Command Ops 2 Core Game News

It has been a while since we have posted a devblog about the East Front DLC. So now its probably a time to give you some status update, as well as to entertain you a bit in a historical sense.

This particular devblog will be about the development status, and the next one will be about the history.

[h2]DLC Development Status[/h2]
So far we have playtested four scenarios (out of total nine). These are:

• Azuma's Last Ride (May 28-29th, 1939)
  
• Charge of the Light Brigade (July 2-3rd, 1939)
  
• Smoking Pyres of Yawata Steelworks (July 3-4th, 1939)
  
• Slaughterhouse at Bain-Tsagan (July 2-4th, 1939)
  

The remaining five scenarios are dedicated to mid-June Japanese attacks and, of course, the Soviet major August offensive.

These scenarios vary in size from brigade-sized to corps-sized. Despite being relatively short (2-3 days only), they offer a decent mix of infantry and combined arms warfare, so I have decided to play through these four extensively before venturing forth into the rest of the DLC.

We have concluded about 50-60 fully automated (AI vs AI) sessions so far, as well as about 20-30 manual (human vs AI) sessions. These playtests offered us some good overview of where we are with the DLC and what our major problems are. Unfortunately, aside of some minor things that were found and fixed, the following new major features were deemed as necessary for new DLC to be released:

• bridge weight limits;
  
• more predictable, more aggressive and focused enemy AI.
  

Several more features were considered as optional (nice to have) as well, but they are not that much important as these two.

Therefore we had to spend some time implementing these features first, before resuming playtests or creating new scenarios. As we have now some good progress with these features (one is complete and another mostly done) I hope we could resume the playtest soon.

[h2]The Future of East Front[/h2]
Speaking of resuming the playtests, I need to start preparing for the next EF DLC. Normally it takes me between few months and a year to get all the literature, archival documents (if these are available), historical maps etc. Remote working in archives is neither cheap nor quick, so I need some time to prepare.

As we are hopefully amidst of the second half of the Khalkhyn-Gol DLC development now, I'd like to start collecting the data for the next EF one.

I have several candidate battles identified so far, for which I have already collected some preliminary literature, archival documents and maps. I can't tell you who these candidates are, because this would ruin the surprise and also reveal you many potential EF DLCs.

But if you'd like to promote your favourite campaign or even battle, you may let me know in comments. If you happen to name one of my candidates, this would definitely increase their chances to become the next one.

Please also note that I consider Fall Weiß and Winter War to be a part of "East Front" brand, too. Furthermore, some of my "candidate battles" have happened exactly in September 1939 and in Winter 39/40. So please don't limit your suggestions purely to the Soviet-German war.

That's all about the development status, now to the entertainment part.

[h2]First Nomonhan Incident[/h2]
In just four days, it will be another anniversary of First Nomonhan Incident.
May 28th, 1939, starting what seemed to be just another border clash, neither Soviets nor Japanese could imagine it will develop into a full-scale border war in few weeks, where thousands of people will perish, hundreds of tanks and planes will be engaged and destroyed.

Eventually, even the course of Second World War may have been largely influenced by the outcome of that border war. Had Red Army not defeated IJA in Mongolia, the latter would more likely decide to invade Soviet Union in 1941, rather than bomb Pearl-Harbour.

Next devblog which I plan to release on May 27, 2020, will discuss the very first major border encounter between Japanese and Soviet-Mongolian troops happened May 28-29th, 1939. That encounter would eventually lead to the full-scale border war later known as Khalkhyn-Gol (Nomonhan) Border Conflict, while the encounter itself is better known as First Nomonhan Incident nowadays.

We will be using one of our DLC scenarios - "Azuma's Last Ride" - to illustrate this event. In the end, I'd like to give you an impression about this godforsaken theater in general, as well as about the terrain and opposing forces, how they are modeled in the DLC, what level of details and research we put into it etc. I hope this eventually will help you to make the right decision about buying this DLC (or not).



Credits: colorized image made by Klimbim

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Soviet BA-6 medium armored car and its crew, supposedly of 7th Armored Brigade, Khalkhin-Gol area, 1939.


