BlackMoria

I would like to see a 'Desert Storm' compilation of scenarios. CMSF is well suited to portraying the two Gulf wars. I like the idea of a compilation of scenarios as opposite to a campaign because one can include the Brits (one the Brit module is out), and the Marines. Scenarios like the Battle of 73 Eastings (2 ACR), the Marine push through southern Kuwait, the Battle of Al Khafji (Marines/Saudi/Qatar), the battles for Objective Norfolk, etc. Quite a cross section of high intensity battles could be done and I think, would be well accepted by the CMSF community.

Drat. I checked and I overwrote the last game turn with the start of scenario 2. So no help there. But I can confirm from the end of scenario screens that I got 1000 pts so I achieved all objectives outlined and that there were no red forces left in the terminal, secondary buildings, or the marked perimeter complexes. The only red forces were to the east. So I am not clear on what red forces were to be cleared out, unless it was the red forces in the objective areas and I can confirm, I destroyed them all so I would say the missions objectives probably not need fine tuning at this point until there is more feedback from others. I will let you know how scenario 2 goes. And I will keep a last game save file if you would like.

**************SPOILERS************* Yes, I noted the sea of red to the east at the scenario results window. I am sure glad I opted to not go that way and I pity the poor bugger who thinks that taking to the urban terrain right away to close up to the teminal is the best way. I lost my 1 KIA in the battle with the vehicle patrol. One of the plt headquarters personnel took a heavy machine gun round through the head. Other than that, the results are as good as one could hope for.

I just finished scenario 1 - Knees to the Breeze (I love that title). I will try to avoid any major spoilers. I played RT on Elite setting. I opted to run my pixeltruppen down the runway, keeping away from built up areas. Since it was night and the Syrians don't have the best NV equipment, I kept my distance until my forces were opposite the air terminal. Got in a scrap with a vehicle patrol on route but made short work of them. Once in position, I closed with the terminal and secondary objective buildings. Base plan - simultaneous plt assaults on the two secondary buildings complexes adjacent the terminal with third plt as fire base. Took the complexes without too much problem. Then all three plts assaulted the terminal for three sides. Met resistance but with three full plts assaulting and clearing, the defenders were quickly overwhelmed. Objectives secured. I then had one plt take defensive positions on the terminal complex and two plts then pushed out to clear the perimeter complexes. Engaged multiple enemy positions but through mutual support, the two plts crushed the opposing forces and took defensive positions up facing east where more enemy was spotted further to the east. Two airstrikes took out more BTRs and a building full of infantry. I decided to stand firm as I hit all my objectives and since conservation of forces was one of my main limiters, I didn't push further to the east and awaited for a counterattack, which didn't materialize during the 10 minute wait. I opted for the cease fire rather than run the game out with 40 minutes left on the clock. I got a total victory and my losses were 1 KIA and 3WIA. There was no replay at any point. All and all, a fun scenario. Given the warning that the campaign is quite difficult, I was anticipating much stronger opposition and expecting a counterattack. I either took the correct approach and bypassed most of the enemy or I got a AI plan which played to my strengths and tactics and got owned. Now on to the next scenario - holding on to the terminal should be a interesting fight. Super pdf, Normal Dude. That alone puts the campaign in a class of its own for production values. Very nice map for the first scenario as well. I look forward to the rest of the campaign!

Wow!. I've entered the twilight zone then because the .cam file in my download is about 17 MB. I can't explain how the hell that happened. So at some point, the right file was uploaded....

While it may be an interesting feature, usually for most people, you know when you f%$# it up, despite the level of victory. And simply knowing is enough for most people, without the game saying where and when you should show up for your court martial.

D'Oh! Back to "Watch and Shoot" mode.

Hmm. It was in the repository but isn't there now.

Odd that, as it doesn't square with what I am observing. The M230 chaingun has a published muzzle velocity of 805m/sec. From first sound of the gun and sight shake to the first impact is about 4.5 seconds. If the range on the HUD is correct, the impacts would be about 2 seconds to target.

