Bearstronaut

Really? That was an excessive amount of acting effort to reengage with a forum hostile to his nonsense. I guess dummies keep dummying on.. 
Funnily, for some reason the "outside my wheelhouse"  comment rang a bell ref KK. 
Oh and I think he copied @NamEndedAllen's style to appear "older". Sorry, NEA,  not meaning to be rude to you. Always good posts, unlike this former Leading Intellect. 

On some occasions I would give "the benefit of the doubt", as we say in Spain. People can evolve. Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass also served in the Waffen-SS (in the 10. SS-Panzer-Division "Frundsberg"), and I would not say that when he died that he was a Nazi, quite the opposite.
That said, given my experience suffering Catalan nationalism firsthand, any strong nationalist is suspect. The various forms of fascism are nothing more than nationalism taken to its ultimate (and aberrant) logical consequences.
 

When I was active duty back in 2021 my brigade did a rotation at NTC. The SIGINT team I was in charge of was attached to a Stryker infantry company defending the mouth of a pass. We were attacked by an OPFOR armor battalion and we just straight up murdered them. They took like 70% casualties and the rest slinked away under a heavy smoke screen. I often wonder how that AAR went.

When I was active duty back in 2021 my brigade did a rotation at NTC. The SIGINT team I was in charge of was attached to a Stryker infantry company defending the mouth of a pass. We were attacked by an OPFOR armor battalion and we just straight up murdered them. They took like 70% casualties and the rest slinked away under a heavy smoke screen. I often wonder how that AAR went.

Not really. I was a signals intelligence NCO with little access to higher level force structure. Friendly side was a standard Stryker infantry company and the OPFOR as far as I could tell was a normal Donovian (Russian) armor heavy BTG. 

After the attack an infantryman came up to my MAT-V and asked "Hey s'arnt, you guys got any spare Javs?" I laughed and told him "nah dude, they don't give Javelins to intel nerds."

After the attack an infantryman came up to my MAT-V and asked "Hey s'arnt, you guys got any spare Javs?" I laughed and told him "nah dude, they don't give Javelins to intel nerds."

Some really good posts here lately.  But this one tops the charts, thanks for sharing that.  TheCapt's 'denial/anger..' post comes in 2nd.  
The main problem w drones is that they take all the fun out of tactical wargaming.  And make obsolete my beloved tanks.  So sad.  So very sad.
'Breakthrough' according to ISW.  This is good news but it shows how much we've moved the goal posts for the summer campaign.  I admit I have moved my goalposts all the way back to 'cut the rail & road lines east of Tokmak along a broad enough front to deploy artillery along that line'.  Then keep grinding away during the rasputitsa as much as possible, while hoping for a good solid freeze.  I suspect a long freeze, like 4 weeks, is somewhat unlikely, so might be 10 days of frozen ground at a stretch, which would make operations sketchy as once you get going you are suddenly back in mud.

When I was active duty back in 2021 my brigade did a rotation at NTC. The SIGINT team I was in charge of was attached to a Stryker infantry company defending the mouth of a pass. We were attacked by an OPFOR armor battalion and we just straight up murdered them. They took like 70% casualties and the rest slinked away under a heavy smoke screen. I often wonder how that AAR went.

"Be more combined armsy!"
There is only one way that I can think of to keep the tank in the game: win the ISR war.  If you can blind an opponent from strategic to tactical then all of the PGM interdiction systems that make the tank system so vulnerable start to fail.  Of course if I have won the ISR war to that extent, do I need heavy?  I mean a solid IFV with a lot of fast moving Light out front will likely be able to do the job because my PGM is still effective and will be hitting and killing before troops even arrive.  Hardpoints can die from PGM artillery or any number of ways and if you run into the one gold plated bunker, well then push a big old troll gun up and take it out.  This would push tanks basically back to being assault engineering vehicles - where they started.  

When I was active duty back in 2021 my brigade did a rotation at NTC. The SIGINT team I was in charge of was attached to a Stryker infantry company defending the mouth of a pass. We were attacked by an OPFOR armor battalion and we just straight up murdered them. They took like 70% casualties and the rest slinked away under a heavy smoke screen. I often wonder how that AAR went.

When I was active duty back in 2021 my brigade did a rotation at NTC. The SIGINT team I was in charge of was attached to a Stryker infantry company defending the mouth of a pass. We were attacked by an OPFOR armor battalion and we just straight up murdered them. They took like 70% casualties and the rest slinked away under a heavy smoke screen. I often wonder how that AAR went.

