Spotless

Another minor use of wire: most wheeled vehicles and some half tracks cannot cross it. It makes an impromptu road block for many units. This enhances its channeling effect too.

In my experience, flag placement has a decent effect on AI behavior as well. While human opponents may or may not use them, small victory flags can show the AI what it is supposed to think is important. My best fights vs. AI were ones where there were several flags and not enough troops to defend each well.

FM Paul Heinrik: the Germans were suffering from the prolonged strategic fight by most fights in CMBO. Tungsten was just too hard to come by. re: Sherman vs. PzIV: you are noticing that the finer-point differences make picking a "best" tank rather tougher than just armor and gun! The key is to exploit the weaknesses of your opponent's armor. If he's using turretless assault guns, those flanking Stuarts and Shermans are gonna be great. If you want to slug it out at range, better hope you have a better crew. Use what advantages you have, and minimize the risk to the weaknesses. In US armor (to me) that means get in to a knife fight and keep using shoot-n-scoot tactics. Even with heavier German armor, keep the fight mobile, and don't get cocky that your armor will protect you. By war's end, the gun factors had nearly outpaced armor factors, and you get the "hammers vs. eggshells" theory. Crew factor seems to be the most decisive factor in my armor experience. 3 green tanks do NOT make up for 1 veteran crew IMO. Now there is a limit to that, and numbers will grind down your forces. Even regular crews that outnumber you by more than 2-1 are bad news. Another strong factor is range to target. If I have a tank that has engaged a certain ridge or other BP, repeat shots to that locale are much more accurate. Remember this factor when you are deciding where to roll out that reinforcement tank. If you are ranged in, find another way 'round, because you will not get steel on target as fast as the tank that just shot up your wingman. I agree that having those expensive Panthers shot up by Stuarts is frustrating, but strive to minimize his opportunities to get around your flanks. Also, since German armor is usually more expensive/rare, an Allied player will occasionally make mistakes by trying to flank that big cat, and fall into inexpensive AT gun or panzerfaust ambushes at the flanks.

re: smoke and lasers: From what I understand, "normal" smoke and such are not a problem. Particulate smoke, or heavy dust, can clutter the laser for accurate ranging. These conditions are rare, however. Some vehicle systems use a "bispectral" smoke which helps spoof visual and IR imaging. It's a last ditch effort not to get a sabot stuck in 'ya.

I think the only downside to the "peek" regards pre-knowledge of forces available. Knowing that the enemy has just lost his last AT asset or AFV is valuable tactical knowledge. As for maps, though, knowing the terrain and playing against an experienced player makes for more exciting play, to be sure. The map import feature allows us to play on "proven ground" and still wonder what might be lurking over the next hill. Despite CM's excellent 3d environment, there are just some things you must see in action to appreciate: where those scattered trees become just think enough for cover, which 8 degree little arc of LOS you can eek between two buildings to sight down a road, etc. Since you don’t have a point-to-point LOS tool, the only way to really hava feel is to have played it a time or two. Just my 2 cents. [ June 24, 2003, 05:36 PM: Message edited by: Spotless ]

And on the flammability issue Franz, fire is a tanker's worst fear. Catastrophic destruction of a vehicle is not as common as one would think, along the lines of how many actual KIA's one sees after a battle compared to the total casualties. Some vehicles we also prone to fires and regarded rather dubiously by their crews.(Early US Shermans for instance) Fire causes all kinds of bad things to go boom in an AFV, yet you can make one combat ineffective much more easily than you can actually blow one up. Bailing out of an AFV that is combat ineffective is a tough choice, but one that the morale and experience of the crew determines. I've seen gun crews do the same when their situation is just flat-out untenable and they know that its them or the gun...so they run for the hills! Collecting damaged, abandoned vehicles in operations is a cool function of CM's logic, but as MikeyD pointed out, in non-operations, one is as good as the other. Just my tupence.

Anyone have any good tips for keeping our poor armor out of the repair yard with thrown tracks? Upon seeing an AFV get bogged, what's the best way to get them out. I have tried: 1. Simply continuing to move - bad idea. Every AFV so far has become immobilized. 2. Changing the movement path - nearly the smae results as before. 3. Reversing - seems to work about 30% of the time. 4. Rotating - this seems to work well, maybe about 60% of the time. My question is one of game mechanics I suppose. What is the "correct' order to issuer once you have a bogged vehicle. (Keeping them from getting there is another story...) Since I can get lucky sometimes and end an action phase without throwing a track, what orders can I issue to potentially save this most valued asset? It could be just sheer luck in this matter, and I should learn my lesson. ( I drove a Tiger across a 10m or so strip of open terain between two roads and threw a track. He was far behind the action and almost a total waste. The Brits did throw about 30+ smoke rounds his way, but no joy on even getting CLOSE to LOS vs the bad guys. How embarrasing.)