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I am following this one. But, will be hooked by this one too. 😉 Thanks for doing this

Honestly I am so grateful for the reduced price for previous owners of the game. $35 to bring the who deal up to engine 4 is not a bad deal, I mean we're getting on board regular/vehicle mounted mortars and the updated QB force selection. That right there is worth the money to me. It's also the kind of stuff that keeps me coming back, and getting new stuff whenever I can.

I had the idea last year but never post it here since I found it was crazy. It is still crazy today but since you are talking about possible changes in the future.
Well, here it is.
You have an engine. You have families. You have modules / battle packs. Why not suppress the family level?
I am thinking of something like DCS world, call it Combat Mission world.
Each family installs in Combat Mission world just like a module. Of course, raise the price of family/module according to the effort needed to develop it.
That way, you have one engine / one patch? Well I have no idea, I am guessing.
The other advantage is that one can play the army he wants if he has bought the family/module of course.
That could led to interesting things like if someone own CMSF2 and CMBS, we could have the latest M1 (CMBS) against T55 (CMSF).
Or some idiot uchrony like a T90 (CMSF) against a platoon of Tiger (CMBN). No interest here but at least I'll give it a try just once. 
Crazy? Indeed!
Thanks for the update Steve ! 

Just seen this incoming book from Osprey Publishing:
https://ospreypublishing.com/store/military-history/upcoming-books/preorder-2-months/atlas-of-the-european-campaign
In June 1944 the Allies opened the long-awaited second front against Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, and this was to be the start of a long struggle throughout Western Europe for the Allied forces in the face of stiff German resistance.
The European Theatre was where the bulk of the Allied forces were committed in the struggle against Nazi Germany. It saw some of the most famous battles and operations of the war - Normandy, Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge - as the Allies sought to liberate Western Europe in the face of bitter and hard-fought German resistance. From the beaches of D-Day through to the final battles in war-ravaged Germany, the war across the breadth and depth of Western Europe is brought to life through scores of carefully researched and intricately detailed maps.
  If it may help people for map design.   Cheers

Ability to split a squad inside a vehicle or something like that. If I have a squad inside a Bradley, I would like to be able to disembark a scout team of two men without
exposing the entire squad to small arms firing.
 

Blackbird34,
Speaking as someone who's economy then was microscopic (has gusted up to tiny since), who pre-ordered and has, because of head injury related delayed cognitive effects, played no more than half a dozen times or so--in any form--CMBS was still worth the money, especially in conjunction with the astronomic amount of learning in the process and from the Forum. You simply can't properly appreciate how lethal the battlefield can be until you see a tank noticed, IDed, fired at and destroyed in four seconds flat, followed by a second mere seconds later--all from a tank which knew nothing of the foe before rolling out to its direct front, in plain sight at 750 meter range. Reeling from this event, which saw one Abrams with a Veteran crew do that to a pair of T-90S models, also with Veteran crews, I asked the real Abrams guys here about this seemingly insane kill chain time, only to be told it was entirely doable! Let me put that number into perspective for you. During WW II, at 1000 meters, it took an average of 17 rounds to secure one hit--on a fully exposed tank. My buttoned Abrams rolled out directly in front of the Russian tanks, also buttoned, shot first and killed both before either got off a shot. Total ammo expenditure? Three rounds, but only because the second tank's ERA stopped one hit. The Abrams makes a Tiger tank look like a farce by comparison--in every category plus new ones.
Conventional artillery in WW II took a lot of rounds simply to get a 100 meter bracket before switching to FFE, but in CMBS, one PG shell can do what dozens if not hundreds couldn't during WW II, including having a signifant probability of a crippling-fatal hit practically on or on a tank. Lighter vehicles, of course, get macerated even with greater miss distances. Top attack munitions greatly reduce the value of cover, and lasers triggering LWRs can completely unhinge any number of maneuvers. Of course, ignoring those warnings can result in a fatal encounter with a LG munition in any of several forms. Nor is it the US vs troglodytes, for Russian weaponry is close to that of the US in capability and has other capabilities the US simply doesn't, AD being a prime example, amphibious APCs and IFVs being another. The US no longer has a drone monopoly, making life much more complicated and survival that much harder to achieve. CM WW II games don't have jamming, but it's available here and can, depending on intensity and balance, cause all sorts of disruptions and loss of capability. Try being American and fighting sans GPS, for example.  Not pretty. Nor is the US the only force with automated information sharing.  
If you use WW II tactics in CMBS, your troops are likely to die horrible deaths in two minutes or less if actually engaged. Not kidding. Lost 40% of my entire force in two turns in my earliest, and traumatic, first outing with CMBS. I was left gasping by the unbelievable tempo and desturction, leaving me so shocked I lamented aloud that I'd just wasted my money on a game light completely beyond my capabilities. Fortunately, I got help on both the reassurance and explanation of the nuts and bolts fronts, alowing me to first remount my bike which had training wheels and utlimately getting to the point where I do without them and could play with some degree of skill. 
Could go on and on, but I believe CMBS offers a unique, and searing, wargaming experience the other CMx2 games don't, because these sorts of capabilities have never all been present, and the US has never faced such a technologically capable foe, fundamentally changing the whole battlefield dynamic. If you have any interest at all in modern and near-future warfare, CMBS is a must purchase.
Regards,
John Kettler
 

