Xorg_Xalargsky

1. Shoot n' Scoot command 
2. Pre-configurable fallback point to be used when a unit retreats or combined with Shoot n' Scoot
3. UI element or command that lets you disable special weapons like ATGM's on a BMP or Panzerfausts in a Grenadier squad

1. Shoot n' Scoot command 
2. Pre-configurable fallback point to be used when a unit retreats or combined with Shoot n' Scoot
3. UI element or command that lets you disable special weapons like ATGM's on a BMP or Panzerfausts in a Grenadier squad

1. Shoot n' Scoot command 
2. Pre-configurable fallback point to be used when a unit retreats or combined with Shoot n' Scoot
3. UI element or command that lets you disable special weapons like ATGM's on a BMP or Panzerfausts in a Grenadier squad

Thank you for the information, glad it was added.

1. Shoot n' Scoot command 
2. Pre-configurable fallback point to be used when a unit retreats or combined with Shoot n' Scoot
3. UI element or command that lets you disable special weapons like ATGM's on a BMP or Panzerfausts in a Grenadier squad

Hello,
In light of recent events (I do hope this thread remains as non-political as possible) and also given that Steve has expressed interest in expanding Black Sea to cover the current conflict, I think it is worth having a discussion about whether Russia might be over modeled in CM. Just a few suggestions to kick off the thread:
1) Steve has said before that in WW2 CM titles things like inefficient slave labour is modeled by having German armoured vehicles suffer catastrophic failures, I think you could bring this to Black Sea by having a chance for Russian tanks to have no ERA or Russian vehicles having low supplies.
2) High-end Russian vehicles such as the T90 may need to be made rarer to represent Russia's reliance on older vehicle models.
3) Typical Russian soldiers should have severe morale and leadership penalties. I think your average Russian unit needs to be set to green and negative leadership. Then more "elite" units like the VDV can be set to Regular (but they should clearly still maintain the leadership issues).
Just want this to be a friendly thread where we discuss ways to improve the simulation 😁.

Artillery in CM has two key weaknesses that make it suspect within the context of a mech heavy environment. The first being (as I've been told) that CM does not model vehicles closing up vision ports when under artillery fire. The second that the game does not model fragmentation damage to vehicles.^1 Combined this is causing artillery to under perform against armor. I'm not sure by how much it is under performing but my suspicion is that its not a meaningless loss.
Part of my reasoning is that, as you have said, the Soviet forces are often at a 2:1 to 3:1 advantage. Within this context you might have a M60 TTS platoon against a 2-3 platoons of Soviet armor and the reduction of even a single TTS's capability to effectively engage results in a significant drop in combat power for NATO.

Now this can be worked around but it requires that you use artillery in a way that I suspect most players don't readily take to. For example, you have located a TTS platoon astride the advance of your FSE. A player might drop a large number of shells over 8-10 minutes only to find that no damage has been done at all to the opposing armor. Not only that but during the barrage their spotting ability is not being reduced. The player has therefore expended a large amount of firepower and a significant amount of time for no impact on the enemy. I think this fairly leads to frustration on the players part.

