Sequoia

It was a faction of the Sicilian Mafia whose leader was a Combat Mission fan who put up the cash for Fortress Italy as he wanted to play a game set in his homeland. He was a really good player, proving "Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line" !
 
 

I did my best in CM:SF2:
 

IMO this vehicle or some other US vehicle with a working dozer blade would be very useful in the game.  Some Combat Mission titles have the flail tank which clears a path through mines.  Possibly a dozer blade could be made (coded) to work in a similar fashion?? 
Breaching obstacle belts was often practiced at the NTC and was expected to be used in a real war.  Many accounts of NTC rotations from the 80s and 90s involve obstacle belts and how units breached or failed to breach them during a mission.  Some interesting AARs.   For now, in CMCW, scenario designers can leave a path through the minefield part of an obstacle belt.  The player can use engineers to blast through the barbwire part of an obstacle belt (track vehicles can also crush wire with some damage to the tracks).  Next the engineers attempt to locate the path(s) through the minefield that the scenario designer left for them to find.  Then if successful the player can pass the mech and armor platoons through and continue to the objective.  In this manner CMCW  can kind of simulate breaching an obstacle belt.  
All that to say a mine plow vehicle in CMCW would be very useful (or whatever mine removal system would be the easiest to implement).   I'm guessing a plow similar to the flail tank might fit the bill.  
Obstacle belts that change location, depending on which AI plan loads, can be located by scouts, breached by engineers and exploited by armor & Mech are cool...... 
 

How can we be sure that's not the evil Steve from the Mirror Mirror universe?

I am only a mediocre programmer and have only learned a little bit about game development here and there, but I have a growing suspicion that nothing is easy in game development. Changing or adding features means changing existing code, and who knows what that might break or how long it will take to get it working right.

Been lurking on this one for a bit and first off it is a bit of a testament to the community that we can have this discussion without it becoming all "nasty" or silly.  So a couple thoughts:
- As to the OP's first set of questions which really surround the ROEs (Rules of Engagement) within the context of the backstory of CMSF, this is not a simple nor straight forward issue.  In RL, every nation is responsible for their military ROEs and they vary vastly on any given operation along with the notorious "national caveats".  That said the coalition does have a  high and low water mark for these.  So for instance if a nation, bent on revenge shows up with overly aggressive ROEs they will find themselves withdrawn from the theatre, or totally on their own, very fast.  
- So what happens if a lot of nations experience catastrophic attacks?  Well here it is very tricky and very political.  The first question has to be "were these attacks and threat of follow-on attacks existential?"  If the answer is "no" then no matter how terrible the community of nations are not likely to risk breaking the Rules Based International Order.  So, if for instance Country X declares "total war" on a sponsoring nation of a WMD terror attack then they will likely 1) find themselves going it alone and 2) suffering some significant repurcutions within the international community which can impact things like trade and neither of these conditions are really good signs of success.  If the attacks are existential, and in the case of the CMSF backstory they really are not, then, yes it is possible that the gloves will come off and a modern form of "total war" would be collectively waged...we are literally talking WWIII here.  Then really bad things start to happen, which we know exactly what they look like because...WW2.  Internment camps during the Second World War are a stain on both the US and Canadian history but they are were an existential war takes us.  
- So what about in-game?  Well the WW2 titles are already there, but remember even then we did try to adhere to a Law of Armed Conflict on the western front (eastern not so much).  Cold War is definitely on the doorstep and maybe Black Sea at least regionally but at the end of the day..."so what?"  Steve is absolutely correct, modelling civilians is not only expensive, it is not a feature anyone in their right minds would see as "fun".  The professional military market wants them, they also are going to want stuff like logistics, military engineering and C4ISR because it is the job.  War gamers want to play realistic, to a point, and most of it centers on military combined arms units, equipment and tactics.  Adding civilians would be a game playing nightmare coming at it from just about any angle.  Players would either find it very frustrating or just ignore them and neither one are a feature that really plays out well.
My two cents anyway.  

At least she didn't call it a Gavin.

Sgt Joch posted a link to an Afghanistan discussion at the A few Good Men website:
https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/thefgmforum/threads/us-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-your-thoughts.33410/#post-319695
TGFM is a good club if you are looking for MP games as well...
 
Probably best we don't start another here. It's not as if anything will be resolved.
IIRC however, there are some Afghanistan mods and scenarios for CMSF.

Sgt Joch posted a link to an Afghanistan discussion at the A few Good Men website:
https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/thefgmforum/threads/us-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-your-thoughts.33410/#post-319695
TGFM is a good club if you are looking for MP games as well...
 
Probably best we don't start another here. It's not as if anything will be resolved.
IIRC however, there are some Afghanistan mods and scenarios for CMSF.

Sgt Joch posted a link to an Afghanistan discussion at the A few Good Men website:
https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/thefgmforum/threads/us-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-your-thoughts.33410/#post-319695
TGFM is a good club if you are looking for MP games as well...
 
Probably best we don't start another here. It's not as if anything will be resolved.
IIRC however, there are some Afghanistan mods and scenarios for CMSF.

First I want to say I fully support Battlefront's and the Cold War designers decision not to simulate chemical weapons use in Cold War.
I'm not qualified enough to critique the linked essay, but the author argues, despite all the major players training to defend against chemical attack, their use would probably not have occurred in our Cold War gone hot Germany setting.
 
Collections: Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore? – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry (acoup.blog)

But he doesn't ignore them.

But he doesn't ignore them.

