ASL Veteran

I have been following this discussion of heavy weapons crews and someone raised the question of whether WW2 German mortar crews acted similarly to modern US Marines. I have no practical experience with Marine mortar teams and would certainly defer to our Marine expert on this thread in that regard (I served in the army - Air Defense Artillery). However, I do have "The German Infantry Handbook" by Alex Buchner. First I will relate what he says about the 50 mm mortar (which he calls ‘grenade launchers’). “The light grenade launcher troop with its troop leader and gunners 1 and 2 carried the troop’s high angle fire weapon, the 5-caliber light grenade launcher 36. The troop leader carried a rifle, binoculars, message case, three leg brace for the launcher, and in combat an ammunition box with ten grenades. Gunner 1, armed with a pistol, had the bottom plate, Gunner 2, likewise armed with a pistol, had the barrel of the launcher – both were carried on their backs. The launcher gunners also each carried two ammunition cases by hand.” For the 81mm Mortar he says “The heavy grenade launchers consisted of three parts: barrel, bipod and baseplate, and could be dismantled. Before combat, these three parts, each weighing over 18 kilograms, had to be picked up by a gunner and carried, while two ammunition men each had two cases of three grenades each to carry, with a total weight of 22 kg. The leader carried not only the gunsight, but also a case of ammunition. With these burdens, it was not surprising that the grenade launcher squads and troops often hung well back in combat. Often rifle troops also had to be deployed to help carry the ammunition.” I think that any comparison between the US army (modern or otherwise) and the WW2 German army must take into consideration the lack of mechanization in most German units. Also by employing mortar teams as infantry – you have to do something with the mortar. I should think that abandoning it would not be an option because a real commander would probably want those babies handy in the next battle. Can you really expect your mortar troops to be running around the battlefield grappling with the enemy while carrying mortar baseplates and barrels strapped to their backs?

Thanks for the response. At least it was discussed - that is all I can ask. I sincerely hope that it may be included in future releases as computers become more powerful. I guess I'll just skip night combat for now.

I have seen a few posts referring to 'new guys' and how people are disrespecting the game or the designers etc. These posts typically include stuff about how these topics have been addressed already and that there is nothing else to add. The implication here is that if you haven't been a member of this board for a long time you don't have any knowledge worthy of including on 'our' discussion board. I suppose if Ian Hogg himself (well respected author and noted weapons expert) decided to start a thread on infantry weapons in the 20th century he would be ridiculed and told to do a search because the topic had been discussed already. The point here is that knowledge of the weapons and tactics of ww2 are not the exclusive domain of the 'old timers' on this board. That viewpoint is extremely chauvanistic. I would recommend that you read posts by 'new' individuals and judge them on their merits, not on the 'newness' of the person posting. If you have something relevent to add to a discussion then make your point, if you don't then don't respond. You don't know the backgrounds of these 'new' people and it might be possible that some of us have access to just as much knowledge (or maybe even more) as some of the 'old timers' on this board.

