Vanir Ausf B

This is something I am really interested to see and have been thinking about a lot.
I think the strategic level games will remain fairly similar, although the fun challenge remains. For instance something like Afghanistan '11 incorporated a hearts and minds mechanic, but we now know how successful that wasn't in reality. If we see "Ukraine '24" as a proxy war between Russia and "the west", then the strategic-level elements are going to need to be even more macro, with additional "undermining democracy and eroding support" mechanics that target people in a whole nother hemisphere. This might make for a good grand strategy game but it feels a little depressing as a wargame, because it's a random factor whose outcome can't be linked to the decisions the player is making as a general in the theater.
On the tactical level you could argue that real-world technology is finally catching up to what gamers have been privilege to since the beginning - a magical eye-in-the-sky view of the battlefield, a perfect memory of every unit that allowed themselves to be seen, an ability to target specific "squares" with indirect fire even when there isn't a spotter on the ground... But right now with the relatively static front lines it seems like there isn't really any "fun" stuff to sim. Even if it was a drone-based sim, having a scenario where your start and end positions are exactly the same but one side just lost a bit less hardware than the other doesn't really feel like a win, regardless of what impact it might have in the longer arc of the war.
Perhaps a more interesting tactical level sim at the current level of drone warfare would be deep strike ops. Something structured like Phantom Doctrine but with drones sinking ships or bombing oil refineries instead of human spies infiltrating buildings. I guess it's easier to come up with a game-like structure when there is a clear success condition. We might have to wait till the end of this war to understand what that could look like in a CM-style infantry/ground tactics sim.

I'm not sure this is the way for China to take back Siberia.
 
https://www.ft.com/content/ba524406-ee6c-4c39-9ac2-110a2549569a
 

An update for Ukrainian commander Oleksandr Syrskyi:
https://t.me/osirskiy/645
 
 

On-map self propelled guns and howitzers are not allowed indirect fire in CM. IIRC the rationale is that ranges for on-map fire would typically be too short for their trajectory to hit.

He references Cannae and Marathon, but the front was IIRC something like 2700 km long. Pocketing some fraction of the Russian army (he never explains exactly how or where) while allowing them to advance in other areas doesn't sound like a war-winning strategy to me given the Russian ability to reconstitute formations.

Haiduk is bored.

The manufacturer of the Caesar is talking it up and saying that it's characteristics are helping it to survive better on the modern battle field compared to other self-propelled guns
In Ukraine, ‘shoot-and-scoot’ tactics helping Caesars survive
 
 

This was the usual annual (or biannual?) draft for mandatory military service in Russia. These don't end up in Ukraine. The same happened in 2022 and 2023, btw.

howdy friends
Lately, I have been experimenting with 2 things in the editor to help balance forces and address these issues.  Totally obvious things that I have recently reminded myself of.   
 
1.  Curating weapons, loadouts and upgrading or downgrading vehicles or infantry.  Scarce ammo and green gunners can detune vehicles and create difficult command choices.  
 
2.  Using weather to limit visibility and  drone/thermal sights.  
 
@Artkin has a point imo. Although I did not get it when he offered me a match as a rank noob. I understand the game dynamics a little better and I get ‘it’ a little more now.
However, I think you have to have design your games so that they require as few ‘non-enforceable’ game rules as possible. If it can built into the game within the constraints we have, then it should be. There are many iterations of force and weather combinations that can even up forces and provide good gameplay. 
where I am at now is that I do prefer CMBS and experimenting with ‘modern problems’.  I also value the creativity and ingenuity of my PBEM oppo and my attitude is that I can fight  or recover from any challenge, if it’s interesting, so I tend go with few rules other than to not bomb setup zones in ME.   I have been prejudiced lately against super strong or upgraded vehicles.  auto-cannons are vexing me lately. We all have our favorites. lol.   I think we all need to be as flexible as possible, especially in CMBS as we will be making our own fun until they revamp another modern title for us.   PS, I appreciate my PBEM oppo and playing the AI is not satisfying imo. 

So we must then solve for that finely trained, well equipped soldier....
Do you think he was important?
Well, if he was, then we won't have to wait long to find out.

