BrotherSurplice

'Dirty trick' implying having indirect fires on call for when a firefight suddenly erupts, or would you like to just stop beating around the bush and out and out accuse the US of setting up a scenario in which they get to beat up on the Syrians and their support? We go from fingers-in-ears denial to a not so subtle conspiracy theory.  I assure you, if the US wanted to do something insane, Cheeto Benito would just do it - we're talking about the dunderhead that flung tomahawks at an airfield because he wanted to.
If I'm taking the piss, lord knows what you're doing. 
As to @IMHO and @IanL fine, fair points - but I would say its more telling that a unit attacking failed to allocate the proper amount of fire support and security measures. AIrpower I can understand - the opposition isn't expected to have it. 

Yes, if it’s anything like almost every other debate on equipment I’ve see on this forum the answer is simple, the side complaining doesn’t want an accurate representation of reality (which is what BFC is trying to achieve) and simply wants to use the topic to grandstand about how their favoured side is “underpowered.” It really detracts from the few actual bugs that exist in the game and need fixing. 
 As in all games, let’s follow Cranky’s advice:

Well 🇮  don't think you would have much luck in an argument 🤔 with a T90 when all your Stryker has is a 🅱achinegun or a 🅱renade launcher. Hopefully the guy with the Javelin is able to deal with the threat but maybe having the extra 🇦 TGM capability like the 👅  🅱radley 👅 🍆 💦  have might possibly be quite helpful when you go toe to toe ⚔ ⚔ ⚔  with Russian 🇷🇺  🅱eavy armour units which is obviously going t be the case. So, what reasons might here be NOT 💯   to add ATGM capabilty to all the Strykers assuming the budget were available to pay for  the work?

Can't really imagine James Brown singing.. "Make it funky, and gimme some German inter-war tank doctrine. Make it funky, and blow yer horn President Hindenburg." 

Fabulous!  I will take your questions one at a time:
I always think worst case when looking at UI contacts and without more information that shows squads are split... so I suspect that we are looking at least two companies worth of FJ infantry (I have confirmed they are FJ) and support units (MGs, mortars, AT teams, etc.) on Axis RED.  At this stage of the battle it would be rare for a player to split his squads when on the Approach March.  Usually players simplify their orders overhead by not splitting until contact is imminent. 
As for Axis ORANGE, I have only identified one infantry unit on this sector and it was an MG unit, so I need more information before I can make an assumption as to what ScoutPL has in this sector and what their role is.   
EDIT:  Thinking about this, I am certain that many of those UI contacts are ghosts, so they are not really a good representation of the amount of individual teams/squads are moving up RED.  
As for the STuGs, at this point i am in a wait and see mode.  I do expect to see more than two, but whether or not it will be a full platoon, I don't know yet. 
Agreed, to a point.  I think at this point, two minutes in, I was pretty sure his main effort was coming up Axis RED.  I thought he had at least two infantry companies coming up that route, and a couple platoons (maybe) or so on ORANGE.  The speed he is moving on RED tells me that he is indeed intending to move up RED and is moving to attack positions closer to my lines.
At this point, the STuG on ORANGE is obviously in a support by fire role, whether it will stay in that role throughout remains to be seen.  
Not really.. like I said in my analysis, I thought Axis YELLOW was unlikely as it is not armor friendly.  That being said, it is always possible for his formation moving on Axis RED to turn, or split and move up both YELLOW and RED... I am not abandoning my line in this sector yet and am watching him closely.
I am always on the look out for such opportunities... whether I have them in this game or not remains to be seen.  At this point in the game I did not know the role he had in mind for the units on Axis ORANGE, but I was watching it and was keen to identify the unit types so I could analyze it's mission.
I have zero long range AT assets, so I will need to close with them with small AT teams... this will not be easy, especially with the amount of infantry he has, and knowing how good a player ScoutPL is I am in doubt as to how effective my AT plan will be.. at this point in the game I wasn't really considering how I was going to take them down, it was a problem I could push lower on the priority list.
Thanks Combat man, those were great questions.

