Grey_Fox

A tripod mounted heavy machine gun is a complicated piece of machinery, that needs to be correctly sited to be effective. This is what the "deployed" state represents - it's not only on the tripod, but properly levelled and firmly positioned.

CM adds a time penalty to setting up machine guns inside buildings. This is supposed to abstract the difficulties of preparing the position - knocking out windows, moving furniture, creating a stable and raised base to fire from, etc.

Obviously it can still be a good idea to fire from buildings whilst deployed, but you need to allow for enough time to do it. The UI will show you this additional time. 

I think it's worth the purchase.
If you want a sort-of demo, steam offers a full refund if you play for less than 2 hours and you have owned the game for less than 2 weeks.
The campaigns are uniformly excellent.
The standalone scenarios range from excellent to very mediocre.
The quick battle maps are quite poor, just the same ones you have in Black Sea and I think Red Thunder, which are usually absurdly small for modern-ish weapons systems (and worse for Black Sea). You'd be well-advised to import some master maps if you are into PBEMs.

Yes, that's about right. The Russian Way of War is an excellent source, but it's sources aren't all Russian - a lot of them come from cold war US field manuals (the whole section on artillery nomograms, for example).
Artillery in CM can do all the tasks artillery is good for in reality, and a 10 minute barrage from 120mm mortars would indeed destroy an infantry company, assuming you were using a sensible density of fires (e.g., as per the above artillery nomogram).
The artillery effects (especially secondary effects) against armour are perhaps not what they could be - there's no overpressure modelled for one - but m-kills are extremely likely under any kind of barrage, and light armour will be devastated by any decent attack. In any case, HE is not a tool you'd want to use against tanks to begin with. You might be forced into doing it, but it should never be plan A. Excaliber rounds are an exception, of course, as is DPICM in Cold War, but then both of those are specifically designed to deal with main battle tanks.
So no, I don't think artillery in CM is weak. It's modelled far more accurately than is typical for wargames in general, and the effect allow you to perform all of the four main tasks that artillery is useful for.

I don't think artillery in CM is weak.
CMBS often has too little artillery (as do many scenarios in the WW2 titles), but some of that is down to wargaming habits, I suspect.
CMCW, and the recent CMRT battlepack are firm exceptions to this, where you often have appropriate levels of artillery for the formations depicted.
The six batteries of the brigade would be unlikely (but not totally  impossible) to turn up in support of a single battalion tactical group. More likely in practice this would be split between the two btgs the brigade or regiment is expected to provide.
 

Oh yeah, it smacks of a really silly calculation being done (or series of calculations) when a movement order is selected and the camera moved. And it doesn't help that the entire application seems to be running on a single thread.

So, you're not wrong, it would be great to have more control over artillery ammunition loads, and have a deeper artillery model in general. What's in CM is significantly better than most representations - it's broadly a good model for how things work - but that doesn't mean it's without fault.

I do think it's worth doing some numbers on this, however:
 
A BTG might typically be supported by a regiment of artillery - so three batteries of something long ranged, alongside it's own organic 120mm mortars. The supporting fires would typically be a mix of 152mm Howitzers and MLRS in the modern period, but since we don't have rocket artillery in CMBS we're left with the SPGs. 122mm howitzers would be more typical for Cold War, and these do exist in CMBS, but are being phased out.
2S19 is then the standard artillery piece for CMBS, either the base, M1 or M2 versions, which all have the same ammunition loads and similar characteristics.
They all carry:

180 Rounds HE
18 Rounds Precision
60 Rounds Smoke
Per battery. Maximum rate of fires differ, but their sustained rates are all 1 round per minute.

Medium fire missions are the lightest fire mission that actually maintains the sustained rate (after starting at a "medium" ROF, whatever precisely that means), so should be your default. and this works out in-game to a 152mm battery fire mission that lasts 16 minutes.

 
It's interesting to compare this to other close-support artillery historically, at a similar scale. During the Somme, 4th battalion, Duke of Wellington's Regiment was part of an attack that had a supporting fires plan in two phases, one to support the trench they were assaulting, and one to suppress the trench behind that, to fix any supporting assets. This first phase was a three minute bombardment, and the second was an eight minute bombardment. And this was the Somme.

