domfluff

F5 key broke, keyboard's at the vet.

Yes. Going by past experience, the next round of patches may be released soon after CMSF 2 releases, probably not at exactly the same time. CMSF 2 should be on the latest version. CMSF 2 will probably need at least one patch soon after it's released, since that just happens.

There are quite a few questions that I'm not going to find answers to until afterwards (since I'm not going to "cheat"). I have no idea if the hidden objectives are just the terrain objectives in the briefing, or if they're supposed to encourage certain behaviours/ avenues of approach. Obviously as a core concept it's tough, since you can always open up the map and see what they are.

("Interesting" is code for Bil giggling at my read of the situation.)

Oh, I expect so Good luck man, thanks for agreeing to take this one on with me.

Have just started a PBEM game of this, will let you know how I get on.

Yeah, the Osprey books tend to be fantastic on pictures, and variable on actual details. You're usually better off with actual manuals (period or otherwise).

It doesn't give you a bonus, but will still help with spotting - they keep their eyes towards the centre of the arc, so you'll see things in that direction.

Ooh, that warrants some further testing, and should be reasonably easy to show - setting up a straight line like the above, with Red vs Red or just combining units together through switching sides.

Quite aside from CM:AK existing previously, 1943 North Africa would seem to be the obvious next step for a WW2 title, and would dovetail nicely into 1943 Eastern front with the ability to share assets with both, and CMFI, and work backwards. Involving the French might allow for the same to apply for 1940 France eventually as well.

So, a couple of things to consider. You do know what the enemy has, which makes the difference between you easier to judge. First thing is to decide if you're overwhelming them. In that case you might be best placed to pursue and exploit your success, before they get a chance to recover. If not, next priority is on consolidating into a hasty defensive position (all-round defence - you need to cover your flanks), and taking stock of where you are. This can include time for buddy aid to pick up ammunition, or any key weapons that may have been dropped. If you can find covered positions on the objective, then you're golden. Setting this up might occupy as little as the next minute or two. Then, you need to decide (pretty quickly) whether your platoon is in a fit state to pursue any additional objectives, or whether consolidating on this one is their limit. This is a judgement call, with some nuance to it. Platoons are generally only good for one objective at a time, so it would be reasonable for them to take and hold this one, and no further. If they'd taken no losses or overrun the defenders easily they might be suitable for another objective. "Consolidating" in this case doesn't really mean staying put - it might mean taking key buildings or other pieces of commanding terrain, and might require fighting for them. You know that reinforcement is coming, so transitioning from attack to defence might be the best idea for the moment - if taking the objective is going to cost too many lives then you'll not end up achieving anything, but repelling any attacks from a defensive position can end up costing them more. Assuming you're set up in a hasty defence (assuming that's the right decision - nuance, again), then you also need to send out scout teams to screen and recon the enemy - if they're coming you need to know this, and if they're fleeing they'll be out of your LOS pretty quickly. This could be done at the same time as your consolidation effort - sending one squad to screen whilst the others make good of their situation.

Potentially, especially if (as in this situation) you're expecting enemy contact. If I'm not expecting contact I usually won't bother doing anything anywhere near as complex, since it just pushes the playing time way up for minimal effect.

Cheers for the comments, some points: You're quite right that AFV's turn the focus of the game around. In a small scenario with a single tank or two, there's definitely a "before" and "after" period when the tanks are killed (or aren't, as the case may be) - in the right situation they're dominant and can wipe out a lot of the subtleties. There are lots of infantry-only scenarios though, so the "Always" is a bit over-stated. Equally, tanks can't be everywhere, so in the right terrain or situation you still need to manage infantry correctly. I think that's a hard one to judge. If you're expecting incoming fire, then the manoeuvre element should be Hunting (and will drop down on contact). If you're not expecting contact then they should be moving towards a covered position in the majority of cases - sticking around in the open is always a bad idea. This is why Move reverts to Quick if they come under fire - presumably the location you've old them to move to is better than the one they're currently in. Bil's diagrams on Battledrill make this a little unclear, since the pictures don't show ground cover for clarity, but they do imply it. The overwatch element can take a long time to spot the enemy (obviously this is variable), but you as the player can (unrealistically!) area-fire from them within seconds of contact being made, even if they haven't picked up a contact marker yet. Estimating this is a good enough way to start the engagement, and the next step is to bring up the platoon weapons and HQ unit and start building up to a proper firefight. Obviously if you were caught in the open like this then you are starting at a disadvantage. This is why you do things like crawl to make yourself a smaller target when you're cresting a hill - you're giving yourself all of the advantages that you can, but you're still going to be worse off than the chap waiting for you. Buildings can be challenging, yes. HE fire can be important. I'd still target a floor of a building where the enemy is suspected, and shift fires if needed. Isolated buildings are massive targets, so they're usually easy to get multiple units on target. In a more built up scenario? Well, yes, MOUT is a grinding nightmare for everyone. It does take a lot of fire to suppress a squad fully, but any fire will start to have an effect, which can snowball (less fire back means your delta is greater, and gets greater). This is true in reality as well. You need to pour fire continuously onto a target to carry out a fire&manoeuvre - if the whole platoon was forming a base of fire, then the actual assault element might be as small as a single team. Grenades and SMGs are extremely effective in the right scenario. * CM's simulation of infantry combat is one of it's strongest points. We can definitely argue subjectively about how a lot of the effects are modelled, but I know I'm pretty happy with the package as a whole. Now, CM does have some things which prevent you from doing things tactically - AFV's are something which tends to wipe out a lot of the subtleties, particularly in close maps. The other thing can be overly-small or overly-open maps, which can both prevent manoeuvre. You can be reduced to only have attrition-based options pretty quickly, with a dodgy choice in forces, maps and others. That's usually down to the scenario design or quick battle choices though.