If any of you guys do remember Norm Koger's TOAW PC wargame popular in late 90s and early 2000s, then you may also have played his Nomonhan'39 scenario. This scenario was very well designed and very interesting to play (even though it was quite annoying mid-game to click through 25 turns of a cease-fire intended to simulate a supply shortages).

What you probably don't remember, though, is that there were three Soviet mechanized formations in the scenario: 7th, 8th and 9th Mech Brigades. Each brigade was assigned with three motorized rifle battalions, also three tank battalions (27 T-26 light tanks each), a recon company (9 armored cars), a mortar battalion (24 mortars) and an artillery battalion (18 guns).



This actually makes sense, right? Back at the time Norm couldn't possibly find any reliable references about the composition of these formations, and "Nomonhan" book (by Alvin Coox, the primary source of Norm's inspiration) was portraying these brigades as mechanized formations. So he have made some educated guess and designed them as if they were mech brigades in a WW2 sense, mixing some motorized infantry, infantry support tanks, and artillery.

This composition may make sense, but it is rather far from reality. These three formations weren't a mechanized infantry (in the WW2 meaning) at all, but rather an armored cavalry, having a very specific purpose and organization.
And this is where our story begins.


In the early 30s, Red Army was on the rise. Among the fruits of Soviet industrialization (accompanied by the severe famine of 1932-1933, when 5..8 millions Soviet people lost their lives) were hundreds of new planes, tanks and armored cars of domestic production.

BA-27 became the Soviet first armored car design. Being a typical post-WWI 4x2 armored car, BA-27 featured 37mm short-barreled gun and a machinegun, some decent armor (7mm thickness was pretty good at the time) and some sloping of the front plates, but it also was clearly underpowered (a Soviet copy of FIAT 53A engine was capable of 35 hp only) and rather slow. Over 200 these armored cars were produced in 1928-1931, when more advanced designs were adopted.

A column of BA-27 (leading) and BA-I armored cars

BA-I became a significant improvement over BA-27. Having the same armament (an additional bow machinegun was only a marginal improvement) as BA-27, it was featuring new 6x4 Timken chassis combined with Ford Model AA engine. The new chassis, known as GAZ-AAA in Soviet Union, allowed BA-I to reach 75 kph (which was nearly twice as much as 40 kph of BA-27) and increase armor thickness up to 8 mm. Over 100 of these armored cars were produced in 1932-1934.

BA-I at the Red Square

As the mobility of BA-I was improved, its armament became obsolete already. 37mm short-barreled gun may have been sufficient at the time of WWI and in 20s, but it was clearly an outdated design by 30s. The combination of BA-I hull with the light tank turret (designed same as that of T-26, but with a thinner armor of 8mm compared to 15mm of T-26), featuring new 45mm rapid-firing gun, was designated BA-3. About 200 these armored cars were produced in 1933-1935.

BA-6 was basically a minor improvement (featuring a thicker 9mm front plate and no escape door in the back) over a BA-3. It was produced in 1936-1938 with almost 400 cars built (twice as more as BA-3). Its performance and combat capabilities were identical to those of BA-3, though.

Turkish BA-3

BA-6

At the same time, several light armored car types were designed and produced. D-8 (and its improved version D-12) were build upon GAZ-A (license-built Ford Model A) chassis and featured one (D-8) or two (D-12) machineguns. These armored cars were light enough to be air-transportable. A total of 62 D-8/12 were produced in 1931-1932, until they were replaced in production by FAI.

FAI had worse armor (6mm vs 7mm of D-8/12) and the same 4x2 GAZ-A chassis, but its main feature was the MG turret that was a significant improvement over D-8 and its MG fixed either in the bow or in the rear firing position. FAI was produced in 1933-1935, and also in 1938-1939 there was also an improved version FAI-M produced, featuring new GAZ-M1 - a licensed Ford Model B - chassis with a more powerful 50 hp engine. About 700 FAI and FAI-M were produced in total.

