Ultradave

This is the key and the way to think about it. There are TOWs in the game, both M113 based and tripod based. There are LAWs a plenty for squads. And you have Dragons. In many cases in the Mech Infantry they are in the APCs and you have to ACQUIRE them before jumping out of the PC (hint - turn 1 - go around to all your infantry and ACQUIRE everything you can carry). Better or worse - you have to consider the era. The alternative is the LAW. It's a lot better than a LAW! Yeah, you make yourself a target. You pretty much do that by taking a shot of any kind with any weapon. TOWs are definitely targets as well. Pretty rare is the TOW vehicle that gets to expend all its missiles.

There are choices in the TOE for several different kinds of Soviet battalions, both motorized infantry and armor. There are Reserve armor battalions that are equipped with T-55s an T-62s compared to the frontline ones with T-64s and T-62, and two varieties of those with 3 tanks per PLT or 4. For the motorized battalions, different selections of BMP equipped or BTR equipped, although they aren't specifically listed as reserve. That's taking one setup example from a 1982 quick battle selection. think you should be able to create whatever you want with all the combinations, as long as it falls in the years covered. Is that what you were looking for with your question @Megalon Jones? Dave

The only place I see something like that is the edges of shadows at low sun angles. But when I had a MacBook with a GPU I still had that, so I don't think it had anything to do with the integrated graphics. The models and textures I am able to run on highest settings. My MacBook Pro is 3 years old now, so no longer the latest and greatest. Dave

It would be and it has come up, however we were told it's a limitation of the animations and they have to be one way or the other. Dave

That kind of problem indicates something wrong or missing with the resource files. Somehow something is missing or in the wrong place. I would try installing from the all in one installer for each game, rather than installing and upgrading each version. There should be a link to that in the game engine 4 email you got. Dave

They're in there.

One place this is not true is submarines in the US. Which is probably a really good thing. Dave

I AM that old that I got Panzerblitz when it first came out. At the time it was absolutely amazing. Such a change in wargaming. And then Panzer Leader. My real reason for answering is to add that in addition to which tank is better in the lab, I will say that using tanks of any kind in this game requires a change in thinking. It's not modern warfare like SF2 or BS. M48A5s are good tanks for their time, but ALL the older tanks are brittle, on both sides, even against each other. I found in my play testing I almost always had to play like I knew I was facing tanks of much better quality, playing either side. It was either that or leave a lot of smoke plumes decorating the battlefield. I've played as US with M48s and had them exploding all around me, thinking "Damn, these things are useless", and then played the Soviets thinking I'll set up a nice overwatch and plink away at the M60s in the valley and had my T62s and T64s shot off the hill like so many bottles on a fence. Hull down, keyhole firing positions, "Hunt/pause/reverse" fire and move plots, using the ends of treelines to snipe from behind, are real keys. You just can't stay exposed. This may all seem obvious, or maybe not. Makes for a lot of fun. Having been an Army officer at this time and after, what they used to drill into us was "If you can be seen you can be hit. If you are hit, you are dead." This is SO true in this game. (note that I haven't used any M1s yet, but they are early M1s so not the land battleships of SF2). It's gonna' be fun. Dave

You are right, you can't do anything with the mouse buttons, that I'm aware of. I can't tell from your post but there is a hotkeys.txt file in the installation that you can modify. One of the sections is on camera settings, so if you wanted to you could change this file so it's more in line with other software you are used to. Apologies if you are already aware you can do this. Dave

I was in the 82d then. We had already had our new Kevlar helmets for a couple years by then. Dave

Kind of apples and oranges because I too use a Mac (13" 2018 MacBook Pro). But one similarity is the integrated graphics. CM runs just fine with Intel integrated graphics, so I wouldn't let integrated graphics scare you off, unless you want a separate GPU for other things. Before this laptop one I had a 2015 MacBook Pro with a lesser integrated graphics and also had no problems. Dave

