dan/california

Nothing I have tried so far has advanced the driver version. And I have tried a BUNCH of things. If it is a software problem would a clean windows 7 install fix the problem. or is whatever HP fiddled with at a deeper level than that? I will check on the Driver heaven idea.

my HP laptop, Pavilion DV7, apparently can only get video driver updates from HP. I cannot use the standard ATI drivers that come out here every month or so. I just spent the better part of two hours online with HP support trying to find a workaround for this problem and couldn't. Or at least they wouldn't tell me what it was. So can battlefront or anybody else out there give me a hand. Is there some way to work around whatever hardware or software lockout HP is put in this thing. Or am I never going to be able to run the game without these crashes. The last driver HP bothered to rework for their set up is from the summer of 2009. They were notably silent about when they might do another update on this. I am fully aware Battlefront didn't cause this problem, but I just bought NATO has would really like to play. Any help or ideas from Battlefront or anyone out else out there would be greatly appreciated. Oh, and check the fine print when you're buying a laptop. Read the fine print really, really carefully.

On the issue of spotting dismounts, how much does the sensors field of view matter? To what extent do some of these systems have you looking through a soda straw?

I am not a vet, but there is a lot of tape out there, especially from helicopters, where things like heavy machine gun barrels glow like beacons after they have fired a few bursts. This is not exactly the same issue, but I am very curious to know if the game models it.

Israeli mission planning software system. Looks like it would merge wonderfully with CMX2. And they might have the connections to get over the military sales hump. Besides, I want an Israeli module.

A better way to way to manage AT assets remains rather high on my wish list. A button for AT only, a button to fire once and resume the move order, and an armor only cover arc would go a LONG way. Trying to guess it out with pauses is just a mortal pita. Fire one missile or main gun round and move your $%^&&&%$$&! is pretty fundamental. Loving 1.3 and NATO on the overall though....

Downloading as we speak!

We want it NOW! [jpg]http://www.lakersbrethren.net/files/FlingPooLMAO.jpg[/jpg]

And the Iraqis had no thermals to speak of, so the Bradleys could engage with Tow at very long range with near impunity. Very favorable terrain for long range ATGM as well. When one side can't even see what is killing them the fight doesn't last long.

Playing against a a human opponent you have to figure that something like half of the Javelins are going to take out a a vehicle. If that means you don't have any vehicles left and there are a couple of Abrams standing on the hill blasting everything that moves with impunity, then you have a problem. Good luck and try to at least make it expensive for the other guy. It takes far more effort to balance a game than just saying One mechinized company from this nation and one mechinized company from that one. Among other things there is no standardization whatsoever in how many personnel are in a company. Then you start counting high grade ATGMs and so on. And a force balance that makes for a good game with the weaker side on defense may be completely unfair for a meeting engagement. It ALL matters.

Does the map allow for some version of a reverse slope defense? You cannot have your armor in static positions with long range frontal visibility. you have to be able to pop them up and down. push your infantry out in front of the tanks and try to engage the Jav teams. None of this is easy. Thats why the gazillion spent on the Javelin was worth it. Its one of those rare occasions where the military industrial complex justifies itself. If you are attacking, god help you! You either have to have more Armour than he has missiles or enough artillery to maintain suppression. Attacking unsuppressed Javelin teams in nearly suicidal for a mech heavy force.

The only major Luftwaffe effort I am aware of in the Mediterranean, involved Malta, which was a major threat to German supply lines to North Africa. No relevance to CM scale to speak of though, it was an air/sea battle. And way before Normandy anyway. You can debate the effectiveness of the WW2 strategic bombing campaign on many levels, but by the summer of 44 what Luftwaffe was left was solely focused on reducing the rate that German cites were being rubbled.

Wouldn't getting co-play done for the commercial market raise the odds of getting paid to fill in the rest ? It really would make the benefits of the system much more obvious to people with a limited view of what it offers. CMX2's ability to point out idiocies that are obvious in hindsight is sort of amazing, and you don't have to write letters to the parents of pixeltruppen. They are the perfect military lab rats, not so much as the PETA idiots to deal with.

