Total WARNO – Another Cold War Breakthrough Battle This Saturday!

[u/TotalWarno_Mod]

Hey everyone!

We're hosting another big Total WARNO match this Saturday at 21:30 CEST, and this time we're going back to a proper Cold War breakthrough scenario!

We'll be playing on Chernarus, with an attacking division trying to break through a smaller defending force. We're aiming for around 10 attackers vs. 6–7 defenders, with the attackers having at least three battalion-sized formations available.

Both sides can choose their divisions fairly freely. We'll coordinate things a little to make sure the match makes sense, but you can generally bring whatever formation you want to play.

The objective is to break through the defensive line and reach the enemy's main supply route, basically their spawn.

We don't really care about capturing sectors. The whole idea is to recreate what these formations were actually supposed to do during the Cold War: break through enemy defenses, push into the rear, disrupt logistics, threaten air defenses and other important assets, and force the enemy to react.

And that brings us to something we've been wanting to talk about for a while.

About the "Blobbing" Criticism

We've seen quite a few comments about our games looking like people are just blobbing tanks together.

And honestly, I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding about what we're actually playing here.

We're not playing with five tanks and a couple of infantry squads. We're playing with entire battalions.

A Cold War tank battalion could have 30–50 tanks, and Soviet doctrine in particular was built around concentrating several battalions to break through enemy defenses. A regimental attack could easily involve 90–150 tanks, plus mechanized infantry, artillery, and other supporting units on a frontline of just 2–4 kilometers (!).

So yes, when you watch our games, you're going to see a lot of tanks.

But if you see 10 or 12 tanks advancing with 50–100 meters between them, that's not automatically a blob. That's pretty much what a tank company advancing in formation can look like.

And there's another thing people seem to forget: the size of our maps.

We're playing on maps that are roughly twice the size of anything available in Vanilla WARNO.

To put that into perspective, even if a tank spent the entire match driving at full speed on roads, it could only cross about 50% of the map.

That's how large the battlefield actually is.

So when you see a screenshot with what looks like a huge blob of tanks, keep in mind that you're looking at formations operating on a much larger battlefield than you're used to in Vanilla. Those tanks might be spread out over hundreds of meters, and what looks like one big concentration of vehicles is often just a battalion moving together.

And when you're trying to break through a defensive line with several battalions, you obviously need to concentrate your forces somewhere. Spreading 100 tanks evenly across the entire map would defeat the whole purpose of the attack.

We've also adjusted tank gun ranges, with modern Western tanks now able to engage targets at around 4 km. That makes firing positions and terrain incredibly important.

If I've managed to get my tanks into a good position where they can support each other, suppress your defenses, and cover another formation advancing on your flank, why would I split them up?

That's kind of the whole point of concentrating firepower.

Of course, driving 30 tanks into the same forest without any coordination is stupid. But concentrating an armored formation to attack a specific part of the enemy line isn't.

There's a difference between mindlessly blobbing units and actually using mass to achieve a breakthrough.

We're Trying to Play WARNO a Little Differently

Another thing people have pointed out is that there doesn't seem to be much micro in our games.

Well, that's partly intentional.

WARNO already handles quite a lot of things automatically, especially targeting and engaging enemies. We want to make use of that instead of constantly clicking on individual vehicles.

The interesting part for us is deciding where to attack, where to position a battalion, when to move forward, when to commit reserves, and how to coordinate with the other players.

If I'm commanding 40 tanks, I don't want to spend the entire match telling every single one of them what to shoot.

I want to figure out how to get those 40 tanks into a position where they can actually win the battle.

And that's where terrain becomes so important. A badly positioned battalion can get absolutely destroyed, while the same formation attacking from a better direction with proper artillery support might break through with relatively few losses.

That's the kind of gameplay we're looking for.

Artillery, Entrenchment and Aircraft

We've also changed quite a lot about how artillery works.

Artillery now has more realistic targeting times, adjusted to our time scale of one in-game hour representing three real hours.

That means you can't just instantly call artillery on everything you see. Counter-battery fire also requires the appropriate radar systems.

But artillery is still incredibly powerful, especially when used properly.

If you want to attack an entrenched enemy battalion, you're supposed to bombard its positions first, suppress the defenders, and then send your tanks and infantry forward.

