kipanderson

Hi, The one that will change the most is the Russians. A huge amount of kit is about to change, already exists. Will be fielded before 2017. But I too agree should not be in CMBS until fielded. Battlefront has done a great job of “guessing forward...” to 2017 in a even-handed way. But I am looking forward to BS as a way to start thinking about high-intensity warfare again. But the detail of Russian kit will change most by 2017. After a pause, maybe just beyond 2017, there will be a general, global increase in defence spending. The Great Game is on again and cannot be put back in the bottle. All the best, Kip.

Hi, This one is excellent.. OPFOR Smartbook 3: Red Team Army. ISBN: 978-1-935886-57-0 It is new.. Updated version of those classic US military manuals from the ‘90s on the Soviets/OPFOR. All the best, Kip.

Hi, I think most people are very restrained. You can sense people are very tempted to say something then hold back. But I have seen some let fly. They “assume...” near all decent people would share their views. Which of course is not the case. I would love to see a Yom Kippur War game... OK there is a limit to how many different scenarios one could build.. but it is by a huge margin the biggest post- war clash of “toy rich arms..” and almost weird they have not done it yet. But strict no politics rules would be needed. If we do more post-war settings, and goodness “not doing Yom Kippur..” would be very odd, I hope the powers that be are very strict on no politics in the sense of who is right and wrong. A strictly enforced rule would make anything doable quite easily. Lucky to have CM at all... just look at the competition.. All the best, Kip.

Hi, Yes... they look great. Will download tonight.. Congratulations.. . All the best, Kip.

Hi,, I am not involved in beta testing this one so have no inside knowledge. However you would be surprised how much is known, or often know about modern systems. There are two basic reasons for this. Firstly in the modern world, going back to the Cold War certainly and today companies have to sell their kit. And customers not unreasonably want to know what it’s capable of vis-a-vis other kit. This information is leaked. In fact often advertised, even the very clever stuff. The information is sometimes leaked on purpose to illustrate test results for potential customers. Secondly the physics and engineering possibilities are often widely known. What is possible with the materials is understood by many. I am sure it is not perfect, but nor as difficult or impossible as it may seem to make a good estimate. All good fun, All the best, Kip.

Hi, No one is going to actuality fight over the Ukraine. NATO was always going to blink for the very good reason that they don’t have anything approaching a “real national interest..” great enough to justify the massive blood and treasure required to fight Russia over the Ukraine. But The Great Game globally is certainly on. Serious players will start to square off against each other and it is very timely to return to playing and studying conventional war. A rapid return to normal competition between nation states has started. Including in Europe. Just wait and see as defence budgets flat line then start to climb again everywhere. All the best, Kip.

Yankeedog, hi, I know.. but looked at from their point of view this is not the time to cut back on planned rearmament. Anything but in fact. More generally if say you just look at the growing tension between China and Japan as one example, normal history is back globally and that trend will only increase. After a pause for a few more years global military spending will no doubt increase. Even in the west. This is why I think CMBS is so timely. Many of us, me certainly, have not really considered contemporary, high intensity war since the end of the Cold War. There is lot to learn about how it may play out if there were a clash somewhere. CMBS is just a “sandbox...”, an excuse for a setting to simulate such a clash. This is why I think it would be fun for the first module to be German. To refight some WWII battles. All good fun, All the best, Kip.

Hi, Battlefront have been very even-handed in assumptions they have made about what kit will be available in three years time. Have rightly been very careful not to get carried away. However as time goes on and the Russians in particular start to issue their mass of new and very real equipment developed over the last half dozen plus years I am sure it will turn up in future modules. You can trust Battlefront to accurately model all units as we move towards 2017 and start to actually know what kit will be around then. As things stand, US and much NATO equipment is not scheduled to change that much by 2017. Russian equipment, or the latest available by 2017, is set to massively change. AFVs themselves becoming more difficult for Javelin to keep locked on to will be a big change. All the best, Kip.

John, Crikey... GPS too.. this is going to be fascinating.. really will be. Thanks... very grateful. And others too.. lots to learn. Superb timing by Battlefront. I don’t really mean the detail of Ukraine.. but with Russia and many more coming such as China of course, no longer so poor they cannot compete.. high intensity warfare is back. From the purely wargames point of view.. “wargames are about the weapons and tactics..” this is interesting stuff. All the best, Kip.

