IICptMillerII

Agree to disagree indeed. I just want to point out that the West is not somehow obsessed with the T-72 series because they think it is very easy to defeat due to Desert Storm. It is well known and noted that the T-72 models faced in Desert Storm were not of the same quality as those fielded by the Soviets in Europe. There is a reason the T-72M is referred to the 'Monkey Model.' Hell, the thing only had a manually traversing turret! More importantly than the model of tank was the ammunition it was equipped with. The ammo was far from modern, and without getting into too much detail, was essentially useless against US and Coalition armor. However, the T-72s fielded by the Soviets in Europe were of much better quality. First off, they had the top of the line Soviet ammo, which was capable of causing quite a bit of pain on contemporary NATO armor in Europe. They were also equipped with updated FCS (still lacking thermals for the most part however) and vastly improved armor. The T-72s that NATO faced in Europe were essentially entirely different tanks than what were faced in Iraq. The T-64 was designed as a non-export variant, yes. However it faced some pretty serious reliability and mechanical issues early in its life. It was these issues that prompted the development of the T-72 in the first place. This is not to say that the T-64 was a pile of junk, just that it had noted issues and the T-72 was looked to be an improved overall design to rectify those issues. Exactly. It is all rather confusing. Not only do different sources contradict themselves, but some individual sources like the one you mention contradict themselves as well. The way I try to cut through the haze is by trying to see what was actually fielded. There is a difference in what was produced and what was wanted as the optimal front line tank, as opposed to what was actually the front line tank. ("There's the way its supposed to be, then there's the way it is") I try to do this by looking at the actual TO&E and OoB of the forces present at the time. Like I posted above, when you look at those OoBs you find that most of the tanks are in fact T-72/64 variants, with only about a 3rd of the tanks in active OoBs being T-80's. Many of the OoBs were constantly in flux, each year things changed around a little bit, but for the most part it is a good way to look at a snapshot in time. To add even more confusion to this, the ratio of T-80/72/64 changed depending on the front. The North German Plain tended to get more T-80's proportionally because this is where the Soviets planned on making their main armored push. Other fronts tended to have drastically different proportions of tanks. Still however, when you look at all of the Soviet tank forces in Europe, while there were higher concentrations of T-80's in certain areas of front, it tends to not be the dominant tank series when you look at the whole picture. Addendum: Something I forgot to mention. There were less M1 Abrams variants in Europe than there were M60 Patton variants by a decent margin. Most US armored units were still equipped primarily with M60 variants. The numbers roughly come out to there being around 1/3rd Abrams and 2/3rds Pattons. As with the Soviets, these OoBs were in flux, especially after 1985 where the US began to produce the M1A1 and all M1A1 variants produced were sent directly to Europe to replace the older M1 and M1IP tanks. This replacement took time however. Even with the new M1A1's going straight to Europe, most of the US tanks were still M60's.

Hell I would pay $60 for an upgrade to CMSF and all the modules. The amount of content in that one game is staggering. I still love to play it from time to time. It can be hard going all the way back though, due to the many upgrades to the engine that has come along that CMSF now lacks. I know Battlefront has said that they would like to see CMSF fully upgraded, but I think they said that they would have to rebuild the game at this point, as the original is too far gone.

Ah yes this one is a classic! I'm sure there are a few known origins to this myth, but the one I know of comes out of the Korean war and involves recoiless rifles. Attached to recoiless rifles was a spotting .50 caliber round, given the same ballistic properties of the recoiless rifle round. So if you fire the spotting round (tracer) and it hits the target, the round from the recoiless rifle will hit. What ended up happening was that there were a ton of recoiless rifles in Korea, but after the initial North Korean push in 1950, there were no more enemy tanks to shoot at. So soldiers were using the spotting .50 rounds to engage enemy personnel. A general order was issued to stop this, which later developed into the infamous myth that .50 cals could not be used against enemy personnel. In fact, it only applied to the spotting rounds, and only in Korea.

That number is from Wikipedia, and makes it clear that the number is for all variants of the T-80 produced up to 2005. There is a difference between 1985 and 2005. Also, at least one of the variants of the T-80 (the A I believe) was a completely prototype tank. It was never produced in large numbers and was designed purely as a testing model. Again, my point was not that the T-80 itself was extremely rare (although the T-80U was) but that it did not make up the majority of Soviet tanks. If you look at the Order of Battle for the Soviets during the 80's, youll find that most of the tanks were T-72/64 variants. There were a bunch of T-80s, they just weren't the majority. As would I!

