Centurian52

They haven't started using the Abrams yet as far as I know (at least none have shown up on Oryx yet), so no information on them just yet. But they should perform similarly to the Leopard 2s. What I've heard about the Bradleys and Leopard 2s so far has been glowing, emphasizing crew survivability. Overall my impression is that the usefulness of these vehicles is severely limited by the small numbers that they have been provided in. After nearly two years of war Ukraine just doesn't have enough tanks and IFVs left to be able to accept any further significant losses, and the small numbers of western tanks and IFVs being provided isn't enough to give them confidence that any losses taken now will be replaced. Regardless of how good a piece of equipment is on a one for one basis, numbers still matter. That's mainly why I really don't think that the 31 Abrams that have been provided are going to make any difference. The M1A1 Abrams that have been provided are good tanks, but no 31 of any tank will ever be enough to move the needle. I was hopeful back when the delivery of Abrams was first announced that the 31 reported merely represented the first batch, not the total number to be sent. But I have yet to hear of any further batches.
I seriously doubt that we are witnessing the end of the tank. Drones do represent a significant change in warfare. The battlefield is significantly more transparent now than it used to be. Drones have significantly changed how battles are viewed and coordinated by the leaders involved (company commanders in Ukraine now coordinate their engagements from a command post in the rear, from which they can see the drone feeds from each of their platoons (company commanders are relatively low ranking as officers go (only around 100-200 men under their command), and in earlier wars they would have been in the frontline with their men)). They have significantly enhanced the capabilities of artillery. They have increased the emphasis on overhead concealment and made tactical surprise far more difficult to achieve. But they don't really impact the relevance of tanks. They are an additional threat that tanks need to worry about. Drones can direct precision artillery onto tanks that remain stationary for too long in inadequately concealed positions. Loitering munitions are one more asset that can be used to damage or destroy tanks. But none of this has increased tank losses out of proportion to what we've seen in past wars, nor have they replaced the tank's ability to provide responsive and accurate flat-trajectory fire.
People who argue for the obsolescence of tanks point to the large numbers of tanks that we can see being knocked out in the abundance of available combat footage, and to the sparing use of tanks by the Ukrainians. I think people who bring up the first point have a poor understanding of military history. Tanks have always been lost in large numbers in every single war in which they have played a significant role. The anti-tank gun repeatedly proved its superiority over tanks in head to head engagements as early as 1941 in North Africa. The British lost huge numbers of tanks in the Battle of Cambrai in 1917 because the Germans had figured out they could be easily knocked out by artillery firing in the direct-fire role. Pointing to heavy tank losses alone can't prove the obsolescence of tanks in modern warfare, since such heavy losses do not set a modern war apart from any other war in history.
The second point, that the Ukrainians have been very sparing in their use of tanks, preferring to use small groups of infantry in most of their attacks, is much more valid. But I think it is easily explained by the fact that the Ukrainians cannot count on timely and substantial replacements for any tanks they lose. Heavy tank losses in earlier wars were acceptable because the armies involved could count on those losses being replaced. The Russians have also started switching to less mechanized, and more infantry heavy attacks. And I think it is for the same reason. They don't have the industrial might of the old Soviet Union, so can't produce new tanks at the rate they are being lost in the war. They've been counting on their large stockpile of stored tanks to replace losses. But a large portion of their stored tanks have already been used up, and it doesn't look like the war is going to end anytime soon. If they are going to make their finite reserves of tanks last as long as they probably need to, they need to be much more sparing in their use of tanks. If the US found itself in a major war today I doubt we'd have the same problem. Like the Russians, we also have thousands of tanks in storage (though not as many thousands), and unlike the Russians we have considerably more industrial potential. We probably couldn't scale up tank production to the tens of thousands per year that was achieved in WW2 (Abrams are a tad more complicated than Shermans), but I'd bet that we could probably scale up into the thousands per year. Not that anyone really knows for sure. No one in US industry in 1940 had the slightest idea of what US industry would be capable of in 1942 either, so we might be able to manage more than we think.
Frankly the line that the tank is obsolete is pretty tired at this point. People heralded the death of the tank after WW1, WW2, and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In each case they turned out to be wrong. I think there is a long running assumption that tanks are the modern cavalry, and therefore must eventually suffer the same fate as cavalry. I wish I didn't need to point out how absurdly over simplistic that point of view is. Tanks and motorized infantry may have finalized the obsolescence of cavalry, but they are not cavalry.
To get things back on topic for this thread, I think the Israelis probably can afford tank losses on the scale we've seen so far. Even if the footage we've seen in Gaza so far really does represent actual knocked out Merkavas (which remains unclear, since none of the footage lasts long enough to show whether or not the hits actually destroyed the tanks (or even whether they were genuine hits, and not intercepted by the APS just short of the tank)). They have fewer tanks than the Ukrainians (I heard around 400 tanks at the beginning of the war, though I'm not sure if that was prewar active-duty tanks or total tank in their inventory). But they are fighting a smaller war, and they can count on their own domestic industry to replace losses without having to count on donations from allies.

