JulianJ

After Action Report UK Armoured Assault
This is one of George MC's excellent scenarios, originally made for SF1.
Summary
A battlegroup of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards in their Challengers, supported by mech infantry and engineers, with arty and air support, attack Syrian positions.

Challenger on overwatch
AAR:
Firstly, one of the nice touches is you have recon in position when the game starts. It is a minor gripe of mine that you often go into battles blind, and have to expose a few hapless soldiers to incoming, to find out where the enemy is: Reconnaisance by Taking Fire. I don't like it or think it is realistic.
It's a fairly big battlefield. I decided on a quite conservative plan, given that I seemed to have plenty of time (2 game hours) to achieve the objectives. Basically I was going to hide in the deployment zone and take the first enemy position which is in a dip then move forward and see what revealed itself. I pushed some Challys into overwatch. Two were promptly hit by ATGMs – both survived, one with its 120mm knocked out, the other with its commander dead.
I pulled back immediately and dialled in my artillery and the Harriers that were on station.
I spent 20 minutes pounding enemy positions with 81mm, 155 mm and one of the Harriers (keeping the other in reserve, which proved to be a wise move). So I destroyed all of the AT threats I could find.

A recent portrait of Syrian ATGM team No. 2
Digression – We are fighting with the Jocks here, and the infantry brigaded with the RSDG maybe should be the Black Watch, so we have two units that fought together at Waterloo. Not having Scottish accents irked me (it's some form of orcish, I believe 🤣) I couldn't get HQS sound mod and George MC's and Mord's Cuss mod* to work together – they seem incompatible, so I wasn't entirely happy, as it didn't seem right to have legendary Scottish units speaking rather plummy English.
(*further investigation by @George MC , it seems that the Cuss mod won't work with SF2. I might be wrong about the Black Watch – George checked when he wrote the scenario and the Orbat should be correct for the right time in an imaginary war.)
(Politics Alert! British rankers traditionally come from the poorest parts of the country – Wales, Scotland, the North/Midlands of England, Cockneys (East End of London), and Ireland. It is probably nitpicking, but it would be good to hear more of these sort of authentic voices in BF games. /Rant over.)
The first advance
My forces moved forward. The infantry took the first dug-in position directly to the front, backed up by Challys and Warriors. I sent forces to the right to take a good position for the Javelin team. I didn't bother flanking to the left.
After I'd bounded forward I consolidated then moved on to the next set of objectives, using light bombardments of 155mm to mash anything that seemed to be well hardened. I was taking hardly any casualties. Identified enemy tanks didn't last long, either hit by the Harrier or Challenger gunfire.
One of the Static Tanks was still functioning, having been under an intense artillery barrage, and been struck by 2 x 155mm rounds and a 66mm to the back of the turret. I didn't find that believable, even if the crew had survived, I think they would have abandoned the tank. /End Rant 2.
 

Infantry and armour advancing in close co-ordination, having taken the central farm. Out of shot to the right, the engineers are about to flank  OBJ Elgin
Infantry and armour move forward and consolidate on the next enemy positions
I'd moved forward on OBJ Elgin and Keith. My leftmost troops were closing in on OBJ North Queensferry from both front and flank. One of the nice things about this scenario is you can use the terrain to move infantry forward under cover.
SPOILER COMING BELOW PICTURE

A Challenger advances, the commander is an ancestor of James T. Kirk.
Enemy armour reinforcements arrived. My Challengers in overwatch and the second Harrier dispatched them without any losses. One Chally took a 125mm hit to the added lower hull front armour pack, and survived. So that is 2 ATGMs and a 125 KE round that failed to penetrate.
Pushed the enemy out of North Queensferry, a mainly infantry assault, supported by Warriors.
 
(CM WEIRDNESS – BUT IS A SPOILER)
 
Bizarrely, when the game ended I found that there was a static tank in the middle of one of my positions that I had overlooked. In RL I can't see how this could have happened, given that one of my observer teams was in an adjacent house and my footsloggers and armour were all around. As I prepared for the assault on the final objective, South Queensferry, I saw that my forward infantry were tired, so I mustered the engineers as a 2nd assault wave, bussed them into FV432s and drove them at high speed to the E of North Queensferry. The muster area was within metres of the static tank. I guess the high speed move must have not given it time to spot, because they must have crossed its gunsights....
 
