rocketman

I was under the impression that the main reason stuff never gets fixed like economy or infrastructure is there isn't one agreed upon way to fix it and there isn't a majority enough to decide upon one way of attempting to resolve it.
Also it's really goddamn cheap all things considered. Consider if Russia had successfully annexed Ukraine? Not only would a emboldened Russia sit on NATO's eastern flank, China would undoubtedly be more confident of pressing against Taiwan. A U.S forced again to defend Europe and Asia is way more expensive than a scenario where Poland and Ukraine in the future could handle a Russian resurgence or flare up while the U.S focuses on Asia.
 
 

xxx

The same, my opponent started the game before me, wednesday 21, and I don't even have a 1st round of anything, only a mail from Matrix telling me to wait my turn 😑.
I know RooksAndKingz 's other opponent. He will tell me by email if he has received any news, for the moment their game seems not to have started either. RooksAndKings  participated in the CW beta tournament and his score is 0 as if he had not participated in fact.

I have no turns from my oppo yet. Noted that there is another player with almost the same name on the scoreboard. Maybe he entered twice and won't play me 😡

Apparently Morocco has decided to support Ukraine in this war. Nothing wrong with another source of Soviet era tanks if true. According to the article Morocco will send over 90 T-72s, with a batch of 30 more to follow.
https://www.military.africa/2022/12/morocco-choose-sides-supplies-t-72b-tanks-to-ukraine/
 

Can't stand that feller, but if he were standing here right now I'd shake his hand and thank him for doing the right thing.   

A nice example of how I imagine the effects of "corrosive warfare" doesnt stop at the items destroyed, and continues on to indirectly affect the enemy military systems and tactics.
The HIMARs destruction of RUS artillery logistics reduces RUS artillery RoF (1st order corrosive effect) The only other tubes available are tank tubes, soooo A Tank becomes used as artillery (2nd order corrosive effect - tanks that could be used as tanks instead used as arty) Tank now firing more often than tanks usually do = rapidly increased barrel wear and usage of tank HE shells (3rd order CE) Tank finally gets reassigned back to direct support role, but barrel is now shot out so now less accurate (4th order CE). Tank is targeted by ATGM, sees and shoots but misses, doesnt kill the ATGM crew, so tank dies. (final effect) This is where enemy action forces a cascade of damage that goes from externally forced (the HIMARS strikes) to internally sustained and maintained along a path of military necessity, because indirect fires are required, so something must shoot.
Ref Italy, my personal  impression is that it wasnt a "lack" of Allied artillery that drove the use of tanks, it was usually  the hilariously height-scaled terrain in many mountain areas. Sometimes Allied artillery couldn't angle enough to accurately fire over particular ridges. Also, putting a tank on an opposing ridge was often faster, more accurate and if lucky, higher than the opposing positions.

A document is circulating stating that Russian local authorities in Moscow, Crimea should offer free land to servicemen and families of such including those deceased, land in those territories. Part and parcel of ethnic cleansing is the replacement of the existing population. A reminder that not only is Russia depopulating and forcibly moving populations in occupied regions, they are also moving in settlers.
Any peace settlement that does not take into account the population changes in Ukraine as a result of crimes against humanity would be a disaster for signaling to Russia that this is unacceptable. Any referendum in the Donbas or Crimea should allow the displaced rights to vote for example and strip the right from those who moved in since 2014.
https://news.yahoo.com/putin-decides-gift-land-crimea-135405502.html
 

I think the game exaggerates the accuracy of small arms against machine gunners in turrets. And not only CMBS, but also in a series about the second world war. German shooters on half trucks die at the very beginning of the battle.

