Fizou

See my other post.  So Ukraine has lost?  We have definitely been around that tree a few times.  Is it right?  Well ok by what metrics has Ukraine lost?  You contradict your own position by stating that we have doomed Ukraine by not giving them enough weapons.  Ok, so if they had enough weapons they could win this war?  So winning the war is possible, except for the part where support to Ukraine has been hijacked to create a self-fulfilling prophesy - “you are going to lose this war, while I ensure you don’t get the support you need to win it.”
As to the war itself:
- Russia has failed to achieve any of its political or strategic objectives, with the lone exception of that land bridge, but until there is a ceasefire, I am not willing to call that one.
- The Russian military is a broken shell of its former self.  The damage done to its Tier 1 military is going to take a decade to rebuild under normal conditions, let alone long term sanctions.  I read a source that notes the Black Sea Fleet is not only denied but down 20%.
- Russian foreign influence has completely backfired - see Finland and Sweden in NATO.  NATO funding will be secure for a decade at least…and frankly we were half way to letting it die before this.
- Ukraine remains and independent sovereign nation.  It has distance to go but it will very likely be western facing for the next century.
- The Ukrainian military is about as battle hardened as it gets.  To the point they could make bank training us.
- Russia chances for serious operational gains remain low.  For all the reasons laid out in the last couple thousand pages.
- Russian internal stability remains highly suspect.  Hell they almost had an accidental coup last year.
You are correct, China is dining out on this and will continue to a point.  The war could end right now, Korean Peninsula style and Ukraine will have won this thing.  Of course Ukraine needs more support, as much as they can get.  I highly suggest you use your democratic rights this year to vote for the party and candidates that are trying to sustain that support, not shut it down.
Is it hard.  Damn straight.  Is Ukraine suffering, absolutely. Are they having force generation problems, very likely.  So what?  What is your answer?  Sue for peace?  Surrender?  Seriously, how on earth did the children and grandchildren of the generation that went through the Depression and WW2 come to this?  “Aw it’s too hard so we should just look away.  Stick to the easy ones so we can score political points.”  This was is not about politics are power.  It is about right and wrong.  What I find so shocking is how the USA, leader and symbol of “right”, is floundering now that history is watching.  How sentiments like yours can be so widespread.  Frankly, if this is the trajectory of your nation, China will be running the planet by 2050.
You want to Make America Great Again - start here and support a nation of people who just want to be free and democratic.  A nation that has been invaded by a brutal authoritarian regime.  Stop hand-wringing and doom saying “Ukraine has no avenues to win this war”…and do something about it!

"My Panther!  My beautiful Panther!"

And call me old fashioned but 'talking' to opponents is part of the fun/enjoyment of it for me.

Alas I am still working on the 2.0 release. Or more accurately I am not currently working on it. I will get back to it soon, I hope.

If airplanes are the Russian resources that run out first, then the F-16 (or rather its possible stock of western missiles) will make a difference.
It would be interesting to know which missiles they get. But obviously they won't tell for good reason.
I predict a short flurry of downed Russian planes and then an end to the (mass) use of glide bombs from the Russian side.

Thanks Frank! What an amazing achievement. You are a treasure to this community. 

Thanks Frank! What an amazing achievement. You are a treasure to this community. 

Thanks Frank! What an amazing achievement. You are a treasure to this community. 

Thanks Frank! What an amazing achievement. You are a treasure to this community. 

Tonight, I have finished the complete (as it is now called) CampaignPack „Summer of Destruction“.
During the next hours, I will complete the short intro file and then start to send the content to all the guys who have ordered it. Within the next 2-3 days, everybody should get it 👍🏻
 
There is a small limitation:
The announced 20 master maps are not included yet. I simply don‘t have the patience to wait any longer with the release. I will send these maps with a second mail within the next 2-4 weeks.
Regards 
Mr.X

Yes, many thanks Frank. Excellent work and please don't cut off communication here my friend ❤️. 

Exactly one year after the first announcement, the project is now finished. In order to avoid
misunderstandings on the part of the company Battlefront.com, I chose the name CampaignPack 😎.
The pack (as described in former threads) consists of 5 campaigns in which the player is thrown
into the events of the summer of 1944 in the sector of the German Army Group Center.
In total you will play minium 52 single missions, maximum 55 single missions (depending on one
branch). To avoid technical problems, I didn't add any mods to the campaigns. But I can, for example,
highly recommend the excellent work of @JM Stuff, especially his extraordinary mod collection of vehicles
and wrecks 👍
I recently visited the forum regularly to stay in touch with people who wanted to register. However, I have
asked the people at Battlefront.com several times to delete my profile.  This request has not yet been
granted to me, so as a quasi "undead" I will always stop by - but I will no longer take part in any discussions
or answer any questions in the forum. To get in touch with me, please write to me at:
E-Mail: f-s-zbg@web.de.😎
Of course, I can still send the campaign pack to anyone interested.
 
So all I can say is:
It was a great pleasure for me to finish this project and share it with many people.
I hope you have as much fun playing as I did creating it 🙏
 
Best regards
Mr.X 

Honestly, I don't know if I would call it "anxiety" but I have had nights where for hours I have been awake thinking about this war.
I understand how important this war is for the direction this world can go, and I will keep following it until it is finished and will keep supporting the good guys in this war no matter how long it takes.
Personally I do recommend once in a while disconnecting from the internet and spending some time with family, go on a hike in the woods or something.
But ultimately compared to Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines, I really have nothing to be anxious about.
 

not so much anxiety as frustration.  I am so pissed at my own gov't right now for being so fk'in lame.

Would it be different if Russian paramilitaries had in reality run riot through an airport lounge killing hundreds of citizens and security guards? An event of such unimaginable violence that it would be on the scale of Oct 7th attacks, or 9/11. 

