THH149

Wonder what the life expectancy of a tactical drone operator in a command group is? Like that guy will stand out!

Seems like the answer is that Russia drank their own cool aid and assumed the Ukrainian forces were a deck of cards stacked out in the east and it would fall in a few days. They've been fighting therefore with both hands tied behind their backs and just tried to kick the door in. They've had greater success in the South
But, they're now spending time re-organising their Battalion Tactical Groups BTGs and about to unleash more of their full power and both continue to isolate cities and achieve control of the borders.

Why aren't the Russians doing thunder runs?  This video from Modern War Institute explains why from 25.00 ...
 

Except usual Stingers we received Stinger DMS launchers

There is a setting, indeed.
 
Go to settings, system, display, then at the bottom, graphics settings.
under Graphics Performance Preferences, you can set specific executables, (eg: CM) to use High Performance. That will use the discrete card rather than the built-in motherboard one.

An excellent review of the prospects of US winning with Active Defense doctrine and why they moved to AirLand Battle. The presenter notes in no uncertain terms that after a 100+ wargames by V Corps, General Starry concludes they never win using Active Defense.
 
 

Super interesting and excellent overview.  I wish it came out about a year earlier, would have saved us some research time.  In CMCW, we are really talking about the seam between these two concepts as Active Defence was still in play but Starry's thinking was beginning in inculcate the US Doctrine (he had just been V Corp Comd).  So for example the US Campaign is a narrative of what Active Defence would have looked like as the US player bounces backwards against the Soviet hordes.  Other lateral forces (3rd Armd) even swing over as per doctrine in the campaign.  If the player makes it to the end, they essentially get a proto-AirLand scenario of a deep counter-strike, as opposed to what Active Defence dictated (i.e. park here and wait).  
The Soviet campaign is the mirror opposite and demonstrates the weaknesses of Active Defence.  Despite the difficulty (and it would have been high in RL) the Soviet player always has the initiative up to Battle 4, when a US counter-attack occurs - again emergence of maneuver as oppose to KZ-centric.  Further, the Soviet demonstrate the real flaw in Active Defence, in my opinion - the Soviet "bot" concept.  Active Defence relies almost entirely on the Soviets not maneuvering below Div level and that is one helluva weak assumption.  We have had a lot of discussion (and some noise) on how nuanced Soviet C2 was or was not and some of it was likely reality and some US/western wishful thinking.  I do believe that at a tactical level MRR and below the empowerment of tactical commanders was low, they were really pointed at something at told to "go at it" but I do not believe that at the Div level the Soviets were going to stick to the US template in Active Defence of conveniently marching through 3 KZ layers.  Based on what I have seen Soviet operational doctrine was far more nuanced than that.
So in the Soviet campaign we see the 120th MRR actually shift deep objectives, from Lauterbach to Alsfeld.  Alsfeld was originally the objective of the 172 nd (see game manual); US Active Defence has no room for Soviet MRRs shifting dynamically but I do not believe for a second they would not.  If the Soviets shift the line of main effort the entire house of cards of Active Defence falls apart.  Back in the day when we were doing tactics training we were still doing pre-set KZs and in gaming the Soviets would obligingly drive straight into them and die...very nice for us, tea and medals all around.  Soviets may have had a largely conscript Army that trained to mass-template standard but these were real people with brains and, as far as WW2 demonstrated, could improvise very well.  
So the points on US/western biases have some validity, we needed the Soviets to be a mindless horde to fit our plan and not necessarily their own; there is truth in this.  In reality the 79-82 timeframe was a collision of bad assumptions on both sides.  US - active defence, Soviets - tactical and operational fluidity with very centralized command and control. Frankly after designing, building and playing the game, and watching numerous other do the same, I really have no idea how this whole thing would have turned out.  Some days I think - "no way the Soviets would have run out of gas in the first 48" and others " the US were totally screwed".   We knew this was a bit of a sweet spot but the depth of this weird little window into the Cold War continues to surprise me.
 

An excellent review of the prospects of US winning with Active Defense doctrine and why they moved to AirLand Battle. The presenter notes in no uncertain terms that after a 100+ wargames by V Corps, General Starry concludes they never win using Active Defense.
 
 

An excellent review of the prospects of US winning with Active Defense doctrine and why they moved to AirLand Battle. The presenter notes in no uncertain terms that after a 100+ wargames by V Corps, General Starry concludes they never win using Active Defense.
 
