hcrof

GSX has pretty much got it - I might not even dismount my infantry if I can get away with it! The tanks will lead - hopefully they can take any hits from defenders that arn't suppressed by artillery or direct fire. If Mike reads this I will lose the game, but its only a game right?

Thanks guys - I hope I can keep this going untill the end of the battle! If Mike reads it then it will be a short game but he has given his word All the troops are regular with a mix of both types of rifle. I forgot to add BRIDGE is worth 500 points and the farms are 300 each. Total force value is 1000 points each and we take a proportion of that as we estroy each others units.

My Plan I have to prevent Mike from capturing 2 farms (Objective HILLFARM in the north and objective BIGFARM in the south) and capture the bridge in the west (Objective BRIDGE surprisingly ). If I lose BIGFARM I will accept the loss, if I lose HILLFARM I will counterattack and retake it before moving on to BRIDGE. Prior to this battle I made myself a single player scenario where I tested out some 'textbook' Soviet offensive tactics. These are extremely simple, aggressive and worked very successfully. I hope to replicate these in this battle (As long as I hold my nerve!). Unfortunately, Mike tried out these tactics too in the same battle – I hope he hasn't learned what I have! My overall plan is risky but hopefully will catch Mike by surprise, I will defend the farms with the minimum force possible, advancing quickly early on so I can fall back and delay his forces later. As soon as I get my artillery support I will launch a Soviet style 'Okhrat', dumping all my artillery on the bridge area and assaulting objective BRIDGE as fast as possible with half of my infantry and all of my tanks in an aggressive left hook. Hope fully the shock and speed of my manoeuvre will take him by surprise and vastly overmatch his defence. The bridge should be mine before the farms fall. When I hold all three objectives I will then call for his surrender and if he doesn't, my tanks will attack him from the rear. The HQ position with my 'strike force' lined up in the backround View of Objective BRIDGE The keys to my defence are two things. First of all, I will set up my ATGM's near both farms. These will then have clear fields of fire across the valley and should hit advancing tanks on the flanks. I will also have a manoeuvre group of BMP's to the south ready to deal with any additional threats. Secondly, my infantry will rush forward into reverse slope positions on both sides. They will call down airburst mortar fire in front of them to discourage dismounted attacks and will retreat under cover of smoke when pressed, buying time with space and keeping casualties low. The river is a problem in the south. The crossing is not easily defended and it will restrict my movement. I have set up a machine gun section to cover the retreat. The defence in sector that I am attempting requires a great deal of skill and coordination but I feel that I have enough experience by now to be able to pull it off against a cautious opponent like Mike. (I have another opponent who would chew this defence up and spit it out, because of his incredibly aggressive opening moves so I am taking a bit of an educated gamble here). There are 2 weaknesses to my plan: 1.If Mike is aggressive there is a good chance that I will not be able to stop him with my defending troops. My reserve will then be used plugging holes in the line rather than outflanking him. 2.The majority of my troops are concentrated in the north. There is no way to shift to the south without coming under fire. If his northern flank appears heavily defended I may have to punch through the centre in unfavourable tank country. Smoke will me crucial here to protect me from ATGM's. An interesting point about the map is that there does not appear to be any good 'Hull down' positions. I might be mistaken at this point but if this is true Mike might be reluctant to use his tanks without them. It seems that most maps in CMSF have a huge number of natural hull down positions which tend to lead to players seeking them out more than in the real world. I expect Mike to be less aggressive then myself. He will consolidate his defence before putting infantry feelers forward to scout out my positions. Hopefully, my mortars on airburst will discourage this sort of behaviour! I expect his heaviest attack in the north, because the large hill is both vital to the map (I believe it his 'decisive point') and is difficult to defend. I will keep harassing mortar fire on it for as long as possible to stop a dismounted advance and hopefully my anti tank groups at BIGFARM will discourage armoured attack. I don't expect to destroy that many of his troops as he attacks. He is very thorough and will use combined arms and overwatch to maximum effect, minimizing losses while he advances slowly. I think Mike will keep his armour in reserve and release individual platoons as needed. While I am confident I can defend against his tank attacks for long enough, I hope my attack doesn't bump into a platoon of T-62s! I may have to delay my attack until I know where all his tanks are. My decisive point? When my artillery arrives!