That was my guess. That is why I will not open such a thread. Let's be happy with what we have already !!!

Thanks for stating it that way.
I will say, as a beta-tester, coming to grips with this behavior has been difficult. The NDA prevents a lot of what I'd like say (and is a nice way to dodge ) but realize that the HE fleeing behavior was not seen as a deal-breaker before v4.0 was released...or it would not have been released.
Think about the myriad of situations your pixeltroops have been in. Think about how often they do the right thing...and you don't even notice it. Think about when they do something wrong...and the situation which it took to get that behavior.
Without giving too much (anything?) away, I follow two basic courses of investigation: there are areas I dig into to find stuff; and there are times when I get a whiff of something not quite right. In the first case, I start with a set of presumed behaviors and try to stress them to their outlying limits. In the other case, I happen to notice something in passing...and then the Eye of Sauron focuses upon it.
There are fewer and fewer of each. And the gameplay effect of most are very minor.
I can field multiple battalions and have total mayhem reign for four hours...and notice only a few odd cases of behavior. Most (all?) can be explained by men panicking under fire or other reasonable explanations. Think about the magnitude of that achievement: several hundreds of "men" acting realistically over multiple square kilometers whilst killing and being killed and trying to achieve a terrain objective.
The HE behavior slipped through. Now, what if the fix is worse? Maybe men will stick in their locations, but then tanks reverse towards threats. But only if unbuttoned and the threat is known but out of LOS. And only on odd numbered turns. 
Occam's Razor: if the fix were simple, wouldn't you have it already?

Finally,  somebody has come up with some sort of reasonable answer instead of just ranting off..... Thank you.

What's the big deal. Old guard, new guard, your opinion, my opinion. V 4 is better than V 3, V 6 will be better than V 5 and so on. Fun's a poppin', just play the bloody game, life is to short as it is.
 

Well, a long discussion about those problems in engine 4.0 started in April: (10 months ago!). And a lot of people were agreeing there was an important problem.
And Battlefront acknowledged the problem, after a lot of requests from his customers, at least in August (6 months ago):
In my opinion a patch to fix the main problem with engine 4.0 should have been already released. I can not understand the policy that Battlefront is following with engine 4.0. It was released 14 months ago and at least 10 months ago a long discussion was started pointing out an important problem with that engine and stock campaigns. But that is only my opinion, of course.
Txema

Taking what bait? This is not about you. Why should it be about you? And why is 'seeing' you of any importance? Unlike Steve and you are the same person.  You are just picturing yourself as the voice of reason. Which you are not. People are asking justified questions and in return calling them sad or pathetic IS arrogant. If screenshots are announced and promised, but nothing happens for more than a month, than there is something wrong with communicating from the side of BF.  Time and  time again reading the same old 'information' is getting on people's nerves. That's quite normal.
And another thing. This forum needs a Young Guard, since the Old Guard is pretty decimated. So let's welcome their comments and questions and make them feel at home, so they will stay with us.
 
