Combatintman

Yes but he's got the 'new milk bottle mod', '2017 newspaper mod' and 'breathing cat animation' installed on them .

Yes but he's got the 'new milk bottle mod', '2017 newspaper mod' and 'breathing cat animation' installed on them .

A screen shot would be kinda helpful here.

That's all very well but how accessible is that feature going to be to any player who has no military experience? This thread and its antecedent is the result of some pretty extensive research on the part of @MOS:96B2Pand it has provoked a lot of questions. That says to me that it seems quite clear that the way in which what could be termed by military professionals as 'dumbed down'' C2 in game is not readily understood by people with and without service under their belts. So to add the complexity you are advocating risks confusion and would possibly alienate a lot of potential players.
Additionally, the information presented is based on a battalion group, how would having multiple nets work with platoon or company-sized scenarios and how would you convey the mechanics in the manual? Your earlier recce conundrum has two pretty simple solutions:
Pick single vehicles as attachments to bigger units. Pick the higher HQs. WRT gunner nets, the current abstracted indirect fire system continues to trigger forum threads like 'why can't I call in fire?' To make this more difficult by introducing an artillery net would not be helpful. Given that in the Commonwealth Armies of WW2 guns and recce were divisional assets, how far do we go here ... does it become a must have to include the Divisional HQ in game to historically replicate proper gunner and recce nets?
This smacks of the numerous 'mega iron' or enhanced reality type threads that have done the rounds over the years. It is fine if you want it but for the game to sell it is in all likelihood not something that is going to be a feature that has people queuing round the block for. The separate gunner nets thing is sort of replicated in the WW2 titles by the increased delays or inabilities of certain FOOs to call in fire which to my Acorn rather than a Shelldrake/Ironside view is a pretty workable compromise of reflecting reality without making it inaccessible.
Like most things in life ....
How much do you really want it?
When things aren't perfect, compromise is always good.

The KG Peiper maps are all top drawer. I have done many battlefield tours in that area and the maps are about as close as it gets to the real thing within the constraints of the editor.

@MOS:96B2P as always useful information but my read on this is that there is underlying data that you have not covered in the post. As an example you state that Parameter/Condition and Parameter/Casualty effects are different, yet present raw data that doesn't support the assertion because we don't know how the VPs were allocated in the editor. From my POV this is the key discussion rather than rehashing the discussion about medic animations.
Thanks for looking into this and I'm not calling you out on things btw ... just doing my job mate .
 

@MOS:96B2P as always useful information but my read on this is that there is underlying data that you have not covered in the post. As an example you state that Parameter/Condition and Parameter/Casualty effects are different, yet present raw data that doesn't support the assertion because we don't know how the VPs were allocated in the editor. From my POV this is the key discussion rather than rehashing the discussion about medic animations.
Thanks for looking into this and I'm not calling you out on things btw ... just doing my job mate .
 

Distance between house and initial position?

The IED problem in CMSF is mostly a tactical problem to solve. As @Sgt.Squarehead said above, you're going about it the wrong way. There are also nuances to the IED problem in terms of how the scenario designer has implemented them in the scenario. Like most things in the military there are heaps of acronyms related to IEDs and this is why I talk about nuances which I shall try to explain.
In CMSF terms, I would start with the manual definitions of IED and how they operate (pages 104-106 of the manual refer) in simple terms they boil down to:
VBIED - this comprises a vehicle and a triggerman. Cell IED - this comprises the device and a triggerman (range 600m and 10% failure rate) Radio IED - this comprises the device and a triggerman (range 300m, LOS from the triggerman to device and 20% failure rate) Wire IED - this comprises the device and a triggerman (range 100m and 10% failure rate) A point to note is that although it only explicitly states that LOS is required for radio IEDs, my experience is that LOS is a requirement for all of them.
Additional relevant factors are the experience and skill ratings of the triggerman plus the level of suppression/panic.
Taking all of the above into account, defeating IEDs listed above generally involve the following (which, by the way, are real world tactical solutions to the problem):
Analysing where you think an IED might be and consider avoiding that area. Denying the triggerman LOS. Killing or suppressing the triggerman. Otherwise, if you have platforms with ECM, you can risk manage situations because ECM (page 206 of the manual shows you the ECM icon) will increase the device failure rates for  Vehicle, Cell and Radio IEDs, although by how much in game I do not know.  
So this is all fine and dandy but what about mines?  Mines are in essence what are called in the COIN environment VOIEDs (Victim Operated IEDS). Indeed many VOIEDs, or their components started off as military specification anti-personnel or anti-tank mines. Now (and here is the nuance I was talking about earlier) what if the scenario designer has mentioned an IED threat but has implemented that threat by using mines to replicate VOIEDs? Well the obvious solution is of course to use engineers or pioneers to look for them or mark them. However, you are never going to know how the scenario designer has implemented the 'IEDs' until you either play the scenario or you cheat and peak in the scenario editor. That I'm afraid is that enduring characteristic of warfare called friction. So your solution here is one I've mentioned earlier which is to work out where you think the device might be and avoid it.
As to your desire to have a means to physically clear devices - engineers/pioneers can identify and mark mines already but identification without detonation is, in my experience, rare in CMSF. It also takes time ... slow move, pause, slow move pause. This is reflective of real life - there are plenty of documentaries/combat footage of Afghanistan and Iraq that will verify that it is a slow and hazardous process with no guarantees of success. Bearing in mind that the maximum length of a scenario is three hours (plus possibly some added time - I'm relying on memory here) then you can see that your approach to the problem will require analysis and risk management. As to a physical clearance feature well again I would refer you to documentaries/footage because in many cases that requires a specialist EOD team which may have to be called in from a FOB and could take a couple of hours to rock up.
All of that said - it would be nice to have the capability but if it is to be implemented realistically (which is how BFC does things) then I would still expect EOD clearance to be a time consuming process which would soak up a lot of scenario time.

