dbsapp

Those sneaky Russians want to divert our attention from innocent Ukraine SS divisions and righteousness ethnic cleansing plans! Isn't it a despicable whataboutism?

The really sorry thing is these are the people who really believe in it. They do believe they are serving a noble cause by cleansing Eastern Ukraine of people who are not "sufficiently Ukrainian". They would prefer an open war over giving up an inch of their beliefs. There's something profoundly wrong about people who think that every inch of an ideology of a kind is more important than people's lives.
No, there will be a sigh of relief in every corner of Russia if a war can be avoided this way or another. Ukraine will probably cease to exist in the current form yet it will be a catastrophe for Russia as well.
He believes if Ukraine will continue to grow stronger militarily (through NATO membership or through massive arms transfer) then a war is unavoidable sooner or later. And reading Haiduk I think he has a reason to think so. So all he wants is that Ukraine is not put over the threshold when it can venture to do what Saakashvili did in 2008. I'm far from being a Putin's fan yet to me personally it does not seem a price too high for avoiding tens of thousands deaths from both sides.
Ukraine recently closed several TV channels and banned a political party that started to acquire significant popularity. The party never cried for Putin to come their only fault was they were considered more predisposed to find SOME accommodation if it ever comes to power. Ukrainian Far Right have a clear idea of what kind of Ukraine they want and they are ready to go any length to make sure it's the only way Ukraine can ever live. They take no prisoner neither with foreign policies nor with their own populace who dare to be less ideologically pure. If need be they are ready to stage a coup and overthrow a democratically elected government.

Sometimes I think that Haiduk is Kremlin's troll, who infiltrated to this forum for anti Ukrainian propaganda.  He must add "but we will correct them in labour camps", but it would be too fat.

What for? We've seen US failing in Afghanistan and Iraq and US has immensely more resources than Russia.
He said it himself. He does not want Ukraine joining NATO. Ukrainian military and political leadership constantly talks about crushing Crimea and L/DNR the way Croats did with Serb Krajina (Operation Storm). Right now Russian forces outmatch Ukrainian so it would be suicidal for the Ukraine to do so. Yet Putin obviously believes that if Ukraine joins NATO then having full support of NATO behind them they will start a war.

Isn't it Ukraine itself that demands from the outside world to make sure it is able to go on corrupting itself with Gazprom transit money? 😉

If you remember Haiduk openly said in a discussion in 2014 or 2015 that people from the East of Ukraine who want to speak Russian should pack up and move to Russia. And if they don't do it by themselves then ideologically pure Ukrainians (obviously from the Western Ukraine) will make sure they do. As a side note I'm far from being a fan of the current brinkmanship - certain folks in Russia should stop living in the past, start thinking about economy of today etc.

Obviously Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan have your support  Because their respective surrender documents of WWII were signed exactly at gunpoint. Diplomatic agreements exists not to make one side morally superior to the other but to avoid / stop wars.

It's worse than that. European energy companies CAN buy additional gas from Russia as part of the long term contracts. Yet they chose not to do so since this gas is sold at current spot market prices and European energy companies believe they will fall after the winter period ends.

Ukrainian Su-25 bombs Lugansk on 02.06.2014.

