panzersaurkrautwerfer

I look forward to the irregular module for both the "cripple fights" of insurgent on insurgent, and for making the CMBS: 2018 scenarios of trying to police up the mess after the war.

The M1A2's first prototypes were 1992 by my understanding, with 1993 being low rate production. I think we're both making a bigger deal out of this than we need to. The M1A2 SEP V2 is very commonly called the M1A2 (just the same as the M1A2 SEP was very frequently just the "M1A2"). I think on this board talking about a game that only has the M1A2 SEP V2, and with the planned US Army of 2017 having chiefly M1A2 SEP V2s, we can just assume for future discussion without qualifiers like we're actually talking about tanks in 1995, that M1A2 means M1A2 SEP V2 on this forum. Anyway. On topic. If there's a sudden burst of information on the Armata, or M1A3 prototypes roll out of the factor in Lima Ohio in the next 2 years or so (given the spread of CMSF's module release), perhaps having them as special addition for the last module (RU Tank Battalion (T-14)/US CAB 2017 formations, or the ability to upgrade individual tanks at some cost when assembling forces to T-14/M1A3s), but right now I'm just getting flashbacks to having T-95s rolling around in iM1A2, which always felt somewhat silly in retrospect.

Well there was no 1991 vintage M1A2 to speak of, which is rather why you cannot be speaking of 1991 era M1A2s. To that end even the 1993 vintage of M1A2 has been completely replaced largely by the SEP V1, which in turn in the process of being replaced by the SEP V2. Not really sharp shooting, just the M1A2 model in question for CMBS is the M1A2 SEP V2 which is a lot to type out every time you mention it. If the SEP V1 or just baseline A2 was in the game, I could see your point though.

Until the tank is clattering down the road in a normal combat unit, I think it's pretty hard to make many statements about its capabilities with confidence. Which again is why I'm pretty leery about including it or the M1A3 in game. Re: M1A2 SEP V2 Calling it a 1991 tank is inaccurate. It has at least as many difference between the current generation of T-90s and the late 80's T-72s, and the 1991 era M1A1HAs. Same basic layout, same gun and engine, the rest has been changed or pretty well worked over in the last 20+ years.

Most later model thermal sensors can tell the difference in heat radiation between the underlying camouflage system, and the stuff that's built up on the outside (it's the same way you can "see" camo patterns in thermal optics, the different colors/materials absorb heat at different rates than other colors/materials). So it'll still make the vehicles more obvious than the system as advertised after a day's road march without cleaning. Fairly stationary vehicles will not suffer this affect as severely however. Rubberized fabric looks pretty ragged after going through rough terrain. The ability of things strapped to a tank to be ripped off/destroyed by fairly modest stationary objects knows no bounds.

Just saying this was not the peak of deep military analysis. The contributions of the folks I mentioned are things worth reading, and was why I originally regretting posting concerns this post was turning to crap. BTR also chipped in stuff worth reading. That much was interesting. Steve clearly showed he has done more than a small mount of research. Assuming he somehow just doesn't understand/know the status of the Ukrainian military is either arrogant or very misguided. A BTR or ikalugin response I am sure, will be worth reading because that is likely something more researched than dismissing the Ukrainian government out of hand, considering especially it has made by even fairly jaded perspectives, at least some form of improved capabilities. To that end I eagerly await the continued discussion here now that rusknight's "NATO is coming to eat our babies" stuff has been warned out, and honestly I'm just more interested in hearing the Russian perspective from someone who's done more than decide the Ukrainians are idiots. If the military problem was as simple as one side was all idiots and using dinosaur equipment, we'd be talking about unified Ukraine or the new Russian supported state of East Ukraine/whatever it'd be called. To that end a more rounded perspective is required. The Ukrainian military is sitting on a literal mountain of old hardware, and has more than a fair share of industry that focused on military type equipment. To that end a lot of the more basic items like small arms, BTRs, etc are likely the sort of thing that can be pulled out of storage and refurbed. In terms of more advanced stuff. the Ukrainians have plenty of bright people and the materials. What they historically lacked was the funding, and the purpose. Now that the Ukraine is under threat, there certainly is what funding is available, and there certainly is a purpose to the Ukrainian military these days. Is it a mighty juggernaut? Not likely. But it has had the time and some breathing space to become a more capable force. The question just remains how much more capable.

AMAZING WORMHOLE OF SOVIET DESIGN! Tanks do better with one big weapon system and a fistful of MGs. Once you start adding more weapons you start impacting the ability of other weapons to do their job.

