Desertor

We are not an exception. Whole EU got to where it is through very bloody tyrant dethroning revolutions. They weren't successful by luck, they succeeded by people fighting and sacrificing a lot.
Bloody revolutions are what made EU democratic and not them somehow lucking into benevolent politicians.
USA too, being a prime example, of a mere colony sticking it up to a huge empire that controlled 25% of planetary landmass at one point - and becoming what it is today by people never being afraid to voice their concerns.
A revolution, like that in Syria or Kazakhstan, may fail, however, due to way more powerful outside force (or to be precisely - russian invasion in this case) - but it didn't fail because people didn't do well enough. Both aforementioned cases would've been a sure win if not for russians.
But when you are just walking around for months and literally applaud your murderers, while claiming you don't want to end up being like Ukraine - that's not doing it well enough.

Wait until 'snatch' đrones become a thing and swoop in in the middle of the night to grab some poor schmuck on sentry duty and carry him back to the enemy camp for interrogation. 

So I think it has become apparent that the feel of this war is changing, or at least that is how I am perceiving it.  Way back I mentioned that when looking at any strategic military picture I always ask "what does the options space look like?".   
We have seen from Day 1 the Russian military options steadily go from "I can attack Ukraine anywhere of my time and choosing...fear me!", to "The quick war may be a loss but I will grind you into powder city by city until you beg me to stop...and my Belarusian attack dog is by my side!!", to "I will hold the ground I have taken and pound you from afar", to "I will try and take/hold ground that will give me the thin veneer of a win while trying to fail-slower everywhere else".
While Ukraine has sustained its option space and now it looks like that space is expanding as they decide where to attack. 
The "so what?" is that this war is not about the militaries that are fighting them anymore.  Nor is it really about military strategy or operations.  It is looking more and more like we have entered a "posturing endgame".  So military action is likely to be governed more by appearances than anything of real substance.  The Russians have literally run out of options at this point, they are down to:
- Stay and likely collapse under their own weight and Ukrainian offensive action
- Withdraw a shattered wreck before #1
- Double down where they can and try to pull a "win" out of this turd pile
- Go full crazy and nuke everything.
When I talk about "options" I really am talking about good ones that may lead to victory, everyone always has bad options, lots of them.  The only good option left to the Russians, barring some fully automatic rabbit they still have in the sock drawer, is #3.  They will have to try and maintain credible threat on other fronts but this Pac Man strategy of slowly munching in the Donbas up to some arbitrary "victory line" is starting to look more and more likely.
For Ukraine, they are under competing demands of 1) to stop the suffering and damage because the cleanup is going to just be nuts and 2) an overriding desire to kill more Russians.  Unlike the Russians, Ukrainian forces of all types have all sorts of options on the table.  They can attrit where they want and simply hold elsewhere.  They can try limited offensive and try and line up an operational knockout blow, but that might run afoul of political desire to get this thing over with.
Either way, I am getting the sense over the last week that we have entered an end-game phase of this thing unless the Russians have dug a tunnel to the mole people and made an unholy alliance with the underworld.  Not sure when this will end but it has that "post-culmination feel".  Of course we sat around in Korea for like 2 years at this state.  What we do know:
- Russia has failed in this war to a point that is historic.  We will be studying this for years trying to figure out what happened.
- Russia will declare victory in this thing even if it means they only took a single square foot of Ukrainian real estate.
- Russian power dynamic will be in for a shake up.  No idea if that means Putin is in or out but people will need to take the blame for this and those oligarchs looked like they were choosing sides.  Gonna get messy back in mother-Russia but at least Putin will be busy in his own house...if he can stay out of the ground.
- Ukraine's biggest problem will be falling off the front page of western news media.  The clean-up and reconstruction effort will be massive but I think their odds are good as the west sees their best interest in a strong functioning Ukraine, plus no small amount of guilt at only being able to do so much.
The West is going to lose its mind for awhile yet.  NATO just secured its funding for the next 25 years (hell the Canadian government might actually buy F35s, something they have dragged heels on committing to for two decades.)  We are going to be all skittish but ever so smug in that the global order has been re-established...huzzah.  It will take time but the smell of BS will eventually overtake the most optimistic - we are entering a time where "power is power" and Russia just proved it by destroying half of Ukraine while we sat around and made duck sounds. Even though Russia failed gloriously, it had little to do with our collective global order, liberal diplomacy and visions of a better world.  It was done by Ukrainians with smart ATGMs killing a LOT of Russians, which is a lesson in 21st century reality right there.
And of course China is still in the backfield looking for its moment... 

