Rinaldi

Haha that is actually from the american M60 (for representation - its the same in the T-64/72/80 series).
Actual T-72/90:

 
The seating is a little better in the T series (left )than in an M60 (right):
 

Be prepared for a doozy of a discussion: 
 

While I don't disagree with the thrust of bits of this post ... how many M1 Abrams did the USMC deploy in Gulf War 1 as your post infers that the USMC deployed that platform?  I'll give you a clue ... not overly many ...
If that was not one of your points then I apologize; however, relating to the M1 upgunning to something more than that wonderful piece of British engineering (the L7 105mm gun) in the 80s was extremely overdue and I doubt that the factors you mention were paramount in the US decision to do so.  The UK ditched the L7 when the Chieftain was fielded ... I may have posted some facts about Chieftains earlier in this thread ...
 

The Thirty-Second and Thirty-Third Minutes
KG LINKS
The unopposed movement continues, we've cleared the second set of buildings and on to the last set.

Plenty of supporting fire available if I need it.


I'll be bringing the StuG up next turn,

KG ZENTRUM
No pictures as nothing happened. Given what's happening on the right, which is not too far from where these guys are, and they're in open ground with trees to the right and front and high ground to the left I've thought better of the decision to send them this way so they will be pulling back.
I have other plans for them, but where will they be going?????
KG RECHTS
A mortar round drops in the scrub near where I spotted his AT rifle team a while ago. I assume it was a spotting round and given how long it takes for Soviets to call such things in I wouldn't be surprised if it was called in around the time we had that encounter. It means a HQ unit can see enough to call in an area fire on the woods I'm currently moving through. Hmmm.

2nd zug's HQ unit get a spot on the same infantry squad the scouts spotted last time and fire a few shots. I should have put an arc on these guys. They didn't appear to hit anything.

The Panthers are moving up to overwatch the farm buildings...

just as his tank starts moving forward again.


It stops at the bend in the road and fires on 1st squad/2nd zug. The first shell nicks one of the landsers...

The next one kills 3 men in the squad outright. That leaves 1st squad with 2 troops still functioning and one of them is wounded. I guess that answers the question as to why he moved the tank up, I'm not convinced he knows about the Panthers as I'm not sure he would have done so, or would he?


2nd zug HQ gets a spot on the T34 at the end of the turn.

Another spotting round falls, this time next to where my SPWs are parked up but causes no damage.

SITMAP

On the left I'm continuing to push. At this point I'm not expecting any contact in KT7 at all but we'll see.
In the center I'm pulling back and re-mounting the scouts and KG ZENTRUM will be retasked.
On the right it looks like he's calling in area fire on the woods. I would engage the T34 with the Panthers but they are still just out of visible range so I'd have to move them up and he is stationary in a very good hull-down position (the ground slopes up to the farm) and I think he may take at least one of the Panthers out at this range from an elevated position. I can't even distract it or try and get him to button up with fire from other positions because of he's on a reverse slope. It also could be a ruse, he may know I have armour with KG RECHTS and is trying to draw them out so he can hit them with unseen hidden AT assets. Not worth the risk.
I am un-assing the area as they say as this is supposed to be a recon force and I'm not willing to risk losing a Panther or two to take out 1 T34. I'll be withdrawing what I can of 2nd zug (I think 1st squad are done for) and repositioning the SPWs so they are away from any mortar strikes. I'm only going to pull them back though, he's unlikely to try and push through the woods when he's bombarding it so I may have a chance to re-occupy the trees and should he try crossing the open ground I'll have eyes on it.
MMM

The Thirty-First Minute
KG LINKS
Kein kontact! The second set of buildings seems clear. The probe advances, a little quicker now I am using alternating bounds. The SPWs and StuG are providing overwatch.


KG ZENTRUM
The probe continues here too. Advancing until I can bring up my fire support to rake the tree line and see what falls out.


KG RECHTS
It's MOVING! The armour contact moves up to a bend in the road, I'll have to back off my SPWs next turn as this thing is getting a bit too close for comfort. If he's moving it then I can only assume he has infantry on the move ahead of it.


2nd squad/2nd zug continue to push up the left side of the trees, nothing so far.

1st zug's sniper has been given free reign to advance from the treeline and see what he can see.

Overwatched by the zug's SPWs in the treeline (that's him on the far left of the image).

The scouts in 2nd zug get a spot through the gap in the bridge ahead. It's an infantry squad of some kind. They only spot one guy with a PPsH so it's not clear if it's an infantry squad or a SMG squad, I'll need more information to determine the true nature of it.

