rocketman

Yep, Steve grabbed the goodies for himself. I think the only way to make this right is a game update for Kevin.  Posted publicly of course
 

Think it depends on setting, because on mine you did it.  Typical, upper management comes in just in time to cut the ribbon....

Looks like it is about time for Battlefront to transplant the CM:SF2 NATO and UK stuff into CM:BS.

Interesting article from Tom Cooper, who seems to be making sense again, suggesting that the "big" Russian offensive is underway, just not as perhaps expected.
and worth flagging for this quote if nothing else
 
https://medium.com/@x_TomCooper_x/ukraine-war-3-february-2023-56183abaab20
 

Something for the moderators, this is just straight Hitler speech.

That's not politically incorrect, it's pure unadulterated anti-Semitism. 

That is straight up attritional warfare of the old school.  Echeloned human waves - sometimes supported, other time not is a straight up “we will trade 30 of ours for 1 of yours”.  Discipline is also extremely old school as well, basically you are shot if you don’t succeed, and this includes getting wounded.  They only thing missing is to put suicide explosive belts on these guys and you have Fedayeen, but insert Russian nationalism for Islamic extremism.
The major problem with this approach is that it is a road to nowhere.  Unless you have held back a breakout force that can exploit a breakthrough, you can crack the line but never exploit it.  It does not sound like there is effective integration between Wagner and the RA so how do they expect to actually exploit a breakthrough?

Bottom falling out:  Russian economic damage gets to a point that it can no longer effectively prosecute this war.
Now whether that comes from conative erosion at a political/social level or a hard economic collapse is secondary to the main issue - although not irrelevant.   If the Russian people can live with option A, so be it, but at 1980 Soviet levels the current Russian economic framework will not function - it would have to adopt a far more totalitarian economic model than it currently has in place (see North Korea).  Then we get into the question of whether such a system could sustain a war at this level in competition with the western economic system.
If the Russia people truly are sheep and are willing to put up with Putin as their bear-riding-god well then we have to be ready for the long haul in all this.  We are then likely talking Cold War levels of resistance and proxy conflicts, and some of them took decades.  I think the major problem with the west right now is that we are addicted to a status quo that is gone.  We all want this to "just be over" so we can go back to watching whatever crap is on tv, and arguing about ourselves with ourselves over stuff that in the grand scheme of the human enterprise really does not matter. 
That ship has sailed.  We are entering into a era of collision, the Great Peace of the post-Cold War era is over and we might actually have to be ready to make some real sacrifices in order to ensure we stay on top of things.  And if one of those sacrifices is a ten year commitment to a long war in Ukraine to keep whatever Russia turns into inside a box, well ok that is the deal.  I personally do not think that it will come to that but strap yourselves in because the next big conflict is likely just around the corner. 

