evilman222

I think one of the main areas I need to improve on is using machine guns. I think I sometimes get too cautions about getting them mortared into oblivion that I often keep them out of the fight, which completely defeats the purpose of having them.

Oddly enough I've had the opposite with the M1 in modern games. I'm so used to using vulnerable WWII tanks that when I have M1s I'm often too conservative with them, especially in CMBS when you have Trophy and it just turns them into nearly unkillable superweapons. End up using them as glorified artillery when in reality I should be WAY more aggressive. I think this might be where my problem lies. With the Soviets, I often find myself with so many units on the map that it gets hard to disperse them, and I tend to be too slow when moving them to keep them from running straight into a machine gun without stopping to take cover (I'd kill for something like a move quick command that will hit the deck upon contact like the hunt command).

I'll start this by admitting that I absolutely suck at the WW2-era games most of the time, but I find Soviet infantry particularly difficult to use effectively. I'm not talking about SMG infantry (which are quite deadly most of the time) but the regular Soviet rifle platoons. I get that you're supposed to use them the same way you would use a smaller German or American unit (A soviet platoon to accomplish the task of a German squad, that sort of thing) but even then I usually end up with massive casualties (which is, in fairness, somewhat historical). Is there any way to use them effectively and preserve their strength in campaigns, or should I just accept the fact that I'm going to take 30-50% casualties whenever I use Soviet infantry?

Searching for Gas: Totally didn't mess that mission up. At no point did my Pumas advancing under a hunt command stop in the worst possible spot and suddenly explode. Definitely didn't happen.

Targnon complete. Minor victory, but I lost six panthers. At first I thought I was en route to a total victory, but (spoilers here), a single Sherman had somehow survived the massacre, and managed to take out three of my tanks before I found it after five minutes of searching. Also would like to give a shoutout to Kaufmann, commander of Panzer 211, who, despite having no optics for the entire battle, managed to take out six tanks in this engagement alone.

Finally made it through Stoumont (much delayed due to real world stuff). Was a tough fight until the sun rose enough for long-range fire to be effective, after which the village turned into a slaughterhouse. Still haven't lost any tanks (unless you count one out-of-ammo Wirbelwind) but 2/3rds of my panthers have had their optics blown off. Luckily I don't find this nearly as debilitating in CM as it should be. Infantry is a major concern though. Panzergrenadiers are below half strength, one pioneer platoon is down to a single squad, the other at half strength. @Warts 'n' all what were your own casualties for the campaign?

@John Kettler A couple points on what you found. Russian Nuclear Exercises: This is concerning, but I wouldn't freak out just yet. The 2019 exercise was simply an exercise (although any large-scale nuclear exercise is concerning, of course), and I suspect that what happened in March was just a you-know-what measuring contest to show the new president what kind of toys Russia has available. Russia wants to continually show off their new equipment, as it would, in theory, give them an advantage over the US in a nuclear exchange. What a lot of people don't get, however, is that these new toys may not actually mean much. Despite all the hype about the S-500 and other ABM systems, a US nuclear strike/retaliation on Russia would convert the overwhelming majority of the country to a parking lot, even if Russia manages to strike first with their various fancy missiles, torpedoes, unnecessarily large warheads, etc. Putin's obsessed with getting his name in the history books. This requires a few people to be around to read those history books. You must remember that simply possessing a capable nuclear stockpile (even if you have no intention of ever using them) is of massive strategic value. Mass Graves: After talking to a few friends and colleagues from Russia and who focus on Russian governance, I'm reasonably certain that preparations for mass graves were strictly COVID related. It's an open secret that Russia's official covid fatality numbers only cover a fraction of the true number of deaths. Hell, just about every Russian I know has lost a family member due to covid. If I remember correctly, the document was released shortly after the Omicron variant of COVID was discovered, when we knew it was more transmittable but did not know that it caused less severe illness. If the Russian government expected a new, more dangerous covid wave, it makes sense to begin preparations for the digging of mass graves as was necessary as previous waves threatened to overwhelm morgues across the country. Further, while the number of burials detailed in the manual may be useful in the event of casualties due to a conventional war, 1000 a day is a joke when you've got millions dead in a single city alone as you would during a nuclear exchange. The document mentions CRBN dead, but I suspect that the N in this case is something like a Chernobyl- type incident, rather than a nuclear detonation. Hell, if there's a nuclear detonation due to a strategic nuclear exchange, burying the bodies is probably pretty low on the to-do list. There's a lot of evidence that indicates that Russia could be launching an invasion of Ukraine, and there's no professional consensus as to whether or not Russia will do anything. Time will tell about that part. But I don't see a nuclear exchange any time soon being a realistic possibility.

