FlemFire

The abstract # of bodies is not meaningless when we start looking at war exhaustion. As for the war's purpose, it has one. Russia wants those territories. You can go back 15+ years and see Putin saying that. He's been saying it right to the West's face, right at the NATO-Russian councils. Just saying it out loud. Over and over and over again. You tempt Ukraine with NATO, I take those territories. He really could not have been more clear about it.
And I actually disagree that it is an axiom that both sides have guns to their heads. The point of sound diplomacy is to always leave compromise on the table. Again, this is why the West is failing, because they have not done that. I understand the need to defend your sovereign territory. 100% understandable. And it's understandable to make morale a significant cog of your war effort and back that up with tough talk. But you should never take compromise off the table, especially when a situation is unfolding and could go any number of ways. Now, currently, we are in a situation where Zelensky and Putin both have guns to their heads. No doubt about it. Except Russia's ability to escalate, and the lengths at which they could escalate, are so insanely precarious that I'm a little taken aback by everyone just assuming Putin is going to quietly shuffle away to his coffin, or even the assumption that the next guy up would be any better for that matter.

I'm quite aware Russians abandoned Kherson. As you said, the position became untenable. I don't think you need to be too much of a tactical genius to see the precariousness of holding that position at that time. I'm of the opinion that Russia intended for Kiev's government to collapse when the 40,000 northern Russians carved their way to the capital at the drop of a hat. When Kiev didn't collapse, the invasion faltered. This is, in fact, the usual Russian incompetence in play. I have to imagine the sacked generals sold Putin a pipedream about Kiev's weaknesses being similar to Georgia in '08. That's just my assumption, though. I know some people think this was a "feint" maneuver, but frankly I don't think the Russian generalship is that clever, nor do I think it's plausible after the commander gets demoted afterward. I saw tanks gunning it down roads without recon or infantry cover, getting shot in the rear by RPGs while I sipped tea going, "Seems about right." None of this surprised me in the slightest.
But it's not the first months of the war anymore. Things change. Since then, the Russians have dug in and mobilized hundreds of thousands of more men. This mobilization goes in hand with the already standing army, mind, of which significant amounts of it have not even been sent to Ukraine. If NATO were fighting this war, it wouldn't be much of a problem, but ultimately it falls upon Ukraine's hands. Do you honestly think there is potential for Russia to give up on these territories as they gave up on the northside of the Dnipro? If you do, I can see why you'd be positive. I just don't see it that way at all. Kreminna is a good example of this steadfastness, as is this meatgrinder in and around Bakhut. We also know, as I said, that Putin has a gun to the back of his head on this. Losing Kherson is a little different than trivializing the entire purpose of the war. It's apples and oranges, unfortunately.
 
 
 
We don't have any idea of the casualties on either side and presumably will not for years. But I'm impressed by your certainty that Russia is eating something like 15,000 KIA a month, accounting for almost 165,000+ dead already which would constitute virtually the entire starting invasion force. 

For every KIA you can reliably tack on at least an additional 5-6 casualties. Do the math. Six months? Numbers like that that would be unsustainable in a month which is how you should intuitively know they are not correct.

The body bag method and the "Russia's vast stockpile of weapons vanished overnight" belief?
 
How about this. There's a gift on hand in that we know Russia's objectives. Putin has said for 15+ years he'll take eastern Ukraine if NATO jacks around with Ukraine. Alright. Russia currently occupies east Ukraine and has for 9+ months. He has integrated those territories so we can assume that Russia will defend them as if they are territories of Russia itself. I think it's safe to assume Putin will do this so his own people don't put a bullet in him for starting a pointless war that ended up with nothing gained. Yes? I think these are safe assumptions. We can also assume that the contingencies for defending them could include anywhere from 150,000 to 300,000 Russians being deployed there, alongside the activation of the Russian airforce. I would like to know Ukraine's military path to fighting into these territories and liberating them. Please illuminate it for me beyond killing lots of Russians because Putin and his cronies can pull non-Muscovite conscripts into the army pretty much all day long and have shown the willingness to do this before.
 