D-8 (front) and D-12 (back) armored cars

D-8 is being installed under the belly of TB-3 heavy bomber

FAI armored car featuring railroad wheels

The latest and the most advanced Soviet mass-produced armored cars available by 1939 were medium BA-10 and light BA-20 armored cars.
The main improvements of BA-10 over BA-6 were thicker hull and turret armor (10 mm) and new conical turret design (featuring some sloping). The combat weight and max speed were nearly the same as of BA-6, however the 45mm gun ammo loadout was slightly reduced.
Being a relatively good design, BA-10 was produced in massive numbers, with a total of 3400 armored cars built in 1938-1941 (BA-10 and improved BA-10M combined).

BA-10 armored car

Like BA-10 was an improvement over BA-6, new light BA-20 armored car was an improvement over FAI. It had similar (to FAI) design, but a much better GAZ-M1 chassis. Its modified version BA-20M featured much thicker frontal armor (9mm against 6mm of BA-20). Over 2000 of these armored cars were produced in 1936-1942.

BA-20 armored cars, Khalkhin-Gol

Soviet armored cars of the interwar period may be qualified as very well armed. Their 45mm 20-K gun - combining good RoF with decent penetration and powerful fragmentation shell - was one of the most powerful weapons ever installed on a pre-WW2 armored car, but this was probably their only advantage.
All Soviet cars were lightly armored vehicles. 8-10mm armor would be good at the time of their appearance in early 30s, but there were already better protected designs by late 30s. But, most importantly, their 4x2 and 6x4 chassis, driven by their weak (50 hp at best) engines meant they are bound to the road network and rendered them inadequate for cross-country reconnaissance and liaison duties.

In general, Soviet armored cars were clearly superior to Polish, Japanese, US and British designs of the time, but at least Germany and France had some superior designs.
For example, German SdKfz.231 (6-rad) introduced yet in 1932 had the same 6x4 wheel scheme, same 8mm armor and weaker armament, but it also featured much better engine (75 hp vs 50 hp of BA-6/10).
But then there was also SdKfz.231 (8-rad) introduced in 1936 (same year as BA-6), featuring extremely powerful 150 hp engine, 15mm frontal armor and 8x8 drive. It was superior to Soviet armored cars in every aspect except (arguably) armament, and was generally a much better scout platform than any Soviet design.
Also French Panhard 178 had much better armor (18-13mm), much better engine (105 hp) and better full-drive 4x4 chassis than those of Soviet armored cars.

There was one aspect, however, where Soviet armored cars outclassed all their opponents. Not great, not terrible, but there were thousands of them produced, and that was the world's biggest arsenal of armored cars. Having only 58 light and 224 medium armored cars as of January 1st, 1934, seven years later the Red Army had already 4325 armored cars (light and medium combined) by December 1st, 1940.
Majority of them will be lost next year during Operation Barbarossa, where the whole regular Red Army was nearly annihilated together with all its armored vehicles. But at the time of Battle of Khalkhin-Gol, summer 1939, Soviet armored cars were still on the rise.



Designed for reconnaissance and liaison duties, most of Soviet armored cars were assigned to reconnaissance squadrons/companies and reconnaissance battalions (where most of the medium armored cars would be normally found), as well as to various signal units (where most of light armored cars would be used).

For example, a wartime rifle division's reconnaissance battalion (table of organization #04/825, adopted January 27th, 1938) would have an armored car company of 10 medium armored cars (a single radio-equipped car of company CO and three armored car platoons consisting of a single radio-equipped car and two regular cars each). Signal battalion of the same rifle division (table of organization #04/826) would have two radio-equipped light armored cars in the staff company.

Reconnaissance battalion of a light tank brigade (table of organization #010/922) would have 14 medium and 5 light armored cars: two radio-equipped medium cars in battalion's staff platoon and another 12 medium (of them 4 radio-equipped and 8 regular cars) and 5 light (of them one radio-equipped) in armored car company.
Also cavalry divisions had armored car squadrons, of course, as well as motorized infantry brigades had their own recon squadrons, too.

