HerrTom

I know there's not likely to be an answer but is there any plan for a patch to CW and BS that would include a fix for things like the literally years old problem of the 9M114 not guiding from Mi-24s in either title?

Hey all, I might get in trouble for this but I'm gonna do it anyway.
While we are all very concerned about the deaths in UKR it's also important to remember the other slaughter that's been going on for two years.  Another covid wave, very contagious, is on the way.  I know this crowd skews a bit older so lots of folks here are more at risk.
If you aint vaxxed, get vaxxed.  If you aint boosted, get boosted.  Only 50% of americans are boosted, though 75% are vaxxed.  Immune system resistance wanes over time, particularly w Pfizer (moderna better in this respect).  At Omicron peak we were losing ~2500 americans a day (~4000 per day at the pre-vaccine covid peak last year).  That nearly all those omicron deaths were PREVENTABLE is a tragedy.  And that tragedy is driven by propaganda, much of it spawned from Russia and percolated thru facebook.  So if you want to give a big FU to Putin, get your shots! 
I don't want to lose any of you excellent Combat Mission aficionados.
Hong Kong has a huge percentage of old people who refuse to get vaxxed, it's gonna be a bloodbath.
Thanks, I will take my vacation now.

The classic Commissar was first created during the Revolution. At that time, the Red Army had to pivot from urban militias to a true field force. As a result they needed to rely on a number of 'Spets' or specialists who were largely, though not entirely, members of the old Imperial army. The Bolsheviks being who they were had a hard time trusting the 'Spets' with military forces, so Trotsky introduced the Commissars as a emergency backstop against disloyalty or anti-Marxist behavior. After that the two other main periods of commissar activity were doing the two major crises of the Red Army: the purges and the early stages of WWII. In both cases the political arm (Stalin) distrusted the military and wanted a control to ensure compliance with orders and as a guard against disloyalty. One of the big changes of the mid-war was that the Commissars retreated from having an active and equal role in command towards more traditional political officers. 
AFAIK by the 1980s the Commissars/Political officers took on more of the role of chaplains in the western armies. They worked to maintain consciousness, ideological purity, and sustain positive morale. As a chaplain might sustain you through combat spiritually, the politkom sustains the Soviet soldier politically. At least this is how the FM 100-2 series portrays them. 

Steve, no one wants yet more Americans.
Steve, everyone agrees that Poland would be a fricking awesome addition to CM: BS, and would make perfect sense within the setting.
Steve, I want my eclectic Polish Armed Forces with their mix of Western, Soviet, and domestically produced gear. T-72s, PP-91s, and Leopard 2s all.
Steeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeve. plz

This is a small thing (hopefully) but I'd really like some extra knobs to play with particle effects in the game. Perhaps a way to configure explosions and smoke effects (while keeping the core gameplay effects, naturally) with things like:
Multiple variants of smoke or explosions. Right now we have 1 explosion (explosiona) and 4 types of smoke used in different contexts (smoke black, smoke grey, smoke white, smoke dust). I'd like to be able to make multiple explosion animations or multiple variants of a single smoke texture to give some more variety to the effects. Ability to set explosions to render at the proper z-level. Currently explosions render on top of the transparency pass, so you see them clear as day through smoke, trees, glass, etc. I'd like to be able to have them look properly obscured by smoke and dust.' Define explosion animations for different calibre rounds. This would be like #1 above, but like we have explosion sounds for small/medium/large etc. the possibility of making different animations, for example, for autocannon hits, for tank gun hits, and for aircraft bombs would be pretty cool. Ability to define the orientation of explosions. This would be best combined with #1 again, but if we could create animations that are oriented normal to the surface of whatever the object is striking we could make some very realistic looking explosions. Ability to make explosion animations for specific materials. Like how impacts can cause different sounds depending on the material hit, I'd like to be able to make a different explosion for dirt, concrete, metal, etc. Longer explosion animations! To the best of my knowledge we're limited to less than 30 frames. I'd love to be able to make something just a little bit longer to really blend for example smoke to fade out. So... "small" ask right? 😄

