C2 question.

[Jonny(FGM)]

I've designed a scenario which has elements of a light british infantry company.

The CO HQ is on map at the start of the game and there are no assets from outside of the CO but within the battalion. During the game the CO HQ seems to randomly lose contact with the battalion and as such the rest of the CO lost contact too.

My questions are as such

1. Is this supposed to happen?

2. What affect does it have on gameplay if the CO is out of contact with the battalion but there are no other assets from the battalion on map?

[Jonny(FGM)]

Shameless bump, does no one know?

[Thomm]

1. If I understood your question correctly, I think this is how it is supposed to work.

2. In this case I think the only affected variable is off-map arty and air response times.

Best regards,

Thomm

[Thomm]

By the way: The battalion HQ is on map in your scenario, is it not?

Best regards,

Thomm

[Jonny(FGM)]

Thanks for the answer Thomm. The CO HQ is the highest ranking officer on the map, i've attatched a screenshot of the blue purchase screen if that makes things clearer.

[Thomm]

During the game the CO HQ seems to randomly lose contact with the battalion ...

Okay, that is pretty interesting behavior then. I am afraid that I do not know what controls the connection between a CO HQ and an off-map battalion HQ.

Best regards,

Thomm

[Ryujin]

Might have something to do with the comms gear? Your dismounted COY HQ might have a chance of forgetting to bring fresh batteries or something? The fact the BN HQ is offmap might be compounding the comms issue?

It'd be interesting to see if there's anything going on under the hood like that...

Also I doubt it'd have a major effect on your troops, as the entire COY still has comms, I'd bet there's a negligible moral hit or something.

[Jonny(FGM)]

Yes the radio symbol in the C2 panel dissapears for the CO HQ when the link to Bn HQ is lost.

I've noticed several strange C2 behaviours with the British Forces such as Mech/Armoured Squads not taking any C2 equipment (Radio, that other fancy thing they have) with them when they dismount.

[roadiemullet]

maybe the radio equipment is either attached to the vehicle its in or is an inconvenient size and isn't prioritised when everyone jumps out.

In SNIPER ONE Im sure there are at least two occasions where the vehicles get hit (one a snatch and the other a warrior i think) where as everyone jumps out they forget to take the radio. In fact if i remember correctly there is a bit where Sgt Mills (the guy who wrote the book) has to leg it back into the fire to the snatch they were just getting shot up in, to retrieve the command radio. Maybe this has all been programmed into CMSF.

Then again maybe we're all giving it far to much credit and maybe its just a bug.

[Ryujin]

I don't *think* it's a bug (it would be a bit of an odd bug, removing and restoring contact). On the other hand it's not very consistent, I only saw it a couple times.

One thing to note is that you only see the icons for the comms gear in use to communicate with the next echelon up. If they're 5ft away from the next guy up, you probably won't see the radio icon. They don't lose gear unless someone is hit, but I don't know if it can fail or such (if the radio has a failure chance or such, I hear the satellite comms like blue force tracker are much more reliable).

In Johnny's example the COY HQ seems to have both the radio and a hand held blue force tracker (I say that since their landrover keeps comms with the COY HQ via the big BFT mounted in the vehicle). They don't always seem to use the radio, mostly just the BFT, but they do when they're out sight on iron.

What's interesting is the land rover loses radio comms with the COY HQ when they run somewhere (not if they walk). I don't know how often the game checks to see if they have comms with the BN HQ, but if it checked rarely and they happened to check while they were moving they would lose comms? The system already seems a bit deeper than expected, no using the big radio while running is an interesting detail.

What difficulty are you playing on Johnny?

[Jonny(FGM)]

The last time i played through this scenario it was WEGO on veteran.

The CO HQ was allways dismounted from their landrover, and on the 3rd storey of a 3 storey building. When they lost comms with the bn HQ the entire C2 panel went blank, when they were in comms the BFT was never in the C2 panel, just the radio.

The more i think about this the more i keep finding strange things. When playing through the task force panther campaign, on the first mission one of the Plt HQ units lost their commander, i got the rest of the unit to give buddy aid to the commander but they didn't recover either the radio or the BFT and were out of command for the rest of the battle, and the next battle aswell

[stikkypixie]

Yes the radio symbol in the C2 panel dissapears for the CO HQ when the link to Bn HQ is lost.

I've noticed several strange C2 behaviours with the British Forces such as Mech/Armoured Squads not taking any C2 equipment (Radio, that other fancy thing they have) with them when they dismount.

Do you lose contact only when the CO HQ is moving or also when the unit is stationary.

[Jonny(FGM)]

The CO HQ didn't move for the entire battle, well he stayed on the same floor of the same building, he may well have shifted about within the floor of that building as his facing changed but no he didn't move locations. I'm pretty sure it happened when he was just sat in a chair having a cup of tea as he watched his platoons sweep over the broken fields

[Ryujin]

The last time i played through this scenario it was WEGO on veteran.

The CO HQ was allways dismounted from their landrover, and on the 3rd storey of a 3 storey building. When they lost comms with the bn HQ the entire C2 panel went blank, when they were in comms the BFT was never in the C2 panel, just the radio.

The more i think about this the more i keep finding strange things. When playing through the task force panther campaign, on the first mission one of the Plt HQ units lost their commander, i got the rest of the unit to give buddy aid to the commander but they didn't recover either the radio or the BFT and were out of command for the rest of the battle, and the next battle aswell

The COY HQ only seems to use the radio to contact BN HQ, however, other units are in contact with the CO HQ via BFTs. So obviously they have one, but only use it to communicate with lower units, which is why you never see it. You'd think they'd use it with the BN HQ too.

The PLT HQ bit is odd though, the PL doesn't carry the radio, so as long as the radioman is fine you should have still had comms. I don't know if they'd recover the BFT or such, but you should have still had the radio (unless it was one of those bradley platoons or something, in which case the one man PLT HQ never had a "big" radio to start with AFAIK. Pretty much everyone should have had smaller radios of some kind though.

[Jonny(FGM)]

I believe the troops in the task force panther campaign were the MOUT stryker troops (squads of 9 men split into 3 fire teams). I can't remember the size of the plt HQ in that game, I have save games so i'll take a look. I'm pretty sure the commander was the only one to have bought it.

Does equipment quality affect the C2 equipment? perhaps they never had a radio in the first place?