domfluff

Would want more information, but allow me to blunder into an uninformed opinion. Those objectives look too widely spaced to contest with one platoon, and there's also no easy way to deny the enemy manoeuvre and therefore gain an advantage in mobility), since the map appears symmetrically split with that ridge line. Therefore my basic scheme would be to move the platoon to take the more valuable objective (** usually indicate VP), expecting a close range firefight on that objective. That will leave a few possible scenarios: - Your opponent will do the same, and you'll slug it out at close range (you should have an advantage here) - Your opponent will do the opposite, and you'll defend the more valuable objective. - Your opponent will spread out, and you'll defeat them in detail. You don't have the mobility or fires to do much that's more complex than that - advancing through the (possibly) covered approach on your right and taking that town seems as good a plan as any.

An official redfor campaign would be cool, but would come in the form of a battle pack. Steve has said there are no intentions to release anything further for CMSF 2, but... they option will now exist. I'm not expecting one that isn't user-made.

Yeah, looks like the Quick Battle version doesn't get a Jeep. Obviously you can add one though.

That's from the Scenario editor - I'm not sure whether some Quick Battle settings remove the Jeep.

It contains an on-map HQ unit, with a jeep, and three off-map platoons of two 105mm M3's. The fact there is an on-map component at all is probably a good reason to put this in the Infantry section - everything in the Artillery section is off-map only. It's definitely confusing though.

The British doctrine for Tank Destroyers (The M10 and the Achilles in Combat Mission) was for them to be used as mobile AT guns. They're not intended to support infantry, or hunt down armour, but to take up static positions and move from them quickly and somewhat protected - countering most of the issues that AT Guns have, at the cost of stealth. You can see the appeal of that - being able to take up forward defensive positions, or get away from them when things get too hot, is tremendously attractive, and something which they're pretty well suited for. Assault guns in general can be useful in the attack - if you are attacking a static position, then you don't necessarily need the flexibility of a tank - something like a Stug III is fine if you need it to go in a specific direction and lay down HE on a specific target. Assault guns also tend to be smaller than tanks for the same firepower (or rather, they remove the turret to up-gun the tank), so smaller, cheaper and lighter can all help, in certain circumstances.

Sorry, I think you misunderstand, reply was to answer the question was if the full game would have NATO and British content available as Quick Battles, since the updated versions of those campaigns will not be included with CMSF 2 at launch. Since "all standalone" scenarios are apparently part of CMSF at launch, then there's no reason why the Quick Battle forces wouldn't be - it's just the NATO and British campaigns that will be delayed.

I do think it would be good for a third option though - something between full choice and random. Some kind of weighted randomisation that would allow for plausible outcomes. I don't think it's particularly worth the time, but I do appreciate what Bulletpoint is saying.

Actually, doing some tests has really made me appreciate how well the TacAI works for the BMP-2. The At-5 needs reloading manually (i.e., the gunner unbuttoning), so the BMP will fire off an AT-5, then pop smoke and/or reverse to break LOS, and give it's gunner the cover to reload. Shoot and scoot, in quite a convincing fashion. If it isn't safe, then it won't reload the AT-5, so the rate of fire in general will drop. Essentially, ATGM's on a BMP are a nice-to-have, and they increase the size of the explosion when they remember that they are BMPs. Actually using them as an ATGM platform is not particularly easy, and it's not really what they're for. If you had to, I'd want them hull down, at least a couple of km away from whatever I'm pointing them at.

Incidentally, that's actually one area where the BMP-2 might actually be the better choice - AT-5's are wire guided, not laser guided, so laser warnings won't fire. It doesn't really help that the actual missile that hits (or might hit) is a lot less powerful though.

ATGMs definitely fire from BMP's in both CMSF and CMBS. e.g.: There are some reasons why this is less than obvious. - They'll usually need some distance to prioritise ATGM fire - they're slower to fire and reload, so often getting Autocannon fire on a target *now* is often easier, and more effective. - They're laser guided. In CMBS that means that the BMP will start to acquire, and the target will often disappear in a puff of smoke, breaking contact. This slows things down further. - They're fired out of the main cannon. It's not always obvious that what's been fired is an ATGM. - They're not very good. Failed ATGM's are harder to spot in the chaos than successful ones, and the BMP's ATGMs are easy to counter, passively or otherwise.

Oh wow, you weren't wrong when you said that was running awfully for you Cool video though - the shader mods probably work really well with CMSF's high contrast pallette.

Also, I'm primarily interested if the points values make it worth doing PBEM - you can balance pretty much any wargame scenario with some creative victory conditions.

Yeah, but I'm happy to opfor it - I'm curious as to whether it provides anything interesting at all.

Assuming you absolutely *have* to go over the top, rather than flanking, a reverse slope position, how do you plan to go about it? Conceptually, this is not hugely different across titles - the one exception is for drones + indirect fire, so that's presumably cheating.

Manual is in your CMBN Documents, and is in two parts - there's a CMBN-specific manual, and a more generic manual for the engine ("CM Engine 4 manual" or similar). Former is what you want to reference for TO&E, etc., latter is for how things like AI groups or the shortcuts work.

When the cobras show up in the Marine mission (and therefore air support was available), the aircraft icon did not turn blue.

Or, yeah, what MikeyD said

To be fair, that's in the section "WHAT IS NEW SINCE SHOCK FORCE 1". The CM Engine *definitely* runs better than the engine that powered CMSF 1, so that line is entirely accurate. Whether there's been much improvement going from, say, CMFB to CMSF? That's less clear. Battlefront do try to optimise and improve where they can between releases. For a number of reasons, including terrain and the weather, the Shock Force maps are generally less complex than some of the CMFB, CMBS or CMRT ones (not always, especially with some of the heavier urban ones). Less complex maps will run better in general.

Which is exciting - "Mountains" and some of the Unit types are intriguing.

CMSF Demo Tutorial mission has a reference to "Or bring in the Bradleys to bring them down with direct fire" on page two of the briefing, when the Bradleys in the CMBS tutorial have been replaced with Strykers. (Totally unacceptable, I demand a full refund, Your lineage will cursed until the seventh generation, etc.).

Poor little guy, minding his own business. Thought we'd forgotten all about him, and then *BAM*, CMSF Demo drops and artillery starts coming in.

What did you do to him ?! CMSF 2 demo tutorial mission has the Raven, certainly.

Yeah, but perspective could be deceiving. What if he's actually fifty feet tall and made entirely out of titanium? I'm not suggesting that's likely, but I've seen nothing to disprove it.

Big Game Developers? To be fair, I've never seen Steve in the flesh, he might be *huge*.