Blackcat

Snipping tool in accessories, got it. Thanks.

Steve, Thanks for your very informative post above. Still being a new player but having an old brain, I wonder if I could ask for a further bit of clarification. I know my enemy, a one or two man team, is at the right-hand corner of a substantial (i.e. more than one spot building). When I try and fire my MG at the spot where the unit was last seen I get a clear, bright blue line. However when I click on the fire button the target line snaps to the middle of the building. The crucial question is will my rounds have any chance of hitting the enemy unit?

Can anyone please tell me why when I try and take a screen shot using the Print Screen Button in Vista all I get is a totally black image? Thanks in anticipation.

Oh, by the way is your cheapo version of the game from Paradox? If so you might want to read up on the patching issues. Good luck.

Some people would regard going on to a company's web site and saying you bought their product for far less than the official price as less than tactful. To then suggest that the US dollar is not proper money, especially as the company in question is American, would be regarded by many as impolite. To then ask the same people you have just insulted for help could be regarded as -ing stupid. The Brits Module is $25, the pound will buy about $1.60. I am sure you can do the sums. You could do yourself a favour and buy the Marines and Brit bundle. Trust me, you won't regret it and at $35 (call it twenty-five quid), you will still be ahead over your initial request.

My memory is not what it once was, but I am fairly sure that in the briefing the S2 said that there was no enemy armour expected. That S2 should be sacked. Vulture don't believe a word of what he tells you in in future. Nice job turning it around and a thanks for another great read.

Big Duke, The First Afghan War was a tad before (1839-1842 are the generally accepted dates), but no matter. I agree with you that the Pathans will fight anyone who goes into their land as an invader and that includes other Pathans. It is a very complex part of the world, more complex than any Western politican or diplomat seems to understand. In the current fighting NATO troops have shown formidable bravery and fortitude, but then so have the opposition - just as both sides did in the skirmishes of the 19th and early 20th century. The tragedy is all the current expenditure of blood and treasure is happening because a few Western politicians in positions of power never read history and are too arrogant to listen.

"One of the other problems with WeGo is that since I can only give orders every 60 seconds, when I do get the chance I have a tendency to tinker with things that ought to be left alone." A tendency many of us suffer from, that and trying to rush things along. I have now put a sign on my monitor for when I am playing CMSF which says, "Be Patient". It helps. As an aside, when I played this mission one of the tanks rolled into the village too. It was met by volley after volley of rifle grenades (none ordered by me) from three sections. Much to my amazement it didn't turn its massive gun on any of them, rather it backed out - straight into the LOS of my newly arrived Javelin team. Good luck, and I hope the Harrier does its thing and without killing too many of your troops in the process.

Great stuff, The Vulture, please keep it coming.

Interesting post Big Duke, thank you. One small point, Gurkhas are Hindus not Buddists. Oh, and this sentence, "The Gurkha tradition of loyal individual service to a foreign ruler is very close to anathma to the entire Afghan culture, which might very well be said to be united only by a desire to resist foreigners, and loyalty only to family and clan" is not very accurate either. Pathans and other Afghan tribes had a long history of faithful and loyal service in the British Indian Army. Indeed, from 1857 Pathans formed a large part of said army. They served with honour and distinction wherever they were sent into action, including the Western Front in WW1 (somewhere I have a photo of a Pathan soldier being decorated with the VC by King George V whilst recovering from his wounds in hospital in Brighton, Sussex).

Battlefront have never really got MGs correct. In CMBO their effect was woefully under-modeled (I remember one game where I had 5 .30 calibre MGs and 2 .50 cals covering a route and my opponent marched a whole platoon across without even being pinned). Over successive games the situation has got better and CMSF is definitely the best of the bunch. However, penetrating fire, beaten zones and variable length bursts still seem to be missing. Maybe in CM:N we will get another tranche of improvements, maybe even predicted (indirect) fire will come along one day.

Thanks, I misunderstood your original. Good luck with the battle, I am looking forward to the next installment.

Thanks, Vulture, for this excellent series. First class stuff and I am enjoying it immensely. One question, can you tell me where you positioned the LAV's to get a line of sight to the Sounthern trenches? From the screen shot it looks like they are on the South side of the chasm, but when I played this mission I couldn't find anywhere along there that gave me such a firing position. P.S. I walked into that minefield too, and I fell for the advance on the two story house trap.

Playing WEGO or Real Time is of course a personal choice and I don't think that anyone would try and argue that one system is objectively superior to the other. Snake Eye is, of course, correct in saying that in WEGO you cannot change the fact that one or more of your units was destroyed you can only watch it happen. The thing is by watching it happen it is quite often possible to determine the type of weapon hat caused the loss and direction the fire came from (and sometimes even the exact location) Such information can be used to inform the next move. The fact that this is possible can encourage a different style of play (it does in me and has done since CMBO), not least where more emphasis is placed on recce before "big pieces" are moved forward. It would seem reasonable that a different style of play can produce a different result. I note here Snake Eye's comment above that playing a scenario by WEGO would have produced a different result. I would suggest that even if one used exactly the same basic plan and tactics the additional information available under WEGO would influence a player's moves and produce more kills, or different kills or kills in a different order. Then the effect would snowball and the game could actually play out quite differently. Now, my hypothesis is that games designed and tested under one system can play very differently under the other. If the scenario designer tweaks the AI setup, plans, arcs of fire etc. to provide a good, challenging game and proves that to be the case by testing in, say, real time is it not conceivable that the intended result will not be reproduced when the scenario is played under WEGO? Leaving aside for the moment the issues of quality of basic design (not all scenario designers are created equal) and the effect of patches on old scenarios in my, admittedly limited, experience some scenarios have proved to be nigh on impossible and some ridiculously easy. Could the design and test method be a significant factor in that experience? I don't know, but I would like to find out.