That would solve so MANY problems!

So true, on so many levels. Be especially wary of an ass with which you have only viewed electronically.

The man's ability to be usefully annoying is off the scale, throw him a download. P.S. I should note that the master of the fine print/invisible detail DIDN'T read read the fine print?

I will wager that t his problem mostly goes away with Normandy. The multi billion dollar tech investment Steve is referring to won't be there. And units on both sides will be subject to a lot less instantaneous vaporization. This will allow C2 to have a great deal more weight in a visible manner. The remaining issues, and this is entirely my own opinion, are related to the fact that many of the features in the C2 system are designed to handle multi-player CO-op, and won't really shine until that gets done. A more realistic system of order delays in a single player game requires better AI than we are going to get anytime soon. Sorting out what a unit can do instantly, and what is subject to a delay is an infinitely large can of worms.

OK, Steve just said three months, probably. But if you apply the strict rule of doubling all of Steve's time estimates that has proven an excellent, if somewhat optimistic, guide so far.............

People make way to much of the armor specifics. AT 14, RPG 29, Javelin, TOW, and main gun rounds from western tanks are nearly guaranteed kills against anything except one or two western tanks. And they don't do those world of good either although SOMETIMES they come thru okay on the frontal arc. From the sides and rear every anti tank weapon in the game bigger than a 66mm LAW is a least a decent shot to take out anything, so don't get your fancy toys shot the sides and rear, period. All IFVs and armored personnel carriers are vulnerable to virtually any thing that goes bang. Using them like tanks leads to the wrong kind of fireworks Soviet derived tanks can kill any thing except the front of western tanks, but don't be cocky about it with your Abrams. Last but not least, if the crew is unsuppressed, late model ATGMs don't miss much. Its a lousy bet. Very last thing, AAVs are not a combat vehicle, they are a rolling ammo dump "armored" with detonation caps, treat it appropriately.

On a related note, the XM-25 grenade launcher was supposed to go the sandbox for a combat evaluation this summer but I haven't heard a peep about how its going. XM-25 link http://defensetech.org/?s=xm-25&x=0&y=0 Personnel shot finder http://defensetech.org/category/soldier-systems/

An exoskeleton with a fully automatic, fully stabilized, fully computerized 7.62 and a grenade launcher would surely put the fear of god in them don't you think. The real trick would be if the gun can lean back so it can be fired from a prone position. Oh and a shot finder system networked thru the whole squad, with an option for automatically laying the gun on detected shooters. Make me stop, I am enjoying this too much.

When the quoted cost of keeping a soldier in the Stan is a cool one million a year, is there ANY piece of kit for squaddie that is too expensive? I mean another 50 or 100 grand in equipment is irrelevant compared to that number. Even more so if there is any possibility of the gear in question lasting even two deployments

I am all for wining the war we are currently fighting, and increasing the effective range of infantry squads in Afghanistan is important. However the odds of the next cluster#$&$$ being somewhere that has both extremely long lines of sight and the same level of impassibility to mechanized forces is rather low. It worth keeping the discussion open about what is the ideal mix in more "average" situations. The article on suppression above is the best explanation I have ever read on the subject, and the only one with good quantitative data. Indeed, based on the troop and fire densities in Afghanistan at the common ranges in which engagements occur, it is almost unique in the LOW percentage of time troops on both sides spend in the somewhat suppressed state common in most other conflicts. The application of air and artillery is obviously the exception to this rule when the communications loop can be closed in time to bring fires to bear.

The first article quoted above is simply outstanding.

Outstanding article! Are their any similar articles relating this subject to the amount of firepower on call at the company level? More mortars and/or ATGM type systems radically effect the overall lethality at range. What I am trying to say is can the infantry section get by with less firepower if the company weapon platoon has more?