Dietrich

Good observations, John and Lethaface. To correlate your observations to CMSF: As far as I've ever observed, the weapon of any given technical (DshK, PKM, or SPG-9) has very limited traverse, which is more or less limited to the vehicle's front quarter. As such, technicals tend to have their front ends facing the enemy. This presents a relatively narrow but tall target. The windshield would tend to protect the driver and passenger from light caliber (i.e., 5.56mm) small-arms fire, while the engine and front body would tend to protect the driver's lower two-thirds from medium (i.e., 7.62mm) fire. In other words, the part of a truck usually facing enemy (Blue) fire is the one which will both most likely yield a mobility kill (the engine) and most likely provide a modicum of protection to the occupants (rather than the gunner and loader). EDIT: However, I still think that the "problem" Lanzfeld noted at the outset is a matter of a technical's crew bailing out before the vehicle has suffered significant damage. In other words, I think it's a pseudo-bug. Also, the TacAI tends to keep hammering at dismounted-but-not-destroyed technicals even when such serves little tactical purpose.

Not to derail the humor (I too am a Top Gear fan), but I think the key to the problem Lanzfeld brought up is that the pickup was abandoned (i.e., "dismounted"). In other words, if the pickup were still crewed when it came under fire from the M240, it would have been knocked out with a few bursts, and the surviving crew would have bailed out, rendering it "destroyed".

Nay, such would be proof of how complete the simulation is! Along with functioning accurate wristwatches.

Of course there will be cowbells... ...but said cowbells, being attached to the corpses of felled bovine creatures, will be punctured and deformed by 7.62mm ball rounds and splinters from 81mm mortars and thus will be idiophonically useless.

Butthead comments like that are as good as inevitable, what with the timeframe of CM:SF. If it were a WW2 game, lots of folks would busy enough actually playing the game and appreciating its quality that they wouldn't have time for snarky "I know what's what" opining. In other words, replace Johnny Jarhead with Gary G.I. and Jimmy Jihad with Klaus Kraut, and suddenly watching the carnage in slow motion is just fine. For the record, though: I too am very much looking forward to CM:N.

Status quo for me!

That sneaky up-the-middle approach can yield a Red victory, even if Blue suffers only a handful of casualties and decimates the Syrian force in the process. Keeping your infantry units in reverse-slope defensive positions protects them from direct fire from the T-72s and such, but the Syrian infantry will (if using the sneaky up-the-middle-approach) advance up the slope and go firm in the dead ground where only the PLT CO and the FO (if you have them in their starting locations) can see them. Evidently, gaining a foothold on the slope means that the Syrians have achieved a breakthrough. *shrug*

Evidently a new CMx2 "problem" has arisen: The renewal of the blood feud between those whose think that only a WW2 CMx2 game can possibly as good (let alone better) than any of the CMx1 games and those who think that the CMx1-obsessed folks don't need to attack those who like CMx2 (even in its current form). My two bits (two cents adjusted for inflation): There are games, even ones made by BFC, that I don't like as much as others, but do I go to the forums of said games and complain? No. Why? Because I have better things to do. Are there things I would like to see adjusted and/or fixed with CMx2? Yes. Do I dogmatically whine about said things? No. Why? Because others have brought up said things already and more eloquently than I. Am I looking forward to CM:N? Very much so, even more so than the forthcoming NATO module. Do I use my keenness for CM:N as an excuse to mock those who are presently engrossed in CM:SF (even as I am)? No. Why? Because that would be a waste of time.

*** FILMED IN SPOILER-VISION! *** Here's how I won this mission (after getting roundly defeated twice). I hid all my vehicles behind buildings close to the Blue friendly map edge. I put all the infantry units in the buildings near the vehicles, with 30-meter cover arcs so that they would hold their fire until whites-of-the-eyes range. I put the AS90 FOO (though I recall that there was more than one) on the second floor of the wide two-story building near the grove, with the Challenger parked behind the building. As soon as the scenario began, I sent the Challenger racing round behind the grove to the extreme right flank. I positioned the Challenger with its left hidden by the trees. The Challenger knocked out all T-72s and BMPs that attacked along the right flank, and it suffered some minor damage in the process. With the right flank secured, I focused on the advanced enemy in the center and the left. I noticed that several of the T-72s were remaining stationary at the edge of the town, so I targeted them with my AS90s (Heavy-Short-Armor fire missions), which worked like long-range indirect-fire anti-tank guns and consistently scored knock-out direct hits. As the Syrian forces worked their way into the village, I kept on bombarding them with 155s, taking out scores of infantry and knocking out several T-72s and BMPs. When the reinforcing Challengers arrived (two of them ended up getting knocked out or rendered combat-ineffective), I sent one racing around the extreme right flank and attacking the Syrians from behind while the lone on-station Apache wreaked havoc with ATGMs. This effected a Syrian surrender. I had decimated the Syrian force while suffering few casualties myself (mostly in the form of damage to my Challengers).

