__Yossarian0815[jby]

FPV dog fights are already a thing: 
 

The Huns, to be clear, collapsed before Rome did.

Sorry, but my inner grammar Nazi won't shut up. This has been misspelled too often!
It's 'Balkenkreuz' (a cross made with beams). Not 'Balkankreuz' (which means cross of the Balkans).

I can help: I was around 12 in the 80s when my father was serving near Frankfurt, so I have expertise in the French army. Also remember the Canadians because we did our food shopping in their stores. I propose myself as artistic director with my in-depth knowledge as shown by this drawing drawn from my childhood memories:

err heck I dunno.  My barista the other day had pronouns that said them/they.  I was really confused.  Just decided to use their name on tag every time to not over think it.
I mean geez my first nightmare was from that movie about giant ants - "Them".  Then there was that Far Side panel where the dude sitting at the phone is "them".

Thanks for responding.
...But if you're determined to believe the BRICS economies outweigh the G7, I can't really help you further. Have you spent time in any of those 5 countries? (3 for me).

Fast driving or low flying? Which is it?
 
 

Tsk - do you zink ve are some 26 letter alphabet peasantz? Ve also have Ä, Ö, Ü und ß to choose from.

These are the real dividers in Europe:

 
and of course this:

 
From: https://atlasofprejudice.com/

Some proof that this doesn't only feature in CM 😉

 

I feel a bit neglected: now that we deliver the tanks, nobody is interested in Germany anymore!

FYI, this is the aftermath of the 'Panzerdeal' here in Germany.
Very unsurprisingly, all the pro-tank parties (Greens, FDP, half of SPD, CDU) are happy while the anti-tank parties are not (Left, AfD, other half of SPD). Of course, there's some grumbling from the opposition (and from some in the coalition, too) that that was too slow.
But the main point of criticism from nearly everyone was, that the chancellor failed to explain his reasoning while he was doing it.
Judging Scholz just by the results, most pundits (and I) have to grudgingly admit, that he did quite well.
From an inner politic view, he was not too early and didn't rush it. He was also not too late, to create enough turmoil in the coalition for any lasting damage. Thus, he has appeased the reluctant half of the population, while also (finally) pleasing those who wanted to have sent tanks long ago.
In the foreign politics field, he managed to create a broad coalition of nations who will send heavy tanks. Not only in Europe, but the US, too. Getting the US to commit Abrams is a success - no one knows who will be next in the Oval Office.
OTOH he did aggravate a lot of people, especially in the EEC. Weighing this with the effects inside Germany, that is still a win for him. So he put the German interests before foreign ones - that kind of behavior is quite common for many nations, but not from Germany (in the past).
I guess this will be some kind of 'new normal' that others have to get used to.
So from a German perspective, Scholz couldn't have done it better (that is a strange sentence). Everyone is a bit upset, but the issue has been resolved.
However, since he didn't explain himself (see above), we don't know if this is the intended outcome or just luck. And I guess we never will...

As an absolute statement, that is wrong. If that were true, 'Unternehmen Barbarossa' was the best plan ever - it killed a lot of enemies.
You state these things as if they are always true. But they are only sometimes true. Measures must be evaluated in context.

I'm sorry but the connection of green movements and environmentalists with Putin and Saudi dictators sounds very trumpish to me and not something I would expect to read in this forum. 
 

I'd like to point out that Austria DID fight in WW2. They even had their own leader...

freakin funny
Last month, activists replaced the street sign outside of the embassy with one saying "Zelensky Way." In 2018, D.C.'s city council voted to rename a section of the street officially. Instead of Wisconsin Avenue, it became Boris Nemtsov Place. Nemtsov was a critic of Putin's who was murdered three years before.
On Wednesday night, activists projected the Ukrainian flag onto the Russian Embassy building. The embassy has been cloaked in the Russian flag's white, red and blue stripes. Then the small Ukrainian flag appeared. The staff apparently rushed to try and wash out the projection with a white spotlight, and that's when things got funny.
The video shows the pro-Ukraine projection moving around the building as the Russian spotlight appears to chase it. It ended up looking like a cat-and-mouse game emblematic of Russia's struggle to bring down Ukraine.
 

An excellent reason to quit smoking . 😁

The Mars Climate Orbiter called - it wants its metric-imperial conversions back.

Shouldnt Russia be in "lost WW1"?

So ... I was thinking the other day ... if only there was a war game that had a lot of the equipment and forces used in the current conflict/special military operation in which you could build maps and stuff ...
Map size 4,800m wide by 3,664m deep
Topo overlay

Satellite overlay

CM overhead ...

Where it is in Ukraine
Chervone Overlay.kmz
A couple of comparisons ...


The Combat Mission Black Sea map file ...
Chervone.btt
Just a map folks so no you can't do a QB on it or play it unless you actually click the editor button and add forces and plans etc.  Will this be a scenario one day ... hopefully.
I was prompted to make it because it looked like a BTG or two were going to roll south towards Barvinkove having rolled into Velyka Komyshuvakha towards the end of April and I though it would be worth seeing how it looked in Combat Mission and whether a scenario or two could be built around it - there's definitely meat there for sure so hopefully I can put something together.  If I do so it will be the subject of a separate thread.

Yes, absolutely.
Yes, 10+ years down the road. Adding the Ukraine to the EU is like adding a slightly smaller and less populated Mexico to the USA (in relative terms). That is no easy task and should not be taken lightly.
Don't get me wrong - it should be done, no question. But it must be done right.

Is that really true, or did the Soviet military always have - in retrospect - a kind of Potemkin vibe about it?
Granted, they were very effective from early-'43 through to mid/late-'45, but 'very effective' is not exactly a synonym of 'very good.' Did the Soviets conduct any major operations after WWII? They had a couple of inconsequential and uninspiring skirmishes against the Chinese, and did about as well as anyone in Afghanistan, but other that that ...? Loads of "advisors" in Korea and Vietnam, probably advisors on both sides in Iran/Iraq, plus some AD systems here and there, but really, I can't think of anything they did that was on the scale of what the West (loosely defined) was doing in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, etc.
Also, 'advisors'? Telling other people how they should be using their soldiers and equipment is very different to employing your own. And you know what they say about teachers - those who can, do. Those who cant, ...

No, I understand what you are saying but I'm sorry it's a misunderstanding of my initial post. I didn't excuse and I don't consider this as a viable tactic. I could understand though their rage when committing revenge actions. If I was there and had the courage I would probably say stop you freaking animals. But from a "historical" distance and context it seems like a punishment that was inevitable.
 
Kraze, I don't feel comfortable to debate you because of the current situation and your (just) feelings against Russia. You have a more personal view of history that is perfectly understandable. I don't ignore the facts and your points when I don't reply though. 
Last time Im writing about this, I never said Red Army were saints. I'm not in a fantasy world. But is a dangerous path to equalize them with the illness of Nazi Germany. A key difference is that Nazi army was much more disciplined but the atrocities were a calculated wider fascist plan and policy we all know about. I can't repeat it every time, these aren't on the same weight and most historians will tell us this. Nazi Germany was a greater threat to the World at that time than USSR that's why the free powers of planet earth back then sided with them and provided aid of millions to defeat Hitler. Doesn't this make sense? 
 

You don't have an idea what it was like to be under the Nazi boot. You go to a country to exterminate certain "species" with 25 million dead and you expect they will handle you like porcelain in return. Now thats ROFL. You reap what you saw. Germans accepted that, time for you to accept it as well.