Combat Mission Cold War - British Army On the Rhine

[Combatintman]

@The_Capt - a British one would be more appropriate:

Ok so this was the Falklands but the right era at least ... the bootneck with the moustache front left of the photo was a mate of my father's and was in the original NP 8901 and was one of the three who evaded capture for a few days after the original Argentine landings.  He, like the rest of NP 8901 returned with the Task Force.  Liked to drop his trousers in the pub to urinate off WW2 veterans who claimed that post WW2 conflicts "weren't real wars."  He got shot in Borneo in 1966 during Confrontation and had the hole in his leg to prove it.

[The_Capt]

7 minutes ago, Combatintman said:

@The_Capt - a British one would be more appropriate:

Ok so this was the Falklands but the right era at least ... the bootneck with the moustache front left of the photo was a mate of my father's and was in the original NP 8901 and was one of the three who evaded capture for a few days after the original Argentine landings.  He, like the rest of NP 8901 returned with the Task Force.  Liked to drop his trousers in the pub to urinate off WW2 veterans who claimed that post WW2 conflicts "weren't real wars."  He got shot in Borneo in 1966 during Confrontation and had the hole in his leg to prove it.

Well dammit you are right - now we have to redo all the artwork.  Obviously "The Niven", not "The Lancaster"...damn how could we miss that?!

Oh and I know that generation very well, they were our DS on training - and first NCOs when we got our platoon.  Hard as f#ck, a charge record as long as your arms and all died in their 50s because as it turns out liquor, smoking and warfare are not good lifestyle choices. 

Edited February 22, 2023 by The_Capt

[Combatintman]

3 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Oh and I know that generation very well, they were our DS on training - and first NCOs when we got our platoon.  Hard as f#ck, a charge record as long as your arms and all died in their 50s because as it turns out liquor, smoking and warfare are not good lifestyle choices. 

That's me in trouble then ...

[Pete Wenman]

15 minutes ago, Combatintman said:

Liked to drop his trousers in the pub

That's pretty much all the Royals I've met 

P

[LuckyDog]

On 2/21/2023 at 2:30 PM, Duckman said:

Chieftains, moustaches, squaddies with SLRs… it’s all there: 

 

Awesome! Was that a Tommy gun at 3:02? I thought it would be a Sterling, but the way it was held, the magazine is down.

To set expectations - Chieftain up to Mk9? So no Stillbrew or L23?

Any chance of the Challenger I or Warrior? (Had to ask!)

 

[domfluff]

Warrior is outside the timeframe without serious bending. Challenger 1 might just slot in there, with the usual "+/- 6 months" thing, although the rarity should be very high in 1982. I wouldn't be surprised if it's not in.

What we should see is the full CVR(T) lineup, which is pretty exciting.

 

[Combatintman]

5 hours ago, domfluff said:

What we should see is the full CVR(T) lineup, which is pretty exciting.

 

Are burning wrecks your thing then?

[DesertFox]

17 hours ago, Jiggathebauce said:

Mustaches included in this release?

sure bet

[Duckman]

18 hours ago, Combatintman said:

And more ... the legendary BV on the inside of the door of the FV432 plus the extremely rare FV-432 with the Rarden 30mm turret.

I was wondering about that one, it looked like a Warrior but too early of course. What's the BV?

12 hours ago, domfluff said:

What we should see is the full CVR(T) lineup, which is pretty exciting.

Those are really cool. As for burning wrecks, recon assets tend to do poorly in games but their tiny size should help them. I think they show up as fake Soviets here (along with more moustaches):

The tone is a bit darker, with one squad tragically lost as their APC gets stuck on a fallen tree.

[Pete Wenman]

3 hours ago, Duckman said:

What's the BV?

The one bit of kit that would have given us a chance to beat the Soviets - tea anyone ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_vessel

[Duckman]

3 minutes ago, Pete Wenman said:

The one bit of kit that would have given us a chance to beat the Soviets - tea anyone ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_vessel

Ah, I see it now (at 2:04 in Platoon Tactics Pt 2). Clever! I knew the tanks had them but of course you need one for the squaddies too. 

[Combatintman]

17 hours ago, LuckyDog said:

Awesome! Was that a Tommy gun at 3:02? I thought it would be a Sterling, but the way it was held, the magazine is down.

