Secondbrooks

Do i suck or are the campaign missions designed to be ruthlessly hard and nearly impossible to win? Now to spoiler warning: First mission was easy. But after that i should do something what i consider to be impossible. Today i was doing third mission in 1980 campaign (night ambush) and even when majority of enemies lying dead and me loosing 6 men i still lost the mission because some did get away. Casualty treshold-limits seems to be somewhat off. True war ain't fair and CMA should not be either, but it makes my small ego to crumble. And when my ego crumbles it makes me to cry. This far i've played to 6 or 7 mission, and i must admit that half of them are somewhat impossible to finish with victory on my side. I admit that my CM-skills are bit rusty. In campaign i'm even more attached to my men than in CMSF because it seems to be quite clear that i have lots less men at my disposal and they get hurt much more easily. 6 men wounded would have made my not to care in CMSF, but in CMA it makes me to re-play the mission. Overall i like it. Good game, but my impressions of the campaign are not so good. I haven't touched single-scenarios yet. Maybe i should?

I must admit that i liked the movie. I can't describe it more specifically what made me to like it. Those few books i've read from Afgan war from Grunt's view do correlate with this movie. So i dont' think it's Vietnam-themed, altought it has similar tone, but is clearly dedicated to Soviet military at the time and Afgan war, spiced with "Hollywood", but still it was nice to watch movie which was pretty ruthless to it's owns, maybe even too dramatic: Soviets did die in numbers (in far too high numbers from what i've read). usually in world of movies it's the opposite. The enemy, Vietcong, Germans, Soviets they all die in numbers, while "good" side is barely scratched. Ofcourse i'm not expert and just few books which i barely remember doesn't make me expert on war in Afganistan.

All i can say is that i do think that genre is limiting factor in sales. However i can't rationalize it so it's basically load of BS. I do hope i'm wrong.

Not all are, but most are (say hi to my Xbox360, FPSs and Combat Missions) Seriously thou i think the reason is that BFC doesn't get much more PR and visibility in Steam than it gets currently. In Steam their games are just small marginal of all games. No name, no fame, nothing to build upon and next to them there's tons of games which are widely known and which more probably gets bought. Phillip Culliton nailed it well. BFC's products probably costs too much to be sold ridiculously cheap to attract customers. Hitting somesort of grey area. I do think that wargames are one of those niche gametypes which just can't get lots of sales because of the game-type... Could be that i'm just elitist arsehole.

True true. Direction of movement (sideways or direct) is vital factor but i guess it's not-very-vital factor for CMSF to take into account. For it's scope.

First of all: I'm slightly drunk now, more than when i posted my last post in thread. So PLEASE, excuse me if i get your post wrong. Now. I don't have Brit module, but in Marine campaign they got Elite level for a reason. Representing them to be force-recon or something like that. kind of elite unit with-in Marine branch. Like SAS. I'm sure you know. Overall: Are snipers overall some sort of elite/exceptional troops/soldiers? I really don't know, i personally am fed up with this modern sniper bravado and how every one are so "sniper this and sniper that and i wanna be sniper too when i grow up". I think Bigduke6 referred in some post long ago into Sniper Mafia and how it liked to bloat importance and achievements of the snipers. Sniper Mafia, which he used, is hilarious term and at same time seemed to nail whole sniper discussion/attitudes into it's proper place. I really can see that attitude in many places. With that attitude i mean that snipers are soooo special and sooo good and sooo should have exceptional training because they are sooooo important. And all. It's like they are the knights of nowdays who replaced the ww2 fighter pilots, who were knights of their time. Or something... I'm getting more and more drunk.

If i recall correctly British have just 2 guys in team, opposed to larger amount of men in US Marine or Army teams (not to speak about squads). That has negative effect in their spotting ability. Ofcourse poorer gadgets are also limiting their possibilities to detect something. In Marine campaign Marine snipers are in elite level... No wonder if some veteran Brit or Army sniper pales in comparsion. Even Syrian snipers gets lethal with higher experience levels. @dan/california: I agree best thing for them is to get Javelins. I usually like to give as much Javelins to teams/squads which are not expected to move underfire but more likely will remain in behind overwatching. HQ elements, XOs, Snipers, FOs. And i agree with advice that micromanagement with target orders doesn't work, as it doesn't work with many other units. Let them sort out themselves what they have good changes to hit and they probably waste less ammo with more effect.

I agree. And i'd like to add weapon caches (or ammo resupply post, what ever) for militias and reservist Syrian infantry. Shilka is just one more addition to vast amount of firepower packing vehicles in Syrian inventory. Sure it has four barrels, but still it has same weaknesses as all Syrian IFVs.

