PrezCartman

Kev, Well tell you what, we can always say the side holding the airfield was a group of Mexican raiders . Pancho Villa's great grandson leading them. You're right the idea is chilling, but Americans kill each other on the streets every day, only difference is here the government has finally collapsed and the violence has become more organized and whatever we want to pretend there are nutjob militia groups out there right now who would gladly stage an insurrection in the United States if they thought they could get away with it. The most important thing to remember, it's a game and an entirely fictional scenario within the game. Just interested to see how well it simulates a small squad special forces style raid and wanted to see if any others would be interested in trying it out. And by the way I live in Maryland and am a former West Pointer so not like I'm some American-hating foreigner, just willing to think outside the box for new possibilities for the game. [ August 15, 2007, 07:29 PM: Message edited by: PrezCartman ]

So I was just dreaming up my first scenario idea zooming around through Google Earth and decided a mixed force simulating a US civil war scenario could be entertaining. What follows is the first draft of the mission briefing, wanted to know if anyone thinks this sounds interesting and want me to put the effort into making it. Please keep in mind the units listed are just my first thought. I'll have to actually load them in and test out the scenario to make sure it is fun and winnable with the force loadouts I plan. Mission-Welcome to Roswell, New Mexico. The civil war rages on across the country and you are the leader of our special operations division in this state. Our national intelligence apparatus has scored a coup. We have learned that our rivals, the Army of the United States, AUS, recently acquired a large amount of classified data when they overran CIA headquarters in Langley, VA. One of the government secrets they uncovered is that the federal government did in fact recover a UFO at Roswell in the 1950’s. The AUS branch here in New Mexico managed to secure the remnants of this craft which possesses incredibly advanced technology. They have moved to this small abandoned airfield southeast of Roswell and are holed up inside a warehouse with their cargo. In one hour, an AUS cargo aircraft will arrive to retrieve the cargo and transport it to a more secure AUS base. Your mission is to secure the warehouse by any means necessary before that plane arrives. If you can eliminate the AUS troops in the area it will greatly aid our battles, but your troops are the best we have in this region so please don’t waste them. Good luck, if the Patriots of America, POA, wins this battle it may help us win the war in the future and help to rebuild this country. Friendly Forces-You have at your disposal one platoon of light infantry, it is a mix of former military and weekend warriors, but they are decently trained, highly motivated, well equipped, and your squad leaders are all ex-infantry. You will be inserted at your starting point via boat and thus will not have vehicles. However, this is America, scout around and I’m sure you can find a car or two that you can commandeer if you feel you need transportation. We have two observation teams equipped with sniper rifles in over watch of the airfield. Finally, when we cleared out the local National Guard Armory we managed to snag a few 60mm mortar tubes and a decent stockpile of ammo, these are setup to provide you with whatever support they can. Enemy Forces-As best as our intelligence group has been able to ascertain there are approximately a reinforced platoon worth of AUS troops holding the airfield and securing the warehouse with the cargo. We do not know what sort of firepower they have, but they should not have any heavy weapons systems. We have observation teams watching all routes approaching the airfield and will try to intercept any reinforcements sent your way. Weather-It is a clear night with excellent visibility and calm winds.

Steiner, Keep in mind most of those firing RPGs in the Mog weren't even conscripts, they were just random civs with their own weapons. I have a feeling the Syrians are portrayed as a little more effective then the Somalis were. Also, keep in mind the US forces had A LOT of outbound firepower not to mention some air cover. I don't think you can really simulate a BHD type situation in CMSF. For one thing Somalis were largely individual fighters staging attacks with little overall coordination so forget organized squad firepower. Not to say that years of fighting hasn't given the Somalis plenty of practice but still not the level of organization and unity that even a conscript Syrian squad possesses.

I'm not comfortable enough yet with the editor to try, but I think a great idea would be a Red v. Red campaign. Perhaps an Iranian civil war with the military taking on a more unconventional but numerically superior civilian resistance. To make things fun you always have the possibility of the resistance managing to seize a few weapons depots and liberate some better equipment. If you wanted something that wasn't very vehicle centric you could also simulate a wide variety of battles in Afghanistan particularly Taliban v. Northern Alliance.

