SURM

Uploaded · Published June 5, 2024 · Updated January 30, 2026

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Author: themediocrity

Last revision: 28 Jan at 01:12 UTC (5)

File size: 10.06 MB

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Description:

NORTHAG campaigns still need work but I’m slowly grinding through them

Greetings!

Welcome to the Stupidly Unrealistic Realism Mod.

There are a lot of realism mods for WARNO but they all use words like "reasonable", "fun", "balanced", or "playable" to describe themselves. That’s far too practical.

Here we make no such concessions. Want to have your heavy tanks sniped from 8km away by an AH-64 on the other side of a mountain using LOAL? How about positioning your troops for a perfect all around defense of a critical town only to have the entire place leveled by a battery of BM-30s firing from 50km off the map? Perhaps you’d like to watch helplessly as a T-80UD shrugs off a couple dozen LAWs before wiping out your entire platoon. You’re in the right place.

This is a mod for people who laugh at the concept of balance. After all it’s not all that "realistic" for East German reservists to hold off the US 3rd Armored, so get ready for extremely unequal levels of challenge.

If all that weren’t enough. This will chug on all but the most powerful rigs (maybe those too, but I don’t own one) so it kinda takes the "real time" out of real time strategy.

Yes this truly is a stupid mod, but what about the unrealistic part?

Basically everything here is based off wargaming websites, poorly sourced forum posts, YouTube videos and other similar sources of solid gold academic research material. Then of course, there are all the engine limitations, especially in spotting that really render the entire exercise silly. I promise there are serious accuracy issues and biases here. You will be mad. All that said, if you see something that’s wrong (and care) you can post it with a source and I’ll look into it.

"Realistic" Mechanics

SURM undoes the range compression of the vanilla game and applies "realistic" ranges, aim times, and speeds. The damage model is completely reworked, with penetration mechanics and critical effects like subsystem damage and crew casualties. When penetrated, most armored vehicles will either be bailed out, or suffer catastrophic ammo explosions (autoloading Soviet tanks are more likely to explode, newer NATO tanks with separate ammo storage are more likely to be bailed out). A bailed out tank is recoverable after battle which can be important for AG campaigns. Larger explosive weapons now feature both wide area fragmentation that damages light vehicles and infantry, and more extreme damage from direct hits or close misses that can blow apart even heavy tanks.

Most damage to vehicles is not repairable, the only repairs that occur are fixes by crew to things like computers and tracks. Infantry casualties cannot be replaced. Damaged or understrength units can be sold.

Spotting has also been overhauled. Fires from napalm, burning vegetation, and destroyed vehicles block LoS, as does dust from explosions. Stationary units are harder to see, but easier to hit. Infantry will dig small scratch shelters and get a defensive and stealth bonus after several minutes in one place.

Suppression mechanics have also been changed with suppressed infantry being harder to see. They will eventually get pinned down before routing in terror.

"Realistic" Formation Structures

Battlegroups are intended to be roughly battalion-sized, made up of companies of units. For infantry, there will be fighting sections, platoon HQs (for some nations these are mixed into a section, for others the HQ is a separate team), and company HQs, Soviet companies also have weapons sections (Pulemetchiki) with Metis and PKM. Tank units are simpler, with the tanks for the company, and company HQs of one or two tanks. Platoon HQs can capture zones, while company HQs can capture zones and give units in their radius +1XP level.

Mortar batteries are organic, some formations have limited amounts of howitzers available for attachment. AA, anti-tank units, attack helicopters, and aircraft can all be attached.

Command units under the logitic tab function as battalion commanders. These cause all company HQ units to provide +2XP levels instead of +1XP level.

"Realistic" Fire Support

Artillery is called in through forward observers, "standard" observers (or observer vehicles) are avilable in the artillery tab. These have commom support for a given formation, typically 155/152mm howitzers, and BM-21s for Pact forces. A single special observer is available in the logistic tab. These have access to more powerful strikes (8" howitzers, M270, BM-27, BM-30, LARS, etc). Observers can use radios so if one observer is in range of a target, all observers can direct accurate fire onto it.

Air strikes are significantly more powerful, but also rare. Aircraft turnaround times are long and damage cannot be repaired, so typically you will only get a single strike. Beware that large aerial bombs send fragmentation over a very large area and should not be dropped close to friendly infantry.

Lots More

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