BrotherSurplice

For this game we wanted to show as much as possible, and yet provide an entertaining and challenging game.  We decided that each of us would take two nations, and some UNCONs and Fighters and duke it out man on man, steel against steel (or Chobham as the case may be)... the only constraint was that whoever chose the US would also have to field the Syrians as the US does come with some advantages (Javelins etc.).
I gave Baneman first choice and he went with his own folks, the UK and partnered them with the German Army.  He suggested that I, as an American should take the US, so what choice did I have?   
As for force purchases we adhered to the following:
These constraints will apply to EACH nation we choose (purchase must be 50-50): Light troops - one platoon of mounted recon (or light armored recon) or two platoons of dismounted recon Armor - either two tanks (1st class: M1, Leo, or Challenger) or one platoon of second class tanks (anything Syrian, Leo 1 (Canada) Infantry - either one company (mounted) or two companies dismounted troops Artillery - whatever comes with our purchased units, plus:  one battery of medium howitzers (one from each nation) UNCONs - will let George select and deploy for us No air We then sent our purchases to @George MC who provided a gorgeous map for us to fight on, and he set us up.. George also selected and setup the UNCON force for us and deployed them.. neither of us knew the force composition or the locations of our irregulars.  George identified key objectives for us also and really this game could not have happened without him.  So, THANKS GEORGE!!!
I will get into the details of my force pick and what I suspect Baneman is bringing to the party in a later post... should be interesting, this is a Meeting Engagement with the following forces arrayed against each other:
BANEMAN - UK and German - UNCONs including some Technical (gun truck) support) ME - US and Syrian - UNCONs including some Technical (gun truck) support) The next post will have some pictures.    I will show some map highlights and include a topo map that I am using to track the action in this battle. 
I will run through my METT-T analysis as quickly as I can in order to get to the action... the first of those posts will probably go up tonight.
Bil

Here it is folks.. the time has arrived for the CMSF2 BETA AAR.  I will be adding to this thread later today,, but wanted to get the thread started. 
My opponent?  My nemesis from the CMFB  BETA AAR, Baneman ,agreed to a rematch.  I really do owe him a more thoughtful game than I gave him the last time.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with that game, Baneman beat me rather soundly.  Hope that doesn't happen again!   
This game is well under way, we have completed 16 minutes of action, so there are a lot of turns to come in relatively quick succession and the Blood Board™ is filling rather alarmingly.  
For those of you who were following my "Lesson in Defense" AAR in the CMBN forum.. sorry about not updating that thread for a while, but I can really only do one of these at a time, and this one takes priority.,  Once I started this game it took up my full attention.
More anon.  Bil
 
LINKED CONTENT MENU:
OVERVIEW & SCENARIO PARAMETERS MAP ORIENTATION SCENARIO BRIEFING METT-T - MISSION METT-T - ENEMY METT-T - TERRAIN METT-T TROOPS METT-T TIME INITIAL SETUP, ORDERS, & INTENT MINUTE 1 MINUTE 2 MINUTE 3 MINUTE 4 MINUTE 5 MINUTE 6 MINUTE 7 MINUTE 8 and 9 MINUTE 10 MINUTE 11 MINUTE 12 MINUTE 13 MINUTE 14 MINUTE 15 MINUTE 16 TACTICS & BATTLE PLAN DISCUSSION MINUTE 17 MINUTE 18  

This may actually be the least rational thing I've ever read on this board.
Yeah, I just checked the Steam pages for Gary Grigsby's War in the East and CMANO and neither are FPS games yet.

If you want cool, look no further. But, BFC ain't gonna make a game about these cats.

+1
"First of all because the vast bulk of the Steam customer base hates games like ours, which means the bulk of what Steam has to offer us (tons of customers) has zero practical value to us." - Steve
I'm not a hardcore Steam fan, and I don't really care if they go on Steam or not. But I thought I'd take a look at the numbers.
Steve might be right that the vast bulk of Steam users hate Combat Mission, who knows? But even then, Steam now has 18,5 million users.
If just one in a hundred of those users has the intelligence and interest in realistic WW2 games required to be a match for Combat Mission, that's 185,000 potential customers. If just half of those actually purchase one game, that's 92,500 customers times 60 dollars = $5,550,000 (before Steam cut).
I don't know if that amount of money would be peanuts for a game development company the size of BattleFront.
And of course, I'm not saying Steve can't use a pocket calculator. He obviously has his reasons for doing what he does. I'd just like to challenge the "zero practical value" part of the argument.

