Redwolf

One of the most irritating small things about the CMx1 command delays was that if you had a line of AFV's, HT's, trucks, whatever, you can bet that some were normal, some were green, some were vet, etc., and it really made a mess of the give the second vehicle a 5 sec delay, 3rd a 10 sec delay and so on, since different experience levels had different inherent delays.
It made for some serious micromanagement to get down a road.

Great lists, BornGinger.

This thread is not about Steel Beasts, it's about Combat Mission.
Comparing what any person likes better, be it CM or SB, is indeed comparing apples to oranges, because we are speaking about personal taste. Personally, I prefer CM lately. CM has a better representation of tactical element, better modelled infantry and more diverse units to choose from.
I'm found of SB, it's a decent game, but as everything else it has its own flaws. To name only a few, apart from ATGMs, infantry in SB is almost absent and doesn't play any significant role, so the gameplay feels a little artificial and hollow. The route planning is a headache and tank platoon could be stuck between 3 buildings easily. Map making is very hard. There is no convinient quick battles option as in CM. And yes, AI has its spotting issues. 
What I was trying to convey is that CM can learn something from SB (and visa versa) to continue development and improvement. I guess, everybody would agree that there is no shame in learning something from others.
The strong point of SB is that it's basically tank gunnery simultator used in militaries in several countries. It's not like reference to War Thunder or World of Tanks.

All of their AFVs that have interiors and direct control option are modelled based on real life measurements of  abilities of the actual tanks. 
For example they were asked to model real life performance, including gunner's and tank commander sight, of T-72A. So basically you won't get any better RL data than represented in SB in regard of T-72 gunnery and spotting performance. 
They also have T-80 and T-90 in game, but they decline to model it up to simulation and gunsights level, because - unlike with T-72 - they didn't have access to real machine.
Based on my experience in SB and impression I got from reading corresponding literature on modern tanks there is no question that T-72 can spot another tank at 2 km distance (in fact, even much further).
I'm not speaking about infantry hidden in the building or enemy tank disguised in the bushes. I'm talking about tank that sits in the open field. It's an easy target and even average trained crew must spot it very fast. 
I really hope that we can have productive discussion, based on arguments, that can make CM better and benefit the community. 
 
 
 

The implementation in CMx1 was underengineered and BFC obviously decided that going without any is better than making it much more complicated.
Among the worst issues:
- curves drawn in movement paths add delay, even if the resulting path just does along a (curving) road
- too much of a minigame about retaining the existing movement points (no delay) or plotting new ones (getting a delay). Since canceling the existing movement was instant that also put a hole into the realism of the delay mechanism
 

Go to the damage tab on the bottom (where the ammunition tab is). See whether "75mm main" is damaged. It can be out (red dot) without wounded crew members.

That would bring us back to the discussion about „micro management“ or „micro realism“ in CM. Like the old argument, that not all troops deploy behind a wall, but on the „attacker side“, too.

@The_Capt Can you please continue the phrase "t72 in the above-mentioned .btt scenario can't spot enemy tank in the open field during daylight at the distance of 2 km that is straight ahead of it because..."
Without going into generalisation about "spotting is hard", "thermals", "Soviet doctrine" etc.
Just concrete explanation of this particular case.
Thank you. 

Steel beasts can be played and is played by a number of people in "wargame" mode.  The player plays in third person and the AI runs all functions just like in CM games.  That's the best part of the game.  You can play first person as a crewman in a tank, as a unit commander of a large until while sitting in an AFV, or as a wargamer.  Its your choice.
Before making assumptions about a game, might want to take it for a spin.

I believed the same but then I found a post from Steve:
"there is a bonus for spotting things within an Arc"
Also:
"The spotting bonus is only within the colored area of the arc. Outside of that there's no bonus."
Links:
 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tnlpv0zhonlnlo9/AAAzohpWL8Z8GKSfLKVtwaUua?dl=0
This is a link to my game if anyone is interested. I genuinely believe something wonky is going on

Personally the US feels how it should. But the t64's legit cant see anything in front of them. Ive had M60 (A1?) on grishof spot vehicles deep in forests but my tanks are unable to spot HUGE m60s in the open. I would love to send people my save file. My entire match has been ****ed. 
Ive had better performance from t34/85. 
 
