Centurian52
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Posts posted by Centurian52
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On 6/1/2022 at 12:48 PM, Aragorn2002 said:
I don't care in what way Russians are killed, as long as they are killed. And I enjoy watching it. I 'm not a sadist, nor am I sick in the head, I just think they deserve to die. And the more, the better.
I don't think anyone "deserves" to die (frankly I'm not sure anyone "deserves" anything in any rigorously determinable sense, except in that what is "deserved" can be a useful social construct for rewarding/punishing desirable/undesirable behaviors). Certainly I think that dishing out death based on what is "deserved" is a slippery slope (a position I would like to think I would maintain even if I was given custody of Hitler, but I'll make no promises to any time travelers out there). However, if they "need" to die in order to get the Russian army to leave Ukraine, then so be it.
Frankly I don't care if they die, desert, or surrender. But I want very badly for a critical mass of Russian soldiers to do one of those three things.
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On 5/31/2022 at 11:00 PM, dan/california said:
It is KIA sadly, with several hundred wounded
Ah, ok. And considering that KIA generally make up a third or less of all casualties, it looks like Ukrainian casualties may actually be about on par with Russian casualties.
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On 5/31/2022 at 10:29 PM, dan/california said:
So we do we think that is half? a third? a quarter? of the Russians casualties?
That is pretty low. I figured the Russians as losing ~300-350 soldiers per day. I based that on an extrapolation from casualty figures the Russians released in the first month of the war, from which I guessed that the Russians (as in the Russian side, so Russians + L/DPR + paramilitary groups fighting for the Russians) were taking ~10,000 casualties a month. Assuming 200,000 soldiers on the Russian side that's a proportional casualty rate of about 150-175 casualties per day per 100,000 troops. If that guesswork is about right that means that the proportional Russian casualty right is about on par with historical casualty rates in high intensity warfare. I spent several hours working out proportional casualty rates for various campaigns based on information on Wikipedia, but the text document I made with the exact figures is back home and I'm typing from work, so these are approximate figures. In Poland the Germans took about 80 casualties per day per 100,000 troops, in Barbarossa 160 casualties per day per 100,000, at the Somme the Germans took about 300+ casualties per day per 100,000 troops while the Entente took about 175 casualties per day per 100,000 (similar total casualties divided between more troops). At Kursk the Soviets took 650 about casualties per day per 100,000 to the Germans 350 casualties per day per 100,000, and in Sicily the Allies too about 130 casualties per day per 100,000 troops. So the low end of normal seems to be about 80 casualties per day per 100,000 and the high end of normal seems to be about 400 casualties per day per 100,000 (there were several more battles that I didn't list here with casualties in the range of 300-400 per day per 100,000, while the 600+ the Soviets took at Kursk didn't recur much in the battles I looked at). "disaster" casualty rates seem to be about 1000+ per day per 100,000, with the Soviets taking over 1,200 casualties per day per 100,000 in Barbarossa and the Allies taking over 1,400 casualties per day per 100,000 in France 1940 (I wish I had that text document with the exact numbers in front of me). On the extreme low end the Coalition in Desert Storm took around 23 casualties per day per 100,000 troops and on the extreme high end the Iraqis in Desert Storm took 5,000+ casualties per day per 100,000 troops (very rough estimate).
So the estimated Russian casualty rate seems to be about the middle of normal for a high intensity war. If the Ukrainians are taking 60-100 casualties per day, total, with a frontline strength of ~200,000, then they are taking ~30-50 casualties per day per 100,000 troops. That is shockingly low for a high intensity war. That is especially shocking if, while they are taking these low casualties, the Russians are taking "normal" casualties for a high intensity war. Either I have overestimated the Russian casualty rate, Zelensky has underestimated the Ukrainian casualty rate, or the Ukrainians are absolutely slaughtering the Russians at a rate somewhere between 3:1 and 5:1.
edit: So the Ukrainian casualty figure of 60-100 per day is apparently KIA, not all casualties. And considering that KIA are generally a third or a quarter of all casualties, that means the full casualty rate is probably somewhere between 180-400 casualties per day (or 90-200 casualties per day per 100,000 troops), which puts it roughly on par with the estimated Russian casualty rate.