Thanks for the kudos for the Carius CMRT scenario. That is based on the facts and focussed on the main event and used both German and Russian sources to create the narrative (Note: carius in his account creates a totally fictional and non-corroborated meeting engagement after the encounter at Malinava). The mysterious heavy tank brigade (‘Josef Stalin’) as described by Carius and engaged by the Tigers never existed. In fact the company commanded by Carius was in action against the 41st Tank brigade (T-34 and M3 medium tanks) and the 48th Guards Heavy Tank Regiment, both from the 5th Tank Corps. The first lost some 10 T-34 destroyed at Malinovo/Malinava on 22.07, the latter - 5 IS-2 (sources http://zhurnal.lib.ru/m/marchenko_r_a/poteri5tk.shtml).
So 'fraid video gets a huge thumbs down from. A mish-mash of incorrect factoids. Even simple corborotion with Carius' own account would get this half way correct. Such poorly researched slick video productions really boil my piss though - its al clicks and likes and nothing of any substance. The men involved all deserve better, especially the Soviet tankers who were killed in this engagement. For the full Soviet KIA names list scroll down. A key factor in the success of Carius’ unit attack can be attributed to fact that these tank crews of the Soviet 3/41st Tank Brigade were mainly inexperienced reinforcements. The battalion has come up to brigade on the evening of the 21st June 1944. It appears the tank drivers had experience of only 3 hours driving their tanks, whilst many of the officers were inexperienced and not ready for a fast and dynamic close range armoured fight. Anyways the full account and sources is below. The vdieo - meh...
Historical Background
On 22 July 1944, 1st Lieutenant Otto Carius with his company of eight Tigers from sPzAbt (Heavy Tank Battalion)502 advanced towards the village of Malinava.
They had been tasked with halting the spearhead of the Soviet 5th Tank Corps, the tip of 4th Shock Army’s spear, which had cleanly broken through Army Group North’s defences.  
The Soviet 5th Tank Corps during their drive towards Dunaburg/Daugavpils were intercepted by a German assault gun battery (on probability most likely elements from Assault Gun Brigade 912 – although it’s difficult to pin this down with any certainty) around 1200Hrs. 
After a short sharp firefight the Soviet armour brushed aside an attack by the assault guns destroying 7 of the assault guns in the process. 
The Soviet tanks went on to cut the main highway, from Daugavpils to Rossiten in Latvia, at Malinava. Their next objective was the city of Daugavpils to the south. 
As panic stricken German troops fled the area, 2nd Company from the sPzAbt 502 under the command of 1st Lieutenant Otto Carius were tasked with intercepting this Soviet armoured spearhead. After refuelling and re-arming they headed out. On their approach to Malinava they heard the sounds of an armoured battle – the firefight between the Soviet armour and the hapless Stug unit. The Tiger unit stopped behind a slight rise to investigate. 1st Lieutenant Carius, along with Sergeant Albert Kerscher (one of the most decorated commanders of sPzAbt 502) took a Kubelwagen and went on ahead to identify the source of the gunfire. 
Somewhere south of Malinava they bumped into a fleeing army Sergeant who warned them of the presence of Soviet tanks up ahead in the village. He was invited into their kubelwagon and the little group carried on. Just before the village, on a reverse slope they parked and proceeded on foot till about a kilometre from the village. Here Carius observed the Soviets moving into position in Malinava and noticed that several T34s were standing sentry on the southern approach into the village. As Carius watched the Soviet tanks begin to ‘circle the wagons’ a motorcycle approached the south. In it was the adjutant from the ill-fated German assault gun battalion. He confirmed that the firefight Carius had heard was the contact between the assault gun unit and the Soviet tanks now taking up position in Malinava. 
Carius recognized that the Russian tanks in the village were only advance troops waiting for the main force to arrive. He decided to recapture the village with a daring 'coup de main' before reinforcements arrived. He decided to attack the village using only two tanks. 
His reasoning for this approach (as he describes in his book “Tigers in the Mud”) was because the situation was so unclear and, in his judgement, would be too risky for the unit to attack on line. Therefore to avoid risking his other vehicles and crews - six Tigers (under the command of 1st Lieutenant Nienstedt who was new to the unit) remained in reserve while Carius and Kerscher's Tigers moved towards the village of Malinava. Speed was the essence of Carius' strategy, as was his desire to avoid unnecessary casualties.
Entering the village, two T-34/85 tanks were observed rotating their turrets. At that moment, Kerscher's Tiger No.213, trailing Carius, opened fire and knocked them out. Both Carius and Kerscher’s Tigers penetrated into the village where they engaged the other Soviet tanks at close range. Carius recalled that the entire battle lasted no more than 20 minutes - Carius and Kerscher's Tigers knocked out 17 Russian tanks (as claimed by Carius in his account in ‘Tigers in the Mud’) during this brief but violent action. His quick and accurate recognition of the situation and the excellent tactics used were the main factors in the decisive outcome. 
Controversy and Discussion 
These are the key facts. However this action (and the following one Carius describes in his book – Tigers in the Mud’) have gathered some critical views – did this really happen? This link provides some background detail regarding the discussion including some very interesting Russian research by S.Morozov about the action simulated in this scenario and the second event described by Carius in his book: 
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=163515 
The discussion and links provided in this forum were crucial for working out what happened where – especially the detail provided by S.Morozov. 
