DaveDash

Well the thing is its very circumstancial. The key to moving tactically is not just the orders you give your infantry, it's having your overwatch elements putting down surpressive fire so your guys can get from cover to cover without being pinned down. In general though this is what I do with infantry (I play in RT and pause quite a bit): Open Terrain: Assault: I use this for advancing across ground where I know I will get fired at. A classic example is advancing your men across the open ground in the Marines campaign mission 'Milk Run'. Yes it is slow, but speed in this game will get your troops killed. Hunt: I use this for moving through low visibility terrain such as forests, or I use this for scouting elements with a small cover arc. Quick: I use this for moving through areas that have been cleared of the enemy, or across covered ground Move: I almost never use this Fast: I use this for moving across dangerous firing lines. Such as crossing a street. I will almost always use this in conjunction with smoke Slow: I use this often when I have moved my squad up to the crest of a hill/berm/rooftop and I want to peak over it. I will usually split off my AT team (who have the Javelin CLU) and slow them up the last bit to have a look across. Urban: Now firstly onto splitting squads: I never used to do this because of two reasons, I felt that it limited my spotting and I felt I didn't have enough firepower (ie 4 guys running into a building are more likely to be overcome than 9). However I have learnt the hard way that splitting squads is almost essential in MOUT, because otherwise it's so easy to move your whole squad into an entire building and have them wiped out in one go. I started splitting squads after played MikeyD's USMC scenario 'Streets of Hamas'. I feel this scenario more than any really punishes you for the use of 'lazy' tactics in MOUT. Now, what I tend to do is split squads, and have one fireteam run UP TO a building and area target it. Why don't I run IN the building you say? A) You don't know whats on the other side and you shouldn't generally assault a building where your troops can't safely stay outside, because if you do you're crossing an enemy firing lane. When they get close they'll chuck grenades in and surpress whatever is in there. The other fireteam is using 'target light' on the building in order to maintain surpressive fire. This is usually sufficient to surpress any defenders inside. If the building is adjacent to another building (ie behind it) and the scenario is made by one of the many evil bastards on this forum, then you can bet your bottom dollar there are bad guys in the back building and not the front (or a tank or AFV parked right behind it), so I usually HUNT my fireteam in through the front door. This way they have a chance of spotting the enemy in any adjacent building (or an IFV behind it) in time for me to either give them a HIDE command or pull them out. You have less guys and they are moving slowly, so the chances of YOU being spotted are less. This has saved me a lot of casualties in MOUT scenarios, but be prepared to take casualties. It's just the nature of the beast. Always make sure you have overwatch elements supporting your advance so even if you do take casualties you'll make sure they do too. Anyway, everybody has their different ways of playing and I'm sure there are much better ones than I have suggested, but over time of getting my ass kicked in this game I have found the above generally works well for me. In short when moving around the key is to be cautious and expose as little as your guys as possible. Trying to be Delta Force High Speed will get your pixeltroops wasted.

How do you make your maps PT? Google maps etc? Or do you just make them up on the fly?

Yep, I remember reading about those Recon HUMVEE's with the LRAS3 devices on top of them picking out infantry in buildings with ease, before the battle of Fallujah. The soldiers absolutely loved them. I know they've been improved recently with patches but they generally can't spot jack sh*t. Scenario designers should just give you some early intel (which they often do) instead of another vehicle to manage. Here is an article on the LRAS3. Interesting to note about it being used for the majority of fire missions (and enabling one shot one kill accuracy) and that it can be dismounted:

Yeah, after playing some more Blue vs Blue since my last post the tanks are so similiar the results are largely mixed. My gut feeling is though that the M1A2 SEP is the king of the battlefield.

I think that as the game progresses, scenario designers get more experienced, so the overall game experienced improves. I have to say the maps in the British module were top notch, and the fact you had to do some pretty hectic defence missions was a nice change. Two maps that really stood out for me was the second blue defender mission, and the mission where you chose to go south or to Damascus. The level of detail/realism in these maps just added a whole new level to the game.

It all depends on terrain. In general the assault command is probably the best command moving to contact IMO, not just in towns. Your guys will get taken out very quickly while moving (quick or fast) which makes assault quite good. Also, if there is a tank around that corner you're not going to lose your whole squad. You can also split your teams, which I never used to do that often but I do it quite a bit now. Hunt is good but it tires your guys out very quickly. Its useful in restricted terrain like forests where you want a 'line' of guys who can open fire, or its useful for scouting. Moving your platoons you can make use of some real life formations, I probably use Wedge the most (two squads to the front, HQ and support elements in the middle, and one squad for manouver to the rear). In real life most squads/sections move in fireteams (split teams or assault) so that is why there are no formations, and you should generally move your guys in fireteams as well.

