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Yep. Oh I agree. I think your bundle of assassination drones are way scarier for the civilian population and media even though X number of civilians targeted and killed is not really different. The bad actors are going to like the extra scare feature.

whoa! 40 years! Don't make em go by faster than they already do! U.S. BATTLESHIP POUNDS HILLS HELD BY SYRIANS IN LEBANON; BRITAIN; PULLING OUT TROOPS - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Even though I’m not Navy, if I remember correctly, on a modern Navy ship, the missiles are used against other ships and air threats while the “main gun” is usually radar controlled and rapid fire to be used against small, fast, agile boats (can you say Iranian gunboats). I don’t believe we use “shore bombardments” any more. We use air strikes, which are more accurate. Forget about all the movies showing shore bombardments from 70 to 90 years ago.

Drones could just identify landmarks, or have integrated satellite pictures or other type of maps that help it with navigation.

Not sure how comfortable I would be in a row boat of or Cessna around an active CWIS but fair points. I think these problems are definitely going to have problems, some unintended and some very much intended. Some bad actors will gleefully employ them on civilians to terrorize and as part of an overall genocidal campaign. In reality there is no real difference between a cruise missile striking a civilian housing complex and a cruise missile carrying a bunch of assassination drones. The drones will be far more effective and vicious but are basically doing the same job. I am saying that banning fully autonomous drones is a fools errand. Hell, regulating them is going to be pretty damned hard. Why? Because they are potential war-winners right now. Unmanned systems of all types are deterministic of outcomes. As such they become, in an existential war, non-negotiable. Some nations will try and remain on high horses - no doubt Canada will - but this will be as hypocritical as the nuclear equation. Canada has no nuclear weapons and shakes a finger in haughty disapproval of them, but our very survival has rested upon the safety of the US nuclear umbrella…that we are not even paying for. Unmanned will be the same beast in many ways. Some nations will reject them but will be first in line to have them protect any troop contributions to a western coalition. The one thing I do not know is if unmanned stand as a 3rd shift in the nature of war yet. Their impact on the battlefield is pretty much undeniable by this point.

Back to your original question - the answer I believe is "no". There are many RT mods in The Few Good Men, and some of them are aggregations of some things - terrain, vehicles, and some are individual things. This is true for every title. But if you don't like the all in one you have, then you'll need to go find individual mods for the things you want improved and see how you like them. Swap things in and out of your Z folder. The all in one just means it's all in one package. It doesn't prevent you from manipulating every mod in it to find what you want. Go look at RT terrain mods, read the descriptions and there are usually screen shots, download and experiment. People have different tastes, so just because one person says, "yeah, this mod here is the bestest ever", doesn't mean you'll even like hit. Incidentally, BN probably has the most mods, because it's the oldest. The stock game looks much better as time goes on to the newer released titles. RT is kind of in the middle there. Dave

My point is you cannot do that. How do you define the kill box - remember it needs to work when GPS is denied by EW systems. Yes, artillery are using maps and can make mistakes. I realize that. Like I said though statements like "my friend died in an artillery strike" and "my friend died after being hunted by AI drone" land very differently. We can argue that it shouldn't but no one else cares

The way I see it is that if you bombard and area with artillery then everything in an ellipse of hundreds of meters is at risk of dying. I don't see much difference in designating a killbox for drones and letting them go for it. In fact a killbox is better since it can be defined more precisely and the stroke can be closer to your own troops.

I look at the module from the opposite end as a content guy and I had great fun making scenarios for the module. Downfall isn't France, it isn't Italy, it isn't Russia, its not the bulge. Its its own thing with its own peculiarities to play with/work around. I was sorry my 'paying job' kept me from making more scenarios to include. About DF Exploitation playing Germans. Either your bunker wipe's 'em all out or it get's KO's by the first hit and you're in a pickle.

Also there is nothing special about meeting engagements having touch objectives. Any type of objective can be used in any type of battle.

There are various types of VP locations - some can be seen by both players, others only one. Touch objectives are your side only so there is no such thing as "both of you touching it". Now having said that you can also make a player side only touch objective for both players and place them in the exact same location so you can get the same effect as both touching it but really it is two separate objectives. I was recently playing a battle that had a bunch of touch objectives and those closest to me where worth 50 points, some further away were worth 100 and others deep on the map near where the enemy started where worth 150 points. My opponent had a similar set with the exact opposite points spread. The ones worth 50 for me had one worth 150 placed in the same location for them. In all cases there were two touch objectives in the same location - one for me and one for my opponent.

