Monty's Mighty Moustache

I dunno - when I had the time and stamina for H2H, PBEM was excellent.
Some of us live in radically different timezones to the USA - TCP/IP would have eliminated most potential opponents.

Dragons in the dark

I thought these commies were tough? Turn 4, first contact with the enemy and this traitor has already had enough!

I thought these commies were tough? Turn 4, first contact with the enemy and this traitor has already had enough!

The fire direction center does the calculations for defection (azimuth) and elevation for the firing unit. There are two general types of fire missions "Adjust Fire" and "Fire for Effect" that a FO would call for, and they are exactly what they sound like. So for adjust fire, one round at a time is sent out, the FO sends back corrections, and the last correction should be 50m, so you get close and then call, "Drop 50, Fire for Effect" and the battery or mortar section sends the FFE, whatever that is determined to be (which is determined by the FDC normally, based on the FO target description in the call for fire).
Fire for Effect is exactly that. FO calls in a fire mission with coordinates, FFE, and target description and gets, say a batter 3 rounds on target. The possible error here is greater, unless the FO has a pretty much perfect location coord of the target. Sometimes that's possible (crossroads visible on a map for example).
And of course, if you are in a hurry (and who isn't in combat?), you can abbreviate the adjustment, maybe "Add 200, Fire for Effect" rather than a couple more rounds to get within 50, realizing that the FFE might be less accurate, depending on how good you are at estimating distances at a distance, target movement, etc.
What a TRP does for you is cut time by having firing data to that point already calculated, and typically TRPs are selected so that their location is accurately placed, such as a crossroads, the tip of a treeline, a bridge - anything that can be very accurately picked from a map. The battery (or mortar section) would have pre-calculated firing data to the TRPs on the list, including time round data, so that a FFE call can go out quickly. A typical use would be to specify "From AB001,  Add 400, Fire for Effect, Infantry Company in the open"   AB001 being the TRP number. We had TRP numbers assigned by maneuver unit in blocks when I was doing this. 
In either of these cases you are still going through the FDC, just different procedures/data.
Of course if your FO is standing next to you or can shout, the mortar crew just dials in the pre calculated data. Keep in mind that 60mm mortar crews will be moving around a lot so TRPs are kind of useless for them. They'll know where the TRP is but have to recalculate the data anyway. 
As an artillery battery we knew we'd be moving a lot too, because counter battery location radar was something that WAS quite good back then. Rule of thumb was 6 volleys from a position and time to move. So when you set up in a new position first thing is to recalculate all the TRP data, which you may be doing in between on call fire missions. We had 2 plotting boards, but they'll be busy, because one is primary, the other is the checker, and they'd be plotting a mission AND repotting the TRPs simultaneously. We practiced this a lot.
Now with the more modern titles, like BS, and SF2, the FOs have the advantage of GPS, so they at least know their own positions very accurately. Cold War, GPS was just coming available, not in wide use and certainly not to the FO level. Laser designators were just making their appearance, usually for designating for air strikes. Our XVIII Airborne Corps Artillery did have a limited supply of rocket assisted 155mm rounds (can't remember the name - first ones available), and those were final guided by laser. Pretty much just in field test mode then. Computerized fire control was in its infancy during the time covered by CMCW. TACFIRE was just being tested - computerized fire control system. Very bulky, kind of balky. We had FADAC (Field Artillery Digital Analog Computer). We never used it. It weighed 400 lbs, didn't work after being airdropped (we broke several) and was really slow. We could easily beat it with good old charts and darts, which did not change significantly from WW2, through Korea, Vietnam and the CW period. Same techniques, updated data, more radios to comminicate.
I think most of this is represented in game pretty well. There are 2 things I'd love to see in CM:
1) The ability to call a FFE on a map location, without having any eyes on it or a TRP. In real life this is common. You might have a sound contact or saw a unit that went out of sight behind a rise or treeline and you'd call in a FFE on a map location. Might be accurate, might not. But you'd do it.
2) An initial call to shift from a TRP, rather than wait for the TRP mission and then adjust. Again a VERY common call for fire.
Your last part is correct. Without a FDC and being significantly off line, corrections are going to be iffy for accuracy. I expect you'd do very rough in your head conversion of the adjustment, or the FO would do it before stating the correction. For example a 45 degree offset means .7x the stated correction, that sort of thing.
Dave

When plotting a movement hold the mouse over the stream and surrounding area, it will show you if it’s passable by the selected unit
MMM

If you got this kind of impression from my comments above or elsewhere, then that was not my intention.

