Secondbrooks

Spike is fancy in that way that it's either fire-and-forget or then operator can guide it to it's target in manual mode. I don't know what made our us to buy Euro-Spike instead of Swedish Bill or US Javelin. Probably odds turned to Spike because it had possibility to guide it manually, i think operator can also automatically set new targets when missile is in flight or even take manual control in middle of flight. I did research on both while back and i think homing senors are also more sophisticated in Spike. Javelin does home purely by thermal imaging, while Spike has normal eye vision frequensy in use also. So overall Spike is more sophisticated and complete, and in hands of well trained user it probably is much better, offering more resistance to countermeasures, having better hit ratio and so on. in CMSF i think it's hit-ratio could be bigger than with Javelin (which isn't bad either). Bad side of it is lack of soft launch feature available in Javelin. So when it's fire it's much more visible than Javelin would be. I've seen footage of spike being fired from bare loose sand. Backside of "Barrel" points to ground, when missile gets launched it kicks "little" bit of sand into air. Goos idea to carry gallons of water to soak the sand with that Basically tripod could be required because of that "hard" launch, i don't know are they necessary as long as system is supported against something, but usually those are minor things. And with manual guiding tripods are necessary. Javelin will probably stay as superior weapon in CMSF. Reason being that it can be operated in every possible situation. In CMSF you can't setup ATGMs and such inside houses. Spike does require large enough rooms and good ventilation in reality as well, so it takes time to find/make suitable spots. So in MOUT Javelin will be both in-game and in-reality way superior because it can be operated in every possible situation. In wilderness things probably are other way around. But Spike will more likely get fired at once it fires because it doesn't have soft launch feature. Tripod mounting will present it's own problem in CMSF as as far as i can tell: Spike, as Soviet ATGM-systems, is really "grab and run" type of weapon system. But in CMSF they have to be disassembled. Overall i can't say that Spike would be superior. It's more sophisticated, not really every man's weapon system. In trained operator's hands it can offer much more options and offer more resistance to countermeasures and anomalities presented by nature. But once one fires a missile he better have good protection around him because there's bigger changes that he will get shot at.

Which in CMSF creates such a problem that there isn't enough ways to set up ATGMs into positions where they could gain flank shots. Reason why old AT-4s and such are even less useful than they would be in reality, if we talk just about ability to kill armor in hit (not saying anything about their reliability to get to target!). Sure getting ATGMs into such positions would create more tactical problems for user... Like if they can be set to flanks, then attacker can outflank them. I really don't know how SB Pro handles ATGMs and AT in general, but i guess changeable positions and such aren't well supported so ATGMs might seem to be more inflexible than they are. And planning proper AT-defenses is major work, i think universally at battalion level there usually is already one officer dedicated into getting AT-defenses sorted out. If that fails (officer laxes his job or hasn't been dedicated to AT at all) AT-defenses suffers major decrease in performance. Or sumthink. I'm single player so i really have just distant feeling on how damned hard it would be for me to face fully supplied Stryker unit which actually would use it's Javelins. Marines with their few Javs are enough problematic! Guess i would need battalion of arty for one Styker company and plenty of time to do recon! Plus tons of nails to nail that company into it's positions while my arty gets it's shells into target area. Would hate to see my complex firemission plan to hit target area just after opponent has emptied it hcrof: I don't agree totaly altought your are right ultimately. Because while in reality such indirect and air support aren't on commanders finger tips all the time but it requires lots of organizing at worst, lets say that unit is spearheading into enemy's rear areas already. So Syrian battalion and it's ATGMs actually did manage to halt US. If only briefly (to be squashed later on). In CMSF player usually (or atleast me) doesn't give a damn and just rushes forward ignoring hard enemy resistance he faces... Not that player would have much options because of usual campaign and mission structure: there's no change to wait for few hours or so. I think this shows better in CMx1 where operations could last for days and sometimes it was just better to wait reinforcements before starting anything major, like all-out offense.

I remember reading that when i was looking info for my Mosin. I'm not much of an computer expert and there is probably easier ways to put photos in here. So i do it by the hard way, which probably is against some rule... Anyways here's my Mosin: As you (more or less) clearly can see i can't attach bayonet. It makes me feel sad

Usually it serves as a good slap against my face, and not in positive sense. Why? Because i (again) remember how badly whole QB-system works, seeing AI plans and remembering how whole system works. This all is there right in front of my eyes even before i'm actually start playing the QB. After which there's only one thing for me to do: Quit CMSF. If i just fire QB without running it thru mission editor this saddening fact strikes me usually just after i've finished Setup-phase... And once i've got this far it doesn't hurt to finish the QB.

