Rinaldi

Yawn...

I thought the same too, I actually thought it was PnzrLdr for a while, but iirc he's retired.

Do you mean proper real time or direct connect we-go? You'd hand me my ass in proper real time but I'd be down for it, I don't really care about winning or losing. Its a matter of when and how; I'm entering exams and I'll be back in GMT-5 timezone starting this summer.

Aren't the earlier Ch'onma-Hos essentially unmodified T-62s anyways? The Iranians have a very interesting and eclectic mix of East-West equipment. Most of the Western stuff is falling apart due to age and a lack of spare parts. Their ex-bloc style equipment was also eyebrow raising, I remember them announcing their new MBT....which was quite clearly a T-72 knock off. I remember enjoying playing the Iranian-Soviet hypothetical scenario in Graviteam; was an interesting match off.

This tired fantasy truly is getting old; I'm glad you nipped it in the bud. We're hardly in a position as Canadians and Brits to wag the finger; our societies had (and still do, as one can gather from a particularly recent meltdown in another part of this forum) people who are all to willing to get behind ugly causes, including Nazism. Condemning an entire country off a handful of loonies would be silly and alarming; so why a family?

Stellar, thanks! I may make my own AAR of this - after you of course. Keep it up, I've been loving it.

http://www.benning.army.mil/armor/eARMOR/content/issues/2017/Fall/4Duplessis17.pdf ARMOR is always an interesting read, and this article in particular was a great one; shows how long it can take a military to shake off the cobwebs of COIN related environments.

Yes, the CF Battlegroup - as interesting as it would be to play - would probably remain in the Baltics.

Haha oh no its meant for H2H, but it is definitely asymmetrical to a degree (it is up to you lovely bunch to decide if objective scoring made up for that), at any rate enjoy guys!

Flattered but I somehow don't think Power Hour is going to sit well with anyone who wants a competitive, ladder-like experience.

Yeah, exactly. The best way to think of a BMP is an assault raft that can carry right on and attack with the infantry; the range of a MRR or MRB that has a bridgehead is no further than their current load of fuel. A river-crossing by a BMP unit is no different than a typical cross-river attack with rafts in principal: to secure the far bank for bridging. You got to get one across and keep it intact to continue any type of operational movement. American doctrine puts a lot more faith in the infantry's ability to deal with threats in a limited environment and lots of support, whereas a lot of Soviet/Russian literature (learning from Afghanistan and Chechnya) believe that Infantry suppress and mop up after the supporting vehicles do their job. Considering both approaches have been successfully borne out in conflicts I can't really slag either, its a difference in philosophy and TO&E. BTR-82As are swimmable yes. The BTR remains a remarkably light vehicle after slapping a 30mm on it. If I had to go off the top of my head it's only a 3-4 tons heavier than it was in its first configurations.

More armor. LAV-III ain't swimmable either, and never has been. No idea about MOWAGs. The ability to ford rivers is secondary to the US, who's bridging abilities embarrass most other countries. In the same time it takes to prepare a BMP for a river crossing operation, we're as likely to just try and slap a few ribbons across. River crossings are deemed routine for both sides, but for different reasons.

I won't say I have a hand in this discussion, but it's worth noting that 3 to 3.5 million of the Red Army's "casualties" were murdered, worked-to-death or starved-to-death POWs. Try to remember that a racially and politically charged war of annihilation was being fought. The losses were always going to be heavier, and the fatality figures almost certainly take that into account (re.: Civilians). As for lend lease, yes; I am in the party that believes it was decisive to the Soviet Union's survival. No one can convince me that a nation can re-locate and re-organize its industry under fire and have provision of non-lethal and lethal aid 'merely be a help.' That the Russians even recognize it is admirable, but the typical language ("we dont really know how helpful it was" or "it was helpful, but....") is to me, shoddy post-war revisionism.

I haven't given it that much thought; to be frank the actual scenario for SF has long struck me as border-line nonsensical. My usual opponents and myself basically long ago concluded it was the dev team's way of getting "Iraq 2003" but with the new formations and equipment (re.: Stryker) that just missed the conventional phase. Everything smacked of it: straight down to the campaign's structure. One could always tip-toe around that by creating generic force on forces, which I think is where SF shines.

The latter of course, you know me. If I wanted to needle you, I'd be more direct. As for the model stuff, we'll have to wait to see. I'm skeptical that they will change the models that much (in terms of 'moving parts'); though it would be great to see NVGs and radios and binoculars as we do in the modern stuff. Though if our hopes come true, we'll definitely fool around with it. Might make the Russians fit the 2008 timeline as well in terms of their gear.

Yeah we figured pretty early it was definitely too weighted in the attacker's favour: while I certainly think the Defenders can win, given the plethora of anti-tank weaponry, it would take patience, skill and a few lucky breaks. We're pretty open in our group about playing imbalanced matches (I in particular adore playing as the Syrians in SF, regardless of their chances), and your map shows challenges are abound even when you have everything you need to win. Really captures the strengths of H2H. You poured a lot of love into that scenario and it shows.

Makes me wonder where they would figure in on this scenario; even with the very clear expansion of the war being ruled out by Battlefront. Would they remain poised in the Baltic States to maintain the deterrent and prevent an expansion of the conflict, or be poured into the Ukraine through Poland? The saner option would be the former, I guess. It would be interesting to see how they stack up, especially with the relative organizational mess the Army is in with the 2020 reforms underway. I recently purchased the UK module for Shock Force after the recommendation of @BrotherSurplice and don't regret it; they're far more interesting to play as then I was willing to give them credit for.

Thanks, it's rare for me to get such an infantry heavy battle going in Black Sea and I definitely was in the mood for one.

A PBEM game from about two months ago. Long overdue for release. Working subtitles as well if you have trouble understanding me on the mic. Enjoy.

Sorry, I have to disagree. All I see in this thread is the JasonC fiasco all over again; well meaning constructive criticism (and yes, in that thread quite a bit of nasty stuff was mixed in, but that doesn't diminish from the well-said truths) was openly ignored and he wasn't willing to lay down what he was proselytizing. Not sure what these other boneheads thought they were doing over the last two pages, but people like @BrotherSurplice were on point. He's had constructive criticism from page 1 and has consistently and has rather arrogantly ignored it all.

Just spitballing, but @Saint_Fuller and myself once tried fooling around with the models and animations in CMSF - we were able to get the Black Sea animations working, but the way the models are done between CMSF and CMBS are too different for clean model ports, it seems CMBS models are broken up into different parts. I'm hoping that changes with CMSF2. If it does, we might make a wee port. Nothing to be done with the TO & E, but a small palette swap of the Russian digi to its arid variation and you might be able to sell the point. Tagging @Sgt.Squarehead because he may be keen to see this.

Shaping up. You're setting the attack up for success, that's for sure. The last shot of the defensive positions really captures the scale of things as well.

Can't say I'm surprised. What's that saying about going into a chess club?

Gotta say I'm with @IanL on this one. If your tracks get hit in masking terrain the dismounts can just dive into fairly dense cover - without what can only be described as total wasteage of heavy arty. I also doubt the efficiency of trying to advance tracks through fields you've just cratered into a mudpile (game models that iirc) with 203. The ideas in this thread are interesting though, I'd be open to doing a PBEM so you could put them to the test in a flexible environment. Slots are opening up on my end.

What is the point of this exercise again, and why are you all humoring it?