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First, an explanation of what the Long Peace is (I assume there are at least as many people who aren't familiar with the concept as there are people who are). The Long Peace is the massive statistical reduction in warfare and violence since the end of WW2 (not all at once, the decades closer to WW2 being more violent than the decades further from WW2, so it's more of a downward trend than a sudden drop). Following WW2 we see fewer wars on average, each of which are smaller and less deadly on average, compared to any period in history prior to WW2 (even compared to the interwar period between the world wars, and the relative period of peace enjoyed in Europe between the Franco-Prussian war and WW1). While there is a lot of attention paid to the horror of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war, I find it telling that this is the first high intensity peer vs peer war of the 21st century (which is saying something considering that we are a couple decades into the 21st century by now). In a similar 20 years timespan, between WW1 and WW2 (15 year timespan actually, since I'll ignore wars in the first 5 years of the 1920s as continued reverberations of WW1 (such as the Russian Civil War), and I'm also ignoring the 2nd Sino-Japanese war as the "eastern half" of WW2, and any war with less than 10,000 casualties, and any war that I can't find enough information on in a google search) we have the Cristero War, the first phase of the Chinese Civil War, the Soviet-Japanese border conflicts, the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, and the Spanish Civil War.
Since the long peace is an overall statistical trend towards less warfare, not a straight line at the zero mark, I don't think one spike in the data is enough to declare the long peace over. This could be the end of the long peace, but we will only know in retrospect if/when this war is followed up by another high intensity war, and another, and another, until a statistical pattern of warfare is set that is on par with pre-WW2 human history. The 2020s may start to look like that, as I'm betting that there is a fair to decent chance of this war being followed up in a few years by a Chinese invasion of Taiwan (my guess is 2027 +/- 2 years, and if it doesn't happen by 2030 it will never happen*). If that happens then two high intensity wars in the same decade (the second probably being more brutal than the first) will sure as hell feel like an end to the long peace. But I think Taiwan is the last flashpoint in the modern world (one which may yet be averted). Assuming Ukraine and Taiwan aren't replaced by new flashpoints (or that war over Taiwan may even be averted), my bet is that the 2020s will represent nothing more than a statistical spike in an overall pattern of warfare that will continue to trend towards peace. I'd take it a step further and say that the Russo-Ukrainian war is even the exception that proves the rule. We are shocked by the level of violence of the Russo-Ukrainian war because these sort of high intensity wars just don't happen anymore, and the crushing economic sanctions, universal condemnation, and tarnished reputation Russia is facing perfectly demonstrate why these sort of wars just don't happen anymore. At least that's my view.
I suppose one mechanism that comes to mind which might produce new flashpoints is if the war in Ukraine and possible war over Taiwan go so badly for Russia and/or China that they actually fracture into smaller states which, not being members of the global systems that are often credited with incentivizing peace (EU, UN, NATO), could squabble with each other as frequently as pre-WW2 Europe (China has a long history of breaking up into smaller parts, and Russia apparently still has a number of subordinate republics and regions with distinct identities (it would be a shocking and unlikely turn of events, but how many people saw the breakup of the Soviet Union coming?)). That's the only mechanism I can think of by which the war(s) of the 2020s could trigger a return to pre-WW2 levels of warfare. But I don't think it's particularly likely. Of course there could be other mechanisms that I just haven't thought of. After all, just because I haven't thought of it doesn't mean it won't happen.
But what do you think? Do you think we are merely witnessing a brief interruption in the Long Peace? Or do you think we are seeing a return to "normal" levels of warfare after an 80 year statistical anomaly? Or do you dispute that the Long Peace was ever a thing? Do you think everything I've written here is complete BS? Please, tell me your thoughts?
