Combat Mission: Shock Force
FAQ
stikkypixie and hcrof
Introduction Combat Mission: Shock Force (CMSF for short) has a very steep learning curve - almost a learning cliff! Having said that, once you get into the game you will not find a better simulation or more rewarding game anywhere else. This FAQ aims to provide you with the information you need to get playing as fast as possible – whether you are a returning Combat Mission player or a complete beginner. It is broken down into three sections, a FAQ at the start that will help break down the initial barriers to playing the game, a 'what has changed' section for returning CMx1 players and a glossary of military jargon and acronyms at the end. This will give you some basic tips to keep your troops alive long enough to really get a grip on the game. We won't go into any tactics, half the fun of the game is figuring them out yourself! This FAQ is not exhaustive – it is definitely a good idea to read the game manual is as it explains much of the game. Also, it is probably good idea to have Wikipedia open in your first couple of games. If you come across a new piece of equipment that you don't know about, hit Alt-Tab and look it up! Finally, the forums are a great place to go for more information on the game. If there are any questions you have that are not in the FAQ then ask there. The community is really friendly and the developers even browse the forums to answer any questions the regular guys can't – heck, that's where we got most of our information! If you spot any errors or have any suggestions feel free to contact us via private message or e mail and we will get back to you!
Contents 1. The FAQ What is 'splitting squads'? How come I can't split my squads? How do I reform my squad after splitting? How do I start a play be e mail (PBEM) game? I don't like the default keyboard input scheme/where is the right mouse click pop-up screen? Where is the LOS tool? What is buddy aid? Can I start fires like in CMx1? Are rivers/seas/water and bridges in the game? Help, my soldiers are disappearing from the battlefield! Are there command delays? Are mortars included in the game? How do I order my units to move in formation? How do I select several units? How can I stack orders? Are the limited elevations of tank guns modeled in the game? Help the explosions on the screen don't sync up with the sound? Does ambient light affect the vision of my units? Is friendly fire included in the game? Shouldn't the amount of tracers be toned down/How can all units fire tracers? Do vehicles block LOS or LOF? How do I take a screenshot? What is C2 and relative spotting? What is special equipment and how has it changed from CMx1? What is the 'bug out' feature? Can individual systems on vehicles be destroyed?
2. What has changed since CMx1? Real-Time!? 1:1 modelling (or something close to it) Burning the flag!
3. Military Jargon
The FAQ What is 'splitting squads'? Some squads are divided into two or more fireteams. Splitting the squad allows the fire teams to move and shoot separately at the expense of some unit cohesion and firepower. How come I can't split my squads? There can be several reasons for this, depending on the situation. If you're playing as the US Army (or any of their allies), then your squad has probably sustained too many casualties. If you're playing as the Syrian army, you just can't due to Syrian small unit doctrine. Special Forces and Airborne units can however split in smaller teams (headcount permitting of course). How do I reform my squad after splitting? Splitting squads allows for more tactical flexibility
Just move them close to each other and wait. How do I start a play by email game (PBEM) game? • • • • • • •
Start a game and choose '2 players - Email'. The game will then prompt you for a password. Enter a password and click OK. After that you will return to main screen of the game (don't worry this is normal). Go to the 'outgoing email' folder where you installed CMSF, select the newly created PBEM file (e.g. newgame001.ema) and send it to your opponent. Tell your opponent to put the file in his/her 'incoming email' folder. Tell your opponent to click 'saved game' in the main screen of CMSF and load the file you sent to him/her. Then he/she will be prompted to enter a password. A new PBEM file will be created in his or her 'outgoing mail' folder (e.g. newgame002.ema) which has to be sent back to you. Wash, rinse, lather and repeat.
Windows Vista users beware! Sometimes the game saves the files in an other location on your hard disk. If you can't find the PBEM files try looking here: C:\UserName\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Battlefront\Combat Mission Shock Force\ Game Files\Outgoing Email\ You might have to change the directory and the UserName to match the way your computer is set up.
