Alan8325

I'm no expert on KE rounds, but everything I've read says that depleted uranium penetrators cause plenty of incendiary damage after passing through armor, and it isnt really akin to a hot knife passing through butter, more like a hot knife passing through butter while at the same time catching on fire and fragmenting. I don't know if BMP armor is "hard" enough to cause this to happen, but I figure it should be. It is considered an armored vehicle afterall. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium

I've seen 12.7mm cause friendly casualties too. They fire AP or AP-I rounds though, not HE. Is the "explosion" supposed to simulate secondary shrapnel from impacts or wall penetrations?

I think armored vehicle crews spotting infantry units in adjacent buildings is the bigger issue here. I've seen a BMP spot my Marine team in an adjacent building and take a shot, killing/suppressing them before they were even able to get a shot off with AT-4s or LAWs. They weren't firing small arms from their position first, either. Even after firing off AT weapons, it should still be hard for the vehicle crew to spot exactly where the shot came from, I would think.

And it's always gratifying when a sniper spots the actual gunner of a grenade launcher or recoilless rifle team and takes him out, forcing someone else to move into position to re-man the weapon.

Yeah, I don't remember all the details, but LOS and LOF are NOT the same in CMx2. It's something like LOF is drawn using ballistics and rounds passing through visual representations while LOS is more abstracted and takes into account lighting conditions, type of cover, etc. and always starts from the middle of the spotting unit, not the optics suite such as that on recon strykers or at the top of a TOW launcher.

I've also seen the AI use way too much 5.56, 7.62, and .50 cal to completely destroy unoccupied technicals in CM:SF, while a single 40mm HEDP round knocks it out. I haven't seen anything unrealistic about how fast the crew members get killed by small-arms rounds as they seem to die after just a few bursts, but then the unoccupied vehicle attracts a frustratingly high amount of ammo from the AI. I think the best fix would be just a TAC-AI adjustment that makes them consider (observably) unoccupied vehicles as the same as knocked out ones.

All vehicles can drive over that type of terrain so it can't represent rocky features more than about a foot high and still be realistic. It would be cool to see a large rock/boulder type of terrain that offers excellent cover to infantry but is impassible to vehicles, but this would be very complex 3d terrain that would be hopelessly taxing on the processor. If it worked it would be great for the Afghanistan maps though.

I definitely like the retreat feature of the AI in most cases, but IMO it usually makes it easier in urban combat because I've noticed that they usually end up right outside the back door of the building they escaped from with no cover. Then once my troops go into the building, I have cover and the enemy is sitting on bare ground right outside and are easily picked off. It would be really cool if the AI always automatically picks the next building back or at least a bush, vehicle or flavor object to hide in/behind after backing out.

You could also play mostly urban maps to take away most of the Javelin's advantages. I've found that Marine squads tend to perform the best in urban environments, compared to the Army and Brits, due to their large squad size. A single squad can occupy 3 different buildings with plenty of firepower in each to provide cover fire for eachothers' movement. You just have to make sure that you disembark from the barn-sized AAVs and MTVRs well out of sight of the enemy!

I haven't had a chance to play through the Brit campaign yet, but I made a thread about the Rarden issue of not doing much damage. The reason seems to be that it fires HE against lightly armored targets, like BMP, as opposed to APDS. One of the changes mentioned in the v1.21 list is that units are more likely to fire HE before KE against lighter targets and it appears that the AI behind the Rarden is, IMHO, incorrectly affected by this change, especially considering the HE-APDS ratio carried. The HE-APDS ratio was discussed in another thread and Steve mentioned that this ratio really is what is carried in real life, to his surprise as much as yours. There was internal debate as to whether to use this unfortunately realistic ratio or bend reality a little bit and make it more even or HE-favored. The result was to keep the realistic loadout. EDIT: From v1.21 list of changes: •Tanks won't waste APFSDS ammo on lightly-armored targets when alternative ammo is available.

I believe that there are still significant differences between NATO/Blue and Russian/Warsaw/Red ways to develop weapons, but the ease at which information can travel around the world these days makes me think that the techniques that tend to work better will not stay isolated for long anymore. The other factor is money, which determines to what extent R&D and production can be done. Unfortunately the U.S. does not have such a huge advantage in wealth anymore.

I agree. It seems that before v1.20, IIRC, near misses of the larger sized shells hitting near vehicles would regularly take out their tracks and tires, immobilizing them. Since then, however, it seems that it takes a 155mm shell landing literally a foot or two away from a vehicle to do any significant damage. If artillery blast damage really got nerfed significantly like it seems it did, I don't know why. I haven't seen any complaints about artillery doing too much damage with near misses, so there must have been some "source" saying that the previous damage values were unrealistic.