Short answer seems to be a combination of ISR, PGM and Unmanned systems.  The actual job of a tank is to take a big gun, move it around the battlefield, point it at the enemy and hurl a slug/shell at them.  They carry a lot of armour and other system to allow them to survive.  Ok, so let’s just break it down:
- Mobility.  Small unmanned systems have already demonstrated extremely high mobility on the battlefield.  Even with the counters and their vulnerabilities the sheer volume of those systems combined with their small size and manoeuvrability basically positions them everywhere.  A tank has mobility but it is limited in comparison.  They can roll across the battlefield at 60-80 kph, but never really do for obvious reasons.
- Survivability.  Big heavy armour no longer equals Survivability.  Distributed, redundant  cheap systems equal survival.  A force can lose 10 drones a day and still sustain that entire system, tanks cannot.  Being small and many essentially means that entire unmannned system, plus ISR is more survivable than that of armour.
- Lethality.  That big old gun projected energy like no one else’s business…whammie.  Nothing else can put a slug down range at an opponent at over 2kms per second.  Thing is that big guns performance is not the only measure of lethality.  As far as Range is concerned, PGM have far out ranged the tank gun, in some cases by an order of magnitude.  As to actual energy transfer, well chemical energy on the target at point of impact is extremely portable and distributable.  In the past the only thing keeping chemical energy in place was accuracy.  A tank gun is extremely accurate and things like artillery were not - they were considered area weapons.  This war has demonstrated in spades what PGM can do - massed precision beats everything.
So basically we are seeing a distributed systems of chemical energy-based weapons able to move and survive -as a system- and kill with better precision and range than a tank gun, at a fraction of the cost.  How many times have we noted that it looks like the UA is maneuvering via Deep Strike?  We have seen massive trends of Denial based on the combination of ISR, PGM and unmanned.  
The tank has not been replaced by a single platform, it has been replaced by a swarm…at least for right now.  If we need to move death rapidly around the battlefield that can precisely kill, well we are seeing it. If technology shows up that can sweep unmanned systems for the sky or defeat PGM well then we are back to a new-old ballgame.
The proof of this has been building in this entire war.  How many time have we seen either side try to mass mech/armour and fail?  Tanks are noted right now as fire support.  They are either being pulled forward in 1 and 2s for sniping.  Or standing off 10kms and lobbing in shells.  Why do you suppose both the UA and RA are doing this?  Is it because both sides suddenly forgot how to put 16 tanks into a squadron and smash them at an opponent? (Btw, that is the working theory for some).  Or is it because they already tried that, multiple times, and it failed to deliver?
What PGM, ISR and unmanned has not been able to deliver is breakthrough in 2023…yet.  That suite of systems is not able to provide rapid break in, through and out of an opponents defensive.  But neither can the tank, which was its primary job.  So we seem stuck in a mutual Denial situation.  What I do not know is where it goes from here.  Are we looking at Denial/Defensive primacy in warfare? - we have been here before.  Or is this a blip until PGM, ISR and unmanned fully mature?  Can we actually build the counter-systems rapidly enough to regain a level of symmetry?
We do not know.  This entire back and forth about a single ground platform is in fact silly, but not a bad way to pass a weekend.  The reality is that land warfare, maybe all warfare is likely fundamentally shifting. This is an earthquake in military affairs.  We do not know if AirPower works the same.  We do not know if Offence works the same.  We do not know if combine arms as we knew it works anymore.  Manoeuvre Warfare, Mission Command, how we force develop and generate…they are all looking like they may be in the wind.  Hell based on the last week, I am not sure Naval Warfare as we knew it is going to survive.  Trying to figure out what still works, what does not and what will work is going to be the central challenge moving forward.  Unless we fall back on “Russia Sux” and “Poor UA just don’t get it”, which we will of course.  It won’t be until some NATO force gets crushed in some 3rd party nation that the lights will go off…or maybe we will buck the trend and get out in front of the change…we have managed it before.

As much as it pains me to give my HUMINT brethren any credit it’s also pretty likely that there are more than a few residents of Sevastopol that know/hear things and hate the Russian occupier.

As much as it pains me to give my HUMINT brethren any credit it’s also pretty likely that there are more than a few residents of Sevastopol that know/hear things and hate the Russian occupier.

