zinzan

I got dragged around a Lavender farm by my wife and a visiting mate. We arrive, look at a block of Lavender, two minutes later wife's mate has wandered off somewhere else and shouts out, 'oh look at this' my response of 'is it more Lavender' (which predictably it was) did not go down well.
Definitely a morning of my life I'll never get back - but I suppose the upside of it is that I can agree with @MikeyDbased on personal experience that Lavender is not modelled brilliantly in the game. I doubt Lavender realism will make the patch either for those of you who believe that the game is broken because of it.

More source material on the attack
The first combat order of the 137th Infantry during World War II called for an attack at 0600 the following morning, 11 July 1944, on German positions from the Vire river near St. Gilles, extending southwest through la Petite Ferme toward le Carillon.
During the night of 11 July 1944, the 1st (A,B,C) and 2nd (E,F,G) Battalions were in position for the attack, with Company G in reserve. The 3rd Battalion (I,K,L,M) was held as Division reserve, due to their late debarkation and arrival in the area.
In the early morning, both 1st and 2nd Battalions received enemy mortar fire. Company C encountered an enemy patrol, which was driven off, in the first actual contact with the enemy. Company F also encountered an enemy patrol during the night. 
The attack jumped off at 0600 after an artillery preparation from 600 guns. Corps artillery was in support of the operation. 
With the attack scarcely begun, the 137th encountered a fortified church on Highway 3, north of St. Gilles, and for most of the morning was pinned down by heavy machine gun, mortar and artillery fire.  Regiment commander, Colonel Layng was wounded in the face and leg by machine gun fire at 0715. At the same time the commander of the supporting 219th Field Artillery Battalion and artillery liaison officer, were killed, and the first platoon of Company G suffered heavy casualties. After being pinned down for over two hours, when an artillery barrage forced the German machine gunner to take cover for a brief instant, Lieutenant Simpson was able to drag a wounded fellow officer to the slight protection of a tree and some hedge.
On 11 July near St. Gilles, Company M medics rescued an injured soldier of the 219th Field Artillery Battalion who was enveloped in the flames of a burning quarter-ton truck after a direct hit from enemy artillery.
Medic Sergeant Spengler, attached to Company F, at 1000 on 11 July ignored enemy machine gun and sniper fire and left the concealment of hedges to rescue a wounded soldier from an open field.
Despite pounding by artillery, the fortified church north of St. Gilles could not be taken out. This, together with a fortified chateau in the same vicinity, held up 1st Battalion most of the day.
2nd Battalion made advances up to 400 yards, with Company F making the greatest gain until a shortage of ammunition held up their advance. 
3rd Battalion was committed at 1830.
The first enemy prisoners captured indicated that the Division was facing elements of 897th, 898th and 899th Infantry regiments, and composing Kampfgruppe (Colonel General)  Kentner. 
Throughout the day the regiment was subjected to heavy machine gun and mortar fire from well dug-in positions, and from 88mm and 150mm artillery fire from the rear. Due to allied aerial superiority, no enemy air attacks were encountered.  Casualties in the 137th for the first day’s operations were 12 killed, 96 wounded and 18 missing in action
The regiment again attacked at 0800 on 12 July 1944, with 2nd and 3rd Battalions in the leading echelon. The weather remained cloudy, with intermittent showers. Tank destroyers were attached to the regiment and heavy artillery support was continued.
Enemy fire continued from the church north of St. Gilles, and at 1045 1st Battalion stormed that stronghold and took it and the surrounding buildings. 1st Battalion then moved on and contacted elements of 3rd Battalion, which had cut in behind these strong points. 1st Battalion cleaned out remaining hostile resistance in the vicinity of St. Gilles by 1400. 
3rd Battalion pushed on to Highway 3 southwest of St. Gilles, where they were held up by machine gun fire, mines and booby traps. At 1600 a strong enemy position was captured about 1000 yards south of St. Gilles.
Company I. On 12 July, after his Platoon Leader had been killed, Sergeant Gonzales took command of the platoon, which had been under heavy mortar and machine gun fire. Using sound judgment and quick thinking, Gonzales commanded an attached Tank Destroyer, whose crew had been reduced by enemy fire, and blasted out a gun nest. When this TD bogged down, he returned to bring up another which pulled the first to safety. The Sergeant then blasted out the remaining nests and his platoon was able to advance.
Heavy enemy mortar and artillery fire continued, and snipers were active. Casualties for 12 July 1944 were 7 killed, 74 wounded and 7 missing. 
