db_zero
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Posts posted by db_zero
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I'm playing h2h and was having a lot of fun. One turn was particularly violent with a MarkIV lighting up the screen and Tiger getting flamed.
Unfortunately the update bug hit so for now game is on hold
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IDK, but judging from what I see a quick battle on a small map will be like 2 pit bulls fighting in a phone booth.
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I also added a real (wireless) mouse to my laptop, and now I think it will be my permanent gaming platform. With a little laptop table gaming from my lazy chair is much more relaxed than at my desk.
As much as I would like to make a laptop my permanent Combat Mission device, it can't compare to my desktop with graphics card that weighs about half the weight of a laptop. So for now the laptop is the back up Combat Mission device.
For the other games I mentioned above I can forsee the laptop becoming the main device.
Perhaps hooking up my desktop to a large scree TV and playing from a lazy chair will be a viable solution.
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I imagine the future of drone design, at least for anti-tank purposes, is to move away from the drone as remote-control aircraft and towards the drone as loitering guided missile. Drones designed as shaped-charge kamikazes could be smaller and cheaper than drones designed to haul missiles and then return to base.
During the 80s when Reagans Star Wars was the talk of the town, one scientist mentioned dropping "smart rocks" onto tanks. Anything moving at supersonic speed from the sky would cause havoc to a tank. A concept way ahead of its time but perhaps no more.
A space vechicle in orbit could easily cover an area and drop all sorts of nasties onto opposing sides. I know there exists a treaty that bans nuclear weapons from being put into orbit, but that doesn't cover conventional weapons to my knowledge.
Makes me wonder what the Air Force is up to with its new hypersonic unmanned jet.
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I see a future drone expansion pack in BFs future. Complete with new and expanded drones, mobile drone units, drone command centers and expanded anti drone unit including lasers and ecm.
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Until the technology is available to make UAVs completely autonomous, the need to have operators controlling them using the Tactical Control System or something similar, will IMO limit the mass use of UAVs in the combat role. Even thirty drones would require thirty operators, a large telemetry network and support. I dont think we are at that stage just yet.
Examine the debacle of the Apache Helicopter attack near Karbala, Iraq in 2003. At the time the Apache was billed as a killer of armor, it too carried Hellfire missles, but unlike a drone was obviously a manned system. 30 Apaches of the 11th Regiment of the 3rdID went enmass looking for the Medina Division. Iraqis using cell phones to signal the course of the choppers, and infantry men on building roofs put bullet holes in practically every Apache involved in the attack, turning on lights to confuse NV systems. (The US left the power grid intact so as not to punish Iraqi civilians). The attack was called off and the Apaches returned to base.
Now while technology is very sexy, and UAVs seem to be the answer to everything, they are still controlled by humans, who are prone to making mistakes. The tank still has a place on the modern battlefield, and IMO a drone is no more dangerous than an Attack helicopter.
All very true but....
During the 1980 Lebanon conflict the Syrians used a few of their Western attack choppers armed with western made HOT ATGMs and caused panic amongst Israeli tank crews.
I think the mere presence or the threat of drones, especially attack drones could easily act as an inhibiting factor to an army. It would force a commander to consider deploying ADA units and for a force like the US or other Western forces operating far from home or nearby bases is not a trivial matter.
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Drones are countered by any kind of AA on the field.
I think that the "Electronic Warfare" option will also impact the use of drones.
Too bad we won't be able to see drones hovering around and AA swatting them down.
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This discussion makes me wonder what (in CMBS) a heavy mechanized force can actually do against an enemy with a large number of Hellfire-carrying drones. Can tanks and supporting infantry bring down a flying drone? What happens when a swarm of thirty or so drones takes to the sky above a mechanized battalion?
This brings up an interesting side note. The ADA branch seems to be the lonely stepchild in the Army. How useful is anti air when fighting insurgents?
With the proliferation of drones the ADA may someday become sexy again.
I'm predicting this is the future of ADA weapons:
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A little dated, but people forget that the Battle of Medina Ridge in Desert Storm was the second largest armor on armor fight in history, surpassed only by Kursk. 73 Easting was the lead up to that fight.
After the war these battles were analyzed to death. The Pentagon even digitized the battle. Some including those who took part said that was probably the last time you'll see an armored battle of that size.
Drones played a role back then, but not nearly a big a role as today. Computers were still in the DOS world and if you had a 486 processor you were on the cutting edge and $2000+ poorer.
Still tanks are not going away. Just like cavalry stuck around long after Agincourt.
