panzersaurkrautwerfer

Right now all that's been spotted for sure has been T-72B3s in terms of what's in game. The Oplots and T-64 derivatives are all present in some form or the other right now, although the more advanced Ukrainian tanks might be around in single digit numbers vs in common use. Yep. They're still off map support. Realistically most air insertion forces wouldn't be dropping off so close to hostile forces, and especially with the sort of anti-aircraft assets are in CMBS, an Osprey wouldn't be putting itself so close to the frontline.

Not the last time I dealt with them. The TOW is still a larger warhead, and has a max effective range of 3750 meters vs the Javelin's range of 2500 meters. The US Army still also has a mountain of TOW variants so there's some incentive to keep using them for a while, and they're still mostly effective against everything short of an actual APS system. I have to say, the late model T-72s seem to be a better tank than the T-90As by a fair stretch. I know it's a more recent refurb, so I might not just be imagining it. This is my experience. I don't rely on it working when I'm using Russian tanks, but it's a pleasant surprise when a TOW missile gets lost. Conversely when playing US, I tend to try to get multiple shooters at one tank when using TOWs just in case.

In US use: 1. The round itself is usually referred to as "sabot." I'd characterize is closer to "saybow" in pronunciation but that's just me. 2. The part that burns up in the tube is the "casing," the metal end of the shell that ejects out the bore is called the "aft cap," the actual sabot parts are called "sabot petals" and there's three of them. The "Dart" is actually just referred to as the "penetrator" 3. The aft cap makes an excellent ash tray and parting gift when you separate from an organization. They're harder to get your mitts on though because they're also the way the Army tracks and confirms the round was expended in training. Sabot petals and training penetrators are popular souvenirs, and many tankers wind up with a few of them. They're easier to get because you'll find them just laying out on the range after a gunnery, and once it's left the gun tube the Army doesn't care (mostly) what happens to them. Training HEAT rounds too, but they seem to be less common for whatever reasons. The other popular items are the pellets and canister parts from canister rounds (the pellets are pretty easy to find, you just sift the sand at the base of the canister shell target array and you'll find a few).

Please do. It'd be a nice touch.

I don't know about difficult. If we're adding parameters to reserve arrival, having one that's if a condition is met (as we already have the ability to set conditions for victory points), then the reserves do something else doesn't seem too out there. As an example "if objective A is taken, reserves will not arrive" does not seem that hard to do. I don't mean to criticize CMBS at all. It's a great game. Just some more tools would be cool if it turns out to be a Battlefront priority to add some features onto the editor.

Mostly. You don't really expect civilians to leave the urban areas you're operating in, what you really want them to do is find a closet in the center of their house or something, take some food and water, and stay out of the way until its all over. Most military forces won't target things like houses until it's clearly being used for military purposes so it's a pretty reasonable safety measure. Care will be taken to avoid hitting those sorts of residential/non-military buildings so long as there's no military use of those buildings. That said once it's obvious the apartment building has an AT-14 team on the roof, or the local church has a suspicious amount of antennas hanging off of it and a BMP-2K parked outside, it's JDAM time.

