Secondbrooks

Interesting... Wondering from where that difference comes from, we and Soviets had common believe that 60% casualities were required to unit to become destoyed. Ofcourse there is also the factor that 40% casualties to attacking force are considered to be limit after which attacker quits it. For defender 60% is required. And i believe this is quite common rule of thumb in world.

By Soviet doctorine in late ww2 (-44 -45) field fortificated positions needed to have 0.5 shells hitting each squaremeter to expect defenders to be outright stunned and suppressed and by that not being able to respond to attack of Soviet infantry and tanks. I'm infact not sure in which scale this is, they probably don't mean that this density is needed to take out company. More like batallion, brigade, heck maybe even division. What is 0.5 shells per squaremeter? well it's insane.They never reached that density as far as i can tell. In Finland -44 (i think it was second worst bombardment which they unleased in ww2) they were able to fire 0.25 shells per square meter and after-action reports from Finnish units getting heaviest beating told that casualities themselves were not too high, problem was more mental sort and that weapons were filled with sand, communication wires cut etc. Defenders were basically threw out from defenceline. I've seen some finnish statistics (could be war statistics too, they were pretty old) I don't remember how much dug-in infantry platoon had to have shells shot to it's location to have 60% causalities but it was insane number. Thousands maybe, sadly i don't recall. Hitting infantry which has not dug-in and it's mere hundreds shells reguired for 60% casualities. 30% was much smaller number (10-20% maybe) Again i feel urge to point out that i can't say for sure about those numbers in finnish stastics, it's year(s) i've last saw that last. But what it said was basically this: "If you wanna extend your life-time under arty fire, you should (already) be dug-in".

First time i played CMSF's Thunder campaign i was totally sucked into game, and i played skillfully. Now as i know what the those battles are about (terrain, enemy forces, their general setups) and i have LOTS of experience under my belt, i'm performing averagely To reach same level as i reached before i have to re-load most of the battles at least once. This sucks a bit. And even more when in 1.11 enemy is much more willing to give up sooner... Then again Ceasefire didn't work those times like it works now and i actually had to spent my time with mission untill it's time ended, probably "forcing" me to play safer, slower and with more planning and thought.

It would not be suicide if you leave one or even more rooms in between you and window which 25mm or .50 cal is smacking. Of course if you don't manage to inform Bradley/styker/MG-team that your going into room which they are firing at, is suicide CMSF tries to model this (as far as i can tell), but ofcourse in-game it works like snapping fingers. In reality crafting such supportfire plan might take a while. Might be that it still is bit risky plan, but in some situations might just the thing infantry in building needs.

Didn't they loose their only radio right in start so they were hanging there without contact to anyone outside for very long time. Thou i'm not very sure are we discussing about same happening.

If one havent' seen how fast things starts to crumble when other side takes iniative i could guess it doesn't seem too risky. History of war is full of these kind examples. How do they know they don't kill/hit anyone? There are no red spots and small first aid crosses, no accurate after action reports. People overall thinks their fire has bigger effect than it does. Veteran from ww2 telling that whole attack was wiped out, might actually mean rather small casualities (if refering to term wiped out). He just doesn't see anyone moving (as survivor might wait for night to escape from killzone). Escpacially in situation where he thinks on-one can survive and he can't check battlefield after battle, like many times in ambush. Talibans seems to be good at evading from areas. Chechens escaped from situations from where they absolutely shouldn't, like i believe in siege of Grozny. World is full of these kind examples.

Close range ambushes have potential to go bad for ambusher. Situations are fast, aggressive and superior (in numbers) ambushed can quickly change course of battle for their favor, at least in body count. If terrain is broken and distance is short some ambushed (now aggressive attackers) can soon appear to flanks of ambushers. 100 meters is something which could be considered to be "safe" distance to open fire. Enough distance is enough time to react if ambushed tries to act aggressively. And i dont' know how this affects to human mind as well, opponent is enough far to become enough "safe" so ambushed will act less desperately (rat in corner comparsion comes to mind) and will pin down more easily. Hard to say anything particualr as i'm not too familiar with this case. I think i saw clip of it where this Kemp lied behind enough high feature in terrain to cover him from fire... If it doesn't come from too high position.

Good to hear. Thanks

There should/might/could be something done to wooded spots. Right now it's constant trees on/off/on/off/on/off/..[rinse and repeat]..on/off/on/off/on/off/-toggling, which ain't too much funny. I deeply fell in love how CMx1 did this, coloring those areas with different color. I'm still amused how well it worked (and could toggle trees to spare or off), and how it's left out from CMx2. Surely this can't be technically impossible. Just one generic color, borderline or something to make clear that "Aha! There we have some trees" (bushes might have different color code... or same). If player is more interested of types of trees and their density he could zoom in and check.

Which is part of unit cohesion, might point also to leadership. So when manual refers to cohesion it's speaking of there two things (morale, leadership) combined. But i'm not reading manual at the moment and just quessing. So you can shoot me down. I don't mind

How easily squads members starts to disappear (=rout) when under fire?

Or driver just presses gas-pedal and vehicle becomes much harder target to hit. That is how i get it.

I agree. Taking out bunker or lone BMP is like throwing dice with bad odds. Under my latest experience i'd more willingly would send SMAW-squad to hunt it down rather than wait even 10 minutes while chopper arrives, fires few volleys and departs without much effect on vehicle (crew still alive and manning vehicle). Cannon is much worse that i expected. Vahicle can (or atleast seems to) take even tens of hits while still remaining functional. I dont' know about damages in optics, targetting or tracks and such, those might be more or less functional after all those hits.

