SelfLoadingRifle
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Posts posted by SelfLoadingRifle
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In my opinion the true measure of a game is always the quality and variety of the user generated scenarios that are posted.
I find it telling that the very best of these for CM have been scenarios designed for CMSF. 'Helluva Road Opening 2' is outstanding, 'Joint Venture' still remains my favourite CM scenario of all time and now we have been presented with 'The Daraya Tank Raid.'
CMSF may well be the oldest game in the CM2 series, but I find myself coming back to it again and again and it is not hard to work out why.
A heartfelt thanks thanks to all the scenario designers (and modders) that have been involved.
SLR
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Many years ago, I had to throw Molotov Cocktails at an old open topped scout car (non-runner) as part of my FIBUA (fighting in built up areas) training. We lit and threw our Molotovs from a first-floor window. The scout car was about 20 yards away. I recall that it was quite a difficult exercise.
I managed to connect, but (alas) was not quite accurate enough to score a bullseye and lob it through the open top.
My extremely limited experience would suggest that chucking things accurately at vehicles from buildings is rather hard, even when they are not shooting back at you.
Happy days!
SLR
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In the 'Men With Suspicious Hats' scenario, I have just had a Pz4G (late) survive four direct hits with a PIAT, (two of them side-on) and stay fully functional.
I really don't know if this was down to it being a very lucky panzer or if it was due to a gremlin in the software!
SLR
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In answer to your questions...
I can immediately start the game. It doesn't shut down completely, it just minimises.
There are no error messages.
I don't have to reboot. Also, doing so hasn't solved the problem.
For the record, the laptop is an HP Pavilion g series quad core with AMD Radeon graphics.
The only programs and utilities that seem to be running are Steam and Skype. I will try turning both of those off and see what happens.
Again, many thanks.
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Thanks for answering... The laptop isn't overheating and there are no other instabilities. I have tried rebooting, but it doesn't seem to have any effect.
SLR
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My laptop has recently developed an annoying fault. Every 30 minutes or so, Combat Mission cuts out in mid-game and reverts to desktop. I then have to click on the CM logo at the bottom to resume play. It also does this with I-tunes when I am watching a film, so I am sure that it isn't the CM software.
Does anyone more computer literate than I am know what might be causing the problem?
Many thanks,
SLR
P.S. I am running Windows 7
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Looking back at CMAK - still on my hard drive - I am reminded that there was no official Monte Cassino scenario that was really worthy of the name. The only really impressive Cassino battle that I possess is a download called 'Third Battle for Cassino' by Rick Bodle (aka twodogs.)
I trust that by the time they release 'Gustav', Battlefront will have put the situation right. In fact I am expecting nothing less than a Cassino epic from them. Also any scenario designers out there would do very well to get hold of Rick's scenario. His map is absolutely superb, and I am sure that it would be a relatively simple exercise to cross-deck it to CMFI.
If Rick's scenario is unobtainable, feel free to pm me with email details and I will forward it on.
SLR
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A few thoughts...
My late father - 3rd County of London Yeomanry - fought in both Africa and Italy and I recall that he was very dismissive of the Italians. I never came across them in my much more modest military service, but one British Army saying that I was taught sums it up perfectly. "There are no bad soldiers, there are only bad officers."
According to pretty much all of the reference books I have studied, the Italian Army was atrociously led. Throw inferior kit into the mix and it's hardly surprising that overall they performed so badly. I should add that this is no reflection at all on their courage.
I think that CMFI has got the balance about right. Trying to win when playing Italian is one of the harder challenges in the game.
SLR
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Will they wear the party uniform as differentiated from the normal Heer and SS uniforms?
Michael
I have it on good authority that they will be closely modelled on the Blue Meanies from the film "Yellow Submarine."
SLR:D
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Even the diagonally striped shadows that my AMD Radeon graphics card were giving me seem to have gone.
SLR
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Winning the firefight without any real firepower of your own... This seems to be the name of the game when commanding the Italians as I am finding out the hard way in the scenario 'Lemon Hill'. My infantry are only armed with rifles, the Breda M30 LMG is such a crappy piece of kit that the gunners might just as well be using rifles and my AB41 armoured cars have all the resilience of wet blotting paper to incoming enemy fire. The only way I will be able to crack this particular nut is by using my artillery.
I have Brixias, but they have a maximum range of 500m which means that they are comfortably outranged by the on-map American artillery. The terrain is open and advancing them to a position from which they can bring down effective fire without being cut to ribbons is much easier said than done.
But wait... I have priority of fire from two 65mm artillery pieces that are set up somewhere off-map. The trouble is that, as the rule-book states; "the royal Italian Army did not have any radios in their infantry formations at all, instead relying on pre-established field telephones (and) messengers carrying written orders for communications."
Blimey! Serious question: how did the Iti dropshorts go about the business of bringing effective fire down on the enemy? Were Aldis lamps or semaphore flags involved - and more importantly to me as the O.C. how long did the process take?
