AlexUK

Wow, sounds incredible!

Simple post, to hopefully keep your spirits up going into the Christmas season and dealing with all the post-launch issues
Thank you
Have a good day

Very cool Bil. If I ever have a go at PBEM i am sure these will be a great resource.

It sure is funny how most of the people who complain about price and why is the games not on sale for bargain prices are people who have a handful of comments on the site and are recent new members.
In other wards I see them as typical gamers expecting the same thing they see with most of the rest of the industry. Expecting to get something for almost nothing after a short life span of the product , with a newer version out and selling again for that company.
They have never played any game for any extended period of time and are just waiting for the next thing on the market that they can consume.
The concept of a game with depth and years of endless playability is not a possibility in their thought process. Let alone a fact that the company is not capable of putting out new versions in a year or two with staffs in the hundreds to do such things. A product with only a handful of guys working on and making adjustments to and no ability to try and push the graphic limits of the present home computer each and every year.
They see it as a unknown logic in the world that they live in and cannot accept it.
I find it funny. BF is two guys that came from that world and hated it, created their own way to run and manage their game and have done what they wanted and made the life they wanted for themselves and provided us with games no one in the all powerful industry want to do.
So Bf keep selling and doing business how you want. I appreciate the games too much to care about sales and how they do business.

Thing 1:  The Blue units on the board at the beginning of the game are to have something to do besides slugging down beer and eating pretzels... Really!  The Amphibs are reinforcements.
The FO is a MUST for Human Player 1st turn arty- air strikes.
Thing 2:  The Engineers were used against wire and mines when I was doing the original scenario.  Also They were a compact unit which allowed fewer order slots.
Thing 3: As the author of A Day at the Beach I made a decision NOT to be realistic so much as fun.  Honestly -  No Marine would plan such a hap hazard beach assault with No intel, a couple of Helo's and pretend Naval Guns .   The Scenario was designed to display the New game features and to blow stuff up.

That minute traumatised me - I haven’t been able to watch a newer one. You should have put a warning about the graphic content... 

A great first game for CM III?

I would really like to see a Fulda Gap game show up sometimes. It should present the time of the seventees, because it would be very different to WWII and not showing all the software driven gadgets we see at CM:BS and CM:SF. There would be a very variable terrain, lots of interesting equipment of many different nations and lot of opportunities for add on modules. Even if it takes some years from now, it should definitively be on the roadmap. For me a must buy. And, additionally, many German terrain items could be reused from the end of WWII module already planned.
Man, I would love to initiate a counterattack using Leopard1, HS30, recon with Hotchkiss SPz Kurz or Luchs and all this other fancy equipment against hordes of Sovjet tanks.

Isolate small portions of the battlefield. Establish overwatch, suppression, and then move in.
To isolate, tanks do very well to dominate long streets. Of course, the enemy likes stationary tanks.  
Isolate a block, move up. Watch it. If you can, get some units to flank it. If you cannot control the back of the block/building, at least cover most of the exits. 
Then, use firepower to suppress and move forward. It only takes 15-30 seconds of suppression. The goal is to get the defenders to duck down. Then, your guys move up and look in the windows. Like fish in a barrel. Next, SLOW or HUNT into the building with a tight covered arc so your men can see what's out the back.
That, at least, is one technique.
 

Good to know, thank you.

Any idea why the Syrian platoon squads would show radio C2 to the platoon leader whilst he's in a BMP, but not outside of one?

Outside they're only showing voice or visual contact, or none when moved out of LOS and audio range. Inside the BMP the squad has radio contact with the Platoon leader (and the platoon leader has radio contact with the Company HQ, but that's not surprising - the BMP has a radio and the company HQ has a Radio Operator.)

e.g.:

HQ in contact visual and audio contact with squad



HQ out of audio range and LOS with squad:


(This is what I'd expect to see if the platoons had no man-carried radios. I don't think any are depicted, but that doesn't necessarily mean much).

HQ out of LOS and audio range with squad, but inside a platoon BMP:



Which only makes sense if the squad has a radio, surely?

Every scenario has had work done to it. The better scenarios may have been little-altered (because they started out good). The worse (I call them 'first generation') scenarios have been really REALLY changed, to the point where a few of my least favorite older scenarios are now my most favorite! One scenario in particular, the AI orders went from a single group 'assault' command into the map center to now playing with ALL the AI gizmos. Orchestrating unit movements, AI area fire commands, retreat commands, triggers, reworked victory conditions, expanded and updated terrain maps, adding AA assets and fortification items, proper AI orders for both sides, etc. Just because you recognize the name of a CMSF2 scenario doesn't mean you've played it before.

On the "Bank" scenario there are unsightly big gaps where many of the modular buildings are joined. Troops can move and fire through them!

While waiting for the final release😉, i decided to create  a menu mod for Combat Mission Shock Force 2. This will work for the demo as well.
The file Includes multiples UI screens and a full set of module icons.
This is my first mod, so please let me know what you think!
Cheers,
XACTO
 
Download page:
Xacto's “Chaos” theme Menu Mod for CMSF2

The Quick Battle Maps are very well along.  No QB Map shipped in CMSF2 is an untouched hold over from CMSF1.  And there are a LOT OF THEM

