Lee

Nice shot, those bombing runs are always fun.

I think the way it works is that CMII: Normandy is a full game, then modules for it; CMII: After Normandy will be a full game, then modules for it; CMII: Eastern Front will be a full game, then modules for it. Patches will be released with each module that will improve the full game the module belongs to, minus the new units and weapons that are specific to each module (like the 1.10 patch for CMII SF), even if you don't have that particular module.

Secondbrooks: I guess the Finnish army places a greater priority on their TOW teams being able to move the TOW launcher around for best tactical positioning in a fast, flexible and efficient manner, so they make sure to provide enough men to do the job right. I think this is a good idea that Finland has, you don't want to have to load the TOW back up onto a truck every time you want to move it more than a few feet (during which time you are quite vulnerable and much more visible to the enemy). That would pretty well limit the TOW's practical use to completely static defenses. The Finnish method provides much more flexibility and stealthy movement.

The U.S. military does the same sort of thing. The Navy, for example, will throw things overboard from their ships, just waste it, rather than having to see their budget decreased for the next year (even though they obviously don't really need to spend that much money each year, since they had so much stuff left over). The branches of the military have this ego thing going on, where they don't like to see their branch of service getting it's budget cut while another branch might get an increase in it's budget. They find that embarrassing, they want all the power, money and the prestige that goes along with it that they can get their hands on. It's really stupid, but that's what goes on. At least you guys got to do a bunch of shooting, which is great practice for a really intense battle and much more fun than throwing stuff overboard. I wish I could have seen it.

Considering how detailed CM2 is, I'm surprised that it doesn't work that way now (that you can't target all action spots in a building for area fire that are currently in LOS). That would solve problems like this very nicely. Even if you can't see the center of the building, no problem, just target the nearest action spot in LOS in the building to where the enemy is hiding with area fire.

Here's an interesting video. An F-18 is conducting a rocket attack in Iraq, and you can clearly see the rockets being fired, which is something you don't often see on video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDcqTGwjNT0&feature=related

Here's another cool video of an F-18, both strafing and rocketing terrorists in Iraq. And an extra video of an arab soldier trying to fire what looks like a recoiless rifle. haha

Steve: Sounds great, looking forward to seeing the new more accurate air strike model in action.

flamingknives: Only if nothing gets in the way and the range isn't too far... This sounds like a bad idea, they are going to be giving up a lot of volume of fire, which is the reason you have a SAW in the first place supplementing the M240's. They should just use the MK46 and call it a day. Or if they are determined to use a magazine for whatever strange reason, then go with a .308 weapon, so you at least have some solid penetration capability to compensate for the lack of ammo capacity.

Well, seeing as how BTS is a U.S. game company and our friends and relatives over there in Europe are allies of ours, even if they all aren't dropping bombs at this minute in Afghanistan or Iraq, I think the "our" applies quite nicely to the vast majority, either directly or in spirit.

Video of an A-10 strafing what appears to be a warehouse in Iraq.

Good idea, in-game A-10 strafing run. Looks like that building is getting hammered pretty good.

A couple videos showing A-10's firing. The first is an Air Force promo video, but where they got some of the sound from I don't know, but it's worth it to see what the happens when the A-10 strafes a tank. The second is a video showing A-10's training in Korea, nice clear pictures and great sound. And also some more great air strike videos. And, as a bonus, a pretty unique video showing what I'm pretty sure is an M1 tank fring into a building where terrorists are hiding. This video shows with more clarity than I've ever seen before what happens when the bad guys get hit by an M1 while in a building. Let's just say, if they wanted to die, it looks like they got their wish. hehe Of note is a video that apparently shows a maverick missle taking out some terrorist target in Iraq. You don't see maverick hits on video all that often, it seems. Probably fired by an A-10 or maybe an F-16. Also, look at the explosion when a U.S. jet takes out a terrorist car bomb factory! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ3ZI04eTiQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XitKRLzGf4&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=extUAWpCgHI&feature=related

I meant that it's one of the best videos showing an attack chopper air strike at night. And while the enemy is too far away to see exactly what is being hit, and there in fact may be several targets being hit at once, based on the other attack chopper videos we have where the target area can be clearly seen, it's very safe to assume that there was a high degree of accuracy on the indicated target/s. I agree that it's very preferable to have veteran units lead the attack when conducting a major operation. Or at least have plenty of veteran soldiers mixed in with the less experienced men to advise them on the finer points of combat tactics. Apparently the Russians had planned something like this for awhile. And when the time came, they were ready and hit the Georgians hard. It's sad to see us fighting amongst ourselves, though.

M1A1TC: I'm sorry to hear that. We certainly appreciate the sacrifices our troops make in Afghanistan and Iraq. I'm so glad to see that attacks on our troops have gone down to almost nothing in many areas in Iraq over the last year, so we now have very few losses taking place on average per month. I look forward to them coming back home victorious soon.