I find that rather hard to believe. The T-80, while used, was never fully widely adopted by the Soviets, or the Russian Federation after the Cold War. If they had so many T-80s, why don't we see a bunch of them being used now, or as export models by other nations? The vast majority of Soviet made tanks that we see are either the T-72 (both the export versions and non-exports) or earlier T series variants. I actually have researched Order of Battles for the Soviet Army in Eastern Europe during 1985. For example, the 10th Guards Tank Division of the 3rd Shock Army in Germany had 3 regiments of tanks. 2 tank regiments were equipped with T-72 variants, while 1 had the T-80 variants. Thats roughtly 186 T-72s and 93 T-80s. The 12th Guards of the same Army had the same OoB. The motor rifles were mounted in BMP-2 variants. However, in the 79th Guards Tank Division of the 8th Guards Army, the 3 tank regiments were equipped with T-64 variants (2 regiments of roughly 186 again) and T-72 variants (1 regiment of 93 tanks) with the infantry still mounted in BMP-2 variants. There are regiments equipped with T-80 variants (for example, the 3rd regiment of the 6th Guards Tank Army, 1st Guards Tank Army has 93 T-80s, the other 2 regiments having T-64s) and there are other tank units that are not Gaurds units equipped with predominantly T-62 and T-64 tanks with the infantry riding BTR-70s (9th Tank Division, 1st GTA) So it is true that by 1989 the OoB's changed around a bit. Tank variants were upgraded and others discarded. For instance I know that the Soviets were trying to move away from the T-64 due to a number of reasons, reliability in the field being one of them, and that they were extensively upgrading their tank variants (see T-72B obr. 1989) but the majority of tanks in Eastern Europe were not the T-80 variant. They were likely only about 1/3rd of all Soviet tanks in Europe. While I don't necessarily dispute Zaloga's numbers, I think he inflated T-80 tanks produced to tanks fielded. If you look at the Soviet OoB, there are not entire tank divisions made up of T-80s. There tends to be only 1 regiment of T-80 tanks per division. We can definitely agree on a kickstarter idea though! Perhaps not right now, as Battlefront already has a lot on their plate. Maybe after V4.0 and the new CMFI module comes out the idea of a kickstarter could be tossed around again. I would fully back it. Although I'm not entirely sure that creating a CM: Fulda Gap would be a simple matter of money. As our developing discussion goes to show, there are a lot of conflicting data on the exact make-up of the various armies at the time that would have to be thoroughly researched. Then of course it all has to be programmed. That all of course takes time and manpower, the latter of which we know Battlefront does not have in great abundance. All of this sin't to say that I think such a kickstarter would be doomed from the start, I just think there are a lot of factors that go into Battlefront and the production of CM that are greater than monetary issues. Again, if a kickstarter was made for a CM Cold War, I would readily back it!