Not as easy as you think - the timeframe in which the two titles are set are at least a decade apart. While I can't speak for other TO&Es, as the person that researched, provided and formatted the majority of the data for the British forces in the CMSF British module, I can tell you that the work that is involved in writing a TO&E to BFCs standards is an enormous undertaking. Bear in mind that this does not include the work that BFC then does with that data to turn it into code and all of those other fancy ones and zeroes that computers need to make the thing perform.
The British Army for the CMBS setting is very different to the British Army of the CMBS setting and in terms of TO&E implementation would probably require about at least about 50% of the research effort that I spent last time around plus whatever time it takes for BFC to code etc. Rinse and repeat for all of the other TO&Es in CMSF (ie Germans, Canadians, Dutch, Syrians etc ) and it becomes bigger than Ben Hur.
I'm not denying that it is not doable but like everything else in relation to these games, it is a question of how much effort or how many resources Battlefront are prepared to throw at the problem. My guess is none, because their plan would not include CMSF 2, it would be CMSF type content added to CMBS or vice versa. As none of the announced development roadmaps/bones have stated that they intend to do this then, in all likelihood, it isn't going to happen.

Simplicity is implied here:
'I would like to think that moving the OOB from CMBS to the new CMSF2 would be a lot less than developing a new module for CMBS'.
Otherwise, I refer to you my original post in which I have presented an evidence-based answer to your question.

Simplicity is implied here:
'I would like to think that moving the OOB from CMBS to the new CMSF2 would be a lot less than developing a new module for CMBS'.
Otherwise, I refer to you my original post in which I have presented an evidence-based answer to your question.

The IED problem in CMSF is mostly a tactical problem to solve. As @Sgt.Squarehead said above, you're going about it the wrong way. There are also nuances to the IED problem in terms of how the scenario designer has implemented them in the scenario. Like most things in the military there are heaps of acronyms related to IEDs and this is why I talk about nuances which I shall try to explain.
In CMSF terms, I would start with the manual definitions of IED and how they operate (pages 104-106 of the manual refer) in simple terms they boil down to:
VBIED - this comprises a vehicle and a triggerman. Cell IED - this comprises the device and a triggerman (range 600m and 10% failure rate) Radio IED - this comprises the device and a triggerman (range 300m, LOS from the triggerman to device and 20% failure rate) Wire IED - this comprises the device and a triggerman (range 100m and 10% failure rate) A point to note is that although it only explicitly states that LOS is required for radio IEDs, my experience is that LOS is a requirement for all of them.
Additional relevant factors are the experience and skill ratings of the triggerman plus the level of suppression/panic.
Taking all of the above into account, defeating IEDs listed above generally involve the following (which, by the way, are real world tactical solutions to the problem):
Analysing where you think an IED might be and consider avoiding that area. Denying the triggerman LOS. Killing or suppressing the triggerman. Otherwise, if you have platforms with ECM, you can risk manage situations because ECM (page 206 of the manual shows you the ECM icon) will increase the device failure rates for  Vehicle, Cell and Radio IEDs, although by how much in game I do not know.  
So this is all fine and dandy but what about mines?  Mines are in essence what are called in the COIN environment VOIEDs (Victim Operated IEDS). Indeed many VOIEDs, or their components started off as military specification anti-personnel or anti-tank mines. Now (and here is the nuance I was talking about earlier) what if the scenario designer has mentioned an IED threat but has implemented that threat by using mines to replicate VOIEDs? Well the obvious solution is of course to use engineers or pioneers to look for them or mark them. However, you are never going to know how the scenario designer has implemented the 'IEDs' until you either play the scenario or you cheat and peak in the scenario editor. That I'm afraid is that enduring characteristic of warfare called friction. So your solution here is one I've mentioned earlier which is to work out where you think the device might be and avoid it.
As to your desire to have a means to physically clear devices - engineers/pioneers can identify and mark mines already but identification without detonation is, in my experience, rare in CMSF. It also takes time ... slow move, pause, slow move pause. This is reflective of real life - there are plenty of documentaries/combat footage of Afghanistan and Iraq that will verify that it is a slow and hazardous process with no guarantees of success. Bearing in mind that the maximum length of a scenario is three hours (plus possibly some added time - I'm relying on memory here) then you can see that your approach to the problem will require analysis and risk management. As to a physical clearance feature well again I would refer you to documentaries/footage because in many cases that requires a specialist EOD team which may have to be called in from a FOB and could take a couple of hours to rock up.
All of that said - it would be nice to have the capability but if it is to be implemented realistically (which is how BFC does things) then I would still expect EOD clearance to be a time consuming process which would soak up a lot of scenario time.

