Sandokan

See title.
Anyone else got simple advice for new players?
Here's a short list of mine:
Do not get shot at. Shooting makes you easier to see. Cover arcs are not magic. Maybe allow your troops to wait a minute before flogging them onto their objectives. Don't call in that airstrike. No seriously, don't. It'll hit your own guys. It doesn't matter how thick your armor is. You don't assault a position by running straight into it. Use more ammo, you don't get bonus points for frugality. Limit your leaders exposure. Split your squads. Three guys in one action spot are not as vulnerable as six. Maybe we can make a community contributed list Murphy's Laws of Combat Mission.
At the very least, let's have a fun thread for once.

You should show them to guests at Christmas if you think they've outstayed their welcome. 😉

Let´s hope for a january 2021 release. 12 January was the start of the Vistula-Oder operation.
 

Leap of Faith

The Battlegroup cautiously moves into a Fedayeen-held town.
 


The Fighters delay the Battlegroup's advance with hit and run attacks.
 


The Light Infantry establishes a base of fire, and breaches into the heart of Faith.
 

Mines explode, and leave a rifleman bleeding out. There is no safe way to get to him.
 


Fedayeen strong points are isolated and pounded with HEAT rounds and automatic fire.
 

The Fighters' avenue of retreat is cut off -- no way to outrun a LAV. The remaining Fighters eventually surrender.
 

An IED rocks the Leopard 1, the TC counts his blessings. Faith is under control, but there is still a long way to the region's capital.
 

Urgh! Did I write CMBS2? Probably I was still half asleep. 😕
Thanks for the heads up Erwin. Luckily the link was correct.
Vacilllator. Did you visit Pordenone? It's a small world.
The place hasn't changed a bit. Backwater as ever.

Some very good posts in this thread!  Kudos to all who contributed, you guys know your stuff.
@Flibby  I HIGHLY recommend Combat-Man's tutorial posted above.. it is simply the best thread on the topic I have seen.
For more on applying real world tactics check out my Battle Drill blog, especially the tactical Toolbox on the left hand side. 
My personal battle planning philosophy relies on:
Maintaining flexibility  Identifying the enemy formation (order of battle)  Identifying the enemy defenses and/or movements  Identifying the enemy intent  Then applying that information to enable me to hit him where he is weakest with my main combat power The key is the last bullet... if you can identify where your opponent is weak.. THAT is where you want to hit him with as much combat power as you can muster.  I do step through the above concepts in my AARs and on my blog. 
Keep attacking!  Bil

A few years ago I had the pleasure of reading Gooch's book on the emergence and peculiar nature of the Military-Fascist "interdynamic" in Mussolini's Italy and the consequences that pattern of organization had on Italy's war effort. As Gooch admitted at the the time, the book was mostly about the theory and planning phase of Fascist Rearmament of Italy through the 1920s and 30s and terminating just before 1940 when Italy jumped into the Second World War as a major combatant. At the time Gooch stated (ominously lol) that an examination of the "applied" effort of Italy in the World War would require a new, separate book. Good on his threat, Gooch's new book "Mussolini's War" has come out on Amazon Kindle as of December and i've begun to read it. 
Gooch's highly dialectical and sober analysis of Fascist Italy's preparations for war was a book I found both intriguing and enlightening, and gives one a pretty important perspective on how authoritarian and totalitarian states still require a functional state bureaucracy and a degree of popular consent in order to function properly. Even more crucially how a failure to ensure good cooperation and communication between arms of the state from the military to private enterprise can lead to failure and-under abnormally heavy load-catastrophic structural failure, in this case of the Italian state's war effort against the Allied powers. Under Mussolini's leadership however cooperation was a byword for weakness and the Duce-less successfully than Hitler-often attempted to play his Generals and Ministers against each other under the presumption that his own position would be strengthened by the weakening of his competitors within the highly Piedmontese-Monarchist military establishment. This was never the case. Instead Mussolini frequently found himself embroiled in inter-office disputes between the various branches of the military which served only to obfuscate and distort reality as all 3 branches of the military (air, sea, and land) lobbied against eachother to achieve the Dictator's blessing. Their own (incorrect) assumption being that Mussolini's personal backing would result in the release of state funding to secure means to achieve ends. This did not transpire either. 
In reality, Mussolini's fascist reorganization of Italy-although not lacking in brutality and ruthlessness-never achieved the level of coordination the Nazis managed in Germany who effectively turned the entire state into an apparatus of the military-industrial complex. Italy required far more in the way of consent and was especially complicated by Mussolini's decision to retain the monarchy and operate at the consent of a semi-democratic Fascist Council he chaired. This system might not have proven fatal by itself, but under Mussolini's embattled, cynical worldview it certainly proved to be. 
So i've just started the new book, (ie: Mussolini's War) on the Italian War Effort-Applied. I'll be posting my various notes and reactions to events as I go. I've already completed the section on the Abyssinian War which i'll be pointing out some notes and reactions too later on. 