Nope it is a Small Metal Gun ... as it was nicknamed popularly at the time - or as you say a Sterling SMG and in Army parlance, an L2A3.  It's just the camera angle that is confusing you but you can clearly see the magazine is curved and knowing the weight difference between the Thompson and SMG, he wouldn't be carrying it as easily as he's carrying the SMG in the clip.

[domfluff]

15 hours ago, Combatintman said:

Are burning wrecks your thing then?

So yes, but that's besides the point

Scimitar in particular is an excellent platform for precisely the task it was designed for - a small, fast light recce vehicle with the power to overmatch Soviet recce if necessary. That should be something demonstrable in cmcw, but not really something you can see in cmsf.

[Butschi]

It's not as if I expect a positive answer but still worth asking: Any chance we get additional House textures that are not timber framework? While everyone loves a good cliche, they are much rarer than you might think. And modern balconies on these kinds of houses are a no-no because monument conservation. Also: proper German hedges, not those low bocage abominations? I mean, let your hedge grow that wild and the neighborhood will either sue you or outright lynch you.

Btw. looking forward to the BAOR. I had counted on Bundeswehr first (shame on you, btw!) but maybe because of Hollywood with the ever present US Army, UK is a bit more... exotic.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Butschi

[kondor999]

This is awesome!  Great choice on the time period as well.  A lot of games go for 1985, by which time (IMHO) GSFG was becoming quite outclassed due to the proliferation of thermal imaging among NATO forces (not to mention all those Apache gunships coming off the assembly line).  

1976-1982 (or so) seems to have been the optimum "Correlation of Forces" for the Soviets to, ahem, make their move. Any later, and it would probably have devolved into a turkey shoot for NATO.  I checked with my (Russian, much younger) wife and she totally agrees (while stifling a yawn and rolling her eyes).

So THERE, proof!  Not joking - I did ask her

Also, thanks so much for recognizing all this and delivering the tactical wargame all of us children of the 80's have been dreaming of since we first (tried to?!) play MechWar 2: Red Star / White Star Modern Mechanized Combat in Europe about a million years ago. God, that crazy phased movement system just about made my 16 year old brain melt (and I'm a doctor who went to Johns Hopkins lol).

So, I'm really looking forward to operating my second-favorite tank-when-I-was-a-kid (the Chieftain).  #1 is the M60A2 btw.  Back in the late 70's, it was commonly accepted that a big-bore gun/launcher firing HEAT rounds/ATGM's was the future. All my cheesy sci-fi books certainly thought so...

And PLEASE do the Bundeswehr soon!  We can always simulate the NVA using Soviet equipment (with a slightly different paintjob), but we need some Leopard 1's and (another favorite) the Jagdpanzer Kanone!  I gotta try that little Hetzer-on-steroids before I die. 

And you better do a scenario called Last of the Jagdpanzers ;)

[scarletto]

After spending years as a Scimitar crewman. I cannot wait to see them, and the good old Scorpion with its 'watch your teeth' recoil.

[Derfel 2nd]

 Late to the party but just want to chime in with the choir praising this news! As an old fart who did national service 81-82 and then spent basically then spent basically the entire rest of the 80's playing Frank Chadwicks "Assault" boardgame I am so very much looking forward to this. 

If you want to keep pace with the Assault series the additions to the basic game were:

Boots and Saddles -Primarily American Cavalry units

Cheiftain- Army of the Rhein -What it says on the tin, seem to recall belgian and dutch units made an apperance as well.

Bundeswehr -West German forces

Reinforcements -Bits and bobs from various Nato units.

All expansions came with Warsaw pact units as well, including some speculative ones.

Finally, people who complain about the GRG (Swedish; "Granatgevär" i.e the "Carl Gustav") should be cast out to the nether regions, where there is darkness and great nashing of teeth... It is without doubt the best weapon to issue from the loins of the Swedish manufactury of arms. If Charles XII had GRGs at Poltava, things would have gone very differently, just saying...

 

 

Edited March 11, 2023 by Derfel 2nd

[Centurian52]

I know it's hard to keep this thread running while the module is still early in development and there aren't any screenshots or details yet. But I'm just too hyped to leave it be. Expanding our NATO tanks to include the Chieftain, Centurion, and the Leopard, and getting our first FN FALoid rifles, plus whatever @The_Capt is hiding from us about their plans for the red forces (speculation time! a WP nation? perhaps VDV? or just new vehicles and equipment available in the earlier timeframe?). Does anyone else have any more details on the British or Canadian armies in this period? More training videos or details on platoon/company organization/tactics? What variant of the Centurion did the Canadians have before they replaced it with the Leopard?

