Jump to content

IICptMillerII

Members
  • Posts

    3,005
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    44

IICptMillerII last won the day on December 31 2021

IICptMillerII had the most liked content!

Recent Profile Visitors

4,743 profile views

IICptMillerII's Achievements

Senior Member

Senior Member (3/3)

2.1k

Reputation

  1. I wouldn’t recommend using it. If there is any kind of glitch in the system and your turn file gets eaten by the digital abyss, there is no way to revert the turn or redo it. You have to restart the whole battle. The system doesn’t allow any access to the files so there is no way to revert to a previous turn. These glitches happen more often than you think and are incredibly frustrating. Also, if the Slitherine servers go down for whatever reason, you’re outta luck until they come back online. Also frustrating, and also happens more often than you would think. I stick to manual PBEM myself for these reasons. Plus, with the various user made PBEM programs out there you get all the benefits of automated PBEM without the headache of Slitherine.
  2. Sadly no. Should have been something added to the game at some point in its long lifetime in my opinion. Having to individually order lots of units around makes turn by turn gameplay incredibly tedious, and time consuming as well. Platoon level movement using formations would simplify (in a good way) much of the standard gameplay loop. Also, vehicles absolutely would travel in formations regardless of terrain. In fact, the whole purpose of different formations is to ensure that vehicles are moving in some form of formation despite the terrain. For disruptive terrain, the file/column is generally used, and depending on how disruptive the terrain is will also influence the spacing of the formation. I can assure you from personal experience that vehicles do not just wander around on their own, and especially not in a tactical environment (at least in properly trained militaries). Safety and unit cohesion being chief reasons why. There is no desire to develop formations by the powers that be though, sadly, so no use in wishing for it.
  3. Thanks! Unfortunately I just completed a long distance move and had to leave my main PC behind, so I don't have access to my reshade files I made for CM. One thing I can say from memory is that I find the depth of field effect (Ibelieve it was the cinematic depth of field, specifically) really helps to make the models and lighting pop. I think a good argument can be made that the 3D models are the best visuals that CM has to offer, and having DoF focus on that while blurring the less than stellar other visuals helps highlight that. Beyond that, I'm no graphics wizard, or even artistically inclined at all. I just played around with the reshade settings until I found something that, to my eye at least, was somewhat presentable. I still have lots of criticisms of my reshades too, but if you fool around with the settings enough you might find something you find appealing. Good luck!
  4. Thanks! Glad to see this AAR still gets some traffic. I don’t know any off the top of my head and I (sadly) cannot check CMO right now as I am away from my personal computer gif an extended period. But I think the community scenario pack would be a good place to start. I also wouldn’t be surprised if someone hasn’t already made a scenario based on current events and uploaded it to the steam workshop. I have a number of ideas, but the issue is always making it happen in CM. Everything in CM takes so long to do (making/tweaking a map, playing a battle, rewatching replay turns, etc etc) that it’s not practical to pump this kind of stuff out. Consulate Crisis took me something like 4-6 months to finish, and that was with a premade map in CM that I only had to tweak a bit. That said, I would like to do another. Sadly that will have to wait a while as I am currently away, but when I get back, who knows? Thanks again for the interest and kind words!
  5. Thanks! I find the depth of field really helps the images pop, as well as helps to hide some of the muddier textures that are unavoidable in CM, as well as the bright sky. That said, I do want to experiment with less blur, and trying to get more of the screen in focus, while still getting that pop effect I mentioned. Thanks! Some more shots:
  6. This was my first dive back into the world of reshade. Some are better than others (at least to my eye) as I was figuring out how reshade works again and trying out different settings. Not sure why I decided to go with CMFI to test this out, something about this game always seems to pull be back from time to time. It's got a certain character to it. There are a handful of mods alongside the reshade in these pictures.
  7. This pair of shots gets its own post. A with and without reshade, for comparison. Guess which one is stock? Might just be me, but the reshade Abrams looks really incredible to me. Might end up as a wallpaper on my computer.
  8. I've been playing around with reshade and have gotten some decent results. These images feature a WIP reshade preset as well as numerous mods.
