How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[The_Capt]

2 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

Who's the young fella here? I have been reading this forum since 2003, steadily lurking at periscope depth. Well, I lost 1 account and had to open another, so maybe not so steadily, but that's mere formality, a lawyer's quibble I say.

2003!?  You are fresh faced babe!  I had already lost a couple RoWs by then.

[kevinkin]

A video summary of the Time's article "Two cities, two armies: Pivot points in the fight in Ukraine’s east." which remains behind paywall:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZYhAMtRazA

Net net ... If the Donbas is strategically important and a key reason to send Russians to their death, than Lyman and Bakhmut are at least operationally important within the context of how Russia conducts a ground war in 2022. Perhaps a place to install those conscripts for the winter?  Can the forces operating in the sector be used to hold a functioning Donbas without  holding Lyman and Bakhmut? Probably not long term. That would require imagination that the RA just does not have. So if Russia disregards these cities and Donbas then I suppose the quality troops go south to retain positions there and hold the approaches to Crimea. We can only hope Russia tries to do both and is crushed sooner rather than later. 

[sburke]

10 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

This begs the question... should CM have some sort of way to distinguish a unit that is fragile when attacking but not when defending?

Steve

I think I'd have to understand better the Russian defensive fighting to really answer that.  Around Kharkiv I don't think they performed any better as compared to Kherson - Kherson has better troops and better defense planning.  That is already part of CM.  Are you suggesting somehow a specific squad modification.  That seems to go against the foundation of CM where you largely avoided (with the exception of Italians) any specific national modifier.

Edited October 21, 2022 by sburke

[LongLeftFlank]

11 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

About Russian morale... I've had some thinking on this and am curious to know what people think.

I think Russians have a peculiar type of morale.

This begs the question... should CM have some sort of way to distinguish a unit that is fragile when attacking but not when defending?

Ooh, are you being tempted by the long forbidden CM fruit of 'national characteristics' (aka ubermensching?) [EDIT:  Ninjaed by @sburke!]

One could argue that this kind of behaviour might be modeled more generically by having an option to give a unit a 'home zone' it would tend to retreat to / not leave unless its morale was shattered.  Representing mission orders or simply that unit's assigned position.

Edited October 21, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[kevinkin]

10 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

This begs the question... should CM have some sort of way to distinguish a unit that is fragile when attacking but not when defending?

Love this question and will chime later this evening. Perfect Fall day for golf. 

[billbindc]

9 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

About Russian morale... I've had some thinking on this and am curious to know what people think.

I think Russians have a peculiar type of morale.  Many of Russia's forces are unhappy enough that they refuse to attack, they even sometimes kill their own, and generally they are not reliable.  The list of reasons is long, but it includes things like KNOWING they aren't adequately equipped, no faith in any level of leadership, knowing their personal chance of survival is not great, they aren't fed regularly, etc.  However, when push comes to shove quite a lot of them will fight doggedly on the defensive instead of running away (others do, of course, run away).

In Combat Mission it would be akin to being unable to move a unit into combat, but if left alone having it continue to fight even after getting beat up.  This can happen in CM when units have low morale, but it is not likely to.  At least not to the extent I think we're seeing this in the war.

This begs the question... should CM have some sort of way to distinguish a unit that is fragile when attacking but not when defending?

Steve

I'm not sure we know this, tbh. There's a lot of fog of war still as to Russian units and I'd suspect enormous differences in leadership, supply and motivation with supply being especially dependent on krysha. I could easily see where a minority of reasonably well supplied, well led units supported by unreliable mobiks would be quite hesitant to attack but still be quite ferocious on defense. In short, my bias would be to avoid any sort of essentialism about Russian military culture and wait to get better information on actual circumstances.

[Beleg85]

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3195784/readout-of-secretary-of-defense-lloyd-j-austin-iiis-phone-call-with-russian-min/

Brief (well, very brief ) readout of call between Shoigu and Austin. Directly after Austin called Rheznikov... It is first time from I think May or June. Anybody else curious what is happening? There is a lot of speculations that perhaps Putin may be willing to give up on something.

