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Gents, I'll resurrect this idea: we NEED a way to sort the scenarios in the next game. Right now we can only look at the alphabetical listing of scenarios, with no idea of what type of battle is hinted at by the name. Nor can we tell if we've ever played that scenario, or how we did. Here are some suggested sorting criteria (adjustable/selectable by the user): Date Size, map Size, forces Force type Opposing Nationality Objectives Length Region Have I played it yet? Did I win? Did I lose? Did I finish? (How many restarts did it take? Kind of tough with savegames.) Best score/record? Review score by others (is it a popular scenario or is it a dog?) Time of Day Environment Weather Conditions Terrain Types Reinforcements Support: Artillery, Air Obviously a simple tabbed sorting system would be a boon. (As well as a SCROLL BAR.) Oh, a "delete" option would be nice. That way I can delete all the hundreds of savegames I accrue. A feedback system, voluntary and opt-in, would be too cool. It would upload the player's battle results back to BF.C. Regardless, a better system needs to be implemented. See these threads: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=72661 http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=76751 Thanks, Ken Thanks, Ken

My .02, having followed this for 23 pages. The Soviet road march data, while interesting in and of itself, does not, in my view, lend itself to an interpretation of CMx1 or CMx2's immob/bogging rates. I admit not knowing exactly what SOP's Soviet Mechanized/Armored units used when conducting a road march. However, I would assume that there were periods of time built into the march schedule for maintenance, etc. These times would get changed, in my view. Let's say a company of T-34's is grinding down the road. Suddenly tank number 4 throws a tread, drops its transmission, loses steering, whatever. The unit would stop, evaluate the condition of the tank, and either leave it behind for rear echelon repair units to pick up (not likely in the Soviet army), or repair it if able. Here's the crux of the issue: the parent formation, conducting a multi-hour (multi-day?) long-distance march DOESN'T CARE how long a tank is broken, as long as it's at the start line when the attack starts. So, our tank may take 2 hours to fix. Whatever. The unit will then, having used the delay to accomplish whatever it can on the other tanks, attempt to make up the lost time. Typical road march speeds are not that fast. So, this tank would be totally inop for the duration of a CM scenario, yet it wouldn't cause a blip in the high level report. The tank in question would have to be catastrophically out of service for it to be listed. Now, let's look at how these things get reported in a bureaucracy. The Soviet commander is torn between a couple of priorities. If he reports breakdowns due to rear area factors (spares, fuel, poorly made tanks, etc.) would he possibly risk being shot for criticizing the state? Yet, if he has non-runners which he is keeping off the books so he doesn't look good (which one of the regimental commanders is the worst? is the number of non-runners important? you bet!), how does he eventually reconcile the numbers? In combat, you can add one or two extra into "destroyed by enemy action". If you're in the rear area, the best you can do is keep them on the books until a convenient road march, then you can list them as "fell out of march". In short, I wouldn't put too much reliance on the precision of the numbers given, nor would I extrapolate the numbers into CM scale. I _AM_ interested in bog/immob rates in tests made using the game engine. Regards, Ken

I like it...

I've been using Vista64 Ultimate for 1 & 1/2 years with SF; I'm not experiencing any CTD's. I've applied all Vista updates as they've been released (excepting IE8 from a week or two ago). I'd suggest it's specific to your setup. Good luck, Ken

Ah, whatever happened to that great discourse on Mean Maximum Pressure? (No sarcasm meant.) It was very enlightening concerning factors which led to certain tanks having better flotation than others. The old formula of dividing the weight by the area of the track was shown to be a very rough approximation of reality. Regardless, the bogging seems better in CMSF than it was in CMBB/AK. Of course, that could just be the increase in technology in the newer vehicles. Better traction, easier driving, much more horsepower, more robust transmissions, etc. I just want to be able to see my berserk spetsnatz hurl a log into a Tiger's main sprocket. Once that happens I'll know that BF.C is serious about this whole "realistic wargaming" mantra. Regards, Ken

WOOT!!! Only a day or two until v1.20 is released!! And there was much rejoicing in the village... (Hmm, I wonder if the redacted parts of the quote are pertinant?) Regards, Ken

Er, bottom row, far right, second one down: "RGP 16". Maybe should be R_P_G 16? It looks nice, otherwise. Ken

