IMHO

I guess he might have the same iGPU/dGPU selection issue as I do. One does not really need even 10xx to run the game - the problem is the engine chooses to employ iGPU sometimes despite all the system settings and having a better dGPU to use  @IanL

IMO you mix up duration and how advanced an opponent might be. I.e. Afghanistan "caveman" War is the longest War in American history. Can you provide examples of such "cavemen only" systems? IMO almost all American systems would fit easily a near-peer war. Except may be for Super Tucanos but they are quite rare. IMO the state of things are quite the opposite and America's using very advanced and expensive systems designed for a near-peer conflict to fight "cavemen" whereas much cheaper systems will suffice.

Well... Last time I checked it can be interrupted in CMBS at least  I mean looking in the wrong departments really  In CMBS (and as far as I remember in CMSF2 as well) an ATGM targeting may well be interrupted by a quick response at least from a tank gun. Actually for CMBS that's one of the main problems - tanks react (I believe) unrealistically too promptly even to FaF missiles. So digging up for differences in ATGM speeds is kind of... misplaced endeavours I believe 

@MikeyD
IRL it suck at 500m  The RL range ends at 300m - just a notch above RPG-7. That was the main reason for the switch to 30mm high velocity gun for BMP-2, if anyone can call Russian 30x163mm a really high velocity gun  They tried an upgraded Zarnitsa 73mm gun but despite a heavy lobbying the performance spoke of itself.

This is the song.
I'll add this link to the video description as it looks like YouTube did not do it automatically for some reason. It did on the unlisted version. 

This is something I threw together in my own time. Please remember that this is from a beta build of the game and is subject to change. 

Note to the design team: be sure to get plenty of pornstaches on both armies. And sideburns! the Seventies weren't as 'high and tight' as it got by the Top Gun era. Oh yes, and reflector aviators.

Well, first, response times for the US demonstrate a level of integration beyond earlier titles.  Second, tac aviation’s ability to fire ATGMs puts air support in a different league.  Finally, ICM by air is not only deadly but smarter than artillery support.  The AD calculus requires deeper integration of the all arms team as well.  About the only thing not simulated is the Deep Battle aspects but those can be simulated in a campaign as operational effects.

A little bit from the other side:
 

So, what will you listen to while you'll be racking your brain over your pixeltruppen's life?
A bit anachronistic given the time frame, but to me it will be Nena's 99 Luftballons.


 

Very cool. I am glad to hear that. As a teenager in the 80s there was a time when I was not so sure that our leaders nor the Soviet ones understood that. As I got older I came to realize they probably did - a big relief. I am glad to hear more confirmation that it was the case.
 
Yeah, I am constantly amazed (but not really : - ) how much press "leaked" plans like this get. I don't mean old Soviet plans I mean in general. I am quite sure the Canadian Forces have plans that many people would freak out over and they aren't exactly a super power force. Every time I read stories about contingencies plans I say everyone chill out. Armies are supposed to plan for all kinds of scenarios. What matters is what our political leaders think and do.

And how both of them think they will kick the other's a$$.  This is a pretty good AAR in my view, just a shame that Bil's and the Capt's threads are getting derailed by protracted and sometimes arcane discussions about weapon performance.

I thought the Kuwait War was clear enough as opposed to the Iraq War, but perhaps my dislike of naming them First and Second Gulf Wars got the better of me.

Bigger UAV - Gray Eagle (?)


 
 

Tanks at the hamlet on the right flank feel just fine. So you can try to move your formidable tank force on the right flank all the way to the Soviet hill and go up a bit. At least on Google Earth and original Weyhers topo there's a covered ravine one can use. And up the Soviet hill you may find a position that both dominates from above direct avenues of attack on the town over the center yet stays untouchable to Soviet armor at their current positions up the hill. Soviets will be vulnerable to flanking fire if they move directly. And should they try to go over the hill to dislodge you from above they will be clearly seen both against the skyline for your tanks below, and being on the move they will have a disadvantage in spotting to your TOW guys. Easy kills IMO.

Khruschev was deposed in no small part due to the fright and consternation he made Politburo to go through with Cuban Missile Crisis. They honestly believed he was too unpredictable to lead a nuclear power. Actually the guy at the university was very knowledgeable about this event. Being a personal friend of both Castro brothers, the Spanish translator most favored by Khruschev and even being the very station officer who personally interviewed Lee Harvey Osvald when he dropped by the Russian Embassy in Mexico complaining he was being followed the guy was extremely interesting person to speak with.

