Doug Williams

Stuarts have been a favorite of mine for a long time now. I love them, especially in city battles.

From a PBEM turn I received today. This is a meeting engagement on the Holland "Elst" map.

I have a love/hate relationship with them. I love them when I'm Soviets, hate them when I'm Germans. Yep, when playing Germans....keep your distance.

Sighting and how it functions has always been poor compared to real world standards.

It was very frustrating to me when I bought CMBN, Now I have been playing so long I just don't care any more.

But I sure don't waste my time doing anything like you just mentioned. Because there is no chance of any guarantees as to what the game will give you as to units spotting.

I just set up the units to what visually looks like will work and then start getting into it once the game is actually running.

On defense, I will start checking units to see where they can now actually fire and set cover arcs to coordinate with each other, but all this only after the game is running. So that tells you what I think of set up phase spotting.

On offence I don't trust way point spotting much either. I normally send a scout unit to every important location first to make sure what they see before I waste time sending main units when ever I have the ability to do so.

But hoping for BF to give some major love to this at this point in the engine design is not likely to happen or fix how it basically works.

I still see armor running out in the open in plain sight not getting spotted outside the magic spotting window of 7 seconds that the game runs and think Really, can you explain that invisibility with any real WORLD EVENTS. No, SO I just say to myself, its just a blasted game and that feature sucks. But I still like it more than the Borg spotting system we had, or that most games have.

I have a love/hate relationship with them. I love them when I'm Soviets, hate them when I'm Germans. Yep, when playing Germans....keep your distance.

Because it would be pointless. A single assault gun will be attached as part of the "Battalion" subelement that forms the basis of whatever force the AI picked. So if the whole (presumably infantry) force has been roughly handled, "contagious" morale loss (for being aware of all your mates being shot/blow up/fried) will drop the morale state of all that Formation and its attached "single vehicles" and "specialist teams" into the toilet. And a "Broken" assault gun is going to be no challenge whatever to hunt, since it will first of all run away when it's aware of the threat, and has terrible situational awareness so your Choob Guys will be able to sneak up on it at will.
 
When the AI surrenders, the game is over; you've already fought them to the death (their death) and beating the bloody fragments further is simply wasting time stirring pixels with your genitals. If I had my druthers, it'd give in sooner in some situations like the time I killed 90% of an infantry Battalion, including all its vehicles bar 2, but because the armour element wasn't as badly hurt, the AI kept on coming, until the unescorted armour got monched by my defending* infantry and ATGs. It "should" (in an ideal world, and yes, I know how hard that would be; I'm expressing an aspiration I don't expect ever to be fulfilled) have given up when it could no longer support its advancing armour. As it was, the remaining 10% infantry got halved again in their mad kamikaze attempts to fulfill their next scripted order (in spite of their propensity for turning tail and running as soon as any bullets whizzed around their ears) while the armour failed to deal with the ATGs.
 
* Yes I was defending against the AI. I'd given it a 150% combined arms force and taken infantry as the defender in an Assault to see how ATGs fared.

Oooh. I just can't wait for CM: Battle of the Pacific:
 
 

Inspirational! Now where are those pesky Zulus hiding?

Half the battle, IMO, of winning PBEMs is convincing your opponent that you hold the upper hand (whether you do or not). One of my favorite tactics is serenading him with a song.

Here is an example of what I would send him if I am playing Commonwealth. ;-)

And if you want to mark all forums everywhere on the site, go to the main page
 
http://community.battlefront.com
 
and at the bottom you'll see 
 
Mark Community Read

You mean this guy?

To the immediate left of each forum heading is a little blue/green symbol with "" notation in it. That button does it for me. 

Well I say Smoke 'em if you got 'em. :-)

My favorite WW2 song:
 

 
....and he aint gonna jump no mooooooore!

why Johnnie Ringo, you look like somebody just walked over your grave
 

Let's get back on topic. :-)

Yeah, I can't get enough of the thing. You can make a case for either Hackman or Harris in Best Actor in a Supporting role.
 
'Make sure you don't get wet.'
 
Lawman Little Bill (Hackman) confronts English Bob (Harris) and his groupie of a biographer.
 

