Sgt.Squarehead

I'm sure the Argentinians thought that the Falklands airfield was invulvenurable due to its location and local air defences right up until it got clobbered.
http://www.b29-superfortress.com/b50-superfortress.htm
The First Round-the-World Non-Stop Flight by Lucky Lady II
One of aviation's most historical flights involved the B-50 and took place in early 1949, the first non-stop around the world flight.
...
The flight successfully demonstrated to the Soviet Union, and other enemies, that the United States could launch air attacks to any war-zone in the world, and return the planes safely to U.S. bases.

You've not seen 'Pacific' then I take it? 
My sympathy for the German people in the years 1914-1945 is pretty bloody limited TBH. 
Nope that's an MG-34. 
Bovvy is my home from home.....God I love that place, the smell! 

Always thought CM:RT would be my favourite WWII title, but no, for some reason it's CM:FI.....There's something about that title that just hits the 'sweet spot' for me, but I couldn't for the life of me tell you what it is.
I so want Partisans for these games.....All those lovely bridges, just standing there, not being blown to pieces! 

People consistently forget these points; and it bears re-iterating. Especially the war-weariness and manpower crises of everyone who wasn't the US. 
The RKKA probably had the most robust (re: the only) coherent operational doctrine, and had showed it in practice several times, but they made relative botches of the East Prussia and Berlin campaigns and gutted otherwise hardy veteran formations. The Ground forces remain the single greatest unknown, but I'd narrowly give it to the Soviets.
The problem are force multipliers; the Red Banner navy and the VVS were lightweights compared to their Western counterparts, both in capability, training and doctrine. You read about non-stop carousels of IL-2s attacking and not really blunting or interdicting movement satisfactorily as late as Mius. The fact that the Germans had a light cruiser firing in close defense of its forces in 1945; despite the Red Banner army being only kilometers away, in strength and ready to pounce, is I think illustrative enough of their deficiencies. 
It's all academic of course, but the reality is the US and UK were forced by geography and circumstance to fight a strategic war that saw all branches truly fighting in concert, the USSR not so much - and that matters when a belligerent is half a world away.

From the Horses Mouth.  All QB Maps have multiple AI plans for both sides... typically 3 Plans minimum.   Master Maps are not made by me.  They are beautiful and historically accurate.  They Do Not have AI plans

I wouldn't even promise that much, I'm just experimenting with things.....What I was attempting to do is point out the massive flexibility of the current CM:SF array, without any of the improvements that version 2 will bring.
If, as I fervently hope, Steve & Co. are generous in their allocations of SIngle Vehicles & Specialist Teams, this will be an immensely flexible game.  At present I'm having to muck about with my TOE in Mosul because current Syrian Special Forces don't have the SPG-9 in their default TOE, whereas the Iraqi CTS that I'm using them to model do have that weapon.....With the new engine and a bit of luck this may not be a problem in the future.  Same may apply to things like ZPU technicals, if we can get 'Syrian Army' crews in 'em we're half way to modelling half of the world's small wars!

C'mon then.....Share those maps! 
I love mucking about with AI scripts on urban terrain.....Bring it on! 

Just had a quick look and it's much as you describe.....In my test the tanks moved forward to a sighting position (advance with face) correctly although one did a glamorous little pirouette before settling down, they then rolled forward to open fire (advance with fire), but as in your experience at this point they turned their hulls around to face their next order spots (advance with retreat). 
Clearly some more experimentation is required, perhaps adding a face order on the same tile before the retreat order? 

Some of the things on your list can be achieved by workarounds, for instance pauses can be created by simply scripting more orders, tedious but it does the job.....However I can't argue with the general gist of your thread. 
I'd like to see 'Reinforcement by Trigger' (activate the trigger, get the reinforcement, or the other guy does) and a 'Hold For' objective (hold the objective for a certain duration or until a certain time on the game clock).

