Sgt Joch

Those countries are part of NATO and at that point, we will have no choice. Ukraine is not part of NATO.

Well not really, Ukraine is unfortunately of no strategic importance to the EU or USA whatsoever. Even if the Russians should win and Ukraine is occupied for say 10, 20 or 30 years, it will have no impact on the ROW. It will be a tragedy for the Ukrainians of course, but so was the Vietnam war to the Vietnamese, Iraq war to the Iranians and the Afghanistan war to the Afghans. Does anyone think it would have been worth starting a nuclear holocaust over the Vietnam war, Iraq war, Afghanistan war or any of the other Cold War conflicts since 1945. This war is not any different.

Well that is the mistake people make of assuming Putin is not a rational actor. Does anyone really believe the Russian military/GRU would leave him in charge of nuclear weapons if he was crazy? Putin has said in the past removing Russia from SWIFT would be considered an act of war, sanctioning the Russian Central Bank which could potentially cause the collapse of the Russian economy is on the same level. The situation is analogous to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. JFK would have been quite ready to trigger a nuclear war if the Russians did not back down and pull their missiles from Cuba. Putin may be bluffing, but it is the same dilemna the West has been facing recently, are we ready to risk a nuclear war over Ukraine?

On the roof slat armour, there was a lot of speculation about what it was when it first started appearing a few months back. It is doubtful it will provide any meaningful protection against Javelins. Some have speculated it is more designed to provide protection against drone attacks.

no, wanting to be free of U.S. sanctions does not mean it was done for further aggression. There are many reasons why Russia, China, etc. would not want to be subject to U.S. sanctions which do not involve war.

Russia’s economy was disrupted by the 2014 sanctions and they have put measures in place since then to lessen the effectiveness of future western sanctions. Developing an alternative to SWIFT was one, they also developed: 1)closer relations with China, building pipelines and other infrastructure so they would have alternative markets; 2) doing transactions in currency other than U.S. dollars; 3) pushing foreign capital out of strategic industries and replacing it with Russian capital; 4) using more Russian produced goods instead of imports; 5) cracking down on opponents and independent media ,I.e. the “foreign agent” laws; and 6) building up a huge amount of liquid assets, over U.S. $600 billion last time I checked Now all this does not mean Russia cannot be hurt by western sanctions, but they have more of a cushion than last time. I don’t think this necessarily means this war has been planned for a long time.

The reason why Russia will not be cut off from SWIFT is the fact that the EU is still heavily dependent on Russian Oil (27% of oil imports) and natural gas (41% of Gas imports). How is the EU going to pay for Oil/Gas if Russia is cut off from SWIFT and Russia will cut off the flow if they do not get paid. IMHO, the reason why EU reaction so far is fairly mild is because this has a "France 1940" feel to it. Everyone is in a wait and see pattern. No one wants to make decisions that will be hard to reverse if the whole thing is over in 1-2 weeks.

Still not seeing devastating sanctions, Gasprom, Oil and Gas industries were not hit and despite what seems like heated discussions, removing Russia from SWIFT is not on the table. From what I can tell, despite the now hot war, gas is still flowing normally from Russia through Ukrainian pipelines on to the EU.

Ukraine is asking for one now, but no-fly zone will mean direct conflict between NATO and Russia and possibly lead to WW3, so not going to happen. following on Twitter looks like the Russian strategy is to capture airfields around Kiev, ferry troops in and capture the capital, presumably to put a puppet regime in place. Pretty risky thing to do unless you have total air superiority.

Actually the problem is still there with the latest drivers, i.e. 22.1.2, but in my case I only get the "out of memory" error when trying to load very large maps (Rx Vega 56/Ryzen 7 3700x). Going back to the 21.8.2 driver solves the problem completely.

