domfluff

They are trying to target the individual soldier in both cases (and granted they're not exactly the same, but they're as close as you can get), but that the dispersion from the first is significantly more. This is clearer with automatic fire, since that will inevitably spread more for all of the obvious reasons. This really looks like a bug in the underlying calculation, rather than something intentional or working as designed. Where that bug actually is obviously not known (it'd require a look at the algorithm, for a start), I wouldn't take my suggestion of the cause as anything other than baseless speculation, but it's where I'd start looking personally.

AT Guns and their employment. As with many things in CM, there's more to a weapon that just their basic stats or points value. The enemy gets a vote, and this should be taken into account. An AT position which is set up to directly engage armour head-on is going to die pretty quickly. You might get the jump on them and kill the first tank to cross into your sights, but then you've given away your position, and the immediate response will be incoming HE from tank rounds or mortar fire. You are slow, static, and don't have any good defence against this - even digging in to protect against mortars doesn't really help you continue the fight, since if you're suppressed then the enemy has already won the engagement. The important point, then is to combine a couple of principles, illustrated here in FM7-35 (ANTITANK COMPANY, INFANTRY REGIMENT, 1944). In the above: 1 is a covered position, safe from observation and fires. Your transport will stay here. 2 is the primary position for the 57mm weapon. 3 is an alternate position, still capable of performing the same function, but sufficiently far away from the primary position to avoid fires 6 is the observer (The missing numbers are for a secondary mission, which isn't relevant here). You'll note a couple of things - the guns are behind a ridgeline, giving them protection from the terrain. Ideally they would also be dug in. There's an emphasis on spotting and relaying information, as well as shifting into another pre-planned position if needed. Most importantly, the engagement is at an oblique angle. At no point are the guns pointed directly down a long road, outside of their effective range - instead the point where the road clears the treeline is the point where the guns can engage. By engaging obliquely like this, the guns will immediately minimise both opportunities to observe their position, as well as a position to assemble a base of fire. Clearly an oblique engagement will also improve the chances of flanking shots, but that's not necessarily the main reason to do it. I *don't* think it's sufficient to think about AT guns in the context of "well, at least I killed more points of the enemy than I lost". That isn't an entirely useless measure, but it's pretty far down the list of importance. The role of the AT here is to give the enemy a dilemma, and to force a response.

The comparison I made was between the same weapon system targeting a single soldier, on foot and on the ground, compared to a single soldier sitting in a TC seat. Both are targeting the exact same size of target - they're both targeting one individual human. The former has shots that spread over the entire action spot. The latter has shots which spread on a significantly tighter cone. It's as if (arbitrary values here) the first test has a spread in the trajectory calculations of +- 20% and the latter has a spread of +-5% - the latter spreads far less at the same distance, and for the same target. This is behaviour which has been known and demonstrated on this forum for years. The root cause was my speculation, but that's not necessarily what's going on here. My mention of the 8x8 vs 1x1 was a suggestion that perhaps the deviation is a common percentage (i.e., they spread an arbitrary +- 10% for that weapon at that distance), but what they are deviating *from* is different. E.g., if the starting point in that calculation was a much smaller area, than a constant deviation percentage would spread far less. Purely speculation though, obviously. To be clear: I am not referring to the reaction times of tank commanders to button up. This used to be bad, but this behaviour has been tweaked, and I think I'm happy with how this is. I am also not trying to say that unbuttoning a tank commander within small arms range is a good idea, or shouldn't get your TC killed. I imagine this is part of the reason why this has persisted for as long as it has, because the end result is "working as designed" - it should be a risk to unbutton, and it is. The issue is that this risk, which should exist and be a real problem, is larger than it should be.

Interestingly, there's been two schools of thought on Kriegspiel since pretty much the beginning. One is a more regimented, rules-based approach, with tables and measurement, and the other a more freeform, adjudicated version - rules-light, but using an arbiter to allow for much greater freedom of action. Free Kriegspiel is in many ways the progenitor of roleplaying games, and certainly of the Engel Matrix games used for professional modelling.

Oh, and on the subject of tabletop wargaming being "just two guys with some dice". I haven't read the book yet, but I understand that the rules being discussed were the WRG modern rules (1950-1985, presumably). Since that underlying ruleset was the basis for the US Dunn Kempf ruleset, and the Canadian "Contact!" rules of the period, both used for professional training and experimentation, I don't think it's reasonable to dismiss them out of hand. http://www.wargaming.co/professional/details/contact.htm http://www.wargaming.co/professional/details/dunnkempf.htm Is wargaming a tool that needs to be handled carefully when making assumptions or conducting analysis? Sure, but it's clearly a useful and relevant tool.

