Lethaface

I had a section chief who, after a phone call with Naval Reactors told us, "10 years from now he won't remember you were late, but he WILL remember if you were wrong, forever." 
My favorite boss I had in 38 years at EB. Of course we always tried our best to hit the deadlines, but not at the expense of being correct. It was nuclear submarine reactor plant design, after all. Incorrect is not an option.
Dave

Looking forward to it!
For everyone else, I really think it's best if we interpret the 2024 look at the year to come as "this is what they're working on this year", rather than as "this is what will be released this year". As was pointed out a couple pages back, Battlefront has committed to quality, and that means time needs to be flexible
Companies that commit to releasing their products by a promised date often end up being rather flexible on quality. 
In any case, I suspect it takes two or three years to develop a base game or module (I haven't payed much attention to how long it normally takes to develop Battle Packs). So it's probably reasonable for us to hope for some of the things that were announced at the beginning of 2023 (with work presumably starting sometime in 2022) to be finished in 2024 or 2025. If they announce that they're working on anything new in 2024, that doesn't mean it will be released in 2024. The better interpretation is probably that work started in 2023, and a release might be expected in 2025 or 2026. A two or three year development cycle actually isn't that long for something as complicated as a video game.

East Prussia. Perhaps we can work together. 

@Aragorn2002: 
Eastprussia is fantastic 🙏🏻 Both of my grandfathers were there at the end of the WWII. One grandfather was going to Soviet Captivity from Fortress Königsberg, the other managed to escape from the Heiligenbeil Pocket with a rowboat. 
But there are so many battles and interesting situations that I don‘t know where to start and where to end😬
As the Germans said: „Who wants to conquer everything, will conquer nothing.“ 

Due to the core theme of F&R Hungary is underrepresented, although it is an extremely interesting theater. Hungary is one of my favorite thoughts when it comes
to a new BP ❤️

While I'm hanging around here on the forum, I have an idea: 
Now that the big CMRT project will be finished soon,  I feel an inner energy within me to look forward for something new 😎
Of course, no promises - because I don't know for sure whether I'll have the luxury of combining work and hobby so comfortably again this year.
But if I start something new, it will probably be another BattlePack of 3-5 campaigns from Axis point of view. 
No Normandy and no Italian Theatre (there are many people who have a thousand times better background knowledge about these battles).
But the Eastern Front from June 44 to May 45 and the Western Front from September/October 44 to May 45 are available to choose from (hoping for the release of a new CMFB module in 2024 🙏):
Therefore, suggestions can be made on this topic.  Eastern front or Western Front? Berlin or Budapest? Rhine Front or, for example, the fighting for Northern Germany? Or something completely different? 
There are thousands of interesting regions and battles. Everyone can make suggestions and contribute ideas here.
 
Regards
Mr.X
 

A totally valid decision, if a little disappointing. It would’ve been VERY satisfying to pit Leo 2s and Puma IFVs against the Russians in a rematch of the Eastern Front where the Germans are the good guys.
Ah well, I’m sure there’ll be a CW expansion that’ll satisfy that itch 😁

Fwiw you are pushing propaganda as the absolute truth. Even Jewish acquainces who fought with the Haganah (and weren't welcome in Britain until very recently for that reason), which I have spoken to in person, don't support your version of the facts. 
Ciao 

I know about the history, imo it isn't 'strange' they refused the specific offers thar were made at the times they were made.

Fwiw you are pushing propaganda as the absolute truth. Even Jewish acquainces who fought with the Haganah (and weren't welcome in Britain until very recently for that reason), which I have spoken to in person, don't support your version of the facts. 
Ciao 

Arab oppression or European oppression? The funny thing is that while you grant the Israeli people a right to a nation state (which I don't deny; as a matter of fact it's a done deal), you don't allow the Palestinians the same right.
Anyway I don't like to repeat myself, see my previous post.

I did check it out. Thanks. 

