Issues with tank targeting accuracy

[sid_burn]

6 minutes ago, Saint_Fuller said:

"The enemy is starting to range in on my hull-down tanks, better pull back and reposition so I don't get hit"

The problem is that the size of CMX2 maps, as @Erwin (among others) has pointed out elsewhere, often doesn’t allow this. The maps are often designed to encourage really small engagements with little room for maneuver.  So repositioning often isn’t a choice. It depends heavily on the scenario and map designer. 

[com-intern]

yea as a player this is something to keep in mind. I think the most obvious decision from a wego perspective:

* Attempting shoot and scoot Hulldown
* Before a major engagement has occurred (ambush position) Hulldown
* Once you are/are likely to be in a shoot out open ground (preferably keyholed)

Essentially you are trying to make the decision on whether you will need the concealment more than the armor. Once a real fight breaks out the armor is probably preferable since getting hit is just a matter of time.

Edited July 9, 2020 by com-intern
edit

[Bulletpoint]

10 minutes ago, com-intern said:

yea as a player this is something to keep in mind. I think the most obvious decision from a wego perspective:

* Attempting shoot and scoot Hulldown
* Before a major engagement has occurred (ambush position) Hulldown
* Once you are/are likely to be in a shoot out open ground (preferably keyholed)

Essentially you are trying to make the decision on whether you will need the concealment more than the armor. Once a real fight breaks out the armor is probably preferable since getting hit is just a matter of time.

Also, it depends on range. At close ranges (500m), the enemy tank will spot you and start placing rounds on your turret very quickly even if you're hull down, so that's also a hull up choice for me.

Edited July 9, 2020 by Bulletpoint

[RobZ]

1 minute ago, Bulletpoint said:

Also, it depends on range. At close ranges (500m), the enemy tank will spot you and start placing rounds on your turret very quickly even if you're hull down, so that's also a hull up choice for me.

I actually planned on doing the panther test at 500 and 1500m too, but it takes so long to do them that I haven't done it yet, but I believe the 500m one would be even worse for hull down indeed.

[Bulletpoint]

6 minutes ago, RobZ said:

I actually planned on doing the panther test at 500 and 1500m too, but it takes so long to do them that I haven't done it yet, but I believe the 500m one would be even worse for hull down indeed.

Also, when hull-down at close range, you lose the valuable spotting power of the two guys in the hull. They spot quite well at short ranges. But at 1500m, spotting will be more dependent on the optics of the turret, so it doesn't matter as much if the driver has LOS.

Edited July 9, 2020 by Bulletpoint

[Battlefront.com]

I only have a few minutes to weigh in here.

Much of what's been said in the last few pages about the differences between "lab tests" and in-game behavior is true for this.  Tanks in real games don't sit around to have 30 shots taken at them.  If they did, that would be rather silly   Therefore, the premise behind the center mass aim point producing doesn't really hold much practical application to real game results.  To illustrate this, for the most part the lab tests seem to be consistent with similar real world shooting range tests, and the real world battlefield effects seem to be consistent with CM's gameplay results.  This sort of consistency should be reassuring.

It is true that the TacAI starts from the same center mass aim point every single time.  That's fine because what happens after that point is chosen determines shot effect.  As it so happens, the many variables that have the most weight on where the shot winds up are all nullified in the lab test.  As is true in real life, which is why there is apparent similarity as described above.  There's SO MUCH variability when firing at something on the move, x lighting, y terrain, etc. that is also influenced by the crew quality and state that the specific aimpoint is no longer very important when examining large quantities of shots fired.  Meaning, even if we changed the aimpoint to be randomized to some degree, I doubt there'd be much difference in the overall outcomes.  And if there were, then we'd have to adjust something else to compensate because the virtual battlefield results are pretty much as they should be, therefore anything that made them significantly different (worse or better) would skew things in the wrong direction.

This isn't the first time this issue has been brought up over the past 10+ years either   Especially the discussion about hull down protection.  After all the discussions and all the years and years of you guys playing CM in a huge variety of conditions we're pretty confident that there's no fundamental problem with this sort of stuff.

Still, it's a good discussion to have and I do appreciate people putting the time into it.

Steve

[Lethaface]

Been reading this discussion with some interest between work etc

For a part it seems that some dialogues have been going past eachother.

