RockinHarry

I too noticed that only the A squads from the US Mech HMG sections have an additional guy with Binocs. My guess is that it was a doctrine thing that the 2 section HMGs were usually operated in pairs and it was just one guy responsible to observe and guide both. Maybe the one guy with binocs is also the section leader? The US HMG from scpecialist teams, don´t have Binocs I think. Or not all of the 3 types. Maybe the single HMG are supposed in direct support role, parcelled out to the infantry and supporting them at short to medium range eye sight only. Even the german HMG teams, who always have a binocs for the leader, won´t directly engage targets beyond 1200-1300m (and little more with TRP). Think the 2000m max range is reserved for area fire only. Maybe the same for other nations HMG units.

IanL, I just find the info panels somewhat misleading in the case of a higher HQ taking over command of units belonging to a HQ lower in the COC structure. Beside that, no problemo. Amongst others, these features aren´t described in the CMBN V3.0 game manual. Clicking the icons always takes you to the original parent HQ, while the icons themselves rather indicate C2 link method is that to the higher HQ, currently in command. I made a simple test in the editor (mission editor, units, place units). I placed the Coy HQ and the Plt HQ about 110m away from each other. Then I placed one of the squads from the Plt HQ right between them at appr. half range (~50). If it´s shifted to within 50m of the Plt HQ, then the Plt HQ takes command. If it´s shifted to within 50m of the Coy HQ, then the Coy HQ takes over. You can see that reflected both in COC and C2 link info panels. Just shift the squad one AS at a time towards the Plt HQ or Coy HQ and you see when it "snaps" to one HQ or the other. That´s what I learned and I now know what info to look at (C2 link icons) and what to ignore (COC, command lines), when the command take over situation happens.

I do not have CMRT yet, but I could make a guess. If the shallow ford was placed next to water or deep ford and the T34 maybe crosses at an odd angle (or the water features were placed diagonally), the move through was registered at the ford, while graphically it was showed moving submerged in deep water. A graphical glitch then most likely.

Interesting, thanks! I´m playing iron since day one, so I can´t really compare. Another detail worth to be included in the game manual, if it´s true.

I just remember some time ago I had setup a test game, where I needed to figure the effects of very close range area fire in wooded terrain. I placed a german squad in terrain with 3 trees/AS and let it area fire into the next possible wooded AS, which was at about 10m away when the target command "stuck". The squad unleashed a heavy fire (considering at close range, ROF for any soldier is at MAX), with some soldiers of team B (non splitted) fired partly through the AS of team A and vice versa, since area fire is distributed rather at an arc and not on a single point towards the selected AS. This wide fire dispersal was amplified by the closeness of the selected area fire AS. However, ....at a time I´m fairly sure that a particular soldier from team A received a light would (yellow dot), either by rifle fire or hand grenade. This soldiers also was almost hugging a tree, while lying prone. The next turn this already wounded soldier got killed. I watched the recorded game turn over and over again, unless I was sure that a particular soldier from the the same squad killed his buddy with a shot from his rifle. Hypothesis: A soldier can be injured/killed by friendly small arms fire and some small HE, if either the shot previously bounced from a particular object (tree, wall...) very close to the affected soldier and/or the soldier is so close to this object (intersecting geometry), that the game routine tracing the projectile and its effect, can´t properly divide between both game objects (soldier - tree/wall), so that somehow the friendly projectile looses it´s non lethal effect. Call it bug, or game limitation maybe. How does that sound?

Yup, that´s my understanding as well. I was just mentioning the fact, that the info panels in these situations give misleading info, or none at all. It was totally clear to me that the Coy HQ was doing the rally job on the broken squad, as the Coy HQ was the only capable unit in both close visual and voice range. Hopefully the game manual will be updated soon on certain details. I can keep working with the knowledge that certain abstractions are there and in effect, without given any valuable feedback from the interface and info panels. Case closed. Back to original topic. I get infantry to surrender more frequently when they have no viable escape route when panicked/routing. I.e you can surround a pillbox, or single building (pillbox substitute) with barbed wire at close proximity. That denies the path finding routines a viable escape route, which in return increases the effected units surrender chances. That combined with low morale and "-" leader troops, gives some good results if this is a desired effect in self made missions and played vs. the AIP. I´ve found another terrain/pillbox combination that gives the same effect, yet I keep that as surprise when my WIP mission is ready to be released.

