Nyala Passenger Display and other thoughts

[c3k]

The Nyala can hold up to eight passengers, but the interface only shows 4 of them. Is this the only vehicle which does NOT show all the passengers? If so, any chance of tweaking it so we can see them all when loaded?

Related to that, the dots used to show the crew/passenger capacity change around. If it has an 8 man section, all 8 dots are filled and grouped in a single 8-pack group. If I only load a half section, I get 2 groups of dots: the 4 forward crew dots filled, then a passenger set of 4 dots, empty. With 2 men, it's 2 crew dots, 6 empty passenger dots. Ditto on the dots with 1 guy; 1 up front, 7 passenger dots.

I have not studied the CM:SF implementation of crew and passenger dots. If a spot NEEDS to be occupied to operate a weapon, would it be better to separate it out with the driver's dot, and leave it that way? That would provide a visual clue to the player about a needed position.

Finally, it looks like there are firing ports in the windows. I thought I'd read that BMP firing ports could be utilized now (I may be misremembering); if so, could the Nyala firing ports be activated?

Nyala thoughts:

I've only used the Nyala in one scenario thus far. The lack of an inherent driver makes it tough to reposition or support the dismounts. I've been splitting off the 2 man antitank team from the section and using the 2 men to crew the Nyala. That allows it to reposition. Additionally, the second man seems to be required in order to use the weapon mounted up top. (I'd LOVE for a non-moving Nyala to allow the driver to operate the RWS, but I have no idea if the internal setup of the vehicle would allow that.)

Additionally, the ballistic protection seems very weak. Small arms fire penetrates and causes casualties. (Unknown enemy firing, but the sound contact seemed like an AK-47/74 (uncons).)

I think the Nyala is probably best suited for patrolling Ulster, not moving into enemy territory where the full panoply of modern weaponry may be in use.

Thoughts?

Ken

[Boche]

well the Nyala is been used in afghanistan as a patrolling vehicle, and to my knowledge has done well in stopping small arms and EIDs

true maybe "modern" weapons would do more damage, but im not liking that small arms fire thing...hmm nono

[c3k]

Again, not sure what was firing at my Nyalas. I had 8 men in them (a couple); they were receiveing single round hits from an unlocated location. A lot of ricochets, but knowing the scenario, the nearest enemy location was 300 meters away. Multiple light wounds occurred to the passengers. The Nyala cannot OPEN UP, so they were all (un)safely tucked inside.

[YankeeDog]

According to the literature, the Nyala's crew compartment armor protection supposedly meets STANAG Level 2, which means the armor should be proof at near point-blank range against a full caliber rifle/MG firing ball ammo (7.62x50 NATO or similar), and should also stop AP assault rifle rounds.

However, level 2 isn't enough to provide full protection against 7.62x50 AP rounds, or similar.

So it depends on what was shooting at you... But excepting lucky shots and/or degradation of the armor, if the manufacturer's claims are honest, and CMSF's modeling matches this, the Nyala's armor should be enough to protect passengers from the vast majority of personal firearms. One major exception which might apply to your situation is a sniper firing steel-core ammo -- I don't know what specific kind of ammunition CMSF models Red snipers as carrying, but it wouldn't surprise me if they carry higher quality ammo than plain-jane ball. And a sniper plinking holes in the ballistic plate fits very well with the "single shot" penetrations you describe.

[akd]

The Nyala can hold up to eight passengers, but the interface only shows 4 of them. Is this the only vehicle which does NOT show all the passengers? If so, any chance of tweaking it so we can see them all when loaded?

No, its not the only one. I believe this happens with any vehicle that doesn't require a dedicated crew. You may not have noticed because there just aren't that many that can hold a squad with multiple teams. Some examples of vehicles that can are the Brit closed-top landrovers, US LMTVs, and Dutch YPRs.

Related to that, the dots used to show the crew/passenger capacity change around. If it has an 8 man section, all 8 dots are filled and grouped in a single 8-pack group. If I only load a half section, I get 2 groups of dots: the 4 forward crew dots filled, then a passenger set of 4 dots, empty. With 2 men, it's 2 crew dots, 6 empty passenger dots. Ditto on the dots with 1 guy; 1 up front, 7 passenger dots.

Apparently a single unit loaded into an empty vehicle that does not require a dedicated crew cannot be considered both passengers and crew. For example, the LMTV starts out with 3 crew and 12 empty passengers slots. Remove the crew and load a US Army squad into the LMTV and it will show 9 crew and 6 empty passenger slots. Load 6 more men and it will show 9 filled crew slots and 6 filled passenger slots. But here is a niggle that I suspect has impacts on all vehicles of this type: remove the crew and separate a US MOUT squad into three three-man teams. Load one team into the vehicle to fill the 3 crew slots then load the other two teams in. Sometimes you will end up with a crewed vehicle and mounted 6-man team, i.e. you will have a truck icon with an infantry icon above and can dismount the 6-man team separately, and sometimes they will recombine into a 9-man squad once in the truck, i.e. the truck will appear as just a single infantry icon.

