Jotte

Getting hyped for BAOR
 

Thank You, @Jotte
 
That did the trick - I used CMFI as a test, reg'ed the game and after a reload the Slitherin page the steam key appeared 🙂
 
Best regards
Morten

Where can I pre-order Steve 😉?

+1 for that, Steve. 

Please add me to the list. This sounds amazing! 😀

From FM 7-20:
2-7. COMMANDER'S INTENT
The commander's intent drives mission tactics. It is the commander's stated vision, which defines the purpose of the operation and the end state with respect to the relationship among the force, the enemy, and the terrain. It should also include how this end state will support future operations. (Appendix A shows how the commander's intent is integrated into the OPORD.)
a. The overall purpose of the mission is more important than the individual assigned tasks. Each subordinate commander must know why and how his assigned tasks relate to the overall concept of the operation. Then, if the situation changes and contact with higher headquarters is lost, the subordinate can use his initiative to achieve the desired end results.
b. The battalion commander has a dual responsibility. He must understand the intent of the brigade and division commanders (two levels up) and must ensure his intent is understood at company and platoon levels (two levels down). The commander's intent paragraph in the OPORD should begin with the words, "My intent is..." so it can be understood and relayed to subordinates easily.
c. A clear commander's intent enhances agility, timing, and initiative at all levels. It helps in shifting the main effort on a fluid battlefield.

Yesssss! My dream was confronting the Red Horde with a troop of Chieftains, partly because they're cool but also because they fit my lethargic playing style. And now it's coming true! 
The Canadians are a nice bonus. I assume they're bringing their Centurions and their own accent(s) for the speech pack.

I appreciate your assumption that we'll get another timeline expansion back to 1972 when the German forces come out
A little extension to the timeline with every module would be pretty nice. For my part I would like to see some oscillation, with it expanding backwards every other module and forwards every other module. So for this first module we are going back to 1976, perhaps for the next one we can go forwards to 1985, and then back to 1972, then forwards to 1989, then back to the 1967. I am eager to see both earlier and later stuff. From 84mm armed Centurions, the Conqueror, and M48A3 to the M1A1, Leo2A4 and T80U. Although that many modules may be a bit optimistic.
Yes people are complaining that late 80s would be a repeat of CMSF. But for one thing I'm not sure that's the worst thing in the world (first, because it would be balanced by earlier content in which the Soviets have more of an edge (and you can always play as the Soviets in the later period if you think things are getting too easy (I know I enjoy taking a bit of a beating from time to time)), second because CMSF is my second favorite title after CMCW), and for another I'm not really sure it would be so one-sided. Sure the Americans have the M1A1 Abrams, which is a lot tougher than the M1 Abrams we got in 1982, but the Soviets have the T80U, and the Americans don't have the Javelin yet (still have to make do with the Dragon). And ultimately, just how CMSFy the late 80s would be is one of the things I'm very curious to find out.

I can help: I was around 12 in the 80s when my father was serving near Frankfurt, so I have expertise in the French army. Also remember the Canadians because we did our food shopping in their stores. I propose myself as artistic director with my in-depth knowledge as shown by this drawing drawn from my childhood memories:

We definitely have plans for the Red team but are keeping those close to our chest for now. Gotta leave something for the build up.

Well that is a loaded question to be honest.  Bil H will no doubt chime in but a few factors came into play as I recall:
- Resources.  We can take a really good shot at BAOR and not cripple ourselves in development for years - along with the other BFC titles.  The core team is pretty small and we were looking for a quick, but solid, follow up to the main game.  Germany would have been a lot more work, as would  any other NATO nations, and the French were just a non-starter.  Those modules will take much longer, particularly in vehicle modelling and artwork.  BAOR had a lot of new vehicle models but much more manageable in the timelines for a first DLC.
- Locale.  The Northern Plain was actually where the most likely Soviet Main effort was going to fall.  Hate to admit it but Fulda was a bit of a sideshow in the overall Soviet plan.  It made sense game wise simply because the largest market for the game is the US, and we had a lot of details on this fight - US research is a dream as they put everything out there, Canadians are a nightmare.  That said we really wanted to do the northern plains from the start and historically that is BAOR or the Germans.
- Expertise.  We had experts on both UK and Canadian orbats right out the gate, which made research a lot easier.  I joined in 1988 and had a lot of my old battlebox stuff to pull from and some old timers I still know from up the day.  On the UK side we had similar expertise.
- Timeframe.  Late 70s, early 80s is really the “tipping point” of the Cold War.  It was when the doctrine and equipment of both sides was pretty balanced, each offsetting the others strengths and weaknesses.  Before this you get the nuclear armies, which were just nuts. And after you get the  western advantage leaning into overmatch and then we start to look a lot like CMSF or BS.
- Straight up cool factor.  So how would the UK done against the Soviets?  Canadians are fun because they mix European and US kit.  You wanna know how a squadron of Leo’s would have done…well let’s find out.  Not saying the other nations are not interesting but when you add everything up it just made more sense to do BAOR next and they would be fun to play.
As to “how will they play”…totally honest…no freakin idea.  We also had no idea on the main game.  It wasn’t until I played those first few scenarios while we were early in did we see that we were onto something.  BFC doesn’t balance for gameplay or market. They literally plug in the data from research and then throw it at each other in game. The balance is almost entirely emergent.  When we do up scenarios and campaigns there is always a level of balancing that goes on but this is macro stuff like force size and enablers.  For CMCW we were amazed at how little balancing we had to do. I designed the campaigns and scenarios based on doctrine on both sides and basically how they would have gone into a fight with each other.  The fact that these led to tightly balanced fights that require deep understanding of what each side can do was all pretty much emergent design.

