IICptMillerII

I think the engine upgrade is the Christmas Bone haha It looks like you can either install the patch to an existing install or you can install the game completely fresh with all the new updates applied for you. However either way you go you will likely run into the activation issue. As I said earlier I'm hoping that its just a registry bug or something like that that can be quickly fixed. Here's hoping! In the meantime I would recommend not upgrading as you will not be able to play the CM game you attempt to upgrade.

I did try to use the app. It did not work for me. I am also on Windows.

I can also report that I am having issues with my license activation for the new upgrade as well. Same issue as you all are having. Everything installs fine, but when I try to activate the game it says I have an invalid license key. When I use the original key I got when I first bought the game it says it was successfully activated, but upon loading the game it tells me that the v4.0 needs to be activated. I submitted a ticket with the helpdesk. Hoping this is an easy fix for everyone, both staff and customers. It is Christmas Eve after all

I have a few suggestions that could help you out: First off I do agree that graphics and such do matter. I do not think they are the most important, but I do think that they are important and have a role to play. For me, gameplay (the simulation) is more important than visuals, however visuals inform the gameplay. BFC makes a point about this in the game manuals. If the simulation aspect was the only thing they were trying to simulate, then the visuals essentially wouldn't matter. Here is a quick excerpt from the CMSF manual: "A tactical combat simulator, unfortunately, requires the computer to simulate chaos - both natural and manmade. Then, as the simulation is executed in RealTime, the computer must calculate this chaotic environment quickly and efficiently. As if this isn’t demanding enough, the gamers using the simulator require that the computer also devote a large amount of its power to push around polygons to make the simulation seem real. Oh, and all of this should work on the average home PC that has been purchased within the last few years." I personally think vanilla CMBN looks and sounds bad. The terrain is too bright and not natural looking, the vehicles look a bit stale, the uniform skins are bland and uninspiring, the sound effects are flat and boring,and the UI is very visually unappealing to name a few things. But with a handful of mods I'm able to transform CMBN (visually) into a very enjoyable, immersive experience. A combination of varying visual and sound mods have completely transformed the game for me. As a quick side note, one of the things I like most about CM is that in many ways it is a tabletop game virtualized. Instead of having to spend hundreds of dollars buying models and paint, and then going through the long process of building/painting them, I can just load up CM. Essentially unlimited WWII or modern models to play around with. And because modding the games visuals is so easy, you essentially have an army painter at your fingertips. Want to add a cool logo to your tanks, or a distinct unit insignia to your infantry? Easily done with a bit of patience and photoshop (or some equivalent) I find that I have just as much fun "painting my army" to fit my tastes or the theme of a scenario as I do actually playing the game. For a really good example of this, check out the Operation Clipper campaign and its included mod pack. It imports a lot of textures from CMFB as well as using some custom textures (UI and uniform skins to name a few) to fully immerse the player in the battle represented in the campaign. Now as far as performance goes, I do agree that at times things run less than smoothly. However I've found a few tricks that really help to mitigate that issue. First and foremost, on large scenarios the best way you can improve your performance is to lower the Model Quality option. There is even a hotkey to do it in game (SHIFT + { or }) I've found that on a very large scenario if I lower the model quality to "Improved" or lower it gets rid of most of the low FPS and stuttering often complained about. Another thing you can do to improve performance is to play the game in turn based mode. I found out while playing some very large user made scenarios in CMRT that I couldn't run them in real time. My frames would drop down to 1 FPS during some of the larger artillery barrages and stay that way for most of the battle. This is of course essentially unplayable. However I found that when I play the game in turn based mode it all runs fine. The only real performance "hit" is the loading time between turns, which is increased slightly as it is simulating everything that will happen in the replay phase. There are a lot of threads out there with other tips and tricks related to performance that are worth browsing through. Just thought I would share two things that have always helped me in all CM games here for convenience. I could honestly go on and on about how much I love CM and why, but that is a bit too off topic. Besides, I'm sure no one wants to read all that anyways Hopefully some of these tips/suggestions help you and others struggling with the same issues. I guess my last bit of advise would be to try and let some of the little things go and appreciate CM for what it is. Its not without its flaws, but at the end of it all CM is essentially a way for us to view real history, and pretty damn accurately too. Something which no other entertainment medium can do. Hope this wall of text proves useful!