The Final Assault on South Queensferry
 
I sent my infantry and armour forward under a smokescreen over one of the bridges. I had miscalculated (again!) as there were a few enemy infantry in the vicinity of the N/S Queensferry Bridge. I thought they were suppressed/destroyed/surrendered, and I had sent a Warrior to finish them off, but I gave it Hunt orders and it stayed where it was. A brief firefight took 2 of my 3 man scout team down. The Syrians were neutralised, but it felt an unnecessary loss.
Some of my engineers were speeding to the other bridge to cross and flank. I was laying down immense amounts of small arms and MG fire on all known enemy positions.

The final assault on South Queensferry - armour, infantry and engineers attacking under covering fire. The Challenger has run out of ammo and is parked in a safeish position.
Time was running out. I was – typically – less careful about moving forward and took some more casualties, which were unnecessary. Most of the enemy troops were forced to abandon their positions and as they crossed the open streets, were gunned down in a deadly crossfire, from smallarms and vehicle MGs, and Chaingun/50 cal from Challengers a long way off.
Another digression – I've become inordinately fond of the L94A1 Chain Gun and often use it in preference to other weapons. It saves the too few, and valuable, HESH or HE rounds for when you really need them.
Results Screen
I achieved a total victory: 30 British casualties to 410 Syrian, knocked out all but two tanks for the loss of none. I lost a few Warriors and 432s. Nevertheless some of my lads should not have copped it. I'm arranging to court martial myself. Oh wait, I'm a general. That will never happen. Queenie's going to pin another medal on me.
 
Amusing moment of the game:
Road Traffic Accident – one of my 432s rearended a Warrior on the bridge, entirely due to my inept vehicle handling. You can see it in the image above. Classic. I hope I don't get a ticket.
 
Music
I think appropriate music really heightens the enjoyment of a video game. Usually I find the in-game music track palls, however good it is. So I turn it off and have YouTube open in my browser. So I can do a quick search and find something that is atmospheric and feels right for the moment, then save it as a playlist. I have game music on my computer, like the Doom era soundtrack of pumping metal, which can work, but YouTube is more convenient and you can just search again and use something different if it doesn't feel right.
For example, for fantasy games, Lord of the Rings soundtrack works brilliantly, but feels completely wrong if I am playing Shogun 2. There's lots of westernised Japanese samurai movie and anime soundtracks which really juice that game up.
 
For this CM scenario I was playing various heroic tracks, and I also interspersed this with Scottish martial bagpipe music. My boys love it!
I have also been known to play Ride of the Valkyries when the attack helos go in...
 
Conclusion
I enjoyed this game a lot. However the British side has a considerable advantage, in technology, military competence and arty/air support.
(SPOILER)
The armoured counterattack could be deadly if the T72s ganged up on the Challys – which are already zoned in by Syrian troops. But the AI can't do that, and just drove around aimlessly, getting shot.
I could have improved with better fire discipline: I wasted a lot of rounds that I should have saved for later, running out of ammo at the last stages of the game. I thought Challenger 2s had 52 rounds but the game only has 48. Could really do with those four shells.
In longer games, keeping track of ammo is very important. I blasted away with the 81 mm when more careful use would have kept some in reserve. Use more “Target Briefly” rather than using T and hitting a target with area fire for the full minute. I've been doing TB for 30 or 45 seconds so I don't shoot up something ( and forget about it) for several turns, and run short of MG ammo in a Chally (which I did!).
Finally, if there's anybody who's good with sound, perhaps contact GeorgeMC and Mord to upgrade the Cuss Mod. It might be something simple like needing reformatting? It's a mod I would like to see operational again. I could listen to it fine in my media player so there's nothing damaged.
 

After Action Report UK Armoured Assault
This is one of George MC's excellent scenarios, originally made for SF1.
Summary
A battlegroup of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards in their Challengers, supported by mech infantry and engineers, with arty and air support, attack Syrian positions.

