Ch53dVet

Nope, no mine fields or engineer teams either, in the Original SF1. It's probably the reason why the original SF1 campaign is called "TF Thunder" and SF2 is called "Task Force Thunder", imho, they should have given SF2s version 30 minutes to 60 minutes extra for the added frustration your engineer team gets in trying to find the AT mines and mark them, less alone, for it to be the main reason as to why your armor can't proceed in it's time sensitive and surprised border crossing.

After I spent most of the cover of darkness crawling around and pausing 30 seconds or more at each waypoint in the suspected minefield and finding not one at mine I finally split up my engineer team and, ridiculously, exposed them to the forward enemy positions as they walked in opposing crisscrossing patterns ("Star of David" like) before they found 1 of the many in that location, even after all that time finding and marking them some of the drivers still ran over them until I micro-marked each slow way point through the area to get them safely across. ***Spoiler Alert*** Basically, once they accessed the highway I had them straddle the divided passing markers for a safe exit

I miss the removal of the auto 180 degree cover arc command, it made placing 180 degree cover arcs for your troops to face, hassle free, and quick. I wish it could be brought back into the command menu.

The problem is I'm not stacking the UK, platoon level, HQ's with move/deploy/hide waypoint commands. I'm giving them move to and hide commands, they move to the endpoint and never hide, because, deploy weapon has been hard coded to be the last command executed upon reaching all movement type waypoints.

Crew served weapons that need to be deployed by an action command seem to have a mind of their own after reaching their final endpoint, especially, when given the instructions to "Deploy Weapon", then "Hide". They always deploy the weapon, but, almost, never go into hiding. The worst, of the whole bunch, is the "U.K." platoon, level, headquarters units, they carry a 51mm mortar that, automatically, deploys at the end of a movement command. Issuing them a simple move to and hide command ends with them moving to, but, never hiding. It sucks, when you move your whole platoon, quietly, into a position that flanks your objective, only to turn around and watch your platoon commanders stand up and expose themselves to the enemy, before you.

No saves atm, the scenario where the 2 man HQ team was severely spaghettified and unable to rejoin itself was the single scenario called "USMC: Streets of Hamas." Anybody who gives this a try will see the limitations of waypoint placing after the setup phase. My starting game I placed 1 tank on the highest point, left side of setup area, where I could, barely, see and target the rooftops of hidden buildings behind the dual 15' concrete walls, that run the length of the "Wadi" (MAP) only passible by the concrete bridge, choke point, leading into the town. By accident the tank blew a hole in the wall leading into the "Wadi", it might as well have been a hole leading into a black hole, any squads I sent in there had trouble moving across the "Wadi" and everyone of them turned into "Stretch Armstrong" figurines, that's where the HQ unit (1st Platoon HQ) suffered the most as far as distance between each other. I'll try it again and see what I can do as far as showing what I'm experiencing.

I don't know if this is one of the problems already considered for the next engine patch, or not, but; I have been experiencing a lot of "fire-team's" within single squad's becoming, severely, spaghettified after traveling long distances, and/or, experiencing the different levels of fatigue, and/or, passing through hex's with different movement costs. Once, they've reached their destination they can be many hexes apart w/o making an effort to link up with the rest of the squad. I once had a 2 man HQ unit travel through a "Wadi" where 1 of them stayed in the "Wadi" (of course it was the senior leader) the other went to the objective waypoint, once, he got there he couldn't call in fire support because, (I'm assuming here) the leader, in the "Wadi", had the binoculars, the radio, and no direct line of sight to the target.

Lately, though, from my own personal experiences, this mechanic seems to be a little out of whack (Game engine 4 tweaks?). My troops, regardless, if it's trauma from close combat or crew members surviving their vehicle's destruction, that become "Broken" will run, ridiculously, all over the map and will remain in their "Broken" state for longer periods of time than what I seem to recall in earlier game versions. It would be nice if those troops could be brought under control (subdued, surrendered, killed) after contacting a bordering hex that is occupied by allied or enemy troops, also, when coming in contact with allied troops in a bordering hex, that is linked to a HQ unit, they'd become glued (subdued) in their hex, until, they come out of their broken or panicked state.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining or crying over split milk,, hell, I bought and installed it on the first day of release, not being a layman it didn't take me long to figure out that the upgrade wasn't a rewrite of SF1, which was my initial assumption in the first place. (1000 atta boys and one oh crap wipes the slate clean) I was merely pointing out that a layman might have a problem trying to figure it out, that's all.

