The_Capt

Well cat's out of the bag now...so we are officially doing a CMCW module. I will let you guys speculate on scope and scale and we are still working the features list right now. I would expect an official announcement in due course.

If you try it again in your current campaign your losses will carry forward to the Citadel. If you play the scenario you get 100% of the Bn, so there is a slight difference. 1979 is interesting, we built is as a "sure why not?" just to see. Turned out it was a lot of work to do a parallel campaign and from the feedback 1979 is almost an entirely different experience as the technology is quite different (M48s vs M60s vs T62s).

LOL (do we still use this term?). Well we did say play the Soviet Campaign last but that is a wonderful description.

You are very welcome and thanks for the feedback. So in the US Campaign there were two more mission after Marborn. If you don’t want to try and replay that fight, those missions are “The Citadel” and “Unhook the Leash” as stand alone scenarios. The Citadel was really the climax fight for the Bn just north of Hanau. Really glad you enjoyed the campaign.

How far did you make it? What was your final fight?

Well put it into your sig or something, the Soviet Campaign is the Kobashi Maru of CM, by design.

Wow….all I can say. I think you are the first person to finish the entire Soviet Campaign (at least that I have seen).

That is because the victory threshold for Soviet 5 is "tactical"...you were so close. You should try it again. Also, that looked like a bloodbath.

Yep, main issue on the M774 was availability if I recall. That and the usual military acquisition song and dance.

As I recall it is less about the gun and more on the ammo. By default those M1s are firing the M774 DU round which have game. That and all the best sights/thermal makes for a pretty potent hitter. The T64B can still shrug a hit to the front, probably out past 2000m but I would think the pairing more along the lines of Pershing v Panther given the improved M1 armor...but I would not get too cocky. Battle #5...find, fix and finish...bit of a swirl that one.

That wasn't really his strategy...that was how he completely failed to achieve it. His overall strategy was to try and split the alliances arrayed against him and somehow gain support by bringing in the Israelis into the fight (Ends). His Way was to do it through attrition with the big assumption that Western troops would get sick of dying for oil on the other side of the world. His Means was a last-gen military built largely on conscripts. Applying those Means the Way he did was, as you correctly point out...pure suicide...not sure what his hope was, that we would charge over the berm a la 1916. He did some weak fumbling on the IO lines but those were so off-note as to be laughable. I am not sure what his "theory of winning" that would of worked looked like. Were it me, I might have looked at hitting into Saudi Arabia early and try to catch Desert Shield off-guard but I remember there were serious repurcutions in doing this...like a regional war with the Saudis fully onside. He could have tried asymmetric strikes like terror attacks in the West but I sense he was not set up for that. In fact the only play book I can think of that may have worked did not involve invasion at all. I am thinking that maybe the whole Crimea play the Russians did may be a better playbook but a lot to unpack on that one in terms of Kuwait, and a lot of time to do it.

Not sure if this was universal. I spoke with an SSM who was in an M1 during the Gulf War and he told a story of seeing a T-72 sabot round stick like a dart in the front armor of an M1. Now Iraqis giving tanks a few real rounds and the rest as practice tracks, probably why they simply surrendered in droves.

Actually Saddam's strategy wasn't all that bad in theory. He correctly saw the Center of Gravity for the Alliance as its cohesion, problem was what he bet on to break that cohesion. Based on what we can tell, the plan was to attrit the Alliance to a breaking point, while at the same time try and get a reaction out of Israel (and a pretty weak IO campaign). He was not entirely wrong, I can remember a whole lotta "no blood for oil" marches going on back in late 1990, even though Kuwaitis were being slaughtered (I really do not have significant leaning but that was one time where the left kinda lost the bubble, in my opinion). But his underlying theory of "how" was really antiquated and largely based on the Iran-Iraq war conflict. Line steel up and put disposables out front, a lot of world class obstacles (seriously, talk to guys who were there) and when the alliance show up hurt them bad enough to split it, even if you have to take more losses. Lotta assumption went wrong there and frankly he missed a lot of opportunities to actually win the thing but there we go. The devil in the details included: airpower w precision strike, GPS = maneuver warfare, Patriots and yes, the mighty M1 and its baby brother the M2/M3. He was playing a different game and assumed the alliance would play the same game too. S'ok, feels like pretty much the last time we out-thought our opponent because it was pretty much downhill from there.

