ASL Veteran

I'm afraid that you are mistaken in your comparison. I can assure you that the individual terrain tile in CMx1 is 20 meters square not 10 meters square (I'm 100% positive of this). So it's a comparison of 8 meters square in CMx2 vs 20 meters square in CMx1. I am less sure of the elevation, but I seem to recall that it was 2.5 meters in CMx1 not 1.25 meters. A quick check in the scenario editor would clear that up though. I was just passing through and have no intention of getting entangled in a Jason C thread. Nothing to see here, everyone just move along.

Hmmmm, well I just looked in my outgoing mail folder and it's empty. The original file he sent me is still in the incoming mail folder and when I go into 'saved games' I can load it. I do get to the part where it asks me for my password, then I put one in and it goes back to the main menu screen. I then go into Program Files and my outgoing mail folder is empty. I do a search for the file and I just find the original file he sent me and not my saved file. The wierd part is that every time I try to save the file after putting in my password it continues to count up - in other words he sent me file XXX vs YYY 01 and I save it as XXX vs YYY 02, then nothing is in the outgoing mail folder and I repeat the process and it defaults to XXX vs YYY 03 etc. Yet no file is present. I'm using Vista with the Nvidia 8 series card (so CMx1 doesn't work anymore) - maybe Vista is doing something funky with the file and storing it somewhere that I can't find.

I am pretty certain that at one of the bridge crossings fought over in Normandy by the US paratroopers there was a castle nearby - and that the Germans attacked out of it at some point. I wasn't really thinking in terms of fighting inside the castle, but rather that a castle building could be placed on the map rather than the placement of some generic large building if the building that was there was actually a castle. Chateau building types would be interesting too though - didn't even think of that!

