CMSF2 Formation Guide: Syrian Mech Infantry (BMP)
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- Опубліковано 10 лют 2025
- The ins and outs, weapons, vehicles and equipment of the Syrian Mechanised Infantry in Shock Force 2.
I'm skipping a lot of technical details because they're already covered here: • Combat Mission: Techni...
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Timestamps for this video:
00:31 Syrian Army Tiers
03:05 Regular Syrian Mechanised infantry Battalion (BMP)
03:54 The Infantry Squad
04:01 Small Arms- AKMS and PK
04:36 RPG-7
05:16 PG-7V HEAT
06:04 OG-7V Fragmentation
06:13 HEAT vs Frag
07:10 Infantry equipment
07:28 RPD (Reserve)
07:43 BMP-1P
08:42 73mm Gun
08:57 AT-4
09:33 Issues with the BMP
10:26 Armour protection
11:29 The Nuclear Battlefield
12:17 Firing Ports
13:11 Mobility
13:31 Other features
14:17 Crew and passengers
15:41 BMP-1 (Reserve)
16:11 BMP-2 (Guards)
17:08 BTR-60PB
17:58 General APC/IFV vulnerability
18:16 BTR mobility
18:39 Mech Infantry Platoon
18:44 Command Squad
18:56 SVD
19:08 Three vehicle platoon issues
19:55 Mech Infantry Company
20:46 Weapons Platoon
20:49 Machinegun Sections- Tripod mounted PK
21:03 Igla/SA-16/SA-18
21:30 Company HQ
21:41 Mech Infantry Battalion
21:50 Forward Observer Section
22:01 Soviet vs NATO style artillery direction
22:46 Recon Platoon
22:56 AT-4A
23:08 AT-7 (Guards)
23:16 Weapons Company
23:25 Anti-Tank Platoon
23:28 AT-3B/AT3-C/AT4-A/AT-C
23:44 AT-13 (Guards)
24:09 Anti-Air Platoon
24:18 AA Pickup
24:48 Mortar Battery (Heavy)
25:34 Trucks!
25:56 Battalion HQ
26:17 Operational vs Tactical focus
29:00 Syrian forces in the defence
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Still not quite got the mic back up to standard, so the voice is off a little again. There are a few errors in there as well, but not any that really make a difference.
In Battlefront's own words:
"Combat Mission Shock Force 2 finally updates the ground breaking Shock Force 1 game setting to the current Game Engine 4 environment. Due to massive changes over the last 10 years of Combat Mission development the updating and upgrading of the original content to current standards was no small task. Most of the 3D models had to be rebuilt, reskinned, and reintegrated into brand new TO&E coding. All original scenarios and campaign games had to be checked out, tweaked, and generally improved so they retained the balance and excitement of the originals. Fans of the original game will find that this is much, much more than a new coat of paint."
"Take command of US Stryker Brigade Combat Teams (SBCT) and Heavy Brigade Combat Teams (HBCT) to fight against Syrian Army Infantry, Mechanized and Armored units in an arid setting. Experience the full range of modern threats to conventional military forces, including irregular combat forces, terrorists, spies, suicide bombers, IED's and other deadly tools employed in the asymmetric warfare of the modern day. Play the Task Force Thunder campaign, more than a dozen carefully crafted battles, or unlimited Quick Battles."
#CombatMission
Did you know that RPG didn't originally stand for Rocket Propelled Grenade? In Russian, it stands for handheld antitank grenade(launcher). It's a western backronym to rename what it actually stands for ...
You're correct about the acronym in Russian being bastardized in English, however from what I've gathered about the definition of the word, "backronym" (a word interpreted as an acronym when it's not truly one,) "RPG" would not be a backronym as, "RPG" is not a word.
@@toska3528 the original is rpg-7 they just pronounce the g as in ghost. So it is definitely a backronym
@@kmit9191 that's just how Russian pronounce, «г»
really matter? if you meaning that stuff was difference way but in the end you're still meaning the rocket launcher, what the fuck point for is it?
@@Mechanized85 the point is "erm, ackshually"
Outclassed pretty much sums it up. The pickup trucks in the TO&E give that away to be brutally honest. As you mention though, them defaulting to "green/conscript" training level makes a huge difference as to how well they perform regardless. Their lack of ballistic body armor is a factor as well. I've been experimenting with them on higher training levels against insurgent forces and then the bottleneck becomes coms and optics, mostly optics, from what I can see. Try spotting scout outposts in defense, helps with spotting and bad optics sometimes. Also, local ambush as you suggest. Nice guide for CMSF2, thanks.
