Amedeo

As Codreanu said, no thermal imagers on Soviet production tanks during the Cold War. The fist tanks to ne so equipped were (or were intended to be) the command versions of the T-80U, that is the T-80UK but, even if some of them reached first line units just before the fall of the Soviet Union, it was at a time when the Cold War was over. So, even if the CMCW timeframe would be expanded to, say, 1989, by future modules, there's no chance to (realistically) see Soviet tanks with thermals in the game.
On the other hand, the USSR did trial some prototype thermal imagers during the late Cold War, here's the photo of a T-80B equipped with such a prototype:

Many years ago, a funny anecdote by colonel Murakhovskiy about these trials was reported on the TankNet forums. A Soviet tanker, showing his enthusiam after having used the new sight, basically said that thermal imagers were the best thing since sliced bread and asked his commander whether the Americans were working on something comparable. But, after the officer replied that thermal imagers were already standard issue on all new US tanks and IFVs, the tanker paled and became gloomy never to speak again.
Poor chap! 😄

I personally stopped complaining about marksmanship after digging for information about hit probabilities on Napoleonic battlefields, and found figures suggesting that it was common for it to take somewhere between 200 and 500 rounds to inflict 1 casualty. I know it's the wrong time period, but the chances of a round finding it's mark would have actually been significantly higher on a Napoleonic battlefield than on a modern one. The enemy on a Napoleonic battlefield can be clearly seen, and is standing in a dense formation. The enemy on a modern battlefield is in extended formations, and each soldier is taking cover and concealment on their own initiative. Cover was used on Napoleonic battlefields, contrary to popular imagination. But not on the initiative of the individual soldiers. Rather, a battalion commander would have to find a suitable linear terrain feature that could provide decent protection for their whole battalion (a ditch, tree line, wall, etc...), which is a much harder task than an individual finding a terrain feature that could protect just themselves.
The fact that they had muskets and not modern rifles does not account for the low hit probability. Muskets, while inaccurate compared to modern rifles, are far more accurate than people imagine. About 30 arcminutes (+/- 6 arcminutes), or about half a degree is the accuracy of a typical musket, which is abysmal by modern standards. But it is just accurate enough that a perfect marksmen should be guaranteed hit someone in a close order formation at 200 yards with every round. Clearly it was the humans that were inaccurate. Specifically, the humans under battlefield conditions, since they achieved much higher accuracy when shooting at targets on a range. Considering how much more elusive modern targets are, I now find estimates that it takes 2000+ rounds to inflict 1 casualty on a modern battlefield (which I used to find absolutely absurd) to be completely plausible.
I came away from this with two conclusions:
1. The marksmanship in Combat Mission is perfectly fine.
2. Imperial Stormtroopers are actually excellent marksmen and the "stormtroopers can't aim" memes need to die.

In a test scenario if one wants to minimize the impact of dust on spotting, in addition to setting wind speed to zero, it's also important to set ground condition to damp.

An interesting side note, Because dust does impact spotting on older tanks. I am pretty sure there is an advantage if you are in a tank duel and you have the wind blowing into you face.
Its an item I have wanted to test to see how much it impacts spotting, but have never done it. but make sure during any testing to not have wind as a factor.

Well, the Soviets have not been shy to invest in money when they think it's worth it - missile-armed tanks, gas turbine tanks, night vision, titanium hulled subs, all of which would demand the best available at the time. I think one of the big reasons is that ... the early thermal imagers just aren't that good, due to their very low number of elements.
This is what a M1 might look like through an optical sight with vertical FOV of 35 milliradians (~2 degrees) at 1000m:

Here's what it might look like in thermal. It's hot, so it's white, but we are now in grayscale:
A "Generation 0" sight (such as 1PN59) is said to use only 50 elements, so the vertical resolution is 50 pixels:

↑Despite the picture being maximally simplified and the tank is white to simulate how a tank pops out from its environs due to heat, does that even still look like a tank? It might be a good toy for specially trained recce troops, perhaps by making the straw even narrower. As a tank sight ... needs work.