I don't like the default keyboard input scheme/where is the right mouse click pop-up screen? If you don't like using the default input scheme (where the same key corresponds to different commands depending on which command tab is activated) you can either modify your hotkeys.txt file in your data folder or use the space bar to show the pop-up screen with all the commands. An altered hotkeys.txt file can be found here http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=84362. Note that to cancel a fire order you can simply press the delete button. Where is the LOS tool? There isn't an line of sight (LOS) tool. Use the target command. Some vehicles such as M707 Scout Humvee don't have weapons so you can't use the target command (which sucks). In that case, move the camera behind the vehicle, zoom in and eye-ball it.
Soldier performing buddy aid What is buddy aid? Buddy aid is the name CMSF uses for first aid given to injured soldiers. To give buddy to injured soldiers (red circle) just move on of your squads close to the virtual guys needing medical aid and wait. If the coast is clear the will perform buddy aid, and pick up any useful weapons + ammo the injured soldier is carrying. This can take some time. When this is done the injured soldier will disappear from the battlefield. Buddy aid can also be performed on dead soldiers. Zombies are not included in the game, so the soldier performing buddy aid will just scavenge for weapons and ammo. This take less time than for injured soldiers.
Can I start fires like in CMx1? Nope. Sorry. Are rivers/seas/water and bridges in the game? Nope. Sorry. There are mods that modify the marsh terrain to look like water, but that's about it. Help, my soldiers are disappearing from the battlefield! When the morale or your squads is too low the will route from the battlefield (basically just run away). Unlike in CMx1 you won't actually see soldiers running away. Instead an exclamation mark '!' will appear above them just before they disappear. Are there command delays? No, commands are executed immediately (unless you gave a pause order). Squads do try to reform at each waypoint, but otherwise no. Are mortars included in the game? No, there are no mortar units in the game, not on the battlefield at least. Mortars are available as artillery support. How do I order my units to move in formation? Although you can't give formation orders to individual units, you can give formations to several units. To do this move your units in the formation you want, select all of them and give movement orders, the waypoints will be placed at the same relative positions as the initial positions of the units. A bad Situation: Soldiers Routing!
How do I select several units? Shift+select, or Shift+dragging with left mouse button. How can I stack orders? In CMSF you can give much more complicated orders that in CMx1. To do this give several movement orders, then highlight a particular waypoint by selecting it or the line connected to it. Now you can give pause, fire, smoke, cover arc or facing orders at that waypoint. You can also use this technique to check the LOS/LOF at that point. Select the fire command at a particular waypoint, although LOS/LOF line will be drawn from your units starting position, the LOS/LOF check is done at the waypoint itself. This is nicely illustrated by the sticky posts in the CMSF Strategy and Tactics forum, such as http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php? t=82035.
Are the limited elevations of tank guns modeled in the game? Nope. Sorry. Help the explosions on the screen don't sync up with the sound? That is because CMSF includes the finite speed of sound :). It takes a few seconds before the sound of an explosion reaches an observer far away. Does ambient light affect the vision of my units? It certainly does. Units with no night vision equipment will fare much worse in a night battle with no moon light, than when there is moon light. Moreover ambient light is dynamic, so if a battle starts at dawn, the sky will gradually become lighter and lighter for example. Is friendly fire included in the game? Small arms, machine guns, grenades and grenade launchers don't cause friendly fire. Everything else does. Shouldn't the amount of tracers be toned down/How can all units fire tracers? This is an game aid, otherwise it's too hard to keep track of who is shooting who. Do vehicles block LOS or LOF? Operational vehicles block enemy fire, but not LOS. Destroyed vehicles block all fire, so both friendly and enemy. How do I take a screenshot? CMSF has no build-in screenshot function. You can either use another program to take screenshots or press Print Screen and then pasting the image in a image manipulation program. Note that on Windows Vista this does not always work so you have to use a third party program such as Fraps.
