Cpl Steiner

I really enjoyed this scenario and wish the campaigns had more missions like it. Like the OP, I have seen my tanks decimated on several occasions in this one, usually when they are in the open. My best success has been to have my tanks move through the woods to the right of the road and then take up hull down positions on reverse wooded slopes. The only trouble is, the tanks have to find a path through the trees and sometimes take unexpected routes.

No, I don't think that's mine. I did record a rather excited one that went "Their gonna wipe us out!" but I don't think it got used. Perhaps I shouldn't say this but some of the dialogue I recorded was shamelessly copied from games like "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare" (edit: re-recorded by me I mean). I remember hearing a hand-to-hand combat snippet that went "Die you bastards!" in a distinctly west country accent that used to crack me up every time I heard it as it sounded like it was recorded by Worzel Gummidge but I think that got binned too. I have a "scouse" (Liverpool) accent, so that might help you identify mine!

This is not scientific, I mean I haven't done a count or anything, but I'm pleasantly surprised by how many people prefer CM:SF over other iterations of CM. I remember when I bought it how buggy it was, and how disappointed I was as I'd been looking forward to it for so long, but as usual BFC came through and fixed pretty much all of the bugs eventually, even improving performance and retrofitting into the game the famous "blue bar" (which for a long time we'd been told couldn't be done for some technical reason). I own all of the new wave of CM games apart from CM:A, but CM:SF is still the one I think I enjoyed the most once the bugs were ironed out. I think WWII is becoming more and more a "distant memory" of a war as it has been overshadowed by more recent conflicts in the middle-east, and with the current ISIS situation in Iraq this trend would seem set to continue. Since my kids hijacked the family computer and I have less and less access to it, I was overjoyed to find that my macbook could play CM:RT, my most recent CM purchase. Whilst I am enjoying CM:RT (most of the time - see "Annoyed" thread), it is CM:BS I am most looking forward to and which I hope I can play on my macbook as well as CM:RT.

I apologise for not returning to the thread. Thanks everyone for your comments. By the way, I am not "thoroughly disgusted with Combat Mission". Some aspects of it, such as these AI turn 1 barrages, do drive me nuts and make me turn off the game in disgust, but I know I will come back to it again. And for the record, next time you are playing CM:BN with the "Common Wealth Forces" module or CM:SF with the "British Forces" module, some of those British voices you hear will be mine as I did some of the voice acting for them. I also designed some of the missions for CM:SF British Forces. In other words, I count myself as someone who has shown a lot of commitment to CM over the years rather than just a troll, but I do feel the urge for a rant when my entire force gets practically wiped out on turn one of a QB!!

I have no doubt this has been raised before but I was so annoyed with the Quick Battle I started a moment ago that I immediately abandoned the game and turned off CM:RT in disgust to write this post. What am I talking about? The AI "Setup Zone" barrages that invariably wipe out your force before the scenario has even started! I had decided to play a quick battle, got all my men lined up the way I wanted them, and had advanced in turn-mode towards a tree-lined ridge directly in front of my setup zone so I could see what enemy I was up against. 30 seconds into the first turn, a huge artillery barrage hit the ridge, decimating my force. Every single unit took heavy casualties. WTF! My men could not see the enemy at game start, so they damn well could not see my men either, and yet somehow the commander of the enemy side had telepathically identified my hidden force behind the ridge and radioed in a massive barrage on the ridge at the precise moment my men moved off from their start line, presumably calling it in several minutes before the game even started. Things like this add absolutely nothing to the game. They are simply not fun and put me off playing. Why should I bother going to the trouble of selecting force mix, map size, terrain, and meticulously arranging my force in the setup zone, only for all this effort to be a waste of time due to a ridiculous prescient AI barrage. What a joke!

Hi guys, I would like to take some screenshots of CM:RT gameplay but I am not sure how to do it. I have the Mac OS version. Can it be done "in-game" or do you need something else running in the background? Thanks.

Napoleon's invasion of Russia is pretty close to this date too (24 June 1812 according to wikipedia). It seems military leaders like a bit of sunshine for their soldiers to enjoy between battles! Joking aside, it's a logical date for a big op of any kind in most of Europe due to the anticipated good weather (OK, maybe not UK!).