RG are most useful in MOUT situations, from my experience. A single RG may take out 2-3 enemies if hitting the appropiate window. At medium to long (max) range, their effect is mostly suppressive, unless a lucky hit can also take out 2-3 enemy guys if target density is high enough. For close range area fire hand grenading, the procedure described by womble would work the best. Only if the area fire target has no actual direct LOS/LOF (beyond high walls), you can depend upon hand grenades to be used exclusiveley. If there´s direct LOS/LOF to area fire target AS and at very close range, every weapon in the arsenal could be used and that´s a dangerous affair. I´d also area firing a squad down through a bulding, less than 10m away with the result, that at a time a soldier selected to use a Panzerfaust, hit a wall in front of him and killed himself, as well as 2-3 other squad members. It´s then always a good idea to somehow remove those guys with RG and Fausts, when direct LOS/LOF area firing at targets within hand grenade range (30m), or bad things can happen.

Hey Ian I´m speaking of both C2 link (#9) and COC (#7) and particular info correlating to a single unit. If that mentioned squad shows both "visual" and "voice" icons in C2 link (#9) and I (left mouse button) click these icons, I´m taken to the HQ (it gets selected automatically) that currently provides the communication link by means of Visual & Voice, as indicated by these icons. In the mentioned case, clicking the C2 link icons gets me to the parent Plt.HQ, which is normally correct, if it´s in (command) range. But it is NOT, as indicated by the red light in COC (#7) for the squads Plt HQ entry. Also the dark color "command lines" (ALT-Z) between the squad and its Plt HQ indicate, that the squad is out of command range to its Plt HQ. Now I take it as conflicting data between C2 link (#9) and COC (#7), with C2 link telling that it´s in command range to Plt HQ and COC indicates it is NOT. That´s my main assumption just based on operating the game. Some info is NOT in the V3.0 CMBN game manual. 1. Clicking the icons (if any) in the C2 link panel of a selected unit, selects and camera moves to his parent HQ automatically. (?) 2. Temporary command of HQ´s distributed to not directly subordinated units (Coy HQ ---> Squad), is not beeing reflected by info in both the COC (#7) and C2 link (#9) panels. (?) So the icons (visual near + voice) in the squads C2 link panel, rather indicate that these icons rather relate to the Coy HQ, which is in the same action spot, and NOT to the Plt.HQ which is apparently out of range. This (temporary) command connection link to Coy HQ is not properly displayed in neither C2 link, nor COC. Not a big problem, as one can simply assume that this situation works abstractly, as described in the game manual on page 62. "Higher HQs may fulfill this role only to a limited extent. If a squad or team is out of contact with its immediate superior (usually a platoon HQ) then its company or battalion HQ may provide voice and close visual contact, but not radio or dis- tant-visual contact. This simulates that a higher HQ can’t babysit a large number of units more than one level lower in the organization, and it means that higher HQs can’t be used in a gamey way to make platoon HQs unnecessary, but they can step in and provide command-and-control in a limited radius in emergency situations." Think it´s all clear now.

I remember I played that ("It´s a new dawn") once from recommeded German player vs. US AI perspective and got a Draw. *SPOILER WARNING* ! * * * Infantry losses were about equal with the germans loosing the AC from the US light tank, while the light tank later got blasted with a Panzerfaust. The objective area remained contested since end of the game. There was one US HMG overwatching the orchard area, that caused bits of trouble to my center skirmish line. I finally sneaked my reserve squad behind and wasted the HMG team with area fire hand grenading (<30m) around a bocage corner, without taking any losses in return. Some tactic I just learned about lately. The one german HMG I had held back and positioned in the 2 story building (I couldn´t somwhow integrate this into my offensive plans, due to the very short LOS overall). This then successfully repelled the US AI flanking move attempt through that large field, which was rather weak. Nice little cat and mouse game, despite the rather unrealistic ORBAT on both sides.

Yes, that was my basic assumption, also described in the game manual. What´s not in the manual is, that this out of COC influence (rallying) of units by higher HQ, isn´t reflected by info from both the C2 link and COC info panels. It also remains unclear why the rallied squad has C2 link voice and visual contact to Plt. HQ, although it actually doesn´t have (too far away). Both Coy HQ and the squad are in the same AS (building) and thus equally far away from Plt HQ, which has no link to both these units. So how can the squad info panels show contradicting info, with C2 link showing "visual" and "voice", but in COC red light (to Plt HQ AND Coy HQ) and with visible command lines (ALT-Z) beeing dark for No Contact? I´m aware that the squad is not a team directly subordinated to the Coy HQ, so won´t ever show a green light anyway, but what about no green light for Plt HQ? I just can assume this is another game abstraction that tells the "Visual" and "voice" type C2 link actually is to/from Coy HQ, just abstractly passed over from Plt.HQ as surrogate. Anyway, I never put any attention to the COC info, as I always get the appropiate info from a units C2 link panel and its clickable icons. And visible command lines. COC is good to see just the connections between the various HQ´s within a particular chain and I´ve yet to find good use for that information. Think it´s good for seeing at a glance whether one can call Arty and whether info sharing between HQ´s is active and such.

