Alan8325

It looks more like a functional equivalent to the Stryker FSV, designed to provide heavy fire support for mechanized infantry while maintaining roughly the same weight and mobility as the IFVs. Of course this also means it has the same armored protection as the IFVs, which is effective against autocannons and below, basically.

Well, it's a different weapon than the 35mm Bushmaster III on the CV9035, which is the one in the game. I don't know what types of ammo that fires and what will/can be modeled but I'm guessing HE and APFSDS at the least.

I like this video of the CV9040 weapon demonstration, especially against the minibusses at 1:30. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKdwuOxYRI4&feature=related

I thought it was techno.

Interesting. How come in the game the front protection of M1 is a thick '+' and in CR2 Enhanced it is a thin '+'? Is this due to the front hull armor?

I wouldn't match Challengers to the Abrams if I were you. I would keep my Challengers hidden and see if I can pop them up long enough to either get a shot off at an IFV or fire off an area shot at an infantry position, and then pop back down before getting hit by a javelin. Target acquisition with the javelins takes like 20-30 seconds IIRC.

Are you playing against another person or the AI? The AI will not acquire javelins from their vehicles and you would better be able to use your vehicles for fire support. Try and spot their more lightly armored IFVs with your dismounted infantry and then maneuver your tanks to take them out. Use your javelins, if you have any, on their Abrams tanks. Against a human player your vehicles are pretty much screwed unless you keep them hidden because you can assume that every infantry squad of his will have javelins. Like Dan said, you will have to move your vehicles under the cover of artillery suppression against his infantry if you are attacking.

I think AI improvement is one of those things that we will see small increments in over time. I like the idea of suppressive fire and the code for where to do it is kind of already there in the form of the "?" markers. It would be cool if there was an AI aggressive assault plan or something in the editor that made some units do an area target on "?" markers in the area.

I remember seeing an official post that visible damage on the 3d models is on the to-do list for CMx2 games, but won't make it into CM:N or something like that. Possibly the next title though. One of the ideas is to swap out portions of the 3d model with "damaged" parts after getting hit. That way you can have stuff look like it's getting bent and deformed and not just discolored with decals.

We don't have to wait for SF2 for that. The U.S. - Canada war can be simulated with the NATO module. It will just take some imagination to see the Syrian terrain as part of U.S. soil.

Actually there are probably hundreds of billions of dollars worth of minerals there in deposits discovered by the soviets and recently confirmed by coalition surveys. That and opium. http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/06/14/discovers-t-minerals-afghanistan/

I almost always use "assault" when moving squads over open terrain. When using RED forces, I use it to move from building to building in urban terrain to limit casualties if bad guys open fire, but only because it's not possible to split teams for most Syrian units. When playing BLUE I always split teams in urban areas and only use "assault" in the open.

Both sounds good.

Yeah that's true that a lot of Russian stuff is already done and can save some time. Also, the European climate and terrain is done as of CM:N, also saving time. For the purpose of creating an even RED side however, China seems suitable at the moment because of the political climate and rates of economic and military advancement, but we'll see. I'm not sure what will happen with CMx2 years down the road, but from my understanding almost all of it is upgradeable and different parts are easier to upgrade than others. Things that are easy to change but create big improvements in the game are the things that change first, obviously. Really big changes would almost be akin to starting from scratch but even if done, the engine would still be called CMx2, IIRC.

It's not even known yet whether Shock Force 2 will be in Europe, only that it will be in a temperate area with more evenly matched RED forces. Europe is one possibility, as is China. I believe East Front WWII will arrive before SF2. CMx2 might as well be CMx3, CMx4 and everything beyond because there's been official word that a new engine will not be started from scratch again. New capabilities will be added to CMx2 constantly.