Challenger on overwatch
AAR:
Firstly, one of the nice touches is you have recon in position when the game starts. It is a minor gripe of mine that you often go into battles blind, and have to expose a few hapless soldiers to incoming, to find out where the enemy is: Reconnaisance by Taking Fire. I don't like it or think it is realistic.
It's a fairly big battlefield. I decided on a quite conservative plan, given that I seemed to have plenty of time (2 game hours) to achieve the objectives. Basically I was going to hide in the deployment zone and take the first enemy position which is in a dip then move forward and see what revealed itself. I pushed some Challys into overwatch. Two were promptly hit by ATGMs – both survived, one with its 120mm knocked out, the other with its commander dead.
I pulled back immediately and dialled in my artillery and the Harriers that were on station.
I spent 20 minutes pounding enemy positions with 81mm, 155 mm and one of the Harriers (keeping the other in reserve, which proved to be a wise move). So I destroyed all of the AT threats I could find.

A recent portrait of Syrian ATGM team No. 2
Digression – We are fighting with the Jocks here, and the infantry brigaded with the RSDG maybe should be the Black Watch, so we have two units that fought together at Waterloo. Not having Scottish accents irked me (it's some form of orcish, I believe 🤣) I couldn't get HQS sound mod and George MC's and Mord's Cuss mod* to work together – they seem incompatible, so I wasn't entirely happy, as it didn't seem right to have legendary Scottish units speaking rather plummy English.
(*further investigation by @George MC , it seems that the Cuss mod won't work with SF2. I might be wrong about the Black Watch – George checked when he wrote the scenario and the Orbat should be correct for the right time in an imaginary war.)
(Politics Alert! British rankers traditionally come from the poorest parts of the country – Wales, Scotland, the North/Midlands of England, Cockneys (East End of London), and Ireland. It is probably nitpicking, but it would be good to hear more of these sort of authentic voices in BF games. /Rant over.)
The first advance
My forces moved forward. The infantry took the first dug-in position directly to the front, backed up by Challys and Warriors. I sent forces to the right to take a good position for the Javelin team. I didn't bother flanking to the left.
After I'd bounded forward I consolidated then moved on to the next set of objectives, using light bombardments of 155mm to mash anything that seemed to be well hardened. I was taking hardly any casualties. Identified enemy tanks didn't last long, either hit by the Harrier or Challenger gunfire.
One of the Static Tanks was still functioning, having been under an intense artillery barrage, and been struck by 2 x 155mm rounds and a 66mm to the back of the turret. I didn't find that believable, even if the crew had survived, I think they would have abandoned the tank. /End Rant 2.
 

Infantry and armour advancing in close co-ordination, having taken the central farm. Out of shot to the right, the engineers are about to flank  OBJ Elgin
Infantry and armour move forward and consolidate on the next enemy positions
I'd moved forward on OBJ Elgin and Keith. My leftmost troops were closing in on OBJ North Queensferry from both front and flank. One of the nice things about this scenario is you can use the terrain to move infantry forward under cover.
SPOILER COMING BELOW PICTURE

A Challenger advances, the commander is an ancestor of James T. Kirk.
Enemy armour reinforcements arrived. My Challengers in overwatch and the second Harrier dispatched them without any losses. One Chally took a 125mm hit to the added lower hull front armour pack, and survived. So that is 2 ATGMs and a 125 KE round that failed to penetrate.
Pushed the enemy out of North Queensferry, a mainly infantry assault, supported by Warriors.
 
(CM WEIRDNESS – BUT IS A SPOILER)
 
Bizarrely, when the game ended I found that there was a static tank in the middle of one of my positions that I had overlooked. In RL I can't see how this could have happened, given that one of my observer teams was in an adjacent house and my footsloggers and armour were all around. As I prepared for the assault on the final objective, South Queensferry, I saw that my forward infantry were tired, so I mustered the engineers as a 2nd assault wave, bussed them into FV432s and drove them at high speed to the E of North Queensferry. The muster area was within metres of the static tank. I guess the high speed move must have not given it time to spot, because they must have crossed its gunsights....
 
