Erwin

Glad Petraeus said that.  The fact is that "we" have been doing the same as the Israelis in our own conflicts... but they were never reported in the same way as the Israeli-Pal conflict has been.  So when "we did it", it was understandable and applauded.  As folks have noted earlier in this thread, there is an ugly double-standard applied here compared to the US reaction after 9/11 when Iraq (which had nothing to do with 9/11) was invaded and reportedly hundreds of thousands of "innocent men women and children" were killed.  
There is a big difference between deliberate cruelty/torture/terrororizing and unfortunate/regrettable collateral damage to eliminate an evil such as ISIS or Hamas.

Generally, the same tactic works for all CM2 games.  Recon and lead with inf.  Locate the enemy's primary threats, ATGM's or ATG's (more WW2).  Kill them with arty.  Then the AFV's can blast away at buildings and troops.  In CM2 the tanks seem rather delicate.  While we read about geat tank assaults, leading with AFV's etgc. designers usually make that a suicidal tactic since the designers create defenses specifically to make that tactic suicidal. 
It seems common that one spends perhaps 75%+ of the game prepping the battlefield and the last 10%-20% actually rolling out the assault.  So, patience is critical. - much more so than in CM1 games.

Generally, the same tactic works for all CM2 games.  Recon and lead with inf.  Locate the enemy's primary threats, ATGM's or ATG's (more WW2).  Kill them with arty.  Then the AFV's can blast away at buildings and troops.  In CM2 the tanks seem rather delicate.  While we read about geat tank assaults, leading with AFV's etgc. designers usually make that a suicidal tactic since the designers create defenses specifically to make that tactic suicidal. 
It seems common that one spends perhaps 75%+ of the game prepping the battlefield and the last 10%-20% actually rolling out the assault.  So, patience is critical. - much more so than in CM1 games.

It is usually quite possible to accomplish CMSF missions with minimal casualties.  It takes practice and an understanding of how the game system works, and that takes experience.  CMBS is much worse in that one error can cost you the game.  I found CMSF be be a huge "shock" after playing CM1 games for 7-8 years.  The CM2 games are all very "sensitive" and errors are heavily punished.

Good catch, Laurent.

Yes, make an exception.  Had same problems with AVG years ago and had to make exceptions for all CM games.

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to all!

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to all!

The thing is Cap we hopefully all agree with you that it is a terrible thing that the rule of law is no longer working.  However, would you not consider that we have to deal with the world the way it is... not the way we would wish it to be. 
From a military, economic and social POV, it seems essential to destroy Hamas by any means necessary, in the same ruthless way we dealt with the Nazis and the Japanese.  Anything less than that is merely delaying/prolonging an even greater humanitarian disaster.  After that, one can only hope there will be a form of "Marshall Plan" that will put Gaza back on the road to some sort of good life for its people - just like we did for Germany and Japan. 
And again, hopefully we can get the Arab nations to fund that... instead of using the Palestinian-Israeli conflict for their own internal political machinations.  One has to remember that many/all the Arab/Muslim nations are essentially repressive dictatorships focused on suppressing their own powder kegs of internal religious conflict.  

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to all!

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to all!

Totally agree with those comments.  Regrettably some of us have a schedule that is erratic so while one may have a couple weeks to play full -time, then it may be necessary to travel with no game system or internet for weeks.  For that reason, I have sadly been having to avoid tournies. 
 

I find what works well is to order a BLAST plus an immediate FAST move back the way the breaching team entered.  The explosion creates smoke and shock that gives the breach team a few seconds before they would be targeted by any enemy. 

Interesting WSJ short  excerpt on "How to Avoid Defeat in Ukraine"
 