SeinfeldRules, Thanks for that.. Interesting to know. That is one of the things about CM.. it attracts people like yourself who actually “know..” . I had acquired the idea that it would be far easier.. But this is why am so keen on Blacksea.. since the end of the Soviet Union have not bothered with following how contemporary, high intensity war may work. The Soviet Union was gone and the rest too poor. But not anymore on any count. But now history is back, globally in fact, and only going to return even more... if I can put it that way, time to take a very close look again at this type of warfare. All the best, Kip.

Hi,, I think this one going to be fascinating. There is a general unwinding of Global Governance and un - pooling of sovereignty afoot. For good or ill. After a pause defence spending will start rise again even in the west as history once again is played out in the usual way. So after a twenty – five year break I am keen to learn how contemporary, high intensity war may play out. The “fantasy games...” that purport to model future war do not interest me. But CMX2 with its feet firmly planted in as near to reality as possible is ideal. Very exciting in fact. I would love to see the Germans in the first module as replaying the WWII battles, over today’s terrain would hugely good fun. An ideal way to learn how contemporary, high intensity warfare may workout. It would be colourful and fun. Entire campaigns refought that way . As it is after learning some of the basics I will be using the US to replay many WWII battles over the terrain as it is now. Battlefront has done a great job in picking what kit to give each side. Not an easy call. Hope they retain their caution. But as new kit is issued, even in small numbers initially... of course let’s see it. My guess is a lot of Russian kit will become available over the next couple of years. There is a huge list of stuff that already exists. This is going to be cracker.. . All the best, Kip.

John, Sgt Joch, Thanks for your answers, lots to learn. Wow.. you were certainly the right man to reply, very full answer am very grateful. From some of the video/ streaming from Chris looks like they have modelled this stuff as you recommend. Thanks again, All the best, Kip.

Hi, I have always found that winter settings look better in CM than summer. Something to do with the way graphics show up on screen maybe? But I am bias as I generally find dark, winter days more atmospheric than summer.. . BTW.. refight WWII battles with new kit.. you bet.. very much on the list for up and coming fun.. . All the best, Kip.

Hi, I don’t know anything about it. Is it easy to do? Do all serous militaries plan to use it a lot? Are the jamming units themselves very vulnerable to detection and therefore to becoming targets? I have no idea.. any info would help. I am a WWII man, Cold War as well but now it’s all the more important to know this stuff. To get a feel for it. When designing scenarios for example. Thanks, We are lucky to have CM.. still.. there is no competition at all , All the best, Kip.

Hi, Question for those involved in testing/development.. I had anticipated that the battlefield would rapidly fill with “warm smoke...” or smoke of some kind that also blocks thermal imaging. So my question is will all smoke be assumed to be of the kind that blocks thermal imaging and do the players use it a lot in games? Do supporting artillery and rockets do “shoot and scoot..” barrages of smoke all over the place before running/moving to avoid counter battery? All the best, Kip. PS. One of my pet theories.. no idea if it would be workout that way , is that artillery support may in some ways have hit its is maximum in WWII. Why.. because in any contemporary, high intensity war between rivals even close to being in the same ball park in tech terms there would be so much counter battery fire artillery would spend most of its time “fighting each other over the heads of frontline infantry, armour units.. ..” and moving and such..

Hi, That was tremendous.. ! Being such an unhinged WWII fan I was a little sceptical of this one, but that is all gone now. The variety possible will be huge. With systems going on and off, ECM firing up to different levels and more. More variety than in a WWII setting . Also.. very curious to see how things might work in a fully contemporary setting. Mikey, That made me laugh.. ... Yes the graphics do look fantastic.. . Great looking forward to this.. All the best, Kip. PS.Raptorx7.. thanks for posting it...

Hi, I don’t have any inside knowledge as I didn’t take part in testing this one. But it looks to me as though Battlefront have shown justifiable caution in the assumptions they have made about what new kit to model. My great fear was that “fantasy..” equipment would creep in as no one can know for sure what will be around in 2017. Things are constantly cut, or dropped, or delayed. It looks as though they have gone with the idea that equipment should be very similar to that currently in service but with all sides launching a four or five month “production surge...”. Bringing a much a possible up to date and tweaked to the latest standard. This is a sensible approach in my view. Later no doubt there will be some big additions. The Russians have a long list of equipment ready to go. But not deployed to units yet. This stuff is real in that it’s available to export customers. It’s not the defence equipment equivalent of “vapourware.. “. New tanks, IFVs both tracked and wheeled, new and much improved AT missiles and infantry AT weapons. Often designed to help evade APS such as Trophy. But we will have to see what gets fielded. This time probably most. The new tank will be on display at the Victory Day parade in Moscow next summer. CMBS will certainly be a lot of fun as it will be so different. Greatly looking forward to that first look and play around with it, All the best, Kip.

