Centurian52

The Ukrainians have almost no Oplots (around 10 in total I believe). They mostly have T64BVs and T64BV model 2017s, with a handful of T80BVs and T64BM Bulats. They also have a handful of assorted T72s (many of them captured from the Russians, I'm not sure how many T72s they had at the start of the war) and the aforementioned insignificant number of T84 Oplots.

Apologies if someone already answered this. This is a very crowded thread. Light basically means they are unarmored (not carried in armored vehicles). Their weapons can be as heavy as you like (in fact they would be considered very poorly armed if they only had small arms, to the point that they might practically be considered unarmed), but as long as they don't have any AFVs they are "light infantry". I could hardly imagine any unit not having ATGMs and MANPADS in a modern war, regardless of how "light" it nominally is. "Heavy infantry" means "mechanized infantry".

That much seems clear. But it has been pointed out to me that improvement is practically inevitable. If enough people get killed, and you fire enough generals, eventually someone is going to figure out what they are doing. It seems that every war in which someone demonstrates total incompetence at the beginning sees them gradually figuring out. The British in the 2nd Boer war, the Soviets in the Winter War, the Soviets in WW2, everyone in WW1. The Russians still have a lot to of learning to do, but they are already performing much better than they were back in February. So I think their competence will only grow with time. But that probably won't be enough to help them. Their strategic situation is only getting worse with time, and it may already be insurmountable.

This is my view. Modern tanks will be rendered obsolete...by more advanced tanks. But until someone comes up with a better way to provide heavy direct firepower than a big-gunned armored vehicle, the tank is here to stay. Like Nicholas Moran said, obsolescence is driven by capability, not vulnerability. Infantry are extremely vulnerable to bullets, and a bullet is a heck of a lot cheaper than an infantryman. And yet infantry have not been rendered obsolete because nothing else can provide the same capability as infantry (granting that in a century or so we may have robots performing the same jobs as infantry). The presence of weapons that the tank is very vulnerable to is not enough to render it obsolete. The development of something which does a better job of providing the same capability is what will render it obsolete. I don't know if perhaps precise enough artillery with short enough call-in times could someday provide the same direct fire capabilities as a tank (hitting a moving target could be difficult). That's the only solution I can think of that would actually render the tank truly obsolete. Any vehicle that tried to take over the role of the tank would quickly start evolving to be very tank-like. Even removing the crew and making it remotely operated, or even fully autonomous, doesn't guarantee that it won't still be called a tank.

I wouldn't be so sure. Personally I expect the war will be over in just a few months. But that is based on the assumption that the Russians have given up on actually beating the Ukrainians, and are merely looking for an opportunity to declare victory and run. But guessing at the intentions of others is always messy. If they decide that they really don't want to lose, and decide to finally admit that this is a real war and mobilize, then it will likely go on for years (the sanctions are hurting, but the Russian economy will not collapse overnight). If the CMBS and CMCW modules are on hold until after the war is over then we should be braced for the possibility that we will not see them for a very long time.

@Bootie I vaguely recall you're the person to contact about getting mods uploaded. Any chance of getting this uploaded? I believe credit goes to Alexander Puzankov on the WineHQ forum for writing the patch, and to whizse on the GamingOnLinux forum for compiling it into a working custom Proton build and uploading it to his dropbox. I have the dropbox link, but I'm not sure if you need Alexander Puzankov and/or whizse's permission first?

That worked! I just loaded up CMCW and everything works! Not flawlessly, since the UI is really tiny (I assume that's related to me having a 4k monitor), but nothing I can't deal with. Any chance of getting this thrown up on thefewgoodmen? I assume someone would need to get whizse's permission. But it probably isn't too much of a stretch to count this as a mod, and I'm sure other Linux users will have a much easier time finding it that way.

Just commenting in the hope it will bring some attention to this. I have been trying to figure out how to compile a patch for Wine for several months now (off and on, I'm sure if I had been consistently working on it that whole time I would have gotten it by now). I am running Linux Mint 20.3 Cinnamon. There seem to be a number of complications just with compiling Wine source code. On top of that I have no idea where the patch file should be placed. I tried walking through the instructions you posted, but those seem to be for a different distro. I'll probably try taking another crack at it this weekend. If I make a breakthrough I'll be sure to post how I did it, but those instructions will probably only be any good to people who are also running a Debian derivative.