Okay, after getting Shock Force and the Marines Module over the weekend and messing around with it a bit (along with the demo) I just wanted to make a few observations. I talked a friend of mine (off and on CMx1 player) into downloading the demo. He downloaded it and played the scenarios a few times. I then offered to take him on in one of the demo scenarios “Metal Grind” as the Syrians. I was unsure if multiplayer is fully supported in the demo and he tried to send me a PBEM file but I couldn’t make it work. Either PBEM isn’t supported in the demo or I’m just incompetent because I managed to access the saved file he sent me and it asked for a password, but it never went into the scenario from there. I then offered to take him on in Real Time and he agreed. So after setting up, about two seconds after hitting the ‘Go’ button my Anti Tank missile launched and toasted up a Stryker. My boys then fired off another missile a few seconds later and toasted up another Stryker. Unfortunately that was my AT team’s last official act and the scenario went badly downhill after that. I attempted valiantly to keep my T-72s relevant through fancy maneuvering, but things were just happening way too fast. When my reinforcements arrived I basically had to stop messing with my original tanks in order to position my reinforcements. Even though I was constantly clicking and giving orders non stop, there was just no way to have any sort of an action plan and I was feeling a little overwhelmed. The thing was that the Syrian forces really need to be babied in order to survive because it only takes about a two second lapse in judgement and your whole force has been smoked like a cheap cigar. It’s really difficult to get more than one vehicle into firing position at the same time without getting the first one smoked before the rest get into position, although I tried pausing the first tank etc. My friend didn’t really have too much trouble as he just had to hunt with his M1s and just let the M1s do their thing. Eventually my guys basically just sat around as his tanks ran up to them and smoked them one by one. After the battle we were joking about the game and my friend admitted that he had a little jolt at the beginning because my missile hit him so fast. He said “yeah, I just turned my head for a second because my kid asked me something and I had two smoking piles of wreckage.” Anyway, I think that scenario was probably a bit too big for me in Real Time. It was fun and interesting playing as real time, but I was having trouble just keeping the one original tank platoon alive and fighting, let alone all that other stuff that was entering as reinforcements. One thing I probably should have done in retrospect was to plot more movements from the setup phase than I did and that probably would have helped. It did leave me a little curious as to why the We Go TCP / IP option isn’t available in Shock Force like in the original CMx1. I can understand that it could be tedius if you were playing a large scenario We Go TCP / IP as there would be long delays, but a scenario like Metal Grind is probably just a little too big for me to handle in Real Time, but small enough that We Go turns would go pretty quickly. I experienced a few pathing issues with the second scenario from the CD. I don’t remember the name of the scenario (began with an A) but there were several buildings with high walls in front of them that were located just on the other side of a highway embankment (very nice looking and playing scenario – well done). Apparently, even though there were gaps in the high walls in front of the buildings my troops (blue) didn’t seem to be able to negotiate those gaps and would end up running down the street instead of running through the gaps. I used a demo charge on one of the walls and they passed through the hole blasted in the wall, but it didn’t seem like a charge should have been necessary there. I also played …I think it’s called “Allah’s Fist”. I had one M1 that was positioned opposite where a horde of T-72s came on, range of about 2000 meters or so. My M1 was duking it out for a while with shots detonating and bouncing off all over the place. Eventually though they knocked him out (My M1 must have taken over ten hits in the front minimum) and I was just curious if the make up of modern armor is such that repeated hits will weaken the armor? Nothing was penetrating at first, then two hits went through in quick succession – one immobilizing my tank and the other smoking it. My friend seems to really like the game so I think he’ll get it eventually. The one thing he mentions the most is the battle sounds. With each soldier individually rendered the sound of battle is a lot more energetic and full than it was in CMx1 and he really seems to like that. He even said the game reminded him of “Close Combat”. Heretic I say! My friend also had a little difficulty adapting to the new spotting during our real time game because he kept saying “my guys are blowing stuff up and I have no idea what they are fighting”. I told him it was the relative spotting, but it’s probably not practical to not be clicked on an individual unit when playing real time. One thing that I personally find a little annoying is when playing We Go it always comes up after each minute where it automatically starts to replay the turn again. I don’t always want to replay the turn and when I do it’s usually from a different perspective than the one I’m at when the turn ends so not only do I not like that pop up coming up and forcing me into a replay, but it sticks the screen in place so I can’t maneuver into a new spot before the replay starts if I do want to watch a replay. Is there a way to turn that ‘feature’ off? I figured out that I can just hit the red ‘done’ button when the replay starts, but I would rather the default be no replay than to have a default replay.

I have to say that after making something like 60 scenarios in CMBO and CMBB that nobody ever heard of, that new map and terrain editor totally blew me away!!! The choice to go with 8 meter squares seemed kind of odd, but as long as the number is easily divisible into 40 meters then I can make it work . The elevation editor took a little getting used to, but after about 20 minutes I got the hang of it for the most part. It's much much better. I can remember hours upon hours of placing individual elevations on my maps trying to smooth things and make small undulations, but with the map basically auto calculating the elevations after the designer puts in the contour lines it's a pretty big time saver. The things you can do with buildings now is absolutely spectacular! The variety is almost endless with the different doors, windows, and exterior choices and combinations. I also found it interesting that the buildings don't necessarily need to be restricted in placement by conforming exactly to 8 meter squares. It really makes it possible to put the buildings close to the road if you want to. All the new doodads are really cool too. I mean, traffic lights and park benches! I was just using the map editor in the demo though as I'm waiting for the game to come in the mail. Even so, I can tell that the map tools for scenario designer are at least .... 8 jillion times better than anything that could be produced in CMx1. There also seems to be a lot of flexibility with the scenarios too in regards to the victory conditions. The ability of the designer to assist the AI with some guidance for how to fight is pretty tremendous too. There were cases in CMx1 where a scenario was virtually unplayable vs the AI as a certain force because of it's limitations. Now, since the scenario designer can code in some behaviors for the AI ....!!!! I'm very impressed. I can't wait for the Normandy title to come out so I can really dig into that editor full force. I don't know very much about modern stuff - I may tinker around in it, but I can't see myself making something for public consumption with Shock Force. With the existence of the repository though - ya never know. It would be nice if there could be a 'castle' building set added for Normandy. Just something basic like a curtain wall and some generic towers. Maybe a gatehouse building too. Nothing fancy - but would definitely add spice to some maps. I'm also curious if, when you knock out walls on the buildings, you could do something like knock out the bottom two floors on opposite sides of a three story building and after adding two similar buildings on opposite sides make a little thing whereby vehicles could pass under a little 'building bridge' into a courtyard or something if you follow what I mean. Anyway, kudos on the new scenario editor. It's 8 jillion times better than anything we had to work with in CMx1

