Guinnessman

Now that there ladies and gentlemen sums up why I've always had a special place in my heart for the German military. Nobody else could give such a tactic a more cooler name..... 'Storm-Defence-Fire'......... hell yeah!

IIRC the design philosophy for the MG34 and 42 was based on German experience in the latter part of WW1, when infantry tactics changed from 'walking slowly towards enemy positions' to the eminently more sensible 'running then going prone, then getting up and running for a short dash', and so on. The Germans realised they were only going to have a short time to fire on such difficult targets and so designed their new MG's to put as many rounds as possible downrange in the time they had available, thus increasing the chance of a hit. So the modern M240 has a rate of fire of between 750-950 rounds per minute whilst ye olde MG42 clocks in at 1200 rounds per minute. Hollywood is correct in as much as the MG42 fires faster....Im not sure what training WW2 German machine-gunners were given re burst length, but if JasonC was trained to fire 6-9 round bursts using a 550 round per minute M60 it must have been a real bugger trying to get ammo expenditure down with an MG42 firing 20 rounds per second! Of course, at Omaha beach the Germans would have had pre-positioned stockpiles of ammo for their weapons so they could be a little more free with the trigger!

Seconded, I'm on the 26th as well!

I have to say I'm really surprised at this, as it sounds as though the USMC are going to repeat the mistake the British Army made when they introduced the L86 LSW. Nowadays the LSW has been effectively usurped from the automatic rifle role by the SAW. The army has retained the LSW, but it's usually used in a DMR-type role for precision fire at longer ranges than an L85 can manage. It just can't put down the volume of fire that a SAW can. I spoke with a Royal Marine who took part in the initial invasion of Iraq, and he thought the SAW a big improvement over the LSW.

Umm...any independent verification of these alleged Serbian air raids and air defence skills? A google search shows nothing that backs up these claims, except for Serbian and Russian websites (unsurprisingly). The www.aeronautics.ru website definately doesn't have a lot of supporters at http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=19624, although if these guys are right, the Serbs hit on an innovative way of splashing UAVs...fly alongside them in a helo and use the door guns? Smart! Of course, flying a helo when your enemy has air supremacy is not so smart.... I have to say I think it extremely unlikely that NATO would be able to cover up the losses that these sites claim were inflicted. According to the Serbs they shot down a pretty good spread of everything NATO had in it's inventory, including a B52 and a B2! Which IIRC never went near Serb airspace, they just hung back and launched cruise missiles. Frankly, I think this is wishful thinking by the Serbs who, as a people with a warrior tradition, are probably a little sore that their military never put up any real fight against NATO forces. As for the whizz-bang new Syrian air defence systems - they seem to consist of older weapons which are a known quantity and have been dealt with effectively in the past, or newer systems which certainly look impressive from a technical basis, but have had no use in combat as yet. Very difficult to say how effective they will be in the event of a shooting war. I wouldnt assume Western air forces would have a cakewalk over them, but by the smae token I wouldn't assume Syria would be the graveyard of the USAF et al because of them either.

Good news - I think this is (potentially) another great wee scenario.... the Apache support does spoil it because they are next to useless. My Apaches managed to nail a grand total of two BMP-1s, then expended the majority of their ordnance either off-map or on empty stretches of desert hundreds of meters away from their targets, even on point targets. I never saw a single Hellfire hit on the map, despite point-targetting enemy tanks. I had cautiously advanced with the idea of relying on the Apache's to cover my back and using the Javelin teams to take out any leakers......bad idea! They did manage to put some 30mm rounds into another 2 BMP-1's, only causing minor damage...I was under the impression an M230 chain gun would chop up a BMP quite nicely.... The only worthwhile weapon the US had was once again the Javelin. All my AT4's were expended for the net result of one BMP. Good scenario though, although I agree with Dan, some more room for the Strykers to run aw....err, tactically maneuver, would be handy!

Cracking wee scenario....first time I've seen the Stryker/TOW variants in a CMSF scenario, nice bits of kit. <SLIGHT SPOILER> If anything, I would say the Stryker TOWs perhaps unbalanced things a tad too much as I was able to stop the enemy armoured counterattack with ease and have plenty TOWs to forcibly renovate enemy-held buildings! I did initially conserve them for fear of not having enough to handle the armour, but the M2's on the Humvees and the infantry weapons didn't seem to have enough punch to adequately suppress enemies in buildings. Once I started letting rip with TOWs enemy fire dried up remarkably quickly!

