MeatGrinder

i have this problem as well. It's quite severe I have to say. For example, in I think the Al Howl engagement (You get 3 platoons of stryker infantry, 1 platoon of MGS and have to zeize three objectives). I had a situation last night where I had infantry overlooking tanks from a 3rd story roof. They were T72s. They were too close for Javelins, and my AT5's hit a different building. So the tank was chewing up my troops. I manuvered a stryker in an ally so he had a clear shot to the tanks rear. . Nothing was obstructing it. I watched in horror as he targetted a different batch of infantry in spite of my repeated orders. The t-72 turret ever so slowly turned around and shot him from point blank range. In that same map, the T72 was stuck on the other side of a small ally from most of my troops. After losing the MGS, I moved my troops up (ran them really) until they were just 100 meters away. Though the tank was right in front of them, with no obstruction, he never became "visible" so they couldn't engage with Javelins. I have this problem on Janguer Shihar (sorry for spelling). I'll crest a hill with my stryker MGS, take 30 mm rounds from multiple sources. in spite of them being RIGHT IN FRONT of the stryker he gets absolutely no spots and just sit there's and dies helplessly. I have watched tanks move past a stryker field of view with out him spotting or engaging as well. It's very frustrating and makes them nearly useless. Occasionally they do work tho.

I know BF wants to do a WW2 game next in the eastern front. However, I do really dig some of theeay a different modern settings in future developments? Perhaps the Chinese, soviets, middle east wars, cold war era etc? Chinese vs soviets could be interesting....

Webwing, if you make any scenarios from the book I would love to try them!

I don't know if everyone is aware, but www.books.google.com Has many books on it that you can read for free. One book I've been reading lately is called, "Bear Went Over the Mountain" which is a treatise on the soviet experience in Afghanistan. It includes tactical vignette's, commentary by the Soviet high command, and further commentary from the editor. There are many lessons from this book that are applicable to modern war and CM:SF. Some of it isn't terribly relevant, for example the Mujahadeen often operated in mountainous areas that were only approachable by vehicle from one direction. So they would leave a token rear guard to slow the Soviet's, and then let the main body retreat. The soviets often did well by inserting air-assault troops by helicopters (or other means) to take dominant terrains and achieve overwatch along the retreat route before the main attack. This allowed for some substantial victories. The book illustrates alot of things really well. People often think teh soviets did poorly over there and blame it on a bad military, poor equiptment, not enough troops etc. However, they often had many missions and operations that were tactically very successful (often for little strategic gain, however). On thing I have gleaned from this that the key to victory is first and foremost, a good plan. They often had platoon, company and battalion commanders who had excellent plans, were adaptable on the battlefield and as a result achieved very good victories with low casualties. The book has the good and the bad though, so you can also read vignettes from officers who didn't have a clue. But a good plan is always the backbone of what makes a victory in that book at least. This means good recon, and good execution of the plan as well (coordination between units, etc). It's interesting to read a company or battalion commanders AAR and see how their plans produced a rousing success, or to see how a regimential operation can fail after 3 days of fighting to size a few villages and be forced to withdraw. Anyway might be worth a read. Definately some of lessons therein apply to warfare in CM:SF. For example, teh soviets usually dismounted their troops, and then formed all of their IFVs into a mobile reaction force or sent them to blocking positions. This went against their doctrine in europe, which always had their troops dismounting and never straying more then about 300 m from the vehicle for firesupport. However, their willingness to deviate from this doctrine provided them with some great benefit in alot of fights. Anyway, it's definately worth a gander.