Wow.....Looks like they are (kind of) giving CTS some proper respect! 
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/david-witty-paper_final_web.pdf
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/uploads/Documents/pubs/PolicyFocus157-Witty-2.pdf
But why call them 'Nineveh Swat' FFS? 
So, now you've seen the film:

Any takers? 
PS - @Combatintman  I'd be particularly interested to hear your opinion of this film. 

Looks really good.  Coming November 26:
 
https://www.netflix.com/title/81041495

One of my CoC colleagues found and posted this British Army 1983 training film on fighting the Soviet Advanced Guard. In my 11+ years as a Soviet Threat Analyst, I never saw anything like this. It's fantastic, and that's an understatement. This sort of thing was my bread and butter at Hughes Aircraft Company Missile Systems Group, since we built both TOW and Maverick and were involved in work on what eventually was the Javelin, as well as deep strike systems, such as Assault Breaker and WASP. 
 
Regards,

John Kettler

Good evening gents.
I have found and bought recently on steam this game:
 https://store.steampowered.com/app/871530/Radio_Commander/
The action take place in Vietnam and the player has only a radio and a map.
I don't know if I could call it realistic but for sure it has a fresh approach.
Anybody else has this game? Your opinion?
                                                                Sandokan

Ground pressure says 'No!' 
One of the more geeky game sites calculated the ground pressure of the various Battletech Mechs.....They might do OK on the moon, but other than that! 

Yes but not PC games.
Hoplite, Great Battles of Alexander etc.

There are lots of explanations that contribute: poor play on our and the computer's part, a misunderstanding of how different casualty rates were at he tip of the spear vs the over all numbers, various (mostly incorrect) theories about fortifications and modeling etc.
The biggest difference is that we don't act like real commanders. We press far too much and don't withdraw when we take casualties. In a real action units rarely stay and fight on and on. They pull back to fright another day or bring up extra fire power or wait for support etc.
We are playing a game so we don't do that. If you play a game with someone like @Bil Hardenberger or another professional they will tell you when they would be done in real life and trust me it is way way before most people stop. Including myself.

I am fond of target light - which for mortars is a slower rate of fire. That way you can let the team zero on the target without burning through their whole ammo supply.

Based on Alex Kershaw's book about his experiences as a company commander from up through the Italian "Boot" (including Anzio), Southern France and into Germany with the 157th regiment.
Was a really good read. The movie looks like it has added an entire dramatization that was absent in the book. The whole "dirty dozen/band of brothers" angle has been manufactured.
Still, if it stays mostly true to the book it should be a compelling visualization.
youtube trailer
 
 

I think demo charges can set off AT mines. It happened to me in "School of the hard knocks". The result was a huge crater and a KIA and a WIA among the engineers. Maybe there was't a warning sign after the explosion because there weren't other mines. But this is just my guessing.

I think demo charges can set off AT mines. It happened to me in "School of the hard knocks". The result was a huge crater and a KIA and a WIA among the engineers. Maybe there was't a warning sign after the explosion because there weren't other mines. But this is just my guessing.

I think demo charges can set off AT mines. It happened to me in "School of the hard knocks". The result was a huge crater and a KIA and a WIA among the engineers. Maybe there was't a warning sign after the explosion because there weren't other mines. But this is just my guessing.

Greetings
I wanted to let everyone know that we at Developer Dialogue had the incredible opportunity to interview the founder & creator of Battlefront.com, Stephen Grammont. During the interview we dove into the history of the Combat Mission franchise, discuss the company’s latest partnership with Slitherine and uncover some bombshells.  We also uncover why Battlefront never released on Steam, until now.
 
Special thank you to Stephen for taking part in this interview, it was an amazing experience.
 
