Hister

From a little something i'm working on...

CM games work on a real basis, nothing like most rts games which give a fictional value x to armor or weapons.
In those games, if X is armor and Y is weapon, if X>Y the vehicle survives, if X<Y the vehicle dies. Rock paper scissors, just that.
 
In CM games there are a lot more variables taken into account, thus reducing the rng (random number generation - casuality) a lot.
 
This means that the armor of a vehicle is modelled as the real vehicle, for example: front armor is stronger than side armor, front armor can have weak points, there are different armor thicknesses based upon the precise spot etc. but their values are based upon reality (as much as references can give or proof or are estimated by devs). Same goes for the weapon systems, many calculations are taken into account when the game needs to decide what happens when a given weapon (or projectile) hits a given armor location.. angles of impact, technical characteristics of the projectile, speed etc. And the armor can be of very different kinds or have different layers (armor-era-spaced-stand off etc.)
 
Moreover, vehicles have Subsystems and crew that can be damaged or destroyed, thus influencing the said vehicle capabilities.
 
About ERA, example:
If an ERA block is hit, and works as it was designed, said block will be not visibile anymore in the 3d model of the vehicle and it won't be there the next time a projectile might hit there..
 
About the challenger, we have M1A2 SEP v2 now in game, and while being very difficult to destroy it's not at all an invincible tank.
 
In the interface you might notice some level bars and color indications (dots) which you might think give a value to some characteristics such as speed, acceleration, armor protection etc. but keep in mind those are only generic visual aids for the non-expert player intended to give a broad idea of what's what.
 
So, in the end, CM is a ton time more complex than you initially thought.

Generally a lack of warfare is preferred in both polite, and professional circles.  
 
Re: Leo 2
 
I do hate the fan club.  It's a good tank.  Not even a "good" tank, nope, it's quite well designed and capable.  But it has this following wherein simply repeating Deutch qualitat at increasing volumes, and talking about German armor in World War Two is enough to prove the Leo 2 is the best tank to ever tank.  
 
Statement: "Best Tanks"
 
Entirely depends on who you are, and what you're doing, and what your military is capable of supporting.  The Abrams is awesome, but I wouldn't want to try to support an Abrams fleet as Columbia or something.  The Merkava is a great example of something that's very powerful in its niche, but pretty "eh" outside of it (granted, 100% it's going to do all its fighting in said niche, so that rather makes sense).   The more practical reality is if the Leo 2 was the M2A5 Leopard, and the M1 was the <insert german name here>, in the hands of similar personnel, the US Army wouldn't be stronger or weaker for having Leos, or the German Army much worse off for being M1 users (Green party objections to DU, and fuel consumption excepted)   

I hope that T-90 will one day be able to prove itself in real tank to tank combat hopefully against the Leopard 2,
If the T-90 beats the Leopard 2 that will shut up the Leo Fanboys up for awhile.

I hope that T-90 will never be able to prove itself in a real tank to tank combat, because that will mean a war against a country operating that tank.

I think time constraints prevent him from doing so. He does probably follow all the conflict zones but not at such detail as with the Ukrainian one. Since Ukraine is directly connected to his work (CMBS) he probably had to spend so much time on it plus it's obvious this is not only work but also his passionate hobby. 
 
Correct Steve?  
 
I must say I really enjoy reading his insights about Ukraine written in previous and in this thread. Quite remarkable he is doing this. Not many developers out there of any game type that would be so active on the forums not to say Steve is rather unique in that I don't know of any other who would be discussing such topics.

Before and After!
 

Been making short clip videos with a PBEM I'm having...great stuff, awesome mods:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpVl78FqYjk
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60_SUFFhukk
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX6diHjM4jA
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_unryacwG8
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZFjogyxneU
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0m_rSqrKwI
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkUw3qv480Q
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1bohC6bDJc

Wall-E, is that you?
 

A must have game family.

Such an interesting question; I started a similar thread about this.
 
