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She never gets credit. She is grateful just to be in my presence and working, unpaid, as an intern. Back up that ladder!

OpenGL is used. It is an OPEN standard, so it is free. It SHOULD be supported by all gpu manufacturers, and is, to one degree or another. As of AMD's 15.3 driver (just released) it seems that Nvidia's drivers are still better for rendering OpenGL calls in an appropriate manner. (Meaning, some AMD drivers result in graphic corruption. Plenty of threads on that. Eartly 14 series AMD drivers still work. (I think. At least, they do on my AMD machine.)) DX has a licensing fee for each use. I think it's on the order of $50,000. Counting games and modules, starting with CMSF, I come up with financial burden of about $400,000, thus far. (My fee may be WAY off. I read that number years ago.) I don't know what BFC's profit margin is, but I'm willing to bet 400k would wipe out a good portion of it. There is a rumor/push/development of OpenGLNext, which takes some of AMD's Mantle api and utilizes it's better architecture. (DX12 incorporates a lot of the design elements of Mantle, leading to the rumor that AMD produced it, and pushed it, to force DX12 to incorporate it.) I have no idea what BFC is planning in the future. Ken

A digression, but I must share... My grandmother (bless her departed soul), was visiting my mother's house. My grandmother was in her mid-90's at the time, sitting on the couch, and my mother was busy in the kitchen. The old golden retriever nudged up to my grandmother, who began to pet the dog. My grandmother found an engorged tick on the dog's back, between the shoulder blades. Being a worldly woman who worked hard her whole life, she said nothing, but gamely began to dig the tick out. It was a tough tick, and held out for a bit. Finally, my grandmother freed it. She placed the bloody thing upon a napkin and, bringing it to my mother, asked if the garbage was okay, or did my mother prefer it be thrown outside? My mother looked at the bloody thing in the napkin that my grandmother was presenting to her. It was not a tick. It was a wart. THAT'S a good dog.

I am...embarrassed. My intern distracted me (that ladder again), and I was trying NOT to spend my time looking down at my phone and typing with my thumbs. I'll reprimand her in an appropriate manner. Or inappropriate, as may be. Back OT: Don't sweat mortars or on-call support until later. Focus on moving men, breaking squads down as needed, and fire and movement. FundAmentals.

^^^ Thanks for taking the time and effort to post those reports. Lowering hackles...now. A lot of non-military folks really don't understand how much work can be done by a motivated individual. The threat of death or dismemberment can really motivate. Back to the game... The only way to simulate this would be the map-maker creating special holes (ditch-lock) and putting vegetation and walls/bocage around them. Plus, give the defender a surfeit of foxholes/entrenchments and TRP's. Create fake strongpoints which force the attacker to expend time, energy, and firepower on them. As the Germans did, always keep a reserve to attack a flank. Create gaps in certain bocage, both for movement and keyhole firepower. Low bocage mixed with high bocage in the same feature. Edited to add: the purpose of the extra strongpoints (by terrain manipulation by the designer) and excess entrenchments, are to confuse the enemy as to the location of the real defenses. If EVERY corner could be the one, he can't ignore any of them. /Edit. Not every bocage field was a fortress. Certain key fields were. Design them as the defensive key, and have counterattack reserves positioned to strike the fields which approach that key field. That, at least, was the desired doctrine for German defense in the bocage. They didn't always have the time to do so, especially after Cobra got under way, nor were they always in the correct position. However, professional soldiers bet their lives on their ability to read terrain and place defenses in the right position. A lot of times, the initial German defenses got it right. Ken

Lt. Bull, Several points to your reply, which I've highlighted. "Probably never even existed": Since I wasn't there, I can only rely upon the after action reports of those who were, on both sides. The type of loophole I described DID exist and were highly feared/prized, based on which side of the muzzle you were on. You probably want me cite the reports. Sorry, I'm not going to take the time to dig through my references for you. "It would be easy": Really? Where or how did I intimate the level of exertion for this? You're putting words in my mouth. That's disingenuous (to be polite about it). "A typical soldier": Again, you're not reading what I wrote. This is not a good reflection upon you. Where did I say that these were created by "a typical soldier", as if every man made his own? "One foot in diameter through 6 to 10 feet of rocks and roots": That's your assumption. The loopholes I've read of did not even hint that it was a tunnel dug all the way through. They seem to have been part of a "bubble" created in the bocage, with the last foot being used to create the loophole. "I would pay you to demonstrate this yourself": I'll take you up on that. I want first class travel accomodations, similar hotels, and I will create these fortifications. How much will you pay? Seriously. Now, to give you a chance to pull your head out of your ass, try not to impose your preconceptions on what others have written. A platoon of soldiers, with pioneer tools (you know, things like picks, mattocks, and pry bars) given a zone to fortify for several days, if not weeks, could easily create such a fortification in two corners of a bocage field. Is that what you were thinking about (because it is what I was, based on reading the histories), or did you think this was a hurried defense work? Don't think about one man with a folding entrenching tool. Think of a unit of men and what they can do with some time, some tools, and the motivation to live. Scalloping some handholds on the backside of the bocage, and leveling off the top so your head isn't silhouetted, is trivial. It is ridiculous, and insulting, to create a strawman argument and try to make it seem as if I was saying that every man could create a personal bocage bunker with a folding shovel if he were given a brief reprieve from fighting. Do some more research. They existed.