They can. I can tell you having been play testing the US 1979 campaign, the AI is a challenging opponent, so lots of credit to the designer for making it 1) challenging and 2) as much as possible act like a real Soviet opponent doctrine wise. You won't be disappointed. From the questions above, I'm not sure it's completely clear, but there are 2 completely separate US campaigns included - one set in 1979 and the other set in 1982. The course of the campaign is the same/very similar depending on how you do, but your forces and equipment are appropriate to the period. For example 1979, M48A5s and early M60s, M113s, M150 TOW vehicles, and if you are lucky some brand new M60A3s and a few M1s, facing a bunch of T-62s and BMP-1s. In 1982 you get new stuff. Of course, so do the bad guys. The premise of both campaigns and the area fought over are the same. Dave

They do. They cut right through the aluminum skin of the vehicle like it's not there and explode when they hit the engine

Well, we'll never know, but being part of it all at the time, it was unthinkable that we would nuke West German territory, no matter the situation on the ground. But, we won't know, thank goodness. Dave

Those exercises were to test troops moving through an area that had just been hit, which is a manageable thing to do. My comment was about fighting with what was left on the receiving end, which won’t be much. There have been no instances of troops being in the receiving end of a blast (obviously) and knowing what shape they will be in ( it won’t be good). And to answer @mrzafka, no it wouldn’t be the same. The Soviets will be in protective gear but they won’t be the ones who were hit with a nuclear weapon. So while they have protective gear which slows them down, they actually exist, where those under the nuclear blast, well..... During this time there was debate over whether to issue soldiers dosimeters. What use would it be? Soldier reads his pocket dosimeter after a blast and realizes he’s a goner. Does he, a) sit under a tree and cry b) go berserk and charge the enemy, figuring he’s dead anyway. Neither is the response you want. No dosimeters for the troops was the decision. The discussion has changed from firing nuclear weapons (not happening, see my discussion) to simulating operation on a contaminated battlefield, which you could sort of do by setting every possible readiness, morale, experience, leadership setting to rock bottom, maybe don’t allow quick or fast movement by agreement. Don’t forget to have the US side fight with almost nothing. A few surviving tanks maybe. Everything else is toast. Go for it if that’s your thing. Scenario Editor awaits. Dave

1. The fact that we were prepared does not mean nil effect. Everything slows down. Everything you do is harder. As an artillery officer we found calculating firing data and firing the battery to be extremely slow. Everything took at least twice as long, a lot of constantly repeating to make sure we heard numbers correctly. Same on the gun line. Checking 4 times to make sure the correct data was set on the guns. Beyond game time scales, although this applies for a campaign: If you have to be in Mopp4 for more than say, 12 hours, how will you eat? How will you eliminate? Even drinking water. Yes there is a tube. Do you trust it and your canteen to not pass contamination? I never did. Theoretically you move that unit to a clean area for Decon and to eat and rest. Can they actually disengage? Is there someone to plug that hole? 2. Speculation. Tactical nuclear weapons have never been used. (Although by today’s standard Hiroshima and Nagasaki were pretty much tactical nukes). Sure, firebombing of cities by hundreds of level bombers caused more casualties in WW2. Those are cities, not battlefields. Soviet plans were to hit our front lines to blow massive gaps they could drive through. Traveling through a fallout zone is much more manageable than through nerve agents. But in the game do you want to fight with the few scattered, dazed, now in MOPP4, surviving remnants of your company team against that intact Soviet motorized rifle battalion? Sounds like no fun, although realistic if they were used. Dave

