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Your statement has a logical fallacy. You presuppose that "most" of the destruction was from US artillery, but those who disagree with you are therefore stating "no damage". C'mon. If you're going to state "Certainly (,) most of the destruction...was caused by US artillery..." then you'd better back that up. You're making a claim of fact. Maybe it's true, maybe not. You're claiming it...based on what? Next, who said US artillery caused "no damage"? Toss some citations in there. My point in writing this is to make sure that this thread doesn't spin into some sort of propaganda-fest. (FWIW, I don't give a fig about damage in fighting Isis/Taliban. That's war. If the US leveled those cities, I'm good with it. I wouldn't be good with the US having its soldiers and Marines die so that some piece of the city didn't get destroyed. If it would save one US life by leveling 20 blocks of the city, then start leveling.)

Well said. The CM2 TacAI is thing of beauty. I don't know how these things are done, but there should be some industry recognition of this as one of Charles' great achievements. In a battle with hundreds of troops running about, bullets flying, shells exploding, it is RARE for a one of the troops to do something I would call a "bug". It is amazing to watch the complex ballet which occurs in the turns with heavy action.

What if you're Audie Murphy...fighting in Hollywood??? (Because that's him in the screenshot, for those that didn't know. He played himself in the Hollywood movie about his actions.)

My Danish is quite poor. Other than "Hans Christian Andersen", it is non-existent. I'm therefore limited to looking at the pictures of the Centurion and wondering about the cool vowels. The pictures start with the tank missing its track. That prevents drawing any conclusions about track damage. I note the shell on the ground: is that where it was detonated? The roadwheels and return rollers appear functional, post-detonation. The only apparent damage is some sheet-metal panniers and storage bins being torn off...hardly "Everything on the outside was ripped off". Again, I'm just going by the two pictures. Smoke Grenade launchers seem fine. The armored housings for sights seem fine. Barrel and fume extractor (which is thin metal) seem fine. Without understanding the article, I cannot tell what it says about internal subsystem damage.

The first step would be to look at the turrets of all Sherman varieties across all dates. In-game, that is. And, looking at them, see if there are discrepancies between what should be vs. what is. Defining "what should be" would be the next step.

I don't think this game does an adequate job simulating non-kinetic effects behind armor. Meaning, it doesn't show when the tank gets its bell rung. A massive HE hit ("massive" meaning a 6" shell or thereabouts) would have a huge effect on the various modules inside a tank. By "module" I mean computers, sights, hydraulic fittings, crew members, fuel lines, etc. Tanks are designed to resist a lot of flying metal and other effects. At a certain point, that resistance is overcome. Solid-state circuitry, in hardened containers, on isolation mounts, go a long way towards adding to the resistance to shock. But, a big hit? Yeah. The problem is twofold: first, show quantitative effects from real-world examples...which are provable and sourced; second, show how the game deviates from this. It seems like some progress is being made towards the first. (The Ft. Sill tests and HerrTom's work). The second is also getting some gradual progress.

Nice pics. Thanks for posting these.

^^^ Good stuff. (The one Super Pershing did, however, have the Panther chunk stuck in front of the mantlet. I'll try to find a citation. For the most part, welding face-hardened armor is difficult and not likely to be a field modification.)

Nah. It's the expectations which would be raised. For example, if a patch were announced that solved 21 problems but, upon release, it only solved 20 problems, well, that "missing" fix would become the focus. Instead of raising false hopes and then dashing them, they maintain silence.

Fantastic. Thank you.

That was a chunk of Panther glacis. (If I remember it right.) When in doubt, just go big.

The game will frequently crash when players give bad commands. For example: "Sergeant! Take your men and run down the street, FAST, at the machinegun bunker while maintaining a 5 meter covered arc. Go!" See? That's a bad command. The pixeltruppen frequently infiltrate your cpu and will toss a spanner in the works to save their mates. How do you prevent this? Never let the men think they can trust each other. Create frequent incidents of friendly fire. You've GOT to do this as SOON as you install the game. If you ever let your men get a solid footing, they'll turn on you. Or, you may need to reinstall the game. (Kind of odd that it'd work sometimes but not others.) Your best bet is to open a ticket with the Help Desk, or send a message to @Schrullenhaft. (<-- Kind of like the commissioner using the Bat-Light. )

Found something... Armor Piercing, Capped (APC) To increase the armor protection without increasing the armor plate's thickness, and consequently its weight, face hardening the armor plates was common during the Second World War. As the name implies, the face hardening process increases the hardness of the part of the armor plate facing outwards. This increased hardness will make it more difficult for the shell to penetrate the plate, and might even cause it to scatter on impact. A countermeasure against face hardened plates is to place a cap on a regular armor piercing shell. This cap has a very hard tip, designed to break the hardened face, and a soft steel body, designed to protect the armor piercing shell from the force of impact. While the actual penetration of the armor piercing shell is in itself the same as that of the uncapped armor piercing shell, the cap is a disadvantage when firing against regular armor plates that are not face hardened. The reason for this is that part of the mass, and therefore kinetic energy, of the shell is located in the cap, which does not aid the penetration of a regular armor plate. The above is from https://panzerworld.com/anti-tank-ammunition#sources ...and references to a Ft. Sill report.

