c3k

Hmmm, if I rely upon my political overlords to keep their promises and keep me safe, it'll all work out, right?

LOL. Really. I'm sitting here laughing. If it really were that simple, wouldn't it have been done? I know that the programmers/developers have already posted about how difficult tooltips can be to implement. Languages, etc., positioning on displays. Shrug. I'm not a programmer. But, like you, I'd like to have them. Unlike you, I imagine it is more difficult than I can imagine.

Okay... I choose...US. (I was actually hoping to have Russians. Just to show the naysayers how impressive they are. Russian forces are pretty darn good.) ...and.... I choose the GREEN ZONE. Let the purchasing begin... Ken

DMS, Ian: PM and emails sent. You've both got a dropbox invite. To all others...The AAR will commence soon. It will be...wait for it...glooooorrrrrious! My men are excited. They are already shouting out for me to choose which one to lead the charge. Sigh. Command is such a heavy burden...

LAV is much smaller than the Stryker.

This is the map: Another view, with notes: The goal is the bridge at the center of the map. It is roughly equidistant. The Green setup zone has the advantage of a built up bank: close LOS with cover. The Yellow advantage is distant LOS with cover. NOTE: there are some fordable locations along the river. (Kharalyk map cropped, labels removed, only one bridge completely crosses the river. Everything else the same.) I've labeled the setup zones as "Green" and "Yellow". (They will become Red or Blue based on DMS' and my choice of force and/or setup zone.) DMS, do you still want Russians and allow me to choose my setup zone? Ken

Points for "antediluvian". Is it getting better? Yeah. We have hotkeys, we have spacebar menu. That's better than just having the on-screen UI. Is there (a lot) of room for even more improvement? Um, yeah. But, as often posted, what would you do? How could a UI show all the information, and allow all the commands, in a better way? (Seriously. The more/better ideas that get put out, the better a new UI could be.)

NOT directed at Wiggum15, but upstream a bit the term "fan boy" is being thrown around. It can be taken as an insult. As well, any refutation of a criticism can seem like an insult. Is the game perfect? Not even close. Is there a better tactical game at this scale? Not that I know of. Example: I am playtesting a battle on 16 square kilometers. I have about 2 battalions against a similar force. (CMBN) One of my halftracks, filled with men, is advancing over hilly, wooded terrain. A 'schreck takes out the halftrack from close in. The surviving infantry piles out. The 'schreck team opens up on them, killing one. The rest, shocked by the impact, the bail out, and the ensuing MP40 burst, decide to hit the dirt, fire a few rounds, then run off down the backside of the hill. (In my imagination, the 2 man crew of the halftrack took the full impact of the 'schreck and are still sitting there in the cab, charred, as the halftrack burns.) THIS ALL HAPPENED WITHIN A SINGLE TURN. It was perfectly modelled. Perfectly. This was one little micro-vignette within a 4 battalion, 16 sqkm, 4 hour battle. Oh, over the next 3 turns, my squad recovered their morale, and I split it into 3 teams. After establishing some area targeting suppressing fire, I maneuvered the other two teams to either flank, and killed the 'schreck team. Then I applied buddy aid to the dead squad member. Micro management? Hell yeah. Satisfying that it worked perfectly? Even more so. The TacAI and programming was phenomenal for the ambush and reaction. Again, it was perfect. Now, onto the point of this thread...yes, it can be improved. There are situations when the actions aren't perfect. To Wiggum's post: For those who are new, there were long-time cries that automatic weapons were unrealistically ineffective. Now, there are complaints that they are too effective. A perfect balance is impossible. Really. What works in one case would be wrong for another. Individual soldiers, out of command, surrender VERY easily. They are often ineffective with any incoming fire. It's easy to capture them. I don't see an issue with them needing to be nerfed any more. (Assuming "individual"="isolated" or "alone".) Formations ARE too tight. Each team has to be able to locate inside one action spot. That is a game-engine limitation. Changing that would be a tremendous effort with HUGE ramifications to every facet of the game. (As it's been told to me.) A workaround is to break up your squads when the terrain gets complex. As well, do NOT set long movement orders. That strings them out. Waypoints let them accordion together. Isolated shooters are sometimes fanatic. You don't know when, so that you can't take advantage of them. "Oh, it seems Sergei is now a Fanatic. Excellent. I'll use him in the tower." Are the above items workarounds? Yep. There are shortcomings, but they are not gamebreakers. Every tweak has ramifications. In some cases the TacAI response seems wrong. In others, it could not be better. You get out what you put in. To me, the benefit is down low, at the individual level. I've got to command at that level to get the most out of the game. See my halftrack tale. Ken

