Dietrich

In light of recent ethnoreligiopolitical developments, perhaps Tom Clancy wouldn't be too off-base to write a novel entitled Red Crescent, in which Russian ultranationalists ally with Islamist extremists to destabilize the West through terrorism in attempts to pave the way for much conquering. =P

JasonC - I concur with your statements. (I have not pored over extensive tables, but I was aware that artillery was the casualty-inflicting weapon in WW2.) However, what I actually wrote was [italics added for clarification] "the change in US Army small-unit philosophy effected by the relatively high volume of fire provided by M1 Garand" -- rather than "the amount of casualty-inflicting done by the M1 Garand". By "philosophy", I mean the fact that the US Army developed the M1 Garand in the first place and used the older (and fairly inefficient) Browning Automatic Rifle to serve in the support role at the squad level. In other words, I was wondering if the rifle usage in the film was a reflection of US Army personnel looking at Wehrmacht tactics through the lens (so to speak) of their own ideas about rifle employment. Sergei - True. And I have seen more realistic and more relevant contemporaneous US-made films pertaining to Wehrmacht tactics and equipment than the one linked above.

The extent to which anthropomorphism can twist the human psyche and pervert human endeavor knows no bounds. While robotics scientists in the US make machine-gun-armed micro-tanks and missile-armed robo-planes, robotics scientists in Japan make "emotionally twisted" androids. "Never the twain shall meet"?

As much as many individuals and groups within the United States complain, rant, rave, and protest about injustices and problems within the United States, in fact they're too well-fed and prosperous to feel compelled to actually do anything about it beyond ranting and protesting and such. As far as I can tell, it's actually this prosperity that affords them the time to write vilifying blog entries and stage protests and whatever. (In countries/regions were poverty and oppression are the norm, people actually feel compelled to pick up their Kalashnikovs and overthrow stuff.) Like all the hippies who blithely proclaim support for the impoverished and oppressed the world over, yet even relatively poor hippies in the United States enjoy a standard of living way higher than those they claim to be 'fighting' for. And it seems that Prof. Panarin is applying wishful-thinking: the USSR collapsed and broke apart, so it's understandable that Russians would wish that the same happen to the USA. Doesn't every former empire long for a return to its former glory of having dominion over thousands of millions of people, of controlling vast natural resources, of fielding a huge and powerful army, and of enriching its higher-ups beyond the dreams of avarice?

The video states ten men in a squad, but hadn't the Germans switched to a 9-man Gruppe in standard infantry units by 1944? (I understand that squads in Fallschirmjäger, Pionier, and other infantry units were not necessarily of the same size as squads in Grenadier/Fusilier units.)

Rather than two small groups moving on opposite flanks, many shots in the video make it look more like separate soldiers moving piecemeal toward the objective. Accordig to all that I've read of German squad-level tactics, the squad leader (which isn't necessarily a "sergeant"; he could be as low-ranked as a senior private) would either lead the squad as a complete unit in the assault -- with the LMG firing from the hip while on the move -- or would remain more or less beside the machine-gunner (as usual) to direct the squad's prime firepower. Assuming that this video was made as early as, say, 1940, would the change in US Army small-unit philosophy effected by the relatively high volume of fire provided by M1 Garand have taken effect? It seems that they're forgetting that even a dozen bolt-action rifles can't hope to match the firepower of as many semi-auto rifles, let alone a single high-rate-of-fire MG like the MG34/42. The video suggests the US Army thought that German riflemen fired their own weapons more frequently than they actually tended to. Seems to me a bit misleading that the video early on states that the objective is the position of "an Allied light machine-gun team whose job it is to delay the advance of a German infantry platoon", but then only a squad's worth of German infantry are shown in the film. Would a lone squad attack an LMG position, or would it -- presuming that it's the point squad -- rather wait for the rest of the platoon, so they could attack with one or two squads providing suppressive fire while one or two squads maneuvered to attack from the flank? And when charging through the smoke (presumably to actually storm the enemy position), they don't have bayonets fixed.

