Great post-game analysis for Hapless' recent series

[domfluff]

12 minutes ago, Simcoe said:

Is it possible to find out how actual NTC battles turned out? Like AAR’s? Seems like there would be a lot of lessons learned there as well.

Firmly not Cold War, but some NTC AARs do exist publicly:

https://www.benning.army.mil/infantry/magazine/issues/2017/JUL-SEP/pdf/10)TN3-Courchaine-Stryker_txt.pdf

[Rinaldi]

1 hour ago, Simcoe said:

Is it possible to find out how actual NTC battles turned out? Like AAR’s? Seems like there would be a lot of lessons learned there as well.

In the 80s and early 90s a lot of people authored books, more or less depicting their rotation in NTC like a historical battle. Bolger's "Dragons in the Desert" might interest you - he provides accurate ADREPs at the start and conclusion of every mission. Losses could often be very heavy in his battalion, I'm talking stuff like "this company team went into action with 6 m60s and ended the battle with none" levels of attrition. 

Edit: Sorry its called: "Dragons at War: Land Battle in the Desert" - its beginning to show its age, as it was published in 1986 and only slightly revised after Gulf 1. Some of its sources, especially on the Soviets, have not aged well. It is an excellent vertical slice, however, of how contemporary US officers thought, trained and fought (i.e: getting slaughtered repeatedly at Fort Irwin). 

Edited February 8, 2022 by Rinaldi

[MOS:96B2P]

19 minutes ago, Simcoe said:

Is it possible to find out how actual NTC battles turned out? Like AAR’s? Seems like there would be a lot of lessons learned there as well.

There are also some interesting books on the NTC.  

66 Stories of Battle Command.  Published by US Army Command and General Staff College. 

The defense of Hill 781.  Author James R. Mcdonough

Dragons at War.  Author Daniel P. Bolger.

Also a good book for the JRTC is The Battle for Hunger Hill.  Author Daniel P. Bolger.   

[Simcoe]

Thanks for all the NTC information everyone. Looking forward to checking it out.

[slysniper]

On 2/7/2022 at 5:29 PM, Artkin said:

The T-62s had some seriously abysmal performance in the CMCW tournament Slysniper is hosting. My opponent had unbuttoned tanks totally oblivious to huge m60's for like half a turn within 300m. So I also think something isnt right there.

[slysniper]

You cannot take the scenario above as any form for showing what a T62 can or cannot do vs a M60 in any way.

Just way too many variables to be of much use.

The biggiest being dust being produced was preventing armor from both sides seeing much of anything.

The weapon systems shining were those seeing through the dust.

[slysniper]

What I find as the most interesting part of this is you allow  dbsapp to get to you. He can have his opinion, as discussed over and over again, its never has any substance, so why bother to listen to him.

At least this time he did find one document that was of some interest.

And I think I can prove the game has it right, if it really needed to come down to that, which it does not.

If you could make every thing even, The soviat tanks likely would have the advantage.

At least when it comes to armor, size, gun firing a normal round and so forth.

 

But the truth is, the studies that really matter for tank duels are the ones that show that he who spots and fires first is he who wins 80% of the time.

And again CM games proves that many of a time. So it all comes down to the complaint, that the game makes the Russian tank blind, more than it should be. But as pointed out again and again, everything mentioned, shows just that, there is no way for the Soviat armor to be able to spot as well as American armor.  So its impressive that by just adjusting the crew skill level its enough to tweek the results that much. that in and of itself shows there is not a big difference between the units.

Edited February 9, 2022 by slysniper

[slysniper]

Oh, dont try using the 1973 war as a source for any proof of Russian armor being on equal ground.

If you knew your wars, the majority of the Israeli armor losses were due to Sagger missiles.

They had tactics that did not account for the new weapon system and it caught them by total Suprise. They lost a huge number of tanks trying to do what worked in previous wars and found out very quickly what the new weapon could do.

Magically within just a few days, they came up with a whole new tactical doctrine to take on the new battlefield threat.

 

[slysniper]

And my final comment, if you really want to complain dbsapp.