Yup. I agree with you there. There is possibility to lead atleast platoon sized element in OFP2 (or OFDR as i call it). PL commands squads while SL leads teams and of course TL leads his team... Maybe even bigger elements but game doesn't handle more than 60 entities, which basically is like lead pipe is to knee: Breaking things pretty wildly. And forcing it to focus on small sized action. Infact OFDR took the steps which ArmA should have taken long ago, in my mind. Focus on small unit tactics and infantry combat "rules". AI utilizes pretty advanced drills (on game-scale). They do use suppressive fire, and bounding overwatch and do it as unit and under commands of their leader. It's pretty cool, but sadly rest of the product wasn't as good. Elmar Bijlsma: Problem with ArmA-series is their animation system. They model body into game, which has it's own drawbacks in controls as well. It's not only game which does this and there are better examples how to make this work, but i'm not pro in this so i just shut my hole. In COD alter-ego is basically just floating point in game world, which is much more easier to make user friendly. There are no need for animations which should be finished before character moves to another animation, which is main problem in ArmA... Or that is how i understood ArmA developers to explain it. Moon: Probably Vietcong, which overall has been considered to be best Vietnam shooter ever made. I agree with you (if it's Vietcong what you are after) it's probably best shooter i've ever played. Sadly it doesnt' work on my Vista and support has been dropped. I hate my Vista!

ArmA2 might be okay to others, but it's just so alienating experience that i really feel "disattachment from body"-thing. I really dislike the way weapon handling is done. Character animations ruins movement. Equipment doesn't do a damn to movement or stamina. Personally i look for immersion and on that scale ArmA2 is worse than any typical shooter out there. It has few things right, but then again those things aren't very important for me. There's no one shooter-game which would cross the line of being realistic in my books, it can have nuts and bolts right but still it's boring and unappealing. So i go for immersion, gameplay and mission design. Things which go against this in ArmA2: -Character doesnt' react to my keypresses enough smoothly and fast. Animation model are most problem here. -I'm fighting against the game, and also fighting to understand it. This happens with weapon sway, weapon handling, stamina, movement. -Campaign and overall missions are flop. Utilizing this warfare-thing, which is dead at birth for single player use. -AI in single player is poor. -Nature feels too artificial. I'm in middle of forest and i feel exposed and unhidden! -Plenty lot more. This as OFP and ArmA player and (tiny-miny-small)modder. I quite simply got fed up whole game and towards direction it's heading. Infact i enjoy OFP more than ArmA or ArmA2, because it's enough simplistic and fluid.

I don't remember where is read it from (probably from these forums) that Summer indeed is active phase in Afganistan. When were the presidental elections last time? Back then atleast in AO of Sweden and Finland there was much more of action compared to usual state of affairs. But that was more about fact that Swedes and Finns both got reinforcements for duration of elections and stretched their patrols to areas which usually were left without patrolling (Pashtun area probably). But usually i think it was about hostiles opening small arms fire from distance at patrol and skirmishes with small arms following that rather than driving into IED(ambushes). Infact with IED-incidents that time might have been even relatively quiet. And i agree with Elmar Bijlsma that there were IEDs going off in Finn/Swede area all over the time, much more and in much more higher intensity that of what i've been aware of. I think i've heard all the injuring ones and fatalies, but there were lots of green spots as well.

No rules? It's 5th page already. Well rules from previous thread should do. They are handwriting of Joe himself. And now: I do SOD OFF.

I think that they were part of program (or just enabled) once, but are not anymore or are being disabled. For a long time i have not seen any ERA-blocks missing from tanks even when they have taken some serious beatings.

I'd rather have balancing in forces, take away vehicles, support etc. It feels even more like smacking duct taped mouse (not hamster!) with hammer if i already have briefing clearly stating that i have to protect my men from harm. Surely there can be scenarios and campaigns where this suits well, but as general rule it's not good solution in my opinion. Funny thing here is that people seems to think that it's only Blue who would win with too high costs if they get some 50% or even 30% casualties... It would be interesting to play a 8 missions long campaign as Syrian Battalion which looses 50% of it's force with-in few first missions. I admit i try to preserve my troops as much as i try to do it with Blue, even more so as Syrians loose their ability to fight effectively with less casualties (two rifle squads in platoon, less men, less firepower, less technical quality). As far as i can tell Syrians don't handle necromancy. I admit Syrian Skeleton and Zombie Brigades sounds pretty intriguing from game-play aspect.

They are planning for distant future (20 years timeline) when western soldier is A. Much taller and probably has much bigger helmet with all the gadgets. With all those antennas popping out B. Much fatter... Which would explain the ramp. I'm sure they have prepared to put escalator and slide on it.

Morale hit should come in the moment when enemy is reaching flanks, has breached defenses, or forces some unit to leave it's positions. I quess most common sentence which has sent whole units to retreat is: "Enemy on our flanks!" Was it there or not. Surely if unit is already surrounded and their withdraw routs have been cut out then they might fight back even more persistently, until moment when they choose to surrender. Then again if they are left withdraw route they might be pretty eager to use it while it is still open. Which is one classic way to empty defensive positions with as little bloodshed as possible. And naturally this would greatly impact on how CMSF plays out. I guess game would become lot less playable in common sense: More use of space and more movement, instead of using all assets to bring maximum mayhem on enemy. And i guess AI logic is hard to design for that. When is unit feeling that it's exposed and it should start to flee? When it feels that things are going along their unit's defenseplans and is okay. And whaen it feels that it has to keep positions and try to judge between surrendering or keeping on fighting.