I was a bit spooked to hop on this forum and to find the amount of people on here I'd have to call "sir" if I ran into them at work. In terms of weapons, a lot of it depended on the unit and what it was doing. Late war units of all sorts tended to acquire what they found more useful vs what they were assigned. I know a lot of US units started to take on a sort of gypsy appearance, with some squads having as many as three BARs vs the one assigned, or many soldiers scooping up MP-40s, loose M3s from broken vehicles for "close encounters." NCOs and officers were no exception, and you wind up with all sorts of personal weapons choices given increasingly they were the veterans who'd survived the last battle. In terms of why officers wind up with them it's twofold: 1. The Sten, and M1 carbine were both handed out to leaders because they often were carrying additional equipment like smaller radios, maps, signals equipment, binoculars etc, and a smaller lighter weapon would be preferred. 2. Officers are not "not supposed to fight" but their greater contribution is in commanding and controlling the fight, so basically if they can get away with it, they're on coms, they're moving from position to position to get better situation awareness, basically serving as the higher brain functions for their units. If they're in a fight though, it's likely because the enemy is now in the 50-100 meter range though and things are bad. An SMG or carbine is a good tool for making the enemy go back to the 100-200 meter range, or being the winner in a fight against an enemy infantryman with his bolt action that has closed to your position. My granddad carried a former US Post Office Thompson (the M1928 I think the one with the drum) through Guadalcanal because it was the sort of thing that you could lay into the jungle to get breathing space so he could get back to NCOing. If I recall right he wound up with a standard M1 Thompson through Tarawa, and then used a carbine for the rest of the war post-"Hey SSG Panzersaurkrautwerfer, we're out of 2LTs. So uh, congratulations 2LT Panzersaurkrautwerfer!"

The TOW-2B is very spoof resistant. Like I would not count on countermeasures saving you at all. But at the same time there's a chance that it's just the perfect day for Shtora to work as planned. I've had a TOW go wild, but wasn't really sure if it was a spoofed target, or just a natural SGT Butterfingers messed up the shot.

It's a pretty soft vehicle. Anything more than small arms is a pretty big threat to it. It is however face wrecking if it sees you first.

Agree. Also having some chance of losses inflicted on arriving reserves could be cool in terms of reflecting passage while there's still enemy air about. This could also be really cool for campaigns, where if you've managed to keep your CAS assets more or less intact, later scenarios have an increasing chance of enemy forces suffering air interdiction, or perhaps the chance of air interdiction could be tied to how many ADA assets you've shredded in the last few missions (as if you're still fighting the same Brigade, but you've killed off 2/3rd of their air defense vehicles, they're not going to be as able to ward off attacks). Which is not to say this should be "standard" but it'd be interesting to see as an addition to user campaigns and narratives. Also assigning percentages to different locations for one arriving unit would be cool too (25% chance the reserve company shows up from the dirt road about halfway down the map, while there's a 75% chance it goes from the hardball road north of the Major VP location). It'd keep the scenario lively, give the sort of tactical uncertainty that Lucas wants, while still being situations the player can plan around ("man, there's an enemy reserve to my east, and two high speed avenues of approach from that half of the map, I'd better have a plan to deal with those!")

Russia's military is currently weak enough due to historical neglect/reforms still underway that it leans heavily on nuclear deterrent against physical attacks against Russia proper. Nuclear weapons certainly enter the picture if NATO rolls into Russia proper, and Ukraine isn't worth risking nuclear war for. Conversely if Russia attacks actual card carrying NATO countries, then we get into Article 5 territory. We talk about NATO in the Ukraine as that's likely the mission it is organized under, but realistically it'd be some portion of the more military capable NATO forces, with fairly modest contribution from the lesser NATO countries. If Article 5 gets invoked, this isn't "Russia has defeated Estonia in battle!" this is "The rest of NATO is obligated to commit to full spectrum, high intensity no BS war against the aggressor country. Which is to say Russia. Which is to say invading the Baltic countries might lead to US forces showing up at Vladivostok, and rather than the couple of active duty Brigades that showed up to fight in Ukraine, we're talking national level mobilization, and things like the US National Guard showing up to Europe (not implying the National Guard is to be feared, but simply a reality that invading is not a way to end a war, it's a way to start a bigger, nastier war) Negotiating something in Ukraine works because it's not a NATO country, and the scenario set up really is a lot of miscalculation adds up and things wind up with NATO and Russian forces that SHOULD have been there to enforce a DMZ are slugging it out. A NATO or Russian invasion of each other would only lead to a much wider, much less restrained war, and literally no one wants that. Captured St Petersburg (if it were to happen, not to imply it's especially possible), or the Russian flag over Lithuania isn't a bargaining chip, it's cassius beli for the invaded faction to kick off full on World War Three, which is 100% an outcome literally no one really wants. Which again gets to what I've already said. This isn't 1985. The Soviet Union is dead. What's left is Russia who's more than content to push as far as it can, but totally 100% is not ready, or desiring a conventional full spectrum fight against NATO, nor is part of the NATO charter invading Russia without provocation.

