Sarjen

What's going on in this thread is unfortunately exactly what happened in EU politics. None of our countries are without flaws, but prefer pointing to the flaws in other countries.
While I'm happy the people of Greece are in the EU, the application was a fraud with Goldman Sachs involved and the problems you mention were swept under the rug until the crisis hit. Blame Germany all you want, but if the 'whole system' is untouched I'd advise looking into it instead of expecting Germany/any other country to fix it.
Blaming Putins invasion on Germany is stupid though. Not only Germany is dependent on Russian energy, other countries are as well and indirectly the whole EU is. The alternative was getting even more dependent on USA, which at the time wasn't deemed a good idea by anyone. 
Let's look forward how unity and solidarity can be implemented, not only for a short while because of this war. If we want EU to be a success story, it will require a compromise from every country and every citizen. 

Actually at the end of the day we are a wargaming community with deep interest (and some expertise) in the history of warfare.  This is the first peer-on-peer conventional war of the 21st century and likely the most intense since the Iran-Iraq war back in the 80s, so you can understand why it is kind of a big deal.
As to the games, no small amount of effort you see here is to try and figure out how to make CM more realistic, particularly the modern titles.  So let’s call this game design in contact.   
Finally we are about analysis and assessment that cut through a lot of the noise out there, so we have seen a lot of people migrate here because we try and remain unbiased- as far as we can as we stand with Ukraine on this one- and offer a different picture than a lot of mainstream military analysis.  Moreover, we will toot our own horn as we have been noted as out in front of events thanks in large part to information sharing and a robust online debate.
We are also on the internet and get whackies, which have been warned and in some cases banned.  
That all said, do not worry BFC is still in the gaming business but right now they have their eyes on this history in the making.  They (and “we”: check out CMCW while you are in the gift shop!), will be back to making the game series you love shortly but right now the best good we can do is try and keep a clear eye on things and keep each other informed while supporting those of us in the middle of all this.

I'm not sure that this is where it starts, or even ends.

I mean maybe, but Russia is made up of so many disparate regions with a lot of complex and internal self interests. When the economy is breaking down and the Govt is still embroiled in a conflict, growing costlier by the day, the internal tensions develop and the self-interests become ever more magnified. Because of the authoritarian need to control everything, in this scenario, it's predictable that the Kremlin would just be overwhelmed firefighting all these collective problems, struggling to hold together any semblance of a cohesive nation.

So my thought is that the longer this conflict continues without a ceasefire the more likely the internal tensions develop and a Govt that looks increasingly out of control. In this situation, I'd suggest there's likely only two end paths. Either the 'enduring painful conflict' collapses because the military will is no longer there, think Eastern Front 1917/18 - and where did that lead to - or else the writing would already be on the wall approaching that sort of critical crisis point and Putin is removed by either (relatively) peaceful or violent means from within the Kremlin. 

Presently though we are a long way out from this, just that all the conditions are beginning to fall into place for a typical sequence of events like this starting to unfold. It makes sense that Putin will be getting twitchy to wrap up this conflict asap, like in the next couple of months, latest before next autumn, beyond that the prognosis for him will start to look really bad I'm sure.

I would like to add that the gas infrastructure from the USSR to the west (or what has become the west in the meantime) predates all current and recent politicians (we´re talking late 1960s).
The attached corruption is however more recent (russian top jobs for former German and Austrian polticians is more of a Putin era thing).
If somebody can pull off a genuine Energiewende, it´s the Germans. It will be well invested money since everybody will have to wean themselves off fossil fuels anyway.
This is of course a major undertaking and will take years, regardless of moralistic huffing and puffing from countries who (currently) have easier access to energy .

There's another factor as well. With Europe FINALLY re-arming itself and doing what it should have done a long time ago for it's own defence (hopefully against an impoverished and weakened, but no doubt still dangerous Russia), the US can continue to concentrate more on the Chinese. Personally I not only would like to see Europe stronger, but I would also like to see the US, our only reliable ally, to remain world power number 1. In the past month we once more have been reminded how small the number of countries is that really value freedom and democracy. 

