In the new beginning there was Road to Baghdad and Close Combat Marines. Atomic Games, Take Two Interactive, Destineer Studios, Matrix Games and CSO Simtek have all had their hands in the Close Combat pot one way or another. Atomic Games has since gone out of business, Road to Baghdad pulled off the shelves, Close Combat Marines was only available through the USMC Gazette, and then First To Fight happened. Red Phoenix, a purported new Close Combat dropped off the radar about the same time Atomic Games did. Its been quite confusing to keep track of what's been going on. Now, Destineer Studios owns Close Combat, Matrix Games has a license to develop it and CSO Simtek has been contracted to make new version and fix current ones. We've seen Cross Of Iron, updated versions of CCM and CCRAF Regt by this arrangement. That is the short confusing history, and that brings us to present times.

Close Combat Modern Tactics (CCMT) is debuting commercially this year. CCMT is based off of the original CCM (first article) from 2004. CCM was created for the USMC to conduct cognitive training on its soldiers. There were a number of new features in this release which included eight player capability, mount/dismount and large maps. Not to be mistaken for a WW2 era game, this version has all the modern units and soldiers you'd see today in the corps, as well it has a wide variety of OPFOR (Opposing Force) vehicles and infantry sections. Also not preset is the ability to play Grand Campaigns and Operations. Currently, it's said to be finished, but believed to be held up at Matrix Games for one reason or another. This is the normal process though. So, three years later, after a series of other versions built upon this original release of CCM, we have a commercially available version on the door step with more added features...

Lets go over what we know about this new version. The screenshots below are from Close Combat Anti Terrorism, the last known version before CCMT. The list below is all the new features we have found out about from CSO Simtek.

	New - Triggers - This seems to be a major addition. You will be able to have preprogrammed events during a battle. For example, when an enemy unit gets to a certain point an air strike will drop on it, or extra units will enter the battle. There is a long list of triggers and how they behave, this can lead to some very complicated scenarios. Assuming these battles become popular online, some form of scenario inspection will have to take place so the creator does not set tons of trigger traps for his opponents. These screen shots show all the options you can assign to triggers - I - II - III
	New - Multi player - Ten player maximum, up from eight. It is unknown whether AI can be teamed up with players or played against exclusively. The main meeting place will most likely be Battle HQ aka Power Lobbies.
	New - Allocate Obstacle/Mines/IED - The force selection screen shows unit equipment load outs being modified. The other image shows the IED being selected shows the options to detonate and mark & report. Notice the marker on the map denoting the location of a small IED. It has been mentioned that you can change certain attributes such as weapon type, names and others. Other screen shots - I - II
	New - Civilians - Civilians are in the force pool shown in this versions screen shots. Whether or not they will be in this commercial version is unknown, chances are they wont be. Along with the civilians there is a new set of order which can be given to them. In this screenshot we can see the civilians being targeted and given orders. The message box on the bottom right relates information from the interaction with the civilians.
	New - Commands for Civilians - For civilians we have search, verbal order, contact control, compliance and defensive tac. In the screen shots you can under the message tab the marines indicated they are starting the search and when the search is complete. As well they are saying targets have ignored verbal orders. Other screen shots - I
	New - Scenario Editor - The in game editor is very powerful. Deployment zones for Marines and OPFOR can be edited, four types of support can be allocated. Map Location (VL's) can be set as well as neutral deployment zones. A detailed description (OP Order) can be created to explain the scenario. These screen shots show the different options available - I - II - III
	New - Scenario Settings - Shown in this we have a number of new options. We'll attempt to explain two of the less obvious settings. Time of Day - Its unknown what this could be used for. Since night cannot be modeled graphically into CC, we can guess that if the time is set at night units may be less visible. Show Last Spotted Position - Presumably a marker will display on the map when a unit disappears from your LOS.
	New - Planting and detonating mines and IED's. The image to the left shows an IED selected with the command options of Detonate or Mark & Report. Screen shot I shows the detonation with an arrow pointing north. Screen shot II shows the damage left with either the ending frames of the explosion or damage left on the map to the lower right of the main explosion. III shows a different type of IED on the map, and IV shows an indicator for the IED.
The features listed below were available in the original release but were not fully functional or bugged.
Fixed - Mount/Dismount - There are a number of vehicles that can load soldiers which we know from the original CCM. As the maps in CCM are quite large this option becomes very useful. No doubt troop laden vehicles will be high priority targets for your enemy. Originally the mount command was broken, units being told to mount which were far away would simply warp to the vehicle.
Fixed - Replay Feature - Battles can be saved and viewed at any time by anyone. This can be useful for training purposes, especially if audio commentary can be added. The game is recorded into some sort of script only playable through the game itself. It is not recorded as a video. While playing the replay you have the option to scroll anywhere on screen. In CCM3.1 this function was broken and unusable.
Fixed - Deploy Timer - This adjustable setting will limit the amount of time you have for initial deployment. Scrolling with the mouse during the deploy phase fast forwarded the timer.
Fixed? - Virtually Unlimited Support - There are four types. Rotary, fixed wing, artillery and battalion mortars. These can be allocated in the double digits to each side. CCM3.1 support was too powerful and decimate soldiers and vehicles much to quickly. We can only hope that is not the case now.
Fixed? - Force Morale & Observer Status- When a player's force morale went to low, he would lose control of all units and be placed into observer mode unable to play the game any further. Force Morale also seemed sketchy, it operated intermitted.

All these new options are welcome and bring Close Combat a little closer to a modern Close Combat style RTS game. Since this article is based off of the screen shots of a previous version we can not fully expect to see all the new features in CCMT. These features definitely open up single battles to be highly detailed and complicated engagements with up to ten players. For the larger maps you need a lot of memory and horsepower. When testing CCM3.1 on my machine (512mb RAM, 128Meg Vid Card, 1,8ghz CPU) I noticed slow frame rates while scrolling across the largest maps. We can assume Battle HQ aka Power lobbies will be the main place to hook up and get a game. The actual software will be available by download with the option of having a boxed copy for a slightly higher price. Suggested retail price will probably be anywhere from USD $39.99 to $49.99.