Centurian52

I wasn't going to ask this question on this thread, since I figure the main topic here is events that happened post Feb-2022, but the separate thread I created for it didn't get any responses. Does anyone have any good sources for events in Ukraine from 2014-2021?

That could be said about literally any statement that anyone has ever made. That doesn't make every statement that anyone has ever made acceptable. I'm not saying it's what you were going for, but it would be very easy for someone to interpret your words as advocating eugenics.

A BTR-70 is still better than an M113. I'm playing Combat Mission: Cold War right now, and I think I've built out something of a hierarchy for infantry carriers. Any other IFV is better than a BMP-1. Any IFV, BMP-1 included, is better than any APC. Anything with an enclosed turret, BTRs included, is better than an M113. Anything with armor and room for dismounts, M113 included, is better than nothing.

And in all honesty it was pure coincidence that I quoted your comment anyway. I remembered that I had some points to make on the Challenger, so I backtracked until I started seeing some of the comments on the Challenger that I meant to reply to. Yours just happened to be the one I spotted first.

The US couldn't unilaterally end the war. Ukraine would keep fighting, just less effectively, even if the US withdrew all support overnight (Ukraine is a sovereign country that does not answer to Washington). I really don't think there is any party that can unilaterally end the war (except Russia obviously, but they won't). Besides, attempting to negotiate a ceasefire now would not end the nightmare, only put it on pause for a few years. The Ukrainians know that. A ceasefire now would mean the next generation of Ukrainians will have to endure even more suffering. We don't want the nightmare to just get put on pause for a few years. We want it to completely end. And the only way to end it is to see it through.

That would seem to get at the heart of the mass vs precision debate. 10 guns each with a 10% chance of hitting their target (mass) and one gun with a 100% chance of hitting the target (precision) would both seem to have a pretty similar effect on the target. 10 guns, each with a 100% chance of hitting their target (massed precision) will have a much greater effect on the target.

#2, not enough room, is a very common reason for me to accept more relaxed spacing in Combat Mission. Those guns look like they are as spread out as they can be given the size of the clearing. I try to maintain fairly doctrinal spacings as much as I can (50 meters for Soviet and German vehicles, 75 yards (~70 meters) for American vehicles, and haven't gotten around to British doctrine yet). But a lot of the time there just isn't enough room for proper spacing (and sometimes there's an abundance of room and I spread out considerably more than 50 or 70 meters (in practice I think I follow the rule "fill the available space" more often than any set interval)).

The Natural Resource Curse does not state that all countries with an abundance of natural resources are doomed to destitution. Having lots of natural resources can be very beneficial. But, it helps if you are democracy. And, particularly if you're not a democracy, it helps if the resources are only discovered after you have already built a thriving economy. Finally, the curse is probabilistic in nature. There is no rule stating that a non-democratic country which discovers large resource deposits can't build a thriving economy. It's just less likely to build a thriving economy.

I just wanted to take a moment to back up to the Challenger 2 discussion from Saturday, since there were a couple points I wanted to make. The rifled gun does not make it more accurate. Modern tank rounds are fin stabilized, so they don't need to be spin stabilized. In fact, for wonky physics reasons that I don't fully understand, spinning apparently has a destabilizing effect on long rod projectiles (well, some spin still helps to stabilize it, but more than a tiny amount of spin will start destabilizing it again), which is why APFDSD rounds fired from rifled guns are actually designed to counteract the spinning. So the Challenger 2 isn't more accurate than any other modern western tank (in fact I believe it's actually less accurate than other western MBTs, though with a modern digital fire control system it's still pin-point accurate by Cold War standards). But it's easy enough to believe that it's more accurate than the T-64BVs, T-72Ms, and T-80BVs that most Ukrainian tankers would have had experience with before it arrived. The rifling also reduces the performance of kinetic energy rounds in penetrating armor relative to a smoothbore gun of the same size, though the Challenger 2 can still probably punch hard enough to deal with most Russian tanks easily enough. The real advantage of the rifled gun is that it makes it possible to fire HESH effectively. Which is why it's puzzling that the Ukrainians apparently aren't receiving HESH ammunition. A Challenger 2 without HESH seems to be missing the point. Retaining a rifled gun into the modern day was a serious design compromise that the British army made specifically because they believed HESH was worth it. HESH (while not effective against modern MBTs) is a fantastic anti-personnel, anti-bunker, and anti-light vehicle round.

