Erwin

Isolating Taiwan via blockade would be a more likely strategy as it would dare the US to "do something". Very hard for the US to get reinforcements to or even close to the island due to the Chinese developing long range anti-ship missiles - longer than the range of our aircraft carrier's planes. At the same time the US/West cannot afford to lose Taiwan's indispensable chip production. The weakness of subs is that once a sub fires anything everyone knows where it is and anti-sub missiles will soon be raining down on it. They are largely "one shot" weapons.

Shows that a well-modded CM1 is not much inferior to CM2 graphics.

Those games are not direct competitors and offer a very different experience. The closest game to CM I recall was "Panzer Elite" which was far ahead of its time back in the last 1990's. But, the CM2 series is way more sophisticated now. So I agree with Aragorn:

4: North Africa 41-43 (We have desert from CMSF2) 5: " 43 (Patton and Monty) 3: Eastern 41-42 (How can one not like Barbarossa?) 3: " 43 (Balanced) 1: Western 40 (Least interesting units)

Still playing M5 of "Gung Ho!" and regrettably it is getting to the point that the mission may be unwinnable due to TOW and JAVELIN issues. 1) No matter if one issues a TARGET ARC or MANUALLY targets an AFV or any other unit, the JAV missile will detour from the desired target and attack a bunker that is nowhere near the desired target. Have attempted to target AFV's with over a dozen Jav's and each time the Jav missile detours to attack a bunker. The problem is that they usually cannot kill a banker. So, one runs out of Javs. 2) if you dismount a Humvee mounted TOW it cannot move nor reembark. 3) Any TOW's that arrive as passengers on a truck, can move after disembarking, BUT once deployed, and then undeployed, this TOW team will not move again, nor can it remount. 4) The bizarre situation is that in certain circumstances the TOW dismounted from a truck will not deploy at all. In this case one can still move or reembark the TOW. So, it appears that the act of deploying a TOW, (and then undeploying it) makes it impossible to move or reembark. The whole thing is buggered imo. Frustrating since this game was released in 2007 and one would expect it to be the most bug-free by now. Have lots of savedgames if anyone cares to check or replicate...

Oh good. If you ever find the title or where to d/l that would be appreciated.

Excellent! Thank you for all the work this must be.

Speaking of the plethora of interesting Brit Armored Cars, it's a shame that no scenarios/campaigns feature the full range of their vehicles. (Anyone know of any?)

My recollection is that if you order TARGET FIRE at the desired location you are blasting into, the unit will use grenades. However, the BLAST itself will suppress anyone on the other side for a few seconds at least - so the same effect. My SOP (since engineers with charges are valuable and I don't want them to get into combat when there are less valuable inf units available) is to place a FAST MOVE waypoint for the eng back to the original starting point immediately after the BLAST waypoint. In this way the unit BLASTS the wall which suppresses any enemy there for a few seconds enabling the engineers to enter and immediately run out to safety. I always place an inf unit at the same waypoint that the engineers started from and it is that inf which can fire into the room if there are any enemy there. This tactic also neutralizes a tactic used by cunning designers (and players) who place the enemy not IN the room, but on the other side of a far wall. The way this tactic works is that your eng BLASTS into the room that is empty. But, enemy units behind a (2nd) wall on the far side of the room are unaffected. So, in this tactic, the enemy are able to mow down any friendly unit that stays in the room after the BLAST. However, since the SMOKE from the BLAST obscures visibility for a few seconds, that gives your eng unit time to run back the way they came before the enemy can see and shoot them. Hope that explanation makes sense...

Great... Thank you.

I experimented with having a truck with 2 Javs and an inf unit with a Jav right next to a Jav team with no ammo. The Jav team had targets for several minutes but never took any Jav's to use. Another weird phenomenon: The Jav teams prioritize bunkers over AFV's when using an "Armor Arc". Even when I manually targeted the Jav team at an AFV, when it fired, the flying Jav took a detour away from the desired AFV target and instead attacked a bunker!

Generally, I don't think Phil/Koh makes many AI plans and designs mostly for H2H IIRC.

Playing Paper Tiger's "Gung Ho!" campaign. I disembarked the Humvee TOW's and they cannot move, nor re-embark. As you know mortar units can share ammo (one sees the total ammo available in the right hand box). However, even though the Javelin box may show the total Jav's available from adjacent units, I found that the firing unit will not automatically acquire Javs from adjacent units even though the right hand box shows the extra Jav ammo as "available".

