Apocal

I contend the opposite, that the most common circumstance was those minor actions having artillery support (generally div arty) available as long as they had a functioning radio. Points and rarity are a straight performance/balance variable in-game, some nation's infantry called for their howitzers more than their mortars but the latter are cheaper in points (and occasionally rarity as well) and therefore more commonly encountered, relatively rare, but poor vehicles cost less in rarity than their outstanding (but no less numerous) counterparts, etc. (http://www.5ad.org/units/47AFA.html) The correctness of this information soon was apparent when a strong patrol from the 46th Armored Infantry Battalion which had moved to the north to test the enemy's defenses, ran into a hornet's nest of 88 and 75 high velocity fire from these AA guns converted to ground use. Our observers with the patrol requested fire which was immediately delivered and good effect obtained. (http://newspaperarchive.com/us/arizona/phoenix/arizona-independent-republic/1944/08-19/page-5) Corporal Richard Boehm, St. James, Minnesota, school teacher and Privates Frederick Heid, Erie, Pennsylvania and James Beale, Petersburg, Virginia, were out on a three man reconnaissance patrol and noted the counterattack by some 100-150 Germans, supported by artillery from high ground. The patrol called for artillery fire on the enemy column, and since no artillery observers were there, the trio personally directed the fire. They directed the artillery on the column with three test shells, and the guns did the rest. A battering barrage of 110 rounds were slammed on the position. (http://ehistory.osu.edu/world/library/books/wwii/greenbooks/bulge/0371.cfm) Near the three or four houses of the hamlet of La Neuville a bridge still spanned the Salm, covered by a platoon roadblock on the east bank. At dark a German column of tanks (or assault guns) and infantry approached the bridge, The platoon called for artillery, engaged in a short exchange of fire, withdrew, and blew the bridge. Four large enemy fighting vehicles remained at the bridge site when the rest of the thwarted column turned away. They were too close for shellfire; so a four-man patrol armed with Gammon grenades crossed in the dark to deal with them, but as the patrol reached the east bank the tanks turned and lumbered off. During the evening enemy foot soldiers also tried to sneak across the wreckage of the railroad bridge south of Trois Ponts, an attack quickly ended when shellfire caught them right at the river. (http://www.veteransofthebattleofthebulge.org/2012/03/12/al-alvarez-7th-artillery-battalion-task-force-davisson/) During that first week of January, we (7th Field Artillery Battalion) carefully, in conjunction with the mortars, fired in support of a patrol attempting to retrieve the body of LT McLaughin of “L” Co. KlA’d days previously. Like I said, for balance its fine, having to contend with every German infantry platoon minus being able to call down 105mm would get old in QBs, probably as fast as facing Tigers or IS-2s every QB. It just isn't realistic to restrict the ability of small infantry forces to call upon artillery many levels higher than themselves.

There isn't any way to get a larger force in QBs.

QBs are just as (un)realistic as standalone scenarios.

Assigned? Never. But it was relatively rare for platoons to operate independently, so they'd generally be tied into the fire support network and from there they could call for it. I agree that its fine from a balance perspective for QBs, just don't pretend its realistic to restrict divarty from small infantry forces across the board - it was an entirely common thing for platoon or company Americans to call down a battalion (or more) of divisional artillery to repulse attacks - more common than using their own mortars or regimental cannon companies on a rounds fired basis.

That runs into balance vs. historicity arguments, since small American infantry forces could call on their divisional artillery no problems, Germans had their regimental pieces and Soviets had... mortars? Maybe light field pieces?

They need a way to keep USSR+USA from bending the rest of the world over and raping it sideways right out the gate.

Mostly minor TOE differences. If you buy motorized infantry from the "Infantry" force type they come without vehicles, if you buy them from "Mech Infantry" force type they have the choice of vehicles or not.

The main problem with the "railroaded" gameplay issue is that players (for example) if given historical France's OOB and starting position, find it incredibly difficult to lose outright to Germany, let alone in the fashion that occurred historically. Player Soviet Union can be even more ridiculous in that regard. So both come "pre-nerfed" so fans of historicity aren't left completely out.

Yeah, I should have specified I meant AI defenders. Attackers I don't care if they plaster me, that's fine since I usually have sufficient setup area, fortifications, buildings, etc. available.

I went through and deleted the AI's setup zone bombardment plans in every QB map, because once you've gotten used to dealing with it (not particularly hard at all) it means the AI is wasting its indirect fire support - all of it - on uselessly bombarding areas I'm not moving through. Instead it could be using those tubes and that ammo intelligently, hanging the threat over my figurative head throughout the battle.

Regardless of TOE, first hand accounting consistently place them with rifle platoons, participating directly in activities you'd expect of members of a rifle platoon: attacks on fixed positions, standing watches on the defense, etc.