However, there were also rather special kinds of units - armored brigades. More specifically, if translated literally from Russian, they are "Motorized-Armored Brigades", but we will use "Armored" for simplicity.
The creation of these units was inspired by the very special conditions of Mongolian stepps, where the road network was very poor at best, but the cross-country soils are (generally) solid and flat enough for an armored car to go offroad. The type of a terrain meant an armored car - even a relatively underpowered Soviet one - is no more bound to the road network and may operate freely, as a light tank, but with a better operational mobility because armored cars are easier to drive and easier to maintain than tanks, meaning they could also cover large distances in a shorter times than tank units.
The latter also sounded great for a vast Mongolian theater, where the relatively small Soviet expeditionary forces had to cover a huge territory. So it became clear that, at least in Mongolia, it would make a perfect sense to create bigger armored car units rather than just recon companies and liaison detachments.

The first of its kind, 20th Light Mechanized Brigade was created in 1933. The brigade, among other units, had 20th Armored Car Battalion, which became the first battalion-sized armored car unit of the Red Army. The brigade was created especially for Mongolian theater and proved to be quite effective, so in 1936 it was reorganized into Special Armored Brigade and Special Armored Regiment. Later that year additionally 7th Armored Brigade was created at Ural and next year relocated to Mongolia, too.

Soldiers of a rifle-machinegun battalion of 9th Armored Brigade near their GAZ-AA staff bus

Finally, in 1938 the new ToE was adopted for armored brigades (tables of organization #16/720-16/727), so all three armored car units in Mongolia - 7th Bde, Special Bde and Special Rgt - were reorganized to fit these new unified ToEs. Special Brigade became the 9th Armored Brigade, and the Special Armored Regiment was reorganized into 8th Armored Brigade. Next year all three units - 7th, 8th and 9th Armored Brigades - took part in Khalkhin-Gol conflict.
Each brigade consisted of:

• HQ,
  
• one armored car battalion,
  
• one recon battalion,
  
• one rifle-machinegun (motorized) battalion,
  
• signal company,
  
• combat support company,
  
• repair company,
  
• truck platoon.
  

8th Armored Brigade had also a tank battalion (BT tanks).

So, as you can see, these armored brigades were nowhere near "true" WW2-era mechanized brigades: they didn't have any medium artillery, nor they had enough infantry to attack the fortified position or defend a line.
What they resemble is just a scaled up (3x times) recon battalion - and this is actually what they were.

Commanders of 7th, 8th and 9th Armored Bridages at Khalkhin-Gol (left to right, respectively): Maj A.Lesovoy, Maj V.Mishulin and Maj S.Oleynikov

All three brigades were actively engaged during the first period of Khalkhin-Gol conflict.
Armored cars of 9th Armored Brigade took an active part in repelling the first and the only major Japanese tank attack during the conflict (2nd - 3th July). Soviet rapid-firing 45mm guns were far superior to Japanese 37mm and 57mm tank guns, also Soviet crews have been firing from hull-down positions, so after two hours of intensive fight a single company of 12 BA-10s had destroyed 10 Japanese tanks without any casualties from their side. Another Japanese tank was trapped in the barbed wire and was captured by Soviet armored car crewmen.

At the same time, armored cars of 7th Armored Brigade were engaged in furious counter-attack at Bain-Tsagan Mountain on July 3rd. Here Soviet armored cars had to attack Japanese defensive positions without artillery or infantry support. Predictably, this didn't end well. As 1st Lt K.Petrov, an Aide of 247th Armored Car Battalion's Chief of Staff described:

As the battalion was approaching Bain-Tsagan Mountain, I saw 4-5 armored cars of 1st and 2nd Companies started to burn. More and more cars were catching fire, so the vehicles from rear lines started to turn around and retreat... 3rd Company lost just one armored car, because they saw burning vehicles of other companies in front of them, so they didn't go forth.

BA-6 of 9th Armored Brigade, captured by Japanese army in July.

During that attack Soviet troops (11th Tank Brigade and 7th Armored Brigade combined) have lost 37 armored cars out of 59 engaged that day (in other words, 2/3 of armored cars were either disabled or destroyed). There Soviet armored car crews have learned a deadly specifics of BA-6 and BA-10 designs: there was a fuel tank located in the upper part of the hull, above the heads of a driver and machinegunner. When penetrated and ignited, these fuel tanks poured liters of burning fuel, with a very little chance for those two crew members to survive the deadly napalm flow.