If it would be about regular scheduled exercises and nuclear tests then US SecDef would not probably call Ukrainian counterpart afterwards.

[The_Capt]

2 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Yeah, how dare you. Don't you know the two moderators of this thread, The_Capt and LongLeftFlank are the only ones who can go off topic and decide what's off topic and what's not?

Oh FFS, gently pointing someone in a better direction is now “ruthless vigilante moderation”? Force generation composition of USSR troops in 1944-45 with no link back to this war, even an indirect one - as clearly admitted by the poster in question - is clearly best resourced elsewhere.

 

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Thanks for the updates.

It seems that the Bakhmut situation has largely remained as it has for months now.  The Russians continue to take ground very slowly and at great cost.  Ukraine is unable to stop or reverse the trend, just maintain the status quo.  The thing is Russia has been doing this for months now and the result is that even the paltry meters per day advances have added up over time to the extent that they are finally entering Bakhmut.

This whole Bakhmut battle is... fascinating?  I guess that's the word for it.  At the strategic level this is one of the dumbest things Russia has done since it decided to invade.  Whatever possible military value Bakhmut offered Russia was made irrelevant months ago, yet the Russian's are pouring desperately needed resources into trying to take it.

It's even worse than it looks because Wagner's troops are supposedly some of the best that Russia has.  Instead of using them as a sort of elite shock force to blunt Ukrainian advances, where they very likely would cause Ukraine serious headaches, they're not even a distraction for Ukraine.  At best they are an annoyance.

It boggles my mind that so much practical need is deliberately being ignored so that this Bahkmut fight can continue.  Whatever lessons Russia has managed to learn in this war, not wasting precious resources on pointless political exercises is something they seem stubbornly unwilling to accept.

Steve

I apologize for being a broken record on this, but you just made an excellent case that the attack on Bakmuht has nothing to do with winning the war, and indeed is probably actively helping to lose it. Thus it serves some other purpose to someone in position to order it in the first place, and to order it to keep going in defiance of all military logic. The only thing that makes any sense to me is that the person giving those orders thinks that taking Bakmuht will of great advantage in the post war/post Putin power struggle.

56 minutes ago, chrisl said:

That started decades ago: ABL

That got cancelled, but as higher power lasers have gotten smaller and less demanding of input power I suspect it's come back in various forms.

 

And that was attempt to kill ballistic missiles in the boost phase. Drones are a very different target.

45 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

50kw laser armed Stykers are a reality already.  Production samples have been delivered for evaluation ahead of full production:

https://www.thedefensepost.com/2022/08/15/us-army-stryker-lasers/

And the first I've heard of a smaller one for lighter vehicles:

Steve

Yes, and every single one of them should be in Kherson, TODAY.

38 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

About Russian morale... I've had some thinking on this and am curious to know what people think.

I think Russians have a peculiar type of morale.  Many of Russia's forces are unhappy enough that they refuse to attack, they even sometimes kill their own, and generally they are not reliable.  The list of reasons is long, but it includes things like KNOWING they aren't adequately equipped, no faith in any level of leadership, knowing their personal chance of survival is not great, they aren't fed regularly, etc.  However, when push comes to shove quite a lot of them will fight doggedly on the defensive instead of running away (others do, of course, run away).

In Combat Mission it would be akin to being unable to move a unit into combat, but if left alone having it continue to fight even after getting beat up.  This can happen in CM when units have low morale, but it is not likely to.  At least not to the extent I think we're seeing this in the war.

This begs the question... should CM have some sort of way to distinguish a unit that is fragile when attacking but not when defending?

Steve

SOMETHING different seems to be happening. How to model it is an interesting question. A chance to switch their preexisting motivation to fanatic under certain scenario defined conditions if that isn't unbearable to code, maybe?

 

27 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Ooh, are you being tempted by the long forbidden CM fruit of 'national characteristics' (aka ubermensching?) [EDIT:  Ninjaed by @sburke!]

