liamb

I hearted this because it reminded me to say how happy I am I was able to have a Mac version of the game. It makes a huge difference to me -- I'm surrounded by Macs anyway, no PCs of any decent gaming spec. Very grateful, as a Mac gamer, for Battlefront's work.

TacOps

Typical - you send an important email and people only read the first line ...

I had my M113 go head to head with a BMP at about 500m and only lost the gunner ...
Also my M60A2s are 3 and 0 against the T72s.
Between two fahrbahns is a fun start.

Typical - you send an important email and people only read the first line ...

Typical - you send an important email and people only read the first line ...

Check out Bil’s blog:
https://battledrill.blogspot.com
He has some good introductory tactics tutorials focussed on Combat Mission. 

BFC posters sometimes remind me of Star Wars fans grilling actors at Comi-con over details of arcane Star Wars lore. Not only are they outraged that the poor actors don't know what they're talking about, the super-fans disagree amongst themselves about what the correct answer should be.

Glad to see everyone's keeping their expectations of follow on modules reasonable.

Decided to pull out all my relevant books in case any have been missed in this thread.

Since I realise now my picture isn't too great and I don't want to get them back out:, from top to bottom:
First Clash: Combat Close-Up in World War Three by Kenneth Macksey. World War 3 Canadian Style, shows a lot of nitty-gritty tactical detail that many other books find wanting.  Super detailed and a good ride too. The Third World War by Sir John Hackett. I honestly found it pretty dry and hawkish, which I guess fits Hackett's objectives in writing it. Lots of scenario ideas though I found a lot of stereotypes (and worse, mirror-imaging!) that I don't think survive a retrospective look.  I got it as one of the "must-reads" but honestly am not too big a fan. The Cold War: A New History by John Lewis Gaddis. The historiography is getting a little dated by now, but it's still a solid single-volume history of the cold war, a real credit to Gaddis and his editors. Red Thrust by Steven Zaloga.  Reads like a cross between Clancy's work and First Clash. A good read, showcases some of the major technical gaps between WP and NATO equipment in the 80s. The Offensive by A. A. Sidorenko (translated). I know I already mentioned this, it's a dry but very informative read. Can't get better than a primary source on Soviet military thought, though! Soviet AirLand Battle Tactics by William Baxter. Intentionally misnomered, it's a surprisingly easy read on the complicated subject.  Definitely a good way to get started looking at the other side of the Iron Curtain. The Soviet Conduct of Tactical Maneuver by David Glantz. Glantz is probably one of the best experts on the Soviet military in the west. Great historical context bringing the development of Soviet tactical manoeuvre to the modern day. The Bear Went Over the Mountain by Les Grau and David Glantz. Largely a translation of a Frunze Academy report, drills down into specific engagements in the Soviet-Afghan war and identifies problems and failures in the execution of operations. Interesting and detailed commentary by Grau and Glantz ,too. The Soviet-Afghan War by Les Grau.  Some duplication from above, includes information on other combat arms beyond tactical units like logistics and artillery. Armies of Nato's Central Front by David Isby and Charles Kamps, Jr.  Really just an encyclopaedia of militaries in Europe, good info on OOBs and the like. Kriegsschauplatz Deutschland by Siegfried Lautsch. Lautsch is a retired NVA Colonel, which allowed him some great insight into the Warsaw Pact side of the equation. Great diagrams, clear and detailed language. Honestly my favourite of the books.  Also showcases plans and wargames which aren't the much misunderstood Six Days to the River Rhine!

Hey Guys,
  I would love it if Battlefront would open a Merch store with Combat Mission t-shirts, mugs, hats, hoodies, autographed 0.50 Cal rounds. Can I get a thumbs up?
  Some ideas may be your title's logos, pictures of your 3D models of rare or popular tanks (and assault guns with soldiers in artillery uniforms). Also 2D pics with listings of the tanks statistics for us armor geeks.  I'm sure the community has many ideas for Merch and online outlets that would make it relatively easy.

