Hacketäuer

Im sorry what?
What exactly gave you that idea? Germany being unwilling to defend eastern europe doesnt mesh with the fact there are literally german troops in Lituania to defend them.
And germany stopped their gas imports from russia 100% while poland is still buying oil from them.

Well that is a loaded question to be honest.  Bil H will no doubt chime in but a few factors came into play as I recall:
- Resources.  We can take a really good shot at BAOR and not cripple ourselves in development for years - along with the other BFC titles.  The core team is pretty small and we were looking for a quick, but solid, follow up to the main game.  Germany would have been a lot more work, as would  any other NATO nations, and the French were just a non-starter.  Those modules will take much longer, particularly in vehicle modelling and artwork.  BAOR had a lot of new vehicle models but much more manageable in the timelines for a first DLC.
- Locale.  The Northern Plain was actually where the most likely Soviet Main effort was going to fall.  Hate to admit it but Fulda was a bit of a sideshow in the overall Soviet plan.  It made sense game wise simply because the largest market for the game is the US, and we had a lot of details on this fight - US research is a dream as they put everything out there, Canadians are a nightmare.  That said we really wanted to do the northern plains from the start and historically that is BAOR or the Germans.
- Expertise.  We had experts on both UK and Canadian orbats right out the gate, which made research a lot easier.  I joined in 1988 and had a lot of my old battlebox stuff to pull from and some old timers I still know from up the day.  On the UK side we had similar expertise.
- Timeframe.  Late 70s, early 80s is really the “tipping point” of the Cold War.  It was when the doctrine and equipment of both sides was pretty balanced, each offsetting the others strengths and weaknesses.  Before this you get the nuclear armies, which were just nuts. And after you get the  western advantage leaning into overmatch and then we start to look a lot like CMSF or BS.
- Straight up cool factor.  So how would the UK done against the Soviets?  Canadians are fun because they mix European and US kit.  You wanna know how a squadron of Leo’s would have done…well let’s find out.  Not saying the other nations are not interesting but when you add everything up it just made more sense to do BAOR next and they would be fun to play.
As to “how will they play”…totally honest…no freakin idea.  We also had no idea on the main game.  It wasn’t until I played those first few scenarios while we were early in did we see that we were onto something.  BFC doesn’t balance for gameplay or market. They literally plug in the data from research and then throw it at each other in game. The balance is almost entirely emergent.  When we do up scenarios and campaigns there is always a level of balancing that goes on but this is macro stuff like force size and enablers.  For CMCW we were amazed at how little balancing we had to do. I designed the campaigns and scenarios based on doctrine on both sides and basically how they would have gone into a fight with each other.  The fact that these led to tightly balanced fights that require deep understanding of what each side can do was all pretty much emergent design.

@Bil Hardenberger the BAOR is highly requested, it's not per se wrong to do them first. Especially, if you have experts on the team to take care of them.
I'll buy it, no question, I want to see the Brits too.
It's just that it feels a bit like Combat Mission Fortress Italy without the Italians.

I would more or less agree if you mean germany since 1990. Throughout the cold war era the Bundeswehr was certainly not a weak link among the NATO members and I do not see any indecisive Bundeskanzler during that period either. 
A chancellor like Adenauer or Schmidt would have never gambled with germanys trust and credibility as a reliable ally like Scholz ist doing right now. 

I'm regards to the article alleging that German reluctance to concede the tank market in Europe to the U.S is a major concern for not giving Leopards to Ukraine, As shown by Defense Minister Lambrecht ordering the Bundeswehr not to look into the Leopards status, political reluctance to support heavy weapons to Ukraine translates into lack of preparedness and steps to support Ukraine which is causing blowback in general for Germany internationally and I suppose soon domestically.
It's been a year, had Scholz and co had even a tidbit of foresight, guidance and just simple leadership, they could have prepped the German military industrial complex to more strongly be able to assist Ukraine, assist efforts to backfill European contributions to Ukraine.
 
 

OK, bradleys and leo2s are just dandy.  This kind of thing is about the allies having a cohesive set of equipment to send.  Things that can be maintained and can help UKR in both the short and long term.  Which sounds to me like Leo2s and bradleys.

I posted a comment about this some pages back. Losing influence due to countries donating their tanks and opting for M1 instead of some new Leo2 in unspecified future is a valid concern. But using is as an argument to block the transfers is perfectly counterproductive, way to loose the remains of trust as an arms vendor. German armor industry is clearly a victim of scholzing around by the DE gov, I don't see how this situation can be salvaged.

It is not bs. You just really have to get to the weeds to see the Leo is the better option. Of course other options can be made to work if Leo doesn't work out

I don't want to drag this too far off-topic, but about the issue of military capabilties and readiness of the Bundeswehr up until 1990, you might want to read this relatively recent title by Sönke Neitzel.

