Centurian52

Good rules to live by.

Well, size matters too (or so I'm told).  Ours is Huge with a capital H...

As mentioned elsewhere, having never played a battle in any modern title, I accepted a challenge from our good friend @Ultradave to play 'Czechmate' with me as Soviets.  To encourage me (😂) he said this was pretty much what he trained for in RL.  Great way to start, right?
It's a very nice map and I'm starting to enjoy it but having initially lost several vehicles to TOWs from invisible launchers I'm being a bit more cautious and beginning to get spots on some of his units.  Not knowing much about modern weapons is a concern, as is my lack of long range AT assets at the current stage of the game - I have (sorry had) 4 T62s (now 3) but nothing else with range. That will change when the main force arrives.  None if this will come as a surprise to Dave so I'm not giving away much intel.
Overall, I think if I view the exercise as a lesson from the master I will hopefully not be too disappointed when I lose...

Good rules to live by.

Most of these just seem to be handicaps for the sake of handicaps, with no regard to realism.
1. I agree with no turn 1 arty into a setup zone in meeting engagements, but I disagree with no turn 1 arty at all.
2. I've already expressed my opinion on this one, and it is not favorable.
3. WHY?!?!?
4. ?????????? Why would you disallow a perfectly sensible tactic?????? If you find yourself in a situation where manually using vehicle smoke would make sense, then why wouldn't you use it (especially if you play the Soviets in CMCW, in which the vehicle smoke is not intended for quick getaways like NATO vehicle smoke, but to lay down screens to maneuver behind)? Are we going to just start disallowing any tactic that might have a chance of working until we are left with nothing but unsupported frontal assaults?
5. I do this sometimes when reviewing the action just for the spectacle. But it makes no sense to insist on it as a rule for your opponent. How would you even enforce it? It's impossible to know what visual aids your opponent has on or off.
6. Again, I've installed the no tracer mod on all of my CM games just because I think it improves the visual realism. But it makes absolutely no sense to insist on this as a rule. And again, how would you enforce it? It's impossible to know what mods your opponent has installed.
7. You do know that as a Combat Mission player you are in the shoes of every officer and NCO on the battlefield, not just the overall commander, right? The overall commander may not be able to see all of his units. But each of his units can see themselves. In real life if the overall commander forgets that one of his units exists (which seems rather unlikely (the commander may not have up to date info on where his subordinates are or what they are doing, but it seems doubtful that he'll forget that they exist), but that's the possibility you are modeling by turning icons off) and fails to give it any orders, that unit will still by capable of making its own decisions. If you forget that one of your units in Combat Mission exists, it will just sit there doing nothing. Again, I turn off icons sometimes when reviewing the action for the spectacle, but it makes no sense to insist on this as a rule. And again, how could you ever know if your opponent is abiding by this rule?
8. This only matters for quick battles, which I don't play (in scenarios the experience of your troops is whatever the scenario designer decided it should be). But as I understand it part of the game in quick battles is to decide on the tradeoff between troop quality vs troop cost. Why eliminate that element of the game?

Remember what @Vergeltungswaffe said:
"Never send a squad anywhere a team hasn't been. 
Never send a platoon anywhere a squad hasn't been. 
Never send a company anywhere a platoon hasn't been.
Never send armor anywhere infantry hasn't been."
I wonder if this applies to jeeps?

Spot on (pun intended).

Facing effects spotting, in that a unit will spot better to their front. Your units focus greater attention to their front than in any other direction. And target arcs effect facing (your units will generally face towards the center of a target arc command). But how wide or narrow the target arc is will have absolutely no effect on spotting. There is no inherent bonus to spotting enemy units inside the arc vs outside the arc. Your units will not focus greater attention inside the arc vs outside the arc. They will probably be more likely to spot enemy units inside the arc, but only because enemy units inside the arc will tend to be to your units' front.

Facing effects spotting, in that a unit will spot better to their front. Your units focus greater attention to their front than in any other direction. And target arcs effect facing (your units will generally face towards the center of a target arc command). But how wide or narrow the target arc is will have absolutely no effect on spotting. There is no inherent bonus to spotting enemy units inside the arc vs outside the arc. Your units will not focus greater attention inside the arc vs outside the arc. They will probably be more likely to spot enemy units inside the arc, but only because enemy units inside the arc will tend to be to your units' front.