Not as easy as you think - the timeframe in which the two titles are set are at least a decade apart. While I can't speak for other TO&Es, as the person that researched, provided and formatted the majority of the data for the British forces in the CMSF British module, I can tell you that the work that is involved in writing a TO&E to BFCs standards is an enormous undertaking. Bear in mind that this does not include the work that BFC then does with that data to turn it into code and all of those other fancy ones and zeroes that computers need to make the thing perform.
The British Army for the CMBS setting is very different to the British Army of the CMBS setting and in terms of TO&E implementation would probably require about at least about 50% of the research effort that I spent last time around plus whatever time it takes for BFC to code etc. Rinse and repeat for all of the other TO&Es in CMSF (ie Germans, Canadians, Dutch, Syrians etc ) and it becomes bigger than Ben Hur.
I'm not denying that it is not doable but like everything else in relation to these games, it is a question of how much effort or how many resources Battlefront are prepared to throw at the problem. My guess is none, because their plan would not include CMSF 2, it would be CMSF type content added to CMBS or vice versa. As none of the announced development roadmaps/bones have stated that they intend to do this then, in all likelihood, it isn't going to happen.

Surely there's a blonde mod out there?
I must admit that since I was 'upgraded; to the 50+ version of the life engine, my wife (despite being veteran herself and she always plays on iron mode ) seems to have plenty of C2 issues at night time .

Surely there's a blonde mod out there?
I must admit that since I was 'upgraded; to the 50+ version of the life engine, my wife (despite being veteran herself and she always plays on iron mode ) seems to have plenty of C2 issues at night time .

Just a thought, but you could rein in your urge to share so frequently.

With regard to rain, no I'm not suggesting that Battlefront does not include it, in fact I did not suggest anything in my post. You asserted that weather was not in CMSF which was untrue. In regard to dust storms, while you did use the word 'may' in relation to their inclusion, you could not point to any statement from Steve that led to your assumption about their inclusion.
The reason I have challenged you on this is because such speculation tends to get out of hand and leads to assumptions suddenly becoming facts in the minds of many and the second order effect of that is somebody whining down the track when the assumed feature isn't included eg 'why aren't dust storms included, you promised etc etc'.
I tend to agree with what @sburkesaid in another thread about it being better to wait for statements from Steve about the details of what will be in CMSF 2 because in my view idle speculation can be unhelpful in that it creates false expectations.
 

With regard to rain, no I'm not suggesting that Battlefront does not include it, in fact I did not suggest anything in my post. You asserted that weather was not in CMSF which was untrue. In regard to dust storms, while you did use the word 'may' in relation to their inclusion, you could not point to any statement from Steve that led to your assumption about their inclusion.
The reason I have challenged you on this is because such speculation tends to get out of hand and leads to assumptions suddenly becoming facts in the minds of many and the second order effect of that is somebody whining down the track when the assumed feature isn't included eg 'why aren't dust storms included, you promised etc etc'.
I tend to agree with what @sburkesaid in another thread about it being better to wait for statements from Steve about the details of what will be in CMSF 2 because in my view idle speculation can be unhelpful in that it creates false expectations.
 

Or as others say, all British infantry platoons in the CMSF setting/timeframe have a 51mm mortar.

