panzerde

Based on the activity in the South / East of the Dneiper -  Could Putin's get out of jail card  from this mess be establishing a permanent land bridge to the Crimea ?  - He needs to take and hold the Cities on the Coast of the Sea of Azov . 

While I would like to believe it I doubt the amount of war defying conscripts outnumbers the pro war and scared ones. 

Yeah. If *I* was a captured Russian soldier I'd be saying the same in the hope of getting better treatment. Nothing to lose,  and it might just help you.
So i don't think that those statements are worth very much. 

Thank you for sharing. I really liked his reading list too.

Highly recommended reading.  So hop to it  
http://schoolofwar.org/tactical-excellence-with-combat-mission-cold-war/

Seriously, the reason I thought this review was so good was because of the TDG replacement angle for the professional... I don't care that the reviewer probably isn't the most comfortable in the game I love the approach he is taking.  I find it unique and refreshing.. and aligns with the intent we had for this game, as a tactical sandbox.
Bil

I am pretty sure it goes the other way more often.  Someone does not put the hours in and we get a slag piece because of "graphics, UI and pricing" without properly evaluating the systems strengths and successes.  

I think what most people are waiting for is the NATO module for Cold War, not something new for the existing games.
Personally I would welcome some news about that module. Not asking for a release date, just some insight in which countries will be included and such.

This game is about the military-tactical challenges of warfare in various eras and areas.  We all put up w the outdated graphics because we want the challenge that we can't seem to find elsewhere.  If someone came up w CM's challenge w modern graphics & such, yeah, we'd all want that.  but where is that game? 
Men of War has better graphics (I played it for a while long ago).  It also has fighting all happening within ~ 100 meters, which is nice playground fun but utterly ridiculous.  If one wants a realistic military challenge, CM is the place. 
Most games sacrifice realism to gain bigger market, that's cool for them, but then again all those games kinda play the same.  Make base, base makes stuff, get better stuff, make better base, get more better stuff......

In other games there are much better looking graphics, true. But graphics quality doesn't really bother me in CM2 games. It's some other things that do, but there aren't many things that annoy me anymore. I've been using these games since CMBO and remember how things were let's say during the first 10 years. Nowadays most things work nicely. 
One graphics thing I'd like to see improved is how difficult it is to see map height differences. In nature hills are easy to see if one side of a hill is in shadow and another part of a hill is not. In the game I struggle when trying to see which hills are higher than others - especially when there are no trees.

It's abstracted since it's beneath the layer the game depicts. You kicked a door in that happened to be at the end of a straight well-lit hallway totally exposed to a shooter across the other end of the street etc etc. The houses are literally devoid of walls, furniture, etc. It's clearly being RNG-ed. If you don't like that this is just not the game for you. Door kickers is. Insurgency is. Call of Duty is. Your perspective is a battlefield one, not a "check those corners" one. Sorry man. 

Welcome to the forum Tomiko, that's a big stick you brought along to poke at the hornets with ...
There's a lot in your post that has been discussed many times here and will doubtless be discussed many more times in the future.
I just want to say that WRT graphics, yes I get it, the game is not Post Scriptum nor Hell Let Loose not even Arma, sure it could use a dose of what they have, but it's also not those types of game. If a new player comes to CM expecting those types of game they will be disappointed, if they come with an open mind then they might just find something quite unique, despite it's dated looks, a kinda milf amongst games. For sure a modern gloss would doubtless attract more players but the expense of that, not just financially, but also in development time and resources would distract our tiny team of developers from doing what they actually do best. I don't doubt that BF are acutely aware that the engine is far past it's sell by date in terms of graphics, amongst other issues, but I also believe that they have a roadmap, and their commitment to the franchise is peerless amongst developers.
Correct me if I'm making an assumption but I think you mean horizon when you say sky, the hard line of the skybox and distant ground is far from stellar ...
I take issue with your presumption that a skilful modder could turn one game into another, this is to not understand the games and engine in the slightest. Yes I can take all the graphics, textures and skins from one game and put them into another but it changes nothing of the underlying mechanics. CM2 has been with us for over a dozen years and no one has ever been able to do what you suggest simply because they can't. It would mean reverse engineering the whole game, everything, and then remaking it again. Now, I don't know about you, but as someone who has made a mod or two, which I hope dramatically change and enhance the game, I have an idea about how long that little lot took to do AND as a practicing professional graphic designer I have a bit of an idea about what my time is worth. So believe me when I say that there's more bang for buck built into one game than any modder's life works would cost unless of course you are independently wealthy and don't want a life beyond this game. Your assertion is bunkum mate.