It might be for those who purchased the upgrade version. INSTALLATION LOCATION Combat Mission: Shock Force 2 installs its main game files into a location on your hard drive(s) of your choice. Default is the "Program Files" directory. The files written into this location are typically not user-editable. User data, such as preferences, hotkeys, save games and PBEM files, custom scenarios, and mods, are located inside your My Documents folder, under "{userdocs}\Battlefront\Combat Mission\Shock Force 2\". You can influence the location by editing your Windows settings for where the My Documents folder is located. The Installation instructions show how to install a brand new game. There is nothing in the instructions explaining the procedure for the upgraded version of SF2, unaware of this, most users, like myself, would've thought the upgrade installation wanted to be pointed at the SF1 directory just like we've done with previous patches and game engine upgrades. So..., after pointing the upgrade to the SF1 directory, what I received in return was a brand new SF2 game & directory as a sub-folder inside the SF1 directory. Unfortunately, I discovered the error, after, I had painstakingly, looked up all my old activation codes and re-activating every module twice. ( 1 for each SF1 module to prove ownership, 1 for each copied SF1 module for installation into SF2) I decided to leave it where it was, having to reactivate that lot all over again sealed its fate for re-installation. It would have been nice, though, if the upgraded versions download came with the proper instructions to install it correctly.

First off: I was responding, in kind, to a "rib tickle" reply from "Combatintman" regarding the end results of a sandbox test, I had posted earlier. I was startled to find that all troops of various nations can pilfer ammo (by osmosis when they are low on ammo) when next to any nations vehicles, outside of their own nationality, as long as that vehicle contains a surplus ammo supply that is not used by that vehicles weapon system, regardless, of vehicle type. However, when placing troops of a different (allied) nation next to one another they didn't share 1 round when the adjacent squad ran out, especially, when the two squad's were from the same country yet in different Armed Forces. My last sentence to "Combatintman" was a comedic attempt at signing off by modifying a WWII phrases subject matter of atheists and foxholes by adding "rivalry's" into a paraphrase. It's rather disingenuous when you try to make my last sentence, a humorous attempt at signing off, as a bigoted form of religious contention and therefor the primary subject matter of all my posts here. In after thought, I should have written; " I've often heard the WWII phrase about sharing a foxhole with an atheist in the midst of a raging a battle, if that be the truth, or not, then, either way, I'm sure you could safely add service rivalry's into the mix."

Yeah, but, rivalry's between the armed forces, usually, entail competition, chest thumping, mascot stealing, mischievous pranks and the, occasional, pugilistic, bar-room, clashes that, mostly, occur during peacetime or in places far away from any conflict area. In a fire-fight, atheist's and rivalries in foxholes, don't exist.

I used 1 rifle squad per nation and purchased a single LAV III TUA, I placed each squad along side of it and when they ran out of ammo they all used the surplus ammo stored inside the TUA, the crews ammo wasn't touched 5.56mm or 9.mm, also the surplus ammo in the TUA could not be used by the TUA as it's not equipped with 5.56mm machineguns or has 40mm grenade launchers. The only problems with exiting the crew to see if you can place your troops inside and grab the ammo is: 1) certain vehicles with a crew only capacity, like the TUA, don't offer the crew the "Acquire" button before they bail out. 2) you'd need a team to be 4 or less to enter the crew compartment, the TUA has a crew of 4 which is good because the minimum split for a normal squad is 4, less than 4 if you have an odd numbered squad, but, then again, the TUA crew can't use the Acquire button so I'd doubt if your team could Acquire the ammo if they could access the crew compartment. The funny thing I learned while doing these test's was that allied troops of a different nation, laying, side by side, each other, will not share ammo with them, especially, the U.S. Marines and the U.S. Army. How ridiculous is that?