There are a few points regarding Carius’ account (bearing in mind it was written from memory a long time after the actual events) that the evidence available now to researchers doesn’t corroborate. They are: 
The mysterious heavy tank brigade (‘Josef Stalin’) as described by Carius and engaged by the Tigers never existed. In fact the company commanded by Carius was in action against the 41st Tank brigade (T-34 and M3 medium tanks) and the 48th Guards Heavy Tank Regiment, both from the 5th Tank Corps. The first lost some 10 T-34 destroyed at Malinovo/Malinava on 22.07, the latter - 5 IS-2 (sources http://zhurnal.lib.ru/m/marchenko_r_a/poteri5tk.shtml). 
The Soviet brigade commander killed by Carius is a pure fantasy. The most high-ranking Soviet tank officer killed at Malinava on this day was Captain Orlovskiy, CO of the 1st battalion, 41st Tank Brigade (Same source as above). 
The subsequent ambush east of Malinava, in which Carius allegedly destroyed 28 Soviet tanks seems to be a fantasy as well. There are no recorded Soviet tank losses for that day that corroborate the story (or subsequently in the area). However the evidence tallies for the action at Malinava and for it happening reasonably close to Carius’ account of events. 
In Carius’ account there is no mention of the German assault guns being involved in supporting his attack. However there is evidence that indicates that the surviving assault guns from the unit previously engaged by the Soviet tanks, joined in attacking by fire from the north west when the Carius attack went in. It’s also likely they KO’d some of the Soviet tanks claimed by Carius in his book. The evidence of this comes from the German AAR and ironically a German newspaper article about this very action (It can be found as document 18 in "Tigers in the Mud"). Dated 28 July '44, "Review of the War Correspondent Reports - The Bronze Shield". It was written by Herbert Steinert, and it provides some interesting snippets of information. It writes that most Russian tanks were destroyed outside the village (which corroborates well with Morozov's account above and his locations of KO’d Soviet armour in and around Malinava), and here is the interesting part - "Leutnant Carius can chalk up 10 kills for himself, the second "Tiger" had four. Three of the fleeing bolshevist tanks were destroyed by assault guns which had followed the penetration of the tanks." 
A key factor in the success of Carius’ unit attack can be attributed to fact that the tank crews of the Soviet 3/41st Tank Brigade were mainly inexperienced reinforcements. The battalion has come up to brigade on the evening of the 21st June 1944. It appears the tank drivers had experience of only 3 hours driving their tanks, whilst many of the officers were inexperienced and not ready for a fast and dynamic close range armoured fight. 
It can also be speculated that after their victory over the German assault guns that they’d relaxed, or had become overconfident or had perhaps most likely (either because they simply forgot or due to their inexperience) that a vital part of mechanised combat is attentive and alert observation of all arcs that a possible enemy could approach from. Whatever the reasons the young inexperienced Soviet tank crews paid a heavy price – 20 officers and other ranks were killed in the fight. Many were buried by the wrecks of their destroyed tanks on the battlefield. Note: A full list of the Soviet tankers killed at Malinava can be found at 
http://zhurnal.lib.ru/m/marchenko_r_a/karius1.shtml 
These discrepancies aside the bold and decisive attack made by Carius and Kerscher was successful and inflicted heavy casualties on the advancing Soviet armour. When playing this scenario I hope you’ll appreciate how much luck played a part in the success of this attack and in both Carius and Kerscher’s survival. It’s an indication of the odds they gave at surviving this fight that after the fighting was over they’d jumped down of their tanks and hugged each other – relief and thanks? 
As Napoleon once said “I know he's a good general, but is he lucky?” On a tactical scale it was a superb display of AFV technology, skill, training and luck by the German Tiger commanders and their crews – notably Carius and Kerscher. Several days later – on the 24th July 1944 Nienstedt went on to display his own prowess in armoured combat commanding Tiger tanks when outside Dunaburg his command of six Tigers knocked 17 out of 20 attacking Soviet tanks, including 2 assault guns. His Tiger alone accounted for 10 enemy tanks. 
Soviet Casualty List for Malinava
This is the casualty list for the Soviet armoured units engaged at Malinava. Unfortunately the information concerning the detail of the Soviet units is very scarce. However these young men died fighting against Nazi Germany so it’s only fitting their sacrifice is remembered.
Source: http://zhurnal.lib.ru/m/marchenko_r_a/karius1.shtml
Casualty list for 41 Armoured Brigade July 22 1944
KIA
Officers
Captain I.Moroz;
Captain K.Orlovsky;
Lieutenant P.Prokopev;
Lieutenant N.Ravvinsky;
ml. Lieutenant A. Knorpel;
ml. Lieutenant S. Polozov;
ml. Lieutenant F. Bozhenov. He died in hospital from wounds
ml. Lieutenant A.Egorov.
Sergeants.
St.serzhant M. Cherepanov;
Sergeant M. Averyanov;
Sergeant A. Maslov;
Sergeant S. Melnikov;
Sergeant Efimov;
Sergeant E. Krylov;
Sergeant S.Nemirov,
Loskutnikov ;
mL. Sergeant A. Vinyukov;
ml. Sergeant F. Sokolov . 
Casualty list for the 48 Guards Tank Regiment July 22 1944
KIA
Officers
Guard Lieutenant G. Romazanov.
Sergeants
 St.serzhant A.Mikhailov
Schwere Panzer-Abteilung 502
During the 502nd battalions’ deployment (22-26th July 1944) on the north side of the Duna River they destroyed 73 Soviet tanks and 24 anti-tank guns for the loss of only four Tigers. 
The mobile operations the unit undertook severely stressed the Tigers mechanical reliability resulting in a 44.5% operational readiness rate for it’s Tigers. Despite this the penetrative qualities of the Tiger’s 88 allowed small numbers of Tigers to destroy large numbers of Soviet tanks, thereby helping delay the Soviet capture of Dunaburg.
Notable ‘aces’ that served with 502 Johannes Bolter (usually credited with 139 destroyed tanks but the exact number is unknown)

