Amedeo

As you noticed, in 1983 there should be no new piece of kit around that did not already enter service by 1982. On the other hand, new improved ammunition models were introduced in 1983: TOW-2, M833, 3BM26 etc... these could make a difference, although "introduced" doesn't necessarily mean "in widespread use".

Combat regulations of Ground Forces USSSR
Part II. Battalion, company [1982]
Alas, on Russian language. 
 

I have created a spreadsheet to show how much points IFVs and MBTs cost and how rare they are / rarity point cost.
There are three tabs for loose/standard/strict rarity levels.
You can access it here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GGWyVuMdVJEuxZzBaMaqOnye-aBdKrc7G_aX6Y_1zDk/edit?usp=sharing
It looks like this:

Did a bit of repetition - recorded the outcome of 550+ Dragon hits on various Soviet tanks at various aspects.
I'll keep it to the point:
If a Dragon manages to score a penetration, it is a guaranteed K/O - 292 penetrating hits recorded, all of which resulted in a (often catastrophic) K/O. The real weakness of the Dragon is reliability. I didn't keep track of how many nosedived and hit the dirt short of target, but it was a lot; and that's considering the Dragon teams were not being fired upon. T-55s and T-62s have no protection against the Dragon - first hit to connect is a guaranteed penetration at all aspects and hit locations. I stopped recording 55s/62s results after the first 48 frontal hits resulted in 100% K/O rate. All other Soviet MBTs seem almost impervious to the Dragon in the upper frontal arc (front turret, weapon mount, upper front hull). Of 280 hits that landed in upper front, only 2 managed to penetrate (0.07% rate).  At the same time, all other arcs offer no protection - of the 290 hits recorded to sides (even at rather shallow 30* angles and including turret sides) and most importantly lower front hull - all scored a penetrating hit, a 100% K/O rate. So a true case of YMMV:
On one hand, a T-64/72/80 in a perfect hull-down position might appear "invincible". During one contrivance, I had to stop after 30 (thirty) consecutive hits failed to K/O a single T-72; however, make no mistake, there was not a single relevant subsystem left functional on that tank. Where as on the other hand, something as simple as a 30-degree traversal of the turret relative to the ATGM team pretty well guarantees a K/O on the first shot to reach the target. I think no matter which side of the Dragon ATGM you find yourself in, such dramatically polarized results can most certainly lead to frustration.
p.s. In case anyone is curious what my last two hours looked like, here's a 12 min segment - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2midc46M9CA
(You can also get a sense of how many missiles fail to reach target ... or even clear the launcher, as a few unlucky teams caught their own shrapnel)
 

not quite so. For german 7.92mm, hardenend lead core was standard, while hardened steel core (not tungsten) the very coomon AP variant.

valid tactic. If encountering thinly armored vehicles they get used quite effectively at close ranges, up to ~300m IIRC.

In more detail:
7.92mm s.S lead core standard until 1940
7.92mm S.m.E soft iron core introduced in 1940 and from 1942 about to replace the s.S production wise.
Huge numbers of both remained standard use until end of the war.

A quick and dirty summary of the tanks present in the various divisions of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, I compiled this from the data available on the excellent Cold War Soviet Army OoB site by Michael Holm. These are only ballpark figures (and some smaller units are missing, namely a few independent tank regiments) but this should be useful to get the overall picture.

From what I understand, they did some thinking-outside-the-box and labeled the extended tube a 'bipod' so so when the weapon is deployed the 'bipod' (e.g. extended tube) appears. One of those things that's obvious only after someone first thinks of it.

It is interesting how few Soviet accounts mention them though. It's also been suggested that those kill rates were based on self reporting by the mujahideen, with successes being met with more weapons and funding, so there would be an incentive to massage those numbers. Both sources there have the obvious issues.
That doesnt mean that the Stinger wasnt significant - it's certainly a real AA capability - but it's quite possible that the systems importance has been overstated.

I second the notion that a text field to enter a number would be the way to go.
I mean just the formation selection screen shows several premade (realistic) formations costing close to 30,000 points. And that's not even high quality troops.
(also, I would really like to have the points values displayed in the editor. If you take formation variations into account it is nearly impossible to "translate" from a QB selection display to the editor)

Something else to note re: ZSU-23-4 vs M163 is that the former had a Radar fire control system while the latter only had a Radar ranger. Thus, the Shilka can leverage its FCS to put shells where the computer expects the aircraft to be when they arrive vs the M163 where the gunner has to eyeball it.  I think this disparity, more than any other, makes the Shilka far more effective at the AAA role.

Well, in game SPAAGs could be perhaps overperforming but, in real life, the M163 should be wimpier than the ZSU-23-4. I remember back in the '80s that the consensus was that US Army lagged behind the Soviet Army in the mobile air defense department, and the eventual demise of the ill-fated M247 Sergeant York added insult to injury.
It will be interesting to see the Flakpanzer Gepard in action when the Bundeswehr/NVA module will be released! 😁

~13,000 points for huge quick battles is nowhere enough for the big maps (especially if air and arty support is involved). I would love to see if the budget points for quick battles could be increased, as even a single US mech bataillon without additional support costs more than 20,000 points.

