AlexUK

I find they are too lethal at long range, but not enough at short range.

I also think smgs are overpowered in the game (accuracy over 100m).
 

Cheers, this is actually a good time to get bumped.
I have been working on the spotting problem, but I got a bit too ambitious and it is going to take some time before I have a complete piece of work to show.
I have set up a test scenario with one vehicle in the middle and 49 enemy Panzer IVs placed around it at 12 to 6 o'clock positions, 200 to 1400 meters (in 200m intervals). The game runs for up to 7 seconds for me to see what contacts does the vehicle at the center see on the first spotting event, as a solid contact. Repeat 10,000 times and calculate the probability of seeing each of the enemy Panzer IVs.
I can replace the vehicle in the middle and measure the spotting ability of different vehicles. I keep all the data but only take those at 12 and 1 o'clock positions and convert them to a single number, which is easier to interpret. I call this number "spotting rating" and make it relative to Panzer IVH.
So, a Regular Panzer IVH with hatches open has a spotting rating of 100. And a tank that has spotting rating 105 can see, roughly, 5% better than a Panzer IVH. Note that it depends on distance quite a bit, but that would make things too complicated for a quick comparison.
Results so far (opened up / buttoned up):
Pz IVH (late): 100 / 27 Pz VD (late): 104 / 29 Pz VA (mid): 109 / 39 Sherman, no cupola: 109 / 35 Sherman, with cupola: 110 / 39 Sherman VC Firefly: 105 / 28 M10: 220 / 217 T-70M: 89 / 17 T-34-76 (M1942 early): 97 / 21 T-34-76 (M1942 late): 95 / 25 T-34-85: 106 / 36 IS-1, IS-2: 101 / 26 Valentine: 100 / 24 SU-76M: 212 / 211 SU-85, SU-122: 95 / 16 SU-85M, SU-100: 95 / 18 ISU-122, SU-152, ISU-152: 104 / 29 SU-57: 252 / 248 You can see there are two categories: fully enclosed vehicles and open-topped vehicles. The open-topped ones (M10, SU-57, SU-76M) spot more than 2x better than fully enclosed ones and do not suffer their ~3x spotting penalty when buttoned up.
A quick takeaway - if you are trying to get an spotting advantage by forcing the enemy M10 commander to duck inside, don't. It is not much help. The same will probably apply to Marders, Archers and the like.
Even at 10,000 trials there still are statistics involved, for instance I don't think the T-34 M1942 late should have a lower spotting ability than M1942 early when opened up.
Everything is automated, of course, with minimum time and effort required on my part. I just collect the results and set up a new test. Computer time is my bottleneck.

The Fiftieth Minute
Objective ROT
The bombardment continues. I make a stupid mistake and try to move some teams up without having established fire superiority and I lose 3 men, 1 KIA and 1 WIA in different fireteams. The DP gunner spotted last turn took the first two out, not sure who got the third. I've not heard a peep from Sgt Plucky so I assume he's been knocked out of the fight.


One of the casualties was a MG gunner so I will try and recover the weapon.
The panzers are inching closer and now in range of the forces in the town and start taking small arms fire but nothing bigger than that so far. I would expect there to be 45mm guns defending the objective, he may have them keyholed further back so I still need to be quite cautious.
My advancing infantry do get a spot on another squad in the building next to the one spotted last turn. One of the Panthers also has the spot.

The SPWs got in on the action this turn, plenty of fire going into the objective now.
NAI5 and KG RECHTS
Nothing to report, the infantry continue to advance and no further contact.
SITMAP

1 Kompanie are almost at their jumping off point. I think I'll give it another minute or two of suppressive fire and then they can close on the objective. I'll share my plans of how to do that in the next update.
On the left I noticed that the trees at NAI5 are actually on a slight reverse slope and I can only see into it from the left side of the road so I'll be moving my scouts over onto a small rise so they can put some fire in there and see who shoots back.
The new contact in the objective has been added:

MMM

The Battle Continues 

Bravo

The battle continues! Bad news, another AT-14 team is spotted on the left side of the map behind defilade by Bravo. Luckily, they won't be able to get a shot on my men unless they reposition. Bravo will keep a close eye on them and report in.

The BMP-3 that was harassing Bravo's men reappears, pouring down coax fire onto SSG Raney's position. Luckily, his grenadier SPC Bannon was able to send a 40mm HEDP round onto the front of the turret. This round partially penetrated the turret, but more importantly scared the **** out of the BMP-3 crew. 

Bravo's 3rd platoon takes contact from a SLA sniper across the bridge leading into town. Other than that, Bravo's sector has no other significant events.
Delta

Back to my company. The first spotted AT-14 is knocked out by my first platoon (led by 2LT Valente, a great armor commander), specifically SGT Lerner's M1A2 SEP. 