This is what I assumed, but wasn't entirely sure so i decided to mention it. Great to hear you're already planning to do this. Very much looking forward to it!

@SLIM I just realized that even though I've been following this thread since you started it and watching all of these excellent videos as they've come out, I completely forgot to leave you an encouraging message here! These videos you're making are fantastic! A great aid to players new and old alike! For example, I found the videos that go over certain squad rates of fires at varying ranges very informative. Everything else is great! Definitely a worthy successor to the famous Armchair General CM Tactics videos. If I have one bit of constructive criticism to give you, it would be this: I think it would be helpful for you to show the tactics and techniques in a full scale battle. Doesn't have to be a huge battle or anything like that, but a practical application of everything would be a nice way to sum things up/drive things home. I know that your aim is to have a finer detail than the ACG videos, so if you are building up to a full scale battle where you show everything then that's fine, I'll just have to be patient! Looking forward to the next installment!

I have nothing against criticism or complaints against the game. Hell I've made a few of them myself. (Off the top of my head, I really want to see artillery capabilities expanded on in the modern titles by adding things like DPICM and the like, and I've stated more than a few times that I really want BFC to make a Cold War gone hot CM game set in the 80's) I'm all for bug squashing, constructive criticism and posting our hopes and dreams for what games/features come next. I also really appreciate when people do criticize or ask a question about something in game. I find those threads to generally be the ones with a lot of new information in them that I can learn. I was just pointing out that a few certain individuals seem to have made it their life's ambitions to criticize the game and find tiny faults/issues with it. If they dislike the game/company so much, why don't they just move on? I understand maybe being bitter over a new feature/lack of a new feature, but to keep up the grudge for months or even years just seems excessive to me. Seems like a new hobby is in order is all. A more on topic point; I'm glad to see activity from Armchair General again! Seems like they fell off the grid for a while, but it does not appear that they are gone for good. One of the single most helpful tutorials I saw (and occasionally rewatch) are the now famous Armchair General CM Tactics videos. Great production value with a ton of information. What I like best about those vids is that they take the concepts that you can read about in manuals, etc. and visualizes them in CM. Really great stuff. Glad to know that ACG is still kicking so that at the very least we may see more CM related content from them in the future!

Safe space! Good one. Nah fam I'm good. Just thought I would point out your constant bitching is not productive, but it seems like everyone else here knows what kind of person you are so there's really nothing left to be said. You know there is an in game hotkey to toggle shadows on and off right? Oh who am I kidding, I'm sure than when you try the hotkey it causes your computer to freeze up and immediately start torrenting the movie "Gettysburg" or some such nonsense. Oh well. can't please them all! I completely agree with what @SLIM said. Its not perfect, but its loads better than anything to come before it, or any other modern "equivalent" that have much larger budgets and production teams working on them. I'll stick with CM over MoW any day. They can keep their fancy graphics and lame gameplay. Plus, a new update to the engine is just around the corner which promises to bring many new things to the CM engine, including new graphical effects like tracer colors and such. Very much looking forward to it! As a final, more on topic point, it seems that the recent additions to the CM family have all been very well received by websites such as Armchair General and Grogheads, to name a few. BFC may not be able to please every single person every single time, but they are clearly doing something right to be getting positive reviews and sticking around all this time. Heres hoping to many years to come!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So is the LSD you're on that's causing the "psychedelic swirls." Maybe play the game while not flying so high in the sky? I personally think the graphics in CMFB are fantastic, possibly the best yet in the series. The terrain is fantastic and extremely immersive, the vehicles look great, and the uniforms are the by far and away the best quality I've seen released yet. Hoping for future additions/expansions is one thing, but not being able to see or appreciate the advances when they happen isn't constructive criticism, its just being ungrateful. Last I checked no one is forcing you to continue playing the games. Seriously, show us on the doll where CM did the no-no to you. It seems like all you do here on the forums is whine and complain about things BFC hasn't done yet, or some extremely obscure glitch that no one else experiences but you. Do you really have nothing better to do than to make it your life mission to play and then trash a game on its forums? Yeesh...