I think Ukraine needs to basically hold out as long as they can until the West's diplomats do their ****ing job. The war obviously makes for a great morality play, but there are far bigger parts moving around (nevermind the danger of nuclear war). I think Russia needs to quickly be kneecapped economically and politically and THAT is the only way this goes in Ukraine's favor. Some people actually think this has already been done and that's kind of my problem here. People see this war through the West's lens and have forgotten there is an entire rest of the planet to think about. I for one don't see Russia's allies leaving them. Hell, I still see Euros buying Russian goods and resources, which means European dollars fill Russian tanks and make Russian bombs. Not exactly helpful and those are supposed to be Russia's enemies. If you look around the world OPEC isn't playing ball. India isn't playing ball. China isn't playing ball. Iran is certainly more than happy to watch the show and aid in elongating it and OPEC in general is reaping the profits of a globally shifted oil market while they brace for recession. India is gladly buying Russian resources and Indian companies gladly picked up the insurance for Russian tankers. China has zero reason to aid the West and in fact has every incentive to make sure this war gets as wiry and nasty as possible. A lot of this never hits the West's news sources, but China and Russia are very much economically tied. It should concern you when the two most populated countries on the planet are content doing business with a nation you are trying to pigeonhole into isolation. It should concern you that Putin is free to conscript rural nobodies from the east and replace the depressed labor pool with imported Chinese temp workers. It should concern you that within China there is zero anti-Russian talk in their media. Do people here understand that this war is putting the West in a bad light for many regions in the world? What they see are prices skyrocketing and all they think is oh great it's Europe ****ing around again and now it's our problem... again. They don't care about Ukraine at all because it has nothing to do with them. Do you understand what I'm trying to illuminate here? People keep talking battles and tanks, all the while I'm looking at the West firing off all their economic and diplomatic bullets and leaving nothing in the chamber but humiliation or the military option, and the military option ends in incineration. I don't know, so few seem genuinely concerned about where this is going while people post tactical vids of guys getting blown up to Tiktok music.
 

Let's get a one thing clear about Russia's end here insofar as the West is concerned.
 
It is very much within the West's interests to basically kill as many Russians as physically possible and make the war as costly as possible for two obvious purposes: one is to ensure that Russia doesn't have incentive to do it again, and the other is to show China what's up if it keeps eyeballing Taiwan. Believe it or not, this is actually diplomacy of another kind in action. However, this objective eventually has to meet with reality and that reality is armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons (on both sides). At some point you talk. Push comes to shove, I doubt any person in this thread would actually allow their families to be incinerated by nuclear war on account of Ukraine and Russia. That's the West's starting point. Russia's starting point is they want those territories. You meet somewhere in between. Or you take the casino option and roll the dice on continuing the war. That's obviously Ukraine's option. I split those up because if Ukraine dives in the deep end, I don't think the West will follow. If they can get OPEC, India, and China to play ball? Yes. But right now... no.

So they're uncivilized barbarians but nuclear warfare is off the table? Right. We already have the Cold War to study. The fact it didn't happen already is in some parts accountable to luck. Every time the West and Russia interact in a military sense, there is a presage of nuclear annihilation. That is a flat out FACT. People are way too certain that the thousands of operational nuclear warheads and the multitude of live delivery systems carrying them will just never, ever be used when, last I checked, it was still a bunch of humans with human impulses and human vices and human minds standing at those buttons. Our countries' leaders and powerbrokers and wealthy fat cats all have vast bunker systems they can all go scurry off to in these events. You and me get the fire. It isn't for ****s and giggles and I'm terrified at how few people seem to understand this. And nevermind there are third parties who would probably love nothing more than to watch it happen. I've already brought up the rest of the planet, but apparently not a single other person thinks the world exists outside of the battlefields of Ukraine and the military industrial complexes of those involved.
 

