Pak40

Awesome, thanks for the insight and details.

And I will remind you that you can do this in the setup phase, which is typically how these bigger caliber guns were used anyway(before the attack, not during). And if you want to time an assault with the ending of a bombardment then you can set a 5, 10, or 15 minute delay which will allow you to move your troops into position.

When did I ever say that defenders dictate when attacks will happen??? No, my point is that defenders, especially in static front line situations, have time to plan for their defense. This obviously includes pre-registering artillery where they can cover all avenues of approach from any attacking forces. And I agree that planned attacks can often have pre-registered artillery but it's usually in a general and wider bombardment. It's not a tactical TRP like we're used to placing in CMBN. For example, the attacking force may know that TOWN X is defended by the enemy so they will pre-register artillery on the town but that doesn't mean that every hedgerow in and around the town is pre-registered with LINE bombardments.

1. No, speculation is a wild ass guess. I'm basing my opinion on the multitude of books that I've read on WWII combat. Apart from major offenses and static front lines, pre-registered artillery seems like a luxury. 2. Yes, it will be abused by players. Players will call in an artillery strike in the setup phase using the "harass" option which will only waste a few rounds, then they will cancel the strike and rejoice that they will have a shiny new TRP for the rest of the game. 3. Well, the vast majority of battles and campaigns (that come with the game) are meant for the player to be on the offensive. However, it's the defensive side that usually has the time to pre-register artillery. So maybe it just seems skewed because we've mainly been playing on the offensive.

1. True, but this is primarily a technique that battle designers use because most battles in WWII (at the CM scale) did not have pre-registered artillery. 2. I am not for this. This will allow every artillery mission in every battle the ability to have pre-registered accuracy. Highly unrealistic and would obviously be abused by the players. 3. If the scenario designer wants the player to have the TRP accuracy then he will put them in the battle. Otherwise just suck it up and call in artillery like normal and suffer the wait the way real soldiers did in WWII.

But since you can plan artillery in the setup phase of any battle on to any blind spot, it pretty much acts as pre-registered artillery.

Another thing that will save you time is to use the 3D setup to test certain spots on the board where you want units to move in your AI plans. This will help make sure that those spots have the field of vision that is required. You could even mark the spots with a flavor object and remove it later.

I agree about the artillery in the setup zones. Don't target the setup zones during the setup phase(vs an attacker). Some might even consider targeting the SZ after the setup phase a dick move, however it's going to take several minutes for rounds to fall after the setup phase and the attacker should have generally vacated the setup zone by that point. But I suppose this depends on the map.

Units not in C2 have a delay when spotting. So, I think what Childress is saying has some merit if the scouts get out of C2. However, I view my scouts as expendable, which they are almost always are. I hate losing 3-4 men as scouts, so I'll stick to the two man scouts.

The only way to have curved roads is to switch from a tile based mapping system to a vector based system that allows true arcs. I was hoping that BFC would implement a vector based system for CMx2 engine but obviously that didn't happen. Most map designers have learned to rotate their maps slightly to align the majority of the roads with the NSEW axis. Still, in a European world with medieval towns there are going to be some roads that wont be accurate.

Yea, I have to agree. It would be better to have the PIAT team separate from the HQ but directly under it for C2 purposes. Is this a scenario designer's option or is it like this organically in the editor? I'm at work now so I can't fire up CMBN to find out myself.

You can play any battle in 'design' mode and answer this for yourself. You can see the AI movement orders. Actually the AI is at a big disadvantage. Humans have the ability to see the entire battlefield and have knowledge of units that were once spotted but now gone. AI units only react to what it can see and have no knowledge of the geography of the battlefield unless it can see it.

I have to agree about Hell's Highway. They went off the historical track with that one. There was hardly any fighting in Eindhoven yet they made it seem like some monumental struggle for the city. I never even finished it. I was always pissed that you could never go prone. Unlimited ammo is a little hard to swallow too. The things I always liked about the series was that the firefights felt real, more so than in CoD. Firing a rifle isn't just point and shoot with perfect accuracy, the rifle sway gave it some realistic cred. Suppression was done well too.

Fanko, The problem you're having is that an entire company takes up quite a bit of space. Any move order in the AI plan will also need a fairly large space to accommodate a company's worth of vehicles. The movement order is random to anywhere within the order area; for example if 1st platoon is on the left flank to start, the AI movement may order any of those tanks ANYWHERE within painted movement order in the AI plan. Therefore a tank on the left flank may be ordered to the right flank. To avoid this, you'll have to break up the platoons into groups. This way you can keep 1st platoon on the left flank, second in the middle, and third platoon on the right.

Correct, it's just for indirect area fire. For FOs, this special ability is only available when calling an artillery mission and not when using the Target command for direct rifle fire.

This happened before the CW module. Sometimes the vehicles will not go through a wide breach. However, if this happens to any particular breach, it doesn't mean that vehicles will not go through it 100% of the time. Usually a second or third attempt will be successful. But it can be very frustrating, especially in WEGO, to attempt this time and time again.

I understand the question. I was trying to reiterate that it is ONLY mortars and FOs that have this special spotting(targeting) ability, so how can the reciprocal is true to normal enemy units? If it's an enemy FO or mortar, yes, it will be able to target the area where your mortar is. If it's any other unit then no, it should not be able to.

The most surefire way to blast a hedge is to place the first blast waypoint adjacent to the hedge where you want the blast to occur, then place the second blast waypoint on the other side of the hedge. The only problem with this is that your men go through the hedge and can get shot up badly if enemy is on the other side. A safer method is to place the second blast point parallel to the hedge on the same side. However, this may cause unexpected blast results if there are two hedgerows close together like on a narrow country lane.

There are a lot of missions in the Montebourg Campaign. If you start it up they are all listed in the briefing. Vein's Sounds mod is good but I'm not sure if he's updated it since the Commonwealth Module was released.

No, as I said all other units that are direct fire only can only spot exactly what they can see. In other words, all units that are not FOs and mortars follow the strict LOS rules. And, I think mortars and FOs follow the same LOS rules, however, for purposes of laying down indirect fire mortars and FOs need to to be able to target areas on the other side of objects such as walls and hedgerows. It's in the manual pg 102

Mortars and FOs(when spotting for missions) have the ability to spot a little beyond what they can actually see. They did this because they would otherwise not be able to set fire missions just beyond a hedgerow or in the middle of the wheat field. All other units that are direct fire only can only spot exactly what they can see.

You're best off moving your mortar so it can see it's target in that case. Direct fire will be deadly accurate and very quick to begin shooting off spotting rounds, much quicker than the 4-5 minute wait for an artillery mission.

You seem to think that the 60mm mortar is some complicated weapon that needs a calculator and several minutes in order to get the first shot off. Any trained mortar crew is going to know the elevation of the tube by memory for any given distance. It's why they train. It is literally a quick adjustment of two knobs on the mortar and then you can fire the first spotting round. In reality it's not much different than an AT gun. You certainly don't think that it takes several minutes to adjust and fire an AT gun, do you?

sounds realistic to me. The only safety guard for friendly fire is with small arms. Your men cannot kill their brothers with guns. HE is a different story.

Jon, Ask yourself, what's the difference between a spotting HQ unit standing 10m from the Mortar team and a member of the mortar team doing the spotting themselves (whether it's from 10m or exactly at the mortar itself)? The answer is absolutely none. In both cases the spotter is within shouting distance of the mortar. In fact, it should be quicker for the HQ to spot for the mortar team because all the members of the mortar team can do their job and the fact that the HQ is more experienced at spotting and relaying distance etc...