Vanir Ausf B

I don't see why not. In this future warfare scenario our future version of the LRAS3 can be set to scan continuously without human interface. You should be able to program the AI to discern any high contrast areas, compare the image to a known database, reference Blue Force Tracker and Bob's your uncle. Exactly. Once you get to the point where the soldier's only job is to press a button you are really talking about drone warfare. While we do seem to be headed in that direction I maintain that for the near future an APS is a good thing to have on a tank. The US Army seems to think so too since it is developing Quick Kill which also uses an AESA radar.

Depends. What is the weapons system the commander has his twitchy finger on ? Putting an APS on Armata is a no-brainer. The theoretical problem of radar giving away the tank's position has been vastly overblown in this thread. In fact it will make no practical difference. As has been pointed out, tanks are not particularly stealthy to begin with. The FLIR on the LRAS3 has an advertised maximum range of 15km which is far greater than any radar from the APS will be detectable from. Therefore the scenario you outlined is already a possibility with existing tech whether the Armata has APS or not.

IIRC the ammunition for the two cannons was incompatible so they had to maintain different designations.

Known bug. It will be fixed but in the meantime here is a workaround: When player 1 gets file 002 back from player 2 and loads the PBEM save file, whatever setup zone he is in will be the one he is in every time he loads that save so long as he does not exit the program (exiting and restarting the program will occasionally result in a different zone). However, after loading then Quiting the 002 PBEM file player 1 can switch the setup zone he will be assigned next time he loads file 002 as follows: 1) Click on Quick Battle at the main menu 2) Switch the attacker and defender services, e.g. if it is set to Waffen SS attacking and US Army defending switch it to the other way around. It doesn't seem to matter what the specific services are or if they match the ones in the PBEM, only that they are reversed from the present default. Other settings in the QB setup screen seem to be irrelevant. 3) Hit OK --> select map (any map will do) --> select attacker or defender (doesn't matter which) --> select one player turn based --> advance to unit purchase screen 4) Once you see the unit purchase screen you don't need to go any further. Hit cancel to return to the QB setup menu. 5) Go to main menu --> saved games --> load PBEM file 002 6) purchase your units and proceed to setup. When the game starts you will be in the opposite setup zone as the last time.

I don't know how likely, but it's not inconceivable. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Suez

Try to buy them as part of formations. It only affects vehicles purchased from the individual vehicle menu.

Rock Springs. The winters aren't too bad when the wind isn't blowing. Unfortunately the wind is always blowing.

That is correct. Most likely the main cannon and coaxial machine gun have LOS but not the hull machine gun.

I think the odds of Germany or France jumping in under any circumstance is roughly nil but I don't know why we are even talking about them when Turkey is RIGHT THERE and has far more at stake than anyone else in NATO. Yet they have also chosen to limit their involvement to the air. It's not like they don't have 5000 troops to spare.

Ukraine (non-recon) infantry has no night vision.

I just finished a large QB in which my opponent had an entire company of Bradleys and lost (he never did run out of Bradleys, but he did run out of everything else ).

They are supposed to but I have also noticed they can't see anything in less than clear weather. Then again, the cameras on the Raven are pretty small. UAV spotting in various conditions will get a closer look at some point.

I have seen the capability mentioned as a possible upgraded to Copperhead but that seems to be dead in the water. Does that mean we get fuzz buster drones and HARM ground to ground missiles in the module?

A fuzzbuster could tell you an emitter is present and may even give a general bearing but I think you will need something more sophisticated for a coordinate. The best you could hope for is an area within a grid. This assumes a fixed frequency for the APS. It also assumes the local electronic environment is relatively clean. The Russians are big on EW. To the best of my knowledge there is no such thing as radar homing artillery shells, but I could be wrong. In any event, wouldn't this work both ways? Black Sea assumes US vehicles will have Trophy APS or something similar which is also an active emitter.

I never played CMSF but I have played a lot of Black Sea and the differences are massive at longer ranges and when firing on the move. But for stationary units under 1 km there isn't as much difference. I'd have to look up the numbers to be sure, but I recall Rexford giving a Sherman tank about an 80% first shot hit rate at 500 meters. That's combat accuracy not firing range. So yes, if you are playing on smallish maps first shot hits will be the norm unless one or both tanks are moving or the target is hull down.

As noted, this is situation dependent. Against a hull down or even partially hull down target at 1000 meters any gun or tank in the game will miss the first shot more often than not. But a fully exposed motionless tank at 500 meters will indeed be hit on the first shot most of the time and yes, that is realistic. Cannon accuracy in the older CMx1 games was too low by far and was the subject of significant forum controversy back in the day. Actually, even the new improved CMx2 accuracy is on the conservative side of reality with the exception of vehicle firing while moving (a deliberate fudge, and a small one at that).

I am curious as to what basis you have for that assertion. The smallest "AESA detector" (which is actually called a Tactical SIGINT Payload or Airborne Signals Intelligence Payload) weighs 11kg. A Raven UAV weighs 2kg soaking wet. (some ASIPs weigh near 500kg, with capability roughly scaling with weight). To the best of my knowledge the only UAV in the US inventory that carries a SIGINT pod is the MQ-1C Gray Eagle. The RQ-4 Global Hawk can also carry one but presently does not. The RQ-7 Shadow should able to carry one judging from it's specs, but these are all much larger aircraft than a Raven.

The US does not have a hand-launched UAV with that capability. The RQ-11 Raven is equipped with optical and infrared cameras, it is not a signals intelligence gathering platform.

I don't know how realistic it is, but in-game the 40mm grenade launchers are quite deadly against anything smaller than a MBT, up to around 1km

When you say "in contact" do you mean in line of sight? In any event, when the player gives a Target order of any kind the AI will tend to prioritize that target over others it may spot although it can override the player's order. Target Light means fire machine guns and there is no way to order just one machine gun to fire. If given no Target order by the player the AI can and sometimes will fire on multiple targets simultaneously utilizing different combinations of machine guns and cannon so that would be my recommendation in that situation, and in fact I rarely give Target orders on spotted enemy units since the AI is much more flexible when left on it's own. I pretty much only use target orders for area fire.

I am playtesting a scenario that illustrated some other situations where Iron differs from Elite. As far as I can tell Iron is the only skill level where darkness and weather conditions can affect C2. 1AM dense fog Iron 1AM dense fog Elite

The number I saw was 250, but I also read that was the total number of armored vehicles rather than the number of Abrams tanks.

US scout teams may have more thermal weapon sights than regular US infantry but Russian and Ukrainian recon infantry do not have any. Instead, they have more light amplifying devices.

I suspect one of those hedges is blocking LOS rather than the smoke.