Apocal

Heavy artillery, large-bore HE and running tracked vehicles (AP mines only) over it. None of those are especially practical. By the way, engineers/sappers don't clear minefields, they only mark them so it is safe to move across at MOVE speed for infantry. Once it is cleared, it is safe to move across, but as I said before, marked minefields are something different and place a speed limit on your advance if you want them to not go off.

For direct fire weapons? I haven't really seen it; either the other team has LoS as well and joins in the firing, there is so much ammo you run out of targets before it is exhausted, or -- being exposed to reply fire -- the offending element is eliminated in turn.

Moisture has an insulating effect, so as humidity climbs, your thermals degrade. I don't know how you would put a good number on it, but the effect is real. If they are seriously claiming 100% across all conditions, they are absolutely lying. What they can reasonably claim is that thermal works better than Mark 1 Eyeball or image intensifying systems, which can be rendered pretty damned well useless by overcast nights or dense fog.

Yeah, you really need something like Hamachi to play real-time.

You think I'm an east front guy?

It has been over a year now, any sign on the horizon of Red Thunder's module(s)? There are a lot of great scenarios and campaigns just outside of the scope of the base game and it seems like everything in BF's lineup but Red Thunder has gotten love.

It doesn't need to be alternate CMBS, the tools are already in place. But force preservation and exit objectives are sorely under-utilized in most scenarios.

There were a handful of suspected shots from old weapons out of Saddam's toybox (Mulans), but I don't recall any serious threat. It wouldn't surprise me if there were a few -- some insurgents definitely got their hands on MANPADS so it isn't as if they couldn't get relatively modern and effective weapons.

"Ugh, my T-34-85 with loose rounds stowed all over the turret blows up a lot when hit by a 88, this game is so unrealistic." I see plenty of bounces, partial penetrations, non-fatal full penetrations, etc. in my games. I'm not going to sit up here and do a thousand test iterations to pin a number on it, but if you pushed me for a number, I'd say the typical gun vs. frontal armor takes about 2 hits on average to kill the tank. Although obviously there is going to be a huge range of cases that defy that norm, typically due to overmatching gun or armor, but it isn't anything terribly unreasonable.

He wrote a post about that a few years ago:

No. If it was, we wouldn't use it as a screening/marking agent the way we do.

People bitch a lot more about there being no night/bad weather combat at all (example: early Close Combat games) than they do about not having illum or units spotting poorly in dense fog.

"The initial battle was a complete shock for Germans, who’ve lost the initiative and suddenly understood their troops are concentrated along the single road and their flanks are completely unprotected." "US commander decided to split the reinforcement battalion, sending ⅓ of it to Dieuze and ⅔ to Moncourt. So, instead of bringing it’s entire weight at the northern sector (as high command demanded), the reinforcement was distributed along the whole front as a reserves, and were effectively wasted, as Germans did not attempt to attack in the southern half at all." "By the end of the second day of the battle, Germans had lost Heming (that was left undefended) and got their main supply line cut. But this success was not supported by any additional forces, nor any development of the success was planned." "Moreover, the infantry company was ordered to leave Heming and retreat to Cutting. That was the biggest operational mistake, for some reason US command gave away all the achievements and positional advantages it had by then. German supply route was clear again and their troops at Heming were now free for actions." "In the same time, Germans considered the situation to be very complex. German companies were only 20-50% strength, and it became usual for panzers to attack without infantry support and without artillery (who did not participate in combat until Turn 12 at all and suffered of poor supply afterwards)." It sounds like operational missteps defined this campaign.

I think it is easier to work in terms of "move slow," "move normally," and "move fast" with the behavior currently held in the "Hunt" command being a toggle-switch. People would inevitably trip themselves up using the "Move to Sighting" command;stumbling into a short-range shootout that their troops don't respond effectively to, similar to the complaints with Hunt now. Moreso with the Move to Engage command running you into something like a tank or pair of dug-in MGs and you really, really want your troops to stop but they don't.

Soviet Army, Motorized Infantry Anti-tank Battery [medium] contains two platoons... which further contain two platoons. There might be other branches where the AT Bty [medium] has platoons in its platoons.

Excellent post, Jason. I have just one question. As I understand it, there were also mechanized corps as part of the Soviet mech arm. What was their role, compared to the tank corps? Or am I mistaken and mechanized corps served as supplements to the rifle arm?

Irrecoverable losses doesn't necessarily mean KIA. It also includes wounds so severe as to preclude additional service.

Yes, K5 is heavy ERA meant to defeat tandem HEAT warheads.

We left a lot of them in-country, sold a lot of them for firesale prices and stored a lot them. We didn't keep many in service.

Gubbins?

"campaigns"

Just barbed wire and sandbag walls, as far as I can tell. If I'm doing something wrong here and there are hedgehogs, logs, dragon's teeth, etc. available, by all means, please tell me.

Honestly, I wish there were roadblock objects one could buy and place in defensive scenarios.

Not really my area, but the jist, as I understand it: basic mobile defense stuff, focus on fighting from a series of pre-planned battle positions, shoot-and-scoot, built-in as part of a rifle company's defensive scheme and not as an independent maneuver element. The MAPs are literally the heavy weapons platoon of a rifle company, just nowadays people have stopped pretending guys are going to hump a TOW or MK19 plus ammo across broken terrain fast enough to actually be relevant or survivable.

We've used MAPs during pitched battles before. Deliberately so, since they are a part of every rifle company in a IBCT and haul most of the unit's firepower.