My apologies. I did not mean that entire divisions were pulled off the line regularly, nor did I mean that the Allies never suffered from manpower problems, rest/refit issues or the replacement issue you mentioned. All I meant was that, at certain times during the war, parts of divisions or in a few cases entire divisions (see: 101st and 82nd Airborne divisions after Normandy) were able to be moved to rear areas for rest and refit for a variable amount of time. Generally in the infantry divisions a policy of 2 up 1 back was used. Each division usually had 3 rifle regiments. Two of them would be directly on the line, while the third would be held in reserve, resting and preparing to replace one of the other regiments on the line, or plugging a gap if needed. However, this mode of operation was only under optimal conditions, which did not always exist. For example, during the Hurtgen forest campaign you had the issue of replacements being thrown into the line so fast that they were dead in a few days (or even hours in some cases) which caused a huge strain on manpower. This allowed for much less R&R time for everyone. The Normandy campaign is another good example of this. I actually have the unit rosters of the 29th ID that covers June 44 to Oct 44 (and maybe a bit more) and in the rosters there are more than a few cases of a rifleman reporting for duty and then being killed/wounded that very same day. What I meant was that, while it was far from perfect and highly situational (the enemy gets a vote too) the Allies were able to give more of their men more R&R time in relation to the Germans. On top of that, when units in the Allies (the US at least) were pulled off the line for R&R, it was entire units. Generally they did not pull individuals out of units, but the unit as a whole (whether it was a company or regiment) except under very specific circumstances. Examples are when Easy Company was afforded to send one of its officers home during the Battle of the Bulge (Nixon declines it and gives it to Peacock) or during The Pacific where, after Peleliu a lottery was held that allowed a few men out of a battalion to go home. I keep using BoB as a reference because it is generally well known and well researched, not because it is my only source of information. The Germans on the other hand had a different R&R system. Units tended to stay on the line. R&R was granted to individuals, and other individuals were pulled from the line and sent somewhere else. Either to lead a new unit as someone with combat experience, or to the Eastern/Western Front due to changing manpower needs. Add onto this that the Germans were not only surrounded on both sides by enemies and did not have strategic air supremacy, but were steadily losing the war, and you can see why their manpower/R&R issues were greater than the Allies. All of this is to illustrate the point that by late 1944 the Germans had lost the majority of their experienced and effective manpower. What was replacing the losses were generally poorly trained soldiers with little to no combat experience, led by a handful of men who did have combat experience, but who's overall effectiveness was shattered after fighting years of war.

I actually want the year to be 1989 but for the same reason you listed. In 1989 there was still a lot of older tech floating around for all forces involved. Jeeps with TOW mounts were just as common, if not more so than their Humvee counterparts. M1IP Abrams were around as much as the new M1A1s, and there were still plenty of M60A3 Pattons. In fact I believe most of the US tanks in Western Europe were still Pattons by '89. If not, then it was close. The Soviets were mostly using T-72 series tanks (T-72B obr. 1985 in particular) in the Guards divisions. There were T-80 variants in some of the Guards units, but the vast majority were T-72s. Reason being as I've heard is that the T-80 was primarily a prototype tank that never truly developed fully. They still made a decent number sure, but there were only 500 T-80Us, the best variant. Kind of a King Tiger of the 1980's. The non Guards divisions were mostly T-55 and T-62 variants with BMP-1 mounted motor rifles. Other NATO and WARSAW Pact nations would have a similar smattering of new and not so new hardware to play with. I would rather have a game set in '89 and have access to the new toys (at greater rarity) as well as the older toys (which were still very much in use by all sides) so you could pick and choose. It would also give you more flexibility in making scenarios and campaigns. You could still easily do a 1985 scenario/campaign if you wanted to. A module could always take things back a decade or so as well. All that said, I would still be beyond overjoyed to get a Cold War CM game. It's by far the highest thing on my personal wishlist for CM, and I would be more than willing to donate $$$ to the cause if necessary. Maybe one day...

This is true, but it was determined that their decline in performance was largely due (though not completely) to the battle fatigue effects that our favorite cabbage launcher talks about below your post. They relieved the division commander a few times and it did little if anything to improve the units abilities. I don't mean to pick on the Desert Rats, I was just using them as an example because it came readily to mind. As I briefly mentioned, this happened to many Allied units (and all German units, which was my original point) during WWII. Company E of Band of Brothers fame even suffered from this, a little bit after fighting in and after Market Garden, and then much more so after reducing the Bulge. Nearly all of the US infantry divisions that fought in the Hurtgen forest campaign suffered the same thing. As did nearly all US divisions fighting in Europe. As Panzer already details very nicely, what gave the Allies an advantage in solving this problem over the Germans was that units could be pulled off the line for rest and refit, whereas the Germans never did more than pull individuals off the line. The Allied system was far from perfect, but it was at least a system. The Germans had nothing. Clerical error well said. To avoid picking on our British friends too much (which I assure everyone is not my intention) there have been some unsavory and downright false claims written by plenty of Americans. One of the most prevalent that is in nearly every history written about combat in Europe from the US grunts perspective is that every German tank was a Tiger and every gun was an 88. This phenomenon also appears in nearly every WWII movie/tv show made. Some histories/accounts written more recently make it clear that while most grunts said they encountered Tiger tanks or 88's, it almost never was. A real gold mine of false claims, contradictions, and downright false information is the now infamous "Death Traps" by Belton Cooper (an American armored mechanic during the war). There is much silliness to be had in his book, but one of the worst falsities is when he claims that Patton prevented the deployment and utilization of the Pershing tank in Normandy. Completely and utterly false, yet many who read the book took it at face value. The (also now infamous) History Channel even did a documentary about the book in which they supported and spread Coopers crazy claims. I'm sure the book has already been discussed at length on the forums though. Just wanted to keep on topic and also prove I have no anti-Anglo agenda

Sounds very interesting. I'll have to take a look!