by 
Walter Russell Mead . 27, 2023 1:24 pm ET The German tabloid “Bild” said the quiet part out loud. President Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the well-sourced newspaper reported, plan to force Ukraine into peace talks next year by denying it the weapons needed to win. This creates a dilemma for those who know that Ukraine’s fate matters deeply to the U.S., but who can also see that Team Biden is more interested in avoiding confrontation with Russia than in defeating it. To oppose aid to Ukraine is to ensure a Russian victory, but funding Mr. Biden’s approach will do little to prevent one—and will further erode public support for America’s global engagement.
Having failed to deter Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine in the first place, the Biden administration badly overestimated the effect of Western sanctions on Russia. Once it was clear that sanctions wouldn’t force Russia to end the war, and after several failed efforts to tempt Russia with “off ramps,” Team Biden cooked up Plan Stalemate. The West would dribble out enough aid to help Ukraine survive, but not enough to help it win. Ultimately, the Ukrainians would lose hope of victory and offer Mr. Putin a compromise peace. The White House would spin this as a glorious triumph for democracy and the rule of law.
Some will criticize this as a cynical strategy, but the real problem is that it is naive. Mr. Biden seems to be clinging to the idea that Mr. Putin can be appeased—parked, if you prefer—by reasonable concessions. And so, the White House thinks, if Ukraine offers reasonable terms, Russia will gladly accept them.
But what if, when Mr. Putin senses weakness, he doubles down? What if a few thousand square miles of Ukrainian territory matter less to him than inflicting a humiliating defeat on the Biden administration and demonstrating the weakness of the West?
Mr. Putin has recovered from his early stumbles in Ukraine. Russia has more than doubled its forces there since the war began. Despite early setbacks, Russia has developed capabilities and tactics that have improved its troops’ effectiveness on the battlefield. The unconventional (if morally repugnant) decision to send released prisoners to fight in such places as Bakhmut and Avdiivka means that Russia was able to degrade some of Ukraine’s best combat units while preserving its own best units for battle elsewhere.
Russia has increased weapons production and is now manufacturing ammunition an estimated seven times faster than the West. It has mitigated the effect of Western sanctions. It is strengthening military and strategic links with Iran, and thanks to Iranian protégé Hamas, Western attention has shifted from Ukraine toward the Middle East.
Article continues:  
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-avoid-defeat-in-ukraine-russia-u-s-foreign-policy-military-aid-weapons-war-d86db15f?mod=WTRN_pos7&cx_testId=3&cx_testVariant=cx_171&cx_artPos=6

It just occurred to me that one may need a WSJ sub to read the sobering article.  Here is an excerpt, but it is well worth reading the much longer article if one can access it.  Send me PM if you want the whole article and I can send it to you:
"It’s Time to End Magical Thinking About Russia’s Defeat
Putin has withstood the West’s best efforts to reverse his invasion of Ukraine, and his hold on power is firm. The U.S. and its allies need a new strategy: containment.
By Eugene Rumer and Andrew S. Weiss Nov. 16, 2023 10:00 am ET
As Russian President Vladimir Putin looks toward the second anniversary of his all-out assault on Ukraine, his self-confidence is hard to miss. A much-anticipated Ukrainian counter-offensive has not achieved the breakthrough that would give Kyiv a strong hand to negotiate. Tumult in the Middle East dominates the headlines, and bipartisan support for Ukraine in the U.S. has been upended...
Putin has reason to believe that time is on his side. At the front line, there are no indications that Russia is losing what has become a war of attrition. The Russian economy has been buffeted, but it is not in tatters. Putin’s hold on power was, paradoxically, strengthened following Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed rebellion in June. Popular support for the war remains solid, and elite backing for Putin has not fractured.
...Soviet legacy factories are outperforming Western factories when it comes to much-needed items like artillery shells.
The technocrats responsible for running the Russian economy have proven themselves to be resilient, adaptable, and resourceful. Elevated oil prices, driven in part by close cooperation with Saudi Arabia, are refilling state coffers...
Putin can also look at his foreign-policy record with satisfaction. His investments in key relationships have paid off. China and India have provided an important backstop for the Russian economy by ramping up imports of Russian oil and other commodities. Instead of fretting about lost markets in Western Europe or Beijing’s reluctance to flout U.S. and EU sanctions, Putin has decided that it’s more advantageous in the short term simply to become China’s junior partner in the economic realm. Goods from China account for nearly 50% of Russian imports, and Russia’s top energy companies are now hooked on selling to China.
Even neighboring countries that have every reason to fear Putin’s aggressive tactics, such as Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, have made fat profits by serving as enablers of sanctions circumvention and as transshipment points for the goods that Russia used to import directly."
 
 
 
 