I'm very excited for this AAR! I really liked the one you did previously. Great screenshots and map graphics to help inform the situation. I'm looking forward to see how this battle plays out and if the Ukrainians can hold out at all. As a side note, I downloaded the map to check it out myself and I noticed the vehicle fortifications you made. It got me thinking, so I set up a few test battles with tanks in the fortifications and was pretty impressed. The fortifications definitely improve the survivability of the dug in tank. I did find that that they tend to work better with Abrams than Soviet made tanks because the Soviet made tanks have such a shorter profile that it prevents you from being able to put too much dirt in front of them. With the Abrams you can put up a nice barrier to the front and the tank can still spot and engage over it. Not so much with the Soviet/Russian designs. Still very useful overall.

If I remember correctly, there is a good chance that they will become available again in the next mission, however there is a chance that they will remain out of action. I think chances are generally pretty good that the immobilized vehicle will be returned to you though. Someone else will hopefully come by and give you a more concrete answer/explanation either way.

I agree with @IanL For the most part house rules should be established between players. Some form of agreement for the defender not to use artillery on the attackers set up zone on the first turn. The problem with coding in a rule where the defender cannot use artillery on the first round is that while 9 times out of 10 the defender probably should not use artillery on the first round, there is that one time where its totally acceptable/plausible/fitting with the mission. As an example, think of a campaign mission where you are the defender getting ready to defend a prepared position against a known attack. Thats an instance I can think of off the top of my head where it would be thematically appropriate to the mission for the defender to call in harassing fires on the first turn. I'm worried that some kind of blanket ban mechanic would hurt gameplay in the long run instead of making it better. Essentially I would rather be entrusted with the option and responsibility of being able to call in first turn artillery, and to know when not to, than to have an arbitrary game mechanic deciding it for me. Not to get political here, but the whole, "with freedom comes responsibility" thing comes into play here for me. The more options the player has the better, in my opinion.

These pictures are very cool. Is there an article/writeup somewhere out there that could be linked? I would be interested in some light reading on the training exercises. @Rinaldi I know that during the latter parts of the Cold War the US and Canada held many large scale FTX's at least yearly. I believe they were all called Operation North Star, although there may be a bunch of variations/subcategories I'm unaware of. I have to admit I am not very well informed on either our syrup loving friends to the north (no offense meant, personally love the stuff!) or Commonwealth forces in general. Do these large scale joint exercises still take place, or have they since been cut since the fall of the Berlin wall?

Ah hell why not, call up Lockheed Martin and tell em the budget cap is 1 trillion. 15 years later and 4 trillion over budget we'll have a real monster for the world to contend with! Exactly what I thought of when I read the words fixed fortification. What's that Patton quote again? Had a good laugh at the play on words

Artillery kills tanks in CM Artillery damages tanks in CM Both damaging and killing tanks with artillery is consistently modeled Just because artillery does not kill tanks every time it scores a direct hit DOES NOT MEAN the simulation is wrong/broken/bugged/whatever. Will a direct hit by artillery kill a tank? Yes. Will a direct hit damage a tank? Yes. Will artillery immobilize a tank? Yes. Will a direct hit leave the tank undamaged? Yes. Do all four of those occurrences occur in CM? Yes. As I have now stated a few times, just because someone can produce one anecdotal example where artillery does not kill a tank after a direct hit DOES NOT MEAN the entire simulation is broken/bugged. It just means someone got lucky. Everyone is under the impression that a gunshot wound to the head is usually always fatal. However I could google a ton of medical cases where someone was shot/stabbed/whatever in the head and survived, some without any permanent disability. Why is this? Is life broken? No, its just a rare possibility based on a multitude of factors. CM is the same, it simulates as best as it can all of the various factors that can occur on a tactical battlefield. Until someone shows me that in CM artillery causes no damage (regardless of a direct hit or not) CONSISTENTLY through many many many many tests, and BFC does not announce the presence of a bug, I will continue to be content with the simulation.

