Dietrich

I would have made a Blue-versus-Red-AI Humvee-patrol-ambushed-in-Sadr-City scenario already (or, for that matter, any scenario involving an insurgent ambush), except that I couldn't figure out how to make the Uncons fire for all they're worth for only 20-30 seconds and then displace disappearingly.

From what I understand, the only part of a Toyota-style pickup (such as what the "technical" in CM:SF is modelled after) which would have a real chance of stopping or at least deflecting a 50-cal. round would be the engine block itself. Assuming that the above screenshots accurately reflect the path of the round into and through the vehicle, it looks to me like the round passed just to one side of the engine block itself.

While playing "3:10 to Yuma", the men of the CCT were rendered WIA/KIA by an out-of-the-blue RPG round from the upper story of an adjacent building just before one of the on-station A-10s began its attack run. Several seconds later I heard the distinctive low roar of the A-10's cannon . . . and saw the flurry of 30mm shells strafe the Mk.19-armed Humvee I had covering the back of the police complex. Yeah, those Scout Sniper teams are supposed to represent Navy SEALs -- they don't mess around.

I appreciate the entire spectrum of scenarios, from combined-arms slugfests complete with artillery and JDAMs on huge maps, all the way to low-intensity squad-level nail-biters (a la "To Ambush Or Not To Ambush?"). I figure that, once the British module arrives in my mailbox, I'll be making at least one Pathfinger-Platoon-patrol-through-the-wilds-of-Helmand-province scenario featuring a troop of Jackals. But I hope that by then they have adjusted the TacAI so vehicle gunners don't button up as soon as they start coming under fire -- that behavior definitely mitigates the survivability and battlefield effectiveness of light vehicles like Humvees and such. Were the Jackal to be featured on Future Weapons (which, for some reason, I doubt it would), I think it really would be a case of "Check out this vehicle; isn't it awesome?" As far as whether I think the Jackal is "way cool" or not . . . it's got more firepower than yer average Humvee (except, perhaps, for the TOW-armed variant), and it's just as mobile (as far as I can tell). Just because something is hyped up doesn't mean it isn't good kit -- you just have to take the hype with a grain (or three) of salt.

My opinion? Alrighty. I think the lethality of launched grenades and of mortar/howitzer shells is sufficiently accurate in CM:SF. While it is frustrating to pour 40mm HEDP at a trenchline or a structure and not wipe out (or even rout) the enemy forces therein, I suppose I'm taking for granted the accuracy and balance of the simulation. I like getting a squad to within handgrenade range (getting them there before the enemy realizes they're there, that is), since oftentimes half a dozen handgrenades lobbed in quick succession into a room or a trench seem more effective than half a minute of three-round 5.56mm bursts. That said, am I the only one who thinks the TacAI sometimes gets overzealous in terms of handgrenade-throwing? In playing the third mission of the USMC campaign, I sent a Marine squad hurrying along one of the ravines, and no sooner had they hustled a few meters past a single cowering Syrian (the last survivor of his squad), all ten or so Marines stopped, turned around, and tossed a grenade (or two, in the case of several soldiers) at the Syrian. Also, the TacAI makes soldiers hurl multiple grenades at unmanned (and even unarmed) vehicles, even if it isn't really possible to score a knock-out with such grenade-hurling. Since resupplying grenades is a non-option, it would be nice if the TacAI effected better conserving of grenades, especially in instances where grenades ought not be the weapons of choice.

Perhaps the Jackal's dearth of armor protection would not seem odd, if it were taken in consideration that the less armor a vehicle has, the faster and more maneuverable it is. As opposed to someone huddling in the back amongst the Javelins and boxes of 5.56? Just because a sniper is out there and he gets an unhindered first shot doesn't mean he scores a hit. Just because the Jackal has little to no armor doesn't mean the men crewing it might as well be going on foot. Imagine this particular scenario: A sniper takes aim at the "bow" gunner of a Jackal and fires. Due to a number of factors, the shot misses by a few inches. The gunner flinches, reports to the driver that they're coming under aimed fire, and the driver speeds up, thus making them a hard(er) target. That said, I imagine that my Jackal crewmen will suffer not-insignificant casualties when they come into the crosshairs of Uncon snipers. Do you mean to say you wonder at the Jackal's inclusion in CM:SF?