I believe it's just part of the HQ squad that the commander is in, but for tactical flexibility in the game you are allowed to move it around as a separate unit. For example, in a Syrian Airborne platoon you will notice that the HQ and command squads together look just like a rifle squad. In real life the platoon commander is just attached to a normal rifle squad, but in the game it is represented as HQ and command squads. I think the RPG team in a normal Syrian rifle platoon is also technically part of the HQ squad, but is split off for flexibility. Someone may correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm pretty sure it's so they don't have to graphically model the dragging/carrying of the injured/dead to a safe location and eventually off the battlefield at this point. This would require numerous additional animations and AI logic to determine where and at what time to carry the injured. Either that or a tedious player responsibilty to micromanage the task, among other things. I would chalk up the graphical representation of casualty evacuation as a "possibly someday, but no time soon" feature.

Are there any plans to incorporate elements from the NATO module in this campaign? Syrian air support vs BLUE forces may not be all that realistic, but it would balance the power for gameplay purposes. It would be fun to see how the Western tanks do against Syrian forces backed up by Mi-24s

Confirmed not possible in NATO module? My favorite is the point-blank M203 suicide coup de grâce sometimes seen during room clearing.

Yeah, but I was thinking about messing around with the demo to see what features (exit conditions, for example) are new, compared to the current v1.21 in CMSF. There must be a state of CMx2 that Afghanistan uses. I understand some of the features didn't make it to NATO but will be included in a future version used by Normandy.

Does anyone know what version of CMx2 Afghanistan is running? Thanks.

In CMSF infantry in the field are closer together than they would be in real life in order to keep them in the action spots, so IIRC the (mis)aiming of MGs vs infantry is deliberately programmed to compensate for their generally tight grouping to inflict realistic casualties. It looks pretty goofy at close range, but it keeps casualties generally realistic I guess. You will notice that against vehicles and infantry in buildings the aiming of MGs is "correct." I do not know why MG grouping is so tight though. There seems to be hardly any spread per burst. Explosions are also nerfed a little to cause realistic casualties to infantry in the field. Hope that helps!

I haven't played around much with the .50 cal snipers yet. .50 cal MGs almost always make short work of pickups for me, but usually it just gets knocked out, which doesn't always say much about component damage. I would be interested to know what the formula for vehicle knockouts is. It must be some chance that is independent from the chance of component damage because you would think that a pickup truck is basically knocked out when its engine or wheels are disabled, but I usually see that it's knocked out before any component damage, or it gets its engine or wheels damaged but it's not "knocked out" and the crew remain onboard.

I did a quick test using the editor to see what the toughness of the truck is vs an M240. The M240 team (veteran, +1 motivation) is in a building 440m away from the PK technical (veteran, +1 motivation), which is in front of a long wall. Escape is possible for the truck by going around the wall, but not easy. I did not input any orders for either side, so it was all tacAI. I ended the test after the truck was effectively out of action or escapes, so there is no more ammo expenditure against dismounted crew or anthing like that. The M240 team also did not fire their M4s at all so all damage came from the MG. After 10 trials, I saw the following results: rounds expended; truck condition; casualties; end result 1.) 18; knocked out but no component damage; 0; 3 bail 2.) 50; engine red X, wheels yellow; 2 ; 1 bails 3.) 48; knocked out and burning, wheels light green; 2 yellow; 3 bail 4.) 50; wheels light green; 2 + 1 yellow; 1 bails 5.) 74; wheels yellow; 2; 1 bails 6.) 50; wheels yellow; 1; truck escapes during m240 reload 7.) 87; wheels orange; 2 + 1 yellow; 1 bails 8.) 9; knocked out but no component damage; 0; 3 bail 9.) 58; wheels light green; 1 + 1 yellow; truck escapes 10.) 79; wheels yellow; 3; truck has no occupants

It seems to me that all small arms fire vs unarmored vehicles may be slightly undermodeled. I can sometimes empty 100 rounds of 7.62 from an MMG into a pickup and seemingly do no damage, unless I get a direct hit to one of the occupants. A single 40mm HEDP round though, and it's done.