Rick

Hilarious! Some unusual looking equipment too. Makes my mouth water. I need to put together a better image editing machine. Hope that none of the things I need to do for image editing will compromise my CMSF performance. Image editing has to come first, I am a photographer for Pete's sake.

Never said that it is equivalent just that, in connection with what I've always been taught, and some of that was in JROTC and the Merchant Marine Academy, white phosphorous is technically a chemical weapon. My biggest issue with occurrences like these is yes s@#t happens in war, it's virtually unavoidable. That's one of the prime reasons why one needs a better reason to start a war than what we had. Some abstract fear of some possible hostile act in the remote future does not qualify. One of the first rules of ethics is the rule of universality, thus if something is true it's true across the board. Therefore, if it is justifiable for us to invade Iraq because they scare us, then anyone we scare (I imagine roughly half the world) would be justified in invading us. The protecting us from terrorism etc. explanation doesn't hold up for everyone. There those of us who'd rather let a terrorist kill us than see America make the changes that it is.

Steve, love your message here in general. Although, I'd like to also mention is another reason that people such as myself hold America to a higher standard is that it's our country. We want are nation to live by a high moral code, especially when such issues are touted as reason for starting the war in the first place: "they have bad weapons we got to go kick their butts" then we go and use weapons of that sort.

I think we should give them credit for the job of regulating/managing this forum. It is a difficult thing to balance the desire for free speech and the desire to not see ones business, hard work, and passion being derided on ones very own forum. Wheras, I'd accept people saying my photos suck, I don't think I could bring myself to publish those sentiments on my web site.

Very curious to see how the Paladin is modeled. The Army guy that I've most recently been able to talk to was a Paladin gunner; served in Korea and Kuwait, between the two wars. The only other vehicle I've heard inside stories about was the M60. A good friend joined the Guard upon graduation from High School and he was an M60 driver. Back in the days when I was considering the military I remember getting a tour of an M60 on one of our JROTC field trips. That convinced me I didn't want to be a tanker, way to claustrophonic for that.

Ok, that's what I expected. I saw something, can't remember what it was now that made me wonder if you decided to put it off until the first beta build. Personally, I'm amazed that CMSF is going to work, looks nearly impossible to me; maybe I'm just programmed to have too low of standards. CMx1 initially shocked, but I've become used to that. CMx2 just looks like a pretty big step further.

I was rereading the Official Announcement today and it got me to wondering; has there been a change in plans regarding the official website, or just some delays?

Wow,guys you're giving more info than I expected. The take on the M249 is what I exected, but wouldn't have felt confident in my idea without someone who has real knowledge of the systems confirming. So, does anyone have any opinions on the long range evolution of small arms? What kind of weapons would be in a Combat Mission set say 50 years into the future?

For those of you who really like the M249 SAW, what do you think of the smaller caliber than the 60? That was the first thing that caught my attention with the new weapon; the weapon being used in that role having the same caliber as the rifles.

Wow, thanks guys. I can keep myself entertained for awhile with this info and know what I'm looking at when CMSF comes along.

Does anyone know of a good source on the kinds of small arms that might be in CMSF? I'm completely clueless what's happened since the M16A2. Like for instance, why have we eliminated the M60 from the squad level and have the SAW now?

Steve, beautiful joke man.

I think these discussions on this forum and the reading I've done to back it up are convincing me that the Stryker is much better than I originally thought. OTOH, if my rear was over in Iraq, I would still prefer that it be in an Abrams.

I'd like to say how brilliant I find the first post. I too am usually a fan of WWII stuf over all other subject matter. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that this is going to be pretty darn good and I certainly intend to approach it with an open mind rather than go off half-cocked at this point. Besides, it sure can be fun to play with the gee-wiz gizmos from time to time. Now the politics behind modern conflicts vs WWII is another matter, but I don't see as how that impacts how enjoyable the game will be.

I too am anxious to see how differently this will be dealt with than what we have seen. However, for play balance sake, I don't think it will be quite that ubiquitous.

Is this something I'd understand if I were an Ozzie?

I'm interested in finding out what Battlefront defines as "mid-summer."

Now this is a CMx2 thread that is rolling with the good stuff. Very excited about the story, and reduction of the "god" phenomena. I think the story is one of the most important things you're working on for increasing the interest over the long haul, and the "god" issues for improving realism. Another thing I would like to see improved is methods to convey to the player things that he would probably know before attacking than what is in CMx1. I currently feel that we know way too little going into an assault, however meeting engagements would presumably be with very little intel.

What is up with the wargaming crowd that we can't be grateful for the games we're given. Photography is my main thing and it's an activity I love more than most can imagine. Yet, I am grateful for the cameras that exist, despite having some fairly serious complaints - I can still do what I intend. Granted I will give my advice, but don't consider ignoring one of my suggestions sacrilege. As that applies to this situation, I will say that PBEM is the most utilitarian way to play multiplayer that I have found and playing against humans is definitely more enjoyable. Thus I am a little nervous about the possibility of losing it, but I am willing to wait and see what will be without raising a fuss. I figure odds are that BFC will deliver a game that I will enjoy. Admittedly, there are games that I play now that either PBEM is impossible or impractical. I am definitely quite dissapointed that PBEM just doesn't happen with these games, but you know, they're damn fun - so I suck it up and play against the computer.

Sounds like that is probably beyond my understanding. Interesting that you use the term geeky describing the story. One of my friends' husband use to work for a computer game company and she says their company holiday parties were exceedingly boring for those not into computer games. Like most of his coworker could talk of nothing else.

My having missed the Borg stuff probably is related to my other comment, the forum was becoming less interesting for awhile, thus I checked it less often. It's incredibly interesting now, thus I check it frequently. I'll have to find the time to look up the earlier posts. Are you guys still doing your primary programming on a Mac? Don't know how I ended up on a PC, I am primarily a photographer and that community is mostly on Macs, especially when I first got into the whole thing.

Glad to see that talk of CMx2 has put a little more life back into the forums again. Also glad to see some serious bone-throwing these days, although actually understanding them is not totally there. I for one am just trying to have faith in BFC. 1:1 at first-glance sounds like a disaster in the making. Then again, I thought 3D sounded that way at first and CM is my favorite game around, although I also love HTTR and WitP. So as for an actual question; someday will there be as many bones on the borg spotting issue as the 1:1 issue? The borg spotting is personally the issue I stress about its impact on realism, also one that I can't think of really good solutions to either.

This thread has proved to be a pretty good bone, if a vague one. It boggles the mind of someone with exceedingly limited coding experience, how this could be done. If the new engine truly is this flexible while still improving or retaining other gameplay issues, I think it'll blow us away. At first I thought this sometime in '05 thing sounded improbable, but if you guys have been working on it since CMBB, it seems possible. It just seems amazing to be doing more than one project at once, but I guess most of us probably do it at our jobs too.

I agree CMx2 will be the only thing that finally kills these games for me. As CMBB kind of killed CMBO. CMBB survived the release of CMAK though. I have cut back my CM playing drastically, pretty much only PBEM now. My time playing against the computer is usually spent playing some other wargames. I still think CM is the best though. I want them to be as thorough with CMx2 as the previous games, but I hope they release it before the community whithers away too much.

Anyone remember on which web site posted the one report that we have seen?