Marwek77 aka Red Reporter

An enemy minefield will always be un-marked until you find it (usually the hard way). 
Red sign with a skull and crossbones = Active non-marked minefield.
Off white sign (yellow in CMBS) with a skull and crossbones = A marked minefield. 
Green sign with a white X = Neutralized minefield (all mines detonated)
 
Just some additional information on the topic: 
 
Engineers can most reliably and safely locate unidentified minefields using the Slow command.  
Marking a minefield substantially reduces the chance of triggering a mine for infantry traversing the minefield.
Antitank minefields can be marked but there is no effect. Infantry can traverse them without risk and vehicles don't benefit from marking.
Friendly mines will destroy friendly troops and vehicles.  
Mines cannot be placed on bridges.  They can go in the river bottom under the bridge but have no effect on bridge traffic.
Minefields can be neutralized by heavy artillery (150mm+), if it scores a direct hit.
Minefields can be neutralized by a blast from a demo charge if there is a blastable obstacle (wire) in the action spot.
Anti-personnel mines have a cumulative effect on vehicle mobility. ie: Number of Action Spots a vehicle can generally cross in an AP Minefield before immobilization: Armor= 2 A/S, light Armor= 1 A/S, Transport= Destroyed.

At the end of my last video I promised to upload the bits of the conversation that @domfluff and I had and that didn't make it into the video, as a podcast. That's up now. Also included is an extra bit that we recorded later, where we answer some of the questions that were frequently asked in the comment section.
So, if you've got a long commute ahead of you, or it's your turn to do the dishes, or there is some other reason why you can't play CM.... here you go 😉.
 
 

I asked Domfluff to help me out in creating a video about Soviet military doctrine in the Cold War era, and how those principles can be applied in a Combat Mission scenario/QB. He played a game against me as the Soviet Army, gave me an arse kicking, and then sat down with me and explained why he did what he did. The result is the video down below!
 

That's quite a layered question, with some curveballs thrown in, so bear with me:

Firstly, sourcing:
https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/Hot Spots/Documents/Russia/2017-07-The-Russian-Way-of-War-Grau-Bartles.pdf
In some respects this is apparently (and unsurprisingly, since it's five years later) out of date by now, but it's absolutely relevant for CMBS.

In there, you can see that the majority of the fundamentals of Soviet doctrine have survived intact into the modern day - attacking on-line for maximum mass, the focus on meeting engagements, on counter-attack in the defence, etc. In this sense, CMCW lets you see those fundamentals very clearly, in their intended context, before you translate them to a new one.

First curveball - there's a large difference between Russia vs Ukraine and Russia vs the US here. The latter is significantly more asymmetric, so ends up breaking a lot of the rules or otherwise forcing you out of where you want to be. That's essentially why things like Javelin exist, of course - they're supposed to be disruptive technology, aimed at plausible opposition. Will focus on Russia vs Ukraine then, with some notes on the US at the end.

Second curveball - I'm not convinced that all Black Sea scenarios capture or represent the main tropes of hyper-modern warfare as well as they could. Arguably that's true for all CM titles, but I suspect it's inevitably a little worse for Black Sea, due to the speculative nature of everything. As an example of that, Between Two Fahrbahns in Cold War. That's scenario that's great fun to play from either side, plays well H2H, and it's perfectly competent... but isn't terribly representative of "Cold War", and doesn't really make an argument, express a concept or investigate a tactical problem of the period. The same scenario might as well have Shermans vs Panzer IVs and it would work equally well.

So, what defines Black Sea? Philip Karber has a definition of the real combat in the region as "high intensity combat on a low density battlefield", and I think that core idea should also define CMBS. As a basic rule of thumb then - it's pretty common to use a Quick Battle map that's one size larger than your force. In Black Sea I think that should really be two sizes larger by default. That same thinking can/should apply to scenarios, but it's intended as a quick representation of the idea.

The other difference in theme is that in Cold War the operational tempo is paramount. Typically the tactical battlefield is not something that needs to be taken, it's something that needs to be move through, as fast as possible. This is part of the reason why the Soviets could be (had to be) comparatively free with casualties - gaining operational freedom is the goal here, and the tactical-level losses are acceptable.

