New Kit/Equpiment Etc. For CMSF REMAKE

[Mord]

OK I am open to all sorts of persuasions (drives my priest crazy).

Name a CMSF scenario that you feel accurately depicts a COIN operation.

I can't name anything specifically but I will say this, designers got pretty creative with what they had to work with and there are some very cool non traditional scenarios out there. A couple I can think of off hand was observing a warlord leader and calling in airstrikes on him and his group, and getting into a town and rescuing a spy or something like that. The point being (especially with the new trigger feature and editor upgrades) guys are gonna have even more flexibility to stretch their skills and imagination. There are lots of ways to play CMX2 besides just slugging it out...with a imaginative scenario design and a positive player outlook lots of stuff is possible. For a non-modern perspective on how ingenious people can be just look at what was done with Point Du Hoc and beach landings in CMBN.

Mord.

[Buzz]

I think Battlefront has an evolving battlefield for the CMSF remake and room for modules ... per todays Daily Beast.....

"Kerry Admits Obama's Syria Policy Is Failing"

In a closed-door meeting, two senators say, the Secretary of State admitted to them that he no longer believes the administration’s approach to the crisis in Syria is working. Peace talks have failed, he conceded, and now it's time to arm the moderate opposition—before local al Qaeda fighters try to attack the United States.

Secretary of State John Kerry has lost faith in his own administration’s Syria policy, he told fifteen U.S. Congressmen in a private, off-the-record meeting, according to two of the senators who were in the room.

A little late to get off the bench.... heck of a way to bump CMSF remake potential... but there you go.

And we still have to cross the Black Sea to get back to Syria. Modern will be good in the future

[Buzz]

I do remember one with the warlord leader and calling in airstrikes on him and his group. As Mord noted, there have been some very creative designs in CMSF1 so CMSF-2 with all the new design tools should net scenario design open to all sorts of persuasions I am gratified to hear the intent to remake CMSF and try to bring the older content into the new sphere of engines.

[Mord]

It is exciting.

I remember when they first announced CMSF. I wasn't blown out of the water but figured I should have an open mind about it...and the longer WWII took the better off WWII would be. When the game finally came out and after a multitude of patches and Modules I fell completely in love with Modern warfare. It was really cool seeing all these new vehicles and weapons and learning about them. It opened up a whole new vista for me. Now, I can't wait for Black Sea or CMSF 2! We are living in awesome CM times!

And to think that years from now all our CM games will be just as fresh and new as the latest release is a wargamer's dream. I can't stress that enough.

Mord.

[ScoutPL]

I think I'll create a road rally scenario. That's creative right? And doable?

Well except for the massive crowds mowed down by the occasional out of control car. Civilian crowds are an abstraction... oh wait, can we have COIN scenarios without a significant civilian presence? NO. That's the whole point of COIN, otherwise its just a firefight. Which is what CM provides - a great tool for replicating platoon and company level firefights. I suppose if you want to title it a COIN firefight vs. a conventional firefight, you are free to exercise your poetic license to do so.

The point (as confirmed by ChrisND) is that the designers have to stop somewhere. Otherwise, we'd be bombarded with Buzz's "I cant wait" posts for years as they continued to develop and test every possible aspect of the "Full Spectrum of Conflict" without an actual release.

So CMSF (father, son, grandson) is focused on a conventional fight. The rest is up to the modders. Which is what this thread was originally asking about. Apparently.

[ScoutPL]

Syria: Its about priorities. And just as they change from one minute to the next for your wife, they can change for the national security officials just as quickly. What you quoted was a group of Senators attempting to make political hay on the fact that the govt focus on Syria has changed. As every politician is prone to do. I heard Kerry stating they could no longer reach their goals. My question is did the goals change? Have the Russians betrayed their promise or just simply failed? Or is the chemical threat off the table and the administration is now turning to address the ethnic turmoil?

When Kerry was pushing for a solution in Syria the focus was on the chemical weapons. The most immediate threat was a terrorist organization getting a hold of a chem weapon that could be used against the west. That raises everyones stress level a lot higher than just genocide or ethnic in-fighting.

Most of the conflicts going on in the ME right now are Shia-Sunni power struggles fed by Saudi Arabia on one side and Iran on the other. Something we definitely don't want to spend US dollars or lives on. At least I cant think of a good reason to.

My recommendation is start investing in solar energy. CMSF wont run on an abacus.

[Saferight]

[sburke]

getting into a town and rescuing a spy or something like that.

Mord.

