Mattis

Erwin (and others) did neither attack somebody nor did they ask for something unreasonable. I also agree with him. He just pointed out that they would love to see more of the assets in scenarios and campaigns and even mentioned that he admires everyone spending his time to design scenarios.
And still you have to explode. There was no reason for it really.
I do not see anybody here attacking scenario designers nor do I see a comment here that should leave a negative effect on any individual designing scenarios. I just see paper-thin skin and one that can´t take different opinions.
 

Hi Battlefront, hi community,
at first I want to tell you that this isn´t one of these nitpicky gripe threads. I quite enjoy the game as it is 😀, and I´m always happy to sink my money in the new hot Battlefront product.
As I played Shock Force 2 the other day I came upon some things that raised a couple of questionmarks though, so I wanted to inquire about these here in this thread:
The accuracy of the Mk19 mounted on RWS. Even at targets very close, 150m - 200m, the spray is enourmous. The circle in which the grenades fall is about 20m in radius at these short distance. They are about as inaccurate fired from a complete standstill as a ww2 tank firing its coaxial on the move. I was quite shocked when I saw the inability to cause any casualties on the enemy because of this. I don´t remember them from Shock Force 1 beeing this inaccurate, and after watching a couple of real videos with them beeing fired from the Stryker RWS on training excercises at roughly the same ranges and beeing almost pinpoint accurate at medium to close range (as I remember them), I wanted to ask if maybe I´m missing something. Reloading of weapons mounted on RWS. This is more of "wanted feature" than a observation: it would be awesome if the player could order the crew of said vehicle equipped with RWS mounted guns to not open the hatches and go outside to reload them while under heavy fire. Maybe code it in a way that they´re only reloading the guns while specifically ordered "hatches open". Because the crews are very liberate with their use of the guns, they often have to reload and I lost quite some crewmen to snipers and mg´s. Thats all. Thank you for the great games!

Yeah, I like this idea, I think we're going somewhere with this. 
I am also throwing my story to my local arma group for some feedback.

The Lost Legion breakout sounds fun and maybe one of the mission will include similar situation. Yeah I thinks US vs Mixed alliance would benefit the story credibility since most people here think the US cannot be defeated even if it's a 20:1 ratio.

ok thanks for your opinion

Thanks for your feedback and pointing out some questions. I'll try to answer most of them.
(Let's also pretend Israel does not exist, btw)
Israel did help in the initial stages with missiles infrastructure bombardment but once US had establish proper bases throughout Syria they had not much need for Israel's missiles.  1. There is nothing in Assad's army (or the CMSF2 force set) capable of heavily blooding US mechanised main forces in open combat.
By themselves no but with years of Russian training and equipment this becomes plausible. Again you have to imagined that the US only had 15,000 men to topple country's government which is not many considering you are fighting in Syria with bigger manpower and on their own turf. FYI: the invasion of Iraq was had a half million in US manpower alone.  15,000 men were part of the first wave and due to lack of public support for this, the US had to limit their troops and instead heavily relied on local rebels groups and support from surrounding allies. 1. How are rebel forces suddenly able to defeat heavy mechanised US units? Or alternatively, restrict US mobility and prevent them from breaking out of the traps they find themselves in.
The reason being that the main army was too deep into Syria territory and any links back to friendly bases were now either captured or in disarray, cutting off majority routes for resupply and reorganization. This also splits up part of the army dotting around Syria. 2. What deus ex machina allows RED forces to neutralize US air power? which would otherwise level those newly seized rebel bases, and also allow resupply to the besieged forces.
There are several reason why this is possible. 
US air force could not simply bomb or flatten existing US base as not all of them were taken immediately and they are still friendlies in those bases fighting for their life to get out, since there is no way they would leave their bases to "friendly rebels". Russian air force still control some of the air space i Syria. To avoid possible conflicts with Russia the US were limited to where they could fly in therefore limiting it's ability for ground support. This is every messy and gray situation where every decision would impact either sides heavily. Their goal is to evacuate any remaining troops, regroup and strategize with the new knowledge that they could be facing a united front of Arabs, whereas their initial one was solely based on the support o local militias and only facing the Syrian army. I was largely inspired by the destruction of centre army group during operation Bagration. FWIW I am not doing this mission to spout any Islamic propaganda but to creating a conundrum where the US army is in the perfect political climate whcih would allow severely limited US power in the region and to see how they can react to it. 