The last major event of the second minute of combat is the spotting of a second AT-14 on the mosque hill by my men. Luckily, the 107mm mortars are doing a great job of keeping the crew's heads down. Unluckily, from what my men have reported, the AT-14 crew is unhurt. Good thing I have tanks
 
Had a bit of a hiatus between turns, but I should be back to posting updates pretty regularly! In the meantime, enjoy some action shots of us boys from TF 1-8.
 

(My company is so close to helping Bravo, but we can't rush in and get murdered by those AT-14s)

(SPC Bannon taking aim with his M203)

(PFC Olson laying down fire with his M249)

(SLA paratrooper shooting at Bravo Company men with a Krinkov)

(SGT Lerner's M1A2 SEP engaging an AT-14)
 

The Forty-Eighth Minute
Objective ROT
Here you go Sgt Plucky, have some of this!

The scouts continue to advance and get a spot in the trees outside the objective.

It's another AT rifle team. I wonder if this is the same one who fired on me from the scrub at the start of hostilities and retreated?

A Tiger and a Panther are moving into firing positions.

The Panther starts firing this turn on the reverse slope at the western end of the village.

Next turn the other panzers will be moving up and start to area fire on the objective. The scouts will stop and engage the AT rifle team while the rest of the zug catches up. The SPWs are going to be moved up too.

NAI5
The AT rifleman is taken out very quickly by a burst from a SPW. I must admit I'm impressed with the accuracy of my troops thus far.


The contact icon is still there so I assume his pal is still alive. I'm going to start advancing towards the treeline net turn.
SITMAP

Still quiet on the right, the attack continues on the left. As I identify units in the objective this map could get messy so I'm going to provide a close in view whilst the attack is underway.

Things should start heating up nicely now. It'll be interesting to see how he reacts to these attacks, if at all.
MMM

so maybe instead of endless discussion of things Steve's made clear are NEVER going to happen, we could return to the fine forum tradition of harrassing BFC about what are next releases and when will we get pre-order.  And after pre-order we can harrass them about delivery for a couple months.  At least we'd be complaining about something that is real instead of all these fantasies.

I think this might go beyond "strategy" and deeper into personal philosophy.  Try not coming across as a rude troll, for a start.  This is our house and "no" you cannot comment on anything you like...try it and see how fast this thread gets locked up and you facing a ban.  
I am not a "CM homer" (seriously how that poor name got dragged through the mud us beyond me and a testament to a big problem of our time.  How one of the greatest writers of all time got that name hijacked by a yellow cartoon character makes me cringe)...I am a CM "owner".  Bil, myself and Cpt Miller, with BFC and some outstanding beta-testers built this floor of the house and frankly I find it offensive when someone comes here to promote an outside game while denigrating ours.  I would never think of, and would condemn in the strongest terms, anyone going over to the SB forums (or any other wargame forum) and exhibit this same behavior.
CM is not perfect, no wargame can ever really achieve that, but it is the best in the niche it has (my opinion) and we are going to work very hard at keeping that up.  Go play SB, hell after all this talk I am getting tempted to really go try it out...it looks like a good game and I wish them all the luck the angels of heaven can spare.  Wargaming is a niche market so anyone playing anything is a win for all of us working in it but, for the love of all that is good and righteous, try not to be a rude jerk about it....the internet has enough of those already.

Well as has been demonstrated here, repeatedly, I really don't have to do anything, apparently.  See, I can come on an games forum and then compare it to another game, not owned by that company.  Then I can make a bunch of unfair and misleading claims based on that outside game.  Oh, then I can berate players that they don't know anything about that other game...in their own house.  And then I can think that this is somehow not really rude.
The only comments I have made about SB is 1) it is a different wargame [aside, there used to be rule here that other games were to be discussed in the General Forum] and comparing it to CM is apples to steam ships and 2) it clearly has a human in the loop targeting option.  The screenshots in the OP opening post clearly show the player able to peer through a scope and see a target.  Very interesting that it can be completely hands off, and if the OP ran AI only tests (something that he really has not claimed) then at least we are comparing AI to AI (again a little rude).  Regardless according to those screenshots a human can still see and interpret what the AI is seeing very differently than CM.
Now, let's talk about "backing off" for a moment.  Your current angle is to come on a CM forum and promote an outside game, which you are clearly doing, this is very bad form.  If you want to participate in a discussion on how to make CMCW better, welcome.   But coming into another game forum to essentially advertise another is really just...well, you get the point.

