Blackcat
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Posts posted by Blackcat
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John kettler,
Insult Rock Apes? I am not sure it is possible.
On an earlier post you said,
"though it may not be deemed elite in British eyes, a matter I don't know much about"
So, please, you might want to think of the posts of myself and others here on this subject as simply trying to open your eyes to the way HM forces work and regard each other.
Complexity of equipment handled or length of training doesn't make a unit an "elite fighting force" (think about some of the signals units).
The Royal Marines and many regiments of the British Army have fighting traditions that go back centuries, traditions that are to this day taken very seriously by their members. (I read the other week of a Grenadier Guardsman in Afghanistan who after receiving a bad wound was pulled back to a place of, relative, safety and pumped for desperately needed nformation about the enemy positions. Having given as full a briefing as he could, he asked pemission to feint from blood loss - "Leave to pass out please, Sergeant").
The RAF don't have traditions, though I have heard that they do have some habits.
Tinkerty-tonk
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John,
As you'll know, becuase of the sites you have quoted, the RAF Regiment exists to guard airfields against ground attack. To describe them as an elite fighting force is therfore an abuse of language and an insult to true elite units and the line infantry. The fact that the MOD says they are just goes to show the depths that incompetent department can sink to.
The length of their basic training has nothing to do with thier status, it may just be down to the fact that it takes a long time to teach apes the difference between left and right.
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Just to interupt for a moment.
John Kettler said above:
"... small, elite units like the RAF Regiment ..."
The Rock Apes and elite unit? You want to be careful, John, posting that sort of nonsense can seriously damage your credibilty.
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I'm fine with command delays, but a better system is needed, so that plotting a tank's path down a curvy road doesn't make it stop repeatedly and take forever to even start.
I agree whole-heartedly, an instructon such as "drive down the road to point X" is not long or complicated and so should not incur a penalty. The limitations fo the game system mean that multiple way-points are needed not the nature of the order.
A road movement order could be a nice way round this and aviod the tedium of plotting all those way-points (as was discussed in the old CMAK threads).
In addition a convoy order would also be most welcome and essential if the command delay is to be based on C2 and number of way points is included in CM:N. I well remember in CMAK trying order a platoon of vehcles to move down a road, the inevitable result was chaotic, snarled traffic, loss of formation and, for most units, it always took longer to complete the move than going accross country.
If the idea of command delays is to increase realism then they should not add a different level of unrealistic outcomes.
The traning of the troops must also be taken into account, as mentioned above. What is complex to set up in the game does not imply complex orders in real life. For example, assualting a bulding inevtiably incurs numerous way points along with instructions to be completed at each (area fire, smoke, target arcs etc.). Any force of trained soldiers will have standard drills for completing such a manouvre. So, again, adding delays to represent the time it takes to inpart complex orders is hardly realistic.
Given trained troops, at the scale represented by the game, the only reason I can see for command delays is the time it takes for the order to reach the unit leader who is going to carry it out.
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Just playing British Mettle and it looks like your CR2(En) have about a couple of rounds of APDS each.
It's annoying.
I don't think so, just loaded up a saved game and all the Challengers start out with full loads including 33 rounds of APDS. They only have three rounds of WP smoke rounds, but that seems about right.
I might just add while I am here that the end result of the my game that started this thread was a Syrian Surrender giving a British minor victory (due to the casualties taken). The five reinforcing Challengers faired better than their three original counterparts (still lost one and had two others damaged) and between them acciounted for 6 more T72's and 8 BMPs. Artillery accounted for most of the rest as well as slaughtering the survivng dismounts
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Lots of good points made this evening.
The eight, and if you are unlucky enough to have Warriors, seven-man sections are very fragile. As JonS says, once you start taking casualties they become combat ineffective very quickly. Eight man sections might have been good enough for Julius Ceaser and the Roman Legions but in today's fight they just seem too fragile for hot warfare. In Afghanistan the full weakness doesn't seem to become apparent because once one man is down the emphasis is to get the casualty clear rather than continuing the fight (there are lots of example of this in the recent British literature). Such a philosophy couldn't continue in a hot war (think NATO v the Sovs in Germany in the 70s or 80s where every section packs up each time they take a casualty).