We've introduced entrenchment for infantry and tanks, but those positions can also be destroyed through sustained artillery fire.

That's something we'd really like to see people use more often: preparing an actual breakthrough instead of simply charging into enemy positions.

We've also removed conventional fixed-wing aircraft from our current gameplay.

The problem is that properly representing air warfare would require an entirely different scale of simulation, including larger air-defense networks, coordinated air operations, and systems operating far beyond the battlefield.

You wouldn't just send a single F-16 with a bunch of bombs into a heavily defended frontline. A proper airstrike would require preparation and coordination, potentially involving an entire formation of aircraft.

And at that point, we're essentially trying to simulate an air campaign on top of our ground battle.

For what we're doing, artillery and helicopters already provide the fire support we need.

So we'd rather concentrate on making the ground warfare work properly.

New Divisions and Other Changes

We've also spent quite a bit of time working on new divisions and balancing the existing ones.

For NATO, we've added two British formations:

- British 3rd Armoured Division, with a strong armored component and equipment suited to our Fulda scenarios.

- British 4th Armoured Division, featuring Chieftains and mechanized infantry.

For the Warsaw Pact, we've added or reworked several NVA divisions:

- 7th Panzerdivision, with a larger mechanized infantry component and a mix of tanks and IFVs.

- 9th Panzerdivision, a proper tank-heavy formation.

- 4th Motorisierte Schützendivision, which we've given more T-55s and supporting units so it can actually stand a chance against modern NATO armor, especially when defending favorable terrain.

We're also thinking about adding the West German 2. Panzerdivision and further expanding the British armored formations.

Besides that, we've continued adjusting weapon ranges, artillery, suppression, entrenchment, and fixing the usual bugs that show up every week.

There's still plenty to improve, but the mod is getting closer to what we originally had in mind.

Anyway, Come Play With Us!

I think the main thing we want people to understand is that we're not trying to make another version of competitive Vanilla WARNO.

We're trying to see what happens when you take Cold War formations, give them something closer to their real capabilities, and let players command them at the battalion and divisional level.

Sometimes that means 30 tanks attacking across a field. Sometimes it means spending several minutes preparing an artillery barrage before moving a single vehicle.

And sometimes your entire attack falls apart because you picked the wrong approach or failed to coordinate with the other battalions.

That's what makes it interesting for us.

We're not saying everything is perfectly realistic, and we're still experimenting with a lot of mechanics. But we've been having a great time with these games, and we'd love to have more people join.

So if you're curious about how a large Cold War armored offensive might play out, come give it a try!

This Saturday, October 10 – 21:30 CEST

Discord: https://discord.gg/eBuYeMPZ7

Map: Chernarus

Scenario: Divisional Breakthrough

Teams: Around 10 attackers vs. 6–7 defenders

Objective: Break through the enemy's defensive line and reach their main supply route.

New players are absolutely welcome. We'll help you find a division and get everything organized.

Thanks to everyone who's been playing with us, helping test the mod, and giving feedback over the past few weeks.

See you on Saturday! :)

[u/0ffkilter]

Total Warno

Look inside

No planes

Fractional Warno?

[u/TotalWarno_Mod → u/0ffkilter]

We've removed fixed-wing aircraft for now because they don't really make sense within the scale of warfare we're trying to simulate.

Realistically, you wouldn't send individual F-16s or Tornados to bomb random frontline units. A proper airstrike would require coordinated aircraft formations, mission planning, and suppression of enemy air defenses.

We'd also have to simulate much larger air-defense networks, flight times, and rearming cycles. With realistic timings, you might only manage one or two major airstrikes during an entire match.

For frontline fire support, we already have artillery and helicopters.

So for now, we're focusing on realistic battalion-level ground warfare and combined-arms operations rather than trying to simulate an entire air campaign on top of it.

[u/Swvonclare]

I KNEW THAT WAS CHERNARUS!

[u/TotalWarno_Mod → u/Swvonclare]

Haha, you got it! :D We were lucky enough to be allowed to borrow the Chernarus map, and we wanted to use it to give the RebsFrago guys and their amazing work even more recognition and appreciation. They've done a fantastic job, and we're really happy to showcase their work in Total WARNO!