You look at two SU76's at 250 meters and people think that CM is not realistic in spotting. Just turn of the icons and be honest with yourself. I exposed the shadows in post processing. They are actually more visible now. Spotting is at the first instance done with the naked eye. If you look through binoculars without knowing what you're looking for you suffer tunnel vision aka legally blind. Your C2 is important in other words a lone AFV is unlikely to spot anything. 

Did you all just skim right over Steve’s last post in that thread?
 

As soon as we are able…working on it right now.  

Ok, this is not even close to "scientific" and the fact that some might actually think that is 1) a poor reflection on the modern education system and 2) frightening based on what we have been living through for the last 18 months.
Based on this "study" SB could be just as inaccurate as CMCW is claimed to be as none of this is linked back to RL data.  It is linked backed to a lot of assumptions, which are again not linked backed to any real world data.  The main assumption/bias is "it should be easy to see another tank at 2000m because I can do it in SB therefore CMCW is broken."  The OP is in effect using one simulation (SB) to try and prove that another simulation (CMCW) is not working properly without ever establishing that the first simulation (SB) is accurate in the first place (beyond a vague "Steel Beasts is a tank simulator that is used in several countries to train military personnel", but then so is CM, huh?)
How easy is it to actually see an armored vehicle at 2000m? Having spent time in AFVs and tanks..."not easy" was my experience as 2km is a very long way away.  But I never tried it on a flat open field nor in either an M60 or T72.
Just because you point the tanks at each other does not mean the modeling behavior is anywhere near the same.  First off there is TACAI in CM where SB has a human brain that not only set up the test (so knows there is a tank out there) but is specifically pointed at where it knows there is a tank.  Take SB, create a 360 field and then don't tell the human subject where the threat is, or that there is a threat at all...now time how long it takes for that human to see a threat at 2km?  Still likely be faster because it is a human brain in a totally different simulation.
The issue here is actually "simulated individual buttoned up spotting".  (Take the same test and open up the T72, you will see spotting increase dramatically because you now have TACAI scanning the horizon with binos as opposed through a sight.  Now do a whole tank platoon and you will see spotting happen even faster because the tanks are talking to each other).
So the questions being asked is "which individual tank has better buttoned up spotting: the M60A3 or T72? and "Does CMCW model this correctly?" and (apparently) "Does SB model RL behavior better?"  So if you want to be "scientific" you would first have to build a real-world framework of how these tanks have (or should) behave based on sound data, then test each tank, in each game system under identical conditions (which is nearly impossible...human brain) to try and deduce which game is modelling RL better.  
 

I am a tanker.
In general id say tanks are spotted far too easily in hulldown positions and when los is broken up like shooting through trees etc.
They are also far too hard to spot in the open or when moving across the field of view.

There are  2 main reasons. 
1) It's the "feature" of game engine that usually calculates armor and personnel vision in  a very strange and quite random way, not only in Cold War, but also in other titles as well.
2) In Combat Mission "world" all Soviet\Russian regarded as inferior to Western\American, especially in terms of vision. In many respects it's true to the facts (as far as I know), taking into consideration thermals, optics etc. But what CM games  do is taking this technological gap to absurd levels, making "Red team" almost absolutely blind. It feels very unnatural and counterintuitive when several of your tanks can't spot enemy tank directly ahead of you at the distance of  200 meters. 
Many times I witnessed how Vulcan's Gatling gun sends  the river of red bullets to my AFV, but my tanks\BMP don't see it, despite they are several dozens meters away and not under fire themselves. "Buddy to my right is under uninterrupted rain of hot red bullets from the Vulcan that is 300 meters in front of us... well I don't see anything because... well you know, Soviet optics is bad".
In this regard famous Swedish tank tender of 1993 is very instructing. Swedish Ministry of Defense organized the competition between different tanks, including shooting, terrain and visibility trials. Russian T-80 took part in competition alongside with Leopard and Abrams. In the end it was reported that T-80 spotting was equal to the Western tanks on the distances below 2500 meters in the daylight and 1000 meters in the night (although on the distances above Western tanks had an advantage).
 
 

There is a lesson here, you see MK posted screen shots and detailed breakdown, not a bunch of ALL CAPS and exclamation marks like an ADHD 12 year old (unless you are a ADHD 12 year old, then my condolences to you and your parents).  
Digging into this and "no" THE MISSION IS NOT BROKEN!!!! emjoi emjoi emjoi (seriously, social media has destroyed a generation at least).
It is very hard and there is something missing which was supposed to be put in.  The reality is that mission is winnable but it takes a damn near perfect game to do it, which is unreasonable.  Tweaking in progress.

Enjoying this very much. I would have a crippling fear of gun hits so I would probably keep the tiger at the back and try to win with everything else.....