All is fair. But you forget one thing. "So a well trained, elite, and very fit soldier might only be able to exceed the sprint performance of a less well trained one by only ten or twenty percent. However, the ground the elite trooper could cover in an eight or twenty four hour emergency road march might be two or three times a much." This could very well be conscript/green soldier as well. "Relatively high sub maximal levels" is easily discovered by sending guy to run for lets say 12 minutes, not optimal method, but easy and simple. This tells how good lung (=ability to take and use oxygen) capacity individual has. This trait doesn't much rise with exercising. And based on what i've seen it clearly dictates the level how well indivudual can keep on going. Those who scores high in tests which reveals this are also those who can keep on going longer. Surely it can be increased over time with proper physical training, but if we have healthy young bloke already (which is NOT the case with big part of western youth) improving that trait will consume time and effort. With healthy i mean that they are slim, don't smoke and have had some amount of physical activities past few years. I along many others didn't get much better in 12 minutes running test after one year of intense combat training because we were pretty healthy bunch already when we entered service. That is pretty visible in charts which i've seen which discusses of improvement of physical fitness during service. Nowdays when youth is getting softer and softer there is bigger improvement visible along service, because additional weight and all that drags their lung's capacity can be get rid of in rather fast manner, however such material hardly ever seems to get selected for combat roles. Surely elite troops of elite-units can different with their elite-athlete traits. They don't become such along their training, but they were such once they were selected for their elite-unit training. These are pretty much only type of unit which possesses vastly greater physical performance than average units. I hate word elite and it should has so marginal role in CMSF that using it as example is pretty pointless. Ps. So what i try to say is that experience level (partially composed of time one has spent in training) has so small effect on fitness level of unit that it easily can be overwritten with loads of other factors.

I agree. I take fitness mostly as breathing capacity, ability of lungs to take in and use air which they get. This is trait which is hard to improve with exercising. Half year or year served soldiers hardly ever are much better in this than what they were when they entered basic training, they can run 100-200 meters more in 12 minutes than at start. That is not very much. That IF they are slim, healthy young blokes in the first place. Pretty much only way to improve rating drastically is to quit smoking, lose lot of weight, or not to give 100% during initial tests. Pretty much everything else affects to fitness level more than how experienced or well trained unit is. And those things which tend to keep physical fitness down are something which tend to carry on during service, or even get worse. Smoking is one classic and getting even more fat seems to be also nowdays as vehicle tend to haul soldiers fat arses instead of their legs.

Licence says it's 1 Mb but it's fast as 56kb during daytime

That file is bit too big. But apparently i have to download it during night. Reminds me of one book which based on interviews of Soviet soldiers who had served in there. It progressed form start of war to end of it. There probably were 1-2 soldiers for each war year interviewed in that book and they told what they did, saw and felt during that time. Which is bit unique as i'm used to read books in which you can have close to hundred interviewed and their story usually doesn't fill many pages. In this book story of individual soldier could be tens of pages. At start soldiers were pretty confident that they were doing the right thing and their morale and motivation seemed to be pretty good. But when time progressed drop of motivation and morale was pretty visible. Last 1/3rd of the book was already pretty depressing to read. Sadly i don't remember book's name.

Yeah. I agree with this quite 100%. I've tossed just one live grenade (didn't hit the target), but during basics we threw alot of practice ones. There are conditions in which use of grenades does work, and then there are conditions in which they don't work. I was pretty good (=average) thrower in trench clearing drills, where throwing distances were something like 5-10 meters and you had clear target at which you did throw it. If distance grew to 20-30 meters i generally didn't hit enough close to reliably take out target with small cover (lying in ground, possibly in some small nook)... If target would have been in foxhole or similar cover my changes to hit clearly visible cartboard target which didn't fire at me were pretty thin. Well i've always been bad thrower. Were it snowball, rock, grenade or baseball. I guess it was usual to have designated throwers atleast during ww2 from accounts which i've read. Grenades do cause horrible casualties in CMSF, but many times it's result of closer of 10 grenades thrown as one volley that is my observation atleast. Main "problem" is that they do use their grenades very eagerly. It's not surprising if my men use all their grenades during one volley (which has devastating effect i admit). When in reality use of grenades seems to be much more conserving. When from accounts which i've read soldier/squad uses one or couple grenades but in CMSF they have used most of what they have. And use of grenades is also much more common. Only requirement seems to be that enemy is within 30 meters, while in reality there probably are many factors such as type of cover in which enemy is and can it be hit with direct fire, is enemy's position precisely known (foxhole, bunker etc), can thrower prepare to throw his grenade (not under fire), is there natural obstacles in way. Naturally there's problem in fact that CMSF doesn't have drills. When one common drill would be to throw couple hand grenades and charge right after they explode and rest of that fight is finished with small arms fire. In CMSF they do use grenades all the time, from before charging, during charging, seizing positions after (successful) charge and even after that until target order gets canceled.

