Vark

I gave up after the intro graphic AK with 30 rnd clip fired for six seconds!

I do hope urban combat is modified, especially as MG is near completion. Loss rates, to the attacker can be completely unsustainable, especially as grenades cannot be resupplied.

Shame, lots of accounts say they significantly reduced the ability to move of the roads, in the initial phases of the battle, canalising movement and leading to some bloody encounters.

Obviously it was taken out by an ALLAHU Akbar seeking missile! From the elevation of the main gun it was firing at something quite a long way away, just shows how firing from the same point is pretty dumb.

JonS, enjoying the master class, thanks for the effort and dedication involved. Just a quick question, does the MG editor allow the placing of the high wire fences that lined roads, in and around Arnhem? As the Pegasus archive says, they hindered the attempts of troops to find cover when under fire. http://www.pegasusarchive.org/arnhem/Photos/PicSStaffsUtrecht1.jpg

When I was working for my companies international franchise department, I told a Norwegian director about my hours worked,in the UK. His response was, 'what are you in the f'ing stone age? As a UK teacher now, I'm easily doing 12-15 hours a week unpaid overtime, on top of my normal 40 hours + a week, many of my student's parents are easily working similar hours.

Hezbollah certainly did in 2006, especially targeting troops in buildings.

Strange, I just had a 12.7mm armed Stryker shoot up my T-72, after having its FC, radio, tracks and targeting damaged, it backed off.

Actually the tactic of two tanks leading, turrets traversed to cover each other, with a third following is very similar to the 'pine tree' formation used by the Soviets in Berlin. Bil, no more comical that these guys, though their tank is comical! http://www.armchairgeneral.com/wordpress/wp-content/Andrew/EA/Norway005.jpg There are plenty of photos and film footage showing soldiers from WWII-Vietnam doing exactly the same tank shuffle, some far better trained than Syrian conscripts.

Why would the Syrians stockpile weapons in an underground arms dump that they knew was vulnerable to Israeli weapons? 2006 showed them Israeli intelligence would locate them, especially in a civil war, with no central government authority.

I work with an ex-Chally II commander, there's a lot wrong with it. The standard RPG-7 has a small HEAT round which would have to normally score a direct impact on any of the sub-systems listed to damage them, so how come tracks, targeting and IR systems are all repeatedly degraded with one hit?

The most impressive thing about the T-50, from the videos, is the camo scheme.

Thanks for all the effort it is much appreciated. Two quick questions. How soon did you realise GaJ was mainly operating a static defence? And did that knowledge encourage you to adopt a strategy of diluting your combat power to probe everywhere?

It would be nice to have an option to stagger the movement of troops, or let them move en masse. Too often a team or squad get wiped out because they all move together to cross open ground or toward an objective. Standard practice seems to be for soldiers to move forward individually or in pairs. That way the rest of the squad/ team can cover them and if they were targeted, only a fraction of the combat strength is removed. It also allows for far better opportunities to spot the enemy. I'd also like a timer to show how long it will take to reach a waypoint, so fire teams do not set off prematurely and a room clearing order, to stop excessive micro-managing when FIBUA. A move when breached order would be good and a more realistic demo sequence, why a whole squad to set a charge? Coupled with a staggered move option a small team of engineers could set a charge, which when detonated was the signal for the assault troops to select the clearing option and then move through the breach. Is there a way to have troops dismount on a waypoint, instead of having to wait for a vehicle to stop moving? Soldiers should be able to acquire weapons and ammo from dead soldiers, not just when giving buddy aid and have the ability to restock on grenades.

With a little help from the Prussians!

I read accounts of platoons/companies taking far more than 10% casualties and pressing on, I've talked to veterans who had a handful of men, when they secured the objective. I think we have to be careful we do not transpose the risk-averse modern era with WWII.

Oh yes, the Bermuda (Barbarossa?) triangle of CM 1, W/D when you don't mean to, where's that infantry squad gone?...Ooops! Thought I had two Marders here, now I have one, wtf?... Ooops

This is the reason many mourned CM campaigns being axed, it would have forced a player into force protection, but not relinquish the objective too early, lest a breakthrough occurs. By artificially suspending a game in time and space, the Alamo mentality is fixed in many players, who try to salvage the defeat of their egos by shedding pixel blood to try to hurt their victorious opponent. Think the Khan mentality in ST II, hurting your foe, even if he has his boot on your neck salvages honour, a tactic if replicated in reality would lead to a very short war! This fact is exacerbated by the lack of withdrawal opportunities, highlighted, cogently, by pnzldr, having said this, both Bil and GaJ have provided a mature gaming experience, shorn of this juvenile attitude. I'm still struggling with CM2, sometimes I love it, sometimes its abstractions really p*** me off, but these AAR's have shown the game in its best light. Not only that, the efforts to graphically show the conflict have been excellent and much appreciated.

No, that would have been shelling GaJ for 60 minutes and going in to pick up the pieces!

The MOP is so large only a B-2 can carry it and the GBU-28 was described, by a USAF report, as being wholly inadequate in destroying anything better protected than its specific HDBT profile. The Syrians know the performance of the GBU-28, and build underground storage facilities to defeat it, probably using techniques used by the Iranians, probably using Iranian engineers. The Israelis become aware of the new facilities and realise their 20year old bunker-busters are inadequate. The urgency comes when Assad plans to rearm Hezbollah with 'game-changing' weaponry and WMD's are used in Syria. The US helped, or developed, an interim bunker buster, which was tested by Israel and can now be used to take out any GBU-28 proof facilities. As for why plant stories about mini-nukes, reference the way UFO stories were advantageously used to conceal the flight testing of the Stealth and advanced recon platforms.

The first reported feldgrau on feldgrau incident occurred, after a row about, 'whose turn was it to shoot through the firing slit', turned ugly.

Puffing nervously on their cigarettes, and with a growing sense of unease, the men watched their commander 'fly' his imaginary Spitfire to England, and freedom!

I'd want a far more accurate vehicle damage modelling system, at present a lowly RPG-7 can regularly damage the optics, tracks, IR and targeting system of a Challenger II. I've also noticed the laser like accuracy of HMG's, enabling them to hit fast moving vehicle targets with one burst, out to 800m. Would it also be possible to issue a dismount command at a waypoint, instead of having to wait for a vehicle to stop? Why can there not be a simple counter to tell how long a unit will take to move a certain distance? Why should I have to guess when to move fire team Charlie, when in real life it would normally only move when fire team Delta was ready to give covering fire. Is there also a problem targeting objects on ridges, which are higher than the shooter? There seem to be a majority of rounds passing overhead, even from close range, with weapons like sniper rifles. I'd have thought the potential for skylining would have made spotting and accuracy better.

Mini-nuke is a decoy, rather like all the UFO reports that covered up the flight testing of stealth aircraft. The internet is a vast wisdom of crowds 'intelligence network', so feeding it a 'tasty' story, you can control, seems to be a sensible precaution. No official agency will subscribe to the theory, so no Syrians with Geiger counters, but it's 'plausible' enough to snare the amateur spook. As for testing, there is a world of difference between staged tests and real combat, hence the epithet 'proven in combat/combat tested' are much desired additions to any sales campaign. The Israeli contribution to combat testing of US weapons is a long and well documented path, which sometimes leads to the US buying back modified equipment. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/israelisystems.html

More like one of the latest bunker busters was used and a min-nuke decoy floated to shield the fact. After all, it's not the first time the US has benefited from having the IDF 'test' its weapons for it.