I think we described this way back, I referred to it as the Nagasaki strategy.  A lot of problems with this:
- First, I am not sure it would work.  Say the tac nuke Mariupol and "demand surrender, or else".  Well I am not sure at this point if the UKR PM stood up and declared "unconditional surrender" that the Ukrainian people or the UA would even listen.  At best, Russia is now looking at a very long term resistance and occupation it cannot afford.
- Blow back from Ukraine may include asymmetric actions within Russia from domestic insurgency/mutiny that may be western backed.   Might work, might, not but even the Russian people have a breaking point and this might be near it.  It may also result in his military finally bucking or those in power deciding that their interests are better served with Putin in a hole in the ground. 
- It gives the West permission.  By using nuclear weapons Putin throws one of his last cards on western restraint.  I am not sure if it leads to a no-fly zone but it does create a forcing function for western leaning in.  I am not sure we have a red line in Ukraine but a tac nuke might just do it.  I know a lot of people are frustrated by the response from the West ("why aren't we doing X"), that is because the ultimate risks of where this might lead far outweigh any direct actions we might take.  A thermonuclear war with Russia is a civilization re-set event, hundreds of millions die immediately, billions on what follows. You can downplay it (it will never happen), or sidestep it (Russian capability is a lie) but the facts are the west will do everything it can to avoid that escalation...unless Russia moves first, then the calculus changes.  I am pretty sure that "first strike" options are out there and they won't be theoretical if Putin starts playing fast and loose with nuclear weapons.
- Zero chance of normalization with the west, may even alienate the Chinese.  Those sanctions will become a new Iron Curtain, which may happen anyway but China is not some rabid dog nation.  They are rational in their objectives and strategies, even if we disagree with them.  Dropping tactical nuclear weapons is so disruptive and bad for business that it may spoil China's game and they will draw back.
- Misunderstanding signals.  Lot of fingers on nuclear buttons right now and Putin knows it, because he started it.  A nuclear detonation in Ukraine could be how it all starts up, and by "it" I mean the real deal.  Putin has to be wondering what the US did with all that SDI technology over the last 30 years and if the nuclear deterrence equation doesn't have his back anymore.  He talks tough but that usually points to what he is really afraid of, so employment of nuclear weapons is a really big step.
So, no, the nuclear button is not the "easy button" by a long shot, or he already would have pushed it.
  

This is a small thing (hopefully) but I'd really like some extra knobs to play with particle effects in the game. Perhaps a way to configure explosions and smoke effects (while keeping the core gameplay effects, naturally) with things like:
Multiple variants of smoke or explosions. Right now we have 1 explosion (explosiona) and 4 types of smoke used in different contexts (smoke black, smoke grey, smoke white, smoke dust). I'd like to be able to make multiple explosion animations or multiple variants of a single smoke texture to give some more variety to the effects. Ability to set explosions to render at the proper z-level. Currently explosions render on top of the transparency pass, so you see them clear as day through smoke, trees, glass, etc. I'd like to be able to have them look properly obscured by smoke and dust.' Define explosion animations for different calibre rounds. This would be like #1 above, but like we have explosion sounds for small/medium/large etc. the possibility of making different animations, for example, for autocannon hits, for tank gun hits, and for aircraft bombs would be pretty cool. Ability to define the orientation of explosions. This would be best combined with #1 again, but if we could create animations that are oriented normal to the surface of whatever the object is striking we could make some very realistic looking explosions. Ability to make explosion animations for specific materials. Like how impacts can cause different sounds depending on the material hit, I'd like to be able to make a different explosion for dirt, concrete, metal, etc. Longer explosion animations! To the best of my knowledge we're limited to less than 30 frames. I'd love to be able to make something just a little bit longer to really blend for example smoke to fade out. So... "small" ask right? 😄

I hadn't seen the March 17 report yet. I've been busy reading.
And yes, that's why I just let that comment slide right off my eyeballs, and my brain. But I simply cannot resist the 'Muh Winter War' meme. It's like a cat with a laser pointer. Gets me every time. As far as the previous one, well, let's just say it my way of making a statement about politics by rolling my eyes and groaning for all to hear.
I do get a bit irritated at being told to 'learn to read' given I could read before kindergarten. So I apologize for getting snippy. But I really do think drawing conclusions on a war that's been going for a matter of weeks, when we have no idea when or how it will end, is foolish. To turn around and tell someone they're wrong without at least explaining, with one or two sentences at least why you say that is also foolish.
I also think it's dumb to say something like, "It's ovah!!!" When the example of all of human history is before you.
It's over when BOTH sides say it's over, and not one nanosecond before then.

