Sgt Joch

you can download the official history of the Canadian Army in Italy here: http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/dhh-dhp/his/oh-ho/detail-eng.asp?BfBookLang=1&BfId=25

No changes to the TacAI was made in 3.0 although the RoF of certain weapons was tweaked. I restarted the "Montebourg" campaign in 3.0 and I dont notice any difference.

About what I expected, movement has a big impact on spotting.

Its a fine line, personally I would like to see the chances of bogging/immobilizations/breakdown increased just so players would think twice about moving off that road into a muddy field, etc. However, we have had some discussions about this in the past and I don't think we would ever have a consensus about relative reliability of vehicles. Like many other things about WW2, you have a lot of anecdotes, but not that much hard empirical data. The bigger issue though is the AI which already has enough problem navigating the map as is. A change like this would just give the Human player an even bigger edge against the AI. Vehicle reliability is probably best handled by the scenario author when he decides how many vehicles actually make it to the battlefield.

not necessarily, artificial range tests often lead to artificial results. If you want to see how Nashorns would perform under ideal conditions, then set one up, i.e.; a unit all in C2, veteran or better, up on a hill, hulldown/behind cover. You then have have enemy AFVs moving towards them.

JasonC - it is maybe not that clear from that quote since it is WIKI, but in that engagement one Can. Firefly did KO 5 Panthers with 6 shots. Note also that the 6 Panthers were moving across the front of the Firefly at high speed. I agree with you that in many engagements, multiple shots were fired with no hits, but I would not want readers to get the impression that WW2 tanks were into "spray and pray" or wildly inaccurate. Under ideal conditions, you could get close to one shot=one hit.

yes, but JasonC is talking about global averages, there are exceptions to any rule, i.e.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Firefly#Normandy

I reaaly like Lt Smash's icons, my favorite so far.

Hey Luke, is this with v3 update? did you start a new campaign after v3? I would also recommend, although it can be a pain, a complete new reinstal of the game. I have not seen the problem of the wandering/lost crewman in a long time.

1. purchase/deploy Axis units, save; 2. purchase/deploy Allied units, save; 3. play game, "hotseat" if you want to see/control both sides.

There is a bit of an abstraction going on here, in RL bunkers were usually difficult to spot since they were camouflaged and dug into the earth. They were notoriously difficult to take out with indirect artillery. The game feels about right in that respect. OTOH, they are probably too easy to spot and take out with direct fire since the game treats them as vehicles. This is a known issue which should eventually be addressed.

...... this should be good.

I said up to one third, it could be lower. Dunn analyses unit records, so you can see snapshots of what units looked like. He mentions a platoon roster dated august 30, 1944 that was captured by the Germans. Out of 15 men, 6 were drafted in 1941, 6 in 1942 and 3 in 1943. Presumably some were Booty troops.

Dunn does not say.

What 76mm is referring to are "Booty troops", but according to Dunn, "Hitler's Nemesis: The red Army, 1930-45", they probably did not represent more than 10-20% of replacements on a macro level in 44. Most replacements in 44 were 18 year old draftees who would have had up to 6 months training before being sent to their units and would then receive a few weeks more training with the unit before going into action. Their training level was basically the same as 18 year old draftees in the German or Western Allied army in 44. Whether they should be considered "regulars" or "green" in CM terms is of course debatable. Regarding "Booty troops", again according to Dunn, they probably broke down into two groups. The first group would be men in their late 20s or 30s who had previous military training pre-war and some of which had served with Partisans. They were the ones who were sent directly to front line units. The Soviets classified them as "untrained", but they were really re-called reservists. Again whether they should be classified as low motivation regulars or green is debatable. The second group of "Booty Troops" were young men in their teens or early 20s who had no prior military training. Again according to Dunn, evidence suggests most were probably sent to basic training like the regular replacements. A "typical" Russian infantry unit in june 44 was probably composed of about one-third freshly arrived 18 year olds, a second group less than one-third composed of veterans, some of which could be in their 40s who would have been with the unit since 41 or 42 and the rest in their late teens, early 20s who would have been with the unit a few months up to 2 years.

not yet, still trying to isolate the issue, most likely suspect seems to be a conflict between CM and AMDs open gl drivers. rolling back from 14.4 to 13.12 helps a bit.

I have been testing the new shaders/shadows in the upcoming patch and they look really nice on my R9 290. I would advise waiting for the patch before switching.

interesting question. From what I have read, the Soviets had a very informal approach to TOE. The formal TOE for a Rifle Division was around 9,500 and around 10,500 for a Guards Rifle division, but in practice the Russians used 3 TOE: 4,000, 6,000 or 8,000. 4,000 and 6,000 men division were used on non-active fronts and 8,000 men divisions were used on active fronts. The difference between a 8,000 and, say, a 10,500 man division was mostly in the supporting arms which were concentrated at a Corps and Army level. Also the Russians, unlike the U.S., did not feed replacements to divisions in action. The divisions would fight and a certain point would be pulled out from the front, receive replacements, reorganise and only then be sent back in to action. So for example, the 11th Guards Army which is the one featured in the CMRT Soviet campaign, arrived in the Orsha area in early may. It received, IIRC, 20-30,000 new recruits, which were integrated into the various units, trained together for 5-6 weeks and went into action on june 22 with an average divisional strength of 7,200 men. So yes, if you look at 1944, only IIRC, 25% or so of the divisions were at 8,000, the rest at 4 or 6,000 and you had many on active operations that were below strength. However, this was how the Russians operated their army to maximise use of manpower. The divisions used in a major offensive were usually at full strength when it started. p.s. - I also had a chance to re-check my notes, the Soviet Army took in 2 million new recruits in 1943 and 3 million in 1944-45 combined.

