Vanir Ausf B

I figured this would be a good place to hang impressions of some of the new for CMBS hardware for folks who are playing now (or like me, have stopped playing to eat/let fingers depart from mouse operating position).
 
 
1. Vehicle Air Burst is brutal.
 
Russia definitely has an advantage in the sheer proliferation of airbursting rounds.  It makes facing down BMP3s potentially messy with infantry, and tanks just as perilous.
 
On the other hand the US airburst capable platform is Odin level optics and sees all.  Seems well suited to killing ATGM teams and the like
 
2. ATGMs have been shaken up a bit.  
 
ERA is much more common, and APS makes what used to be a lot of sure-shot dead tank shots into total whiffs.  This seems to hurt RU/UKR more than the US.  Javelins are still something to hide under the bed from though.  
 
3. BMP3s are pretty much rolling JDAMs
 
Seriously.  They almost always wind up at the bottom of self generated craters if struck by large weapons.  It's rare to see one merely knocked out, the default hit is total vehicle, crew, and passenger loss.  From my experience so far the APS is the only protective package worth the effort.   On the other hand, the 100 MM is an awesome tool, and the ATGMs are as good as any of the other standard vehicle ATGMs in the game.  Might be better if you keep them back, feel forward with tanks and dismounted infantry, and then call them forward to deal with threats.
 
4. Precision fires is kind of cool
 
Haven't quite achieved the lethality I'd hoped for.  Mostly called for the US stuff, think part of it has just been a matter of how I employ fires.
 
5. Ukrainian tanks are a mixed bag.
 
They're both the bottom of the pecking order, and if you're playing as Russia, still capable of delivering very nasty surprises.  If I had to tier them against CMSF, they're comparable to the high end Syrian T-72s, with the Russian tank falling into the less capable NATO platform range.  The T-90 models especially are definitely superior, but it isn't the M1A2 SEP vs T-55 sort of superior.  
 
6. M1A2 SEP is still a monster.  
 
With the APS it certainly needs effort to KO.  On the other hand, I've had more than a few knocked out frontally from T-90s and the like, or badly damaged by 30 MM fire, or lesser tank rounds.  It's advantage is usually it gets the first shot in most engagements, hits in the 80-90% range (conservatively, I've certainly seen them miss at least!), and has almost universal lethality against what it hits.  Best I've seen a T-90 get off with was having surviving crewmen after it was knocked out.
 
7. ADA Is a pain.  Even MANPADs
 
Seriously.  If you're a CMSF NATO person used to having your way with airstrikes, prepare for sadface.  If you're expecting the Russian Air Force to nimbly pave your way to victory, again, expect some sadface.  
 
Best tool so far is if you know about where the enemy MANPADs are, dropping an artillery barrage to suppress them during your strike.  This requires some good optics, situation awareness, or really good guessing though.  

Loopy trajectory is modeled.
 
Fire rate tends to track closely with shell size. 105 will shoot less often than 75. But it hits harder.

Yes, over a year ago.

Gamey is whatever killed your guys. Fair game is whatever kills your opponent's guys

This is actually incorrect.
 
There's three kinds of Brigades currently in the US Army:
 
1. Infantry BCT.  Infantry squads have no assigned transport, but each battalion has sufficient light trucks to move around one company at a time.  Several of these brigades are also oriented on either airmobile or paratroop missions
2. Stryker BCT. Infantry rides in Strykers.  This is the only BCT that uses Strykers as transports
3. Armored BCT.  Infantry rides in Bradley Fighting Vehicles.
 
HMMWVs are not generally used as infantry transport, they saw use in Iraq/Afghanistan as patrol vehicles, but this should not be taken as the way the US plans to fight in a high intensity conflict.
 