The Final Assault on South Queensferry
 
I sent my infantry and armour forward under a smokescreen over one of the bridges. I had miscalculated (again!) as there were a few enemy infantry in the vicinity of the N/S Queensferry Bridge. I thought they were suppressed/destroyed/surrendered, and I had sent a Warrior to finish them off, but I gave it Hunt orders and it stayed where it was. A brief firefight took 2 of my 3 man scout team down. The Syrians were neutralised, but it felt an unnecessary loss.
Some of my engineers were speeding to the other bridge to cross and flank. I was laying down immense amounts of small arms and MG fire on all known enemy positions.

The final assault on South Queensferry - armour, infantry and engineers attacking under covering fire. The Challenger has run out of ammo and is parked in a safeish position.
Time was running out. I was – typically – less careful about moving forward and took some more casualties, which were unnecessary. Most of the enemy troops were forced to abandon their positions and as they crossed the open streets, were gunned down in a deadly crossfire, from smallarms and vehicle MGs, and Chaingun/50 cal from Challengers a long way off.
Another digression – I've become inordinately fond of the L94A1 Chain Gun and often use it in preference to other weapons. It saves the too few, and valuable, HESH or HE rounds for when you really need them.
Results Screen
I achieved a total victory: 30 British casualties to 410 Syrian, knocked out all but two tanks for the loss of none. I lost a few Warriors and 432s. Nevertheless some of my lads should not have copped it. I'm arranging to court martial myself. Oh wait, I'm a general. That will never happen. Queenie's going to pin another medal on me.
 
Amusing moment of the game:
Road Traffic Accident – one of my 432s rearended a Warrior on the bridge, entirely due to my inept vehicle handling. You can see it in the image above. Classic. I hope I don't get a ticket.
 
Music
I think appropriate music really heightens the enjoyment of a video game. Usually I find the in-game music track palls, however good it is. So I turn it off and have YouTube open in my browser. So I can do a quick search and find something that is atmospheric and feels right for the moment, then save it as a playlist. I have game music on my computer, like the Doom era soundtrack of pumping metal, which can work, but YouTube is more convenient and you can just search again and use something different if it doesn't feel right.
For example, for fantasy games, Lord of the Rings soundtrack works brilliantly, but feels completely wrong if I am playing Shogun 2. There's lots of westernised Japanese samurai movie and anime soundtracks which really juice that game up.
 
For this CM scenario I was playing various heroic tracks, and I also interspersed this with Scottish martial bagpipe music. My boys love it!
I have also been known to play Ride of the Valkyries when the attack helos go in...
 
Conclusion
I enjoyed this game a lot. However the British side has a considerable advantage, in technology, military competence and arty/air support.
(SPOILER)
The armoured counterattack could be deadly if the T72s ganged up on the Challys – which are already zoned in by Syrian troops. But the AI can't do that, and just drove around aimlessly, getting shot.
I could have improved with better fire discipline: I wasted a lot of rounds that I should have saved for later, running out of ammo at the last stages of the game. I thought Challenger 2s had 52 rounds but the game only has 48. Could really do with those four shells.
In longer games, keeping track of ammo is very important. I blasted away with the 81 mm when more careful use would have kept some in reserve. Use more “Target Briefly” rather than using T and hitting a target with area fire for the full minute. I've been doing TB for 30 or 45 seconds so I don't shoot up something ( and forget about it) for several turns, and run short of MG ammo in a Chally (which I did!).
Finally, if there's anybody who's good with sound, perhaps contact GeorgeMC and Mord to upgrade the Cuss Mod. It might be something simple like needing reformatting? It's a mod I would like to see operational again. I could listen to it fine in my media player so there's nothing damaged.
 

After Action Report UK Armoured Assault
This is one of George MC's excellent scenarios, originally made for SF1.
Summary
A battlegroup of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards in their Challengers, supported by mech infantry and engineers, with arty and air support, attack Syrian positions.

