kipanderson

Hi, I find what is these days called the Battle for the Ukraine… August ’43 to April ’44…. is the most interesting period in terms of the balance of forces and such. However… it would be a shame not to set the game in winter… winter warfare is one of the defining differences between the Eastern Front and others… one of many differences but one of the main ones. I would go for either winter ‘42/’43 or winter ‘43/’44… if the latter then Korsun Pocket is the one to simulate. A scaled down and more balanced version of Stalingrad. All very go fun, All the best, Kip.

Hi, Well when it comes to air defences the guys at Jane’s recon that losses for NATO could be as high as 2% when up against current generation Russian air defences. This may not sound a lot but it would be a show stopper for air in support of ground operations. Manned air assets anyway. Imagine an air group with say 60 F16s at a mission rate of just one per aircraft per day. Let alone a mission rate of two missions per day… After a week or two the air group would be decimated. Russian current generation air defences are just as effective as their current generation AT weapons. As we all know if you set things up in the editor such that your Syrian forces get the late ‘90s tandem weapons AT4C, RPG7 with 105mm tandem warhead, AT14 and so on NATO armour gets whacked. The truth is that no one has a monopoly on how to make this stuff… nor is it nearly as expensive as some believe. If you measure the true cost of current kit and compare it to the costs in WWII you would be shocked. The true cost is the “opportunity cost”… best way to measure this is as a percentage of GDP. Certainly in ground kit costs have actually fallen since WWII. Anyway… up against any enemy with current generation Russian AT weapons and air defences it would be very different from both Gulf War 1 and Gulf War 2…. Very different… All interesting stuff… All the best, Kip.

Hi, Yup…. Very impressive photos….. All should see them… All the best, Kip.

Costard…hi, “Kip, where is the call for conscription in the West? Is anyone seriously contemplating it?” There isn’t one… nor am I calling for it… I was just pointing out that if Russia is still debating whether to go for a fully professional army or stick to a conscript one from where Russia is they should stick to their conscript model. Israeli spends about $18.5 billion on defense at ppp…. from memory the US army share of the defense budget is about $88 billion…. Give each country about a month to mobilize for war and look at the amount of bang for the buck the Israelis get compared to the US. In the west we can…sort of… afford a small professional armies. But Russia with its huge land borders and the type of countries it is surrounded by needs to go for bang for the buck… Israeli model… Even at the figures Red Rage gave…. Around $1000 a month for an enlisted contract soldier they are starting to pay their military wages just as high as in the west relative to their contemporary civilians. All interesting stuff, All the best, Kip.

Hi, “Russian army traditionally depended on its officer corps rather than NCOs, and dedicated officer corps is pretty much what held it together during complete collapse of the '90s.” Yup…. I understand that… When it comes to pay it is very difficult for someone from the UK to know what to believe from official sources. One of the great things about CM forums such as this is that one can learn so much more from those with local knowledge. . “There is still great debade within the military whether switching to contract basis is a good idea.” Well when it comes to “bang for the buck” the way to go is clear… smallish professional army with conscripts bolted on. Professional armies such those in the US and UK are massively cost ineffective. However… the lack of conscripts means the politicians can use their military without any obvious national interest at stake. This is not possible with conscript armies. With conscript armies an obvious national interest must be at stake otherwise the populations will not tolerate casualties. Look at the “bang for the buck” the Israelis get… small number of well paid professional with conscript army is the way to go… All the best, Kip.

Hi, I think this is a sign of how the Russian army is changing. “Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in June 2008 that monetary allowances for servicemen in permanent-readiness units will be raised significantly.[41] Enlisted pay will rise to 65,000 rubles ($US2,750) per month and the pay of officers on combat duty in rapid response units will rise to 100,000-150,000 rubles ($US4,230-$6,355) per month.” To the limited extent that someone living in England and not being a Russian speaker can follow these things I have followed Russian army wages for years. It is a very important identifier of the direction of travel of any army in peace time. These are very big figures. At parity purchasing power… taking into account prices in a given country.. this means Russian contract soldiers will be as well paid as western ones. Then consider that the average real wage in Russia is one third that of the US. i.e. relative to civilians … Russian fulltime/professional soldiers will soon be far better paid than US or UK ones… Quality in all its forms will follow in the Russian army… All the best, Kip.