Sure.  Of course from their point of view they look at who has done all the Pred shoots and airstrikes.  I mean you did read my post about roughly 216k civilians killed by coalition action in Iraq?  I am not sure why people forget that all war is personal.  People do not forget a US or allied warplane killing a family member.  So they support what from their point of view is a resistance.  Low tech and brutal because that is what they have to push back with and make a splash.  We drop JDAMs and the cycle continues.
Ok, time for COIN/CT 101…probably past time.  How this war should be fought in three steps:
1.  Isolate Hamas.  First from international support and then from its own people.  Do not under any circumstances drive support into their arms.  We have a lot of power use it to ensure Hamas loses support, not gain it.
2. Map and erode the networks.  Long and intelligence heavy this work is looking at Hamas (or any VEO really) as a loose network with nodes and connectors.  Target those with precision.  This last action on hitting Hamas leadership in Lebanon sends a message and erodes the network.  Start conductive, end inductive.  By this I mean mature to the point you are getting them to shoot at each other - it is actually pretty easy once you figure it out.  
3. Break the narrative.  Hamas has axes to grind.  Weaken that.  Take them away if you can.  Or at least convince people that Hamas ain’t got the good to deliver change.  This is how ISIL effectively died and how the IRA morphed to the political table.  This line is highly political and needs to be managed by political operatives.
All that takes nuance, imagination and a lot of hard intel work.  It is fought online and in cafes around the world.  It can and will be violent, but back of the head in an ally violent not dropping building like rank amateurs.  It takes time and patience, like fly fishing.  But we have numerous examples of it working.  Terror groups tend to wane and lose traction unless they can stay on the front pages.  Then they split/fragment to the point they can be managed over the long term.  We did this with AQ.  It has been done with a lot of major terror groups.
Israel is doing just about the worst strategy one can pursue in this sort of thing.  Frankly the US initially did too.  It was not Iraq or Afghanistan that won GWOT it was 20 years of hard inter-agency work and quiet actions all over the world.

Arab oppression or European oppression? The funny thing is that while you grant the Israeli people a right to a nation state (which I don't deny; as a matter of fact it's a done deal), you don't allow the Palestinians the same right.
Anyway I don't like to repeat myself, see my previous post.

Ok, you gotta back that one up.  As I recall the Arab world was pretty damned tolerant of religions “of the book” so long as they paid their taxes and stayed in their lane.  Are are we talking Babylon here?
Compared to pogroms in Europe?
Edit:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Arab_world
Looks more like a modern 20th century phenomenon with the Arab world.  I am really not sure where 500 years is coming from.  Unless you meant Europe?

