panzermartin

Probably survivability of T 62 doesn't really make a world of difference to more modern tanks like T 72, when faced against javelins and modern AT weapons. Those can kill everything. So why not field an older tank for secondary support. It's better than a BMP in terms of protection and has a big gun. They only seem focused to gather as many gun barrels as possible to saturate infantry positions.
It's questionable at least though in what condition these tanks are. It will be bizarre to see them on the front line again. 
 
 

Turkey and the non-member Balkans current elites arent in some unfair purgatory - theyve repeatedly refused to guarantee media freedom, open trade, patent protection and crucially clean government through structural reforms or legal protection, etc. Stupid chauvinism ego and power protection seems mostly to blame.
Other countries, notably Romania, did accept terms, got in and have steadily improved. 
 
 

And the latter two are not going to happen anytime soon. Legally (although I'm seriously no expert on that) NATO membership would only be possible with a real peace contract, a cease fire and a frozen conflict are not enough. I also imagine a fast track towards EU membership wouldn't sit too well with Turkey - they have been waiting for this for decades - so they could veto NATO membership. In Germany, there are many who would rather have Ukraine become a neutral state and I think France may be similar. 
EU membership is also very unlikely to happen soon.
Turkey and the Balkan states have been held in limbo for a long time, so it would be difficult to argue why an exception should be made for Ukraine. With every country having veto power, EU is already pretty inefficient and there are many who say that reforms should be made before any new members are accepted. Ukraine maybe has too close ties to Poland which is not the most popular member right now due to its autocratic tendencies. It could be perceived as making the Visegrad Faction even stronger. Adding more and more net receivers means less money for the other receivers. Not to mention that we want resume normal business with Russia at some point, so let's not be too nice to Ukraine. /irony off

I may soon need to start a new CMSF thread:
"U.S. raises concern over Turkey's plans for new offensive along Syria border"
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/new-offensive-northern-syria-would-further-undermine-regional-stability-us-state-2022-05-24/?taid=628d4c079c851e00019e0f83&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
""We recognize Turkey's legitimate security concerns on Turkey's southern border, but any new offensive would further undermine regional stability and put at risk U.S. forces and the coalition’s campaign against ISIS," he said.
Erdogan on Monday said Ankara would soon launch new military operations along its southern borders to create safe zones 30 km (20 miles) deep to combat what he characterized as terrorist threats from these regions.
The operation will likely target the north of Syria, where Turkey has launched several military operations since 2016 to undermine the Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG), an armed Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Ankara has conducted three incursions into northern Syria since 2016, seizing hundreds of kilometers of land and pushing some 30 km deep into the country, in operations targeting mainly the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.
It has also stepped up military operations against PKK militants in northern Iraq in recent years.
Turkey views both groups as a single terrorist entity. Its NATO allies only view the PKK as a terrorist group, not the YPG.
The United States was expecting Turkey to live up to a October 2019 joint statement, including a halt in offensive operations in northeastern Syria, Price said. "We condemn any escalation. We support maintenance of the current ceasefire lines.""
"Analysis: Erdogan's vow to expand Syria operations raises stakes in Turkey-NATO row"
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/erdogans-vow-expand-syria-operations-raises-stakes-turkey-nato-row-2022-05-24/
"Erdogan hopes to leverage the issue of Swedish and Finnish membership of NATO into an opportunity to achieve his long-held goal of creating a buffer zone free of Kurdish fighters along Turkey's entire border with Syria, analysts said.
His move comes as opinion polls show support for Erdogan and his ruling AK Party sagging amid deepening economic woes. Turkey holds presidential and parliamentary elections in 2023."
My take:
- I'm not buying the previously posted account that the Biden administration greenlighted this. Much more likely to be an explicit or tacit agreement between Turkey and Russia. If so:
- Masterfully played by Russia. We've been blasting them for their ineptitude throughout this thread, but this time they killed several birds with one stone: Sow division within NATO; divert Western publics' attention away from Ukraine; etc.
- Erdoğan, too, gets an 'A': More bargaining room for the arms embargoes and F-16Vs; ongoing Turkish Lira crash explained away as hostile manipulation; chance to win elections in 2023 and not have to 'pull a Lukashenko'.