Personally I don't see what the game should fix, apart from it's always nice if the simulation becomes more fine grained. Yes in certain tactical situations in the game, it can be advantageous to not go hull down. More specific, when you are rolling with tanks and are in close range of several enemy which lack the ability to penetrate your tanks frontal/hull armor but can damage the turret (or gun/mantlet area). 
Many players still will choose to go for shoot and scoot hull down, because that's still the best thing to do. Others will go for hull up because in specific situations they know it can help their game.

I think this is were the misunderstanding is focused. It's 'parameter X has too much influence on outcomes in situation A' vs 'situation A is not, or should not, be a desirable situation whatever parameter X is'. 

Personally I am happy that CM doesn't artificially reward a 'hull down'  position. Yes, sometimes outcomes of battles can feel unnatural. In certain situations, being aggressive and or not caring for certain advantageous like hull down + shoot and scoot, can reward (which is not 'unrealistic'  imo). The way how the ballistics simulation of CM compares to the real thing can sometimes be off. It's still a simulation.

Also, afaik 'hit mark' visual representation is just a visual representation of the place where the impact occurred with a static texture for the type of round. It's just a texture bolted on a spot, not sure how accurate it is. So if we see 10 penetration textures on the barrel, it might not represent 10 actual APFSDS (or whatever) projectiles making a full penetration through the barrel/muzzlebrake. 

Edited July 9, 2020 by Lethaface

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, Lethaface said:

Also, afaik 'hit mark' visual representation is just a visual representation of the place where the impact occurred with a static texture for the type of round. It's just a texture bolted on a spot, not sure how accurate it is. So if we see 10 penetration textures on the barrel, it might not represent 10 actual APFSDS (or whatever) projectiles making a full penetration through the barrel/muzzlebrake. 

If you see a hole, it means there was a penetration at that location. If it was a partial penetration, then the hole is smaller than for a regular penetration.

[Lethaface]

1 minute ago, Bulletpoint said:

If you see a hole, it means there was a penetration at that location. If it was a partial penetration, then the hole is smaller than for a regular penetration.

Is that also true for a hit on the barrel or for example the weapon mount?

Still I think the representation with textures of types of hits is a visual approximation on the underlying 'physics calculation' and not to be confused with a real visual representation of what actually occurred. 

[Bulletpoint]

Just now, Lethaface said:

Is that also true for a hit on the barrel or for example the weapon mount?

Yep.

Just now, Lethaface said:

Still I think the representation with textures of types of hits is a visual approximation on the underlying 'physics calculation' and not to be confused with a real visual representation of what actually occurred. 

This is also correct. sometimes the game does try to show the angle of the impacting round by stretching the hit decal a bit in some direction, but it seems it gets the direction wrong sometimes.

[com-intern]

2 hours ago, Lethaface said:

I think this is were the misunderstanding is focused. It's 'parameter X has too much influence on outcomes in situation A' vs 'situation A is not, or should not, be a desirable situation whatever parameter X is'. 

I generally agree with your take except for  this caveat.

1. CM relies heavily on user made content in the form of QBs and scenarios. A number of these present you with challenges that are decidedly unrealistic. Even some official scenarios and campaign missions do this. When that happens the more edge case issues that CM has have a tendency of showing up. So even while you really shouldn't be getting into the situation the realities of map design and scenario design can force your hand.

Essentially I don't think its quite as rare as people think depending on the scenarios and QBs you play.
 

2 hours ago, Lethaface said:

Personally I am happy that CM doesn't artificially reward a 'hull down'  position

IMO your take here is backwards. CM is artificially rewarding open ground positions. Hull down positions are effectivally operating as they should while open ground positions are given a bonus to survivability for certain armor.

