domfluff

Yup. LongLeftFlank is quite right from a realism perspective, but from a H2H PBEM point of view, especially a competitive (Ladder) one, I'm struggling to see how well CMSF 2 is going to work, and especially uncons. Obviously playing back to back mirror matches are the easiest way to balance this, if not the most elegant. Now, that's not strictly a problem (and I'll happily try to fight uphill with an irregular force), but it would be a nice-to-have. Same problem applies to the Italians in CMFI, naturally.

The issue of course is that this means that irregulars may be better suited to Scenarios than Quick Battles (in a purely competitive sense at least - why would you accept a battle on ground that's horrendous for you?). That's a shame, but it's probably unavoidable.

Oh wow, that's something.

Yeah, I'd be up for that. Irregulars have so many obvious failings that everything's dialled up a notch or two - meaning it's correspondingly difficult to make a scenario that represents an even challenge. Setting up a one-sided ambush or mowing down hordes of "fuzzy-wuzzies" (borrowing Kipling for emphasis) is simple, but doing something more sophisticated would be the goal.

Hidden information is always difficult in a wargame - even with "double blind" information like CM, you're still very aware that you're playing a scenario, and have an idea what to expect (you'll never guess what happened in the CMSF scenario "ATGM Ambush"...) Still, a combination of a city with a lot of Preserve objectives, objectives that have to be reached, a limited mission time and the Civilian density mechanics, you should be able to cobble something together. e.g., if the intention was to be an urban ambush scenario, then giving the Red player freedom of the map and fortifications (especially wire), and giving the blue forces preserve and touch objectives and a tight time limit (so that they really have to use vehicles to get to them all), you should end up with a reasonable chance at setting up an ambush. To make it more interesting, it might not be clear what kind of route is possible to travel on. For an "assault"-type scenario, having the blue forces split up over more than one setup zone, and giving Red an Exit zone should do the trick nicely - you'd get the basic "kill A and get out before B gets here" structure. Since the irregulars have so many disadvantages, it's tough to see how they'd cope in most meeting engagements, even in urban terrain. Offensive and defensive scenarios seem a lot more plausible in general. I'm also not sure about how well these will work in Quick Battles generally - none of the Red forces really work in "fair" fights to begin with, points-based force selection doesn't make it easy to create unfair situations, and the further down the chain you go, the worse it gets.

Yup, under "menus" there's a button for "conditions" - that'll give you wind direction, weather, ground state, electronic warfare, whatever is appropriate.

Some maps from the above sources, describing the Active, Security and Support roles in different contexts: This is more than doable with the mechanics in CMSF - obviously the crowd/riot would have to be abstracted (flavour object? burning cars?), but it would work. As a scenario it wouldn't be all that interesting, obviously, but it's nice to know. More of a formal Syrian army hunter-killer ambush, but one that would work just as well with irregular forces. Given the obstacles, this wouldn't work in CMSF, but should work fine in CMSF (ignoring the basements). "Exit" objectives will help this kind of thing with CMSF 2 The above is probably what a typical irregular scenario should look like - attack a target, and get out before the reaction force shows up. Again with the "exit" conditions making this kind of thing possible now. One thing that is notable is how small these examples are - most insurgent-only scenarios should probably be really small - Blufor getting a squad or maybe a platoon at most. That's pushing the lower limit on scale for CM, but I think it's workable. The importance of Infowar elements in the above makes me wonder if there's something clever you can do with Spotting objectives.

Oh wow, yeah - the foot Milan teams can use their incredibly quick offroad vehicles and that massive open space to the flank of the syrian advance to set them up from km+ distance - atgms have a lot of tactical similarities, but they're firmly not anti-tank guns!

