Grey_Fox

Same map, for **** n' giggles.
Blue vs Red AI Attacker in a QB setup.
I as the blue player had just gained 2 contacts (and the only contacts so far in game), one of which firmed up as a T-55, at which point the M60 with the sighting blew up, much to my surprise and lost the contact (not a surprise).

All fun stuff
P
 

In a recent PBEM I was playing as Russia against the US. After some initial bloodletting I set up my ATGM teams in a set of tall buildings which were able to overlook much of the map. I had them all on short range target arcs and gave them sufficient time to acquire as many of the enemy as possible.
When I was ready to begin the engagement proper, I turned off all target arcs and laughed in joy as almost every single US vehicle popped smoke and reversed into cover, allowing me to push my company of T90s into positions where they were able to engage a fraction of the US force with maximum firepower.
By the time we ceasefired, out of the US force (a platoon of Abrams and a company of Bradleys) only 4 Bradleys and 2 Abrams were fully operational. Although I didn't kill a single Abrams, one was entirely combat ineffective and the other had substantial subsystem damage, both after taking several ATGM hits frontally. The US infantry had used up almost all of their javelins, to little effect due to my tanks being on higher ground, allowing Arena to defeat almost all of the javelins which were fired.
In return however I lost about half of my BMPs (mostly from an ill-considered attempt at an opposed rover crossing) and a third of my T90 company either knocked out or immobilized.
 

Jim Storr,
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my query about your characterization of Soviet artillery in a Cold War goes hot scenario as as "... heavy but inaccurate [fire], and its fire planning crude".  Regrettably, I thought your reply was disappointing.
First, the reference to my wife's father, a colonel of Soviet artillery and an instructor in an academy devoted to producing junior grade artillery officers in a four year program was intended to show that I had personal knowledge that such institutions existed (there were more than one such academy for artillery) and to show that the Soviets evidently took such an investment in training seriously. Your response was to say that while you didn't say that Soviet artillery officers were incompetent (true) the Soviet standards of training  were "generally poor", thus, along with technical backwardness, the best to be expected was "... heavy but inaccurate [fire], and its fire planning crude". If artillery officers can't hit a target then how competent can they be?
Referring to the Great Patriotic War ("Soviet artillery fire in the Great Patriotic War was often heavy but inaccurate and its fire planning crude") is relevant to the Cold War period in what way? Are you suggesting that the Soviets did not improve their artillery and practice and doctrine in any way from 1945 to the 1980's? Am I on firm ground here in thinking that the Soviets did improve their game in this area? If so, wouldn't accuracy be one of those things improved upon (that being the ultimate point of artillery) or are we to think that these guys are just too primitive and unsophisticated to "get it"?
You also offer the example of the Arabs trained by the Soviets and the Arabs sad and failed efforts as an indicator of the quality of Soviet artillery. If we can accurately judge the teaching nation's military by how well its students have done, then how do we evaluate the US military and the students its has taught: South Vietnamese Army (collapsed 1975), Georgian Army (collapsed 2008), and Afghan Army (collapsed 2021)?
I find it incredible that a nation that could build a nuclear arsenal and carry out a manned space program, even if not up to the technical level of sophistication of the United States, couldn't solve the problem of getting accurate artillery fire, which was solved back in WW1. It beggars belief.
Enough. I suspect that we are firmly lodged in our positions and not likely to yield, so I propose a "Christmas Truce" and there's and end to it.
Good luck with your next book (is the topic a secret?).
Regards
 

This is a 2-hour conversation between @Hapless, his opponent @Rice, and @domfluff, who is the admin of the unofficial (but extremely active) Combat Mission discord server.
They go into detail about their thought processes going into the game, how they responded to what happened during the match, and how Soviet doctrine can be used successfully in CMCW.
Figured it's worthy of its own thread because of how fascinating it is, and I hope we see more like this in the future.
This is a link to the unofficial discord server if you want to interact with more people in the community: https://discord.gg/SXkQ6rUuJN

This is a 2-hour conversation between @Hapless, his opponent @Rice, and @domfluff, who is the admin of the unofficial (but extremely active) Combat Mission discord server.
They go into detail about their thought processes going into the game, how they responded to what happened during the match, and how Soviet doctrine can be used successfully in CMCW.
Figured it's worthy of its own thread because of how fascinating it is, and I hope we see more like this in the future.
This is a link to the unofficial discord server if you want to interact with more people in the community: https://discord.gg/SXkQ6rUuJN

also @John Kettler was a Soviet Threat Analyst and might be a good springboard for your next book!