Thanks @Erwin @JM Stuff @slippy @Aragorn2002 your support is much appreciated.
I'll bundle this section up so you can try it yourselves.
Always in the grand scheme. I have experimented with autumn leaves. It's not so much work to make them and is a natural progression from the summer mods. I will probably finish BN and RT summer mods along with some extras for MG before moving onto the autumn/winter sets for FB and RT. Now that I have some repeatable methodology it's all a bit more straightforward. Finally I will look at what I can do for the sprawling mod set for FI. Side benefit is that anyone who plays BS (I don't and have no inclination to) can easily port this stuff to that for themselves with very little effort. It will also partly work in SF2 and maybe CW, but, again, I won't be supporting those games.
For trees I am creating new mdrs and LOD packs, reusing my previous leaf branch texture mods from Hedgerow Hell. LODs for trees need to look like the normal model otherwise there is quite a bit of flickering between LODs over distances. I spent the best part of a week figuring out how the various levels of LOD relate to distance and what is used when, also in relation to game options detail settings.
For the Bocage I am making new mdrs except for what are called endcaps in the mdr object groups, whilst again reusing the leaf branch textures I made previously with some minor reworks for practical reasons. There seem to be some quite specific naming of meshes within the various bocage mdrs which I am carefully trying to stick with since I believe these parts are referenced elsewhere. But there are also instances of seemingly random naming schemata which I don't think are referenced. Bocage is unique within the game foliage, they are treated differently in terms of rendering in game, they have a randomisation element which none of the other foliage have, they are treated as walls when adding to maps and can be combined with other foliage, whereas other foliage cannot reside on the same square together. I also did some blowin' sh*t up experiments with bocage to see what happens to the variously named parts if different names are used. With trees if part names are changed then the tree does not destruct in the expected way, disappearing all at once or suddenly going leafless for instance. With bocage it's either there or gone so far as I could determine. I dropped prolonged barrages of 170mm cannon and 301mm nebelwerfer on a bunch of bocage which made one or two holes in it, the rest just stayed intact, even the added ash sapling was unaffected by direct impacts, until it disappeared along with it's associated bocage section. The game does not treat bocage in the same way as it treats trees and bushes in this respect - in my view a partial oversight.
In terms of their LODs - the ones that exist in game are basically the most distant and only seem to get used when in God's-eye view, and there is only the one LOD for all types of shapes of bocage. I will probably leave these LODs alone since anything I make will not really impact play or improve the visuals of the game particularly.
In summary, and to hopefully give you all something to look forward to, I am now able to magic up new trees, bushes (essentially small trees) and bocage models using Blender, and, importantly, make them work as expected in game, so I can now move on to the making rather than messing about with Blender for interminable hours trying to fathom such an illogical interface.

The Battle Begins for Delta

It is go time! The first minute of the battle begins. My forces are deployed in the manner shown above. My company team is holding, waiting for the AT-14s to be suppressed before they advance past the muddy stream bed. Meanwhile, Bravo Team fights for their life in a bloody firefight. Only 14 Men are not casualties. Meanwhile, 3rd platoon of Bravo Team is pulling security outside of Brandenburg. Unfortunately, 3rd platoon has no Bradley Fighting Vehicles (BFV). I will likely keep them in a reserve, the last thing I need is to divert forces to rescue another cutoff platoon.

(Bravo Team's fight for their life)
Immediately, the kill zone inside Brandenburg erupts into a symphony of automatic rifle fire and grenades. Within 15 seconds the first enemy casualty is caused when a burst of 5.56 from a SAW zips through an SLA Sniper.

Suddenly, a BMP-3 appears in the street in front of the survivors of 3rd and 1st squad. This is a serious threat, fortunately the BMP's gunner misses before the commander orders them to reverse. Bravo only has a single AT-4 between their 14 men. This means Bravo will likely be engaging the BMPs with HEDP rounds from their 203s, or die trying. 

Shortly after, Bravo-6's fire mission splashes down on the SLA side of the street. The 107mm mortar rounds are landing within 70 meters from friendly forces, almost right on top of them. Thankfully, the buildings mostly protect my men from shrapnel. Hundreds of rounds have already been fired in the first minute alone.

(Rounds impacting while both sides engage fire)
Unfortunately, Bravo's first casualty inside the buildings is sustained when a SAW gunner (carrying the only AT4) is seriously wounded by AK74 fire. Bravo has now lost their only real anti tank asset.

