c3k

Yep. Excalibur is GPS. Gets the same accuracy at 3km as it does at 30km. On the order of 3m CEP. (See above posts for details.) Really good when you want that first round to be delivered with love. The benefit is that anyone can get that GPS round delivered if they can read a map. Laser rangefinders would help you get your map grid more precise, but there's no need for laser emitters. Program the target into the round, pull the lanyard and chalk up a kill before it even lands. Krasnapol (and Kitolov) rounds used by the Russian forces are laser guided. Benefits: you can precisely target a vehicle...even if it's moving (slowly). The drawbacks are that you need to be emitting. If you emit, you can be detected. Case in point, the automatic smoke dispensers when a laser is sensed. The technical requirements for successfully guiding a round are fairly complex. The laser encryption needs to be relayed back to the firing unit. The geometry of the target, the spotter, and the firer needs to be correct. The spotter also needs to be actively lasing from the time the round is in the "capture basket" all the way through impact. Difficult enough to describe in a white paper and it takes a lot of timely comms (and training) to ensure success on the training ground, let alone in combat. There are reasons why the US stopped using copperhead. (Some pertinent, some not. Some no longer germane.) GPS can be spoofed and jammed.

A lot of good info above about where precision rounds are in the game and IRL. Under v3, I would use 1 excal round against BMP targets. Boom. Smoke and Pyre. I'd use 1 against tanks, as well (or 2 if it were a real thorn in my side). Under v4, I've upped that to not less than 2 against BMPs and not less than 3 against tanks. If I'm using Excal for tank plinking, it's because I don't have the "right" weapon at hand. Three rounds will 90% (estimate) eliminate the tank. Sometimes it just gets immob'ed. Then, I've got to re-engage with another 3 rounds. The Russian laser guided rounds are far more accurate in game.

LOL! Thanks for the QFT.

Nice hi-def videos of various Abrams at training ranges. As to the title of the video: meh. So, budgetary considerations are important for peacetime weapons development? Huh. Nice to watch...

Hmm, I gotta see about that latest IL2 version. I've had several copies over the last decade +. Great graphics and flying. Love the water.

Hmmm. I guess that means that you leave some of the enemy alive at the end of your battles? Glad it's sorted.

Interesting video. Even more interesting than the Arjun is the fact that the video is reversed. The thing seems to be flipped, a mirror image of what it should be. Just look at some of the lettering. Good for India for trying to get an indigenous tank production industry going.

Two troops can fit in one foxhole. They'll try to fit one in one, then double up. If there is a support weapon with crew, then they'll cluster around the weapon. At setup, they do pretty well. Not so much after the game starts. Sometimes they go right in, sometimes they don't. It -seems- like they figure that getting behind BOTH sides of the foxhole is more protection than being INSIDE the foxhole. It's a known issue.

I just did the same. A QB, and the I selected the Russian forces. I chose a Reconnaissance Battalion (new). The Batt HQ only has 4 men, in one team. No HQ icon/button on their UI. The two company HQs both have the HQ icon/button. The two company HQs have 6 men, divided into two three-man teams. You need to press the red HQ button to see them. Once you see all the men, press the blue HQ button to get the HQ UI back in place. See my screenies, above. As well, all the platoon HQs do the same: they are made up of two teams, each of three men. Only the Batt HQ does NOT have the HQ button...because it is not needed. There is nothing "hidden" behind it. Try again...or post a screenie.

That doesn't sound right. My screenshots show what to click. The bottom-most screenie, (which was the SECOND picture I posted, shrug), shows what to click to open up the window to expose the extra teams. I'll go click around in a few.

Bonus points for the first picture of it turned turtle?

That button? It's only accessible/turned on DURING a game, not in the AAR screen. So, if it's the enemy, yeah, you'll never see the UI list for team 2 or team 3 (if an HQ even has a third team?). If it's YOUR guys, then you can see all your guys by pressing it. Other than HQs, it also helps with tanks.