Seems the game has issues with deciding when to recombine (which is desirable in the back of an IFV) and when to leave a team separate that is serving as crew (which is desirable when you want to keep a vehicle weapon in the fight to support dismounts).

I have not studied the CM:SF implementation of crew and passenger dots. If a spot NEEDS to be occupied to operate a weapon, would it be better to separate it out with the driver's dot, and leave it that way? That would provide a visual clue to the player about a needed position.

Finally, it looks like there are firing ports in the windows. I thought I'd read that BMP firing ports could be utilized now (I may be misremembering); if so, could the Nyala firing ports be activated?

Nyala thoughts:

I've only used the Nyala in one scenario thus far. The lack of an inherent driver makes it tough to reposition or support the dismounts. I've been splitting off the 2 man antitank team from the section and using the 2 men to crew the Nyala. That allows it to reposition. Additionally, the second man seems to be required in order to use the weapon mounted up top. (I'd LOVE for a non-moving Nyala to allow the driver to operate the RWS, but I have no idea if the internal setup of the vehicle would allow that.)

Additionally, the ballistic protection seems very weak. Small arms fire penetrates and causes casualties. (Unknown enemy firing, but the sound contact seemed like an AK-47/74 (uncons).)

I think the Nyala is probably best suited for patrolling Ulster, not moving into enemy territory where the full panoply of modern weaponry may be in use.

Thoughts?

Ken

It does to a degree. For example, the weapons platoon Nyala's each have a driver and two sections aboard. Dismount the sections but leave the driver aboard and the vehicle will show one crew position filled, one crew position empty and 6 passengers positions empty. Knowing that the driver position is always filled first, you know you need at least one additional person aboard to crew the vehicle.

The anti-tank team workaround for the rifle section Nyalas doesn't work consistently, unfortunately. If done in the editor, sometimes (and this truly seems random) when you load the battle, you'll find the 6-man team listed as crew and the 2-man team as passengers, even though the 2-man team is still filling the driver and turret position, which will cause problems with dismounting. Not sure if this may also happen if done during the setup phase or during battle.

This also leaves the dismounted 6-man team very short on firepower and flexibility because:

1. It cannot be subdivided into two teams.

2. With the missing M203s and the anti-tank team taking the section's two LAWs, the dismounted team has zero HE firepower other than hand grenades. I tried to work around this by first having the complete section acquire the two SRAAW(M)s aboard the Nyala so that when the anti-tank team was split off, they would take the SRAAW(M)s and leave the 6-man team with the two LAWs. This works, but leads to another problem: The anti-tank team now shows as a crew-served weapon with two crew positions filled and two empty, and cannot crew the Nyala (they will board the Nyala and take the driver and gunner positions, but the Nyala will still show as dismounted until you load the 6-man team in, which will then fill six blue "crew positions" leaving two filled passenger positions.

Not sure what it would take to stop the crew/passengers flip-flopping, but an easy fix to part of the problem would be to replace the Nyala's 2 stored SRAAW(Ms) and 2 SRAAW(M) rounds with 4 LAWs that the section can acquire (and which won't be treated as crew-served weapons).

[c3k]

No, its not the only one. I believe this happens with any vehicle that doesn't require a dedicated crew. You may not have noticed because there just aren't that many that can hold a squad with multiple teams. Some examples of vehicles that can are the Brit closed-top landrovers, US LMTVs, and Dutch YPRs.

Apparently a single unit loaded into an empty vehicle that does not require a dedicated crew cannot be considered both passengers and crew. For example, the LMTV starts out with 3 crew and 12 empty passengers slots. Remove the crew and load a US Army squad into the LMTV and it will show 9 crew and 6 empty passenger slots. Load 6 more men and it will show 9 filled crew slots and 6 filled passenger slots. But here is a niggle that I suspect has impacts on all vehicles of this type: remove the crew and separate a US MOUT squad into three three-man teams. Load one team into the vehicle to fill the 3 crew slots then load the other two teams in. Sometimes you will end up with a crewed vehicle and mounted 6-man team, i.e. you will have a truck icon with an infantry icon above and can dismount the 6-man team separately, and sometimes they will recombine into a 9-man squad once in the truck, i.e. the truck will appear as just a single infantry icon.

.

akd,

Thank you for the above: I had not noticed this behavior.

