quakerparrot67

You learn things on this forum!
 

In spite of the strong passions roused here, a discussion of this war, and how to end it, is not complete without including the topic of how to handle Russian speakers in the liberated territories.  It's an elephant in the room, it's why 2014 happened in the first place.
I have Empire Loyalist ancestors in Canada, Americans who departed or were forced from the former Colonies following the Revolution. That was only a small subset, however, of the actual Loyalist population. Most simply pledged allegiance to the new Republic and went about their business. There was no wider 'cleansing' or purging.
Whether we like it or not, Crimea's 2.4 million people are 90% Russian speaking. Following a Ukrainian reoccupation of Crimea, the vast majority of those would choose to stay as Ukrainian citizens, regardless of when they arrived. Some will not, and will depart.
There are millions of Russian speakers throughout Ukraine, especially in Odesa. Many have lived there for centuries. Many are fighting and dying today, as Ukrainians, for the Blue and Gold.

...But there are hardliners in Ukraine who say, no! Russian residents of Ukraine are inherently disloyal fifth columnists, vipers in our bosom, and must be expelled en masse. 
And in any case, *somebody* must pay the price for Putin's war.  As if there was some economic value in vacant homes and farms.
And as far as I'm concerned, in spite of Russia's war crimes, the justifiable anger at Russians in general for supporting, actively or tacitly, Putin's war, and at their local collaborators, this is a legitimate area for discussion under this topic.
How can Ukraine win (or lose) the peace?
Ukraine will not get away today with what Croatia did in deporting all Serbs from the (wait for it!) Krajina region in 1994, in retaliation for Serbian ethnic cleansings and mass murders in Vukovar, etc. But that didn't make it any less cruel, or evil.
Russia is not Serbia. And this isn't 1994.
The consequences of Ukraine ethnic cleansing Russians will, in the eyes of much of the world, seem to confirm what Russia has been claiming since 2011 at least.  And it will end terribly for Ukraine.

Repaired section of Nova Kahovka bridge
 
Not confirmed yet, but as if Nova Kakhovka got several HIMARSes at least 4 hours ago.

They don't strike me as molly kind of people, which is a shame really - world would be a much better place.

well, it would explain not dealing with the ammo dumps as fireworks look pretty cool on acid, however my bet would be more that they are on meth.

Come on, noone said anything like that. Noone blames any Ukrainian for hating the guts of every Russian soldier who commits war crimes. Or any Russian soldier in Ukraine for that matter. Hell, I'd probably hate the whole of Russia myself in that situation. That was never point and noone is being called a racist for that.
What some of us take exception to is when it comes to the point of somehow every Russian being a (real or potential) murderer and rapist because that is just how they are and what they can never ever change. Maybe I can even find that humanly understandable. But I don't have to condone it and I can and will say (because I have the luxury of being able to think more calmly about!) that it is factually (!) wrong and leads nowhere good.
 

Did you read what Butschi said? It is possible to condemn russian atrocities while warning against going too far and becoming just as bad as the Kremlin propagandists. 
What about the Russians who are horrified by the war and are organising against it? What about the Russians fighting for Ukraine right now?
We must not become the monster we condemn.

I think everyone here understands bitterness and even hatred Ukrainians feel towards Russians. Maybe "understands" is the wrong word because we others sit more or less comfortbly far away from the war.
Anyway, while a lot of hard feelings are totally humanely understable, we don't have to condone everything. It is possible to understand things and still say they are wrong. A red line for me personally is racism. Not just out of principle but also because it leads nowhere useful for understanding the situation and hand. I think the latter is something we strive hard for, here. I won't go as far as calling kraze a racist. But he is at least putting his toes dangerously close to that line.
Why do I say that? Because he repeatedly ascribes certain attributes, like being murderers and rapists or at least condoning such things, to each and every single Russian. He also denies them even the possibility to ever change their behaviour. Maybe he has good reasons to feel that way. And that is not direct racism up to this point. But if you think it through to the end, if a people is unable to change certain attributes that every member of that population has, then it can't be cultural because culture always changes over time. Then it has to be genetic. And that is effectively what would be defined as racism.

...Yes, and allowance has been duly given throughout c1400 pages of discussion. In general, I don't address him unless he addresses me.
However, he also uses his righteous anger to push a quite nasty view of the irremediably barbarous nature of ALL Russians, now and forever, polities, groups or individuals.
.... While all Ukrainians absolutely should be preoccupied right now with the high velocity killing of all armed Russians occupying their country, a lot of our discussion here also circles around the fate of Russia and Russians postwar.
And whether some people here like it or not, Ukraine (and the world) is going be living and interacting with Russians long term. No sane adult is about to back some vile crusade to exterminate them, to occupy Russia, to wall Russians off from 'civilised' humanity, or any other such lunacy. They don't disappear into a flaming pit (unless most of us come with them....).
But sadly, there will be people who will try to pull that kind of thing within Ukraine after the victory, taking it upon themselves to decide by force who is an 'orc' or collaborator, on what will become increasingly thin evidence. Blood libel and collective guilt. First, it won't work. Second, it will utterly foul the fruits of victory, especially in Crimea.
IMHO, Crimea needs to go back to Ukraine (Russia's historical claims are now forfeit due to its terrible crimes, frankly) but WITH the population who lived there in 2014 enjoying the full rights of citizens. Regardless of their native tongue, which happens to be mainly Russian.
FWIW

They tried to hit a nuclear power plant. I do not find this funny. We just can be glad they hit nothing important. This is a new level of escalation. I just hope the criminals will get everything they deserve.