The only real front line HMMWVs still in use are that the Infantry style brigades have weapons platoons in each infantry company, which is some number of HMMWVs allocated to carry heavy weapons (M2 HMGs, MK-19s, TOW-2Bs etc), and both Armored and Infantry recon units have some number of HMMWVs (Armored Recon platoon is currently a 5 scout truck, 3 Bradley mix, although it's likely going back to a "pure" six Bradley configuration, Infantry scout platoon has six scout trucks).  Next closest is the Stinger MANPADs teams usually have an uparmored cargo HMMWV to move around the battlefield.  
 
The remainder are all used for light cargo, transporting support or command type troops.
 
In terms of firepower in absolute terms the US infantry has significantly more in a squad for squad, platoon for platoon fight.  As I stated in my original post, the XM-25 and Javelin are both capabilities the Russian Army just lacks entirely in the dismounted role, and the allocation of designated marksmen systems and light machineguns (true belt fed ones vs magazine fed) is significantly higher.  Additionally US fire support systems are traditionally allocated one to two echelons below their Russian counterparts (especially so with heavy mortars and similar systems).
 
In terms of transports, BTR and Strykers are both fairly similar in terms of practical performance, the base model Strykers have superior fire control (turret really, and the MK-19 on a Stryker is pretty wicked), better protection, while the BTR-80A has superior firepower and all BTRs are much lighter and able to handle poor terrain better.  In terms of Bradley vs BMP-2, Bradley wins easily, Bradley vs BMP-3 really comes down to who's shooting first, BMP won't hold up to current generation AP rounds from the 25 MM, but the BMP-3 has overmatch against the Bradley's armor package.  Optics package, basic armor, and troop bay are all superior on the Bradley though.  100 MM with airburst is some nasty fire support, and the through the gun ATGM at least offers a better rate of fire (although the Bradley does have the ability to plop out two missiles in short order) however.
 
In terms of communication, there's a bit of an embarrassment of riches.  At the least each squad (9 man) and team (4 man) leader has encrypted short range communications, with longer ranged radio in the hands of the RTO at platoon level.  What is not at all uncommon is Squad leaders actually having their mitts on longer ranged radios, and encrypted HF type radios for Platoon and Squad leaders.  
 
In practice our infantry guys seemed to have more radios than they could practically use, so usually it was picking the right radio for the mission (larger manpack style ones for missions in fairly spread out environments, the smaller ones for urban operations or the like).   
 
Re: Ukrainian Quality
 
They've managed to bounce back pretty good.  I'm willing to credit at least the top quarter of Ukrainian units with comparing to the 60-40% percentile Russian forces.  The average Ukrainian unit isn't going to be up to snuff, but the better trained and equipped out to hold their own just fine.
 
 
Missed this on the first pass.  Maybe Russian optics, but US thermal optics are entirely able to maintain resolution for all engagements, on the move or not.  Daysights are the backup sights, or used when you've got some crazy-weird thermal crossover going on.

It'd be better as a weirdo ovoid three part venn diagram.  US infantry will likely trend towards better, between some really awesome capabilities (XM-25, Javelin, every squad is a spotter for fires as part of the boring old standard rifle squads) and likely a higher quality due to uniformly volunteer "lifer" type units in play.  However some of the better Russian units will likely touch into the realm of US squad for squad functionality.  And while not as sexy hardware decked out, they do have some good stuff (more night vision than Ukrainian forces at least, RPG-29s, functional dismounted coms).  Conversely some of their dudes are going to be the not as well trained "Russian modernization is still catching up" guys, which will likely be closer to on par with the Ukrainians.  Ukrainians will have some really good units that stack up well against peer level Russian forces, but almost none of the cool sexy gadgets, and more than a few Ukrainian units more or less magicked into existence in the last few months, so while doing a-okay against well armed separatists, might struggle against the full force of the Russian military.  
 
Don't think you can dispute the squad for squad aspect of the US on top, just for the technical capabilities alone, but I'm sure the other countries will have some force structures that are not SOF but still worth a damn.  

Re: M6 Linebacker
 
Actually before they even refurbed them back to M2A2 status they were already being used in Iraq as otherwise normal Bradleys (as it wasn't like ADA troops sat the war out, and if you're not shooting TOWs or Stingers the platforms are more or less the same).  
 