Have been playing Paper Tiger's xnt updated "Gung Ho!" and rediscovered many bugs/weirdness that were reported many years ago but are still present. Eg: Disembarking a TOW Humvee leaves one with a TOW unit that cannot move nor can it reembark. While mortar units can share ammo, Javelin units cannot even though the Jav ammo from adjacent units appears in the right hand box as if it were available. There is still a way to have one FO order two different offmap arty missions simultaneously. I reported that back in 2018 when I discovered that while playtesting TOC (CMBS). (On the other hand, why is it that one FO cannot order more than one fire mission simultaneously, so maybe that is a "good" bug?) Sniper teams equipped with rifles taking 7.62mm are also carrying 50 cal ammo. Years ago I posted a Iist of over 20 such items in the hope that they would be addressed at some point. But, it seems that BF is not that interested in updating CMSF2. My hope is that it is because they are working on a CM3 engine.

Ironically, there were some great mods made for CM1 that enabled one to play early war like Sealion etc. And of course CMAK gave us North Africa from the Brits defeating the Italians thru DAK counterattacking.

BF initially repeatedly promised that since CMBN was released. But, has moved away from that promise, much to the dismay of many of us. My recollection was that BF didn't see Early War as profitable - same for North Africa, despite the interest in DAK etc.

ANALYSIS AND DATA FROM WSJ: WSJ: How the Russian and Ukrainian War Efforts Compare, in 10 Charts: https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/heres-how-the-russian-and-ukrainian-war-efforts-compare-in-10-charts-1cf9a74f?mod=world_lead_pos2 Text from WSJ: Western financial help and ammunition supplies for Ukraine are running low, while public support is showing some cracks. Russia, with its larger population, has so far withstood the worst of Western sanctions and ramped up its war economy for a prolonged fight. Russian President Vladimir Putin is now betting he can outlast the West’s support for Ukraine and make a decisive breakthrough if Russia’s economy can keep ticking over. Russia’s military budget, at over $100 billion for 2024, is the highest it has been since Soviet times, growing by more than two-thirds from last year. Its manufacturing capacity has also overcome initial shortages to help Moscow’s war machine churn out weaponry for a lengthy campaign, often at the expense of civilian production. Ukraine is also investing in domestic military production capabilities, but it is no match for a much larger Russian military-industrial complex running at full steam. Kyiv could fall further behind as Western support dries up. Though U.S. estimates suggest Russia has suffered 315,000 killed or injured since the start of the war—nearly 90% of its prewar fighting force—its population was around 3½ times as large as Ukraine’s before the invasion, giving it a battlefield edge. Tens of thousands of inmates have been released from its prisons to serve the war effort, while some 300,000 reservists have also been mobilized. Russia’s economy has ridden the wave of sanctions better than the West expected, thanks in large part to how it has redirected oil exports to China and India and evaded price caps through a shadow fleet of tankers. This lifeline has helped Russia switch to a war economy and find alternative sources for components it previously bought from the West. In Russia, Putin continues to command broad support and has jailed critics and silenced antiwar voices. He is expected to win another six-year term in power in March’s presidential election.

Noticed that Javelin units cannot use Jav's from another inf unit (that happens to be carrying a Jav) even when on top of each other or from an adjacent vehicle carrying spare Javs. I thought munitions like that were easily shared - or has an update introduced a new bug? Also, disembarked TOW's from Humvees cannot move, nor reembark. Worse still... in a campaign, TOW's disembarked in the previous mission arrive loaded on trucks (not Humvees) so one would have to drive the truck into enemy LOS to disembark to have any use of those TOW units. After all the updates since 2007, it's hard to remember if these units worked properly until an update messed up or whether these are bugs from 2007. Anyone?

I miss North Africa as well. We already have the desert terrain from CMSF Phil has done an outstanding attempt of botching together some good-looking early war AFV's. Suprises me that this is a perennially overlooked theatre. And of course those units would also be good for "Early War" in any theatre.