(excited dreamer mode on) It would be so much more efficient if it were possible to have the titles interact with each other though (drooling) . Think of the possibilities! Also, if you were able to really just think of the titles in terms of a 'terrain set' ..... then the possibilities are virtually endless and you wouldn't even have to make very many 'titles'. I mean really, take Shock Force for example. You already have a 'modern' desert terrain set with Shock Force. If you wanted to do the Arab / Israeli '73 war you would just have to make an Israeli '73 TO&E module and then an Egyptian '73 TO&E module. You could add some '73 Syrian stuff in both the Israeli module and the Egyptian module. These modules would then just be part of the 'modern desert terrain' set and you could simply add these '73 war modules as options for your Shock Force family. Switching to Western Europe .... just think if you could take the two Western Front terrain sets (Normandy and Over the Rhine - my own names for them ) and use them to interact with an early French forces module. The French forces would simply be added to the 'Over the Rhine' family for that title because they could use that terrain set. There would have to be new coding for the French forces because of the one man turrets and radioless AFVs naturally, but those bits of coding could be included in the module maybe (so you wouldn't get that coding if you didn't need it)? So really the number of total titles would be limited to the number of different geographic areas and time frames that needed new map and terrain elements and then the modules would be tied to those titles based upon what terrain was appropriate for those modules. You could then have the player / scenario designer just select which title / executable to go into in order to make their scenario map (as the different map elements would be specific to each title, but the TO&Es would not). Any 'force specific' coding for .... like one man turrets or Japanese fanaticism for example, would be specific to the module that had them in it, otherwise if you didn't have that module you wouldn't need that coding. The evil part of it would be that if a player really liked the series of games, they would still have every other title and module at their disposal to get if they choose. Any new player would have an incentive to pick up every title and module out there so every new customer could pick up one title, then if they liked it and you kept all the other titles and modules current, they would want to buy the whole series. Instead of a new customer buying a 45 dollar game and then discarding it when it's old, you would have that new customer buying the 45 dollar game and that person would then have an incentive to purchase ALL the other titles and modules that you have made up until now - so if you have three titles and six modules made ..... . There is also enough material out there that you could easily keep making new titles and modules without ever really revisiting the material that you have already done before. This might even serve to boost modules and titles that don't sell as well as the others since players with the more popular titles would have a motivation to experiment with other modules if they liked the system. For the Bagration title, for example, the German TO&E would more or less be already done - if you could just port that TO&E over from the previous western front titles ......... !! (excited dreamer mode off) Okay, I'll need to wipe all the drool off the floor now . I don't know what's technically possible or not, but it seems to me that if what I outlined is something like what they had in mind .... !!!!!! Hey, a guy can dream can't he

Oh well, didn't hurt to ask . So I guess we won't be seeing Patton fighting the Russians in 45 either

