Question about Ukraine OOB...

[Mustang]

Originally Posted by DRG

Well then you should have no trouble providing hard data with sources we can cross-check to support your idea

If we don't include something we get complaints..... we get them when we do put in rare types too. Everything in there was put in because info existed that supported adding it even if there were only a handful in a shop somewhere that does not mean they were not used

Sources are unclear what is happening. So far they used a handful of Bradley, leopard etc in combat all of which were lost to mines and its not clear what operational capacity they have.

https://mil.in.ua/en/news/ukraine-wi...tance-package/

Servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be trained to operate with Bradley in Germany.

That was in January, if training takes a reasonable amount of time then maybe they will be ready in 2024?

The timelines given for training on everything are very brief. I heard that they are supposed to be operating f 16s right now and other reports say 2025.

For "long campaign" purposes having large Bradley and Abrams forces in Ukraine seems like a 2024-25 thing, all they have seen so far is some minefield losses.

Just as a comparison, in North Africa rommel had 5 Stugs out of thousands of tanks. Nobody includes the Stug in Africa campaign scenarios because they were less than 1% of the force.

We can have a policy where a unit has to be at least 1% of the active forces of an army for it to be in the game, or have seen meaningful combat experience, so we're not including all the minor equipment and prototypes as is the normal practice with any OOB.

https://www.army-technology.com/news...rmany/?cf-view

Using the marder as an example, they received 20 in March and the article implies 10 per month starting in July. Considering Ukraine has thousands of infantry vehicles the marders may not make up 1% the force even now. Buying two "mechanized rifle co" of marders is more than their entire army has.

Then the British and other IFVs might be even less.

[MarkSheppard]

Originally Posted by Mustang

Sources are unclear what is happening. So far they used a handful of Bradley, leopard etc in combat all of which were lost to mines and its not clear what operational capacity they have.

https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/0...ukrainian.html

52 M2A2 Bradley ODS-SA: (1, destroyed) (2, destroyed) (3 and 4, destroyed) (5, destroyed) (6, destroyed) (7, 8, 9 and 10, destroyed) (11, destroyed) (12, destroyed) (13, destroyed) (14, destroyed) (15, destroyed) (16, destroyed) (17, destroyed) (18, destroyed) (19, destroyed) (20, destroyed) (21, destroyed) (22, destroyed) (23, destroyed) (24, destroyed) (25, destroyed) (26, destroyed) (1, damaged) (2, damaged) (3, 4, and 5, damaged) (6, damaged) (7, damaged) (8 and 9, damaged) (10, damaged) (11, damaged) (12, damaged) (13 and 14, damaged) (15 and 16, damaged) (17, damaged) (18, damaged) (19, damaged) (20, damaged) (21, damaged) (1, 2 and 3, damaged and abandoned) (4, damaged and abandoned) (5, damaged and abandoned)

[MarkSheppard]

From Oryx:

Delivered/Pledged
40 AMX-10 RC(R)s [Delivered from March 2023 onwards]

Losses
4 AMX-10 RC(R): (1, destroyed) (1 and 2, abandoned) (1, captured)

10% of the AMX-10 fleet has been heavily damaged so far, with one of them ending up in Patriot Park in Moscow.

==================

Delivered/Pledged
14 Leopard 2A4s [February 2023 and March 2023]
10 Leopard 2A4s [April and June 2023]
8 Leopard 2A4s [March 2023]
8 Leopard 2A4s [March 2023]
40 x Leo 2A4 Total

18 Leopard 2A6s [March 2023]
3 Leopard 2A6s [March 2023]
21 x Leo 2A6 Total

Losses
6 Leopard 2A4: (1, destroyed) (2, destroyed) (1, damaged) (2, damaged) (3, damaged) (4, damaged)

9 Leopard 2A6: (1, destroyed) (2, destroyed) (3, destroyed) (1, damaged) (2, damaged) (3, damaged) (1, damaged and abandoned) (2, damaged and abandoned) (3, damaged and abandoned)

So let's recap....15% of the Leopard 2A4s in AFU have been damaged in some way, as well as 42% of Leopard 2A6s.

"Limited use"

[Mustang]

Originally Posted by MarkSheppard

https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/0...ukrainian.html

52 M2A2 Bradley ODS-SA: (1, destroyed) (2, destroyed) (3 and 4, destroyed) (5, destroyed) (6, destroyed) (7, 8, 9 and 10, destroyed) (11, destroyed) (12, destroyed) (13, destroyed) (14, destroyed) (15, destroyed) (16, destroyed) (17, destroyed) (18, destroyed) (19, destroyed) (20, destroyed) (21, destroyed) (22, destroyed) (23, destroyed) (24, destroyed) (25, destroyed) (26, destroyed) (1, damaged) (2, damaged) (3, 4, and 5, damaged) (6, damaged) (7, damaged) (8 and 9, damaged) (10, damaged) (11, damaged) (12, damaged) (13 and 14, damaged) (15 and 16, damaged) (17, damaged) (18, damaged) (19, damaged) (20, damaged) (21, damaged) (1, 2 and 3, damaged and abandoned) (4, damaged and abandoned) (5, damaged and abandoned)

Being abandoned does not prove it was originally operational, almost the opposite.