Bud, I get into this in my post on Reconnaissance on my blog.  To simplify, you always assume worst case, until you have confirmation one way or the other... so if you see two STuGs out of a potential five, ASSUME that there can possibly be three more that you will have to contend with. 
Gathering intelligence is a never ending process and you answer questions as you go, but often many questions are never answered until the thing ends.

Hey fellas, ScoutPL here.  Bil asked me to chime in.  This fight is from awhile ago (over a year I guess), so my memory for the detail is rusty but I think I can give you an idea what I was thinking.
Key to my plan was the open ground that existed between what I assumed was Bils front line (based on scenario intel and confirmed in the first few turns) and the actual objective.  Essentially, his line of communication from his forward trace back to his main position could be interdicted with fires.  So I set up a pretty strong Support By Fire position with my machine guns, Forward Observers, and one STUG.  I dont remember precisely, but I think there was an infantry platoon there for security, as well.
The main attack would consist of an end-run to my left, what Bil has labeled as AOA2.  I felt it offered the most cover and concealment and would force Bil to fight in two directions at once.  I had one ace in hand that made such an aggressive move possible: a few heavy trucks.  After the STUGs and a dismounted platoon proofed the route, I was able to move most of my company by truck to the Attack Position in two quick trips.  Then it became a slug fest as I pushed up the hill hedgerow by hedgerow.

INITIAL MOVES
I moved a small portion of my units into picket positions, and a small scout force of two jeeps down what I identified as AOA RED.  The intention with my pickets, which are very small units made from splitting squads, is to get close if possible to the enemy's lines and setup listening and observation posts to identify movements.  My scout force is a bit stronger and the idea is for them to be my first defense along AOA RED, they have one bazooka on hand.  They are meant to be a speed bump and to slow, not stop, any enemy advance down this approach.

Scouts disembarking:

ENEMY CONTACTS
It didn't take long for me to start identifying enemy units, and with these contacts and subsequent movements I will put together an intelligence picture of my opponent's intent.  The intial enemy contacts were two STuGs and one UI infantry unit, which was moving, otherwise I doubt I would have seen it. 
One STuG (identified as STUG 01) is sitting on the AXIS ORANGE road and facing my ridge-line.  Right now it appears to be a support by fire asset, but more information is needed.  Also along AXIS ORANGE is the moving UI Infantry unit.  I can't make any assumptions about what he is intending on this axis yet.  I will await further information. 
On the AXIS RED road sits another STuG (STUG 02), this vehicle did not move this turn, but just sat facing up the road.  The white carrots in the following image indicates facing for the enemy armored vehicles.

STUG 01:

As for an opening turn artillery strike... that could indeed happen, but how would he know what my setup zone actually is and be able to take advantage of it?  I setup right to the boundaries of my setup zone with as much of my force as possible to get as many eyes looking down hill as possible.

Those overhead views really help (me at least)  visualize what is so clear to you on the other maps you’ve posted. Are the sightlines from your positions giving you good view of the approaches? To me it appears that you’d only be able to see to the next hedgerow. 
 Not boring at all, Bil! 

TERRAIN ANALYSIS
Okay, for this AAR I am going to provide several maps to help orient you to the terrain.  Here is the base map with elevations turned on:

That is clear as mud isn't it?  You can loosely make out the road net, but the bocage map and even the elevations are tough to decipher.  I added the 100 meter grid in Photoshop. 
ELEVATION TEMPLATE
This map was created specifically to highlight the elevation on this map.  Blue indicates low ground, while red is high, you can clearly see that the terrain rises from the bottom left corner to the top right.  My forces are arrayed on this ridge and will have great visibility.

OBSTACLE TEMPLATE
This map clears up the terrain and clearly shows the obstacles in this scenario.  I will use this map periodically to help you orient the actions throughout this AAR. This template includes the general location of my initial dispositions in blue.