One could argue that this kind of behaviour might be modeled more generically by having an option to give a unit a 'home zone' it would tend to retreat to / not leave unless its morale was shattered.  Representing mission orders or simply that unit's assigned position.

See above.

Edited October 21, 2022 by dan/california

[Beleg85]

2 hours ago, dan/california said:

If the Ukrainians have ISR in Kherson that is so good that they can get hit a a specific priority target like this guy, as he is trying to cross what should be the most protected asset in the operational theater, I have to think they are still on track to wrap this up.

Highly unikely they would waste precious Himars on any collaborator, however nasty. They hit brages at night to preserve civilian casualties and ruin Russian transport, guy had bad simply luck.

 

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

This whole Bakhmut battle is... fascinating?  I guess that's the word for it.  At the strategic level this is one of the dumbest things Russia has done since it decided to invade.  Whatever possible military value Bakhmut offered Russia was made irrelevant months ago, yet the Russian's are pouring desperately needed resources into trying to take it.

It's even worse than it looks because Wagner's troops are supposedly some of the best that Russia has.  Instead of using them as a sort of elite shock force to blunt Ukrainian advances, where they very likely would cause Ukraine serious headaches, they're not even a distraction for Ukraine.  At best they are an annoyance.

It boggles my mind that so much practical need is deliberately being ignored so that this Bahkmut fight can continue.  Whatever lessons Russia has managed to learn in this war, not wasting precious resources on pointless political exercises is something they seem stubbornly unwilling to accept.

Steve

True, entire Bakhmut direction was below the main headlines which concentrated on North and Kherson. There is fairly steady flow of casualties reported from that direction, and some PL volunteers visiting there talk about truly brutal, positional warfare for already several months. Rivalries between Wagner and military is good explanation of Russian determination there. Most "kremlinologists" refute claims that Prigozhin is ambitious or gifted enough to take place after Putin, but he can be trying to maneuvre to take better position in case "Game of Thrones" in Russia would start. Life of his prisoner-soldiers (lately measured at 9 days on average at the front) is of course not important. This whole Wagnerite/Prigozhin case has strong medieval or ancient dramatic vibes, if you'd ask me.

41 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I think Russians have a peculiar type of morale.  Many of Russia's forces are unhappy enough that they refuse to attack, they even sometimes kill their own, and generally they are not reliable.  The list of reasons is long, but it includes things like KNOWING they aren't adequately equipped, no faith in any level of leadership, knowing their personal chance of survival is not great, they aren't fed regularly, etc.  However, when push comes to shove quite a lot of them will fight doggedly on the defensive instead of running away (others do, of course, run away).

Coercion + strong cultural pessimism. Sprinkled with some machismo culture. But the whole is issue is of course more complicated, as influence of cultures (military cultures as well) is damn difficult to scientifically catch and highly contextual.

Edited October 21, 2022 by Beleg85

[Battlefront.com]

16 minutes ago, billbindc said:

I'm not sure we know this, tbh. There's a lot of fog of war still as to Russian units and I'd suspect enormous differences in leadership, supply and motivation with supply being especially dependent on krysha. I could easily see where a minority of reasonably well supplied, well led units supported by unreliable mobiks would be quite hesitant to attack but still be quite ferocious on defense. In short, my bias would be to avoid any sort of essentialism about Russian military culture and wait to get better information on actual circumstances.

For sure nobody should think that I'm going senile and suggesting "National Modifiers".  Yech, the thought of it upsets my stomach   What I'm talking about is something that I can see, from time to time and place to place, in other conflicts.  At least I can imagine this being the case if I started poking around looking for it.

To be clear, I'm thinking about this because of what I'm seeing in this war.  What I described could apply to some of Ukraine's TD units as well.  Think of my suggestions as being more akin to Fanaticism concept in CM.  It might apply to a particular force more than another, but it isn't tied to nationality or force type (e.g. Waffen SS).