Good point. Although isn't it possible to break down most units to sizes of at least 4 men or smaller? I know for the Germans split teams tend to be no more than 4. Or better yet, maybe add a 3rd foxhole per action square instead of the current amount? My main point with the current way foxholes are depicted is that there are too many too close together. Even if all the soldiers are able to occupy a hole, all it takes are a few well placed mortar rounds to wipe everyone out. If things were more spread out, it would provide better protection from being blasted away by direct/indirect heavy weapons.

Going off what Panzer said, the duration of time in a war does not automatically mean greater experience. For example, the veteran 7th Armoured Division (UK) who fought in nearly every major British campaign of WWII began to perform quite badly once they got to Normandy. Because of their extensive fighting over the years, they had essentially been worn out. So even though they were veterans, they did not perform exceptionally well. This large scale battle fatigue can be seen in other divisions in WWII and in other wars. Another example, the US Army that left Vietnam was a different one that first went there, and the change was not for the better. If you want a generalized/dramatized example of this to see for yourself, check out the post-Battle of the Bulge Band of Brothers episodes (specifically Episode 8: The Last Patrol) The whole point of the episode is that Easy company is so worn out after the hell endured around Bastogne and the counter attacks, they fabricate going on the second patrol. For the Germans post-Falaise, the problems were compounded for the reasons Panzer already pointed out. They had been fighting the war for a long time at this point, on two fronts, and losing consistently on both fronts since 1942-43. As far as amusing wartime contradictions, I find that a lot of what prominent German generals (See: Guderian and Manstein among others) wrote about post-war is largely dribble. "Just following orders" and "Hitler was a moron, I knew better but did what he wanted anyways" are hardly excuses. Politics of the time were at play with some of this (both the FRG and Allied powers trying to warm up to one another in the face of the Cold War) but do not excuse or justify many of the falsehoods that arose from these accounts. The Germans do not have a monopoly on wartime contradictions. After the war many of the historians were British and some of them applied a hefty bias towards US forces, specifically in Normandy. For example, I believe (but could be mistaken) that it was Max Hastings who said of US troops landing in Normandy on D-Day that they were "largely untrained and undisciplined" and other such nonsense. Never mind many of the US divisions who were to go into action on D-Day were battle tested (though not yet fatigued) after fighting in North Africa, Sicily and Italy, but all divisions involved in D-Day spent many months training for the operation. The notion that they were untrained or undisciplined is absurd.

I think that foxholes could use a little love. I don't like how clustered together they are. I think there should only be 2 foxholes per action square. With 2 men per hole, that would give a pretty decent/realistic spacing for a unit dug in in foxholes. Currently, even if you spread the foxholes as they are, they tend to still suffer high casualties. I think the two holes per action square would also solve your issue of soldiers not occupying the holes. Instead of trying to cram 6-8 soldiers in a few foxholes per action square, 4 soldiers per square seems much more doable.

That makes sense. I know that there are a lot of variables that are either hotly debated or completely unknown. It would pose a significant challenge. Add on top of that an entire new engine to simulate the fighting, and taking into account the various fighting styles of factions of the time (regimented Roman battle drill vs Gaullic not-so-regimented battle melee) makes the project essentially completely undoable. I have no delusions to think that Battlefront would ever consider such an endeavor. Still interesting to ponder however.

I always liked the idea of toggle-able reinforcements, although I'm not so sure they would have a lot of practical use. Perhaps in a campaign you could have the option to call on another company/battalion for support, but if you suffer too high casualties then you'll be screwed the next mission. Kind of requires a campaign for context though, because in a regular battle I'm not sure who would really say no to more forces (read: firepower) unless there were some serious point consequences for using the additional forces. Not a feature I'm chomping at the bit for, just spit-balling.