Hi, leakyD posted… “Russia is not the Evil Empire. After what they went through in WWII, I think their...concern... with their borders is completely justified. Manipulating situations so military units can intervene is something the U.S. is exceptionally skilled. Remember Grenada? Nice easy operation for the U.S. to flex it's muscles and get much needed practice at invading countries. Oh, I mean, we had to save the children, my bad! It'll be interesting to see how US/UN/NATO politically reacts to this incident. Will the West have the political wherewithal to actually enforce anything *against* Russia? My guess is, probably not. Subsequently, US/NATO will be a little more ...delicate... with their political/military machinations in the "near abroad".” I do not normally do politics on CM forums… but I agree 100%..... It’s interesting that those who have read most about Russia and WWII often end up as Russophiles to some degree anyway, with some sympathy for Russia anyway… even those employed by the US and UK military to study Russia often end up the same way… There are good reasons for this.. All the best, Kip.

Hi, According the BBCs guys in the region the knocked out tanks the media often show… and did from day one… are in fact Georgian tanks that took part in the first effort ot seize S. Ossetia… All the best, Kip.

Hi, CMSF does a great representation of Georgia and all those involved. Using some of Russian mods out there… voices and uniforms… it all works very well… Google for the terrain and contours… and we are off… All the best, Kip.

Hi, Guys… leave the politics out of it… if you don’t all that will happen is that the thread is locked and any discussion of the military and related CMSF side of the events will be lost to us. Am a Russophile through and through so you know who’s side I am on…. I have always been perplexed as why anyone is anti-Russian… showing with the odd bit of spin your interests and where your sympathies are is fine… I could list the sympathies of all the old hands on this forum..… but if you discus the politics it will end with the subject being lost to us… Stick to the military side of things… and we can go on discussing the topic. I can tell you that if you use the correct set of foliage, ground cover and such CMSF builds a very good representation of Georgia… I am building some Battle for the Ukraine 2010 games and the terrain/maps in CMSF looks just as it does on the TV pictures I have just seen of Gori… and surrounding area. All the best, Kip.

RCMP, hi, Yup… it is on the list last time I heard. I too greatly look forward to it. The real big gain from it will be more realistic Fog of War… Only real way to simulate the true chaos of war is to have more than one player on each side with each player only able to see/spot what his own troops can. Even when it comes to his own side. It will come… but no idea when or how… I have heard no dates or titles. All the best, Kip.

Hi, “Have anyone considered starting a meta campaign for CMSF?” Yes… but… Firstly.. in my experience CM meta campaigns are by a wide margin the best form of wargame… as good as it gets. However… to pull off a CM meta campaign is far more demanding than many seem to believe. Even many who have been involved in the past such games seem to get wildly over optimistic when trying to organize new versions of such games themselves. The admin back up required from the umpires/game-masters is routinely underestimated. One way to help overcome the admin back up needed is to give the umpires total flexibility as to their decisions. Less rules bound than in the past. When it comes to CMSF the human v human game options are also not developed enough for CM meta campaign games… in my view. In future versions of CM this may change. In conclusion I am hugely in favour of CM meta campaigns… the near perfect welding together of the operational and the tactical… using CM to resolve the outcome of contact battles within a quality operational team game is the ultimate form of wargame. But probably better to wait for a later title when human v human options may be more developed. Then proceed with caution. Very much looking forward to a CM meta campaign game in the future, All the best, Kip.

Hi, In defence the Reds can hold their own. All their late ‘90s AT weapons, including the late ‘90s 105mm tandem warhead for the RPG7s… can penetrate any NATO AFV from any angle other than a latest generation tank through the forward arc. For NATO M1s in attack it really is like Panthers in attack against the Soviet in ’44… incredibly difficult for the NATO player to make headway without massive losses. All very good fun, All the best, Kip.