The NTC campaign is brutal, and it's supposed to be, as is the real NTC. You are supposed to treat it like a proper training scenario - failing forward, and potentially retrying different approaches.

As a quick point- almost everyone I've seen has gone for the hasty attack option at first. The briefing mentions that you'll have "more room to manoeuvre", which is presumably the appeal. Manoeuvre with what, precisely? You're essentially a platoon of tanks in a supporting combined arms company, and you're trying to attack into a Motor rifle battalion. One side there needs more room, and it 'aint you. This is the kind of lesson it's trying to teach.

As a personal anecdote, which obviously is entirely relative - for comparison, I lost a total of one TOW launcher in the first mission, and one tank and an empty M113 in the second - all losses which were avoidable. The first was me not being aware of how bad an idea ATGM duels are, and the latter because I was hasty and didn't cover a specific sight line. This was done blind and without reloads, but there was a lot of planning involved, including reading a couple of field manuals for preparation. The third I had trouble with, but that was pre-patch, so I was stuck with the option I didn't choose for the third mission - so two total victories and a minor defeat - the latter mostly due to the enemy air. The NTC campaign was one of my favourite experiences in Combat Mission, ever. It was very testing, and it forced you to learn a whole bunch of things really fast - most notably, that Shock Force teaches some really bad habits. If the tanks in NTC were replaced with Abrams, with no other changes, I imagine there would be very little challenge in that campaign.

Cold War is definitely pitched more difficult than usual for the CM games. There are no safety wheels - you can't use your M60s like Abrams, nor rely on Javelins (or Panthers, for that matter) as a fix-all solution to every problem. Even where there's an advantage, like the quality of the Soviet armour, using them correctly is far from simple.

The Tutorial missions are something which I think CM really needs more of. I've seen many comments of things like "Jackals are awful" in CMSF, or "2 inch mortars are pointless" in CMBN. Having a presentation of the thing working as it's supposed to work doctrinally gives you a good intro to the basics - as in, a textbook WW2 British platoon attack, supported by the 2 inch - if there was a scenario which could show how it's supposed to look, and if you can't win this, then you fundamentally don't know what you're doing.

The Soviet attack scenario is supposed to teach two things above all - the priority of mass, and the need for coordination between armour and massed fires. This is the baseline Soviet stuff, but doesn't represent a scenario you're ever really likely to see. The Meeting engagement tutorial is a far more realistic scenario, and does a good job of taking those principles and applying them to a vastly more complex and fluid battle-state. It's still a textbook engagement, so you shouldn't come close to losing when you understand what you're doing, but this represents a baseline that the scenarios and campaigns can build from. The first scenario of the Russian campaign is extraordinarily brutal, but it's fundamentally the same tactical problem as the second tutorial, just much more complex, with a far more active opponent. "It's like this, but..." is the foundation of most tactical problems.

So no, I don't think Cold War is "out of touch with reality", or even "too hard". It's hard, certainly, but the challenges can all be overcome, with the time and effort. Obviously that challenge may not appeal, and that's completely valid, but I don't think it's correct to claim that this is anything more than your opinion, and not some kind of objective measure of the thing.

The 'Briefing' maybe an exercise in creative writing. Your situation see how you must get your victory points and how much time you have. It is not rocket science. 