I guess my opinion is they should stick to their plans for now and release the currently planned CMBS module whenever it's ready. But down the line I would absolutely be in favor of a dedicated 2022 module (or 2022-whenever this ends, if this turns out to be a multi-year invasion). Adding Javelins, NLAWs and TB2s to the Ukrainian arsenal, as well as some of the sort range AT weapons that have been sent like AT4s and Panzerfaust 3s. And some older Russian tanks which seem to be more common in the Russian arsenal. Looking over the tank losses suffered by Russia so far as tracked by https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html it looks like the most common are the T72B3 Obr. 2016, the T80U, and T72B. With significant numbers of T72B3, T90A, T80BVM, and T72B Obr. 1989 as well. That is a dizzying array of different tanks, so I wouldn't be surprised if it took a while, but a guarantee there is a market for it. At least it looks like the vast majority of Ukrainian tanks are T64BVs, which are already in the game. I have no idea if it would be remotely possible to try and represent any units of the International Legion. I know BFC already have their own plans in motion, but it wouldn't be a bad thing if it took them a little while to get around to a 2022 module anyway. That way more of it can play out and they can work with more information and have more historical battles to build scenarios around. Just so long as they can get around to a 2022 module eventually. Come to think of it, the error message I get when I try to run CM in Linux using Wine appears to be OpenGL related. If moving away from OpenGL is something that can be done at this point I wonder if it might have the added benefit of making it easier to run CM in Linux?

I think Battlefront probably modeled everything more or less correctly based on the information that was available at the time. I do think more of the older Russian tank variants should have been modeled from the start. And considering that Ukraine only has around 10 Oplots those probably should have been omitted entirely. And T90's should be a lot rarer. And of course we now know that moral and experience levels should be lower for the Russians.

There is also a difference of terrain to consider. I believe Ukraine gets significantly muddier around this time of year than Central Europe ever does. I have heard that the mud goes at least part of the way to explaining the slow advance and long columns of crowded vehicles along single roads, since it may be the case that those vehicles are physically unable to go off of the roads without becoming bogged down (the convoy doctrine I've read (which is admittedly WW2 American doctrine, not Cold War/modern Soviet/Russian doctrine) directs that vehicles should be moved off of the road and into concealment during halts). This may also partially explain why the Russians have made more progress in the south, which I understand doesn't get quite as muddy as the north.

I would be interested in something like this

Given current events I would also be very interested in more campaigns and scenarios featuring Ukrainian forces as blue forces (no US), which could plausibly take place in either the given 2017 setting or the real world 2022 invasion. I have been browsing my existing game files and the scenario depot for scenarios and campaigns fitting that description, but there are fewer than I would have hoped.

I agree that he wants more. But Ukraine is as far as Putin can go without triggering a full NATO response. Poland is a NATO country. Romania is a NATO country. Hungary, Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia are all NATO countries. It is impossible for him to push any further than Ukraine without attacking a NATO country. The Russian military is very powerful (the 3rd strongest military in the world), but it cannot fight all of NATO. Modern day Russia is not the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union may or may not have been able to defeat NATO, but at least it wasn't unreasonable to debate whether or not it could. Modern Russia doesn't even have a chance. It doesn't even rise to the level of a plausible "what-if" scenario. edit: Ok, I suppose he might be able to try for Moldova with some hope of dodging a full NATO response.

I personally stopped complaining about marksmanship after digging for information about hit probabilities on Napoleonic battlefields, and found figures suggesting that it was common for it to take somewhere between 200 and 500 rounds to inflict 1 casualty. I know it's the wrong time period, but the chances of a round finding it's mark would have actually been significantly higher on a Napoleonic battlefield than on a modern one. The enemy on a Napoleonic battlefield can be clearly seen, and is standing in a dense formation. The enemy on a modern battlefield is in extended formations, and each soldier is taking cover and concealment on their own initiative. Cover was used on Napoleonic battlefields, contrary to popular imagination. But not on the initiative of the individual soldiers. Rather, a battalion commander would have to find a suitable linear terrain feature that could provide decent protection for their whole battalion (a ditch, tree line, wall, etc...), which is a much harder task than an individual finding a terrain feature that could protect just themselves. The fact that they had muskets and not modern rifles does not account for the low hit probability. Muskets, while inaccurate compared to modern rifles, are far more accurate than people imagine. About 30 arcminutes (+/- 6 arcminutes), or about half a degree is the accuracy of a typical musket, which is abysmal by modern standards. But it is just accurate enough that a perfect marksmen should be guaranteed hit someone in a close order formation at 200 yards with every round. Clearly it was the humans that were inaccurate. Specifically, the humans under battlefield conditions, since they achieved much higher accuracy when shooting at targets on a range. Considering how much more elusive modern targets are, I now find estimates that it takes 2000+ rounds to inflict 1 casualty on a modern battlefield (which I used to find absolutely absurd) to be completely plausible. I came away from this with two conclusions: 1. The marksmanship in Combat Mission is perfectly fine. 2. Imperial Stormtroopers are actually excellent marksmen and the "stormtroopers can't aim" memes need to die.