The_Capt is one of the project leads on Combat Mission Cold War, which is clearly directly relevant to your book.

So there have been tests. The first clue was some forum posts from here years ago that showed SMG tracers firing at the unbuttoned tank commander, or at the vehicle. The vehicle had tracer fire going all over the action spot, and the unbuttoned one had a focused, tight cone going straight for the TC. The same weapon firing at the same range, but suddenly much more accurate? The main methodology to generate the data was to set up firing ranges with unbuttoned tcs/halftracks and individual HQ soldiers, at the same distance and on sand. I don't have the test results to hand (can dig this up), but it showed a marked increase of accuracy towards the commanders, over the soldiers on foot. Same weapon, same distance, statistically significantly more accurate fire.

The gun shields do help if you use them correctly, but the main issue is that the accuracy has been shown to increase dramatically when targeting gunners/tank commanders. This has all been tested, logged, etc. The data is all there. Shots versus tank commanders are more accurate than against a single individual in the open - the cone of fire is significantly tighter.

Firstly: unbuttoning at 200m is far too close. You're never going to live long in that situation, and you shouldn't be unbuttoning within small arms range, unless you have complete control over the firefight or you are desperate, and are willing to take the loss. However, this is also a perennial CM problem. From a lot of experimentation, it looks as though an exposed gunner or tank commander is significantly more likely to be hit than a single chap in the open. It appears as though a squad firing at a single spotted target has it's shots spread over a much wider area than shots targeted at vehicle crew. It appears as given shot is deviating by the same percentage amount, but from a much smaller area, resulting in a much tighter cone of incoming fire. I wouldn't be surprised if a tank commander/MG gunner was actually exactly eight times as likely to get hit - if the TC is being hit from the 1m x 1m subsection, rather than the 8m x 8m action square, but the precise values are speculation here. Still, I think there is clearly an issue, and has been since forever. This can often be confused by this kind of anecdote, because in the broadest sense it's "working as designed" - unbuttoning *should* be a significant risk, and especially if you unbutton within small arms range then you should and are risking your gunner. I do think this behaviour needs to be tweaked.

Some previous thinking: With some illustration of how close you can get on max settings. This was just prior to the CMSF 2 release, and version 1.0 of CMSF 2 broke Civilian Density, which was quickly patched.

The mechanics are working as intended (actually, better than they did in CMSF 1, where the AI couldn't as easily make use of them). - Civilian Density cloaks Combatants, not Fighters. This includes Spies, combatant triggermen and VBIED. - Density settings basically act as "how close can you get". Maximum settings are very close - perhaps a tile distance between the units (8-16m). Actual spotting distance seems to be more than a flat value, so it probably has some factor based on experience of spotted and possibly the Combatant. VBIED get some degree of cloaking, but they are much easier to spot than Combatants on foot. - Quick and Move seem to behave identically. This is the major departure from CMSF 1, where Quick would expose your forces. Since the AI defaults to Quick, that meant that the AI couldn't move them whilst cloaked in CMSF 1. - Shooting, or doing something like deploying a crew served weapon, will expose your troops, as well as straying too close. Basically: Combatants, if told to hold fire, can use the implied crowd of civilians to get extremely close. Fighters can't hide themselves, but they tend to have better soft factors and have access to better equipment. If you're intending to put together scenarios or play them in QBs, you can use a mix of Combatants as your forward elements to gain information and ambush from close range, whilst using Fighters as your main line, supporting or reserve force, to make better use of their equipment and enthusiasm.

Subjectively, there are some more informed choices for colour palettes, and there are some nicer textures in the later titles, but "better graphics" is limited to those. CMBN is generally a bit too vibrant, and CMFB with it's autumn/winter muted palette can look better, but that's not really "better graphics" - it's not like the later titles have any different technology or more sophisticated software renderers.

All of the games are on the same engine (at least potentially), so that's pretty much identical. Final Blitzkrieg is the most recent WW2 game, and scenario and especially map design has gotten better over time. CMBN was the first, and some of the early maps look very much like tabletop wargaming maps - clump of trees, a four building "town", river - not necessarily like anything real. So Final Blitzkrieg is really the answer to your question, but there's not a massive distinction in engine or graphical updates.