I made a small Cheat Engine patch for the game, it allows you to prevent the mission ending when the timer runs out.
Just attach cheat engine to the game, then load the file and check the "Disable Mission Timer" checkbox.
When the timer goes to zero it begins counting up, the AI still functions even after you pass the time limit (though no more timed scenario actions will occur).  
I made patches for Normandy, Shock Force 2, Cold War, and Black Sea, which can be found in their respective forums
CM Black Sea.CT

More period goodness. 
H

Very interesting. Unfortunately, as always, none of the footage clearly shows whether or not any of the vehicles were actually knocked out.
I'm surprised that I haven't yet seen any footage of Hamas fighters firing salvos of two or more rockets at the same time at an Israeli tank. It's one of the obvious adaptations to APS. Theoretically the APS shouldn't be able to reset in time to intercept the second rocket of such a salvo. Possible explanations that I can think of at short notice include:
1. The APS is less effective or less common than I'd assumed. Making such tactics unnecessary.
2. The APS is more effective than I'd assumed. Making such tactics ineffective.
3. Hamas fighters just haven't thought of it. Hamas my lack enough of a centralized system for disseminating lessons learned to implement such a tactic on a wide scale.
4. They may not have enough RPGs to implement such a tactic. Obviously firing a salvo of two or more rockets at a tank at the same time requires that you have two or more RPGs in the same place at the same time.
5. Other tactics may be effective enough to limit the value of implementing this particular tactic. We've seen Hamas fighters running up to place warheads directly on Israeli tanks, which would get the warhead past the APS. And APS have a limited number of charges, so it may be enough to simply saturate the APS with one rocket at a time until one finally gets through.

Another compilation of close RPG / hand-held grenade attacks on Israeli armor and positions:
 

H

So there is the 3D modeling, which I'm sure takes up a chunk of time and money. But just as important is accurately modeling all of the technical details. They need to get all of the armor characteristics just right. They need to make sure they are modeling the right kind of ammunition and giving it the right performance. Optics and subsystems need to be accurately modeled. I don't know how long it takes to plug all that information into their system even assuming they already have it, but it certainly takes time to research it (it would be nice if there was somewhere you could go to pull up the exact undisputed characteristics of an old vehicle or weapon, but unfortunately no one has made history that easy yet (or if they have, no one has told me about it yet)). It's not good enough just to get the vehicles and weapons visually correct. They need to be technically correct as well.
"Modeling" doesn't just refer to 3D modeling. In simulation lingo a "model" is the full suite of characteristics that get plugged into a simulation to represent something. When someone disputes the results of a simulation you will often hear them say things like "that wasn't modeled accurately". They aren't saying that the 3D model didn't look right. They are saying that some of the technical details that were plugged in were incorrect. In the scientific world a "model" can be entirely mathematical, without any visual characteristics at all.