Suvorov's writings are at best debatable - in fact Glantz, who is reputable scholar of WW2 is very critical of Suvorov's writings about that war.  Others are, albeit less so, critical of his works on the Cold War era.  As an intelligence professional I certainly do not assess Suvorov as credible.  As to agents of the Carpathian Military District reporting every movement of Chieftains - a quick look at a map has to tell you that this is a dubious claim.  Image below shows the distance between the HQ of the Carpathian Military District and HQ 1 (BR) Corps.

 
That sort of data would more likely be tracked by fused IMINT and ground reporting by SOXMIS which reported to GSFG/WGF and not the Carpathian Military District.  In the case of the latter, I worked for seven  months at the desk in BAOR that monitored SOXMIS touring activity and I'll tell you for free that it could not and did not track 'every movement.'

This is a small thing (hopefully) but I'd really like some extra knobs to play with particle effects in the game. Perhaps a way to configure explosions and smoke effects (while keeping the core gameplay effects, naturally) with things like:
Multiple variants of smoke or explosions. Right now we have 1 explosion (explosiona) and 4 types of smoke used in different contexts (smoke black, smoke grey, smoke white, smoke dust). I'd like to be able to make multiple explosion animations or multiple variants of a single smoke texture to give some more variety to the effects. Ability to set explosions to render at the proper z-level. Currently explosions render on top of the transparency pass, so you see them clear as day through smoke, trees, glass, etc. I'd like to be able to have them look properly obscured by smoke and dust.' Define explosion animations for different calibre rounds. This would be like #1 above, but like we have explosion sounds for small/medium/large etc. the possibility of making different animations, for example, for autocannon hits, for tank gun hits, and for aircraft bombs would be pretty cool. Ability to define the orientation of explosions. This would be best combined with #1 again, but if we could create animations that are oriented normal to the surface of whatever the object is striking we could make some very realistic looking explosions. Ability to make explosion animations for specific materials. Like how impacts can cause different sounds depending on the material hit, I'd like to be able to make a different explosion for dirt, concrete, metal, etc. Longer explosion animations! To the best of my knowledge we're limited to less than 30 frames. I'd love to be able to make something just a little bit longer to really blend for example smoke to fade out. So... "small" ask right? 😄

This is a small thing (hopefully) but I'd really like some extra knobs to play with particle effects in the game. Perhaps a way to configure explosions and smoke effects (while keeping the core gameplay effects, naturally) with things like:
Multiple variants of smoke or explosions. Right now we have 1 explosion (explosiona) and 4 types of smoke used in different contexts (smoke black, smoke grey, smoke white, smoke dust). I'd like to be able to make multiple explosion animations or multiple variants of a single smoke texture to give some more variety to the effects. Ability to set explosions to render at the proper z-level. Currently explosions render on top of the transparency pass, so you see them clear as day through smoke, trees, glass, etc. I'd like to be able to have them look properly obscured by smoke and dust.' Define explosion animations for different calibre rounds. This would be like #1 above, but like we have explosion sounds for small/medium/large etc. the possibility of making different animations, for example, for autocannon hits, for tank gun hits, and for aircraft bombs would be pretty cool. Ability to define the orientation of explosions. This would be best combined with #1 again, but if we could create animations that are oriented normal to the surface of whatever the object is striking we could make some very realistic looking explosions. Ability to make explosion animations for specific materials. Like how impacts can cause different sounds depending on the material hit, I'd like to be able to make a different explosion for dirt, concrete, metal, etc. Longer explosion animations! To the best of my knowledge we're limited to less than 30 frames. I'd love to be able to make something just a little bit longer to really blend for example smoke to fade out. So... "small" ask right? 😄

