BletchleyGeek

That's very kind of you. Longtime lurker, though I should have a few posts back to the CMBO days under some other username and an long-forgotten email address.

Thanks for the info. Funny we had a similar discussion on a Chinese BBS yesterday. When a guy posted a paper showing this method is practical, another guy claimed to work in a similar industry came in. He said the paper is BS.
The argument lasted for a while and guess in the end we all had this feeling: Even if it is a “spy balloon mapping variations in gravity” mission, it can still be a “hoax”.  A “hoax” that is commonly seen in nowadays Chinese academic, industrial application and many other fields. A theory will be rushed into application without spending time on test and trial, in the meantime the head of project development will paint the future in the brightest color to the decision maker, so that more resource will be poured into the project.
Considering our great leader is eager to take a great leap forward that “overtaking at curves” on technology and military dominance, he would love to see all kinds of "innovations". He may ask the military branch to find a solution to rapidly increase nuclear force deterrence capability.  It is possible that some engineers present this not so practical idea. At least it shows they are working hard on a solution, not “lying flat” and betray our great Party and country. 

On tanks, first really coherent explanation I have heard.  Western armor is about longer-term strategic sustainment that allows Ukraine to take operational risks now.  I must be dead. 

Current RUS Donbass offensives also starting to be done with "class-A" units with bad results Seems the RUS "class-A" quality has reduced with losses and new recruits  Current offensives are very different from the past months. Mechanised assaults.  These operations seems to be the start of this awaited RUS offensive This "awaited RUS offensive" is going to look very underwhelming. Also the early signs point to this. One likely goal for these attacks is Izium. The need it to advance to Dombas deeper than Bakhmut. Unlikely to succeed Very sceptical of new fronts opening. Attack from belarus would take many times the current forces and months of buildup like we saw a year ago UKR is clearly preserving its highest quality forces. Line is now been held by territorials, legion and national guard Very hard to tell where the UKR forces are located. Brigades often send single battalion tactical groups all over the place. RUS also seems to have been preserving its highest quality forces UKR seems to have a plan of setting up new 3 corp level formations. Western armored equipment is part of this plan. RUS minimal wargoal is Dombas but it is also the hardest nut to crack. Unlikely to succeed. Best case RUS can hope for is to keep the current lines(take some, lose some) somewhat and exhaust both sides. The current tank discussions going to wrong direction. This new equipment is not going to be in time for the next offensives but is going to give critical future security for UKR. They can afford to take losses now. Even the most perfect major offensive is going to cause losses of armored vehicles in the hundreds. Mike doesn't believe in the NATO equipment wunderwaffe. What UKR need is equipment to equip their new brigades, not so critical is it modernized T-72 or leopard 2A4. Especially the tank debate is over valued. Biggest need is for IFV and APC. Also the greatest technological leap is in western IFV not MBTs. UKR needs artillery ammo, air defense, precision fires, long range precision fires and armored vehicles. In that sort of priority. RUS was very unlucky with the mild winter. Energy war and the UKR strike campaign RUS seems to have run out of missile stockpiles and is now firing at the rate of production. This means maybe one wave per month. Western jets are just a matter of time. No matter what UKR is going have to switch to western airframes. At the end discussion about cluster ammo, escalation and nuclear escalation 
Mike Kofman and Ryan Evans cover a lot of ground in this episode about the war in Ukraine: Russian goals in the Donbass, the coming Russian counter-offensive, the state of Russian and Ukrainian forces, tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, cluster and sensor-fuzed munitions, fourth-generation fighter aircraft, a warm winter, nuclear risk, and more. If you are interested in what's happening in and around Ukraine, this is another must-listen episode.