Brevity isn't your strong point is it, or did you want this to be a one post thread?
 
There isn't too much to disagree with but I'm not seeing much here that I can directly apply to a QB, scenario or campaign, why not try breaking this up a bit into manageable chunks?

Brevity isn't your strong point is it, or did you want this to be a one post thread?
 
There isn't too much to disagree with but I'm not seeing much here that I can directly apply to a QB, scenario or campaign, why not try breaking this up a bit into manageable chunks?

The rapid destruction of the Soviet army was unlikely, given its size. You would also be wise to remember that one of the linchpins of the Stalingrad battle, you know the one that constituted the turning point of the Eastern Front, was as much about Hitler obtaining the oil fields behind the city as it was about the Russians recuperating and reorganizing for the counterattack. Armies run on gasoline, and food etc. Those resources exist on land, they dont grow on the backs of soldiers. 
 
I cant think of a single major war in the last 100 years that resulted in the utter and total destruction of the enemy army that was not the result of the loser running out of places to retreat to. Ultimately, destruction of the enemies forces only happens when he surrenders because he has been forces back onto and untenable position and chooses to surrender. Nobody wants to fight to the last man, and even if they did, it wouldnt matter (see Japanese holding out on islands until the 70's...) OR all the islands in the Pacific we bypasses that had large numbers of Japanese troops on them. 
 
Terrain and Attrition are both means to and end. They do not exist in as vacuum. One does not superseded the other intrinsically, only with the situation dictates. 
 
But dont mind me, just look at how an ACTUAL army does things. The US Army trains METTC. NOTE: Terrain and Enemy are BOTH on there. Most people in the Army simply refer to the aforementioned acronym as "mission dictates" or in layman's terms, IT DEPENDS. 
 
Mission Enemy Terrain and Weather Troops Time Available Civilian Considerations

POST BATTLE ANALYSIS
 
In many ways, despite gaining a victory, the post battle analysis is perhaps the most important part of the process. This is where we identify and learn the lessons and therefore make ourselves better equipped to face future challenges.
 
My intent is to break this down into the various component parts starting off by picking through the various steps of the planning process.
 
SPOILER ALERT **************************************************
 
QUESTION 1 – WHAT IS THE ENEMY DOING AND WHY?
 
First of all, I would not have been able to do this justice without SeinfeldRules’ excellent explanation above of his intent for the mission as a whole, his force picks and defensive laydown. He has saved me the possibility of double guessing his intent and getting it wrong.
 
Overall I was pretty happy with Question 1 and given that it is my day job, I was always confident that I could come up with a workable enemy picture for planning. Clearly it wasn’t 100% right but importantly it was close enough. This is an important point, not only for Question 1 but for planning as a whole. The process is about reducing uncertainty, delivering a plan that can achieve the objective and identify contingencies to deal with any curveballs as they crop up. While 99% of the time people will turn around and say something like ‘the intelligence was all screwed up’, in many instances they say this because they expect it to be 100% right all of the time – this is almost never going to be the case. So the important part about Question 1 is to come up with a workable enemy COA that can be used to drive planning. This I achieved.
 
In terms of my terrain analysis, I was pretty happy with that but I think I really ought to have marked out the locations of the single strand wire fences. The reason I say this is that, while they don’t constitute obstacles in the formal sense, they do cause damage to tracked and wheeled vehicles. I was able to overcome this during execute by using different lead vehicles to break through fences thus ensuring that I didn’t inflict significant mobility damage. This was at the cost of having to pass vehicles through created gaps one at a time thus imposing delays.
 
Enemy OOB analysis was made pretty easy due mainly to the well-written enemy paragraph in Seinfeld Rules’ scenario orders. He got the balance right between giving the player sufficient information to plan without giving the whole game away. There were plenty of gaps for me to fill and having to go through the thought process adds to the fun of the scenario.
 
Again, my analysis of the enemy OOB was not bang on the money, I overestimated the enemy strength; however, this did not adversely affect the plan. The actual number of enemy was 44 in a two-section platoon with task-organised elements versus my initial assessment of 52 in a full-strength platoon with task-organised elements. So although I got it wrong, there was nothing there that caused any unpleasant surprises. The only thing I am truly surprised about (doubly so when SeinfeldRules revealed his gunner background!!!) was the absence of any indirect fire assets. I think it is better to overestimate than underestimate because it means that resourcing in Question 5 will give you significant margin for error in terms of enemy-friendly force ratios.
 