Meanwhile, my company has spotted one AT-14 team on the southern hill, obviously the first of many. Shortly after, my preparatory fire begins landing on their head. Unfortunately, he is not mulched into ground beef, but at least the gunner is suppressed for now. My company will hold until I can identify more AT-14 positions on the hill. Suppressing one AT-14 does not guarantee the safety of my men, and those AT-14s are more then capable of destroying my tanks while crossing the muddy stream.

(107mm airburst shells impacting around an AT-14 position)
With that, the first minute of action has been concluded. Stick around, there will be plenty of killing. In the meantime, here are some pictures taken by a couple of reporters attached to the battalion.

(SFC Bobbitt's M1A2 SEP, PSG of 2nd Platoon, Delta Team)

(SSG Raney's men fight for their lives outside of the Brandenburg kill zone)

(Bravo's 4th BFV burns in the kill zone)

As much as I have been trying to stay out of this, I think this brings up a interesting background info point on "How to Research for a PC game". 
I am not going to weigh in on the specific argument, except to say I don't think we are going to see modeling of the current ammunition characteristics change dramatically - if for the reason alone that it basically feels about right.  We may see minor tweaks but right now we are not advocating for major mechanical changes to weapon systems (we would like to see some shifts in ammo types but that is another issue).
So as to these CIA documents.  Well first off, as impressive as the CIA is as an intelligence agency (and here movies and media have probably done more to promote the myth than anything), it is in the end a government agency.  Being government means that any information you glean immediately must take into account the broader context, and all of it with healthy grains of salt.
So John's first link I have actually seen before and it basically lays out the "threat" as they understood it in 1984.  It is a "memorandum" and as such is probably one of the better sources one could draw upon.  It really lays out the Soviet "tank position" and is not bad.  My only concern is that I am left wondering if it is a "say nothing new...because" report that sticks to the party line that the current administration wanted to hear...remember it was 1984 and the US was trying to attrit its way out of the Cold War, which turned out to be a good strategy.
The second link I take with a lot more critical eyes.  First off, it is a "thought piece" which the agency clearly puts at arms lengths ("the opinions of the authors"), so this is a trick that gets played all the time.  When one is trying to make a big argument, get some reputable senior folks to write an "opinion piece".  If it works, great.  If it creates blowback we just say "well it was their opinion".  Further, any "thought piece" sponsored by the agency that basically promotes "a modest improvements in intelligence..." (pg 2) set off that little yellow light. Was this real or was it a promotion piece to try and get more CIA funding. 
Then when one starts to dig a bit and open the aperture, I get more odd smells.  This piece was written in the Carter administration and that was not a great time to be in the CIA (we allude to this in the CMCW backstory), or National Defence for that matter.  Finally, the Director of the CIA at the time was ADM Turner ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stansfield_Turner) who not only was a big fan of technical intel (and put HUMINT in the back seat) but was Navy through and through.  This thought piece is very technical - play to the boss - but also very Army who were competing heavily to get their AirLand Battle concept off the ground and fighting for tenuous funding, all after Vietnam. 
In this context that paper really should be taken cautiously.  It does lay out what was a dangerous situation.  We know the US had fallen behind both technologically but also in over all mass, all the while with no offset strategy beyond nukes...not good.  But is it possible that an Army General is over-polishing the threat to simultaneously promote agency and Army funding...absolutely. 
In the end, when researching one has to remember that we can only see snippets of a much larger game being played at the time...and that matters.  Probably some of the best historical references that I found (and used) weren't locked away in TOP SECRET CIA drawers (and trust me, government overclassifies everything) they are in minutes from appropriation meetings: https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Department_of_Defense_Appropriations_for/llZ5mbGatSYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=US+defence+spending+TOW+missile&pg=PA534&printsec=frontcover
These are not dark assessments, made in the shadows...this is the money trail of what actually happened.  The "truth" is far more mundane in reality and is largely guarded by accountants.

LukeFF,

You know and I know you're trying to bait me into responding in such a way that Steve comes down on me for violating his direct request regarding posting about certain matters. Not happening! If people want to know anything regarding any of the topics being brought up ref me  I'm not allowed to discuss, PM me.

All,

Now, how about we discuss the CIA intel docs I posted instead of trying to run me through an OT and verboten minefield? Notice no one's uttered a peep concerning them and their various confirmations of point after point I made earlier but no one wanted to accept from me. Did any of you bother to read what I had to dig hard for in the CIA FOIA Reading Room?

Regards,

John Kettler 

Have been doing some more work on our beloved Bocage this week, trying to remember how far I'd gotten and how to do stuff in Blender. The good news is I have now got a good solid technique going which I can repeat for all the various sections of bocage. I can now make bocage that is very different from the original game stock and will hopefully give us a more naturalistic gaming environment ...

