pintere

The mini-campaign Alarmeinheiten has been posted at the FGM Scenario Depot III.  Link below.
 https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/tsd3/cm-red-thunder/cm-red-thunder-campaigns/cmrt-mini-campaign-alarmeinheiten/
From the Scenario Depot description:
It is late World War Two on the Eastern front.  You command a German alarm unit (alarmeinheiten) and are tasked to counter and destroy multiple Soviet breakthroughs in order to hold the front line.  Your alarm unit will maneuver in multiple battles on a 13.5 square kilometer map while protecting rear area logistics from partisans.  Decide if you want to command units of mostly common German vehicles or a more exotic mix of German vehicles to include some limited, rare and unique vehicles.  Make decisions on how you will employ your limited resources to hold the line.  Will you call up a weakened reserve unit or maybe an SS unit specializing in anti-partisan operations?   Should you rely on vehicles from the battalion repair shop?  The battalion aid station contains weakened, unfit, low morale troops.  Maybe these troops could form a blocking force while the alarm unit struck the flank of the latest breakthrough?  There are a handful of Luftwaffe security troops at the airfield that you might use somewhere.   These are all your decisions to make Commander.    As you look up from the map board and radios in your command track the sound of combat comes from the east. Which of the four avenues of approach is it this time………? Good luck!

Alternate history is always a really tricky subject, for as long as one changes enough variables one can ALWAYS imagine a way one outcome or another could've been achieved. Could Barbarossa have been won? Yes, absolutely, provided enough variables are changed. However since most of us are probably far more interested in what could realistically have happened, I'll give my thoughts as to how German could have "won" Barbarossa while changing as few variables from history as possible. These are based off my own research as well as an extended campaign in Gary Grigsby's War in the East where victory was indeed achieved.
1.) How do you achieve victory in war? Two ways. You either break your opponents' will to fight, or you destroy their means with which to prosecute war. Germany lost WWII because of the latter reason, whilst Russia lost WWI because of the former. 
For all the damage the purges did to the Soviet military, it seems clear that they did help in that Stalin and his cronies had a very firm grip on their country, and given the German war aims it is unlikely that either the Soviet leadership or the Soviet people would lose their will to fight first. Thus, victory could only be achieved by destroying the means.
2.) In the case of the Soviet Union that is rather hard to do! It is a big country with a much larger population than Germany, and it is arguably the case that no single area in the Soviet Union was invaluable to their war effort. With all this in mind, for Germany to win they would need to appreciate these twin-fold difficulties in triggering any Soviet surrender. The challenge then is to formulate an operational strategy for removing the Soviet means to fight. I believe that for this two happen they would need to try to achieve two core operational aims:
a) Reach the historical AA line (or close to it).
b) Deplete the Soviet population and manpower reserves to the point where they cannot hope to reconquer their lost territories. Lend-lease could make up for a great deal of supply difficulties, but lend-lease cannot replace men! It is also stated in numerous places that Soviet manpower reserves were not inexhaustible, and that they too were taking extraordinary measures in this regard at a relatively early stage. The reason they did not ultimately bleed themselves dry historically is because they were eventually able to lower the casualty exchange ratio to a point in their favour whilst simultaneously regaining new manpower reserves from their reconquered territories (partisans, Poles, Romanians, etc.).
3.) So, from the start, Germany needs to be ready for a 2-4 year campaign. Industrial production would need to be adjusted for this expectation (and this was totally within the means of 1941 Germany to do), and operational aims would need to adjust to it as well. As far as Barbarossa is concerned, I believe just two things need to change for the first year to be considered a success:
a) Take Leningrad (or at least guarantee its fall in early 1942). This firmly secures the north flank, helps alleviate supply difficulties in the north and definitively removes the Soviet Baltic fleet as a threat. I explore what is probably the most feasible way to do this in the following AHF thread. https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=255587
b) As soon as the first stage of Typhoon is completed and the Vyazma-Briansk pockets eliminated, stop. It's my understanding that the German high command debated the relative merits of digging in in late 1941 or trying to take Moscow before year's end, so there's no reason to believe that this option may have ended up being the one taken if more thought was given to the necessity of being in a good defensive position for the winter. If they had dug in at the start of November 1941 instead of later then they would've been in a far better position to deal with the Soviet winter counteroffensive and therefore sustain far fewer losses in men and materiel during the first winter. They thus would hold a line along the rough axis Lake Ladoga-Demyansk-Vyazma-Kharkov-Mius. 
4.) This also sets them up well for 1942. In 1942, the goal should be to feign a threat towards Moscow (something the Soviets tried very hard to preempt historically) whilst achieving everything Blau did historically, with two exceptions:
a) Don't bleed the 6. Armee dry in Stalingrad!
b) Make sure that the extended flanks of Army Group South are well defended. This could probably have been achieved historically if enough equipment was shipped to the Axis allies and enough armour reserves were available to counter Soviet armoured breakthroughs. Again, this seems wholly within the realm of possibility. 
5.) Now it's the spring of 1943. The Germans have suffered no catastrophic defeats, whilst the Soviets have suffered huge losses in territory and manpower through both German victories as well as failed attempts to achieve offensive success of their own (similar to how they did at Rzhev and Yelnya historically). Now the Germans can launch an attack to seize Astrakhan and Makhachkala (on the Caspian Sea) and thereby cut off the rest of the Soviet Union from Baku. It may also well be possible to launch an attack that will finally capture Moscow this year also. 
6.) At that point it's simply a matter of continuing to attrite the Soviets until the Soviet leadership is forced to concede the loss of most of the western Soviet Union. I imagine this would happen no later than the end of 1944, for if the Germans still have a capable land force then they have the ability to both launch opportune encirclements of Soviet forces in either offense or defense. 
This, I think, is the most realistic pathway for Germany to achieve victory in the East as they had originally intended. Fortunately for the rest of us, such a thing never came to pass!

