Midnight Warrior

Here is an interesting article that might shed some light on what would make a credible background story. Apparantly (according to the article) there is some connection between Syria and Iran. Perhaps the Iranians starts something and the fire spread to Syria. Perhaps NATO gets involved becuase the situation becomes too threatening to Europes oil lifeline. Perhaps there is a wider war with Iran and Syria is just one part of a bigger war just as in Iraq and Afganistan. article BTW, by cited this article I am not endorsing any or all of what it says rather this is just FYI

Here is an interesting article that might shed some light on what would make a credible background story. Apparantly (according to the article) there is some connection between Syria and Iran. Perhaps the Iranians starts something and the fire spread to Syria. Perhaps NATO gets involved becuase the situation becomes too threatening to Europes oil lifeline. Perhaps there is a wider war with Iran and Syria is just one part of a bigger war just as in Iraq and Afganistan. article BTW, by cited this article I am not endorsing any or all of what it says rather this is just FYI

That brings up a good question... ...will CM:SF include Avengers... and if so will they have anything to shoot at with their Stingers (like Syrian off board helos)? Or will the Avengers operate at a levelabove the CM:SF scale? In CMx1 the AAA could shoot at CAS aircraft (if I am not mistaken). Will CM:SF have comparable functionality with Avengers, Stinger manpacks, SA-7's, ZSU-23's, etc.?

I wonder if in a MOUT setting the body armor pays it way in that perhaps in that setting protection is more important than mobility?

It seems like it is the time honored trade of mobility verses protection. You cn be light and fast or heavy and slow. It applies to all types of weapon systems. F-16's verses A-10's to body armor. And those systems that are both like US fast battleships in WWII tend to be high tech and pricey which leads to a quantity vesres quality argument. I wonder in the CM:SF context how this will be played out? I would imagine that the speed a leg unit moves would be a function of how nuch stuff they are toting around. On the other hand the ability for the enemy to out run our forces on sound contacts from noisy Chinucks and such may be above the scale of CM:SF (other than indirectly affecting the sceanrio layouts). Based on what CMx1 has such as sound contacts tt does seem that CM:SF would have the mechanics to model someof these effects. Stryker will be harder to hear verses Bradely's and Abrams and be able to move faster and thus sneak up on units quiter and faster. But will the small maps and short time scales allow for these effcts to make a lot of difference. Also, will these effects be a pronounced in a non counter insurgeny type operation? Perhaps that is the rub ..in the final analysis, asymmetric warfare = counter insurgeny? Once again it will be realy interesting to see how BFC handles all these things.

Here is an interesting link on body armor. There is a news video clip there of a soldier that was shot by a sniper and (happily) the body armor saved his life. Web page on body armor

I found a video that depicts breaching a door similar to what was described in the AAR. video

BTW. I just stumbled into this site. Cool! That may be one of the bigest challanges for them to solve. What happens in the next turn when the attacker exits the map in 10 minutes verse 30 minutes or 50 minutes. This begs a question. The turns are one hour. Does that mean that the resulting CMBB games will also be one hour? Also, I am wondering if they will have staged reinforcements in the CMBB battles. If one unit (say a company) moves off the map after 20 minutes and another after 40 minutes will they arrive on the new map in the next turn twenty minutes apart? Also if CMC too severlyrestricts where the defender can set up (at the edge, in the middle, etc) then that tips the attacker of where the defender will be in that he will know withouthaving to recon that the defender always sits up sayin the middile of the map. The issue is what is called quantization error. Since the CMC game is quantized into one hour turns and 1km squares. Thus one hour events (like exit times) may be difficult to hand off from one turn to another without there being messy "seams" between the turns where the action is fluid within a CMBB sub game but jumpy between CMC turns. Hopefully they will come up with clever solutions to these types of problems.

Not to change the topic but a funny thought occured to me. You know what would be bit ironic is that after CM:SF comes out (plus perhaps a follow on module or two) that people complain when BFC goes back to doing WWII....How can I fight tanks without my ATGMs? My ATR shots just bounce off harmlessly! How can I locate the enemy without my UAV's? On the other hand (in a slightly more serious vein) I am betting that the insights gained for doing a modern war will pay dividends in spades when BFC does go back to doing WWII in that even though the hardware may be different many of the principles will still apply. What I find particularly interesting is that there is such a wealth of information from all the recent vets on the forum. This access to such expert help alone ought to make CM:SF of winner. Couple that with BFC proven track record for making the best tactical wargames in the the world and one can hardly help getting excited about CM:SF even if one is a dyed in the wool WWII fanatic. Whether modern combat is one's cup or tea or not CM:SF looks like it is going to be one awesome cup of tea! I, myself, am still in the process of working through my own WWII witdrawal sypmtoms but at the same time the more I read about CM:SF and look at the new technologies hat it brings to the wargaming community the more intriging it becomes. Edit. clarified wording a bit. [ October 16, 2005, 12:29 PM: Message edited by: Midnight Warrior ]

