HerrTom
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Posts
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Posts posted by HerrTom
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33 minutes ago, Michael Emrys said:
Excellent idea. If they can put a nuke in a submarine, why not a smaller nuke in a tank? This might also dovetail nicely with an idea I am contemplating about micro-ton nuclear ammo for the automatic grenade launcher on the tank. Why not be able to take out an entire company of infantry with a single grenade?
Michael
Excellent idea. We could even augment the attached Javelin launcher to accept Davy Crockett warheads instead of the HEAT one? You're in a tank, so you probably won't get cooked.
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0905
The first Russian casualty! At least he died for a good cause: protecting the company's armoured assets!
A brave soldier next to Sergeant Minaev is struck by an anti-tank asset, killing him instantly. Fragments injure three others, including Minaev. Luckily, Minaev spotted the source of the RPG and directs his squad to suppress the position. He directs the MTLB crew to fire upon an ATGM position while the other one moves forward to suppress the RPG.
The AGS team also sees the ATGM and lays 30mm grenades on its position.
Strygin advances to the edge of the forest behind the AGS.
Aushev and his assistant spot a third BTR moving south along E50. He orders his MTLBs to carefully move out of cover to begin to engage the vehicles.
4th platoon is almost in position now, and still does not see anything hostile. The contacts in the west side of town have firmed up to a squad of infantry with at least 1 RPG as well as 3 BTRs. On the other side of town, more enemy positions have made themselves known, including a second machine gun and an ATGM position on a roof. The suspected BTR's engines revved as it rumbled towards the farm complex, alerting Strygin's team. 2nd squad has pulled out of the firefight for now and is moving to support the river crossing, which is now using the secondary ford to the east to provide better cover. I hope Strygin can knock out the BTR before it knows what's going on.
I tried making a 3d view of Strygin's situation. I'm not sure I really like the result, but I'll try to improve it in the future.
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Why not point the microwave forwards, so you melt the snow. Go all-electric with hardened circuits to protect against EMP, while the vehicle runs on a small nuclear turbine. That way, you can pump hundreds of kilowatts into your microwave to melt the snow. And cook your Cup O' Noodles with it. Plus, you'll be so silent, the government will require speakers on it so that people know you're there.
This may complicate the supply chain, so I propose a program to replace ALL internal combustion engines with this reactor, thus having Parts Commonality!
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So the current plan of attack is to pin the defenders by skirmishing them until the main force arrives. We will identify and knock out (if possible) enemy heavy weapons before the main force arrives.
In preparation for the assault, Aushev will form up along the treeline and take out the two identified BTRs and prepare to advance along the edge of town to the river. Yavorskiy will remain in position, interdicting any Ukrainian movement to reinforce the town. Reconnaissance will cross the river, leaving the heavy weapons of 4th platoon in position to lay fire down on the southeast edge of town.
In preparation for the assault, a dense artillery barrage will land on sheaf N:3 to suppress any dismounts located in the housing complex. As the barrage lets up, 2nd Company will advance in column along E50, laying heavy fire on the town as they advance. Cross attached weapons from 4th platoon and organic support will be pre-positioned to assist in the fire. Upon reaching the town, 2nd Company will dismount and advance to the northeast. Simultaneously, the dismounted elements of Strygin's recon platoon will assault the east edge of town under autocannon cover. As 2nd Company and Strygin start their advance, artillery will be shifted to bombard the apartment buildings to the north of town.
I plan to cover the town in a rain of steel to break the will of the defenders and their commander via decisive and aggressive action. The pivot from skirmish and recon will be sudden and unexpected.
What do you guys think? I'll make sure to record video of the violence of the assault. It'll be too good not to share!
(Also, if anyone wants to use my Soviet-style map of the battlefield, it's here: http://i.imgur.com/ta7HJcE.png)
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Thanks for all the feedback everyone!
Vladimir, I meant the tactical map markings (like I'm using on my maps), but it was worth a shot. Thanks!
