Cameron Wiles

Former IR grad student. Mostly posting about the war in Ukraine or occasionally Estonian politics.

[Cameron Wiles @cwiles001]

@kriegsforscherD In this context, the actual percentages are largely meaningless outside of the exercise. What is important is the improvement in said percentages.

[Cameron Wiles @cwiles001]

@kriegsforscherD Also question to what extent was suppression/destruction of the drone operators simulated. A lot of the counter-drone fight for the US would be from the USAF, but to develop fieldcraft you probably want to limit their impact on an exercise like this.

[Cameron Wiles @cwiles001]

@WeaponScientist Feels like Europeans are simply not capable of understanding the scale of the US Air Force, or the fact that it faces a different set of threats than Russia or Ukraine do.

[Cameron Wiles @cwiles001]

@WeaponScientist Weird. Almost like a DF-26 doesn’t care about hardened aircraft shelters in Guam, whereas building enough hardened shelters stateside for all combat aircraft would probably be more expensive than just buying 50+ additional aircraft to cover the losses

[Cameron Wiles @cwiles001]

@Rumiverrun @SashoTodorov1 @BretDevereaux Like you have to draw the line somewhere. Otherwise you get bogged down in silly discussions like how distracted the 1939 Europeans would be by their sudden access to internet pornography and how much of an impact this would have on combat effectiveness

[Cameron Wiles @cwiles001]

@Rumiverrun @SashoTodorov1 @BretDevereaux Yeah but all the WMD-related stuff (which raises the question of how long it would take South Africa to resurrect its nuclear program vs the ability of a united 1939 Europe to build a bomb) is a separate thought experiment than 1939E mass vs 2026A technology

[Cameron Wiles @cwiles001]

@SashoTodorov1 @BretDevereaux That said I see too much room for this line of discussion to get slightly ridiculous (such as the difficulties of supplying the aforementioned 1939E artillery park on the rather sparse 2026A rail network)

[Cameron Wiles @cwiles001]

@SashoTodorov1 @BretDevereaux True but there’s also plenty of areas where the amount of room for tactical maneuver around said corridors is immense and therefore needs defending, which more than evens it out IMO.

[Cameron Wiles @cwiles001]

@SashoTodorov1 @BretDevereaux I think the bigger key is geography. If it’s being fought in Europe, you could achieve ridiculous concentrations of 1939E artillery in which case it’s just a smashfest to E favor. Africa is just too big for them to cover EVERYWHERE.

[Cameron Wiles @cwiles001]

@SashoTodorov1 @BretDevereaux True but if 1939E armor gets smashed early in, those numerous divisions are going to be relatively immobile whereas the 2026A will be able to conduct some sort of maneuver warfare. I’m not sure a 1939E force would be able to handle any sort of 2026A breakthrough

[Cameron Wiles @cwiles001]

@SashoTodorov1 @BretDevereaux Regardless of the size of the European tank fleet, I think the opening stages would put up 1941 Soviet numbers in terms of armor losses strictly for that reason

[Cameron Wiles @cwiles001]

@SashoTodorov1 @BretDevereaux IMO the bigger issue here is that 1939 infantry have virtually no defense against armor outside of artillery whereas 2026 Africa has a plentiful supply of RPG-7s, something which I don’t think 1939 European leadership is mentally prepared to deal with

[Cameron Wiles @cwiles001]

https://t.co/EoIasRcp4Q

If the Reuters article is to be believed, it was less that he was spying on Germany, and more that the dumbass was trying to steal and resell Germany’s efforts to spy on Iran and Russia.

[Cameron Wiles @cwiles001]

What’s really funny about this is that he doesn’t seem to have been selling state secrets. It sounds more like he was stealing documents documents to “cheat” and get better information regarding other foreign countries for his analyses which he then sold as a consultant

[WELT @welt]

Ehemaliger BND-Präsident soll für Aserbaidschan spioniert haben https://t.co/7rbLsoo3yN

[Cameron Wiles @cwiles001]

@Felix_Nuno @FideliusSchmid In war time but per politico the Russians and Chinese aren’t involved. The more I read into it the less damaging this seems. Sounds like state secrets weren’t passed on per se, but he was selling judgements based on state secrets. Still treason, but not as bad as it first seemed

[Cameron Wiles @cwiles001]

Hanning being compromised isn’t even the most important part of this— seems to have just been a middle man. Real damage is from the “Manfred D”, described as chief of staff to Hanning’s successors until 2026, was also compromised, so this is current info being stolen

[Fidelius Schmid @FideliusSchmid]

++++Breaking++++ Former BND chief arrested for attempted treason, espionage dissemination of state secrets. This may turn out a disaster… https://t.co/ydho8BR3QO

[Cameron Wiles @cwiles001]

@SashoTodorov1 @JimmyThomist @Clint_Davey1 @internetarchive But whereas the Americans could use armor to support infantry divisions which could, in turn, contribute in a battle of maneuver, the Germans stripping armor out of the panzer divisions to support the infantry would still leave the infantry out of the picture during exploitation

[Cameron Wiles @cwiles001]

@SashoTodorov1 @JimmyThomist @Clint_Davey1 @internetarchive We talk about the panzer divisions as this sort of pinnacle of combat power, but as a component of a larger army this tip-heavy concentration eventually becomes problematic vs later-war Allied army compositions which were as mobile but much more flexible imo