Syrian infantry stumble on US vehicle treated by super duper secret stealth invisibility paint due to the vehicle's crew forgeting to paint one of the vehicle's tires after changing a flat.

I agree. I just watched some of the other videos. Some of this is pretty sobering stuff! It is one thing to see engineering test shots against unmanned targets; it is quite another to see actual combat footage where real people are being wasted with high tech weapons. All I can say is Lord, have mercy on their souls (and ours as well). I've been thinking that perhaps it might not be such a bad thing if CM:SF turns out to be somewhat a turkey shoot after all. Perhaps some potential enemy may play the game and think better of taking on the US and try tat much harder to settle whatever dispute they have with us peacably. It may be an unlikely scenario but it is a nice thought. (BTW, I'm not trying to make any political statement here.. it is just some of those videos were a bit grim). [ October 15, 2005, 10:53 PM: Message edited by: Midnight Warrior ]

I found a LOSAT video here .

I agree! I saw a video of a LOSAT test firing. It simply is a matter of KE = 1/2 m*v^2 where V is unreal and m is not too shabby either! Will LOSAT be fielded by 2007 so as to be includ in CM:SF?

From the above one can conclude that if the Syrian's are going to have to fight with 30 year Sagger missiles, etc they are going to be at a big dissadvantage when going against US armor. On the other hand if they are given new stuff like these KORNET ATGM's then even the conventional armor battles might not be quite the turkey shoot that everyone seems to be predicting. This leasd me to wonder if the Syrians are going to be given their fair share of these high tech toys in the CM:F TO@E's. Perhaps they can be included in the game with a high rarity factor for "historically" balanced quick battles but this never the less would allow for enterprising 3rd party scenario designers to use them to build more evenly matched scenarios who prefer good old fashion WWII style symmetric warfare (rather than being strictly limited BFC's predeliction for the new fangled assymetric variety..though that look very interesting too!). TGiven this, even the non MOUT battles might be categorically challenging too (without having to even them out through other factors such as victory conditions, etc). Thus if BFC allows the sceanrio designers a bit of poetic license in giving the Syrians newer technology by including some of the newer Red force technology even if these are not quite yet in the Syrian's armies inventories. This might also in part appeal to the gamer's sense of good sportmanship in that if (God forbid) that this 2007 war between Syria and the US actually happened, as an American I would hope that it wouldn't be anything even close to a "fair fight"! But in regard to the 2007 war being fought virtually with our little pixelated soldiers, having the option to play a more fair fight might add to the over all enjoyability of the game. Thus I guess what I am trying to say is that it seems that BFC and we their customers should be able to have our cake and eat it too in regard to the Syrian player having their fair share of high tech goodies verses having "credible" scenarios that refelct what a 2007 war would likley be. At least that is what I am hoping.

I think 600 mph is a bit fast. For example go here and you will see that the maximum TOF for a TOW missile is 20 sec.

Zemke, Way to go! It takes a big person to admit when they are wrong.

