domfluff

Aerogavin is the new Schwimmwagen, just give it time.

A point I'm actually going to contest a little - especially in Cold War, which has plenty of multi-km maps, and plenty of ATGMs and armour which can't reach across the entire map, there's plenty of room for mounted manoeuvre - indeed, this is sometimes really important. It's true that there are examples where that is the case, but it's definitely less true for CW than the other modern titles.

One of the curious things about that field manual is how much it emphasises fighting from the M113. Mobility is a huge part of active defence, so there is some logic to that, but it's probably always a suspect idea in Cold War.

The 1977 FM 71-1 linked above is pretty much the best "how to play the NTC campaign" guide there is (among others). It's pretty great, and immediately applicable.

Yeah, in Cold War you have the combination of an offensive Opfor, with decent soft factors. That means that sometimes you'll see some overly enthusiastic tank crews. It'll be rare, and shouldn't hurt things too much damage, it's not really avoidable.

There's a broader philosophical point to be made there - when it's okay to have an intentionally misleading set of orders, and when that comes across like a cheap trick. That's really a game design question, and there's no single best answer to it. I do think it's wise to err on the side of accuracy, but definitely not in every situation - much of CM is predicated on hidden information as it is, and the briefing can be part of that.

Something for the first module, perhaps. Can you find a scenario set around Wank that really demands being made?

Any CM. Again, that's not trying to diminish any or all issues - problems are problems, and should be fixed. Some are clearly more relevant than others - spelling errors are definitely not game-breaking (or even that uncommon - there are *still* some long-standing spelling errors in Stellaris floating around, for example). "How would anyone know that" isn't really a question that's worth engaging with, I think. It definitely doesn't help to start aggressive, and "I didn't know" isn't a good excuse for name-calling, in any context. Again, errors are bad, pointing them out is good. I also don't think the moral onus should be on the end user to proof-read these, so I'm not sure how seriously I'd take the suggestion of that above. It's certainly the kind of thing that's often done in this kind of environment, since it's often a group of people interested in helping each other, but I don't think that's a reasonable expectation either.

"Both" is correct. Battlefront is a niche of a niche, and as such has a very cottage industry approach to things. This is still very common in tabletop wargaming, and Combat Mission has much more in common with that industry than other computer games. To be clear, that doesn't make errors (grammatical or otherwise) okay - they can and should be pointed out and corrected - but I think it's reasonable to approach this kind of thing with a different set of expectations.

That would match up to behaviour seen elsewhere - e.g., BMP-3 in CMBS using airburst rounds against an open topped vehicle, when an AP would be more efficient

Yes. Some of them are "cheating" - some (10) are stripped from the campaigns, and some (like the 4 *excellent* NTC tank training set - the only all-armour scenarios I've ever really enjoyed in CM) are the same map, and just change the forces with the year. That's not a criticism - CM:CW clearly has a strong design intent behind it, and part of the point is to show the impact of technology across the period, so this stuff is a huge part of that. The campaigns, so far, have been incredibly strong. I haven't played much of the US campaigns yet, but I've played the hell out of the NTC campaign and I'm starting to hit the Russian campaign. They really feel like they have the period in mind, and that they do a great job to serve that thematic point.

This is severely off-topic to the thread. Nevertheless: it's a common claim, that's repeated often. It wouldn't surprise me if it's actually true for 73 Easting at least, since 2nd ACR was the lead element, if I recall correctly.

Like a lot of things in Cold War, the answer tends to be Mass. The AT platoons of the AT battery have three BRDM/Shturms, with an HQ in a BRDM. In general you want to be treating this more like a WW2 AT Gun platoon. Rather than treating ATGMs as an anti-tank sniper rifle, which you can do in the (more) modern games, they need to be sited so that you can gain an advantage by having multiple rolls of the dice - if all three of them are playing ambush predator and watching the incoming Tank platoon, then you only need one of them to spot to start the enagement in a favourable way. BRDMs unbutton in an interesting way - rather than sticking their head out, the cover of the front window opens. That tends to give them good visibility, but the vantage point is low to the ground, which affects what ground you can best fight from. Obvious stuff can help too, like using the HQ BRDM to spot with, and rely spotting contacts, since that's mostly what he's for. In general, ATGM *duels* are something that's pretty unique to Cold War, and almost always a bad idea. Long range fires, one-hit-kills, with a fairly large chance of missing means that trying to fight ATGMs with ATGMs is more or less a coin flip. TOW and AT-5 are more or less equivalent in practical terms - even if TOW is the superior weapon by any number of characteristics, there's a large chance of it missing, and if it misses, the M150 will probably be toast.

All of the campaigns are set in 1982, with the exception of the 1979 version of the US campaign.