Thing is though guys, it WILL feel like a completely new game once people start messing with it.....You better hunt down & kill those ISIS/Taliban etc. fast or they WILL be gone, through a new Exit Zone.  Messing around in that zone may now Trigger an IED Triggerman to move into line of sight of an unrevealed IED.  There are so many new things that can be done with this engine and the old game's massive TOE list.  With a few tweaks to the old TOE (that's all that are needed) and the potential could be increased yet again.
So while I'd love to see the game expanded, I'm more than excited at what's already on offer (and what just might realistically be on the cards). 

OK
This one is the best one so far.
I've been fascinated by the idea of modern constructions as 'urban fortresses' (of the sort that so often seem to feature in news stories of war zones) - this one is based around a football stadium, but includes some rather robust apartment blocks and shopping centres (featuring multiple modular buildings to give them interesting interiors and make them difficult to destroy), as well as suburban shops and houses and some wide open spaces (such as car parks).
I took quite a long time  clearing out interior walls in the larger structures, making doors match up and so on. There are few structures where you have to blow your way through interior walls, and some of them (the stadium in particular) feature large amounts of open space, long corridors etc. which I think is realistic.
I also spent several hours adding street lights and one or two other flavour objects (streetlights in particular make maps feel really immersive IMO).
There are aspects I'm not quite sure about (I haven't play tested all the interiors, so I don't know how much fun they'll be).
The zip file contains the master map and some of the slices - not all of which are equally useful (just playing around at the moment).
Maps download:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7fk4g2xz9v43mi6/Stadium_Map.zip?dl=0
Apologies for rough edges - I hope you enjoy it 
Here are some images:












 
 

Thing is though guys, it WILL feel like a completely new game once people start messing with it.....You better hunt down & kill those ISIS/Taliban etc. fast or they WILL be gone, through a new Exit Zone.  Messing around in that zone may now Trigger an IED Triggerman to move into line of sight of an unrevealed IED.  There are so many new things that can be done with this engine and the old game's massive TOE list.  With a few tweaks to the old TOE (that's all that are needed) and the potential could be increased yet again.
So while I'd love to see the game expanded, I'm more than excited at what's already on offer (and what just might realistically be on the cards). 

Thanks both for digging out these references. One of the matters discussed in that thread is how match-up between the spotter and the firing unit affects response times. I did a bunch of tests with on-map organic 60 mm mortars and off-map 155 mm howitzers, with the following spotters:
Battalion HQ Mortar Section HQ (the lowliest HQ but in direct command of the 60mm mortars) FO, assigned to the Battalion FO, assigned to the 60mm mortar section (tested for mortars only). All were regular, no leadership or motivation modifiers, and the missions were point-target medium duration/medium intensity approximately to the same spot on the map, with perfect LOS.
I measured:
"Receiving" phase duration - until the fire mission request is confirmed by the firing unit "Preparing" phase duration - until the first spotting round falls on the map (not applicable for on-map mortars, where I've included this phase in "Spotting" "Spotting" phase duration - until "fire for effect" order is given "Delivery" phase duration - until the first for effect round hits the map (for on-map mortars, until the round is fired) Below are the averages of (only) 3 tests for each case. It appears that Mortar Section HQ can reach its own mortars by about 1 minute faster than Battalion HQ, but in the three tests I did, it needed more spotting rounds (4-5) than Battalion HQ (3 in all three cases), so the delivery time was 6-7 minutes. Declared delivery times were 6 minutes for Battalion HQ and 5 minutes for Mortar Section HQ. Matchup with respect to force structure matters for on-map mortars, but not much. The FOs had a short receiving phase and needed between 2-4 spotting rounds. I can't say if it matters where in the Battalion the FO is attached. Force structure matters but not much.

For the 155 mm Howitzers, there doesn't seem to be a big difference between Battalion HQ or low-level Mortar Section HQ in response times. Both have declared 13 minutes and achieved between 11:20 and 14:32. Battalion HQ needed 2, 7 and 4 spotting rounds, Mortar Section HQ needed 5, 5 and 3. The FO cut both communication time and spotting time by about a half, his performance matching the declared 8 minute delivery time. 2, 3 and 3 spotting rounds were needed.