So? American PMCs use civilian vehicles too. They just have the benefit of fighting for the side which will have air supremacy-as all American doctrinal thinking presupposes. It was a bigger problem in CM1-but in CM2 the Syrians have a decent air and artillery support asset kit at last and it totally transforms the game's balance when the Syrians can conduct proper combined arms assaults against Coalition forces operating without their precious air supremacy. The war in Ukraine has revealed that modern IADs are no joke and even major powers must be use air power with great caution. Syria at depicted in CM1 (crucially before its own civil war broke out) was setup as being totally unable to project control over its own skies just as Iraq proved unable to do in 1991 and again in 2003-but Battlefront admitted this was entirely conjectural...
@@capthawkeye8010wat?! you are comparing pmc's to a main army of a country last time i checked the us army doesnt run around with techinicals thats the point you mised if you main armored forces uses a civilian vics in the what suposedd to be the main amy something is wrong.
No detail in this that I have the least quibble with. Everything is spot-on. Which, considering that you're tackling a very complex topic, is impressive.
Love the format you show scrolling. Wish I could have the formations listings on paper!
How did you get the info to display like that?
Game just came out on steam and I cant stop playing it. Love these vids
Great work! Would love to see even more of these.
Thanks man. Definitely more of these in the pipe.
Great content! I really enjoyed this video format, and would love to see more formation guides.
Subscribed.
So far in defence against western armies it feels like its easier and more effective to drop mech units and focus just on infantry+atgm with high training because you're going to lose anyway but with such force composition you atleast could make it extremely painful for the nato
Potentially. It depends a lot on the situation (cop-out answer, I know), but infantry certainly don't suffer from the kind of technical overmatch that vehicles do.
@@usuallyhapless9481 so far I have not figured out how they can effectively attack in CMSF2. First answer - they cant. The moment any syrian vehicle show up it gets hammered by pretty much everyone starting with random soldiers with at4 and javelins to mgs, bradeleys and so on.
@@zer9761 To be fair, the Us forces are optimized to engage Soviet style mechanized/motorized forces swarms. They bring a lot of AT because they know they'd have needed a lot of it. And when you're just the B team of Soviet kit and doctrine... you're in real trouble running into the US/NATO forces that are ready for you. And often, you don't have the layered artillery concentration, sheer mass the Soviet forces doctrinally relied on to achieve anything significant in war.
port holes on the side of a IFV?
what are we now? the navy?
Well, it is amphibious...
Called Firing Ports to enable infantry to fight from an APC.
@@usuallyhapless9481 Unlike the Bradley!
It's got broadside functions too lol.
For what it's worth, I get the reference
Just caught this video now very informative. It's great that videos you made in the past can be seen for the first time here in the future!😁👍
I will be following this link you made for the technical info and will give it a thumbs as well
7:40 that’s actually an RPK with a drum mag, not an RPD. RPD’s drum is only a belt carrier that is at a right angle from the gun, instead of tilted forward.
then, because this game had insurgents go with RPD LMG, more likely he(hapless) was messed up something.
Very informative! Will you be playing a scenario with the Syrian military?
Next up is a multiplayer quick battle where I'm defending with the Syrians against Rujasu from the Few Good Men who is attacking as the Dutch. Its... intense, to put it mildly.
Good stuff - any thoughts on consolidating these into a playlist (i.e. Technical Bits + Syrians + ...)?
imagine if we can have a campaign system like that in wargame red dragon, we can have red force showing their flanking advantgae
tell the red dragon go the hell, i am tired with this fast madness game.
@@Mechanized85They’re talking about the campaign, not the battles.
14:00 I did not know that there was friendly fire between ground forces unless there is HE involved. Turns out you can just shoot your buddy in the behind so it is important to make sure your troops don't walk in front of the gun.
There are a couple of differences between the Zil and Ural trucks. The Zil has better offroad (important on some maps, sometimes), and costs a point more. It also has an acquirable RPG-7 in the back, which is nice I suppose.
So I have a question here. In history discussions of WWII, the M4 sherman's 75mm main gun primarily used HE frag rounds in infantry support. It is considered to be a solid, quite good anti-infantry weapon.
The BMP-1 has a slightly smaller diameter shell- but the bursting charges are almost identical. The BMP-1's HE-frag shell has a 1 pound 10 ounce bursting charge. The M4 had 1 pound 8 ounce bursting charge. The total shell weight, propellant, casing and all is higher on the M4's HE shell, but it's a medium pressure gun and it's not likely it has some substantially greater frag effect.
Why do we consider the BMP-1's HE shell to be so insufficient, when the M4 HE shell was considered very good for anti infantry work?