Having read through a lot of the older posts on this topic I have come to the conclusion that the “flare and gunflash” issue is unresolved. There seems to be some doubt as to whether the flare pistol was even used for illumination at all or whether it was strictly used for signalling. The person who goes by the name of Moon seems to feel that flares are either inappropriate or not useful in night fighting – either citing the ruining of night vision or because the illumination rounds would be fired continuously by mortars and artillery which would light up the entire map. He suggests that a map could be set for dawn or dusk conditions to simulate continuous flares. BTS seems to feel the same way, either because they agree with Moon’s position or because the coding of flares would be too difficult and the payoff would be too small. I disagree with this position completely. Illumination rounds and gunflashes are not just ‘cool’ to see visually and the payoff would not be just a little more eyecandy. First, the issue is a tactical and technological one, not one of whether you lose your night vision or not. Second, flares are not so powerful that they are going to illuminate an entire map in CM unless you are firing them up by the boatload. Third, the usage of these flares is going to be limited by the ammunition supply, the weapons available, and by the tactical situation. I just happen to have some sources of information about flare pistols (although admittedly information is fairly hard to come by). The German flare pistols were called the “Kampfpistole” and the “Leuchtpistole”. These were 27mm smooth bore signal pistols. The ammunition most relevant to this subject was the “Fallschirm Leuchtpatr. f. KP” which was a parachute illuminating round similar to the Deutpatrone except the nose was of black plastic. Fired into the air it ejected a white star on a parachute. The Germans also fired a parachute flare from their rifle grenade launcher (yes that’s right, the Germans had rifle grenades) which was called Gew Fallschirm Leuchtgr and was similar to HE 30/1 but painted brown with a white nose. This was a 32,000 candlepower flare which burned 25 seconds and could be fired up to 700 meters away. This information came from “The Encyclopedia of Infantry Weapons” by Ian Hogg. Alex Buchner also has some information on the flare pistol in “The German Infantry Handbook” where he says that “(snip) their maximum height was 80 meters. (snip) at night details could be seen in a 100 meter diameter. When a parachute flare was used, the light lasted for up to a minute.” Suffice to say, there was such a thing as illumination rounds that could be fired from a flare pistol. This brings us to the purpose of firing illumination rounds. Why fire an illumination round to expose the enemy when all you will do is ruin your night vision? Also, so the argument goes, since your night vision is ruined when a flare is fired, you then need to fire them continuously over the entire battle area or you will be permanently blinded by the blackness of the night once the flares burn out. This discussion of night vision seems to be a weighty item on this topic – although I feel a misplaced and irrelevant one. Aside from the fact that your night vision can be regained reasonably quickly even if you were foolish enough to stare directly at the starshell, the issue isn’t one of the temporary loss of night vision. The issue is one of ‘who benefits when a starshell is fired?’. The answer is that you are not necessarily firing the illumination round for the your own benefit. You are firing it for the benefit of all your unit’s heavy weapons! HMGs, mortars, tanks, SP guns, etc. These items are tactically more effective if they have a little space between them and the enemy. This is especially important for mortars because they are not a direct fire weapon. Modern heavy weapons are typically equipped with night vision devices so the illumination round is not as important as in WW2. If you want to get your heavy weapons involved in a night battle in WW2 though, the illumination round is the way to go. Once the target area is illuminated, the enemy troops can be hit by weapons at much greater distances than they could without the illumination. Tanks are especially affected by illumination rounds because the enemy tanks can be engaged by a friendly, non illuminated, vehicle or gun who is firing from what basically amounts to a ‘cloaked’ position. Illumination rounds, therefore, act as a form of ‘distance expander’ by allowing friendly units to engage the enemy at longer distances. You are placing the enemy on a stage and they are the main event! The distance that the flare from the German pistol illuminates is a mere 100 meter diameter – hardly the stuff that illuminates an entire map. I don’t have any data on the IR rounds that a morar fires, but even assuming that it is in the neighborhood of three times the diameter we are only talking about 300 meters or so. I am sure that the IR rounds from artillery may light up a very large area, but I am also reasonably sure that it isn’t going to be enough to light up a whole CM map. So when do you use these flares? Since the platoon leader isn’t going to have an unlimited supply of flares for his flare pistol, he is going to have to pick his spots. If enemy units are heard or if you detect movement you may wish to fire one up to see what is out there. You spot enemy tanks on the road, but your AT assets are located too far away to engage them in the darkness? A flare gets the AT guns involved. Wind direction is going to be a factor too, a parachute flare is going to drift on the breeze. If the wind is blowing toward the platoon leader and away from the enemy he may fret about illuminating his own positions rather than those of the enemy. He may wish to fire a flare in the area where gunflashes are spotted since the enemy is likely to be there. Since IR rounds create a lot of weird shadows, they are a little less useful against stationary targets, and this would be one reason they are more useful to the defender rather than the attacker – although the attacker’s heavy weapons would still benefit from illuminated targets. Mortars and artillery may have a larger ammunition supply, but it will still be fairly limited for mortars. Artillery won’t even be a factor (in game terms) unless one side or the other has an Artillery Observer, and even then the side with the observer may not want to use up his valuable fire missions on continuous map illumination. Continuous illumination is desireable to act as an attack channeler since the enemy is likely to avoid continuously illuminated areas unless there is no other way to advance. Continuous illumination of defensive positions would also be useful on the attack if you have a lot of heavy weapons involved. Gunflashes and pre registered firelanes are also extremely important in night fighting – once again the reason is that they act as ‘distance expanders’ that allow your heavier weapons to engage at longer distances, or in the case of firelanes, channel an attack. Naturally it is less effective to fire at gunflashes than to fire on an illuminated target, but the option should be there. Night combat in CM now has no ‘distance expanders’ and therefore the tactical options for the night commander are limited to short range rushes and slugfests. Even an enemy tank firing at your troops now cannot be engaged by your friendly armor unless your armor is within ‘Night Visibility Range’ of the enemy vehicle – and the main gun on a tank makes quite a light show when fired at night. In the book “Tiger Ace” it is described how Michael Wittman’s gunner took out several Soviet AT guns and vehicles in the Crimea by firing on the gunflashes alone. Perhaps I will quote some of that text in a future post if necessary. Non reciprocal lines of sight between illuminated units and non illuminated units, non reciprocal lines of sight between units that are firing and units that are not, and even such things as the graphical coding of the ‘circle of light’ that the flares would create may be extremely difficult to do. However, the payoff in all this coding would not just be extra eye candy. The payoff would be that night fighting would become a more tense and intricate balance of a players assets along with more complicated decision tree. Night fighting in CM right now is like fighting in a tactical straight jacket – the player has very few tactical options about how he conducts his attacks or defenses.