For sure. It's best to have both resources and a functional economy. It just seems that a functional economy is a prerequisite to getting the most out of the resources. Without a functional economy the most you can do with an abundance of natural resources is extract and sell them to make lots of money (which is great for the dictator, but not helpful for their economy).

Yup. Three or four months of operations doesn't really seem like all that much when you are reading about it after the fact. But it's very different when you have to watch the months slowly grind by in real time. Though watching a war unfold in real time wasn't an entirely novel experience for me. The effect was recreated pretty well by the week by week video series that started cropping up over the last decade. Towards the beginning of the war I couldn't help thinking that the whole experience was a lot like waiting on the next episode of The Great War to drop on youtube. Considering how close the experience of watching those sorts of series is to the real thing (somehow I managed to be in suspense about how this or that operation would turn out, despite already knowing darn well how it would turn out), I think that format can be considered a complete success.

Natural resources count for less than you'd think (this isn't Hearts of Iron). It is very easy for a country which is rich in natural resources to still be militarily and economically weak. Just look at North Korea. In fact there is evidence that natural resources can even hold a non-democratic economy back, since they provide a means for an autocrat to fund their regime without having to actually develop their economy.

The thing to keep in mind is that the Ukrainians are using the cluster munitions on their own territory. They aren't littering someone else's country with unexploded submunitions. They are the ones who will be bearing the cost of the UXO problem. The fact that they are using cluster munitions anyway demonstrates that they believe that is a cost worth bearing.

I never cease to be amazed at how completely ****ed the Russian economy is. They really don't have any long term prospects. The exodus of younger generations is only going to exacerbate issues around their already aging population, just as Social Security issues are set to come to a head. Unfortunately battlefields operate on shorter timescales than economies. It could take years for the failing Russian economy to precipitate a battlefield collapse. Battlefield expenses are probably going to accelerate their economic collapse to a greater degree than their economic collapse will influence a battlefield collapse.

Bummer that they have so few to lose, but they were always going to lose some once they started using them. There is no surer sign that these are finally being used in action than to see one lost. I've been refreshing the Oryx page on Ukrainian losses every day for over a month now waiting to see the first Leopard 1 loss. Because once they start losing Leopard 1s, that means they finally have units fully equipped with Leopard 1s that are ready for action.

I'm just getting started on catching up on this weekend's events. From the looks of it either Ukraine made some good progress this weekend or ISW finally updated their map with last week's progress.

I've never heard of Counterstroke before. It may be as simple as it being the British term for Active Defense (sort of like the distinction between HESH and HEP, or using "fin" vs "sabot" as a shorthand for APFSDS). In a similar vain I remember FM100-2-1 explicitly described the Soviet concept of a "fire sack" as being almost identical to the US concept of a "kill zone". Can you describe it?

Well, ISW still hasn't updated their map with any recent Ukrainian advances (though it does look like they've improved their visual representation of Russian fortifications). But they were surprisingly prompt with their monthly update to their time-lapse maps! https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/733fe90805894bfc8562d90b106aa895

I seriously doubt that cluster munitions are well suited to clearing minefields.

