black_prince

I don't think Syrian air defences would cause all that much trouble to be honest, although it may take a little longer to neutralise. They mostly consist of fixed batteries of SA-3s and SA-5s. The mobile stuff would cause a bit more of a headache but even Lybia had plenty of SA-8s which failed to have any succcess in the many months of air operations over that country. They do have a few batteries of S-300s which are mobile but they are huge, conspicuous systems which, once located could be knocked out with stand off weapons. Nonetheless, I imagine an S-300 hunt would take up alot of resources in the early stages of the campaign. Another thorny problem would have been their arsenals of ballistic and quasi balistic missiles such as the M-600/Fatah-110 which uses an inertial guidance system with GPS updates and has an electro-optical terminal seeker. Syria has its own factory for this particular missile which would suggest they have them available in significant numbers. The only saving grace is that its range is only about 200kms so it is really more of a tactical weapon.

The Typhoon is actually included in the British module. I doubt it would have been used in Syria in 2008 though. The first Typhoon squadron only becam operational in mid 2007 IIRC and even today, many air to ground weapons have still not been integrated on it due to budgetary restrictions. The Harriers and Tornados would have been much more capable in the air to ground role at the time, even if some capabilities were introduced early with the advent of a major conflict. Even now, in 2011, Typhoons were restricted to dropping Paveways over Lybia while the Tornados were able to employ a much more varied arsenal. As regards the air to air role, the US would have been able to handle this without the need to strain the still fragile logistics chain of the RAF's brand new fighter. The only reasons I can see for the Typhoon going to war in Syria would be: 1. To boost export sales as we would then be able to brand the Typhoon as being 'battle proven' (I could only see this happening if one of its competitors such as the Rafale were going to be deployed). 2. Overstrech of the Tornado and Harrier fleets due to other commitments. As for the F-22, I agree with Dietrich and BlackMoria.

Thanks for the reply George (and also, thanks for some of your great scenarios, UK Armoured Assault is a favourite of mine). However, I wasn't surprised so much by the fratricide as I've splashed my own guys on many occassions and been delighted by the fact that this was incorporated as a feature. What took me aback was the fact that my panzergreandier fired his UGL at point blank range at an enemy cowering at his feet. I'm not even sure that a 40mm grenade would detonate at such close range in RL but I was more concerned by the behaviour.

I was recently playing the All Flights Delayed battle from the NATO module when I witnessed a rather bizarre spectacle. I was clearing a bulding in one of the compounds with a squad of Panzergrenadiers when they encountered the remnants of a Syrian infantry squad cowering in one of the rooms. My Panzergrenadiers began picking them off with their G36s and two of them rushed over to a corner where there were 3 Syrians cowering together. The Panzergrenadiers then took aim and I was expecting a stream of tracers to finish them off. What actually happened was that I heard the distinctive 'pop' of a UGL being fired, then saw an explosion at the feet of the Panzergrenadiers who promptly fell down dead. As I play in RT, there is no saved game to back up my story but I can assure you that this is not the result of some misunderstanding on my part. There were no other Syrians left alive in the compound at this stage and this took place on the ground floor of a building in the corner of a walled compound. On checking afterwards it turned out that one of my dead pixeltruppen was in fact the section UGL man. I'm posting this not so much because I'm annoyed at what happened but because I've never seen this happen before and was wondering if it may have something to do with behaviour modifications brought in with the latest patch. Has anyone else ever witnessed this sort of thing before? If so was it pre or post the v1.32 patch?

This is one of my favourite missions from CMA. I used all my smoke shells from the mortars and 2S1s to allow my guys to cross the open fields on the approach to the village without getting chewed up by sharpshooting Muj. Remember to check the wind condition before plotting your missions to make the best use of the smoke. Prior to laying down smoke, I did hit a few select targets in the village with HE. On the whole, the results were disappointing. However, the arty did tear gaps in alot of the buildings' perimiter walls which was very useful. The 120mm mortars seemed most effective against the buildings, this may just be because they are organised into 3 tube sections whereas the 2S1s are only 2 guns to a section. I brought one platoon down from a blocking position in the surrounding hills so I ended up attacking the village with four plattoons, two on either side of the road. Initially I had two plattons take up overwatch positions in the irrigation ditches/trenches that cut through the fields. These platoons were able to give quite effective support to the two plattoons assaulting into the village. Once my guys were inside the village they fared quite well against the muj at close quarters although alot of micro-management was required. Most of the buildings have sides with no windows meaning you can rush your guys right up to them and get them to throw grenades through the walls while the defenders can't fire back. Very gamey but it's up to you. SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER Imagine a line drawn west to east, bisecting the village at the northen most wall of the mosque compound. The majority of the muj are south of this line. There are groups of of muj in the village to the north of that line however they try to flee fairly early on in the mission. I cut them all down by placing big area target missions for my Hinds along the escape routes. The Hinds weren't much use against the buildings. I had all four try to attack the mosque with bombs. Only two of the bombs went anywhere near it. One demolished a section of the perimiter wall, the other landed within a few meters of the mosque and took out one of the walls on the ground floor. Didn't seem to bother the occupants though. The affect of strafing the buildings with guns and rockets was very, very temporary. The PKs didn't seem to have any suppressive affect when engaging the buildings with area fire. It was mostly a case of taking on the Muj at close quarters with RPGs and AKs or flattening buildings with concentrated artillery fire.

