G.I. Joe

if you use "woke and PC" you are just another brainwashed tool.  This is just a shiny object meant to ignite culture wars.  We have much bigger problems.  Like in the USA we are considered now a failing democracy.  And it's not because of some "woke & PC" horses-t.  It's because of a very different brand of propaganda.
So how about we all call a truce on this foolishness and get back to Ukraine?  Do we not (nearly) all here have a shared interest in seeing the new Hitler defeated?  What I care about is that the west (and the world) stays united and that Ukraine can emerge 'victorious', although that's an odd word for having a big part of one's country laid to ruin.

Hey, and as a nice Jewish boy (let me stereotype just in case someone here has mistaken me for some kind of flabby kumbaya liberal, Russia truly went to hell IMHO when they lost their Jews), no doubt he knows who to speed dial in Tel Aviv to spin up some VC seed money for, ohhh:
1. biotech GMP plants (NOT biowarfare, FFS people, get a grip! the big money is in meds for an aging planet, not effing novichoks) and
2. chip fabs and solar panel factories
So very sorry, Great Helmsman Xi, and your Belt and Road too. And you too, Erdogan. Europe's next pool for cheap manufactures and value added services lies on its own doorstep.
Will Ukie lumberjacks be Europe's new 'Polish plumbers' for a while? Probably. And some of them will become French and Czechs. And retire comfortably in Kherson. Or Crimea, when it comes begging to be let back into Ukraine....
Does Karl Marx *hate* this whole global labour arbitrage 'exploitation' model (along with a bunch of bitter US Rust belters)? Sure, and too bad. May as well repeal gravity. Anyway, ask a Thai or Malaysian uni grad whether he prefers his country today over the one his dad grew up in. It's worth it, and I'll bet the Ukrainians have the mojo to climb the ladder swiftly, as they are showing us now.

100% agree, the single best thing the EU can do for Ukraine, in addition to paying for a vast amount roads and bridges and train stations is to provide a REALLY good investment guarantee, in particular against further conflict. Ukraine was already getting a fair number of German auto part plants, I think they can get those back, and ad great deal more if the EU just insures companies against another Russian invasion. If Ukraine comes through this in fixable condition Zelensky is going to be the second coming of George Washington, with nearly bottomless access to EU money, and legal/technical expertise. I think he can get the governance and rule of law issues right. The Ukrainian "brand" is going to be sort of unimaginably positive.

