absolutmauser

I'd love to play too. I've got basically every module. My only challenge is schedule, with all these wee babbies running around. But if you don't mind me taking my sweet time, I'm up for a game! We may want to hold out for the forthcoming patches, but I'm up for any CM game you listed.

For the artillery issues, you can set a barrage anywhere on the map prior to the first turn, and you can delay it so it doesn't come immediately. Maybe not what OP is hoping for but maybe helpful!

For Cold War Gone Hot type scenarios, you could look at Assault!, Fireteam, MBT, or Lock n' Load Heroes of the Gap. For WW2, you have Squad Leader/ASL, Tobruk/ATS, Combat Commander, all the WW2 Lock n' Load games, Fighting Formations, and the TCS series by the Gamers/MMP. Basically any board wargame where the counter represents a squad to platoon would probably be more amenable to direct representation. Some larger ASL battles might want to be split into multiple scenarios, because some of them are RIDICULOUS.

Also, man, I have been around here for a WHILE.

I think one of these is the post I mentioned above. In them, @MikeyD describes some of the artillery abstractions that are used to work around the limitations of the action square system.

Carry on, sir!

I didn't get the memo, obviously.

It's good the balloon never went up, because there would probably be fewer customers for Combat Mission: North German Plain!

It would be nice to be able to keep using the save right after the first mission of the Semper Fi! campaign so I don't have to slog through that recon scenario again! =D

How goes the testing? I need a break from all these Saggers! =D

I think @Bulletpoint stated that he felt the artillery was highly abstracted. I can't find the thread, but I am certain that at some previous point someone provided a lengthy discussion of why artillery works the way it does. It IS abstracted rather than modeled directly. An artillery shell landing triggers a probability calculation for each unit within a radius and that is the basis for casualty determination. The reason for this is that the "Action Square" system of the engine and the way squads and teams work mean that the troops are more tightly clustered than they would be in real life in many situations. As a result, if they modeled the artillery more directly, a LOT more squads would get vaporized by 155mm shells because they are all packed into an 8x24m box instead of spreading out over 50m+. Maybe someone who understands it better or has that explanation somewhere can share it. It might help.

Maybe if I could air assault to the other side of the river and take the high ground, and have a couple 155mm tubes tasked as well! X D

Yeah, I just barely had gotten boots on the objective building on the near side of the river when they gave up. There was no way I was going to get across the bridge and secure the others in the time I had left.

It's a good gun, Brent.

I hadn't played this mission before somehow; I thought I'd played all the original CMSF1 scenarios! At any rate, this one is a pain because of the sight lines. I handled it as follows: 1) Since I've had bad experience with missions starting with AFVs in view of distant high ground, I dashed all the trucks on the left side of the map to the cover of that first ridge. I assume he's got some kind of ATGM on one of the far hills looking for my 105mm trucks! I left one behind the the low wall where it could see the little buildings with the enemy truck parked out from, in case he gets any reinforcements from that direction. Once the race to safety was complete, I set up the two other 105mm trucks where they had at least some LOS through the roadway to the hills behind the town on the right side of the map. 2) I dismounted my infantry platoon and split them up into AT teams with a Javelin and the rest of the squad. I started picking my way forward with the squads and having the machine guns and Javelins on roofs. 3) Over the next few minutes, I spotted a couple BMPs maneuvering and the 105mm trucks took them out. The Javelins got a couple more. I started feeling a bit cocky and push one of my squads across some of the open ground on the right, and an MG on the far hill opened up on them. I gave it a Javelin in the face. 4) I decided maybe my fears about an ATGM were overblown, so I started scooting up the gun and GLMG trucks to support the infantry. Almost immediately, An AT-3 or something shot a missile that impacted on a building right by one of the gun trucks. I backed him up, but not before the AT-3 got another missile off, and this one hit ANOTHER building and lightly wounded a couple riflemen. By then, the trucks were all putting rounds on the position, but they weren't having much effect. I inched one of 105mm forward to a hull down position and started shelling them with 105mm. That did the job. 5) I resumed the advance with the infantry and gun trucks, leaving the GLMG trucks to overwatch. My point team ran into a BMP in the town and missed it with an AT4, and it chewed them both to bits. I pushed the 105mm trucks up on the other road and got an angle on the BMP and popped it. 6) in the next couple turns I ran into a BUNCH of Syrians in the town. I backed off a bit and dropped a heavy 120mm mortar barrage into the vicinity, and kept two of the 105mm trucks where they could hit the larger buildings without being at much risk of an RPG. Some Syrian units began to try to fall back across the bridge and the GLMG and gun trucks pasted them. 7) As I kept pushing, I started running out of time, and then they gave up. I lost two KIA (the two unfortunate souls who ran into the teeth of an angry BMP) and one immobilized truck (got stuck running over a fence but at least was in a position to provide supporting fires). The biggest challenge in this mission is to not get in a hurry. You don't have a lot of time, but even by the time I was running out of minutes I had really put a hurt on the defenders. If I had pushed to actually capture the objectives before time ran out, I'm sure I would have taken a LOT more casualties. One thing that didn't work is I put the snipers into a couple buildings, one team with a Javelin, on the left flank. They basically saw and did nothing the whole time except draw an artillery strike from (I presume) an HQ unit that was apparently on the big hill in the back. I never saw that HQ unit until after the mission was over. I also think if the AI just left its BMPs alone in useful firing positions they would have done me a lot more damage. I killed most of them while they were maneuvering, and they always seemed to wander into my guns. It was the ones that seemed to stay put on the near side of the river that caused the most trouble! Turn-based/Iron FWIW.