Some of you may know that way back when I used to piggy back on foreign cultural exchange programs.  Had some similar travel over the past 8 months (hence my absence from the forums) and was able to gauge how people abroad feel about the current Ukraine situation - plus my own (very) personal conclusions.  Visited places like Scandinavia, Baltics, N. Africa, Central Asia, with an unscheduled quick drive through the Russian Fed.  (Yes, one can easily/accidentally do that in places.)  Talked with regular people, not govt. spokesmen, and any comments/conclusions are mine alone and not that of any official or govt. entity.
Got back home just as the Israeli crisis erupted.  The situation in Israel makes my report somewhat obsolete, but the ME situation can be regarded as a “Ukraine added” phase of the increasingly hot global struggle for dominance between China and the US-led west.  Foreign travel makes one realize that we in the west are fed a very one-sided view of events from our media, so I hope the following very brief summary is interesting.
1)      Outside of the US-led west, Russia (and China) have substantial support. 
2)      Whatever Russia's initial hopes for an easy conquest of Ukraine, the current stalemate situation serves China's (and Russia's) aims. 
3)      For Ukraine to "win", Russia has to be removed from all Ukraine's territory.  If Russia controls any of Ukraine's territory, Russia "wins". 
4)      The west has no plans (or way) to remove Russia from Ukraine (barring unforeseen massive change in circumstances). 
5)      The west’s plan seems to be simply to drain Russian resources and work out novel ways of waging war with new technologies.  However, that now appears also to be China and Russia's plan… to distract and drain resources from the west, and to train. 
6)      The proxy war could go on indefinitely with Ukraine supported by the west and Russia supported by China until one side runs out of manpower. 
7)      In Europe, there is rapidly decreasing support for sending funds and resources to Ukraine (or anywhere) because of the fast-worsening economic situation for ordinary people in all European countries.  Was even lectured in detail by an Albanian about how the Ukraine war was the fault of the US.
8 )     In N. Africa and Asia, there is significant support for Russia and Putin.  Swedish folks are not particularly supportive of US goals. 
9)      The nations bordering the Russian Federation were most concerned about Russian expansionism as one might expect.
From additional reading it appears that Muslim nations are responding favorably to Chinese entreaties despite its treatment of the Uyghurs.  Looking at the big grand strategic picture China is doing everything it can to create an alternative world reserve currency to rival and diminish the dollar and US influence re its goal of world domination.  The situation in Ukraine and the new crisis in the Middle East serves its purposes as nations hostile to the US enter the Chinese sphere of influence. 

Sounds like that was more 1938 than after France fell: 
"In the aftermath of the Munich Agreement, Hitler and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier in December 1938 made an agreement that officially declared that Germany was relinquishing its previous territorial claims on Alsace-Lorraine in the interest of maintaining peaceful relations between France and Germany and both pledged to be involved in mutual consultation on matters involving the interests of both countries.[86] However at the same time Hitler in private advised the High Command of the Wehrmacht to prepare operational plans for a joint German–Italian war against France.[86]"

This another feature that has been requested for many years.  This ambush feature would also be useful for snipers, and any unit lying in wait to ambush.  The important part is the move to a 2nd location after the ambush is effected. 
As has been pointed out, currently one never can accurately predict how long a unit needs to stay in a position b4 it spots and fires - also true for snipers and ATGM (eg: Javelin) teams.

Mentioned over the years many times, also obtaining/swapping ammo from adjacent leg units - like from ammo dumps - rather than the cumbersome current method with vehicles.  

And here's a little update for anyone who doesn't want to read the entire thread:

 
And another overview of the strategic situation and the localization of the individual campaigns:

Every side drafted 40+ year olds. This was not an average age, however. You couldn't go to any given unit and interview soldiers and only be coming across 35-45 year old men, as I have unfortunately seen a few times while reading news stories from the front.
 
 
Naftali Bennett and former-German Chancellor Schroeder have stated peace was on the table and that the Americans were the ones who 'ended' those talks. A lot of rumors have been flying around about the nature of these talks and why they suddenly concluded like this, but those are two very legitimate sources.
 
 
If you paid the smallest amount of attention to the West's actions the past 20 years you'd think they were the most aggressively militaristic party on the planet. Wait a second -- they were. In fact, one of them is bombing civvies right this second! But you'd also think there were WMDs in Iraq, that al-Qaeda had a huge network of supervillain caves in Afghanistan, and a long litany of other lies used to justify mayhem on spread. Leaders lie, and they lie most predominantly to their own people. I won't pretend to know Putin's goals at this point and, like in the West, I'd take anything he says to his own people with a grain of salt. I just gave you the above information, though, to demonstrate they were absolutely not his goals early on.
 
Actions by Americans, particularly those with ties to things like PNAC and general neocon-funfair, also clearly demonstrate an intention in Washington to drive Ukraine headfirst into a meatgrinder. So these news articles do not surprise me at all. You people will believe things like Russia is running out of troops, running out of ammo, fighting with shovels, etc., but it never occurs whether or not the intentions of American neocons met its expected conclusion by design or if it all just went in their favor by some coincidence. I don't think it was a coincidence at all. Nor do I think it's a coincidence that bad faith actors like Rumsfeld go from "bulletproof" evidence of WMD in Iraq to "I never said we knew where they were" one year later. I expect to see such reverses in statements about this war just as well, and I also expect people to compartmentalize these statements like they did with that era of politicians, leaving them scot free of any consequences at all.
 
