RockinHarry

Good luck for getting any responses from BFC here. Has been pointed to in the Tech Support forum numerous times, but we´ll likely need to wait for patches to deal with it, without it beeing explained furtherly. However, before I spend any more time working on larger scenario projects, or Euros for oncoming modules, I like to have the issues cleared.

Similar to "dismounting" CMBN pillboxes. More oftentimes a team or squad leaving a pillbox under enemy observation, will have single soldiers not to leave through the backdoor, but rather sidewards into full exposure to the enemy and his fire. :eek:

For german infantry, wire cutters were plentyful, not just for the engineer types. Think there was at least one a squad, with more in the HQ sections. Think that´s not the issue, giving CMBN infantry bits of obstacle clearing capabilities, but as is almost always the case, ...how to tell the AI to applicate? For clearing paths through mines, we have "mark mines". Theoretically something similar can be implemented for "marking wire", where at last soldiers can slip through slowly in single file, beeing quite vulnerable to enemy fire during the preocess. Btw, ...does the AI use the "mark mines" command? :confused: Maybe it´s also assumed in the game, that cutting through a standard single AS wire obstacle, takes too long for beeing within scope and time frame of CMBN engagements? One disadvantage of blowing through wire (breach teams) with explosives, is that it´s not a silent process and thus can not be concealed from the enemy.

...it´s what they say, but on the opposite, there´s many game companies that are quite successfull with opening up their games to modders, modellers, scripters and the like. ARMA2 anybody? At least this one does not drop me out with unexplainable OOM messages, no matter what quality settings I use. It´ll take yet many patches, modules..maybe even CMX3 til one can consider CMBB and CMAK dead. We´ll see....

The effect of the FACE vertical or 3D element is most noticeable in the games unit setup phase (and editor, Units/Deploy), where actions can be observed imediately. I´ve experimented with infantry only units, so vehicle units might use somewhat different rules. Can´t tell yet. During game play I figured both for stationary infantry and endpoint for movement orders, that a FACE (click) on a particular AS will move individual soldiers to positions, that enables them to have both, LOF, as well as cover vs. this particular AS. An always successfull individual positioning is not guaranteed though, as one can self test in the setup/deploy phase. Once the FACE command is set in effect, one can subsequently set a CA, though not during game play, since only one can be activated at the same time. FACE "sticks" on action spots (ground tile), 3D objects (+vertical), enemy units, including their floating icons and beyond the map boundaries. The blue face marker line is always shown 2D though. I´ve not yet tested, if it makes a difference to Face click the second story wall of a building, residing a spotted enemy unit, OR the enemy unit itself, by Face clicking its floating icon. It´s also interesting to observe AI driven units use of Face. It looks like if enemy units haven´t been encountered yet (by individual unit), that a Face will be applied either to the enemy friendly direction (Mission/Data), or possibly towards an AS in the next movement zone in the queue. In combat, AI driven units mostly Face towards an enemy unit, that they received effective fire from. This oftentimes can also be observed from friendly units that routed (panicked) and thus were out of players hands for the duration. So my "interpretation" for Face currently is: Seek cover vs. particular AS/enemy unit, preserve or gain LOF, as well as focus on observation. This is for infantry type units as said.

From few past test runs I can tell that infantry moves slower and tires faster in: Heavy forest, marsh, mud, plowed field, rubble and such. Actually just what you would expect from those terrain types...

I´d possibly try making a campaign to workaround non persitent damage. Thus you don´t need to play a map (part) twice, but can progress on a similar map, that is likely to be fought on in subsequent battles (LLL explained a variant of it already).

Underexplained..."Face" command slight a bit. I also found it to be a "seek cover vs 3D terrain spot or enemy unit" pointer. Initially I used it similarly as in CMX1. Look north, west and so on, but it does not quite work that way in CMBN. Since it´s 3D, you can also point to the 8th floor of a building 300m away, not just on a ground terrain spot at any distance. Also you can "Face" click on enemy floating unit icons, which results in individual soldiers seeking positions (within action spots) both, to use available cover vs. that enemy and have a LOF to it, if possible. So if from a certain action spot soldiers can´t trace a LOF to a particular enemy or action spot in the distance, use "Face" on EXACTLY that action spot or enemy unit floating icon and see how things improve. I´ve not yet learned all the fine points of "Face", but it definitely is a command to be used with finesse.