Raw, that's an excellent explanation. One thing I would like to add from personal experience is the way I handle having the vehicles in urban environments. I generally use my vehicles to hold large areas, i.e. major lanes through cities are locked down by the vehicles to prevent enemy movement from one sector to another while infantry moves up and clears the smaller areas. Like Raw said since I usually have enough vehicles left over a few vehicles, particularly Bradleys if I have them are, kept to rapidly go in and rescue any infantry forces that meet heavy resistance.

I've had a lot of problem getting US snipers to fire however in a few custom test scenarios playing as Syria with sniper units they will gladly plink away with SVDs at range so I'm not sure if it's just an issue with the US sniper Tac AI or what.

Sotoro, keep in mind you're commanding regular US Army units, most SF ops would be away from the main battlefields conducting deep strike operations against strategically vital targets. As as US Company level CO you would not be very likely to ever be put in charge of any SF assets.

I don't remember to be honest with you. I don't think there was rubble, but can't be sure, that was about 10 missions ago and it takes awhile. I think there may have been rubble to one side though, i.e. one section had rubble and one didn't.

Keep in mind with assault half your squad is going to remain in the open providing cover fire. If the enemy is that suppressed it's better to use fast or quick like Miska said and get all you troops in cover inside the building as fast as possible. Also, do try to get your guys as close as possible and if you can position you Stryker where the infantry are as far out of the enemy line of fire as is possible.

KG, The Javelins are not there for the Strykers to use, they are ammo for your infantry to pick up and use. When your infantry unit is mounted in the Stryker, move to the Special commands tab. You'll see a command for acquire, when you select it you'll see a list of everything available in the Stryker, to equip the Javelins, you need to the select the launcher unit at the top of the list, then select how many missiles you want. Then move the infantry in a position to fire the missiles. Acquire is also how you can give your guys extra ammo. As for the Bradleys, yea they do seem a little eager to blast off those TOWs. What's most annoying is when the Tac AI launches at targets on a reverse slope and your missiles harmlessly slam into a hill top.

Xavier, how exactly did you try sending your units through the gap? I used my MGS's to blast holes in the wall and had no trouble getting Strykers and infantry to go through. One tip I would recommend is blasting at least a few sections of wall out and send your units through in move not anything like fast or quick.

You'll notice that I came into this thread with suggestions for the poster - somebody else brought up an argument from somewhere else. I have a right to defend myself if someone wants to come into a thread and harass me for no reason whatsoever, such as yourself. </font>

I think the biggest issue is keeping good spacing, I know I've been guilty myself of stacking my units a lot closer together than SOP would dictate especially in road marches. Keep in mind you should have probably 50-100m between vehicles, give them that much room between and even the Tac AI shouldn't mess you up too much.

Billy, if you wish to have an argument with the developers do it elsewhere. I realize you have all kinds of problems, frankly I could care less, some of us are trying to enjoy the game and help others play well. Please keep your complaints into topics that address them not ones that have nothing to do with it.

That's about as much feedback as you get also, much of the time you'll see a little red flag show up where the minefield was hit. Make sure it was a mine you hit and not an IED.

Charger the only way to really do that right now is anytime you wish to move the entire group hold down your shift key and drag the box over the entire unit. Then select whichever vehicle in the group you want to base the movement off of, give him an order to move, all the other vehicles in the group will get a move order relative to the unit you had selected. It's the closest you can get to a formation lock, but I wouldn't recommend doing this with any high speed commands as you're still likely to get issues.