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"So while we're waiting for Black Sea to come out, perhaps we're looking at something that will never happen again-large scale tank on tank action, or perhaps armored warfare as we know it will evolve and like Star Trek during the 60's and 70's when the communicator was just science fiction, but eventually evolved into the cell phone/smart phone as we know it, perhaps the future of armored warfare will evolve into something like the popular MechWarrior series. "
Eighteen months ago very few people thought their would be a medium sized, more or less modern, mechanized war going on in Southern Ukraine. However they seem to be hard at, at least intermittently. Predictions of world peace seem optimistic.
In regards to the mechwarrior idea, armored fighting vehicles are shaped the way they are because of surface to volume ratios. The way to get the most armor around the most usable volume is a cube more or less. You never wind up with a true cube for various other engineering considerations, but that the general idea. This basic law is NOT friendly to humanoid shapes. The ratio is VERY unfriendly.
True, but with the advances in metals you could see some new exotic smart metal that is very strong and very light. Beside if you ask me man will never be completely satisfied with machines vs machines warfare. man will want to be in it and not 10,000 miles away via communications link.
Drones is not a new idea. They were used in Viet-Nam. For the longest time they were resisted. Many insiders as well as outsiders mentioned the "fighter mafia" who resisted the whole idea of taking man out of the loop.
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I wonder how long they will put actual people in those tanks. Remote control, semi- of fully autonomous are technically feasible (or will be eventually) and are (probably) cheaper. Both in costs of money and lives.
This is probably where things are headed if you ask me.
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I was wondering if the graphics card was in integrated graphics mode when running the Italy battle. I'll have to play around and see.
Benchmark wise the 860M is 25-30% faster. The I7 I'm not too sure just what the performance difference is and just what I'll gain is something you'll really only know when you have it in your hand and run CM.
I have a little time to play around and see. For other stuff like Command Modern Naval Operations, War in the East, War in the Pacific and the soon to be released War in the West This laptop should be just fine.
I'll also throw Neverwinters Night onto it and see how that fares.
The loading times for CM battles wasn't bad. I was thinking of eventually buying a solid state drive, but maybe that won't be necessary. I also don't know if bumping the RAM to 12 or 16 gigs is worth it since its loads decently and I don't think more ram is really going to make the game run any faster, but it may get rid of any studders or slowness on huge maps.
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Got my new laptop and not sure if I like it enough to keep or return. I loaded a couple of h2h games I already have in progress. The Mace looks decent and runs decently in 1920x1080 which is the preferred resolution for the laptop.
When I loaded Winter of our Discontent I was less impressed. The trees look awful and it seems a bit sluggish. Don't know if the fact its raining makes a big difference.
The GP60 I got has an I5 processor and GT840M graphics card. 8 gigs of memory and a 5400rpm hard drive.
The GE70 Apache Pro-12 is a step up with an I7 processor, GTX860M Graphics card, 16 gigs of memory and 7200 RPM Hard drive. Its also $500 more and I not sure if I'm just spoiled by a desktop rig and will never be satisfied with a laptop running Combat Mission.
In terms of map size perhaps the Mace and Winter of Our Discontent is too big for the GP60.
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while I too still think tanks are important I do not think they are what some claimed, kings of the battlefield.Plus atgms are becoming more dangerous to armor and a large scale armor battles are thing of the past. In the case of the combat mission series especially shockforce and afganistan I use tanks to support infantry and destroy enemy fortifications.
When you mention large scale tank battles are a thing of the past do you mean WW2 sized tank battles or something like 73 Easting- or Arab-Israeli 67/73 style battles.
If that is the case then would it make sense to re-org and center around vehicles like the Stryker and de-emphasize tracked fighting vehicles?
I still think that while unlikely a good sized tank battle could take place somewhere in Asia. Perhaps in the future in Africa. There are some materials that are in abundance in Africa. From what I understand the engine cores in F-15s are made of cobalt and you can't find that in abundance except for a few places like in Africa.
As mentioned China is active there and who knows they may someday sign an agreement to pre-position stuff there. Of course this is highly speculative.
Who knows with superconductivity levitating tanks like the ones in the old classic Orge/GEV may someday be here.
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Like everyone here I'm anxiously waiting for Black Sea to come out. Personally I think the chance of the Western Powers getting involved in this sort of conflict is next to none.
I've also been reading articles that have pretty much called the tank a relic from the past and are saying the drone and man portable AT systems renders tanks obsolete. Its also being argued that warfare is moving to an asymmetric model where lighter, faster deployable forces is the future of warfare and the tank has no place in that sort of environment.
In short the tank is moving in the same direction as the battleship. A soon to be relic of the past that will soon be relegated to the museum.
