Heirloom_Tomato

The translation is way off ...
Him:  'See anything?'
Her:  'No love'
Him:  'Are you sure ... we're being fired at ...'
Her:  'I can't see sh1t'
Him:  'Well something's out there.'
Her:  'What do you f*****g think this is - Steel Beasts?'
 

It was a faction of the Sicilian Mafia whose leader was a Combat Mission fan who put up the cash for Fortress Italy as he wanted to play a game set in his homeland. He was a really good player, proving "Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line" !
 
 

Thank goodness for that. I hate subscription software - except for things that are actually services (like file sharing, web hosting, email stuff that actually has running costs).
I have dumped companies when they moved to subscription only. Having said that there would be no where for me to go if you guys decided to do that but I would *HATE* it if you did. ;D

I think this might go beyond "strategy" and deeper into personal philosophy.  Try not coming across as a rude troll, for a start.  This is our house and "no" you cannot comment on anything you like...try it and see how fast this thread gets locked up and you facing a ban.  
I am not a "CM homer" (seriously how that poor name got dragged through the mud us beyond me and a testament to a big problem of our time.  How one of the greatest writers of all time got that name hijacked by a yellow cartoon character makes me cringe)...I am a CM "owner".  Bil, myself and Cpt Miller, with BFC and some outstanding beta-testers built this floor of the house and frankly I find it offensive when someone comes here to promote an outside game while denigrating ours.  I would never think of, and would condemn in the strongest terms, anyone going over to the SB forums (or any other wargame forum) and exhibit this same behavior.
CM is not perfect, no wargame can ever really achieve that, but it is the best in the niche it has (my opinion) and we are going to work very hard at keeping that up.  Go play SB, hell after all this talk I am getting tempted to really go try it out...it looks like a good game and I wish them all the luck the angels of heaven can spare.  Wargaming is a niche market so anyone playing anything is a win for all of us working in it but, for the love of all that is good and righteous, try not to be a rude jerk about it....the internet has enough of those already.

You look at two SU76's at 250 meters and people think that CM is not realistic in spotting. Just turn of the icons and be honest with yourself. I exposed the shadows in post processing. They are actually more visible now. Spotting is at the first instance done with the naked eye. If you look through binoculars without knowing what you're looking for you suffer tunnel vision aka legally blind. Your C2 is important in other words a lone AFV is unlikely to spot anything. 

Still gathering my forces but we're close to kicking off the assault. Some screenshots to whet your appetite!




MMM
 

I'm guessing John has taken down his links.  Do you see what I did there 😄?

The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Minutes
KG LINKS
The dismounts start to cross the field leading to the trees and buildings in the distance. They're using successive bounding overwatch to move across the field with the HTs as a base of support fire on the road.

One HT moves onto the highway to take up an overwatch position.


A view from above. 2nd squad is hugging the fence and advancing through the trees, 1st squad is much more exposed and I'm expecting them to draw some fire first. Once they get about half way up this field though they'll be in defilade from the buildings.

KG ZENTRUM
The probe continues toward NAI3, scouts out front.

KONTACT! As expected he has at least one unit on the hill at NAI3. It's an AT rifle team, which makes me more certain that that's what fired at them on the northern approach a few minutes ago before withdrawing. Looks like Grunt is using them as a piquet line, which makes sense given he'll be expecting my force to be mechanized. I can't get too close to these things with my Hanomags as they can do some damage even at a distance.

The situation from above. The scout team will now stop and see if they can identify any other units on the hill, they don't appear to have been spotted by the AT rifle team. The squads will wheel around to the trees on the right and try and advance a bit to see if they can spot any other units.
The mortar fire continues to fall, but not near my troops. It's definitely an area fire mission.

KG RECHTS
The dead and wounded are still being tended to so the scout team pushes on through the woods to get to the South side and get eyes on the farm to the West.

