Centurian52

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 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.

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.

Personally, I didn't think the guns were too tight to begin with. There are trade-offs with everything, obviously, and with a gun position you want it to be as dispersed as possible, and no more.
Arguing for wider dispersion is the counter-battery threat, which itself varies by enemy, operational situation, tactical situation, and terrain. In general, the Ukrainians seem to have been following an active CB policy (ie, going after Russian artillery assets whenever they get a chance) over the last ... year? But it is unlikely that policy is consistent across the entire front, due to a lack of ammo, deception measures, and lack of sufficient CB C2 infrastructure everywhere. But as a rule of thumb, I expect the Russians would probably want to be more dispersed than perhaps their doctrine would suggest.
Arguing against wider dispersion are a bunch of factors.
Local defence - I'm not sure how porous the front is, or how often Ukrainian raiding parties are hitting battery positions, but a small tight position is MUCH easier to defend against a ground threat that a dispersed position.
Fire mission command and control - in my experience, each section (2 guns) is managed by a junior officer, and he has to keep shuttling between his guns to ensure they are doing the right things in the right way (bearing and elevation is correct, correct ammo, charge and fuse, etc). If the position becomes too dispersed, either those firing checks have to be reduced or overlooked (with consequent increase in risk), or the pace of fire missions drastically reduced. That's on top of the points @BlackMoria made about limited wire and/or radios. A lot of this can be mitigated with fancy-pants new kit, but these are D-30s. I doubt they are very fancy-pants, and I expect they are using methods and equipment that a gunner from the 1980s would feel intimately familiar with.
Terrain - @BlackMoria has noted that this clearing is quite small, which is true, but FWIW to my eye it doesn't appear to be too small for the number of guns being employed*. It's really hard to eyeball, but it looks to be at least 50m between guns, which is a pretty standard dispersion. Also, the entire clearing isn't available for use due to cresting issues with the surrounding trees - get too close to the trees at the front edge of the clearing and you can't safely depress the barrels enough to engage targets - you'd be firing rounds through the trees just in front of you and, um, that's a really bad idea. That's also why you can't just hide your guns in the forest to begin with.
Edit to add: Terrain part 2 - we can't see the wider area around this position. It could concievably be that this is the only, or one of the few, practical positions for this battery to be. Aside from out in the desert, the battlespace rapidly gets clogged up by all the things you want to be there - ammo and logistics dumps, engineer stores dumps, artillery areas, medical areas, helicopter landing zones, reserve fighting positions, staging areas for units moving forwards and backwards, maintenance area, routes for stuff moving forwards, backwards, and sideways, etc. Given that this area also seems to be heavily wooded and sparsely tracked**, there just mightn't be any other good spots for the guns to be, and the battlespace managers at the higher HQ haven't given this battery commander enough ground to be able to disperse they way he might want to.
 
Interestingly, there seems to be only three guns in this battery. I wonder where the fourth is? I'm guessing it is out of action - either broken, or perhaps destroyed in a previous CB engagement - although it could jut be tucked away somewhere out of sight.
Also, the CB mission as shown seemed focused on the guns themselves, which is fair enough because that's what the unaided eye (or drone cam) can see. But somewhere, not too far away - probably within 100m of the centre gun - is a command post. It's a shame they couldn't identify and target that either instead of one of the guns, or in addition to all of the guns. There is probably also an echelon park nearby - probably not more than 200-500m from the command post - with a bunch of trucks and mechanics and technical equipment and other paraphernalia. Replacing a couple of guns is hard. Replacing a couple of guns AND all that other junk, along with the training of the specialists you find there, is really hard.
 
* although, I suppose you could argue that it really was too small, given that all three guns seem to have been taken out. On the other hand, the Ukrainians seemed to be adjusting between the three guns as if they were three point targets. At that point it wouldn't have mattered if the guns were twice, thrice, or ten times as far apart - once the enemy gunners have the intel and time to accurately adjust between your positions you're screwed, regardless of dispersion. It doesn't matter whether that's a battery of guns or a dug in platoon.
** artillery units need access to good routes - ammo is heavy, and in a sustained battle an artillery unit needs a LOT of trucks coming and going to keep it fed.

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.

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.

Fascinating insights into NATO training for Ukraine; what worked and what didn't.
https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1699193558685618235
 

Ukraine will get Scimitars from the UK. I think that's a new one.
 

you should delete this if you have any sense whatsoever, and hope it wasn't seen by the east coast forum admins who are probably asleep

I like and respect Alperovitch but I would be very wary of single reason explanations of this sort. For instance, it's fairly obvious that Prigozhin's ability to defend himself from the vengeance of Shoigu, etc (even if were pretending Putin wouldn't attempt it himself) was dependent on money and power that Wagner's continued, profitable existence provided. The struggle over those assets was a factor but only in the sense that they wanted to deprive Prigozhin of that resource so that he couldn't threaten them again.  To call it simply a business dispute is like calling a potential war involving Taiwan a fight over computer chips. Here, Alperovitch is missing the forest for the trees.

Dmitri Alperovitch articulates that the main reason for Prigozhin's demise is his refusal to abandon his businesses in Africa to the rest of the Russian government mafia. 
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/09/05/yevgeny-prigozhin-assassination-vladimir-putin-wagner-deal-revenge/
Some excerpts, tho i strongly suggest clicking and reading thru the entire piece. 
So instead of some big play for the big boss, just a underling trying to keep his grasp on his share of the empire and unfortunately not taking the hint that he was done? Alperovitch brings up some decent points, that many high ranking people in Russia have given condolences for his death, Putin himself did not keep too much distance away from him, meeting him only a week after Prig supposedly almost went for his head.
 

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I think the issue is that the supply is constrained. The UK seems to retain small stockpiles of most munitions and IIRC has not procured 120mm HESH rounds since the 2000s. The are no NATO allies to fall back on either.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.