Apocal

It would be nice if the player's minefields were a tad more visible than no-icon signpost they are currently when you finish setup.

Whoop whoop.

Oops. Maybe BF should call it continuous time?

I still remember the evisceration you guys took for CMSF.

Only problem with this is that the routers and the skulkers would come back within minutes or hours whereas in-game those who are casualties are mostly gone (during a campaign).

There are plenty of unexceptional actions included in CMx2. And in all those cases the casualties were lower than they would be in CMx2. Team Desobry in-game would have sustained roughly 75-90% casualties. And you can get those figures from far less motivated forces, mashed together relentless. Unlike real life where attacks almost always broke off when they took thirty percent casualties, very frequently less than that. A whole battalion might attack and take fifteen dead, forty wounded and call off the whole affair as a pointless, bloody endeavor. The other example: two battalions from the 26th VG Div set in a hypothetical scenario, map size 2km wide and 3km deep, scattered woods leading into the start of suburbs. Opposing them are two platoons of paratroops, five attached machine guns, an off-map 81mm mortar platoon, three wire modules, a module of mixed mines, seven TRPs - then at two minutes in three modules of 105mm howitzers come in along with a module of 155s, followed at the twenty minute mark by a pair of Shermans and an additional two platoons of leg infantry (no heavy weapons attached, to simulate straggler units that were roped into Team Snafu). The artillery alone will eviscerate the attacking force, inflicting probably a complete battalion's worth of casualties at the minimum. Did that ever happen IRL? Probably, in the extreme outlier end of things. But its a routine occurrence in CMx2, any battle featuring large amounts of responsive artillery means the attackers are not just stonewalled, not just bled white but utterly, totally smashed in the attempt. Whole companies failing to find their jumping off point and being delayed? Uncommon, but happened often enough. Failing to attack entirely? I'm sure it happened somewhere, at some time, but I can't think off the top of my head of any specific incidences.

The campaign was built prior to the machine gun re-balance. In order to get MGs to fulfill their combined arms role before, it was necessary to make them elite and highly motivated, whereas non-heavy weapons were lower experience and motivation. Functionally, the campaign is broken post machine gun re-balance for this reason, at least in my opinion. You're meant to worm your way closer and closer, using engineer demo charges (standing in for flamethrowers), bazookas and close assault to destroy the bunkers, a la Saving Private Ryan. If it was meant to reflect reality, you'd get about four or five additional modules of destroyer 5" halfway through and they'd be responsive as 155mm with vet FO calling.

Perhaps because they aren't massed the same way Soviet squads are so you gimp yourself on points by cherrypicking?

I've played far more scenarios where I'm essentially being asked to attack a question mark, which is far more annoying. If it was merely imperfect, that would be one thing, but in one - particularly egregious - example, I was told that hours before another company had assaulted the position and been repulsed with heavy losses. I still started that one with zero useful intelligence regarding the enemy's composition or disposition. lol wat?

In CMSF especially, you could do very well time-wise by being aggressive Thunder Run-style tactics, i.e. keep your men under armor and buttoned-up, roll under a barrage of your own airbursting arty/mortars, break into the defense and fight from an unexpected (by the scenario designer) position.

Its not very realistic, especially because the round passes through the hapless grunt, rather than the bursting charge having anything to do with things.

There is a setting for random over-time (and maybe under-time) to prevent super-gamey last second rushes to contest/capture VPs

Lost two matches (forgot how tough Panthers could be in the first, was too cautious pushing my TDs forward in the second) and for the third my internet crapped out a few minutes after knocking out his only Tiger with a well-placed bazooka ambush, chopped up his forward platoon with a close ambush at map edge and bocage preventing him from redeploying in a meaningful fashion. Kinda bummed about the third, I was sure I had that in the bag. GFs

Friend request sent, "apocal43"

Didn't CMSF have a modified TOE available for infantry battalions? Like regular and MOUT configurations? Would that be applicable in this case?

I play WALB, got the Red Dragon beta as well. I play multiplayer 99% of the time so the lack of pause never bothered me. Its cartoon combined-arms but perfectly fine as far as beer-and-pretzels wargames go. Also: seeing complaints about the game being "a click-fest" are like entering the Twilight Zone for me. I can (easily) manage in a public match with something like seven or eight APM and even serious-face matches have dudes with twenty APM being competitive. Most of the game is macro-focused and as long as a player has a working knowledge of unit types and combined arms relationships between them*, they usually do reasonably well. Not like owning dudes left, right and center, but a lot of publords are really bad and try to do stuff like evict high-quality infantry from cities with nothing but tanks or air assault into the teeth of high RoF AA guns or waste tons of supply on trying to firepower down the enemy's entire defensive scheme instead of singling out an obvious point of failure and then following up to lever them out of their chosen ground. *The cliff-notes version is attacking infantry < defending infantry < tanks/IFVs at medium range < ATGM-teams < attacking infantry but that's really starter advice so it doesn't get into which units are just flat incapable of fulfilling their combined arms role (M48/M60 against decent quality WarPac armor, Dragon ATGMs vs. anything), the role of specialized units or deck construction.

I read it as getting tasked with a dismount patrol and skating out by pretending you have maintenance to do and oops looks like you've discovered a real problem! Of course, that particular trick is older than Jesus and any leader worth his salt will see through it in an instant, so I'm wondering just how dumb they'd have to be to not only fall for it once, but repeatedly...

You can do it in CMBN or CMFI with like a rifle platoon and a Stuart pair lol. The key point I took away from that was tanks providing covering fire enable otherwise risky maneuver. A platoon of tanks hitting every bush, building, ditch, shrub and crest is pre-emptive forgiveness for a lot of tactical sins.

How would this work with RT MP?

Is this restriction specific to Soviets or Germans? Because I'm sure American and Brit observers could call on multiple batteries (modules) of artillery with zero problems.

They work well enough for sustaining suppression on already pinned-down enemy units, having MGs and plenty of ammo for the job. But yeah, you have to be mostly cautious with them, otherwise bad things happen.

Unfair? Pretty sure real assault guns would lose out if it came to racing against a turreted tank.

Is this going to be implemented into CMRT? Reading through the archives, there was apparently a bit of controversy regarding such in CMBB and it apparently caused some seriously ahistorical outcomes. I'm not fully versed in the groggy details, but it seems like it had some serious gameplay impacts and I'd like to know if the modeling is being either improved to eliminate the unrealistic elements or simply dropped to keep them from cropping up in the first place.

I'm willing to excuse this insofar as the entire game happens on a faster timescale than realistic combat does.

Shame we won't have lend-lease Shermans in the initial game.