Pelican Pal

You realize that this sentiment is really the problem, right?  I mean there is nothing categorically wrong in what the ambassador said for an objective point of view.  Russia has not demonstrated that it will act in good faith during the conduct of this war - the systemic warcrimes are a big hint.  So it would be a very good idea to approach any peace negotiations very carefully.
You do not have to like someone nor agree with their politics, but that does not automatically mean everything they say is incorrect.  Statements or positions need to be weighed against the facts, not affiliations, no matter which end of the spectrum the come from.  
There are exceptions of course, for example if someone has demonstrated habitual lunacy or use of mis/dis-information, sure go ahead and burn them as a source, but the Ukrainian ambassador does not fall into that category as far as we know - unless you have proof beyond her possible post-secondary education?  You are burning her based in affiliation alone or at least it appears that way, and that is intellectually lazy to be blunt.
Finally this whole line of thinking is a significant fracture point that has, and will be exploited by all sorts of players.  It is in fact step 2 in the subversive warfare playbook - widen the fractures that were already there and make them unsealable; the death of compromise.  Step 3 is to harden elements from either side of the fracture into organized and connected collectives that are able to self perpetuate and metastasize - a carcinogenic operation. This is a long standing recipe on how to destroy a society from the inside out.
This is exactly the type of operations Russia did before 2014, and was attempting before this war started.  Every nation that borders Russia is combating this sort of influence.  And it will very likely be what Russia falls back on once this war is over - assuming there is a functioning Russia left.  China is also very good at this game, it is also out of their playbook, but they are much better at it.
So you do not have to agree with the current US president - and sure go ahead and insult him based on ageism. But it is hard to disagree with the results in Ukraine, so far.  This has been one helluva tough one to steer through from a strategic and political level.  And it has not been perfect.  But for navigation through the first real proxy war of the 21st century I gotta give it a B+ so far.
As to the rest of the politics, well you Americans can go argue that - preferably on another thread.

The other area of improvement is the effect of artillery on armoured vehicles.  The current CM engine is not reflecting realities we are seeing in the war in Ukraine, I do believe a revisit is in order on just how vulnerable tanks are to heavy indirect fires.  This will have a big impact on CW as the Soviets were an artillery heavy force.

I'm fairly sure Artkin is right. This stuff was discussed back in 2008/2009 pretty extensively and you could probably track down forum threads from that time period. Steve and Charles participated more in technical discussions so the few years around the CM:BN launch is a treasure trove. Now this is from my memory so I'll have to double check later if I can find the threads again but....

CM calculates LOS from 5 calculated heights. Essentially its a big look up table saying "From this action square what other squares can be seen and at what heights". So while spotting is done on the fly LOS drawing isn't. Those 5 height levels are:
Prone Kneeling Standing/Small Vehicle Tall Vehicle Very Tall Vehicle Prone and Kneeling are only for infantry obviously while vehicles have access to the remaining three. So for an Abrams it would be

Driver: Small vehicle
Gunner, TC: tall vehicle

And this means that the CITV can't spot from its Very Tall Vehicle slot and gets rolled into Tall Vehicle where the TC is. Since spotting is tied to a person and a person can't be within two different heights.

A note for clarity. The content in blue is my working theory for what is going on here. So once you get to that I'm not 100%. I'm putting stuff together from some notes and memory.

So here is probably the most pertinent post on the issue:
 

There are some additional posts in the thread so I recommend you read it. but they key points seem to be:

- Having multiple points of LOS generation (per crew member) is problematic
- The game has issues with spotting routines when it comes to just sensors (i'd describe the CITV as a sensor)
My guess is that the Brad and Stryker are just getting the hull down concealment bonus applied to them but there isn't a system for a turret down concealment bonus so you can't do that. FWIW this used to be pretty common knowledge, or at least I recall it being fairly well known about a decade ago. There aren't any vehicles (that I know of) that you can go turret down in.