Yes indeed. I have also been fortunate to travel around. 52 countries visited so far. I hope to do a few more before I hang it up. I enjoyed a night in the Netherlands. I think Arnhem. 
I have naivety to think or hope that Gaza strip could have become a Singapore. {According to the internet the population and area of Singapore is about double that of Gaza. So, the population density is nominally the same.} Maybe it will eventually. 
~~~~~~~
I now recall an old Star Trek episode. (TOS, the original series baby!) It was the one where the 2 warring planets had a system where they had to eliminate people by computer simulation. A 500-year long war. "A Taste of Armageddon"
 

Without trying to give Elvis more work, my comment about sides was about choosing between Palestinian vs Israeli people.
I don't know why you bring the woke stuff in this, but fwiw I'm white and I don't feel guilty or ashamed for things other people did in the past; whatever their skin colour was. I wasn't there.
That isn't to say that being informed about the less rosey colored parts of our history is a bad thing. This isn't a zero sum game. In fact one or my grandfathers participated in a colonial war, I don't think he did 'bad' stuff but I wasn't there. Not everything my country did there was bad, but according to todays standards (which I mostly endorse in this case) it was not a 'good' war. I don't feel guilty of it, but I like to see it for what it was.
I don't want to call anyone stupid, just my opinion that it is a stupid position to grant 'things' or 'humanity' to one people but not to another people. I grant Jewish/Israeli people the same right to live as I grant it to Muslim/Palestinian people. I don't support Hamas or the Israeli regime.
The perspectives we all hold come forth from our experience in life. I was granted the fortune of having travelled many parts of the world and get to know various peoples and cultures. It has provided me, at least I like to believe so, with an open mind towards other perspectives. 
I wish the same for everyone and hope one day the people in 'the holy land' can also live in peace together.

You see it right here.  Even people on different sides are just people.
I am indigenous.  Cree and visible enough to get pinged on the street.  And I think this trend of white guilt is incredibly harmful and in some case just plain wrong - it is a topic of hot debate around The_Capt family table I can tell, especially with my daughter.
It is relevant that you mention it because it is exactly what we are wrestling with at the staff college right now: Are we teaching future senior officer "how to think" or "what to think".  I am in that first camp, deeply.
The reality is that racism exists in just about every culture on earth since the dawn of time.  Native Americans had a slave trade long before white men even showed up.  It was broader then economics but it definitely was there.  To lay all the modern ills on the White Man's table is nothing more than a convenient excuse to avoid dealing with internal social dysfunction goin back generations.  White men have got sins, there is no doubt about this, but they do not give me license to abuse my wife and family or lean on substance abuse.
Now where we likely differ is on the "so what?"  Our aim moving forward is to stare all that bad directly in the face and say "Ya, ok. But not me and mine."  I could give two figs about white colonialism, my son is going to be a lawyer and master the system at its own game.  I can be proud of my heritage (good and bad) and still be better at this world.  And make damn sure my kids are even better than me.
I am not pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian.  I am pro "let's stop acting like a bunch of insular and scared primates and evolve to the bigger game and better natures our ancestors really had in mind."  It is hard.  It is not fair.  But we can be better than them...that is what they really wanted for us in the first place.     

Personally I'm not a big fan of the extreme 'woke bandwagon', although neither of the other extreme side (although woke literally means 'alert to prejudice and discrimination', which is a good thing imo).

That being said, history is quite clear and we (the West) weren't always the bright beacon of civilization as we'd like(d) to see it. 
AFAIK he asked whether racism played a role in how some people seem to not care about the bloody death toll the Israeli regime is (and has been) causing in Gaza at the moment. I think it does.
Also imho it is stupid to 'support' only one side. Because supporting one side exclusively defacto means denying the other side, both have millions of people, (of a normal) life. Does supporting one side mean you don't care whether the people of the other side get slaughtered in the many thousands? That is not a humane perspective imho and goes well beyond any woke bandwagon; that's just supporting mass killings of civilians.
Don't know about you, but that's not my cuppa.

I will see your uncited “survey” and raise you several hundred years of Euro-centric colonization and empires built on slavery.  Are you saying there are not white people who don’t basically dislike anyone who is not white?  Note I said “some” and not all.  Did you happen to find any surveys where the growing problem of white supremacy has support from “black and Latino” communities as well?
I added that last part because the history of the US, and most of Europe for that matter, is not a shining example of race or ethnic…or diverse religion relations in the 19th, 20th and now 21st century.  The current impulse to support Israel in spite some highly questionable military actions could be an “other” reaction against the Arab world that has been building since 9/11.  Within societies that have a pretty brutal track record of “othering” going back a few hundred years…ya, crazy idea, right?
As to an actual pre-war survey:
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-generation-gap-in-opinions-toward-israel/