This is a small thing (hopefully) but I'd really like some extra knobs to play with particle effects in the game. Perhaps a way to configure explosions and smoke effects (while keeping the core gameplay effects, naturally) with things like:
Multiple variants of smoke or explosions. Right now we have 1 explosion (explosiona) and 4 types of smoke used in different contexts (smoke black, smoke grey, smoke white, smoke dust). I'd like to be able to make multiple explosion animations or multiple variants of a single smoke texture to give some more variety to the effects. Ability to set explosions to render at the proper z-level. Currently explosions render on top of the transparency pass, so you see them clear as day through smoke, trees, glass, etc. I'd like to be able to have them look properly obscured by smoke and dust.' Define explosion animations for different calibre rounds. This would be like #1 above, but like we have explosion sounds for small/medium/large etc. the possibility of making different animations, for example, for autocannon hits, for tank gun hits, and for aircraft bombs would be pretty cool. Ability to define the orientation of explosions. This would be best combined with #1 again, but if we could create animations that are oriented normal to the surface of whatever the object is striking we could make some very realistic looking explosions. Ability to make explosion animations for specific materials. Like how impacts can cause different sounds depending on the material hit, I'd like to be able to make a different explosion for dirt, concrete, metal, etc. Longer explosion animations! To the best of my knowledge we're limited to less than 30 frames. I'd love to be able to make something just a little bit longer to really blend for example smoke to fade out. So... "small" ask right? 😄

This 

If your plan is heavily dependent on the defending army throwing down their weapons and their leadership buggering off to the West you're going to run into severe problems when those two things don't happen. 
H

It is kinda like listening to William Shatner cover an Elton John song (I…am….a…Rocket, man).  I mean the words kinda match up but what the hell….?

All countries are artificial. The belief in a natural nation state of a pure people is the kind of thing Putin believes in.
If you want to be on the winning side of history stick with the artificial agglomerates (Unites States of..., Eur...Union)

😯 Now that is some interesting Intel on possible future game development. 🙂

While I went Field Artillery, my college roommate went Armor. His platoon broke a M1 Abrams. 1st and 2d tank stopped short. 3rd tank didn't (well, it did shortly!). 4th tank didn't. Cracked the hull of the 3rd tank when it was sandwiched between #2 and #4. The irresistible force and immovable object.  60 tons moving 25mpg vs 180 tons stopped.

I was a very militant communist during the late 70s-early 80s when I was young and thought I could change the world, but that is another story.
Most young "communists" back then were actually Marxists who thought of the Soviet Union as being only slightly better than the USA. Most Marxists believed the type of state controlled economy in the USSR set up under Lenin and Stalin had little to do with Marx's original concept and was just a different style of imperialism and capitalism with a governing class made up of top Party bureaucrats. The left-wing political filmmaker Costa Gravas released "The Confession" in the early 70s which was a powerful indictment against the Stalinist show trials in Czechoslovakia in the early 50s which had a big impact on many of us back then.
The point is that it is extremely doubtful any of the Euro communists who were actually more social-democrats than real hardline communists would have seen a Soviet invasion as a "liberation". They would actually be more likely to want to defend western democracy which despite all its flaws is still better than Soviet style "People's Democracy".

Well, the Soviets have not been shy to invest in money when they think it's worth it - missile-armed tanks, gas turbine tanks, night vision, titanium hulled subs, all of which would demand the best available at the time. I think one of the big reasons is that ... the early thermal imagers just aren't that good, due to their very low number of elements.
This is what a M1 might look like through an optical sight with vertical FOV of 35 milliradians (~2 degrees) at 1000m:

Here's what it might look like in thermal. It's hot, so it's white, but we are now in grayscale:
A "Generation 0" sight (such as 1PN59) is said to use only 50 elements, so the vertical resolution is 50 pixels:

↑Despite the picture being maximally simplified and the tank is white to simulate how a tank pops out from its environs due to heat, does that even still look like a tank? It might be a good toy for specially trained recce troops, perhaps by making the straw even narrower. As a tank sight ... needs work.

↑This, with 100 lines, is about the level of a 1st generation tank sight. Agava-1 is said to be 100 lines. Leopard 2's first sight, EMES 15, would also be about this level (at 120 elements). Definitely getting better, but if it is say at 2000m, or the tank is hull down so its bottom is blocked, or you are thinking your target are much smaller and cooler infantrymen, or we degrade its contrast ratio by putting a real background behind it, put coverings on it to reduce its heat transmission ... etc, do you want to pay a substantial amount and look through 35 mrad straws for this?