John, believe it or not, I am indeed neither. Thank you for the compliment. It will probably soon become apparent once things get too carried away.
0904
Aushev's platoon dismounts and moves into overwatch positions, awaiting further orders.
Auschev radios his company command about 2 BTRs spotted in the western edge of town. They appear to be in fairly vulnerable positions, though they pose a hazard to his platoon's advance. Auschev decides to continue to monitor the situation while his platoon moves into position.
Meanwhile, the reconnaissance platoon engages what turns out to be a Ukrainian machine gun posted in an office building located on the edge of town. A combination of small arms and autocannon fire rain onto the position as Strygin prepares to cross the river.
By the end of the minute, Auschev's platoon is almost in position, overwatching the western side of town. Unfortunately, sight lines from the ground level of the complex are rather poor. This is both a blessing and a curse. It'll mean that Auschev's troops can move closer to the town undetected, thanks to the hill and treeline in the way, but it also means that effective overwatch positions will be difficult to obtain. Once we hit contact, it may prove difficult to quickly retaliate with overwhelming fire. To combat this, I may have to send the MTLBs forward with Auschev to provide heavier fire support with the assault, probably with the infantry in front to to spoil any eager anti-tank equipped defenders.
Hasty movement forward may be bloody, even with support. I'm inclined to wait for a full assault until the rest of the formation arrives - especially 2nd Company with their armour support from 3rd Company. In the meantime, Aushev decides to carefully advance forwards to the treeline to better reconnoiter the Ukrainian positions around the spotted BTRs in suspected platoon strength watching over the southwest approach. The men of 2nd platoon are clearly nervous as their commander orders them to take extra RPG-26s from the transports. Auschev hopes that this extra firepower will allow them to deal with the Ukrainian light armour if it comes to it. After all, it's harder to take out four men with RPG-26s than one man with an RPG-7...
In the west, 4th platoon reports no signs of hostile forces, and continues to advance forwards to the crest of the hill, wary for potential ambushes.
At the highway, Strygin splits his platoon into two sections. The first section will remain in place, along with the weapons attachment which has just finished setting up their grenade launcher and machinegun. They'll continue to engage the machine gun in the office building whilst looking out for any more potential threats. Strygin himself will take 2 MTLBs and Byvshikh's 2nd squad across the river to the farm complex. The approach should be covered from observation by the defenders, and the buildings may offer some positions to keyhole in on the suspected BTR and machinegun nest.
The mortar fire on sheaf N:1 should shortly begin to shift to position N:2 for a few shells to keep the defenders' heads down. I'd love to start bombarding the confirmed BTR contacts to catch their supporting infantry and provide a screen for 2nd platoon's advance, but Sarychev is not in a good position to call in support. Perhaps its for the best, since we can focus on sapping the defenders along the main axis of attack. (N.B. - I'm working on a battle plan with the information I have now for the full assault along with a nice and clear topographic map. Hopefully this shouldn't take long)
Now that contact has been established, it is important to maintain the initiative. If we let up to reorganize, it will offer the defenders a chance to regroup and reallocate forces. Keeping up the pressure by advances and maneouvre will force the defenders to react to our movements and sap the defender's morale. Brigade HQ plans to have the town cleared of defenders by 1000 today, and the rest of the battalion won't be here for at least 20 minutes. We really are pressed for time, but hopefully this won't lead to rash decisions that will sacrifice the lives of my pixeltruppen!
(N.B. the second - I've updated the look of the map by making it slightly higher resolution as well as adding some annotations and a stroke around the markers. Hopefully this should be easier to read!)
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Out of curiosity, will this ruin existing saves?
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Vladimir, does the Russian army still use the Warsaw Pact standard markings? I couldn't find anything that said the contrary, so I've been using them for this for flavour.
0902
2nd platoon has reached its first objective. Aushev follows the attached grenade launcher team and his assistant to the observation post positions in the complex.
The leftmost elements of the scout platoon begin to take inaccurate fire from the town. Strygin orders the squad to return fire and moves an MTLB forward to lay down fire on the building.