Tom thank you very much! I am using v 1.04, so I'm up to date for now. Again, thanks for the welcome. Rollstory, I will definitely download that scenario. So far done some big battles and VERY impressed with what the engine can handle. It's funny that a positive thread is scarce around here! Steve didn't pay me anything, I guess I just like it. From reading threads here I see that many people feel the game has great potential, but some are more jaded as to whether or not it will ever be realized. I'm optimistic because I just think it needs some tweaks here and there, and BF seems like they are willing to do it. Mike thanks for the feedback! I'm surprised people liked my AAR so much. Heck that makes me wanna go run missions and write more. Some missions I do well on, and some are rather punishing. I know what you mean about adjusting to modern war. It's the accuracy, range, and power of the weaopns. In ww2 I guess you could be shooting from a KM away, but it might take multiple shots to get that penetration. So tanks were very "hard" targets. Not so in modern times. Even an M1A1 on the move can be taken out in SF by an ATGM from kilometers away. (Something, for instance, they generally haven't had to deal with in Iraq) I recommend going to www.books.google.com, then looked up "Bear went over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan", you can read the whole thing online. It has many AAR (vignette's, really) from the soviet experience over there. Some of the information is useful, although the common Mujahadeen tactic was to leave a small rear guard to delay the attack while the main force retreated. Therefore the soviets used lots of Air Assaults to cover the likely avenue of retreat, and then attack with a main Force. In SF, everyone seems to be more intent to fighting to the death, so generally it seems this sort of thing is not as important (hmmm, I should get crackin' on some scenarios that MAKE it important...hehehe) I've learned a few things from reading, chatting with my brother, and experimenting in CM that apply to modern war: 1) Vehicles are useful, but extremely vulnerable. I only expose infantry until I can sufficiently spot and confirm that that enemy AT assets are either suppressed or destroyed. Okay, I don't ONLY do that, but when I don't I end up with dead vehicles. 2) Dominant terrain matters big time. I always start with just a few squads spread out or split up among terrain features to get good spotting. With Javelins and some MGs youc an provide overwatch, and even destroy some targets. Once in the cities, I usually try to develop a situation so I can take the higher buildings. 3) My brother strongly what he likes to call "assaulting by fires", which essentially boils down to using whatever fire power you can to suppress or destroy targets before moving any further. Once you've siezed dominant heights, use Javelins, machine guns, Mk-19s, 25 mm ac or 105 mm main gun fire to destroy and suppress targets before moving any further. Don't expose ANY vehicles, even a little, if there are any ATGM units within LOS. Damn top attack even takes out "hull down" vehicles. 4)If you have enough fire support assets, try to have a screen of fire ahead of your troops to suppress the enemy. (BTW, one thing I REALLY want is artillery smoke rounds) If Fire support is limited reserve it for suppressing and destroying critical spotted targets. I tend to save it for ATGM and rpg teams I see, because tanks and other vehicles can easily clean up regular infantry. 5) Tactical patience. Can't stress this enough. The mission is a little slower in the beginning, but you generally want to have just a few units on different vantage points to get up on some hills, take a look. See who shoots back at you. Really spotting is what this is all about. Once you see what you are up against, and where the enemy are located, you can plan your moves a little better. I tried a lot of drive up to builds, pop smoke and dismount. This almost always resulted in instant death. Also the more you know about enemy positions, the more effectively you can use your fire support options. I'm sure some experienced vets, skilled Armchair generals, or CM experts will be in here shortly to denounce all of my suggestions as the wrong way to do it, but it's just what I've seen so far. And war is sometime just war. I was doing a mission last night (where you have to take a small city and hold the hospital, a school and an armory) and everything went almost perfectly. I lost almost no troops and only a few vehicles. At the end I sent a Stryker MGS, and 2 other strykers to some hills outside of teh city where an enemy force had retreated. It was on ATGM squad and one infantry squad (with RPG). My almost perfect mission was derailed by those two, they took out 3 vehicles. Of course that's my fault, I didn't take the necessary precautions, but I think it was just a small rifle squad so I didn't do any recon... I ended up having to mount troops again, send them over and dismount to crest the hill for a good firing position. Anyway thank you for the warm welcome all!

