Chibot Mk IX

Its important to remember that while on newer vehicles like an M1A2, even though the commander has an independent thermal imaging sight which gives him great spotting ability, he still has better overall situational awareness while unbuttoned. Things such as seeing/hearing threats to the sides and rear of the tank, and seeing/hearing where other friendly units are. Plus, while unbuttoned the commander can share C2 information with infantry (such as spotting information) whereas while buttoned he cannot. 
Also, it is still SOP in the real world for tank commanders to remain unbuttoned until either in direct combat, or forced to by something like enemy artillery falling nearby. Again, this is mostly so the TC can maintain his situational awareness, communicate with the other tanks in his element, and better direct the driver. 

Yes. 
And CMSF: Fast and Furious
CMSF: Mad Max
CMSF: buckle up or face fines 
You name it  
 

Infantry squads have more sets of eyes than an FO team, or a tank crew.

The mechanics of spotting are obfuscated, but they're clearly decided per-soldier, and there is a random element. All things being equal, a squad is making more dice rolls, and therefore has more chance of seeing something.

In addition, all things are not equal. US rifle squads that pick one up will carry the Javelin CLU, which has tremendously powerful spotting abilities - to the extent that they remain useful even if they have no missiles. They are some of the best optics available in the game. You'll likely see similar or better results with other purpose-built spotting kit, for example the M1151 Reconnaissance Humvee with the LRAS3 system in CMBS.

Now, should your SOP be to lead with an infantry squad? Not necessarily. Spotting passively requires time and location, and a smaller FO team will be harder to spot, and will not reduce your available combat force by devoting a squad (and perhaps a Javelin) purely to spotting duty - sitting quietly in a location with good visibility is pretty much what you want to be doing with an FO, whereas a squad is a manoeuvre element.

Further, the FO isn't a scout. Their job is to control fire missions, and therefore they need information relayed to them through the C2 network. They don't need to be spotting the enemy, as long as they can call down fire onto areas where fires are needed.

Heh. So, step aside from the world of Javelins and Abrams tanks for a second, and look down a couple of rungs. Ukraine vs Russia or Syria vs Syria, perhaps.

At that level, access to ERA can become a serious benefit, and APS is a "magic shield", as per reports in Ukraine. ERA is no good against tandem warheads, and APS in CMBS has no protection against the top-attack Javelin, but if you don't have access to that (or, more importantly, if defences exist to defeat these), then suddenly this isn't true anymore. There is no plausible defence against the main round from an MBT of any reasonable size, and that doesn't look like something which is likely to change any time soon.

In “Lessons Learned” from the Russo-Ukrainian War by Phillip Klaber, he lists four tactical lessons, applicable (and predictable!) from CMBS:

- Ubiquitous Presence of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
- Increased Lethality of Indirect Fires
- ATGMs and Armor’s Counter-revolution
- Declining Survivability of Light Infantry Vehicles

That is to say:

- UAVs are used en masse, especially to plan and direct artillery. Not necessarily for Precision attacks, as in the US, but for sighting massed bombardments.
- Indirect fires are called faster, and with increased numbers. Since these are co-ordinated over UAV, indirect fire is more important than ever.
- The above mentioned technological advancements - first ERA, then APS, have fought back against the supremacy of ATGMs predicted since 1973 or so.
- Conversely, IFVs are more suspect than in previous conflicts - there's a push towards developing heavier APCs/IFVs, since light armour is so vulnerable. Infantry are fighting dismounted, without direct support from their vehicles. As you can see from CMBS or CMSF, fighting without a BMP strips the squad of much of it's needed firepower.

So... no. ATGMs do not make tanks obsolete, any more than they did in the Sinai. The game has certainly changed, but it's not as simple as "you can do without armour", in a purely tactical, wargaming sense. Now, what the role of the British army should be, and what's motivated this announcement are very different questions.

Can you get away without them? Sure, if you can guarantee that you stay at least one generation ahead of the armour/anti-armour race at all times, and that this is even possible conceptually. The minute that isn't possible, you run into major problems.

Well "close" on a modern battlefield is always relative. The ideal position is in a relatively hidden/hull down/protected on the sides position where the AFV is relatively secure, but in a good shooting/overwatch position where it can engage threats immediately as they are spotted by the enemy.