... this image shows the one section model that I have reworked thus far - bocage-straight-1.mdr - repeated three times on a straight run of bocage. What you can see immediately is that it has a much more ragged profile with a bit of light coming through the underside and NO beanpoles, those you can see are from other unmodified sections. Here is the Blender render of the model ...

... fully clad ...

... leaves removed from the main body. Blender tends to give a smoother render than the game engine.
As you can see from the last image we have a large ash sapling to one side which gives immediate height, the supporting branches are now more bush like and there is a good layer of undergrowth at the bottom. The ash sapling and undergrowth are fixed, extra textures whilst the body of the bocage is variable. So depending on the number of boccage textures present in your Z folder, there are an almost infinite number of combinations that can appear in-game. This is just one section remember, by the time I have reworked the other fifteen 😩 section types for tall bocage alone the variations will be legion. With different extras textures for the other sections along with variations on height and depth we can finally have a representation of bocage that gets us closer to what I envisioned when I started this project last year.
If anyone would like to take this for a spin let me know and I'll make a little bocage bundle to drop in your z folder.

I've posted about this a bunch ever since we were teased with another FI module a few Bones ago:
^ Rome To Victory ✅
^ Remaining Fortress Italy Modules 🔜
I've tried to sew some of those posts together, I apologize for the dead links.
A few things:
Italy 1943-45
 

What I would gently suggest is a major pack for Fortress Italy filling out the Italian roster in Sicily, then moving on to add Partisans, RSI and Co-Belligerents.
This way all of the work needed to bring the Italians to North Africa is done in advance and the pack is at least making money in the meantime during the very long development time needed for maps, scenarios, campaigns and TOE and OOBs for the other nations.
All of that Italian content needs to be created anyway, why not put it in an existing product line rather than sit on it until the base game is ready for release? 
Why Add Italians In Italy?

A few years ago where some bones came out for FI, there was discussion about possible roadmap.
iirc, a pack containing Commandos and partisans was mentioned as being a possibility after R2V, as well as adding the RSI, Italian Co-Belligerents and fleshing out the existing Italian roster to add dismounted Breda Model 35, Solothurn and Cannone da 90/53 as a module. Is this still possible? 
I would gladly pay for a pack with partisans, commandos and goumiers and would certainly pay for a module expanding the Italians from '43-45
e: I had no idea that an Italian Co-Belligerent unit liberated Venice. They made pretty significant contributions to the Allied cause.
Catching Up To The Engine:
It's more that engine updates have left Italy behind. Italy has no AT bunkers, no AA, no flamethrowers not even tank hunter teams.
Now, I'm not sure what guns they had casemated on Sicily, or if those played any part beyond the first day, so I suppose that can be discounted.
On-Map AA would make a big difference. It would be a nice addition to scenarios where the Italians are defending a static position, and in QB both for fire support and to lessen the plastering by Allied air.
The Italians have both Pioneers and the specialized assault troops - Guastatori who had flamethrowers.
There are perfectly serviceable AA guns and AT rifles mounted on the AS.42 Sahariana. They would just need to be added in the dismounted role. 
These are all small additions, more to bring Italy up to the engine standards, using much of what already exists in Fortress Italy and laying the foundations for the larger role Italy played in Africa.
Moving on from what we mostly already have:
Some of the Italian artillery in the 75mm - 105mm range would be nice to have on-map in Sicily, and crucial to have on-map in Africa. Italian Artillery was not only commonly used in the direct role (they had slow and inefficient management of indirect fires) but the Italian Artillerymen were almost uniquely courageous and competent. Field Guns were often the only component of entire Italian brigades that gave the British any trouble. They had some pretty good guns, although rare compared to museum pieces or French trophies.

The Italian Dual-Purpose AA/AT guns were also pretty good. Never as famous as the 88, they gave the allies trouble. The 90/53 is already in Fortress Italy in a SP mount.
Having a HMG would be nice, and the ballistics are already done because this is mounted in a SP mount in Fortress Italy as well.
The Parachute Division "Nembo" was present in Sicily. It would be a nice addition, but I think more importantly would lay the foundation for the "Folgore" which became famous in Africa. The best of the Italian infantry in Africa, Italian Paras were also the better units available to the RSI and Co-Belligerents.
Why Partisans in Fire and Rubble Make Revisiting Italy, and the Italian Civil War Possible
 