Economics is not my area of expertise but from what I can gather large economies do not move and shift in timescales that most humans operate within with respect to personal finances.  9 months is a blink of an eye when one is talking about a large economy - the fact that almost every voter in every democracy is completely ignorant of this fact is a significant problem.
Economies do dramatic things like collapsing but the pressures to create these dramas take years to build.  A large economy has a weight and momentum all it own, so major shifts and trends take a long time to manifest.
 A micro-example, I lose my job.  Well ok, I do not lose my house the next day.  In fact if I use my credit cards I can actually look like I have more money than I did when I was working.  I can cut spending, sell off stuff from the basement and even do some light stealing.  I can do odd jobs on the side, some of them less than pleasant.  But to my neighbours the lights stay on and I look like I am doing fine.  6 months to a year later the bottom does fall out and I run out of credit, bank shows up and there is a lot of drama. That is just personal finances. Unlike a country I cannot print money or manipulate interest rates.
So Russia is making bank, but the economic damage being done to it is deep and broad in scope.  For example, given that they just basically stole a lot of western corporate assets, how long will it be before Russia sees western investment?
https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/russia/foreign-direct-investment
It is still selling oil and gas but it has severely damaged its major market - Europe.  So what?  Well the Russian strategy was for this war to be over well before now.  Well before economic impacts could fully set in.  Western resolve was supposed to split and fade because who wants to take the economic risks in protest of an already lost Ukraine?  But it did not turn out that way.  Russia made some terrible assumptions and bet the farm (literally) on them.  Someone mentioned that the “West is not the whole world” true, we are about 2/3rds of it when it comes to money:
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-94-trillion-world-economy-in-one-chart/
Russia can and will continue to “make things work” but wars are ridiculously expensive and on one side we have the richest countries in the world all making relatively pretty modest donations while Russia has had to go “all in”.  This is one of the most one-sided proxy wars in history based on economic power. Russia is extremely isolated and vulnerable, getting worse everyday.  So it can prop up the ruble, sell oil and gas on the cheap, cut standards of living and social services - and it will make it work for some time. But the bottom will fall out. This is not sustainable in the long term.  And with every warcrime and day this war drags on Russia is digging a deeper hole for itself.  We are talking years, possibly decades before renormalization with the West is possible.  China and India are not invested in Ukraine, they could care less.  So they are going to take advantage of the situation and milk Russia until it bleeds.
https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDP_RPCH@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD
So before we start freaking out because the ruble is up, let’s just make sure we understand what is really going on with the Russian economy on a macro scale.  And finally, even if Russia doesn’t suffer one bit.  All the sanctions do not work and it can sell oil and gas to the Mole People for diamonds.  Russia has an economy the same size as Canada which is not small but is not large enough to wage a war of this scale in glorious economic isolation indefinitely.  And even if it did, our pockets are so much deeper - the only thing in question is “how deep is our willpower?”

I also "hope to see you this year"!
Sign: your opponent on Matrix/CW tournament 2nd round.

Ah, you’re missing out Centurian. Multiplayer is where it’s at. Well worth the time. In my humble, but correct,  opinion. 

It doesn't matter if they can't buy much of anything they really really need with it (not a new wing for Putin's palace, for example) ... they might as well have huge reserves of Chocolate Coins or Monopoly Money.

So Perun did a really good video near the start of this thing on how the value of the ruble is more complicated than the simple exchange rate.  Stuff like interest rates and some of the propping Russia did is going to cause much bigger problems down the line. 
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/currencies-ruble-vs-dollar-russia-vladimir-putin-western-sanctions-oil-2022-9#:~:text=The ruble has rallied since war in Ukraine began&text=Both those commodities are valued,rate means it's losing money.
 
 
 

The Ruble is a terrible measurement for anything.
Its not actively traded, you cant buy it, Russians cant sell it. What determines its value? Its meaningless in anything but propaganda value which is exctracted and maintained by the Russian central bank.

Great stuff @Ithikial_AU you just made my day. Needed something to look forward to. I bet this BP will be a great marketing tool for the Steam crowd. Also like the fact that the Vehicle Pack gets some love.

Great stuff @Ithikial_AU you just made my day. Needed something to look forward to. I bet this BP will be a great marketing tool for the Steam crowd. Also like the fact that the Vehicle Pack gets some love.

Ok guys we have been green lit to make a formal announcement on this shortly.  Until then let’s just clear up a bit of confusion with respect to timeframes - we are going backwards not forwards.  More to follow…

@BFCElvis - For pinning please.
 
Steve has let me off the proverbial leash to release some bones for CMBN in 2023.
 
Relive the opening days of the Normandy Campaign from the perspective of American and German forces fighting for control of the Cotentin Peninsula of France. From D-Day through to the 13th of June, take command of forces from the 4th Infantry, 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions, as they fight for a foothold on the western edge of Operation Overlord. Alternatively, take command of German formations in the area, including the 6th Fallschirmjäger Regiment as it tries to hold back the Allied Invasion.
A Taster of Included Content
 