*<my reasoning for the timing of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, if it happens, and why it won't happen after 2030 if it doesn't happen before 2030> Chinese strength will continue growing for few years, peaking sometime this decade, and then decline as demographics catch up with them (barring a black swan technology, such as AI advanced enough to completely replace all human labor (demographics would become pretty irrelevant to economic growth in that case)). So this decade is a bit of a now or never moment for them. If war doesn't come by 2030 then we can breath easy, because it means they elected "never" (caveat: I could just be wrong about all of this because I actually know far less than I think I do).
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On 5/31/2022 at 10:40 AM, Cederic said:
Russia has gas and oil, and as soon as they get the chance the EU will relax all sanctions on those, assuring a strong flow of foreign currency into Russian coffers.
Russia will probably start seeing some renewed gas and oil sales to Europe after the war is over. Less the longer this war lasts though. The longer this war takes the more time the EU has to reduce their dependency on Russian oil and gas by securing other suppliers and switching to other power sources. And in the long term, the EU has seen just how dangerous it is to be dependent on Russia for anything. Any renewed sales Russia sees to Europe after the war will be short term, and will dwindle to nothing over the course of the decade. The days of oil and gas sales were numbered anyway, since solving climate change is a high priority. But Russia really accelerated, if not the demise of the global oil and gas industry, at the very least the demise of their own oil and gas industry.
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On 5/31/2022 at 5:35 AM, kraze said:
This war is a proof that quantity doesn't have "quality of its own". They even outnumbered us in hardware, still do. And they constantly cut down on their goals.
I'm not so sure. Honestly looking back at the numbers at the start of the war, between the regular army, territorial defense units, and other forces contributing to Ukraine's ground strength, Ukraine had over 200,000 fighters to the 190,000 Russian troops that massed for the initial invasion. So I'm not so sure that Russia ever had a numerical advantage. Their numerical hardware edge was never that great to begin with (in terms of active forces, obviously some of the higher estimates of their reserve and stored equipment looked pretty intimidating) with ~3,000 active tanks to Ukraine's ~2,000 active tanks at the start of the war (albeit Ukraine had very few in reserve or storage). And when you consider that Russia couldn't have massed all of their active tanks at once for the invasion they may actually have been at a slight numerical hardware disadvantage. If at the start of the war you thought that all Ukrainian tanks were T64BVs and all Russian tanks were T72B3s then you could be forgiven for thinking that the Russians had a huge qualitative hardware edge. But of course the reality is that a lot of the Ukrainian T64BVs were T64BV model 2017s. And a lot of the Russian tanks were older T72Bs, T80BVs, and T80Us. So overall Russia may have only had a slight qualitative hardware edge. About the only area where the Russians had a clear edge was in the air, which is important but has never been decisive by itself.
Honestly, if we hadn't been so enamored by the myth of Russian military might, and just looked at the actual numbers on the ground and applied our pre-war rules of thumb (and add in the fact that the Russians were attacking at literally the worst possible time of year), we really should have predicted that the Russian advance would bog down. Perhaps it wasn't unreasonable to predict (assuming that both sides fully mobilized to an equal degree, and that the west didn't send weapons to Ukraine, and that Russian wouldn't be heavily sanctioned) that Russia would eventually win. But it should have been obvious from the start that their initial invasion forces wouldn't be up to the task. Honestly I had guessed that the Russians would have a hard time of it early on, but then I kept revising up the Russian capabilities because I kept assuming that they knew what they were doing. "They wouldn't launch an invasion if they don't know it will succeed" I kept telling myself. "Their generals must know something I don't" I kept telling myself. As we started seeing an early thaw in mid February I started telling my family "historically, this is a bad time of year to invade", and "mud can really bog down an advance". But then I started telling myself "The Russians aren't stupid, they must be aware of the impact of mud, it must not be as important as I thought" and "Bagration was a huge success despite the marshy terrain, mud must be less important than I'd assumed". When I saw the estimate of 190,000 troops on the Ukrainian border I thought "is that all? To invade such a large country?". But then I thought "it must be enough, they aren't stupid after all". But no, they were just inept. The whole "no one could have predicted this" refrain is total BS. All the evidence was there and clear as day. We should have given Russia less credit, and Ukraine more credit, from the very beginning. That is on us. There is no excuse. We let the myth of Russian strength distract us from the actual numbers and conditions.