I think I have almost "mastered" a lot of this game except the recon element with vehicles. My LAVS etc might as well be called Light Suicide Vehicles. Even in hull down positions they just get smoked by ATGMs, and a 1:1 trade LAV for ATGM is not worth it IMO. I know in one of Paper Tiger's mission (Caine and Abel) his briefing is slightly misleading on purpose, and you're meant to lose at least one recon element before you understand what's up. Parking your vehicles in trees certainly helps but some may feel this is gamey. Basically what Elmar said is right. Recon is best done with infantry (more probing that actual recce) and if you want to draw out ATGM fire use tanks (frontal arc only). Basically I will poke my tanks noses out and draw ATGM fire then 'AREA FIRE' like crazy on the area the ATGM's came from, keeping them surpressed until mortars finish the job. If you play RT, you can mess up the aim of most older ATGMs if you're quick enough (listen for the distinctive noise that sounds like something being fired out of a tube, its an ATGM) since they need to be guided to target. Also one thing I have learnt recently is to pay attention to the red question marks that pop up. Hose them down with HE, mortars, or machine gun area fire even if you don't know what they are. Chances are they're an ATGM, RPG or machine gun if they pop up at range. Javelin CLUs and Snipers are both pretty good foot recon elements. Move your foot recon elements forward slowly and in cover, and give them short covered arcs so they don't expose themselves by firing. Once you identify enemy elements pull them back and bring down indirect fire to destroy your targets.

Sorry guys, my internet was buggered during the week so I couldn't email a save game. I went back and did some tests and I noticed two distinct different symptoms for causing exhaustion: The first is most certainly a bug, as I experienced what MeatEtr experienced (but rarely). The second symtom however is a combination of either having your guys in mud (walking, running, whatever) will cause them to get exhausted very fast, and stay that way for about 10 minutes. You cannot move them otherwise they will never recover. Also, on hot missions the 'Hunt' command for more than 100m will tire your guys out extremely fast. Finally also on hot and above missions carrying a heavy load (Javelins) combined with 'hunt' or 'assault' will also make your guys exhausted very fast.

How to avoid IEDS: Take a MGS, Tank, or Engineer Platoon. Create a big hole in the walls surrounding enemy structures. Go that way. Avoid roads when possible Go the non-obvious route, even if it appears more difficult. Im a big fan of going up around mountians and hills, along the sides of swamps etc, instead of along roads. After losing two Strykers full of men way back in the day to an IED in Mission 2 of Task Force Thunder (airfield mission) I will never go the 'obvious' route again. IEDs havn't bothered me since, and I get GREAT enjoyment after finishing the map seeing loads of them sitting around uselessly doing nothing. Because of this, I don't feel they should be easier to spot (simply because they can be avoided relatively easily, you can't IED everywhere).

No worries mate. I just imagined my guys had the sh*ts from the high tempo ops around marshlands so were in no condition to fight. Added to the difficulty of an already evil evil mission.

I kinda know what you mean. The bigger missions can be a real undertaking in concentration and time (A 2 hour mission is really 3-4 hours with all the pausing/WEGO etc). Sometimes it can be rather difficult working up the motivation to start. One thing I did like about the Brits campaign is there was a lot of smaller 30-40 minute missions. However the main downside to this is some of the maps were fantastic so I couldn't help but wish there was more time to try proper tactical approaches to them (and explore them), instead of rushing around from A to B in order to finish in time.

With the 'Pause' button it isn't too difficult. However you can miss a lot but it's not that unrealistic I suppose. Move one company into position - that's your support company. Assault with the other(s). One moves through the other in overwatch fashion. AAV's are worthless in combat if there is even the hint of ATGM's or RPGs around, and just sit around mostly (load up on ammo first). Things like CAAT are also fairly useless given the scope of the maps and current HUMVEE vulnerability, so they're just parked in overwatch positions then ignored. It's only difficult if there are timelimits imposed, you're spread out all over the place, and/or you have to move your forces concurrently. I do admit that smaller battles are indeed a lot more 'relaxing' in the management department but I have to say the Marines campaign was probably the best out of all the official campaigns, YMMV of course. They also felt more 'realistic' to me when fighting with the USMC since they are very much a HAMMER force. Wheras playing with the Brits using their smaller forces also felt realistic. In short, a couple of companies in RT isn't that bad as long as: A) They're not all on the map in the beginning (that can be a nightmare to sort out) You're mostly focused on one area and not spread out doing multiple things at once (The SNAFU mission in the marines campaign was horrible in RT to manage, but I imagine this was the point) C) Things don't appear on the map in view of the enemy and varying times (see above mission) D) There is plenty of time To be honest its the maps that make the missions for me rather than the units involved, and I know a lot of your maps are very good PT.

