Bulletpoint

Q.e.d., I guess. Is ad hominem and being rude really your only way to deal with people who happen to not share your opinion?
Makes for a bad discussion and that is what we are here for isn't it?

Any credible source? 

I mean, I think it must have been a letdown. I expected much less because I'd been on the sceptical side. I'd like to say "told you so" but that would be claiming I was sceptical from superior reasoning or something and not just because of my nature and education.
A little caution with Normandy comparison, though: It really cuts both ways, I think.
Isn't that a bit of a contradiction? Trying a potentially flawed WW2 comparison myself: France and UK declared war on Germany because they had guaranteed Poland's freedom. If you go by stated wargoals at the beginning of a war, and look at them a year into the war, both countries failed miserably. Poland was occupied, France had surrendered and the UK had to leave all their heavy equipment in Dunkirk. But as you say yourself, the calculations for victory/defeat are finalized later and at least UK is generally considered to be part of the winning team (France was more of a political decision, I think?)
I'm not arguing at all the point that so far Russia mainly managed to royally f*ck up the initial invasion and afterwards to not get steamrolled out of Ukraine. But there are still enough possible scenarios which could be counted as a draw or even a not so glorious victory for Russia. Putin could certainly spin it that way but I think that even quite a few of us here would grudgingly acknowledge a scenario where Ukraine has to retreat behind the Dnipro because the West stopped supporting them (easy to imagine if Trump gets elected), does not get admitted into NATO and EU, has much of its population scattered throughout the world, etc. a minor victory for Russia in the long run.
At the end of the day that is rather moot, too, I think, because this is not a game where all players agree on a set of rules and goals by which victory is measured before the match. The parties involved will make up the rules as they go.
Ah sorry, everyone, it's my gloomy day, I suppose.

Your refreshingly belligerent way of communicating never fails to amaze me.
For your education: It was part of a quote. The full one goes like this, I think:
 

There is always a choice.

Hi,
Am I the only one to be frustrated by low visibility scenarios?
The associated game mechanics is not the issue, even though it can lead to some weird situation (in the last Scottish Corridor night mission, I had a squad unable to see a moving Sturmgeschütz in an adjacent tile, that's less than 12 meters away, while it could area target that tree line 100 meters away?!!.... It looks like the game makes it easier for vehicles to sneak into enemy lines in the dark than for foot soldiers, which is really not realistic).
My main concern is the visual rendering of the lower visibility, which IMHO really hampers playability.
If I'm not mistaken, the game engine always shows ALL TERRAIN FEATURES attached to the map itself, whatever the actual visibility. Wherever you put the camera, you'll always see that house 500 m away, even when visibility is reduced to 200 meters. At least for me, it makes playing very difficult, because I always struggle to estimate what terrain pixeltrüppen actually can cover or not. Agreed, you still have the LOS tool; but in close terrain you always have a doubt wether blocked LOS is caused by some obstacle or by reduced visibility. Ans situation gets worse when it comes to visibility changes: dawn, dusk, etc. Nothing changes visually in the game !!! You have to test and guess every turn to check wether visibility has changes or not...
Presently, when you click on an unit, you can see exactly what is sees in terms of enemy units and fortifications. I'd really, really enjoy the extension of that to terrain features: anything beyond visibility range would disappear when you click on an unit. THAT really would make up for great low visibility scenarios, don't you think?

Isn't all of this a fruitless discussion? We've had stunning Ukrainian successes in 2022. To the point that the discussion here had devolved into a meme show (go back, I know I complained about this...). Ukrainian soldiers were larger than life superheroes who made fun of Russia that sucked at war badly. Anyone who wasn't on board of the hype train was suspected of being a Russian troll. We had bets running how many months it would take for the Russian army to collapse, remember? Oh, and of course Leopards! Western tanks in Ukraine, some were already dreaming of a drive on Moscow.
From that perspective 2023 was a total letdown. So now one camp goes "See, Russia can't be beaten, they are too big, sanctions are failing, they will always come out top because WW2. Crap because its not 1942 and, sorry to all history nerds out there, history simply doesn't repeat itself. (Doesn't mean we can't learn from history though). The other camp goes "See, well that year wasn't much of a success but still, Putin started out with the goal to seize all of Ukraine or destroy it. They didn't, and they no in longer have the means to, so no matter what, they can't win. Also once the next Western Wunderwaffe comes to Ukraine, Ukraine will win because Russians are incapable of learning. And Ukraine has to win because they are the good guys and it is always like that in Hollywood."
We are arguing as if this was a game of Combat Mission, where there is some neutral instance that is going to decide who wins and who loses based on some predefined and unchangeable parameters. In reality, the parameters change over time, the points awarded change too and who wins our loses is something the different parties involved will decide for themselves.
 

