NamEndedAllen
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Posts posted by NamEndedAllen
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Long time Mil sim friends and I have been playing this for several weeks. Written by Navy guy, and essentially Harpoon in space, so three dimensions. Perhaps a bit challenging to manipulate the controls for where you want to go, at least until you get the hang of it. Good practice in awareness of EW and jamming, using and countering. Not sure how finished it is at the moment, all these months later. - it could use more work!
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6 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:
Our friends at Hormadske have done it again:
Steve
This why they fight!
(not because the USA is tricking them into a fool’s errand) -
7 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:
Here's a chuckle for a Sunday. It is from last night's Saturday Night Live host monologue by Dave Chappelle. I'm posting it here because it's funny, but also it shows how Ukraine's ability to fight is perceived in the US. Yet another example of how Ukraine and its allies have achieved a decisive victory in the information war against Russia:
Steve
P.S. the whole monologue was hilarious
Can’t “like”, but I do! Stealable line that should come in handy:
”I don’t want to say anything bad about (a certain Senate Candidate) because he is black. But, um… -pause-…He is observably stupid.” Easily adaptable to a number of Russian officials of all sorts.
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No problem starting any CMx1 or 2 programs with Win10 (extremely stable on both my desktops) either with Windows Defender or Avira at plus Malwarebytes AND system Mechanic - all doing their real time thing, which are aimed at web protection as well as suspect executables. CM executables have *never* been flagged or quarantined by any of my AV or malware utilities.
Longbow 2 has! Often, although those days are sadly over now that DCS replaced it. And mods for certain entirely innocent automobile programs that have nothing to do with any kind of larceny or mayhem or bodily harm or anything at all except shiny pretty cars and stuff. Honest.
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The droll trolling on Russia continues. -
The Ukrainian drone boat in public and plans for future. In case this hasn’t already been posted.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraines-shadowy-kamikaze-drone-boats-officially-break-cover -
Two scenarios
1. Weather, restoration of troops and equipment, consolidation of territorial changes, etc combine to bring the war to a slow grind of local probes and engagements., if not a complete freezing of the lines. Two boxers in a clinch. Europe is cold and some industries struggle for lack of energy. A mood of stagnation settles over the perception of the Western public’s sense of the war. The Russian mobilization training finally produces large numbers of fresh troops with more credible training, good for strengthening their lines and forcing local breakthrough attempts. With no significant victories or defeats on the battlefield, political initiatives to convince Ukraine to negotiate take hold.
2. Over the past few months, Ukraine has wargamed numerous versions of maintaining the overall counter offensive, with USA and European partners’ information and advice. Also, it realized that stagnation during a long cold winter with no progress could begin to undermine the political resolve of various European individual nations, while large segments of the USA public lose sense of urgency about the war and turn inward to address their own vexing issues. Meanwhile, frequent volleys of new Iranian ballistic missiles will take a toll on civilian and some military infrastructure. And the last thing Ukraine needs is for the Russians to have the time to construct serious, extensive defensive lines in more and more key locations. With all this factored in, Ukraine has committed to new coordinated powerful thrusts in ______.and______Also in a sudden and surprising effort______?
Which scenario will happen?
OK, my real question is how do you think the Ukrainian forces will maintain their momentum and keep the overall initiative? Will the presumed strengthened Russian offensive overcome the Bakhmut defense and continue? Will they attempt or threaten a second offensive, perhaps from Belorussian territory in an attempt to tie down freed up Ukrainian units from Kherson, and to lessen chances of a new major Ukrainian thrust?
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2 hours ago, FancyCat said:
A nuclear armed state like Russia will never be neutralized. Let’s just get that out the way. Next, Putin is very unlikely to be overthrown, 3rd, the only goal is for Ukraine to regain all lands, as a result, anything that allows Ukraine to pursue that goal, including negotiations is good. Nothing has indicated the talks need to have Ukraine say anything but “get off our land” as a condition for ceasefire in the same manner, Russia spent the prior talks giving the same unrealistic conditions for peace.
Agreed. But the best seat to be in for negotiations is to have an overwhelmingly strong position on the battlefield with no letup and no relief in sight for the other side.
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6 hours ago, kevinkin said:
This report today mentions something that is or could become the elephant in the room:
Ukraine fatigue.