I had no problem assaulting the airfield. However I also didn't try the frontal assault. At the start of the mission I raced my entire Stryker force straight up the left edge of the map then turned to face the Barracks area. Because of a little extra elevation my MGS's were able to engage many of the enemy technicals behind the wall. Once I had engaged all available targets, I use the MGS cannon to blast a few holes in the wall. Then I send my forces through securing the buildings closest to the map edge first. Once these are secured I come under fire from the platoon holding the east most Barracks building. A few Strykers for suppressive fire and a platoon worth of small arms and in less than 3 minutes the enemy is in bad shape and a few local assaults finish securing all 3 barracks buildings. Once this was secure I loaded up my HQ teams with Javelins and sent them to the rooftops while my Strykers take up overwatch positions. Any enemy force that sticks it's head up gets a Jav or 105 round sent its way. By now I have one platoon holding the Barracks, my 1st reinforcement platoon has been fed through the same gap and is now starting to advance on the Airfield building while my 2nd reinforcement platoon advances from the front of the airfield, after a few Javs are launched at all known enemy positions. I work my way forward never advancing more than two Strykers at a time, the rest having covers arcs that will allow fire on every enemy building. As soon as a Stryker with infantry reaches a secure building, I dismount the infantry and deploy them to provide more cover fire as the rest of my troops move up. Finally there is almost no opposition left and I assault each of the three objective buildings with a squad clearing from bottom to roof. I do manage to lose one Stryker from an unseen IED, but can't be helped. Finally I now have both of the closest objectives secured and only the SF HQ left. I decide that I do not want to risk losing most of my force to secure the last building and settle on demolishing it instead. I position every available Javelin on rooftops overlooking the place as well as my FOs and JTACs. I also manuever all my Strykers to be in a position to provide fire on anything that moves in the area. Then I proceed to rain down Apache, Javelin, Mortar, and MGS fire until I virtually level the SF HQ finally causing the Syrians enough damage to result in a surrender. This was about 6 missions ago and I don't really remember my losses but I think it was maybe 3-4 Strykers total plus 20 or so troops. When in doubt remember the basic standing orders, find, fix, flank. Figure out where your enemy is, hit them with enough firepower that they don't wanna play anymore, flank them to get in an angle where you can easily finish them off. The worst mistake you can make in my opinion in CMSF is taking the obvious path right up the middle, that's where the teeth of defensed will generally be, look to take off small parts of the enemy defenses where you can have numerical and firepower superiority and you will keep your loses down.

Hmmm ok well sadly I have nothing definitive. A reply from the devs might be helpful here. Here is what I did observe. 1.Minefields appeared to only be discovered after a mine was detonated by a friendly, I use mixed mines and they did not damage my Humvees as they rolled over, but did detonate. 2.Engineers must first be moved within about 10m of the mine sign to be able to use the Find Mines command. 3.Once the engineers start to execute the command they will go prone in the area for 2+ minutes alternating between spotting and hiding in their status. 4.After this time has elapsed the red mine sign will change to a green one. 5.I do not know what effect this change has. I can not tell if it truly create a safe lane for follow on units or not. Any developers who know what the mine aspect is supposed to do or that can explain what the difference is under the hood once the sign changes to green would be greatly appreciated.

Jaak, umm are you sure they were engineers? Eng's have a move command that is find mines, basically you get you squad where you want them to start then you set an end way point on where you believe the other side of the minefield to be and then they walk across SLOWLY and mark the field. However, I haven't gotten to test this in game, gimme about 2 hrs and I'll come back with an official answer, going to make a quick scenario and test it out and then you guys can have a real in game test result.

Caldwell, Yes if the IED malfunctions you can click on it and it will say Malfunctioned or something to that effect in the unit name.

Taki, If you read the manual the specs on the AT-3B are a 500m minimum range, hence at 400m the target was too close for your AT team to be able to guide the missile. CMSF appears to have it hard programmed for the teams not to fire if the target is closer than about 500m out because they're going to miss it anyway.

Haha glad you guys liked the load up idea. I just realized as fast as the teams can fire the Javelins there's not much reason to spread them around. Except you must make sure that team is not in harm's way and is in a position with great LOS to potential enemy strong points. It will really hurt you to lose 9 Javs because the team got wiped out, almost made that mistake on a short battle this morning. Thankfully one guy survive and I just had to get him a new Launch unit but he still had the unit's 4 missiles. Lol must be a beast to carry 4 Javelins on his back. But on a map like the Airfield in the campaign where you have 3 Platoons worth of missiles and good high buildings to place the launching teams on it just makes sense to have dedicated troops launching them. I guess you could always split an AT team from one your infantry squads but I prefer taking a Company or Battalion HQ since they're not going to be doing much close fighting anyway.

Jaguar, if you ever want someone to help test out any new scenarios you create I'd be happy to help.

Achim, There are times at least in me playing where I want missiles and no launcher. I generally use HQ teams as my Jav launchers because I'd rather my squads have maximum firepower. This means that I will sometimes give a single HQ unit 9 Javelins if I know they're going to be in a really good position to provide long range support. I only need one launch unit and any extras you grab create two problems, one it takes up another equipment slot, and more importantly you now have more than one soldier firing the Javelin. This can be a big problem because now when you target something both Javelins will fire even if you only want one. It's a fast way to burn through some valuable ammo.

Don't know, the only VBIED I had that failed to do any real damage was one that got engaged and blown up by a Stryker before I could get into kill range.