smbecket

For Phil Culliton and anyone else interested the save file has been put in my public Dropbox folder. Link below. This is courtesy of poesel71 who told me how to do it. Many thanks, poesel71! http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32784866/011112%20Avranches%20AM%20036.bts I hope someone can figure out what the problem might have been. No problems on the next turn although my friend did tell me he also had a number of units that did not move on his turn 036.

For Phil Culliton: I did not respond to your comment re: saved game file. I do have one although due to the large scenario it is 53.719 MB in size. If you have Dropbox or a similar program I would be happy to send it to you. For ASL Veteran: Thank you for the comment on checking for damage to wheels. I had not thought to do that but as a result of your comment I surveyed all of my units and found the statistics interesting. During the turn in question I had a total of 55 vehicles and 14 ground elements moving. Thirty five vehicles had moved through at least one rubbled wall gap, twenty eight had moved through four and appx. nine had moved through five. This force consisted of six tanks, nineteen HTs, three HMCs, three trucks and four jeeps. Two tanks had yellow tracks; I believe they were the ones that made the gaps. Of the nineteen HTs thirteen had light green wheels (good) instead of the dark green (excellent) indicating some degradation. A couple of HTs and jeeps were dismounted and their status could not be determined. The other vehicles had no damage. I need to remember to keep better track of damage as a scenario progresses as it can certainly have an effect on your capability! For Paper Tiger: Thank you very much for telling me/showing me how to add screenshots to a post. Maybe this old dog can learn a new trick. I will take a shot at it at my earliest oppurtunity. Thanks again! LJFHutch: Thanks for the info on the time delay. That is one of the welcome improvements in CM2. The eight HTs you mentioned were not ordered through that particular road cut, just up closer to be ready for a future advance, if it became possible to do so.

I thank one and all for your responses. First, because of some of the comments I believe I should give a little more detail on how my friend and I play the game. Basically, we like larger engagements; a reinforced BN is about right although the last game of CMAK we played had three full BNs of infantry per side plus at least A BNs worth of tanks, TDs/stugs, engineers, etc., etc. The scenario called for two BN sectors to defend and one to attack. Objectives for each side were rolled from a prepared list. A lot of fun but exhausting and we did not reach the end. Also, I build all the maps that we play on so I am fairly familiar with the terrain and feature sets that were provided in the map editor. I did play the DEMO and I do visit this forum frequently. I have learned a lot from all of you and I hope to learn a lot more as time goes on. MickeyD, I understand your, shall we say, sarcasm, and I have no problem with it. But I will argue the point about the level the game was intended for. Yes, I know it is a Company level game but I believe there is at least a small group who enjoy playing with more forces than a CO. Besides, is anyone going to play with just a reinforced CO. on a 16 sq. km. map? I doubt it. And as Chris69 mentioned you can add units by BNs so the game should function with them, IMHO, without a problem. The problem with it is that I do not believe that if I expanded my map from its current largest size of 3x3 km that the map by itself would load, let alone with any units added. It currently takes about 6-8 minutes for the map to load to work on it and I do not have a poor computer (intel core i7 920 w/6 GB of RAM and an AMD 5780 w/1 GB of video RAM). I also understand some of the comments about comparing the game to the CM1 series as I have been irritated by some of these posts myself. However, I did not say the game sucked or that it was riddled with bugs. I was, however, quite irritated and I beg the pardon of anyone I offended. I do stand by my comment that there are a number of MINOR bugs/glitches/design decisions/whatever, that adversely affect game play. These can, over the course of a long game, have a serious affect on the outcome. I will expound on them in a separate post. To get back to my original post an erroneous impression was left after the first comment that I was trying to route 30 plus vehicles through a small opening in a low stone wall. Since my initial group of screenshots did not provide adequate information I have uploaded a new group to Photobucket. Please take a look as I believe what happened to my turn has some importance if it is in fact a bug. From the second group you should be able to see that there were many units moving and a relative few that were going to be moving through the gap in any particular stone wall. Even though many units had long, unimpeded movement paths most only moved a few meters, if at all. On a few I have added a separate picture showing the progress after the turn. I fully understand the need to provide lengthy pauses to keep vehicles apart, especially when turning. They did not bunch up at gaps because they did not move far enough to do so as a couple of the screenshots should clearly show. For the tank/bazooka problem I am not sure myself what the problem is although I find it difficult to believe it is relative spotting. Two AT teams arrived at the top of a highway cut one or two turns before the one in question. There was a PZ IV directly below them (about 40 feet). One of the teams had a light blue clear target line to the bottom. There are no trees or any other impediment to a clear LOS. But they could not see the tank. I gave each team a command: one to circle to the right and the other to the left to end up, hopefully, to the front and rear of the tank. At the beginning of the replay they stood up but did not move. At 25 seconds into the replay the tank began swinging its turret. It lined up on one bazooka team at a time and killed the man holding the bazooka. The teams took no action for self preservation although just moving back a few feet and going prone would have saved them. As an aside this also raises the question of how a buttoned tank with only its vision ports could see these men 40 feet above it. I added three new screenshots to Photobucket. Hopefully my expanded explanation will make the pictures make a little more sense. For C3K: good to know about HTs and rubbled walls although I believe I had only one serious problem on my mad dash. Two HTs merged and it took about 3-4 turns to get them to separate. Your comment on a 45 turn game with the forces we had was spot on. I did it because the last game was set for 120 turns with appx. 1.5 BNs per side. At turn 43 the game crashed with an out of memory problem right after the last reinforcements entered and we could not continue. I shortened the game and the forces and the reinforcement timetable to keep our frustration to a minimum if it happened again. Thanks, Phil, for your comments although I am not worried about criticism. My goal is to make my problems known in case they can uncover any problems with the game or help anyone else. And as far as the comment about me posting the OP with inadequate experience I do believe that playing appx. 110 turns with a BN plus has given me quite a bit of experience. Not that I don't need a lot more. I still make stupid mistakes and probably always will but I am learning.

