dbsapp

Doing it right now! My first impressions are very positive: immersive gameplay, cool looking graphics, beautiful models, big scale... Big fat drawback: it seems that my laptop can handle only 15 fps of it

Thank you!

Great post! It was an interesting read. Where is the scrnario download link?

In Soviet training missions they show how to concentrate your forces and to use them en masse under heavy artillery support, you gather momentum and rush with all you have in one focused blow. In the campaign and many other single scenarios it simply doesn't work. To deploy this tactics means to lose your forces quickly and to do little or no damage to the opponent. The peculiar thing with the Soviet campaign is that it literally asks you to do the opposite things you had learnt from Soviet training missions. What is required from you in the first mission of Soviet campaign is to carefully scout enemy tanks and TOW vehicles and call pinpoint artillery strikes on them. Cold War Red Army is described as heavily dependent on artillery assets and massive artillery support to pin down the enemy. But in CM world artillery strikes on areas simply don't do anything to the vehicles, the only application they have is to bombard towns or infantry positions. At best areal artillery strikes can kill one or two lightly armored vehicles, which is far from being enough to suppress enemy defense. Many times I called pinpoint strikes on single M60 tank to find out 10 or 15 minutes later that bombardment didn't scratch the tank, it seats in full health in Moon landscape among craters with no trees around. In reality it should be completely destroyed or severally damaged. IRL photos from the tests: That's one of the biggest drawbacks of CM engine and inconsistences of CMCW. In theory artillery plays major role in Soviet military planning, but in game practice it has little effect on the enemy. This virtually strips Soviet army of one of its most powerful forces. So does "Soviet tactics" work? In my experience it does, but primary in Quick battles. To work it needs certain conditions. First of all, Soviet forces must have serious numerical advantage. In Quick battles this condition is met by assigning more points to the Red side than to the Blue. Second, the terrain conditions should be more or less equal. This is also true for the most of the Quick battle maps. Even artillery, which is relatively weakened under CM engine framewok, could be applied to block enemy infantry from reaching certain zones. But it definitely ineffective under conditions that differs from those of "equal" conditions of Quick battles.

When I played this scenario about 10 of 12 AT-4 missiles hit the ground. I noticed that it's a common thing for AT-4 if they there is big elevation difference between firing team and the target.

Wow, looking forward to play it!

Get well! Wish you health.

Oh, ok. *Flies away* I tried it and it it seemed too fast paced for me and too arkadish, like command and conquer games, which is not necessary a bad thing of course.

Not sure if I understand what's your problem exactly after looking at screenshots. It also seems that you still using some modes, at least units icons seem unconventional. Try clearing Z folder and\or mods folder. You can also check nvidea control panel and return 3d options to defaults and updating videodriver.

95% that both will be yet another soulless and empty copypasted RTS.

Thank you, a lot of interesting information. Strange, that you call you findings "inconsistent". 380, 400 and less than 500 against KE sounds pretty coherent. Seems like the number is somewhere near 400, maybe slightly less. M1 in Combat Mission is absolutely game breaking asset that literally overpowered boyond any reasonable simulation or realism standards. In CMCW early version of Abrams withstands RPG hit to the sides.

Have you seen this one? I place hopes on Armored Brigade 2. There are hints that it possibly could be 3d. Gameplay of the first Armored Brigade combined with 3d would be a bombshell.

This camo is from @37mm All in One modpack. The campaign is truly well done. It skillfully mixes company size operations with epic scale tank battles. The level of Soviet casualties is really staggering, but most of them come from 2 mission when you defend against waves of Soviet tanks and troops. AI never plays well enough when it comes to attack human player.

Finally returned to the "Broken Shields" campaign after long period of oblivion since July. I stuck on the 10th mission "The Whirlwind" and left. Turned out it was the last scenario of the while campaign and I was several inches from the victory. Well... not the victory actually. The last mission ended in bitter defeat for my German troops. It was close to impossible to win it and I guess it was meant to be lost. After all it resulted in complete failure for the Reich in real world. Anyway, the mission did well in conveying the apocalyptical feelings of retreating German troops seeking to save their lives and trying to find exit from the deadly trap among heavy snowfall and dozens of Russian tanks. To my surprise Reg Norge HQ himself was suddenly ambushed by the team of bailed out T-34! I planned to send him to the extraction zone after all of his troops left, but it seems that the old fox decided to save his skin, ignore my orders and to flee first. Actually, he survived and escaped contrary to great number of troops under his command. I lost all of the remaining tanks in this mission. Despite defeat at the end, the campaign was quite generous to me.

