LUCASWILLEN05
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Posts posted by LUCASWILLEN05
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I don't think CM:SF will really play very well with an entire regiment. However, it is possible to make the 3rd ACR..Use 3 US Army Cavalry Squadrons, each one with 3 Cavalry Troops and 1 Armored Company. The 4th (Air Cav) Squadron would have to be put together ad-hoc really since CMSF does not really deal with helicopters as player controlled units, but does have some "light infantry" that could be used about the same.
All together though, the regiment would crowd a map of CMSF size, and probably in this sized of map you would only see one of the Cav troops, and part of the Armored company, from 1 of the 3 squadrons.
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
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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
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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
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Agreed. But that is a long way to hump javelins + reloads
True. Although that is what your grapical soldiers get paid their graphical dollars for
Luke
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Thanks for all of the replies. It has really helped me to come up to speed on changing my thinking about CMSF.
The one thing I have decided that I don't like about this scenario is the size of the map. It should be longer and the US forces should not start in LOS of the OPFOR.
My reason for this is as follows:
Given the ATGM environment, why would you advance up a road in the open towards a crossroads that you suspect might be held against you?
What I don't like is the fact that you have to race the AFVs off into a semi-wooded,terrain-masked part of the map. Perhaps things have completely inverted from everything I thought I understood about employing armor, but it doesn't seem healthy to race buttoned-up AFVs into un-scouted, un-observed, un-infantry swept wooded terrain.
But anyway, thanks again for all of the comments. I have compelted the scenario twice now, once on Veteran and once on Elite and only lost one Bradley (on Elite) due to my mis-judging a ridge.
That is the other thing I find more-difficult in CMFS. For all that the terrain is modeled at a "higher" resolution, having the movement marker jump by such large amounts make it difficult for me to have confidence that I am creeping up on a ridge correctly. I guess I have to learn to trust that when I move Slow and select are area that clearly looks like it covers both sides of a ridge line, that the AI will move the troops correctly.
SNAFU
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
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When playing Syrian in CMSF, I find Strykers often survive a RPG7V1 hit, and MGM's sometimes even survive RPG29 and Kornet hits. And survivability of Stryker passengers after a hit is also pretty good.
They are only poor with extremely super high standards.
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
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Hi all,
I am pretty certain that if I just target the likely places for ATGMs and start blasting away from the get-go that I would resolve this problem. But this seems a bit gamey to me. I mean, do the US forces just plaster anything that *might* be a possible site without any regard to the ROE and to the presence of civilians?
3) One of the big differences I personally am struggling with from the previous CMs is that you have many less personnel on the ground to accomplish the mission. I keep wishing I had twice as many troopers (I don't need any more Bradleys) to accomplish the mission.
I think the premise for Syria is that this is what is termed a Hybrid War rather like Iraq 2003 involving both conventional and unconventional (insurgent type) forces, potentially operating on the same battlefield at the same time.
Regarding Point 1. Yes, you could plaset everything in site with artillery or smother the area with airpower. But the scenario designer can set up the scenario victory conditions to model the ROE. For example he can restrict the air and artillery available. He could set up the victory conditions such that certain buildings such as schools, mosques and hospitals should not be damaged during the operation. Usually you would be briefed about that in the scenario. The way you would do this is to go into the mission parameters fieldand selct the terrain objectives field. (Assume for our purposed this is a mosque.) You will then select the Preserve option, Then you select the side to which this objective is known, It could be both sides, just the blue side, jest the red side or it vould be unkown to anyone,Finally you decide how many points achieving this objectve us worth. In the Data Section of the mission setup you can also set the civillian density which tends to influecnce the range at which insurgent types can be spotted. You can choose anything from None to Very Heavy (which would be a good option for a large urban area from which civillians have not yet fled.
Now, if I was taking heavy fiore from that particular mosque I would still call in artillery or airpower but there might be a greater delaybefore it arrives and you might not get it all. Even if you do then you will get a penalty or partial penalty if the damage is significant enough/
On Point 2. NATO and particularly the US does seem somewhat short of leg infantry and often you have less than you would like, particularly if operating in an urban area. This is the situation as it appears to be in real world operations such as those in Iraq or Afghanistan. Interestingly this exact situation was predicet by Daniel P Bolger in the conclusion of Death Ground: Today's Americain infantry in Battle. This could well be a key US weakness in present and potential future conflicts like the Syrian campaign portrayed in the game. Another potential weakness is the vulnerability of the Stryker brigades given the vulnerability of their IFVs to any halfway decent anti tank equipment, the poor armour of their anti tank company and the lacl of any integral heavy armour capability.
Luke
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The name's Baba. Ali Baba
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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.
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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
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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
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I found the machine grenade launchers are very effective.
The manual says that the original under barrel launcher ammo has a range of 150m. The manual also states that the MGL's use the same ammo. However, in "From Dawn to Setting Sun" I had to set covered arcs of 500m for the Marines, and the auto grenade launchers were surprisingly accurate at 500m+ ranges.
Is that an accurate depiction of RL?
Also, if personal weapons are only for self-protection, does that mean one shouldn't waste ammo by setting covered arcs of over 150m, but let the crew served weapons or vehicles do all else?
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
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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
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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.
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First, I am assuming vehicles that for some reason need to use a road that one assumes will eventually come under fire.
I find I tend in 90% of scenarios which require me to move up a road whether in urban or rural that I will send units out on both sides of the road to locate enemy ambushes (with whatever overwatch I can safely organize). If it were CM1, they would detect daisy chain mines, as well as trigger anti-personnel mines.
My question was whether it's better to use a larger force on each side of the road (ie one squad on each side with one squad in reserve), or divide one squad and send the minimum up on each side of the road. Each team however, could be backed up by a full squad maybe 50m behind.
Abneo said "the actual "action force" so it should be as large as possible." So, in the majority of cases that would suggest the 2nd option with as little committed forward as possible.
And since there are only so many RL tactics one can use successfully in CM, I am talking about the best game tactic.
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
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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
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The current Iraqi government - as far as it is formed - is very much dominated by pro Iran factions.
And the two regions have often been united in a single empire in the past.
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Without getting too much into the international politics isn't the 1921 treaty between the Soviet Union and Iran still in force? Technically this could be used to involve Russia in this conflict since this treaty is one of "mutual co-operation and friendship" betwen the two nations. Iran also holds observer status with the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation which could, at some point become a formal military alliance. Member nations already have held military excercises.
Although Russia and other SCO countries probably woud not intervenme in our UIC War there is always the possibility that they might and it might be interesting to allow for the possibility for wargaming purposes.
Luke
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I myself am really looking forward to CMBN and all it's modules... I very much enjoy CMSF and all it's modules as well...
Modern warfare definitely has it's pro's and cons, but i find the game very fun especially in H2H games. it's thrilling to interrupt an orderly blue advance with some IED's or carbombs. And it is quite fun to hose down an area with high velocity cannon fire from a Marder... for the sake of balance i have fond great scenarios with red having superior position or numbers against blue to be quite balanced indeed. as well as blue on blue or red on red games...
I imagine when CMBN finally comes out i will be playing both CMSF and CMBN regularly...
I may finally drop off on my CMAK play though as the club im in "The band of brothers combat mission club" is going to support CMBN so i wont be negligent in no longer playing CMAK...
Likewise. I would really need to have UK forces for Normandy before I can consider it but once they are available I would probably buy. Would be nice to see expansions covering the Med and Russian Front. On the other hand it looks like there are some good alternatives on this site.
Luke
3rd Armoured Cavalry
in Combat Mission Shock Force 1
Posted
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