↑This, with 100 lines, is about the level of a 1st generation tank sight. Agava-1 is said to be 100 lines. Leopard 2's first sight, EMES 15, would also be about this level (at 120 elements). Definitely getting better, but if it is say at 2000m, or the tank is hull down so its bottom is blocked, or you are thinking your target are much smaller and cooler infantrymen, or we degrade its contrast ratio by putting a real background behind it, put coverings on it to reduce its heat transmission ... etc, do you want to pay a substantial amount and look through 35 mrad straws for this?

↑Agava-2, at 256 elements. Ah, definitely becoming useful here. That's when the Soviets decided they finally had a viable tank sight ... but then the Soviet Union broke up.
That may well be the main differential point between NATO and the Soviets - whether to accept a resolution less than the 144p which is the crappiest resolution on Youtube or wait for 240p. I think NATO can accept the lower resolution because they are thinking they need to attack hot, mobile Soviet tanks and are willing to shoot at blobs that are only a bit better than a dot. The Soviets wanted something that can help them hunt down hull down tanks, small TOW jeeps and infantry.

That's quite a layered question, with some curveballs thrown in, so bear with me:

Firstly, sourcing:
https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/Hot Spots/Documents/Russia/2017-07-The-Russian-Way-of-War-Grau-Bartles.pdf
In some respects this is apparently (and unsurprisingly, since it's five years later) out of date by now, but it's absolutely relevant for CMBS.

In there, you can see that the majority of the fundamentals of Soviet doctrine have survived intact into the modern day - attacking on-line for maximum mass, the focus on meeting engagements, on counter-attack in the defence, etc. In this sense, CMCW lets you see those fundamentals very clearly, in their intended context, before you translate them to a new one.

First curveball - there's a large difference between Russia vs Ukraine and Russia vs the US here. The latter is significantly more asymmetric, so ends up breaking a lot of the rules or otherwise forcing you out of where you want to be. That's essentially why things like Javelin exist, of course - they're supposed to be disruptive technology, aimed at plausible opposition. Will focus on Russia vs Ukraine then, with some notes on the US at the end.

Second curveball - I'm not convinced that all Black Sea scenarios capture or represent the main tropes of hyper-modern warfare as well as they could. Arguably that's true for all CM titles, but I suspect it's inevitably a little worse for Black Sea, due to the speculative nature of everything. As an example of that, Between Two Fahrbahns in Cold War. That's scenario that's great fun to play from either side, plays well H2H, and it's perfectly competent... but isn't terribly representative of "Cold War", and doesn't really make an argument, express a concept or investigate a tactical problem of the period. The same scenario might as well have Shermans vs Panzer IVs and it would work equally well.

So, what defines Black Sea? Philip Karber has a definition of the real combat in the region as "high intensity combat on a low density battlefield", and I think that core idea should also define CMBS. As a basic rule of thumb then - it's pretty common to use a Quick Battle map that's one size larger than your force. In Black Sea I think that should really be two sizes larger by default. That same thinking can/should apply to scenarios, but it's intended as a quick representation of the idea.

The other difference in theme is that in Cold War the operational tempo is paramount. Typically the tactical battlefield is not something that needs to be taken, it's something that needs to be move through, as fast as possible. This is part of the reason why the Soviets could be (had to be) comparatively free with casualties - gaining operational freedom is the goal here, and the tactical-level losses are acceptable.

This is not true for Black Sea. The Russian army is smaller, more casualty-adverse, and isn't screaming towards the Rhine at maximum velocity. This means you'll be more interested in capturing objectives, and can't afford to take the losses. In addition, the Russian army has significantly improved equipment. Much better spotting and C2, faster call-in times for artillery, ERA and APS, drones to call in massed fires, etc. They also have pushed assets down to lower levels - not as much as the US do, but significantly more than the Soviets, meaning that small units are significantly more capable and independent. The Russian air defence is significantly better than the US, so they should have drone superiority (and the US have nothing that can shoot down Zala at all). 

