Amedeo

I presume that it won't be impossible to implement this restriction (i.e. only moving targets and no type classification) in the game engine for ground surveillance radars. To say the truth, I'm hoping radars will be modeled not for the BRM but to get this toy! MT-12R Ruta 100mm antitank gun with radar sight.

US intelligence hadn't always a cavalier attitude about the performance of the frontal protection of the new (i.e. post T-62) generation of Soviet tanks. Here are a couple excerpts I hope you'll find interesting. Snippets from a declassified 1980 document: "US Intelligence and Soviet armor" (emphasis mine) https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000624298.pdf In brief, the US is now behind, tank for tank, and even when our developmental XM833 depleted-uranium round for the 105mm cannon becomes available, the XM1 is likely to be no more than an even match for the T-80. As may be seen, while all weapons have provided high assurance of kill against the T-62, the M735 - planned to be the most numerous round aboard US tanks - is impotent against the T-72. Snippets from a declassified 1987 document: "Near East and Sout Asia Reiview" (emphasis mine) https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP05S02029R000300990003-3.pdf The Pakistanis like the M1A1 because of its 120mm gun. US experts believe this gun could defeat T-72M1s in frontal engagements only if supplied with US-made M829 depleted uranium rounds, but the United States has rejected a Pakistani request for another depleted uranium round - the M833. The United States has sold Pakistan 5,000 M735 rounds [...] these [...] are incapable of penetrating a T-72's frontal armor. Islamabad has asked the United States to sell it the more powerful M833 depleted uranium round - which probably cannot defeat the T-72M1's frontal armor either - but this request was recently turned down.

Speaking of the number of possible future modules: I agree that we cannot expect way more modules than was the norm before, but I think that 2-3 modules are a reasonable expectation. After all, they decided to name the game Combat Mission: Cold War and not Combat Mission: Fulda Gap for a reason! P.S. For the M47 aficionados: this tank was still in service with the Italian Army in the timeframe of CMCW, so if a southern front module will ever come to life... (no, I do not really think it will).

Considering that in 1980 USAREUR was just receiving M735 APFSDS rounds with most unit still using older M728 APDS rounds until 1981, I would be very concerned, regardless of the actual kind of enemy tanks I'd happen to run into. BTW, I wonder how CMCW handles this, since, IIRC, ammo loads are type (not year) dependent. I guess: M48A5, M60A1 w/M728 M60A1 RISE, RISE+, RISE PASSIVE w/M735 M60A3, M60A3 TTS, M1 w/M774

RE: antipersonnel ammo on the M551 and M60A2 152mm canister cartridges M625 and M625A1; containing 10,000 13-grain steel flechettes in five separate bay assemblies

1. The Soviets designed the armour package of the early T-64/T-72 with the goal of defeating 105mm APDS/HEAT 2. The Soviet tested their tanks' armour (in 1982 at Kubinka) against 105mm APFSDS ammunition (Israeli M111 rounds and, allegedly, US M735 ones) prompting them to redesign the glacis of the T-72A (and other similarly protected tanks) that was found to be vulnerable to the Israeli APFSDS (turret armour was impregnable). I think that this is enough evidence to say that 105mm APDS rounds would have been ineffective against the frontal protection of any Soviet tank of the T-64/72/80 series, barring lucky hits on weakened zones (e.g. around the mantlet or the driver hatch).

BTW I guessed the starting date could be June '79 (and not, say, March) because, IIRC, by April 1979 all M551 light tanks were phased put in USAREUR cavalry units, and this tank model is not in the game TOE. Of course, I too hope that future modules will extend the timeframe and add new armies (US and Sovier airborne, Bundeswehr and Nationale Volksarmee, British and Canadian Army... you name it). And I guess that, if the base game sells well, new modules will come.

So, what is, exactly, the game's timeframe? Or, to say it better, what are the selectable dates in the editor? June 1979 - December 1982? (excluding January and February?)

Yes, yes and... yes!

Just a possible minor uniform related issue: Waffen-SS battalion commanders have Wehrmacht caps when in greatcoats.

It would be a nice to have feature. I hope that, eventually, CM titles will feature uniform slots for field officers and NCOs of all the represented nationalities.

