Kinophile

Which counts as a win for Hezbollah, no? Their stated objective was to simply exist after the war, as a coherent organisation. Israel's objective was to defeat them, militarily at least. Who achieved their aims?
Whatever reasons the Israeli military might dress up their non-achievement with, in the end Hezbollah is still there, stronger than ever, despite the 2006 offense, which purpose was to degrade and defeat Hezbollah. Ergo, Hezbollah achieved their aim (keep existing) and Israel did not. Which is way more than a draw.
Similarly, I've heard/read many commentators in US media describe the 2nd US War in Iraq as a "failure". Yet, to me, the objective of that war, post-invasion, was to keep a friendly, popularly elected (in reasonably free and fair elections, pretty damn rare for that region) governmental system in existence, functional and strengthening. Despite Al Queda, the civil war,  the ISIS defeats, that political system is still very much there, and now with an arguably far better and more experienced army. AQI is gone. ISIS is hanging on by fingernails and the civil war has stopped. I'd rate that as the US achieving its aims and its opponents not doing so. Ergo, a win.
Steve @Battlefront.com has argued that Debatlsev' was actually a win for Ukraine - its objective, to him, was to keep its front line forces together, operating coherently. The army (well the LOCAL commanders) managed to extricate themselves out. A full kettling and surrender would undoubtedly have been catastrophic for UKR morale and political capital, something naturally desired by Putin (we assume). He got second prize ( a heavy local military defeat) but not first prize - a heavy strategic and political defeat. I can see Steves point, but I still call a retreat a "retreat", and a loss of a territory, badly need men and material still a loss of same.
So while UKR fox did escape the bear claws with the bear only getting to bite off the tail -the fox is still tail-less and bleeding. To me, Debaltsev is a tactical win (for RUS) but a strategic draw. Yet, to go back to Israel/Hezbollah, seeing as Russia/Putin's aim was to destabilize and erode the UKR state further, and did not achieve that, then UKR did win..sorta...kinda...

Generally as a tanker:

1. We don't like infantry close by.  If something happens and I need to move the tank, I don't want to think about if I'm going to run over friendly forces.  Moving close was also something we avoided, as infantry was safer in the terrain, while we were often safer where we could maneuver (like not open, but think rolling terrain that you can get some hull down on).  Generally we practiced the push-pull method, whoever could best handle the terrain went first, and "pulled" the other unit behind them.  So like infantry would move into the village and clear a path for friendly armor, if the armor needed to come forward, the infantry protected and guided the tank to a position to support them, vs the tank literally moving with the infantry, while tanks moving across open desert would set up in a support by fire to allow the infantry advance into a small village.

Supporting doesn't have to mean close, just so long as we can still put fire on similar targets.

2. In terms of infantry close, it does happen sometimes.  our rule of thumb was third road wheel back was "safe.  for main gun operations.  I feel this was likely conservative, but noone likes bleeding from their eardrums so that's pretty okay.  Behind the tank, to include literally standing behind the tank, or head out when the gun was in action from the TC's hatch had no adverse affects.  

So yeah, space is helpful, and lets you get things.  You don't want your infantry hugging you because it slows you down and makes your life difficult.  When operating close additional coordination is also usually required in as far as making sure friendly locations are known (by markings or things like phase lines). 

To be clear, the last few threads have certainly not been spam. All very CMBS related and appropriate, and as far as I can tell John is never drawn into political stuff. 

"after he could finally function again; went white and had trouble breathing briefly".
....really? really? rrreeeaaaaaallllllyy?
John your stuff is almost always interesting, but this kind of hyperbole often taints your posts with breathless, pointless, clickbait level, contrived  "Deh-RAMAmaaaaahhh!!!". For me, it weakens and undercuts your info and sometimes your arguments. 
TBC, I don't want this to feel like a Lets All Pile On Kettler starting point - I do appreciate your explorations and findings. But...I highly doubt people were, say, vomiting in the aisles upon hearing about Russian anti-armor advances. In my mind's eye, all I see is a low-lit room full of middle aged analysts, bureaucrats, mid-level political functionaries, flat-eyed weapons scientists and massively-bored military officers listening to interesting, maybe worrisome information that everyone in that room knows will simply spur near-future counter-research and stop-gap compensatory tactics. Maybe I'm wrong....
I don't want to sound aggressive, mean or belittling...It just feels that adding Oprah/Ellen/Cosmopolitan/Ru Paul/Fox News levels of unrealistically OTT reactions doesn't make your info read any stronger...to this uninformed couch potato peasant-soldier, at least.

