Probus

I reminded you just the other day not to post here, Mum.

Just saw them.  Thanks!
I was kidding around referring to the Battle of Antonov Airport. 😁

Good luck guys!

To many people that matter are convinced that the world can be reset to the day before the Russian full scale invasion. The reluctance to admit that long term trajectories have changed permanently has still not been overcome. Defense spending is going to have to have higher for multiple decades, globalization is going to slowed, and perhaps reversed for decades. The secular cult of share holder value being the ONLY thing that matters is needs to be staked in the heart, permanently. Boeing being exhibit A on that one. Hopefully it won't take Ukraine falling, and Russia invading the Baltics to get the point across. Or maybe Trump wins and civilization takes a multi-century wrong turn into a dystopian nightmare.

But why? Why is the EU and USA doing that? Don't they know how important this conflict is? Do they not want to see Russia collapse (even at the risk it may cause a major power vacuum)? Why did we 'fight' the Cold War? The hard right was all behind defeating the USSR. Now they've flip-flopped. I just don't get it. All we have to do is provide arms to the Ukrainians. That supports our defense industry. No US servicemen (or women) are being asked to risk their lives. This should be a no-brainer. Is it because of the election year?

I don’t think anyone of serious power in the West wants a full Russian collapse.  The overall Western grand strategy since the end of the Cold War has been “stable status quo”.  We have spent the last 33 years pretty much working on all fronts to sustain “the system”.  We toss scarfs and hats on it but at its core is a central unchanging stability.  Why?  Because stability is good business.  The West, with the US at the centre built the scheme that “won” the Cold War and want that party to keep going because we get very rich off it.  The rest of the world makes our stuff for cheap, while also buying our other stuff.  
But pretty much from Day 1 “the others” pushed back.  First was the intra-war years, interventions and then terrorism.  Now this has upscaled to “revisionist states” and “power competition”.  Russia invaded Ukraine for several reasons but one of them definitely was to demonstrate that they are not going to be bound by western rules (Hell, Putin said exactly this in that speech back in Sep ‘22).  This puts the West in a dilemma, they can either do too little and Russia threatens the system, or they crush Russia…and it threatens the system.  So they appear to have chosen the middle path, which of course is getting hijacked by the internal movements who want to…wait for it…change the system.  MAGA, alt-right, nationalists, whatever, all disagree with “the system” even though it has made everyone richer.  The reality is that it did not make everyone equally rich so discontent is natural.  Worse, power spheres exploit this so they can get more powerful (and richer).  So Rust-Belt yokels eat this stuff up and start to dismantle “the system”, which includes democracy apparently.  The reality is Trump is a symptom, not a cause and I am not sure even they realize how dangerous this game they are playing is.
So Ukraine happens and becomes a symbol of a “war for, and against, the system.”  It isn’t about the fact that killing innocent Ukrainians is wrong - hell if morales like human life mattered we wouldn’t have Gaza.  No, Ukraine is all about “the system” and both sides appear to be waging it viewed through that lens.  Russia needs to show that they are going to play by their own rules, but not completely break themselves.  One could ask “why is Russia fighting this war by half measures?”  Do they enjoy a quagmire?  No, Putin understands what he has gotten himself into and is adopting a slow burn strategy, hoping we will get distracted and caught up in our own nonsense…and he might be right.
The rest of the West is trying to step up, but frankly we have grown awfully fat, dumb and happy on the back of the US - who now is having a bipolar fit.  In the end, we can live with a fallen Ukraine.  We can shore up the borders and lock Russia out.  We can live with a partial victory in Ukraine, do we really care about Crimea, LNR and DNR?  No, we did not in ‘14 and we don’t now.  We can’t live with a completely imploded Russia.  Those are where the real risks lie.  Too many unknowns that could really break the system.  So we wind up with a half hearted war designed to punish Russia for challenging the system but not destroy them.  Ukraine is, and I am being brutally honest here, is almost secondary to the entire conversation.  It was simply a very unfortunate country where both sides could try and prove a point.  We love Ukraine all of a sudden because they are an opportunity to show that 1) Russia was wrong to challenge the system, and 2) the system still works.  
I strongly suspect this is why this war is also so muddled in military circles.  We are watching a war to defend the system..that is demonstrating the weaknesses of our own military system at the same time.  So we put blinders on and try to pretend it isn’t happening.  Our military power has to still be relevant…otherwise how can we defend the system?
So to answer your question, “yes, the US and the West know exactly how important Ukraine really is and are fighting this war based on that calculus.”  The answer however is “somewhat important”.  We care and feel bad, but care much more about our own issues.  Putin read the short game about as wrong as one can.  He may have read the long game extremely well.  The way to beat the West is not outright confrontation, it is apathy.  2 years is forever for a culture addicted to clicks and flashing lights.  Putin’s off ramp is being able to draw a victory line somewhere of his choosing and he is shooting for that.  And we might just let him get there.
Now I would not start freaking out and worry about a second attack on Kyiv.  Something that dramatic might actually get our attention again.  No, this needs to become a boring war - I am starting to think Putin’s Tucker Carlson interview was smarter than we thought.  What better way to get Western audiences to yawn and start to change the channel than a history lesson?

