YankeeDog

You must play with very high quality, high morale troops; I don't think I have ever seen the last man standing of a 3-man team do much more than run in a panic for the rear and and then surrender once the enemy closed the distance.

^^^ Agreed. I don't necessarily want ACQUIRING to be faster in terms of game time, I just want the UI to be more intuitive, and for the whole process to require less micromanaging. For example I'd be totally OK with giving the ACQUIRE process a completion duration (much like setup for heavy weapons), so long as I can (a) tell a unit to initiate an ACQUIRE process in the future, once it reaches a waypoint, and ( I can tell multiple units to ACQUIRE from the same vehicle/cache and not have to worry about micromanaging to prevent the units from getting in each others' way, so you do now when ACQUIRING from a single vehicle with multiple units. I do recognize that these changes would not be simple or quick to implement -- I can see the potential pitfalls (ex: what happens if two units try to acquire the same ammo from the vehicle/cache simultaneously?), so there would certainly need to be some careful thought but into design, coding, and debugging. Nevertheless, I do hope l that the Acquire command will get some attention and love, someday...

This I definitely agree with. Particularly WEGO mid-game (as opposed to during setup), resupplying a single platoon from e.g., a truck can take for freakin' ever because of how you have to embark and disembark each unit sequentially. In this area and some others, the Acquire command could definitely be streamlined and improved. But I don't particularly see the need to have pixel-Rambos catching MGs mid-air as they fall from their comrades' hands and blazing away with barely a pause.

Again, I think you're assuming far too much selfless initiative on the part of soldiers who are (a) under fire and ( have just seen one or more of their buddies get shot/fragged. Yes, soldiers may eventually pick up an important weapon like an MG to keep in in the fight. But to assume that this process would usually be quick is, frankly, "Hollywood" thinking. Consider a possible internal monologue: "Sh*t, that one was close..." "Oh my god, Joe/Tommy/Hans/Ivan got hit..." "Is he still alive?" "Damn, another close one... better keep my head down." "Crap; there's a lot of blood. But maybe still a pulse?" "No... I'm pretty sure he's dead. Better take his dog tags." "Does the MG still work? Hmmm... it's all covered in blood, but it looks OK. I should remove the belt because it's got a lot of blood on it, but it should work again if I get a clean belt into it. If I and just pull that ammo can out from under the body..." Etc. Unless you expect your pixeltruppen to all act like little Rambos, what happens in the game right now is pretty good, IMHO.

What do you envision this command doing that the current Buddy Aid function doesn't already do?

Except that you're talking about a game feature that would take a large amount of time to code and debug. Getting bridge priming and demolition would be very complicated, even if you only allowed "pre-primed" bridges (i.e., bridges that were primed to blow at the start for the battle). What should the % success be? Even carefully prepared demolitions sometimes fail. If a demolition does fail, should there be a chance to reset, and if so, how long should this take? What if the triggerman is under fire? Does this decrease the chance of a successful demolition, and, if so, by how much? Can the wires/fuses potentially be cut by artillery fire or similar? If enemy forces reach the bridge before it's blown, can they the defuse the charges? If so, just specialist engineers, or any troops? And how long should defusing take? Should there be a chance of accidentally setting off the charges while attempting to defuse? Huge amounts of work for IMHO an feature that would only be applicable to a very limited set of potential scenarios, that I don't think would be very fun to play anyway. Far better for BFC to spend its "game improvement" capital elsewhere. As a side note, I would love to see some new game features added to how the game models the combat engineering and obstacle breaching battle, but demolishable bridges is not very high on my list. E.g., more options for minefield and obstacle breaching, "hasty minefields" that would be easily visible but would still need to be removed to cross safely, assault boats and possibly amphibious vehicles for crossing water obstacles, etc.

This might be what you think "makes sense", but if you read combat accounts, you'll find that frequently soldiers choose to attempt to save their buddy who is bleeding out, rather than keep up the fight. Not always, but frequently.

This is already in the game. The "Buddy Aid" function will automatically acquire some ammo and also usually important weapons (like MGs) from WIA/KIA soldiers. The player is deliberately prevented from directly controlling this process -- you can move a unit up to a WIA/KIA to perform Buddy Aid, but you can't control what ammo and/or weapons they will take. Yes, it's sometimes frustrating when your Buddy-Aiding pixeltruppen don't take the MG and/or ammo you wanted them to, but this is an intentional game feature, both to reflect the idea that the weapon/ammo might be damaged or lost, and also that soldiers might not necessarily be inclined to swap weapons or load up with bloody cartridges off of a corpse. As per above, if you give an opportunity for the survivor to Buddy Aid the guy who's been hit, and he'll usually pick up the tube and/or at least some of the rockets. This does take some time, but I think this is realistic -- if his buddy just got hit, the first thought of the survivor is not necessarily going to be to grab the rockets/tube and keep fighting. If he's not simply cowering in the dirt, his next priority would probably be to save his buddy's life, if possible. After that's done, maybe he picks up a rocket or two and tries to keep fighting. Overall, I think there is some logic to expanding the current Acquire/Ammo Sharing/Buddy Aid system and giving the player *some* additional control over ammo and & weapons sharing/acquire. In particular, I'd like to see some sort of cross-leveling function so that at least units within the same platoon could level out their ammo loads -- I often find myself in situations where one squad had been heavily engaged and is low on ammo, but the other squads in the same platoon are not. The ammo sharing function in the game now helps this situation somewhat, but is not perfect because units must be within 2 action squares of each other for it to function. However, I also its important that any liberalization of the acquire & ammo sharing functions not be taken too far; it would not be realistic to allow a player to shift ammo and weapons around his force without restriction.

