Dietrich
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Posts posted by Dietrich
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:eek: Are you threatening CMSF fans with deadly force??? :eek:
I hereby maintain that no one has LOF to me.
infantry in SF don't get the same benefits from getting below ground level as AK/BB's infantryIs digging in even covered in modern military training? Entrenching tools are obviously no longer default part of the infantryman's kit, but is entrenching really no longer a factor in modern combat?
As far as I understand, in WW2 there were instances where an attacking force was forced to halt by fire from the defenders' positions, so that as the defenders' fire became more sporadic (whether due to decreasing ammo supply or other factors), the attackers broke out their entrenching tools and -- perhaps while still under fire -- dug themselves foxholes.
In modern Blue-on-Red combat, if (for example) a company of US Army infantry were attacking entrenched Syrian positions and became pinned on account of the defensive fire, they could call -- more promptly and accurately than their WW2 counterparts -- on a range of support, from company-level or battalion-level mortars and SBCT-level howitzers to air assets like AH-64s and even F-15E or F-16s (though probably not more than one or two at a time). Thus there would be much less of a need to dig in, because supporting fire would suppress or eliminate the defenders. (Of course, this scenario assumes that the US Army infantry in question have to operate dismounted, on account of significant Syrian AT assets or the absence of direct supporting fire from Stryker MGS, etc.)
Actually, there are even more reasons why modern first-world infantry have little or no need to dig in, but elucidating such would involve a much longer post.
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I'm no heraldry/insignia expert, but I've noticed that different armies position their rank chevrons differently. For example, in WW2, US Army rank chevrons were point-upward, whereas German Heer rank chevrons were point-downward. For the same army to have differents ranks with their chevrons oriented differently might seem odd, but to me it seems within the realm of plausibility.
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Speaking as a longtime CMx1 player I suspect a lot of the "cool/realistic" CMx1 stuff people talk about is imagined. . . . The imagination is always better than seeing things acted out.
Apocal said he had to turn his eyes off to play CMx1. I just find that my imagination comes more into play when watching the action in CMx1.
To each of my friends who sees the seemingly poor graphics in CMx1 and marvels that I even play it, I say: "It's not an RTS, it's a tactical simulator." Company of Heroes has great graphics and such, but it's an RTS; the game's engine prevents it from being on the same continent, so to speak, as CMx2 in terms of tactical simulation. Similarly, Falcon 4.0 Allied Force has substandard graphics compared to newer titles like LOMAC, but the comprehensiveness and detail of Falcon's simulation is yet unmatched.
The more abstracted the game the more of yourself you're able to pour into it.Which is (in part) why the 16-bit sprite-based Final Fantasy VI is my favorite, as opposed to the graphically superior (but overall very good) later Final Fantasy games.
MikeyD, sorry you are just way off in your assessment. There's nothing imaginary about it.While you do make some fairly reasonable points, Adam, I would have to say that my experience confirms MikeyD's assessment. The relatively greater abstraction in CMx1 makes me use more of my imagination based on the information the game provides; whereas in CMSF I can see tracer rounds ricochet off buildings and soar through the air while not knowing just how many magazines of 5.56 the seven yet-unwounded soldiers in a given squad have.
In the end, though, it seems that you just don't like CMSF. If so, why do you bother going on and on about the ways in which it fails to live up to your expectations? Sure, there are things about CMSF that I would like to see improved, but do I rant about it? For example, I don't like Theatre of War (no disrepect to BFC or 1C, etc.) as much as I used to (which is largely because I later purchased CMSF
), but I don't go to the ToW forum and go on and on about the game's deficiences. -
Awesome! Thanks very much, Paper Tiger. I dig Red-vs-Red scenarios, since I don't have to worry as much about getting owned by the AI since it doesn't have just-plain-better equipment than me.
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bin wadi changed the sides:
This looks like it's from birdstrike's "3:10 to Yuma" scenario. That would make sense -- the Syrian spy is supposed to be Abdullah bin Wadi, the captured insurgent leader whom the Blue forces (Marines standing in for Delta Force operators) in the scenario are guarding until the 'cavalry' can arrive.
Wild. I had no idea spies could use weapons. The icon shows a knife or machete. Do they have some nominal close combat capability too?AFAIK, hand-to-hand combat is not modeled in CMSF, so the icon is not to be taken as indicative of a unit's capabilities.
