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I don't have any answers, but I do propose an experiment. Leader A with +2, commanding squad "a" which has a -2 rating. Leader B with -2, commanding squad "b" which has a +2 rating. Somehow put them through identical incoming fire and facing identical enemies. If group B performs better than group A, we'll know that inherent leadership is more important than external leadership as applied by the chain of command. Any takers? (Once we determine which leadership origin has more influence, we can then adjust that leadership level and watch the change in performanc.) Ken

Actually, wheatfields don't do much for real firing. There are an amazing number of anecdotes about being able to see the path of a shell because of the way the wheat moves aside from the shockwave. So, the gun might be hidden, but the wheatfield would allow a viewer to see where the shell came from. Ken

sburke: well written, and nicely complimentary without crossing the line into rabid fanboyism. FWIW, I agree that the many cries for relatively minor improvements often obscure how great the underlying game actually is. LLF and BS: thanks, as well. That mapwork is amazing. I'm waiting to find out what happens. Ken

I've got a laptop with integrated video and choosable dedicated accelerator. It SHOULD use the dedicated grapshics when needed, but it doesn't seem to do it on it's own. All I need to do is right-click on the executable and the menu will allow me choose which level of graphics acceleration I use. I only have to do that once, then the setting sticks. (Certainly not trying to match tech-wits with Schrullenhaft!)

In general, the tank destroyers were a stopgap solution. First, you build a tank. The turret limits how powerful the gun can be. You design it to defeat the enemy. Next, the enemy uparmors their tanks. Your solution is that you need a more powerful gun. Your turret is limited. Therefore, you remove the turret and weld a fixed superstructure in place. That fixed structure can take a more powerful recoil, hence a more powerful gun. Now that you've "plused up" your gun, you design a new tank with a turret that can hand that gun. You introduce your new tank into combat. The enemy up-armors their tanks. Repeat the above. (Example: Pz III -> StuG III -> Pz IV Lang: Panther -> Jagdpanther -> Tiger II Okay, they're not perfect examples, but that's the lifecycle.) Ken

I adhere to this, whether a QB, a battle and whether it's H2H or vs. AI. Receiving arty fire on my setup zone - particularly if it's out of LOS, such as being in a declavity - leaves a sour taste in my mouth. The exception is if the defender sets up in the midst of his defended locality. E.g., if he's defending a town, then, sure, I can bombard the town. Meeting engagements, or defending against an entering opponent are what I'm speaking of. Ken

Performance? How about looks? Jagdpanther wins that one hands down.

Yeah, more icons would help. (Funny story. I went to D-Day Oklahoma last year. It's a huge paintball event, a week long, culminating on the final day. About 2,000 participants. Check out their website with your favorite search engine. Anyway, there's all these camoed guys, rigged out, all that stuff. One guy was dressed EXACTLY like Waldo. It was pretty fun seeing teams bounding forward...with Waldo.) Ken

Distance moved may play a role. There is an assumption that a short move will not require the complete limber/unlimber of a weapon. (Think of an HMG being grabbed by barrel and base. That's good for a short movement, not so much for long distance.) So, that needs to be taken into account when trying to see if the deploy times are correct or not. Ken

poesel71, Thanks for sharing this. I'll take a look at it. Obviously, we've got to see if there are any differences in experience, chain of command, posture, etc. for US team 1. Something _seems_ to be different. Thanks, Ken

I will add that the OP's screenshot actually supports the viewpoint espoused by JonS. (I am NOT trying to put words, or interpretations into what ANYONE posted.) If you look at the screenshot, it appears that the underlying terrain is HEAVY FOREST. Additionally, a dense stands of trees exists in that terrain type. (If you don't understand the difference between the terrain tile and the tress, well, it's time for you to play with the editor. You can have short grass as the terrain tile and dense trees. That is NOT the same as HEAVY FOREST.) Heavy forest represents an extremely heavy growth of secondary, um, growth. Lots of dead branches, bushes, saplings, etc. Given that level of obstruction, perhaps it is not unreasonable that an enemy unit, even a tank, cannot be seen. (If the terrain is LIGHT FOREST, then all the above applies, but watered down.) Now, if the tank had been seen/spotted by the AT team first, then they entered the FOREST and lost total awareness of the tank, that would be odd. Likewise, a sound contact should become available IF the team can locate the sound source with some degree of accuracy. Having said all that, I concur that there seem to be situations where it just seems impossible that my guys haven't noticed the enemy. Grrr. Ken