Tanks at the hamlet on the right flank feel just fine. So you can try to move your formidable tank force on the right flank all the way to the Soviet hill and go up a bit. At least on Google Earth and original Weyhers topo there's a covered ravine one can use. And up the Soviet hill you may find a position that both dominates from above direct avenues of attack on the town over the center yet stays untouchable to Soviet armor at their current positions up the hill. Soviets will be vulnerable to flanking fire if they move directly. And should they try to go over the hill to dislodge you from above they will be clearly seen both against the skyline for your tanks below, and being on the move they will have a disadvantage in spotting to your TOW guys. Easy kills IMO.

@Rice I'll try to find. But here's the excerp from the BMP-1 technical description

It says:
"Ports for mounted element to fire small arms: PK MGs - 2, AK assault rifles - 7"

@Rice I'll try to find. But here's the excerp from the BMP-1 technical description

It says:
"Ports for mounted element to fire small arms: PK MGs - 2, AK assault rifles - 7"

March to Glorious Victory Post Number One.
  So Bil and I have a loose-agreement (I would say gentlemen's but that is probably a stretch) to not peek at each others threads.  The dirty truth here is that this isn't really an AAR per se, it is more of an IAR (In Action Report).  Full disclosure, we are only about 6 mins into the thing, so I can't really put a spin on my plan or anything because I have no idea how this will end.  So far so good  but we are in early days.  We should start posting turn summaries tomorrow but for now may I present an end-product of about roughly 32 years of military training in both line and staff positions...The_Capt's glorious Mission Analysis!  
So here we are on this grubby little peice of West German real-estate (seriously, Pete Wenman is a freakin wizard with these maps btw) facing off against what I am sure are overfed, overpaid and over-entitled Yankee capitalists all huddled in their vehicles waiting for something to happen.  So like they taught me back in the day..let's start with terrain:

So my guys are coming from the bottom, Bil and his jerks are up near the top.  I have a bunch of woods except for this defile behind a hwy bridge that I have to deploy my main force out of.  We have a big valley between us and the town of Dollbach in the center which is the golden goose we are both lining up to grab, whilst killing the other guy.  Not much to see on my map edge except a bunch of woods with some dirt roads cut through them.  
Bil has the high ground ridge up there and there are three major wooded areas that him and his ilk are no doubt hiding out in.  It is more one on the left but pretty much that approach along with the Valley is dominated by Bil's thugs.  In short, this is not an optimal starting position.
Bil's Plan.  So I have learned some time ago that you are not fighting vehicles and equipment, you are fighting a person (Capt's rule #1).  So spend time understanding and getting inside the head of that person.  With Bil it is easy because we have been sparring in CM for just about 2 decades now.  So here is what I am thinking, that Bil is thinking:

So Bil is probably going to be cautious and build a nice path to victory here.  First he is going to put out Eyes in those woodlines, then he will reinforce with teeth because why stick his neck out if he does not have to?  Then once I have watered the West German countryside with my blood (and other fluids) he will make his reach for Dollbach (Hands...dirty, old, wrinkly hands with yellow fingernails).  I will be at a significant disadvantage at this point because I will be dead, and you do not fight so well when dead (Capt's rule #2).  So my role here is to play peeky snipey from a really crappy position with Soviet gear that does not see as well as his sexy US optics...hmm...Capt no-likey, no likey...one bit.  So now the Plan:

My end goal is to make Bil more dead than me, not to get heavily invested in the West German real estate market.  So we are going to try something simple and blunt.  First, I will get Eyes on my woodline, gotta see what I can see (Capt's Rule #3).  Then I am going to put out hands...fingers really, to make it look like the land grab is my only game.  Then once my art start dropping (could be wait here cause he has EW turned on), I am going to bull rush that corridor and swing up into those hills to kill Bil (Teeth).  This is going to be tricky and I am going to take losses but I can afford them.  I get a MIC FSE in 5 and another Tank Coy-ish in 10, so I will have mass because I am betting the best he has is an Armd Cav platoon, maybe two.  So basically we will play Bil's snipey peeky game for a bit, push recon out into that town to make me look desperate and then freakin charge on the left.  Questions?
 

