Cpl Steiner

Just done a little checking on Wikipedia, and here are some interesting figures: US Defence Budget: $664 billion; Ranked 1st in the World UK Defence Budget: $64 billion; Ranked 3rd in the World (behind US and China) Countries Ranked by Military Expenditure So, despite having the 3rd highest defence budget in the World, the UK still spends less than a tenth of what the US spends on defence. Even China, in 2nd place, spends only about $80 billion. This is something Americans should remember when they ask for their allies in NATO to "do more". I tried deducting each country's expenditure from the US's to see how many of them would add up to the US's budget and gave up after getting to Mexico. Basically, the US budget is larger than the combined budgets of all the other major powers on the planet. It does makes you wonder why the US has to spend so much on defence? Another thing to remember. The British Army has only about 100,000 personnel. Of that I think they only have about 30,000 that can be regarded as front line combat troops. When you consider that the UK currently has committed something like 10,000 men to Afghanistan, it represents a very large percentage of the UK's land forces. A bit off topic, but something to think about nonetheless.

I have to agree with GSX - Iraq was a disaster for all concerned - The US, Britain, and most of all Iraq. Granted, Saddam was a bad guy, but that's not why we went to war. We went to war because we were told it was crucial to our national interest, because Saddam had WMD which he was prepared to give to groups like Al Quaeda to threaten the West. That, we now know, was utter nonsense. Instead, we now have home grown terrrorists from Bradford in the UK and possibly now Fort Hood in Texas, who commit atrocities because they are incensed by what was done in places like Iraq. The Iraq war has made us less safe, not more safe. Anyway, that's all history now. We are where we are, as they say. However, it will take many years for the wounds of that conflict to heal, if they ever do.

Just catching up with this thread since coming home from work. I see my post about what I thought of GK has stirred up quite a hornets nest! First, regarding Basra, I see that as being more a failure of the British Government rather than the British Army - and specifically the change in PM from Tony Blair to Gordon Brown. I think Brown viewed Iraq as "Blair's War" and was determined to pull troops out regardless of the situation on the ground or how it would affect relations with the US. It certainly wasn't Britain's finest hour, but you can hardly blame the military for that. Brown was instrumental in what happened. Back to GK! Contrary to what you might be thinking, I am not a knee-jerk anti-American bigot like many Brits I know. I have read "No True Glory" and "Back Hawk Down" and know that many American soldiers are highly professional. However, I do think there are some distinct "nationality" differences between British and American units. I am reminded of an incident from the Iraq war, widely reported over here, in which a British helicopter came under fire from an American unit. The pilot put the chopper down by the Americans, got out, and asked one of them, "when's the last time you saw an Iraqi flying a f**king helicopter!" Although stereotypical, there does seem to be some truth in the idea that American soldiers are more willing to pull the trigger and ask questions later than their British counterparts. It also seems true that whenever civilians are involved in war zones like Iraq or Afghanistan, they are happier to see British soldiers around than American ones because they are more afraid of the Americans. I don't wish to go on making any more comments of this nature but some of the scenes in GK, such as villages full of women and kids being shot up for no reason, are not a good advert for the US military.

As a Brit, all I can say is I hope the Marines aren't really like they are portrayed in GK, but I suspect to a large extent they are. I have seen documentaries of British forces in action and if they behaved like those Marines in the series they would be kicked out. The Marines in the series come across as really unprofessional, singing and joking around when they should be serious, focused, watching for enemies etc. The indiscriminate killing of civilians in several episodes is also worrying, if that's what really goes on. I read a book called "3 Para" about the British Paratroop Regiment in Afghanistan, and in several chapters the Paras meet up with US convoys and patrols of various types. The Paras were similarly unimpressed with their behaviour! Sorry to sound like a "Brits bashing Americans" rant but from what I have seen so far of GK I suspect it won't go down too well in the UK and will just reinforce long held stereotypes of how Americans are "trigger happy cowboys".

I see from your profile you are from the USA, so you may not have heard of "The Rifles". Have you ever seen a Napoleonic Wars historical drama series starring Sean Bean called "Sharpe"? The series follows the exploits of an officer in "The Rifles" during the "Peninsular War". The regiment was an elite experimental unit of hand picked "chosen men" who were all trained to operate as skirmishers using rifles rather than muskets - a relatively new invention at that time. As such, the regiment's lineage is the epitomy of the "light infantry" role, so it's a bit strange to see them being referred to as mechanised infantry. Having said that, there are several battalions in the regiment and it looks like the 4th battalion is actually designated as mechanised, as shown in this wikipedia article: The Rifles You learn something every day, as they say!

