Getting the most out of the ATGM BRDMs and the Shturm-S.

[ThathumanHayden]

Hello everyone.

I have been having trouble getting good results with the AT-3 and AT-5 armed BRDMs in the anti tank battery, as well as the AT-6 armed MT-LB Shturms. They seem to have very poor spotting, and very poor situational awareness. Are there ways to mitigate these issues?

[domfluff]

Like a lot of things in Cold War, the answer tends to be Mass.

The AT platoons of the AT battery have three BRDM/Shturms, with an HQ in a BRDM. In general you want to be treating this more like a WW2 AT Gun platoon. Rather than treating ATGMs as an anti-tank sniper rifle, which you can do in the (more) modern games, they need to be sited so that you can gain an advantage by having multiple rolls of the dice - if all three of them are playing ambush predator and watching the incoming Tank platoon, then you only need one of them to spot to start the enagement in a favourable way.

BRDMs unbutton in an interesting way - rather than sticking their head out, the cover of the front window opens. That tends to give them good visibility, but the vantage point is low to the ground, which affects what ground you can best fight from.

Obvious stuff can help too, like using the HQ BRDM to spot with, and rely spotting contacts, since that's mostly what he's for.

In general, ATGM *duels* are something that's pretty unique to Cold War, and almost always a bad idea. Long range fires, one-hit-kills, with a fairly large chance of missing means that trying to fight ATGMs with ATGMs is more or less a coin flip. TOW and AT-5 are more or less equivalent in practical terms - even if TOW is the superior weapon by any number of characteristics, there's a large chance of it missing, and if it misses, the M150 will probably be toast.

[chuckdyke]

5 hours ago, ThathumanHayden said:

They seem to have very poor spotting,

You work together with Infantry? I don't know how long you have played the game. If your infantry can pass on their contact icons, the AFV's get much quicker full contact. Infantry spots AFV reliably at up to 1500 meters. 

[dbsapp]

I haven't played CMCW yet (waiting for Steam release and enjoy Red Thunder), but it strikes me how ATGMs are relatively poor and ineffective weapon in Black Sea.

Especially in comparison to other strategy\simulation games. E.g. in Steal Beasts ATGMs are super good. You can understand why, since you can occupy gunner's seat and realize how it is easy to one shot enemy tank from 3 km.

In DCS guided weapons are kings as well.

Judging by YouTube videos from conflict zones Steal Beasts representation of ATGM is pretty close to real life.

And you know what? I like how it's done in Combat Mission. Paired with active defense systems like Arena or Trophy ATGMs poor performance in CM provides opportunity to play tactical without constant "guided missiles" damnation. Truly effective ATGMs could turn the game into constant and dull missile duels. 

 

Edited May 9, 2021 by dbsapp

[chuckdyke]

ATGM wire guided? Go out in the street and see how many obstacles are in the way like trees high tension wires etc. Fire and Forget prone to electronic counter measures. Over 3 km it takes a missile 30 seconds or more to hit. Best AT weapon is a better tank, their missiles hit at 3 km at a speed of Mach 3. Laser sights lock on, computer calculates the correction and the APDSFS is on its way it is already fire and forget. But by kinetic energy. ATGM have a poor performance because they are not perfect. Duels are a recipe for defeats. In the modern battlefield it is like WW2 combined arms win the day not just the weapon which looks good in Call of Duty. 

[dbsapp]

Bradley outperformed Abrams tanks as early as first Iraq war killing more enemy tanks than m1a1. 

The discussion on the extinction of tanks due to their vulnerability to modern day precision weapons is at least 30 yo. The recent Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict is very illustrative in that respect. 

No wonder most of the modern armies significantly decreased the number of tanks in recent years.  

 

[dpabrams]

51 minutes ago, dbsapp said:

Bradley outperformed Abrams tanks as early as first Iraq war killing more enemy tanks than m1a1

Interesting, where did you read this?

[dbsapp]

1 hour ago, dpabrams said:

Interesting, where did you read this?

Are you trying to say that it's not true since its from Wiki? 

[dpabrams]

Just now, dbsapp said:

Are you trying to say that it's not true since its from Wiki? 

I have never heard or read that "Bradley outperformed Abrams" before in GW1 and that Bradley killed more tanks than the M1. That's all, so I am curious where you obtained that info from?

[dbsapp]

1 minute ago, dpabrams said:

I have never heard or read that "Bradley outperformed Abrams" before in GW1 and that Bradley killed more tanks than the M1. That's all, so I am curious where you obtained that info from?

I heard it many times. Googled it and found it on Wiki. "During the Persian Gulf War, M2 Bradleys destroyed more Iraqi armored vehicles than the M1 Abrams". 

 

Link leads to https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/m2.htm

 

[chuckdyke]

There is a difference between T55 tanks, T62, T64, T72 tanks. Also it was open terrain. I feel confident taking on outdated Soviet equipment with Bradleys in SF2. Use them in ambush. 

[dpabrams]

2 hours ago, dbsapp said:

Bradley outperformed Abrams tanks as early as first Iraq war killing more enemy tanks than m1a1. 

Simply put, this statement is false. You should read up on it in a book.

[domfluff]

This is severely off-topic to the thread. Nevertheless: it's a common claim, that's repeated often. It wouldn't surprise me if it's actually true for 73 Easting at least, since 2nd ACR was the lead element, if I recall correctly.

[dbsapp]

30 minutes ago, dpabrams said:

Simply put, this statement is false. You should read up on it in a book.

Simply put, probably it is, since the sources aren't reliable, but we don't have trustworthy sources on m1 and m2 kills lists either.

You could use more direct ways of saying that from the start  

Also I must warn that there are many book which contain false information 

[Redwolf]

1 hour ago, dbsapp said:

I heard it many times. Googled it and found it on Wiki. "During the Persian Gulf War, M2 Bradleys destroyed more Iraqi armored vehicles than the M1 Abrams". 

 

Link leads to https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/m2.htm

 

That's not talking about the same thing. This talks about all AFV, we were talking things that need an ATGM to go down.

The difference is that the Bradley would make liberal use of their 25mm to kill thin-skinned AFVs. They had DU rounds specifically for that purpose.

[SovietOnion]

5 hours ago, dbsapp said:

Simply put, probably it is, since the sources aren't reliable, but we don't have trustworthy sources on m1 and m2 kills lists either.

You could use more direct ways of saying that from the start  

Also I must warn that there are many book which contain false information 

Pretty sassy, eh? lol. 

That source you provided is very misleading. "Bradley's killed more armored vehicles" is different than "Bradley killed more tanks" and the conversation was specifically about ATGMs, which would imply we were only considering the Bradley's TOW system. 

[MikeyD]

BRDM and Shturm-S seem to work best as 'sit quietly and wait for something to roll into sight' vehicles. In comparison to M150 which is a 'roll up, spot the enemy and shoot' vehicle. Admittedly I've played with the Russian vehicles more in CMBS than CMCW.

[ThathumanHayden]

Thanks for all the replies. I was keeping my ATGM vehicles several hundred meters behind the front line, and I was not making proper use of the command teams or of close by infantry. I will try to keep some dismounts close for spotting. I hope this improves my luck.

[scarletto]

I spent a few years as a guided weapons operator, i am surprised by the number of hits. On the ranges it was great not an obstacle, even for moving targets. Forget that on a real battlefield, trees, wires, telephone boxes etc etc etc.

[ThathumanHayden]

Keeping the vehicles unbuttoned, and especially with an infantry team close by has made them a lot more deadly, more-so in the early timeframe. They are certainly less versatile than the equivalent US vehicles, but I have been getting better results with the BRDMs already.