@BrotherSurplice made me aware of this interview Steve gave to Rock Paper Shotgun a few days ago. Gave it a read and enjoyed it. Always fun to see what Steve says to other people instead of us forum-goers. There is also a bit of a tease about CMSF2 pre-orders coming "very soon" in the interview.
Note: Scroll down past the ship games for the interview
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/06/08/the-flare-path-this-and-that/

Such a game would require a completely new engine, even a completely new kind of engine. I mean, talk about switching horses in midstream! Geesh!
Now, between you and me, I would love a naval game done to BFC's high standards, but BFC is up to their elbows just trying to complete the game families before we are all too old to remember what wargames are and why we cared about them.
Michael

Not very.

Actually, in academia the definition of terrorism is fairly well defined; it refers to violence committed by non-military actors against non-military and/or civilian targets, with the direct victims not usually the ultimate target. So Commandos and Resistance/Partisans attacking military targets are emphatically not terrorists. Quelle surprise, Hitler was wrong.
 
A helpful source is attached.
The Revised Academic Consensus Definition of Terrorism.pdf

I have already asked for a demonstration of Olek's tips 'in the wild' as it were and for my trouble have received nought but evasion and, to be frank, barely coherent gibberish that can be summed up as "my tactics are beyond criticism, how dare you ask me to put my money where my mouth is." But very well, I'll bite. I think that the use of 203mm heavy artillery not to suppress, mask or destroy the enemy, the raison d'etre of any artillery piece, but to make foxholes for the purpose of advancing over open terrain in the face of the enemy, is, to put it mildly, a gross misapplication of a rare and expensive asset. Let us consider the picture he presented back there: a mechanised infantry attack is made, but instead of using the cover available, the commander intends to make his attack across open ground. Now, if the artillery had been used to suppress the enemy, as any sane commander would have used it for, this type of attack might not be a bad idea. However, the artillery is instead used to make foxholes in the open ground in front of the enemy. The attack goes in and the battlegroup is flayed alive by the very much alive and unsuppressed enemy. The foxholes so thoughtfully provided by the artillery are a cold comfort surviving infantry, as whatever had the power to wipe out an advance by IFVs or APCs is presumably well able to eviscerate a force of decimated and demoralised dismounts. The infantry is now pinned in the field, unable to either advance or retreat. Now, if the enemy hadn't been present, or if they had been weak enough to be overcome by the mechanised attack alone, then congrats, you've just used a very rare and expensive asset for absolutely no gain whatsoever.
Is that a detailed enough analysis for you?

How long are we going to keep this going?
Fact: The Bundeswehr does not have enough money to maintain its equipment.
Fact: The Bundeswehr can't do its job, because it can't maintain the equipment it needs to do that.
Conclusion: the Bundeswehr needs more money so it can do its job.
I've provided the evidence, both the raw data and literal admissions from the German government that the Bundeswehr is not capable of doing its job, to prove my claims.
You've yet to provide any at all for the claim that I'm wrong in any capacity, only "no u" denials and odd rambling about how we can't just trust the data because... something something muh unreliable statistics.
I must admit I look eagerly forward to whatever sources you have to back your claims up. I do however expect you're going to keep up this dancing around and refusing to provide anything to back up your claims though, so until you shape up, I think we're done here.

NATO has guidelines regarding defence expenditures commitment, the guideline is 2 percent. How much of their money are they putting where their mouth is? US has a much higher GDP. For some reason, it spends 3.58 percent on military expenditures (and has their largest land deployment in Germany).  The Germans have the economy to support a larger army, yet they don't. Is it possible that it has to do with foreign commitment to the defense of their borders?
Let's forget about GDP, for a moment. Let us consider the total expenditures. Defence Expenditure, in millions of US dollars: France: 44,333, Germany: 42,875, UK: 54,863, US: 683,414, Canada: 20,315. It is important to note that Germany has the highest population in the EU (List of European Countries by Population , all of that data is from Government cites). Table 5 has Defence expenditure per capita (2010 US dollars): Germany: 569, France: 761, UK: 897, Canada: 665, US: 1,887. Table 5 also has total Military personnel (thousands): Germany: 179, France: 209, UK: 161, Canada: 73, United States: 1,308. 
What does this mean? Despite its potentially dangerous strategic location, Germany spends less to defend a larger population. It relies on its allies for protection more than similarly populated countries. I am sure that they have shiny equipment. Considering the previously mentioned statistic regarding equipment expenditures, I would question the readiness and logistics behind that equipment. A decent parade army that was never intended to defend their borders sufficiently (that is what the rest of NATO is for). 
For the record, I welcome questioning of the context of these statistics. I do not have any political goal in this debate. I am simply drawing conclusions from observations.

The Bundeswehr doesn't have enough money to maintain the equipment it needs to do its job, ergo it's not getting the funding it needs to do its job. Its budget is too small.