dieseltaylor: This is interesting question. I babble bit now: From what i've read from Finnish sources Germans weren't considered great soldiers. Their basic training (weaponry, marksmanship etc...) must have been okay on any level, but by Finnish standards they weren't as Finns put great emphasis on fieldcraft and having understadnment of how to live and act in backwoods. There seemed to be largish training program during the war to get Germans used to local conditions, they simply didn't know how to move in terrain, how to observe it, were afraid of it, winter served it's own challenges etc. Using Finnish phrase: They weren't good individual combatants. But Germans were discplined and that is where their main strength lied. Their bravery was stunning and has received lots remarks from Finns: Ability to endure large casualties while trying to fulfill their task. Without doubt they earned trust of their officers by that, while Finnish commander was much more often forced to think that is task too risky and will men even try to complete it. Back to bocages: Overall i'd guess quality was favoring Germans in bocages, but not that much after all. German units or individuals didn't prove very capable in Finland. Organization was far to heavy, inability to form light units which would make their way into flank, not clear picture of what kind of units to use, not willing to create roads over swamps etc. I base my analysis on that as i see some similarities with both cases, mostly the fact that it was unfamiliar terrain with limited ability to use firepower. I don't know did Germans train or prepare to defend in them, but guess that not very therally. So after rough start for US both were in same level when it came to operating in bocage. Both sides' organization might not have been tuned for such terrain. About defending being simplier than attacking... Hmm. Not necessarily. I'm not sure Germans had proper training for it, nor had they proper time to prepare defensive positions in terrain which requires quite much both. I'd guess that road network was rather complete and by thus even when US might have had reluctance of going outside road network (which might prove impossible if road network is widespread) they had sufficient amount of roads by which they could advance. Same time Germans was more or less in chaos while US was having constantly initiative on their side. At same time you have very restricted killzones for weapons (mainly MGs), men needs to be spread out thinly, there probably are lightly defended holes which serves only as alarm bell. But at same time there were multiple roads which US could use, so Germans couldn't consentrate too much manpower into one area. Later on when US found way to breach bocages in haste manner it got worse.

Walls seems to be somewhat artificial. This MG stuff is one of them. Wall in middle of open field makes area fire impossible past it. Not very funny when there's platoon worth of blood thirsty enemies and i should get my men moving past that space. Each time my men pop up they get exposed to enemy fire and probably get casualties. My own men are not able to suppress them with area fire as wall blocks LOS, so they can take shots of opportunity at best at long ranges when enemy pops up to fire, but it's not very effective. Crawl will exhaust my men badly and is slow, other than that it would be most logical way to deal with that problem. But manly men don't press their cocks into soil, atleast under my command. I don't know is my point of view wonky, but usually maps with lots of low walls are pain in my arse because of reason that i just don't coupe with how to handle walls which blocks LOS.

Jah. On top of that Germans had correct mind set for auftragstaktik while it's opponents didn't have correct mind set. In German army it was much more common to have captain trusting on lowly corporal. While in opposing armies it was more common for captain to think that corporal doesn't know a ****e, so captain has to tell precisely what corporal needs to do with his men. So German army (society?) was able to raise it's officer corps to trusting it's subordinates. Thing which doesn't seem to be very easy task and it's said that many army still to this day fails to gain understandment of it, even when they boast that they do. As for Germans they have had that idea of leadership atleast from days of ww1. This i've been told.

True. I don't know how often that might happen in combat, maybe in moments when they panic and start to flee at which point best thing they can do is just keep on going, which is most important at the moment. But overall i think mental side limits person from stressing body too much: lack of physical fitness causes mental "breakdown". But that is about splitting hairs, going on anaerobic level too long will have it's long time effects. With crawl it's very much possible to run guys in such bad shape in CMSF. Sometimes it's feels to be absurd, naturally there's bunch of variables such as tiredness level, temperature and load they are carrying does have major impact. I personally do think that it has been over modeled. Bulletproof vests, MGs and such heavier eqiupment do indeed limit guy's ability to move around. But lighter weights aren't even closely like that, this is very much true with Syrian regulars and uncons, as they pretty much have just ammo, water, weapon. In CMSF distances in which guys get really tired aren't physically very hard in reality at least from my experiences. Also CMSF has just dragging belly crawl, while knees+elbows crawl has been left out. Which might causes problems in way how i look at it. I've never belly crawled long distances, but i've crossed several hundered of meters at once by knees+elbows crawling while stalking/sneaking on fauna and ofcourse after having hard night in local bar