It found that support to Israel varied by age and politics.  The greatest support was among older Republicans…now I wonder what ethnic demographic makes up older Republicans…hmm.
So adding to the debate I looked up a war I am very familiar with because I was in it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_in_the_war_in_Afghanistan_(2001–2021)
So best guess is around 46k civilian deaths in 20 years in a nation of around 40 million. Noting that this war was also a “war amongst the people” in complex urban and human terrain.  We somehow managed to prosecute that war against both insurgents and a terror group without causing tens of thousands civilian casualties per month.  Granted the Gaza war is in early days and their average could drop over time but I would need to see that first.  That non-combatant loss rate is around 2100 per year.  While the IDF are looking at 12k per month…in a population of 2 million.
 
 

Given the global awareness of the average North American voter, I think it is an extremely accurate indicator.  Since 9/11 Hollywood and the rest of the entertainment industry has been doing exactly what is has always done…well enter that people want.  Since 9/11. We have been fed a pretty steady diet of “bad muslims” of every shape and size.  We have seen anti-Muslim sentiment in both US and Canada, and of course plenty of anti-semitism as well because apparently some white people don’t like anyone.
Regardless, the question is legitimate in that have we been constructing biases that allow us to look the other way when the IDF are clearly going overboard, on occasion at least.  Personally, I don’t need a Russian disinformation campaign to tell me that the IDF are being heavy handed and very likely outside the LOAC.  The levels and pace of civilian infrastructure alone raises the question.  Frankly the freakin Iraqi military showed more restraint in Mosul against ISIL and that is saying something.
Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization that needs to die.  So was AQ, and the Taliban for that matter.  But none of that justifies warcrimes or even playing fast and loose with the law.  There are ways to prosecute this war and not 1) make Gaza uninhabitable, and 2) kill tens of thousands of civilians.  Are they easy, nope.  Are they quick?  Nope.  But they are definitively lawful.
As to US coalition performance in Iraq the levels of collateral damage were not insignificant:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
650k at the upper end and there were investigations as to allied criminality.  
However, two very important differences in that war.  1) these numbers are over 3 to 8 years depending which source one uses.  And 2) many of these studies look at all violent deaths and Iraq was rife with sectarian violence.  For example:
The Lancet study's figure of 654,965 excess deaths through the end of June 2006 is based on household survey data. The estimate is for all excess violent and nonviolent deaths. That also includes those due to increased lawlessness, degraded infrastructure, poorer healthcare, etc. 601,027 deaths (range of 426,369 to 793,663 using a 95% confidence interval) were estimated to be due to violence. 31% of those were attributed to the Coalition, 24% to others, 46% unknown. The causes of violent deaths were gunshot (56%), car bomb (13%), other explosion/ordnance (14%), airstrike (13%), accident (2%), unknown (2%). A copy of a death certificate was available for a high proportion of the reported deaths (92% of those households asked to produce one).[32][33][34]
So while shocking one can see that coalition military action only accounted for roughly one third of these deaths over a three year period…in a worst case study.  That is roughly 216k civilian casualties in 36 months during the most intense periods of that war.  The US was definitely angry and pushing envelopes.  I know people who were in Corp HQ and ROEs were an issue right along with detainees, especially after Abu Graib.  So the US military, arguably off the leash.  Fighting a broad insurgency in an entire nation of 27 million people were killing roughly 6k civilians as collateral damage per month.
The IDF is waging a similar type of war in a tiny strip of land with roughly 2 million people trapped in a box and its showing civilian casualty rate at over double that.  In short the IDF is killing Palestinians at twice the rate of the US coalition during the darkest days of the war in ‘03.  They are doing it on a  civilian population less than ten percent of that of Iraq in ‘03.  It is targeting and prosecuting targets at rates we are not seeing in Ukraine, yet arguing they are doing so cleanly in a complex urban and human environment.  The levels of destruction strongly suggest intent to render the area uninhabitable for Palestinian return…which is also a warcrime.
So yes, I too support Israel.  But I do not support criminality in any shape or form.  There is enough here to at least get the IDF to justify its actions and demonstrate with transparency that it has been righteous.  Any failure to hold Israel to account if illegal action has occurred erodes any future holding Russia (or anyone else for that matter) on illegal military operations.  Finally, as has been noted by myself…and now Gen Petraus, this action will very likely play into Hamas’ over all strategic aims to isolate Israel, prevent any rapprochement with the Arab world (where things were actually heading re: Saudi Arabia) and will fuel their ranks for another generation.
But of course, “aw shucks and pass em more ammunition”.
 

Imo there is a 'holy trinity' between quality, budget and time. You can't change one without impacting the others, so if one or two are fixed, the other need to be flexible. With BFC committing to quality (this is not necessarily mainly about bugs, but rather realism and authenticity of the game engine and depicted period/battles), them having a sort of fixed budget, the result is that time needs to be 'subject to change'. This is about the big picture, not individual releases/bugs or investing a couple of (10)thousand extra to get some things done outside the core team.