The core principles are the same for everyone, really, but there's a lot of nuance in the details. Bil's "Basic Rules for Combat Mission" is a really solid place to start http://battledrill.blogspot.com/2013/08/tactical-skills-001-key-tactical.html The nuance often comes down to organisational and equipment differences. A simple example: British rifle platoons consist of an HQ element, three squads and a two inch mortar German panzergrenadiers consists of HQ and three squads, possibly with transport (but we'll ignore those for this example). British squads are 9-10 men, built around a single LMG. Panzergrenadiers are 8 men, with two carried GPMGs. This means that the British squads split into a base of fire element with the LMG, and a manoeuvre element without. Forward movement is therefore usually alternating - the LMG covers the manoeuvre element to the next piece of terrain, then the rifles stay put whilst the LMG catches up. (bounding overwatch - successive) The Panzergrenadiers can split into two teams, each with a GPMG. This means that each team can support the other, allowing them to leapfrog past each other, whilst providing mutual support. (bounding overwatch - alternating) Comparing the platoons as a whole, the 6x MG42 in the german platoon can put out a lot more firepower than the 3x Brens in the British platoon. in a firefight then, the British rely on their light mortars to make up the difference - HE fire for suppression, or especially smoke to isolate elements of the enemy, or cover a break in contact.

Without testing, I'd assume this if ground-rader was modelled, it's just the same kind of bonus to spotting that other systems get (e.g., how laser designators mostly just make calling in artillery a bit faster). That would be more than close enough really for our purposes, but it might mean that you're spotting faster in visual range, rather than spotting outside of visual range. The manual specifically mentions ECM interfering with AA acquisition effectiveness, so in that sense it's modelled.

Sure, except that they'll be unable to move quickly when you actually need them to - getting out of the way of mortars, moving to the next objective, etc.

Had a couple more thoughts on this. Not really responding to anything in particular. Difficulty is, naturally, subjective. I did see a post on Reddit the other day, coining the term "not BGG Balanced" referring to Root. Root is a great asymmetric COIN game, with woodland creatures. A furry insurgency, if you will. Very impressed with the Designer since his work on Pax Pamir and especially John Company, so it comes highly regarded. "BGG" refers to Boardgamegeek. Root (and the GMT COIN series that inspired it) tend to be asymmetric, with multiple factions that need to bounce off each other to make the whole thing work. Asymmetry implies imbalance, but the point of the games are that if Player A doesn't perform his role, Players B and C might not be able to stop D winning. This means that all players need to be invested and understand the underlying situation, which is asking for a fair bit of commitment from them. Not an unreasonable amount, but more than the average eurogame. The point of the "BGG balanced" remark was that the balance in Root is something that all parties need to work towards to achieve. They need to be aware of what they're doing, and what everyone else is doing, and to control the imbalance in the overall context, and of a specific turn. Getting this right is a huge part of doing well at the game. A forum like BGG is inevitably a melting pot of people with different backgrounds and expectations, playing groups and experiences, and so a game which asks a lot from the players may not be suitable for everyone in every situation. In fact, you're more likely than not that the consensus will be tilted towards the mean - so any outliers will be emphasised. A "BGG Balanced" game would take that issue away through careful balancing that is player independent. The issue is that this also tends to make it bland, or at least homogeneous. Combat Mission asks an awful lot from you. It's a brutal and long game. A given mission may take many real-world hours to play out, and you can screw it all up in minutes. It's certainly true that CM scenarios tend towards the difficult, but "balance" is something that's so fickle and subjective that it's incredibly hard to define, let alone implement.

Worthwhile pointing out that the larger UAV's fly too high for AA to engage them (as long as they don't attack). Also that EW is single sided - if you buy EW, if only affects your opponent.