 
The above comments made by the Israeli and German statesmen do not align with your fantasies here. The 150,000 men beelining straight to the capital a la Georgia 2008 also don't really agree with any sort of occupation plan either, just by common sense. The only portion I agree with is that they intended to flip Ukraine's government and install a pro-Russian in there. Those soldiers were then likely going to be used to de-arm Ukraine and defang it. The operation was a pretty clear shock attack and Putin no doubt had (very bad) intelligence that told him it'd get wrapped up in a month at most. Like I said, there's no real getting around this. It's too foundational. I also don't know if it's strictly even that important to the conversation -- by either metric, Russia invaded. I don't think "neutralizing" Ukraine or "conquering" Ukraine have huge differences when at the end of the day it's one nation invading another and seeking to basically operate it from the inside.

I included the former Israeli PM for this reason. Schroeder's connections with Putin are obvious. This does not automatically mean he is incorrect and the arrival of corresponding stories highlights this. You did not talk at all about the Israeli PM, so you left the discussion at a half-step.
 
Nonsense? How is it nonsense when you then agree, but add in the qualifier that they are only the most "capable." The capability of the invading nations does not have anything to do with the aggressiveness of invasions by said nations. You just disagreed to disagree here, and didn't even really disagree. Bizarre comment.
 
 
Neocons are not to be trusted, period. That is my bottom line on those people. Victoria Nuland is married to Kagan, a major neocon architect, who has outlined American expansionism/imperialism for the 21st century. Why is it that when these people go places, war and misery follows in their footsteps? Is that just a coincidence? Judging by what they state and print, the answer is clear.
 
 
If the U.S. is not willing to invest the actual resources required to win a war with Russia, then yes, it should not have involved itself at all. Dogwalking another people into conflict and then playing gotcha with it is insane to me. The U.S. has the material capabilities to lay down some serious material into Ukraine and it has not done it. The West in general has the economic capability to go on a war footing and has not done it. Everything is nominal, and nominal contributions when the other side is very dead-set in their intentions is flagrantly stupid.
I do not forgive half-measures when hundreds of thousands of people are dying.
 
 
Don't see much disagreement here. I mean, moving into separatist regions... like they're doing in Ukraine right now? And pray tell, what major partisan efforts are currently ongoing in those Russian-held regions? After Afghanistan and Chechnya, I don't think Russians have much interest or desire to 'occupy' places they are not wanted. They want to bully and flex, fighting isn't really their forte but anyone who understands Russia knew this already, though a thousand videos of military disasters is pretty sufficient evidence just as well.
 
Almost a year ago, I stated that offenses in this war were almost suicidal and one should avoid engaging Russia in static warfare due to their massive artillery advantage. I was correct. I stated that the Russian economy was not buckling beneath the sanctions. I was correct. I stated that non-West spheres of the world were not responding to West's compulsion to sanction Russia. That was correct. Actually, so correct that we now see Western imports into Russian border-nations, suggesting not even some in the West care anymore, and we see other nations welcoming Putin on their stages. I stated that this notion of Russia running out of materials for anything is a pipedream as they have significant infrastructure to support war efforts. That was correct. I stated that the economic contributions of the West involve stockpiles which necessarily dwindle, and if you do not have a replacement in line for when that happens, bad things are going to come to a head. That is coming to a head right now. My models are fine, thank you.

I travel the world and operate out of Belgium. This is very, very common when interacting with people on the topic of America. It is anecdotal. What is not anecdotal is the massive lines of people waiting to get into America, proving quite verifiably that there is meat on those bones.
 
The hostility toward American foreign policy is harder to measure, but it has moments of clarity I need not expound upon.

Being weaker doesn't mean that you're the good guy.
Ukraine is absolutely the "good guy" in the war: it's a sovereign, internationally recognised, democratic state invaded without provocation.
Palestine... frankly, at this time Israel is right: Palestine doesn't exist. A fundamental requirement for being recognised as a state is your state's ability to exercise control over its territory. The PA clearly does not control Gaza, though laying claim to it as part of the Palestinian state.
And if they do claim that they're in control of what goes on in Gaza, well, that'd mean assuming full responsibility for the October 7th massacres. Whatever the case, international law does permit an offended party entering the territory of the offending party under arms to do what is necessary to guarantee their future safety, so I disagree with calling the invasion of Gaza illegal.

For heavens sake plz don;t overdo it and burn out...  That unfortunately tends to happen at some point to all of our most talented modders and designers.  But, you're on the right track making your designs a little easier.  At we discussed there was at least one Dinas mission that I had to restart over a dozen times.  
Agreed...