brk

I try to consider what distance I'll be fighting at. For close range, SMG-carrying squads (Axis: Gebirgsjager & Fallschirmjager, Allied: US Para), for distance squads with a more even firepower balance, like Sturmtruppen, or regular rifle squads. One of the best squads I ever had was a Volksgrenadier SMG squad, that I deployed in the back corner of a building. Allied troops run in, nothing runs out. I think it had something like 54 kills by the end of the game. Oh yeah, and I hate the Brit type squads, with no AT weaponry.

I never had lock-ups till I upgraded from 1.03 to 1.05; now I've had two in two days. I was going to start a thread on this topic, but maybe I'll just mention it here.

I've never had a flamethrower explode when fired upon, which I thought was a somewhat common occurrence. Is this just some folklore I've learned, or is it simply not modeled in CM, or have I just not seen it?

Hah! 105 mm FO killed 57 infantry and 2 mortars last night. I couldn't believe it. I'm buying more arty from now on...

Hey Coe, was the mortar taking any fire? I've had AT/Inf guns refuse to fire when they were being shot at (just says they're reloading forever). I guess this models the difficulty of aiming when you can't stick your head out around the gun shield.

I just found another thread in which Talenn is expressing similar doubts about the ability of troops to cross in front what should be heavy suppressing fire: http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/006819.html (Questioning the effectiveness of MGs.)

Yes, the defenders were shooting back. Placement seemed pretty good to me; they all had clear line of sight, etc. Yes, my men were within their commander's command radius. And this wasn't just a one-turn charge across no-man's-land. It was several turns of Germans advancing across a few hundred meters of open grass. This was also an "assault", so my men were emplaced in foxholes, in woods. This was a fairly carefully chosen position, and while I could be doing something wrong, I'm not sure what. I try to provide the best cover possible for my infantry, combined with command supervision, and a good field of fire. Beyond that, I'm not sure how to improve my defensive infantry tactics. It just seemed so weird to me to watch these germans advance turn after turn, without taking hardly any casualties. I mean, it's not like they were advancing against early-war Russian conscripts, armed with one rifle and some molotov cocktails . Oh yeah, and I checked the casualties by unit after the battle was over, which I have been assuming gives correct figures, so that is where I am drawing my kill figures. In summary, it seems that 1), maybe I'm wrong, and my men inflicted more casualties than I thought, due to FOW. 2), maybe it's one of those freak happenings that occur when statistics come into play, or 3) maybe I'm doing something wrong. Anyway, thanks for all your input.

patch is 1.03. This wasn't close as in h2h though, but rather a situation where the Germans were being fired on by the .50 from about 500 to 100 meters range, till the .50 lost a few men and retreated (it caused two casualties), and from about 300 meters in to sub-one hundred meters by two dug-in, veteran, Ami squads, as well as another veteran Ami squad, which provided marginally less effective fire due to a poor LOS (it could only target one or two enemy squads, while the others had clear LOS to all six attacking squads). All Ami squads were in command radius of their commander as well.

umm...no, never heard of Nijmegan. Just looked, and saw it was a battle in Holland, but couldn't find any specifics. Can you provide a brief precis? And while I'm sure it is possible for troops to charge a position, and take few casualties, given the situation I'm describing, it seems like such an unequal exchange, backwards from what I'd expect, particularly given the lack of cover and covering fire for the attacking force. The German troops were of "medium" quality, so they couldn't have been more than veterans themselves, and even so, they suffered very few casualties for the number of turns (5? 6?) that they were exposed to fire. [This message has been edited by brk (edited 08-13-2000).]

Well, I just got CM, and I've been playing a lot of QBs. Something very annoying keeps happening to me though. I take a VL, usually with a full platoon. I emplace my men in the best cover I can find, usu woods or tall pine, and try to offer them support with a tank. What happens? Nearly every time, I get charged by squad after squad of infantry, until they overrun my position. This morning, for example, I was playing as defending Amis, in an assault. One of my flags had some woods right behind it, and a 2 story light building right next to it. I emplaced a full platoon of veteran troops in the woods, along with an M2 in the bldg. Support on my left flank came from a 60mm mortar. This positition was charged across about 300 meters of open ground by six Axis infantry squads. What happened? Total kills by my three squads and M2 were about eight men, while two of my three squads broke and ran after losing six to eight men. The other squad only lost one man, but didn't account for *any* kills. This, to me, does not seem like a realistic result. In fact, it seems ridiculous that the AI would even attempt to charge a position like that with infantry, and that the infantry would do it, under heavy fire every inch of the way. Is this an accurate representation of a charge on a dug-in position? I'd appreciate anyone's comments on their similar experiences.