I suggested this very same thing in the Drunken Shotgun of the Gods thread, after calling in an Apache rocket strike. The strike promptly arrived, and the attack axis was a direct line between a building with friendly troops and an enemy-held building which was the point target. After the Apache had hosed the area down with rockets, the enemy had lost an MG team, and I'd lost almost an entire squad. Ouch....

I'm going to preface this with the admission that I have never called in CAS or seen it done in real life, but here goes anyway: How about giving the opportunity for the player to have some control over the direction of attack made by the Apache? One noticeable incident where I suffered friendly fire from rocket attack was when I called an Apache to do a point strike on a building about 150m from one of my platoons. The target building was IIRC north east of the building containing my troops. When the Apache rolled in, rockets hit the target building then 'walked up' in a line from that building directly to the building containing my troops and killed about a squads' worth. Thinking about it logically whis would have meant that the Apache attacked from the north east of the target whilst traveling in a south-western direction. I'm pretty sure that in real-life I've heard troops requesting CAS indicate where they are and have asked the pilot to make a run in a certain direction, so that any rounds that miss aren't going to be lined up on friendly forces. Not sure how practical this is to implement in CMSF right enough, but just a thought anyhow!

Just accidentally discovered a tactic which seems to make asaulting a building a lot easier. I had a squad targeting a building I knew enemy troops were in as area fire. Once I got an M240 set up to start firing on the building, I ordered the squad to FAST over some dead ground to get up to the building so I could breach and clear it. However, I forgot to take the area fire order off. Once they got into position up close to the building, they grenaded and machine-gunned it very thoroughly. I ordered them to breach and move into the building, which they did, firing and grenading all the way, I assume because the area fire command was on. No casualties going in, and a load of dead enemy combatants on the first floor. Happy days!

That few seconds can be critical. If you're trying to put suppressive fire down on an enemy position and you have to stop every few seconds to reload, it's not really very suppressive. An L86 LSW (which incidentally has the nickname 'L - S - Trouble - U' in some sections of the British army) can empty a 30-round magazine in about 3 seconds, which is less time than it takes to reload it. Of course, my (admittedly limited) experience with the LSW was that the damn thing would never make it through a 30-round mag on full auto without jamming

Yeah, the army converted them from .303 to fire 7.62mm NATO, think the designation was L5A4 or something. They definately saw service in the Falklands. I know some support TA units still had them in the early 90's!

This sounds like the same issue (or should I see one of several issues) that the British army had with the L86 Light Support Weapon. It was intended to fulfill the LMG role, but it was and still is too damned accurate. The MoD bought Minimi's and made them the squad LMG, while retaining the LSW as the nearest thing we have to a DMR. Quite frankly, as an LMG it was naff.... an LMG that only has the capacity for 30-round mags is missing the whole point of being an LMG in my opinion.

Ever read the Axis of Time trilogy by John Birmingham? Interesting series about a multinational naval battlegroup (including embarked US marines and Australian army units) from the year 2021 who end up going back in time due to an unfortunate accident on a research ship. They end up appearing in the middle of the US fleet en route to fight the Japanese in the battle of Midway. Lots of cool tech involved, including lasers, Metal Storm, casless ceramic ammo, advanced body armour etc. Favourite part of the first book is when a US Navy counterboarding specialist takes out a main gun turret of a 1940's heavy cruiser with depleted uranium ammo from his advanced electronic battle rifle....gotta get some of those

Hmmm, I have to say that I've yet to see a Stryker walking away (or driving away) from a hit by an anti-tank munition. RPG-7, SPG-9, AT-4..... I'm gonna start referring to Strykers as Ronsons! As a result I am extremely cautious with armoured vehicles in CMSF. I wouldn't even dream of trying a Thunder Run like the 3rd Infatry Division mounted to capture Baghdad..... I've also noticed that RPG's and AT-4's seem extremely effective as antipersonnel weapons. I lost an entire US squad to a single AT-4 hit, and the squad were lying down, as dispersed as could be, facing the direction of fire. The explosion when the missile hit was freaking massive, I thought the squad had been taken out by artillery initially. Has anyone else noticed this, or is it just me? [ October 27, 2007, 09:59 AM: Message edited by: Guinnessman ]

