37mm

A story... Back in the year 2008, @MarkEzra made a quirky scenario featuring an intrepid reporter looking to take a snapshot. This year, that scenario has been converted & used as a tense assassination mission set in the villages of Bong-Hai... Mods are almost pointless without content & scenario creators. Even if you have only a half-finished scenario or a half-baked idea, send us a PM... get in the game.

Check the video description... it's the same link as before.

Thought I'd bump the thread back onto the first page with a small video & an update to the CMSF2 modpack I use...

It should be significantly easier... there was no third boat in the original for instance. I never once had the boats come under immediate fire & they always made it to the bridge area... so unless I've accidentally changed something last minute I'm left very confused by your experience. I'll playtest it a few more times.

Some buildings have pagoda like roofs, some have golden domes & some have sloped roofs... there's no real in-game difference. The issue with low quantities of 7.62x54Rmm ammo has been a longstanding CMSF2 issue... it was partially fixed (for Reserve, Mech & Guard troops) in the last patch. The remaining low MG ammo loadouts for Airborne/SF troops should hopefully be fixed in the next patch... till then it's just something that all CMSF2 players have to manage. I'll mention the text obscuration to @xacto, I'm sure he can come up with a fix. Inevitably, Red vs Red scenarios will use the same flag. Off the top of my head, I can think of several scenarios where support options trickle in over time.

Heaven & Earth, the "Vietnam-esque" Super-mod, is proud to release the 'People's Beta'... Enjoy & don't hesitate to give the team some feedback. Download link (includes the manual)... https://www.mediafire.com/file/xal53h0dxyuznse/H%26E_0.97.7z/file The manual only (for those who just wish to peruse) link... https://www.mediafire.com/file/yq8h8zuswecmj3z/H%26E_0.97_Manual.pdf/file Content includes... Four "Bong-Hai Civil War" Era Campaigns- -The amazing 15 mission "Year of the Rat" by @puje, -A 15 mission People's Militia concept campaign by myself (The Special War). -A conversion of a 7 mission CMA campaign originally by @Fredrock1957 (now dubbed Major Nguyens Command). -A, tweaked, 7 mission Urban "conversion" campaign (The Second Battle of Ikke) by myself. Sixteen "Bong-Hai Civil War" Era scenarios -By far, the most impressive mission is the epic & original 'A miserable damn performance' scenario by @Combatintman. -Most of the remaining scenarios are "conversions" (some of the scenarios from the 'Open Beta' have been tweaked). One Modern era Campaign- -(Battle of Quy Ly- 4 missions) A rudimentary conversion of an old (very old) campaign by @RommL. Primarily an experiment in seeing what it takes to update a CMSF campaign, I made a few quick alterations and beefed up the opposition somewhat. Nine Modern Era scenarios (one original scenario by @Sgt.Squarehead and eight simple conversions by myself). Three Quick battle map conversions by @Combatintman. Installation & set-up The Heaven & Earth modpack is designed for CMSF2 version 2.03 or 2.04, it is advised that you use no other mods alongside Heaven & Earth as it is a complete package with a unique UI, sounds, scripts, special effects, vehicle's & weapons... many of which are swapped internally by the use of tags. Place the mod pack into your empty mod folder in C:\Users\user\Documents\Battlefront\Combat Mission Shock Force 2\User Data Place the contents of the scenario folder into your scenario folder in C:\Users\user\Documents\Battlefront\Combat Mission Shock Force 2\Game Files Place the contents of the campaign folder into your campaign folder in C:\Users\user\Documents\Battlefront\Combat Mission Shock Force 2\Game Files Place the contents of the map folder into your map folder in C:\Users\user\Documents\Battlefront\Combat Mission Shock Force 2\Game Files For Steam users... Place the mod pack into your empty Z folder (you may need to create this) in SteamLibrary\steam apps\Common\Combat Mission Shock Force 2\ Place the contents of the scenario folder into your scenario folder in SteamLibrary\steam apps\Common\Combat Mission Shock Force 2\Games Files Place the contents of the campaign folder into your campaign folder in SteamLibrary\steam apps\Common\Combat Mission Shock Force 2\Games Files Place the contents of the map folder into your map folder in SteamLibrary\steam apps\Common\Combat Mission Shock Force 2\Games Files In terms of settings, because Heaven & Earth maps are often more complex than the desert maps of CMSF2, you may find it useful to slightly reduce your '3d Model Quality' settings. 'Balanced' or 'Improved' should be sufficient for smooth gameplay. Remember you can change your '3d Model Quality' in-game using Shift+[ & Shift+]. You can also toggle shadows with Alt+W. Some of the newly created objects may look odd with shaders off. Alt+R will toggle your shaders in-game. Changes from the 'Open Beta' Scripts text file updated for latest (2.03) patch. Animations: Altered "Jump" animation. Editor: New look Environment: New ground brush red, hard ground brush red, gravel & heavy rock textures. Distant bitmaps enlarged to CMSF2 sizes, new distant dirt bitmap. Tweaked red dirt texture. Tree 2 less vibrant, many distant tree bitmaps have been tweaked/made darker. Different 'moodier' overcast clouds. New road mix. New background. Distant bush textures added. Buildings: Aquilla's Temple roofs added. Defensive works: Tweaked barbed wire colour. Wire fences also tweaked. ME soundscape: updated to 1.5 (generally snappier & crackier)... also a modern era 'end of battle' track added. UI: Placeholder potraits for modern Bong-Hai forces. UI: Blue Syrian icons added, dutch icons added. Some era/tag specific icons added. UI: Era specific compasses added. UI: Era specific ranks & branch icons added. UI: Hi-vis TRP, by JuJju, added. Also alternative surrender flag added. Blue Infantry: British & Dutch DPM uniforms tweaked. Placeholder German flecktarn uniform replaced by JMDECC's uniform. Red Infantry: Modern Mechanized/Guard uniforms now using a recoloured JMDECC uniform. Vehicles: UK Mortar Bulldog LOD issues fixed. Large Humvee pick-up fixed. [bhcw] A few helicopter sound replacements. [bhcw] New helmet textures for the 'Imperial Cavalry/Red Airborne'. [bhcw] BTR-60pb LOD issues fixed. [bhcw] New building 5. [burnt] New tree 2 & bush 2 burnt stumps, new terrain combinations inc a burnt 'rocky red' floor. [spad] A few extra propeller aircraft sounds. [rvnaf] Period appropriate aircraft silhouettes. The few missing voice files were filled. [rickety] 16m & 32m steel span bridges now also get converted into wood bridges. [delta] Background tweaked & hazy/thick hazy background fixed. [paddies] Wetter looking mud, new tall green grass & weeds. Background tweaked. [mountains] New bush doodads, new grass & weeds. New tree 3. Tree 5 tweaked. Several new ground tiles. Greener grain tile (for the poppies). New building 4 & 7. Tweaked sky. [boonies] Wire fence model swap deleted. [daybattle] & [nightbattle] Three new 'distant battle' ambient sound tracks for use during extensive fighting. Activating [nightbattle] during non-night hours will turn on the dawn/dusk battle ambience. [cache] Blue syr icons added. [ikke], [burnt] & [burnt ikke] New Background, sky & terrain combinations. [night] If activated during the day this will now also activate dawn/dusk ambient sounds. [arclight] New tag which expands the invisible M129 Stryker concept with additional invisible or inaudible extra's (floating icons, US crew & chatter).