Most of these just seem to be handicaps for the sake of handicaps, with no regard to realism.
1. I agree with no turn 1 arty into a setup zone in meeting engagements, but I disagree with no turn 1 arty at all.
2. I've already expressed my opinion on this one, and it is not favorable.
3. WHY?!?!?
4. ?????????? Why would you disallow a perfectly sensible tactic?????? If you find yourself in a situation where manually using vehicle smoke would make sense, then why wouldn't you use it (especially if you play the Soviets in CMCW, in which the vehicle smoke is not intended for quick getaways like NATO vehicle smoke, but to lay down screens to maneuver behind)? Are we going to just start disallowing any tactic that might have a chance of working until we are left with nothing but unsupported frontal assaults?
5. I do this sometimes when reviewing the action just for the spectacle. But it makes no sense to insist on it as a rule for your opponent. How would you even enforce it? It's impossible to know what visual aids your opponent has on or off.
6. Again, I've installed the no tracer mod on all of my CM games just because I think it improves the visual realism. But it makes absolutely no sense to insist on this as a rule. And again, how would you enforce it? It's impossible to know what mods your opponent has installed.
7. You do know that as a Combat Mission player you are in the shoes of every officer and NCO on the battlefield, not just the overall commander, right? The overall commander may not be able to see all of his units. But each of his units can see themselves. In real life if the overall commander forgets that one of his units exists (which seems rather unlikely (the commander may not have up to date info on where his subordinates are or what they are doing, but it seems doubtful that he'll forget that they exist), but that's the possibility you are modeling by turning icons off) and fails to give it any orders, that unit will still by capable of making its own decisions. If you forget that one of your units in Combat Mission exists, it will just sit there doing nothing. Again, I turn off icons sometimes when reviewing the action for the spectacle, but it makes no sense to insist on this as a rule. And again, how could you ever know if your opponent is abiding by this rule?
8. This only matters for quick battles, which I don't play (in scenarios the experience of your troops is whatever the scenario designer decided it should be). But as I understand it part of the game in quick battles is to decide on the tradeoff between troop quality vs troop cost. Why eliminate that element of the game?

More RUSI analysis from Justin Bronk.
Getting Serious About SEAD
 

A few articles reporting on a speech:
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2024/03/future-not-bright-towed-artillery-army-general-says/395289/
https://breakingdefense.com/2024/03/towed-artillery-has-reached-end-of-the-effectiveness-army-four-star-declares/
 
 

Except for the attacker in attack/defend-type battles. Some people also allow it in meeting engagements but I prefer not to. As always, prior communication is the key.

Except for the attacker in attack/defend-type battles. Some people also allow it in meeting engagements but I prefer not to. As always, prior communication is the key.

Not sure if this has been posted already, but I found this an interesting read:
The Attritional Art of War: Lessons from the Russian War on Ukraine | Royal United Services Institute (rusi.org)
Here's the co-pilot summary of what is covered in the article
 

I don't think this is reliable information, because I don't think Medvedev is ever not this drunk and high.

So I think this isn't so much a case of Combat Mission incorrectly modeling reality, as yet another case of people having incorrect expectations of reality. Just like all the spotting complaints.

I think that is correct for the commander's sight. The gunner's daylight sight on the T-64B is the 1g42. It's magnification and field of view are variable from 3.9x/20° to 9x/8.5°. By comparison the TZF 9 gunner's sight on the Tiger is 2.5x/25° and 5x/14°, so the T-64 has stronger magnification at the cost of a narrower field of view. Which of these would be better at spotting a machine gun team 450 meters away is anyone's guess. If we were talking about nighttime spotting or first shot accuracy the T-64 should be much better but I don't know that there would be a dramatic difference in daytime spotting. I agree with other posters that the OPs test is worthless for demonstrating anything at all.

Russia claimed since February they renewed production of FAB-1500 anf FAB-3000 heavy bombs - likely they also started production of UMPK kits for FAB-3000, making it also guided. It's bad. We need more long-range AD and F-16. Or strike this factory in Nizhniy Novgorod oblast
Though FAB-3000 is too heavy for Su-34, and can be used from Tu-22M3 only. The bomb has 1400 kg of HE. It already was used as free-fall bombs during Azovstal siege.

I would think that your drones also have more loiter time and are less likely to be jammed by electronic warfare, the closer they are to your own lines.

Hm.... In this video at least 2 targets were disabled with direct or close hits of single D-30 and FPV has appeared only at the end, when survived tank already retreated. Of course, artillery fire on moving targets is not effective, but Russians were making some stops during the movement, which opened a window of opportunity for D-30 and MT-12. If we had more barrels, it could be more effective (though we could have enough barrels, but not enough shells)

I think that is correct for the commander's sight. The gunner's daylight sight on the T-64B is the 1g42. It's magnification and field of view are variable from 3.9x/20° to 9x/8.5°. By comparison the TZF 9 gunner's sight on the Tiger is 2.5x/25° and 5x/14°, so the T-64 has stronger magnification at the cost of a narrower field of view. Which of these would be better at spotting a machine gun team 450 meters away is anyone's guess. If we were talking about nighttime spotting or first shot accuracy the T-64 should be much better but I don't know that there would be a dramatic difference in daytime spotting. I agree with other posters that the OPs test is worthless for demonstrating anything at all.

Also a variable in this test is that in the WW2 version, you're testing with HMG42 which are deployed on a bipod and are bigger targets than the 2-man LMG teams you seem to be testing with in the CW test. The HMG teams also have more crewmembers, which also affects spotting chances.
A better test would be to use German LMG teams.