How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Harmon Rabb]

This cartoon from 1982 aged like fine wine.

[poesel]

12 minutes ago, SeinfeldRules said:

I could not find anything in that video that supports that third tweet, although all I had to go off was auto-translated closed captions. Maybe I missed it, but it's a big claim so I'd love to see the proof.

There isn‘t hard proof in that video. He just said that they did something and that Dutch, German & UA specialists were involved as well as external companies. That could be anything between a translation into Ukrainian to an integration into the UA GIS system.

[OldSarge]

Grab your favorite beverage! Another Perun video has dropped!

 

[danfrodo]

9 hours ago, MikeyD said:

Over on a proper news site today I've been contributing to their Ukraine news story chat group by sharing some nuggets from this forum for their edification. I think I'm making people mad at me. Some people just don't like accurate specific, detailed information dropped into the middle of their conversation.

which proper news site?  I'm interested to see what folks are saying.  I am guessing it's lots of Russian SteamRoller stuff.

[Huba]

8 minutes ago, OldSarge said:

Grab your favorite beverage! Another Perun video has dropped!

 

Uuu, time for a Sunday beer indeed! For more reading oriented ppl, I ran across an interesting thread by Gen. Mark Hertling:

 

[danfrodo]

4 hours ago, c3k said:

This points out a recurring theme: because Russia has nuclear weapons, they cannot be pushed too hard to comply with international norms of behavior.

I wonder if anyone in Europe the West is drawing a lesson from this vis a vis Iran's continuing quest to gain nuclear weapons? As insane as Putin seems to be, I cannot imagine how Iran's leadership will act once they gain that type of leverage.

Edited: because it's not just European politicians that seem to have lost sight of the dangers of nuclear proliferation.

Yeah, makes one wish there was some kind of mechanism to limit the chance that Iran was building nuclear weapons.  One with inspections and other safeguards built into it.  Yeah, gosh, wouldn't that be a good idea.  Oh, yeah, we had that.  And it was unilaterally abrogated by previous US president.   So Iran has since been full speed ahead on developing nukes. 

On another subject, I must admit that I was one of the folks that believed that countries that become economically interdependent are very unlikely to go to war or behave in ways that wreck their trade.  So I thought RU pipeline was going to work -- RU needed the money, EU needed the energy, so RU would be hurting itself by bad behavior.  I was soooooooooooooooo wrong.  The only thing I was right about was that RU doing something aggressive that wrecked cooperation would hurt RU much more in the long run than it hurts EU.  No one will trust Putin ever again in any business deal.  Deals might get made but only if Putin pays up front and at a severe price disadvantage. 

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, keas66 said:

Great Article from the Guardian - thanks for the link .

Mind boggling that the  Germans ended up trusting the Russians  that much  and then  without a pause ....

"In February this year, German Green economic affairs and climate action minister Robert Habeck said that gas storage facilities owned by Gazprom in Germany had been “systematically emptied” over the winter, to drive up prices and exert political pressure. It was a staggering admission of Russia’s power to disrupt energy supplies"

 

 

Yes. There was a coordinated campaign on the Russian side to drain stocks and hinder importation of alternatives. There were, for instance, a series of hacks on natural gas storage facilities across Western Europe in the leadup to the war which went unmentioned in the latest flap about "offensive cyberwarfare!!!!" by the United States. US Cyber Command wasn't escalating at all beyond what Russia had already committed to. 

[dan/california]

LOOOOOONG Range.

[dan/california]

Stuffing all this in one post, because it all seems to point to the same thing. The Russians are having a comprehensively bad day.

[dan/california]

And a map finally!

[sross112]

8 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Germany is another story. Apart from it's past and failed attempts to appease Putin, it also fears the economical consequences and the unstable political situation in the US. American support for the Ukraine is not guaranteed after the next elections and the Germans realize that. A mistake in my opinion, because NATO should seize the moment to deal Russia a decisive blow, from which it won't recover for years/decades to come.

