Alan8325

I think that's exactly it, the spacing. IIRC in CMSF all HE weapons are nerfed against infantry in the open to simulate the wider spacing between individuals that would be used in real life. The infantry in the game (CMSF), however, are limited in spacing by the action spot system and are depicted as closer together than they theoretically would be in real life. In CMBN I recall that HE is not nerfed because troops tended to be closer together in reality as well. I suspect that the lethality of many weapons as well as the cover provided by different sources will be tweaked over time though.

I have mixed feelings regarding this. On the one hand sending suicide units to discover enemy positions seems gamey but on the other hand we are very limited by time compared to RL. There are basically two ways of doing recon - stealthily observing enemy positions with scouts and FOs, and getting shot at to find enemy positions. In CM we unfortunately do not often have the time to do recon of the stealthy kind and therefore need to get shot at, which is done via either recon by fire from small units such as scout teams, or with easy to spot units that are cheap and of poor value (jeep/kubel) or so tough that they can take the hits (Tiger). In CMSF I found that often the only way to find enemy ATGMs was to let them open up on my M1A2SEPs.

I remember a few discussions about this in CM:SF. The main reason it is not currently modeled for vehicles is because the tac-AI wouldn't know how to position vehicles to take advantage/avoid the limitations of elevation and depression limits.

Although the probability that NATO forces will become involved in Syria is low, there is a higher probability that civil war will break out with defecting military units making a stand with protesters against Assad forces. This type of scenario is still "CMSF realized" in a RED vs RED respect. I believe most of the assets that would be used by either side are in the game, including unconventional combatants that could represent armed protestors and non-uniformed military defectors. Below are some comments from one of the latest articles, suggesting that there is even some armour vs armour fighting already: Refugees arriving in Turkey said fighting had also broken out among Syrian troops on Sunday as soldiers bent on destroying the area were confronted by others trying to defend the townsfolk. Elements from one tank division had even taken up positions by bridges leading into the town in a bid to defend it, they said. "The troops are divided," said 35-year-old Abdullah, who fled Jisr al-Shughur on Sunday and sneaked over the border into Turkey to find food. "Four tanks defected and they began to fire on one another," he added. Ali, another Syrian refugee who made it to Turkey, told a similar story. "There is now a split within the army and you have a group who are trying to protect the civilians," the 27-year-old told AFP. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110614/wl_mideast_afp/syriapoliticsunrest_16

Agree with this. Also, accuracy and effectiveness of the AK rifles at very close (~50m) range seemed undermodeled when compared to the U.S. M4s as well. Seems like any automatic weapon putting out enough suppressive fire from a skilled shooter should be roughly equal at that kind of range, yet BLUE forces in CMSF seemed to always win suppression and get the upper hand, even against veteran+ RED guys. RED artillery support, too, seemed inept in CMSF where in CMBN we are going back in time almost 70 years and BOTH sides have similar arty response times and accuracy that seem closer to BLUE capabilites in CMSF.

IMO the survivability of the M1A1/A2's in CMSF was a bit overmodeled, and the detection abilites of RED armor undermodeled, especially at the ranges we were dealing with. If I'm right, we should see more even fights, if not, well maybe Russia has better stuff now. Also, the experience levels and doctrine of the RED side should be more even in CMSF2, where both sides will be ~veteran and allowed squad splitting options, as opposed to the veteran vs green type of matchup that was typical in CMSF.

I was hoping for China too but I guess since much Russian kit is already done it would allow for more development time to go towards advancing CMx2's capabilities, which is OK with me. I suppose China could hypothetically be included in a module or separate game as well, like how the Eastern Front in WWII will be a seperate game with modules from the Normandy game with its modules. I personally like to play with "what if" scenarios with fully modern and near future kit so I'm totally for a modern/near future setting as opposed to 70's or 80's, but that's me! EDIT: Actually, if/when CMx2 can do jungle environments, Vietnam and WWII Pacific would be pretty awesome!

+1! And upon returning to the modern era with all it's high-tech lethality, I hope we get larger maps, detailed visible damage to vehicles (a Maverick, afterall, doesn't leave a tank very recognizable after a direct hit!), more control over CAS requests such as choosing the attack vector, on-map aerial insertions and extractions, a return of Uncon forces with IEDs and hopefully more improvised weapons like molotov cocktails (fire should make an arrival to CMx2 at some point in the WWII games)... I could go on and on, but we still have plenty of time.

When you have NO units selected, all contacts spotted by any of your units will appear on your display. Simply deselect the unit so that you have none selected, and you will see all contacts. Regarding impressions, I have only played the "training" scenario so far and I like what I see! *Spoiler Warning* I was moving a rifle platoon across that wooden foot bridge on the U.S. left side of the map when they got pinned down on the bridge, then subsequently came under fire from an enemy Pak40 AT gun at the far end of the map. After about 3 or 4 hits to the bridge, the bridge falls into the water insta-killing 2/3 of the squad! Bad place to get pinned and take fire from HE. By the end of the scenario, that Pak40 had racked up 16 casualties and 1 Sherman tank. My most damaging units were the two 60mm mortars with 13 and 15 kills.

