Canada Guy

Journalists, not knowing their elbow from their other elbow, have confused me to no end. I have heard two different versions - Are the Germans sending Leo 1A5s as well as Gephards as some seem to be saying or are the Gephards being confused with Leo1s as they have the same chassis and Journalists are calling the Gephards MBTs? As well, I have seen a report where Canada is sending Excalibur shells but cannot find confirmation. Any truth to that? Is it part of the M777 traunch?

Thanks - I will look again but I never have seen squad and supply variables. It would be nice to have them as choices in quick battles as well. That and setting the distribution between infantry/vehicles like they used to have in CMx1. Now when I quick pick mixed, it is almost always 100% tanks.

What about authorizing some 'privateers' - your young, smart, and willing to hack from your mothers basement, - western govts can say 'no worries, if you hack anything in Russia, we will totally ignore it' we don't authorize it but good luck to you. I think Russia has condoned hacking from its shores for years without fear of repercussions as long as it was against the west so why not just give every 4th year comp sci grad a new summer project.

Grey Fox, yes, i know it is from 2015 showing a possible 2017 war but allowing more variability in quick battles would.allow us to portary the current situation. Russia would not have been any better then but having some pull down menus to allow this variability would not force us to treat Russia as supermen. If you want Russia to be near-peer ok, if not ok. And I dont think you can reduce men per squad or ammo levels in quick battle. It would be a nice variable.

Love BS but i never really played it until now. What i am playing though seems very much different from reality. This is not Battlefront's fault as we all bought into the fiction Russian juggernaut competancy. weapon systems are mostly accurate (save a few items that were theoretical and were not fielded) but the level of Russian competency is so over-rated. I would love to see a 2022 update but To make this closer to reality, some things would need to change. I just finished 'Shield Of Kiev' campaign and I got shallacked my first run through of the final battle. Went back and looked at some of the turns and the Russians perform extraordinarily. Wiping out 5 of 6 russian squad members and just rattled, almost always sighting before I did, arty that was so accurate, my squads were torn apart if I stayed in place for more then 5 minutes. What we need to quick battles to allow for greater accuracy of this situation - pull down menu for supply (depleted, adequate, full, over supply) so you get get less ammo if depleted as example - pull down menu for general morale - pull down menu for squad strength depleted 50-60%, average 70-90%, full 100% - it seems like Russians and UA are never full strength - pull down for vehicle condition (to represent units that have taken some damage (maybe tires are degraded or someone has sold off your thermal imager) - if immobilized, regular, green or conscript crews will abandon vehicles (even if bogged) - Russian squads are always rattled/nervous if not in contact with CiC - default would always be full but at least you could represent some of these current conditions

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I hate my phone - ignore these double posts

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A few thoughts - the Russian forces are used to having quantity as the determining factor, as quantity has a quality all of its own. They used this method in WWII and in almost every other war they have fought (e.g. Georgia, Afghan). Once they could not afford to field an army in the millions, the doctrine of weight lost its ability to fight a near peer. - the Russians do have the ability to adapt, but it takes years as the system is resistant to change and there has to be some big setbacks to force change (all militaries tend to be change resistant but this goes above and beyond as corruption is the lifeblood of this leadership, changing the system takes away big money). It took a few years in Afghan but at a tactical level is did become more proficient against a disorganized and fractured foe - air-mobile troops funneling jihadis into kill zones. They were still crap but they became better than their opponent. Not a chance here as both time and the proficiency of the UA is working against them. - The Soviet/Russian system is plan oriented and not goal oriented (Look at Egypt in the Arab-Israeli wars). You work towards the written plan, not the goal. But this is the better choice in a system with top down leadership. Authoritarian systems cannot allow a flexible structure as it may lead to an independent officer corp which creates greater problems. - as with an independent officer corp, you also cannot allow your citizens to see the dynamism in a flexible near state. Russia cannot allow an independent Ukraine, China cannot allow a democratic Taiwan nor a democratic North Korea. - How does a country with GDP smaller than Canada cause so much trouble? I can only imagine the power Russia would have had if it would have turned its focus onto enhancing its own society. A successful Russia with 4 x the GDP (just to be on par with Canada let alone the USA) would have actually created a counter-point to America and could have joined/directed the EU as Germany does today. It could have had respect, power, a rich and stable society. But perhaps it is better to reign in hell than to serve in heavan.

After reading this religiously, I am always impressed with the level of knowledge and access to detail in this forum. I am again 15 pages behind so hope I am not regurgitating the same discussion. This war though has caught me off guard with how bad the Russians are performing. I did not think they were up to the standard of the US military but . . . I wrote my Masters Thesis on the Soviet army in Afghanistan and did see evidence of a change in tactics and improvements in performance over the 10 years as they implemented needed reforms, especially if you compare their performance in the first years of the war against their performance during the Apr 1985-86 offensives with their enhancement of CI/Air mobile units etc.. My mistake was to assume that improvement is continuous and that the Russian force today was much better trained than in the 1980s based upon the lessons of the past. What I see though are the same problems; relying upon an untrained conscript NCO corp, fighting a guerrilla war with no real interior lines, and allowing the enemy to attack supply lines such that eventually 35% of all combat power was devoted to securing those supply lines. The Soviets always fell back upon increased intensity of firepower to compensate – exactly what you are seeing in Ukraine. “It was a tactical fight that demanded tactical flexibility [and] the Soviets had to reinvent tactics in the middle of the conflict’ [Lester Grau]. They don’t even have a sympathetic puppet regime to absorb much of the casualties. There is a good article in the Atlantic with an interview of a foreign volunteer which paints much the same picture. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/american-volunteer-foreign-fighters-ukraine-russia-war/627604/ I see there being a need to adjust CM to take into account a nations model of operations where a top down model should be penalized if C3 is not rigidly maintained way more severely than one that relies upon a professional NCO corp (most Western armies, Germany 1939-43 vs Soviet/Russian/Arab forces). The Soviets/Russians seem to be paralyzed when C3 is broken and they wander in the woods with disastrous consequences. Another book that I really enjoyed was 'Armies of Sand (Kenneth Pollack) that goes over the same type of analysis and comes to very similar conclusions.