Seem there was a lot of replies since I last checked. Thanks for all of your supportive comments.
The story is this, whether or not it will ever get made is a differwnt matter. But i need to get this off my chest.
Backstory:
US backed by Turkey send troops into Syria to topple the Assad regime witht the objective of placing a US puppet government. While doing with the support of the Kudish army and other freedom fighters to help maintain territories they have liberated along the way and to keep the peace. 
After finally reaching Aleppo and fighting a huge and bloody battle with the main core of Assad army. The US won a pyrrhic victory but suffered heavy losses in armor and men.
Before the US could even begin to reorganize its army with much needed reinforcement. Several rebel groups stage a well orgamized coup againts the US army to grabbed key milatary bases over Syria.
Overnight, several places fell under rebel control. In the confusion and fear, high command dropped support for any rebels including the PKK and blamed them for the coup. This angered them and after a US mortar misfire killed one of their soildier. The PKK soon joined the rebel coalition.
Pockets of resistance throughout Syria grew into strongholds, eventually cutting off any supply route from Turkey. Any US equipments that were meant to protect the US army were now seized or used againts them instead.
An all out war raged againts the US. A full evacuation order of the US army was issued but it was too little too late. As the combined arms of almost every rebel group in the middle east including some from Iraq fell upon Aleppo, the US army collapsed only addording a few companies to evacuate. 
Seem there was a lot of replies since I last checked. Thanks for all of your supportive comments.
The story is this, whether or not it will ever get made into a full campaign isa different matter. But i need to get this off my chest, and yes it definitely needs polishing.
Backstory:
US backed by Turkey send troops into Syria to topple the Assad regime with the objective of placing a US puppet government. While doing so with the support of the Kurdish army and other freedom fighters to help maintain territories they have liberated along the way and to keep the peace. 
After finally reaching Aleppo and fighting a huge and bloody battle with the main core of Assad's army. The US won a pyrrhic victory but suffered heavy losses in and men and material.
Before the US could even begin to reorganize its army with much needed reinforcement. Several rebel groups staged a well organized coup against the US army to grabbed key military bases over Syria. 
Overnight, several places fall under rebel control. In the confusion and fear, high command dropped political and military support for any rebels including the YPG and blamed them for the coup. This angered them and after a US mortar misfire killed one of their soldier. The YPG soon joined the rebel coalition.
Pockets of resistance throughout Syria grew into strongholds, eventually cutting off any supply route from Turkey and surrounding friendly areas. Any US equipment that were meant to protect the US army were now seized and used against them instead.
In the ensuing power vacuum after the fall of the Syrian government, an all out war raged against the US by rebels with a single goal of seizing Damascus. This sudden up rise caught the US by complete surprise, they have underestimated the underground Russian influence over rebel groups. Turns out the Syrian army were not the only ones with Russian support.
A full evacuation order of the US army was issued but it was too little too late. As the combined arms of almost every rebel group in the middle east including some from Iraq fell upon Aleppo with Russian backing. This lead to the collapse of the US army in Syria under the weight of the unfathomnable alliances forged between these radical groups.
The US army were only able to evacuate roughly 1000 men out of 15,000 that were assigned to this operation only a year ago. Soon Syria was swallowed whole into a second civil war within the last two decade. The country would never again recover to its once exemplary state of a modern Islamic country.
 

Yes, i like that we are finally all sharing our own backstory and adding in more flavor to each other's.
For story sake, i think after US have fully withdrawn from Syria after the disaster in my storyline. They decide to help Ukraine to combat Russia as revenge for their hand in the organized uprising of the rebel coalition.
This should lead to CMBS with US/Ukraine forces vs Russia forces.
 

Well I guess my thread inadvertently helped others to be more open about their storyline without the fear of getting harsh criticism. 
I think most people who play any CM games long enough would have their own imagined storyline no matter how inaccurate to ridiculous it may sound, it is always good to share our thoughts with each other and provide feedback that aims to add more value to the narrative instead of demoralizing its creators. 😉

To be fair, he has some points, I don't think we need to pull ranks here. I choose not to believe there is an elitist culture in this forum. I think everyone can express their opinion regardless  of who they are talking to. 😅
 
Cheers.

