Modern Combat Mission?

[TZEENCH]

After you guys finish the WW2 versions, Is their any plans in the near future for a modern version, Warsaw pact, Nato? like to see a new version of team yankie

[Mark L]

I'd like to see MajorH (TacOps) and BTS collaborate!

Mark

[Guest aaronb]

I believe BTS has already said that modern warfare is 'way in the future. They will first do east front and north africa. By then, technology will have caught up and it will be time for a whole new engine.

Pity. I'd like to watch ATGM's and improved conventional munitions bomblets in the 3D engine.

[Guest Captain Foobar]

Personally, I enjoy the tactical play of this exact time period. No HUD, No Tomahawks, and most importantly, no nukes. A time when you had to climb out of the hole and go get people. No point, click, and squishee. It was kind of the first modern war, but the last real conventional war.

[Guest titan]

NOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooo

Im a WW2 freak,more personal,more skill,more FUN,better equipment to play with

and it actually happened.

modern warefare is about

Best tech Wins

Go ask the iraqis or serbs

[Guest Big Time Software]

Personally, I think a late 1970s Warsaw Pact/NATO game would be quite a bit of fun. The fact that a land war wasn't really in the cards by then could be overlooked But as the the 1980s progressed things swung way too much in NATO's favor. Not just on the ground, but in the air as well. If the two forces went head to head it is almost certain that the US would gain air superiority, at least at any given desired tactical setting. As we have seen in the last decade, this is more important now than it ever has been in the past. Wars can now be won from the air alone...

And now, putting NATO forces up against anything else of any quantity is kind of silly. Yes, they can still suffer losses, but it is hard to think of a tactical situation that would be something worthy of play. Gulf War? In a 40 minute battalion sized battle in CM you are likely to take more casualties than the US lost during the entire ground war in the Gulf War. And if you are playing the Iraqis... oh boy.

Steve

[MarkEzra]

Like many other Wargamers I focus on the "Last Good War", WW2. I've play a fair amount of SP2 (1950-1999). It's not that I didn't enjoy it...but the range of modern weapons means you must have a huge map (smaller icons?) to accurately demonstrate a modern battle field. I'm sure some one will do it. But I think it will be more of an arcade game than the designers would every even dream about. Nite vision/ infrared Attack Helo's with pop vision and TOW's. Everybody will see everything. I know many out there will want to include modern weapons/conflicts. I hope that BST will resist the pressure and stick out a complete timeline of WW2. After all MORE weapons and tactics were develope in the short time period of '39-'45 than before or since. Show me a Matilda, Lee, or Pz1 before an M1 Abrhams any day.

[Fionn]

I think that a late-70s (early 80s as in pre-83 or in 83 (so you can get a few M1s in service but not many hehe .... In fact I've collected quite a few nice military books which were written in the early 80s to see how thinking changed since then and in quite a few of them the M1 is referred to as the XM-1 ( X= prototype) which really dates those books ) modern war would be excellent.

Hmm, that would be nice, especially putting Soviet doctrine with respect to helicopter gunship concentration into effect ( bye bye tank regiment ).

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___________

Fionn Kelly

Manager of Historical Research,

The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers

[Los]

"No HUD, No Tomahawks, and mostimportantly, no nukes. A time when you had to climb out of the hole and go get people. No point, click, and squishee. It was kind of the first modern war, but the last real conventional war."

Ummm none of this has much to do with modern infantry combat on the scale simulated by CM. It's still the same old **** with a few bells and whistles.

While AT weapons have a greater range, that a simple factor of scenario and terrain design.

Los

[TZEENCH]

the whole idea was to have a tactical combat simulator with modern Inf/ motorized support, you dont have to place "Button Weapons " in the game.

If i wanted that style i would of sugested resing "NUCULAR WAR" card game.

[Aacooper]

The Vietnam War would be perfect for CM. Since most of it was unconventional and small-unit, a tactical game with excellent FOW, 3D, and excellent infantry modelling would work well. Strategic or operational games like TOAW could only handle the 1972 offensive, or the 1971 Laotian incursion. CM Vietnam could get the rest.

[Guest Captain Foobar]

"Ummm none of this has much to do with modern infantry combat on the scale simulated by CM. It's still the same old **** with a few bells and whistles."

Perhaps I didn't choose the best example, as these weapons are used at a strategic level,

but there are plenty of areas where modern technology IMHO takes the fun & challenge out of the tactical combat.

So LOS, how about depleted uranium shells? how about shooting a target from 3 miles away? How about night-vision goggles. There simply isnt a conventional conflict that makes for a fair fight, if you involve the U.S. Even if you got rid of the Intelligence available (from satellites, unmanned craft) We *never* go in without numerical advantage in standard tactical warfare.