Earlier in this thread I posted a link to an article discussing the destructive effects (or lack thereof) of naval gunfire, specifically 16" shells against armored plate. I'll post it again here: HE shells are light-cased shells and, when combined with instantaneous nose fuzes (the only one used in the Type 0 HE shell), will do very little to even thin armor plate: For example, a 16" 1900-lb Mark 13/14 instantaneous-nose-fuzed ("PDF") High Capacity (HC) US Navy WWII shell CANNOT penetrate 3" of homogeneous armor!!! It makes a big dent, but the shell destroys itself before its nose tip can move more than a few inches forward (http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-092.htm) 3" is 76.2mm. The Abrams has around 65mm (2.5") of armor on the top of the turret. At least those are some numbers that I can find right now, and it is specifically for the armor around the TC hatch. It is also the M1A1HA variant. Its possible that the top armor is thicker in other places, but someone more informed than I would have to chime in on that. If a 16" (405mm) 1900lb shell has trouble penetrating 3 inches of armor, then I don't see how a 152/155mm shell could be expected to reliably penetrate 2 inches of armor. Unless of course the shell has some kind of ballistic cap to assist it in punching through armor. Even if the HE was set to a delayed fuse, I still don't think that it would be able to reliably penetrate the armor. Based on all of that, my hypothesis is that an Abrams could conceivably survive multiple direct hits to the top of its turret by 152/155mm HE fire. It is by no means guaranteed, merely within the realm of possibility. Just to make a few things clear: I believe that what you posted is an extreme. As I've said, I think that 3 times out of 5 that type of direct fire would have caused damage more severe than just minor damage to sub systems, possibly enough to mission kill the tank/crew. I do not think that an Abrams, or any tank for that matter would be able to simply shrug off a shell fired from a battleship. The crew would likely be down for the count, especially after a direct hit. Its also possible that an explosion that size on the top armor could crumple it and push it in, crushing the crew inside. Its more likely that the tank could be tossed or flipped by such an explosion. I'm simply using it as a working example to show that the penetrating effects of HE is very minimal. There is no hard data of an Abrams being hit by 152mm fire on a battlefield that I have access to, so I have to use this information. An additional point here about the battleship shells: there is a famous picture of Eisenhower standing next to a Tiger tank in France that was flipped by the impact of naval gunfire support. Fires that large are going to do some serious damage, even if its not due to penetration of the armored vehicle. I do not think that Abrams, or any other tanks should or are impervious to indirect fires. As I have said a few times now, its possible for tanks to be both damaged and destroyed by direct or close hits from indirect fires. I do think that artillery and armored vehicles are modeled well in CM. It is obviously not perfect as nothing is, and there will always be a fluke here and there (much to the amusement or chagrin to the player depending on which side hes on) but the vast majority of the time I think CM is doing it right. Definitely better than most other games/sims out there. To summarize, what you posted is unlikely, but not impossible.