Other than the artillery issues which will hopefully be improved by the forthcoming patches, the biggest casualty producer in the game, to me, is the time limits and the overall aggressiveness of troops. It's really easy to get your troops killed by failing to scout and by making contact with too large a group of your men. If you use scout teams and move methodically, you will avoid running whole squads into kill zones. Your troops will happily barge forward into the kill zones if you order them to. The challenge then becomes dealing with the clock. If you've only got two hours to take an objective, you may have to press forward faster than historically would have been the case most of the time, and the result will be higher casualties. I don't think these are necessarily flaws (the game is already pretty sedately paced even with these design decisions), but it helps to keep in mind when you're comparing to historical casualty figures that CMx2 makes it a challenge to really take your time with many of the scenario timers, and the willingness of basically all troops to charge aggressively forward (until they start taking hits) will let you get them killed pretty easily!

Combat Mission: Pacific ... I'll get my coat.

Especially after playing so much CM, to have to manage your soldiers individually and have them behave in a decidedly suicidal manner was no fun at all!

From the stories I've read on this, the BCT that got them first was 2nd ABCT, 1st Armored Division, and three more brigades are to receive Trophy this year based on the contract with Rafael.

Get em, Luke.

"Slow loading"? I'm not sure what multicore would do for that. All my machines have SSDs and all the CM games load pretty quick these days! EDIT: Referring to what 37mm quoted, not what he said.

One factor more common in more modern wars is traumatic brain injury (TBI) due to concussion. TBI and PTSD have overlapping symptoms and can occur in the same person, but treatments are different and incorrect diagnosis of either as the other can lead to ineffective treatments and bad outcomes. Before there was a lot of HE and big guns around, TBI caused by blast concussion was comparatively rare.

People have gotten used to the Steam process where games are kept up to date automagically and you don't have to go download stuff from someplace. They don't remember the times of yore when you had "read" or "make a tiny effort" to update software. Or if you didn't have good internet, you might have to wait for your favorite game magazine to put the patches you need on a CD (or, gasp, a floppy disk!) that you could buy at the supermarket. BFC may not be as slick as Steam, but it's still much better than the old days.

I think it's been recently re-published as War Games: The Psychology of Combat. https://www.amazon.com/War-Games-Psychology-Leo-Murray-ebook/dp/B079DC9WVN Not sure why the re-branding. It is an interesting read though.

The guy who has been writing about CMSF2 on the Wargamer has been snarky about BF a little bit, but overall has been pretty good. I don't know if that is what people might be referring to.