“It was now 12:55 hours, and the British tank crews were once again all ready to start firing at the next wave of German panzers, which were now at a range of 1200 yards due south. A number of the German machines were able to take immediate cover. However, Trooper Ekins, swung his 17pdr main gun onto the nearest Tiger I (Wittman) and fired one shot that ripped into the right side track pannier of the enemy Tiger I. A great flash and explosion was the direct result and the huge German panzer burst into flames. Suddenly, there was a secondary explosion which resulted in the turret of this vehicle being blown from its superstructure, and hurled about fifty feet behind the machine after the on-board ammunition had ignited.” Tiger Ace: The life story of panzer commander Michael Wittman” by Gary L Simpson. Wittman was also not in his normal Tiger, he was forced to use Tiger number 007

I feel that my comments are both reasonable and appropriate. The question is whether BTS plans on including these items in the future or not. If not, then why bother including night combat at all. Night combat right now is not even close to an accurate portrayal of the unique aspects of that type of fighting. They just reduced visibility, made the map a little darker, and made the AI perform friendly fire a little more often. Since flares were discussed in an earlier thread, I can only figure that they had to cut a few things out to get the game released. If they have a wish list that they are working on, I would hope that they have placed this fairly high in their priorities. For a couple of designers who pride themselves on their attention to detail and the accuracy of their game, I should think that details like these would be important.

I didn’t want to be the one to start a thread on this topic, but I did a search and found the last time this was discussed was almost a year ago. I’m a little surprised nobody has mentioned this once the game was released. Anyway, two things on night combat and one little minor observation. Where are the starshells? Every platoon leader should have a flare pistol that can fire parachute flares and mortars should be able to fire starshells. From the last post on this topic, I guess it was planned to be included but left off when the game was released. One other thing would be gunflashes. When a weapon (or weapons) open up at night a unit should be able to see the gunflashes of the firing unit beyond the Night Visibility Range. Naturally, engaging an enemy beyond the regular night visibility would be at reduced effectiveness, but this is necessary for such things as mortars and HMGs which are not generally marched up to within a few meters of the enemy. Of course “Firelanes” increase in value during night combat too (but that’s another thread). As it is now, night combat is basically the same as fog combat and a foggy night would be no different than a regular night. My minor observation is that the German squads do not account for the fact that one of the squad members is actually firing the LMG (s) while another man is acting as the assistant gunner who is tasked with loading and changing barrels. A nine man squad has nine men firing in CM when in reality it would only be eight (with one LMG) or seven (with two LMGs).