This surely cannot be that difficult to grasp?

http://www.dw.com/en/germanys-lack-of-military-readiness-dramatic-says-bundeswehr-commissioner/a-42663215
https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article144983577/Muessen-uns-fragen-ob-wir-im-Ernstfall-abwehrfaehig-sind.html
http://www.dw.com/en/german-military-short-on-tanks-for-nato-mission/a-42603112
http://www.dw.com/en/1-in-10-german-military-pilots-lost-helicopter-licenses-for-lack-of-flight-time/a-43646369

The statistics agree. So do the various anecdotal stories leaking from the Bundeswehr about the systemic issues plaguing them. Even the German government itself admits there's huge problems: indeed, they have been wringing their hands over the fact that the Bundeswehr is a trainwreck for years.
In other words, all the evidence is broadly in agreement: the Bundeswehr is a mess that can't afford to keep its own equipment functional, and it can't train its people properly because it doesn't have enough functional equipment.
What evidence do you have to offer to counter this?

Yeah I thought from just a number standpoint that saying 1point whatever only mattered in context. If you and I each kick in 50% to pay for a meal together and you make a million dollars a minute and I make $50 dollars a week I am gonna be kind of put off.  But if you kick in 50% of your income and I kick in 50% of mine I’ll feel pretty damn good.  Ratios matter. 
That being said Ukraine’s army would likely kick the bundeswehr’s ass right now. 

And you need to look at the posts and evidence that keep getting posted instead of glancing over them and ignoring them.  It would also help if you bothered to post any info or evidence outside of saying other people are wrong.

How many troops does the US have deployed in Germany?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_deployments
That's 35k total troops, 20k of them being land Army. Which is the biggest external deployment of the U.S. Army, more U.S. Army personnel than in all of Asia. I am guessing the U.S. would deploy even more troops, should something occur. 
I think the Bundswehr, from its conception, always relies on foreign troops, in case of fire. 
No more Wikipedia, let's get some real data. Here's Defence Expenditure of NATO Countries (2010-2017):
https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2017_06/20170629_170629-pr2017-111-en.pdf
Fancy that! In 2017, Germany spent 1.22 percent of its GDP on military. Estonia spent 2.14, Latvia spent 1.7 and Lithuania spent 1.77 percent. Canada spent 1.31. That's right. Canada. We only share our borders with the U.S.
If you're curious what the broomsticks are doing there. Well... check out Graph 4. Their equipment expenditures, relative to their total military expenditure, is 14.8%. Which is below the guideline of 20% and less than many smaller countries in Europe.
Bundswehr's a parade army. They're quite insignificant in comparison to the U.S. and U.K.'s commitment to regional security. I don't know why anyone is surprised.

In NATO circles, Germany is especially noted for being in poor shape.  If I had to summarize:

1. The German Government's lack of will to do anything military means that if Germans show up to a NATO deployment, it's going to be either very small, a support element, or it's going to have ROE that involves not being within the line of fire.

2. Germany's military equipment readiness is notably poor.
3. Culturally the German military is not a good spot, it has a problem attracting talent, and also attracting the sorts of Germans we might find objectionable from time to time.

Basically if there's a nadir to NATO's large partners, it's present in the Germans.

There's some question to if this is changing however.   The Russian threat has caused some reversals in course and provided a realistic reason for the German military to have a conventional mission.  There's a lot of institutional inertia, and the German Government's official policy is just short of openly being "American blood for German soil" in the event of external threats (to be fair, this is partly something America signed up to with the Truman doctrine, and there's a number of other nation's conventional warplans that are literally "our military exists long enough to hold on for the Americans to show up, and then to support them once they've shown up").

With that said, we're missing the forest for the trees in a lot of ways.  We have a bit of a bias for conventional force on force given the game we play/tanks and bombs are likely more our area of interest.

In talking about the value of NATO it's to impose sufficient cost or risk to an aggressor's actions as to make hostile action against NATO states unfeasible.  The Russians would really like to have the Baltic states back because for a variety of reasons they do not recognize the people's of those countries as having a right to their own independence (as history shows on a few tragic occasions).  NATO's mission in the Baltic countries could be best described as:

1. Prevent a "green man" invasion.  Continued NATO presence, and the fact the Baltic states now know what "Russian Aid Convoys" are, and awareness of Russian info warfare tactics means there'd be no practical deniability to using "green men."   I mean, it was blatantly, stupidly obvious the first time,  but there's no longer the ambiguous legal nature to it,  it's simply an unprovoked Russian invasion in need of proper military response. 