You are hitting on something extremely important here, but not just punitive reparations in the Versailles sense....
This topic risks going way OT so I'll try to keep this tweetstorm as brief as I can. I exaggerate in places for clarity, nothing is so simple of course, nor is success guaranteed:
1. Let's assume the Western master game is for the  'European frontier' (i.e. the edge of the Western economic order as well as its military boundary) to shift east from Poland to Ukraine (and Belarus).
2. For that shift to occur, and not to revert to chaos, gangsterism and mass emigration, a stable economic order must be established. That doesn't mean an immediate German or even Polish standard of living, but it must deliver reasonably broad prosperity that keeps talented Ukrainians (including the cheerful, resourceful citizen soldiers who are presently astonishing the world!) at home!
3. The aftermath of this war presents a fantastic opening to "Build Back Better!"(c). Not everywhere and not always optimally or fairly. But in addition to aid monies, private (profit seeking) capital investment is absolutely essential.
4.  Globalization 2.0 is underway right now as multinationals seek to diversify operations out of an increasingly extortionate and unreliable China. ASEAN has countless high tech parks building right now, levering their cheap talent and basic infra (where it exists). They are overwhelmed and there is room for others to play too.
5. The Ukrainian infra base remains solid, if rusty and uneven. And rebuilding isn't as hard or expensive as some folks may think. Infra and plant is modular today, and the Chinese have driven global costs (and quality lol) through the floor, the current inflation notwithstanding. That's IF an investment case is there to bring in private FDI (and not just fat cat contractors gobbling subsidies a la Haiti).
6. Talent and infra (plus low cost energy) are table stakes, but not sufficient. You must also have reliable (I didn't say good or honest -- look at Thailand) government. The post-Soviet disease of gangsta kleptocrats turned oligarchs (ref. Galeev for the short form) taking rakes off resource flows and other forms of graft afflicted Ukraine as badly as it did Russia. If it returns, it will poison the well and foreign investors will go elsewhere. Look at the Philippines and Indonesia, whose governments talk big but can't get out of their own way or manage the greed and corruption of their oligarchs. Even the Chinese have trouble making headway.
....That will be postwar Russia btw, with or without Putin. Screw 'em, let them rot in Chinese receivership, and in time take their brightest young people in as new Ukrainians!
7.  BTW, that's why I have absolutely NO sympathy for the kinds of ancient 'tribal' hatreds espoused (or at least not denied) by certain folks on this board, where everything will be just great if only our golden motherland can be, ahem *cleansed* of those horrid Mongoloid Russian orcs who take murder and rapine in with their mothers milk. That Bloodlands crap leads only to even worse evils than what Putin is visiting today, and impoverishment.
8.  Embrace Ukraine's melting pot! when Kiev and Odessa are filled with South Asian tech bros (with their Ukie counterparts shuttling to Chennai), you'll know things are going in the right direction!
9. Am I just blowing Thatcherite hopium smoke? Maybe, I don't know, it isn't my country. But the ONE good thing the Commies left behind them is solid primary education. As I once told Lech Walesa (and really p***ed him off!) to his face back in 1997, the post-Soviet game was kleptocrats playing smash and grab for the rusting hulks of the Soviet order, and then taking a rake off resources. While where the wealth really was, and is, is in the people.
10.  As a pool for talented labor, this region is quite cost competitive with the 'expensive' end of ASEAN (Thailand, Malaysia), and with the emerging tech centers of India.  Do you need a soaring birthrate society? Nope, that creates as many problems as it solves. Witness Phils and Nigeria. And once Ukrainians have stable work, they can afford things like families and kids.
....Anyway, I think I made my point.

[/hopium]

Three key things: 
1. Biden is the first American President who came into office with zero illusions about Putin/Russia.
2. The people Biden appointed watched 20 years of mistakes, magical thinking and missed chances. 
3. More broadly across the foreign policy establishment there was bipartisan support to take on the task. 
Putin was entirely unprepared for what the meant in terms of applied full spectrum American power.

As soon as you see the words "crisis actor", you should know whatever the story is, it's nonsense.
I'm not aware of any event in the world that was actually staged using "crisis actors" - it's just a right-wing meme.
In fact, if you thought about it critically for a bit, you'd realise that such a thing would be almost impossible to pull off - you'd have to get everyone for miles around to buy into it, or someone would be saying "they're not from around here" and variations on it.
PS: the woman you're calling a "crisis actor" died of her wounds.

Re conspiracies - my wife is Polish, escaped the iron Curtain as a child, so her parents were heavily influenced by Soviet paranoia etc. When we met she very regularly repeated conspiracy theories (not too insane, tight wing nonsense, more the THE GOV IS OUT TO GET YOU AND IS BEHND EVERY DAMN BUSH! - which, of course was TRUE in Poland in the 80s. 
Buuut she then grew up in Canada. So, to me, her readiness to jump to a conspiracy was baffling. Eventually I developed a line:
Could this be cause by basic human incompetence and/or laziness?
Disprove that to me First, THEN let's talk about the possibility of a conspiracy.
Because a true conspiracy requires a lot of hard serious dedicated work from a lot of people and I'm sorry, I've worked with a lot of people and a lot of them do not work hard or with dedication.
The VAST, VAST majority do the bare minimum and GTFO home for dinner.
Conspiracies require homework. Who the hell wants to do homework after work!?
This is why so many actual conspiracies quickly fall apart - they're a lot of bloody work and at some point, someone is going to say - fuuuck another goddamn photo to doctor? Goddamit. K, after this last episode of The Batchelorette...

