Monty's Mighty Moustache

For the record I tried to play your Blue Hills scenario in FB as PBEM and whilst it was an interesting scenario it was unplayable due to performance issues, and whilst I don't have a top end PC it's no slouch. We had to abandon the game not long after starting as my oppo was having issues too.
So perhaps it was a conscious choice by the designer? To simply label them lazy is very judgemental, Walt Whitman would not be impressed
MMM

Yeah, that will teach them a lesson. 😄
Here's a thought. After BF has finally closed business (and long mey they rule), NO ONE will ever produce this kind of complicated and labour intensive wargames anymore. So let's praise ourselves lucky we've already got his much.

The Russians Around Krynky Counted On Storm-Z Units To Absorb Ukrainian Fire. But Now The Storm-Z Troops Are All Dead. (msn.com)
 
Wonder if that is the new Russian Army slogan - "be the meat".
 
 

I always wondered why armies didn't use old(er) people. (Except for the German Volkssturm in ww2, of course.) Not frontline troops, that's a no brainer, but driving ambulances or trucks, for instance. Doing repair stuff and doing maintenance, cooking and cleaning. Communications and what not. All the jobs that older persons (yes, also women) can do, and that will free younger people up to do the frontline fighting.
Since Ukraine is struggling with manpower, why not using fifty or sixty-year old (or older, even) men and women to fly drones? I know, a lot of older people are not good with modern technology, but a: there are loads and loads of old people (I'm 61, by the way), b: at least a part of them could learn how to use drones and c: they're more expendable than young people, future-wise. (I know, dubious argument for some, but still valid.) And d: because they already live on a pension, you don't even have to pay 'm much!
I'm serious. For flying a drone you do not have to be physically superfit, you need to be smart. And some old people are smart. Shouldn't be too difficult to find 5000 clever pensioners, would it?
 
 

My computer was only one year old when I tried to play it, so it was not old by any means at the time. The point of my post was not to criticise, merely to point out that calling someone lazy when you don't know what decisions were made for the FR scenario and why is probably a bit harsh.
I may return to the Blue Hills once the performance improvements come in Engine 5, it was an enjoyable scenario when it ran.

For the record I tried to play your Blue Hills scenario in FB as PBEM and whilst it was an interesting scenario it was unplayable due to performance issues, and whilst I don't have a top end PC it's no slouch. We had to abandon the game not long after starting as my oppo was having issues too.
So perhaps it was a conscious choice by the designer? To simply label them lazy is very judgemental, Walt Whitman would not be impressed
MMM

Thanks. More than 70km2 of maps to fight over in this Battle Pack. I'm still creating two more smaller maps for two scenarios. Using a lot of BIGOT maps from 1944 and aerial photos for reference. Some master maps will have variants that will also be provided with the historical German Fortifications placed and ready to go. (<-- That took a while...)
As per last year's bones on the pack, geographically the fighting is focused on the Utah Beach area itself and the area heading south towards and beyond Carentan. All scenarios/campaigns occur between 00:05 hours on 6th of June through to the evening of the 13th of June. Don't expect all of them to be brutal slog fests, particularly the D-Day ones where the Allies at times had significant advantages. I'm going for more of a focus on narrative and experiencing that first week coming off Utah Beach rather than slug fests designed for competitive tournament play. (Master Maps are there if you want to create your own matches though). If you play the pack chronologically and come out the other end content and with a greater appreciation of the challenges the forces faced, then I've done my job.  
The content in this part of the Normandy theatre, though popular, couldn't be created by BF as part of the CMBN base game given the absence of Fallschirmjager and Waffen SS forces in the WW2 titles at the time.