I do have a save game, so I'll post it when I get home (3:15pm here). However, I suspect that maybe the guys fitness level could be set to low? I've noticed that their leadership value is reasonably low in this scenario also, so it might not be far off that these are poor quality troops. I'll have to check the scenario. That combined with the hot conditions could explain it. However the circumstances 'seemed' suspicious. I mean they got exhausted at about the 1 hour mark and some remained that way until 30 minutes left. Could just be a combination of game mechanics (poor fitness, high load, hot weather) rather than a bug. I've been playing CMSF hardout lately (gone through Marines again, finished off British campaign) and even in the mission in the Brit campaign where you need to assault those god-damned mountians I didn't see this level of exhaustion. On a side note on differences betwen patches - when I played 'Milk Run' in 1.10 I won with ~15 casualties (8 KIA 7 WIA or there abouts). 1.21 I suffered 30 KIA 30 WIA approximately lol, 80% from the bloody AI artillery.

I actually edit a lot of the scenarios that come with the game and replace them with blue troops. Replace the Syrian forces in 'Following the Euphrates' with USMC and see how far you get.

My guys went from normal to exhausted just standing around doing nothing, and then remained that way until the end of the scenario. Some guys came out of it - I think it may have been after I split off AT teams but I will have to go back and double check. It certainly wasn't a gradual change though, it was triggered by something (like splitting squads) although maybe I just didn't wait long enough before moving them around. I moved one platoon up the left through trenches and they became exhausted when quick moving around near the marshland. The other group moved up the far right of the map and became exhausted just standing around in the trees on grass. One group became exhausted hunting up the treeline towards the farm on the right, whereas 3 other squads went the same route and didn't. This group remained exhausted until the end of the scenario despite sitting around for a long time.

So I fired up George MC's 'Hammertime' (V5) scenario to see how it played in V1.21, and I felt like getting my ass kicked. What I noticed is that most of my squads (but not all) suddenly became 'Exhausted' in the middle of the scenario. I loaded them up with 1000 5.56 and 2xJavelin T-Heat so they did have a heavier than normal load, but this loadout is normal for me in most scenarios. They remained Exhausted permanently and it became rather frustrating having them walk around the map like it was a leasurely afternoon stroll in the park. There is a lot of marshland in this scenario, did they contract malaria or something? Has anyone else noticed this kind of behavior? Is there something in the engine that I don't know about to cause this, or is it a potential bug? My understanding is that they should have at least gotten over 'Exhaustion' after a while so there is definitely something dodgy with this. I am at work but I can post a save game later.

I used to make missions in Operation Flashpoint, and yes, it did end up like coding scripts. In fact, I seem to recall you actually had to write scripts in notepad for all the triggers to work. However, you could do some pretty neat stuff (although the AI always found ways of making itself look stupid). I remember one cool mission I made where you had three planes paradrop a company of rangers behind enemy lines, and then two platoons would move into position and support your assault, then follow you through your strongpoint and defeat the enemy forces in detail. Imagine that in CMSF. OFP however was more complicated than CMSF in terms of programming AI due to its mega maps and proper Z axis (Helecopters, and so forth). This feature would dramatically improve the longevity of the game IMO. I still crank out OFP occasionally.

I smell a bot

Interesting points Steve, also I never really considered the ratio of HE to HEAT warheads to be honest. Makes a lot of sense. Ryujin: I found that most tanks were in line with exceptation except the bog standard M1A2 which got reamed. Maybe damage isn't overmodeled perhaps but certain units are under modeled? (Such as the standard M1A2 and standard M2A3) Sgt Josh: Interesting! Dima: Yep. I can upload later. I also did some tests with the RPG-29. All I can say is... ouch.