Your "A damning & miserable performance" is billed as the main event. Minimize & Glacier II (now dubbed 'Thuan An Fort') have also been converted into single scenario's & sit alongside the Green 9 & Operation Barras conversions from the Open Beta. I've also slightly tweaked Thunder Run (CMIC House) & redesigned Into the City (Qarmat Ali 1) for the urban campaign and repurposed a portion of your Kham Duc map for one of the scenario's (Freedom IIRC) of the concept People's Militia campaign.

I doubt its thousands... either way don't feel bad. The m48a3 was made by @Aquila-SmartWargames ... it did not take him long to perform his wizardry. The M113 ACAV did take me a while (and I went through several versions) but it was a necessary learning experience (and ultimately led to the PBR model). Most of the other stuff was borrowed from CMA or the WW2 games & didn't take that long. Our M79 model will still be needed. Uniform mods were mostly done back in the early days & are still mostly unique. Content creation has been, by far, the most time consuming part* of the Heaven & Earth project &, because of engine differences, likely none of that content will be transferred to the new cold war game. As for any future H&E2 built on the CMCW game... H&E's voices, effects, UI, sounds, terrain, modular buildings, most [tags] & concepts are all transferrable so no time wasted. CMCW's better optimized (and larger) tree's, more varied weather & more appropriate vehicles & TOE will be a boon... but do come with the loss of things like insurgent forces, UAV's & ditches (which we can flood in CMSF2). As @LongLeftFlank helps points out, H&E for CMSF2 will always be able to provide content creators with a ready made starting point for scenarios set in modern times. All in all, that means H&E for CMSF2 will always be unique. *Just finished the briefings on four single scenarios this afternoon, the "People's Beta" may be days away from release.

There's a bunch of recent links featuring @Kieme(ITA)'s mods here... ... some of them are bound to have the reworked faces (including, I'm pretty certain, my own 'all-in-one' package).