In terms of raw fire-power, though, today's seven or 8 men sections are capable of putting down more lead than the ten man teams of my day (nine were armed with single-shot SLR's) of whom probably only seven would be firing full-time. Compare that with a brace of minimis, two UGL equiped rifles and a GPMG in today's sections(though the game doesn't model the last item). So on paper the eight man team should work, it just doesn't do very well in practice.
The Challenger issues, which Phil S has also experienced, are just incomprehensible to me. Today's optics, fire control systems and ammo are such that a first round miss should be a rare, not common, event. Four shots to get a hit seems way outside the probabilities. Pandur asks whether I was playing against elite Syrians when my Challengers were losing the draw, not as far as I know. It was just a scenario from the basic list. I knew the BMPs where coming from other assets, I had a pair of Challies lines up ready but both were hit by the BMP's ATGMs before they actually got sight of the enemy. Again that seems a tad outside the boundaries,
Finally, going back to the infantry, Pandur suggests that the Britsh marksmanship is superior. I know it was back in my day (in infantry basic training if you couldn't reliably hit the centre of a man size target at 600 yards with an SLR using iron sights you were washed out and back squaded), but I am not sure about today's infantry. I certainly haven't noticed any better performance in the game.
Oh, one final thought in playing the Brits now I find myself reverting to the old idea where the artillery does the heavy work and the infantry's job is to find and, if possible, fix targets for the fall-shorts and then mop up afterwards. Of course not every scenario designer obliges with enough artillery...
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Blackcat, when you say your infantry die like flies, how many are you losing per battle? I am on mission 10 of the Brit campaign with the new patch, and have had to change my tactics.
The most men I have had KIA is 15 and that was in the dreaded police station mission. I quit early to be awarded a draw. But in almost every other mission I have had very few KIA, maybe 1 or 2, and sometimes nobody, with only a handful injured. But it is incredibly challenging! Definitely harder than the Army and the Marines modules. Before the latest patch I was losing loads, but that was down to me not really understanding how it all fits together. Based on my current results you can play it conservatively and not lose a load of men. But conservative is the word, because you cannot afford to be aggressive. So far I have had 3 total victories, 3 tacticals, 3 draws, and I haven't lost *that* many men. In the campaign prior I lost 169 KIA, and was awarded a defeat. So far I have lost 30 if that, and a few vehicles, but it will be interesting to see how I fair this time!
Phil,
I played through the Brit campaign as a very new player and, like you, I suffered very few infantry casualties and lost few vehicles (if memory serves I never had a tank destroyed). Once I got over the nasty Syrian counter attack mission I ended up with a total victory.
Having played through the Marines and TF Thunder campaigns I have come back to the Brits and am playing single scenarios and getting creamed.
You can use as much suppressive fire as you want, but there comes the point where the infantry have to get up and go forward, ‘twas ever thus. I am now finding that 50% casualties (red and yellow) in a squad are not unusual and it is not-uncommon to fare even worse. Most casualties seem to occur in the last fifteen to thirty metres, when out of the wreck pops up some poor Red Force fellow with his AK.
To give an example: later in the British Mettle scenario, after I had written the account last night, I was attacking a trench. I knew there was a Syrian Squad in there and where it was located. I used nine (count ‘em, 9) 50 cals for three minutes on that spot in addition to a GMG, a few 7.62 GPMGs and HESH rounds from a knackered challenger. Then I sent my infantry in to take the position, using assault with area fire – the classic fire and movement – up popped one chap, already in the yellow, who promptly mowed down three of the 8 man squad and pinning them.
Of course it isn’t always possible to have such a strength and depth of supporting arms to provide suppression. Have you tried “Royal Mud Marines” by Arefu from the Repository? Apart from the odd WMIK this, from the Brit point of view, is a straight infantry fight. It has a gorgeous but devious Map, a great back story, top quality troops and is, in my view, quite impossible. The prime reason being a lack of ammo for the Brits. Even after the re-supply convoy comes on there is insufficient to replace what has been expended in taking the first objective (which in any case has taken twice a long as would have been achieved by USMC units in the game, for the reasons you have identified).
