Balancing CMBS

[Stardekk]

I chose to start a topic on balancing the modern CM2 games. Since balancing CMBS is much easier than CMSF2  for obvious reasons, I chose to open this thread in the CMBS Topic.

I just want to hear what you guys have to say about balancing CMBS, maybe its impossible but still. 

 

Thats not a messege for the devs or something, its just for fun. 

 

 

 

My Idea is: 

-Limiting Javelins by Highering the price and rarity in Quick battles and also limiting them to 1 Javelin (+ 3 Missiles) in each Platoon (Stryker inf,mech inf or standart inf), and mixing some Carl Gustav Ricoiless Rifles.

-Maybe upgrading the Russians overhaul, because the game is created and designed in 2015 (ish ?) and the Russians were still in the process of modernizing their military. In 2017 it will be much more modern and comparable to the US army, and also putting more units in general, for example: a US company should fight a Russian Battalion( yes, a battalion.) in "Large" battle settings. 

-Adding rocket artillery ???? 

 

I don't bother to balance the Ukranians because I think they are in a pretty good spot as the "underdog"  of CMBS.

[akd]

The modernization of the Russian military in game actually exceeds that of the actual Russian military in 2020, with perhaps some very narrow exceptions.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

CM:BS just need a few more nations (maybe Estonia, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland & Turkey) and formations (UK, USMC, VDV, MPR), plus some Uncons () and a whole swathe of old & new T-72 variants (including the T-72B3M).....Not much to ask for really. 

PS - Oh & fixing the Stryker Campaign would be nice too.

[hebrewhammer926]

The Stryker campaign is fun but it's very broken. I gave up on the paratrooper mission because the scoring scale is so badly skewed toward the Russians. I got well under 20 percent casualties and still wound up with a minor defeat. 

[Haiduk]

First of all the game suffers from unrealistic easy spotting and "X-ray vision". And one of main steps of balancing is matching spotting capabilities to real world. There is a feeling sometime that armor with thermal sights and "better optic" indeed already equipped with "transparent armor" technology - such easy they detect even small targets from the side or back directions.  

[Stardekk]

BTW is the T-14\T-15 are in service now ? I'm not sure.

2 hours ago, Haiduk said:

First of all the game suffers from unrealistic easy spotting and "X-ray vision". And one of main steps of balancing is matching spotting capabilities to real world. There is a feeling sometime that armor with thermal sights and "better optic" indeed already equipped with "transparent armor" technology - such easy they detect even small targets from the side or back directions.  

You wont believe how much this is realistic, with gen 3 thermals you can spot targets almost 5km away. And the commander could turn his camera 360 degrees so  he propably spotted that small target becasue he looked back, though thats not modeled in the game, even the stabilizer is not modeled in-game sadly. 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

3 hours ago, Haiduk said:

First of all the game suffers from unrealistic easy spotting and "X-ray vision". And one of main steps of balancing is matching spotting capabilities to real world. There is a feeling sometime that armor with thermal sights and "better optic" indeed already equipped with "transparent armor" technology - such easy they detect even small targets from the side or back directions.  

And once again we are in agreement.....I couldn't have put it better. 

The abilities of certain units to apparently 'cloak' themselves (usually just before their opponent gets a firing solution) is a bit odd too.....It was somewhat noticeable in CM:SF (Red tanks losing sight of Blue tanks at point-blank range, while pointing their main gun straight at them), but it's got to silly levels in this game (M1A2 Abrams flitting in and out of visibility like a Klingon Bird of Prey, while a plethora of thermal imager equipped opponents have clear LOS to their location).

Edited December 13, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Haiduk]

4 hours ago, Stardekk said:

You wont believe how much this is realistic, with gen 3 thermals you can spot targets almost 5km away.