They were WALKing, not HUNTING so I assume he feels safe back there. I do wonder where they are going though, they walked down the river bed and seemed to be turning to their right at the end of the turn. This in conjunction with the armour contact moving makes me think he's either sent them out on patrol, is moving up to counterattack KG RECHTS or perhaps it's in reaction to KG ZENTRUM? He will no doubt know they are pushing up the center. Hmmm. I assume this is a platoon or possibly even a company as the Soviets don't tend to cope well without some leaders around.
Right at the end of the turn 1st squad/2nd zug get a (fleeting) confirmed spot on the armour. It's a T34-85, 1943 model. If there's one there's bound to be at least a platoon knocking around, with a company or more in the AO.


SITMAP

It surprised me to see him moving up on the right flank. I don't know for certain but I think he lost contact with KG RECHTS when I drove that AT rifle team off and this could be a combat patrol but it's a pure guess, everyone is going to stop and we'll see how the situation develops. The T34 is just out of range of the SPWs but I'm pulling them back anyway and the Panthers are being moved up to just behind the treeline so they can interdict if he moves it any further.
I can again update my intelligence requirements: 
What is the enemy OOB? - Unknown but the presence of a sniper suggests it's not JUST a cavalry regiment as they don't have any organic snipers. It might not be a cavalry regiment at all. He has at least 1 T34 in support. Does he have any armour? - YES What other AT assets does he have? Is he defending back or up front? - Looks to be back with OPs out front. Is Obj ROT occupied? - YES Where is his piquet line? - Once NAI1 is investigated then I'll know for sure. Where is his MLR? What types of armour does he have? - Spotted 1 x T34-85 (M1943) Now I know he has armour and have spotted at least one type it's time for a blood board, I'm assuming he has a company of T34s, it's the Soviets afterall.

It does look like AoA4 is well defended, but this may be a screening force, I need more information before I can commit the reserves to a course of action. One thing is clear though: things might get a bit violent soon.
MMM

@Chibot Mk IXit appears they did recover the other MG, good tip!

MMM

The Twenty-Eighth Minute
KG LINKS
First set of buildings is clear. On to the next! A SPW has been brought up to a rise in the road that provides a hull down position and 1st squad are still pushing through the trees on the right side of the highway.


Still no contact. Surprising, seems like a perfect position for an OP to me.
KG ZENTRUM
The StuG fires...


And hits!

The AT rifleman is down. His mate doesn't hang around.

The rest of the zug  are retasked. I'm going to send the scouts and one split squad between KT1 and KT2 to see if we can trigger any ambushes and see what's on the left side of KT2. The rest of the zug are mounting back onto the SPWs.
This is a movement to contact, I'm planning to pull them back if they make contact with a sizeable force but we'll see as the situation is still very fluid. Hopefully I'll make enough noise that it might force him to redeploy his forces somewhat. It will also give us a view onto the backside of KT1 to see if he has any OPs positioned there.

The mortar fire is still coming in.
KG RECHTS
1st zug continue to fan out in the treeline.

2nd platoon continue to push through the trees, I'm skirting around the outside as it's a bit quicker than going through the middle and I'm not expecting any contact here anyway given where his AT team came from earlier.


The scouts get a sound contact. Achtung! Panzer! It looks like it's overwatching the bottleneck next to the marsh on AoA4. I'd expect him to have infantry ahead of the armour so this could well be the MLR.

SITMAP

On the left we're continuing to move to contact.
In the center the StuG will keep an eye on the KT1 while the panzergrenadiers reorient and push up the open ground to the south of KT1. 
On the right 2nd zug is going to go to ground and the panthers are going to move up a bit so they are in a better position to counter his armour should it decide to do something rash. The scouts are out of contact with the zugfuhrer so I'm going to bring them into contact so he can share the info with the tanks. 1st zug will continue to fan out along the trees to get more eyes into the area.
I can now update my intelligence requirements: 
What is the enemy OOB? - Unknown but the presence of a sniper suggests it's not JUST a cavalry regiment as they don't have any organic snipers. It might not be a cavalry regiment at all. Does he have any armour? - YES What other AT assets does he have? Is he defending back or up front? - Looks to be back with OPs out front. Is Obj ROT occupied? - YES Where is his piquet line? - Once NAI1 is investigated then I'll know for sure. Where is his MLR? What types of armour does he have? MMM

https://imgur.com/a/Sv3OEjk
 
Currently playing around with different AAR formats, pleased with imgur so far since it allows a lot of flexibility with file sizes and videos.