All of which brings me back to the settings for ammo supply and distribution mentioned in the thread above. I recall reading that Battlefront had terrible difficulties in working out the TOE for the Brits. I suspect it is a cultural thing. The US military always seemed to me to take more notice of rules and procedures than their British counterparts. So at the end of the day Battlefront find some directive that the ammo scales for a unit are such and such and the first-line re-supply would be so and so. Not unreasonably they implement those rules in the game, but this ignores the fact that few if any within the army pay any attention to such directives. Getting Americans to understand how the British army actually works is even harder than getting them to understand cricket. Mind you, God knows how you could code the level of flexibility that actually exists into the game.
None of which detracts from the fact that I noticed this afternoon my stationary, hull down, crack-crewed Challengers were losing on the draw to moving BMPs 1500 metres away. Definitely seems a bit odd that the BMPs could see the Challies before they were spotted themselves and getting the first shot off. Then we have the issue of a crack Challenger team taking no less than four shots to put down a BMP2 at 1649 meters (also, while we are at it, why does a tank gunner wait until he has a re-loaded gun before he starts to take aim?).
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I haven't had a chance to play through the Brit campaign yet, but I made a thread about the Rarden issue of not doing much damage. The reason seems to be that it fires HE against lightly armored targets, like BMP, as opposed to APDS. One of the changes mentioned in the v1.21 list is that units are more likely to fire HE before KE against lighter targets and it appears that the AI behind the Rarden is, IMHO, incorrectly affected by this change, especially considering the HE-APDS ratio carried.
The HE-APDS ratio was discussed in another thread and Steve mentioned that this ratio really is what is carried in real life, to his surprise as much as yours. There was internal debate as to whether to use this unfortunately realistic ratio or bend reality a little bit and make it more even or HE-favored. The result was to keep the realistic loadout.
EDIT: From v1.21 list of changes:
•Tanks won't waste APFSDS ammo on lightly-armored targets when alternative ammo is available.
Thanks for your help.
I haven't seen the thread on the Rarden load-out, but I will try and look it up. The idea that the current ratio is "realistic" is total nonsense. The Scimitars in action today in Afghanistan are not carrying one hundred plus anti-armour shells and I very much doubt that the Warriors and Scimitars deployed in Iraq did either. Ammo load is task dependent, but I can, perhaps, see where Battlefront is coming from.
I did see the comments about the firing HE against IFVs and that explanation seemed to make sense. What bugs me though is the lack of damage caused against non-armoured targets.
Thanks again.
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But if you corrected it, how could we mock you?
So what were you shooting for; Take? Tape? Taekwondo?
Hee, hee.
"Tale", but mock away, my shoulders are broad
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Dawn was breaking, twenty metres into the tree-line were three Challenger2 (Enhanced) main battle tanks. They had been there for a nearly half an hour, snug in a hull down position with a good view over the area the enemy were expected to pass. Over the radio came a message relayed from one of the sniper scouts sent out during the night, three T72’s were on their way and would pass from left to right at a distance of no more than 1500 yards.
Five hundred metres back in his tactical HQ the Colonel commanding the 1st Royal Anglian battle group heard the message but paid it no attention. Three stationary, hull-down Challies ambushing three T72s moving in the open, the result was a forgone conclusion, especially since two of the Challenger crew were crack teams and the third was a solid veteran. Nothing there to divert him from worrying about why his veteran infantry was doing so badly today. Two platoons had been badly chewed up already and in a few minutes the third was going to put the finishing touches to a carefully planned attack on a compound that he needed to take quickly if he was going to win this battle.
There comes a point in every fight when the man in charge can do no more, he has to just led his teams get on with it and wait. That point had arrived. Over the various radio nets routine reports continued to arrive. Suddenly, seemingly from every monitored frequency came screams for help, medics, medivacs.
When the dust settled a few minutes later the colonel learned that two of the three Challenger’s were destroyed and the third badly damaged (it would certainly be no further use in this battle) and they had only accounted for one T72.
The infantry attack had succeeded but at a cost he couldn’t afford. One section had but a single wounded survivor both the others had suffered two tier one (red) casualties plus numerous tier three (yellow). Most of the damage was caused by one Syrian squad that was in the rubble of a building that had been blown apart around them by 155 artillery, the ruins were then subjected to the full HE loads of two Scimitars (69 rounds) followed by three minutes of fire from no less than three 50 cal machine guns and the 7.62s of the Scimitars. Reports indicate that when the infantry went in from three directions there were still two Syrians standing, one of whom was wounded. Those two men damn near destroyed a whole platoon.