I believe, but not with such almost "lightspeed" reaction from detection to shot. To detect, recognize, assume a decision to fire, make measures, make voice commands to gunner/loader and (or) driver, they must react on orders, prepare to fire, aim, shot - all this in less than 3 seconds? Also this is touching not only the armor, but infantry too - look at CMSF2 topic, when discussed the same problem with many examples. Pair of scouts, which can not only spot, but also recognize enemy infantry in the trees from 3 km, having only rifle thermals - how it possible if AN/PAS-13 v1 sight for rifle has about 800 m of effective range? 

The second - as I know the game engine have a feature - each unit makes 7 second сonsistent observation of each 90 deg. sector, but is there really commander during the battle is rotating own cupola like a turbine? Or trooper with own head? As far as in USSR time the research was provided which sectors the tank commander observates during own tasks. There is turned out 90 % of time commander spotted in the sector in 110 degrees forward. Try to move in the game RPG team to the tank from the flank - if it's not T-64, with a big probability the tank will detect them first. 

Commander, of course, can rotate on 360, but, for example, in case of T-72B3, the commander hasn't thermal in own cupola, so during the day targeting he hasn't any advantages and in the darkness he can spot only at 500 m with EOP device. The thermal for 3300/5000 m of night/day modes has a gunner, but his sight "nailed" to the gun and he can observe battlefield through the narrow field of view only by rotating the turret. I'm not shure this reflected in the game.

[HUSKER2142]

16 hours ago, Haiduk said:

I believe, but not with such almost "lightspeed" reaction from detection to shot. To detect, recognize, assume a decision to fire, make measures, make voice commands to gunner/loader and (or) driver, they must react on orders, prepare to fire, aim, shot - all this in less than 3 seconds? Also this is touching not only the armor, but infantry too - look at CMSF2 topic, when discussed the same problem with many examples. Pair of scouts, which can not only spot, but also recognize enemy infantry in the trees from 3 km, having only rifle thermals - how it possible if AN/PAS-13 v1 sight for rifle has about 800 m of effective range? 

I completely agree with what was said, it would be worth working on this.
In general, I hope that someday we will see CM during  Cold War of the 70s and 80s with a hypothetical collision, without an exchange of nuclear strikes. When thermal imagers had just begun to be installed on armored vehicles.

[Artkin]

I feel like CMBS is just right. You should always be in fear of your armor getting completely and totally obliterated. Also, the Russians would probably have it worse irl

[IICptMillerII]

Balancing in CM is always going to be subjective. People/communities tend to come up with house rules or tournament restrictions organically. For example, I know there was a CMBS tournament where everyone was restricted to taking wheeled vehicles only, no tracked vehicles. 

In my opinion you are always best off fighting as proper formations while trying to implement a given nations tactical doctrine. Cherry picking forces almost always backfires, and at the least usually robs the player of C2 advantages.

re: Thermals
This topic comes up every now and then, along with all the usual myths. 

• All thermal imagers are not equal. Just like all night vision devices are not equal. The thermals on the M1A2 SEPv3 are absurdly good. It has a 1080p monitor with a 50x magnification. This is enough to read the font on belt buckles and other clothing from 2-3km away. I know, I've done it. For comparison, the thermal imager on the original M1 from 1980 was only a 10x magnification and was a 480p monitor. 
• Thermal imagers are significantly better than regular day sights, regardless of magnification. It is hard to describe just how superior a thermal imager is to a day sight when it comes to spotting vehicles in terrain, but it is literally night and day. Vehicles can be very easily seen using low magnification and then quickly zoomed in on and destroyed. There are not very many good images that show how good the thermals are on something like the Abrams, but this picture can help illustrate the effect: 
  This is a low res thermal image as well. But you can see that the tank literally glows. Using proper thermals is like looking for glowsticks in the dark. They tend to stand out rather brilliantly. 
• Night sights/IR sights do not equal thermal sights. A night sight is basically a night vision device for a tank. It is an optic that uses light amplification to "see" at night. It does not function at all during the day. IR sights are worse in that they require IR illumination to function, which makes you extremely easy to spot at night through any kind of night vision device. The effect is the same as seeing a car a few hundred meters down the road at night with its headlights on. You can easily see it due to the headlights, but the car cannot see you until it is much closer and directly illuminating you. To add insult to injury, most IR illumination sights are only good out to around 700-800 meters. 

