Vanir Ausf B

Having a 3rd set of eyeballs does help, as your tests demonstrate, but the commander has a less capable sight (day/night) than the gunner (thermal). The better spotting provided by manning the commander's station is probably of greater consequence when fighting Ukrainians than Americans. I find that versus the US I end up keeping my BMPs out of LOS to any likely US positions except to very briefly pop out for area fire on enemy locations spotted by other units (infantry, usually). The exception would be keyholed defensive positions where you expect to make contact with forces moving in the open across your kill zone.

Post the save game file or email it to me.

The distance from Russia's border with China to its border with Estonia is a little over 3300 miles (5300 km). The ability to deploy to anywhere along Russia's vast periphery from anywhere in the country within a day or two is a capability I would find valuable were I a Russian strategic planner.

Per the manual this bonus only applies to AT guns. Unfortunately it doesn't actually work in the game right now, but probably will after the next round of patches.

BTW, with regards to the OP, the spotting ability of many vehicles will be getting tweaked to more closely match their optics in the next patch if I get my way. Of course, I frequently do not get my way.

You are correct. My mistake. I was thinking of Shtora, which does feature a LWR. Arena does not. However, I cannot replicate the behavior you reported. I tested T-90A and T-72B3 with and without APS getting shot at by unspotted enemy tanks. The T-90s reacted immediately upon getting lased, but the T-72s did nothing at all unless they spotted the shooter.

Are you referring to the version with.or without Arena? Any tank with an APS will have a LWR.

The "eye watering" comment is from Lt. General Ben Hodges. http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/policy-budget/warfare/2015/08/02/us-army-ukraine-russia-electronic-warfare/30913397/

The T-90AM article is from January 2015 and I haven't heard anything about it more recently. T-72B3M to the VDV is fact, to the best of my knowledge.

Utilizing forces from the Western and Southern military districts, Russia could conceivably field an invasion force of up to 40 battalion tactical groups.¹ I don't know what that translates to in terms of total personnel since I am not sure what the actual personnel count for a BTG is, but if we assume for the moment that a BTG is roughly 1/3 the size of a US brigade combat team that would be 50-60,000 troops. As for quality: 1 https://www.csis.org/analysis/evaluating-future-us-army-force-posture-europe-phase-i-report, pg 12 2 https://www.csis.org/analysis/evaluating-future-us-army-force-posture-europe-phase-ii-report pg 41

The headline writer seems to think the Crimean peninsula is not in Europe

I believe the times given in the UI are just rounded to the nearest whole minute. If you were to time it on a watch I suspect the elite battery would be a little faster.

It is a known issue, and it's a much broader issue than just the BMP-2M. That it is possible for BMP-2M to occasionally fire missiles under certain circumstances (probably at long ranges at which the 30mm canon will have lost most of its energy) does change that so don't freak out.

Done

I am not sure what the point is in searching after anecdotal evidence. We know that by 1945 the US Army had decided that towed AT guns were poor performers in general compared to vehicular tank destroyers and were replacing the former with the latter as quickly as possible, not just the 57mm, all of them. The ballistics of the 57mm cannon itself is well known. At typical combat ranges it's penetration falls roughly midway between the US 75mm and 76mm cannons so you can compare that to whatever tank and get a fair idea of how it would perform if it ever hit one. It would be likely to penetrate anything from the side at typical ranges but would tend to bounce off most of the frontal area of a Panther or Tiger.

Navigate to Users --> (your user name) --> roaming --> GreenAsJade and delete everything in there. If that doesn't work I'm out of ideas. GAJ rarely visits the CM forums anymore so I don't know how to contact him outside of CM Helper.

Have you tried reporting the bug through the Help tab?

I have not tested bazooka accuracy but I do remember that in CM1 the 'schreck had better accuracy on account of its higher velocity and I assume that has been carried forward into CM2

10 panzerschreck teams -- Regular, Normal, +0 -- vs 10 Panther A at about 155 meters. First shots only. Kneeling behind wall, 150 shots 10 hits, 140 misses Prone 13 hits, 137 misses https://www.dropbox.com/s/crnfc5289lyjaq1/Panzerschreck accuracy prone 001.bts?dl=0 Consider the issue looked into.

Szamveber also wrote Days of Battle. Both of these books feature color maps.

Khriz vs. Abrams (side on) at 2000m 100 missiles fired. Hit rate: 93% Volley fire rate: 100% Kill rate vs. Abrams on first strike (side on): over 90% (I stopped counting after the first test). https://www.dropbox.com/s/nf3av4qvvdgae2e/Khnriz vs Abrams 001.bts?dl=0

I only tried it on Iron.

I just plopped down a bunch of crater of various sizes in the CMBN 3.12 editor and set a US machine gun crew in the same action square. In every instance they stuck to the crater like glue. I literally can't get them to not take cover in it regardless of facing, which mirrors my experience in every other CM game.

I'm saying it doesn't happen under the circumstances described in the original post, which would suggest it doesn't happen at all with small arms caliber ammunition.

Oddly, this game mechanic works as described in Normandy and Red Thunder but not at all in Final Blitzkrieg.