Oh poo, now I'm going to boycott BFC & join Taskforce Zarqavi (cont'd)

[dalem]

Originally posted by Steiner14:

USrael

What's it like, being an insane person?

-dale

[Sergei]

Originally posted by dalem:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Steiner14:

USrael

What's it like, being an insane person?

-dale </font>

[SSgt Viljuri]

Hm, why does everybody keeps answering to this loony neo-nazi?

Both the neo-nazis and communists should receive the same treatment: Coventry.

[Soddball]

Originally posted by SSgt Viljuri:

Hm, why does everybody keeps answering to this loony neo-nazi?

Both the neo-nazis and communists should receive the same treatment. Coventry.

Hey! Don't send them to us! We have enough nutters.

[dalem]

Originally posted by Adam L:

Has BFC moved away from the "core audience" (generally, the forums) and expanded away? Are we no longer their target market?

I think that's a great question.

I think we're more the "supercore". Smaller than we think, and very specialized and powerful within the right context.

But BFC's core is most likely the more generalized category of "wargamers". I daresay that this CM:SF forum will grow into just as popular and CM-oriented place as the previous ones in time. Then when BFC turns their focus back to WWII us WWII grogglyites will pee our pants (especially Mord's) when we finally get all the stuff we wish we had now.

That's my opinion anyhow.

-dale

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Adam L:

Has BFC moved away from the "core audience" (generally, the forums) and expanded away? Are we no longer their target market?

I think that's a great question.

There IS NO "core audience". Each game has its own crowd; dalem is right; we'll see a bunch of new names and faces in the CM:SF forum once the demo is out. Then the next title will draw other names.

Look in the SC forums here - how many names do you recognize as being active in the CM forums, or even the GF?

[Barrold]

Look in the SC forums here - how many names do you recognize as being active in the CM forums, or even the GF?

Considering some of the flotsam that has come from that source, their isolation seems to be an excellent phenomena.

BDH

[Michael Dorosh]

yeah, yeah, but you see what I mean. There's no "core audience" and even if there was BFC has stated no desire to cater to it. That shouldn't be a surprise nor a disappointment to anyone.

I still think there is a lot of potential untapped as far as WW II tactical sims go, but we just have to wait. *shrugs*. It will happen; if not BF.C then someone else, and if not 2007, then later.

There is a core audience for WW II games, but they don't just buy from BF.C, and most of them have never ever heard of this forum much less posted here.

[Hortlund]

Ok, can someone please ban that guy now please?

[roqf77]

i agree, send steinar to bannistan please! oh and hi mum.

[von Nev]

I am disappointed in the setting although I will reserve the final view on the game until I try the demo.

My "problem" is I have 15 years (ending in late 2003) of service in the US Marine Corps. I have conducted joint training with with both Arab (Egyptian mainly) and former Soviet military personnel. There is just no real comparison between the two and the modern US military.

With a modern hypothetical settings one has the real problem with how does "model" what are known truths today about balance and realism. In the latest couple of "modern" wars where the US was involved they completely overwelmed and destroyed their opponents MILITARILY. There were battles in the first and second Gulf Wars were entire Iraqi regiments and divisions were annilated in HOURS!

Regardless of one's political view the US modern military today can only be effectively countered in training and equipment by its Western allies or perhaps the Russians states or the Chinese. I would be VERY disappointed if the thesis of the game will be that the modern US military with all of its state of the art military assets (M1A2's, arty, CAS, helos) is fighting on "equal" footing with Syrian forces. It just would not happen at anything larger than small units. If it did happen with large units the battles would be in minutes with the outcome predetermined. The Gulf wars and in the war in Afghanistan showed that small forces (as little at 4 man Spec Ops teams) were able to call in ENORMOUS amounts of firepower (arty, CAS, etc) and wipe out whatever they faced however big it was. Are the Syrians suppose to have an effective airforce? What would be the engagement criteria? The US forces stumble unprepared into a Syrian regiment dug-in? Would it be Syrian regiment versus a US infantry company to make it an "balanced" fight considering US ability to call for massive fire within minutes?