Alternate history is always a really tricky subject, for as long as one changes enough variables one can ALWAYS imagine a way one outcome or another could've been achieved. Could Barbarossa have been won? Yes, absolutely, provided enough variables are changed. However since most of us are probably far more interested in what could realistically have happened, I'll give my thoughts as to how German could have "won" Barbarossa while changing as few variables from history as possible. These are based off my own research as well as an extended campaign in Gary Grigsby's War in the East where victory was indeed achieved.
1.) How do you achieve victory in war? Two ways. You either break your opponents' will to fight, or you destroy their means with which to prosecute war. Germany lost WWII because of the latter reason, whilst Russia lost WWI because of the former. 
For all the damage the purges did to the Soviet military, it seems clear that they did help in that Stalin and his cronies had a very firm grip on their country, and given the German war aims it is unlikely that either the Soviet leadership or the Soviet people would lose their will to fight first. Thus, victory could only be achieved by destroying the means.
2.) In the case of the Soviet Union that is rather hard to do! It is a big country with a much larger population than Germany, and it is arguably the case that no single area in the Soviet Union was invaluable to their war effort. With all this in mind, for Germany to win they would need to appreciate these twin-fold difficulties in triggering any Soviet surrender. The challenge then is to formulate an operational strategy for removing the Soviet means to fight. I believe that for this two happen they would need to try to achieve two core operational aims:
a) Reach the historical AA line (or close to it).
b) Deplete the Soviet population and manpower reserves to the point where they cannot hope to reconquer their lost territories. Lend-lease could make up for a great deal of supply difficulties, but lend-lease cannot replace men! It is also stated in numerous places that Soviet manpower reserves were not inexhaustible, and that they too were taking extraordinary measures in this regard at a relatively early stage. The reason they did not ultimately bleed themselves dry historically is because they were eventually able to lower the casualty exchange ratio to a point in their favour whilst simultaneously regaining new manpower reserves from their reconquered territories (partisans, Poles, Romanians, etc.).
3.) So, from the start, Germany needs to be ready for a 2-4 year campaign. Industrial production would need to be adjusted for this expectation (and this was totally within the means of 1941 Germany to do), and operational aims would need to adjust to it as well. As far as Barbarossa is concerned, I believe just two things need to change for the first year to be considered a success:
a) Take Leningrad (or at least guarantee its fall in early 1942). This firmly secures the north flank, helps alleviate supply difficulties in the north and definitively removes the Soviet Baltic fleet as a threat. I explore what is probably the most feasible way to do this in the following AHF thread. https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=255587
b) As soon as the first stage of Typhoon is completed and the Vyazma-Briansk pockets eliminated, stop. It's my understanding that the German high command debated the relative merits of digging in in late 1941 or trying to take Moscow before year's end, so there's no reason to believe that this option may have ended up being the one taken if more thought was given to the necessity of being in a good defensive position for the winter. If they had dug in at the start of November 1941 instead of later then they would've been in a far better position to deal with the Soviet winter counteroffensive and therefore sustain far fewer losses in men and materiel during the first winter. They thus would hold a line along the rough axis Lake Ladoga-Demyansk-Vyazma-Kharkov-Mius. 
4.) This also sets them up well for 1942. In 1942, the goal should be to feign a threat towards Moscow (something the Soviets tried very hard to preempt historically) whilst achieving everything Blau did historically, with two exceptions:
a) Don't bleed the 6. Armee dry in Stalingrad!
b) Make sure that the extended flanks of Army Group South are well defended. This could probably have been achieved historically if enough equipment was shipped to the Axis allies and enough armour reserves were available to counter Soviet armoured breakthroughs. Again, this seems wholly within the realm of possibility. 
5.) Now it's the spring of 1943. The Germans have suffered no catastrophic defeats, whilst the Soviets have suffered huge losses in territory and manpower through both German victories as well as failed attempts to achieve offensive success of their own (similar to how they did at Rzhev and Yelnya historically). Now the Germans can launch an attack to seize Astrakhan and Makhachkala (on the Caspian Sea) and thereby cut off the rest of the Soviet Union from Baku. It may also well be possible to launch an attack that will finally capture Moscow this year also. 
6.) At that point it's simply a matter of continuing to attrite the Soviets until the Soviet leadership is forced to concede the loss of most of the western Soviet Union. I imagine this would happen no later than the end of 1944, for if the Germans still have a capable land force then they have the ability to both launch opportune encirclements of Soviet forces in either offense or defense. 
This, I think, is the most realistic pathway for Germany to achieve victory in the East as they had originally intended. Fortunately for the rest of us, such a thing never came to pass!