Overall, the combat performance of armored brigades was summarized in one Soviet document dated July 1939 like this:

"Armored units - 7th, 8th and 9th Armored Brigades - are just an armored cavalry, better suited for border patrols and internal security duties. They were not trained to fight as an infantry and they aren't able to do that. These units played important role during the early stages of the conflict. Now they have received a lot of conscripts and do require an extra time for training."


BA-10 armored car commanded by P.Moroz (first from the right), 9th Mechanized Brigade.


Gathering all the information necessary to properly model these units in Command Ops was not that easy. Although high-level ToE of these brigades is nowadays well known and available in the literature (f.ex. here), some critical details were still missing. As we model company- and platoon-level warfare in CmdOps, you need to know the ToE down to that level.


An authentic Soviet organizational chart for an Armored Brigade, tables of organization #16/720-16/727

Looking for answers, we went to Russian archives. After several months of research in Russian State Military Archive, Moscow, we have found plenty of organizational information, as well as a lot of actual documents concerning ToEs and equipment, losses and actions of Soviet units during the Khalkhin-Gol conflict.

An authentic Soviet report, describing the available equipment and combat vehicles of 9th and 8th Armored Brigades, June 1939

This information, together with a common historical literature, allowed us to model these units as precise as we would want them to be.
(Well, actually, to secure the future of East Front development, we have found and copied literally thousands of pages of Soviet organizational charts and authentic tables of organization, but most of that stuff will only be used in future DLCs).

A company of a Recon Battalion (table of organization #16/723). This one has BA-10 medium armored cars assigned, so it will be used to model the 240th Recon Battalion of 9th Armored Brigade

Another thing, which you may find unusual about Khalkhin-Gol DLC, is that now all small arms has anti-tank capability. We have introduced an armo-piercing firing type to all the small arms including bolt action rifles and LMGs. Of course, they are only marginally effective, as you can only penetrate like 6-7mm of armour at the point blank range of 100 meters. However, this is more than enough to kill a thinly armored Soviet FAI armored car or a SU-12 SP-gun, wandering too close to your position. Unlike other WW2 DLCs, Khalkhin-Gol will feature several such a lightly armored vehicle types.



That's all for now guys, because this devblog is already too big to be readable. Have a nice evening, sorry for my bad English and see you next time.

Soviet soldiers and tankers inspect captured Japanese equipment

Today is another post from dev blog series. This time we'll talk about weapons and vehicles available with Khalkhin-Gol DLC.

As usually, everything we mention or describe below is a work in progress. Any methods, numbers, figures and visuals posted in devblogs are not final and may change by the time DLC will be released officially.


Khalkhin-Gol pack will be using new "Eastern Front 1930-1940" estab. This estab we plan to utilize not only for Khalkhin-Gol, but also for other (possible) DLCs of that era, like Soviet-Finnish War, Blitzkrieg in Poland, hypothetical campaigns wars like Soviet-Polish war in 1930s etc.

For now we'll be limiting the scope of Estab to the systems which were used at Khalkhin-Gol (however there are few exceptions to this rule).


Japanese light infantry weapons are remarkable for being represented with two distinct calibres: 6.5mm and 7.7mm. Although all Japanese units at Khalkhin-Gol probably have used 6.5mm weapons, 7.7mm weapons will be included into Estab as well.

Players will surely value 13.2mm Type 93 AAMGs, 20mm Type 97 AT rifles and Type 98 AA guns high. Even if they are relatively short-ranged, they are still quite effective against hordes of Soviet lightly-armored tanks and armored cars.



Soviet arsenal is probably well-known to most of you military history fans, so there should be no surprises. Weapons there are ranging from old Mosin-Nagant bolt-action rifles to devastating M4 quad AAMGs.




Japanese field artillery are ranging from elderly pre-WWI pieces like 75mm Type 38 and Type 41, to modern and very effective Type 92 105mm and Type 90 75mm guns. The latter also proved to be very efficient in AT role, although Japanese had only few of them at Khalkhin-Gol.

