SlowLarry

Recently i found out this one: You plot a movement order during setup phase. Normally you cant use waypoints inside the setup zone because the unit you are ordering around will teleport to the waypoint. What you can do to get around this is plot a movement outside the zone and then drag the waypoints back into the setupzone and there you go. Comes especially handy for vehicle movement.

Well, this is no longer SF, so completely taking out a force larger than your own is not that bad, even when taking 20% casualties in the process. 3 Abrams though is another story... ( i ragequited the mission once after loosing 2 M1s in a single turn cresting the right hill) I love the map, looks simply awesome. And it gives lots of possible hotspots for both sides. I also played this one a couple of times with varying results and when im back from the Ostfront im looking forward to finally get the campaignthing started for real. As others noted, the ai seems to be especially well designed in this one. I remember a fight going on for the center houses, where i was in excellent positions to ambush a russian infantryattack, when all of a sudden a platoon of tanks came seemingly out of nowhere( i thought the apaches had taken care of them) and totally changed the momentum of the game. The hunter became the hunted...a javelin team and their own at rockets saved the day though,

I think you misunderstood Rokko here: what he said was that he doubts that there is only one 76mm gun in the at-position. And it is in fact a scenario. A mg-platoon is the wrong tool to deal with an enemy at-gun position, even if its only one gun. Especially at that range. Best is stuff the guns cant fight themselves, like artillery, onboard mortars or tanks firing from stand off range. Area or indirect fire. Suppress the guns thoroughly, than move in with armor( area firing all the way untill they are almost right on top of them) and finish them off, then bring up infantry to deal with the surviving crews. Artillery is still very powerful in the game, it just does not outright annihilate things, like the modern does. Edit: btw there used to be a video about this particular scenario on you tube. Maybe take a look how he worked this position

Well, actually planes seem to get shot down, at least flying personal casuality is calculated( at least in BS i killed a couple of helis, they also show up in the battlestatistics as lost equipment). I ramped up the numbers of planes to 8 Il2s and 6 Pe2s. After the battle ended, the statistics said 10 killed and 5 wounded for the russian side. Yet they were not driven away but proceeded killing the whole battery.

What is everyones view on air attacks after playing around with the game? How to defeat them? Are they worth the money in a quickbattle? I had a battle recently where i had 4 pieces of aaa vs a couple of flights. The flak fired at the planes,seemingly without doing much damage at all as the aircrafts roamed above the battlefield continuously strafing and throwing bombs. So i set up a little test battle: a medium flak battery and a bunch of trucks vs 6 Il2, with various loadouts, all regulars. A medium battery consists of 12 guns of varying calibre: 2 platoons of 37mm, one of 20mm and one of quad 20mm. All positioned around a little wood, in open field. The trucks were deeply hidden in woods, some 500m away from the guns. So the battle starts and after some 2 min the first sounds are heard, the boys feverishly start trimming their guns towards the sky and finally start firing. Quite impressive view, i might add. The sound was deafening, really awesome! After about 6 respectively 7mins though the trucks were gone, shredded to pieces, one after the other. Then the planes started attacking the flakguns, directly, picking up one after the other. So i looked closer, and found the guns were empty, except 2. So in some 6 min of combat they had fired their entire loadout, leaving themselves defenseless. At the same time the Il 2 s had attacked continuously, strafing and bombing the trucks first, then the guns. After 10 mins, the battle ended with time expired. Some things to note: i do not dispute the possibility of planes, Il2s especially, to trash a truck column. Thats what they were designed for, as far as i know. Having done this myself when playing Il2 back then...Finding them in the woods though was a not trivial task, which they mastered. What about the ammo loadout of flak guns? Realistic? Too low? Also, of course, this is a single test, i ran it twice but obviously, not much statistical value in it. Would they even attack at all in such circumstances? Flying into a whole flak battery? There was a massive amount of lead in the air, pretty much everyone had a good view on the attack sector. In the end, the red side had a single man killed, in both runs. Yet i found the behaviour of the flyboys quite brave. Maybe a bit too much? So, what are peoples opinion on aircrafts? Allright, for another test i reduced the Il2 down to 3, still the aaa runs out of ammo before the game ends. They were not as successfull, leaving 2 trucks, but the game time was 10 mins. So if the game would have continued, they could have easily bagged the rest. No pilot was harmed during this little test...