ISW hasn't updated their map in a couple of days, so I'm not sure how many of the recent Ukrainian advances have actually been confirmed yet (maybe there will be a big map update today?). But they did assess earlier that the current Russian line would probably be less effective than their forward positions. The Russians committed very heavily to defending their forward positions, those forces should have been significantly degraded by that fighting, and it doesn't look like they have anything in reserve. The Russian static defenses in this area certainly look intimidating. But as had been discussed before, static defenses are only effective when overwatched by fire. Static defenses which aren't being overwatched are more of a speed bump than an actual obstacle. So if the Russians don't have enough troops left in the area to actually man all of those defenses, then they are not going to get the full potential out of those defenses.

How did you get those bottom two screenshots? Is there a thermal vision mod that I missed?

The way returning Vietnam vets were treated was really horrible. I think we have a more nuanced understanding these days. Even if we don't support the war itself, there is a broader understanding that the men and women sent to fight in it aren't to blame. My understanding is that Soviet soldiers who returned from Afghanistan faced treatment similar to US soldiers returning from Vietnam. So Russian society went through a similar experience, and had the opportunity to draw similar lessons. But it seems that self reflection is not an area in which the Russians excel.

That's a thought that had occurred to me, and which I remember being raised by other people a few hundred pages ago. I am hoping and expecting that the Ukrainians will be able to cut off Crimea for the obvious military utility in doing so. But there is no doubt that it will make life very hard for you and everyone else who lives there. My hope is that the Russians will run out of ammo before civilians start running out of food. For this reason the Ukrainians probably shouldn't just sit and wait for the Russians to starve once Crimea is cut off, but actively put pressure on the Russians to force them to expend lives and ammo faster than they can be replenished (some supplies and reinforcements should still be able to come in by sea even if all land routes are cut, so active pressure will probably be necessary anyway). Whatever happens, I hope you are able to stockpile enough food to make it through.

According to German propaganda (can't really fault you, since German propaganda pretty much dominated western historiography on WW2 through the entire Cold War, and historians have only really been starting to break it down relatively recently). But not in reality. They definitely had a superior operational level doctrine in the early war (though the Allies generally did better than they get credit for at the tactical level). But by 1944 they didn't have the fuel to carry out their early war maneuver doctrine, and the Allies had gained considerable experience in how to conduct effective operations. German troops in 1944 were fighting with skill and determination (though in general the quality of the average German soldier had dropped since the beginning of the war as a result of attrition, and there were some very low quality formations mixed in with the higher quality formations), but Allied troops were also generally well trained by 1944. It isn't clear that the quality of the average German soldier was significantly higher than the average Allied soldier by 1944. Allied forces were fully motorized, while German forces were not (only the Panzer divisions and a handful of mechanized divisions were ever motorized). When Allied soldiers had to redeploy over a long distance they were always carried in trucks, while most German troops had to march on foot. Allied supplies always came in trucks, while German supplies were mostly horse-drawn. The Allies had lots of tanks, the fuel to run them, and the spare parts to repair them. The Germans had lots of tanks, most of which couldn't be used because they didn't have enough fuel or because they were awaiting repairs (finding a German tank in the front lines by 1944 was not impossible, but they were certainly a lot rarer than they had been a few years earlier). The Allies had a lot more radios than the Germans (the Americans had a radio in every infantry platoon, given them a degree of communication that most armies wouldn't see until the Cold War). Allied rifles, particularly the M1 Garand, but also the SMLE to a more limited extent, were generally better than German rifles (not enough G43s or Stg44s to tip the balance). German tanks, when they were working, were mostly on par with Allied tanks (most German tanks were not Tigers, and a Panzer 4 is a pretty even match for a Sherman). German machine guns were admittedly better than Allied machine guns (its hard for someone who's played CMBN to maintain otherwise, Lindybeige's stance on the issue notwithstanding). German submachineguns were about on par with Allied submachineguns (honestly not much to choose from between a Sten, an MP40, and a Thompson (they'll all pour 30 rounds out at a pretty respectable rate and do nasty things to anyone in close quarters)). As far as I know, gun for gun, German artillery was about on par with Allied artillery, but the Allies had a lot more artillery (more of which was self-propelled) and a lot more ammunition for it. German anti-tank weapons were pretty good, probably somewhat better than Allied anti-tank weapons, but not decisively so. The 17 pounder was probably about on par with the Pak-40, while the 6 pounder was still more than adequate to deal with most German tanks. The Panzerfaust had excellent penetration and was produced in large quantities, but was inaccurate and had a short range. The Panzerschreck was certainly, tube for tube, better than the bazooka or PIAT, but there were a lot fewer of them. Overall I just don't think the claim that the Germans were better equipped holds any water. It was admittedly pretty intense. But most intense battle of WW2? I'm not sure it was even the most intense battle on the western front. It's probably possible to determine once and for all which battle was the most intense (take the casualties suffered, divide that by the number of troops involved in hundreds of thousands, divide that by the number of days the battle lasted, and see which battle had the highest number of casualties per day per 100,000 troops (I'm betting Normandy would be on the high end of the spectrum, but not the highest)). But for now it's probably sufficient to say that there were some battles on the eastern front that were definitely more intense than Normandy. And actually I decided to do what I just described for Normandy. I found wide ranging casualty figures for the Germans, so I just did the Allies, which I found more consistent casualty figures for. Over 77 days around 2 million Allied soldiers suffered 226,000 casualties. That gives a figure of around 145 casualties per day per 100,000 soldiers (there is some rounding involved). That casualty rate is no walk in the park, but there were definitely battles with a higher rate.

