Grey_Fox

Today has been one heck of a bad Combat Mission day for me I can tell you.  Just ask @Grey_Fox.  Total SNAFU.  Let me tell you what happened with @Erwin (DAR):
So I have forces in the center forest in Gates of Warsaw.  About 17ish turns ago I called in a rocket strike to plaster @Erwin's and my forces in the forest.  My 'Plan' was to cancel the mission, move it or move my infantry out of the line of fire.  @Erwin kinda put the kybosh on my 'Plan' when my spotter decided to stay in a truck instead of dismount as ordered a few turns ago.  The truck instantly got creamed as soon as it moved, along with my spotter. 😄 So my infantry had to make a mad dash out of the way of the rockets. 
I had the choice of running left or running right so I chose left. That caused them to run for cover straight into @Erwin's 20mm AAA.😆 And to add insult to injury, the rocket strike was off and landed straddling where my infantry ended up running to. 😂 Couldn't have done it worse if I tried! 🤣

Then @Erwin has an assault tank that decides to take off straight towards my lines.  I don't know if that was on purpose or not, but I think it was an accident.  But instead of getting destroyed, he just uncovered a ton of reconnaissance information at the cost of not even a ping off his armor! Oye! 
Well at least I didn't lose any of my armor.  Wait, I better watch it again, probably a stray shot went flying through the forest and took our one of my hidden HQs. lol 
So I say all that to say this.  I need to make some... hrm... adjustments to my defenses and some commanders need to be shot!

Mark Felton is good at being entertaining but I hope you're not trying to imply that he's some sort of authoritative source, the dude cites David Irving in one of his videos for crying out loud.

Making narrated videos is very time intensive. From my limited experience it can take about 10 times as long to create the video as the length of the video between scripting, recording, voiceover, and editing.

Interesting question, although I am suspect of the intent behind it.  Regardless, the bigger question is whether Soviet tactics would have worked at all.   At the operational level the theory was centralized controlled maneuver, which worked in WW2 but was a serious leap of faith in the much faster and comms denied battlefield of the 1980s. Air power is the other issue as without air supremacy those long lines of logistics were never going to work.
 At the tactical level the idea that mass would beat quality was also weak and built on hope.  The idea that massed arty would smash all-mech forces of NATO was a serious leap.  It takes a well shaped, dense piece of exotic metal to kill a tank, metal fragments from HE can damage it but would not likely sweep away NATO formations.  I would argue that CMCW is accurate (with caveats) in demonstrating the weaknesses of Soviet doctrine at the tactical level (jury is out on operational).  Every Soviet campaign scenario gives the Soviet player at least 2:1 advantage and in cases 3:1 and better.  But they show just how hard it is to “smash” through well prepared and sighted terrain that your opponent has owned for over 25 years.  Arty may be a little weaker, testing is probably required and this is not a new issue, but you will note that engineer obstacles for NATO are no where near what would have been employed in RL so I am betting it evens out closer to RL when the “most effective offensive tool for the Soviets” is blunted along side that of the most effective defensive tool for NATO.
So what?  I personally think the Soviet theory was broken.  It worked in WW2 but they were not keeping up with the times and would have been seriously crushed in late 70, early 80 which would have likely led to nuclear options being employed and inevitable escalation…let’s be grateful it never happened.  CMCW is only demonstrating the weaknesses of the Soviet approach, which is what a simulation should do.
Now all that said, we have players who have clearly mastered the Soviets, @Grey_Fox and his series of the Soviet campaign definitely show what can be done to with the Soviets in the right hands.
 

Soviets are a heck of a lot of fun once you start to understand how to use them. 

Soviets are a heck of a lot of fun once you start to understand how to use them. 