Right, I've done the mod for the M4A2 75mm and the PzIVG (Late):
Lend Lease M4A2 75mm
Pz IVG (Late)
Sadly the Pz IVG (Latest) model is really in a bad way - internally there's an unspecified texture attached to a material used in the model which means it can't be exported from Blender without extra tweaking. No matter what extra tweaking I tried all efforts failed to get a result that wasn't bust - throwing it's wheels in the air when moving for eg. This is a limitation of our tool kit that I can't overcome, and without some help from BF there's really no way I can see of correcting this one. Good luck to others who might want to give it a try.
There is a slightly different version of the IVG (Latest) available in CMFI which could be ported to RT but that has other issues - no side skirts armour but all the shadows for them being but one. The TC does sit in the correct position but otherwise it's a buggy model at best. The other existing versions in FB and BN are the same as our RT model so don't waste your time with them.
Anyway here's the finished M4A2 that you were originally concerned about ...

and the PzIVG (Late) to fight against him:

If anyone is feeling adventurous there are a slew of other models that could do with some TLC WRT TC positions ... just from the German armour in RT ...

Hetzer guy looks stuck ...

... get down man FFS!

... another stuck TC

... start digging your grave son

... you're supposed to sit on your seat not stand on it!

... it's called a shield for a reason.

I'd be praying as well!
There are of course all sorts of strange positions especially in HTs and other open-topped vehicles. 
Ultimately I guess it may not matter if the engine is calculating risk based on a look-up table - is the crew man standing or sitting, hatch open or closed - so long as that is the same across the board. If other factors like gun shields and hit boxes are coming into play then perhaps some rebalancing is in order. If the model does have an impact on the risk assessment then some of these fellas don't stand a chance.
 

I am Rocketman's initial PBEM's partner for this battle.  For the record with both started playing this battle with him using the CM Helper version 1.7.5 and I the newest (the alpha version).  When the corruption issues occurred we started experimenting and noted this difference so I deleted off my alpha file and used his CM Helper version thinking this might have caused a conflict.  But after retrying this with both using the same CM Helper version we still got the same results.  I then had Live No More try and start this battle with me and he too got the same results as did Rocketman.  Hopefully, the submitted ticket will help figure this out because this looks like a definite must battle to play.  Thanks to all that chimed in to help us try and figure this out.

I really want to see it, and a lot of ideas like it in "Combat Mission: The Future of War"
 

For those wanting more content, feel free to jump into the editor and build some new scenarios for the community.  Trust me there is nothing special that the CM Betas get that you don't when it comes to the editor. The unit editor is already incredibly powerful if you know how to use it. Oh and it's part of the package if you've already bought the game.
For those wanting fantasy weapons and a vehicles like tanks with automatic 120mm cannons, I reckon you'd love it for about 15 minutes before the novelty wore off and you never used the content again. There's a reason WW2 remains a popular time period for wargamers after all this time, and it isn't because of questions like: "What if the Panzer VIII Maus was deployed in 1945?"
Can vouch for each of those guys listed and the effort they put into creating official content, I'm desperately trying to scramble to keep up with that standard. I still bow in awe at benpark and his effort to recreate 1945 central Berlin. The research undertaken to try make the most accurate recreation of historical engagements and help out in designing accurate TOE/OOB is in my mind second to none among the BFC official staff and the wider volunteer circle.
Want an example? A small tidbit from my own work last Friday night. I've been recreating an engagement that includes the US 2nd Armored Division and been drawing from various historical and printed sources. Well I stumbled across digital scans of the divisional day by day reports and hand drawn maps of unit movements from June 1944. What was there was information that went against what was printed in some major history books by some big name historians. Though it was clear where the confusion over the years has come from given certain 2nd Armored battalions were detached from the Division in early June. Well this discovery slowed down putting the scenario together as it required me to go and edit my unit files and swap formations to ensure the scenario you play is the most historically accurate as possible.
Finally, keep in mind that many of us have day jobs so working on CM content is on the side of "paying the bills"* and because we have a passion for wargaming, CM and most importantly history.
* Feel free to send next weeks winning lottery numbers my way.

US space based - multispectral and in real time with a resolution that is likely classified.  Combine that with SIGINT, ELINT and any other INTs beaming all over the region and trying to position a RA force of any size, along with its supply lines is impossible to hide.  Deep precision strikes will wreck the already battered RA logistical capability so that any forces that do go on the offensive will run out of gas in about a day or two.  
Now that all said Russia has really been playing to stupid this entire war - so I am sure they will try an offensive with poorly trained, poorly supported and equipped masses of troops, in the middle of winter - that is doomed to fail.

