Is anyone having problems adapting to modern Warfare?

[Juergen2SSDR]

I have been reading alot of the threads lately, alot of really good posts out there. I thinks some people are having problems coping with modern warfare vs CMBx1.

In CMBx1 battles were fought with accuaracy from about 500-1000m. The anti tank weapons were fairly accurate, but took many hits sometimes, and the range was poor maybe 50-100m. Anti tank rifles were usually only effective against APC and other armored cars.

Modern combat things are really fast so you have to think alot more. Any deffilade could be an enemy position, its almost imposible to see trenches unless you scan the entire map (Airial Recon) The enemy could be anywhere and can kill you from long distances, over 2000m easy. Some ATGM have ranges of up to 6000m and are effective against the heaviest of Armor. So some maybe having issues adapting to lots of firepower and range issues.

Urban warfare is about the same, the weapons are more accuarate and deadly but if you dont follow some golden rules in which people like "The_Capt" have showed you, you will be cut down with no problem.

Some things I have learned in playing this vs CMBx1 is suppression!

Buildings need to be suppressed if your moving troops up, suppress all buildings if you can, or at least the obvious ones that could pose a threat. You usually have a few vehicles, so I use light Target and possibly keep the enemy down if they are there. Deffilades, and crests of hills are ideal for the enemy with ATGM.

Anyways not to go off here, but I have seen posts where people are really frustrated with modern combat. Combat is now, fast, furious, and very unforgiving. If you make a bad move, dont plan ahead, or do not use suppressing fire, or suppressing artillery either from ground or air assets you will have a lot of casualties. Go in and lay waste... we can always rebuild.. hell we have rebuilt pretty much every nation we have attacked.

Semper fi

Juergen

[thelmia]

CMSF is strange because the pace is slow but the combat itself is fast and decisive. Bad decisions are punished so fast that you can't change your mind. It may take a minute to move up a road but it only takes a second for a RPG to kill your Stryker.

It's all about being careful and deliberate. Even in RT mode it's NOT a click- fest RTS. You are rewarded for making good decisions rather than quick ones.

I blow the hell out of anything that looks like a good place for the enemy to be.

[jhdeerslayer]

It is a whole different ball game now and does take some adjusting from CMx1. It's a new and good challenge though. I just need to remember to go slow.... Rushing seems to get you dead in a real hurry.

[Sixxkiller]

oops

[Sixxkiller]

Originally posted by Sixxkiller:

I think the ranges on the battlefield of modern combat are modeled pretty good by CMSF. These weapons being fired at you hurt, especially the Kornet. Just so many options on both sides now to ruin your mission. It adds to the replay value and gives you are good deal of immersion. Maybe not as cool as when you first saw CMBO, but I remember back then most of us thought heaven was located in New England when the demo came out.

Moon sent us a manual one day. Every page had one sentence on it. Must have took him 10 minutes to hit copy and paste + enter. It said IIRC...

CMSF IS NOT CMBO

CMSF IS NOT CMBO

CMSF IS NOT CMBO

CMSF IS NOT CMBO

CMSF IS NOT CMBO.... for 80+ pages.

[Sgt Joch]

Moon sent us a manual one day. Every page had one sentence on it. Must have took him 10 minutes to hit copy and paste + enter. It said IIRC...

CMSF IS NOT CMBO

CMSF IS NOT CMBO

CMSF IS NOT CMBO

CMSF IS NOT CMBO

CMSF IS NOT CMBO.... for 80+ pages.

sounds like The Shining , those boys need to get some fresh air more often...

[rogue187]

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. The advantage with WWII is that we can easily go back and see how the battles were fought, and apply the lesons learned. Even the 1 min turns worked very well with the pace of WWII equipment. Not everyone rode into battle and your tanks didn't go 40 mph over rough terrain. Also you knew what to expect. A Sherman will never kill a Tiger from the front at 1 KM, but the Tiger can kill a Sherman from that range. With todays tanks, a lot of the armor is still classified and destroyed tanks are kept quiet. If BF has a fairly accuarate representation of the Abrams, I am very shocked to see how fragile that tank is. The one thing I notice with CMSF is just how lethal modren weapons have become. While MGs will not do much to armor, any type of ATGM or tank main gun fire will not only K/O the vechicle, but will just about kill everyone inside. I have certainly found this a difficult adjustment.

[PrezCartman]

Well look at it this way between WW2 and today countries have had 60+ years to improve the lethality of the weapons. I would say that the lethality is probably relatively accurate, a true modern combined arms battlefield is a very dangerous place. As for the weakness of modern armor relative to the weapons systems shooting them keep in mind that throughout history it has always been a lot easier and cheaper to break armor than to build it to withstand attack whether it be swords and arrows or Javelins and AT-14s. Don't treat the Abrams like a King Tiger of WW2 able to just sit on a perch and rain down fire on the enemy nearly impervious to return fire and you'll do ok. The US has not fought a war of this type and scale yet and hopefully we never will, but an invasion of Syria with the types of units listed would not be like the first Gulf War, the US would sustain serious casualty levels because people do learn. Part of Saddam's folly was most of his anti-tank defense was other tanks, which is fine if your opponent doesn't have the most effective air force in the world. If the Iraqis had had a few hundred ATGMs and used them effectively the idea of the Abrams invincibility would've been tempered to some extent I'm sure.

