ASL Veteran

Yes indeed. I was beginning to wonder if your love of CMx1 had blinded you to reality. Infantry in CMx1 didn't get cover from live friendly vehicles either IIRC. By your own admission your point about CMx1 vs CMx2 in this situation was a non sequitur since in neither case is the issue addressed to your satisfaction. This leads a rational person to wonder why you bothered to bring up CMx1 at all since it doesn't add to your point, but rather detracts from it. The switch had absolutely no effect on the situation described by the original poster since the end result is the same in both iterations.

The ridgeline problem is as much a map issue as it is a soldier issue. When setting elevations in the editor you set them per action spot. So if I'm making a ridgeline that is one action spot wide and several action spots long then by the necessity of the way it is made in the editor the action spot is set at a higher elevation than the surrounding terrain. Since soldiers occupy part of a single action spot then you have the issue as described in the first post. In other words, in order for the individual soldiers to position themselves just behind the crest they would need to be positioned between two action spots rather than in either one action spot or the other. The only way to mitigate that somewhat would be to have the elevation difference between the higher elevation action spot and the lower action spots be the minimum of one meter. Soldiers can see over 1 meter height obstacles from the kneeling position but they cannot see over 2 meter obstacles while standing. The terrain mesh for elevations can only be set in 1 meter increments. This is clearly demonstrated with the way the ditch lock feature works in the Market Garden module.

There is no scenario baking anymore.

I know that the game makes a pre game LOS calculation from action spot to action spot. Steve has said on numerous occasions that individual spotting 'on the fly' by each individual unit in game is so computer intensive that it's simply not feasible so you can just forget about any fancy theories anyone may have as to what they want the game to do. What some want and what is possible are often two different things. The problems come when those who want something get confused about whether it is possible or not through a lack of appropriate knowledge of the issues from a computer standpoint. The forum is littered with hundreds of posts from those who say "I want X and BFC is incompetent because they can't just implement something so simple." Typically those who say these things have no idea what they are talking about.

I believe the building situation that you show above might already be known because there is a situation with LOF and buildings, although I'm not certain if that's related or not. I believe that spotting goes from center of action spot to center of action spot so that's probably why you got the result that you got, although Steve has said on multiple occasions that LOS is always reciprocal so there must be something involving the positioning of the spotters somehow. It does look very odd though. I do think that it would be helpful if you continued testing spotting, not only to help BFC to see if spotting can be improved or not, but also to help you get a better handle on how it works within the game. The more you nail down the spotting routines in the game the better positioned you will be to work around those limitations when you are playing. Hopefully that would reduce your frustration since you would then be aware of the limitations and how they affect you in the game.

You might check out some of the gaming clubs too. Few Good Men, The Blitz, and Band of Brothers seem to be the main three.

Kauz, please stop embarrassing yourself. I suggest that you stop making assumptions about things and take the time to actually find out how they work in the real world.

It really depends upon the circumstances. HMGs in defensive positions were typically assigned 'sectors' to cover - preferably in enfilade - where they could use grazing fire to deny that area to the enemy. A relatively tight covered arc type of command where the suppression effects were applied from the muzzle all the way out to the target area would be something that would be useful to a defender.

Something almost identical to this has actually been proposed, but when or even whether you may see something like this is anyone's guess.

I don't want to speak for Phil, but I think he has managed to nail it down.

Kauz, I would like to recommend that you have a look at an MG 42 tripod and see how it actually works. Perhaps you could also study up on the terms 'Grazing Fire' and 'Beaten Zone'. Once you have done this, then perhaps you can contribute to this discussion in a meaningful way. Hyperbole isn't going to move the discussion forward.

Hopefully you noted the word 'necessarily' that I placed in my initial paragraph. If you make an assumption that nobody goes to ground and they continue to run forward in an upright position yelling 'Urraahhhh' without moving right or left then perhaps you might have a point. If they go to ground though then you wouldn't have a point. I also don't 'necessarily' disagree with the burst size needing adjustment either. For a 500 cyclic RPM standard heavy machine gun an average burst size of around 6 rounds is probably appropriate. For an MG 42 I could see 20 round bursts on a tripod as being a reasonable expectation since you have it in the FM, but it's also possible that the code can't distinguish between different models of MG in terms of assigning a round per burst count. If the code can't distinguish then you are stuck until that can be altered - assuming it can be altered. You also need to realize that the HMGs in the game typically only come with somewhere between 1500 and 2000 rounds so you will be burning through your ammunition pretty quickly my friend. Maybe that doesn't bother you but I just wanted to toss it out there for consideration.

There were Elefants on the Eastern Front during this time frame but they were located with Army Group North Ukraine which wasn't featured in the base game. You will see both of those vehicles eventually, but they just didn't come in the initial release.

In the game you have a limited supply of ammunition and in CMx2 once you are out of ammunition you are done. There is no 'low ammo' state in CMx2. So you can't have your troops blow off all their ammo in five minutes as the default. Now then, for the M60 machine gun the field manual approved rates of fire are Sustained at 100 rounds per minute and Rapid at 200 rounds per minute. The M60 Machinegun will typically be fired in 3 to 5 round bursts and also has a tripod mounting. If you assume a 5 round burst then if the MG is using the field manual approved rates of fire you should be putting out twenty bursts per minute for sustained and about forty bursts per minute for rapid. If you make the bursts 10 rounds then you could have twenty ten round bursts per minute for rapid fire. Either way you are simply counting bursts, so if you want to discuss whether or not an MG is firing often enough then you need to count the bursts. The number of bursts changes depending upon how close the enemy is IIRC. I think they start out with sustained and then when the enemy gets close enough it switches to rapid. About that tripod mounting. As you must know, the tripod mounting is not particularly suited for picking off individual infantrymen in sniper fashion. It is mostly suited for aiming at an area of ground for the purposes of point fire or for the establishment of a sector for grazing fire because you change the aim point through the use of a traversing and elevating mechanism. In fact, the automatic micro adjustments that the tripod has allows for some effective grazing fire where the stream of fire automatically adjusts ever so slightly between bursts. So the MG on a tripod is not necessarily a 'killing' machine but more of a 'suppressing' machine. As such many thousands of rounds could be fired for very few casualties because, once again, the MG on a tripod isn't trying to pick off individual infantrymen. Actually, if the gunner did decide to engage an individual infantryman or a squad by targeting them directly it could compromise any area assigned for grazing fire by leaving parts of the assigned sector uncovered by fire. In other words, you are using the tripod MG to cover an area not to kill individual infantrymen. Casualties caused is not necessarily a good measure of effectiveness.