 

If you play RT PvE:
Spot Abrams with an infantry team. Since it has very good thermals try to avoid putting your spotting team facing Abrams' front. Put two tanks flanking the Abrams yet so far covered from it. Roll out one of your tanks to try to spot Abrams. Abrams will see your tank first most of the time yet since you have infantry's eyes on Abrams you'll see it turn the turret. So when you see it - just roll back your tank into cover and roll out the other. Repeat till one of your tanks spots Abrams first  You can also use area fire on Abrams to try to degrade its sensors. Though only direct hits count and not all of them deal damage. Putting your tanks above or below Abrams helps as it somewhat increases the time Abrams needs to target your tank. You can use this tactics in PvP or turn-based PvE as well by rolling out and rolling back with a short pause command in between. Though whereas you can do it with zero damage in RT PvE all the time you'd need to accept certain casualties in turn-based. Too short a pause - and your tank never ever spots Abrams, too long - you loose a tank. Infantry team overwatching Abrams is still of use as you'll know if Abrams moves and what direction Abrams' turret facing at the moment. So that you can somewhat reduce your risk by using the "right" tank at least at the beginning of the turn.

Artillery smoke does not block IR in the game.  In CMBS all US vehicle smoke is IR-blocking.  Black RUS / UKR vehicle smoke is not IR blocking.  White RUS / UKR vehicle smoke (e.g. Shtora) is IR-blocking.
The radar system on the Khrizantema-S is able to see through IR blocking smoke.  The Russian millimeter wave ground search radar on the Khrizantema-S can "see" through even multispectral smoke. Russian vehicles can only shoot smoke twice.  BRM-1Ks also has radar to see and shoot through IR blocking smoke.    
I think image intensification (night vision) sights and thermals sights are listed as "IR optics."  Units with thermals can see through regular smoke.  They are treated differently, but both displayed under the damage panel as "IR optics."  Easiest way to determine if the IR optics is night vision or thermal is to check LOS through artillery smoke (units with thermals will not have blocked LOS).  

Sadly I know  I use them wrong as a recce unit, figuring its better to lose a 2 man team than a half squad. 
Remember the Soviets are always attacking so defending is defeatism 🤣

In the critique of the Active Defense doctrine, the US are meant to maneveur its forces to reduce the force ratios of expected soviet attacks, eg from 6:1 down to 3:1 or better so the US defender could apply more of the advantages of the defenders edge in firepower, terrain etc. The idea was the some parts of US battle front was left thinly held and forces transferred to the likely venues of a Soviet massed assault. Could such gaps be safely managed?
Now one of the critiques of the Active Defense doctrine was that it relied on seemingly outdated Soviet concepts of a mass assault, ignoring intelligence on how the Soviets were training and expected the Soviets to ignore experience of the 1973 Arab Isreali War that the US themselves were updating their doctrine to incorporate.
"If the revised doctrine of 1976 was to prove vulnerable on any point, it was one based on a scenario that mayalready have ceased to be realistic by1976: the classic massed armor break-through as the assumed Soviet opera-tional maneuver. Since the manual's tactical descriptions proceeded in reac-tion to this type of penetration, the issue was of no small importance. The doctrinal manual depicted an attack by the enemy on very narrow fronts ingreat depth, with massed firepower in the breakthrough sector. Warsaw Pact forces might throw as many as 600 tanks against a U.S. division in the leading echelon, followed shortly by 600 more. "This doctrine . . . is deeply ingrained in the Soviet Army and if weshould go to war in Europe, those are exactly the tactics we would face."17
By 1976,, "a major shift in tactical operational concepts" had occurred.l8
The Soviets' concern since 1973 about antitank guided missiles had pro-duced a strong awareness of the vulner-ability of their BMP infantry fighting vehicle-the indispensable support ele-ment to the tactics of the rapid and deep classic armor breakthrough. The consequent revival in recent Soviet exercises of another operational maneuver-the concept of multi-pronged attacks by BMP regi-ments reinforced with armor across the entire battlefront seeking holes and weakspots. In training, the Soviets were spending quadruple the time practicing the multi-prong attacks and meeting engagements as they were rehearsing conventional frontal break-throughs. Though many combat sup-port, logistical and leadership problems were evident in the new maneuver,there was no doubt,  about a "tactical revolution" in Soviet militarydoctrine.l9
"Severe ramifications fall from FM 100-5 having built its edifice on but oneof the possible Soviet operational maneuvers."22
So what I'm suggesting is not so much whether its right or wrong, but as an avenue for scenario designers to consider the possibilities of BMP or BTR battalions reinforced with tank companies to attempt breakthrough against thinly held US lines or positions, say with US receiving late game reinforcements (or not as the US intended to operated without tactical reserves) attempting to close the gap before more soviet follow on forces appear. This approach would stand in contrast to the Soviet training scenarios and similar scenarios.
What thoughts could there be from scenario designers on these concepts and could BFC pick them up and issue them as a Battlepack?

