LUCASWILLEN05

On the AI side of things you are aware that the scenario designer has to create the AI battle plan for the scenario. Much can depend on how creative that is but if the job has been done well you will get a good battle that is quite challenging. However, AI is always going to have its limitations and it is not the same as playing against a human opponent which is also possible, In general I think you will find game results reasonably realistic. Luke

You could do a scenario where NATO intervenes with light forces and the Marines for "humanitarian reasons" in a manner similar to Kosovo. Opposition would largely be the insurgent types with some regular army units still loyal to the regime. Objectives could include things like securing oilfields, ports or airports or maybe even regime change, However, this does seem unlikely at the moment but let's not worry too much about the politics. Luke

That would be a pity as there seems to be room for further expanision. In addition to the US Armoured Cavalry Regiment I would be willing to pay a similar rate to existing prices for modules covering Egyptian, IDF, Jordanian, Turkish, Gulf States and Iran. This would allow simulation of one or two other hypothetical Middle Est conflicts. IDF MErkavas cersus the Syrians is really a must and it would also be good to match them against the Egytian M1s and the Jordanian variant of the Challenger. Hopefully a CMSF2 would cover Asia and/or Europe buit please consider further Middle East combat for the current game even if it just simulates a future Arab Isreali War, Luke

Agreed. Just one squadron would be more than enough for a CMSF game. Operationally I doubt you would have more than that in the area represented by CMSF and, depending on the mission, perhaps not even a whole squadron. While you can put something together it would still be easier to have an official TOE. Luke

It would be great to include this regiment in the US TOE men. I would have thought that the Syrian mission would be perfect for a unit like this. 3rd ACR did also see three tours in Iraq so also useful for COIN. Also the light ACR TOE would be a good addition.. Maybe these are already accounted for in Patch 1.30/NATO but, if not, it would be great to have these included in the next patch. Luke

Did someone leave a hatch open? I remember an incident a bit like this many years ago in a WW2 miniatures gameonly I managed to knock out a T-34 with a well placed mortar round. Very unlikely but, if someone did leave a hatch open and a lucky mortar round happened to come along at exactly the right place and time it might cause the ammunition stored inside the vehicle to explode. The fragmentation would not be particularly good for the crew either. :eek: Luke

True. Although that is what your grapical soldiers get paid their graphical dollars for Luke

I'd much rather that CMSF had a hulld down order like the original CM games. On the other hand, learning to master the skill of going hull down in CMSF is very challenging. Sometimes you don't have much choice about where you attack as this is often decided by your senior commanders represented by the scenario designer in game. However, I would not want to advance accross open terrain without at least a smoke screen either. Actually, I have found that the best thing to do in a scenario like this is to do a dismounted infantry attack, keeping the IFVs back to give the infantry fire support. Luke

Agreed on that alhough Strykers, and indeed any armoured vehicle is much more vulnerable to such weapons in close terrain such as the urban combat environment. However. what I had in mind here was more an operational vulnerability taking into account the lack of a heavy integral MBT capabilty within the Stryker brigades. In a situation where you are up against heavy mechanized forces such as a Syrian armoured/mechanized/Republican Guard opponent that matters a lot. A cross attachment in theatre of a platoon to company sized armoured unit should solve most of your problems there. For going into less hostile combat environments such as those involving insurgent types only the Stryker brigade is probably just as good as a heavy armoured unit and has the strategic advantage of being more deployable. Luke

The name's Baba. Ali Baba

In general, when firing againist troops in well constructed buildings I prefer to use the General option. Using the Armour option wastes a resource that can be better employed against enemy IFVs or AFVs. If there are enemy in trenches or in the open then use the Personnel option. The trouble is that there may be a significant time delay before the fire mission actually arrives so the target is often no longer there. On balance I find direct fire far more effective than artillery ever is. Your best bet, particularly if the enemy has poor night vision capability and you have thermal imaging is to call for a smoke missionto blind the defenders in the area (which avoids too much collatorall damage) while you get troops into position. Then put a few heavy rounds into identified enemy held parts of the building and close assault with your infantry asgainst defenders who, by now should be largely suppressed.

Thanks. Just loked down to the bottom of the download notes and it looks like I actually need patch 1.30 and the NATO module to run this scenario. If so then it looks like problem solved and I will need to get NATO which I was planning to in the next couple of weeks or so anyway and the next patch. As a general note it would help if there was a clearer indication given in the scenario downloads section. Just a thought. Luke

I have recently downloaded some scenarios from this site, for example Ambush at Al Sheikj Bader, A Helleva Road Opening, OFW Dune British etc and have used Win RAR to extract them. They are now listed as BTTfiles in the scenarios folder but are not listed in the Battle Folder when I come to run the game. I have the Marines and British mods and the game is patched up to 1.21 so I would expect to be able to run all the scenario files except for the NATO scenarios as I have not yet purchased this. Unless the above actually is the problem can anyone help or suggest what I should do. Thanks Luke

Depends what you want to do. Personally I don;t set up firing arcs as they can be too restrictive. However, for setting up an overwatch position or an ambush that kind of approach is useful. how you set up your fire arcs may be dependent on your mission. Luke

Artillery is not that useful against buildings and never had been. You need a high volume of fire to have any effect on bigh appartment block type buildings. Having said that, for lower quality construction buildings it can be worth a shot if you will pardon the pun. If you are facing stiff opposition from a large and well constructed building direct fire is probably better at silencing the enemy. A couple of shots in the right place is usually enough, Another option is to call up the fly boys. A couple of well placed guided bombs can often take care of problems Failing any of the above then I am afraid you will have to do it thie old fashioned way and send in the infantry to clear the building room by room and floor by floor. Luke