The only radios in my ORBAT are those fitted into my AB41s and given the baco-foil like quality of the armoured cars using the two troop commanders as FOOs would be nothing less than suicidal:confused:
So just how am I supposed to use my off-map artillery? Is a pre-registered barrage at the start of the scenario the only real option? Any/all suggestions would be most gratefully received.
Many thanks,
SLR:)
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After spending the last 30 minutes trying to download from all 3 of your shister AD infested, lobby mirrors, I have given up hope before I end up throwing something at my monotor. IMO I find it sad that you won't even provide your own link for the download to your customers who have paid for this product! And instead force us to play this ludicrous ad game with these rip off artist, mirror sites! That take pride in seeing how to trick you into buying products from these white collar thieves that I so despise!
Hmm.
I didn't have any problem apart from the usual de-quarantining thing with Norton.
SLR
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In the real world, a wall on its own would usually be a very poor location from which to set a deliberate ambush due to the probability of being spotted before the ambush was sprung - silhouetted heads and all that sort of thing. However snap ambushes can sometimes be pulled off under less than ideal conditions.
Additional cover that masked the ambushers from view until the enemy had entered the killing ground would almost certainly be needed. In depth cover such as undergrowth, hedgerows/bocage, trees and buildings would give far more scope for the ambusher, particularly when added to knowledge of the enemy's likely route of approach.
SLR
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My analysis of a CM2 turn (for what it's worth)
Here we go... Shermans MGs and mortars to give covering fire while the infantry go in... Right lads, go right flanking and make the best use of the cover.
Press the button...
... So far so good, the infantry are making progress, what enemy fire there is is being supressed by the mortars and the Shermans... wait a minute...
BLOODY HELL, A TIGER.
ARE YOU BLIND HE'S ON YOUR LEFT YOUR CANNOT MISS HIM... OH GOD, REVERSE, REVERSE... TOO LATE.
What's that? an MG 42 and wait... a mortar shell. Another minute or so and it'll be fire for effect, right where 3 Platoon is. BUG OUT WHILE YOU HAVE THE CHANCE.
Right, plan B. 2 Platoon have just arrived as reinforcements and some TD's have reached my location...
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That's nice of you SLR. I was thinking the same.
I really like the look of this one though. The fertilizer hitting the windmill with almost zero intelligence and most of the lads tucked up in their billets or in the NAAFI (or U.S. equivalent thereof) playing pool or watching TV. This could turn out to be another 'Joint Venture' but on a much more epic scale:D
P.S. I have begun my tactical appreciation.
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Todd,
I corrected some spelling mistakes in your briefing for the first scenario. I also tidied it up somewhat - punctuation, word repetition, that sort of thing. (I am an English teacher.)
I will gladly forward it on to you if you could give me an email address.
SLR.
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So here is my first thought. I think a really cool next step in realism is to require the player to evacuate casualties from the battlefield(instead of the current system where they simply disappear). That would create new tactical challenges, and you get another kind of casualty if you can't evacuate your wounded(wounded POW's). This would make certaiTn vehicles(like humvees and transport helicopters) far more useful than they currently are to modern gamers.
This is completely the wrong mindset for both my generation and that of WW2. In dem dere days - at least in a european environment - the wounded were left to look after themselves, at least by the fighting troops, UNTIL the tactical situation had been resolved.
However in a CMSF/Afghan situation, were battles are won as much in newspaper columns as they are on the actual battlefield, I would agree with you completely.
SLR
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Why almost no non-British Empire country adopted the Enfield system before WWII but LOTS of countries adopted the Mauser one?
I must admit that I haven't ever fired a Enfield and just a few shots with a Kar 98k but I have a pair of nº 4 (one of them is a mint postwar Irish one) and several wartime Mausers in my collection. They are deactivated, so I can't actually fire them, but the Spanish way of applying deactivation until a year ago (the law unfortunately has changed for worst) was just drilling three holes in the barrel and that's all (MG's included) so I can fully operate the bolts of all my rifles, MG's and MP's. The fact is that I strongly dislike the Enfield bolt and love the Mauser one which I find works much smoother than the Enfield. It is true that the Enfield loads 10 cartridges rather than just 5 in the Mauser and the Enfield magazine is detachable while the Mauser one is not, but I think I would prefer going to war with a Mauser rather than an Enfield.
The fact is that for a time British also prefered a Mauser following the Boer War experiences (= accuracy preferred over volume of fire), so they designed a Mauser rifle, the P13/P14. However they reverted to the Enfield after WWI experiences (= volume of fire preferred over accuracy).
Fernando, I would reserve judgment until you have actually fired all these weapons and also until you have fired a few rapid practices - the mad minute being a good example. The short Lee Enfield bolt stroke that cocks when closing the bolt beats the long Mauser bolt stroke that cocks when opening - every single time. It is simply impossible to sustain the same rate of accurate fire with a Mauser or Springfield action that is possible with a Lee Enfield.