A chimpanzee with an AR-15 in a crowded train station will also miss a lot of shots, but I wouldn't like to be there to have a laugh at its lack of prowess

First time that I see my airborne in action very nice and happy that can help some of us.
All is perfect, a good immersion, I saw some textures on the town that I like, can you provide a link to Normandy textures also the tiles falling from house and junks on the street pls ?
JM

George's level of detail is fantastic. I can't wait to sit in one go and get at the campaigns.

No, we don't. Kindly leave the stage.

Born ginger, born whatever people may be is what they are. How people live their lives in relations with others after that is the measure.

Quite disgusting remark. With a father as Dan he must be. Gay or straight, who cares?
 

Hi everyone! I've put out a new video where I compare a combat mission scenario to both the historical events that are portrayed and the actual real-life location. I thought I'd post this on the General Discussion board as it's also kind of about Combat Mission scenario design and research in general.
As it's about a Market Garden scenario, I've slept a quite few hours less the past few nights in order to get this video done in time for Operation Market Garden's 78th anniversary on saturday the 17th of september. I hope you'll find it interesting; spending the day basicly giving myself a battlefield tour and filming the locations of the scenario that I just played was amazing. Geeky, for sure, but amazing 😁.
Props to @Pete Wenman who is the author of this scenario for his excellent research and scenario design.
 
 

why when I was a kid we trudged through nuclear fallout uphill both ways!  AND then we had to hide under our desks!

came across this video today, a right Gem of a project to do. love seeing the game and historical context like this as a source of study... just thought this was worth the share! 
Regards comrades.
Bubba
 
 

Nick Cohen
Could Putin still trigger nuclear war?
16 September 2022, 6:28am

The world is facing the prospect of its first nuclear attack since the US Air Force dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Yet that horror arouses little fear or outrage. The possibility that a cornered Putin will use ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons to punish Ukraine for humiliating the Kremlin remains a nightmare most can live with.
Paranoia about nuclear conflict haunted the Cold War of the 20th century. Today our tolerance of the intolerable appears higher. The vast mass of people don't care to think about it. Policy elites believe that no one who looks at Ukraine with seriousness and compassion believes that they have done all they can do to avert it.
And so, we belittle threats that terrified our parents and grandparents. Anti-nuclear demonstrators do not disturb the crowds queuing to pay their respects to the late Queen. Fears of radiation clouds do not panic the European public. We comfort ourselves with talk of ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons that sound nasty, no doubt about it, but manageable.
Sensible generals say there is no such thing as ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons. There are just nuclear weapons. The Russian ‘tactical’ weapons that could hit Ukraine are ‘delivered’ by cruise missiles fired from submarines and ships, or from land-based missile launchers. (While we are on the subject of euphemisms, what a genteel understatement ‘delivered’ is. It makes weapons of mass destruction sound like pizzas.)
The bombs they carry have about 10 kilotons of destructive power. To grasp the devastation 10 kilotons can cause, the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a yield of 15 kilotons. It killed about 70,000 people, injured another 70,000 and levelled the city for 12 square kilometers around the blast site.
In our time, the explosion that destroyed much of central Beirut in 2020 was less than 1 kiloton. It still stripped steel-framed buildings of their cladding, and left 300,000 people homeless. There’s nothing tactful about tactical weapons.
A possibility is not a likelihood. To say that it is possible that Putin will order a strike is not the same thing as saying that he will probably do it.
The best analysts of the Ukraine war are convinced he is blustering. In an interview with the Economist this week, retired US general Wesley Clark explained that exploding one bomb would be militarily pointless. ‘Would the Ukrainians say “oh my goodness they’ve dropped a battlefield nuclear weapon on Izyum…OK let’s surrender”. No, they’re not going to surrender and Putin knows it.’
Politically, it would turn publics in the global south and parts of Europe that are currently indifferent to Russian imperialism against Putin. The Chinese Communist leadership, which this week was making its displeasure with Putin clear, would find itself bound to a state willing to upturn the taboos that govern warfare and drag it into its failing conflict.
Speaking to Ukrainian journalists this week, Lawrence Freedman, the great British authority on strategy, was equally skeptical. Putin would not dare run the risk that Nato would retaliate in kind, he said. How would he explain to the Russian people and elite that a war he does not even dare to call a war had gone nuclear?
Freedman and others point to red lines the Ukrainians have crossed without nuclear escalation. In the spring, for instance, it was commonplace to hear that an attack on Russia’s prized imperial possession of Crimea would trigger a nuclear response. ‘Now it’s being attacked, in a way that actually makes it very hard for Russia to work out how it’s being attacked, whether it’s some internal sabotage or some clever tricks the Ukrainians are using. And it doesn’t lead to escalation. So, what seems high risk when they start seems modest risk later on.’
I could go on. A ‘tactical’ bomb in Ukraine could kill, main, or poison Russian troops – not that their military or political leaders care overmuch about them. Radiation could spread over Ukraine’s border with Russia.
To add to this reassurance, those who worry about nuclear escalation must acknowledge that Nato governments and militaries have been worrying for them. Led by the Biden administration, western powers have been careful not to give the Ukrainian armed forces weapons that could threaten Russia. At a cost of thousands of civilian and military lives, Nato is keeping Ukraine on a leash and has done so since the start of the conflict. It will not let the Kremlin believe that it is facing an existential threat by giving Ukraine its most lethal weaponry.
Yet the room for doubt remains. Military analysts who believe we can escape a catastrophe must downplay Russian military doctrine and how it envisages the first use of nuclear weapons in conventional wars. They tell us to wipe from our mind, too, of the jeering bullies of Russian state television who deploy threats to go nuclear against Ukraine and the wider West as a matter of course.
Underlying their arguments is a belief in Putin’s rationality. General Clark says using nuclear weapons would be a totally irrational act: ‘And one thing we have seen about Putin is that he may make mistakes but he is not irrational’. Freedman agrees, ‘I don’t think Putin is impulsive; I think he just got the calculations wrong this time. He thought it was a limited military operation and it turned out it was not, and it dragged his country into a horrible war.’
The questions crowd in. Is a man who locked himself away during the pandemic rational? More pertinently does Putin see any rational difference between his interests and Russia’s interests? There’s no reason to think he does. The existential threat to his autocracy that defeat in Ukraine could bring surely appears to him to be an existential threat to Russia itself. The tsar cannot separate the two.
In these circumstances, we cannot rule out the chance that nuclear terror will return. Neither can we do much to stop it returning.
Betraying Ukraine is the only plausible way to remove the possibility of a catastrophe. If we cut off all weapons supplies and left it at Putin’s mercy, then the threat would recede. There is no way of eradicating the chance of a nuclear war because no major Western government can advocate appeasement on such a scale.
And so, we live with the faint possibility of a European Hiroshima. The carefree do not think about it. The policy makers, who must think about it, believe there is nothing more they can do to avert it.
 