True. CMSF's battlespace is often so limited and setup-positions and most importantly timeline don't enable use of infiltration tactics if not designed so by scenario editor (give ability to set units into rear and flank areas of enemy). Sure there are scenarios with that in mind and CMSF could show infiltration tactics work pretty well. On platoon/squad level i've used them plenty along other action in CMSF: are they just flanking or infiltration is question to be asked. Another problem in CMSF is that there isn't morale system to really utilize gains which one can get from using such ways... Or atleast i'm not awarer that morale system would be that sophisticated. Infiltration tactics highly depends on the fact that they can cause chaos and fear. And ofcourse they depends on fact that enemy haven't been prepared for them. Nowdays i'm rather sure that most armies does train their units to prepare to defend all directions and infiltration tactics are in training programs of all units (whether they have readiness/will to use it or not). As a example: I've been playing Medieval 2 Total War and in there if you get to flank areas of your opponent it will suffer major morale setback and as a result whole field army might crumble... Surely it's mostly about heavy cavalry flanking and hitting rear part of echelon while rest of field army gets in fight of enemy's frontal elements. Not infiltration as much as typical flanking tactic. Not able to use infiltration tactics in there either In CMSF they seem to not suffer anykind of morale set back if they get enemies shooting them behind their backs. Crossfire and higher casualties as a result of drossfire is only thing to be gained from it.

It's pretty odd and absurd thing that TOW-2. TOW-2 can't be much transported by 2-3 men teams on foot. System it self without missiles weights around 100 kilograms, and has lots of different parts. Theoratically three man can carry ATGM-system itself (one part in back while both hands carries something per each man), but carrying missiles is impossible. So overall my answer would be that they shouldn't be able to either pack or mount the thing... Or should be able to mount and pack but moving should be impossible. It could be simulated by crawling (moving part of ATGM-system to somewhere and returning to fetch remaining parts) I'd say that packing should take about 3-4 minutes of time with that small team... If they have all equipment carried to firing positions and is in reach of their hands. Packing should take more time that actual mounting, because there's all those checks which can take about minute, collimating thermal sights to day sights, checking that system is healthy and ready to fire. It has been 10 years since i last time fiddled with TOW, but i might remember something right :confused:

I really wonder is that really usable way to use ATGMs... Well it would be very useable for emergency situations. Even more so with Soviet/Russian ATGMs, which offers much lower tripod, where undergrowth can and many times will obstruct use of tripod. On other hand i dont' see reason why TOW-2 couldn't be used by freehand. There's no requirement for tripod to be installed... Might be BIT unstable, with all those cables running to CUI and thermal batteries and aprox 60 kilograms of weight on hands

Thing which still shines in Close Combat series is Bridge Too Far with it's dynamic campaign. Ofcourse game is getting old but battles when fought between infantry forces are still great, as has been said. I checked it out 2008 last time.

Oh feck! There was main motor in picture of MR, how silly and blind from me ... Now to the excuse to save my ego: We called TOW's main motor as travel motor in Finnish, so i guess i scanned that word from picture, ignoring main motor totally. Or then i'm just idiot. Yeah version used by Finland is Euro-Spike. Which i believe is presented in NATO-module.

I've started to loose believe that experience bases on how much guys have been in somewhere, it can turn other way around also. Even more so when talking about COIN/low intensity-experience versus hot conventional war-experience. Atleast my own nations history shows this, when Soviet union launched it's offence in -44. Troops which had rather heavy combat experience from -39 had got it easy in static and relatively peaceful "trench warfare"-phase in -42-44 for couple of years and their performance when things got hot wasn't what it used to be and i don't know did all units ever recover from it. In same time units stationed behind front lines and being under training program for hot war did perform much better. Simply by training guys to work in hot conventional war can provide much more capable units than taking men from COIN/low intensity-conflict and throwing them into hot conventional war. There's lots of variables in table which will effect how unit performs. Like Elmar Bijlsma said, in such case COIN-units would/might get bonuses into leadership etc... Then again there are evidence that long service times together are one way to nag away NCO's and junior officer's leadership. And when Sh!t hits the fan whole unit cohesion can grumble down or atleast show it's darker face. + Lots of variables more.

Based on that link and picture in there: How does missile fly if it doesn't have travel engine/travel fuel. Do we have to presume that when missile is erected from tube it needs to be carried to target In short: That picture is far from being complete.

Wondering does that minimum range mean that earlier on Missile is going up and it doesn't have ability to get into target even with direct flight mode... Would sound odd, but then again: Why not? I wonder does any army in NATO module have "close protection squad" for their ATGM-units armed with Panzerfaust 3 and similar. The way i understand fire-and-observe mode is that you lock missile, fire it and observe it if any other possible targets appear. If you see some other target you lock missile into it, while missile steers it self to new target. I don't know is it must to have lock on some target before missile can be launched at all. And this is total speculation on my part: ER and LR can be flew by "waypoints" to unseen target. Maybe there is somekind of "cruising" (keeping altitude) and "target" mode for missile. Which makes them different from Spike MR, which has only "target" mode.

I haven't been able to find any other source to say that spike has soft launch other than Wikipedia.