HerrTom

Can't you make your units "shy" by giving them a reverse command after a hunt? The hunt cancels on contact and moves to the remaining commands? Or am I mistaken?

Oh man I recently got FB and the upgrade separately. Reading isn't my strong suit I guess haha. Oh well, an extra $10 for Battlefront, such is life.

Ask and you shall receive... sort of. I was unsatisfied with the size of 82mm mortar and autocannon shell explosions... so I doubled the size of the explosions. I may have hit a good middle ground, I think - fairly satisfied with how it looks in most cases - except when you get an ammo explosion - that still looks odd. Link to download double size 2x (version 5 plus!) explosions: Google Drive

I'm still drooling over the thought of Combat Mission Fulda Gap, but I wouldn't complain about Combat Mission Suez Crisis or to compare Graviteam's Operation Hooper with Battlefront's haha.

Played around with a different source - this one is slightly less asymmetric compared to the other one. Click here to see the explosion animation: http://i.imgur.com/MrJ59wz.gifv Download here: Google Drive

I never looked at Google Drive's interface from your guys' end. It's handy for storing files, but man, do they make it difficult figuring out how to save files from it! It took me a couple of minutes and clicking around to find the button haha. I played around with a different source for the explosion, and I've managed to get a pretty good process going in Photoshop to automate the generation of the frames. But the big struggle is still with how Combat Mission does "particles". This explosion looks great... when it lines up properly - everything is rotated randomly and sometimes there really isn't *any* explosion. It also looks odd for airbursts. Very odd.

This button right here should do it.

Mirroring. CM has quite the limitations when it comes to "particles" haha. But that's definitely one of the reasons I'm not super happy with the results.

So I've been playing around with the explosion graphics in CM - I've enjoyed the ones from the various mods, but it always bothered me how huge and cartoony they looked. So I set about making an explosion inspired by Project Reality and Squad: And ended up with this: I'm in no way completely satisfied with what I have, but I'm lazy and was wondering what you guys thought - good direction to head in? You can download it here: Google Drive Extract into the Mods folder in My Documents, or the Z folder in the game directory

Pretty much. I don't think SALH is a very common guidance method anymore since it requires a much more powerful emitter - it has to hit the target and reflect back to the seeker - compared to beam riding SACLOS. I think the mechanism is that the seeker detects where the laser is in relation to itself through the diffusion of the beam, I don't think it hits specific "pull up" beams. Most Russian laser guided missiles do this, like Bastion, Vikhr, Ataka, Kornet, Sheksna, and others...

Also means lower ammo capacity per magazine and overall, less controllable rapid fire, and heavier weapons. Not that the 556 is the best combo, but the army seems to have thought so in the past. Also your chair is leather? I get cheap, uncomfortable fabric and a cubicle, all in the name of "ergonomics!"

What about the 2B9 Vasilek now that you mention it. I don't remember seeing it in the list. 100 round per minute mortar with direct fire capabilities seems exciting. As far as I know the Russian army still uses it, and I've seen footage from Ukraine of it being used on a technical - mounted to a 6x6 truck no less.

That's why my go-to tool has been all guns, maximum ROF, and quick or short on enemy positions. Nail them with a lot of steel all at once, then move in. Defensively, I've gone down to medium ROF and longer fire missions to make my enemy think twice about moving through a chokepoint. Just recently I tried a medium ROF, long duration barrage on suspected enemy entrenched positions, using perhaps Soviet style fire direction - only ordering the barrage to stop once my men are almost on top of the enemy. I took some casualties from my own artillery, but I'll be damned if it wasn't effective. Suppressed ATGMs and other AT assets and my troops were definitely doing something the whole time the mission was firing, ever it was preparing or assaulting.

Interesting. I have my doubts that this will actually enter into effect after seeing the last attempts to replace the M16 platform. But after reading this, another thing pops into mine: "But he proposed arming only the infantry with a replacement for the M4/M16." Maintaining 3 different common calibres for your logistical trains seems like a poor decision to me.

I think the point was that 2s7 at least could run its fire missions theoretically without risk of NATO counterbattery fire due to its enhanced range. That and a single battery (attached to the division or higher) can render support to more of the front line. To my knowledge, though, there is no good analogue to the 2S4...

This is a hopefully simple question for everyone: How do you utilize your fire support - do you use the whole gamut of options? Emergency, harrassment, medium, light, etc along with quick, short, medium, long missions? Under what circumstances do you use which combinations? Do you use linear targets, area targets, point targets, and what do you use each on? For me, effective use of fire support has always been my weak spot. One can always improve via vague forum questions!

@John Kettler are you sure about the 2S4 designation? Wikipedia tells me it's a self propelled mortar. Not really an SPH, but that 240mm calibre is quite impressive. I also agree with Miller here that the M110 is a good analogue for the Mialka and Pion artillery pieces. When they get that big I think you are limited in how non-self propelled you are! The Soviet gun does benefit from apparently being slightly faster to set up as well as having a fair amount more range (30km compared to about 37km).

