Broken

Are you sure the CO wasn't Green or have a -2 Command rating? Also, US Company HQs don't have binoculars, which make a big difference in spotting. Your Platoon HQ should be OK in that regard.

I know what Steve thinks. I think it would not be too difficult coding-wise for the AI to be smarter in it's target selection. The same goes when a tank crew pumps round after round into the same tree or dirt mound when it is aiming at a target beyond. At < 100m, they should all be turret hits. At 100m, a Panther turret is bigger in your sights than the entire Panther is at 500m. Certainly experienced crews knew what the vulnerable bits were on opponent tanks. Their survival depended on knowing such things. The Germans knew where to hit a Sherman to best brew it up. The Allies knew the Panther front glacis was the worst place to hit it. Veteran and Crack units can already do many things better than less experienced units. Is that an "invitation to gaminess"? BFC has balanced increased experience with increased cost.

Finding good LOS for your spotters is a challenge in this scenario. Are you familiar with how to check LOS from points where you currently have no units? Place a Move waypoint at the point you want to test, highlight that waypoint by clicking on it, and then select the target command. The target line will now indicate the LOS from the new waypoint, not the current unit location. This way, you can find a location where your spotter will see the target you want to hit with your artillery/mortars. Don't forget to delete your test waypoints or you may have some unpleasant experiences.

Yes, it doesn't pay to concentrate your Shermans against Panthers. Spread them out to increase the chance of flank shots. Take quick shots against the German infantry and duck back under cover. Make the Panthers play whack-a-mole. Smoke is your friend. On the other hand, against PZ IVs, concentrating your Shermans is good.

The number of radically different outcomes to the exact same situation is amazing.

Good info. It would be nice if buildings were tagged Heavy, Medium and Light as far as small arms protection were concerned. At least it would stop some of the incessant wanking about protection provided by buildings.

Shermans in CMBN can survive even turret hits from Panthers if the angles are right and the distances are not too short.

Center of mass aiming makes sense at long range, but at close ranges a tank gunner should be able to pick where he wants to hit his target. Would a Sherman 76 gunner bounce round after round off a Panther front hull at 150m, rather than target the turret? Maybe, if he was Green or suppressed, but I would expect an experienced gunner to have some knowledge of his opponent's weak spots. If the AI could aim at vulnerable points when conditions warrant, that would be an improvement.

Buildings have the same problem as PO is describing. If you can't see the base of the building, you can't target the building. There are work-arounds, but it kind of dilutes the immersive experience when a tank can't target any part of a two-story building in plain sight because it doesn't have LOS to the base of the building. This happens most often when the base of the building is reverse slope.

What you said.

Target Arcs are for marking the area where the enemy will never appear. Target lines are for marking those enemy units which will vanish one second into the next turn. Your smoke shells are for injuring your infantry you are attempting to screen. Spotting rounds are for routing your lead infantry squad.

What he is saying is that he can "see" the building from the camera view, presumably with the camera located at the HQ's position, but the target-line LOS is blocked. I find that the camera view and LOS aren't always consistent. Sometimes the camera view is clear and LOS is blocked, and sometimes it is the other way around. For example, even with the camera plane bisecting a tank commanders head, what you see is not always what you get, LOS-wise. The main causes of inconsistencies are usually objects with fuzzy boundaries, such as foliage and smoke. I can understand why it would be difficult software-wise to get this exactly right.

Maybe so, but my heart skips a beat whenever I see that Penetration tag pop up over one of my tanks. To find it was due to some lone pistoleer banging away at my tank was WTF funny (except for the injured StuG gunner).

Grognard contributions: 1) Waypoints on bridges are definitely buggy. Placing a waypoint on a bridge often ends up in the water underneath. Also, selecting a unit near or on a bridge is difficult. I often have to orient the camera so the bridge is out of view and then select the unit. 2) Crew members of crewed weapons firing their small arms at random targets and giving away the position of the crewed weapon (bazooka, mortar, AT gun, MG) is definitely a frustration (as mentioned by others in this thread). The AI should limit this behavior to firing back when fired upon or to firing at VERY close enemy, not at enemy 100+ meters away. 3) Adjustable waypoints, as in CM1, would be a godsend. Having to re-plot a long waypoint-string is a pain. Yes, I know RT players don't plot long waypoint-strings, but WEGO players do. 4) Adjust Fire doesn't reset the countdown to FFE. After adjusting fire on a mission which has entered the Spotting phase, I might get a message saying it will take 4 minutes to adjust fire. Meanwhile the spotting rounds continue to fall on the old target and FFE commences on the old target. If there any rounds left, FFE then continues on the new target. This makes no sense whatsoever, since the same spotter is communicating the spotting results and the adjust request to the indirect fire unit. More sensible behavior would be that an adjust fire request cause spotting to cease, followed by a delay, followed by spotting for the new target and then FFE on the new target.

