MOS:96B2P

There was a lot of upgrading of the CM games over the years to get us to where we are now. The below list is some of the improvements that the up to date titles have. There is actually more but below is what I could remember or looked up. This must be a massive undertaking to add even some of the below to CMSF. So in theory the below is some of the stuff that BFC might add. I say in theory because it is so much stuff that it is kind of hard to believe they would do all this work and think about offering it to preexisting CMSF1 customers at a discount. * HULLDOWN COMMAND: This command allows a vehicle to move forward until only the turret is exposed to a specified target, and then the vehicle stops moving. * IMPROVED INFANTRY SPACING: While moving, squad and team members will maintain a few meters of distance between each other. Soldiers will spread out laterally on the move when possible. * PEEKING AROUND BUILDING CORNERS: Infantry units positioned adjacent to building and tall wall corners will now automatically post some soldiers at the corners to observe and fire around the obstacle. Machine guns and anti-tank weapons have priority for positioning at the corner. * COMBINE SQUAD COMMAND: When a squad is given the Combine Squad command, the squad will reorganize itself into two teams (if it originally had three teams). The Combine Squad command can only be given to Squads that are un-split. * EXPANDED WAYPOINT DESCRIPTIVE TEXT: More special unit commands (such as Hide and Deploy Weapon) will now be marked with white floating text above the waypoint they are assigned to. * CAMPAIGN BRIEFING: The overall campaign briefing is now viewable during any campaign mission by going to the Menu Options Panel and selecting "Campaign". * FORWARD OBSERVER KILL CREDITS: F/O’s now get credit on the AAR for any casualties caused by off-map fire missions called in by them. * SCREEN EDGE PAN TOGGLE: Using the hotkey ALT-E you can disable camera panning by touching the screen edge with the mouse cursor. * AI AREA FIRE ORDERS: The AI can now be scripted to use Area Fire! Each AI Order can have a target zone designated. The AI will attack the target zone with suppressive area fire if it doesn't have any spotted enemy units to engage or other important tasks to do. * AI FACING ORDERS: Each AI Order can be given a location for it to Face towards. When the AI Group reaches its destination, it will pivot or rotate towards the designated point. * AI WITHDRAW ORDERS: AI Groups can be ordered to Withdraw. Vehicles will move in Reverse to the destination, while infantry will leapfrog back while turning around to face behind them. * CAMPAIGN RESUPPLY: Personnel replacements and ammunition levels are now more uniformly resupplied across all core units between campaign missions. * 3D FLAVOR OBJECT CLONE TOOL: While in the 3D Editor, a flavor object can be cloned. A duplicate of the flavor object will appear a short distance away. * 32 ORDER AI PLANS: Each AI Group can now have up to 32 Orders, increased from 16. * Stream terrain: Small streams can now be placed on battle maps. * New tracer and muzzle flash effects. Quick Battle TO&E options have been improved - Mouse text for targeting: too close or out of range - Improved TacAI logic for placing teams along walls - Very heavily-laden soldiers cannot use Fast or sometimes even Quick moves - Ground units are now able to fire at attacking aircraft - Ammo Dumps allow platoons to have reserve ammo stored separately on map (automatically distributed for certain Skill Levels) - Three different sets of camera controls; Standard (traditional), First Person Shooter, and Real Time Strategy - Optional graphical Command and Control link tracing - KIAs are shown in the Soldier/Crew Panels to track soldiers lost during the game - Ability to create AI Triggers that execute actions based on other units or interaction with Objectives - Maximum map size increased - Customized "Mod Tags" for most graphics. - Ability to specify specific mods be used for a specific Scenario. - Hit impacts to vehicles and bunkers now shown graphically ("hit decals") - Water animates for fording units * Map editor elevation changes can be "sharp" by holding the control key when clicking tile elevations. This allows the creation of realistic ditch contours. * Computer player may use "Ambush Armor" plans. - Waypoint dragging. A waypoint can be clicked on and moved by dragging it to a new location. - Hotkey Unit Groups. Select units and assign them to number keys for quick navigation during gameplay. To change the camera's location press Alt and the number of the group you want to navigate to. The camera relocates and the highest level unit of that group is automatically selected. In Iron Mode, only HQs can be assigned to hotkey unit groups. - Grouped Spacebar Command system. Instead of getting all of the commands in a big list when the Spacebar is used, instead you get four groups of commands: Movement, Combat, Special, and Administrative. - New Load New Game dialog screen. The list of scenarios can now be sorted by size, length, or alphabetically. Details are presented in text form instead of icons. - New Saved Game dialog screen. The list of scenarios can now be sorted by newest file, oldest file, or alphabetically. You can also filter between single player saves and PBEM saves. Save games can be deleted from this screen instead of having to flip back and forth between the game and your desktop. - Visual Hotkey binding. A new dialog allows you to specify and view key assignments. Players can still manually edit and exchange Hotkey.txt files as before. - Special Equipment icons enlarged for better readability. The enlargement reduces the number of icons from 12 to 6. Multiple items of a single type of equipment are now represented by a single icon with a number specifying how many of that item the unit has. - Auto-Assemble linear terrain tool. Roads, walls, fences, and hedges can now be automagically drawn across the map instead of placing them one tile at a time. The old manual selection interface still exists to allow tweaking specific Action Spots. - BMP map overlay. Instead of having to create game maps by freehand you can now trace over a real world map within the Editor. Four different levels of transparency make the process easier by adjusting for different needs as work progresses. - More AI Groups. The number of AI Groups available has been increased from 8 to 16. This allows for greater fidelity of AI Plans and their assigned units. - Copy and paste AI Plans. Create a solid AI Plan, copy it, and paste it into an unused AI Plan slot. Once done the copied Plan can be modified to make a unique variant without having to build the Plan up from scratch. - Improved terrain elevation/contours, smoother and more intuitive. - Target Armor Arc Command. Instructs units to engage only armored units within the specified arc. As with nearly every Command, outcome varies greatly depending on unit quality and battlefield conditions. - Target Briefly Command. Tells a unit to fire all it's guns on a designated spot for 15 seconds, then cease fire. Conserves ammo and reduces the need for player management when short suppressive fire is the desired outcome.