The basis for any theoretical engagement would be key. My view is that unless it stays small unit/small map where there is more "balance" because it is infantry-on-infantry and there would be less time to the US to "shape the battlefield" then the "realism" police will start sniffing around and poking holes in the game mechanics.

Anyway, that is my two cents. Fire away.

Marty

[Mord]

Originally posted by dalem:

Then when BFC turns their focus back to WWII us WWII grogglyites will pee our pants (especially Mord's) when we finally get all the stuff we wish we had now.

That's my opinion anyhow.

-dale

And I bought some extra large Levis to soak up all the love...so I'm prepared...

Mord.

[AlmightyTH]

Originally posted by von Nev:

I am disappointed in the setting although I will reserve the final view on the game until I try the demo.

My "problem" is I have 15 years (ending in late 2003) of service in the US Marine Corps. I have conducted joint training with with both Arab (Egyptian mainly) and former Soviet military personnel. There is just no real comparison between the two and the modern US military.

With a modern hypothetical settings one has the real problem with how does "model" what are known truths today about balance and realism. In the latest couple of "modern" wars where the US was involved they completely overwelmed and destroyed their opponents MILITARILY. There were battles in the first and second Gulf Wars were entire Iraqi regiments and divisions were annilated in HOURS!

Regardless of one's political view the US modern military today can only be effectively countered in training and equipment by its Western allies or perhaps the Russians states or the Chinese. I would be VERY disappointed if the thesis of the game will be that the modern US military with all of its state of the art military assets (M1A2's, arty, CAS, helos) is fighting on "equal" footing with Syrian forces. It just would not happen at anything larger than small units. If it did happen with large units the battles would be in minutes with the outcome predetermined. The Gulf wars and in the war in Afghanistan showed that small forces (as little at 4 man Spec Ops teams) were able to call in ENORMOUS amounts of firepower (arty, CAS, etc) and wipe out whatever they faced however big it was. Are the Syrians suppose to have an effective airforce? What would be the engagement criteria? The US forces stumble unprepared into a Syrian regiment dug-in? Would it be Syrian regiment versus a US infantry company to make it an "balanced" fight considering US ability to call for massive fire within minutes?

The basis for any theoretical engagement would be key. My view is that unless it stays small unit/small map where there is more "balance" because it is infantry-on-infantry and there would be less time to the US to "shape the battlefield" then the "realism" police will start sniffing around and poking holes in the game mechanics.

Anyway, that is my two cents. Fire away.

Marty

I see thruths in what you say kid.

[JonS]

Originally posted by von Nev:

Regardless of one's political view the US modern military today can only be effectively countered in training and equipment by its Western allies or perhaps the Russians states or the Chinese.

Well, that's not quite true, IMO, but then I fail to see how unconvential warfare would make for a very rivetting game. For example:

COMBAT MISSION 1: Man a checkpoint for several hours. Maybe something will happen. Maybe not. If it does, the 'something' will last several seconds.

COMBAT MISSION 2: Patrol downtown Arabsville for several hours. Maybe something will happen. Maybe not. If it does, the 'something' will probably last several minutes. Or the 'something' could, in sum, consist of a single IED.

COMBAT MISSION 3: Escort a loggy convoy between Arabsville and Mudtown. Maybe something will happen. Maybe not. If it does, the 'something' will last several minutes. Or the 'something' could, in sum, consist of a single IED.

Anyway, that doesn't seem to be the focus of CMSF, although the apparent inclusion of suicide bombers is a little odd. That seems to make about as much sense as, say, including V1 and V2 strikes in CMBO.

Something Fallujah-ish has potential, but that's playing to the strengths of the US, and the result becomes overdetermined.

I guess one advantage in focussing on a Stryker Bde is that some of the heaviest of the USs ground based toys are excluded, or at least reduced in emphasis.

One can also come up with any number of contrived situations to balance things: comms are out so no CAS or arty; someone took a wrong turn so no heavy direct firesupport; the petrol convoy didn't get away on time, so the Abrams are all stranded; you 'have' to traverse the 10kms of this builtup area and then cross that single bridge across the unfordable river within the next 20 mins because ... well, because otherwise you could do it properly over a period of hours and suffer no cas; bad weather grounded all the planes; etc etc. Still, a campaign consisting of a series of contrived events would be a little ... odd.

Good post von Nev.

Regards

JonS

[Treeburst155]

Originally posted by JonS:

... you 'have' to traverse the 10kms of this builtup area and then cross that single bridge across the unfordable river within the next 20 mins because ... well, because otherwise you could do it properly over a period of hours and suffer no cas....

Regards

JonS

LOL! This is how CMBO, CMBB, CMAK scenarios work. There's often a time crunch, and seldom an explanation given for it.

I'm going to keep an open mind on CMSF. I seriously doubt it will replace CMAK and CMBB for me; but I'll probably buy it if the demo impresses me AND if it has PBEM. Heck, the campaign against the AI MIGHT be worth the money. That will be hard to determine with the demo however.

Treeburst155 out.

[Battlefront.com]

For years and years I've thought there was no point in simulating Modern warfare because it wouldn't be a challenge for either side. The US/NATO side sits back and wipes out the defender, the defender just has to sit and take it. Then Somalia happened. Big reality check for many. The best of the best were badly beaten up by a bunch of thugs with little to no traing and/or experience. And nothing heavier than a common RPG.

The point about Somalia wasn't that the US forces could always be beat, but that they COULD be. Or at the very least badly chewed up in a fairly small amount of time in a particular situation. It was a major wakeup call.

OIF was, and unfortunately still is, another big wakeup call. The US military was not prepared for a long, drawn out counter insurgency conflict. Despite what the guys at the top say, or the blindly "ooorah!" guys down at the very bottom, there appears to be a very strong feeling amongst mid level US leadership that there simply aren't enough boots on the ground to go around. This means the option to use overwhelming force, whenever and wherever one wants, is limited by practical considerations. Some of the great communications gear, which worked just great out at NTC, has not worked as well as they would have liked in the field. Tanks that were designed to deflect shots from other tanks from the front are getting whacked by guys popping them in the back with 30 year old weapons. Some of the bad-boy Russian stuff, that wasn't thought to be in theater, has shown up and done some bad things very quickly. Terrorists have been killed and found to be using NVGs, GPS, and bullets that can defeat body armor. Some of the great high tech weapons that are available in theory can't be used, or used effectively, because wiping out a block of houses is wildly unpopular with the natives nor public opinion back home (not to mention elsewhere). So on and so forth.

What I'm saying here is that looking at OIF I see far more reasons to think the US has more than enough things to challenge it on the small scale tactical battlefield. Larger, and over time, no... no challenge from a military standpoint. But since CMx2 is a company level simulation, we're not worried about that. There are plenty of situations that will give the US player a run for his money, even if in the end all the OPFOR are eliminated.

Steve

[BloodyBucket]

Sounds like SF will have more "gray area" aspects than I thought...If it strictly a game simulating a stand up fight between the Syrian and US military forces, I think any realistic sim factoring in the US C3 and fire support advantages would be pretty one sided.

While I agree that a company could find itself in a temporarily hairy situation, unless you are talking a pacification scenario with ROE issues, it should be rare for US forces to feel really threatened.

Somalia was pretty unique in that there were a LOT of enemy shooters and the response times were dorked up by UN chain of command issues. I can see how simming a Somalia type scenario might make a wonderful FPS, but for a CM type game I wonder if gamers are going to accept winning a thumping military victory only to be told that they were defeated by TV coverage of the few KIAs that they did take.

The US might have plenty of challenges in the tactical aspects of MOOTW (military operations other than war) like the current pacification operations in Iraq, but in a stand up fight...

[Battlefront.com]

I don't think we'll see many more stand up fights in the future. In fact, it can be argued (with great force, in fact) that Iraq's reaction to OIF wasn't a standup fight either. Coalition forces seriously underestimated the "irregulars" and what they could do. The fact that they weren't more militarily effective is probably due to factors unique to the Iraqi leadership and Iraq itself than to the concepts employed. Much like Germany's war effort could have been greatly improved if it wasn't for the inept Nazi form of government. So we must be careful to separate theory from practice.

The Iraqi response to OIF in practice wasn't all that effective militarily, but in theory it could have been a lot more so. One can argue that the insurgency today is more effective than the entire Iraqi Army ever was. So what lessons will potential targets of US/NATO type military action draw from Iraq? That they should focus on a "stand up fight" or look for something different? And that is a rather interesting point to ponder.

Steve

[Tero]

Perhaps the focus should be shifted from the big, well documented armies to the more obscure conflicts and lesser armies.

Former Yugoslavia, Chechenia and Afganistan (both early 80's and now) have been indicative of the type of combat operations the armies will be facing in the future. Then you have your low interest protracted and largely ethnically based, conflicts in Asia and Africa where all you need is a kitchen knife to arm yourself for the fight.

To me it seems that it is not what you have but it is rather your willingness to use it is what determines the level of conflict and how bad things get.

UN and NATO forces in former Yugoslavia (and the Iraqi army to some extent) are examples of abundance of fancy stuff but unwillingness to go that extra mile to actually make them count before it is too late to prevent the actions and reactions to run their course in full.

[Gunkan]

I'm not happy with this moderm simulation, Usa vs Siria, etc. I did'nt even know Battlefront until Combat Mission Barbarossa to Berlin. I am a fan of WW2, not Modern Combat.

I know, i know, is time to make money and this new game will be a good way. But, remenber that there are some great games of the same "type". You are going to have a huge contest.

I will keep on playing to Combat Mission. I love it. But sorry, not interested in modern combat. I am sad, i had a lot of hopes.

Time to renew my subscription to WW2Online i think. Perhaps, some day, you will appreciate the quality and fidelity of your WW2 great simulations. People needs a new Combat Mission, no more Operation Flash Point, please.

Bye bye Battlefront.

[RSColonel_131st]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

For years and years I've thought there was no point in simulating Modern warfare because it wouldn't be a challenge for either side. The US/NATO side sits back and wipes out the defender, the defender just has to sit and take it. Then Somalia happened. Big reality check for many. The best of the best were badly beaten up by a bunch of thugs with little to no traing and/or experience. And nothing heavier than a common RPG.

One should not forget that for the actual "Blackhawk Down" operation, we're talking a few hundred thugs against less than 50 or so "best of the best". What was the final kill ratio? 20:1000?

So yes, Somalia showed that the US could catch a bloody nose once in a while, but only when faced against the better part of an entire city population - and you can't model that in CM:SF.

As for the problems in Iraq - much of that comes down to ROE and civilian presence. You will obviously need a very detailed setup for victory conditions if you want to recreate those problems in CM:SF, stuff like "You lose if you blow a house apart" or "you lose if you have more than x amount of casualitys" and similar things. Civs aren't even modelled as far as we know.

In short, I remain sceptical. Modeling actual warfare "Army versus Army" will result in the Syrians getting badly beaten up, and to realistically model "victory conditions" for a counter-insurgency operation, that will be some work.

[Bigduke6]

I'll take issue with that cost analysis of Somalia. If you compare the cost to the U.S. military of getting its soldiers to Somalia and into combat, and the cost to the Somali society of pitting fighters against those Americans, then the Americans are spending zillions of "points" to get rid of a couple of thousand temporarily-armed civilians.

I don't call that a victory. Even starving Somalia can replace a couple of thousand young bucks with AKs, than the U.S. can replace even a single Ranger platoon.

If the victory conditions in CMSF are all that BFI is saying they will be, then the overwhelming U.S. firepower advantage won't be decisive, lots of times, in getting a victory - even on the tactical battlefield, never mind at the strategic level.

Sure a Styker company can clear a square kilometer of shanty town of armed Syrians. Heck, FAC with a radio and a stack of F-18s can do that.

But can the Stryker boys do it, without taking more than ten casualties, and leaving most of the buildings standing?

That's a lot tougher - just like real life, strangely enough.

Too bad the game won't have civilians. And journalists - how would you like to be that Stryker company commander, and have that mission, and there's a Euronews or Russian NTV camera team tagging along? They're accredited, and they could care less about packing pretty news, they have zero connection to the alleged liberal U.S. media or the alleged right wing fanatic government. Journos like that, they just want gore, and they don't care if it's Syrian or U.S.

How does that Styker company commander win a battle under a constraint like that?

Man, if CMSF had that, I would covert from grudging willingness to look at the demo, to drooling grog wanting to pre-order twice, in a heartbeat. Now that would be be taking a combat simulator to a higher level.

[Abbott]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

and have that mission, and there's a Euronews or Russian NTV camera team tagging along? They're accredited, and they could care less about packing pretty news, they have zero connection to the alleged liberal U.S. media or the alleged right wing fanatic government. Journos like that, they just want gore, and they don't care if it's Syrian or U.S.

Easy. Shoot them first. and/or Then conduct your military operation like a military operation and not a PR battle. I am not seeing CM:PR in Syria. I am seeing a tactical battle game (simulator? dunno yet). Leave the newsman at camp they can be entertained enough with AAR’s give or take a lie or two.

[Battlefront.com]

If the victory conditions in CMSF are all that BFI is saying they will be, then the overwhelming U.S. firepower advantage won't be decisive, lots of times, in getting a victory - even on the tactical battlefield, never mind at the strategic level.

Exactly. Somalia, even though limited, was indeed a big shock to the system. The general public didn't expect it, for sure, but it appears the commanders on the ground didn't either. Certainly the troops in the actual engagement were absolutely unprepared for it. Why? Because it seemed so impossible that such an elite force, with the best equipment in the world, could be chewed up so quickly. OIF has reinforced that many times over.

The point of all this is to remind the "the player with the biggest toys wins" mindset that that isn't necessarily the case. Not at the tactical level anyway. At least not assured. There are reasons why the US forces can't always have CAS come down and save the day. There are reasons why Abrams can't be lined up 10 abreast to solve whatever problem is left by applying brute force. There are reasons why it still comes down to 9 guys isolated, even if temporarily, and getting the worse end of the stick.

All the gadgets, superior training, and generally high morale are all "force multipliers", not the force itself. You still need boots on the ground to multiply against. If you have boots, you have vulnerable targets. It is a simple fact that I am surprised anybody following current events can't see for themselves.

The thing is we have to make the CMx2 engine cater to the stuff that makes this reality so. Most wargames make the mistake of only simulating the toys. When that happens all sorts of realism problems arise. Usually they are glossed over and things are fudged to make for some sort of balance that really isn't there. We don't work that way. Instead we are striving to simulate the conditions the toys find themselves in as much, if not more so, than the toys themselves. Otherwise, we'd have a crappy game to hand to you guys.

Steve

[TufenHuden]

If anything this modern battle should of

been CMMB-CombatMissionModernBattle...

From Korean War,Vietam,6-day war,possible

cold war,Desert Storm,Balkans etc.

But in some of these wars where pretty

lob-sited,only ones that where pretty

equal would be Korean war,Vietnam,?Cold war.

I like WW-2 because pretty much it was even

because Allies gradaully improved there

weapons to the Axis....

To do battle with Sryia would be a blow out

Allied side unless Sryia had equal air power..

I might or might not buy Strike force,

prefer WW-2 basic stragety,not Tow missles,

silver bullet tank rnds-uranum tipped...

M-1A2's against T-55/59's/72's-to a conflict

that all there armor would be destoyed by total

US Air domance.....