My key takeaway from this war is this: When predicting the course of a war, do not let the perception of the aggressor's strength or competence make you second guess the actual numbers on the ground and historically tested rules of thumb. Yes, in training and wargames you should assume that your enemy is competent. But, when it comes to the real world, remember that just because it's a stupid idea doesn't mean they won't do it. And just because they are doing it doesn't mean that it isn't a stupid idea.
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On 5/30/2022 at 11:12 AM, dan/california said:
I have great deal of concern about the viability of manned aircraft even five years from now, but at this moment we have an air force that nobody else can touch.
Manned aircraft will be around for a long time yet. I believe the sixth generation of jet fighters (and keep in mind that we are only just beginning to really build the fifth generation in earnest) are expected to be a hybrid system of a manned primary platform with several smaller unmanned wingman platforms (at least that's one proposed version of it). It probably won't be until the 7th, or even 8th generation of jet fighters that we go fully unmanned (although by then it will be more than just "unmanned", but fully autonomous). So a fully unmanned airspace is likely several decades away yet. But I suspect it is coming.
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On 5/30/2022 at 12:37 AM, LongLeftFlank said:
Ha, with T72Bs now joining the 62s and BMP1s, if the US throws in some NG M60s on top of the Leopard 1s and M113s, maybe we'll need to hound @Bil Hardenberger and @The_Capt for a new CMCW module instead of Steve and Charles!
Regrettably I don't think we have any M60s left (I believe that even the few hundred M1A1 SAs we have in service are getting to the point where they are starting to be considered quite old). But even a couple months ago I was blown away by the amount of Cold War era stock the Russians were using. I guess my pre-war image of the Russian army was that everything they had was T72B3 or newer. So yeah, a potential future CMCW module (if they nudge the timeframe forward a bit) and CMBS module could have a lot of equipment overlap. In fact they might as well just keep CMCW in its current time-frame and let a CMBS 2022 module scratch that mid-late 80's itch.
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On 5/27/2022 at 7:01 AM, Erwin said:
Pics would look even better if you disabled the colored bases. I forget the keyboard command, but it is simple.
Thanks, I think I found the command (I don't remember off the top of my head, but the hotkeys menu has been very useful). But I'll probably keep the bases on. I need to either have my units at the default exaggerated scale, or have the colored bases on, in order to find them on the battlefield. I kind of like having them at the realistic scale, so that means colored bases stay on.
The main issue I'm trying to figure out is how to eliminate (or at least reduce) the lag in the recording. There is no lag when I play, but the recording is choppier than a really enthusiastic chef. I suspect that part of the issue may be that I am trying to do this on my laptop (my desktop doesn't exactly have a working graphics card at the moment), which just doesn't have as much power to handle both gameplay and recording.
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I'm sure someone has already posted this video (I am finding it hard to keep up with this thread). But I have to wonder if there was a squad inside that BTR when it was hit? I didn't see any Russian infantry around the BTR in the footage. They may have been in the trees nearby. But it isn't unlikely that they were all mounted up. Killing a BTR is a win any day. But I don't need to tell my fellow CM players just how satisfying it is to take out an APC that is crammed full of infantry.
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On 5/22/2022 at 6:02 PM, Artkin said:
Exhausted units are such drama queens I swear.
Their accuracy shouldnt be affected. I have never noticed anything like that before
I have not been able to tell if their accuracy is affected in game. But realistically it certainly should be affected. Aiming requires concentration, and I sure as heck can't concentrate on things when I'm tired. Spotting should also be harder for exhausted units, but I haven't tested whether it actually is.