There were military expediencies for sweeping the RA out of Ukraine as fast as possible during the late summer. But there are public relations/policy reasons as well. Did the US drop the ball here? Patience is key right now, but tell that to John Q Public who likes to see their money behind immediate winners. Given their attention span is as limited as their understanding of how important this war is, support for Ukraine has to be maintained through effective communication about the stakes involved. And this does not have to be propaganda. Polls don't capture US long term commitment to Ukraine. Ask about the World Series yesterday and the polls would show a lot of support for the upstart Phils. This morning those people are just moving on to something else entertaining. Support for Ukraine in the US boils down to those polled feeling sorry for Ukraine and their suffering as they watch horror unfold in 30 sec news clips. It is not a bedrock type of support. But it could be. Putin does a good job positioning himself as evil. The West has to do an outstanding job. Then I think the poll numbers will reflect positive public sediment for long term support of Ukraine including re-building. Right now the positive polls could change in a heart beat.
These are important points, and underscore the importance of not assuming as given the absolute long term support by the USA. It also underscores why delaying the weapons needed for an inescapable Ukrainian victory is such a gamble. And that gamble is with all the suffering and lost lives of the Ukrainians fighting for their nation’s survival. Wait too long and the *odds* shoot up that the notoriously fickle USA public will simply move on to internal issues and budget (madness).
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4 hours ago, markshot said:
I saw the topic, but when click on the link or any link, I got a logon screen for some "citrix" file service?
How are we supposed to get our patches these days?
Thanks.
Hi Markshot! Longtime Master of Many Complex Games!!
I’ve seen this when I first downloaded a demo, long ago. Baffling. But learned by experiment that the message will pop up if you are not eating cookies. I mean, not letting your machine’s browser accept them. But if you already have the browser set to eat them, there must be another setting gone awry.in Firefox for this, I set the Privacy level for cookies to “no third party”, or whatever the setting that is the last one before Block All Cookies. Hope this works for you, and that you are well and enjoying autumn.
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53 minutes ago, FancyCat said:
Seen some discussion around Kherson and whether Russia is truly retreating or not and whether Ukraine is making a mistake by not contesting the retreat by advancing rapidly to pin the Russians down, i just want to point out, the most important goal should be the withdrawal of Russian forces from Kherson, and Ukraine retaking the whole right bank of the Dnipro.
If that can be achieved by allowing Russia to move resources back to the left bank under fire, without utterly destroying Kherson in urban combat, even if it allows Russian forces to escape in larger numbers and equipment, preserving Ukrainian equipment and the lives of its soldiers and civilians are much more important overall and benefits Ukraine way more than pinning Russia down in Kherson.
Strongly agree! Saving yet another of Ukraine’s cities from destruction, and the desolate suffering of its residents would be a tremendous victory. I do doubt the Russians will not do a fair amount of damage or sabotage regardless.
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12 minutes ago, sburke said:
“pro-Putin conservatives (msn.com”
Rather says a lot about the internal USA political status. Pro Putin conservatives. In the USA. In the very circles where once the term for Russia was “The Evil Empire.”
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https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/xq-58a-valkyrie-flies-longer-higher-heavier-in-recent-testTo date, the U.S. Air Force is the only known entity to have purchased Valkyries, and has been using a growing fleet of these drones to support various research and development and test and evolution efforts. The most well known of these is Skyborg, Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) led project centered on the development of an artificial intelligence (AI) driven "computer brain" and other associated technologies that could be integrated into various types of drones with high degrees of autonomy.
As Kratos notes here, the XQ-58A's ability to operate autonomously in a 'radio silent' mode has potential benefits when it comes to penetrating through or at least evading threats. It of course also enables the drone to continue its mission or at least attempt to safely return to base in an environment where the threat of electronic warfare jamming is high, something at the U.S. military, among others, expects to be the case in virtually any future high-end conflict. A swarm of such drones would have the additional benefit of being able to operate a distributed 'mesh' data-sharing network to provide additional resiliency against electronic warfare attacks and to cooperatively act as a team.….
Kratos' press release also noted that this particular test flight was in support of an AFRL effort called Autonomous Collaborative Enabling Technologies (ACET), which "is focused on developing Autonomous Collaborative Platforms (ACP) such as Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA)." CCA is part of the Air Force's over-arching Next Generation Air Dominance(NGAD) future air combat initiative, and is expected to revolve around multiple tiers of uncrewed platforms with high degrees of autonomy intended to work together on various levels with crewed aircraft to perform a host of different missions, as you can read more about here. NGAD also includes work to develop a stealthy crewed sixth-generation combat jet, as well as advanced sensors, weapons, engines, networking and battle management systems, and more, all of which will form a new air combat 'ecosystem' whole.