Alternate history is always a really tricky subject, for as long as one changes enough variables one can ALWAYS imagine a way one outcome or another could've been achieved. Could Barbarossa have been won? Yes, absolutely, provided enough variables are changed. However since most of us are probably far more interested in what could realistically have happened, I'll give my thoughts as to how German could have "won" Barbarossa while changing as few variables from history as possible. These are based off my own research as well as an extended campaign in Gary Grigsby's War in the East where victory was indeed achieved.
1.) How do you achieve victory in war? Two ways. You either break your opponents' will to fight, or you destroy their means with which to prosecute war. Germany lost WWII because of the latter reason, whilst Russia lost WWI because of the former. 
For all the damage the purges did to the Soviet military, it seems clear that they did help in that Stalin and his cronies had a very firm grip on their country, and given the German war aims it is unlikely that either the Soviet leadership or the Soviet people would lose their will to fight first. Thus, victory could only be achieved by destroying the means.
2.) In the case of the Soviet Union that is rather hard to do! It is a big country with a much larger population than Germany, and it is arguably the case that no single area in the Soviet Union was invaluable to their war effort. With all this in mind, for Germany to win they would need to appreciate these twin-fold difficulties in triggering any Soviet surrender. The challenge then is to formulate an operational strategy for removing the Soviet means to fight. I believe that for this two happen they would need to try to achieve two core operational aims:
a) Reach the historical AA line (or close to it).
b) Deplete the Soviet population and manpower reserves to the point where they cannot hope to reconquer their lost territories. Lend-lease could make up for a great deal of supply difficulties, but lend-lease cannot replace men! It is also stated in numerous places that Soviet manpower reserves were not inexhaustible, and that they too were taking extraordinary measures in this regard at a relatively early stage. The reason they did not ultimately bleed themselves dry historically is because they were eventually able to lower the casualty exchange ratio to a point in their favour whilst simultaneously regaining new manpower reserves from their reconquered territories (partisans, Poles, Romanians, etc.).
3.) So, from the start, Germany needs to be ready for a 2-4 year campaign. Industrial production would need to be adjusted for this expectation (and this was totally within the means of 1941 Germany to do), and operational aims would need to adjust to it as well. As far as Barbarossa is concerned, I believe just two things need to change for the first year to be considered a success:
a) Take Leningrad (or at least guarantee its fall in early 1942). This firmly secures the north flank, helps alleviate supply difficulties in the north and definitively removes the Soviet Baltic fleet as a threat. I explore what is probably the most feasible way to do this in the following AHF thread. https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=255587
b) As soon as the first stage of Typhoon is completed and the Vyazma-Briansk pockets eliminated, stop. It's my understanding that the German high command debated the relative merits of digging in in late 1941 or trying to take Moscow before year's end, so there's no reason to believe that this option may have ended up being the one taken if more thought was given to the necessity of being in a good defensive position for the winter. If they had dug in at the start of November 1941 instead of later then they would've been in a far better position to deal with the Soviet winter counteroffensive and therefore sustain far fewer losses in men and materiel during the first winter. They thus would hold a line along the rough axis Lake Ladoga-Demyansk-Vyazma-Kharkov-Mius. 
4.) This also sets them up well for 1942. In 1942, the goal should be to feign a threat towards Moscow (something the Soviets tried very hard to preempt historically) whilst achieving everything Blau did historically, with two exceptions:
a) Don't bleed the 6. Armee dry in Stalingrad!
b) Make sure that the extended flanks of Army Group South are well defended. This could probably have been achieved historically if enough equipment was shipped to the Axis allies and enough armour reserves were available to counter Soviet armoured breakthroughs. Again, this seems wholly within the realm of possibility. 
5.) Now it's the spring of 1943. The Germans have suffered no catastrophic defeats, whilst the Soviets have suffered huge losses in territory and manpower through both German victories as well as failed attempts to achieve offensive success of their own (similar to how they did at Rzhev and Yelnya historically). Now the Germans can launch an attack to seize Astrakhan and Makhachkala (on the Caspian Sea) and thereby cut off the rest of the Soviet Union from Baku. It may also well be possible to launch an attack that will finally capture Moscow this year also. 
6.) At that point it's simply a matter of continuing to attrite the Soviets until the Soviet leadership is forced to concede the loss of most of the western Soviet Union. I imagine this would happen no later than the end of 1944, for if the Germans still have a capable land force then they have the ability to both launch opportune encirclements of Soviet forces in either offense or defense. 
This, I think, is the most realistic pathway for Germany to achieve victory in the East as they had originally intended. Fortunately for the rest of us, such a thing never came to pass!

