Lt. Smash

I can't speak to the capabilities of the game engine, but I love the idea. Bob

Major, infantry will pause at waypoints. Vehicles will not. This is described in the manual on page 63. Also, in that same section, it describes that units will not always follow the straight-line path between waypoints. Instead, the units will use the terrain and move independently between waypoints. Lastly, when moving infantry squads (especially the marines with three teams), only one part of the squad ends up where you place the waypoint. When in the throws of battle, I find it best to split the squads if I want them to move and/or end up in specific places. Bob

As it was explained to me, the printer-friendly version of the manual came out with British forces. So, if you have British forces (or NATO), you'll have printer-friendly versions of the core (patched to 1.20), British and NATO manuals. I was told that there is not a printer-friendly version of the Marines manual. Bob

I've seen this too. Most notably, I was playing the CM:A demo recently. I put a Russian sniper up on a hill overlooking a town I was supposed to assault. He had no radio, was about 300 meters from the nearest radio, but was able to call artillery missions. I assumed that it had to do with C2. I was playing on Elite level. I wonder if this same phenomenon occurs at Iron level. Bob

My feeling -- and it is a feeling not scientific -- is 150 - 200m linear smoke screens are too big for just about anything. You need to keep 60 and 81 mm linear smoke screens as short as possible. To your point, you can't even call them a screen. For small caliber mortars, I find that Point targets are more effective. I try to point them between or in front of buildings. I recently played a scenario where I had 120mm mortars and tried a few 50m smoke screens. Even then, I wasn't happy with the result (although the wind could have had a serious impact in this case). Today, I played a scenario where I was given a organc 81mm plus 3 batteries of 155mm howitzers. I used the 81mm for an initial 20m screen (I could have used point) and the 155mm for 50m linear screens. This turned out to be incredibly effective. I've never seen the amount of smoke those howitzers made (plus, it was fun when I was done with smoke screens and could start raining down lead on enemy positions...it was rewarding and the amount of dust thrown in the air became a screen in and of itself). Bob

Ah...love the Search function! I came here looking for tactics on using smoke, and found this nuggest from more than a year ago. Great advice. Thanks, Major. Bob

I'm in, depending upon the date (I travel a lot for business). Bob

Your faced with the task of taking a town with mech infantry (Strykers, Bradleys, BMPs, whatever.). The civilian density is medium. Is it appropriate to start unloading with your 12.7mm or 25mm guns on the buildings in the town to surpress them or is that gamey (as in real life there would be some concern for the civilians -- or at least I think you would)? I realize this is a bit of a noob question, but nevertheless, I'm asking! Bob

Got it. Thanks, guys. Fortunately, the Marines manual isn't too big. I'll suck it up and use the toner. Bob

I just purchased the Marines-British-NATO bundle to fuel my CMSF obsession. While I was happy to see that there is British and NATO printer-friendly manuals, I was disappointed to see that there was no printer-friendly Marine manual. Is there any chance that I missed it or that one can be obtained online? Bob

The manual talks about how poor the Syrian arty is due to C2 issues. Could this be a symptom of that? Bob

Bah! As far as CM goes, you make it. I'll buy it. Bob

I got a kick out of this (of course, it was funny because I was winning, and if it happens more frequently, I'll be annoyed at the "crummy AI" ). I was playing Al Huqf Engagement and was giving it to the Red side when Red's sole BMP-2 bolted in a suicidal run straight toward my Bradley. It's final resting spot was about a tire-roll from where this shot was taken. The yellow arrow shows the path of the BMP. Interestingly, the BMP's explosion caused the only injuries of the scenario for me. One of the HQ soldiers was yellow after the BMP was taken out. Bob

Great thread and great blog/tutorials. Thanks! Perhaps I missed it but is there someplace that I can download the Company Night Attack scenario? Bob

I'm a long time CMx1'er that has finally made the leap to CMSF. I'm not sure what took me so make the move but I'm glad I did it. After a few games, I'm really impressed. The one thing I'm strugglig with is this real-time business. Mentally, I've made the leap to CMSF. So, I don't want to play turn-based games, but I find myself on pause quite a bit while I issue orders to those units that have run out of orders/need new orders. My question is: do you play real-time or turned-based? If you're playing real-time, do you spend a lot of time with the game paused? Do you get better about staying head of the orders-curve and keeping the game going in real time? Thanks. Lt. Smash

For what it's worth, I installed the latest ATI drivers last night (10.12) and the demo runs fine now. Bob