Regarding the points between battle sizes: you can plus up, or minus down, in percentages for each side. Not perfect, but +50% is a bit more than tiny. Ken

Streety, Have you tried the demo(s)? They're free. If you've got even a smidgen of an interest in this subject that your knowledge hints at, you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't at least kick the tires. Ken

All the above. I'll add that the lack of control in WeGo adds quite a bit to the suspense of each turn. The replay function is, as already mentioned, one of the great features of this series. Without WeGo, you forego its use. Case in point: I just had a squad leader that I found dead at the end of turn. I went back and looked. He and his squad had hurried up to a low bocage and hedge area. They'd dove to ground when they arrived. The squad leader went up to one knee, pulled out his binos, and looked around. That's when a Canadian sniper, about 250m away, put round through the side of his helmet. Morte. Without replay, I'd never have seen that happen. This is on a large battlefield with about 2+ companies per side. A lot happens; replay lets you focus on everything. Fun stuff. Ken

(JonS' mentioning of the delayed bomb release: using heavy bombers to "crack" open the German line was used by both the US and the UK. The famous incident of the short bombs killing LTG McNair (the guy in charge of creating the US force structure), who'd finagled a deal to get to ETO, is pretty well known. Ooops. I wonder what would've been the effect if those D-Day bombers had dropped short. All in all, tossing the bombs into the hinterland may've been the best thing they could've done.)

Ugh. Thanks for running some tests on this. A question: does the direction of the target in relation to the current facing have any effect on the deploy time? Ken

Sublime, I agree, it SOUNDS odd. I can come up with reasons why they reverted to AP, but as a player, well, it doesn't seem right. I hate to ask: do you have a savegame? If not, what scenario was it? Do you remember the Churchill's experience level? Any details you can add would help. (I'm not saying I have time to try to track this down, but the more detail you provide, the better the chance of digging into it.) (One easy, off the cuff, rationale: the crew THOUGHT the AP was doing something, until the Panther "twitched". Then they fired their "silver bullet" round. Not seeing the Panther brew up, they went back to AP. (Maybe they thought the APDS missed?)) Ken

I don't know about the scoring aspect. They can sometimes gain weapons, as well.

Flashlights? Miner's helmet? I agree: in-game gamma adjustment would make night missions MUCH easier to play.

Vark, It seems you're addressing me. I shall return the favor. There is a MYTH that the Tiger could ONLY rotate its turret with a hand crank. I attempted to clarify that bit of misinformation. Are you claiming that the Tiger could only rotate its turret with a hand crank? (Note: I was quite specific in my posting in stating that the turret would be rotated with hydraulics, wait for it, when they were operational. Now, I presuppose for many posters that they are non-native English speakers or that they may've misread a post or two. It's easy enough to do that. By "operational", that means the hydraulics were, wait for it, "OPERATING". The tank could be shut down, hiding. The hydraulics could be damaged. The engine could be kaput. Etc.) On to the next fun point. The "Ping". Where did I say it did NOT occur? I posited, and gave an example or two, of the REQUIREMENTS to TAKE ADVANTAGE of the "ping". Let me enumerate them, a bit more explicity: 1.) Awareness of what the "ping" means. 2.) Ability to hear the "ping". 3.) Tactical situation to enable firing upon, or closing with, the "ping". 4.) Knowledge that the "ping" is unsupported: taking advantage of the "ping" will not get you killed by the other 11 squaddies. 5.) Positioning and ability to react between the "ping" and the "shtink". (The "shtink" is the sound of the bolt chambering the first round of the just reloaded 8 round magazine. So, Vark, how often were all 5 of those met? How many times did it occur in combat? Did I say it NEVER occurred? Or, did I imply that Hollywood has made it seem as if it were a common occurrence which is vastly over-played in every WWII movie made in recent times? So, I hate to post a riposte, but I did not state or imply that hand-cranking was a MYTH. I did not state or imply that the "ping" was a MYTH. Kind regards. Ken