No plan survives first contact with the enemy . . . and sometimes "the enemy" includes the terrain. In Theatre of War, when a moving tank gets one track shot off, it yaws around as much as 120 degrees; more often than not this results in the tank being not only immobilized but immobilized with its side or even rear armor facing the enemy. Now, I'm not saying ToW is realistic in this regard per se, but according to my understanding, if a tank suffers a broken track while under power, that track will drag on that side of the tank, while the intact track will propel the tank from the other side. The drag induced by the broken track will probably not bring that side of the tank to a halt right away, but within a couple seconds the drag will slow it down enough that the propulsion from the intact track will push the tank yawingly around a new axis created by the halting friction generated by the broken track. In other words, if a tank is under way and suffers a track-breaking hit, it won't continue on in a straight line, at least not once the track finishes rolling off the wheels. Sure, a Leopard 2 can undergo a complete engine change in 15 minutes, but have you seen photos of WW2 tank crewmen changing a track? It sure looks like back-breaking work to me, and I don't think it would be realistic within the scale (two hours or so) of a CMx2 battle. And besides, wouldn't fixing a broken track require the crew to get out of the tank? Even assuming that they were out of LOS/LOF while outside the tank fixing the track, wouldn't they be vulnerable to be taken out by an enemy flanking maneuver, even if it were only a rifle squad or a lone scouting sniper which performed said maneuver? Sure, there are types of terrain which vehicles are disallowed from moving through, but could the TacAI be made able to decide not to traverse certain areas which could be tactically disadvantageous? Tracks too can be lightly damaged (from big green "+" to little yellow "+"). In the case of a more-than-four-wheeled vehicle like a Stryker, even if one tire had been punctured definitively (as by a 14.5mm MG round) and was flat but the other tires were intact, this would (as far as I know) change the In one of my last (so far) CMBB games (me versus Soviet AI), a Panzer IVG of mine spotted a T-34/76 amongst the houses of a village from about 50m away through the fog. Just as my Panzer fired, I saw the T-34 fire -- and they knocked each other out only a few milliseconds apart. A fair fight, I thought, which happened to have a mutually un-serendipitous outcome. I agree.

Again your greater judgment, Mr. Emrys, forces me to realize the rashness of my typing. Respectfully I thank you for elucidating the relative implausibility of the strategic situation I inferred. I concur that garrisoning the British Isles would have required only a fraction of the Feldheer, but I'm inclined to believe (and not only on account of Churchill's "we shall fight them on the beaches" rhetoric) that the British -- soldier and civilian alike -- would not let the Germans conquer them and their island without inflicting as many casualties and as much loss of equipment as they could. I'm inclined to think that the attempted conquering of Britain would break the portion of the Heer devoted to it. So, if Seelöwe were to be seen through to a relative success (if not a Pyrrhic victory), the Heer would be proportionately weakened (along with the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine). But as you pointed out, Mr. Emrys, the Red Army, though large, was not in good enough shape to embark on a strategic campaign, at least not any time in 1941. With England defeated and almost all the rest of Europe (suspiciously not including Switzerland) in German control, perhaps Operation Torch would have been launched sooner than it actually was, i.e., late 1941 or early 1942. (One of the surrender conditions agreed to by Britain might have been standing down of the Eighth(?) Army in North Africa, so that the Americans might have felt the need to come to their recently conquered ally's aid all the sooner.) The DAK would have to hold off the US Army as far east as Libya, perhaps, while it advanced deeper into Egypt to fulfill its original reason for being deployed in North Africa. As 1942 drew to a close and gave way to 1943, the USAAF would establish itself in Tunisia or Algeria. From there the potential 'branching' of the scenario varies, depending on how much territory Britain conceded to Germany (such as Malta and Gibraltar). And while all this was going on, the Red Army may well have (as you inferred, Mr. Emrys), shall we say, lunged for and even captured the Rumanian oil fields. But because the Lend-Lease convoys to the USSR would have been lacking Royal Navy protection since mid 1941, they would have been hurting from lack of said Lend-Lease equipment and materiel. But I'm sure Churchill (and perhaps the royal family as well) would have long since escaped (aboard a Mosquito) to the US or maybe Canda via Iceland, so maybe the Wehrmacht would continue getting flak (as opposed to FlaK) from British and Commonwealth forces abroad.

