phil stanbridge

Yeah it's a shame but I guess accurate. Infantry can replenish small arms ammunition on the fly, mid-action if necessary. Vehicle ammunition would be handled differently I presume. But it does beg the question, why would vehicles (or tanks in particular) be sent into missions in the campaign either without a main gun, or without main gun ammunition. That doesn't really make sense.

Thanks George appreciate the feedback. Where in the Highlands are you out of interest? (If you don't mind us knowing of course). So in theory if I have this right, if you do particularly bad in a campaign, it can finish early. I think I discovered this in the marines campaign. I was pushed right back to the beach almost before I started to make inroads. Do you know how assets are handled? Artillery and air support in particular. Does it accumulate or is it allocated on a per mission quota?

I didn't win every battle, and neither did I finish every mission to the time limit. I don't really understand the time limits. Sometimes they finish promptly, sometimes they give you 10 minutes or so extra, but again, this seems to vary per campaign? The last two missions I did win however, and one was a total victory, but both ended with the Syrians surrendering. I only took 10 KIA in both missions too. I do agree that the KIA is probably too high considering the campaigns duration. Maybe that is all it is. But it is still less than 10% casualties compared to the Syrians. I have the same issues with my campaigns. I think the key is to know which units are core and which are auxillary, but I do not understand how ammunition and replacements are worked out. I had one mission in my Brit campaign where I had a full complement of warriors and infantry carriers, but the scimitars were out of HE because I had used it all up in the mission prior. So there I was stuck with my scimitars with only 7.62mm ammunition. Not a lot of use! Plus I had a Challenger 2 with no main gun which was carried through missions. Plus the issues with artillery. I tried an experiment where I didn't use my complement of 81mm in one mission to see if it carried forward, and I can't be sure but I don't think it was available. Plus the issues with air support. I didn't see Harrier or Tornado support for the entire campaign I'm positive. Very odd! I'd love to find out how this works.

Just to add, I got my arse kicked hard once again. I had 121 KIA over the course of the campaign (better than 169 before) but I only lost 5 vehicles and 2 tanks. The Syrians lost 850 KIA with nearly half that missing/wounded. 37 tanks destroyed and 50 odd vehicles. But it was considered a Major Blue defeat. Why? I won the majority of the missions with two being major victories where the Syrians surrendered. There will obviously be losses attributed to the blue side. Considering that was front line in your face stuff, I don't think I did too bad.

Yes it looks like he does have ammo. I think it's handled slightly differently because you are clicking on an enemy unit during the review at the end of battle (I presume).

I've got some questions with reference to the campaigns - I am most of the way through the British campaign for the second time but this time round I appear to have less time, and less artillery/air assets within each mission. Can this be the case? So far I have not seen any Tornado/Harrier air support and I have only had access to 155mm artillery in one mission (I think!). I have been able to use 81mm in most missions however. Also, I have not been reading in the briefings about problems with supply this time round. I remember a really tough couple of missions in the first campaign because of problems with supply. Yet this has not been mentioned so far, although my artillery seems somewhat less significant than it was in the first campaign. Put it like this, I have barely been able to use it. So how do these things work? I know they are classed as 'semi' dynamic so can things like mission duration and assets change dynamically per mission?

Although it is working its far from perfect. There are settings in the CCC that cause CTDs so take that into consideration. Having said that, this 5850 overclocks like mad, and it is very smooth with ansitopic filtering set to 4x and it looks great at 1920x1200!

Yep, effective use of artillery seems very complex in this game. There is another thread on the subject but from what I can make out, if you want to hit soldiers within a building or solid fortification you use 'general' and aim it at the floor of the structure. If you want to hit troops in slit trenches or out in the open you use 'personnel' which generally airbursts. Armour is obviously aimed at armoured vehicles although unless it is 155mm it is somewhat ineffective against tanks which I suppose is what you should expect. The quality of the FO and the duration all play a significant part as well. Furthermore the FO units require LOS in order to accurately lay down fire. Indirect is a nightmare. So it isn't clear cut. Digressing slightly, out of interest has anyone even seen an enemy tank unbuttoned?

