Dietrich

I'm looking forward to commanding G36-, MG4-, and MG3-armed pixeltruppen. Um... not to start an argument here, but of the casualties inflicted by small arms in WW1 and WW2, what percentage thereof was inflicted by rifles (not including snipers)?

Depends on how you define "powerful". The British artillery in question is the AS90, which is basically the best artillery system in CMSF. (Should be all the more interesting to see the PzH 2000 in action, assuming it's included in the NATO module.) When talking about a modern artillery system, "better" (in part) means more accurate, which means more rounds on target, which means more HE affecting the target. If said target is a building, that means fewer rounds needed to level said building, since more rounds direct-hit the building rather than landing a few to a dozen meters off the mark. That's my hypothesis about why the British artillery seems more powerful. The other factor is that the buildings in that mission are mostly single-story ones. In one of the later misions in the British campaign, I used some AS90s like indirect-fire AT guns -- they're that accurate (against stationary armor).

Just one engineer? Were his squadmates all WIA/KIA? How many demo charges was he carrying? Did the explosion knock out the T-72? I had read about engineers attaching demo charges to bunkers (under suitable circumstances), but I had no idea said demo charges could be flung. Takes me back to my CMx1 days and all the satchel charges my pixeltruppen hurled at too-close-for-comfort tanks.

To all of you who complain about Red being relatively weak or about any other aspect of CMSF, I ask you this: Do you play on Iron difficulty? If not, try Iron and see how much of a turkey shoot it is. It's a puzzling irony that some folks let out angstful cries of "argh!!!" after playing "Battle for Objective Pooh" or certain other tough v1.10-or-later scenarios yet at other times complain about Red being a push-over, even though BFC requisitioned certain weapons for Red that they either don't actually have or wouldn't have in the game's time-frame. And besides, on the one hand there are those who complain about Red being weak in spite of the T-90, BMP-3, AT-14, RPG-29, etc., and on the other hand there are those who question the validity of including the M32 MGL in the USMC rifle squad. Am I supposed to interpret the fact that I don't see much in CMSF that can reasonably/realistically be improved (or should I say "improved") as evidence that I'm not a sufficiently critical wargamer or that I'm just a fanboy, or what? When I first started playing CMSF (circa v1.10), I didn't whine: "Ugh, this game is not as optimal as I could be, and I don't know what all these guns are -- that must mean the game sucks. I'll just go back to playing CMx1 till 'Normandy' comes out." No, I pored over Wikipedia and GlobalSecurity.org and actually read books, educating myself on modern weaponry and tactics and TOEs. [sarcasm]Ohhhhhhh, now I get it.... Because CMSF is based on a non-historical premise, that makes it irrelevant to CMx1 fans and thus a needless delay before CM:N! [/sarcasm]

What Moon surmised is what I've found to be the case -- the "Deploy" button looks pressed in (even though the team's main weapon isn't deployed), but when I mouse over the button, it then looks not pressed-in.

*raises hand* I have a CM:Normandy-related question! Will discussion about CM:Normandy (the base game) continue only until the game actually comes out, at which point 90% of the discussing in the CMx2 forum will switch to the Commonwealth module? Oh wait, it's a rhetorical question. :cool: Truthfully, I get a kick out of how everyone was like "when is CM:BF gonna be out?!!?!?!1!?", and then as soon as the module was actually out, everyone switched to arguing about CM:N. (The notable exceptions to that being the rightfully earned "thank you BFC!" thread and the handful of threads expressing bafflement about how the Brits aren't as über-powerful as the US Army or the USMC).

First of all, I must admit that I don't know what you mean by "printer spooling". On the face of it, it sounds like yours is a printer problem rather than a PC-versus-Mac problem. However, the fact that you say "I'm really annoyed with my PC" and then mention your printer-spooling problem suggests that there's more going wrong here than your printer seemingly refusing to work. For further info, consider what a certain Briton has to say about computers and printers: The posts in this thread confirm the impressions I've gotten over the years about PC users vis-a-vis Mac users. PC users tend to be fairly "meh" about Macs. Mac users tend to express views like (exaggerated for comedic effect): "I used PCs up until ten years ago, and it was problem after problem, blue screen of death after blue screen of death. Ten years ago I bought a Mac, and I have not had one single solitary problem since!" My two cents: The one key aspect of Mac users' pro-Mac assertions is that using a Mac frees one from slavery to the Microsoft monopoly. However, Macs are of a single brand, whereas PCs come in numerous brands, and it's easy to frankenbuild a PC from separately purchased, custom-selected components, and there are several PC OS alternatives to Windows. I like my Franken-PC.

