Erwin

My recollection from decades ago was being told that the Brits focused on training for carefully aimed shots rather than mass auto fire. Partly a money-saving strategy due to budget issues and also an attempt to reduce the logistical tail of ammo resupply. In WW2 it seems that in order to reduce casualties since Britain was literally running out of men, the Brit way of fighting depended on HMG's and lots of artillery. Not sure about today, but is this the same for Cold War era? In the CM game, the original limitations on map sizes means that most scenarios featured short range combat which gave everyone the impression that the SMG was the best weapon. These days, we are seeing much larger maps so perhaps rifles will regain their RL dominance. But, this still depends on designers creating situations for longer range firefights, and most CM designers still create situations where one is fighting with shorter range LOS - where the mass fire of SMG's are most useful.

From your mouth to BF's ears. This has been complained about since CM2 was released in 2007. Ridiculous that a viable CM2 tactic to make your vehicle indestructible is to hide behind a tree. Another big issue is that modern ATGM vehicles with telescopic optics and missile launchers are not modeled properly so that in order to fire (say) a TOW, one has to reveal the entire top of the vehicle - making that ATGM vehicle very vulnerable and hence we are unable to use them as in RL.

That's the main reason I tend to keep versions. But, some versions are designed to replace earlier ones and some are different enuff to be new scenarios. It would be appreciated if the designer made it clear.

What a shame. Plz post links when you get the versions polished. And be clear what old versions we can delete. (Sometimes there are 4-5 versions of old scenarios or campaigns as the designer keeps changing them.) But, thank you for keeping up on the improvements.

Slightly OT, but the above note made me wonder if there has been any reports of the usefulness or otherwise of the Abrams, Bradleys and Leopards supplied to Ukraine. I heard that Bradleys are being used mostly as ambulances as they are too vulnerable and the tanks turned out to be as vulnerable as the Russian ones. Along with the Israeli experience, drones seem to be signalling the end of AFV usefulness.

Am very much looking forward to your Korea mod as well as your other amazing early war and NA mods. I just got back after 8 month travels and unfortunately have so much to catch up on b4 I can focus on playing anything. But, know that what you are doing is much appreciated by many more than the few who post here. Have enjoyed playing H2H but my schedule makes it hard to be a reliable/regular oppo. So, yes, plz cobble some single player... but only when you have time. Thank you yet again, Phil.

#5 present...

Thank you, WimO. I hope this means you will next be designing for the other titles.

Really enjoying this campaign. I thought I had played all the older CMSF campaigns. But, this one seems brand new to me. Thanks PT! Looking forward to what else you'll be developing.

It just occurred to me that one may need a WSJ sub to read the sobering article. Here is an excerpt, but it is well worth reading the much longer article if one can access it. Send me PM if you want the whole article and I can send it to you: "It’s Time to End Magical Thinking About Russia’s Defeat Putin has withstood the West’s best efforts to reverse his invasion of Ukraine, and his hold on power is firm. The U.S. and its allies need a new strategy: containment. By Eugene Rumer and Andrew S. Weiss Nov. 16, 2023 10:00 am ET As Russian President Vladimir Putin looks toward the second anniversary of his all-out assault on Ukraine, his self-confidence is hard to miss. A much-anticipated Ukrainian counter-offensive has not achieved the breakthrough that would give Kyiv a strong hand to negotiate. Tumult in the Middle East dominates the headlines, and bipartisan support for Ukraine in the U.S. has been upended... Putin has reason to believe that time is on his side. At the front line, there are no indications that Russia is losing what has become a war of attrition. The Russian economy has been buffeted, but it is not in tatters. Putin’s hold on power was, paradoxically, strengthened following Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed rebellion in June. Popular support for the war remains solid, and elite backing for Putin has not fractured. ...Soviet legacy factories are outperforming Western factories when it comes to much-needed items like artillery shells. The technocrats responsible for running the Russian economy have proven themselves to be resilient, adaptable, and resourceful. Elevated oil prices, driven in part by close cooperation with Saudi Arabia, are refilling state coffers... Putin can also look at his foreign-policy record with satisfaction. His investments in key relationships have paid off. China and India have provided an important backstop for the Russian economy by ramping up imports of Russian oil and other commodities. Instead of fretting about lost markets in Western Europe or Beijing’s reluctance to flout U.S. and EU sanctions, Putin has decided that it’s more advantageous in the short term simply to become China’s junior partner in the economic realm. Goods from China account for nearly 50% of Russian imports, and Russia’s top energy companies are now hooked on selling to China. Even neighboring countries that have every reason to fear Putin’s aggressive tactics, such as Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, have made fat profits by serving as enablers of sanctions circumvention and as transshipment points for the goods that Russia used to import directly."