I'll take your word for it that you're not pro-Russian. But you are clearly getting your information from Russian propaganda. It has been obvious since last April that Russia is going to lose this war. That comes with the caveat that victory conditions are asymmetric. Russian defeat does not automatically mean Ukrainian victory. Russia has already lost this war, and there is absolutely nothing that can change that now. Ukrainian victory has not yet been assured, though it is very likely. In fact the only way that Ukraine could lose at this point is if western support evaporates. So long as western support remains strong, Ukraine cannot lose.
Yes, Ukraine is still struggling with corruption. They are not more corrupt than Russia (they aren't even as corrupt as Russia (even in 2014 Ukraine was still only the 2nd most corrupt country in Europe after Russia)). They are struggling with the same corruption that all former-Soviet/Warsaw Pact and Russia-aligned states struggle with. Notably, all former Soviet/Warsaw Pact states which realigned away from Russia have drastically reduced corruption and increased economic prosperity compared to when they were aligned with/part of the Soviet Union/Russia. We are seeing signs of the same trends in Ukraine. A single decade is far too little time to eliminate all of the corruption that comes with formerly being aligned with Russia, but they are making impressive progress.
There is zero chance of this becoming WW3. Even if war broke out between Russia and NATO (which is basically impossible, considering that Russia has no available forces to attack NATO with (they are all in Ukraine), and in order for NATO to attack Russia all members would need to unanimously agree on something), Russia just isn't a world war-class threat (modern day Russia is not the Soviet Union, and it is not modern day China). It would be a big war, but not a world war (by any reasonable standard).
Stopping the war would overwhelmingly benefit Russia and hurt Ukraine. It would give Russia a chance to rebuild their forces, absorb lessons, and retrain under peacetime conditions. It would undo so much of the progress that has been made towards defeating them. And remember that Russians do not keep to their agreements. Any agreement that is made with Russia will be broken by Russia. Peace now along the current borders will result in Russia invading again in a few years. They will have a better starting position, they will have produced more modern equipment, and they will not underestimate the Ukrainians next time. If we stop the war now then far more people will be killed in the inevitable next war than if we see the current war through. Seeing the current war through will make it possible to more completely defeat the Russian army, allow the Ukrainian army to reestablish itself along more defensible borders, and make it easier to accept Ukraine as a full NATO member, all of which will drastically reduce the threat of future Russian invasions. 
Another reason not to stop the war right now is the importance of deterring future wars started by other would-be invaders. Allowing Russia to keep any part of Ukrainian territory sends the message that land grabs work. Part of the modern rules-based order is that invading your neighbor is no longer a legitimate way of settling territorial disputes (Russia is allowed to claim that Ukraine is a historical part of Russia all they want, but they are not allowed to settle that claim with force). We must send the message that as long as the current world order lasts, land grabs will always fail.

EUREKA ! 🙌
@WimO
La nuit porte conseil, my friend!
I'm pretty sure I found the answer. BTW, the answer, although somewhat encrypted 🤬, is written in the manual (page 116):
We both started from the misconception that the Refit percentage is referring to some headcount: either the theoretical headcount of the core force, or the number of missing men (your hypothesis), or the current number of men in the core force (my hypothesis).
But this is wrong.
As written in the manual quote above, the Refit parameters (and probably the 4 other as well) are "percentage chance", that is a PROBABILITY, for each "individual unit", to be replaced. I'm pretty sure that "individual unit" means just that, each INDIVIDUAL - either a Pixet soldier or a vehicle. Not a squad or a platoon or a core force.
So basically, at the beginning of each mission, the game rolls a die (1-100) for each and every missing soldier. If the result is below the Refit percentage, the soldier is replaced. Otherwise it is not. And it's probably the same for vehicle repair and ammo (clips) as well.
Statistically, it means that @WimO approximation is correct. The MEAN replacement value is:
MEAN Replacement Value = (Core unit value - End of scenario value) X Refit%
The higher the number of missing soldiers, the closer to the Mean Replacement Value you'll get.
On the other hand, if the missing heacount is too low, statistical aberrations will become more sensitive (hence, probably, my weird result shown in first post):
Example 1: if you miss 100 soldiers at the beginning of a mission, whose Refit parameter is 60%, you're likely to get 60 men back. But there is a very significant probability that you get only 58 or, if you're lucky, 63. In all cases, the ACTUAL refit you get will be either 58% or 63%, which is still close to 60% Example 2: if you miss 5 soldiers at the beginning of a mission, whose Refit parameter is 60%, you're likely to get 3 men back. But there is a non negligible probability that you get only 2 or, if you're lucky, 4. In the first case, the ACTUAL refit you get is only 40%, while it's 80% in the latter case. And I'm pretty sure that the lightly wounded soldiers are treated along the same lines (no pun intented...).
While as a designer I'd really prefer to know how many men I give back to the player as Refit, from a programming point of view the probability approach is clearly much more simple to handle, if only because you don't have to manage the distribution of Refit troops among the different sub-units: the computer only checks wether a soldier is replaced or not. As simple as that!
Well, that's it
And as @WimO says, that's the end of it for me! 😁
 