Between Two Fahrbahns March 1979 Brauersdorf July 1981 Czechmate June 1982 Direction Found July 1981 Everyone - Get Out of Dodge August 1980 Fleeing Altdorf May 1982 The Grieshof Meet and Greet August 1979 Hunter or Prey October 1982 Killing Time at Kirtof August 1982 Kriegsburg 1979 July 1979 Kriegsburg 1980 May 1980 Kriegsburg 1981 July 1981 Kriegsburg 1982 July 1982 Mittelaschenbach sudden awakening - 1979 March 1979 NTC If it aint cav… October 1982 NTC Tank Training 1979 May 1979 NTC Tank Training 1980 May 1980 NTC Tank Training 1981 May 1981 NTC Tank Training 1982 May 1982 Rumpenheim Rumpus Sept 1982 Scouts Out October 1979 Skirmish at Sichenhausen May 1981 Stem the Tide March 1982 The Last Starship Sept 1981 TRAINING Soviet Tactical Doctrine 1 (MRB) June 1982 TRAINING Soviet Tactical Doctrine 1 (TB) June 1982 TRAINING Soviet Tactical Doctrine 2 (MRB) June 1982 TRAINING Soviet Tactical Doctrine 2 (TB) June 1982 A Hille to Die On July 1982 Bad and Worse July 1982 Bear in the Sun July 1982 Bumps in the Dark '82 July 1982 Dollbach Heights July 1982 Racing the Moon '82 July 1982 Route 66 July 1982 The Citadel July 1982 They Own the Night '82 July 1982 Unhook the Leesh July 1982 Valley of Ashes July 1981

Interesting. Last time I looked into this at all was the Forgotten Weapons video (timestamped with anecdote) Happy to be corrected, mind you.

RPG-7 doesn't have an arming distance in reality, I believe. It has a plastic cap for a safety, but once you take it off it's live (try not to trip).

Ah, gotcha.

^That's an engine thing, not a CW thing. It's still a bug - you can see similar behaviour with burning wrecks on a night map, with shaders on. The dynamic lighting gets brighter and brighter.

I went in expecting a game focused on some aggressive Soviet recon, centred on a contested river crossing, versus a Cavalry unit doing what Cavalry units can do, and defending a chokepoint against superior numbers. All of that sounded extremely promising, with both sides having both non-trivial and plausible, period-appropriate tactical problems to solve. That the map was also really well made for that was even more promising, hence the disappointment. If the intention was for this to be a puzzle-like scenario for playing the AI, then sure, that's valid. It should say that, but it's valid. I do think that's a bit of a waste of the map though - this is halfway to being one of the strongest scenarios in Cold War.

Yeah, that was my approach. My read of the map and briefing was that of second-rate forces clashing. The key terrain was clearly the bridge, since the Soviet power is in the tank company, and so getting across the bridge was the logical thing to do. I therefore sent the BRDMs and a BTR platoons to cross the river to the left, and sent a BTR platoon to the right, with mind to get eyes on both ends of the bridge and the town (and potentially deal with any picket forces on the way). My tanks stayed back, because there was nowhere useful for them to go right now - and they were to act as a reserve-by-fire for any forward picket/recon elements the infantry ran into. The BRDMs and BTRs started exploding on turn one before they reached the river - they got perhaps two action spots out of the deployment zone. The other platoon was wiped out by a Bradley through the trees. Then the tanks in spawn started exploding. That was about turn five, and we called it quits.

Gotcha. The ATGMs show up after 25 minutes, during which the US can hit the entire Soviet deployment area with TOWs. They start with three Bradleys, along with 4x TTS M60 - that's a lot of thermals for the T-62s to deal with in long-ranged, wooded map. Advancing into TOWs is an interesting problem, and working out how to take the bridge against this defensive position is potentially really interesting... but the end result is that you can't actually move in any direction without being sniped. If you go forward, the forward-deployed Bradleys, hull down and in the woods can get you. If you go left and over the river, the TOWs can snipe you. If you go right to get fire on the Bradleys, you're exposed to TOWs. If you stay where you are, you're exposed to TOWs. Now, perhaps this is mostly as it was a PBEM, and the setup position allowed for this? The scenario is not listed as being vs AI only. I'm interested to see if there's something I'm missing here, but I can't really see how a scenario where you're losing vehicles in spawn from the first turn is something I'm doing wrong.

By convention, the larger the attack, the deeper the objectives (and usually the larger the defender's setup zone). The largest attacks (Assaults) also provide the attacker with pre-battle intel. The larger the battle, the greater the points disparity between sides.

Yes, that does seem odd to me. I assume that's not doctrinal?

Commonwealth 2" in WW2 is direct-lay only, as is the Italian Brixia. The similar British mortar in CMSF can be fired indirectly. 60mm mortars can be used effectively in either role, and are intended to do both. Larger mortars are intended to be indirect assets, for the most part.