agusto

I just played the CMRT scenario Bunker Busters (or something like that) as Soviets. I got ~150 of my men killed in 20 minuites of combat, still got a tactical victory .

Never surrender!

Reminds me of Harpoon 3 and Command Mondern Air/Naval Operations, where you need pen, paper and calculator to figure out how many missiles you need to shoot at a ship to penetrate its defenses of CWIS-guns anti-missile-missiles. To score a hit on an AEGIS destroyer you need something like 40 missiles fired simultaniously, 39 get shot down and one hits the target (hopefully something important, like one of the radars). If you are firing on a formation of multiple AEGIS destroyers, the number of missiles you need increases dependent on the formation of the ships.

Your last move with the tanks right through the forrest seems very risky to me, pnzrldr. For all i know sending tanks through a forrest infested with RPG-carrying infantry negates all the advantages a tank has over the infantry - high speed and long range firepower. Did you consider using your Bradleys dismounts to clear the forrest or at least do some recon before moving the tanks in or was that not an option because they were to far away? Or do you just want to push the tanks through the forrest as fast as possible, hoping that this wil be worth the losses the infantry might inflict on your vehicles? Maybe you should pop some smoke to conceal your movement, the Abrams IR sights can see through it but the russian infantry will be blind.

1. I am playing CMSF with the Euroscape mod installed - it helps me waiting for CMBS. 2. Go to the Editor and take a look at all the new toys . That is the first thing i do with EVERY new CM iteration.

Some screenshots:

Well, i am 35 minutes in mission one and i already lost the recon HMMWV, 5 WIA and 2 KIA. 1 M1 Abrams got stuck in the mud on the very first minute of gameplay and is now immobilized . I have 6 confirmed kills of enemy BMPs and i inflicted approximately 20-30 casualties on the enemy personnel. Probably i am doing not particularily good, given that this a recon mission and i still lost 6 men and 2 vehicles in the first half hour. But the good thing is though that i think i am learning something playing it . I am so used to stomping syrians into the ground, i almost forgot that russian equipment can be deadly too. It is also a challenge to move through the terrain and keep all those line of sights in mind. Give the long ranges, the first map of the campaign seems to be ideal for the enemy ATGMs. Anyways, here are some screenshots: Bradleys advancing: Blowing some stuff up: Goodbye, BMP: More explosions: Bradley targeting some more BMPs:

The ability to shoot straight up is especially a problem in close engagements in urban terrain. Check out the footage from Syria i posted below. The only reason the cameraman lived to tell the tale is because the T-72 couldnt liftb their barrels high enough. HD version: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=91e_1358349215

I think that on the defense in a dense urban environment weapons like the RPG-29 are much more deadly than ATGMs (except the Javelin, maybe) or tanks. They are available in large quantities - in CMSF every squad of every nation is equipped with sometimes even multipe AT weapons. They can be fired from any house or room, without needing time to deploy. They can easily be hidden, unlike tanks which are almost impossible to hide (except in forrests, maybe, but you shouldnt move your tanks into a forrest in the first place). In short, they are perfect for ambushes. Additionally some laser guided weapons like the Panzerfaust-3 are even deadly accurate up to 400-500 meteres.

For those of you who dont know it yet: there is a complete CMSF conversion of US/USMC/UK/SAA to a european setting + an excellent campaign that is supposed to be played with this mod. The mod is called Euroscape made by dpabrams: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/106268-gentleman-introducing-euroscape-a-complete-cmsf-conversion/ The campaign is called Forging Steel made by George MC: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/90107-new-scenarios-forging-steel-the-missions/ You can get both at the battlefront repository. I am currently using both and it is awesome, it is the perfect warm up for CMBS. I hope there will be a remake of the campaign once CMBS is out.

This seems to be anexcellent campaign. I had it sitting on my harddrive for quite some time because i felt a bilt overwhelmed by the size of the maps and the complexity of the missions but yesterday i finally could bring myself to start playing and i am loving it. Perfect warm-up for CMBS, especially in combination with the incredible Euroscape mod. Thanks for making this. You should do a remake for CMBS once it is out , i would definately love that.

Thanks for posting screenshots from high above the map this time. It is really difficult to get and idea of the overall situation without those birds eye shots. It would be great if you could continue throw in 1 or 2 screenshots from high above the map every turn.