It should be about how bias the scenario design staff is, Its a group of westerners, so they focus on showing things from that view point.

As pointed out, if you want to make the Russians shine, you can take the present game system and components and make it happen. Its just creating the situations that allow for what you want to shine to do just that. Its just not a task that is being done for the Russian side of the battle much.

But I just finished a battle I was testing for CM and I was playing the Soviets and I really enjoyed the fact that in truth I had a pretty huge advantage, and that is a meeting engagement.

So I know it is possible and it sure had nothing to do with My T55's out dueling his M48's

 

Oh, and by the way, that tournament Scenario that a few of these guys played. showed one thing. Those that used Russian type tactics were those that had the success in the battle, and in truth, the odds were against them, but a few players managed to make it happen.

 

Edited February 9, 2022 by slysniper

[Artkin]

I'm saying pretty much every single one of my opponents t62 were opened up and never really got a spot on my tanks. It isn't unrefutable evidence, but it is some. 

Halfway through the scenario I had like two losses. And they were infantry. My opponent had over a dozen smoldering vehicles if not more.

Edited February 9, 2022 by Artkin

[MikeyD]

I frankly avoid playing M60A3 and Abrams in the game. Thermal optics have a tendency to badly tilt the board. The 'standard' M60 in 79-80 would be M60A1 (RISE+) firing the M735 round. For the Russians, if I'm picking below T64 they should at least get laser rangefinder to improve first shot chances.

[dbsapp]

1 hour ago, slysniper said:

allow  dbsapp to get to you

I see you are really worried.

Those pathetic ad hominem arguments prove one thing - you have nothing to offer except them. 

I do provide factual basis for my opinion and do find interesting documents. How many documents you found to prove your point? 

What I've seen is perpetual word salad on how Soviet equipment was bad, needs 3 times advantage in numbers to compete and bad at spotting. Except "dbsaap is bad" I didn't see any documents from you in defense of this position. 

You can pet each other into oblivion in your close circle repeating the same dogma again and again, but it won't change the fact that people see that the king is naked. Not everybody likes child beating games, people demand realism, challenge and fair play.

[Artkin]

Well they were M60A1 if I recall correctly. I also avoid M60A3 TTS and Abrams. 

[Lethaface]

5 hours ago, dbsapp said:

I do provide factual basis for my opinion and do find interesting documents. 

It may be an interesting document indeed, but the part that you cited didn't contain anything about optics. I asked you about this but you didn't reply (yet).

 

5 hours ago, dbsapp said:

I see you are really worried.

Those pathetic ad hominem arguments prove one thing - you have nothing to offer except them. 

I do provide factual basis for my opinion and do find interesting documents. How many documents you found to prove your point? 

What I've seen is perpetual word salad on how Soviet equipment was bad, needs 3 times advantage in numbers to compete and bad at spotting. Except "dbsaap is bad" I didn't see any documents from you in defense of this position. 

You can pet each other into oblivion in your close circle repeating the same dogma again and again, but it won't change the fact that people see that the king is naked. Not everybody likes child beating games, people demand realism, challenge and fair play.

The issue some people may have with your posts is that you are aggressive in tone claiming that CMx2 is very biased towards US and that everyone who says anything else is blind/biased etc. You make broad sweeping statements but don't follow up when the actual bolts and pieces are discussed. 
This is sometimes called 'seagull management'; as in someone (in the example a manager) comes flying in, makes a lot of noise and **** on everything than flies away. 

When you get pushback (which is to be expected when utilizing the form and tone of communication you favor), you start acting like a victim and cry about ad hominems on your person and than project your own discussion style onto others. 

To get back to the point (although slightly OT): in game m60 is perceived to have better spotting and targeting capabilities compared to T-62. Do you assert that is wrong? If so, on what base?

Simply shouting that T-62 is blind because m60 can see it while T-62 can't see m60 isn't proving anything. Posting an interesting document about how some researchers who have written stuff in the past might have come to wrong conclusions also doesn't proof anything to anyone.

