Lethaface

Not in my experience? To clarify I can fire a smoke mission with duration maximum, using up all the smoke rounds But after that the HE rounds are still available for fire missions. The other way around was not possible IIRC; if HE rounds are out than the piece is shown as empty. Thank me later

You mean with regards to nebelwerfers or in general? Artillery often comes with a good dose of smoke rounds, which can certainly werf enough nebel to matter ;-). Haven't used that much rocket artillery in CM (and I can't remember I ever used them to smoke), but in my memory the HE rockets do cause a healthy amount of suppression and deadly against troops in the open. Against troops in cover they are less useful perhaps, although the heavier calibres have quite some HE power. Ideal for saturating a larger area with a lot of HE, right before an attack on the position (or ideally right when troops leave the assembly area and advance to contact).

Those AT rifle grenades can good when they hit the sides/rear, don't need to close assault but relatively close helps with accuracy.

Great reply by @domfluff Playing and winning with RED forces in CMSF2 is certainly possible, also in PBEM. Obviously one needs to take into account the capability mismatch between forces. Both the unconventional and the Syrian army do have sharp teeth, however in a direct conventional 1vs1 fight against NATO forces they don't stand a chance. Which is actually why asymmetric forces do exist in realilty, in some way at least. Syrian conventional forces have some capabilities but one certain fronts they are very much outclassed by BLUE forces. Mainly c2 structure/organization and optics. So, one needs to come to the battle with a different mindset. However, in proper (complex) terrain and reasonable objectives RED can surely give BLUE a very bloody nose in CMSF2. Use the hide and target arc command to make sure your forces only open fire close, when the BLUE advantage has gone. Use kamikaze doctrine. AT-14s, RPG-29s, VBIED, IED, enough assets to damage BLUE forces. A clip from a PBEM with Unconventional against USMC (QB ME). Partly due to the urban terrain I was able to force the surrender of USMC:

They do share info. However they do have to spot them with their own eyes. That's how real life works too,imo. You can point me that tank in the distance and give me the binos. But than I still need to find/see it for myself. Obviously there are some abstractions in place, but this is closer to RL than any other game I've come across.

Thing is no one needs to buy that concept as that's not how it works in CM. But somehow you seem to keep thinking it does even after AKD explained how it does works. There are some quirks sometimes with sharing and Syrians have some limited capabilities IIRC, but for me too it does work in all CMx2 games.

The laser designator is a useful tool, not for spotting alas. It does help with ordering Air and Artillery strikes.

Can't remember this one, I got to the mission where you post the AAR of in other thread. Well at least the ceasefire trick works. I should go back to this campaign one day and finish it!

Nice AAR! I remember that mission and got stuffed on my first try similar to you. IIRC i moved infantry on the buildings on the hill and they got slaughtered while M1s were taking AT-14s to the face. I retreated and didn't came back yet lol. Definitely one of the harger battles against the AI in CMSF2!

Which mission is this? I played the campaign quite far after the release of CMSF2 (IIRC I got to the mission where you have mainly Abrams and face off against very good quality Syrian troops who prepared an ambush, must be 10+ something).

That's some solid analysis, so all seems good in this regard. Thanks!

Perhaps it isn't as black and white as you sketch it. BF might indeed be interested in feedback from customers. Also AKD is interested, why would he otherwise ask you for the file? For about a decade there have been things like wetransfer where you can just drag and drop stuff without registering at all. Upload a file, choose to get a link instead of email share and paste the link here. Done in 30sec.

This forum is invisioncic.com software. Although a .exe download is indeed quite strange and suspicious. Didn't see it here. Edit: I do notice that they have setup a certificate for this site allowing HTTPS, which wasn't there recently.

Interesting questions. Darpa and other companies are imo already busy with (smaller than tanks) autonomous decentralized distributed weapon systems. A lot of words but think of it like having lego blocks with all required functions inside it, interchangeable. 3d printing stuff can also do a lot for logistics. I think the future will be a lot of indeed smaller platforms compared to tanks. But why would you stick to the ground? And why would you even use Human operators, let alone crew. Swarming AI operated drones with a smart warhead inside. Drones cheap enough that it is the payload too, no need for firing anything. Humans sit back in a bunker at base HQ (or working from home due to corona ). That is, hopefully they keep human decision makers. Those squishy humans would still need protection though, if they come out that bunker. Probably they are figuring out what to do with those humans, Skynet is ready for it but we aren't ;-). Although the 'big' weakness of all these technological things is that, at the moment, EW can shut of most of it (although not if you make it fully autonomous I guess). Having watched Terminater-2 quite a couple of times, sometimes the developments scare me. Basically Google is conceptually like Skynet, they are building the AI. There is already the Atlas robot. Probably won't be next decade, but how about 20-30 years from now?

+1

Sounds like a great concept for a scenario were recon is very important!

First, this is an exercise. Second, around the 3min mark they seem to be on the move operationally, not anywhere near enemy. You can test out your theory about that tactic in CM very well, put a lot of Tigr and some transport trucks in the same formation in open field. Drive them around using the 'tactics of advance' with any enemy unit near. Chances are that they will take significant casualties against any serious opposition. Now without any enemy near this tactic of advance works very good for putting KMs on the dash ;-).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Glory ?

CMFB does feature snow mechanics. There are ground conditions patchy snow / light snow / snow / deep snow. There is different kind of snowy weather: light/heavy/blizzard. There is temperature cool/cold/freezing/extreme cold. Those all affect the battlefield in various ways, or have I been imaging things? ;-).

Map looks great and sounds like an interesting scenario!

Yeah it might be too long, just observed that the 3IT warhead is longer than the 3T. Although on your last picture it doesn't seem that different compared to the real picture. The warhead is positioned similar up from the shoulder, just the tube seems to be 10-20 cm longer on the back of the launcher.

The version in game seems to be the 3 'IT', which is larger than the 3-T in your picture.

Use more artillery :).

I think it's a fine review of the game launching on Steam.

I don't know about the matchup level, tbh I also always look at the call in time. However, I *think* I have noticed a difference when for example using an FO with a laser designator compared to an FO without it. So I'm not sure that the call in time is all that is going on.