I hope that this post will be of use to some people at least... 😇
 

Hi @WimO,
I must say I'm not sure that I understand your results.
You suggest that Replacement value (that is the heacount brought back by the Refit parameter) is proportional to the theoretical headcount of the unit?
I didn't check it yesterday, but I had the idea while you performed your own tests. And I disagree with your statement. The better approximation, according to my own data, is:
Replacement Value of Mission A = (Number of men in Core units at the beginning of Mission A) x R%
Example:
Number of soldiers in all CORE Units at the beginning of mission A = 100
R value for "Refit" in Mission A data = 50
Calculation thus: 100x0.50 = 50
 
Wow! You mean, not the lightly wounded casualties?
How were you able to track them?
I never considered it possible! I was pretty sure that both KIA and WIA were out of the game as casualties.
It seems to me (but I didn't check it thouroughly) that the lightly wounded Pixeltrüppen soldier on, keeping their "lightly wounded" status. One exception (that I check today): all lightly wounded Pixeltrüppen are replaced by soldiers in perfect condition when the Refit parameter is set at 100%.
 
More tests on the way!

@Ithikial_AU@Mr.X@WimO
(I summon you three guys, as you are the leading, active campaign designers on the forum…) 😚
This weekend I performed some tests in order to understand the mysterious Refit, Resupply, Rest parameters of a campaign.
Using CMFI, I designed a 4-missions campaign featuring 1 company of Germans vs 1 company of Indians (without their light mortars), all core units. I recorded the headcount in each unit (down to squad level), both at the beginning and at the end of each mission. Not all units are featured in each scenario, except in the last one. I don't track ammo as I suppose that behaviour is similar to headcount's.
 
The first test I performed helped me understand a few things:
- parameters are applied at the BEGINNING of the corresponding mission. So parameters from Mission 1 will be applied before Mission 1 starts, parameters from Mission 2 will be applied before Mission 2 starts, etc. It seems obvious, but this is not what I thought… 🥴 Anyway, as a corollary, beacause of that I see not reason why the parameters for the first mission of a campaign shall be different from 0…
- parameters are applied ONLY to the units taking part in the mission. Non participating, core units will NOT benefit from the parameters.
 
The quantitative results from this first test were unconclusive, so I performed a second test. Methodology is the same with the following differences:
- All units participate in Mission 1. They are all submitted to artillery bombardment in order to inflict significant casualties.
- Mission 2 involves 1 platoon from each side at start, another 1 platoon apearing as a reinforcement for each side. No combat action.
- Mission 3 is similar except that the starting and reinforcing platoon are different. No combat action either.
- Mission 4 involves all units.
 