While the colonel was contemplating the wreck of his battle he heard about a sniper team that had been infiltrated to take down a Kornet ATGM Team. The second man in a sniper team is, of course, there to spot targets not to get involved in the shooting. It would seem that this particular number 2 decided to help his marksman friend by opening fire himself. Needless to say the bloody idiot was firing 5.56 tracer, which showed their position to one of the T72s the Challengers didn’t take out. He won’t make that mistake again, or indeed any other – and the bloody Kornet team survived.
Well, according to the briefing he received the Colonel should be getting some reinforcements very soon, another five Challengers, more artillery and hopefully some more infantry. May be all is not lost. How many BMPs have just turned up?!!!!
[i played through the Brit campaign without any major problems except in one battle, but since 1.21 I find playing the British a nightmare. The infantry die like flies anytime they are actually asked to fight, the Challenger’s can’t hit a barn door at twenty paces, the 30mm Rarden cannon seems to cause very little damage, especially compared with the 25mm guns on the Bradley, and has a pathetic load-out of HE (can someone explain why the Scimitars and Warriors carry four times as much APDS as they do HE?). I don’t recall anything in the release notes for 1.21 that would account for my recent experiences. Maybe I am just having a run of bad luck, if so it’s a very, very long run. The above account by the way came from the Scenario “British Mettle”.]
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:confused:
I wasn't having a go at you*. Apologies if it came across that way.
* And, FWIW, I suspect Secondbrooks was wrong about the OIF thing too ... or perhaps misunderstood what he read. Adjusting with 1 RFFE is not the same as "artillery and mortars were used usually with out spotting rounds, so FO called fire-for-effect instantly."
Please do not worry about it.
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JonS,
You are absolutley correct and I was obviously talking rubbish from a position of complete ignorance.
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JonS,
Thanks.
I was aware that predicted fire was developed during WWI. I am also aware that the "grid square removal service" provided by MLRS doesn't require spotting rounds either.
However, neither case fits into the scope of the game.
I also must remain with my point that, unless the calibre is large, 100 metres off is useless.
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Secondbrooks,
"Which is somewhat funny as from what i've read from OIF it seems that artillery and mortars were used usually with out spotting rounds, so FO called fire-for-effect instantly."
I can't comment on what you have read, but calling for FFE on non-registered targets seems a decidedly dodgy idea. Certainly in Afghanistan in the last couple of years spotting rounds were the norm. Can you give me a source to suggest that modern practice has moved on?
In terms of desired accuracy, if one's supporting artillery is missing the target by 100 metres then, unless the calibre is very large, it is useless.
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"The mission was to inflict maximum blue personnel casualties, so I aimed a full basic load on the blue dismounts, emergency, heavy, immediate, area target, 75mm radius."
You called an emergency fire mission and think it is noteworthy that the resultant strike was 150m off target? Jeez, I have never had an emergency mission land on-target and I only play blue against the AI (I am not sure I'll ever forgive Battlefront for dropping WEGO TCPIP).
I have also had a majority of bad experiences using 60mm mortars. Nine times out of ten they are are off-target by 50-100 metres.
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YOu are referring to the MG from World War I?
The Vickers MG went out of service with the British Army in the 1960s. It was replaced by the GPMG, which of course is stll in service (despite a batty idea that it could be replaced by the heavy barrelled version of the SA80).
Anyway the art of predicted MG fire was still taught in my time, using a GPMG on a tripod mount. I wonder if it still is, I doubt it, but one never knows.
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I hope we will see CMSF 2 Retro: NATO versus the Sovs in the 1970/80s. That was my era and I would love to game it with the CM::SF engine. Would I, as a Brit infantryman, had a chance of survival I always secretly suspected I wouldn't. Could NATO forces have held the line? I doubt it, but who knows.
Charlie Gs and Chieftains against T62s; the original LAWS against BMP1s, 7.62 SLR's as the standard infantry rifle and so on and so forth. Great fun.
Of course, some of the British equipment in use then is still in service and appears in CMSF (e.g. Scimitars, GPMGs and FV432s).
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Like others I find some scenarios grab me and I keep going back to them until I have finally squeezed the last drop of enjoyment potential out of them. The "Pooh" mission in the USMC campaign being a case in point.