^1 Documented bug but I also have a suspicion that how CM would model fragmentation might be doing a bit of a disservice to them.


~~~

Overall though I actually disagree that the Soviets don't work. But I do think that the peculiarities of both the Soviets and CM work against players having initial success with them.

Hi folks....
Just an update that a new campaign from @theforgeris now available on The Scenario Depot.
CMFB Rollbahn D -Full Campaign (thefewgoodmen.com)
The Rollbahn D Campaign contains 35 linear scenarios built as historically accurate as possible.
In other news thanks to the folk who have been emailing me regarding the missing links they have come across in The Scenario Depot.  I do believe that I have worked through the 700 odd scenarios and all links are now added... it was a beast of a job but I finally got there.  It doesn't help when sometimes the file names don't reflect the title of the scenario... but it is good that these scenarios didnt just disappear when the BF Repository shut down or GreenAsJade stopped maintaining CMMODs.
Ive also been advised by a few folk about the comments regarding me and my handling of the Mods and Scenarios so just a quick post to clarify my position with a few points.
Battlefront decided to discontinue the BF Repository...
GreenAsJade offered to host the mods/scenarios on CMMOD's...
GaJ, myself and a team of volunteers transferred thousands of files across from the Repository before it was closed...
GaJ stopped maintaining CMMOD's and I did my best to carry on the work we started but without direct ownership I did what I could...
My site The Few Good Men in agreement with Gary Krockover took over the names of The Scenario Depot and The Proving Grounds (from CMx1 fame) and we started hosting our own work under those names and added in The Mod Warehouse, it was not my intention at that time to become the guardian of all CM Mods and Scenarios.
As CMMOD's became less and less active I came to an agreement with BF that the FGM would host the files using the CM Mod Warehouse and The Scenario Depot so that we didn't lose all that historical content.  That is part of the reason why the upload process is a little stilted - it wasn't designed for thousands of users to march in and start uploading mods.  It was set up for me to rescue any mods from disappearing.
Now I hold my hands up and admit that I have been overwhelmed with the amount of content that I got, I was passed, salvaged, downloaded, was emailed tens of thousands of files and that yes I only have a certain amount of them up on the site and hosted as it is a continual work in progress and that is where we stand just now.
Between having a family, full time job and other commitments I do what I can and would appreciate some understanding of the situation before commenting that 'I have destroyed the community or calling for me to be assassinated'.  A lot of people have been giving their opinion without offering a solution.  This is the best solution I was able to come up with to save the content at the time.
The majority of costs are paid for by me helped out with some donations to ease the burden.
I have said before if someone wished to take on the financial burden, has the time to invest in uploading thousands of files and the means to continually maintain the huge database and answer numerous queries on a daily basis then I am willing to hand over the reins.  But, I suspect like the last time no one actually wants to do that and would rather hide behind a keyboard firing insults at me so we are left in the position that I will carry on doing what I am doing with the full support of the guys at BF.  I will close with this...
all files are backed up to a hard drive on a regular basis. I have a huge catalogue of files and am happy if you are looking for a particular mod/scenario, to check to see if I have it, if it is not hosted on the site yet and get it fired of to you.  If I fail to get back to you via PM or the like hit me up again.  I receive a tonne of correspondence every day and sometimes these do get lost in the maelstrom. Thanks for reading and hopefully this clarifies things a little... and if you want to take over the job feel free to drop me a PM and we can discuss.
Cheers for reading....
 
Bootie
 
 
 
 
 
 

Yeah but that would require prior LOS to the target no?

The situation a Shoot n' Scoot command would be most useful for is a high-risk roadside ambush with a small window of opportunity or say a javelin team being used in a true fire and forget fashion.

I would disagree.

From the player's perspective, shoot n' scoot can be implemented, but not from the AI's perspective.

As of now, the method relies on the Pause command, timing, and luck.
I'd rather have a command that allows a team or vehicle to fire 1 missile/grenade/burst/etc... and then retreat.

Congrats to BFC!  I hope you sell a gazillion copies. 
And more importantly I hope this frees up bandwidth for the development team to make all the things we want, like BS modules, CW modules, Ost Front 43/42/41, etc.  And to have them all done by Xmas, this year.  Thanks in advance

Kiss me

That's spicy. I want a taste.

Please tell me you are joking.
While we're here, John wanna tell everyone again your evidence of nukes being used at Kursk? 

Rice,

Showed you an award I got while working at Rockwell and W-2s for almost every year I was there. Had NO Unclassified docs to show you in terms of work product, for as I said, everything I did was at least SECRET--because it was sourced from SECRET or higher intelligence documents. Have gone into great detail about what I did, who I worked with, of whom my briefing audiences consisted and more. I gave you considerable details on what I learned at the Soviet Threat Technology Conference at CIA HQ and held under the auspices of the AIAA (American Institute of Aviation and Astronautics). And that PRIDE Award, as far as my contribution to that ABM program, was precisely for defining and analyzing the Soviet ballistic missile threats and secondarily for figuring out how to install the system in standard Navy vertical launchers. 

Where I did have Unclassified documents to present (from my work as a Soviet Threat Analyst at Hughes Missile Systems Group), I did so, showing you work I myself did on two identified programs. I also provided you with my start doc and one of my promotion docs. On the laser decoy program, I evaluated the laser-guided missile threat to US armor. In the ASSAULT BREAKER case, the task was to evaluate Soviet and Warsaw Pact follow-on forces in terms of specific target arrays and their vulnerabilities to use as ways of determining weapon system effectiveness for a variety of potential smart submunition payloads. In both cases, if you look at the charts and text, it is immediately apparent that the subject matter explicitly deals with Soviet threats. The bibliography I provided clearly shows multiple publications specifically referring to Soviet Army matters.

