MOS:96B2P

In the WWII titles I have found it useful to give platoon HQ's a 50 meter 360o Target Arc. (100 meters across) This serves the purpose of keeping the HQ from firing at far off targets and drawing return fire. But it is also a visual reminder of the automatic C2 voice distance. I attempt, with a few exceptions, to make this the area of operations for the fire teams of the platoon. I will especially keep the forward (in-contact) fire teams in this arc. The reserve squad, teams giving medic aid, 60mm mortar etc may fall a short distance behind this arc and are called forward when needed. My self defense arc for Company HQs & Forward Observers is 32 meters. In CMBS with the communications gear that is present I am still experimenting with the target/command arc concept. It is not needed as much for C2 but I still like a defined area of operations for my platoons. Just FYI reference the Hide command. It will reduce the automatic 50 meter voice C2 to about 16 - 20 meters.

///////////////////////////////// Possible Spoiler ///////////////////////////////////// /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// SitRep 0825 One friendly casualty. ANA scout hit 50 meters from Southern Compound. Estimate eight OpFor KIA. SitMap 0825hrs

Sounds like it was a combination of the Hunt command with the cover arc. The cover arc tells the crew to react to threats within the arc (that the crew is aware of) and ignore threats outside of the arc. The crew will do their best to follow these orders based on motivation and experience. The incoming fire on the other tank was within the 300m arc. When on Hunt incoming fire within an assigned 300m arc causes the tanks to halt. If they had LOS they would have also fired but the gaining of LOS, with this combination of commands, would almost have to be synchronized to work. Hunt is good for tanks to take hull down positions reference a particular OpFor position. Like sneaking into an overwatch position. Fast is good for a multi tank dynamic attack. Try to Fast them to their first LOS waypoints so they all arrive within a few seconds of each other. When I use armored covered arcs I almost always make them 360o and the entire map. The few exceptions are in confined areas where I want the turret rotated before the tank breaks from cover. Like in MOUT or sometimes the Normandy bocage. Below is my drill for what you were trying to do. Any suggestions for improvements are welcome. 1. When possible keep at least two open action spots (16 meters) between vehicles. 2. Give vehicles Open Up orders. 3. If target is armored give vehicles Armor Target Arc orders for entire map, 360o. 4. Fast vehicles to shoot waypoints attempting to synchronize arrival times. Notes: Fast so front armor is facing OpFor at final waypoint. (Don’t use Face). Good luck.

Thanks. Good to know. I had this on my list of things to test.

@Rinaldi interesting fight. Thanks for taking the time to post. It will be interesting to learn what those two companies you got through on the flank are able to do.

Line of departure crossed at 0800hrs. Only a few minutes into it. So far no contact. I will admit ................... I checked all the Bulldogs in the CP to see if one was overlooked and still mobile . However @Combatintman is a meticulous, thorough scenario designer...............

Well, I got to chapter 10 of Dead Men Risen. I had no idea the material, logistic, C2 etc. problems the UK had in Helmand. Very frustrating just reading about it. I think I am about ready to cross the line of departure on this one. Sitreps to follow.

I sometimes see this in all the CM titles however I usually come to the conclusion that it was due to the soft factors of the unit. IMO motivation greater than "normal" = less initiative. The higher the motivation the more likely the unit is to stick to the task at hand. Combine a high motivation level with a low experience level and I think you can see this behavior fairly often. So I would be curious about the soft factors first. That would be my first guess ............

Interesting story. Now keep the OpFor running so one doesn't turn around and fire a panzerfaust .......

http://community.battlefront.com/topic/122769-is-cmsf-worth-buying/?page=1 About the eighth post down @Sprint31 said he heard about CMSF 4.0 during a live stream.

This is an important point that I did not always understand. If you have a platoon of tanks and one tank gets knocked out with one crewman KIA this will start to effect the morale of the remaining tanks of the platoon. If the surviving crewmen from the knocked out tank are then also KIA the morale of the remaining operational tanks will suffer yet again. I use to wonder how a fully intact tank and crew could have a broken morale level. It was because of what happened to the rest of their platoon. I did some experiments recently and found that this morale hit occurs to other sub units of the platoon even when they are not in LOS of the carnage, not in C2 and not in horizontal info sharing distance of units that do have C2. So appears to be no way to avoid the morale hit except, of course, to try to avoid the casualties.

Well ............. I think I was able to recreate this in CMFI v1.20. First if you click on one of your friendly units, in the orders phase, it will display the OpFor contacts and tentative contacts that friendly unit is aware of. Then if you use one of the targeting commands and move the targeting line to the different tentative contacts and use some patience you may eventually be able to area target one of those tentative contacts. The friendly unit must have LOF to the action spot so it can take some playing around to find one that works. Maybe why this has not been noticed before (At least I have not noticed it). Good job womble!! Maybe we should call this one the womble targeting tactic. Screenshots below.