Syrian airborne infantry in action
What is C2 and relative spotting? C2 stands for Command and Control and is related to how information is passed along the hierarchy of your units. C2 is very important in CMSF, because it has a more complicated spotting system than its (spiritual) predecessors. Whereas in CMx1 once an enemy unit is spotted, its location (+ any additional information) is immediately known to all friendly units, commonly known as Borg spotting. In CMSF there is no hive mind, so clicking on a friendly unit will only show the units it has spotted. When no unit is selected the aggregate information from all your units about all enemy units is shown. Information about enemy units can be passed on from one unit to other friendly units, either by having the units physically close to it or via the chain-of-command. That means being able to communicate with superior units (platoon HQ's, battalion HQ's, etc…). Units which receive information about enemy unit they haven't spotted themselves are more likely to spot those enemy units. The US and its allies, being equipped with lots of electronic gadgets, have an easy time keeping the command chain intact, so it’s hard to observe the effects of having bad communication lines. Syrians units however are less fortunate and break-downs of communications will happen frequently. This will lower the cohesion of units as the get nervous when not knowing what happening around them and it will give you. Another negative side effect is that it becomes much harder for you, the player, to deduce the enemy intentions. The aggregate information of all your units will be a jumbled mess because every enemy unit spotted will result in a contact marker. If an enemy unit is spotted twice by different units, this will result in two contact markers, because the spotting units couldn’t communicate with each other. So when playing as the Syrians it is even more important to take the chain of command into account. What is special equipment and how has it changed from CMx1? Special equipment covers a huge range of things from radios to rocket launchers. Anything that is not standard issue to soldiers around the world counts as special equipment. Items like radio's, FBCB2 and RPDA's are all communication equipment that allows a unit to share information with others even if they aren't in physical contact. They also give a morale bonus as the unit knows that they haven't been abandoned by the rest of the army! Items such as Javelins and RPG rounds can be used up if they are fired at the enemy but they can also be taken from some vehicles with 'Acquire' feature. All items have a weight and if a squad takes too much, they will get tired quickly. Javelins especially weigh a lot. What is the 'bug out' feature? If a unit decides that it is suicidal to stay in the position that it is in, it will 'bug out' and retreat to a safer location. This could be because it is heavily outnumbered or because it is taking effective fire and can't respond. This feature not only keeps badly placed troops alive, it also prevents the player from ordering suicidal attacks because the troops simply won't do it. Can individual systems on vehicles be destroyed? Yes they can! Although it might seem that your tanks are shrugging off enemy fire with impunity, it is a good idea to check the damage tab now and then. This will give you a more detailed overview of the damage your tank has sustained. Targeting equipment, IR optics, tracks,... can all be damaged and severely degrade the performance of your tank.
What has Changed Since CMx1? Arguably the biggest change in terms of gameplay is the departure from the battlefields of World War 2 in favour of the contemporary Syrian deserts. Small arms are more accurate and can deliver greater volume of fire, tanks and other armoured vehicles are faster, more manoeuvrable and equipped with an array of opto-electronics resulting in greater situational awareness. Almost every vehicle in the game can hit their target with the first shot. That's right - the battlefield has become a whole lot more dangerous for your pixeltruppen! The new engine also allows for greater detail in all aspects of the game, so before you rush in have a look some of the things that changed listed below. Real-time!? CMSF has two single player game modes. In real-time, you can change orders at any time but you cannot rewind the action to see that big explosion from different angles, in turn-based mode you play in WEGO.
A Battle scarred T-72 tank demonstrates how individual blocks of ERA can be blown off a vehicle 1:1 modelling (or something close to it) CMSF simulates the battlefield in greater detail than before. Flight paths of bullets and tank shells are all tracked individually and a hit is registered where the polygons intersect. For example if the polygons of the vision block of a T-72 tank are hit, damage will be applied to that vision block if damage should be applied. The same goes for infantry, so if a bullet hits the polygons of one of your virtual men, that guy will go down (or get lightly injured or miraculously escape from the jaws of death), and not some other poor sod. This also means that trees can stop bullets, but also that that 'wood tiles' or 'scattered trees' tile no longer exist in CMSF. You won't be able to find the firepower value of weapons either since the way firefights are resolved has changed dramatically. In order to judge the protection terrain offers, you're just going to have to eye-ball it.
Also whereas in CMx1 you could enter any building from any side, buildings are now only accessible if doors are present (well duh!). So make sure to take this into account when planning your carefully orchestrated attacks, or you might find that your virtual men will have to run around the whole building straight into the LOF of an enemy machine gun nest. Note that adjacent buildings are only connected if a passage exists between them such as a door or a missing wall.