I had a StuG shot at from 50m by a bailed tank crewman armed with a pistol. The result was a "Penetration" and a wounded gunner. The StuG was unbuttoned, so I can understand the shot gunner. The "Penetration" message was a bit disconcerting, however.

Definitely a top notch creation. The map must have taken you forever. The multiple phases of the battle make it seem like three games in one. Not everyone played as the Germans. My first game, and evidently Gunnergoz's, was as the Americans. It was very creepy encountering all the knocked-out German hardware (at night!) when I first advanced through the river crossings. My only issue is plotting all the vehicle movement along the narrow roads. It would really help if Battlefront could add a "Copy Waypoints" command which would copy one vehicle's waypoint-string to another vehicle. Then you would only need to plot the first vehicle in a convoy and the rest of the vehicles could attach that waypoint-string to their own. This plus adjustable waypoints (to fix the path of the inevitable vehicle which goes off-course). Thanks again for an excellent scenario.

Hilarious. I had two stugs sitting at the same river ford with nearly identical results. The AI was relentless in sending down fresh meat for my "Stug Brothers".

It is a little harder as the Americans against the AI, but not much. Total or Major victory is not difficult unless you are really rushing your moves. The Vet Panthers will nail anything within sight, so you have to be careful with your LOS checks, even if you think you are moving your Shermans to a "safe" location. This seems to be generally true in the bocage environment. But the Panthers eventually have to come to you, and you can play the usual flanking tactics at close range.

The tight windy roads of Normandy are a pain in the butt when it comes to plotting the movement of a large number of vehicles in convoy. Two things would really help this: 1) Adjustable waypoints, as in CM1. This would allow you to fix the waypoint string of a vehicle when it goes wonky without having to delete all waypoints and re-plot them. 2) A Follow Command. It would work as follows: While vehicle A is selected, click on the vehicle B you want to "follow" and all of B's waypoints are added to A's waypoints. This would save tremendous amounts of time when dealing with multi-vehicle convoys on narrow roads.

I think JasonC answered your question better than I could. American arty in direct fire was not only quite good in WWII, but also in Korea during the Chinese offensive which overran a number of US units only to be smacked hard when they came within LOS of the 155s. Well trained big gun crews were very effective at long range direct fire. The British and German arty were also tough on armor penetrations that came within sight. The WWII Soviet 122mm guns were designed with a direct fire role in mind, and were effective at it as well. I think it is a bit of mythology that tanks exploiting a breakthrough would find artillery units easy prey. Best that they stick with destroying C2 and logistical assets.

Yes, the Salerno battle is one where the US artillery were quite effective in a direct fire role. Thanks for presenting such a detailed account!

Whatever your opinion of Cooper's assessment of the Lehr attack, there 72 M12 SP 155mm in Normandy, 991 being one battalion. A battalion of M12s were attached to 3 AD in the Ardennes, in which Cooper served, and he is not the only source saying M12s saw direct fire action there. In any case, there were a number of times in 1943-44 where German attacks did penetrate to the US artillery line. The Panzers usually got the short end of the deal. In fact, throughout the war, whenever armor penetrated to the artillery positions they often had a tough time of it.

I would like to see more US stuff, like the 105mm howitzer and especially the M12 155mm SP artillery. I would like to be able to create scenarios where the Germans penetrate to the US artillery line, as occurred in a number of instances in Normandy, Lorraine, pursuit across France, and the Ardennes.

Yes, firing WP rounds at the big cats was not an uncommon tactic. The German crews would sometimes bail out, thinking they were on fire. At the least, they were temporarily blinded, allowing the Sherman a chance to withdraw.

Even so, in CMBO there were a few items with prices so out of whack you guys did adjust them. Pupchens for instance.