I asked this question in the WW2 thread, but maybe I should ask it here as well. It's my understanding from the FAQ on modules and from what Steve has said here that the modules will have primarily TO&E stuff and that the titles (base games call them) will have some core TO&E stuff, entirely different terrain and map elements, and some new game content. Now from what I can tell, all the new game content from both titles and modules will be 'backloaded' to previous games through patches .....? So, assuming that is the case (as far as I can determine) will the modules (that are fully independent, but will require 'a' title to function from what I can determine) work with any 'title'. Since that may have come across as a bit convoluted here it is again. In other words, when I get the 'module' Combat Mission Shock Force "Marines" will that module work with the 'title' Combat Mission: Normandy placeholder and / or will the Commonwealth module for Normandy work with the following later war west front title Combat Mission: Over the Rhine (or whatever) or will that second WW2 title require a second Commonwealth module that includes much of the same equipment that was in the first Commonwealth module because the first module won't work with the second title? As a sidebar, under the huge assumption that any module will work with any title, will TO&E that came in 'titles' rather than in 'modules' be usable within other 'titles' assuming the player owns both titles. I have to admit to a little drool right now at the thought that there may be a possibility that all of these titles and modules would interact with each other - it would be like the most massive tactical combat system ever devised!!!!!

Elvis better get his act together - US Army honor is on the line there! Let him know that the eyes of all US Army veterans are upon him and that we would be profoundly shamed and disappointed if he lost to the ... cough cough ... Marines . I wonder how well the British could hold off a Marine assault on the southern coast of England! Time for some payback for burning down Washington DC during the War of 1812.

yeah, I guess that's more historically accurate . I would just want the French as the OPFOR vs US units. I wonder if anyone has fought any US Army vs US Marines battles yet for bragging rights. Just pretend your pixeltruppen are wearing MILES gear. I'm probably a little biased, but I'm confident the Army would stomp all over the Marines. (you can fight blue on blue right? Just ordered yesterday)

I'm curious about the commonwealth module and the whole game module concept in general. So, when the commonwealth module comes out for the Normandy game (up through Sept?) that will mostly include TO&E stuff essentially (at least that's what I'm getting the impression is in these modules). So when the second western front game comes out will that have a different commonwealth module for it or will the commonwealth module for the first game be applicable to the second game? (presuming that the base game is some core TO&E stuff with mostly different map type stuff in it)

Maybe the French can be the red forces.

Thank you for the welcome back . I don't want to sound like a sappy fan boy or anything like that, but I think I can honestly sit here and say with a straight face that the Combat Mission series of games is the best series of games I've ever played (including ASL) and without you and Charles the hardcore wargaming community would really have absolutely no gaming company that catered to it in any way whatsoever. I think sometimes people start to take things for granted, but with your average gaming company lifetime and the lack of quality that is present out there we really have it good here. I mean - 11 patches!? That's got to be some kind of a record or something. Most companies would have abandoned Combat Mission Shock Force after a patch or two (if they even tried to make something that accurate to begin with). Now that I got that out of the way .... about that 'Acquiring equipment' thing .... LOL

yeah, who am I fooling. I think I'll order Shock Force and the Marines module tonight. Are there any good scenario hosting sites? I think all the old ones that I remember using are probably toast now. I also think it's interesting, but there are an awful lot of screen names in here that I remember from ... like eight or ten years ago! The level of dedication for this gaming community has to be unmatched. I also got a bit of a chuckle when someone mentioned in that MOUT thread that Battlefront was selling out to casual gamers - they obviously haven't come up for air in a while and looked at stuff like World in Conflict.