I agree with your observation. But, please, notice that I was quoting those figures not because I do believe that the game should model actual weapon effectivenes using firing range data, but because those piece of information could be useful in assessing the relative effectiveness of the PPSh relative to the Mosin (the topic at hand was SMG vs rifle). Yes, it was me. That was also my point. The fact that this view is held by persons that have a different perception of the effectiveness of SMG fire, is a testimony to the logical "neutrality" of this solution. But, as I guessed above and as subsequent answers seem to confirm, range caps are useful to manage the TacAI.

I agree that they should be not firing above 200m but I think that, in the very peculiar situation depicted by the OP and some similar other, that 200m cap could give way to gamey tactics. You know, one thing is avoiding to fire at ranges in excess of 200m because you know that nine times out of ten you'll only waste your scarce ammo supply, another thing is having your enemy dancing in the open just exactly over the 200m mark because he knows that no single bullet will ever hit, ever, and he has the equivalent of a laser rangefinder to assess the range with the required precision. Yes, this is what I meant when I said that the a cut off just above the maximum effective range just exacerbates that problem. By the way, my additional point is that, if the performance of a weapon is correctly modelled in all its other aspects a cutoff would be superfluous, just because, as you said, nobody would have them firing at that range anyway. It is right that longer barrelled weapons with rifle ammo should be dominating firefight at ranges above 200m but, in my opinion, the SMG cutoff is a step in that direction only as a stopgap solution to a perceived effectiveness/accuracy problem waiting for a definitive resolution. For what it is worth, reading the official Soviet manuals for the Shpagin machine pistole and the Mosin rifle and carbine, at 200m the PPSh will land 50% of the shots in a 41cm x 41 cm rectangle (single shot) or a 56cm x 54cm (burst). The Mosin, at the same range, will land 50% of the shots in a 13cm x 11cm rectangle (rifle) or 14cm x 13cm rectangle (carbine). The Mosin will have a dispersion at 600m comparable with that of the PPSh at 200m (but with an almost double time of flight). Speaking of times of flight: for the PPSh one has: 0.25 s @ 100 m ; 0.54 s @ 200 m ; 0.87 s @ 300 m ; 1.24 s @ 400 m ; 1.68 s @ 500 m For the Mosin rifle: 0.25 s @ 200 m ; 0.57 s @400 m ; 0.97 s @ 600 m ; 1.47 s @ 800 m The Mosin carbine has, obviously, longer t.o.f. I only listed some figures, the manuals has the tables in 50m increments for the PPSh and 100m increments for the Mosin. It's interesting to see that in the trial the British Army conduced to investigate the desiderability of a hight ROF for bolt action armed riflemen, the average minimum rate of fires were 12.7 rnd/min for the Guards and 13.2 rnd/min for the Canadian (see the WO 291/479 report in the file you linked above). Yes, they were obtained by what were, probably, above the average (considering WW2 as a whole) trained troops with a rifle that was designed to allow high ROF (bolt, 10 round magazine) but it's possibly a testimony to the fact that in combat a rifleman was expected to mantain at least a ROF of 10 rnd/min or so. After a back of the envelope calculation (using in input some figures from the aforementioned manuals I may venture to say that the ratio between the PPSh MOA and the Mosin MOA should be between 3 and 4. I'm sure you'll draw the right conclusions from this (and similar) threads. Wait, are you saying that you at BFC do not educate your customers to avoid useless ammo wastage? Well, I'm waiting for your napoleonic game, then. It's a pity that, after more than 30 years of wargaming, I still have to say that cardboard/miniatures wargames give more realistic results than computer ones in an alarming number of cases. Combat Mission is, in my opinion, one of the few exceptions. If you will be able to repeat the CMBO revolution with a napoleonic game I could think about discontinuing my beloved 25mm miniatures rules (1.5 min moves, 1/1000 scale terrain, single man casualties: they were intended for brigade/division level combat but we refought Quatre Bras with them!). Just out of curiosity, after using a ballistic calculation spreadsheet to interpolate some data gathered from the usual manuals I got terminal velocities for a 7.62mm Tokarev fired by a PPSh of about 230m/s at 200m and 200m/s at 300m. Not that bad! I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I was accusing you of complaining. Mine was only a joke to answer Steve's pun about whiners. I apologize if I seemed to be putting words in your mouth. Regards, Amedeo

