c3k

Bah. You're here to FIGHT! Get those tanks back up in the line and have them engage the Panther. Worst case? You lose two tanks. But, then you'll gain two teams which cannot be stopped! Dismounted tank crews are the secret weapon in this game. Gunfire is more exciting than the sound of tracks clinking as a tank slinks away in fear. Bah.

Iron sights: the front sight post totally occludes a man-size torso at 300m. At least, that's my experience. Hitting a melon-size target at 300m w/iron sights is VERY hard. If you have an entire torso size target, getting a few rounds to strike within a 6" diameter of the center can be done. Using a 6" diameter target as your ONLY aimpoint is very hard. The "head peeking over a wall at 300m for just a few seconds" is almost impossible to hit with iron sights. Now, add in a 3x sight with a 3,000+ fps muzzle velocity, and it becomes doable. WWII rounds were more in the range of 2,600fps. That makes quite a difference. (Battle-sighting: 3,000fps sighted in for ~250m will be (well) within 6" for anything up to almost 300m. Not so for 2,600fps. Pure ballistics.)

Look at the casualties as a percentage of the unit. If you look at the division, they're not so bad. By the time you dig down to platoons, you see that entire platoons get destroyed and remanned, only to be sent in again and again. The division exists only to keep the platoons in the line of battle. The casualties at the platoon level don't do well. The OVERALL divisional casualties do better. Men not on the line are closer to the rear area. They are cleaner, better rested, closer to aid stations, have a better likelihood of being found, recovered, and delivered to medical personnel. The road network exists in the rear. Etc. Shrapnel, fragment and blast injuries are more easily survived than machinegun bursts, grenades, flamethrowers, landmines, entrenching tools, etc. My .02.

Ah, so true, and so tried. Also, so tired.

Silkwraith, A language issue: "near distance" has been interpreted as meaning "foreground", at least by me. It seems you mean "distance", but not necessarily all the way distant. I would suggest that you mean "starting at a medium distance and extending to the far distance". Forgive me if that's not what you meant. (I saw what you circled in the AAR thread. What I just wrote corresponds to the circles. As well, let's keep the AAR thread purely devoted to the actual action, not other issues.) The distance at which LOD's kick in does seem too early. LOD = Level of Detail: a totally different piece of artwork depicting the same reality. I do not know a thing about why or when they kick in. I do know that LOD's kick in earlier with weaker graphics cards. I would WISH that they do not kick in at all. There was criticism of this in the past. The actual LOD pixel numbers were posted. If BF.C did NOT reduce graphical fidelity to a lower level through the use of LOD's, the game would bring a Cray to its knees. They are needed. The question is, can they be pushed further back, or changed to ameliorate the jarring difference between "regular" graphics and LOD graphics? I don't know. I do know that BF.C is responsive to CONSTRUCTIVE criticism backed up by data. I also know that BF.C has very rigid priorities and that "eye candy" comes in a distant place compared with many of the ballistics and behavior issues. "Eye candy" is a bit perjorative, but I do not mean to take away from the importance of a smoothly blended 3D view - which does not occur right now. Obviously, it is more important that the penetration of APDS 6 pounder shot vs. face-hardened Panther glacis armor, while the Panther is on a slope, angled away from the gun, but green and scared, is more important than when a road looks smooth. I don't know when BF.C will have the resources to address this.

Silkwraith, Could you download one of the attached pictures and use paint (or something similar) to show precisely what you mean? Regarding Crossfire: I'm not a programmer, just curious about what isn't working with your setup. Thanks, Ken

Those beaches are beautiful.

This was caught a while ago. I _thought_ that HEAT used first against buildings when HE was available had been fixed. Off to check... Ken

^^^ ??? Back to the initial off-topic thought: a floating cursor box (opened via special key-command) would be useful. Even more useful would be an annotation if that terrain type is prohibited to certain units. E.g., "Deep Mud: No wheeled vehicles" or somesuch. Ken

A quick thought: as much as I'd like to know what terrain type my unit is in, how can that be done if I have a 12 man squad spread over 3 action spots? Within those action spots, is there any "micro-terrain"? What if one my guys is in a shell-hole, another behind a wall, some in Type-E brush, others in woods? Ken

Ya' know, reading that, I didn't see anything that was broken. Sure, your guys suffered. Too bad. Imagine the Germans in the bunker. The incoming is getting worse. Then, there're explosions at their one way out. It's closing in on them. Hans looks out the peephole. "Ami's at the exit!" None of them want to die. They agree: time to charge out and take their chances in a firefight rather than be roasted or toasted in a pre-made concrete coffin. Out they run, guns spraying...and they survive. As to the "top" US unit not having an LOS, I cannot comment on that. That's map and unit specific. But yeah, savegames and restarts have probably saved me from more micro-strokes than I'd care to admit.