This is not true for Black Sea. The Russian army is smaller, more casualty-adverse, and isn't screaming towards the Rhine at maximum velocity. This means you'll be more interested in capturing objectives, and can't afford to take the losses. In addition, the Russian army has significantly improved equipment. Much better spotting and C2, faster call-in times for artillery, ERA and APS, drones to call in massed fires, etc. They also have pushed assets down to lower levels - not as much as the US do, but significantly more than the Soviets, meaning that small units are significantly more capable and independent. The Russian air defence is significantly better than the US, so they should have drone superiority (and the US have nothing that can shoot down Zala at all). 

So how do you marry these two ideas? Soviet fundamentals, whilst being casualty-adverse? This is perhaps the major problem to solve as the Russians, but a lot of it comes down to controlling your engagements. You still want to be attacking on-line, with maximum firepower against a subset of the enemy, but you want to be careful as and when you engage, and to control that engagement with overwhelming firepower. An actual engagement might only last a minute or two, and a battle might be a lot of sneaking and manoeuvre, followed by a brief period of devastating fires. High intensity, Low density.

The first mission of the Russian campaign in the core game is indicative, I think. This is fundamentally a Soviet doctrinal meeting engagement. This is identical in concept to Miller's training scenario from CMCW, or the first mission of the Soviet campaign in Cold War, but the differences start to become apparent.

In the Russian campaign scenario, you have all the elements of that meeting engagement - you have a recon platoon, followed by a Forward Security Element of a BMP-3 company and a tank platoon, and they should be doing the same fundamental job.

The differences really start when the follow-up to that FSE is a single tank company, and not an entire battalion. That means that you're inherently more limited in how you can approach this.

The approach I took with this was to advance with the recon platoon and get spots along the route of contact, then advance at the speed of the fireplan. The FSE wants to march into a valley, so, suppressing the high town objective on the valley's far side is what allowed the follow-on tank company to take up a base of fire on the right side hill, on-line, and dominate the valley with fires.

The FSE can then approach into the valley floor, preceded with drone-summoned fires on the central objective, and with covering fires on likely enemy positions to the flanks. This FSE can then bypass, surround and reduce the central objective, before moving on to take on the others to the conclusion.

At each stage the fundamentals are the same - your fire plan is paramount, and in each bound you're attempting to go fires-first, maximising firepower at every engagement. 

So, how about the US? Well, Abrams, Bradley and Javelin represent disruptive technology, that will do terrible things to you. The fundamentals remain identical, but you can do everything right and still lose sometimes, and anything you do wrong will be punished severely. Fighting javelins is about firepower and the terrain read - they're systems used on foot, and the modern US infantryman doesn't like mortars anymore than anyone else does, so denying potential javelin positions is as important as anything. Abrams need to be engaged from the flank where possible (ideally from two angles at once), and Bradleys are near-psychic in their spotting, so you need to engage them quickly and decisively with excellent recon - you never want to get into an engagement where you don't already have spotting contacts.

That formation (and the similar one for the BTR formations, that has MG teams and AT-7/SPG-9 assets) were intended to form a hasty defence after the objective was taken - it was a way to have something carried with you that could resist an immediate counter-attack, before you had a chance to be reinforced, resupplied and/or recovered.

So the intention is for them to be used defensively, generally split down and supporting individual platoon/squad positions.

Since that's the intent, the best way to use them would be to form the basis of your defence in defensive scenarios, supplementing the AT assets (which in BMP formations are the BMPs themselves), with perhaps some infantry set aside for that task, and the main effort being the counter-attacking element you've held back.

Outside of that context, they're more or less along for the ride. You can certainly use them as infantry or as your recon platoon or whatever, but that's not really what they're for.

Hi all, I uploaded a video AAR of Combat Mission Cold War to Youtube. I thought I'd post it here so you can all tell me what it was you believe led to my demise 😉
 
https://youtu.be/qxLCkSFYq2c

The Soviets had three defined uses for smoke. Smoke was used on their positions to screen movement, it was used on the enemy to shape the engagement, and it had a third defined use, for deception (I have an anecdote about that).
Yes, thermals change this equation, but that's true for everything in Cold War.
If you're trying to blind the enemy, you certainly want to use smoke rather than relying on dust. If nothing else it lasts longer. The important thing with smoke is that you never want to be moving or fighting through your own smoke, so smoke missions should be used to create temporary local advantage by shaping and defining space.
The "deception" anecdote was a cold war pbem, on a map that was divided down the centre into two distinct halves. 
I decided to swing my attack to the right, but I dedicated a couple of on-map mortars to laying down a smoke screen on the left.
On discussion after the match, that smoke meant that my opponent was expecting a push down my left, and so didn't think he could afford to move the forces on that side away... two mortars had managed to tie up half of his force, and in addition half of his air assets were covering that approach...
Now, that kind of thing is never going to work against the AI, of course, but its still a pretty cool story.

