domfluff

For Regular/Normal/Fit/0 troops, the difference in cost is 197 vs 100, so twice as much. The FO team is two men, has an Observer and a Radio man. The Fire control team is four men, has a radio man and two Observers. The cost is going to be twice as much because there are four dudes. Is that useful? Well, they'll be able to take a hit, potentially, but the main thing is where they are in the formation, and what their job is.

In some of the WW2 titles, your XO elements have neither radios, nor radio-equipped transport. In that case their job is to run between formations and to transmit this information manually. That's obviously less efficient, and puts some limits on what you can do with them.

Yup. HQ support teams (XO teams) are your C2 links to other formations. Imagine if you had a (weirdly stripped down for the purposes of clarity) force like this: An infantry battalion, consisting of an Infantry company, and an armour battalion consisting of a single armour platoon. The armour and infantry in this case are part of different battalions, and so will not share their C2 network with each other. Spotting contacts that the infantry see may never get to the armour, and if it does it will not do so swiftly or efficiently. However, all units will share C2 horizontally within four action spots. This means if you do this: Then the Battalion HQ will remain in contact with both their XO and the infantry company via their radios, and the XO can keep the armour in C2 via horizontal sharing. That way the armour can benefit from the spotting information that the infantry can do, and you can do that whole "combined arms" thing.

Yeah, I was looking into intended usage: Protection for the trailing APCs is one, as well as this kind of thing in retreat: It's something which most militaries have moved away from, so I suspect it's a fairly bad or limited idea. For the above Challenger, there are two other methods of generating smoke (the smoke launchers and the main gun can fire smoke rounds), so I suspect that an engine-created smoke screen is a firm third-best option. I'm pretty sure the above represents an ideal situation as well (or would if it stopped behind the berm).

Yeah, that's unusually long lasting for the BMP, and longer than you'll see in-game. Still, it'll create a longer laster, slower-developing cloud in CM. I wonder if they fired more than once. I think the range is a bit deceptive - they throw 100m-120m or so, and it can be very hard to contextualise real-world ranges from CM, given the perspective. In terms of smoke - we're missing the tank-generated smoke screens, as well as the purpose-built large-scale smoke creators. Both might actually be above scale to really matter - the latter would be employed to get a division across a river, for example, and I wonder if the engine-generated screens actually have a similar utility.

In terms of the chemistry involved, finding sources for that is pretty hard, but the ww2 Soviet smoke grenade (rgd-1) was a combination of potassium nitrate, ammonium chloride and bitumen, in some relatively coarse grains. I suspect that basic formula may not have changed that much. Not a chemist, but going by how solid fuel rocket design works (Ignition! is a wonderful book) coarse grained fuel will burn slower and messier, which is ideal if you want to spread this reaction out as much as possible, rather than a faster, cleaner burn.

No tanks in CM have the ability to generate smoke by injecting oil into their exhaust. A lot of them should, and it might be nice if they could. The bmp smoke rounds are black because they are in real life: They will be black because of the chemistry involved. I'm not a chemist, but from memory, thats the bitumen content, since the intent of Soviet smokes isn't to maximize speed of development, but instead to increase how long the thing burns and hangs around for. The tar presumably acts to retard that reaction. It's also going to be quite cheap and unpleasant to be around. Having slower-burning, forward-firing smoke is because the Soviet concept was that the thing was designed to be used offensively, so firing smoke this way gives you a screen to manoeuvre behind. That's in contrast to the Western priorities, where quick development is vitally important, since you need to pop smoke and pull back under cover, to evade an atgm or the like.

For the company level stuff: The R-148 is what replaced the R-126. There will be five of them so that there can be one per platoon (one for the HQ, one for the MG platoon and one for each dismounted rifle platoon, carried by the platoon leader). The larger man-portable R-107 will be for communicating with higher formations and kept by the company commander, and obviously you have the extra radio gear in the company HQ BMP itself.

The dismounted squad does not have a radio. R-126 is man-portable, but is a company-level asset. The squad radio is the BMP itself. As one example of a source, FM 100-2-3 (From 1991, but applicable to everything prior):

Just been re-thinking some of this: Going by Battleorder - the CM squads seem to have taken the four man HQ element, and spread this throughout the platoon, including the SVD. That means that the single-man HQ unit should probably stay in the lead BMP as a C2 link to the formation, and higher formations. On paper that should be the platoon sergeant, but I think this is functionally equivalent.

Doctrinally, when they do dismount, the Soviet infantry do it 300m away from the enemy position (just outside short ranged AT fire such as the RPG or LAW, as well as effective small arms range). If there's heavy AT defences (and Dragon counts as that), then the dismount range is 1000m (so outside medium AT range - Dragon or AT-7). In practice, I think both are actually fairly suspect. Dismounting at 1000m is a good way for your infantry to be neutered to no great effect, and any momentum you have to be nullified. Even 300m is a bit hopeful, I think, and I think it's a good idea to exit as close as you can get away with, when you do so at all. Dismounting shouldn't ever really be plan A, but it can be a useful plan B, and it's important to know how to get the most out of the platoon. As ever with the Soviets, the mechanised platoon shouldn't be acting alone. They should be preceded by armour, and that armour should be preceded by artillery. The attack has to be an an all-arms affair if it's to have any chance of success.