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2 hours ago, Artkin said:
It was via memory, it appears I was off by 100 billion. Oops.
I just remember it jumping about 200 billion from where it was: ~650 billion. Reuters says it will be over 800 billion next year.
Most are saying 778 billion for 2022, but many websites are giving different values. This website gives 778 billion for 2020... so not sure. With inflation I would say the numbers are about right.
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/military-spending-defense-budget
China's buying power is estimated to be much higher than it's value in USD indeed. I wonder how much of an impact their cramped geography has on their GDP.
Perun had an excellent in depth video, posted here not too time ago, with an in-depth analysis of China’s military spending and production…compared to the USA’s. Among many reasons why their budget is “smaller” but is producing vast increases in modern platforms are, just a couple big ones are:
1. Their budget isn’t transparent! Much production and procurement occurs in other parts of their economy, government and industry. Which as you know are strongly intertwined.
2. Their force pay is far far lower. The USA military must compete with private industry for the high skill sets that the modern military incredibly requires. That is money not available for buying ships, subs,planes, and AFVs.
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9 minutes ago, Artkin said:
As DanFrodo already said: Defense spending can be toned down if Russia is less of a problem. They already have 2500 destroyed MBT's alone according to the UA mod, and 1400 on Oryx. That's their primary fighting arm totally gone. Also it's not like they have the production of the Soviet Union. Since 1991 Russia has declined.Sure, but “toned down” is a squishy, unknown amount! And might be swamped by inflation whether at the low 2-3 old planning purposes or the current percentage. Not to mention that the Chinese military capability is growing quite fast. Which also weighs against a hypothetical decrease in defense against Russia (the war is far from over, as is Russia).
I’m not clear whether your brief big bolded billions number means you want to shrink the authorized strength of each branch of the USA military? Stop procurement of new generations of platforms? Etc. But shouldn’t that discussion be in a new thread? Given the impact of the Ukraine war on thinking about war fighting AND the rise of China, that new forum topic would be interesting.
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23 minutes ago, Artkin said:
There is no right or left in this country, only American.
Wouldst that that were what every USA citizen believed and acted on. Especially in Congress, where both Parties have specific Caucuses that are far Left and far Right. But I applaud your sentiment. May it some day, some how come to pass.
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7 minutes ago, Artkin said:
Allocate funds where they are the most useful.
Good point! But according to who? Isn’t that the very point of political policy debate? And we lack an universal absolute correct crystal ball answer that includes knowledge of future potential developments 5, 10 years out. Plus we have competing challenges, needs, and knowledge in a highly complicated diverse array of groups of citizens - all within a gigantic population of over 330,000,000. No simple answers here.
The value of this line of posts is to illustrate the danger of single point predictions and assumptions about critical issues in the future. Ukraine support by the USA might be unchanged over the next two or three years and the Western Alliance will hold fast. But it may not! One Party has a more complex love/hate stance about Ukraine (whether based on reality or not). It would be folly to assume one outcome for support in that time frame. There are a range of degrees of support, not just All or Nothing. Or just a little change, so just assume same as “All”. Bottom line is that even that incoming Party doesn’t know it’s Ukraine policy until its leadership tests various positions in House and Senate caucus vote counts.
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1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:
Though, to be fair to the left, they would like to see the whole defense budget zeroed out so at least they are being consistent with larger goals
Assuming your wink is meaning you are kidding about this rather large example of what was criticized right before it!
I fear we will stray into the USA political quicksand and suffocate by even *attempting* to plainly describe any factual, relevant developments in both the opinions and the potential range of policy changes affecting support for Ukraine in all forms, by the incoming Party in control of government.
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1 hour ago, danfrodo said:
Hear hear! F YES! Way to cut thru the nonsense Artkin!
What they heck is the dang military budget for if not for what is happening right now. And we are blessed that we can do this w/o US citizens dying. Worth every cent. Putin chose to threaten the world in the stupidest way possible and thus we are able to fight back in a very direct way.
Well he has a point. All those superior weapon systems that are regularly developed - and consume all those Billions and Billions of dollars - could easily have been developed for free by hobbyists in their garages. Technology is extremely simple, testing is obviously unnecessary, and of course private enterprise production lines and wages are old fashioned. Who needs them really, because Russia isn’t really a threat. Right? And China? China? Um, yes. They make things we buy. Can’t be a threat either. Budget problem now solved!