CMSF2, then you can have a Red vs Red battle. And both sides fight in their Toyota Pickup 😄 

Even the magic force shield CM trees will not stop small arms area fire causing casualty . There are many times that the first time I have a visual contact with enemy, is I found their casualties from Area Fire.    And more important, the small arms fire suppression effect is still there , so area fire will be essential when your assault team move close for the kill. You may find enemy take cover on the ground while your assault team take their aim or toss a grenade.
 
and some cunning human opponents could combine Area Fire and Withdraw command.  Pause and AF 30 seconds , withdraw two action spots after that. 
I agree with ya. 
It is non sense to send your troops to face a dozen barrels of PPSh.  However, there are many scenario designers love to push the player to do the mission impossible.  In that case, I would split my Germany squad to two teams.  The LMG carries a lot of 7.92mm, so they stay behind , make several LMG teams concentrate area fire here and area fire there. Another team with Squad Leader's SMG slowly move forward with cautious (Hunt is preferred), hopefully they will catch the Soviets AI take cover on the ground. 

It's been a while since I've played such a large PBEM or even one with so many vehicles, here's a little vignette AAR from my recently concluded match with @gardar15. 

Read it here: https://rinaldiaars.blogspot.com/2020/05/equilibrium-black-sea-vignette-aar.html

Here is the test. 
After intercept 4 9K114 ATGM, the Trophy APS on Abrams turned to dark grey. The 5th and 6th ATGM hit Abrams

probably due to some nasty aftereffect

You don't see this happen too often, a 152mm bounced off from a StuG III
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BeqXcyroqg&feature=youtu.be

FIRE!

 
"We hit them hard!"  (just remind me the good old days in WOT )
 
 

Scipio Silhouettes v130b.brz is now in my Dropbox
Try this names:

 

This should provide access to a comprehensive set of all CMSF scenarios and campaigns to date (along with same from other titles).
 
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/0B0HhNCJWAbKmcUF0VHRERzdvYTA

Too bad this problem is still there, I thought it was fixed in 4.02 patch but I was wrong. 
Mr dumb
https://youtu.be/gAPCBsLZxuM
Mr dumber
https://youtu.be/_JTgSOpWDx8
dumb and dumber in SS uniform, note that the evade is caused by small arms fire
https://youtu.be/tPmsn-R26cc

Too bad this problem is still there, I thought it was fixed in 4.02 patch but I was wrong. 
Mr dumb
https://youtu.be/gAPCBsLZxuM
Mr dumber
https://youtu.be/_JTgSOpWDx8
dumb and dumber in SS uniform, note that the evade is caused by small arms fire
https://youtu.be/tPmsn-R26cc

Be aware of Tunguska.
I haven't played scenario "Cry Havoc", but I can understand your frustration. I had a PBEM on Rolling Thunder (?) . The redfor's Tunguska shot down my two UAVs in the first min, while It takes my 8 rounds of stinger to shot down the redfor's UAV .          
 
I realized that I got to knock out that Tunguska before I sent my two Apache. And next 50 min became a "hide and seek" game between me and my opponent. I  made several Jav teams and FO teams infiltrate the front line, try to get a lock on that Tunguska. My opponent is cunning, he constantly move Tunguska every couple min. So my artillery PGM, barrage missed his Tunguska. And he was moving like a ghost, Jav team cannot get a lock.  Finally my M1 put a 120mm on Tunguska, but it was almost at the end of the game. 
                                     

Got it
Thank you!

Halfway down on right.
https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/cm-mod-warehouse/
 
Mord.

That is a great honor
 
In fact about scenario Brutal! , after defeated by AI, I asked two PBEM game to play ask UKR. 
No doubt the first one was a defeat 

 
But the second one, with enough knowledge on the map, good planning and a little bit of luck,  plus my opponent was a little of reckless. 
I lead Ukraine 1st Bn/17 Bde  into a glorious victory   
 

 

Now part two:
As all that gunfire was going on with the two American half-tracks, two more half-tracks were coming up the road behind them, making four in total. Right when the first firefight was ending, the two new half-tracks opened fire down the road. They didn't even see the Stummel right in front of them, but were instead shooting off to the right side of the road where they saw muzzle flashes from the firefight (where my shot-up HQ teams were).

 
Some of my forward troops had already turned around from infiltrating the city and were rushing back to the sound of shooting behind them. They were about to lay a devastating ambush along the road.


 
Now that the Americans were shooting, my troops along the road suddenly realized what was right in front of them and then opened fire.

 
Seemingly every man in this entire squad threw a grenade, and then a panzerfaust was launched:


 
These guys have no idea what's coming:

 
See if you can count how many grenades are in this picture!

 
The half-tracks go boom. Both remaining half-tracks are completely destroyed with all hands lost inside.