If you guys are interested you can listen to it here:
 
YouTube: 
 
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/developer-dialogue/id1524192396 
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/33DiH9pCrcV9bVw4WeDWmS 
Google Podcasts: https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc3ByZWFrZXIuY29tL3Nob3cvNDUwNTYyMi9lcGlzb2Rlcy9mZWVk

Some brief, unstructured thoughts:
 
Broadly speaking, ATGMs are like better versions of AT Guns. They're similarly hard to see, and they're countered by many of the same things (mortars and HE fire). They're a lot faster to set up and remove, so you can shoot and scoot with them, and probably should.

The increased lethality means that you do need to relocate more often. A revealed position can often come under effective mortar fire within 5 minutes (regardless of which side you're talking about). Some US formations with crack FOs and the right equipment can reduce that to more like 2.

With modern stuff in general, it's a lot more important to read the manual. The difference between no night vision, night vision, and thermal optics are huge, and it's not easy to see from the interface - you have to do some research to really understand it. The manual is a good place to start, and wikipedia is your friend.

C2 is significantly improved. Drones take this to a whole different level, especially in black sea, but information sharing is a lot more efficient. The empty battlefield will fill up with spotting contacts fast. This is the primary strength of the US Strykers.

Basic infantry and tank tactics remain the same across periods. Everyone's got better equipment, and increased firepower, but the fundamentals are identical. There's less margin for error in the modern titles, because a single chap with an AK can give a squad a bad day.

IFVs are a mixed bag. The broad concept of the BMP is that it's shifting a large proportion of the squad's firepower into the vehicle. That makes the squad's firepower and headcount fairly anaemic by itself, and coordinating well with an IFV is tough. The same applies to blue IFVs, but to a lesser extent. Pretty much everyone has transport of some kind.

If you've done CM WWII you're 85% good to go. You'll find playing with anti tank missiles much more fun than anti tank guns. I suggest going on Youtube and watching Usually Hapless's tutorials on his channel. He'll explain what you've got and what they do. 
 

I'm shocked to hear you say most people play the game from high up in the air and rarely look at the game close-up and see its visual detail. To me Combat Mission's most appealing aspect is the ability to watch events unfold on a macro scale in WEGO, then repeat the go 1, 2, or 3 times and watch interesting events unfold from the perspective of single vehicles and even individual soldiers. For me that's the core of its uniqueness and charm.

A much simpler house rule could be: You can only move a tank to support infantry if the tank has a contact marker for the enemies it's going to shoot at.

Below is a thread discussing buddy aid that may be interesting.  Many questions were asked, discussed and answered in the thread.
 
 
 
The below was copied from the above linked thread:
WIA (red base) can turn to KIA (brown base) from additional hits.
Buddy Aid is one on one however a team can treat multiple casualties in the same A/S concurrently.
A team administering Buddy Aid will recover ammo including ammo for weapons they do not have in the team.
Buddy aid on KIA (brown base) was about 15 - 35 seconds. On WIA (red base) about 1 minute – 2 minutes 30 seconds.
Casualties only disappear if they receive Buddy Aid. I tested 2 KIA & 2 WIA for 1½ hours game time. They never disappeared.
Experience of the teams administering buddy aid did not affect the length of buddy aid or the amount of equipment recovered.
Lightly wounded (yellow base) are not counted as casualties on the AAR screen.
To share ammo recovered in buddy aid the medic team must be part of the unit (“highlighted” unit) needing the ammo.
During testing on average about 2 grenades and 170 rounds of ammo were recovered per casualty. I know from playing the game other                                equipment (radios, binoculars, some weapons etc.) can also be recovered but I did not try for that in the experiments.
WIA (red base) incapacitated wounded are not counted in Parameter/Condition but are counted in Parameter/Casualties.
Buddy aid does not make a difference to the score in Quick Battles or in Scenarios.
Buddy aid does not make a difference to the score in a Campaign.
Buddy aid may only make a difference as a tie breaker in a CM tournament . 
A little disappointed that Buddy Aid has no affect on the score. 
Buddy Aid will keep a WIA from becoming a KIA.  However both KIA and WIA are counted as casualties so the score does not change.  The AAR screen will count KIA and WIA separately but they are both counted as casualties for scoring purposes.  
Below is a method you can use to encourage your troops to administer Buddy Aid I learned this from @IanL  
If the casualty is not in or near the center of the action spot give the unit to perform buddy aid a Slow order to an action square that takes them directly over the casualty. Then I give them a pause of 20s, 30s or 45s depending on how far away the casualty is. Push the BRB. In the next command phase they will be directly over the casualty.  Then cancel the remaining Slow order and issue a Face command.