James Crowley

Excellent news... and thanks Chris.

I'm sure there are a great many folk awaiting not only the RT patch but also the patch(es) for Ver 3.00 BN and FI issues. I'm equally certain that BFC are not just twiddling their thumbs, hoping to annoy the life out of everybody. They have a lot on their plates at the moment, if they are intent on trying to produce all the items that Steve mentioned some time ago - and before the end of the year. Patches, packs and CMBS to mention but a few. Having said that, issuing the occasional short statement as to their current state of play wouldn't go amiss, needn't take up very much of their time and, I'm sure, would be greatly appreciated by all and sundry.

Whilst I think they look very nice, I have to agree. Entrance holes, for lack of a better description, tend to be fairly clean, more often than not.

I've had a look at the map in the editor and, on the face of it, it looks to be a fairly simple fix. By adjusting the elevation of about seven or eight tiles, adjacent to the road in and around the bridges, to the same elevation of the road tiles, it looks a whole lot better . I gave standard MOVE orders to the two Stugs, down the centre of the road. It all starts off OK...but notice the Stug heavily clipping the bridge arch : ....and up she goes! The second one, following the same path does exactly the same and ends up superimposed on the first Stug.....super clipping! So in the next attempt I made sure that the movement path was directly between the columns of the arch and not down the centre of the road and... hey presto... they both get through normally: So, it seems that map makers must be very careful when designing road/ bridge combinations and that players must exercise extreme caution when traversing such areas. Not an ideal set of circumstances and one that leads to more micro-management than is desirable.

And this, in " The Sheriff of Oosterbeek" Possible spoilers for those who have yet to play it The previous Stug went under the bridges w/o a problem. This one starts out: Goes under the first one OK: Starts to negotiate the second: Under she goes: Oops! A flying Stug. My oppo had this happen in a recent H2H; he was not amused. My second Stug did the same thing, as did the truck towing the Sig33. I thought this had been fixed previously Ver 3.00 seems to have re-introduced a lot of bugs.

Just a couple of little points that may have been brought up previously but remain uncorrected. In the list of ranks, Private soldiers had no badge. The single stripe was for a Lance Corporal only. The rank of Warrant Officer 3rd class was phased-out in 1941 and shouldn't be in any 1944 OOB.

These are the positions prior to given orders. The squad was ordered to move directly forward, on quick, to where the HQ is and the HQ was ordered to move directly forward to the next bocage. Both the squad and the HQ ignore the gaps and take routes to the right and around the bocage the long way. I have save game files, if required.

I am playing a hard fought H2H of 'The Sheriff of Oosterbeek' and I am continually encountering the problem of units refusing to use gaps in bocage. In the most recent example, a unit was positioned behind a section of bocage, right by a gap. There were also gaps to their left and right, in the same section of bocage. I gave an order to move quickly, directly forward, to the next piece of bocage. Rather than move forward, through the gap directly in front of them and in the direction that they were facing, they went in the opposite direction, moved off to the right, exited the field and proceeded to move around a house, in the open, to try and get to their destination. Needless to say, they never made it. This is happening pretty much all of the time and, especially in a game with a high unit count, having to continually micro-manage movement through gaps is a thankless chore. Not to mention the delay incurred in having to create multiple way points. I have also encountered units failing to use the back/front doors of houses to go through them, instead going around the house on the outside. I have had a lot of unnecessary casualties as a result of this bug which, it appears, has returned with Ver. 3.00, having been eliminated previously.

So, those who pre-ordered all the individual base game, modules and upgrade elements can't get the new installers? That hardly seems fair.