Great posts thanks very much! Definitely food for thought there. One thing to mention, I play WEGO rather than real-time which has its benefits for novices like me. Is there any way to tell a vehicles main weapon how long to fire? Because if you use TARGET it will generally fire the main gun for the full minute. Does pause work in that respect or is that purely for movement? I can see the many benefits of playing real-time but I would end up pausing the action so much that there is little point - plue there isn't any apparent way to rewind the action. Reference the loss of an armoured vehicle in the first mission, I lost a Schimitar and a infantry carrier - one to a mine! The fool ran over the first mine, took minor damage, and insisted on carrying on! What a joke! lol.. I wish I was playing real-time at that point, as I could have stopped him. If the driver wasn't killed in action first I would have fired him. Second loss was to an RPG from some distance. I was at the barracks, and a good 300 yards away. Must have been a lucky shot but it killed my crew outright.

Hey mate, I failed this mission the two times I have played it now. Not majorly fail, but the result didn't sit comfortably with my virtual conscience I find the Brit vehicles, and particularly the Scimitars vulnerable to small arms, so i try to fight using overwatch tactics. But for some reason, whether it be conditions, low light etc, I have to get them quite close to see anything. They are generally just out of harms reach, but not close enough to really be effective if you know what I mean. I can pound the fortifications and houses all I like but they soon run low on ammunition. So I tend to use them as advanced recon. I also have issues with the warriors taking damage from small arms, so I tend to open them up early on and let the squads dismount from some distance. I try and make the best use of cover I can, but this sometimes (more often than not actually) ends in at least half the squad taking casualties. So that isn't great tactics. The last time I played this I had 14 KIA and 8 wounded, with the loss of 2 vehicles. I had a squad hosed from point-blank by a Syrian rifle team who were actually behind a house, and not in it, much to my surprise! Pretty genius if you ask me. I will look out for this later. Also, watch out for the bloody mine fields! This is quite a tricky mission for me, but there is another which is much harder, that urban town one, where you have to protect the police HQ. That is a 40 minute slaughter. I had 52 KIA.

Nice one thanks!

Ah I see, so replace the Brit small arms with M4 noises haha it's not quite what I expected, but it is one solution. Thanks!

I am using the AKD sound mod 1.1 at the moment, which adds ambience in spades but I gather the weapons effects are based primarily on US weapons/armour. Is anyone working on any British specific sound effects? The British guns sound so weak in comparison!

That is soooo true Mr D. I didn't really have a clue about equipment and stuff in the modern day theatre and I can't believe how under-powered the British seem compared to the US Army and Marines. I just love all their toys! Is it really like that?

Interesting response thanks very much. I tend to find my armour and AFVs very vulnerable to even small arms fire and so I do my best to keep the units back - dismounting the infantry well in advance and sending them in. Unfortunately I may need to address this tactic and my squads get plastered as they run to the waypoint! The problem is no matter how far back I keep my warriors et al they seem ridiculously vulnerable to AK's and other small arms, let alone the RPGs and guided missiles. Bits fall off! So I have kept them well back priro. I will use your guidance and see how I fair. I play WEGO on veteran level too. I just played the crossroads mission (I think it was) and that was my best victory to date. I lost 4 KIA and 8 wounded, with two vehicle losses although one tank was immobilised and another was quite badly damaged as well. I inflicted huge losses this time round however. I tried to flank the enemy as quickly as possible, and one of my tanks managed to knock out 3 T72s, and 6 BMPs plus assorted infantry before he got hit by a ATGM from a fair distance. Although damaged he kept on plugging away. I tried to use speed and firepower but I have a lot to learn! My infantry is so vulnerable it's sickening! The next big mission is terrible! About 10 KIA with dozens of casualties so far Back to the drawing board!