Kiitos, Sergei. :cool: Minulla ei ole olutta. Värttinä is one of my favorite bands.

I figured the checking-in pilot really was saying "approaching from the east" to underscore that the RAF units would be based at airfields in western Iraq and thus would be approaching the battlespace generally from the east (as least relative to the "Highland Games" campaign).

I lost a Javelin-operator to a T-62 in the third USMC campaign mission. The Javelin team was hunting into LOS behind some trees, the tank them and fired a shell (which I presume was HE) which passed right through the soldier with the Javelin (and of course the other guy didn't pick up the CLU). Next time I'll use the available howitzers to smoke the whole slope length-wise so that the suddenly-arriving-on-map units have a chance to do some good. :cool: Was it really the American smoke shells themselves that the Germans despised or the Americans' propensity for using said shells?

Just out of curiosity, what new TO&E and new look(s) are you hoping to give the extant US Army units?

Indeed, makes sense. True. However, according to Sean Naylor (in Not a Good Day to Die), SOF operators would tell the burkha-wearer lift the hem just enough to show their feet; evidently the look of the feet (and the footwear) is a reasonably good indicator of the burkha-wearer's gender.

To relate this back to CM:SF and its backstory -- the fictitious invasion of Syria by significant forces from the US and the UK as well as Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands is the fallout from at-least-as-bad-as-9/11 terrorist attacks on all of those countries (and perhaps more). Had countries other than the US suffered 9/11-scale terrorist attacks, it's not unreasonable to figure that they would have provided more than token military support in Iraq and/or Afghanistan. The UK -- which suffered the "7/7" bombings in London that killed several dozen people (rather than several thousand, as in NYC) -- has been the second-largest contributor of troops to the coalition. Spain likewise suffered a bombing attack (on March 11, 2004) which killed 191 people and wounded 1,800. And speaking of political will, the suggested option of buying off the Taliban would (as I understand it) be as good as political suicide for anyone who proposed it, since such would be seen as doing a deal with the devil and not doggedly combating drug production and distribution.

Not that I scored a victory when I played this mission, but... *** FILMED IN SPOILER-VISION! *** As for the police station, keep the troopsalready there inside the building so that the uncons who charge in through the hole in the wall get engaged from two sides at point blank range. That should keep the police station secure. Other than, though... yeah, not only are uncons everywhere, but they have at least one ATGM and plenty of RPGs. :-/

While I agree with the calls for a more explanatory UI, and while I like the idea of being able to specify the CAS attack direction (though I see the reasonableness in seeing why that isn't practical in the game), neither of these seem all that significant when compared to how I continue to have the experience of aircraft (specifically fast-movers with JDAMs and/or missiles) "attacking" but dropping no bombs. When a fast-mover attacks but deploys no ordinance and the corresponding ammo counter goes down one notch, what is this supposed to simulate? A dud bomb? Malfunctioning hardpoints? If the "attack" with no deploying of ordinance is supposed to simulate a dry run or a scrubbed run, why does the available ammo decrease? I understand that in some situations (like when you call a Harrier for a Heavy CAS mission on an area in which the JTAC has spotted no enemy units but in which you suspect there may be an MBT/AFV), the air asset doesn't spot anything and thus doesn't have anything to attack. And yes, most of the time my fast-movers make me duly thankful I have them on call. And I don't mind a scrubbed run or a dud bomb now and then. I would just like some elucidation on the matter.

That, basically, was my point. Does "treat women and men equally" make sense to the typical Afghan, or is their cultural perception of gender roles more along the lines of "of course we don't treat men and women the same; they're different"? But, as I said, most people would say there are more reasons to have gender-integrated combat units than to not have gender-integrated combat units. Simply put, I shudder to think of what would happen to a woman British or American soldier who fell into the hands of AQ or the Taliban, and to think of what the public reaction would be thereto and the resultant military action.