To me it screams Russia fighting the war on the cheap, presuming it will be short, and all the while trying to protect its core urban centers from the effects thereafter. I thought I already made that abundantly clear. Is it not already a known fact that Russia does this? We can't make inferences into Russia's manpower reserves based upon whatever yokels they throw into the blender. If you saw this out of some other countries, sure, but we've already seen this tactic in Chechnya and Afghanistan alike. All we can really pull out of the opening stages of the war is that they did commit some high value assets and those were lost and are definitely not easy to replace.
I don't think any intel agency should be assumed to be a good source. You can glean from it whatever you want, but I'm just stating the reality that if they're releasing info to the public it is not to be blindly trusted as read. Ever.
Oryx I actually like and do more or less trust, FWIW. I'm not actually shocked at all by the losses Russia has taken. The question at hand is what they have in replacement.
As for losses, I agree that they're quite likely in the 100,000 area. 100,000 casualties is different than 100,000 dead though. Very, very different.
 
A bit rude. I'd consider there to be a pretty real difference between "Ukraine defends until the West finds a diplomatic solution at the behest of economically cornering Russia" vs. "full out warfare to reclaim lost territories in the hopes Russia does not or cannot escalate."
I think at this point, like I said, it's all a bit moot. We'll see pretty soon what Russia has left in the tank. (Love using that phrase in this context.)
 
I think stuff like this is also rude. In my mind, he's a dangerous opponent to take seriously, but at the same time he is an idiot in many ways that speak for themselves, and he was clearly hoodwinked into thinking this would be a walk in the park. I don't need people implying I'm saying otherwise. Feel free to say this was a "general" statement and not at all directed to the only person with which anyone in this thread has had contention for the past few hours.
 
 
Just to focus on this for a bit, I want to make something clear. What Ukraine is doing is in actuality saving a truckload of lives in the future. Not just in Europe, but possibly other places just as well. By making the aggression costly to Russia, it keeps them in check and defangs them of any incentive to try this excursion again. It also puts out a flare to the planet as a whole that if you do this to your neighbors, you're liable to see a hammer fall on you. It also puts out a flare to possible victims that you need not fold, because if you stand your ground help may yet come. I know we disagree on means and ends, but I think this aspect of the conflict is very real and very true. This is a wargame forum and almost every single one of the games developed comes out of a conflict born from its primary actors never being curbed.

I'm quite aware Russia's incompetence has led to significant military losses. I was one of many sitting back and watching the tapes. When the war started, I remarked about having observed the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, and watching drunken Russians stumble around in the middle of the road while driving an AFV into a berm. It's obvious to anyone who pays attention that for all its resources, the Russian military is not what one might call "professional." As even Battlefront's lovely games showcase, certain doctrines baked into their military structure are also not what one might call "flexible." Mix the two together, throw it against some resistance, and abracadabra. Where have we seen this before except in virtually every conflict they ever partake in.
 
However, we actually do NOT know the full extent of Russia's stockpile. You have to pull a lot of data from the end of the Cold War to recent times to estimate it. As you near the end of the Cold War, those estimations have to be safeguarded against with the knowledge that the West has to elevate the threat to justify its own defense budgets. As you near modern times, you have to start safeguarding against assertions that Russia is a broken nation with nothing. In between you gotta figure out what % you're willing to shave off to things like corruption and waste. I'll say this about Russia's military: it has been a focus for them. This is not the decaying creature that it seemed to be in the early 00s. Anyone who plainly asserts that the Russian military is vanishing or isn't "relevant" is making an assumption. We don't actually know. We just know the stockpiles are very, very likely to be quite vast. How Russia is able to marshal those forces is another question entirely.
 
You wouldn't have to source it at all, I'd fully believe it as read.
 
 
Russia has the economy about the size of Italy's. This is not quite the pin in the doll as you might think. It has to go lower. Also, Russia trades at losses to some nations in exchange for other goods. Be wary of taking raw numbers when staring at a speculative "legal" black market like oil trade. I'm sure you're already aware that the oil market is a whole bag of hammers and trickery all on its own.
 
