Sandokan

Please no. BF have a habit of predicting locations of conflicts before they happen when they make a modern title and Taiwan is a little close to home.  

The primary impediment to scenario realism is the player. Its an old joke that most CM players would make great WWI French generals. Or, to paraphrase a line from a Usually Hapless Youtube video, "Throw bodies at the enemy until they drown in your own blood." The body count can get a bit excessive. Then again, the Battle of the Bulge saw some 188,000 casualties and 1,300 tanks lost over the course of just 5 weeks. It would be difficult to reproduce carnage on that scale using CM.
A nice realistic engagement (though a fictional battle)? I'm (a bit too) partial to my own scenarios, I'll admit. I'd pick:
CMRT Fire and Rubble module:  the scenario 'Katabasis'
CMFI Rome to Victory module: the scenario 'Pursuit Force'
CMSF2 NATO module the scenario '25km to Suran'
CMSF2 UK module the scenario 'Outmanoeuvred'

Hehehe. Forget the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we need the BF Wargaming Universe.  
Remember the Syrian War as depicted occurred following a series of nuclear dirty bombs going off across a number of unnamed western countries, so I'm sure most of NATO would be bogged down worrying about their domestic situation, clean up and containment. Plus their militaries are embedded in Afghanistan and Iraq so already stretched. The dirty bomb terrorist attack across numerous Western cities is also far more impactful than September 11 was, and would of crashed economic markets with the shock and disruption to trade and commerce; coupled with the GFC that was right around the corner at this time. (The US housing debt time bomb was already ticking). So the western world galivanting off to Iran unless seriously provoked is probably a hell of a stretch for their Governments and militaries.
My guess is all efforts are are made to draw down in these three countries a bit quicker than we saw in reality and demonstrate stability in an effort to calm markets. But just in time to deal with the Black Sea Crisis a decade later.  

If an Intel GPU is the only GPU you have you would be in luck because CM can use an Intel GPU (along with many graphic cards). 
If you play it on an Intel GPU you will have some irritating smudges in text but the game is still playable.  As I recall the only negative effect the Intel GPU had was for text.  So basically just the briefing & scenario/campaign selection screens.  This is irritating because the briefing is important but not a game breaker.  As I recall the actual 3D environment where you spend most of your play time works just fine.   I played CM on an Intel GPU the first two years I had the game.  I enjoyed the game so much I had a rig built to specifically play Combat Mission and got an Nvidia card. 
@Sandokan the first two posts answered your question and gave helpful advice on how to correct it.  I hope that advice helps you out.  If not you'll probably have to put up with the smudges like I did.            

This is because the game uses an Intel GPU. If thats the only graphics card you have, then you are fokked, as theres no way to correct it, it has been a known issue.

Sometimes it automatically changes to motherboard video chipset instead of video card.
It looks like it happened to you. 
Go to video card settings and ensure that Combat Mission runs on it, not on motherboard. 
 

check if FXAA is on for your graphic card and if so turn it off. That may be the cause.
P

These mods are really cool and make a cool game even better.  



Thanks @Aquila-CM. 

Heh above my paygrade.  Oh wait I don't get paid 😛  You know CMSF is my favorite.  If it were my choice BF would have a dedicated work team just for that family and it would incorporate a whole side business for CM:A.   

---------------------------------------------------------
                  Panic in Mahmudiyah
----------------------------------------------------------


 
Description :
This is a small scale urban scenario with a low unit density taking place during the year 2005 in Iraq . You get to play a local cell of AQI insurgents fighters launching a car bomb attack on an Iraqi manned checkpoint followed by an assault on the town.
Mission length : 50 minutes
Map size : 600 X 650 m

 
There are 5 AI plans : a main plan and four variants, each one with minor differences and a semi randomized unit placement.
Play as Red attacker only.
 
