Sgt Joch

it's like that in CMSF. actually, the XO team does not usually serve a purpose. It is there because it was there in real life. It helps a bit with maintaining C2, especially if the HQ team is destroyed.

but we we have 4 more years of "virtual" combat experience..it hardly seems fair.

true, but there is limit to how much detail you can put into simulating bocage, right now you have: hedge, low bocage, high bocage; to which you can add trees and play with the elevation to get many different variations. You have small and large gap tiles. You have trench, foxholes, bunkers, sandbags... Basically, you can setup the same type of defences the Germans used. Foxholes behind a Bocage tile work the same as foxholes dug into the bocage itself. It does not block LOS/LOF and gives the defender a concealment and defensive bonus.

You can see and fire through hedgerows. The game assumes there were enough gaps in the foliage to see and fire through which matches with the available evidence. If you could not fire through, it would be very difficult for the Germans to put up a defence.

I find the keyboard keys: Q-E for rotation; W-A-S-D for moving around give you more precision than the mouse.

and remember that is a Ost Battalion you are facing, pretty much the worst German troops on the Western front. welcome to the new CM.

very, very, very soon*

guys, chill out, the demo may come out today or it may come out soon. very, very, very soon means very, very, very soon. Bfc is trying to get it out as soon as possible

On the effectiveness of Tac Air and the overclaims of pilots, I will refer you to this article. After the 1991 Gulf War, the Russians sent survey teams to Iraq to determine the effectiveness of U.S. Air Power and its implications for the future. As we all know from CNN, 50% of all Iraqi tanks were destroyed by air power, the truth was a bit different: http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/deserted/deserted.htm This is with modern fighters using PGMs flying over a desert. As others have stated Tac Air destroyed few if any AFVs during Normandy: 1. pilots had great difficulty spotting stationary/camouflaged AFVs from the air and the Germans would often protect them with AA guns, making it a dangerous quarry to hunt; 2. the Germans would generally move at night when no air was around; 3. Tac Air preferred to patrol the rear areas where they could bag softer, easier targets like trucks or trains; As many accounts show, the major effect of Tac Air was to delay the arrival of reinforcements and supply to the Normandy area, which had an operational, but not tactical effect. German Panzer divisions were able to get most of their AFVs to the front lines, most losses being due to breakdowns. Even in the great Turkey Shoot in the Falaise gap, most of the AFVs that were found had been abandoned and destroyed by their own crew after they ran out of fuel or were caught in a traffic jam. This is not revisionism, it is the consensus of all historians who have studied the empirical evidence.

The SRAAWs have a maximum range of 600 meters. Wait until the tanks get closer and they should fire on their own.

At BoB? I did not participate in the last round, but that is one of the best tournament I ever played in. Beautiful map of the factory district. However, it is also one of the best examples of the limit of the CMx1 system. In CMBB, infantry does not exist in the 3d world, but only as in a 2d game, so it can enter any terrain or fire into any hex. You can line up your men inside a factory and they can shoot through solid walls at anyone outside; or you can have your men sprint through the wall across the street, through the wall of the opposing factory and have them materialise in front of your enemy. Because of that the mapmakers had to resort to various tricks, such as placing barbed wire around almost all buildings to prevent this. In CMBN, each individual soldier exists in the 3d world. It can only fire in/out of a building through an opening (door, window, hole); it can also only enter a building through a door or hole. You can only go through a wall if your engineers first blast a hole throught it. It raises MOUT to a whole new level. ...just make sure you check where the door is located before you order your men to rush a building..

basically each move you watch the last turn replay AND then plot your move for the next turn, so only 2 files exchanged for one turn VS 3 files exchanged for a CMx1 game.

patience, fellow players patience, you will not be disappointed. I may be biased (would not be the first time), but CMBN will be an instant classic.

That was not my intention, but the topic of whether soldiers in WW2 swore less frequently or in a milder form than people now has also been raised by some here. The Patton speech, which was meant to be a private speech to his men, puts that notion to rest. Now whether swearing should be included in the game is an entirely different subject. It will not, although I am sure some sound mod will come along for those that want it in.

Regarding whether soldiers swore or not in WW2, I will just quote the text of the speech General Patton gave to the Third Army on June 5th, 1944. Those who have seen the movie "Patton" will recognize it as the speech at the opening of the movie, although the movie version was sanitized. caution: strong language. http://www.5ad.org/Patton_speech.htm http://www.pattonhq.com/speech.html

Meyer was directly responsible for the massacre of canadian troops in normandy and was convicted after the war for it. Why he did not hang for what he did is beyond me. His book "Grenadier" was an attempt to whitewash his reputation. Most serious historians who have looked at it say a lot of his excuses were made up after the war to justify his actions. Having said that, he was a great combat leader.

I am aware of that order, which is also the only one that I am aware of on the NWE front from the Allied side. It was issued in reaction to Malmedy and rescinded a few weeks later after tempers cooled down. There is no evidence that it was ever acted upon.

Link? Note that much of what you find on the internet, even Wikipedia, about alleged Allied War Crimes is highly suspect. A lot of it is posted by neo-Nazis trying to justify Nazi policies. For example, the so called "Chenogne Massacre" of German POWs which has appeared on the net over the past few years as a counterpoint to Malmedy appears to be a made up event. No credible evidence that it ever occurred has been presented.