-          Three Campaigns
o   We Start Here – Follow the exploits of the 101st Airborne and 4th Infantry on D-Day. Follow the first paratroopers to hit the ground just after midnight, through to the evening of June 6th. Get off the beach.
o   Purple Heart Lane – Command the 101st Airborne from the Battle of Ste Come du Mont through to the Battle of Carentan.
§  A slight experiment in campaign design, allowing the player to fight a rolling battle at their own pace over several in game days. Can you keep pace with history or will the 17SS Panzer Grenadier Division arrive in time to make your task more difficult?
Current count, 110 scenario variants so that is quite a long campaign script.
§  A recreation of the Carentan Operation from Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord.
o   Fist of Iron – Take control of the 17SS Panzer Grenadier Division on the 13th of June as they launch their counterattack to retake Carentan. Can you defy history?
-          Scenarios (purposefully incomplete to leave some surprises)
o   La Madeleine / Tare Green – The 4th Infantry Division head north along the beach to clear the German Strongpoints.


o   Clash of Eagles – 101st Airborne and 6 Fallschirmjäger Regiment elements clash around Vierville.
o   Hill 30 – 101st Airborne try to hold the line southwest of Carentan against a determined 17SS Counter Attack.
-          Master Maps
o   Seven maps covering just over 70 square kilometres of now famous battlefields, recreated from Allied aerial photographs and D-Day planning maps from 1944.
-          (Possibly) Master Unit Files. In combination with the Master Maps will allow players to easily put together fight their own linked multiplayer campaign battles. [Let me know views on this one].
Requirements
 
Players will be required to own:
-          Combat Mission Battle for Normandy Base Game;
-          Commonwealth Forces Module;
-          Market Garden Module; and
-          Vehicle Pack.
 
Likely Questions
 
Why are we going back to D-Day?


When the CMBN base game was designed there was a conscious decision to focus on the US Army and German Heer forces only. This meant that key German formations that were fighting around the 101st Airborne area were not available. With Waffen SS and Fallschirmjäger formations now part of the game family we are able to recreate these famous engagements inside the CM2 engine. It's also a chance to present a number of different tactical scenario situations rarely used in previously in stock scenarios such as the use of naval gunfire, extensive fortifications, spotting victory point allocations etc.
Why the focus on the 101st Airborne? No love for the 82nd Airborne?


There are already a number of community made scenarios and maps available for players focusing on the exploits of the 82nd Airborne to the north of the location depicted in this Battle Pack. We didn’t want to crossover too heavily with the work the community had already undertaken.
Will any new formations or units be added to the CMBN family with this release?


No. Like other Battle Packs the focus is on campaigns and scenarios. Unlike Modules which focus on the new units and formations introduced, Battle Packs provide us the opportunity to mix and match all the content available in a game family.
What’s the release date?


When it is ready. This will be sometime after the CMBN Steam release. This pack has also been a bit different when compared to others to date. When this was announced at the start of the year the actual work had only just commenced rather than being in development for some time already. Saying that, the mapping is virtually complete and scenarios are being built.
How will I be able to get my hands on it?


From all the existing places you can currently buy Combat Mission products.
In the promotional photos that bush is 0.764 meters away from where it was historically!


Everything is a work in progress. Also, I suggest you may want another glass of a fermented vegetable drink.
Wait a minute who the hell are you?
One of the volunteer beta team. Like GeorgeMC and JonS before me, one of us generally leads a Battle Pack development though this time I've been lucky enough for a number of other betas to help out and get all that mapping done. Also dabbled in some modding and YouTube in previous years.
Can we see some pictures?
Oh alright.

This is why TheCapt gets paid the big bucks.  Or at least he should be paid big bucks.  Thanks for the hard slap / big picture reality check.  Basically what matters is where we are at the end of campaigning season this year, not whether RU gets a non-strategic little city it rubble-ized.  