Based on the time from the sound of the cannon and sight shake to the rounds impacting, the range is between 3500 to 4000 meters, which is approaching the max range of the 30mm. At this range, the rounds are rapidly lossing steam and gravity is more a factor, which explains why the rounds seem to be coming in relatively slow (compared to the 805m / sec muzzle velocity as found for the apache 30mm cannon). Edit: It is not a cat, it is a dog. You can see it wag its tail as the men approach and it relative size to the men makes it too large for the common cat. Nice to know the canine got clear.

In the town, fan your infantry out with two groupings. One grouping assaults forward while the other grouping provides fires support. You can have the AAV keep pace in the rear. If you are spread out enough, your infantry are going to sweep up the RPG groups as part of the sweep. If done right, the red forces open fire and then get hammered with suppressions that mitigate their effectiveness. I then move several AAVs up and hammer the buildings with the defenders with 40mm to really soften them up. Then assault in. When I have done this, I can clear the town really easy with few infantry casualties and no vehicle casualties. Getting to the objectives is harder due to open terrain and positioning of the enemy AT assets. It can be made alot easier by using Lima battery and the Air assets to hit the objective buildings (they will usually have troops in them) and level them (yeah, I am a SOB that way). It is RPG/ATassets in the ditches or treelines which become a headache because your first indication of their presence is a shot at one of your vehicles. I usually will try to wriggle a vehicle to a hull down and entice a shot and then kill the shooter with area/direct fire. I've gotten good at this and usually will not lose a vehicle. Use arty/mortar smoke to cover short rushes to better positions. I can usually get my vehicles forward where they are more useful using this method. Just a few things that I do which help me.

Best arty ammo is General or Armor setting. If the building is multistory, airburst will get the roof defenders and inflict some casualties on the floor below the roof but little else. Go large caliber when you can. It doesn't take long to inflict enough casualties and suppression for a quick rush by nearby friendly forces to take the building (just don't get too close during the shelling). Using General ammo setting with 155mm on Medium density, Short duration, I found will usually take a multistory building down to it foundations if the majority of the rounds hit.

Pooh actually isn't a hideous as everyone makes out. I found it challenging but not hard. It can be done with minimal casualties and no vehicle casualties because I have done it. In fact, I have done it with infantry alone with CAS / Arty support (I was curious if it could be done) and left all my vehicles at the start positions. It makes it a whole lot tougher but it can be done. My usual method - infantry up the middle of the map, with some just left of the highway. You have cover almost to the orchard areas west and between Pooh and Eeoyore. From there, you can coax the Syrians into taking shots at you and then you hammer them hard with arty, helos and the superior firepower of your squads. I found you can even entice the AT-14 ATGMs to shoot at your moving infantry squads ( I usually only have small squads like the scouts play bait) and then kill them quick with arty and air. Usually, I can kill the 2-3 AT-14 watching my advance route, then I bring my vehicles up into the area between Pooh and Eeoyore. By this time, I have killed most of the problematic ATGMs and weaked most of the Syrians squads so once the vehicle come forward, it is more of a mop up operation to clean out the enemy around Pooh and Eeoyore. I can usually put such a beatdown on the poor Syrians that I can get a total victory without ever going after Piglet or Tigger. Hope this helps at your next matchup with Pooh.

Basically, yes. You are aware that in Decisions, Decisions, you can opt to go for the other exit point and take a different branch that bypasses the Pooh mission, right? So, you if don't want to fight through Pooh again, go back to Decisions, Decisions if you are able and exit the map from the far left corner instead of the far right corner. You will be told that you have a Total Defeat (an artificiality of the branching setup) but in this case, it is meaningless except to put you on the path of a different set of scenarios. If you are set on going into Pooh, then check some of the Pooh threads for tips on how to fight through it. In all honesty, I found Pooh challenging but not extraordinarely so. It is easily winnable if you take your time and are methodical.

