Pak40

Wow, I'm not sure why you think this was an attack on "the poster", which was you. BTW, why are you talking about yourself in the 3rd person? Odd. Anyway, he's just trying to say that people's tastes change as they age. Maybe you don't play as much because you're different than you used to be. It's certainly true of me. I don't think he was trying to be rude or try to give excuses as to why the game has these limitations. And, btw, we're all well aware of these game limitations or unrealistic aspects of the game. But, answer me this: Is there a more realistic tactical game on the market? NO. So that's why we play Combat Mission.

Yes, I forgot about targeting while having a waypoint selected. But doesn't it use the ground level at the waypoint to calculate LOS?

I suggest using Move or Quick to the point where your "best guess" is that your unit will see the enemy unit, but then follow that with a Hunt command which will go well beyond your best guess. This will cause your unit to stop for sure and not go too far. The problem with cresting a hill and using Hunt is that your unit will spot the enemy when standing and then stop. They will likely drop to knees at that point, lowering their eyeball level just enough that they may not see the unit anymore. Using 'Target Arc' will not cause your unit to stop. It only restricts your unit from firing outside the arc. Be careful when using this because an unseen enemy may be suddenly visible outside the arc and wipe out your unit while they are helpless to respond until the next turn when you cancel the arc.

Your previous post you said: 1. reinstalled v3 and successfully activated 2. Installed v4 but you don't mention activating it, but you get a message stating that you need to v3 If you did indeed activate v4 then definitely open a ticket.

sounds like you need to activate the V4 even though it says you need to activate v3.

Just make the ammo dump into a truck instead. It may hold less ammo but it functions pretty much the same as a mobile "ammo dump"

Yea, the M18 and M36 have much faster traverse. As Michael mentioned the M10 turret is hand cranked. I read somewhere that it took about 2 minutes to rotate 360. I disagree, it's a big deal. Turning the tank definitely helps lower the time to target but it's not as good as you would think. Whenever the tank turns and then stops, the entire carriage of the vehicle will rise then dip, shaking the barrel of course. This adds time to aim on target and you always seem one step behind your enemy tank that has a faster turret traverse than you. I'm speaking from experience playing War Thunder's Ground Forces. Yes, it's a game but it does a good job illustrating these issues. If you play this game (it's free btw) and eventually get to the M10 in the U.S. ground forces tree, you will definitely feel the pain of the sloooow turret traverse of the TD. Also, with regards to turning the M10 towards a target, the TD commander will give the order to turn towards a target that often the driver will not be able to see. So, multiple turning corrections will likely need to be made. War Thunder obviously doesn't have this issue since the player is both the driver and the gunner. So I imagine this is a bigger deal in real life than in the game.

Well, it's been a long while since I played CMx1 but I don't recall any type of hand to hand or melee fighting, at least not animated. I do remember Close Combat modeling it.

I remember playing this battle and had a similar result. I don't quite remember what the LOS distance was at the 7:30 am mark, maybe 100m? Anyway, I was curious about the actual sunrise time in real life. The battle IIRC took place on Dec 17 or 18, almost the shortest day of the year. Using an online sunrise calculator for today, Jan 5 in Liege Belgium (The closes city I could find on the site), the sunrise is 8:38am. Considering the time of day, it should be pitch black or near to it. And we know that it was very overcast and possibly very foggy that morning. Sounds about right that two vehicles would bump into each other like that in those conditions.

I doubt it but I'd bet there's a little randomness thrown in to the calculation to determine if a sound is heard or not.

Not sure from the video clip but remember that any wall is somewhat abstracted as to it's condition. Healthy looking walls may in fact have some damage. Damaged looking walls are just a graphic and it doesn't show exactly where the damaged bits are. A highly damaged wall, or in this case, a wall that appears to be completely gone may have rubble or still standing bits of wall. It's either that or the game is deliberately cheating you.