Picture a unit that feels that it has enough going for it to defend its positions.  Put aside fears of getting shot when retreating (that's a different thing that might need some attention) and imagine that the unit is "comfortable" with its current situation.  A commander, whom they don't respect, suggests that they get out of their comfort zone and go off and do something which they suspect they won't return from.  They do a sorta conditional mutiny where they say "we'll fight here, no worries about that, but take your attack plan and stuff it where the sun don't shine!".

I know there's still a lot of fog on the battlefield, but we have seen this sort of thing for months now.  It is why, it seems, that the DLPR line has largely gone quiet.  Those guys are done attacking, but I think if Ukraine pushed against them they would not run away and instead put up a solid fight.

In CM1 we had Global Morale, which made attacking more difficult to do as the overall force's morale dropped.  This is something I wish we had explored more in CM2.  But even that isn't quite right because the scope of a battle could contain forces more or less inclined to attack before the battle even started.  So I'm picturing something like Global Morale with a sort of Fanatic type designation that could be applied to individual units.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

2 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

True, entire Bakhmut direction was below the main headlines which concentrated on North and Kherson. There is fairly steady flow of casualties reported from that direction, and some PL volunteers visiting there talk about truly brutal, positional warfare for already several months. Rivalries between Wagner and military is good explanation of Russian determination there. Most "kremlinologists" refute claims that Prigozhin is ambitious or gifted enough to take place after Putin, but he can be trying to maneuvre to take better position in case "Game of Thrones" in Russia would start. Life of his prisoner-soldiers (lately measured at 9 days on average at the front) is of course not important. This whole Wagnerite/Prigozhin case has strong medieval or ancient dramatic vibes, if you'd ask me.

Yeah, but why isn't Prigozhin doing what Kadyrov does with his TikTok warriors?  He could either have them pretend to be tough guys or have them act as Putin's Fire Brigade and gain real/imagined glory for bailing the military out of tough spots?

I suspect one complication for this is that the Army will refuse to allow them into their sectors.  They've basically handed the Donbas over to the locals and Wagner so they don't care what Wagner does or doesn't do there.  So Wagner is trying to do the best it can within this area and, for whatever reason, can't get Putin to intervene and send them someplace more useful.

Steve

[sburke]

4 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Highly unikely they would waste precious Himars on any collaborator, however nasty. They hit brages at night to preserve civilian casualties and ruin Russian transport, guy had bad simply luck.

Kind of like that Russian judge getting hit on Kerch bridge.  When you draw the ace of spades your time is up.

[The_Capt]

2 hours ago, dan/california said:

Capt, just as an aside, what is your opinion on a VISA ban? Do you think the increased pressure on the regime justifies the fact that it would make it harder for both draft dodgers, and actual regime opponents to escape Russia? Please note i do not claim draft dodgers and regime opponents are the same thing. 

Now that is a very good question.  I am not sure what the idea of a full visa ban was supposed to accomplish to be honest.  I think the theory was that is would provide additional pressure on the Russian people to oppose this war by depriving them the opportunity to go and spend money in another country?  There was also some really stretching ideas about stopping a subversive 5th column or somesuch nonsense with respect to national security.

As to the first idea - Putin appears more scared of hardcore nationalists and a Russian identity crisis than opposition to the war.  I am not sure how a tourist ban will impact that dynamic.  Further Putin appears to be running a pretty oppressive regime so locking people who want to resist or at least draft dodge seems a bit counterintuitive.  If one wants to create and support resistance, one normally has to provide safe haven not lock opposition in.  Letting people run away from Russia is supporting a form of resistance and eroding their human capital base.

As to the second - oh dear just stop.  If Russia wants to foment, spy and/or cause ruckus in a third nation, particularly one on its borders, a visa ban is not really going to do much to stop it.  The apparatus for subversion is likely already in place and rooted in local nationals with an axe to grind.  Counter-subversion is a close cousin to counter insurgency/VEO which is a massive enterprise spanning finance, ideology and human networks. For example, information warfare and influence activities online do not need visas.  And if Russia really wants to get “agents” physically in, there are a myriad of ways to make that happen from diplomatic visas to false identity/citizenship.

