I Love NATO!

[Sakai007]

There, I just came out and said it, I love NATO, the module that is. I must say, that of the modules I own (Marines, NATO) and what I have read is included with Brit, NATO beats them in terms of content hands down. I am curious to know if future m!odules for all CM series games will have more on the NATO side of content? At any rate, the top rate work and attention to detail have put BF squarely back on my gaming radar and will be much more likely to purchase future products in the CM franchise. The Weisel is my favorite so far, reminds me of the Sdk 222 recon cars from WWII mounting the 20mm cannon, which may be my favorite unit from CM1. Again, really great job guys, can't wait for the next effort

[Boche]

Well NATO obviously gets the plus of years of CM patches and experience in scenario making! definatelly the best possible end product!

[Webwing]

I love it too!

-

[Rokossovski]

I agree, excellent addition to a first-class series.

(Oddly perhaps, my favorite addition is the Syrian trucks).

[Boche]

yeah there seems to be a definate truck fetish around CMSF! jaja

[DaveDash]

After waiting for what seemed an eternity for fricken paypal funds to clear, I finally managed to pick this up.

Interestingly enough, there is a good opportunity for some sort of "What If" modern WW2 missions/campaigns to come out of this.

I have just opened up the Canadian campaign to have a look, and it appears Paper Tiger has designed almost all the missions. MikeyD, who has handed my butt to me on several occasions, is in there also. I feel somewhat afraid....

[Apache]

Being snowed in here, and the Paradox boxed game arriving yesterday (thank God!!!), it seems a fine time to install, patch and then load up NATO!! Can't wait, demo scenario "Die Festung" was top notch, looking forward to accessing the complete range of kit. And I now know how to use Milans on Marders!!

[Thomm]

NATO loves you, too!

Best regards,

Thomm

[Paper Tiger]

It's funny how things turned out. I felt very sad when work was winding down on the Brit module because I had had so much fun with them. Being a Scot myself, and having authentic NE scottish accents in the game, "Save yer ammo!", made the experience far richer than it had ever been playing with US forces, or Syrian for that matter. I had almost no interest in the NATO module until I was invited to design the campaigns for the module.

Once I got into it, I grew to love them. In fact, my personal all-time CMSF favourite formation is the Gebirgsjager formation. Prior to that, it was the Brit Light Infantry formation and it's a close second. But those Gebirgsjagers are awesome.

BTW, I have a lot of love for the Marines as well. If I'm going to play US, I want to be a Marine And the Syrian Special Forces are fantastic fun to play with as well.

[DaveDash]

It's funny how things turned out. I felt very sad when work was winding down on the Brit module because I had had so much fun with them. Being a Scot myself, and having authentic NE scottish accents in the game, "Save yer ammo!", made the experience far richer than it had ever been playing with US forces, or Syrian for that matter. I had almost no interest in the NATO module until I was invited to design the campaigns for the module.

Once I got into it, I grew to love them. In fact, my personal all-time CMSF favourite formation is the Gebirgsjager formation. Prior to that, it was the Brit Light Infantry formation and it's a close second. But those Gebirgsjagers are awesome.

BTW, I have a lot of love for the Marines as well. If I'm going to play US, I want to be a Marine And the Syrian Special Forces are fantastic fun to play with as well.

Loving your missions so far in the Canadian campaign. A lot of the urban areas have that 'slum' feeling about them, and feel like real rabbit warrens. Extremely deadly to try and get around, almost like a maze. Mission 3 has a bit of a Blackhawk Down feel to it.

[Paper Tiger]

I thought that mission 4, 'HOPE', is one of the best in the Tall Tamir series. Nobody seems to have reported their experience with that one. I had the most fun designing and playtesting that particular mission.

[DaveDash]

Haven't got to that one yet. Will let you know shortly.

[DaveDash]

8 KIA 11 WIA Mission 03.

Found it difficult to gain fire superiority, and the AK is lethal in close quarters. Due to the civilian density, my troops couldn't spot the enemy until they were right on top of them, and one burst from the AK meant I was having a man incapacitated every firefight. An IED took out half of my engineer section, and enemy fires finished the rest off.

Onto Mission 04 now.

[DaveDash]

I thought that mission 4, 'HOPE', is one of the best in the Tall Tamir series. Nobody seems to have reported their experience with that one. I had the most fun designing and playtesting that particular mission.

So far, 30 minutes in, I would describe this mission as 'Stressful'. I imagine, if I finish, it will be 'Rewarding'.

I've almost cleared the starting town. The CMSF clock has gone down 30 minutes, but the real life clock has gone down about an hour and a half. EVERY move I make I have to examine the map carefully for ALL possible enemy fields of fire, doors, and so forth.

It's almost like having to solve a puzzle. There are so many overlapping enemy fields of fire to consider.

Also, I've got more Air and Arty in this mission that the entire Marines campaign, but I cannot use any of it because of the ROE. Ive done a few infantry passes over the various towns, but my choppers spot nothing.

[Erwin]

I have experimented with using both air and arty (up to 81mm anyhow) on LIGHT and PERSONNEL and I have found that using this munitions combo one can do many missions (a dozen or so) over urban areas which locate and take out enemy forces without losing points for damaging buildings.

Worst case scenario you may damage some buildings slightly and get fewer points - and that point don't do any more such missions. However, one is almost always penalized far more for not meeting the scenario's friendly and enemy casualty objectives.

One can also fire 25mm-30mm at a building USUALLY for up to a minute (sometimes more) without causing the sort of damage that will cost you points (your actual results may vary so do some testing).