Extract from the briefing :
Traditionally a Sunni stronghold, Mahmudiyah, located only 20 km south of Baghdad inside what the coalition dubbed the Triangle of death, belongs to the belts of towns around the capital that both the US forces and insurgents tried to control.
Its importance lies in the fact that it was used as a support zone for insurgents both Sunni and Shi'a alike where fighters could regroup, weapons get stored and attacks planned on Baghdad. Vital for securing communications and logistics, these towns served as staging points and were heavily contested.
During the 2005 pre-election period, Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) intensified its terror campaign to further destabilize the country and set in motion a sectarian civil war. Often using car bombs these attacks were usually focused on the civilian population or Iraqi security forces rather than the coalition.
Install :
Make sure your game is patched to version 2.04 and you have the British module, then extract in : documents/battlefront/Shock Force 2/game files/scenarios
or for a Steam install : steam root folder/battlefront/Shock Force 2/game files/scenarios
Download :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ht4j828cu9dmzqp/Panic in Mahmudiyah.rar?dl=0
 

Interesting blog post about Combat Mission (in this case CMSF2) as used by the British Army.
https://letstalkaboutwargames.wordpress.com/2021/05/26/combat-mission-fight-club-how-digital-wargaming-is-going-pro/

I (53 Retired) like to play Combat Mission with my youngest (20).  He has run rings around me in RTS mode.  Including the first time he played.  He is great at RTS games and I have never been because I play Combat Mission like a Chess game (which i've been playing since I was a 5 yr old) on steroids, being a wargamer since the 5th grade.
When we switched to a middlin' battle in PBEM.  He got overwhelmed with the complexity of micromanagement of each of his units.  We got about 3 or 4 turns in and never finished that game.  He just hated the playstyle.  Had we switched the game to RTS, he would have wiped the map with me, with not a touch of being overwhelmed.
So since I've grown up playing turn based games (until High School), PBEM comes naturally to me.  Since he's grown up with computer games of one sort or another (since he was 2), he is a natural at the RTS style of gameplay.
Let me take it one step further, I haven't been beaten in Chess since I was a Freshman in college.  If you were to sit me down and make me play a game of speed chess, you'd prolly beat me the first time and almost every time thereafter.  In my opinion its a different game completely.  I play chess about 5 turns ahead of the current move.  You just can't do that in speed chess.
Lastly, like @Ultradave PBEM fits my play style perfect.  I just retired in November after a 30 year career as an Air Force Civilian and internet business owner.  Since I had to medically retire due to an injury, my PBEM style is sporadic right now.  I had no trouble playing 13 simultaneous PBEM games when I was stuck in a hotel for a month at the Mayo Clinic. 🤕 Now I'm home, I have trouble keeping up with 4 or 5.  So 1 turn a day is good right now. 
Believe it or not, I have one cherished PBEM game that I've been playing for almost a year now. 😮 And it's a real nail biter.  Something that is probably inconceivable to some of our younger friends.
Battlefront is a very conservative company.  I started out playing their games in 2000.  Bought the first 2 and then didn't rediscover the company until last year by accident.  Been playing their games ever since (with just a little bit of Kerbal Space Program thrown in, to scratch an itch 😉).

In scenarios versus the AI, sometimes I do "no area fire unless the platoon commander has a line of sight to the action square AND the unit doing the shooting is in C2 of the leader." Only when there is no spotting contact at all though. It sort of mitigates the issue a little bit even though it is obviously not perfect.

Hello !
 
A little and quick update on the progress :

Mission 1 WIP
Mission 2 is tested, updated and almost ready to roll(need just briefing)
Mission 3 is tested, updated and almost ready to roll(need just briefing)
Misson 4 ready, tested. Need just briefing and its ready to roll
Mission 5 Worp in progress
Mission 6 ready, tested, need briefing and its ready to roll
Mission 7 is tested, updated and almost ready to roll(need just briefing)
8 to X : Work in progress
 
thanks !

Steve Grammont has been interviewed at the Grogheads Site. Just featured today.
http://grogheads.com/interviews/21100#more-21100

