Paper Tiger

I particularly liked having an obj Aviemore in 'Operation Hammersmith' for the simple and rather childish reason that I grew up in Aviemore and have always wanted to blow the place up with mortars. Weird. I just loved the go karts.

My only real concern when I play a mission is to WIN it. If I can win it with high casualties then I simply don't care about them in any way beyond the reduction in effectiveness of my force. The important thing is to get the job done. Now, if the scenario designer has tied friendly casualties very closely to VP conditions then I play very conservatively but not because I'm sentimental about the 'pawns', but because I have to take care to minimise their losses. I rarely ever experience any sense of loss when one of my 'pawns' is eliminated as long as I get a favourable exchange on the deal. The sole exception to this is if one unit performs remarkably well and then I become a wee bit more attached to them but I never feel their loss. With regards to actual tactics, I like to recon thoroughly before I commit my force to any attack. The more I know about enemy positions the better. I try to find reasonably well concealed positions from which to observe as much of the board as is possible. Then I like to form a powerful firebase to overwatch while one or two split sections/squads scout carefully ahead. Once enemy units expose their positions I hammer them with every unit that has C2 knowledge of their position. I try very hard not to cheat and issue Target commands to units that haven't spotted the enemy at least to '?' level. And most of the time I am able to do this as well. If I have artillery and air support, I use them to overwhelm enemy strongpoints before sending in the footsloggers. I will also speculatively take out suspected enemy strongpoints in this way if I have sufficient ammo. (I usually design my own missions to favour my own style of play)

'Dinas' has been fixed and improved but you're gong to need the v1.20 patch to play it. I was planning to revamp 'Hasrabit' as well to take advantage of some of the things I've learned over the last year but it's going to be a lot of work so I might just recompile the original version and leave it as it is.

The Brits are going to force me to use some actual tactics to achieve the objectives Very good observation Ken. When I played missions with US 'heavies', I found the game was far more forgiving of any tactical errors I made that with playing with Brit kit. Come to think of it, the US stuff was so forgiving that it even helped me to develop BAD tactics so with the Brits, I had to unlearn them and start doing things properly.

LMAO! Very good!

First monkeys and now cowbells. In the name of everything that is sacred, give them the module as soon as possible before we all go insane

Did anybody consider verifying Pillar's/Adam's claims about 1.20 spotting in a controlled experiment? Maybe that would improve some of the tone in these threads and put Charles' comments into the right light. It would require the editor, though, doing it on the demo would be too much of a waste. If someone posts about a bug or some irregular game behaviour on these boards, the Beta testers are very happy to get a save game from them and do some testing. I haven't done any further testing since Adam posted his observations because in all my time playtesting v1.20, I didn't see what he saw in his own limited time playtesting v1.20. Perhaps I didn't see it because I do almost all my work on my own stuff and I prefer to play on large maps where the two forces come into contact at ranges much longer that 500m. It's bloody hard spotting the heavy weapons on rooftops or in brush at ranges in excess of 500m so I have no idea why you are talking about spotting these weapons unconditionally in v1.20. I also have a small scenario under consideration for inclusion in the Brit module called 'Sabres at Dawn' which takes place on a very small map and which would be a good test. If this were a real issue, I believe I would have spotted it there but it wasn't an issue. I found the opposite to be true actually. And please remember that my opinion is based on a very long series of playtests and not one or two playthroughs.

Of course they changed it. I am not asking about Pillar's opinion. Since you posted that statement, not Pillar, what are your impressions fromyour experience of playing the demo? I want to know YOUR opinion.

Has anyone seen a sniper spot and shoot targets at 500M or 1000M? With Brit Snipers, at 500m+ yes, at 1000m, no. No screenshots or evidence to back the claim up either. I just happen to play the game a LOT. Redwolf: I wonder how that mixes with heavy weapons such as ATGMs and HMGs now being spotted by any infantry pretty much unconditionally No they are not. Since you seem to be a very factual guy, would you care to back that statement up with some facts please. How many hours have you been playing the demo? What do you feel is wrong with it? How do you feel BFC should have implemented it?

Since it's MikeyD's work, we'll let him post the first pics for you.

When I play with BLUE forces (or even with Syrian Special Forces/Airborne units), one of the first things I usually* do is split those squads/sections up before I expect to come into contact with the enemy. Naturally, to avoid them forming back up again, I keep them quite well spread apart. Marines and Stryker MOUT Infantry squads even split into 3 groups which is even safer. Obviously this is NOT what you're looking for. You lose some spotting efficiency but weighing this against the potential for casualties infilcted by a lucky RPG hit, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. * sometimes, I forget...

