Centurian52

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No need to choose between retaking territory and destroying the enemy. Capturing territory faster than the enemy can retreat from it will destroy them just fine. That's where all those POWs are coming from.

Good point. The Russian kill chain is slow enough that it seems unlikely they could accurately target a moving Ukrainian unit. And the force to space ratios are still sparse enough that a hit on a Ukrainian unit with a tac-nuke might only result in casualties in the low hundreds, or perhaps even the high dozens.

- Not standardized, but bigger than a MOAB and smaller than Hiroshima. - No. One tactical nuke will have no impact whatsoever (other than to piss everyone off). Nukes are big, but not that big. - Yes, if they use enough of them. - Yes, if they use enough of them. A couple points to consider 1. Using enough tactical nukes to make a difference on the battlefield will use up a chunk of their stock, which they might prefer to keep in reserve for that upcoming war with NATO that they're so paranoid about. 2. The rest of the world has a nuclear taboo to enforce, and I expect Russia knows it. If they use even a single tactical nuke, the West has to respond in some way that severely punishes Russia for breaking the nuclear taboo (probably not with a nuclear response though, unless Russian nukes hit NATO territory).

I'd caution against giving China too much credit. Their government isn't necessarily any more competent than the Russian government.

Well I'm just coming back to this thread after being unable to keep up with it for a couple months. But this looks like it could be pretty huge to me. Sure, if the Ukrainians just take back a bit of ground and then stop then this doesn't really mean much (I don't know that there is anything terribly valuable here (except for civilians who no longer have to live under Russian rule)). But presumably they will keep advancing until the Russians stop them (I haven't heard that they've stopped yet). And the Russians will need to pull troops from somewhere in order to stop them. That means weakening other parts of the front line, which will open them up to opportunistic Ukrainian attacks elsewhere, or at a minimum will mean abandoning any further offensive ambitions in the Donbass. So it's not so much the ground itself that has me excited, but what this will do to the rest of the Russian line. The Russians could stop this attack only to see the Ukrainians break through at whatever part of the line they decided to weaken. In the best case this could roll up the whole line. It's possible we are seeing the beginning of that collapse that was predicted a few months ago (although perhaps I'm getting too optimistic). Even if this doesn't snowball into a total Russian collapse, at a minimum it's a chunk of Ukrainian territory back in Ukrainian hands, and a clear sign that the Ukrainians are now strong enough (and/or the Russians are weak enough) that we can expect more such advances in the future.

I had a lot of fun with this one. Played as the French this time. Stopped the 1st Panzer Division cold. https://youtu.be/BFGrRG9rDn8

I'd say it more than holds up. CM1 is still one of the best modern tactical ground warfare sim engines in the world, second only to CM2 (and has theaters that aren't represented in CM2 such as North Africa and Barbarossa (still no CM games (either 1 or 2) natively covering Poland 39, France 40, Norway 40, Greece 40/41, etc..)). And relative to other games the sprite ratio actually isn't so bad. A squad of 10 pixeltruppen is represented by 3 sprites, making a sprite ratio of either 3:1 or 4:1, whereas games like Scourge of War (my go-to for Napoleonic era combat) have a sprite ratio of 6:1 (battalion of 400 soldiers is represented by 67 sprites).

On to the actual combat!

Ok, finally getting back into this after a few months (for real this time). We're still in France, but it's June now. I think I have another dozen or so scenarios set in France 1940 and then it will be on to CMAK's intended setting, the North African desert. Since, even playing most days out of the week, I'll be going through a bit slower than real time, I will probably be finishing up WW2 sometime around 2030 (and then I will finally be able to play CMCW (unless BFC has released CM Korea or CM Vietnam by then (current CMx2 engine can't handle that much foliage, but the next CMx3 engine might be able to))).

