Pak40

The vast majority of battles that I've played, including ones in campaigns, have had ample time to complete the objectives. This includes probing, shifting forces, artillery missions, and the main attack. It was a learning process for me, but I got better at troop management the more I played. I admit, it is sometimes a close call if you're playing WeGo. Playing in Real Time will let you move your units quicker but it's a trade off because you lose the ability to rewind. I hate to bring up that dreaded "R" word again, but it was a reality that many units could not completed their mission in the time that it was expected. This is annoying but I've only had 1 or 2 instances of this that I can recall. Unless the scenario designer is trying to simulate an ambush situation then this should not happen.

First of all, these things that you call flaws are actually bugs. It seems like you're accusing BF of designing the game in some warped version of reality, and that's totally absurd. The best thing to do is to bring it to BF's attention without the attitude. They will investigate it and fix it if they feel necessary. BTW, I agree that you may have a point with the HT gunner getting killed rather easy. Furthermore, I'd like to add that I have yet to witness any casualties on my Bren carriers although I've put them in harms way quite often, and this is while occupants firing out of the back are quite exposed. Since Bren carriers and HTs fill the same role and probably have similar armor and exposure, I would expect similar casualty rates. However, I'm seeing completely the opposite. Something odd is going on here IMO.

This seems like one of those cases where the AI needs to be tweaked a bit. Regardless of whether the machine gunner had true LOS to the target, the main gunner and /or commander DID have LOS to the target and should be able to communicate that to the machine gunner that "hey, there's some Tommies in the shrubs over there, shoot them to hell".

gun depression limitation is not modeled because it would have caused all sorts of issues with AI. Maybe someday BFC will put it in but for now they have bigger fish to fry.

This is likely because these old aerial photographs are not rectified in any way. Without getting into too much technical detail, the further away from the center of the photography the more distortion with scale.

Yes, "With the old bread" is an excellent book. One of the best and most detailed 1st person memoirs that I've ever read. And if you have any doubts about the accuracy and lethality of the 60mm mortar in CMBN then you need to read this.

Dog White is open!

I almost feel like breaking out my old copy of Brothers in Arms

Damn, I'm seasick to all hell and I just lost my last 3 months pay in a dice game. The damn ship smells like piss, vomit, **** and BO all rolled into one. I'm ready storm the beaches!

A stone building? I doubt it. A wood barn or house probably so. In this case it was one of the bigger 'heavy' buildings.

Probably because APHE isn't commonly called that. It's usually APC or APBC or APCBC etc... My only experience in CMBN with AP vs infantry in a building is when one of my Churchill 57mm tank ran out of HE and fired several rounds of AP. The rounds simply seemed to shoot directly through the building as if it weren't there, no deflection or impacting explosion that I could notice. I expected there to be some damage at least but was disappointed. I'm not sure if this was a bug or what.

I suppose so. It doesn't seem like I'm changing his opinion. I suppose he's formed his opinion based on his personal experience. If he's not having fun in the game, that's his opinion too. I generally don't have an issue with people's opinions but when they say things like "But this is not realistic, and certainly not fun", I often find that they really mean "this game is not fun because it doesn't play out the way I think it should".

How can I agree with him when I have read quotes from veterans of WWII that say basically the exact opposite? For example, Robert M. Murphy of 82nd Airborne in his book No Better Place to Die (pg 94-95): I'm posting only snippets but you can read the the entire two pages and much more in the link above. my note: that a total of 2 hours of artillery of various calibers. A hell of a lot more than 15-20 rounds of 60mm/105mm and still a hell off a lot more than the 5 minutes CPT MIKE originally claims. Grant it, Murphy had more safety in the fox hole and the Germans in the Vierville CMBN battle did not, but I digress... While CPT MIKE is entitled to his opinion, how can I or anyone else dismiss 1st person accounts such as Murphy's? I can either believe that 5 minutes of 60/105 artillery should entirely kill or at least completely suppress a couple of squads, or I can believe in the words of a veteran that not only sticks his head out after two hours of barrages, but also frequently returns fire during a barrage while under assault. CPT MIKE says that CMBN is not realistic because of his opinion, I say it is realistic because of documented fact.