Hey, birdstrike, thanks for making all the good scenarios you've made, including this one. Last night I played it as Red for the first time. I felt like I didn't do very well, as I lost all the men who were in and immediately around the command posts as well as all my technicals, though I did manage to take out all the Bradleys and Humvees. The "brethren" groups managed to fare rather better, since I was able to use them to outmaneuver Blue and hit his infantry from behind and to the sides. That said, am I the only one who is irritated by the TacAI's wasting of grenades on unmanned (and in some cases unarmed) vehicles? I hurried a couple of the "brethren" groups past where the Bradleys and Humvees enter (on the far end of the map from Blue's starting area), and each group used about a dozen grenades trying futilely to take out the two weapon-less Humvees parked there (and trying to do so from 5 meters away, no less). What do y'all think -- would it be reasonable for the infantry TacAI to be adjusted so units don't waste their handgrenades on vehicles which they are unlikely to take out that way?

Yeah, you're right, Michael. As it is, Hitler respected the British (or so he said on occasion), and perhaps he respected them too much to actually invade the British Isles. At least, his inclination to invade the UK was not nearly as great as his obsession with invading the Soviet Union. With the Wehrmacht stretched thin occupying all the territory it would have after invading and conquering the British Isles, the Red Army could have steamrolled westward all the way to Berlin in 1941. Then there might have been a Berlin Wall even sooner, except it wouldn't quite actually be in Berlin. If the Germans had taken over the British Isles, though, the US wouldn't have been able to use England as a giant aircraft carrier. They would have had to launch their B-17s and B-24s from...Algeria, maybe? Tunisia? They probably would have used Malta, but only so many four-engined bombers could have fit on that little island. Thanks for the link, JonS. Back when I was playing CM:AK more, I so wanted to make a series of serious scenarios based on plans for Unternehmen Seelöwe but, sadly, my skill with map-making was then as it is now -- dismal. lol (I'm much better with analyzing TO&Es. hehe)

By "button up" (in reference to the Jackal), I don't mean "duck back down to where one is protected by armor"; I mean "leave weapon station". In the case of the HMMWV, buttoning up affords the gunner the protection of the vehicle's limited armor, yet exposes the vehicle itself as well as its crew to greater incoming fire due to the discontinuation of suppressive fire from the HMMWV's M240, M2, or Mk 19. In other words if buttoning up robs a vehicle of its firepower (which, for a virtually unarmored vehicle, is key to its ability to defend itself), it sounds counterproductive to me. Sure, I don't like to see a HMMWV gunner get WIA/KIA, only to be replaced by one of the only two other guys in the vehicle who then gets hit himself, but it stinks for a vehicle to made more vulnerable by the crew's attempts at self-preservation. I don't know exactly how the Jackal will work in CM:SF, but I surmise that buttoning up (i.e., not manning the main weapon) would be even more disadvantageous for the Jackal, since it lacks the more all-around protection (though said protection is fairly light) of the HMMWV. That said, the front-mounted GPMG doesn't look to be leave-able, so I reckon the Jackal would have at least that much firepower-type protection to the front quarter and part of the left quarter, even if the 50-cal gunner decides to not man his weapon.

Neutralizing the RAF was only the first step in making Sealion feasible. Neutralizing the RN (Royal Navy) would be next, since the Kriegsmarine wasn't strong enough to secure the English Channel, and even if they were able to do so, the RN could still put the hurt on the Heer from, say, the Thames Estuary. With the RAF neutralized and the RN driven off, Sealion could have then gotten under way, but as soon as the Heer got a few miles into Kent, the stern conventional warfare as well as vicious guerilla fighting would begin. I think Sealion would have been most feasible if the Germans had: 1) reduced the Dunkirk pocket and captured the hundreds of thousands of Allied troops that escaped therefrom (the British and such lost a lot of equipment, but they were able to save the vast majority of the soldiers themselves) 2) continued to bomb fighter factories and RAF training facilities (exacerbating the problem of not enough trained pilots to fly the numerically yet-sufficient fighters) and 3) neutralized the RN (perhaps giving Rudel an early chance to pull off the feat he performed when he sunk the Marat?) Even then, I think Britain would have remained effectively unconquerable. Sure, the Normans pulled it off, but they were more superior to the Anglo-Saxons and such in technology and tactics than the Germans were to the British/Commonwealth -- and the Normans had the fighting between Harold Godwinson and Harald Hardråda to take advantage of.