Yes, the BMP-1 is a 20 year newer vehicle, but what kills infantry in 1945 can definitely still kill them in the mid Cold War era, particularly before the proliferation of flack vests.
Is this just a case of "25mm and 30mm HE autocannon rounds are just better by volume and no one tried to use said cannons for anti-infantry work back in the day?"
Or is something else at play? (Only things I can think of are range and rate of fire- Sherman loader ergonomics were fantastic for the first dozen or so rounds fired, but it slows a lot with fatigue and changing racks after that). I know the BMP-1 was a bit slower than the test-condition ideal of the Sherman, which was getting a round off every four seconds (Real combat, it was closer to eight to ten seconds average). BMP ergonomics aren't great up there in the turret with a gunner-loader doing all jobs.
IIRC, the BMP-1 only has HEAT rounds modelled in CMSF, so it's not firing HE-FRAG and just doesn't have as much explosive filler.
There were frag rounds they got them later the Price was the removel of the autoloader as far as i know the Problem is that the frag flyes even slower than heat so very Hard to aim and i heard the fragmantation wasent great
Nice guide, thanks.
Shit hits different now
That was quick
What kind of handicaps would make the game a fair fight for REDFOR? A 3:1 points imbalance with a massive map? Limiting NATO rarity points?
There's already a large points imbalance, but it's tricky. The main problem is that the asymmetry makes balancing victory conditions a lot more difficult. The WW2 titles can get away with more or less symmetric victory conditions, whereas it's a lot more difficult to have something reasonable for the CMSF matchups.
Typically, making use of Preserve objectives, and giving blue forces severe penalties for casualties are the way to do it.
An elite Syrian force will be almost on the level of a minor NATO country.
Using standard forces, to get a good QB match, you need a "difficult" map that will tend to negate NATO advantages, you absolutely need to be able to keep your hand hidden until the conditions are rights, otherwise your units will be ground into dust either from long range or prolonged firefights. You also need to be much more willing to suffer casualties. However, if NATO brings a lot of airpower, drones, and powerful weapons such as javelins... nothing will save you!
Yeah, that's one part, but it only gets you so far. In order to get the substantial force imbalance that Hapless is talking about, I think you'd need something more, no?
@@d.c.6065 There is a balancing factor in that Syrian units tend to be far cheaper than NATO units given equal stats. For example, at REG/0/0/fit, a T-90SA is 390 points while a Leopard 2A4 is 440 points, a Republican Guard infantry squad is 40 points while a Gebirgsjaeger squad is about 80 points.
Even with that, Baron, it still doesn't seem like REDFOR can muster the kind of superiority that Hapless is talking about for an attack here. And that's with Republican Guard units. What about with the regular army? How are they going to get the necessary force concentration without artificially limiting NATO's points for a QB?
The Bmp1 has a diesel engine, so I would think the fire risk is a bit overstated.
Realistically, ammunition fires are probably a bigger problem, but it's not like diesel can't burn
@@usuallyhapless9481 Thanks for replying, love this series of videos
Now for the US marines
If you go way back in his videos you'll see he covered marines in the "Day at the Beach" video!
Big Lemons really thanks!
The Marine Expeditionary Unit formation is on the cards, for sure. There are other Combat Mission games though.
Could you do a tutorial on how to install mods ?
Would be interesting to see you use this formation in a PvP game (to my knowledge I don't think you have?) backed up with some amazing(ly poor) T-62MVs for support.
Perhaps, if by interesting you mean "catastrophically short and one sided" ;)
@@usuallyhapless9481 There are some very specific scenarios where the Syrian mech battalion would have an advantage I feel. Such as opposing an infantry only force.... of scouts... with no Javelins... or 50 Cals... and maybe without AT-4s as well. In that scenario, they might stand a chance.
So this series picked up where Close Combat left? I tried The Bloody First and it just felt wrong.. they don't really add anything for 3D engine, it's just more confusing. Will try CM
Does anyone know any game that does division style gameplay games?
7:42 it's an rpk not rpd
Cool video
What's unrealistic about this game is that it does not allow you to mount troops on top of MBP and BTR. And believe me, in armies that use them NO ONE is EVER riding INSIDE this coffins. Except the poor driver, off course.
The BMP-1 is faster than the BMP-3 in this game?
28:16 Outdated equipment is not real reason. Russian in CMBS has at least comparable equipment, But in my latest pbem company veteran commander saw enemy Bradley with UAV for 30 minutes of game, but he hasn`t shared this information (com links was ok, even more, I`ve got ) to its subodinated MTLB or even his commander-spotter laid next to him for 20 minutes. And futhermore most units totally blind themself, modernised MTLB 6MB with infrared vision and all that shit, runs over american section never noticed or even guessed there was an enemy, though almost hour of game 12 such MTLB detected 1 target. But when I surrended and got my opponents pass I saw a map gloving like Xmas garland with guess marks for almost every my unit.