A quick and dirty summary of the tanks present in the various divisions of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, I compiled this from the data available on the excellent Cold War Soviet Army OoB site by Michael Holm. These are only ballpark figures (and some smaller units are missing, namely a few independent tank regiments) but this should be useful to get the overall picture.

@Combatintman Yes, I have a copy of the book by Fes'kov et alii you mentioned. You are right, there are a few inconsistencies but there's nothing better around (AFAIK, of course). BTW, there's a revised edition of the same work, dated 2013, titled: The Armed Forces of the USSR after World War 2: from the Red Army to the Soviet Army - part 1: land forces.
Of course Michael Holm used heavily this source, but the strength returns from 1979 and 1985 are probably from some Western intel source because in the aforementioned book I only found detailed figures for the end of the '80s. Moreover, the figures I gave above are obviously only an estimate to be taken with a (big) grain of salt, because they all sum up to the exact TOE totals for all the divisions listed. Here are the strength returns for Tank Divisions from the book relative to the end of the '80s (actually, the numbers seems to be from the 1990 CFE treaty returns, I couldn't find any difference, although I admit I didn't try too hard):

As can be seen, totals from each division vary wildly, so I doubt that in 1979 or 1985 the situation was very different. Moreover the 1985 figures are incompatible with the 1987 data one can find in Fes'kov:

It's worth noting that the information contained in these two tables comes from Lenskii & Tsybin's work: Soviet Land Forces in the last year of the Soviet Union.
And, in turn, the figures for 1st Jan. 1987 in the last table, ultimately come from a 1998 issue of Tekhnika i vooruzhenie.
For what concerns the OMGs, I presume you are well acquainted with the works of the late Richard Simpkin. I remember reading something in 1984 or 1985 but, although Simpkin's book and articles sparked debate in NATO circles, operational forward detachments were not a novelty in Soviet doctrine.
 
 

In terms of composition it was a Tank Army but going back to what I said about relearning everything I thought I knew about the Cold War it was not called 3 Shock Army during the time frame of this game.  It also only had only three divisions until 1983 (two tank and one motor rifle) vice the four that I am more familiar with in the time that I was expected to face it off.
OMGs were the new buzz words in the late 80s so for the game period  I wouldn't set too much store by them.   3 CAA/Shock Army's main effort would have been in the 1 (GE) Corps AOR (Hannover and immediately north of it), 2 GTA was pretty much going to be the second operational echelon for GSFG and given where it was based, would most likely have rolled through 1 (GE) Corps and bits of 1 (BR) Corps.  Of course it could have been employed north and south of that option though .   The most likely second operational echelon in the south would have been the Central Group of Forces and, from what I've read, the Poles, if they turned up, would have been given the northern option (eg Hamburg and all of the coastal stuff).
There is the issue of the NVA - from what I can gather during the game time frame two NVA divisions were slated to come under 3 CAA/3 Shock Army's command, both were fairly high category reserve divisions and my guess is that they would get given tasks to either fix bits of 1 (NL) Corps and 1 (BE) Corps or do a bit of 'kameradenschaft' with 1 (GE) Corps in built up areas such as Hannover.

Great scenario BTW. I loved it.

A quick and dirty summary of the tanks present in the various divisions of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, I compiled this from the data available on the excellent Cold War Soviet Army OoB site by Michael Holm. These are only ballpark figures (and some smaller units are missing, namely a few independent tank regiments) but this should be useful to get the overall picture.

A quick and dirty summary of the tanks present in the various divisions of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, I compiled this from the data available on the excellent Cold War Soviet Army OoB site by Michael Holm. These are only ballpark figures (and some smaller units are missing, namely a few independent tank regiments) but this should be useful to get the overall picture.

@Amedeo - that's the source I'm using too.  A lot of it is derived from this publication (in Russian) which I've rummaged around - there are inconsistencies for sure but I haven't found anything better:
УДК 355 (lib.ru)
As an example of inconsistency - both the website and Feskov list 245 Guards Motor Rifle Regiment as being part of 47 Guards Tank Division and 207 Motor Rifle Division in the same period of time.  Logic to me dictates that it was part of 47 Guards Tank Division because it appears in its Orbat from 1960 all the way through to its CFE declaration in 1990.

It's a pity that CMCW struggles on a M1 MacBook when it runs smoothly on my old 2014 vanilla model MacMini. Let's hope that Apple will improve the performance of legacy intel code on the future releases of Rosetta.

Every hit with 120mm penetrated the Bradley.
(interesting find was that when I first tried with friendly fire I only got immobilized, the bombs went though the units, and with soviet mortars I didn't get any track damage at any point)
pics: https://imgur.com/a/UQAOfiG

Or, just drop smoke with the mortars (IIRC Bradleys can see through smoke but can't guide ATGMs through it) and close with the tanks for a kill?

I like that video. It would be nice to have the 2S1 122mm SP gun on-map in the modern CM titles at some point, as the video states that they were to be used in direct fire against ATGM's. Could throw in the 2S3 as well...
I suppose the Soviet tanks' smoke laying capacity would be too hard to code, but it seems like such an important capability for them. 
Kind of funny that the Soviets get some frightening Stravinsky as background music and the US Army gets a sort of wandering porno jazz theme.