Lethaface

Personally I like the definitions offered by Steven Pinker.
Small war: Deaths in the thousands
Medium war: Deaths in the tens of thousands
Large war: Deaths in the hundreds of thousands
Historically large war: Deaths in the millions
World war: Deaths in the tens of millions
No definition of a "world war" will ever be perfect (largely because any definition is obliged to include WW1, which was almost entirely a European war, not really a global war). But the advantage to defining it by the scale of the carnage, rather than by the number or size of the countries involved, is that it neatly prevents a skirmish between all the world's major powers over a desert island which results in two guys getting wounded from being called a world war.

You can remember articles in US media how GUR had secret negotiations with one of Syrian fractions to attack Russian and Wagner bases and how this concerned US, so after talks between US and Ukraine representatives this intentions were canceled. 
So no any impossible. Budanov is very dare guy  How it said "Deeper and deeper" 
Not only Sudan, by the way - you can find in news how Wagner troops suffered heavy losses in Mali several days ago. Who knows?..  

Enough accurate, though he skipped details of street clashes before pro-UKR forces came to Trade Union House. He also didn't tell pro-Russians not only threw Molotovs from the roof of House, but shot with firearms (pistol or hunting rifle), killing and wounding several pro-UKR activsts.  
Odesa, Zaporizhzia, Mykolaiv, Kherson oblasts were saved from Donbas/Crimea scenario due to active resistanse of more organized pro-Ukrainian citizens, when police either withdrew itself from own duties under the pretext "do not escalate" or secretly or directrly like in Odesa took pro-Russian side. Though, only in Odesa all was so violent, in other cities the level of pro-Russian uprising was very minor and all ended maximum with facebeating.  
Most originally separatism was suffocated in Zaporizhzhia. A handful of vatniks who dared to came on meeting for "Zaporizhzhia People Republic" under cover of police just was surrounded by pro-UKR people and they were pelted with eggs and flours.

This humilitation of "Russian world" lasted several hours, if pro-UKR activists would have also feathers, that pro-Rusian participants would became look like Guybrush Tripwood from Monkey Island 3 "Do you have a.... MADRE DE DIOS! El Polo Diablo!!!"
This action got the name "Egg Sunday" 

Rock it!

Wikipedia humour is quick off the mark:

Well let's hope there won't be snowball effects but it won't help in other countries where political support for the (significant) military aid to Ukraine and the impact of sanctions is opposed by significant part of the electorate. 
And I am nor ever was a big fan of Scholz, probably I have similar feelings about him as many others here but I felt some words about him or rather Germany were uncalled for / unproductive. In the light of this new development one could at least say that all those words from the Polish government was hollow rhetoric for political gain or to be considered hypocrisy. 
Edit: I hope 'you' manage to get rid of PiS in the election.
 

Well let's hope there won't be snowball effects but it won't help in other countries where political support for the (significant) military aid to Ukraine and the impact of sanctions is opposed by significant part of the electorate. 
And I am nor ever was a big fan of Scholz, probably I have similar feelings about him as many others here but I felt some words about him or rather Germany were uncalled for / unproductive. In the light of this new development one could at least say that all those words from the Polish government was hollow rhetoric for political gain or to be considered hypocrisy. 
Edit: I hope 'you' manage to get rid of PiS in the election.
 

Having some form of engineering, for instance AFVs with rollers/dozer blades in the modern CMx2 games, wouldn't mean the simulation has to go balls deep into the engineering subject/specialization. A limited set of eng capabilities could make the 'things go boom' more fun and allow one to sort of simulate/portray the RL problems we see on 'the news'. At the moment there is no real way to clear minefields in CMx2 modern. 
The same goes for fortifications; I wouldn't enjoy a 'dig your own fort' simulation but the current modelling of fortifications in CMx2 limit the amount of tactical battles one can setup up decently enough. 
I guess some improvements could also be made to fire-planning in order to keep everyone on board ;-P. I was already happy to have learned that the modelling of artillery effects against AFVs is going to be improved.
Anyway I thought you both have a valid point and that there is some fruits in the middle. 

FWIW I always find his understanding/theories very interesting and well thought out. However even the brightest mind can't fix 'garbage in, garbage out'. 

