Rinaldi

This has been sitting in my capture folder for over year...
This is from a scenario I played long ago which I'm pretty sure I lost but even in loosing, opportunities for small victories present themselves. Here a squad shows that at least one of them has nerves of steel. Thankfully it was the Javelin operator. He maintained his composure while everyone else was ducking for cover

and got the shot off

With the desired results


Afterwards his squad mates renewed their resolve

 

A3s had better fire control tends to be the consensus. Glass cannons, I expect a lot of players will come to like the A3s when they're in good battle positions. 

Celleno: The Final Battle

 
The Mission

Before us, lies the hill-top fortress of Celleno. This is the final objective of our campaign, and it looks to be the toughest one, yet. We did our best to conserve our fuel, ammo and manpower for this battle. We are ahead of the recce, and nearly blind. Now, night approaches and we must begin the assault.
 
The Plan

Phase 1: Establish observation points and direct the initial bombardment.
Phase 2: Occupy the heights and establish a base of fire.
Phase 3: Begin the combined assault on ALPHA.
Phase 4: Mop up BRAVO and CHARLIE.
 
The Forces

Task Force 1 (Armoured): C Squadron (Major Chetty)
Task Force 2 (Infantry): B Company (Major Jansen)
Task Force 3 (Infantry): C Company (Major Ntsimango)
Supports: 2 x Recce Troops, 2 x Forward Observers, 2 x Machinegun Sections

Bro...do you actually play CM or? I'm asking this in good faith because you have me conflicted. 

 

Just for fun I wanted to see how close I could get to that M60A3-crossing-the-bridge pict. Not half bad for 10 minutes playing.

Great find. Nasty pic. 

Some people can imagine my chagrin when we were stuck doing route recce in G-wagens whilst on exercise (in another life, it seems at this point), and we were watching Coyotes prance about. We thought the grass was greener. Then I got familiarized and chance to crew with some active guys after a few summer rotations. We heard the MILEs go off a lot. When you're expected to do less sneaking and peeping and more fighting for information, you're going to get shot. A lot.

It's a fine balance. Less info, more survivability, or kicking over the hornet's nest. God forbid if you're a peeper and you get caught, though. I imagine its why most recce battalions tried to ride the fine line between the two. Lots of light skins, under armed cars, etc coupled with squadrons of heavier fighting vehicles or, in the case of the Commonwealth forces, straight on assault companies of motor infantry. 
Recon is a lot more nuanced than drive forward until someone gets pissed at you, and its an operation that never stops even once you've gained contact. Wish more people understood this.

Great find. Nasty pic. 

Some people can imagine my chagrin when we were stuck doing route recce in G-wagens whilst on exercise (in another life, it seems at this point), and we were watching Coyotes prance about. We thought the grass was greener. Then I got familiarized and chance to crew with some active guys after a few summer rotations. We heard the MILEs go off a lot. When you're expected to do less sneaking and peeping and more fighting for information, you're going to get shot. A lot.

It's a fine balance. Less info, more survivability, or kicking over the hornet's nest. God forbid if you're a peeper and you get caught, though. I imagine its why most recce battalions tried to ride the fine line between the two. Lots of light skins, under armed cars, etc coupled with squadrons of heavier fighting vehicles or, in the case of the Commonwealth forces, straight on assault companies of motor infantry. 
Recon is a lot more nuanced than drive forward until someone gets pissed at you, and its an operation that never stops even once you've gained contact. Wish more people understood this.

Great find. Nasty pic. 

Some people can imagine my chagrin when we were stuck doing route recce in G-wagens whilst on exercise (in another life, it seems at this point), and we were watching Coyotes prance about. We thought the grass was greener. Then I got familiarized and chance to crew with some active guys after a few summer rotations. We heard the MILEs go off a lot. When you're expected to do less sneaking and peeping and more fighting for information, you're going to get shot. A lot.

It's a fine balance. Less info, more survivability, or kicking over the hornet's nest. God forbid if you're a peeper and you get caught, though. I imagine its why most recce battalions tried to ride the fine line between the two. Lots of light skins, under armed cars, etc coupled with squadrons of heavier fighting vehicles or, in the case of the Commonwealth forces, straight on assault companies of motor infantry. 
Recon is a lot more nuanced than drive forward until someone gets pissed at you, and its an operation that never stops even once you've gained contact. Wish more people understood this.

Recon in light vehicles was risky in RL as it is in the game 
 

Recon vehicles tend to spot faster than tanks (even in WW2), because they're usually open-topped. The difference is larger in the modern titles, of course.

Dismounting crew to recce is standard doctrine everywhere, and there is nothing weird about it.

The vehicle lets you get into, and importantly, out of trouble, quickly. The vehicle in most cases will also have a radio, so you can send those spots up the C2 chain.

Whether the vehicle itself is heavily armed and/or armoured depends on doctrine (which is and was a fluid thing), but it's not a co-incidence that recon elements tend to be very heavily armed - whether the vehicle is a basic jeep or a Sd.Kfz. 234.

The point of the firepower is typically that a battle will (should) start with both sides sending out recon elements, to find the enemy. These recon elements will inevitably clash at some point, and it's generally a good idea to win that skirmish if you can - or at least use the firepower to extricate yourself.

In CM it's quite common to have a battle that starts at the actual point of main contact. That's not the case in all scenarios or every situation - a large enough map with small enough forces will create something like this "recon phase".