John Kettler: I dont' think there are English versions of it. Book's name is Gruppa Finlandija written by Pentti Syrjä, so you can try to find it. I see it's name in some banned books lists (in english language) and don't understand why. It has remark: "(banning info not yet found)" behind it. It was to be banned, but by some miracle that didn't happen.

There was interesting note that Soviet model is stiff and works well when enemy behaves in ways that they like it would. I dont' know are they somewhat exceptional in that. I've read that current US military suffers from it as pretty much all western militaries, because planning and executing are tied to place and time in pretty linear structure, tied to formal methods and such. I guess it's desission to be taken when preparing for large scale conventional fighting. I my self lack the ability to understand it even on my own language, so really can't tell more about it myself. Sure Soviets might suffer from their ideology on top of that. long times of peace might probably hurt Soviet system pretty badly as it seems to be pretty much Living in the Ivory Tower stuff. Overall description about Soviet model is that their main strength is use of divisions. In tactical level they aren't that "smart" but some have said that the way divisions and above are lead makes them dangerous and unpredictable. We had guys in Frunze studying commanding of forexample leading of motorized division in 60s or 70s, as far as i can tell after that it's common practice to send someone there. It is mostly theoretical studies ofcourse and different from NATO-studies with fact that guy sent there will study in their own small team composed of their own nationality when in NATO studying groups seems to be larger and composed of different nations. I've read book written by one guy (book which was almost to be banned from release by government) and it gives pretty competent picture of Soviet military in those levels, surely mostly based on theoretical studies and theoretic exercises which they took part of. Their main trade is that division's performance is up to it's commander, he has huge amount of "additional" responsibility, while lower levels has less. Forexample engineer works are totally up to him in division's area of responsibility. Loads of other things aswell but i don't recall which.

Hmm. This sound fishy to me. May i remind you that You, my dear sire, are part of Beta team. Ps. I could fire the cannon. Multiple times even to get my name in credits.

For T-55 i recall it i 150 meters long and some 50 meters wide from muzzle, won't bother to check the data. It's about overpressure etc. However what is really dangerous range? Forexample safety regulations for M72 LAV's backblast area are ridiculously long, some 50 meters. One might get flying rock into his forehead, but backblast it self has lost it's effect long ago. For IFVs empty cartridges flying from vehicle could be modelled as well, oh and backblasts from AT-launchers (my internal virtual-commander shivers from terror)

M32 is the ultimate friendly-fire generator for me now days

I don't know... My Marine squad met BMP-2 from close range. They were having 4-10 meters distance between each of other, happening in forest. BMP-2 killed good half of squad, before hand grenades and probably 40mm took it out... Problem here is that this isn't not new thing, but happens very commonly. Minimum range for vehicles would be required in my opinion. Or maybe counter that with fact that minimum range would be taken away from AT-launchers which very commonly by my experience is problem, they don't use their launchers while vehicles are able to kill everything next to their tracks/tires. I've had "fun" moments with forexample Stryker which took out half of my Marine platoon as i was forced to assault it from all sides with hand grenades. But for longer ranges i don't think restricting minimum or maximum elevation would work for gameplay reasons. TacAI doesn't seem to understand that slope is slope, and it's probably not so easy to code in that. Which is okay as i wouldn't probably understand either... And coding myself to pay more attention to get tanks is such positions that they can engage freely their targets... Well I find it hard to find such positions for my vehicle even in vehicle simulators sometimes

Did Germans use wood-burners as power source for civilian and also military transports? Or did they distill liquid fuel from wood? At least earlier example was able to keep Finland using it's cars and save liquid fuels for those which really needed them.

Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord. Or Combat Mission2: Beyond Overlord. And i'm not joking.

I'll post just this once about this. Just once i promise. Now first and foremost. Thanks for replies! they are great to read. Next: I had my part in very interesting discussion about this. One long line infantry officer was stating very clearly that this would generally be seed of doom. And one somewhat usual problem here with infantry and Artillery cooperation. Company's commander is insisting that if FO doesn't get fire quick in some place where they have met heavy resistance they will have mechaniced battalion going full speed thru them. While FO continues to speak about threat of friendly fire, he can't see targetarea, it would be uneffective etc... Yeah that is mirrored against bit different kind situation (facing modern mech enemy in meeting engagement battle) but is amusing. Another one is worried that his company doesn't get beat by opponent (after which it beats second company on it's way to depth and so on), while another is more interested in doing technically good fire missions, which necessarily don't fit into way how company might survive the experience. And yeah if player literally can fill his attack route or defense perimeter with TRPs then it's pretty much dealed with.