My post on the fgm with a few screenshots.. That was just 1/3 of the very odd spotting. 
 
https://thefewgoodmen.com/thefgmforum/threads/potential-issue-with-cmcw.33112/page-2

Infantry using the hunt command used to duck down instantly upon taking fire in previous versions of the game engine. It got removed for some reason. I don't know if it's a bug or intentional. Now, infantry getting shot at will keep moving until they get a confirmed spot on an enemy or their suppression meter goes up enough to make them duck down (often because they end up taking casualties from refusing to duck down). I'm not sure how long it's been like this now. Years?
It worked better before IMO. Before, infantry were very sensitive and might duck down even when they're not getting shot at, like if an explosion went off 100m away or something. If a single bullet flew over their heads they would duck down. It made the hunt command useful for slowly creeping forward without taking too many casualties. Players would use it like a "move to contact" command.
Perhaps they changed it because they thought it was too sensitive. Perhaps they changed it so that "hunt" means more like what it says - the soldiers are actively seeking out and hunting the enemy in a more aggressive manner without being too overly concerned about incoming fire.  
On the other hand, the normal move command has always worked the same way as far as I know. Infantry will walk forward, and if they get shot at, they will eventually start breaking out into a run unless their suppression meter gets so high that they get pinned. Only then will they duck down.

CMFI. The most toys (up to mid 1945), and lots of terrain variety.

I am guessing it is Mk20 for air support? For the Mk20, what I could find, one source said the area was around 4800 square metres, another 10,000. That leaves means each submunition covers ~20 square meters in the ideal case and a T-72 occupies around ~25 square meters. From Hapless video, it seems like the distribution is uneven with way more near the center, but the density looked about right. A Norwegian report I found suggested the M483A1 with 88 bomblets covers an area of 18,000 square meters, making each bomblet cover ~200 square meters, and that the pattern from tube based artillery is uneven. Good thing they fire in batteries then.

One other small thing that bothers me about fires in CMx2 is the hit probability of cluster munitions. They seem to spread over so wide an area that there is plenty vehicle-sized room between the average submunition impact. AFAIK in real life they are specifically spread (concentrated) to have less than vehicle size spacing on impact.

I doubt you can find a timeline where all the Hummels were in the West. They were pretty common for SPAs.

Considering there are a number of bugfixes waiting on the CMCW patch (e.g. M113 .50 cals being able to see through smoke), is there any chance of releasing the patch without PBEM++?

I agree with you, every good game should have some randomness and illogical component that make it less mechanistic and finite. 
...But there is difference between "not always happen as it should" and "happen too often as it shouldn't"😛

While there's footage of this formidable weapon in Syria blazing away with wild abandon, here is a far more tactical and measured use, together with effective use of terrain, too. The video shows conclusively that there can't be enough dust, dirt and devastation for CMx2 battles in heavily fought over cities in desert regions. These AFVs look worn, dinged up, damaged and more, with some sporting slogans, too. The ZSU goes into action at ~3:10. The GUN DISH radar is still installed, but there's no guarantee the pricey guts remain inside the ZSU.
 
Regards,

John Kettler

I am running this at "a Few Good Men" site and if you are not a member, there is no cost to join if you are interested.
Below is a general discription of the format (and yes it requires you to mail turns through dropbox to play)
 
This Combat Mission Cold War tournament consist of 5 rounds; one battle for each round, each battle lasting 30 minutes or less.

Players are required to do approx 5 turns a week at a minimum.

Format: Players will be given a selected force. The mission will be to do the best they can with the situation they have been given and the scoring will be given out to the top 50 percent from each side of the battle. In other words, the side given to the player could be very challenging, but perform better than 50 percent of the players playing that side of the battle and they have won and will be given a point value as to how they have done.

