coe

Actually come to think about weapons in buildings, I guess there is no way of simulating the "backing the tank into a barn" or putting an AT gun in a building? (y'know I was just thinking that'd be cool if you could see an infantry squad scatter in all different directions when a tank round hits close instead of all just running the same way and dieing but that would be pretty hard I guess...)

so at what range do you need to close in on the tank to use the grenades and the whole thing of some brave soul running up to the tank and holding a magnetic bomb to it or dropping a grenade down the exhaust pipe, or putting a mine on the tracks? Hey are there any trenches by the way? no chance for infantry to be in a deep trench while a tank runs right over it? and then the infantry jump out....etc.

true the Panzerfaust 30 was out of range - at 50 meters the squad had nothing that could kill the tank - so I'm wondering why it opened up in the first place anyways! I still haven't figured out how to close assault an AFV do you direct your squad to fast move (or move) onto the area where the tank is?

I had 3 squads of infantry open up on a tank (these were veteran SS) at a range of 50m - the squads had Panzerfaust 30s and used none - also the tanks were out of grenade range. They wern't fired upon and were rather hidden?? why (besides antsy trigger fingers) I had a tiger tank and I wanted it to watch down a street where I knew many fireflies could be coming - well it started receiving distant small arms fire (like 250 meters) away and turned its turret toward it, then the enemy tanks rounded to corner and popped the tiger before its turret traversed. How can one prevent this?

A few questions: I heard that there were a few pre-order specials - were there any? How can you do line of sight from one point to another without any unit at the originating sight? (I assume the ai opponent can do this though since it knows exactly where to go). Can anti-tank weapons that are high profile (88mm) be "hull down, i.e. positioned lets say on a crest of a hill such that the barrel is pointed over - does this improve its survivability rates? Finally how can you do the following, assume there is a long column going through the woods, ideally you'd like to string out a company like 10 meters from the road the column is on and have it hidded and then open fire all at once with as much of the column exposed to your company as possible. This seems really really hard to do considering that infantry tend to open fire once they enter the effective kill zone regardless of where you set an ambush marker...(i.e. you could set the ambush marker behind you) likewise can you make bunkers hold their fire? on ammo usage - if only at certain ranges certain weapons open up would it be hard to model this in terms of total ammo ussage (i.e. at 500 m if only the lmg is going, then you aren't probably using as much ammo (i guess the simplyfiying assumption is that all ammo can be used on any weapons (which isn't true but probably would be a pain in the butt to model)) - is the notion that green troops use more ammo in general modeled? At certain higher ranges - rifles are probably better than lmg's what happens then? Any clues as to how to use sharp shooters effecitively?

I haven't been able to find the answer to these: how do you save a game and quit out of CM? i.e. I don't have the time to finish the scenario at that point (although I'd love to play it entirely through). Do allied vehicles, despite their claws in front (to break through the hedgerows) risk breakdown when they barrel through the hedges Also are there any operations in the CD? I saw only individual battles.

I did the Chance encounter scenario...and an enemy sherman was moving right next to the woods but not facing the woods (its turret was facing forward), in addition it was buttoned and under fire. I had an 81mm spotter at the edge of the wood which had been hiding for like 5 turns previously and wasn't calling in any strikes. After passing the spotter team, the Sherman spotted it and well, 75 mm HE'd it till it broke and ran. Ok, so the 81mm spotter team was Green. Would this be realistic?

I still don't understand this "gamey" concept is it that you might get half track crews to reman a 150 or something like that? is that the problem. I assume it would be hard to keep track of which crew could reman which (even assigning crews to only one weapon) What about voluntary abandoning, i.e. the mortar section abandons the mortars to become line infantrymen to clean up a penetration, or what about when they run out of ammo, can they become as mobile as infantry (without lugging the mortar around?)

