Kat Johnston

Thanks - guess it's something else then.

Scouse and Geordie are miles apart. People generally use "Geordie" as a blanket for the whole North East, but there are pronounced (to a local) differences between Geordie (Newcastle), Makem (Sunderland), Durham and 'Boro. That's a geographical area of maybe forty miles from top to bottom.

Every time I get to a certain point in the TF Lightning campaign, the game crashes after the mission, unless I surrender (in which case it crashes after the next mission.) Could some kind soul post the exact size in bytes of their TF Lightning campaign file for me (it's in \Game Files\Campaigns) just so I can check that I haven't got some odd file corruption? Mine is 11,070,586 bytes.

Leaving war aside, most people, I think, would say "killing is wrong" - and then would agree that in extremis killing is justified to save (more or less) innocent life from someone bent on taking it, and are happy, more or less, that the police, or even random members of the public, should have that power.

It seems to me that placing units on rooftops is now a death sentence, post 1.2, for anyone, any side (with implications for some older scenarios, perhaps). Well, if they try and fight from there, instead of just hiding, or taking the odd pot-shot with a rifle. (edit) I haven't been finding British sections especially vulnerable? But then I tend to err on the side of caution.

There's a map called "House Cleaning" which is an attack on a large hospital building. The pathfinding in the hospital is interesting, to say the least. I played it (with 1.2) the other day and saw a fleeing squad head from the front-right of the hospital (safe) diagonally towards the back-left of the hospital (very very unsafe.) They fled right through the building, straight towards three (or more) spotted enemy squads that were shooting at them, instead of backing out the door they'd just gone in... messy. I think that's the sort of thing skinnedpuppy means, it does happen from time to time. About as galling as those little orange !s. (I guess if the pixeltruppen use an A* algorithm or whatever it's called then assigning squares with bad guys in a high negative value is the thing to do. But I imagine it's more complicated than that!)

I'll have a go, if you like - will send you an email.

"Drop that cardboard box and get back in the Spartan, damnit!"

I'm just replaying the original campaign under 1.2 and had a Stryker (with infantry inside) hit by an anti-tank missile. Both crew were killed and the infantry took a couple of casualties; they bailed out and then, over the next five minutes or so, melted away one by one into the Syrian desert... it seemed a little strange, what with four Abrams and their mates between them and the opposition.

Mmm, I tried (not very hard) earlier and couldn't, as well.

Oh. My mistake. *assumes dunce position*

I've been mentally referring to it as "Alamo Gulch." There's about five more missions after, I think.

Made me burst into laughter! I, er, try not to do that too much. As a (Blue) commander I prefer to put my trust into large amounts of suppressive fire, dismounted infantry and "reconnaissance by impenetrable armour over the frontal arc."

The main source of casualties was that one mission where I was completely overrun. That and the Police Station mission, I lost a lot of allies there. (I didn't restart any missions, but I was only playing on "Veteran" level.)

The one that leads to securing the south, away from Damascus.

It's difficult to track this stuff down. There's an old leaked report which goes on about Warlock Red and Green playing havoc with other Blue communications devices, but it's terribly vague about the range of an individual jammer. I've seen somewhere (a while ago, can't find it again) one claiming to have a 1km jamming radius (or possibly diameter) ; in principle I don't see why it shouldn't be quite a large area to jam a mobile phone. Basically as soon as the jammer sees a mobile phone frequency in use it swamps that frequency with noise... least, that's how it seems they work. 'course, it's not only phones that are used to signal them.

It says "fire for effect." (I believe somewhere in the mission briefing it did mention the message. )

I made it to the end, and even won, but I took pretty horrendous casualties along the way. 140KIA, 91WIA, 5 CR2s, dozens of other vehicles (some of those casualties weren't exactly under my control ("Police Station") but lots were .) I got smashed on the mission De Savage mentioned above, worse than "Pooh" because you're defending, and on a later one too (an ambush sorta thing, entirely my misjudgement), but did well enough all round to make it to the finish. I'm replaying the TF Thunder campaign with 1.20, then I'll go through Semper Fi Syria, then back to the British one and try for a different route. Very good!

Not at all, just want more Warriors, more Javelin-toting WMIK teams and less Scimitars. Although I've never liked Strykers, I must admit. Thinking about it, I guess there are advantages to running with all the lighter kit - fuel consumption in particular I guess - which might have hidden beneficial effects.

I've just completed the first mission of the campaign, it was an interesting experience. Very nice to see the heavier-armoured infantry vehicles, Bulldogs and a Warrior. One of the Bulldogs took an RPG in the side (from about a hundred yards or so) and was unscathed; unfortunately one of the gunners in another was killed by gunfire, I think from in front of the gun shield; but still, nice vehicles to use. (edit) And no, it certainly didn't feel like a suicide mission (took 3KIA / 3WIA "tactical victory" only as it turned out, the Bulldog gunner and one of my squads was ambushed while I was trying to secure the main buildings). I suspect if I'd not played the demo mission a few times I'd've been reckless with the Scimitars and lost several, but as it was I just held them back and emptied their cannons into anything that looked like trouble. Not sure how much use those AP rounds are against buildings but they probably keep the bad guys' heads down.

Well... I just tried it with running the two LAVs through at full speed (straight up the middle of the map); they avoided the heavy missiles with no problem, but one caught an RPG and was destroyed, the other had its wheels wrecked by a near miss. The one with trashed wheels took ten minutes to get to the exit point while its dismounted infantry and the survivors from the other LAV (which was most of them, fortunately) held off the BRDMs from the village... was quite fun, as it happened. I've previously done the mission by running everyone, even the trucks, up both sides at speed (though it always dumps me at "Pooh" regardless, which seems odd given that it says it makes a change?), but it still feels a very risky thing to do. I dunno. You can't really say to the little guys "just drive like hell and shoot at anything that moves, looks like it might move, or looks like it might have someone hiding behind it". Unless you paused it every few seconds, I suppose.

I agree very much on that one, especially if you choose to take the right hand route either past or through an enemy-held village; the map is too small to just bypass it. Although I guess a LAV at full speed is pretty much proof against those slow-to-aim, slow-to-move missiles, and noones going to hit it with an RPG... not sure I'd care to do the same with the trucks though! :cool:

Glad to know it's possible. I managed to get an Abrams this time round, with an RPG-7 to the side. One of my T-72s got a hit on the rear of another Abrams but only immobilised it, probably had the wrong round loaded as it had just killed a Stryker. Next time, Gadget.

I played this once as Blue, and suffered no loss whatever. I've played this a few times as Red, and can't for the life of me manage to win. My anti-tank missile teams get one shot (which generally misses, and if it hits, does no damage to enemy tanks) before being killed within seconds by return fire. My BMPs get destroyed by tank fire without ever seeing the enemy. My T-72s occasionally manage to survive the first incoming shell, but it makes no odds as their own guns don't scratch the Abrams. By the time the waves of reinforcements arrive the life expectancy of each wave is measured in seconds before they even get the chance to move... The AI is pretty dumb with the infantry and Strykers, so I've managed to take a few of those out as they rush forward suicidally. But I have yet to destroy a single Abrams, even with RPG hits to the rear and a brave T-72 which managed a hit to the side of an Abrams' turret at about 200 yards. Can this scenario be beaten as Red?

Nice, thanks.