DavidFields

Right. I used essentially every artillery round in School of Hard Knocks, so had some mortars empty in University of Hard Knocks. By the way, in my opinion, it is good to be modest in one's ambitions on the School scenario--just trying to keep you from being very frustrated.

My understanding was that "adjust fire" resulted in an entirely new fire mission, not a correction of an existing one. Correct or not? [bTW, Courage and Fortitude Campaign gives one a lot of artillery experience, if you have not already done it]

I agree. I don't remember using HT in CM1 in an assault role--indeed, I specifically remember that being a terrible idea. I realize there were some, rare, instances where the right tactic was to charge with HTs, and unload in front of the enemy--or, at least, it was a spectacular tactic. But those were rare--and I seldom used them because if one misjudged the enemy force one essentially lost everything. To me, HT in CM1 were held back, to mop up at a distance, as sort of a mobile MG, late in the scenario. And I mostly played early WW2 scenarios in CM1--by 1944, infantry AT stuff is incredibly common. First and most important tactical rule for me: infantry in front of the armor, armour stays 100-300 meters from the closest un-scouted tree line (depending on the year). Anything else is reckless or desperate. And that is with tanks, no less. Stay with us, Taki. You will have better battles.

So you are moving 3 companies (Courage and Fortitude). One way would be to double click on an HQ, click on a point, and everything moves in parallel. Except, this does not work well with a lot or terrain or, say, a bridge, or down a road with blocking terrain on either side--at least, I dont' thinkit words well. What would be immensely useful if to be able to click on a location, and all the elements path that, or near that location. That would involve the AI doing some pathing, but I think it already does some of that. [bTW: I know understand Battlefront does not look at this forum as a "chat site", where people have threads just to express.....understood.]

+1 And I won't even mention the amount of time, hours, I spend just analyzing the general situation before I play the first turn.

Makes for an interesting conundrum, because I think one of the tactical maxims in these games is to essentially always put infantry in front of your tanks. I enjoy it when an opponent, or the AI, leads with the tanks. My guess is that the solution is historical: fire lanes for the tanks. It also makes me guess that there may have been even more friendly fire casualties in the bocage than we see here--those tank gunners having even less information than we have here. Sort of like what we see now in Libya, where if the Rebels don't move too far forward without telling someone they risk being hit by NATO, it would seem that units staying "in their lane" would have been important in WW2 bocage, because moving laterally could invite a nasty surprise if friendly troops started firing at sound contacts.

Since your idea is based on a pretty serious lack of understanding of what happened in real life at this level, it's not surprising that we don't see it having any applicability within the game Steve

Just finnished it, Warrior, Wego, Draw. Excellent scenario, and it appears to be in a very thoughtful and clever campaign (Courage and Fortitude).

Yes, tiger123, I am starting to make a rule for myself: no forum posting after 1 am, or a third beverage. The problem is, after the third beverage after 1 am, I sometimes forget my rule.

I had something similar in School of Hard Knocks. Fortunately, I was able to zoom in and click on the unit by clicking on one of my soldiers! Intermittently this worked...could not find a real pattern.

OK, I stand rightly corrected. Scout teams--will use them without hesitation. And when, in a previous post, that breaking off teams might leading to them to "disppear", I did not mean that literally--or even that they did something like desert. My meaning was that when one relies only on sight and voice, if the teams lose contact with the rest of the squad--they could easily be get lost. As in: You are a scout team a couple of 100 yards ahead. Either because of enemy fire, or miscommunication, you lose contact. You yell? Wave your arms around?--does not seem like a healthy thing to be doing. How the heck do you find each other again--particularly in hedgerow, dense woods, or a village? Probably you have a rally point, but there might be a long time lag before all elements decide to go there. And for you grogs, how far down the line did maps go. Company Commander/XO: certainly. Platoon Commander: Probably? Squad Leader: Probably not? Sub-squad team: No? For one thing, I would think that one would want to minimize notated maps landing in the hands of the enemy. I appreciate, AKD, that you would want to have any potential anachronisms backed with documentation. Subjectively, I am still going by "feel"--I am looking to see that longshorman from Long Island, or the son of a farmer from Arkansas, put in a cloth uniform, taken to France, given a gun which, most of them, just went bang.....bang...., and put in a position if they just went out a different door in a large building could potentially be completely out of contact with the rest of his squad temporarily--longer if it is hectic, and everyone then makes a few wrong turns. [idea: If split squads are out of command and control for long enough they disappear, like the dead, because they are effectively lost to your unit? That would rein in their use, to more specific squad/platoon scouts. Also (and this may already be the case--I have not tested--have them not be able to touch or occupy a Victory location.]