I'm sure you know this, Bigduke, but I'd like to reiterate. The vast majority of movies misrepresent what makes a sniper as effective as he is. (Note that I didn't say "what makes a sniper so effective".) As far as I understand it, it's not that a sniper is a one-shot-at-a-time killing machine, taking down dozens of enemy soldiers. In reality, the dangerousness of a sniper is that he can engage individual targets at ranges beyond the enemy's capability to counter-engage (not unlike the classic Tiger-versus-T-34/76 scenario) and can remain virtually invisible while doing so. The more exposed the sniper's position, the more readily his position can be identified and massed small-arms fire (or worse) brought to bear on it. Thus a cunning sniper will choose a position which affords a balance between a good field of fire and good cover and concealment. Recently I saw in a book (at Borders) a diagram that showed a sniper's position in an inner room of a building. Rather than standing at or near one of the two windows on that side of the building (as the typical movie would show) or even positioning himself in the same room, he sets himself up (with a chair and a table to support his rifle on) two rooms back from the windows, making holes in the intermediate walls for LOS. This affords a reasonable field of fire while providing good cover and good concealment. Also, being fairly deep within the building (on that floor), his muzzle flash is more effectively hiden, the sound of his firing is better dampened, and he can more effectively displace after firing and be more or less invisible to the enemy as he moves to a different position. ____....._____.....____ (outside wall) ______...___...______ (intermediate wall) _________X________ (interior room; X = sniper's position) The more a sniper "pings away" from the same position, the more he's just waiting to be deluged in rifle and SAW fire. As far as this applying to CM:SF, this is one reason I like playing real-time. I have a sniper team in position with a under-20-meter cover arc so they don't fire at will. When a choice enemy target comes into the sniper's LOS, I undo the cover arc, the sniper takes aim and fires, and I then re-apply the cover arc and order the team to displace (perhaps even if he missed his shot) while remaining in cover. It's one thing if a sniper takes out a squad leader from 800 meters thus breaks the morale of the late leader's squad, but I find that letting anything less a veteran or crack sniper fire at will from anything but beyond medium range (medium for a sniper, that is) is just asking for getting my sniper (and the rest of his team) killed. Do y'all think it might be reasonable to code the TacAI of snipers and sniper teams so that they are more inclined to displace when they start coming under fire? Does CM:SF indeed simulate the quieter-ness of the M110 on account of its suppressor? Also, I find that snipers don't remain prone enough. Even when positioned on a crest, nestled amongst some conveniently concealing grass, or on a roof with a low parapet, snipers too readily switch to a kneeling position. Wouldn't this limit their ability to deliver sufficiently accurate fire at sniperly ranges?

I look forward to using Jackals in Pathfinder-Platoon-in-Helmand-and-elsewhere scenarios . . . once the button-up-as-soon-as-you-come-under-fire behavior is fixed/adjusted. I like the idea of a vehicle that's more or less as mobile as a HMMWV but has twice as many guns and about 50% more firepower (50-cal MG plus GPMG rather than just an M2).

The CM:SF manual explains that the passenger capacity for both the M2 BIFV and the M3 CFV was adjusted to alleviate the headaches of splitting squads and even teams to fit in the allotted vehicles (and splitting said squads/teams in ways which CM:SF does not allow for). The M2 BIFV has room for six dismounts; the M3 has room for just two. What strikes me as funny (though quite mildly) is that not only can CM:SF's BIFVs carry fully nine men (rather than merely six as in real life), but the Armored Mech plt. HQ (IIRC) is just one man, and it looks odd to see just one green dot out of eight on the vehicle's display. It makes me think: "Hey, there's room for eight more guys in that Bradley. Too bad the platoon TO&E doesn't include a couple o' MMG teams...."