Thanks Oddball. I did try your sound mod and whilst most of it was fine, there was one weapon for which no firing sound was played. It was a soviet LMG. I have installed Juju's UI mod and will keep that one in I think as it does seem to be an improvement on the UI that comes with the game. I am tempted by Aristotle's mods but wish there was a "German Vehicles Pack" and "Soviet Vehicles Pack" so that I would not have to download lots of individual files. I had no luck finding Waclaw's mods either in the Repository or GreenAsJade Mod Warehouse.

Hi all, After a long spell away from Battlefront games I finally bought CM:RT for my macbook yesterday. Now I want to make it as nice looking as possible. First of all, can I use mods with the macbook version, and if so, how? Secondly, assuming the answer to the first question is yes, can you recommend some mods? I am interested in better weapon sounds, "ragtag" uniforms and grubby-looking vehicles. Thanks in advance.

I have pretty much relinquished the family Windows PC to the kids to play on and now I mainly game on my Macbook. This runs games like Kerbal Space Program and Crusader Kings II very well but I don't know if it will be up to the challenge of playing CM:RT. Will there be a Mac demo so I can try before I buy? [EDIT] FYI, here are my Macbook's specs... 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 RAM (I upgraded it beyond its "official" specs for max RAM and it works fine) nVidia Geforce 320M 256 MB Graphics

Two reasons why Putin will get away with annexing Crimea... 1. The idea of armed conflict between US + Allies and Russia is completely unthinkable. We would risk a return to the Cold War, or possibly even a Nuclear Exchange. 2. Both the US and UK are in the grip of "war fatigue" as evidenced by the failed vote over Syrian intervention. If we got involved in Ukraine there would be a real possibility of civil disorder. You would see thousands of protestors on the streets. The US and UK governments know this all too well. So for the time being, Putin is in a very strong position and can do more or less what he likes. He's a shrewd politician and is playing his hand well.

Back to topic - I was watching the news today after not being on the BFC forums for a while when I suddenly remembered the new BFC modern warfare game was going to be NATO vs. Russia in "fictional" conflict over Ukraine. I did get a creepy feeling right then after the way Syria turned out. I will be following the crisis closely but I have to agree NATO would be very foolish to take on Russia and I doubt very much that we would fight such a major conflict over Ukraine. In many ways I feel that the Russians have a point - place names like Sevastopol and Balaclava harken back to the Crimean War against Russia. Whatever western Ukraine feels about the situation, Crimea is as Russian as they come. [EDIT] Sorry, slipped off-topic again. Very hard to avoid unfortunately.

Could you not just download the Mac version of the demo? If that works OK then you should be OK with the full version.

One I designed for the Brits campaign involved a reinforced platoon in an ambush by Syrian SF and got high praise if I remember correctly. It was called "Ambush in the Lava Fields".

If you (as a Canadian) want to field Canadians, get NATO. If you want a tough tactical challenge, get sub-uber but fun to play Brits. If you want massive firepower, get Marines.

Ok, thanks all. I do actually have the Commonwealth module installed already, but Steve's clarifications will be of use to those who don't have it. It's great to hear that 2.0 is faster for some users. I definitely think CM:FI is faster (and better looking) than CM:BN 1.0 on my machine, so upgrading to 2.0 should make CM:BN behave more like CM:FI for me, which is cool. I may hold off until the MG module, simply because I've got other interests on the go at the moment and so have no urgency to get the upgrade just now.

Thanks Rocky. When is the Market Garden module out? Oh, and presumably we will be able to play scenarios portraying the Brit Paras in Arnhem if we already own the Commonwealth module?

Hi all, It occurs to me that a simple sound mod which would help with immersion in CM:SF would be someone showing "man down" instead of the usual "Ooh, my arm!" etc. in the game currently. From documentaries of Afghanistan, a veritable chorus of "man down" echoes all over the battlefield whenever anyone is injured. Just a suggestion for anyone who wants to do some voice acting to replace a few of the casualty "ouch" cries.

Hi all, It's been ages since I posted here and I confess, I haven't played CM:BN in months. Now I see that there is an upgrade to bring the engine up to version 2.0, like CM:FI. On my PC, CM:FI played noticeably smoother than CM:BN. Has anyone noticed a similar increase in framerate with the CM:BN upgrade? I may buy it if it improves performance but otherwise probably not.