First I want to say I fully support Battlefront's and the Cold War designers decision not to simulate chemical weapons use in Cold War.
I'm not qualified enough to critique the linked essay, but the author argues, despite all the major players training to defend against chemical attack, their use would probably not have occurred in our Cold War gone hot Germany setting.
 
Collections: Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore? – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry (acoup.blog)

First I want to say I fully support Battlefront's and the Cold War designers decision not to simulate chemical weapons use in Cold War.
I'm not qualified enough to critique the linked essay, but the author argues, despite all the major players training to defend against chemical attack, their use would probably not have occurred in our Cold War gone hot Germany setting.
 
Collections: Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore? – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry (acoup.blog)

Nationale Volksarmee (or something like that). The East German Army.

I'd make people pay a ransom to get their reputation points back.

Doctor, I won't argue with your rationale, but the backstory just isn't very important in the 3 hypothetical families. I for one would rather see other armies and 1979 and 1982 TO&Es rather than extend the timeframe on the existing units by one year. Just my opinion.

Hi,
A few folks were asking for this. I have the 2004  annual "Military Balance" periodical by the Institute of Strategic Study. It lists the Syrian Armed Forces as consisting of the following in 2004:
 
Army c. 280,000
 
3 Corps HQ
7 Armored divisions (3 armored, 1 mech brigade, 1 artillery regiment each).
3 Mech divisions (2 armored, 2 mech brigades, 1 artillery regiment each).
1 Republican Guard division, ( 3 armored, 1 mech brigade, 1 artillery regiment).
1 Special Forces division (3 SF regiments.)
4 independent infantry brigades.
1 Border Guard brigade.
2 independent artillery brigades.
2 independent anti-tank brigades.
10 independent Special Forces regiments.
3 surface to surface to service missile brigades each of 3 battalions.
1 coastal surface to surface missile brigade.
 
Reserves
1 Armored division HQ
4 Armored brigades.
2 Armored regiments.
31 infantry regiments.
3 artillery regiments.
 
Navy c. 4000
 
2 Petya III class fast frigates.
18 patrol and coastal craft.
 
Air Force c. 40,000
 
Fighter/Ground Attack
5 Sqds with 50 Su-22s
2 Sqds with 60 MiG 23s
2 Sqds with 20 Su-24s
 
Fighter
8 Sqds with 160 MiG 21
5 Sqds with 60 MiG 23
2 Sqds with 30 MiG 25
1 Sqd with 42 MiG 29
8 Su 27 reported
 
Recce Aircraft
5 MiG 25
40 MiG 21
 
Attack Helicopter
36 Mi 25 and SA 342 L
 
Air Defense Command c. 60,000
2 AD divisions, 25 AD brigades with c. 150 SAM batteries, 23mm, 130 mm.
c. 472 SA-2/-3 , 100 SA-6, and 4000 AD artillery pieces.
2 SAM regiments with c. 48 SA-5.
Actually the map that came with the physical copies of Shock Force  reflects the OOB above pretty well.
 
 
I have more detail but it's mostly derived from research forum member SDP compiled for the meta campaign he was going to run back in 2010. He came up with a quite detailed Order of Battle which I discovered I still have on my harddrive. Some of it is fictional but he identifies what's fictional and what's not in his document. If you are interested in the document, I don't think he would mind me sharing it. Just send me a pm. SDP if you are still around and would rather I not share your OOB please let me know.
 
 
 

There are lots of explanations that contribute: poor play on our and the computer's part, a misunderstanding of how different casualty rates were at he tip of the spear vs the over all numbers, various (mostly incorrect) theories about fortifications and modeling etc.
The biggest difference is that we don't act like real commanders. We press far too much and don't withdraw when we take casualties. In a real action units rarely stay and fight on and on. They pull back to fright another day or bring up extra fire power or wait for support etc.
We are playing a game so we don't do that. If you play a game with someone like @Bil Hardenberger or another professional they will tell you when they would be done in real life and trust me it is way way before most people stop. Including myself.

I was stationed at 29 Palms for almost 8 years, we started wearing desert camo starting around 1987, but it was only issued for field use, and only if it was a CAX or other high profile field exercise. I did go to the NTC twice, but the Army OPSFOR soldiers wore only Soviet uniforms. I know that the U.S. Army had a higher military budget the the Marines Corps did, but even when they came to 29 Palms for training, I didn't see them wearing chocolate chip camo until around 1986.

We'll probably have a mod for that sooner than later I bet,

Multithreading will allow the use of more than one CPU core at any given time. Right now if you have an 8-core CPU only one core is used. That slows down gameplay considerably for people who have many slow cores.
Vulkan and Metal and new programming interfaces for 3D. OpenGL and DirectX as used by the CMx2 and CMx1 are old hats.
Shaders allow you to make the surfaces on 3D models much prettier, or realistic.

All Vehicles are now done in all variants. 🙂
If someone has installed an older version of the mod, please replace it with this one. All textures have been revised to give them a more uniform image. Note: For example, if someone wants to use Variant 2 as a "winter / autumn texture", he has to replace all textures with  "...[cold].bmp", with the texture "...[cold].bmp" from the variant 2. Not sure if that works, but i think you can add the [cold] to vehicle-textures that don't have a cold texture file, in order to obtain some uniformity. (not tested)
I will always link the latest version of the mod files in my signature, because unfortunately you cannot edit the posts or links here. 😕
The textures for the M2 Bradley and M1 Abrams are retextured from @dpabrams
 
Link to the Modfiles to put in the Z-Folder: NATO Vehicles all V1-4
V1:

V2:

V3:

V4:

 
@dpabrams

In Soviet Russia, binoculars watch you!