So I would probably do a selective restriction on Russian visas to be honest.  Draft dodgers, refugees and brain drain..fine let them happen.  Resistance needs to be scooped up, vetted, supported and sent back in.  Tourists, sure ban some to keep electorate happy and make some headlines.  Russian spies and agents - definitely let them in; tag em and follow them in order to map networks with an eye for penetration later.  The trick will be getting these groups right, and mistakes will be made but a smart filter could do more damage to Russia than a total ban “easy button”.  Of course the West needs to get in the game and start supporting nations in the Baltics on this effort because it is going to cost.  In the West itself we have got an enormous border control system with a global intelligence system in place thanks to GWOT, getting that pointed at a new target and the legal authorizations in place to do so is where most of the *** pain is likely occurring right now.

So “Total Ban”, because it feels good…no.

Smart Restrictions backed up by an intelligence architecture and support to resistance program that make Russias prosecution of this war harder…yeeup.

 

[Battlefront.com]

31 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

Love this question and will chime later this evening. Perfect Fall day for golf. 

It is a perfect day to be doing work outside where I am too, and yet here I sit wasting daylight.  Er, if you don't see me for a while you'll understand that I finally managed to get my arse out of this chair now that some other stuff seems to be taken care of.  You guys are a great way to spend time waiting for people to return emails

Steve

[billbindc]

14 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

For sure nobody should think that I'm going senile and suggesting "National Modifiers".  Yech, the thought of it upsets my stomach   What I'm talking about is something that I can see, from time to time and place to place, in other conflicts.  At least I can imagine this being the case if I started poking around looking for it.

To be clear, I'm thinking about this because of what I'm seeing in this war.  What I described could apply to some of Ukraine's TD units as well.  Think of my suggestions as being more akin to Fanaticism concept in CM.  It might apply to a particular force more than another, but it isn't tied to nationality or force type (e.g. Waffen SS).

Picture a unit that feels that it has enough going for it to defend its positions.  Put aside fears of getting shot when retreating (that's a different thing that might need some attention) and imagine that the unit is "comfortable" with its current situation.  A commander, whom they don't respect, suggests that they get out of their comfort zone and go off and do something which they suspect they won't return from.  They do a sorta conditional mutiny where they say "we'll fight here, no worries about that, but take your attack plan and stuff it where the sun don't shine!".

I know there's still a lot of fog on the battlefield, but we have seen this sort of thing for months now.  It is why, it seems, that the DLPR line has largely gone quiet.  Those guys are done attacking, but I think if Ukraine pushed against them they would not run away and instead put up a solid fight.

In CM1 we had Global Morale, which made attacking more difficult to do as the overall force's morale dropped.  This is something I wish we had explored more in CM2.  But even that isn't quite right because the scope of a battle could contain forces more or less inclined to attack before the battle even started.  So I'm picturing something like Global Morale with a sort of Fanatic type designation that could be applied to individual units.

Steve

I would think that simply geofencing units in a given scenario would accomplish mostly what you are looking for then.

[Seedorf81]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

About Russian morale... I've had some thinking on this and am curious to know what people think.

I think Russians have a peculiar type of morale.  Many of Russia's forces are unhappy enough that they refuse to attack, they even sometimes kill their own, and generally they are not reliable.  The list of reasons is long, but it includes things like KNOWING they aren't adequately equipped, no faith in any level of leadership, knowing their personal chance of survival is not great, they aren't fed regularly, etc.  However, when push comes to shove quite a lot of them will fight doggedly on the defensive instead of running away (others do, of course, run away).

In Combat Mission it would be akin to being unable to move a unit into combat, but if left alone having it continue to fight even after getting beat up.  This can happen in CM when units have low morale, but it is not likely to.  At least not to the extent I think we're seeing this in the war.

This begs the question... should CM have some sort of way to distinguish a unit that is fragile when attacking but not when defending?