According to many accounts of the Thunder Run a lot of OPFOR were within 20m of the tanks and the Commanders were shooting at them with pistols at some parts. One tank was disabled by a shot to the side by a recoilless rifle and one Bradley also disabled by an RPG, but other than that they were mostly 'fine', apart from their rucksacks and gear which was burning from multiple RPG hits. Those roads are extremely wide so I doubt most engagements were from the front, especially given the fact most commanders were out of the hatches engaging OPFOR to the sides with small arms. "By now the resistance was organizing. Fighters who appeared to be dead or wounded were suddenly leaping up and firing at the backs of American vehicles. Schwartz ordered his gunners to "double tap," to shoot anybody they saw moving near a weapon. "If it was a confirmed kill, they'd let it go," Schwartz said later. "If it wasn't, they'd tap it again. We were checking our work." Grab some M1A2's, M2A3's, make a long map of wide road with plenty of foxholes, buildings, and hiding spots, and put in a few hundred RPG teams (conscript, poor equipment) and see how long your vehicles last. Surpress the crap out of everything if you like, but I guarantee you will take lots of casualties. M1A2 SEP and Bradley ERA feels right to me, but the normal M1A2 takes a mauling with most systems "Red" apart from the main gun and the standard M2A3 was a moving coffin. I might do some more tests using covered arcs (covering sectors) and guys out of hatches to simulate a Thunder Run and see how I go. All in all I think the game has come a long way from where it was in the beginning and has a pretty good feel now. You can read about The Thunder Run here - it's pretty interesting: http://www.tankmastergunner.com/thunder%20run.htm

Well it also means that less work has to be done on AI which is diminishing returns, and is more forgiving in the 1:1 engine. BFC obviously also thought it was the way forward given todays processing power vs the old Combat Mission todays. TBH I was quite resistant to it in the beginning but I play exclusively RT now (apart from PBEM). I don't mind WEGO but I think in the modern setting 30 seconds may have been better though. 60 seconds is a long time for something to go wrong in CMSF.

I can't recall but I think wind was minimal. I'll go back and check. Accuracy seems OK to me, slightly high based on my arguments above, but damage seems completely overmodeled to me, especially against heavy armour which by all accounts pretty much shrugs off to older RPG-7's hits to the sides. There was a thread about the RPG-7 on militaryphotos.net a while back where a whole bunch of people dug up all sorts of statistics about them and how they can penetrate this and that, but then a whole bunch of tankers and infantry from Iraq said they saw countless RPGs hit tanks from the front and sides and do next to no damage. I recall one guy saying a few RPGs hit his Chally 2 on the side and there wasn't even enough damage to take a photo. Does this mean tanks should be invulnerable? Absolutely not, but a M1A2 getting badly mauled by a bunch of conscript combatants is a stretch. If you read the article I posted in the Javelin / AT4 thread it is about a battle in Afghanistan in 2009 where the Soldiers inside said RPGs were bouncing off the armoured HUMVEE and it was only a matter of time before one penetrated the armour. This is a HUMVEE we are talking about, not a Bradley or M1 tank. If you read about the Thunder Run, one tanker says he was hit by over 20 RPGs and sustained minor damage. In my tests it is suicide to drive any vehicle without ERA, slats, or extremely heavy armour anywhere near untrained troops with poor ammo and that is seems overmodelled to me based on all these accounts. Of course a lot of these will be 'dud' RPG's but these don't even seem to be modelled in the game in the tests that I did. Yeah I agree the game is primary designed for a high intensity setting and not low so this isn't really major, and I prefer the challenge as it is.

I gotta say in earlier versions of the game, LOF was an issue and there were moments I was tearing my hair out. However, the game has come a long way and it's something I barely notice - apart from the odd annoyance with vehicles. The only issue really is not LOF but LOS with some blatantly obvious things like red tanks not seeing each other 200m up the road (in no cover). Mostly if there is some strangeness it takes a minor adjustment to fix, but yes I can see that being annoying in WEGO however RT it has minimal impact. With the new 'grey line' system and most LOF/LOS issues being resolved I am mostly happy with how the game works. Id rather they worked on an improved action spot system which would fix some small remaining LOF issues AND improve survivability of troops at the same time. Two birds with one stone.

It's probably more a case of RT being 'new' probably had to be designed from the ground up, so a lot of the code was based around that rather than WEGO being an afterthought. For all we know it may have been impossible to design RT around WEGO (and that seems logical to me). The whole new C2 system seems to be more geared for WEGO players for example (as in RT you can pause and area fire immediately at someone elses contact, for example). I find in RT with the given commands you can pretty much achieve what you want to achieve. WEGO makes this more difficult but in my opinion, the charm in WEGO is pretending youre more a real commander and letting your troops decide. Yes they do some dumb things and are not efficient as you'd like, but they are probably thinking the same thing about you!

Yeah I'd find stuff like this fun, because I like to play things that have happened in real life. Also because CMSF is fantastic at modeling what we see in many areas, to have some areas out of whack stands out. I'd love to do BHD type scenarios with HUMVEES etc for example but the way things work now it would be a struggle to get right.