Pak40

possibly because it was a training video and they were using training rounds. Or if the footage looks like a legitimate combat situation it might be an attempt to knock out a tank on the top armor. Low % hit but high % penetration.

This largely depends on the unit firing and how many of your units are able to spot. Rifles will be particularly hard to spot. MGs should be easier. If you have many units able to spot then your chances of getting contacts go up dramatically, especially if the units have binocs and are not under fire themselves. Also, contacts at the 500-1000m distance tend to be ? which basically indicates that your men know there's an enemy unit in that vicinity but they actually haven't spotted a soldier or vehicle. This is basically simulating real life because you'd usually know where the enemy was but may not know their exact location. I'm sometimes frustrated that my men don't spot the enemy units sooner.

It's a English tank crew. Obviously they've stopped for tea time.

Wasn't southern France where Audie Murphy stood on a knocked out US tank and manned a .50 against overwhelming odds?

Ditto about the manual. More detail with less abstraction also brings more complexity. Besides the Demo there are tons of YouTube clips he can watch, especially the Armchair General tutorials . These will give him a good idea of the detail, capability, and ambiance of the game without having to worry about commands and controls.

Yea, I hope that's the case. You should be able to see rounds fall behind obstacles such as hedges, bocage, and even trees or low houses. Obviously it depends how big the round is and how far behind the obstacle.

And keep in mind that if you move your FO while waiting for spotting rounds it could delay the whole process because a moving unit will loose radio contact. Vehicle FOs are an exception I think.

everybody knows you never go full "manual"

Thank goodness. I've been wanting this for a while. Steve, can you confirm or debunk the night time LOS issue that some people seem to have during setup? There was a thread about it last week. See post #10 by Muzzleflash. I haven't had time to test it myself.

CMx1 was more abstract with spotting and therefore setting ambushes was easier to pull off. As long as a hiding unit had decent cover, it would always spot when an enemy unit walked into it's covered arc and would react accordingly. Likewise you could choose not to set an arc to create extremely close ambushes. When enemies approached within about 30m a hiding unit would start firing usually with devastating effect.

I've got to disagree with you here. Many times I've had units with a CA (and not hiding) get spotted while behind a bocage, totally ruining any ambush chance they had. A covered arc behind a wall doesn't work either with hiding or not hiding. If they're hiding they can't see a damn thing and if they don't hide then they get spotted before the CA is triggered usually resulting in them getting shot at the rest of the turn and not returning fire because no enemy has stepped into their CA yet. It would be nice if there was a designated Ambush command that would allow the bulk of the unit hide while one or two soldiers, probably the NCOs, do the spotting. Obviously this would leave a chance that the unit could be spotted, but very reduced. A full Hide command could still be available so that all heads stay down and is almost impossible to spot, especially when concealed. Another thing that is not possible is ambush by sound. In other words, a hiding unit behind a wall or hedge can't use sound of the enemy to trigger the CA. Very useful for passing tanks or vehicles as well as running infantry.

I concur. This test is a completely unrealistic situation. Who sets up an ambush where the ambushing unit is in the middle of a field of low grass with absolutely no cover except some obviously visible foxholes? Plus the fact that the target team had TA which restricted it from firing. It's very possible that the target team spotted the foxholes and possibly the ambushing team well before it walked into the ambush. If you put a wall, low bocage or even tall grass/crops right in front of that ambushing unit then they will likely never see the target until they are right on top of them.

There's going to be little difference in sunrise depending on the latitude. Even the little difference between Normandy and Holland will give you different sunset times. You can play around with day/night cycles on this Day and Night World Map. The link above is set for Eindhoven at 4am on June 21 I have no idea if CM goes into this much depth with it's location and day/night cycles, but it's fun to play around with.

Maybe that happened to the OP but Muzzleflash said that he did a test at night. I'm pretty sure he didn't take hours to set up a test. It probably took him just a few minutes if that long.

See Muzzleflash's post above (#10)

So now the question becomes: is this an intended design in the setup phase or is it a bug or oversight? IMO, the whole night time combat system is really lacking in CMx2. Star shells should be modeled and I'm not sure if moon phases are even considered. Also, are ambient light sources considered, buildings and vehicles on fire etc...

Ditto to what Womble said. The term "scout" is kind of a misnomer. These guys are the point and to loosely paraphrase Private David Webster of Easy Co. 506th PIR they were put out front to draw fire. If they happen to see the enemy first then they were lucky.

Wow, outstanding video. The computer "reenactment" segments in those WWII documentaries need to use CM as their engine.

You should not have any problems running CM with those pieces of hardware so there must be some other technical or software issues causing it to run poorly.

A very respectable budget Rig for under $800: http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/CyberPower_Z97_i5_Configurator for $11 more you can get a R7 370 instead of the R7 360 for $20 or $40 more you can get a GTX 750 instead of the R7 360

Also, don't forget these camera commands: F & R - these quickly elevate or lower your altitude while tilting the camera Shift + mousewheel is similar but in incremental steps Crtl + mousewheel pivot camera up and down

The American Arsenal has the M3 gun with the M61 APC round with the following penetrations at 20 degrees: Homog Plate: 500 yds - 2.9 in or 73.66mm 1000 yds - 2.6 in or 66.04mm Face Hard Plate: 500 yds - 3.4 in or 86.36mm 1000 yds - 3.1 in or 78.74mm No mention of the M61A1 or the M72 round.

Every person in this thread has been a critic of CM at some point or another, including myself. By being critics we are all trying to suggest improvements to the game. However, every now and again a newcomer comes along and thinks they know better than others, including the BF development team, and they aggressively incite or antagonize others on the forum with their attitude and demeanor. Then they claim to be the ones being attacked, when in fact they have started the flames. This seems to be exactly what you're doing. If you're truly trying to improve the game then we welcome you. It's simple to use friendly language and get your points across without sounding like your way is the only way it should be done and without insulting anyone. Also, I suggest you actually take the time to compose and proofread your posts. It's hard to take anyone seriously that has so many grammatical and spelling errors. Normally I don't dwell on such issues because I know there are a lot of people that don't have English as a primary language, but if you're really trying to impress or make a serious point to others, especially the developers, then take the extra 10 seconds to proof read your posts. Quite honestly, it's embarrassing reading your post above, especially knowing that spell check is build into the forums.

Read the manual. For some reason a lot of new players don't even bother with the manual but it will answer 90% of your questions. Well, maybe 80%.

The whole issue about ending the war before Christmas 44 depended upon getting across the Rhine. Whether you go with Monty or Patton they would have had to deal with this major physical obstacle. It seems that Monty was the one that came up best plan the fastest. I'm not aware of any formal plan that Patton had to get across the Rhine other than "Give me the gas and ammo and I'll drive all the way to Berlin!". That line sounds good until you run into the Rhine.