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3 hours ago, dan/california said:
NamEndedAllen, got it, my brain misfired the first time I read it, and just stuck there.
Edit: So sorry, meant to say that the first time...
Much appreciated - and it is an awkward looking choice. But when I wrote up a brief account as he told it, it was the title that came to me. Keeping memory of his bravery alive.
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45 minutes ago, dan/california said:
Name_ended_Allen is making a reasonable case that real long range strike would work better, and faster. I am totally open to that argument. One way or the other though the Russians have to get the message that they just are not winning this, and ought to consider going home while they have some semblance of an Army left.
Thanks! Even the proverbial blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while.
But please note, handle is NAM_, not Name. Honoring the memory of my childhood best friend, which was effectively ended following his special ops missions there. Much like “Life goes on, even when the thrill of living is gone”. Except worse. Never forgotten.
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I keep wondering what the war would look like if the USA immediately provided Ukraine not with the ponderous big footprint (and target)of heavy armor and logistical trains but with the long range known capability to strike critical targets throughout much of European Russia and importantly, Moscow. Just as Russia can and does strike Kyiv. With all the necessary caveats and consequences on permitted usage and rules made clear to Ukraine (and Russia) beforehand. What are the serious, not Russiaphile, problems with such a policy? Fear of winning? The frog has been slowly boiled long enough, with strikes into Russia and occupied Crimea, that the extended artillery/missile range is not the leap that the appearance of the blatantly visible USA Abrams, Bradleys, F-16s, and huge logistics would be. Instead, it is a *deterrence* action only.
Accompanied by the public announcement by Ukraine - and private by the USA, to Russia along these lines:
From now on, any Russian strikes on civilians or civilian infrastructure will be met by equal and proportionate retaliation, for which Ukraine now openly has the means. Just as Russia has deterrent nukes. And just as international norms of modern warfare explicitly permit. That the world and Ukraine has had enough of Russia’s illegal aggression against a sovereign nation and will no longer tolerate the threat to the rest of Europe and to a peaceable world. If Russia wishes to continue losing militarily, the lines are there and Ukraine can and will meet and continue to defeat the Russian military. But henceforth no further heinous Russian crimes against humanity will go unpunished. Lastly, further Russian attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure will result in the USA labeling Russia a state sponsor of terrorism with all the consequent authorized sanctions against persons and nations that trade with Russia, as set forth here.
https://www.state.gov/terrorist-designations-and-state-sponsors-of-terrorism/
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5 hours ago, dan/california said:
The problem right from late March is that the we have been too scared of what winning means.
This, in a nutshell. For about everyone except Ukraine. Fear of winning. A known and treatable condition?
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From ISW’s Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, October 31
“Russian forces conducted another massive wave of missiles strikes targeting critical Ukrainian infrastructure across the country on October 31, likely in an attempt to degrade Ukraine’s will to fight as temperatures drop. Russian forces fired over 50 Kh-101 and Kh-555 missiles from the northern Caspian Sea and the Volgodonsk region of Rostov Oblast, targeting critical Ukrainian energy infrastructure.[1] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian air defenses shot down 44 out of over 50 Russian missiles.[2] Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal reported that the strikes damaged 18 mostly energy-related targets across 10 Ukrainian regions.[3] Ukrainian officials reported that Russian strikes cut off water to 80% of Kyiv residents on October 31 and left hundreds of thousands without power.[4]”. -https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-31
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
As predicted!
Washington Post
By Michael E. Miller, Anastacia Galouchka, Kamila Hrabchuk, Bryan Pietsch and Leo Sands November 14, 2022 at 2:01 a.m. PT
KHERSON — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited this southern Ukrainian city recaptured just days ago by his country’s troops, saying in a speech at the central square that it was the “beginning of the end of the war.” Standing in front of a raucous crowd of several hundred people, Zelensky said that Western-supplied weapons had played a crucial role in recent battlefield victories, but that the victories were paid for in Ukrainian blood. Zelensky’s visit comes as the city assesses the damage and evidence of what he said included “hundreds” of war crimes left by months of Russian occupation. Basic services — including water and power supplies to the city’s postal system — are slowly being restored for Kherson’s residents as efforts begin to return life to normality.Meanwhile, heavy fighting continues in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.