So how do you marry these two ideas? Soviet fundamentals, whilst being casualty-adverse? This is perhaps the major problem to solve as the Russians, but a lot of it comes down to controlling your engagements. You still want to be attacking on-line, with maximum firepower against a subset of the enemy, but you want to be careful as and when you engage, and to control that engagement with overwhelming firepower. An actual engagement might only last a minute or two, and a battle might be a lot of sneaking and manoeuvre, followed by a brief period of devastating fires. High intensity, Low density.

The first mission of the Russian campaign in the core game is indicative, I think. This is fundamentally a Soviet doctrinal meeting engagement. This is identical in concept to Miller's training scenario from CMCW, or the first mission of the Soviet campaign in Cold War, but the differences start to become apparent.

In the Russian campaign scenario, you have all the elements of that meeting engagement - you have a recon platoon, followed by a Forward Security Element of a BMP-3 company and a tank platoon, and they should be doing the same fundamental job.

The differences really start when the follow-up to that FSE is a single tank company, and not an entire battalion. That means that you're inherently more limited in how you can approach this.

The approach I took with this was to advance with the recon platoon and get spots along the route of contact, then advance at the speed of the fireplan. The FSE wants to march into a valley, so, suppressing the high town objective on the valley's far side is what allowed the follow-on tank company to take up a base of fire on the right side hill, on-line, and dominate the valley with fires.

The FSE can then approach into the valley floor, preceded with drone-summoned fires on the central objective, and with covering fires on likely enemy positions to the flanks. This FSE can then bypass, surround and reduce the central objective, before moving on to take on the others to the conclusion.

At each stage the fundamentals are the same - your fire plan is paramount, and in each bound you're attempting to go fires-first, maximising firepower at every engagement. 

So, how about the US? Well, Abrams, Bradley and Javelin represent disruptive technology, that will do terrible things to you. The fundamentals remain identical, but you can do everything right and still lose sometimes, and anything you do wrong will be punished severely. Fighting javelins is about firepower and the terrain read - they're systems used on foot, and the modern US infantryman doesn't like mortars anymore than anyone else does, so denying potential javelin positions is as important as anything. Abrams need to be engaged from the flank where possible (ideally from two angles at once), and Bradleys are near-psychic in their spotting, so you need to engage them quickly and decisively with excellent recon - you never want to get into an engagement where you don't already have spotting contacts.

The most common Soviet camouflage of that era would be their version of OD ("protective coloring"). Their belief is that unless it's a special situation and you take care to select the perfect camouflage for the situation, you won't be doing worse, or perhaps even better if you just go with something drab.
http://army.armor.kiev.ua/hist/maskir_1.php
 
 
http://army.armor.kiev.ua/hist/maskir_2.php
 
 
Written by an engineering officer in the Soviet Army.

This is a 2-hour conversation between @Hapless, his opponent @Rice, and @domfluff, who is the admin of the unofficial (but extremely active) Combat Mission discord server.
They go into detail about their thought processes going into the game, how they responded to what happened during the match, and how Soviet doctrine can be used successfully in CMCW.
Figured it's worthy of its own thread because of how fascinating it is, and I hope we see more like this in the future.
This is a link to the unofficial discord server if you want to interact with more people in the community: https://discord.gg/SXkQ6rUuJN

