Sgt Joch

you order 7 guys to "jog" around a corner, emphasizing speed over caution, they run into an ambush and are mowed down at point blank range before the last ones can react, sounds like a realistic result to me. my point is that if you are using a "hunt" or an "assault" command which are more appropriate in the circumstances, the squad's casualties would be a lot less.

There are many things wrong with CMSF and I have posted a lot of issues (but I can't stop playing the game, so I guess it is a love-hate thing.. ), however, I would say this is more of a player rather than a game issue. Squads are more fragile in CMSF than in CMBB/CMAK and get killed/rattled more easily as soon as they take fire. Moving squads around dismounted using "quick" in an urban setting is a good way to get a lot of casualties, I learned that the hard way. You have to be even more cautious than in CMBB/CMAK, and use every trick in the book, i.e.: 1) use your strykers/afv/artillery to "recon by fire" suspected enemy positions, 2) move one squad at a time to a close precise objective, use "hunt, as soon as you spot anything remotely hostile, plaster it with firepower until it is obliterated, etc., etc.,..and you will see your casualties go way down.

1st campaign mission,1.03, all four Abrams (A,B,C,D)have just passed the breach in the Berm,like so: -----berm--ABCD--berm----- I order all four to move forward, the two on the right towards their 2 o'clock, the two on the left towards their 10 o'clock, "quick" about 100 feet, so they wind up like so: ---AB------CD-- --berm----berm--- Three move out and come to a stop about 7-8 seconds later. the last one, C, instead turns to its 10 o'clock, passes between A and B, tries to swing around the front of B, bounces off B, backs up and ends the turn wedged between A and B with it's ass to the enemy, like so: ---AUB-----D--- --berm----berm--- If BFC can "logically" explain that "result", I am all ears.

I have been doing some testing with 1.03. My rig is not top of the line, but its a good comparaison. my rig: -opteron 170 (2 ghz AMD dual-core); -ASROCK dual sata; -7900 GTX (with recommended 163.44 drivers); -2 gb DDR @ 500 mhz; -audigy 2 zs; -win XP PRO w. SP2 and all recommended critical updates; game settings; -1280x960; -textures: improved; -priority: fast; -vsync:on -AA:on; card settings: -AA: 4x -Aniso: 2x -texture quality: high; -triple buffering & vsync: on all testing w. FRAPS & processor affinity set to CPU 1; 1st test: training campaign mission #1/ WEGO -average fps: 20-30; -hi-lo fps: 15-70; In all cases, I would lock one unit, increase multiplication to 3-4x and pivot around. 2nd test: main campaign mission #1/ WEGO in this case, I lowered texture quality to BALANCED/ AA to 2x/ priority to normal. -average fps: 35-45 -hi-lo fps: 20-60 same testing method as above. some observations: #1- I am very happy with the performance of CMSF on my system . The eye candy factor is definitely up with 1.03 and the 163.44 drivers. #2- on my system, in game texture quality has the biggest impact on FPS. You can easily test it yourself in game. In a quick test in the Al Susah scenario, I got the following FPS: -fastest: 50 -balanced: 35 -improved: 25 -best: 15 #3-on the other hand AA has practically no impact, less than 2-3 fps going from 2x to 4x @ 1280x960. #4- it is a very smooth game, frames only become noticeably choppy if the fps is less than 20.

Then you never had your tanks shot through a building in CMx1? There were plenty of times where an AFV had LOS (and thus LOF) through the corner of a building in my games, so that engine had its LOS/LOF issues as well. </font>

I refuse to answer yes or know questions...

Well I retried again and now another problem cropped up. I reinstalled CMSF, applied 1.03, unchecked higher program priority in the options and restarted the training campaign in WEGO and then again in RT. To begin with, I open up the strykers, then after a short time, the strykers button up and I lose the "open up" command. I don't know if it is a 1.03 problem or if the training campaign is now broken because of 1.03, but it is frustating.

I have been playing the training campaign in WEGO, mostly to soak in the graphics, but I am unable to finish the second mission due to some frustating technical issues. my Javelin equipped units take out the tanks no problem, but then are unable to kill the bunkers to finish the mission. I have run through the second mission 5-6 times and the result is always the same: -the bunkers are unkillable even if hit by 4-5 direct javelin hits;or -more annoying, I order a unit to fire at a bunker and its Javelins will "disappear" at the beginning of the turn. I have the save game, if it is useful.

