Centurian52

These trenches look like a massive improvement over the default. Any chance we might be getting a download soon?

I love this image and am saving it for future use under the title "Grumpy Ivan"

He doesn't ignore Iraq. There's a whole section on why weak armies such as those of Iraq and Syria do still use chemical weapons. He does ignore the use of defoliants in Vietnam, justifying that decision by saying he wants to limit the scope of the article to the use of chemical weapons to kill people on a battlefield (while defoliants did kill people, they were meant to kill plants). As for Rhodesia and China in WW2 I assume there simply wasn't time to bring up every example. The use of chemical weapons in China in WW2 might make a good counterpoint to his arguments. It depends on whether the Chinese and Japanese armies of WW2 fall into what he calls "modern system armies" or "static system armies". Given the lack of initiative entrusted to low level Japanese officers and the lack of mechanization I might be tempted to place the Japanese army in the latter category rather than the first, which would conveniently keep it in line with his arguments. But I know far more about the European theater than I do about the Asia/Pacific theater so I will readily admit that that categorization might not hold up under examination.

Intriguing. What could it possibly be?

This sounds about right. There is no composite armor in the lower front hull, so rounds should slice through it pretty easily. The composite armor in the upper front hull is pretty much immune to the M774, but there is a hole in the composite armor for the driver's optics. So I would expect the vast majority of hits to the upper front hull to fail to get through, with the occasional lucky round finding the weak point (I would have expected more than one round in 68 to find the weak point, but I suppose that's random chance for you). I would have expected some penetrations on the turret. The composite armor in the turret is also immune to the M774, but it doesn't have perfect coverage (rounds hitting high on the turret might make it over the composite armor, and only have normal steel to contend with).

I think they were always going to run out of steam before Barbarossa could "succeed". I'm not convinced that starting earlier would have helped (they still would have taken heavy casualties and started running low on fuel after a few months). And I'm not sure prioritizing the south would have changed anything in their favor (prioritizing the center was quite helpful in outflanking the Soviet forces that were expecting them to concentrate in the south). And treating the local populace better certainly would have helped, but that's essentially asking the Nazis to not be Nazis (ethnic cleansing was kindof the whole point). If they made a serious mistake in Operation Barbarossa it was in thinking they could defeat a country as large as the Soviet Union in a single stroke. If they should have changed anything at all then perhaps they should have halted their advance a month or two earlier, be happy with more limited successes, save some fuel and some casualties. Save some energy for Fall Blau, where they really did make some serious mistakes that might have cost them the war (or maybe the whole operation was logistically unfeasible from the beginning).

I would absolutely play a Team Yankee campaign

Ooh yes!! Definitely this!! I always play real time because I find it more convenient for command (I like being able to cancel orders that I have only just realized are about to get an entire squad killed). But I am currently playing through some of the gen 1 games (CMAK at the moment) which only have WEGO, and I'm getting a taste of what I've been missing. I'm still going to keep playing RT once I work my way forward to the current gen games, and it would be amazing to be able to save a replay of a battle I played in RT and go back and watch it and get all of the spectacle from all of the angles that I didn't get to see the first time around.

There is a bulk renaming utility that can change pre and postfixes for multiple files at the same time. I have used it on a couple of occasions: https://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/ I am seriously considering installing Ubuntu on my next computer though, since Linux lets you do exactly this sort of thing natively through the console without having to install any additional utilities.

Going into the scenario editor to ensure there are no anachronistic tank variants or formations in the upcoming scenarios and holy cow did some of these scenario designers play fast and loose with historical accuracy with some of these France 1940 scenarios. I am seeing a lot of Panzer 2Fs (which don't show up until 1941 and have better frontal armor than the Panzer 2Cs that were available at the time), Panzer 3Gs (the later production models with the 50mm guns, which don't show up until after the Battle of France), Panzer 4Fs (which don't show up until October and have much better frontal and side armor than the variants available for the campaign), M3 Lees (presumably as a stand in for the Char B1, they do seem similar since they both have a hull mounted 75mm gun, but the Char B1's 75 is a very low velocity gun, while the M3 Lee's 75mm is a medium velocity gun with significantly better performance), and Stuarts (which are much faster than any French tank they might be standing in for, as well as better armor and gun performance (the French 37mm was an L21 gun)). I've even come across German infantry with mg-42s. The desire to use American Lees and Stuarts as stand-ins is understandable due to the lack of any French tanks in the game. However their performance is sufficiently different from any French tanks available at the time that I do not consider them to be good stand-ins. Captured Italian M13/40 tanks, found in the Australian armor when the parameters are set to May 1941, are a good stand in for French AMC 35s, with remarkably similar performance in every regard I was able to look up. Frustratingly there are R-35s in the game, but they are captured and in Axis service with the Italians with the parameters set to July 1943. But there seems to be no way to add Axis vehicles to the Allied roster, leaving those R35s forever locked away and unusable for Battle of France scenarios. I can't think of any excuse for using incorrect variants of German tanks for France 1940 scenarios, as there is no shortage of Panzer 2Cs, Panzer 3Es and Fs, and Panzer 4Cs and Ds provided by the editor to use. And with mg34s provided by the editor there is no reason why mg42s should be showing up in the Battle of France. Anyway, like I said before, I'm combing through my upcoming France 1940 scenarios and removing or swapping out anachronistic vehicles and formations. Which means I'm catching some spoilers, but I'm hoping I'll forget most of them by the time I circle back around to playing these scenarios.

