Halmbarte

The Sov APCs and IFVs are part of the squad and aren't intended to be separated. 
Although I still tend to dismount Sov troops before I expect to make contact and move the infantry forward with the tanks or at least in front of the BMP/BTRs. I really hate losing a whole squad and neither the BMP or BTR will keep out much more than a pointy stick. 
H

Great summary and to build on that point about AT assets. 
Sov platoons have different AT assets than an American platoon, although in a lot of ways the RPG-7 is better than a 66mm LAW and you have more HEAT ammo than the US  has. BMPs bring their organic ATGMs and BTR companies have the frequently under rated AT-7 and they bring a lot of them.
The thing that is frequently missing is scale. The Sov should never be sending a infantry platoon off by themselves, devoid of long range AT weapons. If it's an important objective then send a company and support them adequately with FOs or other assets. 
H
 

Wow! That last mission had me at the edge of my seat the entire time. The Russians had cut off my escape route, my vulcan was out of ammo and a hind had free reign on my troops. The BMP's smartly disembarked their infantry and waited for me on a reverse slope. I charged my infantry, M113's, M60's over the hill with heavy casualties and rushed my remaining troops through to extraction while missiles and cannon fire rained overhead.
The Russians were merciful and didn't bring artillery which would have easily decimated the small patch of hills I used for a defence but they swarmed the entire map. They flanked me at every turn and set themselves up on hills overlooking my position hoping to catch an unsuspecting vehicle with an ATGM. 
There was this glorious point where I said out loud "AM I ABOUT TO BE OVERRUN!?" My wife was very confused. I cheered every time my brave tankers got a hit and yelled in anger whenever my M150's missed their target. 
Thank you for everyone's hard work. I felt it the entire time.
A few observations:
To me, this campaign should be called "Hull Down in the Desert". I never used the hull down command before this campaign. Boy did I get my ass kicked until I finally did. Before, I was getting hammered by ATGM's and tank fire but after I wised up those babies were sailing over my head all day long.  The mortar teams feel very anemic. They are quite inaccurate and the smoke they produce is pitiful. On the other hand they have a large amount of ammo and call in times are very quick. They were able to take out a few BMP's and distracted tanks in a pinch I was slightly disappointed with the first two missions (probably due to ignorance). They both start out really fun. I took "Hasty Attack" in the first mission and loved the early artillery barrage and watching the BMP's racing toward my position but after a while they just sat there and it was up to me to finish them off while they sat there. The second mission had the enemy slowly retreating with hull down positions but once the full battalion showed up they just sat there while I slowly carved them up.  ATGM's are terrifying. I shelled the AT-4/7 on the hill in the "Hasty Attack" mission for 20 minutes before moving a M-150 out in the open and sure enough.... I don't know if I can go back to the WW2 titles after this. The modern titles can be very frustrating but they are so fast paced that you can iterate over and over until you get it right. I replayed the first five minutes of the first mission in this campaign for a week trying to figure out the best way to attack it. The first five minutes of a WW2 title is just infantry slowly walking into the combat zone. Still need to finish the Rollbahn D campaign though... I love how balanced both sides are while being so fundamentally different. For example: each unit in a US infantry platoon has at least one pair of binoculars and an observer team. Compare that to the standard Soviet infantry platoon that has one pair of binoculars! The US feels like a tall lanky boxer squaring off against a smaller, more muscular MMA fighter. The US wants to keep you at bay and hit you with long range fire and indirect support. This requires flexibility and constant information on the enemy. The Soviets embody the old saying "everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth". The third mission put into perspective how devastating they can be once they are inside your defensive line. It's really interesting seeing first hand why the BMP was so revolutionary. In a US company combat team, I was constantly wishing my M113's could do...something...anything. Meanwhile, the BMP's were hitting my tanks with ATGM's, peppering my infantry with cannon fire, dropping off troops AND supporting them. I can't wait to get my hands on them in the Soviet campaign. If you've reached the end, thank you for listening to me ramble. 

USMC trucks have Javelins but no launchers if I remember correctly. 
 
H 

Even more so ....
 

When a 120mm mortar shell drops into the open turret of the Vulcan you know the crew are experiencing an emotionally significant event. 
 
H

When a 120mm mortar shell drops into the open turret of the Vulcan you know the crew are experiencing an emotionally significant event. 
 
H

When a 120mm mortar shell drops into the open turret of the Vulcan you know the crew are experiencing an emotionally significant event. 
 
H

Runways.
 
NATO is more dependent on large fixed runways the WP is. Too many NATO aircraft rely on big airbases that are relatively easy to degrade with non-nuclear ballistic missiles and air raids. 
 
