IICptMillerII

There's a reason they're airborne qualified!

It's important to remember that both the 101st (not actually an airborne unit) and the 82nd were part of XVIII Airborne Corps, which is a global rapid reaction force. As such, they could have ended up in any number of locations around the world. One of the best uses for an airborne unit in this type of war is as a strategic plug, or counter. For example, if the Soviets had attacked through neutral Austria (they fully planned on it) an airborne division could be rapidly deployed in Austria to counter and slow the Soviet advance long enough for heavy forces to be shifted south. Dropping an airborne division in front of a Soviet breakthrough in northern Germany to slow it down is another example of use. Airborne operations are not Normandy. Flying into a wall of flak and missiles is a great way to get an entire division destroyed without ever returning a shot in anger. These types of operations would likely land the division well enough away from enemy formations (up to 60km or more depending on the situation on the ground) which would keep the actual airborne forces safe while dropping and allow them to form up and dig in. Offensively they can be used in many ways as well. As other have noted, airfield seizures, bridges, infrastructure/logistics hubs, as well as landing on top of other strategically important areas and then awaiting relief by attacking heavy forces.

Holy crap! This is big news! I’m surprised this managed to slip by unnoticed by many. Understandable with the FR frenzy. A performance upgrade would be major in my opinion. To me, it seems like there is a lot more that would benefit from said improvement, beyond just a simple player quality of life FPS boost.

Yup!

Completely agree. I'm still not sure how much use it would have actually seen in anything resembling combat. Maybe as an engineering vehicle? Likely beyond the scope of CM battlefields, but could still be a fun addition later on.

Great info! Thanks for posting this. Like I said ISUs are not currently in CW, but who knows, maybe they’ll be added in the future?

Great shots! Unfortunately the ISU-152 is not included in Cold War at the moment. Out of curiosity, were there any units deployed in East Germany equipped with ISU-152s? Non-naval infantry units that is.

Some great shots taken by @George MC featuring the T-80: And a bonus shot of an M577 in the Fall:

Great list! Welcome aboard!

To be as clear as possible: Cold War will release through Battlefront (BFC) in April as a completed game. All features, assets, and normal playability and functions will be present. This includes the PBEM/multiplayer functionality as it is with every other CM game. In June, Slitherine will release Cold War on Steam. That release will come with a new mulitplayer feature, the Slitherine PBEM system. Between April and June, the Slitherine PBEM feature will be developed by Slitherine and added to Cold War. Players who own the game from BFC will have the opportunity to try out the new PBEM features and report back on any bugs they encounter.

No

Give "Red Army" by Ralph Peters a go for the Soviet perspective, and "The War That Never Was" by Michael Palmer for a really good analytical alternate history. There is still a little time!

Yeah, the editor really screwed up the re-release on kindle. The original book is not like that. It’s too bad really. You can still get copies of the original online if you want an untainted version. Im amazed they haven’t fixed it.

I already have a music mod ready to go. I also added some numbering to the T-64 turrets, although as of right now it is only 1 number so it will need a few more for variety sake. I'm excited to see what others come up with. Different camo patterns for both sides, reskins, maps... There is a ton of potential here.

Or DPICM! BTR-70 in this shot by the way. It’s far away though

This seems to be the go to for screenshot teasers. Here are a few more: Soviet infantry conducting a dismounted attack: GP-25 in action:

Ha, you know what? I might just go for it! Better than putting it into the evaporating stock market I think, but don’t fully recall, that the latter version was updated with new information? Someone else (who actually owns the damn thing) can probably give you a better answer.

Huh, well look at that. Last time I checked (a few months ago) all the options were in the hundreds of dollars. Who knows, maybe I’m just going crazy.

It was a placeholder.

Lucky! I still haven’t managed to get my hands on a copy. It’s not easy to get, unless one is willing to spend hundreds for a copy. Mission making is a bit less daunting than modding. Everything you need is included in the scenario editor. All the scenarios for every CM game were and are made in that editor. For me, making the map is the hardest and most time consuming part. Though some here have developed it into a literal art.

You could certainly do a Team Yankee campaign/mission set with the assets at hand. Most of the battles would be easy to do as they take place on scales that are possible in CM. For the polish troops, they could be simulated/replaced by second echelon Soviet forces in T-55s. I had a preliminary plan to do up some of the maps from Team Yankee in CW and release it alongside/just after release, but I had to shelve the idea due to everything else that needed attention. Yup, pretty sure Flibby is talking about Red Army. Fantastic book, but it is focused on the strategic/operational level for the most parts. There are some tactical anecdotes in the book, but not to the details of those in Team Yankee. Still, could provide a great backdrop to some Soviet scenarios.

Great stuff AKD!

Hapless is right. That was a typo. Nice! Although it is important to point out that the Soviets likely would have gone out of their way to ensure Sweden remained neutral. Always remember that when looking at old war plans for the Cold War, one must remember that many of them had contingency planning built in. For example, if Sweden decided to join the war with NATO, then the Soviets needed a plan for that. Just because a plan exists does not mean it was destined to be used. Finland would have been an interesting case, but I personally think that the Soviets would have deployed security forces to guard the lines of communication (MSRs, supply dumps, etc) but otherwise would have wanted to avoid any confrontation with the Fins. The less you have to fight through to get to the main objective, the better. Plus, there is always the worry of rear area attacks. The Soviets were not prepared (knowingly so) for in depth occupation duties during the war. That stuff comes later.

As others have said, Norway. Norway was extremely important to both sides in the prosecution of the war. Much of the Soviet strategy revolved around shutting down/delaying NATO (specifically the US) sea lines of communication (SLOCs) which is a fancy term for maritime resupply routes. To do that, the Soviets had a powerful combination of surface (fleet ships) sub surface (subs) and naval aviation, such as the infamous Backfire bomber. The goal was to prevent NATO from resupplying long enough to give the Soviet army the time it needed to complete its objectives in central Europe. Norway, specifically the coast, would have given the Soviets much more control over the SLOCs through the Northern Atlantic had they occupied it. It would have given them air bases for their naval aviation, as well as ports and sanctuaries for their surface and sub surface forces. Plus, it would have effectively extended their effective interdiction range against NATO SLOCs. NATO was quite aware of this, and the US Marines were assigned to the area. They had staged equipment in the country, much like the Army did in Germany with REFORGER. Norway was also considered their AO, which makes sense considering how hilly and mountainous Norway is, and how important amphibious operations would be there. Not even opposed amphibious operations, simple ones like redeploying or shifting forces around, and resupplying them. Both sides would have made use of naval infantry in Norway. As well as airborne and other specialized forces. To this day the Marines maintain their partnership with Norway's military, and I think they still have equipment staged there as well. Every year (I think so at least) there is usually a major training exercise in Norway for the Marines, and a lot of the cool footage of Abrams drifting on snow and ice are (were) Marine tanks up there doing training.

Heavy lies the crown. For those actually curious right now, the T-64 was a well known tank. In fact, I’m literally looking at a CIA report from 1984 detailing the T-64B, which of course was an updated assessment coming after the T-64A. So the idea of it being completely unknown before 85 or whatever is, to quote myself, gobbledegook. Interestingly, the CIA report on the T-64B got a lot of stuff right about the tank. It’s always cool to see how close intelligence estimates come to reality.