I'm specifically *not* complaining about this, but the worst offenders I've seen are: - The Panzer Grenadier campaign from CMFI, that has a lot of "breakthrough" scenarios. The time limits are there to force you to move and so (I think) are pretty reasonable in practice. If you approached this campaign with the intention of killing every US soldier, then you're in for a bad time. - A lot of the early CMSF scenarios. Scenario and map making has come on leaps and bounds since, and some of the scenarios with laughably small amounts of time (a lot of them have 20 minute timescales) are presumably designed to play head to head in real time. I think we've all learned a lot since then. Are there still issues with timing? Frankly, I usually don't find myself running out of time in any CM game, but I can well believe that there are scenarios where this is the case. Balance is extremely hard to do, and especially to balance something as brutal and unforgiving as Combat Mission - one mistake can ruin an entire game on occasion, so balancing something as binary as that, that also relies heavily on hidden information (so, effectively "random" insofar as troop deployments and AI moves) is extremely difficult.

Fatigue mostly doesn't matter - the more fatigued you are, the slower you are allowed to move, but it doesn't (appear to) affect your morale, shooting, etc. It's obviously still better to be unfatigued than fatigued - if you need to bring up reserves quickly or get out of an area that mortars are in, then you'll want to be able to move Fast whenever you need to.

Nah, I was just getting massively confused. Nothing to see here, move along

Broadly, I think there are two types of CM scenarios (with a lot of overlap). You have scenarios that are trying to create a narrative, and you have scenarios that are more "sandbox" in nature. The latter tend to be of the form: "You have a by-the-book US Rifle company, and you have to take that position how you see fit, go", and tend to be sandbox games. The former tend to look like Tactical Decision Games "You have a US rifle company, and you have to take that position, BUT x and y condition", or even "You have a rifle company, you take those positions, oh lawd there's a panzer platoon coming" I do think there's room for both, but since CM doesn't have the strongest tools for creating narrative (scripting, etc.), the sandbox scenarios are frequently stronger. This means that the limitations on those need to be a little more lax. For a Tactical Decision Game, you can ask questions like "how would you defend this village from an armoured attack, with only handheld anti-tank weaponry?", and this can be an engaging puzzle, but the Sandbox style should be more like "How would you defend this village from an armoured attack with a rifle platoon?". Limited timings can be an important tool for both of these. There are endless scenarios where the balance isn't quite right - scenario design and testing is hard - but to ignore time is pretty much the same thing as ignoring any other limitations ("I don't have enough AT guns", "I don't have enough troops", etc.). For the TDG-style scenario, this can be part of the point - you might have to work out how to achieve an objective under severe time pressure, and that's as authentic a situation as anything. For a sandbox-style, I would suggest that the timings should be a little more lax, since you're allowing room for creativity.

So the plan here should be: Work out a hasty defensive plan. You want as many of your guys to be as stationary in decent positions as possible, right now. MGs are superb for this. From there, you need to keep building and reinforcing this defence, using the stationary guys to cover better positions, better sight lines, etc. The nuance is in deciding what is good enough, and what is too far, and that's hard to judge. You need to get the foundation down before setting up your platoon in situation that you're happy with. Defensively you want to protect key areas, preferably where they can see and support each other. It's no good sticking someone in the woods if they can't be seen by the rest of the platoon, since the Boche could potentially bring their entire force onto this isolated unit. You happen to know that artillery is not a major issue, so controlling buildings isn't a bad idea, but pay attention to the direction windows are facing, and any blind spots. Ideally I'd like to leave one squad in reserve, and keep the HQ and mortar team central, so that they can help out. Don't be afraid to lay smoke with the two inch mortar - that's mostly what they're for. The HE rounds are helpful, but smoke has an immediate effect on the battle that disproportionate to their size. Laying smoke to cover a withdrawal, or to split and isolate enemy fires is crucial to the British way of war. One you've secured the position (which looks likely to involve a firefight), the next part will be to take stock on the overall situation - if you get into a confused firefight now and win, then you may or may not have already won the game, but working out whether (and how) you can develop your now-slightly-less-hasty-defence into a proper attack. One option will be to not attack, or to wait for the armoured car to show up. Again, this is a question of nuance. You happen to know the composition of the enemy forces exactly, so you should be able to get a good idea about whether you''re winning the fight once the shooting starts. Bren vs Spandau is an old debate - the MG42 obviously has a much greater rate of fire, but lower accuracy. The Bren might be the finest LMG in WW2, but the MG42 isn't an LMG...

Yeah, comparing a platoon level FO (no laser designator) to an attached Fire Support team (with laser designator), the game effect is that the laser designator shaves off one minute on an F-16 strike, with equal soft factors.

The manual only has "Laser designators are used by forward observers and air controllers to mark targets for attack. Laser designators aid in fire mission speed and accuracy. Russian and Ukrainian precision fire support missions require that the spotting team be equipped with a laser designator. ". I imagine there's some abstraction here - certainly a laser designator would help you determine range, so would make judging the correct GPS co-ordinates easier?