Interesting juxtaposition, but I don't see how you can equate the two. At Malmedy, and there actually 4-5 separate such incident, a total of 140 unarmed allied POWs were murdered in cold blood. In the other incident, which is actuaaly the British at El Alamein, a commander comes upon trenches full of supposedly sleeping, but presumably armed enemy troops on the battlefield. He has various options:1) leave and hope the germans dont pop up and gun down his men; 2) announce his presence and intention to take them prisoner, and hope they dont pop up and gun down his men; 3) take them prisoner and hope that while taking that noisy bunch back to his lines, other troops dont pop up and gun down his men, or 4)toss in grenades and neutralise the enemy. His actions were perfectly legitimate within the rules of war, those soldiers were legitimate military targets. There is a disturbing trend in popular culture, especially since the vietnam war, to try to create a moral equivalency between the actions of the Western Allies and those of Nazi Germany, to try to argue that our actions to win the war were as bad as theirs. But if you study history, real books written by serious historians, not what passes as history on the internet or movies, you realize that our actions, harsh as they may appear on the surface were not any where close to the evil perpetrated by the Nazis. To me the "banality of evil" is the 6 millions jews killed in extermination camps, the 2.5 million Soviet POWs killed in German POW camps in 1941-42, the killing of crippled/ retarded children in German orphanages, the medical experiments carried out on prisoners, the 1 million+ who were worked to death in the slave labour program, etc., etc. Each a horrible crime in and of itself, but there were so many crimes committed by the Nazis that they tend to get lost in the shuffle.

What I heard from relatives (or friends who had relatives) who did serve in the french-canadian regiments was that they just did not give the germans a chance to surrender. This was after it became common knowledge that the SS were shooting prisoners. However, I know from experience that Quebeckers never let facts get in the way of a good story.

To continue on the prisoner issue. You have to make distinction between soldiers killed while attempting to surrender and the deliberate murder of POWs. Surrendering has always been one of the most dangerous act for a soldier in any war. In the heat of action, the line between legitimate military target and POW is not always clear and mistakes or excesses were made by both sides. However the deliberate cold blooded murder of POWs who have been disarmed and are in custody is an entirely separate issue. All the documented cases on the western front are of German, especially SS troops, cold bloodedly murdering allied troops. The murder of close to 100 canadian soldiers by the 12th SS is one example. Canadian soldiers were murdered days or weeks after they had been captured, sometimes hundred of kilometers from the front. In the case of 26 canadian prisoners held at Chateau d'Audrieu, the order to execute them came directly from 12th SS officers. There is no evidence that allied officers ever ordered the murder of German POWs, only the SS sank to that level.

When dealing with the SS, it is difficult to separate the myth from the facts. The myth was that they were elite soldiers, superbly equipped who fought to the last man. The truth is actually more mondane. The strength of the SS divisions came more from the fact that they were usually at full TO&E when they entered combat whereas many Heer divisions, especially in 1944, were often severely understrength. However, this was more the case on the Ostfront, in Normandy many Heer divisions, such as Panzer Lehr and 21st Panzer were also at full strength on june 6. In terms of manpower however, there does not appear to have been an overall advantage. For example, if you look at the 12th SS Panzer, it had a cadre of officers and NCOs with extensive combat experience on the Ostfront, but the majority of the troops were raw recruits fresh out of basic training. In june, it was facing the 3rd Canadian infantry division/2nd armored brigade. None of the Canadians had any combat experience, but they had extensive training. In actual combat, however, the Canadians performed as well as the SS troops. Where the SS did shine was in their fanaticism. There are many documented cases of the 12th SS murdering canadian prisoners in cold blood. On the other hand, it is true that they surrendered less than regular line unit. The Canadians fought the 12th SS from june to august, but only captured 206 prisoners from that unit. In terms of CMBN, I see no reason to rate SS units higher than "regular", although they may merit a higher motivation rating.

I have been keeping an eye on WITE, reading reviews and AARs. It looks good, but massive. It requires a lot of micro-management which is what holds me back from a purchase. I have WITP:AE which is excellent, but I never really played it because of the micro-management required.

Knowing the effective range of weapons is good info to have and Marco's mod will be very popular. However, that info is not really that pertinent to a squad leader on a WW2 battlefield or in CMBN. 1. almost all infantry combat took place at less than 300 meters. Even snipers rarely shot past that distance, there was a study done recently which showed that the average distance at which U.S. police snipers fired their weapon over a 20 year period was around 93 meters; 2. the role of small arms on a battlefield is not to kill, but to suppress, therefore ROF is more important than range. Small arms caused relatively few infantry casualties, around 10-20%. Most infantry casualties were caused by artillery/mortar fire. In a German squad, the LMG was the most important weapon and everyone else was there basically to support/protect the LMG. In a U.S. squad, it was thought the semi-automatic Garand and the 1 BAR would provide the required ROF. When that turned out not to be the case, it became common practice for squads to acquire a 2nd or even 3rd BAR to supplement ROF. In fact, the move to 5.56 ammo in the 60s was motivated principally by this. 5.56 ammo weighs less than half of what 7.62 weighs, therefore soldiers can carry more and provide a higher ROF.

Dont get your panties in a knot, you're starting to sound like my wife. MikeyD did not call anyone a moron and has nothing to apologize for. As Marco Bergman posted above, the relevant info will be available in game.