Apocal

I think Obama has a policy, and it is illustrated by the Russian-Georgian war (which was before Obama was elected, just to avoid confusion). Whether the US would have been prepared to fight to help Georgia or not was a moot point (although I'm pretty sure the US wouldn't have) - the facts at the time was that the US had too many military commitments ongoing to have the forces available to do anything to counter Russia at that point. With large commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a supply train in Afghanistan that depended on Russian co-operation (Pakistan not being the most secure or reliable way of moving supplies into Afghanistan) Russia was basically in a position where the US couldn't do anything to oppose it.
 
So for all the supposed commitments to an ally - Georgia - the US basically sat by and did nothing (a fact that I'm sure the Russians were quite happy to point out to Poland, the Baltic states and other neighbours).
 
Obama's policy was simply to reduce the committed forces so that the US had the spare capacity to respond to threats that actually posed a meaningful threat. Libya and Syria never did. ISIS still doesn't - they have been contained and are being pushed back slowly by the Kurds and Iraqis, neither of which are awe-inspiring military machines. The only things that pose a serious strategic threat to the US are Russia and China. So Obama is simply refusing to get involved in wars that the US can afford to ignore without existential consequences, to be able to contain the threats that matter should the need arise.
 
Whether the diplomatic efforts to back that up have been up to scratch is probably more debatable.

Actually, I've got reverse effect: my BRDMs are proved to be suspiciously resistant to 12.7 MG fire. I've got several "turret front penetrations" whithout any fatal damage or crew injuries. 
 
EDIT: Actually, there is explanation. I've just discovered that BRDM-2M uses unmanned turret "BPU-1"

SPOILERS
 
I found this mission very easy. Actually I caused a surrender without even touching a single objective. Just establishing my tanks on the central hill, two good observation points at the hills left and right of the map, and then using my UAVs to call Helo and precision strikes on enemy vehicles. I only advance a bit my Bradleys and dismounted infantry along the main road, but, as I said, just a bit. The enemy took so many casualties that they surrendered at minute 45.
 
In general, with the US one has a huge technology advantage with the UAVs and the ability to bring precision in two minutes.  No need to seek contact with the enemy. In this mission, playing elite, I had 3 KIA and 1 wounded. That is all

Also, please note that I'm talking about the situation BEFORE any mines go off. You're walking with your mates through a field when you suddenly see a red signpost with some German words you don't really read well, but you do recognise the big drawing of a human skull - literally not a good sign.

Of these I've only played The Outlaws. It has great maps and a good story line to follow. Sadly it does fall away in the last couple of missions when the fictional Panzer IVs and even a Panther appear. It seems a shame to me that designers ignore the fact that none of these tanks were available to the Wehrmacht on the Cotentin Peninsula in June 44.

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

Word of advice: be very, very, very skeptical of anything John Kettler writes. 

As just a thought, if we really wanted to work in battlesighting, perhaps there could be a chance at shorter range, tied to troop quality that the tank wouldn't lase and would just fire without ranging the target.  Tying it to troop quality would be important as green crews likely wouldn't have the experience or confidence to take that sort of intiative, while a crack crew knows exactly what a tank at 1200 meters vs 1500 meters looks like, and that they need to lead it about 20 mils judging from how fast it's going.
 
It'd still be a variable, a crack crew might not be confident at this particular target, or a regular crew might be in the "zone" for that shot. Lower than regular just strikes me as doubtful.  Too new at tanking to really have a feel for it, or the experience to futz with estimating range while someone is drawing down on them.

GSR isn't a magic eyeray that sees through all things.  It's pretty easy to confuse, and on a battlefield there is a lot of terrain between the emitter and the possible targets.  It is not useless by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not like press button and on the screen the location of all enemy tanks within the claimed effective range appears.  
 
It's the same sort of logic that made the US Army buy up a million LRAS3 type systems, and the same unfortunate reality in terms of the tyranny of lines of sight, target fidelity, and the reality that most military forces avoid the wide open spaces that favor sensor-centric warfare.  
 
So to elaborate on my earlier comment, in a world filled with sensor contacts that are both targets, and not targets, ground based radar is good at telling you where things are vs not.  It's marginal at discriminating between targets, and still totally subject to LOS issues.  It can shoot at the maybe targets, but again its not good at bulldozer vs tank, and it is just as bad as every other optic at seeing behind terrain.  

I found that pairing Khrizantema armed TDs with BMP-3s to provide IR blocking smoke screens is a viable tactic against US tanks.
 