Having a blast with CMCW single scenarios recently. Almost all scenarios are of an excellent quality. But even among them are some real gems, like "Rumpenheim Rumpus". I give it 6 red stars out of possible 5. Very clever, tense and literally perfect scenario. So much fun. In this scenario you have to cross the river and capture the town. You are given really powerful forces, tanks, plenty of artillery and aviation support, but the time is limited to 1 hour and only amphibious vehicle can reach the town. What's really good is AI paths. Town defenders are not stationary towers, but they are moving making very realistic impression. After I called all of my artillery on the ground and my Migs dropped their bombs, the first engagement was ATGM duel. I was surprised, but my BRDM's (bottomed up of course) showed their bright side and won it against M150 Tank Hunters. One of the BRDMs achieved really remarkable results and will be turned into monument in front of the Communist Youth League building in London after this bloody war is over I gained stable footing and decided to proceed to amphibious landing. I made a mistake, wrongly decided that the river could be crossed in every part . AI led my BMPs to one of the possible crossing routs, instead of the route I planned, and they were hit by single M60 hidden behind the church. I lost 3 vehicles, but the 4th killed the tank with ATGM. Several enemy tanks came from the rear to the front to prevent assembling forces from attack. Town defenders called artillery right on the place of the crossing, but I launched the amphibious landing anyway, because the time was short. I found out that my artillery did the job and suppressed the enemy troops in the ruins, but soon a lot of survived units showed themselves and they received the reinforcements. It all turned into spectacular guerilla warfare. When I became really nervous that I wouldn't make it on time, 5 minutes before the timer ends the mission completed with "Total Victory". The post operation picture of poor town:

I run it on 64 bit Windows alright.

All of the matches are password protected! What's the bet way to find a match?

Found the answer in the manual: Setting Up a PBEM++ Battle To start a battle with the PBEM++ system either choose a premade scenario or set up a Quick Battle. When setting up battle select the “2 Players - Automated PBEM++” mode of play. At this time you may enter a password if you wish for a specific opponent to be able to play the battle against you. The battle has then been created and appears in the Challenge lobby. Playing a PBEM++ Battle All battles available for play are in the Automated PBEM++ Challenges lobby. This can be found by going into the "Saved Games & PBEM portion of Combat Mission from the Opening menu. A drop down menu will present you with several choices. “Automated PBEM++ Challenges” is where you will find battles that are available to be played. You will see the battle that you created listed there, along with battles that others have created that are available for play. To play a battle, simply select a battle from the list and click on “Fight!”. If the battle is password protected, a "*" will appear next to the battle name: you will need the password from the creator of the Challenge to play these battles. Once you have completed your turn, the file will automatically be uploaded to our servers and sent to your opponent. When you opponent completes their turn you will receive an email notification. Select the "Saved Games & PBEM" option in the Opening menu and use the drop menu to select “Automated PBEM++ In Progress”. You will see your game turn there. Select the turn that you want to play and click on “Fight!”. Continue this until the battle has concluded.

I think I understood how I create my own game. But how I find and join other people's challenges?

Agree and disagree. Agree that game needs more healthy criticism instead of permanent worshipping. In many aspects it feels outdated, ancient and cumbersome. Some things could be fixed quite easily without much time investment (at least it seems so). E.g. movements command, hunt etc. Disagree that modules feel the same. In my opinion they are all quite different and require different playstyle, variable strategies and approach. You can't command your Soviet troops in Red Thunder the same way you manage US troops in CMBS. That's one of the best achievements of Combat Mission: basically it's the same engine, but units properties differ substantially and it makes different game every time.

I had the same issue with vulcan - it didn't want to die no matter what.

@Ultradave @Sgt.Squarehead thank you, guys! Actually, I've already comleted this mission. I found that scrolling zoom in and out helps bring the game out if deadlock. The freezes begin when I try to move around one of the units (most often AT gun or ATGM). After I relaunched the mission from the beginning and applied zoom in zoom out method the freezes didn't disappear but became tolerable. I reported this issue because I didn't experience things like that before and it runs fine on 1.01.

Sure. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iaAQ3gzSDp28YehYGIDNwT8uNw2eJTuN/view?usp=sharing

Bairaktar Turkish mod for CMBS comfirmed?

As far as I understand, no. The only difference in spotting is the amount of information available on spotted unit, e.g. on basic training you will immediately get all the info on the tank model, applied damage etc. Besides, all the advantages you get are also provided for AI. So if you get shorter arrillery call times, AI gets them as well, making your life really miserable.