I wonder how well equipped Ukraine is with FLIR? Both sensors and counter measures. Those  mobiks would stand out well with ground so cold and their blood pumping at 98.6. Try warming up a BTG before an attack while trying to stay hidden. The Black Hornet was in the news, but a UAV with longer loitering at higher altitude time would be nice.  

Russian missiles hit DniproGES hydro power plant today (lloks like one missed and fell in the water)
Overall statistic of the day
76 missiles were launched from frigate "Admiral Makarov" (20 Kalibrs) and aircraft Tu-95, Su-35, Tu-22M3 (Kh-101, Kh-555, Kh-22, Kh-59, Kh-31). 60 were intercepted. 
Additionally Russians launched 27 S-300 missiles in ground attack mode on close frontline areas. Heavy infrastructure damages in Kharkiv. 
In Kyiv subway is stopped. Lack of electricity, no water supply and heating on half of left-bank districts. On right bank situation is better. I now can write from my work on right bank. I hope I will have internet at home

I think I may have hurt myself rolling my eyes so hard at this....

I do want to remind everyone that opinions in this thread are not determining whether Ukraine gets more or less support. Unless half the forum members are actually prime ministers and presidents and have kept mum about that for all these years. The discussion about what countries are/are not doing should be a whole lot more detached for that reason. No one here is pulling any strings and regardless of what we say this forum isn't changing the facts on the ground.

So maybe we should all step back from this sniping and recalibrate the discussion.

