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Hah! Baneman and I have been in communication. He is about to change which build we're using (as happens during beta testing): my men have told me that they are REALLY hoping that changing versions will lead to a forced game end. I don't know why they're like that... Pix will be forthcoming from the last two turns. Be forewarned! They won't be easy to take for those who are faint of heart! Luckily, I don't suffer from that.

Some turns have been completed. Some pictures have been taken. An update in a bit...

Memories... One of my buddies ate salad as part of his meal in Adana. Yeah, Montezuma had nothing on Ataturk. Back OT: I hadn't given any thought to Turkey being involved, but reading this makes me agree that it would be really interesting to include in a future expansion. I mean...REALLY cool.

Oh...too bad. That was really creative thinking, though. Good attempt. I wish it had worked. Thanks, Ken

Okay, the information being gleaned here is great. Really. So...how much DOES a portable leeb meter cost?

Dropping trees: Saturday, I had my son cut down his first tree (Edited to add: I just paced it out. 1 yard pace...34 paces Not shabby for a first tree.). It didn't fall where he wanted it. It made a mess. Engineers demo'ing trees do not necessarily make it easier to move. Dropped trees are great movement obstacles (abatis). Foliage/branches on the ground are good concealment. The effect would be similar to Heavy Underbrush in the game. As well, some trees in woods don't fall: they get hung up on other trees. It's heavily wooded where I live. If you don't think about the crown and how the tree you're cutting will fall, it won't. Those aren't fun...

If so, then based on the losses I've suffered, I should have my own friggin' town filled with checkerboard-floored houses! I'll consider them a gift from my men.

I agree, trees DO defoliate. However, the OP is right: they last too long. I just had a battle where my Jagdpanther put about a dozen rounds into a tree while trying to shoot a Sherman. Sure, the tree eventually lost its leaves. (BTW, one LOD would show leaves, the closer LOD showed no leaves...issue?) I'd think one or two rounds of high velocity 88 would take out most trees. A dozen certainly should have. The tree still stood...

Yeah, bloody is as bloody does. Or somesuch. The intent was to have this battle wrapped up two weeks ago. Top HQ (and real life) demanded it, thus. My ops tempo was based on that short timeline. As such, I decided to do away with such niceties as "recon", "planning", "force allocation", and other things that players like Bil Hardenberger use. Bah. "Attack", I said to my men, and attack they have. It's cute how they don't want to disappoint me.

Turn 35:00 to 34:00 Flaming to victory! Alright, you've already seen the pix I posted with the flamethrower. That was the highlight of the turn. However, there was still a LOT going on, albeit with fewer and fewer men. Overview: You can see that The Dell is the focus of Baneman's attack. That, and the village. My remaining forces in the village are, err, not as robust as those I initially sent. I don't know if I can even cross the street. The Dell is the fight for now... In the middle, the village, here's a little recap: and, because it was fun (and the first successful use of a flamethrower I achieved), a repeat: That rubbed out the red "x". Over on the left... My rifle team (4 men with a bazooka) is very tired. If Baneman pulls his recce vehicle back any more, they won't get a shot. I've got them on a little lip, looking down. I may get a lucky bazooka shot next turn. Baneman is obviously away of them. I imagine he's got a floating "?" marker moving around. Earlier, he had some infantry over there. I'll see what happens. Meantime, I caught an interesting spot: This guy was moving away from the Big Field zone, around the back of the village. He's either going to reinforce the Dell (unlikely) or try to bring some firepower to the village fight. If he gets LOS to my little set of houses, my men will be hosed. Well, hosed worse. Or again. Or something bad, anyway. Ken

Great pix of the real life seating position. THAT is the kind of stuff which can get a change.