Yesterday I played a Quick Battle using insurgents against the US army and, man ! I was delighted to see the effects of some well placed suicide missions amongst the armoured vehicles of the enemy. Someone else did try them?

I just tried the House Cleaning scenario again as well. I played it way back years ago and got slaughtered. I still remember it from the Shock Force 1 days. The map is too small, you get little room to maneuver, and you're within RPG range right from the deployment zone, and it sucks only getting one .50 cal machine gun Stryker.
I played it for a few minutes, took a bunch of casualties right away and saw a very lucky RPG hit take out the .50 cal gun on the Stryker from all the way across the map, all within the first few minutes.  So I restarted and then tried to play it much more slowly and carefully. It took me a while but I ended up really surprising myself and got a total victory, clearing the entire hospital with only 2 dead and 5 wounded. So it IS possible to beat it with pretty minimal loss.
I beat it by concentrating almost my entire force on the right side of the map, trying to focus on taking the hospital in smaller pieces. I had the 40mm Strykers blow some holes in the boundary wall so more of my guys could shoot into the compound, and then had the infantry advance in short bounds just a little bit at a time across the open ground. There was a pretty fierce firefight and all 7 of my losses were taken on the advance to the hospital. Miraculously I took zero during the final assault and room clearing process.
Your Strykers can drive right up to the boundary walls and shoot over without really exposing themselves at all, which is very helpful. To the enemy they look like this:

 
After about 20-30 minutes I had completely cleared the entire right side (east side) of the hospital all the way to the back of the map. The left side (west) was mostly untouched and still filled with enemies. Once it got quiet again, I had my infantry rearm and regroup themselves with the Strykers and then mass together for the final assault on the other side. The main hospital building is five stories tall, so I tried putting one full squad of infantry on each floor at the corner nearest my side of the map, then had them rush over to the enemy side all at the same time. 
Nearly my entire force was concentrated all on one building tile. Having five full US infantry squads all shooting at the same time from the same building section completely overwhelmed the opposition on the other side. Then I had the five squads (about 40 guys) start moving down the length of the main hospital building on the enemy side, stopping at each building section along the way so they could area fire into the next one for a while before storming into that section en masse. It doesn't really seem to matter what floor you're on when there are enemies in the adjacent building section. I saw guys on the fourth floor shooting down at guys on the first floor for example. So each enemy squad hiding in the back areas of the hospital had 40 guys all come charging into view all at once, guns blazing on floors above them and below. It was like a big wall of death moving down the length of the hospital. 24 enemy troops got wiped out in a couple of minutes. After a few more minutes of mopping up it was over.  49 enemy dead, 59 wounded, 17 captured.

I was making comment on the changelog. It seems that most of the balance issues that have been raised over the last three months have been addressed. Wind your neck in.

I think that actually was a positive response.  At least I choose to take it that way in lieu of anything telling me different.

see post # 30 
 
So again 40m is the absolute most you can do anything. If I were to area fire at a point 10 m in front of your position and was 40 m from that spot you could not return fire, that is how dark your scenario is. If you want to set parameters so extreme as that and play a scenario, have at it. Just please don't start a spotting debate as you are already setting up an extreme condition. No you can not see out to 40 meters, that is not what I said. I said, under the BEST of conditions in your scenario you can see to 40 m. Those best conditions include the unit you are trying to spot firing
 
I can lead ya to water, but I can't make you read.
 
 
somehow I even garnered a negative point for explaining that.  Hmm boy that really encourages me to test  for issues like this.  I get dinged because the description of the conditions.  Perhaps I should just ignore the public forum.  Thanks Phantom

Stop spreading BS.

Balancing by point value is kind of a rock, paper, scissors game. With so many weapons systems and variable capability based on terrain that is a tough nut to crack. Add to that visibility options and night scenarios and suddenly you find that the adjusted QB values are now out of whack.