Michael Clarke is a popular military expert who is often interviewed on TV.
If he squinted a bit, he might read the small letters on the image of the press conference, which was held in January 2023. The news he is commenting on is a year old.

Michael Clarke is a popular military expert who is often interviewed on TV.
If he squinted a bit, he might read the small letters on the image of the press conference, which was held in January 2023. The news he is commenting on is a year old.

Michael Clarke is a popular military expert who is often interviewed on TV.
If he squinted a bit, he might read the small letters on the image of the press conference, which was held in January 2023. The news he is commenting on is a year old.

Michael Clarke is a popular military expert who is often interviewed on TV.
If he squinted a bit, he might read the small letters on the image of the press conference, which was held in January 2023. The news he is commenting on is a year old.

Can we find accurate reliable numbers anymore? I doubt. This could be true in earlier stages but since the summer offensive Ukrainians are losing a lot too. 
Gliding bombs, drones etc have inflicted big damage to their forces, which repeatedly are being cut off in big cauldrons and get hammered until very last minute withdrawal. 
Another hint is that we don't see any mass mobilization from Russia this time yet Ukraine seems rather eager to gather personnel even asking/forcing people to return from abroad. 
Lastly, they keep losing ground every day. Even the little gains of summer offensive in Zaporizhia front. There are also no signs of any new Ukrainian offensive plan, unless it's being prepared in complete darkness for maximum surprise. But it's very unlikely. 

easily said from the comfort of your couch here in the US.

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

Why without glide bombs? What would prevent russia from using glide bombs around Robotyne?

To me this looks more like desparation than sound military logic. Why throw a specialist assault unit into the fray after only a couple months rest to fend off long looming disaster at the last moment (and lose the fortress in the process), why throw in the 47th (basically already spent) right after the failed counter-offensive, why is a single brigade (110th) required to hold out in Avdiivka for 1.5yrs of war and 4 months of sustained assaults? If things were okayish, the 110th would have been pulled back sometime in October, replaced by the 111th and maybe later bolstered by the 112th (or whatever), both rested and fresh from the Belorussian border. Instead, UKR is force to pull one act of desparation after another. It almost looks as if they just don't have any strategic reserves, at all.
The underlying issue, at least to me, seems to be that RU has been running circles around UKR in terms of force generation for basically all of 2023 and ongoing. They may use these forces inefficently, but are able have brigade after brigade mauled while storming some fortress town, while UKR is forced to send the same couple of fire brigade units from hot spot to hot spot. The fact that UKR is basically cut off from foreign assistance and is likely going to be for the foreseeable future does not help in this matter, but their force generation issues seem to be a largely internal problem.

I completely agree, and I'm not German.

I believe we tested nukes in space. The EMP didn't fry absolutely everything. Just everything over roughly a continent-sized region, which is probably fine if your opponent is on the other side of the world. I believe the biggest problem with nukes in space is that it puts everyone on a hair trigger since the amount of time you have to respond to a nuclear attack is basically zero. Every time it passes overhead (which, in Low Earth Orbit, would be about once every 30 minutes) there is a chance that you could be facing a practically instantaneous first strike. Escalation risks skyrocket to the point that it just isn't a viable concept.