Coming late to this (very long) thread, so forgive me if I go over old ground due to not having the time nor inclination to read all 32 pages of it. I too think that MGs in all of the CMx2 games seem underpowered. Now that we have casualty counts for all units in the Debriefing phase of a scenario it is very apparent that MGs tend to cause relatively few casualties compared to other weapons - sometimes as few as one or two after sustained fire over many turns. BFC has even admitted that German HMG gunners are shooting like they are wearing a blindfold, their accuracy is so low. If the accuracy of MG gunners was tightened up I think we would naturally see a more realistic casualty level for MG gunners, seeing as CMx2 apparently uses a "collision-detection" model for direct fire rather than abstracting the results. If MG bullets are more accurate and therefore intersect enemy infantry models more frequently, we should see greater MG casualties occurring in the game. Regarding the point about how much carnage there is already in a typical scenario, and the assumption by some that this is not borne out by historical statistics for casualties amongst frontline units - I think this ignores the fact that a CMx2 scenario portrays only the "tip of the spear" elements of a military unit. I think historically such units did suffer horrendous casualties, especially in WWII due to the lack of body armour, the use of more powerful rifle ammunition, and the abundance of HE ordnance on both sides. I would hope in a future patch, MG accuracy is addressed, as I think this would satisfy most critics of MG lethality in the game at present.

With reports today that Syria is mixing precursor chemicals to possibly make sarin gas for use against the rebels, and the news that Syria apparently has the largest stocks of chemical weapons in the middle-east, I have two questions. 1. Why was the threat of chemical attack on coalition troops not included in CM:SF? 2. Will it be included in the up-coming NATO vs. Russia CM:SF2 game? Possible effects: Units forced to wear full MOPP chemical agent protective clothing in some scenarios, resulting in greater fatigue in hot conditions. If nerve agents are actually used, units in MOPP gear that are injured by bullets, shrapnel etc. more likely to be KIA due to nerve agents breaching the MOPP clothing.

Here's an interesting article which tends to suggest "close quarters" shooting with a pistol is especially difficult due to the body's involuntary "fight or flight" responses to immediate danger. At the sorts of ranges typical of a police shootout, the sights of the pistol aren't even used. I don't think this would be the case at the longer ranges typical of the battlefield. In summary, I maintain what I said in my previous post, i.e. that police shootout statistics may be a misleading source of data for pistol shooting ranges found more typically on the battlefield. http://www.pointshooting.com/1afails.htm

Well, living as I do in a reasonably civilised country (the UK) which does not think ownership of lethal firearms is some sort of civil right, you are correct, I don't have direct experience of firearms other than low-powered air or gas operated ones (which I have fired). My point was that the extremely short ranges typical of police shootouts are NOT typical of military engagement ranges, and could actually be misleading. I know you will probably ridicule what I am about to say next, but in any first-person-shooter computer games I have played I have found that being surprised by another player at point blank range is far more likely to make me miss than if the encounter is at a longer range. Ok, it's not real shooting experience, but psychologically I would imagine police officer's react in a similar, panicked fashion. Is this really the data we should draw our conclusions from?

I do wonder if maybe the hit statistics for police shooting are low precisely because the ranges are typically so short. The target would only have to move slightly to the side and you would have to swing the pistol through a very large angle to keep on target compared to longer ranges. As I've said in a previous post, we also don't know what conditions each police shoot out occurred in - meaning we just get an average for all conditions. A large number of such shootings were probably at night in urban terrain providing lots of cover and concealment. It's the same when one looks at raw statistics for the number of rounds fired per hit in a war setting. It could run into the thousands per hit, but that includes suppression fire, blind firing over/around cover, or just hosing a house because you "suspect" the enemy may be using it for a firing position. Raw statistics can often be very misleading. My suspicion is that in a war setting you would use a pistol on the rarest of occasions, when you are basically under attack, cornered, and have nothing else. If not cornered you would probably try to get as far away from the enemy as possible rather than trade shots using nothing more than a sidearm. The one exception to the above might be an officer who fires his pistol to encourage the men under his command to fire rather than for any meaningful offensive purpose. As has been suggested, the solution might be to make pistol-armed troops more likely to cower or flee rather than fire their weapon, unless they are surrounded by more heavily-armed friendlies.

I'm sure many American posters on this forum must own or have access to pistols, unlike myself in the UK where they are completely banned. Could you not just simulate this using real pistols to get an idea of the sorts of hit rates to expect? Presumably you could reconstruct something like "pop-up" or "snap" shooting at a man-sized target at various ranges and compare that to aimed shots. If you want to simulate combat stress, run round the block first so you are out of breath and your heart is really pumping and then try it. I would love someone to have a go and let us all know the results!