Bufo

Your unit would turn to face that direction making the center of the arc the new front facing.
Think about this: micromanaging arcs to improve spotting would create a game within the game that the AI cannot play at all.  Every one of you (except Sgt. Squarehead; he’s special) that believes arcs improve spotting is using your god knowledge of enemy unit locations to place narrow arcs on the locations of enemy units that you have knowledge of, but that the unit does not (if it had C2 knowledge it would receive a ? spot that would itself increase chances of spotting).  That is certainly a game to be played if it worked that way, but it is in no way realistic in overall outcome.

Yeah just as I thought so, the first to bring up SB as evidence would be also the first to dismiss it if it suited him.

Personally the US feels how it should. But the t64's legit cant see anything in front of them. Ive had M60 (A1?) on grishof spot vehicles deep in forests but my tanks are unable to spot HUGE m60s in the open. I would love to send people my save file. My entire match has been ****ed. 
Ive had better performance from t34/85. 
 
My post on the fgm with a few screenshots.. That was just 1/3 of the very odd spotting. 
 
https://thefewgoodmen.com/thefgmforum/threads/potential-issue-with-cmcw.33112/page-2

I am playing Grieshof Meet and Greet right now, I even posted on a different forum on just how bad the T64 spotting is. They cant see targets within 3-700m of them. But they can recieve fire. its so time consuming to document this so I am probably going to whip out my phone to record some video. 

Its not fundamentally broken but the examples do show that there are certain situations where the CM simulation doesnt match up to what you would expect.

I was talking in general. 

There is no need to make it personal. 
Can we look at the "RL data" that was used to make spotting system in CMCW the way that it is now? The thing is we don't know how spotting actually works in CMCW (beyond some vaguely phrased description). Nor we have any kind of real life data to support that your understanding is accurate. 
Well, @Haplessdid Youtube video recently using Steel Beasts to show how hard is to spot things from AFV. This video was highly acclaimed and received good reviews, it was even used to show me that I don't understand how tank spotting works. But apparently now it is wrong to compare CM and Steel Beasts.
But Steel Beasts and CM do have something in common. Both of them claim to be not just games, but simulators, e.g. they portray reality as close as they can. As you rightly said they both are used in military training. I don't compare Tetris to Diablo 2. I compare two AFV and ground troops tactics simulator. They both have common reference point - reality. 
What you are saying, I'm afraid, shows that you absolutely have no idea how Steel Beasts works. Vehicles in SB also have AI and spotting mechanics. As I said, 2 games have a lot in common, with Steel Beasts having tactical and personal - simulating crew members - layer that is lacking in CM.
The issue here is quite obvious. 
Both mission are created with ideal conditions - flat earth, daylight, the target is directly ahead. 
In Steel Beasts tank behaves very natural. It is pointed in the direction of the target from the very start, so it takes crew only 2 second to see tank in the clear daylight in front of them. Basically, it's the only thing that is there, nothing attracts their attention except of it. 
What happens in CMCW is absolutely counterintuitive and unexplainable. The tank also pointed in the direction of the target, it's flat earth, no obstacles, no smoke, nothing distracts the crew... But minute after minute goes by and nothing is happening. Why? How can you explain it? Are they sleeping? Are they arguing with each other? Why don't they look at their optics and see the first thing that is right in front of them - the enemy tank. 
I would like to hear your explanation of this particular situation. 

I guess it's much more simple than that.
It stems from the game design philosophy, e.g. how they percieve the world they create. The underlying proposition is that Russian AFV are inferior comparing to the Western. 
In game they have some sort if index or indexes that determines spotting abilities. 
They conceptually decided that - let's say - Russian AFV's spotting should be 40% of US. For example, Abrams has 100 spotting points and t90 - 40 points.
You may say that it's more complicated, that CM simulates different systems and subststems, which may be is true, but the baseline is that everything has some sort of quantative measurement.
In the end it leads to some buggy consequences, like Russian tanks are blind beyond 2 km range in CMCW. 

It doesn't require any additional evidence to understand that optics of Soviet tanks in late Cold war period could easily detect targets at 2 km distance during daylight under perfect weather conditions. 
In fact everybody can spot tank at 2 km in the open field using cheapest binoculars, not to mention tank optics that costs dozens or hundreds thousands in USD.
 
 

Steel Beasts is a tank simulator that is used in several countries to train military personnel. 
Combat Mission Cold War and Steal Beasts have a lot of things in common, so it would be interesting to compare how two games simulate combat. 
In order to do that and to make as precise experiment as possible I put t72A (m1) tank that is featured in both games against M60 TTS tank that is also present in both of them. 
To keep experiment clean I used default "flat map" and the same weather and time conditions - clean weather, the time is June the 1st, 12:00. 
In CMCW I had to use additional "formation" units of observers, but I put them behind tall walls, so they didn't interfere in the process. In CMCW skill level of both of the tanks was put on "regular". Steel Beasts doesn't have skill level feature. 
Under created conditions t-72A looks directly at M60's side. It is oriented from South to North, M60 - from West to East. The distance between them is 2 km. The conditions are the same in Steel Beasts and Combat Mission Cold War. 
That how it looks like in Steel Beasts: 