I just downloaded CMSF Demo 1.30. After installing, I cannot get it to run. It crashes to desktop after I get the initial Battlefront splash screen. I get the following entry in my event log: Faulting application name: CM Shock Force DEMO.exe, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x4cc19efb Faulting module name: atioglxx.dll, version: 6.14.10.9405, time stamp: 0x4b4e85ea Exception code: 0xc0000005 Fault offset: 0x00031a70 Faulting process id: 0x67c Faulting application start time: 0x01cba560100644fd Faulting application path: D:\Battlefront\Combat Mission Shock Force DEMO\CM Shock Force DEMO.exe Faulting module path: C:\Windows\system32\atioglxx.dll Report Id: 551e1401-1153-11e0-9608-4487fca70c4c I'm running Windows 7 on a i7 with 8 GB and an ATI 5770. Judging by the faulting module, I'd guess I'm running into an issue with my video driver. What versions of the ATI driver is CMSF compatiable with, or is this problem caused by something else? Bob

If you haven't seen this, yet, it is worth checking out. It's an interview with Martin van Balkom and he discusses CMC, along with other forthcoming Battlefront products. http://www.armchairgeneral.com/articles.php?p&page=1&p=2774&page=1 Bob

No, you can play TCP/IP over the internet. You just need to make sure the appropriate ports are open. The manual tells you what ports needed to be open...I don't know them off the top of my head. Bob

Bob, that is an Uber_Noobie question! I like it. Assuming you're not sharing the computer with someone (e.g., playing a hotseat game), there are two methods to do multi-player: (1) PBEM (play-by-email) in which players send turns back and forth to each other via e-mail until the game is over. (2) TCP/IP (or Network) in which players connect to each other over a network and play in real-time. The manuals provide good instructions on both processes and finding opponent is easy. You can find someone to play against in the Opponents Wanted forum or on another site such as Strategy Online, We Band of Brothers or the Blitz. Once you start playing with a human rather than against the AI, you won't want to go back. Bob

Hey, guys. If you're interested in this, you need to get over to SZO to sign-up. Please do so. It sounds like a lot of fun!

I'm curious what fog-of-war settings players use and why. I have always played with Extreme Fog-of-War just because it is supposed to be more realistic.

First, let me say that this is a spoiler. I discuss Gefechtsaufklaerung in a bit of detail. If you don't want to know the details, don't read this post. Now... This post is good timing. While I can say that I am re-aquanting myself with the CM series after a long lay-off, I am really finding that I am relearning the game and unlearning bad habits. I say this post is good timing because I've just played and replayed Gefechtaufklaerung. I've read some posts on this board that talk about how easy it was but I've struggled with it. I'll related my experiences to (a) hopefully make you feel like you're not alone, ( perhaps give you some ideas as to how to do better, and © solicit advice from other readers. I have felt I've done a pretty good job supressing the enemy. I have used the mortar, machine gun, infantry gun and off-map arty to surpress Russians hiding in the wheatfields and village. I advance my infantry, letting them leapfrog one another while I position them in the little valley short of the roadblock/wire. I can usually get my infantry into position with little to no losses. I then try to flank the enemy with my AFVs (ala the CMBB Strategy Guide -- which is great by the way) which usually results in a few Russian tank hunters trying to play hero. They always die. My challenge has been succesfully assaulting the church. I am not sure if I am being too aggressive or not aggressive enough but once the shells stop falling from my arty, I try to move forward with one or two squads while providing overwatch from the machine gun, AFV and remaining infantry but, inevitably, the Russians are too strong or rally while my troops are in the open. In the best cases, my guys get pinned before they reach the church and end the scenario face-down in the dirt. In the worst cases, they get slaughtered en route to the church and never make it back to the scattered trees in the valley or high tail it past the trees on their way back to Berlin . So, don't feel too bad. I agree with the other poster. Practice makes perfect. While I still haven't one after a few playings, I am finding my strategies and tactics are getting better. At first, I would find my squads breaking before I could make it to the valley. Now, as I said, I can make it to the valley and prep for an assault with minimal losses. With that said, if anyone has any advice as to what I am doing wrong and why I can't win this bloody scenario, I'm listening...but even getting beat, this reminds me why CM is so fun. Bob

So, I'm back into CM. After having the series on the shelf for more than a few months, I'm dusting off the cobwebs and diving back in...and loving it. I forgot how powerful the series is, particularly CMBB and CMAK. Unfortunately, I am finding the community appears to be less active than it once was. This is not surprising given the age of the series. This leads me to my question: Where are people finding opponents for PBEM games? Many of the sites that I used to go to are no longer there. Any help is appreciated. Bob

The strategy guide's page on the Direct2Drive site has four pages available for review. The quality of the images is representative of the quality of the entire document. Bob