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Solution here:
and one link closer to the actual solution here:
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BTW someone has actually managed to solve this. At the very least, it worked for me (running Mint) and Andriko (running Manjaro).
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10 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:
Politico article about Poland's calling out of Germany for not fulfilling it's agreement to send Leopards to replace Soviet type tanks shipped to Ukraine:
The interesting bit in here is I finally saw a number for how many tanks Poland moved into Ukraine -> 240.
This is one of the reasons I am saying that Ukraine is already over the hump in terms of rearming itself. According to Oryx, Ukraine has lost a total of 177 tanks (including some that were recovered) and captured 244 (54 are listed as "abandoned", so I presume not usable). If we do simple math, Ukraine 36% more tanks than when it started the war. What's more, the Polish and many of the Russian tanks are better than the tanks Ukraine lost.
The Polish tanks alone are enough to outfit 5 tank battalions and have some left in reserve. That's more than enough to outfit an entire Tank Brigade.
We'll see if Ukraine can get more tanks, but I think they've got enough to do what they need to do this summer with what they already have.
Steve
I'm not sure we can yet confidently say that Ukraine has more tanks now than they started the war with. At least not with these numbers alone. For one, Oryx is only counting visually confirmed tank losses. That means that the tank losses reported by Oryx represent the minimum number of tanks that either side could have lost to date, not an estimate of the actual number that either side has lost to date. The Oryx numbers are certainly an undercount of both Ukrainian and Russian tank losses. I expect they have probably undercounted Ukrainian losses to a greater degree than they have undercounted Russian losses, since I expect that Russian tank losses are probably more likely to get photographed. The Ukrainians have still probably lost fewer tanks overall than the Russians, but probably not by as wide a margin as is suggested by the Oryx numbers.
I don't know how many of the captured Russian tanks are usable. Certainly nowhere near all of them. But of course even a completely unusable captured Russian tank still represents a pile of spare parts that can be used to bring some damaged Ukrainian tanks back into service.
So how much Ukraine has gained depends a lot on how much Oryx has undercounted their losses, and how many captured tanks = 1 new or repaired Ukrainian tank. If we assume the actual Ukrainian tank losses are twice the Oryx numbers and about 2 captured Russian tanks represents 1 new or repaired Ukrainian tank then, when you add in the Polish tanks, the Ukrainians are just about breaking even on the number of tanks they have now as opposed to the start of the war. If the actual Ukrainian tank losses are less than twice the Oryx numbers, and/or 1 captured Russian tank represents more than 0.5 new or repaired Ukrainian tanks then the Ukrainians have had a net increase in tanks. If the actual Ukrainian tank losses are more than twice the Oryx number, and/or 1 captured Russian tank represents less than 0.5 new or repaired Ukrainian tanks then the Ukrainians have had a net decrease in tanks since the war started.
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11 hours ago, chuckdyke said:
Yes, I agree.
For the Ukraine there's no such a thing as something for nothing. The people who finance their military will decide the war. Their hope Russia will run out of resources before the West does. putin gambles about the democratic countries voting the financiers out. I hope Ukraine will achieve a decisive victory this summer, I am not holding my breath.
The West massively outmatches Russia to an almost comical degree. There is no danger of the West running out of resources before Russia does. There may be a danger of the West running out of will before Russia runs out of resources though. I'm not sure people have yet fully grasped the level of commitment that will be necessary to guarantee Ukrainian victory, and I am concerned that people will lose interest before we have committed a decent fraction of the aid that is needed. But the West absolutely has the resources to guarantee Ukrainian victory. If the West decides they are in it to win, then Russia has already lost.
I think my biggest fear right now is that the West will try to achieve peace at any price, and demand a ceasefire along the current front lines. This would effectively allow Russia to get away with a bite and hold operation. It would send the wrong message to potential future aggressors.
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1 hour ago, Fernando said:
If the Russians use T-62M, then I guess it would make sense to send the 100 Leopard-1 to Ukraine
I would put favorable odds on the Leopard 1 any day. Neither are ideal for modern warfare. The armor of both the T-62M (and I think I saw some T-62MVs on the train as well) and the Leopard 1A5 is worthless against any modern AT weapon. And both have underpowered guns by modern standards. But at least the Leopard 1A5 has thermal sights and a fire-control system.