Perhaps.  However, he really needs to understand that he is now effectively saying that the entire model that the game uses for armor penetration is in error.  If the expectation is that someone is going to come onto this forum, start a thread, toss out a few things and have an expectation that Charles is going to discount everything that he has done for the last fifteen years and suddenly say 'You're right, I need to re do the entire penetration model for the game' is probably not dealing with reality as it currently is.  If anyone wants the entire way the game is calculating armor penetration to change they are probably going to need to provide some very compelling evidence, up to and perhaps including various tables and calculations that are the equivalent of what Rexford has published.  Shift8 has already discounted the expertise of apparently well regarded individuals on a forum dedicated to armor penetration.  Why would Charles feel compelled to put any credence into what Shift8 says on this forum.  Is Shift8 published?  Does Shift8 work for the defense department?  Does Shift8 do any original research on this topic?  What are Shift8's credentials exactly or does he just read a few books and count himself an expert?  I don't know the answer to that - maybe he is a renowned expert in the field.
 
I'm not trying to be hard on the guy.  I'm just trying to spell out reality.  Charles relies on research conducted by recognized experts in the field - which includes Rexford.  Shift8 seems to have a dim view of Rexford's work, but really, what is Shift8's qualifications to pontificate on Rexford's work in the first place?  Unless Shift8 can point to his published work and show where all of CM's mistakes are then he's really just tilting at windmills here since Charles is just going to say 'Shift8?  Who is he and why should I care what he thinks?'  Reading a book somewhere doesn't make someone an expert because it should be obvious that what Charles has put into the game is much more complicated than a simple penetration table.  That is, unless Shift8 stayed at a Holiday Inn last night!
 
I don't know Shift8 and I'm not trying to bust the guy's balls, but if you want to change the entire way armored combat is done in the game it will require extraordinary evidence.  Saying 'something is wrong but I don't know what' isn't going to change a thing.  That's reality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcMk85ZsBh0


Click on the link.

Yes, Mark E has QB-ified some of the maps, and they'll be included in the pack.

I like the technique! If the game had lasted a little longer, you know that the secondary explosions from the Shermans would've knocked out that Panther. It shows a highly developed tactical acumen to see that possibility and maneuver the Shermans close enough so it can work. A lot of folks would've tried to do that, but then ruined it by allowing their Shermans to actually SHOOT at the Panther. I laugh at their newbness.
 
DJ gets the award for low-level use of high-level tactical strategery.
 
Oh, and it's properly spelled "narwhalegangwaffe".  

^ That one made me cry. Still does actually.

Also, regrading WW2 speeches, i like these a lot:
 

(jump to 3:20 for the famous part of the speech)
 

 

I *think* what OP is asking about is a WW2 turn based game that lets you control individuals sorta like X-Com.
 
Yes, there is such a game, but it's old. It's called 101st, The Airborne Invasion of Normandy. I remember playing it back when it was released, and still have it in a box in my basement, along with dozens of other games that I haven't played in years.
 
Found a YouTube video that supposedly shows the gameplay (haven't watched it myself):
 

 
From what I remember (and this was many beers ago) it was a decent game and I enjoyed playing it for a month or so. I have no idea if it is still for sale or if it would run on a modern PC.

Hey, I'm not complaining. I've had a bit of a losing streak lately but it's against great opponents and I get a great story for every loss. Not gonna say I didn't throw a few things during those turns though LOL
 
The screenshot alone was worth it. That Panther is just surrounding by death of his own making.
 
I knocked out that halftrack and the Doug positioned the Panther behind it. I knew he was there but my tanks couldn't get eyes on so I just area fired. The shots penetrated THROUGH the halftrack and hit the tank 4 or 5 times, immobilizing him. The whole time the Panther is just firing on every infantry it could see. I laid down smoke and moved up in stages till I was right on top of him with a whole platoon of infantry and 2 75mm tanks, one of which only had 3 crew members that had panicked and run around the map disembarked for the last 5 turns. The entire time I'm hoping my platoon on the other side of the map can just hold on until I take out this tank and move my armor to support them. My three man tank crew said no thank you and backed away, and then that damn nahverteidigungswaffe ruined my day.
 
Wouldn't trade it for anything

They caught him from his Match.com profile.  "Looking for Woman with interest in WW 2 military items.  You bring the Type XXI Boat, I'll bring the torpedoes"