A Canadian Cat

Schumacher's team spots infantry who have come through the smoke screen. If you look really closely you can see on guy in the middle of the field and two going through a gap. They will stick around for another minute or so and then pull back to fighting positions. Clearly rifle grenades are not going to cut it at these distances. I get one of the Shrek teams to move up and be ready.

My men get first blood. The AT gun opens up on the infantry crossing the field. The first round drops in the middle of contacts but I do not see any one go down (hopefully we just cannot see the havoc it caused). The second round however scores. Those three spotted Stuart tanks start firing at random places. At first I thought they had spotted the AT gun but the MG rounds were a bit off and kept coming. Un-phased my crew return fire. First round is high. Second round hits home. So does the third but there is no need. No one gets out of the tank. Schmidt's scout team end up all alone in the open hitting the dirt from all the explosions. They also hear another previously un-spotted Stuart near by. They need some luck to get back to cover next turn. My squad sent to greet one of the Stuarts fired two rifle grenades - both missed.

Nope alas it was not to be. The tank did the worst thing possible - it started to drive down the street leaving Schmidt standing out in the open. Luckily for him the AT gun crew got the kill. Unluckily for him another Stuart has appeared on the scene. More to come in the next post...

OK, sounds like I should experiment first then. With tank smoke launchers I just give it a face command in the direction I want the smoke to go and watch it fall right on target. Is if different with infantry?

Indeed not to mention that a significant portion of the population were the families who were expelled from or fled from the US after the war of independence. Indeed, pretty much still going like that.

I keep forgetting about those. I should look for opportunities to use them more. Yes, very good advice. They can be really useful for getting your guys across a road or other small area and the smoke is really fast to arrive too.

On the attack I no longer use it to cover that mass move across open ground - as you said chest pains. But I do use it to blind the enemy. For example, consider your scenario of sending out scouts and responding to the threats they uncover. You might decide that there is too much in that hedge row. Call in smoke to blind half the enemy and suppress and kill the other half. Once the smoke clears you deal with the other half. Divide an conquer.

All right I'll take a shot without looking it up to be sure. Not a lot directly but the distraction did two things: The fact that there was a war going on in Europe encouraged the Americans to make their move because the British were busy. British regular soldiers were busy dealing with Napoleon which left Canada less guarded than usual. I am not sure if Napoleon actually encouraged the Americans or not but I do not think they needed any encouragement. They saw an opportunity and took it. Once Napoleon was defeated and more British Regulars arrived in North America the war pretty much went south for the Americans.

Woah Nelly relax nothing happens quickly around here. Yes, they do. But you should know it can take a year or more and the might not even tell you they did it. As an example several of us posted that we wanted changes in the FOW settings for the Elite skill level. A year later they made one step in the direction and six months after that they finished. It now works pretty much exactly how we wanted it. And they never even told us they made the change. Thanks again BFC BTW. No it is not BS. Yes, the Germans used captured PPSH weapons but they most certainly did not pick them up and run and gun during battle (at least not regularly). Think about it would you pick up a weapon you had no chance to inspect for damage, booby traps and just start using it - hell no! Really, where did you hear that. I have seen them pick them up before. In fact it can be kind of frustrating because a rifle man will buddy aid and pick up an MP44 with only a single clip of amo. After they run out they do not switch back to their rifle. Now there is the bull. Nothing is ever as easy as you think and issues with AI are certainly never easy. As @sburke said 11 days is not long enough to be making statements like that. Well, not with any credibility anyway.

The two Stuarts from the North road pass by Schmidt's team again. One following the flanking Stuart and the other coming really really close. The tank ended its turn just across the road from the scouts. The flanking Stuart drove further and further away this turn. I have no idea what it is doing but it did not come close to my men at all. Here is a magnified shot showing the view from the squad I sent to greet it. Look at the overview picture to get a true idea how far away it is. Schumacher's team can really see the coming storm now. Here is the overview. Note the infantry - looks like two companies coming from the North across those fields. I still have no idea what that smoke screen is hiding. Schumacher's team will see anything that comes through that bocage line. The closest infantry is now 350m away. Time to pull back from the scouting positions and take up fighting positions for when they get closer. Schmidt has decided to bundle up his four grenades and go after that Stuart. He and his squad mate have to cover less than 20m behind the Stuart to pull off the close assault. From behind a buttoned up tank - these are about as good odds as you can get - I wish them luck. If the tank turns around to move to a new location they should cover the distance before it has moved. However if it drives down the road Schmidt could be standing out in the open getting gunned down.

Really, I don't know it seems like a stretch that a rival company would do something like that. BFC is not exactly taking market share away from anyone. Who would actually do that? This reminds me of a friend of mine's favourite quote: I think this fits in the incompetence bucket pretty easily.

Five days, what are you doing stopping for Brats every house along the way?

If he keeps running those Stuarts like that I will take them out. So, lets hope. Agreed the men are in pretty good shape not a lot of experienced leaders which concerns me since there are quire a few out of command but there is not much choice with so few men and so much ground.

Bonus image. Here is one of the Shrek teams repositioning to guard the South road.