My take on it is that low bocage (the permeable low bocage of RT) when placed on a high bank, becomes high bocage. Undoubtedly there were areas of high bocage that were more or less impassable but there were many areas that could be scaled, albeit with difficulty and associated risk as I hope some of the screenshots demonstrated. It was mainly the danger of exposing weak belly armour to the enemy that, wisely, prevented most tanks from attempting the crossing. Which is where Cullin came in. However, the British Churchill was more than capable of crossing high bocage and did so on various occasions and in some quantity. The way I constructed that test section of bocage was to have every 'ground' tile either light or heavy forest. The heavy forest tile prevents any vehicles from crossing and represents those parts that were genuinely impassable to tanks. The other areas can be crossed. Infantry were found, on brief testing, to take quite a while to cross over and IMHO that is a more realistic interpretation than a blanket 'no crossing' that currently exists. Again, in reality, it was less that infantry couldn't get through but that it was bloody dangerous to do so. As for LoS I was quite surprised to find that they could see over it at all and I'm not sure why this was limited to around 28 m. I will test this aspect some more. I agree, that if nothing else, low bocage should also be permeable in CMBN and, if it is integral to the 3.00 engine, it will be in the upcoming upgrade. Gifted scenario authors can then, if they wish, construct 'real' bocage rather than using the stock 'no way through' tall bocage if only because it looks much better IMO.

I haven't really done any great amount of testing in regards to the vehicles that can get over but Half Tracks definitely can and probably would need to be restricted. In fact anything with wheels would need to be prohibited in the same way as they are from crossing walls. Infantry seem to cross quite slowly and on one off the screenshots previously, they set off at the beginning of a turn with a 'fast' command and were still getting through it after 20 seconds. They would certainly be very vulnerable to fire. I only tested from the German infantry perspective but they had LoS out to about 28m the other side of the bocage. I don't know if something positioned at that distance would have LoS to them or not. I guess I never fully accepted the 'nothing gets through bocage' notion in CMBN. It should be slow and difficult for sure, impossible in places but definitely doable for both tanks and infantry. The CMBN workaround, in having 'gaps' in the bocage, beyond those created by gates, is not aesthetically pleasing either. I think this looks and acts like the bocage I have read about and seen in France (very little left of it) but it remains to be seen if permeable low bocage will make it into the 3.00 upgrade for CMBN If I get the time I may run some more tests on different vehicles and squads at different speeds and angles of approach. On one occasion a tank, having failed to cross at a 'heavy forest' section, tried to cross obliquely and bogged, then became immobilised which was quite a cool occurrence.

You're welcome. Here's the belly shot I couldn't locate previously.... and the resultant hole.....

Here are some screens: A general view from one side. Over they go... One through the turret roof... Infantry lined up ready to go; they have a limited field of view from this position... Even with a fast command, they are still not over and functional after 20 seconds...very vulnerable to fire. Just a random selection but hopefully they convey the point. I couldn't find the one that got holed in the belly; I will try to re-create it. The only downside - so far - is that HTs can get over as well; not sure if that would have been possible in reality.

I'll try and get some screens up tomorrow. Have builders in at the moment and it is all a bit muddled.

The low bocage in RT is, for those who perhaps had not realised, is permeable to both tanks and infantry, unlike in CMBN where it is not. Given that, I have been experimenting in the editor by 'creating' Normandy -style bocage. That is I have raised the ground up by two levels relative to the surroundings, used ditch-lock and put the low bocage along the top. To that, I have added patches of 'heavy forest' ground to make parts of it impassable to tanks and added a mix of trees and bushes. Even doing this quite quickly the effect is such that the finished article resembles real bocage far better than the 'tall' bocage graphic in CMBN, IMHO. More importantly it means that both infantry and tanks can cross it in a realistic manner. Infantry file over quite slowly, even with a 'fast' command and become very vulnerable to fire whilst doing so. Tanks struggle; sometimes more than others. But they rear up and then drop down the other side very convincingly and are also very vulnerable. I've seen several hit, very realistically, on turret tops, hull tops , through an open hatch and, for me best of all, right through the belly plate which was recorded as such and displayed the correctly placed decal. The bocage in Normandy was hell to manoeuvre and fight in but it was not uniformly impervious to infantry or even tanks as it currently is in CMBN. If the new permeable low- bocage feature is transferred to CMBN via the 3.00 upgrade, it should be possible to create some very realistic bocage and related effects. Here's hoping.