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We get to see some R35s in action in June 1940 in this one, albeit in the hands of the wrong faction. I did have to deal with a couple of anachronisms, and like last time I have far fewer infantry than I'm comfortable with. But I am really enjoying the scenario so far.
It's a tad frustrating that CMAK technically has all of the assets you need to represent the French forces in 1940. Except their tanks are locked away as part of the Italian roster, and you can't fudge them into the French forces in a scenario because CMx1 doesn't allow Axis vs Axis. I really hope Battlefront gets into the early war content that was never covered in either CMx2 or CMx1 someday, such as Poland 1939, Norway, France 1940, etc...
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On 5/13/2022 at 2:05 PM, purpheart23 said:
No I can't, but I never argued that. Nowhere in any post that I made to I say I don't want to assist Ukraine in defeating Russia. Because I do, I just keep getting pigeon holed into defending my stance and inferred that I have some particular liking to a particular political side, I don't, I despise all politicians. All I want is accountability to the people of the United States for where our money is spent, regardless of who pays for it, it's coming out of our coffers and it should be measured. After the last two money pits of conflicts we've been vested in I think it's the least we should ask for. All my opinion of course.
A little skepticism about military spending is understandable after the last two wars. But it is worth remembering that Ukraine is fundamentally different from Afghanistan and Iraq. Those two wars had absolutely no influence on our security or our larger strategic interests. We lost Afghanistan just about as hard as it is possible to lose a war, and it ultimately meant nothing. Our position is not the slightest bit weaker for our defeat, which I think really drives home just how much wasted effort went into delaying it. Iraq we somehow managed to win, in the sense that the government we installed is still in place without our continued presence being needed to prop it up. But our position in the world is not the slightest bit stronger for that victory. The money, effort, and lives we poured into those wars really were completely wasted (and I really hope my words here are interpreted as more tragic than callous). So yeah, I get it. I understand feeling a bit jaded about any sort of military spending.
But, unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, Ukraine is absolutely central to our security and our interests. The outcome of this war really will make a big difference to our security and position in the world. Every dime we put into aiding the Ukrainians goes directly to improving the security of our European allies and weakening one of our greatest and oldest adversaries. And frankly Ukraine will be cheaper overall than Iraq and Afghanistan (probably). We spent north of 2 trillion dollars on Iraq and Afghanistan (~2.5 trillion based on my crude google efforts, assuming the top results were correct). I think we should be spending hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, but I doubt it will take anything on the order of trillions of dollars to decisively beat Russia in Ukraine (Russia would have to sustain the fight for years for it to breach the trillions for us, and I don't think that's on the table for them). Although, I would still be in favor of helping Ukraine even if it turned out to be more expensive overall than Iraq and Afghanistan.
Granting that it may take a few hundred billion more to rebuild Ukraine after the war, and that might top a trillion overall when added to the wartime aid. But it would be money well spent. Not only is there the ethical side, where that money would go towards improving the lives of 40+ million people. But it would also be a huge benefit for us strategically, as we would almost certainly gain a longtime ally in Ukraine in just the part of the world where another ally could really matter. And because I have heard a million and a half people say that we shouldn't be engaged in nation building let me preempt any complaints that you may have on that front. This would be completely different from Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of nation building. In Iraq and Afghanistan we were trying to build up countries with populations that viewed us as invaders (because, let's be honest, that's exactly what we were). In Ukraine we would be giving the Ukrainian government the money to rebuild their own country after helping them to repel their invaders. So the local resistance to nation building that we encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan simply wouldn't be present in Ukraine.
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On 7/23/2021 at 8:53 AM, Erwin said:
It's great you are still enjoying CMAK!