I'm bringing two HTs up to the edge of the treeline to cover the open ground to the left...

when this appears in the distance. As 2nd squad/A team tend to their dead comrade another AT rile team comes walking out of the trees and they get the spot.

They lose contact briefly and then re-acquire (they were HUNTing this time) and send some lead his way.

The situation from above. The AT riflemen moving forward is interesting. He must know I've got at least one HT and probably a platoon of infantry given how much fire his sniper took so unless he thought he had a covered route to try and get a sneaky shot at one of my HTs I'm not sure why he'd move them through such an open area. Perhaps he just wanted to get eyes on now his sniper is dead. At turns end one of the HTs I was moving up gets the spot too and is aiming. I'll make sure his frontal armour is facing in that direction.

SITMAP

MMM

From the CMFR Cutting Room Floor. Any time there was a BFC switch over to another project, I'd try out something weird with the included tools. You may have seen a version of this in CMCW, which was an adaptation of this original concept. The idea is to have a visual to track the campaign over, with choices depicted "on map" for the campaign portion.
This is simply a map that is zoomed way out to cover an operational area. Houses are towns, large buildings are urban areas, factories are industrial areas, and so on. The scale has been exploded to represent a potential campaign level view. The player would have a small unit representing their force on-map. I suppose you could have more than one unit, t depict multiple combat groups, but that is untested. Enemy forces would probably be tied to the scenario, but there may be some area for creativity there.
The campaign script has two potential decisions per branch. That could be a choice between any number of scenarios - a choice between attacking one of two towns, etc. Something like this could used as a makeshift operational map. This concept could then be used (in whole or portion) to create branching battles on an "operational map" made from a standard map...but scaled up. I like the idea of using the entire map for this one, as it would keep a sense of progression (or not). Like CMMC, but without any extra engine stuff, and everything is tracked via the campaign script. It gives a graphic progression to the text-based campaign we currently have.
My idea was to have a few new flavor objects for the towns and smaller trees, but it can be done with what we have (and maybe a 2D mod or two). I suppose there should be some standard for what the 3D stuff means (2 small barns= town, 4 large buildings= city, etc). It's getting the practical stuff on-map, then making sure it doesn't look like a dog's breakfast in 3D.
The "operational map" where the high-level branching choices are is below - this map being for the area covered by Operation Spring Awakening. It was too much of a slog for a campaign, but the operational map remains. If you have CMFR, you will see some maps destined for this idea.
In practical terms - The choice to the player would be "take the road to Deg, or take the road to Enying", then the player will move their campaign operational map Schwimmwagen/Jeep, etc. to that "town" on the map (or any choice trigger terrain), which will be linked to that battle as the next battle in the campaign in the campaign script. I the map attached, the Germans start at the west (just because of the current map rotation - really north), heading east (south, geographically) to Simontornya or Cece.
The attached example is far too large, and was intended to be split into smaller sections. Doing something of this size would be unmanageable to make a campaign script for if the battles were numerous. Each operational sub-map would be its own campaign, with 6 or so branches. That's probably 12 sub-maps, which can be easily made from Master Maps, QB maps, etc.
If I get any free time to cipher it out, I'll attach a script example for the branching for the first round using this map, and maybe others may wish to test the idea out on their own ideas. I have a few of my own, but they need a fair amount of time to percolate.
Images, looking west to east. Hungary, Lake Balaton region.


 

For me it is moments like this that keep me playing after 21 years. 
https://imgur.com/gallery/PQWI4LO

I'm glad we clamped down on that rampant positivity so harshly. Wouldn't want to think one could enjoy playing Combat Mission.