ASL Veteran, I must respectfully disagree. I made several gaps through low stone walls with tanks and HTs have been passing through with no problems. I know it is difficult to make much out of the pictures that show all the paths on top of each other but I am very careful to put in pauses to insure they follow each other and do not pile up at a narrow gap. That said there are always minor movement problems but that is not the issue here. There were many vehicles with long open paths that only moved a few meters and stopped in the open. In fact the movement glitches have been a problem on a minor scale in all the games my friend and I have played. Vehicles with waypoints down roads that decide to leave the road and move parallel to it, problems crossing bridges even after the 1.01 patch, etc., etc. The tank/zook problem is very straightforward. The tank has been sitting in the same spot for at least 10 turns. It is visible to me from a spotting unit on another hill. When I moved the zooks up there the previous turn I could use the target LOS and see to the bottom of the cut; right down the face of the cut under my teams and all over the area where the tank was sitting. But they could not see it. And yet when they stood up to move left and right (which they did not do - just stood there) the tank turned its turret and killed them.

The title is the main point. I have bought every BFC title and my friend and I played the CM1 series dozens of times. More than any other computer game and I have been playing computer games since the Atari 800. Never played the modern games but bought them anyway. With that said, I have become very disappointed in CMBN. We are almost finished with our third game: appx. 1.25 BNs worth of forces per side on a detailed 2x3 km map. Frankly, it is like death by a thousand cuts. There are just so many minor bugs that wear you down throughout a long game, each one interfering with your tactical plan until your frustration level goes over the top. The final straw for me in the current game was my recently finished turn 36 of 45. I had almost my entire force going full speed (probably 30 or 35 vehicle units) to try to turn my opponents flank and reach several bridges. I sent the turn to my friend and he returned it as usual. When I ran the replay I discovered that a few of my units had moved a few meters but most had not moved at all. When I clicked the button to make my next move all my movement commands were still in place from the previous turn. I checked the save I made just prior to hitting the button for the real time calculations and everything was normal. Just a devastating result when you are trying to reach victory objectives and have very limited turns left to do so. The following site has screenshots of some of the movement paths. In addition, there are four screenshots of another inexplicable (to me) incident in the same turn. Two zook teams on the top of a highway cut above a Panzer IV. When I checked the target line I could see the entire area below the teams position but could not see the tank. Gave them movement orders to circle right and left to come at the tank from back and front. They do not move and the tank swivels its turret and kills both teams. They could not see the tank below them but the tank could see them?? Comments on the above very welcome. http://s1076.photobucket.com/albums/w444/smbeckett/ I love this game but IMHO it is not nearly as good as CM1. I also know that is somewhat unfair as BFC will improve it as time goes on. More than anything it is disappointed expectations. I expected everything that was good in CM1 and lots of great additions. Instead there are some great new features and graphics, etc., but many, many missing features from the original series. I wasn't going to post at all as I am a very poor typist but this game is too important to me! I will make a further series of posts presenting my main complaints and observations. Hopefully there are areas of the game I just do not understand fully and will hope to be corrected by those more in the know. Sorry for the long post. If the password is necessary for the screenshots it is fredderf. The site will only be used for this posting. I also apologize for not having the necessary knowledge to include the screenshots in the post; just old and dumb.