US Marines enter a building Burning the flag! Victories in CMSF now come in greater variety of flavours. These include destroy, preserve or intel objectives. So be warned, even if you wipe out most of the enemy forces but you lost that one unit you weren't supposed to whom the scenario designer was particularly attached you could lose the whole scenario! Some of this information can even be hidden from you. But in any case make sure to carefully read your mission objectives.
Military Jargon The Military has a lot of Jargon and Acronyms designed for fast communication. It doesn't make it easy for anyone else to understand what is going on though. Below are a few of the more common ones: LMG/SAW: Light Machine Gun/Squad Automatic Weapon – These use the same ammunition as an assault rifle but have a more robust construction, allowing them to put out a much greater volume of fire. In game terms they just act like a better assault rifle. Example – M249, RPK MMG/GPMG: Medium/General Purpose Machine gun – Used by infantry teams and some vehicles, these typically put out a slower rate of fire than a LMG but use a more powerful round. They carry plenty of ammunition so are excellent for keeping the enemies head down. Example – M240, PKM HMG: Heavy Machine gun – Usually mounted on a vehicle, these are powerful enough to easily punch holes into buildings and even some lightly armoured vehicles. Example – M2 Browning, DShK ATGM: Anti Tank Guided Missile – Can be mounted on a vehicle or used by infantry, ATGM's are used as a long ranged tank killer. Almost always fired from a concealed position and therefore very hard to find, they are a tankers worst fear. Example – Javelin, AT-3 (Sagger) RPG: Loosely translated as Rocket Propelled Grenade – Used by Syrian squads as a short range anti tank weapon and 'mini artillery'. If used with skill, adds a great deal of firepower to a Syrian squad. Example – RPG-7, RPG-29 SMAW: Shoulder-Launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon – The closest US equivalent to an RPG. Used by Marines to destroy houses and bunkers with a secondary anti tank ability. Example - SMAW IVF: Infantry Fighting Vehicle – Used to transport infantry to the battlefield and provide extra firepower once they have left the vehicle. Generally well armed but lacking in armour. Example – Bradley, BMP series APC: Armoured Personnel Carrier – Used to transport infantry to the battlefield safe from artillery. It is not designed for combat because it only protects the infantry from small arms and lacks firepower. Example - BTR LAV: Light Armoured Vehicle – Used by US Marines, this vehicle serves as a platform for a variety of systems. Most common is as a reconnaissance vehicle with a small squad in the back. Example – LAV-AT
MBT: Main Battle Tank – Since the end of the Second World War, most tanks are MBT's. They combine mobility, firepower and protection and are used to punch holes in the enemies defences or to rush to gaps where the enemy has broken through. Example – M1A1 Abrams, T-72 HE: High Explosive – Used by bigger guns to make a large explosion. Effective against infantry and buildings but tank armour will probably be unaffected. HEAT: High Explosive Anti Tank – Uses a shaped charge to concentrates an explosion into a very small point. Can pierce armour even if the projectile is moving very slowly but is less effective against infantry. Mainly used in missiles. APFSDS: Armour Piercing Fin Stabilised Discarding Sabot – Ammunition used by anti tank guns to destroy enemy tanks. The design of the round concentrates an incredible amount of energy into a very small area but penetrating power is lost at very long ranges. CO: Commanding Officer XO: Executive Officer – Helps the CO do his duties, can take over command if the CO is killed. FIST: Fire Support Team – Also known as a Forward Observer (FO), the FIST is responsible for calling in artillery fire. Although technically anyone can do this in the US forces, the FIST will do it much faster due to his specialised training and experience. JTAC: Joint Terminal Attack Controller – Similar to a FIST, but responsible for aircraft. MOUT: Military Operations, Urban Terrain – A term used to describe fighting in towns and cities. Special tactics are needed are needed and MOUT usually creates great problems for the attacker. IED: Improvised Explosive Device – A home made bomb. Often used to attack convoys when they are not expecting it. The game requires a trigger man to activate the IED on command. LOS: Line of sight – A term used to describe whether a unit has an uninterrupted view to a certain area. LOF: Line of fire – Used to describe whether a unit is able to fire its weapon to hit a certain area. CMx1: 1st generation combat mission – The original series of combat mission games covering WW2. Although similar, they used a different game engine and play differently.