In a recent PBEM I was playing as Russia against the US. After some initial bloodletting I set up my ATGM teams in a set of tall buildings which were able to overlook much of the map. I had them all on short range target arcs and gave them sufficient time to acquire as many of the enemy as possible.
When I was ready to begin the engagement proper, I turned off all target arcs and laughed in joy as almost every single US vehicle popped smoke and reversed into cover, allowing me to push my company of T90s into positions where they were able to engage a fraction of the US force with maximum firepower.
By the time we ceasefired, out of the US force (a platoon of Abrams and a company of Bradleys) only 4 Bradleys and 2 Abrams were fully operational. Although I didn't kill a single Abrams, one was entirely combat ineffective and the other had substantial subsystem damage, both after taking several ATGM hits frontally. The US infantry had used up almost all of their javelins, to little effect due to my tanks being on higher ground, allowing Arena to defeat almost all of the javelins which were fired.
In return however I lost about half of my BMPs (mostly from an ill-considered attempt at an opposed rover crossing) and a third of my T90 company either knocked out or immobilized.
 

The only thing the video shows tbh is that if you try to use the Soviets like you use the US forces, you're going to suffer.
The thing that keeps need to be repeated again and again (including in the discussion.video in the OP is that if you are trying to fight 1:1 as the Soviets against the US, you're doing it wrong. You need to have local numerical superiority.
Who cares if your guys only have individually a 40% chance of getting the first spot in an individual matchup if you are using the formation as it was I tended to be used, where your 10 T62s engage 3 or 4 US tanks at a time?

Are we talking about the same Wehrmacht and Bundeswehr? Because the Wehrmacht i know was quite enthusiastically giving out panzerfaust and panzerschreck to its units. The Bundeswehr following it did the same with the Carl Gustav and Pzf44 so them not expecting it would require some incredible institutional blindness.
Being a stopgap and not as good as wanted doesnt prevent it from being seen and employed as an IFV and drawing conclusions from its use. The wehrmacht proved quite capable of invading Poland and France with stopgap tanks.
In 1956 te Bundeswehr had barely started to exist, in 1967 it had IFVs in use for 7 years and in 1973 it was on its second generation IFV.
That BMPs werent following the tanks says more about the combined arms coordination than the vehicle used. It actually shows a quite bleak picture for Syrian officers competence and therefore calls taking the lessons lerned by Israel at face value into question.
During the second gulf war the initial Iraqi positions were well prepared but mostly destroyed by artillery. The 2008 and 2014 wars saw russian troops mostly counterattacking units on the offensive.
I find the assertion that fighting into a well-prepared and well-defended position is a flawed metric for judging an IFVs value. They enable highly mobile operations which are far more effective in winning fights. No matter how well prepared and defended your positions are they can be broken as evidenced during WW2.
 
Also some interesting loss statistics from those middle eastern wars:
Second gulf war 1,487 tanks, 1,384 infantry fighting vehicles Employed by US troops resulting in 31 tanks destroyed/disabled and 28 Bradley IFVs destroyed/damaged indicating an equal chance of being knocked out.
For the 1982 Lebanon war For Israel its 1,240 tanks and 1,500 armoured personnel carriers employed 130 tanks destroyed/damaged and 175 APCs destroyed/damaged.
This suggests that on a large scale tanks arent much more survivable than IFVs.
Primary threat are IEDs, light anti tank weapons, far heavier and less mobile than their immediate laternative, used primarily in very rough ground or cities against oponents that reach at best western light infantry standards.
Biggest difference is that the Namer weighs 60tons and is supposed to also be usable in conventional war.
Also my initial statement was somewhat exagerated so this isnt the hill ill die on.
 
Here is my main problem though and where i wonder why you didnt adress my first post at all.
I pointed out issues i have with your method of reaching your conclusion specifically possible weaknesses in the ruleset you used based on your description of what happened. I dont know the ruleset but when my irl experience clashes with my wargaming experience i first question if my wargaming experience has any possible flaws causing the results. You take the results as is without examining the ruleset for possible issues.
Your conclusion might very well be correct but it contradicts practically all modern armies with all their combined experience so the burden of proof is on your end to show youre right and everyone else is wrong and you present very little hard evidence. What you present is wargaming under one specific ruleset modified by yourself against the same oponent and to validate you use one military not using IFVs where there might be other reasons involved as i pointed out. At least for me that is not enough so id be quite happy if you could actually clarify.
Thank you for the replies so far. Its highly unusual to be able to discuss a book like this with its author so its much apreciated.