Ok, so I guess it is time for another talk on this.  The main reason there has not been a lot of discussion on the progress of the war itself is because not a lot is happening - or wait, is it?  And being human means we simply cannot accept reality for what it is, we need to start reading meaning and implications at every shadow in the dark.
Nothing is happening because the UA has run out of steam.
Nothing is happening because the RA has rebuilt itself into a lurking monster that can freeze this conflict in place.
Nothing is happening because it is all a [insert boogie-man of you choice] - Belarusian Front re-opening is popular.
Or here is a crazy idea, maybe nothing is really happening because it is the middle of a wet muddy winter.  Or wait a minute, maybe something is happening - https://www.forbes.com/sites/katyasoldak/2023/01/23/monday-january-23-russias-war-on-ukraine-daily-news-and-information-from-ukraine/?sh=72a88a92ba69  but because of unrealistic expectations we think nothing is happening.  
In fact we have become so fixated on questionable criteria of success that the fact that the RA is bleeding out appears to be getting lost in the noise.  https://www.newsweek.com/nearly-5500-russians-killed-last-week-war-defense-ministry-1777316 (that is 1/3 of what they lost in Afghanistan in ten years).
Oh but we all know the mighty Russian bear can generate millions of troops - which it has not - and come crawling out of the snow to retake all of Ukraine and usher in a new era of Russian dominance. 
And then pundits - seriously who are these guys? Say things like "Ukraine can only make progress with a deliberate offensive."  Well no sh#t Sherlock, it is what they have been doing since last Sep.  In fact the only successful defence-only operation was arguably in Phase I when the RA over-reached and collapsed out of the North.  Every major UA success to date has been a period of heavy RA attrition/manipulation followed by deliberate offensive pressure - fast in Kharkiv, slow in Kherson - outcomes the same.
"Oh dear, oh dear, Russia is going to win the war."  Well Piglet, no Russia has already lost this one - we are only negotiating what that looks like here. (The_Capt's all war is negotiation has clearly fallen on deaf ears.) 
"But, but, Russia wins unless we take back every square inch of Ukraine in the next week."  Well, ok by that metric then I guess we have lost this one but that is a terrible metric.  "Russia wins if Ukrainians keep dying" - another bad metric because last I checked this is a war and people are going to die from it for decades - see UXOs and landmines.  "Russia wins if Russia is not a smoking collapsed ruin with Putin hanging upside down from a telephone pole" - ok, seriously?
The worst case right now is that the front does not move an inch.  The conflict is frozen in place, locked in Korean style.  The specter of Russia somehow turning those buckets of Chinese chips into a C4ISR enterprise that can achieve: information superiority; wage a SEAD campaign for the ages and somehow regain air superiority - and invent a CAS/AirLand doctrine while they are at it; then establish the operational pre-conditions they needed on 24 Feb - make Ukraine go dark - literally and information-wise, cripple transportation infra-structure, and paralyze political/military strategic decision making - is f*cking laughable.   I mean if the RA still has those rabbits in its hat I will be absolutely shocked and of course ask the obvious question - "what the hell were they waiting for to pull them out?"
So conflict frozen.  So What?  Russia has already failed on both its made up and real strategic objectives for this war.  The real ones are stuff like:
- Take full control of Ukraine, install puppet government and run the nation like Belarus.
- Shatter the western world through a display of Russian Imperial might and re-assert Russian hegemony.
- Render NATO irrelevant and neutered.  With no doubt a longer term campaign to push them out of the Baltics through subversive means.
- Simply wait for a few months before weak-kneed European resolve collapses and they all start to buy Russian gas again - renormalization, Russian supremacy in its neighborhood, western "rules-based-order" a burning wreck, and sit back and let the autocrat club rule the roost.
Ya so not only did none of that happen, in many instances the exact opposite happened.  So for all you students of history I think I am on pretty safe ground when I declare that this is what losing looks like.  If on the weigh scales of history Russia gets "blasted and shattered Donbas, complete with reconstruction bill", and "Cut off and highly vulnerable Crimea", and "Strategic land bridge to nowhere", I think we can bloody well live with it.  If we cannot and that is what breaks us, then we never deserved to be in charge in the first place.
Russia just burned down its own storefront.  It has isolated itself from it best customers.  Its reputation on the global stage is in shambles, re-normalization is a very far off dream.  It has been militarily crushed - I mean this is 1991 where Saddam drove the coalition into the sea type of thing - by all old metrics of warfare Ukraine should be in an occupied insurgency right now, the reality we are in should not have happened. Russian hard power credibility is a joke.  And it is extremely vulnerable to really weak negotiating conditions. 
Further NATO has not been this unified since the Cold War.  Western defence spending has been re-energized for a decade at least - I mean seriously Vlad, read the f#cking room, we were half-way to debilitating defence cuts in the post-pandemic economy but then you made your "genius" chess move.  Europe is actually agreeing with itself.   The US has finally found something they can agree on, mostly.  And most importantly, I think the West finally woke up from its "New World Order" hangover and realized that one has to actually keep fighting to stay on top.
And finally here is the thing....this entire affair is not over by a long shot.  We have not seen anything that suggests the UA has run out of gas.  We are pushing more and more offensive equipment at the UA, which suggests that they are lining up for another operational offensive.  The RA is still flopping around with leg-humping in the Donbas.  Spending thousands of lives for inches, just like they did last summer.  So before we declare this thing "over" why don't we just buckle in and show something that most people do not get in the least about warfare...steady patience.  Games and movies are terrible at teaching this because they are entertainment.  War is more often a slow and steady grinding business, until it is not.   

