DreDay

I appreciate your points, but I just find it difficult to agree with most of them. You are making an assumption that conscripts by definition are poorly motivated and suffer from low morale. That absolutely does not have to be the case, there are TONS of examples of conscripted soldiers (whether Russian, Ukrainian, Israeli, or Vietnam era American) fighting till the last drop of blood. Likewise, there are plenty of examples of professional soldiers failing to show any valor or resiliency. As for the destroyed house example, several posters have already explained that events like this are a bit abstracted. Think of it as RPG gunner waiting out the bombardment in the safety of building's basement and then coming outside to engage the enemy tank when the shelling had stopped....

If you are talking about the CMBS stroyline and not current events; Russian army would have absolutely no choice but to send conscripts into Ukraine. It's not like the have seperate "professional" and conscript formations. Except for a few rapid reaction VDV battalions and some SepcOps units; all of their ground forces use both professionals and conscripts as a part of same units down to patoon level...

Nicely done good sir! You have managed to summarise every single streotype and "thinking point" that is fed to us about Russia. I am a little dissapointed not to see any mention of Polonium or homophobia; but otherwise - you got it down to the T! Bravo!!

True, but there is a flip side to that coin... Russia would never want to fight US/NATO unless its territory is attacked either. What that means is that there is a competition (that we are currently winning) on who gets their "trip-wire" forces to a disputed area first. Of course there are plenty of other factors and dynamics that go into it as well; but at this point it would be completely counterproductive for Russia (forget Putin for a second) to "get all her old lands back". They simply can not afford it neither economically, nor politically.

I have recently noticed that HW infantry teams (i.e. ATGMs, RGPs, RRs) seem to always reload their weapon before following the evade or any other move command. That leaves them extremely venerable to return fire. From what I understand, the standard SOP for most fire-and-forget systems is to fire at the target and then seek cover before reloading. I wonder if that can be addressed in one of the future patches.

That I certainly agree with. The question that many analysts ask though - Is that a good thing that we have regressed to the Cold War era dynamic? I personally find it to be a natural force of change that has occurred not because either side is evil or unjustified; but rather because that is the way that geopolitical dynamics are laid out right now. Do I find it to be a good thing... Hell no! But it is certainly not something that we have not been through before, nor is it the worst thing that could happen either, as you correctly point out.

Agreed. I have generally found AT-7s to have 60-70% accuracy rate which is quite realistic under battle conditions. I have seen them go completedly of the guidence path a few times, which I guess is supposed to represent missle failure or wire break/guidence distraction. On the overall hower, they are quite effective and reliable based on my trials.

I can't speak for AKD; but as someone who had first mentioned ZU-23-2... my shameless hint was aimed at the "insurgents/irregulars" module

John, Please note that I am reffering to 2S19M2 upgrade, rather than standard 2S19 SPA piece when speaking about MRSI capability. That particular upgrade is supposed to introduce MRSI (not sure what the Russian term is) capability. Again though, I don't particularly care about the MRSI missions in CMBS; as artillery missions are pretty abstracted right now, and 2S19M2 seems to be powerfull enough already.

Yeah I agree, Avengers are certainly a strandard piece of US close-range AAD; so it would only make sence to have them in game. Then again though, where do you draw the line? Should the Russians (and to a lesser extent Ukranians) have SA-8s, SA-15s, Pantczirs and such? AAD seems to be quite abstracted in CMBS right now; it's a bit too much abstraction to my liking and I would rather see it fixed before more AAD systems are introduced. Personally, I don't care for CAS in my scenarios that much; but I would love to see ZU-23-2 (both stationary and mounted) in future modules... more so as a ground support platform, than AAA piece.

Sir, I think you got me all wrong. I was not meaning to be a dick about it at all. Of course, all the weapon performance claims are made for "perfect path" kind of scenario. That goes without saying, and RPOs are no different in that sense. I had assumed that you know it as well as me, that's why I kinda figured that your question was a bit rhetoric and the answer was implicit. It also goes without saying that combat stress, suppression, weather conditions, battle-field effects and other factors significantly lower the performance of all weapon systems (especially pretty basic ones like RPOs); my tests were intended to simulate a "perfect path" kind of scenario, and I certainly would not expect the same performance from a badly trained and suppressed team that is under fire... So I am sorry if my reply came of as dickish, as that was not my intent - I had simply tried to re-emphasize my point that we are discussing the "best case" scenario here, which I still believe to be "nerfed" to the point of making these systems useless. BTW, another problem that I see with in-game simulation of RPOs is that they do zero damage to light armor (i.e. BTRs) - and that does not seem to be the case in real-life based both on their performance claims and their combat record...