I guess I left myself wide open for that one! BTW, Since there seems to be a follow on module that might bring in Marine units and NATO units perhaps this wish list could include "new" features, wepaons, etc that we wouldalso like to se in the CM:SF possible follow on modlue (especially since most of the things for CM:SF are already decided anyway. 1. Comm and GPS Jamming. I think it would be cool to have com and GPS jamming modluled. Now the actual jammng would certainly be done at a hiher level than CM simulates. But perhaps the affects could show up at the CM level. Thus the jamming environment might be specified as part of the scenario. If the scenario specifies heavy comm jamming then there may be increased delays in calling in artillery, CAS, and passing data link targets among networked units. If there is GPS jamming GPS guided weapons may have bigger CEPs. Thus the jamming itself would not have to be modeled but just the effects. This might give more variety in the game in hat tactics that work well in non jamming environments might have to be modified to account for a high jamming environment. 2. Year based rarity factor. I imagine CM:SF will have some form of rarity factor for purchasing weapons. It would be neat if this factor could be indexed at what year the war started. Thus if one plays a 2007 war the weapons would have a 2007 rarity factor. If one selects a 2009 war then those weapons that were more rare in 2007 might be less rare and perhaps a few new weapons that just aree't quite gonna mack it in 2007 might be available. This might justify BFC adding maybe a few beyond 2007 weapons into the game (if we ask nicely). 3. Assault Helos. (This perhaps falls into the next module category since BFC has said that there will be no on board helos in CM:SF) but adding a Blackhawk helos for air assults would be cool (and maybe some Syrian helos too). They could be modeled prety much like a truck other than they can fly over obstacles and can be shot at by IR SAMs. We can assume that they have cleared out with SEAD and Joint SEAD all the RF SAMs before they are employed. All other fire should not be that different than shooting at a fast moving ground vehicle. BTW, if the argument is that these Vietnam type assualts are no longer survivable, I would counter argue that this could be used to allieve some of the likely pent up frustration of the Syrian players who keep getting mauled by superior US technology by giving them a possible chance to have their own turkey shoots given the helo assult is missmanaged or just unlucky. 4. Amphibious Vehicles. In the next module (if Marines are included) perhaps BFC can add some amphibious vehicles. Once again these these could be treated much the same as a truck or APC that can also go over water. This was reportedly too hard to do in CMx1 series but perhaps this could be used to show off just how much more powerful the new engine is by having an amphibious vehicle or two show up in Module 2! edit: fixed some typoes and omissions [ October 14, 2005, 04:11 PM: Message edited by: Midnight Warrior ]

How 'bout adding English subtitles.

Now that everyone has had time to get over the "shock and awe" of the announcement of CM:SF what new features would you like to see that would be especially cool in a near modern setting? By this I mean not general features like PBEM, WEGO, etc but specific to this setting like UAV's etc. For me I'd lie to see: 1. duh ...tactical UAV's where you can plot their trajectories (like any other vehicle) and they can have their own spotting rules commsurate with whatever their sensor payload is. However, the anti borg spotting rules would still apply so that what ever the UAV sees is not instantly seen by everybody else but rather has to be passed throughsomesort of C2. 2. detail laser designator rules that affect account for the timelines required for designation during the time of flight of a laser guided weapon, fild of regard limitation, etc and also model laser warning sensors (if their are any fielded yet). 3. Improved off board artillery spotting and call for fire rules that better model the fire support systems and their doctrines and equiment. The spotter should be able to call different types of rounds, different sheaf patterns, different methods of specifying the time to impact such as immediate, on command, and TOT fire, and the number of rounds to be fired. The capabilities of fire support vehicles like the stryker fire support variant should be modeled.

Having read a lot of these posts about dissapointed gamers I think that perhaps their unhappiness ultimately stems from the idea that it just doesn't seem cricket (or fun) to be simulating a super power light the US (plus NATO forces too..even though they may have to wait to the next module)fighting against a small country like Syria. I, for one can empathize with this. Fo rit seems for many (from a gaming standpoint ..and not real life)that fighting a huge world war where nations are desperately fihting for their national survival is more "fun" and satisfying than playing sceanrios where a huge country pick on a small one with the goal of not losing too many men in the process. On the other hand that seems to be the world in which we live now and that is just the kind of wars that we have seen hapen and are the ones that are likley to happenin the future. Thus BFC in their desre to build something thatis credible is focusing on that kind of war. On the other hand given the CMSF will support 3rd part scenarios I imagine that manuy of the scenario designers will not have the same rediblility scruples and as such they may build scenaros that postulate a different kind of future war. For instance they may create scenarios for a hypothetical world war III situation where all hell breaks loose. For example at the same time US forces invade Syria (or a Syria look alike) China Attacks Tiwain, North Korea South Korea, Iran attacks Iraq and Kuwait, and who knows what else happens. Thus one could (if they are just that ornery) think of CM:SF as a World War III: Syrian Theater of operations (wher eit wouldbe like say a Burma in WWII) if one wants and there is nothing stopping them form doing this and building scenarios that simulate that type of war. Given all this the question is just how much lattitude for "off-white" 3rd party scenarios will the game support? Perhaps the real problem is not the game (for it looks like it's gonna be great" or he setting (for it looks fine too) but BFC's marketing strategy where they are perhaps focusing too much on their intended use of the game and not giving enough attention on what the 3rd party scenario designers will actually do with it. Perhaps a "better" marketing strategy might be to still emphasize the way the game is "suppose" to be played but also brag a bit about how flexible the game system will be and how it can also be able to support players and sceanrio designers who want to reenact Armeggeddon (sp?). Now in addition to BFC's marketing strategy it seems that they have a new business strategy of not selling $200 dolars worth of game for $50 anymore...and who can blame them! As such they want to limit the scope of the game so that they can get a decent cash flow so that they can not only stay in business but pay the rent as well. I, for one, am all for them staying in business (and paying the rent too, for that matter). But perhaps both this marketing strategy and business stargegy can be executed such that it does not preclude (and in perhaps some ways supports) use of the game to satisfy a wider market/set of interests that includes those who want to play their CM like wargames that cover a broader range of future battles in addition to playing more "historically accurate" future hypothetical battles. I don't know exactly how this would translate in actual game capabilities but perhaps it is more a matter of marketing and packaging than it would be in actual game capabilities. On the other hand perhaps a few "minor consessions" (and Blue on Blue and Red on Red would be an example of this) may help and thus adding a select few "bonus" vehicles to the TO@E such as T-80's or whatever to support say a bigger war where Syria might get "lend lease" equipemnt from China or Russia, or the war is fought in 2009 and not 2007, etc may allow for the 3rd party scenario designer to employ their creativity and imagination to devise reasonbly credible (sp?) scnearios that might scratch wider itches for bigger battles in bigger wars that are not scratch by the BFC provided scenarios. I am sure that this would not make everyone happy but it might make almost everyone a bit happier.

Ditto on operations graphics! Yes, you can make a screen dump and make your own but this tends to be sufficently time consuming to make it too much trouble to do (OK, so I'm a bit lazy!). It would be super if we could draw a couple of named phase lines and some unit boundary lines either on a special planning map or on one of the overhead views. The ability to add nmaed checkpoints would be nice too. The otherthing that would love to be able to do is attach text boxes to units where one could record a running AAR log. Even neater is if there was an automatically generated header that was added o the text box such as the turn time and unit orders,status, etc ..something like this. Turn 1; Hiding Turn 2; Move to Contact Crossed Phase Line "Jump Off" Turn 3; Move to Contact; Pinned; Lost One Man Fired on by unknown unit 200m+ north of checkpoint alpha; With something like this one can have a memento of a hard fought game other than a final score.

Looks like this idea has already been thought of. I guess this is a case of great minds thinging alike. On a slightly different topic I was thinking that it might be interesting to have non linear casualty cost. Say the first man killed in a squad cost X points but each addition man cost slightly more where the last man killed may be 3X to 5X. This would be a disincentive for a player to let a unit get totally wiped out. Thus, it would be cheaper to lose 1 man in ten units than 10 men in one unit. This would simulate the effect of the squad leader's reluctance to loose his whole command. This might inhibit gamey tactics such as using units that are down to one or two men as suicide units. Also, I have read that most units become combat ineffective once they losse a certain percentage of their force (I don't recall just what the number is). This in part could be simulated by smaller units being more likly to panic. But having nonlinear casialty cost could also make the human player more careful notto loose a entire unit too. On the other hand loosing a maryter unit may be just the oppoiste and the losing player could gain points. Just a thought.

Based on the AAR stressing the importance of not leaving wounded behind to be captured one would think that there might be a compromise win/win solution as to dealing with wounded that would be both easy toprogram and partially satisfy the need to deal with the issue. It is my understanding that CMX2 will have status for each man in a squad. Perhaps wounded could be treated as a special case of pinned satus. There may be two levels of wounded immobile but can shoot and immobile and can't shoot. If a sqaud is given an order to move with one or more wounded then the wounded would be left behind subject to capture using something akin to the surrender rules in CM1. If the player selects an "evaculate wounded" command the wounded man (men) and his(their) partner(s) instantly disappear from the unit (with no fancy animation graphics.. in fact even any abandoned wounded men need not have any graphics other than an icon similar to a sound contact icon. Nor does the game consider whether the wounded man could be successfully evacated or not. Thus the player can decide whether to evacuate his wounded man/men at the expense of loosing another soldier or not. If he elects to leave his wounded behind and the wounded man is captured then that would show up as a big hit on his final score. If he has secured the area so that the risk of the wounded man surrendering is low he can leave the wounded guy assuming that he will be picked up. Perhaps the computer can roll the dice and a certain percent of the wounded die from their wounds where evacualted wounded have a better chance of surviving than those left behind. Something along these lines shouldn't be too hard to program in that the evacuation itself is abstratced and the wounded men are just icons left behind when the owning unit moves.

