Sivodsi

Edit to add: Whoops I mean "Baltic" This sounds promising: According to the Guardian

The question is, does the 707 remain unspotted whilst being able to spot? ' How much of an advantage does the 707 have over, say an Abrams, or an officer in the open with binoculars? Can the 707 be in a hull down position while spotting with this ability, n? This last question is the biggest one, because of the necessary 'simplification' of BFTs LOS calculations - having three levels, was it? Maybe in RL the 707 could be parked so that only the tower scans the terrain and would be virtually invisible to the enemy it spots. But in the game, such a position may be impossible.

eye candy. It is by far the prettiest hummer on the blocks, with that cute little tower standing up there. Makes you just want to hug it.

Well, the leader of Sth Korea was very unpopular, but Lee Myung-bak has turned things around somewhat, and there is nowhere near the level of discontent with his regime as in 2008, when there were massive street demonstrations every night of the week. He was doing well enough after the G20 with polls putting his approval rating at 60%, while after the bombardment it plummeted by 15%. Given the lackluster response to both the Cheonan sinking and the bombardment, you have to say that he didn't time his 'incidents' very well. In fact, if he did instigate them you would have to say that he totally screwed up. If it was the live firing exercise that triggered the bombardment, why didn't he wait another couple of days until the US fleet arrived (since the fleet exercises had been planned 'for months')? That was stupid! You would think that if he wanted to provoke the NKs he would have created a pretext for the ROK forces to be on full alert. But the opposite happened, and many Sth Koreans feel humiliated by the tepid response. You would have to conclude that both incidents made his regime look worse rather than better. Compare that to the situation in Pyongyang, where a power struggle is going on, and there is a pattern of provocative acts, you know, small matters like letting off nuclear bombs and firing ICBMs over Japan, and if you go further back, political assassinations, axe murders, commando raids, airline bombings, tunnels under the DMZ, kidnappings of innocent civilians to act as language teachers (!!!) ... and lots lots more . The North Korean regime is an evil, corrupt government. Really, the conspiracy theory just doesn't make sense when you look at the bigger picture. All the circumstantial evidence points to Pyongyang.

Ha! Indeed, what do you give a 5000 year old civilization that has everything? This CNN article summarizes the traditional view, that is contradictory to the position the Chinese diplomats offered in wikileaks (that they no longer believe in Nth Korea as a buffer state, and would be happy to see Sth Korea ruin their economy rebuilding + a crap load of social problems for a century to come... yeah right)

Anyway, trying to make this thread relevant to its title, I seem to remember Steve saying something about the Chinese People's Army being included in CMSF II - tried to find the thread using 'search' but couldn't find it. Can Steve perhaps confirm, or someone else find the thread? It would be interesting to have the Chinese, would it not? Especially if ROK's interesting army was put together with a few older soviet models from CMSF I. Then we could play out all our Korean peninsula fantasies to our hearts content. Hopefully that's as close to the real thing as it will get.

BBC Wow, almost prescient! I totally agree that the Chinese elites don't want to see their profitable enterprises being diminished by major conflict. Nonetheless, the Chinese elites don't want to be seen backing down by their own people and losing their legitimacy as the ruling class. This might motivate a more confrontational stance. Whatever, its a nice idea for a CM module. Not surprising. Way to hijack a thread!

I'm not sure if these were the doubts about the investigation that you were alluding to, but here is a link to a site that claims the investigation was a stitchup job by the US/ROK govt to I think this claim is BS because ROK and the US did nothing physical in retaliation, and were not in a position to do anything in retaliation. Also there have been other reports of Nth Koreans quietly taking credit for the sinking. Moreover, it is simply not in the US/ROK interests to instigate a war in which even a quick victory would lead to masses of deaths and billions of damage to the ROK. The US is stretched thin as it is and this is at the wrong time for them. It is the sort of action that NK carries out, it fits a pattern of their behavior, and this latest incident only provides more circumstantial evidence that the Cheonan was a NK operation.