sburke: I have been reading the threads about map size with great trepidation. The friend that I play with and I have always liked large scale battles and during the CM1 period I always made maps as large as the game allowed. In this game, as mentioned, it is a fairly detailed 2x3 km map and we are at turn 15 with no problems as far as game play is concerned. It does take appx. 5 minutes for the game to load. Initially there was about a third of a recon BN and a quarter of an inf Bn plus a tank Plt. on each side. The first reinforcement (of four) just entered with another inf and tank Plt. plus miscellaneous units. When all reinforcements are on-map I would estimate that it would be appx. 1.5 - 2 BNs for each side. I just finished extending the map to 3x3 km. It takes almost 7 minutes to load the 3d map view in the editor. I am unsure what the result will be when units are loaded and we attempt to play a game on that map. I do not believe my machine will be able to handle 4x4 km but I will keep trying to reach that goal. Sometime next year I will build a new computer with the latest processor, video card, etc., to handle the steep requirements.

For sburke: I have a save file but it is almost 45 MB. We are playing on a 2x3 km fairly detailed map. The only way I could provide it is to someone with dropbox.

I am in turn 14 of a PBEM game and I just used two HQ units to call fire missions although they should not be able to communicate with the fire support assets. Case 1: 1st Plt. HQ (one man - the leader, the only survivor of a heavy AC) of the Armored Car (Mixed) Co. of a Panzer Aufkarung BN is alone in a bldg. in a small town. He has no radio. He is veteran. I requested fire support from an off-map 120 mortar section. I completed the request with no problem and confirmed the mission. The delay indicated was 4 minutes. As further info there is a red dot on the UI next to 3rd Co. and a green dot next to 3rd BN. I have no idea how this unit could be considered in contact with anyone! Case 2: 2nd Plt. HQ (three men) of 2nd Co. of a Panzergrenadier BN is in a bldg. in the same small town. They have a radio. They requested fire support from two 81 mm on-map mortars of 3rd Co. of a Pioneer BN (Armored). The mortars are positioned appx. 900 meters away and have no radio. Two fire support requests were completed without a problem for a separate target for each mortar. Again, the delay indicated was 4 minutes. Both units are veteran. Both units have a red dot for their Co. HQ and a green dot for their BN HQ. I have no idea how this Plt. HQ can be communicating with this mortar HQ from a different BN that does not have a radio. Anyone have any idea what is going on and why were several other fire support assets on the fire support UI available to the unit with no radio??

Steve, I am somewhat surprised by your response and this entire discussion. You have always stated that BF strives for realism and yet the present system where a player can highlight every waypoint and then see general targeting info all around from that point is far from realistic! The old "Hull Down" command was a short, specific and realistic order for the tank crew to find a tactically beneficial position. I use the present system because it is there and because a flat two-dimensional monitor can never provide the detailed information that our stereoscopic Mark 1 eyeballs can, but it is very unrealistic. Please bring back the "Hull Down" command and limit the targeting to a units present position. And at the same time allow "targeting" for vehicles such as trucks and HTs without a gunner that presently can not do it at all. This request will probably not be favorably received by many but it would be far more realistic.