The precise logic of when ifv's fire missiles is exactly as obtuse as when infantry use grenades, grenade launchers or supporting weapons (especially things like AT weapons against infantry) - arguably that's a feature. Clearly there are ways of forcing this - if you get infantry to within 30m, and the other side of a hillcrest, they wont be able to target with any other weapons, so giving them a target order for the other side of the crest will result in a volley of grenades. BMPs and Bradleys clearly take a few things into consideration - they decide when they can damage the target, what the range is, etc., same as other units.The most reliable way to get them firing ATGMs is to sit them 1-2km away (or more) and let the tacAI sort itself out, since that's really how they're designed to be used. The AT-5 on BMP-2 and especially AT-3 on BMP-1 have fairly significant minimum ranges as well, so you really don't want them firing these from too close, but there are a ton of other factors that wil prevent this, including finding cover from the Abrams you might be hopefully targeting.

Moving to contact through close terrain, especially woods. Also over hill crests. I wouldn't generally hunt into a building if I was intending to fight from there immediately, but if I was sending in a scout team or small unit, especially if they has a short covered arc to hold fire - if you make contact (especially from an unexpected direction) you'll contact with the minimum possible force - perhaps as low as only the first man of a two man team, which leaves the body of your squad/platoon/company intact. That's just not possible with the other move orders, since they'll try to complete the whole movement in other cases, and rather than losing one dude to unexpected enemy, you'll lose more.

Personally, I think some of the maps and textures are astonishingly ugly - much more so than cmsf 1 - and the scenario quality is much more variable than most cm games, but the core experience of the game is solid. It's a cool setting though (80's soviet tech vs insurgents is good for all the reasons that syria vs uncons are interesting in cmsf), and The Bear Went Over The Mountain provides a lot of scenario fodder. A remake would be welcomed, but that seems unlikely.

MOUT is really hard, and the Breaking the Bank scenario is a great example of why. It's puzzle-like for many of the same reasons that Bocage is for CMBN - a single street can be an entire battle-worth of thinking though. I'm really impressed with this scenario, but it's very punishing. Definitely split squads, and go carefully - you need maximum awareness and control over your guys. AFVs give you big, vulnerable targets, which are also sources of tremendous firepower - you want to get in controlled, anticipated firefights, and ones which you can choose when to win - and 30mm autocannnon and/or Challenger main guns are a great way to do that. In an ideal world you won't get into scenarios where your chaps run away, since they won't ever be that badly outmatched. Obviously that's neither easy nor all that likely, but it *is* possible. A lot of urban combat is about keyholing - sometimes it's a good idea to get down to eye level, and see precisely how many extra windows are visible from the next action spot along. Creeping forward 8m at a time is sometimes exactly the right thing to do, as well as liberal use of recon by fire. I don't think I'vee seen a scenario where I put a team an order outside of a door, then another inside, and they've used a different route, but the answer is still really the same as the above link - your priority is creating the safe avenue of approach, not the the actual entry. If you create a safe path, then it won't matter which doors they choose, since they'll all be safe. In terms of tips, urban combat is traditionally something which western armies have done pretty badly, and the British TO&E doesn't have some of the tools that the US one does (MGS Strykers and MOUT strkyer infantry can both be amazingly useful - there's a reason why UK infantry started to carry shotguns, but I think that's just after the CMSF period.

I have an excellent link for you: https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/call/call_01-9_karagosian.htm It's really common (in CM and in reality) to fixate on room clearing/entry, when actually that's the least important part of the job. If you can suppress the occupants, cover their exits, and create opportunities to manouevre, then the clearing will take care of itself. Other than that, C3K's advice is pretty solid - you really want to Fast or Quick into a building, mostly since you want to be out of the street as soon as possible. Ideally you Blast (or make a hole with an MGS Stryker, Abrams main gun or rockets), but with the assumption that Preserve objectives are a thing or ammo is limited, you bundle in after suppressing the occupants.