yep, China's position is raising ire in Sth Korea. The above two links note some of the other ways China is seen as encroaching on Korea's sovereignty over their history and independence. China is Sth Korea's biggest trade partner, but China's position of support of Nth Korea is raising hackles over here. Why does China support the North so much? Don't forget that China spilt a lot of blood defending North Korea from the capitalist US backed demons in the South. If you go to Beijing you have to check out the army museum for their take on events, it is an interesting contrast to the perspective that we read in our history books. What you see there is the Red Army stepping in to defend the gallant Nth Koreans, and pushing the enemy back to Seoul at enormous cost to themselves. You get the full story of the suffering of the soldiers in the winter, and yeah, the soldiers behind picking up the rifle of their dead comrade, and so on. After this suffering they can't just cede Nth Korea to the South. At the same time, the North is an independent country. China has influence over them, but they don't control them. Over history Korea has been feistily independent, though it was not uncommon over the millenia for various Korean factions to call on Chinese to fund or send armies in. But the Koreans, despite paying tribute at various times to the Chinese, have always maintained independence. Not to mention the pride that the Chinese population generally hold for themselves becoming world leaders once again after a brief period of humiliation. The leadership cannot afford to be seen backing down by their own people. The Chinese elites' position is not as absolute as they might seem. So, China supports Nth Korea as a bulwark against the west and absolutely does not want to see a reunited Korea aligned with the US. They will step in again to make sure the current regime in some form maintains control.

The strategy page on the NK-ROK dilemma: "What the North Koreans are saying to South Korea is "give us more food and oil or we will keep attacking you in the name of self-defense". North Korea is starving again, and the leadership (representing about ten percent of the population that are well fed) need help and don't what to risk their control of North Korea to get it. Meanwhile, South Korea and Japan are fed up with over a decade of North Korean extortion and are no longer willing to provide free food to North Korea unless the nuclear weapons program is shut down. North Korea refuses to consider this, and has come up with a new tactic; fatal warning shots. Over half of South Korea's population (and more than a third of its GDP) is within range of thousands of North Korean 170mm guns (range of 50 kilometers) and 240 mm multiple rocket launchers (range of 45 kilometers). Actually, North Korea has hundreds of ballistic missiles capable of hitting anywhere in South Korea. What if North Korea demands that free food and oil shipments resume, or more South Korea towns (or neighborhoods in cities) will be hit? What's South Korea going to do, when North Korea threatens to launch a major offensive if the south fights back and tries to destroy North Korea guns, rockets and ballistic missiles? Because North Korea has the ability to do major damage to the southern capital (where half the population and a quarter of the GDP are), the South Koreans have more to lose than the northerners. Sprawling Seoul is 40-50 kilometers from the North Korea border. The city alone is 600 square kilometers, and the suburbs even larger. There are over 17,000 people per square kilometer (45,000 per square mile) in the city. The southerners know the north has nothing to lose, are desperate and heavily armed. What do you do?"

I've just read reports critical of the Southern reaction. They had 6 K-9 155mm SP guns on the island, of which 2 were being repaired, and they could not direct their fire onto the Korean positions, instead spraying their fire at barracks and other soft targets. Also, the NKs fired two salvos and questions are being asked about why ROK F16s couldn't hit the guns firing the second salvo. Read all about it here The KoreanTtimes also claims that Jong-il himself okayed the decision to fire. So if the naval drills were firing towards NK it was an extremely rash thing to do given how poorly prepared they evidently were. In no way could it be claimed that they were trying to provoke the NKs with the expectation of smashing whatever the NKs countered with. What I would like to see is a map of where the ROK naval drills took place in relation to the island the NKs fired on.

SK sources say that they were conducting drills on their side of the border, and the live firing exercises were pointed west, not north. I think the NKs were waiting to use something as an excuse.

They have 1.3 bn angry Chinese to distract from local concerns they may have about corrupt governance and their elites ripping them off. At the same time Chinese have deep national pride at their growing status in the world, and even feel that it is their right to be world leaders, as they have been for several millennia in world history. I have had enough dealings with Chinese and experiences in China to know that they don't have a sense of humor over such matters. It doesn't take much to get a few thousand Chinese throwing stones at the US embassy or rioting against Japanese businesses. You only have to look at how prickly they are over territorial and other matters that affect their 'national interest'. For example, the recent confrontation over the disputed Senkaku islands with Japan, and their reaction to the recent noble prize by Liu Xiaobo. They are even protesting US and SK naval maneuvers in the Yellow sea, which they regard as rightfully theirs. The Chinese are a rising new power, and overly sensitive and defensive about their position. You don't have to look far into history to see parallels to a time when there was another brash new power on the scene, say just as far back as a newly reunited Germany under Wilhelm II, looking for 'their place in the sun'. Of course its not the same situation, but its enough to make me nervous about the destabilizing effects of a rising national power.