So are you saying that you can't see any difference between combat now & then????

[Doug Beman]

Foobar raises a good point about a modern CM: mapsizes. On a battlefield of today, where it's possible to shoot at (and hit) targets 3 miles away with DF guns, or even 5 miles with ATGMs (TacOps taught me that) there'd need to be a major stepup in the technical requirements. However, IMHO there are fewer vehicle types possible today (3 current marks of M1, as opposed to 6 or 7 Shermans, M10s, M18s etc etc) so that aspect would be easier on the designers.

I'd like to recreate the battles depicted in Team Yankee, so when CM comes out I'll create a WW2 version. Small force holding a critical spot of land, right between an enemy force coming to take it back and a friendly force driving in to reinforce. Sweet.

DjB

[Ken Talley]

Actually I think the late 70's/early 80's would be great for a CM style game. NATO and Warsaw pact were closely matched conventionally at that time. I think there was a big shift in balance when the US tanks gained the ability to see with thermal sights w/o the enemy seeing them. When was that late 80's? Helicopters with ATGM's were also a big swing in balance although I don't know how common they would have been on the battlefield at CM level. The infantry ATGM's were not a huge change in the basic balance except when they were first used vs the Israeli's in the Sinai due to tank countermeasures.

Still I would love to see Leopards, Challengers, Marders, AMX-10's, M-1's, vs T-72's and BMP's. Not to mention infantry with a wide range of AT capability. Actually SP2 and TacOps handled this need fairly well. I would like to see it in 3D though. I will keep my fingers crossed.

[Guest Big Time Software]

Los' point is that at the lowest level for INFANTRY, it is the same old crap. I agree. BUT, as you point out... at the strategic level (or operational one in CM's scale) it is highly unlikely that today's grunts would find themselves facing a numerically superior force with all the same technolgical advantages as US/NATO forces AT LEAST to the degree that we could make a whole game out of.

A ground war in the various parts of the Yugoslav breakup would have been a real test for US/NATO forces, and it would have been very bloody IMHO. And that is EXACTLY why it didn't happen. Had Yugoslavia possessed a chunk of the world's oil reserves, or if it was not a Civil War, things might have been different. I wouldn't take Los' job for all the money in the world if I knew I had to go and get some Serbs out of some small town in the middle of Bosnia or Kosovo. I don't care if a M1 can plink anything it sees with ease, because that wouldn't help me when kicking in a door and finding a guy with a AK-47 pointed at me along with a strong will to use it.

Steve

[MarkEzra]

A little game Company History. The Steel Panthers, set in WW2 was a mega hit. Instead of expanding and improving the game they did something that seemed logical and many people no doubt ask for...Steel P2, modern combat. It was a hit. I bought it, as I would by a CM modern Combat, but then I tend to support a good design team/company buy trying their products. The gaming communty wanted, as it turned out a larger bigger, more accurate world War 2 game. In Response to these demands, SP3. Too big, to Talonsoft like, whine, sniffle, cry. Bottom line Gamers themselves, stripped SP2 and 3 down to the frame, to build a game MOST of us wanted in the first place. Combat Mission engine can handle modern combat and IF the designers want to, they can build it. I only ask that they complete the monumental task at hand...World War Two.

[Los]

"So LOS, how about depleted uranium shells? how about shooting a target from 3 miles away? How about night-vision goggles. There simply isnt a conventional conflict that makes for a fair fight, if you involve the U.S. Even if you got rid of the Intelligence available (from satellites, unmanned craft)"

OK lets see...

Already a typical CM scenario will involve maps that are well within the killing distances of WW2 AT guns and main tank armament, (Assuming you made a billiard board map). We don't have to run all the way to 1999 to be put in a position where the map would be so small. But please tell me if I was to fight in the kind of closed terrain we would see most battles fought in nowadays, say in Berlin (hypothetical seventies invasion) , Chechnya, or Kosovo (wooded mountainous terrian) or even something like Normandy what good would the 3000 meter range do me? When I say that is simply a matter of map and scenario design a light should have come on in your head saying, "Oh yeah! I can design restrictive terrain maps mirroring REAL world locations (sure maybe not 73 Easting) that would make for excellent modern day small unit actions.

As for Uranium tipped rounds, big deal for every action a reaction, Chobham armor, reactive armor, blah blah back and forth.