I know I post pointless things like this too often, but I just can't get over the incredible wealth of fun I get out of the Combat Mission games.
I've been playing Commonwealth and minor Allies in CMFI so long - with huge enjoyment - that now I've started a few QBs with US forces they seem brand new. Meanwhile, I carved off a few slices of the gorgeous CMFR master maps, quickly threw together some QB maps and started playing them - late '44, early '45 - which are a terrific challenge and hugely enjoyable. The AI does such a good job with a good map that you can put together your own fun QB map on your own chosen terrain with relative ease, without any idea of how the battle will unfold.
And I'm still scratching the surface of CMCW, which offers a whole new unfamiliar world of units, vehicles and capabilities which are engrossing and offer a whole new historical learning curve. Plus of course I still dip into the other titles (I've still to properly explore CMBS and CMFB - and after all these years with different versions, I still love the extended versions of CMSF and CMBN).
Through all kinds of ups and downs in life, Combat Mission has been my 'happy place' for nearly 20 years!! 20 years FFS!! That's beyond unique for a computer game.
Sorry - I'm a bit drunk, but I just had to say wax rhapsodic...

I am running this at "a Few Good Men" site and if you are not a member, there is no cost to join if you are interested.
Below is a general discription of the format (and yes it requires you to mail turns through dropbox to play)
 
This Combat Mission Cold War tournament consist of 5 rounds; one battle for each round, each battle lasting 30 minutes or less.

Players are required to do approx 5 turns a week at a minimum.

Format: Players will be given a selected force. The mission will be to do the best they can with the situation they have been given and the scoring will be given out to the top 50 percent from each side of the battle. In other words, the side given to the player could be very challenging, but perform better than 50 percent of the players playing that side of the battle and they have won and will be given a point value as to how they have done.

Winners will get a score of somewhere between 80 to 100 points per match depending on how they have performed to each other. so best player will receive 100 points, lowest winner will receive 80 points, and everyone else is somewhere in between.
Scoring in scenarios will be one's score minus the opponents score (as to how they will be selected for the top 50%).
Each player will be in charge of a different Nations forces throughout the 5 battles, so skill with all forces will be a factor. as well as both offensive and defensive skills.
Battles are designed generally to be short and intense ( I have been keeping all battles at 30 minutes or less.).
A dropbox folder is to be maintained with a invite to the Tournament master (Slysniper), This will provide me access to the game files if for any reason we need to replace a player or verify slow play issues. Please name the dropbox files in a method that I can tell who is vs who (exam: Jtimo vs grunt match1).
Game files shall stay in the dropbox folder and not be deleted until the Gamemaster (@SlySniper) has copied and removed them.
No surrender at any time is allowed. if you want to end a game early, then use cease fire with both players agreeing to those terms, if one player wants to play on instead, allow him to do so until he is satisfied. It is in your own best interest to put up the best fight you can no matter what. (No one wants to be that guy that has the best score posted against him)

If for any reason a player needs to drop out of game play, just contact me and let me know of your intentions and I will make sure any non-completed game will be finished for the remaining opponent.
 
 
This format has been received very well and this is going to be the third Tornament under this format.

Horraaaay!
At long last - after nine years of struggling - I finally managed to complete the second mission in the Troina Campaign: The infamous "Hill 1209".
Bow before me, ye mortals!

Cold War AT ranges are fairly consistent across both factions, and are in basically three bands.

Short range is dictated by the range of the RPG-7 and LAW, and are about 300m.
Medium range is defined by the range of the Dragon and AT-7/SPG-9, and is about 1000m
Long range is defined by TOWs and AT-4/AT-5s, and is 2000m+

Armour in this period slots in between the medium and long range, so engagements at around 1500m are fairly typical. The gunnery is still WW2-level for the most part, so longer ranged shots will be very inaccurate, and kinetic penetrators will lose much of their energy at extreme range. I've seen tank duels at 3-4km between M60A1 and T-62 (tanks which can typically kill each other pretty easily) where the kinetic rounds are mostly bouncing off, simply due to the distances involved.

