Jotte

My (limited view) interpretation of events.
The long CMRT Fire and Rubble saga is closely tied up with Slitherine, the secret British Ministry of Defense project and eventually Steam. The MoD project was important to BFC but the CMRT Beta team was unaware of it and the delays went unexplained. They also knew nothing about the Cold War project but Cold War wasn't taking up resources. It was just a small handful of guys working on it part time 'under the radar'.
The British MoD distraction multiplied when Slitherine decided it looked odd they were offering a product not hosted on their own site. So CMSF2 went to Slitherine, and by association also to Steam. That turned into a Big Thing all its own, and a big distraction that once again negatively impacted CMRT. CMRT Fire and Rubble has basically been a victim of the whirlwind of BFC's unexpected successes. But that's almost over, the mega-module is almost here. And its worth the wait.

I want to highlight and emphasis this point. CMCW was largely handled and developed by a small team from the getgo. The beta testers had no idea the game existed until about two months ago now. Up until that point, they all still thought that F&R was the only new thing being actively worked on. 
Not in the wargaming community. Whenever there is a new game released that is not about WWII, all you hear is all the grogs begging for the new game to be converted to WWII. 
I think this is the case, but I do not know for sure. FWIW I agree, I think that CMBN should absolutely be brought on to Steam as soon as possible as I think it will be BFCs big seller there. That said, Slitherine handles all of that, so any suggestions/complaints will have to be taken up with them. 
My hope as well!

Apparently you can find anything on the internet these days. Military damage claims report 1975-79 which added up to more than 100 million dollars..
https://www.gao.gov/assets/140/130794.pdf

March to Glorious Victory Post Number One.
  So Bil and I have a loose-agreement (I would say gentlemen's but that is probably a stretch) to not peek at each others threads.  The dirty truth here is that this isn't really an AAR per se, it is more of an IAR (In Action Report).  Full disclosure, we are only about 6 mins into the thing, so I can't really put a spin on my plan or anything because I have no idea how this will end.  So far so good  but we are in early days.  We should start posting turn summaries tomorrow but for now may I present an end-product of about roughly 32 years of military training in both line and staff positions...The_Capt's glorious Mission Analysis!  
So here we are on this grubby little peice of West German real-estate (seriously, Pete Wenman is a freakin wizard with these maps btw) facing off against what I am sure are overfed, overpaid and over-entitled Yankee capitalists all huddled in their vehicles waiting for something to happen.  So like they taught me back in the day..let's start with terrain:

So my guys are coming from the bottom, Bil and his jerks are up near the top.  I have a bunch of woods except for this defile behind a hwy bridge that I have to deploy my main force out of.  We have a big valley between us and the town of Dollbach in the center which is the golden goose we are both lining up to grab, whilst killing the other guy.  Not much to see on my map edge except a bunch of woods with some dirt roads cut through them.  
Bil has the high ground ridge up there and there are three major wooded areas that him and his ilk are no doubt hiding out in.  It is more one on the left but pretty much that approach along with the Valley is dominated by Bil's thugs.  In short, this is not an optimal starting position.
Bil's Plan.  So I have learned some time ago that you are not fighting vehicles and equipment, you are fighting a person (Capt's rule #1).  So spend time understanding and getting inside the head of that person.  With Bil it is easy because we have been sparring in CM for just about 2 decades now.  So here is what I am thinking, that Bil is thinking:

So Bil is probably going to be cautious and build a nice path to victory here.  First he is going to put out Eyes in those woodlines, then he will reinforce with teeth because why stick his neck out if he does not have to?  Then once I have watered the West German countryside with my blood (and other fluids) he will make his reach for Dollbach (Hands...dirty, old, wrinkly hands with yellow fingernails).  I will be at a significant disadvantage at this point because I will be dead, and you do not fight so well when dead (Capt's rule #2).  So my role here is to play peeky snipey from a really crappy position with Soviet gear that does not see as well as his sexy US optics...hmm...Capt no-likey, no likey...one bit.  So now the Plan:

My end goal is to make Bil more dead than me, not to get heavily invested in the West German real estate market.  So we are going to try something simple and blunt.  First, I will get Eyes on my woodline, gotta see what I can see (Capt's Rule #3).  Then I am going to put out hands...fingers really, to make it look like the land grab is my only game.  Then once my art start dropping (could be wait here cause he has EW turned on), I am going to bull rush that corridor and swing up into those hills to kill Bil (Teeth).  This is going to be tricky and I am going to take losses but I can afford them.  I get a MIC FSE in 5 and another Tank Coy-ish in 10, so I will have mass because I am betting the best he has is an Armd Cav platoon, maybe two.  So basically we will play Bil's snipey peeky game for a bit, push recon out into that town to make me look desperate and then freakin charge on the left.  Questions?
 