 
Just focusing on the peace stuff, I said there were efforts and there have been. We actually don't know to what extent he'll negotiate because neither side has sat down and hammered out details in awhile. Publicly, he can say whatever he wants to say. He's made his objectives clear and is sticking to them. I've already said that this is part of the theater of public diplomacy. I think it's an eyebrow raising mistake to do this just like it is for the other side. Behind closed doors tides change, though. Call me an optimist in this regard.
And I've said my observations here are not niche already. People are choosing to engage with them so I don't see the issue. Nothing wrong with back and forth. I've no umbrage with anyone here and if anything I said made it seem otherwise I apologize. It's quite late on my end so something may have slipped through.
 
 
I just don't understand how one can make these assertions. I've seen casualty numbers all over the place. If you want to make estimates, fine, but what #'s are there to even crunch? There are wars long concluded which people still debate this crap. The idea you could do it live is a bit silly. I personally think the total casualties are very high, but I'm 100% guessing and I honestly don't know. Both sides have strong interests in totally muddying the water on this topic. Looking at unit rotation to glean data is interesting but that's a big rabbit hole because we just don't know Russia's internal designs for this sort of thing (unless you got some very up to date documentation, then I'd gladly take a look).
Here's my own rabbit hole. The West has keen interest in Ukraine winning this war. If what you say is true about the casualties, then we can assume the West's generals know this as well. So why are they not acting on this information? Why are they not depositing as much war material as physically possible right this second to press the advantage? Again, I find this wishywashy reluctance by the West to be indicative of a lack of faith in the project as a whole. The U.S. MIC will get its money. That's what it wants. But in terms of military objectives if Russia is so lambasted that they could be pushed over, why are the generals not moving in the aggressive direction? I sincerely find this very suspect. But, like your notions with the rotations, it is only something I can gauge at a vast distance. And while I may be taking the word of one man, that man is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He's not speaking off the cuff. He's speaking at the spearhead of what is undoubtedly the world's biggest mountain of intelligence and analysis. His conclusion does not track with this assertion that Russia's forces are virtually obliterated.

I've been quite polite considering some of the rhetoric I'm reading. Why is this directed toward me? All I did was ask a very simple question of how does Ukraine militarily win this war. My belief is there is no such conclusion. The highest ranking officer in the entire U.S. military has said there is no military offramp so this is not a niche observation. My conclusion is that the West needs to get the global markets in line otherwise Russia will gladly oblige a long war. I don't understand how this is controversial.
 
Going by the Military Times at the outset of the war, backed by IISS yearly report, this is what Russia had:
900,000 active personnel with 2,000,000 in reserve.
40,000ish fighters from Dontesk and Luhansk.
18,500+ AFVs. 5,500+ pieces of artillery.
 
Taken as read, people in this thread seem weirdly certain all of this manpower and material has vanished, though, and of that I'm not so certain. The Joint Chief of Staffs of the United States military doesn't seem so certain. I don't wish to argue from authority, but that is some rather supreme authority. You say I gish gallop while I'm trying to illuminate the wider picture? My entire point is that the solution is a diplomatic/economic one and that statements like General Milley's are correct. OPEC, India, and China are not helping. That's basically the other half of the planet. We need them to cooperate to dry out Russia's oil receipts and force them to the table at a weakened position. There is nothing complicated or conspiratorial or contrived about this argument.
 
 
Putin is a tyrant. News at 9. The guy can still be negotiated with. Despite your assertions here that he refuses to negotiate, there have been efforts by both sides now and again. As for demands... this is something you can learn at a used car lot, but typically when you come to negotiations you do so with the extremes and then walk it back from there. Unfortunately, the demands are turning into stone right in public limelights. I'm fully in support of the theater of Zelensky and co. coming to America and letting people understand the situation. I'm not nearly in as much support of him locking Ukraine into a deathmatch with a former superpower run by a dictator when we already know dictators can make their own countries suffer as much as they want to get what they want.
 