In general, my scouts in a german formation tend to be whole teams - if you split off a scout team, you end up with an unsplittable six man squad with one or two MG's, which severely limits your options - and your number one priority is maintaining as much freedom of movement (and available options) as possible. There are exceptions, but they're generally in a final push to contact - if I'm trying to get eyes-on to a known enemy, and want to maintain as stealthy an approach as possible, then I'll split off a German scout team. Whether to rush is a common problem with meeting engagements, and is an issue with wargaming those scenarios in general - ME tend to be non-historical, and the "rush to the centre" mentality is one that's seen far more commonly in gaming than it ever was in reality. It's just one of those things. If your opponent has charged into the centre, you might have a bad time - this is partly an issue with the time limit, and partly with the objectives. I'm (again, with full expectation of being badly wrong) expecting him to have taken the other objective by now, and for this to be mostly a stand-off over open ground. That means that the decisive point will be whose armoured car gets destroyed first - which is a fight you should be equipped to win. If so, then you should be able to mop up fairly safely from outside PIAT range and win a minor victory.

Also, if proof were needed of the firepower disparity - the above firefight ended in a few seconds with both sides fleeing. The 9 US had taken 5 casualties, 1 wounded and 3 ok, whereas the 19 insurgents had taken 4 casualties, 3 wounded and 12 ok - more than 2:1 odds, point blank range (albeit behind cover), and the insurgent force is probably not capable of achieving any further objectives. The cover and the fact the US started it will work in their favour, but that's still pretty awful. This is why I think the correct way to use the above would be to infiltrate to point-blank range, force them out of the building (VBIED would be ideal, but obviously single-use), and catch them whilst they're running.

How close they managed to get before being seen (the right-most squad is Move-ing one square forward)

By way of example (CMSF 1, Very Heavy civilian setting) Red view: Blue view: All combatants, and the only orders were Move. The only clues to their existence is the US Squad shouting "Warning! Infantry approaching!" and the like.

Running some tests with CMSF 1 - Very Heavy density, and some Combatants and Fighters Move-ing towards a stationary Typical US squad, the Fighters were spotted the minute they turned the corner (200m away or so), and the Combatants were not formally spotted until two action spots away (but there were contextual clues due to shout-outs, and some ? markers). I imagine the system will be similar, but yes, well worth doing once CMSF 2 hits. The "stealth" definitely applies to Combatants and Spies (so, Specialists - VBIED's seemed to have some of that, but transports did not), but did not apply to Fighters. Combatants could normal-Move almost directly up to the US squad without being spotted. If they ran or crawled they were spotted much earlier. This has a secondary effect, since any fires that cause them to Quick-move or crawl (say, stray MG fire or random mortars/HE from any side) may well end up revealing them unintentionally.

There was a really good attempt at a CM:A Redfor campaign: http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/tsd3/cm-afghanistan-2/cm-afghanistan-campaigns/salang-blues-campaign/ Playing through this, and reading The Other Side of the Mountain, it's definitely possible to do, albeit somewhat repetitive (a lot of the early game of the above involves ambushing convoys of trucks and running away). I think it's doable, but not necessarily a good idea - it's hard to gain the initiative on any kind of decent scale, and for all of the upgrades to the AI, it's still difficult to make it attack in a reasonably effective fashion. Red vs Red (especially Syria vs Insurgent) campaigns are a different story, of course.

In terms of C2, with the way morale works (specifically in reducing the morale of closely attached units), I wonder if more, smaller groups of combatants are better than a smaller number of larger groups? Josey Wales' terms "Combat Stress" and "Combat Shock" (the permanent and temporary forms of morale loss) are shared horizontally between units in the same formation. It's not clear whether this is a strict percentage, but, assuming that it is: 1 HQ + 9 soldiers = 10 men, two dead = 20% casualties. 1 HQ + 19 soldiers = 20 men. two dead = 10% casualties. I wonder if it's better to have 8 guys suffering the effects of 20% losses, or 18 suffering the effects of 10%? If this is in any way modelled linearly - 8 x 0.2 = 1.6 and 18 x 0.1 = 1.8 - you'd imagine that smaller cells were a little better here? Speculation, obviously, but I imagine being very aware of C2 links becomes a lot more important.

