Halmbarte

Well, their luck ran out the next turn. The 2x M113s and Eng teams that were chasing them finally got a clear line of sight and got another M72 into them as well as a bunch of .50 cal. The gunner bailed but found surrendering to be problematic. H

Luckiest BMP in the Soviet Army? 2x 105mm tank gun hits (in the wheels), took a LAW72, and a 40mm HEDP grenade. Still driving around too. H

The modern Russian govt hasn't made actual serial production of weapons a priority. They are surviving off the remaining stocks of the Soviet Union, and the Sov couldn't afford mass production of precision weapons. Not that NATO has massive capability to mass produce precision weapons either. More capability than Russia, for sure, but western stockpiles are being drawn down heavily too. Modern warfare consuming more munitions than planned for is not a new problem. It happened in WWI, in the various Arab-Israeli wars, and probably wouldn't have been an unknown problem to Caesar. H

Not to get too much into current events & politics, but when you have an abundance of artillery and a serious shortage of infantry, it does make sense to use the artillery to pulverize everything in front of you so the few grunts you actually have have a walkover. Not that that makes the Russian tactics any less of a war crime, mind you. H

Soviet WWII artillery is pretty decent, by WWI standards. Soviet CW artillery is damn good, for WWII. H

I generally make it a point to put a few HE rounds into church towers and the top floor of particular high rise buildings just on general principals. If that piece of key ground is really great your enemy probably thinks so too and they will make it a priority for fires. Fighting the Soviets and their rocket artillery will teach the value of 'don't be in the obvious impact zone' pretty quickly. I move FOs far enough forward for them to do their jobs. With the Americans you don't have to be so careful as they tend to have lots of FOs available and pretty much anyone can call for fire, just not as effectively. With the Sov/Russians I am more careful since FO are scarce and not all FOs can call all artillery. In the end though FOs too far back to get LOS are just as useless as dead FOs. H

Tacops. Great tactical game that had very good AI for the enemy. H

Another thing to keep in mind. The kind of place that has great lines of sight for your FO is also likely going to be a great place for ATGM or GMG teams. Those guys will attract fire and get your FOs killed even if the enemy never actually saw the FO team. H

You have a save game file? H

It's pretty hard to see men wearing drab clothing from any signifiant distance, particularly if they aren't moving or firing. You need to get LOS to the target, but that LOS can be to the top of a building or hill. A linear mission can drop rounds on targets that the FO can't actually seem they just need to see the end points of the linear mission. I try to get LOS with scouts to where I want my FO to get to. If there is a surprise I want to find out with the scouts and not the FO. When the FO is in position I give them a limited target arc to get them looking in the right direction and so they don't engage targets with their organic weapons. I also try to park FOs in foliage, rocks, shrubs, or in a building so they at least have concealment. H

I would deny that. Most of the battle rifle calibers used solid bullets that were relatively low velocity and very stable when traveling through a person. Basically you get a ~7mm hole in and a ~7mm hole out. The British mk7 .303 used a light filler in the nose so that the bullet destabilized when hitting flesh, making the bullet particularly effective for a battle rifle cartridge. Multiple assault rifle cartridges have enhanced terminal ballistic effects, some accidentally. The original M193 US spec 556 ammo would tumble rapidly in flesh and frequently break apart at the cannelure, resulting in multiple wound tracks and enhanced performance. The Sov spec 5.45x39 was balanced so it would destabilize in flesh as well. The most pertinent question is: does all this make a difference? I would argue that most soldiers, when shot, seek medical aid. H

I'd expect thermals to be deployed on key weapons 1st, then as they get smaller and cheaper to get deployed to the majority of troops. And it's a truism that for every measure there is a countermeasure. As thermals become ubiquitous expect decoys and spoofs to get deployed too. Not too many foxes or rabbits are going to be making hot lures or setting up thermal screens to block IR. H

Over 300m or so it's difficult to see men in drab clothing that aren't trying to be seen. Because being seen = getting shot at and most troops aren't completely suicidal they tend to hide and reduce expose times. And for those times where you do see people farther away there is always the GPMG. H

Anyone who believes that .45 ACP and 556 NATO have similar wounding effects at close range is seriously delusional*. Col. Cooper was a great guy but he had certain biases when it came to caliber effectiveness. Back to the main subject, I'd expect the semi-auto rifle armed troops to be a a significant disadvantage in woods or towns where the fighting is close up, and less of a disadvantage at longer range. Since the majority of the team firepower comes from the GPMG (with the rifle armed troops mostly serving as ammo bearers and spare crew for the MG) I'd expect the squad to have similar longer range (>200m) firepower to what we have now. H *Google image search "bullet wound xray". The pics you see where bones are shattered and have become secondary projectiles are from rifles. Bones are simply broken or have a hole punched through them are pistol wounds.

Chieftain might have more trouble with T62s than I expected: H

It's pretty much grape shot stuffed into a thin walled tin. Beehive was worse (worse to be on the receiving end of, that is). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beehive_anti-personnel_round H

Since the M60’s armor won’t keep out anything more than a dirty look I’d take increased speed as an alternative. I think the Germans were on to something with the Leopard 1 design criteria. I’m looking forward to trying them out in CW. As far as the French infantry go, I’d expect them to play similar to Brits or Germans of the same time frame. Battle rifle armed line troops supporting GPMGs and AT rockets. H

I'm kinda surprised by the ineffectiveness of VT fuzed shells in urban combat... Not what I would have expected. Thanks for the hard work. H

I suspect it's the autoloader. Losing a crewman can give you a big reduction in the volume you need to protect, making the armor package lighter, which means you can use a smaller engine, that needs less armor to protect it... For example the T64 weighed one more ton than the T62 but had much heavier armor package and a much bigger gun. All that was made possible by the autoloader. H

If the tac AI was better at not being a complete dunce that would be more of a thing. As is I have to micromanage berm drills, reaction to contact, and so forth. H

I suspect the biggest difference is in communication. As a player I have a plan in my head and the plan and any changes are communicated perfectly to my units. Nobody who works with actual humans would think this is the case in real life. H

My history of being disappointed by the M60 has come to a close. A BMP2 attempted a drive by and I had a M60 waiting in ambush. I expected the engagement range to be a bit longer but I can confirm that the front armor an a M60 can take repeated hits from a 30mm auto cannon w/o being crippled. H Pretty good shooting by the BMP gunner with nice tight groups, but just not enough in the end.

I am currently playing as the Americans. Spoilers below: It's currently 1125 and the 1st BMPs are swimming the river. I don't* have anything in the 1/3rd of Rumpenheim facing the river as I feel that anything exposed to the tank company parked across the river is just going to get annihilated. My plan is to deny the free movement of Sov infantry in the town by calling VT on the dismounted troops, the tanks and scout teams with LAWs will deal with the BMPs. Once the promised reinforcements arrive I plan a counter attack to keep a toehold in the city and deny the Sov free movement. The AI plan may be brilliant but at couple of platoons got into a traffic jam at the spot where I had a 155mm contact fuzed mission coming in and a M60 covering from a keyhole position. I don't expect many survivors out of them. So far the big surprise has been the lack of Sov artillery. H *I only ever had some OPs on the riverfront as I was expecting that area to get flattened by Sov artillery. I pulled the OPs in since I plotted the VT mission along the waterfront.

Funny you should mention that, because that's how I played Valley of Ashes too. And come to think of it, also Between Two Fahrbahns. I think I'm detecting a pattern here. Scenario designers like feeding you units in dribs and drabs but if you use them that way you're going to struggle with being defeated in detail. H

I just noticed this detail in the shop posters in Rumpenheim Rumpus. H