Oh, and the extra stuff, just to get this down: BMP smoke fires forwards, about 100m-120m. This can be fired from a reverse slope to the forward area, and the intention is to give you a screen to manoeuvre behind, or to isolate something from supporting elements in depth. One technique for maximising infantry fires whilst advancing is to use Assault, but to use the command correctly, with multiple waypoints and Target commands at each point: The effect of this is that the non-moving element will be firing continuously, and the squad will continue advancing whilst still putting out as much fire as possible.

The main thing is that the Soviets only planned to dismount when they were forced to, or when there was no other option. That really means the answer to your question is that if they're only dismounting when they have to, then having the additional man is important where you need it. Otherwise, they stay mounted, and the question is moot. You can see some of the logic behind this in Cold War - US call in times are typically in the 2-5 minute range, and dismounting will mean that you're going to slow down - if you're dismounting into a kill-zone (and that's far from unlikely), then this can be disastrous. There's also NBC concerns, but even without those then it's a good idea to not dismount, if you can get away with it. Dismounting is necessary in complex terrain, or when terrain has to be cleared or held defensively. Ideally this kind of area would be bypassed - typically your objectives should be pushing you ever-onwards. When dismounting is appropriate, correct BMP usage looks something like this: The HQ element is in contact will all parts of their platoon. The squads are within four actions spots of their transport, and the IFV and dismounts will use whatever cover is available. The BMPs attack with area-fire as their primary purpose, and the dismounts are their eyes. Staying within four action spots means that the squads will share spotting contacts with their transport. The horizontal separation is mostly just a good idea, but clearly should adapt to terrain and circumstance. The platoon does not want to lose sight of itself at any time. To complete the circle on this one, the Soviet squad: This is the central squad in the above, so it's the one where one of the riflemen is now the platoon's SVD marksman. Aside from that, this is identical to the other two squads. The squad splits into two fireteams - the four man team is the squad's base of fire, and the three man rifle team is the squad's manoeuvre element. The platoon attacks on line as a single unit, with the emphasis being on prioritising fires.

Some thoughts on this: The US has three drones in Black Sea. Raven and Shadow can be shot down by Tunguska, whereas Gray Eagle (in Observe mode) cannot. The difference in QB cost is huge. The smaller drones are baseline 419 points, and the Gray Eagle starts at 2075. Clearly for a scenario you use whatever assets you have, but it's still an interesting comparison. 419 is still a lot - that's more expensive than a Bradley - so it's not a capability to be throwing away. There's some concept of using a pair of cheap drones to bait out the anti-air, but "cheap" is the hurdle there. If you're in a situation where air power is a core capability for you, then giving up a drone to saturate the approximate area the AA came from with artillery can be a good trade. Artillery is clearly a useful answer once the Tunguska is spotted. DEAD missions (i.e., point-targeting the location of a spotted Tunguska with air assets) can be quite effective, and fast jets at least will kill fairly reliably. The same applies to the Gray Eagle itself on an attack run.

If anything, I'd expect current events to make conflict over Cyprus as *less* likely, not more. The Turkish government is a minority one, propped up by hard-right "neo-ottomans", but the line that the ruling party has taken is one that's an intermediate one between Russia and the west. Those scales have likely shifted quite a bit over the last few months...

Yes. One of the core concept (as per The Russian Way of War) is that there was a major move towards integrated fires - indeed, the Zelenopillia rocket attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelenopillia_rocket_attack ,which has informed a *lot* of thinking and development, seemed to suggest that this was exactly the capability that had been developed. It's certainly a core capability that the concept would demand if it were to make any sense. So, as per Warren, this is going to take years to unpick. I don't believe there's going to be a single answer to why this has turned out the way it has. Some of the problems are likely to be obvious, and some of them might well not be.

One of the problems the BTG formation is trying to solve is a lack of overall readiness in the brigade. The Brigade is intended to be able to produce two full strength BTGs out of their numbers, but clearly sometimes this number will be as low as one. To do that implies that you're ripping platoons, squads or even single men out of other formations and jamming them together for the first time. It makes sense in a top-down, centralised sense, but from an actual low-level agility sense it has some very obvious problems. In addition to that, this combined arms battalion ("Battlegroup" or "Task Force" are the equivalent) has significantly more support assets than might be expected. Having three batteries of 152mm artillery and a battery of rocket artillery would not be out of the question here. The intention then is for a lean, high-readiness force, that's quick to manoeuvre, and has a ridiculous amount of firepower for it's size. The downsides, and perhaps the reality, are that they lack sustainment, both in organisational depth, logistical support. They will also lack experience in working together and coordination. I don't think the concept is inherently flawed - it's a plausible answer to a set of problems, and it might even be the least-worst available. I do think that it's showing, yet again, that a centralised command system is built on the fundamental assumption that your centralised command are competent, motivated experts, since so much is reliant on them. For some more context - the main reason why the T-14 was the next big thing really wasn't whatever nonsensical capabilities were claimed, but that it was (will be?) a common platform, with the same chassis mounting an IFV, SPG, ambulance, recovery variants, whatever. *That* capability is clearly designed as a step towards solving some of the awful logistical problems that the Russian and Soviet armies have always had.

