Joshua

I am not trying to knock CMSF anywhere, any game has gaps. The point here is that it has been several years, several modules, and now a brand new game and even the simple gaps haven't yet been filled. So the idea is to prompt battlefront to fill atleast a few holes before moving on to the next game. For something like ATGM deploy times it is as simple as watching a video of the real thing in action, making an assessment, and deleting the number 90 and replacing it with something else. For firing from the shoulder, the coding already exists. So for instance you can fire an M240 undeployed with less accuracy and deployed with more accuracy. I'm sure making SPG 9 and AT 13 fire undeployed with less accuracy wouldn't be a difficult fix. For SPG 9 you can watch the videos and see for yourself that it does happen and is possible, For AT 13 it is already included in the manual that it is possible, so the only step now is to acknowledge what we already know and update the game. For machine guns, as I mentioned continuous fire was already in CMBB. The situation was if you were ~100m or less from the enemy then it is time to let 'er rip. As I mentioned if you want to know how a PKM is used in combat, you can look up videos for yourself on youtube, liveleak, or maybe other places as well. The short version is that you can fire from the hip, you can fire while moving, you can blind fire, you can use 250 round belts, you can fire all 250 in one burst, a single guy can have a 250 round belt in the gun, another on his shoulder. In CMSF a two man team has 400 rounds, less than one guy can carry by himself, you can fire in only short bursts, and basically it is a much less flexible weapon with much less firepower. Here is something simple. Stick your head up, fire your rpg duck, move to a new spot and repeat. This is the most basic tactic. In CMSF if I set a guy in a trench with an RPG he will fire, then stay exposed until he is hit. Maybe he will start cowering if too many shots land near him. I know of no way to get a guy to shoot and scoot, even though this was a feature of vehicles as long ago as CMBB. Of course more advance tactics are go around the corner of a building, fire rpg, then go back around the corner. Go over the crest of a hill, fire, then go back. Forget advanced tactics, I can't even get a guy in a trench to fire and then duck. The simple fix is a shoot and hide command for any unit. The next fix is to get the AI to do it. The next is a shoot and scoot command. This is just the most basic ordinary tactic ever, pop out, fire your rpg, then run. Not only can the AI not do it, even the player can't do it in turn based mode, or in real time without excessive mico managing. Anyone who is interested in war can go and study the July 2006 war, it is in my opinion the most important lesson for modern forces in the past 20 years. That experience shows that a military force can withstand 100,000 155mm artillery shells, thousands of precision guided bombs, and an outnumbering force of thousands of elite troops backed by modern armor and still win and still win while taking a parity in casualties. That war shows that helicopters, even apaches can be shot down by shoulder fired missiles, and other experiences show they can even be shot down by machine guns. Comparing that war and CMSF you can see that CMSF has a lot of potential, but right now is closer to the fantasy of Western generals than a simulation of modern warfare. The biggest problems are at the smallest levels, where even the most basic tactics of firing, and then repositioning are difficult or impossible to perform adequately.

Here are some articles and videos about the July 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. If this war were to be made into a CM game the title might be Combat Mission: Shocked Force All the assumptions of CMSF are that US forces would win in an invasion of Syria. The experiences of the July 2006 raises at least the possibility that Syria could plausibly win a conflict. http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=31957 http://conflictsforum.org/2006/how-hezbollah-defeated-israel-2/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-6UWGPfwJs Reviewing documents and videos it is clear that CMSF doesn't accurately represent the real capabilities of weapons and tactics for the Opfor. For instance anyone can watch videos an see soldiers firing SPG 9s from their shoulders, but in CMSF it is not possible. Even in the documents for CMSF it is written that AT 7 and AT 13 missiles can also be fired from the shoulder, but in the game it is not possible. You can watch yourself in these videos and see AT 3 and AT 14 missiles being deployed by teams into firing positions. It takes 5 seconds, not 90 seconds. You can see partially that one AT 3 guidance module can be linked to multiple rockets so that an operator can fire 2,3 or 4 rockets without waiting for reloading. Beyond this there are many many other issues that we could raise some affecting one faction, and others all of them. There are a wide range of combat tactics and abilities that are not modeled CMSF, and you can watch videos on the net from various modern wars to see what these are. Some of these are so mundane it is a shock. For instance machine guns can only fire in bursts, and never fire in long continuous bursts, even though this feature was in previous CM titles. Seeing new weapons and modules added and new work being put into CM Normandy I am hugely dissappointed because I feel like CMSF has huge gaps and is not yet finished. How many years has the game been out and I still cannot use the inventory menu to drop an item? Even something completely basic and ordinary is not completed. I tried a quick battle the other day and selected infantry for both sides, and one side got 50 humvees and no infantry. How many years has the game been out now and this feature, which is was a huge feature in previous CM titles, hardly works? I like CMSF, and before adding even one new piece of equipment I would like to see existing equipment ironed out, various scenario features made to work, improvements in the AI at all levels, an actually functional inventory system, terrain that works better and all the other features that belong in the base game. The bottom line is that CMSF is not polished to level befitting a developer of such abilities and previous achievements as Battlefront. CMSF has a huge potential for continued improvement, parallel to and hopefully preceding in priority additions to new equipment and new scenarios.