Apocal

Nope. Need thermals for seeing through fog or during overcast/new moon conditions if you're expecting daylightesque visibility.

The bitching about SOF getting owned by the capital systems of the CMBS battlefield (APS-equipped armor, automatic grenade launchers, massive ROF autocannons, near-universal airbursting HE) would be enormous. Like, it is hard enough for players to accept "recon battles" where the only objective is to push forward far enough to get spots on enemy heavy weapons, could you imagine when they go in with tier 1 operators and get facerolled by everything that counters dismounted troops?

It's pretty dead at the moment. There are only a handful of RT regulars and most haven't picked up Black Sea yet, AFAICT.

That is why the good lord saw fit to grace this world with on-map mortars.

According to the description here, Shtora can discharge smoke grenades automatically or semi-automatically. AFAIK, smoke discharge is controlled by a panel near the commander's head on an Abrams though.

Sometimes UAVs work, sometimes they don't. I haven't taken the time to nail down a cause because it doesn't seem like that big of an issue, but if it's hampering other people consistently, I suppose I can test a few things that I suspect might be causing the issue.

I'm younger than you.

CPU vs. CPU wouldn't help much because the biggest time factor in testing is recording results. You can actually run through iterations fairly quickly if you're in WeGo, using a savegame with sides and orders all pre-set.

Unfortunately, hail-firing the tank until it is toothless scrap metal doesn't work nearly as well without borg-spotting.

Yeah, I'm not the anti-heavy armor guy by any means, although people sometimes assume I am because I don't hate on Strykers or BTRs. Anyway, I'm pretty sure we're satisfied with sabot for our tanks because our sabot (as far as anyone professes) is sufficient for popping everything it will realistically face. I think the calculus would shift a bit if we were the ones having to deal with 950-1300mm of RHAe in the forward arc before ERA. A bit of a counter-factual though, none of our opponents are developing thick fronts like that, preferring tanks that can actually, y'know, ford rivers and stuff. Not much, since tanks are relatively well-protected against overpressure and what little access does exist wouldn't be sufficient for the aforementioned effect to be lethal inside the vehicle. You're stuck back at trying to get a warhead inside, then detonating it, which is difficult on the best of days.

Being able to spot the fall of shot, usually. For some reason UAVs are really bad at this when they should be fairly good at it. The only time a similar thing happens with ground units spotting is when I move them away from the location where the fire mission was called upon and the mortar/arty module just endlessly fires spotting rounds, even as they impact all around the area I want struck.

It isn't just casualties (although those would be considered ghastly even back during WW2), it is the loss of combat power. Having a company-team reduced to 1 each Abrams and BFV would be a literal disaster for the parent battalion. I suppose it is taking too much from RL when I'm gaming, but I play with the idea in mind that when the mission ends, I'm going to be defending with that same force in the next few hours before going into action the next day. And the day after that. And the week beyond. OK, so I blunted the Russian advance -- for now -- at the cost of my company team. What happens in two hours when another Russian force with ass and teeth rolls down the same piece of terrain? What if they try to infiltrate dismounts; do I have enough heavy-hitters left to reliably react, by supporting my (necessarily thin) line of dismounts, and check them again? Make sense?

Seems like you're just having a spot of bad luck, although my latest run-through isn't going much better.

Jesus Christ, yes! At least the first, the second landing mission is rough, but winnable. As for other thoughts, the way he tried to make MGs relevant was by pumping up their experience to elite levels. It makes many of the missions unplayable because you are missing the necessary tools from a combined arms perspective to deal with well-positioned, highly skilled machine guns when the previous AI and gameplay trickery no longer works.

It is out of line with realism, but so are infantrymen walking in front of their supporting machine guns or letting vehicles pass through their position at speed while they are dismounted and covered.

I'm talking about using a GLATGM that costs 10x (I assume, I don't actually know the price) the price of a moderately inferior (in terms of accuracy, penetration) sabot against high-end tanks. I'm not arguing for getting rid of the gun entirely and I don't think anyone in this thread is either. American tanks don't have to worry about it since our sabot is effective against basically anything currently fielded but that isn't the case for other forces, which do possess gun-launched ATGMs.

I'd be extraordinarily surprised if the typical tank expended more than two or three sabots during any combat situation. If they did -- and accuracy rates held -- that would mean whole opposing tank brigades would disintegrate in the process, rendering the entire issue of round cost and replacement rates moot since you've killed all the enemy armor stone dead. As it stands, $80,000 x 4 x n-tanks is pennies compared to the yearly operating budget of a fielded tank battalion, the average combat engagement doesn't necessarily feature a high expenditure of specialized weapons and ATGMs last years if stored properly.

I doubt it matters much. The cost of AFV rounds is insignificant compared to the cost of fuel, maintenance and manpower.

You take a laser designator equipped unit (JTAC, air controller, FO, recon, etc.) and call either precision artillery for Russians/Ukrainians or air strikes. Otherwise there isn't buddy-lasing implemented in game.

10 AFVs lost 33 men killed/wounded "US Army Tactical Victory" mfw:

The composition was mixed, but it was fragment-producing. Many water coolers were lost, RIP.

On the subject of stripping stuff off: in-game, 50cals (not sure about the Russian/Ukrainian equivalents) will open up on full MBTs without player intervention and strip them of IR optics, radio, APS and smoke launchers if given enough time. It generally takes around 1.5 minutes of firing, but it has that effect.

Have you tried using the UAV?

I've been having similar issues when using partially suppressed Javelin teams firing at vehicles in tree cover. I assume it is to simulate a degraded lock being lost due to foliage.

That game (HistWar) was released.