it is George Santos.  😎

And I am in the "Russia is Sucking at this War because They Showed Up Dressed for Another One (tm)" camp.  Or more to the point "War has Fundamentally Shifted and Russia has Adapted Much More Poorly Than The UA(tm)" camp - they have tents right next to each other.  We do have campfire sessions with the "Russia Sucks at War(tm)" camp because I think we agree on a lot more than we disagree on...and then they pull out the smores.
Anyway, at the beginning of this war we saw a lot of "macro-masking" in mainstream analysis of what was going on.  This is essentially applying macro frameworks built on a lot of assumptions that tell you one thing, when the realities at the micro level are showing something entirely different.  This very often creates a false macro picture built on a foundation of bad sand, and when the bottom falls out a lot of finger pointing goes on.
We, here on the good ol BFC forum, went the other way.  We took a lot of micro-observations and upscaled them to arrive at our macro conclusions, which as is turns out were more accurate than the mainstream assessments.  2.5 million views later and here we are.  The trick to micro-upscaling is to use enough samples to avoid the anecdotal-trap (where one small story becomes the entire story), and of course try and filter out confirmation biases as best we can.
We also have to be very careful about mis/dis information.  But with that in mind we have been seeing a lot on the RA performance Feb-Jul,  as I have posted several times we actually have an operational level AAR out of RUSI on this part of the war.  We all have been watching social media carefully and seeing all sort of war-porn as Russians get cut to pieces etc and stories of Ukrainian force generation (tank week was a blast).  All of this is data has been pointing to a growing sense, in my mind at least, that the RA is continuing to devolve as a fighting force.  This does not mean "fall apart", it means that they have rolled back their doctrinal approaches to match the fighting forces that they are able to employ.  This post and article (again if confirmed) provides a lot of hints:
We suspected the RA had devolved at Severodonetsk as it shifted from manoeuvre to firepower based attacks.  This anecdote is from last late-summer, early fall near Kherson.  This speaks to a military force that is adapting or being forced to adapt by largely going back in time to earlier forms of warfare in order to marshal and project mass.
To my mind the RA is in a serious dilemma.  In order for it to make offensives work employing a WW2 style of mass, they need that WW2 mass.  And they do not have it.  If they concentrate enough mass to create it at any point, they have to rob the front line pretty harshly.  So the trick for the RA right now is to rapidly concentrate mass before the UA can react, conduct a rapid breakin, break through and break out battle with enough momentum to "pincer" of whatever, and actually inflict annihilation (not attrition) on the UA at an operational level.
This is an very tall order.  And based on what we have seen from the RA, maybe an impossible one.  The level of formation level coordination to do this when your opponent has a massive ISR advantage is very hard (i.e. the UA can see the RA massing before a major push, and just as importantly they can see where the RA is not, because they have had to rob from other sections of the front.)  The level of deception plans required to make this work are intense.   Further the Russian plan of attack will need to by dynamic and nearly non-linear.  This will require a lot of recon and very flexible C2 and seriously wired communications.  From what we have seen these are significant RA weaknesses, not strengths.
So what?  Well when the attack comes - given that like last summer, we may be seeing "the Attack" already - unless we see RA breakthrough and some exploitation, that does not lead to massive casualties, then the RA advance is doomed to stall - and we have not even talked about logistical issues.  This report matches a lot of reports that have come in on how the RA is the side that is suffering visible attrition (the VDV moving from BMD-4Ms to BMD-2s and understrength).  So the RA will need to somehow not only fill in those gaps, it will need to do it competitively.
So I honestly expect a lot of boom, boom.  Cratered fields and all.  We will see a lot of noisy attacks, and there will be UA casualties but until we see some sort of actual operational level manoeuvre the RA is stuck in the same box it created for itself last spring. 

Technically balloon can quickly provide a critical information no other planform can offer. It can measure variations in gravity field, make ICBM more accurate (although the precise mapping of gravity field around the target area can only provide a very small amount of improvement on the accuracy overall.)  
 
 

 
 

Yes, as someone who called BS on the Devils Guard series from the moment I read it at age 16, that was my initial response too.
But if you want to persuade us this is fake, could you please (request, not an instruction)) skim the entire series of posts, starting from about April (it's about an hour of interesting reading), and then give us your sense as to why you conclude this is all an elaborate fabrication, and why.
No, really, skepticism is OK and I am genuinely open to being persuaded this is a highly sophisticated fake.
But my own (biased, flawed) gut is telling me that this Tennessee Academy dipdunk war whore is quite real, and while I suspect he won't survive this war given the brutal calculus in the SoF actions he is describing, I would love to shake his hand if he does.