Most people on this forums understand that, but you seem to believe you have excellent scientific empirically valid dissertation about why CMx2 has stuff wrong.
Which you haven't. Basically you make a lot of noise, but often not much else.

[slysniper]

dbsapp

You are so correct, I did not provide any evidence, because like you, if I say it is so, it must be.

But why should or would I waste time on such a wasted effort, all the evidence that is available will never change your view, because you are set in your thoughts no matter what is brought forth.

I love you man, you can go on and on and on, with your little war of words against whomever you think is your foe.

And I am sure you think it is working to get to whatever you want the ends to be. 

But in truth, you created a view of yourself that makes anyone that is on the cm team not even care to take a look at your claims as to issues within the game.

And there is plenty of effort to look at claims and to review how the game is performing to realistic results.

As was mentioned, there has been multiple things brought forth on these forums that have now been reviewed and hopefully adjustments will possible be made to make the game have better results in the future.

But have you ever been the one that has brought forth any useful data that has helped with any of those reviews.

I don't recall, like I said, at least you did provide something in this debate. It does not address the real issue. Spotting and why the US has the advantage there. But go on believing what you will, as I said it does not bother me. 

 

[Pete Wenman]

Same map, for **** n' giggles.

Blue vs Red AI Attacker in a QB setup.

I as the blue player had just gained 2 contacts (and the only contacts so far in game), one of which firmed up as a T-55, at which point the M60 with the sighting blew up, much to my surprise and lost the contact (not a surprise).

All fun stuff

P

 

[dbsapp]

slysniper,

I appreciate that you showed so much interest in my person and devoted second lengthy post entirely to me. 

Unfortunately, I can't reciprocate. I literally don't know who you are, since I don't recall even a single more or less noticeable post from you.

Since I know that it's futile to demand from you anything that goes beyond personal insults, I would only remind you that it's not village club of mutual compliments, but forum in system of interconnected computer networks (called internet). And forum by the merits of its nature presupposes exchange of ideas, some of which you may don't like or don't agree with. 

[dbsapp]

4 hours ago, Lethaface said:

It may be an interesting document indeed, but the part that you cited didn't contain anything about optics. I asked you about this but you didn't reply (yet).

 

The issue some people may have with your posts is that you are aggressive in tone claiming that CMx2 is very biased towards US and that everyone who says anything else is blind/biased etc. You make broad sweeping statements but don't follow up when the actual bolts and pieces are discussed. 
This is sometimes called 'seagull management'; as in someone (in the example a manager) comes flying in, makes a lot of noise and **** on everything than flies away. 

When you get pushback (which is to be expected when utilizing the form and tone of communication you favor), you start acting like a victim and cry about ad hominems on your person and than project your own discussion style onto others. 

To get back to the point (although slightly OT): in game m60 is perceived to have better spotting and targeting capabilities compared to T-62. Do you assert that is wrong? If so, on what base?

Simply shouting that T-62 is blind because m60 can see it while T-62 can't see m60 isn't proving anything. Posting an interesting document about how some researchers who have written stuff in the past might have come to wrong conclusions also doesn't proof anything to anyone.

Most people on this forums understand that, but you seem to believe you have excellent scientific empirically valid dissertation about why CMx2 has stuff wrong.
Which you haven't. Basically you make a lot of noise, but often not much else.

I was thinking on preparing more substantive answer, which required some time and effort in comparison of optics of two tanks. 

I don't know if I'll have time to make it, and - which is even more important - after your post I have doubts if should.  

Before asking me to present multi page referenced research with which you may be pleased (or which happens more often don't) I suggest you to do your own. 

[slysniper]

5 minutes ago, dbsapp said:

I was thinking on preparing more substantive answer, which required some time and effort in comparison of optics of two tanks. 

I don't know if I'll have time to make it, and - which is even more important - after your post I have doubts if should.  

Before asking me to present multi page referenced research with which you may be pleased (or which happens more often don't) I suggest you to do your own. 

you want change, then spend the effort to make change happen. 

But of course, lets try to make someone else do the work that you cannot appear to do or want to do yourself.