As well, I have not yet seen or used any Nyala other than the 7.62 RWS equipped version.

Thanks,

Ken

Yankeedog; there were, indeed, several sniper teams about. None closer than 300 meters; the nearest was around 400 meters. Yellow WIA pretty much guaranteed after a minute or so of sitting in a Nyala while under single round fire. If that meets STANAG 2, well, that dovetails into my statement that the Nyala is more fit to patrol LA or Ulster rather than moving into a real combat zone.

[The_Capt]

akd,

...that dovetails into my statement that the Nyala is more fit to patrol LA or Ulster rather than moving into a real combat zone.

Gents,

The Nyala was actually originally a South African recce vehicle designed specifically to operate in heavily mined areas. It was not, nor ever will be designed as a Light Infantry platform.

The problem we ran into was "what does a Cdn TO&E look like for a fictional war in 2008?". What we have in Afghanistan is close and forms the foundation of the Independent BG. But even here the LAV III was never designed to be a close combat vehicle. It was actually a "peace support" vehicle bought in the 90s when we were suppose to be "keeping peace". That plan went out the window after 9/11 and we went with what we had...pretty much like Syria would go down as a hypothetical.

This makes for some really weird mixs in the Cdn TO&E. Hell we still have a mix of Leo 1s and 2s in theatre because we bought the new ones on the fly. We smoothed them out in the module as best we could but at some point the game designers just had to go with "best guess".

Back to the Nyala; when we began to talk Light Infantry, we dug around for current doctrine but it is currently weak (they are working on it) and relatively untested. You think the Nyala is fun, the doctrine actually sees the Light Infantry entirely in G-wagons. So we went with turret Nyalas (RWS the standard now in theatre) to reflect the very ad hoc nature of force generation that would accompany a Syria 2008 scenario.

So treat it as little better than a jeep and use accordingly in-game is my humble advice.

[c3k]

That's quite revealing on several levels!

First, I certainly don't want to be misunderstood: I am GLAD it's in game. I am trying to figure out HOW to use it and whether its in-game implementation could be a little more user-friendly without breaking stride with the other in-game vehicles.

Secondly, the game design perspective vis-a-vis how to simulate Canadian organization seems to be quite appropriate. Thank you for the insight.

Finally, I must say how Canada's defense appropriations reminds me of the fatuous approach used by England's infamous "ten year plans" of the '30's! In 1929, the basis of planning that no war would be fought for 10 years may have had a good basis (as long as it was done prior to September 1st of 1929!). As each successive year passed another 10 year no-war planning basis, Parliament got further and further from reality. England, and the rest of Europe, suffered accordingly.

Thanks for the replies.

Ken

[akd]

akd,

Thank you for the above: I had not noticed this behavior.

As well, I have not yet seen or used any Nyala other than the 7.62 RWS equipped version.

Thanks,

Ken

The manned-turrets with .50s appear at average to poor equipment settings, but be warned, the game currently thinks the manned-turret version is the RWS version, so you will still have 7.62 mg and such.

Also very glad it is in the game. Would be great to add RG-31s with the manned turret or a .50 RWS and different ammo load as an "excellent" equipment option for the independent supply platoons under the US SBCT or HBCT or the truck platoon under the IBCT under the US IBCT in the editor.

[Erwin]

"Canada's defense appropriations reminds me of the fatuous approach used by England's infamous "ten year plans" of the '30's! In 1929..." Looks like UK is going the same way.

[c3k]

Gents,

The Nyala was actually originally a South African recce vehicle designed specifically to operate in heavily mined areas. It was not, nor ever will be designed as a Light Infantry platform.

Hmmm, I think it's time to fire up a minefield test. I wonder if it is modelled differently than other wheeled vehicles regarding mine resistance? I'd think trucks, armored and not, Hummers, again armored and not, and the plethora of wheeled British vehicles BF.C has liberally dosed us with would all make for interesting comparisons. Fully loaded with passengers for all tests, of course.

I'm curious, but running short on time due to real life. I'll run some experiments and post them in a week or so.

Thanks again for all the great information and perspectives shared thus far.

Ken

[The_Capt]

...Thanks again for all the great information and perspectives shared thus far.

Ken

My pleasure. I have to say that I was pretty happy to get a chance to put help with the cdn input in the game. A big thank you to BFC for including us as part of the NATO mod.

I have to admit that in CMx1 we were a little boring...hell probably because from a wargaming perspective we were in WWII...very British-like.

In this round we had a chance to capture some of the very real quirks, complete with all of their strengths and weaknesses that we deal with in modern operations. I hope everyone has a lot of fun and finds it challenging to play the Canadians because it sure as hell is in real life