by Peter Robbins, 20 October 2025
Combat Mission Cold War has been one of my favorite overall iterations of the modern series of CM. I enjoyed Black Sea and Shock Force 2 readily enough, but the Cold War version just utilizes the technology in the CM4 engine to its fullest extent, and aesthetically, it is stunning at its highest settings. Also, just in general, I like Cold War antics. It is one of my favorite What-If’s to wargame on the virtual and real tabletop, as an adolescent of the 80s, this is just nostalgia central.
Title: British Army Of The Rhine, DLC for Combat Mission: Cold War
Developer: Matrix Games
Publisher: Matrix Games
Scope: Tactical, Platoon to Company+ level. WEGO or Real-time with pause. Modern, Cold War Era. Covers years: 65-91. BAOR DLC Covers primarily ‘79 to ‘82.
Scale: One minute WEGO execution or Real-time. Most missions are designed as 45min to an hour in gametime.
Building on the success of Combat Mission: Cold War, the British Army of the Rhine expands the “Cold War gone hot” experience with new nations, units, and campaigns that capture the intensity of late 1970s and early 1980s Northern Europe.
Take command of legendary NATO and Warsaw Pact forces, each recreated with the meticulous detail fans of the series expect:
- British Army of the Rhine (BAOR): Field iconic UK vehicles and weapons including the FV432 series, Swingfires, Strikers, Scorpions, Scimitars, and the mighty Chieftain tank.
- Canadian 4th Mechanized Brigade Group (4 CMBG): A unique mix of NATO equipment, from Centurion and Leopard C1 tanks to Lynx 25mm vehicles, plus the last flamethrowers deployed by any NATO force in Europe.
- Soviet VDV/Airborne Forces: Elite paratroopers backed by BMD infantry fighting vehicles and other specialized equipment that bring new tactical threats to the battlefield.
- The BAOR module comes packed with content to test your command skills:
- Three full campaigns: UK, Canadian, and Soviet Airborne “Lost Company”
- Dozens of standalone scenarios: Experience the full spectrum of Cold War tactical combat
- A brand-new region: Fight in the rugged expanse of the British Army Training Unit Suffield (BATUS) in Canada, with challenging terrain perfect for custom and “Blue on Blue” battles
Whether you prefer armored thrusts, infantry maneuvers, or combined-arms operations, Combat Mission: British Army of the Rhine delivers an authentic and deeply tactical wargaming experience.
Overview & What’s In The Box?!
Matrix have swung for the fences again with a new DLC for the game titled British Army Of The Rhine ( CW: BAOR for short). Unfortunately, sometimes an afterthought in most US centric sales teams minds (see: WARNO and others), bringing the British into this particular line of games is a no-brainer. I hope they also bring in more West German forces in a second DLC offering, which who knows, may be in the works if this one does well. So, go out and buy this for my sake! So that they eventually expand it even more! Orders sent wargaming compadres!
As you can see in the STEAM info posted above you get a pretty solid amount of New in this DLC.
New Scenarios
click images to enlarge
CW: BAOR includes 25 new scenarios centered upon BAOR activities primarily in the NORTHAG area of Cold War Germany. A good 6+ of the scenarios take part in a Canadian practice area that is fully depicted as a new map for your training use. I’m hoping more BAOR centric maps start to be offered in the workshop by the overall combat mission community as a result of this DLC release.With that said, there is a good amount of content provided in the DLC itself.
New Campaigns
The British Army Of The Rhine DLC includes three new campaigns. There is one Canadian centric, one British centric, and one Soviet Airborne centric campaign included in the DLC. Nice additions throughout. We’ll do a full run through of the first mission of the British one as a short sample further below.
Manual Data Sheet Examples
click images to enlarge
Campaign Scenario AAR
We’ll be running through the first full mission of the British campaign below.
Briefing Screens
Preparing to Roll Out!
The battle proper starts now. I move our Chieftains up towards the outskirts of the town and hull down in fields with otherwise good lanes of fire and visibility.
Forward observers are hunkered down at mission start. We’ll likely need to ferry these about the field as needed to gain a heightened view.
Above is a good overhead shot of where everything starts out for the British side of the battle.
Here I go ordering up the movements.
To the left front of our lines, we have some anti tank units, that are also setup for recon duty, two birds, supposedly one stone, but the only stone these birds got, was on in the face from an onslaught of Soviets into this area as we shall unfortunately bear witness to below.
Meanwhile in town, I relentlessly attempt to get our Forward Observers into a better position to lay down the law a bit better. Arty in Combat Mission is always a finicky business for me personally. It’s not the game, it’s me. I just am not great at understanding the observer limits of views, and then I always get them killed, usually.
One the right, we get into equal trouble. The enemy as soon as they get visual of any kind of us are able to much better enact use of their artillery fire. Arty won this one for the Soviets. The British didn’t stand much of a chance here once we started getting top hits against our lighter armor.
As seen above, MBTs galore are being taken out on our end of business. Not a good day for the British, and it’s my fault, not the games! Great DLC.
I call the screenshots above Cabbage And Crows, as all we did over here was unfortunately further fertilize the ground, and feed the animals. We got our arses handed to us as the British would say. Those cheeky buggers laid it into us a horror show. I’d even venture to say “Are you having a laugh?!” to the Soviets from my results in this match.
Et Voila. Horrible results. Almost dead to the last person. Not a great showing, but then again, my first outing in BAOR campaign scenarios. So, I’ll take a Draw! Live and learn as they say.
First Impressions & Final Thoughts
You get a good amount of scenarios, very much up to snuff with the existing content in the core game. You are getting three full fledged campaigns added to the mix as well. All told, you are getting about twice the content in the original, so I think that the price tag is appropriate for what BAOR units, Canadian, British, as well as additions to the existing Soviets by way of Paratroopers that you get in this pack.
So, really nice across the board. I recommend this DLC to any owners of Combat Mission: Cold War. Hoping to get an AAR or two with this content in the near future to add to your viewing of this well made, well presented, and well executed DLC content. BAOR is one to pick up if you own the core game.Not much in the way of “functional” improvements provided with the DLC but good content across the board.
Resources
A short but detailed book on the topic by Paul Chrystal. Available for Kindle on the cheap. |
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BAOR Operational Wargaming 1950-1960 sand table rules, edited by John Curry and Peter Perla |
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