Guys,
So beyond the obvious competing narratives out there (nazis, bio-weapons, crisis actors etc) let's remember what this entire thing is, an egregious violation.  There has been no, and I mean zero, casus belli established for this invasion. 
People are pointing to the US invasion of Iraq in '03 in some weird "well two wrongs make it ok to kill thousands of civilians", however, the US did take their case to the UN, they were attacking a strongman dictator who had; invaded a neighbor for "reasons", used massive oppression on his own people, and had even employed chemical weapons against civilians.  So we are not even in the same strategic context here as Ukraine; a free democracy that had not even coming close to behaving like Saddam Hussein.
I have stayed out of a lot of these conspiracy theories floating around but even if the wildest ones are true (which I do not believe for a second) and let's say the Ukrainians were employing a combination of recovered nazi-occult and alien technology to make all Russian bears impotent...in the modern world your first response to that is not rolling in 120 BTGs!!  Worse, you cannot back that up with "well they were gently rolling in 120 BTGs"...no such reality exists.  That much metal + ammo + scared teenagers is never going to equal "gentle violation of sovereignty".
We can play the point-counter point game all day and try to gain political points but all of that is noise around the central and incontrovertible fact that Russia illegally invaded another sovereign European nation in a gross violation of sovereignty and global order...this is not "ok", this will never be "ok".
Finally, I know there are theories floating out there that the Russian Restraint can explain the slowness and stalling on the Russian side.  This is abject nonsense.  It is much, much harder to try and do a soft invasion.  The US military tried in Afghanistan and Iraq and they found it nearly impossible to avoid collateral damage and civilian deaths.  I have seen nothing to suggest that Russian ISR and Joint Targeting is so sophisticated and disciplined that they have any idea what they are hitting beyond..."hit there".  This baby hospital thing has been brought up, right sure....how exactly did Russian Joint Targeting know the hospital was empty (which it was not)?  How did Russian C2 know this when they don't even know where most of their own troops are?
So I am going to offer some simple rules that people can chose to adopt or not:
- Precision is hard, incredibly hard.  If your theory depends on greater Russian precision in anyway shape or form stop and think.
- Organization is hard.  If your theory depends on highly organized Russian capability...stop and think.
- Conspiracies are hard, in this day and age nearly impossible.  If your theory is relying on a "big secret"...stop and think.  All western governments leak like a sieve and even the autocratic ones bleed data like a stuck goat.  No government on earth, even NK, has an airtight seal on what information it leaks out.  So if you are relying on a "star chamber" or "black sites"...stop and think.
- If it looks like a Duck, stop calling it a Kitty Cat.  War is incredibly hard so the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.  It is the principle that has actually put this thread and forum out in front.  We have avoided over-analyzing (I know right?!) compared to others chasing some theories.  If Oryx has 297 open source pictures of destroyed/abandoned Russian tanks, well given the UA was outfitted with thousands of next gen ATGMs...it is not a hard squint to see the freakin quacking water fowl.  This is not some photoshop campaign for the ages, the Russians have lost a lot of tanks.  Is it 297, probably not could be more or Orxy might have some double accounting but it is a lot. 
- Assumptions, Factors and Deductions.  All this comes down to Assumptions, Factors (or Facts) and Deductions.  As I tell dead-eyed Majors, "make sure the line between these items is as straight and short as possible".  Make damn sure your Assumptions and Facts stay on speaking terms and then do not under any circumstances let the line between Factors and Deductions turn into a Pollock painting.  War is hard enough, complex enough and weird enough...it does not need your help in any of these areas. 
Go with the god of your choice grognards,  and try and stay out of trouble.
 

I know Steve probably isn't at liberty to say, and I respect that, but that post and the one before it saying that UGVs "might also exist in really good tactical wargames for professionals to figure out how to best utilize them" sure do feel like a tacit acknowledgement that Combat Mission: Future Shock (Highly Classified Pro Edition) exists somewhere out there... 😉

The US wouldn't have tried without first achieving total air superiority though.  