Basic rule of thumb is to always leave yourself an out. Again, I don't think this should be controversial. Like I'm not trying to rile people up. You can leave yourself an out while at the same time pursuing the war goals of driving Russia out of eastern Ukraine. You can't just assume your war goals will come to reality, though. I'm sorry, but that is bad statesmanship. There is a strong argument made by Hans Morgenthau, the father of political realism, that public diplomacy is necessarily self-destructing. Neither side is going to have an easy time compromising when they're screaming to the world that they want XYZ and nothing less. It's also why platforms like the U.N. turn into useless soapboxes. I think this mistake has been made here and it makes me worried about the war escalating into something worse because we're edging toward the territory of, well, as some in this thread stated, things just not escalating because they won't. Tautologies like that work until they don't.

I thought I made it quite clear but I can try to summarize as we are far away from those points:
Putin wants the eastern territories.
The West wants to make it as costly as possible to remove incentive for this sort of action; in the peripheral of this, they also need to show certain other 3rd parties the cost of taking aggressive military action. 
Ukraine wants Russia out and its territories back.
 
 
Somewhere in between, you negotiate. Jingoists and nationalists are not a part of this conversation. They can't be. It's like Orwell's essays on ideological groups, the basic reality is there are certain compromises certain groups will never make. I 100% believe there are Russians and Ukrainians alike that would literally rather grind their nations into ash than see the other guy win a 60/40 cut of the peace deal. You have to understand this, alright? And you have to understand why these conversations are difficult when people like that exist. It gets a little scarier when there are powerful people who are more than willing to oblige these thoughts. Such people also exist so those fears are not unjustified.
 
Now outside those barriers are very different results. Ukraine stands to lose a lot more than just two territories and the West stands to lose a lot of prestige and standing in the world, just saying it rather plainly. Russia also stands to do this just as well if Ukraine is able to push them out and/or the West rallies global markets against Russia. Again, I just want to point out that the depth into which Russia is willing to dig to not be humiliated is fairly deep, so this route is extremely costly and dangerous. Typically, the West suffers war exhaustion at a much faster rate, even when they're not taking part.
 
As far as negotiations go, it's all about putting yourself at advantage. There's a reason why the U.S. General Milley said Ukraine should go to the table in November (he also said there was no military offramp, by the way). Ukraine had taken back some territories and looked competent enough to make this a long war. Russia at the time was drawing up reserves. It was a position of strength vs. uncertainty on the part of the Russians. Now that time has passed. Now everybody is sitting around wondering if Russia is going to go on another offensive, or if Ukraine can breakthrough after Russia has spent 9+ months building static defenses. Every single time you push off negotiations, you run the risk of things escalating in the wrong direction.
 
I mentioned, though, that I truly don't think the military side of this is the big bargaining chip. IMO, Ukraine fights and holds on while Western intelligence and weaponry pours in. The West meanwhile has a main objective that is totally outside of Ukraine: they have to get other global markets onboard. Truly, that's it. Russia would fall apart very, very quickly. Problem is that those economic and political bullets are missing right now. And those are the ones we need to land. I don't know how people assess Russia's situation as precarious. As George Kennan said, it's impossible to fully understand the inner workings of a foreign country. Most anything you hear about another nation's innerworkings is going to be propaganda or disinfo. Example, I personally think the notion of Russia running out of missiles was disinfo - spread by Russia themselves. But my thinking on the whole is that Russia learned from 2014's sanctions and have successfully shifted trade east to prepare for the economic contractions the West would be belting across their backs. I have contacts all over the world, just as well, and I do not hear this anti-Russian fervor at all from those places. Also, again just plainly speaking, I don't know how seriously I can take Europe's war effort when they're still trading with Russia. Talking about sending Ukraine tanks with one hand while the other helps build the ATGM's to destroy them. I'm sorry but even this incongruity has to make a few people twitch.
 
My personal hope is that Ukraine comes out of this as a member of NATO. If that doesn't happen then this entire affair has been a tremendous failing. There are ways to do that which are fairly realistic, but will require compromise. There are ways to do it that are tremendously risky and require no compromise. Measuring which route you go is something you take day by day.
 

Let's get a one thing clear about Russia's end here insofar as the West is concerned.
 