I'll explain that picture, and later, post some more. You'll have noticed that I've been steadily trying to move that flamethrower to a useful position. Baneman has been using those houses to stop my men. And by "stop", I mean "kill". MP44s in urban combat are very bad. Or good. Depends on which way the muzzle is facing. The first flamethrower burst was a little off target. It went to the outside of the target building. Still, there were screams. Unfortunately, for me, that prompted Baneman's men to start running out the back door. The second burst, pictured above, was right on target. There was about 15 seconds between bursts. There were many screams. There would have been more, had that first shot landed true. As for the rest? Well, Bil may have understated the case when used the term "debacle". More pics later today.

It is nigh upon the morrow... A pic or two. More upon the next morrow.

Yeah. Knees should be sticking up, not straight out.

That wouldn't make sense to add splinter protection from ricochets. I would think on the top, outside, was how it was described.

Tomorrow night, I will be able to show you how I have allowed more of my mento honor themselves with glorious deaths. Chestnuts from the fire and all that....

But...but...but...if it gets released, then ANYONE can play!?!?!

This is a very good precis. BFC has stated, many times, why they use OpenGL. Nvidia and AMD say they support OpenGL. They lie. Their cards do run OpenGL, but not as well as they should/could. Having said that, BFC's OpenGL runs better on Nvidia than on AMD. Otherwise, it seems that CM is most sensitive to cpu speed. As others have mentioned, dropping the quality of the models in-game makes a significant improvement in fps/smoothness with minimal impact on appearance.

Heirloom_Tomato: Nice job filling in the behavior patterns with your testing. Inability to broad suppressive fire: 4 halftracks, each with 4 Target Brief commands per turn, means 16 separate area targets per minute if that's what the player wants to do. (If you assume a platoon of halftracks...) Nice dig on the 251 mods and why they'd do them.

Another issue.... You have a spotter on the hill. He can see what he can see. Great. You, The OMNISCIENT Player (TOP), are also controlling a platoon in contact over in the woods. In real life, the spotter couldn't see the platoon. You can. Calling down unspotted arty to assist the rifle platoon would be ahistorical. (The rifle platoon can call down arty, if in-comms, etc.) Disallowing map-based arty missions (rather than in-LOS), is done to prevent TOP from leveraging assets in an ahistorical manner. In CMBS, the modern UAVs allow spotting/arty of locations beyond the spotter's LOS. No blind missions allowed. Unless there are TRPs. Then there is. That simulates the time to set up and register known coordinates. Spotters CAN call arty to non-LOS TRP locations. They can be very powerful.

Oh, I want all those things, too!!! I am, sadly, traveling. My little laptop is barely able to type on a forum, let alone be honored enough to run a turn filled with my men's glorious deaths. I would not dishonor them with pixelated, low-res, screenies. No, they would not die so willingly in that case, would they? I've got to wait until I get to the sacred altar of my gaming rig before I watch their blood sacrifice. If I must wait...so must you! Besides, Baneman's AAR hasn't caught up to my last turn, has he?

You should be able to call down fire behind bocage, if you can see the bocage. That's true with either off-map artillery or on-map. The ability to call in fire past LOS is only a few meters, but it's there for just the example you cite. Do you have a particular example where it isn't working? (A savegame would be best.) Ken

Disaster?? Do you know how many pixeltruppen can thank me for their place in Valhalla? What a wonderful time for them to be under my command! In fact, I found some in a heavily wooded area. They greeted me with the greatest form of endearment, honors, and encomium. Obviously feeling the lack of proper equipment, since they had no trumpets, they improvised on the spot: they put their thumbs towards their mouths, cupped their hands, and blew me an honorary fanfare! What men! I immediately realized that they were asking for the chance for glory, so I ordered them into the graveyard! I pulled my sidearm so I could join them, but they ran so eagerly, I lost them in the smoke. Ach.

There is a turn!!! It it sits, wrapped like an unopened Christmas gift, in my dropbox folder. I shall look at it from afar and try to imagine what it may hold... Baneman's AAR is a few turns behind mine (as I understand it). Rather than racing forward like wildfire, I shall dampen my fervor and open the turn...later.

Funny...that's what a lot of my pixeltruppen say to me, too.