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What the actual hell is this game?


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On 7/19/2020 at 12:39 PM, agusto said:

MOUT operations in CMx2 titles have always been pretty bloody if not executed without exceptional care. I can not make a statement regarding your specific situation, but what i ve observed in the couple of years playing CMx2 is that clearing a building occupied by hostile forces is

  1. Best avoided if possible
  2. If avoiding clearing the building is impossible, destroy the building or its occupants using heavy fire power (tanks, aircraft artillery, what ever you' ve got).
  3. If destroying the building or it's occupants using heavy fire power is not possible, prepare it for infantry clearing by first spending a couple of turns suppressing it's occupants using at least a 3:1 force ratio and the target or target light command. RPGs and the like are wonderful tools for convincing an enemy in a building to leave it.
  4. After preparing the building for assault, keep suppressing it with a target-light command and a 2:1 force ratio an send a 1:1 force ratio troop into the building, carefully. Use the pause command and suppress each room with the assault element using target-briefly for at least 10 seconds before entering (this also leads to some grenade throwing, etc). If possible, send the assault element into the building using demo charges by blowing in a wall that has no windows and from the top most floor possible (because hand grenades work best if thrown from an upper to a lower floor). If heavy resistance is encountered in a room, retreat and try to destroy or at least suppress the enemy using your over-watch element from the outside.

Using above listed steps, MOUT against an inferior force as the Syrians in CMSF2 can usually be done relative casualty free. Fighting an equal enemy such as the Russians in CMBS, on the other hand, will always cause you some losses, there is no way around it. Just accept it and keep pushing forward towards your mission objectives.

Seriously. It's important to keep in mind that considerable firepower has been placed down in the hands of the infantry now, and this is much different from the platoons of 1945 maybe having a few light machine guns a rifle grenade launcher and a sharp stick they all share. Every man in today's infantry squad is a potential bullet hose, and he's backed up by liberal allotments of machine guns, grenade launchers, and rocket launchers all of which used to be much more rare or restricted to higher levels. 

This also means that modern infantry squads have relatively short periods they can remain engaged for, since they burn ammunition so fast. That's why the US Army had to make the Stryker. The Humvee just wasn't tough enough to be right up front with the infantry portering all of their ammunition and supplies, it's too vulnerable and the armored versions suffer from chronic maintenance problems due to an overtaxed drivetrain. This is part of the reason the BMP is still so widespread among Eastern Bloc style armories. 

Edited by SimpleSimon
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I'm the guy who cleaned up the CMSF1 scenario 'House Cleaning' for CMSF2 and I've never won against the AI in that scenario. The trick to MOUT is suppression of the enemy and overwhelming firepower. But the compound walls and modular layout of the large building makes both difficult. When your squad attacks, the enemy often has local fire superiority because your adjacent units and vehicles have LOS blocked by perimeter walls or building facades while your exposed unit is being fired on from multiple directions.

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Seems like in open terrain US forces tend to dominate. In built up or urban areas it gets bloody for both side. Probably why in real life armies try to avoid built up/urban areas if possible. 

Keep in mind insides of buildings are devoid of inner rooms,  furniture, non-combatants and other obstructions so it's easily conceivable that 1 person with an AK could take out a large number of people.

A while back a well trained SWAT team in Oakland clearing a house suffered multiple casualties at the hand of a single person armed with a SKS who was hiding in a closet. At close quarters like inside of building body armor provides little or no protection from modern high velocity bullets fired from assault rifles. Firing through walls inside of buildings can also kill or suppress a large number of people.

As mentioned blowing holes in wall before entering is the best way to go if possible.

 

Edited by db_zero
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24 minutes ago, db_zero said:

Keep in mind insides of buildings are devoid of inner rooms,  furniture, non-combatants and other obstructions so it's easily conceivable that 1 person with an AK could take out a large number of people.

CM does abstract obstructions like furniture inside of buildings. It’s all part of the cover value being in a particular type of house provides. 
 

25 minutes ago, db_zero said:

At close quarters like inside of building body armor provides little or no protection from modern high velocity bullets fired from assault rifles.

Hard plates rated for it will stop 5.56, 7.62, and .30-06 at point blank range. Soft body armor such as Kevlar will not.

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7 hours ago, IICptMillerII said:

CM does abstract obstructions like furniture inside of buildings. It’s all part of the cover value being in a particular type of house provides. 
 

Hard plates rated for it will stop 5.56, 7.62, and .30-06 at point blank range. Soft body armor such as Kevlar will not.

ESAPI plates will stop a 7.62 AP round no problem, after two or three hits it cracks and becomes vulnerable

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I just did a deep dive into CMSF2's "House Cleaning". Yeah, that hospital complex is a tough nut.