Another element to this is the superfast replacement of a dead or badly injured driver. I have seen it happen perhaps only a handful of times, when the crew hasn't bailed. It happened recently in a H2H when my oppo declared that the side hull penetrating hit on his JS-2 led to the driver being KO'ed and replaced. This happened within the space of a turn; something which I would have thought impossible, particularly given the driver's location, in almost any tank.

I've seen this happen a few times recently and have wondered the same. The most recent case was in a H2H when a near-miss hit a tree and the targeted HT Stummel became 'destroyed'. There was no recorded system damage and none of the crew were injured. Even if panicked and the crew jumped out this should only be 'dismounted' vehicle. Seems rather strange.

To be fair, I was referring to the ability of infantry to regularly immobilise or KO tanks from a distance greater than 10 metres as per my post no. 9 above and should have expressed that more clearly. And I would say that, yes, that is the norm for me in the games that I have played. I cannot recall a situation where a tank or SP has got within the 10 30 m distance from infantry and not been immobilised or KO'ed by 'grenades' For this type of abstraction to work in a realistic and believable manner, IMO, the infantry group should have to be within 8-10 metres, an action spot, of the target tank. Anything further strains the boundaries of my credulity, at least.

An acceptable abstraction would be that they were either next to or extremely close to the tank and that there was a small chance of them doing that. Throwing from that distance is not an acceptable abstraction because it completely breaks the WYSIWYG that, for the most part, is what the CM engine is about. In your interpretation, they abstractly jumped up from a prone position, ran thirty metres, planted a mine or whatever, then ran back to where they started. All the while immune to all the individually tracked bullets, shells and shrapnel that are integral to the engine. If this was a exceptional, once in the blue moon occurrence it might, just might, pass muster. But it is not. It is a regular, almost IME the norm, when tanks are attacked by infantry and it just does not look or feel right.

Just had a buttoned Mark IV KO'ed, travelling at Fast speed, by a Russian team throwing two frag grenades from 30 metres. Seems to me an event that is highly unlikely in RL.

I would venture to suggest overly generous; to the point of turning almost every good order infantry unit into a tank killer/immobiliser. The notion that every section/team had improvised AT weapons is, IMO, a gross exaggeration. I have no problem with the abstraction of improvised AT weapons sometimes being used on tanks to which the infantry is adjacent but, too often, I am seeing tanks being KO'ed and immobilised by a frag grenade or two being thrown from 10 to 30 metres away. In those instances, and unless the grenade is a Soviet AT grenade, I would suggest that the thrown grenades are indeed only grenades and, as such, would have almost zero chance of damaging a tank. For the grenades to abstractly represent improvised methods, the attack should have to be at extremely close quarters, say within a few metres, to represent the placing of the IED on the engine deck or into the track area. Successfully throwing from a distance should be almost impossible as the likelihood is that the device would simply bounce off and explode harmlessly nearby. It certainly would nice to have those Soviet AT grenades handled as a separate inventory item. At the moment, any Soviet squad listed with grenades has the potential to have some of them actually be AT grenades and, thus , the AT threat value of those squads is exaggerated.

Got a surprising and previously unseen AT penetration result. A Panther fired at a JS-2 at about 100m in woods. The round hit the bottom of the turret side and got a " Ricochet into: forward top hull. Penetration" result. And sure enough there was the ricochet mark on the bottom lip of the turret side, with the hit decal directly below it, in the upper hull. Neat!

Great site which I use all the time. Solving the login issue would be useful but certainly not the end of the world if it can't be done. Bigger preview picture/ multiple pictures would be nice as would search by category. But even if nothing changes I will still be a regular user.

A little more added to the fighting fund. Keep up the great work GAJ!

Or you could go for realism option - let the game make the picks. Will you get some strange combinations? Certainly. Will the forces always be balanced? Certainly not. But then neither side, at the battalion level down, on the Eastern front (or any other for that matter) had the option of a shopping list nor some peculiar etiquette as to the relative composition of each others forces. Go on, give it a try; you may be pleasantly surprised