Agree with the sentiments here - don't try cold war defensive methods on the attack and don't try attacking methods on the defense - things go wrong.
To emphasise the maneuver orientation of the Soviets, scenario designers should strongly consider an exit objective.
About Zaloga, I heard that his stuff (Osprey?) was heavily biased, are they any good? 
 

That's quite a layered question, with some curveballs thrown in, so bear with me:

Firstly, sourcing:
https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/Hot Spots/Documents/Russia/2017-07-The-Russian-Way-of-War-Grau-Bartles.pdf
In some respects this is apparently (and unsurprisingly, since it's five years later) out of date by now, but it's absolutely relevant for CMBS.

In there, you can see that the majority of the fundamentals of Soviet doctrine have survived intact into the modern day - attacking on-line for maximum mass, the focus on meeting engagements, on counter-attack in the defence, etc. In this sense, CMCW lets you see those fundamentals very clearly, in their intended context, before you translate them to a new one.

First curveball - there's a large difference between Russia vs Ukraine and Russia vs the US here. The latter is significantly more asymmetric, so ends up breaking a lot of the rules or otherwise forcing you out of where you want to be. That's essentially why things like Javelin exist, of course - they're supposed to be disruptive technology, aimed at plausible opposition. Will focus on Russia vs Ukraine then, with some notes on the US at the end.

Second curveball - I'm not convinced that all Black Sea scenarios capture or represent the main tropes of hyper-modern warfare as well as they could. Arguably that's true for all CM titles, but I suspect it's inevitably a little worse for Black Sea, due to the speculative nature of everything. As an example of that, Between Two Fahrbahns in Cold War. That's scenario that's great fun to play from either side, plays well H2H, and it's perfectly competent... but isn't terribly representative of "Cold War", and doesn't really make an argument, express a concept or investigate a tactical problem of the period. The same scenario might as well have Shermans vs Panzer IVs and it would work equally well.

So, what defines Black Sea? Philip Karber has a definition of the real combat in the region as "high intensity combat on a low density battlefield", and I think that core idea should also define CMBS. As a basic rule of thumb then - it's pretty common to use a Quick Battle map that's one size larger than your force. In Black Sea I think that should really be two sizes larger by default. That same thinking can/should apply to scenarios, but it's intended as a quick representation of the idea.

The other difference in theme is that in Cold War the operational tempo is paramount. Typically the tactical battlefield is not something that needs to be taken, it's something that needs to be move through, as fast as possible. This is part of the reason why the Soviets could be (had to be) comparatively free with casualties - gaining operational freedom is the goal here, and the tactical-level losses are acceptable.

This is not true for Black Sea. The Russian army is smaller, more casualty-adverse, and isn't screaming towards the Rhine at maximum velocity. This means you'll be more interested in capturing objectives, and can't afford to take the losses. In addition, the Russian army has significantly improved equipment. Much better spotting and C2, faster call-in times for artillery, ERA and APS, drones to call in massed fires, etc. They also have pushed assets down to lower levels - not as much as the US do, but significantly more than the Soviets, meaning that small units are significantly more capable and independent. The Russian air defence is significantly better than the US, so they should have drone superiority (and the US have nothing that can shoot down Zala at all). 

So how do you marry these two ideas? Soviet fundamentals, whilst being casualty-adverse? This is perhaps the major problem to solve as the Russians, but a lot of it comes down to controlling your engagements. You still want to be attacking on-line, with maximum firepower against a subset of the enemy, but you want to be careful as and when you engage, and to control that engagement with overwhelming firepower. An actual engagement might only last a minute or two, and a battle might be a lot of sneaking and manoeuvre, followed by a brief period of devastating fires. High intensity, Low density.

The first mission of the Russian campaign in the core game is indicative, I think. This is fundamentally a Soviet doctrinal meeting engagement. This is identical in concept to Miller's training scenario from CMCW, or the first mission of the Soviet campaign in Cold War, but the differences start to become apparent.

In the Russian campaign scenario, you have all the elements of that meeting engagement - you have a recon platoon, followed by a Forward Security Element of a BMP-3 company and a tank platoon, and they should be doing the same fundamental job.

The differences really start when the follow-up to that FSE is a single tank company, and not an entire battalion. That means that you're inherently more limited in how you can approach this.

The approach I took with this was to advance with the recon platoon and get spots along the route of contact, then advance at the speed of the fireplan. The FSE wants to march into a valley, so, suppressing the high town objective on the valley's far side is what allowed the follow-on tank company to take up a base of fire on the right side hill, on-line, and dominate the valley with fires.