As far as night vision? Most countries have some sort of night vision nowadays. It's not the silver bullet you think it is, sure it helps but it doesn't win battles for ya. It's still pretty confusing and unclear at night even with those things. Sattelites? What a gas. Do you think Capatin Kangaroo from A-1/505th infantry gets realtime intel imagery from anywhere when he finds himself in a fight at the NTC/JRTC or at Pristina airport when there's an attack of a relief aid column. DO you think Major Zhukov was getting realtime intel beamed to him when he took his motorized rifle company down the main avenue to the Railrod station in Grozny? Or Captain Levy was getting up to the minute intel when his tank company bumped into the Syrians in the Bekka valley? Please don't allow your perceptions of what you think goes on at the CM scale of battle get in the way with what really does. Modern day ground compbat at teh platoona nd company scale is not like some Navy Seals TV show nor is it like Johnny Rico in SST. It's still good old fashioned fire and manuever. But what do I know I only do this stuff for real..

Wazoo BS played little or no factor at Mogadishu that was good old fashioned infantry combat. Nor did it play such a large factor in Chchnya, Afghanistan, or anyhwere else as to make one say CM would not be a viable tool to explore these realms. Sure there would be some differences, which certainly would serve to illustate to the CM player the differnces in combat fifty years has provided as well as the similarities.

"We *never* go in without numerical advantage in standard tactical warfare."

As opposed to WW2 of course where we always made sure the odds were even or against us when we tackled the Germans? Bwahahaha. What the hell does a fair fight have to do with anything anyway?

"So are you saying that you can't see any difference between combat now & then????"

They are not significant enough to make modern CM in anyway undoable. CM scenarios set in the modern era would be just as challenging, ueseful, and engaging as their WW2 counterparts, If you find the modern periords interesting.

Cheers...

Los

[Rick]

Personally, I want to see a modern CM. WWII is more important to me though. It is a more interesting war. The right mix of the modern and the old fashioned.

[Guest Big Time Software]

Thinking more about it, we would have to make the "bad guys" more or less generic to do a late 90's modern game. The problem I see is that in late 1990s, and as far as we can reasonably assume today's hardware to last into the future, is that there is no *one* battlfield to be fought on. I see lots of little ones, either real or "could have beens". The problem with that, from a game design standpoint, is focus.

There is a good reason why CM doesn't cover ALL the fronts of WWII. And it would be the same reason we wouldn't want to cover ALL the world's hotspots all in one go. Los listed off a bunch of probable (as in it happend or could have happend) areas that could be simulated, but I shudder at the thought of trying to make a focused game out of them. Yet there really isn't one strong case that stands out worthy of an entire game effort.

If we did a 1970s Warsaw Pact vs. NATO confrontation, we could focus easily. Basically the same terrain as what CM1 has and a focused set of hardware, infantry, and support units. As Los says, we can get away with short engagement ranges (provided we don't try Desert Storm ) in Europe especially. Urban areas everywhere are fair game too, as are jungles. So there are more possibilities than one might think.

But... this is all just talk. We are spending the next 3 years making WWII CM games. We aren't rulling modern out, but it will come after we get our other duckies done first

Steve

[Schrodi]

Hi Titan and others,

No, it's not necessarily best tech wins. What I'd like to see is Indochina/Vietnam. It would be fun to do that war where a small third world peasant army beats the worlds leading super power.

[John Hough]

It's my understanding that it really wouldn't be too fun to do Vietnam. From what I've heard about it, almost entirely from Tim O'Brien's books, but also from a vet or two that I've run into, it seems like it's mainly US infantry walking through jungles and rice paddies, running into snipers and mortars and mines, but never really getting any solid targets to shoot at. Occasionally calling for airstrikes that also don't do anything. Sounds like a fun game, no?

-John Hough

[Schrodi]

Oh, I think that the possibilities for a interesting Vietnam game are only as limited as your imagination. I think the big stumbling block for Vietnam is the fact that the americans lost. That might not bode well for sales in the U.S., the biggest market.

[John Hough]

Oh? Pray tell, what possibilities have you come up with?

-John

[John Rainey]

In support of LOS point on what modern warfare is like, a quote from a exit interview of a Infantry (company grade) Officer on why he was leaving the service.

"If I here one more comment on 'Information Warfare' or the 'Digital Battlefield' I'll F*****G Puke".

Its not all bells and wistle's and high tech gizmo's. It's still about Grunts and Tread Heads on the ground. Look for info on the final AAR on the Air Power effect on Military Targets (ie Units) in Kosovo. Didn't really kill that much hardware.

John

Sappers Forward !!!!

[Guest rune]

Well, personally, oncce BTS gets done with the Eastern Front, then I want a Pac War. [What do Shermans REALLY do against a wave of infantry?], followed by the early years of the war. Once those are all done [scott, Charles, you don't mind me taking a few years of your life, do you?], the next one is obvious to me. Korea. Why does everyone skip the Korean War? Would be perfect for this size battle. A mix of WWII weapons with newer weapons. Chinese wave assaults vs dug in positions. A lot of possibilities here. Hope it is considered BEFORE a modern combat.

Tim 'I understand why Fionn hates FBs' Orosz