With international arms sales apparently increasing with the U.S. leading the way, "Blue" vs "Red" conflicts, as in CM:SF, may be a thing of the past. Some of the EU countries aren't far behind Russia (which is 2nd) in arms exports and if you add up the total arms sales values for 2007 of just Germany, France and the Netherlands, they surpass that of the U.S. for 2007. This should be something to keep in mind when designing CM:SF2. Strict Blue vs Red in terms of units and technology may be unrealistic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_russia_france_navy_ship

How about tying squad-split options to unit experience? For example, conscript and green can't split, regular can do a simple one like AT detachment, and veteran and up can do all possibilities (assault order w/ bounding overwatch, assault team, split team, etc.). Special forces and Airborne could retain all squad split options for all experience levels.

In playing one of the British scenarios I noticed that my Scimitar was using 30mm HE ammo, as opposed to APDS, against an enemy BMP-1. I figured that this may be normal since the BMP armor is so light that perhaps HE does more damage than APDS, but sometimes the HE doesn't have a great effect so I set up some test scenarios. I used both a Warrior and Scimitar and set them up in ambush positions against a passing BTR, BMP-1, and T-72. Both Warrior and Scimitar used APDS against the BTR and T-72, with good effect agains the BTR, but both used HE against the BMP. I think this may be a small oversight in the TAC AI usage of Rarden rather than an intentional feature because the BMP has heavier armor than the BTR. I am using version 1.21.

I've been wondering why there haven't been any stories of MANPADs being used against coalition aircraft in either Iraq or Afghanistan myself. If the insurgents have RPGs, why don't they also have SA-7s or 14s?

+1 for near future. I like to play around with virtual versions of the state-of-the-art weapons and equipment that we see today, especially as computing power improvements allow for more accurate simulations. For those who are worried about a near-future conflict being a BLUE turkey-shoot, do you really think that in this age of information, we will see technological knowhow and advanced training techniques become even more unique to the U.S.? Remember that the Internet has only been around for a couple of decades or less. I would be highly surprised if the playing field didn't get more even fairly quickly. I don't really mind who the two (or more?) sides are in CMSF2 as long as they are close in capability.

Isn't Normandy supposed to have improved building damage modeling? I thought I read that each wall will now have 3 visual damage states as opposed to only OK/completely destroyed.

I notice pretty low lethality with all MGs in CM:SF, with the exception of M2HB which seems to have a little "splash" damage, especially against buldings. 99% of my MG use is in the area fire role against known enemy positions not necessarily seen by the gunner. I also wish MG fire would spray a little more rather than what looks like all bullets from a burst hitting in the exact same spot.

I searched again using the word "Milkor" and found that old thread whereas "M32", "M-32" and "MGL" turned up nothing...strange. It seems like the M16/M203 would allow much greater flexibility and quickness in switching between 5.56 and 40mm for different target types compared to the M32/M4 for an individual soldier. I guess theoretically the guy with the M32 in a well-coordinated team would have the 5.56 support from the others with M16s and M249s. I don't know how it actually worked out in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is the M32/M4 combo in CM:SF actually modeled with the correct weight to simulate a bulkier loadout than M16/M203? Perhaps adding some time to switch between weapons would make the combo more realistic so a single guy with M32/M4 can't "Rambo" along with instant weapon switching.

I've read on these forums a while back that after testing by Marines in Iraq, the M-32 mgl will not be adopted at a replacement for the M16/M203 combo in Marine squads as it is shown in CM:SF. There was even a video of a Marine using one in Iraq saying that he didn't like it. I can't, however, find any forum posts on the M-32, the video mentioned, or any info online about the current status of M-32 deployment. What does the current real-life weapon loadout of a Marine squad look like and does anyone know if or why the M-32 will not be used?

A good start regarding improving the engine to allow for persistent damage would be to simply have destroyed buildings carry over to the next scenario. It seems like it would only be a matter of flagging buildings in the next scenario to start in the destroyed state if the corresponding building gets destroyed in the previous scenario. Any units that would have started in that building in the next scenario could just start in the rubble. Realistic? Maybe not, but it's a start.

I still haven't tried multiplayer, sadly, but I'm almost embarassed to try because of how badly I'd get my ass handed to me the first few times. I've heard, however, that it is a very different experience than playing against the AI. You can play multiplayer in real-time or turn-based modes, and with turn-based you can play by e-mail. Not sure about more than 2 players playing. How would this work anyway?

Half the new gear shown to us in a preview post for the NATO module is used by Canada, so they will be in the next module, at least partially. As for the other "worthless" nations, this game is purely tactical in its scope and doesn't really include politics and the associated strategic allocation of forces as problems that the player has to deal with (scenario designers can still limit forces and add strict victory conditions). It's a situation where IF the included NATO nations were fully committed to helping the U.S. and Britain militarily, how would they fight on the battlefield.

Here is what is replacing the HMMWV in Afghanistan. It is called the M-ATV and it is a type of MRAP, based on the MTVR chassis, with supposedly higher mobility than other types of MRAP.