"Regiments" in this sense are battalion-sized forces. The Ajax/Scimitar would then be in four recce squadrons, each with three reconnaissance troops of four Scimitars and four Striker ATGM vehicle, plus supporting assets. I don't have the orbat of the light recce regiments to hand, but it'll be similar, just replacing Scimitars with Jackals. There's an interim formation that has mostly CVR(T), but one of the squadrons is wheeled. In the Cold War context, the all-wheeled formations were used for larger scale reconnaissance, often by the reservists. The Scimitars would be carrying most of the load.

Now, the actual "Deep Recon Strike BCT" as currently planned, is mostly just a combination of the recce assets, as I understand it - that'll currently (and in CMSF) be a combination of Scimitar CVR(T) and Jackals, backed by a *lot* of artillery. MLRS is above scale, but AS90 155mm isn't.

Sure, I've been playing around with it, in various combinations. I haven't found an up-to-date orbat for the current Strike plans (and I don't know if they're even finalised), but he's a 2019 paper that is an attempt to optimise them (since it's an "optimisation", it presumably does *not* represent the default or the reality, but it's a really easy place to start. https://static.rusi.org/201906_op_strike_web.pdf From that paper, your Combat Team might look like this: In CMSF terms, the IFV Boxers can be Warriors, and the HMG Boxers can be FV432 with minimal issue. The British do not have 120mm mortars in CMSF, so you're either looking at using the FV432 81mm mortars or 155mm artillery. The "one mortar" above is really three - since the idea is that these are co-ordinating as a single unit, whilst being dispersed. Individual two-man Javelin teams can be added, and DMRs can be two man sniper teams. There are no air defence vehicles or manpads in CMSF. To translate the above, I'd give them an FV432 and a US manpad team. The step above this: Ajax is being used as a drop-in replacement for the Scimitar CVR(T), since they do the same job - in CMSF terms (and presumably real life, if they can't get the problems with Ajax sorted), Scimitar is the way to go for now. For context, the above "platoon"-sized CT would have a fighting box of up to 4km x 4km, and would be expected to be able to defeat an enemy mechanised infantry company, which would not be easy. In the paper, they argue against embedding Ajax at the CT level. This would be counter to British Cold War practice, since the British emphasised depth, counter attack and low-level embedded recce to a much greater extent than the rest of the NATO. For that context (since it's still very much rooted in that kind of idea), your typical Cold War Combat Team might be: 2 x FV432 mech infantry platoons (4 APCs, 3 rifle + 1 HQ in each platoon, 8 total) 2 x Tank Troops (2 platoons of 3 Chieftains, 6 total) 2 x Scimitar recce vehicles In infantry CT: 1 x Infantry CT HQ in FV432 In armour CT: 1 x Troop of 3 Chieftains 1 x Blowpipe manpad team in Spartan Plus support assets (an ambulance, recovery vehicles) and any attached ATGM options (Milan, Swingfire, Striker) So an Infantry CT would have 6 Chieftains, and the Armour CT would have 9, and Cold War BAOR doctrine was heavily based around Chieftain (much in the same way that US doctrine was really centred on TOW). The Battlegroup (more or less a battalion) above that would be a combination of Infantry and Armour CTs, with the emphasis on depth and counter-attack - 1 forward, 2 back, 1 in reserve, in a formation which is deeper than it is wide. The forward CT takes the brunt, and the two back (north and south) then consolidate to slow down the Soviet advance. When this is stymied, the fourth element counter attacks in the flank (whichever flank is exposed). The fifth element of the Battlegroup is the artillery. In terms of Strike - I'm still very much at the stage of trying to get a feel for things, and to understand the advantages and limitations. I'm not currently at the stage where I can form defensible opinions about it, although that seems pretty typical in discussions of it across the internet.

Yeah, so that's one of the choices/compromises that CM makes (for good reason). The "HQ" element of the above BMP formation are the platoon leader and assistant, the GPMG team, the SVD and the medic. In Black sea that's broken into three teams of two men each, GPMG, SVD and the Platoon leader. That's certainly done in reality - you don't want your PK following your platoon leader around all day - but in reality we're not limited to strict teams and action spots like we are in CM.