We've gone over squad organization and tactics. I find it interesting that the Canadians are using a variant of their standard service rifle to be their squad automatic weapons (the C2 rifle is a C1 with a bipod and a thicker barrel to withstand sustained automatic fire). I think the US was trying to do the same concept with the M14 and M16 in the light infantry, designating one rifleman in the squad to be an automatic rifleman who would fire their weapon on full auto, but they didn't give them a modified variant that was more suited to automatic fire than the basic version of the rifle, so the Canadian approach is probably better, and in practice the American automatic rifleman in the light infantry is just another rifleman (thank goodness the American mechanized infantry have the M60 machine gun at the squad level). That might result in the Canadians having more anemic squad firepower than the armies that have GPMGs on the squad, although that will probably be mitigated by the fact that they do have medium machine guns at the platoon level (I think it is correct to classify the M2 .30 cal as a medium machine gun, rather than as a GPMG, since the defining feature of a GPMG is that it will work well in either the light machine gun role or the medium machine gun role).

Let's also not forget that The_Capt hinted that they have plans for the red side as well, though is holding that information back for now so that there are still details to drop later. VDV might be easy enough to do, since the 1980s VDV are already developed for Afghanistan, and apparently for Black Sea as well (although that module is still waiting on the war to end). Polish forces might also make sense, since I remember someone saying that they would have had an important role to play in the BAOR sector way back when CMCW first launched. My guess is that if a WP country is added it will not be East Germany, since I think it makes more sense to hold them back until West Germany is added, so that there can be a general German forces module. If we get a WP country that should mean we'll see a lot more T-55s. Perhaps earlier vehicles. Does anyone know how late the T-34-85M was still in service with WP countries like Poland and East Germany? At the very least I assume we'll be getting some new Soviet vehicles (whatever was still in service as early as 1976, but wasn't in service by the 1979 start date of the base game). Thoughts?

[Centurian52]

6 hours ago, Centurian52 said:

the M2 .30 cal

M1919. I don't know why I typed M2

[Centurian52]

Ok, I think I've been able to mostly piece together the Canadian infantry platoon. Most of the details are in a link left by The_Capt in an earlier post, with some more details on another webpage I found. It's three 10 man rifle sections and an HQ section. The rifle sections consist of a three man C2 group and a seven man rifle group. The rifle group is led by the section commander, with a C1, and has six riflemen, with C1s. The C2 group is led by the section 2IC with a C1, and has two C2 gunners (apparently they felt it takes two automatic rifles to sufficiently replace the Bren, since otherwise the section is the same as the WW2 Canadian rifle section, just with new weapons).

In the mechanized infantry it looks like one of the riflemen is replaced by an M113 driver, armed with a C1 submachinegun (sterling). There is no mention of one of the members of the section being designated as an M113 gunner, so either these websites are neglecting to mention it or the gun was manned on an ad-hoc basis, or left unmanned when the squad dismounted (that will definitely enforce treating the Canadian M113s as battle taxis if that's the case (no more trying to use M113s as undergunned IFVs)). So that's 8 or 9 dismounts, depending on whether or not someone stays behind to be an M113 gunner. It looks like we've got a Carl Gustav on every section, although I'm not sure if that's specific to the mechanized infantry or if it applies to the light infantry as well (the rifle group of the light infantry section is just described as having six riflemen, with no mention of any of them being given anti-tank weapons, which could just be an omission on the part of these websites). There is no mention of the section being divided into a rifle and C2 group in the mechanized infantry. It is just described as having the section commander (C1 rifle), section 2IC (C1 rifle), M113 driver (C1 SMG), 2 C2 gunners (C2 automatic rifles), Carl Gustav gunner (Carl Gustav and C1 rifle), Car Gustav No. 2 (C1 rifle), and 3 riflemen (C1 rifles).

