Bozowans

Cold War and Fire and Rubble are out and here I am playing SF2. I am determined to finally finish the Task Force Thunder campaign. No distractions! 
Here is a missile flying right past (and partially through) some dude's head.




 
The missile clipped through his helmet and possibly his skull a little bit. Or maybe it missed his skull by an inch or so? Hard to tell. Never seen anything like it. He should have at least been smacked in the face by those tail fins, or burned in the face by the rocket exhaust. I wonder what that would have looked like IRL.
There were two AT-14s fired at this guy almost at the exact same time. Both missiles flew right past him and then exited off the map without exploding.

The thread needs a bump and I just recently played @Zveroboy1's "Sniper in the Corn" scenario, so...
 

Yeah I wouldnt want the game to be totally realistic. War is boring. It's just a bunch of guys hiding in a ditch all day. Firefights might last for hours. It could take hours for hundreds of men just to clear a single apartment building. War is a dull, miserable, boring and exhausting slog.
What might take hours or even days IRL might take just minutes in CM. It took the Russians a couple of days to clear the reichstag building for example. 
The game could always be improved though. I wish units would rout off the map. They could in CMx1 but they cant in CMx2 for some reason. Units get pinned against map edges and wiped out. And I wish units could withdraw off the map voluntarily without needing an exit zone.
Anyone remember Shock Force 1? Broken troops would get an exclamation point appearing over their head and then vanish into thin air, to represent surrendering, routing, or otherwise going missing. It was realistic in a way. I can see why they changed that so that units would physically run away but they still dont get routed completely. 

Here is a grenade exploding literally right in a dude's face.
 

Here is a grenade exploding literally right in a dude's face.
 

I always thought it would be cool if they brought back command delays. They had them in the CMx1 games. I don't know why they got rid of them. Back then, a veteran squad might take a couple of seconds to get going, but conscripts might take 30 or more seconds. Buttoned-up vehicles with no radios might take even longer to get going, making it a nightmare to coordinate 1941 Soviet tank units for example. The command delays would vary from unit to unit, so you wouldn't have every single unit in your whole force start moving at the exact instant you hit "go" as well, making the movement look more natural compared to CMx2.
They should bring back command delays, and then maybe make it so that the delays are longer when HQs get wiped out. Why not make it dependent on morale state as well? A rattled squad should take a little bit longer to collect themselves and get going. A broken squad out of contact with HQ should have such a long delay that they are basically useless.

I always thought it would be cool if they brought back command delays. They had them in the CMx1 games. I don't know why they got rid of them. Back then, a veteran squad might take a couple of seconds to get going, but conscripts might take 30 or more seconds. Buttoned-up vehicles with no radios might take even longer to get going, making it a nightmare to coordinate 1941 Soviet tank units for example. The command delays would vary from unit to unit, so you wouldn't have every single unit in your whole force start moving at the exact instant you hit "go" as well, making the movement look more natural compared to CMx2.
They should bring back command delays, and then maybe make it so that the delays are longer when HQs get wiped out. Why not make it dependent on morale state as well? A rattled squad should take a little bit longer to collect themselves and get going. A broken squad out of contact with HQ should have such a long delay that they are basically useless.

Here is a grenade exploding literally right in a dude's face.
 

I always thought it would be cool if they brought back command delays. They had them in the CMx1 games. I don't know why they got rid of them. Back then, a veteran squad might take a couple of seconds to get going, but conscripts might take 30 or more seconds. Buttoned-up vehicles with no radios might take even longer to get going, making it a nightmare to coordinate 1941 Soviet tank units for example. The command delays would vary from unit to unit, so you wouldn't have every single unit in your whole force start moving at the exact instant you hit "go" as well, making the movement look more natural compared to CMx2.
They should bring back command delays, and then maybe make it so that the delays are longer when HQs get wiped out. Why not make it dependent on morale state as well? A rattled squad should take a little bit longer to collect themselves and get going. A broken squad out of contact with HQ should have such a long delay that they are basically useless.