Absolutely plausible; however, at that point we are no longer talking about an MBT.  We are talking about a heavily armored TAC CP that employs a suit of semi-autonomous unmanned systems as its primary weapon.  I really like the tactical land-carrier strike group as some sort of "Grandson of Iron Dome" will also likely integrated. 
The implications of large scale adoption of this are not small.  We will no longer "manoeuvre-to-attrit" we will have to attrit-to-manoeuvre" for one.  We also are redefining military mass, these are fundamental principles.
Jury is still out but it is looking more like "when" than "if" with every war.  A lot will hinge on counter-unmanned, which in the end may very well simply be "more unmanned" as I do not think one can push out enough EM energy to effectively counter and not die in seconds on the modern battlefield.

Seems like the Russian operational concept (the deep battle-style offensive) is totally spent. Havn't seen much in the way of broad-frontage attacks in weeks. Strong indications now that the Russian army is switching over to defensive warfare and is digging in everywhere. The key exception is Mariupol, which the Russians have encircled and besieged. In the last few days they have been like the snake slowly squeezing the city to death. Ukrainian defenders have held out stubbornly and as far as I can tell are fighting for just about every block. Russian troops are continuing to gain ground however, and things are looking bleak for the city. Some scuttlebutt suggests a potential Russian 'out' (one that the west nor Kyiv will surely accept) is the annexation of Kherson, Mariupol, and the Donbas back to Russia. 
Regarding the UA, things continue to go well for them. However the counterattacks that I have seen have so far remained tactical in nature. Vigorous action has kept the Russians from encircling Kyiv like they did with Mariupol, and potentially in the future we will see this transition into much broader pushes against Russian positions. Some here think that the UA will fight well against Russian defensive positions thanks to their knowledge of the terrain, western ATGMs, and of course the tremendous ISR advantage they have thanks to drones and the west. Potentially this would allow them to map out Russian positions in greater detail than either the Russian commander is aware of and then attack and destroy them. Like I said, I personally haven't seen any signs of anything quite like that happening. Yet. 
I would describe the last few days as both sides having reach a general operational equilibrium. Russia can no longer push forward and seize substantial amounts of ground, the UA for various reasons has not yet. Given how it looks like this war is going, I dont think were quite ready yet for a cease fire. I've read some talk that basically Russia is still non-serious re: terms. So the fighting will continue and we shall see which side is able to break this short term equilibrium. Re: Signs of collapse? I think many of the indicators remain that Russia is on the brink of a bad place. But IMO they have neither move closer nor further from the edge. They are, however, slowly grinding themselves into a find powder. Collapses are one of those things, before they happen its all so theoretical and subjective. Nobody can really say 'collapse today.' But once it happens then everyone will turn around and look at the road weve traveled and say 'see, I told you!' Right now were still, unfortunately, looking forward. 
To everyone whose been reading through, how'd I do? 

I’m just hoping the tradition of adding the Canadians to these games continues, not many games let me play as them.

I know everybody is excited and would like to know what is next after the Base Game... believe me we are all excited too!
As far as follow-on modules go.. yes several are planned, but what they are specifically we will keep to ourselves until after the game is released.  For now the focus must stay on the base-game for us, but feel free to conjecture and dream, I enjoy those threads, but we won't be confirming or denying anything until after this one is on the street.
Just so you guys know that we aren't ignoring you in those discussions, we are trying to stay focused and not get sidetracked so we can deliver this thing in time.
Cheers, Bil