Challenger on overwatch
AAR:
Firstly, one of the nice touches is you have recon in position when the game starts. It is a minor gripe of mine that you often go into battles blind, and have to expose a few hapless soldiers to incoming, to find out where the enemy is: Reconnaisance by Taking Fire. I don't like it or think it is realistic.
It's a fairly big battlefield. I decided on a quite conservative plan, given that I seemed to have plenty of time (2 game hours) to achieve the objectives. Basically I was going to hide in the deployment zone and take the first enemy position which is in a dip then move forward and see what revealed itself. I pushed some Challys into overwatch. Two were promptly hit by ATGMs – both survived, one with its 120mm knocked out, the other with its commander dead.
I pulled back immediately and dialled in my artillery and the Harriers that were on station.
I spent 20 minutes pounding enemy positions with 81mm, 155 mm and one of the Harriers (keeping the other in reserve, which proved to be a wise move). So I destroyed all of the AT threats I could find.

A recent portrait of Syrian ATGM team No. 2
Digression – We are fighting with the Jocks here, and the infantry brigaded with the RSDG maybe should be the Black Watch, so we have two units that fought together at Waterloo. Not having Scottish accents irked me (it's some form of orcish, I believe 🤣) I couldn't get HQS sound mod and George MC's and Mord's Cuss mod* to work together – they seem incompatible, so I wasn't entirely happy, as it didn't seem right to have legendary Scottish units speaking rather plummy English.
(*further investigation by @George MC , it seems that the Cuss mod won't work with SF2. I might be wrong about the Black Watch – George checked when he wrote the scenario and the Orbat should be correct for the right time in an imaginary war.)
(Politics Alert! British rankers traditionally come from the poorest parts of the country – Wales, Scotland, the North/Midlands of England, Cockneys (East End of London), and Ireland. It is probably nitpicking, but it would be good to hear more of these sort of authentic voices in BF games. /Rant over.)
The first advance
My forces moved forward. The infantry took the first dug-in position directly to the front, backed up by Challys and Warriors. I sent forces to the right to take a good position for the Javelin team. I didn't bother flanking to the left.
After I'd bounded forward I consolidated then moved on to the next set of objectives, using light bombardments of 155mm to mash anything that seemed to be well hardened. I was taking hardly any casualties. Identified enemy tanks didn't last long, either hit by the Harrier or Challenger gunfire.
One of the Static Tanks was still functioning, having been under an intense artillery barrage, and been struck by 2 x 155mm rounds and a 66mm to the back of the turret. I didn't find that believable, even if the crew had survived, I think they would have abandoned the tank. /End Rant 2.
 

Infantry and armour advancing in close co-ordination, having taken the central farm. Out of shot to the right, the engineers are about to flank  OBJ Elgin
Infantry and armour move forward and consolidate on the next enemy positions
I'd moved forward on OBJ Elgin and Keith. My leftmost troops were closing in on OBJ North Queensferry from both front and flank. One of the nice things about this scenario is you can use the terrain to move infantry forward under cover.
SPOILER COMING BELOW PICTURE

A Challenger advances, the commander is an ancestor of James T. Kirk.
Enemy armour reinforcements arrived. My Challengers in overwatch and the second Harrier dispatched them without any losses. One Chally took a 125mm hit to the added lower hull front armour pack, and survived. So that is 2 ATGMs and a 125 KE round that failed to penetrate.
Pushed the enemy out of North Queensferry, a mainly infantry assault, supported by Warriors.
 
(CM WEIRDNESS – BUT IS A SPOILER)
 
Bizarrely, when the game ended I found that there was a static tank in the middle of one of my positions that I had overlooked. In RL I can't see how this could have happened, given that one of my observer teams was in an adjacent house and my footsloggers and armour were all around. As I prepared for the assault on the final objective, South Queensferry, I saw that my forward infantry were tired, so I mustered the engineers as a 2nd assault wave, bussed them into FV432s and drove them at high speed to the E of North Queensferry. The muster area was within metres of the static tank. I guess the high speed move must have not given it time to spot, because they must have crossed its gunsights....
 