I am tempted to fight the perfect battle, to make all the right calls, to preserve my own forces while achieving all tactical goals and eliminating the enemy's ability to resist my genius as a commander.  The problem is that if you accomplish this by reloading turns (i.e. taking "mulligans") it becomes a Pyrrhic victory and you're gaming the game.  It is much more satisfying to take your lumps and, as other people have suggested, settle for a tactical victory; after all, what real-life commander would not settle for that rather than a loss?
 
I played the first mission in the US campaign and made many mistakes that resulted in far too many losses and a mere tactical victory.  I realised that, because the game is essentially glitch-free as far as AI behavior is concerned, I had nobody to blame for a too-high friendly casualty rate but myself.  My terrain analysis was not good enough so I wasn't reading the cover properly and above all I was too determined to push forward when the prudent thing would have been a much cannier combination of force preservation and carefully controlled aggression.  So, I decided to restart the campaign and replay the mission, determined this time to win a major victory.  All the time, I wondered what I would do if I made a regrettable mistake; would I take that mulligan and replay the turn with corrected orders?  Deep down I knew that I would not take any real pride in a victory won this way but I saved every turn just in case I felt unable to live with a particularly boneheaded decision.  However, I resolved to be as un-boneheaded as possible and to be patient and prudent in my command decisions; I had my arty and helos pound away with good spotter LOS  where applicable, I placed my tanks where I could leverage their range and above all I was patient; I decided never to cross open ground without cover from intersecting lines of fire and never to move into ground that had not been fully spotted by UAVs.  The trade-off was time; what if, by making force preservation a priority, I failed to accomplish all mission goals in the allotted time?  But here is a big secret about CMBS; you don't have to take the ground if the enemy surrenders.  If you advance patiently, stay in cover wherever possible and only move units forward with adequate fire support and if, through doing this, you spend forty five minutes killing six enemy units for every one you lose, you will probably force a surrender and achieve a total victory, as I did, without making a number of hail Mary moves on objectives.
 
So what I learned from this is: you tend to use mulligans when you have been impulsive.  The alternative is to resist such behavior and try to behave like a real-life commander in the field.  If your priority is truly to preserve your forces then even when you lose a vehicle to a lucky arty round or you misjudge a maneuver, resulting in an infantry unit taking effective fire from an unexpected direction and retreating, you won't be tempted to replay the turn with new orders because the loss was the result of effective AI maneuver (and a little luck) rather than your own deficiencies of command.  Much to my surprise, with half an hour left of that first US campaign mission, the enemy surrendered even though I only had boots on the ground on one objective because I had decided to see how tactically effective I could be by concentrating on force preservation.  I wound up with only two vehicle losses (one was a Humvee) and a total victory as I had managed to whittle the enemy's combat effectiveness down to virtually nothing.  It's a delicate balance between force preservation and territorial aggression.  And, somewhat to my amazement, I never felt the need to replay a turn once, because I was determined, no matter how long it took to plot all my turns, to "own" every decision I made.  It was by far my best experience in CM.

I don't know, I think I worry more about infantry now than in CM WWII. You figure a single squad probably packs 5X the punch of a Stuart. Death can come from anywhere in this game. Javs can reach out from huge distances and piss in your Cheerios. Spotters can bring in silent death while never having to come close to the enemy. RPGs have a decent enough range (1000 m) that I am really paranoid about where they might be lurking. I am learning not to take any unit for granted in Black Sea especially infantry. I think mostly you just need to get used to them and the differences in the technologies. Give it five or six games and you'll probably find that sweet spot between aggression and stealth
 
 
Mord.

