Ghost of Charlemagne

I think people are just excited. 
And Steve did hint at the patch being close to release, a month ago 
 

Or have I just not noticed them before? I'm playing the scenario "Eye of the Needle" in v4.0 and two things have happened that struck me as odd. 
1) Su-76Ms that have a small amount of HE and a lot of AP remaining have repeatedly used AP against individual Germans manning heavy weapons. I thought this was great since it took out the enemy and didn't waste precious HE, but it's not something I recall seeing before. It seems like a very clever AI ammo choice.
2) A Soviet Rifle Platoon that has lost its commander (included in 1st Squad) is somehow maintaining C2 over its squads. I thought in the past I've specifically noticed that Soviet Rifle Platoons that have the commander in 1st Squad a) don't have XOs and b ) therefore lose C2 completely when the commander is killed. They don't have any higher HQs within voice/close visual range (50m) that could be keeping them in C2.

A Kurdish perspective:
http://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/230120181
A Turkish perspective:
http://aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/turkey-backed-fighters-liberate-more-villages-in-syria/1040369
The 'claim' has definitely turned up in the latter! 
PS - Interestingly this article, from the same source, claiming to identify 'Why is the Afrin situation a threat to Turkey':
http://aa.com.tr/en/analysis-news/why-is-the-afrin-situation-a-threat-to-turkey/1033281
Doesn't mention Daesh or ISIS once. 
Some truly priceless quotes in this latest one:
I thought that was Syria, Hezbollah & Iran? 
Our conquering heroes motivation finally becomes clear! 

That could mean 259 Kurds and one ISIS prisoner. 
I'm not saying they're not killing some ISIS, just that ISIS are not their primary target and I don't recall ever reading that the Turks had claimed as much (elsewhere at any rate).....But making the claim that ISIS are a target must make it all just a bit more palatable for everyone (except the Kurds of course) to watch as one 'Coalition' member pulverises another. 
No. 

Yeah but that's from CNN dude.....I meant in the real world. 

The only part of what you wrote there that I agree with is that you put "NYT" and "propaganda" in the same line. 
All you have to do is to browse the NYT website and read the headlines and it will become obvious that the NYT has a clear political bias.
We saw this during the presidential campaign as well. 
I'm not the one displaying a dogmatic belief in what a specific "news" outlet says, you are. 
 

I wonder if NYT does list anyone as a source/proof... I guess someone sitting too many a mile away from both the Kremlin and Syria. May be sipping a cocktail and browsing Google News

The New York Times is hardly a credible source after all the **** they have been involved in.


Nevertheless, rather Russian PMCs have the oil than the ISIS rats, no?
It does seem like a peculiar arrangement though. However, if the Assad regime doesn't have the cash to pay the PMCs up front, then it kind of makes sense. 

As far as I know, it's not possible to mod the core gameplay of Combat Mission.  I think there's some "research" into changing models around, but nothing so far as AI or other gameplay changing mods.  Balance-wise, it's up to you, the player!
Shameless self-plug, but if you like explosions you might like mine:
Graphics-wise I run with a lot of Kieme's work, and in some places I use Aris' textures.

Again not such a lifehack, but if you want to "infantry à la russe" consider always acquiring all the RPG-26s from purchased IFV or APC that are provides at your deployment phase. Originally discardable launchers were introduced as replacement to handled AT grenades so it is accurate to use them en-masse when they are available. MG team takes 1, sniper team can be loaded with 2, and platoon HQ can take 2 as well. A BMP squad can take 3 and BTR/MTLB squad can take a rather hefty load of 4. As such, a typical BMP load of 4 RPG-26s can be fully distributed between its most likely occupants of MG or sniper section and a squad (which already comes with 1 RPG-26 by default). If you split your squad into equal teams the team with RPG-7 operator will always get 1 RPG-26 and the rest of discardable tubes will go to the second team. 
To illustrate how my infantry squads always try to look - 

Thank you and yes, those are my reskins of Vein's excellent Ru infantry reskins brought up to 2017 standard. 6Sh122 dual pattern overall is now standard issue to every soldier as a mid-season (autumn/spring) wearable. Our forces love them so much that they wear them throughout the exercises no matter the season because they provide better camo than regular EMR and because they are much more durable than issued EMR and thus help to save it from wear and tear.  

Nice video. I wish CM had better explosions (4:06).

1.  I see what you mean... I can see what I can do to play around with the fire and how it attenuates.
2. Not sure about the opacity - looks like it has a bit more area that's fully opaque compared to other smoke mods/game textures, but nothing significantly so as far as I can tell.  Cartoonish up close?  Definitely.  I'm playing around with more subdivisions in the smoke simulation to add more small scale detail.  We'll see!  Should add more noise and variation, particularly around the edges.
Wicked!  I'm still trying to get the look back.  I'll be sure to ping you when/if I get it in glorious high resolution!

Here's another little vignette demonstrating the effects - this one from CMRT.

So I've been playing around with the explosion graphics in CM - I've enjoyed the ones from the various mods, but it always bothered me how huge and cartoony they looked.  So I set about making an explosion inspired by Project Reality and Squad:

And ended up with this:


I'm in no way completely satisfied with what I have, but I'm lazy and was wondering what you guys thought - good direction to head in?
You can download it here: Google Drive
Extract into the Mods folder in My Documents, or the Z folder in the game directory

I've been playing around with your Hi-Res explosions and smoke mod for quite a few hours. 

Here's my constructive criticism so far:
1. The new explosions are great! However, I think they could be improved by replacing the last of the explosion frames with a smoke&explosion "transition" frame (explosiona007), and maybe adding an additional one (replacing explosiona008).   
2. The smoke looks pretty good from afar, but up close in looks cartoonish. Maybe the shape of the smoke could be changed to resemble vanilla smoke more? Also, the smoke is too opaque. 

You can improve or replace models, but you can't improve their function.

This!
Really hope this is on the list of things to come with CM2 v4.0, or at least some other eyecandy. 

Start with a heavy arty bombardment of the church using your 203mm pieces (cross your fingers in the hope that you don't destroy both church towers in the process - they will make excellent observation points throughout the scenario)
 
Use your infantry to scout ahead and find enemy vehicles, then use artillery to take them out or destroy enough subsystems to make them ineffective (this is more likely to happen when you target Abrams tanks - they are extremely tough to kill outright with arty).
 
Expect heavy casualties from whatever vehicles and infantry that you don't spot right away, it is more of less unavoidable in that particular scenario.  

Start with a heavy arty bombardment of the church using your 203mm pieces (cross your fingers in the hope that you don't destroy both church towers in the process - they will make excellent observation points throughout the scenario)
 
Use your infantry to scout ahead and find enemy vehicles, then use artillery to take them out or destroy enough subsystems to make them ineffective (this is more likely to happen when you target Abrams tanks - they are extremely tough to kill outright with arty).
 
Expect heavy casualties from whatever vehicles and infantry that you don't spot right away, it is more of less unavoidable in that particular scenario.  

No, the Russian don't use it as standard issue. They found it too heavy and expensive. Instead they use the RPG-7V2.