It doesn't matter how many neat, shiny airplanes you have when the fuel storage at the airfield is burning and the runways are cratered or littered with bomblets/mines. 
 
NATO can attack the WP airfields in the same way, and probably would. However, a lot of WP aircraft were designed with operating from rough fields in mind and have bigger tires that won't sink into soft ground and provisions to prevent debris ingestion into air intakes. 
 
I've played scenarios in CMO* where you're fighting a non-NBC war in the north German theater. As the WP player taking down the airfields with non-nuke ballistic missiles is step one in blunting NATOs air advantages, along with destroying the warning radars. There are alternate airbases NATO can use but they don't have the capacity the the large airbases have, plus the farther from the front you make NATO base their aircraft means water transit time, wasted sorties of tanker aircraft, and a general reduction of NATO air power. 
 
Don't shoot the arrows (airplanes) when you can shoot the archer (the air bases). 
 
H
 
*https://www.matrixgames.com/game/command-modern-operations

It's actually worse than that. The Army intended for the M14 to replace the BAR, M1 carbine, the M1 Garand, and the various SMGs the Army had been using. In the end the M14 didn't replace any of them and was itself replaced after being the US Army's shortest in service rifle since the Krag, I think. What the M14 did was force the adoption of a overly powerful cartridge by NATO and kill other promising designs.
 
The US Army could have had the FAL/SLR in a decent intermediate cartridge in ~6.5-7mm in the 1950s, A rifle that would have been able to compete with the AK on even or better terms in the various CW conflicts. 
 
The US Army had a almost fatal case of NIH syndrome in the time frame where the M48/M60 was being designed and adopted. 
 
H
 
 

Air is tough. Do I use them to area target places I can't see or wait until the schwerpunkt is developed and use air power (hopefully) decisively? I tend to go for the 2nd approach. That also gives me a chance to target AA assets to clear the way for any attached air. 
 
I also always assume that the enemy is bringing air assets. Vehicles and troops get parked under trees and in the lee of buildings whenever I can. I try to minimize exposure and move frequently when troops have to be out in the open. 
 
H

Sometimes you just gotta have troops on a location you expect to get hammered. I'll keep a scout team out if I need a set of eyes and keep the rest of the infantry in their AFVs to protect them form fragments. 
 
Although I did loose a full squad doing that when a 122mm rocket hit the top of their M113. That didn't turn out so well for them. 
 
H

The US jammed the cartridge that became 7.62 NATO down the other NATO members throats*. NATO could have standardized on a ~6.5 or 7mm high velocity cartridge in 1950 instead of the last gasp of full bore .30cal that was 7.62 NATO. 
 
The M14 was so outclassed by the AK47 that the US Army did a rush job of adopting the M16 before it was ready. 
 
The US Army made a series of really bad decisions between the end of WWII and the '70s. The end result was an Army that wasn't equipped with the best weapons. 
 
H
 
*We bullied the British (and therefore NATO) out of a very promising cartridge they were developing for the Enfield bullpup: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EM-2_rifle

I don't know that that statement is correct. The US Army's tanks were frequently a generation behind what the Sov was fielding. 
 
In general the US Army was plagued by the problem of waiting on perfection. They wanted the perfect infantry rifle, the SPIW, and continued to field the Garand or product improved Garand (the M14) until being in a real war forced their hand. They also kept mucking about with revisions to the M26 while waiting for a supertank that couldn't actually be built. We eventually get the M1 tank (austere MBT70), but that could have been replacing something more like the Leopard 1 or a tank with silica core composite armor 20 years previously. 
 
The problem I have with the M60 is that it can't do its job. Firepower is either just barely adequate (or barely inadequate) The armor is thick enough that the engine can't move the bloody thing very fast but not thick enough to actually take a hit and protect the crew and systems. In short, it's not fit for purpose. Plus it's a huge and easily spotted target. 
 
Faced with the technological limitations of when the M60 was designed it probably would have been better to acknowledge that you can't put enough steel on a tank and preserve mobility. Take the route that the Germans did with the Leopard 1. The tank should be proof against light auto cannons and shel fragments and that's it. If you can't keep nasty stuff from penetrating the armor it doesn't really matter by how much you can't keep nasty stuff out. 
 
H

There is charging in blind and there is audacity. From what I've read the Sov perspective is that audacity shortens the fighting by seizing chances that a more cautious approach would lose. The corollary is that the overall shortening of the main conflict is better than a more cautious approach in money and manpower. Maintaining momentum is the key to how the Sov wanted to fight. 
 