Back in early 2000's I spent months designing a 8Km x 4Km max size CMAK map "miniaturizing" the entire African theater from El Agheila to almost El Alamein. Almost gave me a nervous breakdown and had to stop. It's why I have not attempted to design for CM2 which is far more complex.
But, it's the sort of campaign one cannot do in CM2 due to engine limitations and processing power. Also, CM1 has the wonderful "dynamic campaign" feature where one could play on a portion of the maximum size map, and the "window of play" would move depending on the success/failure of each mission.
Re the 88mm, what we don't know is did they start firing at (say) 3Km range and 10 rounds later got a kill when the tank had moved to 1Km. Seems likely that when faced with dozens of tanks, the 88mm would start firing at max effective range where the tanks could not fire back with any accuracy. So many variables like that could have skewed the video's stated conclusions.
Of course! CM1 holds up very well today. I Had to take almost a yearlong break to study for certifications and settle into my new job as a network engineer. But at long last I can finally get back to this. I still have thousands of scenarios to get through. It will take me years just to get through the WW2 content alone (I'll be crawling through in near real time).
For my first mission back I clearly have a lot of rust to knock off of my tactical skills (for the last 10 months I've been thinking more about networking and cybersecurity than tactics). I was soundly beaten by a French rearguard when I lost half my infantry in a single unlucky moment when a full squad was killed in their halftrack (I only had two squads of infantry to work with). I decided that, without infantry, there was no way my armored force could flush the enemy out of the woods and town ahead and that any sensible real world commander would withdraw. I pulled back to my start zone and hit "surrender" because apparently "ceasefire" doesn't work in CM1.
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3 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
This something I've been making copious notes about throughout this entire war. One thing trap we seem to fall into when talking about UAVs is kinda mushing them all into one of two types; things that look and kill, things that can only look. But this is a gross oversimplification of both capabilities as well as missions.
The quadcopters, for example, are FANTASTIC for answering very basic tactical questions. Is there someone on the road we're about to drive down? Someone spotted a flash of something over there, can we get a better look at it? We know there's enemy forces in this section of town, can we get a better idea of their numbers and capabilities? That sort of stuff.
For this sort of task you don't need huge infrastructure, you just need one dude and some direction from a junior commander on the spot.
But if you're trying to figure out what is going on within a large battlespace, then quadcopters are not going to be all that good unless you have a lot of them and the infrastructure to tie all that info together to create a single picture. And even then, it's still likely to be missing a lot of stuff in particular due to range restrictions. So for this sort of larger picture ISR you need bigger UAVs and a room full of people crunching information to make sense of it.
This is the same for weaponized UAVs. Quadcopters with grenades work great to get rid of a single thing that's causing a problem, they don't work well at all against large dynamic forces. Even the bigger UAVs run into limitations rather quickly, but their punchier weaponry has more potential to create an outsized effect. And trying to use UAVs to nail things specific to a larger operational plan... yup, lots of coordination needed to make that happen.
Again, this stuff fascinates me in more ways than I can count
Steve
Some interesting points in here that I hadn't considered. Such as the difference between a small unit leader using a small UAV to gain a bit of tactical intelligence, vs a roomful of analysts using a big UAV to gain operational intelligence. It's at times like these that I really wish I could like your comments Steve.
I suppose smaller UAVs used to gain tactical intelligence will likely proliferate faster than the bigger ones used to gain operational intelligence, since they require far less infrastructure to make use of the information they gain. A high battlefield density of small tactical UAVs seems very likely in the next war, or even late in this war. While a high density of large operational UAVs may have to wait on the development of the right technology or infrastructure to properly make sense of the mass of information they will bring in to that roomful of analysts (some kind of AI probably).
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38 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:
Actually @Haiduk, I'm not sure if you'd have any information on this (at least that you could share), but do you have any idea of how well the modernised T-64BV 2017s and any of the refurbished Bulats (BM and BM2) are doing? I'm currently writing a paper comparing the BV 2017 with the T-72B3 2016 as modernisation programmes.
