Combat Mission; Black Sea announced and open for pre-orders

NUTTERNAME

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Note: Black Sea uses Version 3 of the Combat Mission game engine. Consequently new features are focused on bringing our modern equipment up to date as opposed to general engine changes.
 

Redwolf

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Speaking of the engine, do you still need a PhD in action spot mechanics to get all your guys into cover that they would take in real life?
 

NUTTERNAME

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Speaking of the engine, do you still need a PhD in action spot mechanics to get all your guys into cover that they would take in real life?
You don't need a PhD in economics to know that Russia just has to turn the valves on the energy flow to Europe and its game over. Perhaps the game will have "doo-dads", like a pipeline with a valve on top. And a small shirtless Putin character turning the valve. From the looks of the game, it appears to be Spring-time or early summer. Hmmmm....

I suppose the 'back-story'' is, at this point, dynamic and subject to rewrites. Daily. I would propose the following...The Dutch Intel has found out that the homophobic Putin ordered the airliner (full of AIDS conference attendees) shot down. They secretly infect Putin's chimpanzee unit (he keeps a shaved, cigar-smoking monkey platoon in spetsnaz cammies at his house to drink with) with ebola (And crabs), as retaliation. Things spiral out of control and a Polar Vortex is ordered by a bunch of people with PhDs at "Climate Scientists without Borders". The vortex is aimed at Putin's hairless monkey-platoon, but it falls short and hits Europe instead. Soon, everyone is cold and wants Dutch Hot Cocoa. But Putin has used the last of his Rubles to buy up all the world's chocolate reserves. A side benefit is that all the Euro-trash teens doing porn don't have as many pimples on their asses. This infuriates the sick drunken monkeys and they get stupified on Hot Cocoa, Vodka and Kahlua and press the big red 'ATTACK' button while Putin is passed out. The rest of the story just writes itself, doesn't it?

One good thing about futuristic weapon's modeling. They don't have to worry about mismodeling things like they have done in WWII games. I just worry about the trees stopping the 1800 meter per second 125mm APFSDS rounds. If I were a drunken monkey, I would avoid those trees...
 

Redwolf

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Oh give me a break. Just getting the ranges realistic for ATGMs will be a major challenge in CMx2.

The problem is that ATGMs have a range of up to around 3.75 km without loss of accuracy (they are guided). So they like to shoot up tanks before any of the tank guns come into range.

In CMx2 the maps are so small that a modern tank can usually fire at anything, or at best might be missing some diagonal range. But that isn't exploitable by the ATGM carrying unit since they can't move while keeping it that way.

If you were to make the map big enough to fix this problem then nobody could see what the hell is going on, because CMx1's unit scaling for display purposes has been dropped.
 

NUTTERNAME

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Hellychoppers, flying nap-of-the-turf, can be modeled as off-board ATGM.
 

NUTTERNAME

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I think Battlefront should ship this CMBS in any state it is in. Given the current spiraling events, Russia might just have a big yard sale instead of an all out war. Battlefront should know by now that they can 'fix' things later. H'ray for NATO! H'ray for Ukrainistan!

I can hardly wait for the modules. Here is Steve consulting his Magic-Late-Ball....

View attachment 48209
 
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NUTTERNAME

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I've already asked Steve not to set any future war games in Northeastern Pa.
Yeah, I would be scared to deploy military units around there. Quite a large number of nuts in the woods. I would suggest a futuristic title pitting North Korea vs. SONY. I believe SONY is HQ'd around Tokyo. There could be features such as earthquakes, robots, music, Godzilla, sushi, etc.

In other breaking news, Redwolf has become famous...

http://community.battlefront.com/topic/117268-combat-ranges-for-tanks-in-black-sea-engagement-ranges/
 

Redwolf

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In most wargamers' mind realistic ranges are the ranges that their currently favorite game has in the most challenging (fun) scenarios. (ETA: years later when a new toy comes along doing things completely differently they praise it for being "even more realistic", and mix in some "making use of new hardware which wasn't possible before", as if that has something to do with turning Ukraine into a cage fight.)

Re: the comment about 2 km on the OF. That is *precisely* my point. 2 km is by far not enough to simulate the ATGM advantage because at that range tank main guns can fire back. The whole point is avoiding a fair fight.
 
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NUTTERNAME

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For most wargamers realistic ranges that happen on real battlefields are the ranges that their currently favorite game has in the most challenging scenarios.