I do find it amusing that showing a photo of an unattractive government spokesperson qualifies as evidence here. Could we get back to the actual scenario stuff? The RUSSIUA STRONK is a bit tiresome, if there's something relevant and incorrect about it, cool, but simple disbelief and "glorious T80!" is not worth the text. So more or less, more H1ND,ikalugin and Steve.

FTFY! It makes sense for stuff that's going to be hanging out for a while, like in the assembly area before an operation, but I cannot imagine anything mounted to the skirts lasting more than 20 minutes before it's trash cross country.

Likely by making stuff appear in deployment zones/having "arrive at" objectives. I don't think there's a UH-60 swoops in animation for it or something.

Nah. Helicopter insertion so close to the front line, especially in an environment with ZSU-23s, let alone 2S6s would be a bad idea. In game you can replicate, at least at this point American air assault guys by using the Infantry Brigade Combat Team type units and leaving behind their larger trucks though.

The US military still employs some napalm-like weapons, mostly the MK 77 bomb and such.

Someone could always pull out those VDV POWs. Either way hope this crap stays on this thread. Rest of the forum is pretty civil so far.

It's a bit of wear and tear, and then it is also fairly degraded when it is dirty. It's a neat toy, just doesn't quite work as well as advertised if you cannot keep it pristine.

Yeah, but I imagine we've got Leo 2s and Challengers on the horizon (possibly distant horizon, but still).

Still gotta get supplies. Which realistically means taking or making a bridge.

There were rockets in CMSF too, although just the shorter range redfor stuff. Two ways I'd take it: 1. They're not in because in a higher intensity conflict, those assets would be tasked with more interesting targets (command posts, bridges, logistical nodes, artillery firing positions etc)/the really long range stuff is purposefully kept off the table in scenario to avoid escalation out of the Ukraine 2. They're going to be added in future additions. The CMSF packs while focusing on the USMC, Brits, NATO etc often included little one off things for the base game's factions. Could be CMBS's first expansion "Hanging the Wash on the Donbass Line" is mostly the UK, but it includes rocket artillery, A-10s and 2S7 support options for the base faction or something. US rocket artillery isn't commonly used too close to the front line, it's usually reserved for the "interesting targets" I described or special occasions sort of thing (like Division/Corps level offenses). That said given how ATACMS have been used in the last few years, it might be an interesting choice in terms of a large unitary warhead type weapon against precision targets. Not exactly advocating it, simply saying if we started tossing in HIMAR/MRLS stuff, it might be more reasonable than steel rain.

I WILL DESTROY YOU. Kidding. I have a personal moral code against killing the mentally ill I'm not as antifrench as my alter ego on other forums might appear. This does beg the question, did Arma 3 ever get good? I tried to get into it, and I'm just not sure if I'm doing it wrong, or the time and place for Arma type games in my life was OFP: CWC and never again.

Having actually preordered the game, I think the waiting is now worse. I mean it is just a game, but on the other hand CMSF was pretty much my sweet spot for modern wargames. Something newer and more awesome is exciting. So with that in mind, two questions: 1. What are you doing instead of CMBS right now? 2. What's the first thing you're going to do when the game comes out? For me: 1. I'm actually painting microarmor, although it's mostly French stuff at this point. 2. Quick battles. Lots of quick battles. One of the few things I really just didn't like at all about CMSF was not being able to build my own QB setups. Like if I wanted to have a M1A2 vs Challenger 2 fight I had to guess how to tickle the QB generator into giving me Challengers (the M1s were obviously easy to get, but it seemed any time I put down a small British armored force, it was all Scimitars, all the time). I also rather enjoyed red vs red because of the more lethal than World War Two, but not quite hyperdoom battles it generated. While my days of sending T-62s clattering at each other are over for now, the lower tier Russian stuff vs the mid tier Ukrainian looks like it'd make for an interesting fight.

