mvp7

I was playing second US campaign mission and in the big four building church I lost 6 men out of a squad to a single Russian with assault rifle, not entirely impossible result but the event as whole was a frustrating combination of the biggest flaws of TacAI: At first I didn't know in which part of the building the enemy was and so used a team to move from building to building in hunt mode because it's the only mode that makes the AI attack when he spots the enemy rather than trying to run to the other side of the building first. Because hunt is too slow for MOUT the first man to walk through the door (from one part of the building to another) got shot and the rest of the team was pinned in the previous room. I then moved the teams to the front of the building to combine them into squad and had them breach into it, the squad then ran into the building (there was no point in anyone waiting outside because the enemy was not in the "room" that I was breaching into but in the one behind it. Squad moved in, one man got shot pretty quickly but because the entry after breach command is 'quick' and there is no movement mode that prioritizes shooting other than hunt (which doesn't give you enough speed and firepower in MOUT) the entire squad tried to run to the farther "wall" of the room (because TacAI can't really handle several connected buildings or large floored spaces with enemies in them as it tries to go to the "walls" as if it were a single building). Soon after another man fell the squad (smartly) decided to 'fast' to another "room" of the church but because of their suppression, half of the team crawled and covered under fire and consequently got killed, now this would be understandable if the enemy was tearing down the furniture with machine guns but this lone enemy was simply firing short well aimed burst with an AK at the three covering men, killing them in a period on 20 seconds or so. Good example of how the infantry reactions, which are good for long range exchange in cover, do not work directly in close quarters situations. The reason I wasn't shooting effective area fire into the building was that I hadn't secured the area beyond the building so I only had one "safe" side to work with. Retrospectively I should have just leveled the building after I lost the first man but I kinda wanted to test this as I usually avoid fair fights in buildings to the last. Again, I'm not saying that losing 6 men in badly supported attempt to breach and clear isn't acceptable or even deserved result but it would be nicer if the men were gunned down trying to valiantly rush unto the breach rather than goofing around. I already wrote a post about these but I thought this was pretty good example of why we need aggressive movement command and tweaks to the covering logic in the open, inside buildings and at short ranges in general. By the way, are you people sure that assaulting squad technically "shares" it's suppression? I don't remember ever seeing the supporting element getting pinned from advancing element being shot at (unless bullets were flying past them also of course) and I have always thought that suppression is unit or team level value that is just roughly shown in the squads suppression indicator. And even if the suppression is shared by the entire squad then the amount of received suppression should be lesser as only few men are taking fire, which could mean that it gives a sort of morale boost for the advancing team in comparison to doing the same with detached team. I use assault quite often and it usually works fine for me.

I always play on elite and we-go. I have tried real time once or twice but the lack of replay makes it unusable for me. I always watch every turn at least 2-4 times to get the general picture of what happened and then watch some of the best bits once more with instant replays of kills and explosions . I have never bothered to try iron as it just sounds like a lot of unnecessary work with the chain of command gui without adding much realism in practice.

2 man scout team moving ahead of the main force usually works nicely even if you are likely to lose one or both of them, after contact its usually pretty easy to destroy the enemy with area fire and assault.

Firing from hatch would seem like a logical course of action if moving vehicle detects approaching air threat. It takes less time than getting out of the vehicle and gives the benefit of elevated shooting position, I don't see any reason why you couldn't or wouldn't do that if that's the situation. If there is time to get into proper manpad position and hide the vehicle I don't think standing in the hatch would offer any benefits, it doesn't offer any real cover as the vehicle is the most likely target for the aircraft and for enemy infantry the manpad user would be easy target practice.