First off, take all your mods off to help isolate the problem. If the problem remains, you know positively it isn't the mods. If the problem disappears, put the mods back in one by one until your prison stripes return. Then you know the last mod is somehow interacting with something to produce your problem. If it isn't the mods, then play with your graphic settings in the game. Turn all detail down to the minimum and see if your problem remains. If the problem disappears then you know that something about the graphical settings in game are the issue and then it is trial and error to see which setting causes the issue. If the problem isn't related to the game settings, then it most likely is now the graphical settings of the OS. Check to make sure your have the most recent drivers for your video card and the most recent version of DirectX. Most of the time, problems will originate with the drivers and directx. Finally, if you have current drivers and you still have issues, check the display settings, paying attention to shading, shadow and antialiasing settings. Good luck.

I'm amused by this discussion. It gives me memories of my officer training days in Canadian Forces Base Gagetown. If you ever trained there, you wouldn't be giving Steve the gears about bogging probabilities because for anyone who has been there, the chance of bogging a vehicle after any rainfall is nearly 100%. As a gun end officer in the artillery, I have deployed an entire battery of towed guns into a firing position. No problems. A half day of rain and the gun tractors and howitzers are sinking into the ground and we have to get a tracked Leo ARV to pull the ENTIRE gun battery out of the mire. In one gun position recce, I POed the Directing Staff (DS) because after literally getting all four vehicles of the recce party hopelessly mired, I commandeered the DS vehicles one after another and got them mired as well. I got a good chit for initative for that.... and a bad one for making off with the DS vehicles and making the DS walk.... I've seen a Leopard 1 tank mire to the TOP of the hull when it got into the boggy areas (shows with swamp symbols on the map) by a training crew. It took daisy chaining two Leo ARVs and three hours to pull it out. It is the only place I have been where I have seen bullrushes on the top of hills. Which is why I don't have an issue with the bogging.

That is a good question. Nice looking machine and all, but the crew, particularly the driver and front gunner look awfully exposed to me.... and no where to go elsewhere in the vehicle.

What you said makes sense. The terminology 'Air Guard' implies to me watching for helos / aircraft so that is what I thought the 'role' was.

While I applaud your effort and willing to do this, I think the chief issue is one of 'ownership' of the material. One just can't assume that the creator of the mod wants the mod available on another website - the repository has been around for a while and even recent mods that were put up on CMMODS were not put up on the repository at the same time and that may be a reason why the creator choose to have the mod on CMMODS and not the repository. Much as I would like the see all the CMMODS material on the repository, I think that intellectual rights issues will preclude you from doing so. It is the right of the originator to decide how his work is distributed. I could be wrong on this.... I am not a lawyer.

Hmmm. Not sure what to make of that outcome. I suspect you either didn't get 'eyes on' (or killed) enough Syrian units. I know you get points for 'touch' on the NAI but that is only part of the total victory calculations, so I suspect you didn't eyeball enough of the enemy. I could be wrong there but the number of vehicles you killed is under half of what is there on map, so did you 'see' the others vehicles and infantry postions? As for intel - I agree in part. Sometimes you get a good 'picture' of the enemy in your area. Sometimes, due to all sorts of factors, the picture is not accurate at all or just plain wrong. Why are the intel guys the butt of jokes and other negative comments? Because, intel gathering is more art than science. Believe it or not, sometimes you do go blind into situations because the information doesn't reach you in time or the intel spooks come up empty on the real important questions and talk in generalities. If intel was the panacea that some believe it is, Bin Laden would be either dead or in a US prison long ago.... Edit: There were minefields in the first scenario? :eek: I must of lucked out and missed them all as I had no idea.

Odd that, since the defacto premise of Shock Force is that the US has overwhelming air superiority and the Syrian air assets are either destroyed or will be destroyed up leaving the ground. This is reflected in the game by Red having no air assets. Seems odd to program in a doctrine which, based on the premise, is essentially pointless.