A lot of these anecdotes tend to be the result of an open hatch, or some other kind of weakness in the defensive posture of the vehicle. For instance, a unit that gets surprised by an artillery barrage is at a greater risk for this to happen because the crew may be unbuttoned. This is one of the many reasons most conventional military's stopped using open topped vehicles after WWII. They're too vulnerable to indirect fires, among many other things. However a buttoned tank is pretty formidable to indirect. Again, it comes down to increasing the chances of a critical hit by saturating an area with immense amounts of fire, which most of the time is inefficient and impractical. Which is why it is not advised. Yes, it is a HEAT Tandem warhead, but it is still enclosed in a metal casing, and is not 100% efficient. This means that some of the explosion is going to go to the sides, causing shrapnel to go with it. 22.5 mm of RHA is less an an inch. Its quite thin. .50 cal rounds can pierce it (regular ball ammo even, not just AP-I) and there is some debate about 7.62 being effective against it as well. A small chunk of hot shrapnel moving at high velocity could penetrate the the side armor and find its way into the ammo storage, causing the catastrophic explosion seen in the BMP-3 example listed. Again, I'm not saying that this is the most likely thing to happen. A lot of this comes down to luck. Will the HE round land on/in a hatch? Will the shrapnel penetrate at just the right spot to cause damage? All of these things are low probability, but they are still physically possible. When they do happen, they cause damage. Abrams can be killed with HE artillery. BMP-3s can be penetrated from the side by shrapnel. All of these effects and more are modeled in game. As a quick addition, you will note that while the Javelin is just a Tandem HEAT warhead, when it detonates it does create quite the explosion. Here is a video showing multiple Javelin impacts on various armored targets: Like I said, the example you posted was rather extreme, and I would have expected that tank to be in a less than optimal operating mode after all of those hits. However it seems that there is some good data out there that supports the idea that even with all of those direct hits, the Abrams could have survived with minimal damage, if any to internal systems and crew. Also its worth pointing out that in the most recent update for Black Sea, the overall resiliency of the Abrams was slightly decreased. Its in the patch notes.

A few things: Near misses do cause damage. Specifically to tracks. What other sub system should be getting damaged by near misses? Optics are covered and hardened, and most other components are inside the tank, meaning you have to penetrate the tank to damage/destroy them. Thats the whole point of a tank, keeping the inside safe from outside fires. Direct hits by artillery shells on a tank is rare. In order to get a direct hit, you either have to use a pinpoint fire mission on a non-moving target, guided munitions, or saturate the area with fire and hope to get lucky. Can a direct hit be achieved? Yes, but you're at the mercy of the law of averages, among other physical laws. This is precisely why HE artillery is not generally employed against tanks. Lets also not forget that the enemy gets a vote too. If shells start falling on the tanks, the tanks are going to move. Its called displacing, and pretty much every branch of the military has various SOP to facilitate displacement. Artillery units displace to avoid being hit by counter battery fires. Tanks displace to make them harder targets and to avoid enemy threats. (like artillery) Infantry displaces to avoid artillery, being pinned down and a slew of other reasons. Thin brings me to my main point. Can artillery kill tanks? Yes. Can it do it efficiently/effectively? No. If you see enemy tanks on a battlefield and your first and only idea is "shell it" you're wrong. If your tanks are under an artillery barrage and you just let them sit there, you're wrong. As far as the Javelin incident is concerned, I could offer an explanation. For instance, its possible that the explosion of the javelin next to the BMP-3 caused shrapnel to pierce the side armor of the BMP-3 and set off the very volatile ammo inside. "But wait, why can javelin shrapnel, a much smaller warhead, penetrate the side armor of a BMP-3 but artillery cannot do the same to a tank?" Its because the side armor on a BMP-3 is much, much thinner, and is likely only RHA. This means it lacks additional armored protection provided by things like ERA, or protections organic to the armor itself such as composite armor (think chobham armor) For example, the front armor of an Abrams is roughly 700mm effectiveness. However there is not a meter of actual material on the front of the tank. The reason it is roughly 700mm effective armor is due to the reasons listed above, things like composite armors and ERA, etc. Regardless of what actually happened to the BMP-3, one personal anecdote detailing an exception/rarity does not make it a rule. Now if it turns out there is a bug with the way BMP-3 side armor is modeled (like how when CMBS was first released and tanks could be penetrated and killed from .50 cal fire to the side armor consistently) then it should be addressed and fixed. However I do not think that such a bug exists, and there is no evidence for said bugs existence. Again, one personal anecdote of something out of the ordinary occurring does not establish it as a new norm, nor does it showcase a bug. It has to be consistently repeated, among other things. Essentially, it was a plausible fluke. Which brings me to my final point; 'balance.' REDFOR has a disadvantage in the game because in real life they are at a disadvantage. 'Balance' has absolutely no place in CM when it comes to core mechanics and the simulation of weapon capabilities. If you want a better tank for the Russians, or better ammo for the guns of Russian tanks, you'll have to wait for them to be developed and introduced in real life. CM is a simulation of tactical combat. It depicts real life equipment realistically. There is no balance or any such nonsense in real life, thus there is none in CM (when it comes to mechanics and modeling) and it does not belong. Period. Balance for gameplay considerations exist with mechanics such as the price of units in QB set ups and map design, if you chose to play on maps that are not representative or real/realistic terrain. But if Country A has better tanks than Country B, tough, deal with it. Country B does not deserve an unrealistic 'buff' for 'muh gameplay' and 'muh balance.' If thats the type of game you want to play, this is not the one for you, and there are plenty of other options commercially available.

