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Probably not. Chris said that he'd let us know when the Final Candidate stage begins, and as far as I know that hasn't happened yet. He also said that when this stage starts there will be about a week until the release.

To be honest, I don't think the different levels makes a huge difference anyway. It's not like things are becoming super challenging at the higher levels, it's mostly about spotting becoming just a little bit harder. So, playing at Elite level should not be a very big deal, at least it isn't for me.

Awesome idea. It seems that early access/beta testing is getting more and more common. Why not give access to everyone that is pre-ordering? Having a lot more testers with different computer systems should help contribute to bugs being found and fixed a lot sooner. As an example, with this system I'm sure that Red Thunder would never have been released with the infamous building entry bug.

No, it was probably just the normal target arcs you saw.

Well, considering how the US/UKR infantry got slaughtered by the BMPs at the start of this AAR, even in the forrest, I would not be so sure that sending in the infantry rather than the tanks would be a good idea. Those airburst rounds from the BMPs are deadly as hell.

Great!

Does anyone know if there will be a stream tonight?

"Middle of the Month", that's from about Jan 10 to Jan 20, right? So, the release should be somewhere between a couple of days to a couple of weeks away. Hopefully closer to the former than the latter.

The Abrams weighs almost 20 tons more than the T-90, that says it all about the armour. The T-90 is not nearly as likely to survive a hit. And yes, some of the weight difference is because the T-90 is a bit smaller, and have one less crew man. But that also means that the vital areas and systems are closer together, so any penetrating hit will likely do more damage. This was one of the main reasons why the T-72 was shown to have such poor survivability. The T-90 is just an upgraded version of the T-72, and the Abrams have also been upgraded and improved since the Gulf War.

The Javelin has a dual warhead to defeat ERA, so this will not make any difference. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FGM-148_Javelin#Warhead

Thanks George MC! Those are some very interresting links, especially that post busting the way too widespread myth that the T-34 was "the best tank of WWII". The T-34 certainly is the most overrated tank ever.

Yes, it does, it was pretty much blind. In combat, the gunner/commander was usually on the gun sight, with the overhead hatch closed. This meant he had no ability at all to scan around for targets. There are plenty of German accounts describing how the early T-34s were just driving straight ahead, completly unaware of what was going on around them.

Of course, I should have realized that. Thanks for clearing that up.

A bit of an exaggeration, sure, but the Syrians were using Russian equipment and Russian combat doctrine, so...

What is this 6th Power you are talking about?

I have, by having my inbox spammed with a new message for each new reply to a followed thread recently. So, I guess that means I have to choose between getting spammed or only getting a daily digest update then.

Yeah, but I like the old way, getting an immediate notification when there is a reply, and then nothing more until I visit the thread, even if there are more replies before I visit the thread. So, there are now only two choices, either an email message for each new reply, or just getting a daily/weekly digest once a day or week?

It seems that with this new forum, there is an email notification sent out with every post of a followed thread. Is there any way to get back the old function, where only one message is sent out until the thread is visited? Kind of annoying to open the email inbox and see 10-20 emails for a single followed thread.

There are also some vehicles that are able to volley fire 2 ATGMs at a target. This was shown in ChrisNDs latest Twitch stream (also available on Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/user/NormalDude1066)

Sure, some A-10:s will make it back rather than get shot down, but other than bringing the pilot back, the result will be the same. They will be out of the fight for quite some time, while being repaired/rebuilt. Yes, like I said it works well enough in a non threat environment like Iraq or Afghanistan, but once the A-10:s start not showing up because they are shot down (or shot up and withdrawn for repairs), they'll start swearing at it instead. (I apologize for going off topic, I will not make any more replies on this subject.)

Maybe slightly off topic, but here we see the reason why the US Air Force wants to retire the A-10. It is simply not survivable in the face of modern AA systems. It works great in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, dropping bombs on insurgents that can't shoot back, but the Air Force doesn't want to keep an aircraft that would be pretty much totally useless in a fight against a more modern opponent. Some people clearly don't understand this though, as evidenced by the very vocal campaign to keep the A-10 in service.

This workaround is no substitute for a real "shoot and scoot" order. You have no control over the timing, and you are forced to guess how long the unit will take to fire. If your guess is not extremely accurate, the unit is either going to move before firing, or stay in place for several seconds after the shot, with the increased risk of being killed.

Awesome!

A move to the Pacific is a great idea for the future, both for WWII and a modern setting, maybe Taiwan? Or maybe a Taiwan scenario wouldn't be such a good idea. Then we'd probably see a real life Chinese invasion around the time of the release of the game.

No argument here, I totally agree. But the point was that Stagler wasn't interrested in bashing insurgents, but wanted some real opposition. And we're not getting that from the Syrians in Shock Force, but perhaps we'll get it from the Russians. Maybe.