The advice Comabtintman gave is useful as stated before and I'll be using his advice as pointers when I am designing the campaign.  I am just saying its not necessary to pull up a " Do you know who you are talking to? " attitude that's all. He wasn't invalidating any of his advice just stating that he may be suggesting things which are more into mission designing and not backstory/plot which was what I was looking for. 😄

What a bunch of p´s here. Losing their stuff, getting offended and hurt over nothing, and engaging in mass wall-texting like some hyenas just because some guy loves to post alot of off topic (15k posts goddamnit JK) and who believes in Nazi UFO´s and super suits, who gives a damn get over it, reading some this stuff even washed my eyes clean hah! I also think last time when I got full looking for home in Pendleton 2am I also saw one of those Gestapo Messerschmitt UFO´s or perhaps I was just full. Whatever you all show some self-respect and stop confuse Geisha balls with real ones. Those words are not intended for you JK, you are a hell of a crazy dude but it still takes a man to stand constantly getting squeaked at by over-sensitive boys. Amen.

What with all the carping and kvetching of late, I thought I'd start an omnibus post thread for various items of interest, but which aren't necessarily directly connected to CM.
For my first effort, wish to note that the new season the gritty EPIX CIA series "Berlin Station" is about 

SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER ALERT

Putin's hybrid warfare as applied to Estonia. We pick up the story after the Green Men, but operating in mufti, have begun to arrive and operate, as the Kremlin seeks to create domestic terror and conduct destabilization ops, thus "justifying" intervention to protect ethnic Russians. Estonia has a potent weapon to use, the issuance of full citizen status, expressed by passport color, to the previously rights restricted ethnic Russians, thus removing the single biggest exploitable grievance, the second-class status of ethnic Russians there. Naturally, this is the last thing the Kremlin wants, for it sees the opportunity window closing for moving against Estonia, together with the cascading opportunities therefrom. The situation is one in which swift action must be taken by the CIA officers, but it must be the right action, too and not turn a small fire into a conflagration which might bring direct Russian attack upon Estonia. Estonia is a NATO member, but Estonia's leaders are deeply unsure NATO will intervene if Russia does attack.
Whoever's writing the new season got into/read some serious research of various aspects of the fraught situation, resulting in all sorts of wonderful grog chrome, including Russian hackles raised over their war memorials but Estonia's symbols of oppression and repression,  Stasi,  raising and motivating UNCONs, covert bases, stealth transport, wet work and more. The episodes I saw were so gripping I would've binge watched the entire season had it been available. The new season of "Berlin Station" provides its viewers with a real understanding of the nuts and bolts of hybrid warfare in the target country, in a way none of the news coverage really could, but presented as an engrossing, immersive and oft disturbing spy story. CMBS doesn't have all the pieces yet to model it there, though am sure something could be done with a bit of cleverness. CMFS and CMFS2, since they have UNCONs, offer considerably more options, but would require tons of reskinning alone for buildings and terrain, let alone the troops. 
Regards,
John Kettler

 