Mark, I was hoping you might notice this thread and comment. I just took a look at CMFI and CMBS QB maps. To the right of the picture and below the picture some information is listed but none of the information has to do with wind conditions ................. unless I am not understanding. And even if the "original" wind conditions were listed they are randomly changed for Quick Battles I believe. Do you know of a way to tell beforehand what the wind conditions on a QB map will be? Is there a pattern or some type of predictable logic to it? Thanks for all the great maps.

In RL it is routine or even SOP to get a No Later Than (NLT) time on many (most?) combat missions. The assigned mission is part of a larger problem that higher HQ is dealing with. The battalion orders Bravo Company to secure the crossroads NLT 0800 in order that Alfa Company can advance through the crossroads at 0830. And of course battalion issued these orders in response to a mission received from brigade who is working for division etc... If the assigned unit runs out of time they may not stop but higher HQ will have to adjust for whatever consequences result from the failure to meet the NLT. Maybe 2nd Battalion had better luck taking objectives so brigade will shift the main effort to 2nd Battalion. But this starts to get into the operational level beyond what the game typically portrays (Some campaigns touch on this with branch scenarios). I try to plan and play the mission to fulfill the commanders intent in the given time frame. It does not always work. Sometimes I will get a tactical victory instead of a total and sometimes I will take a defeat.............. just like in RL. For the withdraw button......... if I understand what you are asking for I think you can just hit cease fire and get much the same result. Also if you want to add time to a scenario (for your own enjoyment) you can open it in the scenario editor and add time. (Just modify the file name so you remember you made a change) In the newer titles I think you can go up to four hours. Can't remember off hand what it is for Shock Force. In any case it is a very cool game.

Got it downloaded and looked at the map. Very nice. 'Dead Men Risen' is a very interesting book. Looking forward to getting this mission going.

The Assault command can be disappointing especially when used to assault into a building. Administratively splitting the squad into fire teams works better than the Assault command. Below is a link to a recent discussion to include screenshots of what happens. http://community.battlefront.com/topic/122783-suppression-squad-splits-vs-assault-command/ No cohesion is lost ........ just the benefits of having them split. On the bright side they can redistribute ammo when recombined.

Thanks Bootie! I know you will get 'er done when you can. Midnights! I worked those way back in time. Usually for an overtime detail! Stay safe out there on the mids.

Good news!! Looking forward to Green 9!! Also the book 'Dead Men Risen' has a lot of interesting information about the Guards units and regimental system. Good stuff. I will plan on crossing the line of departure after I get through chapter 8. And, of course after @Bootie releases it.

Were all the troops part of the same squad and were you using the Assault command to attack into the building?

At times I have thought there might be a pattern to the random wind conditions in QB map loads. While looking for a good QB map for a PBEM I will sometimes load the same map two or three times. I am in a mirrored PBEM now and I loaded the map at least twice to check it out. I selected Day & Clear. While checking out the map I don't know what the wind conditions were but I know they were not heavy. I wear a headset (wife finds automatic gunfire, explosions and the screams of wounded distracting) and the sound of heavy wind during set up is irritating. I also wonder if the trees swaying back and forth may impact game performance. So if the wind is heavy it is one of the first things I notice after opening the map. So the first two times (at least) that I opened the same map under the exact same selectable conditions the wind was something other than heavy. When I went back and loaded the same map with the exact same conditions for both (mirrored) PBEM games the wind for both was Heavy East. Whatever the cause & effect is for wind (if there is any) I would love to figure it out.

This is an interesting question that I have also thought about. I am currently in a PBEM (Blitz's April scenario of the month) Forest of Wild Beasts. Huge map, lots of infantry and no transport. So my interest in this has been renewed due to the tactical problems in the scenario. If I can find the time I should probably do a few experiments on this before I find the answers the hard way. I have noticed the fit conditions go from: Rested, Ready, Tiring, Tired, Fatigued and Exhausted. At Fatigued Quick will automatically change to Move. I have also noticed automatic pauses with Hunt but have never had a unit change to another movement command from Hunt, but just take a Pause. Slow the unit seems to keep moving, never pausing, changing command or stopping even when exhausted. It would be interesting to know how well they will fight in this exhausted condition. The OpFor commander may help me test this ..................

Bud, excellent story to go with the screenshot! This is one of my favorites yet!

Looking forward to another well put together scenario. Made me laugh when I saw the date of the opening post. Glad you found the time to get back to this one. I downloaded 'Dead Men Risen' by Toby Harden to my Kindle and have begun preparation for deployment to CP Haji Alem.

This is what many of my current TACSOPs are based on and I think at the end of the day (unless someone has a new revelation) they will remain so.

I think these are two of the more interesting and revealing points to come from this experimenting. When you come to a conclusion reference your stone wall/morale effects I would be interested to hear your opinion on if you think it is better, in general, to use administratively split teams vs. the Assault command.