Previous Hackintosh had NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 4GB -3.9 GHz Intel i7-4770K - Windows 7 Pro. I was able to run all Battlefront Combat Mission games (own most all the CM titles) on DELL P2715Q Display - 3840 x 2160 with all the graphics setting set to best and never had any flickering issues. Unfortunately a ⚡️lightning ⚡️ strike killed the Hackintosh. No time to build another yet. 
The new 2018 MacBookPro - macOSMojave - 2.9 GHz Intel Core i9 (6 Cores) - Radeon Pro 560X 4096 MB is able to run able to run all Battlefront Combat Mission games... including the CM Shock Force 2 DEMO... on DELL P2715Q Display - 3840 x 2160 with all the graphics setting set to best with no  flickering issues.
The real fun time treat is playing Battlefront Combat Mission games on the LG OLED55B7A -55”  Thunderbolt 3 to HDMI cable to LG 55" & Yamaha audio system is the best gaming experience I have ever had. Only get to play this way when Ms. Buzz is out of the house because the house shakes when the battle is underway  
Wth the 2018 MacBookPro laptop and the  HUGE OLED 55"  .... no  flickering issues with Battlefront Combat Mission games including the CM Shock Force 2 DEMO👍
👏 Battlefront... Don't know what they are doing inside the engine improvements but whatever it is it is working for me. 
Buzz

Actually, doing some tests has really made me appreciate how well the TacAI works for the BMP-2. The At-5 needs reloading manually (i.e., the gunner unbuttoning), so the BMP will fire off an AT-5, then pop smoke and/or reverse to break LOS, and give it's gunner the cover to reload. Shoot and scoot, in quite a convincing fashion.

If it isn't safe, then it won't reload the AT-5, so the rate of fire in general will drop.

Essentially, ATGM's on a BMP are a nice-to-have, and they increase the size of the explosion when they remember that they are BMPs. Actually using them as an ATGM platform is not particularly easy, and it's not really what they're for. If you had to, I'd want them hull down, at least a couple of km away from whatever I'm pointing them at.

Carnage and death, the twin reapers of the battlefield, have feasted well this day.


As comrades rush to fill the gaps left by the dead and dying...

 
another finds he has had his fill and flees the banquet of misery and destruction.

 
Mord.

I'm seriously enjoying this demo.  I ❤️ my Marder.

A Syrian ZSU-23-4 eats a MILAN, courtesy of the Bundeswehr

Los, Hunde! Wollen sie ewig leben?!

P

I will say that I do like the house rules being used in this AAR and might need to try a game using them (maybe with some modifications).  Perhaps @IanL is up for a challenge.  PM me if so.

I figured it was about time I created a scenario for this title and I am now in the closing stages of finishing off a scenario titled Assault on Port Cros. The scenario, while based on historical events, is not what I would term as an accurate representation of them so this is more of an attempt to offer something new and maybe different for CMBN.
The basics:
Play Mode:  Allied vs Axis AI only.
Battle Type: Allied attack.
Battle Size: Large (I know this is subjective so to qualify this it is an Allied company plus force against an approximate Axis battalion element).
Battle Length: 3hrs 30 minutes (although this may change based on final testing).
Map Size:  2368x1264m
Requirements: Market Garden and Vehicle Pack modules.
The basics of the history are that the First Special Service Force assaulted German coastal defences, including Port Cros, on a small island group covering the approaches to the Port of Toulon to set the conditions for the main Operation Dragoon landings in the south of France in August 1944.
The following image forms part of one of the briefing graphics for the scenario:
 

Not sure if this is an improvement suggestion or a bug? Something I find quite distracting and immersion breaking is the jerking around of men in vehicles (see for example the men in the kubelwagen here). It would be great if this could be fixed. 
 
 

All of CMSF2 is one big MikeyD mod.  Almost everything's been touched in the game and 7/8ths of it nobody had actually asked me to do. They'd just come in to work in the morning to find a Carl Gustav rccl gun skin uploaded or new telephone pole art. I'm surprised nobody yelled at me.

Really?  This is a volunteer effort by an individual who stepped up and offered to do something to ease the wait and instead of saying thanks man we really appreciate it he gets s**t?  It is his first shot at it and he threw something together to start trying his hand.  If you want to continue to see stuff like this then lighten up. WTF would he want to continue trying his hand at it with responses like this?  I swear you guys could f**k up a wet dream.

Great post. My own position concerning not just this release, but every release since Combat Mission: Shock Force, is that I would love more information about the development of product and patches, whether it be roadmap posts or release updates. That doesn't mean I feel entitled to them however. This is the first BF developed CM title since CMSF I haven't preordered.
Going by your join date I am going to assume you didn't experience the CMSF release and all the complaints that went with it - what's going on in this thread doesn't even move the needle in comparison. I personally found the game as released to be far below what I expected. To the point of not playing it at all for quite a long time. With every patch I would give it another try. It took several patches for me to find it worthy of my time. Throughout, having fallen in love with CMBO, CMBB, and CMAK, I was willing to wait for them to get it right, eventually they essentially did (to the degree the limitations of  the engine would allow).
The fact that they are "porting" the CMSF to v4 and are giving a deal to those who already own CMSF illustrates to me their value of their customers far more than stopping into the forums during crunch time does or would. Long ago Steve, who is quite verbose and active on the forum when not in a deadline induced foxhole, promised CMSF customers would be rewarded for their endurance and loyalty (my words not his).
I have come to know and appreciate when it's done is the release date of BF products. I have come to expect a lack of communication from BF when it's foxhole time and I am okay with it because I think I understand why. My respect for BF and the Betas for their continued dedication to making the best possible game they can make has and continues to deepen over the years. I have had the pleasure of getting to know a few Betas and I am constantly amazed at the time they donate to this game and to interacting with and helping others on the forums. When I was asked by a Beta if I was interested in being a Beta I said no because I knew/know I could never measure up to the standard they've set.