+1 from me. The more support for Battlefront, the better off everyone is. I would love to see what Battlefront could do with an increase in overall resources. Bohemia Interactive (the makers of Arma) definitely benefited from such an event. Exactly! And good riddance to them. I remember a few who seemed to start threads on the forum purely to rustle feathers. It really started to become an annoyance. I'm glad they're gone. Sounds great! I for one won't have any problems grabbing the upgrade pack the moment its released. Very much looking forward to it. This. I understand people with financial restraints, but I honestly do not understand the new trend of complaining and hating anything with a price tag on it. Just look on Steam at the review section on a lot of indie games. "Why is this game priced at so and so?!?! Downvote! Bad!" I imagine its one of the reasons Battlefront has avoided Steam, and for that I'm grateful. I really can't think of an activity that is so inexpensive per hour as video games in general. Why people complain so much about the initial price of a massively financially beneficial investment is beyond me. Although that would go to show why so many people are bad with budgeting...

Not sure how I would feel about a CM: Battletech, but if we're throwing out fringe ideas I think a CM: Antiquity could be very cool. Of course it would require a whole new engine, but I would love to see CMs realistic depiction of combat applied to the Roman legions. Same thing goes for a CM: Napoleon. I know it is extremely unlikely that these games would ever be made, and I would never seriously ask Battlefront to consider it. Still though it is interesting to think about. On a more grounded note, I am very curious to see where Battlefront takes the future of CM. We know v4.0 is coming soon, and after that a few modules for existing titles. I'm curious about the next big step. My worry is that they go to an entirely new engine and basically have to start from scratch. Hopefully that isn't quite the case. I would rather see new titles and upgrades to the CMx2 engine than a CMx3 engine that has to redo all of WWII and beyond.

To be perfectly honest, I am completely ok with paying $10 per upgrade (or whatever the amount is they end up charging), per title. So for me that would be a total of $50, as I own 5 CM games that are going to receive the upgrade. This is of course if this is how the 4.0 upgrade system will work. I'm not sure if its been fleshed out by Battlefront how that will work, but if this is the case: First and foremost, Battlefront is making a product. They are putting their time and effort into a product. Charging for said product is well within reason, as it is also within reason that they dictate the price of said product. Second, Battlefront produces products that I believe to be both extremely unique and extremely well made. What CM does is not rivaled by anything else. Steel Beasts is the best modern armor simulator that I know of, Falcon BMS is the best F-16 flight/combat simulator that I know of. CM is THE tactical land combat simulator. My opinion, but I feel I could make a reasonable argument backed up by facts and track record if I had to. I do not know of another game/sim that models the complexity of land combat that even comes close to CM. Third, and a tie in to the second point, is that Battlefront is a niche developer, creating a series of games for a niche genre. I understand that in order for them to stay alive as a business, they must make market decisions such as paid upgrades. Because I love the product and want to see more in the (hopefully near) future, I am more than happy to support Battlefront by buying their new products. I think at the end of the day, the most fair interaction between Battlefront and the community is that they keep producing awesome CM games/expansions/upgrades, the community keeps supporting them, and then we get more content. Anyways just my opinion on the pricing matter of the upgrade. Looking forward to v4, all the new features sound great!

This will always be number one on my wish list. I understand that Battlefront wants to focus on either strictly historical (wars that actually happened) or plausibly fictional (wars that could happen in the near future). After all, there is still a ton of content to cover in WWII alone, and after finishing that they could go on to do Korea 1950 and a wealth of other historical conflicts. However I do hold out hope that once they have covered a greater majority of WWII, and after CMBS gets fleshed out more, they may take another look at a 1980s Cold War gone hot scenario. I'm personally willing to pay/donate a large amount of money to support such a title. Not only am I extremely interested in such a conflict, but I really think it would be the perfect time setting for Combat Mission. You get all of the large OOBs with fleshed out TOEs for both the East and West, and the forces are largely equal in capability (as opposed to CMBS where the US and Russia are a mismatch in favor of the US). You also get to use a lot of modern toys which is always fun, and I personally think that CM simulates vehicle combat extremely well, and such a conflict was going to be very vehicle heavy. Basically, the game would be like a WWII title with more modern equipment. As far as CM games that are more likely to be released soon, I'm very excited for early Eastern Front. Theres just something about 1941-43 that fascinates me as far as the war in the East goes. The scale of the conflict, and the fact that neither side (at least after Barbarossa) had a massive advantage over the other. By Bagration the German army was just delaying the inevitable, and you can feel it when you play. Also, early war vehicles are always fun as well. I'm very excited about the upcoming CMFI module. CMFI ended up being one of my favorite CM title, so I'm glad to see it expanded upon. I think that everything Battlefront makes has been awesome so far, so whatever it is that comes in the future I'm sure I'll love just as much. Just a matter of patience waiting for the things I specifically am most excited for.