It's easy to see how they came to that perspective. Early in the GPW(Great Patriotic War) the Germans were audacious and brushed aside Sov troops that were just barely not in position yet, grabbing huge advances and capturing millions of Ivans. Late GPW was a meat grinder for both sides. The meat grinder was better than losing, but the Sov thought hard and long on how to avoid a repetition of the late war attrition tactics. Audacity and echelons was the answer they came up with. 
 
How well that would work at the pointy end of the stick is one of the reasons for a game like CMCW. 
 
H

I started playing a new scenario as US and was dismayed to get a platoon of M48s. Oh, well, I guess I just need to use them like I would tank destroyers, a egg carrying a hammer. Although in the case of '79 the APDS of the 105mm can hardly be described as a hammer. 
 
Then I realized that even if I had M60s, I should be treating them the same way. None of my units in '79 can take a hit from a Sov tank gun, ATGM, or BMP1. They will all be holed and killed. I can't use the US tanks like tanks because they can't tank a hit. I should be using them like TDs, like my M150s. A 11' tall, slow, noisy TD that has a main gun that can't reliably hit at range without doing ranging shots, and, if it gets a hit, won't reliably kill T62s (and will only damage the paint on a T64) from the front at range. But besides that, they are ok tanks. 
 
H

I started playing a new scenario as US and was dismayed to get a platoon of M48s. Oh, well, I guess I just need to use them like I would tank destroyers, a egg carrying a hammer. Although in the case of '79 the APDS of the 105mm can hardly be described as a hammer. 
 
Then I realized that even if I had M60s, I should be treating them the same way. None of my units in '79 can take a hit from a Sov tank gun, ATGM, or BMP1. They will all be holed and killed. I can't use the US tanks like tanks because they can't tank a hit. I should be using them like TDs, like my M150s. A 11' tall, slow, noisy TD that has a main gun that can't reliably hit at range without doing ranging shots, and, if it gets a hit, won't reliably kill T62s (and will only damage the paint on a T64) from the front at range. But besides that, they are ok tanks. 
 
H

I started playing a new scenario as US and was dismayed to get a platoon of M48s. Oh, well, I guess I just need to use them like I would tank destroyers, a egg carrying a hammer. Although in the case of '79 the APDS of the 105mm can hardly be described as a hammer. 
 
Then I realized that even if I had M60s, I should be treating them the same way. None of my units in '79 can take a hit from a Sov tank gun, ATGM, or BMP1. They will all be holed and killed. I can't use the US tanks like tanks because they can't tank a hit. I should be using them like TDs, like my M150s. A 11' tall, slow, noisy TD that has a main gun that can't reliably hit at range without doing ranging shots, and, if it gets a hit, won't reliably kill T62s (and will only damage the paint on a T64) from the front at range. But besides that, they are ok tanks. 
 
H

I started playing a new scenario as US and was dismayed to get a platoon of M48s. Oh, well, I guess I just need to use them like I would tank destroyers, a egg carrying a hammer. Although in the case of '79 the APDS of the 105mm can hardly be described as a hammer. 
 
Then I realized that even if I had M60s, I should be treating them the same way. None of my units in '79 can take a hit from a Sov tank gun, ATGM, or BMP1. They will all be holed and killed. I can't use the US tanks like tanks because they can't tank a hit. I should be using them like TDs, like my M150s. A 11' tall, slow, noisy TD that has a main gun that can't reliably hit at range without doing ranging shots, and, if it gets a hit, won't reliably kill T62s (and will only damage the paint on a T64) from the front at range. But besides that, they are ok tanks. 
 
H

I hadn't thought of using the metadata in finder to sort out which ones to keep. Thanks for triggering that. 
 
H

@Ultradaveif it helps to run any system reports or diagnostics just let me know what's needed. 
 
H

There is charging in blind and there is audacity. From what I've read the Sov perspective is that audacity shortens the fighting by seizing chances that a more cautious approach would lose. The corollary is that the overall shortening of the main conflict is better than a more cautious approach in money and manpower. Maintaining momentum is the key to how the Sov wanted to fight. 
 
It's easy to see how they came to that perspective. Early in the GPW(Great Patriotic War) the Germans were audacious and brushed aside Sov troops that were just barely not in position yet, grabbing huge advances and capturing millions of Ivans. Late GPW was a meat grinder for both sides. The meat grinder was better than losing, but the Sov thought hard and long on how to avoid a repetition of the late war attrition tactics. Audacity and echelons was the answer they came up with. 
 
How well that would work at the pointy end of the stick is one of the reasons for a game like CMCW. 
 