True, in the strategic/operational scenario on which CM:SF is based, the US would have air superiority. I do not claim to be an expert in Stryker-related tactics or technology, but the term "air guard" does not, as I understand it, refer to defending against air attack. For one, the troops in a typical Stryker have no weaponry capable of defending against even light helicopters (let alone fast movers), except for perhaps the Javelin, which supposedly can be used secondarily against helos. (Much more effective would be, not to dismount or unbutton, but simply to use the RWS to bring the Stryker's own M2 or Mk 19 to bear on any helicopter, assuming it was even within range.) What the "air guards" are for is guarding against attacks from above. This is especially important in MOUT. If the Stryker was entirely buttoned up, it would be vulnerable to grenades lobbed and RPGs fired from upper floors of nearby buildings. With two men unbuttoned and on the watch, however, they can spot such things and, for example, pick up and hurl away any grenade landing on the Stryker's roof, or if they spot an RPG team getting a bead on them from a window of a nearby building, they can both alert the Stryker's crew and passengers to the danger and bring suppressive fire to bear. But like I said, I don't claim to be an expert.

Bigduke, I never realized the Polish pilots were saying "repeat, please"; I had always thought they were just saying something in Polish. Looks to me like the video was made with the flight sim IL-2: Sturmovik (a quite good sim and one that I've played extensively).

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll look into that. Sounds plausible. I hadn't thought of that. The "problem" with using 60mm mortars is that they come in threes, and so the amount of fire Red (especially Red AI) could bring to bear on one area and at one time would be (I think) more than is realistic. Every UNCON unit? My experience is that only UNCON "leaders" (HQs) can call for artillery; bringing up the Support tab with an UNCON team reveals that all support assests are "denied". With some Blue formations you actually can delete all the battalion-level units (including the top-level battalion HQ), but these are in the minority. And yes, if scenarios can be two hours plus, why no reinforcements later than one hour, especially if that's the only way to keep certain units in a formation from showing up in a gamey way?

If you asked Jeremy Clarkson about what the "right incentives" for getting three two-seat Spitfires in one place might be, he would probably say something about "rubbing it the Germans faces that we beat them in the Battle of Britain." In that particular Top Gear episode, not only did they arrive in two-seat Spitfires (to the tune of the rousing theme from the film Battle of Britain), they disembarked from said Spitfires and climbed into vintage Aston Martins and Jaguars, with Clarkson quoting Battle of Britain: "We're on our own, we're playing for time and it's running out!" I noticed that the first post in the thread Stalin's Organist quoted begins with (italics added): Not to quibble about semantics, but it does say "the plane", not "one of the two fighter aircraft which helped foil the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain." Are even Britons generally oblivious to the fact that the Hurricane made up the majority of the fighters in the RAF during the Battle of Britain, that the Hurricane scored many more kills the Spitfire during that time, and that the Hurricane was also pleasant to fly and fairly fast? Sure, I love the Spitfire, and I would prefer a Spitfire to a Hurricane (if given the choice), but I still think the Hurricane deserves more credit than it gets (among the general populace, that is), though it will always be outshined by the faster, more maneuverable, and shapely-er Spitfire. Besides, several RAF fighter pilots who flew during the Siege of Malta wrote that their experiences defending that island made the Battle of Britain seem like a cakewalk.

I imagine folks generally prefer to not be shredded by autocannon, pulverized by howitzers, and obliterated by JDAMs. My experience playing Red versus Blue has been one of hiding until Blue comes within about 100m (i.e., outside handgrenade range), then letting loose with every for about 20 seconds, then fleeing to some other hiding place while Blue occupies his objectives. In realistic Red-vs.-Blue scenarios, it's not like there's actually a way to win per se -- it seems to me more a matter of inflicting some casualties while not getting yourself decimated. That said, I'm no tactical genius (far from it, believe me), and also perhaps I just haven't played enough Red-vs.-Blue scenarios. Hopefully, with time more scenarios will be made, and a greater variety thereof. All the same, I'm thankful for the many who have made scenarios, and many good ones at that! True, CM:SF hasn't been around nearly as long as the CMx1 games, even CM:AK, but it still seems to me that there something of a dearth of scenarios. (I think the impatience some have voiced on this board regarding the seeming late-ness of the British expansion is actually an indication of how much less interested folks tend to be in modern warfare versus WW2.)