I will give you this on the TO&Es and equipment we only have what history has left us and few can remember. As to "sick in trembling vehicles"...heh, I think we have enough experience on the team to get that into the scenarios and campaigns at least at some level. Probably why some people see things as "unfair" at times, to which most of the old vets respond..."you have no idea..." Either way CMCW is a game at the end of the day. We want it to be as accurate as we can get it but it is still always going to have to accept levels of abstraction. We can only hope people get enjoyment and maybe a little education out of it.

You know everyone bashes the poor ol '62 but that little beast can get the job done if handled with nuance. It is as blind as a mole, true, but that little gun can punch a hole in an M60A3 at 1500ms. It is also cheap and unstoppable if you swarm them. It may be the dumb kid in the class but damn it...it really tries harder.

Heh, well I don't think we really have any interest inserting this into CMCW ( I am tracking the scout tac aviation). First Soviets in AFG and Russian in Chechnya are not aspirational military historical examples, no matter what they did or did not do. In terms of CMCW, I think it would be suicidal (as has been mentioned) if for the amount of artillery in play alone, to the point that if we modeled it accurately (and I like to think that we would), no one would use it after the first try or two. DPICM is bad enough on infantry when they are inside the vehicles...outside is bordering on silly. FYI, over the last 20 years NATO troops fought in some of the most mined/IED's parts of the world and we never rode on vehicles as a matter of SOP. Being inside a burning vehicle is bad...being under a burning vehicle that has been flipped on top of you is worse.

Hey Guys, Thank you very much for the very positive feedback. Gotta say that beyond Bil and I dreaming away about the "bads ol days" we were really hoping to deliver something that might bring some entertainment and happiness in what have been some pretty crappy times. CMCW is the game that fit the niche we didn't know we were missing (well some definitely did), it is in that sweet spot between WW2 and the modern titles that not only blends but has a unique identity all its own. I know not everyone will take to it but there are more than enough time-titles in the BFC library for everyone, we are just really glad we could maybe get one more out there.

Very nice. If this is from Neuhof, you are doing very well. That scenario is designed to be a bit of a wake up call (i.e. what an angry MRB looks like when it is let off the leash)...glad you are enjoying it.

Ian, very cool. So they kinda split the differences with the staff colleges. The Canadian Army Staff college is still in Kingston on the old grounds. The Canadian Forces College (the equivalent to a joint war college) is in TO.

We clearly have some philosophical distance on game design. When you get one off the ground, let me know and we can compare notes.

Pebble in My Shoe?! That means you are almost at Alsfeld...first one I have heard of yet! Troops on tanks. Yep, plays well to combat camera but when we dug into the Soviet Orbats on the German front, not surprisingly no units were purpose built for this. The main reason is that the Soviets were entirely mechanized by this point (e.g. the only dismounted orbat we could find were Airborne). So now in terms of CMCW "tank mounting" is really an ad hoc venture when/if an APC gets shot out from under a squad. Not sure how that whole mechanic works in the game engine but investing time to building it into CMCW started to make a lot less sense when we are talking about ad hoc or anomaly behaviors. "That" and the fact that besides the glorious pictures of manly tank jumping, on the CMCW that move is absolute suicide - would be kinder to have the commissar simply shoot them - as the lethality of the battlefield is pretty intense and exposed humans on top of the #1 target on the field is a pretty desperate gambit.

Lol. If you want to have fun at a US Army mess just bring this one up; the history of "Op Canadian Freedom" went pretty much as expected. I really recommend that if anyone is interested they read the books by Donald Graves (https://books.google.ca/books/about/Field_of_Glory.html?id=MbucQgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y) He is probably the only real historian that I have seen give a full treatment of the Canadian Campaign during the War of 1812. In Canada itself it is largely forgotten (the actual battlefield for Chryslers Farm is underwater but they do have a nice museum up there and Lundy's Lane has a strip mall overtop of it) even thought they were pivotal battles in the creation of the nation. Of course the US only remembers New Orleans...the normally do not mention the whole White House burning affair....as they actually won that battle. BTW the war was actually over when New Orleans happened, the memo just hadn't made it to the them that were in it. As to the actual "score" of the war, well it is complicated. The US failed dramatically along the north shore of the Lakes, they made zero of their strategic aims on that front to the point that the strategic offensive basically collapsed under its own weight. England, really did not have any aims as the whole thing was a side action to the main event in Europe but when they finally got it together they did do some damage but really did not want to do a 1776 redux...not worth it, so their half-hearted offensives really didn't go anywhere and New Orleans basically sealed it. So how do you call a war where both sides basically lose interest? Regardless, this war was why both the US and Canada had invasion and defence plans until the freakin 40s.