Anyway as I already said people are free to construct their own scenarios as they wish, I just wouldn't consider it realistic to have major Ukrainian tank and apc forces.

And my other point is that it's a tank game. Infantry shouldn't even be in the game. Although I understand it has to be, the focus of the game is on tanks.

Ukraine right now is a red green "buy everything" oob. The only oobs that exist in real life are red and green. Western forces vs eastern forces. These are Afghanistan, Kurds, Syria, all the obscure factions that have imported equipment. This is the only way things can work.

Not to be political but Ukraine isn't a real country. It was not included in the original country because it's just a pass through for other countries to dump equipment on. Having Ukraine as an OOB just ends up being a "buy everything" OOB, just like the Taliban or vietnam is a "buy everything" OOB, because of captured equipment. Wherever the war is happening becomes the "buy everything" OOB which is why I suggested, if you want Ukraine to mean anything, you stick to equipment it actually has.

And yes, the Bradley has seen limited use, according to your own sources most of them were abandoned.

There are two possible directions to go with the Ukraine OOB. Either limit it to equipment it has in large numbers or that it made itself (to my awareness it hasn't made any significant weapons), or just get rid of the Ukraine OOB and make it the "buy everything" OOB. The direction the game is heading now is to just make Ukraine the red-green "buy everything" flag because if a country has a major war and lots of equipment is captured AND you count every minor thing used 10 times as a unit, you just end up with everything.

[MarkSheppard]

Originally Posted by Mustang

For "long campaign" purposes having large Bradley and Abrams forces in Ukraine seems like a 2024-25 thing, all they have seen so far is some minefield losses.

Speaking of Abrams -- I think we're getting VERY close to them in Ukraine -- Late September, early October from the two datapoints:

Datapoint #1

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-sen...es-2023-09-01/

WASHINGTON, Sept 1 (Reuters) - The Biden administration will for the first time send controversial armor-piercing munitions containing depleted uranium to Ukraine, according to a document seen by Reuters and separately confirmed by two U.S. officials.

The rounds, which could help destroy Russian tanks, are part of a new military aid package for Ukraine set to be unveiled in the next week. The munitions can be fired from U.S. Abrams tanks that, according to a person familiar with the matter, are expected be delivered to Ukraine in the coming weeks.

Datapoint #2:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...plete-training

According to a report from Politico yesterday, citing information from spokesperson Col. Martin O’Donnell, around 200 Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel have undergone training at different U.S. Army facilities in Germany. The report added that these soldiers “recently completed one of the last phases of the program, a combined arms, battalion force-on-force exercise at Hohenfels Training Area.”

...

Quoting an unnamed Pentagon official and “another person familiar with the discussions,” Politico now reports that the first 10 of these tanks will arrive in Ukraine in mid-September.

The same Pentagon official said that this batch of tanks was now “undergoing final refurbishments,” after which they can be dispatched to Ukraine, with the remaining 21 examples of the Abrams also due to arrive in-country during the fall.

[MarkSheppard]

New icons for next year

https://twitter.com/Archer83Able/sta...12191499845632
British-delivered Challenger 2 tank in service of the Ukrainian military with metal cope cage established on the turret for protection against Russian UAVs/loitering munitions.

https://twitter.com/lost_warinua/sta...49555881283601
T-72B3 with ERA laden Cope Cage

https://twitter.com/visegrad24/statu...123316/photo/1
M109L SPH with the biggest cope cage I've seen yet.

[Mobhack]

And the UKR OOB data was all entered over the last year when we only had general reports of what was being supplied. Once (if) we have reliable documented in service dates in the future, the OOB will be updated to reflect that. So perhaps next March or thereabouts, some data may change,

Meanwhile if you don't like the choices we made with what publically available data there was available then there is the Mobhack OOB editor made available with the game so you can edit your own personal "take" on the data, should you so wish.

[DRG]

simple DON'T BUY THEM IF YOU THINK DOING SO UPSETS WHATEVER YOU THINK IS "CORRECT"

They are in the OOB because they are in country and in many cases more rare vehicles are given a rare rating for the AI but the human player can decide on his own if he wants them or not......it's call " free choice"

Since you know so much about the percentages it will be easy for you to do so

The game is set up so the people who care about minutia like " is there enough of these to even make up a platoon ?" can decide what to buy and those that don't can just play the game and if they use too much of something that is rare it's a "what if" battle because 99% are "what if " anyway.

[Karagin]

Question I have is how much of the "rare" number percentage stuff does the AI pick once it starts picking from that stuff?

I am tracking that players can freely choose to pick what they want or don't want or mod the OOB to remove things they don't want in there.

[DRG]

How the AI picks things can be convoluted and depends on if they are rare ( radio code ending in 1 ) or common ( radio code ending in 2 ) or radio code ending in zero which is more or less " average

BUT

The AI tends to pick from the bottom of the list up and there are randoms built into everything in the game to stop it from being predictable but does seem if the AI finds too many rare units in a row it can sometimes just decide to pick one anyway and in the Ukraine OOB for example, the "western" armour is generally near the end of the list and the Russian origin units are more near the front

BUT

The picker may go all the way up one time then work it's way down or it may pick from the bottom of the list. We sometimes have had to make things rare near the end of the list just to keep the AI from buying it too often