My rule of thumb has been that each unit or element can be given one job that it can be reasonably expected to do, and no more. This AT asset is expected to lie in place and take out one vehicle, this Fighter squad can fanatically storm one building, etc. If they happen to survive intact, so much the better (and they might be able to regroup for something improvised later), but the basic concept is of single-use units, kamikaze or otherwise.

One thing I'm really interested in (especially with Quick Battles) is whether the scenario conditions will make up for the gap in capability. I've now played Passage at Wilcox from the demo, and I'm not sure the score really reflected the outcome appropriately (it was scored as a "total victory", but possibly should have been a "tactical victory"? something like that anyway). Certainly liberal use of "preserve" objectives, as well as stiff penalties for losing blue forces and conserving ammunition can all help, but it's going to be very difficult to balance this effectively - certainly a lot more difficult than doing the same for symmetric scenarios. Easiest option would be to have literal asymmetric conditions - a bluefor which only gets points for occupying ground, and a redfor that only gets points for destroying forces, that kind of thing, but even then that's hard.

Actually spotting stationary units inside buildings is tough for spies - they don't have any enhanced optics, thermals or other gear, so the most useful method will be to try to spot them on approach to a target - this means covering all likely avenues of approach with eyes. Either spies or combatants should be decent at this, since they won't need to move around all that much, and can do this from concealment, making them mostly invisible. Actually standing against an occupied building or walking inside will get a spy spotted, of course. Sniper teams will have scopes, which might help. A lot, therefore, will rely on careful reading of the terrain, anticipation and planning - setting up the attack is even more important with irregular forces than others, since you want the offensive to be as short and overwhelming as possible - anything that gives Blufor a chance to recover the initiative will usually end badly for the Irregulars. Defensively, the forces can't manage anything particularly complex, and a positional defence is probably the way forward. The key is to try to remove the ability of Blufor to reduce these positions from a safe distance - the overwhelming firepower is very difficult to deal with. e.g., The mission is to defend a small village against enemy mechanised infantry and armour. The plan is to fortress three locations with small arms troops, mines and defences. Each position can cover the others with at least one ATGM, and the best areas for a Bluefor base of fire are made unattractive through IEDs, mines and mortar fire. ATGMs have a ton of reach, and even the AT-3 is a powerful capability to have. Being able to mutually support each position, and removing the best bases of fire will reduce the firepower disparity, and smoke can be used to reduce this further - you want a short ranged, overwhelming firefight. ATGMs are very easily exposed when fired, but quick to pack up - one shot, and then moving to a (pre-planned) secondary location to set up again is probably the best SOP. Setting up in depth, on the second of a pair of buildings can help (the first will block a lot of the fire), but you do want to shift it as soon as possible. AT-3 takes seconds to break down, and five minutes to set up - I think that's more than worth it if it means you end up with two dead Bradleys, and it's a lot easier to relocate than a WW2 AT gun. I think the overall trend here is that you typically have to work an awful lot harder with Redfor - you need to have a great understanding of the terrain, accurate anticipation of enemy movements, and the ability (or luck) to squeeze out every advantage that you can. Clearly some environments (Urban terrain) help tremendously.