The reason this isn't a very good idea is that the existence or nonexistence of a major bridge pretty radically changes the tactical situation for a scenario. If the demolition succeeds, the attacker may have no practical way of winning. Or if it fails, the attacker may have a cakewalk. For these reasons, it's generally much better to design such that the battle starts either immediately after the bridge demolition has happened, or covers the battle leading up to the demolition (or failure thereof) -- for example: "The retreating Germans just dropped the main span across the river in this area, but there are two small fords nearby. Cross your force at the fords, and size the high ground on the far side so that engineers may repair the bridge without interference from enemy fire." Or.... "Engineers have not yet finished priming the bridge for demolition. Your task is to delay the enemy advance for X time until the bridge can be demolished." Or... "There is an intact bridge across the river ahead, but the enemy is sure to blow it given time and opportunity. Advance aggressively and seize the bridge before it is destroyed!" So while the premise of a scenario can center around control and destruction (or prevention of destruction) of a bridge, it's generally better for the actual demolition to take place outside of the scope of the CM scenario. I respect that players would like to have the eye candy of the bridge demolition, but in storywriting terms, events event are much better used as the instigation or the resolution of the plot, rather than mid-story.

I would assume N/A simply means that Maximum LOS is longer than the maximum tested distance under at these conditions, which was apparently something longer than 2880m. Bear in mind that "Unlimited" max LoS doesn't necessarily mean zero spotting degradation. IOW, units may theoretically be able to see over 3km at 0500hrs in light rain, but this doesn't mean that, on average, they'll spot a given enemy unit at a given distance as quickly in light rain as they would under perfectly clear conditions, just that they have a >0% chance of spotting at that distance. Also note that CMBN does track changes to light by date and theater, so the above chart presumably is accurate only for a certain date; my guess is on or near to 6/22, which is the Summer Solstice. Change the date to late September 30, a full week after the Autumn Equinox, and LoS conditions in the early morning and evening hours particularly will show changes. Phase of the moon is tracked, too. So visibility particularly at night under clear conditions will vary depending on the phase of the moon, and whether the moon is currently above the horizon or not.

Hah. Of all the incorrect statements made on this forum (and there have been some doozies...), this has to be in the top ten

Sure; I grew up in Vermont and can recall the story Donner party being covered as part of US History class Junior High. We might not have spent as much time on it as would be typical in a California public school where the story is more locally relevant, but it was a page in the history text.

It's been suggested many times before, going back to CMBO days. By all means discuss, but FYI, it's not an idea BFC is particularly keen on.

IIRC, mortar fire was historically the single largest cause of combat casualties to U.S. infantry in the Normandy campaign. The difference you're experiencing between CMRT & CMBN probably has a lot to do with terrain. The bocage which is predominant in CMBN provides very good cover from direct fire small arms and shallow-angle (high velocity) HE, but is not as good against mortar fire. Also, the bocage provides very good hiding places from which enemy mortar teams can fire on your infantry "direct lay", without the delay that comes with radio-called fire. Direct lay mortar fire is extremely dangerous because it comes down with very little warning so there's often no chance to move out from under. All this probably probably makes light & medium mortars proportionately more dangerous than e.g., MGs in CMBN when compared to CMRT.

Yes, although it's important to note that there's no way to be 100% certain that the blast will take out all of the mines. Blasting multiple sections of the wire increases the chances of taking out all of the mines. IIRC, I removed all of the wire with several blasts, losing several engineers to sympathetic detonations in the process. But once this was done, the bridge was pretty much clear and I was able to advance infantry and tanks across the bridge fairly rapidly. Courage and Fortitude is a campaign where you have to make some tough choices; at times you do need to choose to sacrifice some units so that others may live to complete the mission.

While I think it's true that the Soviet doctrinal concepts such as the so-called "Deep Operation" have substantial qualitative and quantitative differences compared to e.g., contemporary Western European doctrine, it's easy to overstate these differences. The fact of the matter is, concentration of force and reinforcement of success rather than failure have been a fundamental precepts of military theory at least since the time of Alexander the Great, probably earlier. It's not something that the Soviets invented, and there are comparable ideas expressed in the military doctrines of other nations. Again, this is not to say that Soviet doctrine is the same as e.g, German or British or American. There are some very interesting unique aspects to Soviet theory both at the higher operational levels and also at the lower tactical levels. But there are also a lot of broad similarities. By 1944, everyone was cribbing off of everyone else's playbook, and ideas that worked well got copied pretty quickly. The Soviets fought the war differently than other nations did, but this was as much due to the substantial differences their strategic and tactical situation, as it was any doctrinal differences, per se.