Sure, MLRS/MARS are very accurate, but their design philosophy is pretty fundamentally different to that of Uragan/Smerch.
I don't know the full details. I understand that the T64BV 2017 has the domestically developed Nozh ERA, which is effective against kinetic energy projectiles, and 2nd generation thermal sights. The un-upgraded T64BV of course has no thermal sights and used Kontakt-1 ERA, which is completely useless against kinetic energy projectiles. There are some other improvements as well, but I'm not sure what they were. Which is to say that the T64BV 2017 is big improvement over the T64BV. I doubt it's the equal to the T72B3 2016, but considering how many older T72Bs the Russians have, the improvements made to the T64BV 2017 are probably more than enough to make it very competitive in this war.
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1 hour ago, purpheart23 said:
That's conjecture, no i'm a fan of being fiscally responsible where it makes sense, we've already armed them with AT, Artillery, ISR assets, who knows what else. If anybody needs to fork over that money, it's the EU, after all they stand the most to lose. When the money finally moves, because it will, politicians gotta get paid you know, why not get receipts?
I'm sorry. Fiscally responsible? While the independence of a democratic country is at stake, war crimes are being committed on a scale not seen since WW2, and we have an opportunity to deliver a massive strategic blow to a long time adversary?
No. We should be talking about spending entire percentages of our GDP to decisively defeat Russia. Not a mere few hundred million dollars. But several hundred billion dollars. No more incrementalism. We should be looking at overmatching the entire Russian GDP in aid to Ukraine. Enough to make it obvious to them that it is economically impossible for them to win, and that their only option is to make peace. That is very doable for us. The Russian GDP is 1.6 trillion. The US GDP is 20 trillion, and the rest of NATO is another 20 trillion. Overmatching the entire Russian GDP would cost the US and her allies ~4% of their respective GDPs. That would be painful, but we can afford to tighten our belts for a year or two to make that happen, and it would be well worthwhile (in WW2 our spending was closer to 40% of GDP). When the war is over we should be looking at spending hundreds of billions more, maybe even a couple trillion, on rebuilding Ukraine with a modern Marshal plan.
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4 hours ago, chuckdyke said:
Yes, I may step on some toes. But I see the way it is going. Ukraine's time is limited sooner or later there will be opposition on the money being spent. It has already started by a guy in the US senate named Rand Paul. According to him you don't help the Ukraine by sending the US bankrupt. No worries he will gain support if not this year but certainly next year.
I suppose US politics are very relevant to the war effort, since continued US support depends on the attitudes of its voters. But I'm not worried on that front. The current administration is very much committed to helping Ukraine, and while I admit a possibility of this turning into a multi-year war (although Russia having the strength to carry it on that long would require that they officially declare war and mobilize) it seems extremely unlikely that it will carry on until the next presidential election. Even if it does, that would basically make Biden a wartime president at the time of the election, practically guaranteeing him the victory (wartime boosts are a very real phenomenon).
In any case, US public opinion seems to be overwhelmingly in support of helping Ukraine. Democrats are obviously opposed to Russia and supportive of protecting a democratic country. Republicans are in a bit of a bind, since their guy has been talking up a big game about how great a guy Putin was for the last several years. And yet, between the fact that Republicans are usually the war party and the obviousness of Russia's aggression, even Republicans are overwhelmingly supportive of Ukraine. The numbers I was able to find claimed 81% of Democrats and 75% of Republicans in support of defending Ukraine. Granting, those numbers were from March. But it seems that American politics has never been more united.
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
In fact capturing the enemy is even better than killing them (although the threat of killing them is usually necessary to capture them, which is why there will never be a war in which enemy casualties are 100% POW and 0% KIA). You get all the same benefits of killing them (one killed or one captured are both a permanent reduction of the enemy's strength by one soldier) plus a few other benefits, such as the potential for intelligence, and the fact that surrendering can be a contagious behavior that can encourage others to surrender. If you kill soldiers who are trying to surrender you discourage other soldiers from surrendering and potentially you will make the enemy fight harder.