Take this test result

22 hours ago, RobZ said:

So after all that i did another 10 tests in each position with shermans all beeing elite crew to see what happend

Panther in hull down position vs 3 elite shermans: 0% win rate

Panther on open ground vs 3 elite shermans: 40% win rate

 In what world do three elite crews sit back and ram home round after round into the upper glacis of a Panther with no effect? To me it seems rather obvious that a gunner would eventually realize they are having no effect and at minimum begin walking rounds elsewhere on the target. Essentially if I had a magic wand I'd have gunners choose a semi-randomized area around the center mass and then change that every ~10 rounds.



~~~~~~~~~~~

Just to be clear I don't have a huge issue with how the system works as it stands as I think it does operate well enough.

Edited July 9, 2020 by com-intern
Edit for clarity

[Howler]

 

1 hour ago, com-intern said:

 Essentially if I had a magic wand I'd have gunners choose a semi-randomized area around the center mass and then change that every ~10 rounds.

No, no, and no! I don't want my gunners to randomly  hit around center of mass. It's hard enough scoring a KO against a Tiger without throwing this into the mix. The randomness you are advocating for already exists in the game when you are actually playing rather than running tests on a target range which is what you all have been observing.

My vehicles blow-up real good as is for all sorts of hits. A main gun getting knocked out is not common for me. Therefore, the very same must also apply to everyone else. No?

 

[com-intern]

3 hours ago, Howler said:

No, no, and no! I don't want my gunners to randomly  hit around center of mass. It's hard enough scoring a KO against a Tiger without throwing this into the mix. The randomness you are advocating for already exists in the game when you are actually playing rather than running tests on a target range which is what you all have been observing.

1. It'd be more realistic

I've brought this up before but firing at center of mass assumes that you know the center of mass. You obviously would not always be able to ID center of mass. Its a lived experience anyone has had so I think this would be obvious.

2. I've had in-game occasions where a gun opens up on a target in the first few seconds of a turn and continues to fire for the remaining minute (or until they die) doing no appreciable damage.

Recently I had a Soviet 37mm AA gun fire at a Panzer IV for two full turns before the Panzer IV reversed over the hillside. Luckily the fire-rate was high enough that the constant smoke blinded the crew - but if the gun had put all those rounds into/around the turret it would have likely knocked the tank out.

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, com-intern said:

 In what world do three elite crews sit back and ram home round after round into the upper glacis of a Panther with no effect? To me it seems rather obvious that a gunner would eventually realize they are having no effect and at minimum begin walking rounds elsewhere on the target.

In what world would an Elite Panther sit and take 10 hits before deciding to do something?   See, this is the problem. A totally artificial situation is isolated from everything that matters and the results are examined as if there's some relevance.  Like any scientific experience, the results of lab tests can not automatically be applied to the real world without adjusting for the two utterly different environments.

Sure, we could have spent a bunch of time writing TacAI to have a gunner take 2-3 minutes between shots to try and snipe a specific piece of a target.  But what utility would that have outside of a lab test?  Not much of any.  Since our time is exceedingly limited, it makes no sense to try and make a lab test work better.

5 hours ago, com-intern said:

Essentially if I had a magic wand I'd have gunners choose a semi-randomized area around the center mass and then change that every ~10 rounds.

As just mentioned, there's no reason to pursue this.  However, if we did we don't have a magic wand.  What we'd have to do is implement some sort of new aim point logic and then adjust other factors that currently do much the same thing in the game right now.

Currently the Experience level and other soft factors effectively screw with the center mass aim point.  Not by deliberately aiming off center, but effectively winding up that way due to simulated crew inefficiencies, the movement of the vehicle/s, LOS quality, etc.  Everything is a balance and it's taken years to get that balance to a point where things are quite robust across a huge array of different circumstances.  There would have to be a super compelling reason to muck around with that balance again, and this for sure isn't it.

Now, I grant you that CM could be more "scientific" about how a particular crew in a particular vehicle finds its aim point before any factors are taken into account.  I speak of simulating a vehicle specific "bore sighting" to a very specific "bore condition".  Bad bore sighting... less chance of hitting what is aimed for.  Bad bore condition... less chance of hitting what is aimed for.  Bad bore sighting with bad bore condition... going to miss the broad side of a barn And then there's things like a specific chance that a specific small arm used by a specific soldier may have its sights set incorrectly or be poorly maintained so as to increase the chance of jamming.

These are all realistic things to simulate and in a perfect world we might attempt to do so.  But it's incredibly difficult to quantify this sort of stuff individually so that overall the results are realistic.  So we stick to generalized variables that fit into other equations very cleanly in a way that allows us to easily adjust them if the overall results seem off.