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Anteeksi, en ymmärrä. =P
(For those of you other than Sergei and Secondbrooks, that's Finnish.)
But what does "Ääliö älä lyö, ööliä läikkyy" mean?
True, German isn't easy to learn, much Finnish is much harder. But I love it! =)
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In movies, you'll see a tank driving through forests, simply crushing all but the biggest trees in its path; or you'll see a tank plowing straight through a building and out the other side. (Yes, I'm talking about you, James Bond, you reckless over-sexed assassin, giving real spies a bad name....)
Driving a tank through trees runs the risk getting a branch or trunk jammed in the tracks or the wheels. If you were to drive a tank through a building, it could easily get pinned by the roof collapsing on top of it. And what if the building has a basement? Standard floors are not built to support even a few tons, let alone the 60+ tons of a typical modern MBT. Even if the tank doesn't get trapped by the roof above or collapse into the basement below, some other piece of rubble from the building could lodge in its running gear.
Contrary to the stereotype, tanks are surprisingly vulnerable if you know how they're built. A tanks is typically though of as being effectively invincible against anything except another tank (though the increasing public awareness of RPGs is gradually deflating that stereotype), but there are a lot of things you can do even against an Abrams with a little know-how.
So yes, it's reasonable that your tracked vehicles prefer to avoid trees and such -- they don't want to run the risk of getting immobilized.
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@ theFightingSeabee: "'Join the Army,' they said; 'it'll be fun,' they said...." =)
@ Nidan1: Yeah, shouldn't a unit which is about to set off a charge either say "Fire in the hole!" or keep quiet so as not to give the enemy a chance to anticipate what they're about to do?
I mentioned in another thread that one of my favorite mods for CMBB was one (which I got from CMMODs) that replaced many of the default voice files (other than the 'stock' reporting/command ones like "Schütze, feindliches Ziel, feuer frei!") with ones that made playing feel much more dynamic. (For example, one went like this: "Ergibt dich -- dann kann ich dich erschießen! <chuckle>" -- the GI equivalent would be something like: "C'mon out so I can blast ya!")
It seems like there's only two or three voice files for any given 'trigger' -- for example, a US unit when Assault-ing will say either "Charge!" or "Attack! Give it to 'em!"
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The only map reference I've come across is in a video I found on YouTube which was apparently put out by National Geographic -- the clip shows a CG rendering of the fortress and zooms up to a brief plan view. The CG rendering is at least somewhat simplied, though, since the eyewitness video footage shows rather more trees in the fortress' northern yard as well as the southern yard. LiveLeak also has a series of videos about Qala-i-Jangi (see second link in first post of this thread) which include footage shot by the German cameraman who, along with journalist Arnim Stauth, was inside the fortress before the prisoner revolt began and who filmed much of it before they were able to escape the fortress itself.
If my financial resources were not so limited, I would take the time to look for, buy, and read several books (hopefully ones with lots of pictures, maps and diagrams) about Qala-i-Jangi and the battle thereof, but then again, I'd like to do that with each historical/semi-historical scenario I'd like to create. *shrug* So I'll have to do the best with the sources I can acquire.
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Actually, that bit is partly true. 5.56mm typically has poor performance behind intermediate barriers, but that is due to its behavior after penetration.
I stand corrected.
if terrorists in autos is your problem, 7.62mm is a much better solution.
Which is why I say, might as well wield something AR-like in 6.8mm or 6.5mm Grendel -- better punch than 5.56mm and more ammo per mag than .50-cal.
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we are planning on expanding CMx2's way of getting information over to the user. The first thing we're going to do is reintroduce bogus information like we had in CMx1. You know, the fun stuff like thinking a MkIV Panzer is really a Panther, or vice versa.
Or worse yet, thinking a Panzer IV is a Tiger.
Another thing we will eventually do (though I can't say exactly when) is have the "?" icons replaced with generalized force specific icons. This is what Other Means was talking about on the previous page. That way you can look at the icon and have a better idea of what you're troops think they saw.One thing about CMSF which breaks immersion for me a little bit is the fact that you can know more about a currently spotted unit than you ever could in CMx1, even if that unit is on the far side of the map -- you know which force it belongs to (different forces within both Blue and Red, as well as different flavors of Uncon), what echelon it is, whether it's an HQ, what rank the unit's leader is.