C21st tanks see out better, across a wider spectrum than WW2 tanks did. Infantry in the WW2 titles is deadly to tanks in the environments where it should be, when it's properly employed; tanks in urban and forested terrain without infantry escort are pretty much dead meat. If you're just coming to CMx2 with the Black Sea release, you have a twofold disconnect to overcome: the way things work in CMx2 vs how they used to work in x1, combined with the massive difference that the modern environment makes. Even transferring x1 to x2 in the same time period throws a lot of experienced players. Javelin ATGM will ruin any MBT's day from ranges far exceeding and with much greater certainty than the capabilities of Shreck or Zook. The proliferation of one-shot MANPAT is way past what you see in WW2. MBTs are a lot better protected against such weapons this decade than they were two decades ago, though. So it might well be that the infantry's role has changed, and nowadays you have to swarm the ADS and reactive armour blocks with myriad sparkling RPG hits, rather than having a single well-flung PanzerWurfMine or serene Rifle Grenade suffice.
Battlefield dynamics change; embrace the fact that the simulation has the fidelity to reflect differences. And it's probably a mistake to assume that the old game was more accurate/true-to-life, either; I expect BFC know a lot more about the period now than they did 15 years ago.

panzersaurkrautwerfer,
 
I was in the T-62 they had in the "know the enemy" garden at NTC. Technically, I wasn't supposed to be in it, but what's an excited Threat Analyst presented with real Russian tanks to do? At just over 5'11" I was too tall by a bunch of inches (couldn't close turret hatch while standing), but I'm here to tell you that thing was dangerous. While static. It's full of unradiused square steel bars (as in will cut you) and flanges with sharp corners and ends. I thought about trying to get into the driver's seat but was already dinged up and was also afraid I might get caught by hanging about too long. Clearly, there's a reason for those well padded tanker helmets, but for the tankers' sakes, I hope their coveralls are thick and tough, too. Interestingly, while the Israelis upgunned and reworked their captured T-55s, they did nothing of the kind with the T-62s and happily took as many as they could get. But then, they're Israelis, the Finns of the Middle East!
 
Love your plywoodium! Where does that fall on the Periodic Table? In any event, it should be much cheaper than the Holy Grail of military aerospace--Unobtainium. 
 
MikeyD,
 
Fortunately for the Russians, Armata's supposed to be a tank, not an IFV. Theoretically, it could pull off all that weaponry. Using it effectively? Another matter entirely.  Might wind up as the high tech version of the T-28 and T-35, though. Lots of weapons and no real way to use them as intended.
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

Well her father did. Sounds like he showed leadership so there is a good chance she had the same values.

The bottom line is we all face choices every day of what we do. Do we choose to make our communities better? True, we don't often control the big picture we live in but we can control what we do. The Shia doctor chose to make his community better, those Sunni gun men chose to make it worse. Regardless of how all the players arrived in that situation they all had agency and they exercised it for good and ill. Those choices are on them. Period.

All of us civilians make those choices too things are just more dramatic during war. So, go forth and use your agency in this world to make it better, where ever you are.

To bring it back down onto the street, a little elaboration on the plight of the Shia woman who apparently started this whole discussion.  I didn't actually relate the entire story. 
 
So, her father was a Shia doctor, who helped people in Baghdad, regardless of their sect or issue.  The Sunni insurgents had presented him with 'get out of town' warnings which he chose to ignore.  They abducted him, drove him around for a bit.  Stopped in the middle of a busy main street and put him out of the car.  They put a revolver in his mouth and pulled the trigger until it was empty.  We showed up about ten minutes later.  She arrived a minute or two after us.  
 
She was hysterical - who wouldn't be?  Her father had just been murdered.  She spoke fluent English, which was a bit unfortunate.  Hysterical behaviour in a foreign language is much easier to remain aloof from.  No one is immune to their emotions when seeing the results of such a killing.  Combat experience encourages keeping a lid on these emotions in order to remain focused on the job.  Deal with the emotion later in a safer environment.  Every member of our patrol felt a degree of compassion for this woman.  It would have been much easier for us to treat it as just another part of the job ("Best job I ever had...") if we could have treated her grief as background noise.  Not possible when she addresses you in your native tongue.  We did what we could to help and console her.  
 