 
 

The whole communiction from the side of BF is a joke. People can defend it as much as they like, but their PR is not only very bad, it is almost non-existent. I don't buy nonsense like 'they must concentrate on their work', 'new information will only bring discussion and questions' and 'you can tell them how to do things once you have your own company'.
Reading this forum IS like being stuck in a time-loop and the lack of information IS causing speculation.
 
 
Utter arrogance. Technically not allowed to say that....

Let's just stop pretending that posting some news is something so time consuming that it will affect development time, i manage a website and write news articles, it takes like 1 hour if you want to write something organised and comprehensive, posting a quick update would take 10 minutes max.

Nah, I am just trying to cut to the point. People make speculations, and the old guard here comes racing to the defense of Battlefront. Reading this forum is like being stuck in a time-loop.
The only point worth mentioning is that 4.0 has been out for 14 months and a fix to a problem it caused has not yet arrived.

That was my guess. That is why I will not open such a thread. Let's be happy with what we have already !!!

By the way, didn't they say they would start in the late war and then work their way backwards, getting to the early war eventually? Or was it that the game families would go back in time, but modules would progress forward in time?
It seems both the new games (CMFB) and new the new modules for exsiting games are now converging towards the end of the war. This seems a bit strange to me, because we will then fight the basically same situation in three different games:
Nearly beaten Germany vs the USA (CMFB)
Nearly beaten Germany vs the USA - but in Italy! (CMFI Rome to Victory)
Nearly beaten Germany vs the Soviets (CMRT end of war module)
I guess you could say it makes business sense to use the already developed content in as many products as possible, and a lot of the customers probably want to fight in the late war, with the most powerful tanks etc. I'm not saying those three settings won't be interesting to play. But for variety, I think it would be more interesting to branch out in different years of the war, where the relative strengths were different.

true but their view of what uncons meant is not what we interpret based on the Iraq/Syria experience.  (and I absolutely agree that 4.0 will renew the game experience)
Should probably start a separate thread as I find this actually a very interesting subject.  In reading Angels in Sadr City I learned a lot about the nature of the Shiite insurgency and the limitations Sadr faced, conflicting priorities of insurgent elements, fragmented nature of it's organization etc.  It is worth a read and I would think an interesting discussion.
For the purpose of this thread though CMSF is about the invasion of Syria, not the occupation of Syria.  If you look at the initial period up to the tearing down of Saddam's statue , the uncons in Iraq were Saddam's Fedayeen and some military out of uniform.  An Nasiryah is a good example.  It was HQ of Iraq's 3rd Corp and home of the 11th ID a unit the US fully expected to just surrender or dissolve.  It didn't.  It actually stood and fought along with Fedayeen units.  Many of it's soldiers fought in whatever they wore.  They were not an organized insurgency yet.  The US would face similar groupings here and there on the march to Baghdad, but the insurgent units we envision would not really show their face in the same way until later in 2003 and 2004 in Iraq- during the occupation.  Even on the issue of IEDs, from what I can find they didn't really start showing up until July (there were earlier examples, just not in significant numbers yet) - several months after Baghdad fell.  The Shiites generally welcomed the US, though their experience from the last Iraq war left them wary of US commitment and Saddam's ability to stay in power.  They suffered from Sunni depredations as they retreated north and then mostly sat on the sidelines until 2004 after several mis steps by the coalition authority and the rise of Sadr.
I think this is the disconnect between what BF created and what we are doing based on actual events.  CMSF is a fictional narrative similar to CMBS except it is no longer a fictional narrative.  Instead it is a sort of past alternate history (which is what CMBS is likely to become as well).  Gamers like Sgt Squarehead and myself and many others utilize CMSF to try and recreate more historical events rather than the event as portrayed in the CMSF background story.  Heck I am even thinking of a Mogadishu type scenario or Operation Anaconda.
So going back to Sgt Squareheads comments and hopes to see uncons with AA assets etc , well that isn't the CMSF back story and it doesn't reflect what the uncons represented in 2003 Iraq either.  What happened with the insurgency in Iraq and the collapse of Syrian central authority is different and is not represented by the uncons in CMSF.  BF has not only not expressed interest in that, they have been explicitly opposed.  Personally I wish they had a different view too.  The US combat experience for the past 15 years is what it is.  It is now historical fact.  CMSF comes far closer than CMBS to portraying modern combat experience. However CMSF is 10 years old.  That BF is bringing it up to 4.0 standards is amazing (and only Steve gets to define here what that means as it isn't like just upgrading software.  There are decisions they have to make about adapting to capabilities they have now they didn't have then).  They are not looking to make this project bigger than it already is by trying to add even more items because frankly there is no guarantee that this will pay for itself as it is.  They are doing this as an act of faith and of recognition of a very loyal fan base.
Yes it will be what it will be - and it will be really good.  It will not be everything that you want.  Nothing ever is.  It is called growing up, getting used to disappointment, finding comfort in what you have and dying.    such a positive note to end on.

