Aware CMBS doesn't do national characteristics, but...

[cbennett88]

5 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

This appears to be the case, as long as the soldier with the TWS stays alive, for US fire teams.  The platoon leader also has TWS.  I was a little disappointed to see that forward observers and snipers (I checked all five US sniper teams) did not have TWS.  

I saw a player post that he always had his FO's take the Javelin launchers out of his Bradley's just so they could have thermal...

Seems sort of "expensive" (as in lost AT firepower) if you ask me. 

[General Liederkranz]

7 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

This appears to be the case, as long as the soldier with the TWS stays alive, for US fire teams.  The platoon leader also has TWS.  I was a little disappointed to see that forward observers and snipers (I checked all five US sniper teams) did not have TWS.  

According to the manual, the .50 cal sniper rifle has a thermal sight, even if it's not mentioned in the interface (as most heavy weapons are supposed to). There's no mention of the 7.62mm sniper rifles having thermals, though.

[MOS:96B2P]

9 minutes ago, cbennett88 said:

I saw a player post that he always had his FO's take the Javelin launchers out of his Bradley's just so they could have thermal...

Seems sort of "expensive" (as in lost AT firepower) if you ask me. 

Yes, I remember this post.  I think it was made by @TheForwardObserver.  This is an interesting tactic.  I just thought an FO in the game would have his own TWS so would not need to grab a  launcher to use. 

[MOS:96B2P]

16 minutes ago, General Liederkranz said:

According to the manual, the .50 cal sniper rifle has a thermal sight, even if it's not mentioned in the interface (as most heavy weapons are supposed to). There's no mention of the 7.62mm sniper rifles having thermals, though.

You're right.  I just found it in the CMBS game manual page 86.  The HWTS.  The manual also states it is for night operations.  Just night vision in the special equipment box in the UI.  I guess the only way to see if the game mechanics allow it to work in the daylight is to test it.......................  

[JoMac]

On Monday, July 17, 2017 at 2:33 PM, John Kettler said:

Guys,

My point here is that there's training, then there's TRAINING. My argument is that this ought to matter considerably, because it most certainly does when bullets, rockets and missiles start flying. Consider, for example, the USAF's RED FLAG program. It was set up after the Air force found that ten combat missions were the hump a new to combat pilot had to get over in Vietnam in order to have good survival prospects over the long haul. RED FLAG was designed to provide artificial combat experience which was as close as possible to the real thing, and this was found to have excellent effect when these far from newbie (in terms of learning how to function in very realistic high stress scenarios) fighter, fighter bomber and bomber crews got into real combat. That's the sort of distinction I'm drawing. The Army got into computerized tank simulators after one Armor general noticed how many EM were absolutely riveted at the PX to a pioneering 1980 very simple wire frame vector drawn Atari arcade game called Battlezone. It was that game which became the launch pad of revolutionary tank warfare simulators, such as UCOFT. For the longest time, nobody had anything remotely similar, just as nobody had the super high tech NTC, either. My argument is that these factors matter, both theoretically and in battle and are independent of nationality.

Battlezone
 

Regards,

John Kettler

Ahh, one of my Fav Arcade Games, when I was a youngster :-)

[DreDay]

On July 22, 2017 at 11:46 AM, IMHO said:

@Sgt.Squarehead, and just to be precise - average flight time for an average RUS pilot is not particularly impressive as well. Significantly higher than UKR but still times less than US/UK practice. The exact figures were deemed confidential when they reduced the standards

I believe that the latest report by Shoigu had mentioned that all Russian combat pilots flew a minimum of 140 hr/yr in order to qualify as "combat-ready". Are those the same figures that you are referring to; or do you have access to more confidential numbers?

[DreDay]

Ok, so several people on this forum have complained that we barely ever talk about the game itself any more. It's a fair point; and as someone who has gone of on a tangent more than a few times, I feel my share of responsibility to get us back on track.