The ground conditions in fields western from Avdiivka
Summary from different UKR TGs about Avdiivka situation
 - 3rd brigade arrived in time - 110th brigade was completely exhausted and couldn't hold the line. Reinforcement allowed to stabilize situation from "catastrofical" to "very hard". Units of 110th brigade now are gradually withdrawing to the rear - first time for almost 1,5 years.
- Main effort of Russian on the north - to cut off coke plant ("AKXЗ" mark on the map) from the town, cut off urban area of Avdiivka with multystorey buildings (so called "9th quarter" or "Khimik"), capture fortified "Zenit" position on the south (former AD basem having underground bunkers and by rumors underground pass to coke plant). Now "Zenit" ("Зенит" on the map)is almost encircled

- Reportedly 3rd assault brigade could push back Russians from Industrial avenu in coke plant area and holds transport depo ("Avtobaza"). But due to opsec reasons there are no verified informations about 3rd brigade successs.
- Main trouble of our forces in Avdiivka are gliding bombs, which Russians don't spare. Each day they drop 35-40 heav bombs (including 1500 kg) on Avdiivka and villages in the rear - Lastochmkyne and Sieverne. AD here is very weak. Many criticism in adress of gen. Tarnavskyi and Air Force Command, which probably don't want to risk with Patriots of NASAMS for ambush actions, but infantry and logistic suffer hard under these strikes. 
On the video Russian bombs impact urban "9th quarter", coke plant is further on the backgrond
 

I'm new so forgive me if this has been discussed. It is a pain to organize and see the "big picture" of your artillery strikes, at least the way I'm doing it by going to a HQ or spotter unit and then clicking on each piece of artillery, then the "show spotter" function. Is there some way to show on the map ALL of your planned strikes (with the green lines back to the spotter) all at once? It would be aweome if you could do that, with a timer next to each area showing when the bombardment starts and finishes.

I had some fun and learnt a bit with QBs when I started. 
And then came the battle where I was confronted by 9 AI-selected Sherman flail tanks all clearing the road (with turrets turned to the rear) as they advanced towards my Jagdtiger and its friends.  That got messy very quickly 🫣 and I think I moved away from QBs shortly afterwards.

You *still* seem to be ignoring the rest of us here, who have been warning and pointing out developments, like debate rhetoric? Maybe better to understand that it is only human to filter out or dismiss what doesn’t fit your preferences. But heck, don’t take our word for it. Not sure where you obtain your political news but If you feel whiplashed, you definitely need to read more widely the massive reporting down there in the USA that has been a steady drumbeat about the end of democracy, the concerns about autocracy, the planning leaking from Trump’s team, the failure during four years to exact effective accountability, and the rock solid core support for not only Trump but for Trumpism despite everything. None of this guarantees the worst! But there darn sure has been a *consistent* substantive warning shout from the USA and a number of us here.  You do have to actually read them though. 
PS I’d appreciate you not putting words in our mouths and then mocking them. I never said “inevitable slide into civil war”. I suggest, point out, reference, and describe how what was unthinkable a few years ago *might* happen. But am NOT saying “inevitable”. And only you are saying an autocracy here would mean civil war. Doubtful, as many people wouldn’t either care, notice, or have any meaningful way to resist. As in the WashPost article I linked here a while ago. But read up in these for a start:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/20/us/politics/trump-rhetoric-fascism.html  https://time.com/6550686/trump-autocracy-dictator-polling/  https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/last-exit-trump-autocracy/616466/ https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-white-house-official-warns-of-a-us-autocracy-if-trump-wins-2nd-term-2021-11?op=1   
https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2023/how-to-report-trump-win-2024/ https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-10-08/donald-trump-republican-party-autocratic-movement-dissent 
There are countless more. All you have to do is look.
 

Stalingrad Grain Silo, a must have map when dealing with Stalingrad.

Cheers bud

3rd assault going to "save" Adviivka? To me this is smelling like the unfortunate end of Bakhmut all over again.
In Finnish military thinking defense is supposed to be flexible and bend, like we saw at the start of the Ukrainian war. No point in "no step back" orders, when the situation is not advantageous in the current positions anymore. Then the ground is returned with a counterattack after the attacker has culminated.

But the Maginot line worked exactly as intended. It allowed France to man it's German border with lightly armed reservists and concentrate it's best troops against the actual location of the German attack. Their defeat in 1940 was due to other factors which we don't need to discuss in detail here.