Two more points that would partly explain the higher level of Soviet casualties: 1. The Soviets were a lot more aggressive in their use of infantry and less concerned about minimising casualties. This was partly because of the political system which did not have to worry about public opinion and partly because they had a large pool of, as I recall, 1.5-2 million 18 year old conscripts coming into the army in each of 1942, 43 and 44, more than enough to cover casualties in those years. In fact, IIRC, the Russians started disbanding units and sending men back to civilian production in late 44. In contrast, the Germans had a potential pool of only around 600,000 young men turning 18 each year. The British and Canadians were both facing a manpower crisis in 1944 and had trouble replacing casualties. The U.S. and CW also, being democracies, had to be careful to keep casualties to a justifiable level. 2. The Soviet infantry junior leadership at the team/squad/platoon level was not as competent as in the U.S./CW and German armies. There are many reasons for this (education, casualties, promotion), but there was always a shortage of qualified, experienced NCOs and junior officers. This was the main reason why the Soviets switched from a 4 platoon to a 3 platoon company in 44.

JasonC is a very wise man.

The issue seems to be with the "3d texture" setting. with my PBEM file of "Studienka", the game loads in about 80 seconds with Balanced/Balanced or Best 3d models/Balanced textures, but takes over 4 minutes at Best/Best. The only workaround for the time being is to play at Balanced/Balanced or Best/Balanced. If you have a high end system, the visual quality hit is small.

couple of points: 1. "Panzer Operations: The Eastern Front Memoir of General Raus, 1941-1945" is good, but I find he is more pertinent in 41-42 when he was at division level and relating events he saw first hand. Once he gets to Corps and Army level in 43 or 44, he seems to be relating events he heard second or third hand, some of which are directly contradicted by other sources I have seen. 2. One very good document on German doctrine is Wray's "Standing Fast: German defensive doctrine on the Russian Front during the Second World War" available here: http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p4013coll2/id/1743 3. If you read Wray and other sources, you will see the Soviets did improve tactically on the attack from incompetent in 41 to competent in 43-45. They were probably always behind the Germans, but the gap kept narrowing as the war progressed. 4. Yes, the Soviets had problems cracking a perfect German defense, but the reality is that as the war progressed, the Germans were too short of men and equipment to set up text book defenses except in certain key areas. The Soviet response was to avoid the heavily defended areas and drive through the weak spots instead. For example, if you look at "Bagration", Army Group Centre was only able to setup strong defenses along the four main highways: Vitebsk, Orsha, Brobuisk and Mogilev. In between they were relying on the terrain and Panzer reserves to clean up any Russian advance. The Soviets knew that the Germans tended to pull their forces out of the first trench lines before an offensive to avoid the initial barrage. In response, the Russians started sending company/battalion sized probes just to see if the trenches were occupied. If they were, they would pull the probes back and start a conventional offensive, if not they would drive through. On june 22, the Russians started probes throughout most of the attack front. North of Vitebsk, many probes went right through the german lines which were very lightly held. The local commander just kept right on going with the offensive and dispensed with the barrage. Around Orsha, the june 22 probes failed and the initial june 23 assaults made slow progress. However, between Orsha and Vitebsk, in terrain which the Germans considered impassable, the Russians broke through the thin German defences. (Note: this is where the Soviet campaign in CMRT is located and we have made an effort to model the German defences as they probably were in that area.) Once the front was broken, either north of Vitebsk or between Vitebsk and Orsha, the Russians quickly rearranged their plans to push their tank forces through. The Germans were then forced with a tough choice: stay in their defenses and be encircled or retreat west onto open ground. The reality is that once you get to the CMRT time frame, a battle where the Russians just throw masses of men at a text book German defense is more the exception than the rule.

I have raised it to the Beta group, it looks like a ATI driver issue.

Let us know how the new Nvidia card works out. I have looked at this from many angles, updating drivers, tweaking, changing options, but no improvement. Loading times for "Studienka" PBEM files as German after 30 minutes of game play hover around 4 minutes. OTOH, "Woroblin Bridgehead" PBEM files load in 1 minute. The size and complexity of the map seems to have the biggest impact on load times.

Hi, no just talking about in game performance, loading times are still an issue. However, video card should have no impact on loading times since it only begins to work after the game is loaded. The most likely culprits are the SSD, CPU, operating system, drivers or the interplay between some/all of them. what are your system specs? edit - actually you may be on to something, maybe a conflict with the card's video drivers. Will have to look into that.