Tarquelne

Will the effects of body armor on squidging be portrayed in the game, Steve? This is something the Syrians may actually be able to beat the Americans at, all other things being equal. (Like, actually having a vehicle to squidge troops into.) Will squidged troops suffer a morale penalty? Will leaders have a "Squidge" modifier, like for Command or Stealth? Could come in handy. A leader with a high Squidge could fit 80, 90 Hamstertruppen (from the appropriate Module) in a Stryker, I think. Squidge, squidge squidge squidge!

What's so disturbing about it? The backstory sets up the game as a popular (a guess, but I think a good one), multi-lateral, counter-coup with good UN participation. Maybe not a classic "Just War", but it's about as close as you're going to get. Without that backstory we've merely got a game that seems to be a US invasion of some nameless ME nation. Actually, not nameless, because BFC is going to want to portray an actual military as the OPFOR (something that makes it a "CM" game). They could use Iraq. But not only wouldn't that be a very good game (for reasons BFC has already mentioned), but it'd be VERY political. Thus Syria. And without the backstory CM:SF becomes CM: Unilateral Invasion of Syria For No Damn Reason (CM:UISFNDR). That would be much worse than the present backstory.

I was assuming a KE penetrator for a super-KE weapon. Does (did?) the real-world Shrike have a HEAT warhead? What was it, an early HARM sort of missle? (I would look it up, but I've got no internet connection. Really. ) You mean we can't have Faster-THan-Light technology in our missile fuses? Bother. Actually, the I do think you bring up a good point. OTOH, Some FTL techs on the battlefield could be fun. And freaky. Do we know they'll be CE at all? I guess they probably will... with the exception of nasty nano-based weapons the only thing beyond CE would be fission, fusion, or anti-matter, yes? I was wondering if they've got enough anti-matter to fuel the vehicles if they couldn't use some in weapons. I could easily see them thinking that the sort of containment available for weapons, especailly projectiles, not being good enough. But for anti-armor missiles? Maybe? The missle might end up costing up the wazoo, but so does a tank. Hyper-velocity wouldn't help with damage, but it might help you score a hit. I was thinking the heat caused by air resistance might be a major problem. But then if you've got dropship technology you might have some very clever ideas about such things... Do you think such a system would actually be practical?

Field conditions? So... you think the Stryker's would have a decent chance against 1st generation TOWs?

I wish people using obscure military terms or acronyms would explain them.

Thanks! I'm interested, and it might come in handy should we need to lobby BFC for the inclusion of the M8 or something to round out the Stryker group.

Whoops, right. "Not wheeled" is what I meant to write, but apparently the feat of looking at a picture of a tracked vehicle and then writing "wheeled" was just too much for me. As a reason not to accept it that makes sense. How surprising.

What's the problem with the M-8 from the army's point of view? Not tracked? Insufficently digital?

I think the real problem was - and hopefully it'll truly be a past-tense sort of thing soon - that the Army thought/believed they could have their cake and eat it too. In that they could put the 105 on a Stryker and actually see it in combat. The 105 won't looks nearly so dubious if it works. (Like most things, I guess.) Did I see that a MGS can only carry 18 shells? How many more shells could they get with a 90mm mortar or a 75mm gun?

Given an indefinite supply of fuel, yes. And anti-matter might effectively supply that. Ok, I understand your point now: Maximizing velocity. Hmm... it'd be interesting to have a missile launched at a tank 1k away travel 4k up, then 4k down just so it could build up enough kenetic energy to penetrate the target's armor. I suppose that could be necessary if all that energy couldn't be delivered in a all-at-once explosive package. Seems unlikely. OTOH, maybe an obscenely high velocity is the best way to get through the target's active defenses. And a relatively slowely-accelerating missile (compared to a projectile with the same velocity at target) could probably carry a more sophisticated payload.

No they don't. </font>

] Yeah, that's a pretty stark difference between practice and theory. Theoretically the more lightly-armored MGSs will provide that support, from whatever protected postion they're in... Something that could be tested if they'd actually been deployed. I really hope they make it into the game. A SBCT just isn't a SBCT without the MGS.

"As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time." </font>

Maybe more use of cannons? I seem to remember reading that air resistance is a big part of why missiles came into use in the first place, in place of projectiles. (This may have just been with regard to extremely long-range fire, though.) More use of energy weapons/particle beams? All that messy gas out of the way... I dunno, while you're admiring the flight of your missiles your opponent may be enjoying the impending impact on your position of his rarely-used, but oh-so-effective, zero-pressure weapons. Besides, missiles need something to push against.