Red 4 (tank platoon call signs: 1 is Platoon Leader, 2 and 3 are just the "regular" tanks, with 4 being the Platoon Sergeant) was actually likely the only reason Red Platoon was still functioning. Great NCO. Red 1 was some sort of lesser nobility in his home country which made the unfortunate combination of "not a good tactical leader" and "convinced he was better than mere NCOs." I cannot emphasize how much effort we all put into him. We were actually his second go at being a platoon leader after he was fired from one of our sister units. I was convinced that he just hadn't gotten a fair chance, that maybe he was someone that his last unit just hadn't given the sort of time and attention to mature into a good platoon leader. After few months of trying very hard we replaced him with a new LT. Fairly smart, knew to listen to Red 4.* Wasn't as excited about tanking as my White/Blue 1s, but again was simply the weaker of strong leaders rather than the anchor around someone's neck. In a shooting war though, I'd likely have fired the first Red 1, put someone like my Master Gunner in as the tank commander for the 11 tank, and left Red 4 as the Platoon leader because god knows he was basically doing the job anyway. This is totally off topic. Red 4 was just a good enough of a tanker/NCO that I feel like I should make the point of illustrating he was good, just saddled with one of the worst Platoon Leaders I ever worked with. *Really. He wasn't my strongest Platoon Sergeant in terms of overall NCO duties, but he was the best tanker in the Company.

1. Russian/Ukrainian crews don't make it too often. When they do it's usually one crewman of three. Getting them to the rear is usually all you can do for them. 2. US vehicles tend to generate more survivors, but again, tank crews don't have lots of rounds, or much more than rifles and there's a pretty lengthy panic mode after the tank goes down. There's not a lot that your 2-4 tankers will accomplish well enough to merit doing anything except for getting them out of the way. The CMBS world is lethal enough that simply guys with guns don't cut it, you really need all the armor, grenade launchers, machine guns, optics, and the like for a dismounted team to be worth the effort.

NATO ROE will likely be a lot less restrictive than folks are giving it credit for. Some things might be on restricted target lists like, national treasures/things important to Ukraine's functionality as a country level industrial locations, but anything else would likely be fair game. Even then the restricted sort of targets likely would be "do not bomb without confirmation of targets of military nature" vs "do not bomb, even if it's crawling with Russians!" sort of ROE. In a full spectrum sort of conflict there's a much higher expectation of damage, and a much higher value on destruction of enemy forces. Also worth noting that NATO would be in the Ukraine at the permission of the Ukrainian government, and likely with no small amount of popular support from ethnic Ukrainians (as the separatist movement is top to bottom ethnic Russian outside of the actual Russian passport holders within). People will be upset the local church did not survive the fight, but they will be happier they're no longer about to become part of the people's republic of Russiastan or whatever it calls itself these days. This underwrites a much more aggressive military targeting behavior.

Or the player should have reasonable cues that the enemy will arrive "somewhere" vs "anywhere"

Concur with BTR. The nuclear option is something I wouldn't place as much emphasis on simply because all the other reasons operations in internationally recognized Russia, or actual NATO countries are enough to avoid it entirely. It's likely forces in those regions would be put on high alert/receive external augmentation in the case of NATO, but this is not Red Storm Rising or Barbarossa take 2.