Quick anecdote about indirect fire accuracy and modern ops. I've just finished reading Michael Yon's "Turning Point in Iraq". (Former Green Beret, embed reporter, blogger; large web presence.) In an account from late 2007 or early 2008 he is in a US TOC (Tactical Operations Center). They watch enemy combatants run into a house in a city (I forget which one) with video downlink from a UAV. After some discussion, they decide that 120mm mortar would be the best solution to killing the enemy without causing too much collateral damage. Situation: TOC, maps, GPS, US mortars in a known position, GPS coords for target. Result: mortar spotting rounds come in WAY off target. The corrections are not getting them any closer to the target. After several unsuccessful iterations of fire correction the TOC cancels the mortar strike. Even hitting a known target with all the modern gizmos can be a bit more difficult than it seems. (No, this does NOT compare to a soldier walking rounds up to and over a wall which he can see.) I thought it was interesting that all this talk of "just radio in the grid" doesn't always lead to the the results one would expect. Enjoy, Ken

A co, Welcome to CMSF. This issue has been discussed at great length earlier. The designers, after MUCH research, have elected to have passengers as air guards at all times. Hence, no matter what you command, at least two passengers will be "up" at all times. The pros and cons of this have been debated. This is doctrine and so is reflected in the game. Enjoy! Ken

Ah, yes, the age-old conundrum of using a round peg for a square hole. Thanks for the peek. Now, get back to work so we can download the Brits! Regards, Ken

Very nice addition! Will the tracer effect stay in? I'd like a muzzle blast effect (especially at night), but the mortar shell tracer seems like it would reveal too much info about the mortar location. Kind of like a built in fire location radar for the other player. Thanks, Ken

Do a search in the tech help forum. There's info in there. Having said that, I'm using vista64 ultimate as well. I found that vista "helpfully" splits cmsf into two different file locations and snafus a bunch of stuff. My solution was to modify the default install location to C:\Battlefront\CMSF. Putting a battlefront folder on the root directory forced vista to place all the cmsf files where I wanted them - in the cmsf folder. Now it works. FWIW, I had to uninstall then reinstall to get this done. Simply copying and pasting did not work. All is good now. Good luck. Ken

I will always fondly remember the OP due to the inclusion of "Lepidopteran". Sheer genius, that. I agree that CMSF needs more butterflies. Based on the screenshot of CM Normandy with the Tigers in the flower filled field (say that fast three times), I believe that CM will finally be modelling butterflies. Or, did I misread something? Ken

WeGo is how I go.

Ah, but the bipod is NOT the same as deploying. That involves (in CMSF) setting it up on a STABLE tripod.

Is a comparison of real-world RPG-7's in Iraq and Afghanistan to CMSF's Syrian Army equipment a fair comparison? Points of possible divergence: 1. Manufacture - local or Russian munitions factory? 2. Age 3. Storage - humidity, temperature, vibration, impact, duration. (Has a Muj been waiting 10 years to dig the RPG round out of the roof of the hen house? Or, did the Syrian just open it out of the armory still in the factory wrapping?) 4. Transport - see storage, above. 5. Training 6. Morale/support/unit expectations (you gain "street cred" just for blowing rounds in some societies versus doing your job and getting rounds on target in others. This is why some fighters shoot blindly or just fire in the air. They are justifiably proud of their actions given how their society views such behaviors. US military society scorns that behavior.) 7. Sighting system - see all the above and repeat I would be hesitant to extrapolate directly from COIN ops RPG use to Syrian Army in an invasion scenario RPG use. It may be useful for some purposes, but I would not denigrate RPG accuracy/efficacy based on Mujahudeen use. This doesn't mean I have any evidence supporting CMSF's modelling of the RPG. Just points to ponder. Thanks, Ken

Gents, A lot of good ideas here. Here's my perspective for whatever it's worth. I play WeGo mainly. Having 60 seconds of out-of-control makes a high fidelity elevation model a non-player. My support for that is the following: I know an enemy squad is in a depression. I suppress them. I advance an M1 to eliminate them. The gun cannot depress enough, yet the bullets leaving the coax at a large angle destroy/eliminate the enemy infantry. If the "fudge" of bullets leaving at a large angle were not present, that M1 could never have fired on the infantry. Here's the leap of faith; in real life (yeah, that opens up a counter-argument, but go with me for a bit), the driver could've/would've advanced forward a few tenths of a meter or whatnot to allow the weapons to bear on the target. As a WeGoer I cannot do that. So the lack of realistic bullet/shell ballistics when leaving the muzzle actually lead to a MORE realistic simulation. To have a totally realistic simulation of depression/elevation effects would need a much more granular elevation map. Minor terrain undulations would be needed. The sharpness of contours would need to be rounded. I'm sure there are other requirements. Does the CMSF system have a perfect simulation of these effects? Of course not. I do not think rigid depression/elevation simulation is a solution. Whatever solution is promulgated needs to address two opposing requirements; it needs to disallow firing at targets which could not be reached by a real weapon system and it needs to allow my GAME unit to fire at targets which cannot be hit by the GAME unit right now, but probably could be hit by a real unit. I look at the current solution as a compromise. Any other idea will also be a compromise, but would have to be a BETTER compromise. Regards, Ken

