bartleby

I generated a quick battle in the hills. It started out fine, I placed my troops and gave them orders. Then I hit go and noticed something strange...they started taking fire at once FROM BEHIND! Apparently the computer had the same setup area as I did! While I didn't accomplish my mission, I can report with some certainty that a Stryker platoon is vulnerable to T-72 fire from the rear. Anyway. I can't really remember the other settings, but it was a real-time game, if that helps.

Just a quick note to say I was having those flickering and yelling problems but installing the AMD dual-core optimizer seems to have cleared them up. Now back to the game...

I think the BFC download version is 1.01. And...25%!!

That's a valid point, but slightly mistaken, I think. If the only difference between a BFC title and an EA title was the quality of presentation, then there probably would be no reason to buy from BFC. But by being smaller and having smaller development costs, BFC can take risks that EA doesn't. Unfortunately, along with that smaller team comes a bit less polish and flash. It can also mean that testing is less accomplished, which means more bugs initially. I'm willing to accept those downsides to get at the great gameplay there. Bugs can be patched and problems fixed, but you can't change the underlying system. I don't want to denigrate the people who like EA games, I'm not a game elitist, but it's a different way of playing and a different mindset. The large developers seem to be sticking to the formula of evolutionary graphical increases and sequel after sequel in order to ensure a return on their (considerable) investments. One thing that sucks about the overall increase of computer graphics is that it's a lot harder to make assets for games. A new FPS can easily have 9 gigs just of textures and models. That's a lot of stuff for one person to make! I hope this doesn't drive independent developers out of the game business, but something is going to have to change at some point, anyway.

I think we gamers might have to change our expectations of launch products. I can think of a lot of fantastic games that were buggy or broken at launch but patched later on. Especially for a small developer, testing and finalizing is going to cost a lot. As much as they deserve it, I doubt BFC is sitting on a pile of money like Blizzard and can afford to wait a year tweaking and polishing. The sad thing is that reviewers only review a game once. It might be interesting if some reviewers published follow-up reviews to see if certain things have changed for the better.

Using Iraq as an estimate of Syrian performance is a bad idea. For one thing, there wasn't a single Iraqi use of an ATGM. I don't know if OIF would have gone as smoothly had there been many Kontakt lying around. Israel had some problems in 78 and 82 as well. It's wrong to think that an invasion should be a walk in the park.

I assume that it means they were captured. </font>

Good find! Makes the wait a little easier. Did anyone else notice the "missing" category in the AAR? I wonder how that will be handled.

Hi bartleby, I have read that one from cover to cover and I can assure it will bore you to death.

Back to the subject at hand, Infantry had an interesting article on 5.56mm lethality in CQB. Good reading for anyone interested in the subject. Biggest surprise - 7.62 ball performed about the same as 5.56 within 50 meters. http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-29494310_ITM (enter zip code 87747 if prompted to read the full article)

I found a couple books that look interesting and potentially useful and was wondering if anybody has heard of them. From Transformation to Combat: The First Stryker Brigade at War The Stryker Brigade Combat Team: Rethinking Strategic Responsiveness and Assessing Deployment Options Network Centric Operations Case Study: The Stryker Brigade Combat Team Cheers

The interesting thing about SDI is that Reagan wanted it because he didn't believe that deterrence worked. He initially wanted to offer it to the Soviets as well, since a mutual shield would be the only way to eliminate the power of ballistic nuclear weapons. They didn't accept his offer, and perhaps it was too much trust to ask of them, but that's how it went. A lot of interesting info came out after the Cold War ended, indeed. The scariest stuff was the Soviet's plan for tactical nuke use, as MikeyD mentioned - NATO just dropped the ball in that regard. We assumed that the other side would think the same we as we did without evidence to back that up. We would have had a terrible surprise if an actual conflict had come about. The overly rational models of nuclear conflict would have been useless. Thank goodness that's (mostly) done with, anyway....

That's an RPG-29. Surprised me as well how large it actually is!

Ah, google turned up this for the source. Not sure where he got his figures, but eh. http://www.armchairgeneral.com/articles.php?page=1&p=2958&page=2

To be honest, $2 million isn't that much these days. A company like id or Bioware could easily spend over $50 million on a single title and then discard the engine. Admittedly, they would make a lot by licensing the technology as well. Also remember that BF is going to be able to use this for a fairly long time - it's going to cost less to develop expansions and new titles with the same engine.

hmm good call - casket with cross probably represent thousands of christians slaughter last year in Lebanon by zionist nazists targeting civil compounds, schools, hospitals and infrastructure. </font>

I was just watching the program Delta Company on TV. It's about a Marine company in the Iraq invasion, and had footage of a breaching operation where the MICLIC didn't detonate - apparently, some poor LCpl had to run out there and set it off by hand. That can't have been much fun. I wonder if BF will model that aspect too

Do you know what The Onion is?

I know this isn't really a cogent criticism of Israeli foreign policy or whatever, but Israel more than made up for any military support it could have offered by staying out of Iraq. Any chance of having some Arab support for the invasion would have gone out the window if they were a part of it. The same thing happened in GW1 - why do you think Saddam was launching Scuds into Tel Aviv? I think an IDF module would be neat just for the conflicts it opens up, but would probably be more trouble than it's worth.

Good links! Thanks. cheers!

Interesting, I hadn't heard about that. Can you direct me to some sources? I'm sort of interested in the HAPC concept, and this would be great to look into.

Interesting. I am willing to bet that their operational strength was much less than that list implies. As most on this board probably know, military power goes beyond the amount of equipment in the shed. You need trained personnel to fly and support all that stuff, staff to manage the fight, and facilities to support it. 12 years of neglect post-GWI probably eroded much of that. </font>

True, but Israel and Russia have both made efforts to go that way. The BTR-T and the Achzarit/Nagmachon use tank chassis. I'm not sure how effective operationally they have been, but I'd be surprised if someone at the Pentagon wasn't investigating the concept. But you're basically right. Making a bigger IED is pretty simple, but making a bigger APC is expensive and complicated. I'm not sure if there is a real "solution" to the problem.