TerminatorX

That looks like a pretty tidy plan. I committed almost everything to the approach you marked as 3 since it offered such a good view of what enemies I could spot from that overwatch by the powerlines. Caught a lot of armor from the side that way which was great, but fighting through that dug in platoon on the hill above Marborn and into the town itself was just a slog. I dumped a lot of artillery on to those positions but even the cluster munitions weren't doing much killing. I had completely forgotten that the US had amphibious capabilities, will have to remember that for next time.

@The_CaptI took your advice and tried mission 5 again. By dispersing infantry throughout the woods I was able to figure out where the Soviets were and then hit them while they were moving, which seems like the safest way to fight. After preserving my forces well enough I ran the team into the ground on the next mission, and it looks like only barely scraped by getting on to mission 7. It was really interesting getting the behind the scenes context for mission 5, do you have any similar observations for mission 6? I ask because the expectations I had from the briefing and what I ended up noticing about the fight were a little different from each other, which I'm sure was intentional. I struggled to make decisions based on the one hour time limit, size, and force composition. Attacking positions yielded information, but was costly. Looking at the remaining enemy after the fight ended I have to admit I have no idea how I'd clear them all out. Were beta testers able to take and hold all objectives?

I have been playing the US campaign and I think it might be the most fun I've ever had with a CM title. The wide open spaces and ability to maneuver leads to some really tense and unexpected situations! I'd like to learn more about the victory conditions for the US campaign. While playing the 1979 version I'd enjoyed a streak of major / total victories right up to Route 66 which ended with a minor US victory. The campaign then ends in a draw, are there hidden conditions to proceed to the last three missions?

Steve, are you worried that requiring users to purchase Upgrade 3.0 so that they can purchase Upgrade 4.0 so that they can purchase the new CMFI module might hurt sales?

Tried out Hitting the Flank and Into Lithuania this week, both were very fun to play through. Combined arms at around company strength seems to be where this game shines, and so far your missions have been fantastic at hitting that sweet spot.

I know right? It's crazy that the United States might not want to drive itself further into debt while all of these NATO countries openly flaunt the agreed upon membership requirements. Europeans shouldn't actually have to feel responsible for the defense of Europe, that would just be racist or something.

Played the mission in question today too, seems to be an issue on PC as well. Buttoned stug crew will man the outer MG regardless of buttoning orders. It's not such a big deal when enemies are to the front and far away since the gun shield is so large, but if an allied rifleman gets behind the vehicle it can turn into a dead crew member very quickly. I guess its a design flaw with the vehicle that in order to use the machine gun a crew member needs to leave the protection an AFV should afford him. Maybe the AI could be tweaked so that the machine gunner was more conservative with exposing himself, or only used the weapon when unbutton orders are given (like a halftrack, or the 50 on a sherman)

Great videos! Hope you keep making AARs, watching them is a lot of fun.

This appears to be not the case, at lest in the latest release version of CMFI. Fallschirm HMG teams at conscript, regular and elite all took an identical 20 seconds to deploy (as opposed to the 10 seconds stated on the UI). Ditto for the medium mortars, 46 seconds on the dot, and recoilless at 1.5 minutes. Was this meant to be a feature by Battlefront? I would love to see it implemented in the next patch.