That's the basic answer to your question, but it's worth discussing some complexities:

The Soviet tanks in 1979-1980 are, broadly, superior to the US armour. The T-62 (1975), for example, has similar armour to an M60A1, but has a laser rangefinder (rather than the optical co-incidence rangefinder than the M60 has), and a gun with a significantly higher velocity. That will mean a flatter trajectory, so greater accuracy and penetration. The situation for the US broadly gets worse with the T-64 and up, since there is a significant uptick in armour, and the composite turret makes the available HEAT rounds mostly ineffective from the front. 

The HEAT rounds do not rely on kinetic energy, so weapons that can deliver HEAT over distance are obviously useful - the most accurate way to deliver a HEAT round over distance is an ATGM, and this is the logic behind the development of the M60A2 Starship. This vehicle was obsolete pretty much by the time it was deployed, owing to the changes in Soviet armour with the T-64, but the desire to take these extreme-range engagements is a reasonable one.

Those NTC training scenarios are the only all-armour scenarios I've actually enjoyed in CM, mostly as the terrain is excellent, and the opponent has a chance to actually win. The point of them really is to show the development of armour across the period, and partly to show quite how ridiculously dominant the Abrams are in 1982. That latter scenario is neither particularly interesting nor fun, but I think it's an important step in the conceptual process behind CM: Cold War.

In terms of tactics, the US is really built on these combined arms companies. Something like two platoons of mechanised infantry, a tank platoon, a couple of TOW launchers and some organic mortars. This unit is a self-contained, self-sufficient fighting element, which is useful since the assumption was that these would be overrun.

This is a really good reference for that, in this period:
https://books.google.ca/books?id=My8-u2rYNVoC

Broadly though, the TOWs define your area of influence, since they're your long ranged firepower. The infantry define the space you're fighting in, protecting flanks and holding ground, and the armour is a mobile concentration of power, either the thrust of your main effort, or a mobile reserve.

The 5-tank platoon should typically split into two fireteams of 3 and 2, with one covering the movement of the other. It's important especially against the Soviets to use terrain to mask your movement, and to use the terrain to control your engagements - there will typically be more Soviet tanks than US tanks, and they're superior to your armour, so you can't take them head-on. You need to set up situations where you have local superiority in firepower and numbers. 

Revised from inputs received. Put Germans with Germans, etc. Organized it a tad...
THE CMFI FINAL PACK
Using the CMBN Vehicle Pack ($20 for 19 vehicles, 5 bunkers and 3 backpack flamethrowers) as a template. What BFC already has done might seem doable again to them.
Some of this 3D modelling is already out there in whole or partially in the other titles but some would be new stuff. New work by Casio Lima studios and the BFC art staff. A sincere salute to those guys! If you need an intern, I will volunteer.
This vehicle pack supports North Africa, Greece, Crete, maybe a quasi-France if modded, maybe Italians vs French before Torch, Free French tackling the Germans after Torch... 
VEHICLES
1. Panzer II Ausf F
We already have the running gear of the PzII from the Marder, and we have the 2cm KwK 30 autocannon from some of the armored cars SdKfz 232. So give us a PzIIF. I guess the F. Right?
2. Panzer III Ausf F early and late
This would give us a PzIII with the 37mm and then with the short 50mm. If we get a similar CMRT Dasvidaniya Comrades final vehicle pack for earlier Ost Front, then this work (and other stuff on this wish list) gets utilized again for their sales/profits/bottomline/businessmen smoking cigars stuff. 
3. PzIV Ausf D/E/F1 with short barrel 75
4. Stug III Ausf C with short barrel 75
5. the Panzer I    (why not)
6. That funky German vehicle, captured Soviet AT guns on a half-track chassis, "Diana" (only ~9 built so maybe too rare for BFC's taste?)
7. Some cool desert vehicle for personnel transport or towing Pak38's/etc...Sdkfz 10? 
8. Italian M13/40
9. earlier version of British armoured cars with AT rifle AND THE BREN with an AT rifle also.
10. British Vickers MkVIB Light Tank
11. Valentine for western desert, MkII and MkIII
12. MATILDA! Queen of the Desert
13. GRANT TANK!!!! and LEE TANK (US/USSR)
14.25 pounder as a deployable gun on the map! the QF 2 pounder also! and the 37mm Pak for German army not just FJ.
15 Sherman II with sandskirts
16 earlier Honeys, Stuart I and II with the cool commander's box thingy, with sandskirts
17 British Crusader Tank or other Cruiser tanks
18 some French vehicles from CMBN, oooh lala
19 and a smoke and a pancake, and a bong and a blintz?
BUNKERS:
Some kind of cool desert bunker thingy, metadata to not quite be concrete, I don't know. Tobruk bunker I think it was called?
A few cool flavor objects for North Africa? Go Ben!!!
INSTEAD OF FLAMETHROWERS:
1. bring over from CMRT the tiny 50mm mortar for the Germans
2. German and British and Italian anti-tank rifles
3. French MAS36 rifle
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is an older interview from 2013 I stumbled across. Not sure it is here somewhere in the forums or archives...
https://www.polygon.com/features/2013/1/29/3916154/turn-by-turn-battlefront-combat-mission
A great story. These are our BFC heroes! Charles (L) and Steve (R) circa 1998.