Winners will get a score of somewhere between 80 to 100 points per match depending on how they have performed to each other. so best player will receive 100 points, lowest winner will receive 80 points, and everyone else is somewhere in between.
Scoring in scenarios will be one's score minus the opponents score (as to how they will be selected for the top 50%).
Each player will be in charge of a different Nations forces throughout the 5 battles, so skill with all forces will be a factor. as well as both offensive and defensive skills.
Battles are designed generally to be short and intense ( I have been keeping all battles at 30 minutes or less.).
A dropbox folder is to be maintained with a invite to the Tournament master (Slysniper), This will provide me access to the game files if for any reason we need to replace a player or verify slow play issues. Please name the dropbox files in a method that I can tell who is vs who (exam: Jtimo vs grunt match1).
Game files shall stay in the dropbox folder and not be deleted until the Gamemaster (@SlySniper) has copied and removed them.
No surrender at any time is allowed. if you want to end a game early, then use cease fire with both players agreeing to those terms, if one player wants to play on instead, allow him to do so until he is satisfied. It is in your own best interest to put up the best fight you can no matter what. (No one wants to be that guy that has the best score posted against him)

If for any reason a player needs to drop out of game play, just contact me and let me know of your intentions and I will make sure any non-completed game will be finished for the remaining opponent.
 
 
This format has been received very well and this is going to be the third Tornament under this format.

I don't think it'll be more cores, though happy to be proved wrong. I reckon more VRAM and removing some arcane limits imposed to make sure that game ran on circa 2011 PCs. Heck just letting me cache more graphics into VRAM would help, I think my web browsers are a heavier load on my GPU than CM!

So this person is saying that this procedure forces all textures to be loaded into the graphics card, which implies that they do not when running normally.
If this trick works for anybody it would be verifiable by looking at the total amount of VRAM used in both situations.

Now let's go to playing the game:

10) It would be great if there could be a cellar to some of them. This would be useful in scenarios where one party's defense line goes through, or very close to, those houses. If the attacker would use a lot of artillery, especially just before an assault of tanks and/or infantry, the defender could rush his troops into those cellars for shelter. There weren't always bunkers or pillboxes in hastily arranged defense lines during WW2, so cellars would be useful. And as bunkers and pillboxes are so easily spotted in the games, defenders inside cellars could hopefully be more of a surprise for the attacker.

11) Another thing about buildings. If the buildings wheren't only one large box with one or more floors but instead one large box divided into different sections on each floor, the destruction of buildings being shot at would have a more proper look and the floors would be more functional for the defending troops inside a building if the building was being destroyed section by section. The result of this would be that the ruined buildings could still be used for defending although some sections were in ruins. Another good reason for this could be that the house to house fighting could become more challenging for the attacker as each floor would have two or more sections (rooms) to clear of enemies.

12) If we could position AT-guns inside large enough buildings and barns, with parts of the walls missing so they can shoot from inside them, the fighting in the game would be more like in WW2 times. The Germans and Russians, and probably the Brits and Americans too, used this way of positioning AT-guns. They seem to often having had the doors to the barns not completely closed or the holes in the walls covered a bit to conceale the AT-guns.
13) Another thing that would be great would be to be able to hide AT-guns and tanks behind ruined buildings so they can be positioned on the side of the building facing away from the enemy, see the enemy through the holes of ruined building, and shoot at the enemy with the shells going through the holes of the ruined building.
The way it works now the inside of buildings is a blocking entity with some kind of invisible wall so the direct fire line gets blocked as soon as it enters the inside of a building even though there are large holes in the walls.
14) To protect the infantry much better, the games would preferably get the kind of shelters which were built into the soil and covered with logs and dirt for some protection against artillery shells. These kind of shelters, and pillboxes, would hopefully not only offer more protection to the defenders but also be harder to spot.
15) It is also a bit silly that 75mm light infantry guns and different AT-guns are so slow to move around. From watching documentary WW2 footage it is obvious that the repositioning of them should go much quicker than they do in the games. The speed in which the crew is able to reposition an AT-gun or a 75mm light infantry gun could often make or break a defensive situation in a scenario.
Below is a test of moving different guns forward 40 meters on a flat and grassy surface. When comparing those minutes of movement to what is shown in the video clip above it's obvious that the crew should be able to use at least quick movement when repositioning their guns. The dash movement should most likely be possible to use too, at least for the 75mm light infantry guns.
  Moving Guns 40 meters
German 75mm light infantry gun IeiG18           2.30 minutes
German 75mm light infantry gun IeiG37           3.15 minutes
German 50mm AT-gun Pak 38                       4.00 minutes
German 75mm AT-gun Pak 40                       4.20 minutes
German 76mm AT-gun Pak 36                       5.00 minutes
German 150mm heavy infantry gun SiG33    5.00 minutes
US     57mm AT-gun M1                                 3.30 minutes
US     76mm AT-gun M5                                4.20 minutes

