Sgt.Squarehead

Ah, maybe I was confusing Javelin with TOW-2B.....Getting old & senile!

This is generally considered one of the better references for the T-34: https://www.amazon.co.uk/T-34-Mythical-Weapon-Robert-Michulec/dp/0978109104 Kinda pricey these days though.

So are you actually going to play it now?

Cool.....I also have a kit for the T-64BM2. I'd kinda like to do one of the Congo T-64s too.

That's how it defeats shaped charges, not EFPs.....I believe Javelin uses an EFP.

What heresy is this?

Drones are typically a wee bit smaller than a Ju.88! This might be an option:

Could you point me to some reliable info (with good quality detail images) of this variant? Typically enough I finally get all the bits & pieces to make a decent 1/72 BM Bulat and Ukraine drops them!

I'd trust the Tank Museum on this (they ain't your average museum and they have very knowledgeable neigbours). https://www.google.com/maps/place/The+Tank+Museum/@50.6950079,-2.2449529,18.17z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x4872552b9490d04d:0x3b0785b71b79cf5b!8m2!3d50.6949825!4d-2.243119 And no.....I don't mean Monkeyworld (much as I love it)!

Silly hats are all the rage, it seems! Suspect we'll see sandbags stacked on them when the tanks are in fixed defences. PS - It amused me that in the first video, the presenter immediately starts talking away about brand new T-72B3Ms, while the video is simultaneously showing a comparatively uncommon T-72B1 obr.1986.

Very creative thinking as ever dude, interested to hear/see your conclusions.

+1

TBH I'm not seeing any real contradictions between your positions.....The M4 was certainly popular with some units, others preferred the T-34, their relative merit is so close as to be difficult to measure. TBH I'm just glad I can now choose to use whichever I want in CM.

No worries, I sincerely wish you well with them and look forward to playing them. I was proposing making a minor tweak to the scenario myself and then forwarding it to you for your approval.....As I said it would be purely cosmetic, no changes to the force structure or AI (this would probably have to be a Red Only variant, at least initially, as changes to the reinforcement timings and locations would obviously profoundly affect any Red AI).

It's not a problem with the scenario per-se, it's the disposition of the initial units and especially the reinforcements. I really want to play this through, I can feel there's a complex and well laid out defence to pick my way through and all the assets to do so are provided (the AT teams turned up just as I was thinking, I could really use the Battalion AT Assets right now). There are just some (IMHO easily fixable) issues with getting those assets into play. Is it OK to chat by PM?

I had two infantry platoons and a weapons platoon plus all the BRDMs over the river, advancing in parallel along the lower two roads through the woods. I had to race my message relay platoon HQ back to his BTR to warn them of a Bradley on the lower road as one groups was in danger of blundering into it (I play by very strict C2 rules), fortunately the message got through in time and to my amazement they took it out with a point-blank Saxhorn shot. I was in dire need of man portable AT systems to clear the left side (firing from the right) so when my AT assets appeared they were ordered to advance to known dead ground ready to begin deploying.....They never made it! Two of the BTRs dumped their move orders when they realised they were looking straight down the bore of a L7, but BTRs don't have smoke and they were already on the map edge so fat lot of good that did, it just made them easier targets! In the same turn (it always happens like that) a TOW got through all the trees hitting a T-62 in the turret.....As there were now eight T-62s in that location (through no choice of mine), all unbuttoned (that was my mistake) it didn't end well at all! With my freshly delivered AT assets now cooking off inside their transports and a third of my tanks half blinded, before I could ever develop my main plan, I rage quit.

That was what I was trying to determine without setting up (yet another) test scenario myself.....Many thanks to @Artkin for doing so. Looks like it should be possible to use CM:BS to model a contemporary scuffle without too much difficulty.....With a few mods it could be pretty convincing.

I'd agree CM:SF2 is by far the most comprehensive of the modern titles (especially if you buy the big bundle), however I wouldn't agree that it's the best de-bugged. Red C2 is still a mess and the Uncons could use some major re-working (C2 issues again and a severe lack of Specialist Units & Single Vehicles).. That being said, it really wouldn't take very much to sort it out.....I live in hope.

Why not? It would make for some interesting battles & I bet @George MC could do an awesome job of the maps!

AT Assets (BTRs with SPG-9 Teams).....Spawn up on the right side in direct LOS to a (in my case previously unspotted) M60, I got to give them a sum total of one order before they were effectively hors de combat! I can see you added some extra trees to the initial deployment area, but it still doesn't fully block LOS.....TOWs (& possibly tank rounds) were still being fired into the deployment area in my most recent play through (I can only assume the US force doesn't have artillery, or that the units with LOS to the Soviet setup area don't have access to it, or our deployment area would be shelled to pieces in a few turns). Once again a TOW (miraculously, given its guidance) eventually got through all those trees and hit a T-62, wounding several nearby TCs into the bargain. Then there's the traffic Jam when the main reinforcement arrives.....As the player by now knows that the area is under observation, disentangling these units becomes a rather fraught task. I'm finding this scenario very frustrating, You just don't have enough mass to push down the main road until the reinforcements turn up. But when they arrive you have to spend several turns unpicking the units from the traffic jam, with TOW (& possibly tank rounds) whistling into the area all the while. Maybe I'm just having bad luck, but it's very consistent bad luck, through over half a dozen play throughs of two different versions of the scenario. Scouting is also difficult with the forces at hand (the BRDMs still lack recon teams & a HQ and thus any proper C2 links to the main formation). While it's easy enough to get spots on US units on the left hand hill from the buildings on the right, it's extremely hard to report it up the C2 network as vehicles with radios dare not approach many of the better spotting locations.....I had a platoon commander dashing back & forth in an attempt to keep higher units informed. @ASL Veteran Please don't take this as an attack.....It surely ain't that. I know how much effort goes into making something like this, but I'm equally aware that as a designer it's possible to miss the obvious because of sheer over familiarity with one's own project. This is my absolute favourite map in CM:CW (thus far at least) and I'm just finding it very frustrating that I'm having such a **** time with the stock scenario set on it. I'm probably going to make my own modification of this scenario, with almost exactly the same forces, I'm just going to restructure the deployment and reinforcements, nothing more. I won't even look at the AI as I have absolutely no problems with what I'm seeing there.

S'Bovvy.....Innit! David's a really nice bloke too. The Tank Museum has an impressive library, with some really unusual (and for me unexpected) things in it.....The items that surprised me the most were a large selection of hand embroidered greetings cards(?) sent by WWI tank crew to their sweethearts back in the UK (& no, I didn't get that the wrong way round).

I thought this had been looked at? All the damned reinforcements seem to been placed with the deliberate intent to get them shot at before the player can ever use them. Seriously, how much effort would it be to put them in a bit of dead ground? It's all very well saying it's for the shock effect of Soviet doctrine, but that cuts no ice at all when you have an AT platoon in BTRs spawning in front of a bloody tank! PS - Just out of interest, what difficulty level was this tested at? It's immensely difficult to relay information.

Not sure if it goes through or gets deflected and goes through the floor.....Certainly looks impressive.

Here's an interesting tale of vehicles that seem to be very much out of their place & time: https://wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/2019/09/08/why-there-is-a-wwii-vehicle-at-chernobyl/

Doubt it TBH.....PGM effects against armour have been the subject of many discussions. Maybe give it a try, I'd be interested to know how it goes, but I wouldn't expect too much.