So welcome to our Beta AAR.  Introductions, I am The_Capt...hello.  Some old timers may remember me from back in the day but for the newbies (and hopefully there are a lot of you) I am the Simon to Bil's Garfunkel.  While Bil is detailed, deliberate and cool all resting on a foundation of real talent; I am erratic, insecure and hot-headed resting on very occasional unpredictable sparks.  Between the two of us we try to make wonderful music.
So first the obvious, what is CM Cold War and where did it come from?  Well the game is our brainchild, not that it took a serious leap of imagination as people had been talking about a Cold War game for years.  Bil and I had been looking for a title to cut our designer-teeth on for years as well, and after a few false starts we approached BFC with the idea about 7-8 years ago, to which Steve sagely looked at two complete amateurs and said "uh, sure...why don't you guys go pull some stuff together and we will do lunch".  So we did up all the boring and work-like stuff most of you never see; project documents, historical research, backstories, TO&Es (pouring over things like Senate Arms Committee records and back issues of the US Army magazines), and campaign designs.  Once we did all this we came back to Steve like proud children that had just performed surgery on the family cat.  Steve's eyes went a little wider and very Bruce Willis-like said, "ok let's give these kids a shot".  I am pretty sure we were to remain a weird side project in the basement - that is where the older Beta Testers go in the end - but last year things accelerated and we found ourselves suddenly thrust into the rock and roll lifestyle of computer wargame designers...without the groupies, cocaine or leather pants.
So with a very small team, a tight timeline and another look from Steve that was somewhere between "ya, there is no way these guys are going to make it" and "but if they do...?" (seriously, support from the BFC guys has been outstanding) we started the journey.  So when you play the game on release (it is no secret we are on track for Apr, after Easter) you know who to curse when something either does not look quite right or you are getting beat up on a campaign (the Soviet one is particularly brutal).  If you love the game, praise the entire team, if you are angry that the Soviet officer holster does not look right, feel free to vent at either Bil or I, mostly Bil.
Onto the AAR.  Ok in the proudest tradition of this thing, Bil will wow you all with dazzling intelligence products that would make an ASIC weep.  I, on the other hand, prefer a  more tactile and coffee-stained approach...I also tend to lose these fights.  This map comes from the US campaign, a scenario called Dollbach Heights, but do not worry the scenario is completely different so no spoilers.  This whole thing is occurring in the backdrop of a Cold War-gone-hot strategic situation set in summer of 1982, which may seem quaint today but back in '83 we actually came pretty close.  The Soviets are basically making a break for the Rhine as fast as possible before reserves can be called up and fly-overs conducted.  The US forces are the tripwire forces of V Corp with units like the 11 ACR and 3rd Armd Div (for this AAR we do not assign particular units) as the game centers on the Fulda corridor (between the West German border and Frankfurt).  So the strategic game is simple, Soviets have to move fast as possible to get in close to the major urban areas, knock France out and put the UK into close range.  The bet back in Moscow is that at this point NATO will fracture as half of them sue for peace...we will see how that works out.
A couple points on force balance and doctrine.  So this is 1980, the beginning of a vapid and synthesizer-infested decade (trust me I was there). The US forces are still recovering from the entire Vietnam experience.  Goldwater-Nicols has not happened so we are still talking about conventional service competition in the US military, which was unhealthy (still is) and a US Army that was slowly coming out of the old ROADs models and heading towards AirLand Battle.  The TO&Es are based on the '77 force structures (you will note US tank platoons have 5 tanks).  The "so what?" is that US forces are pretty much at their most vulnerable point in this era.  They lack mass and are moving to active defense and maneuver warfare but the equipment has not caught up.  It is going to feel weird to some but this is a modern (well semi-modern) title where US forces do not dominate the battlefield.  They have to be played carefully to achieve parity.  For example the T62 can kill an M60A3 in the front from about 1500m, so the US player must be elegant and clever...like the gentle fox.
The Soviets on the other hand are the bear that eats said gentle fox and then poops him out, barely breaking stride.  The Soviets at this point are pretty much near the top of their game.  Their equipment is solid, if a little blind, and they have mountains of it. Soviet operational doctrine is actually very good, it uses mass much like it did in WW2, and frankly Genghis would be proud at how well the Soviet can throw MRRs at a problem and simply keep going.  The T64 is a beast, probably the best Soviet tank in the game (particularly the B versions), the T80 can throw a punch too.  The Soviet use of ATGM is frankly terrifying.  First, they literally put those things on just about everything, and the AT 5 feels like the modern day Javelin in that, if it can hit, it will kill.  In testing one scenario of the US Campaign, I played sloppy and watched an BMP MRB shred all the US armor in about 5 mins...so there is that.   
At a tactical level the Soviet are all about lining up the punch.  They were not mindless hordes, they would prepare and shape with recon but when they decided to throw that punch...oh, my.  First they would drop the sky on top of you using massed artillery.  Then they would advance en masse  along multiple axis projecting dilemma everywhere for an opponent.  They would then trade shots until your armor is gone and finally they might dismount and clean up any poor infantry you have left.  I say 'might' because they would often simply bypass those huddle GIs and just keep going.
So for this AAR, I will try to emulate the soviet approach as much as possible.  Stay tuned and see how it turns out.       