Her remarks to us were all over the map.  Her main accusation was that we had invaded her country, assumed responsibility for its stability and we were doing a piss poor job.  Why were we allowing things like this to happen?  Where was the security that was needed in order to truly rebuild?  I really cannot defend against this; she was correct.  Even the following year when we began the "surge" we only had perhaps 1/3 of the personnel necessary to actually stabilize a place like that with a simmering ethnic hatred beginning to boil over.  We literally needed to have a squad on every street corner, learning the language, knowing the names and faces of everyone who lived there, and knowing who was actually doing what.  Driving around in heavy armored vehicles based out of mega-FOBs specifically designed to insulate us from the (hostile) population was sort of the exact opposite of what was needed.  However, I also have no desire to see the US commit the truly necessary 750,000 or so Soldiers  that were truly needed for US forces to stabilize Iraq.  Had we done so, we would still be there, and our 5k KIA would seem paltry in comparison to how many would have died actually doing the job right.  America didn't create the instability; we just catalyzed it by removing the oppressive regime that was keeping a lid on it.  The problem is the Iraqis themselves, not us.  
 
Once we had respectfully placed her father's remains in a body bag, and loaded him (at my direction) in the back of HMMWV, I asked her what she would like us to do.  At her request, we took him to the local Iraqi hospital.  After some hesitation ('can I likely survive being seen riding in a US HMMWV') she accepted our offer to ride with us. When we finally left her at the hospital, she was thankful for the little we had done for her.  My guys really were a bit miffed that I had created a gory mess that they would have to clean up in the back of the truck.  Their casual bitching about it was part of them trying to cope, to make it seem less tragic than it really was.  
 
In my minds eye, I can still see her eyes flash when she spoke to me, and the way she alternated between impotent rage and overwhelming grief.  I feel for her to this day, and hope that she survived.  If she stayed, and if she survived, I am confidant that she is doing something to help the situation, not further hinder it.  No real basis for this, just a feeling.  

Not to rederail, but simply in passing, it is sort of a simplistic version of events you presented.  Iraqis blamed us for things that were in no way part of anything the US had ever done to Iraq.  What we did do to restore prosperity even at great cost in human lives and resources was always not enough.  If you helped the Shia it was not enough (because we should have built houses for everyone, and assigned a squad per family to serve as their personal servants) and the Sunni just become certain it's part of the American-Shia plot to sell all Sunnis to Iran as slaves.  You help the Sunni, and the Sunni are unhappy because you haven't restored the Ba'ath party, shot all the Shia for being insolent, and the Shia think you've actually secretly cloned Saddam and he's now calling the shots.
 
In terms of the absurdity, imagine yourself and all your coworkers (even the ones you really don't like) scooped up, put on a plane, and dropped in some other country.  Now your country may (or may have not) done some questionable stuff to the country you're in now that has created some instability.  However instability does not pick up a bomb vest and walk into a market because God thinks it is a great idea.  It does not scoop kids up on the way home from school, hold them for ransom, collect said ransom and then kill kids because they're the wrong sect anyway.  It does not pull people off of a bus, and decide who lives or dies based on a theological dilemma from centuries ago.  
 
So now you're sitting there, with your coworkers, and someone is holding you responsible for the inhumanity of man, and for being simply from a country that's contribution to this whole catastrophic mess in terms of causing it, was maybe building about 20 meters of the 100 KM highway to chaos.  The US may have opened pandora's box, but it didn't build it, fill it for a few hundred years, and for a long time it valiantly tried to stuff all those evils back into the box, again at the cost of thousands of American lives and billions of dollars (again, the US plan for Iraq was "Saddam is dead, high fives, maybe like 20,000 dudes stay behind to help clean stuff up for a year or two" not seven to eight years depending on your math of suck).  Even more the box existed, and was out in the open.  Someone was going to open that box, and someone was going to unleash hell on Iraq.  It might have been in the eventual "which of Saddam's Sons will rule next?" conflict of 2014.  It might have been the hypothetical Iranian invasion of 2016.  It could have been when the peace loving Alpha Centurians come to earth in 2021 to bring love and sharing to all men, but they accidentially fly too close to the Golden Mosque on approach and now it's all Allah Akbar because that shows a clear disrespect for Shia so the aliens must be secret Sunni.  
 