 
After such a shocking few minutes, everything fell quiet for a while. My troops went on without their commander back to their original mission of infiltrating the city, and were eventually victorious. 

Here's one of the more crazy close-range firefights I've ever seen in these games. This post might have spoilers for the Kampfgruppe Peiper campaign for anyone that cares.
I was the Waffen SS attacking into Stavelot in the early morning hours, with the skies overcast and visibility almost at zero. You could walk right up to enemies and not see them even at point blank range. As the battle began and my forward platoons were fanning out toward the city, my company HQ and most of the company's half-tracks were kept back a bit. I thought they were all safe back there, silly me!
Before long, I could hear American vehicles moving down the road out of the city and directly at my positions. I wasn't expecting them to counterattack or just brazenly drive straight out at me so I didn't know what to do at first. The vehicles drove right past my forward troops and none of them saw anything, although I could see the sound contacts coming closer and closer. 
An American half-track packed full of troops suddenly veered off the road, turned right, crossed right in front of a Stummel just meters away, then drove straight at my two HQ teams hidden behind a line of bushes, one of them being the company HQ:

 
The half-track smashed down the fence between the two HQ teams and then kept going, and the GIs in the back got up and opened fire into the backs of my HQ teams, causing two casualties straight away:

 
One of the HQ teams spun around and returned fire:

 
Seconds later, another American half-track appeared out of nowhere, following behind the first:

 
Like a firing squad, the men in the half-track all turned in unison and mercilessly gunned down the entire HQ team. A rifle grenade exploded in the middle of them. My company commander was killed instantly, and at this point my jaw had pretty much hit the floor. One of the first casualties in the battle was my company commander, and he was calling in a bunch of artillery at the time so I had no way to cancel. This was probably the least likely thing I had ever expected to happen - my company commander gunned down in a drive-by shooting at point blank range right at the beginning of the battle. 

 
I would soon get my revenge however. The American half-tracks had drove right into the midst of a column of German half-tracks strung out along the road. They turned and started shooting:

 
The US half-tracks both halted and the men started bailing out under heavy fire:


 
A short but intense firefight ensued, with the Americans shooting and tossing grenades in every direction while under a murderous crossfire.


 
The American dismounts were cut down to the last man, although both of their half-tracks managed to escape and drive off into the darkness. Only the drivers survived. I lost a half-track gunner or two but nothing else.

Stay tuned for part two!
 

Yes.  I regularly use crews with pistols as medics as then they will PU SMG's as well as other weapons.

My first one was "Ambush", a tiny fun scenario at slow pace.
the 2nd one was a bad choice, "Brutal!", I was humiliated by AI
3rd one was "Galloping Horse Downfall"
 
CMBS present a modern battlefield that is deadly, brutal and unforgiven .
An important lesson from CMBS is "Do NOT stay at the same place for more than 1 min!" .  And if you are facing US Army, then you got to update it to "Don't sit at the same place fore more than 15 seconds!"

Please give me a StuG III Ausf D so I can try and make a scenario based on this old image I have...
 

I went out drinking with a Sikh once. But it was me who ended up sick. And she was only half my size.

Zamulin's groundbreaking Demolishing the Myth (Prokhorovka) is on sale ($9.99 on Kindle) at Amazon today only, but that's how I found the book which is the topic of this post. Reviews are wide in their rating swings, but it appears the low ones have a lot to do with perspectives. For one, the book was done in the Soviet era, so is propagandistic to a consdierable degree, For another, for reasons unknown, formations are identified by numbers (Arabic or Roman) and such, but their commanders' names aren't given. Stalin isn't mentioned, either. Both things are weird.. Also, it's considered too dry. Have read similar docs, and I still think Glantz is worse. Have not read the subject of this OP myself (just learned of it), but since it's as CMRT topical as it gets in terms of understanding the Soviet side of this crucial operational-strategic op, thought I'd pass the word.

https://www.amazon.com/Operation-Bagration-June-29-August-1944-ebook/dp/B074P463Q5/ref=pd_sim_351_12?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B074P463Q5&pd_rd_r=227281d3-4a60-478d-994b-a0cf7b1b7ecc&pd_rd_w=uLf8r&pd_rd_wg=WlKDb&pf_rd_p=bab57536-7c8f-4781-a8ed-3e270b9cd303&pf_rd_r=ZWZSFCYHRQT10RV17TG7&psc=1&refRID=ZWZSFCYHRQT10RV17TG7#customerReviews
Regards,

John Kettler