C'mon, you mean you haven't watched mortar rounds arc high overhead, then paused the game to zoom in on the shell and read the stencils so you can determine the size of the mortar? What other game lets you do that?

Window FRAME RATE(ing)...

Just one savegame, to check the setup you used. Anytime is fine. (My personal opinion is that any change, if any, prompted by this data will not be used until/unless CMBNx2 comes along.)

Great work! Test 4: should that be a 2 meter berm? Do you have screenshots of some of the test runs? Or, better, a savegame or setup you'd like to share? Private Mail me through the PM link up top. Thanks, Ken

Obviously the wounded machinegunner had an airway problem. The landser, having dreamed of being a doctor back in his gymnasium in 1937 had always studied medicine. Realizing that his comrade would die, the landser quickly pulled out his 'schreck, knowing it would be suicidal if he ever had to fire it, threw away the projectile, and used the remaining launch tube to create an emergency tracheatomy airway. Then, his work done, he grabbed teh MG42 and got back to work.

Well, I _may_ have engaged in a bit of hyperbole when I stated the .50 can "shred halftracks from any range/angle". I thought my exaggeration was obvious, since there must be some range and angle at which the .50 stops being effective.

Yeah, the ma-deuce would shred German halftracks...from any angle/range. The confusion stems from the US Army slapping an "M" designator on every friggin' weapon system. So that infantry transported in an "M" halftrack, supported by "M" tanks, overwatched by "M" artillery, would use their "M" rifles firing "M" type ammunition. (Put any number of your choice after each letter "M". The number can repeat if you'd like.) Based on the numbers you choose, that could be modern or WWII. M4 carbine vs. M1 Garand. M855 ball ammo or M2 ball ammo. M2 Machine gun or M240. M1 tank or M4. Etc.

US Halftrack armor was significantly worse than German halftrack armor. "The halftracks were initially extremely unpopular and dubbed "Purple Heart Boxes" (a grim reference to the US Army's decoration for combat wounds) by American troops[2]. Chief complaints centered around the complete lack of overhead protection from airbursting artillery shells and that the armor was inadequate against machine gun fire.[2]" Now, remember that German machineguns used the SAME ammo as their rifles, and you'll see why US halftracks were properly "put to flight by small arms fire". Anecdotally, there's the old saying that they're okay; they only let German bullets in, they don't let them go anywhere else. (Penetrating one side and getting into the passenger compartment, they then lack the energy to get out, so they ricochet for a while. Flesh loses.) As for the Sdkfz 251: "...involving many angled plates that gave reasonable protection from small arms fire." Armor plate thickness (NOT angle or hardness): .............US..........German Front: ---12.7mm.....14.5mm Others---6.35mm.....8mm Thicker, albeit only slightly, armor and at a better angle provided the crucial difference for the German halftracks.

I just sensed a FLARE post... (Added for those who are uninfected: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=92544 )

Hister, You are correct. After reading your post, I cracked into your online profile. Using a keylogging algorithm I made using a combination of toothpicks and firm baked goods, I was able to get into your computer. I've created a modified exe to run your CM games. The only change I inserted was to enable you to turn of the objectives, just as you requested. I gave it the ALT-J key combination. (Okay, funny time over: the listed HOTKEYS are overlooked, frequently. Bottom right UI, select MENUS, then select HOTKEYS. You'll see ALT-J listed among many other helpful shortcuts.) Ken

And you wondered why the German's launched the Battle of the Bulge when they did? They needed the canals to freeze over in order to assist their skaters!

Shadow striping is a known issue with AMD video cards. I wish it weren't. Skating into position is due to WeGo replay "fudges" in the movement. My memory is that no skating occurs during the actual run-through, or in realtime. (I could be wrong. ) Moire patterns in fields: that occurs with nvidia and amd cards. It's ugly, but it's a function of complex factors. (That's an excuse for saying I don't remember the technical reasons for it, but apparently it's very hard to fix.) Ken

^^^ THAT is very important!

"...but only a slice of the big pie." Would that be a pizza pie???