16) One of the most annoying things in this game, and something that removes the fun of playing it, is the sometimes stupidly bad line of sight function.
Many times a team of infantry, or an armoured vehicle, can be positioned two rows of trees deep into a forest and not see the enemy which is standing, or rolling around, just in front of them and many times a team of infantry or an armoured vehicle can be positioned behind a dense forest with bushes, corners of houses, telephone poles and other things between the other side of that dense forest and the enemy with thats unit being able to see the enemy and even shoot at them.
If you're standing in a part of a forest which is for example two or three trees distance away from the beginning of the forest, you are able to see what's standing or rolling outside of it.
And as far as I know a dense forest gets darker the deeper you look into it from a position outside of the forest. All the things between a forest and a person or a vehicle standing far away from the forest are also making it near impossible to single them out among the blend of different colours and shadows.
So to have a unit being able to see through a dense forest and all the things between the forest and the enemy seems a bit strange, especially if it is part of a game which some people call a good simulation of the reality.
17) A similar notice can be given to windows in houses and how easy it often is for a force to see what is inside the house even from a quite good distance away without using a binocula. From inside a house one can easily see what is happening outside the window as long as it isn't too far away. But if one is standing on a field or a road, even quite close to a house, it isn't always easy to see who or what is standing or sitting inside a house unless they are standing close to the window or the lights are turned on in the evening. Unfortunately the game's line of sight function doesn't show this.

The picture above is showing US soldiers rushing forward in an attack. The house to the left is on fire and so is the ground in front of it. I read somewhere that houses and ground on fire used to be part of the earlier versions of these games and it would be great if that function came back.
18) To have the ground and houses, and maybe even trees, sometimes being able to start burning if they have been hit by a bunch of high explosive rounds or if a vehicle has been hit close by would make the game more fun to play.
If BFC is worried that some players would exploit this function I'm sure there will be some H2H player rules about this. BFC could also make changes to programming the AI-groups and make it possible for the scenario designers to move the AI-forces out of an area if there would be a fire in the woods. I read somewhere that both the Soviets and the Germans put woods on fire especially to force the enemy to leave those areas. So to exploit this function in a game should maybe not be frowned upon too much.

19) Trenches and foxholes that are more correct. Trenches could be a bit deeper so the troops have to stand up to shoot and don't have to crawl to avoid being shot at. If there was an animation which have the troops moving while slightly bending over, they would be able to walk in those deeper trenches to avoid being shot in the head or chest.
To have trenches more correct would also make trench fighting with the troops more fun and interesting while they carefully move along the trench line and clear corners where enemies might lay in wait.
Foxholes could preferably be deeper, single ones and more spread out instead of being shallow and in close groups of four as they are now.
20) It shouldn't be so easy to spot trenches and foxholes. If foxholes and trenches were made different than they are, moving your troops towards or beside them and being shot at would be an unpleasant surprise and not something you expect.
21) If a heavy machinegun-team is wiped out of their pixel life and a squad or a team of other soldiers are close by or are moving into the area where the hmg is standing it would be great if one or two of the men in this squad or team could move to the hmg and use it instead of having the hmg being viewed as abandoned.

