DaveDash

I played the U.S. vs Brits one. I found it semi-challenging only because of the 15% maximum casualty rate. SPOILERS: It would be a lot more difficult if the U.S. Abrams don't mindlessly try and "flank" and expose themselves to flanking shots from your over-watching challengers. They should get into a good position and over-watch themselves. That would make assaulting the town extremely difficult as the Brits.

Have you tried using cover arcs for your snipers to see if they spot more effectively? I imagine that is how they would be employed in real life. A sniper team generally isn't meant to cover a wide area, since they will be peeking through their scopes with a narrow field of vision quite often. Comments?

Isn't this because of the habbit of putting ammo etc on the outside of the tank?

My Macbook Pro (08) runs CMSF fine in bootcamp at some ungodly resolution (1900xwhatever), it has the 512MB Nvidia 8600GTM or whatever? Im not near my mac to check at the moment. Problem is though the drivers arn't the most up to date. Would probably run better in native OSX.

Really? Have you actually played the Marines campaign on Iron? I have, and I lost quite a few battles the first time I played them. You must be very good, perhaps on another level to the rest of us. I'm not sure what game would suit your needs in terms of vs the AI. However I do see the point some people are making here. You never really get to go all out as blue. You're always handicapped in some way, be it time limit, lack of indirect fire/air support, etc. I usually lose because of timelimit more than anything. What I find amusing however is saying one is not going to buy the British module based on inbalance or overpoweredness, since the Brits (and no offence the the extremely professionalism of their soldiers) seem quite under resourced compared to their U.S. counterparts both in game and in the real world. Brit vs Syrian SF could be quite a challenge, don't you think?

I thought the Marines campaign was actually pretty challenging. I found most battles in CMx1 easier, actually.

Well I think if people play the game for "balance" or factors that are generally excluded from simulation type games, then they've bought the wrong game. They don't have to love it, but berating it because they are unaware of the type of game its supposed to be seems rather odd to me. It's like me buying a chair and then moaning about it being too small to properly eat dinner on.

Great. Can I have your stuff? I play the game because it is the most realistic representation in a game that I have found to date (including ArmA) of what is going on in the world RIGHT now. Something I can immerse myself in. WW2 is fantastic etc, but is covered by so many different game companies and so many different genres of game. BFC filled a gap with CMSF and I salute them for doing so. I think the rest of your post is utterly rubbish, especially the part of Soviet Doctrine being entirely useless. I also seriously doubt BFC are trying to make some hollywood movie here, and I think they approach the game with as much objectivity as possible. Feel free to provide some examples of how BFC are playing Hollywood movie, and feel free to offer some suggestions (other than Normandy, which is what they are working on) to help BFC get back on track.

That's excellent & interesting news Steve. Thanks

The "problem" seems to be that information sharing only happens via C2. I've had numerous times where a machine gun unit or javelin unit cannot see a target that a bunch of infantry, who are right next to them (9 or 12 eyes) can see (yes they both have LOS). In reality, they'd be able to say "hey it's over there". Implementing a small radius around each unit that could bypass C2 would also mean that one could split squads more often and thus gain a much greater control over formations. Someone with more knowledge is welcome to prove me wrong, but this is how it seems to be for me.

What I would like to see is some sort of information sharing radius. So that the 2 man Javelin team sitting RIGHT NEXT to a squad of 12 guys can see the same tank they can. This would also make splitting squads a lot more viable, which gives you MUCH better formation control.

I used "slow" commands and moved by guys into ditches etc, where they seemed to have decent cover. It would sometimes take 2 shots, but the T-90's never seemed to notice. You've gotta creep your guys into position slowly, you could also try top down shots from buildings. The T-90's situated on the left hand side of the map were much harder to take out from memory, due to lack of cover to get around behind them. I had to completely clear the right hand side of the map before I could get those suckers. It takes time and patience. I was lucky and the Syrians surrendered (I had about 5 minutes to go) after I took out all their T-90s. The other option that I havn't tried is blowing up everything in LOS to the T-90's with your M1s. Could waste a bit of ammo tho, so I'm not sure how possible this is.