Jason, when I wrote: "Now I still have a problem in taking that comment at face value. There are a number of reasons that let me think that the results are skewed in favour of the SMG" I was thinking about the very same observations you made in your post. Probably I was too verbose and didn't manage to express clearly what puzzles me about the current weapon modelling in the game. I'll try to be more concise: why is the Sten permitted to fire at more than double its effective range and the PPSh is not even permitted to fire at its full effective range? And, please, notice that CM manuals and official manuals substantially agree on what the effective ranges of those weapons are, as I showed in my previous quotes. This is another issue. Possibly a more important issue than that at hand in this discussion. I didn't raise the point here simply because there's already a dedicated thread. Anyway, I think you'll agree that, having the 200m cap for the PPSh, only exacerbates the problem you mentioned. See my question to Jason above. Similar characteristics beyond the resolution allowed by the game engine? I beg to differ. All SMGs are not created equal, and this applies not only to ROF, letality etc. but also to effective ranges (that are, in turn, mainly a function of: ballistics, sights , doctrine; all other things being equal). You said that you expect me to show that the numbers you use are wrong or the logic you used to chose them is wrong. Fair enough. For what concernes the first point I'm willing to post more info but first I'd like to know whether you do really think that the effective range of a Grease Gun is the same of a PPsh. Do figures quoted in the official manuals support this claim? Do weapons' ballistics support this claim? Do even the figures quoted in CM manuals suppor this? My answer is no to all of them, from my examination of the manuals and the ballistics data. Yet, you seem to have a different answer from mine, but I confess I'm still unable to exactly understand why. You made a reference to older complains but, unless the old whiners have sumberged you with a deluge of primary sources, historical reports and ballistics tables to make you change your mind, I can only guess it's a problem of the AI not being able to realistically cope with the old ranges, since I assume that the weapons' ballistics are correctly modelled. You'll agree that speaking of a vague "general consensus" is not enough to doubt a primary source. For what concernes the second point, I don't see how allowing only a few weapons to shoot beyond their effective range is logically a better solution than allowing all, or none. Would you consider a sensible idea to cap both an AK and an M14 at 400m in a Vietnam game? Would you consider fair to cap both a T-72's main gun and an Abrams' main gun at 2000m in a Desert Storm game? Perhaps you're referring to the original poster, since I'm not really complaining! Jokes apart, I'm just curious about the rationale of this design choice. Well, I admit that I would have made a different choice. I'm not sure it would have been the best choice but, since I'm unable to see where the problem lies with the mentioned previous complains, perhaps I'm not in the best position to judge.

