sburke

you mis interpreted. You really should pay closer attention, the statement you cited is exactly not what you described. Here is what Stephen Cohen was saying. The European ministers met and formed an agreement for a coalition gov't to be followed by elections. Obama and Putin get on the phone and each ask the other "Are you behind this" meaning the coalition. Both answer yes. Neither is saying "I am behind the coup". Start at 33:30 mark. From the transcript: Here’s what happened. And he’s right about Crimea. He just let the cat out of the bag here. An agreement was brokered in February. Everybody think back. It’s only one year ago. Foreign ministers of Europe, as violence raged in the streets of Kiev, rushed to Kiev and brokered a deal between the sitting president and the opposition leaders—Yanukovych—that he would form a coalition government and call new elections in December. And everybody thought, "Wow, violence averted. We’re back on a democratic track." And what happened? The next day, mobs took to the streets, stormed the presidential palace; Yanukovych, the president, fled to Russia. But we now know that when that deal was struck by the European ministers, Putin and Obama spoke on the phone, and Putin said to Obama, "Are you behind this?" And Obama says, "I am. Let’s get back on peaceful track." And then he asks Putin, "Are you behind it?" And Putin said, "A hundred percent." And the next day, this happened. So, something happened overnight. Obama lost control of the situation. He didn’t know what was going on. But when he says that they negotiated a peaceful transition to power, he’s not referring to the overthrow of Yanukovych; he’s referring to the deal he signed onto to keep the Ukrainian president in office for another eight or nine months until national elections.

I think that is about as fair a summation as we will get.

Thanks Agusto, really appreciate your efforts. Regarding the terrain. I wasn't trying to suggest doing much, but most civilian airfields have drainage etc so there does tend to be low lying areas. Nothing significant, but enough for some infantry to hustle along. That would not likely appear in satellite image. However if you feel strongly about the map, stick by your guns Not sure why I had such lousy luck with my Recon. I went for the buildings near the runway. I might have had some more luck, but got caught up in a fight with your FO at the radar building.

John you should really read the stuff you link to and "quote". It might save US some time. For example. What you said he said. What he said Since the brigade was organized, the Bon-Blin had been conducting solely infantry training. However, the battalion had been organized to fill up two motorized companies, a heavy weapons company and a tank company that, in the future, would have assigned five medium U.S.-made M-41 tanks with a high velocity 76 mm gun. Each tank would have a four-man crew. Of course, we did not have any heavy equipment at Trax, but I was assured by Frank that, once the battalion had landed in Cuba, it would be provided with all motorized equipment and tanks required in our table of organization and equipment (TOE). Note that at no point did he actually say they got any tanks As to Jose Delgado - he is a maritime museum director (Canadian at that) and he has no citations. On the one hand he says the LCVPs were wrecked on the reef yet all 5 tanks were landed. I am still skeptical that the tank made it ashore during the battle, afterwards sure. Makes for a nice museum piece. As to the last fantastic piece of non sense ramming a Stalin tank, geez John...stop already. The only thing you proved is once again you will believe anything you find on the net. Here is the "battle damaged" Walker tank at the Cuban Museum. Man that thing is a wreck...not. https://www.flickr.com/photos/13150208@N05/4374391700/in/photostream/

well I didn't say they landed Seems the CIA marked as seaweed what turned out to be a reef. It is very possible the armor whatever it was, didn't land. There are plenty of pics of downed aircraft, somewhat odd that there aren't any I have found of destroyed/captured armor. I'd be willing to wager that the tanks didn't make it ashore assuming it is correct that there were some. Especially considering one can find pictures of Cuban armor. http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/bay-of-pigs/giron-tanque.jpg

Wiki actually does mention tanks and armor training at Ft Knox and Ft Benning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion#Invasion Tank training took place at Fort Knox, Kentucky and Fort Benning, Georgia. Underwater demolition and infiltration training took place at Belle Chase near New Orleans.[73] At about 00:00 on 17 April 1961, the two CIA LCIs Blagar and Barbara J, each with a CIA 'operations officer' and an Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) of five frogmen, entered the Bay of Pigs (Bahía de Cochinos) on the southern coast of Cuba. They headed a force of four transport ships (Houston, Río Escondido, Caribe and Atlántico) carrying about 1,400 Cuban exile ground troops of Brigade 2506, plus tanks and other vehicles in the landing craft. I don't have any sources to verify accuracy.

