Sgt Joch

good news, looking forward to the patch.

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

JasonC, Did you ever release your Kutuzov scenario pack?

We had the same discussion in CMAK and I believe the conclusion was that it was more or less realistic. In North Africa, both the British and the Germans used trucks to raise huge clouds of dust to confuse their enemies as to the real line of attack.

we may be "small", but we are cute, furry and love to be scratched on the belly...no wait, that's my dog... ..anyway, we have a good sense of humour, does'nt that count for anything?

There is a "Steppe" terrain tile in the map editor. It is reddish in color, but looks fine on a map. I used it often in homemade CMBB scenarios.

-modern era COH or TOW? -larger scale GRAW2? I doubt I would have noticed, although to be fair I did not notice when CMBO was first released either. It was combination of a positive review of CMBO at SIMHQ and the pre-release buzz among serious wargaming sites surrounding CMBB that got me interested enough to download the CMBB demo.

I think you underestimate our capacity to find new things to complain about, we are GROGS after all...

YES and NO, a definite MAYBE. Some things I like and are an improvement over CMx1.(i.e. graphics, relative spotting, air/arty implementation, command&control, 1:1 implementation) Some things I don't like and feel like a step backwards from CMx1.(i.e. current WEGO/PBEM issues, Pathfinding, Tac AI, LOS/LOF issues) Right now, I am ambivalent and will probably be until a few more patches come out fixing some of the obvious issues. [ August 21, 2007, 02:19 PM: Message edited by: Sgt.Joch ]

I'm actuallly all over the place. RT w/o pause, RT with pause, WEGO...still can't make up my mind which I prefer, although once I get into PBEM, I suppose it will be WEGO.

totally off topic of course, but we have not had a good Iraq debate in what? two weeks?

it's more complicated than that. I would say it is the difference between the world weary & cynical ("Old School"! )diplomacy practiced by France and many other countries and the bright eyed and bushy-tailed ("New School") diplomacy practiced by the Bush administration. If the U.S. had proposed an Old School type plan, for example assassinate Hussein or depose him in a coup d'état and have him replaced by another Sunni general more palatable to the U.S., I am certain France would have had no objection. However, if you look at the New School plan that was actually trotted out in 2002: 1. invade and take over Iraq; 2. turn Iraq into a western style democracy; and 3. give U.S. companies the lion share of any reconstruction contracts since the U.S. will be supplying most of the troops. It becomes a high risk/low gain plan for France since there is a high probability of failure on #2 and little potential upside on #3. The U.S. may still be able to pull it off, but right now I would say the score in the Iraq match is: U.S. 0, Iran 1. (Iran also practices Old School diplomacy).

I doubt we will see a French module for market reason also. Picking on the French is an easy laugh for americans, since French foreign policy is seen as being anti-american, but it's not, it is pro-french. France has always been very clear headed (some might say cynical) about using its foreign policy to promote the interests of France. Unlike the United Kingdom, which since WW2 has more or less tried to maintain a close alliance (some might say, getting into bed ) with the U.S.A. France has tried to carve out its own role, since France still sees herself (much to the amusement of the U.S.A., Russia and China) as a great power. The European Community was initially driven by France's desire to carve out a third power bloc between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. DeGaulle pulled out of NATO because he saw it as dominated by U.S. and U.K. and they rebuffed his efforts to turn it into a tri-partite leadership. Even now, as any euro-watcher can attest, Great Britain and France always watch each other carefully to ensure they are treated as equals in any international organization. In 1967, DeGaulle unceremoniously dropped his support for Israel since he realized it was more important to maintain close links with the Arab world. France has pursued that policy ever since, often to the exasperation of the U.S., for example when the French government turns a blind eye to the presence of suspected terrorists on its territory or expels a convicted terrorist to a friendly arab country. The policy works, however, France and French commercial interests maintain privileged links troughout most of former french north africa, including Algeria. In addition, as a net oil importer, France cannot afford to piss off the Arabs. It was mostly to maintain their good relationship in the Arab world that France was not interested in the Iraq adventure. In addition, Chirac suspected and repeated often in 2002-03 that an Iraq invasion would turn into a quagmire. France fought its own arab war in Algeria for eight long years,in 1954-1962, which Chirac saw first hand as a reserve army officer. It was a vicious, no holds bar, dirty war, also featuring terrorist attacks againt civilians and torture of suspects. The French Army fought very well, winning every single engagement against the rebel forces, sealing the borders and gradually strangling the F.L.N.forces in-country, however an increasing lack of political will in Paris and sheer épuisement in the french population forced DeGaulle to negotiate with the F.L.N. In the end, elements of the army, including crack Paras and Légion regiments rebelled against the government in an ill conceived and botched coup attempt, the repercussions of which tore the French Army apart for years afterwards. So there were very good reasons for France's refusal to follow the U.S. into Iraq, anti-americanism, however, was way down the list. As an aside, Président Sarkozy recently made a short vist to Algeria where he received a very warm welcome. Setting up an economic union between France and Algeria was one of the item on the agenda. Sarkozy in first visit to Algeria promotes union What is the current state of the relationship between the U.S. and Vietnam?

yes, unfortunately I don't see this project going anywhere: 1.After the time and investment in CMx2, which at this point seems to be paying off, I don't see BFC going back to CMx1. 2. BFC could, of course, offer the CMx1 code as "open source", but since any "new" CMx1 product would potentially compete with BFC CMx2 WW2 products, it would not be a wise business move.

