sand digger

Yep it been tweaked, Russian>>>>>German. Some German Cessna's came over, buzzing around, dropped a couple of firecrackers, one got shot down, that was it..............

Outammo has it I think although it would be realistic to be able to have a gun lock onto a moving target once it is technically possible to do so, without the possibility that the gun's vehicle will subsequentially start to move out of position. I've tried every combination of controls to get this, without success. For close infantry support perhaps one of the short 75mm tank gun options would be better or even a SdKfz 251/9 if there are no AT guns around to poke holes in it.

Action report: the unarmoured flak wagon did not last long, once it opened fire those green (Sturmoviks?) were right on it, lined it up in a train and literally blew it to pieces for the loss of one aircraft. Spectacular video, it was almost worth losing the wagon to see it Chose the quad over the similar single 37mm flak wagon because it has a gunshield, errr, yes. Infantry losses were down this time but still significant, the ones on the left flank under trees were not spotted. Noticed one of the light cannon armed tanks firing at the intruders when they were strafing which seems fair enough, no reason why it shouldn't.

Yeh once guns start firing they should be spottable by just about anything that has a reasonably clear view, particularly Russian guns that did not have as good a 'smokeless' propellant as the Germans did. I watch for the tracer and use that on pause to line up the approximate gun position, its not a 'end of the world' problem but it would be a realistic improvement if it was fixed.

Not much choice for German AA, am trying the unarmoured SdKfz 7/1 quad 20mm flak wagon, have positioned it out of enemy ground LOS, should be fun to watch in action with lots of sparkling goodness

Game is generally playing great with the current patches, thankyou 1C, but someone has tweaked Russian ground attack aircraft effectiveness and changed them into seek and destroy monsters. First battle of the campaign and I lose over one thirds of the infantry before they can reach the enemy, most of which had adopted prone positions and quite a few had been hiding in heavy cover in difficult to get at hollows. According to the historical records I have read, Western ground attack pilots grossly overestimated the damage they inflicted, this being confirmed by careful battlefield examination after the event. So I don't know on what basis the tweak has been done, it seemed about right originally and no one complained about it did they? So I'll have to start again, this time with some AA, can't realistically continue the present game after sustaining such pre combat losses. Any tips as to German AA which can also be used against ground targets?

Yeh I should have mentioned it was the big 8?mm ones, everything I've ever read indicates they were pretty accurate.

All fixed, not sure how but perseverence played a part

Yeh I have the 'failed to initialise' problem too, tried both the autoloader and manual downloads, same message. Turned the anti virus program off, no difference.

So basically this complaint is about your currency which is crap at the moment. BF is in the US and has US expenses to pay and profits to make, how in hell is your complaint relevant here?

Yeh against entrenched infantry indirect fire is needed and was available back in the day in several forms. I haven't noticed that supression works so its a unrealistically tough job to attack with infantry even with tank support, particularly that so far I've found mortar fire to be wildly inaccurate too. You reach a stalemate and can only proceed by sending heaps of infantry, most of who will be knocked in the first minute.

To elaborate a bit more, in the opening round of Citadel the German mortars did not hit a single selected target. As a result the AFV's run out of HE trying to do the preliminary job that the mortars should have done ie knock out some AT guns, particularly those along the back that are protected to a large degree by trees from accurate direct fire. Now I'm sure there is a way around this German problem but then it starts to get 'gamey' ie not representative of real WW2 warfare where mortars and artillery inflicted a very significant percentage of casualties. And where certainly no mortar gunner would be allowed to waste all his ammo due to his incompetence. So, still trying to play the game realistically, the solution seems fairly obvious to me if you have an inexperienced gunner. First few shots may be wide but then corrections are quickly made and rounds start being on target. It was not rocket science, turn a knob or two the right way and bingo, happy days for the bombers But to be fair to the Russians there is the counterpoint - how come all their distinctive gun emplacements are visible early on in the game? The guns and crew may not be visible but you don't need to know that, just lob some HE on every one, they are all occupied. So, for better realism, better newbie German accuracy balanced by some Russian gun emplacements that are not revealed until their guns open fire. Particularly those along the back hidden by trees.

Can't check the gunner's 'skills', Hans shot the useless ammo wasting mofo. Seriously, a bit unrealistically bad.

Patch: Mk III German tanks to be given their missing machine guns; German mortars able to fire tight accurate groups, instead of spraying it around the countryside like they had imbibed way too much schnapps

Whats the go here, ze Ghermans are spraying mortar rounds all over the place, maybe a 150 meter spread at 500 meters, something like that. Do they have to have a LOS to improve because the Russians are way more tight, other German units have LOS if that is relevant. Or was German WW2 mortar accuracy a myth

Patch: AFV's be given a towing ability, as they had in the real world. Also be able to push other vehicles. Tried to tow a bogged SdKfz222 with a Stug and no tow hook up for the Stug WTF. More to come Wish List: Action replay, sometimes there is so much happening at different parts of the map its impossible to observe it all. This is almost a patch thing, in the real world a commander would be receiving reports, the ones the game provides are helpful but way not detailed enough.

Right click on the destination when moving, firing etc.

Yeh the more you play the better it gets, truly the indicator of a great game Looks like there is going to be ongoing support in the form of patches too, well done 1C. Thing that lets it down is the absence of a proper paper manual which I would have happily paid extra for as an option, bad miss there BF.

OK there is a hold position available, for anyone else looking use the Action Mode button, bottom left on the panel, HP works when there is a small red diagonal showing, according to the online manual. Which won't print properly for me and which I would have happily paid say an extra $5 for a paper version. With a quirky complicated game like this we need a proper paper manual, at least as an optional extra.

Don't have a Hold Position button, nearest thing to that seems to be the Stop button. Someone?

Any reason why the mortars were not used to separate the two Afghan groups and isolate the first immediately the ambush was sprung? Drop them on that part of the route separating the two groups to delay and inflict casualties on the second group if they tried to move forward. I know its easy to be wise after the event but it seems to be a logical plan requiring no further action after being set in place. Fix and forget.

Have no problem firing at stationary stuff, main problem is using tanks etc to attack moving vehicles and infantry. Rather than lock on to them and fire away or else move just enough so as to bring their guns to bear they usually want to chase them, run them down. Then they are lured over a trench and attacked by infantry at close range, turn away exposing their back ends or put themselves in danger in some other way. So, what to do and which controls to use?

Maybe it would be better to award extra benefits for the economical use of resources. Give us a starting allocation, plus reserves that have to be paid extra for in some way if you move them at all. At the end your situation would benefit, or not, depending on the amount of resources used in total and your use or not of reserves. So at some time you have to make a decision as to moving the reserves up or not. Can I do the job with what I have or will the reserves be needed? Do I bring the reserves up straight away? Will using the reserves be more economical overall eg the extra firepower will save infantry lives?

Agree with Narses, the other thing is you may be tempted to make an attack, for example, simply to gain more points. Its an unrealistic feature.

Who said Smash works for 1C, who said that I'm just starting to get right into this game, its quite different even from CMAK for example, very challenging with a lot to learn and a lot to do. Thanks to the graphics action detail even micro managing gets interesting, if you want superficiality and quick play this is not the game for you.