I'm of the mind retiring them was still a mistake.  The Avenger isn't armored at all, so it's not like it is going to follow just behind the armor or something and snipe helicopters.  It's just not survivable at all.  Of course the bigger mistake was opting out of BRADATS or similar platforms back in 1993.  
 
Re: A-10
 
Here's the thing.  Both it and the SU-25 have about equal odds of completing a strike in the sort of CMBS scenario (while both do things better than the other one, neither commands some amazing advantage that makes it more likely to slip past fighters or heavy SAM presence).  To that end if neither were in, I'd be okay as it's just excluding planes that would either be aborting because they've been locked up, or simply not deployed to the AO.  However if the SU-25 is in, and able to complete strikes in scenarios, then it's equally valid to stick the A-10 in, because if anything it is more likely the US would be able to achieve the sort of air control to employ strike fighters in the long run, while the SU-25 just wouldn't be long for the air war.
 
So again, neither of them?  Okay!  Makes sense.  One but not the other?  Que?
 
Re: USAF
 
The bigger issue I feel with the A-10 is it is one of the few assets the USAF employs that is actually customer friendly.  When it comes down to getting fixed wing support, the USAF is often very user unfriendly because their priorities are usually:
 
1. Shooting down enemy planes.
2.Proving air power can win a war by bombing things in the enemy capital city because that'll show em'
3. Shooting down enemy planes.
4. Killing ADA assets because they're super annoying and they keep triggering that damn alarm in the cockpit
5. Killing enemy aviation (planes)
6. Bombing things that might or might not be logistical assets for the enemy
7. Killing enemy aviation (drones and helicopters)
8. Crew rest
9. Routine Maintenance
10. Wishing the USAF would put out a movie that made them look as cool as Top Gun made Navy pilots look
11. Complaining about the food
12. Complaining about lack of enemy aviation to kill
13. Returning the Army's phone calls to find out what it wanted.
 
So to that end, the A-10 was something that wasn't going to be borrowed to go do CAP missions, bomb a palace, or conduct DEAD missions.  It was all the time, every day going to be doing either CAS, or battlefield interdiction, both of which get thumbs up from the Army and USMC.  And the A-10 was built from the ground up to liaison and fly CLOSE to the troops it was supporting.  
 
The F-35 in contrast flies tens of thousands of feet above the battlefield, isn't really designed to talk with, or coordinate with someone in the mud, and drops two bombs and returns to an air conditioned hanger some hundreds of miles away.  To make matters worse the USAF refers to the B-1 as a CAS capable plane, which is to say I have a brain surgery capable leaf blower.  
 
More than the airframes involved the A-10 was that commitment to support the dude fighting and winning the war.  The F-35 represents a reduction in that customer service, and removing it as an emphasis and instead shuffling it to the lowest priority.
 
Which is to make a really good argument for US Army fixed wing units, because by god the USAF doesn't want the job, might as well do it ourselves.

The UI during the orders phase is exactly the same in Iron and Elite. It only differs during playback and in real time.

The next patch should make HE a little more effective.

The next patch should make HE a little more effective.

Fixed that for you

Fixed that for you

I don't know about in reality, but in my experience it is a sure thing in-game.

I don't know about in reality, but in my experience it is a sure thing in-game.

When approaching infantry transport:
 
Anything that has four wheels is functionally the same as a jeep.  The exceptions to this are the american HMMWVs that fit MK-19s, TOW missiles, or what looks like a big box.
 
   Tangent: MK-19 has already been discussed.  Its murderous against infantry, unarmored vehicles, and some of the APC type targets can be knocked out by it with some luck
                  Treat the TOW version a lot like a 17 pound gun that's somehow merged with a speedy prime mover.  You don't want to place it somewhere it can be shot at at all, but it will reap a terrible toll on tanks if you give it a chance.
                  The Big box is the LRAS3, which is one of the most powerful sensor systems in the US Army.  The upside is it is a great tool for calling for support, or keeping sneaky things away from your flank.  The downside is it is not especially better at either of those than an Abrams, and is knocked out by anything more than small arms fire.  This sensor is also mounted on the Stryker scout vehicle.
 