Personally I'm also happy they sacrifice 'time' over quality. They could probably dumb down the game / new games and deliver faster. But that's not how they roll, in my experience since 2007. The result is that releases come when they are ready, it is what it is; still the lesser evil imo.

And we land on the problem with the tactical wargamers point of view.  Don’t get me wrong there is strength in the micro view.  It forecasted a lot of what we are actually seeing.  But it misses the fact that modern militaries are in fact really complex systems built out of more complex systems.
We can sit back and say “send more XYZ!  What aren’t they sending more XYZ?!”  Like it is the purchase menu in CM.  But more western hardware means more western logistical strain.  It is more than “a few spare parts”.  An MBT needs something like 2-3 hours of maint for every hour of operation? These are big complex machines that need professionals with years of training to keep in the field.  This Romanichal caravan of western military equipment has likely made the UAs job harder, not easier.  They are trying to keep an eclectic fleet of vehicles in motion that a bunch of western nations essentially dump onto the problem.
While an effective stopgap measure, if we are talking longer term war - and it looks like we are - then shifting to UA logistical and industrial military capability should take a front seat.  I would be thinking about steering clear of hot and heavy complex platforms and moneyball platforms and systems that have 1) bought wins so far and 2) are cheap, easy and disposable.  The western strategy has been woefully, western in this war.  Sending a bunch of high end equipment that we expect to win the war in a month.  When that fails…well blame the user.
I mean we could solve the disparity at sea by sending Ukraine a bunch of cruise missile destroyers too but keeping them afloat would be impossible.  Why we thought complex armoured formations would be any different is a testament to just how far up our own a$$es western military thought is at the moment,

Read the article @Chudacabra just posted.  Gives a very good break down of what is happening.  A veneer of defence is just that, under scrutiny it becomes pretty evident very quickly that laws of armed conflict are being violated.  For example, blowing up a high rise full of civilians because “Hamas met there once” is well outside the LOAC.  The power targets, which are an admitted IDF target set, are also no more legitimate under the LOAC than Russian cruise missile strikes on Ukrainian high rises.
Finally, you are clearly a civilian and do not understand just how dangerous the scenario you paint is for a military organization.  Beyond moral injury and exposing your own troops to war criminality, this sort of “painting over” is how really bad things happen.  It creates a level of acceptability that erodes military discipline.
 “Ok guys, we all know higher is playing cover up so shoot who you want.”  “Hey Sarge, can we rape Palestinian women too?”  Civilians have just about zero understanding about just how slippery a slope warfare is.  They think it is all “drama”.  In reality “killing” is among the easiest things to do.  Morally a military organization can find itself upside down very fast.  Officers and NCOs spend an inordinate amount of time making sure scared heavily armed teenagers don’t get out of hand in fighting the enemy.  They do this primarily to ensure things don’t get so bad that those teenagers don’t start shooting each other.
If the IDF keeps going the way they are it will be nearly impossible to tell them apart from the RA in a few months.  

The PLO did this in the mid-1990s and I don't believe that any of the sovereign countries around Israel have this in their constitution, but correct me if I'm wrong. The Palestinian Authority has been just about the only player to live up to its obligations and has been consistently willing to negotiate. It has also been systemically undermined by Netanyahu's successive governments, who backed Hamas as a means of dividing and discrediting the Palestinians. Smotrich was quite explicit about this approach in 2015: “The Palestinian Authority is a burden, and Hamas is an asset. It’s a terrorist organization, no one will recognize it, no one will give it status at the [International Criminal Court], no one will let it put forth a resolution at the U.N. Security Council.” Netanyahu just boasted about specifically not pursuing a two-state solution. Smotrich has also been quite explicit about his desire to formally annex at least parts of the West Bank. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-nimrod-novik.html I thought this was an excellent interview with a former Shimon Peres advisor, where he quite clearly made the case that Israeli security cannot be predicated on the oppression of the Palestinians and that it is in Israel's interest to provide a viable future for the Palestinians.

Hamas and many sitting Israeli cabinet ministers have used similar genocidal rhetoric. I don't find it to be a very difficult position to feel that neither Israelis or Palestinians in positions of power should openly consider genocide or ethnic cleansing. This is not some age old conflict between Jews and Muslims, but rather a product of a modern political project. However, it is long past due to figure out a political solution that allows Palestinians and Israelis to live together in peace. Both sides have bugled negotiations (sometimes at the same time) and both sides have done terrible things, but who can possibly think that a dramatic escalation in violence will break a cycle of violence? Even Israel itself shows that while there's certainly room for improvement, there's also no reason why Israeli Jews can't live together with Arab Christians or Muslims. It's a political problem that requires a political solution. I think there are three viable options (one secular state, two federated states, or two fully sovereign states), so best get to figuring it out.