Cold Warriors.
  Well it looks like Steve has already dropped the mic over on the annual update thread, so let myself, Bil H and Cpt Miller (along with a small team of unwashed heathens - two of whom are actually from the UK), be the second to announce the first CMCW Module - CMCW - British Army On the Rhine (BAOR).

We are still in development so I will only outline the broad strokes of what we are working on, and insert the caveat that we reserve the right to add/subtract - 
 - Time frame of the game is going deeper backwards into the Cold War.  We are setting the clock back to 1976, so CMCW will now encompass 1976-1982 (including some minor tweaks to the existing US orbats).  As has been noted we are less interested in the later Cold War years largely because they really do start to resemble the later CM titles and we are shooting to keep CMCW distinct in its own right.
- UK BOAR - right now we have a pretty comprehensive build planned for the UK units as they transitioned from their 1974 structures - to where they landed in 1980.  As per the picture above players should be able to become deeply engaged within the historical BAOR sector of the ETO.
- And because I just have to represent the home team, we are also doing the Canadians.  That little black box is the planned 4 CMBG AO - you will note this was right at the tail end when the brigade was still part of the BAOR, although for those that really want to play First Clash and park them down in Lahr you are fee to do so because the basic unit structures remained the same.
- We do have plans for the Soviet side, but are going to hold off on details until we zero them fully in...more to follow. 
- I will let you all speculate and discuss what new vehicles and weapon systems we are talking about but there is a not insignificant list of new ones we are planning - more as we start to get some cool screen shots.  
As noted by Steve, we are well on our way and are planning for a release this year - content and full scope remains TBA.
Thank you all very much for your support, the response to CMCW has been well beyond what we were expecting and that is entirely thanks to you guys.

Love seeing Cold War get more videos, especially ones of such high quality. Loved the combination of graphics (really well done by the way) gameplay and commentary! I'll echo others in saying that Free Whiskey continues to raise his own bar with each video he releases. Just really well done stuff. Plus, I appreciated the short clip from my tactical doctrine training scenarios of the T-64s all firing on line. Great shot! The commentary from Dom is great as well! Very informative, clear, and well spoken. A fantastic overview of the fundamentals of Soviet tactical doctrine. I can see this video along with the one Hapless did a year ago being go to shares for any newcomers asking about the basics of how the Soviets should fight. 
Honestly one of the most satisfying things I have seen from Cold War is how much intelligent discussion it has generated. Talking about concepts such as Soviet doctrine, US Active Defense and AirLand Battle, higher level stuff, tactical intricacies, etc. Its all been great to see. Dare I say that CMCW might be the high brow CM title.

Yes.

From the description:
Wouldn't it be better described as fictional near past instead? 🙃

Sounds like someone needs to do a bit more urban recon by fire... 