My path to Combat Mission was a direct line from more mainstream arcadey RTSs to incrementally more realistic RTSs. The first RTS I remember playing was Red Alert 2 (I remember being so excited when my parents got me the expansion pack, Yuri's Revenge, sometime while I was in middle school). As you can imagine, my standards for realism could only go up from there. My next stop from there was Command and Conquer: Generals. Which wasn't much more realistic, but it did feel slightly more realistic at the time (some of the units' attacks appeared to involve actual projectiles). The big step up was that was around the time that I first learned that modding was a thing. I got my hands on some third party tool that allowed me to edit the units' stats, and so began my lifelong immersion into finely nuanced military history as I made every effort to make sure every unit had the most realistic stats allowable by the engine. The fact that most of the weapon systems in-game were complete fantasy didn't stop me from finding real world analogs to base the stats on for most of them. It still wasn't very realistic by my current standards, given the limitations of the engine and the fact that (with my simplistic understanding of warfare at the time) I only accounted for the capabilities of the weapons, and didn't account for the limitations of the humans operating the weapons (my personalized version of C&C Generals become a very lethal environment (in retrospect it was actually pretty Shock Force-like, so maybe I didn't do such a bad job after all (the massively increased ranges did force me to account for the depth of the battlefield in a way that the vanilla version never did))). The next step up from C&C Generals was World In Conflict. This was the first time I encountered an RTS that didn't involve building bases, and I never touched a base builder again (except Red Alert 2, because nostalgia is pretty powerful). Vanilla WiC was already much more realistic than vanilla C&C Generals (every round is modeled as an actual projectile!). But the more powerful game engine (and my improved understanding of warfare) allowed for much more realistic modding (I actually took human capabilities into account so, while every hit from infantry small arms resulted in a casualty, most rounds missed (my infantry in C&C Generals were mowing each other down at 500 meters)). I actually got Rome: Total War for the same Christmas that I got World In Conflict. But I exclusively played WiC for a few months before I even really gave Rome: Total War a look. The Total War games were the first games I had ever played which accounted for soft factors such as moral and fatigue (though in retrospect the moral in those games is still way too high (historically, ancient/medieval/Napoleonic soldiers generally weren't willing to endure melee combat long enough for most of them to be killed (ancient and medieval melees were probably series of short clashes that may have only lasted a few seconds each before one side retreated and the forces returned to throwing projectiles and taunts, and Napoleonic bayonet charges usually resulted in one side running away before bayonets actually clashed))). And while WiC's system of paradropping troops onto the map was better than building bases, Total War's system of recruiting troops in cities on the campaign map was the first recruitment system I had seen in an RTS that had a passing resemblance to how things work in reality. There wasn't much modding I could personally do to make Rome or Medieval 2 Total War more realistic, though I did find mods by other people which made those games significantly more historically accurate. But I did mod the hell out of Empire and Napoleon Total War*. For several years the Total War games, particularly the modded Total War games, were the gold standard of realism for me. And then, shortly after graduating high school (this would have been around 2009) I discovered Combat