Thanks (all), got it now. I´d never had a problem grasping the C2 link panel (visual, voice, radio), but the COC panel just was somewhat obscure to me, as they also do not always correlate to each other. In example just lately I had a broken german squad routing into a building, which also was occupied by the Plt. parent Coy HQ unit. The Plt. HQ was just out of command range of both units, the Coy. HQ and the broken squad, as I could see from both the C2 link and COC info panels. The german squad then rallied and both visual and voice icons appeared in C2 link panel. With the rallied squad selected, in COC info panel there was neither green light for the Plt, nor Coy HQ, so I was wondering about the reference of the C2 link panel data. Clicking the icons, gots me to the Plt.HQ, despite it beeing red light in COC, as well as having a dark line "visible command link" (squad -> Plt. HQ). How´s that to be interpreted?

Yup. You can´t realistically recreate the situation with the leader directing the lMG team alone. You always have some rifle guys who expose the whole bunch to enemy spotting and likely return fire. In real life the leader would by use of the Binocs spot for the target to be engaged by the lMG and observe fire effects, providing correction data to the lMG gunner as appropiate. This would be for the ideal lMG engagement range from 300 to 800m. This makes the split team feature a not so good idea for lMG employment, as this most the time also splits the leader with the Binocs from the lMG, who is now dependent just on eye sight, limiting his longer range (300m +) engagement opportunities noticeably. Edit: Thinking about it, I´d wish for a further split team option that just includes the lMG guys (gunner & assistant) and leader. Call it just "split lMG team". This way you also achieve the ideal team size for the 8x8m action spots (dispersion), which I figured is about max 3-4 guys. The remaining squad then can be kept hidden in another action spot. Nothing for those who hate micro managing though.

Employing leader teams in their usual historical role, is always a good idea in CMX2 too. Beside their generally important role of preserving cohesion and COC, they´re most the time the best passive spotting and scouting units in the overall force, due to them having at least 1 Binocs or more and beeing of small size. Otherwise employing HQ teams in frontline combat can only be risked as emergency measure and/or if they have very positive soft factors, incl. leader ratings, or as mentioned by Bozowans, if you´re dealing with enemies that have morale broken already. A mopping up job. I had one situation lately (no HQ involved) where a US squad close assaulted a german pillbox, destroyed it with the panicked german left overs rushing out and receiving effective fire from the only german panicked guy with a SMG. Result was several US soldiers incapacitated and 2-3 US guys surrendering in the face of the still panicked germans who were keeping up their rout. Kind of funny situation somehow, but I like that anything can happen in the game.

That would make some sense. But not that the Coy HQ has a link to a non existent Bn. HQ. Unless as mentioned, the game needs the highest echelon HQ in order for the whole COC system to work, even if there is no actual HQ of that type in the ORBAT. Sort of abstraction then.

In defense a leader is actually somewhat safer from direct fire, particularly at ranges beyond 200-300m, as he´s not easily revealing his individual position by firing his weapon (SMG in most cases). If one can afford, split teams and let just team B (C) do the shooting job. Doesn´t work for stray bullets, HE and enemy snipers off course. In the attack, split teams and echelon the leader section somewhat back and put the other teams up front. NKWD style so to say. Bunching up is always a problem. For the future I´d like to have the ability to compose teams individually during game play. In example just make a small 2 men MG team (gunner & loader) and have the remaining soldiers distributed to 1 or 2 other teams. Or just make a HQ team with just the leader and assistant and distribute remaining soldiers to your liking. That coupled with custom squad formations....Just dreaming. Anyway, the split team system in CMX2 doesn´t quite coincide with real life WW2 squad compositions and tactical employment, at least not for all WW2 armies. In case of germans one could compare the normal infantry squad and its individual teams with the prewar compositions and tactical doctrine, which was abandoned right after the Poland campaign in late 1939. Prewar squads still had a seperate rifle and lMG team of roughly equal size, as well as a squad leader and a team B leader. From october 1939 this doctrine was abandoned (to simplify squad leadership and make it more flexible and powerful). From the french 1940 campaign onwards there was no two seperate teams in german infantry squads anymore. It was up to the squad leader to employ his squad in any manner he finds appropriate. He could employ the lMG alone and keep the rifle guys in cover. In that case the squad leader would be with or near the lMG. He could employ all of the squad to engage targets the same time, or just assign a single marksman and keep everyone else in cover. This flexibility is hard to pull off in CMX2, but I understand BFC had to make some compromises to get their split team system work in the game, in a somewhat generalised manner though.