The American Arsenal says they are 122 lead balls embedded in a resin matrix and that the "case bursts within 100 ft after discharge". Muzzle velocity is 2500 f/s which is only slight slower than the APC that has 2900 f/s. Agree that the balls would not be not very aerodynamic.

I'm not sure what the effective range is but I know that the canister doesn't burst apart until around 100 ft (30m). Seems like 80m would be the sweet spot.

Were they sitting up for all the subsequent shots of canister? Sounds dubious to me. So maybe they lucked out with the initial canister shot and ducked for the rest? But let's be honest, in real life when the soldiers see the barrel of a tank or scout car point directly at them, they are going to take cover(if they see the tank), they won't just sit there and leave their bodies exposed. There's a lot of little things that would happen in real life that don't happen in this game. Another example is peeking around corners - In real life a soldier can peek around a corner of a building without exposing anything but his head. In the game, he would have to expose his entire body around the corner in order to see. So saying how weapons working in real life should also work the same in the game isn't quite an accurate statement.

I'm not saying that that is how the game works, it's just my personal opinion. It's a lot easier to hit a target with buckshot than with a single round, law of averages. Obvisouly the target has to be visible because buckshot wont have much penetration. Probably in your particular case your soldiers were all lying down when the canister was fired. And like I said, it depends on the type of building. IIRC, CM only models two strengths of buildings, light and heavy. A 37mm HE shell in reality wouldn't have much effect on a heavy building like stone. For example, Panther HE shells couldn't dent the stone buildings in the Krinkelt-Rocherath battle so they switched to AP which could get through the hard stone. So, IF your opponent sticks his face out the window briefly and you squeeze off a quick shot, I think you're going to have better luck hitting him with 100 little balls that spread out than with one single light 37mm projectile - just my opinion. But I do admit, that if it's a light building, 37mm HE or AP should be able to do some damage through the building walls and should be the better choice rather than the canister.

This does depend on the building, however, if all you see of an enemy soldier is his face or upper torso sticking out of a window then I'd say that canister has a better shot at killing that soldier than a 37mm HE round.

I could be wrong but I don't think EXIT BETWEEN means that there is randomness built into the order. Rather I think it means that the order will be executed within the time frame specified as soon as the unit has satisfied the previous order.

Hofen is on the Monschau Master map. The town is just south of Monschau.

Yea, the town itself is a complete fiction compared to what it's actual layout and topography are.

I'm not too picky about the next one that they do but whatever the next CM game is, it better be in the CMx3 engine.

Yes! I had good fun with it despite having to fight with the interface and other issues.

Yes, it's War Thunder (Ground forces) has occupied a ton of my time. It's way better than WoT. I mostly play on Realistic mode, sometimes on Simulation mode. The best thing about it is that you get to really compare and contrast each vehicles strength and weaknesses. Every CM player should play the ground forces for a while to get a feel for the nuances of each vehicle and armored combat in general.

Some thoughts and questions come to mind regarding the Jeep vs the HT gunner: In CM, you can only target the vehicle, not the driver or any other exposed crew member. So how exactly does CM handle targeting when there is an exposed crew member? Is there some sort of decision making behind the scene? Also, does CM treat soft targets with exposed crew members differently than hard targets with an unbuttoned tank commander/gunner? The results of the test seem to suggest that the jeep driver, although just as exposed as the half track gunner, isn't being specifically targeted but rather the jeep itself.

Your best source of weather information will probably be from eyewitness accounts. AARs for certain units may include it too but they are sometimes detached from their front line units. Weather can change dramatically in a short distance. Case in point, It's currently raining where I work but looking at the radar, it's bone dry at my house 3 miles away.

I think snow was very spotty over the region so you can't just say there was snow on X day during the Bulge. Also, some pictures can be misleading, particularly in towns or along roads where the snow melts quickly. I used to think that there wasn't snow on the ground in the early days of the Bulge (northern shoulder area) but I've recently read several quotes from participants that claim there was at least 6 inches at the start. Then apparently there was a thaw that lasted at least a couple of days which could easily make roads and urban areas look as though there's no snow.