I managed to easily destroy, with multiple frontal penetrations, ten M1A2 SEP tanks (some w/APS) losing only three TDs, and a couple IFVs (smoke cover doesn't last forever).
The radar system on the Russian TDs is capable to see through IR blocking smoke effectively while the sensors on an Abrams tank are blinded.

Until the AI is smart enough to find a good position themselves, it's necessary to some degree. You can't tell your ATGM team to go up on the ridge and find a spot overlooking the road. They'll just go exactly where you say and happily stare at the backside of the ridge, even if moving two meters forward would give them a good view. I'd rather deal with a few exploits of the target line instead of having my troops stand around in a useless spot just out of LOS when moving them.
 
Aside from that, in general CM simulates the combat very well, but not being in the commander's boots. You almost always have far, far more information and command power than an actual commander. Just comes with the perspective and the fact you play as every leader on your side.  

Re: 200-500 meters
 
I think he's quoting max lethal effects range, or basically the distance at which fragmentation effects become entirely safe.  If it was possible to get such results from 3 KG of explosives and a special fuze, we'd be seeing a lot more flipping out about this/single artillery shells sweeping 4 KM clear of all life

If you aren't convinced that over twenty million dead and a wrecked country are worse than an economic depression, I don't know what to say.

8 degrees according to this. That is a far cry from the nearly 180 degrees of motion sensitive field of view that the Mark 1 Eyeball enjoys.

Yes, this is a great concept. PBEM games, at least in my experience take longer than a week. If I had the time, I'd love to participate.

I'm down as long as we're talking like... reinforced platoon to company scale. Anything larger than that bogs down in CMx2, IME.

I'm down as long as we're talking like... reinforced platoon to company scale. Anything larger than that bogs down in CMx2, IME.

Yep.  Depends on the unit but I made my guys do one if they were stopped for more than a few minutes.  Longer you're in place, the more complex the range cards get (and transform into platoon fire plans)

One time during the CMSF USMC campaign, the AI even surrendered before i touched ANY of the objectives . The AI was sitting on the forward slope and top of a hill and i just hammered them for the first 40 minutes of the battle with direct AGL/tank/Javelin fire from the distance and air support until it surrendered. Initially i just wanted to prepare the enemys positions for beeing assaulted but i was also happy with the result i got. At least none of my Marines died during that operation.

Now Bil is teaching the wrong lesson.

Yes fire and movement is proper doctrine, but as he said himself "you should be moving with the intent of gaining fire superiority on a portion of the enemy". Movement in fire and movement is all about achieving the many on few firefight, by avoiding the enemy where he is stronger and massing fire on him where you choose (sometimes where he is stronger actually, to multiply the effect of area weapons; sometimes where he is weaker to defeat that enemy element quickly).

But lots of commanders don't get this, and fire to suppress the enemy so they can move.

Bil revealed how strong this thinking can be when he described the maneuver element of the team thus "assault the enemy position. It's goal is to capture and clear the enemy held position, it can't do that without maneuver."

He said earlier the point of movement is to achieve fire superiority over an element of the enemy, and that was right. That you have to go stand on the enemy to take a position is exactly the wrong idea. I will go into the case where there is an element of truth in it below, but first the true principle needs to be stated.

Every place on the battlefield that you so dominate by fire that the enemy *cannot live there*, you *already own*. You don't need to be standing on it. It doesn't matter whether the enemy can reach that spot, it doesn't even matter whether he is actually on that spot right this instant, and it certainly doesn't matter whether you can go stand there yourself, including whether the movement to that spot is safe for friendly forces. None of those things is needed for it to be your ground.

If the enemy is on a spot you dominate by fire in that manner, you just kill him. Maneuver then has nothing to do with it. If the enemy moves there, you let him - and then you kill him.

The whole goal of the combat is not to hold locations or to take locations owned by the enemy, either in the above sense or by direct presence.

If you could kill the enemy force from the bottom of a bunker in Shangra-La without getting your hair mussed, you would.

The reason you are moving is that you typically can't do those things, because the enemy uses terrain to protect himself from your firepower. Not in the sense of standing in cover with clear LOS to your forces, but in the sense of full LOS blockages between you and him cutting all lines of sight and fire. We say, he skulks. He stays out of view.

If the enemy is too arrogant or dumb to skulk, forget that movement bit and just kill him from right here. This happens a *lot* more often that you might expect from reading tactical manuals.

When the enemy does skulk, yes you have to move *in order to put guns on target*. By the same token, the enemy just broke the lines of sight from his skulkers to your forces. Maybe he has LOS to a spot 40 meters farther on, but he doesn't have LOS to your current position or you'd have LOS to his - and you'd be firing, right?

