BlackMoria

Falconander, It is amazing how our experiences differ, despite doing the same entry. I breached on on the right flank. My first enemy contact was a T-90 facing towards the middle of town, presenting a side on aspect that was dispatched by the lead M1 with a lucky first shot. A short moment later, a BMP rounded a corner only to take two AT-4s in the face from the Marine squad staying tight on the M1. My other foot pounders manage to attain roof top positions and good corner postion to get eyes onto moving vehicles or enemy troop positions. I had good mutual support because firefights were very one sided affairs (enemy squads sort of showed up piecemeal, only to get hammered by the combined fire power of two or three marine squads and a M1, ensuring their speedy delivery to paradise). My airpower also nailed a few vehicles that I got eyes on without being engaged back. Very one sided in my favor and I had minimal casualties. It is amazing just how opposite our experiences where. Just one of the things I love about this game. Same scenario, completely different outcomes depending on luck, tactics, timing and any number of variables which determines whether one's pixeltruppen are heroes or zeroes.

Sounds like it was fun (in a perverse sense). I played it as blue and got a total victory. Mind you, I set up on one flank and used the M1's cannons to breach the two walls and my force made entry at the breach points. There was no way I was going straight up the middle through the gates since it is logical to conclude that is where red has set up his kill zones.

Can you revert to a game save? I think that is the only way. Doing campaigns, I game save each scenario transition so that I can go back and try different things or different tactics (for example, in the Marine campaign, scenario - Decisions, Decisions where your exit point decides which way the campaign branches). I think a earlier game save is your only hope but maybe someone else has an idea....

I don't know if it is factored into the spotting in the game but in RL, machine guns have a tracer round for every 5th round unless you take pains to replace them with normal rounds. Tracers certainly help the gunner get on target but they also give your position away. Just pointing that out since it wasn't mentioned in the machine gun discussion in the last few posts.

Take it slow and steady. And analyse your terrain. I can't overstate that enough. If you aren't taking 15 minutes looking closely at the terrain before you deploy your forces, you are not taking enough time to do a proper terrain analysis. The terrain is everything. It will dictate what options you have, routes and covered approaches to take, your best fire positions, obstacles to avoid or overcome, your going (how easy or hard it is to get from point A to point , where your enemy is likely to deploy and how your enemy is likely to manuever. Proper understanding and use of the terrain means more than your force composition does.... its proper appreciation and use will shield your forces during movement, allow you positional advantage when you can seize it and will allow you to focus your firepower at the decision point. Fail to study and use it and expect casualties and possible defeat.

I've played this scenario and was successful on the first go around. I made several base assumptions. The squad with the smoked vehicle was observed and the rest of my force was not. I then did a terrain study prior to starting the clock on the scenario. I made some deductions on the most likely areas that enemy forces would be observing from (as hindsight after the game showed, I was 90% correct). I made a plan to try to define the enemy, which meant slowly and methodically moving scout dismounts into observation points on the intermediate high ground. My dismounts found a few enemy positions this way and hit them with arty. I would 'flash the bait' by having a dismount break cover and move quickly from one cover point to another in a short sprint. The enemy would usually strike at the lure with some fire that other dismounts could observe or see muzzle flashes or heavy weapon backblast from, giving me something to fire in the general direction of or engage with arty. I can usually wrinkle my LAVs into concealing hull down positions. If they saw something and engaged it, in short order I would pop smoke and reverse into dead ground because my experience has been the heavy AT or RPG shot is going to be coming. This scenario was a tough nut to crack but using the method above, crack it I did, with minimal losses. Slow, methodical and patience is the key. This scenario will punish the impatient player and the player who thinks they can 'hammer' their way to the objective area.

That is one feature that stood out for Harpoon 3. If I recall correctly, it started with no multiplayer capability and through the dedication of the current license holder and the Harpoon community, multiplayer 1v1 was added and now it supports multiple players per side. TacOps also has a good multiplayer system, allowing for 1v1 play all the way to multiple player 'CPX' style of mutiplayer which is a favorite of quite a number in the TacOps community. TacOps looks very dated graphically but the multiplayer keeps the game being played despite this shortcoming.

Point made. Adding equipment in patches (or modules) would ensure CMSF keeps its legs though. But I will concede the point at it would add more work to the developers. And patches don't pay the bills for the developers. Maybe in the hinted at CMSF 2....

I think some posters are missing the point. It is not if the EFV brings anything new to the game. It is the AAV7 replacement either in 2011 or 2015 and so for some of us who like to try to stay with an accurate TO&E for scenarios, it would be nice to have in the game for simulating Marine scenarios in the 2011/15 plus time frame.