Hi, Yes... in Britain things are up in the air in a way that has not been the case for forty years. Britain will for sure go to war again. The BBC was massively over spinning to egg up the program. The “swing...” voters who count, are chased by the politicians is changing. For those who don know, if not British why should you , the middle ground swing voters in the UK have been for forty odd years, by name less by but inclination whatever the name, been Lib Dems. In Britain they are in many ways more “left wing..”, for good or ill, than most Labour voters. More ”PC..”. This has determined a lot of British policies. As swing voters do in all western countries. In the UK now “the swing voters to chase...” is changing to become a party called UKIP. They by contrast are the least “PC...” party in the UK. Less PC than the Conservatives.. If you are still with me.. ; ).. this means very big changes may result. I couldn’t like political discussions on CM forums, don’t join in, I say the above to give the background. Make your own mind up if you think it good or bad. Or as to how far it may go. But this is the trend after Labour found its vote too is vulnerable to UKIP. In summary... British politics, for good or ill, is changing very fast from being driven by having to accommodate Lim Dem swing voters with their often very Europhile and PC views to having to accommodate UKIP type sympathise with their very anti-EU, anti- PC views. All the best, Kip.

Rokko, hi, The way I use them, and with most to the former Soviet Union for this time period there is little alternative to these maps, is to use them as an outline then I use photos from the Eastern Front in WWII as a guide for likely detail of the look of the terrain and buildings and such. Here and there more detailed maps do exist, as the sources show.... but the US Army series taken from the best sources they could find for the 1940s I think a good starting point. All the best, Kip.

Hi, Do you have this one yet... Very high quality, English names from war or near war time period. http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/ams/eastern_europe/ All the best, Kip.

Jon, hi, Jon I know, I know.. . You are a New Zealander.. I am familiar with the contemporary view New Zealanders take to these issues.. no doubt the same as that many Norwegians do who are I think starting to conscript women into front line units. However, the problem is that having read the above book.. and for example seen the figures on female readership of the Economist over the years.. if the posts are polite, and on a forum where hopefully few, in fact hopefully no one would be offended.. we are in to “thought police stuff...” if politely one cannot make such posts.. . This of course is the problem.. at the moment in the western countries there is “immense pressure” not to say anything, or give any view that is even mildly un- PC. This pressure is very real. I often do keep my trap shut on many issues if I think it would genuinely often. Some of the posts on previous thread along this line I did feel were wildly too aggressive. If there were a female audience here I would not have posted the above so as to be sure not to offend. Even though there is not an obvious female audience I did try to be polite but without going so far as to be forced to say something I believe, given what I have read, to be untrue. I am not accusing Jon of this, but this a classic problem I am sure is true in all western countries. All the best, Kip. PS. This is an example of why I never discuss near political topics on any CM forum, or online in any way. Only amongst friends or in the pub where it is easier to get the tone correct. This was though a military related matter so I attempted to politely make my case. I once heard a guy on the radio say that it is not a problem that fewer girls do physics to a higher level. It is a problem if even “one girl...” who wished to do physics at the higher level was discouraged or denied it because she was a female. My view exactly.

Hi, According to Glantz 33,000,000 Soviet citizens served in the Red Army in WWII. One million were women, hence the 3% figure that is normally used. They overwhelmingly served in the same way they did in say the Commonwealth Forces, or the US Army. If you are reading this then you are likely to be so nerdish you do “get it..” when it comes to statistics. You will understand that what may be true for the great bulk of the bell curve may not for a small percentage. I do not doubt the exploits of women mentioned in the Soviet memoirs and such. But these are very much the exception. For the true picture of women in war, including today... read the book below.. Men, Women, and War by Martin Van Creveld. Just Amazon it and read the reviews.. or the book if you wish. Women are not suitable for war for all obvious reasons. And much of what you read about them in the Soviet Army in WWII was propaganda. But I am sure a few did do all that was claimed for them. I don’t doubt it. But in percentage terms it is a very small number. Modern, western military hugely spin the suitability of women for war because not to do so would be career ending at the highest level. Just read the book and make your own mind up. As I have no doubt history has not ended this is a serious problem for the very first clashes in future major wars. For the west. But in truth they would immediately be pulled from the combat units in major war so people can exaggerate the problem. All the best, Kip.