WRITTEN BY
Nick Cohen
Nick Cohen is a columnist for the Observer and author of What's Left and You Can't Read This Book.

Caratan Causeway map: Work in progress.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Alexanderplatz map.
 
 

Don't let up, your Mods are Awesome and I use a ton of your hard work in my Z files for RTFR. Thanx for all the work that you put into these mods, for instance, the buildings in Stalingrad would look out of place if you didn't make the 4 Mods to go with it.

Hi folks... some new mods coming out for you today.  First up is this...
CMFI : Firefly 3D Fix by kohlenklau

https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/cm-mod-warehouse/combat-mission-fortress-italy/cmfi-vehicles/cmfi-firefly-3d-fix-by-kohlenklau/
Another fix follows...
CMFI Mid Tiger 3d Fix

https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/cm-mod-warehouse/combat-mission-fortress-italy/cmfi-vehicles/cmfi-mid-tiger-3d-fix-by-kohlenklau/
And finally...
CMFI : Sherman II 3D fix by kohlenklau

https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/cm-mod-warehouse/combat-mission-fortress-italy/cmfi-vehicles/cmfi-sherman-ii-3d-fix-by-kohlenklau/
Enjoy folks.  Thanks to kohlenklau and vacillator for sorting these out.
Bootie

Rummaged around in my previous experiments box and found the burnt tree - it's not really finished and would really need some other burnt textures to go with it for best effect. I made a quick and dirty crater mod that gives a nice burnt hole in the ground, works quite well with a large crater but ALL the other craters will be burnt as well. In the long run it may be better to have a flavour object that represents some burnt stuff. Anyway it does make me wonder about a new landscape mod ... Total Destruction®©™ - War is Hell®©™ - type of thing, lots of burnt terrain textures, destroyed vehicles and smashed buildings ... here's a few pics of what I've mashed together ...

Small tree type - kinda works, texture a bit smeared. Would be nice with some of @JM Stuff's burnt wrecks...

Tall tree - works well for this one, textures can be renamed for any of the tree models - just a case of experimenting ...

Large tree type - mmm that's better, big craters as well ...

It burns us ...
More work needed but it's getting there. 
These are all set for Spring with the spring mod tag so they show up in Berlin 1945, again more tweaking could have them show up for any time of year other than snowy winter.
That's as much as I can manage for now folks - not long till I'm fixed and back to it I hope ...