FYI: there is a firefox-addon called proxytube. With this enabled you can get rid of the crappy GEMA thing!

Now my 2cents, whatever its worth. Ive been playing CMx2 games since CMSF was released and it is my feeling that ever since the difficulty level gets ramped up with every title. This goes for the scenarios and campaigns that come with the game. I play quickbattles rather seldom. This may have also something to do with the difference between modern vs 3rdrate, ww2 vs ww2 and modern vs modern. My impression is that since the introduction of triggers the ai plays or at least feels a lot more fluent and really interacting. Compare for example the first mission of the us campaign in BS to the turkey shoot in SF. Feels like a totally different game( i know, it is...). Now, with BS and RT i feel that every single mission is a very tough nut to crack, simply no more easy going. It also is more rewarding when you pull off a clever move and it works out. On the other hand, since SF i picked up the habbit of being pretty closely tied to my guys, on an emotional level. This often leaves me speechless watching the desaster i ordered...

Very much so! So basically you are saying, that the Ukr Forces have copied NATO structures and are trying to apply NATO doctrine, correct? I get your plug and play analogy, but was asking myself if this does not complicate matters? If a new unit enters the combat zone, it has to understand terrain and the use of it. IIRC swapping in new units was always complicated and the new ones would usually take unnecessary casualties learning the terrain. So it would be better coping with this than having a unit exposed to the enemy for a longer period? Also, the casualty figures were for a 16? day period. Quite a lot of unit movement in a very short time, id say. Returning now to the ongoing discussion: Reading further through the western( mostly german) media i found that the mainstream opinion is that Minsk II was done to save the best fighting units in the Ukr army from destruction in Debaltseve. This would fit with the russians pushing for a capture of the town before the cease fire is in effect. If they managed to withdraw orderly than it was a success! What is your take on that? Does the Ukraine have an army left? Casualty figures are noway excessive, but if on the other hand the army is still in a kind of transition it may very well be that a lot of the good units have been spent by now. There seem to be also rumors about mutineers, servicemen simply not following the call to arms etc( again, not my opinion, just what i found in the medias) Strategy-wise, with exchange ratios like those achieved in the fighting, it could be a sound strategy bleeding the separatists white by fighting first then giving ground, especially if you have a bit room and manpower to trade. Looking at the map there is not so much of strategic interest in the near vicinity. Just dont let your people find out, they wont understand... The rails are pretty wrecked what i heard, so it may really be a phyrric victory for the rebels. By the way, this also would probably be in the interest of Russia, weakened allies have no weight. So, whats next? Prorussian folks are feeling forward towards Mariupol, which is said to posses some strategic value as a porttown. Though if i had to decide, id go for Starobilsk. If its in my hand, pretty much all territory to the northeast of it is undefendable. And id start my attack with faking one that is as far away as possible and draw all the good units away. Now, for the Ukraine, rebuild and upgrade forces, try to manipulate world opinion against russia( not sooo hard...) and transform this into money so i can build an army strong enough to be able to wipe the separatists from the board, one after the other.

This has been a really interesting discussion for me so far. some questions came to my mind: Steve, do you have a up to date OOB for the Ukrainian Army? I searched around and only came up with stuff that looked like the one Wikipedia has. Which leads me to my first question: how come that the Ukrainian Army had so many different units there? If i compare it to the Wiki i get that the fighting involves units from all three army corps? In a wargame you would be severly punished for doing so, one would probably run into stacking limit anyway...