Japanese dedicated AT guns are limited to 37mm Type 94, which are, despite their caliber, nevertheless very effective against thin Soviet armor.



Like Japanese, Soviet players will have to use both older and newer weapon systems alike. The backbone of Soviet artillery are 45mm AT guns and 76mm obr.1927 (regimental) and obr.1902/30 (divisional) guns.

One may miss notorious 122mm M-30 howitzers and 6-inch ML-20 gun-howitzers which will become a symbols of Soviet artillery in WW2, but there were none of these at Khalkin-Gol. Older 122mm obr.1910/30 howitzer and 152mm obr.1910/34 gun were used instead.

Last, but not least, are 122mm obr.1931 guns. Just one battery of these rare and valuable (at the time) guns was present at the Khalkhin-Gol. Soviets had to bring these from Transbaikal District to Mongolia later in conflict to counter deadly Japanese Type 92 105mm guns, whose range was far superior to any other Soviet artillery system available.





Japenese tank designs are well known to lag behind many other tank-building nations. Khalkhin-Gol conflict was no exception: slow and thin armoured Japanese tanks were easy preys to Soviet rapid-firing 45mm tank and AT guns. Inadequate armament contributed to this sad story as well: the most advanced of Japanese tanks, Chi-Ha, was armed with short-barreled 57mm gun which was very ineffective against tanks.



Most of the time Soviet players will enjoy their technical superiority over Japanese armor. That said, they also have inadequately armed systems (like BAI or BA-27 armored cars armed with short-barreled 37mm which is much worse than even Japanese guns) and the armor of all Soviet tanks and armored is no better than that of Japanese tanks. Some of Soviet tanks, e.g. T-37A or T-38, can even be penned using armor-piercing bullets and standard infantry rifles (this ability we will model in the Estab, too).

What may be immediately visible also from the picture is that Soviets will have many different armored car designs available. These were playing very important role at Khalkhin-Gol, but that I'll explain in the dedicated dev blog next time.




Although Japanese 23rd Infantry Division had some special ToE changes to better fit for distant Manchurian theater (compared to other IJA divisions), and had its two Draft Companies replaced with two Truck Companies (32 trucks each), this proved to be absolutely not enough.

Japanese high command completely underestimated the level of Soviet motorization. They did not anticipate Soviets to be able to concentrate that much forces within that short time, nor were they able to assemble there a sizeable force themselves.



Soviet transport supremacy was one of the key reasons why they finally prevailed over Japanese. Not only they were able to quickly reinforce the conflict area with a lot of troops and armored vehicles, but also to effeciently supply them throughout the conflict as far as 1400 km away from Soviet bases (5 days one-way road). This was achieved thankfully to as much as 4 000 regular trucks and 375 tanker trucks amassed to supply Soviet forces.

Some of designs shown below were not used at Khalkhin-Gol, but we've nevertheless added them for future releases.



That's all for tonight, folks!

As we have mentioned before, we will be posting regular devblogs about the progress of our Eastern Front DLC development. Here is the first one (and sorry: it's really big).




Everything we mention or describe below is a work in progress. Any methods, numbers, figures and visuals posted in devblogs are not final and may change by the time DLC will be released officially.



Weapon accuracy is one of the challenges we are faced with the development of Khalkhin-Gol pack. As this will be our first Eastern Front DLC, the Estab will likely be used later as the base for other EF packs, so we should be very careful about decisions we make and steps we take.

New pack will bring two whole new nations into the game: Soviet Union and Japan. While some captured Soviet equipment was already introduced in previous packs and custom scenarios, this is nowhere near the introduction of the whole Japanese and Soviet arsenal.

At first we thought we could reuse the Soviet 1942/1943 Estab we have been developing during late 2000s (and which never resulted in official DLCs). However, as it quickly turned out, values there were coming from different people who were creating that Estab over several years, and those people had different ideas in mind, and also they have been using different sources. Names for weapons and vehicles were inconsistent sometimes, but, what's even worse, we have identified some very different approaches for defining weapon accuracies and penetration figures. So this was definitely not the way we wanted to go.