I'm fairly sure Artkin is right. This stuff was discussed back in 2008/2009 pretty extensively and you could probably track down forum threads from that time period. Steve and Charles participated more in technical discussions so the few years around the CM:BN launch is a treasure trove. Now this is from my memory so I'll have to double check later if I can find the threads again but....

CM calculates LOS from 5 calculated heights. Essentially its a big look up table saying "From this action square what other squares can be seen and at what heights". So while spotting is done on the fly LOS drawing isn't. Those 5 height levels are:
Prone Kneeling Standing/Small Vehicle Tall Vehicle Very Tall Vehicle Prone and Kneeling are only for infantry obviously while vehicles have access to the remaining three. So for an Abrams it would be

Driver: Small vehicle
Gunner, TC: tall vehicle

And this means that the CITV can't spot from its Very Tall Vehicle slot and gets rolled into Tall Vehicle where the TC is. Since spotting is tied to a person and a person can't be within two different heights.

A note for clarity. The content in blue is my working theory for what is going on here. So once you get to that I'm not 100%. I'm putting stuff together from some notes and memory.

I'm fairly sure Artkin is right. This stuff was discussed back in 2008/2009 pretty extensively and you could probably track down forum threads from that time period. Steve and Charles participated more in technical discussions so the few years around the CM:BN launch is a treasure trove. Now this is from my memory so I'll have to double check later if I can find the threads again but....

CM calculates LOS from 5 calculated heights. Essentially its a big look up table saying "From this action square what other squares can be seen and at what heights". So while spotting is done on the fly LOS drawing isn't. Those 5 height levels are:
Prone Kneeling Standing/Small Vehicle Tall Vehicle Very Tall Vehicle Prone and Kneeling are only for infantry obviously while vehicles have access to the remaining three. So for an Abrams it would be

Driver: Small vehicle
Gunner, TC: tall vehicle

And this means that the CITV can't spot from its Very Tall Vehicle slot and gets rolled into Tall Vehicle where the TC is. Since spotting is tied to a person and a person can't be within two different heights.

A note for clarity. The content in blue is my working theory for what is going on here. So once you get to that I'm not 100%. I'm putting stuff together from some notes and memory.

Your complaints are valid but you are playing a game that is fundamentally 15 years old or so. The systems work well enough for its age but there are definite holes and frustrations that come with that. What I can tell is that for the current games no spotting improvements are ever going to happen so what you have right now is what we are all stuck with.

I don't believe it. I always thought the bow gunner blind fired without regard. 
Jokes aside I meant 25-39 years. 39 is too long. 
And that peep hole is so small it's not worth mentioning. Also its so low to the ground that itd be useless spotting long distances even if it had decent optics. 

thanks ur right.  Its been a few years since Ive played

The fact is that depsite how good this game is, and that its spotting system does many things better than other games, it is the weakest link in these games and quite frankly needs a serious look over. 
I posted a while back about some issues I had in the NTC Missions where M60s without thermals could not see several plattoons of soviet tanks in a open featurless desert. I replayed the mission dozens of times trying to find out some workaround. Unbuttoning, target arcs etc. No matter what, those M60s could not see anything. One thing I discovered from that discussion is that CMCW units cannot remember what they have spotted, so once the find something, they can lose it again and then have to start the entire spotting process all over. That is a HUGE problem. 
The other big issue is the way thermals have been modeled. Make no mistake, thermal optics are a huge advantage in the real world. But the way they work in CMCW I think needs quite a bit of adjustment. I could be wrong, but I suspect that thermals have some kind of blanket spotting buff because it seems to boost aquisition even when it shouldnt. Tanks with thermals seem to alway get the first shot even at close range, etc. One extermely frustrating example is having a bunch of soviet tanks that are lying in wait with faceing or arc commands and the thermal armed tanks get the first shots off almost every time even in that situation when ranges are less than 1500. Often even at much closer ranges. 
And stuff like this is not an uncommon thing. Units routinely fail to see things that are right in front of their face. 
One last thing. This issue has been the subject of complaint pretty much since CMX2 came into existence. What I find rather depressing is that many in this community just assume the people complaining are bad at the game or go on lengthy explanations of how sophisticated this games spotting system is compared to other games. In the latter example, it simply doesnt matter. The fact that this game is trying to do things that other games dont do doesnt mean its problems should be a free pass. This aspect of this game needs a serious adjustment. 
The problem is sufficiently frustrating that if the only thing CM 3.0 or patch 5.0 did was fix this, I would be totally happy with it. 

