Centurian52

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Solution here: and one link closer to the actual solution here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/forum/topic/5207/

BTW someone has actually managed to solve this. At the very least, it worked for me (running Mint) and Andriko (running Manjaro). https://www.gamingonlinux.com/forum/topic/5207/

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

The Ukrainians have almost no Oplots (around 10 in total I believe). They mostly have T64BVs and T64BV model 2017s, with a handful of T80BVs and T64BM Bulats. They also have a handful of assorted T72s (many of them captured from the Russians, I'm not sure how many T72s they had at the start of the war) and the aforementioned insignificant number of T84 Oplots.

Apologies if someone already answered this. This is a very crowded thread. Light basically means they are unarmored (not carried in armored vehicles). Their weapons can be as heavy as you like (in fact they would be considered very poorly armed if they only had small arms, to the point that they might practically be considered unarmed), but as long as they don't have any AFVs they are "light infantry". I could hardly imagine any unit not having ATGMs and MANPADS in a modern war, regardless of how "light" it nominally is. "Heavy infantry" means "mechanized infantry".

That much seems clear. But it has been pointed out to me that improvement is practically inevitable. If enough people get killed, and you fire enough generals, eventually someone is going to figure out what they are doing. It seems that every war in which someone demonstrates total incompetence at the beginning sees them gradually figuring out. The British in the 2nd Boer war, the Soviets in the Winter War, the Soviets in WW2, everyone in WW1. The Russians still have a lot to of learning to do, but they are already performing much better than they were back in February. So I think their competence will only grow with time. But that probably won't be enough to help them. Their strategic situation is only getting worse with time, and it may already be insurmountable.

This is my view. Modern tanks will be rendered obsolete...by more advanced tanks. But until someone comes up with a better way to provide heavy direct firepower than a big-gunned armored vehicle, the tank is here to stay. Like Nicholas Moran said, obsolescence is driven by capability, not vulnerability. Infantry are extremely vulnerable to bullets, and a bullet is a heck of a lot cheaper than an infantryman. And yet infantry have not been rendered obsolete because nothing else can provide the same capability as infantry (granting that in a century or so we may have robots performing the same jobs as infantry). The presence of weapons that the tank is very vulnerable to is not enough to render it obsolete. The development of something which does a better job of providing the same capability is what will render it obsolete. I don't know if perhaps precise enough artillery with short enough call-in times could someday provide the same direct fire capabilities as a tank (hitting a moving target could be difficult). That's the only solution I can think of that would actually render the tank truly obsolete. Any vehicle that tried to take over the role of the tank would quickly start evolving to be very tank-like. Even removing the crew and making it remotely operated, or even fully autonomous, doesn't guarantee that it won't still be called a tank.

I wouldn't be so sure. Personally I expect the war will be over in just a few months. But that is based on the assumption that the Russians have given up on actually beating the Ukrainians, and are merely looking for an opportunity to declare victory and run. But guessing at the intentions of others is always messy. If they decide that they really don't want to lose, and decide to finally admit that this is a real war and mobilize, then it will likely go on for years (the sanctions are hurting, but the Russian economy will not collapse overnight). If the CMBS and CMCW modules are on hold until after the war is over then we should be braced for the possibility that we will not see them for a very long time.

@Bootie I vaguely recall you're the person to contact about getting mods uploaded. Any chance of getting this uploaded? I believe credit goes to Alexander Puzankov on the WineHQ forum for writing the patch, and to whizse on the GamingOnLinux forum for compiling it into a working custom Proton build and uploading it to his dropbox. I have the dropbox link, but I'm not sure if you need Alexander Puzankov and/or whizse's permission first?

That worked! I just loaded up CMCW and everything works! Not flawlessly, since the UI is really tiny (I assume that's related to me having a 4k monitor), but nothing I can't deal with. Any chance of getting this thrown up on thefewgoodmen? I assume someone would need to get whizse's permission. But it probably isn't too much of a stretch to count this as a mod, and I'm sure other Linux users will have a much easier time finding it that way.