That seems like it might be a perfecty fine formula for evaluating the effectiveness of individual shots. But no one can deny that assault rifles are less effective than battle rifles on a shot for shot basis. The point is that they can put more shots in a target area more rapidly

I'm not sure what you mean by subjective. Certainly it isn't based on rigorous research (I'm not sure where I would even begin with that sort of research). It is not based on national preference. I don't pretend that the M16 was better than other assault rifles, and I will freely admit that I think the M14 was probably inferior to other battle rifles. My opinion is just that assault rifles are generally better than battle rifles (or at least they were 50 years ago). That isn't an opinion that I have an unshakable confidence in (in fact I will need to see it wargamed before I really gain confidence in it). But it is based on what I believe to be sound arguments in favor of the design considerations behind the assault rifle concept. Those being, first, that the greater effective range of a battle rifle is nearly useless because almost all combat takes place within 300 meters, and a human cannot even see a human sized target at much beyond 500 meters anyway (this may no longer be the case with modern optics, but certainly was the case in the 70s/80s), and within those ranges an assault rifle is just as good. Second that the greater penetration of a battle rifle makes little difference most of the time, since body armor that was effective against rifle fire wasn't really a thing back then (greater penetration may still have been nice to have in the jungle though, where being able to penetrate deaper into the thick vegetation could be helpful). As such the bigger and more powerful rounds of a battle rifle mostly just meant more recoil, less controllable automatic fire, and less ammo, for little practicle gain. Those were the arguments made 50 years ago in favor of the assault rifle concept, and I believe they were sound then (although, again, I will really need to see it wargamed before I gain real confidence in that opinion (certainly assault rifles have less recoil and more ammo, but does that offset their reduced range and penetration in an era before modern optics and body armor?). Note that, while I believe they were probably sound 50 years ago, those arguments may no longer be sound. Nowadays almost everyone has effective body armor, meaning that having small arms with greater penetration should provide a real advantage. And advanced optics are available to nearly everyone, meaning that a rifleman may be able to spot, identify, and engage targets well beyond 500 meters, at ranges where a battle rifle might be significantly more effective than an assault rifle. Again though, I will need to see it wargamed before I am fully convinced that the battle rifle is now the superior concept (certainly they have better range and penetration, but does that offset their increased recoil and reduced ammo now that we have modern body armor and optics?).

I think the smaller magazine size of the French rifles will make some difference. I'm not really sure since I haven't seen fully battle rifle equipped infantry in action in CM before (just the odd FN FAL in CMA and FG-42 in the WW2 titles). So mostly I'm imagining my American infantry in the WW2 titles only stopping to reload around half as often to get a reference frame for how much more effective battle rifles will be than WW2 style semi automatic rifles. And considering that my American infantry do actually spend a decent chunk of their time loading, I suspect the larger magazine capacity of the G3 and L1A1 will give the German and British infantry a noteacable firepower advantage over MAS-56 armed French infantry. As far as differences between the British and French infatry that will be it, since the L1A1 was semi-auto only. But the G3 could be fired in full auto. While it definitely won't be as controllable as the Soviet AK-74 would be, that might at least somewhat narrow the firepower gap between the West German and Soviet infantry in close range engagements in buildings and forests (I assume battle rifle armed infantry won't switch to automatic fire until much closer range, and that their automatic fire will be less accurate than assault rifle armed infantry, but that still has to be better than no automatic fire at all). I think British and French infantry will perform well against Soviet infantry at long range, but will be at a hopeless disadvantage against Soviet infantry in extreme close range assaults through forests and buildings (perhaps made somewhat bearable when they have the advantage of being on the defense, but they will needs lots of machinegun and artillery support to succeed in the attack). I can just imagine my poor semi-auto only British and French infantry desperely pulling their triggers as fast as possible while Soviet infantry charge them down while blazing away with controllable full auto.

The round in the video is hitting a weak point in the armor that has to be carved out to make room for the driver, so it is traveling through significantly less textolite than it would if it had struck further down or to the left or right (it looks like the round travels through a little over half as much armor (2/3rds?) as it would have needed to if it had struck some other part of the plate). One of the things that became apparent to me the first time I watched that video was just how much larger the driver's weak point is in reality than it appears when you are just looking at the frontal surface of the armor. On the surface the hole in the armor is just large enough to accommodate the driver's optics. But when you consider all three dimensions, that is a sizeable chunk of the frontal armor that is significantly thinner, all because the driver needs to be able to see where he is going.