Probably. The Russian system requires a LOT of coordination between the firing unit and the spotting unit. That coordination is accomplished via electronic links and communications. (Spotter needs to be within 15 degrees of the line of flight of the projectile. The shooters need to be specially trained. Spotter calls it, shooters shoot it. A signal is sent. When the round is ~15 seconds out (maybe 30? doing this from memory), an indicator on the designator box tells the spotter to actively lase the target. The round should capture the lase, then follow it in. Encoded laser means the codes need to be shared prior to the shoot. There is a LOT going on to get a laser guided round onto a target in a combat environment. EW would mess up any one of the steps. Supposedly, Russian manuals call for 3x rounds to assure hitting a tank. All the prior from memory, so don't put money on it.) Ken

Dan, I =love= the angst in your first post! Yeah, welcome to the APS learning curve. Russians have always had some advanced ideas in the military sphere. APS is one of them. However, their particular APS has a weakness, in that each cartridge fired leaves that pie wedge undefended. The benefit is they have a LOT of pie wedges (which should overlap). Israeli style has a weakness in that it only has 4 engagements. Its benefit is that it covers the front/rear with all 4, and anywhere on the sides with 2. No missing pie wedges. Other benefits/drawbacks. Israeli ties the system into their FCS and platoon link. You shoot at a tank, every tank knows who you are and where you are...before your missile/rocket gets near your target. That's powerful mojo. Javelin top-attack is very powerful. Russians are, no doubt, working on countermeasures. Simple techniques (some already in use): -Tandem projectiles. First one gets hit by APS, second one gets through. -Swarm attack. Coordinate multiple firers against ONE target. (That would've been helpful for you, Dan.) -Spoofing APS with EW. Make it go "boom" with a ray gun. Seriously. Make the sensors think there's an inbound missile by manipulating waveforms. As it fires off everything, it will henceforth be stripped of APS. That'll be worth a smirk. -Beat the APS. Brute force it with higher energies. Big, massive, warhead which explodes 3m away still damages/blinds/knocks out tank. (Portability issue.) Kinetic energy is another approach. Highly energetic booster to get penetrator up to near tank gun velocities. That beats the reaction time. -MIRV the warhead. Confuse the APS with mulitple inbounds. -Blind the APS. They use radar to detect the inbound. Stealth the warhead, deflect the radar waves, put a jammer in the missile; any of these would get the warhead up to the tank with no intercept. -Totally change the engagement. Make ATGM's which don't hit the tank. Have them miss. Really. Fly in front, drop down, and roll under the tank. Remotely fired, guided, antitank mines. Yeah, I should get credit for that one. There's going to be a LOT of interesting back and forth on this front for years to come. Ken

DMS has taken the option of choosing his force. He has chosen Russians. However, I have not yet posted the map and setup zones. I'll do so within a few more hours. (Real life is disappointing in how it always demands attention.) I won't hold DMS to his choice...yet. But it was a good choice. IanL, standby for some force selections. (DMS and IanL, I'll be PM'ing in a little...) Ken

That has been oft requested...as well as a scrollable list of vehicle systems. And other UI improvements. Short answer: anything devoted to that would take away from something else. Long answer: umm, about the same as the short answer but with more syllables.

DMS has won, and has agreed to the AAR!! My schedule has been the holdup. I will email him the specifics (and IanL has agreed to set up the game). Here is the general outline... It will be a 30 minute meeting engagement. There is one objective: whichever side has their commander standing on the bridge at the end of the game, will win. DMS will have the option of choosing either the force he gets to use, or which side of the map will be his. So, if he chooses map side, then I get to choose my force. If he chooses his force, then I get to choose my map side. (For force, the options are US, Ukraine, or Russia. No mixing US and Ukraine.) We will each get 7,500 points, no rarity. The catch? Each side will have an identical commander in a Humvee. That commander CANNOT get into or on any other transport. He may unload from the Humvee (and get back in), but he cannot go on any other conveyance. His commander will be named "DMS". Mine will called "Commander of Death". Or "c3k". It is not the HQ unit which matters, it is the commander. If the commander dies, that side can only hope for a tie. Or style points. If both commanders die, then the outcome would be a draw. The only other rule is that there is no first turn setup zone bombardment. 2nd minute? Sure. Just not the first minute. We will use the qb menu to choose our forces. Send that qb to IanL using the PM function. He will copy the units into the battle, then send it on to us to start a pbem. All units will subordinated to the Battalion Commanders. It will be fierce, bloody, and fun. I will post the map up soon...(It is a cropped version of "Kharalyk", with just one undemolished bridge.) Oh, if that one bridge gets destroyed, then whoever's ordnance blows it up is the loser. (If DMS has an immobilized vehicle on the bridge, and I shoot the vehicle, and then it blows up, and THAT causes the bridge to fall, then the blame falls, like the bridge, upon him. It would "his ordnance" in the vehicle which caused the destruction. ) Ken

