Alan8325

Why would the Canadians head over to Europe to fight when they can just invade the U.S. over here in North America? It would even be possible to make scenarios for that conflict with the terrain already existing in CM:SF. It just means that the Canadians will have to go to Mexico first, invade the U.S. from the southern border and go no further north than Nevada.

I seem to remember something about it being fairly easy to put hard elevation/depression limits on vehicle weapons, but it's a nightmare to program the Tac AI to be able to cope with those limits. In real life, if a tank commander takes his M1A1 to a hull-down spot looking over the crest of a hill, he can make the necessary adjustments to keep his weapon limits in the area he wants to be able to shoot in. In CMSF, unless major adjustments are made to the Tac AI, I can imagine you would have many situations where you move your tank to some spot in an area of uneven terrain, the tank spots an enemy vehicle, but oops, it can't shoot because the terrain placed it at and angle that precludes the gun from being able to point at the target! :mad: I just consider the unlimited gun angles currently allowed in the engine to be an "abstraction" of the adjustments that vehicle commanders can make on the fly.

It's interesting that the M1A2SEP took less damage than the M1A2, especially from hits to the tracks. The CM:SF manual mentions a hull and turret armor upgrade from M1A1 to M1A2, but no mention of armor changes from M1A2 to M1A2SEP.

It seems to me, also, that RPGs are far too accurate in CMSF. That is until I play as the Syrians and find myself cursing at the screen for their lousy shooting.

Yeah Mark is correct. If the JDAM missed the BMP by just an inch, everyone would be dead. It's not too hard to confirm. Just make a quick firing range-like scenario with one Blue JTAC team and one F-15 (hvy) and set up a stationary Red vehicle with troops around it and call a point strike on the vehicle.

Apparently, troops standing anywhere near a vehicle taking a direct hit from any kind of munition will survive unscathed, even if the munition happens to be a 2000lb JDAM. I took a couple of screenshots that exhibit this feature pretty well.

Isn't that Tom Hanks?

Will NATO show the visual gear differences between soldiers equipped with different weapons and equipment, as introduced in the Normandy screenshots? For example, the radio man having a radio, RPG gunner and ammo carriers showing RPG rounds, etc.

Assuming you pick the path that takes you to Damascus, the final Brit mission, "The Bowling Alley," takes place on the edge of Damascus, if I remember correctly. It is a joint operation involving the British forces and U.S. HBCT MOUT units to secure major infrastructure, such as a telecom building and a major intersection. The end-campaign screen states that the Syrian forces have been destroyed and the Highlander Battle Group (The Brits) will move south to the border with Jordan as their area of occupation.

It's a scenario called "UK H2H Brit Arm Mix vs Syr Arm Mix".

It's too bad this particular scenario only has a ground objective for both sides. If there were casualty objectives to simulate the importance the Blue side places on casuaties in real life, you may already have "won".

And if you look at some CM:Afghanistan pics, the model is already done, so why not!

I've seen my British troops get instantly exhausted in a couple of missions in the Brit campaign. One of them was "Aadra Adversity" and the other was "Going Downtown." In each case I had a "quick" order into a building that resulted in my troops getting instanty exhausted on the way. I was playing in WEGO mode and, after watching the replay, reloaded a saved game from the previous turn and issued different "quick" orders that went to different spots and the issue didn't come up again.

If by Soviet he meant "Red" units on the Syrian side, I would like to know as well. I heard something about new uncon stuff a while back.

This was a tough mission for me as well. I had to go back to a save game I had near the beginning of the mission at one point because I suffered too many casualties. SPOILERS************* Those two special forces companies that begin sweeping through the town from the beginning were unexpectedly close when I started and I had my forces too spread out with just a platoon near the enemy special forces at the start. That basically ensured that I had a platoon wiped out with not many casualties to the enemy in very beginning..:mad: The RPG-29s hitting the buildings my troops were in got frustrating really fast.

