being: because naval forces can move faster and with less restrictions than land-based forces, Ukraine constantly needs to worry about what the BSF might do and where it might be today. That uses up assets and bandwidth that Ukraine could be using elsewhere, as well as impinging on Ukraine's freedom of action. Remove the Black Sea Fleet and Ukraine should have an easier time striking Russian logistics infrastructure in Crimea (only having to deal with comparatitvely predictable land based air defence (which they've been striking)), which should significantly degrade Russian forces in the south and lube up the counter-offensive.

That's on top the psychological benefits- we all saw the reaction when Ukraine sank Moskva. That wasn't only an important boost for Ukraine, but demonstrated Ukrainian abilities and resolve to the world.

Stuff like that.

One way to look at it is to consider what the Russians get out of the Black Sea Fleet:
Roving air defence/radar pickets that are much harder to track down than land-based assets. Strike capability with a much easier avenue of attack on Ukrainian grain exports- whether at sea or in port. As we've seen recently with Poland, forcing Ukraine to seek other means of distributing it's grain can create political friction within supporting international structures. Logistics back-up for the Kerch Bridge. A fleet-in-being: because naval forces can move faster and with less restrictions than land-based forces, Ukraine constantly needs to worry about what the BSF might do and where it might be today. That uses up assets and bandwidth that Ukraine could be using elsewhere, as well as impinging on Ukraine's freedom of action. Remove the Black Sea Fleet and Ukraine should have an easier time striking Russian logistics infrastructure in Crimea (only having to deal with comparatitvely predictable land based air defence (which they've been striking)), which should significantly degrade Russian forces in the south and lube up the counter-offensive.

That's on top the psychological benefits- we all saw the reaction when Ukraine sank Moskva. That wasn't only an important boost for Ukraine, but demonstrated Ukrainian abilities and resolve to the world.

Stuff like that.

One way to look at it is to consider what the Russians get out of the Black Sea Fleet:
Roving air defence/radar pickets that are much harder to track down than land-based assets. Strike capability with a much easier avenue of attack on Ukrainian grain exports- whether at sea or in port. As we've seen recently with Poland, forcing Ukraine to seek other means of distributing it's grain can create political friction within supporting international structures. Logistics back-up for the Kerch Bridge. A fleet-in-being: because naval forces can move faster and with less restrictions than land-based forces, Ukraine constantly needs to worry about what the BSF might do and where it might be today. That uses up assets and bandwidth that Ukraine could be using elsewhere, as well as impinging on Ukraine's freedom of action. Remove the Black Sea Fleet and Ukraine should have an easier time striking Russian logistics infrastructure in Crimea (only having to deal with comparatitvely predictable land based air defence (which they've been striking)), which should significantly degrade Russian forces in the south and lube up the counter-offensive.

That's on top the psychological benefits- we all saw the reaction when Ukraine sank Moskva. That wasn't only an important boost for Ukraine, but demonstrated Ukrainian abilities and resolve to the world.

Stuff like that.

One way to look at it is to consider what the Russians get out of the Black Sea Fleet:
Roving air defence/radar pickets that are much harder to track down than land-based assets. Strike capability with a much easier avenue of attack on Ukrainian grain exports- whether at sea or in port. As we've seen recently with Poland, forcing Ukraine to seek other means of distributing it's grain can create political friction within supporting international structures. Logistics back-up for the Kerch Bridge. A fleet-in-being: because naval forces can move faster and with less restrictions than land-based forces, Ukraine constantly needs to worry about what the BSF might do and where it might be today. That uses up assets and bandwidth that Ukraine could be using elsewhere, as well as impinging on Ukraine's freedom of action. Remove the Black Sea Fleet and Ukraine should have an easier time striking Russian logistics infrastructure in Crimea (only having to deal with comparatitvely predictable land based air defence (which they've been striking)), which should significantly degrade Russian forces in the south and lube up the counter-offensive.

That's on top the psychological benefits- we all saw the reaction when Ukraine sank Moskva. That wasn't only an important boost for Ukraine, but demonstrated Ukrainian abilities and resolve to the world.

Stuff like that.

One way to look at it is to consider what the Russians get out of the Black Sea Fleet:
Roving air defence/radar pickets that are much harder to track down than land-based assets. Strike capability with a much easier avenue of attack on Ukrainian grain exports- whether at sea or in port. As we've seen recently with Poland, forcing Ukraine to seek other means of distributing it's grain can create political friction within supporting international structures. Logistics back-up for the Kerch Bridge. A fleet-in-being: because naval forces can move faster and with less restrictions than land-based forces, Ukraine constantly needs to worry about what the BSF might do and where it might be today. That uses up assets and bandwidth that Ukraine could be using elsewhere, as well as impinging on Ukraine's freedom of action. Remove the Black Sea Fleet and Ukraine should have an easier time striking Russian logistics infrastructure in Crimea (only having to deal with comparatitvely predictable land based air defence (which they've been striking)), which should significantly degrade Russian forces in the south and lube up the counter-offensive.

That's on top the psychological benefits- we all saw the reaction when Ukraine sank Moskva. That wasn't only an important boost for Ukraine, but demonstrated Ukrainian abilities and resolve to the world.

Stuff like that.

Re: the sub images:

I love how someone went to all the trouble of pixelating the background.

"This could be any Russian submarine, really."

Re: the sub images:

I love how someone went to all the trouble of pixelating the background.

Re: the sub images:

I love how someone went to all the trouble of pixelating the background.

Re: the sub images:

I love how someone went to all the trouble of pixelating the background.

Supposedly leaked photos of the submarine. This doesn't look good. Which is very good.

@BFCElvis Thanks very much ! Though to fair, I just recorded the footage, someone else cut it down to size and stitched it back together for the trailer.

@dkchapuis Here you go, this is the start of the CM chunk of the live event: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1923663906?t=00h48m50s

@BFCElvis Thanks very much ! Though to fair, I just recorded the footage, someone else cut it down to size and stitched it back together for the trailer.

@dkchapuis Here you go, this is the start of the CM chunk of the live event: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1923663906?t=00h48m50s

@BFCElvis Thanks very much ! Though to fair, I just recorded the footage, someone else cut it down to size and stitched it back together for the trailer.

@dkchapuis Here you go, this is the start of the CM chunk of the live event: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1923663906?t=00h48m50s

The author makes an excellent case that far too little attention is paid the nasty little details, even in many upper level military staff colleges. Said details and realities have been scrubbed almost comepletely from the educations of diplomats and politicians. It explains a great deal about why this forum has been at the very least less wrong than a lot of other folks. The game forces you to think about at least some of those details. The fact this entire company attack is going nowhere until that one well sighted machine gun gets dealt with comes immediately to mind.

It's gonna happen one day. I can't see KA-52s being close to the front, especially behaving so apparently nonchalantly, so this is a really good illustration of just how deep drones are getting.

On the training post: a lot of what is in that story rings true.  The issue, which we have pointed out here before, is that western troops have no frame of reference for this war.  The more I hear descriptions of company operations in this war, the more they sound like a SOF action as far as C4ISR goes.  A GF Comd does pretty much what they are describing as a Company Comds role in this war - pulls back and manages the engagement from a pan C4ISR node.  Conventional military experience does not do this.  Tactical commanders get more feeds but pretty much fill the same roles as they did 30-40 years ago.  The Battalion TOC has changed a lot but the mass use of UAS for ISR is still not at the forefront.
The offensive focus also rings true.  I got into an argument a long while back on modern war and the offensive doctrine of most western militaries.  A lot of doctrine was built during the Cold War and then adapted to the insurgency wars we fought over the last 30 years.  The few times we went conventional, the opponent was so overmatched that we kind of confirmed a false positive - offensive primacy.  This war is showing the holes in that theory.  This is a war of Denial - drones and artillery.  That takes a fundamentally different training approach.
We all “yay’ed” when western troops began training support, and we still add a lot of value in some skill areas.  However, we may very well be teaching  bad lessons.  For example, that well documented and broadcasted failed minefield breach back in Jun. To my eyes it was a textbook western mechanized breach.  It looks like it got stopped by enemy UAS, a couple helicopters, a few ATGM teams and some pretty tepid artillery.  Our minefield breaching doctrine has not been refreshed since the Cold War and it ran headlong into 2023 reality.  Our impulse is to declare “well the UA is doing it wrong,”. Of course this assumes we actually know how to do it right in the first place.
I can only hope the AAR process is firmly in place and is capturing these observations.  However, in most cases the AAR guys are cut from the same corporate cloth as the training delivery guys so there are going to be biases to overcome.  We likely need to adapt the training significantly.  SOF may need to take over infantry tactics training because the reality is closer to their environment than our conventional experience.  However, SOF are pretty low density.  Conventional can focus on equipment (eg “night driving”), it still does this better than anyone else.
I have brought up the point on this war being as much about competitive learning as much as about actual warfare before.  The UA learns very fast, Russians slower…but they do learn.  The question is, “how fast are western militaries learning?”  They are part of this war too, they make up a significant portion of the Ukrainian force generation stream.  As such they should be in a direct feedback loop from the front line. We need to be learning at a better pace than the Russians - “EOD is taboo” (likely because we have framed them as exclusively a COIN thing).  This will mean breaking out of our own boxes, which is a damned hard thing to do at the best of times.  In reality we should be getting then UA to train us on how to train them.

It's gonna happen one day. I can't see KA-52s being close to the front, especially behaving so apparently nonchalantly, so this is a really good illustration of just how deep drones are getting.

It's gonna happen one day. I can't see KA-52s being close to the front, especially behaving so apparently nonchalantly, so this is a really good illustration of just how deep drones are getting.