I read an DAR over on the CMBB boards and found it pretty entertaining so here is my attempt. I may slow down in the future due to 'real life' but here goes for now I have been battling Mike for a while now and he is one of my most entertaining opponents. In light of this, I have decided to write up an AAR for the forum. Hopefully I can get some feedback on my playing style and I might be able to add some of this to the community strategy guide (If everything goes according to plan ). The Battlefield The map is my own creation based on a quick battle map. The QB map only takes a tiny proportion of the 2x2km map but it informed my visual style of the area. The terrain is European farmland with rolling hills and a developed road network, the ground is wet and the sky hazy. To the north is a large hill that dominates the area, it is lightly forested which restricts the views from the top but on the eastern slope, a farm (Objective HILLFARM) allows views across the river valley in the centre of the map. The view from HILLFARM Splitting the map in two is a river that winds its way from the west to the north. It is forested along its length and has 5 crossings – two of which are bridges. Due to the wet ground, the other three have a good chance of bogging vehicles that cross. In the centre of the map there is a dense forest. This will severely restrict vehicular movement but might allow infantry to infiltrate close to the enemy. Finally, in the north there is a village overlooked by a hill to the east. These two features dominate the terrain on that side of the river and will probably be key to any fights on that side of the map. The Players Mike Churchmoor is an experienced CMSF player who I win against as much as I lose. He, like me is quite cautious and tends to use an infantry screen in front of his armour in methodical attacks that keep his losses low. Given enough time and ammunition he will slowly work his way though all his objectives and there is very little that can be done to stop him. Our last battle unfortunately descended into stalemate and a draw so I hope this one will be a bit more decisive! I regard myself as a competent player who is good at very small knife fights and can get the most out of artillery. My weakness is a reliance on 'textbook' manoeuvre which can make me careless in larger battles like this one. I also feel that my caution does not always pay off. I might not commit enough assets to a task for fear of losing them all at once only to find that I lose them piecemeal instead. In this battle I will attempt to be more aggressive as I feel this will catch Mike by surprise and neutralise his carefully placed overwatch. Forces We both command a mirrored force in a meeting engagement. A mechanised infantry battalion (- 1 company) and two platoons of T-62M tanks. At some point in the first half hour we will both also receive support from a battery of 122mm self propelled Howitzers. Given the map size it is not quite enough to cover all the bases with a force this size but that should hopefully result in some interesting manoeuvre warfare. The BMP-1 vehicles are baseline models with a Sagger-3B and the infantry ATGMs are also Sagger-Bs so the battle could date some time in the early '70s.

John - I am aware of the capabilities of Soviet artillery, they certainly put a lot of emphasis on it and all of it is genuinely scary. I didn't know that the MLRS was fielded that late though! It does seem like a massive gap in capability that could be cheaply filled with an inferior system while they developed the MLRS. Maybe NATO relied on airpower to do a similar job instead? (a massive mistake if that is the case IMO) I just don't 'get' NATO's thinking on a ground war in europe. It is almost as if they didn't take it seriously! c3k - I believe the 'grid square removal service' refers to cluster munitions specifically. However, even using HE you probably wouldn't need to be that accurate against softer targets like artillery batteries and HQ elements behind the front lines. In v1.21, artillery certainly works when you get a direct hit. I just lost a T-55 to (very) lucky 122mm round. The problem is that vehicles don't take any damage from near misses and airburst as described in the OP.