 

This is a real concern, but it should be a catalyst for action in Europe. I'm not sure if the message from the far right in the US is isolationist or self sufficiency, depends on how you read it, but the results could be the same. So hypothetically in 2 years the US aid stops. Does Germany and the rest of western Europe want to kowtow to Russia or do they want to be in a position to stand on their own? Without rapid and decisive action, especially on the economic/energy dependence front, they really are subject to the whims of Russia. Rebuilding their militaries to the point where they don't need to fear Russia also puts them in a position where they don't need to worry so much about the state of US politics. 

Energy independence is so important to national security and economies but seems to be something that isn't taken seriously enough by a lot of countries. Renewable energy is actually very beneficial in this but it is rarely promoted that way. 

Germany has been looked at as the leader and the voice of the EU for awhile now. A lot of the other countries and a lot of the people in their own country want more support for Ukraine, more visible, tangible military type support. They don't see it from the leader but they see it from the smaller and "less capable" countries and start questioning why they don't see more from the leader. Few factor in the Russian gun to the head of the leader in the form of their energy. Tough spot to be in. So does Germany act rapidly and decisively now and take the pain or does it shuffle along and end up forever under the Russian gun? It's a catch 22 when the right choice leads to lots of pain, probably the downfall of political careers, huge pressures from business, suffering of the people, etc even though the end product is the best result.

Don't envy the German leadership in this one.

2 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:

I don't think Scholz is doing much wrong. Germany supports countries who send their Russian made material to Ukraine, but also sends German weapon systems like the powerful PzH 2000 and the Gepard Flakpanzer, not to mention the many Panzerfaust ATGM' s.  I don't see any justification to call that BS. There's a strange Germany bashing atmosphere in this thread, but I think Germany is doing all it can in a very difficult and complicated situation. 

Apart from that I'm not in favor of sending all available weapons to Ukraine because we don't have much left to start with. Rearmament will take years and years and Ukraine is getting enough weapons to stand their ground. In the meantime NATO has to rebuild it's strength and prepare for the time when the US will turn it's back on Europe.

I think a lot of the criticisms out there are based upon false assumptions. Most average joe people in the world think of Germany as a world and military power. When they think of a military power they think of the US or China (102 days ago I would have put Russia on the list too  ). They don't understand how militarily weak most countries are. Germany has a grand total of 2 panzer divisions and a rapid deployment division. That's it. I'd bet 99% of the people in the world would be surprised to learn that. So their commitment of 12 or so Pzh2000s is pretty much the same percentage wise as the 100 or so M777s from the US. Doesn't seem like enough from Germany but that is due to the perception that they have a large war machine when they don't. Same pretty much goes for most of the other European nations.

Then couple that with the amount of support everyone sees from Poland, Sweden, Czech, UK, Canada, Australia, Spain, the Baltics, etc. Perspective of these countries, other than probably the UK, is that they are smaller, militarily weaker or much further away and yet they appear to be doing more. 

Saying all that, I do think that Germany could be doing more. Especially with the old cold war stuff in storage. Besides, how could Russia spin Leopard 1A5's into any sort of an escalation against their super tanks? 

[Combatintman]

18 hours ago, OldSarge said:

The UK/US, and don't forget Canada,Australia and New Zealand, most likely have more ISR assets directly employed watching the situation than either France or Germany. I wouldn't be surprised if they knew what Vlad had for dinner.

Count the ANZACs out of the above - they look at different parts of the globe where a less than benign regime is chucking its weight around ...

Five Eyes Countries 2022 (worldpopulationreview.com)

 

[The_Capt]

4 hours ago, Bil Hardenberger said:

We need to wargame this out Warren.

There is some real cutting edge stuff happening in Ukraine right now, but offensive success, on both sides, is not where it is happening. 

I agree 100% that striking the enemy throughout its depth, but mainly in the rear and along the MSRs is the most effective and quickest way to break up an enemy offensive... it has worked for the Ukrainians over and over again in this war.