The Iraqis did pretty much everything wrong at 73 Eastings. Their outposts were too close and not armed enough to do a good screen (if it was a screen, I'm being generous and assuming the ZSU-23 that initiated contact with 2 ACR was some sort of anti-scout measure), and they clearly did not have enough vehicles on alert/ready to respond to the sort of situation they found themselves in. On the other hand while 2 ACR did not expect to roll into the Iraqis specifically in that place and time, they did know as the lead element enemies could reasonably be all around, and in the desert there's not a whole lot of restrictive terrain. While the US Army elements were surprised to run headlong into the Iraqis right at that moment, they were aware the enemy was somewhere front, deployed accordingly, and responded rapidly. None of this is the same as having zero clue that THIS open field is where the enemy's company will appear, while the other fields on the map are totally benign once cleared of forces currently on the map. It shouldn't be subtle. When I sat down to do map recon, like pretty much every graduate of the Captain's Career Course, we'd assess known enemy and likely enemy positions, figure out mobility corridors within our area of operations and what they offered to both blue and red forces. Players should have a reasonable heads up to that the enemy will reinforce, a vague idea of what will be showing up, and some sort of ability to guess at where those forces may show up with reasonable accuracy. If it is not spelled out in the briefing, then the player should have what is reasonable tools to a person who's just really interested in military stuff vs a graduate of advanced military schooling or something.

Yeah. I had a tank company, so we had an attached maintenance team in an M88A2+some varity of trucks (usually a HMMWV with a small tool shed, or for more deliberate operations a HEMMIT type vehicle with a sort of palletized mechanic's shop), an ambulance M113, the 1SG's M113, some number of HMMWVs (we had three which wasn't MTOE, but they'd carry people like our CBRN NCO, and other HQ dudes), and a cargo truck (although in tactical situations this truck lived with the Battalion's logistics assets, and would basically carry any supplies that weren't food, ammo, or fuel to use during resupply). In a situation in which I was worried about all those things, having the XO there to manage them (as those HQ things are things he's usually the functional platoon leader of), and ride shotgun on it in his tank made some sense (especially if I had to evacuate casualties or a damaged tank under fire). However in a more complex operation it's better assuming risk, or that the HQ/logistics guys are secure enough behind friendly lines, and bringing him forward to ride shotgun on part of the operation is useful. Also if I buy it, he's the next in command so having him on hand to do so is not the least intelligent thing to do. Was pretty sure this was the case, but it's sort of a matter of if I've got 14 tanks, there's a place I habitually put my XO, so I'm going to keep doing that. Also if it's a platoon off by itself having five instead of four tanks is nice too. Additionally for the US, while all units can spot for artillery, the CO, and XO can both spot for aviation too, so it's a way of allowing a detached element to call for aviation while not taking the FIST team away from the main effort. Historically speaking my 1st PLT always had the weakest platoon leader (to be fair, while the first one I had was terrible, and I gave him a lot of special love and attention to try to help him, the second one was simply the weakest of the three really strong LTs I had at the time). I tended to follow Red Platoon as a result because if someone was going to do something marginal if the mission went off the rails, it was going to be (the first) Red 1. Trail was impassible? Plop down, announce the trail was impassable and try to bring his platoon back to the assembly area because of course he cannot do the mission if he cannot go down one of the dozens of trails heading to the objective area. I could trust White and Blue 1 to report the main route was down, and then try to find an alternate way, which meant I had to be less up their butt. It also illustrates the value of placing yourself at the highest friction point, or most decisive portion of the operation, because its a lot easier to adjust the plan/mission with your eyeballs on the operation than what is coming across the radio.

This is actually not what happened. The Marines participated, but the assault elements were chiefly Army. The Marine element got well shot up, but its efforts were simultaneous to the Army elements. The actual breach was carried out by what would become the 3rd Cavalry Regiment (and where their "Brave Rifles" motto comes from), and the fort ultimately fell to a mix of US Army regulars and various state militia forces (the forces Chapultepec's defenders surrendered to were actually a regiment of volunteers from New York). Just a pet peeve of mine. Historical accuracy is important, and airbrushing out the majority of combatants to fit one branch's mythology is not accurate or respectful at all. Re: Rifles vs pistols Anyone company grade and down at least on paper had a rifle. Officers tend to get pistols too, as do some specialist types (medics, sometimes MMG operators), but the folks who tend to have pistols as their "primary" weapons were vehicle crewmen. I think some folks echelons above reality were only MTOEd pistols too, but even our Battalion level field grades had rifles.