Yap, I know. But that´s not the problem (IF it´s a problem at all). For my self made battle I purchased a Grenadier Bn and then deleted the Bn HQ and its XO unit, as well as other sub formations from the ORBAT (activated units), just leaving a Coy HQ and 1 reinforced Plt. for game play. Despite the Bn HQ deleted, it still is shown as green lit COC link in any its sub units COC info panel, when the game is started and played. It means not just any radio equipped sub HQ has this COC link, but any other unit without radio AND not in COC to immediate superior HQ as well. In example that one isolated HMG team, not in contact with its Plt HQ (or Coy HQ alternativeley), has an active (green) COC link to Bn. HQ I assume that in order for the COC feature to work properly in CMX2, there´s always a sort of Bn HQ type maintained in the data base, even if that particular HQ is not anymore part of the onmap game play ORBAT, as mentioned above. The COC connection light, green or red, rather seems to indicate something different in the game. One possibility could be that the light turning green, or red again, is that it maybe indicates information passed up and down the COC, although it´s not quite obvious what kind of information would be passed in this case. So here´s the roster in unit editor with deleted 3rd BN HQ Example team (among remaining units) that maintains infrequent COC link to deleted 3rd Bn HQ

I´ve seen single soldiers (not leader attributed), who were the only left overs from their unit self rallying and it could be that rally attempts generally are not always dependent on a leader, as you say. Hard to tell from just watching what´s going on on the battlefield.

I´ve again read some through the V3.0 GM and comparing with my experiences, it´s still hard to make some rules of thump, with all that many variables. As I understand the leadership rating work, it applies by die rolls with either chance of success or not. A 0 leader won´t do much, either positively or negatively, so his squad/team members are mostly left to their inherent soft factors, with all that variables coming into play affecting performance. A + leader has a "chance" to let his unit perform generally better, while a - leader could even possible ruin a veteran units performance...randomly. The + and - ratings are a bias towards a certain possible skill check outcome, but a final effect could also be just nothing. If I´d the choice, I´d possibly rather go with a veteran unit (or high motivation unit generally) and a bad leader, as opposed to green and conscript (or low motivation), with a good leader. In the latter case the unit is probably way more dependent on his leader and when this one gets incapacitated, you can only hope its replacement will not be a - leader. At last you can´t depend reliably on any units soft factors or leader ratings, as every game situation will have different variables and random dice rolls involved. All IMHO.

Unfortunately I couldn´t repeat the above mentioned results in another test battle, although the battle itself and particular situations that normally apply for surrender of troops, where almost the same. I kept every leader changes watched during the course of the game and again it was mostly "-" leader left overs, when related units were depleted and surrounded. With one exception (single soldier straggler, routed away), there were no other surrenders this time. I also noticed even the -2 leaders did successfull rally attempts (panic -> shaken, ect.) and these cases were also not that rare. So this second test play attempt rather suggests, that surrendering is more a random occasion as I thought. There´s numerous more test plays necessary to draw any reasonable conclusions it seems... Some strange thing I noticed is that the overall Bn.HQ (and the XO unit), which I had deleted from the roster, still shows a green light in the COC info panel (left hand bottom corner) for every onmap unit. In other words, the highest active HQ in the german onmap force is a Coy HQ, with one reinforced Infantry Platoon as organic sub formation. Also the green COC light goes on and off for different units and at different times during the game. Anybody has an idea? If an invisible and physically non existent superior HQ maintains a COC link to every subordinate unit, no matter if it even has a radio or not, what "influence" would this ghost HQ have, with regard to its soft factors?