Do we really know how many UA troops were taken out of action in Mariupol since the start of the siege. I remember a force exceeding 10.000 there, among them most of Azov's best. We are constantly talking about the russian inability to replace combat ready troops, but I wonder if Ukraine is facing the same or worse situation. 

This way of thinking, which implies that peoples are a solid and unique group that must be treated and punished for their sins in a unique and total way, reminds me of something very ugly.
From there, it is a very short step. to suggest a "Final Solution" for the Russian people because all of them are guilty of being Russian.
For my part, I deeply detest the Russian government, but I pity the Russian people. 

Interesting comments re the possibility of China sharing data with the Russian forces. Not sure if that is true, I guess possible and maybe there are other explanations of how quickly drone Operators have been targeted, such as Russian eyes on the ground and some quick thinking?

To get data from China back to the Russian units seems a stretch but who knows...

Also shows what we have all known that the youth playing computer games can help defend their country…..

 
 

If you think about it Putin has little to gain from escalation. So better to stick to the special operation version, while continuing the war. 

It's still the weekend. From tomorrow I'm preparing my paperwork to depart 😜. It is still difficult for me after 20 years of very engaging threads, modding and gaming. Anyway, in case of WW3 and the fall of civilization we might have to say goodbye afterall. 
In that case, I want to thank BFC for their amazing games. When gaming with friends we still recall tiny details of vast CM battles, and we all agree it was the finest moment of our war gaming (and probably pc gaming in general )
Sadly, my most close CM buddy Spiros who was lurking here and playing in some ladders, passed away unexpectedly. This game was a way to remember him. Cheers "Mein General" ! 
 
 
 

No, I understand what you are saying but I'm sorry it's a misunderstanding of my initial post. I didn't excuse and I don't consider this as a viable tactic. I could understand though their rage when committing revenge actions. If I was there and had the courage I would probably say stop you freaking animals. But from a "historical" distance and context it seems like a punishment that was inevitable.
 
Kraze, I don't feel comfortable to debate you because of the current situation and your (just) feelings against Russia. You have a more personal view of history that is perfectly understandable. I don't ignore the facts and your points when I don't reply though. 
Last time Im writing about this, I never said Red Army were saints. I'm not in a fantasy world. But is a dangerous path to equalize them with the illness of Nazi Germany. A key difference is that Nazi army was much more disciplined but the atrocities were a calculated wider fascist plan and policy we all know about. I can't repeat it every time, these aren't on the same weight and most historians will tell us this. Nazi Germany was a greater threat to the World at that time than USSR that's why the free powers of planet earth back then sided with them and provided aid of millions to defeat Hitler. Doesn't this make sense? 
 

You don't have an idea what it was like to be under the Nazi boot. You go to a country to exterminate certain "species" with 25 million dead and you expect they will handle you like porcelain in return. Now thats ROFL. You reap what you saw. Germans accepted that, time for you to accept it as well. 
 

Just kidding of course. Stay around, but keep your shirt on. 😉 As the Romans already used to say: there are as many opinions as there are heads. 
That's also freedom.
Sorry to hear about your friend. May he rest in peace.

Guys you are being very short sighted sorry, cruising along with the shallow cancel culture. Here we have german paratroopers cemetery in Crete, German soldiers cemetery in Attica, Turkish monuments, venetian, franks monuments, all the freaking occupiers that walked this earth. And we respect all that no matter what, you vandals. 
 

I'm actually pretty sympathetic towards germans. I respect their way of doing things, the traditional economy of family business, and yes a country that had suffered so much is a wiser country. My friends paint me as germanophile because of my obsession with Ww2 history, the German technology, aesthetics etc since I was a kid ignoring the "evil" side of this . I have cycled all their country along the Elba and I buy tons of german Weiss beer every year:)  
But I will never tolerate people whitewashing of crimes of the Nazi period or rewriting history. And I will always be critical on their leading role in EU when it becomes profit over people. 
Things have gotten much better between us since the 2015 crisis, I'm glad we stayed and I hope for a better european future...
Now I'm bittered with all what's happening...Actually my dream was to see the past rivals, that bled each other so much in WW2, Germany and Russia coming closer together in a peaceful way. This is shattered now... 

