Grey_Fox

Not much I think I can add on top of the last few posts.
We know that CM aims for centre mass and we know that's both realistic and infinitely easier to code than using a thousand variables to calculate exactly where the gunner should aim.
We know that for some German tanks, presenting a hull-down target means the centre of mass is shifted from the effective armour of the hull front plate up to the less effective armour of the turret mantlet and the vulnerable muzzle/gun barrel.
I think the question has gotten to be: how does the player manage that? In one corner we have "expect to get hit, get into the open so centre mass is the better protected hull front"; and in the other corner we have "don't risk getting hit at all, play pop-up from a hull-down position".
There's an argument for both, but I know which point of view I would rather my opponent held.
Two things I'd add would be:
Testing is good, but unless it includes ingame behaviour then it's of limited use (and if you fight from a static exposed position with the pause command overriding the (reasonably sensible) TacAI then I'd love to play you). Ideally what we would need are examples from actual games under ingame conditions when players are trying to win. And finally: no one complains about this happening to Shermans. There are elements of this discussion that feel a lot like "Invincible Panzer Syndrome" vs reality. Heavy armour doesn't exclude any tank from basic tactical principles- it's insurance against the worst case possibility.

Because I'm bored, I've played around with this.
My set up
Two Panthers firing under AI control
Two Sherman fly, under my control, as targets. One in open ground, immediately behind a strip of light wood (no trees) the second hulldown behind a 2m high berm, which again has a strip of light wood on its top.
Range just over 1500m
I've run this test 5 times so far, which is nowhere near enough for a real analysis, but I'm getting a feel for the results.
Rather than worrying about hits and locations I'm counting AP shells fired in order to destroy the target,
                      AP Shells fired to destroy target
Try                        OG                                HD
1                            3                                    6
2                            5                                    9
3                            3                                   14
4                            2                                    6
5                            4                                    8    
So it took 17 shots to kill the five Firefly in open ground, against 43 to kill the five hull down tanks.
That's an average of one open ground kill every 3.4 shots, against 8.6 shots for the hull down target, and so on these numbers it takes over twice as many shots to kill a hulldown target than one in open ground.
Works for me, but you mileage may vary
P
 

Well considering every military in history has trained to aim for center of mass, this seems like the nitpick of all nitpicks. If anything, its an indication the game is behaving correctly. Absurd. Aim does not get magically thrown off target just by firing. This is why recoil mechanisms exist. And if we are going to nitpick and say "the ground is shifting" well as it turns out militaries are actually competent and train for this eventuality. Weapons crews, gun crews, tank crews, etc all take this into account and make micro adjustments while firing to ensure they are compensating for these small variables. Though I know some here will refuse to accept it, I think it is clear that the game accurately models a crews overall competence depending on its veterancy level, and that is more than enough to cover this "issue." Yes, and the sky is blue. Seriously, what is the point? This is known in the real world, yet there is not a single military out there that advocates for fighting tanks out in the open opposed to hull down positions. Again, it turns out that militaries are pretty competent when it comes to this stuff. Yeah, the driver can't see anything in a hull down position. That's why the job of spotting targets is the commander and gunners job, the two people with the best optics that can see over the hull down cover.  Not true. Spotting is 1:1. If less of a vehicle is visible it is harder to spot. There are tons of anecdotal examples of this on these forums alone, people complaining that their tank can't see through some bush or through some smoke or dust, etc. The more obscured from view a vehicle is, the harder it is to spot initially.  The obvious answer is stop getting your tanks shot at. Regardless of what the tank is or what is shooting at it, it is never a good thing to be directly engaged. Again, this is a nitpick. Soft systems on the outside of a tank are more vulnerable than the best armored parts of the tank. This isn't rocket science. And we all know that if BFC were to introduce some form of "center mass deviation" where there was some random chance applied to shots to be off their aimpoints to varying degrees, you would likely be the first to start complaining about how unrealistic that is because ballistics are a well known and quantifiable science.  Mantlets are a historical weakspot on tanks, both in WWII and the modern era. Anywhere you have a gap or disconnect between otherwise solid parts is going to create structural weakness.  This is objectively false. I already know the thread where this hysterical myth first gained infamy, and I don't feel the need to restate the obvious. If you think standing in the open is more conducive to your own survival, then more power to you.
Finally, its a game. It simulates combat pretty damn well. And its fun too. No game is perfect. No sim is perfect. Hell, some argue reality isn't perfect. If you can't get over that, and you really think the game is so terribly flawed in all these micro ways that add up to ruin the game, then just don't play it. Life is short. I'm sure there are better things out there than spending years constantly trying to prove the already known quantity that nothing is perfect. 

Lmao so many ppl have brought this up before, myself included. 10 minutes just aint enough to drop artillery when you are trying to spot with your FO first.