....voted

I can´t watch n load large maps (4x4km) in the editor, even without having any units onmap. An interesting find was that once I removed half of the maps "grass" and replaced it with "sand" tiles, I could load it in 3D finally. So obviously it´s the many grass textures or objects, causing some my problems.

That´s what I meant in my previous post. So the general outcome of actions with green vs. veteran is well within reasonable parameters, but the "fault" is making the Puma crews "green". I have serious doubts that Pumas would be trusted to green, instead to regulars (or better) since it´s a specialized branch (reccon) and the AFV´s as such were rather scarce. I´d load the scenario in the editor, change the Pumas to regular (or better) and then retry, expecting somewhat more "realistic" results. Anybody remember CMX1 "gun/tank optics rating system", where certain experience level crews can´t use their hardware properly?

Generally I feel with you, but... ...to get a proper evaluation for the described situation, I´d like to know Puma & M8 crew experience & morale/suppression levels, leader ratings, C2 situation, possible vehicle damages, (radio, optics ok?) weather, time of day, as well as terrain in and between all vehicles concerned. Maybe also knowing playmode (Warrior, Elite,...) might be interesting. First ideas and when purely comparing with a RL situation, were: 1. German mechanized reccon units usually can be considered at least "regulars", as this was more of specialized branch, thus receiving more of training and such. 2. Main feature for german mechanized units was proper handling of C2, which means in the described situation, Pumas should radio a target sighting within seconds to each other and act accordingly. 3. Turret traverse. Might be of concern for an immobilized vehicle, but if things have to happen quickly, an AFV commander would order to rotate the hull first, thus speeding up turret aligning on target. I´d say, Pumas were quite agile in this regard.

Excellent! Just what I need in my current scenario creation! :cool:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=100019 We just can hope for patches to deal with it in the very near future. It´s not a true game breaker, since CMBN is just a "game" and not a combat simulator,..or maybe just parts of it is a combat simulator, mixed up with arcade elements,...or a game with combat simulator elements...don´t really know where it aims at at last. We´ll see...:confused:

I´d definitely go for campaign mode and break it all up for appropiate single engagements. I worked on hurtgen forest stuff in CMAK, but had to more or less abandon it for certain incapabilities in the map editor, lack of elevation steps and for the tree burst effects on helpless defenders (which had plenty of dugouts and covered foxholes & trenches). Now with CMBN more things are doable, although the fortification issues remain... Most of the "density" effects in the evergreen part of the forest comes from two things: 1. Fir tree branches partly extending close to the ground 2. Once large parts of the forest was heavily shelled, the gound was littered with fallen trees, branches and the like. Hard to recreate in CMBN with the given means, unless you don´t care about looks. Then using brush, bocage,...would be viable. The populated areas would see much use of field stones for building the houses, walls (backyard and gardens), but also hedges. Meadows and pastures were (and still are) lined with wire fences.

I did visit the area a number of times as well did lots of research during past 20 years or so. The Kall "river" is more of a rocky and shallow brook, that can barely be presented with CMBN "shallow fords". It´s no true obstacle to infantry movements, even in winter and more of an obstacle to vehicles due to the rocky and stony nature. So it´s probably a better idea, not to use any water tiles and use just rocky or muddy ground instead. This also gives the freedom, to realistically recreate the elevation steps in the Kall river gorge. The area around Vossenack and Schmidt towns sees mostly meadows (wire fenced), few muddy fields, bits of orchards and such. Beside the kall gorge road (the one used by the 116 Pz Division Reccon detachement) can possibly recreated with dirt road, but everything else is single lane trails. Same counts for the firebrakes. I´d just try with dirt/mud tiles and single "centered" style evergreen trees. Using dirt roads would be too much in any case. Most of the woods would be Type E tree and density of 2 at max. Dirt and light forest in checkerboard pattern gives the best impression of the actual forest ground in the area. A good number of craters would be also useful. The Bergstein ridge and Burgberg (castle) hill would not be of concern for the CMBN battle actually. It mostly commands the hilltop areas around Vossenack/Germeter, Hurtgen and partly the Schmidt plateau. Using lots of TRPs for germans and hidden spotters would be way to go, particularly in the gorges and slope areas. Some very useful reference website with stories, pics and maps: http://home.scarlet.be/~tsc94696/sitemap.htm

There´s german "Frieda" and "Heidi" objective zones. Edit: As well as "sunken lane" and "objective steel" for the US. Did you try "ALT + J" yet?