I *assume* that the French will not be in the fist module for CMCW (presumably that honor will go to either the British or West/East Germans). But they would have been important to the defense of West Germany (I understand they would have formed an important reserve force, despite not actually holding a sector on the West German/East German border), so I assume that they will make it into the game eventually (2nd or 3rd module perhaps?). So I'm curious about what the state of their infantry armament was like in the setting of CMCW. I understand that the FAMAS F1 entered service in 1978. But I also know that it can take a while for a new piece of equipment to completely replace an old piece of equipment, so I assume there were still some old MAS-56 rifles hanging around for a few years. What was the rate of FAMAS procurement? What would a typical French rifle squad have looked like in 1979? 1980? 1981? 1982? Would we see a mostly MAS equipped squad with the odd FAMAS here and there (like how we see the occasional STG-44 on mostly Kar-98k equipped German squads in some of the WW2 titles)? A mostly FAMAS equipped squad with the odd MAS here and there? A pretty even mix of both? Were individual units always uniformly equipped with either one or the other, with there just being more FAMAS and fewer MAS equipped units as time goes on? I know I shouldn't wish inferior firepower on my NATO pixeltruppen, but I am morbidly curious to see the MAS-56 in action if it was still being used in large numbers during the CMCW time period. If the MAS-56 is still around in large numbers that would give us the full spectrum of 2nd half 20th century rifles, from WW2 style 10 round semi-automatic rifles in the form of the French MAS-56, to 20 round/select-fire battle rifles in the form of the British L1 and West German G3, to 30 round/intermediate caliber assault rifles in the form of the American M16 and Soviet AK-74. Could semi-auto rifle armed French infantry withstand an assault by assault rifle armed Soviet infantry? Probably not. But I am morbidly curious to see it play out.

I read this as a sign of Russian weakness. I can't see any reason to allow your enemy to retreat other than that you lack the strength to trap or destroy them.

It really couldn't. There is no way to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine without going all-in on a conventional war between Russia and NATO. It would not only mean NATO aircraft shooting down Russian aircraft, but also NATO aircraft attacking Russian air-defense systems and radar.

Way ahead of you on that. I got out of the Army at the end of 2020, and recently started working as a Navy contractor. I feel like I'm going to have pretty good job security this decade (if things heat up in the ways I'm expecting them to).

Fair point. It might be more accurate to say that an agreement with the current Russian regime is impossible. Of course I seriously doubt that very many people mean "every individual Russian throughout time" when they go around talking about "the Russians" anyway. In any case, the Russian government really has broken enough agreements in the past that it really is impossible to negotiate with them at this point. Any agreement made with them will be broken as soon as it suits them. Perhaps that might change if the current regime is overthrown. I would certainly like to see a future where we can be on friendly terms with a reasonable Russia.

Thank Steve for small mercies

I guess I'm not really expecting the Chieftain to perform phenomenally better than the M60 in the timeframe of CMCW. I believe it's still using the same L15APDS ammunition in 1979-1982 that it had in 1965 (I don't think the L23 APFSDS comes out until 1985), so despite having a bigger gun I don't think it will prove any better at killing T-64s than the M60 (I think the L15 should perform better than the M728, but not quite as well as the M735). Its Stillbrew armor package won't come out until 1986, well after the timeframe of CMCW. I have, on rare occasions, seen rounds bounce off of the needle nosed turret of the M60 (exception, not the rule). Perhaps a higher proportion of rounds will bounce off of the thicker armor and steeper angles of the Chieftain's turret, but given that it's still just homogenous steel against late 70s/ early 80s ammunition I expect the overwhelming majority of rounds will still get through. I expect if CMCW had been set in the late 60s/ early 70s the Chieftain would be significantly more survivable with significantly more firepower than the M60 (or if it had been set in the late 80s for that matter, when the Chieftain had newer ammunition and Stillbrew armor). But in the game's current setting I expect the main practical difference to be that it will have somewhat worse mobility. The Leopard 1 should be the exact opposite. I still don't expect it to be any more survivable (in fact, if it was rare for the M60 to bounce a shot, the Leo 1 should never bounce a shot) or be any better at killing T-64s, but it should be a bit faster. In any case, I can hardly wait to see both the Chieftain and the Leopard 1 in action. While this might not be the most flattering time period for the Chieftain, it is still an interesting vehicle. I'm not sure if the Marder will quite be a match for the BMP-2 (should be better than the BMP-1), but will definitely stand more of a chance than the M113. Does anyone happen to know what the British mech-infantry are riding around in from 1979-1982? I'm pretty sure the Warrior hasn't entered service yet.