Well, obviously I am because I've responded to just about all of them as you well know. Anyway, the point I was trying to make was that you're projecting how you would react under 105 and 60mm fire. You're not taking into account others who could and would react differently. And speaking of Mike Tyson, a good analogy is that he is a man that can take some serious punishment to the head. It takes a lot to rattle him. I, on the other hand, wouldn't last 1 round with a flyweight. Do you see the point I'm trying to make? Different men have different reactions, breaking points, etc... So maybe, just maybe, it's possible that the German with the MP40 that was able to pop his head up after your 105/60mm barrage was a Mike Tyson BADASS. Actually we like war stories here. In fact I've got book shelf full of them. While I don't have your field experience I certainly did take that into account. But, I've also read a lot of other 1st person accounts like the aforementioned LaFiere Causeway battle. And to be honest, I place a lot more weight on what they say than you or any others say on the net. So when someone says "I'm not playing CMBN anymore because this one guy got shot by a guy that should have been suppressed", my gut instinct is to say how the hell do you know? BFC has done a lot more research into these things than you, I, or anyone else.

So all humans are the same? An elite soldier will be suppressed just as much as a green conscript? How do you know how any soldier will react in that situation? And I assume the barrages were over when you decided assault the Germans in the woods. The AI performed as I would have expected: as soon as the barrage ends the suppression starts to lessen and soldiers pick up their head to see a squad charging them, of course their going to shoot them, regardless of the suppression. Being suprressed doesn't mean that they wont shoot back, but it does lessen the chance. And, btw, 15-20 rounds of indirect fire isn't all that much. You had stated earlier that it was a longer barrage.

This was basically the point I was trying to make. There's no formula for 100% winning success in CMBN. It seems like CPT MIKE expects that if he applies X tactic to Y target he'll always get Z result. And he may enjoy that type of game better, but it certainly not realistic like he's claiming. IMO, it so formulaic that it hardly seems any different than old school RTS games.

I agree. And Close Combat, which is a fun game that I've enjoyed since the 90's, but it has the most unrealistic artillery model of them all. Honestly CPT_MIKE, I don't get you. You complain about the artillery not being realistic enough yet you'd rather play a game that gets nothing right about artillery. And, BTW, I and many others on this forum have posted how real world tactics do work in CMBN. Like in real life, the tactics may reward the player or may not go as planned.

You're not the first battle commander that's been disappointed in the results of his tactics. I'm sure many men have died thinking that the enemy "must surely have be wiped out by now". By the way, I've read many accounts of soldiers in artillery barrages. Many have survived to tell their tale and many were not broken. Read "No Better Place to Die" - this chronicles the attack/defense of the La Fiere Causeway by elements of the 82nd Airborne. The defenders were under intense artillery fire of all sizes for a LOT more than 5 minutes and yet the surviving soldiers were not "broken" and the 82nd held the eastern end of the causeway. Like I said before, there is no formula - get that out of your head. I think if you play that scenario again several times with the same artillery tactics, you'll find that it does the job more often than not. You just happened to be in one of those improbable occasions where it came back to bite you and now you're pissed because it didn't work up to your formula. It's happened to me many times and I get pissed every time also, but I realize that there are random lucks and bad lucks in war. **** happens. get over it.

Mike, It seems like you're asking for a formula to be applied here. i.e. 60mm + some 105mm = dead. It's not like that. This is not Company of Heroes or Sudden Strike. I've used 60mm in direct fire many times(which is more accurate than indirect), it's one of my favorite tactics to use in close bocage busting tactics. I'd wager that 80% of the time a 60mm can neutralize a squad in 10-15 rounds. However, 20% of the time I'm wrong and I pay the price when I try to assault their position. There is no rhyme or reason to why part of the squad survives one time but may not survive the next time. And quite frankly, this is the MOST REALISTIC part of Combat Mission.

No need to put water in the ditch. Just put some marsh tiles in it to simulate a wet but not full ditch. Marsh will slow a man down just as good as the shallow water tile.

This .&linkText=Back+to+bibliographic+information]site was posted not long ago in the forums. It has 1:25,000 topo maps of Market Garden areas. Click on the map called Vechel. Vechel (Veghel) is in the NW corner of that map. Contours are brown lines and are only every 10m on this particular map. Veghel is so low and flat that it doesn't even break the 10m contour. And judging from the modern Street View in Google, not much has changed.

Find a healthy squad without a bazooka. Split off an "AT section" and have it mount the jeep. Then use the Acquire command to get the zooka and ammo.

Sounds like they are just flat out refusing your orders. I guess they don't like their commander.

The pre-bombardment is a way to simulate the "softening up" of defending forces before an attack. Don't think of it as a bunch of pre-registered spots that the battery has already recorded. Instead think of it as the 1 pre-registered spot that was picked before the battle. Since you're the battle planner, you get to pick the 1 spot that the artillery battery will pre-register. Let me know if that's not clear enough. It's hard to put it in words.

It's widely known that you can, in fact, call in artillery just behind a bocage or crest of a hill. It is even stated in the manual. A spotter is granted a "little extra" beyond what he can see with direct LOS. In your case, it seems like it's more than a "little extra". You're just going to have to move your spotter closer or to higher ground if possible.