I am still making my way forward, but yeah those bad guys keep poppin up in nice keyhole locations. The BMP does a nice job of decimating those positions once you get a little suppression on them, but it is risky. One guy unsuppressed with an RPG is gonna ruin my day. The BMP smoke is pretty useful and it doesn't need to be exposed to use it.

You must have a honkin big hard drive to collect internet chauvinism. That was kind of a doozy I think someone got under sublime's skin just a wee bit. He's from Boston though, what do ya expect?

Just started off the link from above so hopefully this works the way you intended. on first mission at 43:00 mark. Seems the chances of a peaceful resolution to the situation in this village is a no go. Am in the midst of a very heavy firefight. Have taken a few casualties but have achieved fire superiority and am eliminating the enemy positions one by one. The Gov't center seems well defended so I am trying to flank it by taking the north and south districts before assaulting. Capt. Koval out. Nice scenario and premise.

**** SPOILERS **** Have about 30 minutes to go My initial hit is this is trying to be too many things within a 2 hour window. Recon period - 30 minutes is not a whole lot of time particularly if your recon is facing possible resistance. I ran into the one enemy Fo and took the team out without loss, but it occupied that force for a period where it couldn't really observe. My other recon teams got into position and spotted a total of one BMP. All in all not what I was hoping for. Part of the issue is simply the US starts in this wide open flat lands and the couple buildings are way too far to be able to spot infantry. You have to hoof it a ways before you reach buildings you can use to gain some altitude. Even with that you initially can't spot much of anything. Even when the enemy AT teams opened up on my M1s, the recon teams didn't ID them, the tanks did. So at the end of the 30 minutes your main force shows up. You haven't really spotted much, but know there are definitely enemy ATGM teams out there. Then within 10 minutes or so an enemy mech force rolls in so now your grunts are sitting tight while the JAVs and support assets take on the enemy counter attack force. (which had another side effect. All the LAVs carry Javs and I ended up running them over to the Jav teams to replenish their supply as they were responsible for most of the kills. Net result is my Infantry hung out while their tracks were busy resupplying the Jav teams.) Once those are sufficiently attrited, you can now consider sending in your boys, but the enemy AT defenses are still out there and you are down to maybe 45-50 minutes. I am pushing on Obj Alpha, but considering the amount of ground to cover and the enemy units scattered about I doubt I will grab all the objectives. It requires too much of a rush that is going to lead to too many casualties. Suggestions - before considering changing the overall scenario there might be some tweaks to help. The main one being, instead of the recon guys starting at your kickoff line perhaps you can place them assuming they infiltrated through the night. Set them up closer so the player isn't spending the 30 minutes just to get them in place as the enemy main force shows up. That might end up with them being more useful though I was surprised at how little of the enemy I could spot before they opened fire. Perhaps some more variation in the terrain. It is essentially flat with a slope so that the enemy side of the map is lower than the US side. Some variation might break up the LOS. Right now it looks for the US like a push across open ground right into the face of a mostly concealed enemy. I made some efforts to draw enemy fire to get them to at least expose themselves...no not that way! I succeeded, but one of my M1s is pretty hobbled with track damage as spotting the ATGMs was difficult and my recon teams didn't live up to their title. If you keep the recon period I would consider extending the time a bit. Having played mostly through, I might adjust my jump off time for my infantry, but only in retrospect. I am not a fan of mounted infantry rushes into potential deathtraps. I could probably get away dumping some smoke and going in sooner, but I hesitated when I saw all those tanks on the move.

as opposed to that little paunch, oh Olde One? BTW the plural for monkey is monkeys... even in Minnesota. Or should I say Minnersota?

Tree full of hamsters? That must be some "Olde One's" expression. I'll have to go check with my great grandmother. She's dead, but she still qualifies as being more on the ball than some around here. You'd be more believable with a doody hat you know.

Maybe, mine was only an impression, not confirmed.