I agree, the unit emblems do look a bit impersonal. It would be nice if we could have both but then BFC would have to redesign the UI.

The "Unit Emblems" mod is just a collection of images that can be used in place of the unit portrait image. For instance, if you like the British "Rifles" battalion, their emblem can be found in the following folder: 3rd Mechanised Division -> 1st Mechanised Brigade -> 4th Battalion, The Rifles. The "Rifles" emblem is kind of like a horn with a crown above on a green background. The image file is named "portrait british mech infantry". There are actually two. One has "_ALT" for alternative at the end of its name. If you prefer this one, just remember to delete the "_ALT" part of the name before using it. Create a folder called "Z" in your CM:SF "Data" folder and drop the file in there. Now, next time you are playing a scenario with a British mechanised infantry unit in it, this emblem will show where the soldier "face" portrait image used to show (extreme left of control panel). Of course, if you think the "Rifles" battalion is really infantry rather than mechanised infantry, just rename the image to "portrait british infantry" and it will show for infantry battalions instead. There are also images named things like "british blue armoured infantry" or "british blue mechanised infantry". If you drop these in your "Z" folder, it changes the emblem to the right of the unit portrait which is designed to show what type of unit the unit is. If you want to use it when playing "Red" instead of "Blue", just rename it to something like "british red armoured infantry". I think that just about covers it. Experiment and see what happens. You might find you prefer to see a human face portrait rather than a bit of coloured cloth - or you might find the emblems do it for you more than a rather generic looking human head and shoulders. Just remember that each time you want a different unit emblem to be in the game you will have to copy a new image into your Z folder and overwrite the previous one. That's where the "Mod Manager" utility will be really handy as it will allow you to keep all the emblems in a separate folder somewhere and swap them in and out very quickly.

I just downloaded the above. Great piece of work getting all those insignia. I will have to add them to TheFightingSeaBee's mod manager so I can have a different unit each mission!

tyrspawn, Glad to see you've bought the Marines and British modules. I've watched some of your walkthroughs and really enjoyed them so I'm looking forward to seeing the same done for the Brits and Marines. Regarding the first Brits campaign mission, I think the scenario designer's concept was to present the player with a task for which he is deliberately under-resourced. I live in the UK and one of the big on-going stories right now is whether or not our troops in Afghanistan have enough men and equipment for the tasks they are being asked to do. If you approach the mission from that point of view - i.e. a "make do" battle - then I think you'll do it justice.

Calm down everyone, has no-one here ever watched "The Producers"! You don't tackle Fascism by banning its symbols. You tackle it by confronting it head on and ridiculing it. Let's all lighten up, please.

FYI, I think the rule about not showing Nazi emblems in games is just for Germany. I've bought loads of games in the UK that show swastikas and SS runes.

I would just put a note in the briefing telling the player to hit the "ceasefire" button once they think they've secured the two objectives. If they ceasefire and it turns out there are some enemy still in those areas he wasn't aware of, well hey, he should have cleared the objectives more thoroughly.

With shadows, a lot depends on the time of day and weather conditions. Most games cheat by picking the optimum conditions and not allowing the player to change them. In CM:SF, if you have "overcast" conditions or if the sun is high in the sky, shadows usually look fine. The game has really improved since it first came out. You won't be disappointed.

I'm intrigued to know how historically accurate the CM:Afghanistan game will be. Will it portray actual Soviet operations that took place during their invasion and occupation of that country, or will all the stand-alone and campaign scenarios be "apocryphal" battles merely representative of the sorts of engagements which took place? I'm really keen on military history and would pay good money for this title if it stays objective and sticks to the historical facts. I'm sure all the media reports we got in the West at the height of the Cold War were as much propaganda as anything, so something that redresses the balance without swinging too far the other way would be great. I am also quite surprised to find myself wanting to play the Soviets and beat the Mujahideen. How do others feel? I think this is down to 9/11 and the "War on Terror" making me feel the West supported the wrong side back then!

I had an Apache shoot up nothing but destroyed vehicles using area fire. All the live ones were ignored. Most annoying. Aren't Apache's supposed to have optics capable of identifying and engaging targets several miles away? I suppose it could be a poor pilot in that particular scenario I was playing but these useless area fire orders seem to be very common.