That does seem like an extreme case, and I would honestly expect that shell impact on the hatch to have penetrated into the turret of the tank, but I do not think it is outside the realm of possibility for a tank to survive such punishment. I doubt the tank suffered no damage though. In the screenshots I just posted above you'll see that I was able to inflict more than a bit of damage to Abrams with 152mm HE fire. Additionally, HE shells have very little, if any inherent penetration ability. So I would not expect to see an HE shell boring holes through armor before exploding. Nathan Okun, a naval historian did a bit of research and found that even big 16" battleship shells are terrible at penetrating armor. Here is a quote from him, as well as the link to the entire article: HE shells are light-cased shells and, when combined with instantaneous nose fuzes (the only one used in the Type 0 HE shell), will do very little to even thin armor plate: For example, a 16" 1900-lb Mark 13/14 instantaneous-nose-fuzed ("PDF") High Capacity (HC) US Navy WWII shell CANNOT penetrate 3" of homogeneous armor!!! It makes a big dent, but the shell destroys itself before its nose tip can move more than a few inches forward http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-092.htm So while it does seem like an extreme case, it does not seem impossible to survive.

Well that is very bizzare, because when I set up 4 Abrams in a row and hit them with 152mm HE fire this happens after just one minute: (Pictured: Subsystem damage on an Abrams after 1 minute of 152mm HE fire) Here is the before picture. Note the time difference between the two pictures (1 minute) Same minute, different tank pictured this time. Note that is is immobilized and has two subsystems completely destroyed: Five minutes have now passed. Please note that the tank is now immobilized and has suffered even more damage to its sub systems: All 4 tanks are now immobilized. All four tanks have suffered damage to multiple subsystems and that damage increased as the barrage went on. I could keep posting more and more of these screenshots, but I feel it would be overkill and insulting to the intelligence of those reading this thread. It very clearly shows that the Abrams tank suffers damages to its subsystems after taking fire from 152mm HE artillery. As for the statement that an artillery shell exploding next to a tank should cause significant damage, I'll refer you to points made by both PzSrKtWerfer and HerrTom. Watch the vid that PzKraut posted. You'll notice that an artillery shell going off close to a Lada car (world renowned for its sturdy build ) barely flinches as an artillery shell bounces off its roof and explodes very close. HerrTom pointed out the drastic difference in the amount of explosives in a 152mm HE shell compared to an aircraft deployed bomb. Both of these points clearly illustrate that just because something goes boom, does not mean everything dies near it. In conclusion: Tanks, specifically the Abrams suffers damage from artillery Artillery is able to damage sub systems on tanks Artillery is able to immobilize tanks Artillery is able to kill tanks, however it takes a lot of ammo and a bit of luck Artillery in Combat Mission is modeled well

In my experience in CM, vulnerable sub systems such as radio antenna, tracks and the like do suffer damage from artillery, whether its a direct hit or a close hit. Other sub systems, like optics are generally damaged much less, but that is because these systems have more protection than the others. As far as the armor comparison between the M48 and the Abrams, I find it very hard to believe that the latter could be reliably and effectively penetrated by shrapnel from HE artillery. The armor on the two tanks are quite different, as the M48 lacks various components like spall liners and composite armor to name a few. So while the top armor on the M48 is likely just a thin piece of metal, on the Abrams its a thin piece of metal with a bunch of other things as well, so its more than just a thin piece of metal. I'm sure everyone's favorite cabbage launcher (PzSrKtWerfer) could give a better explanation. There are plenty of google-able confirmed occurrences of American Abrams tanks (not the export versions) being difficult to damage/destroy, even by other American weapons. Its not invincible at all, but it is pretty resilient as far as tanks go. I think the way it is modeled, and artillery in general is very good in game. One can always find the one anecdote that seems to prove the exception to the status quo, but CM like any simulator is not designed to simulate all the little exceptions. By the way, just wanted to say that your simulations you share here on the forums are very cool! I hope you continue to provide them here to the rest of us. Its a great contribution that really helps to visualize some of the finer details. Plus, explosions are always cool, even if they're just a computer model