On August 15th I will post a dropbox link here for a small group of scenarios for the CMRT Warsaw Uprising Mod. I have around 6. Thanks to @Vacilllator for playtesting a few of them. I will also have a few mods I made for Warsaw in the same dropbox area.
I think @JM Stuff will post the mod to CMMODS soon...
:-)

To drag this thread closer to the subject of its title, there are no real nuances to avoiding getting whacked by aircraft.  If you have air defence assets then deploy them:
With half-decent fields of view/fire into the sky. In positions to cover the stuff you really really don't want to see get destroyed. Close to stocks of further missiles. In addition to the above, and/or if you don't have air defence assets:
Use smoke to either obscure your really important stuff from the enemy asset calling in the air asset. Get yourself into woods or other terrain that offers you good concealment and, where possible cover as well. Seek out and utterly smash every single C2 and dedicated observation asset the enemy has. Employ rapid manoeuvre. Ultimately though, there is a fair amount of abstraction in the modelling of air/aviation and their engagement by ground assets so you will always be susceptible to the fortunes of war when you hear the sound of freedom above your troops.

I had the most interesting event happen while playing the fourth mission of the "Broken Shields" campaign (Snow Blind). 
Whilst attacking the observation post directly from the east I came under fire in the fields from an M3A1 scout car located just in the courtyard of the castle (the other main objective of the mission). And murderous fire at that! It took out my armoured car as well as 10 of my infantrymen, taking almost every squad under fire as they tried to approach the observation post. It was truly quite incredible. The car spotted and fired on my infantry teams almost every time they moved... this in blizzard conditions at a range of 400-500 metres! For point of reference, this was in a mission where my (regular-crack skill) infantry teams themselves could only see ahead 100-200 metres at most. My men for their part never even spotted, let alone shot at, the scout car. And I couldn't get any of them to get a LOS to where I knew the scout car was, even with reverse slope. 
Essentially, this Soviet scout car gunner either had the all seeing eye + aimbot... or there's a bug where the M3A1 scout cars don't have their spotting capabilities impacted by the weather for some reason. I lean more towards this theory, as the other scout car in the mission also had unholy spotting capabilities compared to my own veteran infantry. 

Four of the scenarios you have listed are mine. I made the recommendation to play as attacker in each of them as attacking was the inspiration for the scenario. There are an equal number of AI plans for both sides and you might find the battle to be more enjoyable playing as the defender. However you decide to play, I hope you have fun.