Thanks for all the responses so far. Yeah, I did remember to take the launcher with me but it really did look like there were two Javelins in the rack because there was one Javelin that IIRC had one designation and there were two other Javelins that I seem to recall had a different designation - or maybe I just got confused because it looked like there were two different ones, but they may have just been separated because they were in different racks in the vehicle or something .. dunno. As far as the Javelin not firing - I didn't take the AT team and actually target it vs the entrenchments (it was me firing at the entrenchments not the other way around - I realise the way I put that in my sentence was unclear). I just left the AT team out and thought they would target by themselves but they didn't. I never got around to taking out the Javelin when in the city scenario, but once I realized that I couldn't put it back in the vehicle (and not knowing if they would use it or not) I never took it out. I'm guessing that the back blast is still present with the Javelin too? I think the Swedes have developed an Anti Tank missile without back blast, but I'm guessing that firing a Javelin out of a building is a bad thing? I also was under the impression that the man carrying the Javelin would usually carry it on his back until needed so I was a little surprised that he wasn't using his weapon. If he does switch though I never saw it - maybe that was added in a later patch or maybe he just never decided to switch. A few other interesting things popped up in the city fight though. The squads really had difficulty in taking positions in buildings sometimes whenever I used the 'face' command. If I didn't use the 'face' command they seemed to do okay, but sometimes the squad or team would end up on a balcony on the wrong side of the building or something. Almost everytime I used the face command though some team or squad members just seemed to keep running around back and forth on the rooftop or in the building as if they couldn't decide where to position themselves. The bad guys actually took out an entire squad of mine with some type of AT weapon when my squad was running across the street - even left a freakin' crater! That almost broke my personal morale to see that many good guys go down at once. I really did have a lot of trouble getting my teams to reform into squads though. I only had them rejoin one time. My AT team never rejoined the squad in the first scenario even though they were sitting in the Stryker together for at least about 5 minutes.

I have a couple of questions about the Combat Mission Shock Force demo. Not that it matters, but for the curious I got CMBO, CMBB, and CMAK but I’m not really ‘in’ to modern combat and when I found that it was going to be real time that basically sealed the deal for me and I decided to pass on it. A few days ago I decided to finally download the demo and try it out and see how it played since I discovered that it runs on both real time and the old we go system. Now that I loaded it up and played the basic training scenario with the stryker platoon driving up to the entrenchments and the city fight, while understanding that the demo is only patched to 1.07 and apparently the game is up to 1.10, I have a few questions: When I was driving up to the entrenchments the third play through the basic training scenario I decided to have one of my squads grab the Javelin launcher to see if they would fire it at the entrenched enemy and give me some long range fire suppression. Now I used to be in the army quite a while ago (we had steel pots and M60 mg’s and we were just switching from the solid green uniforms to the camo) but about the only weapon that I recognized was the M16 (and it’s not even called an M16 anymore!) so my first problem was that there appeared to be two different Javelin missiles to choose from. After going ‘eany meany miney moe, grab a Javelin by the toe, if it hollers let it go, eany meany miney moe’ I finally selected a Javelin missle for my squad to add to their inventory. I dismounted that squad several hundred meters from the entrenchment and split off the anti tank team. Eventually a few bad guys took a few pot shots at my good guys and I discovered that they wouldn’t fire the Javelin at the enemy (probably good for buildings but not on entrenchments?). I also discovered that the Javelin man wasn’t carrying or using his rifle so he was basically useless to me. The squad was taking a few casualties so I ran the Stryker up to them and loaded them all up to get my boys out of there, and two things happened. First, the Anti Tank team never rejoined the squad. Second, I wanted my trooper who had the Javelin to put it back into the rack in the Stryker so he would use his normal weapon. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a way to ‘ungrab’ the Javelin and put it back in the rack. Okay, so I load up the city fight and things are going well. I’m actually learning a new way to fight using the Strykers! Very mobile, close range, aggressive with the squad elements using some overwatch from your mg teams and the Strykers from other elements seems to work much better than slugging it out from opposite buildings from essentially fixed positions. It is a bit of a different way to think of things, and a is almost a different mindset for me. It makes sense though as if you leave your guys in the same place for very long I guess it lets the enemy focus in on them and you end up taking more casualties. Now, as far as the game goes I ran into the problem I touched on earlier. A few of my squads were running out of ammo and I sent them back to the Stryker to reload. I see that there is both 5.56 and 7.62 in the Strykers so I load up with 5.56 for the M16s and as I’m unsure if the SAW is 5.56 or 7.62 I go ahead and load up 1000 rounds of 7.62 as well. I soon realize that there doesn’t appear to be a squad weapon that uses the 7.62 and that ammunition is apparently only used by the mg teams. Naturally there appears to be no way for the good guys to get rid of all that 7.62 ammo I had them pick up for no apparent reason so they are stuck humping it around with them. Then something really odd happened. I had two squads split into teams so I could put one team on the roof top and leave another team on the ground floor. When I changed position and had them all run back into the Stryker they wouldn’t recombine (and I even had them sit in the Stryker for a minute not moving to see if they would reform because I wanted them to assault move to clear a building and the Stryker would get to the destination in under a minute and I wanted to have their dismount orders in place). Eventually I decided that they weren’t going to recombine so I drove over to the target building anyway and tried to have them just quick march into the building and hoped they would recombine when they got there (or I would have to manually clear the building using both teams to support each other). Here is where I entered the Twilight Zone because when I drove the Stryker to the building and had the two split squad elements quick march into the building, one team went into the building like it was supposed to but the other team went quick marching down the street back in the direction of where it had originally loaded onto the Stryker. I was like “where the hell are those guys going?” and in the next orders phase I cancelled their orders and told them to quick march to where the other team was but they went in the opposite direction once again. I actually tried to get them to go into the building with the other team several times but eventually I had to give up, drive the Stryker back to where they kept going and reload them onboard to drive them back to where I wanted them. When I unloaded them again they started wandering off to parts unknown again. Eventually I just had to load them into the Stryker and leave them in the Stryker in order to keep them under control. It really was an impossible situation and they should have been put up on charges of insubordination after the battle. (It actually looks like this may have been addressed in the last patch) I eventually cleared all the bad guys off the objectives, but for some reason even though I had a squad clear every building of the government compound and there were no bad guys in the compound the game wouldn’t acknowledge that I had cleared that objective and end the game (I had more than 45 minutes left and there were a few bad guys down in the corner of the map, but they were irrelevant). What’s it take to have an objective recognized as cleared? I did have the 105 hit one of the buildings with area fire and it may have blown out the second floor for that building in the compound so I couldn’t actually clear that floor – could that have made it impossible to clear the objective? Finally, I had read in the ‘where we are going’ thread about the WW2 Normandy title that they will be working on (if they haven’t started it already). Has there been any general ETA on that yet or is it too early in development?