What were some of those problems? I'm genuinely curious, because I'm in the research phase for a novel I plan to write about a German infantryman on the Eastern Front between July and December 1941. I've found some info about the German replacement system, but I haven't yet found much elucidation about its problems.

Meanwhile, a certain American director receives 8 million euros from German public sources for making a movie rife with runes and other such simulacra (and rife with gruesome killing of Germans). According to German law, the display of Nazi iconography is not illegal in "works of art". Why aren't video games works of art? (Too many anti-video-game stigmas, I reckon.)

Lens distortion, I wouldn't be surprised, considering the relatively close range.

According to Len Deighton in Blood, Tears, and Folly, Stalin called up no less than 15 million men by his mobilization order of June 22. By contrast, the Wehrmacht forces deployed in the invasion of the USSR totalled 3.2 million men.

Besides, the forthcoming CMSF module isn't pertaining to NATO itself but to the armed forces of nations which are members of NATO, namely Canada, Germandy, and the Netherlands. Yeah, we've already been over the "why NATO? NATO is useless" question.

That's why I wrote "things we would like [conditional tense] to see in v1.21". I'm just curious what others would like to see adjusted/fixed, that's all. (Aside from what Peter Panzer and Paper Tiger have already noted, that is.) And I wasn't implying I saw inaccuracy in the T-72-versus-LMTV incident I described. I was using that as an example of how thoroughly accurate I think CMSF's simulation is! In pretty much every other game I've ever played, if a soft-skinned vehicle is hit by a shell from a tank's cannon, it's destroyed. But in CMSF, an AP shell passing through the 'empty' part of a truck causes -- realistically -- no real damage.

I'll leave it at this: Richard I of England may have been known as "Cœur de Lion" or "the Lionheart[ed]" during his own lifetime, but he was likewise valid that he was also known as "òc e no" (Occitan for "yes and no"). All this talk about historical inaccuracy makes me look forward all the more to CM:N!

Ah, but why did the costume designer think that would be a "good look"? That's (as they say) the $64 question. Just because the making-of segment is full of claims about the movie's painfully accurate recreation of history doesn't mean the head costume designer bothers to consult any of the reenactors/historians hired for the movie. Seems to me these days that without an agenda, a movie just doesn't get made. That's why a movie which is supposed to be firmly set in a particular time period (such as WW2) can only ever be about 70% to 80% historically accurate -- the agenda (whatever it may be) ensures that they inevitably alter something (or more likely several somethings) so that it either fits the typical ignorant moviegoer's preconceptions or panders to modern politically-correct thinking. Just a basic example: people's notions about how medieval kings behaved and ruled are mostly derived, not from historical record, but from the sycophantic quill-scratchings of troubadours whose patrons were said kings. I'll stop being off-topic now.

Please, name said things on your fix-this list. This might as well be a "things we'd like to see with v1.21" thread. As for me, the fact that I 'only' complain about the vehicle suspension modeling should indicate in what high regard I hold CMSF. For instance, in one of the scenarios late in the British campaign, a T-72 fired an AP round (I forget whether it was APFSDS or what have you) and an LMTV, and the shell passed through the front third of the passenger compartment -- no casualties, only slight damage to the wheels and radio. Sure, the passenger compartment suddenly had rather a draft, but those three particular pixeltruppen weren't complaining.

Amusedly, Dietrich

Yeah, Elite snipers should be able to drop guys (at least stationary ones, such as machine-gunners and TCs) at the max range of their particular rifle (even beyond). Unfortunately, what with how the game is designed, at such range(s) a sniper (team) can't even spot a target that isn't moving (and thus is effectively impossible to hit, even by an Elite sniper). Great mission, by the way, birdstrike! Challenging and fun! =)

None of whom was consulted for Saving Private Ryan! In that movie, entirely too many German soldiers (mostly in the end battle scene) were without their helmets, and almost all the helmet-less German soldiers either had close-cropped hair ("buzz cut") or were shaven-headed. For one thing, the hairstyle which WW2 German soldiers pretty much all had (as can be seen in pretty much any contemporary photo of bare-headed German soldiers) was buzz-cut short on the sides and back (with a view to keeping the hair off the ears), long on top, and combed back, optionally with a crisp part and treated with a Brylcreem-type product. It's hard to not see the anachronistically short hairstyles of the German soldiers in that movie as pandering to the propagandistic "Geman = Nazi = skinhead" assumption. (The foremost example being the character listed in the credits as "Steamboat Willie".) But no, I actually don't consider myself a mid-20th-century hairstyle grog.