Sergeant: "Hey Lieutenant, y'know that bunch of tangos we saw run into that building?"Lieutenant: "Yeah; what about 'em?"Sergeant: "I caught a glimpse of the lead tango's rank badge with my binocs; he's a corporal."=PIn CMx1, even a unit of yours which has been trading grenades for several minutes with an enemy unit for won't know much about that enemy unit beyond what sort of unit it is. So I'm glad that this is going to be adjusted.
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Another reason a Qala-i-Jangi scenario would have to be semi-historical, even if it included units from the British module*, is that the battle spanned almost five days, while in CMSF a two-hour battle is the max. Overall, I think the scenario notes will say "based on an actual event"; it'll be a distillation of the battle's events.
Most all the sources I've read mention a CCT team which talked to the 'bird'. One video I've seen online states that the CCT team had a laser designator which they 'painted' target buildings inside the fortress with. That said, a JDAM is not a Maverick. I don't know per se why the JDAM in question went errant, but even if the air assets were using strictly guided munitions there still could have been a Blue-on-Blue incident. In playing CMSF, I've never had a JDAM land on friendly forces, but then again I've always been careful to keep my troops well back, especially if the air asset in question is a jet fighter (which would be dropping JDAMs) rather than an attack helo (which would either be firing missiles or its cannon). I'm tempted, though, to set the F/A-18's skill at just Regular or lower in hopes of simulating the potential for their to be an errant air strike as happened in the actual battle.
* Interestingly, the SBS troops (as can be seen in the video taken at the time) were armed, not with SA80s and L86A2s but with M4s/M16s and at least one M240. I don't know how British squads are organized, but I suppose the performance of the more characteristically Britsh weapons is similar enough to the ones the SBS operators were armed with that there wouldn't be a need to worry about the British units in the scenario not having the same equipment.
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I saw a segment on the AAV7 replacement, the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) on the show Futureweapons.
According to the segment, it is scheduled to enter service in 2011 (not that far off). It is 4 times faster than the AAV7 on water and nearly twice as fast on land. It carries 17 Marines + 3 Crew. More heavily armored than the AAV (Global Security website states specification is to stop 14.7mm rounds, something the current AAV armor cannot without apply armor mods.
Did Future Weapons make any mention of the fact that the EFV's flat hull bottom (which is necessary for the vehicle's good sea performance) is more mine- and IED-friendly than the other armored vehicles fielded by the US Armed Forces? Didn't think so.
Future Weapons is fun to watch, but the info it presents should, I think, be taken with a grain of salt. A case in point: in a segment about the Alexander Arms .50-cal Beowulf (basically an über-bore AR-15), Richard "Mac" Machowicz states that the Beowulf offers superior anti-vehicle capability than the standard 5.56m round. The show illustrates this by having him in a Chevy Suburban being tailed by some masked AK-47-wielding guys in (of all things) a Ford Taurus station wagon. Mac and his driver stop, jump out, bring their Beowulfs to bear on the station wagon and blast it...from only 20m away. At that range, would an M4's or M16's bullets really not be able to penetrate the body panels and windshield? Sure, heavier punch is better, but it's not like the five-fifty-six is all that much less effective -- especially when the Beowulf has 20 fewer rounds than a standard M4/M16 and is effective only within 200 meters.
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I've never (intentionally) dismounting a tank's own crew to do impromptu terrain recon, but I can recall playing armor-only scenarios in which some preemptive stealthy spotting would have saved me a knocked-out Abrams or two. The first battle in GeorgeMC's "Forging Steel" campaign is a good example of that -- recon Humvees come in handy.
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Do you think a new monitor for my Tandy would improve the experience?
In a word: Yes.
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At this rate, I'll hardly have the map done before the British module comes out, so crack or elite British infantry (standing in for SBS operators) will be included.
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their best uses are . . . "backup/additional arty spotter"
In small-scale scenarios where you don't have an actual FO, an HQ unit is your best bet to spot for artillery. Just check each HQ and look for a little yellow "+" -- or, better yet, a big green "+" -- in the asset box. (applies to air assets too) Sometimes a company HQ will have a better connection to a given asset than a platoon HQ, and vice versa.