Or, having burrowed into the backside of the bocage, a simple hole (rifle loop) could be extended into the face of the bocage. This allows protection from artillery AND the ability to put fire upon the field. Alternatively, cutting some footholds into the rear of the bocage would allow it to be used as a sort of parapet. Hide behind it, in whatever manner of foxhole you've created, and pop up as needed.

The game has a very steep learning curve. Once you get past that, it is very intuitive. The best tactical approach to use would be to try to be as realistic as possible. If you wouldn't risk crossing an open field in real life, don't order your pixeltruppen to do so. (Unless they beg you to allow them to prove their bravery. Then a simple nod of assent should suffice.) Find one SMALL battle (demo is fine, or the first "Training" battle in the CMBN game), and play it REPEATEDLY. Focus on fundementals; unit orders, coordination, stacked orders, etc. Good luck!

The ubiquitous czech T38 chassis with, what, a 50L60 gun? Fantasy, and at best a replacement for a recon tank. Kind of a souped up T-70. Nice slope, but I think the Germans were better served with the Hetzer. Of course, CM tries to stay away from non-produced objects.

I would like to see better internal subsystems modeling. Panzer Elite did a good job with that, if I'm remembering it correctly. Subsystems located as discrete boxes with damage tolerance/resistance. Also, some roof-mounted items could be damaged/torn away in a better manner. Remember, we're talking a lot energy in small spaces with these things. All sorts of oddities will occur when there are penetrations.

There simply is no other game out there that models the penetration characteristics and protection levels the way CM does. HEAT is different than APFSDS. ERA is different then RHAe which is different than composite armor. All is modeled.

Wiggum, Outstanding tutorial. I have not yet tried it, but I will. Thanks for putting this out there. Ken

My avatar was whisked away by a Valkyrie-like nurse...buxom, blonde, and concerned. Valhalla is not so bad.

It is easier to build a bunker proof against overhead fire than direct fire. 75mm pack fired indirect is as weak as you can get. I would hope any bunker is proof against that.

1. That may be true...as a minimum qualification requirement. Meaning, you don't get the tank badge if you can't do that. Unit commanders may certainly have expected better. 2. Turkey shoot: Sure, that's how all those zombie movies start. They're individually so easy to pick off. But more JUST KEEP COMING. (Not saying Soviet doctrine was equivalent to a zombie shuffle!) Most training ranges/test ranges have "test gouge" released. Meaning, everyone going through knows where the targets are and how far away they are. Newer ranges are designed to remove that type of foreknowledge via random popup targets which can be at many different locations.

LOL, and with that statement, the interest in this thread evaporates...

No, just some spare time and some curiosity. Yes, I did those tests. Yes, it took several iteration before I got the test to run the way I wanted. Yes, I've done tests just as mind-numbing for other facets of these games, but this one still sticks out. This is what made me have the outlook I have about my men's lives. So, before you say beta's don't test stuff well enough, do the test I just posted.

LOL. I ran some tests, years ago. I took about a 100 tanks, dismounted their crews. Then, I ran them through sniper alley. Next, I sorted the surviving crew based on which crewmember(s) had been removed. I then remounted the crews. (Just for grins, I really, really, really want anyone to dismount 100 crews, run them around, and then try to figure out who goes where. No, there is no "tank 7/crew 7" logic.) This gave me 100 tanks with various crew positions empty. Most had lost 1. Some had lost 2. A few, 3. Then I put the tanks through their paces. Then I repeated the test a couple dozen times starting with a new batch of 100 tanks each time. The game did a very nice job, IMO, of prioritizing positions. Especially if you imagine the crew is an organic group, not robots. Some tweaking may be nice in certain configurations, but I shudder at the thought of replicating that test... Ken

Getting hit by APS may not produce a full explosion.

Those pix with the tarps: very reminiscent of the Nashorn/Hornisse profile.

Another item: It is spurious to compare spotting ability when the units are looking at different targets. The comparison just shows how long a BMP-2 takes to see a Stryker. That's an apple. The other one is how long it takes a Stryker to see a BMP-2. That's an orange. Stagler, if you want to have an apples to apples comparison, have EACH of the BMP-2 and Stryker spot the same unit (which doesn't matter what it is). For example, set a T-90 at the end of your test zone. Put a Stryker at the other. Time it. Now, replace the Stryker with a BMP-2 and have IT spot the T-90. See? Now you have apples to apples. As VaB stated with his data, a LARGE set is needed. Usually about 100-200 are "accepted", depending on precisely what is being looked at. Having a duel, where the opposing units shoot at each other, doesn't test spotting. It tests combat ability against one another. Tight covered arcs are needed. Units need to be at a high morale level so they will obey your covered arc. Good luck.

Umm, it has4 barrels. Two per side. One barrel per side has a velocity sensor for feedback to the fcs. There is a ring for that, and one is set back, no doubt to ease feeding and extraction issues. Why is there a question about it only having 2 barrels?

Lasers. Capacitor discharge solid state lasers.

I have absolutely no idea why you'd postulate that bold part. Implying falsehoods creates a false impression. Do you really think that field of view, magnification, ancillary duties, and other factors are not baked in with as much accurate information as possible?

Now, I want to test this! A bunch of mortars at close range (high, easily tracked ballistics) firing towards a battalion of Tunguskas. Should be interesting...