GreenAsJade

Good to know: wasn't completely clear, given the references to modern day guns that people own and have tested. Would be great to see a real life performance test like http://civiliandefenseforce.com/308penetrationtest.html with bricks/other wall material. GaJ

The question is "why did it go away"? Why can't you throw a demo charge any place you feel like it, whether there's a tank, building or inf unit there or not.... GaJ

LOL that's very funny

Sigh - that's a shame. It means it's unsafe to use demo charges if the enemy is anywhere nearby, because there's the risk that they'll rush to the target zone _without_ deploying the weapon that's needed to make the target zone safe. On this topic, why did the ability to use the charge as a weapon (IE area fire->use explosives) go away? GaJ

Yeah, and there's We Band Of Brothers, and many others. Find a club, or more than one ... the community is great. If you want a feel for sheer "amount of activity" read the AAR Forum. The top 10 most active players between them played about 100 games in the last 3 months... GaJ

In this movie: the pioneers had a blast command to enter the building. However, they run around (and through the walls, incidentally). Lucky for me this time the bad guys were already dealt with, but I was expecting these guys to chuck their demo charges at the building. Any idea why they did not? Could have been nasty! GaJ

Amazing, isn't it! Is this the same as WWII weapons? GaJ

For the record, I think this discusison only really applies to H2H. As PanzerMiller says, with the AI, you can learn something about the scenario and go back and kick it better next time on the same match. You can't do this H2H. Generally H2H games play the scenario blind. The results that I posted were all H2H games. GaJ

No, no! The opposite. I was making a plea for more _cover_ from _fire_. Concealment is OK, I think. The really missing thing, often, seems to be cover from fire. GaJ

Monty Python? GaJ

You seem to be right about this. Although I thought I was careful, now when I return to the editor, V seems to be water, and.... ... well actually, I can't reproduce the U shape at all. I have the U shape in the QB that I'm looking at, but now when I open the editor and add deep fords, I find I can barely get the camera under the water at all in the deep ford. Are there other variables at play? GaJ

I've learned a lot about rifle fire in this thread - thanks. I actually didn't absorb properly what the report told us either about what the bullet did: that it went through all those things at once. Rather awesome really. What it tells me is that the cover that I experienced in CMx1 in trees was most unrealistic, and similarly houses, and that what we're experiencing now is more like the fact. Given the effort that went into, and the hype surrounding, the realism of CMx1 I'm slightly surprised, but one could say it just goes to show how hard it is to make an abstraction be realistic! I kinda suspect that there was a playability factor as well: CMx1 might not have gone down so well if forests provided so little cover... we're hardly ready for this difficulty now, let alone 10 years ago! Anyhow, thanks once more for the education: I better learn how to play with such deadly weapons! GaJ

It seems to me that this was easier to answer than you guys are making out. A shallow ford, you can't even get the camera under the water. A normal river, it's gently U shaped under the water. A deep-ford is V shaped under the water. That's what I saw in the editor. Are there cases where this is not true? GaJ

Oh, alright then GaJ

I wouldn't mind an experience like that. What I'm finding challenging is not being able to take cover in forests from forces that are firing in from the outside... the guys in the screen shot I posted are being waxed by guys who are on the other side of a hedgerow that is one the other side of the forest. I had thought that by hunkering down in the forest, I'd be forcing the oppo to come in and dig me out, but it's not the case: he can fire from outside till I'm dead, then walk in... I had a similar thing in Chance Encounter, where a whole force of mine was routed by Sherms on the other side of the map firing into the forest... GaJ

Another thing, now I'm looking: the trees all have surprisingly thin trunks in CM. I though Europe was full of large old trees? These trees have trunks substantially less thick than a person's body... is that right? GaJ