The second campaign brings the following conclusion.
- In a given Mission, reinforcement units are treated the same as starting units.
- Refit is treated at the scale of the whole force of core units taking part in the mission, including reinforcement. This means that the whole force will get 20%, 50% or whatever Refit you've set. Percentage of headcount in platoon and squad differ very significantly, only the whole force percentage is close to the set one. Some units will get nil, other will get a lot. Hence it appears that Refit troops are distributed randomly into the sub-units.
- Percentage is based on the force size at the beginning of the mission. Let's imagine you're playing a company that started with 120 men and ended the first Mission with 20. If Refit parameter of the next mission the company is involved into is set to 20%, you'll get 4 Pixeltrüppen as Refit. If your company had less losses and ended the last mission with 45 men, you would get 9 Pixeltrüppen. Basically this means that if you suffered many losses in a campaign you'll get a double punishment as reinforcement will be lower that what you could expect…
- There is a saturation effect. If your Refit brings some of your units to full strength, you'll lose some reinforcements: as reinforcement are distributed somewhat randomly, it appears that some are lost if the random numbers exceed full-strength headcount.
It would be interested to test:
- what happens with units down to a very small headcount,
- what is the effect of a 100% Refit on forces whose headcount is below 50% of full strength: arithmetic says that a 100% Refit parameter should NOT bring the force back to full-strength in such a case… 😯
 
If you have more information regarding the way these parameters work, or if you have ideas for additional tests, you are most welcome to share them here!

Released IDF footage:
 

Is the choice of Forum optimal? Probably not.
Does it really matter enough to keep derailing the discussion? Definitely not.

Indeed everyone wants their new toys rather earlier than later. And when one has ordered them, almost all humans can be diagnosticised with the 'when is it ready/is it there yet?' syndrom. Some jobs role is basically to perform this role (PM ;-)).
Orwell called it 'time neurosis'.
Since time is relative, 'slow' is also relative. Some companies/games might come with updates every week/month. Some people will still call that slow. Other games might come with updates on a yearly/longer basis. One can find that slow on the 'expecting' side, those on the 'producing' side might disagree.
Then we also have different preferences for news updates.
I think Steve and BFC have commented very often in the past that they are weary of communicating news, as almost any communication will create expectancy, which will then have to be managed. They could probably hire a communications manager who's job it would be to update the community about ongoing stuff.
However, that in itself wouldn't do anything in the sense of 'faster' game development or releases. Instead it would probably be slower because the communication manager would need to be informed about progress on a regular basis. It would also soup up some of the budget now allocated towards development.
Give or take, that's how I understand BFC's hussle and I'm fine with it personally. Of course it is also fine if others would desire more information or more and faster releases, and post about that. 
I don't think things will change because of that. We can also ponder about the question whether it would be a good idea for BFC to grow by a large amount, potentially increasing development capacity and more releases in shorter time. That is one option, the other option is the risk that the extra releases don't offset against the extra costs and is a real potential business risk.
I think the ones best to make that decision is people inside the business themselves, because they have the knowledge. It's also their decision.
But yeah I'd also like to see game engine 5 rather sooner than later, or CM3 for that matter. SO, WHEN IS IT READY!!???   

Imo there is a 'holy trinity' between quality, budget and time. You can't change one without impacting the others, so if one or two are fixed, the other need to be flexible. With BFC committing to quality (this is not necessarily mainly about bugs, but rather realism and authenticity of the game engine and depicted period/battles), them having a sort of fixed budget, the result is that time needs to be 'subject to change'. This is about the big picture, not individual releases/bugs or investing a couple of (10)thousand extra to get some things done outside the core team.

Personally I'm also happy they sacrifice 'time' over quality. They could probably dumb down the game / new games and deliver faster. But that's not how they roll, in my experience since 2007. The result is that releases come when they are ready, it is what it is; still the lesser evil imo.