I believe that was in Normal Dude's Task Force Panther Campaign, my single favorite CMSF scenario and one I have played (and continue to play) over and over. Mini slice of Mogadishu, Black Hawk Down.

First time I played through it I felt totally spent and it sold me 100% on any theater BF decides to do as I know the engine is right (even back then) and it only needs a creative application in design.

[Sequoia]

Yeah Task force Panther is great and that final mission is really hard.

Based on Chris/Normal Dudes comments though I wonder if we might see Stingers and SA7s with the 3.0 update.

[Mord]

So CMSF (father, son, grandson) is focused on a conventional fight. The rest is up to the modders. Which is what this thread was originally asking about. Apparently.

The thread was about new weapons, vehicles, armor, flavor objects and the like that we'd like to have added to the original setting in a pack or extra module or whatever. You are the only one that turned it into a debate about COIN Ops...over a picture of one vehicle.

I gave you examples of what could be done and you responded with the "road rally" comment. My point is, scenarios can be created beyond what CMX2 is designed for through creative thinking. Your reply was to be a smart a**. So, your mind is set, fine. In the end, who cares? The thread has nothing to do with COIN Ops anyway. It's a side track.

LOL and don't make fun of Buzz he's got a positive attitude which most forums could use more of. Keep it up and he'll post a link to an Arthur Brown video.

Mord.

[Mord]

Yeah Task force Panther is great and that final mission is really hard.

Based on Chris/Normal Dudes comments though I wonder if we might see Stingers and SA7s with the 3.0 update.

Black Sea will probably give us some hints.

Mord.

[Buzz]

Mord, “Black Sea will probably give us some hints.”

Yes Black Sea is on offer before CMSF Remake so we should see what is possible in the CMSF remake. The new area in modern with the “new engine will be a big step forward. I bet CMSF remake will have FIRE … and a few new weapons, vehicles, armor, flavor objects added to the original setting ands at least in a pack for sure an extra module. As a casual player I learn almost every time I read from the guys who are in these forums. Playing the original CMSF in 2014 and still having fun with the huge user created content library.

“CMSF - flashback”…..

Task Force Panther 82nd SNITCH (May 2008_ Normal Dude)

1st Infantry Division and the Turkish Army have reached Halab. “Devils” brigade is now located at Aleppo International. …….

Then (May 2009_ Normal Dude) - Task Force Panther … one of the tougher Infantry Centric Campaigns.

You will command Alpha Company of the 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment. You will be acting as a part of a larger force called Task Force Panther.

Both Task Force Panthers came with PDFs to “establish the background against which the campaign is set. It also contains useful mission supplements for each individual mission, including game play tips that should help you if you are stuck. “

“Most of the missions are purposely made to be fairly difficult. I expect many players will have to replay some missions once or twice. I suggest that you make a save file at the beginning of each scenario and do not overwrite it. If you take too many casualties you may wish to backtrack….”

Good Advice

————————

Back to 2014…..

ChrisND most important instruction in 2008 was … “Have fun! Normal Dude”

Works 2014 too!

Thanks ChrisND

[ScoutPL]

Mord, I acquiesce. And yes I can be quite the cynical smarta$%. I'm just an angry, cantankerous old grunt. Something I always swore I wouldnt turn into but you know how that goes...

I am not sure how I got so sidetracked either. Someone suggested MRAPs and I simply commented that they were outside the normal purview of CMSF. Then someone decided to continue the debate...

Apparently I simply have a rather strong proclivity for stating the obvious and then feeling I need to defend my position.

I certainly support anyone's desire to take CM in their own direction. I participated in the first attempts to do that when we as a community tried to use CMBO to play an operational campaign back in the 90's. I suppose I am just a little too hard corps to stray too far from what the system was designed for. That and I have had enough COIN and anything that looks, smells or sounds like COIN in my life already, I have no desire to play a COIN scenario. But thats just my preference.

Buzz got me started on Syria, blame him.

[Sequoia]

I think it's worth mentioning that Syria was chosen by Battlefront as an adversary not for any real life geopolitical reason but because their army would make a credible enough obstacle to a full fledged NATO invasion. To paraphrase the line from Argo, it was the best bad idea for modern setting against a middle-eastern adversary where they didn't have to worry about being historical. I don't think any recent happening in Syria need apply. It's a totally different timeline if you will. Maybe Leonard Nimoy has a beard in that timeline. (okay, who gets the reference).