***Minor Spoilers -- Courage and Fortitude*** Engineers can't blow themselves up with their own demo charges in the game -- units have an "immunity shield" to their own explosives. However, if the demo charge detonation sets off additional explosives such as mines, the mine detonation can cause casualties to the Engineer unit. This is what you're seeing happen near the bridge in the second battle of C&F -- there are mines under that wire. The Engineers set a charge to blow the wire, and in the process accidentally set off the mines. Nasty.

Because typically tank formations that find themselves under artillery fire of any significant intensity, move. When the armor didn't or couldn't move out from under the artillery for whatever reason, concentrated artillery was actually fairly good at degrading static armor formations. See, for example, Thala, Gela, and Elsenborn Ridge. Per-shell effect of even large bore indirect fire on armor is generally low, but if there's enough tubes available to throw enough shells, eventually there will be enough near misses and direct hits to destroy the armor's fighting ability. I believe it was Guderian who said that a tank has two weapons: a gun and a motor.

I'm not sure this is completely accurate. If this were true, than in some cases the experience level of a split team should be different from the experience level of the parent squad. 3-team squads in particular can split in a huge number of ways; if you do a full 3-team split, then recombine just two of the teams and then split this new "parent" squad again, you can create all sorts of team size/weapon load combinations. In all my split team experimentation, I don't think I've ever seen a split team have a different experience level from the parent squad. So my SWAG is that the game assumes all individuals of a given squad or team have the same experience level. Factors other than experience (e.g., Leadership and Morale) do vary with split teams. As noted, this seems to depend a lot on whether the split team has a Leader or Asst. Leader specialist -- teams without at least an Asst. Leader usually take a Leadership and often a Morale penalty as well.

This is true in CMx2 as well. You can verify this easily. Purchase, say, a Regular Battalion of infantry in the Scenario Editor and you will get mostly Regulars, with some Greens and Veterans thrown in. You will also get variation in morale and leadership, as well as weapons loadout, where appropriate. Variation might be less than it was with CMx1; I've never done a side-by side comparison so I don't know. How much weapons loadout can vary depends a lot on nationality and formation. For example, U.S. Rifle Infantry platoons in CMBN have almost no weapons variation and are almost always 10 Garands + 1 Thompson + 1 BAR. But some German formations that have a chance of carrying MP44s and/or additional MP40(s) show a lot more variation.

Yep. I use recon vehicles this way routinely. Zip forward as far as I dare. park vehicle in defilade and advance crew as a forward OP/LP. Works brilliantly.

Wait, what? BFC has Clearly Overpaid Monkeys on staff? Where does one get an application for this job? Sounds like exactly the job I'm looking for.

Probably the primary effect should be a modest increase in morale, in exchange for a loss of tactical flexibility. Once you've issued a Human Wave order, it should be very difficult to alter or reverse it. It's well documented that if you can get a large group of animals (including humans) moving in a certain direction in unison, the constituent individuals become "braver" and are more likely to continue moving with the group regardless of risk to the individual. This is the fundamental group psychology effect that tactics like the "Human Wave", or the Japanese "Banzai" etc. try to leverage. As to how to implement this in CMx2, I'm not really sure. Ideally, it should be a tactic that only works if you have a pretty large number of men doing it as a group -- at least a platoon, I'd say. Arguably it should only become really effective when executed with a Company or more.

I think most people would consider the CBI Theater part of the CBI Theater, and not the Pacific Theater. Hence the name. CBI is a whole different ball of wax... True, the amphibious landing & naval support modeling issues needed for the PTO largely go away, but the extreme terrain, long supply lines, and other considerations give CBI its own set of issues to be modeled. Again, certainly not impossible for the CMx2 engine to model the CBI theater, but not without a fair amount of love and care put into some new model features, brand new TOE, etc.

Oh sure, if you pick and choose, some PTO combat can be modeled with the game engine as it is right now, and reasonably well. But I think it's a fair statement that some of the most iconic ground combat fights of the PTO would not model well in the CMx2 engine without significant new features. I think it's also fair to say that the job of researching and correctly creating Japanese TOEs, as well as the 3D models/skins for vehicles, weapons, uniforms, and soldiers, etc. would be a substantial one (esp. since Japanese forces never been done in any BFC game before). Comparatively, it doesn't take much logic to realize that jumping to an entirely different part of the world, and modeling a theater involving a nationality that has never appeared in CM before at all, is going to take a lot more time and effort than e.g., moving a year or two forward or back in the ETO or East Front, or shifting from ETO to the Med. And a commercial product that wargamers shell out hard-earned cash for is going to be held to a far higher standard than a free fan-created conversion mod. Once again, I have great respect for people who have put time an effort into doing the latter, and I appreciate them putting their work out there for my enjoyment. But it's just not in the same league.