Bring it down (seriously)!

[Brent Pollock]

Okay, I thought I would attempt to get some serious discussion going about the tactic of wholesale urban renewal as a tactic, especially as a somewhat pre-emptive one.

When I popped open the last mission of the training campaign, I pretty much crusied through my OB, saw that artillery and air support were not an option, and noticed I still had my full complement of Javelins. Then I counted all the buildings in town...counted my Javelins...did the arithmetic...right, I am going to tell my Javelin teams to flatten the joint and turn this into a exercise in rubble-combing-for-exact-body-count.

As others have noted, it works like a charm...an HE-laden, lethal charm that makes a voodoo doll look like...ummm...a voodoo doll...with no pins.

Two things don't feel quite right about this:

1. in "real life", wouldn't I be wanting to hold onto at least a handful of Javelins in case some AFVs...very angry AFVs...with sharp, pointy teeth... rolled into my CMSF life?

2. I didn't seem to be penalised for levelling objective buildings?

So, even though I was credited with a Total Victory or somesuch, I felt I had failed at the task because I didn't learn how to tackle the village without resorting to Javelins. I think I'll take another kick at, but restrict Javelin use to a max of four, and only at buildings that are known to be occupied by more than one guy.

[ August 04, 2007, 08:07 AM: Message edited by: Brent Pollock ]

[JasonC]

I think the other big problem is simply that the buildings should not fall down. A Javelin is less powerful than a single 105mm HE round, in total explosive carried. Better penetration from focusing that explosive, but obviously that also means less spread of damage. It simply does not have the joules to knock down a large structure - unless somebody made the building out of unjoined playing cards.

[Sergei]

Yes, ATGM's currently have too much of an umph. Then again, constructing standards in Middle East being what they are...

OTOH building complexes consisting of several parts are much harder to bring down than 'single block' buildings. Eg. the Special Forces HQ in Ash Shammas took quite a lot of pounding from my forces, and some parts were still left partly standing.

[thewood]

I think you can assign points to buildings in the editor to discourage remodeling. In the QB engine, you should have random buildings assigned point values and this would discourage it in QBs.

[Drusus]

ATGM's overall seem to be really, really powerful. Maybe they are in real life also, I don't know. But seeing that they can usually kill whole squads with one shot, it just seems strange. Maybe the problem is that the squads are packed too tightly? In ATGM ambush the US infantry has no chance against ATGMs.

The RPGs seem to be very, very effective also. When reading some real life AARs, there has been massive amounts of RPGs fired against infantry, but with almost zero effect. In CMSF this doesn't seem to be the case.

Or then maybe this is what Hezbollah used against Israel, and it is just really hard to fight against ATGMs.

[metalbrew]

Yeah, nerf the ATGMs. i don't dispute their accuracy but in-game their effect is like a thermobaric weapon.

As a Syrian defender there's about 0% chance of defending a small village (5-6 buildings) against a platoon of Stryker infantry and their Javelins.

[buckmaster]

Originally posted by metalbrew:

Yeah, nerf the ATGMs. i don't dispute their accuracy but in-game their effect is like a thermobaric weapon.

As a Syrian defender there's about 0% chance of defending a small village (5-6 buildings) against a platoon of Stryker infantry and their Javelins.

cool though aint it

[Thomm]

Originally posted by Sergei:

OTOH building complexes consisting of several parts are much harder to bring down than 'single block' buildings. Eg. the Special Forces HQ in Ash Shammas took quite a lot of pounding from my forces, and some parts were still left partly standing.

Surely you destroyed it only after you searched it, right?

Best regards,

Thomm

PS: Minor defeat for me . In the map review I realized that only 5 guys were left in the barracks! Could have walked right in! Damn relative spotting and Fog of War!

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Rollstoy:

Surely you destroyed it only after you searched it, right?

I'm sure any interesting things I was looking for were kept in the basement

[rogue187]

I was thinking about this same thing as I have been developing my tactics for the game. Its funny that in modren warfare, we try to minimize "collateral damage" to towns. But when strandard infantry can fire missles/rockets can can KO/Immobilize/KIA or otherwise harm the tank and everything inside it, I find myself less willing to trade tit-for-tat fire. Instead I trun to my M1/MSG/Artillary to just level any building that has any inf inside it.

[SlapHappy]

Originally posted by rogue187:

I was thinking about this same thing as I have been developing my tactics for the game. Its funny that in modren warfare, we try to minimize "collateral damage" to towns. But when strandard infantry can fire missles/rockets can can KO/Immobilize/KIA or otherwise harm the tank and everything inside it, I find myself less willing to trade tit-for-tat fire. Instead I trun to my M1/MSG/Artillary to just level any building that has any inf inside it.