I would more or less agree if you mean germany since 1990. Throughout the cold war era the Bundeswehr was certainly not a weak link among the NATO members and I do not see any indecisive Bundeskanzler during that period either. 
A chancellor like Adenauer or Schmidt would have never gambled with germanys trust and credibility as a reliable ally like Scholz ist doing right now. 

I would more or less agree if you mean germany since 1990. Throughout the cold war era the Bundeswehr was certainly not a weak link among the NATO members and I do not see any indecisive Bundeskanzler during that period either. 
A chancellor like Adenauer or Schmidt would have never gambled with germanys trust and credibility as a reliable ally like Scholz ist doing right now. 

I would more or less agree if you mean germany since 1990. Throughout the cold war era the Bundeswehr was certainly not a weak link among the NATO members and I do not see any indecisive Bundeskanzler during that period either. 
A chancellor like Adenauer or Schmidt would have never gambled with germanys trust and credibility as a reliable ally like Scholz ist doing right now. 

Happy New Year for all!
This night instead fireworks we had bright light&acoustic performance "Shakheds attack". 32 drones attacked Kyiv. Projectors beams, flashes in the dark sky, thunders of explosions and flaming debrises. On background of this hundreds of shouts from the windows "Putin khuilo!", "Glory to Ukraine!" and national anthem singing. All 32 drones were shot down (NASAMS participated too), fragments of one slightly damaged one infrastructure object. Recently more 13 Shakheds were shot down in other regions of Ukraine
PS. During the day attack Russia launched at least 6-8 Iskanders. Most of them on Mykolaiv. But one or even two missiles reportedly were intercepted - one Iskander was shot down over Kyiv and probably one in Mykolaiv.   
 

I'm back. Week ago Kyiv and Kyiv oblast were under heavy attack of Shakheds. More than 30 in one launch. Alas at least five could breakthrough and hit several important substations in Kyiv, so our quarter for three days had only five hours with a power supply,mostly at the night. First day we also hadn't a water and heating. Latter was repaired on second day after the strike and this was in time,because we had -5 at that night. 
In other days electricity appeared some more, but anyway mostly at the nights or at the morning for 2-3 hours. So, we had opportunity to cook something and charge our phones. Several times we heated food in large can with dry spiritus and kept it in heating bateries. We were very angry, when have seen other districts around us with a light at the evening, but our several quarters were almost in full darkness.
Special thanks to Kinophile and other for notebook - it has powerful battery, so it's using as powerbank too ) 
Without electricity all cell towers around were either dead or had  so big abonents load, that internet almost didn't work. Sometime I cought Starlink, deployed by Emergency Service, but it was too far and connection was unstable - about 1-2 minutes. Single place,where I can catch cell phone internet was subway and streets, having power supply. But I had too much work out of my workshop, so almost hadn't time to track   news thoroughly.
At last at weekend, maybe in honor of Christmass our quarter got almost 24hours power 
Damn, I have to read a week of forum )

Or all he really wants is sharks with freaking laser beams on their heads....

In contrast to the soviet OOB, we would see a number of T-72´s in frontline use with the NVA. No T-62, a lot of upgraded T-55 and only very few BMP-2´s. Interestingly, in contrast to german army tradition, "Auftragstaktik" (mission command) was not in use in the NVA.
To have the NVA would be great. Those helmets for me epitomize the cold war. And as it has been said, they would have been in the forefront of an Invasion. There even was a "Blücher-Orden" (award) already prepared for the first units to cross the rhine. 
 

I don't know what to say other than "take care" and that history is definitely not going in the right direction.

Interesting film.
The BTR could also bei dismounted through both sides. Somewhat cramped between the tires is a small door. And I assume the backdoors were also an option. Kind of odd they got that wrong in the video. 

Screenshot of the battle/campaign screen.
 
Screens look better in the game than what you see in my screenshots. To me they do.

Osprey hast also announced a campaign title about the panjshir-battles that will be released at some time this year.
Apparently it is due for late october.

Osprey hast also announced a campaign title about the panjshir-battles that will be released at some time this year.
Apparently it is due for late october.

I have read the Osprey Combat version on Afghanistan. Maybe it was already mentioned here, it is out for quite some time. I liked it a lot. It is called:
"Soviet Paratrooper Vs Mujahideen Fighter: Afghanistan 1979–89"
 

For the US, they were essentially strategic screening forces. They were meant to absorb the initial Soviet attack (even if it was a complete surprise attack) and buy enough time (slow down the Soviet advance) for other units in country to get assembled and move into defensive positions. They were a tripwire. 
Because of their precarious position, they tended to get all the best equipment right away. They had mostly Abrams and Bradleys once those vehicles came into Germany, as opposed to a lot of the other US units in theater, which were still largely equipped with Patton tanks well into the mid 80s. 

That's an impressive list. I purchased the soviet counterpart to David Isbys book on the NATO forces. It is called:
"Weapons and tactics of the soviet army". 
So it also covers tactical aspects. The soviet way of war, so to speak. Btw quite funny to read that many westeners expected the auto- loader to be a weakness or kind of design flaw in the "new" T-64 and T-72