Tory the Magnus

Will the next version of TacOp's contain such future Australian vehicles as the Tiger ARH, M1 Abrams tank (I realise that the M1 is already in the game but Australia has only just announced that we will be getting them to replace the Leopard), ASLAV3 or the Raptor joint strike fighter (although I'm not sure if this is still going ahead)? I have also discovered a unit that is not in the TacOps database for Australian units and which neither the Canadian or American forces possess. The ASLAV2, at the moment the US Army only has the first version of the LAV. Also as TacOp's is supposed to also represent the near future, the ASLAV3 should also be included as the first batch of them have just recently been revieved by some of Australia's Mechanised units.

When I said masses, I meant massive amounts, not massed together. But I see your point. I too try and conserve as many men as possible, that is only sound strategy, but Switch_Back seems to want to take or destroy the enemy positions rather than bypass them and the standard Soviet tactic seems to work well in that case.

Yes you opponent can, just as you can see his adjusting rounds. That leads me into the point I was going to make with TRP's, a lesson I discovered the hard way. Don't set up your TRP's so that they give away the positions of your defences, or where you plan to strike. Have artillery going off everywhere until the last possible moment and then strike so that you maintain tactical surprise. [ March 26, 2004, 01:10 AM: Message edited by: Tory the Magnus ]

You said in another post that you where a Combat Mission player, which is a WWII simulator right? If this is the case then you are probably familiar with Russian military doctrine in attacking an enemy position? You know, masses of infantry moving forward with tanks in support while the enemy position is being constantly bombarded by artillery to keep them suppressed. This same tactic works well in TacOps, suppression and speed are the key.

Also don't forget to use TRP's so that you can switch your artillery fire between different targets that are reasonably close together without a major loss of accuracy. I have found, even in my short experience, that in TacOp's you have plenty of time to complete the scenario objectives. This means you have plenty of time to carry out recon to stop ambushes and to identify enemy strong points, and you can do quite a bit of manouvering as well. Oh, one other thing, don't forget that when attacking an entrenched enemy line, it is always good to launch a few feint attacks at different parts of the line prior to your main thrust to try and draw enemy reinforcements away from your actual point of attack. If you make you point of attack as narrow as possible you can probably keep the closest enemy defensive positions under constant artillery fire so that they are constantly suppressed.

"What is missing?" Well their are no Australian AT weapons/units and there are no Australian SAM's included in the database. Now I'm no expert on Australia's military hardware so if the AT weapons and/or SAM's we use are the same as that used by either US forces or Canadian forces then I am wrong and the database is indeed complete as far as my limited knowledge can tell. However, if this is so I think it might be worth telling the player which units/weapons are common to which forces. Another thing, the LAV - 25 or Coyote as it is called in the database is a unit used by both the Australian and Canadian armies, yet it is not present in the ANZAC database, how then does one get this unit when converting a US force into an Australian one? "At the moment I am waiting for input from the Australian Army" I think I know the reason for that. At the moment the new ADF buget is being worked out with the usualy political workings that goes on so I wouldn't think that you would have the input you need until the defence budget, and thus the new units and equipment being purchased, is worked out. "TacOps map tool is on the TacOps ANZAC CD" Is the TacOps ANZAC CD available now commercially or only through the Australian military? I thought that TacOp's v4 was the lastes commercially available version of the game.

As an Australian and a hopeful entrant into the Australian Army as an officer at the start of next year, I was just wondering what kinds of things you have put into TacOps v.5 that will be Australian specific? I hope it will include maps of the asia pacific region and special Australian units because at the moment the players ability to customize a standard US force into an Australian one is extremely limited as most of our defence force's units and equipment don't seem to be available.

NL stands for the Netherlands right? I didn't know they where building an international court there. I gather it is for criminals that break EU laws, committed war crimes, or committed other crimes that would not allow them to be tried fairly in their own countries?

Yeah, it sounds like you haven't really got a lot of choice in how to deal with this situation. Supressing artillery fire seems to be the most logical and effective option of limiting the damage. But you are never going to be able to stop this tactic, and neither should you be able to. It seems to me to be a good and effective tactic and is most certainly not "unfair" if such a term can be used in a war simulator.

Well if it isn't real time then I too would love to have a game with you guys. Just email me at thesecrethideout@hotmail.com when you have finished and I will give someone a game. I actually have limited experience with playing against human players as my brother and I sometimes play two player.

Ahh, play by e-mail. Ok. I would like to have a game with you sometime Agent Smith but I'm not sure if I will have the time. I'm currently doing Yr 12 so playing on a weekday is out of the question, added to which is the fact that my internet is with Telstra Bigpond and they have a 4 hour connection limit.

pbem?

Very interesting Agent Smith. I had not heard that we where going to purchase new tanks, and so soon. It looks like John Howard is serious in expanding our defence force. Plus it is good that our defence chiefs realise that war is changing from conventional to unconventional. Could you perhaps give the date and page number of that article as I would like to have a look at it myself?

I agree with Agent Smith. As I too live in Australia but would still like to participate in tournaments.

I have never heard of this recon-by-explosion thing but I gather it is frowned upon. Also I did not know that their where online TacOp's tournaments. I have read the CPX posts but didn't really know what they where about, although I do know that CPX stands for Command Post Exercise. So could someone tell me where I could get more information about these tournaments of give me some more information on them? I gather that they take quite a bit of time considering that the average game of TacOp's takes about 3 hours or so.

Its not that I don't want the ambulances, medics, fuel trucks, etc. It's just that since they don't actually perform any active role in the game I don't see the point. What is the point of having ambulances and medics when their aren't any casulties to take care of? What is the point of having the fuel trucks if your vehicles don't run out of fuel? And so on and so forth. You can't keep track of the number of kilometres that your vehicles have done, and casulties don't appear on the map so you can't really even simulate it yourself. So I don't see how it can add an element that isn't represented in the game. If the game simulated your vehicles running out of fuel, or had casulties appear on the battlefield then I would most certainly turn that option on, but unfortunately it doesn't in the civillian version at any rate. I always try and exit damaged/immobilised vehicles and infantry squads that are almost dead if I am able to. So now that I know that you can turn battle field casulties on I will most certainly play with that option on in the future. I wonder, Major H, are there any plans to introduce such effects as fuel and morale in later versions of the game? Morale is a big thing for me because it has always struck me as strange in my games of TacOps how squads that are decimated, facing enemies they cannot destroy or are cut off will never run or surrender but die fighting to the last man. I would have thought that things such as this would be almost compulsory in any military simulator and that armed forces would have requested that these option be put in place. [ January 19, 2004, 05:16 AM: Message edited by: Tory the Magnus ]

Thanks for that Major, TacOps is a great game. So I gather that HQ units such as Ops and CSS where also placed in the game at the request of military organisations or do they actually serve some purpose?

Hey all, this is my first post and my first visit so I hope I am not covering old ground here. I have had TacOps for about 3 months now and have played it quite a bit but their are still a couple of things that I don't get and that I can't find answers too in the extensive manuals. I am stumped as to the purpose of non-combat vehicles and units such as ambulances, medics, fuel and ammunitions trucks, etc. Now I know they exist in a real battlefield but if they don't serve an active purpose I would have thought that they would have been assumed rather than gamed. So am I missing something and do ambulances and fuel trucks provide some vital role or are they just their for looks? Also, on a somewhat related topic, how do you do logistics packages? Any and all help is appreciated, thankyou.