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Yes, they can be very frustrating. Do a quick internet search of the M707; note that it's whole purpose in life is that turret mounted optics package. In CMSF, you need to unbutton it to let the crew use the optics. Yeah, I know, that's not written anywhere. Next, you need to give them time to look around. So, park it in some distant corner, well protected. After several turns you'll start to find hidden enemies. It also works well to call in air/artillery. At least, that's what I've been told. Another good use is to send it up on point. When it goes "boom" you should have an idea where the enemy is. KEn

Rough estimate (temperature variable); 1,000 fps is speed of sound. (Yeah, for the pedants, that's just a rule of thumb - live with it.) Most high power rounds have muzzle velocities of 2,700-3,500 fps. To fire a subsonic round from something like the L115A3 would entail a huge loss of effectiveness. The whole "reach out and touch someone" would be removed. Ken

Ahh, you are absolutely correct: they do, indeed, appear to be RKG-3's. That's what I get for looking at the video in such a small screen. Ken

Link: those both had pretty good aim. It's very difficult to hit a moving target, even when close, without practice. The fact that both hit the Humvee is impressive. As far as the claim of "doing serious damage", well, that is not supported by anything in the link. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that what was thrown was a pair of incendiary devices, perhaps just petrol with an initiator of some sort. Visually impressive, but I see no support of fragmentation or blast damage whatsoever.

... or an unspotted M203 grenade launcher.

All very true. However, the latest Fermi pricing estimates, coupled with the comparisons of performance/price ratios between Nvidia and ATI's latest are pushing me towards an ATI card for my next build. Perhaps, similar to AMD and Intel, open competition and abandonment of "fanboyism" will lead to a win-win for both consumers and producers. Thanks, Ken

...as the SWAT team closed on the house, they rushed from car to bush to tree until, hugging the front wall, they'd stacked to the side of the front door. Breathing heavily, adrenalin pumping through their veins, they were ready. Safeties off, AK-74's at the ready, this is what they'd trained for. The SWAT storm group leader, Leonid, got the shoulder squeeze. He knew each of the men behind him was ready. All they needed was the on scene commander's go ahead. Misha was a fool. Placed in charge of the men who did the real work, the son-in-law of a well-placed politician, he was in command! Leonid knew he needed the okay from Misha. Misha, in the well-protected command BMP-3, just across the road. Leonid keyed his mike, ready to ask for permission. Leonid, and all the rest, focused solely on the doors and windows of the house they were about to storm, failed to notice the hum of an electric motor emanate from the T-72 parked in the driveway. No one noticed as the turret slowly, ever so slowly, slewed until the barrel was pointing at Misha's command and control BMP...

Okay, I went to Nvidia's website and followed their links to a feedback page regarding their drivers. The address is: http://www.nvidia.com/object/driverqualityassurance.html There are some fairly simple questions about your rig, followed by a request for what the issue is. I submitted a report. The body was as follows: "The game Combat Mission: Shock Force (CM:SF) by Battlefront (Battlefront.com) uses OpenGL to render the graphics. The Nvidia drivers, starting with the 190 series has broken the implementation of OpenGL. The game renders perfectly with any driver prior to 190's. The issue is that any source of illumination shines with full brightness on ANY surface facing towards the source of illumination. There is no attenuation for distance, smoke, fog or other atmospheric effects. As well, the full illumination still occurs on a surface EVEN IF THERE IS AN OBSTACLE BETWEEN THE ILLUMINATION SOURCE AND THE SURFACE. Using ANY Nvidia driver after 190 results in light penetrating solid objects for an infinite distance. Battlefront is a small developer. They have admitted as much. They have stated that you, Nvidia, do not grant them any kind of status. You have ignored their requests for support. However, and very significantly to an enthusiast like me, ATI has specifically repaired their OpenGL code due to reports from users and small developers. I have never purchased or used an ATI card in over 20 years of PC building. The card is only as good as the driver. Not supporting an open code like OpenGL correctly shows a level of hubris; ATI is eager to please the market. Your drivers have broken your card. Will my next card be Nvidia or ATI?" I'm not sure if it makes a difference. Perhaps a flood of feedback on broken OpenGL implementation may help. Otherwise, it's time to leave the green and go to the red. I understand some of ATI's 5000 series cards are very good. Thanks, Ken

No, he's newly sober, but on the edge. And the mayor's daughter? Yeah, they'd had something, back when he was an officer on the up and coming in the security service. Until he ran into the corruption of the officials over him. He was too much of an idealist. They sent him to Afghanistan. Whatever happened there is what drove him to drink... Ken

Right now, somewhere in Russia, an arms dealer is screaming at the top of his lungs.