After a conversation with @John Kettler in another thread, I though it would be worthwhile to condense some of the various document exchange threads into one big post. That way we can all pop back over here to check a reference, rather than say "oh I think in that thread a month ago somebody post x." I think sharing these documents is a cool and fun way to connect to the time period, plus who knows maybe somebody will post something that will help the CMCW team develop a better game. And in as an entirely selfish reason, as a researcher in this exact period I appreciate a lot of the documents you all post. A lot of you find things I have never seen and which will definitely make it into my dissertation. So maybe this thread can become a sort of reference desk. [Mods: if the thread is inappropriate I can also delete it]
Foundational documents:
FM 100-5 (1976) aka Active Defense: https://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p4013coll9/id/972
FM 100-5 (1982) aka AirLand Battle: https://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p4013coll9/id/976
FM 100-5 (1986) aka We ran out of clever names: https://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p4013coll9/id/893u
FM 71-2 (1977): the Tank and Mechanized Task Force: https://www.bits.de/NRANEU/others/amd-us-archive/FM71-2(77).pdf
FM 100-2-1 (1984): Soviet Organization and Tactics: https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm100-2-1.pdf
note: This is how the Soviets wanted to fight
FM 100-2-2 (1984): [Soviet]Specialized Warfare and Rear Area Support: https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm100-2-2.pdf
FM 100-2-3 (1991): Soviet Troops Organization and Equipment: https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm100-2-3.pdf
note: This is what the Soviets would fight with. Check here for ToEs.
Repositories:
US Doctrinal Manuals (incomplete): http://bits.de/
Ike Skelton Combined Arms Research Library @ CGSC Digital Collections (CARL): https://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/
note: one of the top repositories. Includes doctrinal manuals back 100 years, the Leavenworth Studies series of official histories, staff and CGSC term papers, links to old Army mags like Military Review, and more. 
Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC): https://discover.dtic.mil/products-services/
note: Mostly technical & scientific reports produced by research and acquisitions programs, but has lots of high quality reports which fall outside that purview as well. 
The Army Heritage Center's ARENA database: https://arena.usahec.org/web/arena
note: Oral histories, official correspondence, reports, etc. from virtually every general whose ever served. 
CIA Electronic Reading Room: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/search/site
note: Declassified CIA documents which span a multitude of National Security issues.
National Archives and Record Administration:https://www.archives.gov/
note: Things not covered by the above, including USAREUR and the Army Material Command
Interesting Reading:
Victory Starts Here: https://www.tradoc.army.mil/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Victory-Starts-Here-A-Short-45-Year-History-of-the-US-Army-Training-and-Doctrine-Command.pdf
Balck and von Mellenthin on Tactics: Implications on NATO Tactics: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA097704.pdf
Taped Conversation with Hermann Balck:https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA160703.pdf
note: Balck was asked to come to the US to share his insights with the TRADOC team in 1979. He was asked to compare his WWII Eastern Front Experience with the gang, with an especial focus on his defense of the Chir River. 
Deciding What Has to be Done: General William E Depuy and the 1976 edition of FM 100-5, Operations: https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/herbert.pdf
From Active Defense to Air Land Battle: https://www.tradoc.army.mil/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/From-Active-Defense-to-AirLand-Battle.pdf
If anyone can think of any other essentials let me know and I'll add them to the list. 

I think you are totally safe if you are playing the Standard Soviet campaign.  In this we really only tweaked the briefings, fixed some errors in the briefings.  No forces were changes and should not impact play. 
Soviet "March or Die" was totally FUBAR so you would have definitely noticed a problem had you been playing the previous version.  We fixed it, so it should play "normally" (as in brutally hard and designed to make people cry) but it now works as intended. 

Ok … so let’s start with what ChuckDyke said:
“Here is something for house fighting and the difficulty of maintaining command and control during MOUT operations.”
He posted a video about the Battle for Binh Ba in South Vietnam 
Let’s see what I said in response:
“Binh Ba was hardly Hue, Fallujah, Berlin or Stalingrad though was it?  This was a skirmish over a non-descript village which didn't even fill a grid square in Vietnam involving no more than 500 combatants on both sides and 100 casualties. The Australian Army lacks the size and experience to do offensive operations against a well-prepared enemy in anything larger than a village so MOUT is certainly not the appropriate descriptor here.”
For those not familiar with Binh Ba, this is a contemporary map.  The grid squares are 1km so the total mapped area is 4km². 