That's a really fascinating and "approachable" bit of information. I think there are a couple of things it leaves me thinking though ... ... first, that amount of wood is not "a tree" it's "a branch". and second ... how effective at killing is the bullet after it's been through? This is a genuine question, I have no idea what the answer is. After the bullet has been through one phone book, how far does it get into the next one? Does it plough through a second just as easily, or does it fall to the floor a few feet further on? My totally ignorant intuition is that if I'm standing behind this tree: which is about twice as thick (lets say) as the branch in the test, that I would be substantially protected against someone shooting at me from (lets say) 500m away IE "outside the forest that I'm hiding in". I can imagine that someone "just on the other side of the tree" might be able to shoot through it at me, that wouldn't feel "unrealistic". What feels "surprising" at the moment is guys getting no effective cover from tree trunks when the fire is coming from a way away... if it really is the case that a rifle can kill a man through a tree like that, then that's a lesson for me.... maybe it explains why the pixeltrupen don't bother taking cover behind them! GaJ

Sigh. Thanks. Can someone post a picture of what a ford looks like under the water? This is much like mud: until you've seen it and are sure it is it, you don't know what it really looks like... I might be looking at a river that is all-ford, or none-ford, or the difference might be more subtle than I realise... I can't go look in the editor, it's a QB that's commenced... Thanks! GaJ

... without having units on the map... IE looking at a QB preview, for example...

The pictures of forests etc, both CMBN and real, have been really helpful. I've started to think that the "suprisingly little cover" experience that I've had (and I'm not saying anyone else has it, just it's what I get often) is actually two things: 1) Lack of the right tiles combined with 2) The individual guys don't use trees in the way that real guys would. I was critical of a forest in a QB that I am playing where my guys are getting massacred, thinking that the trees were not dense enough. But actually they look like some of the photos, and I don't think "foliage" will increase the cover, only the concealment. So I went back and watched the guys. What they do (an MG team) is all cluster around the one tree that's in the action spot. Or (a squad) they don't spread out enough to have a tree-per-man. No wonder they get massacred. If you have a forest like this: which is exactly what the forest looks like in-game, then surely every single man goes to a single tree to hide behind when the squad detects incoming attackers?? Unlike my guys, who are dieing like flies from attackers who are outside the forest that they are in... because they largely aren't using the trees for cover: GaJ

Acknowledged ... and I didn't say sample size wasn't an issue. I do agree that the sample size is small. What I said was that 80 games is not _ridiculously_ small. It's enough, IMHO, to be able to say "gee, hmm... that's interesting!!". I totally agree the jury is out. If the verdict was in, this would be a different discussion, eh? GaJ

Another great point. There's a "binary" component to a CMBN result: either someone gets hundreds of points for a VL, or they don't! OTOH, this factor was there with flags in CMx1, so I'm not sure: what makes it _more_ of a factor now? Is the relative weight of CMBN victory point things more? GaJ

Great idea. I might do that if I have a chance. Note that I for one never mentioned game mechanics. I don't think it's necessarily a game mechanics thing at all, except for the fact the buildings offer so little cover. GaJ

I had in mind the lack of cover, primarily. The mention of scenario length is a good one too. Neither of these are fundamental or "about the CMx2 engine". They seem to be more about the scenario design. BUT then again .... I made graphs of the first 80 results of CMAK, CMBN and CMBO, first by date. You would think that we were all learners at CMBO ... http://gregories.net/bobster/bobster.cgi?function=scenario-spread-histogram80 ... and yet when we were learning CMBO, we fought close battles. In the first 80 CMBO games played, there were negligible "Total Victories". Compare to CMBN, where there were a large proportion of the games with this wide margin. Figure that one out!? For some reason CMBN battles seem to be more precipitate... GaJ

Yeah, this is one bizarre thing... pushing tanks through trees in CMBN is a total winner, where you can do it. It's hard to target those beggars with all the foliage around, yet they can do a lot of harm from there. A far cry from the old CMx1 experience, where trees were a no-go zone for AFVs (mobility being dramatically reduces, concealment not significantly improved). I have no idea which is more realistic. GaJ