Meanwhile, 4th platoon has very poor visibility to provide any useful information about the Ukrainian flank. Yavorskiy has his weapons start to bound forward. Hopefully, he can carefully advance to the top of the hill, maybe even take positions around the tower in the distance.
Sarychev and his forward observer team spot what appears to be a BTR on the east edge of town. Presumably the attached infantry squad is nearby. The mortars are going to shift fire to the suspected Ukrainian position.
The rest of Aushev's forces will begin to take overwatch positions to the south of town. The MTLBs will remain in cover for now, until the ATGM threat can be assessed.
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I've always enjoyed reading AARs and DARs on these forums, so I figure'd I'd try my hand in it. I'll be playing the scenario Brutal! as the Russians.
Things are going well for the Russian advance to Kiev. The highway E50 holds the key to the advance of the 32nd Motor Rifle Brigade as it continues its charge past Ukrainian defences. The 3rd Tactical Group Battalion has the task of capturing a small town known as Zhorstokyy that lies on a stretch of E50 to allow the rest of the brigade to continue its advance.
Intelligence tells us that elements of some Ukrainian BTR infantry units have taken up hasty positions in the town overnight, though their strength and exact composition are unknown.
Aerial reconnaissance has given us an idea of the layout and size of the city. Of particular note are the tall buildings in the centre of the city at location (1). These appear to offer fields of view on all approaches to the city, and hence a good location for an observation post. Location (2) has a complex with good firing positions overlooking an open field to the east of the town, as well as some limited vision towards the southern bridge. Position (3) has some tall apartment buildings that command the fields to the west of the town, but offer limited vision to the south.
The battalion reconnaissance platoon and 1st company's 2nd and 4th platoons are currently in the area of operations. Using the limited information and forces available, my initial plan is to set up observation posts to reconnoiter Ukrainian defensive positions in the town.
1st Company, 2nd Platoon under Lieutenant Aushev will advance in column formation to covered positions in the complex to the south of town and set up an observation post on the tallest building.
4th platoon under Lieutenant Yavorskiy has been split into a few sections. Two MTLBs along with two machineguns and a grenade launcher will take up defensive positions to foil any Ukrainian movement in the west. The other MTLB will be cross-attached to the reconnaissance platoon with a machine gun, forward observer, and a grenade launcher.
Lieutenant Strygin's reconnaissance platoon will advance to the edge of the road in the forest and dismount to provide a base of fire and an observation post to survey the east side of the town.
My current thought is to brute force my way across the bridge at location (1). It is the most obvious route, but it is also the most covered. Advancing across open fields to the west is dangerous with any ATGM threat, while the crossings to the east may prove difficult for tanks to traverse. Hence, the bridge at location (2) is a secondary objective. Location (3) is the suspected OP, which will be hammered by the 120mm mortars I have in support, as well as suppression fire from my vehicles once the lead starts flying.
I will be keeping a close eye on the apartments at location (4), though if things go to plan, they won't play a significant role in the battle until I can level them with support. Finally, the suspected positions at location (5) make me nervous, though hopefully 4th platoons weapons and MTLBs will be able to dissuade them from moving.
Strygin's scouts dismount and enter the forest to set up their observation posts as 0900 passes. Just on time!
I hope this will be enjoyable! I am open to comments, criticisms, insults, or whatever.
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On the topic of Fog of War, one thing that I think may be interesting (if not terribly annoying) is to take the idea of units being in contact and kick it up a notch. What if you actually lose the ability to order or even see your units that are out of contact on some Ultra-difficult difficulty above Iron? I understand that with the current game mechanics this may prove unwieldy and dangerous to your pixeltruppen, which may mean out of contact units should attempt to move back to friendly contact when they get lost...
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Show me on this doll where he touched you...
I second this, though. It'd be interesting to play with more contemporary units.