I would love to see a Korean War II game with modeled ROK, US, DPRK, and maybe Chinese forces, except the scenery really is long in the tooth at this point, and the restrictive terrain limits the sort of tank thing I prefer to do. Also the likelihood of a joint US-Chinese invasion of the DPRK is more likely at this point than a DPRK-Chinese force. Of course with that said, some liberties could be taken, and it's really up to the scenario writers to make it as realistic (closer to the CMSF missions against uncon type fighters than you'd think) or DPRK TRIUMPHANT style missions that closer fit the image of what we all expected the DPRK to be able to do. Which of course makes the Chinese element easier to fit in too, as it could work well for either a combined "this North Korean thing has to be put to bed" campaign, or something closer to 1950 all over again. Either way it presents some cool toys. The US has both heavy forces in theater, and Strykers on short recall, the ROK army has some awesome gear (K1A1s, K2s, K21s etc), DPRK would be a lot like Syria in CMSF in terms of being a multilayered funcake of OPFOR (from conventional T-62/BMP-1/Type 63 based forces, to light infantry, to uncon style special forces). China also brings some cool stuff in terms of either a higher capability OPFOR for the US/ROK, or as an alternative take to the complex sort of war taking the DPRK would become. Also the two tiered high capability (Type 99A2, ZBD2000), and their lower capability (Type 69, Type 63) formations would be interesting.

The storage plan on an M1A2 is something like: 18 Ready rack (left side turret) 18 semi-ready rack (right side turret) 6 in hull storage Cross loading from semi-ready to ready rack takes a little doing, as you have to switch which part of the armored doors are in operation, and then pass rounds from behind the commander to the loader, then set the doors back to normal operation. It's not brain surgery, or especially hard, and is the sort of thing you'd do on a short halt or potentially during a lull in the action (as it's easier to move 3-4 rounds to make up for the last engagement, than 18 rounds to refill the rack later). If it was going to be included, seems like the sort of thing that could either be a button, or just abstracted that after some time stationary and out of contact the semi-ready rounds migrate to the ready rack. That said I can't think of too many realistic engagements that involve a tank burning through 18 rounds without some sort of pause.

But the RPG-7 operator will be deeply concerned about the CROWS, CITV, ERA, APS etc, etc, etc. Which is to say, it is as absurd as my boasting that the AT4 will crush all Soviet tanks. Re: M829A4 It's widely believed that it's been tested against current generation ERA tiles. How valid this is, I'm not sure, but it is not unprecedented for such things to make their way west. It's not unreasonable to assume, given the reletive stagnation in threat passive armor arrays that the A4 is mostly focused on ensuring ERA is not terribly effective against yankee imperialist sabots. Re: T-14 Here's a few ways to look at it: 1. It is something that so little is known about to make including it, in effect an act of pure fiction in terms of what it actually does. This is counter to the other future systems in the game which are broadly things that exist in small quantities now, or are not especially unreasonable leaps (like APS on Abrams, AMP rounds etc) 2. It is a vehicle that is apparently going from not really existing to serial production in short order. As a brand new from the trackpads up design. Again if it's going to roll into common operation in 2017, neat, but the struggles with other newer Russian systems would indicate that it would the exception, vs rule to go from blueprint to battalion. I don't really see a reason to include a tank that is still largely conjecture, or still has not gotten near operational status. More advanced T-90s/M1A2s, yeah, new modifications seem a go. Brand new tank that we know nothing about in two years? Pushing it.

Eeeeeh. The M829E4 is strongly suggested to have been tested against anything short of an actual T-90 parked on the tarmac somewhere, and the ERA stuff especially has likely been compromised at this point. The M829A3 is believed to be largely unaffected by ERA, stands to reason the E4 wouldn't be strongly deterred either. Under the ERA the T-90's armor is nothing special I've seen Russian optics. They'd have been pretty strong for 1999-2001ish in the US Army, but they're still many years behind. Thermals especially seem to have problems maintaining resolution while moving. Additionally the Nakidka requires frequent cleaning or else the dirt/dust will cause it to become ineffective. Given superior optics, one of the strongest armor arrays in the world, and a weapons system that'll plow through ERA and into the juicy still filled with explosives center of a T-90, it's pretty reasonable to say the T-90 operator better have backup or a better plan than throwing tanks at a M1A2. Finally the odds of an operational T-14 in 2017 is pretty low. Personally I think it's going to be a rehash of what happened with the T-95/Black Eagle/etc, but a two year turnaround on a totally new tank in the middle of some of Russia's worst economic times.....yeah. Doubting we'll see it in time to make a game set two years from now. T-90AM is already science fiction enough at this point (although no worse than the M1A2 APS at this point, the reasonably close to happening vs the T-14's "sometime soon I promise!"). Addendum: Down for this sentiment. As much as wargames are cool, the real thing is not something to be wished for.

This is someone who just used WOT as a training tool with a straight face, and then somehow linked Soviet stuff 1945 to being relevant to Russia 2015. Think we can discard it pretty out of hand.

I always sort of wondered what would happen if someone who didn't know better watched a blacktaildefense video....