John, hi, War and many other hobbies are almost entirely either male or female. We have very different interests. Likes and dislikes. In military history the amount of content consumed by women will be truly tiny, probably less than 1%. Women do play more and more video games, but very different ones to us blokes. You see so few women on forums like this because they aren’t interested. As you will know. A very quick and easy way to illustrate the difference between men and women in their likes and dislike is to do the “W H Smiths test”. To explain for those not familiar with the UK, W H Smiths is a very large seller of magazines. If you go into a large branch of W H Smiths you will find that near all titles are either sold to women or men. Very is little overlap. Even where you think there might be overlap, normally there is none, very little. To give an example. The Economist magazine deals with current affairs, economics, foreign policy and such. Surely you would think women would be interested. In fact I have seen two figures for the female readership of the Economist over the years. One at 3% female readership one at 13%. The test is important because it shows what men and women like to read, what “truly interests them”. What they likely think about and dream about with the help of their discretionary dollar, pound. And there is almost very little overlap. An inconvenient truth for those with a certain agenda. All good fun, All the best, Kip.

Michael, This may well have been the case, things were tweaked constantly. The initial purpose of the move from simple AP to APCBC was to overcome face hardened armour. For the Brits anyway. The way the “cap...” did this was to smash the face hardening and in the process self destruct. The remaining 85% of the shell then smashed its way through the armour in the usual way. However... what was the other problem with “pointed..” AP shells.. they handled slope/angled strikes very poorly. For obvious reasons. The design of the “cap..” was closer to that of a flat head projectile thus increasing the performance against slope/angles when compared to simple AP. However.. the reason why APCBC was still very much less effective against angled strikes than Soviet APBC was that the “cap...” in front of the main body of the projectile acted as a lubricant between the main body of the projectile and the sloped armour. APCBC did deal with slope better than AP. but still far worse than APBC. At over 45 degrees strike angle APCBC falls off a cliff when compared to APBC. There is no right answer.. some may think the better performance against near vertical plate gives advantage to APCBC even though at over 45 degrees there is a very big difference . All fun stuff.. All the best, Kip.

Hi, Soviet APBC and standard design western/German APCBC are not the same thing. Soviet APCB is a standard, near solid shell with a small HE charge in the rear. (APCBC also as a small HE charge in the rear, unless British . ) However in the case of APCB the point of the shell has been chopped off. So it is indeed “flat nose...” as oft described. Over this “flat nose..” there is a ballistic cap rounded and shaped to cut through the air with superior aerodynamics. BTW... “pointed...” is not the best aerodynamic shape for those who may be interested. The cap is just very thin mental that collapses away when there is strike. The difference with APCBC is that immediately in front of the “flat nose...” shell which is still there with APCBC... there is “cap..” of extra hard mental then followed by a “ballistic cap...” as with the Soviet projectiles. The main purpose of the hardened “cap...” is to help with cracking through hardened armour. The Soviet view was that their flat nose design was good enough against hardened armour. Remember the west and Germans were moving from pointed AP shells to APCBC. Pointed AP shells did struggle against hardened armour hence the change of design to APCBC. The net effect of the difference between the Soviet APBC ammo and APCBC projectiles is that APCBC has better penetration against vertical plate, i.e. struck straight on at 90 degree or zero degrees depending on how you count, while Soviet APCB coped far better with strikes at an angle. The difference can be a reasonable amount. To illustrate. A APCBC round penetrates 140mm at 100m head on against vertical plate. A Soviet design APBC projectile may penetrate just 120mm head on against vertical plate. However at a strike angle of 45 degrees both projectiles would have same penetration. At a strike angle of 60 degrees, say striking down the side of a tank, the Soviet APBC has a very big advantage. So as you move from head against vertical plate to a more angled strike the advantage moves away from APCBC towards APBC. Make your mind up at how many strikes were at what compound angle in WWII. Given that most strikes will have been, probably anyway, at compound angle between as 25degrees and 45 degrees there was probably very little overall advantage to either side. All the best, Kip.