@IMHO From a quick scan, that seems to be the gist of the PHP analysis of the 60's/70's Warplans... they were fantastical but, in the event of things going hot, the military would still attempt to carry them out.

I found that a number of Soviet Warplans have been leaked (they're, apparently, quite fantastical) but the most famous (& relevant to CMCW) was the "Seven days to the Rhine plan" leaked by the Poles. There doesn't appear to be actual Soviet hit lists of UK or French targets... probably because both Nations had nukes themseves. This is said to be the original WP map... https://www.deviantart.com/polandstronk/art/Seven-Days-to-the-River-Rhine-Orginal-WP-Map-679551939 Modern "recreations" also seem to indicate that France was considered as a target but the plans were dropped... Although this is said to be an earlier map for "The Seaside front" which does envision hitting France... https://www.globalsecurity.org/jhtml/jframe.html#https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/images/map-sea-front-1970.jpg||| So who knows?

You'll have to get the base game upgrade & then the Marines upgrade on top of it. https://www.battlefront.com/cmsf1-upgrades/cmsf1-marines-module-upgrade/ There are upgrade deals for those who purchased ALL the original modules.

Trees can block ATGM's and have been able to do so since CMSF1 days. Power poles are flavour objects which do not block ATGM in CM. Machine gun fire can suppress ATG & ATGM teams... if said teams are suppressed quickly enough that will effect ATGM accuracy. Though it is extremely rare for such suppression to occur in the few seconds following a missile launch & before said missiles impact (at least in CMSF & CMBS).

Yep... I've always said CMA is the most difficult CM. Many say it's CMBS, with its highly lethal combat... yet in CMA every single thing is highly lethal (even the worst insurgent) but there's no optics, thermals or even body armour to help you out. It's a WW2 CM on crack. Based on what we're seeing from CMCW so far, people are going to learn pretty quickly just how scary things like BMP-1's can actually be.

Politically the whole era is too problematic from a modern perspective... I think you'll see continued interest in Modern stuff & a return to Future/Sci-fi/fantasy stuff (think Doom & Quake). It should be noted that the WW2 themed Battlefield's & Call of Duty's weren't recieved well (presumably from either side of the political spectrum).

In your documents folder will be a Battlefront folder. In that will be the game folder & in that will be a campaign folder. Put your campaign (.cam) files into the campaign folder. Voila! For me (and most people) the address is... C:\Users\user\Documents\Battlefront\Combat Mission\Shock Force 2\Game Files\Campaigns

It's called "To Al-Hell and back" in my campaign folder. It is indeed 822kb... it requires the Marines Module to play.

Virtually every vehicle still uses @dpabramsmods. Euroscape is the true progenitor for H&E... It's also the primary reason why I've tied releases to new content. Only (IIRC) three dedicated Euroscape scenario's were made (although as @George MC pointed out the mods can work for one campaign & a few other scenarios). When the "People's Beta" is released we will have five campaigns & at least a score of scenarios split between the two eras.

Whilst converting the PA campaign I discovered that all mechanized units seem to use the mechanized uniforms (including Mechanized Reserve troops). If you want your mechanized opponents to use the PA (i.e. reserve) uniforms then it's best to purchase a Reserve infantry unit & then attach any necessary transport. PS If you want to (almost) completely disable the (already limited) Imperial NVG just set the conditions to "hazy".

Yep especcially once we have some European nations with Battle Rifles to play around with. What was Israeli equipment like during the Cold War... please someone tell me the Brits had Centurions in Central Europe still during the 70's? Iran-Iraq? Geez, thanks to tags, the only major issue will be a massive need for voice mods*... we should start a production line! It took me a long time to make the Vietnamese voice mod & that was with a lot of help from @rocketman.

Probably just the artificial night-brightness option. It should be noted the scripts file additions included the M2 Bradley (introduced in '81), M901 ITV* (introduced in '79), and, as the PASGT gear was standard issue by '85, I'm all but certain this will be a 1983 Fulda Gap game. *Also the M163 VADS

Yeah I too have had my suspicions since the last round of patches (the scripts text file was full of new additions including Pattons, M113's, T-80's & LAW's ). Excellent news and it'll be a guaranteed purchase from me.

Here's an experiment which proves that the CMx2 (v4.0) AI is indeed more advanced than what one might imagine.

Progress remains slow due to the lockdowns but we're still progressing (albeit at a crawl). Two out of the three campaigns are now done & the last campaign I estimate to be ~90% complete. Although the "modern era" will never be the focus of H&E, content creators might be interested in the new look of the modern forces of Bong-Hai... thanks to a slight rework of @JMDECC's excellent uniform mods.

I've lost count of the number of times I've accidentally picked up thousands of full calibre MG rounds when I wanted an RPG or something.