I went back and loaded in some vehicles from all the NATO forces, then using a single Canadian Infantry squad, with all their ammo expended, I placed them next to the vehicles and issued them a target area command and they took ammo from every Nation's vehicle's w/o a hiccup, also, I was wrong, earlier, when I wrote troops w/o ammo will only take it from a vehicle when actively engaging the enemy, when next to an ammo source they will, eventually, take the minimum amount of ammo they are programmed to take, approx. 40 rounds (5.56mm) per man in squad and 1 40 mm grenade per grenade launcher in the squad. Next, I went one step further and setup a sandbox environment with 1 rifle squad from every NATO country the game uses. I was shocked to find out that rifle squads of a different country will not share ammo with each other. Now, here's a real kick in the buttocks, The U.S. Marines will not share ammo with the U.S. Army, and, the U.S. Army will not share ammo with the U.S. Marines, you'd think that two fighting forces of the same country would share ammo in a fire-fight. If we can re-supply ammo from other NATO vehicles then we should be able to share it with our NATO buddies and, vise a versa. I'm hoping this will be changed in the future.

I went in to the sandbox and set up a small test with the LAV III troop transport & the LAV III TUA anti-tank platform in both Sf1 and SF2, RE: ammo sharing with ground troops next to non-troop carrying vehicles that contain surplus ammo in its inventory that it doesn't have a need for like the LAV III TUA. 1) The LAV III & LAV III TUA is the same vehicle model in both SF1 & SF2 the TUA is a non-troop carrying variant of the LAV III, the only difference between the two models is the TUA's upper roof and gun platform is welded on top of a LAV III troop carrying chassis, the interior shows a rear area with seats for carrying troops and their surplus ammo. 2) In SF1 exterior troops next to the TUA can't utilize the surplus ammo, when they're out of ammo that's it, they're out. The surplus ammo is, totally, un-obtainable and useless to any, exterior, adjacent, troops, even, the crewmen can't load up with the ammo should they wish to load up and bail out of the vehicle and try to buddy share it with the ground troops. 3) In SF2 exterior troops next to the TUA can in fact replenish their ammo from it. However..., they won't resupply themselves unless the following requirements are met (1) they must be in a hex, next to, or, adjacent to, the vehicle. (2) They must be in an active fire-fight. (3) They must use up, "ALMOST", all the ammo they have on them, 40mm grenades 0, Rifle ammo must be down to 199 rounds 4) When all the requirements are met the troops will resupply themselves with 200 rifle rounds and 2 40mm grenades when they use that up they grab another 200 rds. & 2 grenades 5) When the fire-fight is over they will no longer resupply themselves with ammo and are stuck with what little ammo they have left. It would be great if we could use the "Acquire Ammo" button when outside of non-accessible vehicles containing surplus ammo.

In SF1 and SF2 the NATO Module Pdf files lists the LAV III as such: "The LAV III is the latest version in the LAV vehicle series and forms the transport basis of Canadian Mech Infantry units. Developed in Canada, its main armament is a M242 25mm chain gun with TIS. The secondary armament is a C6 7.62mm machine gun. The LAV III carries a dedicated crew of 2 and up to 8 dismounts. Also included in the module is the LAV III TUA (Tow-Under-Armor) with turret-mounted TOW missile launchers for anti-tank purposes." (It doesn't specify any changes to crew and/or whether the SF1 version of the TUA carries troops. I'll try to check back later after I fire up my older version of SF1 and take a look at sandbox models of the LAV family) However, in the SF1 manual there isn't a picture and specifications screen of a LAV III TUA, as there is in the SF2 manual. I wonder, if they just lumped it in with the LAV III specification screen which carries troops and extra ammo. I'll bet when they introduced the TUA model in the game they edited in the new weapon system and it's specific ammo, taking out the original main gun and ammo, leaving in, by design, or, forgetting to remove, the original ammo supply from the troop carrying variant, unless, troops in proximity to the vehicle can replenish their ammo like they can when next to supply vehicles or buddies that are carrying but can't use the special ammo.