Thanks for the info! I got the program and I've had fun tweaking the settings to see what things look like. I can see myself sinking a decent amount of time into getting things to look just the way I want them. Thanks!

Did you apply the ambient occlusion in the game or as a post processing effect to the screen shot? Either way it looks very cool!

Awesome news! I was starting to grow a tad concerned after the information blackout during the summer, but it appears that all is well and moving along at full speed. For me, just knowing that things are moving along is plenty of info. I'm very excited for the engine upgrade. Looking at Shock Force and then looking at Final Blitzkrieg, you can see the vast amount of improvements that have come to the CM engine over the years. Very excited to hear about what the next big leap is! (Even if its just a bunch of "little things") Charlie Mike!

'Stalingrad' is a great movie. It does a great job of conveying the apocalyptic horror that occurred in the surrounded city, and has one of the most depressing 3rd acts I think I've ever seen. Unfortunately for me, the first time I saw 'Das Boot' was in a high school WWII class, and it was the English version that was shown. It was a great movie, but I'll never be able to take it fully seriously due to the more humorous moments from the dubbed version. Has anyone ever read the book "Soldier Boys" by Dean Hughes? Its a fictional account of a German and American soldier and their experiences as replacements on opposite sides of the line during the Battle of the Bulge. Its a book written for young adults, but I still remember it being a good read.

I'm very glad that you decided to post this campaign for us to try! The mod pack as well is spectacular, really helps add to the immersion, so thanks for that too! I'm in the process of reading "The Men of Company K" right now and was happily surprised when I saw this thread on the forums. Its really very cool to be able to read about a battle and then play it out in CM. Living history. I have not yet beat your campaign, but so far I am having a lot of fun with it and haven't come across any glaring issue. I'm also trying to pace myself, and keep the campaign and book somewhat in sync. A quick note of praise; the maps are fantastic! Map creation is at the very least a time consuming and frustrating process. The maps in this campaign are not only very large, but historically accurate. Its really quite the achievement. I consider it to be 'Battle Pack' worthy, especially considering the mod package you've included. Thanks again for the hard work, and for bringing the Railsplitters to (virtual) life!

kk fam, glhf

Illegal is illegal. No matter what "view" or "lens" or whatever you look at it from, breaking law is still breaking law. By this logic, the entire Western world has complete justification in invading and toppling the Putin government. Talk about calling the kettle black. The Putin government is probably the least legitimate government in Eastern Europe right now. Is that really the logic train you want to be riding? "The only way to save them is to kill them and take their land!" Good grief... You still never answered my point earlier. There are Russian speakers in the US. Hell, a Russian family (the husband was a construction contractor in Moscow) bought my old house. If a Russian, or a Russian speaker was mugged in the US does that give Russia the right to annex Alaska? If a group of Russians or Russian speakers are mugged/attacked/whatever crime does THAT give Russia the right to annex Alaska? Spoiler alert: It doesn't. Literally everything you are saying is hypocrisy, so its not that hard. Thanks for the gold star though. The US cares enough to impose disastrous sanctions on a nuclear armed country. Sanctions which are supported by Europe. Sanctions that are annihilating the Russian economy. To say that the US, or Europe does not care about Ukraine is obviously untrue. The only thing thats funny here is how utterly desolate Russia is at this point. You can continue to try to 'justify' or 'excuse' Russia's actions in Ukraine, but no one in the world is buying it. No one believes you're in the right, and no one believes any of the junk spewed by the Kremlin. The proof of this? The continuing sanctions. Really, Russia has already lost, spectacularly. So go ahead, continue to try and justify whats happening. It really makes no difference. The sanctions will continue, as will the universal condemnation. You harvest what you plant, and boy did you plant a turd.