Otto Carius (usually credited with 150+ destroyed tanks but the exact number is unknown)

Alfredo Carpaneto (usually credited with 50+ destroyed tanks but the exact number is unknown)

Albert Kerscher (usually credited with 100+ destroyed tanks but the exact number is unknown)

Heinz Kramer (usually credited with 50+ destroyed tanks but the exact number is unknown)

Johann Muller (usually credited with 50 destroyed tanks but the exact number is unknown)
Designers and Research:
Charlie Meconis and ‘George MC’ McEwan.
 References and Sources
 “Tigers in the Mud: The Combat Career of German Panzer Commander Otto Carius”
Personal account of his combat career – it includes a detailed personal account of this action plus an appendix that has original German sources.
 “Otto Carius Meine Dienstzeit”
Photos and stories chronicle Otto Carius entrance into the Wehrmacht as a volunteer, his life as a soldier, and his victories as a Panzer commander for three and a half years on the Eastern Front. Detailed photos and illustrations of his numerous medals, decorations and documents as well as an interview with Otto Carius about his time in the military.
 “Sledgehammers: Strengths and Flaws of Tiger Tank Battalions in World War II”
Useful overview of Tigers in action operationally and tactically. Has a detailed overview of the ‘big picture’ in which Carius’ 502nd Heavy Panzer Battalion were deployed post Operation Bagration.
 Overview of 502nd’s Combat history covering vehicle losses in combat
 http://www.alanhamby.com/unithist.shtml#502
 Interesting discussion, with numerous views and conjecture plus some new evidence regarding the actions described by Carius in ‘The Ambush’ chapter of his book ‘Tigers in the Mud’:
 http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=163515
 Detailed stats and accounts from the Soviet side of the hill. However it’s in Russian and google translate struggles with an easily understandable translation plus brevity is not one of it’s merits
 http://zhurnal.lib.ru/m/marchenko_r_a/poteri5tk.shtml