It is very much within the West's interests to basically kill as many Russians as physically possible and make the war as costly as possible for two obvious purposes: one is to ensure that Russia doesn't have incentive to do it again, and the other is to show China what's up if it keeps eyeballing Taiwan. Believe it or not, this is actually diplomacy of another kind in action. However, this objective eventually has to meet with reality and that reality is armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons (on both sides). At some point you talk. Push comes to shove, I doubt any person in this thread would actually allow their families to be incinerated by nuclear war on account of Ukraine and Russia. That's the West's starting point. Russia's starting point is they want those territories. You meet somewhere in between. Or you take the casino option and roll the dice on continuing the war. That's obviously Ukraine's option. I split those up because if Ukraine dives in the deep end, I don't think the West will follow. If they can get OPEC, India, and China to play ball? Yes. But right now... no.

I'm quite aware Russians abandoned Kherson. As you said, the position became untenable. I don't think you need to be too much of a tactical genius to see the precariousness of holding that position at that time. I'm of the opinion that Russia intended for Kiev's government to collapse when the 40,000 northern Russians carved their way to the capital at the drop of a hat. When Kiev didn't collapse, the invasion faltered. This is, in fact, the usual Russian incompetence in play. I have to imagine the sacked generals sold Putin a pipedream about Kiev's weaknesses being similar to Georgia in '08. That's just my assumption, though. I know some people think this was a "feint" maneuver, but frankly I don't think the Russian generalship is that clever, nor do I think it's plausible after the commander gets demoted afterward. I saw tanks gunning it down roads without recon or infantry cover, getting shot in the rear by RPGs while I sipped tea going, "Seems about right." None of this surprised me in the slightest.
But it's not the first months of the war anymore. Things change. Since then, the Russians have dug in and mobilized hundreds of thousands of more men. This mobilization goes in hand with the already standing army, mind, of which significant amounts of it have not even been sent to Ukraine. If NATO were fighting this war, it wouldn't be much of a problem, but ultimately it falls upon Ukraine's hands. Do you honestly think there is potential for Russia to give up on these territories as they gave up on the northside of the Dnipro? If you do, I can see why you'd be positive. I just don't see it that way at all. Kreminna is a good example of this steadfastness, as is this meatgrinder in and around Bakhut. We also know, as I said, that Putin has a gun to the back of his head on this. Losing Kherson is a little different than trivializing the entire purpose of the war. It's apples and oranges, unfortunately.
 
 
 
We don't have any idea of the casualties on either side and presumably will not for years. But I'm impressed by your certainty that Russia is eating something like 15,000 KIA a month, accounting for almost 165,000+ dead already which would constitute virtually the entire starting invasion force. 

I thought I made it quite clear but I can try to summarize as we are far away from those points:
Putin wants the eastern territories.
The West wants to make it as costly as possible to remove incentive for this sort of action; in the peripheral of this, they also need to show certain other 3rd parties the cost of taking aggressive military action. 
Ukraine wants Russia out and its territories back.
 
 
Somewhere in between, you negotiate. Jingoists and nationalists are not a part of this conversation. They can't be. It's like Orwell's essays on ideological groups, the basic reality is there are certain compromises certain groups will never make. I 100% believe there are Russians and Ukrainians alike that would literally rather grind their nations into ash than see the other guy win a 60/40 cut of the peace deal. You have to understand this, alright? And you have to understand why these conversations are difficult when people like that exist. It gets a little scarier when there are powerful people who are more than willing to oblige these thoughts. Such people also exist so those fears are not unjustified.
 
Now outside those barriers are very different results. Ukraine stands to lose a lot more than just two territories and the West stands to lose a lot of prestige and standing in the world, just saying it rather plainly. Russia also stands to do this just as well if Ukraine is able to push them out and/or the West rallies global markets against Russia. Again, I just want to point out that the depth into which Russia is willing to dig to not be humiliated is fairly deep, so this route is extremely costly and dangerous. Typically, the West suffers war exhaustion at a much faster rate, even when they're not taking part.
 
