Is Russia Overpowered In Black Sea?

[panzermartin]

Something just struck me that probably the Russians send a lot of green troops ill equipped and I'll prepared to pretend they are a larger force and cause UKR to surrender more easily. When this didn't happen those naturally dissolved, with no ammo, fuel or specific mission. Maybe that 40km long convoy is the same case. Also I have read reports that indicate they used green troops in the start in several occasions, as probes and reccon to reveal enemy defenses and now more experienced troops are taking over. Sounds cynical but I think CMBS shouldn't try to portray this stuff in the core design , they are easily editable mission specific things 

[Armorgunner]

6 hours ago, panzermartin said:

Something just struck me that probably the Russians send a lot of green troops ill equipped and I'll prepared to pretend they are a larger force and cause UKR to surrender more easily. When this didn't happen those naturally dissolved, with no ammo, fuel or specific mission. Maybe that 40km long convoy is the same case. Also I have read reports that indicate they used green troops in the start in several occasions, as probes and reccon to reveal enemy defenses and now more experienced troops are taking over. Sounds cynical but I think CMBS shouldn't try to portray this stuff in the core design , they are easily editable mission specific things 

At the same time. They undoubtly used their army elite. The 1st Guard Tank Army. Both the 2nd MRD, and 4th Guards Tank Divisions tanks, and IFV are blown up, or captured. Lots of T-80U's from 4 GTD on picture. 

[Battlefront.com]

10 hours ago, Rinaldi said:

Relax. The words "I disagree" aren't vitriol, and saying you've been looking at 8-10 hours of OSINT and think tank feedback is impressive, but pretty much what everyone else on these forums is doing (or attempting to) - not to disparage. Nothing I have said is hyperbolic, like you, it's based precisely on what I've been seeing, beamed directly into my skull 8-10 hours a day like everyone else. Perhaps I've reached a less cautious conclusion, but what I'm saying isn't without historical precedent.

I will cede that separating poor logistical planning from endemic, open corruption is going to need a post-mortem, likely more than a decade from now. However, given the very real historic precedents for shameless supply corruption and the active black market the Russian forces (and late-Soviet) partake in, is it really hyperbolic to ask if these issues we see are more reflective of the Russian forces as a whole than some wing-dinged plan?

So, yeah, an example of "it's going to require a post mortem on whether this is a result of poor planning or something far more endemic" - the ammo we've already discussed, how about active countermeasures for the RuAF? Chaff/Flares appear to be extremely limited - operational or systemic? If we could have a 200 page thread based on fever-dreams about how Russia is under-represented in BS, I think its fair game to have a 4-5 page thread on how the Russians may, in fact, be a paper tiger and not just having a bad war. 

I'm not demanding you ask how high when I say jump, just being tongue-in-cheek  

Still waiting for specifics as to how CMBS has the portray of Russian forces wrong in a way that is relevant to the simulation.

Now, if you're talking about CMBS having a storyline that is totally unrealistic given Russia's apparent inability to wage a modern combined arms war... yup, that's very clear.  But in our defense, I never thought it could.  Presuming that Russia had the strategic and operational conditions necessary to conduct a full scale modern war without collapsing in a few days was a requirement to have CMBS at all. 

So if you want us to revise CMBS to reflect the reality of Russian capabilities, I've got a shortcut for you.  Boot up CMBS as you have right now.  Take any scenario that's included, pop it into the editor.  Drop Experience, Morale, and Equipment Quality to be lower than they are (your choice here).  If there's any vehicles that you think are too exceptional, replace them with more common ones.  You could also edit the AI Plans to be less sensible, but that's up to you.  Save the result, play the battle as Blue, crush the Russians, and there you go.  All set and no need for us to do anything.

And if you wish to really simulate Russia's capacity even better, after doing the above a few times simply delete CMBS from your harddrive to simulate Russia's complete collapse.

I'm not saying this defensively or angrily.  I'm making the point that CMBS doesn't work as a game unless there's a presumption that Russia isn't the paper tiger it in fact is. 

Steve

[MikeyD]

CM players, especially H2H QB players, seem wedded to the notion of 'balanced gameplay'. That in itself gives CM an artificial aspect. In a real world tactical situation either one side or the other is going to be at a decided disadvantage, especially in typical CM-size engagements. Who wins the war is contingent on which side racks up the larger number of lop sided victories and which side has the smaller number of lop sided victories. But CM players don't like playing guaranteed lose or guaranteed win scenarios. A recent Youtuber discussing CM: Cold War commented that players tend to play the Russians 'CM-style' in the game, which is not  quite the same as how the Russians would have done it. Our own gameplay prejudices skew the simulation.