I would agree with this. In real life recon troops have specialist training in spotting while remaing unspotted themselves. In CMSF there are different general combat experiece levels but no simulation of specialist training and/or skills. All troops, including recon troops, generally obey the same spotting rules and spot as well and are spotted as easily themselves as all other troops, with the possible exception of Syrian spies, which are hard to spot due to their civilian appearance. To make one unit spot better than another, given the same type of concealment, one must boost the general combat experience of the unit to spot better. Hopefully someday CMx2 will allow for even more breaking down of a unit's experience into some different variables that can be tweaked to make specialist soldiers! Things like combat experience, spotting, stealth, fitness (more choices perhaps ranging from -2 to +2), urban warfare (these units would fare better during room clearing ops), engineering, etc.

Yes, I believe so. But when designing a scenario it's possible to prevent that from happening by giving them reinforcements that never arrive. These count as part of their total force that determines when it's time to surrender. I do not recall which scenarios use this method, however.

Ah ok, thanks for that. Looking forward to having platoon/squad leaders in CMSF2, and also choosing whether squad leaders stay as commander of their vehicle or move out with the squad.

All true except for when you are playing RED and can't split teams (special forces and airborne excepted). Then you have to use the "assault" command. Apparently it has to do with doctrine, where the squad is not trained to split into two independent fire teams. I personally would have rather seen CMSF go about it by allowing the split for RED squads and then imposing severe leadership quality penalties on team B, rather than just not allowing it at all. You can, afterall, use the assault command, which naturally splits teams for a limited distance, and also the HQ squad (which is simply a 9-man rifle squad that has the platoon leader attached) has a 2-man AT team hard-coded split out. That is why Syrian rifle platoons in CMSF have a 7-man HQ team and 2-man AT team. This is not a real-life organisation, but simply a concession to allow more flexibility in the game.

I think the Gill missile still needs fixing too. It's WAY too inaccurate and doesn't arc very high in the air to hit the top armor of targets. I believe it's performance is supposed to be on par with Javelin.

Apparently there are plans for a CMSF2 with a modern setting in a temperate climate and more even sides, but that's about all we know.

I will probably play CMBN more because it is a more advanced version of the engine with more capabilities and two roughly even forces, but I will still play CMSF for the modern setting. Being able to play around with the equipment and tactics that are in use today, in a game that is more simulator than any other game out there, is attractive to me and I look forward to CMSF2!

A few changes here and there to "The Road to Dinas" to match a real life Syrian civil war should do it.

29, turning 30 on May 18th. I still enjoy games like Starcraft(2), CoH and the occasional mindless FPS. Games like CM have much more depth than anything else out there and that is appealing to me right now as well. World of Warcraft has lots of depth in a different way, but I just don't play that enough anymore to justify the monthly fee, so I don't.

In CMSF trenches were actually in the terrain mesh which made them natuarally provide cover via LOF blocking from most directions, but they were not subject to FOW and thus viewable by an opponent who scans the map. One could, however, fire down one end of a trench line and naturally hit the occupants more easily. My questions then, are these. In CMBN, do the above ground fortifications still block LOF, or do they just increase the chance that an on-target "hit" will actually count as a "miss"? Also, would one standing on one end of a trench line firing down it have better chances of hitting the occupants, as one would in CMSF, or is the hit "chance" the same regardless of where the shooter is standing?

The 3d models of the towed guns are certainly impressive!

Perhaps CM is abstracting the incendiary effects of WP that would occur shortly after the burst of the shell. It's interesting that no casualties have been reported due to WP useage when the Wikipedia page on WP shows a clear picture of a WP "casualty". That said, in CM terms those injuries would probably represent a "yellow" casualty, as it looks plenty painful and severe enough to limit combat performance, but not bad enough to floor someone of solid mental toughness. Also, those injuries look as though they were sustained by being hit directly by burning chunks of WP released immediately after the detonation of the round. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus

No map generator because the terrain is too complex to make one that produces good maps, but IIRC there's a possibility of a tile-based random map generator being added in future titles. I guess it would consist of pre-made tiles, each made of multiple action spot squares, that can only fit together in a certain way, so things like roads and elevations connect correctly.

The infantry forces themselves seemed not too unevenly matched but until those very late M10s showed up, all the Americans had to do any damage to three Panthers was a few bazookas and one or two AT guns. Remove the Panthers and I call it evenly matched.

Wow, that second TD at 1:24:00 in the first set of videos sure got lucky taking at least 2 direct penetrating hits and kept going! One of the hits went straight through and out the other side. That might have been a rare circumstance where having light armor was a little more helpful than heavy armor.

I'm not too bothered about 4km x 4km in CMBN, a WWII game, however I really believe the next modern combat title needs larger maps so that less weapon systems' effective ranges encompass the entire map, making anything visible on the map an instant target to anything else, basically. EDIT: As I understand it, the current limiting factor is the nature of the LOS system, which is computationally intensive. It would need refinement, perhaps making use of parallel processing, to open the way for much larger maps.