M1A2 Abrams and Javelins in Black Sea are disruptive technologies, and trying to work out what to do against them is one of the core problems you need to solve - there really aren't any reliably good answers.

The T-90AM and AT-14 can both penetrate an Abrams frontally... but probably won't. Both of them will happily go through the sides, and both are significantly cheaper - you will usually have more of them.

This means that the basic, generic idea has to be to coordinate an attack simultaneously from at least two different directions, ideally with at least 90 degrees displacement between them. If this was two T-90 platoons, then each would attack on-line, and at the same time, and would need their flanks screened, presumably by infantry.

To make this work requires excellent reconnaissance (drones do a lot of work here), excellent counter-reconnaissance (this is well developed by the Russians in general, but even just thinking in terms of drones - the Russian anti-air is superb, and can easily blind the US from the air), and great coordination (this one is on you).

Now the Next interesting topic is how you chose to validate your results namely with the one exception among major armies that doesnt use IFVs Israel.
"The only army to have much experience of APC operations in regular war did not adopt IFVs." p.122
Historically its actually exactly the opposite. The army with the most experience using APCs being the wehrmacht with the SdKfz 251 literally starting ww2 with an APC. And as soon as the Bundeswehr formed they went for getting an IFV with the HS 30 8 years ahead of the BMP1.
Out of all major militaries Israel is actually the exception in not having an IFV.
So lets examine what could have lead to this and what they are using instead.
The area Israel has to fight in has generally quite rough terrain and a fairly high number of highly build up areas. This generally puts a higher emphasis on the dismounts. It also decreases the value of the added speed of advance IFVs can give formations. Israel also had a fairly long history of Insurgency fighting where IFVs also tend to not excel (compare Iraq occupation) though htats straying away from the regular war narative.
Interestingly as much as the Arab Israeli wars were studied by Soviets and Nato alike neither abandoned their IFVs. The biggest influence being the development of BMP2. Curiously with 1 fewer dismounts compared to BMP1 so lack of dismounted infantry wasnt the takeaway.
What seems to be far more influential is that Israel maintains an army of a size it can only afford due to extensive military aid and during the cold war the same was true of its oponents. Its main aid contributor was the US which for the time of Israels major wars simply didnt own IFVs and so couldnt sell them but istead sold APCs. At that point Israel also had very limited AFV production capability so the combination of essentially free APCs and production of IFVs eating into the tank numbers its obviously the better choice to not produce IFVs.
To feed into this the heavy APCs build were primarily captured or outdaatet tank chassis repurposed and only with the Namer did they produce them from the ground up resulting in far lower numbers than they would like. These heavy APCs also face primarily Insurgents not a regular army so are in purpose closer to the modern US MRAP.
IFVs have also been used in several regular wars (2nd and 3rd gulf war, 2008 Georgian war and 2014 in Ukraine). So far they all seem to have accounted quite well for themselves seeing as no unser advocated to stop using them.

Jim Storr ive gotten the book a few weeks ago and have read through it a few times now. Generally i found it easy to read though somewhat heavy on opinions rather than analysis.
You might have found a quite critical audience here as i  as several before me take issue with a certain aspect of the book. In my case ill focus on the chapter Infantry and Antitank Forces specifically your discussion of IFVs.
 