BOCAGE TEMPLATE
This map clearly shows the road net, and the bocage map.  It helps to keep these types of maps clear of clutter for planning and for analysis throughout a game.  

The thing I find ironic is that Nazi Germany and the Soviets were in a non-aggression pact, Germany did much of their clandestine military development on Soviet territory to avoid prying eyes...yet the Soviets still had no clue whatsoever about Panzer tactics!

Because "heavy tank" refers to a tank's intended doctrinal role, and not an arbitrary physical quality like weight?

Olek's gonna love these:

You can never have too many AA assets! 

Holy crap I laughed hard at this. The symbol in the bottom left, the digi camo on the cart. 
Well done.

Thanks fellas.
For some of my philosophy you can read my two part blog post on playing a defensive game:  PLATOON DEFENSE Part 1 and PLATOON DEFENSE Part 2
A quote from part 1:
I will, hopefully, illustrate some of the items I have bolded above in this AAR, and hopefully will throw in a surprise or two along the way.
Bil

This is a true After Action report (AAR).  I played this game last year against one of my most skilled opponents (ScoutPL).  The scenario was Green Hell, my goal was to protect the Farm and Cafe objectives, and if possible, try to take the la Madeleine objective.  Simple no?  This was the first time I had played this scenario and the scenario and sides were chosen by my opponent.
I will give a general overview along with a quick and dirty METT-T analysis, then I'll get right into the action.  A word of warning though, there will be no long range tank fights in this AAR, it will be a tough costly mainly infantry slug-fest for both sides.  I do hope however that I can at least show my philosophy when on the defense.  I will be honest, I struggle the most with the defense, I am very offensive minded and just can't help myself sometimes and overextend, right Baneman? 
MISSION
The mission is simple, hold the enemy at bay and force him to waste his combat power on the drive to my objectives, so that when he arrives he will have a spent force.  My main goal is to protect the two objectives in my zone, and preserve my force as much as possible.

ENEMY
I have been told to expect German FJ troops in unknown strength, though if I go by the tactical map above I can expect a combined force of infantry and armor.  All I really know is that they should be entering around the a Madeleine objective area... if the tactical map above is correct.
TERRAIN
My force is sitting on a ridge-line, so I should have good lines of sight across the entire map.  Whether that means I will be able to spot much is another matter.  The map is also broken up by bocage lined fields.  However they are easily penetrated, so will be easily flanked, also those fields will mask movement wonderfully, for both sides.

TROOPS
I command Baker Company, with a weapons company (Dog) in support.  I will get into my initial plans for this battle in a future post.  Initial deployments are shown below.. Baker is spread across the entire ridge-line and Dog has been broken up evenly to support Baker's Platoons.


TIME
I have 1 hour and 20 minutes to hold off the enemy.  That is a long time, but will also mean that ammo supply could be the deciding factor at the end.

This is correct.  Spread your tanks out, as was and is done in real life.. a cluster of vehicles in this game makes them all easier to spot.  Especially if they are all moving.
Bulletpoint, we weren't there, all we can do is give you some theories as to what happened in this particular instance from the descriptions you provided.  Take from it what you will, or ignore all the lessons, the choice is yours.

1) LOS is drawn from the ground, its not an infalliable measuring tool.
2) The M8 is not a Panther; its gunner may be able to see in a situation where a Panther's gunner cannot and vice-versa. 
3) The logic of "if it can shoot me, I can shoot it" is not borne out in reality. That's the textbook definition of defilade.
Edit: Bil has beaten me to the punch, but his parting sentiments are mine own: we can only spitball. This seems like, as @IanL is fond of saying, a circumstance where one side got burned and the other didn't, so we're getting tunnel vision on perceived problems.

Yes, and? The Russians and the US have ample experience with their current-gen MBTs in two semi-recent conventional conflicts and a smattering of low-intensity deployments each. Their main chassis have undergone or are undergoing extensive upgrades and RnD. This is (i) much more cost effective than trying quantum leaps in armor technology when the resources are lacking and (ii) much saner and realistic than re-activating museum pieces to 'cook the books' roster wise.
I think you are either taking my point too literally, or deliberately failing to understand: there is an entirely fallacious circlejerk going on here about having wild amounts of armor 'in service' (despite being an outright display of ignorance, and don't take that as a personal shout @Erwin) over what the Russians can actually deploy, but the analogy was about little-deployed "super tanks" versus many "good enough tanks." At the risk of sounding like a goddamned broken record, because apparently what I type is Swahili to a select few on this forum:
1) In terms of tank fleet sizes, NATO as a whole, and US individually, outweigh the Russians ponderously in 'current-gen' or 'near-current' MBTs. @IMHO has already said this, multiple times, in various ways throughout this thread, as have others. You shouldn't be thinking in raw numbers, you should be thinking in GDP, manufacturing potential and relative fleet sizes. 
2) "Operational requirements" seems to be getting tossed out as a catch-all phrase here meaning 'there isnt going to be a conventional war' - there isn't, yes. That's no excuse for either side to let their top-line equipment atrophy. We're not talking about tin-pot dictatorships who's armies are meant to merely quell and control their own domestic population. The first, middling and final 'operational requirement' of any of the armed forces being spoken about here is the ability to defeat enemy threats that are at least equal to their own. Its exactly this type of fetishizing the small-war that got both sides in a serious state of conventional decay to begin with.
3) In terms of reliability, the Abrams has both of its major conventional combat experiences in sandy hellholes. Both times it, and the logistical tether supporting it, rose to the challenge. Operational ready rates were entirely satisfactory. What exactly is the point here about fragile/over-engineered Western MBTs? It flies in face of all evidence - which is amazing given the 2003 deployment of Abrams was done on the closest thing the US army has had to a wing-and-a-prayer logistical shoestring since September 1944. 
Oh Goodness, totally irrelevant to the post I was responding to: someone was trotting out the notion that re-activating a bunch of museum pieces is the perfect solution to a perceived imbalance in military capability. A naive notion at best.
Since you brought up the subject though, yes; the T-72B1 is what I would call a last-generation tank; hence why the Russians are scrambling to make the B3 a more universal product  
If I sound terse, its because I am - the constant referral to WWII in a modern conventional context has slipped from being mildly annoying to exasperating; it smacks of armchair strategist on a scale that even this forum usually doesn't produce and is comparing oranges to rotten apples. 

Argh, my mistake. I had the Leopard 2 confused for a moment. Apologies for the brain fart, and thanks for the correction. 
Completely useless is definitely a stretch, though the advantages provided by quality thermal optics really are big. 
In short, no. ATGMs have largely been dealt with as a threat going back to the original M1, Leopard 2, and Challenger tanks. They were all designed with new composite armor (chobham armor is one example) that was designed to defeat HEAT projectiles. The protection these tanks have against even modern tandem HEAT warheads is massive. For example, the M1A2 SEP Abrams has over 2000mm RHA equivalent protection against HEAT rounds, without ERA. For comparison, the AT-14 Kornet ATGM has around 1300-1500mm RHA equivalent penetration capability, if Wikipedia is to be believed. Even if Wiki's numbers are off by hundreds of mm, the M1A2 still has more than enough armor to defend itself. The AT-14 is a top of the line, modern, tandem HEAT warhead as well. Other tanks, such as the Challenger 2 and Leopard 2 have even better protection against HEAT warheads than the Abrams does.
Yes, there are some certain, small areas on the front of Western MBTs that have less protection and a lucky hit will penetrate (turret ring for instance) but by and large, from the front ATGMs will do little to a modern Western MBT. Do note, that the same is NOT true for export models of the same tanks. This is why you see Saudi/Iraqi M1 Abrams getting blown up by ATGMs fired by ISIS, etc.  
No. Not even a little. There are like 4 stereotypical generalizations here that are not true. I'm not going to bother with the Panthers and Tigers part, as I could easily write an essay on that. The Russians USED TO be good at making lots of efficient machines that were rugged but more than got the job done. This is no longer the case, mainly due to industrial and specialty limitations. Western gear does not have to be "mollycoddled" or kept in "pristine" conditions in order for them to function. This has never been the case. In fact, the Abrams is well known for its reliability (despite what the Australians may claim) and was one of the most operationally reliable and capable tanks during the Gulf War. As for "quantity having a quality of its own," this is only true in a relative sense. Again, if this were an absolute, then we should scrap all of our expensive jet fighters and revert to using 10s of thousands of bi planes. After all, quantity has a quality of its own right?
Thats a rhetorical question. The answer is obviously no in that context. 