H

I actually have 2. Both exhibit the same behavior of crashing to desktop when hitting go at 30 minutes remaining. 
 https://www.dropbox.com/s/zcwbp7hs78e7plq/Ashsh al-Dababir (The Hornets' Nest) 31.bts?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/txkh340ao08ksgk/Ashsh al-Dababir (The Hornets' Nest) bmp3 34.bts?dl=0
I have prior save games for both too if that would be useful. 
I was only able to complete the 1st scenario when the author ran turn 30 on his computer and he sent ma back another save file. 
H

Ok … so let’s start with what ChuckDyke said:
“Here is something for house fighting and the difficulty of maintaining command and control during MOUT operations.”
He posted a video about the Battle for Binh Ba in South Vietnam 
Let’s see what I said in response:
“Binh Ba was hardly Hue, Fallujah, Berlin or Stalingrad though was it?  This was a skirmish over a non-descript village which didn't even fill a grid square in Vietnam involving no more than 500 combatants on both sides and 100 casualties. The Australian Army lacks the size and experience to do offensive operations against a well-prepared enemy in anything larger than a village so MOUT is certainly not the appropriate descriptor here.”
For those not familiar with Binh Ba, this is a contemporary map.  The grid squares are 1km so the total mapped area is 4km². 

Note that it does not fill that area.
Moving on then to the Australian Army’s own doctrinal publications as an example:
According to Land Warfare Publication-G 3-9-6, Operations in Urban Environments,
The urban environment is classified into the following zones:
a. the city core,
b. the core periphery,
c. commercial ribbons,
d. residential sprawl,
e. industrial areas,
f. outlying high-rise areas, and
g. shanty towns
This is just one reason I stated that Binh Ba was not an urban environment as it only has one of those characteristics.  The same publication cites the battles for Fallujah, Grozny, Hue and Stalingrad in its examples of urban combat.  That publication makes one reference to Binh Ba as the preface to Chapter 7 – Building Clearance as follows (my bold):
The battle was triggered shortly after 8.00am when a Centurion tank travelling through the village was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. Initial intelligence suggested there were two Viet Cong platoons in the village. From the strength of the fire met by the company sent to deal with them, however, it was apparent that the enemy presence was much greater. There followed several hours of devastatingly fierce fighting. Twice tanks swept through the village, returning enemy fire by blowing open the walls of the houses. Then each house was cleared room by room by the infantry. By nightfall the village was still not secure and fighting continued in the area the following day. When the battle was finally over the enemy toll was 91 – at a cost of just one Australian life and eight wounded.
The battle of Binh Ba posed the perennial problem of the war in Vietnam – how to separate the enemy from innocent civilians. The occupation of towns and villages by the Viet Cong was a deliberate tactic designed either to ambush the relieving troops or to cause the Australians to use an excess of force.
Now ChuckDyke initially said (my bold):  “Here is something for house fighting and the difficulty of maintaining command and control during MOUT operations.”  My response said:  “MOUT is certainly not the appropriate descriptor here.”
Taking my argument that the Australian Army lacks the capability to do offensive operations against a well-prepared enemy in anything larger than a village let’s go back to LWP-G 3-9-6, Operations in Urban Environments.  Its Combined Arms Scenarios section (Chapter 8 refers) shows a Company Team attack in the context of a Battlegroup.  The example imagery map for that scenario has the Battlegroup boundary covering three streets and 22 buildings.  Hold that thought …
The Australian Army is basically capable of deploying a division of three combat brigades.  This would be war of national survival stuff as its more recent deployments where the usual premise of ‘to deploy one, you need three’ comes into effect has been to deploy nothing bigger than a brigade.  Australian Army brigades sit in the three to four battalion range.  Being generous let’s say four battalions which gives you four battlegroups.  Keeping one in reserve, because it is good practice to have one then according to the example in the Australian Army’s official doctrine on urban operations, a brigade can conduct an offensive operation comprising nine streets with 66 buildings.  If we go for the war of national survival then, assuming one brigade is the divisional commander’s reserve, then that is 18 streets and 132 buildings.
Here is a map of Hue where some of the calculations above have been applied to illustrate the point:

The image below is the zoomed area that I have marked as a green rectangle in the overall city map.