Hi egamarl, Having played around with the "Abu Susah" scenario a few times today, it is quite difficult to use the trigger-men effectively - which I guess is a game-balancing thing to make it so the BLUE side has ways of avoiding being blown up. The problem is that the trigger-man needs to be able to activate the IED (i.e. the IED's "Target" order is available) at the moment the intended enemy target is next to the IED. For this to happen, he can't be hiding behind a wall or something like that - he needs to have eyes on the IED. This quite often results in the trigger-man being shot - or more foolishly - engaging the enemy with his AK47, thus giving away his position. It does not help that he can't be in two places at once, so you may need to have the trigger-man switch positions as the enemy's approach routes are identified. I tried hiding the trigger-man and giving him short covered arc orders to prevent him firing on the enemy but this tended to prevent him detonating the IED as well! For the "Abu Susah" scenario you could try hiding the Radio IED triggerman on the balcony of the mosque near the crossroads. Also move out any other Uncons so they don't draw attention to his position. From this vantage-point he has LOS to all three Radio IEDs in their initial scenario setup locations (don't forget, you can move them). If he unhides at just the right time, he will hopefully detonate an IED without engaging the enemy with his AK or getting shot first. [EDIT] One final thing. I think the confusion you are experiencing is because "Shock Force" can be played in real-time or turn-based mode. In real-time mode, you could obviously anticipate when the bomb needs to be activated and click the "Target" order at just the right time, but for turn-based mode, there is no way the player could be expected to guess exactly at what time in the 60 second turn the IED needs to be triggered. Thus, BFC have given us this "pre-activation" feature to tell the trigger-man to attempt to take out the enemy with the IED. However, during the turn, the trigger-man still has to push the button at the moment the IED detonates, at which time he needs to be in good condition, have a working trigger device and IED, and generally have eyes on the target area and the device.

There are WIRE, cell and radio IED specialists available in the editor. Take another look. The procedure to detonate them is to click the IED and then select the "Target" command. You then have to either a) click anywhere on the map, or click on a specific enemy unit, using the the target command. This makes the IED active, in the sense that you, the player, want the IED to detonate. The AI will always activate its IEDs at mission start as far as I am aware. From the manual: "Wire - shortest distance (about 100m), 10% failure rate" "Radio - medium distance (about 300m), requires LOS, 20% failure rate" "Cell Phone - long distance (about 600m), 10% failure rate" So, you only need LOS to the bomb in order to send the signal to detonate it if you are using a radio IED. If the IED is a dud, I am pretty sure this is shown as text in the control panel for the weapon. [EDIT] Just retried the "Abu Susah" scenario to confirm and they IEDs do detonate. What you have to remember when playing RED in this scenario is that for the radio IEDs to go off the trigger-man needs to be able to see the IED at the time the enemy unit is next to it. Activation merely records your intention, as the player, to detonate the IED at a suitable opportunity. The trigger-man will perform the actual detonation, and for that, he needs to know that an enemy unit is by the IED. For cell-phone ones I think the difference is pretty subtle, i.e. he needs to know there is a target to destroy, i.e. LOS to intended target, but the IED itself could be somewhat out of sight, perhaps behind a wall. [EDIT2] You an tell the trigger-man is able to detonate an IED because the bomb's "Target" order will be available. If the trigger-man, for whatever reason, cannot detonate the bomb at any given time, the Target command won't be available. If the bomb turns out to be a dud, then instead of showing "Medium Radio IED (Activated)" it will show "Medium Radio IED (Malfunction)".

I'm sure I must be on some CIA or MI5 list of potential terrorists for the number of Syria related searches and downloads I've done over the last couple of years!

Talk of the campaigns in CMx2 Normandy has got me thinking. I bet they are going to be pretty tough to construct as people will expect, indeed demand, total historical accuracy. That wasn't an issue with the fictitious invasion of Syria but for Normandy we are going to want to see maps that reflect the actual terrain of the historical engagements, the correct units, dates and times of each engagement, correct weather conditions etc. I think a lot of the battles of the Normandy campaign were fought in the rain, or at least it rained heavily for several days at the start of the invasion. The fields were also purposefully flooded by the Germans to impede the allied invasion. That means we are going to have to see rain weather effects and water on the ground for it to be historically accurate. I don't know how BFC are planning to do water in the editor but the logical way to my mind would be to set an elevation number, say 10, as being the water level. Anything at elevation 10 or below is water, and anything above is land. That would also have the added bonus of allowing units to wade through water if it's shallow, say elevation 9-10. Elevation 8 or less would be over 2 metres deep and impassible.

