Offshoot

Imagine a group of scientists discussing some of the finer points of cladistic analysis of dinosaurs when suddenly the most inbred, subhuman redneck you can imagine bursts in and says "God made the earth in 7 days though!". That is basically what you just did.

I doubt it, more a distraction to help Johnson back home rather than to help Ukraine.
I hope the #ucking lack of visas to Ukrainian refugees was on the table, people in UK want to help but the Government is asking for paperwork even for cat's being brought into the UK. 
I am glad we have sent weapons but we could be doing more to help the refugees. 

This is an example of why I treat "good" russians like I do. (racist! racist!)
They make snarky comments about their warcrimes like it's nothing.
See - russian invasion and occupation are OK, their warcrimes are OK, but showing russian murderers and rapists or even discussing it is BAD.
"Russian army murdered thousands of innocent people, destroyed thousands of their homes, deported dozens of thousands of Ukrainians into nowhere - but they didn't rape 78 y o woman so stop saying like our army is bad".
Jesus effing Christ.
"We, in Russia, are getting stupid things like dead bodies of soldiers".
Could've been worse, you leave most of those rot on our land.

It's not quite as simple as she's making out.
They didn't give it to him, it's not a hand out. It's not charity. It's business, and for a critical resource that frankly, without it, makes making and doing things in Europe a good deal more expensive and awkward.
Those billions paid for gas etc to heat homes, run power and importantly support industry, manufacturing, science and research.
Sure he's getting money, but he has pretty high costs and that money loses significant use if he can't buy whizzbang Western tech or products (civ or mil).
I'm not saying it's a good thing (it absolutely ISN'T) but that's the blunt reality.
Think of it like this - Russia's gas is powering and heating the societies and industries that are now ****ing with his invasion in all sorts of delightfully maddening ways. Hell, his gas helps make the damn NLaws, Javelins and Panzerfausts that are slaughtering his tanks.
 

This is only true about the Communists and Fascists if you choose to ignore literally everything theyve ever said about themselves, their origins and rises to power, and of course what they thought about each other. This kind of thing is like doing history where you get to exclude everything thats inconvenient for your argument. We already have that discipline, its called political science. Seriously though IDK why people try to bend over backwards to excuse the right from the crimes of the people who tried to be apart of its movement. Its like the left is responsible for all the horrors of the world while the right gives out guns, lollipops, and tax vouchers. But saying the Nazis were left wingers flys in the face of not only what they said, but what contemporaries even thought about them. Unless you think Paul von Hindenburg was gunning for a socialist revolution in Germany.
The left/right spectrum is dumb and meaningless. Attaching meaning to it is the death of all truth. You will tie yourself into pretzels trying to determine whether one group is truly left or truly right. We live in a three dimensional world, our politics are multidimensional and cannot be place on a one dimensional spectrum, horseshoe, or cartesian plane. 

Someone earlier had said the forest was replanted. This appears to be the case:
"The forest hit hardest by the nuclear blasts was a pine plantation that stood directly in the path of the most deadly debris. Pines are extremely sensitive to radiation, and the trees turned rust-orange before they died; workers nicknamed the plantation the “Red Forest.” As part of the effort to contain the radioactive material, they bulldozed it, buried the trees in more than 5 million square yards of topsoil, and covered the area with more than a foot of sand. Then they replanted it with pines. As the new trees grew, radiation in the soil suppressed an enzyme that contributes to the classic single-stem conifer shape, resulting in an expanse of odd-looking, bushy dwarf pines."
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/08/chernobyl-fires/615067/

Someone earlier had said the forest was replanted. This appears to be the case:
"The forest hit hardest by the nuclear blasts was a pine plantation that stood directly in the path of the most deadly debris. Pines are extremely sensitive to radiation, and the trees turned rust-orange before they died; workers nicknamed the plantation the “Red Forest.” As part of the effort to contain the radioactive material, they bulldozed it, buried the trees in more than 5 million square yards of topsoil, and covered the area with more than a foot of sand. Then they replanted it with pines. As the new trees grew, radiation in the soil suppressed an enzyme that contributes to the classic single-stem conifer shape, resulting in an expanse of odd-looking, bushy dwarf pines."
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/08/chernobyl-fires/615067/

The Red Forest has been reported as a place the Russian soldiers dug trenches. If some are now getting sick, it would make more sense given your earlier comments.

Someone earlier had said the forest was replanted. This appears to be the case:
"The forest hit hardest by the nuclear blasts was a pine plantation that stood directly in the path of the most deadly debris. Pines are extremely sensitive to radiation, and the trees turned rust-orange before they died; workers nicknamed the plantation the “Red Forest.” As part of the effort to contain the radioactive material, they bulldozed it, buried the trees in more than 5 million square yards of topsoil, and covered the area with more than a foot of sand. Then they replanted it with pines. As the new trees grew, radiation in the soil suppressed an enzyme that contributes to the classic single-stem conifer shape, resulting in an expanse of odd-looking, bushy dwarf pines."
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/08/chernobyl-fires/615067/

This comment...