I think wargaming is a valuable source if information but always needs to be cross referenced with rl data.
However the IFV section is entirely at odds with the vast majority of modern armies and from reading it seemed inherently at odds with what was being said. It is also at odds with my personal experience so i was trying to wrap my head around it until i started collecting quotes from it to make a rebuttal ten i realized where the issue comes from.
"Ground-mounted cannon, such as the French and German 20mm, would have beenhighly effectivea gainst enemy APCs." p.116
"Cannon and ATGMs could be very effective [...] Once dismounted in cover, they could be very difficult to locate" p.123
So the Weapons the IFVs carried were effective so why not the IFV itself? Lets see the defense:
"IFVs located in a defensive position [...] tended to be knocked out by artillery fire, or neutralized and then easy prey to the attackers, be it tanks or shoulder-fired antitank weapons." p.124
"If IFVs were sited outside defensive positions [...] being quite large vehicles, they attrackted fire from the attackers Tanks and ATGMs." p.124
This implies that either a dismounted 20mm cannon is more resistant to artillery bombardement or its position wont be spotted and so not bombarded. That is strange in two ways. The IFV should be more resistant to artillery and given its mobility should be sitting outside of view only to move into its firing position when targets are called my the infantry and so actually harder to spot. Or dug in and just have its turret exposed in which case it should be equally difficult to spot but still be more resistant to artillery fire.
Now looking at the offense
"vehicle-mounted cannon and MGs did not help. [...] difficulty in locating the defenders, who were invariably concealed and often dug in." p.123
"Conversely they made the [...] IFVs obvious and high-priority targets for the defender´s fire." p.123
This is strange in two ways. First for supressing defenders and assisting the own infantry exact locations of the defenders need not be known. Simply supressing areas that could be dangerous to the own infantry if occupied by enemy infantry will do the majority of work since 20mm cannons firing he at 1000rpm cyclic into the defenders general area is going to keep their heads down. Even more if there is a full platoon doing this.
Second is that in the game even with their aparently ineffective fire they were still the priority target and not the supporting tanks (and if there werent any why?)
But what about using their ATGMs?
"Where IFVs used  [...] ATGMs [...] they were highly vulnerable to enemy ATGM fire, from either dismounted launchers or specialist antitank vehicles. In both cases the enemy were much harder to locate" p.123
This is again somewhat strange. An IFVs turret is certainly larger than an atgm launcher alone but for the ATGM vehicle that is only the case if it can go hulldown in which case an IFVs turret still wouldnt be much bigger and far more importantly the main way an ATGM will get located is dust and smoke kicked up from the weapons launch which will be the same in either case.
These contradictions between observed results and expected results indicate to me that:
1. There is a spotting mechanic in the ruleset used and IFVs are at a higher disadvantedge as a result
2. Improper defensive doctrine at least for western vehicles who should have several fighting positions and frequently switch. Possibly combined with the ruleset not giving the bonus for a defensive position when employing such a strategy
3. Strange targeting priorities or improper support. A defending unit should prioritize supporting tanks when employing anti tank weapons as they are the biggest threat to the individual unit. In wargaming its easy to always target the unit that will result in the greatest chance of overall success but for the actual troops individual survival is key. A tank will given the choice between an IFV or a tank first shoot the tank because that is the bigger threat. If Tanks simply werent involved the quewstion becomes why not? IFVs are combined arms weapons and suffer when left alone just like any other weapon.

This is a 2-hour conversation between @Hapless, his opponent @Rice, and @domfluff, who is the admin of the unofficial (but extremely active) Combat Mission discord server.
They go into detail about their thought processes going into the game, how they responded to what happened during the match, and how Soviet doctrine can be used successfully in CMCW.
Figured it's worthy of its own thread because of how fascinating it is, and I hope we see more like this in the future.
This is a link to the unofficial discord server if you want to interact with more people in the community: https://discord.gg/SXkQ6rUuJN

This is a 2-hour conversation between @Hapless, his opponent @Rice, and @domfluff, who is the admin of the unofficial (but extremely active) Combat Mission discord server.
They go into detail about their thought processes going into the game, how they responded to what happened during the match, and how Soviet doctrine can be used successfully in CMCW.
Figured it's worthy of its own thread because of how fascinating it is, and I hope we see more like this in the future.
This is a link to the unofficial discord server if you want to interact with more people in the community: https://discord.gg/SXkQ6rUuJN

Some questions for Jim Storr.
Starting with something non-contentious. You indicated that you and your brother developed a method in your gaming that reduced the "God's Eye View" factor and it seems allowed for actual surprise to occur on the game board. Would you care to tell us what you did to achieve this?
In your footnotes you reference particular games you and your brother played (e,g. "Battle 164, 12 January 2003." - pg. 231). Are these games referred to in the footnotes available somewhere to examine? If so, where? If not, why the footnote?
More contentious:
On page 149 you state: "Soviet artillery fire would probably be very heavy but inaccurate, and its fire planning crude." I don't feel you properly justified this comment in the preceding text and to be frank I find it doubtful for two reasons. First the importance that artillery has played in Russian and Soviet military tactics. And second, your assessment suggests a low standard of training. I know that the Soviets had artillery academies devoted to producing artillery officers. These were academies with four year programs that produced company/battery grade officers with engineering degrees. I can't imagine that such an education would produce incompetents. My wife's deceased father was a colonel in the Soviet artillery and was on the faculty of such an institution. He was a university mathematics student when he was recruited into the Soviet Army. Perhaps I am wrong, so can you explain why an army that prized artillery, seems to have placed it high in their tactical system and seems to have invested quite a bit in the education of its artillery officers would produce and be satisfied with such dismal results as "... heavy but inaccurate [fire], and its fire planning crude"?
Regards.