Depends what is in Damascus. If it is just President Assad and his dog you might just get away with a squad of special forces Seriously, to take a city that size you are looking at a couple of divisions at a minimum which is what Baghdad required and resistance there was fairly light as things turned out. Obviously we cannot look at the whole of our hypothetical Battle of Damascus, just parts of it fought by a few companies or a battalion or two. Getting back to our low level tactical discussion. Ideally I like a tank or an IFV to provide overwatch in addition to any infantry heavy weapons. Good for taking out fire from apartment blocks, mosques etc (ROE permitting) Although heat does tire troops on Hunt it is an order worth giving if you are not sure what is up there and the distances are fairly shortYou probably only need to give this order to your lead squad as you should have time to stop your two rear squads if you have not already ordered them to stop at a certain location anyway. Sending a fire team on a pre attack recon could also be a good idea. Also, if it is available, don't forget to use smoke on suspected enemy positions. If you have might vision you will be more able to see through it (excpet incendiary smoke) than those who don't have it. Blinding and supessing the enemy so you can get into a good close assualt should work well. Another possibility is that, instead of going down the street you instead go through the buildings and/or over the rooftops. If going through wallsyou can always use explosives to mousehole your way through them but this does take longer.

I'd say that it depends what you think is out there and/or what you actually know. If it were me and if there was enough time to do it I would be inclined to be cautious and send a squad or even just a fire team to recon the route for a couple of hundred meters with units in overwatch to cover them. With lucj they should locate ambushes and IEDsI would probably give them an order like hunt or slow although the latter option is more tiring. If time is at a premium then sending a larger force is worht considering but the risk with this is that the whole lot could fall into a serius close range ambush while out on the open street which is why I tend to favour a one squad forward, 2 squads back at a distance of between 50 and 100 meters. Luke

You could have two up snd one back. You could have one up and two back. Depends on the situation. It would be a good idea to have some units on overwatch in a suitable position, partivularly heavy weapons (including ATGMs, Machineguns etc) This is true whether we are talking about a platoon, a company or a battalion except we are talking about larger units in the latter cases. At battlion level for instance you might send one or two companies in front while keeping the rest in reserve ready to manuever. Luke

That's true. It seems the Americans are re-equiping the new Iraqi army with the M1A1 http://www.defencetalk.com/iraqi-army-drives-into-future-with-m1a1-abrams-tanks-31747/ In our proposed hypothetical scenario this could lead to the US having to face its own equipment on the battlefield. Snother thing./ Did anyone read Simon Perason's Total War 2006. This started with a series of Islamic revolutions in the Middle East. Though there was some ground fighting between the Israelis and Arabs (particularly Egyptians) Pearson's conflict remained an air war until the use of WMD which rather spoiled the book for me as the scenario of NATO fighting a magor ground war in the Middle East was actually much more interesting. Luke

I don't think it's a bug. However, I think you should be very careful about when and where you split a squad. I rarely do it myself and only when the tactical situation requires it. An alternative is to use the Assualt order which makes the squad operate in a similar way to the way it would if you split it for the purpose as attacking a position. There might be times when you don't want to do this for something specific where you don't want to risk the whole squad. Luke

There was the Barbaossa to Berlin campaign game which was, very disappointingl cancelled. Something like that for CMSF where you could command several battlegroups on a side making operational decisions in the way that you do in a tabletop minaitures campaign game would be really great as you could run much larger actions that way. Howver, whether there are the tecnical skills to create the operational/tactical interfaces needed and the budget to get it done to acceptable standards for the user is another matter. Possibly thiz is why the original campaign project was cancelled. Luke

I think there has to be a degree of abstraction aklthough I do not recall seeing squads lining up behind a single window. I do accept that the program does not always identify the precise location of windows, doors and for that matter AFVs so sometimes you do see graphical representations that appear, visually, a little silly. But, certainly until software and hardware improve sufficiently to do away with these issues, we have to put up with them. Personally I prefer to do the job of the battlegroup commander rather than worry too much about minor graphical details like this. Luke

It is perfectly reasonable for a scenario designer to simulate ROE if he wants to in a particualr game. While the background campaign does have a dirty bomb attack traced to Syria as the Casus Belli the international press would be covering the war in great detail and it would not look good if the US was portrayed as acting in an unjust manner, inflicting large scale civillian casualties, destroying mosques, hospitals, schools etc due to a profligate use of heavy weapons. In oper terrain the US can make maximum use of firepower and the Syrians would know this. So, like Iraq in 2003 it would be sensible for them to fall back into the cities where the ranges are much shorter and they force the US to choose between taking heavier losses or relaxing ROE with the resultant bad press. Luke

Vietnam probably could be achievable although with some modifications. However, it was by no means all jungle warfare with actions in urban areas such as Hue, semi conventional infantry warfare on the DMZ and plenty of action in the rural village areas against the Vietcong. Even some tank battles during the late war period (Easter Offensive 1972 and the final 1975 NVA offensive. I agree that CMSF is particularly good for urban warfare but is that not a result of the weaponry available to both sides. Tank battles in open terrain are sometimes challenging but NATO forces are clearly favoured to win these due to their technological superiority unless ther are significantly larger Syrian numbers of best quality tanks like the T-90 or the best versions of the T-72. However, COIN operations and/or a conventional Syrian defence in dense terrain are a lot more challenging. Luke