Leaders in question were from normal infantry squads and (attached) HMG teams, all out of COC of the Plt. HQ, which was positioned further back with no direct influence (Plt. defence on extended front). Squad/team leaders were not all "-" by default and some were created during the battle by normal leader combat loss. I also remember those leaders were not left over assistant leaders, but those created from the ranks. In the mentioned situation it was just the case, that the heavily pressured german units had only "-" ones left. Other "triggering" factors surely were "rattled", "shaken" and also "panic" status, the inability to escape anywhere since there was enemy all around in close combat range and maybe that the surrendering units could watch each other ...surrender. Two surrendering units were in the same AS, while the third was in LOS, about 50m away. All in the same game turn and IIRC within a time frame of 10-20 seconds. I keep testing this situation over again, as anyway it´s the base of a mission WIP. I´d also like finding out, if battle created leaders draw their abilities from their units experience levels generally. In example, if a veteran unit is more likely to create a "+" leader, than a green or conscript one, that might possibly create more "0" or "-" types. Would make some sense, although the die rolls can be assumed to leave some space for "talents" or "failures". It generally makes some sense if a squad leader whose one responsibility is "rallying" his soldiers from bad morale state, not just can be unable to rally (always assuming it´s just a die roll anyway), but due to the "-" modifier can even have a worsening effect, which in worst case would be the surrendering of the whole unit, or at least parts of it. Need to check what "-" leaders in higher HQ (Coy & Bn) would generally do to their subordinates and if there´s noticable effects in morale and performance generally. To me it´s much of concern setting up a valuable AI opponent in my self made missions and to see if leader quality along the COC (as long as COC is maintained), carries over to various subordinates and creates varied performance within the given frame of the battle plans.

A bit OT and likely has been discussed before, but from some testing in a WIP mission of mine just yesterday, I encountered some sort of "mass surrender" of german troops, that I haven´t seen before. I was tinkering with soft factors of troops, that were to defend from pillboxes, as well as faked pillbox buildings (sunken 1 story buildings with one front window and one door) and always found them still resisting and fighting way too good, despite during battle they were constantly rattled (or below), due to given low morale and experience settings. When I thought about leader rating and its function, I started to give a number of troops negative leader ratings (-1, -2) and during game play then found this beeing a major multiplier to a units likelyhood to surrender in appropiate conditions. Actually it´s quite clear that the leader ratings have some obvious positive effects, including the ability to rally troops from shaken morale, when in the + range, but with this particular effect rather reversed when in the minus range. So it´s not just a minus rated leader more unable to rally troops in general, it´s also way more likely he´ll trigger a surrender. I actually noticed this before, when after a leader loss (one who had a 0 or + leader rating), he was replaced by a minus rated leader and gots his unit affected very badly. But I´d given it not the deserved attention, when I was in the middle of a battle and focused more on troops in good combat order. Now when working on self made missions, I take leader ratings and particularly the negative ones more into consideration, when I need forces or parts of them perform more likely in various ways. In the mentioned WIP mission I had 9 germans (from 3 different squads/teams) surrendered in a late single game turn and it would´ve been 13 or 14, if they hadn´t been killed in the last exchange of bullets. (rough end game ratio was something like 1:1:1, KIA, WIA, MIA) Highest number I´ve seen in any battle so far. The -1 and -2 leader ratings made the difference for green and low morale troops not to fight to the last man and bullet, when there´s no route of escape otherwise.

Nice! Two is a good start! ...yet we don´t know what´s the actual problem. I´m not sure if it´s a particular graphics card problem, driver or something related and not truely something to be fixed from BFC. Since there´s little to none feedback about the matter, it could just be a minority of players ever´ve seen this. Whatever it is, I too find it a pretty disturbing effect, completely destroying the impression of true life dusk and dawn lighting conditions.

I know what you mean. I´d posted this repeatedly during past years, but either nobody really cares, or it´s just a handful of people who have this issue. My last posting: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/120401-which-file-contains-the-textures-for-bocage-banksrisings/?do=findComment&comment=1623890

Any tests beside my own? Good question. I did very intensively test the mentioned situation (HMG) and the results were as reported. If that applies to all and any type units, I can´t tell. But since that time I treat arcs as "if possible (visible & targetable), engange enemy up to range as set by the arc". More sort of a command and less sort of an option. No arcs means the TacAI is completely left to its own judgements, dependent upon soft factors and other variables. The TacAI might figure that due to its abilities (soft factors) and terrain, ect. it ain´t worth to engage a target with reasonable amount of ammo and hit chances, while an arc might tell it, engage anyway and do what you´re told to, similar to the (direct) target command. Unless someone proofs something different, I take this as a base for using arcs generally.

Hm...not quite from my experience. A large distance CA something like "enforces" or encourages a unit to engage targets at far ranges, where it would do not, when entirely left on its own (no CA at all). I.e if I want a HMG need to reach far out, I usually give it a CA of about 1500m, which gets it start shooting at approximately 1200-1300m (the range where it can actually spot enemies with Binocs). With no CA setting it would more likely to start engaging targets at ranges of ~1000m and below. Off course there´s a couple of more variables involved, but if you need to exploit a units long range hitting power, even with reduced accuracy, then a long range CA will help. Otherwise the TacAI more likely will just take general hit chances/accuracy into account and only starts shooting if the enemy comes towards a certain treshold (range/to hit chance combo).