Enemy COA analysis was pretty close to the money even though I based mine on Red Army doctrinal publications while, as you have heard, SeinfeldRules based his defensive laydown on what seemed sensible. I don’t think it was luck that our divergent approaches essentially came up with the same result. I admit that this was one of the reasons I picked this scenario as a demonstration vehicle for planning. Having played three of SeinfeldRules’ scenarios, I was confident that this one would be well put together, would offer a challenge, and have an enemy laydown and plan which would be based on sound tactics.
 
Here was my assessed COA 1:
 

 
Here is the exact laydown:
 

 
Moving on to the back end of Question 1, the only other thing I want to touch on is my event template and matrix. While both were in the ballpark I do regret my conscious decision not to look at movement rates in greater detail – remember that I did run out of time!! I should certainly have examined movement rates through Main Wood at ‘hunt’ speeds and then built in a slight time fudge to give me a better appreciation of how long clearing the wood would take. In this instance, it is not that I got the process wrong or overlooked the factor, I just skimped on the detail.
 
So that was Question 1

POST BATTLE ANALYSIS
 
In many ways, despite gaining a victory, the post battle analysis is perhaps the most important part of the process. This is where we identify and learn the lessons and therefore make ourselves better equipped to face future challenges.
 
My intent is to break this down into the various component parts starting off by picking through the various steps of the planning process.
 
SPOILER ALERT **************************************************
 
QUESTION 1 – WHAT IS THE ENEMY DOING AND WHY?
 
First of all, I would not have been able to do this justice without SeinfeldRules’ excellent explanation above of his intent for the mission as a whole, his force picks and defensive laydown. He has saved me the possibility of double guessing his intent and getting it wrong.
 
Overall I was pretty happy with Question 1 and given that it is my day job, I was always confident that I could come up with a workable enemy picture for planning. Clearly it wasn’t 100% right but importantly it was close enough. This is an important point, not only for Question 1 but for planning as a whole. The process is about reducing uncertainty, delivering a plan that can achieve the objective and identify contingencies to deal with any curveballs as they crop up. While 99% of the time people will turn around and say something like ‘the intelligence was all screwed up’, in many instances they say this because they expect it to be 100% right all of the time – this is almost never going to be the case. So the important part about Question 1 is to come up with a workable enemy COA that can be used to drive planning. This I achieved.
 
In terms of my terrain analysis, I was pretty happy with that but I think I really ought to have marked out the locations of the single strand wire fences. The reason I say this is that, while they don’t constitute obstacles in the formal sense, they do cause damage to tracked and wheeled vehicles. I was able to overcome this during execute by using different lead vehicles to break through fences thus ensuring that I didn’t inflict significant mobility damage. This was at the cost of having to pass vehicles through created gaps one at a time thus imposing delays.
 
Enemy OOB analysis was made pretty easy due mainly to the well-written enemy paragraph in Seinfeld Rules’ scenario orders. He got the balance right between giving the player sufficient information to plan without giving the whole game away. There were plenty of gaps for me to fill and having to go through the thought process adds to the fun of the scenario.
 
Again, my analysis of the enemy OOB was not bang on the money, I overestimated the enemy strength; however, this did not adversely affect the plan. The actual number of enemy was 44 in a two-section platoon with task-organised elements versus my initial assessment of 52 in a full-strength platoon with task-organised elements. So although I got it wrong, there was nothing there that caused any unpleasant surprises. The only thing I am truly surprised about (doubly so when SeinfeldRules revealed his gunner background!!!) was the absence of any indirect fire assets. I think it is better to overestimate than underestimate because it means that resourcing in Question 5 will give you significant margin for error in terms of enemy-friendly force ratios.
 
Enemy COA analysis was pretty close to the money even though I based mine on Red Army doctrinal publications while, as you have heard, SeinfeldRules based his defensive laydown on what seemed sensible. I don’t think it was luck that our divergent approaches essentially came up with the same result. I admit that this was one of the reasons I picked this scenario as a demonstration vehicle for planning. Having played three of SeinfeldRules’ scenarios, I was confident that this one would be well put together, would offer a challenge, and have an enemy laydown and plan which would be based on sound tactics.
 
Here was my assessed COA 1:
 

 
Here is the exact laydown:
 

 
Moving on to the back end of Question 1, the only other thing I want to touch on is my event template and matrix. While both were in the ballpark I do regret my conscious decision not to look at movement rates in greater detail – remember that I did run out of time!! I should certainly have examined movement rates through Main Wood at ‘hunt’ speeds and then built in a slight time fudge to give me a better appreciation of how long clearing the wood would take. In this instance, it is not that I got the process wrong or overlooked the factor, I just skimped on the detail.
 
So that was Question 1