Xorg_Xalargsky

Well Shock Force 2 - NATO features Germans. And BLU vs. RED is pretty much seal clubbing.

Row, row, row your schwimmwagen, gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
 
I am so excited to soon see your new labor of love. Thanks guys

This isn't an exaggeration in the slightest. Don't forget that this module is also adding some pretty significant corrections to the base TO&E in CMRT as well. The amount of content in this module must make it one of the largest modules released. The hype is indeed real. 

They were considering other nationalities but the module had already grown to massive proportions. New fall, winter and spring foliage, terrains and horizons,. Snow, whitewash for all vehicles, a new region (Germany) and specialized artwork for the Berlin maps, Lend Lease vehicles, late war vehicles, partisans and Volkssturm, multiple uniform swap-outs for the seasons. Plus some vehicles even got alt late war camou schemes. This module is a monster.

As promised, I'm finally able to get back to this AAR and wrap it up. The following is the second to last part of this AAR, and the conclusion will follow shortly. Despite being delayed by that pesky Real-Lifetm this AAR has been fun to do. I also think its been a successful proof of concept for hybrid AARs, and I definitely plan on doing more in the future. Hope those following along enjoy the ending!
  
THE US CONSULATE
Back on MSR Liberty, things have become eerily quite after the explosive exchange of fire with the two BMPs. 2LT Branch begins to get his 3rd platoon moving again. The second story building on the corner directly to the front could still have enemy combatants inside. Elements of 3rd squad, 3rd platoon advance up to a side entrance and prepare to breach and clear the building.

The building is cleared with no incidence. Having secured the building, the Marines of 3rd platoon begin moving further down MSR Liberty towards the consulate.
Meanwhile, a flight of two Super Cobra’s are called in to provide overwatch to hopefully prevent any more armored vehicle surprises, and to assist the consulate in defending itself against any more attacks from the adjacent neighborhood.
3rd platoon moves down MSR Liberty and arrives at the US Consulate without further incident. It appears that the violence of the day, combined with the orbiting Cobra’s, has finally convinced the enemy that discretion is the better part of valor.

The Marines quickly establish security and overwatch positions on the consulate. Those not pulling security assist the consulate personnel in securing all the sensitive equipment and data and prepare them to be evacuated. Based on the condition of the consulate, and the overall tempo of the battle, a change in plan is suggested and approved; the consulate personnel and Marine security (to include 3rd platoon) will be flown out of the city by heavy lift helicopters from the Wasp. Initially this was not considered due to fear of local MANPADs, but with Cobra’s orbiting over the city and not drawing any fire, it appears the MANPAD threat is either thoroughly suppressed or nonexistent.
Three CH-53E Super Stallions take off from the Wasp and arrive without incident at the US Consulate. The loading is somewhat complicated due to the limited landing space, though this too proceeds without incident. The consulate is fully secured and evacuated via the Super Stallions, which return to the Wasp.
As the CH-53’s are egressing from the city, the Marines begin to fall back towards the beach. With the airspace considered to be safe from MANPAD’s and other enemy air defense assets, more Marine aircraft are called upon to assist in the egress of the landing party from the city. Four MV-22B Osprey aircraft and the fourth CH-53E Super Stallion fly to the beach to load Marines and captured enemy personnel. The rest of the Marines board the AAVs and head back to the Wasp. The egress is a chaotic logistical event, but proceeds without any interdiction from the enemy. The airspace remains clear, and Regime forces in the city do not attempt to contest the departing Marines. Three and a half hours after first making landfall, the Marines successfully depart, and Task Force Wasp begins moving out to sea, away from the city.
 

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone. This will be an AAR series, covering my playthrough of the US Army campaign of Shock Force 2: 'TF Thunder'. I briefly dipped my toe into this campaign in Shock Force 1, but only as far as the first mission. This will be my first proper playthrough of a Combat Mission campaign, and I'm sharing it all with you! So, without further ado, let's get into the campaign briefing.




