Ryujin

You can also find some real footage. Chieftain: 
 
vs an A2
 

This has to be one of the weirdest debates I've seen on this forum.

"Don't compromise the game as a tactical simulator" is always an odd argument. Making the game look better isn't going to compromise it. Adding better performance, models, animation won't change how it works under the hood. 
The other aspect is tons of things already compromise it as a tactical simulator for user experience. You get a god perspective of everything, instant perfect information, replays, and a flawless robotic level of command and control. CM is a great strategy game with many realistic aspects, but getting too concerned with "tactical simulator" doesn't make a lot of sense when you're playing ww2 scenarios with the tactical control of the borg and doing things that would be literally impossible for a real commander. A few changes for user experience aren't going to make a big difference. 

Doesn't seem like the T-64s were turned out or hull down. There's a lot of factors here so it's hard to really tell the spotting, but the T-64s shouldn't really be at a disadvantage with optics AFAIK. Being turned out, sitting in position, crew quality, and information sharing probably favored the M60s shooting first. Once they shot the T-64s didn't really have anywhere to go but slowly backwards, so they kept getting hit. The T-64 is a good tank, but I don't think the outcome seemed that strange in this situation. 

Doesn't seem like the T-64s were turned out or hull down. There's a lot of factors here so it's hard to really tell the spotting, but the T-64s shouldn't really be at a disadvantage with optics AFAIK. Being turned out, sitting in position, crew quality, and information sharing probably favored the M60s shooting first. Once they shot the T-64s didn't really have anywhere to go but slowly backwards, so they kept getting hit. The T-64 is a good tank, but I don't think the outcome seemed that strange in this situation. 

"Don't compromise the game as a tactical simulator" is always an odd argument. Making the game look better isn't going to compromise it. Adding better performance, models, animation won't change how it works under the hood. 
The other aspect is tons of things already compromise it as a tactical simulator for user experience. You get a god perspective of everything, instant perfect information, replays, and a flawless robotic level of command and control. CM is a great strategy game with many realistic aspects, but getting too concerned with "tactical simulator" doesn't make a lot of sense when you're playing ww2 scenarios with the tactical control of the borg and doing things that would be literally impossible for a real commander. A few changes for user experience aren't going to make a big difference. 

"Don't compromise the game as a tactical simulator" is always an odd argument. Making the game look better isn't going to compromise it. Adding better performance, models, animation won't change how it works under the hood. 
The other aspect is tons of things already compromise it as a tactical simulator for user experience. You get a god perspective of everything, instant perfect information, replays, and a flawless robotic level of command and control. CM is a great strategy game with many realistic aspects, but getting too concerned with "tactical simulator" doesn't make a lot of sense when you're playing ww2 scenarios with the tactical control of the borg and doing things that would be literally impossible for a real commander. A few changes for user experience aren't going to make a big difference. 

A large part of this is also that they use their own engine like many wargames, which means that they have to create and maintain any engine features themselves. While there are advantages in being able to make it however you like from the ground up and not paying royalties, I'm not sure that's worth losing out on all the tools, rendering, and performance benefits for a small team. 
Realistically I'd expect any graphics or performance upgrades are going to be super painful for them. Maybe someday we'll get a tactical wargame on built on modern tech. 

Some other things.
M60's commander's cupola while being a weak spot does have some advantages. 
-Has higher magnification, can reload the .50 from inside. M1 is lower magnification (good for most shooting, not good for spotting) 
-Has a night vision sight and big forward unity sight, M1 commander doesn't have his own night vision sight. 
-M1 has better vision blocks, where as the ones in the M60 are tiny. 
While both tanks don't have great visibility by modern standards, from SB experience it generally feels like you get a bit better visibility from inside with the M60 as the commander. In the M1 you're pretty blind turned in. In CM you'd probably want the commander opened up all the time, unlike the later M1A2s. 
Fire control wise, the M1 has as digital fire control where as the M60A3 TTS is built on top of old tech. M1 is going to be better at lead, firing on the move, stuff like that. If you look at the M60A3 switchology, you can see there's more manual steps. 
M1's gunners sight is one of the highest things on the tank (on the roof, no commanders cupola), so you can peek from turret down with it without exposing much. Never really tested how well this works in CM.

You can also find some real footage. Chieftain: 
 
vs an A2
 

You can also find some real footage. Chieftain: 
 
vs an A2
 

Slowly circling over soviet troops in a cargo plane would be a real short flight. 

yes nothing inspires confidence like an armored tent.

Pretty sure none of the soviet equipment. The US on the other hand should have access to some thermal sights from the start of the time frame on the M60 TTS and all the TOW launchers (I think), becoming more common later. So pre M1/M2 that should be a big advantage for the US to counter the latest soviet armor. I feel like you're going to be relying on your TOWs a lot. 

Slowly circling over soviet troops in a cargo plane would be a real short flight. 

yes nothing inspires confidence like an armored tent.

