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Sulman

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Everything posted by Sulman

  1. It's at night, and starts immediately after an ambush of your HQ vehicles on Rte Lightning. You have 2 Abrams and a scratch platoon at the opposite end of the freeway. It's not difficult to make progress (because the Abrams is already able to range most of the map) And you an take the first objective (a walled compound very near the road) pretty easily. The ultimate objective is a mosque and some buildings the other side of the map, and it was while organizing for this (I was enjoying this mission...) I got the CTD. Here's a screengrab showing the command phase in the turn before. I recall some issues in CMSF1 and did the 'ceasefire' trick, took the tactical defeat and progressed to 'dagger fight' which is an absolute nail-biter..
  2. Hi all, I've noted a repeatable CTD on this TF Thunder campaign mission. After running through the wego/replay phase and pressing the red button to enter command phase (50 minutes left on the clock) I get a CTD. It is the turn right after the first set of reinforcements arrive. I went t do an earlier save and intentionally did nothing for a few turns, and it still happens at the same time. This is on the Mac version, both on 2.03 and 2.04. I wonder if there's some sort of trigger in the mission at that timestamp that's causing it. Anybody else experienced it?
  3. I found the mines frustrating in this mission, as I thought they were sub-optimal from a mission design point of view. You can mark them with engineer squads, but this won't stop your vehicles from setting them off. You can cheese it by crawling along the right edge of the berm opening but this has to be done with extreme care. I put my AFVs on overwatch (you can park them right on the berm - it's dark and the Syrians won't see them - and sent the crunchies on foot. The abundant artillery makes this mission easy though; it can be won without going near the objective. I'm looking forward to the next one, as I found that pretty tricky.
  4. I'm working through TF Thunder myself. I don't know what it is about CMSF2, but the reworked maps and subtle engine differences add up to a very different experience, imho. Really enjoying it.
  5. The point about firepower has a ring of truth about it, but I think only if you have that firepower in the first place. There's a campaign scenario called 'The Screen' in TF Thunder which is a good example. I played it through carefully and methodically, my ATGM strikers easily picking off elements of the ENY advance force. Then the realization that the crossroads settlement is empty, and the sinking feeling that this is about to turn into a hasty defense. Anyway, if you don't very carefully organize your unit's cover, they will get butchered by the very nasty tank-shaped surprise in store for the unwary. CMBS is similar, you have to be very careful with nightlines on some maps when you are dealing with tanks in broad daylight. Even a T-55 can range the entire map with east.
  6. It seems to be something one has to do quite often on the kind of terrain CMSF offers. If you must do it, make sure you''ve got good security, which means overwatch and avenues of approach - where are they likely to shoot at you from? Make sure you can suppress those areas quickly.
  7. I remember all that talk about the Kornets. It's a strange reaction from the DoD, but this is how the game is played in DC. When there is perception of a capability gap, the money flows.
  8. I don't know about an order of magnitude; that is a lot. They are difficult at times. There's a scenario in TF Thunder's campaign (5?) where you are hunting manpads, the briefing says to be quick and remember your armour is impenetrable to small arms, but if you roll your Strykers in within 500yds they'll get cooked, and fast. You must screen. Screening however is difficult and very time consuming. On urban maps where every single building can hide an AT team it's a tactical nightmare. As for RPG-29/AT-14 effectiveness, the internet is full of videos from Syria and Turkey showing tanks getting opened up like they're paper. In fact it's videos from Syria that made me think BF had got it right. Cities are no places to be rolling vehicles around, especially when every man-jack has a bloody RPG under his bed.
  9. Good work! Second time I tried it I did a lot better, managing to mass what infantry I had to bring fire on one position at a time, while using the leader to mortar selected targets. I had to work the MG into good positions most of the time as it helped to quicker overwhelm the enemy, before they would call artillery ( which was a consistent threat). Unfortunately, I never located the most dangerous ATGM (concealed high in the tree line at the back) and it pinged two Bradleys, limiting me to a draw. The third Bradley actually caught it as it fired the second time. Time wise, I did figure out you can get your infantry to that back hill you mention (overlooking the crossroads) very quickly, if you're willing to endure a bit of harassing fire from the right flank (it's most harmless) while they cross that saddle between the two hill features. Once there there's lots of cover options as I guess you found out. The problem for me was avoiding the arty; the AI was surprisingly quick with it. I had the usual trouble persuading the MG to spot and hit targets I wanted, but generally the troops did really well. I will try a few more times. It's an interesting and challenging mission.
  10. This is one of those scenarios I used to play a lot on CMSF, to try and learn to deal with the ATGM threat better. It feels like it got a lot harder in SF2: A single platoon of scouts, 1 weapons team. Barely twenty men. A 120mm mortar. Some IFVs that you need to keep alive. Tight time limit (I don't know if it changed, but it feels way tighter now) Syrian forces now have artillery. It's very tricky. You don't have much firepower, and you don't really have the time to find & mortar each suspected ATGM. You're outnumbered. If you are spotted, you'll get arty'd. In CMSF you could scout the valley and the vehicles would have a fighting chance of getting through, as they'd usually fight the located ATGMs; now they have a lot more trouble spotting them. they're dead the second they reveal themselves. Hunting down the ATGMS with the scouts alone gets very hard once you're deep into the defenses; I just can't keep enough scouts alive to mount what becomes a series of assaults. Any experiences?
  11. I've not had a scenario where it's been factored in yet, but I'll keep an eye out. I also started the TF_Thunder campaign and after 'Breakthrough at the Berm' I'm convinced the 2 upgrade is somehow more than the sum of its parts. There's a bump in atmosphere and intensity (and difficulty...though I am not the world's greatest CM player) that makes it quite thrilling.