I try to avoid doing 'gamist' things with the command squads because in reality, your platoon commanders and company commanders are not going to be running around being medicsSergeant: <looking around> "Where's the lieutenant?"Corporal: "Splinting the CO's foot -- he stepped in a pothole." <impish grin>Sergeant "The hell?!"Indeed -- rather than acting as a medic himself, the CO is going to tell someone else to take care of any wounded. That's appropriate delegation.
nor are they going to be off in a corner acting as ad-hoc observers.Sergeant: <hunkered down in cover> "Whadya see, Cap'n?"Captain: <peering through binoculars> "A lotta blades of grass." -
Merci beaucoup pour le AAR, Cybertrand. =)
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Besides, there's like a million ways that a historical battle could have gone, and in a tactical wargame all of those possibilities are just as important as the real direction the battle took. Players aren't going to stick strictly to script (especially if they're the historical losing side), and if the situation warrants choosing from more than one plan of action, it makes sense to give the AI more than one plan. And of course the game's 'die rolls' can't be fixed to match the historical 'die rolls', so you get lots of variation.
Good points, Sergei. =)
Speaking of historical scenarios, they are the ultimate break of FOW. If you know what happened at Villers-Bocage and you play the CMBO classic "Villers-Bocage Tiger!" as the Brits, are you going to be surprised that there's a lone elite Tiger on rampage?True, but that doesn't mean the outcome of the battle is a given.
Oh how many times I've played CMAK Villers-Bocage scenarios as the Germans and had my elite Tiger ("LT MICHAEL WITTMANN*") knocked out in the first few turns! -
*shrug* All the sources I've checked name only two CIA agents present. In any case, since the scenario begins after the prisoners have started their revolt and broken into the armory, it thus concerns, not the actions of the CIA agents (however many there were), but rather the efforts of the Coalitian SOF troops and the Northern Alliance troops to contain the revolt.
Would you be so kind as to enlighten us about this third agent? =)
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(First off, let me admit that I have not gone through and read each post in this thread, so forgiving me if I'm rehashing...)
As far as I have observed, the factor which has gone conspicuously not discussed in regard to this war is the pressure that Israeli officials (both political and military) must have been getting from the populace in southern Israeli -- the ones suffering, both directly and indirectly, from the Hamas rocket/mortar attacks -- leading up to the repeated airstrikes on Gaza and then sending in the IDF.
In the end, though, isn't this a war between ideologies, a conflict in which there can ultimately be no mediation because at any given time one side refuses to say "we will no longer attack [the other side]"? Just because the Israelis cease their attacks on Gaza doesn't mean Hamas will no longer launch rockets into Israel. Conversely, even if Hamas were to say "we will no longer attack Israel", that doesn't mean that individuals in the Gaza Strip would not strap explosives to themselves and try to infiltrate across the border and blow themselves up in marketplaces.
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Try playing as the Syrians and watching your BMP's get chewed up by 40mm grenades, while at the same time not being able to see anything until either the crew bails out or the BMP blows up.
Or better yet, watch your BMPs get chewed by regular ol' hand grenades. O.o
We told you guys that fighting with the Marines would be pretty different from fighting with the Army. AAV is not an IFV.Not that the Stryker is much better as far as survivability. The Stryker has the advantage of being of lower profile and of lesser passenger capacity, so fewer guys buy the farm when an RPG comes calling. heh
...Sandcrawlers! Utinni! lol
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In my experience, KIA only exceed WIA when there are lots of vehicle kills. I think vehicle crews when they become casualties usually become KIA - which seems logical to me. Even if the vehicle doesn't burn or explode I would expect a lot of heat to be generated inside the wreck.
What about when a crew suffers casualties but the vehicle is intact? (Though such an occurrence definitely seems rare.) The other day I had an M1A2 take a hit which took out the gunner and the commander (who was unbuttoned, I think) -- their 'slots' on the info panel went from blue to grey, but it remained unclear whether they had been rendered WIA or KIA.
In infantry-only battles, my experience has been a three-to-one (or something like it) WIA-to-KIA ratio. Playing the "From Dawn to the Setting Sun" mini-campaign a few times in a row should yield some enlighting figures in this regard.
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Little by little I've been gathering info about this battle (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qala-I-Janghi for an overview), so it's sounding plausible to design a scenario based on it.