28:30 Ussuall missile dirtfiring, feel like I`m watching CMBS. "Am I supressed by by enemy shelling? No. Is my firing line blocked by obstacles? No. Is target moving? No, So... I just gonna launch my rocket in dirt 50 m away!" You may say it`s wire was blocked by high woltage wire, but I don`t thing game engine operate such things and guys with laser guided At14 do same special olympics.
So why does it happen
@@Arthsycz I don't think he even mentioned the Syrians, and yeah, Russian spotting is a joke, he said that, but why?
@@Arthsycz Training shouldn't be so catastrophic, Russian troops don't use fresh conscripts in foreign conflicts anymore
@@vaclavjebavy5118 dunno, just biased stats for units spotting and coms, I guess (we don`t even know what stats game unit actually has). In my last week pbem game my american 3men scout team (all with semi auto marksman rifles and m4) was ambushed in forest (less than 40m distance) by russian 4 men ak+pkm team. Guess who lies dead and who suffered 1 light wound. Better just look, here is savegame drive.google.com/file/d/1yaKMvWiWUNCOAsK-kTuMFWKa1mpWJuRu/view?usp=sharing (ingame pass is 777)
@@ТомасКатц Man, that sucks.
As I remember BMP 1 has 3 crew seats - driver, gunner, commander
Yes and no. There is a commander position, but this is usually occupied by the infantry squad leader who leaves when the squad dismounts.
27:45 look at how proudly the syrian company is advancing! then in 30 seconds most of the carriers are junk, the men inside riddled with cannon holes and shrapnel and spalling effects. Long ago i read of a Gulf war account of a crew bradley noticing a BMP moving in the darkness towards it. the BMP was blind, as the iraqis had no night vision. The Bradley gunner fired a burst of AP arounds, and the BMP came to a stop. Then they saw the crewmen take out a dead or wounded comrade out of the back ramp and lay him gently on the desert ground. Then they get back in, up goes the ramp, and the BMP trundles onward. The gunner put some more armor piercing rounds into it, and the BMP stopped...ramp down...and another dead or dying Iraqi is laid outside. Then up and on. This odd scene was put to an end when the Bradley gunner switched to HE rounds, and the BMP exploded, along with whoever was still alive inside.
@@decimated550the bmp doesn’t use ramps
@@Rokaize yes that's right those doors.
Resistance forces used this to research their SOP😅😅
Now that explains why i keep getting me arse handed to me
Its tough going Redfor.
Gitty up we going to the bad part of CM
What is the sound mod in use?
I have shockforce 2. What is the difference between SF2 and Black Sea?
Its a different setting- so the Ukrainian terrain instead of Syrian, plus its set in 2017 instead of 2008 and has different factions so there's different vehicles and kit going around. Black Sea isn't fully fleshed out like SF2 is- its just got the base game whereas SF2 has all its expansions.
@@usuallyhapless9481 But i have seen in your videos that the abrahams fx have reactive armor and in SF 2 they dont ?
@@Mrmaster2512 There are a few Abrams variants in SF2 that have ERA, but they've all got it in Black Sea. That's one of the differences between the two: things that were just coming into service in SF2 are standard issue by Black Sea.
Usually Hapless ahh okay, i thought that mechanic wise that BS was newer and had some better mechanics, but thank you for the enlightment
@@Mrmaster2512 Mechanics are tied to the engine version IIRC, and Battlefront offers purchaseable engine upgrades for all their CMx2 engine titles (except Afghanistan cause that was made by a Russian team on the original SF1 engine, I believe) which retroactively adds updated mechanics back to all the older games.
And if you buy the game after its engine upgrade is made available you get the newest version automatically.
I don’ understand why none of your opponents are going at sea level like you are doing. ??
Now slightly more intelligible!
Should have given your squads radios.
@@d.c.6065 Would have been a good idea.
Excellent stuff, unfortunately they are no match for western tech... excellent however in ambush and multiplayer.
Whene syria use use bmp its free points
When ukraine russia or the soviets uses bmps i giving away free pointe
Cool It would be great to see such video explains if Israel going to attack Syria
As much as I would love to see the Israelis in CMSF2, it probably isn’t coming anytime soon. Battlefront has said they aren’t planning any more modules for the time being. Also not to mention the huge controversy that would come with including Israel in such a war game.
First!
But did you get there with the mostest?
D. C. 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
JK lol way over done!