This is what the PC and Woke Brigade of the West cannot grasp about Russia

...has absolutely nothing to do with Ukrainians being angry about Russian war crimes!

I KNOW exactly what it represents, and it has no place in this thread and that's why I'm calling it for what it is.

That's whether you, or anyone else likes it or not... it is trolling! 

Now I joined this thread after the first week of the war to read others views about the conflict, not to read about this sort of nonsense. Quite frankly, there's nothing that I am going to learn from this sort of socio-political diatribe, but there is a lot that I can learn about the military conflict. But these particular comments have no place here and are irrelevant to the topic. 

I go way back to CM:BO but haven't been around for years. I knew this group would have interesting ideas and comments about Ukraine. Haven't been disappointed.
The scale of Russian losses at Trostyanets is staggering. This video is more on the topic with a good interview of a Ukrainian soldier talking about the tactics they use. Adding 130,000 Russian conscripts alone won't change anything but the body count.
 

Ukraine does seem to be the Tomb of the Unnamed Ground Vehicle

Wow, it looks like the front doors are open and it is a complete inferno inside.

Ukraine does seem to be the Tomb of the Unnamed Ground Vehicle

Ukraine does seem to be the Tomb of the Unnamed Ground Vehicle

Ukraine does seem to be the Tomb of the Unnamed Ground Vehicle

Drone footage of combat in Kherson near the Antonov Bridge
 

Drone footage of combat in Kherson near the Antonov Bridge
 

Even though I dabble in art and computer graphics, gameplay is much more important to me than the visuals.
And to be honest, the level of visuals in the game are never going to that great anyway given the engine limitations (lighting, shadows, limited normal mapping, limited modding support).
So I prefer to play with a consistent visual style, which you aren't going to get with mods unless everything has been modded to the same style.

I am living testament to that very possibility.
Perhaps I was more serious in the past (I do have three of their titles with modules and way back when even posted up a bug report that resulted in a change to the game). Perhaps I could be more serious again in the future. CM games are not the only games I play though, so I have to choose where and on what I spend my disposable income.
In light of choosing what I spend my money on, the "it's only $15" argument holds no water for me. If it is just $15, then why doesn't BF provide brand new customers with the engine 2 base game and require them to buy the engine upgrades? These new customers actually do "get the later version of the game for free. With the purchase of the material".  Of course the optics would be bad, just as they are bad for me, a not-so-serious but perhaps interested customer returning from a furlough.
So I thought I would leave some feedback from a market segment (am I the only one?) that, as you say, is not very vocal on the forums. It's up to BF if they listen or not, just as it is up to me if I buy or not.
Seriously not salty at all.

To stay current I get. But, to use Red Thunder as an example, I've no need to stay current. I haven't played a PBEM in yonks and exhausted my interest in the scenario list quite some time ago. I'm essentially a lapsed customer - the last new purchase I made was in 2015. Lapsed customers seem like the people you would want to entice back. Yet lapsed customers would end up paying the most. Someone who purchased CM:FI over half a decade ago and just hears about Rome To Victory is going to get some sticker shock at the $50 price tag.

To organize my thoughts better the most active BF customers would seem likely to keep their games updated. They want to engage in MP and with newly created scenario content. While the least active (lapsed as it were) are less likely to do so. Requiring the least active (and by inference) the least committed to jump through additional hoops seems counter-intuitive. Since these folks are probably the most likely to walk away from the game.
 
You are certainly free to send them money in the mail.

Personally the engine upgrade requirements are not going to make/break my decision to make new purchases. Much like 76mm, I'm very much an Eastern Front player. But I can't shake the feeling that requiring them is a unusual move when your least committed customers are likely the ones without them.
 

I have to admit that I am disinclined to buy the new FI module because of the engine upgrade issue.
As an early buyer of FI who hasn't kept up to date, getting the module will cost me $50 including the engine upgrades. As I also own RT and BN, it would perhaps be more sensible to buy the upgrade 4 big bundle, so my upfront outlay to get the module would be $65. At this point I'm thinking nah.
I assume that if I were to buy the base game now it would be game engine 4, which means that only early buyers end up paying for the dev costs of the engine upgrades. I understand from other software I use that the argument for this is that you have derived value from the upgrade by using it, though this is not the case for me because I never bought it.
I guess I just find it strange that BF would put people off buying modules by not including engine upgrades in the price of the module.