The basics of the battle: At 11:15 a.m. on November 24, 2001, about 300 foreign fighters (Taliban-allied) which are being held prisoner under minimal armed guard in the southern yard of the mud-and-brick fortress Qala-i-Jangi ("house of war" in Persian) riot and kill one of the two CIA operators present. The other CIA operator flees to the opposite end of the fortress, where he encounters two German journalists (one of whom has a working video camera) and 'borrows' their satellite phone to call for reinforcements. Meanwhile, the Taliban break into the armory in the center of the fortress, arm themselves handsomely and fight fiercely to break out. The couple dozen Afghan militia positioned on the fortress' walls struggle to contain the all-of-a-sudden armed prisoner revolt. Around 2:00 p.m., a mixed team of special operations forces, nine US Special Forces and six British Special Boat Service operators, arrive and join the effort to contain the attempted breakout. From 4:00 p.m. until nightfall, the SOF operators direct nine airstrikes (from one F/A-18, perhaps more air assets) against the Taliban. (The fighting doesn't really die down until Nov. 28, but a two-hour battle should be plenty for one sitting. hehe)
One of the reasons I've started this thread is to get some feedback from y'all about how the Experience, Motivation, etc., for the Taliban forces should be set. Three hundred Uncons in a not-very-wide area (according to a National Geographic Channel video on YouTube, Qala-i-Jangi is "three-quarters of a kilometer around" with walls "20 meters thick and 30 meters high") and fully supplied with ammo (they broke into the armorr, getting small arms as well as RPG-7s) should make for quite a firefight. I think the key thing is not how well armed the Taliban were, but how fiercely they fought -- the fact that the Afghans drove a T-55 into the fort to fire directly at buildings the Taliban were occupying gives you some idea of how intense the battle was. The Taliban were obviously fanatical in their fighting -- even four days after the battle began, the Taliban were fighting from basements until Northern Alliance troops flooded the basements with water. Thus I figure the Red force Motivation should be set at Fanatical. What about their Experience? These were all fighters, rather than dragged-from-the-village-and-given-an-AK conscripts, so a range of experience from Green to Veteran could make sense. What do y'all think?
The Red AI plan will be for the some of the Uncons to fight to the death in the armory and nearby buildings while some of the other Uncons try to break through to the fortress' entrance. The overall objective for Blue will be to prevent the Taliban prisoners from escaping -- and, by extension, to inflict heavy casualties, since the Taliban are not going to give up. (In footage taken by Arnim Strauth's cameraman, Strauth was interviewing a turbaned fighter and asked him: "Can you tell us, why did you decide to surrender?" The fighter looked at him as if he thought Strauth was taking him for a fool, then shook his head and replied (in English, remarkably): "We are not surrender." --see http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1db_1188948068&p=1)
The challenging part of the map design will be the fortress' curtain wall, which are basically 90-feet-high embankments which are almost a truck's width at the top, with brick/stone walls on each side (to simulate parapets) which are not too high to see/shoot over from a standing position.
The OOB will go something like this:
BLUE:
- 9 US Special Forces operators, including a JTAC team (standing in for a USAF CCT team)
- 6 USN DEVGRU (USMC units standing in for SBS)
- 2 civilian pickup trucks (the SOF guys arrived in 'technicals', but in-game technicals can't carry passengers)
- 1 ??? (standing in for surviving CIA operator Dave Tyson, who had an AK-47)
- 1 F/A-18 (for beaucoup JDAMs :cool:)
- 2 friendly Spies (standing in for German journalist Arnim Strauth and his cameraman)
- c.80-90 Syrian Militia (standing in for Afghan militia)
- 2 T-55 (in the actual battle, one got its turret blown off by an errant 2,000# JDAM)
RED:
- c.300 Uncon Fighters (with AKs, RPKs, and a fair number of RPG-7s)
Yes, I know some of the prime Blue forces involved were SBS operators, and we don't yet have British units, so any pre-British-Forces-module version of a Qala-i-Jangi scenario would be semi-historical, with Army or Marine units standing in for SBS.
When the beta is done, I'll post it on the Repository and at CMMODs so y'all can check it out. If you DL it and play it, please let me know what you think of it and what could use improvement. =)
WW II Soldier Slang Killing You? Solution available if you're quick!
in General Discussion Forum
Posted
I got that book a while back. It's eye-opening. I've found it quite useful for my yet-to-be-first-drafted Ostfront Landser novel (strictly historical, mind you -- no post-modern goody-two-shoe-ing or hindsight-is-20/20 reworking of the realities).
I too dig Osprey's slim (and sometimes not-so-slim) volumes.
Ah, the Firefly.... Perhaps not Michael Wittman's bane, but nonetheless a tank that didn't have to get within spitting distance to take out a Tiger (though it could still be taken out by a Tiger from almost any range).