So again, sitting there with your coworkers, you are responsible for the sins of Iraq's fathers, grandfathers's and great grandfathers.  So as you stuggle, as you work, as you bleed, you will be eternally blamed for things you did not do, stuff that happened sometimes before your country even existed, and most damning of all, the people blaming you will simply sit there and contribute their part to the chaos (giving money to insurgents, not calling the police/tipline when they see someone planting a bomb etc etc) all while pointing the finger of blame at you.

Before we go super off topic:
 
The danger of the word terrorist is that it's a very handy tool to discard opposing forces and view points.  
 
The more useful definition is looking to the focus of the group's operations.  If it's fighting enemy forces in an asymmetrical manner (blowing up convoys, IED attacks, small unit ambushes), then insurgent or guerrilla is a more balanced perspective.  The focus of the terrorist is not so much fighting in an asymmetrical battle against the enemy's military forces, but in fighting the enemy's will to fight through atrocity.  Kidnapping and killing random westerners has virtually no impact on the mechanical ability of the west to drop bombs on ISIS, however in their own stupid little way they believe that the fear caused by their actions will cause the west to bow down to their demands.
 
So to that end, the old Islamic State in Iraq was terrorist (as their whole method of operations was seeing what could ft an IED, and get into a highly populated center of civilians), the Taliban is closer to insurgent/guerrillas.
 
Of course guerrillas can commit acts of terrorism (Taliban for instance, despite my distinction operates quite liberally with terrorist acts too), and terrorist groups can fight in more "pure" asymmetrical methods, but certain countries just stamp terrorist on anything that opposes whatever they're up to at the moment which rather takes any meaning away from the word.  
 
As an addendum too, I tend to exclude the perceived legitimacy of the party in question.  You can be a popular terrorist, or an unpopular guerrilla/insurgent/etc.  

I've noticed in AAR vids that many people do not use walk very often.
 
Walking is a very good way not to be seen.
 
I've walked recon units and FOs to locations in full view of the enemy and reached ideal locations
without being spotted.
 
When I quick move to a building, I walk to an elevated floor and setup. Only if the enemy is very close do I become spotted and invariably not even then.
 
Also walking around leaves your troops rested and ready for assaults or fast running.
 
I don't know how many times I've seen experienced players assault a position with tired forces and have them smacked.
 
If you plan to assault, rest your men. Too many times, people are in a hurry to engage. Condition is a very important part of the game and is seemingly ignored by many.
 
Also, C&C is also ignored by many. Its very important. I see players either move their command units to dangerous positions, leading from the front. This is American Civil War stuff. Think about moving command up to a safe, close position in relation to their troops. Try not to include them in the attack.
 
If you have to move them up for observation purposes, move your troops up first, wait a bit for spotting, then if its safe, move the command up slowly to a good observation spot.
 
Just a few thoughts.

In my university (in Germany) there are very many Russian, German-Russian, Ukrainian and Polish students. Funnily those stick together most closely and tend to get along very well. So all the adversity between all those nationalities doesn't really matter for these guys (young, somewhat educated people).

Heh, I figured this thread was dead anyway. Battle is over, time to move on.

Ukraine concerns now are of possible buildup in Mariupol area, more tanks crossing the border, terrorist bombing of march in Kharkhov. Russia is far from done yet.

Meanwhile a state sponsored march in Moscow is going on declaring the Russian opposition to be fifth columnists. I guess Russia is missing Stalin's terror trials. Ahh now those were some good times.

Russia's actiona and statements are all headed in only one direction. There has not been a single item I can look at that even vaguely resembles an exit strategy or even an attempt to control the fire.

It tells me that the separatists were heavily reinforced with better units and equipment ( all of a sudden ). Gee, I wonder where they suddenly came from ?
 
Edit: On top of which, there was also a "ceasefire" - if one side tries to observe it and doesn't use its heavy weapons ( artillery etc. ) to prevent enemy massing for an attack ( which they successfully did for weeks if not months prior ), that's also going to adversely affect the outcome of an offensive.