Abdolmartin

I have never understood why, but somehow the winter versions of the vehicles (both here and in the CMRT winter mod) seem more "warlike" than their summer versions. Awesome job, man!

SWEET!

I hope that in a future module or patch, we'll see the implementation of the idea that panzersaurkrautwerfer put forth about simulating fighter-based AD, and all these Stinger issues will be eliminated.

This. I remember that I put my Stingers over a hill in "Bridgehead over Kharalyk" and they destroyed three enemy helos, two in a single turn!

**SPOILERS**: This was a tough one. All went well as I took the dominating hill with the building on top of it, and I got the bridge in time and then called the flyboys on the tanks (killed all but one of them, which was taken care of using a Javelin). The other companies went for the small town and the hill to its left, and the hill was taken with few casualties, but the town was quite a PITA to take. I basically threw every howitzer round I had at them and attacked them from the left and front (west and south ), and it was a pretty tough fight as one of my flanks was attacking down a reverse slope. Finally got some guys to breach a couple of the buildings and the fate of the defenders was sealed (but not before launching a huge number of RPGs at my buildings). Got out before the BMPs arrived, and completely evacuated with ~55 mins left. Total victory with ~70 causalties on my side and ~220 on the enemy side. It was quite fun, especially the airstrike and the town, but the town was also frustrating. And several times my guys did incredibly stupid things (and so did I tbh ), but it was quite good overall.

The problem with US precision arty is that it's GPS-guided and has no terminal guidance, so if the target moves, you'll just be throwing thousands of dollars into the ground.

@Ivanov : I understand your point. Actually, what I've read completely agrees with what you stated about the deep strike exercise. American doctrine put too much faith in attack helos in roles they weren't meant for. Now my point is, the issue in deep strikes is that you're pretty much out in the wild. The terrain a chopper tries to hug and slowly move over can actually be harbouring the same threats the chopper is trying to hide from, and that's why the speed of fast movers gives them a tremendous advantage over choppers in any role that isn't CAS. However, when choppers are used as a part of a combined arms assault or defence, they are usually flying over friendly airspace and they don't really have to venture into enemy airspace in order to engage enemy armour. I've always felt that with top attack fire and forget ATGMs, attack helos have been progressing some sort of "missile truck" role: go to point A as stealthily as you can, fire all missiles in LOAL at targets already detected by other assets, then RTB. That is basically the only role that can be suitable given their fragility and helplessness once targeted. @c3k : As I said above, I believe that most issues with attack helos in US doctrine have been when they were mistaken for something they were not, and the Medina division event is a great example of that. The most important issue I find with the in-game modeling of the Apache, is that it fires its missiles one by one with large intervals in between, while in real life, in such a situation, the helo would probably want to fire as many missiles as fast as possible, then go home. @||CptMiller|| : It doesn't seem to be simulated in the game. Yeah my initial statement about infantry was probably ambiguous, apologies for that.

Tunguska's radar and EO system both need LOS to see an Apache, and LOAL mode on the Hellfire missile is designed exactly to deny the enemy his LOS (so there's no need to pop up from behind cover). So in uneven terrain, the Apache can actually get close to a target area with a Tunguska present and fire their radar Hellfires. Especially given the fact that they do not go into the battle area relying only on their own sensors, but probably even have PFZs assigned to them before they get there. The Tunguska, nor any other single type of asset, is not enough to seriously challenge CAS. What actually makes CAS challenging for a chopper pilot is that they could run into other defences - e.g. MANPADS or other air defences waiting in ambush - when trying to hide from known enemy AA positions.

I think the usage of aerial assets such as the Apache differs from your example of Bradleys, at least in real life. The real Apache is actually designed to fire from behind cover using its radar for acquisition, so as long as it doesn't try to fly like a fast mover and instead uses the terrain, it's more like a hull-down Bradley firing TOWs, than Bradleys charging the enemy. But the issue of Apaches flying like fighters in the game has been discussed elsewhere. As to the Javelins, I do agree that at least in the US case, the best tool for dealing with enemy tanks is your own tanks. But combined arms is really necessary and infantry are valuable scouts who, in addition to spotting possible threats (not only tanks, but also BMPs and Khrizamtemas and even ATGM positions), can neutralise them with their Javelins. Since Abrams tanks are such valuable assets, some sort of overwatch with infantry is highly desirable, especially when they can create many on one situations by stealthily getting into a good position. What I said was that the lack of good positions for the infantry makes your tanks' job harder.