Yes, reaction times might be a bit fast in CM, but that is not exclusive to spotting. Some weapon pack up and deploy times are rather optimistic. Some infantry response times are a bit delayed. Many of us have seen infantry run right next to enemy infantry and pause for a few seconds after spotting each other before shooting. It is a computer after all, and is not going to be perfect. 
And yes, vehicles do tend to have a spidey sense, where they sometimes turn their turrets towards ATGMs in flight towards them, regardless of having a laser warning receiver, but this behavior is universal. I've seen BMP-2s do this as well as Abrams.

The simple version is, CM gets it right way more than it doesn't. 

By the way, the AN/PAS-13 can identify man sized targets beyond 1km and vehicles out to 4km. Not sure where the 800m figure came from, and small arms mounted thermals are not as powerful as the ones mounted in vehicles, so it isn't exactly a proper comparison. And as I mentioned earlier, a thermal sight will outperform conventional day sights, usually by an order of magnitude under ideal conditions. 

[Sulman]

The spotting/cloaking thing is difficult to solve, and it's not just in CM2, I remember Steel Beasts being frustrating for this, and also the original M1 Tank Platoon had the most bizarre spotting at close range.  MBT crews (loader especially) should always be checking flanks in combat areas.

It isn't just CMBS either, just last night I had a Piat truppen standing 30' from a wooden bunker that intermittently flashed in and out of LOS, but he never actually got to shooting it.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

3 hours ago, IICptMillerII said:

And as I mentioned earlier, a thermal sight will outperform conventional day sights, usually by an order of magnitude under ideal conditions.

Until the cooling stops, at any rate. 

[Haiduk]

3 hours ago, IICptMillerII said:

By the way, the AN/PAS-13 can identify man sized targets beyond 1km and vehicles out to 4km. Not sure where the 800m figure came from

AN/PAS-13 v2 has 1200 m of detection, but it consider as "medium sight" and mounts on MGs, when v1 - "light sight" mount on the rifles. In open sources there are mostly info about v2 and "heavy" v3 versions for sniper rifles, but almost nothing about v1. I found it somewhere, after long searches, but forgot this site - there was pointed the range about 800 m.

[Stardekk]

On 12/13/2020 at 8:50 PM, Haiduk said:

I believe, but not with such almost "lightspeed" reaction from detection to shot. To detect, recognize, assume a decision to fire, make measures, make voice commands to gunner/loader and (or) driver, they must react on orders, prepare to fire, aim, shot - all this in less than 3 seconds? Also this is touching not only the armor, but infantry too - look at CMSF2 topic, when discussed the same problem with many examples. Pair of scouts, which can not only spot, but also recognize enemy infantry in the trees from 3 km, having only rifle thermals - how it possible if AN/PAS-13 v1 sight for rifle has about 800 m of effective range? 

The second - as I know the game engine have a feature - each unit makes 7 second сonsistent observation of each 90 deg. sector, but is there really commander during the battle is rotating own cupola like a turbine? Or trooper with own head? As far as in USSR time the research was provided which sectors the tank commander observates during own tasks. There is turned out 90 % of time commander spotted in the sector in 110 degrees forward. Try to move in the game RPG team to the tank from the flank - if it's not T-64, with a big probability the tank will detect them first. 

Commander, of course, can rotate on 360, but, for example, in case of T-72B3, the commander hasn't thermal in own cupola, so during the day targeting he hasn't any advantages and in the darkness he can spot only at 500 m with EOP device. The thermal for 3300/5000 m of night/day modes has a gunner, but his sight "nailed" to the gun and he can observe battlefield through the narrow field of view only by rotating the turret. I'm not shure this reflected in the game.

