Megalon Jones

Huge does fit a Soviet Motor Rifle battalion, but typically not the artillery support that comes with it - the dream is still to have control over the actual points available, but I'm not sure that's too far off.

There is some great stuff there that would fit with the existing loading screens with some photoshop work, but no provenance for the material whatsoever.  A handful have watermarks from wherever they were originally pulled.  Could make the basis for a good mod.



 

- > https://partisan1943.tumblr.com/archive

You will get 1000s of images of T-72s, most probably attributed to various journalists or publications (which I think often have understandings with Wikipedia about use as long as attributed that would not apply to a commercial company).  Regardless, pictures of T-72s is not what is needed.  Pictures of the Soviet Army operating T-72s (or doing whatever) in 1979-82 is what is needed (even if you just wanted to do a nice consistent mod to fit with the US archival photos).  Try searching Wikimedia for “Soviet Army 1982” or similar such terms and you get hardly anything.  I remember that tank decon. pic coming up in one previous search I made!  Also, IMO parade photos do not fit at all thematically, nor does Afghanistan.

Thanks for clearing this up.  I thought I was going crazy trying to get cluster weapons by running different dates in the QMB.  Anyone know a scenario I get to play with them until the patch?

Tank type was dependent on formation.  Motor Rifle got T62/T72’s while the tank regiment’s got T64/T80’s.
I believe the East German NVA was the only Pact army to get any T72’s.  Everyone else got T55’s and T62’s.

Stemming the Tide
 

I eagerly watched your Stemming the Tide video, having banged my head against that battle multiple times (the best I could pull was a draw.) I noticed the number of times you said "mad scramble" in the narration- it's a good alternate title for the scenario. 
The cool thing about that scenario is that there are 3 different AI plans and you never know which one is going to happen. You actually lucked out early game in the AI plan you went up against. Some of the other plans would have jammed you up right out of the gate!
Very much enjoy your content. Hope you do some more CMCW in the future.

Great videos, I've subscribed. I watched the last part of 'Stemming the Tide' last night and it looks a right tough fight.
It's one of the things I'm really enjoying about this version of CM, it seems like the AI can give you a good hard game if you make any mistakes, I'm dreading taking on a human opponent!

Stemming the Tide
 

Great stuff!

+ 1 Nice Videos. 

Stemming the Tide
 

Stemming the Tide
 

Even if you can't take it out with mortar fire, it will surely degrade or destroy it's optics reducing the combat capabilities.

Or, just drop smoke with the mortars (IIRC Bradleys can see through smoke but can't guide ATGMs through it) and close with the tanks for a kill?

Just about.  The place holders have been replaced with the correct units.  A few new FR vehicles were added.  I'm mostly just testing the four AI plans to make sure they are still working as intended.  Then  I need to update the briefing (which would only take a few hours).  Then compile it and test that. 
There has been so much new stuff released by BFC recently that players are probably swamped with content anyway.  Which is a nice problem to have.   
Speaking of new units.  An SS detachment is now in the Area of Operations.  

From the briefing:
SS Detachment – SS Detachment is in the reserve bivouac area in the southwest corner of the Area of Operations (AO).  The detachment is a corps level, anti-partisan, unit that is temporarily bivouacked while it passes through the AO.  An SS liaison officer is in the 2. Bn. CP to facilitate C2.  The SS troops are experienced soldiers in good health.  They are trained, equipped and have expertise in the use of flamethrowers.  They have earned a reputation for being efficient at anti-partisan operations.  If needed these troops could be committed to battle, however they are a 200-point spot unit objective for the Soviets.  Air attack against this unit will not earn the enemy spot unit objective points.  
An overhead shot of part of the reserve / bivouac area.  The player can activate two units from this area at the cost of Victory Points.  3. Zug (platoon) of the alarmeinheiten and the SS Detachment.  