You say that we're talking the same thing. and it might also be. After all, according to the CM manuals, the effective range of different weapons, more or less match what the regulations ad technical manuals say. For example: Sten 100yd (reg.) 100m (CM), PPSh 300m (reg.) 250m (CM), just for comparison the effective ranges listed in CM manuals for the AK/AKM and the AK74 are exactly those listed in Soviet manuals as the ranges at which one expects to obtain: "the most effective fire", that is 400m and 500m respectively. But, generally speaking, even the others ranges I quoted from the CM manuals are spot on: the difference between 100yd and 100m, for the Sten, is irrelevant and the 250m listed for the PPSh could be considered as an average between the best range (that is 200m) for short bursts, listed in the manual and the maxmimum range at which is suggested to open fire against ground targets, that is 300m. We agree on this, I only pointed out that the offical Soviet manuals state that effective fire can be opened against ground targets at ranges up to 300m. We cannot be sure that a piece of information contained in a primary source is always more accurate than one contained in a secondary source but you'll agree that, unless additional compelling evidence surfaces, we should lend some credit to the primary source. Of course, as I said and as you too implied, readers discretion is required. Just for example, in the official manual for the Sten, i.e. Small Arms Training Volume I, Pamphlet No. 22 - Sten Machine Carbine - 1942, it's written that: "The machine carbine is a short range weapon introduced for the purpose of engaging targets at the ranges of from 10 to 100 yards. At greater distances the speed of the bullet is so reduced that has lost much of its penetrative power.". Yet, in trials conducted by the British Army at the School of Infantry in 1944 - as detailed in the report WO 291/476 Comparison of rifle, Bren and Sten - the Sten was tested, as the other two weapons: SMLE and Bren, up to 300yd (additional tests were performed to confirm the letality of 9mm bullets at least up to that range). And it was noted that: "the average firer has a higher overall chance of hitting an enemy at 200 yards with a Sten that with a rifle". Shocking, isn't it? Well, for me it was, since I never expected someone to really have a 68% chance of hitting a man sized targed at 200yd with a Sten SMG (well, with any SMG for what matters). Now, I still have a problem in taking that comment at face value. There are a number of reasons that let me think that the results are skewed in favour of the SMG (I'll not enter into the details since this is way off topic) nonetheless, for an army that prized so much individual rifle marksmanship, it's a striking conclusion. After all, the birth of the assault rifle is, in some respect, a testimony to the fact that effective automatic fire from submachine guns was longer legged than was initially thought and that aimed fire from rifles was effective at shorter ranges than what was thought. Well, I wasn't suggesting you did. You're right, incorrect information is not necesarly limited to wartime propaganda, but my point was that it takes exceptional evidence to doubt a piece of information that is taken from a primary source and that only hard data or additional information from other primary sources should supercede that info. You said, above, that the general consensus is that SMGs are effective only up to 200m, as a general rule. Yet not all SMGs are created equal. And you too, obviously, agree since, as I wrote at the beginning of this post, we practically agree on what effective ranges are, for most weapons. One could ask whether weapons should be ever allowed, in the game, to fire at ranges exceeding their effective range. You said, if I'm not mistaken, that's that not a good idea, in general and I might also agree with you. The point is that capping the maximum SMG range at 200m, regardless of the model considered, already allows some of the weapons to do this, thus favouring the shorter ranged SMGs against the longer ranged ones. I do not know the inner workings of the CMx2 code nor I claim any expertise on how things should or could be done in implementing a given feature in the game. I have had experience with computer programming but this doesn't, even remotely, qualify me to speak about what to do with CM and how to do it. Yes, I might guess that it could be better to have different range caps for individual weapon modeld or that it could be better to have a much larger cap for each category and simply let the different performances at extreme ranges sort things out. But if you say that, trying to improve the realism of a game feature might cause a worse realism drop in other areas I cannot but take your word for that, since you're the one that knows how the CM engine works, not I. Nonetheless, I think that you could concede that, in an ideal world, it would be better not to have a "one size fits all" range cap and that, if the future iterations of the CM engine will move us closer towards that ideal world, more "individualized" behaviours from the various weapons systems would be a nice feature to have. Regards, Amedeo

I'm glad that only the part on firing at aircraft made you chuckle. I presume that this means you have no objections on the other quotes about firing at ground targets! I have no problem in stating that optimal (not maxmimum, nor effective) ranges for PPSh fire are between 100-200m. In fact the Soviet manual for PPSh-41 states that the best range is 200m for short bursts and 100m for long bursts. Well, if I were asking for something like that, I would have quoted the part of the Soviet PPSh field manual that says that bullets retain their stopping power up to 800m. You are totally right. Modelling weapons for maximum range is a very bad idea. In fact it's such a bad idea that, as far as I know, nobody here is asking for such a thing! Actually, I'm speaking about effective range, that is neither maximum range nor the best range. And, as far as I can see, weapons' ranges are not capped at the point where they obtain their best results, in CM. Yes, I agree that it's not the best thing to base game modelling on what a manual says about enemy weapons! On the other hand, I presume that examining what doctrine and technical manuals say about their own armies' practices and weapons is important. And I'm sure you do too. If this is not the case, I apologize for quoting primary historical sources instead of making numbers out of thin air. Yes, I know that the reader's discretion is required in examining all kind of sources, even primary ones but it's obvious that there's no point in totally dismissing a source just because there's a single dubious piece of information. By the way, since you said that ballistic characteristics are pretty well known (and it's true), in the PPSh-41 manual, while the generic ballistic tables at the end of the book are listing figures up to 500m range, the tables, contained in the section about combat shooting, list relevant data for ranges from 0m to 300m in 50m intervals. Of course, is also repeated in the text that effective fire against ground targets is possible at ranges up to 300m. By the way, I'm not talking about the wartime tactical regulations I quoted before, now. I'm talking about the SMG manual that was reprinted in 1946 and 1955 with the relevant parts unchanged. Not exactly a wartime pamphlet ridden with propaganda and inaccurate intelligence. Let it be clear, I am not advocating for Soviet "über"SMGs to be introduced into the game. I think that the PPSh, in many respects, is already too powerful and, although I usually play the Soviet side, I'm already content the way the game is. Hey, I remember that, when I was playing good ol' Squad Leader, my PPSh armed squads were costantly out-gunned and out-ranged by MP 40 toting Germans. In this respect, the realism of CMx1 and CMx2 is to the realism of SL/ASL what Quantum Field Theory is to Looney-Tune level physics! Summing up, I don't think the 200m cap is a game breaker, What I do think is that removing that cap, while letting SMG accuracy rapidly decline to crappy levels just above that optimal range, could be a more realistic feature worth having. A feature that won't lend itself to gamey behaviour while improving the realism of some (rare and odd) situations. Regards, Amedeo