As I recall, it was the quality of the armour plate that was in question and this was due to the materials, mostly a result of persistent shortage of ingredients, like certain precious metals. There has been discussion as to the actual impact out in the field. When the US/UK carried out trials on Panthers in summer 44, they found some armour plates were brittle and some held up well. As I remember, this is factored in game in the German armor protection level.

not in game, Panther has weaker side armour, even regular U.S. 75mm AP can KO a Panther from the sides at 600 meters.

I ran some tests in CMFB before Xmas. The King Tiger is very difficult to KO from the front, but U.S. 57mm and 76mm AP will easily penetrate the side hull armor at 600 meters.

As I recall, I believe Guderian when he was inspector-general tried to push the idea of just producing assault guns like Stug's, they were easy to build, could be mass produced and the main gun was almost as powerful as on a Panther. Panthers and Tigers look cool, but required more man hours to build for not that much impact. As I recall, most of the Big Cats were lost not through combat, but were abandoned when they broke down or ran out of gas.

Walter Dunn, “Hitler’s nemesis, the Red Army, 1930-45” is my main source for this. Large numbers of 76mm M4A2s were shipped to Russia in late 44-early 45. At the time, there was a shortage of T34s due to the heavy fighting in the summer of 44 so many Guards units were equipped with Shermans. Dimitri Loza also as you noted had a favourable impression of the Sherman vs Russian tanks. One point Dunn makes is that the Russians did not build high quality tanks, they knew from experience that a tank in combat had an average life of around six months so they designed and built tanks with a short designed lifespan which allowed them to maximize production. The Russians liked the Valentine, but used many of them in training units, not because it was a bad combat tank, but because it had an engine designed with a 100,000 km lifespan. To the Russians it seemed a waste to use the tank in combat where it would be killed in a few months. p.s - having a comfortable tank may seem like a luxury, but in an offensive, you can spend days with little sleep living in the tank. Being less groggy can make the difference between life and death in a combat situation.

One point to keep in mind is that the western view of Russian tactics has been heavily influenced by German accounts of WW2, notably the notion of “human wave” attacks and that the Russians only won because of overwhelming numbers which makes you think that the Russians just used WW1 tactics. This is wrong IMHO. As far as I can tell, the Russians used the same infantry tactics in 43-45 on attack as the Germans and Western Allies used, i.e., fire and movement, use of cover, short sprints, etc. The major difference is that the Russians were less concerned about casualties, so they would tend to press an attack when a U.S. commander would be more likely to stop and call in artillery.

CM modules often showcase new equipment, in this case lend lease. Many of the better Russian units switched to Shermans in 44-45. Russian tankers rated the Shermans better than their T34-85s, more comfortable, more reliable with a better and more reliable radio. They also rated the 76mm gun as better against hard targets than the Russian 85mm gun.

Finished the 1st scenario, fun little battle. On to scenario 2, beautiful maps!

Started the 1st mission, very nice, very immersive.

looking good and coming out on December 16th!

I am still on 21.8.2, no reason to use any newer driver for CM. Newer drivers are mostly of help to the latest cards and latest games.

Battle sight is standard SOP and has been used since WW2. Tankers figured out pretty quickly that at short range, the trajectory of the round is flat and you can just point and shoot without bothering to figure out the range, it saves precious seconds which can mean life or death on a battlefield.

Actually we testers did notice and complained about it a lot, but problem is you are trying to graft a system, PBEM+++, onto the CM engine which was not designed that way ... so you have to use a lot of duct tape and cross your fingers . Hopefully, it will be improved, the team has been working on it a lot over the past few months.

So.... talking about the difference between spotting “on a range” and spotting in combat when you know you could be dead anytime... Gabby Gabreski, the US WW2 Ace recounted his 1st time in combat in his autobiography. He is flying as wingman, all of a sudden calls of “Bandits!” are all over the radio. He starts looking everywhere all around him, but spots nothing. All of a sudden he hears on the radio: “check your 2 o”clock!”. He looks and sees a 109 as big as a house, barely 200 meters away that he was slowly gaining on. Before he can react, the 109 spots him and dives away...