Hister

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65413458
I wonder if things like this are happening elsewhere in EU. I'm happy that some things are happening on the hybrid / misinformation front, though I am convinced we should do more.

Next Slovenian aid
 
 

This is the part that bugs me.  They never ask - so when you said on x date that this was gonna happen and it didn't, what did you get wrong and how has this changed your perspective on how things may be going differently than you would expect? (and why should we believe you now?)

From WSJ:  "A series of events on the international stage has laid bare the perilous state of great-power relations as Russia and China challenge the U.S.-led global order."
It may be finally realized that this is not a proxy war between Russia and the US but a proxy war between China and the US.  The Ukraine war is misunderstood.  While we try and weaken Russia, China is supporting Russia in order to weaken the US-led dominance. 
So long as China supports Russia, Russia has the ability to keep up the war "as long as it takes".  China's goal is to weaken the US and the western alliance just as the west is trying to weaken Russia.  But, our goal should be to weaken China.  The sad fact is that at some point the war of attrition of its male population will be far worse for Ukraine than for Russia... akin to what happened to Britain after WW1.  

I don't think shooting at the direction that has friendly force is pure panic and disorganize.
I guess the UKR side's original plan look like this
 

RUS side main defense position is on the right side of the video. UKR's original plan requires the BMP platoon take the road on the right side and get into the overwatch position along the treeline. Then the company task force on the left side bypass the treeline, no man land, and attacking the Rus position.
It looks like the UKR's company task force arrive at assembly area before the BMP platoon get into the overwatch position. And after receiving the direct fire, the first reaction is that the RUS troops are hiding in the treeline. It is quite logical. 
 
UKR side realized where the real threat is after one minute of engagement, (and that is after the third APC hit) . Their reaction is relatively quick. They quickly maneuver to the right side of the field, avoid further loss. 
 

My honest “guess” right now-
As soon as weather gets right and the UA is ready there will be a diversionary offensive, likely in the east on the Luhanks front.  This will be followed by a main effort offensive in the centre towards the Azov to cut the Russia theatre - best guess is Melitopol.
Once the UA does that they can threaten the Crimean bridge with what they have and start to choke out Crimea, which will likely contract a la Kherson back to 23 Feb lines and try to hold on.  They will then start to box up Donbas.  This will be a decision point as to how far the UA is going to take this thing.  Do they tie it off and freeze the conflict back at the 23 Feb lines, or do they keep going? I think they can do the Tie Off option by this year. The Whole Pierogi may take the whole thing to the ‘24 election, but a whole lotta “conditions based” stuff in there that could dramatically shift things.
We can (and have) debated the goods and bads of both options at length.

I think Steve put it best (paraphrase):  all the conditions are in place for a regime collapse, doesn't mean it will happen soon or at all.  All the conditions are in place for a military collapse, doesn't mean it will happen soon or at all.  But we've all seen what collapse looks like.  Things are tense and there's pressure and somehow the system holds, defying all expectations, until suddenly is doesn't.  
A UKR offensive (ISR/corrosion/actual troops) that cuts supply lines to the western end of Kherson Oblast would probably cause a nice collapse of the Dnieper front, w units scurrying back to Crimea as fast as possible.  This is totally possible, especially if UKR gets missiles to the cut the Crimea bridges.
A breakthrough to Starobilsk from Svatove would probably cause a front collapse all the way down past Kreminna.  
But those items above are both nasty fights, probably.  
 

For the war to end on anything like decent terms for Ukraine, either the Russian army or the Russian regime are going to have to crack. Putin is clearly not going to discover a rational cost benefit analysis of his epically disastrous SMO at this late date. I think i can say that the 'board consensus", if there is such a thing, is that the army will crack before the regime does. So it really is about killing mobiks until they would rather shoot their officers than face Ukrainian artillery. 
Will it happen this year, I don't know. I just know we need to ship Ukraine everything we physically can, and build a whole bunch of industrial capacity to build more of virtually every kind of munition in inventory. This war has proven AGAIN, that peace time estimates of things like ammunition consumption ares simply laughable.

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.

Our wines aren't bad either. And much like a well looked after cellared quality Aussie Shiraz, the CM2 titles have also aged well.