I want to build on this and hit a cancerous myth that is hijacking this board - the Ukrainian nuclear backstory myth.  Frankly it belongs to be in the outer darkness with the Bio Black Sites.  I also think it is dangerously skewing the views of some members and feeding into some really unhealthy narratives that are counter-productive and likely going to sour things going forward.
So looking this up the myth goes like this:
Back in the mid 90s Ukraine had a big suite of nuclear weapons it inherited from the break up of the Soviet Union.  Rather than hold onto them and being able to provide deterrence to Russian aggression almost 30 years later - Ukraine graciously decided to divest them back to Russia with the brotherly love of all mankind in their hearts.  The US and other nations then promised on a stack of Bibles and pictures of Baby Jesus that should any threat befall Ukraine, they would come riding over the hills like the Riders of Rohan and smote the threat with their mighty hands.  In 2014 - Russia did some shenanigan's in Donbas and Crimea, of which we all know and love, but the West yawned and went "well, are those really threats or is this kind of an internal issue?"  Poor Ukraine struggled on by itself to hold off the rabid Russian Bear until 2022 when it rolled its mangy a$$ over the border.  Ukraine is now calling in that nuclear favour...it is owed and "demands" the US and West honor its obligations and basically give Ukraine whatever it wants, whenever it wants because they gave up the nukes.  Further it is the US and West's fault for this war in the first place because we did not smite Russia back in 2014, so pay up and be quick about it. 
I get the impulse and given Ukraine's position it makes sense.  However, I would offer that "guilt, shame and demands" may not be the best way to go to guarantor the continued Western support Ukraine is going to need for about a decade after this war, let alone out the back end of next year.  But first lets beat up on that myth:
1.   Those nukes were nearly useless to Ukraine as deterrence towards Russia without significant cost and risks.  Yes there were a lot of nuclear weapons but they had never been given over to Ukrainian control, they were housed in Ukraine but Russian controlled the whole time.  Further, they were long range ballistic systems which were nearly useless at the tactical ranges Ukraine needed to deter Russian threats:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction.  Ukraine was a fledging ex-Soviet state and was hardly rolling in cash, so the option to re-tool those weapons was severely limited by resources.  Finally, if Ukraine had said "screw you, we are keeping them and re-tooling them" they would have seen heavy sanctions and possible military action from Russia or the West because loose nukes makes everyone really nervous.
2.  Ukraine was paid to lose the nukes, and freely took the money.  Ukrainian parliament voted overwhelmingly "(301-8)" to take the payoff and get rid of the the things.  This was not arm twisting or coercion, it was opportunism: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/12/05/why-care-about-ukraine-and-the-budapest-memorandum/.  And smart opportunism for that matter because at the time they were more trouble than they were worth.
3.  The famous "security guarantees".  Promises of security for Ukraine.  Not even close.  These were assurances, which is diplomatic speak for "mayhaps", and Ukraine knew it.  The Budapest Memo is not a security guarantee or collective security agreement, not even close.  https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/12/05/why-care-about-ukraine-and-the-budapest-memorandum/  It is a pretty vague agreement that the big powers would not pound on the small powers if they gave up their nukes.  Also the only security resolution mechanism was the UNSC, which of course was presided over by the big powers. Ukraine is a sovereign state and had its big boy pants on when it signed this thing and knew it was tying its security on the UN Charter - https://www.icanw.org/faq_on_ukraine_and_nuclear_weapons.  Which is great so long as a UNSC nation isn't the one to violate the freakin thing.
The US did promise to assist Ukraine should their sovereignty be threatened but the details of that assistance were never made concrete.  Frankly, given the assistance post-2014 and now I think the US is living up to its end of the agreement.
So as far as legal obligation, there is not one, never was. Ukraine took the money and avoided becoming a pariah by trying to become a nuclear power.  The US and West have actually delivered on assistance, to the point that Ukraine is winning this war.  Further there is absolutely zero obligation to assist Ukraine in its reconstruction after this war.  Here we are relying entirely on the good will and self-interests of the West, which is shaky ground on a good day.
What is true is the moral obligation.  How the EU got itself upside down on this whole Russian energy thing is beyond be, especially after 2014.  Hell Europe is still buying Russian oil: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Europe-Is-Buying-All-The-Russian-Oil-It-Can-Before-Banning-It.html.  So ya, we definitely did not walk the walk on defending democracy or human rights in Ukraine against an obvious threat...we took the payoff.  But before anyone jumps on that one...big.boy.pants.time.  That is how the world works, as crappy and unfair as it is.  We have been doing business with dictators and autocrats all over the world - Saudi Arabia looking at you - and turned a lot of blind eyes in many countries.  Ukraine is getting the platinum response, it is about as good as it gets for an outside nation to be honest and if there is a shift in the political winds it could be cut off pretty quick.
So "DEMAND" all you like; however, you are not entitled beyond the good will of the West and a self-interest need to ensure the global order holds against Russian aggression. You want to come on this forum and conduct a regular routine of western bashing - Germany is literally on a weekly clock - just know you are doing service to Russian interests when you do.  You want to get emotional, totally understandable but 1) do not create or support mis/dis information in doing so, it is counter to everything we try to do here and 2) hold your own politicians to account when this is over, Ukraine has a obligation to itself and the decisions that led to this are not all on the West, and 3) remember that guilt and shame is not your best play here.
Let me finish by perhaps expanding on the Western point of view - well US/5EYES as I cannot say I am privy to the entire western bloc.  We are exhausted.  30 years of cat herding and dealing with everyone else's problems has not been rewarding.  Sure we got the power and money, but for the love of gawd the endless whining and biting has really taken a shine off the whole thing.  Terrorism, intra-state wars, insurgencies and now Russia is being a total dick and pushing us to the edge.  There is a sentiment in the western power bases that we are sick of the rest of the world and its bullsh#t.  Tired of spending endless streams of money and people on countries we wouldn't look for on a map, time zones away. 
Then there is the pandemic: the US lost nearly 1.1 million people, and with excess deaths that number could be over 2 million - https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#datatracker-home. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
And at the end of all that we get a global economic recession in the making.  So ya, snapping your fingers and waiving a Budapest Memo in our faces is likely to backfire really quickly.  The US is incredibly divided right now, and frankly so is Canada as a result of COVID impacts.  Good will for Ukraine is solid and damned well better hold; however, it is not guaranteed in the least.  So no, you need not grovel or "by your leave here" but maybe just try and remember who is on your side in this thing and sometimes we can disagree and even say "no" without going all millennial.
This thread stood up for reality when everyone thought we should get ready to bail and run on Ukraine -just this week I heard a retired Canadian 3-star say "there is no way Ukraine can secure victory in this conflict".  We stood against the crazy conspiracy theories on it all being Ukraine's fault.  We stood against mainstream "big money" analysist when they wrote the UA off.  And we should stand for the truth even when we don't like it.  If we can't do that then we should just close up this thread and we can all go to the Reddit threads of our choice and bask in those echo chambers of ignorance.

