Kinophile

I mean, when you put it like that...
I just have practically zero experience with it haha.  Illustrator and Photoshop are my domain (or should I really say Pro/E and ANSYS? haha).

Maybe a detailed tutorial that demonstrates the features of the CM2 system specifically CMBS while you learn to play - as opposed to the dry academic manual which overwhelms one with info, is hard to read and by the time you get halfway you've forgotten the info given at the start. 
In other words a manual in which one is given context and info is given in a useful order which would make retention of all the info much easier.

Having some fun with this. Sheet shows a grey background so that it can be read against the forum's white bg, but the final product will be white.
Not 100% sure I've got the hulldown command properly correct here, feel free to correct me.
if anyone wants to pitch in with some screenshots, that would be great! Turn Off Icons, Objectives text, etc.
 

@Oleksandr's thread on tactics got me thinking...
I've always hated the current CM manual style. I'm heavily trained & experienced in visual design so I thought, well, why not? 
So I'm now redesigning and formatting the manual in a tongue-in-cheek FM-001 style, in InDesign.
COVER SHEET:

Obviously that's my own CM:BS logo. I was a bit lazy and don't have the correct, official one handy.
Still, this gives you an idea....

Are you rewriting it too? My first impression is that you were just using the existing content to rework the design.
But if you are re-writing it then ditch the "Using the hull down command as a move command" description or put it second with a warning (don't do this ever!) . You should always use the version with the target command. That way the worst case is your vehicle will be on the top of the ridge fully visible. In the move command the worst case is your vehicle end up where you expect the enemy to be.

Thanks. 
Specifically, I'm going to rework the existing Game Engine manual into a more modern and readable design. It's a good place to start as the content is already created and I can literally copy/paste and then format. 
Then I can Illustrate with all the missing screenshots. 
I'm doing this as a design exercise, to keep my creative juices flowing, as a little speed test and to satisfy my inner design demon (God I hate the current design!). Plus, I need to get to know InDesign better and a doc like this is a good stress test. 
Once this is done I think the IDD file could be easily adjusted for other manuals within the CM universe. 

Interesting.  There are multiple CM manuals.  The CM 4.0 Engine Manual is for all the Combat Mission Games except for CMSF1 and CMA.  Then each game is released with a specific Game Manual with equipment lists etc for that game.  This sounds like a cool idea and whichever manual you redesign and reformat I look forward to reading it and adding it to my CM source references.    Based on your other work that can be downloaded at CMMODs III I'm sure it will be excellent and professionally done.  +1 for the great idea.            

Thanks. 
Specifically, I'm going to rework the existing Game Engine manual into a more modern and readable design. It's a good place to start as the content is already created and I can literally copy/paste and then format. 
Then I can Illustrate with all the missing screenshots. 
I'm doing this as a design exercise, to keep my creative juices flowing, as a little speed test and to satisfy my inner design demon (God I hate the current design!). Plus, I need to get to know InDesign better and a doc like this is a good stress test. 
Once this is done I think the IDD file could be easily adjusted for other manuals within the CM universe. 

@Oleksandr's thread on tactics got me thinking...
I've always hated the current CM manual style. I'm heavily trained & experienced in visual design so I thought, well, why not? 
So I'm now redesigning and formatting the manual in a tongue-in-cheek FM-001 style, in InDesign.
COVER SHEET:

Obviously that's my own CM:BS logo. I was a bit lazy and don't have the correct, official one handy.
Still, this gives you an idea....

@Oleksandr's thread on tactics got me thinking...
I've always hated the current CM manual style. I'm heavily trained & experienced in visual design so I thought, well, why not? 
So I'm now redesigning and formatting the manual in a tongue-in-cheek FM-001 style, in InDesign.
COVER SHEET:

Obviously that's my own CM:BS logo. I was a bit lazy and don't have the correct, official one handy.
Still, this gives you an idea....

Completely agree. It's just a thread. Ignore it if it hurts your peace of mind so much. 
As was said over on the Mods forum - I don't see anyone criticising this thread who has contributed anything positive to the general knowledge and enjoyment of this game. Not even mods.
Everyone has an opinion. Doesn't mean it's actually worth anything. 

Completely agree. It's just a thread. Ignore it if it hurts your peace of mind so much. 
As was said over on the Mods forum - I don't see anyone criticising this thread who has contributed anything positive to the general knowledge and enjoyment of this game. Not even mods.
Everyone has an opinion. Doesn't mean it's actually worth anything. 

To honour how badly this thread has been derailed, I present a poem:   I met a traveller from an antique thread, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of ****posting in the BFC forums. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Oleksander, Ukranian of ukranians; Look on my tactics, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Thread, boundless and bare The lone and level foxholes stretch far away.”

So it's Russians on both sides, then?

So I could work in Sketch Up, export as 3DS (for proper meshing) then import into this and export out as mdr ? 
There's a load of civilian stuff (eg buses, trucks) that I'd like to insert. 

@dragonwynn You might want to consider waiting for CMSF2 and using that instead. If I'm not mistaken you should be able to port most of the assets you make for CMBS into CMSF2 when it comes out. 
The Syrians might be better at representing the North Koreans than either the Russians or Ukrainians in Black Sea. Granted, all the porting could be more trouble than its worth, and there could be other unforeseen issues with that. Some of the others here who are more experienced modders can probably give you a better idea on that. 
Might be worth looking into though, especially before you start a lot of the heavy map work. 
Regardless, I'm pretty interested in how this all turns out. I'm honestly not very interested in contemporary Korean conflict head cannons for a multitude of reasons, but I've always liked your campaigns and this one could be a lot of fun.