Halmbarte, I am wondering if your problem with your Vulcan crew not being able to bail is also related to one of mine oddities. My ZSU-34-4 killed a Vulcan but it did not appear to die and ZSU never got credit. US unit appeared to remain active for 3 additional turns after status changed to knocked out. Then another of my units fired upon it which killed the remaining crew member. For those 3 turns status = 'knocked out' but the icon remained - which usually disappears after a vehicle is knocked out. Do crew not bail now when their unit is 'knocked out' and until they do, the killing unit does not gain credit for the kill?

Vanir Ausf B Here is the save file for the same minute. https://www.dropbox.com/s/fovovirp5rt865u/Quick Battle (Soviet 1A) 014.bts?dl=0

Running CMCW through Steam (v1.03) and the game I am playing has 2 oddities. 1. BTR-60PA (1Co - 2nd Pl) - engine was knocked out but it kept driving 2. ZSU-34-4 - killed multiple 113s but it did not get credit for the kills. I counted 3 and only got credit for 1 x M113 but did get credit for the crews inside the M113. All kills were solo. https://www.dropbox.com/s/rt17ug32t7s6ajn/Quick Battle (Bug Report).bts?dl=0 I hope this link works as this is the first time I have tried this.

MOS:96B2P - thanks. Removing 'Display Pointer Tails' brought my cursor back. Strange that it worked the first time I had this checked yes and then it didn't with the same settings. This did the trick though - appreciated.

My mouse cursor just disappears as well when I fire up F&R. It worked fine yesterday but had to restart computer and now the scroll wheel works and the keyboard buttons work but not the mouse cursor. The cursor exists, you just cannot see it as if I move it around a bit, it will highlight battle QB etc. Can get into scenarios but the problem is that I cannot use the keyboard when get the highlighted scenario to start as even highlighted, you cannot 'enter' to start the scenario. I was trying to see if it came back when you get to the game screens. It works in all other apps I have open, except for CM F&R (I do not have the other games installed to check other CM games)

Pre-ordered. looks like they are closing in on the 1000 mark for pre-orders.

Having written my thesis on Soviet-Afghan War 79-89, I would love to see an update to this module, having watched 'Valley of Tears', I think I am a convert to Arab-Israeli Wars and now just having finished The Iran-Iraq War by Pierre Razoux, I am really torn - and then there is the entire Korean War that has been much ignored. The good thing about this entire Cold War Base Game is this is exactly what we have been asking for, but writ-small. There has been chatter about having one main engine for all CM games for years but this is sort of that concept but for the time frame of 49-89 (hopefully). We could see all four of my favourites released as modules and then mix and match. I ordered F&R last week, CW this week, and will need to figure out a way to tell my wife next week.

In the video - Did the halftrack flamethrower take out the Russian tank? Or was it hit by a shell at the same time (as I had thought that flamethrowers were useless against tanks)

I was reading BluesNews today and found that BattleFront is being attributed as the authors of Theatre of War 2: Kursk 1943 https://www.bluesnews.com I don't think this is right but thought I would check. Jason

That is one module I would like to see. I am thinking of writing my thesis on the Russo-Finnish War 1939-40 and it would make a great addition to CM. It has so many things in it that would make CM exciting (BTs, T-26s, ski troops, molotovs).

My understanding is that small arms fire does not cause friendly casualties. HE, arty, etc. will - so anything that explodes but not projectiles from friendly fire. I could be wrong though but I thought I read that a few years ago.

So I deleted again and downloaded the full installer (v2.0) and ran that. All text is good. Ran the v2.1 patch and checked and text is still good. Data file now looks like this. I notice that the v101.brz now exists in the main folder (while before it was in a subfolder). Weird. It must be that the Engine 4 upgrade for BS must be doing something odd like adding the BRZs into a subfolder. Well, will actually try a game tomorrow and see if the game itself runs properly and can then start to add my favourite mods.

I uninstalled and reinstalled each patch. 1.0 -> 1.03 -> 2.0 -> 2.1 The game has differing values in 1.0 but they were fixed in 1.03. They went wonky again in 2.0 and stayed wonky in 2.1. I checked the quick battle screens after each install and only 1.03 worked as expected. I have not installed any Mods. Here is my CM:Black Sea directory I had deleted all files associated with Black Sea (incl those in the documents folder). I am now going to delete everything again and download the full Black Sea install and see what happens (rather than try the 1.0 -> 2.1 install). I do notice though that after I have deleted and reinstalled, it is not asking me for my activation code so that must be saved permanently.

There seems to be a little problem with labels for CM:Black Sea. I just installed (all the way up to v2.1) and the labels are crazy. In the quickbattle screen as well as the in game labels. Combat force choices are JPz IVs, MG4s or Armoured Knights. My Bradleys are carrying 2 x King Tigers each (who knew they were so roomy) which my troops can aquire (turning out to be Javelins). Has anyone ever seem this behavior before? Jason

I had to post this. I have never seen 1 tank take out 4 targets with 1 shell. SU-85 vs 3 x Puma and 1 x 250/9