THH149

Who does this apply to .... The attack had to be planned around several basic concepts. The best intelligence was required in order to "see" the battlefield. Over- whelming combat power had to be con- centrated on a narrow front. The enemy's defenses had first to be sup- pressed by every means at hand- antitank guided missiles, tanks, direct fires, artillery and mortars, smoke, and air attack. The attack had to be shock attack-narrow, deep, fast, and without let-up to the enemy rear-with over- whelming force... It actually describes how the US is meant to attack.

The Capt's perspective might be right (IDK) but it makes me a little nervous when I read the descriptions of Soviet training as focussing on realism and use of live fire to help that experience. Even conscripts put down their Phantom comics and pay attention when a training sessions involves a life and death situation. Like I can't imagine that conscripted Soviets are as poorly trained as Russians of WW1 or Stalingrad tank drivers of WW2 or British infantry of 1915 and 1916...

In the development of the Active Defense doctrine, the US expected to fight outnumbered 3:1 and even 6:1 and planned to win the first battle at those force ratios. If the Soviets get lured into fighting 1:1 they are giving up one of their greatest advantages. Soviets must fight en masse to win, just like the US must fight en masse to win if they were the attacker. The reasons why the US can win at 3:1 or worse is because of the defenders advantages: The lessons of lethality and terrain permeated these missions. TRADOC's doctrinal writers laid stress on the advantages of the defender-full use of cover and concealment, selection of the ground on which to fight, weapons sited for maximum effectiveness, reinforce- ment of terrain with mines and obsta- cles, and the choice of firing first. The defender could expect to defeat an attacker three times as strong. The attacker's forces were the more vulnerable, and his weapons were not as effective as the weapons of the defender. In the attack, a ratio of 6:1 was required.25 From: Active Defense to Air Land Battle: Development of Army Doctrine 1973-1982 In the UH game, he had the option of taking the first objective then setting up a defensive perimeter with tanks and the BMP ATGM launchers, forcing the US to come to a fight if he wanted to win that ME. There was no game driver for the Soviets to continue the attack so why not maneuver for position and sly sniper the US to death.

So many differences, and I'm only a newbie, but ... - Russian tank forces in BS cant do what they do in CW - they can't attack 13 tanks line abreast line the CW training scenarios in front of undestroyed Javelins and Abrams and US artillery. - Russians in BS need more use of terrain to shield their forces, deploy ATGM screens, and try to maneuver to gain advantage, use their drones while destroying US's own. - the whole pace of an attack is much slower in BS. Kriegsdorf in CW would be very difficult if it was updated to BS forces.

Ah yes, it's what the Game thinks is the truth that is the Truth, like knowing God, its up to the games disciples to discover this Truth!

Loving these T90 vs Abrams stories ...

Ah ok, thanks, that's useful. Coordination needs care as you say, but still doable vs AI, perhaps less so against another player. Is there a possibility to use the Abrams laser detection and auto smoke and reverse move combination against it? I'm noticing for instance, firstly, that vehicles run out of smoke and stop reversing once they've been lasered and just sit there to be hit, and secondly, they might reverse into a handy location where a T90 could fire their main gun.

Say if you had a single tank, vs a platoon of T90s, vs a company of T90s, how would you knock out Abrams and what support unit would you need to bring with you? Assuming Russians are the attacker. No, I'm not a Putin spy looking for answers THH

T62s were an OK decision, the players agreed to use them. Not the best tanks but bang for points make them of similar overall abilities as a group purchase. Bigger issue is how to get the many T62 eyes on the one tree line or ridgeline, so once an M60 is spotted its outnumbered 3 to 1 or better.

All interesting..... Soviet concentration is necessary as the attacker as the defender has the advantage, which is mulitplied by the what I think is a slight technological edge until thermals show up. If the US was the attacker they would need concentration too. As to Hapless right thrust, it might have worked if the tanks had stopped at the woods edge (not sure about other LOS to that position) and push the infantry through to clear up the woods and check for spots, with tanks assessing situation. The BMPs needed to pause their breakthrough and clear the woods - thats in the training scenarios. But that doesnt mean I'm totally behind the decision, it felt wrong but could've been made slightly better. Bigger issue was choosing meeting engagement and then having a split objective - Schweben became irrelevant - losses became important - so the big dice role of Turn 10 wasn't a strategic decision just a tactical one, and come off badly.

But you know, there will be exceptions too. For example, once an 'island' is neutralised the fleet aka my tank company could transverse it and appear on the other side, so delivering a bit of operational surprise. Maybe ...