They are indeed increasing spending greatly, however it's part of a vast overhaul of the military. It's not exactly "more" in the sense that now there's even more military capability, as much as it's replacing stuff that's now hopelessly broken and obsolete, or standing up new forces that are better adjusted to operate post 1995 or so. Russia had some very bad years in defense spending and procurement, and it still has a fair way to go. To that end again it's doubtful Russia could fight a full spectrum conflict in the Ukraine, take the Baltic states, keep NATO from attacking Kaliningrad in 2017. A full spectrum fight in the Ukraine, and sort of a deterrence presence elsewhere is about what it can reasonably carry out (and honestly about what NATO can manage too on short notice). The CMBS scenario basically assumes no one really wanted a war in the Ukraine, but through a comedy of errors it occurred anyway. It stands to reason Russia isn't playing to restablish control over Eastern Europe (as a "win" in Estonia or something would unleash the sort of international crapstorm that would at best make Russia a even more of a pariah state, at worst, mean another conventional war some day in the future, and full NATO response). NATO certainly isn't planning victory parades through Kursk following the restoration of Konigsburg or whatever. Ukraine just wants its eastern parts back. I think it's important to separate what's going on now from a continuation of the last cold war, to a new cold war with different players, realities and playing pieces. Assuming because there's war the long dead Red Army will surge forth astride it's mothballed T-80 fleet, reconquer through Poland and then take Berlin is neglecting the actual Russian actions, goals, intentions and capabilities, and instead simply trying to view the world through 1980's glasses again.

When I was a Company Commander, I usually stuck my tank with whatever element needed either the support (least experience platoon leader), or was the main effort. I'd have done the same thing in combat, basically it's a matter of putting yourself where you imagine you will be most needed. I put the XO either with the trains, or if it was a split operation like one of the platoons was going to be setting an attack by fire from a position a few KMs from where the rest of the company was, I'd spin him off to help keep an eye on those guys. Basically it helped to have someone on the ground who was making sure the various subordinate units were all dancing to the Company set of music. In CMBS I tend to follow the same pattern with where I stick the Commander and the XO. When it's a AFV type unit (tanks or brads) I tend to push the vehicles forward with the platoons (but not the lead vehicle). Dismounted is usually the same pattern, although I'm not as aggressive pushing those teams as their firepower isn't a major contributor to the fight. Platoon leadership is always right with the rest of the platoon though.

Sorta makes sense the gun maker is doing well in a country that's going guns over butter. Re: AK-12 Russia would be well served just to pick one weapons system per role and stick with it. They're sort of the king of having three tanks types for one mission, two or three "standard" systems, and a various spread of systems that are in field testing for a decade before ghosting. Rifles especially, this isn't 1945 with bolt action, semi-auto, and assault rifles are all wandering around the battlefield, or it's a major showdown between 7.62X51 rifles and smaller 7.62X39 or 5.56X45 calibers. If you dropped AK-74s with sufficient rails/somehow made them NATO compatible onto US troops, you'd see no real change in squad capabilities, and the same would go with M16A4s if they were actually AK-16A4s. Rifles need to be generally reliable, mostly accurate, and cheap enough to give everyone one. I would suggest the greater problem in rifles is that the only meaningful advances in rifle design since the late 70's-early 80's has all been accessories. The reason the M16/M4 endures is simply because nothing out there offers so great an advantage as to be worth replacing every rifle in the US inventory. I'd suggest the AK-74 is much the same, it's a good gun. The AN-94, AK-12, and the like all haven't really offered a massive change in capabilities (with neat tricks like the AN-94's two shot burst not really being revolutionary must buy features).

