Skwabie

Right, apparently AF was facing budget cuts. There're reports of programs being cancelled across the board on the net. In 2013 active squadrons were even stood down and grounded (including F-22 squads) due to lack of funds to fulfill flight hours. This is just sad. Reminds me of Russia in the 90s just after the cold war. So they tried to save some $$ and wanted to retire the hog fleet, it was already slowly being phased out when each jet reaches their life cycles. Latest news is with the planned retirement not coming thru the a-10 fleet is tying up maintenance personnel preventing the F-35 reaching IOC. So yeah, US internal politics and stuff. I guess they should've talked it over with the Army and related powers before they planned out the retirement.

Thanks JoMc, gonna try it. Actually I bought CMMG but uninstalled due to tank blindness. Although MG has some really interesting stuff indeed like the sdkfz 251/17 and 21. Might be time to patch it back.

Enjoyed the stream Chris, thanks a lot!

Actually I think F-35 "le Frog" is a good jet. UFO-ish sensors and Windows vs DOS like avionics compared to other aircrafts. Flight performance is the biggest concern but it's going to be a capable AG platform for sure. (some vids of DAS ) On the other hand why do you want the -35 to replace the A-10. The F-16, F-18C/D and AV-8B apparently is outdated by it completely. It even outclasses the F-15 a bit in BVR due to stealth and sensor suite. A-10 actually is one of the jets that has the least overlapping capability with the F-35 far as I see, along with the F-18E/F and F-15E bomb trucks.

Nope, they're my god honest opinion. If it is considered an intention to "flame" I apologize. However it seems like we're trending towards that path so I'm pulling a halt..

There's a bit of discussion in the Beta AAR thread so thought I'd start one here. Throughout history the USAF always have some type of slow-moving, rigid, low altitude aircraft with good loadout capability for CAS support. The A-10's predecessor A-1 Skyraider enjoyed a good career in Korea and Vietnam. The "Thunder" series, F-105 Thunderchief, F-84 Thunderjet, P-47 Thunderbolt were the AF's work horses for supporting troops on the ground. But the question is, is there still a need for this type of aircraft in the future. From the technical side, I think the A-10 is still a very capable CAS platform. It is a slow mover. Despite the amount of advances in sensor technology, there still is no substitute for putting the good ol' Mark I eyeballs on the ground because you're not restricted by a sensor's field of view. It has good endurance. It can loiter over the battlefield for a prolonged time, providing support whenever needed. It has good loadout capability. A myriad series of missiles, bombs and rockets can be simultaneously carried, plus 1000+ rounds of 30mm ammo. It can make multiple passes before going winchester and need to RTB. It is tough. It's designed with the concept that getting shot by small arms fire while mud-moving is inevitable. Various measures are taken to ensure it can survive after sustaining extended hits. It is easy to operate and maintain. Doesn't need constant TLC for fancy avionics and stealth coating. Minimum amount of composite material on the airframe but aluminum. Can takeoff from front-line airbases due to slow speed and resistence to FOD. It incorporates latest array of weapons to enhance survivability. Precision guided munitions can be dropped from altitude and range to avoid getting shot at by SPAAs and Shorads or anyone armed with an AK-47. On the other side of the coin, there're more and more emerging signs that the A-10 is becoming obsolete. Its survivability is the biggest problem. On the modern battlefield, being slow is dangerous. IIRC even the F-18 hornet, due to its inherent design to fly relative slow, was criticized for it in high threat environments in the 1st gulf war. The A-10 is prey for enemy fighters. It is highly susceptible to single digit SAMs, which has widely spread to every 3rd world countries worth mentioning. It is less likely to evade Manpads and AAA when it is being shot at because it's slow. Armor will not matter in these situations. Secondly with the advances in avionics, stand-off PGM technology and network centric warfare there's less and less need for close support that the A-10 excels. A 250lb small diameter bomb (SDB) can be launched from 10nm+ away and score a hit on exactly where the troops want it, without radio voice comms at all if required. The SDB can be carried in large quantities even by loadout limited fighters like the F-16/F-35. The DAS on the F-35 provides 360 degree enhanced vision and SA for the pilot, possibly completed outdating the MK I eyeballs and predicts a way for the future. It is no question that if the A-10 is still viable, will at most operate as a second-tier front line aircraft. But, are such units still needed for future operations in the grand scheme of things?...