Well I think I can answer some of these questions.  First off, let me say that the experience levels in-game are already a pretty soft concept to begin with, so trying to figure out what a "realistic" experience level is for anyone side is accepting a level of abstraction from the start.
So first, the in-game context as outlined by the backstory.  This is a desperate Soviet gambit, they are on a very tight schedule to break through West Germany as quickly as possible before the West can 1) move reinforcements to theatre or 2) collectively decide on a nuclear response.  As such the Soviets are going to put good troops in the initial attacks (as seen in the Soviet Campaign) and their best troops in the break out, which occurs during the US Campaign.  So basically these are the best troops the Soviets have in the entire theatre in this break out push down Route 66 to the Rhine (that is why you see T80s later).  This fits with Soviet doctrine, as well as the strategic/operational picture on the ground.  
The US side is different.  The US put its best troops (in this region, the 11th ACR and 3rd Armd) forward as a screen and held second ech in depth.  This makes sense as the strategy was not an offensive breakthrough but attrition and delay until the West could build mass (or agree on WMDs).  In the US Campaign the player has troops from the 8th Inf Div, that was very deliberate as this division was always considered a depth division in the grand scheme of things.  It had lead elements forward but that is not the 28th Inf Regt, which was actually based west of Frankfurt.  That is why the 28th get M60A1s and not A3s to M1s and is also reflected in troop quality - went with Regular-High-Fit.
So right off the bat, in this what-if universe (remember this is a fictional timeline) there would likely be qualitative disparity between Soviet break out forces and in-depth US ones as portrayed in the campaign due to strategic/operational context.  Now how does that translate to CM?  Good question, probably closer to Reg-Vet, but considering that the vast majority of combatants on both sides have never seen combat and none/very few (perhaps some that observed the Arab Israeli conflict) have ever seen mechanized warfare on this scope and scale, we would realistically be seeing a whole lotta shades of Green.
Then there is play balancing.  The campaign is single player, which means that a human brain is playing a machine.  As strong as the Tac AI is in CM it cannot compare to a human player, so to offset this very real abstraction, a level of tweaking had to be done to make things challenging.  So for some scenarios we went with Crack Soviet troops to ensure that the very unrealistic fact that this is not two human players did not throw things out of whack too far.
Hope that answers your question somewhat.

Indeed, in the context of scenarios tailored for a single-player perspective (i.e. the campaigns) it makes perfect sense to use gameplay parameters to drive the gameplay for the player, rather than be representative of real-world realities. Scenarios meant to be played from either side or multiplayer is a different story, in my opinion.
It's part of the simulation abstraction.
For example, in the first mission of the US campaign ("Racing The Moon") the US player is not at all meant to fight and eradicate the OPFOR, since the scenario depicts US forces pulling back from a rapidly advancing vast Soviet force. In theory there is an entire Soviet division pushing into the area, however it is unreasonable from a scenario design perspective to keep adding ever increasing amounts of OPFOR reinforcements (and creating complex coordinated AI plans) on the off-chance the US player manages to hold off the first wave. 
Instead, an abstraction has to be made - in this case setting OPFOR units to "Crack" experience - in order to represent an overwhelming force. The alternative (flooding the game map with Soviet battalions and expecting the AI to make use of them) would end up being far more "unrealistic".

I'd rather have a campaign that works as intended due to those factors rather than one that was a dud.  I never really get excited or completely bound by experience levels or their labels - ultimately this is a game and if it isn't playable because the Soviets were all conscripts or whatever then that is an epic fail.  The campaign tested well and feedback so far on the boards seems to be good.

I'm sure the campaign author will chime in - can't remember who it was but I'm pretty sure they will confirm that the experience setting is a gameplay design mechanism rather than a reflection of Afghanistan experience or whatever.  Bearing in mind that the Soviet Army was mostly conscript, the majority of the unlucky non-commissioned troops that got sent there would have been discharged after their tours ... if they survived them of course.  Generally, there is certainly a case for more experienced soft ratings for some of the officers based on some going to Afghanistan at some point and the fact that career officers would receive more than adequate training during their careers. 
For those interested in scenario design, I would be looking in the range Conscript - Veteran for the Soviets.  There were two conscript intakes a year that would arrive at their units in Germany around November and May annually.   As the new soldiers arrived, the term expired ones would depart and discharge to the reserve.  This process averaged out as each unit losing about a quarter of its trained strength in favour of a quarter of new arrivals.  If you apply the principle of quarters then at any given time a unit could conceivably have (using CM experience nomenclature):
1/4 Conscript (new arrivals in their first six months of service). 1/4 Green soldiers with 6-12 months of service who will have completed at least one training cycle to include collective training up to divisional level. 1/2 Regular soldiers with 12-24 months of service who will have completed two training cycles to include collective training up to divisional level. Save your veteran ratings for a couple of selected leaders.

Yes it is. US troops would be using M16A1s which had full auto.