Well, by its very definition a firelane would be a form of area fire since you are not targeting an individual but simply flooding an area with lead. The ROF question can be answered in this manner. Let's say you are attempting to deny a street to the enemy by setting up an MG at the end of it. OK, how long does it take a man to run across a street? Maybe a few seconds? Well, let's say that three squads of infantry (call it 30 men) all try to dash across the street in front of this MG to reinforce the next housing block. As soon as the first man hits the street the MG opens up filling the street full of lead. It will all be over in a few seconds. Now, not all the infantrymen dashing across the street will enter the street at the same time, so many of those who are following may hesitate and remain where they are. A few of the bolder ones will continue on into the street and many will get hit. A few lucky ones will make it across. In this case, a clinical adherance to a certain number of bursts per minute for the MG team will not get the job done. The job at hand would be, "don't let the enemy cross the street by whatever means necessary" and the maximum ROF would only need to be maintained for a few seconds to get the job done. Once nobody is left in the street the firing would stop. Since it would be a form of area fire visual hinderances would have no effect on a firelane - smoke or grain for example. Bear in mind too that to the MG team there are not three distinct targets (three squads) to be fired upon independently .. there is just a gaggle of 30 grunts trying to cross your line of fire. Think of a "firelane" as "maximum rate of fire for as long as the enemy is running about in front of you". Once he goes to ground you can use point fire with regulated bursts to engage him.

I would now like to make a direct response to one of the individuals who posted above that the MG battalion was a disappearing beast on the battlefields of WW2. Yes, that is indeed the truth, but the reason for the disappearance of the MG battalion was / is not a result of the growing ineffectiveness of the MG. In fact, if TO&Es for WW1 and WW2 are compared side by side, you will in fact note that there are really more MGs per division in WW2 than there were in WW1 – even in 1918. A British infantry division in 1918 would have 3 MG companies (Battalion MG corps) attached plus there would be a Lewis gun at platoon level. However, the TO&E of a German infantry division in 1939 included a MG company in each battalion (12 MGs per company) plus an MG with every single squad in the division. If you add this all up, the 1939 WW2 German divison would have 441 Machine Guns. Comparing apples to apples, the German infantry division in 1914 consisted of one MG company per Regiment – with four regiments per division this comes to a total of 24 MGs (six per company). In 1916 the complement of MGs per company was increased from 6 to 15 giving the division 60 MGs. A six gun company was then attached to each battalion giving the division an additional 72 MGs (three battalions per regiment with four regiments per division) for a total of 132 MGs. Further changes in the TO&Es of the German division resulted in a German division having a total of 358 MGs by 1918 with the issue of 6 LMG per company. Finally, at the end of 1918, the Germans reorganized their battalions into three rifle companies plus one MG company – which incidentally was the way the 1939 battalion was organized. My sources for this information were “The World War One Source Book” by Philip Haythornthwaite and “The German Infantry Handbook” by Alex Buchner. So, addressing the issue of the effectiveness of the MG, the MG battalion did not disappear because of the ineffectiveness of the MG, but because of the great weight of the HMG. The HMG of World War 1 was simply not mobile enough for the non static World War 2 battlefield. There was also a desire to “decentralize” the divisional firepower assets and keep these items at the disposal of the junior officers. OK, on to the effectiveness of MGs. According to Alex Buchner “The heavy machine guns supported the attacks of the rifle companies by firing on and holding back the enemy, and provided the main defensive firepower in fighting off enemy attacks. (snip) After ranging with short bursts of fire, they generally used only sustained fire, either as pinpoint fire against small and well-established individual targets such as machine gun nests, or against bunker crews and the like, or as broad fire, swinging the gun back and forth, against open surface targets such as advancing or retreating enemy infantry, troop concentrations, etc. (snip) It was even possible for single heavy machine guns, on account of their great firepower, to dominate and block important points and sectors of terrain, such as overflight paths, narrows, passes and such.” Note that I have not mentioned whether the MGs in CM fit this description or not – I only add this evidence for the benefit of others within this discussion.