Don't know why you're so incredibly resistant to accepting that I was a professional military intelligence analyst, a well-respected Soviet Threat Analyst for 11+ years. Is it because accepting that I was those things means that my statements about intelligence matters carry a weight they otherwise wouldn't in your eyes and that you now have to deal with the possibility, even likelihood, that the armor-antiarmor situation during the Cold War was as I described it; that there was indeed an obsolete (in the Red Army, therefore exportable)) HEAT round which could frontally penetrate a Gen One Abrams because its armor array was vulnerable to a HEAT shell designed to pierce the canceled T95 and its steel-glass-steel sandwich armor AKA siliceous core armor, which is what the Gen One Abrams had? Would also point out that I not only named the CIA SME who told us about the dire armor-antiarmor situation, but the Abrams penetrating PT-76 HEAT round. You also were provided with a wealth of material showing that CIA HEAT SME Joseph Backofen was real and not just an expert on shaped charges but was also a co-inventor of specialized shaped charges that were patented.

Much of what we were told about about the armor-antiarmor situation, Soviet lead in explosives and other related matters subsequently was reported in Soviet Military Power. Have searched in vain for the relevant parts of the 1986 issue, where I believe the revelations of the 1985 conference were discussed.

While I can, at some point, produce declassified SECRET articles with charts, tables, histograms, etc., from the CIA FOIA Reading Room and elsewhere showing how dire the armor-antarmor situation was, I still won't be able to provide you with direct proof I was a Soviet Threat Analyst, for I simply can't show you what I do not have and would not have been allowed to keep. Believe or disbelieve the things I've said about Threat matters, but please stop attacking me over proof of my creds. Have given you all I have.

Regards,

John Kettler



 

https://imgur.com/a/Sv3OEjk
 
Currently playing around with different AAR formats, pleased with imgur so far since it allows a lot of flexibility with file sizes and videos.

Uh, looks like the exact same as vanilla BS to me mr. E

Yes it does indeed but I always make my own assessment even when playing the AI, and I usually end up doing something different to what the briefing suggests. I just don't like the idea of charging over that hill straight off as it will probably mean heavy casualties to capture it. I've not ruled it out but I'm going to investigate other options first and hopefully give him something to think about too.
Thanks for letting me know they have 85mm guns by the way, nice spoiler 😠.
MMM

I wish I could read the AAR without its author constantly having to swat away some silly posts

A Blackadder quote in one of the posts? I'm in!

I feel like NEET should be NEETR (neater, heheh). The R stands for Retirement. I don't think we should be lumping in people who've worked hard all their lives and are now taking a much deserved rest with those do-nothing web-chatting louts. Besides, it's not like retired people weren't twice as active as today's youth anyways, whether you include NEETs or otherwise. I can feel in my creaky bones that I'm coming close to retiring myself, but not yet. My brother however, gosh, he spends so much time at the casino it's like he works there; and it's not like he's playing the slots all day long : I've seen him cheer up the pretty croupiers, make small talk with the regulars better than any waiter could, and even troubleshooting electronic poker machines. God bless that man, God bless those who have passion like he has.

- regards, Johnny C. 

Cheers for the kind words Rinaldi (and @Xorg_Xalargsky). 
I think the secret is, and as written back in part 2, by doing the triumvirate of 1) Timeline, 2) Units/Formation and 3) Terrain at the same time and allowing the three to influence each other that you get this kind of campaign. For the two campaigns I've worked on and completed before Tukums (CMBN Lions of Carpiquet, and the refresh of the Dutch Campaign for CMSF2 NATO), I don't go into the project wanting the collective campaign to be unwinnable. A challenge, yes, the players losing the odd engagement, yes, but not unwinnable. For historical recreations just get as close as you can to the forces that took part and trust in the game to take care of the rest. If the player's side won the historical event then on balance the player should as well. If the player isn't the best at CM and just charges across open fields... well you can't fix that.
As for Joe's Bridge, yeah that one was always a touch experimental with the way the forces come onto the map but I think the H2H crowd has some fun with it if the German player reads the briefing and sticks it out.  I've since got my hands on some more material for the actions around that area of Belgium between the Guards Armoured Division and the hodgepodge of German forces just prior to Market Garden. Well down the list of possible project but on the agenda is a scenario for the Welsh Guard action at Hectel a few kilometres south of the bridge that occurred around the same time. The chance for recreating a historical engagement between Cromwells vs Jagdpanthers is a rare treat.

The withdrawal was completely predicted by Battlefront.

Why do you think there never was a CM - Afghanistan 2?
 

Have been slowly reading through this, looking forward to the updates. I've already had a sneak peek of how you operate during the abortive attempt at Arracourt a few years back, but it's worth repeating I love your scenario design philosophy. @Xorg_Xalargsky and myself had just been talking about your JOE's bridge scenario, in point of fact, and how good it was.
Been really enjoying the Tukums campaign as well. I find a lot of the Axis campaigns tend to be mere cartharsis; fun but not necessarily challenging (KG Engel is a prime example), and sometimes a bit too liberal with supporting assets. I've been enjoying Tukums precisely for the opposite reason, you really captured how much of an improvised mess the Wehrmacht was on all fronts by August '44. 

I'd like to address that the Combat Mission discord is probably the fasted growing community for Combat Mission, if not already the biggest. I insist that many of the forum members step off their high horse and try to understand the Discord isn't just a few immature children, but one of the most productive and diverse places that relate to the game. The BFC.com forum, while being an amazing resource, is becoming more and more obsolescent as time moves on. One would benefit from not settling on one means of discourse forever.