🚨🚨Steve just leaked an aspect of the next modern CM title!!!🚨🚨🕵️‍♂️🚜

So I think we are at the point that we can call it, I think the Russian strategic Offensive Phase of this war is pretty much at an end.  We went from Quick War, to Siege/Grinding War, to what is looking more like Balkan War as Russian forces appear to be 1) pulling back and consolidating and, 2) trying to assert control in the areas they do "control".  This does not mean we won't see offensive action at the tactical scale, in fact I suspect the Russians will burn assets and troops trying to take Mariupole and any other hub they can; however, the big red sweeps are likely over, at least for now.
So what happens next?  Or maybe what could happen next? 
- Strategic Pause.  The Russians almost look like they are trying to conduct a strategic pause, which is in effect and attempt to re-mobilize within political constraints/restraints.  Stories of troops being pulled in from the east and weird "contracts" are a possible sign that Russia is trying for a major re-org/re-boot before they would likely double down on Plan A.  Given how badly they have been chewed up this theory is not too far out there.  If Russia goes this way, it means they think they can sustain the war for months into the summer and make another run at Putin's Dream.  They will need to re-stock a lot of equipment and ammunition so there should be signals in strategic Russian production and pulling out of war stocks.  On the pers side we might see some sort of rumors of a Russian version of "stop-loss" as they start playing fast and loose with military contracts.  I don't think Putin has the backing to go full national mobilization (or he would have likely already done it), so this will be "as much as we can and still be able to call this a 'special operation' nonsense".
- Grab, Hold, Bargain.  More likely, but not exclusive of the Strategic Pause theory is that Russians are going to try to dig in and hold onto as much leverage as they can in order to shore up their position at the negotiating table.  This will likely see lots of medieval stuff to terrorize the UKR government into concessions.  We saw exactly the same ploys in the Bosnian War with Sarajevo (and Mariupole is starting to look worse than that).  The question will be how long this takes but it cedes the pressure back onto the UKR government in a typical extortionist/domestic abusers argument of "it is your own fault that I have to beat you". 
- Last Gasp.  Another option, and one I know favored by Steve, is that this is the beginning of the end for the Russian military in Ukraine.  What we are seeing is a lot of "scrambling for success" a the lower levels so that they can say "we did our part" while the higher levels are no doubt thinking about "alternative options".  The test as whether this is collapse or simply digging in will be how well the Russians can hold up to inevitable UA counter attacks.
So Whats?
    First off the Russian military has an enormous defensive problem, entirely of their own making.  By my rough measurements, by attacking along 4-5 separate operational axis of advance in an attempt to take the whole eastern part of the country, they now have a frontage of roughly 1400km+ to try and "defend".  That is roughly three times as long as the entire Western Front in WW1.  To make any areas they control even close to airtight, they are going to need hundreds of thousands of troops to do it.  Troops I am not sure they have, nor can equip, let alone conduct C2 for at this point.  If Russia is serious about Grab, Hold Bargain, they may have to simply wholesale abandon some axis and gains likely in the East in order to be able to create credible defensives and pressures.  We do know the UA has troops all along those 1300km frontage, they are either regular, hybrid, or resistance/territorial defence.  They know the ground intimately and are continuing to see a steady flow of weapons in from the west.  How the UA counter-offensive goes will be key to determining the actual situation of Russian forces.
    Second, without making the areas they defend "airtight" they will continue to be plagued by attacks along their LOCs.  The Russians might try to make ironclad support corridors but given the ranges of the UKR weapons systems this is a huge undertaking of interlinked strong points just to get the supplies to some sort of front.  This will make the logistics problem worse.  That, and defence still puts a lot of strain on logistical systems, but in different ways.  Ammunition, not gas becomes the central issue.  Field defence stores and landmines take a lot of truck space, so we should be seeing more of that, along with of course artillery and other ammunition.  That and now Russia needs a lot more manpower, which all need a lot more pers-based supplies such as food, water, clothing, sanitation (unless you want General Disease getting into the game) and medical.
    Third, C4ISR in the defensive is a bit of a nightmare.  Whereas in the offence you can prioritize your main efforts, in the defence you have to be able to see and coordinate fires everywhere at the same time.  Doing that along a 1300km frontage is...well, simply insane but hey here we are.  The UA, did a pretty good job of it but it was their ground, they had the HUMINT going their way, and very likely buckets of ISR feeds from the west.  The Russian architecture has not demonstrated they are set up for this.  Further, this is contested airspace so one cannot simply dig in and sit, they are going to have to keep high value assets moving, like artillery, all the time or it will get tagged and hit quickly.  This will mean that Russians will need to employ a dynamic manoeuvre defence, much like the UA did, and I am not seeing that within the Russian repertoire.
    The UA counter-offensive will be key.  I suspect they will stick with the game that has carried them this far and simply cut up Russian rear areas to isolate and then chop up slices piecemeal to keep making gains.  Their hybrid "sharp mass" has been extremely effective in the defence, we will see how it does in the offense but I give them good odds to be honest.  
   If the Russians can do a full Strategic re-set, a big ask, then we could see a Round 2 Offensive Phase of this thing but the odds of it success get worse everyday as the UA "beginners" are becoming veterans very widely.  Further they are likely refining C4ISR building on their successes and more and more lethal aid is pouring in from the west.  If the Russians cannot get back up and moving before that $800M from the US shows up, well they too deserve what happens next.   
   To be honest, if someone tasked me with shooting for a Russian Strategic re-set, I would tell them it is going to take years because whatever they came with in this "come as you are war" was a failure and we are talking about deep military reforms and training in order to re-build a force that could actually pull off what the aspiration of this thing.  In fact you might need to invent a military that does not exist on this planet.  In '03 the US had to advance roughly 500kms to Bagdad and they owned the sky and the sea, had set operational pre-conditions, massive C4ISR overmatch, and have some of the best military logistical systems on the planet.  It took the US 3 weeks to take Bagdad and they were fighting a eroded and beaten Iraqi military that had zero outside support.  The US did not try a 4-5 axis grab along a 1300km frontage because the military planners knew it was impossible with what they had, which was 2-3 times what the Russians brought to this fight (466K, over 500k with allies).  And, politics completely aside, Iraq '03 was not well thought of and still is not well thought of in professional military circles as it failed to secure the gains and led to a multi-year insurgency.  
   So as we proceed on this journey, I am wracking my brain to make a list of the "Dumbest Wars in History" but this one has to be on it and moving upwards rapidly.
 
