Amedeo

I'm sure the campaign author will chime in - can't remember who it was but I'm pretty sure they will confirm that the experience setting is a gameplay design mechanism rather than a reflection of Afghanistan experience or whatever.  Bearing in mind that the Soviet Army was mostly conscript, the majority of the unlucky non-commissioned troops that got sent there would have been discharged after their tours ... if they survived them of course.  Generally, there is certainly a case for more experienced soft ratings for some of the officers based on some going to Afghanistan at some point and the fact that career officers would receive more than adequate training during their careers. 
For those interested in scenario design, I would be looking in the range Conscript - Veteran for the Soviets.  There were two conscript intakes a year that would arrive at their units in Germany around November and May annually.   As the new soldiers arrived, the term expired ones would depart and discharge to the reserve.  This process averaged out as each unit losing about a quarter of its trained strength in favour of a quarter of new arrivals.  If you apply the principle of quarters then at any given time a unit could conceivably have (using CM experience nomenclature):
1/4 Conscript (new arrivals in their first six months of service). 1/4 Green soldiers with 6-12 months of service who will have completed at least one training cycle to include collective training up to divisional level. 1/2 Regular soldiers with 12-24 months of service who will have completed two training cycles to include collective training up to divisional level. Save your veteran ratings for a couple of selected leaders.

Aerogavin is the new Schwimmwagen, just give it time.

What I would wish for would be the option to have an AI plan for friendly units on the map. Make some of the friendly units not playable, to stay true to the scope of this kind of warfare, and adding another leven of immersion to the battlefield, because you are now not the god controlling everything, but just one gear in the machine of war.
Of course, this would come with other problems, to keep these forces performing in reasonable behaviour for the mission designer, which would be the job of the scenario creator, but overall, I think it would be a great addition.
It would give you as a player a smaller force to take care for, so you can focus on your units.

I am still creating an experimental scenario, in which you will play as a Soviet BMP company, within a bigger soviet attack, just to check for the possibility of this kind of gameplay.

Warren gave a great breakdown. I would add that one of the most common complaints I see everywhere about CM games set in a modern setting is that the maps are too small. "Knife fighting in a phone booth" is a phrase that is usually thrown around quite regularly. I sympathize with that assessment to a degree.
I think that Cold War goes a long way of showing that with the proper sized maps, you can get real maneuver in a modern setting. Of course, the double edged sword here is that some people prefer those phone booth knife fights. I think that Warren is correct that Cold War currently is mostly the larger fights and does not have many smaller fights, and that going forward it will be important to try to include more of those smaller fights. But I think it was the right call going with the larger battles for the first game. After all, this was to be a massive mechanized fight, and I think it was important that Cold War capture that feeling and sense of scale out of the gate. 
All that said, I do think that Combat Mission has an issue with what I call administrative burden, or overhead. The player has to give so many orders to so many individual units, that it can get really tiresome keeping up with everything. Just getting a single company to road march can take hundreds of clicks and pause commands, etc. 
Reducing the admin burden on the player I think would go a long way to facilitating the playability of the larger battles. But that is completely in the hands of Steve and Charles, and is well beyond the scope of a game or module. 

Some great feedback from Combat and Dom which I am going to piggyback on. 
The best way to think about the Soviet advance is leapfrog. A motor rifle battalion that is forced to deploy/dismount its infantry will be bypassed by follow on forces which will continue the momentum of the advance. The dismounted battalion will consolidate and reorganize itself and will eventually fall back into the leapfrog chain moving forward. Another way of thinking about it would be a conveyor belt.
Its important to remember that the Soviets did not assume that their combat formations would have been obliterated in frontal assaults and that they would just overcome the enemy with sheer numbers. Overwhelming an enemy by weight of firepower is not the same as overwhelming the enemy by weight of bodies. No one thinks the latter is viable.
Its also important to mention that Soviet doctrine is actually quite flexible. It is supposed to flow like water, avoiding serious opposition while finding and exploiting weak points, all the while hammering enemy positions with ungodly amounts of artillery support. The second training mission is meant to show this off a bit more, as the whole battle is a bit more freeform, and the Soviet commander needs to develop and shape the battlefield on the fly, without all of his combat power from the start. 
So, if you are commenting about how air units in general are handled, then I do agree to an extent. In the case of Soviet CAS, all of it was to be provided by the gunships. But it is important to remember that there were only a limited number of helicopters to go around, relative to all of the ground combat formations. Helicopters would only have been committed to supporting attacks considered to be of the highest priority. This is the reason I did not include them in the first training scenario, as the scenario is trying to depict a very simple, ideal, typical deliberate attack by a motor rifle/tank battalion. In that type of typical deliberate attack, helicopter CAS would not be expected. 
If it was a river crossing or another tactical problem that is much more inherently difficult, then helo CAS would be much more likely to show up. 