I haven't been able to find any mention of a gun stabilizer on the M48A5, so I assume it didn't have one. If this is the the case then firing on the move would be difficult or impossible. It's impossible to say exactly what the best engagement range is for the M48A5, but the tables are turned somewhat in comparison with later American tanks. The higher velocity gun of the T62 (even the early ones that don't have a laser rangefinder) means that at longer ranges the T62 will be able to engage the M48 more effectively than the M48 will be able to engage the T62. Normally as the Americans you want to snipe at long range, while as the Soviets you want to get in close for a knife fight. With the M48 (especially if you are facing T62s or better) you want to get in close for a knife fight, and avoid long range sniping. I have found the M48A5 to be about an equal match for the T55s in game at almost any range.

Interesting. I haven't played enough modern content to notice this before. Of all the "bugs" reported on this forum, this one might actually be a real bug.

One thing I found interesting is that he acknowledged that there is great interest in Vietnam, but that it isn't on the cards because the engine can't handle the terrain. I wonder if that means it could be on the cards after CM3 comes around?

This sounds perfectly plausible. The main weakness of pistols is that they have a very limited effective range, but sub-50 meters is practically point-blank. Also this is about where it becomes damn near impossible to see anything through a sniper scope (very narrow field of view, so a regular un-scoped rifle would be much better at this range). Although frankly any bolt-action rifle will struggle at this range, which is the big selling point of sub-machineguns.

That's because the games aren't currently capable of taking advantage of the full power of modern computers. They are well optimized, and will run reasonably well even on a potato. But there is no noticeable improvement in their performance on even the most powerful gaming PCs. Engine 5 will probably address this.

Excellent! It looks like this is going to be a very good year. No mention of a Cold War module. I assume either that's not far along enough to make a guess on when it'll be out, or that it's expected to come out in 2023? No matter, I'm willing to wait for quality (also I'm still working through literally thousands of CM scenarios (including CMx1) in chronological order and I'm still in early WW2, so It'll be a while before I get to Cold War anyway). But I am anxious to get to see the BOAR and Bundeswehr in action.

I watched it, I was just poking fun at the common talking points and memes surrounding the T-34. I really enjoyed the video.

What blasphemy! Don't you know that the T-34 was made of pure stalanium and invented the concept of angles!

Yessss!!! I've actually done this manually for most of my CM games. I went into my scenarios folder and renamed all of the scenarios with the date as a prefix in YYYY/MM/DD format, and then sorted the scenarios in alphabetical order to get them in chronological order. But it would have saved me so much time if there was a way to do this automatically. This would be very helpful, but they've already explained multiple times why a convoy command isn't coming. Basically it's just too technically challenging to implement. I'm sure if you could come up with an implementation that could work, wouldn't take too much time and money, and wouldn't require a complete redesign of the engine then you would be a hero of the CM community. Maybe there is some hope for a convoy command in CM3? I know one infantry stat I would like to see would be some indication of how encumbered they are. I'm never sure how much ammo to take out of the back of vehicles. What I want to do is take as much equipment and ammo with my squads when they leave their vehicles as possible (I usually can't be sure that they'll have a chance to return for more later), while still retaining an acceptable degree of mobility. And some indicator of the average weight being carried by each man would be really helpful for that. Of course this isn't a top priority since I've found I can usually get away with just grabbing everything and they can still move well enough, but it would be nice to have more information to optimize my approach. And, for the same reasons, it would also be nice to be able to return unneeded ammo and equipment to the vehicle. All that being said, I seem to recall that they are focusing on performance rather than features for Engine 5 anyway, which seems like a good idea. So I won't be the least bit disappointed if I don't see a single one of the features I or anyone else has entered on this thread, just so long as the game can make greater use of my system's resources to run big scenarios a little more smoothly.

I always love Battle Order. I just saw this video drop and immediately knew it belonged on the CMCW forum. If you hadn't beat me to it I was minutes away from posting it myself. Those of us who have played CMCW are all probably already familiar with US 1980's mechanized infantry squad and platoon organization. But this video helps fill in some gaps and provide a bit of context to how things are organized in game. One thing I found interesting is that irl the organization of the dismounted element is actually ad-hoc, but ad-hoc squad organization isn't really possible in the game engine.