I want to start off by sharing text from a couple of recent e-mails I sent to a regular opponent while playing CMCW with PBEM++, with me as the Russian player in both of these separate scenarios.  I think it will be clear from the text what I am driving at, and I wonder if this is something others are experiencing, and if this is something the development team needs to address.
Scenario:  Unhoook the Leash
BTW, in our current CM match, it is frustrating playing Ivan. Hidden in trees with LOS to open ground, but cannot spot large moving vehicles in the open. I can spot a deer 500 m off to my side at tree line in dusk conditions with peripheral vision while driving on highway at 80-100 kmh but my guys sitting still looking right at tanks cannot see them. And they are equipped additionally with sensors??? And your guys, while on the move, can see my non-moving stuff and take them out with one shot.   Case in point, your second M1 to be immobilized. By HE. Why, you might ask? Because my T72 was firing at the infantry "behind" the tank. The tank, which, could not at all be seen by my tank. But the infantry "behind" the tank? Totally visible. Scenario:  A Beautiful Morning (from Scenario Depot)
Meanwhile in our other game, you are not going to believe this.  I took out a tank with an ATGM.   Which one might naturally assume is the unbelievable aspect based on my experience with Russian sensor systems.  And in a way, those systems did not disappoint.   But here is what happened.   I was checking LOS last turn and my IFV could see your four beautifully lined up tanks.  By see, I mean the light blue line was present all in that area as I was using the target command to check LOS.  But actually see the four tanks.  No.  Of course not.   In doing this I must have accidentally issued a target command, at a point beyond all your tanks.  Think of an area fire command.   So the bugger launches an ATGM as area fire.  Has not spotted a single tank.  The ATGM just happens to hit and blow up your tank, because it happened to be in the way.  My IFV still cannot see the flaming, smoking, mass of twisted steel by the way.  Which of course, is par for the course.   I think I may have discovered a way to actually get Russian BMPs to fire ATGMs at high value targets.  Can't be any worse than what happens normally.   It seems to me that the game (CMCW at least) has a flaw in how Russian IFVs and Tanks locate (see) enemy IFVs and Tanks.  In both these games, what is not mentioned in my e-mails to my opponent, is that while my armored vehicles cannot see enemy vehicles, infantry units can spot the enemy vehicles pretty reasonably.  And in some cases my infantry are sitting next to one of my tanks or BMPs, and the infantry squad or HQ, can see tanks rolling across open fields, but the tank or BMP positioned next to the infantry cannot, even though using targeting command for both units (infantry,  BMP/tank) shows a blue line over a large swath of area all around the enemy vehicles.  And consider that my infantry, depending on stance, are much lower to the ground (say 1 to 6 feet above ground for eyeballs/binocs) compared to the sensor equipped vehicle, which must be sitting say 8-12 feet or more above ground.  I now try to open up all my fighting vehicles in the hope that the commander/gunner sitting at the top of the vehicle.   I fully appreciate that US sensor systems might be better quality than Soviet sensors (though I am not sure if that is how it was during CMCW's time frame), which to me would provide advantages such as being able to pick out targets further distances than Soviet forces at night or under darker conditions, or being able to see through smoke better than Soviet forces etc.  But is seems the way CMCW is currently being modeled, the Soviet vehicles are essentially blind to US vehicles much of the time.  It is like the sensors/optics on these vehicles are painted over/closed and hinder rather than enhance siting of enemy vehicles, but not of infantry.  And even unbuttoning vehicles does not appear to improve chances of siting enemy armor, on the move, in the open no less.  So a commander in a cupola, presumably with binocs cannot see the enemy armor, but infantry/HQs on the ground with or without binocs can.   So wondering if anyone else is noticing this and if this is something the development team should look into.