Infantry TacAI could definitely use some updating and I'm hoping that it will be the main focus of 4.0 version. The lack of formations and aggressive movement are the biggest flaws of CM games at the moment. Here are my views and opinions gathered from the CMx2 games. In my experience the outcome of clearing buildings is usually quite believable even if it looks like a mess at low level. One man taking out several squad members isn't impossible in real life (and rarely happens in the game in my experience), all the defender has to do is sit in a corner, keep the gun pointed at the door and pull the trigger when he sees movement, if hardly matters who's green and who's veteran at that moment. I don't think regular military forces usually carry flashbangs or offensive hand grenades that could be used to make room clearing less messy business and nothing would prevent the defenders from using those either. If you aren't ready to lose guys in house clearing you'll just have to level the house. The biggest issue I have with close quarters combat in CM is the lack of proper movement command for it: when using quick the soldiers are not looking around and are likely to rush into fire until they are so badly pinned that they start retreating, when using hunt the movement is too slow and soldiers are too likely to be disturbed by nearby shooting and explosions (it just doesn't work with we-go), assault usually works nicely but it's essentially just quick movement with less eggs in the same basket. The needed movement mode in my opinion would be soldiers moving at speed between walk and quick (think ARMA 3 'tactical pace'), stopping only to fire on enemies that appear inside target arc (trying to ignore explosions/fire coming from outside the target arc) and then continue moving, it would be optimal for both house clearing and moving in forest in the immediate vicinity of enemy. Shooting on the move would also be really useful but I'd imagine that could be some pretty big engine limitation since it still isn't in the game. Move and quick orders usually work great but AI should have better judgement when enemy opens fire from close range, especially from ahead of the moving team. In one mission I had a squad moving over small forest opening when enemy started shooting at them from about 20-30 meters ahead of them, instead of stopping and firing back or retreating into cover they just changed their speed from move to quick and tried to jog against the enemy fire until they were pinned down and started crawling away few seconds later. Also while covering is perfectly good reaction when in cover or when being attacked from far away, the AI is too likely to try and "cover" under direct fire from close range in completely open terrain (like roads and such) and indoors instead of rushing for proper cover of firing back, it's just very inhumane reaction and goes completely against fight-or-flight reflexes that should kick in in those situations. Another small things that could be fixed: Assault should also be made available for any unit with two or more men. I guess that's part of how the engine handles teams and action squares but that's what the engine updates are for.

Why wouldn't 2008 scenario be acceptable? Whatever they do with shock force I doubt they will be changing the time and setting.

Its very well designed and thought out setting and I have enjoyed every mission I have played so far.

The big UAVs feel a bit too slow at spotting vehicles in the open. If they have thermal optics it shouldn't take more than few seconds to detect that there is a vehicle in the open at spotting area. The transition from unidentified contact to identified contact is usually pretty fast however, it would seem more likely that you would get unidentified contacts from most of the vehicles in the area during first minute of two of the spotting mission and then start slowly receiving more accurate identifications. The small UAVs spotting probabilities feel more believable.

Thanks for answers. At least I'm not alone in not being able to do much reconnaissance with reconnaissance vehicles. I have usually ended up using them as taxis for small teams.

Only 120mm mortar has precision rounds.

If the artillery piece has precision rounds in its ammo list then it has precision capability. If you are using Ukrainian or Russian artillery the spotter needs laser designator.

Are changes like these going to make it into other CMx2 products as normal patches for example?

Usually giving normal target order encourages units to use their rockets even on infantry targets. In one company-vs-company size custom battle I saw Javelins being fired at enemy infantry at least four times. I think units are also less likely to use their last AT weapons on infantry targets.

I have never understood how to use reconnaissance vehicles in combat mission games. The biggest issue I have with reconnaissance vehicles is that they are almost always spotted by the enemy before they spot the enemy because even with their fancy optics they are still large objects and on the move (WW2 scout vehicles lack even the optics). Usually the first notion of enemy for a recon vehicle is getting hit by ATGM or cannon. Since the recon vehicles get spotted and fired upon first they usually get destroyed. In WW2 setting I guess that makes sense, losing a BA-64 hurts less than losing a T-34, but because of this I usually quickly run out of scout vehicles in CM campaigns since there usually aren't that many of them in formations. In the context of modern warfare I don't see how it is sensible to have couple undermanned humvees loaded with expensive optics and communications equipment driving before the main force towards their likely destruction in first contact. It would seem much better to use either expendable minimum value vehicles like basic armored humvees with smoke launchers or as sturdy and protected vehicles as possible like turretless MBT chassis with ERA and APS. Scout formations are also usually undermanned in general so using them on foot often leads to the units getting overwhelmed and destroyed by any kind of enemy units. With scout force consisting of light recon vehicle platoon my usual reconnaissance in CM mission goes something like this: You slowly drive your vehicles towards good looking positions and either leave them (making all that lovely reconnaissance hardware pointless) or drive them too close and they get shot. You can then try to move your 3 man (or smaller) teams armed only with assault rifles forward in attempt to locate the enemy but if and when they are spotted they will be quickly pinned down and very likely killed. Your scouts will often take heavy losses for very little gain and your main force will still have to march into largely unknown resistance. The more effective and sensible reconnaissance strategy (in my opinion) is the aggressive (see Russian 'Reconnaissance batallion (old)' or US 'Cavalry Troop [armored]' in BS). I especially like the Russian formation: You have pretty much a light infantry formations with BMPs and BRDMs. First vehicle that you would call a specialized reconnaissance vehicle is the company HQ and it's very unlikely to be lost in combat. As with specialized recon vehicles, your BMPs will most likely notice the enemy when they are hit by missile or cannon. Unlike scout car or stryker, BMP can even effectively answer to most threats if it happens to survive the first shots. You can then start deploying the rest of your scouts, moving you well armed teams into contact with enemy and support them with formidable firepower of your BMPs, you will get very clear picture of enemy force and deployment, you will often locate their ATGMs and other dangerous weapons and maybe even destroy them. By the time your main force arrives you have a lot of room to move your fresh troops against the enemy that is tied to combat with your scouts. The US cavalry troop with cavalry Bradleys is otherwise pretty similar but it has less vehicles, all of them more expensive and the infantry teams are smaller and only armed with M4A1s so those very likely losses hurt more and you need to use your vehicles more aggressively to keep your infantry from getting pinned down. So is there some proper way to use those reconnaissance humvees and Strykers, especially in mission where you start with scouts only and need to wait for fighting units?

