Duckman

Agreed. The policy described above is, frankly, a bit weird. If it ships with the game then it is, commonsensically, part of it.

1945 has one huge advantage in that it hasn't been done to death, unlike Normandy and the Bulge (admit it!). Agree about the matchups. Wunderwaffe like the Sturmgewehr always get top billing, but the Allies were no slouches and their units beefed up on automatic weapons as well (e.g. 30 Cals and more BARs at squad level). They also get some terrific new equipment, like the Comet and Pershing, even if the latter was a bit of a white elephant. However the ubiquitousness of the potent-enough 76-mm Sherman was quite enough to tip the balance, especially given rapidly declining German tanker training. Then there's the Birth of Night Vision of course, but I don't know how much of that we'll see in the game.

Haha, fair point even if I think you got the underlying message. :-) In fariness to BA nobody plays it zoomed in like that, and the cutscenes that look like 1970s war comics are superb. But yeah, CM does have amazing graphics for a niche game.

It sounds like the game provides a good lesson on the advantages of ammo standardisation. Very realistic. :-)

In fairness to BA it does some things really well for a game of its type, like fog of war and suppression. Overall it reminds me of the later Close Combat games, ie basically realistic but with Borg spotting and some silly over the top units like onboard rocket artillery. If CM is a no-compromises indie film then BA is a one of the better Hollywood war movies, you could say.

Poland's strategic situation was more or less hopeless with the country surrounded, but the quickness of the German victory was still somewhat unexpected with unusually good autumn weather ("Hitler weather") playing a part, as well as the Russian stab in the back and German terror bombing. So while the French and British weren't exactly on top of things, it wasn't totally unreasonable to expect the Polish campaign to last into spring 1940. If the weather factor had gone the other way it might have. Apart from the hopeless strategic situation the Poles were hampered by poor mobility, which allowed the Germans to run rings around them operationally even if the tactical situation was a lot more even. German air superiority also turned retreats into routs, similar to what happened in France and Russia the following years.

The Volksgrenadiere will be fun to play with. So-so morale and training, but lots of gunz!

Like others have said, it was a lot more even tactically than operationally or strategically (not unlike Normandy or Bagration in 1944, you might say). Recent research, summarised by Steven Zaloga in his Osprey books, paints a somewhat better picture of the French army. The French armoured cavalry divisions fought a successful delaying action against the panzers in Belgium, for example. However it has somewhat understandably been overshadowed by the cataclysmic defeat at Sedan (which pitted Germany's best against French reserve troops) and the events that followed. The BEF had some tactical successes too, although it didn't matter in the end of course.

First of all it was not going to happen since everyone was tired of war, there was still Japan (with the a-bomb an unknown), and the Russians were still the heroes of Stalingrad to most of the Western public and politicians. Militarily the Soviets were pretty much scraping the bottom of the manpower barrel. So were the Brits of course, but the Americans and French (who were remilitarising rapidly) still had plenty left. Western logitics and air power were vastly superior. With ground forces it's probably a tossup, with the edge going to the West because of better artillery as well as the abovementioned logistical and aerial advantages which are huge force multipliers (cf what happened to the Wehrmacht). Consequently the Soviet spearheads would find themselves at the end of a very long logistical chain that the West could cut fairly easily. A bit like the Wehrmacht in France or Africa, you could say. In that situation things like armour thickness don't matter much. (To the above you can also add factors like the, eh, somewhat unwilling liberated peoples in the Soviet rear.)

Time for the yearly bump. Scouts, report in!

I think the fact they did the Italians is a pretty sure hint North Africa is coming at some point. Reuse is the name of the game.

On the subject of COIN/CAS, the UAE is donating six Super Tucanos to Iraq: http://www.janes.com/article/48114/uae-to-donate-super-tucanos-to-iraq However since neither country has any trained pilots on the type, it begs the question who will fly them? Contractors? USAF pilots from the Afghan training program? There is of course a history of weird equipment decisions in the region, so the answer might be "no one" or "no one qualified". But the possible connection to the A-29 is kind of intriguing.

Exactly. The modern day equivalent of those forces would be slow jets and turboprops. Those kinds of aircraft are also much cheaper to operate than fast jets, and they need less basing infrastructure. Anyway, with American made Super Tucanos soon entering combat in Afghanistan (where they will probably be flown by US "instructors" on occasion) there will be a full scale experiment.

Given shared Nato responsibilities and the likely involvement if a multinational rapid reaction force you can argue for any European army. Having the French and theit unique equipment would be fun, for example. I guess it partly comes down to how much you can reuse from Shock Force. As for the USMC, they are always popular (look at the number of films about them!) so I expect them to show up.