I'm not saying we should all just bend the knee to Putin. I'm saying that Perun seems to misunderstand what people generally are afraid of when they talk about escalation. In the video, it sounds like he is a bit baffled about this.

He was in for close to fifteen years, there is a long strange story here somewhere. Virtually no details in the article.
Peace to his family
Glory to ukraine 
Napalm to the Russian B^^T^*((DS

An excellent video! Quite informative and it's great to see the principles in action.
I would quibble with this definition a little bit. A meeting engagement in Soviet military science specifically refers to an engagement where both sides are on the move (though variously defined by different authors as either or both on move or on the offensive), and by the 1980s was expected to be the most common type of engagement in a real war.  An attack from the march is a different but related concept in that a meeting engagement would likely, but not necessarily, involve an attack from the march.
Edit: Some good sources on this that I think are very good if anyone is interested:
The Offensive by A. A. Sidorenko
Soviet Airland Battle Tactics by W. Baxter - don't let the title scare you, he did it on purpose!

Hi guys. I have been reading this forum multiple times a day since the 25th of February last year. This is the first time I have posted anything on here though. What brings me out of the shadows after all this time is some growing questions I am beginning to have.
There are almost 1900 pages showing Russian incompetence and brutalities and of course Ukrainian bravery. Those pages along with 1 working eyeball, 1 working ear, a thimble full of common sense, and a Tic Tak sized amount of human decency should be enough for anybody to know the righteous side of this war and who we all should be doing something big or small to help them win.
Here is the thing though, Why have not they won?  As much as I have read on here that Ukraine won this war in the first week, they still ain't done it yet. Large parts of their country is still occupied. Their soldiers and civilians die and get maimed everyday. God only knows what their civilians currently occupied suffer everyday and their p.o.w.s that for whatever reason the Russians decided a long time ago were not going home.
I think that this talk of a building Russian offensive should not be so flippantly dismissed. As much as we like to poke fun at the draftees that got scooped off the street handed a bolt action rifle and sent to soak up Ukrainian lead and gunpowder and bog down their offensives. They accomplished that mission and got Ukraine back in the trenches  It is clear Ukraine is winning... but they ain't won nothing yet. When you look at it from the other side, sometimes when your losing, you need to slow down the process drag it out see if circumstances change. 
Has much has we poke fun at those draftees all of them where not used has lead sponges. Those guys are coming up on what 3 months of some form of training. And to me it is impossible to think that that training has not vastly improved over what it was a year ago. Simply pulling a few vets out of the trenches and telling them how to survive and how to fight and maybe not worrying so much about if they can march a straight line. And poking fun at all those T62s and T64s being pulled out of storage to be sent into the fight. They are still tanks and there is still a lot of them. 
While I am happy Ukraine is getting 50 Bradleys and a few other modern I.F.V.s.. still though that is a Bradley battalion. Maybe add a Marder battalion to it... maybe not..... guys its gonna take lots more than that.
Before I ramble on anymore let me just ask it simply. After years of overestimating Russia, are we now underestimating them? Is that a dangerous path that this small echo chamber, like the larger western ones to be leading public opinions and expectations down? The Ukrainians have proven themselves to be as tough and brave has any army and are fighting for a righteous cause. This ain't a movie though and the good guys don't always win
 
 
 
  

Even by that standard Putins decision making has been vastly sub optimal. There was a point in March where Ukraine would have made deal that gave Putin a lot of what he wants. Even with plan A in literal smoking wreckage, Putin doubles down on the Donbas strategy rather that declaring victory and going home. Now he is on a path where he exhausts the state capacity of his entire Regime before he goes down. But I truly don't see that he has changed the place where this winds up, except for the size of the cemeteries, and the quality of the next sunflower crop, given tat the Russians can't be bothered to pick up their dead.