This is my first completed CMCW scenario and I'm hoping that it will be the 1st scenario in a campaign I am writing up the outline for. It does fall outside of the 79-82 CMCW module timeline (is set in July 1985). More details will be found in the Designer's Notes but in the end, I hope all who played this scenario got some enjoyment out of it. I welcome any feedback people are willing to provide.
It's designed for "Play as BLUE vs AI only (only the RED force has AI plans - x3). At some point I would like to tweak it for play as either side and H2H but we'll see as I'll need to learn some more stuff I'm sure.
Full description and download link are at: CC-s01 Baumholder Army Airfield!
 

I think there's a disconnect here.
@chuckydyke is saying what specially-trained snipers get taught. And is right.
Others are expressing what the so-called "sniper team" as presented in CMx2 (at least the ww2 titles) represents and they are right, too. I would expect this to carry through into the modern titles, because I don't imagine the code has a way of improving the *pTruppe*'s accuracy just because of unit type (obviously their weapon will be modelled).
Not all countries had established, formal sniper schools in WW2 where the game code was originated to represent. IIRC, only Russia and Germany. Other nations just picked decent marksmen out of the ranks of their riflemen and maybe gave them a rifle with a scope. A Regular-Normal-Normal sniper team represents the latter. If you want to get closer to the abilities of an elite Scout Sniper in any title, make them Elite-High-High.

Debussing - SPW and their rides Poland, summer 1944.

I got the AI to surrender on my first playthrough. The key is to be patient, scout with a platoon or two (and accept that they are going to get torn to pieces) and uncover and destroy as many AT positions as possible before committing your tanks, and mortar any position that looks like it would be ideal for gun positions. I knocked one out that way with a preplanned strike (guessed correctly). I lost a few tanks, one to mines IIRC and another bogged.
I also put a harass/max barrage on the objective to suppress any FOs or MGs. This video basically sums up how to approach this mission (and I didn't find it until after I had played it, he was a bit more aggressive than I was) 
MMM

Tedious but what I did as well.

I did this very exercise when the module was first released. Filled in time in some boring meetings  Here's a link to Aris CMRT mods with the default CMFR textures copied over @Kraft
 
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gvwe1jk8wcz2voq/AAASIOhmbn2HvK4MhPPTBxeLa?dl=0

Wow, looks like I lost the internal betting pool.  We are 13 days released and first time someone asks this question.
Answer.  We spent days of work on this one, round and round.  So basically US mech infantry platoon still brigaded the M60s and (technically) the Dragons at the PL HQ level where they would be dolled out as the situation dictated.  This is impossible with CM so we created variation to reflect that decision and give the player flexibility in their use. 
So: 
Heavy = a bulked up squad, obviously expecting trouble.  2xM60s and the Dragon
Medium = originally we were going to only have the medium version but it was too restrictive. 
Light = 1 xM60 and no Dragon.  There were enough Dragons in the platoons and coys for one per squad but they could taken away and sent out to tank hunting teams and some squads might wind up light.  Light also does not get the extra M60.
In any standard mech infantry platoon the mix would normally be:
2 x Heavy and 1 x Med squads.  But now scenario designers can have flex in different scenarios. 

The Training missions do illustrate this well, if you follow their instructions correctly.

The fundamental principle is one of combined arms, and layers. The emphasis is on speed, aggression and overwhelming firepower.

The Soviet army was an artillery army - the artillery mission is extensive and sophisticated, and does the main job of suppressing or destroying enemy AT assets, most of which are soft-skinned or man-portable. This would be supplemented with the supporting weapons, like the ATGM platoon.

Whilst that artillery is still falling, the tanks advance in line. The advantage of being in line is that you can make up for your relatively poor spotting with numbers - you don't need all of the tanks to see the enemy, just one or two of them is enough to give you a considerable advantage.

Then finally the infantry come, the emphasis at every stage is on overwhelming force, and gaining safety through excessive firepower. 

Each stage needs to work in concert to be effective, but there's really not much you can do to stop it when everything is working correctly. 