But why? Why is the EU and USA doing that? Don't they know how important this conflict is? Do they not want to see Russia collapse (even at the risk it may cause a major power vacuum)? Why did we 'fight' the Cold War? The hard right was all behind defeating the USSR. Now they've flip-flopped. I just don't get it. All we have to do is provide arms to the Ukrainians. That supports our defense industry. No US servicemen (or women) are being asked to risk their lives. This should be a no-brainer. Is it because of the election year?

But why? Why is the EU and USA doing that? Don't they know how important this conflict is? Do they not want to see Russia collapse (even at the risk it may cause a major power vacuum)? Why did we 'fight' the Cold War? The hard right was all behind defeating the USSR. Now they've flip-flopped. I just don't get it. All we have to do is provide arms to the Ukrainians. That supports our defense industry. No US servicemen (or women) are being asked to risk their lives. This should be a no-brainer. Is it because of the election year?

@Grigb is one of the best contributors to this thread. Just sayin'.
****
VERIFICATION REQUEST. Is it true Russia only has one more A50 AWACS?  Or is this yet another Sushko disinfo special?
 

Good luck guys!

Good luck guys!

Good luck guys!

Good luck guys!

It would be useful, but I'm not aware of a way.  Hopefully someone will enlighten us.
Someone said in another thread that the core units have asterisks (*) in their names, but I believe that's usually the convention to indicate historical individuals/units?  The campaign designer could add a C (or sumfink) after core unit names, but I think they already have enough to do.  Perhaps in future 'the code' could do something like this?

I've been playing since approximately 2000.  I had the first 2 games.  Really enjoyed them.  Didn't rediscover the franchise until 2020 when looking for instructions on how to reinstall CMBO.  I went crazy over CM2 and within a couple months had all the games and DLC (except Afghanistan).  Been my #1 goto game ever since.

My wife and I lived in England for several years. We watched ALL the episodes. 
Dave

I have all the seasons of Faulty Towers on DVD somewhere. This was one of the funniest programs ever!

I would love, LOVE, LOVE! to see a Flight Commander 3 someday.

Gah, imagine being Taiwan or South Korea or Japan or Vietnam and watching this absolute ****show. Or Europe. How the hell can any state that relies on American military deterrent be pleased that the Arsenal of Democracy is apparently slumbering?
Shameful. We have thousands of Bradleys piled in storage and we have sent according to wiki, about 200? It was acceptable to say at the beginning, "Ukraine needs to get the logistical pipeline set up" before shipping more, what the hell is the excuse now? This is bull****, expecting Ukraine to conduct offensives with what is virtually hand me downs and a sprinkling of equipment. (Sure, sure artillery shells)(humbug)
How is Taiwan supposed to be feeling good about facing the world's manufacturing giant and then comparing to this? This was supposed to be America's time to shine, to illustrate that time is indeed on our side, instead Xi and Putin are gambling time is on their side and our inability is costing the lives of Ukrainians.

Thank you Steve for your commitment my favorite game system. For nearly 24 years I have been playing CM everyday practically, I never tire of it and I look forward to every new advancement. Cheers to many more years of fun.

Maybe someday in the distant future, when we all have our own personal moon-sized supercomputers, someone will make a single game that fully integrates air, ground, naval, and space warfare on the tactical, operational, and strategic levels in the full rich detail in which Combat Mission currently covers tactical ground warfare. For now though, there's Combat Mission for tactical ground warfare. There's Command Ops 2 for operational ground warfare. And there's Command: Modern Operations for air and naval warfare. There really isn't anything that does a good job of covering the strategic level, though I suppose either Darkest Hour or Hearts of Iron 4 are ok until someone gets around to making something better. For nuclear warfare I can highly recommend Nuclear War Simulator.
In any case, I don't see any sense in Combat Mission trying to push up into the operational layer. The tactical level is where it specializes.

Sorry guys. I got over excited. ☹️

Sorry guys. I got over excited. ☹️

With the advent of Cyberwar, and new forms of warfare tech, that is no longer a given.  It is a worry that we have become like the mighty Persian army which came up against the upstart Greeks.  

True, warfare is changing, especially with the rise of new technologies like drones. However, I expect most militaries to be rapidly developing anti-drone technology, jammers and the like so the effectiveness of cheap commercial off the shelf drones will greatly diminish and all remaining drones in warfare will need to be hardened in some way.

In a conventional war, the US military does currently dominate over any potential opposition, but it remains to be seen if this lead will last. That's why I think the near future/near peer setting is an important one to model in wargames, sure, it's hypothetical in nature, but we can't assume that the US military will remain peerless 10, 20 or 30 years in the future and it is useful to simulate how well it does against an equivalent foe.