In defence of the A-10 it seems these "unlikely" circumstances keep happening, which makes you wonder if they are really that unlikely. In other words: if the U.S. (and the West in general) expects to keep fighting colonial wars it might be time for a colonial air force. Historically relatively low tech forces along those lines have been very successful, like the French (with secondhand prop aircraft) in Indochina and Africa and the US Skyraiders (and assorted other props) in SE Asia. Maybe having a CAS/COIN branch with A-10s and Super Tucanos (soon in Afghan-US service) isn't a bad idea, even if it flies in the face of holy standardisation and multimissionality?

The stage is really set for including the Poles (if not this time, then when?) and if you do that you might as well bring along the Leopard-toting Dutch and Germans. The only major unique Polish equipment is the Patria AMV. The Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians would probably be at home defending their extremely endangered borders.

Oops, yes I meant Donetsk airport. I can't quite understand why those airports are so important since the Russians don't need to fly stuff in anyway. Seems like another case of symbolic importance taking precedence on both sides - "if they/we have an airport they/we will look more like a real country". As for the artillery, I'm pretty sure I read about Russian drones in use as spotters (apparently they've worked hard on that since the Georgian war) as well as Ukrainian laments about lack of counterbattery radar. Together it should add up to an advantage gun-for-gun for the Russian batteries, especially if newer or heavier models are also used. There is comparatively little written about the artillery (compared to e.g. what tanks are used), which is a pity since it seems to be the dominant weapon. From the pictures I've seen it looks like the Ukrainians are mostly using old Soviet medium (122 mm) towed howitzers, and I've seen some pictures (satellite images?) suggesting the Russians are using heavier self-propelled stuff.

It sounds like APS may be a little overpowered in the game. In any case it seems like shooting up tanks with artillery, autocannons and even HMGs to damage their APS might be a good idea both in the game and real life. Kind of like forcing them to button up in the ole days.

The recent Ukrainan debacles (or at least semi-debacles) are interesting from a military point of view. It seems there is a lot of political interference which forces Ukrainian into bad strategic and tactical positions, like holding Debaltseve (surrounded on three sides and an obvious artillery magnet) and Luhansk airport. The importance of symbolism to decision making is evident in expressions like "our Stalingrad" - always a bad sign. Anyone know the causes of the apparent Russian ("separatist") artillery superiority? There has been mention of new generation Russian drones for target finding, as well as heavier and longer ranged guns than what the Ukrainians have. Lack of Ukrainian counter battery radar is another issue that pops up.

Isn't decoys and swarming a logical answer to APS? It will make ATGMs more advanced, but with things like Javelin they're going that route anyway. A decent sized missile should be able to deploy some submunitions/decoys. Another possibility is jamming, but I don't know how feasible that is on such a small scale. Anyway, they came up with a solution to reactive armour so I'm sure ATGM manufacturers will solve this too.

Desert Storm was kind of unique in that the Iraqis (for various reasons, including the not totally unrealistic expectation that the coalition would fall apart) sat in the desert for several months and let themselves be bombed. The disparity in equipment and training was probably also bigger than between Russia and Nato today. Of course a European conflict may be similar in that Nato achieves air supremacy and more or less pummels the Russians into submission, but the closeness to Russia and the range and mobility of their most modern AD systems makes it less likely. Not saying it's impossible, just less likely.

After looking at a video of one of the Grad strikes I'd say "danger close" may include most of the map. Aren't they more for interdiction and counter battery stuff than battlefield support?

I was a conscript 2nd Lt once (glorified NCO really), and I think sims are great because they can teach you precisely the stuff that is hard to get across by other means. Since so much time during exercises is taken up by necessary but mundane stuff like transportation, putting up tents, cleaning and what have you there is actually rather little time spent on, well, tactics (this might be different for professionals). So the sheer volume of training you can do with sims, even if lower quality, is quite amazing compared to live exercises. Of course this is also true for cases like aircraft where training is even more expensive. Sims are not as good as exercises, but they are a very good complement and clearly preferable to only classroom study. As for the big simulations the military run to test operational and strategic scenarios they always struck me as some of the most "gamey" of all, even if they have classified info and better combat algorithms. The sheer scale of it and all the assumptions must make for a significant "game" factor.

Agree on both points. However I still think even commercial sims can have some real value, provided you understand and acknowledge their limitations. The military themselves use wargames and simulations in various forms, some of them modded or even off the shelf commercial ones. As for the A-10s, they are going back to Europe so maybe they should be in the game after all: https://medium.com/war-is-boring/a-10s-return-to-europe-to-stare-down-russia-20a0d902bd86

That sounds really interesting, and an excellent use of conmercial sims even if there were some game balance considerations. Do you have links to any combat reports or videos?