Not only would you have to make something up, you would have to find someone who can at least mimic Arabic (and not sound like they're just saying "durka durka" or some other xenophobic horse-dung) . . . or you could just use voice files from wherever BFC got the exisiting Red voice files in the first place.

from the CMSF: British Forces overview page Besides, the Westland Apache is employed by the British Army, not the RAF. The Typhoon and the Tornado GR4 are employed by the RAF, and the Harrier GR9 is employed by both the RAF and the Royal Navy.

One if by land, Two if by sea, Three if by . . . air.

Good points, Vulture. I guess my tactics are rather in need of brushing up. More than once I've thought that with three fireteams per squad, a USMC rifle squad is somewhat like a platoon in miniature.

Not to compare apples to oranges, but the discussion in this thread so far reminds me of certain aspects of sound FX design in Theatre of War. In that game (which, I should mention at the outset, does not account for the delay resultant from the distance between a sound's point of origin and the listener's location), the sounds of off-map artillery are modeled at least somewhat correctly in terms of what direction the guns/mortars are in relation to the map and how far away they are. (Part of scenario design in ToW is determining where one side's howitzer battery, for example, is in relation to the map, in terms of both direction and distance.) I've wondered if perhaps "Friendly Map Edge" (or whatever the actual term is) in the CMSF editor has a bearing on what direction the howitzer/mortar shells come from.

Come to think of it, shouldn't a unit's radio be included in its inventory panel, along with (to use the above screenshots as an example) the NVGs, binocs, and GPS? I understand that a unit's being in command via radio is indicated in the C2 panel, but I think it ought to be a little clearer whether or not a given unit has a radio in the first place. (With vehicles it's easier to tell, since "Radio" appears as an item under the Damage tab and there's the radio icon -- when applicable -- in the C2 panel.) If the radioman in an HQ unit is WIA/KIA, is the radio he carries also knocked out, or can it be picked up by a fellow soldier, such as the one who performs buddy aid on him? Regarding the first screenshot, I also noticed that the platoon's 2nd team appears with a green plus-sign in the HQ's "units" tab -- which would seem to contradict the lack of C2 between the two. I believe BlackMoria meant that he figures the above-pictured HQ cannot call for fire support because of the indicated lack of C2 both with the subordinate team and to any upper echelons. In other words, the platoon as well as its component units are isolated C2-wise from friendly units.

"Wasn't all that difficult"!? After repeated attempts, all of which resulted in at least half a dozen knocked out vehicles (including a couple AAVs) before I had even reached the pass, I gave up, then restarted and hit "cease fire" almost right away, just bypassing the scenario. Those ATGMs tended to make life miserable for my troops, even when I kept the vehicles under cover and just probed forward with my dismounts -- one AT-14 in the middle of a Marine squad equals ouch for half a dozen guys. =( Even so, I too liked the truly mountainous feel of the map.

But is that because they figure it would result in M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction) or because they have no thermonuclear warheads to drop? Is it just more, or has the USA gone around looming over other countries and saying, "Hey!? You can't have nukes! Only we can have nukes! You have to get rid of your nukes...because we say so!" A few months ago National Geographic magazine claimed that more countries have "opted out" of the nuclear arms race than have joined it (or are still in it, I don't remember clearly). On reading that, I was inclined to interpret it more cynically (or realistically, depending on your viewpoint) and suppose that the aforementioned countries gave up trying to develop weapons-grade nuclear programs either because they couldn't afford such or because the superpowers bullied them into giving up or both. Don't get me wrong, MikeyD -- I'd gladly play any US-vs.-Canada scenarios (or campaigns, even) which you created. For one, I'd love sending 'my' Leopard 2A6Ms (which the Canadian Army acquired a goodly number of fairly recently) to duke it out with M1A2s and such. =P

Moors (North African Muslims), Jews, and Christians in Iberia (now Portugal and Spain)were just fine living together for several centuries (pre-1492). Eventually, though, the Christendomic potentates (kings and such) to the north got tired of not having as much land and riches as before the Moors took over, so they spent a couple more centuries steamrollering the Moors out of Iberia and then torturing to death all those left who did not readily consent to converting to Christianity (i.e. the Spanish Inquisition). (Gross oversimplification, I know, but I don't have time to write out the whole history, nor would most people have the patience to read it.) Throughout history, there have been times when a given group drove away or killed all those of any different group as well as times when numerous groups lived relatively at peace with one another.