I think there needs to be more work on how tactical (CM size) formations of Brigade-Battalion and below operate while on the offense... because frankly its at that level that both sides have had poor and underwhelming results so far... that is a missing ingredient that I think we can wargame and come up with a few possible concepts of employment... using distributed infantry forces, UAVs, artillery, rocket artillery, tanks (massed at key points and times), and information warfare. Those make up what I think of as the new-combined arms force and working out how they operate together would be an interesting experiment.

Agreed.  I really wish CM had an operational layer to plug this into.

[dan/california]

He is holding strong with the theory that the Russians are out of tanks, and AFVs to lose. I guess they could also/instead be out of people to do suicidal things in them, but that amounts to the same thing. The Russian ability to conduct large scale offensive action is pretty much used up.

[FancyCat]

 

[c3k]

15 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yup, I've made a note of this a while ago.  This is not something that current TacAI takes into consideration, but it should for really crappy crews.  A more experienced and motivated one would have more confidence that they could do something evasive, even if it turns out not to be the case.

Steve

A few thoughts on this:

1. Currently, AFVs know precisely when an ATGM is fired at them and from where. 

2. Currently, the game is a bit prone to under-model artillery effects against AFVs (this has been discussed ad nauseum).

Any adjustment would have to address the above two issues...AND ensure that the TacAI does not know the difference between a 155 landing 15 meters away or an NLAW that hit a tree. The crew would just know that there was an almighty "bang" and they're still alive.

[Harmon Rabb]

 

[sburke]

any info on what units were under command of this bit of sunflower fertilizer? Major General Kutuzov Roman Vladimirovich

[dan/california]

3 minutes ago, c3k said:

A few thoughts on this:

1. Currently, AFVs know precisely when an ATGM is fired at them and from where. 

2. Currently, the game is a bit prone to under-model artillery effects against AFVs (this has been discussed ad nauseum).

Any adjustment would have to address the above two issues...AND ensure that the TacAI does not know the difference between a 155 landing 15 meters away or an NLAW that hit a tree. The crew would just know that there was an almighty "bang" and they're still alive.

Does the TAC AI know that? I mean sometimes they spot the ATGM team and shoot back, and sometimes they don't? Honest question on game mechanics

[chrisl]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

LOOOOOONG Range.

That had to be at around the limit of its range.  That display is really impressive, too.  I've done outdoor work with laptops and even on very cloudy days in fog it's easy for the background daylight to overwhelm the screen display.  I have to bring a big piece of black fabric to put over my head and the display to be able to get a good view.  

[Vanir Ausf B]

8 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Does the TAC AI know that?

Yes, but with caveats. It's a random chance that can vary by unit type, e.g. M1 Abrams has about a 70% chance but T-90 about 50%. This applies to all vehicles, even trucks. If the unit makes it's "saving throw" it knows an ATGM has been launched and the direction from which it was launched but not the exact location.

[Hapless]

Cheap and cheerful rocket artillery? How hard would it be to have 'mobilisation MRLS kits' to turn peacetime civilian pickups into an MLRS mosquito swarm?

 

[Calamine Waffles]

Is of great Soviet tradition.

http://maxmodels72.ru/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/MA35277-1.jpg

Edited June 5, 2022 by Calamine Waffles

[womble]

17 minutes ago, Hapless said:

Cheap and cheerful rocket artillery? How hard would it be to have 'mobilisation MRLS kits' to turn peacetime civilian pickups into an MLRS mosquito swarm?

 

There were some images upthread of Brimstone systems that looked like they were mounted in exactly that way. This video has a sequence of it near the beginning. It's not quite a "grid-square-remover" MLRS; maybe you could pop a system that size on an 18 tonner rigid body, or a 40 ton artic. Shades of Transformers...

[c3k]

Using "Q ships" for MLRS or Brimstones would then open EVERY civilian vehicle up as a legitimate target for the enemy. That may be acceptable...or not.

Distributing MLRS onto many platforms would leave open the large question of distributing targeting information and allocating munitions to the correct platform. Certainly solvable, but it'd require robust networking.