I do find it a little bit ironic that the same person who was arguing passionately that the German army of 1944 was the best in the world bar none is now placing the label of German Army Worshipper upon those who make scenarios for the release game. This is especially interesting since he hasn't really provided any actual evidence backing his wild assertion regarding the content of the shipped scenarios.

While mounted in their vehicles tank crews are effectively deaf unless the engine is turned off and the commander has removed his internal communications equipment so I think you need to recalibrate your expectations in that regard. 1 meter is approximately 1.09 yards. 80 meters is approximately 80 yards so very close to the 100 yard length of an American football field. The ability to see the length of a football field through wooded terrain is not as much a certainty as you might think either.

Have you actually played any of the scenarios that came with the DVD or are you just guessing about them? Perhaps if you could be more specific about the scenarios you have played and which you haven't played you could start to be taken seriously.

I believe Pete made a nice little scenario titled "Red Hordes" so you might want to take a look at that one.

I think the game came with something like 18 scenarios? An effort is made to provide the player with scenarios from all the different size categories and a decent mix of scenarios with different tactical situations as well as different equipment mixes. Some scenarios are historical in nature and some aren't. There are plenty of scenarios provided that should meet JasonC's and Oddball's needs. No individual scenario can be all things to all players. Some players want to play with Panthers and others don't want to play with Panthers. It's an obvious impossibility for a single scenario to meet the desires of both of those players simultaneously. The best that can be done is to provide a decent mix of different types of scenarios that hopefully most players will appreciate. Within that mix it is almost a certainty that each individual player will enjoy a few more than they enjoy some of the others. To have an expectation that every single scenario you play will blow your socks off is probably unreasonable, although we certainly make an honest effort to reach that goal.

There has been a lot of discussion about this particular 'feature' and one of the best suggestions was to have the game track which AI plan was used and to automatically select an unused plan the next time a player chooses to play a scenario. Don't get too excited about this though because I doubt we will be seeing this any time soon. However, not every scenario is suitable for multiple plans for the simple reason that the designer needs to create the best possible plan in order to give a reasonable challenge for an average player. Once the best possible plan is created there may be possibilities to create alternate plans that are equally decent. However, often times the designer would be making a plan that was not as good as the first plan and you never know if that plan is going to be the one the player gets the first time which will then form their opinion about the scenario overall. From the standpoint of stuff for the DVD there is also a time factor involved because there is time pressure to complete your scenario before the game is released. It's not always possible to create multiple plans. Ideally with the addition of more advanced triggers you would have a scenario with one basic plan - the best one the designer can develop - which can branch to account for what the player is doing. In the case of advanced triggers it may no longer be necessary to have the game select different plans whenever the scenario is played. You can have one plan that is flexible enough to give a reasonable account of itself based on what the player is doing.

If a player is trying to come onto this forum and tell everyone that they can't successfully carry out their battle plan because of the way the game's spotting routines work then that player probably has other issues with how they are playing the game that could probably be addressed. The spotting works the same way for both players so one player isn't getting an advantage over another. Could some things with spotting be improved? Sure - perhaps. Is it so bad that the game is broken beyond repair? For the vast majority of players the spotting is functioning well enough for the game to work and be playable.

You cannot create supply depots during the course of the game. Supply depots are created in the scenario editor by the scenario designer.

Why is it so important that the game is broken if the Germans aren't using PPSh 41s? I'm not trying to be dismissive because it is pretty obvious that whether or not the Germans are using PPSh is a very big deal for you. I am just curious as to why they are important to you? Do you think including them would have a concrete in game impact or do you just think it's cool and would like to see them carrying them around? Seriously - the Germans used almost every weapon that was produced in Europe between the years 1900 and 1944. Why is this particular weapon so important that BFC needs to stop all work until one or two Germans per platoon can carry it around? Perhaps you are assuming there will be full German squads carrying PPSh weapons so they can go toe to toe with Soviet tank riders or something? Do you expect the German squads to carry around the different ammunition too (similar to how the Kurz ammunition is distributed now) or are you assuming the rechambered version? :confused:

Maybe CM Red Thunder?

The Germans assigned a designation to every weapon that they captured. The infamous French Chauchat light machine gun was designated 8mm leMG 156(f) if it was captured from French stockpiles. Belgian versions were designated 7.65mm leMG 126( while Greek versions were designated 8mm leMG 156(g). Saying that the Germans officially adopted a weapon and gave it a designation proves nothing. There are many weapons that I wouldn't mind seeing in the game such as the ZB vz/53 or the ZB vz/60 or perhaps even a Knorr Bremse MG35. maybe we could see Germans equipped with the old and reliable Mashinengewehr 08 some day? As far as SMGs go the Germans used the MP 18/1, MP 28/11, MP 34/1, MP 35/1, MP 41, MP 3008, and the MP Erma. The SS were fond of all those submachine guns yet none of them are in the game either.