This is a good informative PDF from the 11th ACR Association.
https://www.blackhorse.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/fuldagap.pdf
 

Thought it would be good to start a thread with recommended reading on the era to get prepared for release.
I'm interested in more entry level stuff on the weapon systems, TOEs and doctrinal changes occurring in the period but I'm sure others would have different interests.
 

If you are looking for some generally informative information I would highly recommend this blog: https://coldwargamer.blogspot.com/
There is mountains of great material to sift through there, plus some nice model pictures here and there if you're into that sort of thing. 
For more fun reading, "The War That Never Was" by Michael Palmer is great. "Northern Fury: H-Hour" by Bart Gauvin and Joel Radunzel is also great and is based off of a computer wargame (Command: Modern Operations). "Red Army" by Ralph Peters is the Russian version of Team Yankee, written from the perspective of the Russians, and it also quite good. And then there is "The Defense of Hill 781" by James B. McDonough for those looking to get an NTC perspective. 
I'm certainly missing some more that are good, but everything mentioned here in this thread is certainly worth your time. 

While reading you can listen to this one - to get in the proper mood 🙂
 
 

You can use Dropbox for it with a symlink. But the symlink has to be "Saved Games" folder in the CMBS directory pointing to a directory in your Dopbox folder since Dropbox stopped supprting them the normal way.

9. One Engine - CMx3
game performance improvments, graphics improvements, ray tracing, intermediate distance bitmaps
additional editor features, dynamic operational campaigns
additional gameplay features, coop, LoS tool, visible aircraft

7. "Fulda Gap": 1970-90
Europe WWIII

3. Afrika Korps: 1940-43 
WWII North Africa
Operation Torch, American North Africa Invasion Libya, Egypt, and Tunis 1942-43

More importantly...THANK YOU for supporting CM on Macs for so long...yes Macs have always been less than supported by the larger game community but Battlefront has been steadfast in supporting Mac even when Apple screwed them over a couple of times...yes I've been here all 20 years and remember when Apple abandoned Quickdraw for OpenGL so the old CM games don't work on OS X and when Apple broke their Mavericks OS X and forced BFC to do an emergency patch to CMSF 1...
SO THANKS THANKS...CM series is the ONLY game on my Mac for almost 10 years now...
 

how what has always started?  Fascism??  starts w political correctness?  Totalitarianism?  what is it that starts with 'political correctness'?  My definition of political correctness is "if it offends me, it's offensive!  if it offends you, it's political correctness".  Yes, there's folks that uber sensitive and don't like this or that, and they whine a lot.  But they aren't the ones that take over governments and start jailing, beating, and killing people they don't like.

Yeah I have a real problem with this. The acts in question were unacceptable in the world at the time. Yes, I am aware that dogmatic leaders used mass murder regularly then but the vast majority of actual citizens were well aware that mass murder was not an acceptable practice.
LOL the power of political correctness? That is hilarious. It has very little power - next to none. It is the very people butt hurt over having to perhaps consider other people in their day to day life that have elevated the idea that some how political correctness is some big bad evil thing. Good lord.

Hey if I can do it, it is pretty idiot proof.   You just rename your mod files and put the following after each of the mod files you want for say snow. [snow]. Then you create a text file calling it whatever you want and in the file you type snow.  Then open a scenario and in the data section for mod tags do an import of that file. Bingo.  Granted it can be time consuming initially tagging them but once done you can keep them in your mod folder and only use them when you want to  
 
The file can can have multiple entries so you could have snow, squalor and 101st to have all the mods tagged for those 3 items in your scenario. 
I took Cpt millers uniform mods for CMSF tagged each of them for the unit and can now import them into a scenario then play it with the unit I want. Next week if I want to use a different unit I just open the scenario and import that units tag file. 
Mods that I tend to use all the time like kieme’s buildings I don’t bother tagging.