Since understanding Talenn’s point seems to be an issue in this thread, then I would just like to briefly weigh in on this point. ASL has something called a “firelane” where an MG can take a shot at an enemy unit crossing an area then declare a firelane. When this firelane is declared, all subsequent units passing through this firelane are subject to the effects of the firelane – so if a whole company of infantry want to pass through this firelane, then the whole company gets hit. There are two advantages to this form of flanking fire (it must be flanking fire to be effective since you are making a “lane” that you want the enemy to pass through – although I suppose the enemy could run down the lane too if so desired). The first advantage is that it acts as “area denial” in the same sense that mines and wire act as area denial. An MG firelane will tend to channel an attack away from an area where the defenses may be weak to an area where the defenses are strong. The enemy would rather risk going in the ‘safer’ direction than risk getting mowed down in the firelane. Mines, wire, and MGs together can be very effective in channeling an attack. The second, and perhaps less obvious, advantage to using firelanes is that the MG unit can be protected from incoming fire. If the MG is firing directly at the oncoming enemy, the enemy can fire directly back at the offending MG. However, if the MG is so sighted that the enemy cannot bring fire to bear on the MGs position until you have entered the “kill zone” or “firelane” while the MG is located to the flank of the enemy line of advance then you have a very tough nut to crack indeed. Not only is the MG denying an area for the enemy to advance into, but it is impossible to dislodge or even suppress the MG without entering that “killzone” or attempting to outflank it. Using several MGs who are protected from fire from the enemy’s direction and who are interlocked to the front of your own defenses makes a frontal attack very difficult since you cannot suppress or dislodge those MGs. Some of the tactics I have used in ASL would be to locate MGs behind obstacles (such as buildings or woods) so the enemy cannot bring fire to bear upon them, and then string firelanes out into open areas such as streets or wheatfields when the enemy advances. If there is no such thing as a firelane or if the area denial effects of MGs are limited in CM, then these tactics cannot be used effectively – and there is the point that Talenn is attempting to make. These tactics do not work in CM. In order for an MG to be effective in CM it must fire ‘directly at’ the enemy attackers, therefore it must always be exposed to enemy counterfire.

The map sizes are just fine. There are literally hundreds of ASL scenarios for the Eastern Front and very few of them exceed the current map limits in CM (Red Barricades possibly excepted). The size of the map only needs to be large enough for the effective ranges of the weapons involved. You don't need to represent the entire Russian steppe - that would be unnecessary. Even Michael Wittman's Tiger normally began an engagement at around 2000 meters - which could be represented with current map sizes. What do we want ... control over a full divisions worth of squads or tanks? Beyond the scope of the game IMHO.

I played one of the scenarios that came with the game and had four Vickers MGs. Boy, those babies fire all day long. I had two of them on the second level of a church building and they were firing non stop for about 20 minutes. They start with 120 ammo, and even after 20 minutes of non stop action they still had enough ammo to go at least another 10. Every German who moved within 800 meters of those MGs was toast. I had this image of a smoking MG with piles of brass laying all over the place.

Well, I definitely admire your attempts to assist the people on this board. I have to say that there are many grogs in your debt for at least posting a response. Yeah, I have downloaded all the stuff on the HP site - I did just see the new modem/audio card drivers on there before I posted the original message. I have to admit that I haven't played the game since I downloaded them, but I think most of the stuff was modem related anyway. It sure did have an effect when I tried to play Close Combat 4 modem to modem. Dang were we having trouble connecting at times. Now it works like a champ. The lockups may or may not be related to the switching of my preferences - could be just just coincedence. I am not running any modification patches and I am running the 1.01 patch. I am fairly patient and I will go out and get a new video card if it is necessary, but now my friends are asking me if they should get this game. I don't know what to tell them. Will it work on their systems? I don't know. My best friend has a Gateway (just like Historical Kev's) and he is very allergic to crashes. I am afraid that if I tell him "buy this game" and it crashes on him - well he is going to hold me responsible for a very long time He isn't the patient type either. What do I tell him? I think the system requirements on this site should be updated because according to the minimum requirements I should be able to run this game. If all sales are final ... well, you can understand the frustration some people may have (not me though). Windows 95/98/2000 Pentium (P5) 166MHz w/3D card Pentium (P5) 200MHz w/o 3D card 32MB of RAM 100MB of Hard Disk Space (est.) CD ROM drive DirectX 6.0 compatible video card DirectX 6.0 compatible sound card 28.8 modem for multiplayer 3D Video Hardware Support DirectX 6.0 RAVE 3Dfx (if supports one of above) It is strongly recommended that you have a 3D Video card, preferably with 16MB of VRAM or more. Even a 4MB card will work, but the texture quality and framerate will be marginal compared to better card.