Ah, yes -- thanks for the clarification, John. =) Countless times in watching TV documentaries I've seen where the narrator is talking about a certain vehicle (or gun or plane or whatever) and the stock footage clearly shows a different vehicle than the one the narrator is talking about. Perhaps the studios are too busy churning out these shows (some of which are better than others) to do much fact-checking, especially when it comes to using stock footage to provide something for the audience to look at other than bespectacled talking heads. *shrug* Also, more and more the editors of these historicomilitary documentaries are going for almost MTV-like cuts, even while a historian or scholar is on the screen -- shoulder-mounted cameras, axial panning, apparent encouragement for talking heads to emote more....

Just in western Europe there are enough two-seater Spitfires that the producers of the British car show Top Gear were able to get three of them together so Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May could arrive "in style" to meet the competition – Sabine Schmitz (queen of the Nürburgring), Carsten van Ryssen, and Tim Schrick – for the Top-Gear-versus-D-Motor (i.e., Britain versus Germany) challenge episode. Anyone know how much less than £1.7 million the restoration of the recently purchased Spitfire cost? In other words, did the restoring team get anything resembling a return for their investment? I suppose that would put into perspective whether £1.7 million was any sort of "deal" or not.

A workaround for furnishing Uncons with mortars has already been discussed, but in playing around with potential TO&Es, I found the options rather limited. In other words, Uncons (whether Fighters, Combatants, or Specialists) get only 120mm mortars -- the "trick" of switching to Blue-vs-Blue in the editor and purchasing Blue mortars for Red is limited, since the only types available for stand-alone purchase are sections of 120mm mortars. Thus I ask: Could other calibers of mortar be made available in the editor so Uncons can dish out some indirect mayhem? Also, could mortars be purchase-able individually, to realistically limit the amount of mortar-ing Uncons can dish out at once? Feel free to add your suggested improvements for versus-Uncons scenarios to this thread.

My view of Bond has long been that he is an overpaid, oversexed, and overequipped assassin rather than a spy. It may be obvious that the Bond stories and films are not meant to be in any way indicative of reality, but I think Bond gives spies a bad name. IRL, the mark of a good spy is how much he doesn't use his gun(s). Here's potential food for thought: Could Bond flourish as a character without technology of some sort? The latest Bond films have somewhat de-emphasized technology and have made the gadgets he wields more credible, but they still take place in an age rife with smart phones, supercars, and satellites. What if a Bond-like character were at large in (just to pull a time period out of a hat) late 12th-century Normandy? Would he be at a loss because he lacked a huge technological advantage over his adversaries, or would he bring the full force of his will and his wits to bear and improvise? That said, I agree that Daniel Craig makes perhaps the best Bond yet, certainly better than Pierce Brosnan, though I generally like Brosnan. It was claimed that Bond would kick Bourne's ass "hands down". Assuming that there's at least a grain of truth in that claim, why would Bond beat Bourne? Is it because Bond has a reputation for wielding awesome gadgets? It is because Bond is a veteran spy/secret agent, whereas Bourne is a rookie (though quite a capable one)? Or is/are there other reason(s)? Several have commented on how much more ruthless Bond is in the films starring Daniel Craig compared with earlier renditions of Bond. If these latest Bond films are supposed to be depicting him at the outset of his career as the real 007, what could account for him being seemingly less ruthless later in his career?

Likewise during the Panther episode: a surprising amount of screentime was devoted to the Leopard 2 and its way-dangerous 120mm cannon. I suppose they reasoned that it tied in fairly well, since the Leopard is German and parts of it (sadly, I forget which parts) are made in the same factory where parts of the Panther were made. But I agree: secondary focus on a modern pseudo-equivalent is not sufficiently pertinent. Perhaps it's comparable to how Future Weapons not infrequently comes across as propaganda for modern (and mostly Western) weaponry -- "Check out this rifle/tank/missile/aircraft; isn't it awesome?" =P