I found that they Syrians were able to ambush the US, inflicting many casualties. So, I dug deeper. What I found, surprised me.

You know those hanging skeleton models in medical places? Well, some Syrians had skeleton suits and were imitating them. That worked. In one case, as the US team entered the morgue, several drawers popped open and out sprang some full-auto AK-firing Syrians. I won't even mention the fiasco in the emergency ward. Oh, the operating theater? Well, the US expected that the "patient" was a Syrian fighter. Sure enough, he had a machine gun under the green sheets. What caught my guys out, though, was that every "doctor" and "nurse" were also Syrian fighters. These were just the ones that stood out. The usual techniques of hiding behind furniture, poking shooting holes in walls, etc., were there as well.

;)

My point? A lot is abstracted. Room-clearing is deadly work. Explosives and suppression...and smoke, are the only way to make it work. And you'll still take casualties. But it still sucks.

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I just tried the House Cleaning scenario again as well. I played it way back years ago and got slaughtered. I still remember it from the Shock Force 1 days. The map is too small, you get little room to maneuver, and you're within RPG range right from the deployment zone, and it sucks only getting one .50 cal machine gun Stryker.

I played it for a few minutes, took a bunch of casualties right away and saw a very lucky RPG hit take out the .50 cal gun on the Stryker from all the way across the map, all within the first few minutes. :angry: So I restarted and then tried to play it much more slowly and carefully. It took me a while but I ended up really surprising myself and got a total victory, clearing the entire hospital with only 2 dead and 5 wounded. So it IS possible to beat it with pretty minimal loss.

I beat it by concentrating almost my entire force on the right side of the map, trying to focus on taking the hospital in smaller pieces. I had the 40mm Strykers blow some holes in the boundary wall so more of my guys could shoot into the compound, and then had the infantry advance in short bounds just a little bit at a time across the open ground. There was a pretty fierce firefight and all 7 of my losses were taken on the advance to the hospital. Miraculously I took zero during the final assault and room clearing process.

Your Strykers can drive right up to the boundary walls and shoot over without really exposing themselves at all, which is very helpful. To the enemy they look like this:

vGVYY7j.png

 

After about 20-30 minutes I had completely cleared the entire right side (east side) of the hospital all the way to the back of the map. The left side (west) was mostly untouched and still filled with enemies. Once it got quiet again, I had my infantry rearm and regroup themselves with the Strykers and then mass together for the final assault on the other side. The main hospital building is five stories tall, so I tried putting one full squad of infantry on each floor at the corner nearest my side of the map, then had them rush over to the enemy side all at the same time. 

Nearly my entire force was concentrated all on one building tile. Having five full US infantry squads all shooting at the same time from the same building section completely overwhelmed the opposition on the other side. Then I had the five squads (about 40 guys) start moving down the length of the main hospital building on the enemy side, stopping at each building section along the way so they could area fire into the next one for a while before storming into that section en masse. It doesn't really seem to matter what floor you're on when there are enemies in the adjacent building section. I saw guys on the fourth floor shooting down at guys on the first floor for example. So each enemy squad hiding in the back areas of the hospital had 40 guys all come charging into view all at once, guns blazing on floors above them and below. It was like a big wall of death moving down the length of the hospital. 24 enemy troops got wiped out in a couple of minutes. After a few more minutes of mopping up it was over. :D 49 enemy dead, 59 wounded, 17 captured.

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Ok, this is likely one of the hardest battles in all of the games and because the player did not win, he has to blame the game  instead of ever believing he might have some more skills to need to learn. Well the answer is the second, and the game is playing better than it has in a long time with the latest changes as to unit reactions to gun fire.

I also recall this Scenario kicking my butt when I played it years ago.

But I fired it up tonight and did a quick play of the early part of the battle and this is the results.

 

This is at 42 minutes left in the game

http://vM7FEqP.png

 

 

What is this,  my forces are in the hospital and there is a nice breach right through the front wall to let more of my forces in.

http://LFdCmf1.png

 

6 dead and 8 wounded so far, (but the enemy is down 34 on a map that favors the defender to the fullest.)

 

Hmmm they still outnumber me 3 to 2. No wonder i am taking some serious losses.

Oh, whats that, a victory already,  better just play it out to see it to the end.

http://KqKw4oz.png

 

So, the question is, has my skills improved over the time frame or is it just easy to play this the second time around.

Well, the answer is my tactical skills have improved, because going right up the middle was not the easy path, I just did it to prove with correct use of forces, you can have successful results and there is nothing wrong with the game.