Point taken. Mind you, what in days of CMBO through CMAK would be labelled as a "gamey jeep rush" now seems to be considered an acceptable way of flushing out ATGMs. I am curious though that if real time and turn based do play differently, just hw big that difference is. The suggestion from the thread I mentioned is that it is substantial.

In the excellent EL Derjine AAR thread an issue has arisen. The campaign designer (Snake-eye) plays in real-time and, not unnaturally, tested his creation using that system. The Vulture, who is writing the cracking AAR, plays WEGO. What seems to have come to light is just how different the experience, and thus expectation, of the deisgner can be from the player. In various scenarios I have downloaded and played over the past few weeks I have come accross some that seem impossible and some that are very easy. I, therefore, wonder if this real time versus WEGO effect is more widespread than just the El Dejine Campaign. Playing a scenario, let alone a campaign, entails a significant investment of time. I suspct that all players seek the maximum reurn interms of enjoyment for their investment and games that are either too easy or too hard don't provide that. I wonder, therefore, would it be a good idea for scenarios/campaigns uploaded to the Repository in the future to be marked with what system they were tested under?

Pandur, Thanks. With big guns I agree. One round is all I want. It is getting the fire volumes for MG's and 25/30mm guns that I am struggling with.

Pandur, Interesting, thank you. One question do you find such limited periods of supressive fire effective? I ask because in my experience anything less than a couple of minutes worth achieves very little, but too much has the effect of driving the defenders back into the building (from where they hit my assulting squad as it takes the first "room"). I am trying to find a balance.

Just spent an amused half-hour on that site. So many names I remember of old, and they are still having the same conversations. What I found particularly sad was a discussion going on about command delays in CM:N. It seemed as if they hadn't realised that they weren't posting on the Battlefront forum anymore and as if anyone cared about their opinions.

Ok, but can you please explain how that adresses the problem of the spotting/security element opening fire? I know I haven't been playing the game long and so my experience is limited, but it seems to me that using the target command with snipers actually aggravates the problem of over- enthusiatic spotters.

Gets my vote.

If you read "Apache Dawn" a book about the experiences of a AAC Apache squadron in Afghanistan, you will find numerous examples of hunt and kill follow-ons that lasted for more than 15 minutes. Indeed most of the engagements described last considerable periods, often as a result of the need to get positive ID that the intended target is not a "local farmer out taking a piss" and avoiding any chance of "friendly fire". So, whilst I commend your skepticism as a general principle, I think in this case it is misplaced. Of course, in CMSF most everything happens much faster than in real life, but I do feel that the Apaches and Cobras could have been made more communicative with their ground controllers.

Most people in the MOD haven't got anything but the faintest idea of what they are talking about. Yup, sounds about right to me. What is even more worrying is that the civil servants seem to be pursuing policies that appear designed to undermine the efforts of the service personnel and public confidence in particular. For example, the story the UK population gets from the main stream media about Afghanistan is one of casualties, the soldiers are portrayed as victims of the dastardly Taliban. You can say a lot of things about the average British squaddie but a victim he ain't.

"Or do people see that 1:1 is great or even perfect system also with cover&concealment stuff?" In my view, what we have with CMSF is not perfect (no game can be) but much, much better than we had in CMBO, CMBB or CMAK and overall it works pretty well - certainly better than any other game I have ever played. I cannot recall a time when I have taken casualties because the cover/concealment was below that which I thought when I ordered my unit to that position.

I would love to be able to go back to those long TCP/IP sessions. As for five hours, a mere trifle. My wargaming oppo and I would play on a LAN sitting opposite ends of the dining table and play for twelve or fifteen hours at a stretch. Some of the CMSF scenarios would need that long to do them justice and get the full enjoyment. I very much regret Battlefront's decision to go after the click-fest market. I can understand their reasons but, for those of us richer in years who want to enjoy a wargame and savour the pleasure when our plans come to fruition and curse and scream when they fail (by watching the action multiple times from multiple angles at different zooms), real time just doesn't cut the mustard. How can you enjoy a good gloat when your opponent was looking elsewhere and didn't even see your cunningly set-up ambush come off? In the last few weeks I have played several very good sceanrios where I have had about a hundred units on the board. Can anyone properly plan, organise and control such a host in realtime? I know I can't. And how can you enjoy a scenario when there are things happening on the other flank that you cannot see and may never even know about? When CMBO was first released Battlefront made WEGO a big selling point. If the system was the best way forward then what changed to make make it such a bad idea now? Sorry, got on my hobby-horse there. I do apologise. Each to their own, I just hope Battlefront will bring back TCP/IP for WEGO in Normandy.