Admittedly the small number of examples and lack of any clear conclusions in the video are fairly unsatisfactory, but it's hard to find data on exactly what range a particular tank was knocked out at. Likewise it is hard to find data on exactly how many 88 shells were fired from 1939 to 1945, and of those how many were aimed at tanks, and of all of the tanks knocked out in the war how many were knocked out by those 88 shells. There are other problems with the data presented in the video, such as all of the sources are for rounds fired per kill claim, not for rounds fired per actual kill (kill claims often have little resemblance to actual kills). I believe he did the best he could with the data he had. The portions on Stug kills as well as kills by other guns were to set a baseline of what sort of shot/kill ratio can be expected from other guns, in order to give some idea of how good the shot/kill ratios for the 88s are. Having read estimated rates of rounds fired per hit achieved ranging from hundreds to one to thousands to one for small arms, from thousands to one to tens of thousands to one for WW2 anti-aircraft shells, and hundreds to one for WW2 air-launched rockets, a rate in the tens to one sounds pretty good to me. A rate of less than ten rounds fired for one kill sounds absolutely amazing.

Not CMAK, but I've sprinkled in a little bit of Theatre of War into my France 1940 gameplay to cover for CMAK's lack of any French tanks. Regrettably, I did not perform terribly well in this mission. With any luck there are some additional lines covering the evacuation at Dunkirk.

Very interesting data. I can easily believe that a gunner could achieve those accuracies on a marked range against targets that aren't moving, shooting back, or making any attempt to conceal themselves. But I have a hard time believing, in the absence of advanced FCS, that any weapon has ever achieved those kind of hit rates in battle (actually even with advanced FCS you will still somehow manage to miss more often than you would think, if my own gunnery in GHPC and Steel Beasts is any indication). Military History Visualized actually did a video on this a couple years ago. The TLDR is that while the 88mm probably deserves its reputation for exceptional accuracy and lethality, that reputation needs to be taken in the context of the other weapons it was competing with in WW2. As such you probably could not count on one-shot one-kill with an 88 in real life.

Well, I've yet to use or encounter any 88s in CMx1. But I do recall getting ambushed at extreme range by 88s on at least one or two occasions in CMx2 and suffering heavy losses as a result. My overall impression is that hit probabilities in CM are probably about right (it really is quite difficult to hit distant targets without modern fire control systems, especially when you are rushing because the other guys are shooting back at you).

My latest fight is an intense tank battle near a bridge enroute to Dunkirk

Hmmm, while CMx3 would be nice, I've gotta have that early war setting. With a specific priority to the early war campaigns that aren't covered in CMAK and CMBB, since I've been finding those games to be perfectly serviceable even today (so Poland 39, France 40 (CMAK's ability to cover actions in France 1940 is limited due to the lack of any French tanks in the game (frustratingly there are French tanks in CMBB, captured and in service with Axis forces, but no French infantry))). Of course maybe they could start with the early war when they go to CMx3? I just thirst for campaigns that haven't already been adequately represented elsewhere. I want to play every campaign of every war in the 20th century (and 19th century, but that's probably more Scourge of War's domain (it's a little tricky figuring out who should tackle the transitional period at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, since neither SoW nor CM are really optimized for that period)).

Noted, I'll try to get some closer shots in the next scenario

More 1940 goodness with a battalion scale clash with the British rearguard enroute to Dunkirk.

Ok, well I'm proud to have kicked off such a heated discussion. I really like some of the points that have been raised so far. Points I found convincing: -It takes just a few moments to increase the time limit in the editor anyway. -The time limit is necessary for scenario designers to employ the 'reinforcements that never arrive' trick in order to prevent the AI from surrendering before the designer intended. Points I didn't find convincing: -The time limit helps with balance. While this is true, I kindof feel like balance is overrated (a very fringe opinion, I know). I care far more about realism than I do about balance. And a time limit feels like a very artificial and gamey way of achieving balance. -Real world orders almost always tell you to accomplish an objective within a certain amount of time. This is also true, but I tend to file this under 'one of the most common parts of the plan to fall apart on first contact with the enemy'. You usually won't give up trying to take an objective just because you didn't take it as quickly as you were supposed to. Engagements don't suddenly end just because they took longer than intended. It is reality, not command intentions, that I want my games to emulate as closely as possible. Ok, I actually found that last point semi-convincing. The reason is because I like the idea of having some victory points being dependent on winning the battle within a certain time-frame. So while you can take as long as you want if you are content with a tactical victory, if you want a total victory you need to keep an eye on the time. 'You are ordered to accomplish the objective in a certain amount of time' isn't a good reason to have a firm time limit (in my opinion), but it is an excellent reason to tie some victory points to a soft time limit.

That's fair. And really that item is only a must if they ever make Combat Mission: Great War (a fantasy that I know will never come true, but that won't stop me from listing engine features that could make it viable), since the early war "squads" will be much larger than could ever fit on screen at one time. edit for clarity: In 1914 the smallest maneuver element in a lot of armies was the company of 200+ men. You could never fit all of those soldiers on the UI at once, so a hypothetical CMGW would need the ability to scroll through them.

Your experience tempts me to walk back my statement. But it will take quite a lot of convincing to bring me around to the idea that so much of the military history I've learned over my life could be so wrong. From what I've heard and read it is pretty rare to accomplish something such as capturing a heavily defended city block inside a single hour of fighting (for example). While fighting over a single CM scale objective won't generally take multiple days (sometimes it will, but those can be pretty easily broken up into multiple scenarios) it is not uncommon for it to take several hours to decide a single engagement. Some examples of real world CM scale engagements: -The assault on Brecourt Manor took around 2-3 hours (Winters started his reconnaissance at 0830, I'm not sure exactly when the first shot was fired and the assault began, the force withdrew at around 1230, https://www.wwiidogtags.com/ww2-history/assault-on-brecourt-manor/ said 2-3 hours for the assault so I went with that). -The capture of Carentan (just the town itself, since the whole battle of Carentan is a bit larger than you would expect to fit in a single CM scenario) took around an hour and a half (0600-0730) for the force attacking from the north and the force attacking from the south to meet in the middle. -The Battle of Bloody Gulch (a large CM scenario, but definitely small enough to be a CM scenario) took about 7+ hours from the commencement of the German attack at 0700 to the arrival of tanks from 2nd Armored Division at around 1400 (I'm not sure exactly how long after the tanks arrived it took to actually drive the Germans off). I chose those three examples because they were relatively easy to look up. I did my best to avoid cherry picking by choosing to include a particular engagement before looking up how long it took. While these examples represent a small sample size, I hope they are enough to illustrate that while it is not uncommon for CM sized engagements to take approximately a standard CM time limit amount of time to play out, it is no less common for them to take considerably longer. I suppose as a nod to the fact that leadership really does have expectations for how long it should take to accomplish a given objective you could introduce time based objectives that give the player X points for defeating the enemy within a certain amount of time. But I suppose the main motivation for my statement "...there is really nothing realistic about time limits." is this: How common is it for a mission to be considered a failure because it wasn't accomplished within the expected amount of time? I haven't heard of many missions that were scrapped just because they took longer than they were supposed to.

Oh, and one more thing comes to mind. The ability to disable time limits. I love Combat Mission for its unmatched realism. But there is really nothing realistic about time limits. Granted there may be rare instances where time limits are narratively important, such as if the next battle in a campaign is set an hour or two after the current battle, and in that case it would be weird if you kept fighting for over two hours. But the vast majority of the time time limits are unrealistic and unnecessary.

I've finished uploading it to my dropbox. I'm fairly new to using dropbox so let me know if you have problems downloading it (also let me know if it works perfectly). https://www.dropbox.com/sh/a2zqb5mba8cglbc/AACJWMgRr5xdDKSezN8-qJVta?dl=0

I have gotten the following files courtesy of @Erwin. They will retexture CMAK soldiers, vehicles, and terrain to be appropriate to western European. https://www.dropbox.com/s/v682ismti6qdb7x/CMAK France 1940-Sealion mod.zip?dl=0

I know I would very much like to see a Combat Mission: Great War one of these days. To which end we may need some additional engine features in order to give the best simulation of the period. -the addition of horses may be useful (I think I saw this suggestion somewhere on the first couple of pages) -some representation of bayonet/melee combat would be nice. -a field telephone fortification type which permits calling in or adjusting off-map fire missions to a spotter in the same action square. -more options for detailed preplanned artillery, on the assumption that you will not be able to adjust any fire missions or call in any new ones for the entirety of the scenario due to a lack of radios, unless you have a spotter in direct voice communication with a mortar team or intact field telephone. As a specific example I imagine calling in a creeping barrage in the following manner: Select creeping barrage, select a linear target, set the 5-15 minute delay time (possibly go up to 5-30 minutes, since you are now planning your barrages for the entire scenario), select a second linear target, set a second 5-15 minute (5-30 minute) time for how long it will take the barrage to creep from the first target to the second target. -The ability to scroll up and down the UI list of soldiers in a selected squad is a must, since early war "squads" may be company sized elements up to ~250 men spread across a few dozen action squares -Better trenches would be nice, but I don't really have any suggestions for exactly how to do that. This may be a CMx3 issue rather than a CMx2 Engine 5 issue. Perhaps some dugout fortification type (basically a bunker, but with no fire opening) to allow soldiers to hunker down during barrages, although I'm not sure how you'd get the AI to use them properly.