And AM I attacking your character, you better believe it. I can do it as easy as you can.

 

What, you do not like it when its against you, instead of you against someone else.

 

So go ahead and take another shot, I have lowered myself to your same level, so I am no better than you and maybe I am making some out there hate my guts also. But you know, I was bored, and all this done was show you cannot handle it any better than anyone else when the target is you. Imagine that.

But it will not likely make you think for a second on how you should address things in the future when it comes to trying to have a productive discussion on how to possible improve the game.

[dbsapp]

16 minutes ago, slysniper said:

you want change, then spend the effort to make change happen. 

But of course, lets try to make someone else do the work that you cannot appear to do or want to do yourself.

And AM I attacking your character, you better believe it. I can do it as easy as you can.

 

What, you do not like it when its against you, instead of you against someone else.

 

So go ahead and take another shot, I have lowered myself to your same level, so I am no better than you and maybe I am making some out there hate my guts also. But you know, I was bored, and all this done was show you cannot handle it any better than anyone else when the target is you. Imagine that.

But it will not likely make you think for a second on how you should address things in the future when it comes to trying to have a productive discussion on how to possible improve the game.

It's a third post devoted to me. Nice. 

I suggest you stop discussing my humble person before this beautiful topic is closed by moderators. 

Possibly you didn't mention, but I never use personal attacks first and try to refrain from them even after they were used against me. To be honest, I'm little bit astonished by the level of personal hatred that can be generated by such abstract and innocent theme as Cold war tanks and their simulation in PC game. It seems some of local inhabitants are much more fragile than I had assumed.  

[slysniper]

On 2/7/2022 at 6:05 AM, dbsapp said:

Well, it boils down to fact that in CM universe it is so. What Battlefront actually says is Soviet\Russian equipment is bad. 

Hilariously enough, at the same time they try to make an impression of some competition and challenge between fraction in CMCW (and in CMBS). 

My main claim is that Soviet equipment is represented in the game in a way that immediatly raises question, because units don't see something that they must see. 

It started right here.

where in this statement are you not insulting in every aspect of what you have said.

Then make a claim it should be so easy to see why it's the soviet equipment that has an issue.

But still to this point have made no effort as to showing logically why this statement you made is correct.

 

If you dont like spotting in the game, thats one thing. There is plenty of players that are not fans of it and there is some good reasons why, but the system is the system used and its not going to magically changed since its the basic programming of the game.

And there is plenty of evidence given, it affects both sides but not in your world of belief. So dont address any post that reflects that fact.

but you have done nothing to show how the Russian equipment compared to the US equipment is not balanced correctly to each other within the game. Just one aspect "spotting", remember you keep wanting to make the statement its the spotting of Russian units, come on just show us something as to why it immediatly raises questions

 

[Lethaface]

21 hours ago, dbsapp said:

I was thinking on preparing more substantive answer, which required some time and effort in comparison of optics of two tanks. 

I don't know if I'll have time to make it, and - which is even more important - after your post I have doubts if should.  

Before asking me to present multi page referenced research with which you may be pleased (or which happens more often don't) I suggest you to do your own. 

I don't directly see how addressing the T-62 optics, including the type of rangefinder which The Capt already mentioned, and FCS would require multi page referenced research. 

TheCapt basically already did the work for you: he mentioned the optic, type of rangefinder (including it's appreciation) and lack of FCS for T-62. 

So if you have better information addressing that shouldn't require much more time & effort than his post. Or rather, considering you already have an opinion about the subject it should require less time. Because, how can you have a well researched & sourced opinion that something is wrong if you don't have knowledge at hand about what is wrong?
That insinuation would lead me to believe you don't have specific knowledge of the subject and thus have formed your opinion on other grounds: bias / emotion.
Which is very normal for people to do and we all do at times. But it is also why humanity has developed the concept of science / scientific research and how one can draw validated conclusions.

--

I don't ask you to do multi page referenced research; it's rather you who state that something is wrong and should change. The onus is on you to provide arguments and facts into why something should change.

I don't think this aspect is modelled incorrect in CMCW, so there is no reason for me to do research.