The FSE can then approach into the valley floor, preceded with drone-summoned fires on the central objective, and with covering fires on likely enemy positions to the flanks. This FSE can then bypass, surround and reduce the central objective, before moving on to take on the others to the conclusion.

At each stage the fundamentals are the same - your fire plan is paramount, and in each bound you're attempting to go fires-first, maximising firepower at every engagement. 

So, how about the US? Well, Abrams, Bradley and Javelin represent disruptive technology, that will do terrible things to you. The fundamentals remain identical, but you can do everything right and still lose sometimes, and anything you do wrong will be punished severely. Fighting javelins is about firepower and the terrain read - they're systems used on foot, and the modern US infantryman doesn't like mortars anymore than anyone else does, so denying potential javelin positions is as important as anything. Abrams need to be engaged from the flank where possible (ideally from two angles at once), and Bradleys are near-psychic in their spotting, so you need to engage them quickly and decisively with excellent recon - you never want to get into an engagement where you don't already have spotting contacts.

Attacking into Javelins is one of the unsolved problems of Black Sea, and it's tough. It's also why I tried to separate out the "What about the US" from the above, because the situation is so asymmetric that it breaks most of the rules. It's not quite as bad, but it's a similar situation to CMSF - being competitive with the Syrians vs US is so far outside of "normal", that it's actually a distraction.

Along those lines, I don't accept that it's okay to expect to lose at least 9 tanks, or at least the intention has to be to do everything possible to not have that occur. How to avoid that is firmly non-trivial - again, you can do everything right and still lose, and anything you do wrong will be severely punished.

You're right about the Grey Eagle, but the US has significantly worse anti-air options in CMBS than the Russians do. You also *always* want to have air defence in a Russian force, probably down to the company level (and ideally leaning on at least medium Electronic Warfare), because these are aspects that are your advantages - it's not coincidence that both of those are central to their planning in general.

Now, again, "How to beat the US with the Russians in Black Sea" is fundamentally a different question to "How do the Russians play similarly/different in Cold War compared with Black Sea?" - the former really doesn't have any good answers in the game or real life (although is fascinating, and well worth discussing), whilst the latter has some firmer grounding, I think, and it's what the above is what I was trying to offer an answer for.

Shouldn't that be in the manual?
 

Agree with the sentiments here - don't try cold war defensive methods on the attack and don't try attacking methods on the defense - things go wrong.
To emphasise the maneuver orientation of the Soviets, scenario designers should strongly consider an exit objective.
About Zaloga, I heard that his stuff (Osprey?) was heavily biased, are they any good? 
 

In the critique of the Active Defense doctrine, the US are meant to maneveur its forces to reduce the force ratios of expected soviet attacks, eg from 6:1 down to 3:1 or better so the US defender could apply more of the advantages of the defenders edge in firepower, terrain etc. The idea was the some parts of US battle front was left thinly held and forces transferred to the likely venues of a Soviet massed assault. Could such gaps be safely managed?
Now one of the critiques of the Active Defense doctrine was that it relied on seemingly outdated Soviet concepts of a mass assault, ignoring intelligence on how the Soviets were training and expected the Soviets to ignore experience of the 1973 Arab Isreali War that the US themselves were updating their doctrine to incorporate.
"If the revised doctrine of 1976 was to prove vulnerable on any point, it was one based on a scenario that mayalready have ceased to be realistic by1976: the classic massed armor break-through as the assumed Soviet opera-tional maneuver. Since the manual's tactical descriptions proceeded in reac-tion to this type of penetration, the issue was of no small importance. The doctrinal manual depicted an attack by the enemy on very narrow fronts ingreat depth, with massed firepower in the breakthrough sector. Warsaw Pact forces might throw as many as 600 tanks against a U.S. division in the leading echelon, followed shortly by 600 more. "This doctrine . . . is deeply ingrained in the Soviet Army and if weshould go to war in Europe, those are exactly the tactics we would face."17
By 1976,, "a major shift in tactical operational concepts" had occurred.l8
The Soviets' concern since 1973 about antitank guided missiles had pro-duced a strong awareness of the vulner-ability of their BMP infantry fighting vehicle-the indispensable support ele-ment to the tactics of the rapid and deep classic armor breakthrough. The consequent revival in recent Soviet exercises of another operational maneuver-the concept of multi-pronged attacks by BMP regi-ments reinforced with armor across the entire battlefront seeking holes and weakspots. In training, the Soviets were spending quadruple the time practicing the multi-prong attacks and meeting engagements as they were rehearsing conventional frontal break-throughs. Though many combat sup-port, logistical and leadership problems were evident in the new maneuver,there was no doubt,  about a "tactical revolution" in Soviet militarydoctrine.l9
"Severe ramifications fall from FM 100-5 having built its edifice on but oneof the possible Soviet operational maneuvers."22
So what I'm suggesting is not so much whether its right or wrong, but as an avenue for scenario designers to consider the possibilities of BMP or BTR battalions reinforced with tank companies to attempt breakthrough against thinly held US lines or positions, say with US receiving late game reinforcements (or not as the US intended to operated without tactical reserves) attempting to close the gap before more soviet follow on forces appear. This approach would stand in contrast to the Soviet training scenarios and similar scenarios.
What thoughts could there be from scenario designers on these concepts and could BFC pick them up and issue them as a Battlepack?