The_Capt's original discussion on the same.

Honestly, I mostly just really want those twenty minutes back.

As-is, the recon phase is compressed by using the pre-battle intel, but that's entirely random - if you get a good roll that's fine, but otherwise the challenge is essentially unfair. With those twenty minutes, I have zero problem with any other aspect of this scenario, the enemy, the map, the air attack... even the location where the FSE spawns, these are all 100% solvable problems, if you're given the tools (in this case the time, since you have the tools) to do something about them.

I am running this at "a Few Good Men" site and if you are not a member, there is no cost to join if you are interested.
Below is a general discription of the format (and yes it requires you to mail turns through dropbox to play)
 
This Combat Mission Cold War tournament consist of 5 rounds; one battle for each round, each battle lasting 30 minutes or less.

Players are required to do approx 5 turns a week at a minimum.

Format: Players will be given a selected force. The mission will be to do the best they can with the situation they have been given and the scoring will be given out to the top 50 percent from each side of the battle. In other words, the side given to the player could be very challenging, but perform better than 50 percent of the players playing that side of the battle and they have won and will be given a point value as to how they have done.

Winners will get a score of somewhere between 80 to 100 points per match depending on how they have performed to each other. so best player will receive 100 points, lowest winner will receive 80 points, and everyone else is somewhere in between.
Scoring in scenarios will be one's score minus the opponents score (as to how they will be selected for the top 50%).
Each player will be in charge of a different Nations forces throughout the 5 battles, so skill with all forces will be a factor. as well as both offensive and defensive skills.
Battles are designed generally to be short and intense ( I have been keeping all battles at 30 minutes or less.).
A dropbox folder is to be maintained with a invite to the Tournament master (Slysniper), This will provide me access to the game files if for any reason we need to replace a player or verify slow play issues. Please name the dropbox files in a method that I can tell who is vs who (exam: Jtimo vs grunt match1).
Game files shall stay in the dropbox folder and not be deleted until the Gamemaster (@SlySniper) has copied and removed them.
No surrender at any time is allowed. if you want to end a game early, then use cease fire with both players agreeing to those terms, if one player wants to play on instead, allow him to do so until he is satisfied. It is in your own best interest to put up the best fight you can no matter what. (No one wants to be that guy that has the best score posted against him)

If for any reason a player needs to drop out of game play, just contact me and let me know of your intentions and I will make sure any non-completed game will be finished for the remaining opponent.
 
 
This format has been received very well and this is going to be the third Tornament under this format.

You're not wrong, but the issue is mostly when you're scaling up to do longer road moves with complex movements, especially with battalion sized forces, on multi-kilometre maps.

It's still more than possible to do that manually, but the interface firmly does not scale to that kind of thing, so you're left with an awful lot of clicks to work through.

Windows Defender/Security is probably the best antivirus software to use, since the third party software just interferes with the OS in potentially undesirable fashions and increase the threat surface area. Additionally it is frequently updated and plugs holes which third party producers may not even be aware of.
15-20 years ago it might have been advisable to use third-party antivirus software for your home PC, but not today, and not for at least the last decade.

Windows Defender/Security is probably the best antivirus software to use, since the third party software just interferes with the OS in potentially undesirable fashions and increase the threat surface area. Additionally it is frequently updated and plugs holes which third party producers may not even be aware of.
15-20 years ago it might have been advisable to use third-party antivirus software for your home PC, but not today, and not for at least the last decade.

Take a minute and read OP's first post in the thread. Think about it. Then re-read the post. Then think about it some more.
Then ask yourself: "did my posts in this thread actually help OP?"

The Midway example could be a good example as it was a tabletop staff/command exercise.
However, and this is a big however, it could have been entirely valid to do what Yamamoto did if the exercise was done on a per-phase basis. Per Jon Parshall in a recent interview (as well as Ian Toll in Pacific Crucible), if the tabletop exercise goes badly in one phase, it'd be valid to say "ok, let's learn from that, work on a plan to mitigate after the exercise, and then move onto the next phase of the plan".
Would you seriously expect people to throw away an operation involving hundreds of ships and tens of thousands of sailors and airmen just because there was a hiccup in one phase of a single tabletop exercise?
Back to MC: it wasn't just the lower-levels, it also was designed to give commanders experience at implementing the doctrine, which adds value in itself.