So , if you want to discuss ways and things that might help you improve your skills, great. But get off the fact that there has to be flaws in the game just because you just did not magically become skilled at playing it.

 

Oh, by the way, turn one need all units firing on likely enemy locations.

then next major key, smoke being used to blind sections of the defenders so you can bring your entire firepower on only portions of the defenders at a time.

Using smoke this way is a method to get dominating firepower in a sector, since there is no way to flank or use terrain to get you a position and overwelming firepower in any area on this map.

Edited by slysniper
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Most often replaying means there are no or certainly fewer surprises/ambushes.  So it should be easier.  I hate replaying anything precisely cos I get most enjoyment from the surprises and once you know where enemy units are, one tends to want to rush through the "boring" bits where you know what will happen (or not).  Alternative AI plans help a lot but it's unclear if there are alternative AI plans in this scenario.

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9 hours ago, Erwin said:

Most often replaying means there are no or certainly fewer surprises/ambushes.  So it should be easier.  I hate replaying anything precisely cos I get most enjoyment from the surprises and once you know where enemy units are, one tends to want to rush through the "boring" bits where you know what will happen (or not).  Alternative AI plans help a lot but it's unclear if there are alternative AI plans in this scenario.

oh, so very true. But since its been at least a few years, with my old man memory and that fact that I have done so many other things  since then, it all did a pretty good job of clearing my memory of the battle other than I remember it as being hard and that I needed to make sure to clear the enemy before tying to move up.

I know it is easier to some extent, no matter what, But the fact still is in place, I did not game the defense to get a good result, I used good tactics to show that the mission can be accomplished and that losses can be kept down.

And in that battle, 3 of my men I lost was my fault, thinking I could rush them forward to the wall and make it without taking losses from fire through the gap in the wall. Not even close, all 3 men in that fire team was gunned down in the matter of 2 seconds from each other.

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Some people really seem to think clearing a massive factory complex packed with enemies is a single scenario thing ya know? 

On 8/3/2020 at 6:17 AM, Bozowans said:

I just tried the House Cleaning scenario again as well. I played it way back years ago and got slaughtered. I still remember it from the Shock Force 1 days. The map is too small, you get little room to maneuver, and you're within RPG range right from the deployment zone, and it sucks only getting one .50 cal machine gun Stryker.

The American Commander should reject the attack entirely if he has any clue what he's up against and should be prepared to take that all the way to a tribunal if need be. If he isn't very competent, you'll get this scenario. 

You could say "well it could still happen for reasons XYZ" but you'll never a find a good reason to explain why its explicitly a SBCT executing this attack and not follow on forces or Engineers with a couple of F-18s flattening the structure, all of whom might still be inclined to sit tight and wait out a few more days of desertions and mistakes on the part of the Defender before just trying to eat this sandwich in one big bite. 

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On 8/7/2020 at 6:35 PM, MikeyD said:

I can play my own scenarios multiple times because I 'make believe' I don't know, like self-hypnosis. I put my previous experience out of my mind and work on refining my tactics as though I didn't know what's ahead of me. Sometimes I cheat, though. ;) 

You are fortunate.  I find after playtesting scenarios more than 3 or 4 times, I burn out and just can't play it any more.  This is sad as I still have not been able to play MOS's final versions of his TOC and COUP scenarios for that reason (even though he made big improvements to the final version of COUP).  

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1 hour ago, SimpleSimon said:

You could say "well it could still happen for reasons XYZ" but you'll never a find a good reason to explain why its explicitly a SBCT executing this attack and not follow on forces or Engineers with a couple of F-18s flattening the structure, all of whom might still be inclined to sit tight and wait out a few more days of desertions and mistakes on the part of the Defender before just trying to eat this sandwich in one big bite. 

I guess there are always the odd exception in RL where a formation has to do something that makes no sense.  But, playing a scenario that seems designed to be as nasty as possible regardless of what is supposed to happen in RL is a PITA.

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I think what stands out to me is how inadequate a Stryker Brigade is for the circumstances. The given battle is very set-pieceish though with lots of forces crammed into a relatively small space. It's not that the circumstances are invalid, but that the force composition and stated objectives lend themselves to a scripted blood bath that annoys me as always.