The Final Assault on South Queensferry
 
I sent my infantry and armour forward under a smokescreen over one of the bridges. I had miscalculated (again!) as there were a few enemy infantry in the vicinity of the N/S Queensferry Bridge. I thought they were suppressed/destroyed/surrendered, and I had sent a Warrior to finish them off, but I gave it Hunt orders and it stayed where it was. A brief firefight took 2 of my 3 man scout team down. The Syrians were neutralised, but it felt an unnecessary loss.
Some of my engineers were speeding to the other bridge to cross and flank. I was laying down immense amounts of small arms and MG fire on all known enemy positions.

The final assault on South Queensferry - armour, infantry and engineers attacking under covering fire. The Challenger has run out of ammo and is parked in a safeish position.
Time was running out. I was – typically – less careful about moving forward and took some more casualties, which were unnecessary. Most of the enemy troops were forced to abandon their positions and as they crossed the open streets, were gunned down in a deadly crossfire, from smallarms and vehicle MGs, and Chaingun/50 cal from Challengers a long way off.
Another digression – I've become inordinately fond of the L94A1 Chain Gun and often use it in preference to other weapons. It saves the too few, and valuable, HESH or HE rounds for when you really need them.
Results Screen
I achieved a total victory: 30 British casualties to 410 Syrian, knocked out all but two tanks for the loss of none. I lost a few Warriors and 432s. Nevertheless some of my lads should not have copped it. I'm arranging to court martial myself. Oh wait, I'm a general. That will never happen. Queenie's going to pin another medal on me.
 
Amusing moment of the game:
Road Traffic Accident – one of my 432s rearended a Warrior on the bridge, entirely due to my inept vehicle handling. You can see it in the image above. Classic. I hope I don't get a ticket.
 
Music
I think appropriate music really heightens the enjoyment of a video game. Usually I find the in-game music track palls, however good it is. So I turn it off and have YouTube open in my browser. So I can do a quick search and find something that is atmospheric and feels right for the moment, then save it as a playlist. I have game music on my computer, like the Doom era soundtrack of pumping metal, which can work, but YouTube is more convenient and you can just search again and use something different if it doesn't feel right.
For example, for fantasy games, Lord of the Rings soundtrack works brilliantly, but feels completely wrong if I am playing Shogun 2. There's lots of westernised Japanese samurai movie and anime soundtracks which really juice that game up.
 
For this CM scenario I was playing various heroic tracks, and I also interspersed this with Scottish martial bagpipe music. My boys love it!
I have also been known to play Ride of the Valkyries when the attack helos go in...
 
Conclusion
I enjoyed this game a lot. However the British side has a considerable advantage, in technology, military competence and arty/air support.
(SPOILER)
The armoured counterattack could be deadly if the T72s ganged up on the Challys – which are already zoned in by Syrian troops. But the AI can't do that, and just drove around aimlessly, getting shot.
I could have improved with better fire discipline: I wasted a lot of rounds that I should have saved for later, running out of ammo at the last stages of the game. I thought Challenger 2s had 52 rounds but the game only has 48. Could really do with those four shells.
In longer games, keeping track of ammo is very important. I blasted away with the 81 mm when more careful use would have kept some in reserve. Use more “Target Briefly” rather than using T and hitting a target with area fire for the full minute. I've been doing TB for 30 or 45 seconds so I don't shoot up something ( and forget about it) for several turns, and run short of MG ammo in a Chally (which I did!).
Finally, if there's anybody who's good with sound, perhaps contact GeorgeMC and Mord to upgrade the Cuss Mod. It might be something simple like needing reformatting? It's a mod I would like to see operational again. I could listen to it fine in my media player so there's nothing damaged.
 

Have never seen a Panzer IV get the same sort of treatment the big cats get, but this is a tremendous corrective measure. Believe it's a Panzer IV/H, and the paint job is spectacular.

https://www.facebook.com/atelierdesaumur?__tn__=%2CdCH-R-R&eid=ARANIMW22RTvmMwYYsJTj9Nwy39tU-HQNLO2AQ42Wr-aXeHfNz2CONu5xBfqzq1zKA7JPb1HqcE2JUcJ&hc_ref=ARRsvUatEft78D8HHdjMHOvqTKC-SQGcveGT37P30G7e65bIgxs-QD3tK1VZgUKLDN8&fref=nf&hc_location=group
Regards,
John Kettler

P.S. No idea why it won't display properly here. Worked great on FB. Nor was Tiny URL helpful, either. 