As a rule of thumb, you essentially need artillery as an enabler to do anything, or at least to do anything properly. Part of the reason for the three-battery approach is that a BTG should be able to take on three sequential objectives in the space of a CM battlefield, and as such each of those moves should be supported by an artillery battery, whether that battery is providing suppressive fires, denying fires, obscuring fires or actually destroying things.

These tasks should be pre-planned, either literally with the interface, by laying down TRPs on the needed areas, or just giving yourself enough time in the plan to wriggle an FO forward safely and call in fires. "pre-planned" doesn't have to mean "fixed" - those three objectives might actually be marked with five TRPs: 1, 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b, with branching paths and flexibility as to how they're used.
 
So... yes. Whilst it should be possible to stockpile more ammunition beside the vehicles, the hand-waved explanation is that SPGs have to remain mobile, so can only carry what they actually have with them, particularly in the context of CMBS which is a significantly more mobile and high-tempo operation than actual-Ukraine has turned out to be.

In general though, 3+1 batteries of the stuff is doctrinally correct, and usually gives a good representation of what this should actually look like.

 

I'm totally on board with the answer 'no modding because we need to be able to monetise content' because I think game devs should absolutely be entitled to do that, but 'no modding because someone might have fun' is such a strange philosophy to have.  
 

Ha, I saw the patch notes being the last response and thought, "new patch, they fixed it!", but now I see the context. Silly of me to expect such a serious but simple issue could be resolved in 8 months...

Hey guys, I am putting the finishing touches on a campaign that focuses on the Russian VDV landings at Hostomel Airport on February 24th and 25th of this year, during the opening days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
I could use some play testers to play through the missions and offer feedback to help me polish this up for release.

The campaign features a 1:1 detailed scale map of the full airport and portions of the surrounding towns (Ozera, Blystyvytsia, Hostomel), a map of a town called Sosnivka that I thought would make a nice ambush location northwest of the airport, a map of the crossroads at Berestyanka, which you'll likely recognize from satellite imagery of the infamous 64km long Russian column from early in the war, and several custom flavor objects created for me by the incredible @Lucky_Strikeand @JM Stuff

If you are interested in helping, please leave a comment below or DM me. Thanks in advance! 
-TheFriendlyFelon

 

BRDMs are excellent reconnaissance assets, but they're divisional assets, not battalion ones. Their job would usually have been to scout ahead of the main body, confirm the route is still valid, bridges are intact and unmined, and to find approximate enemy position - essentially they're there to let you know that there are enemy forces somewhere on the map before you start, so for a red player in a cm context their work has typically already been completed.
Recce then is done throughout, but typically initiated by a mechanised infantry platoon, sometimes reinforced with a single tank. These are not dedicated recce assets, these are just guys from the battalion who are taking point.
In the Soviet context, you start with a centralised, top down plan. The entire battalion will have a single task, with perhaps three objectives - an initial objective, a further objective, and a line of further advance. Thinking of things in this structure forces you to always think of "what's next?", you always have an idea what you're doing afterwards, which helps to avoid being paralyzed with choices. Importantly, it also helps gain and maintain tempo (used in the chess sense of the word, of being some moves ahead of your opponent).
The problem with this kind of top-down structure is that it can be a big gamble. If you roll the dice on a single COA, then you can win big or lose, either way pretty quickly.
One of the methods to round out this dice roll is to echelon - have successive elements, where each element can set the conditions for the following, and each following element can adapt to the preceeding. These aren't "reserves", these are committed troops who are working towards the same goal, just not all at once.
The role of Soviet recce is then to set the conditions for the following element.
At game start, the divisional recce has let you know there are enemy somewhere on the map. The battalion recce (CRP) then have the role of finding specific lines of resistance and enemy locations.
Their job is to scout aggressively, take key terrain and find enemy positions. This is not necessarily "recon by death",  but it's fast, and it's risky, and the entire crp dying isn't a major problem, if that uncovers key information.
Recce will be both mounted and dismounted. You do want to survive long enough to report back information, but the important thing is that it's fast.
A winning state here is spotting the enemy, regardless of your losses. A losing state is if the CRP is wiped out and no information is gained on enemy disposition. This is why recce screens are so important for blue, and why a tank may be part of the recce force, to overmatch blue recce elements.
The following element to the CRP should be a combined arms company. This will be tanks, mech inf and artillery. A mech inf version would be a tank platoon, infantry company and one artillery battery.
This is a strong, capable force, but it's not the main effort just yet. This forward security element (FSE) will have the job of setting the conditions for the follow-on force.
If the CRP has died leaving no information (read: you are losing), then the FSE needs to take over the recce job. The FSE typically follows the same route as the CRP, but not always. If the CRP vanished, then the FSE needs to transition into a cautious, probing attack to gain the same information, for the main body.
In an ideal situation, the CRP has found the enemy, possibly with their face, and the FSE then can set the conditions for the main body. This FSE ideally creates a base of fire to fix the enemy, restricting their movement and controlling their possible responses. You cannot do this effectively without sufficient information, so the CRP sets conditions for the FSE, which sets conditions for the main body.
All the while, the FSE is also gaining information, and this all feeds into where the main body goes in.
That decision will likely be pre-planned, and there will be multiple COAs defined. One could be to attack along the same axis as the FSE, one could be to flank elements that the FSE is engaged with, or to attack in a completely different sector, since the FSE will be fixing the enemy somewhere else. Again,  all of these decisions will be based on the recce picture built up by the lead elements, but the tension here is that this is all *fast* - it's important to keep moving, keep pushing, and keep steps ahead of the enemy at all times.
 
