Pak40

I agree there is a problem judging terrain but it's hardly a CM issue. This was a real life issue. How many billions of instances were there where a soldier thought he would have clear LOS to a target if he moved to a different vantage point only to find that once he moved there, he still had no LOS to his target? The truth is that a soldier will never know if Point A has clear LOS to Point B until he actually moves to point A. Until then, it's purely a judgement call.

LOS itself is predictable. In other words, if you replayed that battle 100 times and put that tank exactly in the same spot and ordered it to fire beyond that wheat field at the exact same spot(as in your screen shots), you would get no LOS 100% of the time.

It seems so. Check out this thread which is about the same issue. The last post by akd says it's just random.

I just plotted these measurements in my CAD software. I put the target height at 18m and the gun height at 28 meters(about 600 meters apart). It looks to me from your screen shot that the field is close to the target and you said that it's max height is 22m. I put the 22m high point about 180 meters from the target. The LOS goes through the ground, your target is in defilade, but just barely. When you add the wheat field then that would obstruct LOS even further. Even though the ground is in defilade you might still be able to target a vehicle were it to appear at the target spot. It should rise above the wheat, just barely.

I agree with CM2fan's assessment that the 1st sergeant's radio should be able to provide the C&C between the mortars and the HQ. That was their job for Christ's sake! I've had relatively good success when using two HQs to do the job but I can't remember if one of them was the first sergeant or not. How far apart is the HQ from the first sergeant? Some of those radios are limited in distance. Also, make sure your units are not moving. Units cannot use radios when on the move.

I have to agree with you. After reading Eugene Sledge's "With the Old Breed", I know that it does not take that long for a spotter to direct a mortar crew to a target. Especially if the spotter and crew are part of the same unit and the two are just meters away from each other. I long ago got frustrated with this aspect of on board mortars so I started moving my mortars to get direct sight of their intended targets. I was originally worried about my mortars getting chewed to pieces, but to my surprise they were able to take no or few casualties and they are able to get very accurate fire off very quickly. Usually they are behind a hedgerow so that it offers some degree of protection, however a top of a hill might be OK if so long as the enemy is further off in the distance (200m+).

I think the real reason is that it was actually very rare to have air support at the front lines, especially in the opening days of the Normandy Campaign where the line between friendly and enemy troops was as straight as a jigsaw puzzle piece. Ground attack planes were pretty free to engage open targets of opportunity behind the lines where it was obvious that the enemy was, in fact, the enemy.

If a tank cannot get over "bushes" then it IS bocage. You're mistaken. As you should know there is high and low bocage. Low bocage is still not passable by tanks because it has an earthen wall. Likely that unit that's been shelled behind the wall is dead and you don't even realize it. Artillery is quite accurate when you know how to spot correctly. On board mortars firing directly are even more accurate. Flanking isn't always about going up the side of a map. In fact, our real life counterparts didn't have that luxury. You have to punch a hole in the bocage in front of you, two fields deep, then flank to either side.

With exception of the Vehicle covered arc and infantry firing on buttoned tanks, I pretty much disagree with everything you've posted. Ian posted some the answers but I feel I have to chime in because I don't quite agree with everything he says also. I can't disagree with you more. Artillery in this game is modeled very well. It's lethality is exactly what it needs to be. My only beef is the reality of accuracy when requesting a "line" barrage. This just seems too easy to do IMO. In any case, How you and I "feel" artillery should be modeled is immaterial. It is well documented that artillery is by far the main killer on the battlefield and this is the case in all of the CM games. I have not had many issues with path-finding at all. My only beef has been the "wide" blown breeches in hedgerows. Vehicles don't always go through them like they should. I agree but BFC has stated that they are looking in to adding this. Nobody is sure if it's going to be in the Commonwealth module yet. I've never seen this and I've never seen anyone else complain of this. However, someone has pointed out that there may be an issue with the subsystem damage system. For example, a round hits the rear hull and damages the optics system. Hopefully BFC is looking into this. Haven't had AP rounds taking out lots of infantry. However, the situation you mention it seems logical to me that an AP round would penetrate and have the ability to cause mass casualties of infantry behind a wall. These rounds could easily blow a hole in a wall causing lots of lethal projectiles. Wow, did you really play the CMx1 games??? No offense but you sound like a novice. The main reason to choose better units is that they are better soldiers. They are more accurate shooters, less likely to cower and be routed, more likely to recover when they do, and are generally better disciplined when setting ambushes. I guess I have to agree with this. I'm not a big fan of the action spot system but the enemy has the same issues, so it's not like it's a handicap. This has been debated quite a bit. Small buildings are considered light(wood) buildings and do not offer much cover. This would be accurate since it is well documented that rifle bullets can easily penetrate several inches of wood. However, it seems to me that the majority of buildings in Normandy were made of stone and should offer quite a bit more cover than they actually do. Another issue is that the so called "light" buildings often have a stone texture graphic which is misleading to both the designer and the player. I'm not sure what you're talking about. When my men spot a tank, it shows an armored icon. Are you talking about a ? icon? Almost every map I've played has been a bocage map where the longest possible engagement ranges have been maybe 500m but often much closer. I would expect one shot hits in many of these cases. I am not seeing to many one-shot one kills. I've had many cases where there are penetrations that did little to no damage and often do some damage or injure to crew. There is no risk of friendly fire with small arms. You will need to be careful of gun HE fire though. Use this if you want to set an ambush. the unit will be hard to spot and will not spot too well themselves. It will restrict the unit from firing and giving away it's position. It's good to use in conjunction with the arc command. Like I said above, the infantry firing on buttoned tanks is an issue but I think it's being looked into. I've not had much of an issue getting bazookas to fire on tanks when within range. I have not had this issue. I've tested certain circumstances dealing with this and not seen any abnormal spotting issues. However, others have sworn that it should be impossible for their bazooka team to be spotted by a tank before their zook gets a round off.