Note that it does not fill that area.
Moving on then to the Australian Army’s own doctrinal publications as an example:
According to Land Warfare Publication-G 3-9-6, Operations in Urban Environments,
The urban environment is classified into the following zones:
a. the city core,
b. the core periphery,
c. commercial ribbons,
d. residential sprawl,
e. industrial areas,
f. outlying high-rise areas, and
g. shanty towns
This is just one reason I stated that Binh Ba was not an urban environment as it only has one of those characteristics.  The same publication cites the battles for Fallujah, Grozny, Hue and Stalingrad in its examples of urban combat.  That publication makes one reference to Binh Ba as the preface to Chapter 7 – Building Clearance as follows (my bold):
The battle was triggered shortly after 8.00am when a Centurion tank travelling through the village was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. Initial intelligence suggested there were two Viet Cong platoons in the village. From the strength of the fire met by the company sent to deal with them, however, it was apparent that the enemy presence was much greater. There followed several hours of devastatingly fierce fighting. Twice tanks swept through the village, returning enemy fire by blowing open the walls of the houses. Then each house was cleared room by room by the infantry. By nightfall the village was still not secure and fighting continued in the area the following day. When the battle was finally over the enemy toll was 91 – at a cost of just one Australian life and eight wounded.
The battle of Binh Ba posed the perennial problem of the war in Vietnam – how to separate the enemy from innocent civilians. The occupation of towns and villages by the Viet Cong was a deliberate tactic designed either to ambush the relieving troops or to cause the Australians to use an excess of force.
Now ChuckDyke initially said (my bold):  “Here is something for house fighting and the difficulty of maintaining command and control during MOUT operations.”  My response said:  “MOUT is certainly not the appropriate descriptor here.”
Taking my argument that the Australian Army lacks the capability to do offensive operations against a well-prepared enemy in anything larger than a village let’s go back to LWP-G 3-9-6, Operations in Urban Environments.  Its Combined Arms Scenarios section (Chapter 8 refers) shows a Company Team attack in the context of a Battlegroup.  The example imagery map for that scenario has the Battlegroup boundary covering three streets and 22 buildings.  Hold that thought …
The Australian Army is basically capable of deploying a division of three combat brigades.  This would be war of national survival stuff as its more recent deployments where the usual premise of ‘to deploy one, you need three’ comes into effect has been to deploy nothing bigger than a brigade.  Australian Army brigades sit in the three to four battalion range.  Being generous let’s say four battalions which gives you four battlegroups.  Keeping one in reserve, because it is good practice to have one then according to the example in the Australian Army’s official doctrine on urban operations, a brigade can conduct an offensive operation comprising nine streets with 66 buildings.  If we go for the war of national survival then, assuming one brigade is the divisional commander’s reserve, then that is 18 streets and 132 buildings.
Here is a map of Hue where some of the calculations above have been applied to illustrate the point:

The image below is the zoomed area that I have marked as a green rectangle in the overall city map.

So in simple terms, according to the Australian Army's own doctrine, a brigade can conduct an attack on a small corner of a city.
My point about the capabilities of the Australian Army is based on having served in it and knowing what it can and cannot do which I think the argument presented above demonstrates.  It is no more an insult than saying the Australian Army cannot deploy a parachute battalion.  Why?  It doesn’t have one.  Facing up to reality and knowing your strengths and weaknesses is an important discussion to have.  Nations/militaries that overestimate their own capabilities and don’t challenge them generally end up coming second in wars.  I recall that the British Army claimed (and bored everyone to death) that they were the masters of limited war/COIN because of Borneo, Malaya, Northern Ireland and the killer tactic of wearing berets/soft hats only to end up having to eat humble pie in Basra.  There are few people in British military circles and veterans who served there who disagree with the assertion that Basra was an utterly miserable performance on the part of the British Army.  One of my friends was killed there by the way so I have little interest in denigrating the sacrifice of those whose lives were changed there.
On then to impugning the courage and sacrifice of veterans … Recalling that ChuckDyke said that my comments would not be welcome in an RSL (Returned Services League – a veteran’s association) I pointed out that I have been a member of it for 10 years.  Later ChuckDyke changes his position on the RSL and decides that it is not such a good thing after all because of the way it treated Vietnam Veterans.  A claim I don’t dispute, it is well documented, and it was not the organization’s finest hour.  Anyway – I think we can agree that his position on the RSL is inconsistent.  Whatever the argument, my membership subs help Australian veterans and while serving in the Australian Army I collected in Brisbane and Sydney for Legacy ... a veteran’s charity.
For my part, I have been and continue to be a member of the RSL.  I am also a member of the Royal British Legion … you’ve guessed it … another veteran’s association.  This month I have given the equivalent of three full working days (in addition to my day job and my hobby ‘job’ for Battlefront) collecting for the Poppy Appeal plus assisting with the organization of, and attending, a cross laying ceremony at the town church as well of course as attending Remembrance Day itself and participated in the RBL committee meeting at which this most important appeal and other issues affecting veterans were discussed.
One of those issues was our disgust that the County level RBL have decided that organizing the ANZAC service at the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery on Cannock Chase is ‘too difficult.’  My branch is now taking it on and I am one of the lead members in this initiative.  The majority of the Commonwealth dead there are New Zealanders.  A country whose army I have never served in but the people commemorated there are fellow ANZACs.  Most of them died of Spanish Flu which the more ungenerous might say wasn’t a war death.  However, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission rightly designates them as war deaths and, incidentally, many of them had fought some hard actions on the Western Front before being brought back to the UK.  Hardly the behaviour of someone with no respect for the fallen.
Nowhere in the phrase "this was a skirmish over a non-descript village which didn't even fill a grid square in Vietnam involving no more than 500 combatants on both sides and 100 casualties," do I denigrate veterans.  Non-descript village is a fact is the number of casualties and participants on both sides. 
Anyway, I think I’ve made my point.

