IICptMillerII

Hmm, it could be that the ERA is getting in the way somehow. That, combined with the fact that BF doesn't model gun depression angles could be the culprit. Could be that in real life, the ERA prevents the barrel from being elevated to that degree, but in the game there is no such limitation. Just spitballing.

Is this only an issue with the BMP-3M? I have not noticed this happening with regular BMP-3s, and I've taken them for a spin on a few large maps before. Have you been able to figure out at what range and beyond this begins to happen? If so, should be pretty easy to replicate in tests. That way, a proper bug report can be made and sent up.

There is always one typo that falls through the gaps! Haha that isn't a bad idea, but I was trying to keep the theme more SF2 centric, and the most outlandish wish for SF2 is adding the Russians, which is why it got the middle of the board. I didn't think it was possible for me to get more excited for SF2, but this managed to do it. I just hope they left the T-72M1's in the game. That's a good one! I realized just after posting this that I forgot to add a request for the Terminator BMP/tank hybrid vehicle as well. Who knows, maybe there will be a version 2 of the board.

In honor of the imminent release of CMSF2, I figured I would get a heads start on the time honored tradition of complaining about every new release by making it into a fun game! I give you, CMSF2 BINGO! All in good fun of course.

I'm also surprised by how much the T-90 has been under performing in this battle. In my experience the T-90 in CMSF is a very capable tank, and is more than a match for the Leopard 2A4. I suspect Bil's T-90s have just had a bout of bad luck so far. The panzerfaust 3 is not an unguided weapon. It is laser guided, and is the most accurate hand-held AT weapon aside from the Javelin. Not sure on the 900m range though. I suspect it is more like 400-500m in practical reality.

Thanks! I looked through my mod folders and I don't think I am using a horizon mod, although I am using a custom skybox.

LWRs are mostly modern and top of the line. No US vehicles (tanks, IFVs, etc) will have LWRs in Shock Force. The only vehicle in the game that I know of that does have an LWR is the Syrian T-90SA.

I'm excited to see the change log as well. Based on what Steve has said, I'm expecting it to be on the larger side. Get crackin!

Sounds like you're good to go then. Good luck!

I put together another cinematic CM video, this time featuring the Americans. The mission is taken from the second mission in the Road to Montebourg campaign. I tried to be a bit more concise with this video, and the result is to my liking. It's about half as long as the previous. Again, still working on the editing, but at least this time there is a title and end screen!

No problem, just be aware that you need a modern motherboard, (I got an MSI 360M series) and that these new motherboards generally only support DDR4 RAM. But as long as you're compatible you shouldn't have any issues running CM.

The AAR isn't dead, nobody panic! My opponent has been very busy this past month or so, so rate of turns has been very slow. Further, I had nothing to do for the past 10-15 turns or so besides adjust a fire mission, which occurred without incident. There has been nothing to report on. There is good news however. It is now the 44th minute of the battle, and my combat power has finally arrived! Later this week I will post a proper AAR post detailing my current situation and my plan for assaulting the airfield. Hang in there, the battle is in its final phase!

You're in luck! I just rebuilt my computer and put a new i5-8400 and an Nvidia 1060 3Gb with (for now) 8Gb of DDR4 RAM. CM runs very well on it. I have no issues with large or small scenario's. I'm running an HDD and not an SSD. On an SSD the load times would likely be faster, but on my HDD with the current set-up load times are pretty quick as is, and turn load times are very quick. If you have the means, an i7-8700k will probably last you longer into the future, but you won't see a large difference in CM between the i5 and the i7.

I've already stated my observation in Bil's AAR thread so I won't belabor the point, but your perspective of the firefight further confirms what I think I'm seeing. The infamous infantry bug introduced in v4 appears to be fixed as Steve said. It is great to see the fixed behavior working in this beta build of CMSF2. Having a readily viewable example of the fix in action is a very good thing. Not that I ever doubted Steve of course It is very interesting to see both perspectives of the battle playing out at the same time. Very much looking forward to how both of you react to each other as the battle develops and you get more toys to play with!

Understood. I will take my observation for what it is. Combined with Baneman's perspective, it does in fact look like the issue is not present. Its great to see an active example of the bug fix in action! Makes me look forward to the release of CMSF2 all the more. Very excited to see how this battle plays out. It's been intense from the get go, and it should become rapidly more explosive now that Bil has some tanks to play with.

Do you have sources for any of these claims? From everything I've seen, the TO&E in CMBN (and all the CM games for that matter) are extremely accurate. The G43 is an interesting point, but you can limit the amount of them that appear in a unit by setting the units equipment to 'poor' in the editor. This will also reduce the amount of optics on rifles in a unit as well. Regarding the MG42's, I would be very interested to see the source that says there were only two of them in an entire division. The MG42 was ludicrously common throughout German units, and their entire infantry doctrine revolved around the squad level MG. The rest of your points may or may not be valid, but to me they are nitpicks. Would still love to see the sources on them all though.

This is a very interesting gif. I've watched it a few times now to confirm what I think I am seeing. It appears, based on this gif, that the 4.0 infantry bug is not present. Granted, there are no indirect fires here, but that was not the only trigger of the bug. There is a lot of fire at close range with casualties sustained on both sides of the fight, some of the casualties being caused by RPG/HE rounds, and none of the units seem to be displacing willy-nilly. I know it is early in the fight, but have you noticed any changes to the infantry behavior that confirm or dispute my observations here? This BMP-2 model looks fantastic. Props to whoever skinned it.