You could probably add the dedicated MG teams to the list, too. In every CM theater, I own, (which is, sadly to admit, all of them) they've always sucked at creating mass casualties and kill records at the end of a battle or a completed campaign. You waste a lot of time and effort lugging these heavy, crew served, weapons to a battle in progress, disembark, move to, deploy weapon, un-deploy, move to new position of main advance, deploy weapon, etc...etc... even when you've got them setup, perfectly, triangulated, overlooking a "Murder-Hole" chokepoint; they'd be the lucky one's if they had a chance to break open a box of chalk and place a 1 inside the chalk board kill column. But, hey, that's just me. I've learned to live with it, a 1 in the kill column is better than a pre-certified un-used chalk board.

Then why the heck can't they locate the (3)155mm shells that are wired together (IED) under their feet? Yes, I know, the trigger man must be KIA if they're standing on them and nothing went boom, but, then again, maybe, the TM is waiting for a higher point target to cross the bridge than wasting it on 4 men. In my last battle I lost a valuable battle tank as it was starting to cross a two-lane bridge. Assuming it had struck an anti-tank mine, I sent in 2 squads of engineers to criss-cross the entire bridge and a good stretch of the highway in front of it for land mines, not finding any mines and wasting 10-15 minutes of game time they gave the "All Clear" and I continued onward, without any further interruptions. While reviewing the after-action reports of my commanders (checking out the end-game map), I was startled to find out those two squads of engineer's had trampled up and down and back and forth over two, separately and evenly spaced, piles of 155mm rounds, their fuses were jury-rigged and wired to cell phones, apparently, none of my engineer's had been trained to recognize the inherent danger under their feet as they gave out the "All Clear" message. Now, don't get me wrong, I understand the engineer's role, in game, is to locate and mark out the minefields perimeter. However, these large IED's, that are, either, on-top of, or, below, ground level, are nothing more than, bastardized, land mines, regardless, if it's a manual or pressure released trigger. So, I don't see why your engineer's can't locate and red flag\ yellow flag a partially\fully exposed IED in their proximity. It would also be nice if we could detonate them by heavy weapons fire, or give your engineer's the ability to go one step further and try a dice roll ability to disarm (green flag) the IED's, too. ( "Do I snip the red wire or the blue wire"? ) ("Disarmed or Ka-Boom")

In this game (SF2) if an enemy unit surrenders, in your proximity, and doesn't get removed (white surrender flags icons) within the next turn or two then there is another enemy squad nearby hidden from view. The enemy won't surrender, completely, until you remove their comrades from witnessing their shameless deed. I've experienced 1 occasion where my squad heavily suppressed a 3 man squad into throwing up their hands in surrender, the error on my part was thinking they were a 3 man squad because two extra members of their squad were hidden from view behind the stone wall (makes me wonder if those two were really surrendering as nobody knew they were there), as my squad approached the area, all of the enemy squad came into view, (5 men), immediately the surrendered dropped their hands those 5 men killed 2 of my squad before they could react and eliminate the enemy squad. (after the attack I checked the enemy's dead and they were, indeed, all from the same squad) This kind of sucks, the A.I. has been given an advantage over the human player, its allowed to play dirty by allowing its troops to raise their hands in surrender w/o ever being cleared from the game automatically. The A.I. suckers you to close in on the surrendered unit, by making you assume that your proximity to them is the key for them to be automatically removed from the game, therefore, you must not be close enough yet, so you push on. It's a deadly assumption that can get you massacred very quickly. During your approach, the surrendered can, without warning, drop their hands and open fire on you before you know your squad has been decimated. Your squad doesn't consider the surrendered as a viable target anymore, because, the surrendered can't be targeted or shot. That being said, your squad approaches the surrendered without a care in the world, they have no need to be cautious or suspicious, because, they haven't been coded to be "Situation-ally Aware" to lookout for the possibility of an enemy deception. So..., while taking their "eyes off the prize" they start scanning the battlefield for active target's to engage during their travel time, as they near the leg of their journey the computer A.I. throws down the "Fire the First Shot at the Close and Unsuspecting" card on the Battlefield Map game table. Later on, In the barracks, I have to change the "This many __ casualty free days" chart to a "Zero". In the real world, you command the surrendered to drop their weapons, to come out into the open with their hands up, no one, in their right mind, would ever break cover and expose themselves to a direct line of fire from an unseen enemy or enemy's waving a "White Flag of Surrender" flag.