Quoted from akd post: Most armies had a previous World War and a few decades to develop the tactics made possible by the options available at the squad level in the game. Straight from the relevant US field manual: Quote: Duties of scouts. (1) When it is not preceded by friendly troops within view, a rifle platoon in the attacking echelon of a leading company is preceded by its scouts. The scouts operate under control of the platoon leader. (See paragraph 114f.) Deployed in pairs at wide and irregular intervals, they move out boldly to the front to reconnoiter successive positions (objectives) along the route of advance, and seek to force enemy riflemen and machine guns to disclose their position. One member of each pair watches for signals from the platoon leader. They take advantage of cover without delaying their advance, and cross exposed ground at a run. Their distance in front of the platoon is governed by orders of the platoon leader and varies with the ground and with the probable position of the enemy. One moment they may be 500 yards ahead; at another time they may be absorbed within their units. In approaching houses, na-tural defiles, and villages, one scout of each pair cover the movement and reconnaissance of the other. [end of quote] Thanks akd. I find the above very relevant. A few questions/observations: 1. What is the date of the field manual noted above? 2. Note: "a rifle platoon in the attacking echelon of a leading company is preceded by its scouts." Deployed in pairs and spaced out.....sounds like a scout squad, not a scout team. What I find a bit potentially anachronistic is a scout squad detaching a scout team. [love the language, by the way: "attacking echelon"--a French, almost Napoleonic term, which gives a good flavor of where US WW2 teachings partially came from. Along with reconnoiter and even recon--wonder if current US manuals have as much a french language base.] 3. The scouts operate under the control of the platoon leader. Again, this is not a sub-squad level issue. It appears as though these squad teams are very popular. My sorta point is this: CMBN would likely not look the way it does if it were to have been designed in 1970, which would have still been 25 years after the end of WW2. I sense the influence of warfare development in the last several decades in its design, in part in this team break-off concept. That is not surprising. Few of the people playing this game were WW2 vets--I treat WW2 vets, and most are over 80. I am now dawdling, with pleasure, through the second scenario of Courage and Fortitude. I have never seen anything like it, in CM1, or any other WW2 previous tactical game. Perhaps that is the point of the scenario. The static of FO monotone chatter is interspersed with meteor-shower like strikes. If it were a night battle, I would think it would look like the bridge scene in Apocalypse now. What I had considered a WW2 battlefield vital element, the MG, seems substantially downgraded in comparison with the artillery. I will adapt. My plea, such as it is, to keep anachronsims to a minimum, is a friendly one. If sub squad scout teams are fun, fine. But some people are going to try to, for example, make sure the Stug frontal armor is correct. And some of us will look at the human element, where...oh my gosh, I am calling in 155 artillery on my own position.....it might be more relevant in the WW2 context to ask what are the current Afghan and Iraqi troops capable of performing, and model that, rather than what curent Nato troops can do. Women, cheese, wine. I think you will find that some of the US troops in France had a great time--ordinary guys, very temporary soldiers, a long, long, way from home. I