Pak40 and MikeyD, thanks for your responses. Pak40, I can not completely agree with your point on the penetrations in terms of "minor penetrations and major penetrations". A tank can be hit without any penetration but still have "internal armor spalling" where armor has broken free from the internal surface of the tank. Then you have the "partial penetration" where the round penetrates the surface of the armor but does not break free into the interior space of the vehicle. I would assume (bad word again) there would be an almost infinite number of different results for a partial penetration from just embedded in the armor with no real consequences to the interior space to partially protruding into the interior space with significant armor spalling. Does anyone know if there is an actual definition for "partial penetration"? And finally you have "penetration" which means, I believe, that the shell has entered the interior crew compartment. If the game defines these three events differently, please correct me. You are absolutely correct that a penetration from the front takes far more of the shells kinetic energy but it is the penetration itself that causes the interior spalling of the tanks own armor. If the shell penetrates into the crew area the subsequent explosion should be devastating to everyone within this very small enclosed space, whether from the front or side. Your point on the side penetration regarding fuel and ammo is excellent, however, and one I had not considered! MikeyD, I understand where you are coming from but I am not suggesting that the tanks explode at the slightest touch. The tanks have far more protection from the front and therefore there are a large number of ricochets and partial penetrations. However, when the shell does penetrate the thick frontal armor it should do realistic damage. My observations certainly do not prove they are not but the number of frontal penetrations that occurred with the tanks surviving the initial one did not seem right. In this instance we have PZ IVs and early Shermans, but even if they were Panthers and Tigers with far better protection, once the shell does penetrate there should be very serious, if not fatal consequences for the crew/vehicle, in my humble opinion. And one question for anyone who might read this and has some knowledge of the shells of the period; what is the explosive force of a 75 mm AT round? Greater or less than an American hand grenade? Thanks again for taking the time to comment.

I sent a PM. Thanks for your hard work!

This post is a follow up to my thread of 07/19 regarding possible problems observed during a 65 turn PBEM game. I wanted to make this a seperate thread because I believe it is a much more important issue. I will state up front that I am in no way a grog on the issue of tank combat or tank vulnerability/survivability but I noticed during the game that tanks seemed able to survive frontal penetrations much more than I believe is realistic. Please note that I said penetrations not hits. Here is my point in a nutshell: a tank is basically a steel box with maximum protection in the front and much less on the sides, rear and top. Ideally, that will result in most of the frontal hits being deflected away or, at worst, being only partial penetrations. If hit from other aspects there is a much greater chance of a penetration, and most of the time, a dead tank. That is easy for me to understand and seems to work in the game very well as far as the side/rear hits. But when a frontal shot does penetrate why is the tank not killed as easily as when hit from the sides/rear? Since part of the tanks own armor is blasted into the interior by the kinetic energy of the round penetrating its armor it would seem logical that when there is a frontal penetration there would be even more fragments to damage components and wound/kill crew. This, coupled with the explosion of the shell, would seem to me to be devastating in the close confines of the tanks interior whether from side, rear or front. And yet in the game I just finished almost every penetration from the side was a one shot, one kill while penetrations from the front were only sometimes a kill, it seemed just as often that it took two or more penetrations to destroy the tank. In the most striking example one of my Pz IV Js was hit as follows: superstructure, front hull - armor spalling; lower front hull - penetration; next turn front turret - penetration. The tank was still alive although the crew was panicked. At the same time another tank beside it had a front turret penetration and backed away to safety. There were several more examples on both sides. Why?? I have read on the forums that the AT shells used at this time were "bursters" and I assume (got to watch those assumptions) a 75 mm shell had the power of a hand grenade. A shell exploding inside the very cramped confines of a tank and adding its fragments to the fragments of the tanks own armor, not to mention the overpressure of the explosion should be enough to put an end to the most vulnerable and important part of the tank, namely the crew. And the damage to the equipment inside the tank should have been extensive. Were the fuzes unreliable? Even if they were wouldn't the shell bounce around the inside and critically damage equipment and personnel? That is my concern; how do they survive even one penetration? Has anyone else noticed a higher than expected survival rate for their tanks? I know BFC does extensive research and so I assume these survival chances reflect what happened in the conflict and my observations from one game may be a completely random occurrence. I would very much appreciate some feedback from the grogs and even BFC, if they have the time. Actual sources would also be much appreciated. Thanks for reading!

