Vanir Ausf B

The purple target line is generic for all units and has no bearing on the actual distance. There is a lot of variation between vehicles in how smoke screens are deployed. Some models of US Strykers deploy smoke in a 360° ring. You just have to experiment. Doctrinally, it was intended that Russian APCs should use their smoke offensively to cover an advance rather than defensively so they throw it far forward.

It's not economical to be 10x better than any possible opponent in every category. You can bankrupt yourself trying. As c3k states, economics is real power. Obsessing over tactical AA defense is missing the forest for the trees.

Unlikely. The first Stryker brigade was deployed to Iraq in October of 2003, six months after Baghdad fell.

US precision rounds are GPS guided, Russian and Ukrainian are laser guided. And yes, the laser guided systems should be able to hit targets moving below a certain speed. I am not sure why they presently cannot, but it will be brought up with BFC at some point.

That worked so much better in CMx1 with borg spotting

That, at least, was just bad luck.

In my v2.12 install the Company HQ JPz and 1 Tank Destroyer have 5-man crews in the Jagdpanzer Company. Interestingly, the same units in SS companies are 4-man. Attempting do load the Jagdpanzer company in the editor or a QB causes my 3.11 installation to crash.

You listed the same video twice

Yes.

I don't know if the ERA detonates or not, but even if it doesn't the thickness of the ERA blocks would add some protection. These precision rounds are HE, not HEAT, so they really don't have a lot of penetration. 10mm of armor this way or that can make a big difference.

It looked like a good theory there for a while, but another beta tester who doesn't have this problem is on Windows.

If you are starting a QB you will have to set the QB to Meeting Engagement for it to show in the map list.

No, MarkEzra has been complaining about that for some time. It only affects QBs.

Vasiliy Fofanov, AFAIK.

Note that the NW Europe data is a mix of engagement and kill ranges. British data is engagement range, US data are kill ranges.

I forget to mention that if for some reason you have not installed the 1.01 patch you shouldn't respond since the bug is not in 1.00, as far as we can tell.

Several people have reported a problem with a couple of QB maps. Some of us beta testers have the same issue, but a few others don't. We are not sure why, but what we need to know is if everyone with the public version of the game has it or if only some have it. In other words this is a survey. Should you choose to participate this is what you need to do. 1) Load CMBS and go into the Scenario Editor 2) Load QB map "Open-Rough (1536x992) 061r" (click Load button, go to Quick Battle Maps folder, scroll down till you find it) 3) Enter 3-D Preview mode (click on where it says Mission and select it from the pull down menu). Once the map loads look around for sharp, spikey-looking ridges that are clearly out of place. Reference the pic below. Then please post in this thread stating whether or not you see the problem terrain or if the map looks normal. Thanks!

I don't think there is any difference in accuracy.

From the side it does penetrate fairly consistently, but it rarely knocks the vehicle out with one burst. I have not done extensive testing on this, but I did do one run of 10 1v1s with the Bradly starting out side-on to the BMPs and buttoned up. Most of the Brads were able to pop smoke and retreat after taking hits. After 2 turns two Brads and one BMP were dead. Several of the surviving Brads had extensive systems damage. The OP was probably a little unlucky to lose his BMP. If the Brad is buttoned they usually don't spot the BMPs right away.

Ok, I tested this and I see what you mean. There may be some issues here but I don't think the burst fire is one of them. If you watch videos of BMP-2s in combat or even training exercises, firing a burst of two or three shots then pausing for a few seconds is normal. In fact, from what I have seen their most commonly used mode of fire is single shots. Autocannons in general are not accurate when fired rapidly. I have read that the BMP-2 also has a problem with fumes building up in the turret. You just don't see BMP-2 gunners laying down long streams of continuous fire. The ability of vehicles to whip around to face off-axis threats is a factor. Most modern turreted vehicles have very fast turrets and can rotate their hulls in-place at a similar rate. CMBS certainly does model this. Too much, IMO. Unfortunately, AFVs in the game have instant reaction time in most circumstances. In previous CM games the hull rotation speed was artificially slowed to compensate for this, as well as for other factors, but for Black Sea the decision was made to allow AFVs to rotate their hulls at near realistic max speed. I think this was a mistake, but it is what it is. But the biggest problem the BMP-2 has is that its weapons are just not very effective against the Bradly. Its 30mm cannon will sometimes penetrate the Brad even from the front, but it doesn't have much after armor effect. I think this is because the CM engine places a lot of emphasis on retained energy to determine after armor effects and in many cases the 30mm is just barely penetrating. On the flip side, the Bradley;s 25mm cannon goes through the BMP-2 effortlessly.

Yes. Even humidity will degrade it to a small degree. The dust kicked up by large artillery barrages can block it (although I don't think that is modeled in the game). Infrared light is still a type of light, after all. But infrared light will penetrate obscurants more readily than visible light because of its long wavelength -- particularly light on the mid to far end of the IR spectrum, which is why thermal sights can see through most types of smoke.

If you are on a PC and your opponent a Mac --or vice versa-- have the PC player load the map into the editor then save it. The same player then initiates the PBEM. I don't guarantee that procedure will work but it has fixed this problem for me in the past.

That's my guess as well.

I think they are in the game as well. I know someone posted that they had seen one of them get penetrated by a T-90, but that was almost certainly a random "weak point" penetration. Normally that area is impenetrable to anything in the game, even other Abrams tanks. And BTW, before anyone gets too worked up, the Abrams does have better spotting ability than the T-90AM. It probably has better spotting than any vehicle in the game under most circumstances. But the T-90 isn't a slouch and the highly random nature of CMx2's spotting model means aNY individual matchup will be mostly a crap shoot.

No projectile retains its energy forever, even the M829A4. On the Abrams turret the gun mantlet and the recessed area beneath it have much lower armor values than the large flat areas to either side. This seems to be characteristic of the turret armor layouts on many modern tanks.