Good point. One thing I'm looking forward to with the Soviets is using formations that have redundancy built in compared to the US. Feels like if I lose a single vehicle with them it's a significant loss of firepower 

The Soviets never intended to use fixed wing aircraft in a Close Air Support (CAS) role. CAS is defined as having some level of direct coordination with ground controllers, meaning that a ground controller is calling in and directing strikes in support of troops in contact. The Soviets did not ever intend to do that. Fixed wing aircraft were meant to carry out strikes along the enemy's depth, including targets that were farther behind the Forward Line of Troops (FLOT) than conventional artillery could strike. Nearly all of these targets were briefed, as in they were designated before the strike as opposed to having the pilots find their own.
Helicopter gunships had more of a CAS-like role, in that their role was more about supporting troops in contact with air support, but even here it was not directed by ground controllers. The gunships job was to fly in, strafe enemy positions and then bug out. It was expected that helicopters would do a better job of engaging enemy forces in close proximity to friendly forces.
There is a strong argument that the Soviets should have no fixed wing aircraft in CMCW. The reason they are included is because players would be up in arms about a feature being stripped from the game, and because there are some limited use cases for them to be present. All Soviet air support (helo and fixed wing) should be used as pre-planned strikes during the deployment phase. This best simulates how the Soviets would have used them in reality, as an opening pre-planned strike in support of an attack. Anything else begins to really stretch the definitions of Soviet "CAS."

Having a blast with CMCW single scenarios recently. Almost all scenarios are of an excellent quality. But even among them are some real gems, like "Rumpenheim Rumpus". I give it 6 red stars out of possible 5. 
Very clever, tense and literally perfect scenario. So much fun. 
In this scenario you have to cross the river and capture the town. You are given really powerful forces, tanks, plenty of artillery and aviation support, but the time is limited to 1 hour and only amphibious vehicle can reach the town. 
What's really good is AI paths. Town defenders are not stationary towers, but they are moving making very realistic impression. 
After I called all of my artillery on the ground and my Migs dropped their bombs, the first engagement was ATGM duel. I was surprised, but my BRDM's (bottomed up of course) showed their bright side and won it against M150 Tank Hunters.


One of the BRDMs achieved really remarkable results and will be turned into monument in front of the Communist Youth League building in London after this bloody war is over 🙂

 I gained stable footing and decided to proceed to amphibious landing.

I made a mistake, wrongly decided that the river could be crossed in every part . AI led my BMPs to one of the possible crossing routs, instead of the route I planned, and they were hit by single M60 hidden behind the church. I lost 3 vehicles, but the 4th killed the tank with ATGM. 

Several enemy tanks came from the rear to the front to prevent  assembling forces from attack. Town defenders called artillery right on the place of the crossing, but I launched the amphibious landing anyway, because the time was short.



I found out that my artillery did the job and suppressed the enemy troops in the  ruins, but soon a lot of survived units showed themselves and they received the reinforcements. It all turned into spectacular guerilla warfare. 


When I became really nervous that I wouldn't make it on time, 5 minutes before the timer ends the mission completed with "Total Victory".

The post operation picture of poor town:

 

I think it's closer to "yes quite" since your screenshots have different avatars to those that are currently being used, which is a clear indication that they were taken some time prior to you using them now. See my screenshots and compare them with yours.
There have been 12 uses of the term "retard" in the last 30 days.
There have been 139 uses of the term "retard" since 24 September 2020.
Most uses of the term seem to be people calling themselves "retarded".
I'm not sure the narrative you're trying to create works out.

Regarding the bootie comment, beeron was publicly admonished by a mod:

Regarding the MikeyD comment, well it was more a commentary on the quality of some of the work.

 
Then again neither I nor you are a mod, so we wouldn't know if it were dealt with in a less public manner.
Would it have been better had the comments been deleted?
From the looks of it you seem to be saving up screenshots to use at opportune moments.
Lastly I don't think it's wrong to critique work. Some of the textures objectively could have been done much better and there are valid complaints to be made.

Streaming part 2 of mission 3 of Crossing the Dnieper:

and streaming once more - hopefully finish the mission this time:
 
 

He left on his own after he got muted for 10 minutes for lying to someone asking if they should buy CMBN and then getting snippy when he was called out on it.
 