I agree that the best pilots can get even better. But with the huge amount of combat experience our Apache, Cobra, Huey and Blackhawk gunship pilots have in Afghanistan and Iraq after flying *tons* of air strike missions, they are all more or less at least in the "excellent" level of combat skill rating. So any terrorists (or Syrian army, etc.) that they are making attack runs on are in serious trouble, whether the pilots are in the 160th or not. Below is another awesome video of a Cobra gunship pilot laying down some serious cannon and rocket fire on a terrorist target across a river.

I knew that post had to be wrong, there's just no way sights can take anywhere near that much punishment. If anything, they are pretty fragile. Very interesting about that German infantry unit shooting that sherman tank until it was a non-functional wreck with just 8mm Mauser rounds. It just goes to show that even though the main armor on a tank can be quite tough, there are plenty of other things that can be badly damaged or completely ruined with just small arms fire.

Very interesting artillery vehicle. I imagine you could do some serious damage with that in direct fire mode!

Here's some more videos showing F-18's strafing. In the first one, terrorists are caught trying to set up a car bomb and are hit by one of our F-18's. If you crank your volume up really loud, you can hear the gun being fired near the end of the video as he strafes other terrorists who come out to help the ones that just got bombed. The second video shows a great clear shot of a strafing run in the day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j-JUB-dt2I&feature=related Steve: Glad to hear there have been improvements to the modeling of the rockets, currently they can be wildly inaccurate (more so than is realistic).

What you do is you issue the heavier vests to only those that really need them, and issue the lighter ones to everyone else. The guys that would benefit most are Marines driving around in vehicles on patrol and stuff like that, where they don't have to get out and hoof it much or move around quickly. Of course, the number of roadside bombings by the terrorists has dropped to almost nothing in many areas where it previously happened a lot before the troop surge, so very few of the Marines even on patrol would need such heavy stuff. Which is *great* news, since it means many many fewer of our guys are getting hurt. But it also means we need to buy a lot of the lighter armored vests now.

Well, what can I say, Steve? As usual, Steve and Charles continue to impress with the superb level of detail in the CM design. Name another wargame where an individual soldier grabs an M4 off his buddy who's wounded, and will thus not be needing his weapon for now, then gets in a shootout with the bad guys, fires his MG until it's out of ammo, doesn't have time to reload, so instead he switches over to the short barreled M-16 he just happens to have now and empties some magazines at the enemy with it? I mean, how cool is that??! Talk about detailed, I don't think I've ever seen an AI controlled soldier do all those things even in a first-person-shooter game! It just goes to further prove that CMII is the most realistic and detailed tactical land combat computer wargame ever.

Wow, these pictures are of unusually high quality! Truly dream pictures for anyone wanting to get accurate vehicle details, colors and camo schemes to paint their Russian armor model kits with. Also great for modders to use. Thanks for the cool link. And respect to the Russian soldiers who maintained and painted all those vehicles so superbly.

I very much agree. If there is a long enemy trench line filled with troops, it's silly to try a point target attack on that, when what the pilot would do is lay down fire along the axis of the trench. Whether that be a strafing attack, or firing rockets, or laying down bombs in a staggered drop to hit the trench along it's length. The player should be able to specify a line target on the battlefield, like you can with artillery. Plus be able to indicate which direction the attack should take place from to try and protect friendly troops from getting hit by stray fire. So you could tell the pilot to come in from north to south, or east to west, etc.

I don't see how that's possible. I would think even a 50mm round would severely mess up, if not utterly destroy, any kind of optical sight, especially if it was an AP round.

Griping is a long-standing tradition in the military, but the way these hollywood types depict it is more like girlish whining. I see in the latest episode they show Marines showing up out of nowhere and running up to a berm near some buildings, where nothing is happening, no shooting, etc., just some kids and other civilians walking around. Then these Marines, for no apparent reason, start shooting at the kids, the buildings, everything, all while ignoring the pleas of the Lt. (I think it was him) to stop firing. The whole thing looks completely bizarre and staged. Why in the world would they do that, for no reason randomly running up and shooting at buildings as though they were in the middle of some big fire fight when the place was totally silent before they got there? Unless, of course, some important piece of information about what really happened is not being shown as to why they thought fire needed to be brought on those buildings. None of that is shown, though. How convenient. So they leave viewers with the impression these Marines are lunatics just wanting to shoot civilians for entertainment purposes. Hey, it's HBO, I guess I'm not surprised. I wonder what they'll stick in the next show? Maybe they'll show arab kids playing on a swing set and then Marines show up and start throwing frag grenades at them just to test out the shrapnel patterns...