I'm not sure what BFC plans to do, but my best guess of future plans would be to release the following modules: Commonwealth Market Garden Bulge to VE day then go back to Africa Italian add-on (could possibly be bundled with the African module) Then start with the East Front: Barbarossa to Moscow Stalingrad Kursk... Star Wars The Clone Wars Naboo add-on Battle of Endor featuring the Ewok Light Brigade

Well, you could just start the mission and immediately surrender. I'm not sure what that will do to you in the campaign that you're playing in. It might end your campaign or it might make the next battle harder or it might do nothing at all.

This has been brought up previously. If a single enemy soldier is still in the objective area, it can deny you the objective. So it's possible you might have a single cowering soldier trapped on the 3rd floor of a building that you've already swept through and he ends up ruining your day. Also, don't forget that if it's an 'occupy' objective, you MUST have a at least one unit inside the objective area at the end of the battle. You can't just march your men through the objective and through the other side thinking everything is secure.

Actually I find the manual just fine. I learned everything about the editor from it, no tutorials needed. The elevation editor is the easiest part of the scenario making process once you understand how it works. I used topographic maps as a basis for the maps I've made. All I had to do was mimic the topo lines and the editor interpolated the rest. Actually this is the easiest and best elevation editor I've ever used. I'm not sure about the troop placing issues. I've never experience that. If they weren't where you placed them, then where were they? Back at their default position?

Yea, and the review is horribly short - sort of like a Cliff Notes review of the game. I think I've composed sentences longer than his review. You'd think that after 6 months someone could put together a comprehensive review that really delves into the many features (or lack thereof) that a game has. On the plus side, it is a favorable review for CMBN.

I don't think this is an issue. If the unit(s) that see the ? don't have radio contact with the mortar team, then a runner is typically sent to them which wouldn't take long if they mortar team in on the same hedgerow. Since the game doesn't model runners then this is really a wash.

I have to disagree. Honestly and historically, Veteran troops generally were in the same battle with each other. In other words, not too often will you see a platoon of regular soldiers with a platoon of veteran soldiers. Obviously, cases such as armor backing up airborne troops is a different situation. Therefore I don't think it should be limited when purchasing.

My experience with the Sherman's smoke is they pop out one at a time like they're supposed to. It doesn't take long for them to reload and pop out subsequent smoke, so it may seem like they're all simultaneously fired. I'll have to test it out next time I play.

Shermans crews had a hand launched smoke mortar, iirc.

google Achtung Panzer: Operation Star, there are lots of links

Yes, that's precisely the game design theory that has lead to all RTS games until CM came along.

Clark, Precisely, why make it easier for humans to win when they already have an advantage over the AI? The AI wont have the ability to do this unrealistic spotting, so why should humans have it? The game already tells you exactly who can see what. Now people are asking to know what there units can see before they actually arrive at a place on the map. It's completely gamey! I completely agree with flamingknives. All those things you mention were and are still common problems in combat. If in real life we had a little genie that would tell us what we could see from another vantage point, then I'd agree with you. Until then, I consider it a gamey & cheating feature.

Interesting... Is there an issue with scale? CMx1 was 10m grid and CMx2 is 8m grid.

My advice is to start the campaign from scratch (only to re-read the Campaign briefing or notes) that describe how many battles are in each "chapter". If I remember correctly, each chapter had artillery in it. Typically if you use the artillery in that particular chapter then it would not be available for any subsequent battle within that chapter. However, the next chapter would focus on a different battalion which had different artillery assigned to it.

Cool, thanks Phil.

Reinforcements have two time settings. The first is to set the amount of time into the battle that they arrive. The second setting is whether they arrive on time or if you want a window of time to give variation. You set at +/- arrival time (5 min increments). You'll still have to set the AI plan for the reinforcements, otherwise they will just sit there when they enter the battle. Remember to set the times for the movement orders. Also, make sure that these settings allow for the reinforcement arrival window. You will have to experiment and test this to make sure things work the way you want them to.