@BrotherSurplice Oooooops.  My apologies.  I was wondering why CMBS looked so arid in your screenshots.   Well ................ someday in CMSF2 what I said above should work. 

This is beginning to really irritate me now.
 

With my Javelins in position on the forward slope of my hill, I am swiftly rewarded with the sight of an ATGM team perched in the bushes atop Point 228. I expect the Javelin teams to use their launchers and wipe the enemy team off of the face of the Earth, but instead, the idiots start plinking away with their rifles! I hurriedly give the team that has spotted the enemy a 'target' order on the offending ATGM.
 

The AT operator finally puts away his rifle and takes aim with his launcher. I anticipate the thunk-whoosh of the missile launching, but all I hear is the chatter of incoming machine gun fire. Before he can fire, the Javelin operator is critically wounded by the next burst from the enemy MMGs. My first casualty, and all because the stupid bloody Javelin men decided that it would be a splendid idea to use their rifles instead of their honking great missile launcher. This is exceedingly frustrating.
 

The offending MMG team and his platoon HQ are spotted on the edge of the berm.
 

Another enemy ATGM team is spotted making a run for the East Yard. All of my vehicles are currently behind the slope of my hill, so once again I am unable to do a thing about this.
 

The round of frustration isn't over yet, as one of my withdrawing scouts is shot in the back by another burst from the MMGs. My second casualty, and this time I have no one to blame but myself. I should have used the hunt or slow command, but I wanted to get the teams back to their APCs without exposing the APCs too much, and also these scouts are exhausted from creeping forward all the way from my start line.
 

I creep my three Scimitars forward and subject the location of the ATGM team to a few bursts of 30mm HE. The time for conserving ammo is gone. Unfortunately, before the Scimitars get into position, I spy the ATGM team crawling away to safety.
 

This time, however, Instead of leaving the Scimitars in one location, after about twenty seconds of fire I pull them back and relocate. Then I roll them forward again and give the location of the machine gun a similar pasting.
 

The enemy AT platoon HQ is spotted running for the East Yard, and I have a pretty good idea of what building they ran to. A future target for a Javelin missile, perhaps?
 

The ATGM team on the hill is spotted again, in an alternate position. Thankfully, the Javelin team elects not to open up with their rifles this time! I order the team to target the enemy ATGM. Second time's the charm?
 

This time though, I'm going to be more careful. I send the Scimitars forward again, to a position where they can see the berm. If that MMG team reveals themselves again, they'll be in for a rude shock . . .
This has been a highly irritating and frustrating few turns. By the quirks of the game and my own mistakes, I've suffered my first casualties of the game. This is not an auspicious start to my first proper engagements with the enemy. Hopefully, however, the next few turns will be better. Finger's crossed . . .

Except the Allies and Soviets didn't spit out tanks 3 generations behind...they produced tanks that were more than competitive with the enemy and in certain places objectively superior.
Piss poor analogy imo.

You don't keep a fire extinguisher in your house because you need to use it every day. You keep it in your house because 1 day out of 1000 you need it, and if you don't have it on that day, all other days are irrelevant because now you have no house. A military (for a world/want to be world power) is the same concept. Said military needs to be able to fight against the worst possible threats primarily, even if they are not the most common. Modern MBTs will always be relevant to conventional militaries. 
Any opinions formed about ANY fighting vehicle based on observed experiences in the Middle East should be taken with a massive grain of salt.