Ticket submitted. I have tried more scenarios and "Cat and Mouse" is the only one causing this so far. Never have had that before, nor on this PC that I've had for 18 months. @LiveNoMore above and I have a game going with a scenario from the Battle Pass and no problems with that at all.

Replace "Russia" with "China", replace "energy" with "manufacturing" and the paragraph sadly still makes a lot of sense. 🤑 and  .

So the 2014 - it is all the West’s fault argument. Well first of all Ukraine’s faltering democracy was not on us, high levels of corruption and one helluva crappy military did not really make Ukraine a sound investment to be brutally honest.  Second, the West did what it could - provide assistance to Ukraine on many levels and helped them rebuild their military to pretty much do what is is  doing now.
Beyond that, not sure what else we were supposed to do besides sanctions - which definitely could have been more robust but there you go.  Look basically Ukraine was not that important to the West in 2014, most couldn’t find it on the map. We were dealing with ISIL and the Arab Spring.  Russia kept enough ambiguity in its little dance to keep us divided on response - and in the end we were ticked off and made symbolic gestures and angry noises.
I am not sure what you would be looking for, airstrikes?  I mean Russia’s actions were illegal and a challenge to the global order but not enough to really get us going.  In fact if they had played it cool we likely would have simply forgotten about the whole Crimea thing and Donbas looked like a domestic situation.  And then Putin went all Saddam H in 2022.

But man, did he show us!
Seriously, that is what bothers me most about this discussion. Many here still think that Putin has to act according to some rationale that we would employ. We know that is not the case because by any metric that makes sense to us Westerners Putin shouldn't have started this war in the first place.
No, the only ones to whom Putin's and his Cronies' decisions have to make sense is themselves.
For all we know Putin has been dreaming about turning half the world into a nuclear wasteland and is only waiting for an adequately glorious excuse to make that happen. Maybe he is a fan of Metro 2033.

To be fair, in 10+ months, Haiduk has almost never "bubbled over", I think we could cut him (and others) a wee bit more slack. 
 
Really, we should all do that with each other - sure we all have different opinions and that can lead to arguing, but we're all on the same side, so we should take a few deep breaths and try not to get irked at disagreement, rather than reaching for the ignore button. 

I agree with the first part - a quick end, followed by a quick retirement of Putin may just seal this thing off.  That is a solid strategic end.
Problem is how people are linking Ways and Means to this.  Giving the UA another 200 tubes of artillery assumes they can generate quality crews to man then, logistics to maintain and support them, and C4ISR to integrate them.  This is the problem with the “steel mountain strategy” - which is right next to the “magic bullet” strategy - it does not take into account force generation and sustainment, let alone operational integration challenges.  
People are convinced if we gave the UA a division worth of M1s, Leo 2s, or whatever that this thing would be over next week.  Do any of you know how long it takes to create an modern armoured division with a whole new fleet of vehicles?  It takes us years. Now then UA is under pressure so they will accelerate it but Ukraines military force generation is pretty fragile right now. They are still sending troops to be trained in foreign countries. Getting up to speed on how to fight and sustain M1s is not a job done in a long weekend. In fact if we had sent them on 25 Feb, I am not convinced they would be ready for prime time right now.  The FCS requirements alone are pretty intense.  
Maybe this is a byproduct of a forum full of tactical war gamers who only see the last hour - they have very little idea of the months and years of work it takes to get that last hour to happen.
The only way to get 200 tubes of anything shooting effectively and sustaining that, quickly, is if we do it ourselves and that is a non-starter.  You will notice that the west has largely been sending the equipment that is easiest to set up and employ.  We have reports of the guns we sent with 1/3 out of battle rates - this is not because these guns suck, it is because keeping guns in continuous action is really hard and doing it with crews who had to learn then thing very fast, used them hard and have no real logistics system to support them.  

So what? Keep it simple, stupid. Double down on what is working.  Ramp up where we can. The West only has so much tolerance for investment in this war - we need to keep it focused and on point.