As much as it pains me to give my HUMINT brethren any credit it’s also pretty likely that there are more than a few residents of Sevastopol that know/hear things and hate the Russian occupier.

As much as it pains me to give my HUMINT brethren any credit it’s also pretty likely that there are more than a few residents of Sevastopol that know/hear things and hate the Russian occupier.

As much as it pains me to give my HUMINT brethren any credit it’s also pretty likely that there are more than a few residents of Sevastopol that know/hear things and hate the Russian occupier.

As much as it pains me to give my HUMINT brethren any credit it’s also pretty likely that there are more than a few residents of Sevastopol that know/hear things and hate the Russian occupier.

The threatened government shutdown is a hostage situation where the hostage takers don't have a clue what their backmail demands actually are. Its a performative farce. If the House is going to put on an annual pantomime they should be obliged to dress up as Punch.

Aww man, I go away to drill for the weekend and I missed the BattleTech discursion? Steve, when can we get Combat Mission: BattleTech?
 
Back to the main topic, yet another ChrisO thread on how crappy life is in the Russian Armed Forces. I honestly don't know how they keep fighting. 
 

I'm sure Kortenhaus offers some valuable first hand memories and a German perspective on these events (I should probably get this book).  It might be useful to consider how he came across all the information he used to write two entire volumes on the 21st Panzer Division.  He probably could not have personally experienced all two volumes worth of information. As an 18 year old in a combat zone I would suspect his personal experience was confined to a small sliver of the big picture.  Probably he was mostly consumed and focused on surviving the combat his platoon was involved in. So, unless he was an 18 year old that worked in the Tactical Operations Center (TOC) of the 21st Panzer and was privy to the conversations and decisions of the senior command staff I wouldn't think he would have much personal knowledge on the events outside his platoon/company.
Then later (probably about 10 years later) after the war he wrote the books. He must have relied on other sources to fill in all the information outside his platoon and company experience. It would be useful to know the reliability of the sources he used that contradicts multiple other sources. Maybe the other sources he used are right or partially right but I would not automatically assume they are.
There are several other forum members that know about German units.  Off the top of my head @George MC and @RockinHarry come to mind. They might have some insight into your dilemma. 
You do good work. Your final product will be a great contribution to the CM community.       

I've been wondering this myself for a long time, but for me personally this seems to be the most likely explanation:
These cases of extreme disfunctionality within certain Russian units seem to be confined to a sizable, but ultimately not overwhelming, minority of the Russian forces in the field. They are apparently especially prevalent among Storm-Z (literal cannon fodder) units as well as those run by the L/DNR (de-facto cannon fodder), whose units are by all accounts more run like criminal gangs than military outfits. As of late, the latter also affect mobiks from Russia proper sent to L/DNR units as reparations for killing off most of the male Donbas population.
So let's say there are 10-15% of all Russian forces that are in a truly abysmal state like the one in the cited example. This number appears to be relatively stable though, or it does not grow quickly enough. The other issue seems to be the "silent majority" of all other Russian forces, who don't produce these goofy appeal videos and whose relatives do not complain online that their husbands and sons are left to rot in Ukrainian fields. This "other" Russian army seems to be moderately competent (at least on the defense) motivated and able to coordinate with supporting arms, we just don't really hear from them and this warps our perception of the actual state of the Russian army.
I don't really see how the "achievements" of the Russians could be otherwise explained, as underwhelming as they are. But if these incidents were affecting the majority of Russian forces, I can not see how they could still be holding on. I still remember being confused by this already in the Spring of 2022, when they were still advancing! Anybody else remember the reports by that RU volunteer who fought around Popasna for a couple of months, Viktor Shaiga or something? I distinctly remember having trouble to match his reports with the fact that the Russians were making any progress at all, even then.

There is always room for giant robots, no matter how absurd they would be as a warfighting platform.
 

Well.
Part of the MechWarrior/BattleTech universe history is that people can't actually make new stuff - the mechs, the spaceships, the domed cities on hostile planets, all the infrastructure are inherited from previous generations and patched hundred times over, because the technology was lost and it is impossible to make new stuff. Some small items can be built, but if you lose a big fancy spaceship, that is it, you will never make new one.
So you could claim that Russia is somewhat living in that glorious MechWarrior future is what I'm saying.