It's a mistake, I think, to view Russian strategizing as being primarily military in nature. Russia is a nuclear power. It is *not* going to be invaded so the only zone of conflict that ultimately matters for Putin personally is within the elites of his regime. If you treat the decisions of the Russian war against Ukraine as being driven at first by an attempt to absorb a neighbor (that Russian elites considered to be an errant province) and then a series of attempts to manage domestic reactions to failure to so, I think you can parse the Russian decision tree fairly easily. 
 

Ended up being my AMD drivers.

Also just bumping this since BS is probably getting more attention now. I've thrown together a few quick and dirty QB maps for people to try too https://github.com/combat-mission/Black-Sea/tree/main/qb

Like @womble said some people in this thread are confusing ease of use for some sort of unique capability. 


The assault command exists to allow a player to quickly bound a squad to a location. Its functionally worse than manually splitting the squad and doing it yourself. The only provided benefit is that it takes less time. The Assault Command exists for real-time players.

If you have the time you will get better results by manually splitting the squad and moving each element yourself. Using Quick, Fast, pause commands, target commands, and so on. 
 
IIRC the longer the waypoint the longer the legs are
 

The information in this thread is devolving into confusion.
Why? Why do this:
? You've already got them split, you can control what they do. Why leave it to the TacAI after having micro'ed your approach?
If you're talking about RT, then maybe this has some mileage. But, in WeGo, using your squads split is almost always better: your "own fire support" can be tailored better to the situation by choosing your team splits; you can tailor your wait times at each waypoint to change the emphasis placed on fire or movement and control your troops' fatigue rate/recovery; you can incorporate different movement modes (Slow, Quick and Fast all have their place; Move has no place in an assault evolution and Hunt is of very limited use, since it cancels all following waypoints if it's triggered).
This is simply untrue. It takes time to do, and so probably isn't practcable in Real Time (if you don't/cant pause), but it's entirely possible to do in WeGo or if you can freely pause your game. In fact, in RT-with-profligate-pausing, if you're crisis-managing a squad, you can (if you're prepared to do the micro) do "better" than in WeGo, since you don't have to use "guesstimated" pause times and can perfectly coordinate the actions of the firing and moving elements. The methodology for WeGo has been ably described by IanL.
You can use Face, or Target Arcs, for sure. But this is probably an edge case, since if you're under fire, you probably know where it's coming from and want to hose it down without having to wait for your pTruppen to acquire the target; having them seek a target might well give that target time to suppress the team that just stopped moving.
Erm, wut? The TacAI in CM is a very simplistic rules-based system. It has no capacity to learn anything. And what "scripting" are you referring to.
Or did I miss something.
IanL described the procedure pretty well. Some supplementary points:
split your squads so that the short range weapons are in one team and the support weapons are in another. choose your movement modes for the movement legs wisely. Fast is good, especially if you're using short legs, with longish firing pauses for the pTruppen to get their wind back; you might not want individual members of the moving team to pause to return fire, especially when they'll be stopping soon anyway. Quick is good if you want some responsiveness in your moving teams. Slow is good for one AS if you want your team to drop into cover and throw the opposition's target acquisition off, or for the actual last leg where you're chucking grenades and bayonets might notionally become involved. you can give the "Assault team" (with the grenades and SMGs) Target Arc orders if you want, so they don't spaff their precious ammo on suppressive efforts at long range.  if your squad splits into three teams, you can have two covering and one moving, or the other way round, depending on the situation. you can coordinate teams that are not part of the same squad (either different squads or independent teams) in the same evolution. There are probably other things that you'll pick up for yourself when you start using this method.
The Assault command is confusingly named. It is just another movement mode, and has no direct relationship to "dislodging the enemy from their positions and taking their place". It is, as far as I can tell, a pure convenience, mostly in place for the purposes of unpaused RealTime players, or those who prefer not to have to micromanage. Any other movement command can be used to get up close and personal to the enemy's positions, with varying degrees of efficiency, both inherent to the inbuilt priorities of the mode chosen, and the context in which the choice is made. Slow can be the best way of assaulting through a door into an occupied building, for example.
As far as I know, the Assault command doesn't bestow any particular attitudinal bonus for "attacking the other guy". I think that was confirmed by Steve "way back when". As I recall, it uses the same speed and priority set for the TacAI as "Quick" (so sometimes they'll return fire during a movement leg), and alternates movement between teams of a squad. 