I think this is a problem I am facing. For context, I only play QB. Anything short of an Assault in QB will give numbers a lot closer to 1.5:1, maybe 2:1 but I believe even an assault is still well under 3:1 for the attacker in terms of points. So for both Modern and WW2 battles I’m having a very hard time having the mass of armour I need to fight in what I think is “Russian style.” If my enemy is almost at parity to me points wise, what am I to do? 

Great pic!
To build up:
M1 thermal sight modelled in Steel Beasts. You can see one t-62 in the open and one behind bushes at the distance of 1800 meters.

Optical sight:

Concerning Soviet Agava thermal sight. The sight has successfully passed the tests, more than 50 devices were made, but it was not accepted into service. The official reason was not announced, the Army mentioned small vertical field of view. But, as the developers argued, the true reason possibly was military bosses were afraid that field units were not ready to work with sophisticated helium equipment. 

 

Great pic!
To build up:
M1 thermal sight modelled in Steel Beasts. You can see one t-62 in the open and one behind bushes at the distance of 1800 meters.

Optical sight:

Concerning Soviet Agava thermal sight. The sight has successfully passed the tests, more than 50 devices were made, but it was not accepted into service. The official reason was not announced, the Army mentioned small vertical field of view. But, as the developers argued, the true reason possibly was military bosses were afraid that field units were not ready to work with sophisticated helium equipment. 

 

Great pic!
To build up:
M1 thermal sight modelled in Steel Beasts. You can see one t-62 in the open and one behind bushes at the distance of 1800 meters.

Optical sight:

Concerning Soviet Agava thermal sight. The sight has successfully passed the tests, more than 50 devices were made, but it was not accepted into service. The official reason was not announced, the Army mentioned small vertical field of view. But, as the developers argued, the true reason possibly was military bosses were afraid that field units were not ready to work with sophisticated helium equipment. 

 

+1.  This.  Below is a Khrizantema drill.
 
1. Check wind strength and direction. (Wind strength not more than medium.)
2. Give smoke vehicle1 Fast order waypoint short of where you want smoke & upwind of Khriz. Vehicles.  
3. At Fast waypoint give Pop Smoke order.2 (make sure smoke is on (Alt K))
4. Next turn Fast buttoned3 Khriz. vehicles to a shoot position4 behind smoke.
5. Once vehicles are in good LOS location place them on Pause. 
6. Maintain smoke as long as possible / necessary.  Reposition before smoke clears.  If Khrizantema crews become rattled they may not shoot.
Notes: 1)Typically BRM-3K which can Pop Smoke twice with a range of 72m (9xA/S). 2)If vehicle spots OpFor it may engage instead of Pop Smoke.  3)Khris. must be buttoned to use radar and has a minimum range of 400m. 4)Keep at least two open Action Spots between Khrizantema vehicles.     

Well, the Soviets have not been shy to invest in money when they think it's worth it - missile-armed tanks, gas turbine tanks, night vision, titanium hulled subs, all of which would demand the best available at the time. I think one of the big reasons is that ... the early thermal imagers just aren't that good, due to their very low number of elements.
This is what a M1 might look like through an optical sight with vertical FOV of 35 milliradians (~2 degrees) at 1000m:

Here's what it might look like in thermal. It's hot, so it's white, but we are now in grayscale:
A "Generation 0" sight (such as 1PN59) is said to use only 50 elements, so the vertical resolution is 50 pixels:

↑Despite the picture being maximally simplified and the tank is white to simulate how a tank pops out from its environs due to heat, does that even still look like a tank? It might be a good toy for specially trained recce troops, perhaps by making the straw even narrower. As a tank sight ... needs work.