So that is simply not true.
Now that part is true.
No, doesn’t really track.  Country went from zero to sixty in the 8 years after it lost a large chunk of Donbas and Crimea.  In fact where the lines on the map are finally drawn really are not critically linked to either security or economic recovery at this point in the war.
Seriously, you are painting this entire thing into a pretty bleak (and maximalist) corner with this line of thinking.  I would have hoped nearly 2000 pages of in depth discussion and counter-points would have done something but apparently we are still at “it is all about the map!”
So what are we going to do if Ukraine retakes all it wonderful land - filled with people who actively supported Russia by the way - and magically Russia does not cease to exist, nor does it recognize an end to the conflict?  A new more nationalist Russia with some other nut job in charge - they have more in the back- who refuses to accept the lot of the “poor downtrodden true-Russians in occupied Crimea and Donbas”?  Based on your absolutist criteria we basically have to win WW3 in order to fully secure Ukraine…pointe finale!
And here is why what you are pitching is such a bad idea.  If we ain’t absolutely winning…we are losing!  Like war is some sort of digital experience like being pregnant.  Based on your underlying strategic requirements as outlined by this narrative, the only way Ukraine and the West can win is through the complete destruction of Russia.  This is not only a terrible idea, it is a dangerous oversimplification of the situation.
I am glad to see we are still on schedule for our monthly “crisis of faith” because the war is not meeting these highly unrealistic goals and timelines.  Based on these metrics we may just have to accept the loss then, I think over on the MacGregor channel they are already talking about pushing Ukraine into negotiations.
Why don’t we just stick with the “a secure western facing free and sovereign Ukraine with a functioning democracy while well supported in economic recovery”.  And work backwards from that?  A lot of scenarios between here and there, and I am pretty sure the grown ups are working through them all.  
Strategy is not a choice between Good and Bad, it is a choice between Bad and Worse.  We are living Bad right now.  We are all looking for something other than Worse.

The only way Ukraine can win is to hit the Ivan at the operational level. 
Ukraine has no strategic options to defeat Russia,  and at a tactical level its own forces are still too similar to Russia's to give it any major or lasting advantage. True NATOization across the board is a year+ away, at best. 
That leaves operational, which is logistics, which has proven to be Russia's most consistent weak point, and can be amplified by major C2 decap. 
Ukraine cannot undertake any major offensive without a major forming process beforehand. That process cannot be countered or stalled before or during the assault. 
The HIMARS effect at this point has run its course, the Ivan has adapted and is surviving and solidifying. 
If/when Ukraine implements a new operational level effector  (or better, a system of effectors) it will need to work for several months, throwing up whatever possible responses/defences RUS might have or develop.  Once those have been proven useless or defeatable, then can an offensive begin. 
Ref system,  RUS has proven it can adapt - slowly, costly adaptation but the end result is the same. But a system of different platforms,  hitting Russian forces on perpendicular operational tangents would amplify effects and outcomes, and make adaptation much slower and more difficult. 
Into that carved out space in Russia's operational adaptability is where the assault should cut. 
My gut says logistics, which for Russia is railways. 
As for systems,  I think an operational size bubble of air dominance is a good start. Cram a lot of AD into a certain region and use it to fend off RUS Air. Use those forced openings to rapidly attrit the regional RUS logistics. Interplay Air strikes with HIMARS,  HIMARS 2.0, etc and really go full pyscho on their C2 hierarchy, from Col upwards. Erode a whole section of the Russian logistics zone, front to back, and its C2 from top to bottom. 
Initiate this when Russia has already launched its own offensive and is too commited on forces and logistics formatting to pivot quickly enough. 
Hit the right place and UKR can both cut out a section and undercut the Russian attack elsewhere. 
Essentially, let Russia commit to an attack then crunch its logistics in an area that it cannot easily cover, but is vital to the attack. 
Weather Ukraine can do this with its current force format and posture us another question... 