I sincerely thank everyone who has posted a response to my list of possible problems. Due to your insights and questions I spent a good part of today reviewing saved game turns. It was well worth it from my perspective as I have found several errors in the information I posted (my apologies) and learned a lot about the game interface and how the game works. I should state that the infantry in the scenario was a company from an armored PG BN. The following are my responses keyed to the numbered items in my OP. 1. As far as the Stummel knew the building was empty. I was just trying to destroy a building to see how long it took, what the damage looked like, etc. I will remember YankeeDog's comment about the effectiveness of HEAT rounds against infantry in a building, however! 2. The PF issue is very interesting. No, I do not have any information on the number of them issued to units in Normandy or the rate of issue. I did go back and look at all of my squads and found that my specific reference in the OP was the one Plt. that had zero PFs. Another Plt. had one PF and the third Plt. had two PFs. So, three PFs for nine squads. akd's post indicates that I should have expected far more. However, if the allocation is completely random the number I received could have been just been the luck, or unluckiness, of the draw. I will do some more testing and keep an eye on this in the future. 3. The self preservation issue is where I assumed more than I should have. From reading a number of posts here on the forum I believed that the TAC AI was hard coded to disregard player orders whenever the self preservation of a unit was concerned. It is obvious I will have to take greater care to issue cover arcs and insure that all threats such as nearby tanks are dealt with before I worry about dismounted tanks. My opponent did manage to remount that tank and drive it away. My OP was badly in error regarding the two ACs, however. I blame it on the fast moving combat situation and my poor notes on the action. It was very helpful, as sburke suggested, to review the action from both sides, as I was able to do. It demonstrated that you can be quite wrong in what you were sure happened! The two ACs (PSW 234/1) were 105 meters apart, facing to the NW. A Sherman M4 mid spotted them from appx. 575 meters to their right and slightly to the rear. The AC closest to the Sherman was the Plt. HQ. The other AC could not see the HQ vehicle because of three haystacks . The Sherman targetted the HQ AC first. With two main gun rounds and .50 MG fire it destroyed it. Interestingly, as soon as the HQ AC was dead the other one began to turn its turret and hull towards the tank. It was penetrated twice by .50 MG fire while the first main gun round exploded in trees in front of the tank. The second main gun round destroyed the AC. The lesson learned is if I am going to leave units still for a few turns very carefully check LoS in all directions and station them in areas with cover in as many directions as possible. It is an open question in my mind whether the second AC should have acted to move out of the area but as YankeeDog said "there is a range of behavior in any given combat situation..." 4. c3k, I understand and agree that some features can be used in a gamey fashion and perhaps this was done for that purpose but it can have serious ramifications if a vehicle that normally is left behind the area of combat is needed to pick up a unit and move it elsewhere or move it out of harms way. I would like to see this changed but it certainly is not a major issue. 5. As far as bridges are concerned the waypoint just before the bridge and the one just after the bridge, both centered, is how I always plot a crossing. I believe my friend uses the same method. I will try it with one waypoint in the center of the bridge also and see if that helps. 6. The HQ not spotting seems very easy to explain after considering the posts from womble, c3k and YankeeDog. The spotter was the last survivior of the 3rd Plt. HQ, 7th CO., PG BN. He was not the leader so the leader was dead. He was the man with the rifle. He still had the radio. The assets available to call were the two 7.5 cm inf. guns, two 81 mm on-board mortars and a 105 mm off-board howitzer. I would sum it up as above his pay grade. 7. The two 7.5 cm inf. guns were part of the PZ Aufklarung BN and came with the Opel Blitz trucks. 8. c3k, yes the tank still had three smoke shells but, unfortunately, it had a damaged main gun. I humbly apologize for putting you to all the trouble of running that test and wasting so much of your time. During the entire game I never once thought to click on the other two icons (wrench and shield) that would have showed me what they provided in the way of information. I saw the default ammo listing and never looked any further.