Well, CM is a great game ... now if I could only get past this lock up thing. I have been playing around with my system for a few days now ... trying to force lock ups at various times. Anyway, here we go: lock ups occur to me during rapid panning in playback, during the beginning of the set up phase, during rapid panning in the orders phase, and when the "Loading 3D Graphics" page comes up. I used to play at 1152 by 764 with 16 bit true color but that began to freeze my system too often so I steadily reduced my resolution until I got to 800 by 600 which seemed to work just fine - that is...until I tried to play the scenario "South of Sword". That scenario is a large scenario and it is virtually unplayable for me. I can get into the game if "No Fog of War" is selected (which the game always defaults to, even though I always pick Full Fog of War), but if I change even one thing on the preferences page (to full fog of war for example) ... Bang ... total lock up when the graphics are loading or the setup phase is entered. I also don't see fog, but I can live with that. Most of the posts on this board seem to be from people who have ATI Rage cards and there are a few with VooDoo cards. Now, ATI may be a piece of crap AGP card, but the VooDoo is supposed to be a top of the line PCI card. I was thinking of getting a new video card. The Annihilator 2 is available from Creative Labs, but I don't know if I can even change my card (proprietary rights?) or if my system will work with it or not. This also raises a question in my mind ... if the game was designed with the "old" way of doing fog (pixel vs linear I think?) then CM must have been designed with lower end systems in mind. Why do I need to upgrade to a 300 dollar (high end) video card in order to run this game? Shouldn't my piece of crap AGP card still be better than the best PCI card? Maybe that's a stupid question - I don't know. Anyway here are the relevant specs Hewlett Packard Pavilion 8495 (right off the shelf) 550 Mhrz Pentium 3 128 RAM Direct X 7.0a ATI Rage 128 VR RL AGP Drivers dated 3/9/2000 (latest on ATIs site) Bus type: AGP 1x, AGP 2x BIOS Version: 001.001.001.012 BIOS Date: 1999/03/17 Memory Size: 8.0M Memory type: SDR SGRAM 1:1/SDRAM I have not changed any of settings on my CPU or tried to overclock anything. I wouldn't know how to do that if I tried. I'm just a simple grunt trying to kill Krauts. Meantime, I guess I'll play Shogun until I get a new card (if I can). I might as well double my RAM while I'm at it

Dragon, < < < < Major spoilers < < < < < Well, I was under the impression that the Krauts started either in the Northern town, or in the North East corner. I set up a platoon as a blocking force near the outskirts of Bastogne and positioned another platoon southwest of the crossroads - able to inderdict the roads leading away from the crossroads (both west and south), but not bringing fire to bear on the crossroads itself. Everyone else was in the railroad crossing. The third starting platoon was watching the road going north from the RR station to the crossroads and I had one MG team in the Heavy Building on the east side of town. He spotted some Krauts moving to the south of the town and that is how I was tipped off that they were that far south. The reinforcements came in and defended the southern part of the town .... in reality only one of the tanks and two of my platoons were ever really fully engaged. I broke the southern force with mortar fire (that crazy Mulligan is dropping that stuff all over the place!) and ended up losing a grand total of 10 men - only 3 KIA. I only lit off the 105s cause I was tired of hearing the cries of the wounded Germans in the forest and wanted to put them out of their misery. 132 Krauts lost their lives. Such a shame really. Final score - 97 to 3.

The ATI Rage is for the PC side of things. I am not saying that fog doesn't show up because BTS screwed up. It is standard practice for game companies to test their games on different cards. I merely point out that they couldn't have tested the ATI Rage or they would have noticed the lack of fog. The fact that they didn't test the game with the ATI Rage means that there are likely to be some anomolies with that card. Is it BTS fault or ATIs fault? Beats me .... but the fact remains that there seem to be some incompatabilities between the game and ATI cards. Had they tested those cards perhaps there wouldn't be these incompatibilities.