Thought I'll chime in here. I wouldn't go as far as to call myself an expert, but I am about a semester away from an MA in International Relations with a focus on Eastern European security, so I'm not exactly talking out of my ass here. First off, Hal Turner is a bumbling idiot. That's probably the least credible source out there. If you see anything by him, COMPLETELY disregard it. He peddles in conspiracy theories, instead of doing any kind of "analysis". With that out of the way, what's going on in Eastern Europe right now is still concerning, and I would go as far as to say that this is the most dangerous crisis that we've seen since Able Archer. Even if we strip away the whole NATO-Russia angle, there is a realistic chance of war between the two largest military forces in Europe. If that turns into a full on conflict it would not be crazy to imagine a six figure death toll. That said, I am growing increasingly convinced that this is just Russia trying to increase pressure on the West and roll back their expansion to a state that Russia would feel more comfortable with. In fact, I don't think the Russian buildup has as much to do with Ukraine as it does with Belarus. One of the main areas where Russian equipment is being stockpiled is Yelnya. Most analysts that I've seen works from or talked to personally agree that Russian forces in Yelnya (even prior to this current buildup) serve two purposes: for a rapid drive on Kyiv should the situation in Ukraine devolve into open warfare, or to transit through Belarus and cut off the Baltic states in the event of hostilities with NATO. Given the fact that most of the rhetoric from Russia about this mess has been about NATO (instead of Ukraine), I find it hard to believe that they'd build up forces there, then use them to attack Ukraine, removing one of their main assets in conflict with NATO from the board, so to speak. Instead, I think they're building up forces so that they can establish a military presence, including a large portion of the 41st CAA as well as ballistic missiles, in Belarus should this week's talks fail. This isn't necessarily a preparation for war, but is instead Russia's way of saying "NATO expanded uncomfortably close to our borders, so we'll do the same thing and send our troops uncomfortably close to your borders as well". They could also up the intensity of their efforts in Donbas, but the most aggressive move I can see Russia making in the near future would be a move for Mariupol, MAYBE Kharkiv, but the latter is incredibly unlikely. A couple other notes about crap from the Turner piece I have not seen any good evidence for a Ukrainian buildup in preparation for a military operation to retake the Temporarily Occupied Territories. Can't say 100% that it doesn't exist, but I suspect that at least someone I know would have heard about it. Plus it Zelensky has been fairly passive regarding the war, and such an operation would be out of character for him. I have also not seen any evidence that the mess in Kazakhstan is related to the Ukraine/NATO-Russia situation. Timing seems to have been a coincidence. That said, Central Asia is a bit out of my wheelhouse so I can't comment much beyond that. The whole "NATO missiles in Romania" thing is mostly BS. The US Army has been developing a ground-launched version of the Tomahawk, possibly to be deployed to Europe, but those are not yet operational, and despite all the complaints from Moscow, there is no good evidence that the Aegis Ashore system in Romania is anything but defensive in nature. There is also no evidence that the US has deployed tanks to Europe (Moving that number of vehicles without somebody noticing is nearly impossible), nor is there evidence of American aircraft being moved to Ukraine. Russia would be publicly freaking out if either of those happened.

I'm reasonably certain that we won't see any anything CMBS related any time soon. The game was made before the war in Donbass started (at the time of its creation it was still purely a hypothetical conflict, with no signs of it being imminent), and I think that putting out any further content for the game, especially something which is based on the current state of the conflict, would be seen as EXTREMELY poor taste by BFC. Same reason why SF was never updated to include stuff from the Syrian civil war. Modeling hypothetical conflicts is interesting, but active ones get a bit sketchy.

While they're truly devastating against enemy infantry, I'm finding that the single greatest threat to my infantry on the battlefield are my own Wirbelwinds

Stoumont scenario is definitely too dark. I've got an unbuttoned panther which somehow doesn't notice a Sherman firing away at infantry even though the Sherman is less than 40m away. Seems that the game's spotting system doesn't really cooperate well with historical light/weather conditions.

Just started this mission, and I must say that I prefer your version of Stoumont to the vanilla one. The vanilla one might be a bit nicer cosmetically, but some of the minor details and lines of sight on your version allow for more interesting tactical options and more predictable lines of sight.