So in simple terms, according to the Australian Army's own doctrine, a brigade can conduct an attack on a small corner of a city.
My point about the capabilities of the Australian Army is based on having served in it and knowing what it can and cannot do which I think the argument presented above demonstrates.  It is no more an insult than saying the Australian Army cannot deploy a parachute battalion.  Why?  It doesn’t have one.  Facing up to reality and knowing your strengths and weaknesses is an important discussion to have.  Nations/militaries that overestimate their own capabilities and don’t challenge them generally end up coming second in wars.  I recall that the British Army claimed (and bored everyone to death) that they were the masters of limited war/COIN because of Borneo, Malaya, Northern Ireland and the killer tactic of wearing berets/soft hats only to end up having to eat humble pie in Basra.  There are few people in British military circles and veterans who served there who disagree with the assertion that Basra was an utterly miserable performance on the part of the British Army.  One of my friends was killed there by the way so I have little interest in denigrating the sacrifice of those whose lives were changed there.
On then to impugning the courage and sacrifice of veterans … Recalling that ChuckDyke said that my comments would not be welcome in an RSL (Returned Services League – a veteran’s association) I pointed out that I have been a member of it for 10 years.  Later ChuckDyke changes his position on the RSL and decides that it is not such a good thing after all because of the way it treated Vietnam Veterans.  A claim I don’t dispute, it is well documented, and it was not the organization’s finest hour.  Anyway – I think we can agree that his position on the RSL is inconsistent.  Whatever the argument, my membership subs help Australian veterans and while serving in the Australian Army I collected in Brisbane and Sydney for Legacy ... a veteran’s charity.
For my part, I have been and continue to be a member of the RSL.  I am also a member of the Royal British Legion … you’ve guessed it … another veteran’s association.  This month I have given the equivalent of three full working days (in addition to my day job and my hobby ‘job’ for Battlefront) collecting for the Poppy Appeal plus assisting with the organization of, and attending, a cross laying ceremony at the town church as well of course as attending Remembrance Day itself and participated in the RBL committee meeting at which this most important appeal and other issues affecting veterans were discussed.
One of those issues was our disgust that the County level RBL have decided that organizing the ANZAC service at the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery on Cannock Chase is ‘too difficult.’  My branch is now taking it on and I am one of the lead members in this initiative.  The majority of the Commonwealth dead there are New Zealanders.  A country whose army I have never served in but the people commemorated there are fellow ANZACs.  Most of them died of Spanish Flu which the more ungenerous might say wasn’t a war death.  However, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission rightly designates them as war deaths and, incidentally, many of them had fought some hard actions on the Western Front before being brought back to the UK.  Hardly the behaviour of someone with no respect for the fallen.
Nowhere in the phrase "this was a skirmish over a non-descript village which didn't even fill a grid square in Vietnam involving no more than 500 combatants on both sides and 100 casualties," do I denigrate veterans.  Non-descript village is a fact is the number of casualties and participants on both sides. 
Anyway, I think I’ve made my point.

Speaking of fighters, if we focus on the air war in Central Europe both the MiG-31 and the F-14 are out of the equation. The first was a PVO interceptor whose sole purpose was the defense of mainland USSR from strategic bombers/cruise missiles, the second would have been busy with fleet operations, everywhere in the world save for the IGB.
Thus, the only NATO air superiority assets, available at start, to fight over Central Europe would've been those of the TWOATAF and FOURATAF. And, even in the mid-late '80s, the only all-weather and BVR capable units were the Eagle equipped 32nd TFS and 35th TFW (USAF) the Hornet equipped Squadrons No. 409, 421 and 439 (RCAF) and the Phantom equipped 92th and 19th Squadrons (RAF). Period. All other NATO fighter units in theatre were equipped with "light" fighters (F-16, F-104, F-5, Mirage 5 etc.) with no BVR capability. Thus, even against the maligned MiG-23, these fighters, while capable dogfighters, would have to dodge volleys of SARH AAMs before the merge.
Moreover, NATO fighters had also the burden of escorting air strikes deep behind the frontline in a SAM-rich environment and against a redundant GCI radar net (no possibility of a stealth surprise airstrike against A-50 AWACS à la Clancy to clear the way, simply because... there were no A-50s in Central Europe, the few existing ones at the time were also a PVO only asset). If someone is thinking: why bother with deep strikes over enemy airspace, just defend over your own airspace... well, I presume that without some serious FOFA, NATO airplanes wouldn't have made the difference in WW3.
And Western air forces had to manage this after (literally) tons and tons of explosive hurled against NATO airports and SAM sites in the form of ballistic and cruise missiles (and, possibly, bombs).
Of course the Red Horde (TM) wouldn't have emerged unscathed from this ordeal, quite the contrary. But, probably, they had the numbers to better survive this attrition war, if the other Warsaw Pact assets were able to reduce/delay US reinforcement in the theatre.