"after he could finally function again; went white and had trouble breathing briefly".
....really? really? rrreeeaaaaaallllllyy?
John your stuff is almost always interesting, but this kind of hyperbole often taints your posts with breathless, pointless, clickbait level, contrived  "Deh-RAMAmaaaaahhh!!!". For me, it weakens and undercuts your info and sometimes your arguments. 
TBC, I don't want this to feel like a Lets All Pile On Kettler starting point - I do appreciate your explorations and findings. But...I highly doubt people were, say, vomiting in the aisles upon hearing about Russian anti-armor advances. In my mind's eye, all I see is a low-lit room full of middle aged analysts, bureaucrats, mid-level political functionaries, flat-eyed weapons scientists and massively-bored military officers listening to interesting, maybe worrisome information that everyone in that room knows will simply spur near-future counter-research and stop-gap compensatory tactics. Maybe I'm wrong....
I don't want to sound aggressive, mean or belittling...It just feels that adding Oprah/Ellen/Cosmopolitan/Ru Paul/Fox News levels of unrealistically OTT reactions doesn't make your info read any stronger...to this uninformed couch potato peasant-soldier, at least.

"after he could finally function again; went white and had trouble breathing briefly".
....really? really? rrreeeaaaaaallllllyy?
John your stuff is almost always interesting, but this kind of hyperbole often taints your posts with breathless, pointless, clickbait level, contrived  "Deh-RAMAmaaaaahhh!!!". For me, it weakens and undercuts your info and sometimes your arguments. 
TBC, I don't want this to feel like a Lets All Pile On Kettler starting point - I do appreciate your explorations and findings. But...I highly doubt people were, say, vomiting in the aisles upon hearing about Russian anti-armor advances. In my mind's eye, all I see is a low-lit room full of middle aged analysts, bureaucrats, mid-level political functionaries, flat-eyed weapons scientists and massively-bored military officers listening to interesting, maybe worrisome information that everyone in that room knows will simply spur near-future counter-research and stop-gap compensatory tactics. Maybe I'm wrong....
I don't want to sound aggressive, mean or belittling...It just feels that adding Oprah/Ellen/Cosmopolitan/Ru Paul/Fox News levels of unrealistically OTT reactions doesn't make your info read any stronger...to this uninformed couch potato peasant-soldier, at least.

"after he could finally function again; went white and had trouble breathing briefly".
....really? really? rrreeeaaaaaallllllyy?
John your stuff is almost always interesting, but this kind of hyperbole often taints your posts with breathless, pointless, clickbait level, contrived  "Deh-RAMAmaaaaahhh!!!". For me, it weakens and undercuts your info and sometimes your arguments. 
TBC, I don't want this to feel like a Lets All Pile On Kettler starting point - I do appreciate your explorations and findings. But...I highly doubt people were, say, vomiting in the aisles upon hearing about Russian anti-armor advances. In my mind's eye, all I see is a low-lit room full of middle aged analysts, bureaucrats, mid-level political functionaries, flat-eyed weapons scientists and massively-bored military officers listening to interesting, maybe worrisome information that everyone in that room knows will simply spur near-future counter-research and stop-gap compensatory tactics. Maybe I'm wrong....
I don't want to sound aggressive, mean or belittling...It just feels that adding Oprah/Ellen/Cosmopolitan/Ru Paul/Fox News levels of unrealistically OTT reactions doesn't make your info read any stronger...to this uninformed couch potato peasant-soldier, at least.