The T-90 in CMSF isnt that bad actually - at least it is much better than any of the other russian tanks. There are some CMSF scenarios that match T-90s vs. Abrams tanks and when i play vs. the AI i can easily get a 2:3 kill ratio against the M1. Things would probably look different vs. a human player though. It is tricky but you can sucessfully battle Abrams tanks even with the later T-72 varaiants, although casualty rates will be very high unless you can engage at point blank range. However the premise for sucessfully engaging M1 tanks with russian equipment is always numerical superiority. The older russian tanks - T-62, T-55 and the like - are worthless vs. M1 tanks in CMSF. Even under the best circumstances, like when you have a 3:1 numerical superiority, close engagement ranges, broad daylight, and the option to flank the Abrams from 2 side simultaniously, you will still loose. Those old soviet tanks are only good against infantry that lacks long range anti-tank weapons like ATGMs.

Recently i played the scenario as Syrians. Despite extreme losses, i was able to actually destroy all american M1 tanks and subsequently win the battle. The trick is to let them advance until they are close to their objective. Then attack them simultaniously with your T-62 from the right, your T-72s from the left and your ATGMs & BMPs from the center. Your numerical superiority, the close range (~500-700 meters) and your position to the flanks of the american avenue of advance will ensure your victory over the M1 tanks. During the engagement you can charge your infantry forward on foot, towards the small woods in the center. Compared to the tanks and IFVs they are low priority targets for the americans, so they wont waste time or ammo shooting at your infantry.

Yeah, great AAR. But i expect nothing less of you than a fight till the last breath, the last drop of blood, the last round of ammunation! Make pnzrldr pay for every inch of ground! Ideally you force him to clear out your remaining forces from the woods and the buildings in the south and east of the map in man to man combat. Dont be to bothered by losses in men, equipment or the prospect of loosing the battle. You have lots of people watching and enjoying your struggle.

Dont be there, dont be seen, dont be targeted, dont be hit, dont be penetrated, dont be killed. The difference between war and peace is that Dont be there is not an option. You must be there in order to combat the enemy. In combat the inner layers may peel away the more capable the enemy gets, but you should always try to achieve the mission goal the least risky way. That is basically the statement of the defensive onion IMO.

I remember something called the "defensive onion": Avoid beeing spotted by the enemy. If spotted, avoid beeing fired upon (like jaming the enemys sensor, popping smoke, etc) If fired upon, avoid getting hit (like shooting down the projectile with an APS) If hit, avoid armor penetration. If armor is penetrated, minimize internal damage (hint: automatic fire extinguisher, etc). EDIT: There it is: You should never plan to get hit. You should plan to survive even if your plan not to get hit fails.

Nice image you found there, DMS. The M1 is a monster. It could probably crush a renault ft-17 (a french WW-1 tank) by driving over it

Nothing to apologize for, i thought about opening an age-poll as well.

At least E-books are more comfortable to buy. When it is 3 o clock in the morning, the weather outsde is freezing, your regular dealer isnt answearing your phone calls and you need some crack, you will have to go out and look for someone else selling. Also when you are unhappy with the quality of your purchase, it is often difficult to ask for a return. But on a serious note, humans can become psychologically addicted to almost everything, there are people who are addicted to to pulling their own hair out or eating toilet paper. Reading a lot is at least good for your mind.

Pnzrldr, now that your reinforcements of tanks and mechanized infantry have arrived, could you give us a tactical analysis of how you are going to use them? I know there are many tutorials out there on how to do this and that in CM, but since you are a real life officer in an armoured unit, i would be very interested in how you are going to use your M1 mbts. Your story-telling is very entertaining and i like the way you are doing this AAR, but it is difficult to understand the tactics behind what you are doing if you are writing from the perspective of single soldiers on the ground. EDIT: btw your AAR kept me from dying of boredom yesterday. I had to travel by train for 5 hours and nothing to read with me but newspapers.

Try sending from a different email account, like hotmail, web.de, gmx.at, trashmail or something similar.

What s the NATO code name for the TMS-65? Super Soaker?

You mean a post-nuclear war campaign? Yeah, that could work (but i am telling you: it wont happen.). However using nuclear weapons in CM is just way beyond CM s scope, especially when we are talking about those high yield warheads that are mounted on ICBMs. A 500 kt warhead dropped in the middle and of a 2x2km CM map would always result in a draw - both sides forces would litterally be vapourized, and if it was a ground detonation the resulting crater would probably take most of what is remaining of the map. But even a warhead in the lower kiloton range would probably be so decisive that the battle would be over after its detonation.

Do you think it would be good idea for a T-90 commander to do it like his grand father did and roll into battle unbuttoned? I know from CMSF that some older Syrian models actually perform much better when unbuttoned (T-55, T-62 and so on) but i dont know about the T-90. I thought it had lots of fancy stuff, like IR vision, periscopes, a fully stabilized gun, a laser range finder and the like, basically all the things the M1 has too. So where does the spotting and accuracy advantage of the M1 come from?