In that situation, you have to ask yourself how important winning that recon fight is, and what resources you can afford to dedicate to it (especially in points, if this were a quick battle) - it might well be that you want to aggressively dominate the recon fight, both getting eyes on the enemy, and also denying them the terrain that would give them the observation points that they would need to spot you.

If you can pro-actively win this battle-before-the-battle, you're setting yourself up to do very well from the start, so there's every justification for a fast, high-firepower recon vehicle. If there's no way to achieve this (based on terrain, force size, etc.), then recon vehicles are pretty pointless, and you're better off with just infantry eyeballs.

I assumed it was dependent on the vehicles optics and the number of eyeballs in the vehicle.

recon vehicles tend to be open topped which is a plus, maybe? but there are fewer guys inside to spot, and not all recon vehicles are open topped or have good optics.
Tanks can have just as good optics, like later shermans. or abysmal ones like the early t34s, and the TC can pop his head out of a hatch with some binoculars just as a recon vehicle commander can.

so unless BF gives recon crew bonus spotting skills under the hood I assume they are about the same, with one just being a cheaper piece of kit on the pixeltax payer.

The concept of hull-down has gained mythic status but at the end of the day you're still exposed. I recall playing with a hull-down M150 TOW vehicle. A sabot round sailed over the vehicle and launcher but, judging by the tracer trajectory and the '+' casualty icon, it took the gunner's head clean off. See attached. this is a common sight playing with M60A2.

Thank you all sincerely and you are very welcome.  I am very glad people got enjoyment out of this. 
Once the game is released I will post the scenario so you guys can take a run at your own stories (someone remind me if I forget).
We will do up a final post-game once Bil finishes up his final turns.  I see many congrats at "my victory", I am kinda split here because 1) Of course the glorious forces of the Soviet Union were victorious in crushing the corrupt capitalists, but 2) in reality...when the commissar is not looking, this was pretty much a Draw in my books.   You guys can be the judge when the numbers go up but neither side is doing much with what is left on the board, Soviets do hold the objective but we failed to achieve any real breakout, breakthroughs or overwhelm the US forces.  The only good news is that there is probably another dozen Soviet outfits like the one I just lost behind me.  
But does winning or losing really matter (*duh, of course it does, it is why they keep score*)?  A game well played between two old friends as we enter our autumn years (Bil is on the doorstep of winter) is the best reward in itself. 
 
 

If only the launcher is exposed, and is spotted, then it will be shot at. And, if a sabot/HEAT/HESH/whatever round flies through the exposed launcher and hits it, it will be knocked out, without destroying the vehicle. 
The screenshot you quoted is from Black Sea, not CMCW. So clearly this issue has been addressed in other titles to some extent. 
So, the vehicle designed to only expose the unmanned launcher is the only part of the vehicle that is vulnerable, when exposed. Sounds like it is working as designed to me. 

Bro...do you actually play CM or? I'm asking this in good faith because you have me conflicted. 

 

Drawing on memory here, but IIRC units have a limited number of spotting heights that can be assigned to them, possibly only 3 or 4.  So the actual height that LOS is checked from does not necessarily correspond exactly to the sensor height.  This illustration is purely conceptual and does not necessarily correspond exactly to the available spotting heights in game:
The M901 is a pretty simple case where the change from height to 2 to height 3 for spotting works out perfectly.  Something like the 9P149 Shturm is obviously much more difficult, and if err is necessary, it is better to err on the side of too low than too high, as the opposite problem (vehicles able to spot with zero exposure) is much worse.

Bro...do you actually play CM or? I'm asking this in good faith because you have me conflicted. 

 

Ah, the I would have to say LOS is from the launcher/weapon system.  Just tested it and the M901 can see and engage armor from behind a tall wall (just watched one take out an entire tank platoon with receiving a single shot in return).

Pretty much the same way as every other system in the CM franchise is the answer.  The player can manually target as per the UI but the TAC AI operates the system, same as tanks or anything for that matter.  Or did I misunderstand the question?

@The_Capt.. Warren, this has been a brilliantly written and presented AAR.  Bravo.  I actually laughed out loud a couple times.
Well played game as well... as always you have been a worthy opponent.  
Bil

Do you play any games other than Combat Mission...?
 

The Twenty-Fifth - Thirtieth Minutes - The Wheels Come Off
“Be the hunter not the hunted: never allow your unit to be caught with its guard down.”
James Mattis
 
My AH-1 has been flying overhead for several turns now, and as far as I know this BMP is its only kill.  But in its defense it was being chased by AA missiles for most of the time it hung around and did lose it's mate so I'm lucky it made even this kill.

 
After that the wheels started to come off....
...one of my M-150s exchanged ATGMs with one of Warren's BMPs...


...both missiles passed each other on flight... the M-150's hitting a tree... sigh...

...of course Warren's didn't miss.  Damn!

One of Warren's T-64Bs... (in fact one that had been beaten up, in what seems like another life now, by my 1st Platoon tanks) fired and destroyed one of my M-60s still sitting on the Short Route... damn.  That means 2nd Platoon has now lost three of four tanks. Triple damn.

 
Now with Tank Section 2 joining in on the fun I order all four 1st Platoon tanks back into the breach!

Tank 1/9 had it's career cut short when it exchanged rounds with a T-62... 1/9 fired first, however... it missed.. the T-62 did not.

Uh-oh... have I pushed too far?
 
Third Platoon's tanks have also started moving down the highway... 

How a real life cold war gone hot scenario would have happened. At least until 89.

You cut me to the quick...