Kat Johnston

I disagree. I've been putting together a scenario recently (my first, it isn't finished) pitting two troops (6 tanks) of CR2s (typical settings) against a Syrian Reserve tank company (10 tanks) (typical settings, ie. crap crews - and poor equipment) defending a fairly open village; a Blue attack. It isn't a total pushover for Blue, and that's pretty much best (British) Blue against worst Red. I was deliberately aiming to make Syrian Reserves a challenge, and it kinda works, at least so far as my play goes. (edit) And just to expand on that a little, I was testing just now - two CR2s engaged a single T62 (which was behind a low wall) at 1km range, head on. The T62 got off the first shot (which missed) and then took several hits before popping smoke and reversing out of sight. Not bad for a reservist crew in an obsolete machine! They didn't have much chance of doing any damage themselves, but they weren't obliterated and they get another chance.

I misread the original post for a second or two, and thought that the point being made was "whichever side I play against the AI, I steamroller them", to which there's an element of truth for some scenarios and most quick battles.

Thanks for that.

When tanks in the game engage other tanks, even at long range, they will often (usually?) fire both their main cannon and their machine guns (which have no chance of penetrating the armour) at the target. I'm curious, would this usually be done IRL, in the hope of damaging optics or whatever? Would machine gun fire damage ERA bricks?

I think that would be a wonderful feature. I'm just starting out with the scenario editor at the moment, and have been working with google maps and alt-tab, but an overlay would be much better.

Scottish thread? Gettafuyabassa!

I don't think I understand the trouble you are having? If I want to see if a vehicle is buttoned or not I either select it and look at the button, or look at the vehicle.

Ah, righto, thanks hcrof.

This may be a dim question, but how do I take a screenshot? When I use "print screen" I just end up with a screen-sized black box.

With the increase in the battle time limit, I'm wondering how long the various aircraft can hang around waiting to shoot at things. I'm pretty sure a Harrier can't wait four hours in the air for instance - does anyone know the specifics of this sort of thing?

You should be able to load any of the standalone battles into the editor and change the parameters to allow more time (Scenario Editor - Load - Scenarios - pick the name; then choose the Data tab on the left). I'm not sure how easy it is for campaign ones, though.

It certainly seems to me that British forces in QBs are well overmatched by the US most of the time. (last one I tried had 70 odd British and a half dozen TUMs against 150 odd US and a dozen Humvees ^^) I have a suspicion that British sniper "platoons" with a handful of soldiers are treated by the QB picker as equivalent worth to full rifle platoons... will mess around with some more QBs.

Medium sized battle with British Infantry - Light Infantry should get you a mostly balanced light British force most of the time. I'm not sure about US settings though. (edit) Just tried a few - if you choose a Medium battle with British Infantry - Light Infantry and US Infantry - Light Infantry you should get a few light vehicles and a company or thereabouts on each side, seems reasonable.

The IRA were guerillas. The Provos, on the other hand...

The very word "bocage" nearly sends me to sleep.

Probably not, I think they have to work on the principle that the player may not have the Marines module.

I was under the impression they stopped due to international pressure. Their losses in 2006 were overplayed by people on all sides after the fact, but it's by the by; Israel has a short time between starting any conflict and being forced to close it. They were slowed, and they went over their time limit.

And to finish up the infantry, I tried BRITISH - ARMOURED INFANTRY - HEAVY INFANTRY, QUALITY EXCELLENT, impressions: 1) For Tiny battles, you get an armoured platoon, in appropriate vehicles. Antitank or Rifle in Warriors, Engineer or Assault Pioneer in Bulldogs. Nice and simple and predictable! 2) For a Medium battle, you may also get the dreaded Scimitar reconnaissance group, or a Sniper or Javelin team (distinct from an Antitank platoon) in Warriors, or an extra platoon or two as above. 3) There's still no guarantee you'll get serious antitank capability. (edit - I was wrong about Syrian mech infantry necessarily getting AT weapons, but I think the chances are better.)

It certainly seems that for Medium sized battles, there's no bias towards Engineers and Pioneers, you're more likely to get a Rifle platoon. I'm not sure about the Tiny battles though, I think Elmar is right, there are some combinations of battle size and force which favour certain units. For instance I tried a dozen Tiny battles with Infantry - Light Infantry and when it did give me a dismounted platoon, they were Pioneers only - when I tried with Medium Infantry I got Pioneers or Engineers, when I tried with Heavy Infantry I got Pioneers, Engineers or Rifle. It would need more extensive checking to be really certain. I've looked in the scenario editor but I can't see how to easily compare the forces available there with what a given battle size chooses.

I've tried QBs with the force set to BRITISH - MECH INFANTRY - MEDIUM OR HEAVY INFANTRY, QUALITY EXCELLENT, first impressions: 1) You get a more regular force power on Tiny battles. Generally you get a mech platoon of some kind in Bulldogs and Spartans. 2) If you pick a Medium battle, you are likely to get a mech platoon (engineer, assault pioneer, rifle, firepower support, antitank, sniper) of some kind, possibly even a mech Rifle company. You are very likely to get a reconnaisance group with a bunch of Scimitars. Because force size and battle size are tied together, these will be operating at short range. Basically, it's distressingly likely that a significant portion of the force you get will be very difficult to employ. 3) As per ordinary Infantry, you're not guaranteed any antitank firepower unless you get a Javelin team. I think I'm right to say that an equivalent Syrian force would be guaranteed to have antitank firepower from their BMPs.

Okay, I've been looking at QBs with the force set to BRITISH - INFANTRY - LIGHT, MEDIUM OR HEAVY INFANTRY, QUALITY EXCELLENT, first impressions are: 1) You get an erratic force power on Tiny battles. I really wouldn't recommend them if you want balance. One time you might get a Recce platoon with a dozen Jackals, the next you might get three TUMs and a couple of snipers. ^^ 2) If you pick a Medium battle with the settings above, you are likely to get at least a Rifle platoon and possibly a whole Rifle company. You're also likely to get a bunch of light vehicles of one sort or another, snipers, and Javelin teams. You're quite likely to get engineers and less likely to get assault pioneers. 3) You get bugger all by way of antitank firepower unless you get a Javelin team, which is not guaranteed even with a Medium size battle. 4) For some reason you're quite likely to get a bunch of dismounted vehicles, with no crew visible. I'm not sure what's going on there! I'm going to do some more testing with mech infantry and armoured infantry settings, but I've run out of tea and Swedish electronica, so will have a break for a bit.

I'm going to look into this - watch this space.

I like the idea of not knowing the enemy victory conditions when starting a scenario, although - like unit positions, enemy strength and everything else - it's a bit of a one-shot thing, only really good the first time you play the scenario. But I really like not knowing what objectives the enemy have, or, for that matter, even being wildly misinformed as to the enemy's force, position and objectives in the scenario briefing.

I'm not a great fan of the current system, but I think I'd rather see it refined to come up with more sensible forces than see it replaced by a "pick your force for 50 points" system (if it was to be refined and complemented by that sort of system, great, but on balance I'd prefer to tell the computer roughly what force I wanted than to tell it precisely).

Could you have a look in the event log (Type eventvwr in the Run box will launch it), and see if Windows is getting the chance to add any error messages? (I'm guessing it won't have, if the machine has insta-quit like that, but it's worth checking.)