Easy for you guys to say, sitting back in your padded office chairs, watching it all go off on CNN, an ocean and a continent away from all the actual firing. Seoul is within artillery range, and if the balloon goes up you can bet that it won't take long for the North's guns to open up. How many hundred thousands of civilians and billions of dollars of destruction are you ready to sacrifice? Eventually the South and US forces will overcome the shoddy ill-equipped North Korean hordes, but you can bet that there are enough fanatics in the North with enough to lose that they won't go down without taking as many with them as possible. This is without considering what a belligerent China would do in reaction. The border between North Korea and China is a lot easier to cross than the DMZ between North and South. They did it before in the Korean War, you can bet that they won't stand back if it all goes off again. So yeah, a military response from South Korea is not likely, and if it happens it will be localized, but the North has always got less to lose than the South, and if they see themselves in a position of losing power domestically (as might happen in the upcoming transfer of leadership to Kim Jung-un), they might just escalate regardless. What can be done to 'punish' North Korea that they aren't already doing? As per above they can't take military action without risking everything. They can't do much more in the way of sanctions. Going to the UN seems like a waste of time, with China refusing to censure NK. One of the few things they could do would be to pull out of the Kaesong Industrial complex, but that might damage the SK commercial companies operating there more, and maybe the Chinese would move in (as what may happen at the Kumgangsan resort). China are calling for 6 party talks, but that seems to have been ruled out by the 'lets not reward bad behaviour' school of thought. Plain and simple, Lee Myung-bak is in a no-win position, just like he was after the Cheonan incident.

I live in the north of Seoul, I can ride my motorbike to the DMZ in an hour and a half... where I live is well within artillery range. Seems not to be going beyond the initial exchange, thank god. If Seoul decided to launch a couple of JDAMs into the Norths artillery emplacements though...

I wonder how or where they got the figure for China from? Granted that the Chinese aren't going to reach US levels, it seems likely its a good deal more than the 'official' statistics. Also, given the relative purchasing power, I would hazard a guess that the Chinese get more bang for their Yuan than the US for their buck.

No, I just tested it. I changed the filename in the file save dialogue, shortening it. Then I sent it, and on my opponent's save file dialogue the original name is there. Try it.

Nice! The stock Shilka seems a little too bright green, but this one looks darker so it'll prob fit in better with the other Syrian gear.

Start a scenario as PBEM: "NATO H2H German vs Syrian Mech" Save game and it suggests "NATO H2H German vs Syrian Mech 001" I shorten it to "NATOGvsSyrianMech001" and send. My opponent gets it and it comes back as ""NATO H2H German vs Syrian Mech 002" It seems the file itself stores its own name. This happened with a previous game in a previous version, but I just assumed that my opponent changed it and thought nothing of it.

... no longer seems to be an option, which is frustrating. I think this is a change brought in a while back, but I've only really found it a disadvantage now. It seems that the file sets the PBEM filename, and will reset it back to the default, even if you change it. I haven't really noticed this before, but I don't like this 'feature'. Some of the file names are too long to fit in the 'saved games' dialogue, so that you cannot read the number, and what happens if you are playing double blind? Has anybody else noticed this/been annoyed by it?

It appears I'm wrong on both counts. Melbourne and WA are AFL regions.

Have you programmed them specifically for CMSF? I have a similar model (performance mx), and I haven't bothered changing anything, so it'd be great to know your setup.

They're all watching the four nations. After the final on Saturday you might get some response. On the other hand, maybe Aussie CM players would tend to watch Union more? You'd have to get some Ockers to respond on that one.

You cannot, I'm afraid. When you install NATO it brings it up to 1.30, but the patch for the base game has not been released yet.

Oh, okay, so if we are in a current PBEM, and my opponent doesn't want to get the new module, then I have to wait until he installs the patch for 1.3 before we can continue, right? Edit to add: is there a release date for the regular patch to bring the base game up to 1.3?