As far as negotiations go, it's all about putting yourself at advantage. There's a reason why the U.S. General Milley said Ukraine should go to the table in November (he also said there was no military offramp, by the way). Ukraine had taken back some territories and looked competent enough to make this a long war. Russia at the time was drawing up reserves. It was a position of strength vs. uncertainty on the part of the Russians. Now that time has passed. Now everybody is sitting around wondering if Russia is going to go on another offensive, or if Ukraine can breakthrough after Russia has spent 9+ months building static defenses. Every single time you push off negotiations, you run the risk of things escalating in the wrong direction.
 
I mentioned, though, that I truly don't think the military side of this is the big bargaining chip. IMO, Ukraine fights and holds on while Western intelligence and weaponry pours in. The West meanwhile has a main objective that is totally outside of Ukraine: they have to get other global markets onboard. Truly, that's it. Russia would fall apart very, very quickly. Problem is that those economic and political bullets are missing right now. And those are the ones we need to land. I don't know how people assess Russia's situation as precarious. As George Kennan said, it's impossible to fully understand the inner workings of a foreign country. Most anything you hear about another nation's innerworkings is going to be propaganda or disinfo. Example, I personally think the notion of Russia running out of missiles was disinfo - spread by Russia themselves. But my thinking on the whole is that Russia learned from 2014's sanctions and have successfully shifted trade east to prepare for the economic contractions the West would be belting across their backs. I have contacts all over the world, just as well, and I do not hear this anti-Russian fervor at all from those places. Also, again just plainly speaking, I don't know how seriously I can take Europe's war effort when they're still trading with Russia. Talking about sending Ukraine tanks with one hand while the other helps build the ATGM's to destroy them. I'm sorry but even this incongruity has to make a few people twitch.
 
My personal hope is that Ukraine comes out of this as a member of NATO. If that doesn't happen then this entire affair has been a tremendous failing. There are ways to do that which are fairly realistic, but will require compromise. There are ways to do it that are tremendously risky and require no compromise. Measuring which route you go is something you take day by day.
 

For every KIA you can reliably tack on at least an additional 5-6 casualties. Do the math. Six months? Numbers like that that would be unsustainable in a month which is how you should intuitively know they are not correct.

The abstract # of bodies is not meaningless when we start looking at war exhaustion. As for the war's purpose, it has one. Russia wants those territories. You can go back 15+ years and see Putin saying that. He's been saying it right to the West's face, right at the NATO-Russian councils. Just saying it out loud. Over and over and over again. You tempt Ukraine with NATO, I take those territories. He really could not have been more clear about it.
And I actually disagree that it is an axiom that both sides have guns to their heads. The point of sound diplomacy is to always leave compromise on the table. Again, this is why the West is failing, because they have not done that. I understand the need to defend your sovereign territory. 100% understandable. And it's understandable to make morale a significant cog of your war effort and back that up with tough talk. But you should never take compromise off the table, especially when a situation is unfolding and could go any number of ways. Now, currently, we are in a situation where Zelensky and Putin both have guns to their heads. No doubt about it. Except Russia's ability to escalate, and the lengths at which they could escalate, are so insanely precarious that I'm a little taken aback by everyone just assuming Putin is going to quietly shuffle away to his coffin, or even the assumption that the next guy up would be any better for that matter.

Yeah, Saving Private Ryan was legitimately shocking. I think a lot of people who grow up with today's media -- much of it being shaped by SPR in fact -- don't really understand how intense that movie was at release. There'd always been tons of war movies and many of them violent and grim, but SPR was the most physical depiction of combat ever seen. War movies to that point still had this sense of cinematic flair to them. SPR just hit you in the face with a celluloid shovel.

This was my next guess because in another test they started 'blindfiring' at a building with no one in it -- they fired at the top floor of the 3rd story building closest to them (despite no one being in it). To my knowledge the enemy AI is pretty rudimentary and I don't think I have ever seen them genuinely pre-fire into stuff.
Case closed lol?
 

Yeah, Saving Private Ryan was legitimately shocking. I think a lot of people who grow up with today's media -- much of it being shaped by SPR in fact -- don't really understand how intense that movie was at release. There'd always been tons of war movies and many of them violent and grim, but SPR was the most physical depiction of combat ever seen. War movies to that point still had this sense of cinematic flair to them. SPR just hit you in the face with a celluloid shovel.