I don't think Battlefront has that kind of AI. The kind of AI that you feed training data to is called a neural network (because the data structures involved have a passing resemblance to a very basic understanding of how biological neurons work). A well designed neural network, fed a sufficient amount of training data, can do things like accurately identify hand-written letters, or guess which pictures are and are not pictures of bees. Very large neural networks, which are fed massive amounts of training data, are called deep-learning networks. Some well known deep-learning networks have gotten very good at specific tasks such as, in the case of chatGPT, convincingly mimicking human language.
A neural network would probably not be the most efficient way to create a good wargaming AI. A neural net can't think multiple steps into the future. It can only make the decision with the lowest cost at this particular moment ("cost" in this context refers to the mathematical punishment/reward system that was used to train the AI). That works just fine for things like chatGPT, since all it takes to convincingly mimic human language is to respond appropriately to the most recent prompt. No memory of past prompts nor anticipation of future prompts is required. But a good tactical AI needs to do more than just anticipate the immediate consequences of a decision. It needs to be able to think several steps into the future. It needs to be able to plan. Neural networks (as they exist today) can't plan*.
A better approach might be to do something like the General Staff: Black Powder AI. It analyzes the battlefield (using pre-programmed methods (if you watch the video the narrator mentions a spanning-tree algorithm used to calculate frontages), not training data), breaks the situation down into a series of logical statements, and then deduces which courses of action it should take. In the video I linked the General Staff AI was able to identify an exposed flank and assign a unit to conduct a flank attack. For something like Combat Mission the AI would, for example, need to have a concept of fire-superiority. It would need to recognize whether or not it had fire-superiority, and know not to attempt to advance without fire-superiority (that would stop a lot of AI lemming charges).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0K8DnS414o
*Which is not to say that neural nets don't have some really exciting possible applications. They can be trained to be extremely good at recognizing objects, so they are ideal for tasks such as spotting and identifying targets. And they will do that way faster than any human ever could. But they will have an error rate, and they will be stumped by any object that wasn't in their training data, so we'll still want a human in the loop to approve/disapprove targeting decisions for at least the next few years until all the kinks are worked out. You could also send such systems into areas that are known to contain no friendly or neutral targets, allowing it to engage targets without waiting for human approval.

I don't think Battlefront has that kind of AI. The kind of AI that you feed training data to is called a neural network (because the data structures involved have a passing resemblance to a very basic understanding of how biological neurons work). A well designed neural network, fed a sufficient amount of training data, can do things like accurately identify hand-written letters, or guess which pictures are and are not pictures of bees. Very large neural networks, which are fed massive amounts of training data, are called deep-learning networks. Some well known deep-learning networks have gotten very good at specific tasks such as, in the case of chatGPT, convincingly mimicking human language.
A neural network would probably not be the most efficient way to create a good wargaming AI. A neural net can't think multiple steps into the future. It can only make the decision with the lowest cost at this particular moment ("cost" in this context refers to the mathematical punishment/reward system that was used to train the AI). That works just fine for things like chatGPT, since all it takes to convincingly mimic human language is to respond appropriately to the most recent prompt. No memory of past prompts nor anticipation of future prompts is required. But a good tactical AI needs to do more than just anticipate the immediate consequences of a decision. It needs to be able to think several steps into the future. It needs to be able to plan. Neural networks (as they exist today) can't plan*.
A better approach might be to do something like the General Staff: Black Powder AI. It analyzes the battlefield (using pre-programmed methods (if you watch the video the narrator mentions a spanning-tree algorithm used to calculate frontages), not training data), breaks the situation down into a series of logical statements, and then deduces which courses of action it should take. In the video I linked the General Staff AI was able to identify an exposed flank and assign a unit to conduct a flank attack. For something like Combat Mission the AI would, for example, need to have a concept of fire-superiority. It would need to recognize whether or not it had fire-superiority, and know not to attempt to advance without fire-superiority (that would stop a lot of AI lemming charges).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0K8DnS414o
*Which is not to say that neural nets don't have some really exciting possible applications. They can be trained to be extremely good at recognizing objects, so they are ideal for tasks such as spotting and identifying targets. And they will do that way faster than any human ever could. But they will have an error rate, and they will be stumped by any object that wasn't in their training data, so we'll still want a human in the loop to approve/disapprove targeting decisions for at least the next few years until all the kinks are worked out. You could also send such systems into areas that are known to contain no friendly or neutral targets, allowing it to engage targets without waiting for human approval.