Mission: Shock Force, and my gaming experience would never be the same. I still play games other than Combat Mission. Nothing beats Combat Mission for representing ground warfare on the tactical level from WW2 to the modern day. But I also have itches to scratch on the operational and strategic levels, in different domains, and in earlier eras. Command Ops 2 has the market cornered for the operational level (I always play with max orders delay). There still isn't really anything that does a good job of modeling the strategic level. I've looked into Strategic Command and Gary Grigsby's War in the East, but their turn based gameplay (alternating turns, not WEGO) lacks any sense of realistic time flow, so for now I'm sticking with a modded Darkest Hour. I like Hearts of Iron 4's production mechanics, population mechanics, and map, but Darkest Hour has better combat mechanics and lots of juicy statistics screens (I love my statistics screens!). For 20th century naval warfare I play Rule the Waves 3 (honestly it figures that one of my favorite games would be 90% spreadsheets), and I've been intending to play Command: Modern Operations (I'll probably finally get around to it once I'm done with my current Rule the Waves campaign since the time period it covers pretty much picks up where Rule the Waves leaves off, with a couple of decades of overlap). For the Napoleonic era Scourge of War has completely replaced Total War for me (it has been years since I've played a Total War game). Like Total War, it still required some modding to get the weapon ranges and accuracy right (conveniently, I was able to recycle the same research I had done to mod Total War). Unlike Total War, it does a much better job of representing the scale of warfare in this time period (in Total War 2,000 troops is a huge battle, while in Scourge of War 20,000 troops is a pretty small battle). Also unlike Total War, and like Combat Mission, it has historically accurate tables of organization and equipment. Unlike both Total War and Combat Mission it has a pretty good orders delay system. With the poor graphics and the sprite ratio I consider Scourge of War to be pretty analogous to CMx1. I've really enjoyed Scourge of War, but from the looks of it General Staff: Black Powder may soon be taking its place in scratching my 19th century warfare itch. Unfortunately I don't have anything covering ancient and medieval warfare anymore. I still don't know of anything better than Total War for those time periods, and it doesn't quite meet my standards of realism anymore. Theatre of War was part of my lineup for early WW2, but the CMx1 games have mostly replaced it in that role (I say mostly because even the CMx1 games don't go as far back as Poland 1939 or France 1940). * I increased ranges and reduced accuracy among other things. Figuring out what the ranges should be was fairly straightforward. I just used what contemporary sources considered to be the effective ranges. The "battle range" (what we might call the area target effective range) of a smoothbore musket was considered to be about 200 yards, assuming that the target is a battalion in close order, while most artillery of the time should be able to fire out to 1-2 kilometers (depending on the size of the gun). Figuring out what the accuracy should be was a pain, especially since the engine didn't include any ways for accuracy to vary depending on circumstances. Single volleys fired by unbroken troops at close range could be quite accurate, while 200-500 rounds expended for every casualty inflicted was typical over the course of an entire battle. But that includes ill-disciplined troops wasting ammo at ineffective ranges, ammo fired blindly through smoke, ammo not recovered from casualties, ammo ruined by bad weather, ammo fired at troops in skirmish line and/or behind cover, etc... But eventually I figured that about 2% hits on a unit in the open in close order at 200 yards was close enough.