Sublime

i doubt it'll happen. theyve been planning things the way they are since before BN was released. And the Ost Front is definitely my favorite theatre. That being said, Im dying for the Arnhem module and I dont wanna see that kicked to the side. Personally, Id say release Commonwealth, and do Arnhem. That gives everyone the variety, and nice stretch of time from June to September/October. I'd skip the odds and sods, the Bulge, and do a Bagration East Front title. so on and so forth. However it wont happen, its been explained anyways the schedule, and some of the reasoning. They figure a lot of the work will be done for an Ost Front title by doing the West Front first, as most of the German units will have been done then..

wow man. fantastic.

I didnt roll it back and forth. As it rolled over them on the first (and only) pass it detonated about 3-4 AP mines. no damage on the damage screen. More would perhaps be accrued if I kept rolling around over it.. maybe.

I do know that you can roll armor over a minefield and destroy AP mines. Just did it today in the first battle of a Bloody Ride campaign with a panther tank.

bump come on i want some force mix tactics discussion

well in reference to one of your points, actually mortars in DF mode DO use spotting rounds. even up to 3-4 occasionally. seems to be less the closer in. But yeah, I almost always see them use spotting rounds, usually one over or under, the other vice versa, the third spot on. I'd say it takes more like about 45 seconds to a minute for the fire to start getting laid on. Again the range makes a difference.

I sort of agree. The game seems to use a 3:1 attacker ratio formula. This is usually used as the example of what an attacking force needs to sucessfully attack. In the game this translates sometimes to one company versus two or three with armor attack. it can get rough. mortars are very deadly, one of the best weapons I use. you can counter them pretty well though. they usually take the better part of a turn to get the range on a target and laying down real fire. you have to pay attention and have a bug out route planned. on top of that mortars will burn through their ammo in one or two turns. So yeah, they can kill most things, but they get used up quick enough.

To break down my usual QB force mixes - Off map arty - Germans I love 120mm mortars. However you need a good fo and/or trps. the 150mm is good as well. The US 155mm is good. Ive had good luck with 105mm as well. On map - Ive been slaughtered by a well placed German 150mm inf gun. however I dont like using em. 81mm mortars are nice though. Im a big fan of mortar DF fire. (possibly an understatement I love the 50mm Paks, and 75mms as well. Obviously I love 88mms, but theyre too pricey - not worth it. the 50mm works pretty well with everything the Allies got to be honest. High velocity. With the Allies, I like a couple of 57mms too, but Ive had pretty mixed results since I started using them. They're decent. I love the 60mm and 81mm mortars. I can work wonders with the 60mms because theyre so portable. With armor I usually get Pz IV's as the German, theyre so common, effective, and historically accurate. A panther now and then also, they're very effective and not uber rare. I feel sorta guilty when I get them, theyre so difficult to kill it almost feels unfair. As the Allies, Im all about the 105mm cannon. I love Priests. and Im also in love with the Sherman assault gun. Someone once mentioned using M20 scout cars because their radio, 50 cal, especially with the armored infantry because of the tiny (2 man) HQ teams. Ive tried this and it does work pretty well. I'd recommend at least one for one of your platoons. Nice flexibility, and I always try to have one .50 cal somewhere in some form besides on my armor. They'll singlehandedly break infantry attacks if they're not getting shelled and can be trouble to halftracks, marders, even Pz IV's and Panther sides and rears! With infantry I usually eschew the individual AT teams on both sides. Instead I opt for my infantry squads to be equipped with schrecks or zooks. I used snipers for awhile, but I think I may stop using em, dont feel their worth it. Scout teams are essential for scouting and defensive ambushes. They got binocs and nice firepower. I prefer the 1919A4 for Allies everytime over either the BAR or 1917 HMG. Though recently I noticed a M1917 letting 10-12 round bursts go (at close range only tho) and I was impressed. (usually you see mechanical 4-6 round bursts) Thats why I love the Airborne squads, I think the LMG alone makes a huge difference. Otherwise as Allies, vanilla infantry battalion has the best squads and hq units i think. Cavalry and armor are ok, but have small HQs. The engineers have these all rifle squads that get kicked around pretty bad. i was doing some experimenting with land mines after seeing their brilliant use against me in a game of Le Grand Hameau PBEM and Ive got to admit its great fun and gratifying as hell even though you dont get a lot of casualties out of it. more useful to deny good overwatch positions. As far as the Germans, the fusilier units have the best firepower mix IMO, tho I love the Panzergrenadiers. Always have for some reason. Even gotta think the name is cool

Ill post in more detail later but shultz Im shocked at how many units you had! I basically had 2 platoons out of three, 2 at guns, 2 60 mm, 2 81mm, 1 105mm sherman, 1 stuart, and a few other things. vs three companies etc?? jesus!

I cant blame you. After all it is your 45th mod. That being said, you make the best vehicle mods for CMBN, hands down. I use everything you make. But CMBN is a game, and games are made for enjoyment. If its not longer enjoyable, find something else my friend. You've already contributed more than most.

I tried the APOS demo. I wouldnt even consider it competition for CMBN at all. Just doesnt have the right feel to me at all. The UI is counterintuitive, you cant seem to click on a lot of things, you need to hit the corresponding keyboard button, etc etc. And of course like mentioned above, when I saw the infantry fight I was pretty sorely disappointed. I want the Eastern Front as much as anyone else, but this game wont do it for me. I didnt even stick around to see the vaunted tank on tank combat. If the infantries fudged, or if the game just doesnt feel right at all (UI, issuing orders, etc) I cant play it. This game lost both on that score. Reminded me in a way of Panzer Elite. Had a lot of promise, but when I saw the horrible infantry modelling it.. killed it.