Maybe for AH-64s, Mi-28s and Ka-50s, but the Mi-24s zoom over the battlefield, strafing it with rockets. They're pretty damn visible. A look at the prepatory barrage and some fun pathfinding from poorly placed orders and bocages blocking movement! The barrage ended up knocking out a T-64, three BMP-2s and 50 men. Not bad! Crossing the river. Not as organized as I'd like, and I think the single company crossing the river wasn't enough to really wrest control from the well-entrenched Ukrainians. Might need some more balancing - the Ukrainians have a much better time defending here than in Road to Odessa!

No after effect - just as it looks in-game. I'm running a postprocessing injector called Reshade that allows me to run depth of field, some color grading, and ambient occlusion (the last one really adds depth to the scene!). First one I added the helicopters and cleaned up the tracers.

CMBS really needs to render at least the attack helicopters. It'd be pretty damn cool. I had to add them in for the stream of tracers coming out of nowhere haha Russian forces engage a dug-in Ukrainian force as they attempt to force a river crossing over the Dnieper river. (Click for full 3,000x1,000-ish pixels!) A Russian scout team observes the fire mission preparing the opposite bank. Lt. Popov identifies a few armored vehicles and relays the information to the supporting tanks.

It was pretty much at the same time. The ATGM's flight time is less than the 6 seconds for the autoloader to actuate, that's for sure. Two of the three tanks there were lost to BMP-3s charging down the road at speed. They must have quite good stabilizers!

Hah! I like it. Apparently Russia only has some 250-odd complexes, and seeing that they're an integral part of their IADS (pun intended), I agree with you here. Their direct fire capacity is likely only "supposed" to be used in self-defence. Though it's worth noting the ZSU-23-4 Afghanskii modified for antipersonnel uses in Afghanistan, or straight Shilkas being used as such weapons in Syria.

0822 2nd company continues to get mauled by the Russians already across the canal. A T-64 fires a shot at a spotted BRM-3. The shot lands high and smashes into a tree behind the reconnaissance vehicle. Autocannon fire lands true on the stragglers still inside Pryvitnoe. A BMP-2 from second platoon eats 30mm rounds as it tries to retreat. Alas, the field is so open there is nowhere to go. The 3rd T-64 in 4th platoon eats a BMP-3s ATGM after barely missing it as it raced over the bridge. I have to have a talk with the Ukrainian gunnery school! They're only 1 km away! The air controller team from the headquarters section takes cover in the treeline, bracing to face what appears to be a depleted Russian company moving through the town. A BMP-2 from 1st platoon also gets spotted by BMP-3s. It's almost 20 minutes until 3rd company arrives, and I seriously doubt I can hold out against the Russians for that long. If I take more losses, I might have to fall back against the Russian onslaught. ... ... But never fear, for I have another scenario in the works (taking a break from playing with AI on this one). A preview of "An der schönen blauen Dnepr" - On the Beautiful, Blue Dnieper.

I wholeheartedly agree. This era seems to be a pretty barren landscape for games. Off the top of my head: Wargame EE/ALB/RD Twilight Struggle (stretching the definition of a wargame) Some scenarios in TOAW III Graviteam Tactics, Operation Hooper and Shield of the Prophet There's not much out there in terms of wargaming, and of those I think Wargame and Graviteam Tactics are the only ones that can scratch the Combat Mission itch in the slightest. Side note: I'm reading Zaloga's Red Thrust, and I'll be damned if it's not a good read with some very interesting points. I'd love to reenact his battles in a CM game...

0821 2nd Company is already getting pretty battered. A second tank from 4th platoon eats a Bastion fired from a BMP-3 speeding down the road into the forest. A compatriot drives around the smoke screen and fires a shot... ... Which pierces the enemy vehicle, causing it to grind to a halt. The two surviving tanks move into better cover around the forested area that 1st Platoon/2Co is taking cover behind. Meanwhile, 3rd Platoon/2Co receives tank and autocannon fire, disabling first one BMP. Then two. The third is raked with more autocannon fire, tracking it further afield. Everyone's panicked and rushing to get away from the death traps. Aerial recon spots a platoon of BMP-3s supported by a T-72B3 moving down the main road through the village. This is definitely not good, since the only forces I have there are part of 2nd company's HQ. Maybe the BMP-2 will make them think twice about charging forward. 2nd Platoon/2Co takes fire, knocking out one of the BMP-2s as it races to the shrubs ahead. Aerial recon further shows the punishment that has landed so far on the canal crossing point. No good BDA for now. Definitely interested to see how much trouble my artillery has caused my opponent. Not sure what to do any more, other than keep holding where I am. When I revamp the scenario for a release here (hopefully) I think I'll move both reinforcement groups to the NW corner of the map, where they'll enter in good cover and perhaps be more useful to the battle. So far, 2nd company's tanks are the only things that have done anything other than get killed - and they probably owe it to the Russians in the treeline at the canal, and the large open ground to cover.