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 a recent PBEM I was playing as Russia against the US. After some initial bloodletting I set up my ATGM teams in a set of tall buildings which were able to overlook much of the map. I had them all on short range target arcs and gave them sufficient time to acquire as many of the enemy as possible.
When I was ready to begin the engagement proper, I turned off all target arcs and laughed in joy as almost every single US vehicle popped smoke and reversed into cover, allowing me to push my company of T90s into positions where they were able to engage a fraction of the US force with maximum firepower.
By the time we ceasefired, out of the US force (a platoon of Abrams and a company of Bradleys) only 4 Bradleys and 2 Abrams were fully operational. Although I didn't kill a single Abrams, one was entirely combat ineffective and the other had substantial subsystem damage, both after taking several ATGM hits frontally. The US infantry had used up almost all of their javelins, to little effect due to my tanks being on higher ground, allowing Arena to defeat almost all of the javelins which were fired.
In return however I lost about half of my BMPs (mostly from an ill-considered attempt at an opposed rover crossing) and a third of my T90 company either knocked out or immobilized.
 

With a mixture of sneakiness & luck! 

This one got two plus a brace of Bradleys to go with 'em!   
PS - Note the direction it's attacking from, relative to its foes. 

I was wasting time during a meeting playing through the US campaign when I suddenly heard an explosion from the other side of the map. I clicked back the time and all I saw was a half squad with no AT assets had taken out a BMP. 

That's when I saw the luckiest rifle grenade shot ever. Or a bug. A lucky bug. 

https://youtu.be/96VebHfl3EQ

And again another obvious issue is that while infantry on the ground gain cover saves to abstract their ability to find micro terrain tank crewmen do not and are reliant on their animation positioning them. If you find any video of men sticking their heads out of a vehicle in combat its simple to see that they make attempts to reduce their exposure whenever possible which is something that CM crewmen do not do.

Had a lot of fun with this one. After reading some of the comments on the forum I was ready for the gauntlet but I don't think it was too bad. 

First priority was preparing the way for the advance guard. I think people get hung up a bit too much on preplanned artillery with the Soviets. Even with longer call in times they can still destroy a tank with a few minutes of artillery fire. I started off with a preplanned bombardment on the tentative contact then adjusted it to the remaining AFV's overlooking the valley. When my troops rolled in there was only one tank remaining and it was taken out within the first minute. 
Knowing that I faced an enemy light on infantry I decided to rush Mansbach and quickly move to Soislieden. This proved the correct play as I caught the three M113's off guard and barely skipped a beat. At Soislieden, I discovered the bane of all proletariat. Even when opened up the T-62 spots worse than Stevie Wonder! I do not pretend to do iron man runs so sue me but I had to run it back so many times to take out the remaining tanks outside Soislieden. Eventually, with the help of infantry I was able to clear it out right around the time my main force arrived.

Based on some youtube videos I watched, I think people get hung up around this time. I saw people charging their T72's out in the open only to get picked off by unseen tanks and TOW's. Instead, I took my BTR's on the country roads shown above to observe the hill. I was able to spot all AFV's in hiding and called artillery on each target except one which was taken out by an AT-4. By the way, the AT-4 has to be one of the Soviet's most powerful weapons. It's hard to spot (at least with the AI), it spots like no other and reloads extremely fast. 
After the last AFV was destroyed I moved up my main force and took Ulfhausen. My only losses were a few BTR's that were trapped on the country road while the AI used their X-Ray vision to call in artillery on them through the trees... Seriously, how does that happen?
Overall this was a really fun mission and I think it does a good job of teaching you that without proper reconnaissance small numbers of NATO tanks can massacre large Soviet armored units. But if properly managed these combined arms units can be unstoppable.