I did this very exercise when the module was first released. Filled in time in some boring meetings  Here's a link to Aris CMRT mods with the default CMFR textures copied over @Kraft
 
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gvwe1jk8wcz2voq/AAASIOhmbn2HvK4MhPPTBxeLa?dl=0

I did this very exercise when the module was first released. Filled in time in some boring meetings  Here's a link to Aris CMRT mods with the default CMFR textures copied over @Kraft
 
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gvwe1jk8wcz2voq/AAASIOhmbn2HvK4MhPPTBxeLa?dl=0

Well, if not nasty, maybe overly dramatic and rude. 
Some of the briefings were written by scenario designers who speak English as a second language.  IMO they are very talented, intelligent multilingual individuals who donate their time for our Battlefront community.    
Good teachers/instructors are often taught and trained how to interact with others to facilitate the passing on of information/knowledge.  If you are actually a teacher you hopefully had some of this type of training and continuing education.  It is a shame you didn't demonstrate very much teaching, influencing, mentoring ability in this forum.  Instead you are probably a good case study in how to quickly alienate, polarize and shut down positive communication.     
Think of the knowledge and help you might have provided if your opening post was not so overly dramatic and rude.  Probably a squandered opportunity to be a positive influence.    

it might be worth noting that we got CMCW not by just asking over and over for it but because a couple people actually put in the sweat to do the project.  They had a lot of work even convincing BF that they could manage it.  If you really want it you may have to do a bit more than just keep asking.

It's in the briefing. The SS Infantry you're commanding were rushed out of local training schools that with a mix of German and local Latvian signups to the Waffen SS. In a perfect recreation their voices would a mix of German and Latvian speech in game. Same as the Artillery Batteries - green recruits hence the very slow response times. This is the German Wehrmacht directly after the end of Barbarossa and as the Falaise Pocket realities are setting in. It's a dogs breakfast and anything with a rifle is being thrown at the enemy to stabilise the line.
This is in the same geographic vicinity but is before the Courland Pocket. There was a separate pocket that trapped Army Group North east of Riga for a few weeks, which the action depicted in this campaign helped reconnect a land bridge to those forces. Then rather than retreating from this precarious position Hitler ordered the forces of Army Group North to hold fast. A little time goes by with the Germans being slowly pushed back and then the Courland Pocket is formed as they are cut off again. Interesting side note, if this action had failed, Army Group North probably would of been annihilated / surrendered leading to a bigger capitulation from encirclement than was suffered at Stalingrad in terms of manpower.

Totally agree with that.
I love recon and even if I don't find anything, I still enjoyed the experience of slowly working forward and hoping not to see the scouts get cut down.

Forest fighting against Soviet PPSh squads, the nightmare of every CM gamer. Can't wait to see how the MP44 equipped Sturmgrenadiere will do against them.

the bmp tags are taken as a priority, but if there are more bmp mod than bmp tag the mod will be taken which explains these unbleached turrets
for info there is if you use the Ari mod
five t-34-85-1944late-turret
five t-34-85-1944early-turret
seven t-34-85-1943-turret
five t-34-1942late-turret
four t-34-1942early-turret
 
It is therefore necessary to copy the bmps of
34-85-1944early-turret [whitewash] 4 times and name them
 
 
34-85-1944early-turret 2 [whitewash] 
34-85-1944early-turret 3 [whitewash]
34-85-1944early-turret 4 [whitewash]
34-85-1944early-turret 5 [whitewash]
 
 
 Idem pour
t-34-85-1944early-turret
 
pour
t-34-85-1943-turret 6 times et name them to t-34-85-1943-turret 7 [whitewash]
 etc etc
i hope que je suis clair
this allows to keep the mod aris
and as the game progresses, identify the defaults and correct them in the same way
 

Thank you!
Excellent  When this was being playtested it was fascinating to see the different ways players resolved (or attempted to resolve) these dilemmas. Ways I'd never envisaged! Be interesting to see what your approach is. Awra best!