On 13 July 1944, the regiment attacked at 0800, with the 3rd & 2nd Battalions again leading. Visibility was poor, and aerial support was called off, but the artillery support remained excellent. The 3rd Battalion moved 500 yards before being held up by machine gun fire. 
The 2nd Battalion on the right, received heavy shell fire and made no marked advance. 
After being held up in the early part of the day, the 2nd Battalion broke through for a gain of 500 years. 
An enemy counterattack forced the 3rd Battalion back to its original position at 2200. 
Company M. On 13 July, after several unsuccessful attempts of his platoon to cross a field which the Germans had well covered with machine gun fire, and after his Platoon Leader was killed, Sergeant Hupp determined the location of the enemy emplacements, obtained a light machine gun, and firing from the hip, killed three Germans. This neutralized the first nest. He then led his platoon to clear out the remaining two nests. The entire battalion was then able to advance.
During the afternoon of 13 July, southeast of la Meauffe, two members of Company A observed a disabled tank in an area in which they knew an artillery barrage was due to fall. A wounded member of the crew was still in the tank.... Private Nichols was wounded during the barrage, but after he and Sergeant Blair evacuated the three wounded men, Nichols joined his platoon in the attack until ordered to the aid station by his commanding officer.
Executive Officer of Company A, assumed command of a provisional platoon on 13 July and carried out an attack upon a position where all previous attacks had failed. Exposing himself to enemy machine gun fire, he pointed out enemy emplacements from his position at the head of the platoon, and five emplacements were successfully disposed of. Eight of the enemy were killed, twelve taken prisoner, and a large amount of enemy materiel captured.
Late in the afternoon of 13 July, two platoons of Company L were pinned down by machine gun fire. After the company radio man had been killed, Sergeant Hughbanks removed the radio from the dead soldier, called the battalion OP and requested artillery fire on the German position. For almost an hour he directed the fire, until the enemy emplacements were neutralized.
These forces received heavy fire from enemy 88mm artillery regularly during the day, although at 1145 our own artillery knocked out two enemy mobile 88’s. Time burst was also used by the Germans. It was evident that the hedgerows so common in Normandy were being used to the maximum in the plan of the German defense. Forty-seven prisoners were taken during the day. Our casualties on this day were the heaviest yet, with 21 killed, 87 wounded and 17 missing in action.
On Friday, 14 July 1944, the regiment attacked again at 0800, with one platoon of medium tanks in support of each battalion. 
By 1300 the 1st Battalion had advanced up to 300 yards, but were meeting stiff resistance at la Pte Ferme. By 1630 the 1st Battalion was attacking the enemy stronghold at la Mare, where German troops had assembled in the stone buildings in that area. 
The 3rd Battalion, on the right, had established contact with forces on the strongly held road junction of Highways 2 and 3. 
All elements were encountering heavy minefields and 88mm fire. Casualties in the regiment totaled 127. Of these, 17 were killed, 106 wounded and 4 missing. Forty prisoners were taken. Some of the prisoners reported that many German soldiers wanted to surrender, but were being closely watched by officers and non-commissioned officers.
On 15 July 1944, the regiment attacked, for the fifth consecutive morning, and were met by heavy artillery fire. 
With the 3rd Battalion established 200 yards north of Highway 2, main road to St. Lo, Company K pushed forward to the road at 0910, but was held up there by machine gun fire. No large gains were made by any battalion during the day. (The main effort for the Division was made by the 134th Infantry). 
Our 1st Battalion turned back a strong German counterattack at noon. 
The loudspeaker method of contacting the enemy troops was again used, and 25 prisoners were taken. The 137th lost 16 men killed, 100 wounded and 1 missing in action. 
On Sunday, 16 July 1944, the battle slowed down considerably. The weeks attack and the heavy artillery pounding was beginning to tell on the enemy forces, and reports began to come back of their units attempting to operate with a drastic reduction of men, with no replacements; of a shortage of food, water and ammunition; and of extensive use of horse-drawn vehicles due to lack of gasoline. 
Our forces consolidated and strengthened their lines during the day. The 2nd Battalion operating in the vicinity of le Carrillon, advanced 600 yards at one point. Casualties in the regiment showed a marked decrease as the action slowed down and as the men were becoming more battle-wise. On the 16th, 5 men were killed, 23 wounded and 2 missing in action. 
 