--

Why does my post creates doubt in your mind if you should do what you wanted to do (and provide proof that T-62 optics should be improved ingame)? 
Perhaps it is you that is fragile and you need to be complimented before you dare to take such a step.

The only reason why I addressed your communication style is that I was 'bo(the)red' by it. You post here regularly, as do I. So over time I have taken note of your style of communication and it isn't a very positive one. More than one constructive thread became unconstructive due to the way you post.
You won't make a lot of friends that way, I can guarantee.

Not that I care much about it, but sometimes I feel like calling a horse a horse especially if I'm bored by something.

Concluding: there is nothing wrong with being critical of the game. It is a perfectly fine position to take that in your opinion USSR spotting isn't modeled well in CMCW, or that you have the impression that there is a USA bias.

I myself have some gripes about CMSF2 Syrian ammo stuff in QBs, among other things. The CMBS US Javelin issue was fixed much faster than those ;-). But there's also logic in that, as probably most of the paying customers are from US and not from Syria so would complain more about Javelin issue compared to an RPG/PKM ammo bug in QBs.

However the more important question is how to present yourself / opinion and gather attention and support for the issue you see/feel. Using expletives and such is usually not the way to go.
At least in my life / experience.

Your mileage may vary; good luck with addressing the things you would like to see changed! You'll need all of it I guess
 

Edit: If you don't like posts dedicated to you, you could try changing your style of posting. Or rather: chill out.

Edited February 10, 2022 by Lethaface

[Simcoe]

On the Russian side, what’s everyone’s take on using artillery to shutdown likely sight lines? Do people prefer using smoke or HE? I’m finding that M60’s don’t suffer very much from artillery fire unless they are a direct target. 
 

I just had a game where a single hull down M60 took out four T-62’s while under a line of artillery fire. 
 

makes me think smoke might be a better option (until you come across a tank with thermals)

[domfluff]

The Soviets had three defined uses for smoke. Smoke was used on their positions to screen movement, it was used on the enemy to shape the engagement, and it had a third defined use, for deception (I have an anecdote about that).

Yes, thermals change this equation, but that's true for everything in Cold War.

If you're trying to blind the enemy, you certainly want to use smoke rather than relying on dust. If nothing else it lasts longer. The important thing with smoke is that you never want to be moving or fighting through your own smoke, so smoke missions should be used to create temporary local advantage by shaping and defining space.

The "deception" anecdote was a cold war pbem, on a map that was divided down the centre into two distinct halves. 

I decided to swing my attack to the right, but I dedicated a couple of on-map mortars to laying down a smoke screen on the left.

On discussion after the match, that smoke meant that my opponent was expecting a push down my left, and so didn't think he could afford to move the forces on that side away... two mortars had managed to tie up half of his force, and in addition half of his air assets were covering that approach...

Now, that kind of thing is never going to work against the AI, of course, but its still a pretty cool story.

Edited February 10, 2022 by domfluff

[Simcoe]

38 minutes ago, domfluff said:

The Soviets had three defined uses for smoke. Smoke was used on their positions to screen movement, it was used on the enemy to shape the engagement, and it had a third defined use, for deception (I have an anecdote about that).

Yes, thermals change this equation, but that's true for everything in Cold War.

If you're trying to blind the enemy, you certainly want to use smoke rather than relying on dust. If nothing else it lasts longer. The important thing with smoke is that you never want to be moving or fighting through your own smoke, so smoke missions should be used to create temporary local advantage by shaping and defining space.

The "deception" anecdote was a cold war pbem, on a map that was divided down the centre into two distinct halves. 

I decided to swing my attack to the right, but I dedicated a couple of on-map mortars to laying down a smoke screen on the left.

On discussion after the match, that smoke meant that my opponent was expecting a push down my left, and so didn't think he could afford to move the forces on that side away... two mortars had managed to tie up half of his force, and in addition half of his air assets were covering that approach...

Now, that kind of thing is never going to work against the AI, of course, but its still a pretty cool story.

Thank you. That was a great explanation.