I know everybody is excited and would like to know what is next after the Base Game... believe me we are all excited too!
As far as follow-on modules go.. yes several are planned, but what they are specifically we will keep to ourselves until after the game is released.  For now the focus must stay on the base-game for us, but feel free to conjecture and dream, I enjoy those threads, but we won't be confirming or denying anything until after this one is on the street.
Just so you guys know that we aren't ignoring you in those discussions, we are trying to stay focused and not get sidetracked so we can deliver this thing in time.
Cheers, Bil

Ok, lemme weigh in on this because there are going to be more questions.  What made it into the game...and why?  What did not make it into the game...and why?  Not easy answers to be honest.
First we took a deliberate design choice to try to stick to a policy of "historical introduction +/- 6 months".  The primary reason was to not artificially limit the choices of the player and leave more constraints/restraint decisions in their hands...they are the customer.  There will be purists out there - god love em- who will want to play with extreme historical accuracy and this game is set up for that.  Then there will be 'experimenters' that will want to see what happened if X showed up earlier/later, so we took a look and tried to keep the aperture open for them too.
Second, unlike most historical conflicts, the Cold War never went hot so the geopolitical or strategic situation never really evolved to mirror what is happening in our game.  For example, having spent a lot of time looking at committee records and  logistical after action reports, the reason that vehicles or weapons systems were introduced at a certain date was not the same context as, say, WWII.  These were not shaped by technical, industrial or operational realities as much as they were by good old fashion bureaucracy.  Vehicles and equipment were held up for funding shifts or strategic logistical SNAFUs, not anything "real".  So within a "what if" context saying "Nope the M2 Bradley cannot be in Europe in 81-82...sorry player" makes no sense if the primary reason was "it got delayed because we forgot to include a support package"  or "there was a congressional district issue"  or "the delivery process got held up in a contracting screw up".  If there had been an escalating strategic reality, all of this red tape would have been cut through and the vehicles, which were being manufactured (i.e. well past the prototype stage) and many of them in warehouses, could have easily been pushed forward.
So what?  Well if you see an odd vehicle date to your eyes, trust me we know about it and considered it.  If you want to play with the highest historical accuracy possible you can do that easily within the game.  If you wish to push the envelope of what could have been, well you can do that too...within reason.  You will not be seeing M1s rolling across the plains in 1979, there is a point between ahistorical and complete fantasy but some equipment, particularly US will be available earlier or later than its actual arrival date in the ETO but all of these vehicles were 1) well into manufacturing and 2) had been already delivered to the US military, contracts cut and the machine in motion.  
And finally, what got left out.  Ya, there is simply no way we were going to win this one...we still get beat up by the beta team for leaving out vehicle Z.  Here the tyranny of time kicks in.  Spending an extra 6 months modeling and testing in-game systems that were niche and that most players will never see or use, simply does not make sense.  And then some pieces of equipment would break the game engine itself (e.g. AVLB...breaks my heart as an engineer).  So hard decisions to leave some babies on the roadside had to be made...and they were.  What is in the game are the essentials (plus) and we are likely going to have disagreement on what was "essential"...now let the healing begin.

So we just surprise-won the combat mission lottery for $50Million, and all folks talk about is "too bad it wasn't $51M"???  geeeeez, tough crowd 🙂
All I have to say is THANK YOU to Bill H, The Capt, et al.

The dark May skies were laden with rain as the trucks trundled up the hill. Sound of laughter and boys’ voices pitched high with bravado filled the canvas tops of the trucks.

The days when M2 Bradley could still swim. 

Here's some real world pics to get y'all in the mood.

That's what I was going for!

CM Cold War takes place on the cusp of big changes happening to both the American and Soviet armies. The arrival of Abrams and Bradley changes the nature of the fight in Europe. Also in this time frame we get a fashion change! See attached, the Americans switching to battle dress uniform. This is new-new art that's still not in the current Beta so you won't see it in any of the posted screenshots. Please forgive my crappy graphics card.

Absolutely - you're not the only one ! 😀😀😀

Here is a link to the stream done by Slitherine that is going to show off CMCW:
 
Not sure yet when CMCW is supposed to show up though. 

This is something I threw together in my own time. Please remember that this is from a beta build of the game and is subject to change. 

Just FYI if you've redeemed your game on Steam be sure to put up your review of the game too. Just noticed that Black Sea is rather sparsely reviewed compared to SF2.

The Canadian hedge cutters seem OK. Here's a Sherman V with twin Sunjo's

Basic Training Campaign - Mission 2 finally done. The game's volume should be louder and i used the game's built-in movie filter. What do you guys think?
 

Hello everyone,
i'm Zloba and i bought the CMBN Big Bundle just a few days ago, after being on the fence for the last 2-3 years. Thanks again to everyone who helped me decide.
While playing the first tutorial campaign i thought it would be cool to make something different. So i'll be using this thread as some sort of journal where i want to share my experience with the game. So here goes my 1st attempt on a Combat Mission game video. I'm open to suggestions on how to do it better next time. Feel free to leave comments here or directly under the video itself. And i hope you enjoy it at least a little.
 

Courtesy of Usually Hapless, details here: 
 

That is the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, which is carried by Brother Maynard.
"Now did the Lord say, "First thou pullest the Holy Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then proceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Hand Grenade in the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it."
If they were the Free French forces they would have launched a cow back at the Germans.

Kills like 6 men.