Ooooh. The feet sticking out from under the treads was particularly...gruesome. Tactical Tip: don't use riders anywhere near the enemy.

Yeah...and if they have a big enough crew, dismount them and have them do the polka! YEAH! Victory Mine Dance.

Well, perhaps. I do believe his system may be better, especially in a mixed minefield and using a truck filled with 2 or 3 squads. The little survivors can scramble around setting off any extra mines.

Great Scot! This needs to be updated. It looks like a very interesting tactical situation. Perfect for CM. @Kaunitz, any status?

The "cap" in both APC and APCBC was designed to dig into sloped armor...and was higher hardness so it could have improved effect against hardened armor. The "BC" was added to APC shells because an aerodynamic shape kept the velocity higher to a greater range, with the concomitant benefits. I don't think APC had a long usage period once better alternatives were found. It was a stopgap. To @Michael Emrys the effectiveness of APCBC was with sloped armor. The numbers above seem to be at a perpendicular strike angle. In that case, I would suppose that the blunt cap on any capped projectile (APC or APCBC) would be a hindrance when compared to the pointed AP nose.

Well, if you have an engineer, they can Mark Mines. Once in the minefield, (which is where they end up after doing that command), have them SLOW back out the same way they came. Unless you want them to provide buddy aid and possibly get the weapons. Otherwise, have the desired unit Slow into the action spot...following the same path that the engineers took. (I'm not sure that matters. But I'm not sure it doesn't.) If no engineers, then toss a demo charge in there. You may lose the weapons, though. If nothing else, find some volunteers.

Ahh. I'm very familiar with this battle. Very. I'm watching, with popcorn near at hand. Good luck!

Suppression is key, IRL and in-game. Find a suspected enemy position and nail it. Move a FRACTION of your units forward while the majority are in overwatch. Once you suppress a position, keep some firepower on it, actively shooting. Once a position is suppressed, it takes less firepower to keep it suppressed. If you see a "?", nail it. Russian APC/IFV have great firepower...but little endurance. They don't carry a lot of ammo. Use their cannon to nail known targets or sparingly to suppress. Most of their suppression should be with their machineguns (Target Light). Suppression is different than trying to win the firefight.

Yeah, "urgent" means one thing to a bureaucrat and another thing to men who are getting shot at. In this case, there are no bullets/shells flying at Abrams right now. (You get my drift...) There's an article floating around which discusses the Trophy on Abrams testing. It's not a panacea. There are some legitimate developmental issues which need to be resolved. I think Trophy will be a good addition to the defensive suite of the Abrams, but it is only a stopgap solution. It has some significant limitations. Thinking back to WWII, it's amazing what could be designed and produced compared to today. Of course, today's equipment is far beyond yesterday's. But still...

Perhaps you haven't seen some of the maps? There are some which are utilitarian and others which are works of art. The LOS should never be restricted to 100-200 meters throughout ANY map. Some areas, sure. But "rarely" more than 100-200m? That's very odd. Now, as far as "suggest any terrain", that's not the map's job. That's your job, commander. Start with getting the camera down low. Go to the place you want to target. Look back towards your side. See that obvious piece of dominant terrain? Good. Avoid it, or your men will die. C'mon. It's obvious. See that sliver of a hill just peeking past the woods? Ahhh...that may work. Or the woods coming off the shoulder of the hill on the left. Just avoid the damn hilltops or your men will die. After you've used the "look back" method, then stick a waypoint near the location you want to use. Draw the LOS (by using the target line). Does it work with a bright blue? Good. Part of the game is learning what terrain is good and what is bad. ^^^ I do not use these mods, but, if you'd like a better sense of the terrain, they do a fantastic job of showing the small undulations which are critical to gaining LOS. Maps: each one is handcrafted in the editor. The ones that came in the game are made with the same tools included in YOUR game. Open the editor, pick a scenario, save it with another name (so whatever you do does not affect the original file), and have fun with the map. See what you can come up with. Make it the way you want it. FWIW, I've found some of the maps to be incredibly good. There's been a trend towards using Google Earth and trying to recreate battlefields exactly as they exist. The terrain which is produced using this method is amazingly accurate. A lot of the WWII maps in CMBN/CMFB/CMFI/CMRT are done this way, using period maps, Google Earth contours, aerial photos from the time, etc. The same is true of CMBS. If you're in a map with restricted LOS in CMBS, then it's probably because that's what it's like. BTW, what map is it which has that LOS restriction? I'm not trying to bludgeon your criticism down. I'm just puzzled and would like to sort out why I don't see what you're seeing. (As far as limited map LOS.) (Sorry for the lengthy response, but I've got a new keyboard and I like using it. )

Yeah? Well, I print out a contour map THEN I feed it into a scanner/translator demogrifier device and take the output and hand-carry it, on a velvet combat pillow, to a 3D printer where I then create a scale diorama of the battlefield! So there. Thbbbt