↑Agava-2, at 256 elements. Ah, definitely becoming useful here. That's when the Soviets decided they finally had a viable tank sight ... but then the Soviet Union broke up.
That may well be the main differential point between NATO and the Soviets - whether to accept a resolution less than the 144p which is the crappiest resolution on Youtube or wait for 240p. I think NATO can accept the lower resolution because they are thinking they need to attack hot, mobile Soviet tanks and are willing to shoot at blobs that are only a bit better than a dot. The Soviets wanted something that can help them hunt down hull down tanks, small TOW jeeps and infantry.

Jim Storr,
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my query about your characterization of Soviet artillery in a Cold War goes hot scenario as as "... heavy but inaccurate [fire], and its fire planning crude".  Regrettably, I thought your reply was disappointing.
First, the reference to my wife's father, a colonel of Soviet artillery and an instructor in an academy devoted to producing junior grade artillery officers in a four year program was intended to show that I had personal knowledge that such institutions existed (there were more than one such academy for artillery) and to show that the Soviets evidently took such an investment in training seriously. Your response was to say that while you didn't say that Soviet artillery officers were incompetent (true) the Soviet standards of training  were "generally poor", thus, along with technical backwardness, the best to be expected was "... heavy but inaccurate [fire], and its fire planning crude". If artillery officers can't hit a target then how competent can they be?
Referring to the Great Patriotic War ("Soviet artillery fire in the Great Patriotic War was often heavy but inaccurate and its fire planning crude") is relevant to the Cold War period in what way? Are you suggesting that the Soviets did not improve their artillery and practice and doctrine in any way from 1945 to the 1980's? Am I on firm ground here in thinking that the Soviets did improve their game in this area? If so, wouldn't accuracy be one of those things improved upon (that being the ultimate point of artillery) or are we to think that these guys are just too primitive and unsophisticated to "get it"?
You also offer the example of the Arabs trained by the Soviets and the Arabs sad and failed efforts as an indicator of the quality of Soviet artillery. If we can accurately judge the teaching nation's military by how well its students have done, then how do we evaluate the US military and the students its has taught: South Vietnamese Army (collapsed 1975), Georgian Army (collapsed 2008), and Afghan Army (collapsed 2021)?
I find it incredible that a nation that could build a nuclear arsenal and carry out a manned space program, even if not up to the technical level of sophistication of the United States, couldn't solve the problem of getting accurate artillery fire, which was solved back in WW1. It beggars belief.
Enough. I suspect that we are firmly lodged in our positions and not likely to yield, so I propose a "Christmas Truce" and there's and end to it.
Good luck with your next book (is the topic a secret?).
Regards
 

Every time I see destroyed and burning vehicles it seems a bit silly that the smoke from them always go straight up while other kinds of smoke and dust go sideways.
Is this something BFC has designed to make it easier to spot the enemy's destroyed vehicles so the player can think "Yes! I killed that bloody tank. I'm so good I deserve a lollypop" or is there another reason to this? Strong wind doesn't make much of a difference and the smoke still goes mostly straight up to do a slight bend higher up.
The picture is from DoubleD's youtube video of an H2H battle in Black Sea.

Are we talking about the same Wehrmacht and Bundeswehr? Because the Wehrmacht i know was quite enthusiastically giving out panzerfaust and panzerschreck to its units. The Bundeswehr following it did the same with the Carl Gustav and Pzf44 so them not expecting it would require some incredible institutional blindness.
Being a stopgap and not as good as wanted doesnt prevent it from being seen and employed as an IFV and drawing conclusions from its use. The wehrmacht proved quite capable of invading Poland and France with stopgap tanks.
In 1956 te Bundeswehr had barely started to exist, in 1967 it had IFVs in use for 7 years and in 1973 it was on its second generation IFV.
That BMPs werent following the tanks says more about the combined arms coordination than the vehicle used. It actually shows a quite bleak picture for Syrian officers competence and therefore calls taking the lessons lerned by Israel at face value into question.
During the second gulf war the initial Iraqi positions were well prepared but mostly destroyed by artillery. The 2008 and 2014 wars saw russian troops mostly counterattacking units on the offensive.
I find the assertion that fighting into a well-prepared and well-defended position is a flawed metric for judging an IFVs value. They enable highly mobile operations which are far more effective in winning fights. No matter how well prepared and defended your positions are they can be broken as evidenced during WW2.
 