It's a scenario. You can boot it up and play either side from Turn 1 and see what happens. The dynamics of the mission are atypical.
For all I know the scenario design is that the enemy just knows to shoot the building, but it is absolutely not normal for technicals to spot Hiding soldiers inside buildings 200-300+ meters away within 15s while simultaneously driving around. That is straight up borg spotting levels not available to anyone, least of all uncons.

Well something is different. I've hundreds of hours in SF2 in both scenarios and PBEMs and have never seen spotting of that speed and accuracy ever. We're talking near instant spotting of enemies 200-300m away, in buildings, hiding, and the spotting is done by uncons in moving vehicles. Nothing about that is correct.

To be fair, it is very unusual to get spotted like that. I tested the scenario and it's actually considerably worse than you even described: technicals roll up and make INSTANT spots on you, regardless of hide, target arcs, hide w/o deploying, etc.
 
Makes me wonder if it's part of the scenario design. I've played enough PBEMs and scenarios to know this isn't normal at all. The scenario itself is also listed as a 'Tutorial' so maybe it's just trying to illuminate some aspect of the gameplay instead of presenting normal aspects.

#1 would be dynamic campaigns. Even something simple like the way the Close Combat series does it would be nice. I think it's the biggest thing missing by far.
 
"Nice to have" would be something like a replay feature that lets the player watch the whole battle once it is finished.
 
Better vehicle dismount/mount rules for interactions between infantry and vehicles.

I agree with OP here. It's very anomalous as 50m is actually a very long way for a pistol shot to be even remotely accurate. I've seen people at the gun range literally whiff the paper targets at 10-15m. Of course, they're not infantry in an army, but they're also not in a combat environment juiced to the gills with adrenaline and the threat of death. The slightest tilt in your wrist is an enormous shift in accuracy from barrel to target. That's why you'll get those news stories about police and/or criminals unloading 100+ rounds and hitting like twice.

I agree with OP here. It's very anomalous as 50m is actually a very long way for a pistol shot to be even remotely accurate. I've seen people at the gun range literally whiff the paper targets at 10-15m. Of course, they're not infantry in an army, but they're also not in a combat environment juiced to the gills with adrenaline and the threat of death. The slightest tilt in your wrist is an enormous shift in accuracy from barrel to target. That's why you'll get those news stories about police and/or criminals unloading 100+ rounds and hitting like twice.

Germany proved itself capable of fielding larger armies year-over-year, and committing itself to massive offenses year-over-year -- and that is after losing access to the majority of their oil supply. In fact, both Axis powers proved economically flexible in ways that post-war analyses make these comments kinda moot. A greater tooth and tail would - if I may - entail more supply-committed manpower and greater capital investment in the stockpile of oil. That's pretty much the gist of it. If Germany in 1944 could field a much larger and fuel-hungry army, with more airplanes than ever, and more tanks than ever, with the factories for both being pulverized on the daily, and the synthetic factories being demolished on the daily, I do submit with confidence that they could have rubbed a couple nickels together to get the oil for an extra 1,000 tanks in the grace periods of 1940/1941. But they didn't. Not because they couldn't, but for the same reason they didn't even bother bringing proper winter gear into Russia: hubris.
But it is all conjecture. Truly. The real counter-point to 1,000 more tanks isn't "they couldn't fuel them." The real counter-point is that the entire premise of Germany's war machine was to operate quickly and cheaply, so to suggest they have more tanks and more men is already out of sorts. It's like saying Germany should have maybe not been so mean to its conquered peoples. It's like yeah, that would have helped, but their meanness is what brought them there in the first place. It becomes very ahistorical nonsense. Perhaps then the true answer is... to make more Panthers. Not because of combat effectiveness or economic viability, but because the Panther ranks pretty high on the Rule of Cool™ chart. It looks sleek and it has a great nickname, both pretty strong arguments, IMO.