I'm reposting this here from the "new things" thread as my perspective on tactical nuclear weapons from an entire 34 year career in the military nuclear world, including actual US Army experience as a Field Artillery officer/Nuclear Weapons secondary specialist. (And Steve says no NBC, so there's that too ) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ My secondary specialty in the US Army was Nuclear Weapons - Field Artillery primary specialty, , commissioned coincidentally in 1979 (so nuclear warhead artillery shells, 155mm and 8" howitzer fired). Also spent a few years doing research in the field of nuclear non-proliferation, and about 30 years in nuclear propulsion and radiation protection. A few points: 1) Pointless to include them in the game as the blast would cover a whole CM map. (give or take, depending on whether it was 155 or 8" that was fired). 2) Mostly the projected use by the US was at 2d and 3d echelon troops assembling for continuing the attack, so way behind the Soviet front line unit you are fighting on the map, to isolate the front line units from reinforcements. 3) Conversely to 2), NO ONE thought that anyone in NATO/US would authorize nuclear strikes on anything inside West Germany, which made having them pretty pointless, really. 4) Considering the expected course of a Soviet invasion of West Germany, the most important thing I learned was exactly how to blow the warheads up into tiny little pieces so that they wouldn't fall into Soviet hands (blow them up conventionally - which you can do without setting off the warhead). 5) The consensus at the time was that any use of tactical/battlefield nuclear weapons would not remain contained and would rapidly escalate to a general nuclear exchange. It seemed both sides felt this was true (it later came out) which makes it unlikely they would be used. 6) Lastly, personal opinion (facetiously) - we're talking firing nukes out of artillery - you just don't want to be that close. Dave

What, and spoil all the surprises the scenario designers prepared for you? A better reason not to is that it's beta - not everything is finished/correct. The screenshots and the AARs are always carefully selected to show things that ARE correct, and not show pictures of stuff that still needs work. Dave

My secondary specialty in the US Army was Nuclear Weapons - Field Artillery primary specialty, , commissioned coincidentally in 1979 (so nuclear warhead artillery shells, 155mm and 8" howitzer fired). Also spent a few years doing research in the field of nuclear non-proliferation, and about 30 years in nuclear propulsion and radiation protection. A few points: 1) Pointless to include them in the game as the blast would cover a whole CM map. (give or take, depending on whether it was 155 or 8" that was fired). 2) Mostly the projected use by the US was at 2d and 3d echelon troops assembling for continuing the attack, so way behind the Soviet front line unit you are fighting on the map, to isolate the front line units from reinforcements. 3) Conversely to 2), NO ONE thought that anyone in NATO/US would authorize nuclear strikes on anything inside West Germany, which made having them pretty pointless, really. 4) Considering the expected course of a Soviet invasion of West Germany, the most important thing I learned was exactly how to blow the warheads up into tiny little pieces so that they wouldn't fall into Soviet hands (blow them up conventionally - which you can do without setting off the warhead). 5) The consensus at the time was that any use of tactical/battlefield nuclear weapons would not remain contained and would rapidly escalate to a general nuclear exchange. It seemed both sides felt this was true (it later came out) which makes it unlikely they would be used. 6) Lastly, personal opinion (facetiously) - we're talking firing nukes out of artillery - you just don't want to be that close. Dave

What is this sacrilege you speak?

Correct. Light infantry TOE. I was artillery so we had vehicles ( at least after I graduated from FIST Chief to Fire Direction Officer back in the battery). An infantry company usually had the COs Jeep and the 1SG goat ( which was used mostly to haul supplies here and there ). Infantry squads are a little bigger in light infantry - no issues with stuffing them all in an APC. 3infantry companies and a support company. ( 81mm mortars ) jumped with LAWs and Dragons also we didn’t do the cross attached company teams like mech did ( not enough armor to go around) We might get armor attached from 4-68th Armor battalion which was part of the 82d then. Back then those were Sheridans. 9th infantry and 10th Mtn divisions had similar TOE. Probably more vehicles, but pretty similar. We just arrived in style

You'll need Fire and Rubble to unlock all the fun stuff.

As a beta tester I can attest to this. Getting an email from Elvis asking if I wanted to participate in a hush hush project, and then finding out what it was when he added the right permissions, was a real HOLY **** moment. And wasn't that long ago! Before that we were all happily plugging away on FnR, except for the small bunch doing all the hard work on CW. Dave

I've been testing the US 79 campaign. It IS a challenge! A bit like having early Shermans and you are facing nothing but Pz Vs

Those FASCAM missions when I was in FA during this period were more to fire into the rear to prevent the second/third line units from reinforcing the lead regiment. A way to at least temporarily isolate the lead unit. That would be beyond the opposite "board" edge of the scenario.