Lethaface

I think the majority of people in the world would. I do however think that 'being reasonable' is naïve when dealing with unreasonable people. Bullies won't stop bullying if you ask them nicely. I'm not in favor of escalating the war to WW3, but I think the pressure needs to be held up on all fronts on maximum voltage so as to exact tangible pressure towards a behavioral change. Anyway we're not fighting the war so I'm in favor of letting those that do decide for themselves.

MANPADs are generally not seen to be effective against missiles, and also much less effective against planes. Limited range and height compared to medium/heavy AA systems. If you want to effectively defend/control your airspace, you'll need more than only MANPADs.

Hoping for a collapse is not the same as actively facilitating a collapse. I don't have the privy info about nor make the decisions, but it does seem Ukraine is effectively fighting back. Let's say they can incur losses on the enemy which it can't sustain, at a cost 'sustainable' to Ukraine than why not kick 'the house of cards' down? Forgive the choice of words ;-). Anyway only the Ukrainians can decide whether 'it' is worth it for them or what's best for them.

Ukraine already has variants of S-300. They are effective against missiles and airplanes.

Well we'll never know until it happens, but Baltic states are already in NATO and NATO troops in Baltic states. It is different situation. Some countries wanted to have Ukraine in NATO, others didn't. After 2014 it wasn't going to happen if only because the 'territorial disputes'. The countries that wanted to have Ukraine in NATO could have 'intervened' or escalated by themselves, if they'd wanted to. Anyway I agree that a guarantee by some / all NATO countries to directly intervene in next Russian aggression into Ukraine territory is as good as NATO 'membership' for Ukraine .

Agreed. Was thinking today that from a military strategic / real-geopolitical POV, it might be more harmful for Russia than Ukraine to continue the war for much longer. If Ukraine can fight Russia until a collapse occurs, it will be even harder for Russia to go for another adventure years down the line. Of course the cost in human lives and destruction is getting larger by the day.

I'd change 'great' into 'substantial'. It was the people of Ukraine who were fed up and caused Maidan. It was them who took the rebuilding of the army seriously. It was them who had the will to fight. It is them doing the fighting and dying. Sure, the West was quickly/already there to support Maidan. For geopolitical/strategic reasons, this time with a just cause :). The west helped train Ukraine and armed Ukraine. However that support was limited, it was only after the Ukrainians showed the world their will to fight that the support came in from around the globe. I find it quite intriguing how in a country as corrupt as Ukraine, somehow the competence and capabilities of their armed forces was vastly improved in ~7 years. If the same will can be used to improve corruption/oligarchy in Ukraine after they have dealt with the current 'problem', I'm sure Ukraine can become a successful country.

Yeah but Estonia isn't going to enforce a no-fly zone by itself. At the moment many countries are stating they are increasing support including weapons but publicly saying that they don't want to make the Russians any wiser so they're not telling what exactly (could be some pliers and screwdrivers). I think that's good, because it disallow Russia to use the information for more threats (and it's own intelligence). At the same time, there seems to be little appeasement. Which is a good thing imo, if Russia is allowed to withdraw to pre Feb 2022 borders with lifted sanctions there will be a repeat in a couple of years. As I see it, that's clear now for everyone so I don't think Russia will get off this lightly. It's probably also why they haven't thrown in the towel yet; Russia also knows that times have changed.

Well, whatever examples or analogies you're going to bring to the table people are people. Also Russian people. Claiming otherwise would amount to the same stuff '....ethnocism'. Is that really where you want to go? Plus, everyone with half a brain and the willingness to be informed already knows about the crimes against humanity / indiscriminate destruction they are causing. Could it be worse? Yes, much worse. But it's already ugly enough to conclude it's not only 'collateral' damage.. Now coming back to that single cop, single dude; you must have been sleeping under a rock if you think the whole issue was about one incident. How do you know about 60-70%? Did you speak to all of them? Or any of them?

Wow, indeed. So much for my T-2 theory, although I guess that's still lottery ticket luck (if he survived it). Perhaps that person was in the trench/gully and or had something to do with the explosion. Came running from the left side of the tank, or at least that's where I first see the moving flames. Can't really imagine someone in that tank survived.

Looks like some large IED or something to me, there is indeed flash on the left side of the tank (right on video) just before the tank itself explodes. It even looks like the tanks moves because of it (or the earth is moved), than it explodes. I saw something moving too, but I'd say probably something rolling of; if someone can run from that explosion that would be T-2 I guess

AFAIK the Stugna-P isn't top attack. At least it isn't in CMBS and doesn't seem to be from the various video's. It does have a big tandem HEAT round and afaik effective against Kontakt-5 with enough after ERA effect to penetrate turret front of T-72BM3. So, it's effective enough.