The machine gun boost didn't break the campaigns, but did make them more difficult.
Im wondering if the MG update was later removed again, because they seem much less of a problem than they used to. Maybe I've just improved my tactics after years of playing, who knows..

No, the effectiveness of machine guns has not been tuned down.
Much more likely explanation

Wisdom. Thanks for the whole quote.

Well I always do a little post mortem after a release and try to lean something new to do better next time. I actually have a couple of thoughts that come from that problem. Hopefully they will help.
Honestly the "why didn't you find X horrible bug" discussions are of very little interest to me. I try to shut them down at work too. Its kind of like "why are things always in the last place I look?" It is hard to know in advance what you missed and execute everything perfectly.
The correct thing to do is look at what got into the wild and ask what could be  added or changed to prevent that from happening in the future. And balance that with all the other things you are doing and creating a new plan for next time.
BTW anyone who thinks those are both the same question needs to observe and learn more about human psychology.

When Belgium in the 1970s went looking for an armored close infantry support vehicle they were offered a stripped-down Leopard 1 for the role. They turned it down in favor of Jpz-Kanone. Their reasoning was if a vehicle looks like a 'tank' commanders will be tempted to use them as 'tanks'. But they aren't 'tanks', they're dedicated close infantry support. If you strap an anti-tank weapon to an APC some commander somewhere will try to use them as anti-tank vehicles. I've seen picts of Stryker remote weapons station with a Javelin missile strapped onto it. My first thought was when shrapnel or sniper fire detonates that exposed missile it's going to take the whole CROWS weapon station with it.

Presumably it's so no one would make the catastrophic mistake of thinking it can fight tanks.

Thank ya, my Aussie brother! If you run into that dude that punched the Kangaroo in the chops, buy him a beer for me. He's my kinda guy. My cousin tried that crap with a black bear last summer. He had to give up knitting and now writes with his feet. I gotta say his penmanship has greatly improved though. Go figure.
 
It was actually Charles after the sixteenth time Steve said I want to add just one more thing to SF2. The Bigfoot part was probably for legal reasons.
 
Mord.

Throughout the past wargamers all over the world (the groggy, semi-groggy and non-groggy alike) have gathered on December 24th, in a far corner of the internet, to await the arrival of Santa Steve. It is a storied tradition that has been passed from father to son, and son to another son, and that son to his imaginary friend, Jim. For what? at least four years now? So, it's time-honored. Like drunken derelicts in a Mexican whorehouse, a whiskey, beer, (or in Emrys' case, egg nog spiked with ex-lax) in hand, they jostle excitedly to be the first to sight the legendary WaffenKringle of the Great Northern East. For they know, with his arrival come tidings of war and what shape that war will take in the following year. It's the kinda joy that brings a tear to a grown man's eye and divorce papers from that same guy's wife.
However, this December an old friend from the desert landed in a LZ that normally would be abuzz with the cries of "BONES! BONES! BONES!" This friend had lost ten years, and gained ten pounds, and looked like a million bucks! Seemingly sated and awash in desert badassery most have turned their attention to blowing the crap out of Syrian crewed T-72s or RPGing a Leopard or three. So, it begs the question, with our old friend to keep us knee deep in cordite and the WaffenKringle elves busy as only WaffenKringle elves can be, will Santa Steve ride tomorrow night? Will all the good little wargamers gather in the hopes that Santa Steve soon will be here? Or will it be the year without a Santa Steve? I for one hope to spy him drudging out of the snowy wilderness, brain-in-a-jar in hand, the pockets of his coveralls packed to the brim with CM news and wargaming goodness. But regardless as to whether it happens or not, I am thankful our stockings were stuffed early with SF2. It was a great ending to a very dry year! Here's to killing it in 2019; Russian winters and Brazilian waxings in North Italia!
Merry Christmas, Fellas!!
 

 
 
 

 
 
Mord.
 
P.S. A year ago yesterday. Wow. We made it!!!
 
http://community.battlefront.com/topic/126131-the-night-before-cm-mas/?tab=comments#comment-1731593

"The prevalent culture here is that the customer is little more an an irritant and liable to be ignored for months on end - except when it comes to promoting new product and 'upgrades'. It is hardly surprising that these games are such a niche market when even the small current customer base is treated with such continued disdain"...
I think that's bit (lots) over the top. Battlefront is by all accounts a small company with limited resources, and its games and upgrades don't cost a lot (as far as I can tell from the position of somebody who only buys Battlefront games). They seem passionate about quality, and often warn fans that projects can drag out, and they'll only issue them when they're right.
There's still no game that comes close to the realism and playability of Combat Mission (largely thanks to the WEGO system), and I play only CM WW2 titles. Sure, it's annoying when troops jump out of their trenches into mortar barrages, or don't react quickly enough to enemies right in front of them, but I just put that down to the craziness of stressed-out troops on the battlefield, which I imagine often wrecked the carefully laid plans of real life battalion commanders...

You REALLY should try it out. It's way beyond Movie Mode or throwing mods into the folder. AND that's coming from a modder! You can tweak the settings as much or as little as you like. Your shader setup can be even more personalized than your actual mod folder. The pics you have seen are just everyone elses personal likes, yours can be completely different all by clicking! Seriously, you are doing yourself a disservice ignoring it. It will change your gaming!

 
Mord, Church of Reshadetology.

