TheForwardObserver

@Sgt.Squarehead I take my hot beverages in a RAF mug as well.

I lived in London for two years [and Ingatestone Essex briefly] and never once had a decent cuppa. Wilty tea bags, kettles instead of Mr. Coffee machines, Nescafe instant-- it's the stuff of nightmares. I had to add milk and sugar just to survive. And I'll tell you what, when you trust someone else to add the sugar and milk for you over there, you're playing with fire-- the milk from Sainsburys goes bad in like 3 days flat and people tend to not notice they've added bad milk to your drink till you're swigging curdles. I'm shuddering right now as I'm imagining your decent cuppas.

Which 'vic-to-plume' would you like? I'll put up a dropbox link.

Not tough. Works exactly as you'd postulated. Select the vehicle type that you want to serve as your smoke plumes. Identify which textures it uses [in my example using black sea, I chose the ural, which has 4 textures to it; chassis, hull, wheel and rear]. Make those textures transparent and place them in your z file and you should be good to go.

Rocketman it can be done. I sacrificed ural trucks for these smoke plumes.

10 CEP is where the line is drawn for a munition to be considered precision and 6 is what I would plan for; so while the EXCAL may very well be [is] capable of achieving a more precise CEP, for fire support planning you would start with 10 as a planning value and if needed, weigh the risks of assuming or attempting fire with an expectation of a lower CEP if you know you're able to deliver. Using the cutoff values can help mitigate the impact that poorer than expected TLE will have on achieving actual effects. A static artillery battery on a FOB, experiencing little disruption and no displacement in Iraq/Afghanistan are pretty good conditions for achieving optimal expectations, whereas chaotic on the move support of a rolling mechanized thrust through eastern Europe with forests, rain, fog, and, mud probably less so. The cutoff for near precision munitions is 50 CEP, but for example, the precision guidance kit [PGK] which is a cheaper alternative to EXCAL that attaches to unguided shells [and would be a sweet addition to the game] can achieve a much better performance than 50 CEP [10-20] but will still be planned for with an expectation of a 50 CEP by default. If you've got a good reason to modify your expectations you do so at your own risk. I don't know what CEPs the game uses but Vanir gave some good insight and I don't see any problem with the way the game does it either.

Okay but Michael said 'shooting down satellites' not jamming them. If they're shooting down our sats, than terrestrially based navigation solutions will be our best bet. It's feasible and the concept pre-dates GPS, that was my point.

No worries. Everything GPS can do can be done from ground stations as well. It's how it was done before GPS. See the Loran system

IRL Excalibur has a Circular Error Probable [CEP] of 6-10 meters depending on who you ask. What that means is there is an expectation that at least 50% of the fired rounds should impact within 6-10 meters of their intended aim point [the submitted grid coordinates of the target]. What you find in real life is that the Excalibur reliably goes where you tell it to go, but where you tell it to go is not always where you actually want it to go. The average maneuever shooter soldier [not FO] with binoculars achieves a target location error [TLE] of 300+ meters. Meaning there are plenty of times Excals impact a great distance from where you expected it to land. With an LLDR that number drops to 10 meters TLE. I think when they nerfed the EXCAL they tweaked elements of the equation which affect the CEP-- they could go even further if equipment and quality of troops realistically affected TLE as well.

I wonder if you're recalling 40 because UP 40 is the first adjustment made to every Graze HOB Spotting for VT. We generally try to bring it back down to 20 after that.

In 14 years I've never come across anyone that impressed me like he has. Every battery should have a @HerrTom

Don't you think a better argument could be made that the Germans paid a higher price for overestimating themselves and underestimating their opponents than the allies did for any overestimation made of the Germans?

100% agree. Reflexive underestimation of potential adversaries is a staple characteristic of the western [american] way of battle though. I call it "America f__k yeah syndrome."

Fire up a quick battle, add in some FOs and artillery batteries. Begin the game. Look at the fire mission times before calling in the mission. I'm seeing 4 minute times right now. Request an Excalibur mission. Let the mission run its course. Now select that same artillery battery, it should now show a reduction in time for the next subsequent mission of any type by 1 minute.

Not entirely wrong. Requesting an Excalibur fire mission from a battery will lower the response time by 1 minute for the subsequent mission. I do it all the time.

Much appreciated @Imperial Grunt

@Artkin and @Erwin Thanks dudes. I'll send you guys a dropbox link through pm when it's in an acceptable state.

#3

I reckon I'll probably port some palm trees from the CMSF demo.

Visually yes. Right now I'm using transparent decoy bitmaps for the NVGs and sunglasses, but I'll probably turn them into grenades [smoke+frag] clipped onto their webbing.

@Sgt.Squarehead #2. Thats all I've got atm-- I just started last night

CM [Black Sea] Vietnam, Ia Drang Valley mod

Some recent instances of the BOSS ABRAMS effect. I haven't paid particularly diligent attention to the numbers since the 4.0 upgrade, because the combination of loving the 4.0 upgrade and playing Steel Beasts as an RTS has in a sense dulled my zest for CM reform, but the numbers I have kept track of do differ slightly from my tests a year ago FWIW. Has anything changed since then I don't know? Regardless, I expect these outcomes 25 percent of the time-- which would be absolutely more than fine, if I were able to call for accurate fire missions without the need to adjust first (which would be a capability I would bind to the laser designator or Veteran+ Observers if I were making suggestions). I recognize people like to go with EXCAL which is optimal for point targets, or when you have multiple observers that can coordinate their EXCAL missions on a group, but it's no way to deal with moving group targets, where you've planned an area mission based upon enemy rate of march and likely avenue of approach-- if I need to mass fire on a platoon of Abrams EXCAL just isn't the right tool, and the adjustment rounds cue enemy exodus. Anyways. These guys each had their own battery 6 converged sheaf laying into them for 6-7 minutes. The missing ERA is just cosmetic.

Shiftsworth, you're not much of a mind reader are you? Do please tell me which parts specifically about my opinions on the effects of arty versus armor that you disagree with. I will wait. EDIT: maybe it was one of these posts that triggered you?

Negative Shiftsworth, I encouraged miller to give us a story to establish his credibility after noting that for the last half year he's tirelessly repeated the same red flagged university of wikipedia garbage every time the issue comes up. Maybe in your world he's an expert but not mine. That is independent from my own personal opinion on what should happen re; arty and tanks.