From BFC's point of view, it's easy to see how they can get the most bang for their development buck. The first CMx2 game was middle-east to capitalise on people's interest in that region thanks to real-world events like the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and they could also get away with leaving out hard to code stuff like rivers and bridges or high-polygon stuff like detailed buildings (middle-east buildings are all just boxes with the odd dome - at least in CM:SF). The British Forces and NATO modules are designed to squeeze more cash out of these settings whilst also giving them time to tweak the game engine to perfection. After 2 modules, they probably expect sales to decline to a trickle, so it's on to the next big game, Normandy. Here we will see the addition of all those hard to code things like bridges and water. They will probably also have optimised the engine sufficiently to be able to do more detailed buildings such as churches and the like. The cycle will then continue, i.e. at least 2 modules for CM:Normandy to squeeze as much revenue out of the setting as possible and tweak the game engine even further. The obvious next step is therefore to take the CM:Normandy engine, with all the nice additions such as bridges, water and lovely detailed buildings, and supplant modern weapons systems into it. This gives us CM:SF 2. I imagine the backstory to CM:SF 2 being something like the South Ossetian war of 2008. In other words, Russia is trying to re-establish herself as a major power in the world on a par with America or the EU. Meanwhile, NATO is continuing to acquire new member states close to Russia's borders. The Russians decide enough is enough and invade one of them. NATO responds and comes to the country's aid. You only have to see how far NATO enlargement has progressed to see that's how a future conflict with Russia is likely to occur (see image). The big green bit is the Ukraine, which has been promised an invitation to join NATO at some point in the future. Now that is really going to piss off the Russians!

ATGMs are what really make modern warfare, well, modern. However, they are similar in many ways to WWII anti-tank guns - i.e. they are hard to spot until they fire and they are a cheap way of knocking out expensive armoured vehicles. As such, you can tackle them in a similar fashion to AT guns in CMx1. 1. Use scouts to try and identify them before they fire (difficult). 2. Ensure that the first unit they fire at is not your best, e.g. use low-value scout vehicles like Humvees or LAVs to identify them, rather than your best tanks. 3. Try using "Shoot and Scoot" style tactics to pop up on the crest of a hill, get the ATGMs to fire, and then reverse rapidly back to safety. The best way to do this is a fast order with a pause at the end followed by a reverse order. 4. As soon as you've identified them, hit them with indirect fire. On-map mortars (Brits), Javelin teams, artillery and aircraft are all very effective. 5. If all else fails, once identified, just make sure you keep out of their way!

If anyone is wondering, the change was necessary when the British Forces module was added to CM:SF because they have "OC" (Officer Commanding) instead of "CO". I think they also have "2C" (Second in Command) rather than "XO".

Isn't the M249 gunner in a rifle squad referred to in OOBs as an Automatic Rifleman or AR? That may be a throwback to the when he used to carry a BAR but it does make the distinction of the weapon being somewhat between a Rifle and a genuine MG.

Just to chime in with what Steve said above about this supposed even match between Russia/China and the West to make for a better game, the Russians have improved a lot since the days of Grozny but they are still not that great. One report I read about the recent "South Ossetia" war (2008) said the Russians completely failed to gain air superiority over Georgia and could have lost hundreds of troops and vehicles to Georgian aircraft if it weren't for the fact that the Georgian air crews were so poorly trained. In the end the Georgian air defences were taken out by ground forces advancing over their positions. The West would have destroyed these same air defence installations from the air within hours of the conflict starting. Now I know this is primarily a ground war game, not an air war one, but it does emphasise the fact that the Russians are still far behind the West in terms of their military capabilities. Source: http://www.cast.ru/eng/?id=328

I just played a Quick Battle, British Mech Infantry Probe (-30% force adjustment) into a town defended by Syrian Mech Infantry. I had a couple of Javelin detachments which helped whittle down the enemy armour but even after they'd done their work my single Mech infantry platoon had a really hard time of it in the town, becoming pretty much combat ineffective before game end due to BMP main gun rounds hitting their buildings. They still killed more enemy than they lost but with 6 KIA at the end and the town still occupied by pockets of enemy the battle ended in a draw. It was a lot of fun to play though and proved that the Syrians aren't so easy to beat all of the time, even against the AI. You just have to pick force mixes that are more balanced. I don't normally play QBs but on this occasion it worked out very nicely and gave an enjoyable and balanced battle.