Now, Battle Order doesn't have equivalent graphics for Cold War M113 platoons yet, but the principals are mostly the same - the US doctrine was and is to push down decision making and options to as low a level as it can get away with, and that means kitting out their HQ elements with things like dedicated radios, Forward Observers, etc. The Soviet and Soviet-style formations don't have or want that kind of flexibility, instead opting for a simple, robust approach with minimal load on their command structure. A Soviet-style platoon is fundamentally a simpler, more direct tool. That doesn't make it "worse" by any means - overloading people with too many tasks and responsibilities is a very real thing.

Using Battleorder as a reference, since pretty pictures: Russian Motor Rifle Bradley Platoon A couple of things notable here - CM's modelling of any kind of organisation will be a compromise. The Bradley FO is supposed to be an attached element, so having that as a separate team (rather than as part of a five man HQ squad) makes some sense in the way the CM C2 system works, but it's still a choice that's been made for the sake of the model. As noted, the Bradley platoon on paper can't actually fit into it's transport. This is another of the compromises that CM makes - it chooses to represent the on-paper strength at all levels. Because of this, and the hellishly complex cross-loading that has to happen, the choice in modelling all Bradleys which aren't in CMCW was just to artificially increase their available seats. That's ultimately a sensible decision, but it is a fudge, and does have some consequences. The Bradley platoon nevertheless has a whole additional vehicle - where the BMP platoon might have 8 x 3 = 24 available seats, the Bradley platoon has more or less 7 x 4 minus one, or 28 seats. The role of the IFV is very different - the US doctrine is that the IFV is there to support from distance, so it's important that the HQ element has dedicated radio operators embedded within them. The two elements are supposed to work together, but also be able to operate independently when required. This is not true for the Russian BMP platoon, where the BMP is to work in close coordination with any dismounts, where dismounting even happens. The "HQ squad" in the Motor Rifle platoon, then, includes all of the attached weapon systems, as well as the platoon sergeant, who does not dismount, and therefore acts as the main C2 link between the dismounts and the vehicles.

The implication is that he was about to publish a 2022 one, so presumably Elvis has some stuff to show off.

If your only experience with them was the other modern games - especially Shock Force - I suspect that wouldn't be your conclusion. Seeing Soviet stuff in the correct context, finally, is really interesting. The same will apply to BAOR - most of the British package in CMSF (and to this day) are doctrines and equipment designed for the context of the Cold War, and they make a lot less sense outside of that. Where Syrian forces often need to throw out the rulebook to be competitive, CMCW does a really good job of showing how and why the Soviet army did what it did on the battalion level, and how Soviet tactics work extremely well in CM, when correctly understood and applied.

Yeah, but what if it ends up being 2021 again?

It was intended to be used as an LMG - indeed, the original idea was that you'd have one per fireteam, but the Rifle Squad and Platoon Evaluation Program in 1961 came to the conclusion that this was not a viable technique, and that they were best kept to three man, dedicated teams. This is the structure that you see in the non-mechanised infantry in CMCW, so that's the one which is relevant here.

Also, the heavier Soviet loadout doesn't really surprise me, since the infantry were supposed to remain mounted an awful lot more than the US were. NBC concerns were part of that, but one thing that CMCW shows above all is that on a tactical level, the Soviets can't afford to spend too long in any location. Dismounting to clear out a village is an action that will be met with DPICM (or whatever) within minutes. Much better to bypass, keep moving, and win the field.

The M60 isn't really an "LMG" in any definition of the term, and that really defined its use. It was judged that it was too much for one man to operate, and that it would ideally have a team of three. The mechanised infantry had five to distribute over the platoon (CMCW has this as "heavy" squads with 2x M60, 1x Dragon, "medium" squads with 1x M60, 1x Dragon, and "light" squads with 1x M60 - on-paper would then be 2x Heavy, 1x Medium in CMCW terms). The leg infantry didn't have a MG at the squad level. Instead the M60 was crewed in two teams of three (the MG squad), at the platoon level, to be attached or deployed where appropriate. I don't have figures to hand for common ammo loadouts for the M60, but from memory each of those three men carried 1000 rounds or so, but that might be more for the two which weren't the gunner - I haven't checked in CMCW to see how that is modelled in-game. The US loadout of the period wouldn't be carrying mortar rounds or M60 belts above that, I suspect. The mech infantry only had them at the squad level because they had an M113 to carry the load for them.