CM has never really struck me as a game about balance per se so much as a game that teaches you to do the best you can with what you have. Sometimes that best is just survival or simply gutting your opponent before you are eventually crushed. It isn't chess. Not that there is anything wrong with chess.

The U.S. does have a drone invulnerable to even the TG, don't know it's point value off hand.

If you are really looking for a "balanced" game just for a player challenge I'd suggest going red vs red or blue vs blue. Then you have an equal point value and capability. Would simplify the whole discussion and challenge of equalizing forces.

For those playing along at home; after being called out on repeating previously-shown-to-be-wrong information, Kettler has now moved on to
i) a weird MilHist version of the Gish Gallop
ii) various forms of "woe is me, it's all just sooooo unfair"
iii) flooding the board with irrelevant, quickly googled, links
iv) vigorously contesting points nobody has made
all of which, like the repetition thing, we've seen dozens of times before.
 
Would anyone like to place a bet as to which of his 'tactics' will be trotted out next?

Yes, stop. Your constant vendetta against JK is becoming extremely tiresome. If you think you are winning people to your side, you are not. Every snide and demeaning attack you make on JK shows us what a small, petty and vindictive man you really are. Every time JK, for all his faults, turns the other cheek or addresses your attacks with civility shows us that he has a lot more character.

From now on, I’ll be reporting posts I see where you spout your usual belittling, denigrating and snide comments against fellow members whom you deem as a lesser or disagree with. As a higher profile unpaid employee of BFC (You create content, for free, that ships with the game, making you an unpaid employee for all intents and purposes), the way you conduct yourself throws a bad light on BFC. It’s time that they are made aware of this.

Really Jon? You just can't let it go, can you?

I played a QB against Bootie, aka Shane Greer recently, with only infantry and light armored vehicles. We both fired some canister rounds at each other. Here's a pic of one of my shots going off.
 

 
No bugs here, he was obviously trying to destroy Bootie's death star. Jokes aside though, canister is extremely lethal against all infantry, whether in the open or in cover. Anybody even poking their head up above a windowsill was a candidate for ventilation. 
 
 
Stop.

If he's wrong about something, wouldn't it be better to say as much and debunk him with evidence? I'd much rather read that coversation. Your current system of downvoting and bullying is a little lacking for all parties involved.
 
Don't fear, it's just the internet.

I understand he is a guy who likes to share information that's not always correct, but I never got the impression that it was out of malice. I have to say that I never saw him insult or attack any other user on this forum, despite some pretty toxic comments thrown his way. I know this is really none of my business, so don't start a bar fight. Just thought I would add my two cents.

I prefer this one.
 

Obama is a reptoid and has already enslaved everyone in the U.S. its too late for us Do Right, travel to Europe, warn them of what is to come!

Do Right, You're one of a kind, there is no way a woman working with teenagers with problems would know the existence of the Panzerhaubitze 2000, let alone how the pattern of the failing rounds looks like. If you want to make me happy you better put a pic of your face in your profil, otherwise I call you cheese. :-)

Yes? why quote an unrelated phrase then?
 

What do you mean Luke? If you have nothing to say better remain silent... I think you are taking a dangerous path, you didn't like the advice I gave you about JK ? How old are you? 16? HistoryLover aka Steiner was Banned well before DoRight ever came here, so she doesn't know him.
You think being a Beta tester makes you another level of human being? Get a life troll...

Well, after a somehow confusing episode involving arty, smoke and close range encounter among two main battle tanks lasing and firing like mad my Abrahams, HQ of the whole task force ended inside a two storied house... I was playing RT in one of the stock scenario. First time it happened to me in 14 years of CM...
And sure I saved the file.

Yep... join the dots up.... maybe ex panzer grenadier who had a sex change to work in Berlin.

My opponent spent at least three modules of cheap rockets as pre-planned fire mission on the forest where two teams of scouts where hiding... I was shocked at first, but only two soldiers were blessed. Later on he almost lost a T-34 to the survivors and at least three of his troops were down.
Not only the barrage was not worth the points, but also gave him a false sense of confidence. His soldiers were running when mine opened fire...