I don't want to start a debate, but you could spot sfuff from the back so fast and turn the turret so fast, modrn tanks have a Hunter Killer system, wich means that the commander dont have to tell the gunner to turn the turret, he could simply, by a press of a button, turn the whole turret around to his point of you, but I agree with you that it shouldn't happen in 3 seconds. Infantry can detect ENY infantry 3km away, with binoculars (though it heavily depends on the terrain the inf you are trying to spot is at), but agian, it should'nt happen that fast, thats true. 

About spotting sneaky infantry from the sides and rear, thts also could happen, but again, not as fast as in-game, i think. 

 

I don't think combat mission should fix that, at least not in CMX2. This is not an armor sim... I for example dont agree with the CAS mechanic implemented in CMX2, but the game is focused more on the Combined Arms warfare, wich this, I think Combat Mission is the best Sim-type game for this as of 2020.

 

BTW if you are looking  for a good armor sim, try Steel Beast as sulman mentioned this game above.Great game in my opinion. 

Edited December 14, 2020 by Stardekk

[MikeyD]

I'm reminded of a quip someone said long ago about CMBO along the lines of 'Amateurs play Tigers vs IS-2s, veterans play Italian vs Romanian infantry', or words to that effect. If modern armor turns CMBS into a blood bath try cutting back on the  armor.

I've said this on other titles and it holds doubly-true for CMBS, if your strategy relies on 'Maybe they won't spot me here' You're setting yourself up for failure. Because they will spot you there.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Nah, the spotting's dodgy. 

The ability of US tanks to spot stationary/concealed units on their flanks, while moving, and often before those units can spot them is beyond ridiculous.....Superior thermal imaging doesn't make 70 ton tanks disappear in broad daylight at sub 1km ranges. 

Edited December 16, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Stardekk]

1 hour ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Nah, the spotting's dodgy. 

The ability of US tanks to spot stationary/concealed units on their flanks, while moving, and often before those units can spot them is beyond ridiculous.....Superior thermal imaging doesn't make 70 ton tanks disappear in broad daylight at sub 1km ranges. 

Well, Yes. 

[IICptMillerII]

An additional point on thermals. I think there is some confusion as to what an independent thermal sight for the tank commander means. Many think it is just the commander looking through a periscope and seeing exactly what the gunner sees. In many models of tanks, this is the case, including the M1/M1A1. However, it is not the case in the M1A2. This means that if the gunner is looking North, the tank commander can look South, or East, or West, or North as well, or anywhere in between. The sight is on a 360 degree revolving mount. I whipped up this fun little diagram to help illustrate it, because photoshop and tank sprites are fun to play with. 

 

As I've said before, I do not claim that the spotting system is perfect. However, it is not biased for or against a faction, and hopefully the diagram helps to illustrate how it is possible for a tank to see an enemy tank at its flank, or even behind it. And unless the enemy tank is physically out of line of sight, it will very likely be seen in thermals. Even a hulldown tank tends to advertise its position in thermals due to the "glow" effect. 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I'd be very surprised if anyone here didn't know what a panoramic sight is.....After all CM:BS' mighty BM Oplot has the biggest example in the known universe:

[LukeFF]

On 12/16/2020 at 3:27 PM, Sgt.Squarehead said:

I'd be very surprised if anyone here didn't know what a panoramic sight is.....After all CM:BS' mighty BM Oplot has the biggest example in the known universe:

Not everyone here is an armor geek that knows all the ins and outs of imaging technology on modern armored fighting vehicles.

[chuckdyke]

M1A1SA Abrams is the Abrams in the Shock Force 2 Manual which came with the game. The SA stands for Situational Awareness. In the picture he has a beautiful digital screen. The purpose is that they can see whatever any other tank sees in the unit. That is the purpose of digital technology.