The ground invasion of Syria has begun. After a three-day-long aerial bombardment, NATO forces are pouring into the country from all sides; The US Army from the East, the British Army from the North and South, NATO forces from the North and the US Marines from the coast. I am commanding a battalion of Task Force Thunder, a Stryker Brigade reinforced with armoured units. I have under my command two Stryker rifle companies (A and C), an armoured company of M1A2 Abrams tanks (B), an armoured infantry company in Bradley IFVs (D) and an armoured engineer company also in Bradleys (E). This is a fast and powerful combat force, equipped with the best fighting equipment on Earth and manned by some of the best soldiers on Earth. And in the finest American tradition, the battalion is liberally supported by artillery and airpower. Our brigades mission is to slice Syria in half, striking from East to West along a route designated 'Route Lightning', with our limit of advance being the important Syrian city of Hims (also known as Homs).
My enemy will initially consist of Syrian reservists and militia holding the border. These units are poorly trained, poorly led and poorly equipped. As we push into the interior of the country resistance will stiffen, varying from the still poorly equipped but slightly better led and trained regular units, to the elite, well-equipped units of the Republican Guards currently around Hims. Also, scattered throughout the country there will be pockets of paramilitary, special forces and other irregulars, many of which are well trained, motivated and equipped. There will be tough fighting ahead.
Speed and force protection is the name of the game for this campaign. Our mission is to neatly snip Syria in half as quickly as possible, but our last objective is a tough urban target. Replacement of casualties and destroyed vehicles will not be happening. Taking too many casualties early on will make our mission exponentially more difficult. I will have to carefully balance aggression and caution to complete this campaign successfully.
In the next instalment, we'll take on the first mission. Stay tuned!

The stock CM sound effects are not that great, but they do their job. That's where mods come in however. CM allows you to modify any visual (2D) or sound asset. The High Quality Sounds mod is available for every title and provides excellent sound replacements for literally every gameplay-related sound in the game. They're pretty consistent in terms of style, volume, and about as realistic as you can get with a simple audio file.

Makes more sense, I guess the spotted vehicle is triggering the targeting process of the AT gun which then causes model glitches. This indeed indicates that something got botched in the modding process. My rough guess would be either missed import/export metadata checks or something screwed up by loading multiple times the same model into Blender like tackled in the "Prominent Issues..." tut video.
However without being the author and no inspection of the model it is naturally hard to pinpoint the exact cause.
Yes existing CM models (parts) can be combined and if required resized afterwards. There is a "Combining Existing ..." tut video available for that aswell featuring the Stuart Flak idea. I generally recommend to at least skim once all the available documentation and tutorials here. It will save time and effort.
 
Video Playlist for CM 3D Model Editing with Showcases, Workflows, and Tutorials (latter with commentary)
 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlUX4ALH7zTNgpWGBYSFUCnZK-Sf7SCcl

IS-2 is in the base game.

Oh wow. Err... I'm not actually up on my late war Eastern Front stuff. So I guess... an IS-2? Not sure whether we've seen one of those yet.

Or who/what-ever shot those unfortunate pixeltruppen in your first screenshot.

The stock CM sound effects are not that great, but they do their job. That's where mods come in however. CM allows you to modify any visual (2D) or sound asset. The High Quality Sounds mod is available for every title and provides excellent sound replacements for literally every gameplay-related sound in the game. They're pretty consistent in terms of style, volume, and about as realistic as you can get with a simple audio file.

The stock CM sound effects are not that great, but they do their job. That's where mods come in however. CM allows you to modify any visual (2D) or sound asset. The High Quality Sounds mod is available for every title and provides excellent sound replacements for literally every gameplay-related sound in the game. They're pretty consistent in terms of style, volume, and about as realistic as you can get with a simple audio file.