Rars are file compression files, similar to .zip files. You need WinRAR or some other software that can read and unpack .RAR files. Just google RAR and they is a variety of them. I suggest downloading a trial version of WinRAR and using that to unpack the RAR archive file.

It has been a few months since I played it and I won on the first go at it. My plan put 1 plt of Strykers left of the highway and 1 plt of Strykers right of the highway. 1 javelin team and a FO went into the closest building to the setup areas. The tanks took the highway. The FO started picking up targets down the highway and engaged them. The tank platoon advanced down the highway and inched into hull down postitions and started engaging enemy armor it saw down the highway. The right flank maneuver proceeded without opposition and I anticipated enemy in the trees so at the fence line, I dismounted the platoon and they worked their way into the trees with the Strykers moving behind in support. Sure enough, the platoon came under fire from dug in infantry but with the support of the Strykers, the various entrenchments were cleared. The infantry and Strykers advanced to the other fence line and used that as a defensive line to engage infantry in the open fields beyond. While this was happening, the tank platoon killed the enemy armor and cautiously advanced up the highway, going firm just before the edge of town. The Stryker platoon and the assault gun platoon going left picked its way through the trees and towards the walled edge of the town proper. Several RPGs from second floor or roof enemy were fired but missed during the advance and the enemy infantry were engaged by 105mm / 40mm /12.5mm fire from the two platoons and destroyed. Once in range of the wall, the assault gun platoon blasted entry points into the wall and the platoon dismounted and the infantry closed up to the breech points. To say that that part of town was lousy with enemy infantry would be an understatement. I took casualties breeching in due to multiple enemy infantry squads all over the place but with the help of the assault guns and 40mm stryker, my pixeltruppen prevailed and established multi floor defensive hard points in the town. Then came the slow, crueling and bloody job of clearing the town building by building. The assault guns and strykers entered through the breach points and helped the infantry by establishing lanes of fire down streets and lit up enemy infantry trying to use the streets for movement. Javelin teams took rooftop positions. By this point in the battle, the right Stryker platoon achieved the fence line and started clearing the trenchlines opposite the town across the highway, supported by the hull down Strykers behind the fence. The tank platoon split into two teams of 2 tanks, each one going to support the two platoons. A counterattack of enemy armor was stopped cold, being engaged by the javelin teams on roofs in the town. It took time and many infantry fights, which I dominated due to close support from my Strykers and tanks, but I managed to get pixeltruppen into all the objective areas for a total victory. I think I took one Stryker casualty from a RPG in town and light infantry casualties. Anyhow, that is how I managed the scenario. I took it slow and cautious with the vehicles (hence only one vehicle casualty) and the infantry walked most of the map but I did it within the time limit of the scenario, so don't feel rushed. Haste or impatience will get you killed in this scenario. Keep your forces mutually supporting each other and put overwhelming firepower at the decision points and you should get the sweet victory you want.

'Must have mods' are subjective since they are largely a personal taste issue. That said, I found all mods by Scipio are fantastic but 'must have' would be: Scipios sihouettes Scipios weapon icons Scipios weapon icons with red crosses. For the Syrians, Mord's mods are great so look for: Mord's Allah's army sound mod Mord's Syrian fighters Mord's Unit portraits I don't recall the name but there is a 'bases' mod which change the colored bases for figures to more descriptive shapes (red cross for wounded, skull and crossbones of dead, etc).

Steve, I can confirm what TheVulture experienced for the end game. Despite a total 100% wipe of the Syrians, taking and occupying all objective buildings and taking only 3 WIA for casualties, I still got a total defeat. Also, the game didn't end and I opted for the ceasefire to end the scenario. I think the issue is that the syrians got 5000 points for blue casualties, which blue can never surpass, even if blue gets max points. I suspect the 5000 pts was supposed to be 500 pts. Also, the casualty threshold seems unduly harsh - the Syrians get max points for casualties for just 3 WIA. Otherwise a fine scenario.