I'm not finding much information about how many men were in the HQ section. Obviously it has the platoon leader. There's no mention of an M113 driver, but there must have been one (surely the HQ section has its own M113? That would make four M113s in the platoon). The HQ section does have an M1919 (C5) machine gun (I will persist in calling it a medium machine gun, though if the Canadian army insists that it's a GPMG I can't stop them (I can't help but notice that they didn't use it for the squad automatic weapon, so they can't have thought it was all that GP)), and a 60mm mortar. There is no mention of how large the MG team is, or how large the mortar team is, but presumably either two or three soldiers each.

As usual it looks like there will also be number of M72s scattered throughout the sections in addition to the Carl Gustavs.

I am definitely curious to see how this platoon fares in combat. Their firepower might be anemic, having only 1 medium machinegun on the platoon where the Germans, Brits, and Americans (mechanized infantry) have 3 GPMGs in their platoons. On the other hand they have two automatic rifles on each squad. So while an automatic rifle may not be an equal to a GPMP, the Canadians still have twice as many automatic weapons in their platoons as other NATO armies. So their firepower may turn out to be perfectly competitive with other NATO infantry platoons after all. That's something we'll only really know for sure once we have a chance to try it out. For my part I'm not sure how I feel about the C2s being grouped together into a C2 group. If you're going to have two automatic weapons on a squad, that offers the perfect chance to create two balanced fireteams, which avoids the issue of having a lull in the firing as you move your automatic weapons forward.

https://www.waylandgames.co.uk/free-nations-infantry/52830-canadian-mechanised-platoon

https://www.canadiansoldiers.com/tactical/infantrysection.htm

[Kevin2k]

7 hours ago, Centurian52 said:

Does anyone know how late the T-34-85M was still in service with WP countries like Poland and East Germany? At the very least I assume we'll be getting some new Soviet vehicles (whatever was still in service as early as 1976, but wasn't in service by the 1979 start date of the base game). Thoughts?

I looked it up, and found this bit.

https://forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/469733-mkpz-t-34-85-all-variants-old-tank-new-state/

Quoting from there:

"more T-34-85s were imported, which reached peak numbers in 1958 with a total of 1146 units .... Nevertheless, most of these tanks were still in service in 1975, when 710 of the aging medium tanks were still serving in second-line and training roles, and even in the very last days of the USSR and DDR, there were still mothballed T-34-85s waiting in warehouses in case a need for them should arise. In 1988, 35 tanks were still listed in the inventory, by which point they might have been in DDR service for up to 35 years depending on when they were acquired."

My Typenkompass book "Panzer der NVA" mentions a modernization program to T-34/85m standard, with the last mentioned year of that program being 1965.

Edit: That is all East Germany specifically. NVA is not Vietnam related either, meaning Nationale Volksarmee here.

Edited March 13, 2023 by Kevin2k

[LuckyDog]

I was reading "First Clash" and didn't understand the phrase "thinking two levels down". Is this thinking about the impact of actions two levels down command-wise or two steps ahead? Thanks!

[Pete Wenman]

10 minutes ago, LuckyDog said:

I was reading "First Clash" and didn't understand the phrase "thinking two levels down". Is this thinking about the impact of actions two levels down command-wise or two steps ahead? Thanks!

Yep, giving consideration to matters two command levels down. So Battalion CO, considering impact at not only Company level, but also platoon level.

P

[Vergeltungswaffe]

From FM 7-20:

2-7. COMMANDER'S INTENT

The commander's intent drives mission tactics. It is the commander's stated vision, which defines the purpose of the operation and the end state with respect to the relationship among the force, the enemy, and the terrain. It should also include how this end state will support future operations. (Appendix A shows how the commander's intent is integrated into the OPORD.)

a. The overall purpose of the mission is more important than the individual assigned tasks. Each subordinate commander must know why and how his assigned tasks relate to the overall concept of the operation. Then, if the situation changes and contact with higher headquarters is lost, the subordinate can use his initiative to achieve the desired end results.

b. The battalion commander has a dual responsibility. He must understand the intent of the brigade and division commanders (two levels up) and must ensure his intent is understood at company and platoon levels (two levels down). The commander's intent paragraph in the OPORD should begin with the words, "My intent is..." so it can be understood and relayed to subordinates easily.

c. A clear commander's intent enhances agility, timing, and initiative at all levels. It helps in shifting the main effort on a fluid battlefield.

[LuckyDog]

Double post sorry

Edited April 7, 2023 by LuckyDog