As we are not only going to add two new nations, but also later we would like to have added also Germany, Poland, Finland, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia (and may be other nations of the Eastern European Theater), we have concluded that we need to develop completely new accuracy calculation system. The system that will be:
- consistent across all the weaponry of all the Eastern Front nations;
- transparent;
- based on a reasonable scientific methodology;
- simple and quick to use, so that it may be reused by any Eastern Front DLC developer without any special knowledge or skill.

Consistent would mean, that we need to create the generic approach to define weapons not only for this particular DLC, but also for all the other (future) Eastern Front DLC. That means, whenever we decide to add German Eastern Front weapons later, we will need to re-define their accuracies according to the new model (so they may be a bit different to what we have been using with old DLCs, but consistent with the rest of EF data).

Transparent would mean the methodology is well-defined, documented and is independent of any subjective opinions, "secret documents" or religious beliefs (which you could sometimes find in Internet battles between e.g. Wehrmacht and Red Army fanboys).

Scientific methodology means the following. There are different opinions about the hit probability: Thomas Jentz, for example, have described a probability to hit 2 m x 2.5 m target for German 88mm KwK 43 tank gun at 1000 m range as 0.85 (see here). But others may say that, e.g. 88mm Flak was able to score just one hit per eleven rounds fired (no source given, though, for this), etc.
So we definitely can not rely on these contradicting figures coming from different sources, comparing combat to non-combat conditions. Our approach should be based on math, theory of probabilities and ballistics.

Simple and quick to use would mean, that we prefer to have it implemented as a script or a tool, which could be run by anyone and calculate accuracies for any substantially large number of weapons.

We were able to meet all these goals, and results are presented below.


Our approach will be based upon works of Ballistic Research Laboratory (Aberdeen, MD). Namely, it is the article by E.C.Christman "The effect of system design characteristics on first round hitting probability of tank fired projectiles" published in February, 1959 (declassified).
This article establishes a mathematical model of hit probabilities under "quasi combat conditions" and provides a whole lot of nomograms connecting hit probabilities with firing conditions (firing range, muzzle velocity, drag characteristics defined through ballistic coefficients and G-shape models and targeting systems).

We are interested more in "follow-up hit probability", the definition of which can be found in "WORLD WAR II BALLISTICS: Armor and Gunnery" by L.R.Bird and R.D.Livingston, and is given as "...probability appears to be maximum obtainable accuracy after several shots at target, with errors in range estimation and target speed reduced to zero, mean jump and throw-off adjusted for". Command Ops 2 models continuous engagements rather than just first hit, so this is exactly the kind of probability we could use in our game.

Even though Christman's article deals with the "first round hit", we can still use their data. The fire control "System C" (which produces a standard error in range which remains constant for all ranges of interest) described there is something that could roughly represent "follow-up shot probability" we are interested in.


Same as Christman, we will be using several input parameters (factors listed below) that would affect our calculations.

Muzzle velocity is one of major factors, which determines the flight time and also projectile trajectory. The higher is velocity, the better are your chances.

Range also one of the most important factors, because it affects flight time and shell dispersion. Naturally, the larger is range, the worse are your chances.

Drag characterstics are defined by the projectile shape (described by one of G-model types) and ballistic coefficient. The former is rarely known for non-US projectiles, but may be roughly assumed from the shell's shape. Of course, for that we need to have a picture of a shell.
Below you can see a picture of Soviet BR-350A APHEBC shell used in various 76.2mm tank and field guns. Like with other ballistic-capped projectiles, we assume it to be of type G8 (secant-ogive flat-based projectiles).



Ballistic coefficient is calculated from the form-factor (which is also rarely known for any non-US projectiles, but can be either assumed using US projectiles of similar shape and purpose, or considered to be equal to 1.0), projectile diameter and projectile weight.

One may think all these ballistic nitpicks are of only minor importance (compared to the range and velocity), but actually they are very important. Drag characteristics are exactly the reason why low caliber high velocity guns (like 37mm or 57mm) may have accuracy similar to 75-90mm guns at ranges up to 500-800 m, but become less accurate beyond that range. So drag characteristics are very important things to consider if we ever want our weapons to behave realistically.