At the beginning of Colossus Reborn, Glantz discusses several what ifs and historical controversies such as the myth of Stalin's preventive war, Guderian's turn south etc. Concerning the timing of Barbarossa, he claims that the weather would have hampered any major armoured breakthrough had it started at an earlier date because of the rasputitsa. Moreover he adds that the forces involved in the Balkans were just a small portion of the overall force involved in Barbarossa. And incidentally most of them returned in time for the invasion.
I am not aware of the primary objective you mention so I am not sure how accurate it really is but it is my understanding that Moscow wasn't even the real objective :
"The mass of the red army stationed in western Russia is to be destroyed in bold operations involving deep penetrations by armoured spearheads and the withdrawal of elements capable of combat into the extensive Russian land spaces is to be prevented."
From directive 21, Fall Barbarossa also quoted from Glantz, When Titans Clashed.
So it was clearly focused on the red army rather than any political or geographical objective.  Now the oil fields in the Caucasus are not exactly next door from Germany. Going straight for them at the start of Barbarossa would have presented colossal logistical issues and offered dangerously exposed flanks. If you were talking about Fall Blau in 1942, that would be a different story maybe; it is still a bit iffy but debatable.
Really the only way the Russians might have sued for peace would be if Germany had somehow restrained herself to the conquest of territories limited in scale beyond the border. When it became a war of annihilation or Vernichtungskrieg that possibility completely flew out the window imo.
 

------------------------------------
The Map : New Aleppo District
-----------------------------------
Located just to the west of Aleppo proper in Syria, it is a dense residential area built in the 80's.
Map size : 1200 X 900 m
This is just a raw map, no setup zones, objectives or anything. Probably requires some cropping to make it suitable for a scenario or a PBEM.


Install :
Extract in my documents/Battlefront/Shock Force 2/Game Files/Scenario
Download :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1xg16nl6esiays5/SYR - New Aleppo District.rar?dl=0

Some more pictures :

---------------
  DESCRIPTION
---------------
This is a modification pack designed for the Battlefront game Combat Mission Shock Force 2 which replaces the textures of buildings and walls.
This pack draws its inspiration from the Syrian city of Aleppo. While it is probably suitable for any area in the Middle East, it is specifically based on pictures of Aleppo and the surrounding region and tries to capture the particular architecture, building materials and colour palette of this city.
Almost all the textures are twice the size of the default textures, except building interiors, floors and minor details.
It includes twelve new buildings; eight that replace the default ones and an extra four as a bonus. These four extra buildings shouldn't appear in any existing scenarios. They are designed to be used by scenario designers or map makers in their future projects and will require the players to also have them installed in their mod folder to be visible. Otherwise they will just be replaced by the game with a random building texture.
The four extra buildings are :
building n°9 : an affluent residential house cleaner and less derelict looking than the rest.
building n°10 : a school or an official or governmental building.
building n°11 : an extra sandy coloured house that doubles up as a mosque.
building n°12 : an additional dirty white greyish building.

--------------
   MODTAGS
--------------
There are two modtags:
[aleppomosque]
This modtag modifies the building n°11 to make it look like a Syrian mosque.
[alepposhop]
This tag replaces the facades of four of the single storey buildings with shopfronts or garage doors. It only replaces single storey buildings and doesn't affect multi-storey buildings at all.
It is best used to represent bazaars or small shops placed in between taller buildings.
Indeed, since the shopfront texture will show on all sides of the buildings it is preferable to place normal buildings adjacent to the left and right of the shop(s) to get a better visual effect.
The other downside of this modtag is that you automatically get four less single storey buildings to use for normal purposes but I felt it was worth including because it adds a nice touch to towns and cities if used right.
--------------
 INSTALLATION
--------------
Extract the mod in your Documents/Battlefront/Combat Mission/Shock Force 2/User Data/Mods. If there isn't already a folder named 'Mods' just create one.
For Steam users, extract the mod in your Shock Force 2/Data/Z folder.
--------------
   OPTIONS
--------------
There are two sets of options :
One for the colour of the mosque dome, please consult the separate readme located in the 'details and others' folder.
One used to add or remove propaganda posters and flags on the facade of some buildings and shops to add a bit of local flavour. There are three options available : Syria, Iraq or generic. There is a readme included inside the 'Building Options' folder for details.
--------------
   CREDITS
--------------
I took the liberty of adding a slightly desaturated version of Pete Wenman's rural wall, included in the SF2 Squalor mod, to make it blend in a bit better with the rest of the mod. I hope he doesn't mind.
---------------
DOWNLOAD
--------------
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ep5yue290qn9jfw/Zveroboy's Aleppo Buildings Pack.rar?dl=0

Zveroboy
July 2021

I saw something very rare so I made a short video of it. A bullet ricocheted twice and then still ended up hitting someone. A bullet fired from a Thompson ricocheted off a building, then ricocheted again off the back of a Panther turret 65 meters away, then flew high up in the air and then plunged down right into the backside of a tank radio operator hiding in the bottom of a ditch another 30 meters away. It gave him a light wound. What are the chances of that?
I included the view from the US soldier with the Thompson as well. If only he knew he ended up accidentally hitting someone completely out of view and way off to the left of what he was aiming at. Seems he was probably killed shortly after firing though.
 