It's not unheard of for think tanks, academics, researchers etc to work with the data that is available to them and make the best of it. Even if that data ought to be tossed out the window Russia style.
Not saying Tooze is directly guilty of that in this instance, but how did he get the data he uses and how does he know that it's 'good'? 

FWIW I always find his understanding/theories very interesting and well thought out. However even the brightest mind can't fix 'garbage in, garbage out'. 

It's not unheard of for think tanks, academics, researchers etc to work with the data that is available to them and make the best of it. Even if that data ought to be tossed out the window Russia style.
Not saying Tooze is directly guilty of that in this instance, but how did he get the data he uses and how does he know that it's 'good'? 

Having some form of engineering, for instance AFVs with rollers/dozer blades in the modern CMx2 games, wouldn't mean the simulation has to go balls deep into the engineering subject/specialization. A limited set of eng capabilities could make the 'things go boom' more fun and allow one to sort of simulate/portray the RL problems we see on 'the news'. At the moment there is no real way to clear minefields in CMx2 modern. 
The same goes for fortifications; I wouldn't enjoy a 'dig your own fort' simulation but the current modelling of fortifications in CMx2 limit the amount of tactical battles one can setup up decently enough. 
I guess some improvements could also be made to fire-planning in order to keep everyone on board ;-P. I was already happy to have learned that the modelling of artillery effects against AFVs is going to be improved.
Anyway I thought you both have a valid point and that there is some fruits in the middle. 

FWIW I always find his understanding/theories very interesting and well thought out. However even the brightest mind can't fix 'garbage in, garbage out'. 

It's not unheard of for think tanks, academics, researchers etc to work with the data that is available to them and make the best of it. Even if that data ought to be tossed out the window Russia style.
Not saying Tooze is directly guilty of that in this instance, but how did he get the data he uses and how does he know that it's 'good'? 

That all sounds very truthy. But at no point in time has that ever been how anything works. Anti-tank munitions have always been far cheaper than the tanks they are meant to destroy. If you ever have an anti-tank munition that is more epensive than a tank, you don't have an anti-tank munition. There is a fancy name for this actually. It's the shot exchange problem, and it has been plaguing air defenses throughout this war as they struggle with decisions over whether or not to expend an expensive missile to shoot down a cheap drone (in fact this is the driving factor behind the big comeback that anti-aircraft guns have made, since they can shoot down cheap drones without expending ammunition that is more valuable than the drone). So no, cheap ways of killing tanks do not render tanks obsolete. Cheap ways of killing anything has never rendered anything obsolete.
And I should remind everyone that the tank losses in this war are not remotely unprecidented (no one mentioned heavy losses recently, but I think the number of tanks destroyed is a large part of why so many people seem to think the tank is obsolete). Tanks have taken extremely heavy losses in every single conventional war they have ever participated in (I'll admit that they haven't taken heavy losses in many guerilla wars as far as I'm aware). The Isrealis lost around 400 tanks in just the two weeks of the Yom Kippur War. The Germans lost around 25,000 tanks in WW2, with the combined US and British tank losses being about the same, and Soviet tank losses being over 80,000. Yes, this war is an order of magnitude smaller than WW2, but tank losses have also been about an order of magnitude smaller. As far as I can tell tank losses in this war have been about on par with WW2 when you adjust for scale.
I think I am in agreement with Steve that what is likely to render tanks obsolete in the near future is gun armed UGVs. The services that a tank provides on the battlefield are still essential. But once something comes along that can do a better job of providing those services, such as a UGV, the tank will no longer be required. So I think once a country somewhere adopts a gun-variant of a UGV the tank will be obsolecent (and fully obsolete once that gun UGV has been produced in sufficient quantities). When that happens it will not be Javelins or Lancets that rendered the tank obsolete, but a better direct-fire asset. Even when UGVs do render manned tanks obsolete, I'm still not sure that it won't be entirely appropriate to think of them as unmanned tanks.

Maybe it's just me, but expecting Russia to surrender (Tormak) real estate that would bring Ukraine closer to forcing a retreat of Russian forces in Kherson due to a untenable defense, should we not be surprised if Ukraine does not throw stuff in willy-nilly and Russia throws in the kitchen sink to hold it? Why sure one would hope Ukraine would move faster, I am unsure how without sacrificing equipment and soldiers that can be done urgently.