One thing I would like to see in the game is when I am setting up my troops, I would like to see the enemy's set up zones too. I would really like to see what direction the enemy is coming from. I have played through two scenarios: "Ham and Jam" and "Fear in the Fog". In "Fear in the Fog" my set up area had me pointing north, but the enemy was coming from the East. For the first 5 or 6 turns my defenses were pointed North (the wrong way) and the Germans nearly hit me in the right flank. I spotted them in time to recover, but still. In "Ham and Jam" the Jerries started virtually on top of my boys and I was stunned by the appearance of that bunker directly in front of me. Had I known the Germans were going to be in such close proximity I might have deployed a little differently. Obviously the next time I play those scenarios I will be better prepared - yet I don't think it would be unreasonable to assume that I knew the general direction the enemy was coming from at this level of the battlefield.

Unfortunately, you are not the only one encountering problems with the ATI Rage. I have been having lock up problems ever since I got the game and I have an ATI Rage too. Those of us with ATIs also don't get fog effects. I have started playing around with resolutions in order to find where I can play freeze free and the last res I played with was 800 by 600 on 16 bit true color and it seemed to work fine. 1024 by 768 froze solid the minute I tried it. I typically keep my desktop at 1152 by 864 with 16bit true color, but that proved to be unplayable after a while. It is a bit of a pain in the shorts to have to change my desktop resolution everytime I want to play this game. I'm guessing that BigTime didn't test their game on ATI cards - otherwise they would have noticed the lack of fog.

I don't see any "Fog" box to check. I noticed another post up above dealing with the ATI Rage about fog. I'm thinking I just don't get fog with the ATI Rage. I began playing "Ham and Jam" yesterday and the freeze problem did rear its ugly head again. Not during gameplay though. First time it occurred was at the beginning of the set up phase. The second time it froze was when the screen said "Loading 3D graphics". After getting past those initial warts I played through ten turns freeze free before I had to call it a night. Once again, the only way to clear the freeze was to literally unplug the computer. I have a pretty common Hewlett Packard Pavilion.

Well, I played through "Fear in the Fog" with no freezes so I think the new driver did it. Unfortunately there was no fog ... and very little fear as I only took 10 casualties to the Krauts 132. I did make sure that the weather effects were on to full effect .... still no foggy stuff.

I checked ATI's website and saw that I do not have the latest driver. I had the ATI Rage Xpert 99 build 4.11.6216. I am now downloading driver build 4.12.6269. We'll see what happens (fingers crossed).

By the way, I am playing at 1152 x 864 resolution.

I have been having trouble with a game freeze so total that I have never encountered anything like this before. This problem first appeared in the Gold Demo, but since it only happened once I didn't sweat it. Now it has happened about four times in about three hours of gaming last night. Basically, I go into playback mode and run the movie ... then if I hit the rewind button and get the movie going again the game freezes. This is no normal freeze, this is total freeze. The sounds are locked and I can't shut the computer off with the power button. In fact, the only way I can shut the computer off is to literally unplug it. I have a Pentium III 550, ATI Rage, Direct X 7a. In a unrelated issue, when I reinstalled my game after figuring out another issue, I got the message that the Mov0001 file has been corrupted and it then asks if I want to abort or ignore in order to complete installation. I tried installing more than once and I got that message every time. I didn't worry about it cause I figured it was the intro movie and I don't have quicktime. Windows probably couldn't identify the file and turned it into something it could identify.

I figured out what the problem was. I created a desktop shortcut from the CD drive, so when the game was playing it was playing from the CD and the games were saving on the CD. Of course, since you can't save on the CD drive (at least the non writable one) nothing was saving. After reinstalling, I did not create the desktop short cut and went from the start button / programs. Saved games began to work properly.

Just got the game today so I fired up a few scenarios and checked things out. Well, first thing I noticed is that the game was not remembering my settings ... bases on, full tree coverage etc. Next, I noticed that it wasn't saving any of my games either. Sure, I got to the "save" dialog box and typed in what I wanted to save the game as, but my saved games just don't seem to save. The game doesn't auto save either. I checked in Windows, and the save folder is empty. What the heck is going on? I just took the demo off and I'm thinking of re installing the game. I installed the 1.01 patch (I think, cause it still says 1.0 at the bottom of the intro screen). BTW, Caretan, Paris, and Elsendorf looked spectacular.