These two games have a commonality that I picked up on, as well. I also like that one, and the Ln'L game gets the randomness down in my book better for something of this type.
Ln'L also has had a great art department, with (probably/maybe still) Marc von Martial doing his thing with the maps (since CC!) and (probably/maybe still) Nikolas Eskubi's counters. It's no mean feat to get a consistent look down for a game. Second Front's developer made the assets, I believe- I think he also sells them on the Unity store, so there may be some cart/horse criticism that the game contained oft-used stuff, when he made the art in Second Front in the first place. If the infantry were re-worked, I'd probably never give the look too much more thought.
I think part of my liking these two games in particular is that I really don't buy many board wargames (unless something with a really spectacular map!), and gave up on my (Napoleonic) miniature painting long ago. Second Front is like that desired miniature board diorama set-up, and Ln'L is a boardgame without the set-up/space commitment/tear down. And CM is for seeing how things may really have played out (and will remain my mainstay, due to its Editor, simulation properties, and other fine offerings). I'll give thanks to the computer on that one, but will miss the chance to someday set up a massive display of paper and cardboard nonsense like Drang nach Osten or Streets of Stalingrad in the middle of everyone's business here at home.

Apologies if posted already! I have finished reading this "sort of" AAR
https://wavellroom.com/2023/02/01/anatomy-of-a-russian-army-village-assault/
I found it quite interesting, well-written and relevant to the recent "Russia's Way of War Sucks" sub-thread. The author seems to arrive at conclusions that diverge a bit from what I think is the sensible, prudent assumption that the Russian Army may be able to change some of its ways.
Yet, judging from the reports in Vuhledar I really wonder... We will see what follows now in Luhansk oblast, the RF army has been conducting what look like classic "reconnaissance in force" operations to prepare for a major offensive operation. Or maybe that was it... 

Apologies if posted already! I have finished reading this "sort of" AAR
https://wavellroom.com/2023/02/01/anatomy-of-a-russian-army-village-assault/
I found it quite interesting, well-written and relevant to the recent "Russia's Way of War Sucks" sub-thread. The author seems to arrive at conclusions that diverge a bit from what I think is the sensible, prudent assumption that the Russian Army may be able to change some of its ways.
Yet, judging from the reports in Vuhledar I really wonder... We will see what follows now in Luhansk oblast, the RF army has been conducting what look like classic "reconnaissance in force" operations to prepare for a major offensive operation. Or maybe that was it... 

Apologies if posted already! I have finished reading this "sort of" AAR
https://wavellroom.com/2023/02/01/anatomy-of-a-russian-army-village-assault/
I found it quite interesting, well-written and relevant to the recent "Russia's Way of War Sucks" sub-thread. The author seems to arrive at conclusions that diverge a bit from what I think is the sensible, prudent assumption that the Russian Army may be able to change some of its ways.
Yet, judging from the reports in Vuhledar I really wonder... We will see what follows now in Luhansk oblast, the RF army has been conducting what look like classic "reconnaissance in force" operations to prepare for a major offensive operation. Or maybe that was it... 

Apologies if posted already! I have finished reading this "sort of" AAR
https://wavellroom.com/2023/02/01/anatomy-of-a-russian-army-village-assault/
I found it quite interesting, well-written and relevant to the recent "Russia's Way of War Sucks" sub-thread. The author seems to arrive at conclusions that diverge a bit from what I think is the sensible, prudent assumption that the Russian Army may be able to change some of its ways.
Yet, judging from the reports in Vuhledar I really wonder... We will see what follows now in Luhansk oblast, the RF army has been conducting what look like classic "reconnaissance in force" operations to prepare for a major offensive operation. Or maybe that was it... 

After playing a bit more, I like it for what it is.
The developer added an "unlock all missions" toggle, which is greatly appreciated. Many of us are too busy to grind on anything, and know the basic wargame-format drill besides.
There are many calls for off-board/indirect-fire artillery, which isn't in. That may be added before any DLC, from reading the scuttlebutt on the various chatter-spots. That seems to be a fairly large missing bit so far. Maybe air as well, though it seems lass necessary at the scale.
Main pains after more play-
-I find the camera restrictive- I want a free camera, every time. It's "3D" for a reason.
-The randomness is brutal. I embrace chaos and randomness as a fact of life, but it still seems to impact the game's relation to simulating reality in a negative way.
-No modding. WYSIWYG. I'd like to get at those graphic files to alleviate some of the comic-style elements.
The good-
-Map maker/scenario maker is easy to use, and can do all manner of things in a fairly basic (hex-based) way.
-Soviet Union versus Germany, right out of the box. US, as well. Though no US vs. USSR.
-Campaigns seem to get around some of the gamey aspects, as they are contiguous.

"As for what Russia does now... why would they change? If Ukrainians want to run bodies into bombardments, why would Russia not oblige?"
I'm fairly sure we aren't watching the same war.