  12. I'm impressed. I've been looking forward to it for a long time, as I played CMSF more than anything else. Despite what I knew from CMBS and CMBN I was quite surprised how differently some familiar scenarios play out. 'Ambush at Al Fubar' is an old favourite of mine and I actually found it quite difficult; gone is the ability of your troops to simply press on through fire, and urban fighting feels a lot nastier. The tendency for units to run for it when artillery falls makes some interesting situations; and the battlefield generally feels a lot more dangerous. It's also very smooth on my Macbook Pro. The frist time I heard the loading screen music a huge smile came across my face.
  13. I hope against hope that they'll release on Linux one day - OpenGL on Mac is probably even more awkward than Linux - I only boot into Windows for my photography tools and CMBS these days.
  14. The T-90 surely inherited shortcomings from its predecessors, but Russians have shown themselves to be remarkably effective at rapid and innovative engineering, and they know how to fight. They're also not scared of losses; at least historically.
  15. The Russian campaign has a couple of maps that are urban. Even back in CMSF I found the environment extremely taxing; there's often no way to take objectives without heavy losses as gaining fire superiority is challenging especially if going around the buildings exposes you to more fire (it usually does).
  16. The antennae and sensor vulnerabiblity interest me. Steel Beasts simulates (through abstraction) tree branches disabling the GPS (good incentive to avoid woods) and the Syrian T-72 footage with completely slapped up tanks (how many unscathed IR searchlights can people see?) suggested good simple standbys are still very important. When playing the game I wonder about those Arena masts, too. They have to be very vulnerable.
  17. I heard the inflatable T-72 was a bit of a letdown
  18. Having had lots of fun on the previous river crossing, this has been a bit of a cruncher for me. It's a change of pace from countryside to urban streets and parks - a bit of a flashback to CMBB. The map is very cleverly laid out and is a bit of an LOS nightmare, but it's very easy to get eyes on the enemy, and to get troops concealed to the startline(s). The problem is getting fire on the enemy positions without being badly chewed up - once near the objectives so many eny positions have LOS it's a killzone. Tough time limit - the first time crunch of the campaign, actually. Heavy ECM environment means fire missions are painfully slow - this has proved decisive, it would actually be pretty easy with regular comms as I could move my FO about without too much trouble. US seem to have fire superiority - Strykers with grenade launchers and at least one MGS. BTRs are made of papier-mache and sellotape, apparently. Russian pixeltruppen again very hard to attack with (my fault, not the game). I did a heavy bombardment right at the start to level the low buildings on the most forward enemy position, so I could get recon to see further in to town, which worked well, but actually moving units forward is murder. My base of fire (I was using the whole weapons platoon - 3 x MG and 3 x ATGM) got crippled by a lucky mortar strike - 2 MG squads got mauled on their start line by a direct hit from harrassment fire (they were hidden so it was just bad luck). My ATGM crews got hit badly when moving to what I thought were concealed positions in the park, but NVG's obviously got them. I got a breakthrough using BTR's with heavy suppressing fire but still lost 2 out of 4; luckily they got in a good keyhole and took out the Strykers trying to get LOS on them. The flanks look very tempting but fields of fire all favour the enemy, so I opted for a straight in breach after a huge bombardment. It's costly, but working so far. I don't think I'll manage the last objective, though - not enough time. Anybody find any good strategies? I think I may play this one over a few times. It's an interesting problem.
  19. Right, and the AI cannot and does not understand context.
  20. Firstly, this is my all time favourite Combat Mission map so far. I found the difficulty curve just right and it was superb fun to play. Strategy wise, I deliberately stayed well away from the two rightmost beaches as there was so many places with LOS on them they looked like a death trap. I decided to land an the biggest force I could next to the village on the left, and clear the coastal path all the way to the beaches, *then* land the main force on those beaches. That was messier than I liked, but it worked. There is a crucial, small draw off the beaches on the left, up the hill through the woods (just wide enough for single file), all the way up the large open fields that flank the farm objectives. This allows you to attack downhill which seemed to help my weak infantry. You don't need the main beaches at all, and the farms are where the big points are. My T-90's were placed on overwatch of the entire opposite bank, and they killed all the UKR tanks, including two that made a flanking dash from the top of the map. I didn't do so well towards the farm, lost far too many BMPs to a very well concealed and distant AT gun. Also made the mistake of having my poorest troops at the front, and they just cannot fight so they ended up being spotters for the supporting BMP's which really swung the battle for me, despite the losses. Ended up with a major victory largely down to holding the farms.
  21. In SB Pro PE your computer TC shouts 'battlesight, tank!' if he sees something within battlesight range.
  22. The only downside is you can't control tempo with the assault order, which means there can be a wait before the two teams really get going, which can be costly. With a manual split you can move them as you please.
  23. I would offer the caveat that friendly fire from suppression is a lot more severe in Black Sea. I've learnt the hard way!
  24. It's difficult to tell if APS is overpowered, or simply whether the abstraction is incorrect; for instance interception success may be 0 or 1 in the code and the outcome doesn't matter if the warhead is enormous or not. I'm sure BFC can introduce some detail to it. I suspect the efficiency of the units in terms of engagement is worryingly accurate - these things have had twenty years to mature.
  25. Esim's Nils Hinrichsen mentioned that scripted AI with some simple tactical rules (of the kind Steelbeasts Pro PE uses) is heavily dependent on the designer. It can make the computer look like a very convincing opponent, or a total moron dependent on the player behaviour. I have to say I've found the AI's withdrawal code a lot more aggressive. APC's frequently get the hell out of dodge if they spot infantry now, much as you would expect. I though CMSF did this in a similar fashion but it seems a lot more aggressive in Black Sea.
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