Vanir Ausf B

As alluded to in your previous post, that depends on several assumptions that would not necessarily be true. As you said, it's a numbers game. Given long enough time scales and sufficient political will NATO can muster more combat power than Russian can cope with. But on shorter time scales the equation is reversed. All the Javelins in the world don't alter the fact that the Baltic states have minuscule armies and air forces, most of which would be destroyed before they ever saw a Russian tank. The only way NATO "wins" a limited conventional conflict that does not ultimately end in the near-complete destruction of one side's military is if we assume a sufficiently large qualitative discrepancy. The Rand war games apparently did not assume that. CMBS doesn't either

It would look nothing like the Gulf Wars of 2003 or 1991. In those conflicts the US-led coalition was allowed to build up for six months unmolested and then unload a haymaker everyone could see coming but that the Iraqis were too stupid (1991) or unable (2003) to avoid. Russia would certainly lose that scenario as well, maybe in a few weeks like Steve said. But it's hard to imagine how that situation would come about vis a vis Russia. Maybe Donald Trump gets elected and decides he wants a statue of himself in Saint Petersburg.

Of course the question is largely irrelevant to a tactical game of Combat Mission's scale, but it is not a universally accepted given that Russia would have no chance at all. Last year Rand Corp ran a series of war games for the Pentagon that concluded NATO would have a very hard time, mainly because of logistics:

I have wondered if there is a divide on this between those who played Panzer Blitz or Panzer Leader and those who did not. As one of the former I feel the silhouettes have a je ne sais quoi that illustrated pictures can't replicate, but I can see how that would mean nothing to someone who had never played those games.

122mm and 100mm (although 100mm may be dependent on APBC ammunition which may not have been used during WW2). 122mm should be effective against the front turret plate out to roughly 700m or so (going from memory here so don't quote me, and also would depend on what armor quality rating CMx2 assumes). Presently it will also penetrate the mantlet out to at least 1000m but that is a bug that will be corrected in the next patch.

Assuming the KTs are facing the ISU-152s I suspect HE is being used because 152mm AP has no chance of penetrating any part of the KT frontal armor. HE has no chance either but they have more of it to waste.

It's a fine idea, IMO, but Charles would cut off his hands before making a video baring all his secrets.

I don't think it took 44 seconds. I just watched the second video and it's the same replay as the first video but from a different angle. He just doesn't start the turn until well after the video begins. Something to remember about buttoned tanks is that their situational awareness is not very good. The commander's cupola on the Panther is seven periscopes arranged in a circle, but he can only look through one of them at a time. If the Sherman fired while he was looking though the wrong scope he would have no idea where the shot came from expect that it probably wasn't where he was looking. I don't think the game explicitly models the direction anyone is looking at any give moment, I think it abstracts it with randomized spotting times. The result looks to me like a bit of an outlier but far from impossible.

Do you by chance have a save game file from before you ran the turn? A few things I noticed. 1) For the first 8 seconds the gunner and loader are not spotting. The gunner is fixated on a target and the loader is loading. 2) Optics damage is present, albeit minor. 3) The smoke rising from the KIA tank is a non-factor. However, there is a fair amount of smoke in the air for about the first 10 seconds between the tanks from what I presume was an explosion during the prior turn. It's not enough to block LOS but it may have degraded spotting. Without a prior turn file to re-run it's impossible to say if this is a 1 in 1000 event or a 1 in 2 event.

Keep in mind, there really are no vision slits for the gunner. To reiterate, the only proven effect of optics damage in-game is to increase spotting time. Given that spotting times in CM are very random to begin with it's difficult to draw conclusions from single events. I can put two undamaged tanks 1 km from each other and in one instance a tank may spot the other instantly, and in another instance it could take several minutes. If the contention is that a tank should never ever take 44 seconds or however long to spot another at x distance then that would probably require a significant change to the CMx2 spotting model to make it more deterministic, either through a general reduction of the random variables or the placement of hard caps on spotting time.

That's interesting regarding the effect of experience. IIRC all of my tests were with Regular troops.

Depends on what you mean by vision ports. From the Panther Ausf A forward there aren't really any forward-facing open air vision ports. The driver does have his vision port in the hull which can be opened and closed, although it has a protective glass block so is not immune to damage (this port was deleted in the Ausf G). The driver also has 2 fixed periscopes (changed to a single traversable scope in the Ausf G). The radio operator has his machine gunner's sight and a fixed roof-mounted periscope, although the periscope is not directly forward-facing in Ausf A and G. The loader has a single turret roof-mounted fixed periscope (Ausf A and G). The commander's cupola has open air ports on the Ausf D but these are switched to fixed periscopes on the A and G. Critically, the gunner only has his gunner's sight, unless you count the pistol port on the turret side. Which of these are possible to damage in the game and exactly what effects that has is unknown to anyone outside BFC. All that is known for sure is that it is impossible to damage optics to the point where the tank is unable to fire it's weapons and that optics damage does increase average spotting time.

If you wear glasses and your glasses are cracked it's going to be a factor at any range.

So a buttoned Panther with damaged optics takes 15 seconds to spot a Sherman that is partially obscured by a burning vehicle and foliage? Am I missing something? It's an edge case but not really that hard to believe.

Let's just say that if tanks can hear other vehicles it is only at very short ranges. I have driven tanks within 70 meters of each other without a sound contact. Keep in mind that the UI does not distinguish between sound contacts and uncertain visual contacts. Also, my testing was only for sound contacts from movement. Sound contacts from weapons firing could have much longer range. Page 46 of the game engine manual says that slow movement should make "the vehicle less likely to appear as a sound contact to the enemy." The fact that it doesn't may be a bug, or the manual could just be wrong. I'll report it and let Charles sort it out

No point against the AI, but I do use it to plan in PBEMs.

The distance for sound contacts for moving vehicles is about 225-230 meters. Movement speed makes no difference (IIRC it does make a difference for moving infantry, however). For stationary vehicles it is 120 meters or 60 meters with a Hide command (which does presently only work in Black Sea, but it will work in Final Blitzkrieg and I assume the other WW2 games when they are patched). Also, vehicle units can't obtain sound contacts on enemy units.

My own view is that the entire map is in play. If there is good terrain or dead ground along the map edge I assume my opponent will use it. The map edge is not a win button. You can become trapped against it, especially if you are in a corner.

Not sure who "they" are. The in-game penetration numbers are unknown to anyone outside of BFC. Any public statement from anyone else is speculative. Having said that, 750-800mm is not a crazy number for 3BM-60 Svinets 2 at range 0 and against 60° RHAe. At 2000m and 0° would be a different story.

That's really cool. Thanks!

Because the Jagd happened to be near a tree when a round bounced off it's armor

Images courtesy of Amizaur.

I think it's because the IS-2 benefits from the center of mass aiming when side-on to a shooter. When viewed in profile the turret is positioned so far forward on the hull that the center of the hull is directly below the portion of the turret where the side curves around towards the rear. The vast majority of hits are on this rear/side turret transition area rather than square-on. This means the impacts are hitting at a highly oblique angle. I will make a mental note to bring up the issue with BFC to double check the side turret thickness and see if anything can be done about the shot placement.

I have a fairly low-end system and I agree. Trees have some effect but shadows and 3D model detail level are much more important on my system. I always cringe a little when I see calls for trees to be paired down since those affects are more than cosmetic.

The Stug's 75mm cannon will penetrate 100mm of armor out to about 1300 meters.