Ok so let's end all this horsesh#t.  The great thing about the US is that they put everything out to the public.  No other nation on earth is as transparent.  So here is what Miller actually said:
https://www.state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-january-4-2024/
First as to "no more money"
"QUESTION: Thank you. Let’s discuss Ukraine a little bit. How long will the latest package that you guys have sent already in December will give operations until they run out of funding again?
MR MILLER: I will let Ukraine speak to that because that pertains to – and my colleagues at the Pentagon may have some additional insight to offer on this. But ultimately, that’s a question to Ukraine to speak to because it goes to their rate of expenditure and other really military questions.
But I will say that we do need Congress to act. We are out of funding here. We know that we need to continue to support Ukraine. They need – they rely on this assistance. They rely on it to continue to fight what is a brutal Russian assault that continues, even over the – that continues every day. And so it’s important for Congress to act to continue to fund this democracy that is continuing to defend itself."
That is all about pushing Congress to act.  Inside DC baseball, not a US intent to cut off all funding.
As to current state of the war:
"QUESTION: And would you say that, given the latest developments, that the war is turning in Russia’s favor?
MR MILLER: No, I wouldn’t say that at all. I think people forget oftentimes the actual stakes of this war and what Vladimir Putin’s actual goal was, and what Ukraine has actually achieved and what it continues to achieve. Remember that Putin launched this as a war of total conquest where he wanted to take over Ukraine. He wanted to throw the government out of power. He wanted to subsume Ukraine inside Russia. Not only was Ukraine able to prevent that from happening, which everyone sort of takes for granted now but it was very not – it was very much not a settled question at the start of this war – they have managed to retake around half of the territory that Russia seized in the opening weeks of the war.
And even in the past few weeks, they continue to make battlefield gains. Remember the – over the last summer we were talking about the difficulty when Russia pulled out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, and it looked like Ukraine wasn’t going to be able to continue to export grain. Well, because of advances that Ukraine made to open a Black Sea lane and expel the Russian fleet from certain parts of the Black Sea, they are now able to continue to export grain, which is critical to their economy.
So there are going to be battlefield developments back and forth, where you see each side gaining or losing territory. But when you look at the ultimate stakes of this war, it’s quite clear that Ukraine is going to exit this war independent, strong, with an improved economy, and looking west when what Russia wanted at the outset was not just a Ukraine that was looking east but Ukraine that was actually part of Russia."
Boy this sounds familiar...because some on this thread have been saying it all along.
And as to the statement that has some people running around like the panicky idiot in a bad plane crash movie:
"QUESTION: As long as it takes?
MR MILLER: As long as it takes. That does not mean that we are going to continue to support them at the same level of military funding that we did in 2022 and 2023. We don’t think that should be necessary because the goal is to ultimately transition Ukraine – to use the language that you repeated back – to stand on its own feet and to help Ukraine build its own industrial base and its own military industrial base so it can both finance and build and acquire munitions on its own. But we are not there yet, and that is why it is so critical that Congress pass the supplemental funding bill, because we are not yet at the point where Ukraine can defend itself just based on its own. And it’s why that it continues to be important for Congress to support Ukraine and continues to be important for our European allies and others throughout the world to support Ukraine."
From a State Dept talking head no less.
Oh, ya that totally says that "Ukraine is totally cut off and will have to build its own tanks from here on out."  You know we should totally freak out now and point to every Russian leg twitch as a major victory, while screaming "Ukraine is doomed!!" From the heights of the thread.
So "yes" I am saying the US will backstop a Ukrainian MIC as it plans for a transition away from tactical handouts to long term strategic sustainment...just like they did in South Korea.  But hey you wanna be "soundbite panic guy" on the thread, go right ahead.  
 

The generous response to this would be 'you are reading too much into the article - that's not what it says'.  In the UK we have a less generous, single-word response that I think is probably more appropriate, though.
 
Fixed that for you.
 
You do seem to spend a lot of your time intentionally 'interpreting' what people write in order to fit your 'all is lost' narrative.
The point of the response you laughed off here was, I think, to ask what Ukraine's plan is?  For the first year or so, Ukraine were in panicky, dear-god-they're-invading-help-please-send-whatever-you-can mode.  Where is Ukraine now?  Two years in, what is Ukraine's strategy for winning this war?  Surely it's not to rely on free equipment sent in by foreign nations?  I mean, I think Ukraine can rely on US/EU providing as much support as they can (given the various other factors at play) but it would be idiotic to rely on that and make no other plans to defend your country, right?  Perhaps if we knew more from Ukraine about what they are trying to do then we could all offer more insightful opinions as to how the US/EU could help.
 
Your apparent understanding of how Western European people think is frankly stunningly inaccurate.
To be blunt, people in Western Europe don't give a solitary, flying **** about Russia.  They don't.  No-one talks about Russia, worries about Russia or even less considers Russia's strength when they go to the ballot box.  Ask people in the UK about Russia and they will talk about Salisbury, the World Cup and the ongoing war with Ukraine.  Some of them might remember 2014.  A few more will remember the Kursk tragedy because the Russians turned down British help to rescue the crew.  Beyond that it's probably all Yeltsin and pre-90s stuff.
What you think seems to be a reflection of Russia's own internal propaganda line -  that the West spends all its time envying and plotting against the mighty Russian people.  It's just bollocks (oh, there we are - the one-word response made it into print after all).

