Bulletpoint

That's a good point. Also, drones provide excellent propaganda material because they film the damage they do up close in horrible detail. Just still curious about the scope of drone casualties.

I know all that. What I'm saying is: Are the uploaded FPV / grenade drop videos just a few examples of many more such succesful attacks? Are several hundred troops on both sides really killed by drones each day? Or are the uploaded videos pretty much all there is? In the latter case, the real drone casualty numbers would be just 10-20 a day. Nothing war changing. Drones still have a big impact against vehicles and supply depots, and as artillery spotters, but that's a different thing. My question is about the direct attacks on infantry. I am starting to think they are a bit like WW2 strafing runs. Scary, they do kill a few people, big impact on morale, but not really a factor in winning or losing the war.

By now, we all began thinking FPV drones are amazingly powerful weapons, and yes, against vehicles, they do seem to be making a big impact. But how many casualties do they actually cause against infantry? Every day, there are about 7-10 new videos of drone attacks killing infantry on both sides - many more videos from the Ukrainian POV though. But since these attacks due to their nature are pretty much always filmed, what if those 7-10 videos are pretty much the whole story of all succesful drone attacks that day? In that case, "only" maybe 20-30 casualties are caused by drone attacks. Bad if you're on the receiving end, but not a lot compared to the hundreds of thousands of troops killed in this war by all kinds of weapons. So what I'm trying to get at here is that our perception of drones as game-changing weapons might be skewed by a strong selection bias. Anyone here saw some credible estimates of the scale of casulties caused by drones (FPV kamikaze + grenade drops) compared to other weapons? How many drone attacks fail and therefore never get shown?

I wonder how much of the cost is profit. If a single standard shell is 3300 euro, how much of that cost is actually for the steel, the explosives, the fuse, and the physical labour? Of course a Javelin launcher is much more high tech than a shell, but still. 100,000 dollars. That's like the cost of a brand new Tesla, which is also full of technology.

I couldn't help but imagine this as an episode of "Keeping up Appearances"

I agree it seems strange that they can be marked if there is no effect, but to the best of my knowledge, marking AT mines has never had any effect for the last 10 years. At least not in the WW2 titles. Some scenarios tell you to demine but mostly as an immersion thing. And other scenarios cheat a little by placing some barbed wire across the AT minefield. You can then blow up the minefield using engineers (who are also blown up in the process unfortunately).

Comparatively few. Because Hamas of course understands that anything above ground is going to get bombed. They are not likely to have kept anything of real value inside the buildings. That being said, I do believe Hamas has taken considerable losses. And while Israel now talks about a long war dragging out through 2024, I think we are not that far from them taking control of the whole surface of Gaza. Then it will be a long operation to clear out the tunnels. Maybe some kind of sedative gas will be used, just like the Russians did in the 2002 Moscow theatre siege. Probably mixed to be so strong that nobody wakes up again, but that of course was not the intention, just a tragic accident. Most of the hostages are probably already across the border to Egypt though. I don't think they are really a main priority of the Israeli government, even though they are something that has to be dealt with from a PR perspective. Taking over the ground is. The end state will be all Palestinians in a big refugee camp in the south of Gaza, with Israel and Egypt blaming each other over who is responsible for them. And then Israel taking over what used to be the cities. The rubble (and any evidence of who is buried under it, militants or civilians) will be cleared with bulldozers and Israeli settlers will enter, creating new "facts on the ground". The UN might write a sternly worded letter, but Israel will shut them up with an accusation of anti-semitism. Some years will pass to allow things to settle down, and then one day, there will be another 'surprise attack', this time from the West Bank. All this is speculation, and I hope I will be proven wrong.

Sounds like they just multiply the real damage by a factor of 10... so that would mean around 165 KIA and 75 vehicles destroyed/damaged. Which sounds credible, I think. Far from all those vehicles will be Merkavas.

I don't think AT minefields were ever safe to drive through, even when marked?

Yes. Same thing with any faction. Russia, Israel, Hamas etc... They all think they fight the good fight.

The sad truth is that Russian troops are not all evil people bent on murder. Some, yes. But far from all. Many are just deluded.

One more prediction: If the winter turns into heavy frost, I think Ukraine might consider a frozen river crossing from Dudchany. If deepstatemap is correct, there are no fortified lines there, and nearly no enemy forces.