The same issue repeats on the coordination scale. Meaning, the enemy skulks to see a few of your guys but avoid most of them. That is a proper use of small scale, adaptive, keyholing movement - he is trying to "achieve fire superiority on a portion of the enemy". You have to move to change that, or to do the same yourself. Check, that is the proper need for movement in fire and movement.

*Not* to run into his end zone and score a touchdown.

I said above I would discuss the kinda sorta exception where you do want to move onto the enemy and need an assault force to do it, of the sort Bil describes and considers normal. This happens when you don't have enough firepower to kill the enemy where he stands, but do have, and have already used with effect, enough firepower to force all his heads down and suppress the heck out of him.

When the enemy can't shoot back even straight to his front because he'd die if he stuck his head up 6 inches, you can cash in that blindness and temporary impotence to get more firepower on him, by moving an assault force closer. Notice, you only need to do this in the first place because he can't kill him from right where you are. He has enough cover to duck behind to live through your fire, but you have enough to keep him from standing up to fire back himself.

In that specific case, you can move a maneuver element closer to him - to a spot with cover still shy of where he is - to increase your firepower bearing on him to killing strength.

There is a last case where you move onto the enemy - when he breaks. This occurs a bit after the full suppression described above but before outright killing him, in effective firepower applied terms. By breaks I mean there is no fire coming back, everyone over there is suppressed or worse, and you also see them trying to bug out to get out of the firestorm. They are in fact defenseless at such a moment and you can charge right on top of them to finish them off or take them prisoner, or scatter the running survivors.

That happens *much* later in the fighting that most CM players think. They are forever charging too soon, because they are trying to solve the combat situation as a whole by movement, and they think moving toward or even onto the enemy is what attacking is.

Only at the finale, is my point, and only in very specific circumstance. 9 times out of 10 in the movements I see players make in CM games, they are early and should be shooting, or flanking (a special case of movement to get a many on few on one element of the enemy), or at most getting one element to other cover a bit closer as an example of the suppression exploitation case above.

If Bil had stuck with - and understruck and bold typed - the phrase "gaining fire superiority on a portion of the enemy", and then not added the other bits about needing to assault onto the enemy location to take it, the distance between us would been merely one of emphasis.

I've fought and taught commanders who thought fire and movement meant one half of their force should be firing and the other half moving to drop the range so their fire would become more lethal, mechanically applying this idea and completely ignoring whether the current firefight match up was favorable or unfavorable. Hearing the phrase "fire and movement" without understanding what it is actually about leads to such errors.

I've seen others, even worse, who think the purpose of their overwatch force is to suppress the enemy enough that their maneuver forces can safely cross this or that dangerous area to get closer to the enemy, or closer to an objective, or get to prominent cover locations with wide fields of fire that they imagined must be valuable. They were shooting only to move, in other words, while expecting way, way too much to result from movement, and movement not directed at the right goals. They just wanted to eat the battlefield by passing their force over it, and thought how well they were doing could be measured in square yards.

In contrast, consider the tiny movement that shifts a friendly tank around a keyhole to avoid LOS to the enemy gun while having LOS to the enemy platoon in those buildings. Is this half the force trying to cross dangerous open anything? No. Is it an assault trying to take enemy ground by going and standing on it? No. It is skulking to his gun, it is gaining fire superiority (by combined arms match up in this case) over a portion of the enemy, and a little smidgen of movement was necessary to accomplish it. But the whole point of that little smidgen is to pull a trigger with effect.

If you get that out of your movements, the rest is *irrelevant*. Kill the enemy, and you will take all the objectives. Kill the enemy without dying, and he can't touch you no matter where he goes. He can sprawl over all the map he wants to, he can score all the touchdowns he likes, the only end he will find in the zones he reaches will involve six feet of earth. All you need to worry about, the rest is mere means.

Shift the fundamental focus of your tactical thinking, away from goals and ground and movement, and toward death and attrition and firepower.

Its in the Combat Mission v3.01 manual

I found it on page 73 of CMBS manual:
 
TRPs also double-function as “ambush” markers for regular troops and vehicles. When soldiers fire their weapons at a target near a friendly TRP, they are much better at estimating the range correctly.  

I think measuring the success of Russian forces against the Georgians is to take the success of US forces against the Iraqis in 2003, then kick it up a few notches.  

Re: Teal Group
 
Which is all fun and good, but the SU-25s that are already in the game are even less likely to last more than a few seconds over target.  Clearly conditions can be met in game, or options that involve scenarios where a dedicated CAS platform can survive.  Why not include the A-10?