Have been thinking a lot about Opfor in general (sucker for an underdog), and how to approach this with CMSF 2, particularly from a PBEM standpoint, and trying to be somewhat competitive. Doing some experimenting with CMSF 1: The heaviest option for civilians in CMSF will allow Combatants (not Fighters (Mujahideen), but the guys in camo and jeans), and possibly VBIED (but not taxis) to remain invisible until very close indeed - it seems like if these are Move-ing along city tiles, these won't be spotted until around 2 action spots away. VBIED seem to have some degree of stealth, but nothing like as much as that. Usually that doesn't matter, since they cover a huge amount of ground pretty quickly. They are not spotted directly, but the soldiers will still call out "SPOTTED AN ENEMY UNIT", etc. - so there's some contextual clues. Occasionally they might pop up with contact icons, but still nothing they'll directly fire at. Originally I thought this was a problem, but on further thought I think this might actually be okay - the manuals talk about spotting unusual behaviour in civilians, dogs etc., so this could be put down to that kind of observation. I was also originally of the opinion that this "stealth device" approach to modelling insurgents wasn't terribly great, but it does seem to match up to the tactical considerations quite well - hiding amongst civilians to get to point-blank range, etc. Combatants do not have the firepower to go into a straight fight with any Blufor squad, at least with small arms, and they're mostly equipped with small arms alone. This means that I suspect the correct approach is to force them into something other that a straight fight. E.g.: The mission is to attack a US squad, inside a police station. The plan is to use spies to discover their location, infiltrate (whilst holding fire!) to locations surrounding the building, then give them a really good reason to leave the building - ideally a VBIED, but perhaps an ATGM, mortar fire, RPG volley, whatever. The Combatants can then open up whist he US squad is fleeing the building, giving them the advantage that they need. Any technicals are ideal here as flankers - probably not engaging directly, but cutting off retreat routes. The TC 7-100 series are the recent OpFor guides for the US. 2 and 3 are of particular use: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/TC_7-100.2_-_Opposing_Force_Tactics_(December_2011).pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/TC_7-100.3_-_Irregular_Opposing_Forces_(January_2014).pdf The interesting things here are how generic these are (the same basic concepts work for Syrian Mechanised infantry battalion assaults, or a fighter group ambushing a few HMMWV's). This generally splits a plan into three sections: Active Element - This is the element that will make the assault/carry out the ambush/manoeuvre onto the target. Security Element - Early warning for the approach of reinforcements, possibly delaying or preventing this. Typically this might just be an RPG team, but could include spies, IED's, mines, ATGMs, etc. Support Element - C2, Direct fires, Indirect fires and mobility. Direct fires will be MG's, RPGs and maybe an ATGM. Mobility is obviously civilian transport. The "C2" part of that is worth some thought. Irregular forces don't get much in terms of equipment, and I can't remember if there's much in the way of radios in CMSF. The Spy in Passage at Wilcox (CMSF 2 Demo) definitely has a radio, so there's that. I do wonder if it's worth using teams in taxis as messengers, sharing the spy spotting information horizontally? In any case, it's going to be important to pay attention to force (cell?) structure here, and a reasonable percentage of your force allocation should probably go on spies (or at least dedicated to spotting Combatants), since you'll need all the help you can get. This does leave the Fighters in a slightly odd position. Without the stealth of the Combatants, they're mostly useful for having better equipment (including ATGMs), usually a little better training, and higher motivation. Whilst that means that they're a good choice for the actual attack, they don't have the same ability to get close without some thought - I wonder if they're best used from concealment as the assault element, after the support element suppresses the target? That would leave Combatants in the Security and Support roles mostly, I suppose. E.g.: The mission is to attack a US squad, inside a police station. The plan is to use spies to discover their location, infiltrate RPG teams (whilst holding fire!) to locations surrounding the building, then fix them in place - unleashing a volley of RPGs and MG fire from multiple directions. The Fighters can then debus from civilian transport and storm the building directly. One idea I did read in the above manuals which I think could work well in CMSF is using taxis to form an impromptu roadblock - using them to block in either end of a street so that exits are impeded. The taxis will be destroyed, of course, but if it keeps the enemy in the kill zone longer, so much the better.

Based on the above: That implies that if you buy the full bundle, you'll get CMSF 2 and all modules when that's released. This will include updated campaigns, and some which have not been updated yet (the campaigns that come with the UK and NATO modules). Based on Steve's assertion that scenarios produced for CMSF will work in CMSF (and therefore can take advantage of the vast amount of content out there), these should be fully functional campaigns, but not necessarily balanced with the newer systems, prettified or otherwise updated (e.g., having buildings taller than eight stories, non-visible trenches, etc.). We all have to wait, and I imagine we'll all be waiting more or less exactly the same amount of time.