@Jim StorrGot my copy and put a dent in it. Got me reviewing the history of doctrine development with a different azimuth of view. Thanks!
Reading some earlier writings of Starry, you can definitely see the genesis of AirLand battle (looking for good pull quotes). He seemed convinced, using a target servicing rate model in the sims of the time, that the forward deployed forces could handle the entire first echelon (including second and follow-own echelon regiments of the first echelon) if the pacing of introduction of WP combat power into the FEBA could be well managed.
He saw that "surveillance line" of sensors available to a Corps commander weren't up to that task (national recon assets were needed, so speedy dissemination of that info was also needed) and fires available to the Corps Commander didn't have the range to alter WP momentum. That meant using air power. So, using air power to influence the 24-72 hours in the future.
As so the apparent disconnect between Active Defense and AirLand Battle, that may be a result of the pre-cursor architect for want of a better term) having been an 11 ACR and V Corps Commander. Decade too late, but Starry lived 20 minutes away from me. *sigh*. Anyway, from a V Corps perspective, the difference between Active Defense and AirLand Battle comes to the fore once the IGB Covering Force has been collapsed and the Divisions have deployed from garrison. 
My experience and study (thus far) don't qualify me to comment on other sectors. I was an AMF and V Corps guy in my 3 tours in Europe,
As to mounted assaults, I need to dig more. Starry was a Cavalry guy first and armor guy second. Maybe something written by Depuy? I don't know. I have a gut feeling the West's (sans British, perhaps) position was a result of Wehrmacht and WP experience/thought. The fact, IMO, was WW II experience in such tactics (along with tank riders, or "armor desant") was largely invalid by the 80s (if not earlier), owing to a different battlefield lethality environment.
Now, that doesn't mean that aren't times where dismounting infantry on or very near (< 1000m from) the objective doesn't make perfect sense. Grabbing  a piece of terrain and having an hour or two to get ready for the inevitable counter-attack is a gem beyond price.
 

Certainly!
There is a single hatch over the troop compartment and it is a cargo hatch, not a fighting hatch. The principal task for using that hatch is to reload the TOW missile launcher. And, it's an alternative for resupply if for whatever reason one can't lower the ramp.
In the A2 model, the flank periscopes are basically unusable, as they are also blocked by the add-on hull armor.
Additionally, when the cargo hatch is open, the turret weapons are locked out. There are a number of switches and sensors that result in the main gun elevating to 45 degrees or so (relative to the hull) to prevent the gun barrel from striking an open driver's hatch or the cargo hatch. Had a gunner knocked off the vehicle and also knocked out when the vehicle commander grabbed a palm switch in the turret with the driver's hatch open and the gun too close to it. it's quite a vigorous action.
There were no gunnery table to exercise squads using these weapons. When I as a Division level Bradley Master Gunner, I did some work on seeing if some firing exercises could be fashioned. Consulted with folk at 7th Army Training Command at Graf in the early 90s and our consensus was we couldn't do it safely enough with facilities in existence at the time.
I transitioned from "foot mobile" to BFV Infantryman on the A1. The doctrinal manual at the time and the subsequent one (both editions of FM 23-1) specified fire commands for the firing port weapons. They were termed "right bank", "left bank", and "rear bank".
I never witnessed troops dismounting with the firing port weapons mounted in the ramp. I think the barrels were short enough to keep them out of the dirt, but I'd expect people tripping over them if dismounting in the dark.
"Mounted assault" speaks not to dismounts fighting while mounted, but where they dismount relative to the objective. A mounted assault sees troops being disgorged on the objective as opposed to dismounting in a covered and hopefully concealed location hundreds of meters from said objective.
Even in the basic and A1 models, using the firing ports is about self protection and not assaulting. The weapons are shortened AR-15s. Magazine fed (regular 30 round ones) and no sight system. The doctrine was to shoot all tracer and it was about suppressing very close targets (too close for the turret weapons), not attacking and objective.

I can't speak to UK or BW mechanized forces, but as to US (personal experience, here, so cast it as anecdotal if you like):
The decision to assault mounted or to dismount short of the assault objective is a situational decision. The main factors are cover, concealment, and time.
For the M2, the modifications brought about by the A2 variant were driven by the BMP-2's 30mm autocannon. The  basic and A1 variants were designed to stop 14.5mm and 23mm. The upgrade added heavier armor skirts to the hull flanks (as well as applique plates to the front slope and turret) and the skirts are what covered up the flank firing ports. The rear firing ports remained operational and the vehicle kit retained firing port weapons for those. 
Mounted assault was not, in my experience, dropped from either doctrine or training when the flank firing ports were deleted.
A former Bradley Master Gunner