Truly the mod team are unhinged savages.

and streaming once more - hopefully finish the mission this time:
 
 

If you the actually active and productive discord; we have everything Roby listed plus over 1100 members and we host a huge amount of user made content, and content making users.
https://discord.gg/P7XBzzfup7

Hello gamers and mainly devs.
 
Me, as a youngling to the Combat mission, I'd request developers to add something new other than skin, maps, language and guns. It needs something different! The game is 90% same across all games. If I imported all the models and skins from Combat Mission Shock Force 2 to Combat Mission cold war, the game would probably run it as nothing. And with it, it has the same issues. CQB is nightmare in reality too, but in Combat Mission, it's especially bad. If you have like 1 unit and need to perform CQB. Absolutely impossible. And the "Hunt" command is pretty useless as if they are in Hunt command, they start walking at slow pace and when see someone/something, they stop and will disable all following commands. Can't you guys make it that troops will HOLD for the amount of time they keep seeing the enemy or the enemy is neutralized? That would make CQB soooo much more easier and life would be good.

I've spoken to my friends and this is general feedback I get why they won't ever buy Combat Mission game:
 
Literally every game is same - That is in my opinion very true. It doesn't mean it'd be bad. But the same issue Combat Mission Afghanistan has, it's also in Combat mission Cold war.  Graphics - Irrelavant argument for me but it's also why a lot of players turn down. Especially the edges of the map, the sky Only 1v1 multiplayer with ancient connection system, no coop, no more players than 1v1 scenario. - In my opinion, very good argument. Combat mission is only 1v1 and without coop regime. This needs to be changed in the future (or would be amazing if was changed right now). Price tag too high - Well. If we take in account that all the games are basically same. A skillful modder would probably make Shock Force 2, Cold war or Black Water out of Combat mission afghanistan. It's very high.  Planes/Helis are not part of the game. - We can get in argument that planes / helis fire from kilometers away and are irrelavant for the game, but I think it would certainly be healthy to add visual planes flying above, even if very far away. And when planes crash, you can see it too. The DLC fest. (Mostly Combat Mission Shock Force 2). - For the game where you charge 60€ for a same mechanical features as in every previous game. It's absolutely crazy to charge 20€ for a basically a nation bundle.   
The arguments I expect under this thread:
The price tag is that high because of: Small audience, simulation, bluh bluh bluh.... That is an interesting point, but is irrelavant. The game should be worth its money, which I'm afraid most of the games don't meet. The game is not same because in game XY, they moved 0.3km/h slower and fired 0,8 meters further. Please.... Just don't... Don't consider this thread as a hate. It's more like objectively true. I really love the concept of Combat mission series and I'd love them to continue. But the work / content / features is very much not meet with the price tag.
Also PLEASE guys, create your own discord. Don't be like your MP lobbies stuck in 80's/90's. 


Thank you for reading to this point.

thefewgoodmen or the unofficial discord.

And continuing the third mission: 
 

I recently had an entirely opposite experience, having no other expectations of an AT-5 BRDM other than spectacularly explosive bait, I slow-moved it to peek out of some woods and these absolute kings in their mighty war chariot took on an entire platoon of M60A1s in defensive positions and emerged victorious without taking any return fire. They emptied the entire cassette of 5 missiles in maybe 20 seconds or so. I was impressed and my view of ATGM vehicles was forever changed.
Do you have a savegame of this behavior?

Soviet objective so far haven't had anything to do with killing the enemy - it's all about pushing past the opposition and seizing key terrain.
The US tank platoons in the rear were in mutually supporting positions. Fighting them would have risked getting into a fair fight, which only fools do.
Doctrinally I did the right thing - preserved my forces and reached the objective. Follow on echelons are the ones that mop up.
I don't want to criticize how another person plays a game, but it looks like Dbsapp lost about a third of their BMPs and half of their tank force.

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. 
 

COMPETITIVE SOVIET EQUIPMENT!
Genuinely peer conflict in a near-modern setting rather than an event that occurred almost a century ago.

Streaming now, continuation of mission 3 of the soviet campaign:
 

Ok, ok, ok...you inspired me.  Finally starting and sticking to the Soviet Campaign!