Why would random hedgerow be problem? Generic 2-5 hectacer space in vast backwood isn't problem... well getting rounds there is problem for FO and takes time. I don't understand how mortars and Artillery are different here. Mortars beats closer to friendlies, Arty more away from them. Why should player/or real commander be conserned about friendly fire to his men if he's sole intention is to get artillery fire to somewhere 200-400 meters away from closest friendlies and try to get mortars to fill the cap as well as possible? We can't expect that hedgerow forms neat 20x100 meters boxes which are covering the map and just small scale platoon vs squad action going on. While there's nothing more which would move around. Can we? I don't know how close to CM:normandy CMBO got the terrain, but there was usually lots of "tunnels" which generated good changes to move large sized units around in haste manner. So there would have been basically more or less constant need to fire unspotted "barriers" with artillery, if FO doesn't happen to be in location where he can establish LOS into predicted route of enemy mass. Personally i've used lot's of unspotted fire in CMx1 to make enemy bleed while it's just getting it's assault organized, or to make it's main body to halt while it's small point element is being engaged and slowly taken care of, be it hedgerows, forests, hills or anything. Be it defending, attacking, or meeting engaging. In CMSF i can't do this, i'd like to able to do it in CM:normandy. Okay. I'll drop this here, there are good changes that i take this issue too much CMSF-like and CMBO-like, and by so i'm ignorant of what CM:Normany will be like. Besides i cant' force this into game if it has been left out

For example in Finland considerable part of the indirect fire had to be fired unspotted in ww2, as it is supposed to be to day. Mostly just well prepared defese positions allowed both sides to use spotted fire. FO gives just enough space for spotting rounds to not to endanger his own men and then tries to sort things out by that. There's been debates that does FOs get too neat and long training on leading fire of mortars and artillery so that they can "hit oil-barrel" with it, when in reality aprox 90% of firemissions would happen in situation where they don't see their targetarea so such skills are pretty trivial in the first place. It naturally helps for FO to be in the front just next to Platoon leader of point platoon. And that he is aware where he is at... Sure ww2 era maps weren't the best item for this so it increased distances where first spotting rounds would land as FOs tried to make it sure that grenades aren't landing too close of them. I've read one humoring story about FO requesting fire from cannon battalion. He adds safe distance to it and then safely drops range is some 100-300 meters phases... Problem was that first spotting rounds landed 9 kilometers away from his positions and after several corrections they still didn't hear or see impacts. At some point of time someone chosed to override his fire adjusting orders and dropped some 5000 meters out of it. After that they already started to hear the impacts for spotting rounds. So yeah it could become rather slow process and artillery wasn't most effective in situations like that, but they were used. Main problems were that danger close stuff, they tried to get cannons to fire from sides relative to unit they are supporting (or even from front, if talking about pocketing units). Mortars were used often as they had many good sides compared to artillery. Indirect commonly weren't trying to hit closest enemy troops, which were in danger close distance anyways, but (possible) enemies behind those. And by that prevent enemy to bring reinforcements into close combat distances. So it can be used, even lots. Ofcourse another thing is that how much US or German way is different compared to Finnish. As said US didn't train for such terrain, so maybe mindset was different aswell... Finns had to learn to use arty they finally had, as in Winter War is was already teached them to not to expect or request support from artillery. Seemed to take couple battles to get rid of that. One and main problem in discussions like these is that "hitting oil-barrel" thingy. When it shouldn't need to be able do that, but instead it should hit somewhere "near" (preferably behind) to contribute atleast something for fighting unit. There can be just enemy platoon in direct contact with point units, but behind it unseen there could company or batallion moving in (could be not!) and only way to harrash or even surppress it's effort is to use indirect fire. This is main problem i'm facing in CMSF with it's current indirect fire system if terrain is heavily wooded (sure i'm aware that it isn't supposed to model terrain like that), opposed to CMx1 where i could use unspotted indirect fire. Michael Emrys: Because there are mortars which can be used.

Yeah. This is the main problem i'm seeing. Would like to think that with bocage this is very-very important thing. Other thing... Would it be possible to leave tubes on hold, after they have finished spotting? Also in CMSF?