Megalon Jones

Komrade Ivan speaks perfect '70's English. Dig it! Because they don't ride in jalopies anymore. And the old man has is own track!
I think the dude has the lingo down so perfectly because he was in spetsnaz, where they all learn to rap in American-ese. 

See below to reveal the release date...
😁

I just got my V shot so the chance of my dropping dead before the release is diminished. Considering that state of the world this last year, that wasn't outside the realm of possibility. People ask 'If you thought you just had a month to live how would you spend it?' Apparently in my case the answer is working feverishly on a cold war tactical game! 

I've got a 1980 Pentagon doc complaining that M60A3 without TTS doesn't perform measurably better than M60A1, and the author was fuming over the delay in getting TTS to the troops in Germany (while delivering a batch to Egypt first).

A couple things might be considered equal too, but probably the only real advantage of the M60A3 would be the TTS (thermal sight).  

A3s had better fire control tends to be the consensus. Glass cannons, I expect a lot of players will come to like the A3s when they're in good battle positions. 

Add in a healthy dash of maneuver doctrine and lashing staffs together at the operational level...and you pretty much have it.  GPS and the C4ISR revolution came a bit later but pretty much finished the deal.   

There's a 3.3 floating around!

You are welcome.    If you are going to use a lot of mods, I also recommend that you cerate a bunch of subfolders in your MODS folder and lcall them SOUNDS; UNIFORMS; FX; TERRAIN etc etc...  It helps with management.

As soon as this thing drops, I'll be doing an AAR.  Of course, it takes me a solid 2-3 weeks to get it played, recorded, edited et al.
My money is on Hapless being first out of the gate with a YouTube vid.

As soon as this thing drops, I'll be doing an AAR.  Of course, it takes me a solid 2-3 weeks to get it played, recorded, edited et al.
My money is on Hapless being first out of the gate with a YouTube vid.

Exactly.  My mouth runs enough as is.  Don't want to ruin the FOW.

I think 'someone in charge' said no Youtube battles using Beta builds because things-not-done tend to stick out like a sore thumb. But release date is approaching so rapidly that that's almost a moot point. Don't want to use the Beta build? Close our eyes, count to three, then use the release build!

They definitely should.
This game needs to be marketed as a multiplayer sandbox with a solid historical foundation. If BFC can keep pushing successful titles like this on big platforms that get a lot of attention they will quickly become the staple of wargaming. That is ONLY if they are able to get a dedicated lobby browser going to make joining MP games as simple as possible. Even if it's a little ghetto. Something like AOE2's lobby browser. Simple and clean. You would have to allow file transfers between players somehow (having a small dedicated server for this?). Obviously these games are the ****!!

Well you are now ahead of Bil in commentary and he is certainly playing catch up.
As for comments I try not to say anything as I could let slip clues as to what we know and you don't.
😉
But I think you will see that folk were in your corner when you read the Peanut Gallery thread...
Before I just saw this latest post my guess was a draw... 
Looking forward to Bil's take on the last few turns...

No, the .50 cal mg was originally installed for that job as it was matched to the 120mm main gun... after getting strike on target the gunner would switch from the .50 and engage with the main armament, making manual corrections as normal. (Using HESH you could expect a 3 round engagement). Using Sabot I would normally get a first round hit due to the very flat trajectory.
The .50 was considered superfluous as we had the TLS (Tank Laser Sight) for ranging, and although we still had the .50 we never carried ammo for it anyway.
The 7.62 GPMG was our co-ax, used for soft targets and for killing enemy crew bailing out, and attacking infantry etc.
 

I can't remember the exact date I left Germany, but I was there from 1980- 1984... we were on the MkV Chieftain, we still had a .50 mg fitted, a GPMG 7.62 co-axial, Laser rangefinder (prone to overheat) so we usually used the Mk I eyeball for range estimation, lol... main armament ammunition was the APDS and HESH rounds. (only got to fire live APDS in Canada).
As to APFSDS, never saw one, although the Regiment taking over from us had been training on the IFCS system (we still used 'steam gunnery') back in the UK so they were probably training for APFSDS at that stage as well.
We took over as the Medium Recce element  of 5 Airborne Brigade and never saw an MBT again, but quite a lot of us became paratroopers, lol!

Which took a five pence coin or shilling in old money because they were the same size as the 1DM coin meaning canny Brits could get smokes for a fraction of the price when they'd used up their duty free cigarette rations ... so I'm told ... 😏

For those looking to see the Soviet infantry:

Yes the AI usually picks ill-advised choices in QB. I always pick for them and make sure they have a balance of infantry and vehicles. Then I just try to forget what I gave them when the map starts.

One tactical oddity of Cold war timeframe is the need to balance concentrated forces to achieve a breakthrough with the need for dispersed forces to avoid being a target for WMD. The Russians achieved record-breaking force concentrations for the Vistula-Oder offensive (Jan '45 - See CMRT Fire and Rubble module) but significantly cut those numbers in it Cold War planning. Both sides hoped WMD attacks on defending/attacking opponents would be devastating enough that a dispersed force would then be able to overcome the remaining survivors.  It was an odd balancing act that both sides were playing.

for those budding CW Scenario Designers
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bear-Marches-West-Scenarios-Wargames-ebook/dp/B0086V6KA4

I love this game, by far the most playable game of its type I've seen. Only one I actually finished a game with (major Soviet victory, I trounced my opponent!). There's also The Next War: Modern Conflict in Europe (1978). Never finished a game of that one, though (the continuation of the series by GMT is much better IMO).  If you want to drill down to the corps level there's also Less than 60 Miles by Thin Red Line that came out recently with some really interesting C3 mechanics in it.
+1 to this. Dry, but immensely informative, and likely a lot more accurate to the time period of this game than the field manuals or other writings from much later.
There's also Dave Glantz's The Soviet Conduct of Operational Maneuver that covers the history and development of modern Soviet operational thought.  Soviet AirLand Battle Tactics by William Baxter is also a solid work (don't let the name fool you - he wrote it to be more "approachable" by western officers). Not as dry as many others, too.