To sum up...

1.  well done lab tests have value only if their results are not taken out of the rest of the battlefield context.  Confuse lab tests with battlefield results at your peril

2.  there's all kinds of equipment and crew specific conditions that exist in real life that we do not explicitly simulate.  Instead, we ensure these sorts of things are generally simulated so that battlefield results reasonably reflect them.

Steve

[MikeyD]

I'm reminded of 17 pounder and 6 pounder APDS rounds. In the real world either the round was accurate or it REALLY wasn't, all having to do with how  the core and sabot separated. Ideally, in CM titles the occasional round would just go crazy, fly off at an odd angle. But I suspect players would REALLY REALLY hate that happening. There's a bit of 'be careful what you wish for' in this debate. If all of a sudden Stuarts are KOing all the PzIVs with turret front hits all the time, or the round's you're firing on a stationary target aren't hitting anything half the time, someone's going to get frustrated.

[Bulletpoint]

7 hours ago, MikeyD said:

APDS rounds. In the real world either the round was accurate or it REALLY wasn't, all having to do with how  the core and sabot separated.

 

7 hours ago, MikeyD said:

or [if] the round's you're firing on a stationary target aren't hitting anything half the time, someone's going to get frustrated.

 

What's the last time anyone got frustrated with CM because it was too realistic? I'm only seeing people asking for more realism, not less.

Many special weapons in the game are already inaccurate, which is realistic and makes people perfectly happy. Who ever complained his rifle grenades or Panzerfausts miss half the time?

Edited July 10, 2020 by Bulletpoint

[Bulletpoint]

8 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

In what world would an Elite Panther sit and take 10 hits before deciding to do something?   See, this is the problem.

I love the WeGo system, but part of it is also because the turn based mode forces players to either let their tank sit for a full minute and get pummelled, hoping to get a spot and a shot off during that time, or to guess how many seconds are needed to spot and shoot - which is impossible to estimate, since so many variables are at play.

So you end up with tanks staying up too long, taking too many hits, or you have your tank reverse back in cover just before it was about to shoot.

In real life (or playing real-time mode), the tank crew decides what is the optimal time to spot, shoot, and scoot.

This is not an attack on the WeGo mode, but just some reflections.

[RobZ]

@Battlefront.com just fyi, the panther in my tests were regular in all of them. So it was a regular panther vs 3 elite Sherman's.

I see what you are saying with the overall result, but what is the overall result? Is it battle result or just engagement result? The fact that you won't change anything about this center aiming at this time was a response I expected tbh, but it's worth bringing the issue to light. It's not a fundamental flaw, it's not a big issue either, it's a rather minor one, but an issue none the less. But this tacAI habit is exploitable. The results might be correct as it stands cus everyone is playing how it's intended. You might call the panther test a "lab experiment" but it's a combat scenario that can actually happen in a real game, is it then still an experiment? I know from now on that I have a much greater chance of success by standing in the open with a panther if im forced to brawl front to front with the enemy. I can take this exploit even further if I have a damaged panther as well. I run the damaged panther into the open, enemies will start plinking and zeroing their guns to that damaged panther, then I drive forward my fully working panther and the enemy will very likely start hitting the front hull right away cus they are zeroed to that range. That means its even more unlikely they will hit the lower glacis or front turret so my win rate chance goes up even higher. I should not be confident that the enemy doesn't hit a weak spot, but with the current aiming I am pretty confident. If I use this tactic every time I know I'm gonna get shot at, my panthers survival rates will go up by a lot. This can almost be called a "200IQ play" cus essentially you use the enemies habits to your own advantage, but it shouldn't be like that. If this game was very popular and had proper multiplayer, this for sure would be used for people's advantage, just like dropping artillery in your enemies spawn on turn 1.

I will say again this is not a huge issue and doesn't break the game, but it is exploitable and requires changes to be fixed. If we need to wait for the next CM engine for this fix then I guess that's fine, aslong as it happens at some point.

[Bulletpoint]

11 minutes ago, RobZ said:

You might call the panther test a "lab experiment" but it's a combat scenario that can actually happen in a real game, is it then still an experiment?

FWIW I don't see it as just a lab experiment. It's a situation that happens in pretty much every WeGo game involving at least one Panther tank.

[slysniper]

Go ahead and game the system. Its not like you are the only one that has ever done that. And when playing another person. I hope it works for you, because they might be just as smart as you as to how to game the system.

Like pull their tank up so that tree is center mass right in front of their tank. So they fire at you with no issues and you fire back and hit that blasted tree every time.