Hmm, well you have some points to be sure, some fair, some unfair and some, well everyone is entitled to opinion and choices.  I am not going to weigh in everything, we already know we want to fix quite a few things in the next engine (e.g. graphics) and I totally agree that 1v1 (and maybe one day 2v2 or 3v3) is in need of an overhaul.
As to "all games being the same", well they do all share the same engine so in that way, yes they are but then again so are a lot of franchises. New features get added over time which add some new flavors but the base engine is pretty consistent, which is a good thing if you are fan and maybe not so much if you are not. 
As to "skins. maps, equipment", here you (and others) are way off.  Each game has hundreds of hours of research on organizations and equipment/weapons and then we test them and re-address issues after release. CMSF2 and CMCW  are an excellent example of this, if you imported all the forces from CMSF 2 to CMCW, the game would crash as the TO&Es and equipment are very different; US force structures are completely different (H series vs J series), the basic squad of infantry has different firepower (e.g. Dragon vs Javelin) and even the mighty M1 Abrams is the 105mm gun version in CMCW.  All this effects sighting, C2 etc.  Soviets are armed with different equipment from the era and - the big one - CMCW is not hybrid warfare while it is in CMSF 2. 
Your point on maps might have traction between CMFS 2 and CMCW for the NTC maps but we built over 300 sq kms of German specific maps...from the actual ground that is there (as best we could) and they have very little in common with CMSF 2.  And then there is the hours of content in the scenarios and campaigns which are all custom for the game they are made. 
But hey I get it.  I bought MS Flight Simulator and find the 4 versions of Cessna's all pretty much the same but I am definitely not a hardcore flight sim guy.  My guess is that for people that the game seems the same and bland, well you might have bought the wrong game (I would suggest you give it a chance).  CM is for the (fanatic) hardcore wargamer, for whom the differences between CMSF 2 and CMCW are immense, to the point that they are not even the same species.  CM is not really designed for mass appeal (swear to god we should do the zombie thing) but instead has employed a niche strategy that relies on a small but really loyal base.  It is franchise that is never going to compete with "Call of Honor 8: Arms of Brothers" but it has survived (and thrived) for over 20 years with the same model...so there is that.
So to partially answer the title of your post: "we did"  

Sixty pounds? Where are you buying your titles from? Shock Force 2 is $42 on the BFC store. That works out to 32-ish pounds at the current rate. You've doubled the price of the game just to have something to whine about. Do you know how much CMSF would cost if BFC had raised the prices to account for inflation since it initial release in 2007? Even without sales and discounts CM costs 7% less in real dollars than it did last year.

Console games have budgets on par with Marvel superhero movies these days. I love the demand that BFC spend fifty million dollars to produce a console game-style title then sell it to you for 15 bucks. Okay, sure. We'll stick some wings onto a few pigs for you too.

CM is a unique animal. It is not a "computer game". It is a tabletop historical wargame translated to exploit the things that computers are good at. If you have ever sat at a 6 x 3 table and pushed miniatures around, it is the best iteration of that hobby yet. Its graphics more than suffice to represent the elements required to a still-startling degree of fidelity to "real life". It retains gamist features in places, but does not rely on them like many tabletop wargame rulesets these days do. The skybox is way better a background for the game than any wargame club hall I've ever been in, and the ruleset is more intricate a simulation than any hand-calculated set of rules could come close to matching.

But if you expect the total perspective immersion of modern computer games out of it, you're going to be disappointed, cos it ain't that.

As to "all the games are the same", that's true on a very broad and superficial sense, but if you actually play 'em the "progression" between the titles is noticeable. There are common principles, but they are consequences of the fidelity of the simulation: the principles of warfare don't change much. The available tools do, however.

Air is tough. Do I use them to area target places I can't see or wait until the schwerpunkt is developed and use air power (hopefully) decisively? I tend to go for the 2nd approach. That also gives me a chance to target AA assets to clear the way for any attached air. 
 
I also always assume that the enemy is bringing air assets. Vehicles and troops get parked under trees and in the lee of buildings whenever I can. I try to minimize exposure and move frequently when troops have to be out in the open. 
 
H

Sometimes you just gotta have troops on a location you expect to get hammered. I'll keep a scout team out if I need a set of eyes and keep the rest of the infantry in their AFVs to protect them form fragments. 
 
Although I did loose a full squad doing that when a 122mm rocket hit the top of their M113. That didn't turn out so well for them. 
 
H

As I sat there a couple of days ago, going "Well, I knew I should have dispersed better on that objective" while I sifted the remains of two platoons out of their wreck foxholes. Most effective use of cluster munitions I've seen in a scenario to date.

As I sat there a couple of days ago, going "Well, I knew I should have dispersed better on that objective" while I sifted the remains of two platoons out of their wreck foxholes. Most effective use of cluster munitions I've seen in a scenario to date.

Agreed for inf.  However, for turreted vehicles covered arcs are very important.  If the gun is already pointing towards an enemy, it will see and shoot quicker than if it has to rotate the turret.

Two things I've said often.
1) Play the game as though that's you down in the wheat field approaching that suspicious copse of trees.
2) If your strategy is reliant on the opponent being blind, slow and bad shots you're probably going to lose.

I encourage people to play The Citadel...and I apologize in advance.

On the other hand you could argue that no sane defender would skip pre-registering TRPs in front of them.

You don't get support like that with Cyberpunk 2077!