Prhaps the political setting should not be a civil war in Syria but rather one in Iraq. Let's say that for political purposes the Bush administration is forced to pull out all US forces out of Iraq prematurely. This leads to a sloly escalating all out civil war in Iraq between the rival factions. In the hope of appeasing the factions and ending the civil war without having to send back in US troops the Bush administration puts enormous presure on Israel to create a Palestinian state on the west bank and in doing so create civil unrest in Israel. Part of the deal is that NATO gaurantees Isareli security for giving up the west bank. Meanwhile Syria is backing one of the factions in Iraq and either miscalculates and gets too involved inthe Iraqi civil war or some incident like another 9/11 causes NATO to have to invade Syria. In this scenario there are no US forces just across the Syria border in Iraq because of the pullout. Rather than reinvade Iraq (and get heplessly insnared in the civilwar which shows bno sign of ever ending) NATO attempts amphibious invasion of Syria. The logistics of this limits the number of troops that can be deployed and gives the Syrians a fighting chance of winning in that the strategic situation. Turkey fearing the civil war willspread to their Kurdish population once again denies NATO basing rights. NATO air missions are flown either out of Kuwait (at long ranges) or from caariers and thus their is less CAS missions than there would normally be if their were better basing options. Israel is neutralized by their internal disputes over having (or fixin to) give up the Golan heights plus the presure from the US to stay out of this fight. Jordon tries to stay neutral but is pushed toward supporting Syria. Iran backs their own faction in Iraq. Thus the general deteriation of the political and startegic situation gives Syria a fighting chance of coming out with a strategic win against NATO. I don't know enough about the politics of that region to know if this scenario is actually plausible (at least in an '07 scenario) but perhaps assuming something like this might provide a backdrop to even out the game play issue.

Some more thouhts on assaulting buildings: 1. In addition to suicide units and Geurilla units there sould be regular units. The first two seem to operate as small independent units while the regular units would be more conventional and fight more under a fixed C2 structure. 2.This idea that Geurila forces have a planned retreat sugeest that perhaps there should be a new movement order in CMSF where an escape route can be defined by a player but it is not executed until some trigger event occurs. The command delay from defining a new escape route can be large (simlatd that it needs to be scouted out) but once it is defined the execution delay could be very short. (Also, in principle more than one escaperoute could be defined with different triggers but that may be too much). 3. Whether an assault on a house is "top down" or "bottom up" could derived based on where the player defines the breach point. 4. The "flood house" tctic might be a rough equalvalent to the "assault" comand in the CMx1 series. The stealth tactic perhaps is anqalogous to the sneak comand. The hybrid (I forgot what it was caled) may be roughlyanalogous to the "advance" command. However, if this is the case the execution of these coands may be very different in a MOUT situation than in open country or woods, etc. 5. Th level of player command in CMSF may be more in coordinating the assault squad with otherassest like tanks, arty, CAS, etc than micromanaging an assault on a house. Perhaps the human player decides whether to assault the house or attack it with firepower and if he assaults where to make the breach and what tactic (e.g. stealt, flood house, etc) to use and the TAC AI does he rest. 6. Urban aeas compartmentalize terrain so that assaulting a house in in effect a game within a game in that one could defne a whole new game with 1 meter resolution 10 seconds turns and command of each soldier to immlement the tactics cited in the AAR at a player corlled level. CMSF could implement this game withing game and have it under the TACAI control. Or CMSF could largely abstract these tactics. It will be very interesting to see how BFC goes about doing this! 7. It wud be iteresting to have a AAR from the deenders point of view (assumingthere where any surviors of such assaults to give one). What tactics will the defender be able to employ, how will these be invoked by the defending player, and how will these affect combat resolution? 8. I ca see that one of the advantages of doig a contemporary sceanrio is that is a wealth of information to draw. I would be willing to suscpet that once this information is moned and translated into gae mechanics that there might not be both insights and gae mechanics that can be "retrofiteed" back into a WWII seting. Perhaps when assaulting houses in WWII soeof these same tactics were used (adaped to their equipment at the tme) but where called somethig slightly different or where invented localy and not recorded for posterity as these modern tactics are. And 50 years from now these modern AAR's may be lost too as far as we know! Thus it is nice to have a fresh view of the problem of small unit combat from a different perspective. I bet in addition to us all learning a lot of new things that these newly leared things will alos give us even that much ore insight in what happened in the past.