Megalon Jones

So, something like this terrible paint mashup:

For x10 Magnification (I have no idea if that's correct for the M60A3 TTS), Laser Rangefinder and TI for Thermal Imager.

I'm not sure how much room there is in that segment in the modern titles when it's full of acronym soup (ERA, APS, LWS, etc) and it could get complicated fast when you take into account, for example, differences in magnification resolution or thermal imaging quality (ie. an M60's optic at 12x mag is likely to be less clear than an M1A2 SEP2's optic at 12x mag; and there are various generations (and resolutions) or thermal imagers). Maybe a traffic light system would work (red for poor, yellow for mediocre, green for good).

But I think it would be a super helpful addition, especially for new players.

The only thing I ever use in the middle section of the UI is ammunition and damage indicators.
The rest needs to be reworked. There is plenty of space that could be used much better.

It's been a shamefully long time (it was finished years ago) but here be The Steppenwulf's UI mod for SF2.



**It's currently awaiting authorisation so you'll have to be patient and keep trying the download**  

They would have been sighted at WW2 ranges, which I believe would be 800m.

That's a significant step up given the longer sight lines present on most of the best Cold War maps and scenarios.

I think the expectations for the Flogger were pretty high given how well the MiG 15/17/19/21 programs advanced VVS capabilities.
 The MiG 23 was supposed to stand shoulders above the Western Gen 3 fighters especially given it’s swept wing design and look down/shoot down Fox 2 capabilities.  It ended up kind of ‘meh.’

I would love to see a command added to Combat Mission that is similar to the linear artillery command.  It would tell your automatic weapons unit to fire from point A to point B such as along a tree line.  Used to suppress enemy ambushers.  Is this tactic not used in RL combat?

I concur doing a battalion size battle in which you repeat over and over again the same drill. Would it be possible to record a sequence safe it, select an other unit and let it carry out the same action again. 

I would love to see a Formation QUICK/HUNT/ASSAULT command that is similar to the linear artillery command. Double click a platoon or split squad HQ, draw the objective/phase line, select speed, and watch them (try to) execute using the same TacAI the AI uses. Fewer clicks!

If you stack waypoints, the most recent one created is the one that will be selected if they are stacked. But yes, it is fiddly.
This is a bad short tutorial which I've just created. 
 

Area fire commands would be a great quality of life improvement.
Yes I know there is already ways to achieve similar results with the current system. But these are such a pain in the ass to do I rarely bother.

You can also move the waypoints on top of the units position and they won't move.

Might be your best work.  On Youtube I commented "another Megalon Masterpiece".  I was glued to my telly watching it.  Thanks!

Great videos! Like how you do them.

Setting up battles where the parties are functionally equal is itself a-historical.  Parity only happens at micro-level where a squad is butting heads with another squad. Though the Americans have more soldiers and the Germans have MG42s, so even that isn't parity.

Just attaching some screenshots of a terrain I'm working on. As it stands it will be a standalone scenario, though the more progress I make, I'm having thoughts of a mini-campaign playing as the UKR. Will update thread with screenshots after work. File sizes are too large to directly upload.

 
 

OH BOY NEW MEGALON MOVIE!!  only movie I am looking forward to at all other than maybe Dune 😀

The previews of coming attractions was great. That movie reminds me of Mad Max except for the quality of the acting, the special effects, the plot, and the budget. 
 
H

And here we have a Cold War BAOR vet describing how the Soviet MRR would attack, drawing on a BAOR training film, some of which is terrifying. For example, a 100 gun Soviet 40 minute artillery prep would be 12,000 rounds, based on a rate of 2 rpm per gun. Let me provide a frame of reference. During the Vietnam War, North Vietnamese bombardment of An Loc was a staggering to us 1200 rounds per day. We're talking 10 times that, delivered in only 40 minutes. Some of the Soviet artillery footage in the impact zone will make you wonder how anything could've survived. The timing and sequence of force buildup as the MRR is fascinating, and this video is set later in time, so that instead of T-62s, the Soviets have the T-64, though mercifully not the AT-8 armed T-64B. People with epilepsy and other flicker triggered conditions should be aware that some of the Soviet imagery is full of flickering. The comments verge on incredible, for most of them are either by vets or children of vets who would've been in the thick of things.
 
Regards,

John Kettler

Megalon Jones,

The ammo types you listed all fly more slowly by far than HVAPFSDS and therefore have looping trajectories compared to the KE forming your baseline. In turn, this increases the likelihood of top hits. Would say that these days, HESH/HEP would be the lest penetrating--for multiple reasons. For starters, HESH/HEP, unless vs a very weak target, doesn't penetrate at all. that's not its kill mechanism. Instead, it creates massive spall on the far side of the armor plate struck. How massive? Pie plate size and, say, two inches thick! That piece of armor steel is now tearing through the fighting compartment, demolishing men and equipment throughout, not to mention wiring, hydraulaics and ammo. Have seen a classified pic from the 1967 War in which a T-55 took a turret rear hit from what I recall as 105 mm HESH/HEP. The spall pie plate cored out the large radio and kept going. There was no further coverage of the damage in detail, but that hit would've taken the TC apart and the gunner, too. For openers. But, to my knowledge, HESH/HEP has no such capability vs modern composite armor, because the layers of various materials grossly interfere with the detonation shockwave, preventing the all-important massive spalling. Armor arrays designed to defeat HVAPFSDS KE would not find HESH/HEP much of a challenge. Thus, the last Russian tank I would deem HESH/HEP effective against frontally would be the T-62, for everything after that, from the T-64 onward, has composite armor.

HEAT can be very effective, but how effective depends on a) the armor array struck, and the particulars of the HEAT shell used. For example, Russian HEAT is designed to take advantage of impact speed as well as the primary HEAT charge. Recall, too, that an obsolete 76.2 mm Russian HEAT round recovered during the Yom Kippur War was found to be able to frontally penetrate the Gen One Abrams. And while in Desert Storm Saddam's hardened steel KE harmlessly stuck to the sides of Abrams turrets like darts, 125 mm HEAT was no joke.

Summing up, in ascending effectiveness there is HESH/HEP, then HEAT, then KE, with pride of place going to the 120 and 125 mm gunned tanks. 

Regards,

John Kettler