So, I was thinking about this. 
At first, I tried to find blast and overpressure numbers. Yeah: not available.
Next, I looked for safety zones, but a lot of that is populated with range safety (berms, clear zones, etc.). Others are only due to sabot petals. Lastly, hearing damage zones are delineated. Nothing that would work for my purposes.
Finally, I had a realization: the energy spent expelling the round is created by releasing the same amount of chemical energy. This is the same as what an explosion does. The Abrams, firing an M829 round (rough numbers, so don't hold me to A1 through A4), releases about 27 MJ of energy. (KE=1/2*m*v^2)  That should be the starting point to compare the muzzle blast with an explosion.
Some differences:
Muzzle blast is directional. Someone 1m in front of the muzzle would get a much greater effect than someone 1m behind the muzzle. A conical spread would probably model it best.
There is no fragment damage. Sure, rocks, pebbles, etc., will get hurled about, but this is not an explosive held in a case until it overcomes the case's internal tension. The sabot petal danger is negligible in comparison to a bomb/shell casing.
Related to the above, the blast may be mitigated by not being held until the pressure overcomes the shell casing. So, it'd be a "soft" explosion.
 
So, perhaps comparing the muzzle blast to an explosion would work. The propagation front would be a fractal dimension: more than 2D, less than 3D, and directional.
 
What is the equivalent energy release for an RPG7 launch? Or bazooka/panzerfaust? These backblast weapons cause pinning/suppression in game. Well, how much "oomph" do they have in comparison to the M256 cannon on the Abrams?
Anyway, that's how I'd approach this issue to model it.

Same reasoning I use to explain to the wife why I can’t carry her.  Dear, it is a simple issue of ground pressure, well just get bogged. 
Somehow she refuses to buy into science.

Reading Echo in Ramadi and in this one combat situation an Abrams section comes up to support some Marines in the middle of a firefight.  The Marines are on the roof of a building with the M1 on the street below.  The M1 is given info on the building they want targeted and prior to it firing the call goes out to the marines on the roof to hunker down and clear the roof.  Due to a bit of mis communication the marines are not aware the M1 practice is to fire 2 rounds.  The marines have started to re-engage when the second round was fired.  The resultant over pressure knocked 2 marines flat and caused them to be evacuated for concussion injuries.
Question is this, in RL what kind of proximity would be expected for units working with armor?  In this particular instance it is a MOUT scenario and the confines of the street channels the pressure wave of the tank gun.  How much impact would that normally have and is there an expectation that infantry should be x meters distant when working with armor?

https://warontherocks.com/2018/04/forecasting-the-future-of-warfare/
Interesting from the perspective of CMBS as a, tester of future tactical combat effects. 
I often find CMBS scenarios are very tight and claustrophobic. It's why I'm building a set of larger (min 3km, battalion(-) scale scenarios. 

http://smallwarsjournal.com/index.php/jrnl/art/adapting-ike-case-reserve-centric-us-military
I'm curious on opinions re thus approach vis a vis armored forces capabilities, readiness and institutional learning ing/memory. 
Russia maintains a very large, but low quality reserve system, I believe? But here, he is suggesting a large, high quality reserve. 
Seems feasible, technically. 

to "green?" Really?
I assume a joke, otherwise youre insanely blind to effects of an institutional-wide and decades-consistent emphasis on constant multi-unit/domain/situational training. 
I often read articles that near-dismiss the usefulness of the last 15 years of COIN - something that seems very blind and uninformed to me. I don't mean uninformed from a military POV, but from a teamwork/familiarity  approach. 
For example - I work in film & tv, as an Assistant Director. We run the set, organize the day and are responsible for the safety of everyone involved. It is a civilian life, with none of the dangers of a FOB - but we do have some surface similarities. I sometimes work as a "Daily" - an Assistant Director who joins a production for a day, or three, for when they are doing large scenes (eg, 300 extras, rolling Pedestrian & Vehicle lock-up through down-town Toronto for a 50mph car chase (a "travelling shot") with 7 picture cars, 6 cop cruisers, etc). Its (relatively) high intensity for several reasons - 1) we have usually just that day to get the scene, 2) ANY moving vehicle can kill someone, and a 50mph 360 degree arc Russian Arm can easily cause a gigantic amount of damage and death, 3) people are idiots and will ignore EVERY ****ING WARNING SIGN & SAFETY GUARD and walk right into the path of a VERY LOUD convoy moving at speed.
Due to these basic (and a myriad other reasons), your team is vital to success. They need to know walkie comms - why, when, how to communicate. They need to read a situation, apply their experience and project forward to the worst possible outcome and prevent it in advance. They must anticipate, communicate, act. Their level of experience is critical to what roles and responsibilities they are given.Their reliability, based on knowledge of them from previous sets, also determines their role. There are plenty of experienced ADs i know who I would not put into the above tevelling shot - I know from past, bitter experience that they "flake out" under pressure: eg they can read a situation too excitedly, causing the whole convoy to jam to a stop for something tiny. Or worse, they get bored, zone out - and miss the headphoned jogger stepping into the path of the convoy.
So, while we are not getting shelled by 152s, the possibility of death and dismemberment is very real and taken very seriously by the ADs. Knowing your team, working with them under high pressure, real situations is not replaceable with training. 
So, for me, as say a Major, to know my officers, to have seen them dealing with real situations, see their development arc, their real strengths/weaknesses is something intangible but priceless.
The real advantage, the silver lining of the COIN wars for the US military is that they have been going on for so long - US now has a huge institutional and reserve pool of combat experienced personnel, up and down the command chain. The head of the Pentagon fought in Fallujah, for heaven's sake. Imagine the sheer depth of experience of the officer/nco corp behind him. Constant, shifting, changing and modernising experience. Nothing beats that.
Naturally, any real mil personnell feel free to contradict
 