Well probably not as intended, but as a guy who welcomed Russia's green men in Crimea, you really don't have much of a leg to stand on. Sometime I'd love to buy you a beer and get your perspective on the overall LnL, but I can't say I respect your willingness/need to slam the current Ukrainian gov't when your chosen gov't is so over the top corrupt and is waging a war against a sovereign nation based on nothing more than it doesn't like that it's chosen select group of corrupt leaders got ridden out of town. And no that farce of an election doesn't even come close to international standards, whether the situation in Crimea can be negotiated while under illegal occupation is not how these things are normally done. Even in Iraq, armed US troops didn't sit in the room to make sure their puppet got elected. Seems Putin wanted to be very sure how the "vote" went. Unfortunately I think we have strayed a bit over the "no politics" line.

What I have tried is placing posters at an angle to the wall, then making the last two clicks to get them flush. It seems to be easier to get them positioned that way. I put a whole bunch in on an expanded Venafro map and it seems to work well enough, but yes it is still a slow process and sometimes you just have to give up and select another location. Also my impression is that they don't work well for independent buildings.

Well I agree with the very last line anyway, but none of the premise. Minsk will fail because Russia is stuck with no options. This is a Russian instigated war and it won't end till Russia gets it's bloody hands off Ukraine. You can criticize the Ukrainian gov't all you want and some of it might even be true, but that is all just a distraction. We know who started the war, we know who keeps it going. Get your gov't the hell out of their country and then maybe someone might actually care about your opinion of their gov't.

but my Liege Sir Joe Shaw JFLPCT Knight Champion of the M.B.T., Justicar for Life of the Peng Challenge Thread, Creator of the Peng Challenge Thread Podcast, CessPool Drain Commissioner and Founder of the Shavian House didn't so he's not? How about a Senior Citizen, can Boo settle for that? We can get him a bib and some Depends.

Fairly impressed, but it is a FPS genre. Watched one of their vids and it frankly looks like Arma lite. They even comment on that themselves. So on average folks kicked in a bit over $75. Heck I'd kick in that just to have the ability to open a saved game to the editor and save as a new battle.

80 million from gamers? That don't sound right. I expect Steve is on target for that one, sounds like some venture capital. As to our community, for f**k's sake, they complain about a $5 upgrade and start griping before a game is even released that there isn't enough material to warrant the few dollars more that a base game costs over a module. Some of this community is so tight, their a**es could make diamonds out of coal. 10K in spaceships? WTF? LOL who wants to put up 10K and get the only in game Maus?

Theoretically anything made in a prior version should work, however there have been some comments that certain campaigns have had issues with core units returning. I do not know whether that is confirmed or not. For scenarios, the biggest issue is simply some facets have changed that affect play MG effectiveness for example. That may make some scenarios weaker/tougher than originally designed. The good news is you can have more than one version of the game loaded so upgrading doesn't necessarily mean you can't play it in the version a campaign was originally created in. The only scenario I know for sure that has an issue is Counterattack at Son. The Bailey Bridge there needs to be replaced, it was missed in testing that it won't support armor. Maybe goes to show the playtesters were never able to get that far. My advice- keep an older install on your machine and continue to play those scenarios in that and do a fresh install for the upgrade.

I expect it has less to do with him caring what anyone thinks he is doing so much as another legal mechanism to screw the opposition. I find it hard to believe Russians really don't think their military is in Ukraine and if they are of that opinion it is because they don't want to believe.

Lots of speculation, but I doubt anyone really knows. Could simply be Russia hedging it's bets. Threat being there for some kind of concessions? Not likely to get them much, but an offensive is just going to cause the West to double down and probably give serious weight to providing weapons i.e. Javelins. If the West comes to the conclusion that there is no point to further negotiations then who knows what the hell is next. Russia seems to be in a bit of a quandary. No way out, no way forward. This is where the US press would be screaming about what is our exit strategy. Putin may not have a free press, but I am betting somewhere in his head a voice is screaming that. Whether he is listening is a whole other question.

Absofrickenlutely. Maybe now he can get a date with Seanachai.

Fresh one way or the other youngster.

Crap, somebody left the door open again and they got out. Maybe if I leave a trail of beer mugs half full of warm, flat swill they will find their way back. Hmm maybe we don't want them back..... Mord I think we can get you a Doody cap if you'd like. They are the latest hot fashion item. I hear Heidi Klum is even strolling down the cat walk in one.