Erwin

Always useful. Thanks...

Don't forget the Handschar Islamic Div and the others of similar ilk: http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/747153/posts

Great urban/Stalingrad type scenes! But, what's with the superhero with the extending neck in the first pic?? Is he from X-Men, or...?

"inhabit the outer rings of Saturn" Are you mad? They're on one of the moons of Jupiter!

"Unless your opponent really scans the map of course." Well, competitive oppos do exactly that... as well as listening for the sounds of on-map mortars etc which can then be targeted. It's not a major issue, but hopefully one day we can eliminate this sort of sound issue.

I am not an expert in these matters, but I do know one needs to be careful when comparing Pacific Theatre SOP's and European Theatre.

"I doubt they are doing this so they can run away to soccer practice when their shift ends." Well, of course there is the world cup in Brazil!

I understand what to do one an enemy unit/position is located. My "issue" is that I consistently lose scouts trying to locate an enemy position. I am in awe that you take so few recon casualties. You (correctly) use a lot of SLOW and just sitting and watching/listening until the enemy reveals himself. I feel that I don't have enuff time in the missions to be that careful and am on HUNT most of the time. (I have loved the very few "recon-type" scenarios that have been made IIRC in CMBN that do give you a lot of time to crawl and sit and listen.) Am wondering should I run/go quickly the first hundred meters or so on the assumption that there will be no enemy located for a while. That would eat up space so I'd have time to go slower later in the mission. I tend to go on HUNT almost from the start as I have played occasional missions where you get ambushed with the first few meters of movement - but maybe I am being overly cautious at the start and then move too incautiously towards the middle and end. Where do you find the time to be so careful??

Love it. Thanks...

Works now. Not sure why it didn't b4 - I tried twice. Thanks...

If BF redid the older campaigns and scenarios with the new engine and triggers to make them play quite differently, that's something I would pay for. I don't expect volunteers to do that - huge amount of work.

Re Iraq, Would it be possible to do a reasonable Red vs Red scenario/campaign with current units and mods?

makes me wonder if crews that have lost their primary weapon should be more "skittish" so that they really only get used in desperate defense situations. Don't think they should be effective in offense.

Thanks. BTW: I noticed there are also 20+ CMBN scenarios listed for d/l on TFGM site, but when I click on it, I get a blank screen.

Interesting. In those 2 missions (#2 and #3) I felt quite rushed to get to the exit point. Didn't feel I had enuff time to just sit and observe - so was always hunting the recon forward until someone shot them (even tho' they were set to HIDE). Am still mopping up #3. But, I felt the need to use the SMG's of the recon for extra firepower and so took casualties. I may just not be using the Russian units properly as I feel outgunned most of the time, so feel the need to send everybody in a mass assault. (Oh well, back to WitP...)

Interesting link, grunt. Part of my family is from the Baltics.

And I love CMA as well for those reasons. You have to brief us on how you use scouts to get so few casualties, L. I find the time/clock is such in some of the Russian Campaign missions that there is little time for SLOW movement. Am on HUNT most of the time. But, the point scout team seems to regularly take a hit. Having more time in a mission when we are expected to scout would be great. But, that's a different discussion.

That's the best little video I've seen. Great that you use close-ups and no casualty graphics. Talk about "the whites of their eyes". I didn't realize how well the eyes of the troops are modeled. You have talent as a movie director, mate. Any chance you can upload the music in a file we can use in the game?

"I just spent $100 on the Battlefront store, after working up the willpower to sign in to yet another store with another account. The experience was terrible. It asked for my shipping address for a downloadable program, twice. I had to scrounge up the patches needed for Red Thunder and Battle for Normandy, finding which patch is needed for which version of the product I own. I had to read up on how Battlefront's DRM works, and how I may be locked out of my own purchases. I looked into a way to buy a 2nd copy of Red Thunder for a friend. Couldn't find one." If you find it this hard and complex to purchase a CM2 game, then perhaps you won't have the ability or patience to actually play the game either. I wonder who else on this forum experiences these problems in purchasing a CM2 title?

Luke's point is hard to argue with. So, the question is whether, in a situation where the enemy is very dangerous and likely to shoot the aider, the aid trooper should even attempt to do that. I always administer buddy aid. In many cases, I have had troops who seemed to be a distance away from any danger and it would take several minutes for them to administer aid, sometimes they never do. So, not sure why in this instance the guys keep "committing suicide".

"I am playing the Soviet campaign and I have used the scouts appropriate: to reconnoiter unknown (difficult) terrain." Ok that's good that we're facing the same challenges in the campaign and you know what I am talking about. However, I am finding that in the restricted terrain of some of the maps, there are limited avenues of approach, and the way my scouts locate the enemy is when one of them gets shot. So, I ask again, what is the point of having scout formations (in the game) if they have no enhanced abilities or training (in the game)? "A green sniper is basically an untrained soldier given a sniper weapon." Agreed. But, why would one do that? Unique/rare situations aside, wouldn't one normally give the sniper rifle to the best shot in the unit? Again I am thinking about what makes for a fun game. One feature that I really liked about CM1 was that often each squad and/or leader in a formation was significantly different than others in terms of their experience level as well as the type of weapons they carried. That really helped in making them unique and one could select the best squad or HQ for the job. In CM2, usually every unit is identical with exactly the same weapons. I know that one can mess around in the editor and change experience levels. (Presumably one can't change weapons carried.) But, for some reason designers very rarely mess with experience levels and leave the formations full of cookie-cutter identical units. I have wondered why. My suggestion is that it would enhance the play enjoyment and player identification with units if one had units that were better at one job than another (as in specialized troops). It seems appropriate that (in the majority of situations), specialized troops should be given at least one experience level higher than the line troops to reflect their extra training. Based on the comments earlier that concept seems to be controversial for some reason... again I don't understand why.

I admit I have no idea re the pros and cons of a company releasing products thru Steam. Although I would think it leads to a race to the lowest common denominator type of game in order to increase mass appeal. Am curious what is the advantage to being on Steam for us players? (I had it on my system once, didn't like it, and uninstalled asap.)

Using em as medics is the only appropriate use - it's just one of the reasons that I much prefer campaigns - one has a motivation to keep crews alive, as well as preserve forces and ammo. The trouble with single scenarios is the temptation to fight to the last man, which hardly ever happened.

IIRC are we not able to move HMG's short distances without them having to undeploy and deploy again?? Are HMG's in buildings treated differently re short distance movement than in the open?

Were their uniforms really that blue in combat situations?? If so... Yikes... That's almost a throwback to the 19th century with all that era's colorful uniforms eg Federal ACW troops.