Erik Springelkamp Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 For the final bugfix release. Allied squads generally have radio's at the squad level, but not at the team level. I am not sure about the overall situation, but I have always seen TV footage in Afghanistan where even individual soldiers have voice communication equipment. At the moment in split sections only the A teams have C2 over radio (or some other electronic device). I have often sent a MG team to a favourable place to provide some long range support fire, and then discovered that they do very bad at spotting, because they are out of C2. Even placing them in the middle of an ordinary squad that has C2 doesn't improve their spotting. I can't imagine that in real life they wouldn't have some gadget to communicate with their platoon. I read about Dutch soldiers who 10 years ago privately bought communication equipment on the consumer market, because the army itself was still gathering in political committees to consider buying an official system. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gibsonm Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 Sure but most of those "personal radios" are just that. They are intended for short range (realistically say < 1,000m) and talking within the team / squad / section. They aren't used for calling in arty, etc. and in your example depending on what distance exactly "long range support fire" actually is they may still be unable to talk to the rest of the Squad / Platoon. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erik Springelkamp Posted April 25, 2011 Author Share Posted April 25, 2011 Sure but most of those "personal radios" are just that. They are intended for short range (realistically say < 1,000m) and talking within the team / squad / section. They aren't used for calling in arty, etc. and in your example depending on what distance exactly "long range support fire" actually is they may still be unable to talk to the rest of the Squad / Platoon. In my CMSF battles that 'long range fire support' has always been less than 1000 metres. I probably just meant an overwatch position. A small local network would still allow the exchange of vital information, wouldn't it? It just seems weird to me that a MG team would not be in communication. Even when it is together with the team that does have the 'real' radio. But you are the expert. If you say that it really is common to be out of C2 in those situations, then there is no bug, of course. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gibsonm Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 Absolutely but if your fire spt is located (I'm not talking about where they are shooting at, but where they are located on the ground) more than 500m away from where you are then I suggest it should come from someone else (another Squad or Platoon) and be linked into their radios. Asking a CPL (or SGT in US Squads) to control guys spread over a frontage of 500m is a bit much - when normally that's done via field signals / yelling, etc. (or indeed PNR [Personal Net Radio] if they work, batteries aren't flat, etc.). Mounted operations let you spread out as you have the vehicle radios then, but pure "leg" infantry (note I'm not talking about SF guys with all the special kit and extra trg [or other people well away from the "norm"], etc. but "normal" Infantry) remains a pretty close knit setup. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erik Springelkamp Posted April 25, 2011 Author Share Posted April 25, 2011 So, now I have a company, with 3 infantry platoons and a weapons platoon with 4 MMG teams and a HQ. I often designated the MMG teams to different support positions to assist some of the platoons' actions. Now the weapons' HQ can only be at one of those positions, and at the other position my B-team is out of C2. Is it unusual to split the weapons platoon, and should I put all four MMG sections roughly at the same spot? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gibsonm Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 Well if you are talking about "weapons platoon" you're already talking about "specialists" so the standard "rules" may not apply. I'm not a Yank but in our Infantry Company we have a "Support Section" which does a similar role. They site their MGs or anti armour weapons in pairs for mutual support, etc. I don't know how a US Weapons PL works (whether they stay together of if individual weapons can be split off and placed under command of a given Rifle PL). This is one of the "flaws" of CM:SF as it gives you all this stuff and no real guidance on what to do with it. But guidance doesn't really matter as you the player can put things wherever you want anyway. The "problem" tends to be that the units in the game have only their real world equipment and perhaps not the gear to do what you want with them. Personally I suspect a weapons PL would be sited a bit like our Support Section but perhaps its big enough to provide two discrete fire support positions (or in US terms "base of fire") with 2 x MMG per position firing to support the Company's move. I don't think it would be realistic to have four individual teams split up all over the place and then complain that they can't talk to each other. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erik Springelkamp Posted April 25, 2011 Author Share Posted April 25, 2011 Interesting differences in CMSF between different nationalities, when you look at it close up. British AT platoon(?) consists three vehicles, a HQ, and two javelin sections(?) each consisting of two teams. The individual javelin teams don't have a radio, so when they are outside the range of their HQ, they are out of C2. And I always divided the unit up into 4 different teams, distributing them among the company so I would have some AT protection everywhere. This however produces a very bad C2 situation for the teams. Now a Dutch AT platoon, consists of six Fenneks, a HQ team, an XO team (both have Gill launchers themselves, so they can contribute to the firepower), and 4 teams with a Gill launcher. Each team has a portable radio, so you can divide them up among the whole company, giving you essentially 6 independent AT teams, and they are all in command. Now take a look at infantry sections, British and Dutch. They all have portable radios, so they can take up rather isolated positions and still be in command, but when you split such an isolated section into two fire teams (to occupy two adjacent rooms in a building for instance), the B-team loses C2, even if it is right next to its A-team. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erik Springelkamp Posted April 25, 2011 Author Share Posted April 25, 2011 Now take a look at infantry sections, British and Dutch. They all have portable radios, so they can take up rather isolated positions and still be in command, but when you split such an isolated section into two fire teams (to occupy two adjacent rooms in a building for instance), the B-team loses C2, even if it is right next to its A-team. Actually, that is not correct. The Dutch fire-team B does have a radio of its own and is in command when otherwise isolated from its platoon HQ. But a British fire-team B does behave like I described it above. I wonder if this mirrors the real world, or that it is the consequence of the bugfix for Dutch units missing all their radio's in the original NATO release. The US Stryker squad behaves like the British section: when split into teams, only the A-team is in command, when the HQ is out of range, the B- and C-teams are out of command. I can't imagine that the Dutch army has a C2 system superior to the British and US army, so I think that patch has something to do with it. In that case I think a request for a bugfix to upgrade the US and British C2 system to the current Dutch system would be a good thing. (and similar for the other armies). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roadiemullet Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 Yeah the Brit teams should not be losing C2 as they can at the very least still communicate with their fire team commander. According to the army's website (British army that is) Personal Role Radio Soldier wearing personal role radio The Personal Role Radio (PRR) is a small transmitter-receiver that allows infantry soldiers to communicate over short distances. Effective even through thick cover or the walls of buildings, PRR enables section commanders to react quickly, aggressively and efficiently to rapidly changing situations, including contact with the enemy, greatly increasing the effectiveness of infantry fire teams. PRR is issued to every member of an eight-strong infantry section. http://www.army.mod.uk/equipment/personal/1454.aspx Its only 500m range apparently but nonetheless this is within the operational range of cmsf so falling out of C2 seems a bit extreme for a bunch of guys in the same building. If they make this change then it would be cool to see the Syrians get an optional equivalent to even things up (well imo it would anyways) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roadiemullet Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 Check this out.. its only 2 pages long. Its the company that makes the PRRs for the BA: http://www.selex-comms.co.uk/selex/pdf/prr.pdf Just a some technical trivia etc along with usage and it even has a cool picture of a soldier wearing the PRR! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roadiemullet Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 on a side note, does anyone else think that the brit uniforms look slightly wrong? It looks like their shirts/coats (Im sure there will be some technical military designation) are too long.. it seems to overhang out the back of the body armour but I dont recall seeing any troops with that style of uniform... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roadiemullet Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 Edit: Ignore that last post. Since writing it I have spent all evening trying to create a mod for it but have come up with some problems and started a thread in the modders forum: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=96049 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.