2 km is my far not enough to simulate the ATGM advantage because at that range tank main guns can fire back. The whole point is avoiding a fair fight.
There are other parameters that factor into this. Vehicle speeds and weapon systems like helicopters make the battlefield environment/space a claustrophobic arena when using BF's "CMX2" constraints. The 'pants' are too small.

An Apache helicopter firing Hellfire missiles can reach out to 8Km. It can move at speeds that the game doesn't model. It's sensors and height ability and C3 tie-in would be a challenge for the CMX2 scale of modeling. Since the game models drones using the artillery system (ugh), will they model manned helicopters the same way?

I am not sure but will the game model the large hyperbaric weapons that the Soviets are pretty much leaders in developing? Maybe not the "father Of All Bombs" but certainly the rocket delivery systems?

Well, at this point, it is wait and see. Anyone want to take bets on when the demo for CMBS comes out?
 

Rocket-Man

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The scale and speed of modern warfare seem like an bad fit for the Combat Mission X2 engine. I know there was talk of being able to use the engine to simulate things from sticks and stones to space lobsters (if I remember correctly), but the current engine does not seem well fitted for engagements where the effective range of weapons can be 8,000 m (LAHAT​ for instance) or more and common weapons systems (Apache for instance) can move approximately 5,000 m in a single one minute turn and the map is limited to only about 5x3 km.
 

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The more I play other games with the same setting the more the tiny maps CM has seem preposterous. I've been playing a lot of Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm. The minimum amount of terrain needed for an engagement that isn't deep in the woods, inner city, or on absurdly mountainous terrain is something like 15 square kilometers. That is if you want to maneuver with the possibility of not being shot at, and even then 15 is cutting kinda close.

I'll probably end up buying Black Sea at some point and I will enjoy it to an extent, but it is disappointing.

I mean at this point the ranges on weapons are such that if you have cut a section of map out to show a company sized attack (as part of a battalion sized attack). The sister companies that are off the board edge would be able to fire on enemy targets pretty regularly.
 

Redwolf

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[resubmitting since I edited the post a lot]

In most wargamers' mind realistic ranges are the ranges that their currently favorite game has in the most challenging (fun) scenarios. Years later when a new toy comes along doing things completely differently they praise it for being "even more realistic", and mix in some "making use of new hardware which wasn't possible before", as if that has something to do with turning Ukraine into a cage fight.

Re: the comment about 2 km on the OF. That is precisely my point. 2 km is by far not enough to simulate the ATGM advantage because at that range tank main guns can fire back. The whole point is avoiding a fair fight.
 

wengart

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Going with something a little less futuristic would have been a better choice for them. Even 1980s would have been solid, although 1960s/early 70s would probably be best.

Sure you are going to be fighting on maps that are generally smaller than needed. However, the behind of scenes technology is still low key enough that they can adequately ignore it/abstract it away. With an update to an engine giving 8kmX8km maps you could even have some decent long range fights.

However, they decide to go with a very modern era where digital systems have become incredibly integrated with weapons systems. To the point that abstracting how they work is becoming a bit of an issue. Take laser range finders for a second. Currently the game handles any weapon with a laser on it as if the firing procedure is always: Find target - Laze target - engage target. Regardless of range.

Most vehicles now also have the capability to know when they are lazed. So you have very light vehicles (Stryker MGS for example) lazing a T-90 at close range. Ignoring that the T-90 has a laser warning device on board and that the Stryker crew could just fire their 105mm cannon over their visual sights and be quite sure of a 1 shot hit.

Edit: and while this is the first example of something like this occurring that I am aware of. It was very obviously show cased in ChrisND's twitch video. This is before the game is in the hands of players. So it brings up the question of just how accurately modern warfare is being modeled. To a point I am fine with digital systems being abstracted out or hard to understand (take FLIR modelling for example), however when the poor handling of these systems starts to impinge on the tactical flexibility and choices I have in a very direct way I get irked.
 
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Redwolf

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Yeah, anything after 1995 or so is out of control communications-wise. You could model it in a game like TacOps, but TacOps currently doesn't.

I don't understand why BFC took the Syria thing they did in the past and interpreted as a big enough success to repeat the whole process with current, real conflict in Ukraine. Apart from them obviously being very good to predict real long-lasting arm conflict that isn't good for anybody.

A "Cold War Hot" game would have been a different matter and would be oblivious to current events. Actually, no, I think with Russia becoming so aggressive I think that people would now play a "Fulda Gap" game with great interest. But simulating the slugfest in Ukraine? Meh.
 

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I am not sure if I buy into the drone modeling. Using the artillery system to control them? Seems hokey.
 

NUTTERNAME

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Have they been holding onto people's money for 3 months?
 
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