First game was real time. I played it again in turn-based today. Cladly (for AI opponent) my computer crashed and i have last save game from time where i had over hour left. most fierzest part of battle still ahead. :mad: I play this game other way around. In real-time i'm usually like rabbit which has drank too many energy drinks. In Turn-based i take it more relaxed as bad decissions can can back-fire pretty badly. Minute is enough long time to get men killed because bad decissions. Example from this battle was that i lost one third of my Marine platoon when they stubmled into minefield... At start of the turn, when they were to fierzely assault suppressed and decimated enemy squad. I kinda told TacAI that it was a moron and deserved it. Again i like it, very nice and challening mission. Makes my brain say to me "Think stupid, think!"

Damn what a battle! I was sure Lima was lost and enemy managed to get that break-thru it seemed to want so had. At one point of time my men had only handgrenades they could throw at charging enemies , but in the end they did juuuust fine. Kilo Company went kinda bad. I kinda paniced at certain looking destiny of Lima Company and started to press enemy defences heavily. I'd say it was useless effort in the end, i never got good swing but gained lots of WIA and KIA while trying to get it. Total victory when enemy (finally) gave up... I was just preparing my heavily supported assault to school.

Ah interesting. I know that flash hinder is one which has effect, but powder and barrel lenght is also. Interesting. And shadows are also contributing factor at day light.

Our SL could use tracers when leading fire of his squad (just like Meach said). I'd believe SL was to carry always one mag with tracers if he would need to lead fire of his squad by those. We got trackers usually for nights, distibuted bit to everyone (LMG-gunner had most). We were instructed to do the same as Meach said. Leaved few regular rounds at end of magazine (it cleaned barrel bit from junk tracers left, that was hard stuff to get off). As far as i can tell trackers were pretty much useless at day, just made barrel damn dirty. At night they were okay, atleast looked good. I dunno what kind our trackers were compared to what 5.56mm NATO has but i got bit unrealiable feeling about them (7.62x39 tracer-rounds might have been made in Soviet Union), seemed like not nearly every tracer's luminating stuff burned. There are some amounts of veteran stories abotu tracers i've read about from ww2. Some didnt' use them much atall, because they just gave away positions. Some could switch tracker-belt to regular-belt related to sun's position (shooting at sun with trackers isn't advisable and cause only harm, if i recall correctly the explanation). Some used/saved them for special events, like celebrating something. Pandur made interesting point on muzzle-flashes. Could be, but i can't tell.

Apocal: I can't give you one and true answer of tactic's of mine. It's too much situation based. Only thing i can say about my tactics is that i usually miss more to have 7 more men in assault, than i thank that i have 7 men in firesupport. I think my vehicles fare pretty well. Ofcourse there is only me to judge that, and i think i'm not most objective kind of judge :cool:

Ah. So that is what word musketry is about! I've heard that before but thought that it directly related to marksmanship. Hmm you say "to complain about Secondbrooks being to flipping fast"... Do you mean that i'm going cuckoo/nuts in fast manner :cool:... I'm drunk at the moment, so i don't blame you.

Germans seems to be doing it in modern times during traning. Walk at target while firing MG3 from hip. Is right name for it "walk by fire"? I believe idea is to keep enemy down with enough accurate fire while getting closer to opponent at the same time. I'd be interested to hear how this worked in ww2, as to my understandment at least Germans and Brits had it as their official tactic or SOP, whatever is correct term. Enfield's bolt has been said to work well for that as one could rifle with middle finger and at same time keep thumb and forefinger on bolt.

I was playing Steel Panthers 2 at that point of time and eagerly waitting to get my hands on Steel Panthers 3 :eek: Surely i'm filthy heretic with bad taste. Now where is mine cat-o-nine-tails?

Yes i agree. Few times experimenting with minefields they have caused just terrible loses to enemy when it comes blindly charging across minefield. It would be nice that AI will evade suspected minefields, create forexample 50-100 meters big no-go zone around tank/infantry which got hit by mine. By that i think we are close to how minefields should be used and what effect they have in opponent. They should halt enemy and force it to seek alternative routes, not kill it in huge numbers (which sure looks good).

I do that, but still i'd be more that happy to replace them with one assault squad. Stryker platoon already seems to have enough firepower in vehicles to give support for most situations. Basically i'd say my MG-teams are running at 30-40% of their efficency (this meaning that they spent too few rounds per mission) all the time. If i need to have suppressive effect on enemy i will use Stryker, not MG-teams. Tasks in which i usually use MG-teams are tasks where regular infantry squad would be more suitable. With that being said i'd like to add that these days i play mostly heavily forested maps... So that might color my point of view.

I personally don't miss those MG-teams a bit. In that sense HBCT's platoon doesn't feel any less toothless than SBCT would. Well i have to admit i just don't get the idea of MG-teams, i'd more likely would take one more infantry squad with "maxed" assault efficency in their place... I prefer going up close and personal in most situations.

To me Human Waves seems to be quite logical answer when there is not enough tanks. And Iraq had 4-5 times more of them, as with artillery. In air Iraq had even more crushing overpower. Still Iran was able to throw Iraqi troops back to starting positions of war. Only thing Iran had more were men, fanatic men too. Iran managed to make good use of human wave style when at start of the war they could muster enough fire support. Later there was problems in having enough fire support (i believe it was ammo which was main problem). Then Iraqi fortifications were enough to resist those attempts.