BlackAlpha

You don't even need to take the American's word for it, just go to liveleak and try to identify the Russian vehicles. I haven't done that in a while, but a while ago I saw what looked like a BTR-80A/BTR-82A, which Ukraine doesn't have. I'm sure you can find more Russian vehicles, like the new tanks that entered Ukraine recently.

Well, maybe they will have fixed their uniform problem 2 years from now.

I think this is the correct answer. Conclusion: it's a game (entertainment) and no one gets hurt.

This is one of the sources it links to, which tells a completely different story: http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/pentagon-protests-russian-jets-buzzing-antimissile-warship-black-sea/ There's no link to the second source, instead it links to the homepage of a Russian online news site, which probably means there's no second source and the article is a lie (if it tried to provide a source of a hard-copy news paper, it should've linked to the actual article and provided information about the article).

LOL To clarify what LukeFF means, PSL is the name of the rifle! Google it!

Video games have been used for military purposes for a long time now. Video games are often converted into more detailed/authentic simulations for training purposes. If your budget is low, then sure, you could use the vanilla versions of games like Black Sea.

It's a really good game. It's inspired by the Serbo-Yugoslavia conflict and you are stuck in a besieged city. I always imagined that should the Ukrainian military have been able to push past Donetsk city, they probably would've besieged the city in a similar manner. This game basically shows the hardships people then must endure. The game certainly makes you think about the poor civilians that are always forgotten about in video games.

They barely run it now due to faults in the engine. The game could definitely use a better engine, just for the performance improvements alone. As fun as the game is, it does run like crap, even on very high end modern systems.

Ok, but news media often post random photos in their news articles.

Nah, up close they can still do some damage. It's all about positioning the infantry in the right manner. Basically, if you are in the right position, you will kill the enemy vehicle. If you are not in the right position, your infantry will get steamrolled. Basically, you want to hit IFVs/APCs from close range. Tanks you want to hit from the side at close range, so that's a bit more tricky to pull off. Problem in Shock Force is that it's set in a Middle Eastern setting, meaning that a lot of the terrain is very open and that makes it harder, but not un-doable, to position the infantry in the correct places. It definitely limited the useful of infantry in some maps, though. However, in cities/villages it was still quite easy to engage enemy vehicles. The main issue I found, however, is that the squads/sections could only really fire one good AT salvo. If you were lucky, some of them would still have some spare launchers/rockets left for a second, less powerful salvo. So this means the infantry squads/sections with short range AT can only kill 1 enemy vehicle, and if you are lucky two vehicles. And then you need to pull out your infantry if still more armor is coming in.

I haven't checked for combat footage the past 3 months or so, but previously I only really saw what looked like T-64BVs. On their parades I also saw newer tanks (T64 Bulat and T80/T84).

I'm also wondering about this. It would make a bunch of people I know interested in the game and personally I love everything coop.

There was a news article about it a while ago. If I remember correctly, Germany repainted some British Challenger tanks that Germany had mothballed and is sending them to the Polish-Ukrainian border.

It depends on what your view of stability and security is. Ruining a potential competitor so that he can't compete is a very old trick in the book. However, if their plan was to create a worthwhile and strong ally, then indeed they failed to do that.

That may be true, but remember that America wasn't exactly looking to help Afghanistan and Iraq when invading them. It was about getting revenge and trying to hurt those countries as much as possible to make life harder for the terrorists that were responsible for 9/11 and such. You could argue it was all about show of force (a bit similar to what is happening in Ukraine at the moment).

I'm guessing RPG-29 and 30s would be given to specialized anti tank teams due to their weight and size. And I'm thinking they will probably be used a lot if Russia ends up fighting NATO and their heavy tanks. And who knows what the layout will look like 3 years from now. But I think the developers are strictly sticking to what is currently used in real life by the units represented in game. Oh, by the way, I found this on globalsecurity: "Ukraine Crisis - 22 April 2014 ... The White House issued photographs it claimed show that a Russian soldier seen in eastern Ukraine this month was also in Georgia during the Russian invasion in 2008. Since they shot into the international spotlight in late February when they appeared at Crimean sites in green uniforms with no markings, they have been dubbed “little green men”. The photographs have not been independently verified. Uniforms and equipment used by the armed men, such as helmets spotted in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbass, were identical to the ones used by Russian special forces. The weapons, including the latest Kalashnikov AK-100 assault rifles and in some cases RPG-30 anti-tank grenade launchers, are also consistent with the arms used by Russian special forces." - http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/ukraine/politics-2014-04-4.htm

This is not exactly news, the first (undercover) Russian tank went over the border a few months ago. So no need to rewrite anything. These are probably reinforcements heading to the city of Donetsk. Kiev is trying to push into that city again since about a week ago.

In a high intensity conflict maybe, but if you are militarily steamrolling over the enemy already, then it can pay off a lot more to hold off, control yourself and don't bomb that farmer. You know how it generally works, you create more enemies when you kill that farmer, so you better be sure there's no way around killing that farmer. Respectfully, that's why grunts don't create ROEs, because some people just don't know what they are doing.

Thanks. I'll wait until it's released, then.

The mail version requires 27 dollars for the shipping fees, which brings the total cost to 82 dollars. That's quite a lot. So will there be a digital only version or do we need to wait until release? Also, how much will the digital only version cost?

It depends. For certain scenarios the pacing is just right. For other scenarios you might be right and things move too fast. But I'm not sure you can simulate C2 100% realistically without taking away some control from the player (letting other players or AI take control on some level).

Respectfully, what you are doing is just as silly as "trust me, I've seen this on TV". "Trust me, I've seen this on the internet and now I'm a specialist on war." The truth is that you do NOT get the entire picture by watching the available combat footage. That combat footage is only the tip of the iceberg. You (and I) have no idea what is in reality going on during that conflict because we only see small fragments of it. To give you some examples off the top of my head. There have been reports of ambushes and direct assaults in the past. In one particular case, what looked like a company sized mechanized/motorized unit (from the Azov battalion, if I remember correctly) got ambushed and wiped out. There have also been stories about Ukrainian dead troops being moved by many truck loads after a battle a few months ago. We also know how a significant part of the Ukrainian army that was positioned near the Russian border (doing that flanking maneuver) got virtually wiped out. I think it's safe to say that they were probably engaged in a few major firefights. So high intensity fighting does happen, we just don't get to see it.

Thanks for the answer!

Thanks. I think that explains points 2, 3 and 4. About point 1. I noticed that when there's a small obstacle, like a low wall, in between the Stryker and the enemy, then the Stryker can't get a line of sight on the ground next to the "invisible" enemy. This means I can't fire at the ground, even though the Stryker can hit it when he shoots automatically when the enemy stands up. Is there a workaround for this or is this a glitch in the game? One more thing about those squares. I think it's quite annoying because if you can't fire at the enemy, there's no chance to kill the enemy, right? I guess it only suppresses the enemy? Those squares, is this solved in the new Italy game? I read it's a newer engine. So does it have smaller squares, so that it's easier to aim at a specific point on the ground? And one final question about those squares. Should I be imaging in my head a grid view, like the HEXes you can see in many strategy games? Or do the squares only apply to shooting?

So I'm new to this game and there are a whole bunch of things I'm wondering about. 1. How do you suppress the enemy when you don't see them, but you know they are there? Example: A Stryker with a Mk19 sees someone far away and the Stryker opens up. The enemy goes prone and then disappears. Now I want the Stryker to suppress the area where the enemy is. So I click on the Stryker, I click on the red icon that says Target, I try to click on the ground where the enemy was, but it says the Stryker doesn't have a line of sight. Clearly this is wrong because the Stryker just pounded that area seconds ago. What am I doing wrong? 2. My arty is always missing. Am I doing something wrong? Pretty much always I call in artillery (mortars), the spotter doesn't correct the mortar onto the target. About 20 to 50 meters away from the target, the spotter calls for a fire for effect, then the artillery misses. Often it misses horribly. Am I doing something wrong or is this simply the way the game is designed? 3. When I try to attack ground with the red Target button, I notice I cannot precisely select where I want to shoot. Not sure how to explain. It's like the ground is made of gigantic squares and you can only select the center of the squares. Is there a more precise way to choose where you want to shoot on the ground? 4. When a Stryker is transporting troops, the troops turn out to see outside. This is fine. However, the enemy tries to shoot with small arms at the troops. Can the enemy kill the turned out troops? Should I be worried? If so, is there a way to make them stay inside? I'd really appreciate it if someone could answer those questions for me. Thanks.