Plenty of games thefewgoodmen.com, among other places. One gameplay difference is that airplanes in RT can't be manually targeted, they rove around on their own. And obviously the modern games play quite different, with CW in between WW2 and modern. Overall the core simulation is the same, but different units and terrain will lead to different gamplay imo. I guess after next module CMFB will be quite popular for H2H due to late war stuff.

Good resolution though, even when the screen is captured by phone (?) camera.

Before armies throw away all their mech heavy forces ;-), to this amateur it looks more like that Russia simply didn't bring the numbers required for their plan, while the plan imploded on itself for all the reasons that already passed in this thread. Ukraine not only has the will to fight, but also the numbers (who knows how much troops they have deployed atm but probably quite a bit much more than Russian troops in Ukraine), depth and weapons to fight a defensive somewhat guerilla style war. While I have 0 doubt that Western intelligence is helping Ukraine (and supplied weapons surely help or can even make a difference), I feel that in this thread and beyond there is perhaps too much credit for Western help being THE reason for Ukrainian forces doing well. Imo the main thing the Western support is doing is enabling Ukraine to continue the war and feel it's not without support. Ukraine is doing all the hard fighting themselves. The training / support since 2014 will of course have it's influence as well. Anyway I think it's interesting to look at WW2 numbers compared to current. Many armies have moved to a smaller , professional (and often highly capable) and mainly mechanized force. But those are not invulnerable and won't be great for 'manning the frontline'. I think that Ukraine, with the TD and other units, are actually manning the 'frontline' (and perhaps sometimes allowing enemy forces to bypass) and have relative easy pickings when enemy columns are moving through their zone. All in all I think it's clear Russia didn't brought enough troops to secure/control (let alone clear) the routes / corridors required to be controlled to allow for supply of their forces. While also suffering heavy casualties on forces in transit. The 'tip of the spear' units to me looked often more like 'forces in transit' and amounts to feeding forces into the jaws of destruction, piecemeal. So not sure how more insight the tactics of this war really bring, compared to running some scenario's in CMBS/CMSF2. Running a low motivated tank company in a column formation along a road vs ambushing infantry with decent ATGMs will usually end in bad times for the tank company. PS Just back from playing a (very) lowlevel sundays football match and had some beers, so might not be my most coherent post lol.

Paths all leading to doom (at least that's what I expect for Belarus army maneuvers if they materialilze).

Not sure who you are teaching economics But imo this economic war 'special operation' isn't decided on the front of who can freeze more, theoretical, assets belonging to the 'other party'. For sure the world economic system is sustaining a shock as there is much uncertainty. All the risk avoiding organizations/institutions are now at a loss what to do. The commodity market has been interesting as well lol. Anyway some real estate being confiscated won't hurt any state actor either way, it will only hurt individuals/companies. The world economy is indeed intertwined and Russia's twines have just been severed from a lot of major arteries. Nationalizing Apple stores et al will maybe bring some short term continuation of a pipe dream. The question is whether they can get some use out of the factories in Russia beyond the current stock. I doubt that the current state of affairs in Russia would be an 'enabling factor' on that front. Coming back to the economy, the question is what economy will be left. Official prognosis is already predicting large declines based on the current outlook. That outlook won't improve for years, unless someone get's to drink of his own tea somewhere soon imo.

Would such a thing happen, which I as an optimist still doubt, I guess that will cross some lines. If not intervention, some mobilization will take form I guess. That direction is certainly not what I think is a good one.

no worries

No idea. Speculative Russia of course Lol best to wait and find out, could be Russia testing the waters could be just a drone out of control from Russia. Could technically be Ukraine's drone, for whatever reason. Haven't seen any real info on it yet.

I did notice your post (even liked it ) and watched it today, good video imo. Thanks

Although the Afghan Mujahedeen were rather successful using Western weapons against Soviets inside Afghanistan. Now obviously the West has supported the color revolutions and Maidan politically and financially etc, but I think the main difference is that Ukrainians want to fight for their country and asked for help. So that is a clear mission fit for a military: train soldiers willing to train. The post 9/11 Afghanistan invasion and occupation was a rather different affair, which did indeed fail miserably in the end, although that wasn't really that surprising; it would have required much more money blood and time for starters. But I digress

There are PzFaust 3's in the video, with 2 different rounds/variants. I think one is the PzF3-IT (with the long nose). See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzerfaust_3

In your tournament Ru leadership wouldn't do very well I guess