Why does the TOW have such a long setup time, is there some sort of warm-up or calibration process? Lot of the setup and pack up times are extremely long in BS, it's like the crews don't know what they are doing or aren't doing their best. Also, leaving equipment behind ? 125mm airburst is much faster and less painfull way to go.

I played this mission as Russians, really enjoyed it. Result was Major victory for me due to Ukr surrendering. I lost 16 men (7 dead, 9 wounded) and one BTR, I would have probably taken a lot more losses if the battle hadn't ended just after the reinforcements arrived and I was about to advance to the other side of the road. Most of my losses were caused by those damn AGS-17s, they really crippled the heavy weapons platoon before I managed to suppress and destroy them with area fire and BTR. I got really lucky with the Ukr vehicles, I destroyed one BMP with ATGM and another with BTR and then lost that BTR to the Bulat. That tank could have caused really bad damage to my forces, it was already shooting one of my squads with coaxial and was probably just about to hit the building with HE when the squad's PRG-7 gunner got lucky and took a perfect shot with tandem warhead from about 200 meters. Tunguska was destroyed by an angry engineer with RPG-26 looted from the corpse of his less lucky squadmate.

Pro-Moscow militia are the number 1 on my wishlist for CMBS. French and German troops would be interesting additions especially since we didn't have France in shock force. Maybe some more elite units for Russians? They seem to be rather mid-tier troops in comparison to US forces which have all the newest and fanciest equipment available. Maybe GRU Spetsnaz to support the pro-Moscow militia? They would have some really interesting equipment like VSS Vintorez. @dams-fr: deploying mines and dropping specials forces wouldn't make sense in the scale of CM missions. "Silent weapons" are already kind of included in the game if you mean suppressors. Mk. 21 snipers for US have them (but suppressors don't really matter that much in reality).

I'm really looking forward to CMSF2 whether it's going to be a patch or a stand alone game (or both?). I really hope it's going to be a complete overhaul of all modules with some of the new units and mechanics integrated to the original campaigns. The game really deserves a full update as it catches the feeling and essence of modern wars like no other game. I'd imagine that if they are going that far it can't be just 10$. I'd happily pay the full price of new CM game (55$) for complete package of base SF and all the modules, that would also be really great value package for potential new combat mission players. Going higher than that, at least for people who have already bought the entire SF family, would be pretty steep. I'd love to play SF even now but new CMx2 additions like "target briefly" have completely spoiled me and I find it too hard to play without them

Not to walk into it It's a confirmed minefield and green area just shows the area that kills you.

Yeah, I have seen 20mm penetration decals on SU-76 but I guess there's no non-penetration decal for that calibre.