Here is a grenade exploding literally right in a dude's face.
 

I always thought it would be cool if they brought back command delays. They had them in the CMx1 games. I don't know why they got rid of them. Back then, a veteran squad might take a couple of seconds to get going, but conscripts might take 30 or more seconds. Buttoned-up vehicles with no radios might take even longer to get going, making it a nightmare to coordinate 1941 Soviet tank units for example. The command delays would vary from unit to unit, so you wouldn't have every single unit in your whole force start moving at the exact instant you hit "go" as well, making the movement look more natural compared to CMx2.
They should bring back command delays, and then maybe make it so that the delays are longer when HQs get wiped out. Why not make it dependent on morale state as well? A rattled squad should take a little bit longer to collect themselves and get going. A broken squad out of contact with HQ should have such a long delay that they are basically useless.

Here is a grenade exploding literally right in a dude's face.
 

Just finished my second playthrough. First as the US, I destroyed the Soviet force and got a total victory without too much trouble but a couple of the M60s got heavily damaged with their guns knocked out. I don't remember if I lost any of the M60s outright, but a bunch of my infantry got killed by artillery.
Second playthrough as the Soviets and it went surprisingly well. Way better than I thought it would after I stupidly ran one of the recon teams right into American pre-planned artillery at the start. After that, one of the T72s started taking potshots at an M60 from the far edge of the map. The M60 popped smoke and pulled back after a couple non-penetrating hits. Then two more M60s popped smoke and reversed. I took this as an opportunity to charge my entire force at full speed ahead to some dead ground in the center of the map. There I hid them until the moment was right.
I had my air support set to come in after a delay, and when they finally came in they proceeded to do jack. One of the planes circled around, did nothing and then left, then the other blew up a standard M113 with a missile and then got shot down. Every single one of the US MANPADs survived the bombardment. No matter though, because after that, all my reinforcements had arrived and I had every vehicle in my force charge forward from the dead ground in one giant mass. The Americans didn't stand a chance. I overran the American right flank, wiping out their entire force within minutes. There were still 20 minutes left on the clock. I lost only 7 dead and 4 wounded, with 3 tanks lost and a few more damaged. One tank stuck in the mud. The Americans only had 4 men remaining out of 80.
Very fun scenario and good game. 

Just finished my second playthrough. First as the US, I destroyed the Soviet force and got a total victory without too much trouble but a couple of the M60s got heavily damaged with their guns knocked out. I don't remember if I lost any of the M60s outright, but a bunch of my infantry got killed by artillery.
Second playthrough as the Soviets and it went surprisingly well. Way better than I thought it would after I stupidly ran one of the recon teams right into American pre-planned artillery at the start. After that, one of the T72s started taking potshots at an M60 from the far edge of the map. The M60 popped smoke and pulled back after a couple non-penetrating hits. Then two more M60s popped smoke and reversed. I took this as an opportunity to charge my entire force at full speed ahead to some dead ground in the center of the map. There I hid them until the moment was right.
I had my air support set to come in after a delay, and when they finally came in they proceeded to do jack. One of the planes circled around, did nothing and then left, then the other blew up a standard M113 with a missile and then got shot down. Every single one of the US MANPADs survived the bombardment. No matter though, because after that, all my reinforcements had arrived and I had every vehicle in my force charge forward from the dead ground in one giant mass. The Americans didn't stand a chance. I overran the American right flank, wiping out their entire force within minutes. There were still 20 minutes left on the clock. I lost only 7 dead and 4 wounded, with 3 tanks lost and a few more damaged. One tank stuck in the mud. The Americans only had 4 men remaining out of 80.
Very fun scenario and good game. 

Sometimes it's hard to believe that that kind of stuff is even real. The four sniper teams I had in that scenario took down 14 Germans by the end though.
 