Personally I think it’s overblown and it’s nothing new. After the Viet-Nam war during the 70's the 73 Arab-Israeli War was analyzed in great detail and some were saying the new generation of AT missiles and portable AT weapons would render tanks irrelevant and far too vulnerable to be useful. The debate raged on. Some said the early tactics used by the Israelis skewed things and later in the war when they adjusted and employed proper combined arms tactics you got a more balanced picture. In any event the Israelis maintained the cannon on tanks were the best weapon to mount on a tank.
In the West a few tanks were produced that had main guns that could fire both normal cannon shells as well as guided missiles. This soon disappeared.
I also remember reading articles about something called Chobbam armor in the 70's. There were also stories about how the East Germans managed to steal samples and bring back to the Soviet Union!
So here we are in 2014 and once again articles written about how the tank is obsolete. Stories about how Hezbollah had success against Merkavas using the latest generation of man pads, the vulnerability of Syrian tanks to infantry weapons it its civil war, the rise of drone warfare as well as the expense of tanks in an age of budget cuts and asymmetric warfare many are questioning the tank relevance.
Personally I still think the tank is very useful. There is a saying to the effect that there is a tendency to fight the last war, not the next one. If you said during the 70's and 80's the Soviet Union would collapse and the Western Powers would fight large scale tank battles in Iraq you would not have been taken too seriously. Today some experts have given their reason as to why the tank is no longer dominant, but predicting the future is risky business.
So while we're waiting for Black Sea to come out, perhaps we're looking at something that will never happen again-large scale tank on tank action, or perhaps armored warfare as we know it will evolve and like Star Trek during the 60's and 70's when the communicator was just science fiction, but eventually evolved into the cell phone/smart phone as we know it, perhaps the future of armored warfare will evolve into something like the popular MechWarrior series.
One thing that will be interesting is to try out a custom Black Sea battle where a tank force takes on an infantry centric force armed to the teeth with man pads and other modern anti tank weaponry and see how it all plays out. During the 73 Arab-Israeli war the Arabs employed specialized anti tank commando teams and used them to ambush tank centric Israeli units.
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Soon you'll be able to order your girlfriend online and she'll also be a great Combat Mission opponent if you so desire....
http://weeklyworldnews.com/headlines/20090/robot-girlfriends-go-on-sale-in-japan/
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When you say reinstall - what did you do?
Cheers
In my case I just had to reinstall the 3.11 update and then added back the z folder with all mods i used previously and it all looks good now.
RT on the other hand is still a mess. Some of my previous h2h game are fine while others still get to 26% then the game stops working.
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Thanks for the info.
I was considering an Apple laptop, but that would probably entail having to repurchase all the games to run on a Mac.
Regarding activations...re-licensing when applying updates don't count?
What happens if you do for some reason use up all activations? Do you have to pay full price for 4 more activations?
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I going to get an MSI GP60 laptop to play CM. I see it for $799.
I have all CM games except Vechicle pack which Ill probably get soon.
IIRC you can license CM on 2 computers? I'd like to use on current desktop and install on my new gaming laptop.
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I updated to 3.11 as the directions said and noticed the text was screwy. Started removing mods and that didn't fix the problem. Ended up removing the Z folder reinstalling the update and added the mods back and everything is fine.
I'm still trying to work through the Red Thunder patch which has ruined a few h2h games.
I'm gunna have to give BF a D- for this round of patches.
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Here is the BMP without image scaling... you might see some anti-aliasing issues, but I never notice them and can never understand what all the fuss is about.
I think its like the high end stereo market. I had a friend who was really into that sort of stuff and would love to go to the Mcintosh stereo store. They had very top of the line amps, stereos and speakers that were exorbitant prices. IIRC correctly Macintosh stereos use tubes not solid state.
To me there really wasn't much difference between the Mcintosh and a good sound system and speakers from Kenwood or another high quality brand. Sure when the sales person did a demo the Mac stuff was great, but to me paying $2000 for just one component when Kenwood was around $400 was just not justified, but to my friend the difference between Macintosh and something like Kenwood was like night and day.
I just shrugged my shoulders...
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Hey its the Red Army. Life is cheap.
Though I do suspect many CM players follow the same SOP for the Western and German armies.
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They are doing what they are supposed to do. If they blow up you know the enemy is nearby. If not then that sector is probably clear....unless the enemy is hiding and you haven't detected signs of them yet.
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This will be entertaining. If history is a guide an aar usually means the game release isn't too far off.
Destroying buildings in WW2 CM
in Combat Mission Red Thunder
Posted
I had a game where a lone trooper shot a panzerfaust at troopers hiding in a house and caused it to come tumbling down. It was the coolest thing to see and I was going to FRAP it and make into a video, but never got around to it.