c3k

I don't know whether or not what you're describing is an error, or not. However... Properly emplacing a heavy machinegun in a building so that the benefit of the tripod can be utilized can take several minutes of work. How often is there a single piece of stable furniture available at windowsill height? How well would your ma deuce work if you had each leg on a kitchen chair? Simple mental exercise. Imagine you own a .50 cal. machinegun. Given the width and length of the tripod with extended legs, what do you have in your current room which would provide a stable platform to shoot out of a window, without unduly exposing yourself? How many rooms would you have to search to gather enough items to make that happen? How stable would it be? How long would it take to get more "stuff" to make it more stable? My understanding is that the game has -lengthened- the amount of time it takes to properly deploy a tripod in a building. Give it at least 3 full minutes with no suppression. If they still aren't deploying by then, let us all know. Ken

Keeps the government firmly in its place.

It helps to get the right mind-set. Try to imagine yourself as the commander on the field. Where should you locate yourself to have the best influence over your troops? If you pick the chateau 2 miles back, well, your troops will not act in a coordinated manner. Get up there. Similarly, try the same imagining with each HQ. Keep units in the same formation near one another and near their HQ. If you've never served in the military, you may have misperceptions about how difficult it can be to coordinate the actions of a hundred or more men out in the woods and fields. The military makes it seem easy. It is not. It takes command and control. That requires communication. Pay attention to the face/small man/ear/radio command icons at the bottom of the unit UI. (See the manual.) Look at the chain of command links at the bottom left corner of the UI. If there are any red "x"es then that link is broken. The C^3 aspects of the game are incredibly detailed, mimicking real-life. They are critical to getting the most out of your troops. Specific, small questions can and will be answered very quickly and easily. A broad, "what do I do" is hard to work with. Keep at it. You'll love it. Ken Edited to add: DEFINITELY start by playing WeGo. RealTime (RT) can force a tempo which is hard to keep up with if you're not totally comfortable with the camera controls and unit toggles.

Did someone say "flare"?

Oh, look! I just volunteered to check it out. Okay, LiveNoMore, please PM me a savegame. I'll run some tests on this bunker resistance. (MikeyD, PM as well, please, so we don't duplicate one another.) Ken PS - The assumption that the inner walls are bare concrete and would allow ricochets is not something to which I subscribe. The German army had a lot of WWI vets. They knew a thing or two about how to survive artillery barrages. Part of that got transferred to the training manuals. Lining the INSIDE walls with sandbags (particularly the back wall and around the apertures) would greatly reduce any ricochet effect.

What is most interesting to me is that a clear limitation with the game engine has been identified. The game's developer has agreed that it is a limitation. He stated that it is something that should be fixed, however, more pressing problems are taking priority over attempting to implement a solution. This is a somewhat rare problem. (Variable, depending on your play style.) Then the thread goes into pure vitriole mode. (Okay, a bit of an exaggeration, but still...) Ken.

Joking aside (the flamethrower comment was, obviously, tongue in cheek), at first this seems WAY off. A few thoughts... The AP properties of the medium velocity Sherman is poor, when compared to the 76mm variant, the German 75L45/48/70 weapons, 88L56/71, 17 pounder, etc. If I made a concrete bunker, I'd like to imagine that I'd make it of THICK, heavily re-bar'ed, hardened concrete. How does that hold up to point blank medium velocity 75mm rounds? How do those rounds hold up? Sure, I'd imagine that I could hit the aperture, but remember that you may be seeing a simplified representation of an aperture. Similarly, perhaps some rounds are going in, whoosh!, then embedding in the sandbags, stacked 6 deep, lining the back wall. Shrug. Line up a series of weapons (as listed above) and let's see if some penetrate better than others. Perhaps concrete bunkers are too resistant. Perhaps they represent 6-8 foot thick SERIOUS fortifications. HE should be nearly worthless against the structure. Ken

Why haven't you moved a flamethrower up to it?

I will counter this. If I split teams, why am I doing this? If I'm trying to get an assault element and a support element, why would I burden the assault element with rarely-used ordnance? I want them fleet of foot; as lightly burdened as possible. "Leave your rucks here. Just carry all the ammo and grenades you can. Now go!" On the other hand, if I want two equal manuever elements, I'd try to distribute the weaponry somewhat equally. The obvious difference being doctrine may force one element to always be considered more of a support element and the other the manuever element. (This is a subtle distinction. Given 12 men with 2 LMG's, 4 SMG's, and 4 pf (pf carried by riflemen), the rest rifles. No doctrine stressing support/manuever elements would split into two equal units, e.g. 1 LMG, 2 SMG, 2 pf, w/3 rifleman, and the same in the second element. If I have a doctrine that specifies that there MUST be a support element then the split could be 2 LMG's, 1 SMG, 3 pf, 3 rifles, and 3 SMG, 1 pf, 3 rifles. Doctrine affects the sub-element creation.) Finally, if I want to attack a tank, I'll create an anti-tank team. THEY should get the panzerfausts, and a bit of the SMG firepower. Manuever elements need to be unburdened. Anti-tank elements need the special weapons. Now, it would be nice to be able to ACQUIRE weapons from on another team within a squad, but forcing that behavior on the player would be a bit excessive. (I know you're not trying to force it, just stating a possible drawback to one type of implementation.) So, what happens when you try the anti-tank button? Finally, recognize that your view of what the troops should do could be highly ahistorical. Would I like to put all the automatic weapons found in a 20 man Italian squad in one team with the best leader? Hell yeah. Let the others schlepp ammo or act as medics. Or bullet sponges in the front row of an assault. The game's pre-selected team choices prevents this type of (fun, gamey) abuse. Ken

Hmm, where's the block for number of restarts? The power of WeGo!