↑This, with 100 lines, is about the level of a 1st generation tank sight. Agava-1 is said to be 100 lines. Leopard 2's first sight, EMES 15, would also be about this level (at 120 elements). Definitely getting better, but if it is say at 2000m, or the tank is hull down so its bottom is blocked, or you are thinking your target are much smaller and cooler infantrymen, or we degrade its contrast ratio by putting a real background behind it, put coverings on it to reduce its heat transmission ... etc, do you want to pay a substantial amount and look through 35 mrad straws for this?

↑Agava-2, at 256 elements. Ah, definitely becoming useful here. That's when the Soviets decided they finally had a viable tank sight ... but then the Soviet Union broke up.
That may well be the main differential point between NATO and the Soviets - whether to accept a resolution less than the 144p which is the crappiest resolution on Youtube or wait for 240p. I think NATO can accept the lower resolution because they are thinking they need to attack hot, mobile Soviet tanks and are willing to shoot at blobs that are only a bit better than a dot. The Soviets wanted something that can help them hunt down hull down tanks, small TOW jeeps and infantry.

Was just thinking about this a little more, and about some of the things brought up in the T-64 thread about spotting. Doesn't a crew's soft factors all play a roll in their ability to spot the enemy? What about leadership & motivation values? I ask this because in game situations, I would think (and @TheCaptain could correct me if I'm wrong) but most scenarios have the Soviets set to their 'Typical' value in the editor, which tends to randomize their overall soft-quality to a lower point than NATO's. I see a lot of veteran and crack units in most of my typical NATO forces, whereas the Soviets tend to predominantly be regular or even green, and with lower leadership values as well. Could this also be an explanation for why the Soviets seem to feel worse in actual non-testing play? Because, well, they are. As I recall the soft factors stats tend to feed into a whole number of different aspects of BFC's combat model and so if one side average 1-2 levels lower on the scale than the other, well theyre just not going to do things as quickly or as well. More time, more casualties, more missed spots. 
If so the question would be 'is it an accurate depiction?' which we could spend in inordinate amount of time discussing to no real end. My own sense was that the Soviet forces were way more uneven in terms of quality than the US Army even in 1979, some units were quite good and a lot were middling or worse. But really how do you measure that, especially in an era as theoretical as Cold War. 

Great video, a Combat Mission: Fall Blau would be so fun, I mean, look how great it is just with what a handful have modders have done with the base game?
 

Assault team fragging and clearing an apartment building. With limited armor support it's the only real way to progress and with proper suppression it's pretty safe.

A Stuka drops it's bomb a bit too close and knocks out a Panzer II, the battlefield went dead silent after with the battlefield filled with smoke and most of the men on both sides instantly pinned.

Mortars hit a friendly trench wiping out an entire squad in seconds except for a single Oberschütze. 

I have, vaguely, started some preliminary work on such a modpack (which is what the Tidbit showcases).
The original CMRT Stalingrad (generally untagged) & [Umlauts factory] modpacks do still work, the only issue is that Fire & Rubble introduced the [autumn] tag which automatically activates in September (originally in CMRT, September was a Summer month) and all of the old urban battle content (including the two @dragonwynn campaigns) were set in September
This has some unintended consequences with regards terrain, snow tags, doodads, tree, bush foilage & some uniforms however, tbh, it's all very cosmetic.

About 7 degrees is the best you can hope for ...

Is there a single "Stalingrad mod" pack?

Coincidentally, I too have been having some fun with the Stalingrad content by @kohlenklau, @NPye, @umlaut & @dragonwynn...

Having some good fun with the Rattenkrieg campaign.