Regardless it needs to be considered that this is not only the reputational risk of a single company at stake, Slitherine and Steam share the risk of potential reputational damage and this in turn can affect future agreements re collaboration. In fact reps from those companies may have even expressed their own views on promoting and selling the planned module. A number of factors could have influenced the decision to pull it, these included.

P.S. This thread should have been titled "How cold is CMBS gonna' get?" 😀

I think we are missing the point of wargaming.  What would happen if Battlefront modeled the Israeli army in a fictional battle against Syria?  Does that now make the game a referendum on Israel?  Does it imply a stance by the game company?  I say no.  Playing Combat Mission is akin to playing a miniatures game in real life.  You have your armies and you fight it out.  It doesn't matter what happens in real life.  We play video games because we want to play war without the dangers of war.  Battling it out in a virtual Ukraine has nothing to do with what is happening in real life.  Has anyone looked at Command Modern Operations?  Some of the scenarios for that game are almost real time.  I just don't see a connection for developing a game and support for Ukraine or Russia.

It's because russia is losing and the war may not be over before the end of 2024. It won't look good to release a game about the war in Ukraine as the war will still be going on.... 
I  am pro-Ukrainian just calling it like I see it.
 
I hope I am wrong and this is all over soon and in a positive way for the Ukrainian people

I think it's extremely likely that Steve is referring to CMx3. There is nothing else BFC could be doing -- no new module, no engine upgrade, not even a whole new title in the CMx2 series -- that would warrant that type of language.
Steve had talked about Charle's insane programming workload over the last xx months. Nothing in CMx2 would likely be taking that much programming time. Plus there is now defense contract money coming into BFC. The engine is showing its age, despite still providing most of use with many hours of fun, so it's reasonable to surmise that the wargamers on this forum are not the only ones pushing for advancements. Plus... a few things said only a week or two ago in the "Is CMBS Dead?" thread might've revealed more than some people desired or noticed?
It's fun to speculate about what the potential first CMx3 title would be.
To me, yes, Normandy (or at least France '44), makes the most sense. CMBN is the company's most popular and highest selling CMx2 title for a reason.
I am so, so ready to give BFC even more of my money!

That seems a little 'counter-progress' if I may say?  I know what you mean, but long term it's the way to go (and Steve is not retiring just yet, he said so).
I'll buy Utah anyway and keep playing CM2 for now.

The more I think about it the less I think I'd mind CM3 starting over at Normandy again. It would mean backtracking on any progress towards eventually covering the whole war. But CM3 would presumably represent such an increase in realism that it would be well worth going over old ground again. I'm sure there will be significant improvements in the ability to represent modern warfare in particular (better handling of drones, EW, modern air support, and modern air defenses). But as far as improvements that would significantly improve the representation of WW2 I'm hoping that we'll get assisted loading for crew served weapons. I believe that will significantly narrow the current gap between the Bren and the MG42.
I still hope that Combat Mission will eventually cover the whole war (and hopefully a few other wars as well). But maybe recycled TO&E and vehicle data from CM2 will help to streamline the rate at which they can cover larger stretches of time on each front.

If it's anywhere on the Eastern Front I hope that @George MC is working on it. His maps and scenarios are some of the best ever.

BF have always pooh poohed chances of early war or NA as apparently those theaters didn't sell well.  But, maybe if increasing numbers of our voices asking for those keep rising...

While I agree that the methodology in those examples are ridiculous, I don't think that using Soviet documents is automatically a bad idea, not that you were saying that was the case of course, I understood you as saying that he cherry picks the finding from the studies that are in line with his pre-existing beliefs without considering the proper context etc, but I just felt like I should expand on the point of Soviet sources.

When it comes to sources and documents from non-allied states like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, there is a tendency to dismiss all the data as inherently unreliable which isn't necessarily the case. After all, these countries were doing tests to collect data for their own military development, there is an incentive to collect accurate data that can help when designing their next tank or planning out future tank doctrine. It's a generally a bad idea for engineers to make up nonsense test results to send back to the ministry knowing that that bogus data will be used to design the next generation of tanks, that would ironically be much more deserving of punishment than simply reporting that the current equipment isn't up to snuff.

What people should be looking at is the type of sources. Official press releases, state news, personal accounts, biographies and anything else intended for public consumption are not always the most reliable of sources and can include a great deal of propaganda, I would take them with a grain of salt even if they were written by the Allies. However, a declassified technical report meant for internal consumption within the ministry of defense can generally be assumed to be relatively accurate, in this case they need accurate data, they are perfectly capable of conducting accurate tests and there's no real incentive to make stuff up if the data was not meant to be publicly released. Like you mentioned, the Soviet helmet report did indicate that no usable conclusion could be drawn due to the flawed methodology, indicating that they were actually trying to collect usable data instead of just trying to show that their equipment was the best. For WW2 primary sources a good rule of thumb is that primary sources intended for internal consumption within the government or military tend to be at least fairly accurate as that was the information which the decision makers relied upon to fight the war, while primary sources intended for the general public can generally be assumed to include elements of propaganda.

I don't know much about this Samsonov guy in particular, but from what I've read in this thread he translates Soviet primary sources, but tends to draw flawed conclusions from them. In this case, my suggestion would be to take his conclusions with a grain of salt and for people to look at the translated primary sources instead, consider the context in which those sources were written to gauge their reliability and draw their own conclusions from the sources.

check this
 

This!!  They said they had no interest in CW either....
I would literally chew off my own left leg, slather it in tactical space butter, and eat it for CM Pacific.
And if they did do it, it would open the door for every tropical/jungle/island conflict moving forward.