And on the topic of how badly Russia has lost the "big picture".  On all this let's say that Russia somehow manages to defeat Ukraine.  Not some poncy re-definition but actually take the whole country installs a puppet government and holds victory parade in May '23 [aside: the odds of this happening are so extremely low that we are in "alien virus wipes out UA" type scenarios, but let's just play along].  So what?
- Russia gets Ukraine and all its oil, gas and wheat...all of which are a small fraction of what Russia already has, but it is technically in the plus column.  Of course to access all that you need a functioning Ukraine, so who is paying to re-build all the infrastructure the Russians blew up in order to gain all said cool stuff?
- Russian has demonstrated the exact opposite of what they need to the world.  The great Russian bear nearly bled out taking a single country in its near abroad, leaving destroyed and abandoned equipment and bodies all over the place.  It looks weaker than we thought going in even if Ukraine surrenders right now...that part is done.
- Geopolitically it has made its enemies stronger (see above). If someone told me Sweden and Finland were going to be seriously be moving to join NATO six months ago, I would have laughed them out of the room.  Hell, we heard rumours of this 6 weeks ago and were not really thinking they were serious.  So NATO is bigger, more unified and better funded - really not seeing the master plan here.
- Geopolitically, it makes Russia much weaker.  Those sanctions are not going to be forgotten in a year. In fact I doubt the investigation into the mass war crimes from this war will be over in a year.  You wanna talk stalemate, no western politician is going to even hint at "re-normalization with Russia" for maybe a decade. So that means that Russia has to pivot heavily to people who will trade with them...enter the Chinese.  The Chinese may very well send Russia support but it is a poison pill.  China wants Russian resources...cheap.  And a weakened Russia who can only trade with a narrow market is extremely vulnerable and desperate.  They will have to live with what they can get from China price-wise because they literally have no other options than "leave it in the ground and become a third world nation".  And even if it isn't China, it will be India then who sets the conditions but that gets more complicated. 
- Internally it makes Russia much weaker.  Putin is going to have to spend billions on the wave of resentment and pushback that is likely coming his way from all the Russians that do not buy off on this whole thing, and even if that is only 17 percent that is 24+ million people that are going to be extremely agitated that Putin has to deal with.  Being an autocrat and creating a closed society takes money, ask North Korea.  So all that funding to counter backlash is going away from "other things", but you cannot simply cut all social programs and infrastructure funding, or that percentage goes up.  So what takes the hit?  The Russian military is the most likely candidate.  Everything but internal security will be on shaky ground, while being run by a corrupt administration.
So here I do agree with Steve, Russia has already lost this war.  It is just a matter of determining what that loss looks like.  Worse, Russia has likely already lost its next war and does not even know it yet.

What I find maddening right now is the lack of imagination and flexibility in the SPD especially. Sure, we can't completely cut ourselves off from Russian gas for a while, everyone INCLUDING Ukraine understands that by now and doesn't expect us to completely tank the EU economy.
What Ukraine does expect is to make up for that with increased weapons shipments. It should have been a no-brainer to be prepared for that and have a few attractive options ready (which the German military industry is already offering).

Germany needs more time. You can't expect a Lion to behave like a Lion after you've taught it to behave like a lamb.

You spelled german wrong.

It is not my "only" take but it is the most prominent one that is in my mind.  @Battlefront.com and @Combatintman have described both the differences between Russian BTG and Western BGs, which has to do with the framework under which they operate, along with qualitative internal aspects.  Further, the one major sin that I have not seen mentioned is the lack on ISR sharing between BTGs, normally done in a centralized ASIC (or pick your name) at the Brigade/formation level.  This means that each BTG is likely only seeing their world in a small patch in front of them.
Ok, I think we got it: Russian's suck.
My issue with this is that we have seen multiple assessments on this all over the place (no fault on you personally for posting, my frustration is with the mainstream military analysis) to the point they have become a self-reinforcing echo chamber in the making, all designed to explain why the Russians have failed, and likely will continue to fail.  Why this is dangerous:
- It creates a very convenient narrative that what we are seeing is "all on Russia doing it wrong".  There is truth here, do not misunderstand me on that point; however, it completely misses the fact that the Ukrainian's made the Russians do it more wrong. 
- By limiting the analysis and assessment to how poorly the Russian tactical and operational forces are not doing, we are risking the creation of a schadenfreude bubble that conveniently pins the phenomena we are seeing all on the Russians while risking some potentially incredibly significant implications on what the Ukrainian defenders are doing.  
- Further this sets us up to a post-slide into "well of course the Ukrainians won, we trained and equipped them".  This further sets us up to feel really good about this whole thing and avoid confronting "what really may have happened". 
We have seen this sort of effect repeatedly in the past.  The US Civil War, particularly towards the back end saw the mergence of trench warfare as more modern weaponry made manoeuvre much harder, particularly for cavalry.  European observers went "well, sure but these are backward colonials who are doing it wrong."  Then again during the Boer war with smokeless long range Mausers chopping up British (and Canadian) formations at range - "well those are rabble, who lost in the end".  WW1 Austro-Hungarian complete failures - blame the ethnics in the ranks....the list goes on.  
So What Happened?
  I am not sure and will likely spend a fair amount of time over the next decade trying to figure it out but there are some alarming trends that western militaries cannot avoid:
- Russian had the mass, Ukraine did not.  Not saying the conventional UA sat out the first phase of this war but a 1300km frontage was largely defended by a hybrid force built on a foundation of irregulars...and it just butchered Russian mass.  To the point of operational collapse.  The Russians had knives, Ukraine had pillows, and Ukraine won; this is not small.
- The Ukrainians appear to have done something to friction and might not even realize it.  Through a combination of information superiority - built largely on civilian infrastructure no less, and a shift in weapons effects, they were able to hit the entire length of the Russian forces, all the way back to the SLOC nodes.  All of this using a lot of unmanned, which we have discussed.  More to the point, they appear to have projected friction onto the Russian forces (already brittle for reasons presented) to the point that the Russians collapsed under their own weight. 
- Russian concepts of mass are not that different from our own.  We still rely on roughly the same organizational concepts.  We call them "tactically self-sufficient units", Battlegroups etc.  And yes they are set up differently, but I am not sure that would have made a difference, our tanks need gas too (and gawd help us if the RedBull supply is cut).  But we have pursued Adaptive Dispersed Operations at the tactical level as well (awkward crickets) - "oh but we would do it right" - would we?  Our LOCs are just as long as the Russians, our armour just as vulnerable and out combined arms concepts not too far distant.   "Well the Russians didn't know what to do with their infantry...we do".  Ok, so our Battlegroups do not have that much more infantry than a BTG and those Javelin systems really mean that your BG screen now needs to sweep every bush and henhouse out to 4000m(!) along the BG frontage or you are going to be trading burning vehicles for every km you advance.  Surprise is pretty much dead.  Unmanned is likely going to be everywhere...the list goes on.  This is not another "tanks are dead" issue, it is "is mass as we know it dead?" issue.
- Information.  There will be new fields of study created in military education based on this war on what just happened with respect to information in this war, from tactical-to-political.  If I had to pick one factor that tries to explain a lot of this it is information. The implications are, again significant, to say the least.
And all of this is based on what already happened.  The Russians and UA can redo Kursk down in the SE, and I am sure many in the west will go "well there is the war we know and love" but shocking stuff has already occurred in the first 45 days we cannot un-see.  
I get these are early days but I see an "easy out" bubble forming, and it is dangerous in more ways than most understand. That is what I took away from that thread.
  