Airburst does not equal armor defeating. If an HE shell set to explode before hitting the ground goes off above a tank, all its doing is spraying the tank with small metal fragments. Will it shred antennas and ruck sacks and the like on the outside of the tank? Yes. But its not going to destroy a 120mm/125mm main gun. Its also not going to damage optics, because optics are protected behind blast shields that are operated by the crew. All airburst artillery is in CM is a shotgun going off a few meters off the ground aimed down. Artillery deployed cluster munitions, Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions, or DPICM, or ICM for short, are designed to defeat the top armor of armored vehicles, including tanks. This type of artillery is NOT in CM currently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-Purpose_Improved_Conventional_Munition The way artillery is represented and simulated in CM for both sides is fine. If there is an issue, it is that certain capabilities of artillery are not present in the game. Hopefully these capabilities are added in future modules, but if not artillery is more than functional as is. For now, use HE artillery against targets HE artillery is designed to engage, infantry, fortifications/buildings, strongpoints and the like. Stop trying to kill tanks with it.

When I first heard about this Stryker upgrade, I was less than thrilled. One of the main points of the SBCT is its reduced logistics trail. It is easier to transport (getting it into theatre) and requires less logistics to support it (operationally speaking) than ABCT's. Further, it seemed like they wanted to give the Stryker capabilities that the Bradley already has by introducing a new vehicle instead of just using more Brads. However, now that I've been able to read more about the project, I've changed my opinion. This upgrade seems like the best of both worlds. It does not reduce the capabilities of the Stryker (troop capacity and the like) and seems like it won't be that much more logistics/maintenance heavy. The increased firepower is also a very good thing. Overall I think the project is a good idea. The only concern I have for it right now is ammo capacity. If it can only carry 100 rounds or so, I'll be a bit disappointed. In order for that increased firepower to really matter, its gotta be able to use it for more than a single firefight. Now my biggest worry is that after these vehicles are introduced in large numbers, the Army tries to use them as a one size fits all vehicle. ("Why do we need these Bradley's when this 30mm Stryker is basically the same thing? Relegate the Brads to recon roles only, and look at the money/maintenance we save!" *yikes*) But I have yet to hear anything like this happening, so I may be getting ahead of myself on that one. As far as seeing it in game, I would certainly love to see that. If nothing more I would like to see how it performs on the tactical battlefield. I personally cannot stand the Stryker with just the .50 or Mk19. Not nearly enough firepower, very vulnerable, and the damn road wheels are not good in rough/broken terrain. I always prefer using the Brads for these reasons and others, but it looks like the 30mm Strykers would bridge most of that gap (minus the road wheels of course) I'm sure BFC will include it in a module or something later down the line, as long as they can get enough technical info on it to properly model it.

This is a good point. I understand that there is a line between what is possible on a tactical battlefield and what has to be done after the battle is over (for example, fixing a runway or a road or constructing a bridge) and that removing in depth anti tank obstacles is likely a post battle event, primarily. Its nice to know that engineers will use their explosives offensively given the opportunity and the right moment, like whats been posted above. I'll have to give that a try next chance I get. Thanks for the input!

It can be used in game. Check out the CMBS Screenshot Thread for a link to the download. This is the thread where you should be able to find a download link to both the Clipper campaign and the mod pack that accompanies it: If the links are down for whatever reason, contact the campaign/mod creator (dragonwynn) and he should be able to hook you up. If not I could try to host them on a dropbox.