Thickest armor is still the turret front by far. You don't want to be taking hits to the hull (which for many tanks is were most of the ammo is as well). Ideally you don't want to sit hull down and trade shots, but scope for targets turret down if you can, pop up to hull down to engage, then move. This limits the amount of tank and time exposed while only showing the best armor, which is even more important with accurate and powerful ammo flying around. 
At this time frame there isn't the same line up of super ammo and thermals are just coming in. The original M1 is good, but it really is a "beta" version of the M1, without the many armor upgrades and the same 105 and ammo as your M60s. Things should be more lethal than ww2, but not at shock force/black sea levels of M1s punching through anything they come across. 
Having used the original M1/M60A3 a bunch in steel beasts, it'll be interesting to see how they perform in CM, but I expect the tank fights could easily go to either side.
I think the big thing you'll need to get used to is DPICM (and ICM to a degree). Tanks getting wiped out by artillery is going to be a big shift and you can't just park somewhere and cover an angle safely like in WW2. 

Slowly circling over soviet troops in a cargo plane would be a real short flight. 

Slowly circling over soviet troops in a cargo plane would be a real short flight. 

Slowly circling over soviet troops in a cargo plane would be a real short flight. 

Thickest armor is still the turret front by far. You don't want to be taking hits to the hull (which for many tanks is were most of the ammo is as well). Ideally you don't want to sit hull down and trade shots, but scope for targets turret down if you can, pop up to hull down to engage, then move. This limits the amount of tank and time exposed while only showing the best armor, which is even more important with accurate and powerful ammo flying around. 
At this time frame there isn't the same line up of super ammo and thermals are just coming in. The original M1 is good, but it really is a "beta" version of the M1, without the many armor upgrades and the same 105 and ammo as your M60s. Things should be more lethal than ww2, but not at shock force/black sea levels of M1s punching through anything they come across. 
Having used the original M1/M60A3 a bunch in steel beasts, it'll be interesting to see how they perform in CM, but I expect the tank fights could easily go to either side.
I think the big thing you'll need to get used to is DPICM (and ICM to a degree). Tanks getting wiped out by artillery is going to be a big shift and you can't just park somewhere and cover an angle safely like in WW2. 

Thickest armor is still the turret front by far. You don't want to be taking hits to the hull (which for many tanks is were most of the ammo is as well). Ideally you don't want to sit hull down and trade shots, but scope for targets turret down if you can, pop up to hull down to engage, then move. This limits the amount of tank and time exposed while only showing the best armor, which is even more important with accurate and powerful ammo flying around. 
At this time frame there isn't the same line up of super ammo and thermals are just coming in. The original M1 is good, but it really is a "beta" version of the M1, without the many armor upgrades and the same 105 and ammo as your M60s. Things should be more lethal than ww2, but not at shock force/black sea levels of M1s punching through anything they come across. 
Having used the original M1/M60A3 a bunch in steel beasts, it'll be interesting to see how they perform in CM, but I expect the tank fights could easily go to either side.
I think the big thing you'll need to get used to is DPICM (and ICM to a degree). Tanks getting wiped out by artillery is going to be a big shift and you can't just park somewhere and cover an angle safely like in WW2. 

Thickest armor is still the turret front by far. You don't want to be taking hits to the hull (which for many tanks is were most of the ammo is as well). Ideally you don't want to sit hull down and trade shots, but scope for targets turret down if you can, pop up to hull down to engage, then move. This limits the amount of tank and time exposed while only showing the best armor, which is even more important with accurate and powerful ammo flying around. 
At this time frame there isn't the same line up of super ammo and thermals are just coming in. The original M1 is good, but it really is a "beta" version of the M1, without the many armor upgrades and the same 105 and ammo as your M60s. Things should be more lethal than ww2, but not at shock force/black sea levels of M1s punching through anything they come across. 
Having used the original M1/M60A3 a bunch in steel beasts, it'll be interesting to see how they perform in CM, but I expect the tank fights could easily go to either side.
I think the big thing you'll need to get used to is DPICM (and ICM to a degree). Tanks getting wiped out by artillery is going to be a big shift and you can't just park somewhere and cover an angle safely like in WW2. 

I'd argue it makes it more interesting and different than just not touching on it at all in cold war turned ww3. Both sides expected that any conventional warfare would realistically be happening often in nuclear and chemical contamination. A hypothetical soviet invasion would be crossing nuked terrain, a lot doctrine and equipment from the time is based around that. While yes obviously a tactical nuke is outside the scope of CM, battles happening in the aftermath aren't. It isn't critical but would add a different dimension from the other settings. 
Of course if you want to be accurate to how MAD turned out you can play the NTC campaign, then close the game and say to yourself 'And then nothing happened'. 

While obviously challenging to implement, no cold war WW3 scenario is truly complete without it. Contamination making any casualties KIAs, forcing vehicles with NBC overpressure systems to stay buttoned up, reducing non-radio communication, and quickly tiring troops in NBC gear. Seems like it would be more impactful for scenarios than EW (as you always have perfect command and control anyway). I don't think it'd need to be more detailed than a battlefield being "contaminated" or not. Isn't critical but seems like something that could be an interesting aspect to the setting for possible expansions, but seems like it'd need some thought as to how it's implemented.