Or they stay hulled down and adjust so they only see the top portion of your tank.

Or by the simple fact that everything that has not been spotted by you will get a full view of you and blast away from their hidden locations.

 

But I do believe in the concept of tanks being smart enough that maybe  at 400 or 500 meters and under. That some tanks  should be aiming for locations where there is a better chance for success since they are under gunned to take on the hull of the enemy tank.

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

I love the WeGo system, but part of it is also because the turn based mode forces players to either let their tank sit for a full minute and get pummelled, hoping to get a spot and a shot off during that time, or to guess how many seconds are needed to spot and shoot - which is impossible to estimate, since so many variables are at play.

This is an inherent problem with Combat Mission being a game that involves Humans who have motivations for playing that are not always consistent with reality.

What I mean by this is we could very easily have the tank displace and relocate.  The logic is in there and it works reasonably well except for one major factor... players are in favor of it only when the TacAI did exactly what they wanted it to.  If the TacAI did the right thing, but against the player's perception of perfection, players complain.  Loudly.  Which is understandable because players want to feel like their actions matter, and having the TacAI take control away from them challenges that notion.  So we deliberately have the TacAI give more deference to players' wishes for control than is probably good for them.

The result is a game that is technically imperfect because that's exactly what players want.  Even if they don't understand it

That said, I do think you're exaggerating the frequency you experience a tank sitting for the bulk of a turn doing absolutely nothing.  If it were like that I doubt the game would be deemed playable.  Does it happen more frequently than it would in real life?  I'm sure it does.

3 hours ago, RobZ said:

@Battlefront.com just fyi, the panther in my tests were regular in all of them. So it was a regular panther vs 3 elite Sherman's.

As stated above, the TacAI is deliberately weighted towards letting the player decide what to do.  A tank that is comfortably shrugging off hits is far more likely to sit still than one that isn't.  Panther turret fronts are exceptionally good at surviving hits from Shermans and therefore a Regular crew should be more willing to sit it out.

Quote

I see what you are saying with the overall result, but what is the overall result? Is it battle result or just engagement result? The fact that you won't change anything about this center aiming at this time was a response I expected tbh, but it's worth bringing the issue to light. It's not a fundamental flaw, it's not a big issue either, it's a rather minor one, but an issue none the less.

A perfectly reasonable position to take and one I don't fundamentally disagree with.  I just don't see it being enough of an issue to spend the better part of the next year to get things back to pretty much the same overall result.

Quote

But this tacAI habit is exploitable. The results might be correct as it stands cus everyone is playing how it's intended. You might call the panther test a "lab experiment" but it's a combat scenario that can actually happen in a real game, is it then still an experiment? I know from now on that I have a much greater chance of success by standing in the open with a panther if im forced to brawl front to front with the enemy.

Ah, but that's not true at all.  While it is true that things can be learned from lab tests and applied on the battlefield (that is the point of the concept of labs, right?), if you don't take into consideration the myriad of other factors going into a specific situation, you're going to come up short.  Think about it this way...

You've seen people play Rock, Paper, Scissors and you decide to check some stuff.  You examine 100 people playing the game 1000 times and find that ROCK has a higher win rate than the other two.  You conclude "every time I play this game I should use ROCK".  So every time you play you always use ROCK, but find that you lose at a much higher rate than the other two in your test.  Why?  First, because the success of ROCK is relative to the other player's selected option.  Unless they are always leading with SCISSORS, you're going to either tie or lose.  Meaning, your choice does not work.  Second, the samples in your lab test were the result of an aggregation of many different people doing a great many things many times.  It is probably fair to guess that most change up their selections regularly and don't just stick with one option.  This means that the variables which produced ROCK as the overall winner are not relevant to any one specific situation.

Your thinking about hull down and being out in the open is flawed in the same way.  Being hull down provides a lot of tangible benefits that produce better results than being out in the open.  How do I know this?  Because we've been down this road before MANY times already and in the end it's been concluded that hull down works as it should (or reasonably so). 

In real life Hull Down is not some sort of cure all, nor is it in the game.  It is better than being in the open, but only when used appropriately.  And that is what your lab test doesn't even scratch the surface of.  Which is why I say, again, that lab tests have limited utility and their conclusions should be treated with caution when playing an actual game.