But what about the USMC Squad Advanced Marksman Rifle? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Marine_Corps_Squad_Advanced_Marksman_Rifle) I doubt the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab (http://www.mcwl.quantico.usmc.mil/) would develop this and other weapons (like, presumably, the USMC Designated Marksman Rifle) just for use at Quantico.

This is simulatable even in CMSF: just have the pixeltruppen show up as reinforcements on said rooftops. Showing said pixeltruppen fast-roping from Blackhawks would involve new models (for Blackhawks), new animations (for fast-roping and for Blackhawks cruising into view), and no little amount of time and mental energy from our already-busy free-time-killers at BFC.

Even when playing Blue, I've had plenty of bloody-awful bare-knuckle knock-down/drag-out fights that didn't involve T-90s or BMP-3s or Special Forces or Airborne on the Red side. If you want to fight Russians (or something resembling them), just give Red T-90s and BMP-3s and plenty of AT-14s, up their experience to Veteran, and use a Russian voice mod like the one available at cmmods.com. (Am I the only one who's getting at least a little bit tired of people coming out of left field, so to speak, and posting things like "I don't like this game because it doesn't have what I want" or "this game is broken because it doesn't have things I think it should"?)

Since this thread has elicited no response from anyone official (particularly Battlefront's eponymous Steve), consider it bumped. I found it ironic that the first reply elicited by this thread and its pseudo-rhetorical questions was: In creating the thread in the first place, I was in fact hoping to elicit some response from Steve, even if said response is comprised only of monosyllables (of the Yes/No variety).

*shrug* Sounds fine to me. I guess I was misled/puzzled by the existence (as per Wikipedia, at least) of the USMC Designated Marksman Rifle.

So the short version is . . . no designated marksman at pretty much any level in the USMC TO&E (despite their having a USMC Designated Marksman Rifle), since regular M16A4-armed soldiers are trained to provide accurate fire out to at least 500m, beyond which range you might as well employ an actual sniper . . . right?

Yet another smidgen of proof that racists/anti-immigrationists aren't quite as smart as they claim to be. =P

So I guess the closest one could come to simulating a Force Recon platoon in CMSF would be an SBCT or HBCT scout platoon. *shrug*

The impression I've gotten in regards a fair number of accounts about coalition forces working with and/or trying to train local forces -- whether police, militia, border patrol, or regular army -- in both Iraq and Afghanistan is that in plenty of cases the locals seem either lazy, lackadaisical, or corrupt. I'm no professor with a degree in Middle Eastern studies, nor am I a military expert, but I can understand both the MP's pissed-off-ness as well as the likely reasons for the seeming reluctance/laziness of the Iraqi policemen. Do Iraqis, even policemen, ever wear 'baseball cap'-style hats? If no, were they issued said caps, perhaps? If yes, I guess they just wear 'em differently over there.

I'd rather have a TO&E which reflects reality more than theory. (But, Steve, I reckon you could point out that TO&Es in CMSF generally reflect theory at least somewhat more than reality...assuming that is the case.) I'd be fine with squad/fireteam leaders with M16 with M203s. By way of suggestion: Poor = M16 + M203 Fair = M16 + M203 Normal = M16 + M203 Good = M4 + M32 (squad leader) Excellent = M4 + M32 (squad leader and all fireteam leaders) Thus, with equipment set at Excellent, a scenario designer could simulate a Force Recon unit, which could be assumed to theoretically have better equipment allotment than a standard USMC infantry unit. Speaking of number of 40mm launchers in a given squad, doesn't the fourth man in each fireteam also have an M203, or am I confusing that with the typical Army fireteam?