[TheVulture]

Actually there is one area where CMBS  might be overmodelling the Russians in a way that players can't do much about: ERA and active defense systems. The t-90s and upgraded t-72s in CMBS tend to come fully stocked with ERA packs and Shtora. On the evidence of what we've seen in Ukraine so far, they are significantly lacking in ERA coverage, particularly on the hull sides. Tanks in Ukraine seem rather more vulnerable to infantry AT weapons (aside from the Javelin) than the in-game counterparts. At least when it's my guys committing suicide by using their AT-4s to achieve nothing but drawing fire.

On the other hand, it's hard to say how much of that is selection bias. By definition, the ones we see photos and videos of are the ones that have been successfully knocked out, not the ones where someone missed, where a hit didn't penetrate, or where ERA was present and worked,

[Kinophile]

21 hours ago, MikeyD said:

To get a good approximation of Russians in REAL LIFE go look for those Youtubers who decided to give the Steam CM franchise a spin without ever having played the game before. A lot of 'How does this work?', 'Oh! I just blew up!', 'Oh no, my men are dying!' and 'I'll just run him into the middle of the field and..."

Fixed, you're welcome.

Sound like actual battlefield comm intercepts.

Seriously, though, WTF.

There's a thin crust of effective units, rapidly getting degraded, and then a giant mass of seemingly uncoordinated, disconnected and uninformed mech units blundering forward in the same-ish direction.

 

[Halmbarte]

14 hours ago, panzermartin said:

Something just struck me that probably the Russians send a lot of green troops ill equipped and I'll prepared to pretend they are a larger force and cause UKR to surrender more easily. When this didn't happen those naturally dissolved, with no ammo, fuel or specific mission. Maybe that 40km long convoy is the same case. Also I have read reports that indicate they used green troops in the start in several occasions, as probes and reccon to reveal enemy defenses and now more experienced troops are taking over. Sounds cynical but I think CMBS shouldn't try to portray this stuff in the core design , they are easily editable mission specific things 

That does map onto how the Soviets started fighting the Germans in WWII. 

The problem was the Germans didn't win quickly enough, so they ended up giving the Soviet army a pass/fail education in effective combined arms operations. 

The result of the final played out in Berlin in '45. 

H

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Kinophile said:

Fixed, you're welcome.

Sound like actual battlefield comm intercepts.

Seriously, though, WTF.

There's a thin crust of effective units, rapidly getting degraded, and then a giant mass of seemingly uncoordinated, disconnected and uninformed mech units blundering forward in the same-ish direction.

 

This is the primary issue that is outside of our ability to bake into the game itself.  For the first few days it is clear that Russian forces were deliberately spread out very thin in platoon or reinforced platoon sized groups.  The probable purpose of this was to have a fairly small first wave cover a lot of ground very quickly.  This resulted in a lot of isolated groups getting pinned down and/or eliminated by fairly lightly armed Ukrainian forces.  Poor communications likely resulted in follow up units not knowing what was going on up ahead or on their flanks.  They too got whacked by fairly lightly armed defenders.

You can very easily recreate engagements like this in CM right now and the results will likely be similar to what happened in real life.  Light attacking forces going up against lightly armed defenders in forests or urban environments is not a good situation for the attackers.  Especially when engaged before they are expecting to or hit with accurate artillery fire while still in march order. 

Simply put, Isolated platoon sized forces are just not a good idea for an attacker, especially when the enemy positions, strength, and composition are unknown.  This is all stuff that you CM'ers know very well from your own battles.

Steve

[DMS]

The issue is operational, not tactical. CM doesn't focus on operational level (with exception to some binary choices in campaign). For CM player it looks stupid, when that probe units just rushed forward. When you have 2x2 km map and you know that here are enemy main forces, you can push slowly, dismount infantry, move by leaps. But what if you have to pass dozen of such 2x2 "maps" in a day? You will "stupidly" rush at full speed.

For those, who watched Russia's army actions in the past, here is nothing new. March to South Osetia caused roadsides, filled by broken vehicles. And Soviet vehicles didn't become newer since this. Difference is that in this campaign broken vehicles stay in hostile territory and commanders made false assumptions about level of resistance, not leaving enough forces for roadblock duties. Or they don't have enough troops, because attacking force is rather small. Considering "psyops multiplier" nothing stunning happened.