A friend and I just finished a 65 turn PBEM game (Veteran units) and noticed several possible problems. There has been no testing to determine if they can be consistently replicated and I am not claiming they are bugs. They are just observations that did not seem correct. I am posting them to see if anyone else has had similar experiences. The list is as follows: 1. I ordered a Stummel to fire on a building and the first three rounds it fired were its last HEAT rounds; then it started using its HE. Doesn't seem logical to me that it would use its best anti-armor round on a bldg. 2. I ordered my armored infantry squads out of their tracks. After they had gone a distance from the vehicles I discovered they had not taken their panzerfausts. It seems to me the PF would be part of their basic load-out as it is their only anti-armor weapon and would be carried whenever they left the HT. Also, why is there only one per track? They carry thousands of rounds of other ammo and I find it difficult to believe they would not carry 2, 3, or more panzerfausts since they have a HT to carry them in. 3. Self preservation seems lacking. In one instance a three member HQ unit was hiding behind a low stone wall. An American unit jumped over the wall literally right next to the HQ. The men continued to "hide" and made no attempt to fight for their lives while the Americans slaughtered them. In another instance two armored cars about 100 meters apart were flanked by a Sherman. The Sherman's first round hit a tree; its second and third killed one armored car. The other AC swiveled its turret towards the tank but otherwise remained motionless. It also was killed by the tank. It seems to me that if you witnessed the demise of the other vehicle in your Section you would be a little more proactive in trying to survive such as immediately reversing or moving forward to get out of the line of fire. In another instance I ordered one of my tanks to fire at a dismounted but still operational tank. It did so and continued to do so when another tank came into view and proceeded to shoot my tank full of holes. It did not retarget to the imminent threat to its existence. The American tank had been in view the previous turn, backed out of sight and then moved forward to the same spot it occupied the turn before. 4. Vehicles with only a driver have no ready weapon and therefore can not "Target" to see LoS. Seems unrealistic that the driver can see to drive but can not check line of sight for possible threats along his movement path. 5. Crossing bridges is rather comical as the vehicles dip and bob and zigzag from side to side. The part that is not comical is the excessive time it takes to cross, rendering them far more vulnerable than they should be. My friend had several instances over a number of turns where vehicles would stop in the middle of the bridge and move no further that turn. Obviously it left the vehicles in rather vulnerable positions. The bridges and the land ends on each side were the same elevation. 6. I had a wounded Plt. HQ with -2 leadership and +1 nervous; he could not spot for artillery. Normal? 7. I had two German inf. guns, each towed by an Opel truck. Total ammo for each gun was 18 rounds. This seems very inadequate. Again, the vehicle was carrying thousands of rounds of SMG and rifle ammo but very little for its principal weapon. 8. I was trying to lay down a smoke screen with three Pz IV J tanks. Each had three smoke shells. Two would fire the smoke shells without a problem but one with a wounded TC would not. Is this normal? There are a couple more regarding tank survivability and morale but they are more critical and I will post them in their own threads. I would be very interested in any comments regarding the above points.

I am currently in a PBEM game; at turn 17. File sizes have varied from about 19.5 MB at setup up to a little over 27 MB. And I second a big thank god for Dropbox! I should mention that we are playing on a fairly detailed 2x2 km map.

Can anyone list what crops one through six represent?

Field Marshal Blucher and The Vulture: Thanks for the replies and the info! It works as you both stated. The manual should be a little more clear on this point.

Page 132 of the manual under Reinforcements states "Up to seven groups of units...". In following statements it reinforces (no pun intended) the idea that there can be more than one unit in a reinforcement group. But I can not get it to work. Once I highlight a unit and press the corresponding reinforcement group button I can not add any other units to that group. Further, when I highlight a unit in a reinforcement group and press 8 it does not remove the reinforcement designation. I should also mention that it is not the Available Units column as stated in the manual but the Activated Troops column where I can add the reinforcement group designation. Since this makes the reinforcement group procedure next to useless for my purposes I am hoping I am doing something wrong. Anyone know what that could be??

I have been wrestling with this problem for the past two days. The elevation options do not work as described in the manual! I just experimented again with the default map size when you open the map editor. I drew a 30 meter contour line (up 10 metes from the default 20) from side to side. This should have raised the terrain inside this corner piece of land to 30 meters and outside the contour line the terrain should have gradually sloped down to the base 20 meter elevation. It did not . All the terrain on the map changed to 30 meters. Why?

Great looking map. I would appreciate it very much if you would email me a copy at smbecket@chartertn.net. Thanks. smbecket