Abstraction... Say an infantry squad has 36 grenades. How many AT grenades can it chuck out... 36. Abstraction or not this seems to be the end result?.... Far as I recall, the "tuning down" of tanks vs. infantry happened in CM Market Garden(v2.10), after a lengthy thread of users complaining difficulty of inf assaulting tanks. The changes include: reduced tank spotting ability with their vision blocks and periscopes; extra aiming time for tanks shooting past gun depression angle; extra aiming time for tanks shooting very close targets. http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=111569 As for AT grenades, IIRC the ww2 titles have had it since forever. Couple these 2 together you see why infantry is so effective. Now for modern, extra aiming time past gun elevation restriction: valid; extra aiming time against close targets: valid; Abstracted AT grenades for infantry: valid. That is by BF's own logic. For reduced spotting with vision blocks and periscopes: sure you'd say invalid, but a vision block is a vision block, not much different on the Abrams as on a Tiger? The Abrams have many more gadgets, CITV for the commander, day/night sight for the gunner, rear view camera for the driver, ir option of the cameras for night sighting, plus network like FB2 for sharing target info.... BUT:eek:a vision block is still a vision block, used for 360deg scanning of close by targets, with its spotting capability reduced in CMMG...? Now let's break the BS. For those of you who like your infantry, I think you're in for a treat gladly forking out the $$. I'd say that goes for most of the customers. For us few tank people, mehh....

Spring festival 2015. 1. BFC needs time returning to modern. 2. By then i'm free.

I've got reports on Avast deleting files from other game communities as well. The verdict was to ditch Avast! It used to be good but now has become bloatware.

I thought random failure is already modeled in CMSF, for example some 5 to 10% of my Javelin shots are misses, either going off course or falling short, the OpFor ATGMs sure miss more than a few as well. Or... was it an "unintended feature"?...

I do think it's weird that every infantry grenade has AT capability in the ww2 titles... pretty sure in CMSF there's only ATGM and AT-rockets, when those are spent infantry is defenseless. When on the receiving end of those situations I do wish for a squad of CM ww2 super-soldiers.

Same here. The setting is awesome and the campaigns are superb. I just finished "Point blank" in TF thunder and it is surprisingly challenging. The mission is on a "failure branch" and so didn't play it before. It is MOUT and I lack infantry. Ended up with a destroyed bradley and an immobile Abrams. But a deep flanking maneuver to the enemy's rear decimated its armor force and got a victory by surrender. Very satisfying. With an engine upgrade it will be even better.

Awesome. This is more like it! Spot, shoot, kill. No draggy no laundry. I'm really liking this modern setting. Please sir do tell us about your plans against that pesky Tunguska. umm... the Hog's gun sure is a crowd pleaser, but it's primary weapon has always been the AGM-65 Maverick, and nowadays coupled with WCMDs, LGBs and JDAMs. They can provide a bit stand-off range/altitude clear of the lethal Shorads. (Yes you prolly know that so consider this a smartass plug)

Oh, I do have plenty to choose from the big list in my post above. Atm I'm actually making a campaign mod for Steam & Iron. They just have nothing to do with CM and most of their makers will be absent for support for the less computer savvy users. While I sure want a land combat game with both an op layer and tactical combat, nothing is perfect and there's always something to be desired, isn't such the human norm;) I'm sorry if my posts got you down.

Yep a good AI is the block I reckon for land combat games. I got GTOS, Steal armor: blaze of war, and Theater of war 3. None of them belong to the top tier game level imho... For naval combat I got Jutland by SES and Steam & Iron by NWS, the latter is actually very good, but only 2D graphics. For air combat there's a lot. F-22 TAW, Mig Alley, BOB II, CFS, Strike fighters 2, DCG for IL2, EECH and ofc Falcon 4.0, all solid stuff, but the first 2 are totally outdated. And all the above have about neared or expired their commercial shelf life. For games coming out nowadays... I got nothing. Edit: NWS is doing a successor based on Steam & Iron's combat engine, it'll have a strategical layer plus the op and tactical layer of S&I, so.. it's not all dark:o http://nws-online.proboards.com/thread/260/rule-waves-information

Coz here it's all history grogs and small arms fetishists... Go read this thread http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=90432 or head over to the Stealbeasts forum for some tank love.