YankeeDog, That, frustratingly, happened to me. Well, okay, not to ME, but to some of the pixeltruppen under my command in CMSF. Pedants! I'd set the du rigeur "TARGET LIGHT" command inside a building. My men entered, firing; the endpoint had a "TARGET ARC" command set to 360 degrees, 40m. Unfortunately, the TARGET LIGHT stayed active until every man in the unit had been assessed as being present at the endpoint. My grenadier fired a 40mm from his corner towards the middle of the building - where the TARGET LIGHT aimpoint was set. Too bad one of his squadmates was between the muzzle of the UGL and the aimpoint. Oops. I ascribed it to a friendly fire incident and pressed on. Ken

Agreed: if BF.C is correctly implementing the OpenGL code (which I assume they are), it then falls on Nvidia to have drivers which can render OpenGL coded programs correctly through their videocards. ESPECIALLY if they explicitly state that their cards and drivers comply with the OpenGL standard. Oh, that's right, they do explicitly state that! Grassroots is one thing; having an established publisher/developer notify them is another. BF.C? Ken

ERISS, That's an excellent anecdote; the number of branches, boughs, limbs, boles, twigs, sticks, leaves and other detritus extant in a copse of trees are obstacles to effective grenade throwing. One grenade would be a risk. A rain of grenades would invite friendly casualties. BF.C? Ken

Hmm, nicely done. When I played this, I suffered a lot of casualties and got embroiled in a slugfest. Ken

Or when you tell them that your hands only shake when you're nervous. That's a fun one!

Aye, that's a LOT of good logic. The raining of grenades to clear a single structure (which may have several rooms which are abstracted) wastes too many of these valuable munitions. If it's a single-story structure, the unit starts throwing them before they enter. Many end up on the roof. That's a bit, err, undesirable. I don't want a specific GRENADE target order. That would swing the pendulum too far. A bit of a TacAI tweak would be nice. Ken

Like it states, I'm curious if there's been any communication with Nvidia about how their latest drivers have "broken" OpenGL support? If so, has Nvidia even acknowledged an issue with OpenGL? (This is the flash issue, whereby any illumination results in ALL surfaces facing the source of the illumination getting the FULL illumination. The intensity of the illumination is attenuated by neither obstacles nor distance. This makes a 2km by 2km map appear to be at the peak of a record breaking lightning storm every time a machinegun fires.) Rumors have it that Nvidia is about to release their "Fermi" based chips. Alongside the new chips will be new drivers. This would be a good opportunity for a fix. (Apparently OpenGL worked correctly up to series 188 drivers; current version is around 196. All from memory, that.) Thanks, Ken

hcrof and Mike Churchmoor, Thank you both! Great AAR, very enjoyable to watch from the sidelines and eat popcorn while the action unfolded. When are you two doing the next one? Ken

I'd love a sound file, "Frag out!" each time a grenade is thrown.

Yes, the artificial formation tightness is a coding requirement (apparently), but I think is also aids gameplay. You can see at a glance which guys are in the same unit. If they were scattered all over, it would be very hard to discern which unit was where (without a clickfest to identify everyone). So, artificial tightness is fine. The "nerfing" of HE seems to work very well within those parameters, as well. There have been enough postings by folks who have worked with artillery to state with a high level of confidence that the game artillery is too responsive and too accurate (with exceptions, as always). Given that, "nerfing" artillery compensates for the responsiveness, accuracy, and the lack of dispersion of the infantry. The same for vehicle HE. It's all part of the same issue. Given the volley nature of hand grenade use, and the tightness of infantry formations, one grenade consistently will land in midst of four men and wound/kill them all. It's the consistency of that occurance which I think is troublesome. Once in a while, sure; in tight terrain, I can almost guarantee the advancing side will take a quartet of WIA/KIA from a single grenade. No tactic overcomes that. Ken

Agreed. Sometimes I want to area fire on a SUSPECTED position, but if a KNOWN enemy shows up, I'd rather light him up instead. Now, I must doff my cap - once again - to BF.C. In the VAST majority of cases, the TacAI does an excellent job of breaking off pre-ordered area fire to strike at newly discovered enemies. I have no idea how difficult it must've been to create that algorithm and balance it, but it works very well. Most of the time. There are cases like noxnoctum described. I'd like to shoot at an area, but only because I've got ammo to burn off and feel the need to dump it there. What I do now is set an AREA TARGET, a pause of some length, then a move with a COVERED ARC. That way the area fire does not take the entire minute, and my unit can then move into an overwatch. A variation on that is COVERED ARC, short delay, HUNT, target, MOVE, COVERED ARC. That is useful because the HUNT command will stop the move if any enemy is present. The area target fire won't happen if there's a known enemy unit. Ken

Agreed. In CMx1, I would bleed out a platoon to gain that advantageous piece of ground. In the next battle, there it would be, ready for me to reoccupy. The sacrifice of the previous battle gave me a physical, tactile, apparent result. In CMx2, there's nothing... It's the difference between a Snicker's bar and a handful of tofu. Yeah, they'll both fill your belly, but is that the point? Ken

+1 to Elmar Bijlsma's post, above. (For editors, adding a penalty for each extra minute used to achieve a geographic objective? That way the player has to try to balance force preservation against time?) (For QB's, a selectable time limit would be a boon...) Ken

hcrof, Thank you! This a great idea and it's in an easy format to interpret. Thanks, Ken

Yeah, and if you've ever been even close to a modern grenade going off, you'd never even think to try it. The concussive effect of such a small device is quite impressive. If I told you that a 16 lb. sledgehammer swung by an (angry) NFL lineman with all his strength cannot dent a modern helmet, does that mean you'd be unharmed if you were wearing the helmet when it was hit? Of course not. Feel free to prove me wrong. Although I'm still quite miffed at all my 4 man casualty piles laying about the battlefield. It looks sloppy. Ken