Sirocco

I plotted a movement of a lorry down a road in a QB. A couple of waypoints for a slight bend, then a final waypoint at the end of the long straight road the bend turned into. The road had a bank to the right which covered movement. I was more than a little surprised to find the lorry had mounted the bank and was driving in full view of the enemy, which needless to say opened up on it and scored a hit which affected the morale of the passengers.

A couple of queries for CMBN CW QB's: - Picked Sextons in two QB's - seemed to be zero rarity - and on neither occasion did they appear on the map. - Moved ammo bearers on top of two mortars with correct ammo. I'm going to have to go back over the manual but I assumed when the bearers were on top of the mortar the rounds would be handed over immediately. I ended up with two teams per mortar and with both mortars out of ammo they seemed to ignore the bearers. One team was down to 4 rounds instead of 9 so at some point they must have been relieved of five. - Mortar team given a fire mission did not commence firing. Even when the icon was flashing. Their HE ammo was down to zero and one of the crewmen was moving rapidly back and forward through an animation sequence. Again, ammo bearers were on top of the unit. - Was setting up a fire mission from a platoon HQ. The HQ had line of sight using the targeting tool right along the wall I was looking to hit, but the fire mission too didn't give me LOS to anywhere along that area.

I'd recommend Maple Leaf Route: Caen. I got mine direct from the author many years ago. New it seems to cost a small fortune - top price I've seen is $1,179.60. But if you can pick it up used it's much more affordable.

This was one of the reasons I went for download only. You just don't know when you're going to get clobbered with these ridiculous charges. Blame successive UK governments, blame the EU for setting VAT in stone, blame the delivery company, but Battlefront can't be expected to be on top of import regulations across the planet. Download only is the way to go. We all had to learn that the hard way.

I find the whole "it's CMx2, not CMx1" line pretty weak. An interface is an interface. What CMx1 did was very elegant at times. The representation of C2 was at a glance. Click a HQ and you knew what was in command. Now you have to click through every attached unit. You can't argue that that's anything but a step back. The move from the right click menu to hotkeys was a huge leap back. CMx1 just did some things better, just as CMx2 does a lot of things better than CMx1. I'm encouraged to hear the UI is being looked at again, and hope future patches will reflect the downgrading we have now with it.

You can get used to anything, given enough time. But sometimes there's a good reason for referring back to how it was done better before, unlearned behaviour or not. Good to hear more time is being put into this in the future.

Yes, 21PD was quite a special unit in Normandy with regard to how it equipped itself, so I wouldn't expect these more exotic units to be included.

[dirty mind] *chuckles* [/dirty mind]

There's nothing like waylaying a German tank.

Playing the first scenario of a campaign on warrior - no spoilers - I was being beaten up for a while with not even sound contacts showing up. It really made me think of the reality of fighting through the dense hedgerows of the period.

That's a faust on his shoulder. The two rockets are indeed for the schreck. The guy in front of him appears to be carrying an StG.

I was thinking the same thing during setup. If we could just have contours available during that stage alone it would be extremely helpful.

For me the point isn't about if you spend long enough with this or that you'll figure it out, rather that it shouldn't require that much work. CMx1 had some cool stuff in it. The C2 and targetting lines were really helpful in at a glance understanding situations. Terrain feedback in helping to quickly understand the ground. You pull these little things out of it and it adds workload. Without a doubt CMx2 is more complex, but some of that complexity is unnecessary. A little more of the CMx1 elegance returning in future patches would be really helpful.

It's one of the things that struck me. It's comparable to the lack of tooltips on the icons - a little feedback would help considerably. Not everyone is going to either read or memorise the manual, or the editor. The lack of these things adds unnecessary complexity.

First wow moments - aside from the graphics. Pushed my reserve platoon into a village through a flank route discovered clear by a scout team. Blasted the centre with mortars then with the defences broken assaulted into the victory location. The lead squad was met at short range by a lone scout with a Thompson who duly threw them back down the street. Another squad received the same treatment but managed to hold on. Then as we secured the building a wounded engineer started taking potshots with his Garand. At game end both the scout and the engineer survived.

There are two issues I have with it right now. The first is with QB maps. At first "over 300" sounds pretty good, until you break that down into maps for different types and sizes. We're at the mercy of people creating enough new maps. The second is the accuracy of mortars. I just had a whole squad wiped out in a house to a few mortar hits - every one seemed to go through the roof. No discernable spread, and the building itself didn't seem to provide all that much protection. Plus the old gripe about too much information being presented on distant targets.

Don't say that within earshot of Steve.

According to Speer it was part of a process to finalise certain weapon names. Therefore the Gewer 43 became the Karabiner 43 while the MP43 became the MP44. That happened in April 1944. with the change to StG 44 taking place in December.

There's a lot to be said for long drawn out PBEM's. But a system which integrates RT with pausing and rewind should fix so many issues and make it flexible enough to appeal to everyone.

One interesting thing for me was that 60mm mortars seem much more useful. Perhaps it's the increased accuracy with the new targetting commands point and linear, but previously I would be reluctant to use 60mm's to deal with AT guns. I used them mostly for harassment to pin units. Now they seem to make short work of AT pieces.

If I'd had a third platoon I would have gone right with a single platoon to put flank fire into the buildings. But with just two platoons I felt it was asking too much for one platoon to establish a foothold and push on to the flags.

Take a moment to peer inside the Marder - the uniforms are sweet. Hats off to the artists - and to Charles for the code that brings it to life.

I understand in general how this stuff works, but the great thing about CMx1 - or at least one of them - was how accessible it all was. I know the complexity has increased a bit but I miss the simplicity of how things were done before. No choice but to get used to it, of course.

Maxed out, frame rate of between 15 and 40 depending on what was on screen, it looks very good. Not sure about the trees which seem a bit too pastel at times, but overall it's breathtaking. I was really looking forward to seeing a Marder in action, and I wasn't disappointed. Beautiful. It's worth using WEGO just to review the action. On the minus side, right click doesn't bring up the popup menu. I imagine it's tied to the spacebar, as I believe it was when it was put back into CMSF. No line from a HQ to its controlled units, which means no clear visible cue as to what was a link to what. Quick and easy clarity is a good thing. Possible bug? I found a dismounted Marder and when I eventually found the crew the dismount button was disabled. I imagine it should change to mount when out of the vehicle, but then the deploy button sticks with the same text, so who knows. In general I'd like one or two things to be at a glance, not RTFM. But overall it's all looking very good.

It seems to me the discussion on firing AT inside buildings is about the size of the room with regard to the backblast etc., not so much about them being fired inside buildings per se. As a possible solution, what about creating a fortification which can be placed on buildings to represent effort expended on preparing a room as an AT firing point? Knocking or blowing through walls, for example. And by the way, "wot, no demo?".