Grey_Fox

Less than 24 hours to go on this event!

Less than 24 hours to go on this event!

Less than 24 hours to go on this event!

These types of scenarios make me wish we could pair Combat Mission with a game like Flash Point Campaigns.
Most Combat Mission players would take this nice and easy and try to scout out the enemy as Much as possible before sending in the tanks.
We don't get to see American tanks counterattack the slow attack on the flank or a quick Soviet breakthrough catching the headquarters team for the entire American brigade by surprise.

Here is a quick and dirty AAR for a scenario I've been working on for Combat Mission Cold War. It should be noted that this is a test run through of this scenario. It features two Soviet tank battalions in the attack against a US cavalry troop, with me playing as the Soviets. The goal for the Soviets is to force a breakthrough. High losses are expected but acceptable if a breakthrough is achieved.

The goal of the initial fires and maneuver plan is to compartmentalize the battlefield by isolating the far left and far rear enemy positions with smoke, while pummeling suspected strongpoints with massed artillery fire before reducing them with massed direct fire

The results are rough.



The enemy strongpoints along their main line of resistance are reduced, but it costs the entirety of 1st battalions tanks to do so

2nd battalion (having arrived as reinforcements) is tasked with carrying on the attack to affect a breakthrough

To support their efforts, the artillery fires are pushed deeper into the map to suppress known/suspected enemy strongpoints. The town will be bypassed unless an AT threat remains, in which case 1st battalion's infantry will assault and clear the town.
And the result of the effort:

2nd battalion is able to reduce the remaining strongpoints and force a breakthrough, taking relatively few losses in the process.
Of the 40 tanks lost in the attack, 30 are from 1st battalion in their effort to smash through the MLR.
Brief Analysis:
Could this have gone better for the Soviets? 

I think there are two answers to that question.
1) The entire scenario is a forced breach against a solid defense, so heavy losses are inevitable. A big part of the Soviet dilemma is choosing where to take the inescapable beating, or put nicer, spend the combat power. In this case I chose to spend 1st battalion breaking the enemy main line of resistance. The result was 1st battalion getting destroyed, but it was not in vain. 1st battalion reduced enough of the strongpoints that 2nd battalion was able to blow through and achieve a breakthrough with minimal losses.
2) The fires plan could also have placed the smoke in a way that would have isolated all but one strongpoint (as opposed to leaving two open). By blinding all but one, it would have made the initial direct fire engagement with my tanks less one sided, but would have created more difficulties later. I've drawn up another graphic of this modified fires plan, this one:

The downside to this is that while it shields the attacker at first, it also puts them in a tough spot that they still have to fight out of. With the far right strongpoint reduced, that still leaves the center and rear right strongpoint to deal with, and the far left strongpoint can still put fire into the kill zone (engagement area) as well, which means follow on forces are more at risk.
There are a few tweaks I'm planning to make (the addition of another battery of 152mm 2S3's as noted in the revised fires plan graphic) and I am also waiting on a friend of mine to finish a playthrough to see those results. This will hopefully be revisited and given a more detailed AAR in the future, but for now I thought this would be a fun pocket sized AAR. 

I will be hosting a discussion with @George MC and @domfluff on my youtube channel about the battle pack, as well as campaign and scenario design in general, on Thursday 24th November at 20:00 GMT if anyone is interested:

I will be hosting a discussion with @George MC and @domfluff on my youtube channel about the battle pack, as well as campaign and scenario design in general, on Thursday 24th November at 20:00 GMT if anyone is interested:

I will be hosting a discussion with @George MC and @domfluff on my youtube channel about the battle pack, as well as campaign and scenario design in general, on Thursday 24th November at 20:00 GMT if anyone is interested:

I will be hosting a discussion with @George MC and @domfluff on my youtube channel about the battle pack, as well as campaign and scenario design in general, on Thursday 24th November at 20:00 GMT if anyone is interested:

I will be hosting a discussion with @George MC and @domfluff on my youtube channel about the battle pack, as well as campaign and scenario design in general, on Thursday 24th November at 20:00 GMT if anyone is interested:

I will be hosting a discussion with @George MC and @domfluff on my youtube channel about the battle pack, as well as campaign and scenario design in general, on Thursday 24th November at 20:00 GMT if anyone is interested:

I will be hosting a discussion with @George MC and @domfluff on my youtube channel about the battle pack, as well as campaign and scenario design in general, on Thursday 24th November at 20:00 GMT if anyone is interested:

Playing the new battle pack:
 
 

Playing the new battle pack:
 
 

Playing the new battle pack:
 
 

Correct it has been fixed. Be aware that saves with the bug baked in (like the one linked above by @Grey_Fox) still show the problem during playback. Things will only be seen as fixed the next turn. Even then the ? icons will remain even though the HT should never have seen them. Going forward with new games all should be well.

Twenty years ago you would have been right, but for over a decade now it has been the case that third party security is generally worse than the Microsoft stuff because they are unaware of the zero days which Microsoft is working on closing.
Attack surface area means that by using third party security software you are increasing the potential ways your system can be attacked. They tend to interfere with the operation of the OS and that can cause issues in itself.
"Viruses" aren't really a thing any more, it's all about zero day exploits.

Current IT security best practice for home users is to not use third party antivirus as they tend to increase the attack surface area. You're better off just keeping windows up to date.

Twenty years ago you would have been right, but for over a decade now it has been the case that third party security is generally worse than the Microsoft stuff because they are unaware of the zero days which Microsoft is working on closing.
Attack surface area means that by using third party security software you are increasing the potential ways your system can be attacked. They tend to interfere with the operation of the OS and that can cause issues in itself.
"Viruses" aren't really a thing any more, it's all about zero day exploits.

Current IT security best practice for home users is to not use third party antivirus as they tend to increase the attack surface area. You're better off just keeping windows up to date.

Speculation I've seen is that both planes were in each others' blind spots.
There are questions about the planning of the air show, and the appropriateness of the flight paths with relation to the spectators as well as the location of the air show.

Spinning disk drives for your operating system are obsolete, you might as well be using floppy drives. Time to upgrade to SSDs.

Speculation I've seen is that both planes were in each others' blind spots.
There are questions about the planning of the air show, and the appropriateness of the flight paths with relation to the spectators as well as the location of the air show.

They have probably more problems that we don't know about, and I hope that will be fixing soon, but fir my opinion, Is the first and last time that I make a pre-ordering, and waiting better to listening the first advices, critics, or whatever, from the announced product.
JM

Two months after pre-ordering. Get on with it, BF.