There are no Stalin monuments in Berlin. Just Soviet army ones. While not a cemetery It's sort of a memorial for the dead. We have soviet monuments for the fallen here as well. They were vandalized with Ukrainian symbols and graffiti. 

Guys you are being very short sighted sorry, cruising along with the shallow cancel culture. Here we have german paratroopers cemetery in Crete, German soldiers cemetery in Attica, Turkish monuments, venetian, franks monuments, all the freaking occupiers that walked this earth. And we respect all that no matter what, you vandals. 
 

I swear if I ever read again that the Red army was equally evil with the SS and the Wehrmacht that made my father starve as a kid and his friends getting killed while painting slogans on walls, I'm going to delete my account here. There was nothing evil with the T 34s rolling down the streets of Berlin in 1945....Their crew could have been Ukrainian, Polish, Czech... Too bad I once had fun making mods for CMBB. Some had crosses, some had red stars, noone was actually offended.
It's still a WW2 monument, not a stazi agent bust. 

Not an army of saints by any means. But nobody will object that they had every right to do this in german territory as retaliation . And they actually spared the vast majority of people that had come to their land to ethnic cleanse them and make soap or purses from their skin. 
In this logic, we can say that the carefully planned colossal allied fire bombings of undefended german cities packed with refugees were more evil. But some people here will say for that, "you reap what you saw", while for the soviets they will say they were evil orcs and monsters. That's somewhat ironic and double standard. 
 

I swear if I ever read again that the Red army was equally evil with the SS and the Wehrmacht that made my father starve as a kid and his friends getting killed while painting slogans on walls, I'm going to delete my account here. There was nothing evil with the T 34s rolling down the streets of Berlin in 1945....Their crew could have been Ukrainian, Polish, Czech... Too bad I once had fun making mods for CMBB. Some had crosses, some had red stars, noone was actually offended.
It's still a WW2 monument, not a stazi agent bust. 

I swear if I ever read again that the Red army was equally evil with the SS and the Wehrmacht that made my father starve as a kid and his friends getting killed while painting slogans on walls, I'm going to delete my account here. There was nothing evil with the T 34s rolling down the streets of Berlin in 1945....Their crew could have been Ukrainian, Polish, Czech... Too bad I once had fun making mods for CMBB. Some had crosses, some had red stars, noone was actually offended.
It's still a WW2 monument, not a stazi agent bust. 

Guys you are being very short sighted sorry, cruising along with the shallow cancel culture. Here we have german paratroopers cemetery in Crete, German soldiers cemetery in Attica, Turkish monuments, venetian, franks monuments, all the freaking occupiers that walked this earth. And we respect all that no matter what, you vandals. 
 

Shattered for now...I still hold out hope that we may live to see a peaceful and genuinely democratic Russia of some sort. The road is just long, difficult and uncertain. But the world we live in today would seem pretty inconceivable to someone living in 1975, let alone 1939...

I'm actually pretty sympathetic towards germans. I respect their way of doing things, the traditional economy of family business, and yes a country that had suffered so much is a wiser country. My friends paint me as germanophile because of my obsession with Ww2 history, the German technology, aesthetics etc since I was a kid ignoring the "evil" side of this . I have cycled all their country along the Elba and I buy tons of german Weiss beer every year:)  
But I will never tolerate people whitewashing of crimes of the Nazi period or rewriting history. And I will always be critical on their leading role in EU when it becomes profit over people. 
Things have gotten much better between us since the 2015 crisis, I'm glad we stayed and I hope for a better european future...
Now I'm bittered with all what's happening...Actually my dream was to see the past rivals, that bled each other so much in WW2, Germany and Russia coming closer together in a peaceful way. This is shattered now... 

This generation were never concentration camp inmates or camp guards. History books have black pages equally divided amongst nations.  

Hey, we are still politically dominated by Germany. Bullied at some point. The worst of the people I know thought it was good to offend dead people as revenge.