In an ideal situation then:
Lead platoon finds enemy positions through any method they can.
Lead company then fixes these positions.
Main body then uses this recce and fixing to win the battle.
 
CMCW is most interesting in 1979/1980, since the later stuff ends up looking more like CMSF.
Thermals and any of the later kit make this a little harder, but they do not change the fundamental scheme or what the battalion has to do.
Relying on equipment to spot for you is nice, but ultimately dismounts with binoculars in good concealment are always going to be an invaluable asset, regardless of your time period or level of equipment.

I'll be starting part 3 of this mission in a few minutes:
 
 

I'll be starting part 3 of this mission in a few minutes:
 
 

going to be starting my livestream in a few minutes, continuation of the first mission of the Five Days campaign in the new battle pack: 
 

going to be starting my livestream in a few minutes, continuation of the first mission of the Five Days campaign in the new battle pack: 
 

I'll be starting part 3 of this mission in a few minutes:
 
 

going to be starting my livestream in a few minutes, continuation of the first mission of the Five Days campaign in the new battle pack: 
 

CM's performance is rather lacking, particularly on larger maps with large numbers of units, and especially in the setup phase if the deployment zone is large and you have a unit selected with a movement order.

Oh yeah, it smacks of a really silly calculation being done (or series of calculations) when a movement order is selected and the camera moved. And it doesn't help that the entire application seems to be running on a single thread.

CM's performance is rather lacking, particularly on larger maps with large numbers of units, and especially in the setup phase if the deployment zone is large and you have a unit selected with a movement order.

discussion livestream starting in a few minutes:
 

What you start with are the reconnaissance elements. Their job isn't to attack main battle tanks, but to set the conditions for the later attack.
That means the two companies of tanks are your leading element, supported by your artillery.
In terms of that artillery, you have a battery of 120mm mortars and six batteries of rocket artillery.
I'm going to say that again for some emphasis. You have 36 BM-21 Grad self propelled 122mm multiple rocket launchers. 

So the real answer of "how do I fight M60s with BMPs" is that you don't. If you were forced to, the BMP-1 can penetrate M60s frontally with both the ATGM, and the HEAT round from the 73mm cannon. Neither is a great option, which means if you're forced to then something has gone wrong, but you do have the tools to do it, if you can create situations of local superiority.

One of the ways you can do that is by using some of the 1440 barrels of 122mm rocket artillery that you're given.

discussion livestream starting in a few minutes:
 

discussion livestream starting in a few minutes:
 

discussion livestream starting in a few minutes:
 

Less than 24 hours to go on this event!