Per my first post made last November, I found that Russia and therefore China/BRIC has a lot more support around the work than we in the west are told about. China is happy to let Russia bog the west down in a futile war in Ukraine as it enables them to portray the US/West as "colonial-like" powers which are on the decline while the BRIC nations are the "future". It's what the BRIC nations want to hear. One gets the impression that the BRIC nations resent the US and the west - maybe not in the same extreme way the Palestinians hate the Israelis - but on the spectrum. China is making big inroads into S. America, Africa, the ME... Not sure about SE Asia as those nations are peeved by China's aggressive expansionism/military and appalling S. China Sea expropriation. (Oddly, it seems that other Muslim nations give China a pass on its appalling treatment of the Uyghurs. The Uyghurs are a more "European" ethnic entity more genetically similar to Turks etc. and maybe that is the reason.) It took 20-30 years for the USD to replace the GBP, and it's certain that is what China is working towards for its Yuan/Renmimbi. Re the big picture, while Russia's aims may have changed due to Ukrainian resistance, unless Russia is removed from all of Ukraine, Russia "wins". Does anyone seriously see that happening barring some massive unforeseen event: eg: We barter Russia leaving Ukraine vs giving up Taiwan? Ukraine could be a big win for Russia/China and it's arguable that the new situation in the ME is part of the global power struggle. imo we are already at war with China via proxies and non-attributable cyberwar. And also here with edited info: https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-china-and-the-threat-to-the-north-pole-icebreaker-appropriations-arctic-74489e23 "Today, the Arctic Ocean is more navigable than ever, empowering allies and adversaries to take a new and more urgent interest in the region. As one of only eight Arctic states, the U.S., along with our North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies, benefits from proximity to natural resources, including an estimated 30% of the world’s undiscovered natural-gas reserves, shipping routes, fishing waters and a chance at development. This interest also makes the High North a flashpoint in a new era of great-power competition. Mainland Russia is less than 60 miles from the west coast of Alaska. Russia’s regional dominance in the Arctic is amplified by its proportion of Arctic coastline, and it operates more than 50 icebreakers—nearly half of all icebreakers in the world. Moscow has increased collaboration with China in the region as part of its new unlimited relationship, even going so far as to establish a joint maritime agreement for travel along the Northern Sea Route to share intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance information." In 2021 China proclaimed itself a “near-Arctic state,” despite having no sovereign Arctic territory. Alongside Russia, China has stepped up its activity in Arctic waters, including in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone. In 2021 the U.S. Coast Guard reported that a formation of four Chinese warships had entered the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone off the Aleutian Islands. In July a Chinese and Russian flotilla sailed in the waters off the coast of Alaska in a show of power.

Re making the player cognizant of keeping casualties low, isn't that part of the scoring system? When CMSF first was released, the games heavily penalized the player for losses leading to a "Loss" result, or kicked one out of the campaign. They seem to have become much more "lenient" in recent games.

..."better" or "but"? Will PM you re M4 of "Gun Ho!" (Another great mission.)

I play Elite WEGO and just now got a Total Vic for M4 with maybe 15 inf casualties and a truck and Humvee KIA by enemy arty. POSSIBLE SPOILERS: The Syrian ATGM's are the main threat but they cannot fire from inside buildings so must be on roofs or on ground. So... my strategy (tactic?) was to keep all the vehicles including tanks and LAV's way back near the setup zone and move them forward so that they could devastate the roofs of the tallest buildings, and then move forward a bit more to devastate the next highest roofs and so on... Meanwhile the crack scouts moved forward to spot whatever they spotted. The drone was shot down by enemy AAA. However, the helicopters and planes which arrived later did not meet any resistance. I focused the heavy arty on flattening the buildings in the center (near the Mosque) so that my tanks and LAVs could fire direct at the buildings behind. Two platoons were sent along the left (W?) of the map and assaulted on that line, with one platoon on the right. I only moved the AAV's forward carrying the inf, but never used their firepower as AAV's are vulnerable in MOUT ops. I never moved the tanks and LAV's from the hill near the set-up zone and only used them for long range direct fire support. In the end it seemed that these tactics worked and I had plenty of heavy arty, tank, LAV and aircraft ammo left over when the Syrians surrendered. After it was over it seemed actually like a relatively easy mission compared to what Paper Tiger used to create. It's possible that one may not need the tanks or one of the aircraft. The helicopters found only a few targets for their 20mm, and I never used any 81mm. Never found much use for the 60mm either. I got a few points for slightly damaging a couple objectives and 0 points for flattening a couple more. But, that was outweighed by killing enemy units and capturing objectives.

Looking forward to this.

Thank you for the update, George.