Like I said before, it's not just costs on a macroeconomic level, but industrial supply chains that are going to be cut off.
Having a European economy without BASF is kinda difficult.

Romanivka was not captured by Russian troops. Throughout the battle for Kyiv, a humanitarian corridor was organized there, which allowed the evacuation of civilians from Irpin Bucha and Gostomel. I myself evacuated along this route on 03/05/22, when the Russians entered Irpin and street fighting began. This route was under heavy artillery fire for about 3 weeks.

You spelled german wrong.

Imagine a group of scientists discussing some of the finer points of cladistic analysis of dinosaurs when suddenly the most inbred, subhuman redneck you can imagine bursts in and says "God made the earth in 7 days though!". That is basically what you just did.

You spelled german wrong.

You spelled german wrong.

Scott Ritter is yet another expert that has been on Russian TV over the years.
He was the WMD attack dog for the inspections in Iraq and leading the charge, until he was no longer leading the charge and resigned pointing fingers at everyone else for hindering his ability to uncover the WMDs. Then when he was no longer in charge he was suddenly convinced there weren't any. 
He's gone around the bend and don't think he can be considered as a good source for this board.
And on top of everything else he is, he is a twice convicted sex offender. So right at the baseline you are looking at someone without morals or ethics which makes them pretty hard to trust. Just saying.

Imagine if CM got as much dev time as this thread 😭

They are beaten when they say they are beaten. Beating them up and then claiming victory is ludicrous. Cancer has the habit of regenerating. Here an Austrian perspective they were also a super power hundred years ago and have experience with Eastern Europe. It has English subtitles. They explain how the Ukrainian Forces deal with the Command and Control of the Russians. Better explained than the English speaking media. 
 

Interesting.  Think I’ve seen some imagery of Russian troops moving around with these also:
 

Many in Ukraine call Russia as Mordor, but.. no. What a f....g Mordor? Putin too ugly and paltry to be compared with evil lord %) Putin's Russia is Numenor of Ar-Pharason times ) Cult of Melkor (like a temple of War in Russia), cultivating of hate to West and it Lords, opression of Faithfuls and offering them as sacrifice to Melkor, Great Armament, Great Invasion to Valinor and... if you read Silmarillion, you should know  If not, you should read it after LoTR 
PS. Before 7 years in medieval re-enactment I about 6 years was a Tolkien-fan, participated in LARPs etc, was an archer  

Third reread? Amateur!👍I’ve reread LOTR every two or three years since 1966! It is probably my favorite novel ever. I apologize for straying from the thread, but with all the LOTR references, I couldn’t help myself!

As Steve said early on UKR only needs to "keep kill Russians".   And Putin looks like he's gonna keep sending worse and worse troops in.
Funny all this LOTR stuff.  I am on my 3rd re-read right now this time via audiobook, I do it every 10 years.  Currently in 3rd book w attack on Minas Tirith coming up.  I think the orcs et al have a better army than RU.  RU can't even seem to get Osgiliath (Mariupol).  They both lost badly at Helm's Deep (Kyiv).

Ahah, thanks, you make me blush ) I would be a hero, if did this from Chernihiv or Kharkiv, but Kyiv was relatively safe place, despite heavy sounds of artillety and MLRS and sometime missiles booms in the sky