22) When talking about machine gun teams I'd like them, and all other troops as well, to be able to move backwards a short distance instead of having them turn around immediately before they move to another position behind them. If you for example have an MG-team that you want to move back a bit to a better position, the team could be able to move to that position backwards instead of having them first turn around 180° and then move. To have troops being able to move backwards a bit would way avoid having them get shot in the back.
Infantry that are tactically retreating doesn't always have to do that by immediately turning their back towards the enemy but could also move backwards a few meters while on the ready to shoot while doing so before they turn and move away.
In a book about the German army during WW2 is mentioned the words "We went on long marches, carrying all our gear... We even had to practise retreating in a series of backward leaps — a skill which might always come in handy". I get it that those backward leaps were exactly the movement backwards during a tactical retreat while keeping their eyes open for attacking enemy soldiers.
23) It would be great if the armoured vehicles, like for example halftracks, could reverse a bit slower. Just as lorries, armoured vehicles and tanks can go forward in four different speeds it could be useful to have them reverse in different speeds. To reverse a halftrack slower could be useful if the crew want to use their machine gun when they are doing a tactical retreat and that way support the infantry which is falling back with them.
24) And to have tanks and other vehicles being able to reverse without shooting out smoke grenades every time would be great too.

25) Infantry units that are using the slow movement (crawling) are often not aware or their surroundings but only aware of what is on the ground. I have read on the forum that units see what the animated troops look at. As the troops who are crawling always look down and thus have their eyes on the ground just below them, they often miss to notice enemy vehicles and troops being fairly close.
26) I wish vehicles wouldn't get stuck in a splash of mud as easily as they do now when the weather isn't soaking wet. Dry weather, damp weather and cold weather would most likely not have the mud sticky and deep enough to cause them to get stuck, especially not if the splash of mud, which is one mud tile, is by the road and there is only one or two mud tiles where the vehicle is going. Mud on the fields on a day with very wet and rainy weather or after a long period of rain would more likely be more treacherous and cause vehicles to get stuck and immobilised. This would especially be true if the vehicle has went over more than two mud tiles as it takes some time for the mud to build up under a vehicle.
If an AI-tank with AI-tankriders would get bogged down and immobilised the result is that the AI-tankriders sit on that AI-tank throughout the scenario. It would be preferable if AI-tankriders could jump off a tank by themselves if it has become immobilised, or been standing still for too long, and later on follow their AI-groups movement orders to make the battles more enjoyable.
It isn't fun to have a look at the map after a battle is over and see a large bunch of soldiers sitting on vehicles that have got stuck in a splash of mud in the beginning of the battle.
27) Armoured vehicles could determine better when to use HE and when to use the MG. It happens sometimes that one single enemy soldier who is running away or popping up from a foxhole for a look is being shot at with HE when it would have been enough to use the MG. A bit stupid to waste HE on that.
28) It would be useful if the different gun crews were be able to abandon their gun and later on man it again. It sometimes happen that a gun crew is being attacked which makes them run for cover just to have the threat gone and them unfortunately not being able to return to and use a fully functional gun.
That's it for my list of changes.

The Combat Mission games are often mentioned to be simulations of the battlefields of WW2 and more modern days. But although they probably are good simulations I feel that there are too many limitations to these games. The list contain 28 things that probably could be added to the promised engine 5 of CMx2 or to a hoped for, but not promised, future CMx3 engine.
Most of the things that follows are the same as I have mentioned earlier in this thread. The difference is that I now have added a few pictures and a link to a video.
We begin this with a few changes I'd like to the editor:

1) Trees could sometimes have a broader variety. I often get the feeling that the trees are too thick and look too much the same. Instead of only having one single tree, two trees and three trees of each type to choose from, there could also be trees of different angle, height and thickness to each type. This variety could be randomly decided by the AI. If I for example would choose to place two single trees of type A beside each other the AI could choose two different looking type A trees; for example one thinner and smaller which is slightly bent towards the east and one thicker and larger which is pointing straight up. There could also be the options to choose different type A trees just as there are options to choose a fence which is going in different directions or are to be used as corners.