I concur. A thought: The animation for a surrendering individual (or unit, if it is assumed that an entire fireteam/squad would surrender at once) could be kneeling/standing with hands raised; and the animation for a surrendered individual would be standing with hands on head. The kicker (if that's the word I mean) would be if surrendering/surrendered individuals/units were sans/ohne helmet, since (as studies have shown) soldiers are less likely to shoot helmet-less enemy personnel, and thus smart surrenderers would cast aside their helmets before surrendering. But that (and the distinguishing animation of having the hands up or on the head) is probably too detailed to be worth incorporating.

I'm already reconciled to the assumption that someone will come along and tell me I'm either incorrect or am oversimplifying, but here goes: USMC M1A1 FEP is basically an M1A1HC with under-the-hood upgrades which give it greater "fightability". That's why they are appear identical.

**** FILMED IN SPOILER-VISION! **** I managed to keep my casualties down in "Counter Attack" because I (a) kept all my vehicles (except my tanks) hidden behind buildings ( had grenade-range cover arcs on all my infantry except the snipers and I got a Total Victory in that mission because I © used the AS90s as long-range indirect-fire AT guns (d) hurried the lone starting Challenger to the extreme right flank, where it accounted for several BMPs and three T-72s, effectively eliminating the threat to the right flank (e) sent one of the later-arriving Challengers on a flanking maneuver to hit the Syrians' right flank from their rear, effecting a Syrian surrender For what it's worth, I didn't do nearly so well on the second "survive the Syrian onslaught" mission a few scenarios later.

Not that I've watched dozens of videos and studied hundreds of photographs on the subject, but I have yet to see (in Afghanistan) a Coalition position larger than an OP that was not at the bottom of a valley.

I know this is a minor thing, but could the 'jostle' factor of vehicle suspensions be dialed down a bit? I mean, when you bring the camera close in on a Bradley and see the vehicle move slightly when the 25mm fires, it's just one of the many little and not-so-little things that make CMSF such a great game. But when MBTs are rocking back and forth on their tracks as they accelerate/deccelerate and Humvees are doing wheelies as they begin a Fast move order from a dead stop, it's kinda breaks the immersion.

"'Green' to the situation" is not determined by whether a unit is Green or Veteran or whatever. A better simulation of being "'green' to the situation and hence not able to get the best out of their possible firepower" would be simply an incompetent player who, for example, fails to take the terrain into account when positioning his troops in the defense and fails to assign them cover arcs so that they open fire on first spotting enemy units and thus give away their position prematurely. Likewise, while there obviously are insurgents who would qualify for Veteran or even Crack experience in CMSF, their full capability is up to the tactically cunning player to unlock by having them use the terrain to get to within grenade range of the enemy positions, that kind of thing. It's not that the Taliban aren't capable of "effective fighting engagement". It's just that the Taliban (generally) don't storm-assault fortified positions; they open fire from concealment, then slip away unspotted when Coalition forces bring effective fire to bear on them, and otherwise they plant numerous IEDs. From what I've read of Operation Anaconda, one of the key reasons the US infantry had such a hard time was that the insurgents they encountered in the Shahikot valley were not Taliban but Al Qaida. What actual evidence is there that they were Al Qaida? Well, for one thing, they stayed and fought rather than melting into the landscape when faced with two companies of US light infantry supported by Apaches and fast-movers. Secondly, a team of SEAL recon operators discovered a HMG position on a ridgeline that was manned by, not bearded, pakol hat-wearing Afghans, but by (among others) a Uighur and a clean-shaved Caucasian, whom the SEALs reckoned to be an Uzbek. Isn't clean-shavenness, like, a felony to the Taliban?