@HerrTom +1 Nice screenshots and interesting battle.

////////////////////////////////////////////SPOILER////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////SPOILER////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// SitRep 0912hrs. One friendly casualty. 20+ OpFor casualties. 1) OpFor on the east berm. 2) 3 Section takes a casualty and pulls back to conduct Casvac. 3) 2 & 4 Sections secure the west end of the west berm. 3 Section casualty. The former and the current owners of the west berm.

/////////////////////////////////////////// SPOILER ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////SPOILER///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 2 and 4 Sections will secure the west end of the berm while 3 Section moves north. After reinforcements arrive 3 Section will rejoin 2 & 4 on the left flank. After arrival the Weapons Section will establish a base of fire on the eastern berm. ANP will be the reserve.

There was a tactic that some players used. They would continue to Adjust when the fire mission was preparing to keep it on hold until needed. I think I remember @womble posting about this tactic. I could never get it to work satisfactorily and gave up trying. I wonder if in one of the updates something was changed to keep players from using this "Adjust until you need it" tactic? Like a limit on the amount of adjusting in a short period of time or something. I don't have time to experiment around with it right now. (A new CMSF scenario set in Kandahar has been released by @Combatintman . If you observe something else causing the mission to stop let the rest of us know. The above are the only reasons I know of. I have even had the FO KIA and the maximum duration mission fired until out of ammo .

Good luck John!!!

////////////////////////////////////////SPOILER ALERT///////////////////////////////////////////// ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////SPOILER ALERT////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// CONTACT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HATE when that happens............. Sounds like a good scenario if its giving its creator some unexpected challenges.

Was the duration of the original fire mission set to maximum? If set to maximum duration it should generally fire until out of ammo or told to cease fire. One exception is a Point Target fire mission that targets a building or bridge. This type of mission (point, maximum duration) will stop firing if the targeted structure is destroyed. I don't think an adjusted mission spots. The support panel never reads "Spotting" instead it reads "Adjusting". There was a recent discussion at the Few Good Men gaming club about this. It seems an adjusted mission is no more accurate than the original.