Fair point and accurate for the M60A1 series but if you check that pictogram I posted above (from dbsapps document) you can see that the overall assessment of optics and targeting gave the advantage to the M60A1.  This matches the accuracy of the range finding sights:

Now unless I am totally off, the T62 had stereoscopic sights for the commander
https://sturgeonshouse.ipbhost.com/topic/945-tankograd-t-62-khruschevs-bastard/ [Tank Nerd Site]
"As befitting his tactical role, the commander's general visibility is facilitated by two TNPO-170 periscopes on either side of the primary surveillance periscope in the fixed forward half of the cupola, and further augmented by two more 54-36-318-R periscopes embedded in the hatch, aimed to either side for additional situational awareness. Overall, this scheme was sufficient for most purposes, but was deficient if compared to the much more generous allowance of periscopes and vision ports found on NATO tanks."
Which matches this:
"Despite its range, the new gun was not a success mostly due to crude gun control, and firing on the move or on a moving target accuratey was tricky even at short range. Second-hit capabilities were limited. It was aggravated by a low rate of fire, very slow traverse for the turret, and limited depression/elevation (tradeoffs of the low-profile design) (a liability on a sloped terrain, as shown in numerous engagements of the cold war)."
https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/coldwar/ussr/soviet_t-62.php
While the gunner had:
"The TSh2B-41 is a monocular telescopic sight, functioning as the gunner's primary sight for direct fire purposes. It has two magnification settings, x3.5 or x7, and an angular field of view of 18° in the former setting and 9° in the latter setting. As was and still is common for all tank sights, it has an anti-glare coating for easier aiming when facing the sun. It comes with a small wiper to clean it from moisture, and it comes with an integrated heater for defrosting.
 
  "Like most other tanks of its time, the T-62 lacked a ballistic computer, but it was also unusually deficient in the rangefinding department. For rangefinding, the gunner had to make use of a stadiametric ranging scale embossed on the sight aperture. Compared to optical coincidence rangefinders, stadia rangefinding was terribly imprecise, but also much simpler in both production and employment, and much more economical than, say, optical coincidence rangefinding. In fact, stadia rangefinding is essentially free, since all that is needed are some etchings into the sight lens. The savings made from the exclusion of an optical coincidence rangefinder were enormous, amounting to many thousands of rubles. Ranging errors of up to several hundred meters is often the norm, especially if some of the lower part of the target vehicle is obscured behind vegetation or other terrain features. It isn't uncommon for the first shot on faraway tank-sized targets to fall woefully short or fly clear over."
Emphasis added because that is how militarily procurement really works - cheap as possible - lowest bidder.
While the M60A12 had the M17A1 rangefinder, which is a coincidence range finder:
https://books.google.ca/books?id=Z4OcF_VeEokC&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=M17A1+coincidence+rangefinder&source=bl&ots=fMPNLuzFki&sig=ACfU3U1CEbUUFvBmnaCMRCL4ud-avEZxPg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj0iOCPnPD1AhWVjIkEHXiaBxoQ6AF6BAg9EAM#v=onepage&q=M17A1 coincidence rangefinder&f=false
Backed up with a mechanical fire control computer (M19E1).
This is probably why in the Nordeen and Isby book they assess accuracy of the M60A1 as nearly twice that of the T62 at 2000m (pg 85 and 91) 44% for the US APDS round vs 27% for the Soviet BR-5 APFSDS.  In fact based on these charts, parity for gun accuracy (let alone all the other factors) does not start to occur until under 1000m.
Gotta say that no matter how one stacks it up, there does not seem to be a realistic 1:1 clash outcome between the M60A1 and T62 based on targeting alone, let alone all the factors of ergonomics and C2.  This is the part where the "Soviets are not well represented" club comes back with some counter-facts that may offset this, because I for one am a fan of the old T62 and in the right hands she can deliver.    
 
 

Soviet doctrine may or may not work in CM, just like it may or may not work in real life... but like we go over in the video: I didn't actually use any, so the series doesn't say anything about it.
Hapless lost most of his tanks early because he did daft things with them. I did a whole video just about Turn 10, where I suffered the most casualties, and turns out while I was unlucky in the play-through the problem, the whole (avoidable!) situation was the bigger problem. There was also a crack M60 staring at a T62 at near point blank range for 40 seconds that never spotted it, so clearly M60s are blind too.

This is 100% true and the right thing to do...  in 1944 Normandies bocage.
In simple terms this is an infantry centric aproach. The infantry carries the battle supported by artillery and tanks. Its a low casualtie high munitions aproach that takes a lot of time.
If youre the Soviets in an attack through germany or any Nato country counterattacking you dont have that time. By the time you scouted a hill across the enemy has broken through and is rampaging in your backfield destroying your arty and supplies.
The cold war gone hot is a tank war. The tank forms the centerpiece of the battle. All other arms exist to maximise the tanks effect. Your recon is motorized to not slow the tank down. If that means the recon is recon by death then so be it as long as it shows where the enemy is (obviously its preferable to not die but its acceptable in the grand sceme). The Infantry is driving in AFVs to cover the areas tanks arent great in. Clear small villages, patches of forrest, etc. Artillery fire denies positions where ATGMs could be employed to disrupt the attack. Any strong resistance is simply bypassed and only cleared out by followon forces.

I recall back in CM:Afghanistan days I quipped that the role of Russian infantry is to walk forward over the charred corpses of your enemy after the artillery and tanks have done all the work. 

Object 279 ->https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_279 
plus
 

Short answer:  I haven't made a gridded mod for CMCW yet... not sure when I'll get the chance to do that.  Sorry.. but I'm sure some other enterprising modder with more free time than I have will oblige in time.
Bil

Schmidt & Bender Rifle Scope - same as mine

One of my tabletop wargaming colleagues posted this video based on stunning high res clips from above film, whose title translates as Officer. It's a kind of music video and has no sound other than that or subtitles either. These said, compared to all the period training videos we've seen, in terms of image quality, this thing is incredible. The main stars are T-55s and T-72s, but you'll like the other goodies, too. 
 
Regards,

John Kettler

Here is the complete Offiziere. That's the good news. Unfortunately, the bad news is that the only subtitles are in German! Also, the resolution is nowhere nearly as good as in the video.
 
Regards,

John Kettler

Best snipershot ever unfortunately it happens at the end.
 

Thank you, CMBS is my favourite CM tittle.

Fair question! I put it in as a placeholder, since I'm planning to upload to moddb alongside SF2 UI there, just been busy with work matters over recent weeks so just not quite got round to final content check.

There are some significant changes from the version posted on CMMods4, I think I changed the scale of the small arms to match icons on my SF2 UI for consistency. Added a few missing icons and a menu screen also. It will get posted before Christmas day since a break from work commences on the 17th giving me 2-3 weeks leisure.

Thanks for your interest!    

Yeah right, apparently they were invading southern Ukraine last September too:

FM 100-2-1 says that authority to commit fire control assets for the Cold War Soviets rests at the level higher than the organic placement. That is, final authority to commit regimental artillery sits with the division's chief of artillery. In order for an officer to deviate from planned fires, he would first have to call up his boss and justify the reason for the deviation (as the plan would be passed down to the lower guy as a part of the over all movement and attack plans). The the higher chief would have to think about how the plan was developing and how the deviation would effect the overall plan, then make his decision. According to FM 100-2-1 final authority would rest with the chief, tho it seems pretty reasonable to me that in some cases the chief would have to check requests with the division commander or his CoS. This process of requesting, checking, and redelegating authority would make any serious (above mortar sized) asset take a long time to call in UNLESS authority were predelegated as part of an existing order or fire plan. IIRC the process for calling in air missions is similar, though you have the additional layer of beaurocracy in that its a separate service chain of command. 
Many Western-trained or oriented soldiers and chair warriors see this rigidity and central control as a liability. In the West flexibility is the name of the game. The defense of the Soviet system is simply that the Soviets never intended to reinforce failure. Successful attacks would enjoy the benefit of maximum artillery support, while struggling attacks would be denied everything. A battalion or regimental commander would always conclude that A) their attack was hitting the most resistance, and B ) that their action was the most vital in the division's sector. It was up to the divisional, and EAD, staffs to determine who was having success and who was running into a road block. Reinforce success, abandon failure. I cant weigh which system is better, but that would have been the Soviet defense of their own system. 

The procedure for zeroing AKM and AK-74:
Sighting target is placed at 100m The gun sight is set at 3 (300m) The gun is aimed at the appropriate line below the center of target to compensate for the sighting distance of 300m Overall it gives you an aim with no vertical adjustment if the sight is set at "П" - прямой выстрел / direct shot. 300-450m is the distance at which you can shoot at the center of the mass and still the vertical drop will be no bigger than the size of a human figure.

I posted it here: 
Enjoy but be forewarned it is a two-player only scenario, no AI built in.  The map is the exact same one from the US campaign.

It's fixed to the cupola but the cupola can rotate independent of the turret.
Way too much information follows:
The commander's main means of surveying the battlefield is a forward-facing TKN-3M pseudo-binocular periscope, augmented by two rectangular TNPO-160 periscopes on either side and two TNPA-65A periscopes embedded in his hatch. The TKN-3 periscope is aimed directly forward and is aligned with the centerline axis of the cupola. The two TNPO-160 periscopes are oriented 45 degrees from the centerline of the cupola.
With just these two periscopes, the commander has vision in a 176-degree frontal arc with a blind spot of 22 degrees to the direct front which is filled by the TKN-3. Because the cupola can rotate, the five periscopes in the cupola provide the commander with an all-round view when he is buttoned up. There is no periscope that allows the commander to see directly behind the turret. For that, he must spin the cupola to one side and look out of either one of his TNPA-65A periscopes, although the anti-aircraft machine gun would usually be in the way as it is stowed directly behind the cupola in the 'travel' position when not in use. Due to the conformal slant of the gunner's hatch on the left side of the turret, the commander's view to the left of the turret is largely unimpeded. Even the gunner's night vision sight does not completely block the commander's view as the height of the sight housing does not exceed the maximum height of the turret roof.

However, the commander's view to the left of the turret in the 10 o'clock sector was obstructed when Kontakt-1 reactive armour blocks were installed on the roof of the turret beginning with the T-72AV modification in 1985. This problem persisted when Kontakt-5 blocks replaced the Kontakt-1 blocks in the T-72B obr. 1989 model and continues to plague the T-90A. For these later models, the burden of monitoring these sectors falls upon the gunner.
For general vision, the commander is provided with four periscopes to supplement the TKN-3. In total, the field of view of the commander from the cupola (without head movement) is 288 degrees, with a 72-degree dead zone to the rear.
The commander's cupola of the T-64 lacked an anti-aircraft machine gun and was furnished with only one TKN-3M periscope and two TNPO-160 periscopes. The field of view (without head movement) was 144 degrees. This cupola was carried over to the T-64A. Given that a successful template for a periscope layout in a cupola of this design was already established since the T-54 obr. 1949, it is a mystery why the T-64 cupola had such constricted visibility. Needless to say, the T-72 was vastly superior in this particular aspect. In 1975, a new and much more technically advanced cupola with a ZU-64A remotely controlled anti-aircraft machine gun system was implemented on the T-64A obr. 1975. Two TNPA-65 periscopes were finally added to the hatch of the new cupola, but to accommodate the PZU-5 sight for the ZU-64A system, the TNPO-160 periscope on the left of the TKN-3 had to be removed. As a result, the commander's visibility was still not on par with his T-72 contemporary. In fact, the higher statistical weight of forward-facing periscopes compared to side or rear-view periscopes makes the new cupola a downgrade over the older version, despite the increase in the number of periscopes. These nuances are important when evaluating the validity of various cupola designs.
Compared to a typical Western tank cupola, the number of fixed periscopes in the T-72 model is clearly less, but the number alone is not necessarily indicative of actual utility. For example, the Leopard 1 provided its commander with eight periscopes arranged around his circular cupola, but only five are aimed in the forward 180-degree sector and two of them are partly obstructed by the loader's cupola, loader's machine gun skate mount and loader's hatch opening mechanism on the left side of the turret. It is also important to note that the commander's cupola on the Leopard 1 does not rotate and the forward-facing periscope has a very high periscopicity so that the field of view is inherently narrower. In other words, the number of vision devices providing a view towards the forward half of the turret is not more than in the T-72 commander's cupola and there are other secondary factors that affect the commander's visibility. A T-72 commander only loses out in convenience when directing the driver to reverse the tank as he must rotate his cupola in order to see behind the turret or have the turret aimed to the rear.

To further expand our perspective, it should be noted that the commander of an M60A1 is furnished with eight M41 prismatic vision blocks arranged around his oblong M19 cupola, with one aimed forward to cover the 11 o'clock sector, two of them aimed in the forward arc to cover the 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock sectors, two of them aimed to the sides, and three of them aimed in a 7 o'clock to 5 o'clock arc. There is one wide-vision periscope installed just behind and above the M85 machine gun in the cupola and aimed directly forward. Adding on the fact that the M19 cupola can rotate, it is clear that an M60A1 commander has much better visibility than a T-72 commander under practically all circumstances. However, none of the M41 vision blocks are heated, so fogging will tend to seriously degrade visibility in chilly weather. Also, the objectively poorer rearward visibility from the T-72 cupola compared to Western tanks does not necessarily translate into objectively poorer combat performance as the value of observation devices depends on the context in which they would be used. It is a perfectly valid observation that when the tank needs to reverse, it is often in a non-combat situation where it is safe for the commander to be outside his hatch. In combat, it may be necessary to reverse in order to change positions or to reverse into turret defilade after firing a shot. In both cases - and in general - the driver would have approached the firing position from behind in the first place so he already knows that the area behind the tank is clear of obstructions and that he can freely reverse without fear of running into obstacles. If it is truly necessary for the commander to direct the driver when reversing the tank, the commander can rotate the cupola and use one of his periscopes for the task or open his hatch and peer out.


Furthermore, the fundamental purpose of the fixed periscopes has to be understood in order to assign them with their proper value. In combat, such periscopes are generally only useful if the enemy is very close to the tank (500 meters or less). Otherwise, they are only good for viewing the surrounding environment in order for the commander to gain a sense of spatial control over the tank, and this is done by finding landmarks. When the tank is moving speedily across rough terrain, observation through fixed unmagnified periscopes becomes ineffective due to the oscillation of the tank and the restricted field of view. The commander only sees an oscillating flicker between the ground and the sky, with no possibility of reliably discerning camouflaged enemy forces let alone identifying them.

For a modern tank created and fielded during the mid to late Cold War era, it is only practical to see and identify targets using a magnified optic and some form of stabilization is mandatory to allow it to be used effectively in a moving tank, as the narrower field of view through a magnified optic will exacerbate the negative effects of the oscillation of the tank. The TKN-3 periscope for the commander of a T-72 fulfills this purpose as it has a reasonably high magnification with a reasonably large field of view, and it has handles to allow the commander to hold it steady.
The characteristics of a tank commander's observation practices when buttoned-up in a fixed cupola with eight periscopes and one fixed forward-facing sight in the turret were examined in the 1974 study "Некоторые Статистические Характеристики Процесса Наблюдения Командира Танка" (Some Statistical Characteristics of a Tank Commander's Observation Processes) by G.G Golub et al. Three special cupolas were constructed to replace the original commander's cupola of a T-64 that was used as the experimental platform. The frequency and duration of usage of each of the viewing devices was recorded using a small forward-facing lamp on the commander's headset which would illuminate an array of photodiodes (light sensors) placed on top of each viewing device when the commander looks through the viewfinder. The first cupola design was a fixed type with eight fixed and equally spaced unmagnified periscopes arranged radially around the circumference of the cupola and one forward-facing TPD optic (modified periscopic sight with optical rangefinder removed). The second cupola design was the same as the first design but it had a stabilized electric drive for cupola rotation. The third cupola design was a manually-rotating type analogous to the T-72 cupola, having a total viewing arc of 206 degrees (± 103 degrees from the centerline axis of the cupola).
These cupolas were tested in various simulated combat conditions. The simulations were carried out in field conditions with moderately hilly terrain partly covered with bushes and trees. The targets included four tanks showing their frontal projection, three tanks in hull-down positions, two armoured personnel carriers, three ATGM teams, five recoilless rifles, and five anti-tank guns. All of these were arranged in such a way as to ensure that they would be uniformly concealed from the tank commanders as the tanks traveled down the pre-planned routes from a full 360-degree arc and at distances of 0.5 to 1.5 kilometers. The positions of the targets were shuffled throughout the experiments.