Wake me up when Engine 5 lands. And it better have FPS boost. 😄 😉
 

Wake me up when Engine 5 lands. And it better have FPS boost. 😄 😉
 

what will come first, a 2023 update or 2000 pages in how hot is Ukraine gonna get ?
My guess is 2000 pages

Adding to what others already said, I guess I'll have to explain some stuff especially for you US types...
Currently, the German parliament has six (6) parties. 3 of them form the government (SPD, Greens, FDP(*)). Since the SPD is the biggest, it gets the chancellor. SPD cannot form the government alone, it needs partners. For political reasons, the coalition can only be these three.
Of the 6 parties, 3 are for sending tanks (Greens, FDP, CDU), 3 against (SPD, Left, AfD). The 'for' fraction in the parliament would have a majority.
You might have noticed, that this issue splits the government AND the parliament in half. This is one reason, why there is no articulated policy regarding this issue. Since the population is also split in half on this issue, we actually have quite a good representation. But unfortunately, that is not very helpful at all.
 
(*) Should you stumble over the description of the FDP as 'liberals' - that means nearly the exact opposite of the US meaning in Germany. This is a pro-market, pro-freedom party.

Breaking the rules to do the "right thing" is a bit of Polish style, I am afraid🙅‍♂️. All those insurgencies and conspiracies in our history were technically illegal. The "Rules based order" applicable in Polish territory the past 250 years was mostly based on rules imposed by others, and when this is the conclusion you get during history lessons throughout your education, it underlines some important things about rules: they are created by someone to achieve something, and there is nothing sacred about them. 
Having said that, I do not believe that Morawiecki would actually act in breach of the Leopard supply contract. He is not a a tough politician at the heart of the matter. But defying rules to do a good thing looks particularly well in Polish eyes and I am sure he felt good saying that. And It may even work!😝

I agree with what you said, except this point. You know better than that. Or else I should definitely make more of the CM code that I paid for. 😉
It's in the contract what you get for your money or else I could freely distribute my copies of CM, try to crack the encryption of those btt files, etc. Everyone who buys military equipment knows that there are restrictions to what you can do with that equipment, Poland knew, too.
All here who think breaking contracts to do what is currently perceived as "the right thing" should think about double standards and about the fact that this can backfire. At the very least that is a slippery slope. This sets a precedent and soon everyone might break contracts because of [enter favorite lofty goal here] and poof goes part of our rule based order.
 

Wallace has been a rock from the very beginning. HIS place in the history books is going to be one to envy.

Combatintman already answered this in detail, all I can add is that at higher levels - strategic and political - at some point Afghanistan stopped being about Afghanistan.  Military services competed for shine, SOCOM came out on top with Army and then Air Force close seconds - the poor Navy was stuck in the Gulf of Oman intercepting “Taliban ships”.  Political agendas became about scoring points back home, or denying them to the other political team - seriously, get me drunk sometime and ask about “girls schools”.  And this was not just the US by any stretch, every western nation got in on this drug deal in some shape or another, hell Canada only went to Afghanistan because we skipped out on the Iraq cheque.
So in the end we dumped money into a corrupt system, took pictures of blue thumbs and risk managed the whole mess until the last guy finally pulled the trigger on the whole house of cards.  We were not in it to really fix Afghanistan because that was impossible…why?  Because Afghanistan did not want to fix itself - well that is half true, their “fix” was the Taliban but the TB was on the wrong side.
Example of how futile it was, Combatintman refers to land reforms, Afghanistan is living under roughly 13th century feudalism (and I am probably being generous).  No Afghan farmer actually owns the land they are on, everyone was a sharecropper or in some form of serfdom to landowners who stretched back for generations.  It is a crazy idea but people who do not own the land they live on are less likely to fight for it, we found that out the hard way.  So if you want to change Afghanistan you have to completely reform land ownership - we are talking 1917 Russia level of reform.  You then change the deep economic bedrock of the nation, and the cultural will follow.  Of course no one, and I mean no one was interested in taking this on.  So in reality we simply moved the deck chairs around until the TB came back, but we looked damned good doing it.  We also kept AQ bouncing and hands clapping, so there was that.
As to Ukraine, very different environment and nation - with the possible exception of the Donbas and Crimea.  Ukraine will come out of this war with a stronger central identity - they were the nation to take on a nuclear power in a stand up conventional fight  and won, only North Korea and Vietnam can really claim that one (I am probably forgetting someone…Algeria?). However, the west is likely going to back the winner of this war as opposed to totally shutting them out so the post-war trajectory for Ukraine will be very different…so long as they stay the course and remain the good guys.
In reality Ukraine has already won this war.  The shooting could stop right now and we re-draw the international borders by nightfall. Ukraine is in NATO and under article 5 protection by morning, the one deterrence Putin still seems spooked by.  No one will be happy but the money will start pouring in for reconstruction and Ukraine will likely be the safest country on the planet by the weekend.  Not optimal nor what anyone wants as an end-state but that is the current worst case - short of nuclear apocalypse but again, one second to midnight at a time.  Ukraine has corruption but if it can keep its democratic processes clean they will be golden because we will back the little guy who won and defended the system.  In Afghanistan we were trying to resurrect a dead patient, in Ukraine we are not nation building, there is already a strong one there, we are alliance building and friend-shoring.  For the time being Ukraine is still about Ukraine. Just as long as we do not lose the bubble.

