Combatintman

I seem to remember somebody did something similar to this for a CMSF AAR - it was one of George MC's scenarios (possibly Battlegroup/Task Force Attacks). The technique looked good then and it looks good now.

Further to my last - just played as the German vs the AI and got a pretty easy victory (helped of course by the fact that I have already played as Red). This one is certainly better played as the Red Army player. The Red AI I thought was pretty workable though - otherwise comments are pretty much the same as those I sent you in my e-mail.

Downloaded - played and feedback sent ... BLUF - certainly the makings of a good mission but this needs more work mate.

Yeah that's what I thought as soon as I saw it - it is a lovely map.

Yes that would be the one ... although even I'm too young for OGs!!!!

I seem to recall from basic training (1984) - the reaction to effective enemy fire drill was dash - down - crawl - observe - sights - fire.

I vaguely recall this one - but it is a truism for CMSF that the only way to defeat IEDs is to: A. Avoid them (not much of an option here) B. Disrupt/Destroy (signal or trigger). Some vehicles have protection systems that will disrupt/defeat radio and phone activated devices however they are of no use against wire IEDs. Your options boil down to suppressing or killing the triggerman or using smoke to obscure his view. I personally have found triggermen to be quite easy to defeat using one or both methods or the two combined. In this scenario, the canalising terrain is about 100m-200m long so you can rush vehicles across under cover of smoke quite easily (although I'd do it singly to avoid one IED taking out multiple vehicles) or suppress using coax (to avoid destroying buildings) without having to expend massive amounts of ammunition.

Voted for the original - the 2008 snapshot allows both Iraq and Afghanistan to be done with the correct TO@ Es and there is enough flex in it do the Libyan and Syrian civil wars. A couple of new weapon systems would be nice such as adding the M-113, anti-tank guns and some MRAPs. Most of all though, all I want is proper water and bridges and the special editor overlay.

Reference can Javelin track human targets, there used to be a video showing this engagement on Youtube which I can't find however Michael Yon's prose and images are almost as good: https://www.michaelyon-online.com/rattlesnake.htm

Play Real Time mode.

A platoon as a local reserve would be a good premise for many mission types - you could have it advancing to a blocking a position or conducting a local counter-attack on a position just captured by the enemy - the latter would sit particularly well in the context of German doctrine.

Reference the OP's points question - it depends on the scenario designer. Lets say you have a tank company of ten tanks which is worth 1000 points as a unit 'destroy' objective and an infantry company of 100 guys that is worth 100 points as a unit 'destroy' objective - the tank crew are going to be worth more than the infantry.

Well a way of doing it would be this: Your enemy AI starts at the top end of the map and has to touch Objectives A through to E with A being closest and E being furthest Objective A = 10 points Objective B = 10 points Objective C = 10 points Objective D = 10 points Objective E = 10 points Objective C is the 'draw' threshold. All you need to do is allocate the right number of VPs associated with the 'Destroy' objective of the enemy AI group to trigger the draw (in this case it will be a figure around 30) and ensure that touch objective C is in the right place in terns of time and distance (so if 30 minutes is too long in your design concept - it needs to be about 20 to 30 minutes away from the setup zone/start point). Granted this doesn't cover all of the issues raised and the maths is rough and ready but it does solve some of the design problems.

The CMSF scenario looks like one of JonS's which I (along with a couple of others) tested - the situation shown in the image certainly didn't arise in any of those tests. Added to which, you can see that Jon took care to ensure that the reinforcements arrived in dead ground and I'm pretty sure that the briefing mentioned that reinforcements would arrive. It just goes to show that the combination of an experienced and talented scenario designer and robust testing sometimes does not cover all bases. FWIW I thought this was one of the better and more fun scenarios in that whole campaign.

From my look at the this thread (and other similar ones over the years) there seems to be a trenchant belief that creating briefing graphics requires photoshop and ninja like qualities in that program to knock up decent sets of briefing graphics. All of mine have been done using a combination of Fraps screen grabs, Powerpoint and Paint. Trust me - anybody who can put a powerpoint or similar presentation together can do briefing graphics - it really is not hard - the link below (scroll down to post 34 and read on) shows examples of graphics created using these methods: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/115533-new-mission-into-the-green/page-2

Agreed and as you point out - this stuff can be done already - it just requires the player to have the self-discipline to, in the words of the OP to 'NO SAVE & NO LOAD'.

Nope - I prefer choice - you want to play that way you can do already don't impose it on others.

For those interested, the latest Modern War magazine (Mar-Apr 15) has a couple of articles which might be useful as backgrounders for CMBS. While the articles (Putin as Warlord and Visegrad - The Coming War in Eastern Europe) contain nothing particularly earth shattering there is a basic Russian order of battle down to brigade level which is a good starter for potential mission and campaign design reference.

It is a good resource for sure and has been posted previously but overall it is of limited utility when you are creating small maps - a combination of a real map plus a Google Earth screen grab saved as a special editor overlay is usually required to create a truly serviceable map.

Sadly backporting CMRT to CMSF does not seem to work using this method - I tried backporting a QB map which didn't work and then created my own map using only terrain types that were common to both games and that didn't work either. It is a real pity because I thought that I would be able to use the special editor overlay to draw out real World maps in CMRT and then use those as a base for CMSF scenarios. Great find though.

I'm not convinced that there is little mileage in converting CMSF to the updated game engine - the flurry of interest in CMBS indicates that there are quite a few who are buying into the modern setting who missed out on CMSF on its first outing. I think many of those people might just be prepared to give CMSF a go if it was updated.

It is at the Repository now: http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314&func=fileinfo&id=3471

Tend to agree about firing on dismounts - bailed out AFV crews seem to attract a lot of attention from AI tank gunners.

Yes - scroll down to the editor paragraph here: http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=338&Itemid=583