Well, without getting into a 'What am best IFV' debate .....my point was that if an IFV can take a hit from an AGM65 (with a 50+ kg warhead) and still have survivors, an IFV should be able to take a hit from an RPG7 (2.5-4.5 kg warhead) and have survivors, in most circumstances anyway. Even without slat armour.

Same here. Although when two British Warrior IFVs were hit by Maverick ATGMs during Desert Storm, although nine crew and passengers were killed the rest made it out. Needless to say the Maverick is a lot more powerful than an RPG, and it hits from above. I've also noticed that RPGs and ATGMs used against dismounts are overly-effective - perhaps RPGs (in particular) need to be reduced in effectiveness yet their availability increased?

Duly corrected, thanks - deliberate mistake, honest guv

Indeedy. I originally had the idea of leaving the two M240 teams in the edge of the woods that they started in and providing long-range fire. Ended up having to move them up a fair bit before they engaged. SPOILER > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > The terrain isn't as flat as it looks. I sent my infantry squad to the crash site and split it into two fireteams. One fireteam went to the small rise on the right flank, and promptly lost every man except the SAW gunner. He then went on a rampage and single-handedly wiped out about 15-20 enemies from his position atop the rise. The M240 teams took a bit of maneuvering before they decided to open up, but as it turned out that meant they had plenty of ammo left for the (sneaky!) technical attack. Said technicals and their accompanying infantry recieved the full benefits of the 7.62mm Pension Plan. A victory, but it was pretty close for a while. Good scenario overall, big thumbs up from me!

My Javelin team had to get within 100 metres to launch. At that range, he could have used an AT4 and saved the US taxpayer a few grand....

Hmm, strange. My squad did have a Javelin left, it just refused to use it until the range was down to just under 100 metres.

I think that should by 386 megabytes as opposed to gigabytes. Total size once fully installed is only around 1 gigabyte. EDIT: Wow, three people posting the same thing at almost exactly the same time, what are the odds of that?

Have to say I'm well impressed with CMSF so far. However, the one area that is proving a bit troublesome to figure out is the TacAI. My infantry squads seem very hesitant to use their underbarrel grenade launchers and AT4s. As an example - on the training mission (second one in the campaign I think) where the player is tasked with taking out 2 enemy bunkers and 3 tanks, I was able to acquire the Javelin launch units and missiles no problem. Once dismounted the Javelin gunners ID'd the tanks and engaged. They killed two tanks with one volley (doubling-up on one tank), then fired another volley - all 3 missiles against one tank. Needless to say that did the trick, though I would assume in real-life there would be better coordination to avoid needlessly wasting missiles. Then I ordered the teams to engage the bunkers. No go. Tried a variety of methods (assigning fire arcs etc), still no result. I ended up deciding to conduct a little experiment. I ordered one squad to move closer to the bunkers. They did engage the bunkers, but only with small arms. It wasn't until I got within 100 metres that the Javelin gunner fired and took it out. Attention switched to the next bunker - the squad stuck with small arms. They didn't use any of their AT4s and they only fired one 40mm grenade launcher round. I've noticed this in other battles - never yet seen an AT4 being used against infantry in buildings, and it's very rare to see a grenade launcher being used. On a similar note, Strykers with Mk19's seem to be very reluctant to use them. I've assigned fire arcs and area and point target orders, but they only seem to fire once the range is down to around 100 metres or so (IIRC a Mk19 has an effective range of close to a kilometre). Odd thing is Strykers with the M2 mounted will quite happily open up on enemy positions. Anyone else had this experience? Or I am making a mistake with orders etc?

Played the 'Al Amarah' scenario, was quite impressed with the way the AI handled the insurgents. They pulled back from buildings on the edge of the town to buildings deeper inside the town once the incoming fire got to hot. I had to go in and dig the buggers out instead of just Mk19ing them to death...