'A message that isn't hypocritical'...? Wait a minute... Are women being inducted into the ANA and/or the ANP? If the Afghan military and police forces include no women, would the absence of women among Coalition troops be interpreted as hypocritical? I make no claims to knowing any more about Afghan culture than anyone else on this forum, but that sounds like projecting one's own (i.e., British/American) concepts of gender roles on that of the Afghan folks. In other words, Would the Afghans necessarily see hypocrisy in any absence of women from Coalition personnel vis-a-vis the Coalition efforts to see that girls and women are free from oppression and receive education and so forth? Of course, there are reasons to have women soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan other than whether or not the locals see their presence or absence as hypocritical.

*** FILMED IN (POSSIBLE) SPOILER-VISION! *** While playing Paper Tiger's "USMC Second Storm", I sent a squad via Move along the outside of the north bridge, with a Quick order from just inside the bridge parapet. Even before the entire squad had leapt over the parapet and started up the slope toward the entrenched Syrian AGL (which wasn't firing on them, and they weren't taking fire otherwise), they went from Ready to Exhausted, and they remained Exhausted (capable only of Slow movement) for the next 11 minutes. My guess is that the fairly steep slope outside the bridge parapet (even though they were moving perpendicular to the slope rather than up it) contributed to their losing so much stamina, so that when they had to go Quick those half a dozen meters up the slope and over the parapet in the direction of the enemy trench, it just wore them out. So my advice to players post v1.21: Be careful what move orders you give your pixeltruppen over various sorts of terrain!

The problem I have when my forces in a given scenario include IFVs or MBTs with ERA is that Red's RPGs and SPG rounds and such more often than not hit a spot where there isn't any ERA! When an ERA-fitted Bradley of mine gets knocked out by a single RPG hit, I think to myself: "Blast... why couldn't it have hit just a few inches lower... or higher?" Oh well.

So, the long and the short of it is that Afghanistan is not a place in which Coalition forces -- not matter how astute the counterinsurgency strategy and judicious the troops carrying it out -- can "win" in any sense of the word. As far as I can tell, it's effectively impossible for the locals' agreement with and support of Coalition forces to ever be as significant (let alone more significant) than their support (if only passive support) for "the insurgents", who -- after all -- are of the same region and religion, if not the same tribe as well.

Though I am really looking forward to the first WW2 installment of CMx2, I actually can wait. But that's mostly because the NATO module has yet to be released, and I'm still getting a handle on the new content of the British module. Speaking of which: Am I misunderstanding, or is CM:N supposed to come out before the NATO module?

Something that just occurred to me: The air support UI pertaining to aircraft loadout could be much more helpful with just a little adjustment. Some of us know that the AH-1W (at least in CMSF) has only two possible loadouts: ATGMs or rockets. But the ammo counters for the respective loadouts look identical. And the Air Support Panel makes no distinction between an AH-1W armed for an anti-armor sortie (i.e., with ATGMs) and one armed for anti-personnel work (with rockets). A wise scenario designer will indicate in the scenario briefing what sort of loadout the allotted air assets have. But what about a scenario designed by someone who, say, forgot to indicate in the briefing the loadouts of the air assets? A suggestion, using the AH-1W as an example: Redo the Air Support Panel so that it reads: "AH-1W / Anti-Armor" or "AH-1W / Ground Support (or some similar terminology)". This sort of one-or-the-other distinguishing may not work for every aircraft, but it's better than the status quo, and simpler to implement (AFAIK) then adding tooltips for each ammo bar for each aircraft. Knowing at a glance whether (for example) the F/A-18s on call are loaded up with Mavericks or with JDAMs would definitely be helpful.

*** FILMED IN SPOILER-VISION! *** The thing that gets me about MOUT defense against Red infantry that are of higher veterancy than Green is that even with point-blank-range cover arcs on my defending troops, as soon as they open fire on a squad that runs into their field of fire, at least one RPG comes flying out of nowhere and nails them, wounding several and suppressing the rest. On my third attempt playing this scenario, I spent half an hour just setting up my troops in the compound so that as much as possible they would only come under fire from enemy units which infiltrated the compound. Even so, my compound defenders took heavy casualties and were definitely no longer combat effective by the time the Marines arrived. I'm tempted to suggest that the scenario designer omit RPGs from the arsenal of the Uncons tasked with attacking the compound. But that would -- in a relative sense -- be cheating. However, the ubiquity and effectiveness (if only in shredding my infantry's morale) of RPGs presents what I find to be one of Blue's major challenges in MOUT. The equivalent BLUFOR weapon -- the SMAW -- is relatively rare and comes with not that much ammo. Maybe I just need to assign specific Target orders to suspect buildings so that my squads dish out their AT4s and M72s to greater effect; most often, the guys carrying the AT4s/M72s get WIA/KIA before they have a chance to use them.