[Buzz]

Isn't that where CMSF is set.. Syria

Everyone can be a "cynical smarta$%" at times. Nothing wrong with having strong opinions. Apologies if my comments offended anyone. I am just "excitable" and when I get to worked up... combustion occurs and it is like I am on FIRE

Don't you think recent happenings in Syria may apply to a CMSF remake / Module? I do.

[Mord]

Mord, I acquiesce. And yes I can be quite the cynical smarta$%. I'm just an angry, cantankerous old grunt. Something I always swore I wouldnt turn into but you know how that goes...

No worries, brother. I am not as worked up as my post may have sounded. I was hoping the "LOL" at the end with the Buzz comment, showed that.

I certainly support anyone's desire to take CM in their own direction. That and I have had enough COIN and anything that looks, smells or sounds like COIN in my life already, I have no desire to play a COIN scenario. But thats just my preference.

That's fine, we all have our preferences. I have quite a few niggles and stuff about scenarios I like to play as well. we all probably do.

Buzz got me started on Syria, blame him.

Maybe we should sentence him to a year of Justin Beiber videos?

Any how. No harm, my man. We have a lot of fun ahead of us, I think we can all agree on that.

Mord.

[Mord]

It's a totally different timeline if you will.

yeah, that's one of the cool things about it as I said to Saferight in another thread. The scenario designers and players are creating the history for it. Every scenario big and small becomes part of the milieu. Pretty cool.

Don't you think recent happenings in Syria may apply to a CMSF remake / Module? I do.

I don't because in CMSF's reality Assad is already being overthrown in 2008 so technically the civil war would have to be with whatever government is established once Nato gets things settled and blah, blah, blah. But if the equipment predates 2008 it could applicable to CMSF. Gives us more an idea of what may have been missed by BFC. Or maybe that's what you meant?

Mord.

[Buzz]

When CMSF is remade it could be a straight up, buff, polish, engine #X update. It could become much more than that after the remake with modules.

I went back to read CMSF Manual 1.20 - The First Unconventional Conventional War and A developers conundrum.

BFC... "one day, a message was sent. The sleepers awoke and made their way to targets of their own personal choosing within cities not directly chosen by their leaders. Within a few hours, dozens of pounds of radioactive waste uranium were detonated by conventional explosives, polluting major cities of the West for hundreds of years. The leaders of the plot came out of hiding to celebrate, claim credit, taunt, and promise more such attacks. Then they melted back into the population.

At the United Nations, the countries suffering from the attacks demanded they be given the mandates necessary to go after those responsible for the attacks......."

BFC.... "By mid 2006 we found ourselves in a conundrum. Due to the strain on resources from the continuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the ability of the West to wage another large ground war in the Middle East (or anywhere for that matter) became less and less possible with each passing month. Still, we wanted to simulate such an environment and, in fact, were too far along in the development process to back out even if we wanted to. This conflict between needs and reality presented us with quite a design dilemma. On one hand we had to pick a viable place to “wage war” or we wouldn’t have a game at all. On the other hand we could see no country that clearly deserved a “virtual invasion”.

To solve this problem we considered setting CM:SF in a completely fictional country against a completely fictional Red Force. After lengthy discussions internally and on our Forum we decided that a generic, fictional setting would not be as compelling to play as a real-world setting. Therefore, we chose Syria as the “Red Force” even though there is no indication that war with Syria would be justifiable or even feasible any time in the near future."

One view of a new CMSF remake / modules....

For a while now Syria has been ripping itself apart while for the most part the world watches from the sidelines. Millions of Syrians are displaced. > 100 thousand Syrians are dead. Russia, Iran, Hezbollah are in for the win. Al-Qaeda certainly qualifies as terrorists and appear to be some of the stronger anti regime player on the anti Assad side. This has become a great training base for extreme Islamist to pop in form Europe... get a tour under their belt and head back to... Europe or Africa or elsewhere to use their new skills. Lets not forget the Syrians who are revolting against Assad straight up w/o a desire to become an Al-Qaeda dictatorship. No "radioactive waste uranium were detonated by conventional explosives" ... yet... but how many people have been killed by chemical warfare... the same chemicals Assad never admitted he had and are now (after the red line was left behind multiple times) ... slowly... I think 5% so far are being moved out of country. Can't leave that poison in country as Al-Qaeda would be more than happy to "dispose / disperse" of it / relocate the poisons themselves. All of the Middle East is on edge about Iran's peaceful nuclear expansion and might need to start their own peaceful nuclear expansion... just in case.

I am not a Syria grog but t appears there is more than enough backstory there for an "Unconventional Conventional War" expansion module.

What happens in Black Sea should give CM customers an idea of what is possible with the CMSF remake and possible modules to represent the current Syria. Russia's broad spectrum modern should be represented in Black Sea and could become part the CMSF-2 expansion.

Gunhappy42 "Buzz got me started on Syria, blame him."

Yeah my fault.

Mord "Maybe we should sentence him to a year of Justin Beiber videos?"

Justin Beiber "Never Say Never"

[ScoutPL]

Ok so in grunt speak...

Black Sea is the next "BIG" product coming from Battlefront (after Red Thunder). Its a modern game using the most updated CM engine set in the Ukraine/Black Sea region.

My understanding is that the intent is to simply update CMSF1 to the newest engine, not totally revamp the entire game. So it will retain the same background setting, scenario, etc. Is that not correct?

[ChrisND]

Ok so in grunt speak...

Black Sea is the next "BIG" product coming from Battlefront (after Red Thunder). Its a modern game using the most updated CM engine set in the Ukraine/Black Sea region.

Correct.

My understanding is that the intent is to simply update CMSF1 to the newest engine, not totally revamp the entire game. So it will retain the same background setting, scenario, etc. Is that not correct?

Correct.

[ChrisND]

Yeah Task force Panther is great and that final mission is really hard.

Thanks!

Wow that was a long time ago, now that I think about it.

Based on Chris/Normal Dudes comments though I wonder if we might see Stingers and SA7s with the 3.0 update.

Very likely. While we aren't planning on adding a host of new equipment, a couple pieces that naturally fit with the new features will probably be added to make them viable. After all, not much point in adding the AA fire feature is there aren't some MANPADS to take advantage of it.

[ScoutPL]

The interesting thing about MANPADs? If you go to war in a flight suit, as soon as someone mentions MANPADs (which always makes me think of some sort of male hygiene product) you automatically ground yourself. I think they all have an internal switch surgically implanted right before graduating flight school.

So if you have MANPADs in your scenario, then realistically you don't have any air. At all. Yet another interesting game design issue from the modern battlefield.

[Saferight]

The interesting thing about MANPADs? If you go to war in a flight suit, as soon as someone mentions MANPADs (which always makes me think of some sort of male hygiene product) you automatically ground yourself. I think they all have an internal switch surgically implanted right before graduating flight school.

So if you have MANPADs in your scenario, then realistically you don't have any air. At all. Yet another interesting game design issue from the modern battlefield.

For fast movers its a mixed bag the older models like SA-7 have a hard time knocking them down while the newer ones like SA-14/SA-24 have a better chance.. Air power is too big of a asset to have sitting idle and unless MANPADs caused enough losses to warrant a halt there would be CAS. Helos are a different story.

What your saying though reminds me of that story the Syrians told of the Israelis pilots being chained to their seats so they couldn't eject fearing their air defense. With things like S-300 and such in the world now it could be scary as hell to have to known your going to be hunted by that ****..

Now having MANPADs in game would this mean counter measures are going to be simulated somehow probably not visually though?

[ScoutPL]

I currently work in a Division HQ (the airborne one - so I have some experience with this problem). And I can assure you, no aviator will fly with a viable MANPADS threat, unless he is threatened with his job or life AND chained to his seat as in the example you provide.

Its just too damn scary. A good correlation I think is the Horse Cavalry and the machinegun. One gun could mow down an entire squadron before they could effectively close and take it out. The larger radar based systems can be taken out using their radar signature as a target. But MANPADS for the most part are heat signature weapons. You have no idea they are there until the missile is in the air and seconds from exploding right outside your canopy.

CAS is by definition slow. You aren't going to outrun a missile inside a few seconds of afterburner if you are on a bombing or strafing run. The only way to stay safe would be to stay above the MANPADS ceiling and use PGM. Good for some fire missions but hardly preferable.

This is why the air force hates supporting the CAS mission. Anything outside of a low threat environment (think Vietnam, GWOT, etc) is certain death, given modern capabilities. Of course all of the above applies to helicopters just even more so.

[Blueonblack83]

I know you guys at Battlefront will have a lot in your hands in the upcoming years, but could you by any chance -- when you are revisiting CMSF -- reskin the soldiers? Maybe you can afford to add more variety to them, just like in your WW2 games at the moment. Binoculars, radios, mis-matched gear, etc.

And please get rid of that life vest stuff around German soldiers, if you can Those guys deserve something better looking.