2. Prevent conventional Russian invasion.  In this regard it may not be possible to hold the Baltic states on a short notice (or sufficient time to deploy significant NATO ground forces to the region).  However, by demonstrating NATO commitment to the Baltic states, that forces will be deployed, all demonstrate that while taking Estonia might happen, it might be at an unacceptable cost going in, and holding it might be beyond Russian resolve, resources, or capabilities.

3. Given sufficient warning, defeat Russian forces in open battle without loss of terrain.  This would require some advanced notice, but once you start talking about US ABCTs, MEBS, and other BCTs, French, UK, Polish and other major forces, rounded out with the lower tier NATO forces, you're not going to get into the Baltic states without resorting to CBRN type assets, and that imposes a cost well beyond what anyone is willing to pay.  

None of these hinge on German readiness.  It'd be nice if they lived up to their commitments considering how many thousands of NATO soldiers put their lives on the line to protect West Germany 1945 (I know, pre-NATO, but same players)-1990 though.

Uh...k. I speak from experience; this isn't any of us being a bot. At the risk of sounding like my old RSM, the enforcement of basic stuff like that imparts the kind of skills and habits that are desirable. It's emblematic of the whole.
It always amazes me the wee little hills members of this forum choose to die on, and this one was by far the strangest and smallest of them all yet. 
If following evidence (yes, even anecdotal evidence) is "close-minded" to you, I'm not sure I want to be your version of open minded. 

If I have to explain the irony of this statement to you - one of NATO's ostensibly senior partners can deploy a well trained company;  I really have nothing left to say.

How can they be well-trained when the Bundeswehr quite literally can't even afford to keep its vehicles functional or its guns shooting?
 
A few years ago, one of the Germans' highest readiness units literally showed up to a massive joint international training exercise with broomsticks painted black strapped to their vehicles because they didn't have enough machine guns that worked.
This is the culmination of German training. Going "bang bang" with broomsticks at a massive pan-European defense exercise because they can't afford real guns.
Now, to be honest, going "bang bang" is fine in something like in-unit exercises, even the Americans probably do it to save money. But while the Americans then go to train for real at the NTC with main battle tanks and IFVs and helicopters and fighter jets... the Germans still train with broomsticks at international NATO exercises. Because they can't afford to do better.

Because the American battalion is backed by the DOD, which keeps enough money around that when necessary, the Americans can get the spare parts and ammunition and fuel to get all their equipment in action and ready to go. Which is how the National Guard can go from "we drive half our tanks" to "YEE-HAW BOYS LET'S GO" in so many months.
The Germans can't even do that with their highest-readiness units. They ran out of money in the spare parts budget, and had to strip the rest of the army for spare parts to rush to PzGrenBtl 371 (the German contribution to NATO's VHRJTF) for NATO exercises a few years back. They still couldn't manage to get the battalion to its paper strength.
180,000 personnel and a budget of 40 billion euros a year, and they can't even manage to field one battalion at full strength despite borrowing equipment from the entire rest of the army. Like @Rinaldi said, the Bundeswehr is an utter mess. Even the SPD acknowledges it, and they're the people who complain about "NATO saber rattling" and see the BW's budget as a piggy bank to be hacked away.

God help us all if those "experienced combat soldiers" ever have to deal with an actual Russian force, Russia will be at the Rhine in 72 hours. 
As @Rinaldi has said, most NATO forces are in pitiful states, but Germany is singled out for being in an especially poor state. I'm pretty sure the spinning corpses of Frederick and Blucher could power all of Europe if they were to see the state of today's German "army."

No, its sign of sloppy discipline and lax grooming standards. There are no 'experienced combat soldiers' in the Bundeswehr; just some geared-up fellows from one of the quietest areas of Afghanistan. 
The Bundeswehr is a mess, and has been for a long time. On the one hand its a good sign of a healthy pacifist movement in Germany, on the other hand its a worrying sign about funding problems (beyond the usual) for the military and for piss-poor retention rates for enlisted men. They are dealing with less of what they should be dealing with materially and in terms of manpower; and they aren't getting the pick of the litter. 

I want to echo the criticism made by @sburke, to a certain extent you have to overlook certain issue for the sake of gameplay. In reality, any large Syrian contingent would be bombed into nothingness long before it reached NATO forces, but it wouldn't be fun to play Shock Force if every scenario consisted of COIN or mopping up scattered, demoralized forces; scenarios like Bier und Brezel wouldn't be realistic.
The same could be said with other CM games. For example in Black Sea, most major Russian formations would be wiped out by NATO's massive qualitative and quantitative air/firepower advantage. But, then we wouldn't get fun scenarios like First Clash and Valley of Death, where the 1st Cavalry fights off large scale Russian formations; who in reality would be burning hulks by the time 1st Cav got anywhere close to them.

Everybody take a shot....