What do you think bud? That's why I had prefaced my point by saying that my tests had involved best trained operators with no distractions (i.e. suppression, weather conditions, etc...) Look, the bottom line is - RPOs are considered to be very useful and effective by Russians (and Ukrainians) and are used a whole lot. I personally have found zero use for them in CMBS (compared to other options like RPG). Perhaps that's just me, if someone has found a worth-while way of using it - I would love to learn from their experience...

Fair enough, that has been my experience as well; even when using elite operators with no suppression or other distractions. Needless to say - that is "a bit" nerfed compared to real life performance claims...

Yep, that would make sense; as they do seem to explode on the exterior almost every single time that I use them. Just out of curiosity - how do you manage to get them to explode inside? I would imagine that you have to spot the enemy unit inside, but even then - how close do you get your RPO team to actually have them hit the window or some other opening?

Based on my experiments - RPOs do virtually no damage to troops that are positioned in open or closed-space environments. I personally find them to be pretty useless under the current engine rules; which seems to contradict the reports of their actual real-life effectiveness. Now this could be either due to poor modeling of their damage effects or due to their poor in-game accuracy that Vanir Ausf B has mentioned - either way, they seem to be pretty worthless right now. Hopefully this would be addressed by the next patch. As for their graphical effects - RPO-A/M should mostly produce lots of smoke and debris after a very quick flash. In that sense - CMBS seems to get it right. Now there are also RPO-Z and RPO-D that produce a lot more fire and smoke (respectively); but that is outside the scope of the current engine.

Realistically speaking - Russian 2S19M2 SPGs (which are present in SFBS) have a fire control system that allows for MRSI missions. However, artillery is pretty abstracted in this game right now; so I am not sure that focusing on simulating MRSI is worth the effort...

That is correct. The actual mechanics of thermobaric explosions are very complex even in relatively confined spaces. They can be negated by multiple windows (to compensate for overpressure), multiple corners (that prevent the even spread of FAE liquid), and even stainless steel appliances... still, all else considered - these are very effective weapons for clearing out buildings and bunkers and I am hoping that they would be buffed (a bit) in the next patch.

Just go to youtube and type something like "FSB Spetsnaz Combat" and watch dozens of real-life RPO usage scenarios (warning most are quite violent and 18+).

It is not an official Russian Army source, just something that I found in 30 seconds of looking; but there are plenty of other sources that point to the same information. As I've said, I've seen it in a KBP (RPO designer/manufacturer) booklet back in early 2000s. My point in posting this was not make a case for RPO-A/M being some sort of instant infantry squad killer; but rather to point out that they are significantly underpowered both against fortified personnel and light AFVs compared to reality (and God knows we have seen plenty of their usage since the mid-80s to asses such reality). I find it difficult to justify their presence in my force (either Russian or Ukrainian) right now, and all the combat footage that we see from FSU shows that they are very much in heavy use and demand...

I am not sure that I follow your point here, bud. The article that you reference draws a distinct difference between Nona-S (2S9) that has been used by VDV and Naval Infantry for several decades now and Nona-SVK (2S23) that has only been deployed to Naval Infantry and Motor-Rifle units. It's really not a big deal either way, but I have seen zero evidence of 2S23 being fielded by VDV. I might very well be wrong, so if you do have some better sources - I would love to check them out.

Nona-SVK (as opposed to Nona-S (aka 2S9)) is not in service with VDV. Some have been supplied to the Naval Infantry (as you correctly point out), but most are intended to supplement the BTR-based brigades (ie. 15th Peacekeeping brigade). However I do agree with your general premise that its AT capacity is purely for self-defense and should not be relied on for any offensive (or even defensive) missions.

I see. Good to know. Thank you for sharing that with me.

You make very good and well researched points that I generally agree with; but just out of curiosity - What does GPV stand for in this context?

This is something that I remember seeing in the promotional materials for both late-model RPO-A and RPO-M back at a time when I used to take this stuff seriously (i.e. early 2000s). I will have to look for a source, but there is a good chance that it will be in Russian, would that be ok by you? Update - Here is one (of quite a few) that I have found after a quick search. Unfortunately it's in Russian - hopefully Google-translate will do a good job with it. http://militaryrussia.ru/blog/topic-432.html On a side note, from what I remember reading in the promotional materials - the precursor has roughly 50mm RHA penetration. It is only intended to go through walls and light armor before the thermobaric charge goes off... it is not a threat to tanks or heavier IFVs.

I generally agree and support your points sir, but with one minor addition (if I may). Newer Russian thermobaric munitions (i.e. RPO-M and even late production RPO-A) have a HEAT precursor charge to penetrate walls and lighter AFVs before their main (thermobaric) charge goes off - so they are almost guaranteed to explode inside regardless of wether they hit a window or a wall...