In order to learn how to multiply numbers, you need to know how to add numbers first. If you do not understand the advantages of recon vehicles over recon infantry, and the specific things each are good and bad at, then you will not understand their role as a whole as part of a larger operation. Which clearly you don't. I feel that trying to explain to you why having recon vehicles that move much faster than infantry teams, and generally carry as good as or much better optics and recon equipment than the infantry recon teams, is a waste of my time. The fact remains. Recon vehicles have a very important role in Combat Mission, at the level Combat Mission simulates. If you do not understand why, then that is a fault with your understanding, not with Combat Mission. Oh for crying out loud. How many years ago did the record break? We are desperate for a new tune. If you do not think there are scenario's in Combat Mission that are large enough, I have an amazingly simple solution for you. Make. Them. Yourself.

There is a great misconception that has gone on far too long here on the forums and in general. Recon IS NOT a single phase of battle. Recon does NOT stop, ever. Recon is constant. This applies equally to WWII and modern warfare.

This is a really good summary, and has always been my understanding of what Combat Mission is trying to simulate. CM does not simulate the road march, or even the assembly area. CM starts at the line of departure. Yes, its true that some battles "spill over" from their initial battlespace and develop into larger battles. For example, the Battle of Mogadishu went from an operation centered around a building with 4 secured corners (essentially a city block) to a sizable chunk of the city itself. CM can simulate this. Instead of having the entire Battle of Mogadishu in one massive map, it is simply broken up into the phases of the battle. The first battle would be centered around the target building. The second would be centered around the Rangers moving from the target building to the first crash site. The third battle would center around securing the first crash site, so on and so forth. Would it be more fun if you could just do everything on one massive map with unlimited time? Arguably. The fact remains, that whether or not this would be fun, it is beyond the scope of Combat Mission. Steel Beasts is a fantastic tank sim, and one that I personally enjoy very much. However it is very important to keep in mind what the purpose of that sim is. Most casual players of the sim only fight battles, however this is far from the actual purpose of the sim. Steel Beasts is designed to teach tankers and tank formations how to conduct all possible operations, which includes road marches, how to drive in formation, etc. In fact, the combat in Steel Beasts is secondary to the 'learn to maneuver' element. Steel Beasts has large maps because it wants to simulate both moving to the assembly area, then the attack position, then the line of departure, as well as simulating the actual combat that occurs. Combat Mission is NOT designed to teach the player how to road march a battalion, or how to establish a forward command post, etc. Combat Mission is only designed to simulate the actual fighting. The fact is, the vast majority of armored warfare from its first battle to most recently, all happens within an average distance of 1.5km. The average armored engagement in the Gulf War was roughly 1.5km, despite the misconception that much of the tank fighting happened at 4km+. This simply isn't the case. Combat Mission can currently simulate a map that is 4km x 4km. That is more that double the average armored engagement range. Can battles in CM get a little close for space? Of course, especially when you are dealing with modern vehicle heavy formations and you have more than a BN on either side. CM can still do it though, and I have had more than a few battles in modern CM titles at this scale where everything behaved realistically. It's also worth mentioning that CM is not designed to simulate warfare past the BN level. You can do it of course, but you are going beyond what the simulation has been designed to do. You can do the same in Steel Beasts by simulating a division level action. Can you do it? Yes. Is that what the sim was designed for? No. (For the record, I have never tried to simulate a division level action in Steel Beasts, and I'm not even sure it would run on a modern computer) There are numerous definitions for the term maneuver. There are numerous definitions for the term maneuver that apply exclusively to a specific level of warfare. There are numerous definitions for the specific levels of warfare, and most military forces in the world have different definitions for the same terms based on their own perspective and doctrines of warfare. None of these definitions have agreed upon hard stopping points. Where does the tactical level of combat end and the operational level begin? Someone from the US and Russian military would give you a different answer. Further, someone from the Soviet and Russian military would give you yet another different answer. All of this is irrelevant sauce that DoD analysts and S-2's alike love to get lost in, rarely yielding any results. The fact is this: at the level of warfare that CM simulates, there is maneuver. On a 4km x 4km map(or any sized map for that matter), any sized combat element on the battlefield can maneuver to a completely new location on the map. That for all intents and purposes is maneuver at the scale of warfare present in CM. Finally, if what CM provides is simply not enough for you, then just don't play it. I personally think CM is the finest tactical combined arms simulator out there, with no other sims/competition coming even slightly close. This does not mean I am not critical. I am no fanboy. There are more than a few posts and threads by me here on the forum to prove this. I wish that everyone who was interested in warfare at this level could appreciate CM for what it is. I wish that everyone who is in the profession of arms could appreciate CM as a valuable conceptual tool of understanding tactical warfare. This isn't the case, and never will be. If CM was perfect in every possible, there would still be people out there who would dislike it. Human nature I suppose. The point is, I hope you can learn to understand what CM offers and appreciate it for what it is. If you can't then that's too bad, but that is due to your own subjectivity, and not a fault of CM. With that, another Miller essay is in the books, here for everyone to ignore!

A new AAR from Bil, we know what that means! Looking forward to seeing how this plays out, and the screenshots are a nice bonus too!

Oh honey no, what is you doin? In all seriousness this looks exciting. Looking forward to more updates!

I put together a cinematic video of one of the stock CW missions and thought I would share it here. Some of the edits are a bit rough as I'm still getting the hang of it all, but I think for the most part it turned out alright.

Don't remember where or when, but I recall Steve answering this once. If I remember correctly, he said something along the lines of CMBN being the max they can put into one game before it starts to be overloaded. It makes sense, seeing how much stuff has been crammed into CMBN. Though take this with a grain of salt as I may be misremembering.