I believe it would be interesting to discuss how behaviour of CMBS units and equipment compares to their what they demonstrate in real life and how different sides in CMBS match against each other. To keep as far away from useless flame as possible I suggest we argue only quantifiable data that can be traced either to real life sources or comparable in-game datasets.

I'm sure we all want an accurate representation of reality. So if you believe I'm wrong in my assessment may be you can offer your logic of calculation and input checkable to the actual specifications or tests. Then we can discuss the numbers instead of who wants what...

@kraze states a fact - a unit using Russian equipment and doctrines got their ass whooped worse than I did as a kid for giving my mom lip, and you call him a troll. I'm sensing a disturbing pattern of 'hear no evil' with you when it comes to uncomfortable truths.  The alleged reaction to the leak is also eyebrow raising if it was 'mere disinformation' from the West.
Normally I'd say this is all off-topic - except its not. In addition to a subtle race going on between the two sides technologically to upgrade current systems, there's a doctrinal race happening as we speak: look no further than the ARMOR article I posted a few days ago. Its all well and good to show how the material they use performs but its equally valid discussion to show how Russian and US aligned countries use these materials to fight. Someone explores this and gets dismissed out of hand, poor show.

A related issue with a squad picking up a spare Javelin for use by another team is that no matter how I split the squad, the Javelin seems to stay with the least appropriate team.  Eg.  It never stays with the AT team.  The Javelin always stays with the 2-man Scout team, or the Assault team (it would be preferable to have it stay with the support section).

But think of all the fun you could have with ground troops.

 

I think, this will be interest for you in this topic. Except Russian forces, look, how much armored vehicles have "mined" DPR (1st Army Corps) and LPR (2nd Army Corps). In comparison with some Westernm armies.
My familiar, former Ukr army serviceman and one of LostArmor experts, has complited huge work - he identificated from photo and video of enemy resourses almost full number of armor in DNR and LNR srvice. With aid of LostArmor resourse, of course.  I've asked him make infographic in English for you and he did it. Click to enlarge. 
 

It could be a real case of high speed blind retarded monkey fisticuffs... 

It could be a real case of high speed blind retarded monkey fisticuffs... 

Ok, if you're going to post stuff, you should probably have a slight idea as to what it is you are posting. 
The United States has over 4,000 Abrams in its active inventory. The Russians have less than 1,000 operational T-90s. 
The meme of red hordes died a long time ago. Continuing to base all future conflicts on this assumption is both ignorant and embarrassingly wrong. 
The West, specifically the United States, has both a quantitative and qualitative advantage over the Russian military. This has been the case for decades now. 
Please, please let this terrible meme end. 

Very doubtful, TBH (re brits in UKR. Or us moosehumpers, UKR diaspora not withstandingFTM.).

@MOS:96B2P, @kinophile
Damn! This is T-72B3, captured 26 Aug 2014 by Ukrainian troops near Ilovaisk - for identification our soldiers painted it with UKR white stripes! Check, please, what you post and write here in order to not confuse others! Separatist forces never used white stripes, except some cases of using our captured vehicles. In some cases they were repainting UKR white stripes with saturated green color.

@FoxZz - an impressive post but in my case I have never needed convincing about including France in CMBS or CMSF. I could certainly think of hundreds of scenarios for CMSF if French forces were available.