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I can take this exploit even further if I have a damaged panther as well. I run the damaged panther into the open, enemies will start plinking and zeroing their guns to that damaged panther, then I drive forward my fully working panther and the enemy will very likely start hitting the front hull right away cus they are zeroed to that range.

Then you'd be wrong   An individual tank has no concept of "zeroing in".  Each target that comes into view is treated as a brand new target.  The only advantage you can eek out is to come from a radically different angle because then turret rotation comes into play.  The horizontal adjustment is too fine to matter in terms of delaying the inevitable shot.  The reason shots will more likely hit the front hull is because it's the bigger target.  And that's exactly as it should be.

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That means its even more unlikely they will hit the lower glacis or front turret so my win rate chance goes up even higher. I should not be confident that the enemy doesn't hit a weak spot, but with the current aiming I am pretty confident. If I use this tactic every time I know I'm gonna get shot at, my panthers survival rates will go up by a lot. This can almost be called a "200IQ play" cus essentially you use the enemies habits to your own advantage, but it shouldn't be like that. If this game was very popular and had proper multiplayer, this for sure would be used for people's advantage, just like dropping artillery in your enemies spawn on turn 1.

There's far more variables at work than you're taking into consideration, so I'm not as confident as you that you've found some exploitable issue.  Dropping artillery on your enemy's likely reinforcement points, on the other hand, is.  Which is why the game does not allow unobserved fire on any point in the map. 

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I will say again this is not a huge issue and doesn't break the game, but it is exploitable and requires changes to be fixed. If we need to wait for the next CM engine for this fix then I guess that's fine, aslong as it happens at some point.

Because there's far less actual negative effect than you perceive, it is not a priority to address in the future.  With CM2 or beyond.  Simply put, what you (and many others) have pointed to is more a theoretical problem than an actual one.

Steve

[Erwin]

2 hours ago, slysniper said:

Like pull their tank up so that tree is center mass right in front of their tank. So they fire at you with no issues and you fire back and hit that blasted tree every time.

This and other LOS/LOF phenomena are issues that we learn to "play around" but is a related item that needs to be looked at eventually.

[Bulletpoint]

57 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

5 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

I love the WeGo system, but part of it is also because the turn based mode forces players to either let their tank sit for a full minute and get pummelled, hoping to get a spot and a shot off during that time, or to guess how many seconds are needed to spot and shoot - which is impossible to estimate, since so many variables are at play.

This is an inherent problem with Combat Mission being a game that involves Humans who have motivations for playing that are not always consistent with reality.

Yes, I realise it's very difficult to really do something about it.

The best idea I can come up with is to be able to put a unit in a cautious state, like a pause order where the tank stays where it is until it detects enemy rounds passing close by, and then carries out the next move order (which could be a reverse order to back down out of sight). Like a conditional pause.

For a tank, that would mean staying in place until under AT fire, and for an infantry team or forward observer, it would be until taking any kind of fire.

Just an idea. I understand you don't want to make too many micromanagement options.

[danfrodo]

From what Steve said earlier, it seems that while this issue may be  a real thing, it's a vanishingly small one as far as BF and most customers are concerned.  Are they going to increase sales because they spent a bunch of time re-writing code for something the vast majority of users don't even know exists and hasn't hurt their game experience? 

I would be pretty angry if they spent their limited resources on stuff like this instead of getting out products covering eastern front 1941-43.  And that's also where they would sell a lot of stuff -- how many current customers would pre-order games covering that theatre/timespan?  99%?   How many new customers would jump in?  Imagine those epic campaigns.  I wouldn't care if they chose to keep the game just like it is and just get out games to cover this era.

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, danfrodo said:

I would be pretty angry if they spent their limited resources on stuff like this instead of getting out products covering eastern front 1941-43.  And that's also where they would sell a lot of stuff -- how many current customers would pre-order games covering that theatre/timespan?  99%?   How many new customers would jump in?  Imagine those epic campaigns.  I wouldn't care if they chose to keep the game just like it is and just get out games to cover this era.

Honest question: What is it about the early war that makes it more epic or interesting than the late war? Germany had smaller tanks, no Panthers or Tigers in 1941, but in Combat Mission, its still going to be scenarios where you have some tanks and some infantry and try to defeat a defense consisting of tanks and AT guns and infantry. What's the big deal with the early war?