Interesting article on the subject from WSJ on Thursday November 16 2023: https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/its-time-to-end-magical-thinking-about-russias-defeat-f6d0b8de?mod=world_lead_pos1

Am a big fan of your mods, EZ. You planning any new ones?

Some of you may know that way back when I used to piggy back on foreign cultural exchange programs. Had some similar travel over the past 8 months (hence my absence from the forums) and was able to gauge how people abroad feel about the current Ukraine situation - plus my own (very) personal conclusions. Visited places like Scandinavia, Baltics, N. Africa, Central Asia, with an unscheduled quick drive through the Russian Fed. (Yes, one can easily/accidentally do that in places.) Talked with regular people, not govt. spokesmen, and any comments/conclusions are mine alone and not that of any official or govt. entity. Got back home just as the Israeli crisis erupted. The situation in Israel makes my report somewhat obsolete, but the ME situation can be regarded as a “Ukraine added” phase of the increasingly hot global struggle for dominance between China and the US-led west. Foreign travel makes one realize that we in the west are fed a very one-sided view of events from our media, so I hope the following very brief summary is interesting. 1) Outside of the US-led west, Russia (and China) have substantial support. 2) Whatever Russia's initial hopes for an easy conquest of Ukraine, the current stalemate situation serves China's (and Russia's) aims. 3) For Ukraine to "win", Russia has to be removed from all Ukraine's territory. If Russia controls any of Ukraine's territory, Russia "wins". 4) The west has no plans (or way) to remove Russia from Ukraine (barring unforeseen massive change in circumstances). 5) The west’s plan seems to be simply to drain Russian resources and work out novel ways of waging war with new technologies. However, that now appears also to be China and Russia's plan… to distract and drain resources from the west, and to train. 6) The proxy war could go on indefinitely with Ukraine supported by the west and Russia supported by China until one side runs out of manpower. 7) In Europe, there is rapidly decreasing support for sending funds and resources to Ukraine (or anywhere) because of the fast-worsening economic situation for ordinary people in all European countries. Was even lectured in detail by an Albanian about how the Ukraine war was the fault of the US. 8 ) In N. Africa and Asia, there is significant support for Russia and Putin. Swedish folks are not particularly supportive of US goals. 9) The nations bordering the Russian Federation were most concerned about Russian expansionism as one might expect. From additional reading it appears that Muslim nations are responding favorably to Chinese entreaties despite its treatment of the Uyghurs. Looking at the big grand strategic picture China is doing everything it can to create an alternative world reserve currency to rival and diminish the dollar and US influence re its goal of world domination. The situation in Ukraine and the new crisis in the Middle East serves its purposes as nations hostile to the US enter the Chinese sphere of influence.

Best approach is to download the latest "all in one bundle" of each game you own from BF site and make a new install with that. That gives one the latest version of everything plus any new scenarios and campaigns.

Good pic to demonstrate tank positioning for greatest armor slope.

Works xnt with the jungle sounds mod - parrots etc.

An obvious thing to check is do you have all the required modules and are they activated?

It's good to know what are the alternative missions as it's often fun to either lose a mission or choose a different path in order to play the other missions.

Hope you haven't burned out. Your contributions have been much appreciated.

Totally agree. My favorite Red vs Red campaign.. Very playable, can't recall any frustrations and great fun. Would love to see it updated.

Have noticed that with the rare squads that can be split into 3 teams, the order in which one splits the squad can make a difference as to how the teams are called.

Need to have same version.

It would still be useful to be able to split off a 2-man scout and not end up with an unsplittable 7-man team which is "unwieldy".

Check with Bootie. A couple years ago, I sent him an ext HD with almost 300GB of content - pretty much everything that had been produced since 2007.

It's 640KB, so may be able to e-mail it to you. Send me PM address. Has to be today tho' as I go on travels tomorrow.