Sweet Jesus! Frickin' Lasers. I didn't know directed energy weapon technology was so far along. I wonder what range the lasers are effective to?

I saw a segment on the AAV7 replacement, the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) on the show Futureweapons. According to the segment, it is scheduled to enter service in 2011 (not that far off). It is 4 times faster than the AAV7 on water and nearly twice as fast on land. It carries 17 Marines + 3 Crew. More heavily armored than the AAV (Global Security website states specification is to stop 14.7mm rounds, something the current AAV armor cannot without apply armor mods. Armed with a 30 mm cannon and 7.62mm coaxial machinegun. I sure would love to see this added to a future patch so we can use this puppy in the game. (blantant hint to Battlefront....hint*hint*hint)

Yes, the AC-130 Spectre are still used. They did see service in Iraq and Afghanistan and I believe they still are used in theatre now.

Pesonally, I try to avoid doing 'gamist' things with the command squads because in reality, your platoon commanders and company commanders are not going to be running around being medics nor are they going to be off in a corner acting as ad-hoc observers. The platoon commanders are going to be with co-located with one of the platoon sections on the offense or centrally in the defence where they can observe and influence the battle by leadership. The company commander are going to be rear of the platoons in place that likewise grants them observation of the battle and the abillity to influence it. Platoon / Company Commanders are at the sharp end with the troops as required....as they should be.

I believe you can go past the time limit. I played a scenario (damn if I can remember which one) and ran the clock out. I watched the timer count to zero expecting the game to end... only for the time to change color to red and start counting up and the game continued. I recall this also happening in another scenario - the timer turned red and starting counting up and the game continued. I don't know if the victory conditions kick in or not after the clock runs out as in both scenarios, after a while, I opted for the cease fire method of ending the game.

One could put UAVs into the game but it would be a challenge. How to handle them? Like Arty / CAS where one can indicate the area for the UAV to fly and units get revealed dependent upon the UAVs ability to 'spot' them? Or as unit that the player can set waypoints and commands for and handle as another asset to control during the game? Keeping in mind that command structure determines what assets are available. I have seen other players in another thread taking about wanting to see hellfire armed Predator drones in the game. The problem is that Predators are a Brigade/Division asset and at the level of play of Shock Force (Coy / Bn), the player would rightly not have any say or control over the UAV mission, since Bde/Div would determine the mission parameters and control the mission. Whether it is a robotic 'warrior' with some small arms system or a remotely piloted fighter aircraft, what does it add to the game except for eye candy? Given how CAS is handled in game now, it certainly doesn't matter if the 'pilot' is a robot or a human? What fundamentally from a game perspective does a robot warrior with a build in machine gun add to the game that a marine / army corporal armed from same doesn't provide. Certainly, the robot could take more hits to put it out of action and maybe be a more accurate weapons platform but does having one or two robots in a platoon add anything to the game? A better soldier but with a longer deployment time (I can't see a robot being able to bail out vehicle to deploy being any faster than human soldiers bailing out the same vehicle who are motived by the need to survive and bullet whizzing over head. I think despite the number of robotics being deployed, the robots are still 'specialists' that are used for special purposes and circumstances. We are still a long way from 'Terminator' units as portrayed in the movies....

I understand the v1.11 patch and holiday chaos thing. That said, what is the new release prediction for the Brit module? Also, I assume that the slippage of the release date will mean slippage for the Normandy release as well.

Hey, I seen that shotgun burst thing as well. When it happened the first time, I went 'WTF'. Neat visual effect and as you said, not very often. And not consistent enough to clearly determine if certain game conditions contribute to it happening. Edit: I only seen it once, but I had a 60mm mortar mission do a rain burst effect. I had saved the game while the mortars were engaging a target. When I started from the save file, the continuation of the fire mission actually dropped 60mm airburst all over the target area in one spectacular salvo of pure awesomeness before resuming to the 1 or 2 shells per salvo that is the norm.

Getting back on topic, while the Gaza strip is quite small, Google Earth gives you are real appreciation of how hard a nut to crack it is since about 85% of the area is all urban built up terrain. And conventional force ratios for urban combat start at 10:1 so you need 10 soldiers for every urban defender as a minimum...

Damn, if that is the behavior of gunners in Humvees, there goes my ideas for a Blackhawk Down campaign that I have been mulling around on paper.... As for the Bradleys, I have noticed the behavior about them firing their TOW missiles in preference when going against buildings but I have seen them under 1.14 also use the 25mm. I am thinking that distance to target may be a factor because I recall the Bradleys using the 25mm only when the target building or wall was close I too want to see a 'Hold Fire' option. It is very difficult to setup an ambush when the troops want to cut loose with their weapons as soon as they have eyes on the enemy.