Tres cool. Nice catch... Savegame? Ken

Gyro's: Not useful for firing on the move, but to RETAIN the absolute barrel elevation from a previous position after moving to a new position. Ground is rarely uniformly sloped. If a tank moves 50m, given the poor (fixed reticle) US sight design, at medium to long ranges adjusting for a slight change in ground slope was difficult. The gyro would do that for you. On paper. It would reduce the number of ranging shots needed after repositioning.

WeGo always. I've done a few RT's, but I'd limit my abilities to only being up to running a platoon using RT. The replay function of WeGo is what makes this game my favorite. I don't like click-fests and I like to see what EACH guy does. Ken

As shown in Vanir Ausf B's screenshots, he used "Muddy" ground conditions. I have no accurate knowledge of what BFC's "Muddy" correlates to in the real world. It could be pigsty-like, bottomless, clay, type of mud. To get through that would need constant high, fluctuating rpms in low gear, "snowplowing" an ever-thickening blanket of goo ahead of the armor. (Hmmm, is straight vs. downsloped armor better or worse? Is it modeled?) Huge goblets of mud cloying to the tracks and clogging every piece of running gear? Or is it just a little softer than normal? A tank may sink to 4" instead of 3"? I don't know. Because of that lack of knowledge, I don't think there is a basis to assess whether or not the breakdown rates are correct or not. The RELATIVE breakdown rates could certainly be looked at. Flotation, MMP, NGP, etc., may be more important for SPEED rather than reliability. The heavy stress of deep mud would strain transmissions, drivetrains, and engines. Of course, "Bog" and "Immobilized" don't differentiate between terrain bog and mechanical breakdowns. (Unless you can see it under the wrench icon for the tank? E.g., terrain bog shows no broken systems, whereas mechanical breakdown would show a red "x" for engine or track or whatnot? VAB?) So, I'm curious about how close to their maximum DRY speed can they drive over mud? Manueverability vs. Reliability. Ken

VAB, Good stuff. Keep it coming... Ken

Under the higher difficulty levels the delay for artillery is increased to more realistic levels. This effect is present for both AI and the player. Likewise, both AI and player artillery comes in sooner at easier levels.

No, that issue is still present. If you click on the enemy icon you will get that unit's title, e.g., "Team A/2nd Squad/3rd Platoon". However, that's all you get. Yeah, I agree you shouldn't get that information.

Hmm, in elite or iron, you don't need extra mouse clicking. If you de-select all units (such that no friendly unit is selected), then you see EVERY friendly unit exactly as it is. Not trying to push you towards a difficulty level that you don't want, but elite and iron really aren't harder than the other levels to play. Your men won't have uber-intel on the ENEMY, and they may have less knowledge of nearby friendlies (w/whatever that brings for morale), but the player has a smooth experience. I shied away from iron for a long time due to my misunderstanding of how it would play. Now, if you're talking about ENEMY intel (e.g., enjoying know that the enemy men over in the scrub is an FO team rather than scouts), well, then stick with the "easier" difficulty levels. (No perjorative meant with "easier".) Ken

I haven't used mines in a while, so I may be wrong, however, I recall that you can increase the density of sown mines by merely adding more on top of the same action spot. If I get 10 AP mines and scatter them one each on 10 action spots, the odds of unit setting one off is somewhat low. If I put all 10 in one action spot, then I'm pretty sure the first man to enter will not exit. At least, that's how I think it works. Ken

I used elite for a long time. I switched to iron and haven't looked back.

I'm impressed by the progressively improving english vocabulary, idiom use, and grammatical correctness. Is that a language patch or upgrade?

FWIW, area TARGET orders by my stuck tank did nothing to remove the walls. It is forever entombed in a farmhouse in Sicily. To the great dismay of the farmer's wife...

Photos of tanks IN COMBAT are much more rare than those not in combat. Furthermore, the photographers are often some distance behind the tanks, and on the ground, usually in cover. Thus, good photos of TC's are rare. The TC standing tall in combat is rare, and presents a "good" propaganda photo. That would get selected and widely disseminated over pictures of men huddled behind protection. Having said that, you can find photographic evidence of TC's who barely expose their eyeballs over the rim of the turret hatch. That, to me, would be the way to fight if you were within small arms range of the enemy. In-game, TC vulnerability to small arms seems about right to me. Ken

ian.leslie, Yeah, I've seen this crop up in CMFI as well. (Of course, it's in a qb and my oppo must've taken a bit of gleeful delight in my predicament. Sigh.) I couldn't get mine out of the building. BFC is aware. Ken

Merry Christmas wishes to all!