Combat Mission : Cold War

[Stuart Galbraith]

No Northag yet, but maybe we will get that with a DLC one day.

 

[Ssnake]

Would be interesting to know which map sizes they now support. If it's still 3 x 5km or thereabouts, the wargaming becomes pointless even before you reach the level of a reinforced company team.

[bojan]

Very strange geometry on those T-80 turrets...

[Stuart Galbraith]

2 hours ago, bojan said:

Very strange geometry on those T-80 turrets...

You know, I thought that too, but I thought I'd see if anyone else noticed. It's fairly apparent I guess

Tbh I've already got shock force and Black Sea, which I hardly play. As a system it works great for infantry fights, less well for armour battles. Still, this cold war whore will probably buy it anyway.

[Stargrunt6]

On 2/24/2021 at 9:00 AM, Stuart Galbraith said:

You know, I thought that too, but I thought I'd see if anyone else noticed. It's fairly apparent I guess

Tbh I've already got shock force and Black Sea, which I hardly play. As a system it works great for infantry fights, less well for armour battles. Still, this cold war whore will probably buy it anyway.

This is long overdue.  Especially since they had all the equipment models they needed from Shock Force and Black Sea.  Plus, those two were pretty imbalanced, especially the former. 

Here's my money.

[Stuart Galbraith]

I admired shock force, but I couldnt love it for some reason. I think its largely due to the Stryker really not a hell of a lot of fun. It cant take the hits, and doesnt have the firepower to do much that scratch paint. I liked Shock Force, but for some reason I found the Ukrainian side the most interesting to play.

Yes, I hope this one works out.

[Stargrunt6]

13 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

I admired shock force, but I couldnt love it for some reason. I think its largely due to the Stryker really not a hell of a lot of fun. It cant take the hits, and doesnt have the firepower to do much that scratch paint. I liked Shock Force, but for some reason I found the Ukrainian side the most interesting to play.

Yes, I hope this one works out.

Even with the 40mm AGL?  Sure, it's no Abrams, but I took one scenario just hosing a town with that and .30cal alone. 

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yes, but I'm a little hung ho. If it's got armour on it, it gets treated like a challenger 2 in my enthusiastic but incapable hands.

Somebody did a Syrian civil war campaign based around a BMP1 unit, that was a lot of fun.

 

 

 

[Der Zeitgeist]

On 2/24/2021 at 4:00 PM, Stuart Galbraith said:

Still, this cold war whore will probably buy it anyway.

It's just been released. 😀

[Stuart Galbraith]

Not available on Steam till June unfortunately. Still it will give me time to be able to find out if its crap or not.

[Der Zeitgeist]

3 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Not available on Steam till June unfortunately. Still it will give me time to be able to find out if its crap or not.

Can't play until later this evening. But judging from the manual, they put a lot of research into the campaigns.

[Harold Jones]

The ground seems way too flat.  I spent a lot of time driving m60a3s and M1s around Germany and I don't recall it looking like a pool table.  Those M60s engaging from in front of a tree line looked odd too.  

[Stuart Galbraith]

It should have the ability to have hilly terrain, Black Sea certainly did. The only question in my mind is if the mapmakers had enough time to fully create them.

Might have been a lot easier to have done NORTHAG. After all, there were Americans there too.

[Der Zeitgeist]

No complaints about the maps from me, these are very accurate for the specific locations they chose. One can even compare them with Google Maps and, with some limitations from the engine (especially since there are no curved roads) it's very nicely done.

The US campaign is essentially a series of actions along the Kinzig valley between Fulda and Hanau, that is, the southern corridor of what is commonly known as the Fulda Gap. There's two options for the US campaign, 1979 and 1982. Even 1982 only has M60A1 RISE passive tanks at the start, and it's hard as hell (at least compared to previous modern CM titles). It really takes some getting used to that almost anything can kill you when you're sitting in an M60, and even BMP1s can be a deadly threat (their main gun will reliably penetrate). Also, Soviet ATGMs are everywhere, and you're really learning to hate the BRDM/AT-5 combination that always seems to lurk in some woodline. 

The Soviet campaign is covering the northern corridor of the Fulda gap, starting in the area of Eiterfeld and ending in Alsfeld. The game takes a lot of effort to teach you about Soviet doctrine in the offensive (there are a few dedicated training scenarios for that) and from both sides you can clearly see this doctrine unfolding. It's really quite impressive how different this title is feeling.

Overall, this could be my favourite one in the series, but I still have to learn a lot to keep my M60s alive a little longer. ☺️

[Stuart Galbraith]

Its the same in Gunner Heat PC. The M60 is a good gun platform at night. By day, its a barbecue.

[Stargrunt6]

On 3/29/2021 at 4:39 PM, Stuart Galbraith said:

Yes, but I'm a little hung ho. If it's got armour on it, it gets treated like a challenger 2 in my enthusiastic but incapable hands.

Somebody did a Syrian civil war campaign based around a BMP1 unit, that was a lot of fun.

 

 

 

I'm convinced you Brits think a rifle is a bayonet accessory.  lol

Shock force has hilly terrain too. Heck, CM North Africa has cliffs. 

 

[Stargrunt6]

17 hours ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

No complaints about the maps from me, these are very accurate for the specific locations they chose. One can even compare them with Google Maps and, with some limitations from the engine (especially since there are no curved roads) it's very nicely done.

The US campaign is essentially a series of actions along the Kinzig valley between Fulda and Hanau, that is, the southern corridor of what is commonly known as the Fulda Gap. There's two options for the US campaign, 1979 and 1982. Even 1982 only has M60A1 RISE passive tanks at the start, and it's hard as hell (at least compared to previous modern CM titles). It really takes some getting used to that almost anything can kill you when you're sitting in an M60, and even BMP1s can be a deadly threat (their main gun will reliably penetrate). Also, Soviet ATGMs are everywhere, and you're really learning to hate the BRDM/AT-5 combination that always seems to lurk in some woodline. 

The Soviet campaign is covering the northern corridor of the Fulda gap, starting in the area of Eiterfeld and ending in Alsfeld. The game takes a lot of effort to teach you about Soviet doctrine in the offensive (there are a few dedicated training scenarios for that) and from both sides you can clearly see this doctrine unfolding. It's really quite impressive how different this title is feeling.

Overall, this could be my favourite one in the series, but I still have to learn a lot to keep my M60s alive a little longer. ☺️

How is the C&C modelling?  Is it different from others?  Can I expect the WP to take 5 minutes before executing new orders?

[Harold Jones]

20 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

It should have the ability to have hilly terrain, Black Sea certainly did. The only question in my mind is if the mapmakers had enough time to fully create them.

Might have been a lot easier to have done NORTHAG. After all, there were Americans there too.

I was talking about the lack of variation in the ground itself. There may be hills but it doesn't look like the maps depict all the folds and depressions that can give cover and concealment. 

[Stargrunt6]

2 hours ago, Harold Jones said:

I was talking about the lack of variation in the ground itself. There may be hills but it doesn't look like the maps depict all the folds and depressions that can give cover and concealment. 

That'd be quite different from previous CM iterations. 

I played a scenario, and my attack plan was thwarted by a slight elevation that cut off the overwatch and attacking elements.  

[Stuart Galbraith]

4 hours ago, Stargrunt6 said:

I'm convinced you Brits think a rifle is a bayonet accessory.  lol

Shock force has hilly terrain too. Heck, CM North Africa has cliffs. 

 

Id really like to get CM Afghanistan, but they dont seem to have sold that widely for some reason.

Its supposed to shoot too? Who knew?

[Der Zeitgeist]

4 hours ago, Stargrunt6 said:

How is the C&C modelling?  Is it different from others?  Can I expect the WP to take 5 minutes before executing new orders?

Command and control is conceptually exactly the same as in previous titles running on the same engine. Of course, you don't have the fancy "blue force tracking" stuff from CMSF. The new "electronic warfare" game logic from Combat Mission: Black Sea is also present, which will degrade radio communications, calls for artillery or air support as well as the performance of the on-map air defense assets.

C2 doesn't directly affect what individual units are doing, though, because the series doesn't really put you in position of the overall commander giving orders to individual units. Whenever you click on individual units, the game changes perspective to that unit, and everything that's visible on the map reflects this unit's current information level, which is dependent on current spotting and LoS as well as information about other (enemy) untis traveling down the command chain.

[Der Zeitgeist]

4 hours ago, Harold Jones said:

I was talking about the lack of variation in the ground itself. There may be hills but it doesn't look like the maps depict all the folds and depressions that can give cover and concealment. 

Some of that is handled as an abstraction by the game logic, especially for infantry cover and concealment. The game assumes that certain types of ground have different levels of small features that could be used as cover and concealment for individual soldiers, but are too small to be rendered in the game engine. That means that oftentimes, you see enemy infantry in fairly open ground that is spotted by your own units, but only a few soldiers from an enemy squad are actually seen by your units (and then become individually visible in the 3D world) while the rest are still concealed.

Edited May 2, 2021 by Der Zeitgeist

[Stuart Galbraith]

Its worth checking out their website. I remember Black Sea had a demo out that allowed you to play one mission and see if you liked it.

[Der Zeitgeist]

One small addition to what I wrote about C2:

Soviet artillery calls for fire take significantly longer than for the US side. They work more with preplanned fires and get more TRPs to handle that (TRPs can be placed by the player when the scenario starts).

[Stargrunt6]

6 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Id really like to get CM Afghanistan, but they dont seem to have sold that widely for some reason.

Its supposed to shoot too? Who knew?

I have it.  It's smaller.  Not bad.