Aye there’s a Scottishvoice already in the sound files  Also did a sweary voice mod for @Mordwhich used a lot of err… vernacular words…

When it comes to diversity, Afro-caribbeans fine by me, East Africans, West Africans, Sikhs, Hindi, Muslim also fine by me. Royalists, you gotta be joking. 

Just clocked it. Congratulations

The person quoted about wanting more points of view in the war (game) room was not explicitlt talking about skin colour correlating with thought patterns. At least I don't think so. He's a Brit so he is likely talking about the class of British citizen that used to exclusively make up officers and is still a large part of their officer core. If you get a bunch of people who grew up with comfortable amounts of $ and went to a short list of boarding schools taking the same education curriculum then yeah they tend to have learned similar views on the world. If they want to in crease the diversity of experience and educational back ground in their officer core then they are going to get some different races joining the club too.

That looks damn good actually. My limited experience with soldiering is that there are actually a pretty wide range of sizes and shapes. None of that is currently reflected in the models in the game already. It doesn't bother me in the game currently. Adding faces that look like the above into the mix would work quite well. We had some really tall and some quite short guys in the platoon. Granted the women were skewed to the shorter side and the shortest woman was the shortest squaddie but we also had a few women who were over the average height too. So modelling that with a bunch of computer models all the same size is really any less reflective of woman any more then the men.

Minutes Twenty Two to Twenty Seven
Not a lot happened in these minutes so I'll report on all of them together.
KG LINKS
Still no contact on the left, 2nd squad is at the farm at the end of the twenty-seventh minute so I'm bringing the StuG up for for fire support along with a couple of the HTs. There are a couple of nice hull down firing positions for them to take up.





The impatient side of me is thinking this is taking too long, but given the amount of trees and buildings here and the fact I don't really have that much infantry to start with I'm going to be cautious and take my time. I will move a tiny but quicker (use QUICK instead of HUNT to cover the open spaces while being overwatched by fire support) but I'm not going to be reckless.
Given where his other OPs were situated I am expecting contact around about the third set of buildings in the image above as that would be in line with the other contacts I have had. We'll see!
KG ZENTRUM
The AT rifle team finally spotted 2nd squad moving around the trees on the right and took a few shots. None of them hit and my guys barely noticed such was the range but now he has spotted me it's time for these guys to eat some HE. I don't want him getting intel for free.

To that end I have decided to carry out the switch I was thinking about and swap the StuG that was with KG RECHTS with the Panther that was with KG ZENTRUM so both Panthers are with KG RECHTS. The StuG will then be brought up to fire on the AT rifle team on KEY TERRAIN 1 and either take them out or drive them off, I don't want to use a SPW (changing terminology to be more Germanic) as they've proven already that they can be damaged at range.
I don't know if he's seen any of my armour yet but this will obviously get his attention so if he's going to get a confirmed spot then I'd rather it was on a StuG than a Panther. Hopefully when the Panthers do get involved it will be a nice surprise for him! Then I'll unleash the Tigers (insert maniacal cackling and hand wringing here)!

No other contacts have been reported, I think KEY TERRAIN 3 is clear so once the OP is driven off then I'll retask KG ZENTRUM.
The mortars are still dropping. Poor scrubland, RIP.
KG RECHTS
The AT rifle team that ran away into the trees did not reappear and no other contacts were reported. I am bringing the rest of 3 kompanie up (1st zug, they only have two zugs) to fan out along the treeline and get more eyes on the farm. Investigating/clearing KEY TERRAIN 2 is going to take time and I'll need more than one platoon given the amount of trees. I'm expecting to run into troops in here as that seems to be where the AT rifle team retreated to.



2nd zug are pushing through the trees, scouts out front and have made it pretty far without any contact.

Finally the Panthers are reunited. Here having a cosy chat with 3 kompanie HQ.

SITMAP

On the left and right they'll continue to probe and see what they can uncover. In the center everyone is holding position until I can deal with that OP on KEY TERRAIN 1 (added them back to the graphic for reference).
I realise I didn't share my prioritised intelligence list before now:
What is the enemy OOB? - Unknown but the presence of a sniper suggests it's not JUST a cavalry regiment as they don't have any organic snipers. It might not be a cavalry regiment at all. Does he have any armour? What other AT assets does he have? Is he defending back or up front? - Looks to be back with OPs out front. Is Obj ROT occupied? - YES Where is his piquet line? - Once NAI1 is investigated then I'll know for sure. Where is his MLR? We also found out through our Dutch intelligence network that the enemy may have armour in the AO, something to keep an eye on.
MMM

The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Minutes
KG LINKS
The dismounts start to cross the field leading to the trees and buildings in the distance. They're using successive bounding overwatch to move across the field with the HTs as a base of support fire on the road.