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.
 

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.
 

From the entire two hours I have been able to dedicate to playing the game in the wee hours-
It has a truly great map editor, cartoony though it is.
Gameplay is a cross between CMx1, Battle Academy (quite a bit like that one), SPWAW, and table-top play. It is a bit in debt to it's predecessors, but does a good job in the synthesis. It's new enough, and does well in the balance between abstract and "realistic". I am using it in the "tabletop" spirit, and enjoying it well enough. It's no CM replacement, however. I think it will be a good addition to most libraries.
The campaigns are where my interest lies- they seem a bit like a CMx1 Operation- with maps shifting, wrecks tracked, etc..
Negatives- There's a need to unlock scenarios prior to playing others. Randomness seems over-represented in the combat results (appreciated though the inclusion is), The cartoony look is...OK, and can be repetitive. There's only auto-save. The game designer seems to have set ideas about how the thing plays, so we will see how adaptable he is when the majority tell him they need things like "saves" on demand.

I am a long term war gamer only relatively new to CM (man what a learning curve), I did play it once years ago but dismissed it as stupid. I have to say this game has evolved magnificently since then to the point now I think it is literally the best out there. There are some good strategic level games but for tactical games it has no peer. Sure there are a few annoying quirks (an American shot a flamethrower at me thru a bunker wall the other day FFS), but overall it is a fantastic game/simulation. Well done BFC. Keep up the good work and looking forward to even better.

I'm actually not offended, but I invite you to take a look at it from the other side. Some of us spent a long time testing and reproducing bugs and dutifully logging them in order to help improve the game.
Maybe in a couple of cases, I've been wrong about a bug, that's possible. But in most of the cases, I'm pretty sure I have been right. And in some cases, those bugs have then been picked up by a beta tester like yourself, verified, and then fixed, which was very nice.
In recent years though, patches have been getting pretty scarce, and I'm sure there are many good reasons for that. But I'm also sure the reason is not that there are no more bugs to fix. If BFC prefers to focus on developing a PBEM tournament system instead of doing patches or new features, that's of course their decision.
The thing that triggered me was not that the stuff I like doesn't get worked on. I understand there are many different things to balance when running a business, and feedback from geeks like me is just one of them. It was more that I was getting the feeling that the community here is in general being looked down on and portrayed as irrational, childish, and unreasonable, when I think there are actually a lot of really clever and creative people here.
Not including myself, because my contribution has been mostly limited to bug reports, various gameplay change suggestions, a couple of scenarios, and trying to help people with tech and gameplay questions. And, yes, occasional grumbling.
But I think Battlefront's "typical customer" deserves a bit more credit. Unless there are a lot of angry and stupid players out there that I overlooked.

Steve's will is my command.
 

Some 3D model bugs were fixed by the fans using Blender.
 
1. Numerous titles had long standing unfixed error with Bunker ATG had firing blast from concrete base. Very simple error in the naming of a model component and fix was done.
2. CMCW sprockets on several vehicles not moving. Same issue as above. Model component named cylinder and not wheel.
3. Big ugly turret issues with F&R PzIII. Fixed by grabbing model from other title.
Maybe your beta team can develop an house "repair squad" for these simple issues. Fix before game is released is obvious goal. If not that then post fix in forums as a link to an official mod for z folder versus waiting for a patch. THEN later roll that initial fix into patch brz.
Here is where you must tell how the beta team does catch many errors and a few slip through. Of course. Everybody (should) appreciate/s the beta team. But these 3D errors got through... 
 

Yeah ... being handed a can of the Australian beer that only about a dozen Australians drink would have been like the confusion in the Crocodile Dundee film when Hoges lands in the US.

I'm both laughing an cringing. After I'm guessing what was 24 hours in the air or stuck at airports only to be handed a Fosters on the other end... I can't think of a greater insult.  
Something my way that I can recommend would be a local rum... https://www.canefire.net/products/ 

...in the seventies and eighties, sure.
If you take a look at the Slitherine releases anytime recently, you'll note that the Normandy games far outstrip the Eastern Front ones.
It was indeed a sales tactic to stick an SS officer on the cover (Up Front is the most blatant example), or as many swastikas as you could physically fit into the game (Eastern Front Tank Leader, among others).
Fashions change. "Miniature wargaming" used to shorthand for "napoleonics", but now means Warhammer 40,000 by default.