Vanir Ausf B

The Abrams side turret armor has been a known bug for a long time. I don't know if the issue with hit decals showing on the tracks counting as hits on the armor is a bug or not but it definitely is not unique to the Abrams. That happens with probably every tank in every Combat Mission game. I also don't know what sources BFC used for the Abrams armor protection but the game does not exactly match Steel Beasts. However, most areas on the tank are not vastly different than Steel Beast either, from what testing I have done. Steel Beasts lists most areas of the Abrams front armor protection at 900-1000mm RHAe vs KE. Most speculation on 3BM-60 Svinets-2 penetration puts it around 700-750mm RHAe, therefore I need to know what basis you have for expecting penetrations on these areas. US and Russian vehicle spotting is likely to get a second look whenever BFC does the next Black Sea module and that is all I can say about it.

Test: 10 US FOs spotting 10 PaK40 at 1500 meters. Ground conditions Damp to prevent dust from interfering with spotting. I first move the Pak40s one action spot to get rid of the camo bonus they get before firing or moving. I then run 15 turns without any shooting. None of the Pak40s are spotted. I then give the Pak40s area fire orders. After one turn of firing 1 Pak40 is spotted, 4 are spotted after two turns and 7 spotted after three turns. I only ran this one time so actual spotting times should be taken with a grain of salt but the gist of it is that the shooting is what allowed the AT guns to be spotted. But what about sound? I ran the test again but with a ridge between the US observers and the AT guns that blocks LOS. After 4 turns of shooting the US observers have zero sound contacts. And yes I am something special

Muzzle flash is absolutely factored in. The contention that difficulty in seeing muzzle flash should not scale with distance is unsupported and IMO completely wrong. Thread is ridiculous. In reality the ease with which muzzle flash could be seen varied between nations. The Germans used "flashless" powder that made their guns quite hard to spot when firing. This is not modeled in CM and is a possible area for improvement.

Agreed. I would do the same thing Baneman has. Dismounted infantry take loses in ones and twos, mounted infantry are lost in squad-sized chunks.

The range for that shot was around 400-500 meters, at which the first shot hit % should be about 70%.

Yes, but the corollary to that is Baneman only needs to capture one section of any phase line to deny it to Bil

This is the west front, so it would have to be Final Panzer Leader.

Also, historically US and British forces were significantly more armor-heavy on average than the Wehrmacht, although Bil's force structure is admittedly towards the extreme end.

Occupy. Single, but broken into physically separated parts.

^^^ How soon everyone forgets the last AAR which was a 3rd party made scenario in which the whole discussion revolved around the company of Abrams tanks the US player got as reinforcements. Balance is about more than just OOBs and many scenarios are deliberately unbalanced for historical reasons.

The long arm of the Wehrmact.

The Germans didn't use the term blitzkrieg for much of anything during the war. It was used primarily by people outside Germany.

Max. When it comes to tanks there is no need for a minimum requirement

I think Bil prefers to pick his own I play QBs with what I call the Combined Arms house rule that limits armor to a percentage of your total points, typically 30 or 33 percent, but a understand the appeal of unlimited experimentation to see what works.

They did do that in the last AAR for Black Sea. I know Bil was not happy about the OOBs in that battle.

I just did a quick gunnery range test. In all cases the Sturm-S fired a missile at the Abrams and then reversed away. It's not clear why it is doing neither of those things in the videos.

Saved game file needed.

And this is not the first time I failed to see it before it got removed. I need to be faster!

He could have got the engine and transmission for one additional Panther . Jagdtigers cost almost exactly the same at King Tigers.

I'm pretty sure the AI is not "dust aware" but it doesn't matter because in CMx2 you have to spot the unit making the dust to see the dust.

No

Another possibly complicating factor is that the M18 was parked directly on the intersection of 4 action spots. I don't know if the game allows vehicle crews to be in different action spots but if so that could also explain why some crew had LOS and others did not. I don't think so. They did not in this case.

I got the save file from Weapon. It's actually the same file as seen in the OP but since this is a PBEM the previous file wouldn't do any good without his opponent's password anyways. It's hard to say exactly what happened but it does seem likely that marginal LOS though trees is the approximate cause. Earlier in the same turn the M18 spots the Tiger moving on two occasions and immediately goes into the firing sequence but the Tiger moves out of LOS before the shot is fired, so there does not seem to be anything wrong with the M18. If you set the camera at view level 2 and place it at the front of the turret on both vehicles then zoom in a little you can see how marginal the lines of sight are. Again, hard to say exactly what happened. Maybe the M18 driver had LOS but the gunner did not. My inclination is to file this in the "**** happens in war" category rather than as a bug. LOS from M18 to Tiger LOS From Tiger to M18

Units per square? Do you mean meters per action spot? A rise of 100m per every 8m would be nearly a vertical cliff. A quick check says vehicles are not allowed to plot movement points on slopes that steep.

It's a known issue which I have not been able to get a 100% repeatable example of. However, when all other units have mounted up the last hold out should go on. If it won't then that is a different problem.