Last, but not least is round-to-round dispersion. This describes the variability of shell parameters (like variations in gunpowder amount, projectile surface and shape production quality etc). We consider this to be a rough representation of "weapon quality".
This is the only "subjective" parameter in our model, because it may not be derived from any kind of public data. For simplicity, we assume round-to-round dispersion to be low ("good") for countries known for using advanced industrial technologies, metalworking in particular (e.g. Germany, US, may be UK etc). Also we assume dispersion to be high ("bad") for countries known for their problems with the quality of their industrial production (e.g. USSR), as well as for any other country not fitting into the first category.
For the first category we assume round-to-round dispersion to be equal to 15 mil (low dispersion), and for the second category we assume dispersion equal to 60 mil (high one). Both USSR and Japan fall into the second category.


12-years-old boy operating milling cutter, USSR, 1943.


We have manually digitized most of Christman's nomogramms; these have resulted in several thousands of data points for different ranges, muzzle velocities, ballistic coefficients and dispersions. It took us whole week just to enter all the data from the article, but now we have a huge array of multidimensional data to interpolate and extrapolate for nearly any possible combination of parameters. Some parts of this data array you can see on the screenshot below:



For interpolation within this multi-dimensional data we will be using free math package GNU Octave, there we have created a simple script using two-dimensional cubic spline interpolation to process CSV data, calculate ballistic coefficients from shell data and produce a list of hit probabilities for all the required ranges.
We will be using "standard" list of ranges for all the direct firing guns - 100 m, 500 m, 1000 m, 1500 m, 2000 m and 2500 m -

Now, all we need to do is to create CSV file with the list of Soviet and Japanese guns (and their shells' parameters) and pass it to the script.




Below you can find the diagram showing comparison of three kinds of accuracy data:
- solid lines - accuracies generated with our new approach that will be used in upcoming Eastern Front DLCs (and Khalkhin-Gol in particular);
- dashed lines - accuracies available in previous Command Ops 2 DLCs and also in previous iteration of CO2 Soviet Estab (deprecated);
- dotted lines - literature (Jentz and Bird).

Comparison is made for following systems:
- 45mm 19-K AT gun;
- 57mm QF 6-pdr AT gun;
- 76.2 QF 17-pdr AT gun;
- 8.8cm KwK 43 L/71 tank gun.

In all cases projectile type G8 was used for ballistic-capped shells (45mm BR-240 APHEBC shell, 6-pdr Mk.9 APCBC, 17-pdr Mk.8 APCBC and 8.8cm PzGr.39/43 APCBC), form-factor set to 1.0.



45mm gun:
- accuracy drops over distance with the new math more significantly than with old CO2 data;
- with the new math 45mm gun has significantly worse accuracy than 6-pdr beyond 500 m range, whereas with old CO2 data they would be nearly identical.

6-pdr gun:
- new math accuracies are much closer to historical references (Bird) than old CO2 accuracies.

17-pdr gun:
- new math accuracies are closer to historical references (Bird) than old CO2 accuracies.

88mm gun:
- new math accuracies are closer to historical references (Jentz) than old CO2 accuracies.


We have received a new powerful and scalable approach to calculate direct firing gun accuracies consistently. The approach is easy to use, integrated with spreadsheets import/export (CSV) and requires little manual work to prepare data.

New math produces values similar to old CO2 data, so you will not see any dramatic gameplay changes.

However, comparing new math to old CO2 data (especially comparing it to previous Soviet Estab developed in 2000s), our new model yields numbers closer to the historical references.
In some cases new math even feels more realistic. E.g. if we check accuracies for 45mm and 6-pdr guns, new math makes 6-pdr much better than 45mm starting at 500 m and beyond. Old CO2 Soviet estab would make them nearly identical in performance. And this is exactly what we would also expect, comparing 45mm and 6-pdr in real life.

We hope, that with our new math model we will deliver new content faster. We also hope, that the new model will better and more uniquely model particular guns, which will grant you better and more realistical battle experiences.