Unfortunately, there's no in-game gamma control. There _IS_ a workaround, however. While you're in the setup phase, the game-time is frozen, but the game dynamics continue forward. That means that the earth still rotates, in game. So the sun will rise. Here's how you use that: say it's 0200 game time and you can't see anything. The sun will be up, in-game, by 0900 (British double-summer?). Leave the setup on-screen. (You can minimize the game, if you'd like.) Come back in 7 hours. The game clock is still frozen at 0200, but now the sun is up, as if it's 0900 game-time. Use the light to find and set all your units. When you're done, click "go". The sun will revert instantly to its 0200 position. The lights go out. Bob's your uncle. (Hey, I didn't say it was a GOOD workaround.) Ken

My apologies to the OP for getting off-topic. The best single-source books would be by Jentz. (The hardcover ones published by Schiffer. He also put out some Stackpole (?) softcovers. They're okay, but not anywhere near as detailed as the hardcover ones.) After Jentz, there are a lot of choices. Schneider, Speilberger pop to mind. If your Uncle is still around, give him a "Thank you" for his service from me. I can't imagine how hard that must've been on him. Ken

I would submit, humbly, that the ear defenders ASSISTED with your being able to hear the "ping". You've got a nice collection of rifles. Go out to the range and burn off about 6 dozen rounds. Have your wife firing away with you. Tell her to shoot at the targets as if someone is trying to kill you. (Now, without ear defenders, how much ringing in your ears will there be? Yeah.) Have your wife signal when she hears your "ping". All while she is trying to keep up a volume of fire. (Simulating an "oh, crap, are they close!" engagement.) In my experience, most range firing with small groups of family and friends is somewhat a turn-taking experience. No one else shoots while Uncle Buck is trying to get that bullseye. Slow, cadenced, firing. Ear plugs/defenders. Nah: burn that ammo! Yell a bit. You know, "Watch your flanks!", "What was that?", "Take THAT, and THAT, and THAT!". The "ping" exists. However, how many COMBAT settings allow the ping to be heard, then to be acted on? (If 5 guys with Garands are shooting at me, do I wait for 3 pings, 4 pings, or all 5 pings? Yahtzee! (If you need another trigger-puller to run this experiment, you just let me know! ) Ken

Well, 3 rounds bouncing off at 600 meters would tend to lend a bit of strength to his ID of the tank as being a Tiger. Turret traverse: the Germans used hydraulics for the big cats. The Panther's hydraulic pump was driven by the engine. It had 2 output levels. The pump output was based on engine rpm. At high output the turret would traverse as fast as the Sherman's. (Forgive me for not digging out my references to quote the number of degrees/sec.) The driver's duties would include keeping the engine revved for high output while in combat. The gunner, as in all tanks, had a fine adjustment wheel to be used after the hydraulic traverse had gotten the gun close to the target. The manual turret traverse linkage would only be used when the hydraulics were not operational. The Tiger had a very similar setup to the Panther. (The whole hand-cranking myth is similar to the myth of the tactical drawback the Garand's en-bloc magazine ejection creates. Every friggin' movie now has the poor GI firing his last round, "ping", then the damn kraut kills our blue-eyed Iowa farmboy. Or, better yet, the street smart GI, always from Brooklyn, stalking the boche, purposely drops his spare magazine, "ping", and then kills the German who, smiling, thinks the GI is out of ammo. I'd like to know how many times this situation occurred. You'd have to be close enough to one another to hear a small piece of sheetmetal go "ping". There'd have to be silence at that moment. You can't have been deafened by firing your rifle just a few seconds ago. Anyone even remotely familiar with firing full size ammo without hearing protection knows that you won't be able to discern the "ping". Hollywood does not make good history. Hmmm, I seem to've gone on a rant. Carry on. ) Ken

This sounds interesting. Thanks. Ken