I think I figured out how to get the GMGs to reload from the WMIKs. The WMIKs have the GMG ammo split between ready and reserve ammo. Once the GMGs are out of ready ammo it seems as though they automatically take some more from the reserve stash although this takes a little longer. So all you have to do is put your dismounted crew back into their WMIK (it seems as though it has to be their own to work) and they will automatically re-load.

None, 88s are strictly stationery at the moment afaik.

IMHO, CAs should remain tight. Although the point about friendly fire may not be relevant to the game, JonS is right about the use of firing arcs in real life, even if few people use them this way in the game. It might seem 'logical' for units to return fire if fired at but will the TacAI be able to to distinguish between incoming fire that is aimed at it and area fire (as mentioned) or rounds that were aimed at another unit but just happened to land nearby. Even if the TacAI knew telepathically when another unit was gunning for it, there are still situations when it makes sense for a unit not to return fire. E.g. A spotter on a roof to comes under fire from an enemy sniper at long range. By returning fire, the spotter may actually expose itself to more enemy units and draw their fire without having any hope of suppressing the enemy sniper at long range. If a unit is taking a shedload of incoming to the point where it is being sppressed and unit morale is being affected then it should lose its covered arc (this may happen already, I don't know) just as the TacAI already modifies its orders and behaviour in such situations. With regard to the second point about a unit continuing to engage an enemy that has passed through the arc, this again might appear to be 'logical' behaviour. However, consider the following situation: You have a unit or several units covering an ambush kill zone. An enemy unit passes rapidly through the killzone before you can engage it. Would you want your unit(s) to open fire, giving away their position and ruining the ambush which may still be able to catch other enemy units still moving into the are (even if you have to adjust the arcs a little to make the ambush effective)? Some people might say that the above examples are not representative of typical gameplay situations (I wouldn't necessarily agree). However, my main concern is to keep covered arcs predictable. A tight arc is predictable, a loose arc, which may lead to units opening fire in any number of given situations, is much less so and therefore less useful. If players have a good understanding of how units and covered arcs work and a bit of tactical savvy, then it is less likely that they will find themselves in frustrating situations such as having an enemy passing throught their covered arc before the can be engaged. It is much easier for us to use broader arcs in certain situations than for Steve & co to endlessly tinker with covered arcs and potentially open up a whole load of cans of worms along the way. As covered arcs currently exist, they are straightforward and predictable and allow the player to use more sophisticated tactics than would otherwise be possible, in other words 'it aint broke'.

Why buy the game? The multi-player options are clearly stated in the features list.

I'm very glad to hear that you enjoyed it. I had a great time making it and will definitely be producing some more. There's one more Libya themed scenario I've got in mind at the moment and then I think I'll move on to CMA and CMBN scenarios. Before that though, I'm going to put out a v1.1 of this mission. I think it needs a few tweaks such as a bit more ammo for the attacking infantry, a bit less BM-21 ammo and a little more shelter for the initial deployment areas as well as one or two red AI plans to increase re-playability. I was also thinking about adding blue AI plans and a red briefing so it could be played by both sides although I'm not sure it would be worth the effort. As you say, the terrain favours defence so I don't imagine that playing red vs AI would be particularly exciting. Still, a red briefing would be nice for PBEM games.

Mickey is talking about Snowball Denis, not you. I think everyone sympathises with the Russian/CIS players who are not getting the support that the rest of us are used to.

Thanks for the quick replies, at least I know now that no amount of time fiddling in the editor is going to produce a Snatch! If it's true that a 3D model was created then it's a shame it's gone to waste. However, I can understand the difficulty that BF would have faced in terms of getting it into the TO&E as I suppose that they would have had to introuduce a number of other vehicles such as Mastiffs if they were going to add an extra formation which was equipped for occupation duties. The debate which MikeyD refers to seems to be reflected in a number of missions in the British campaign which have more of a post-conflict flavour. In light of the fact that BF have decided not to move in this direction, it is a little odd to see Nyalas used by the Canadians.