Anyway, I am very glad I got Fire and Rubble when I did, because soon afterward my internet got knocked out for a week due to storms. I didn't have much else to do but play it. 
The Night at the Opera campaign is good. Very atmospheric. Seeing green tracers flying across Konigsplatz was bringing back Red Orchestra memories.
The amount of firepower that the Soviets could bring to bear is kind of terrifying. My biggest concern in this campaign so far is not casualties but ammo usage. 



 
A Soviet assault team comes over a rise only to run right into a couple squads of Fallschirmjager at close range:

 
The fight didn't last long though. After a couple seconds of heavy shooting, a 122mm shell slammed into the building, killing or wounding several Germans. Five of the Germans surrendered after that.

 
That was a typical encounter. Germans would reveal themselves only to be completely plastered by a massive storm of bullets and explosions. My casualties haven't even been that heavy, but I'm going into the second mission of the campaign with ammo problems. There are multiple entire platoons that are basically out of ammo. I also should have conserved my artillery ammo, because now I don't have anything to blow up the Reichstag with. Except tanks.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that that kind of stuff is even real. The four sniper teams I had in that scenario took down 14 Germans by the end though.
 
Anyway, I am very glad I got Fire and Rubble when I did, because soon afterward my internet got knocked out for a week due to storms. I didn't have much else to do but play it. 
The Night at the Opera campaign is good. Very atmospheric. Seeing green tracers flying across Konigsplatz was bringing back Red Orchestra memories.
The amount of firepower that the Soviets could bring to bear is kind of terrifying. My biggest concern in this campaign so far is not casualties but ammo usage. 



 
A Soviet assault team comes over a rise only to run right into a couple squads of Fallschirmjager at close range:

 
The fight didn't last long though. After a couple seconds of heavy shooting, a 122mm shell slammed into the building, killing or wounding several Germans. Five of the Germans surrendered after that.

 
That was a typical encounter. Germans would reveal themselves only to be completely plastered by a massive storm of bullets and explosions. My casualties haven't even been that heavy, but I'm going into the second mission of the campaign with ammo problems. There are multiple entire platoons that are basically out of ammo. I also should have conserved my artillery ammo, because now I don't have anything to blow up the Reichstag with. Except tanks.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that that kind of stuff is even real. The four sniper teams I had in that scenario took down 14 Germans by the end though.
 
Anyway, I am very glad I got Fire and Rubble when I did, because soon afterward my internet got knocked out for a week due to storms. I didn't have much else to do but play it. 
The Night at the Opera campaign is good. Very atmospheric. Seeing green tracers flying across Konigsplatz was bringing back Red Orchestra memories.
The amount of firepower that the Soviets could bring to bear is kind of terrifying. My biggest concern in this campaign so far is not casualties but ammo usage. 



 
A Soviet assault team comes over a rise only to run right into a couple squads of Fallschirmjager at close range:

 
The fight didn't last long though. After a couple seconds of heavy shooting, a 122mm shell slammed into the building, killing or wounding several Germans. Five of the Germans surrendered after that.

 
That was a typical encounter. Germans would reveal themselves only to be completely plastered by a massive storm of bullets and explosions. My casualties haven't even been that heavy, but I'm going into the second mission of the campaign with ammo problems. There are multiple entire platoons that are basically out of ammo. I also should have conserved my artillery ammo, because now I don't have anything to blow up the Reichstag with. Except tanks.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that that kind of stuff is even real. The four sniper teams I had in that scenario took down 14 Germans by the end though.
 
Anyway, I am very glad I got Fire and Rubble when I did, because soon afterward my internet got knocked out for a week due to storms. I didn't have much else to do but play it. 
The Night at the Opera campaign is good. Very atmospheric. Seeing green tracers flying across Konigsplatz was bringing back Red Orchestra memories.
The amount of firepower that the Soviets could bring to bear is kind of terrifying. My biggest concern in this campaign so far is not casualties but ammo usage. 



 
A Soviet assault team comes over a rise only to run right into a couple squads of Fallschirmjager at close range:

 
The fight didn't last long though. After a couple seconds of heavy shooting, a 122mm shell slammed into the building, killing or wounding several Germans. Five of the Germans surrendered after that.