Well I totally screwed up the end of that scenario lmao. Exited the tigers, but there was so much time left that I figured there was another wave coming. Ended up losing two AA crews before time expired, only to realize I could have ceasefired twenty minutes earlier. Oops.

Just happened to me as well. Plane early in the scenario bombed a half track that was passing in front of the bunker. Explosion killed him. I'll admit that I did revert to a previous save, as in this case it seems like he's intended to be in an invincible position (and not supposed to be killable)

@theforgerI've suffered 15 dead and 10 wounded before even crossing the bridge. Most of those were lost in the first few minutes when dealing with the "contact" at the start of the scenario, which would probably be easier to deal with IRL (when you can coordinate an ambush) than in CM. Feels a bit high. The silver lining is that I think I may have suppressed the Americans a bit more than they did historically, and have knocked out a significant number of machine guns. And yes, I'm quite fond of @Hapless videos. Lately I've had one of his longer turn-by-turn series on in the background while I'm working on stuff.

From what I understand this is not nearly as much of a problem IRL than it is in CMBS. While Arena-M is supposedly able to deal with top-attack munitions, it does not appear to be in widespread use, and the original Arena (which I don't think is widely used either) is unable to counter top-attack weapons. While I can't say for certain, I suspect that Russia is unable to produce some of the electronic components of Arena (much as their thermal systems were historically reliant on foreign components), which has hamstrung the deployment of APSs for the past few years.

I think this "test" may have been more of a psychological thing than an actual test. From what I understand just about every expert agrees that the only use for those cages the Russians were rigging up on tanks in Crimea would be as a place to put meat for grilling over an open flame after the tank has been knocked out.

Does anyone have a rough estimate of German casualties in Stavelot on the morning of the 18th? I've seen some estimates for German armor knocked out, but nothing relating to casualties among their infantry support (who, whenever I play this scenario in the vanilla campaign or theforger's Rollbahn D campaign, tend to get annihilated because I suck at fighting in low visibility conditions)

Yeah that's one of those things that I don't think can be modeled very well. Closest thing I can think of would be to knock all their attributes down to -2 to make them roughly as combat effective as someone who's asleep.

Six missions in, and it's definitely a fun campaign. Minen the Gap was actually a momentary highlight for me in that I initially thought it was just a dumb "click to move your tanks from A to B" until about 10 minutes into the scenario, before I realized "wait... I don't remember the Spitze having Panthers in the vanilla campaign. That's right, they hit mines", promptly followed by a panther rolling over some AP mines. Luckily I somehow got through the scenario with only minor track damage to a panther, but it is still cool to see such a minor yet consequential action modeled in the campaign. That said, I have one complaint: it feels like some scenarios could do with an extra 100ish meters added to push the starting area a bit farther away from the enemy. Feels a bit odd to spawn right on top of the enemy (within view of them should someone kick off a firefight in the darkness), considering how CM2 scenarios usually give the player a bit of space to deploy their forces before the action starts. Regardless, this is shaping up to be one of my favorite campaigns across the CM franchise due to the sheer amount of content.

Looks like it's come a long way since the first version. Shame I couldn't help test it a bit more, but with grad school and all I've had very little free time to do so

I can also confirm that the scenario is worth getting the British module for. Plus, it seems like there were more SF1 scenarios (which can also be played in SF2) made for the British module than for other modules.

Any ETA on this? Always look forward to a new MOS scenario.

I don't think that this is the same bug as the normal door thing. On this scenario, there's other weird pathing issues around most of the doors which don't work. Almost like putting the building there somehow messed with the terrain and created an invisible wall.

Has anyone else had major issues with the tacAI's pathfinding on this mission? Maybe I'm just unlucky, but for me the pathing is so borked that I find the mission impossible to accomplish without save scumming to compensate for pixeltruppen taking the worst possible path to objectives. While I expect iffy pathing in urban environments in a CM game, it's worse than usual here. Troops won't use doors on many buildings, forcing them to run into the streets and all the way around the block instead of stepping out the back door, engineers won't breach most walls, and even if they do, they often can't go through the hole, leading to a leisurely stroll around the block. While I'd imagine that fixing this would be low on anyone's priority, it feels like this map needs to be remade. Pathing issues even pop up in open fields, with vehicles sometimes taking weird doglegging paths.