It was found that in general, 30% of all battlefield observations were carried out using the forward-facing unmagnified periscope and at most, 5% of observations were done using the magnified 8x optic with a stabilized field of view. However, it was also found that in tactical situations such as carrying out a breakthrough mission, the frequency of the use of a magnified optic to search for targets increases up to 50%. Overall, more than 70% of observations were made using only three periscopes at the front of the cupola covering a 100-degree frontal sector and over 95% of observations were made in a 200-degree frontal sector. Most interestingly, the experiments revealed that the highest recorded frequency of usage of the rear-view periscope was only 0.8%. It was also noted that the periscopes installed at more than 110 degrees off the centerline axis of the cupola (8 o'clock) were difficult to use due to neck strain when the tank was in motion. This was most likely why the commander's cupola of the T-80 used a rear-view prism embedded in the roof of the commander's hatch instead of a conventional periscope placed behind the commander's head.  
Based on these results, it can be seen that in a fixed cupola with all-round visibility, five unmagnified periscopes covering the front 180-degree sector provide 95.3% of the total visibility needs of the commander under various combat conditions. The rear-facing periscopes are rarely used. A rotating cupola that provides vision in a 206-degree arc will fulfill 98.1% of the commander's visibility needs under the same combat conditions. In other words, the practicality of the T-72 cupola design can be considered to be experimentally validated. Even a T-64 cupola with just one TKN-3 and two TNPO-160 periscopes can theoretically fulfill 70% of the visibility needs of its commander, but on the other hand, the improved visibility from the two additional TNPA-65A periscopes in the T-64A obr. 1975 or T-64B cupola is offset by the loss of one TNPO-160 periscope.   Of course, the configuration of observation devices in the T-72 commander's cupola is certainly not perfect. A panoramic sight is ergonomically superior as the user's head does not need to move when the sight head rotates. The Leopard 1 is exemplary in this regard as it provided its commander with the excellent TRP-2A panoramic sight featuring a variable magnification of 4x to 20x, and beginning with the Leopard 1A4 in 1974, the commander was provided with the advanced PERI-R12 stabilized panoramic sight with a variable magnification of 2x or 8x. Panoramic sights were developed in the USSR during the 1930's and the PT-1 sight was the first to enter service, being installed on the T-26. Later, the PT-K panoramic sights were used on various modifications of the KV-1 and T-34, and indeed, Soviet engineers in the prewar era saw much greater value in panoramic observation devices compared to cupolas with multiple vision slits or periscopes and favored devices like the MK-4 rotating periscope (Gundlach periscope) and PT-1 for all-round visibility, but for one reason or another, postwar Soviet tanks were no longer equipped with such devices. Instead, all postwar Soviet armoured vehicles built in the 1950's standardized on the binocular TPK and TPKU periscopes paired with the TKN-1 night vision periscope, and beginning in the early 1960's, the TKN-3 series of combined periscopes became the new standard.     https://thesovietarmourblog.blogspot.com/2015/05/t-72-soviet-progeny.html#comstat  

My advice based on quite a few hours playing the Soviet is:
-  Open up.  Soviet tanks spot a lot better when opened.  They will button under fire (duh) but it gives them a much better early spot before the clang the hatch.
- Keep them in effective C2.  Tanks are designed to fight together and Soviet tanks spot a lot better when in C2 contact.
- Know your effective range.  Not all tanks are equal and they shine at different ranges.  E.g T62s are really good at 1000m, I have frontally killed M60A3s at that range.  But do not expect them to do as well at 2kms.
- Troop quality and soft factors matter a lot.  So in a game keep that in mind.
Unlike SB, there is no human-in-the-loop in the targeting cycles so the player can only try and setup the best conditions for success.  For the Soviets, with exceptions, the best practice is to not try and mince around at 2000m and play peeky-snipey, that is a western game.  Close fast and hard, let your ATGMs do the long range work and then use speed and mass both of which were in good supply for the Soviets.