Just had a very quick peek this morning at 1.03. I replaced the official 162.18 drivers with the BETA 163.44 drivers. At first glance visual quality seems to be up but FPS down on my 7900 GTX, however I have not done any serious testing/tweaking at this point. The release notes say that these drivers "...significantly improves the quality of the CM:SF experience...", but is that at the expense of speed?

That is wonderful news even though I will probably be retired by the time it comes out.

CMBB spoiled us rotten, 7 armies, all the AFVs (except some minor early war soviet stuff)to simulate every battle from 1941 to 1945. I have been playing it almost daily for 5 years, have never played the same scenario twice and I still have not played with all the vehicles. I am just playing my first scenario now with Ferdinands . BTW, any chance we may see an Eastern Front CMx2 sometimes in the future?, although presumably it would be titled CM:Stalingrad, CM:Kursk or CM:Bagration.

This thread went off the rails quickly, but about the norm for this bunch...is this what a "fatbeard wargamer" looks like? "...just point me out some of them HALO players..."

I still have a couple of CMAK pbem games going on and even took on a couple of CMBB pbem games after CMSF came out. I find I am enjoying all three. I thought I would retire CMBB/CMAK after CMSF came out, but honestly after playing all three on a daily basis, I don't find CMSF to be such a radical improvement that it blows away the other two. Right now, I think I will probably keep playing CMBB/CMAK at least until the WW2 version comes out.

Actually I meant Thermopylae since I recently saw "300" for the 1st time, but come to think of it the Persians won in the end, so Marathon is a better example.

We may be talking apples and oranges, certainly in an attrition/total war scenario, overall numbers matter since if you throw enough stuff at the other side, you should eventually win, but how many of those have there been, U.S. civil war, WW1, WW2? On an operational/tactical level, however, there have been numerous examples from Thermopylae to the Yom Kippur war when a smaller, less well equipped but better led force has beaten a bigger, well equipped but poorly led force, so you cannot say it is all a numbers game and leadership does not matter.

If you look at 1,2 and 3, the turning point came about when the opponent's leadership/army was improved, for example Grant or Montgomery taking over in 1864 and 1942 respectively. for example, the overall odds in men and weapons between AK and 8th Army did not change that much between may and october of 1942. In both cases Rommel was outnumbered, yet in May, he routs the British and in October he is beaten, numbers alone do not explain the different result. The eastern front is another example, in both 1941 and 1943, the German army had less men/weapons than the Soviets and the overall odds were not that different, yet in '41 they consistently won driving up to the gates of moscow while in '43, they were consistently driven back (despite having cooler tanks). What explains the diference other than the improvement in the leadership of the Soviet Army.

Common sense tells us that between armies of equal quality in terms of leadership, officers/NCO's effectiveness, weapons, in theory the larger army should prevail. In the history of modern warfare over the past 150 years, however, there have been many instances when armies which were numerically inferior and even had inferior weapons consistently beat larger foes, for example: 1-Lee's Army of Northern Virginia vs. the Army of the Potomac, 1862-64; 2-Rommel's Afrika Korps vs. British Eighth Army, 1941-42; 3-German Army vs. Soviet Army, 1941-42; 4-Ridgway's Eighth Army vs. Chinese Army, 1951; 5-IDF vs. Egypt, Jordan, Syria, 1967; 6-IDF vs. Egypt, Syria, 1973; Therefore, I would venture to say that the quality of the leadership of an army at all levels from the NCOs up to the commanding general is a better indicator of success than the quantity of bodies.

Does he also have a big gun?

I think it is a recuiting poster for the N.R.A.

"where's that patch?"

I think Javelins are also overpowered because of the way the game works: -you can take out entire buildings or floors, including all the enemy troops in them, although in RL the structural damage to buildings should be less, resulting in less enemy KIA; -you can take out bunkers in one shot, since they are shown and presumably modeled as a stand-alone "building", whereas in RL, a bunker would often be a more heavily fortified trench, harder to take out with just one shot; -you can take out most of an enemy infantry squad with one shot since they tend to bunch up, although regular infantry would spread out and seek cover making them harder to take out with one shot; -there is no penalty for always carrying around a Javelin. Apparently, there is supposed to be a "fatigue" penalty for carrying a Javelin. However in game, I have not noticed a practical effect.

I agree completely with leaving the MGS "Target" order as is. It would be nice if we could do something similar with the tanks: "Target" expends too much ammo and "Target light" does not pack enough punch. An intermediate order where it fires one round and then switches to MG fire would be welcome.

I wonder if DASman ran around the room shouting "we are number one!" when he heard the news.

good news, looking forward to the patch.

my Deluxe version came in the mail today, Montreal, Quebec.