 

Canada's UN Mission twitted a letter from the Russian UN Mission that was sent to all member countries.  Canada's UN Mission decided to troll hard the letter by marking it up and returning to the Russian UN Mission.
 

@G.I. Joe
Welcome to the forums, but I thought I'd let you know that avatar has been in use by an esteemed forum member and former BFC employee, so you have big shoes to fill. 
 

Great news! The bomb shelter under Drama Theater in Mariupol survived the hit of 500 kg bomb. Now the rubbles removing have started to reach the entrance of shelter. There is still unknow about possible casualties among people which were inside the buiding and out of shelter. 

Thats it. Pack it in. When youve Arnie turns against you thats it. 
(Sorry if this was posted before) 

It's the same thing. If your economy produces more aircraft, more artillery and more tanks, than you have the better army.Your company commanders don't need tactical brilliance to take a position, they can call on artillery assets your enemy can only dream of, and those artillery batteries have enough ammunition they care fire harassment missions around the clock. The better army has good-enough tanks everywhere instead of perfect tanks somewhere (or broken down). The better army can make road moves in daylight instead of being bombed and strafed between sunrise and sunset.

There's also no Greeks, but as far as I know this is the first game to offer Indian (including Sikh) and Brazilian forces at this scale. And there are South Africans, Kiwis, Free French, and Poles.  It's sort of a glass half empty-glass half full sort of thing I think. Myself I some hope time gets put into bringing the Free French to Northwest Europe.

After the years-long Sisyphean task of getting R2V out the door with everything it place Steve said something along the lines of 'never again'. No more laboring to the breaking point just to shoe-horn every esoteric unit under the sun into a title. You want Gurkhas? Use your imagination. Poof, they're now in the game. In CMSF2 you can find scenarios with Lebanese Hezbollah, Druz militia, spec ops units, etc. How did they get into the game? The scenario designer picked some units and announced in the orders text "They're Hezbollah". Its just that easy.

They fought like lions.... No, they didn't. Lions would have told Mad Addy to "F*** Off, you Nazi plonker, and leave us in peace, the Jews never did us any harm."