2) When talking about placing trees in the editor it would help tremendously if there in the 3d environment was the possibility to mark a section of different trees with for example Shift key + clicking on trees, just like how we mark groups of infantry, and copy them to be pasted where ever we want to have more trees in woods or a forest. If we wanted to make some changes to the copied and pasted trees we could maybe remove some of them with Ctrl + clicking just like we remove props we don't want. An option like that would make the tedious work of placing trees much easier and quicker when the scenario map is supposed to have larger forests or many smaller woods. If it would be a problem for a 2d map to register those copied and pasted trees, the copying and pasting could maybe be done on the 2d map.
3) The possibility to make the direction of roads more like they are on the maps we use as a reference would be great instead of having roads that only go straight to the left/right or up/down and bend in 45° and 90°.
4) It would be great if the update of the current engine, or a new CMx3 Engine, could add some more editor props, like for example abandoned cars and lorries which can be placed on the roads and in villages and towns, and more buildings, for example cafes, more shops and houses of different sizes than there is now, which will help make towns and villages become more interesting to fight in.
5) It would be good to have the ability to set an AI-artillery fire order anytime in the AI's battle plans and not only for the first three minutes. The ctrl + c command is only for small arms fire, armoured vehicles and mortars. But sometimes it could be challenging for the player if there was a heavier AI-artillery barrage a few minutes before the AI-troops are sent forward to assault a position. Another thing that would be great is if it was possible to choose how intense that AI-barrage would be, just like how the player does when fighting the AI, and whether it should be to harass the player or a short, medium or heavy barrage.
One thing that would help in this would be to have the ability to make the off-map artillery part of an AI-group so it's possible to use the Ctrl + C command with the off-map artillery AI-group. The AI-officers and FOs seem to prefer to choose the on-map artillery when they request artillery support. When the AI-officers and FOs choose the on-map mortars instead of availabe off-map artillery, the on-map mortars, which have been assigned to the Ctrl + C order by the scenario designer, don't shoot as much on the red marked areas as hoped because some of them have been ordered by the AI-officers to shoot somewhere else although there is off-map artillery available. Being able to make the off-map artillery part of an AI-group would be of help to avoid the trouble with the AI and on-map mortars.
6) AI to be able to use smoke shells which we order by painting an area on the 2D map with for example Ctrl + S or similar.

7) Have the ability to use more than one trigger area for an AI-group. If we could connect more than one trigger area to an AI-group at a time the AI-group will stay in position and move when the enemy has entered any of the two or three trigger areas.
An AI-group could for example be connected to two trigger areas which would mean that an AI-group stays in the position where it's been placed. But if the enemy would enter any of the trigger areas it moves to the position for defense which the scenario designer has decided for the group to move to in cases of necessity.
If both triggers areas would get activated at the same time there could maybe be another string of code, or strings of codes like a counter tied to the trigger area, which would make the AI-group move to the position where the threat seems to be the most severe.
If the trigger areas were able to count the amount of enemy soldiers that enters them, scenario designers could decide in advance how many soldiers that are needed to enter to be counted as a threat and cause the AI-group to leave its position to move towards the threat. It would probably have to work a bit differently when it comes to trigger by enemy armour as one or two armoured vehicles can cause a lot of damage.

8] More than 16 AI-groups, preferably at least 32 or 40, so the scenarios can become more tactical, more interesting and more fun to play against the AI. It's sometimes a bit frustrating when you need to decide which units are "less important" so they all can be put into one or two groups when you really would like to have them in four or maybe six different groups to make them able to for example surround the player's troops.
Sometimes it would also be useful to have an officer responsible for off-map heavy mortars as his own one-team group, or their own groups if there are two batallions with such an officer in each, so they can sneak up to a good position where they are more able to hide, being only a three or four man team, and direct requested off-map heavy mortar artillery fire on the Player's troops.

9) Most likely for a CMx3 engine: If there was the possibility to go between the 2d map and the 3d environment without having to exit and load any of them, making maps would be much easier and go much quicker. One way to make this possible could be to have a tab system in the editor where the 2d map is on one tab and the 3d result of the 2d map is on another tab. To control the result and make other changes one would only have to go between those two tabs. To go between the 2d map and the 3d environment without having to exit and load either of those two would also make it much easier and much quicker to do the AI-orders as one sometimes have to go to the 3d environment to make sure that what is planned for will be possible, for example to make sure a unit hopefully will be able to have eyes on a certain area from a certain spot.

Thanks all for the helpful replies.  Yes I am in UK.  I am so used to Matrix and Steam showing UK tax inclusive prices that VAT never occurred to me.  Anyway, I bit the bullet even harder and ordered the game.  I was based in Germany in 1983 and have always had an interest in that era.  The Cold War felt very real at the time.