 
Anything with 6-8 wheels/tracks and a machine gun: Treat like a halftrack.  They're really not that well armored, but are great for getting infantry forward fast.  Semi-exceptions to this:
 
    The BTR/MTLBs with 30 mm guns are great against not-tank type vehicles, and very good at suppressing or killing enemy infantry.  
    The Stryker with MK19 is just good enough to use forward, great at digging out infantry from buildings, or suppressing trenchlines.  
 
IFVs (tracked things with troops, some sort of autocannon, and ATGMs)
 
Imagine if your halftracks, light tanks, and AT vehicles all had a beautiful baby!
 
    Treat them like halftracks until they get to the point where they can deposit troops, once the troops are kicked out, then feel less nervous about using them as the mini-tanks they can be.  In a lot of ways, think of them like the M5 tanks from World War Two, they're great against other light vehicles, they're amazing against infantry, but you do not want it anywhere near something that can be called "anti-tank" or a real tank for that matter. 
 
Re: ATGMs
 
Here's the important caveats to remember when operating ATGMs from any platform (except the Javelin)
1. Bullets are faster than missile. The longer you fire the missile from, the longer it takes to impact, the more time the enemy has to react to missile.  It takes a TOW missile about 30 seconds to reach its max range around 3750 meters, that's enough time for the enemy to pop smoke, or return fire with a tank gun, which could very well kill the launching crew before the missile is even close to the target.  To this end it can be wise to ignore max range shots in favor of letting the enemy close in a bit (or it takes a tank shell 2ish seconds to go to 4 KM, it's flight time is fairly constant, while your missile fired at 2000 meters will only take 15ish seconds, which is a much harder thing to react to than 30 seconds)
 
2. ERA is built to ruin your ATGM.  APS also will wreck your day.  With that said, both systems degrade the more missiles they have to deal with.  To that end firing more missiles is often a good solution, so rather than spreading out your fires, massing 2-3 missiles on one tank will often overwhelm the APS (or deplete it's ammunition), and strip away a lot of the ERA protection.  
 
Also when playing against other players, it's much more likely they'll reverse out of an engagement if one of their tanks gets piled on by a few missiles, vs the fire being more spread out.
 
3. Reloading takes a bit.  This is especially true with vehicles like the Bradley or BMP series that have their launchers external to the vehicle.  When engaging with ATGMs, don't be afraid to mass like I said earlier, but hold a few launchers in reserve to continue to engage while your first salvo is being reloaded.
 
4. Mass your missiles.  If you've got two or even three different flavors of missiles, find their average optimal engagement area, and plan to hit the enemy in that range.  Using the Americans as an example the max effective range on the Javelin is 2500 meters or so.  To that end, holding off on firing off your TOWs until the enemy is 2000-2500 meters out ensures that target area is saturated with missiles, and rather than returning fire effectively, the enemy is evading and trying to leave the kill zone.
 
5. Trees give bad vibes.  Anything that is described as "wire guided" needs to be kept away from trees and similar obstructions to ensure the missile's guidance wire doesn't get snagged and cause the missile to rather dramatically miss the target.
 
Random errata:
 
1. Q. Which American units are spotters for artillery and aviation?
 
    A. All of them. Some are better at it than others, but if it's a team with a radio or digital communications it can call for a fire mission.  Plan accordingly from both ends for that one.
 
2. Borg spotting actually does kind of exist now.  Given the advances in battle tracking, all US, and many higher tech Russian units can share situational awareness to varying degrees.  They may still not be able to engage, but if the scouts up front spot your dudes sneaking along, odds are the rest of the force now has at least a very strong idea where your forces are at vs vaguely there's enemy somewhere up front.  
 