March to Glorious Victory Post #2 - When Bourgeoisies Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (1-4 mins)
So we are off.  On map, I have a Recon Company of the finest young men that the Soviet Union has ever produced.  Given my relatively crappy position the good news is that there are a lot of trails and cutline so I have room to spread this Coy out and take a wide - EYES (wink, wink) stance.  This shot of initial setup turn one from Bil's (soon to be my) side:

You will note that I am going to leave my tank platoon back, saving it for the big push.
Then in the second minute I immediately see that decrepit old goats little ploy:
 
Oh Bil, you dirty capitalist dotard!!  Yep, he knows that Soviet troops do not do so well in smoke, while a lot of his units have fancy sights etc.  Next turn the smoke continues to build:

So this was turn three and by now, I am all along that tree line, playing the role of the Sneaky Pete, while Bill continues to pollute the planet.  S'ok, my tanks are still back and I have a screen of BMPs out there playing silly buggers.  Turn 4:

First shot, you can see my recon squads, already dismounted and starting to push out across the open area.  They are dead men already but they play their part.  My FOs are already laying in this nice red lines in my brilliant plan, but it is going to take a looong time for that to drop (18mins for big guns...thank you EW).
Second shot:

And there on a hill, through the smoke is a suspected contact, probably a TOW, which means it can see through the smoke like the world sees through the corrupt Yankee economic system.  That's it Bil, up on your hill....feeling so safe and superior...I can hear him whispering "come to me...come to Dollbach"...oh we are coming alright....
 
 

March to Glorious Victory Post #3 - Clausewitz was a Chump (min 5-7)
  From the title I think you can gather that I am not an enormous fan of good old Uncle Carl.  It isn't that he is totally wrong, it is the fact that he is only half right.  I get that we are all products of our time and station in life and Carl was a Prussian aristocrat in the early 19th century, so his views of the world and warfare reflect that.  It is what he missed as he tries to package something as deep and fundamental as warfare into a nice tight (and very German) manual. 
   War is an extension of policy, governed by government, fueled by a well-behaved public and executed in glorious isolation by a professional military, really only says one thing...war is a rational exercise.  It may have irrationality in its guts but those error bars (i.e. friction etc) are still governed by logic and over-arching structure.   I am with John Keegan on this one...Carl gets the theory of the mechanics but misses the entire point.
   War is emotional, it is cultural and it is very irrational.  To the point very few animals in nature engage in the type of warfare we are capable of conducting (ants actually...really interesting).  "Uh, so what The _Capt?".  Well you can see it in this battle I am having with Bil.  On one hand I can see that there is a rational/logical construct at play here...on the other I am beginning to loathe this withered old crone...as he stares across the field at me through those milky old eyes.
   The_Capt's personal definition of warfare: "a collision of irreconcilable envisioned realities, as all parties negotiate with an unwritten future".  War's function is three main components: communication, negotiation and sacrifice.  So I ask myself:  what am I communicating through my violence?  What is my opponent willing to give and take?  What am I willing to lose?
  I would ask that you all keep this in mind as we proceed...I know I will.  So here we are at turns 5 through 7.
Turn 5, was pretty uneventful, except for one Cpl Shnookskov who died in the service of his country as the Sneaky Peeky portion of Bil's plan begins to unfold.

We are down a recon BMP, but I am advancing recon squads forward as per the "hey look Bil, I really care about having schnitzel tonight!"

Turn 6 and the crew shows up.  BTW in-game we have various models that reflect both Soviet and US organizational doctrine.  This is a purchasable Forward Security Element:

So my job here is to get these guy in position to be TEETH without Bil pounding them into scrap metal,   You will note I already have my MANPADs dismounted...for all Soviet player I highly suggest you do this as early as possible.
Turn 7 and I see Bils plan begin to emerge.
So 
So there is an M60 up there plinking away at my Recon screen, or at least one I can see.  On this turn they managed to ping yet another BMP on my left, I am jockeying  the remainder to at least make it look like I am trying.  So my real issue now is all about timing.  

I have another Coy of tanks on the way but I know Bil has forces on the way too.  So do I go now, or wait?  My arty is still 10 mins out on the upper line and it is 16 min out on the outskirts of Dollbach....hmm.
  

Uh, ok...not sure this is better but hey, each to their own.