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Perhaps you're thinking of a Soviet saying and its ilk: "Russia is a place with a terrible past and a glorious future. And it always will be!" But I wouldn't take Russian cynicism at its face. Rest assured, you have friends in this whole forum.
On-topic,
I don't believe I've seen 1993's Stalingrad in this thread. It has some excellent filming that makes it rather beautiful. It also has a special place in my heart as one of the first movies of its type I'd seen, though I admit that Unsere Mütter, Unsere Väter is quite good. -
19 minutes ago, Raptorx7 said:
Oh I don't think you want to give the US access to its cluster munitions...
Yeah, each side being able to annihilate entire companies of armoured vehicles at once might be unbalanced. But it'd still be pretty cool to be able to use them...
On the other side you've got dumb cluster bombs like the RBK-250, -500, and -750 and rocket delivered cluster bombs.
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3 hours ago, VladimirTarasov said:
Are there any plans of introducing illumination rounds which could help Russian operations at night illuminating the battlefield and increasing the NV equipment's range? Would definitely be cool if looked over. My BMP-2s are not going to be launching operations at night without them against NATO type forces.
I also agree.
What about cluster munitions as well? The Russians sure seem to have large stockpiles of them, and doesn't the US still field them? It would add an interesting and deadly take to airstrikes. -
5 minutes ago, Vergeltungswaffe said:
BFC wanted to avoid finding a way to code squads loading like this:
Good God that's a mess. That's at least one thing the Soviets had right in terms of mechanized infantry organization!
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I fully echo the calls for CM: Fulda Gap or CM: North German Plain or what have you. I'm itching for a realistic Cold War tactics game (obviously, only Combat Mission fits!). Except I'd go for 1980 rather than '89. Gives us some chances to play with things that aren't super high tech with modern equipment beginning to be sprinkled in.
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1 hour ago, George MC said:
Were you ambushing or being ambushed?
Excellent screenshots BTW
Thank you!
I was being ambushed. My opponent had a cleverly placed AGS-17 that saw and engaged my trucks as they drove into the town. Got every single one in a single turn from over 600 meters away! -
6 hours ago, Erwin said:
These screenshots are stunning. But, I don't understand what one is supposed to do re "Reshade 3 beta 9" to achieve this visual effect.
Is this something that non-programmers should avoid messing with??
I'm no programmer myself, so hopefully it's not too difficult to do
First, you download the reshade (http://reshade.me/) distribution
Then, I wrote a quick tutorial for you here. If you need more help, don't hesitate to PM me.
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I would edit my previous post, but I can't figure out how. Here's a few more with more exciting content:
A Russian observation team guides air strikes on Ukrainian positions
A Russian platoon assaults across a rail bridge
A Russian tank platoon under artillery fire
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Perhaps with panzersauerkrautwerfer's suggestion there could be more modifiers on how you call in an airstrike beyond light/medium/heavy that affect how vulnerable it is in a menu similar to how artillery is called:
Low level: Decreased vulnerability to the air superiority/IADS situation, increased vulnerability to on-map AA assets. Lower accuracy of delivered weapons, especially PGMs
Medium level: Represents aircraft in their normal pattern
High level: Can't be hit with on-map AA assets, very vulnerable to air superiority/IADS, higher accuracy to PGMS, much lower accuracy for dumb munitionsThanks Duchess for the enlightening information!
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2 hours ago, Rinaldi said:
Stunning. Mind sharing your config with us for this?
Here it is: http://de.pastebin.ca/3723205
Note that the depth of field, while pretty, gets quite annoying during the game. I have it set to focus on the mouse cursor. -
Thanks! I learned that changing these settings, and even changing the object quality in-game doesn't affect my framerate at all!
From a game of Ambush! I played with my friend (I lost):
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10 hours ago, kraze said:
It's reshade 3 beta. Turn on MXAO, then tweak samplingdistance to something lower than default (since objects in the game are so small) to avoid stuff like black walls etc and increase sample count for more detail. Additionally turn on indirectlighting for some global illumination like shading. Performance hit is fairly small and unlike reshade 2 no transparent trees issue
Could you please post your config? I'm having trouble getting it to do anything. I want my game to look as beautiful as your screenshots!