Also some interesting loss statistics from those middle eastern wars:
Second gulf war 1,487 tanks, 1,384 infantry fighting vehicles Employed by US troops resulting in 31 tanks destroyed/disabled and 28 Bradley IFVs destroyed/damaged indicating an equal chance of being knocked out.
For the 1982 Lebanon war For Israel its 1,240 tanks and 1,500 armoured personnel carriers employed 130 tanks destroyed/damaged and 175 APCs destroyed/damaged.
This suggests that on a large scale tanks arent much more survivable than IFVs.
Primary threat are IEDs, light anti tank weapons, far heavier and less mobile than their immediate laternative, used primarily in very rough ground or cities against oponents that reach at best western light infantry standards.
Biggest difference is that the Namer weighs 60tons and is supposed to also be usable in conventional war.
Also my initial statement was somewhat exagerated so this isnt the hill ill die on.
 
Here is my main problem though and where i wonder why you didnt adress my first post at all.
I pointed out issues i have with your method of reaching your conclusion specifically possible weaknesses in the ruleset you used based on your description of what happened. I dont know the ruleset but when my irl experience clashes with my wargaming experience i first question if my wargaming experience has any possible flaws causing the results. You take the results as is without examining the ruleset for possible issues.
Your conclusion might very well be correct but it contradicts practically all modern armies with all their combined experience so the burden of proof is on your end to show youre right and everyone else is wrong and you present very little hard evidence. What you present is wargaming under one specific ruleset modified by yourself against the same oponent and to validate you use one military not using IFVs where there might be other reasons involved as i pointed out. At least for me that is not enough so id be quite happy if you could actually clarify.
Thank you for the replies so far. Its highly unusual to be able to discuss a book like this with its author so its much apreciated.

I'll contribute to the above by providing some context from Storr's previous works. Storr probably got the idea to go anti-IFV after one of his contributors, William Owen, wrote an article and Storr replied to it. I'm supposed to cite these as:
Owen, William F., “Wrong Technology for the Wrong Tactics: The Infantry Fighting Vehicle”,
Military Operations, Volume 1, Issue No. 3, Winter 2012, pages 17-20. Storr, Jim, “Three Short Pieces”, Military Operations, Volume 1, Issue No. 4, Spring 2013, pages 23-26. In it, an IFV is defined as:
and the BMP-1 is called:
By that standard, the Schutzenpanzer HS30 is not an IFV. An IFV in this context might be defined as an infantry-carrying vehicle that has more weapons capability than can be fitted without massive tradeoffs in infantry complement, protection and/or cost (both procurement and training).
Also, the concern, either in Owen's article or Storr's reply the objection is not with the effectiveness of the on-board weapons, but the vulnerability of the vehicles and the attendant crippling of the formation's mobility due to the loss of infantry carrying capability.
Thus, for example in this context:
I'm going to guess what he meant to say is not that a dismounted 20mm or manpack ATGM launcher is "more resistant" than an IFV turret, or even much less visible as it commits to action, but that when you lose them at least you don't lose an infantry carrier (and consequent mobility) with it. 50% losses in dismounted heavy weapons means a proportionate lowering of firepower. Even 20% losses in IFVs means a disproportionate lowering of mobility unless you just cut off anybody who can't cram onto a surviving vehicle.
Re the point of suppression, if he's doing it in a wargame a significant difference will be how the wargame models this psychological factor. In previous works, Storr is of the opinion that the suppressive effect will be minimal unless it is very close to the target:
Storr, Jim, “The Real Role of Small Arms in Combat”, Rusi Defence Systems, June 2009, pages 44-46. If we assume that Storr believes autocannon fire works in similar fashion and works it into his wargame rules, then such area suppressive fires will be much less effective than in wargames assuming a larger acceptable miss radius for suppressive fire.
I agree, however, that the target priorities seem a clear point of suspicion in the conclusions. Who got to decide what gets shot at first in that wargame? My sense is that weapons on an IFV exploit the "shadow" created by the tanks. Certainly, if the infantry carriers are armed and they are shooting, they will move up in priority, but in theory they will be safe as long as they are not the most interesting choice - the theoretical optimum is that they make themselves as interesting as possible (by putting effective weapons fire on the enemy) without being more interesting than the tanks.