The Vehicle Pack and Battle Pack for Battle for Normandy were outstanding. What I like best is how the additions of each module and pack make it over to other titles. I think that was a really smart way to do things.
I wouldn't expect Steve to tinker away at partisans just for Fortress Italy, but the addition of partisans elsewhere helps lay the foundation for an Italian module or pack (43-45) for Fortress Italy. The way I see it a pack or module focusing on Italy would require four things: The Partisans, The Co-Belligerent Army, The RSI and the Royal Italian Army. Because of how complete Fortress Italy is due to the other titles, the work that remains to be done for an Italy pack/module is also what would be needed for Africa, or at least Tunisia.
With Soviet Partisans and Volkssturm coming with Fire and Rubble, partisans may not be as remote a possibility as it used to be. Most of the work is already being done by making partisans from scratch over in Red Thunder.  Italian names and voice files are already in the Fortress Italy base game. Of course the exact organization, equipment and appearance of a partisan band in Milan would be different from one in Minsk. Luckily Stens and Brens are already in the game thanks to Gustav Line (Which is thanks to Battle For Normandy: Commonwealth Forces and that interconnected development strategy).
It's a smart way to use the work done for other titles. Allied and German equipment through the end of the war was done in Final Blitzkrieg and made it over to Fortress Italy with Rome to Victory (and the work bringing the Commonwealth to the end of the war in FI is now being used for FB). Equipment for British and Americans through the end of the war, plus the voice files, ranks and so on in the base game gets us most of the way to the Co-Belligerent Army.
A combination of the German equipment we have and the Italian Equipment already in the base game goes a long way towards the RSI. There would need to be a bit, maybe quite a bit of work done on ranks, uniforms, TOE and OOB there. Luckily that work wouldn't go to waste! Why? Because the RSI mostly used equipment and uniforms left over from the Royal Italian Army, plus some  rare mid-war vehicles and equipment which could be a nice treat like the Strumtiger, Elefant and Jagdtiger (To clarify: Not that the RSI used those AFVs! Mostly Pz IIIs and IVs - which already exist in-game - Just that the P26/40 might be fun in the way those other rare AFVs are).
The field guns, AA, AT and so on needed for their TOE from 43-45, and to match the rest of the forces across titles would also complete the Royal Italian Army in Sicily.
With a change of tan uniforms for the grey, a complete Italian Army in Sicily gets you North Africa at least through 1943.
It's a good way to add more to an existing Base Game while laying the foundations for a new title.
Give The Herman Goering Division The Right Uniforms For Mainland Italy

In Fortress Italy, the troops of the Herman Goering Division display the correct white Waffenfarben in Fortress Italy, but in Gustav Line and Rome to Victory bear the green Kragenspiegel of the Field Divisions. Simply, the tropical uniform in Sicily is correct for the HG Division, but the temperate uniform for Italy and Northern Italy is, I would venture to guess, ported from Battle for Normandy or Red Thunder unmodified. The cuff title is also present in FI but disappears in the later modules.
This seems like a pretty quick fix - just a uniform option like Greatcoat/Camouflage/etc. that substitutes white collar badges for the green and adds cuff titles for Luftwaffe troops during the dates the HG was involved in the campaign. Call it "Herman Goering" or something in line with the Gebirgsjäger option added in Rome to Victory.
With Field Divisions making an appearance, will the HG Division finally get a second look? Their depiction in Sicily is great but once the fighting moves to Italy it’s fairly apparent that their uniforms are a copy-paste from CMBN. HG in mainland Italy often had cuff titles and wore SS Oakleaf camoflauge smocks. Additionally, their ranks were white and not green as in Field Divisions. This applies to both the unit skins and the unit information screen.

I can see it's been a while since I gave my fellow tree-huggers an update so ...
I'll start with the bocage, or rather sunken lanes. I've been doing some experiments with other ways of creating sunken lanes. Previously I had just put two rows of tall bocage on adjacent, parallel rows of tiles. This provided a not too bad version of the sunken lanes we see in Normandy, but I felt it could be improved upon, or at least made differently. So starting with the same two rows of tall bocage what I tried was to ditchlock the bocage in ditches of 1-2m depth running their length, any more and the ground becomes very distorted whilst surroundings become harder to manage. The ground texture is, at the moment, just plain old dirt, but other textures might well be useful, forest light can look effective, but does introduce quite a bit of vegetation so the path becomes less distinct. A custom tagged ground texture might be the way to go on these. The result, with lots of heavy bocage, is a tunnel-like experience that I would imagine provides almost total concealment, and which induces a real sense of claustrophobia. They are just about wide enough for smaller vehicles though corners are likely to stop movement. Probably best treated as footpaths. Here's a little sample map with trees off ...

At left a zigzag path running uphill south to north, forking at the top, the other down the middle running along a field edge. As you can see they are somewhat narrower than the regular dirt road, at left and right. At ground level ...

... the track through the middle, just about wide enough for a 250, probably navigable, but a bumpy ride ...