First collapse was a result of a complete mess of an invasion plan... second was around Kharkiv, I think that was supposed to be a withdrawal but yes, it turned into a collapse with many losses of important assets. But what was the third one? I consider the Kherson episode a pretty orderly withdrawal. But if they collapse operationally again in this war, I have a fresh crow here, all plucked and ready to eat

No. They are growing stronger by the day, despite the losses. The idea of Russian collapse is pie in the sky. No. But they are going to be fed into the grinder as usual. No. The average politician in the West is a weatherwane that is very sensitive to the sentiments of the voter base. And the voter base changed opinion about this war when the 2023 Ukraine offensive failed. I doubt it. But I think both sides are feverishly trying to solve the drone problem, while also pumping out as many drones as possible. We might see more anti drone countermeasures, but then also anti-anti countermeasures. I think drones are here to stay. No. In the West, we are horrified when we see the casualties the Russians are taking. But it would take millions of dead Russians before Putin's authority starts to get challenged. No, but it is waning. Western political will depends a lot on where the front line goes. Currently, Western leaders (and the public) are not too unhappy about where it runs. We do care somewhat about the fate of Ukraine as a whole, but we care much less about Crimea and the extreme eastern Ukraine than the Ukrainians do.

Max points for honesty. My predictions are of course also with the disclaimer that I have no idea and am just a layman observing this war, but I like to think along. Anyone here is welcome to poke fun of me next year when my predictions turn out to be completely wrong

What are your predictions for the war in Ukraine in 2024? Here are mine: Increasing Ukrainian drone and missile strikes on Russian towns and cities. Russia will take Avdiivka before spring, and also close the Robotyne pocket. Then the frontlines will not move much more before summer. Ukraine will attempt a new offensive in early summer, and it will be in the north, east of Kharkiv, where Russian defensive lines seem less strong. The aim will not be to liberate key territory but to cause maximum losses and for the political objective to show Western sponsors that the war can still be won. The drone war will enter a new stage where the off-the-shelves commercial drones are replaced with mass produced purpose built drones, and the numbers of drone attacks will increase massively. Instead of single drone attacks, we might see several working in cooperation. Increased use of drone-dropped tear gas.

Out of curiosity, when was the last time any there was any meaningful change/update to the game rules or fundamental features? Not a battle pack or a module with some new units, but the kind of changes people have now been requesting for 37 pages in this thread. Which is far from the first feature request thread. The last time I can remember new features were added were in CMFB (2016), when flamethrowers and mortar halftracks were added. Both awkwardly and buggily implemented, but at least they were new capabilities. There was also a patch around the same time that added some new features to the editor, such as a retreat mechanic and an area fire order for the AI. But that was still eight years ago.

I don't think there's any truth to that.

I don't think China sees Russia as a failing country. They see it as a fellow autocratic country and ally against the world order led by the USA, and they (ok, "he" - Xi Jinping) wants to prevent Russia from collapsing due to this war. Probably China makes a pretty penny off their help, too, but I think they want Putin's Russia to continue.

Why not though? When we prop up Ukraine it's out of self interest. Why wouldn't China help Russia in the same way?

I don't think civilians should ever be targeted. But even if we accept the argument that Russians need to be attacked and made afraid in order to make them oppose the war, you should not bomb some tiny border town where people have no say in anything. The only thing their deaths will accomplish is to provide perfect fuel for the Russian propaganda machine. You should attack Moscow, and especially the areas where the Russian elite lives.

https://www.reuters.com/world/south-africa-seeks-international-court-justice-genocide-order-against-israel-2023-12-29/

I would be surprised if it's really that few.

Sometimes in a campaign, I will take so heavy casualties that it makes it impossible to win the mission or even continue with the campaign (for example, key AT units lost, etc). What I do is not to reload the turn before it all went wrong, but to force myself to start the mission over from the beginning. Maybe it sounds masochistic, but I will then avoid targeting enemy positions I revealed in my last playthrough, at least not before I properly spot them. Not saying my way is the "best" way of playing, but just my two DKK.

I would say it depends heavily on the news outlet. The internet has made it much easier for anybody to set up shop and pretend to be a journalist, but that's not the same as actually being a journalist. It's often near impossible for the average media user to tell the difference though.