He means it's a darling, luv. A proper stonking conker to be sure, and no mistake.

A brilliant piece of driving. He must have had a lot of faith in the guy giving the hand signals.

Understood Julian, I just couldn't resist mentioning some good books.  I'll have a look at Tankograd as I'm not familier with their catalogue.  Thanks for pointing it out.

Hi all,
I have been visiting Tankograd - the Soviet/Russian armour blog (which goes into mind boggling detail): https://thesovietarmourblog.blogspot.com/
Serendipity strikes: I neglected to bookmark it, and have cleared my cache, so when I typed Tankograd in the browser bar, I got this:
TANKOGRAD PUBLISHING - JOCHEN VOLLERT PUBLISHING
It's a German military publishers https://www.tankograd.com/cms/website.php  site in both German and English.   Has distributors around the world.
Here's the UK one: https://www.bookworldws.co.uk/product-category/military/tankograd/
And the US: www.aberdeenbookstore.com    www.rzm.com
If you go to Outlets you can see the booksellers in many other countries. Loads of interesting stuff for modern, WW1 and WW2.
Now I'm under house arrest like an effin' political prisoner I have started obsessively buying military books again. I wonder if Nelson Mandela ended up furtively poring over the details of track arrangements on Challenger 1s and 2s. In the old days at least it was porn mags. I'm clearly going downmarket.

Hi all,
I have been visiting Tankograd - the Soviet/Russian armour blog (which goes into mind boggling detail): https://thesovietarmourblog.blogspot.com/
Serendipity strikes: I neglected to bookmark it, and have cleared my cache, so when I typed Tankograd in the browser bar, I got this:
TANKOGRAD PUBLISHING - JOCHEN VOLLERT PUBLISHING
It's a German military publishers https://www.tankograd.com/cms/website.php  site in both German and English.   Has distributors around the world.
Here's the UK one: https://www.bookworldws.co.uk/product-category/military/tankograd/
And the US: www.aberdeenbookstore.com    www.rzm.com
If you go to Outlets you can see the booksellers in many other countries. Loads of interesting stuff for modern, WW1 and WW2.
Now I'm under house arrest like an effin' political prisoner I have started obsessively buying military books again. I wonder if Nelson Mandela ended up furtively poring over the details of track arrangements on Challenger 1s and 2s. In the old days at least it was porn mags. I'm clearly going downmarket.

Brutally true in BS.  If you're in LOS, you might be dead already and not know it until you click Go.
Recon, recon, recon. Go slow, give troops and platforms time to spot from the best cover available, etc.

Really having fun with CMBS and CMSF2.  I have some really epic 1 minute movie clips! Slow and steady, eyes open, wins the race in both these games.
I know this won't be controversial at all, but which is the best of the WWII series?
BTW, I would pay good money for a Field of View button.  I think it is Graviteam Tactics games that has that.  A real life saver.

For me, it is Fortress Italy with all the addons. It has the longest date range, from July 43 to May 45. It has the most number of different nations and the widest TO&E within the nations as well. The game also features the most diverse range of terrain of any of the games; desert, mountains, rural farms with wide open fields to tight vineyards, villages, cities, about the only thing missing is bocage. The game also has every possible weather condition to fight in; from scorching heat to freezing cold blizzards. 
The best advice I can give tho is to pick the theatre you are most interested in and start there. Odds are, you will end with them all, so start with the one you are most excited about.

@Probus I have all the early BF games. I didn't play them for years and came back recently to CMBS and now CMSF2.   I love these games: in a sort of insane masochistic way,  because the modern battlefield is very punishing. You can do everything right...and still be blown to pieces by missiles or tanks. I am glad you are enjoying the game. Do download player-made scenarios and mods - many of them are quite brilliant and surpass the (generally) high standard of the normal scenarios you get when you purchase the game.