"I simply love what you've done with the place! It's so much more open!"
 

Ahaha, so going by BFCs engine development it will visually look like a game from 2002?
J/K guys, love the game.

BY all that's holy, THIS. The Russians can make their tinker-toy BTRs amphib, but the all encompassing US military can't do so for the Stryker,, a vehicle whose fundamental purpose is infantry mobility? Seriously? There will always be a bridge? Even in CM, if an oppo mines a bridge over anything larger than, oh a trickle of piss and properly covers it then Strykers are screwed. 
Pretty ridiculous, IMHO. 

... Which I am now doing. 
I'm building the AI pretty slowly, trying to find the basic Blue attack approaches and then how to ambush them with Reds, then GTFO. 
Interesting, tricky and...... S....L......O...w...ww...wwww

Yeah, that is the goal but many people do care and are paying attention.

Suppression is key, IRL and in-game. Find a suspected enemy position and nail it. Move a FRACTION of your units forward while the majority are in overwatch. Once you suppress a position, keep some firepower on it, actively shooting. Once a position is suppressed, it takes less firepower to keep it suppressed.
If you see a "?", nail it.
Russian APC/IFV have great firepower...but little endurance. They don't carry a lot of ammo. Use their cannon to nail known targets or sparingly to suppress. Most of their suppression should be with their machineguns (Target Light).
Suppression is different than trying to win the firefight.

One of the more common tactics used by ISIS, and to a lesser extent before them, AQI is the "House Born IED" or "HBIED."  There's a variety of tactics involved with it:

1. The simplest and most direct is just a conventional booby trap.  ISIS does this TONS in places they are anticipating losing or placed they are evacuating.  This are sort of hit/miss, the detonation means are usually mechanical which again your success rate varies, and can range anything from something designed simply to cripple/main the person who triggers it, to full stop leaves a 3 meter deep crater where the house used to be.  

2. A tactic preferred during Mosul/Raqqa type fights is to strongpoint a house into a fighting position (element size is usually team or squad, but sometimes up to platoon), and then equip that building with large scale explosive devices.  In urban operations, the attacker is usually obligated to clear hostile occupied structures (to make sure the folks within are really dead vs waiting for the lead elements to pass), so the structure serves the dual purpose of serving as a place to fight from, and killing enemy forces once the position is taken out/no longer tenable.  

3. Sometimes buildings that offer cover within an engagement area will be rigged, so direct/indirect fire is used to force the attacking element to seek shelter near the booby trapped buildings, which are detonated when most convenient for the defender.  

Beyond the structure based devices, ISIS loves vehicle borne IEDs, and many of these are quite large in terms of explosive potential.

So yeah ISIS bombed "itself" pretty often, frequently using quite large devices in urban settings.

As far as 155 MM, again while that's a lot of rounds, that's a lot of rounds spread over dozens of miles, inclusive rural targets.  Without getting into a lot of detail, the US howitzers are not used for mass barrages because simply put there's not that many guns (again there was only 18 guns+crews, while guns were replaced, to the best of our knowledge there were never more than 18 firing weapons), and our Allies/"Allies" are doing the massed fires themselves.

What the US brings to the table is precision/semi-precision (or more like, guided, and highly accurate conventional fires) synced to intelligence gathering and surveillance tools well beyond what most countries are capable.  What this often works out to is hitting enemy VBIED concentrations while they're massing, firing on ISIS artillery assets, killing enemy supply elements (both the more conventional truck based, but also smuggler "ratlines") or killing enemy strongpoints that are "danger close" to friendly forces.  A lot of these missions/desired effects would fall more on direct fire/aviation/missiles in the historical context, but the capabilities of tube artillery have grown, and their battlefield persistence vs say, helicopters simply mean the system is getting a lot of use.

This is US Army ammo expenditure, not the Marines. Also, it's important to note two things:
1) In every conflict since WWII, the amount of munitions used in short periods and the lethality/accuracy of those munitions have increased. Someone can chime in with the exact specifics, but during the Arc Light B-52 strikes on North Vietnam, such as Operation Rolling Thunder and the like, more bomb tonnage was dropped in those single operations than most of WWII. 
2) OIF was a very quick military operation, something like 3 weeks total, give or take. During that time, it was high tempo operations the entire time, during which any given combat formation was in contact with the enemy. This means that a lot of ammo was used in a short period against new targets. However, with the situation against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, you have a single firebase lobbing shells at roughly the same area, for months at a time. The shell expenditure is going to add up pretty quick. Further, if you figure that the fire missions are called in competently and then factor in US artillery response times (think CMBS, 4-6 minutes for fire for effect), then you can do more fire missions in a given day. And to add, if you are the battery that is always dropping on target fire missions with fast FFE times, everyone is going to want you as their primary fires battery. All of these things add up to more shells fired per day, which helps to explain the headline. 
And because this disclaimer is needed here: no, the US is not wantonly dumping unaimed fires at urban centers just for the hell of it. US artillery is not barrel bombs, in practice or in the theory of warfare in which they are applied. If this is your angle, just do us all a favor and say so, so we can ignore this for the drivel it is.

Which is correct.  In my opinion unnecessary - the clarification I mean.
To judge if a country is democratic you should *not* look at the name of the country or the name they use for their system. You have to look at the freedom of the people to discuss their views, politics and to choose their representatives.
If we just looked at names we would call North Korea a democracy and that would be silly