BletchleyGeek

I agree very much with the assessment. I must say that for a one man show it is pretty impressive... yet many of the design decisions are a bit ehm, particular. Steam workshop scenarios can be played at will, and with the editor I am pretty sure many "classics" will be available to play sooner than later. The scenarios feel like, on the basis of a couple attempts, time and resource management puzzles in the disguise of a WW2 tactical wargame. There is no off map arty or CAS, neither on map indirect fire either. In terms of gameplay I think is much like The Troop, all things considered, but with more content yet much less immersive qualities.

The last update from this guy's buddy in Ukraine had some commentary

Didn't want this post by @Hubato be washed away... that's so interesting! In any case, if all this "Cold Winter" story ends up being just burning bullcrap smoke vented by the Russian propaganda machine (and its knowing or unknowing accomplices) I think that the resulting massive push for solar (up to a year waiting list in Spain for subsidized home solar installations) and basic things such as improving home insulation will be a net positive contribution to the welfare of the World.

On other important news too

Kilcullen was doing the rounds on the Australian national radio 5pm news on a Friday, back in early September, when there was that moment immediately following the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in Kherson. When Russian bullcrap was very loudly claiming that thousands of Ukrainian soldiers were being obliterated in mindless fashion, like extras in a schlocky contemporary Russian movie on WW2 or All is quiet in the Western Front. Kilcullen's take was that, as "das experten" consensus at that moment was, AFU had failed. His was one of many voices coming forward reasoning that the West had got this war wrong and that we were ruining our economies and causing undue suffering amongst Ukrainian people by supporting them, but without wanting to involve troops, planes and ships into it. That we should be offering an off ramp to Putin, and let Russia take whatever they fancy. That the Ukrainians were a corrupt, anarchic, lazy lot that probably were selling the secret of Steel to the Russians. And so on. That same night first news came through about AFU breaking through the Russian lines, reaching the river Oskil in about 20 hours, in what by all reckoning was a stunning reversal. The rest is history. The next Monday 5pm news opened up with 10 minutes of coverage of the Ukrainian victory, and das experten were quite confused. I hope they had a chance to review any "advice for the future" before going to press... It's a different war, in a different land, with different motivations. This conflict cannot be further from the Afghan war. Yet I agree with the following: it is possible that the same mistakes are done. To wit, that instead of offering terms when our side is winning (as should have been the case in 2007-2008 perhaps) we decide to double down and effectively wish for the annihilation of the adversary without willing to put forward the means to wage a war of annihilation. And vice versa, that instead of keeping a firm steering on policy, an off ramp is offered to the losing side when they were getting some respite, in a premature fashion, causing chaos, mayhem and despair.

I was reading the bit about the dolphins, poor bastards. I doubt the RA treats any better their dolphins than their replacements... Jokes aside, like with the attack on the Saki airfield, I think there is a very unconventional Ukrainian "special operations" bureau, formed by very talented individuals. Whether they are rocket scientists, roboticists, elite commandos or just simply, wizards, I have no idea

Yep, there is something disturbing the water under the bridge. Could well be an underwater drone at "periscope" depth to keep a satellite link with the base station. But I haven't heard of anything with this explosive power - that was one heck of a explosion and there was something else in whatever was the payload that killed the train as well. Wild *** guess: UKR must have a skunkworks outfit that you would very much not want to lock up even in a garden shed (like you wouldn't lock up the A team in a shed either) and can customize existing hardware to come up with "one trick ponies" for very specific missions.

Yup, the 'gg' is also accepted spelling I think. It would be bad juju to piss off Yog-Sothot/Yog-Soggoth. You even found a picture with the weird green ray (since I am not Lovecraft I can't come up with a baroque juxtaposition of adjectives to describe it properly). Didn't know about that book @danfrodo, sounds interesting!

Let's imagine for a second that video games were a thing in 1935, all other things remained equal in the world, technologically and politically. What would a CM-like game covering a hypothetic World War II look like: - Tanks would have multiple turrets and guns - Infantry platoons would be like those of the Italian Army - Cavalry would be a thing - It would have an amazing model for fortifications - Uniforms would come in bright colors - Etc.

So there seems to be quite a few arguments and facts that suggest that, in all likelihood, those green "death rays" were some kind of BS. Or the RU Nats conducting some rite to call Yog Soggot from the Dark Beyond the Stars. Meanwhile, commercial satellites provide plenty of intel for the OSINT community:

Those images were indeed an example of the saying "an image is worth a thousand words" ... when the bandits are part of the armed forces then we are well into the Dirlewänger territory. Also, thanks to @Haiduk for the comment about the green rays coming out of Russian cities. They looked really weird.

That part also caught my eye, it is a very strong historical parallelism. It was also interesting that there was no write up today about the situation along the theatre.

What you describe above sounds like what has been going on north of Lyman for the last week. Just unsure that the Russian forces have the infantry numbers and skills for that to work. And definitely that river line you mention is what makes sense, would need more careful terrain analysis (like going down to the scale of a good tactical map). Makes me wonder if the UKR command isn't thinking of a lunging towards Kremnina from the south of Torske as the Russian reinforcements (allegedly) try to jump into Zarichne - Torske to keep a route out of the Lyman pocket open. 5:30AM in Kiev, let's see what news come as the sun rises over Ukraine...