It depends what its being used for. I somehow doubt the US DoD is using tabletop to simulate the effectiveness of new weapon systems - for that I expect they are using some type of sophisticated Lanchester model, run over thousands of iterations, comparing baseline and upgrades and various permutations, giving probabilities and confidence intervals and all the rest of that jazz, to show whether the Skyrim MkII modA is worth the investment, what the rough scale of issue is likely to be required, and what consumption of munitions will be like.
But for proof of concepts and operational plans - "tabletop" is the way to go. But that's not chits-on-a-hex-map and a six-sided dice tabletop. It's commanders standing around a birdtable, talking through the plan so they have a clear idea of time and space synchonisation, what everyone is doing at any given point in the battle to come, and where the key assets are by phase. You don't roll a dice to see whether 2 Platoon of C Company is able to take Hill 109. You just say "2 Platoon of C Company takes Hill 109". Then the int officer says what the most likely (or most dangerous) reaction by the enemy to losing Hill 109 is (based on doctrine, and posture, and known resources, &c), then the friendly commander outlines what his counter move is (or isn't; maybe ignoring the enemy at this point is what he chooses to do and 2 Platoon up on the hill will just have to take care of themselves). And so on, and so on.
Calling it "wargaming" is kind of a misnomer - it's more like "battle talking". But "wargaming" is what we're stuck with, even though it has approximately nothing in common with what most people think of when they hear the term.
 
Edit: I'm working chronologically through a backlog, and now see @Bil Hardenberger has already addressed this. The TL;DR of this post is 'read that one'
Edit2: and @The_Capt TL;DR 'read those ones'

When 3rd brigade says they destroyed 72nd MRBr it doesn't mean they encircled whole brigade in this tiny village of two streets. They meant Russian brigade was wiped out during all this time of battlle, likely 3rd brigade cleaned territory west from canal and crossed it. 
As final accord Andriivla was taken by two outflank maneuvers from north and south. But, of course not a brigade was at their last stand
Here is an acomplishing of operation. 3rd brigade took off a drone with dynamic and put the enemy ultimatum - surrender or die. UKR commande of 2nd battalion says to last Russians, who hide in basemants of two houses to surrender, because all their comrades already either killed or ran away, two their battalion commanders with callsigns Medved and Shaitan also killed. 
And here the whole Andriivka. As a fighter of 3rd brigade said - here is no more place to put a flag

And here is a moment of FPV drone hit a jeep with officer of 72nd MRBr, when he tried to escape from Andriivka (second video)
https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1702697923983675462

I think, "total annihilation of whole brigade" is some exaggregation, but obviously 72nd MRR lost most of combat capabilities. Some Russian sources say 72nd already has the third line-up since autumn 2022. 
It's hard to say about mechanized maneuver, because 3rd assault brigade mostly uses own not numerous armor as combat taxi and their opponents also had a problems with amount of available armor 

Battle for Andriivka is much more than final fight for this 500 x 500 m area. There was hard way through entrenched tree-lines and fierce Russian counter-attacks on far approaches to the village. The same about Klishciivka and Kurdiumivka. 

Yeah, you have to know what you want to get out of it. The same way computer systems are often designed around a “query”, your game is the same way… what question or scenario are we trying to test? If you don’t ask the right question, or your assumptions are wrong…

My day job is developing wargames for the USMC, and I wanted to address the bolded part above. Computer simulations are great, but they do not answer all the objectives of professional wargames, in fact many time the result is not even that important, many times the discussion and insights learned from going through the process are all that we are after. Computer sims also have a way of stifling this conversation, trust me when you have 50 professional Marine, Army, and/or Navy officers in a room, a table top game is the best tool for the job if you want to invite conversation and in-depth topic discussions.
There is also a dopamine hit players get from the tactile nature of a map and counter wargame and rolling dice that you rarely get from a computer simulation. That also has a value to get player buy-in, interaction, and enjoyment.  
Simulation based professional wargames are great when the results are important, testing a new tactical organization, weapon system integration, etc., but they usually turn into a series of in-depth planning sessions with a simulated vignettes occuring for flavor. There is also a stovepipe mentality with these types of games with different player cells huddled around their machines that is absent in table top games.
I've seen it all and there is value for all types of wargames in the professional setting and which is used depends on the objectives and research questions we are trying to answer. Table top games in professional wargames will not be going away anytime soon.
Bil