Well you never know what just wont work with the engine, or what couldnt be modeled. It seems a small detail.. Im glad its there, but the why wouldnt they argument could be turned to why isnt there hand to hand combat in some form or the other? Troops do look sorta silly standing together in the same action spot... looking at eachother.

And it does look sorta silly when troops stop in a ford so theyre taking fire and shooting 'underwater'. Still Shultz, you should be asking for deeper water - maybe it'll stop some more mortar fragments =P

shameless bump.

Actually 57mm AT guns are one of my favorite AT weapons. They come organic in a US Inf. Battalion, and I use them in at least pairs. They suffer from the lack of HE shells, but the price is right. From a distance they're very hard to spot, and they'll kill most anything the Germans got, at least from the flanks. And plenty from the front. Not to mention you can ping off tigers and panthers and at least degrade their ability to fight if nothing else.

I'd keep playing. You'll feel the loss of course, but you can definitely still make a go of it. Just try to remember that you are in a campaign and therefore not only do you need to be careful with your troops, but you need to be judicious in your use of assets - even down to whether you expend all your on board mortar ammo on trivial targets. Sometimes you wont be resupplied with mortar ammo for a few battles and you will notice its abscence.

Really? So severely wounded troops lying incapacitated in a row will all be killed if say artillery continues to pound their position and lands on their bodies?

The issues are seperate btw. First off - Ok we dont have hand to hand. I wish there would be some fix, even a fudge like the Cmx1 knock, slap, and head jerk back. Was hand to hand really that rare that it can be overlooked? I feel that while it wasnt exactly common, I've heard of plenty of accounts. Would I be wrong in assuming that maybe this issue wasnt as important when this engine was first designed making CMSF? And even without hand to hand, I wish my troops would be more aggressive in throwing grenades. As it is now in a PBEM, I have several groups of men, most of them with no ammunition whatsoever but 4-6 grenades. They're under my command, sitting there. Some broken but in command, some fine now. Some in buildings, some not. However all are within 30m, some only 5-10m away. Second - Playing La Grande Hameau against someone as the US. Both he and I were surprised when I eliminated all of his troops the game didnt autosurrender for him. He ventured the idea that perhaps it was to give the Axis player more time to inflict casualties towards that magic 30%. Especially since the Axis player is given a lot of minefields, and indeed in this case brilliant use of his minefields wreaked havoc on my troops. Best use of it I've seen so far- He placed them mostly in the streets between buildings. So most of the casualties were from troops running into buildings after firefights, going to the next position. Often it seemed like things were clear and thereby they werent 'hunting' or 'assaulting'. Another few mines were placed in front of a hedgerow, and didn't come into play in the previous firefight over the hedgerow. However when my men ran up to capture the dazed, shocked Georgian conscripts mines took a few more boys lives. Still, I feel the game should auto surrrender at least one minute after the losing player runs out of troops. I spent 3 minutes hunting around the village like a moron until I finally asked if he had anyone..

Though it may not account for not hearing about them, but I'd venture that most early war tank aces probably were dead in Russia by 1942. Which is when you start hearing about later war aces getting involved in tanking. IIRC Wittman was driving around in a StuG in 1942... The Luftwaffe aces are a different story - a lot of them survived from beginning to the end. A huge reason for the high number of kills for German soldiers Id venture is because if someone becomes very skilled they become very deadly and obviously more and more deadly through time. Of course they had a 'fly till you die' policy for every branch. America for example rotated troops often to spread around experience, at least as far as air crew were concerned. Unfortunately Im not how sure that applied to Army personnel. Though I do remember hearing about Sgt. Basilone of Guadalcanal fame being sent to the 'States to train American personnel before getting in on and killed in the battle for Iwo.

With AT guns and stuff in the defense, I've had a lot of luck with a combination of terrain and sometimes trenches. Instead of placing a defense in woods or in a town, I place it right behind it. Therefore blocking it from view, to be mortared or shelled. I place the guns to fire laterally and usually need at least two, to sort of cover eachother. This way the enemy has to come in and expose himself to shoot at you, and cant be supported by the HE chuckers and whatnot. If they do poke a tank into the town or w.e. it gets shot. Its all tricky though.

Ive often noticed this as well. I play single player, mostly campaigns, but a lot of PBEMs too. PBEMs, despite the slow rate things progress are my favorite, its more satisfying to kill a human. That being said, unfortunately single or multiplayer battles and qb's often see behavior that wouldnt happen in real life, or even in a campaign. Usually attacks go on despite heavy casualties, where it'd be called off. Or the attacking force would never be able to hold on to what it took. Or vice versa, the defenders often hold out to the last man, where in real life after losing a quarter or half their forces would retreat to a better position..

you know in response to that universal field of view thing.. I dont know exactly how it would be implemented but I'd like the ability to either A. pick a point and be able to stretch a LOS line from that point to see visibility. or be able to have a check LOS or something to put on waypoints in the planning phase to see if things can see certain spots..

Im really hoping the battle from CMBO the Sunken Lane gets redone. I really loved that battle when i originally played BO and it'd be great to see with 1:1 soldier representation.

no Im pretty sure KTs were around well before the Bulge and were in Normandy. However they only were in the Brit sector, US forces didnt fight them in Normandy. Im sure someone will post the relevant links to prove this if need be..

hate to interrupt the novel your typing here schultz but get your ass off the board and start refresh monkeying your email acct =) need more... turns...