TOW / ITOW had a xenon near-infrared beacon in the tail.  Consequently, the missile could not be tracked through obscurants by the optical tracker even if the AN/TAS-4 thermal night sight was used in conjunction with the optical tracker.  This was only rectified with AN/TAS-4A, which was an active tracking unit, and the TOW-2 missile, which had a thermal beacon in the tail in addition to xenon near-IR beacon.
However, the tail beacon in the M47 may have been thermal rather than near-IR, so should be able to both see and guide through smoke if so. Need to double-check that.

If you put motivation and especially fitness way down, you'll get very close to the tactical effect of fighting in an NBC environment, even more so if you put visibility way down as well.

I'm fully expecting an NBC gear mod to come out at some point too.

Not that it isn't a reasonable question - it's definitely a choice, and something that would be interesting to hear discussed.

This is a good summary of the question. Pretty much nails it on the head. 

Okay, you're right and I'm wrong. I duplicated your test and was getting catastrophic APDS kills from 2800m. I'll report this to the higher-ups.

Yep. If you set-up a shooting range in the editor for 4km and let 20 soviet tanks cautiously advance to 20 M48A5 or M60A1 tanks, everything except T64Bs and T80Bs will get butchered by M48A5s or M60A1s. Mostly at ranges between 3k and 2,5k. The tested T64Bs and T80Bs only survive because their AT-8 Songsters kill most of the M48s or M60s at 4k distance. If you do the test with T64B1s and T80B1s the result is totally different. I guess the devs have to look into this a little closer.
Would reality have been like that, there would have been no need to introduce the 120mm smoothbore to NATO forces back then.

M111 had better perfomance than M735. It was probably due to the slightly revised nose end that avoided M735 problems with bouncing  off angled plates.
I haven't seen the game fire APDS out to 3k. Frankly, I haven't seen the game fire APDS at all, except once when a M60A1 fired on a T62 at 750m and got an 'armor spalling' for its trouble.

So I tested the baseline T-72, which should have the same armor array as the T-64A.
 
20 Super Structure Penetrations, 13 Total Failures, 41 Partial penetrations of superstructure, 18 Upper front plate pens, 0 partial pens of ufp.
72% chance of general failure agaisnt superstructure. 17% chance of total failure. 27% chance of total success. 55 percent chance of partial pen.
 
So for some reason the T-72 (baseline) which has the same armor on the glacis as T-64A, has a statically significant decrease in protection. Although I might add that this is still nowhere what would be expected. This test was with M774, which we know for certain could defeat the 80/105/20 array at 3km.
 
 
@Amedeo
I see that you are right about the SB wiki ranges, which appear to max effective range.
 
I am unaware of any claims made by anyone on the tank-net forums. Nor did I read about this from the 2006 Warford article. I did however go back and check it out today and I was not able to find any mention of M735 being claimed to fail. The only mention of 735 is that there were confirmed reports of its presence. Also the warford article and other sources seem to indicate that the suspected captured vehicle was a magach4, or m48. My first source for this was actually tankograd, but Ive seen in mentioned in several places including Zaloga. I very much doubt Zaloga of all people would be reporting it matter of factly if the only source was a forum post. Also there are alot of details in the below quote as well as reference to a separate book not written by the mentioned colonel. That book is in cryillic so I am unable to read it but I digress.
"M111 "Hetz" ammunition was acquired by the Soviet Union and extensively examined and tested after the 1982 war in Lebanon (June 1982 - September 1982). A very popular theory is that the ammunition came on board a captured Israeli Magach 4 tank, which was until recently on display in Kubinka. Having captured M111 "Hetz" rounds in sufficient quantity for live fire testing, it was discovered by Soviet specialists that the upper glacis of the T-72 was vulnerable. As a response, the "Reflection" R&D programme (ОКР «Отражение») was initiated. This programme consisted of the "Reflection-2" research topic on a stopgap solution and the "Reflection-1" research topic on a long-term solution. Work on the "Reflection-2" research topic concluded before the end of 1982. It lead to the development of high hardness appliqué armour plates tailored to each of the Soviet Army's main battle tanks - the T-64, T-72 and T-80.

As part of the "Reflection-2" programme, new-production T-72A tanks received a layer of appliqué armour on the upper glacis during hull construction at the factory and the T-72M1 export variant was created on the basis of this model in the same year. Furthermore, all models of the T-72 series were ordered to have 16mm of appliqué armour welded onto the upper glacis beginning in July 1983. The uparmouring process for existing tanks was authorized to take place during scheduled maintenance at repair facilities across the USSR.


As explained on page 139 of the book "Т-72/Т-90. Опыт создания отечественных основных боевых танков", the appliqué armour was intended to limit the effective range of M111, but no more. It was merely a temporary stopgap measure to keep the Soviet Army's large fleet of T-72 tanks viable against common 105mm APFSDS threats for the next few years. The limitations of the outdated three-layer armour sandwich design were recognized and work on a much more serious upgrade in armour protection was already underway, thanks to prior intelligence on West German plans to install a 120mm gun on the new Leopard 2 tank. Indeed, the 16mm plate was not only intended to immunize the tank from the new 105mm threat, but also to limit the effective range of the 120mm gun threat."
 
Anyhow in many ways this is neither here nor there . The point of mentioning M111 Hetz is that as far was we know, it defeated the T-72A, which had a better armor array on the glacis than the 64A, the subject of this post. Based on the best information available, M111 and M735 seem to be similar performance rounds. Even if we assume 735 to be a bit worse, it should not have issues with the 64A type array. This evidence is listed because it is highly suggestive, if not definitive. Zaloga  quotes from official Russian sources that the 80/105/20 array as being equivalent to 335mm, easily within M735s grasp. This is also consistent with every other bit of evidence I can find on these rounds/armor, including steel beasts, whose values CMCW manual seems to be quoting or has arrived at on its own. But to reiterate my answer I quoted the M111 tests because they are part of a preponderance of evidence both suggestive and estimated.
 

I don't have time right now to respond to this entirely right now but I want to note something about the test. I also started testing the T-72 and T-72A and it is for some reason far less resistant than the T-64A, despite the fact that the baseline 72 should have the same armor array and the 72A should be more resistant than the 64A. I havent had time to do 100 tests and save the files, but it is obvious from the testing Ive done so far and what you just posted that the T-72 is far weaker for some reason.  This indicates strongly to me that this is a bug of some kind, especially in conjunction with the fact that the hatch weak point appears int he wrong place and for some reason always leaves two overlapping penetration hole decals. I think there might be some swapped armor data entries or something, because the T-64A should be penetrable just like the baseline 72, much less the 72A.

No, they are displayed wherever the round hits - i.e., they aren't placed in a generic location.

Everything I've read about Soviet (and Soviet trained tankers) indicates that the TCs would be buttoned up when fighting. Heads out is fine for road marches. 
 
Americans & Israelis fight heads out and only button up when taking direct fire or under air/artillery attack. You lose more TCs that way but the gain in situational awareness is better (assuming you don't have equipment with independent thermal sights for the TC). 
 
You see the doctrine reflected in the equipment. Soviet TC hatches aren't conducive to fighting buttoned up, NATO equipment is more likely to have things like open protected positions for TC hatches. 
 
H

Bundeswehr & NVA.
BAOR & Canadians.
VDV & US Airborne.
USMC, Soviet Naval Infantry (and artic Soviet MRD TOE), Norwegian Army.
Other minor NATO members.
Packs extending the time period to the 1975-1985 decade (or more).

I'd much rather see other countries in the time period that CMCW is about rather than backtracking all the way to WW2 again. It seems like a huge waste of potential doing that.

Hey I already wasted my money on the game, now you want me to waste my time, too?
Now give me the next module, I have nothing to play!

Soviet doctrine was to fight buttoned. "Why" isn't entirely clear to me, but I imagine it's a number of factors - NBC, vulnerability to small arms since you're planning to close aggressively, the general low height of the Soviet armour, etc. It's probably a combination of factors.

The unbuttoned position for Soviet TCs isn't really conducive to it either - they're pretty exposed.

In practical terms, it shouldn't really matter. If you're following Soviet doctrine, you're massing armour in line, and so making up for poor spotting with multiple rolls of the dice - ten tanks with poor spotting will have the edge over one with better optics, at least until you start hitting Abrams and the technological edge takes over.

😄

Behold the Germany module! Okay, not really. I just swapped out the Abrams model for the CMSF2 Leopard 2A4. Its only cosmetic but dang, its a lot of fun.

Yep. Glantz is not exactly the best prose writer. Amongst his books, the ones with the best style are the ones written with Jonathan House. 

@FinStabilized this is a hell of a first post. Really well done! I appreciate the attention to detail, sources, and level headedness. That does not always happen on forums, as we are all too well aware. 
I am personally of the opinion that the performance of M774 in game is about right. 
There are essentially two camps of people when it comes to this specific issue. On one side, you have people (if you poke around on this forum a bit you will see some pretty out there claims from an infamous source around these parts) who claim that US antiarmor technology was essentially useless against Soviet armor such as the T-64/80.
On the other side, you have people who will argue that as long as you are pitting best vs best, both sides are relatively on par with each other. For example, an Abrams can kill a T-80B from the front, but it is not the easy one hit kill that it is in CMSF2 or CMBS. I personally fall into the second group. I would hazard that you fall into the second group as well.
A big thing when it comes to testing in Combat Mission is repetition. CM is extremely good at simulating chaos, those times where you do everything right and it still turns out badly, or the other way around. Warfare is not a binary equation, and CM gets that right more than most other systems even attempt. I think what you might be seeing is basically a case of tough luck. I say that because I have had a lot of success with Abrams vs all of the best Soviet armor in game (T-64B, T-80B, and T-72A). My experience tends to mirror @Amedeo in his post above. 
There is always going to be a bit of variation in what each individual player sees in CM, which can make it extremely difficult to test certain things. That said, the best way to present evidence of a possible issue is by uploading a save of the replay. The real head honchos at BFC have software tools that can pull that save apart and dig into the code to see what is going on, or at the very least get a much better idea of what is happening in the underlying systems than we can. 
I would recommend running the test multiple times to develop an average, and posting the results along with save files of the replays. 
If you don't know, the way to save a replay is to play the game in turn based (WeGo) mode and simply save the game as you normally would during the replay phase. This will save the entire 1 minute replay and allow others to load it up into their game and watch what is happening. If you are playing head to head and there is a password, that will be needed to view the replay as well. 
Again, great first post, and welcome aboard!

Yes, I'm sure the SBWiki penetration values are point blank and not at 3000m because the very first line of that page contains the words "measured at the muzzle".
Speaking of the M111, I know that some consider that round as similar in performance to the M735 (the same SBWiki does) but I simply wanted to remember that, in the mid '80s, Zaloga stated that its performance was similar to the M735A1 (and thus more in line with the M774 than the M735). Zaloga's statement was not based on Israely marketing hipe. In the same book I quoted before, Zaloga said also that Israeli sources claimed the M111 to be superior (!) to the latest US DU APFSDS (i.e. M774 and M833) but added that an US officer, asked whether this could be true, just chuckled.
Why are we discussing the M111? As you said, because of the notorious "Kubinka tests". Now, the only written published source about these tests (at least the only one I know of) was an article written by James Warford for the magazine Armor. The article said that the Soviet tested M111 APFSDS rounds against the T-72A in 1983 (circa) and were shocked when they found that the M111 was able to penetrate the tank's glacis. The article also reported that US made M735 APFSDS were allegedly tested, and the T-72A was found to be proof to them. The author wrote allegedly because he thinks it was unlikely that the Soviets managed to smuggle US ammo from West Germany.
But fact is that the only things we know for sure is that an Israeli M60 (with ammo) was recovered by the Syrians in 1982 and shipped to the Soviet Union (the Kubinka museum recently agreed to sent it back to Israel in exchange for another one - they did this because Israeli officials asked the return of what was considered a "war grave") and some time after, a 20mm appliqué glacis plate for T-72/64/80 tanks. Period. 
Actually, all the details we "know" about those tests were based on the recollections of colonel Murakhovskii (he, again) that leaked on internet forums: I'm referring in particular to the Tank-Net forum. The fact that the tank tested was a T-72A, the fact that it was tested at 1500m range, the fact that the Soviet found that the glacis was penetrated and the turret was proof, the fact that also the M735 was tested (actually it was said, generically, it was an "american APFSDS", but, if true, I think it's a safely assumption that we're talking about the M735, not the M774). I'm not stating that these details are false. I only want to point out that, as far as I know, there are no other independent confirmation of them, other than the aforementioned forum anecdotes.
So, I went on and tested the M735 against a T-72A in CMCW, expecting it to be basically proof against that tungsten APSFSD, but.... see below.
In my tests the M735, against a T-72A at 1500m, obtained 46% Superstructure front hull penetrations (!!!), 15% Upper front hull penetrations, 15% weapon mount penetrations, 15% Lower front hull penetrations, 9% Turret hits (no penetrations). That was totally unexpected! Especially considering the results of your tests against the T-64A. I don't know whether I managed to get a string of unlikely results (I "destroyed" only a dozen tanks to get my data - I don't claim any statistical relevance) but, now I presume that the problem might not lie in  "underpowered" US APFSDS (since their results of both the M774 and M735 against T-72s and T-80s are in line with the expectations... even more so) but in some sort of tougher T-64A glacis. Additionally, I think that it would be interesting to know exactly to which glacis areas the "Upper front plate" and "Superstructure hull front" corresponds. Maybe that the "Upper front plate" contains not only the driver's hatch zone but also a significant portion of the glacis.