The mentioned Courage Conquers campaign is a good example. CMFB has one of the worst cases of "take that town here that we just discovered having trice the force, you have 30 minutes, otherwise we lose World War 2 BUT keep in your casualties in mind we don´t know what could come in the future *mysterydrama glance*" timelimit syndromes although it generally got worse in the newer releases thus CMFI, CMRT, CMBS.
Also what is it with this sekrit overtime that isn´t mentioned. In reality combat and the world doesn´t end suddenly after 30 minutes but in CM it can because of god´s imposed time limits and you always sit there with paranoia "St. Puller help me I just have 5 minutes left, better throw all squads into the meatgrinder or hope for overtime?!" and after all my men are wasted, suddenly my commander arrives with his jeep and tells me "Mr. Mattis I just looked over the maps again taking that town with 3x crack Germans must be really hard to achieve in the time window of my lunch break and now that the 30 minutes passed and the world suddenly didn´t end, I found out that dessert is served hereby I suprisingly grant you more time for your assault but won´t tell you how much, hopefully you didn´t already wasted your men because you believed this is a instant game over mission hoho, please make good use of the additional 5?, 10?, 15?, 20?, 25? 60? minutes." Stopped counting how often I wondered about this idea. Sure you can play around with this in a "Try to achieve X. Company Z herefor can hold up the defense for 45 minutes perhaps longer" type of scenario but this "we won´t tell you the sekrit overtime" it is in almost every goddamn mission. WHO COME UP WITH THIS CULTURE? At least there are some mission designers that tell you right from the bat how much time you get.
Isn´t a system like this possible: We give you two hours (alternative 90 minutes normal 30 minutes overtime) for this operation, however if you´re able to take this town and hit cease fire in 90 minutes the nearby Unit XXXX can pull of a hell of a stunt move, you will considered an hero of the Soviet American Vaterland by Benito Churchill himself and receive a medal, and this is the only way to achieve all objectives here. From what I´ve seen total victories are always triggered when the enemy surrenders however you still can have failed objectives. So skilled CM player would be able to achieve extra objectives others won´t, giving them their challenge without forcing it onto others. Think about that. 
However this issue is the reason why I recommend WW2 beginners to start with CMBN because it´s original campaigns have less stubborn timelimits what I believe was done back then as on the older CM engines there was no retreating TacAI and so you had to smoke opposition out one by one which naturally required more time. With the new retreating mechanic these campaigns tend now to be easier. Don´t get me wrong I´ve played ALL and won those CMFB, FI, RT, BS campaigns. But I enjoyed these CMBN campaigns the most because I found myself having enough time to make appropiate recon, care for casualties, reposition etc. which resulted in authentic immersion and gameplay without ending in this usual gamey Starcraft click and rushfest which fell forced onto me in the other titles.  But don´t get me wrong it isn´t a walk in the park and you still have to keep momentum as time is still of the essence.
The same by the way I can say now for CMSF2, which I also can recommend to new players because from what I´ve seen THANKS HEAVEN they kept the original not so strict timelimits when updating the campaigns but added extra challenges to it like minefields, anti air defenses in order to challenge real commander skills like keeping casualties low and expecting the unexpected and not your ability to zerg rush everything AFAP.
I myself also used a helpful site over at LeslieSoftware that shows the branching trees of all campaigns and also what victory conditions trigger what path in the campaign. You may disagree with me on the practice and consider this as spoilering I do not as no other mission details are obtained and since I´m using it my enjoyment doubled especially with this campaigns where you just fighting time limits. This allows me to prevent driving my complete force against the wall because of a strict time limit in an unimportant early mission (which in most cases you can´t tell) to then end up with not enough forces to continue the campaign or to achieve a mandatory win in a following mission which was basically business as usual for me in RT, FB, FI before using that website. The opposite of course is also true, preventing you from saving your men from carnage because of a strict time limit in a mission and deciding against going for that objective that would kill half of your forces just to suddenly find the campaign end screen (at least in this case you not required to go back dozen of saves and hours of progress). Yes there are some campaign designers that give you great details in the always accessible campaign description but again most campaigns are too damn ambigious on that information. So St. Elrod bless this site without it I probably wouldn´t had the motivation to complete some of them. Amen

I did this in battle. It worked. I just need to leave the vehicles dismounted at the beginning otherwise the former crews return into their vehicles. The German ones look pretty identical to the Marines ones (there is just the minor German flag on the plate but this can easily be modified) Marines can mount and dismount all day without help 😀. Damn I love it.

 

I did this in battle. It worked. I just need to leave the vehicles dismounted at the beginning otherwise the former crews return into their vehicles. The German ones look pretty identical to the Marines ones (there is just the minor German flag on the plate but this can easily be modified) Marines can mount and dismount all day without help 😀. Damn I love it.

 

What a bunch of p´s here. Losing their stuff, getting offended and hurt over nothing, and engaging in mass wall-texting like some hyenas just because some guy loves to post alot of off topic (15k posts goddamnit JK) and who believes in Nazi UFO´s and super suits, who gives a damn get over it, reading some this stuff even washed my eyes clean hah! I also think last time when I got full looking for home in Pendleton 2am I also saw one of those Gestapo Messerschmitt UFO´s or perhaps I was just full. Whatever you all show some self-respect and stop confuse Geisha balls with real ones. Those words are not intended for you JK, you are a hell of a crazy dude but it still takes a man to stand constantly getting squeaked at by over-sensitive boys. Amen.

What a bunch of p´s here. Losing their stuff, getting offended and hurt over nothing, and engaging in mass wall-texting like some hyenas just because some guy loves to post alot of off topic (15k posts goddamnit JK) and who believes in Nazi UFO´s and super suits, who gives a damn get over it, reading some this stuff even washed my eyes clean hah! I also think last time when I got full looking for home in Pendleton 2am I also saw one of those Gestapo Messerschmitt UFO´s or perhaps I was just full. Whatever you all show some self-respect and stop confuse Geisha balls with real ones. Those words are not intended for you JK, you are a hell of a crazy dude but it still takes a man to stand constantly getting squeaked at by over-sensitive boys. Amen.