Check your "Games file" folders; Incoming email & Outgoing email.  I've seen the presence of a game file there resurrect it in CMHelper.

Wow thanks Badger....that was exactly the problem and it is now fixed.  Cheers!

Checked this out and made the fix...door is now inside the attached single story bldg... the corrected map will be in the next CMSF2 patch.  But here's a zip copy now
 
Desert Town (592 X 208) 296m.zip

Doors are on the top floor. Therefore, your men need to embark on their M40 “Ali Baba” Air Transport Carpet (Magic) first. Important to place the waypoint immediately adjacent to the door, though, since a 5 floor free fall will, at the least, cause your squad to be “Broken.” This could be countered by first employing your M1 WB/MM (Warner Brothers/Merry Melodies) Snake Charmer, which of course will extend a rope straight up from the Action Square in which it is located, allowing your men to rappel to the ground should you screw up placement of the M40 ATC(M). You’ll find all this in the Manual.
Oh, don’t forget, the doorways may, in fact, be guarded by an M2 LT (Looney Tunes)Hassan Chop unit, armed with a huge scimitar (the big sword type, not that silly vehicle those British people run around in). Dicey (literally) in close quarters.
I hope that helps, Kevin. Strangely, I feel the need to go watch some cartoons.

Ha well there is writing an AI plan and then there is writing a good AI plan.  I am still working on the 2nd. 

The former colonies? Like in West Africa they have dry and wet season. Which seem to me like two variants of continuous summer.

Sigh...if only your sober reasoning would be heard, Combatintman.

The German edition, according to your link, was published in 2014 which is probably enough time to have garnered a review or two.
The  author:
http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-nb2003070679/
The original publisher of his books:
http://www.hek-creativ-verlag.de/
The author and publisher being one and the same.
How many reviews of his works over the years …? Not many …
The absence of a substantial review base is not necessarily the be all and end all but he is also not a historian by trade.
Whether the book is controversial or not is another matter, that label is applied by the person writing the linked article. If you delve into the narrative in the article, it seems that the 'controversy' boils down to:
The Germans didn't fight much. True - they lost. Lieutenant Brotheridge was killed by his own side. Could have been, it was dark and there were a fair few rounds going down range. Lieutenant Brotheridges's circumstances of death have been covered up. Depends really on whether he was killed by his own side, whether anyone knew that his own side had killed him and what defines a cover up. Just for sh1ts and giggles, let's say that Lieutenant Brotheridge was killed by friendly fire. His death I am sure would have been recorded in official records as killed in action. I doubt anybody really had the time or inclination to investigate the cause of every death in action with there being a war on and all that. In conspiracy theorist world, because the accurate statement 'killed in action' does not say 'killed by own side' and that there was no further investigation, such omissions amount to a cover up.  This reasoning is generally flawed.
Back to the end of the article at your link:
'Although the author cannot provide further evidence to support his hypotheses than the many testimonies of veterans, he nevertheless contributes to shaking up the historic lines of D-Day.' This seems to me to indicate that the author lacks evidence beyond a few old people that he spoke to. Oral testimony has its place but as you ought to know from your intelligence background, you have to question the validity of such testimony years after the event, particularly when it is uncorroborated by other sources.
So, that is a pretty long way of saying - don't get 'excited and curious' every time you see something labelled controversial.


 
 

I tend to pull crewmen who have abandoned their vehicles far away from combat. Partly because they do not perform well in a firefight, and partly because it isn't realistic to use them as infantry. 

There isn't anything you can do to fix a vehicle once it becomes immobilized. Certain terrain is much more likely to bog/immobilize a vehicle, such as mud. 
There have been a few threads that have addressed movement speed and bog chance, and off the top of my head I think the consensus that was reached was that speed does not effect bog chance, though I might be wrong. 
I also recall that the game simulates ground being torn up by vehicles repeatedly crossing over it. So if you have a field that a bunch of tanks have rolled over, the bog chance increases. Not entirely sure if that is the case, though I have seen effects in the game enough to think it is. 
There is also a bit of randomness thrown in. It's possible to bog/immobilize on a road, though the chance is low. This is to simulate a track being thrown for any number of reasons, or a tire going flat, or an axle breaking, etc. Murphy's law is a constant after all. 

not sure, i'll look and if not will post it.

Then you need lots and lots of mods.

Fwiw I upgraded from a GT260 to GTX750 on my 1st Gen i7 a few years back and noticed a massive improvement in CM gaming. I was able to Max out settings for once. But that is going from a low end card.
I now have night blade with gtx 1080 8gb and of course CM plays like dream because of the processing speed alone. I suppose if it's a 4km map of just buildings you would still get a lag at ground level but that still happens in the shooters I play that are maximized.