If the development of Fire and Rubble is doing okay, I'm doing okay.

https://www.battlefront.com/

How do I buy one of your products?!

battlefront, a plea from the heart to release Fire and Rubble early
my brother, Jayden, has a serious lung condition that would make COVID-19 nothing but a death sentence to him
however, he is too much of a ladies' man to stay inside as he should, no, he goes to clubs and bars every night, mingling and engaging in the very opposite of social distancing
the only thing that could keep him inside would be the prompt release of Fire and Rubble as his obsession for the fairer sex is only surpassed by that of the late-war Eastern Front of WW2
battlefront, please, you are my and my mother's only hope

battlefront, a plea from the heart to release Fire and Rubble early
my brother, Jayden, has a serious lung condition that would make COVID-19 nothing but a death sentence to him
however, he is too much of a ladies' man to stay inside as he should, no, he goes to clubs and bars every night, mingling and engaging in the very opposite of social distancing
the only thing that could keep him inside would be the prompt release of Fire and Rubble as his obsession for the fairer sex is only surpassed by that of the late-war Eastern Front of WW2
battlefront, please, you are my and my mother's only hope

Quarantaine it, you mean? 🙂

Judging from the scenarios I've played from him, it's gonna be something good.

A possible explanation for this observation without guarantee that it is true for the CM simulation here or reality:
1) The BMP-3 has a 100mm and the 30mm. The 30mm is loaded with belt(s) and ready to engage before the engagement, the 100mm is not
2) The BMP-3 crew identifies the tank and starts to engage the tank right from the beginning with the 30mm while the ATGM is now ordered to be loaded into the 100mm and made ready. This might take some seconds.
3) when this process is finished, the crew aims and fires the ATGM
For most situations this "maximum firepower" approach of the TacAI is also what I would prefer as AC fire even without penetration can severly surpress enemy tanks despite causing significant damage to optics etc. In my playthroughs in several similar situations the enemy tank was suffering from a combat-ineffective some sort of "stunned" state, buying time for the BMP-3 or others to take out the tank.
However true is that for some situations especially when an "ATGM-only" approach might be preferred, opening up with the AC can be semi-optimal and enable the target or other enemy vehicles to identify the BMP-3 faster before it even can bring its ATGM to bear or deny its option to retreat. At long ranges the BMP-3´s TacAI seems to handle things this way. I imagine finding a general sweet spot distance between TacAI "maximum firepower" and "ATGM-only" might be hard if not impossible as it is very situation and tactics dependant. 
One could experiment if issuing a "Target Armor Arc" and/or "Hide" command to the BMP-3 might change something. I suspect not but I didn´t test it out. 
 

Judging from the scenarios I've played from him, it's gonna be something good.

Judging from the scenarios I've played from him, it's gonna be something good.

I haven't forgotten you. We haven't. You'll be in our hearts, always.

Please.check your.inbox.i have an important.pm.for.you

I usually avoid to bring tanks into contact with AT guns at all but currently playing a campaign that might make it inevitable to do so for my Tigers.
While a quick 76mm ZIS-3 test produced the outcome that I´ve seen from various historical accounts (penetration frontal almost impossible, side penetration on short distances possible) the ZIS-2 57mm effectiveness gives me some thoughts.
In a recent test it was able to easily penetrate Tigers frontally at 500m and destroy them with 1-4 hits while most hits causes damage ranging from armor spalling (most times 1st hit) over partial penetrations (with internal damage & casualties) to full penetration. Angling the hull with about 15-20 degree towards incoming trajectory didn´t made it any better. In easy words most Tigers were taken out rather fast and often rendered combat ineffective/"stunned" after already the first hit.
The ZIS-2 was definitely was a powerful AT gun and could basically take out any <1943 German tank from any aspect and great ranges. I saw these Soviet penetration tables at WP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/57_mm_anti-tank_gun_M1943_(ZiS-2) which are somewhat consistent what the UI Penetration/Armor Mod is showing me for the ZIS-2 which indicate that it should penetrate Tigers at 500m, although there is a disclaimer on WP that the Soviet aquisition method makes this values for some reason not comparable to Western or similar tests.
While its hard to find quick information on the ZIS-2 vs Tiger situation online most statements I found rather point towards that the ZIS-2 had difficulties against Tigers.

 
I only did a superficial research on this and would be great if one with a greater insight into this matter could provide some info on if the ZIS-2 was indeed that deadly. 
Beside this: the above results were achieved with regular AP shells. Against a similar test against a King Tiger the ZIS-2 crew was also starting with AP shells and at some point decided to use the APCR after expending dozen of AP shells.
All tests: