Some thoughts on Soviet OOB. And questions.

[maicol]

Greetings, fellow wargamers!


First of all, I'd like to thank the developers for their hard work and exceptional patience! Guys, you did enormous amount of work and deserve a praise and nice bronze monument! And a special guy with vulcan cannon to protect the monument from those commie pigeons attack runs.

I've noticed that USSR OOB discussions were pretty flamy sometimes and, surprisingly, people were fussing over issues that looked quite irrelevant to me. So I decided to express my opinion on few thing which i consider to be important.

Also, I'm aware that next patch isn't arriving any soon, so this is more of discussion invitation than a reasonable suggestions.


1)First point - if there is any chance that in future WinMBT releases number of Soviet tank company variants would be increased? Right now experience values of T-80 and T-55 are equal, but I'm quite sure in RL their crews training levels would be completely different. I believe, T-80's fellas would actually practice driving, firing and spotting, while those who got an unlucky ticket to Mongolia border would perfect their paradeground-cleaning-with-toothbrush skills.

I think it would be totally awesome to have three company types:
"A" grade/shock/guards or whatever they are called - with experience increase and hot and juicy T-80s and T-64s;
"B" grade/second wave/backbone - with no exp modification, T-72s and maybe newest T-62s versions;
"C" grade/reserves/mongolian border garrisons - with old, but still capable T-55, T-62s - and exp decrease, of course, unfortunately WinMBT doesn't simulate parade-ground scale engagements.

After all, the USA have National Guard, Israel has Reserves and even that camelfkcing jerktard Saddam has Republican Guards! Putin is way cooler then Saddam! And Brezhnev and Khruschchev are funny too! And, moreover, Russia has some Democracy and Freedom of Speech and Liberal Values and stuff, so why cant we have those fancy shock battalions after all? It does make no sense!

And if someone would think that Russian OOB would have too many companies, developers can always get rid of those strange "tank company plus an infantry platoon" conglomerations. Quite sure nobody cares about them anyway.


2)I wonder, if in RL all newer Russian MBTs have ATGM? There is ATGM-less version of BMP-2, maybe a T-80 without them would be okay too? There are people without limbs, buttcheecks, testicles and - most frequent case - brains, so why not?


3)There is a little mistake in OOBs - some CS T-55 and T-62 modifications have Arena (or some other counter-missile stuff) installed, which is already suspicious by itself, but it gets even more suspicious with the fact that they are aviable in 80s. What is absolutely 100% suspicious, is that i'm quite sure i've saw them in classic DOS-based SPMBT long time ago. Apparantly, this fact logically proves that I'm the only person in whole civilized world who ever considered using the CS tanks.


4)Another thing that makes me curious - whats the point of RPG-18 and RPG-22? In game, they are inferior to RPG-7v in every single aspect, apart from model number. If I'm not mistaken, in RL, they are much easier to carry and use, as they cannot be reloaded. Also, I've read some memoirs of soldier fighting in Chechnya, and, if my memory doensn't fail me, he wrote, that during assault every soldier in his squad carried a "Muha" (aka RPG-18) and they were using them against enemy troops covering in buildings. So maybe it should have higher ammo rate and could be used against infantry? Or maybe an morale boost to represent lesser weight to carry?

5)Little question - if there is a single reason i should use an indirect fire when enemy is in LOS? In previous versions there were no OP fire in this case, which IMO made perfect sense if it was infantry who fired indirectly - i guess they were hiding in their cover and spitting lead in enemy's general direction, delegating aiming to God's will.

6)Soviet motorised infantry is inexcusable waste of Motherland's resourses! Each platoon gets 3 medium trucks, while whole platoon can comfortably travel in a single medium truck causing less gasoline usage, road jamming and air pollution. Well, two others still can be used effectevily as combat recon. But I'm quite sure its not what those poor conscripts expected when they were told at enlistment office that URAL driver is a honorable, yet very dangerous duty!

7)Spetsnaz... NATO troops' darkest nighmare... Yes, they are really tough guys, they eat green berets for breakfast and navy seals for lunch and they can crush bricks with their head and still be able to cite Karl Marx "Capitalism" by heart, but why can't their mighty Battle Group fit in Mi-8 or at least Mi-17? I believe spetsnaz are way too cool to jog aroung the frontline in those plebeian BTR's!

8)A little whining in the end. Why, oh Lord, why TOWs are so made of win? Why, oh Lord, why Soviet ATGMs are so for the lose?

Fact that TOW jeep costs one point more than foot TOW, while having same TI and improved capability of making less experienced Soviet commanders' pants wet, logically proves absolutely nothing, but still is quite remarkable.

Although, fact that BRDM-2 with Konkurs, which, frankly saying, has hard time hitting a urinal even when he's perfectly dry and which ultimately has three functions in the game - bumping into something fast and armor piercing after its first missile misses, bumping into something fast and armor piercing after its first missle manages to score frontal no effect hit and bumping into something fast and armor piercing after its first missile goes for good, but few seconds before its first missile realises that the world is a cruel place and not everybody going to succeed in life... Err, What i was talking about?

Oh, yes, fact the BRDM-2 with Konkurs sucks miserably and costs exactly one point more then TOW jeep logically proves that Batman would kick Spiderman's butt anyday and George W. Bush jr. is, actually, the same person as Christina Aguilera's left tit.