One HT moves onto the highway to take up an overwatch position.


A view from above. 2nd squad is hugging the fence and advancing through the trees, 1st squad is much more exposed and I'm expecting them to draw some fire first. Once they get about half way up this field though they'll be in defilade from the buildings.

KG ZENTRUM
The probe continues toward NAI3, scouts out front.

KONTACT! As expected he has at least one unit on the hill at NAI3. It's an AT rifle team, which makes me more certain that that's what fired at them on the northern approach a few minutes ago before withdrawing. Looks like Grunt is using them as a piquet line, which makes sense given he'll be expecting my force to be mechanized. I can't get too close to these things with my Hanomags as they can do some damage even at a distance.

The situation from above. The scout team will now stop and see if they can identify any other units on the hill, they don't appear to have been spotted by the AT rifle team. The squads will wheel around to the trees on the right and try and advance a bit to see if they can spot any other units.
The mortar fire continues to fall, but not near my troops. It's definitely an area fire mission.

KG RECHTS
The dead and wounded are still being tended to so the scout team pushes on through the woods to get to the South side and get eyes on the farm to the West.

I'm bringing two HTs up to the edge of the treeline to cover the open ground to the left...

when this appears in the distance. As 2nd squad/A team tend to their dead comrade another AT rile team comes walking out of the trees and they get the spot.

They lose contact briefly and then re-acquire (they were HUNTing this time) and send some lead his way.

The situation from above. The AT riflemen moving forward is interesting. He must know I've got at least one HT and probably a platoon of infantry given how much fire his sniper took so unless he thought he had a covered route to try and get a sneaky shot at one of my HTs I'm not sure why he'd move them through such an open area. Perhaps he just wanted to get eyes on now his sniper is dead. At turns end one of the HTs I was moving up gets the spot too and is aiming. I'll make sure his frontal armour is facing in that direction.

SITMAP

MMM

Theoretically yes, in an emergency. But tracked vehicles are not supposed to drive over barbed wire. It gets caught and tangled in the treads and wheels real bad, and worst case scenario can even tangle the tracks so badly that the vehicle is immobilized. CM actually simulates this too. If you drive over barbed wire you’ll notice the condition of your tracks will be degraded, and if you do it too much your vehicle will become immobilized. 

If the Bradley is under my command then one and done. If the infantry are under my command then they will run out of ammo first. That is based on my experiences in the game - that I remember. I forget all the rest.

The Sixteenth Minute
KG LINKS
The probing continues. The StuG is brought across into a fire support position, next turn I will start moving my infantry forward again.

KG ZENTRUM
They continue to reposition to get eyes on NAI3. Another mortar lands, this time on the other edge of the scrub. A light or harassing area fire is my guess.

KG RECHTS
We quickly get a spot on the contact, it's a Soviet sniper. He gets another shots off and wounds a man from 1st squad/B team. I forgot to tell these guys to stop, my fault.

The sniper is soon spotted by other units as the 251/17 area fires and he's quickly suppressed.


He's taken out by the other MG gunner in 2nd squad. They will now stop and tend to their dead comrade and hopefully recover the other MG42.

That was expensive, 1 KIA and 1 WIA for 1 sniper. There are no further contacts this turn so this must have been an OP. I'll let the troops tend to the wounded then I'll get them all into the treeline as some of them are still quite exposed.
SITMAP

1st Kompanie and the Tigers continue to chill (literally) back in the setup zone. Hans dropped a cigarette and burnt a hole in his trousers but mostly there's just a lot of grumbling.

MMM

I really enjoy the suspense and anticipation of the initial scouting/advance to contact phase of a mission. This one I think provides this. Really enjoying the sitreps. 
 
Oh I often pretend I’m in the point scout unit and play the unit that way as if my life depended on it!

I wish I could read the AAR without its author constantly having to swat away some silly posts

I wish I could read the AAR without its author constantly having to swat away some silly posts

I wish I could read the AAR without its author constantly having to swat away some silly posts

I wish I could read the AAR without its author constantly having to swat away some silly posts

I wish I could read the AAR without its author constantly having to swat away some silly posts

Butler did it!
I wish I could treat CM as a detective story.