3. Fear the Abrams.  No.  Really.  Fear it.  It is the apex predator in this game.  If the enemy has them, you really need to have a plan on how and where to kill them vs simply having some AT assets on hand.  The APS and ERA ones appear especially dangerous at this point.

The ability to call up Battlefront and make irrational demands, and the power to dictate game settings.  Also being hired as a highly paid consultant.  

........
 
Most military forces operate some sort of military dozer/excavator designed to support forward operations. In the US Army use, the M9 ACE fills this role, with broadly speaking similar mobility to the M113 APC (it does leak hydraulics pretty much constantly but that's a "lowest bidder" thing).  For lighter organizations there's a family of wheeled earth movers capable of somewhat reasonable independent road marches (slow, but still capable of it).  What's more reasonable is a "blade team" which is usually two of these thingies comes out, and in conjunction with either an engineer liaison (like the BN engineering officer) or the ground unit commander (like the company commander) establishes defensive locations as required.  This is usually done using a sort of defensive triage, if I only have a blade team for 12 hours, I'm likely going to have enough time to dig in a platoon of tanks fully or something (I'm not sure, I used to have a chart that illustrated how long everything took, but I've since lost track of it).  Also a lot of the smaller defensive works like squad fighting positions are accomplished by the dismounted infantry itself (which is why real shovels are worth their weight in gold instead of E-tools)
 
 
Not really?  Usually you employ a forward screening recon element who's job it is to:
 
1. Let you know when the enemy is coming
2. Prevent enemy scouts from locating said defensive works.
 
 A lot of the battlefield will remain within artillery range, however, without observation it will not be sufficient to get accurate artillery fires on it.
 
So to that end, the defenses can be built well within artillery range, just so long as the enemy observation of same is denied.
 
Defenses are rarely as static as you seem to assume they would be. The reality is using forward recon, is that a fairly small force and move between several defensive positions to cover an axis of advance.  Further when talking about the vast tracts of the desert, mobility is much less constricted.  In a European setting, the passable axis of advance (which is much more defined by the mobility of the logistics tail than the AFVs) is much more constricted, which makes defensive positions much harder to bypass.  
 
Also a good hull down position will mask the weaker side and rear hull armor from direct fire, which uh, actually yeah does a lot to protect an M1 from artillery or an air strike (it's also not a "horseshoe dirt bunker" it's usually a hole in the ground with an angled approach to allow the tank to enter/exit easily.  So it's not just "here's some dirt piled up!" it's "the tank will likely not be knocked out by anything short of near-direct hits"

Re: AMP
 
It most certainly is not at this point, It's supposed to be a "soon" thing like 2017-2020, but as of now the basic load was still a mix of sabot, MPAT, and sometimes canister.  
 
Re: M1A3
 
It is most certainly an enigma.  I worked with guys who got pulled in to basically be the focus group for some of the improvements. There never was a real "hey what do you think of this?" tank parked in the motorpool or something, it was very general "do you think the loader could use his own remote weapons station?" sort of questions.
 
The stuff that's been consistent:
 
1. New lightened gun.  Same performance, just much lighter
2. Better integration of electrical systems (a lot of stuff has just been added on top of existing architecture, so reworking stuff like the wiring harness to reduce redundancy is in the cards)
3. Replacement of copper wiring with fiber optics (this is supposed to save 2-5 tons of weight)
4. Data link for the gun to allow for rounds like the AMP or possibly some sort of future missile system
5. Improved commander's weapon station.  The CROW is too tall.  Way too tall, and while effective, it's clearly a bolt-on addition.  Something shorter, and better integrated into the tank is likely.
 