... hunting through the dappled shade further up the path ...

... it's dark in there, even on a sunny day!
Now back to trees ... As it stands I have now done enough exercises and experiments in Blender to successfully export tree models, new or modified, with proper wrapped bark texture on the trunks and nicely swaying leaves for windier conditions. I've learnt some more of the limitations of the game engine. I've figured out an approach to making LODs that works in both the same way as the originals but also, I hope, enhances the look of them somewhat. I can pretty much make any tree that I desire to see in the game, and have it appear in pretty much all seasons, though winter is still to be worked on just because how snow looks on trees can vary tremendously depending on the amount of precipitation, so coming up with a single solution for all snowy conditions is unlikely to give the best results. This will also apply to bushes. This all assumes that BF DON'T change the way trees work in all the existing WW2 games since I discovered SF2 has a quite different approach that I think will be more difficult to mod in such a pleasing manner.
So, introducing the Scot's Pine (Pinus sylvestris) or my take on it.

It's the tall ones centre left. (These are in BN) I have made these deliberately taller than the stock pine trees.


They stand head and shoulders above other trees and are more like the type that might be seen in a mature plantation rather than the more twisted forms that are also commonly seen. Pines are generally used in game to represent plantations or vast forests so it seemed appropriate. Going forward I will probably increase the height of some of the other trees a bit as they're on the small side IMHO. Any tree can of course be made to represent whatever tree we want by reworking the model and a little tagging or renaming. We can even have a set of say just pines and conifers to represent a heavy coniferous forest seen in more northerly or mountainous regions.

A small plantation.
Scot's Pines are found throughout much of mainland Europe so are a good species to represent. The models are a bit more complex and natural than the game originals but they seem to work without problem in game.
Running the game at balanced or improved which are the recommended setting means that LODs are used more often. What I discovered is that the LODs are actually used a lot more than I originally suspected. So long as a tree isn't moving then it's probably a LOD, usually LOD level 1 but more often LOD 2 or LOD 3 are used. What this means is that the lower detailed models are used even when quite close to them. LOD 1 will be in view at ranges of less 50m commonly, and in some cases when it's almost right next to the viewpoint, LODs 2 and 3 are commonly seen from about 100m out to 400m, whilst LOD 4 (the star-shaped trees viewed from high above) are seen at anything from 100m to a few km depending on quality settings and how many trees are featured on the map. Incidentally LOD 3 is the model used for bare tree trunks when trees are toggled off. What I've tried to do is make the detail levels of the first three LOD levels a bit closer to the detail level of the normal model, reducing it as the LODs become more distant. I have also tried to make LOD 4 look a bit more like a tree in the distance but also, importantly for very large dense forests, allowed it to work when viewed from a bit closer. I can't control when LODs kick in, but I can make the models a bit more detailed to compensate for this. 

Morning on the edge of the Zon Forest near to the town of Best (MG Outstanding Gallantry). The distant trees are LOD 4.

At the edge of the forest - a lot of trees! The foreground is Normal and LOD 1 but the scene quickly starts to use LOD 4 models because of the sheer number of trees rendered. Of note, the LOD 4 models don't cast or receive shadows.

The other side of the forest in sunlight, the trees in the middle are LOD 4, notice how the light doesn't affect their trunks, can't alter this ...

... but, IMHO, they do blend quite well, especially considering they are used relatively close up, as on the right here.
Another benefit of the extra details, hopefully, is that the jerkiness and flickering associated with trees won't be so noticeable when transitions between LODs are a little smoother, but this is yet to be demonstrated with multiple new models.
Things like the lack of shadows on LOD level 4 are stuff that I can't influence. Increasing ones quality settings in-game pushes the point at which LODs are introduced further form the camera, but at a serious cost in render speed and frame rate. The shadows under the trees move back a bit but they are still missing in the distance. A mistake in my opinion since the shadows at that distance bind the trees to the ground and create a sense of distance and depth, they're what makes it look three dimensional, makes it pop! Look at a landscape with distant woods and you'll notice that the underside of trees and the ground below, even on dull days, is much darker, whereas in game it's light and indistinct. I know that there are compromises with how the game has to work and what is rendered, limited by consideration for hardware, but I do believe this one is an error in judgement ... IMHO. If I could fix one thing it might be this ...

The Rhone Valley as appears in game on a bright day but not full sun (with my mods)

Artist's (huhhum) impression with shadows under distant trees. Perhaps a consideration for the next engine ...
As always your feedback is greatly appreciated. And remember to plant a tree 🌲

“We also found out through our Dutch intelligence network that the enemy may have armour in the AO, something to keep an eye on.”
Haha hilarious