So here is my question - it appears to me that both Russian and Ukrainian units in CMBS have same (very low) default training and morale; while Americans have much higher skills. Now I agre with Americans have top training. However it seems to me that Russians should be somewhere between Ukrainians and US. Generally speaking, Russians spend more time in training and maneuvers than their ZSU counterparts. They should also be represented only by professional soldiers (per Russian laws) and their officers and NCOs should have slightly higher ratings due to the more extensive training that they recieve.

This is obviously only relevant for regular units - airborne, marines, SOF are a whole different story.

This is not meant to insult our Ukrainian members for a second - your guys have proven that they fight hard and with valor; I just want to make the game a little more realistic and challenging.

What do you guys think?

 

[Rinaldi]

1 hour ago, DreDay said:

Ok, so several people on this forum have complained that we barely ever talk about the game itself any more. It's a fair point; and as someone who has gone of on a tangent more than a few times, I feel my share of responsibility to get us back on track.

So here is my question - it appears to me that both Russian and Ukrainian units in CMBS have same (very low) default training and morale; while Americans have much higher skills. Now I agre with Americans have top training. However it seems to me that Russians should be somewhere between Ukrainians and US. Generally speaking, Russians spend more time in training and maneuvers than their ZSU counterparts. They should also be represented only by professional soldiers (per Russian laws) and their officers and NCOs should have slightly higher ratings due to the more extensive training that they recieve.

This is obviously only relevant for regular units - airborne, marines, SOF are a whole different story.

This is not meant to insult our Ukrainian members for a second - your guys have proven that they fight hard and with valor; I just want to make the game a little more realistic and challenging.

What do you guys think?

 

I agree. I follow the principle of 1 up rule in scenario design: If a scenario has the Americans at Veteran with a sprinkling of Crack troops, I make the Russians Regular with a sprinkling of Veteran. As a rule in CMBS I generally make both the Russians and the Americans have slightly above average motivation, with natural deviancies - unless the scenario can explain why a unit would be demoralized (re: heavy losses).

I make American leadership generally uniformly above average but sprinkle in bad eggs; jokes about Butterbars aside I think its safe to say that NCO and Officers are equally professional. My view on the Russian NCO and Officer corps may be antiquated and outdated in this regard but I generally make Russian Officers above average with a sprinkling of deviances but keep Russian NCOs as-are. The results are usually satisfying.

Edited August 4, 2017 by Rinaldi

[DreDay]

1 minute ago, Rinaldi said:

I agree. I follow the principle of 1 up rule in scenario design: If a scenario has the Americans at Veteran with a sprinkling of Crack troops, I make the Russians Regular with a sprinkling of Veteran. As a rule in CMBS I generally make both the Russians and the Americans have slightly above average motivation, with natural deviancies - unless the scenario can explain why a unit would be demoralized (re: heavy losses).

I make American leadership generally uniformly above average; jokes about Butterbars aside I think its safe to say that NCO and Officers are equally professional. My view on the Russian NCO and Officer corps may be antiquated and outdated in this regard but I generally make Russian Officers above average with a sprinkling of deviances but keep Russian NCOs as-are. The results are usually satisfying.

Good to know. I usually follow the same conventions, except that I tend to make recon/snipers elite in order to reflect their special skills and training.

I am not sure how to feel about Russian NCOs. At this point IRL they are all professionals with appropriate training; as opposed to the old Soviet model.

Perhaps our Ukrainian friends can enlighten us on the NCO selection process in ZSU?

[IMHO]

6 hours ago, DreDay said:

I believe that the latest report by Shoigu had mentioned that all Russian combat pilots flew a minimum of 140 hr/yr in order to qualify as "combat-ready". Are those the same figures that you are referring to; or do you have access to more confidential numbers?

Well... It's less. Unfortunately going into too much details is not a healthy exercise these days. Hope you understand. Sorry

[DreDay]

No need to apologize, friend. Your input is always welcomed!  Just FYI, here is one of the articles quoting Shoigu on this. He had actually said that the minimum was 120hr/yr; not 140. It still seems pretty high for a minimum, as in the Soviet VVS - that was pretty much the average annual flight time  (during peace time of course). 

https://ria.ru/defense_safety/20161222/1484341140.html