  9. I've been playing around with reshade recently and have been getting some pretty nice results for the most part. Besides the reshade, these pictures feature a handful of mods, such as the DDR mod, the US OD reskin, as well as S-Tank's excellent MERDC reskins, to name a few.
  10. All fair points! Again, not trying to poopoo. I get it, something to do with the anticipation generated energy. Like you, I am really interested in seeing how Chieftain ends up performing. It is a tank with quite a reputation to it, and I wonder if some may be a bit chafed by its in game performance. Or not! I also agree that it should generally speaking be a bit more survivable than the M60. The ability to take one on the chin (even if its a marginal advantage over the M60) could end up being decisive. I think I am most interested to see Chieftain take on T-64 equipped Soviet formations.
  11. Some quick points: War Thunder and World of Tanks should not be taken seriously. Their armor modeling is, at best, a gameplay gimmick, and is not particularly accurate of a multitude of reasons. This image is regarding War Thunder, but it makes a point nonetheless: This is a point that is made (and argued against a lot) both here and in professional circles, but the survivability onion strikes again. The best way for a tank to not get penetrated is for it to not get shot in the first place, even in direct combat. (Break out the bingo card) Things like hull down, berm drills, prepared positions, battle positions, engagement areas, and displacing to alternate firing positions (bingo!) all work in concert. The armor itself is the last resort defensive measure of a tank. Not trying to poopoo your post. I understand the anticipation. I will say this: I am very interested to see how the Chieftain ends up performing whenever this module comes out. As discussed in either this thread or elsewhere (can't recall at the moment) the Chieftain was fielding rather lackluster ammunition during this time period that (at first glance) appears to be even less potent than the early US ammo already present in the game. Given that, it'll be interesting to see how the Chieftain performs.
  12. The Republican guard tanks do have better ammo. Iirc they are slinging BM42, whereas the regular Syrian tanks are firing BM32 and worse (depending on the tank variant) Actually, it stands for toenail. Source: it came to me in a lucid dream induced by mandatory malaria pills.
  13. A few quick general thoughts. Generally speaking the 2 echelon attack is the way to go for the Soviets. Single echelon attacks were more circumstantial. Terrain always dictates frontage. If you can spread out all 3 battalions to attack on line, great. But usually terrain will be too restrictive to do that (especially in the forested hills and valleys of the Fulda region of Germany) and so your frontage will have to shrink. Roads are very important, especially for the Soviets. While combat vehicles can generally go off road, long supply convoys cannot (for extended distances). The roadways are always going to be vital. Cutting cross country can be done, but if you are traveling cross country for 10s of kilometers with no main roadway connecting your supply chain to your front line units, then its no good. This is another example of terrain dictating. Many times your maneuver plan was drawn by a civil engineer decades ago. Not to beat a dead horse but another issue with this is logistics. If you stick some T-80s into a unit that is fielding T-55s, you are going to be missing spare parts, mechanics, and even fuel (T-55s used diesel while the T-80 used gasoline in its gas turbine engine). It turns into more of a headache than it is worth in my opinion. That said, the Soviets did plan on cannibalizing manpower and equipment and recycling them into follow-on units. It would have been an inefficient process to say the least. The best way to represent that in my opinion would be to maybe have a "reformed" battalion or two, using better equipment that is still comparable to the overall makeup of the division (say, some T-62s making up 2 battalions in the same regiment, and maybe the battalions are at something like 80% strength). Just an idea if you really want a mix of equipment. So, kind of. Task Forces for the US at the time were task organized. Meaning, they were on the fly formations, so they could vary a bit depending on the mission, available units, etc. CM cannot do this very well due to its rigid TOE structure (everything has to be "pre-baked") so it gets around it by giving you formations that are already task organized into the most common Task Force organizations used. That being either a infantry heavy task force or a tank heavy task force. Its a 2:1 ratio either way (2 infantry to 1 tank, or vice versa) though there are also some 2:2 organizations as well. Task Force usually refers to a battalion level formation, whereas the company level equivalent is a Team. This is where the book Team Yankee gets its name for example, as it follows a mixed company team of 2 tank platoons and a mechanized infantry platoon (with 2 ATGM vehicles attached at the company level, plus the company support stuff including a FIST vehicle). It can get a bit confusing (I've gotten tripped up by it a few times myself) but the TOE in Cold War does a good job of giving you realistic task force organizations out of the box. My recommendation would be to roll with that. Good to know! Must decrease visibility, but I doubt it has any other meaningful effect (like weapon degradation or anything like that). Happy to help, and looking forward to more from you, be it questions or otherwise!