The scouting Stuarts split up two of them head for the North road and one heads right for Schmidt's team. They hold their ground and remain very still. The Stuart drives right past them and away towards our Southern flank. Oh how I wish those guys had a Faust - that's how close the Stuart was. With the icons on you can see what is coming across those fields. It is a pity we have to wait to see the white of their eyes before we can do any damage to them.. The two Stuarts cautiously approaching the North road. If those Stuarts come down that North road the will get a proper welcome - a rocket with HE attached. The Stuart that is flanking to the South will have someone to keep an eye on them - or perhaps take a shot at them depending on how close to the bocage it drives.

Sounds like a brilliant plan. Kampfgruppe Leslie is awaiting your reinforcements.

Well there ya go - I never even noticed. As for the missing 't' - naw that's just me. I suck at spelling (lets see how many asteriskes there are in my post).

Wow I never noticed that before - we have automated censors on this forum. I typed the full word s - h - i - t - y and it got auto asterisked. Is that a new thing here? I guess I don't swear enough in print to have noticed.

Buron yes that is the place. I cannot pronounce the French names properly let alone spell them. But I am here and yes I have been taking my uppers as provided by command True if all I see are two companies of infantry and a platoon of Stuarts I will be very happy. But I am expecting a battalion and Shermans too.

Interesting. My take on this guys review was that since he had no idea what real tactics were he did crazy things like send his platoon HQ into the field all alone head of his main force. I do not see how a war game can show you that from a blank slate without the player reading something. This I can agree with - the benefits of an interactive tutorial would be quite high for new players. So it has. And I have to admit I am still perplex about it. Yes, I absolutely hate that the camera flies away when the mouse gets close to the screen edge - that pisses me off every single day. But that is not what you are talking about is it? I have no experience (and no interest) in puzzle, fantasy or first person shooter games so I don't know what better is. I asked a friend of mine who plays Battle Field 3 to show me the camera controls and frankly I noticed three things: they were a bit smoother esp compared to the keyboard; they did not seem that different from when you have your view locked on a unit; I do not see how their locked to a unit at all times mode would actually work in CM. We need a free camera too not just a locked on your POV camera. Let me be clear I am not trying to be dismissive - I still do not get the big issue here and I still would like some one to explain it to me. Please use small words and actual examples because like I said I'm not getting it. Sometimes that just means no one has explained to me yet:) Really, my ****ty near the bottom system performs quite well - better than I would have expected. It does have trouble with some of the bigger scenarios and it sure take a long time to load but with a faster machine doesn't it just bet better? Really, terrible. That seems pretty harsh. Now this I have to disagree with. I think it is handled really well. It progresses across the battle field according to weather and being in it seems quite reasonable. What else is there? I do expect someone reviewing a war game to understand that it is *not* a POV game and not a first person shooter. That is the part that I thought was crappy about this review. Well that and the production value - which just sucked.

Schmidt 's team now has eyes on three Stuarts. The look like they are heading towards the North road into town. The lead Stuart stopped short of actually driving down the road. Waiting for his friends perhaps? There is no sign of infantry near them. I do hope they drive in on their own. Platoon 1 HQ spotted infantry crossing the open fields from the north from their second story perch. No sign of what that smoke screen is hiding yet. Reiser's team spots more infantry crossing the open fields from the North. If only we had some HMGs. But no we want the fight to happen in the town where we can isolate smaller groups of the enemy. So, in summary we have tanks coming from the East and Infantry from the north at the moment. 1 Platoon will redeploy to face the infantry coming from the North except for one Shrek team - they will move closer to the North road into town in case those Stuarts drive deep into town. 2 Platoon will redeploy slightly to protect the South road from those tanks and be in a position to get to the North road if needed.

Brilliant. I can see the background to the AAR will be more interesting than the AAR.

Looks like a plan. I would suggest having tanks join the attempt to recapture Buron - and flank to the North of Authie. It is always good to have a combined force in CM - in fact IMHO win the armor battle and you win the CM battle.

Yeah, I have no idea the size of the force coming at me but I am guessing it is big. Withdrawing and worrying about casualties, is one of the things that having this operational layer is supposed to help us do better. Sadly this battle is not going to be a poster child for that. I have no viable way to withdraw - no covered escape route and no transport. So this will be one of those bloody fights. Consider it this way. My troops know this is an important village to the overall defense and they know that help is on the way. They have to hold out at all costs and hope that reinforcements arrive in time. We already know that they are not arriving in at timely manner but the troops do not.

There have been some discussion of this in the past you and other have touched on many of the same points - the target audience understands that paying a bit more for a game that we can play for a long time is worth it etc. So, right now we have a cadre of players who buy many or almost all of BFC's titles. There are slowly more people added to this group over time - e.g. yourself. The BFC team makes a decent living and they get to keep making games. Serious war gamers spread the word and more trickle to replace the few that do loose interest. If all goes well the market grows and they make more money. Otherwise they get to keep making these games as long as they want. Here is the summary of what BFC is afraid will happen: They reduce the price to get more players. But the players they attract really aren't war gamers and they don't get it. Bad reviews are spread (witness this review as a archetypical example of what could happen: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=110779). The game looses reputation because of all the poorly done reviews and they don`t get more customers because the non war gamer market does not buy even at the lower prices. Bad things happen to BFC`s business.