First off thanks to all those who have supported the Battlepack by purchasing it, and a shout out to those who have provided their support in the creation of this project – and a huge shout out to those who have freely given their feedback and additional support publicly via various means – online streaming vids, DARs, AARs and various forum posts etc, Its truly heartening to read and see these. 

It’s just as well, being Scottish, that we are renowned for being slow to anger and not prone to unprovoked outbursts. On a personal note a mahhoosive amount of work went into the battle pack, at my end. Work of which I am truly proud off. The lion’s share of research, mapmaking and AI plan stuff was devoted to the two campaigns and the Rakow and the Dying Sun scenario. These all involved painstakingly creating huge new maps from primary sources. Research turned up several ‘loose’ ends regarding accepted historical narrative and I’m as chuffed with these as the scenarios!

I digress… In short this sucked up a huge amount of time and I was also involved in several other projects (which I was keen to be involved in including CMFR and CMCW). Creating new content, AI plans etc for the Battlepack was a significant endeavour. So yup I used bits of various previous maps (which were my own creations and made available publicly) which I then significantly tweaked – mainly because I could not positively ID RL locations, or the fact is I thought the map – like Der Ring (which by the way took nearly a year to produce) to have a new life after some major tweaking. I’ve done this on previous game families with other maps. A few astute observers might have spotted them. 

But, and I should stress this, in the case of Der Ring it was heavily reworked and I created brand new AI plans (I had to as I’d chopped and reused bits) etc. So yes whilst some stuff is based on sections of der Ring they are more the offspring – rather than the map wearing a false wig and a pair of dodgy specs…

Re the rather offensive swipes about scamming, well,  re the master maps it’s pretty clear that as stated on the BFC website that they are “New maps based on maps from the Battle Pack missions”. 

Years back I used to be with a punk band – another life another story…. One of the bands (way more successful than we were) we did some gigs with, had their singer on one of their records state this quote, it was along the lines of – “Whatever you do they’ll slate you off and criticise you to the ground…” It’s stood me in good stead through life.
So aye happy to take the constructive knocks, but I’m less inclined to give credence tae whingers.
 

If you're sitting inside a BMP or BTR when it goes up, the chance of survival is pretty low - they're tough to get out of quickly, and full of explosive and burning things.

Weapons tend to be rather more powerful in Cold War than in WW2 - calibres are higher, more automatic weapons and the like. You'll see similar casualty figures to the WW2 titles in pure infantry combat, but when you start mechanising things the figures can shoot up significantly (or reduce significantly, if you are doing things properly, and using the advantages in protection and mobility offered).

Nobody else is complaining? Never has been? I must be either real special then or you must have burried all those other complainers somewhere deep.  So all the folks who said them frames are low since I started reading these forums many moons ago don't count? 🤨 20-30 frames are regarded normal for this game. I see slideshow at that count. While many people don't see a problem there, I do. Steve mentioned game update (was it last year?) will bring optimisations and I have been awaiting those.   
Oooweee, we have a comedian here. Never heard this one. Bravo. 

I am holding on new purchases until we get game optimizations (engine 5?). Low frames are killing me. 

I after stating the unstatable immidiately hide in a hole expecting backlash and peeking just so slightly out of it here and then to check if those long awaited improvements (for me since 2013) have finally arrived.    

Yes, please - a bone or two. I'm particularly interested in hearing more about performance improvements on the current engine that was hinted at by Steve a while back.