Thank you for the thoughtful replies. As with the mortars (different thread), the split squad, especially the scout part, gives a different feel to tactics which I am working through. (I was also not a big fan of massive split squad tactics in CM1) Yes, I can see why people would think the scout teams are great: why risk a squad when you can risk just two soldiers--two which are guaranteed not to have the heavy weapon of the squad. But my guess is that the casualty rate in CMSF is just different--that Blue squads/platoons, even companies, disappeared at alarming rates in WW2, replaced by new troops. Tell me that there are WW2 vets on this forum that would recognize modern split squad tactics as then standard in their days. [Was "Bounding Overleap", which was what I was taught in the 70's, used in WW2, or is it fairly M16, with it individual high fire power, dependent?] It just feels a little anachronistic to me. Generally, did WW2 squads function reliably at the sub-squad level? Send 2 soldiers off somewhere in a less disciplined unit....and you may never see them again. They will just disappear into the countryside. Part of the reason to send 10 or 12 people to do something, a squad, is that it is more likely to actually get done. [Those who train Afghan/Iraq troops can respond, hopefully respectfully, here.] From my understanding, the German company (not to glorify it, but to set it as a WW2 archtype) was powerful because, fully trained, it could get tactical maneuvers down to the platoon/squad level. But lower? How many armies/units, routinely, in WW2? Again, not a complaint: more of an issue for thought, particularly as we role time back to units in 1942. It may very well be that some people will not enjoy having less effective troops. Imagine having a Mass Charge as the correct, most effective, approach. [Thought I had posted something like this before, but don't see it now--apologize if my previous similar post pops up somewhere]

I think this is what I am struggling with. Mortars and artillery seem so much more important in CMBN that CM1, or CC, or ASL, or Squad/Panzer Leader, that I am puzzled. Game engines are different, but I didn't expect such a large change in what I thought were WW2 tactics. I am willing to agree to CMBN being correct. I already knew that an overwhelming number of the WW2 casualties were from artillery. I had sort of thought that most of those artillery casualties were outside the scope of CM: crushing barrages which would be not be interesting to portray. I am willing to believe that certain engagements, especially infantry directly causing casualties, has been overmodeled in the past. And that the mortars, which I had always thought as sort of nuisance, "keep their head down", type of weapons, where undermodeled. Is that correct?

Battlefront, you may want to work on some code on this. Even though, I will bet, you do not want to. Scout teams can wander hundreds of meters from their squad? Really. That makes them like the CM1 sniper teams (which you appropriately nerfed). They should stay, absolutely, within some range of the orignial squad. In the desert in modern warfare, a couple of guys with a bang-bang rifle were likely useless and dead. But here, even with relative spotting, such rogue units can "peek" at the opponent. I have been a bit concerned about the squad splitting. OK, you can convince me it was historical. But a team should not be able to go back to Brooklyn to order a pizza. Oh, I am wrong. Glad to here it....please, start the incoming barrage.

The irony is that, I believe, barbed wire was invented in the US, in the West, or some such cattle country. Designed to keep cows in check....where are those Normandy cows again......I don't think they were impassable to humans. [unless you were Steve McQueen, in the Great Escape, at the Swiss border, on a motor cycle.]

Other than not under the barrage. I have searched, but find the CMSF stuff not exactly applicable. And since a good bit of CMBN seems to be infantry being under mortar fire: 1. In CM1, the best place for the infantry to be would be was out in the open, their faces in the dirt. This was because of tree bursts. Putting you infantry in the woods in certain situations was a rookie mistake. Still the case? 2. Your guys in CM1 with the face in the ground could likely withstand a mortar barrage from something small caliber--60mm-ish. Indeed, the vet troops would stay down, while those less experience would run and get slaughtered. Still the case? I find the small mortars more lethal in CM2, and wonder if running is not better. 3. To get your platoon's dirt faced, "hide" is the right command? Will experienced/trained do that automatically? I am not trying to get CMBN to be CM1, I just want to understand if there is an adaptation of tactics needed--hopefully still consistent with the reality of WW2. It is possible that seeing 3 pixeltoopen turn into 2 in CM1 just did not have the same visceral effect that 4-5 dead bodies does here. It will be interesting to see if those tiny Commonwealth mortars are more than just a nuisance when they arrive.

Double click on a HQ unit to highlight all its subordinate units. Make a small cover arc. Now all the units have a small cover arc. (I am putting this here rather than start a new thread: I was proposing a "small cover arc" command, or having all HQ/FO/Mortars start with one. One of the ways of having an edge over the AI, or even another human, is currently to go through the tedium of putting small cover arcs on....most units (except maybe some MGs initially). But as much as I am willing to bear tedium to gain an edge in this game, newcomers may find routinely drawing all those cover arcs as off-putting.