I guess the Black Sea is pretty much done already but here are my most wanted features for CMx2 anyway. (In a kind of priority orders, 1. being the most wanted) Big gameplay/engine features 1. Infantry that keeps it's distance - The very first thing they teach about movement in the army is to stay 3-5 meters away from people around you so one explosion or burst won't kill half the squad. In CM I have seen three guys die of the same AP-mine, running in some kind of human-centipede formation . This is really important in modern warfare because even badly trained troops should know this. Infantry movement in general could use an overhaul. 2. Aggressive hunt movement - Current 'Hunt' is pretty much 'Move-to-contact' (and a very good one for doing just that). For any urban combat, house clearing or trench sweeping there should be some kind of movement mode where infantry moves a bit faster, only stops to shoot the enemy and continues the movement order after that and if engine allows they could also lob grenades into rooms they are entering if they have any sort of contact there (old visual, sound etc). This would be bit like the old 'assault' from CMx1 (and the CMx2 assault could use a bit more firepower from the advancing team, like hipfire on the move to suppress when close to enemy) 3. 30 second turns - A lot can happen in a minute and for modern warfare scale and pace I believe 30 second turns would be a great option. Just yesterday I watched an entire infantry platoon get slaughtered down to six men as they valiantly tried to fulfill their order to move into what turned out to be a AT gun kill-zone about 3 seconds after the start of the turn. 4. Full mission replays without fog of war - This would be so great for video making and seeing what happened. 5. Replay for real time mode - Biggest reason I still play turn based is the lack of replay which I find to be absolutely vital feature for following anything more than a platoon sized battle (plus who doesn't enjoy watching that sweet tank kill for couple times ). Maybe this could be made as a one minute replay buffer or something? Small things and conveniences 1. Proper rank insignia on the 3D troops - This would really increase the immersion and seems like a logical next step for all that lovely detail put into the soldiers. Maybe this could be done like the decal overlay on vehicles or something? That could be continued into dynamic markings on units like numbers and unit insignia etc. 2. More consistent hand/rifle grenade performance - Sometimes a running man can shrug off an offensive grenade blowing mid air half meter away or even right at his feet. This change would of course require units to have proper formations so single grenades wouldn't wipe out entire squads (not too often at least ) 3. Possibility to re-mobilize vehicles that are jammed to the terrain - It's just really annoying when your precious vehicle gets jammed right at the start and is stuck for ever. Infantry standing around the jammed vehicle should start un-jamming it (sticking logs under the tracks, showeling etc). It should take a long time of course, the longer the heavier the vehicle and worse the terrain. 4. Possibility to salvage enemy equipment as in buddy aid - Only as a very last resort of course. It's hard to imagine that a infantry squad completely out of ammo and anti-tank weapons would sneer at those AKs and RPGs lying right next to them when enemy is coming closer and closer. 5. Possibility to order crew to dismount at waypoint - Again, 1 minute is a long time and I often end up wasting half a minute of precious time when deploying forward observers from their jeeps for example. Modules 1. Shock Force like scenario - CM Shock force did incredible job at depicting normal modern warfare (aka 3rd world country stomping scenarios), where victory was not an issue but rather achieving the victory with politically correct losses and without leveling too much cultural heritage. I really hope we will see something like this in Black Sea branch (too bad SF is not going to be getting version patches ) 2. Israeli scenario - They have some interesting hardware and are surrounded by other countries that have interesting hardware. 3. Militia-vs-Militia scenario Something like your average African civil war conflict with ill equipped and badly trained troops fighting each other. Not sure how well this would work in CM but it could be interesting. edit. Just noticed that upgrade for Shock Force is planned! That's great news and I'm really looking forward to it and I'm happy that this excellent version of CM is not abandoned. Finally I'll be able to use area target without exhausting my tank's HE shells during one turn

The with Pz IVH the German "advantage" mainly comes from better optics and training (not sure if either holds true at at late 1944 though). ZiS–S–53 has enough penetration at that range (even though it's pretty close call) so I don't see anything wrong with the result. Old 76mm T-34s are underdogs to anything bigger than Pz III but the 85mm is a beast. Where were those panzers hit?

Why are the bunkers not buildings? Is there some engine issues with deploying them or the machineguns inside?

I'd like to see 20mm cannons leave decals on tanks. Otherwise I'm pretty happy with the decals as they are.

When it comes to playing video-games as war criminals you would be pretty much limited to Sweden in WW2 setting if you only wanted to play as the innocents. Germany might have killed most and, from modern point of view, for the most immoral reasons with Soviet Union the close second but Western allies knew what they were doing when they bombed most of the German (and some Japanese) cities to the ground. Resistance movements and Partisans never were too picky about whether the "collaborators" were technically civilian or soldiers. Every army involved probably executed some people with their hands in the air. Every one of these sides would say that what they did was necessary evil for the greater good (i.e. their own agendas and interests) and I don't think you can really put them in order from worst to best unless you want to make loss of human life statistics, those civilians are just as dead no matter what. No-one involved came out of that, or any other war, clean and innocent. Anyway, I really hope that the next bunch of war criminals included in a module is Finnish Defense Force or maybe NATO/Commonwealth style bundle of Axis minors. With some lend lease stuff for the Soviets