So, I'm surprised this hasn't been opened yet...

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[theFightingSeabee]

I've wondered how cmsf compares to a government simulator. I'm not sure that cmsf is detailed enough to test those things. Providing detailed hit reports would be the first step. I think it could be more useful in testing tactics.

[hoolaman]

Your posts can be very cryptic sometimes.

What is the question? Play a game of CMSF and you will see how these things interact. Infantry die a lot, but they don't have real world advantages in CMSF like prepared covered positions, tunnels etc. etc.

[dan/california]

The first thing the game has absolutely convinced me of is that The U.S. needs to build some IFVs on M1 chassis, lots of things kill Abrams, seems like everything out there kills Bradley's.

Secondly the Javelins fire and forget is absolutely required for Bradleys in high intensity combat situations. The project to do that should be restarted immediatly.

More generally I have just been shocked and amazed at how quickly even a 40 year old T55 can ruin an entire mechanized companies whole YEAR if it pops up in the correct position and you don't have any anti-tank pointed that way.

The basic tank vs infantry question come down to terrain. In good terrain, and in the absence of overwhelming artillery, infantry with modern toys are extremely expensive to dig out. With long lines of sight and enough mortar support they just vaporize.

If you want to simulate good overhead cover just don't give the other side very much artillery at all. it is the same effect on total artillery effectiveness.

If I was a battalion commander I would buy and give away cases of scotch in the pursuit of more mortar ammo. With targeting drones it has to be even more valuable.

I am very curious how artillery delivered smoke is going to change the balance in many situations.

[SgtMuhammed]

If anything it reaffirms the need for combined arms. With the speed and lethality of modern weapons you can't afford to make many mistakes because you may not have a lot of time to recover.

While CMSF is a good game it falls well short of being a truly accurate simulation of combat. The game is far too lethal and the player has far too much control. Cover and concealment do not work as they do in real life, nor do troops truly act as they would in reality. So while one can get general ideas of how systems and tactic perform, do not try to draw too fine a conclusion about anything you see.

(And yes, arty smoke is a wonderful thing. It is also easy to screw up and comes with its own problems.)

[dan/california]

The CO-Play feature, when ever it actually gets done will go long way to address at least the Command and Control issues. I expect lots of threads to the effect of " Thats not what I meant you &^*&*%*&%*%$##".

Hopefully continued engine improvements over time will bring some of the other issues more in line. I do think it gets across the basic nature of some of the tactical challenges on the modern battlefield, at least in a general way.

[Cpl Steiner]

One thing I think we have not had the opportunity to see so far is the importance of troops being inside Bradleys and the like in case of enemy artillery attack. The AI control of artillery was woefully inadequate up until now but with the Marines module patch allowing the AI to target the player's forces with artillery strikes just like normal weapons, I expect my men to be decimated by mortars a lot more if they dismount at the wrong time or in the wrong place.

[Battlefront.com]

Like all wargames, CM (past, present, and future) has its limitations as a simulation. We've had a large number of really great discussions of these limitations over the past 11 years, so I won't repeat them in detail. All I'll say is that the day we figure out how to have a battalion sized engagement with each individual player controlling no more than a single man is the day that CM will become a very accurate simulation. Well, as long as every bush, dip in the land, civilian, and other things are also simulated in equal detail

The biggest shortcomings in wargames (including CM) are basically:

1. Time compression - doing things quicker than in real life because more is known and more is certain.

2. No fear - if you're career, or life, aren't on the line... then you're definitely going to act differently.

3. Too much coordination - one real brain controlling many virtual ones means plans are far more optimized and less prone to failure proportional to the number of elements involved compared to real life. Ask any soldier and he'll tell you that he's amazed when he can get a few individuals to do things according to plan, not to mention a few hundred or thousand individuals!

4. Fidelity of simulated elements - abstraction of things like terrain are necessary for the program to run at all, wile abstraction of game elements are needed simply to make the programming viable. On top of that things which can be simulated, in detail, sometimes aren't because players won't like the ramifications on gameplay. Which means that the simulated environment will never, ever be able to be simulated to the extent necessary to allow all possibilities in real life to be played out in a virtual one.

CMx1 was a great step forward in terms of reducing many of these problems. CMx2 reduces them even further. But no wargame, probably not even in even our grandkids' lifetime, will be able to simulate real life warfare in a way that can be seen as truly "accurate". Which is why only a fool would put the bar that high

Steve

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