Friends,
well done on the new CM. Some initial observations/questions:
1) it is not obvious what defense, if any, is possible against aircraft. In actuality mounted .50 cals were a deterrent- is that a factor in the game? Can planes be defended against, at least passively? Is an infantry unit in a halftrack with HMG any different to a passing fighter than one in a truck? Could not find reference to this in the manual.
2) have continued to have situations in which I command a tank to open up and move, which is interpreted by the game to mean that the crew opens up then move out of the tank.
3) antitank guns are a headache to place and point. It takes several minutes of game time to get them facing in the right direction. Could be related to limbering. Very hard to move them into trees, so they become sitting ducks in the open. In reality few forests are too dense to stash a small AT gun.
4) the visibility of small infantry units to tanks is unrealistic to a degree that alters the quality of the historical simulation. I was noticing that tanks easily spot and kill small units hiding in trees and buildings, seemingly moreso than in previous CM editions. So I gamed several scenarios with german armor advancing through forest paths into towns that were infested with numerous (like 20) sniper and bazooka squads, hiding in dense forest and buildings, with target arcs set to ambush tanks from the side or rear as they passed by. In reality a tanker's nightmare. In the game a turkey shoot- as soon as a bazooka squad 'unhides' in order to fire (or even while still hiding), it is spotted and destroyed by every tank within LOS, even though they are buttoned up by the sniper fire. In the last one I played the Germans (AI) laid down a thick smoke screen to cover their advance- US bazooka teams could not see a thing- which did not prevent the tanks from seeing them and destroying them. Furthermore, as pointed out in other comments, the courageous but dimwitted rifleman accompanying the bazookaman usually starts firing his carbine at the tank being ambushed as soon as the team unhides, needlessly giving away his position. Historically there are numerous examples from WW2 and Korea of tankers having no idea where they were receiving bazooka fire from- its not easy to spot 2 guys under cover from the inside of a tank from that era. This is more than a niggling point since it strongly tilts the balance of power between tanks and infantry to tanks, even in close quarter urban combat and forested environments which historically favored infantry over unaccompanied armor.
5) had an amusing incident in which a tank crew dismounted under fire, rallied, and then I commanded them to re-enter their vehicle, at which point they hid under the tank, from which position I was unable to command them for the rest of the game, even though they were not panicked.