We COULD put or big boy pants on a give the Ukrainians tanks with the latest Trophy derivative APS. From a purely military standpoint it would be awfully good to really test those systems against a minimally competent threat before go all in on them as  a war winning weapon.  The Russian issue isn't that they don't understand how the systems work. It is that they can't make the machines to make the machines to MAKE the systems. Some broken bits of the final product are not that helpful from a reverse engineering standpoint when that is your problem.
It still doesn't solve mines and artillery, but it all about reducing the number of losses it takes to crack the outer shell just enough. They would be VASTLY helpful against hasty defenses if Ukraine could achieve a real breakthrough and get a real exploitation phase going.

Not so rare😀 
This is a 1A31 "RUTA" radar sight. This system could be used during the day or night and in all weather conditions including heavy rain, fog and in a smoke-obscured battle environment. The sight was designed to automatically detect targets from a range of over 3,500 meters, and detect a moving target within 3 seconds with a probability of 80%. The rubber sleeve next to the fighter's shoulder is to protect the radar screen from glare like on old planes

This right here is where the wheels come off the theory of success.  First off, the UA already has AFVs and tanks - if some of the charts being tossed up here are accurate, the UA already has a large fleet of each, in the thousands....so why have they not been able to "actually fight for and hold ground w minimum of casualties" already?  How are a couple hundred western tanks going to fundamentally allow the UA to do more than what they are already doing?  None of the numbers being thrown around are going to equate to numerical advantage nor a shift in force ratios.  How is a Leo2 going to succeed where a T72 has failed in this war? 
This has been the deep flaw in the "send them all the tanks" argument...there is no argument.  No one has been able to articulate what and how these vehicles are going to create competitive advantage on the battlefield.  We have articulated a lot of risks and opportunity costs but the other side of the argument is pretty much "Leo2s = win!!"  This is not thinking...this is a bandwagon.  What we have seen on the RA side is that it doesn't freakin matter what tank you show up in; T90s to T62s, you are spotted and made dead before you can get into direct fire range in order to support the infantry.  Most of these western tanks excel at the one thing we have seen the least of in this war - killing other tanks.  We have seen some such actions but they are in the marginal minority.  This much steel rolling around the battlefield and we have not seen one major amour clash or decisive action, yet somehow we are doubling down all over this capability.  "But infantry support!"  Well the UA looks damn well like it has figured out infantry support, that much is obvious.  Those poor shivering HUMMVs and MRAPs took back half of what Russia tried to grab in less than a year, which according to almost every western military doctrine should be impossible.
Now there is an argument that the Soviet-model fleets are drying up, so a deliberate conversion to western systems would make sense in that regard, but then pick a single fleet and buy in bulk and expect a long integration, and not this jumbled nightmare forming up.
"But the UA asked for them!!"  Well dare we speak heresy and push back on the UA?  What evidence do they have that more tanks will actually work?  A lot of the UA higher ups are western trained, are they falling into the same trap as us?  Is the UA thinking post-war?  
Well they are getting exactly what should not have happened, a hodge-podge grab bag of western tanks in various states of readiness.  The UA are not stupid and we will see some western tank somewhere shooting (they did the same with the arty), but when the RA is not swept away by 12 Challenger 2s, the blow back from the pro-Russian crowd is going to get very loud.