You might be misunderstanding the trigger mechanism just a little.
The two times set the period for which the trigger is live (on the game clock). So a trigger will not work if activated before the first time, and the trigger will automatically activate by the end time if not previously triggered. 
However once live the trigger orders will activate as soon as the trigger is activated (the following turn).
Keep in mind that triggers are not conditional and so will always trigger based on either being tripped while active, or at the end of the active period. (Although this can be set for after the game end, but doing so means the unit can be given no subsequent orders)
HTH, but to be honest the best way to get your head around the concepts is to set up simple movements in the editor and replay them in scenario author mode until you can see the connection between the orders you have issued and AI movement you want to see.
P

Appreciate the clarification Luke, trust your feelings 😉
Sarge, the death star effect is my name for the unfortunate combo of game mechanics that allows direct fire weapons even of light caliber to rapidly spot, zero and shoot 'fortified' defenders all dead in their holes and even bunkers at range, again and again, consistently, even when they are hidden or cowering.
RL firepower (at least in pre-PGM days) simply doesn't have that kind of prompt total lethality against dug-in defenders or else WWI would have taken a very different course. The 4.0 "run away! run away!" bailout bug compounds the problem.
 

The main realism hassle for me in Makin was the incredible ease with which entrenchments and bunkers are spotted and brought under fire, especially by BU tanks, even when well camouflaged in deep jungle and not themselves firing. It's something that really has to get fixed before you can do any kind of positional warfare, regardless of theatre. That same Deathstar effect also brought my Dien Bien Phu experiment to a dead stop.

Ok, you have a right to your view but I don't get the disdain.
As a CM playtester, do you have some under the hood info we don't about how nationalities are treated in game which would make 'real' Japanese infantry behave totally differently from modded 1944 British infantry? I'm pretty sure Steve has said repeatedly that they don't "übermensch" anyone, or the reverse. At squad level, the weapon sets are broadly comparable provided you avoid the Sten-intensive sections and assume the Japanese type 99 service rifle. Nambu and Bren have little to differentiate them. Light mortars, same. You run into more trouble with ordnance weapons, sure, but there are workarounds.
And it's not like there are piles of scenarios out there featuring British troops with Fanatic morale. But whatever... 

Besides and as I said before, there's hardly any real news from the side of BF in this thread, so yes, by all means share ideas for future projects. Why not.

I'm sorry...but i really don't see the problem here...
After all...the tread title is "2018 look ahead"...It seems to be a fairly OK place to share ideas for  future Projects...even if they are not done by BFC...
Many members are looking forward to some Irak/ Afghanistan...and anti Taliban/ISIS kind of scenarios using CMSFII...Good to know some are in the making 
It's not like he is going to charge money for his work...Simply mentioning that this is something we can expexct to see the comming year...
As for this i think it simply was an answer to a forum member that found his initial annoncement intresting...

+1

+1

I've always been of the opinion that if you are moving/deploying AT guns in sight of the enemy, you are using them wrong.....This isn't the Battle of Waterloo! 
just saying. 

Yup I agree it definitely does.  Since making video compared to screenshots I've really noticed how wonky infantry movement still is, even after BF's patch.
In other news, I got a new microphone.  Be sure to tell me if you miss the fishbowl effect! 
Why 7 minutes?  I thought I found a nice breaking point compared to the 5/10 minute points I had before.

I'd agree.....Not long ago read a fairly detailed book on the Scheldt campaign (the title & author & current location of which elude me at present), I was staggered at what I found therein and I consider myself to be at least reasonably knowledgeable about WWII in NWE.  The sheer difficulty of operating in that terrain (& weather) is probably what made the biggest impact on me, staggering bravery under the most difficult circumstances imaginable.

+1