Totally needed! How could this have been overlooked? I like it. Make it so.

A sad day... Thank you for the work! Ken

After all the negative reviews CMSF garnered on its release, this review at least adds a positive piece of press. Some of these review sites/magazines refuse to re-review a game after its patched; I think we can all agree that CMSF has been harmed by its initial state and a review of v1.11 (or the soon? to be released v1.20) would be totally different. This review seems almost to be a way around that policy. It seems to be a way to review CMSF in its current, very polished, state. The fact that it calls itself a review of CM:Marines is almost beside the point. Regardless of its brevity and the WWII comment, the rating is good. I'm sure there's a residual impact from the initial CMSF score; I'm sure that rating has brought down the Marines rating somewhat. It's still positive. Now, when will they print it in a hard copy?

I'm glad you told me that! I had a vague recollection about a thread like this, however, I had avoided reading anything due to spoilers. I wasn't even sure it was the USMC campaign, but once I started typing this thread, I had the idea that I'd heard of this before. Thanks! Ken

Gents, I'm playing through the USMC campaign, "Semper Fi! - Syria". I've gone the Pooh route (it actually was easy for me!). Anyhow, I have a question for anyone who has completed "Afternoon Delight", the ninth battle. ***Spoilers!!!*** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Okay, I finished "Afternoon Delight". I did NOT destroy the chemical towers, per the briefing. I did, briefly, occupy them with some troops. I wiped out the defenders. 0 men left. I then sat there for about 20 minutes clicking through the turns. At the end, I received a TOTAL DEFEAT. WTF? I lost 2/2 LAV's, 1/3 M1's, 1 Stryker, 1 MGS Stryker. Total of 11 US casualties. Absolutely NOTHING happened the last 20 minutes. Has anyone won this? If so, what did you do? What is required for the US to win? Fwiw, the after action screen showed that I had not achieved any points for enemy casualties (um, no one was left) also, no points for friendly casualties. 5 vehicles, 11 men; not good enough? Any clue on this would be helpful so I can understand what I was supposed to do. Thanks, Ken

Agreed, with your specs this should fly. My rig is similar: q6600 at 3.0, 8800gtx, vista64, 8 gig ram. As you say, this program flies (1920x1200). I run other programs in the background. I'm not a tech expert, but something isn't quite right. The obvious question: have you patched CMSF to v1.11? A far better person to have give you help is Schrullenhaft. He's around on these forums. Enjoy the game! Ken

Err, vehicles: Operational vehicles block ENEMY fire, not LOS. Wrecks block both fire (friendly and enemy).

Yeah, the location of the observer to the shell track would be a variable. However, the audible shell track would then change pitch (doppler effect), with volume attenuation due to range. Neither of these characteristics seem to be present. Regardless of my location, I hear the shell's flight at the same volume, same pitch. Then silence... Then the impact. I understand the gap is present due to the simulation of the speed of sound. The disconnect is that there is no simulation of the speed of sound for the shell's flight. Minor? Absolutely. Am I suggesting a new module, "Combat Mission: The Sound of Battle"? Not hardly! I do not know if there is an EASY solution to this minor aberration, or not. If any solution is too hard, or would bump off, say, proper animation for bolt action rifles, then no worries. It is minor. However, if it can be easily fixed, and won't bump anything off the schedule, then so much the better. (Now, if the sound of the shell is being simulated based on viewer location at the moment the shell enters the game, then it STILL is off. Is that what you were getting at? If so, I would throw in what I said above: pitch modulation, volume attenuation. Start soft, build up, lengthen the pitch if it's going past you, soften till it cannot be heard, delay..... BOOOM! It'd be cool if you could judge impact based on sound.) Regards, Ken