This is a 2-hour conversation between @Hapless, his opponent @Rice, and @domfluff, who is the admin of the unofficial (but extremely active) Combat Mission discord server.
They go into detail about their thought processes going into the game, how they responded to what happened during the match, and how Soviet doctrine can be used successfully in CMCW.
Figured it's worthy of its own thread because of how fascinating it is, and I hope we see more like this in the future.
This is a link to the unofficial discord server if you want to interact with more people in the community: https://discord.gg/SXkQ6rUuJN

This is a 2-hour conversation between @Hapless, his opponent @Rice, and @domfluff, who is the admin of the unofficial (but extremely active) Combat Mission discord server.
They go into detail about their thought processes going into the game, how they responded to what happened during the match, and how Soviet doctrine can be used successfully in CMCW.
Figured it's worthy of its own thread because of how fascinating it is, and I hope we see more like this in the future.
This is a link to the unofficial discord server if you want to interact with more people in the community: https://discord.gg/SXkQ6rUuJN

This is a 2-hour conversation between @Hapless, his opponent @Rice, and @domfluff, who is the admin of the unofficial (but extremely active) Combat Mission discord server.
They go into detail about their thought processes going into the game, how they responded to what happened during the match, and how Soviet doctrine can be used successfully in CMCW.
Figured it's worthy of its own thread because of how fascinating it is, and I hope we see more like this in the future.
This is a link to the unofficial discord server if you want to interact with more people in the community: https://discord.gg/SXkQ6rUuJN

This is a 2-hour conversation between @Hapless, his opponent @Rice, and @domfluff, who is the admin of the unofficial (but extremely active) Combat Mission discord server.
They go into detail about their thought processes going into the game, how they responded to what happened during the match, and how Soviet doctrine can be used successfully in CMCW.
Figured it's worthy of its own thread because of how fascinating it is, and I hope we see more like this in the future.
This is a link to the unofficial discord server if you want to interact with more people in the community: https://discord.gg/SXkQ6rUuJN

This is a 2-hour conversation between @Hapless, his opponent @Rice, and @domfluff, who is the admin of the unofficial (but extremely active) Combat Mission discord server.
They go into detail about their thought processes going into the game, how they responded to what happened during the match, and how Soviet doctrine can be used successfully in CMCW.
Figured it's worthy of its own thread because of how fascinating it is, and I hope we see more like this in the future.
This is a link to the unofficial discord server if you want to interact with more people in the community: https://discord.gg/SXkQ6rUuJN

This is a 2-hour conversation between @Hapless, his opponent @Rice, and @domfluff, who is the admin of the unofficial (but extremely active) Combat Mission discord server.
They go into detail about their thought processes going into the game, how they responded to what happened during the match, and how Soviet doctrine can be used successfully in CMCW.
Figured it's worthy of its own thread because of how fascinating it is, and I hope we see more like this in the future.
This is a link to the unofficial discord server if you want to interact with more people in the community: https://discord.gg/SXkQ6rUuJN

This is a 2-hour conversation between @Hapless, his opponent @Rice, and @domfluff, who is the admin of the unofficial (but extremely active) Combat Mission discord server.
They go into detail about their thought processes going into the game, how they responded to what happened during the match, and how Soviet doctrine can be used successfully in CMCW.
Figured it's worthy of its own thread because of how fascinating it is, and I hope we see more like this in the future.
This is a link to the unofficial discord server if you want to interact with more people in the community: https://discord.gg/SXkQ6rUuJN

This is a 2-hour conversation between @Hapless, his opponent @Rice, and @domfluff, who is the admin of the unofficial (but extremely active) Combat Mission discord server.
They go into detail about their thought processes going into the game, how they responded to what happened during the match, and how Soviet doctrine can be used successfully in CMCW.
Figured it's worthy of its own thread because of how fascinating it is, and I hope we see more like this in the future.
This is a link to the unofficial discord server if you want to interact with more people in the community: https://discord.gg/SXkQ6rUuJN

This is a 2-hour conversation between @Hapless, his opponent @Rice, and @domfluff, who is the admin of the unofficial (but extremely active) Combat Mission discord server.
They go into detail about their thought processes going into the game, how they responded to what happened during the match, and how Soviet doctrine can be used successfully in CMCW.
Figured it's worthy of its own thread because of how fascinating it is, and I hope we see more like this in the future.
This is a link to the unofficial discord server if you want to interact with more people in the community: https://discord.gg/SXkQ6rUuJN