Calling JasonC - Did you ever release your Kutuzov scenario pack? I did not see it at TPG. I would love to playtest it if it is available.

The Légion Étrangère was originally setup to patrol and pacify France's empire, principally North Africa. In fact, the main base used to be in Algeria. Since 1962, they are based in France and are still used by French government as elite troops to intervene overseas, often in African countries were France maintains a sphere of interest. The Légion has always been mostly made up of foreigners, even now based on chart I saw recently, germans make up the largest group at about 20-25%.

By the way, one interesting historical tidbit about the Légion Étrangère is that in the years right after 1945, between 35-50% of its membership (depending on sources) was made up of former german soldiers. I am sure a lot of former SS troopers found it a convenient place to be forgotten.

oui, La Légion devrait être incluse.

I am a detailed obsessed GROG and I know it. I bought CMBB because it dealt with the Eastern Front and CMAK because it dealt with the Afrika Korps and still have PBEM games going on in each, but Steve brings up a good point, Grogs are and always have been a small niche market, we may not like it but it is a fact of life. Any game company which wants to grow and make money has to appeal to a broader audience.With CMx2, BFC is trying to appeal to a more mainstream gaming market while still trying to please the Grog community, a tough challenge, as anyone who has visited a IL-2 or Silent Hunter forum can see. We Grogs tend to be the most demanding and critical group of gamers there is, which is probably why there are so few mainstream realistic simulations around, since most companies don't think the potential sales are worth having to deal with such a complaining bunch. My 17 year old son and his friends are all World of Warcraft players. His eyes used to glaze over whenever I would try to get him interested in CMBB or CMAK. However, he does find CMSF mildly interesting, so BFCs gamble may pay off. I personally hope it does, since I know it is the only way we will continue having realistic/semi-realistic tactical combat simulations coming to the market, even though I realize I will probably never see a CMx2:Eastern Front or CMx2:North Africa.

check this out: web page finishing touches look in part 6, "finishing touches", it is all explained with screenshots.

JasonC, this debate, as I am sure you know, as being going on since tanks were invented in WW1. In the 1920's and 30's, you had airpower theorists who were predicting that Air Power had rendered all land weapons, including tanks, obsolete. In the 1950's and 1960's, it was the nuclear bomb that was rendering conventional war, and Tanks, obsolete. In the defence establishment, which includes serving officers, government officials, "Think tank" intellectuals and defence contractors, you have always had pro- and anti-armour advocates. I am sure that in the thousands of pages of documents which are produced each year on this subject, you can find ample justification for both the "tanks are dead" or the "tanks are here to stay" lobby. The Shinseki/Rumsfeld era was not the first time (or the last) that the anti-armour lobby was in power and that the pro-armour lobby was laying low, yet Abrams were at the tip of the spear going into Baghdad. I will believe that tanks are dead when the U.S. Army actually disbands its armour units and scraps its tanks.

Well, I dont agree with your opinion. As soon as I found out that Strykers were coming, I started reading in Army Times and various other official publications that Armor was going away, decreasing in size. For example, my own Armor unit was disbanded and we became ADA, and later MPs. When you bring in vehicle like Stryker, other combat vehicle specialties like M1A1 Abrams crew member suffer </font>

I have the same nitpick. The AI will shoot off all of its artillery at the "support targets" at the beginning. I would also like to have the ability to have the artillery fire come in on the pre-planned targets at a specified delay (i.e. 3-5 min.) after enemy units are spotted in the area. I have thought of a couple of rough workarounds, but have not gotten around to testing if they actually work: 1. have artillery come in as a reinforcement after a specific time, say 5-15 mins.; or 2. "bake" the scenario and give the AI specific targeting instructions at the beginning of the scenario.

Slightly off-topic, but as anyone else seen this email by a Canadian LAV commander in Afghanistan? it sure sounds like a "war" to me:

I was talking about their respective army and equipment. I agree Iran is in a better strategic position because of its size and geography, similar, on a smaller scale of course, to the Soviet Union in WW2. It would take a lot of troops to conquer and occupy Iran. Regarding how good the Syrians are in CMSF, I don't think the included scenarios necessarily do justice to the RL qualities/capabilities of their army (they do have some). I am finishing a scenario, which I will hopefully release this weekend, which features a more powerful, but still realistic, Syrian defender (shameless plug! )