  14. Apologies for the double post here. Wanted to break things up for readability sake. Generally speaking that is correct. This can vary as well depending on the mission. For example, you could conceivably see 3 regiments committed to the main effort if given high enough priority. There was some flexibility built in. Also, the echeloning you have is generally correct as well. As a rule of thumb, the Soviets planned to use tank units (regiments/divisions) as exploitation units, and for the motor rifle units (again regiments/divisions) to be the penetration divisions. So the motor rifles should (again generally speaking) be going in first. Combatintman is right, the Soviets would generally task organize the battalions to be combined arms formations, so the tank battalion would get distributed out to the motor rifle battalions, with each battalion getting a tank company. It is possible for that task organization to change though. If the regimental commander determines he needs the concentrated power of the tank battalion, there is nothing stopping him from concentrating the tank battalion. But generally speaking you have 3 maneuver elements as the Soviets in a regiment, the three combined arms battalions. (Same goes for tank regiments, tank battalions with a motor rifle company distributed to each) Combatintman is also right (smart lad, him) in mentioning recon. At the regimental level and above, the recon battalion organic to each Soviet division would be playing a role, generally feeling the way forward in front of the regiments. Their tasks were mostly things such as making sure the maps are correct (is that road/bridge/terrain feature/farmhouse/etc actually there? Is there a terrain feature not accounted for?) You can probably get away with abstracting their job for the purposes of your campaign, especially at first for a mini campaign. Hmm, this one is a bit more tricky and will inevitably come down to your narrative to set the stage. A lot will rest on how ready the US unit is. Have they already taken up defensive positions, or are they still arriving to the area of operations? If they have already arrived, then they will generally arrange the defense to cover the likely enemy axis of advance(s). If they are not prepositioned yet, then the engagement will start (at least initially) as a series of meeting engagements (a mix of spoiling attacks and delaying actions meant to make contact with the advancing Soviets to find and then slow and attrit them). First off, love the graphics! I'm a sucker for these kinds of things. And I really appreciate the use of unit boundaries here. Throw in some phase lines and you've got a proper battle plan! For the Soviets, the main thing I see is that the units proposed are too small and divided. The smallest Soviet maneuver unit was the battalion, meaning that units smaller than a battalion were not meant to perform independent combat actions by themselves, but as part of the battalion. Battalions advancing to contact (expecting a meeting engagement) would have a combat recon patrol (a CRP) and a forward security element (FSE) in front of the leading battalion, but once these elements hit contact they were not expected to fight on their own, but to set conditions for the coming parent battalion to break through whatever resistance was encountered. The important thing here is concentration. You do not want your companies to be so far apart that they cannot support one another, and by that I mean support via direct fire engagement. Its not unheard of for a Soviet company (or company sized task organized force) to take independent action, but their roles were more meant for things such as screening the regimental flank if other assets weren't available, or a special task such as a company sized air assault to seize a bridge or something like that. As for which route is best, general practice is to come up with a main route and an alternate route. You'll probably find from looking at the terrain that there are only a handful of viable routes to advance down anyways, especially when you factor in unit boundaries and terrain boundaries. Pick our routes, and from there it comes down to finding the best way through, using recon assets attached to the division/regiment and the maneuver battalions themselves. For the US, there would be a screen set up by recon (cavalry) units out front to act as a tripwire. The goal of the cav units would just be to determine the size, strength, and direction of the Soviet main effort. The real fighting would be up to the maneuver battalions (usually task organized into company teams, which were intended to work together). These look great! More than enough to start putting forces down on the map and getting a better feel for how the fight will develop, and if anything on the map needs to be tweaked by hand. This is really good stuff! Hope all of that helps a bit. I'll certainly be following along and would love to help out more however I can!
×
×
  • Create New...