Ah well, if it's a campaign mission then I won't be able to do any testing on it as I'd have to play the whole thing just to get there. However, and this is a l-o-n-g stretch, I seem to recall that there were bugs with some maps built with very early builds of the game where the map 'remembered' that there was previously terrain there or something and that it enabled units to pass through walls, or somesuch nonsense like that. Since all the campaign maps were made with v1.0, even more likely an earlier Beta build of the game, it's possible that the map has the bug and not the game.

Wow! I certainly haven't seen them do that. What's the name of the mission and I'll see if I can duplicate it?

I'd have to answer, this one.

Newcastle Brown Ale Newkie Brown... I used to drink that stuff by the gallon when I was at Uni until I threw it all up one night. The resulting mess put me off drinking that again for ever. Now what happened to all these cool Monkey pics?

GSX I have never served in any branch of the Armed Forces and before I started playing this game, I had ZERO interest in Modern Era warfare. But I suspect that you have. Therefore, you will be in a better position to determine what the major differences between the US and UK kit should be. I believe that the US expenditure on Defence is about the same as the rest of the world's combined, although that reckoning may be a bit out of date by now. At any rate, it is massively more then the Brit Government is willing or able to spend. Therefore, the heavier Brit kit is not nearly as impressive in combat with Syrian forces as US forces is. The Warrior is definitely NOT a dumbed down Bradley. It's not even close to being in the same league with that vehicle. Neither is the Bulldog is a dumbed down Stryker. These differences between these two types of vehicles alone will change the way you play the game. Further, the Brits have no dedicated ATGM vehicle. Neither do they have an equivalent for the Stryker MGS or the Syrian BMP-3 for that matter. Therefore, they need the Challenger to take out the strongpoints. It might be more accurate to say that you will have to play the 'heavier' game as a sort of higher tech Syrian side with split sections, air support and super fast call in time for your artillery. That's obviously an exaggeration but that's how different the game feels to me. As a fellow Scot, I can assure you that you will enjoy the voices for the Brit module. It has no impact on gameplay whatsoever but, as a Scot, I'd have to say that hearing authentic Brit accents in the game is one of the most immersive features in this module. There are Scots, Brummy and Scouse accents all mixed in there (No Dick Van Dyke 'Mary Poppins' voice acting thankfully) and that really enhances the immersion exponentially for me.

Britis and NATO are not done by BFC. Delaying Brits would not delay Normandy unless new units require new code. Well, I'm no expert and I might be wrong but I believe that it's the Brit and NATO models that are being made out of house. BFC is doing all the TO&E stuff and Charles has to write little AI algorithms for all those new vehicles as well as for the mortar teams. I base the latter on the following little anecdote. If you can remember back to when we were all waiting for the Marines module to arrive, BFC posted a video of the Brit vehicles performing a kind of 'curtain call' routine? Steve added after that the Challenger 2 in the video thought it was an Abrams because Charles hadn't got around to writing the AI routines yet.

Elvis... Did I just breach my NDA? Well, if you did, I'm royally screwed...

if we're imagining our Humvees have right-hand steering Oops...

There were sixteen scenarios shipped with the Marines module. The Brit module will ship with around 30. By the way, I feel it would be remiss of me to omit to post a piccy of these weird looking vehicles. And since there's no just new Brit stuff in this module, here are a couple of IBCT shots. The first one is a bit arty... from inside a Humvee just behind the driver, presumably taken on his buddy's cellphone. And of course, the new truck... with some wall jumping soldiers

These three pictures were taken with quite early builds and so are old now. But I have some new ones that I'm preparing for later today... I have to confess that this next one is one of my favourites even though it's the oldest of the three. And another, this one of Scimitars from the same action as the first screenshot.

By the way, I have no doubt that most folks are going to want to play missions with the heavies, the Armoured and Mechanised Infantry formations with C2s in support. However, I think the Brit module really shines when you play missions with UK Light Infantry units with artillery, air support, Jackals, WMIKs and the little light armoured vehicles in support. Bloody brilliant!

Does this only provide a radius of protection that moves with the AFV or does it actually "fry" the circuitry of the detonator rendering the IED harmless to follow-on forces? From what I've seen in the game, it would appear to provide a radius of effect that moves with the vehicle and doesn't 'fry' the circuitry. Example: I was playing a mission where I was informed that the bridges were probably mined with IEDs so I drove a Bulldog onto the bridge. Nothing happened. Leaving the Bulldog there, I got a fair number of my forces across. They soon ran into some trouble and I forgot about the IED and moved my Bulldog off to support the troops. The next unit to cross the bridge triggered the IED. Oops...

does anyone know who this guy is and why he's acting a little strange? Both my wife and I are quite sick with the flu just now so you could put it down to medication and chronic lack of sleep. Indonesian flu medication is very potent stuff and my wife keeps us both up half the night with her coughing. So, I do actually have quite a good excuse. What's yours?

Are you sure that's how LOS works? Well, after reading Steve's post I would have to answer "No"