Although it´s a rigid method, it´s also a realistic method. Either you have thrown out the enemy completely, or you didn´t. Mission failed. IMHO it more depends upon scenario maker realistic placement of occupy victory locations. I´ve seen way too many senseless Flag or occupy zones, from a military point of view. One example is the direct placement on bridges. Realistically you owe a bridge if you deny it to the enemy for movement or excerting LOS/LOF to it. So flag/occupy zones need to go there, where you can "command" the bridge site. Same goes for hills and the like. If there´s problems with single large victory zones, then replace them with multiple smaller ones.

Yup, ..and I´d be interested in figures for UK, US and finally ...russians! The latter had their frontline execution commando already with them, in form of comrade comissar and NKVD. Generally the democracy soldier just had to fear the enemy, while the dictatorship soldier had to fear the enemy AND military justice.

I meant to say, that a number of game mechanics were probably optimized, or in other words, ..."simplified" for getting good frame rates in RT play. For WEGO that´s less of concern and I wouldn´t mind waiting 1-2 minutes more, to see more realistic and thus more CPU intensive game routines in effect. Could be I´m wrong, but both modules, RT and WEGO probably use same game code. If it´s so, I´d wish for WEGO game code to be optimized for realism and not speed. Beside that, I too believe that weapon2010 AT gun is simply out of sync, as has been described and not a bug.

"Signaling" with flare guns is not quite the topic. It´s for prearranged stuff, like triggering artillery, tank warning, direction shots for pointing at enemy positions and the like. I wouldn´t quite consider that C2 for the purpose. "Whistles" is the same. Method for prearranged stuff, like getting an attack off, triggering ambushes and the like. Don´t really see that covered with the verbal C2 icon, as in fact that needs to have "triggers" implemented in the game. Abstractly one can see covered arcs as triggers, but CA´s are part of individual squads combat tasks, as prearranged by the Plt. or Cpy. leader. Thus basic communication means for germans is and has to be verbal, messenger, wire and then radio. Germans also started the war with blink light devices (K-Blinkgerät) in the communications platoon of the battalion, which surely were sorted out, when more radio devices became available in the first half of the war. Personally it´s all not that important to me and there´s surely better things to fix or improve in the game (buildings, FHs, trenches, gun elevation/depression limits..to name a few).

It surely is sort of compromise to the C2 in CMBN to abundantly equip german units with radios, when if fact there were none and runners and wire where the most prevalent means of communications in german infantry army. In CMX1 there where command delays, to some extend also simulating runners and there was wire for certain FOs. With single soldier modelling in CMBN, you can rule out runners, but when it comes to the eastern front at the latest, will we still see russians abundantly equipped with radios? I really hope that BFC improves on the matter, as it´s one of the worst aspects of the current game system, no matter if the problem comes from not dumbing down from CMSF enough or with RT play in the way of getting WEGO improved. As a matter of fact, C2 needs to be worked on to give it more resemblance to WW2 conditions. Until then, I don´t really care not seeing radio backpacks on german soldiers, as they mostly didn´t have them anyway.

I´d say it´s mainly a syncing issue and I´ve seen something like that with many weapons and single soldiers in CMBN. Nonetheless, it dawns on me that BFC made a lot of deliberate abstractions, where certain weapons RL capabilities are overruled, in order to achieve...what?! The non existent elevation/depression limits of tank guns and partly light speed reaction times is one of those. :mad: I mainly see CMBN WEGO suffer from BFCs preference for RT matters.

Surely has been mentioned elsewhere, but no matter the quality of the actual frontline soldiers, germans were "lead" by example of their leaders, which incl. Plt, Cpy, Btl, regimental, divisional and oftenly up to corps leaders. It was inherent doctrine that german officers/leaders where with their troops at the point of attack, or during the most critical parts of a defense, although there´s surely enough examples, where it didn´t matter, for lack of experience of leaders or those kind of "leaders" who where thrown into a ground combat unit, coming from Luftwaffe and such previously. The german 5th Para Division in the Bulge battle is one of those examples. Or the many Luftwaffe field divisions, where both, frontline soldiers and officers where not appropiately trained to the standards of german ground combat doctrines.

Hey George! Is the light fog meant to be battlefield smoke & dust? Otherwise I´d wonder about the very dry ground setting. Also with cool temperature and early in the morning I´d rather expect damp to wet ground. Not that it matters, ...just nitpicky again.