What a bunch of p´s here. Losing their stuff, getting offended and hurt over nothing, and engaging in mass wall-texting like some hyenas just because some guy loves to post alot of off topic (15k posts goddamnit JK) and who believes in Nazi UFO´s and super suits, who gives a damn get over it, reading some this stuff even washed my eyes clean hah! I also think last time when I got full looking for home in Pendleton 2am I also saw one of those Gestapo Messerschmitt UFO´s or perhaps I was just full. Whatever you all show some self-respect and stop confuse Geisha balls with real ones. Those words are not intended for you JK, you are a hell of a crazy dude but it still takes a man to stand constantly getting squeaked at by over-sensitive boys. Amen.

We need to watch out with the word terrorist, remember a guy in one of the CMSF2 update threads got violently triggered over it after folks coming up with it in a completely neutral, non-aggressive manner and he then explained there can be no terrorism in hypothetical game scenarios, that terrorism is not to be mentioned when talking about CMSF scenarios, and that it is just a discriminatory word for "brown people" (his words not mine). 😂 Gave me enough ab workout for the next two weeks.
However joking aside it is impressing what capabilities the game editor provides and with what smart hacks scenario editors come up. Never knew this scenario was possible. I need to try this out.

Seeing my sniper teams engaging enemy vehicles with decent success I was curious about their capabilities in that role and how everything works under the hood. I´ve made an experiments video:
Note: The Syrian vehicles in this test are basically made blind and this in no way represents the usual spotting abilities of the vehicles. They´re also set to immobilized (red engine, tracks) and to 50% crew quanity which also means that the casualty figures from penetrating hits in a real game scenario would be way higher, especially for crowded vehicles. I am a novice when it comes to the editor if there is a way to set enemy vehicles to being passive let me know.
Some of my observations:
Naturally it is hard to tell what effect your sniper fire will have on the vehicle. I´ve observed vehicles getting abandoned by the crew after one hit while others remained in (limited) operationality after 10. My conclusion is that it won´t usually result in quick knock-outs but in damaging vital parts like the engine or taking out crew members severely hampering the vehicle´s ability to perform its duties (mission kill).
In an engagement the tactical AI of the sniper team always keeps its role, threat, and effectiveness in mind. When not issuing manual target commands, the sniper would probably first engage infantry units, especially close ones, it then would proceed to engage vehicles. When the sniper then let´s say spots a BMP and a BTR with frontal facing he would take its own weapon effectiveness into consideration and engage the BTR because of the higher chance of causing penetrating damaging hits.
However the sniper is also able to take the facing of the vehicle into account and would prefer to engage a BMP with his back facing towards the sniper because a BMP and its explosive ordnance may pose an bigger threat to the sniper, thus highly likely is also a more important target than an BTR. There is also less risk involved to get spotted by such an vehicle although this is probably a side effect of the other AI priorities.
You can also observe that the penetration values raise with closer distance and at 400-500m frontal penetration of some vehicles became possible in the test. However never engage an BMP frontally from that close distance and wait for a better shot or reposition. Also do not stay too long in the same position or take to many shots in quick succession because this naturally rises the chance of discovery even by low-tech vehicles. Watch out for vehicles with sophisticated optical tech such as thermal vision. Taking a shot and quickly reposition may be a viable option in some cases. Moving vehicles especially low tech and high speeds are also good targets but don´t take it for granted that they don´t spot you, this is especially true again for high tech vehicles.
If you want your snipers to focus solely on anti-personnel duties and to not engage armored vehicles. You can achieve this by setting a tiny armor target arc for the sniper team, vice versa is also possible but with enemy infantry danger close the sniper team´s self preservation may take the upper hand.

Can´t recall an instance where I´ve observed this in my CMSF2 playthroughs. From what I´ve seen the spotters will only take part in combat when being under immediate threat or when getting the "Target Light" or "Target" command issued. At greater ranges the target command also will only lead to the commitment of the sniper.
I placed vehicles including a juicy soft truck target in the background to bait the complete team including the M203 into action but still they maintained fire and only the sniper engaged. Also later on when the M82 Barrett sniper proceeds to engage the vehicles, his spotters kept proper fire discipline.

I like the idea and would love to see such an expansion.

UNCON Forces:
That is the last one. Enjoy!
Playlist of all Combat Mission faction showcases:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CC1AcZWzEw&list=PLlUX4ALH7zTPFvWgivlinGsZ3ja8lYtIz
I´m attaching the scenario files I´ve created to make these videos . Feel free to use, modify, upload, or do whatever you want with them without the need to give credit:
British Forces Showcase.btt
Canadian Forces Showcase.btt
Dutch Forces Showcase.btt
German Forces Showcase.btt
Syrian Forces Showcase.btt
UNCON Forces Showcase.btt
US Army Showcase.btt
USMC Showcase.btt

Syrian Forces: