We need a “high-intensity” warfare opponent module ;).

[kipanderson]

Hi,

Firstly no one looks forward to CMSF more than I. CMX2 is exactly what I hoped the new CM engine would be i.e. focussed on a very similar scale and scope to that of CMX1. We all had are wish list of features for the new CM engine and CMSF has my entire list… could not be happier .

However , the lack of a high-intensity warfare opponent in CMSF is a bit of a shame… if truth be told. Let me explain what I mean.

For high-intensity warfare to work in a wargame there is a limit to how unbalanced the opponents can be. Otherwise once you have witnessed one massacre in the new and glorious graphics it will all become rather predictable. I can give a real life example.

In Gulf War II a small force of Challenger tanks collided head on with a battle group of mainly T55s heading out of Basra. In seconds it was all over. The Iraqi force totally destroyed with not a scratch to the Brits.

Now this may be fun to watch/reconstruct once but will soon become dull.

What is needed is an opponent who can compete in high-intensity warfare. It need not be perfectly balanced, but there is a need for the opponents to be in the same ball-park in terms of their technology.

Two possible examples would be ’73 Yom Kippur War module. Another is to give the Syrians the option of using the very latest Russian T90 tanks, BPM3s, laser guided munitions and so on…. I am not talking “fictional” AFVs but those currently produced in small numbers for the Russians themselves. (The fact that ‘90s Russian anti-tank weapons will anyway be in CMSF is by itself a huge help in making the game challenging.)

None of the above means that I will not be a very heavy user of CMSF in the form it ships even without any modules. I will be . But one only has to see the great screenshots of all that heavy equipment that will ship in CMSF to realise what a terrible waste it will be not to be able to use it in a high-intensity warfare game.

A module that gives more balance to high-intensity warfare than in the initial shipped version would be huge plus in terms of the longevity/replay value of CMSF. In my very prejudiced view .

Greatly looking forward to CMSF regardless,

All the best,

Kip.

[ChrisND]

I'd love to see a Fulda Gap module someday.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

“I'd love to see a Fulda Gap module someday.”

Now we are rocking and rolling .

Of course the sad truth is that for many years, yes… we really are talking “years”, I was the most unhinged of advocates of a Cold War setting for CMX2 but strangely Steve said neither he nor Charles had any interest in the setting. They are very strange people .

However some form of “Fulda Gap in the sand” set in 2008 or the past… would be great.

All the best,

Kip.

[Dirtweasle]

Just thinking out loud Kip, but what about revist the old board game Gulf Strike and have the Commies, er... I mean update it so the Russian Republic invades to stabilize the region or some such thing, and the Americans respond via Iraq, S.A. and the Gulf or somefink.

[MikeyD]

Well, we will getting a big-map-capable game (4km x 4km maybe?). And alot of whats in the current U.S. arsenal, plus alot of what was in the old Warsaw Pact arsenal. Plus we're getting a CM mission editor. CMSF may not have any giant 'Fulda Gap' scenarios in the Syria campaign (or maybe they will?), but we're sure to see 3rd party scenarios. Too one-sided? Abrams on one side of a big open map. Kornet launchers and artillery on the other - hit GO

Oh, and a thought. With your 4km map and entire tank armies clashing in realtime - what would be your minimum acceptable framerate?

[panzermartin]

IIRC they said 2x2km biggest map size...I think the hardware to deal with the US is there. 2 well placed T-72 will have no problem with a single Abrams for instance. They can punch through its side anyday. Kornets, RPG-29s are deadly too. Give some points/experience bonus to Syrians in scenarios and I think they will be great for head to head play. I never played QBs in CM with air support too.

[Moon]

Kip, CMSF can be quite high-intensity out of the box. MikeyD mentioned already the Kornet, a weapon which can take out an Abrams reliably from a long distance. Another interesting weapon in the Syrian arsenal is the T-72 TURMS-T modification. They don't have too many, but enough to really be a problem for an M1 Abrams tank commander who carelessly wanders around the battlefield expecting only T-55s

CMSF is a tactical game as you know and as such it's up to each scenario designer to cut out a piece of from the strategic picture. The fact that 80% of a tank force may be not up to par is of little impact to the player who is facing a Republican Guard armored company supported by some Syrian Special forces* with Kornets in hidden positions.

Martin

*

[panzermartin]

Men in black...nice! Though it feels hot only to stare at them wearing this black outfit.

[PrezCartman]

For those who worry about a one-sided situation. Look at what happened last year when the Israelis went into Lebanon. Hezbollah, using weapons systems far below what the Syrians are being provided in CMSF, were able to knock out Merkavas in significant enough numbers to cause real concern among the Israelis. Properly employed, M1A2s are pretty close to invincible, (although the US hasn't yet had to face an adversary with advanced ATGMs) but it's like anything else, it's the commander's actions that determine success, and besides any intelligent scenario designer is not giving you a brigade's worth of Abrams to roll across the battlefield and a T-55 is a match for a Bradley or Stryker by any means, particularly if employed effectively. I mean from everything I've read the devs are trying pretty hard to create a stuation where the asymmetric war will be enjoyable and not a one side slaughter.

While pitting two equal modern forces against one another would be interesting, the CM series has always been based on reality and let's face it unless the Russians and Americans go at it, no nation is going to use the tactics Iraq tried in 1991 to stand up to the United States or any other major power and there won't be any massive force engagements because the technology of the US now would annihilate any massed enemy army. However, as a hypothetical, that has always been where the third party developers have created new things to see and that will undoubtedly occur with CMSF. I mean with the blue on blue you can even create a US Civil War scenario. Just be happy BF is giving us a new engine taking the CM series into the next generation and providing us another outstanding tactical simulator that can be customized to what we'd like to see.

[ June 13, 2007, 04:59 PM: Message edited by: PrezCartman ]

[JasonC]

I want to address the issue of Lebanon and what it did or did not show.

While many report on Russian ATGMs, fewer know that Hezbollah also had and used TOW and Milan. Total ATGMs fired in the conflict by Hezbollah were probably around 1000 and certainly exceeded 500. Some however were used on infantry targets.

46-50 Merkava main battle tanks (of the 400 deployed) and 14 APCs (all were heavy types based on T-55 or Centurion chassis) were hit by anti-tank weapons, including 22 incidents where tank armour and 5 cases where APC armour was penetrated. Another 6 tanks and at least 1 APC were blown up by mines and IEDs. 23 tank and 5 APC crew members were killed.

Only 5 tanks were total write offs. 2 were from IEDs and 3 burned after ATGM penetrations. Some of the damaged tanks were hit over 20 times before being penetrated.

The worst single incident saw 11 tanks disabled with 8 KIA, when a tank battalion tried to advance through an AT kill zone without infantry or artillery support or even prior recon.

Israel KIA for the whole fight were 116 to 120 IDF depending on source, meaning those behind armor were roughly a quarter of the losses. Numerically the larger losses - though mostly lightly wounded - occurred among Israeli civilians, 43 KIA and 1400 WIA by rockets. Hezbollah losses were 4-8 times those of the IDF and Lebanese civilians suffered the most by far.

The Merkava is not invulnerable on a modern battlefield against modern AT weapons. But the realities have been hugely distorted by journalist level accounts. The prime failing throughout was sequential rather than coordinated use of the different arms, leading to combined arms failure.

[PrezCartman]

Jason,

You make my point exactly, what matters is the tactics you use not just the weapons system, the tanks were exposed without proper infantry support and thus were vulnerable to fire. But suppose Hezbollah had been a major organized military force with the ability to launch a counter attack. As you said only 5 Merks were total writeoffs, but what if a Stryker company had only a single platoon of Abrams supporting it and 2-3 of those Abrams were knocked out, a T-72 or even T-55 platoon could shred the remaining Strykers and force abandonment of the advance.

Keep in mind guys the devs pointed out that especially for things like the campaign scenarios, the US forces will have extra conditions besides just the advance, they also have to keep loses down so losing 5% of your heavy armor might be enough to still lose the scenario despite taking the terrain objective.

[JasonC]

T-55s aren't going to shred a modern mech force, they just render it defensive. Its tracks withdraw into defilade and its Javelin teams come out. Then it is the reverse situation, and the T-55s are no more able to advance unimpeded than the original side.

The main defect of Israeli combined arms wasn't lack of infantry, though that was a problem too. It was poor armor artillery cooperation. The Israelis used massive amounts of air and artillery firepower. They just used it completely independent of the ground thrusts. Prior in time, or much deeper into Lebanon in space. The result was everywhere the firepower arms were being used, the defending infantry could simply "go deep" in their bunkers. Wherever it wasn't they could come out and man ATGMs to stop advances, or saturate dismounted advances with MRL fire or small arms and heavy weapons etc.

The proper counter to light force positional defenses is real time saturation by indirect firepower *as* armor or infantry probes. This the Israelis simply neglected to do. The higher commanders looked on firepower methods as an *alternative* to ground incursion, and resorted to ground forces only when firepower arms alone failed to stop MRL attacks. Then they shut off or lifted deep their own firepower arms, probably out of an excessive fear of "friendly fire", also overconfidence in their heavy armor, and flat being "rusty" about all this stuff.

The Israelis had to learn the same artillery-armor cooperation lesson in 1973. Then they lost not 5 tanks but *400* tanks, but pressed their attack anyway, and won. Besides a willingness to learn and use combined arms, the stark difference was in Israeli loss tolerance.

They used firepower alone trying to stay completely assymmetric to keep own side losses minimal. Then they tried to use armor alone again to keep own side losses minimal. The way you actually win, on the other hand, is to try to make enemy side losses maximal, whatever it costs own side forces in the short term - and that, they were simply unwilling to do politically, this time.

[acrashb]

Originally posted by Moon:

Syrian Special forces*

Special indeed- good trigger finger discipline, and they're heads-up looking for a threat.

Are you going to model poor trigger discipline and related NDs in the Uncons?

[Echo Delta]

Originally posted by Normal Dude:

I'd love to see a Fulda Gap module someday.

[Panzer76]

Well, from what Ive read, the "balance" lies in the scenario parameters. For instance, the US force needs to destroy 75% of Syrian Forces while the Syrian only have to destroy 2 Strykers to win.

While you may say that this is "balanced" from a Win/Loose POV, it sure doesnt seem very balanced when it comes to actually playing the game, fighting, and having fun.

Imagine playing as the Syrian side. You always have to sneak around, always play on the defensive, always try to ambush, and be happy if your able to get a 1-10 kill ratio. Yeah, that seems like fun!...

[Flanker15]

Well CM:BO had unbalanced tanks as well, the US tanks were no match for the German tanks but you could still beat them. It's not how good you tech is but how you use it. At the start of WW2 French tanks were superior to German but the combined blitzkrieg tactics defeated the French defensive line very effectively.

It's all about the tactics!

[Panzer76]

Originally posted by Flanker15:

Well CM:BO had unbalanced tanks as well, the US tanks were no match for the German tanks but you could still beat them. It's not how good you tech is but how you use it. At the start of WW2 French tanks were superior to German but the combined blitzkrieg tactics defeated the French defensive line very effectively.

It's all about the tactics!

Not the same. Now its all about "if I see you, your dead". Even with the "unbalanced" tanks, the Allies generally had more of them, to counter the Axis tanks and the terrain often invited to flanking moves etc.

Now we get rather open, sterile environments, with mostly urban areas as cover.

And what I see as the biggest concern, as Syrian player, you are expected to loose, and loose big, when it comes to casualties etc. The only way you can "win", is by some pre scenario made parameter bonuses.

Its like playing CMBB in 41 on steppes, as the Soviets, except you only have BT-2's and the German player has Tigers.

Anyways, its just a concern I have, and I will be buying this game no matter what (almost) to support BTS. I think its gonna be good, but yeah..

[Kineas]

Everybody can play a test game in winspmbt, T72s vs Abrams, and see what are the available tactics for T72s. (In the SP games smoke and thermal imaginery are also a major factor)

[NoxSpartana]

Originally posted by Panzer76:

Well, from what Ive read, the "balance" lies in the scenario parameters. For instance, the US force needs to destroy 75% of Syrian Forces while the Syrian only have to destroy 2 Strykers to win.

While you may say that this is "balanced" from a Win/Loose POV, it sure doesnt seem very balanced when it comes to actually playing the game, fighting, and having fun.

Imagine playing as the Syrian side. You always have to sneak around, always play on the defensive, always try to ambush, and be happy if your able to get a 1-10 kill ratio. Yeah, that seems like fun!...

My thoughts exactly. It may be possible to balance conflicts like this with widely divering parameters, but it's no fun to have such a lame victory condition as that! Who DOESN'T want to overrun and completely annihilate their opponent (especially if it's a human)??? Seems it won't really be possible in most cases in Syrian vs. US fights.

Regardless, the game will be great, I look forward to blue on blue scenarios.

[rune]

Panzer,

How many CMSF scenarios have you played so far? You assume they are all open terrain or urban. Yep, there are plenty of that, but there is also fertile river valleys, night actions, and I must say some evil scenario designer make a decent airfield map.

I even designed a real life experience of one of the testers in Iraq, but based it on Syrian forces. I have to work on it yet, so if not on the CD, will be released shortly after that.

Oh, and with the beta testers I picked, there is variation, and evilness plenty.

Rune

[Thomm]

Originally posted by rune:

Oh, and with the beta testers I picked, there is variation, and evilness plenty.

Just don't make the missions as "evil" as those of ToW!

Best regards,

Thomm

[Panzer76]

Originally posted by rune:

Panzer,

How many CMSF scenarios have you played so far? You assume they are all open terrain or urban.

None, thats why I say its a "concern" I have, instead of saying it is so. But hey, I'll be a very happy man if Im mistaken

[Dirtweasle]

Originally posted by PrezCartman:

For those who worry about a one-sided situation. ...

Oh, I'm not woried about that for a variety of reasons.

My thought was to get the Soviet /Warsaw pact equipment in directly campaign scenarios such as Gulf Strike would be good jumping off point.

[SgtMuhammed]

Originally posted by rune:

Oh, and with the beta testers I picked, there is variation, and evilness plenty.

Rune

"Our Backs to the Euphrates" anyone? I'm looking at buying a used Cray for this one.

[rune]

I have one that fits the bill, it won't be on the cd. Close, working title is Following the Euphrates. Forest area and farmland.

Rune