DougPhresh

Having taken the CAF Machine Gun course, I do think tripod mounted GMGs and MGs should be able to fire indirect in some situations. Yes, you do have to go out and put out aiming posts and have the guns sited in, but a C6/FN MAG/ M240 can fire indirect, absolutely.

Some shells have poor bursting and fragmentation characteristics. The Italian Brixia Model 35 for example, was known to sometimes break into only a few large fragments. For a weapon with a small blast effect that relies on fragmentation to kill, that was obviously not good. There have been some advancements in shell design to create an even burst pattern with fragments of the ideal size to cause the intended effect.

In both Black Sea and Shock Force 2, unbuttoned BMP-3 passengers have their weapons on their backs and can no longer fire from the vehicle.

To be honest, I would like if the map size could be increased enough for more battalion scale combat. There are lots of great small campaigns and scenarios, across all titles.

The Canadians have the same problem. I don't think I was ever issued let alone deployed with uniform items that were their intended colour. Some of the CADPAT TW would turn into brown or olive, rather than simply fade. I imagine that is because of how different dyes break down, but the interesting thing was that it preserved the camouflaging qualities, and maybe even enhanced them since the helmet, vest, tunic and pants would have a variety of colour and brightness.

Anything in a soft skin vehicle will definitely break from shell splinters. Subsystems on all vehicles that are not themselves protected by armour will also be damaged by splinters of sufficient size and energy. There is room for improvement here, but artillery is a complicated business and a lot of people are shocked by the lethality of crew served weapons generally. If revisions are being considered, I'd suggest that it's worth taking the time to go over of all aspects of artillery. For example, and this is nitpicky, including HE delay fusing, and separating WP and base ejecting smoke. Shock Force 2, might have HE delay if that is what "armor" is. I believe some smoke shells for some weapons systems are WP and some are base ejecting. The reason I think this is relevant is that in Shock Force 2, specifically when the campaign considers collateral damage and civilian casualties, WP should not be available during MOUT. It's a small thing but as an artilleryman, my brow wrinkles at NATO using WP in areas occupied by civilians. Additionally, if marines are coming to the Black Sea module, I would suggest adding dedicated naval guns like the 76mm OTO Melara. Preferably those could be added to Shock Force 2 as a patch. Having Marines land supported by fire from M777's is a little baffling, unless they are firing from landing craft, as the Canadians did at Normandy, or lashed to the decks of their amphibious assault ships. Crossposting from the Shock Force 2 Patch discussion

In the campaign, Dutch engineers with grenade launchers also carry a second C7. e: Also about the Dutch, CV 90 air busting when firing at buildings is infuriating considering how much of their campaign is MOUT. The CV 90s could also probably using some tweaking to better conserve ammunition. I'm not sure if their crews doctrinally fire single shots or small bursts, but I feel like in SF2 they are firing like they have a 25mm bushmaster instead of their larger, more capable weapon. Finally, and someone could clarify Dutch doctrine for me, how are squads supposed to split to employ the FN MAG and AWSM-F? I ask because if they are supposed to peel off into two-man teams, that can't be done right now. I served as an artilleryman on 109's and 777's. 155mm shells will ruin your day, even under armour and I think subsystems like optics and radios should be more damaged, but there is a reason why battery anti-armour drills put most of the emphasis on the battery anti-tank weapons and not direct fire from the guns themselves. Direct fire with a howitzer is not easy. They're not dual purpose guns like the 25lbr, we don't have HEAT or sabot rounds, heck we have bagged charges. Direct fire on point targets is much more effective than in the days of Wellington, but the principle is the same, and since the Boer War, whatever we are directly fire on is much better at firing directly at us, which was the whole reason for the switch to indirect fire. All of that to say, there are a lot of things on a tank that will break from shell splinters. Many of those things like optics and radios probably should be more easily damaged in Combat Mission. Some of those things like pioneer tools, spare parts and jerry cans are not relevant to the time frame of a scenario. Some other effects like damage to electronics, crew stress, possibly damage to welds and seating of parts, I can't really speak to. For Shock Force 2, It would be nice if the legacy "Armor" fire mission was either clarified to be HE-delay, in which case all titles should have it, retooled to DPICM, or removed.

I see that I had the wrong install location for the patch. Gill behaviour is much improved. My mistake. The BMP-3 behaviour is the same as reported upthread. Oh and at a certain distance, the smoke dischargers on the BMP-1P appear to be floating above the vehicle.

So there is a way to have both HG infantry and Field Divisions on the mainland?

It seems to be acting more like a bottom attack missile than a top attack. I'll take some screenshots if I catch it in the act again.

BMP-3 seems to use airburst even against buildings and bunkers. Unbuttoned BMP-3 air guards have their weapons slung on their backs, cannot fire from vehicle. Gill behaviour is still extremely weird.

Beautiful piece of kit. Still missing ADATs and Bisons though. 😉

I guess as a career artilleryman I should chip in. What I would say is that our OP detachments always attempted to call for fire well away from our own position and that of friendly forces. Final Protective Fire is usually planned when a position is established, and danger close calls for fire do happen. Usually those calls come from the maneuver elements and not our own OPs. The preference is always to call for fire before the enemy is on top of you. Put another way, just as artillery conquers and infantry occupies, when I meet infantrymen from my tour who excitedly tell me about calling down 155mm fire 100m out from their own position, I always think that artillerymen would have placed fire on the enemy while they were 500m away. 😂

I've loved playing CM on Mac, but now that Shadow exists and I can stream a gaming PC through my Mac, I'm less worried about Apple's strange design decisions and more worried about convincing my SO that I should repurchase all the CM titles and modules.

I find Soviet Doctrine endlessly fascinating. There have been many great posts here over the years, dating back to CMBB that I wish were condensed into a PDF. The various Osprey Elite books on tactics are good reads as well. I wish I could contribute more to this thread but I'm a little tied up right now. What I will say is that the Soviet military in 1944 was a formidable fighting machine and there is a great satisfaction to learning and implementing their doctrine and tactics. I'm eagerly awaiting Fire and Rubble so I can conduct mass pre-planned fires, attack limited objectives in echelon and skillfully (I hope) use the battalion support weapons to execute the mission. There are many posters here that I could swear are professional military historians or went to staff college and I'm glad that they keep contributing.