From the German perspective: A failed offensive doesn't mean we are just going to cancel support for Ukraine. Not because we are so kind and patient but because it  just doesn't work like that.
While still quite present in the media, the war has transitioned to being one of multiple crises we are facing. The prime topic is Germany sliding into a full fledged recession, I'd say. So every Euro spent that Germans don't profit from directly will be that much harder to justify. Currently we are seeing a surge in approval for the far right AfD. This is mostly due to domestic topics but especially the conservatives try to regain voters by taking AfD positions. AfD is quite Putin friendly and has been demanding negotiations and stuff like that basically since the start of the war.
The other parties won't just copy the AfD stance, that would still be political suicide. But with a failed offensive I guess(!) we may see an increase in politicians stepping forward and arguing we should, while of course still supporting Ukraine 100%, try to meditate between Russia and Ukraine. Because of the human cost, suffering civilians and all that. And maybe, because we absolutely like to present ourselves as honest brokers, there will be an increased reluctance to send over the latest and greatest equipment - on top of the already existing reluctance, of course.

Good points but I disagree here.  First off, this falls into the "Russian total defeat" trap.  By this criteria, Ukraine will never be allowed to join NATO/EU without a total defeat of the entire Russian state.  By setting this as a condition we actually incentivize Russia to keep an open wound in Ukraine as a counter to their being pulled into the western sphere.  Russian force of arms could "unsettle territorial issues" indefinitely even if they do suffer major battlefield defeats.
Second, NATO is not that binary.  We left Greece and Turkey in after that little tussle down in Cyprus.  We pulled Finland into NATO in months after people went on about how it will take years.  There is a whole lotta "NATO will never" going on, which has been challenged quite a bit as a result of this war.

It is not the frontage in contact, it is the mounting.  You have to get that Battalion with enablers to the front line on visible LOCs.  So vertical density, not horizontal.  It is what killed the RA last summer.
As to UA capability, I have heard similar tactical anecdotes but the UA has already demonstrated an ability to conduct large scale manoeuvre last fall at Kharkov.  They also used the "Coy - bites" approach at Kherson, which also worked in the end.  I know they have senior officers on some pretty high level courses in the US and Canada, so they have the command skills being taught.
I am not sure how anyone is supposed to cram several coys through minefield belts kms deep while their opponent has eyes all over the sky, long range ATGMs that cannot be cleared and artillery.  Toss in a few helicopters able to hit out to 10kms and I think the "NATO perspective" may be the problem.  The act of driving such a force to the front is going to set of all sorts of alarms and counter-fires...and this is the RA we are talking about.  It also answers the question as to why the RA has not been able to conduct massed formation manoeuvre even though their doctrine is built on it.
This whole NATO "everyone is doing it wrong except us" is a really bad way to go in my opinion.  

They dont need to actually mass in the sense of more troops per km of frontline.
Take their current company attack occupying maybe 2km of frontline. now add another 2 on each flank. the overall attack now occupies 10 km.
You now have reduced the enemys guns able to react to each individual attack significantly. Same goes for the own firesupport but massing your own guns in such an area is far faster than the enemys reaction.
Couple the attack with strikes on the hqs and you also dramatically reduce the reaction times when it matters.
Have reserve forces ready to push further oncr the first wave has taken the forward lines.
You never have forces more densely packed than currently, can dilute the defenders support and potentially cause a catastrophic failure of the defense.
Maybe ukraine is already doing this and were just not hearing it or they arent for some reason.
And i would be cautious with assuming ukrainians are doing everything as they should from a nato perspective. I wasnt particularly impressed with the performance of the ukrainians we trained so im skeptical their officers are generally much better.

I'm sure they did everything they could. But that little village has been jutting out like a salient since 20/08. I'm really surprised they held out so long.

And just in case anybody thinks I'm trying to praise the Russian army - no, I'm not.
I'm just saying that when a village barely 500x500 metres is able to hold out for nearly a month despite being surrounded on three sides, only to finally get totally destroyed instead of surrendering, then that doesn't sound like the typical story of clueless and demotivated mobiks that we so often hear.
Hopefully those guys were the last competent Russians in the army, because if they have many more of the same kind, then this will be a long war.