Maybe it's worth noting what the official Soviet combat regulations for infantry have to say about SGM range: "Submachine fire can be opened at a range of up to 500 meters. It is however most effective against ground and air targets when fired at a range of no more than 300 meters." (for comparison: ordinary rifles, bolt action or semiautomatic, were considered capable of area fire at ranges up to 1000m) In the section about the SMG Squad on the defense, it's stated that: "The submachinegun squad allows the enemy to approach to 100 to 200 meters' range and opens a destructive fire from all the submachineguns". (for comparison: the ordinary rifle squad was suggested to open fire, in the defense, at 800m range with the LMG, at 600m with designated marksmen and at 400m range with all the riflemen) Now, it's known that, in actual practice, Soviet infantry tended to open fire at closer distances than those set in the regulations, and I'm talking also about MG and rifle fire, not only SGM fire. But the aforementioned passages are a clear indication that firing at ranges above 200m for a PPSh armed soldier was a technical and tactical possibility. The quotes above suggest that the Soviets considered the practical effectiveness of an SMG be roughly the same of a rifle at double that given range, at least in the 200m-500m interval. I see no point in nerfing the maximung range of a PPSh-41 to compensate for a possible overmodelling of its accuracy. Especially in a game that models single bullet ballistics!

Here's a link to a savegame, so you can see by yourself what I had and how it ended. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/31121739/savegame.bts Of course, it worked well also because I was on the defensive and played against the AI. A human opponent, aware of this tactic, might be able to play a smarter cat-and-mouse game to neutralize this ruse. On the other hand, the Russian player might fine tune his tactics also. Increasing the AFVs/TDs ratio is a good idea. Also providing dismounts for scouting, close defence and anti-aircraft protection might be a good idea. What I saw in the game was generally compatible with what you said (i.e. radar LOS restrictions and poor classification of contacts) I wasn't able to spot targets behind ridges or to see whether I was shooting an Abrams or a Bradley... or a bulldozer (but this might be just due to the difficulty level). Moreover it is also in line with the data provided by John Kettler, so I presume that the modelling of the Khrizantema in CMBS is more or less OK (this means also that the tactic I suggested is not that gamey... ).

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.

BTW, it would be nice to have different tracers' colours for the two sides. I miss the green Soviet tracers...

It seems that the recent patch did not address the issues discussed above. While playing a scenario yesterday, I noticed that Soviet platoon and company leaders still have the wrong uniforms (i.e. leutenants dressed as privates and captains dressed as junior leutenants).

I noticed that some of the Soviet intantry platoon and company commanders' models lack the rank insigna on their shoulder straps. They sport plain private shoulder straps. Perhaps a minor bug to be considered for the upcoming patch.

It's obvious that, during WW2, the ISU-122 (especially the ISU-122S) was better suited to anti-tank operation than its 152mm counterpart. But during the post-war era, when the necessity to have the heavy assault guns doubling also as stopgap TDs waned, the ISU-152 was the preferred vehicle. It was mantained in production longer than the ISU-122, it was used in frontline units until the early '70s (when replaced with the new generation of SP guns) and it was subject to extensive rebuilds and modifications (the ISU-152K and ISU-152M variants, the latter sporting also IR sights).

"Asino morto", actually. Anyway, the historical accuracy of the repoduction rations for reenactors depicted in the photos is questionable, at best...

Speaking of Soviet 76mm shrapnel and canister ammunition... well, ten years ago, since there was no evidence of the elusive 76mm canister rounds, depicted in CMBB, despite the alleged veterans' statements about the use of this kind of ammunition not only for 45mm and 57mm AT guns but also for the ubiquitous 76mm field and tank guns, I guessed that the canisters the veterans were referring to, were, actually, shrapnel shells, fuzed for bursting right after leaving the muzzle. See my old post here: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=498091&postcount=76 In recent years, I eventually discovered that there was, indeed, an actual canister round for the Soviet 76mm gun! See the attached images. Just thought it's a piece of information worth to be shared with the CM community. Regards, Amedeo