 
That was a typical encounter. Germans would reveal themselves only to be completely plastered by a massive storm of bullets and explosions. My casualties haven't even been that heavy, but I'm going into the second mission of the campaign with ammo problems. There are multiple entire platoons that are basically out of ammo. I also should have conserved my artillery ammo, because now I don't have anything to blow up the Reichstag with. Except tanks.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that that kind of stuff is even real. The four sniper teams I had in that scenario took down 14 Germans by the end though.
 
Anyway, I am very glad I got Fire and Rubble when I did, because soon afterward my internet got knocked out for a week due to storms. I didn't have much else to do but play it. 
The Night at the Opera campaign is good. Very atmospheric. Seeing green tracers flying across Konigsplatz was bringing back Red Orchestra memories.
The amount of firepower that the Soviets could bring to bear is kind of terrifying. My biggest concern in this campaign so far is not casualties but ammo usage. 



 
A Soviet assault team comes over a rise only to run right into a couple squads of Fallschirmjager at close range:

 
The fight didn't last long though. After a couple seconds of heavy shooting, a 122mm shell slammed into the building, killing or wounding several Germans. Five of the Germans surrendered after that.

 
That was a typical encounter. Germans would reveal themselves only to be completely plastered by a massive storm of bullets and explosions. My casualties haven't even been that heavy, but I'm going into the second mission of the campaign with ammo problems. There are multiple entire platoons that are basically out of ammo. I also should have conserved my artillery ammo, because now I don't have anything to blow up the Reichstag with. Except tanks.

Have you ever tried Steel Panthers? There is Steel Panthers WW2 and also Main Battle Tank for the modern era. They seem like a middle ground for what you are talking about. They are very old-school turn-based, hex-based tactical games but they use little tank and infantry graphics.

I had been getting into them recently. It is interesting to see how the battles play out compared to something like CM.  There are clear advantages and disadvantages to each type of game. The 2D abstraction of Steel Panthers allows it to simulate almost every conflict I can think of from the 20th century onward. There are hundreds of scenarios covering everything from the Russian Civil War through every year and theater of WW2 to the Arab-Israeli Wars, Cold War, Vietnam, or even battles between Kurdish YPG fighters and ISIS in 2014. That's something I've never seen in any other game.
Meanwhile, it takes years to produce CM games covering just one battle, and that's with them re-using assets from their other games. They chose Bagration for CMRT so they could re-use their 1944 German stuff and not have to make everything again from scratch.
I like hex-based stuff in general though, operational or tactical. I don't see what anyone would have against them (except in FoG 2. Squares work much better for that). I loved the old SSG wargames like Korsun Pocket or Battles in Normandy. They tell their own epic stories of whole armies getting encircled and destroyed and so on.
I agree with your larger point though. Traditional wargames or hexes aren't objectively better than everything else. There is no "true wargame" or whatever. The CMx2 games are some of my favorite games, yet they do have limitations. There are things that hex-based games can do that CM can't.

The typos you find in the briefings are all historically accurate. 
 
This kinda makes me want more scenarios that give you as little information as this. Reminds me of a book I was reading by a Russian platoon leader on the WW2 eastern front. Often the only orders he would get were just "Go take that town over there." His company commander also liked to go missing for long periods at a time, leaving the platoon leaders to do everything themselves. Vague orders might come down straight from battalion, skipping the company commander entirely.
The war was bizarre and confusing, filled with things like units going in circles or wandering aimlessly for miles in the wrong direction, zero coordination between different companies/battalions/tanks/infantry/whatever, or even friendlies launching entire assaults on their own positions by accident. To me, it would be interesting to see more CM scenarios that deliberately try to put the player in a very confusing situation that they have to think their way out of.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that that kind of stuff is even real. The four sniper teams I had in that scenario took down 14 Germans by the end though.
 