LOL! A couple of points. First, does this Apache come with "Whisper Mode"? (See "Blue Thunder".) Second, it's amazing what a bureaucrat will do when faced with extra money: give back to the citizenry, or spend it on a multi-million dollar, inappropriate, toy. Third, how will it actually arrest a criminal? Will the chain gun be loaded with non-lethal (oops, "less lethal") projectiles? Big taser missiles instead of hellfires? Rapelling station for the gunner to drop down, a la Robin, and apply handcuffs? Fourth, with a limited top speed, an enthusiastic motorcyclist can outrun it on the M5 (or whatever M passes through the County). But, despite all that, it's a great idea.

Oooh, is this why it's called a "hot" topic? Cpl. Rosenberger, don't let the grumbly old men scare you off. This is really one of the better forums on the internet. Usually.

Exactly. When an item has no combat history, several techniques suggest themselves. One would be to take prior claims of performance about weapons that did see combat, and compre those claims to actual performance. Applying that decrement to the claims offered on the new equipment would be reasonable.

As a beta, I can assure you that assiduous care is taken to remove any nationality bias in the game. However, some materiel is unproven. It would be the height of folly to accept manufacturers' claims as presented. Combat reports are much more important than glossy sales brochures. Nothing is nerfed or buffed because if the emblem painted on it.

LOL! Yeah, you've stumbled onto a shortfall. Solution: savegame after every replay and orders phase. Make a mistake? Reload the previous savegame. Not elegant, but it works. Oh, guaranteed that the FIRST time you don't save, you'll wish you had. Discussion on why: Acquire is important, but the time given to change it would take away from something else. Advanced: Unacquire could lead to odd issues. Where and when could that happen? Could I get my platoon to cache all its ammo and then buff up one squad? Etc. Proferred: make acquire not get executed until you are done. (Not helpful in your situation.) As well, allow smaller ammo increments. If unacquire is allowed, can it happen in any transport? 40 Javs in a jeep? Any ammo cache? Dumping ammo in a hut and hoping the next squad finds it? In short, a variation on this theme has been sought after for a long time. Savegame is your only unacquire. Ken

GTX960 is aimed squarely at 1080p gaming. A lot of reviews out there. Most games play at decent rates with some eyecandy enabled. (You won't get 60 fps with every slider at "ultra".) It's a solid midlevel card. The GTX970 is a much bigger jump in capability (despite the hue and cry about 3.5gb + .5gb segmented memory). But, it will crush every game at 1080p.

Before you buy a new card, what driver version are you using? I have a 6870, w7/64, and it runs fine. Ken

Just imagine if someone had that happen in an AAR....

I think your 50m estimate is off. If not, that should be shown in a savegame. Brits did a test where they showed rounds snapping by within a few meters cause suppression. The game did not, to my knowledge, change how units behave to incoming fire (morale sensitivity). Maybe it should, based on confidence in body armor, small bullets, aggressive training, and ready examples of men in past firefights getting hit and it not being too bad. Or, that's all hogwash. The single biggest determinant is unit motivation and experience. Green troops cower more readily than veteran.

In that particular battle, I kept my Jav teams back, tight armor arcs. Others spotted the target, then I moved the Javs up with armor arcs to enclose the SAM launchers. Whoosh. Win.

Hmmm, this shouldn't be happening unless they are in extremis. Are you ordering your Jav teams to TARGET the enemy infantry? Otherwise, cover arcs (normal or armor) would limit this.

What really happened: driver panicked and reversed. Vehicle commander, next to him, screamed at him for not going forward. Driver, flustered, lost control of fine motor skills and, in trying to suddenky change directions, stalled the engine. Now, they must sit there as the vehicle performs its built in pre- and post-start checks. Once the crew resolves their issues, it will drive off. Or die.