['Card]

The primary element that makes the CM games different from other wargames is that they make a serious effort to model weapon ranges accurately. As far as tactical application is concerned, the main factor that distinguishes CMx1 from CMx2 is that effective weapon ranges are a hell of a lot longer in 2007 than they were 40+ years ago.

I honestly think that's the hardest adjustment for many of us to make. Many of the weapons in CM:SF can comfortably kill bad guys at ranges that the maps (as large as they are) simply aren't capable of displaying.

If there's one lesson we should learn from this game, it's that all of the technological and C3 advantages that the US forces have really only give them a decisive edge when the battle is fought at arm's length. Once you get to knife-fighting distance all the high-tech toys don't help all that much.

As for the fragility of the M1 Abrams... keep in mind that it's a Main Battle Tank that was designed specifically to stop the Soviets dead in the Fulda Gap. It's the King of the World when the range-to-target is measured in kilometers, but a lowly T-55 can kill anything, including an M1, if it's so close you could hit it with a well-thrown rock.

That's why you'll notice that in the toughest and most well-designed scenarios, the designers force the Blue team to close the distance before they engage the Syrian armor. If the Syrians can force the US team to give up their range advantage, then all bets are off.

[winkelried]

see also this article on Tough lessons for Israeli armour . Some ATGM can give MBTs a really hard time. And this is nothing really new. It depends just on the way the defender fights his war.

[ October 13, 2007, 12:35 PM: Message edited by: winkelried ]

[Michael Withstand]

Originally posted by winkelried:

see also this article on Tough lessons for Israeli armour . Some ATGM can give MBTs a really hard time. ...

Tell me about it. Those Metis and Kornet are the cheapest means to dispose off million dollar sophisticated tanks. Some major disappointment on the Israeli part for sure.

[Pandur]

hehe, i have no real problems, but some things in i wonder about.

1st; shooting out of windows with a tripod mounted MG was much more easier in WW2 it seems.

2nd; ranges of suppresing fire are somehow strangely shrinked in tha last 60 years.

where we could suppress with tripod mounted MG´s up to 1000meters 60 years ago, today its hard to get em shoot out further than 300m especially for the manportable MG´s.

i dont say that they cant do it but they just dont do it

my expirience at least.

[13]

Hell, today's army qualification standards require you to engage targets from 400m-900m, with a M249, or 240B, bipod.

I guess the main reason it might not be modeled is target recognition. at 400m, with civilian population, it can be difficult to see who's who. Friendly fire, civi casualties, etc.

[Cadmium77]

I've mentioned the SPI wargame Firefight here before; it's worth purchasing just to get Dunnigan's essay it contains on modern warfare. The Battle of Chinese Farm in the Sinai peninsula during the Yom Kippur War is the paradigm for modern tank warfare, and the lesson learned there is the fragility and perhaps the obsolescence of armoured vehicles before the power of cheap hand held anti tank weapons.

[Meach]

Is anyone having trouble adapting to modern combat?

ummm...In my unprofessional opinion I would say yeah...the dead guys

[Treeburst155]

No problems adjusting to modern combat here. My problem is adjusting to the fact that "CMSF is NOT CMBO". Boy, ain't that the truth!

[michaelangelo]

The Abrams seem too fragile to me, based on first-hand accounts in the current action against Iraqi forces. 'Thunder Run - The Armored Strike To Capture Baghdad', by David Zucchino, for example provides account after account where the Abrams takes RPG after RPG at fairly close range without major damage (unless the hit is directly in the rear vents - a known vulnerability). Those 70-ton beasts can dish out and take a major pounding and keep on ticking.

That said, the actual accounts of recent action in the Iraq war demonstrate that US forces opt for overwhelming force in the face of adversity whenever possible.

[DaveDash]

I don't know about your Abrams, but mine are nigh invincible (1.04) front on.

ATGMs are a different story. The vast majority of old RPG hits (such as the RPG-7 used in Iraq) are going to do diddly squat against an Abram, but RPGS are not ATGMs.

If anything, it seems Strykers and Bradleys are too weak against RPGs, particulary the crew survivability. When was the last time you heard of an entire squad being wiped out when a Stryker or Bradley was hit by an RPG or let alone a IED?

The U.S. designs its vehicles with survivability in mind. Anything that gets hit in CMSF and your unit inside is basically toast.

[SgtMuhammed]

I think a lot of adjustment comes from the paradoxical realization that you have to slow way down to succeed in the faster paced modern environment. You have to be much more careful about routes and cover and much more decisive in your movements. Where a mistake in WWII would get you shot at, a mistake in modern combat will get you shot.

As far as the effects of AT rounds, they are way overmodelled in the game. I think their is a connection in the program between blast and penetration effect where both have to be high or low. HEAT rounds should have high penetration but a relatively lower blast when compared to HE of the same calibur. You should not be able to take down a building with a Javelin, unless it is a tin shack.

[SgtMuhammed]

Here's little example of blast overmodelling.

In a recent fight, I had several squads in buildings backed up by a Brad. A T62 hit the Brad with a HEAT and roughly half the soldiers died along with the Brad. 1 squad was in a 1 story building with another building in between it and the Bradley. They lost 2 guys. Two other squads were on the roof of a 2 story building next to the Brad. One squad lost 7 guys and the other lost 3. This is just unrealistic. Even a 152 round hitting the Brad wouldn't have had that much of an effect.