Gpig

I'm assuming [/sarc] here.
...As I warned a couple of pages ago, our dear Ukrainian brothers must assume they are on their own, ultimately, to determine their fate, and their children's, with the expenditure of their own precious blood.  And the time to shape it is *now*, not later.
However some of us may wish it were otherwise.
I give @kraze a hard time (tbh I'd be more comfortable if he admitted just once that ethnic Russians who speak Russian are also good, loyal Ukrainians, because knowing that is the only way out of the hell the various neighbouring empires have built for them in their rich land).
But he and @Aragorn2002 are quite right in this: we Westerners have grown soft and out of touch in the nest our sterner, harder forefathers have feathered since Vasco da Gama broke the Islamic monopoly on Oriental trade, giving 'the West' first call on the resources of an entire planet.
So today, we are, indeed, not Agreement Capable -- or at least, not agreement reliable --- as a civilization.
But it is not within the control of anyone here to change that reality. That burden now falls on our brothers who shield our right flank, but their own homes and families first of all.
[/florid prose]

I'll second that!  Still haven't read First Clash, but intend to find a copy. Beyond that, yes, CMCW doesn't really feel complete to me until it has Bundeswehr, BAOR, NVA and hopefully the French and Dutch armies and maybe some Marines (U.S. and Soviet) plus the Norwegians and maybe Swedes and Finns for a North Cape module (I spent probably way too much time in the 90s playing Harpoon Classic, so North Cape looms large on my radar)...

Many thanks for this.
This framework -- or having  a framework -- is more than just an academic exercise. 
...I notice a lot of the more prolific folks here making a lot of increasingly strident 'What Now Must We Do?' statements, usually beating drums for full on Western/NATO intervention, or uparming Ukraine with 'strategic' weapons like antiship missiles. With each atrocity bringing a higher wave of 'Ya see? Ya see???!!!!' confirmation bias.
At the hard end of Certainty on here, we have the We [White] Men of the Civilised West MUST Unite Now To [Repel? Neutralize? Civilise? Exterminate?] These Mongrelized Asiatic Hordes line.  Which carries its own implications and limitations: no compromise with the Orcs who are only mindless animals, take revenge, cleanse out the traitors among us, raze Moscow! And then on to Beijing! (scroll up a few posts)
Which preemptively removes a lot of rather more actionable options from the table. And also limits the space for those umm-we-aren't-in-fact-Orcs Russians who might otherwise be pushing a 'Make peace, you fools!' solution at home (a few of them tried to speak up here and got angrily slapped down).  Well if they're just all storybook Orcs, who cares? but if they *can* precipitate a withdrawal without a 2 year stalemate and 25,000 Ukrainian dead, then...
Short of that, you also have the 'Balkan interventionist' line -- we must halt the killing at once, even if it means leaving the existing lines and injustices in place (not 'finishing the Job, whatever 'the Job' was).
And then you get the War Is Hell attrition line, best captured by Steve's early comment that ultimately all the Ukrainians must do in the end to prevail is to keep killing Russians, which will eventually precipitate a collapse and withdrawal. 'Eventually' being an evolving term, of course.
Anyway, sorry if this sounds incoherent, I'm just dashing it off. But what's important is to reflect on what courses of action one's Certainties and self evident truths are taking off the table. The opportunity cost, as it were.

Torture chambers.  Mass rape.  Genocide.  Threatening their neighbors.  More and more I have to admit this old sailor from the cold war is coming around to the fact that maybe we need to call Ivan's bluff and enter this.  I know it means world war and further the threat of Nuclear war.  I lived through that era and spent 5 years on an aircraft carrier preparing for it and am well versed that there are no winners in that.  But at some point the red line has to get crossed and the world has to say no more.  When the Soviet Union fell I had honestly hoped in the modern world we had seen all the evil that humans could preperatrate on one another, but the reports coming out of "occupied" Ukraine the last couple days have brought me to tears and filled me with so much anger I can hardly control myself.  If I was younger Id already be there doing something carrying the wounded and help the civilians (as I was no soldier) but god damn how much more can we see before we raise our fists?
There has to be more we can do.