I actually suspect that the situation in Ukraine might be proving that the Western way of doing things offers a significant advantage. People have been claiming that stuff as low-level as air conditioning in an armoured vehicle is "soft" or "weak" forever, and that the "rugged" approach that Russia takes is superior in some sense, be that morally or otherwise. I suspect one of the lessons that will (or perhaps should) be learned from this war is that paying attention to your troops and keeping them happy, warm, dry and fed (or as much as possible) is actually crucial to effective operations, and pays dividends over the longer term. That it's not just something one "should" do, but actually makes objective, logical and economic sense. I was thinking this recently when there was a comparison made between a recent US recruitment ad and a Russian one. The former (which I imagine you've seen, there was a lot of media attention around it) was a personal story of a US army officer, raised by two mothers, and full of references to her history of socially-aware protest and activism. The latter was hyper-masculine, emphasising the hardships and torment the VDV go through. Both are propaganda, obviously. They're recruitment ads, and are both trying to sell something. ...but I wonder if the Russian lies died at Hostomel.

I'd honestly expect the US, UK and any other NATO powers to do everything they can, shy of engaging with actual force, so intel seems like one of the more basic ways to assist. (Obviously there's a larger debate around all aspects of that, but I'd still expect intel-sharing as a minimum.)

Oh, the campaigns in Cold War are some of the very best in any CM title, and the Soviet campaign in particular does a fantastic job of communicating its high concept, and rendering that down into an expression of doctrine and an exploration of what problems that needed to solve, where that works and where it struggles.

Some quick thoughts: If you have the ability and (more importantly) time to reduce a city, sure. If you're forced to clear it dismounted (i.e., actual MOUT), the Soviets are at a strong disadvantage. There's a reason why the doctrine was to bypass cities where possible. Yup. This is one of the core arguments that CMCW is making - there is a generational change between the early and latter half of the period CMCW covers, and it's designed to highlight this transition. It's a fundamental shift in power that the USSR was never able to catch up with (for a number of reasons, including the deficiencies in semi-conductors and the aging political elite dying out). It's also why a late eighties Cold War game (which most of them seem to be) would be a lot less interesting, I think. The RPG-7 is a world-changing weapon. Dragon has a few issues - the 1km SACLOS means that you're going to give away your position and remain exposed, well within range of the thing you're aiming at. If you miss (and you will miss a fair percentage of the time), then you may well just die. It does, however, give the squad a significant capabilities in thermal optics and range which the Soviets just can't match. An interesting point though, is that the RPG-7 really shouldn't be compared to Dragon. Everything in Cold War can be divided into Short, Medium and Long AT ranges. The direct comparison to the RPG-7 is the LAW, and the RPG-7 has some major advantages there. Interestingly, a more direct comparison to Dragon might be the squad's BMP, which changes the equation significantly. An aside, but I've noted elsewhere that CMCW might be the only CM title where all "Anti-tank" weapons can be reasonably expected to kill tanks. The WW2 titles have ATRs and the lighter AT Guns which are sometimes only good against lighter vehicles, and in the later titles composite armour, ERA and eventually APS can render a lot of the HEAT-based systems mostly irrelevant.

Sorry, yes - by "software problem" I meant it's something that it needs a solution other than hardware, as in it's not a question of bigger guns or more of them, but of co-ordination and control. Some of that will literally be software, but some of that will be as simple ("simple") as changes in organisational structure. Comms are a massive part of that, but to a large extent how it's achieved isn't the important thing, but that it involves a change to the thinking, infrastructure and employment.

It doesn't necessarily require you having less firepower, as long as that same firepower can be distributed and coordinated correctly. It's a software problem, essentially.

There are some arguments for having the 122mm 2S1 and maybe the 152mm 2S3 on-map in CMBS, CMSF and CMCW, but they're a bit tenuous. I've long thought it would be a good idea to have static, non-functional vehicles as objectives. Scuds are a really good example - totally out of scope for CM-scale scenarios, but as scenario dressing that would be excellent.

Part of the point of a BTG is to be able to guarantee that you can create a high readiness formation out of whatever you happen to have available in the brigade, on an ad-hoc basis. "Two up, one back" would be aspirational, I think - some brigades will only ever be able to produce a single btg, but the concept is that they always can do so. Then that element is given massive amounts of support - multiple batteries of varying artillery, anti-air, whatever. The ideal would be that you have something with firepower approaching the brigade, but that can manoeuvre as easily as a battalion does. The downsides are pretty obvious, I think - even on the most basic level, when your default is an ad-hoc formation then there will be people working together who will never have trained together, so cohesion will suffer. As to why we haven't seen them operate in scale? Part of that might be just the source of videos we've seen, which are mostly from local defence forces and the like, rather than what presumably is the main effort, but I don't think we'll really know for a while.