@LongLeftFlank was wondering whether the Lyman Pocket was going to play out like Falaise or Korsun... Looks like it is going to be a mixture of both. From @The_MonkeyKing map the last kilometre or so into Zarichne is down hill and observed probably from Ukrainian positions on higher ground either side... Yuck.

Those are all great questions: I am also wondering if there is any substance to the rumours about fresh Russian mobilized personnel being already fed into the Battle of Lyman in the style of "let's try to overrun the other guys without suppressing their defensive fires".

That's honestly a rather strange analysis Steve. All the - I'd say - "solid success" stories are to no small part a result of their integration into the Common Market and etc. provided by the European Union. I think that this thread has gone in quite a few orbits around how wrong/right was the Ostpolitik that the EU implemented to integrate, in some sense, the Russian Federation. Something that if anything, after recent events, seems to me way, way far removed from what will be possible in the near future. Vietnam as you say is an interesting case study where making amends on past misguided, ideologically-driven political-military interventions and the existence of a common enemy/rival (China, which let's remember, invaded Vietnam too, in an example of "big fish eats eat small fish" international relations) has certainly resulted in a non-alignment and economical partnership that has greatly benefited Vietnam. Still, I would say that nobody would say that Vietnam is a democratic country, and questioning the Party line in any way - even if you happen to be a double citizen from a Western country - gets you thrown into a dank dungeon in Hanoi. South Korea wasn't occupied, but I think it is fair to say that it is sovereignty was kind of "closely monitored" for decades, until the corrupt military dictatorship there collapsed in the late 1980s. So not really a beacon of freedom and liberty because of good relations with the West, but rather in spite of. Hence the rather - at times - dubitative approach of South Korea to jump ship with the USA and Japan (with whom South Korea still has some beef to cut). Can't say much about Mongolia, to be honest. And regarding Serbia... not only was bombed by NATO (and the aerial campaign of 1999 is matter of great debate how effective was at actually destroying the Serbian army capabilities) but the West changed de facto the recognised international borders and still has, what I can't help describing as a garrison on Kosovo. The process of integration with European Union requires nation states to trade off sovereignty for prosperity (and I would argue future liberty and freedom too, thinking that also Spain and Greece had military dictatorships in place which were great friends of the USA, at least after 1956 in the Spanish case). Another interesting case study is Iraq (or Afghanisthan)... probably as providing a counterexample to the kind of political-diplomatic engineering that I was referring to in my post.

Thanks for saying out loud the bit part, Allen. The last few days in this thread have made me quite uncomfortable as folks were fantasizing about breaking up the Russian Federation as if if they were playing Paradox Interactive's Europa Universalis, where you invade a country like France and partition it into bits like the Duchy of Brittany and the Principality of Burgundy to ensure that it doesn't come back to eat you... or giving a nation the treatment of vampires in the traditions of the Southern Balkans, where vampires are gone only when you pretty much cut them up into teeny tiny bits and set them of fire. All this talk of obliterating this and that without even pausing 1 second to consider the enormity of what is being proposed and the means necessary to carry it out may be okay for a couple posts, but after days of writing in circles, honestly it is a bit tiring. Hobbesian man-eats-man anarchy isn't a good state of affairs in international relationships (I think).

Smells like hybrid warfare to me, and the NS sabotage most definitely an instance of the tactic known as deception.

Nighttime in Australia and looks like tomorrow I will be waking up to very big news. It is shaping up as a pretty solid encirclement for the Russian forces in Lyman.

This little piggy went to the market... The Italians had great success with this stuff, arguably the biggest success of the Reggia Marina in World War II

They have and probably the cause are operational concerns (logistic problems like integration of new equipment and replacements, flank security, defining goals, etc). Which is to say real world military operations do not quite work like operations in Gary Grigsby's War in the East.

That's my thinking too: those 300,000 (1,000 times 300 btw) probably are meant to provide as you say with a "buffer" and go to the defensive operationally and into the offensive strategically.

Numerical parity and parity in conbat power are not necessarily the same. I think this number of 300,000 is just too well rounded to fit a narrative rather than any reality. Why not 3,000,000? How is even conceivable that the Russian Army will absorb those 300,000 recruits? Either we need to get ready to witness some really messy Russian counteroffensives, or this is just rhethoric to rely on terrorising Ukraine with what actually Russia has plenty more that Ukraine, long range strategic weapons. I think that Putin is playing what in poker is called "angle shooting".

Exactly, hence why I was wondering about things happening today (like rumours of the US releasing "old" M1 models from storage). yet again in case nobody got the message back in February about how much they care.

Putin's last big speech - announcing the invasion of Ukraine - was timed to overlap with the address of the Russian ambassador to the UN security council. So they can be aware of time zones when it suits them. I am wondering what will the speech be about, and if it is being - as I write this - tweaked to catch up with military and diplomatic developments.