That's really uncalled for.
My impression is that you, and a lot of people, are angry because you think Battlefront is slow to release products. But are they slow? Do you have a baseline? How long should it take? Is that even a good reason to be angry? I encourage you to go back to page 30 and read Lethaface's comment about the holy trinity of quality, budget and time (seriously, comment of the year, everyone needs to read it). The TLDR is that the commitment to quality means that they need to be flexible with time. If their commitment was to time, then either budget or quality would need to be flexible. I know I play Combat Mission because it is an extremely high quality game series. You may be angry that it takes them a long time to develop a product (again though, does it? compared to what?). But I know I would be absolutely furious if they started compromising on quality in order to crank products out faster.
I can't see behind the scenes, so I don't actually know exactly when their team starts development for a specific product. It looks to me like ~2-3 years may be about the normal development time for a Combat Mission base game or module. So, is that a long time? We'd need some sort of baseline in order to answer that question. Certainly Combat Mission is more detailed than most games. But a good starting point might be to ask how long it normally takes to develop a video game. And isn't game development normally measured in years? If a game came out after only 6 months of development wouldn't that be considered a blisteringly fast pace?
Edit: And I know that Yahtzee Croshaw developed 12 games in 12 months. But first, those were extremely small games, and second, the man was on the verge of a nervous breakdown by the time he finished.

The major difference is who those Ukrainians are and how they see themselves.  DNR and LNR saw themselves as Russian before this war and were fine with supporting Russian occupation since 2014.  This is why we saw nearly 40k sign up from these regions to fight (and die).  There has been very limited resistant in the pre-2022 occupied regions.  
We have seen partisan resistance in the newly occupied regions from day 1 (see ISW maps).  I have no doubt some Ukrainians have been pushed into service in these regions, no one has posted estimates but given the Russian way of war it is no doubt a certainty.  However, even if Russia takes over all Ukraine (which it won’t), it does not immediately gain a 40M manpower pool to draw from.  And those that it does force into service make pretty much the worst types of troops to roll into an offensive operation in the Baltics.  
The idea that hardened and western trained UA are going to roll over en masse is extremely dubious.  First off, Clausewitz missed an extremely important principle - largely because he was focused solely on the macro level - all war is personal.  Battle hardened troops in the UA would likely leave Ukraine and try to form resistance groups to go back into Ukraine (and we would support them).  Why?  Because having family and friends killed by Russia is something a human being does not forget easily.  Veteran units would dissolve entirely or reform into resistance.  The Ukrainian government would likely form in absentia in another state - we know this because it was offered at the beginning of this war.
So, sure the RA is going to push cannon fodder where it can but it also has to managed a newly acquired territory filled with really PO’d people who were armed to the teeth by the west over 2 years.  So the ideas that complete UA formations will simply re-roll and spearhead an invasion of Baltics states is frankly nonsense.  LNR and DPR clearly are not on aboard with the rest of Ukraine with respect to the Russian question, and frankly neither is Crimea.  This was a potential problem we discussed at length in the event they were liberated and re-taken by Ukraine.  The situation could be reversed with veterans who fought for Russia now making up an insurgency supported by Russia across the border.
Comparisons with the Germans and occupied region formations during WW2 are not well aligned. In many cases people joined up with the Germans to fight the Soviet Union who had been more oppressive than the German regime - we had one in Parliament last year (whoops).  These divisions were rarely (and I am struggling to find an example) fully formed and simply switched sides.  For them war as personal against the Allies, Soviet Union and Stalin in particular.  Others were driven by colonial and local impulses, such as the Balkans who really did not care who they worked for so long as they got to kill the right neighbour.
Regardless, the entire conversation while interesting is never going to see the light of day in reality.  Or at least it is going to take major strategic and political shifts.  If NATO were to fall apart and withdrew from the Baltic states in ten years, well we have a new game.  Russia is not going to “win” this war unless the west not only withdraws support but pretty much works against Ukraine - which makes little sense.  And Russia gets a major inject from China, that frankly in this context would also not make any sense for them.  My sense is that unless the UA can break this deadlock, somehow, (and more traditional conventional hardware is likely not going to do it) we are looking at a Korean Peninsula situation.
But this is not over yet. Russia has demonstrated a baffling ability to engineer its own defeats, so let’s not write this one as over just yet.  There will likely be a 2024 offensive.  As I have mentioned several times war is an exercise in competitive learning as much as it is anything else.  We will see if the UA has figured this puzzle out.  If they can break the Russian defensive line and break out, well all bets are off.

Would that be standing looking down drain or up?