Ok split your squads and scout ahead, that way the T-90s have less chance of noticing you (or wiping out an entire squad if they do). Once you have identified one, clear the surrounding infantry and then move your AT guys around behind it, I took out most of the T-90s this way. I also used my M1's to breach the walls and was able to get some shots off at some of the T-90s without having to use my infantry, but there WILL be some hidden in keyholed positions. Don't move your M1's into the town unless you want to lose them.

This mission can go wrong very fast. Basically I just kept my Strykers back and used them to target light pretty much every building. I then moved my infantry platoons forward in bounds. One platoon up the middle-right, one platoon up the far right hand side, etc. I sent my scouts up the middle where the treeline was next to the road. I remember using a lot of "area" fire on this map to keep the Syrian's heads down while closing for the kill. I do remember having a lot of frustration trying to get LOS to guys on rooftops, but this was way back in the day (Pre 1.08). I found mission 02 to be worse than this one, but yeah, this one was a tough one (and a very good mission too, I thought). I havn't played it in 1.11 so it might be more difficult now.

I for one love CM:SF. I am glad BFC did a modern realistic war simulation game. WW2 has been done over and over and over and over. Each to their own.

I don't think redoing the animations for the entire game would make it any more realistic. In fact, animations have nothing to do with realism. FPS games have good animations, and by far and large are NOT realistic. I'm glad to have new animations, but I'd rather BFC focus on other areas of the game, which is what seems like they are doing. I guess you might under-estimate how much work is required for these "small improvements".

BMP's don't suck across the board. I've had Syrian BMP's tear up my Marine AAV's from long ranges in that extremely annoying SNAFU campaign mission, wiping out entire squads of Marines. I've also had BMP's pound on AAVs and tanks from keyholed locations in other campaign missions, and while I could see where the fire was originating from due to muzzle flashes, my blue units, with all their whiz bang stuff, couldn't locate the BMPs. It works both ways.

Actually no it wouldnt. Your TC's would all be dead in the first 15 minutes from being unbottoned, and then your tanks wouldn't be able to spot 90% of the threats to engage them.

I never thought of this. Very good.

Yep. Heck, I'm even scared to send MULTIPLE Abrams (covering each other) anywhere first. The Thunder Run etc would never happen in CM:SF, it would be more like the Slight Drizzle Run.

I actually was mucking about and had a game against myself (hotseat) Army (attack) vs Marines. Army basically had a truckload of Brads and Marines have LAV AT's and normal LAVs. Boy did the LAV AT's suck, keyholed and everything. The regular LAVs knocked out more Brads.

SPOILERS . . . . . . . . . . . I was actually pretty unlucky to suffer those casualties. Almost all of them were when I assaulted the top trench on the western peak. I had two squads hunting towards the trench with cover arcs and they both got nailed by a fistfull of grenades before even spotting the Syrians. Really, I should have been more careful and area fired the trench with two squads and assaulted with one. For the reverse slop positions - after gaining a foothold at the top of both hills and clearing the opposing side with mortars, I moved the reserve force (3rd platoon) around the sides (up the middle basically) and used them to assault side-on. I did this without taking basically any casualties. Assaulting reverse slope defenders with opposing slope defenders in support? No way. The Syrians were however VERY tenacious. This is on Iron.

Same thing. I suffered a minor defeat after the Syrians surrendered on mission three, but I had taken 2 KIA 8 WIA which was over the 10% threshold (ouch), so they effectively won that mission. However, after that, I won a tactical victory in the campaign.

Thing is they're useful defending, which accounts for about 10-15% of missions.

Well for the record its the HUMVEE variants that I find useless. The Stryker variant in that particular mission in the Army campaign, where you have a bunch of infantry and a couple of Stykers vs a Syrian armoured formation, are VERY useful, but only hidden around the sides of buildings. The problem with the HUMVEE's is they are too easily spottable, and can't spot jack sh*t, and thus die very quickly (or the gunner dies, or whatever, rendering them useless). I think there are issues with HUMVEES in general in terms of protection and spotting ability (such as those RECON HUMVEES which can't spot jack sh*t either, even with the dude unbuttoned).