Imperial Grunt

More info than you probably wanted, but.... The USMC has always been a rapid reaction force alongside US Army airborne forces. The forces have different but mutually supporting capabilities. The new "crisis response" special purpose marine air ground task forces" (SPMAGTFs) are a new standing task organization, just like MEUs. The SPMAGTF-CRs are essentially 'air contingency' battalions with organic lift and attached enablers. Both MEUs and SPMAGTF-CRs have a 6 hour notification, meaning that after receiving a task, they will plan and initiate a mission within no less than 6 hours. The CRs can also vary widely in task organization, depending on their theater. The CENTCOM SPMAGTF-CR for example is bigger than the SPMAGTF-CR in Spain, which covers Africa/Europe. MEUs are a lot more robust than a SPMAGTF-CR and have a forcible-entry capability. CRs do not have that capability. Both MEUs and CRs are composed of conventional USMC units which get additional training for their mission sets. Additionally they both are organized to aggregate into a single larger MAGTF in a scalable manner when required. They will usually be the lead unit for additional USMC forces arriving from the US or other bases. This is how these units would operate against a conventional opponent. Here is a shiny slide that demonstrates the general concept:

Get those freak'n muzzles out of the water! Great pic though!

They look great. Outstanding job Vein!

Talk about career tracks, same same here. I was at Quantico for the The Basic School and then the Infantry Officers Course when the Gulf War happened. At the time I felt like I "missed my war". Silly me.

Actually pnzrldr is our final hope....

Crap. That would be zero.

It's been requested already!

Oh, I like that list. Can they happen if I snap your fingers for you?

I can't speak for BFC, but I would recommend: 1) If you like WWII, try the other WWII titles. They are all good and BFC does its customers right by patching in the latest features. Get them all if you are a big WWII buff. 2) Keep playing the game and have fun with it. Be forewarned that its addicting. 3) Share with friends and play multiplayer. It's a blast to match tactical wits against another human being. You can even post videos of your tactical exploits on YouTube! 4) I forget number 4. Just send me money, no checks

I would love a Taiwan scenario game. It could start as a 'soft' invasion like with Crimea, but then it goes hot. China gets a foothold and a substantial force on the island, backed by separatists armed by China. Then the 7th Fleet makes crossing the straight untenable for China and cordons the island. US then sends a joint expeditionary force to assist the Taiwanese military. China refuses to give in, trying to get a divided Taiwan at least. All kinds of scenarios!

Not at all. A 'board' or 'base' has been requested. And welcome to CM!

So your saying that CMx3 will start out with... CM: I Corps, 1968 Complete with helicopters and F-4 Phantoms dropping napalm!

"The bit that you are all overlooking is that this current iteration of Combat Mission is based on a engine designed by BFC sometime in 2005. It has matured since then, but at its heart it is still at 2005ish engine. It only has single core support, I suspect it doesn't utilize video cards very well, it is a 32 bit process which severely limits the amount of RAM available to it. These are hard limitations to what the game can do. So while Wargame or Arma can look better their engines are more modern and are able to access more power. BFC just can't magically make things better, just like you can't drive your car across a marsh. A road needs to be built. The infrastructure needs to be there. My computer has a GTX 780, 8 CPU cores, 10 GB of ram. CM can only use 1 of my 8 processors, 3 of my 10 GB of ram. There are hard limits on what it can do. What Steve was alluding to early was that at this point to greatly increase the capabilities of the Combat Mission series a new engine would need to be built. The last time this was done it took something like 5 years before the customers saw any new product, and even then Shock Force had unpleasant teething issues for another year or two and I would say that it was only with CM:BN that things got smooth. So essentially 8 years of development. To get another big leap would require another big engine push and how many years to get it up to speed" I think one aspect that is different is that the conceptual game engine function has matured while in CMSF it was entirely new. I don't know if CMx2 v3.0 can be upgraded to CM×3 by keeping it's current game engine but giving it the ability to use multi-core processing and maximize video card capabilities. If the new 'under the hood' architecture could be added to what we have right now, I would be a very happy customer! I think that would completely open the door for the game to have all the functions we want, graphics and game-play wise and the game would run fast, even on my old laptop, which has 4×1.73ghz processors. (I know..I know, will be upgrading soon!). I don't want a 5 year investment on an entirely new engine. But I want the above ASAP. And more CM titles. CM with better gamer appeal = more customers. Mo' money for BFC means more games that we all love. Bring it!

Steve is alive! I heard a rumor that he was dead. Or was that J-Lo. ****, I'm getting old... I agree, CM has come a long way. The game overall looks great. There is room for improvement that would really complete the game in my opinion in the graphics department, namely better modeled destructible terrain and destructible vehicles and bringing up the sounds and SFX just a notch above what the mods that are out there do, but in a seemless manner. ARMA III level looks and investment is surely not needed. Game engine wise, the game is very close to being fully mature. But there are some tweaks that would exponentially add longevity to the game, like updating the scenario editor with improved AI capabilities and functions, making a very user-friendly multi-player system that makes head-to-head games (besides PBEM) easy and fun, and perhaps adding multi-core processing for a fast running game for a wider variety of users. I really hope tactical level WeGo never goes away as a BFC core product. New engine, new style, etc... bring it, but CM is very special for a reason! We love you for it. And if BFC can master an tactical to operational level game that does not play like a game of cardboard counters but instead puts the player in the boots of a battalion or RCT commander with his Alpha and Bravo command elements, that would be groundbreaking for the next decade! A man can dream!

LOL... I know, just pulling your chain. I can imagine a CM scifi 'universe' in which mother earth looks fairly similar to how it is now. But the US, China, and to a lesser extent Russia, have established colonies in space via a magical FTL propulsion system/using black holes, whatever. The US military dominates mankind's universe and it is pretty similar to the early 1900's but in space. Marines on US Navy ships patrol the 'space lanes', suppress insurrection on colonies, perform crisis response, and are the initial landing force for larger operations when necessary. They are organized just like MAGTFs of today but with the appropriate technology. The Army is still the principle war fighting organization with things heavy grav tanks, etc. They also garrison planetary outposts on the primary colonies. The Air Force does planetary defense and supports atmospheric ops in land campaigns (the Navy having mostly space craft and only a few fighters and shuttles to support 'ship to shore' ops. And the Chinese have their version to a lesser extent and sometimes there are "misunderstandings". So between the 2 sides, third party colonial forces/military contractors, all kinds of human vs human material. Then contact with the aliens happens and there are more than one species. One could be a robot AI that savages planets for resources, another could be like the "greys", another could be 'space lobsters' like the aliens in District 9 (but not just the 'workers'). Etc etc... I'd buy the game!

I would vote for Space Lobsters if given the chance since I love military science fiction. I read this series as a distraction during my last tour in Afghanistan. It's human on human installer conflict but the physics and science is very well done. A zero-pressure combat environment would definitely suck! The ship to ship combat is equally brutal. No shields. Short range microwave beams cooking crews and frying electronics to high speed kinetic mass rail gun type weapons fired at predicted vectors at super long ranges for a spectacular collision. It's very well done in that regard. The storyline ain't Starship Troopers quality but the science is much better and explained. Overall, I really liked it. Besides it's about Marines in space. Yut! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritage_Trilogy

I recommend Fraps. Google it, it's a free program.

Maybe it has a 30mm Nerf gun and sticky-foam rockets! And of course it has 'whisper mode' DUH.

Kieme, I thought the mix you made for CMBS music was epic. Really good job man.

How about this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFDtuP3yfCk

What a classic film!

But I'm broke. BF doesn't pay for scenarios. I'll make more though