SLR
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I think that everyone is looking at this the wrong way around. Most armies of that era were conservative in outlook when it came to weapons. The bolt action rifle had served them well in the past and there was no reason for this happy state of affairs to change. In the case of us Brits The SMLE and the No 4 were quite simply the best battle bolt action rifles in the world (and they still are). True the Russians accepted the SVT40 automatic rifle for service, but it never came close to eclipsing the tried and tested Mosin Nagant.
The Americans were truly progressive in adopting the M1 Garand and in doing so showed all of us the way forward.
SLR
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OT I know, but two comments:
Green Jackets: Great regiment.
SLR: Best weapon I've ever used.
R
Alas the R.G.J. are no more having fallen victim to the scourge of amalgamation. They are now part of the Rifles.
"Celer et audax".
SLR
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There is definitely... eventually.
I don't think anyone outside Battlefront knows any more than that.
SLR
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1) Positioning is everything. Siting MGs (or A/T guns for that matter) so that their arcs face forward will result in a short and very exciting life as once they open fire and reveal their positions, everything up to and including the kitchen sink will be hurled back at them. Siting them on the flanks with their positions hidden from the front and their arcs facing diagonally inward is the way to go. When they open up, they are far less likely to be spotted and there is the added advantage (particularly with A/T guns) that the enemy side armour will be exposed. If you have MGs (and A/T guns) correctly deployed on both flanks, your enemy will be caught in a cross-fire which can make for a very bad day for him indeed.
2) Where possible don't leave your MGs in the same place. After the initial hit, bug out to an alternative position. Don't hang around. This will avoid much of the unpleasantness of getting stonked by mortars or shot up by some heavy piece of enemy ordnance.
I hope this helps.
SLR
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Bare-arsed hills and pieces of isolated cover are very dangerous places for anyone, both in real-life and in CM. Unfortunately the terrain doesn't always give you much choice in the matter. Some very good suggestions have been made on this thread, but the bottom line is that there are no easy answers.
SLR
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The forced collectivizations were justified by the state as needed to break the class of citizens most resistant to Soviet rule.
This is the key phrase, but for the state, read Stalin.
In the words of an old song: "It's not what you do but the way that you do it." Sure, Soviet agriculture was in urgent need of modernisation but it should be noted that the immediate effects of the collectivisation program was reduced output and a 50% reduction in the number of livestock. The peasants of course resisted and this was the most significant factor of all as resistance was seen by Stalin as far more important than trifling matters such as loss in production as his long and bloodstained history bears out.
Starvation was his chosen weapon and he engineered a man-made famine in the Ukraine by EXPORTING grain while the peasants who had farmed it were left without food. Millions died and this was in the Ukraine - the land of the black earth. Only a couple of days ago I was talking to a Ukranian lady in Yuzhnoye Butovo south of Moscow , half of whose family were lost as a result. Needless to say, Stalin is NOT one of her heroes.
Was it really necessary to murder millions of people to turn the Soviet Union from an agrarian to an industrial state? No, but as already stated, that was completely beside the point. The peasants revolted against Stalin therefore the peasants had to die.
Stalin's purges were to continue and almost resulted in complete downfall for both him and Russia. His perception that the Red Army was a source of resistance to him resulted in a purge where 30,000 soldiers were executed. This included nearly all of the Russian General Staff, highly professional soldiers, who were replaced by politically reliable party hacks. The process was completed just in time for the Germans to invade leaving the Red Army almost leaderless. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.
Russia and the Soviet Union have much to be proud of between 1941 and 1945. However their victory over Germany for reasons mentioned was much more bloody and protracted than it should have been. In my opinion, the victory was achieved IN SPITE of Stalin and not because of him. Stalin once said that a single death was a tragedy while a million deaths was a statistic. I beg to differ. A million deaths represents a million tragedies. Natasha would certainly agree.
SLR
New file at the Repository: CMSF Daraya Tank Raid (2013-05-19)
in CMSF Scenario and Mod Design Forum
Posted
A gentle hint... Bimbling down any of the obvious routes is a great way of getting bumped as the enemy will always have them covered... so make your own route in and out!! So how does one do this? A small tip: the gun on the T72 is a very useful tool for knocking down walls!
Remember that you have a limited number of infantry. I used mine to protect the flanks of my armour on my (explosively created) route in. The guns on my tanks and BMPs were always close enough to hand to blast the opposition whenever a contact was made.
Use proper fire and manoeuvre tactics, particularly at intersections. An RPG up the arse can be terminal.
I got a marginal victory the first time I played this, but I had a high number of vehicle immobilisations. The second time I ran it - with much fewer thrown tracks etc - I got a major victory:D
I hope this helps.
SLR