[DaveDash]

Yeah, I'm pretty liberal with the usage of HE, and in particular light ammo on Fire Missions and Air. And also I agree preserving buildings is the furthermost down my list of priorities.

I'm also getting a little frustrated though with the ineffectiveness of HE and Artillery. Ive had fighters fire RPG-7's and hit my LAV's AS their position is being pounded by HE. Had one Fighter, in the open, take about 30 seconds worth of HE. Assuming he was dead, I ran a squad nearby and he mowed down two guys instantly.

[Paper Tiger]

Also, I've got more Air and Arty in this mission that the entire Marines campaign, but I cannot use any of it because of the ROE

Have a wee think about those ROEs and what you need to do to get a win. You can level every PRESERVE location and still win by eliminating the enemy forces as long as you keep your casualties down to a minimum. With all the PRESERVE points, that's 15%. With none of the PRESERVE points, it's about 7%. Bringing your boys home is your priority. You get brownie points for preserving civilian buildings but you lose VPs for destroying certain structures. So...

a) don't destroy those special structures. And

don't stress about the PRESERVE VP awards. Preserve your forces first.

BTW, the REDFor is really poor quality in this mission. Their best quality troops are in Waltoo and they need to be taken seriously. But even then, we're talking Conscript/Green max with Normal morale at best. Take Waltoo slowly. The Nasri defenders have numbers but... well, let's see how you get on.

[Perforator]

I'm really looking forward to getting the Nato module, I has a quick look at the demo mission and it looked very interesting.

[Erwin]

PT: Are the criteria for building damage the same for all scenarios or can they be varied?

ie: Will the system record a building as damaged at the same % of damage every time, or can the designer change that "sensitivity" so one can have the building register as "damaged" for points reduction purposes after (say) 10% damage or (say) 30% damage?

[ChrisND]

PT: Are the criteria for building damage the same for all scenarios or can they be varied?

ie: Will the system record a building as damaged at the same % of damage every time, or can the designer change that "sensitivity" so one can have the building register as "damaged" for points reduction purposes after (say) 10% damage or (say) 30% damage?

It's different in every scenario. In many of them (mine and PTs at least), you are told exactly how much each objective is worth. I don't think in any of them but one you will lose a mission solely from blowing up the wrong building. The only exception I can think of is the Jabal scenario, where significantly damaging the pesticide plant will pretty much guarantee a loss - for what I hope are obvious reasons.

[Paper Tiger]

The DESTROY parameter kicks in very quickly if it is solely a single tile building. You will lose 50% of the points for damaging the building and 100% if you reduce it to rubble. If it's a larger building or a block of them, then it gets harder and harder to lose those points. I tried to use the DESTROY objective more than PRESERVE when I was designing the Al Bab mission in the German campaign and painted while blocks. Then I leveled a few buildings with artillery and ceased fire and the RED side got nothing, even though several of the buildings were rubbled. I hadn't damaged enough of the block to lose 50% of the points. So, Destroy works well when it is a small building.

On the other hand PRESERVE gets lost very quickly. You can paint quite large city blocks with a single objective zone and then heavily damage a single building in that zone and lose 50% of the points. Rubble it and all the points are lost even though the rest are just fine.

I had hoped that it would work so that you lost points in proportion to the amount of damage that had been inflicted on the total number of buildings in the objective. But it's a 50% or 100% loss only.

Hope that helped and made sense. BTW, I'm not sure I should be posting just now as I have the flu and Indonesian medicine is unbelievably potent stuff. Plus I got up at 5:30 this morning to take photos of my wife's dancing competition... one of our neighbours is very rich and it's his birthday so he put on a show for us. You should have seen the singer... wow! I had to confine myself to photoing my wife only.

[DaveDash]

Also, I've got more Air and Arty in this mission that the entire Marines campaign, but I cannot use any of it because of the ROE

Have a wee think about those ROEs and what you need to do to get a win. You can level every PRESERVE location and still win by eliminating the enemy forces as long as you keep your casualties down to a minimum. With all the PRESERVE points, that's 15%. With none of the PRESERVE points, it's about 7%. Bringing your boys home is your priority. You get brownie points for preserving civilian buildings but you lose VPs for destroying certain structures. So...

a) don't destroy those special structures. And

don't stress about the PRESERVE VP awards. Preserve your forces first.

I've come to this conclusion pretty much. My troops > ROE.

BTW, the REDFor is really poor quality in this mission. Their best quality troops are in Waltoo and they need to be taken seriously. But even then, we're talking Conscript/Green max with Normal morale at best. Take Waltoo slowly. The Nasri defenders have numbers but... well, let's see how you get on.

Yes they're quite motivated little buggers in Waltoo. But its also your building/door placement that makes these missions extremely challenging. Good thing I have lots of smoke.

[DaveDash]

Tough mission Paper Tiger. Slow careful going, backed up with a generous amount of support assets, resulted in this:

I'm getting used to your missions now. Before I move anywhere, I get right down to the ground level and examine my avenue of approach. Definitely making me a better player.

[Paper Tiger]

Yikes. I think that's the best result I've ever seen for that mission. Iron skill level too, just like me. Congratulations.

[bodkin]

Tough mission Paper Tiger. Slow careful going, backed up with a generous amount of support assets, resulted in this:

I'm getting used to your missions now. Before I move anywhere, I get right down to the ground level and examine my avenue of approach. Definitely making me a better player.

How many save and reloads were involved?

I don't really care but I think missions - at least official ones - should come with some room for error, by that I mean if a plan dosen't work and you lose a few men an alternative done right to achive the objectives should get you a victory without having to save and reload, just my view of how the game should work and how I like playing it.