Stuff that's mentioned occasionally that I don't rule out:
 
1. Replacing the engine with a diesel.  It has been discussed, and would be more cost effective.  However the gas turbine still offers excellent performance, and we have the advantage of having a lot of them on hand right now.
2. Additional remote weapons system for the loader.  Given the COIN focus in the last decade or so, making a tank more MG focused doesn't seem unlikely, but at the same time it'd get in the way of the commander's station, the CITV would have to be worked around, and the loader has other things to be doing usually.
3. Some manner of add-on boathull for the belly armor to deflect mine blasts
4.ERA racks installed as standard vs a kit.  I'm sort of half on half on this, on the one hand, the ERA mounting kits definitely stayed well in the realm of the TUSK kit, and only the TUSK kit.  On the other hand, with better weight management it'd be possible to actually just have the ERA on all tanks.
 
Stuff that I've heard but seems very doubtful
 
1. Longer/larger gun.  It's possible to do, but most of the direction the Army has taken is better rounds, and the sheer length of a larger 120 MM gun is prohibitive in urban or other complex terrain.
2. Longer hull/more roadwheels.  I've never seen the logic for it given the weight reduction measures, maybe partly trying to lower ground pressure by increasing how much the existing weight is spread around.  However given the sheer number of M1 hulls in existence, and the expense of modifying them to that degree, it's more likely the basic shape of the hull and suspension will remain the same.
3 Home-grown APS.  The US program seems to have stagnated/suffered from reduced funding and priority.  The CMBS scenario where the US buys a few thousand units from Israel to add on to existing tanks seems more likely than the US APS coming out in time to install it.  Unless of course it's actually something that's just being done so in the dark for OPSEC reasons that no recent information has leaked on it.
4. Autoloader.  Just no.  Reworking the turret to that degree, and the value of the fourth crewman is not something I see the Army walking away from.

German pastry transport was at least 500% as efficient as the Allies.  The Allies only won because of outnumbering German pastry.
 
On topic:
 
Really think looking more at these hypothetical tanks that we're already at the cutting edge as far as what's likely to show up and trade blows in a hypothetical war in 2017.  T90AM is already kind of out there, M1A2 with APS and AMP is pretty tomorrow's war. Maybe if the game has the longevity that CMSF had in terms of release to final expansions, and the M1A3 is revealed to have such and such specs, and the Armata doesn't pull a Black Eagle, T-95 etc a sort of future systems pack makes sense.
 
(Of course, I'd be more excited for Fulda Gap 1990 myself, or for a weirdo Russia vs China campaign)

I don't think this is a good idea, a modern gas turbine would provide a better specific power and volumetric power than a modern diesel. The efficiency of a gas turbine is worse under normal operating conditions but it is not that bad, especially if you have an under armor APU. 
 
Gas turbines also offer superior IR signature than diesels. Exhaust radiates primarily at wavelengths that can not be used by terrestrial IR imagers (MWIR and LWIR in this case) due to atmospheric attenuation concerns, diesels only reject approximately half their heat into exhaust and the other half into heat exchangers that are very visible to IR imagers. Furthermore diesels tend to have more sooty exhaust which is approximately grey body radiator and can be detected by IR imagers. 
 
The problem with the M1's engine is not that it is a gas turbine but that it is an old gas turbine. 

Well just checking back in opened up CM to look up a scenario setup sheet and steal some of my own info for another project!

Not really. The US at least has the transport and logistics capacity to show up there if the political will was present. China couldn't even if it wanted to.

The poor man is probably trying to stay married AND employed, its time consuming....

Thank you for your posts,
 
I was just a bit dumbfounded when I had a German tank unbuttoned take 4-5 hits.... stayed unbuttoned and was "OK"  never suppressed.. and not once returned fire.  I could not replicate this in doing 20 tests in open ground at the same distance of 1740 meters. using the same crew types.
 
Anyways its like beating a dead horse.. lol the game is great.. has some quirks.. and some strange AI issues from time to time.. but I am not complaining.. just thought it was uncanny at best.  I am finding most of the maps are meta-gamed to the defense... which makes sense vs AI as it makes you think more and think of options.

Unfortunately no, since the Force Adjustment modifier can only be applied to the "attacker" side for some reason. Hopefully, some day that will change.