+1 Got it. Warning order issued. IPB underway.

Yes. This. Yep, I am subscribed to both of these. If you like those two you may also like Panzer Pajamas. Very cool u-tube videos.

+1 Wow ...... . Now that is impressive.

I want to buy a game as a gift, how can I do that? Wednesday, 05 March 2008 If you would like to purchase a game or book for someone else as a gift, you do not need to do anything special. Simply pick the product(s) you would like to purchase and proceed through the Checkout process. All the relevant information is stored in your customer account as usual. The other person than has to register a new customer account ("Register New Account" link on the left of the main store page) if he/she hasn't one already, and will be able to download and license/activate the game with the license key received from you, by logging in and clicking on the link to the "Download Area" (left side). http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=421&Itemid=336 Well, the cut and paste didn't work the way I intended but the link is above. Also I think @sburke , nice guy he is, has gifted the game before so knows how and could provide more current info than the link I provided.

@axxe +1, More interesting information. Thanks for putting this together.

Yes. Thank you. I was still able to edit the post and added "radio".

+1 This. The C2 in this game is pretty amazing. IMO it could be more realistic if it was slowed down some but it's working just fine as is. Also the above experiments were done on a test map under ideal circumstances. If any of the HQ teams had been moving on foot (Foot movement breaks radio C2 in all titles except CMBS) the time to run the information up to Battalion would have been longer. It's interesting to experiment/play with and discuss but definitely nothing to get upset about. Its all good.

Two separate battalions on my test map. One Infantry Bn. and one Pzjg Bn. However the Pzjg battalion was mostly HQ units with a few StuGs for test purposes. This is one of the things that make this interesting. The StuG, belonging to the Pzjg battalion, does not report the contact to the 1st Battalion (not in the same vertical C2 as 1st Bn. and no C2 bridge to share the information). This I expected. However the scouts use the same StuG radio and are able to report the contact to their 1st Battalion HQ. They must have had the StuG radioman temporarily switch frequencies to send the SPOT report . At least that's what I'm telling myself so I can sleep at night.................

Here is an interesting one. A scout team from 1st Battalion uses a StuG’s radio (the StuG is from a Panzerjager Bn.) to send a report on a Soviet AT gun to 1st Bn. HQ. Scout team moves to within 32 meters of the StuG and horizontally shares information about the AT gun. The scouts use the StuG's radio. If you look in special equipment the scouts have no radio of their own. It does not matter if the StuG is buttoned or Opened Up as long as the scouts are on the StuG they can use the radio. So this will not work for games that do not have tank riders. However on map mortars can be two action spots (about 16 meters) away and use the radio..

Nice catch. This is what it looks like in CMBN v4.0, Engine 4.0. Pz IVG (latest) on the left. Pz IVJ (early) on right.

@Drifter Man thanks for the tables. Interesting information. After Photobuckets vandalism many of us have switched to imgur. It is free and easy to use.

Wow, I never noticed that before. I just tested it in CMBN, CMRT & CMBS. In the WWII titles infantry had no combat commands in the back of a truck. It does seem odd. Not sure what the reasoning is. In CMBS troops did have combat commands while in the back of a LMTV truck (Which is cool because that is needed for any "Long Road Home" Scenario ).

For cover arcs (Target Arcs) I assign those to the teams while they are still in the vehicles. Usually 360o Target Arcs.

Sorry, it was just the order I posted the screenshots. When you first start a mission and click on the HQ squad you get the full unit view. So you are correct the full unit is shown by default.

I have often used the HQ toggle with vehicles (mostly tanks). Now that I started using US Armored Infantry, where the HQ is part of first Squad, I have noticed it with infantry also. Thought I would share some screenshots of it. The HQ toggle is probably common knowledge on vehicles. Might not be so common with infantry. The toggle is useful for C2 related issues. Below shows the platoon HQ team in First Squad. Click the HQ toggle and now the entire squad is displayed.

Looking forward to seeing this.