Please see my reply above.  The problem is apparently with Amazon's shippers, not with the print run.  
Jim Storr

I am guessing here that "axial position" is above and below the round?  This would make sense with those dead zones.
Ok, back to topic, here is an outstanding example of making Soviet tactics work:
 

@Sgt.Squarehead
 
This is a well-known mathematical problem. The solution is also perfectly known. civdiv is right although intuition suggests otherwise. But strict probability calculus is absolute. Don't forget that the knowledge of the person opening the curtains and knowing from the beginning what is behind each curtain also comes into play. This person opens one of them because he knows beforehand that it is empty.

Yes this is why I believe the issue is more pertinent as you move into the modern titles. The modern titles have more bits and bobs attached to the tank and therefore more bits and bobs that could be smashed by fragments.

Laser warning receivers in Black Sea rely heavily on the smoke launchers having ammo to defend against an incoming ATGM but if the smoke launcher was rendered inoperable by artillery shelling earlier in the battle the window for the ATGM to guide into the tank is now bigger than before. These sort of small cascading effects are missing in CM currently but get regularly ignored during the discussion and instead tests are made against "car parks" of armor to claim that there isn't an issue.

And again another obvious issue is that while infantry on the ground gain cover saves to abstract their ability to find micro terrain tank crewmen do not and are reliant on their animation positioning them. If you find any video of men sticking their heads out of a vehicle in combat its simple to see that they make attempts to reduce their exposure whenever possible which is something that CM crewmen do not do.

This guide is the real deal! performance increase is massive.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2601713366

"But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."
"How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here".

Had a lot of fun with this one. After reading some of the comments on the forum I was ready for the gauntlet but I don't think it was too bad. 

First priority was preparing the way for the advance guard. I think people get hung up a bit too much on preplanned artillery with the Soviets. Even with longer call in times they can still destroy a tank with a few minutes of artillery fire. I started off with a preplanned bombardment on the tentative contact then adjusted it to the remaining AFV's overlooking the valley. When my troops rolled in there was only one tank remaining and it was taken out within the first minute. 
Knowing that I faced an enemy light on infantry I decided to rush Mansbach and quickly move to Soislieden. This proved the correct play as I caught the three M113's off guard and barely skipped a beat. At Soislieden, I discovered the bane of all proletariat. Even when opened up the T-62 spots worse than Stevie Wonder! I do not pretend to do iron man runs so sue me but I had to run it back so many times to take out the remaining tanks outside Soislieden. Eventually, with the help of infantry I was able to clear it out right around the time my main force arrived.

Based on some youtube videos I watched, I think people get hung up around this time. I saw people charging their T72's out in the open only to get picked off by unseen tanks and TOW's. Instead, I took my BTR's on the country roads shown above to observe the hill. I was able to spot all AFV's in hiding and called artillery on each target except one which was taken out by an AT-4. By the way, the AT-4 has to be one of the Soviet's most powerful weapons. It's hard to spot (at least with the AI), it spots like no other and reloads extremely fast. 
After the last AFV was destroyed I moved up my main force and took Ulfhausen. My only losses were a few BTR's that were trapped on the country road while the AI used their X-Ray vision to call in artillery on them through the trees... Seriously, how does that happen?
Overall this was a really fun mission and I think it does a good job of teaching you that without proper reconnaissance small numbers of NATO tanks can massacre large Soviet armored units. But if properly managed these combined arms units can be unstoppable.