One that has been occupying far, far too many of my waking (and sleeping - I have even dreamt about it) hours this last week or so is the excellent Royal Mud Marines scenario by Arefu.
It has a fiendishly clever and very attractive map, a challenging correlation of forces, tight timescales and it even models the UK Government's refusal to fund its armed forces properly (the ammo supply for the Bootnecks is, in my view, woefully in adequate). So far I would guess I have spent about forty hours on this scenario and have yet to come close to achieving a win despite numerous restarts.
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I certainly wasn't complaining about the behaviour of the Syrian Artillery, I actually was quite impressed by what seemed to be going on.
Having read the responses to my question (thank you, chaps), I now realise that what I saw only appeared to be intelligent tactics and it was actually the result of a particular vehicle being targeted. Pity really.
Nevermind, I am still a newcomer to the game and have lots to learn.
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The revisions to the artillery in 1.21 has certainly generated some discussion and rather than confuse issues even more in the "Artillery Absurdity" thread I thought I'd seek enlightenment in a new one.
I visited a friend over the weekend and watched him play several turns of the assault on the chemical works mission in the Marines campaign under 1.21 and witnessed something I have not seen before, a "reverse creeping barrage" from the AI.
The facts of the matter are simple enough. Shortly after the off the AI brought down artillery (actually, based on the size of the explosions I would guess it was mortar fire) on my friend's Stryker force on his right flank. Naturally enough to et out of the kill zone he moved his units forward, but not too far as he had no idea at that stage of what was in front him. The AI then shortened its range so the rounds started to land just behind the rear of the new positions. My friend moved forward again and again the artillery shortened its range. This continued, in effect the AI was driving my friends forces forward faster than he wanted to go and after a short while the inevitable happened - he was hit by ATGM (RPG?) fire causing him to halt and then losing two further Strykers to the artillery. At which point the ladies called us through to dinner and so I don't know how it panned out.
The key point for me was the degree of accuracy of the Syrian Mortar fire. My friend moved and the AI's rounds followed him, very closely - they didn't undershoot - almost immediately. The chances of the AI plan being scripted and my friend co-incidentally moving to match are, I think, extremely remote.
Has anyone else experienced such "intelligent" behaviour from the AI? I have read that it is possible to plot a creeping barrage, though I have never had need to try it but for the AI to run a dynamic creeping barrage where the speed of change is dictated by the moves of the human player seems pretty damn impressive to me. Of course it could have been pure coincidence but that does seem unlikely.
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Secondbrooks,
The mathematics of artillery and mortar fire is, indeed, not difficult. In practice it requires sophisticated technical aids or a fair amount of time to apply.
"They should probably already know their location (finger on map while moving, at halt pinpointing location)."
In the absence of a GPS finding one's exact location to the degree of accuracy necessary if one's initial rounds are going to land reasonably close to the target is a non-trivial task. A ten figure grid reference is necessary. Without such data many more spotting rounds are normally required.
The beef I would have with artillery in the game is that it seems to land too accurately too quickly. Five minutes for a well trained, fully-equpped mortar team (including a couple of spotting rounds) to bring effective fire down on a new target would not be unreasonable.
All the best
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From my experience, artillery for the Syrians works just fine
Just tried my first game under 1.21 (the "Pooh" mission from the Marines Campaign), the speed with which the Syrians can now call in accurate mortar fire came as something of a shock.
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On this forum or the normal CMSF forum?
Thx
Have a look at the second page of "Stuck on British Campign" thread on this forum. You will probably find the information you need there.
All the best
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"Do I have to do something special to recon?"
Nope, the Humvee's are worthless junk in the game.
This mission was the subject of a longish discussion a few threads ago and you'll find lots of hints and tips and a video walkthrough there.
To the shores of Tripoli - bug or feature?
in Combat Mission Shock Force 1
Posted
For what it is worth, I think Phil has been the victim of a glitch. When I played that scenario I saw the VBIED coming from a long way away and stooped it cold before it could get anywhere near my people.
I have just had a LOS event too. A T72 crested a ridge and drove into view. I could see it clearly on screen but none of my units apparentlly could. Several units, including a Javelin team had a clear LOS to the postion of the tank (a nice bright blue line) and for at least twenty metres all around it, but couldn't actually see the wretched thing. After a couple of minutes the Javelin team decided they could see it after all and fired.