I'm sorry if this question has been asked before, but I have a question. How exactly do you deploy Apaches in the face of enemy air defences? From my experience, it's pretty much a gamble, especially if the enemy has Tunguskas. Fixed wing aircraft have a good chance of evasion and they rarely get shot down, especially compared to helos. However, most scenarios in the game give you helos, rather than fixed wing a/c. For example, take the scenario "First Clash". In this scenario, airpower and arty is basically the only thing that levels the field for you; the enemy has three times as many tanks as you; there aren't many good spots for infantry to fire Javelins from, especially because enemy forces are in very good positions; most of your troops, including tanks, are regular (vs the mostly veteran and even some crack Russian T-90AMs, which the enemy uses in counterattacks). The only way I've found to beat the Russians in this scenario is to use my airpower aggressively, but this needed the previous knowledge that the enemy had no Tunguskas; and even with that, I've found that when the enemy has Iglas/Strela-10s and I call in a flight of Apaches, I usually lose one out of two. Besides, the act of finding enemy anti-air using drones and precision arty-ing them is a proper counter to Tunguskas and Strela-10s, but it takes a lot of time to do properly (since the map can be quite large) and still can't neutralise Iglas because the drone will rarely spot them unless they fire, and Iglas are perfectly capable of killing Apaches. So, I want to know how other people approach this problem.

Exactly. On my second run, I took all enemy positions and then exited, taking 25 casualties (12 KIA) and 3 vehicles dead (plus a goddamn Igla took out one of my Apaches!), while the enemy only had 10 men left at the end, and all I got was a draw, with me having 400 points and the enemy... 500! An outmatched and outnumbered force like the American force in this scenario should actually get more credit for killing the enemy, and much more credit for taking ground objectives. Still, the masochist inside of me really likes this mission; especially with that Russian arty and air attack that comes in and obliterates you.

I think that by design, the Bradley is supposed to be able to take out enemy MBTs. The fact that the BMP family have a hard time doing so is their fault. It's not Omar's fault, you know.

This. It's a quite disconcerting fact that in the stock scenario "Dueling Shashkas", which states that it's an "even" scenario (which it's not IMO, it's much easier as Russia due to better spotting), Ukrainian Oplots face off against Russian T-90As and not -AMs.

This blog is a bloody gold mine!

I think a Fulda Gap CM should be higher on the list than a Korea 2019. I mean, the modern Combat Mission titles right now are either completely lopsided (in conventional warfare) towards the US (CMSF) or rather unbalanced (CMBS); so in terms of game "style", a Fulda Gap title would be very unique right now. In addition, it would be nice to recreate Red Storm Rising in CM.

Legen... wait for it... dary! Can't wait to play this! Thanks a ton! EDIT: My download speed right now would make any dial-up connection proud. Almost 0.4 KB/s. lol.

I completely agree. When they have no eyes on the enemy it's a great feature, but when you do, or when you want to move to a particular position to shoot without using fast move, it's very irritating.

That's an awesome document, thanks for sharing! It would be great if we could find similar documents for the US and USSR. I'm very interested in reading US documents similar to this, because I think the conventional doctrine of the US has always involved a great amount of fire support and is quite reliant on it, doctrinally and practically (hence the extreme investments of the US in their top-notch airforce).

Obviously you're talking about Wargame and Eugen Systems. Those guys have taken bias to a whole new level. With their Rafale super fighters and stuff. And the US airforce being inferior to the Soviets and even the French. The level of logic in their design choices was so high, that in a 1991 game, the Soviets had tons of R-77s while the US had mostly AIM-9s. And the R-73 was equal in capability to AIM-9M. And US infantry was so dumbed down that I just couldn't tolerate the stupid stuff going on and stopped playing that game after a while. I mean, the idea is great, the engine is fine, the design on units and the logic of the makers are complete show-stoppers.

Is there a "PUN" on the butt of that FAMAS? LOL. EDIT:By the way, the mag looks like the one they had before changing to a NATO compatible STANAG magazine.

Well, even the 0.50 cal can be dangerous with new ammo, e.g. Mk. 211. I mean, just by comparing the penetration of the standard 0.50 AP-I to the Mk. 211, it appears that the latter penetrates much better. That 0.950 rifle sounds pretty much insane though. It's almost a personal cannon.

Concerning actual personal wepons (not grenades or rockets), it will certainly depend on the calibre of the weapon and the ammunition used. Intermediate rifle cartridges (5.56 NATO and 5.45 Russian) will probably be unable to penetrate significantly. However, I expect full-power rifle cartridges such as the 7.62×54R (which actually did exist in WW2) to be able to penetrate better (they can even penetrate the back of certain BTRs). Modern ammo of HMGs and large calibre rifles also allows them to perform better at penetrating armour. But small arms are naturally limited at best to penetrating the armour of armoured cars and less. For anything more, you need at least an anti-materiel rifle.

AA assets in general sometimes fail to fire, and I think this has something to do with how the game simulates ingress routes and the terrain between the teams and the attacking aircraft. It could also be a bug. I mean, I've seen 3 Stinger teams fire simultaneously at a single target, and I've also seen them fail to fire. When I played "Backs to the Wall", they did actually fire, but didn't down anything.

Thank you!

Khrizantema can be launched in either SACLOS (operator tracks target, system automatically guides to it) or ACLOS (target has been acquired pre-launch, the operator doesn't track the target manually anymore after launch). However, ACLOS is a different thing from F&F. ACLOS is still guided by the launching platform, but it's completely automatic and doesn't require any more crew input.