MC is overblown - the guy running the opfor decided to powergame by placing anti-ship missiles (silkworms) on infinitely respawning small fishing boats which teleported into existence beside the carriers and using faster-than-light motorcycle riders to communicate with all his forces. Basically Van Riper took the existing training program and abused it to the limit.
Once the referees realised what was happening they placed limitations to prevent further abuse, at which point Van Riper threw a public hissy fit.
Also, you have to remember that this exercise was actually a training exercise involving thousands of troops and millions of dollars in expenses. What were they supposed to do, have the troops and dozens of ships go home when they were knocked out a few minutes into a multi-day training exercise? What value would that have brought them?
Most exercises of this nature are done in discrete increments because you actually want troops to get experience doing these things. Who cares if the amphibious landing force was wiped out on the ships during the map exercise, better to have them actually go ahead with an actual landing and get experience doing that. Better the destroyers get to go and fire cruise missiles at targets even if they were nominally "sunk". Better the aircrew get the flight hours and experience dropping ordnance on targets than sit in the ready room because their carrier was "sunk". Which was the whole point of these real life exercises.
MC wasn't meant to validate the doctrine, it was to teach the troops how to use it.

Tbf I don't mind PBEM. In my current Black Sea match, a huge QB, it took me about 2-3 hours to do terrain analysis and set up my defense. Some turns take me several minutes just to view the replay due to how much is going on.
Additionally it allows me to play against people on different timezones, which would rarely be feasible in a direct-connect game.

Tbf I don't mind PBEM. In my current Black Sea match, a huge QB, it took me about 2-3 hours to do terrain analysis and set up my defense. Some turns take me several minutes just to view the replay due to how much is going on.
Additionally it allows me to play against people on different timezones, which would rarely be feasible in a direct-connect game.

What the hell? Why would you be so brazenly offensive, for no reason?

This is an invite link to the server: https://discord.gg/wf9Put6m
Should work for a couple of days.

Well that is a very false statement.

edit: accidental double post.

Just that "real CM players use forums" is a fairly bizarre form of gatekeeping.

???

It could, and the M60A3 TTS is basically an Abrams turret on an M60 hull, but that hull is the issue - you're moving from a glass cannon, which can out-spot everything Soviet, but will die to everything it's engaged with, to one which can out-spot and survive being shot. That's a massive uptick in capability.

"Abrams worship" is a stupid way to put that, of course, but it's more the point of capability - the transition from M60 to the M1 is a generational one, and it's as much of a leap as T-62 to T-64, and probably more.

It's worth mentioning that in the first mission of the Soviet campaign, you'll have pre-battle intel, and enough artillery to lay down a decent fire mission.

This is doctrinal - about 10-30 minutes (which isn't a long time!) before the Forward Security element, you'll have a combat reconnaissance patrol to find enemy positions and routes of advance. That's partly simulated with pre-battle info, and partly explicit with the BTR platoon in the Soviet campaign. Those pre-battle spots should be hit with pre-planned barrages.

When the FSE advance guard arrives, they immediately attack. The intention is that they engage with the known enemy straight away, and try to break through by themselves. If they can, great, but if they can't then the FSE will act as a base of fire for the main body when it arrives. Implicit in this is that there will be some *unknown* enemy positions, and that's the licks you'll have to take. If the CRP has failed to do its job, then the FSE needs to do a probing attack instead, and pretty sharpish.

This is the "flexible" side of Soviet tactical doctrine - there's not much in terms of small unit tactics, since platoons tend to act as one, and on-line, but the how you use those platoons in concert, especially coming off the match, is really important, and can be very sophisticated.

To illustrate, an example of a successful FSE attack from The Russian Way of War (Grau, 2017):




 
The Russian Way of War is focused on modern Russian operations, but the principle is identical to the Soviet method (and the diagrams are great).

Again, "How to Soviet" is a combination of Firepower, Speed and Aggression. Push, push, push. Keep them off-balance and reeling from the amount of fire you can lay down, and then use your speed to destabilise and not give them the chance to recover.
 

Ok, I'm going to ignore all the talking down you did to me and simply say that your opinion on whether or not a command like AMC is a good idea in a peer-peer conflict means nothing. The reality is is that its a tool we use in the modern US Army for fires and I think it would be a good idea to include in CM to increase artillery flexibility in the modern titles.
 

Its also extremely unrealistic for a spotter to have to constantly correct a fire mission they just fired at a position, infact you shouldn't even have a spotting phase in most modern CM titles. CM has many abstractions relating to artillery that aren't completely accurate. And every time you delay a fire mission for a certain amount of time you are pre-registering a fire plan, especially if you use multiple batteries that you have available.

I work in a brigade level TOC as a fire control specialist and I can assure you that "At My Command" is absolutely something we train with, one of the battle drills I did a few months ago involved it. Also "waiting for Fred" is extremely common for any fire mission, an FCO will always give the order to fire as far as I know, fire missions do not just go off whenever the guns are ready unless its an immediate suppression/immediate smoke mission. I understand that on a fluid battlefield you want your batteries to be flexible, but if we are talking main effort here holding a platoon of howitzers for 20 minutes is not crazy or unreasonable if the situation dictates it.