Damn good 23rd post. The frozen conflict scenario has been discussed here: think Korea.  The idea that there is simply no way to break the lines and regain offensive primacy has been brought up many times.  The picture you paint is quite accurate.
However, all war is negotiation.  In order to stop this war, both sides need to be ready to stop.  It is plausible that with enough backroom pressure Ukraine could be convinced to stop this thing pretty much where it is.  The problem, not surprisingly, is Russia.  The Putin regime is riding on this dumpster fire.  Hell, his life and those of his cronies are likely riding on this thing.  Convincing Putin to stop and draw new lines is the problem.  Technically we cannot even incentivize this as the man and most of his admin are labeled as war criminals.  We cannot renormalize while he (and they) remain in power.
Subversive wheeling and dealing has and likely is occurring in the backfield.  However, as we saw with Saddam, one thing paranoid autocrats are exceptionally good at is shoring up the store.  They have intel everywhere and make people disappear who even have a whiff of disloyalty - recall the flying oligarchs of the last two years.  
So what will it take to bring Russia to the table at this point?  A freakin military coup.  The RA would need to collapse to the point it turns on Putin.  That may force him from office and we are looking at “can we bargain with the next SOB?  “Is the next SOB clean enough?”  Of course if the RA collapses, Ukraine will want to push to take more ground.  Recall that this time last year Ukraine had retaken both Kharkiv and Kherson - those were major operational victories.  The hope was that they could repeat the same method this summer.  But apparently even on the high tech battlefield, mines still work.  In fact with UAS minefields work even better.
So here we are.  Ukraine will likely be pushed into defence until someone can figure out a Plan B.  RA will keep smashing itself onto that because Putin needs to show that he is “winning” to stay alive.  Even offering the war criminal peace talks would be nothing but a sham at this point.  Hell it would lend legitimacy to their actions.  As a min, Russia would demand international recognition that they own what they took, including Crimea and Donbas.
I guess the main reason we have not gone deeply into a peace process is because frankly an RA military collapse is more viable than trying establish one.

Ok, lets put all the rest of that uncited nonsense to the side.  I mean your theory of us "pushing" Ukraine into this war is frankly breathtakingly obtuse and directly from the red-hat camp.  I mean after this you can go back to whatever conspiracy websites you call home.
But let's just pull on this one singular thread.  So for once, I am calling on you...the kevinkin replacement we seem to get in various versions on this forum to actually prove your point beyond your own keyboard.  You state opinion like it was fact and frankly are spewing pro-Putin lines as though they are gospel.
"How is Ukraine losing this war?"  "How is Russia winning it?"  Feel free cite MacGregor.  Your position is that Ukraine has somehow "lost" by not achieving goals set out in the Summer '23 offensive.  What were those goals?  How do those goals determine the outcome of the war?
The Ukrainian military has already won this war.  Unlike whatever HBO/Hollywood narratives you subscribe to, wars rarely end in totals.  Victory parades and Johnny marching home.  The end somewhere in the middle.  In this case we have outlined repeatedly how Russia totally failed to achieve both their stated strategic objectives, and their most likely true ones.  Ukraine has achieved it major strategic objective...it still exists and is able to resist.  It retook roughly the same area of land as the size of freakin Ireland from what was supposed to be the second largest army in the world.
The Russian military is in tatters.  Blown all to hell.  They are still twitching but until I see an actual RA offensive that does not look like glorified leg humping, they are basically only good for holding the line.  NATO got Finland and will get Sweden.  Ukraine is in talks to join the EU.
So basically the Macgregor crowd - of which I am placing you - are now crowing because the UA was unable to re-take back those last few acres of the strategic corridor.  That is not only incredibly sh#tty given the loses they took in that effort, it is desperately trying to rejuvenate a broken narrative.  This war could freeze right where it is.  Ukraine could become like Korea, split.  And history will judge this a major Ukrainian victory.  
Actually, change that.  Don't even bother to try and prove your point because I already know what you are going to say- I have heard it a dozen times over now.  "Ukraine lost (yay!), we were right all along about US isolationism and the world will be such a better place if we stayed out of it altogether.  Oh and look who is blocking funding to Ukraine to keep them in the fight and then blaming everyone else because 'they are losing the war'"
Ok, we are done here...ignore.  

"So, Zelensky, now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb."