First of all I had a platoon in foxholes and in the woods annihilated in a turn by arty (they were semi hiding too) But then I got to think, since the allies had really good intel, spotters and radio direction finders, would it be interesting to toggle a "command and control" switch if you are playing the germans. i.e. there is a small probability the allies will find you and shell/bomb your HQ thus making you not able to issue orders for like a turn or two.... Hmmm, that would be interesting

Ok, I got some questions about the sounds especially of what the soldiers say in the beta demo - what are the germans saying i.e their phrases And why do the americans have allthese tough deep football voices and the germans have these high voices

Hmmm, I suppose infantry fire from a stopped half track would be effective. The other hing is firing at second story of buildings from inside a half track. From what I understand infantry following right behind a tank have no extra special cover from fire coming from the direction the tank is in. I assume this would be really hard to do... but unfortunately while infantry often preceded the tank, often the infantry would be right behind the tank, using it as cover. (ever see the pictures of a whole german squad behind a StugIII)

Do units camoflage make them easier/harder to spot (i.e. SS uniforms in the brush as opposed to the regular panzer grey)

So what is the best way to defeat tank-destroyers.... Let's say PZIV vs. Hellcats. Are there any major advantages tanks have (in general) over tank-destroyers. Looking at Jadgepanzers, one of answers is obvious, they aren't turreted and have reasonalbe armour. But against Hellcats it isn't, they are fast reasonably good gun, and have a turret... would it be reasonable to say a Hellcat would kick a sherman's butt (or even a grant) so why not build just hellcats.... And so lets say you are a couple of panthers and you do run upon some hellcats what do you do.

Is it possible for a tank of yours (during the play of game) to get popped by someone so quickly (perhaps its rounding the corner) and assuming no other of its team mates (tanks/infantry) are around, that the location of the offending anti-tank round remains unknown (i.e. essentially its killed (crew and all) before it can report the enemy gun.

If this has already been discussed, I apologize for I have tried doing the search thing. Suffice to say, if someone can't point me to the discussion: In the Beta demo, I didn't notice the Squad leader (I know CM isn't squad leader) trick such that a machine gun can target a squad and then apply the same die roll to a specified number of hexes beyond it as long as there was no change in elevation and it was in the same line of fire... I guess this was to prove the power of a machine gun of sweeping down an entire "alley" has this been covered in CM?

Dunno if this has been discussed before. But I noticed that the German tanks in the beta demo have different amounts of add on armour against hollow charges. Is this taken into account, howabout for the other nationalities (americans putting sand bags on their tanks, etc.)

This is too bad that the live AFV's don't offer cover, sometimes going up a street or in the open fields that is the only form of cover that the Armoured Infantry/ Panzer Grenadiers have.

So I tried to put a squad behind an AFV (tiger tank) but it seems they still got hit despite the tank being directly in the way, It would be a cool command to be able to instruct your squad to follow behind an AFV (and instruct the AFV to go to like slow advance mode) much like how some advances were made.

Howabout running over weapons?

So how is the good old movie scenes where the Tank is running over the infantry in the trenches etc. modeled in this game?

Hmmm, from my knowledge a StuG III is a turretless Pz III and not your standard open top SP gun (like a Priest or a Marder). So therefore, the damage you should expect is that of a machine gun hitting a tank. Btw, I think the Stug III supposedly has better armour than your PZ III especially if it has the add on's that the germans had late in the war.

So what would be the major differences between the (beatable) allies in the early years as opposed to the later years? Note that in the early years Allied tanks were on par or better (Char and nor did the Germans have air superiority. Perhaps tactics changed? Howabout on the small unit level?

Can depleted squads combine into a single squad (kinda like forming a Kampfgruppe I suppose). It would make sense though if you had 3 men in one squad left to combine with 2 men left in another squad.

German losses were indeed heavy on the Russian front - and this may have been due to the Chancellor himself demanding that every piece of ground be held to the last round. I was referring to Allied armies around 1943-1945. It seems German attacks always got bogged down and that they never seemed to successfully cut off large Allied formations and compel them to surrender. (all though the Russian concept of "formation" is a bit different). While the west may have had more villages, etc., the west also had better roads. What is even more puzzling is that German losses at Normandy seem to greater than Allied losses - I'm not sure if this includes Falaise. I wonder how this would be IF you balanced the airpower and naval guns a bit (imagine contested skies - Allies could still bomb but they would have to watch out themselves, and that naval guns weren't always availabe). Was airpower really that responsible? When I look to the Russian front I see better russian tanks (compared to the west), large amounts of artillery, and localized air superiority in 1944.

I am puzzled. Even when the Allies did not have air superiority or material superiority, it seems that German successes never approached that against the Russians late in the war when the Russians were beginning to get air superiority and had massed artillery themselves. Despite the Russian advantages, the Germans were able to inflict heavy losses while suffering little themselves at times (on the order of hundresds of tanks, etc.). However, one doesn't see any examples of this against the allies, no divisions ever surrounded and captured, only battaliions... was it a different approach the Allies used?