The stability of a soldier standing on an armored vehicle in motion, and offroad is pretty bad. Similar alert/cuing systems have existed in the past, and they've hardly made MANPADS any less of a crapshoot.

I think this whole thread is a case of forgetting the Russian Federation is not the 1985 Soviet Union in terms of capabilities and intentions.

I am speaking as a military professional, former Cavalry Platoon Leader, Troop XO, Battalion and Squadron Planner, and Tank Company Commander when I say troops appearing through arkane majicks on your flank is not right. The "board" artificially conceals the nature of terrain and battlefield to the player. If we consider the edges of the map to be something like say, Company or Battalion boundaries, I'll still have maps and graphics of those locations. I'll also have the greater situational awareness coming off of the Battalion/Brigade Net in terms of what's happening around the battlefield. Further I'll have an idea of what the higher mission is and what's going on to my flanks, and very likely someone else (even if I was the flank company, there's good to high odds the Battalion or Brigade scouts are screening us) will have either let me know to cover them (something closer to "and X Company (your company) represents the farthest left unit" vs "YOU ARE OUR FLANK CPT TIMMY IT ALL DEPENDS ON YOU!!!"). Further if I was the farthest flanking unit I'd sit down and look at the AO outside of my boundaries to see just what might influence my battlespace from the outside. This is where scenario design becomes super important. Bad scenarios just hit you on the flank and pull a Lucas in claiming I need to secure every thing ever because every direction could possibly hide an enemy tank company. Good scenerios instead sit down and give you the complex terrain to look at and have to plan for. You want the player to think "those woods on my right look like they might hide enemy forces, or allow infantry to infiltrate into my AO without me seeing it. I'm going to leave a section of 3rd PLT to ovewatch it", rather than in an open field suddenly there's a dozen BMPs. Another even more interesting one would be to give you information to make reasonable choices in the briefing. Example: "Enemy reserves are located on OBJ Thresher to your east, and are expected to be committed once our main effort is identified. S2 estimates they may use RTE Gold or RTE Black, located at A1 and A2 on your map, and have a response time of approximately 20 minutes" Or just leaving roads coming onto the map from the flanks, and making enemy forces appear from there, it's likely the enemy reserves arrives suddenly on a road. It's doubtful they rapidly appear from rough or wooded terrain (if mounted). These are all reasonable ways for the wargamer to be forced to make choices concerning their flank security. The scenario designer should view the player as a training audience, who should be rewarded for reasonable responses to stimuli. Surprise flanks simply frustrate the player, and instead of encouraging him to make smart choices based on good observations and sound tactics, instead force him to play in the almost comical state in which you either accept losing a scenario and having to replay it because 3/101st Shock Tank Guards Battalion emerged from a tunnel network in an otherwise empty field, or expending 50-60% of your overall forces covering fields that are actually occupied just out of sight by your sister units, or something else requiring no overwatch. The player has to know what's on their flanks to make interesting and tactical choices about those flanks. Tank Companies don't drive across the battlefield in big circles, guns pointed in 360 degrees in case the enemy appears FROM ANYWHERE. It's imperative the scenario designer give the player some sort of situational awareness to let them play realistically. And as a further textual wandering, enemy forces in games should have sort of...like a story to go with them. They need a beginning. How did they get to the battlefield, why they are there, what they hope to do. Then a middle, what their plan is for the battlefield. And then an end(s), what they hope to do if they're successful, or unsuccessful. Each one of these needs to make sense, and should reflect the same amount of knowledge as the player team has about the enemy. The designer knows the blue player is going to enter from the NW corner of this open field. Why would the red team know the exact spawn location of the blue player though? I'd suggest flawed, but realistic doctrinally sound enemy deployments are more interesting than playing against some enemy force led by insidious commanders with ESP who know all the faults and locations of the player forces.