Doing the quick move with well-placed waypoints is Imo something to be considered. The troops waiting at the waypoint for other teams to catch up will engage enemy units especially giving them an additional 5sec pause. The assault command to be given when the hand grenade becomes the primary weapon. Less than three action squares. Brits WW2 a section has three teams split three ways and keep the Bren team for support. Let the other two teams merge and use them for the assault. 

I paid full price for a "combat simulator" that cant even decently model LoS. Im frustrated as i've hoped these problems would have been dealt via latest engine update but rest assured the main underlining problems that have plagued this series for over a decade is still alive and well and the devs seem to not care or just put their hands up and expect you to shell out another 60 bucks for the latest "engine upgrade". There is a 20 some-ton vehicle with its engine running, firing a 30mm cannon about 100 meters directly infront of the BTR crew and yet the crew cant see them to target even though its position was already relayed via radio. That crew knew exactly where that bmp was. Yet the bmp will spot the btr first and also open fire first. Brilliant game design lads really hit a homerun with that one. Please fix broken LoS. And for anyone who is new to the series or thinks the LoS is fine, look at the attached screenshot. Please don't start raddling off variables as if that makes up for the fact the crew cant see a massive IFV on the road firing its main gun. Give me a break. Please for the love of God, FIX THE BROKEN LOS. 
 

You've got to be kidding me...
 
50+ 130 mm guns do not damage a single subsystem other than tracks to yellow. This weight of artillery falls onto these 3 tanks and yet every AA MG on the three tanks remains intact.
 
I just ran a quick test in Black Sea and showed the same issue unless I'm expected to believe that 12.7mm machine guns are made of Unobtainium.





------------------

What seems to be happening is that fragmentation effect will not do any damage to tank subsystems^1 . I've tested that by dropping a stupid amount of artillery onto tanks in airburst mode. After hundreds of rounds the tank can just drive off as if nothing as occurred.

I've also ran tests using general and again tanks will not take subsystem damage^1 when a round lands nearby. A shell landing onto a tank will sometimes cause subsystem damage but its not 100% (might be due to ERA?) but that also seems sorta incorrect.



^1 The only subsystem that will show any damage is tracks. No other subsystem will.

I ran some tests of airburst artillery against armored vehicles. In particular T-72 AVs and BMP-1s.
 

O:10 for artillery call in

2:25 artillery strikes

3:00 review of damaged/destroyed BMPs

8:10 review of vehicles

What I found using a massive amount of artillery is that while it was possible for artillery to destroy the BMP-1s it was unable to do any damage to any subsystem except tracks furthermore no amount of artillery would detonate or disable an ERA block. This seems incorrect to me and likely to be a bug of some variety. Even BMPs that took penetrating hits and crew/passenger losses would not have any subsystem damage. Please watch the linked video and you will see enough artillery to destroy every BMP and level every building on the block. Yet this massive weight of fire does not damage or disable any external system. Not a single DSHK, smoke launcher, AT-4, vision system, ERA block, etc... takes any ounce of damage while multi-story buildings are leveled.











PS: I recently made another post but wanted to create a new one that more accurately identified the issue.

Avoiding any partisan statement whatsoever, it's clear that in virtually every US administration before this one there was a distinct lack of desire and/or political will to grab the nettle on Russia. In some cases those reasons were understandable and justifiable at the time and some were not. What is quite clear is that this administration decided as of last April that the time had come to do so and then put considerable effort and time in to alter the outcome Putin expected. This was not without cost. I personally think that the conduct of the exit from Afghanistan was affected as officials were at the time already feverishly working the issue. DC observers were criticizing Jake Sherman at the time for seeming preoccupied as Kabul fell. Now, we know why. 
In short, I think Putin would have succeeded at almost any time before 2020 in getting a better outcome with greater or lesser levels of resistance depending on the particular occupant of the office but the reaction of this White House has been highly exceptional in scope and degree.