Posted in the general forum since this kind of thing is not unique to CMBN. Being able to track individual bullets and see where they go is one of the interesting things about CM. Anyone else see rare stuff like this? Could be any CM game. It's always amusing seeing things like a stray bullet falling out of the sky and landing at someone's feet from a completely unrelated firefight on the other side of the map 1000 meters away or whatever.

T-34/85 of different plants had light differences in details. This tank assembled from two different machines. The turret is 1946 post-war production of Nizhnyi Tagil plant. 

Just a little update on the scenario links issue Ive been working through... every scenario uploaded after May 2016 has the correct links.... only 9 months left but May had 119 scenarios uploaded... LOL.
 
Getting there slowly but surely.

Okay, the CMSF2-Afghanistan 'All in One' is now ready for release.
The modpack itself is a further refinement of the 'initial beta' released back in April & is, at its most basic, a merger between CMA & @Zveroboy1's SF2 Afghanistan work.
Changes mostly involve further tweaks of the CMA terrain to better fit with CMSF2, @Mord's original CMA & CMSF portraits as well as various ISIF tags have been added to the UI, the Soundscape is being upgraded to v1.6 (thanks to @waclaw's HQS 4.0), the uniform mix has been altered, (@Oleksandr's uniforms are now the ones often activated by the [mountains] tag), bridges & highways have been tweaked, @Pete Wenman's rural stone walls have been added & a new lowlands background is being used (sourced with the help of @Erwin).
The marsh to water & rudimentary dutch ANA mods have been deleted as they're no longer needed & @Zveroboy1's green ANP pick-ups are now activated by tag [anppu].
 
In terms of content, I've collated all CMSF & CMSF2 Afghanistan scenarios & campaigns I could find (including a few french ones, now translated, thanks to help by @CMFDR).
The SF2 stuff, by @Zveroboy1 & @puje, has been left almost entirely untouched however the CMSF scenarios & campaigns (including @dragonwynn's 'Heart of Darkness') have all been given a lick of paint... mostly by the simple method of swapping marsh into water tiles.
I've also converted the eight CMA quick battle maps by @Stagler for use with CMSF2 & the 'All in One'.
In total, there's two campaigns (19 scenarios between them), 37 single scenarios* & the 8 quick battle maps.
I was hoping to make some original stuff this year but that'll have to wait for another time.
Anyhow, here's the download link (I advise adding the modpack to an empty mod folder only)...
https://www.mediafire.com/file/s7ignwwd9fo8aue/zzzzCMSF2-Afghanistan.7z/file
... and here's the eye candy...











*About a third of these are by @Combatintman

Linear deployment of mortar and observer to line up with a target is something I have never heard of.  So, while I am not expertly versed in mortar procedures, I suspect it is something that doesn't happen or is taught as the 'ideal' solution.  With all observed fire, so long as the observer can read a map accurately, see the target and can then communicate that to Fire Direction Center/mortar line you are well on the way to getting rounds where you want them.  So long as the people at the FDC/mortar line transcribe those grids accurately and they are passed on to the individual mortars accurately you are further down that path.  If the mortars/guns are correctly sited and even better, surveyed, and the crews know how many turns of the dial = 'up 100 - left 50 etc' on the aiming mechanism and how many charges are needed for the required range, then they should hit the target.  Gunnery is lots of sums and works best if you know where the target is, what the weather's like and where your guns/mortars are so does not need mortar, observer and target to be in a nice straight line.

You need to enable negative voting because nothing bad could possibly happen if you did that. 😈(sarcasm)
But seriously, I think negative feedback is abused in most places and causes an "echo chamber" effect, not to mention a more toxic environment.  Good choice @BFCElvis.  I would thank an upvote you but...