If was the local XO i'd tell the Combat Team troops to just push on down their route of advance and then have infantry and engineers find ways to prep the site for later capture. Capture 1 is ground with good oversight on low ground West of the facility etc and will make it impossible for the Defender to just slip out. Objective 2 is a destroy/clear. A warehouse external to the site that snipers have been using sometimes to attack transports moving up the highway outside the map. You can vaporize it with the F-18s if you want, or save them for enemies revealing their location in the factory. If you're crazy you can engage the factory directly and try to clear it now but if you chose to give battle to the enemy's main body you will be scored harshly on own losses. The peripheral objectives are attractive in that they're less likely to cause a battle. You could have the F-18s just pummel the factory too but the enemy force is likely holed up in the very deepest parts of it. Or...maybe I randomized the spawn area so they're all on over watch at the highest floors waiting for you to go for one of the lesser objectives thinking its safer. If that is the case, then those Mk84s the F-18s are carrying will definitely ruin the defender's day. Decisions decisions...

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I have (very) vague memories of the CMSF original but the CMSF2 update was certainly different.

I gave it a quick spin...

... the Syrians have a lot of advantages & one bad move can lead to horrific losses.

It's tricky but a hell of a blast.

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1 hour ago, 37mm said:

I have (very) vague memories of the CMSF original but the CMSF2 update was certainly different.

I gave it a quick spin...

... the Syrians have a lot of advantages & one bad move can lead to horrific losses.

It's tricky but a hell of a blast.

 

Well that wasnt too bad! Bad luck with that squad but apart from that didnt go too badly. Quick question what sound mod was that again? Cheers!

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37mm,

   That was a really nicely done video.  I thought the lighting and the rendering was particularly effective, and made parts of it seem almost photo-realistic.   We were definitely there in the middle of the firefight with the guys.

   I remember playing this battle a while back, and I did well playing Elite, but as I recall, I had way more casualties than you did.  

   Thanks for sharing this.  It was really cool to watch.

Heinrich505

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On 8/12/2020 at 8:15 AM, SimpleSimon said:

Some people really seem to think clearing a massive factory complex packed with enemies is a single scenario thing ya know? 

The American Commander should reject the attack entirely if he has any clue what he's up against and should be prepared to take that all the way to a tribunal if need be. If he isn't very competent, you'll get this scenario. 

You could say "well it could still happen for reasons XYZ" but you'll never a find a good reason to explain why its explicitly a SBCT executing this attack and not follow on forces or Engineers with a couple of F-18s flattening the structure, all of whom might still be inclined to sit tight and wait out a few more days of desertions and mistakes on the part of the Defender before just trying to eat this sandwich in one big bite. 

I think the building is supposed to be a hospital, so I don't think they would just flatten it with F-18s. Or you can imagine that they are held up in there with hostages or something. I do agree with you though. If that situation came up in a real conflict, they would probably lay siege to the compound with a large heavy force and not just charge in head-on with two platoons of infantry. If the defenders were a bunch of die-hards and wouldn't surrender, it's hard to imagine how long it would take to clear something like that. There are something like 130 defenders. It would probably take many hours to methodically clear such a place room-by-room even with a very large force.

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15 minutes ago, Bozowans said:

I think the building is supposed to be a hospital, so I don't think they would just flatten it with F-18s.

Very good point. 
 

As to everyone saying “this objective would be avoided in real life” that’s simply untrue. First off, if every tough objective was avoided, there would be no battles. Second, and more relevant to CM, the battles that are happening are assumed to be important. As in, a higher commander has determined that despite the given complexities and downsides, the battle is still worth fighting. If the player really thinks the objective isn’t worth it, then just don’t play the scenario. 

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Yeah I just loaded it up again to make my dream scenario with the location come true in the editor and I do remember now that it is explicitly a hospital. I'm still going to allow one of the F-18s in support though for use at player discretion with perhaps a demerit or points off for using it on the hospital. It won't be a failing grade by itself because I think the Syrian Garrison is plenty large enough to warrant the Hospital as a fair target, but i've also built the map up to include a potential outpost positions the Syrians may or may not be occupying dependent upon whatever plan the AI rolls. 

The new scenario is going to involve elements of a US Army Infantry Battalion + Engineers and Snipers. The Americans are partially dug-in and Battalion Heavy Mortars are available off-map for use. The Syrian Garrison I won't be changing too much in composition, but its AI plans will be more different and varied. I'm thinking most of their planning would simply involve hiding in the depths of the structure with their available heavy weapons (consisting of RPGs, DshK, and recoilless rifles) mostly oriented towards an off-map highway. The Syrians don't know when or even if the player will attack, although a minority plan will involve a potential break-out. 

The American AI for its part will be given mostly stand-off plans that the player can chose to thwart or just ignore at their own will. The American planning is mostly an "own objective" sort of thing while the Syrian Commanders are primarily concerned with the survival of their own force, and have secondary priorities in the form of inflicting casualties on the Americans and maintaining their hold on the Hospital to impede movement up nearby roads. As always, one plan will be a concerted attack involving all available assets and utter disregard for RoE. Chose wisely. 

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