Machor

Dropping this here as relevant to questions of spotting in the real world. I was surprised at how ISIS can 'hide' in an open desert in bright daylight: "Mosul: Intense battles with IS on road to Iraqi city" http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37701250 "A Humvee fitted with rockets spotted another group, but lost sight of them before they could fire. It was hard to see the enemy with the naked eye. They were like ghosts."

Without knowing anything more about this, it could really be way more complicated. The BBC article states: "According to some reports, an ethnic Abkhaz commander in the rebel ranks had fallen out with Motorola and may have been motivated to have him killed." The Abkhaz are very likely to be closely connected with Kadyrov, and the forum has already seen several discussions of Kadyrov's power. So in the very least, there may be a third party here other than Russia and Ukraine - and this before we even begin to speculate on how the Separatist commanders have aligned themselves with the politics of the Bratva.

Very interesting to hear this. I guess the 'ZALA Question' comes down to the issue of spotting - how likely an Abrams or Bradley TC [Is it OK to call a Bradley commander 'TC,' or is the term reserved for tankers?] would be to spot a ZALA while scanning for ground targets (assuming that the gunner is focused 100% on ground targets).

Nah, as far as ground warfare is concerned, Korea IS WW2 equipment. My suggestion for the 'interesting' blend is Arab-Israeli wars, especially 1967.

That was exactly my original point. While the US and others have also shot down ISIS drones, I'm assuming these incidents do not occur while they're distracted by more immediate threats. When I was bringing up the lack of US AAA, the point was the lack of any unit that is specifically tasked with an AA mission AND can shoot down a micro-UAV. And, another thing to remember when considering the challenge from ISIS drones is that Russian ZALA operators will be way, WAY better at their job than ISIS.

BFC's counter to this is (from the CM v3.01 manual): "Small arms, including machineguns, are also never used against aircraft because the chance of success is extremely low while the chance of revealing their positions or being distracted from ground combat is very high." [my emphasis] I had my life on the line only once while serving and what I remember from that experience is having all eyes on the treeline whence the threat was coming. I can't imagine myself looking up for drones in that situation. My buddies had a similar experience and almost shot the NCO who ran up from behind them. Now, we were conscripts with much less training than @VladimirTarasov's VDV conscripts. [I'm throwing this out there because Vladimir has argued for the potential of conscripts several times from firsthand experience, and I wish to point out that a VDV conscript is probably far better than a vanilla conscript - they're all volunteers, for beginners.] Therefore, I would leave it to you and other veterans on the forum to evaluate BFC's argument. Even if micro-UAVs can be taken out with MGs, how realistic is it to have this capability in game without a specific order for it, which would in turn detract from reacting to ground contacts?

It is easy to see the Russian public being willing to bear the burden of Western sanctions (and Russian counter-sanctions) for the sake of Crimea. That the West is willing to impose more sanctions on Russia for bombing a city full of a quarter million terrorists may hopefully trigger a reality check: "Syria conflict: US and UK consider new Russia sanctions" http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37670528

+1 Back to topic: He states: "Russia’s position is that NATO has acted aggressively by expanding NATO influence easterly into former USSR territory along with military forces including nuclear weapons that could attack Russia with no warning." What systems is he talking about?

LOL, I was about to post something like you did, then decided to check Wikipedia just to be sure and found out. The BFC forum is good for reality checks. Whatever it's worth, a Russian anecdote: After the War, a teacher was asking all the children in class what they did during the War. When it was little Vladimir's turn, he said: - I carried rounds to soldiers. - And what did the soldiers say to you, Vova? - They said "Sehr gut, Waldemar."

Sublime, Swear to God I too thought those two films had the same director, but it turns out they don't. Das Boot was directed by Wolfgang Petersen, Stalingrad by Joseph Vilsmaier. I think we may have been taken by Stalingrad being marketed as 'the spiritual successor to Das Boot' or some similar crap.

John, The BBC has a new article out on the drone threat: "Iraq attack shows deadly potential of 'off-the-shelf' drones" http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37638982 It looks like the preferred defense is to use soft-kill systems like DroneDefender (http://www.battelle.org/our-work/national-security/tactical-systems/battelle-dronedefender ). The point I was trying to make related to CMBS, though, was that ZALA being untouchable for the US side should not be considered a gamey advantage for the Russians, as it reflects a real life weakness the US has against micro-UAV because [bingo!] it has no AAA.

Folks who don't allow Russian players to bring ZALAs may indeed be 'under-equipping' the Russian army: "Pentagon Confronts a New Threat From ISIS: Exploding Drones" http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/world/middleeast/iraq-drones-isis.html?ref=middleeast&_r=1 "“We should have been ready for this, and we weren’t,” said P. W. Singer, a specialist on robotic weaponry at New America, a think tank in Washington."

Really scary to think what might emerge when Rule 34 combines with Japan's military-grade WTF... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RapeLay

Yes please. I don't believe in the paranormal.

Vid or it never happened.

Thank you for this information. I infer that both sides would get better returns from investing in EW than blowing money on R&D for STAR WARS (TM). I have to start tinkering with those EW settings in my QBs. [Goes off to try playing the Italians in CMFI.]

I have no illusion that the story may be real - even the Russian wikipedia article admits it isn't. My point is that it disseminates a truth for the public. Think about Sands of Iwo Jima: Sgt Stryker's squad would have to be transferred out of the 2nd Marine Division after Tarawa so that they could fight at Iwo. Or here in Canada, General Brock is a national hero, even though he mistrusted Canucks (with very good reason). For the academically inclined, I'm arguing that the truth value in a myth is in the signified, not the signifier. This may be of interest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythologies_(book) When I was in Russia, they found the wreck of an IL-2 in a forest, and recovered the remains of the Ukrainian pilot and his Tatar rear-gunner. Unfortunately, real life rarely makes for good story-telling. They could have gone with Amet-khan Sultan, but that might have opened a can of worms with Crimea. BTW, I'm aware how the topic expands to issues of De-Sovietization, Eurasianism, etc. and don't intend to go there. I'm just looking forward to watch this movie - PTRD FTW!

I've been trying to edit my post and it isn't working; here's the explanation for why I posted in the CMBS forum and not CMRT: I did not want to start a new thread, and was sold on the following comment in the article: "The Kremlin promotes the idea of World War Two as a heroic victory that united the Soviet state against fascism - and still unites Russia today against a similar threat they say has resurfaced in Ukraine."

Fresh news where I WOULD HAVE BACKED PUTIN - if he weren't committing crimes against Humanity: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37505131 . When I was living in Russia, I heard resentment from many Tatars that their contribution to the Great Patriotic War was belittled, and that there was no recognition for the first man to raise the Red Banner on the Reichstag, who they believed had been a Turk (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Кошкарбаев,_Рахимжан ). Therefore, I'm against the grain of BBC's criticism of Russia's would-be war blockbuster : "Putin backs WW2 myth in new Russian film" http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37595972

I had no intention to come into this as a newbie - and I'm aware of Kettler's 'other' work - but he did state this.

@Sublime To claim your bragging rights, read on. I did a search for 'cold turkey' in the Corpus of Historical American English (http://corpus.byu.edu/coha/ ). Now, I must warn from previous experience that since most corpora are compiled from written sources (unless if explicitly labeled as a corpus of the spoken language), they tend to do a poor job with lexicon that originates from slang. On the other hand, since our concern was with popularization in the first place, this should be good enough to get a general sense. And yes, the first incidence of 'cold turkey' in the sense that we use it today is in 1951 in Time Magazine: "On New York's Rikers Island, youngsters have to endure the horrors of a sudden " cold turkey " cure or get none at all. Once released, many go right back to drugs again."

I was able to dig these up: "Russian Satellite Maneuvers Illustrate Why U.S. Alarm Bells are Ringing" http://spacenews.com/editorial-russias-orbital-provocations/ Idk if the source is reliable, but the article comes across as sensible enough. If you don't want to waste time reading it, the gist is that there's stuff going on in space even as you're reading this. "Russia to reveal location of US military satellites in free space database – report" https://www.rt.com/news/347744-russia-satellites-database-norad/ OK, it's RT, but this seems feasible. My question is: Wouldn't such an act by Russia make it possible for terrorists around the globe to watch out for US spy satellites coming in over their base/training camp/whatever? Then, there's this quip, whatever it's worth: "In the US, the Boeing X-37B spacecraft, a highly secretive Air Force project, has reportedly undergone orbital tests to carry the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) system, which is able to survive a nuclear blast and is the USAF's back-up plan should ground communications fail. The US Air Force has two X-37Bs in its fleet and has been sending them into space on secret missions since 2010."

Thank you; I'm actually trying to find out if the popularization of the expression was indeed in the wake of the war, which would itself be an indication of addiction among troops being a major issue. I'll later see if I can dig up a frequency corpus, or maybe someone who has access to the OED will help.

We're talking just 'interaction;' sex ain't on the table. If you want sex, the best I can come up with is this [NSFW]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwzg0rAAFPg

Just happened to remember all the money being poured on the Vostochny Cosmodrome, and how high priority it is for Putin, who has already inspected the construction thrice. http://tass.ru/kosmos/2344852