Roasty Toasty

This where I see an issue with autonomous drone usage - namely friendly fire and civilian casualties. I'm not sure how big the issue will be, that will be based on how these automatic targeting systems work. Friendly fire or killing of civilians could be a serious problem with autonomous drones if this isn't handled well / correctly. The comparison to the Navy CWIS autonomous systems doesn't really work because there is a clear exclusion zone around fleets and warships to the point that if some civilian wondered inside that area they would get no sympathy when they get whacked. So, those systems can be weapons free and autonomous for certain ranges without risking civilian or friendly casualties. In other words humans have managed the space those autonomous systems work in so that they can target anything that comes with in them "safely". Autonomous drones hunting enemy soldiers, tanks and other vehicles do not have that kind of space. They have to operate in a much messier and chaotic environment. Lots can be done, make the targeting smarter, geo-fencing, range cut offs etc. but the issue is none of that is as clear cut as "get within 100m of a destroyer you die". All of those problems have solutions of varying degrees of effectiveness some of which can now be attacked (geo-fencing really should not be relied on for this) or have short comings that have unknown or known failure points (targeting only enemy AFVs is not actually easy and since these systems are actually trying to kill people that problem is more important to deal with). I'm not saying there will not be autonomous drones or that we should try to ban them. I don't think we can do that. I am saying that these systems are going to have problems that human controlled systems don't. Or perhaps a better way of saying it would be they are going to have different failure issues and those failures are going to hit the public's ear differently and that needs to be managed. Or not I suppose

It doesnt sound like much but youre looking at a full truck worth of wire for a platoon position and depending on how its delivered quite some time to set up. In an environment where trenches are quite often not even reinforced it seems to me to simply be too far down the priority list. Also my rl experience is were usually putting wire obstacles to channel the enemy to particular places by blocking paths in areas where there is not much freedom of movement like paths through a forest.

Yup. I even bet the section on latrine building will need revision. Steve

The manual says VP locations in meeting engagements can just be touched and not held to receive the VP. However, if your opponent also touches one you already touched, do they also get the VPs for that location as well.

It possible the the Round wasn't over, even though every battle had been completed.

Thanks guys, every informative.

I think it is very safe to say that NATO (and pretty much all western) doctrine is going to need major re-writes after this war.

Yup. As I said a couple of posts ago, if Ukraine wanted wire they would get wire. Heck, even Scholz would have sent at to Ukraine in the beginning of the war, along with the helmets and MREs. So it's definitely a situation where Ukraine doesn't view it as having much value. Which is puzzling since NATO doctrine emphasizes the use of it. Steve

If one cannot hide a fortified position then wire is probably not doing much for defenders in the first place. Enemy can hammer the position until wire is gone because he can see it from space. We have seen dug in defence in this war and it got severely pounded. Dispersion and mobile defence may be a better way to go. The other reason may be that most infantry killing is happening at distance. We have seen some trench clearing but a lot of the engagements are happening well out with infantry running away. I am sure dismounted infiltration is still happening but if they can see all the wire, all that effort won't do much. Wire can be tossed out but building an effective obstacle with it is labor intensive and takes a lot of time. My guess is that most troops are either not trained to do it, or have decided it is a waste of time.

Q: how do you know when you're an extremist without the ability to think clearly? A: when you brand an extremist on your team as working for the other side. Let's hope that things improve this week. I am sure Johnson will try everything in his power to sabotage the process in any way he can think of, but it is at least finally moving towards moving towards motion. Steve

Yes, you found the command. The way it is modeled is the smoke discharge goes off at a set distance. That distance can vary per vehicle but I am not sure it does much (one example is BMPs throw their smoke lots further than 20m). Do you have sources that show the smoke mortar discharge distances and if / how they were controlled for a Sherman?

That is a lot of squeeze for probably not much actual juice. ISR means fake positions are easier to spot as well. Punji sticks and all that crap looks good in the movies but really does little in reality. Wire is heavy, takes time to lay out (all out in front of enemy ISR) and can be blown through pretty quickly...likely from the air now. Based on how easy it is to make, I can only guess that it has had limited utility for both sides in this war and why they are not using it a lot.

Check out @Bil Hardenberger's blog: This older thread has some good discussion too: Here is a play list the includes the afore metioned Armchair General videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ6dDlqye9Q&list=PLmW_vcwM_qxukdDjpfUEerpICUzTrTKek&index=1