I do think a lot of the Stryker criticisms are trying to shoe horn the Strykers into the same role as Armored units. Of course it's a poor fit. But then, if the Strykers are going to be the "tip of the spear", isn't that a more "apples to apples" sort of comparison? Just what is a Stryker group supposed to do at the tip of the spear? Assuming an enemy with the anti-tank assets to neutralize a MBT, the Strykers aren't going to fare any better in those all-too-common ambush points of contact. But no worse than an group with tanks. Well, OK, somewhat worse. Less armor is less armor. Still, the gap doesn't seem that great... the worse-case scenario would be an enemy with plenty of weapons that could penetrate a Stryker but not a MBT. How common are these? With their speed, extra infantry (right?) and better awareness the Strykers should find themselves surprised by significant ready-to-go anti-armor elements less often. Anything really needing lots of tanks will be handled from the air? Is that the idea? The thing I wonder about most is those MGSs. Without them a Stryker co. lacks the direct-fire HE capability that the Armored unit would bring to the table. That could be somewhat replaced by massive CAS support and a slower advance, but I don't think that really gives us our nation-wide "thunder run."

What's the quote? "As you know, you have to go to war with the Army you think you have, not the Army you want." Maybe I misremembered something... If the Stryker isn't well suited to it's projected role in CM:SF that in no way means it wouldn't be used in such a role. All the better the game for us, if that the Stryker-based nation-wide "thunder run" concept doesn't work well. Good thing it's fictional, eh?

Massive space-based facilities, a variant form of Liveship... say in orbit around gas-giants (with those powerful magnetic fields), maybe built during the peak of the of the Mu Arae expansion? There's GOBS of energy out there... (Though I admit that I'm not sure such how much a "gob" is. ) And there's that, too. Especially for a game, I think. "Believable", from the DropTeam page, seems like a good choice of words. I'm happy with "Doesn't insult your intelligence." (Technobabble is OK with me, if it's more evocative than silly.)

"Sandblast" bombs to remove the camouflage of any hidden units in the area? You could have things like spray-on surfaces that allow two-tone (or maybe more) adaptive armors. (Color determined by say, electric currents run through the stuff.) A hit removes the camo, but it can be automatically applied again. What's the armor supposed to be made of again? Does it have a crystalline structure? Piezoelectric tricks could give armor that changes color, not just a coating. Or some sort of selective permeability could allow the introduction, on the fly, of dyes. EDIT: Ah, a "nano lattice." Sounds like something into which you could "weave" a system for adaptive camo. Heck. I guess since the game's tech-background includes some "nanofacture" and associated sci-fi gear all sorts of tricks become plausible. (How about armor that "flexes" just before the impact of a weapon, changing the angle of attack by several degrees?) It just depends on what you want in the game. It'd be interesting if visual target acquisition is so unimportant (as opposed to thermal or whatever) that visual camo just isn't seen as significant. Maybe not as much fun, but interesting.

But wouldnt that be what the U.S. would do in RL. Withdraw, if necessary, and wait for the firepower.</font>

Which is why I think CM: MBDHACWIN would have been better. Combat Mission: Modern But Don't Have A Cow, WWII Is Next" I appreciate it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue... perhaps CM: Think Afghanistan, not "Neocon Fascism."? CM: "Geez, Not a *&^%ing turkey shoot, wait for the demo"?

Hey now. There are plenty of historic smelling games that have med packs, health bars and whatnot. For many games I think it's not so much "sci-fi" or "historical" as it's "Do we make it ALL up?" or "Do we rip the names and appearances out of books?".

Yup, that is planned. Dunno if we can do that (Charles and I haven't finalized victory condition stuff yet), but I'm fairly confident that it can be.</font>

With a little luck the American player will be hiding his heavy armor from you, most of the time, because he doesn't know you don't have any Kornets.

I agree. Though I'd rather see them come up with their own fantasy-background, so they could shape it with an eye toward game play. (Not that WH 40K doesn't have fine game play, but we've got WH 40K for WH 40K game play.) Heh. Especially if they allowed the Beta-testers to beaver away at manufacturing a "history" for the units/OOBs similar the RL histories of the units and formations in the other CM games. We could have fantasy-CM grogs who'd memorized the rough odds of a 60-Thread Necromantic Plasm overcoming a White Zone Oracle at 100 yards, and argue about the sort of tripods actually used when mounting Fire Edge Arbalests. Hmm... actually, how about CM: SLA Industries? Thresher suits, claymores, gore cannons, Cloak Division special ops... necrothropes, Stormers, and carnivorous pigs. And all run with an eye toward the advertising budget. What's not to like?

That'd be the Asymmetrical warfare. Double-checked your thermals?