I was saying the guys in rifle platoons carrying sniper rifles were referred to using the same term, in Russian, as the guys operating as higher level scouting/harassment assets.

Yahoo, probably.

Close Combat forums, IIRC.

Developers generally control their product prices. Most companies don't care because a) the overwhelming majority of sales are made within the first four to six months of release and they make up per-unit profit by increasing volume. As for modules, upgrades, packs, etc., I consider them different names for DLC. Not like I'm forced to buy any (like Gustav Line) to play the base game.

Are their any operational level games forming or currently running? I *think* I have enough handle on WeGo to not screw things up as a player too badly at this point and I'd enjoy the challenge of having to balance mission accomplish with force preservation concerns.

The Soviets in WW2 used the term "sniper" to cover both the specialized troops and what we currently call designated marksmen. I don't know if they underwent the same training.

They are shifting from one window to another. I use cover arcs to prevent it.

That's literally how the Soviets used their recon units.

Speaking from personal experience, managing large numbers of real players (in my case, somewhere around 160+) isn't the kind of awesome command experience you imagine it to be and more or less exactly the opposite of what makes CMBN fun. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity, every day and twice on weekends, anything people can misunderstand they will, etc. Past about 60-80 real people, you're not even making detailed decisions no matter how simple - there are simply too many moving pieces for even an exceptional person to keep track of them, so things become much more broad-brush than pretty much any tactical wargame I can imagine. Its entirely common for your actual control of sub-units (regardless of whatever exists in the orders menu) to be limited to that of a badly trained dog - "come" and "go!" Its useful for illustrating why there so many control measures like fire support coordination lines, phase lines, fire plans, etc. used by modern armies but I wouldn't call it necessarily "fun." Don't get me wrong, its awesome when everything comes together in a plan and its executed perfectly, with all elements in tune with each other like a well-oiled engine but that represents extremely good planning far more than any great genius in giving spur of the moment orders. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the individual players lack agency in all too many situations that commonly arise, with the worst being "held in reserve", since they aren't really playing the game at that point. They also dislike what little agency they do have being impeded by the higher-level gameplay - for example its pretty awesome to set things up so that a reinforced platoon's defensive scheme can be broken down by penetrating one aspect, so a squad-and-a-half is pinned in place by mortars and long-range machine gun fire that only lifts as two platoons have used dead-ground to position themselves close by to pin the defenders in place and take them down in a few swift, brutal seconds by close-assault, with remaining defenders having to withdraw or die in place. Textbook attack, gold star for good tactics, etc. but that is a horrible gameplay experience for the defenders and possibly (or probably) a stale one for attackers. The modal experience of an individual defender is not interacting with or even seeing any of the enemy until the overall outcome is no longer in doubt. The typical attacker doesn't see much of the enemy either, with most of them spending time slithering through covered approaches and defiles, popping up and laying fire down for the much smaller assaulting element. The guys in the assault element probably have some fun, mowing down and blowing up hapless defenders in their holes before they even realize what's going on, but that's offset by the much larger number of guys manning heavy weapons way, way back. Fundamentally uninteresting gameplay at the individual and small-unit tactics levels, all the play/counter-play options held higher. How to create a fun and interesting combined arms battle at all levels was the biggest problem when I was making missions for ArmA and it wasn't something I saw anyone manage very well, so I biased towards uninteresting for the fewest number of players. That usually meant infantry-centric initial contact clashes with extremely limited vehicle support. Imagine playing meeting engagements four times out of five wherein 85% of your points budget is spent on recon or rifle platoons, 10% on heavy/specialist (infantry) weapons and the remaining 5% split between artillery, armor, air, etc. BF4 is fun because its standing on the shoulders of a very mature genre for most of its game design decision. Taking it to the next level, things start to break down because real combined arms counters to infantry are harder than good (individual/small unit) gameplay allows so they need to be nerfed. But being nerfed breaks other relationships that higher levels require, so you have to pick and choose your scale.

I think you could make a decent campaign out of a recon force behind German lines, starting with initial infiltration, pulling off ambushes, launching raids on battalion headquarters and mortar positions, exfiltration, etc.

I thought Steve mentioned he'd tweaked their behavior so the spotter was more reluctant to fire? And they had a shorter engagement range generally? Or am I mixing up requests and changes?

Snipers have some specialist behaviors IIRC.

Engineers can mark mines and do some basic breaching. FOs can call for a broader range of fires, faster and more accurately than other units.

Not in terms of campaigns though. Prior to RT, I could comfortably playthrough any campaign in real time with only modest issue - occasionally I'd have to leave a small portion (less than a quarter) of the force given to me unengaged to keep things manageable - but it was the exception. In CMRT, its the rule for the German campaign, which is somewhat disappointing.