Hmm, well I guess I will take a shot at that one. The primary difference CMCW and the mainstream WW2 titles lies deeply in how militaries of each era define mass and firepower. Specifically the technological impacts of roughly 30-35 years of evolution changed the battle-scape pretty significantly, which is well reflected in the era doctrine. In CMCW both sides were deeply invested in the offense and maneuver as overall approaches due in large part to the lessons learned in WW2. In that sense you cannot easily separate the two time periods as one basically springs from the other, a scion if you will. Broadly speaking, CMCW sees the infantry slide back a bit as the entire battlefield had become mechanized (remember that mechanized were in the minority during WW2), mass was built on steel, not human muscle. Infantry still play a critical role but they are not the broad front force in creation of military mass. Tanks, ATGMs and mech technology meant that ranges of effects were significantly extended. As a result the battlefield also shrank while paradoxically getting bigger; fewer forces could cover larger frontages with more lethality. C4ISR systems meant that speed and tempo were significantly faster and more lethal. WW2 relied on mass effects broadly distributed, CW meant mass effects more narrowly distributed. In game, this means several things. First, maps are a lot bigger for smaller forces, compared to WW2 so the player must manage much more terrain. The "Setup and Pitch" happen a lot more often, in different places and faster. So in a CM game there is always a setup by the player; a KZ, line of attack, support prep etc. In a WW2 game that takes a certain amount of time to get aligned and in motion. In CMCW, it not only happens faster but more often, this creates a lot more of what I like to think of as "micro-dramas" that pull the player in. In CMCW the Pitch happens differently as well. The culmination of effects at a point on the battlefield is far more fluid in the CW setting. This has again to do with speed and range. For example, I can have a culmination happen at 2000-3000m with ATGMs and tac aviation, and then another at 1500-2000 with armor, and then another at sub 1000 with infantry...on the same big map, at the same time (see The Citadel). All the while the Air/AD game is playing simultaneously. In WW2 titles we get lots of action but it tends to be more linear and paced differently. I guess from a gaming perspective you can already see the lines starting to form up. If a player likes faster paced, bigger battles of smashing steel, CMCW is the title for you. If the player prefers smaller tighter battles or big slower grinding fights, heavy on infantry, that build to a climax then WW2 has a lot to offer (and to be fair WW2 was so big that you can find pretty much whatever you like in it). One last thing that we did see, nearly from day one, was the force balance in CMCW resembles those seen in the ww2 titles (first time I saw M60s and T64s go at it I had flashbacks to Shermans and Panthers). There is no one dominating side and as the guys say "if it can see you, it can kill you" applies equally to both sides. We did not plan that or try to build it in, it simple "was" once the forces got plugged into the game. Hope that helps a bit...

Combat Mission: 1812...mind blown...

It was kinda in the middle to be honest. So Bil and I took on all of the TO&E research and development (which is not small) but then that data was inputted by Chris into the thing that the machine needed to make a game. That pretty much describes how the whole thing went down throughout: we determined which vehicles would be in the game, BFC modeled them and put them into the engine. We debated ICMs for what feels like an eon. The only thing we truly "own" is on the content development and creation but again we did this with a lot of help from the Beta Team. I can say that there is no way this game would have been built without the BFC guys. Without Bil and I it still might have been built (if someone with Bil's reputation-level could convince Steve...heh, very big "if") but probably would have taken a lot longer. BFC gave us the reigns though, which was a huge bonus. We were empowered to make decisions within lanes of the game, which allowed us to move fast and with momentum. Now the real question is "can we do it again?"