This one right here is what I am not sure of.  So let’s take this war and transplant it to a fictional country but the Opposition are backed and supported by China.  Chinese ISR and smart weaponry, unmanned…the whole she bang.
We play our A-game and do Gulf War part deux all heavy and electrified.  So first things I like to think we would establish operational conditions but in a decade that is going to get harder and harder as counters to a lot of our systems continue to develop…because China.
But let’s just assume we do a better job of it in-country.  Well none of that solves for Chinese ISR outside the country and into space unless we really want to automatically widen the conflict - eg what would our reaction be if Russia started hitting western ISR assets outside Ukraine?
So what?  Our opponents in this proxy-Chinese country still have access to hi resolution multi-spectral ISR being fed to them in real time.  We, being the mighty west are 1) big, 2) hot and 3) hungry.  We are easily visible from space, our logistics tail is larger than the RAs in this war and we are more vulnerable to shortages because everything we have burns energy like nuts.  Our opponent may also very well start asymmetric hits outside their country that look a lot like Russian depots spontaneously exploding over the last 9 months as well.
Air power.  It is a fundamental assumption we have air supremacy in any war we will fight in the west.  To the point Canada abandoned air defence entirely as a capability.  Problem is that air superiority below 2000 feet is not a thing.  The RA is baking the air with EW and cannot keep UA UAS from seeing them and pooping HE on them.  If our opponent has cheap Chinese autonomous drone swarms with submunitions our multi-billion dollar air platforms are not going to matter.  And that is if we can even get those platforms into theatre.  SEAD is now every jerk with a MANPAD, which can hit up to 20+ thousand feet and is fed into all that Chinese ISR.
Indirect fires.  Last I checked, western hardware is allergic to MLRS as the Russians.  So if our opponent has highly dispersed but integrated deep precision strike capability they are hard to find, while we very definitely are not.  Our fuel and ammo is on trucks too and Chinese HIMARs hiding in a barn linked into persistent ISR we can’t do anything about is going to make us run out of gas…and we will do it faster do to consumption rates.
Anti-armor/vehicle.  So our opponent in this fictional war is armed with a whole bunch of Chinese Javelins and NLAWs etc.  Dispersed they can hit us at nearly 3kms, fire and forget.  They also have one-way loitering munitions…again all hooked into that ISR problem.  Our hot, heavy and concentrated heavy formations are going get hit effectively at really long ranges.  “Ah but we will have APS which will sweep those pesky ATGMs from the air”.  Ok, assuming they don’t do sub-munitions, decoys and a raft of work arounds, sure.  Next question: are we mounting APS on our entire logistics tail?  Because we are back to it getting seen and hammered.
Urban areas.  We have been extremely lucky that all our opponents (Iraq) were dumb enough to mostly meet us in the open.  An urban fight soaks up our western advantages really fast.  An opponent who has time to prepare and is set up to defend home urban areas is going to really hurt us badly…and we are also back to logistics support to that urban fight.  I have no idea what a modern or near future urban fight is going to look like with unmanned in the mix but “easier” does not spring to mind.
Now maybe we have counter UAS and drone swarms of our own.  Problem, our opponent is designed to fight dispersed…we are not.  A few unit types are set up for it, but the main are not designed to fight as light infantry.  In this little war our opponents are designed for this kind of work.  So we will have a steep learning curve and in war most learning is thru dying.
So what?  Well western superiority is challenged in this scenario, on more than one level.  Assuming we can get enough forces, and if we go the traditional route we are going to need a LOT of our forces, keeping them in the fight is going to be incredibly hard.  This will be sticking a steel gauntlet hand up to the shoulder in a beehive.  You would need to armor the entire length of the arm and you are still going to get stung badly as the bees get in behind things.
The cost is very high as casualties in this scenario are going to be a shock.  I am not sure we can even sustain let alone win urban combat.  As you note, the insurgency, if we make it that far, is going to make the last ones look adorable in comparison. The political calculus for this in the west makes my head swim.
In short, I see a side in this war that fights along the same approaches we do - and it isn’t the one that is winning.  “Ya but we will do a better job” makes me really nervous as I am not sure what “a better job” really looks like given some of these trends.  We may have stalled later.  We may have pulled it off with fewer casualties and taken ground faster but I am not sure terrain matters when there is an urban fight at the end of a rainbow and you are getting hit along the entire length of your operational system.  I like to think we could have isolated the country from its strategic support but that is not a sure thing either.  I would be willing to bet that even with the western powers in place of the RA the war would last longer and be far bloodier than anything we have seen since Korea.  To the point I am not convinced success is guaranteed if we continue to play be our current rule set.
In the west, in some circles, I am seeing echoes of the European powers as they observed the US Civil War - “interesting but of course we do things better”…which they believed right up to 1914.  If we are smart we will be op researching this thing to death and binning all our assumptions until they are confirmed or denied one way or the other.

Nobody else is complaining? Never has been? I must be either real special then or you must have burried all those other complainers somewhere deep.  So all the folks who said them frames are low since I started reading these forums many moons ago don't count? 🤨 20-30 frames are regarded normal for this game. I see slideshow at that count. While many people don't see a problem there, I do. Steve mentioned game update (was it last year?) will bring optimisations and I have been awaiting those.   
Oooweee, we have a comedian here. Never heard this one. Bravo.