Yes, the company commander had an "Activate Flag" command on him in the set up. I had better add something about that in the briefing or someone may miss that. Thanks guys!!

Okay ... pretty basic question here. I have about eight half finished (half baked?) CMBB scenarios from back in late 2003 that I finally decided to go back and finish off. I realized :mad: that one scenario would be better served with a combination of dynamic flags and exit victory points. I set up two dynamic flags and set it so that the attacker selects the flag they want to take. I adjust the points to 1200 so it equals the point value of the attacking force and set all the attackers to exit for points. Everything is all set so I load it up and try it as the attackers vs the AI. During set up one flag says "Bogus" on it and the other one looks normal. I try clicking on one flag or the other but I can't select the other flag to be the objective. I'm a little rusty after so long out of the scenario building business, but I don't think I forgot to set something correctly (and it does say attacker chooses not automatic). What the heck is going on with these dynamic flags? Why can't I make them work?

Unfortunately for the forum, I just happen to be bored to tears tonight so I decided to visit this forum for a little entertainment. I'm sorry, but an apology from Abbott is definitely not in order. You must not be an American or you would have detected the .... I guess I would describe it as smug disdain that Peter used in his description of the modern American fighting man. What made it all the more ridiculous is that his source of evidence was "film footage", which by extrapolation some could construe as meaning that Peter has never experienced a single day of combat himself. So, for example, the image one could potentially draw from Peter's observations is one of some flabby couch potato eating popcorn in front of the TV laughingly shouting "look at all those American buggers diving for cover because one twelve year old waves an AK in the air in front of them! Ha ha ha, this is better than watching Comedy Central!" So, I'm sure that almost every American combat veteran or patriot who read that sentence was rubbed the wrong way. I'm sure that Peter wasn't intentionally being annoying and just dropped that sentence out there because his bias unconciously seeped into his part of the discussion. Because I'm bored though, let's just examine what Peter wrote and play around with it for a while. The first portion is fine and Peter probably should have just left it there. I guess that the strange belief comes from some of the embedded reporters who wrote about the American soldier's unusual coolness under fire. I recall several articles in the BBC where the reporter remarked upon the American coolness under fire. I speculated that this coolness came from the soldier's belief that all the body armor they are wearing made modern American soldiers less prone to injury and so more likely to take risks under fire. A Vietnam veteran that I play CM with wasn't so sure that was the answer though, but I think it would be a good discussion to have. At any rate, Peter's problem comes with the second sentence. Peter's point was already made with the first portion that I've highlighted, yet he chose to add this part at the end. If it was actually necessary to add the second part, Peter could have written it this way: The bold part was written by me. That would have been fine and it would have served as support, such as it is, for his previous sentences. However, Peter chose to use US troops heading for cover in droves at the prospect of half a dozen kids with AK-47's. The "heading for cover in droves" part could be percieved in the context of ... say ducks or geese all flying away from a hunter in a wild frenzy to escape death by shotgun blast. Peter gives us the imagery of a whole platoon of US Marines running around helter skelter trying to save their lives. In other words, it could be construed as a less than flattering description of the valor of US fighting man. So what has Peter described as the source of all this cowardly behavior by US troops? I'm not really sure what Peter is after here, but it is actually not supportive of his argument which was: So, if you read that literally, then Peter's interpretation of what heavy fire is would be Either Peter believes that half a dozen kids with AK 47s constitutes "heavy fire" and that soldiers from all western nations would naturally seek cover from it, or Peter doesn't actually believe that half a dozen kids with AK 47s can be interpreted as "heavy fire" but that he has seen combat footage of cowardly Americans running for cover in droves at the prospect of being on the receiving end of fire from these kids and their AK 47s. So, by extrapolation, American soldiers are cowards. So flamingknives, I hope I have explained why Americans might view Peter's statement as condescending and insulting. His bias is present, but apparently it isn't always obvious to the non American. I don't want to hijack your thread so you can all return to your previously scheduled discussion.

Do Syrian booth babes have to wear all that black clothing that covers them from head to toe?

That's certainly true. Of course, if it wasn't really a problem then I can't imagine that the French, German, and British governments would all be in agreement that the Iranians shouldn't be enriching uranium. Why won't the Iranians agree to let the Russians enrich the uranium for them? Cooperation with India that was hailed by the IAEA as a breakthrough. I'm not saying whether I agree or disagree with the decision to cooperate, but certainly the IAEA seems to think it was the right thing to do. Pakistan has asked for weapons from the US, but the deal for the fighter jets hasn't been approved yet as far as I know. Not much different from Russia selling an entire air defense system to Iran in a way. Israel makes a lot of their own weapons now, but certainly the US sells weapons to Israel and has been for decades. The US sells weapons to Egypt too btw. None of the weapons were nuclear as far as I know though (which is pretty much implied by your statement). If no, then why not? The rest of your post seems to indicate that you don't care whether Iran is a nuclear power or not so this position you hold seems to be in opposition to your other ones. Maybe, maybe not. Well that's really the crux of the matter now isn't it? Perhaps you are right, but perhaps you are wrong. Nobody really knows for sure other than the Iranians. I guess it's not really an issue for the residents of Scotland though because the Iranians don't paint "Death to the great satan Scotland" on the sides of their missiles when they have their annual military parades. The president of Iran also hasn't publicly called for the annihilation of Scotland or for Scotland to be wiped off the map. The president of Iran also hasn't mentioned that the population of Scotland should be moved to Alaska or resettled in Poland. I guess that I should feel comforted by your belief that the president of Iran is a perfectly reasonable man who isn't willing to turn his entire nation into some version of a mega suicide bomber in the cause of martyrdom against the great satan. Sure, they probably know that the US could turn the entire nation of Iran into glass, but does Iran care? Even if Iran did launch a nuclear strike against Israel, is there any certainty that a retaliatory nuclear strike by the US would be viewed as appropriate by the "international community"? More assumptions. Wow, it's been a while since I've seen an interesting political discussion on these boards. I used to enjoy them back in the day. I'm not sure how this thread got overlooked, but I guess I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

I wonder how British Petroleum is doing these days?