Hi, Yup. .just to add my congratulations to MarkEzra… looks great. Very skilful stuff… Again congratulations… . All the best, Kip.

Hi, I too am thinking of a new system… Will try to wait to let laptops advance a little so as to make them near to CM future proof… Always interesting to know though which systems and cards are particularly CM friendly as it is the only PC game I play. All the best, Kip.

Hi, Thanks for the Mod and for tweaking it… Great stuff… All the best, Kip.

Birdstrike… hi, Great mod but I seem to be having a problems with it.. probably my fault as I certainly do not know what I am doing.. You will see from the screenshots that the underlying dirt/grass is not the new darker colour on my map. When I look in the ground dirt folder within the Z folder the bmp is of dark green dirt as used in the surrounding background/off map dirt. Am I doing something wrong… . Great mod… All the best, Kip.

Birdstrike…. Looks superb… stunning… Just the job… I am working on some Battle for the Ukraine maps/scenarios with Russia v NATO 2008…. Your mod looks like just the job… . All the best, Kip.

Hi, More good stuff… Thanks…. All the best, Kip.

Spoiler…. George.. Great scenario as always… Just had an entire squad wiped out by an IED … well short of one guy who only went Yellow as opposed to red… … I was first quite shocked, just sat there watching the smoke.. then laughed at the fun of it all… . I certainly did loose the game. After the above setback rather lost my nerve and became too cautious . Great stuff… Keep them coming… All the best, Kip.

Dima, hi, Thanks for the hints… I too have heard that with dell, here in the UK too… the thing to do is configure it online then give them a call and bargain.. thanks… Pandur, hi, Yup… I have come across the same sort of thing on the current dell desktop. The bigger maps do challenge systems a lot. I stick to 2.5km by 2.5km as my maximum size. A good thing we have the options of huge 4km by 4km maps as systems will over time become more powerful but few can currently cope. Thanks… All the best, Kip.

Dima, hi, Thanks for your recommendation…. The Precision range looks very good. I had one some years ago and it did the job very nicely with CMX1. Thanks… All the best, Kip.

Hi, Looks like fun… I look forward to it.. All the best, Kip. PS. Hopefully in couple of months time we will have the Brits for real…but just as much fun with Yanks..

Hi, Looks great… I can’t wait to see it all published… I am sure you have tested this… but just in case… I have played around with some very big scenarios… I discovered that when using 4km by 4km maps and large numbers of units, by which I mean 2-3 companies on each side, the game crashes. It crashes when loading. I discovered that the likely reason is that in Windows XP there is a “single application” RAM limit of 2GB. So even if a Windows XP user has more than 2GB RAM it will not help. I have set my own limit for map size to 2.5km by 2.5km then that problem does not seem to rear its gully head. I hope to do some Battle for the Ukraine 2008 scenarios after the UK module is out… CMX2 handles high intensity warfare very well… but I have learnt that CMX2 is very demanding of some systems. CMSF, and even more CMX2 will be around for 7-8 years to come so it is right that it should be so demanding of current systems… Greatly looking forward to your campaign… Stunning… . All the best, Kip.

Hi, “But unlike most modern games CMSF doesn’t use both cores, so you will not get 4.8Ghz from your 2.4 C2D....you will only get 2.4Ghz.” Now this is getting complicated.. I do fully understand that C2D chips have the two processors and are designed to work with threaded programs which CMSF is not. However.. my question is… running non-threaded programs such as CMSF how fast are the modern C2D chips when compared to the older P4 chips. Even running CMSF and future versions of CMX2 I thought the C2D chips were faster than the older P4 chips in the same way the old M series Intel chips were faster than the P4s for any given clock speed. I thought that was what Pzman meant in his answer? Is a C2D processor at 2.4 GHz like to run CMFS faster than a 3.4 GHz P4… from what I have read I would guess yes… even though CMX2 is not threaded… What is the consensus view . All the best, Kip.