As Codreanu said, no thermal imagers on Soviet production tanks during the Cold War. The fist tanks to ne so equipped were (or were intended to be) the command versions of the T-80U, that is the T-80UK but, even if some of them reached first line units just before the fall of the Soviet Union, it was at a time when the Cold War was over. So, even if the CMCW timeframe would be expanded to, say, 1989, by future modules, there's no chance to (realistically) see Soviet tanks with thermals in the game.
On the other hand, the USSR did trial some prototype thermal imagers during the late Cold War, here's the photo of a T-80B equipped with such a prototype:

Many years ago, a funny anecdote by colonel Murakhovskiy about these trials was reported on the TankNet forums. A Soviet tanker, showing his enthusiam after having used the new sight, basically said that thermal imagers were the best thing since sliced bread and asked his commander whether the Americans were working on something comparable. But, after the officer replied that thermal imagers were already standard issue on all new US tanks and IFVs, the tanker paled and became gloomy never to speak again.
Poor chap! 😄

Photo of one of the first Soviet thermals in 80s.

Hello,
to whom it may concern.
A Video about the subject named in the title.
I love the Soviet Campaign. After the starting phase of the first scenario can really hit you hard in the face, I like about the second scenario that you have some free space to develope your approach. I went with the plan with the least amount of engagement.
Kind Regards,
Michael H.
 
 
 

An update on the spotting tests. First, overall spotting rating (remember - it is a measure of spotting ability in the forward direction at 200-1400 meters, relative to the Pz IVH). It confirms the previous find that open topped vehicles spot far better than fully protected ones and are nearly unaffected by being buttoned up.

Second, I also plotted the spotting rating as a function of distance for selected fully protected vehicles (the trends tend to be the same for all) when opened up. At close range (200 m), there is little difference in the spotting ability among the different vehicles. As the range extends, some gain an increasing advantage of up to 15-20% over the reference Pz IV. If you have a vehicle that can spot well, it is advantageous to engage at a longer range. If you have one that doesn't, you may be able to reduce this handicap by getting closer.
I have included an outlier - the SU-85/SU-100/SU-122. It spots poorly at close ranges. I have only seen this behavior with this one and with the T-70. The heavy assault guns (ISU) do not have this problem.

The same plot including a representative of the open-top gang, for perspective.

The same plot with hatches closed. At 200 m the spotting improves and being buttoned up is less of a disadvantage than at 400 m. From 400 m up, the disadvantage of being buttoned up gradually decreases with range. Unless you have a SU-85/SU-100/SU-122, which again does its own thing.

To quote two earlier posts:  
'I just got the book and read through around 40 pages'; and   
'Just received my copy and skimmed the whole thing.' (But then goes on to make a number of substantive  comments, including an observation about my conclusions).  
To repeat:  'I would ask that people actually take the time to read the book before commenting. It took me over a year to write.  Is it too much to ask that people take a couple of days to read and consider it before rushing on line with a critique?'  
On the specific issue of the use of wargaming:  Page 74 says 'I have used the insights from wargaming cautiously in researching for this book.  Where I use them directly, I use the expression ''gaming suggests that', or similar'.  That is because the Cold War was not fought, so a researcher or analyst has very little direct evidence to work from.  That is the point of much of Chapter 3 ('The Approach').  And I would reiterate the point on Page 75:  'The reader may be sceptical as to whether wargaming is of any value.  Scepticism is valuable ...' 
then 
'Sceptics are asked to keep an open mind ...'   
The issue is then revisited in the observations and conclusions, from page 286.   Finally, the wargaming itself was not the main source of insight: it was the research (Page 72 refers).  
Yours sincerely 
Jim Storr

Really? The Soviets are half of this book, and he has only ONE major source on them?
But then reading through Hall of Mirrors, his bibliography on the Soviets is ridiculously thin or at least some stuff I'll expect to be there is not. He has read Christopher Bellamy, but not Red God of War Soviet Artillery and Rocket Forces, only a text called Evolution of Modern Land Warfare. He has Glantz, but while he has read Zhukov's Greatest Defeat and When Titans Clash, he hasn't read any of the three-set on Tactics, Operational Art, Strategy. No Grau though Afghanistan was the war the Soviets actually fought in. I don't see Richard Simpkins and his Red Armour there either. And if Team Yankee is a source, why not Ralph Peters' Red Army? And while Military Review has had many papers on the Soviets over the years ... if he has read them it's well hidden.
Is that the same for Battlegroup?