Hi there, while trying to find a detailed map of the Bobruisk-area i stumbled upon this little nugget: http://igrek.amzp.pl/maplist.php?cat=GR100 Sadly nothing of Bobruisk so far, but there is a ton of detailed 1:100000 maps of Poland and White Russia, East Prussia and so on. Literally thousands of maps of varying quality, some of very high 1:50000. And, especially neat, lots of 40s maps. Get it while its hot...

Cool, ill give this one a try once im back from modern warfare, thank you! Nothing "ungerman" with the name "Clauss" though. Not exactly a common name, but definately a german name. If anything, you could add an n to make it Johann, which would be the typical typing. And of course, use a german ß to make it Clauß

Seriously? I think troops, especially infantry, being stationary for a longer period of time, even with elaborated airdefense, will simply turn to dust these days...

Yeah, really nice infantry battle! I too noticed the massive amount of ammo shot off so i tried counting it at the end. I roughly went through 7000 rounds 5.62 and 1500 rounds 7.62. I didnt even used area fire alot except for the mgs. The real killer seemed to be the launcher grenades...

I have no doubts about this statement being true, Pete. I think every CM gets better than the one before. Its almost unbelievable that this is even possible, but its what is happening. Bring it on! Love the polished graphics and the smooth gameplay. Only one question remains, when will i get the time to play all this stuff? I havent finished the red thunder campaigns yet...

Well, what to say? Looks great, and plays even better. Outstanding! When i bought CMSF, i imagined how awesome it would be, playing WW2 battles with this engine( even at 1.0 CMSF, with a bit of fantasy i felt it would be a great game). With BN, FI and RT my fantasy became true and i thought that it would be so cool playing with the upgraded engine with modern equipment, and here we are. Oh boy, what an experience. Started playing the russian campaign, im 15 min in and the battle is more or less over for the ukrainians, with smoking wrecks littering the landscape and the few poor surviving ukr troops are awaiting annihilation from above. Absolutely brutal. Im stunned. If i had anything to say, id have reigning politicians play this game untill they understand just how brutal modern warfare is, in the hope they wont see it as an option for politics any longer...

Yesss, very cool! Nice start for the weekend! Thx a bunch. Is it me or does the moviemode look just a little more colored? Looks perfect to me now.

I had my trouble with this mission also. Its extremely tough. Just search the board, mission is called "School of hard knocks" i think. Some threads on this mission...There is a video-tutorial on how to employ realistic tactics in cm on youtube that helped me a lot: The second episode, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHm6FDh1738, shows the mission you are asking about. But they are all very good at explaining what is going on. Hope that helps.

THis is a really cool way to present an AAR! A great start, pnzrldr, to the rescue!

I had the complete opposite outcome in this scenario. The Pz IV long made short work out of the T34/85, at ranges exceeding 1000m. My impression from ingame is, the longer the distance the greater the german advantage. Which matches my expectations pretty well. The problem for the german tanks is that they cant simply sit out mid- to longrange duells like they can with the Shermans for example, because even long range hits from the 85L/53 are almost certainly catastrophic. This has been my experience for the Pz IV, the Stug and Jagdpanzer IV. The spotting is probably the driving factor for your results. Spotting can sometimes be a bit weird in the game, with units not seeing what they should and others seeing what they shouldnt. I usually ragequit, then come back some time later to come up with a neat rationalization of what happened. Works for me! May be just bad luck on your part, rerun the scenario and see if you can bag yourself some t34s this time.

The modern equipment looks great already! Its going to be fun to watch you guys play it out. I just noticed that you get quite some points for preserving powerstation, workshop and pumphouse. I dont remember how preserve objects worked in CMSF( its really that long ago...), but i suspect that there might not be much to preserve from the powerstation after 2*120mm mortar bombardments. Another question i was asking myself, what kind of onboard AA would the US have? Didnt find anything in the BlackSea page except from MANPADS-platoon.