Just to clarify: With my post about the Bucha satellite imagery, I didn't mean to start an entire discussion about various Russian disinformation efforts. I just came across this yesterday, found it easy to debunk, and thought it might prove helpful as a reference for anyone getting into a discussion about this particular Russian narrative.

Russians: Let’s setup up our battery here!
Ukrainians: Ni.
 

from that drone footage of the single UA tank, this is the location

from that drone footage of the single UA tank, this is the location

from that drone footage of the single UA tank, this is the location

Heh, they let a bunch of trucks and APCs pass because they are too “cheap” for the Stugna-P, then kill the TOS-1A.

from that drone footage of the single UA tank, this is the location

Thanks. Not sure if it was pointed out already but that means this was video of the recent pullout. This column is getting shot up as it tries to leave the country.

50.56392636558975, 31.495402295067468
Yessir. 

what?

You also learn a lot about the importance of good commanders/ plans playing CMBS, you can turn a guaranteed victory into smoking wreckage in two bad turns. I used to think I was world class at this, but after seeing the Russians level of expertise..... 

Sir David Attenborough: "And here we see a flock of Ukrainian geese fiercely protecting their nests..."
 

Hey I resemble that remark

Those videos DO pass the sniff test. It's understandable to not want to believe it.

found the location on Google maps, where this youtube vid was filmed by drone (appears to show Russian troops evacuating a wounded soldier on the back of that IFV)*
*the first 22 seconds of video is filmed at an unknown location. The remaining video overlooks an area that you can see on google maps

50.6126261409432, 30.295619319789765

Youtube vid, drone view
 

Sometimes Twitter is a cesspool. Sometimes it is not.
"I am the very model of a Russian Major General
My standing in the battlefield is growing quite untenable
My forces, though equipped and given orders unequivocal
Did not expect the fight to be remotely this reciprocal
 
I used to have a tank brigade but now I have lost several
My fresh assaults are faltering with battleplans extemporal
I can't recover vehicles but farmers in a tractor can
It's all becoming rather reminiscent of Afghanistan
 
My ordnance is the best but only half my missiles make it there
I would have thought by now that we would be controllers of the air
But at the rate the snipers work my time here is ephemeral
I am the very model of a Russian Major General"
 

Alright, enough lurking, long past time to dust off my old forum account and say "hi" and thank all of you contributing this gem of a thread, which is keeping me well ahead of the mainstream media.
 
Can we just admire the huge leap in technology? No, not ATGM or drone tech. Pah! Who cares about that? No, the all important meme-tech. It has come leaps and bounds since The Great Meme War. The other day I was in the car with my brother in law, who barely even acknowledges the existence of the internet, when my 6 y.o. nephew pipes up. "Look, a tractor!" and I decide to be a smartass and deny it is a tractor. "It cannot be a tractor, it isn't towing a Russian tank behind it" and it even got a laugh from my brother in law. The memes of Russian ineptitude, and SOF-like abilities of Ukrainian farmers even reached him. I was surprised.
 
Of course, this war isn't all fun and games. I for one deeply lament Steve deciding to put actually making games on the back burner. Not that I can blame him, his new profit making scheme sounds very lucrative:  Cold calling autocrats the world over.
"Hello Mr Maduro, I am calling to let you know we are going to be making a game set in Venezuala"
-Please don't. Here's 5 million dollars to **** off.
"For 5 million more, we will change the setting to Colombia"
 
Well done, Steve, that is now two countries you have plunged into chaos. If you ever make a game set in the modern Netherlands, I am gonna start packing.

🚨🚨Steve just leaked an aspect of the next modern CM title!!!🚨🚨🕵️‍♂️🚜

Should we really be supporting a country 🇺🇦 where everyone films vertically?