Cool, I fell in love with the F4 Phantom when I first saw it, all those news reels for the VN war. I put together models of all it's variants. As you can see by my Avatar, "Sikorsky's" "Ch-53A/D" "Sea Stallion" aka "The Jolly Green Giant" was my primary workstation, I even operated on Boeing Vertols "Ch-46A/E" "Sea Knight", alas, they are no more, only to have been replaced by the MV-22 Osprey. Yes, "Day at the beach" a few times. However, "Semper Fi: Syria", monkey wrenched, me from the beginning. Having played the SF1 campaign many, many, times. I soon found out that my old plan of reconnoitering the Lz's was fubar from the start. Patrolling, enemy troops have better night vision then their, former, SF1 counterparts, which is good, So..., currently I'm playing and enjoying the re-tweaked version SF1 Campaign. After awhile these "Static" games get boring when you replay them a few times, you already know where they are, what they are (AI) planning to do. I prefer "Dynamic" setups (which a few people have created in player made scenarios in the CM platform of games) where the enemy starting positions and tactics are different with every replay, especially, when trying to play an earlier saved game to prevent that ambush, you just walked into, moments ago, results in a, dynamically, changed strategy and re-placement of enemy troops, thus, preventing a "Pre-Cognitive" future and a temptation to change it. Oorah, Semper Fidelis and "Good night Chesty Puller, Wherever you are"

LOL..., you hit the, former, jar right on the, former, head. Everyone that completes basic training is a certified grunt (0311). Even the cooks have a "War Face". Plus, sharing a foxhole with a Cook in an emergency situation has 2 benefits (1) They know how to shoot (2) They can prepare a gourmet meal out of the field rations, you are both carrying.

It all depends on the location, if there isn't any place on the map I can, safely, hide my supply vehicles during the setup phase, then, I'll order every Tom, Dick and Harry, in the unit, to vacuum up as many light, anti-tank, rockets, 40 mm HE/HEDP rounds, 7.62mm (If I have embedded mg's in my squads), 56mm ammo, regardless of rank. Even, the poor s.o.b's who drew "Driver Detail", that day, all came out of boot camp with the MOS of a basic infantryman, get issued additional ammo and a fighting position to keep them from being added to the friendly casualty rate penalty. All this, extra, micro-logistical, supply-management, because, right out of the starting gate, all available eyes are scanning the horizon to engage any light skinned vehicles with an accompanying glowing icon, above it, or, a "Whack-A-Mole" head sticking out of it. Then, "KaBoom", there goes all your extra ammo.

Sorry, I should have started my response with "From my own personal experiences with SF1 and SF2 the Marines and all the other NATO forces didn't "Terminate with Extreme Prejudice" any non-com or un-con forces in the game. All the forces engaged had the red force icon tags, associated with them". All you have to do is save the game, declare a ceasefire and review the map to, clearly, see the opposition forces that were planted into your starting games setup area."

It would be a whole lot easier if we could actually "right click" the ammo back into the vehicles inventory, especially, when the mouse jumps at the last second and we errantly pick 2000 rounds of 7.62mm AP ammo that we can't use.

They have to be in close proximity,( adjacent or side hex) for proper id, if they are unarmed they could be a HQ unit with a radio to give away your position for artillery strikes or classified as a spy sitting on an IED waiting for you to get near it before he detonates it. But for now as MOS:96B2P states they (enemy posing as civ's) are the only civ units in the game.