Well as they say, there is no time like the present. Send over that next turn and let's see who pulls defeat out of the jaws of victory!

Go to www.Battlefront.com and log in. From here go to the My Account section and then to My Orders. I am going to assume you will have bought the Engine 4 Big Bundle Upgrade, find it in your orders, click on the download link and here you will find the Full installers for CMBS, CMRT, CMFI, CMFB and CMBN. You will then need to find your order for CMSF2 and CMCW and those download links will also bring you to a full installer page. Each of these full installers will give the most current version of each game.

British troops line up at the doors to clear the compound.

 
 
And the result of the battle (first in the brit campaign), iron + ironman difficulty:
 

I'd never criticise someone for playing real time (or only ever playing single player, or only playing Quick Battles against the AI, etc., etc.).

I think it's pretty self evident that it's not the way to get the best out of Combat Mission, and it's not for me, but that doesn't mean it's an invalid approach. It might be worth pointing out that Steve identified as "real time player", at least during CMSF 1.

I do take exception at the idea of setting this up as a strawman to create some kind of divisive outgroup, especially as I can't see anything positive to be gained from doing so. It's ultimately both damaging and immature, and it just creates pointless noise. The exact same logic applies to imagined age barriers, WW2/Modern gamers or any other arbitrary lines you might care to draw.

Serious wargaming is a niche hobby, and CM is a small part of that. It's upsettingly common for niche groups to start by eating themselves, defining themselves by whom they reject. It's also more than possible to be better than that, with some work. It's very easy to criticise and bring people down, but it takes a bit more effort to add anything positive back. This thread has been pretty disappointing.

It is a stock CMFI campaign as @kohlenklau so rightly stated.

It is a stock CMFI campaign as @kohlenklau so rightly stated.

I also enjoy the small and quick scenarios. Micro Battles? @Bud Backer coined the term I think. Another guy back in CMBB called them "byte battles". For my brain and attention span they are better versus large monster battles @Blazing 88's but of course some folks opinion will differ.  
Tiny battles are much easier to envision as I get a hankering to make a scenario. Then I can jot some notes and scribbles and do some research and over a FEW days I can finish it. They are also easier to test. They are also less of a hassle to go and tweak. Map making is easier with a 208m x 208m tiny map.
For the desert battles, with the same forces, the map can be easily made bigger with not as much mouse clicking...which is a technique I am planning to take to Barbarossa as I use big undulating fields of "Crop 2" as my desert with some action area near a village or bridge or road intersection.
🙂
 

Halfaya Pass scenario. 45 minutes. Play as either side versus the AI.
No frills with respect to the TACMAP...there is none! But it has briefings for both sides.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/exftoj5k2t86ud1/Halfaya Pass.btt?dl=0