Anyway, I am very glad I got Fire and Rubble when I did, because soon afterward my internet got knocked out for a week due to storms. I didn't have much else to do but play it. 
The Night at the Opera campaign is good. Very atmospheric. Seeing green tracers flying across Konigsplatz was bringing back Red Orchestra memories.
The amount of firepower that the Soviets could bring to bear is kind of terrifying. My biggest concern in this campaign so far is not casualties but ammo usage. 



 
A Soviet assault team comes over a rise only to run right into a couple squads of Fallschirmjager at close range:

 
The fight didn't last long though. After a couple seconds of heavy shooting, a 122mm shell slammed into the building, killing or wounding several Germans. Five of the Germans surrendered after that.

 
That was a typical encounter. Germans would reveal themselves only to be completely plastered by a massive storm of bullets and explosions. My casualties haven't even been that heavy, but I'm going into the second mission of the campaign with ammo problems. There are multiple entire platoons that are basically out of ammo. I also should have conserved my artillery ammo, because now I don't have anything to blow up the Reichstag with. Except tanks.

The typos you find in the briefings are all historically accurate. 
 
This kinda makes me want more scenarios that give you as little information as this. Reminds me of a book I was reading by a Russian platoon leader on the WW2 eastern front. Often the only orders he would get were just "Go take that town over there." His company commander also liked to go missing for long periods at a time, leaving the platoon leaders to do everything themselves. Vague orders might come down straight from battalion, skipping the company commander entirely.
The war was bizarre and confusing, filled with things like units going in circles or wandering aimlessly for miles in the wrong direction, zero coordination between different companies/battalions/tanks/infantry/whatever, or even friendlies launching entire assaults on their own positions by accident. To me, it would be interesting to see more CM scenarios that deliberately try to put the player in a very confusing situation that they have to think their way out of.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that that kind of stuff is even real. The four sniper teams I had in that scenario took down 14 Germans by the end though.
 
Anyway, I am very glad I got Fire and Rubble when I did, because soon afterward my internet got knocked out for a week due to storms. I didn't have much else to do but play it. 
The Night at the Opera campaign is good. Very atmospheric. Seeing green tracers flying across Konigsplatz was bringing back Red Orchestra memories.
The amount of firepower that the Soviets could bring to bear is kind of terrifying. My biggest concern in this campaign so far is not casualties but ammo usage. 



 
A Soviet assault team comes over a rise only to run right into a couple squads of Fallschirmjager at close range:

 
The fight didn't last long though. After a couple seconds of heavy shooting, a 122mm shell slammed into the building, killing or wounding several Germans. Five of the Germans surrendered after that.

 
That was a typical encounter. Germans would reveal themselves only to be completely plastered by a massive storm of bullets and explosions. My casualties haven't even been that heavy, but I'm going into the second mission of the campaign with ammo problems. There are multiple entire platoons that are basically out of ammo. I also should have conserved my artillery ammo, because now I don't have anything to blow up the Reichstag with. Except tanks.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that that kind of stuff is even real. The four sniper teams I had in that scenario took down 14 Germans by the end though.
 
Anyway, I am very glad I got Fire and Rubble when I did, because soon afterward my internet got knocked out for a week due to storms. I didn't have much else to do but play it. 
The Night at the Opera campaign is good. Very atmospheric. Seeing green tracers flying across Konigsplatz was bringing back Red Orchestra memories.
The amount of firepower that the Soviets could bring to bear is kind of terrifying. My biggest concern in this campaign so far is not casualties but ammo usage. 



 
A Soviet assault team comes over a rise only to run right into a couple squads of Fallschirmjager at close range:

 
The fight didn't last long though. After a couple seconds of heavy shooting, a 122mm shell slammed into the building, killing or wounding several Germans. Five of the Germans surrendered after that.

 
That was a typical encounter. Germans would reveal themselves only to be completely plastered by a massive storm of bullets and explosions. My casualties haven't even been that heavy, but I'm going into the second mission of the campaign with ammo problems. There are multiple entire platoons that are basically out of ammo. I also should have conserved my artillery ammo, because now I don't have anything to blow up the Reichstag with. Except tanks.