Frankly that makes no sense whatsoever. 
IEDS etc. do not currently exist in engine 4, so precisely how they are implemented is presumably still open to some degree of change?
ECM exists on British vehicles but not the other nationalities (even the Americans).....Surely you can't let that one pass? 
If 'Specialist Teams' (Breach/Scout/MANPAD etc.) are to be added to the TOE lists anyway (remember they do not currently exist) why shouldn't the UnCons have them too.....They surely use them and have done so for decades.
Then why did they include not one, but two varieties of UnCon in the game from the very start (& expand their capabilities in later modules).....Sorry fella your comments are rather nonsensical tonight.

Sure, I know that one was pushing it, but I thought it was a pretty decent idea so worth putting out there. 
OTOH the questions regarding Triggermen, spotting IEDs, ECM, Breach Teams & MANPADS all seem perfectly reasonable given the Engine & TOE changes.

Then in the Editor / Mission / Data / Red vs Red the Blue side would be able to purchase.  I hope it stays in.  Thanks +1  

Do the Triggermen still take potshots at passers by (rather than blowing them to smithereens)? 
Is there any plan to make it possible to spot IEDs?
Has any consideration been given to VBIEDs more substantial than the taxi?
Is ECM now a factor for a wider variety of US/NATO vehicles when approaching IEDs, or is it still restricted to just one or two mostly UK types?
Do any Uncons get demolitions charges now (Uncon Breach Teams I guess)?
Do Uncons get access to MANPADS?

Well in a manner of speaking yes, but given the reorganisation of the TOE that is going to be necessary (presumably at any rate) they don't seem to be unreasonable questions?
With regard to the suicide bomber, if the exploding attribute of a VBIED could be transferred to the driver rather than the vehicle (perhaps at a reduced level if he dismounts, say a Medium rather than Huge IED effect), he could be used as a suicide bomber by deleting the car in the editor, while the car could be used as civilian traffic by deleting the bomber/driver and leaving the spy.

YES !!          
Just kidding...
If by "I am just wondering: is it a simple as changing a variable from 16 to 32? " you mean... - Will this ONE TWEAK turn the AI into a truly masterful commander ? -   Then the answer is NO, unfortunatelly, but giving us this option is the greatest improvement to the AI we have any chans of getting within CM2 imo.   To make the AI truely challeging we would also need something like CONDITIONAL TRIGGERS or atleast a significant increase in avaliable trigger options and not being limited to UNIT IN ZONE and ARMOUR IN ZONE (friendly and enemy a) as it is now.   - unit spotted
- friendly unit killed
- enemy unit killed
- unit value in zone higher then (maybe using QB purchase point to determin unit values)
- unit out of zone
- AI-group casualty level higher then
- Specific unit in zone (unit objective nr)   - AI group bombard zone
- commit reinforcement group   Etc, etc..   Will we get this within the current game engine ? Not very likely imo. Atleast not any time soon.   An option could be that BFC somehow managed to significantelly increase the situatunal awarness and tactical skills of the AI to a level somewhat resembeling a human player. Will we get this ? NO WAY !   Will we get 32 AI-groups withing CM2 ? We might !!   If by "I am just wondering: is it a simple as changing a variable from 16 to 32? " you mean... As far as programing goes...Is it as simple as changing a SIMPLE LINE in the game code ?   I highly doubt it. If it was i would be truely amazed that BFC has not done it already...     An increase in the number of AI groups is our best bet to improve the AI in CM2 imo...It ought to be doable... 

I disagree.  It is not needful for me.
As @MikeyD and @IICptMillerII suggest, I think there are other areas where coding efforts can much better enhance the game.