Facing effects spotting, in that a unit will spot better to their front. Your units focus greater attention to their front than in any other direction. And target arcs effect facing (your units will generally face towards the center of a target arc command). But how wide or narrow the target arc is will have absolutely no effect on spotting. There is no inherent bonus to spotting enemy units inside the arc vs outside the arc. Your units will not focus greater attention inside the arc vs outside the arc. They will probably be more likely to spot enemy units inside the arc, but only because enemy units inside the arc will tend to be to your units' front.

Facing effects spotting, in that a unit will spot better to their front. Your units focus greater attention to their front than in any other direction. And target arcs effect facing (your units will generally face towards the center of a target arc command). But how wide or narrow the target arc is will have absolutely no effect on spotting. There is no inherent bonus to spotting enemy units inside the arc vs outside the arc. Your units will not focus greater attention inside the arc vs outside the arc. They will probably be more likely to spot enemy units inside the arc, but only because enemy units inside the arc will tend to be to your units' front.

Impressive.  I've not seen such slaughter since... erm @Centurian52 ambushed me in the bocage yesterday 😉.

I don't know if this map was ever released. But if you want to play Carentan then you just need to wait a bit. Carentan is part of the Utah Beach Battle Pack that's currently in the works.

Not gamey at all. From what I hear it's quite normal to use mortar teams as riflemen in real life.

I don't know if this map was ever released. But if you want to play Carentan then you just need to wait a bit. Carentan is part of the Utah Beach Battle Pack that's currently in the works.

I don't know if this map was ever released. But if you want to play Carentan then you just need to wait a bit. Carentan is part of the Utah Beach Battle Pack that's currently in the works.

As a Combat Mission player I would have liked for them to release the module. But from a business perspective the decision not to release it was probably a sound one. In any case, it's hardly worth discussing since the key decisionmakers have already made up their minds. It's not like this subject hasn't already been beaten to death over the last two years.

The L23 APFSDS doesn't enter service until after CMCW's timeframe. So the Chieftain is still using the L15 APDS, which doesn't outperform any of the M60's AP ammo except perhaps the M728 APDS round at some ranges. Still, a larger caliber means it can fire a bigger HE round. And the Chieftain has a HESH round, while the M60 (at least in-game) only has HEAT for anti-personnel work. So the Chieftain will not outperform the M60 in this timeframe in anti-armor work*. But it should be much more impressive when performing anti-fortification and anti-personnel work.
The gun itself is probably better than the M60's gun. But a gun by itself produces no effect. It's the gun + ammo that actually has an effect.
*Excepting that it may be more accurate than the M60A1. Certainly more accurate than the base M60A1, though I'm not sure if that still applies after the assorted RISE, RISE+, and RISE Passive upgrades.

This has already been discussed to death over the last two years. There is no doubt that plenty of people would buy it, myself included. But Battlefront, and their partners at Slitherine, have decided that it would almost certainly be a bad PR move. However we feel about it, the matter has been decided and there is no point in us discussing it further.

This has already been discussed to death over the last two years. There is no doubt that plenty of people would buy it, myself included. But Battlefront, and their partners at Slitherine, have decided that it would almost certainly be a bad PR move. However we feel about it, the matter has been decided and there is no point in us discussing it further.

This has already been discussed to death over the last two years. There is no doubt that plenty of people would buy it, myself included. But Battlefront, and their partners at Slitherine, have decided that it would almost certainly be a bad PR move. However we feel about it, the matter has been decided and there is no point in us discussing it further.

🙂

Just wanted to say that BFC are not Matrix/Slitherine and vice versa.  From memory BFC decided not to release the Black Sea module in the current circumstances, and publisher Matrix/Slitherine agreed with them.  If Matrix/Slitherine proceed with other 'similar' titles, that's nothing to do with BFC.

This has already been discussed to death over the last two years. There is no doubt that plenty of people would buy it, myself included. But Battlefront, and their partners at Slitherine, have decided that it would almost certainly be a bad PR move. However we feel about it, the matter has been decided and there is no point in us discussing it further.

Was gonna say just that. The reasons (plenty of them) have already been discussed and explained, and this post doesn't bring any new argument into the equation.
It's sad, I agree, but there's naught to be done about it (unless anyone has a fairly substantial favour to call in from Mr V. Putin, C/O Kremlin.