General Liederkranz

These rules are really interesting, thank you for putting them together! From my observations when a unit is in command from a higher echelon, that doesn't create a red command line, and it doesn't turn the chain-of-command lights from red x's into green dots, BUT it does give C2 icons in the UI. An example from a recent game--A team, 3rd Squad, 2nd Platoon, B Company is out of C2 from its Platoon HQ, so it doesn't have a red line, but it is close to its Company HQ (inset) so it gets the UI icons for voice and close visual command. I don't think this would be too hard to keep track of in-game if the rules depended on it.

Apart from the possibility of door or window hits, my understanding is that HE effects on infantry in buildings are toned down to compensate for the fact that interior walls aren't separately modeled. I wonder if the "dice roll" for that sometimes zeroes out the "saving bonus," to factor in the possibility that everyone is in the same room. Getting (un)lucky on both those dice rolls--the shell goes in the window, AND everyone's in that room--could explain this video.

It reminds me of the Critical Hit rule in ASL where a lucky hit can reverse the Terrain Effects Modifier, turning a solid building into a deathtrap. Solid stone walls are great if they're between you and the shell burst, but if you get unlucky and the shell comes in a window then the walls just make the blast worse (or so ASL leads me to believe).

For me the spacing is one of my favorite v4 features and the thing that makes me most frustrated when other parts of v4 aren’t working right. The conga line looked ridiculous to me and anecdotally, I think I see fewer mass casualties from a single MG burst now that they’re spaced out. Coupled with the morale effects of v4, it creates what seems like a more realistic situation where moving infantry take fewer casualties, but go to ground more easily. But I agree v3 is perfectly good and I will probably keep playing CMBN with it as I have been for the past two years, until the new bug is fixed.

What is this bug?

It works, thank you! It's great to see the Chars in action.

This may be a dumb question, but does anyone know where I can find the updated version? The link to the repository is dead and I don't see it at The Scenario Depot.

I just opened up the scenario and it is indeed a 2" mortar. The briefing says no artillery available and this one can't be used for indirect fire.

That's on a Springfield though. I think @AtheistDane is asking about grenade launchers on Garands. I have no idea what's intended and/or historically accurate, but I just ran through two US infantry Battalions for a May 1944 QB and I also didn't see a single Garand with a grenade launcher.

I don't see the need for snark but in any case, is Steve a good enough source for you? "There is no way that a home computer could simulate every last shard coming out of an explosion and then tracking where it goes. It's not only a ridiculously taxing thing to ask of a computer, but also (as you say) totally unnecessary." "Probability, of course, has a big say in the matter. The further out a soldier is, regardless of other factors, the less probability there is of being hit. Blocked LOS/LOF, the type of blockage, stance, etc. further reduce the probability of becoming a casualty." There is a lot of great info in his comments on this thread:

I thought it was well-established that individual artillery fragments aren't tracked, but that damage is probability-based, with distance playing a major role. The model may still be plenty sophisticated in the number of factors that modify a soldier's chance of being hit.

I've seen this in CMFI (and others have reported it there) but not in CMBN.

Yeah, I wish they could cower down inside. And if they're my bunkers sometimes I wish I could MAKE them do that by Hiding, when there's a lot of small arms fire coming into the firing slit.

An anecdote that illustrates, to me, how rapidly bloody things could get, from Hugh Cole's official history of the Bulge, describing an attack by the 87th Division: "While moving over a little rise outside Jenneville, the leading platoon met a fusillade of bullets that claimed twenty casualties in two minutes." Even if the platoon was at full strength to start (39 men), that's 50% in two CM turns. Even more if they were at reduced strength to start. That level of casualties would be pretty shocking even in CM. Obviously it didn't happen constantly--he says the whole battalion lost 132 men that whole day--but it certainly could if commanders (players) press too hard or make mistakes.

Do you know how many companies they committed? I believe it was normal for CW battalions to put two companies into the attack and hold two back. If that’s what they did here, then these casualties would amount to more like 50%. And maybe more in some platoons.

In my experience (mostly under 4.0 though), grenades will kill a wooden bunker, but it’s variable. Sometimes a squad will exhaust its entire supply with no effect, other times it’s easy. I’m currently playing CMFI “Ramparts of the Palikoi” under 4.1 and the bunkers don’t seem too vulnerable to small arms. One did show up as knocked out after several 81mm mortar rounds and a metric ton of .30 cal hit it. Others survived all that just fine What does seem weird is suppression. It’s not clear to me that suppressed bunker occupants actually fire any less than unsuppressed ones (and of course they never cower or pin). It’s also unpredictable what suppresses them. Sometimes mortar hits do but not usually. MG fire that scores penetrations on the firing slit doesn’t seem to. Only actual casualties reliably cause suppression. I don’t think any of this is new since 4.1 but it is just confusing.

I don't remember scout teams ever taking too many grenades -- 3 or 4 seems about what I'm used to seeing. AT teams though tend to grab almost all the grenades, even if they have a better weapon like a bazooka.

Do you mean the number doesn't change from the beginning to the end of the turn? As I recall, for some reason it's always been the case that grenades used at any time during the turn are deducted from the unit's count as soon as playback starts. I don't know if that's always been true of demo charges though?

This is excellent. It looks like some other small things have been fixed too--I notice there are no more extra "assistants" in CMFB VG squads, and the anachronistic M1919A6s in the CMFI Troina campaign have been replaced by M1919A4s. Like with the SVT fix, it's nice to be reminded that the developers are noting problems reported on the boards and fixing them, even when we don't know it.

That's what I do, at least with CMBN and CMFI. But it only works if you already owned the games before the 4.0 upgrade, which was 2 years and 4 months ago. If you're a new player since then, your only choice is 4.0 and the attendant bugs.

Also Brens/BARs/Bredas firing single shots instead of bursts at ranges over 150m or so.

Are you sure about this? I seem to recall distributing AP ammo to squad LMGs and shooting at Soviet armored cars with it (this was in CMRT, of course, not CMBN).

I agree that using a larger-scale wargame to generate scenarios could be more interesting than just translating from a tactical-level game. I know some people were doing something like this with "St. Lo" in CMBN a few years ago. I was recently playing "Last Blitzkrieg" from MMP's Battalion Combat Series and keeping notes of interesting engagements to game out in CMFB. To my mind the problem with doing this with most board wargames is that success is normally dependent on stacking up enough attacking units to make 3-1 odds, so the only information available to build a CM scenario would be "three battalions attack one." By contrast, BCS (maybe like Berlin '85, which I haven't played) models attacks as essentially one battalion on another, and the variables you need to manipulate to win all translate nicely into CM: unit type, troop quality, amount of artillery for each side, posture (deployed vs. hasty attack/defense), availability (and type) of armor or AT support, terrain, strength levels, and fatigue. Of course, if the attacker is doing his job, most BCS attacks would be lopsided in CM terms, but this is usually achieved through combinations of these advantages, rather than just by vastly superior numbers.

For what it’s worth, I also caught a fraudulent charge (Amazon) a few weeks ago on the card I used to buy SF2.

This drives me crazy too, so I now only play the Commonwealth on v3.0. But then I miss the better infantry spacing and recombining squads and corner peeking from v4. So I also end up mostly playing CMRT. It helps too that attacking Russians tend not to have much off-map artillery.