From the description:
Wouldn't it be better described as fictional near past instead? 🙃

Idk about you, but I've been using ATGM BRDMs and AT-4Bs to great effect with little obvious shortcomings. Granted they don't have thermal sights like the Dragon, but they aren't bad weapons systems either.
Turning out BRDMs so the hatches are open improves spotting greatly. On mission 2 of the Soviet campaign in particular you can get these BRDMs to volley fire missiles at US tanks, and it looks amazing.

A second hypothesis and totally unfounded.  Your threads (from me at least) are showing in game play, not how we designed the game in the first place.  No, at no time in the game development did we go “You know the Soviets are spotting too well, we should dial it back to force players to use mass”.  This supports your opinion, not reality.
The reality was that BFC modelled individual vehicle behaviours based on the data they have fed into the models….and lo and behold it made sense and matched Soviet doctrine when scaled up to in game content. 
 
Now you are going to ask again “I wanna see that data” the answer is still no and you would not know what to do with it if you had it because you have not provided a shred of RL evidence that behaviours are off beyond, wait for it, your own opinion.
Let me assure you (and anyone else still reading), we will not be initiating any changes based on dbsapp’s opinion.  You can post it here ad infinitum and not a single change request will be submitted based on that alone.  So again, start doing the work.

Good luck figuring out if that's an enemy tank. Remember, you've got to decide RIGHT NOW and if you get it wrong you'll either DIE or KILL YOUR FRIENDS. No pressure.

Ok, this is not even close to "scientific" and the fact that some might actually think that is 1) a poor reflection on the modern education system and 2) frightening based on what we have been living through for the last 18 months.
Based on this "study" SB could be just as inaccurate as CMCW is claimed to be as none of this is linked back to RL data.  It is linked backed to a lot of assumptions, which are again not linked backed to any real world data.  The main assumption/bias is "it should be easy to see another tank at 2000m because I can do it in SB therefore CMCW is broken."  The OP is in effect using one simulation (SB) to try and prove that another simulation (CMCW) is not working properly without ever establishing that the first simulation (SB) is accurate in the first place (beyond a vague "Steel Beasts is a tank simulator that is used in several countries to train military personnel", but then so is CM, huh?)
How easy is it to actually see an armored vehicle at 2000m? Having spent time in AFVs and tanks..."not easy" was my experience as 2km is a very long way away.  But I never tried it on a flat open field nor in either an M60 or T72.
Just because you point the tanks at each other does not mean the modeling behavior is anywhere near the same.  First off there is TACAI in CM where SB has a human brain that not only set up the test (so knows there is a tank out there) but is specifically pointed at where it knows there is a tank.  Take SB, create a 360 field and then don't tell the human subject where the threat is, or that there is a threat at all...now time how long it takes for that human to see a threat at 2km?  Still likely be faster because it is a human brain in a totally different simulation.
The issue here is actually "simulated individual buttoned up spotting".  (Take the same test and open up the T72, you will see spotting increase dramatically because you now have TACAI scanning the horizon with binos as opposed through a sight.  Now do a whole tank platoon and you will see spotting happen even faster because the tanks are talking to each other).
So the questions being asked is "which individual tank has better buttoned up spotting: the M60A3 or T72? and "Does CMCW model this correctly?" and (apparently) "Does SB model RL behavior better?"  So if you want to be "scientific" you would first have to build a real-world framework of how these tanks have (or should) behave based on sound data, then test each tank, in each game system under identical conditions (which is nearly impossible...human brain) to try and deduce which game is modelling RL better.  
 

Title say it all really:

https://thesovietarmourblog.blogspot.com/2021/07/soviet-atgms.html
Hopefully of interest to CM:CW players.