@pintere - Zitzewitz is mine.
The subject of 'best played as' recommendations caused some debate in the Beta Forum.  I will echo what @ASL Veteran said in his post because we were more or less on the same side of the debate.  In sum it boils down to 'some scenarios in which defeating an AI opponent is relatively easy to do' being subjective.  Some players are better than others, some players are a whizz at employing infantry, some at handling larger formations, some are ninjas with armour, some are excellent playing as Germans, some are excellent at playing Russians ... or whatever.
The Zitzewitz scenario, believe it or not, came about for some fairly unconnected reasons.
I wanted to get a scenario into this title. The scenario I started making for it in about 2016/17 was struggling to get properly tested because it was crashing the various Beta builds. I thought about doing something different and considered doing something revolving around a push into the weapons testing site at Peenemunde. My initial attempts at doing a reasonable representation of Peenemunde were also causing Beta crashes. So I just scrolled around Google Earth a bit to find a piece of ground that vaguely interested me on which I could set a scenario with an end of war feel in which the Red Army was mobile and facing a bunch of thrown together defenders.  As time was pressing, or so I thought when I started the journey, I wanted a decent-sized map that was fairly low-drag to make and Zitzewitz fitted the bill.  A quick bit of research pulled up the 1935 (I think) 1:100,000 map of the area and a bit of noodling around in street view and finding some old postcards gave me enough to make the map (see images).  That research also pulled up the fact that there was a Schloss there in 1945 and the story of Graf Wilhelm von Zitzewitz which gave me a bit of human interest to weave into the scenario narrative which is entirely fictional because there was in fact no battle for Zitzewitz in March 1945, the time frame in which the scenario is set in order to correspond with the dates that it was actually overrun by the Red Army.

 

All very well I hear you say but this isn't answering the question ... well in fact it is answering the question.  The point of the above is to illustrate that I never set out with any particular intent to make a scenario that was easy for one side or the other and it is why I am wary of making the 'best played as' recommendation as a designer.  It comes recommended as best played as Soviets because the Soviet player has more options than the German player; however, it you are a player that is vaguely competent, likes a challenge and loves defending then it quite clearly is best played as German ... see the dilemma about recommendations?  Beyond that I would be going into the realms of spoilers.
Bottom line is that you can always crack the scenario open for whichever side you feel you want to play it as and read the briefing and decide 'meh ... I don't want to play this.'

@pintere and @ landser: Very glad to hear, that you are willing to help with playtesting 👍
I will contact you as soon as FR is released and I start with the AI Plans.
 
 

Strategically and operationally they were definitely better, but tactically? In 1944 the Soviets still managed to lose almost triple the number of German casualties suffered in the same year. Even after taking into account that some of these were inflicted by Axis allies like Romania and Finland, that's not an indication of any tactical parity. All the more considering that the trend still holds true during the Soviets' greatest battlefield victories (in Operation Bagration they still somehow suffered more combat casualties than the Germans, although not in terms of total KIA/MIA). 

Probably a safe bet. I'd even go as far as to say this will probably be the last big expansion of Red Thunder before CMX3. Maybe a battle pack will come out after this, but you'll most likely get your wish in 10-15 years time when they release Combat Mission: Not One Step Back.

Well considering that the period covered probably included more military casualties than any other single conflict for the remainder of the whole 20th century it's nice to see that us players can get an appropriate sense of the scale involved. Kudos to everyone who's worked on it so far! If the TOEs are any indicator the module probably has enough content to satisfy even the most nitpicky of history nerds.

Well considering that the period covered probably included more military casualties than any other single conflict for the remainder of the whole 20th century it's nice to see that us players can get an appropriate sense of the scale involved. Kudos to everyone who's worked on it so far! If the TOEs are any indicator the module probably has enough content to satisfy even the most nitpicky of history nerds.

Ah of course.
Although, bearing in mind that this is not a cold-war era type setting requiring tanks to defeat wave after wave of Soviet tanks, surely one would expect that in practice a British force deployed in Syria would adopt a more logical ammunition ratio?

For me it's the level of detail and complexity. I would be hard pressed to think of any other platoon-battalion level strategy game for the late WWII era that captures the immense variety of vehicles, weapons, formations and battles that CM does. You don't just control Panthers, you don't just control Panther Gs, you control early, mid or late model Panther Gs.
One thing I love about the manuals is the encyclopedic guide to all the weapons and units at the end. I often just read that part of the manual for fun.

For me it's the level of detail and complexity. I would be hard pressed to think of any other platoon-battalion level strategy game for the late WWII era that captures the immense variety of vehicles, weapons, formations and battles that CM does. You don't just control Panthers, you don't just control Panther Gs, you control early, mid or late model Panther Gs.
One thing I love about the manuals is the encyclopedic guide to all the weapons and units at the end. I often just read that part of the manual for fun.