stoex

VonWebb: recon by fire is your friend in Battle 2, as well as 40 mike-mike. I don't know what the civilian density is and I'm sorry if I shot anyone's mom , but I don't think it's possible to succeed in that battle without putting a little preemptive lead into a couple of buildings. Remember that close quarters also mean short assault distances - two or three 40mm rounds into a building are usually enough to suppress the uncons inside long enough for a fireteam to jump on them from across the street! And I agree with your assessment - this campaign is very immersive and intimate...a real knuckle-biter!

Never thought I'd be the first to say this about any campaign or scenario in CMSF, but: FINISHED! (woohoo) Great stuff, FMB, i really like the small size, small-arms battles! Many thanks!!! --- SPOILERS FOLLOW!!! --- Well, I admit I had to reload in every battle, but I got better in the end, only needed 1 reload in battles 3 and 4. And those were only because of the ultra-tightforce conservation limits. You can't lose more than 3 men in any battle if my math is correct...whew!!! Battle 1: Several reloads due to my squads getting creamed in the assault on the individual buildings closest to the DZ. I finally found that area targetting each house individually with both MGs and two squads was enough to supress the uncons enough to take the buildings. This worked for all 3 individual buildings, but you have to get the timing just right...I don't think I could have done it without pausing frequently in RT (or at all in WeGo). Assaulting the two-storey building from the trees also helped because my squad could get very close without being seen. Third building was the most difficult and I lost 1 man there. Third squad goes out to the building close to the uncon reinforcements and whallops them as they show up. Uncon surrender. Battle 2: Did well on this one, I was getting the hang of things...MGs on the roofs of the low houses to the left of the DZ, one squad + JAV through the middle to the 2-storey building close to the treeline (great overwatch), 2 squads flanked around the right and swept towards the mosque, clearing buildings on the way. 2 reloads because I got impatient towards the end and goofed my bounding overwatch movement in the middle of town. Used some arty against the uncons in the leftmost set of buildings. 1 casualty, uncon surrender. Battle 3: This was a turkey shoot! Give the Syrians a platoon of tanks, please!!! Air power took out 6 of the BMPs real quick, JAV got 1, AT-4 got the last. I recommend splitting off AT teams from the squads for better mobility. And of course, give your CAS assets large area targets from the get-go, covering the entire far half of the map. Never really saw the infantrymen in this battle...they got toasted in their vehicles or smothered by the arty that I dropped behind the line of buildings where they seemed to be exiting their rides. Had one reload because I had forgotten to hide an MG in setup which started shooting and got killed by a BMP. Battle 4: This one was pretty tough again...I sent one squad & 1 MG towards the 3 buildings on the right, the rest of the troops off towards the 2-storey building outside the wall on the left. Before I got close, I called in arty on the buildings, then took them in a flash. From the 2-storey building on the left I could slowly get superiority over the entire complex and spread out through it. The boys on the right spent the entire battle duking it out with the squads in the 3 buildings on their side (one reload there due to over-eagerness on my part). By the time the reinforcements showed up, I was well positioned throughout the complex, but was still pretty lucky to destroy all three BMPs, as JAVs don't do too well at ranges below 100 meters. Had just enough AT-4s to finish them off!!! Unfortunately, the AT-4s don't get replenished whith the rest of the ammo, which would really be important in this campaign. Anyhoo, finished the campaign with two WIA, no KIA, several lightly wounded. Lo-o-o-oved it, FMB!!!! Really well done and difficult, too!! Small unit action is fun for me because it sets up and plays out relatively fast, and you can really focus intensely on tactics at a very detailed level. Going to try Tip of the Spear next! best regards

Won't work, unfortunately. Mines in CMSF are only triggered by contact with personnel or vehicles.

I don't know a great deal about the technicalities of artillery (or buildings, for that matter). What I do know is that unit quality makes a BIG difference in-game in this respect. A few shells of any caliber into a building or trench will likely kill or at least bug out a squad of recruits, whereas crack or elite Syrian RGs kann be bombarded for minutes on end and mostly shrug it off. Even flattening buildings entirely sometimes barely damages the troops inside if they are high quality (which I must say I consider rather unrealistic).

Interesting, that. I have occasionally encountered similar situations where my assault order causes one team to run the entire way to the waypoint at the end of the assault order while the other team stays put. I'm talking up to several 100m here. When team A reaches the waypoint, team B follows in suit and clears the whole distance in one bound. Not a big issue for me, as no part of the unit is straying off or beyond the intended course, and in RT when I notice it happening I just cancel the order and give it again, which generally clears things up. Definitely not supposed to happen, though.

Thanks, Alex. I already found it on GreenAsJade's CMSF Mods Warehouse: http://cmsfmods.heroku.com/mods?game_type=4&show_all=true I haven't been around here for a while, so I didn't know about this great site yet. Been downloading from there like crazy for the past half hour . Thanks to the author!!!

@Alex: You mentioned 'Scipio_CMSF_Explosion', but I can't find it in the repository. It's a beautiful looking mod and I'd like to have it...can you (or anyone) tell me where to find it? Thanks, stoex

Yup, it seems as though arty shells already in the air at the time I save my game all come down at once when I load that savegame. This is in RT, don't know about TB...I will try to recreate and provide a savegame - this will be on Friday, though, as I am too busy until then to fiddle with CMSF.

For the record: The artillery shotgun burst is still around in version 1.20. Just had one in the Highland Games campaign. Don't know if it's been posted already, so I'm using this old thread in which I originally mentioned this.

Hi. One of your questions I think I can answer... Area targets for CAS cause the Air Support asset to search for and attempt to eliminate any actual enemy targets it can identify itself within the area you specify. Targetting empty ground will result in the asset showing up, making a pass, and ending its mission without firing. CAS never fires on what it considers empty ground except if you order it to via a point target. This means two things: First, CAS assets can be used for recon on areas which are not in full view of any of your units. Even if you can't see the entire target area, there is a chance that your CAS will find and destroy targets located within it. Second, even if you know there are targets in the designated area, even if your other units or your spotter can see them, there is no guarantee that the CAS asset will identify and fire on them. Spotting and ID'ing within an area target for CAS is entirely up to the asset AFAIK. Of course, CAS has a much easier time spotting vehicles than infantry . If you want to take out specific known targets with CAS, point targets are the way to go (not an option for AI orders, of course). Hope this helps. Scenario Designers to the rescue for the other two questions

Seconded. Well, fifth'd as the case may be. This has happened to me on several occasions in-game and I, too, have been too lazy or forgetful to report. It is not a range issue for me, Apocal, as it seems to happen regardless of range, and I had not noticed the launcher offset rotation either. What I do see is that it seemingly happens only when LOS is tight or partial or otherwise limited, e.g. firing from hull down positions, through narrow slits between buildings or dense foliage, etc. Also I have noticed that the problem persists for me as long as the Bradley in question does not move between shots. Once I have my Brad change position to get clearer LOS (when this problem has occurred), subsequent TOW firings work fine.

Thanks Moon, that sounds promising....looking forward to that AAR!

+1, Ken. I have griped about this in another thread before, which (as so often) I can't find anymore now. So I'll add my voice again here. As Combatintman says, not so much a problem in RT, but a nuisance for sure, having to babysit Cobras.

Great news, thanks!

Bump. Any news on this? Been a while...

+1 This looks like a great map. I particularly like the look of the dam. Looking forward!

Interesting, Ken... I have occasionally got the impression in-game that my vehicles seemed to be firing *almost* through one another, but I never payed it enough attention since I only tend to worry about friendly fire in cases where I am aware it is a potentially serious issue. I always assumed that my vehicles would take care of not hitting each other... Strange thing is, when targetting something beyond a destroyed/abandoned vehicle with clear LOS, I always find I get an astounding amount of rounds impacting the obstacle vehicle. Will try testing this myself some.

Adam, I don't know how careful your tests of this have been, but I just followed your suggestion myself and I have to tell you that in my test, my Abrams wiped out my own infantry extremely efficiently with area fire. I'd be glad to do the same with a Brad or arty if you like, but I'm more than confident the results will be the same. Maybe you want to go and check it out yourself? I can also send you my save game if you would like

Are you sure you downloaded the correct patch? There is a patch for vanilla CM:SF and a seperate one for CM:SF Marines. The Marines patch is the same regardless of whether you have the Paradox, BF or Gamersgate base game version.

Well, there are also the thermobaric rounds, of course (or are those the 73mm HE? don't think so. I LOVE thermobaric rounds ) I have personally found the 85mm HEAT to be rather ineffective against heavy armor. The only thing that really works well against tanks is the 93mm. anything except 40mm HE works fine against light armor without extra protection (meaning fine against BMPs or LAVs/AAVs but not always against Strykers or Brads).

Thomm, 20mm at 1 meter is reasonable for sure, but by no means easy for an inexperienced (green or conscript in game?) marksman. Definitely already difficult if not using careful aim and single fire. And here we are only talking about target width anyway, and lateral aim is certainly the easier thing to get right at a distance compared to vertical aim. You really need to know how to use a weapon and its sights correctly to get the correct trajectory vertically. And as several people have posted here, projectiles are stated as flying over the heads of the British soldiers in the documentary. This is probably the bigger issue here, all things considered. Though I must add that all my gun-totin' experience comes from paintball, which is a different ballistic matter altogether, sprinkled with book knowledge about real weapons.

Adam, a little math for you here: If we assume that the vehicle in question is about 2m wide and facing the ambushers frontally at 100m, then its profile covers just a bit more than one degree of arc seen from the attackers viewpoint. This in turn means that (given the attacker has perfect aim) even the slightest motion of the barrel of his weapon (like what comes from his breathing, or from his nervous or excited hands shaking a bit, or the recoil from the last shot he fired if he's snapping off bullets quickly) means an aberration in flight path of his projectile that is so great that he will miss the vehicle entirely, probably by several meters. And here we are not even factoring in wind, distortion by heat haze, or an old AK-74s natural slight inexactitude due to barrel wear etc. I'll leave the rest up to you.

Thanks Steve. I think you got it the second time around . I actually AM talking about the saves between scenarios. When I load one of those I don't get a choice of RT or WeGo. The way it is now kinda defeats its own purpose, since I can neither go back and replay a campaign scenario in the opposite game mode if I think I'll have better chances that way (or my PC can't handle RT well for a large scenario), nor can I send a tester a save for testing in WeGo if I have been playing in RT. Anyway, you're onto it and that's what I was posting for. See ya!

Personally, I think JonS has given some of the most reasonable and well-phrased arguments in this post. I concur 100%. with you, JonS. I won't quote, but whoever didn't notice this, I urge you to go back and read his stuff in context with the posts he was referring to, and let his words sink in a little. Add to this what Steve and Kwazydog and a few others (you know who you are) have said and I believe you will see a complete answer to the question of how the player and the AI can interact in a game like CMSF. And remember that literally none of us have ever really played with the AI as stipulated by several people in this thread. Anyone who plays SP (most folks, I believe..me for sure ) has all of his experience with the AI from playing against it, and most of us, well, generally, we win. And when we do something stupid and lose, we reload or start over, and we learn from our mistakes on a tactical and strategical level, and we try not to make those mistakes again. The AI does not, and in the scope of CM, very probably never will have, this capability. Go figure. AI as your coop will never, ever make you completely happy. It's hardcoded and inflexible, no matter how good it is. It's the player's capability to act as an overlay in the sense of training, common sense, wider strategic goals, unit self-preservation, situational awareness and a host of other important motivations that only a human can understand, above and beyond the raw orders received at the immediate briefing (or given to the AI in the editor), which makes the individual in-game challenges surmountable and the game fun to play for us human players. Only a human can continually interpret the underlying meaning of his objectives on the fly and lead his forces to victory by use of all the resources that are naturally available to a RL commander (be it on a battalion, company, platoon, squad or individual level).

"Will bump for comments"