Yep, thats an east london accent. Watch Guy Ritchie films like Snatch, Lock Stock, Revolver, RocknRolla etc and you'll get a lot of it If its north v south we would blow up the Midlands - I can deal with that

Heh, We all have trouble understanding scousers! Scousers are from Liverpool so are english but there is a bit of a North/south divide in england (Northerners are Monkeys/Southerners are Fairys). We all grow up down south with plenty of jokes about northerners and they do the same about us The thing about the UK is that some accents are completely incomprehensible - it is depressing not being able to understand a guy who is speaking english and lives less than 50 miles away! (The Cornish or the Welsh for me). In fact, I used to work with some scottish guys who where perfectly capable of not being understood if they wanted to. In terms of films, Hot Fuzz is awesome, RocknRolla is worth watching and who could fail to mention James Bond!

I have an opponent right now who is deliberately airbursting himself to stop me sneaking up on him! Does anyone know what calibre artillery are required to destroy a tank? Can you use 81/60mm mortars for example? John Kettler - Thanks for the link, a suprising number of knockouts due to HE. Certainly more than I remember from my CMBB days! It would be nice to get cluster munitions too but I can understand Steve when he says that a 'Grid square removal service' may unbalence the game

Well I've signed up, looking forward to my first command!

One of the best things about CMSF is that it has encouraged me to do my own research on modern military matters and some of the things I have found have been fascinating. Who Says Dumb Artillery Rounds Can’t Kill Armor? http://sill-www.army.mil/FAMAG/2002/NOV_DEC_2002/NOV_DEC_2002_PAGES_8_11.pdf The above link confirms something about artillery that was bugging me but I just hadn't noticed fully before. In the game, a more or less direct hit is required to destroy an armoured vehicle. While this might seem like realistic results, a near miss or an airburst munition causes no damage at all, not even damage to optics, radios etc! The above article states that artillery is in fact more effective against armour than it is in the game. Apparently, a 155mm round can potentially destroy a tank from up to 30m away and shell fragments are effective at destroying weapons, tracks, sights, radios and other components of a vehicle even if the crew are unharmed. I would be interested to hear what other people think. Should CM players be forced to move their vehicles out of artillery fire immediately, even if it is 'just' airburst because of the worry that they will become combat ineffective or destroyed? Or is the artillery in CMSF correctly modelled as is, with no changes needed One problem that occurs to me is the AI. Currently, a tank will not move if under artillery fire, meaning precise targeting is easy. This compensates for the lack of effectiveness of the artillery. Apparently some campaign missions can only be won because of this and so by increasing the effectiveness of artillery against armour, single player games would become much easier. On the other hand, by making the TacAI act more realistically, you could 'break' the campaign. Any thoughts?

I notice there are some eastern european countries in the coalition. Is it possible to join as one of them for some Red v Red action? The whole OpNem project looks very well done so far!

Firstly, how often does blue do ambushes? Anyway, a well concealed marksman or fireteam would be able to pin down or destroy the 2 man team without revealing its position. Secondly, in defense red should deploy pickets to watch approaches, as long as they are close to the rest of the platoon. They arn't stupid and won't just ignore an approach just because some imagined and arbitrary 'Doctrine' tells them to.

Heres a novel Idea - Make syrian squads occupy 3 action spots instead of 2! The 3rd action spot could be 2-3 riflemen who when split off from the main squad would be almost entirely useless from a combat point of view but could act as MOUT spotters/ammo bearers if needed. As they have no binoculars they would not be great at spotting things anyway at the ranges on the modern battlefield (Outside of a city). Obviously if they had a bad morale hit when out of LOS from the Squad leader it would make sense - If they come under fire they would cower or disapear. Im sure that is realistic - send some conscripts to get ammo in a tight spot and you can never be too sure if they will come back! The other advantage of 3 action spots is that they will not bunch up so much in defense, Win-Win!

I personally dislike difficult missions - perhaps because I like a degree of realism or believability in a battle. If I am with a depleated platoon against a mechanised infantry battalion I just think WHY? Why should anyone in their right mind even attempt this suicide mission in the first place? I will play a mission once and won't restart so I get frustrated when I start doing badly an hour in and quite often Ragequit (Withdraw and wait for support ) battles that I feel a real commander would not attempt to fight. Also I enjoy PvP too much, unbalenced missions are terrible for competative play. I am a bit of a surrender monkey there too actually - if I don't like how a mission is going I will do what an honerable commander would do and not fight to the last man! So I suppose I like realism and playablity overall Edit - lately I have made a number of Novelty 'roleplay' type missions for myself to test out genuine (read: very simple) Soviet small unit tactics. I have enjoyed them immensely but None of my unfortunate playtesters seem to agree

It might work, although if you set for example - infantry vs infantry. Red v Red (as I have done in the past) you will get a mirrored game. I don't know whether that works for every setup but the QB's do seem to have some standard formations. I have only ever played 2-3 full QB's before though so I don't want to sound like an expert!

The problem with that suggestion is that the 'same' forces are often very different in capabilities. For example, a US Mech infantry company not only has an equipment and experience advantage over a BMP company, it also significantly outnumbers it as well! The only way to get balenced battles is to agree on a setup beforehand and to use the editor IMO, QB's are broken in CMSF. I find the best way to get QB's are to choose an interesting looking map and to make it Red v Red. I also mirror the forces to make sure the battle is about skill, not setup.

tyrspawn - I think to best use your suggestion, the squad should only replenish ammo when it leaves the vehicle. That way, vehicle crews and depleted squads who are sheltering from arty fire don't take ammo when you won't ever use them again that battle.

Hi, Welcome to the forums 1. You can only reskin units - BFC keeps a tight reign on modders. They have their reasons but I won't try to explain them as I don't know enough about the technicalities. 2. Elevation in the scenario editor is actually very simple when you get used to it. What you are doing is creating 'contour lines' on the map. It allows for some very precise modelling of terrain even if it isn't as visually accessable as other editors. If you want to create a hill, just draw a series of concentric rings, each one higher than the last as you move towards the centre. As you get used to it you will quickly be able to create concave/convex hills, ridges, gullies etc. If you need extra help, try opening another scenario designers work and see how they do it - everyone has their own style!

Just what I have been looking for Ryujin, Thanks!

Use 'RezExplode' found in the mod tools folder in the battlefront directory. You can convert them back by using 'RezPack' in the same folder.

The thing about games in shops is that after the initial high price, games tend to get cheap quite quickly (unless they have huge sales). Battlefront sell their products at 'full price' for years. Now, I'm not saying I wouldn't pay a little more for a new title from Battlefront but I am not shelling out 50 quid for a game like CoD that lasts for maybe 15 hours and offers little replay value. Not ever. I would buy it second hand or pirate it instead.

I like stoex's idea for CMSF. When CMSF2 rolls around it might be easier to have an inventory management system similar to those in RPG's. They are familiar to a lot of people, easy to use and very fast. (+you can transfer stuff both ways )

Older ERA is easier to see when it blows off, newer stuff doesn't fly off so it won't be obvious. I can't say at what graphics levels you need though.

True, there are uber weapons like MLRS and NBC stuff but warfare was expected to be increadibly mobile with big gaps between units. Because there would be no defined 'front line' for any length of time it would be difficult to effectively employ these weapons effectively, especially with the expected breakdown in command and control due to extreme electronic warfare. Because of this, the chances are high that formations would stumble across each other frequently and begin a fast paced meeting engagement without heavy artillery support.

+100 Well I think I have made my feelings clear on this before Besides the fascinating and balenced gameplay, you also have the attraction that much (all?) of your potential audience lived through the cold war and we all wondered what it would be like had it gone hot! In the '80s there was a chance of a conventional phase for the first few weeks so the game could be modeled without pesky tac nukes