Appreciate the continued input, but have settled my mind that it was a Hercules with extra fuel nacelles, hopefully on its way to some sort of covert op against Wisconsin or Minnesota. Definitely a prop sound, JP Jones, which is why I ran out to look at it in the first place.

It was definitely not a Gigant, or some Blohm and Voss variant, Wicky, though I like that picture. Now, there was a time about 10 years ago when I was still living in Chicago when I was walking down the street and heard a distinctive propeller sound, and looked overhead to see a Ju 52. I was so taken that I walked into the middle of Clark Street and nearly got hit by a car, which I figure would have made me the last WW2 Luftwaffe-caused casualty.

My biggest bugbear is infantry behavior under fire, especially in bocage terrain.
The hunt movement used to work so that if a hunting unit was fired on, it immediately dropped to the ground as long as it had a hide order. Now, they run in stupid directions (as in away from good cover and straight into enemy fire). They do this regardless of the troop quality.
Equally, when units are positioned behind bocage and move out of the bocage straight towards the enemy when fired on. If they are behind bocage, it would be better if they crawled away from it while keeping the bocage between them and the enemy, or crawled along the bocage, instead of making for the nearest gap at the trot and running through it right into the enemy fire.

I find that a strange thing to say. If there's anything left of this society in 100 years, I feel sure that Hitler will be as vilified as he is today: a murderous fascist.

Ok. It didn’t take long playing the demo until I decided it was well worth the price tag. 
 
What a great game!  I’m really enjoying it. When you play on easy settings, does that make it easier to destroy enemy vehicles and easier for friendly vehicles be destroyed?  It seems pretty hard to show your face and survive. 

Never gets properly dark when you have a burning wicker man to light up those northern nights. Happy Solstice!

I found some screenshots of this battle
The beginning, note my strategic lack of plan.

At the end of the battle, a BMP pulls survivors from Strongpoint 1 out, covered by the sappers and a tank.

The last unit from Strongpoint 2 to pull out - there's a tank shield and behind them, their transport.

Here's the static tank, direct 155 mm penetrating hit, which must have done damage but it was still functioning. It was also hit by a 66mm to the back of the turret. Finally a Challenger got a keyhole position and did it in. As you can see it was subject to an intense artillery barrage which did not appear to do anything.

My Biggest gripe is artillery being unable  to take out armoured vehicles even direct hits, and near misses seem to do no damage, even though we had a long thread based on the Swedish tests in the 1960s which showed that near-misses did do serious damage to tanks and other armoured vehicles.  FYI most recently I had a T55 static tank which was directly hit by 2 x 155mm rounds and was not destroyed.  In a previous game a Bradley had a 122mm offmap round explode underneath it...I can only imagine it penetrated the entire vehicle. Did no damage I could perceive - it was still fighting.  I've also dropped massive barrages on vehicles and the crews don't abandon them - I would have thought that nobody would stick around in a tank, particularly an immobile one under those circumstances.
I agree about the lack of MG rounds for Syrians, but it seems that will be addressed.
It is wrong on realism grounds, and wrong on gaming ones, that is, if your force has inferior armour, you should be able to use artillery to rebalance the game by taking out enemy vehicles, but you can't.
Blast command:  I've found that you can rehighlight the command  that has gone wrong, and press Blast again and it works properly. It's a niggle, but not much more than that.

And finally, a tender has gone out for 864 virgins, by my count

I found some screenshots of this battle
The beginning, note my strategic lack of plan.

At the end of the battle, a BMP pulls survivors from Strongpoint 1 out, covered by the sappers and a tank.

The last unit from Strongpoint 2 to pull out - there's a tank shield and behind them, their transport.

I remember "Indigenes" as one of the first war movies that I really felt was authentic but those were the days before I was really into the history of WWII.
IIRC, the movie made then French president Mitterand cry and soon after he implemented a law assuring war pensions for soldiers from former colonies which they previously were denied.
Outstanding mod @mjkerner - just tried the "dusty" version and will look at the other ones later on.

Never seen that movie... on the list!