[Kinophile]

On 3/6/2022 at 1:34 AM, MikeyD said:

(ignore, mobile doesn't allow to remove unwanted quotes)

This war is an excellent justification for a CMBS2 that gives far more credibility to the UKR forces.

(The RUS forces are modelled accurately, it appears, so this war seems to reflect more operational and strategic screw ups, rolling downhill to poor tactical mindsets, rather than TO&E inaccuracies).

It would be a very, very different game.

What say you, @Battlefront.com...

 

 

[Grey_Fox]

3 hours ago, Kinophile said:

This war is an excellent justification for a CMBS2 that gives far more credibility to the UKR forces.

(The RUS forces are modelled accurately, it appears, so this war seems to reflect more operational and strategic screw ups, rolling downhill to poor tactical mindsets, rather than TO&E inaccuracies).

It would be a very, very different game.

What say you, @Battlefront.com...

 

 

Ukrainian forces in 2017 didn't have javelins or stingers, and they don't seem to have many if any Oplots.

Edited March 7, 2022 by Grey_Fox

[DesertFox]

3 hours ago, Grey_Fox said:

Ukrainian forces in 2017 didn't have javelins or stingers, and they don't seem to have many if any Oplots.

Havent seen any Bulats so far either. Here:

Attack On Europe: Documenting Equipment Losses During The 2022 Russian Invasion Of Ukraine - Oryx (oryxspioenkop.com)

[THH149]

I have to agree with BFC on this stuff.  Plus mixing the fictional (CMBS) and the non-fictional (Russo- Ukrainian War or RUW) after two weeks of history, wont given an accurate read on how the whole war turned out. CMBS doesnt need to adjust for factors outside its artificial scope, ie an invasion by a competent invader.

But, if one wanted to use CMBS to recreate the RUW then thats up to the player and BFC have made some suggestions on how that may be achieved. 

Now if we had a CM RUW 2022+ released in like the year 2030, then that would be a different story. 

[Probus]

 

32 minutes ago, THH149 said:

Now if we had a CM RUW 2022+ released in like the year 2030, then that would be a different story. 

With the level of interest Steve has shown in this war, 2023 might be a better estimation.  Hopefully with the title CMBS2 - The Downfall of Putin. 

[Rinaldi]

On 3/6/2022 at 8:04 PM, Battlefront.com said:

 

I'm not saying this defensively or angrily.  I'm making the point that CMBS doesn't work as a game unless there's a presumption that Russia isn't the paper tiger it in fact is. 

Steve

That's fine, thank you as always for weighing in. I'm hoping you're getting some approximation of sleep, by the way, during all this.

[Chibot Mk IX]

IMHO, I don't think the Russia is OP in CMBS. 

Like others have already mentioned , so far the Russia's failure is caused by logistics, support, planning. Oh they have a crazy full scale invasion plan but neither did they mobilize enough troops nor smart enough to adapt to the new development on the battlefield.  None of these are in CM's scope, CM is a tactical level wargame. 

 

What I want to see from a future updated CMBS are:

1, old generation AFVs, T-72B obr1989, BMP-1, T-80U etc

2,  Separatists, militia ,  territorial defense force

3, make APS more expensive and more rarity.

 

Maybe M1A2 SEP is overpowered but that belongs to a different topic. 

 

[Tank Hunter]

No I don't see Russians as OP. What game got wrong is the assumption that Russia would deploy their latest HW on mass in Ukraine. We the gamers would have probably caused a riot in here if Battlefront did provide us originally with old instead of newer Russian HW.  People woud have been crying out all ove the place for their T90s, they still did with Armatas yet we still haven't see a single one; not even close to the border.  I second the suggestion to include older Russian HW + more modern AT for Ukraine as part of the future expansions. 

Edited March 8, 2022 by Tank Hunter

[Kinophile]

1 hour ago, Tank Hunter said:

 What game got wrong is the assumption that Russia would deploy their latest HW on mass in Ukraine. 

The Game didn't get it wrong, Russian MoD got it wrong. 

CMBS is uncomfortably correct and accurate in how RUS should have done it, and frankly if they had copied CMBS op plans we'd all be talking about the Fall of Kiev and POW Zelensky right now.