Hello folks. I had my first experience with a combat missions game perhaps a year or two ago. I had played many real time strategy games for pc, but was completely blown away by CM. The focus on realism was unlike any other game I had played. However, at that time CM was under development. It had a few features I was particularly interested in, namely real time controls. I was also looking forward to the 1:1 unit mapping. And frankly, I found the concept of a realistic modern war game quite compelling - none really exist, to my knowledge. Because of these above features I held off of purchasing any of the CM games. My preference for a modern war game was partially responsible for this as well, though I would definitely buy a WW2 CMx2 based game. Anyway, I forgot about CM:SF for about a year. A few weeks ago, I had recalled it was under development. A quick log into the website revealed that not only had it been released, but there was even a demo! I downloaded it. From the second a paltry Syrian force wiped out by M1A1 tanks and took my infantry to task, I was hooked. Within a day I ordered CM from Battlefront for $45. I wanted to make sure as many dollars went to them for this game, and not some publisher, so they would keep making more. I love this game so far. I have played through many scenarios, some with better results then others. I love how even the US has superior technology, you can still get your keister handed to you if you use have a bad plan. On one particular mission, really the first one I tried in earnest, I could not seem to make a foothold into an enemy held village. I sent a platoon of dismounted infantry over the southern berm that held Highway 4, and brought my strykers up as fire support. I then tried to maneuver my second platoon in from the east. All 4 strykers from my first platoon were quickly destroyed by enemy RPGs and ATGM fire, but I did manage to get a few squads of infantry into the some of the first rows of buildings. The second platoon faired a bit better initially, and I was able to insert some squads along the easter border. However, in short order, my second platoon of strykers were destroyed or disabled in the narrow streets. I eventually quit the mission with my force broken. Further attempts revealed that my first attempt gave me quite a bit of luck. I did far less well subsequently, getting squads mowed down coming over the souther berm, and have muultiple strykers taken out by rpgs and atgms, killing the still mounted squad. And so I spoke to my brother, an infantryman currently in Iraq serving in the 82nd airborn. He had never played this game before, or any CM game. Still he was very intersted to discuss tactics, so I laid the scenario out for him - the terrain, the enemy, the friendlies. And so he gave me some general guidelines. He told me to go slow, and have tactical patience, to let the situation develope. To engage initially with smaller number of forces to spot the enemy. Then to suppress and destroy with stand off weapons. He told me to learn my weapon ranges, and to use them. Make liberal use of smoke. He suggested more fire support, but I had only one mortar platoon for the mission. A quick trip to the forums provided a vital tip as well - The Javelin. I didn't realize I could acquire them from the strykers. The made up for the limited mortar support I would get. And so this time, I approached the game with a different plan. I dismounted my first platoon south of the highway 4 berm again, but this time popped smoke and carefully edged them up to just looking over the berm. (I had learned that a few feet is the difference between beign in cover, and being totally exposed.) Once the smoke cleared, I started spotting targets and gave my machinegunners orders to lay down suppressive fire. I deployed several squads from teh second platoon just over the berm to the SE of the village, giving them a vantage point into the eastern city approach. Javelins made quick work on enemy units fighting from roofs. As soon as I felt I had suffiently suppressed the enemies rpg/atgm units, I edged a stryker with a mk-19 through a small gap in teh berm and gave it a limited field of fire on other regular units. They were quickly suppressed. After some time working with javelins, machine guns, Most of the roofs had been cleared. Many of the enemy units had either been killed, or decided to stay low. I moved my south platoon in and took the first row of houses. I was able to move my south strykers in quickly to the first street without taking any fire, and found it to be clear. With a few units and javelins providing over watch from the SE, I brought a few more squads from the eastern approach. Working a methodically now, I advanced in trying to provide bounding over watch for vehicles, and keyholing them carefully to prevent another disastrous ATGM attack. Soon enough my tank reinforcements showed up. I eventually cleared to the other side of the city, and quit the mission for failure to find a few remaining enemy. But never the less, I felt successful - I had more then gained a foothold, I had successfully maneuvered through the entire area of operation with minor losses. And that's what I love about this game - I can talk to my brother, whose never played, and apply his ideas - and they work. No other strategy computer game I have played models combat to the level where real world tactics are applicable, but here they do feel that way. I have read the forums and read many of the issues that people are having. Alot of them haven't really bothered me yet, and I know that many others have many months longer then I awaiting 1.05. But I love this game so far, and I am very excited for the patch. Most of the things I want to see are things that have been mentioned here before several times, such as an LOS tool, or much greater control over the quick missions. Being able to set different time lengths for scenarios, etc. I see so much potential for not only this game, but addons or others that might follow. A ww2 Cmx2 game? Yes please. How about a cold war one? Count me in. Arab-Israeli conflicts? I would definitely buy it. I would love to play as the soviets in Afghanistan as well, I have even enjoyed a few scenarios modeled as such. The more I learn about the game the more I like it. I will probably get into designing scenarios at some point as well. I just wanted to put in my two cents here. I know many are awaiting the new patch, and I am excited to see what it contains as well, but this is a great game. I think over time it will only continue to get better.