Steve

Well, it has been said that the British infantry during ww2 in general was better at defending than attacking.

Wouldn't go so far as they were "fragile" on the attack, but a difference was noticeable, so that would be a nice addition in the game. (The French fragile when defending? The Italians fragile all over? And so forth..)

Edited October 21, 2022 by Seedorf81
noticable is noticeable, didnt know that

[chrisl]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

And that was attempt to kill ballistic missiles in the boost phase. Drones are a very different target.

Drones are a different target, but the main difference in implementation is probably the sensing (drones are smaller, slower targets with less predictable trajectories).  Even the speed of the steering mirror may not have to be that different - for defending against incoming missiles it has to be able to switch quickly among missiles.  In either case you'd probably be doing it from relatively far away  so the angular speed you'd need might not be all that different.  The part involving mounting a death ray on an airplane and steering the beam isn't going to be all that different.

An amusing related thing is that I used to occasionally show up places for meetings related to the James Webb Space Telescope *way* back in the late 90s/early 00s and there would sometimes be promo stuff for the space verison of ABL, unsurprisingly called SBL (for Spaceborne Laser), that used exactly the same graphics as for JWST but showing a beam coming out the telescope to zap things.

Edited October 21, 2022 by chrisl
(missed the "boost phase" part - doesn't really change it much)

[akd]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

This begs the question... should CM have some sort of way to distinguish a unit that is fragile when attacking but not when defending?

Probably just a temp bonus to morale across the board if the unit starts in prepared defensive position, removed if the unit leaves (or comes under other negating circumstances?)

[Ts4EVER]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

This begs the question... should CM have some sort of way to distinguish a unit that is fragile when attacking but not when defending?

Steve

Maybe, but what I always said was kinda missing is an AI trigger for unit state, so that the AI can be coded to abort attacks after receiving a certain percentage of losses and withdraw. This would make defensive scenarios a lot less "all or nothing".

[Lethaface]

On 10/18/2022 at 7:40 PM, Letter from Prague said:

If West had balls, Iran would be pretty stupid in helping Russia - they have pretty big protests right now, and somebody giving it a push (e.g. delivering weapons to protesters) would put the Iran government in a world of hurt.

But Iran seems to be making the bet that West has no balls, and it seems to be paying off.

Well some people know/remember how 'balls' lead to the Iranian revolution . Certainly no fan of their regime but 'we' (US mainly) should look in the mirror with regards to Iran. Arming a new civil war there is NOT good idea.

[Eddy]

58 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

A commander, whom they don't respect, suggests that they get out of their comfort zone and go off and do something which they suspect they won't return from.  They do a sorta conditional mutiny where they say "we'll fight here, no worries about that, but take your attack plan and stuff it where the sun don't shine!".

Historical example for this would be the 1917 French Army Mutinies ( 1917 French Army mutinies - Wikipedia ).

A national modifier would not be appropriate because it was specific to a certain time, predicated by specific events. Afterall the French Army were prepared to attack prior and after these mutinies, once the credibility of army higher-ups was restored and several hundred mutineers were shot. 

[A Canadian Cat]

14 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

What we're seeing in Kherson is pretty much the best fighting Russia has managed in the war so far, yet they are still steadily losing ground.  In a war of choice against a smaller neighbor, losing less badly is not something to be particularly thrilled about from the Russian perspective.

Very true. However it is delaying the end of the war - and that's not good for UA and might be good for RA or might be good for Putin. It still probably is not enough for Putin to win.

Edited October 21, 2022 by IanL
clarificaiton

[A Canadian Cat]

13 hours ago, sburke said:

 our new slogan be "we suck less".  It was entertained seriously for a few minutes.

LOL that would be refreshing - I'd be  to attracted to that

[A Canadian Cat]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

So I'm picturing something like Global Morale with a sort of Fanatic type designation that could be applied to individual units.

How about separating the motivation into "Motivation to attack" and "Motivation to defend". Then you could have a low motivation on attack and a high motivation on defence to represent this observation.