 

 

[evilcommie]

I also think the Russians are having a harder time as easy to use ATGM’s have now proliferated to rifle squad level. 
Previously, squad level AT weapon would be some sort of AT rocket (RPG/Recoilless rifle)  which requires quite a bit of skill to hit a moving target or hull down target. Even if the shot hits, the effect on a MBT would be questionable.

Now, rifle squad level have access to point and shoot ATGM with top attack, which is are much more likely to hit and knock out a moving MBT with the 1st shot.

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Kinophile said:

The Game didn't get it wrong, Russian MoD got it wrong.

That is a wonderful way to put it!

Maybe the Russian military should have hired us as consultants while making their invasion plans.  For sure if they had presented the plan they used we would have given them our professional opinion on it.  Which would have been, "looks good to us!  Don't change a thing!".  OK, I admit that wouldn't be very professional.

Steve

[THH149]

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Maybe the Russian military should have hired us as consultants while making their invasion plans. 

If only Russian MoD had purchased the professional version of CMBS, Russia would've modernised their armed forces on the cheap with better training, and actually taught someone something useful. 

[Probus]

7 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

That is a wonderful way to put it!

Maybe the Russian military should have hired us as consultants while making their invasion plans.  For sure if they had presented the plan they used we would have given them our professional opinion on it.  Which would have been, "looks good to us!  Don't change a thing!".  OK, I admit that wouldn't be very professional.

Steve

Ha! Steve. Naughty, naughty. That would have been somethin’. I don’t think Putin is very open to taking advice. We may find out, after this is all over, that he had his hands in everything the military did, much like some other infamous leaders. 

[BeondTheGrave]

On 3/6/2022 at 3:04 PM, Battlefront.com said:

I'm making the point that CMBS doesn't work as a game unless there's a presumption that Russia isn't the paper tiger it in fact is. 

I think this is probably the most accurate thing in this thread. Like it or not, CMBS is a game and I, probably most in the community would agree, want a challenging opponent! Dont forget too you can set your own vehicles to immobile, so the game already simulates low fuel, low tire, and low maintenance effects 

Really though if CMBS were to get a 2022 module (agree too on the point that their 2014 scenario is a fictional what if, doesn't really apply to this conflict IMO) I would think most of the under-the-hood simulation is accurate. Im not sure weve learned much about Russian gear that we didn't already know before. T-72B3M seems like a good tank, when its maintained and employed well. BMP-2s remain a stalwart of any post-Soviet army, when they support infantry properly. The only things worth changing would probably be to modify rarities to reflect the modern situation, which IMO is more a reflection of Putin's strategic choice to hold back his best units. And then maybe add in some older post-Cold War variants, I'm sure there are other cool vehicles and variants that arnt in CMBS that would be nice to add. And drop Russian soft factor defaults while raising Ukrainian. 

The real problem here is that CMBS represents the 'perfect' or 'ideal' war. Unless you knock tanks out in the editor, everyone gets to the battlefield. Everyone had a full tank of gas whether the battle is 1hr or 4. Everyone knows what theyre doing and does their job, until they start to crack up. The player can follow doctrine properly, while the AI designer can create a very convincing OPFOR. Its just the nature of the beast, an inherent limitation to gaming. As such, in the 'idea' I don't think the Russians are that different than how they were in 2014. In the 'real' its clear that systemic failures from strategic planning down to proper tire maintenance have turned this into a dog's breakfast. Just about the only thing that hasn't seemed to fail the Russians is its technology. As it turns out T-72s fight just about as well, or as poorly depending on whose ammo cooks off, as they always have. 

[Grey_Fox]

I'm not sure how strong an argument there is to increase Ukrainian soft stats since while we are seeing a whole lot of lost Russian equipment, very little footage of Ukrainian losses (or combat footage on general) is coming out. Maybe don't make the argument that Ukraine is a 10-foot tall giant just yet.

Edited March 9, 2022 by Grey_Fox

[Erwin]

As a contrary viewpoint, supposing Russia capture critical Ukrainian infrastructure (like nuke plants) and then goes on the defensive - keeping the land bridge they seem to have opened between Crimea and Russia?  That would carve up Ukraine and possibly make it not viable.  In this instance, Ukraine would have to attack those same nuke plants and elsewhere.  That would be much harder than the defensive strategy that Ukraine is undertaking currently.

The above situation would meet a lot of the Russian objectives and look like a Russian win.

 

 

Edited March 9, 2022 by Erwin