They're calling it "The Dragoon". LOL. The 2 ACR needed it...bad, to deal with potential Russian BTR/BMP threats in the Baltics.

^^^ LOL. It was something like that which allowed me stumble onto the Easter egg. I only used it a few times. And only once in a pbem. I still feel a little dirty about that, but a win is a win. Edited to add: That was how I beat @sublime in the one pbem we played. His human wave assaults almost worked...until I unleashed the psionic blast. Totally gutted his offense. Feels good to get that off my chest.

Well, they're only hidden if you don't know about the HQ button. Some folks think it's a label. It's most useful with AFV HQs. It opens up a lot of the UI. Glad it helped. (Hidden Easter egg: if you double-click the HQ button twice (4 clicks total) in rhythm with a Frank Sousa march (I forget which one), the HQ releases a "psionic blast" which causes all enemy units within a certain radius (dependent upon the HQ's soft-factors) to surrender. It can be VERY powerful. The two double-clicks can be a bitch to get right, though.) Ken

In CMx1, the various levels of cold weather affected optics differently. That was accounted for. I do not imagine that has been dropped. I think there's a lot going on under the hood.

I was going to go into a 3,000 word description of what's going on, but then I remembered that picture is worth a thousand words. I've posted three of them. The last two are swapped. Look at them in order: 1, 3, then 2. If this doesn't clear it up, let me know. Ken

Thanks for the link. Indeed, interesting.

Gen'l L, thanks. Michael, it would've been simpler if you'd said RUSSIAN units. I'm not trying to start something with you, but you never answered my questions seeking clarification. A screenshot would've made it glaringly obvious that you were talking about Russian units. Listing the unit's formation would have done the same. Assumptions and all that. Shrug.The TF campaign is fought from the blue side. And, it starts with on-map blue recon units. As Gen'l L. has described, it's a function of the UI for the HQ and having multiple team lists.

Well, it would be helpful if you gave me a screenshot and/or listed the command relationship of the unit you're questioning. Because I opened TF 3-69 on my weak laptop, and it starts with a recon platoon on map. The HQ has one man. He is listed correctly as one man in every instance of the UI that I could think to look. So...if you could toss a screenshot up, including the entire UI, I could maybe dig into this and see if it's a bug (in which case I'll report it (again)), or I'll be able to explain/describe what's going on. I don't have time to play through the TF 3-69 battle to try to find what you're describing. As it is, I've tried to...and obviously don't see what you're seeing.

Toss a screenshot up. (Traveling atm.) The HQ teams would be in different columns in the UI, but the HQ info in the UI blocks it. At least, that's how I remember it. I saw this a year+ ago and tossed it up the chain to get fixed and had it explained to me. Or, I'm totally misremembering how it happened. If so, I blame the beer and the aging process. Or, tell me exactly what type of HQ you're talking about and I'll see if I can find it and explain it.

LOL, as Vanir has just mentioned, there are a wide variety of shells and powder charges available to the various weapons. Date of use may change some of those numbers, etc. It's not as easy as just saying "Gun 1 does this and Gun 2 does that". There are modifiers to each statement: "Gun 1 does this...using ammo x at a range of y, against target z". There's a whole specialty devoted to the arcana of this stuff.

Check the UI. I remember something similar, but the men were hidden by the hq ui display.

The German gun, the 12.8cm Pak 44, had a muzzle velocity of 950 m/s. The Soviet 125mm smoothbore, depending on round and variant of the gun, fires at about 1700-1800 m/s. Energy goes up with the square of velocity. Ignoring materials and shaping, the Soviet weapon puts 4 times the energy behind each round. As VaB mentions, that 4x energy, due to shaping and materials, stays with the penetrator over a longer distance (less drag) and is delivered more efficiently (materials and shape) and into a smaller area (shape).

Thanks for doing the work to post side-by-side videos. Yeah: I agree with you.