Who can blame you? Fifty-Cal fire seems like a ping-pong ball launcher when used against buildings. Also, I rarely get kills with small arms fire. The Stryker .50's can get kills against completely exposed infantry as long as you set it to "auto-hose" and go have dinner. After you get back, there is at least a good chance it might have wiped out the enemy squad.......

[bartleby]

Originally posted by SlapHappy:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by rogue187:

I was thinking about this same thing as I have been developing my tactics for the game. Its funny that in modren warfare, we try to minimize "collateral damage" to towns. But when strandard infantry can fire missles/rockets can can KO/Immobilize/KIA or otherwise harm the tank and everything inside it, I find myself less willing to trade tit-for-tat fire. Instead I trun to my M1/MSG/Artillary to just level any building that has any inf inside it.

Who can blame you? Fifty-Cal fire seems like a ping-pong ball launcher when used against buildings. Also, I rarely get kills with small arms fire. The Stryker .50's can get kills against completely exposed infantry as long as you set it to "auto-hose" and go have dinner. After you get back, there is at least a good chance it might have wiped out the enemy squad....... </font>

[Sergei]

One shouldn't hurry when it's not necessary. When you're facing enemies in buildings and you have to choose between HMG's and Big Guns, you may be tempted to use the latter and get instant gratification. But MGS and Abrams have a low HE and HEAT count, so taking a few minutes longer with the enemy may be worth it in the long run. But if the situation is that your infantry has been ambushed, you will want to get rid of the enemy immediately.

Syrian tanks can deliver TNT more liberally.

[Mud]

On a related note...

In situations like the demo scenario, where the buildings aren't military or government installations or anything related -- but you have reason to believe that there's enemy presence in the area, and that these buildings might provide long LOS to enemy spotters -- at what point would an attack on the buildings be considered justifiable in reality?

For instance, should one wait until there's somebody actually spotted on the upper floors or roof, and when there's obvious enemy presence nearby (like an AFV or small-arms fire) so that any civilians are likely to have already found refuge elsewhere?

[MikeyD]

About .50 verus buildings, I did a bit of a test on that recently. I played hotseat (a very annoying way for one person to play. Tried to supress Syrian infantry unseen in a building (small arms flashes only) with small arms, then with .50 cal and 40mm fire. Viewing the turn from the Red side the small arm fire didn't phase 'em. Perhaps Blue infantry was too far away for 5.56 to penetrate the hvy building. 7.62 did a much better job of supressing, .50 cal and 40mm simply chewed up the infantry inside. Viewing this only from the Blue perspective I was unable to discern any effect.

[Xipe66]

Originally posted by Brent Pollock:

I think I'll take another kick at, but restrict Javelin use to a max of four, and only at buildings that are known to be occupied by more than one guy.

I'd actually like to see stuff like designated hospitals, deliberate human shield centres that will affect the points scored as to the scenario designer's will.

Let's say you want to do a Sniper's Alley ambush-type scenario, for political reasons US troops IRL can't just start levelling buildings as they see fit, so the designer has to be able to impose point punishments for severely damaging certain or all buildings (depending on the scenario setup).

Even when a 'conventional' assymetric war is going on during the invasion phase you're not politically going to get away with calling in heavy artillery on a hospital, even if the enemy is barricading there. That's why it's assymetrical.

[Cameroon]

You definitely can do so - in the editor you can designate terrain tiles as "Preserve".

Mark them so neither side knows where they are, and there you have it, buildings that you don't know you're not allowed to destroy.

Unfortunately you can't designate their destruction as negative points and their preservation as 0 points (which is what the scenario here would be IRL, basically).

[TheVulture]

Originally posted by Cameroon:

You definitely can do so - in the editor you can designate terrain tiles as "Preserve".

Mark them so neither side knows where they are, and there you have it, buildings that you don't know you're not allowed to destroy.

Unfortunately you can't designate their destruction as negative points and their preservation as 0 points (which is what the scenario here would be IRL, basically).

Is it possible to give positive points for keeping buildings intact, balanced out by a fixed sum of points for the other side (as per CMx1) which would have much the same effect. You'd have to tweak the values of other objectives to get the right behaviour no doubt, but it seems like it ought to be possible.

[Achim]

I am not a weapon expert, but whats the diffrent between Javlin hit and the buidling is destroyed and minutes of .50/40 mm supression fire?

I think with the .50 fire the building dont colapse, but u cant live in it.

The result is the same, nobody can live in that building after us troops leave the place.

[Bradley Dick]

I've seen an Iraqi mud hut,meaning one of those little flat roofed houses made of crap,wood,straw, and mud, take some serious punishment. It took sustained .50 cal API fire, M16, M240, AT4(we had to use them or turn them in), and even some 25mm fire. It was ugly. But what finally brought the house down was smashing the Bradley into it. Came down like a house of cards after that. I don't think the .50 or the 40mm have reconstruction power.