You want tactical discussions?  Try this.
https://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/17301-the-story-of-a-merkava-company-co-on-october-7th/
 

Well the good news on that front is that the year is almost over. So we're due for another New Year's bones thread in a couple months.

It is difficult getting reliable info on what's going on. I guess the IDF is pretty closed lips. The War Zone has a lot of articles concerning the war:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone

Based on the exaggerations and, to put it mildy, stress testing the limits of truth in regards to Boyd, I'd think once or twice about source criticism.
Boyd certainly never "helped develop modern maneuver warfare"; nor did he see service in Vietnam; absolutely was never involved in training pilots dogfight during the era. The idea that the omission of guns in fighters was the issue as opposed to the lacking air combat training was disproved by the fact that the US Navy kill ratios went back up to normal levels with the introduction of Top Gun. They did not reintroduce guns on their fighters until much later.
 
Boyd is part of the "reformer" clique (verified nutjobs like Sprey, Burton, etc. who wanted masses of radar and missile less short ranged fighters and hordes of M-60 tanks instead of M-1s) and much if not everything that stems from his biography should be discounted or at least subjected to intense prior scrutiny.

In the short term (next year or two) mainly I'm waiting for the CMCW BAOR module, the CMFB module bringing it to the end of the war, and the CMBN Battle Pack adding Utah Beach and Carentan. In the medium term (next several years) I'm hoping to see a Cold War module adding West and East German forces, WW2 modules/base games moving the clock back to earlier in the war, and a CMBS module or new base game adding all the equipment necessary to recreate the actual fighting of the Russo-Ukraine war.
I would love to see them go straight back to the beginning of the war, with Poland 1939 and France 1940, as well as Barbarossa. But they've explained multiple time why that's not practical (too much new equipment would have to be modeled all at once), so I'm anticipating a more incremental move back. Perhaps the next game can turn the clock back as far as Tunisia 1943 for the western front titles, while either a module to Red Thunder or a new eastern front base game might roll the clock as far back as Kursk 1943.
And of course, while the CMFB module will bring all the fronts up to the end of the war, that's no reason the clock can't keep incrementally inching forward. One reason why it might be a good idea to include the Pershing in the CMFB module (keeping in mind the more features and units we demand the longer we should expect to wait), even though it barely saw any action, is that it might help pave the way for a base game set in Korea later down the line.
Ultimately what I'm really waiting for is for realistic wargames to cover every front of every real and hypothetical war from the dawn of time to the distant future. But my expectations are somewhat more modest than my ambitions.

"I" am waiting for:
1. the announcement of WHAT will be the CMFI battle pack previously mentioned. Crickets on that.
2. Information on when we might see the CMFB module that ends the war and brings in  the Commonwealth. Will it have the Pershing? Inquiring minds want to know.
3. Engine 5 development status.
 
 
 

I understand the impatience. I really do. We all want our new toys sooner rather than later.
But my day job is testing software, and I've dabbled in a bit of programming in the past. So please trust me when I say it's not a good idea to rush these things. Some bugs are harder to squash than others. Some features are harder to work in than expected, and will frequently cause new bugs. It's always better to wait for a good product than to get a rushed piece of garbage. There is plenty of Combat Mission already out to keep us busy in the mean time.
I believe everyone at Battlefront is probably working diligently. Battlefront releases have always been slow. In part I expect that's a result of the limited resources they've always had to work with, and in part that's just because properly developing and testing any product takes time. But the releases have always come. We will get our new toys when they're ready.

So if Steve spends a two or three hours each day looking at what's happening in UKR war and writing a few posts of a few paragraphs each, then he is doing nothing else the rest of the day?  And also this war informs any CMBS games going forward, so it's not like it's off subject.  This is fascinating.  I watch ~10 hours of football each week, plus play some CM, plus play some guitar, cook, clean, do laundry, etc.  Therefore I can't possibly be doing my 40+ hour per week job.