No matter how ****ty the situation is in my country. I still believe in you guys. I believe that GOOD WILL STILL VICTORY EVIL. (even if the Russians capture my country 😔)

Unfortunately, this concept isn’t new. My Father was severely injured while in the U.S.M.C. during WWII. His left leg was crushed from the hip to the ankle when a vehicle he was driving rolled over to the left, which threw his leg out and under it. My Grandparents received the telegram “We regret to inform you ….” He spent two years in the hospital, where they get him addicted to Morphine, which he had to kick. The U.S.M.C. discharged him on a medical discharge as a “Ruptured Duck” because his left leg was put back together with rods, pins, plates, and screws, and was 1 and 1/2 inches shorter than his right leg. He continued to work for the rest of his life as a fisherman, lobsterman, automotive body repair, and a Master Plumber. When he tried to get the U.S.M.C. to up his pension from 60 or 70% disabled to 100% disabled, they refused stating that they would up it when he couldn’t work anymore.

That's almost as good as equipping airmobile brigades with AeroGavin:

 
 
 

Pal, sometime when I read your last posts I recall Denetor, who looked at palantir during a siege of Minas-Tirith %) Of course, we had very hard year and broken hopes, but I not shure that all go to complete bad scenario. What I fully agree - when Russia asks "Iran, give me 1000 Shakeds!", Iran answers "here you are!", when Russian asks N.Korea "Kim, give me 10000000 shells", N.Korea (China) answers "Here you are". But when Ukraine asks "Allies! Give me... Patriots, Leos, Abrams, shells" aliies answer "well, we will support you till the end! But... we need to gather Ramstein through two months, conduct discussions, discuss all pro- and contra... And memento escalation of course" 
And only small Denmark silently says "Psss... I heard you need arty? We have some cool stuff. Take all wahat we have. We anyway will not make war with Norway or Germany"

Zeleban is not a Russian troll. I have been following his posts for over a year and he seems like a really honest guy who just says what he thinks. I do not agree with a few things he said in the last few pages but in the grand scheme of things lets not forget he is actually living in Ukraine right now.
He sees this war in a way us who just follow it on the Internet cannot, so lets give him a break for passionately voicing his opinions even if we do not agree with some of those opinions.

I did 20+ years in the US Army. I went to Desert Storm and did 2 tours in Iraq. You have no idea at all about our professionalism and our capabilities. You know even less about Americans and what we will or will not fight for. Drop this stupid argument, and let's get back on topic.

Oh boy, here we go:
 

On one fine day, I was concussed when an enemy shell exploded literally a meter from a hole into which I jumped at the last moment. Then another stone flew into my ribs and I thought with relief that now I was wounded and would go to rest.
              But it was just a stone, and all I got was a very bad headache for the next few months. When the very active phase of the assault ended, the service was established, then I finally transferred to Petrichenko's gang to fly the Mavic. How it was and what it cost is a separate story.
              It was there that we encountered the moment when the enemy left Kherson. Yes, the enemy left in November. But in my opinion, these were the first steps towards them leaving. In the next thread, I will tell how they left, how we entered the villages, how I climbed the enemy's positions and how I almost died.
              Were there any wild moments? So. Were there any problems? So. But let me tell you about them after the war. Not to go storming Pisky now.
 
 

It is very interesting how a former intelligence officer, while in prison, managed to organize and carry out one of the most complex operations of our time. Despite the fact that he had only a few childishly naive failed operations.

Indeed everyone wants their new toys rather earlier than later. And when one has ordered them, almost all humans can be diagnosticised with the 'when is it ready/is it there yet?' syndrom. Some jobs role is basically to perform this role (PM ;-)).
Orwell called it 'time neurosis'.
Since time is relative, 'slow' is also relative. Some companies/games might come with updates every week/month. Some people will still call that slow. Other games might come with updates on a yearly/longer basis. One can find that slow on the 'expecting' side, those on the 'producing' side might disagree.
Then we also have different preferences for news updates.
I think Steve and BFC have commented very often in the past that they are weary of communicating news, as almost any communication will create expectancy, which will then have to be managed. They could probably hire a communications manager who's job it would be to update the community about ongoing stuff.
However, that in itself wouldn't do anything in the sense of 'faster' game development or releases. Instead it would probably be slower because the communication manager would need to be informed about progress on a regular basis. It would also soup up some of the budget now allocated towards development.
Give or take, that's how I understand BFC's hussle and I'm fine with it personally. Of course it is also fine if others would desire more information or more and faster releases, and post about that. 
I don't think things will change because of that. We can also ponder about the question whether it would be a good idea for BFC to grow by a large amount, potentially increasing development capacity and more releases in shorter time. That is one option, the other option is the risk that the extra releases don't offset against the extra costs and is a real potential business risk.
I think the ones best to make that decision is people inside the business themselves, because they have the knowledge. It's also their decision.
But yeah I'd also like to see game engine 5 rather sooner than later, or CM3 for that matter. SO, WHEN IS IT READY!!???