Agree, very useful. One 'image" I use in CMCW to think about how to use Soviets is to imagine that my tank companies etc are a 'fleet' upon the sea with towns and wooded areas 'islands' on those seas. So the armada 'steams' or flows around the 'islands' making sure that ppl on the islands dont send missiles etc to destroy my armada. My 'fleet' doesnt land on the islands (and engage in a close quarters fight) as my follow on BMP/BTR forces land on the island or the woods/town and destroy what's there if necessary. Even then my 'marines' shouldn't need to land since my artillery is there to neutralise known or likely enemy on the important 'islands". So my artillery plan focusses on neutralising islands and hindering LOS to my fleet. This fleet analogy isnt meant to be taken literally - its an imperfect translation of how an attack could be conducted in CMCW - but for me its a useful tool to imagine how the battle is operationalised as the 'fleet' moves from one 'ocean' zone (say denominated by the valleys and ridgelines) to another ... In a sense the approach works with the CMCW MRB training attack scenario 2, and may correlate with what Domfluff was suggesting. It seems to describe what I see good players like Greyfox do Best

Yep, its not in the manual - very little is - but should be ... there's a real need for a decent CMBS/CMCW manual created by users of stuff that useful for CM players .... Hey that idea is totally free too ....

She must have plenty USD to afford that stuff, not the usual 550USD per month earner ...

Shouldn't that be in the manual?

Syria is a neat venue for weapons testing.

It would be dead now whatever it is!

OK, theyre not exactly the same (ground pounder vs TC), but I get your point. I'm probably telling you how to suck eggs, but it seems that the fire vs the infantry is spread over the tile even if its just one guy (the ground is the target so to speak not the unit), but the fire against the TC is targetted more deliberately at that object. I'm not sure I'd tweak the fire vs TCs but the fire vs ground units doesn't seem targetted enough. Is there tests of different fire combos against different combinations of infantry? eg a demonstration that tile based fire is being used even if its just one spotted enemy.

I'm not sure I understand the comparison between shooting at a 1x1 target and an 8x8 target. I'd expect the 1x1 target would be targetted fire while 8x8 would be area fire, same goes for 1x1 vs a buttoned up vehicle, if using small arms. Firing area against the vehicle if its buttoned up with small arms is only going to try to target optics so should be turret focussed or 2x2 perhaps I would think the biggest driver of the successful targetting of unbottoned vehicle crew by small arms is the weapon, its sights and experience and what the target is doing, so 5.45mm +, good optics (not iron sights) and training (Veteran +) would seem to make a bigger difference to a 1x1 static target. Even if the target is moving at a close enough range, its not a jet plane, with concealment the bigger issue as if the vehicle is moving in and out of concealment, shooting time is shorter. How about testing two 1x1 targets - one mounted another dismounted - with the same weapons et al? Best THH

Actually problem not sorted. I was able to create the ema file and send it to my colleague but when I received the file back to run the turn, half my orders were missing. To anyone reading this, I would recommend doing the file orders in one session (however long it takes) and then send the file back after hitting the turn button.

Update to a solution for this issue: - work on the file and save as you go. This generates a BTS file - when youre/I'm finished wrestling with the setup/order etc, then hit the red button, this generates an EMA file which should be named as the next in the sequence for the opposing player to use in their incoming folder Problem sorted.

My opponent has sent me 003.ema and I've partially setup my forces and saved the file as 004.ema However, after a while I've returned to my setup to continue the workand saved the new file as the 004 replacing the old, but each time I return to 004 it seems to have reverted back to the setup I saw in 003 seemingly asking me to do the set-up over again, and is beginning to be quite tiresome. A workaround I've tried is to save he 004 as "....Setup" but the file reverts to a BTS format not EMA. Or is the only way forward to setup my forces in one (long) sitting to get a good 004.ema or is there another way around this? I appreciate any thoughts on the situation here. Best THH

Aye, that's the Scottish (?) sense of humour for you!

That is very useful, thankyou!

These are listed at the end of each games manual. Do they need to go into a mod file (which I dont know how to use) or somewhere else? The rubble mod tag is very useful for a BS scenario I've created based on Stalingrad. For instance these are at the end of BS: Stock Mod Tags [lawn] - Turns Ground Dirt Red into a mowed lawn. [trash] - Turns Ground Hard into a pile of trash. [softtrash] - Turns Ground Sand into a pile of trash. [rubble] - Turns Ground Heavy Rocks into urban rubble. [night] - Adds camouflage face paint to soldier faces. [brown] - Used for US soldiers. Replaces camo pattern on gear with solid coyote brown. [digital] - Used for Ukrainian soldiers. Replaces older uniform with new digital uniform. [ukraine] - Used for Ukrainian vehicles. Vehicle models in both Russian and Ukrainian service use this mod tag to differentiate between Ukrainian and Russian vehicle textures. THH