I was in exactly the same boat. I tried two demos of SF before finally settling with 1.20 and taking the plunge. I have now purchased all the modules and am thoroughly enjoying the challenge, and it is an extreme challenge to me. It's basically much harder, I believe, due to kill distances and advanced weapons technology as hcrof mentioned above. But fundamentally it is similar. You have to learn the new tactics to really enjoy this. But I'm enjoying it more than cmx1 I'm afraid to say, and now I am getting used to it, I'm slightly concerned that I will feel somewhat let down with Normandy. I love the 1:1 but I do miss some things. I miss the LOS tool, and I miss the detailed kill stats. Plus a few other little things. But I have high hopes for Normandy and the forthcoming modules. It must be a great time to be BFC

Sure thing. Gigabyte P55 UD2 motherboard i5 750 @ 3.4ghz 4gb ram Win 7 Home Premium x64 ATI XFX 5850 hand-built by me. If you want something doing properly, do it yourself The ATI is definitely the card of the moment, and it is undeniably quick. I've read that it is comparable to a Nvidia 285 in some instances and when you start to overclock it, well, it is amazing value for money. With regard to these games, it's a mixed bag really. The Nvidia's are generally very smooth and hassle free although there are some issues with the latest forceware drivers. ATIs cats on the other hand have now fixed the major problem with Shock Force and should be fine. I'd sway towards the ATI personally.

Just really to reiterate what others have said, 9.10 cats work with SF. However there are still some issues. If you select Open GL triple buffering from the 3d menu in the CCC it will cause a crash to desktop in the game menu. (Windows 7 users, untested in XP/Vista). This setting is DISABLED by default. I am using Win 7 Home Premium 64bit with a ATI 5850 and the latest drivers. It runs very nicely with AF enabled and I am going to see how far I can push the graphical effects now whilst remaining playable. It's certainly faster (1920x1200) than with the Nvidia 275 I had prior.

I think we need to establish first if artillery is modelled to such a complexity in this game. Has BFC commented on this at all? I have definitely had issues with effectiveness against troops in buildings, although last night for the first time I pointed my FO at the floor of the building rather than the area where the troops were and within 4 direct hits of 155mm (general) the building collapsed and the entire squad was KIA or incapacitated. But maybe this is also abstracted 1:1 representation. I mean, the FO was a vet and he was within his Observer vehicle whilst he was plotting the fire mission. But maybe different skill levels and conditions play a major part.

I was just about to post something along the lines of struggling with the British campaign - how on earth did you do so well in the first mission? I've just been awarded a draw but I lost 14 KIA, 8 wounded, and lost two vehicles. I inflicted about 80 casualties. So that is not good odds in my book. I was trying to keep reserves of artillery and vehicles/men for later missions - I'm not entirely sure what is carried forward. I know mission 2 is quite a challenge so I wanted to keep a surplus of kit back for it just in case. Also, do you run the missions to the natural end or do you stop them if you feel you achieve the goals?

Another one running CMBB/CMAK and CMSF on Win7.

Sorry, looks like you still have to make do with old Forceware drivers.

As I posted on the other thread:- This news should be stickied or something guys! If you read the release notes that came with the latest 9.10 catalyst driver suite:- Highlights of resolved issues * “Combat Mission Shock Force” no longer fails after a duration of game play I think I'm going to invest in a new card! Edit :- I did buy a new card, I went for the 5850 as it has had such good reviews. Either way anyone with a newish ATI will now be able to play SF properly! Yay.

Thanks Moon - I unlicensed Shock Force, formatted and reinstalled Windows 7, and it was fine. However I did have to install SF twice, because on the first installation I lost access to the Marines module?!? Second time round it was fine. I originally installed SF Marines bundle, then directly installed the Brit module - then I entered the license for the Brit module. Second time round I installed Marine bundle, ran it, entered the license, then installed the Brit module and entered the license.

This news should be stickied or something guys! If you read the release notes that came with the latest 9.10 catalyst driver suite:- Highlights of resolved issues * “Combat Mission Shock Force” no longer fails after a duration of game play I think I'm going to invest in a new card!