My favorite topic has reappeared once more. Fear not, Battlefront is well aware of Grazing fire and Steve was very engaged in the discussion previously. From what I recall, Steve indicated that with the 'old' engine (CMAK etc) there would be too many calculations along the LOF and that these calculations would bog down the game. If you do a search through any of the archived forums you will get many many hits that deal with MGs and grazing fire. If you search under my name and pick out topics that deal with MGs you may even come across Steve's remarks on the topic (focus on pre release CMBB forums or CMBO forums). Anyway, the range of grazing fire is not short. As I recall Steve, at first, was thinking in terms of sighting the MG level with the ground, but a member, whom I believe was named Marlowe, pointed out that the sights on the MGs will account for an arc - as long as the arc doesn't go above 1 meter above the ground (since grazing fire is defined as fire in which most of the rounds do not rise over 1 meter above the ground). The MG itself will typically sit lower than 1 meter off the ground so arcing can be included in your range calculation. According to US Army Field Manual 7-7 The Mechanized Infantry Platoon and Squad APC, the .50 Caliber MG has a maximum grazing fire range of 800 meters. The 5.56 SAW has a maximum grazing fire range of 600 meters. These ranges are not insignificant. Anyway, the topic is much more broad than just grazing fire. Tactically it would include the use of grazing fire through LOS hinderances such as grain and smoke. Currently if you can't see it you can't shoot it. However, grazing fire should be able to interdict areas in smoke even if the enemy can't be seen. Finally, the beaten zone is simply the area that the bullets land within at the target. When MGs fire they fire in a 'cone of fire' and the end of the cone gets larger and larger the farther from the MG you fire. This is the result of the fact that not all the bullets you fire will end up hitting in the same location due to weapon vibration etc. Obviously, since the MG will not be firing at direct right angles to the ground, the 'beaten zone' on the ground will be some sort of an oval as some bullets in the cone of fire fall short of the target and some fall long or to the side. What is currently represented in CM is known as 'beaten zones'. If you combine the grazing fire with the cone of fire concept, then your area affected will increase the farther from the weapon you go - although the effect of the fire will decrease because the area is increasing. So, to sum up, if I have that Ma Deuce firing from a tripod across a field in Kansas, then everyone who was standing from directly in front of the weapon to 800 meters away could potentially become a casualty. The area these people could be injured in would also get progressively farther from either side of the centerline of fire (think triangle with one endpoint being the muzzle of the Ma Deuce and the other endpoint being the oval shaped 'beaten zone'), although your chances of actually getting hit by this fire would decrease the farther from the weapon you were (because fewer bullets would be landing in your vicinity as the shot scatter gets worse).

From playing many hours of CC3 and CC4 head to head I can say with some confidence that both the LOF and cover status was calculated on a soldier by soldier basis. In fact, in CC .... I think in both CC3 and 4 you could activate a player aid that surrounded the individual soldiers in your squads with their individual "Cover" status. I believe that a green outline was the best and black outline was the worst. I always played with that player aid on and every member of your squad was seldom in the same cover state. This was especially difficult with the big Soviet squads since they didn't always 'fit' into the various terrain features you were trying to hide in. It was also extremely frustrating when you deployed your squad and only two guys were firing their weapons because the other four dudes in your fire team had no LOF to the enemy. The trick with the smaller buildings would be to place the 'location' marker for the fire team in between two small buildings so the team would disperse between them both. The great irony of CC3 was that the Soviets had the upper hand in the early war scenarios and the Germans had the upper hand in the later war scenarios.

An excellent reference for the make up of the Afrika Korps along with the Italian forces in Africa is "Armies of Rommel" by George Forty. He breaks the divisions down to battalion level in many cases.