How it looks like in CMCW:

What T72 gunner sees from his position from the very start:

As you can easily notice, M60 is immediately and perfectly visible from gunners sight.
The same with T72's Commander's sight:

The results:
In Steel Beasts t72's AI spotted M60 almost immediately, which is not surprising, taking into account that it has perfect view on the target. It took t72 about 2 seconds to spot the opponent and about 18 sec to hit and destroy it. 
In CMCW something opposite happened. I ran several tests and t72 couldn't spot m60 once.  Its optics was not enough to spot the tanks directly ahead of it at the distance of 2 km during clean daylight.
In fact, every time M60 spotted t72 first and killed it. It took about 2-3 rounds and from 1,5 min to 5 min to kill t72.  t72 didn't see the opponent despite m60 was firing at him. 
How it ends in Steel Beasts:

How it ends in CMCW:

The CMCW test scenario is attached.
You can make your own conclusions. 
 
 
T72VISION TEST.btt

I doubt it as well and don't mean that there is some kind of consipiracy.
What I'm saying is that game model needs improvement and could be improved.
 

FRAPS is outdated and unmaintained and shouldn't be used anymore. The best option is to use the bundled software that come with your GPU drivers either from Nvidia or AMD depending on your card. Either this or the feature to record thats built into windows 10.
No need to use 3rd party apps anymore anyway.
 
Also imgur is a bad choice, https://imgbb.com/, https://imageshack.com/, https://imgshare.io/ are all much better.

The Swedish trials was 1: For our Armored Brigades M1A2, Leclerc, and Leopard 2 Improved
                               And 2: For our Mechanized Brigades Used M1A1, Used Leopard 2A4, and new T-80U With Thermals 
The T-80U Was only compared to M1A1, and Leopard 2A4. Which both sported lower grade thermals, than their latest versions. Unfortunatly before the firingtests could Begin. The goverment had decided to buy Leo 2i, and used Leo 2A4. And the T-80U had to be returned to Russia immediately.

You mean that it's one of those things in the game that is visualized, rendered, you can see it, but in fact it's not really there so you should not count it. 
Contrary to those many things that are not visualized, not rendred and players can't see, but in fact they exist and should be taken into consideration. 

That affects the local user, not other users. If you imply that it could be an issue for multiplayer games, where one person gives themselves an advantage by modifying local files, that's been a solved problem in games for decades now. 

I suppose that Russian AFV's visibility in game has always been the issue of game design\political bias, it doesn't depend on any facts. 

There are  2 main reasons. 
1) It's the "feature" of game engine that usually calculates armor and personnel vision in  a very strange and quite random way, not only in Cold War, but also in other titles as well.
2) In Combat Mission "world" all Soviet\Russian regarded as inferior to Western\American, especially in terms of vision. In many respects it's true to the facts (as far as I know), taking into consideration thermals, optics etc. But what CM games  do is taking this technological gap to absurd levels, making "Red team" almost absolutely blind. It feels very unnatural and counterintuitive when several of your tanks can't spot enemy tank directly ahead of you at the distance of  200 meters. 
Many times I witnessed how Vulcan's Gatling gun sends  the river of red bullets to my AFV, but my tanks\BMP don't see it, despite they are several dozens meters away and not under fire themselves. "Buddy to my right is under uninterrupted rain of hot red bullets from the Vulcan that is 300 meters in front of us... well I don't see anything because... well you know, Soviet optics is bad".
In this regard famous Swedish tank tender of 1993 is very instructing. Swedish Ministry of Defense organized the competition between different tanks, including shooting, terrain and visibility trials. Russian T-80 took part in competition alongside with Leopard and Abrams. In the end it was reported that T-80 spotting was equal to the Western tanks on the distances below 2500 meters in the daylight and 1000 meters in the night (although on the distances above Western tanks had an advantage).
 
 

Syrian mechanized unit attacks supported by tanks.

So if a series of bugfixes have been ready to release for a few months now, why haven't they been? Is there a cost to releasing a patch?

@The_Capt Ngl I'm kind of annoyed that bugfixes which were completed months ago haven't been made available to customers.
@BFCElvis not long ago you said PBEM++ was the only thing being worked on for the next patch.

Ah its a Russian campaign, so beta testers weren't interested.

Oh, now it's my mistake.
I would like to remind you that I posted the information on Mission 3 issues on June 15. 
It made you acknowledge that the mission 3 is bugged. Unfortunately, nothing followed:
As for screenshots, well, I made a bunch of them:
 I understand and I beg your pardon that this is not as enlightening, precise and constructive as:
 
 
I need to learn a lesson.
P.S. Sorry for CAPS-LOCK. 
 

Ah its a Russian campaign, so beta testers weren't interested.

I hate to be the person who says, but
 

THE THIRD MISSION IS BROKEN. 
It can't be won, it REQUIRES PATCHING AND COMPLETE REWORK.
I started March or Die version as well (accidentally), and had to replay normal version of campaign, because it is simply can not be won.
The funny thing is that after billion reloads and painful struggle I managed to drive some of my forces to the extraction zone. They left the bettlfield, but the mission ended with defeat. 
In normal version of campaign it could be skipped.