I would love to see a Red vs. Blue campaign and play as Red. I would personally recommend including both offensive and defensive scenarios, possibly in equal proportion to keep things varied and interesting. Mostly defensive scenarios would probably get kinda boring in my opinion. Acceptable casualty levels should probably be significantly higher for friendly (Red) forces as well. It could go something like this. Mission: 1.) Red regular armor (defender) vs. Blue armor (attacker) 2.) Red regulars/spec forces/uncon (defender) vs. Blue heavy infantry (attacker) in urban terrain 3.) Red recon vs. Blue recon (meeting engagement) 4.) Red medium/heavy infantry (attacker) vs. Blue infantry/armor (defender) in dense vegetation or hilly terrain 5.) Red mixed forces (defender) vs. Blue mixed forces (attacker) in a massive offensive. (Blue almost always achieves terrain objectives but Red can "win" by inflicting casualties) 6.) Red Uncon/spec forces counterattack (attacker) vs. Blue mixed forces (defender) in urban terrain 7 and up) Various Uncon offensives/defensives and Republican Guard operations And don't be afraid to scale the quantities of units available to make it fun. Maybe the Blue politicians decided not to send many forces to Syria in your particular story.

I tried the link when I got the e-mail and McAfee brought up a notice that said that this page was unsafe, at which point I took no further action. Whew...

I agree that it's spotting ability might be undermodeled in the game. In the Taskforce Thunder campaign there is a good test scenario taking place on a long, very narrow map, where you are given two M707s and there are a tons of enemies in trenches on a distant hillside. I've tried placing the M707s everywhere to see if they have any kind of spotting bonus over other units in the scenario, such as Abrams and Bradleys, but found nothing significant. Additionally, one of my M707s is often hit and destroyed by recoilless rifles and it is not the other M707 that spots the rifle after it takes a shot, but a dismounted recon squad or another vehicle such as Abrams or Bradley. I actually don't see a noticeable difference in spotting ability between most units in CM:SF, except for those with IR optics vs. no IR optics. The optics packages on recon and spotting vehicles do give a noticeable bonus to artillery and air support response times though.

One of the latest Russian IFVs, the BTR-T, is also based on a tank chassis, the T-55. It was developed in response to vulnerabilities of BTRs and BMPs to RPG fire during the Chechen war. It also gives them something to do with all the old T-55s.

It would be nice if some kind of "acquire" functionality was enabled between units in adjacent action spots. If one unit has the ammo but not the right weapon, acquire the weapon from the adjacent unit. Or have the other unit with the weapon acquire ammo. Maybe a functionality such as this could also be used to put weapons back in vehicles. Put the unit with the weapon to be put back, such as an empty Javelin CLU, into the vehicle and then have the vehicle "acquire" the weapon.

I believe that the silencer itself does not affect the round's ballistics, however supersonic rounds will always create a "crack" from the sonic boom, meaning that sub-sonic ammunition must be used in a truly silenced weapon. Sub-sonic ammunition, having a lower velocity, has a lower effective range. EDIT: Anyone know if the L115A3 in-game uses subsonic ammo or if sub-sonic .338 Lapua Magnum even exists?

I've had the same problem with U.S. infantry being spotted first by enemy tanks and my troops were in BUILDINGS. Not only that, but it happens with BMPs and T-55s without IR optics. IMO tank spotting ability vs. infantry in concealment needs to be reduced a bit.

Sounds like the tanks were pretty much the key in this one. Without Blue anti-tank technology, like Javelins and Hellfires and such, even the older tanks like these T-62s easily become the decisive weapons. The distances on this map are long and there are many open areas, further giving the tanks an edge. I agree that if hcrof had used more of them in his initial attack on the hill, the outcome would have been very different in his favor.

It's a nice system. It makes more sense that the rockets hit the intended target that happened to be occupied by civilians than veered off course by 300 meters. Another article I read about the Marjah offensive mentions a statement by one the residents that a Taliban machine gunner took up a position on a house occupied by several children. It sounds like with all the unprecedented strict ROE in effect that the U.S. Army already knew that the Taliban would fight this way and it actually surprises me that they would use the HIMARS at all. It would be nice to see it added to CMSF as an artillery asset though.

Oh, well that's even worse! Hopefully you can still make some use of your last tank. Perhaps place it in a keyhole position overlooking one of the objectives or a choke point. And if you still have your troops in an area that resulted in successful ambush of the enemy, watch out for artillery!