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True, the crew only has 12.5 seconds from the missile entering the 4,000 m engagement range of the cannons to impact. Not a whole lot of time, and a little over 30 seconds from being detectable on its RADAR (I think). When part of an IADS, it may be less crazy though. You've got S-300s, OSAs and Buks engaging the launch vehicle, leaving the point defence to the Tunguska vehicles closer to the front line, while flying things that get really close find themselves face-to-face with a Biryusa.
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3 hours ago, Sublime said:
Idk man. I dont think theres an AAA platform short of several gatling guns mounted ON what would be the target literally creating a curtain of lead to stop a missile. I mean even the fastest turrets i dont think could track a missile going mach 2 for the split second its overhead or about to slam into sonethig. I just dont see it. Maybe if the tunguska was magically pointed at where the missile was coming from ajd it was over the course of a conflict of ww3 proportions perhaps thered be one case.
Until someone can show me proof that mobile SPAA platforms such as the tunguska can even track with its guns let alone lead and hit a maverick or hellfire i find the idea laughable.
If Wikipedia is correct and the Maverick travels at around 320 m/s (1150 km/h), then it may not be so crazy after all. I capped the turn rate on the plot at 50 degrees per second (since it turns to infinity the closer you get), but a dedicated SPAA platform may be able to exceed that rate. It looks to me engaging past 450 meters in any direction may see success in interception, provided that the Tunguska can acquire and track the missile soon enough.
More on topic, I agree with Panzersauerkrautwerfer's suggestion on air threat levels. It brings a bit of abstraction out, and allows us to have scenarios where air assets are in more danger without having an overblown MANPAADs problem.
A Brutal! DAR
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted · Edited by HerrTom
More excitement!
0906
Another ATGM slams into the ground, short. This time it thankfully missed Minaev's squad. The heavy return fire is taking its toll on their morale, though. The group frantically searches for the source of the missile...
Gunner Rudakov's heart drops as he sees death spiral towards him, but the ATGM's source is spotted by the other MTLB, which lays 30mm shells onto the launcher. The missile flies high and impacts the berm on the southern side of the road as the anti-tank gunner ducks from the incoming fire.
Minaev's squad tends to the downed man under the covering fire of the MTLBs. I'm very glad that I moved the second MTLB into position to support Minaev and the other MTLB. Without him, I'd surely be down one.
On the other side of town, Kabitskiy guides his MTLB into position around 2nd platoon's complex. He carefully takes aim, and fires. 30mm shells pierce the thin armour on the first BTR. He quickly translates his turret to the second BTR and squeezes the trigger. The vehicle begins to smoke. His driver shouts out about another BTR spotted on the highway. Thunk thunk thunk. A three-round burst tears into the final BTR, sparks clearly visible through the rain. Alas! He doesn't see another BTR hidden in a garden. 14,5mm bullets impact the vehicle, but fail to penetrate. Kabitskiy orders his driver to reverse, full speed! Another barrage of fire pings on the turret. They penetrate! Fragments hit Kabitskiy in his arm, and his driver cries in terror and begins to bail out. The vehicle has sustained no damage, but it remains to be seen if it and the crew will survive.
The soldiers of 4th platoon enjoy the idyllic views of fields while listening to the chaotic sounds of battle to the east.
Not much has changed in the tactical situation, minus the destruction of three BTRs on the west side of town, and the destruction and suppression of two ATGM positions on the east. The BTR heading to the farm complex has disappeared from view, presumably moving closer to Minaev's position. I'm assuming he's carrying a squad of infantry, which may prove deadly at close range. Strygin and 2nd squad will quickly board their MTLBs and cross the river to assault the farm complex from the east. As far as I know, they're still well hidden from the Ukrainian commander. A hasty ambush will keep him on his toes.
Bonus!
Witness Minaev and Rudakov's ordeal in motion!