Pak40

Grey lines mean that only SOME of the crew or squad have LOS to the target. CM doesn't go into detail of which crew members have or don't have LOS but if your gunner doesn't have LOS to the target then he wont pull the trigger. Womble, good explanation. I never considered the fact that just turning the tank or turret can result in different LOS results. It just goes to show how realistic the spotting is in CMx2 engine and how it's hard for people to understand these weird LOS issues even if they're totally valid and realistic.

This is an absolute YES, especially if you're running above 1080 Do they even sell single core CPUs for PC anymore??? The real question is do you spend your money on a high core with low clock speed or lower core with high clock speed? If your only concern is running CMBN and other games that utilize single core then you're certainly better off with a lower core & high clock speed. The latest i5 CPUs are perfect choices - affordable, fast clock speeds, and you still get 4 cores.

I'm very curious about this. Please post the replay of this so we can view it. Either Youtube or let us download the replay file (even better)

An unbuttoned tank should always spot better than an infantry unit in a prone position. The commander with his head out of the hatch at a height about 10 feet above ground has a distinct advantage over someone hugging the dirt. Even though the scout unit is on the berm the Tank Commander is higher and, IIRC, has binoculars also. This slight height avantage could mean everything when having to peer across the low bocage. Yes, the tank is moving, which only lowers it's chance spotting. A roll of 20 comes up sometimes in a 1d20. Two things that you're not mentioning in this picture: 1. Did the spotted unit fire? - that will increase it's possibility of being spotted. 2. How many enemy units are NOT being spotted by the tank? I know there are several units on that tree line - I've played that battle before. Just because the tank spots one while moving doesn't mean that the system's broke.

Yes, without doubt this should be number 1 on the list for the editor.

Well, some CM maps are small and many have limited view sheds, but if you're using using CAS in these cases then your not really using it how it was intended to be used. Many other maps, especially in the Commonwelth module offer great distances where CAS is more ideal. I think it's up to the wisdom of the commander to decide if/when they are to be used. There were some Market Garden battles where I chose not to use the CAS because I deemed it too dangerous. I'm not sure if you're saying the CM2 is unrealistic in it's danger or distances with CAS? Or are you merely expressing your surprise that CAS can be 300 meters off? I think CM is fairly spot on - historically FOs didn't call in CAS or even artillery unless they were many hundreds of meters away from the target. I guess my point is that anyone deserves to suffer the consequences if they use CAS in an ahistoric way.

If they tax that much on beer I wonder what the "Sin" tax on Rob Ford's crack would be?

As in real life, there were miscommunications or misunderstandings between the FFOs and artillery/air support. Mistakes were made, bombs and artillery sometimes fell far from the intended target. This should not be news to any one if us playing this type of realistic game. By the way, the size of the map has absolutely nothing to do with accuracy of any type of support. Yea, this sounds dubious at best. One guy in this forum claims the lethal radius of a 1000lb bomb is 28 meters. So maybe a 500lb bomb might have a lethal radius of 8-10 meters (I'm guessing here). The chart in the link above says the safe distance of a 500lb bomb is 2500m.

Yea, the radios were quite finicky with terrain features so there's some random chance that they may go out of contact.

Yes, it's been discussed already, just go to the second page of posts. Steve has contributed to the discussion too.

You can easily pull up youtube videos of real mortars on the the firing range and judge for yourself. These are probably modest ranges and may not reflect the full flight time of a mortar round at maximum range. As you're probably aware of you can add multiple charges to a mortar round to extend it's range and therefore it's flight time.

Well, there were certainly special recon units within regiments but I think these are more for intelligence gathering. U.S. infantry regiments had an I & R platoon, for example. This is a totally different type of recon than what is required at tactical level and in Combat Mission's scope which is better described as scouting ahead of the main advancing group. Usually scouting was done at the platoon or company level by randomly choosing or rotating a soldier or two to just walk ahead of the rest of the unit.

lofty12, Ditto to what a lot of people have already said. In regards to your tank not returning fire, it's because that armored vehicles in general have very poor spotting when compared to infantry units. You'll probably notice that your infantry units that are near the tank will spot enemies quicker. Once this is done you can order you tank to area fire or quick fire on the suspected spot. The tank AI will only fire at a unit it can positively spot. In other words, select the tank and any units that it sees will be visible.

There are some weird C2 issues with HQs, Section HQs and mortars. Please refer to my post #19 in the following thread: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=108440&highlight=mortar

I agree with Womble, grab the Fortress Italy demo. It will give you a better idea of the current state of the CMx2 engine than the CMBN demo. It's more optimized. However, CMBN with Market Garden is even more optimized than CMFI. And, by the way, a 1GB video card doesn't really mean much. It's the GPU that really matters. If you're running really high resolution then memory becomes more of an issue.

I agree, this is one of the technical things about CMx2 that really bugs me. This is a 3D game yet we are confined to a 2D action spot whenever we want to target something other than a unit. I think the solution might be to make the action spots a cube instead of a square. If they give it a 3rd dimension then units will be able to area fire on the vertical planes of bocage, walls, fences, and buildings instead of having to rely on the visual of spotting the ground.

bram, you're going to need to crop that map image before trying to make your map. The grid on the map is 1km which means if you bring the image into the editor you'd end up with a 5x5 km map. CMBN currently can't handle that size. I'd crop the image to a 2km x 2km area max and set your map size in the editor to the same scale. You might want to rotate the image slightly also if the grid seems crooked.

Yes, these should be viewed as battalion resupply points. Every U.S. infantry company had a jeep that a runner could use to drive back to the battalion HQ to resupply. In fact, with the now bigger maps, scenario designers can accurately simulate the process of the company runner having to drive back to get more ammo.

I wonder if they're attributed to the FO that called in the artillery?

I think it's in the 3D post game map. You have to click on a unit to see the stats. Only issue is that units that exited the map wont be able to show this. I wonder if using + or - to cycle through all the units that have exited might resolve this... I'll have to try next time that happens.

This is pure speculation. The type of round in the gun would be by determined by the local tactical situation. Besides, if you're expecting an ambush it will largely be by leg units. In a real situation this is true but since CM doesn't model which round is loaded this is moot.

No way. This is just something else that will delay the loading of the game. Go straight to the game, I say!

Nice find. Now for some serious nostalgia: http://web.archive.org/web/19991012210845/http://battlefront.com/ Or for the really really old timers: http://web.archive.org/web/19980127000011/http://www.bigtimesoftware.com/ In Development: Squad Leader :D

One word of warning with this technique, if you're in an area near intersections of bocage or narrow lanes with bocage on both sides, this will often lead to the wrong hedgerow being blown.

Yea, I agree with womble, the 105 Sherman is not a good match for the MkIV because the HEAT round are not as accurate as AP rounds due to the slower velocity and they don't carry too many of them. Why not match Pz IV with Sherman 76mm? Should be fairly even at long range.