It does happen, still remember the CMSF Dutch campaign mission "Heartland". Dense urban map, a mass of T-72s appeared against my mech inf. The inf was in the buildings, they shot their AT rockets, knocked out 2 tanks. The follow on tanks spotted them, rotated to face them frontally, AT rockets all failed to penetrate. Then the inf was outta rockets, and cut to shreds by T-72s. I had to replay the mission. Knowing where the T-72s will spawn I placed my inf accordingly — In fairness twas just a gamey approach to get through the mission. In the campaigns that come with CMSF modules, especially NATO, the OpFor is often quite competent actually, unlike TF Thunder...

Broadsword.... your setup requires multiplayer there. We're talking SP only. MP is more about the human element, war thunder and WoT is crap even, but they're very popular. An op layer is of secondary importance there. But it's very imortant for the ultimate SP experience.

I mirror your sentiments like 100%, completely. More like 120% even, for I think GTOS etc. does a poor representation of a dynamic operational layer... However I doubt it is due to any negative effect on game play, but rather money. I refer you to the "Combat Mission Campaigns" sub-forum and the now defunct product that was in the works by BF a few years ago. Apparently in PC gaming history every product that tagged with "dynamic campaign" has faced commercial turmoil, it is as if a business model like that simply doesn't exist. And so it seems games nowadays rarely feature this aspect except ones with no graphics. The ones that come with are all born before the IT bubble burst in the early 2000s. Or put more blatantly, imagine CM with a grand operational layer, but price ranges between $500-$1000 (which is a reasonable figure some game devs recently estimated with dynamic camps, if still quite conservative). How many will be willing to pay that much for a single computer game? The most hardcore armor sim Steal Beasts Pro comes with a low-ish 3 digit price tag, and already raises many eyebrows. Simply put we haven't reached a quality of life where this kind of entertainment is acceptable yet. But... will the golden age of computer games come again? I hope so someday...

Technically not true. Battle of Becca valley.

Except... German BCs are designed to fight in the line and... that is not even the reason they blew up but... cordite handling? i.e. of course the Vee shouldn't stop an RPG but it shouldn't go up in a mushroom cloud after a hit either not 3 of them in a row.

ooops! somehow i can't edit that post anymore, perhaps it's been too long?...

Yep play it daily, now working on a army version of the marine campaign. (ww2 for me is mental torture nowadays. "oh there is an AT gun." 5 mins later... "there is still that AT gun." someday bloody kill that thing ffs!!:mad:)

IMO: It's a system. Each unit has its place on the battlefield, from a single rifleman to a satellite orbiting earth, all important in their own way, hence the terms "combined arms" and "net centric". The question then becomes.. will the tank gradually be phased out like the battleship, i.e. completed deleted from the system. I think the answer is no, because due to short contact ranges, limited mobility etc. land warfare is very different from the naval one and protected/mobile/direct firepower is still very much needed. In the cold war days the simple game theory is that... 1. the tank is still the best weapon at taking out the tank. 2. in a fire fight, the side with tanks will have the edge. Therefore, there isn't a question to begin with there. The question they're asking nowadays is more about money it seems... in the counter insurgency war, is it worth the $$ to maintain such a costly beast, where say the Stryker MGS can almost do the same job? However I think the ppl asking these questions are 1. a little short sighted. In the opening stages of these counter insurgency wars, armor vs armor warfare are still present. Just because the past few years is more about policing a region than a conventional war, doesn't mean similar clashes won't happen again. 2. a little ignorant about land warfare. I'm not the expert here, but the tank still offers the best level of protection against the myriad of weapons on the modern battlefield. Sure an APC and a tank is both vulnerable to an AT-14, but on a systematic scale you can't expect every infantryman out there carries one, an RPG or recoiless gun is still much more common. 3. War against conventional military powers is still an issue, China/North Korea etc. It will again be a no-brainer question when that happens. I mean.. a good example from the Beta AAR. Tunguska showers T-90, crippled tank but still a mobile gun, crews alive. Tunguska showers BMP-3, blown up vehicle, many lives lost. So when the **** hits the fan... P.S. Just wanna add a bit, don't flame me, but it seems the US land warfare doctrine, and the mindset within the masses per se... is more about the infantry, guy with his rifle, rather than about the AFVs. That even reflects to these foras, which seems to me is very "infantry-centric". I mean i don't see the chinese or russians questioning "do we still need the tank". The russians even account for the majority of armor warfare games produced nowadays.

Because.... "I wish I had a gun just like the A-10":D