This question may be rather late in coming but I have searched the forums and can't find the answer. Is the Snatch Land Rover actually included in the British module? I cannot recall encountering it in the British campaign or any of the scenarios. I have also mucked about in the editor a good bit trying to find one without success. I imagine they may have been dropped as they don't really fit the TO&E of an invading force during the war fighting phase. Can anyone shed any light on this?

Thanks. First scenario so I am very open to feedback.

26 and balding.

Personally, I'm a little anxious at all this talk of 'improving' the UI. I hope that we won't see any changes to unit icons in order to give all sorts of 'at a glance' information. You should be able to see which units need your help/attention, just by looking at their behaviour and situation. Also, you should have some idea of what shape units are in just from knowing what they've been through in the course of the scenario so far. It would probably be more useful to be able to see ammo states and vehicle systems damage at a glance. However, the amount of information which would need to be displayed in order for this information to be really useful would, I fear, result in so much clutter as to have a seriously detremental impact on the game's aesthetics. I don't see that it's really a problem to click on units if you require more information. After all, in WEGO you have all the time in the world to look at your unit's status between turns and in RT you can pause if you really have to. For players who would like to try playing in RT but find it a bit of a struggle, I would recommend watching Tyrspawn's VAARs and CMSF walkthroughs and paying attention to how he plays (although IMHO, he could make more use of hotkeys). I remember being very frustrated with the interface when I first played the game. I was forever de-seleciting units I hadn't intended to or giving units orders that I hadn't intended to because I didn't realise that they were still selected (although I have never experienced any of the problems with camera scrolling that others have complained about here). However, with time I got used to things, learned the hotkeys and figured out ways of playing the game which would reduce my over all work load without having a negative impact on my battle management. My concern is that BF is going to succumb to lobbying from CMx1 players who havn't played any of the other CMx2 titles and havn't really given the existing UI a fair go. That said, there are definitely some improvements that have been mentioned which I would like to see implemented, namely armour only target arcs and a follow the leader command which would make column movements along roads easier. I also love the vehicle impact texts which I believe were originally featured in CMx1. The vehicle hit texts and unit kill tallies are probably the features I miss most when playing CMA or CMSF (other than the QB system). I don't have any objection to the introduction of command lines so long as they can be turned off, although by the sound of things, BF have come up with something better than command lines. I don't mean to sound as though I am rounding on people for making criticisms but I do feel that BF should hear every side of the argument. I also have plenty of faith in BF to be able to implement changes in ways that will genuinely improve the game but I am quite pensive at the though of any radical changes to the UI when I'm now used to (and happy with) the existing system.

I'll try playing again and hopefully get the alternative AI plan. Perhaps with the alternative AI plan I won't be able to pull off the same trick. I'll need to start playing against human opponents at some point.

As Vin said, thanks for the effort. Thanks to Eddie too for all of his recent efforts. Just finished playing and I have to say, it's a beautiful map, although it did deteriorate into a one sided blood bath. Result: Muj 69 killed 49 wounded 11 missing Me: 1 KIA Is there more than one AI plan?

No, CMA uses the same QB system as Shock Force, i.e. you can select the type of force you use but the game generates the precise OOB.

Just to clarify, I never had any mods installed. Specifically because I was worried about interference with the game.

Also, http://feb17.info/tag/brega/ has a number of stories on the Brega fighting from different sources.

I've been thinking about making a mini campaign based on the fighting in Libya. I've been following the fighting as closely as I can but information tends to be pretty patchy, especially around Brega where access by reporters to the front line has been strictly controlled. From what I've read, the rebels have tried to advance towards Brega from the north, centre and south, with the southern wing of their force attempting to sweep north west to cut off Gaddafi's forces. I believe it was this southern wing which recieved a counter attack by Gaddafi forces from the west. Seemingly, the rebel's attack has become bogged down in extensive minefields. I think the only way to get a feel for what the fighting involves is to watch some of the videos posted online. Don't expect ot find any tactical diagrams or scetch maps. I check the miltaryphotos.net Libya thread frequently to try and glean useful info. Also, Nato's website gives a daily list of targets hit in specific areas, although this does not seem to be comprehensive.

Well today I finally had time to sit down, uninstall and re-install. Not as daunting a task as I had feared as I still had all the set up files on my PC. Before doing so, I recalled that I had never installed the 1.31 patch. I have no idea if this was relevant to the problems I experienced but I decided to install both 1.31 and 1.32 just in case. Anyway, wether it was just the re-install or the additional patch, I am glad to report that there are no longer any BMP Jagdpanthers to be seen.

I'm using Windows 7 and also running Norton but havn't had any part of the game quarantined.

I can confirm that there is a version 132 brz file in my data folder.