Company of Heroes was mentioned in the review.....never played it. I have played games with "health bars", but......it just seems a million miles away from playing CM1 or CM2. Glad the reviewer generally liked CMBN. Hope we have gained a convert. Sounds like the kind of cross-over that would make Battlefront sales expload.

The issue has practical consequences for the campaign designers and campaigns in CMBN going forward. As I see it, the campaign construction in CMBN can be very elegent, with lots of branching, but that won't matter much if almost everyone declines to ever lose a scenario. Personally, I see it as a preference and communication issue. The designer giving the player some of what he was thinking, and how it might optimally be played, likely will save a lot of frustration. Even with single scenarios, there are the "puzzles" and the "work it through on generally principles completely blind." Some of the latter ones will be very easy if one loads, reloads, or knows approximately what/where the enemy units are (even with variable AI), and some of the former ones will be essentially impossible on the "blind" first go. [ie: having to know that one has to indirectly fire on, for example, certain locations in a certain order, because of limited ammo, to have a chance of succeeding]

As is common, I am not asking this as a morality question. But my guess is that some players are unwilling to do this--will play until they win, perhaps play until they get a total victory, or be frustrated and stop. This matters, I would guess, with scenario designers. I almost feel as though there should be some sort of hint from the scenario designer that a romp is not likely or even desirable. (I think in Courage and Fortitude, second scenario, the designer did a good job implying that, but maybe not everyone got the message.) Indeed, though it seems the CM1 campaign style of releasing reserve formations at certain degrees of loss is not here (right?), can one design a CMBN campaign where it is better to take....perhaps a small loss......for a stronger position in a later scenario? My point is that of clear communication: people should have a great time playing CMBN, so different types of players could best make their wishes explicit, and the scenario descriptions would be matchable to those wishes.

SL= Squad Leader? Really. The board game? I don't remember that. (I do remember the difference between Squad Leader and Panzer Leader is that SL had "reaction fire"--so one could not run your tanks between one clump of trees to another with impunity.) I would be interested to find out that a standard retreating tactic in WW2 was to through a few smoke grenades to cover it. I would have thought the standard would have been to through a few real frag grenades--but I am willing to be schooled in this area.

OK, "pop smoke" is new from CM1, and even the term is somewhat foreign to me--and I had no idea that infantry could do that (thought is was an AFV command). So, I get to ask the obligitory CM1 to CMBN, WW2 aficionado question: Which is more true, this is more a Modern Warfare term/tactic which is now placed into CMBN because CMSF had it, or that CM1 completely missed out on an important simulation aspect? (I sort of asked that about Blast, too--I realize there are some examples, Ortona (?spelling), but still wonder about the general applicability, which will seem even murkier as CM2 moves toward 1942) For me, this is not a morality, or good or bad, issue. I am just trying to understand the reality of the situation. [Notice, every post thus far on this thread is from a Senior Member--the ancients have been summoned and awakened!]

It would appear as though one could inflict enemy casualties, not take casualties of one's own, and take the bridge, and get 600 points. Is that a viable approach--knock the heck out of the germans for almost an hour, then take the bridge, and call it a day (tea time!)

I am not heated up about this UI issue--I play WEGO, and a few extra clicks is not a big deal. But I am going to make a proposal for the Battlefront team to look at--an opinion. Let me start by saying that nothing I suggest should interfere with what I think is an elegant system of moving around the map with the mouse. It seems great not to have the "WASD" to deal with. And I don't write code, so I don't know what is exactly possible. (This is also different than the "left click choose unit, right click action"--so completely just an opinion.) Proposal: After left clicking to choose a unit, left clicking again on the ground creates a movement line (default...probably Hunt). Or left clicking on an enemy unit "targets". With a unit or waypoint selected, right clicking pops up menu with all the orders on it--so one does not have to remember if an order, say, is administrative or something else. Left click on the order. If it is movement, your movement line changes color if the order is not Hunt. The order menu also disappears, and one can add more waypoints. If it is an action, like facing or cover arc, again the order pop-up disappears, and one can do the appropriate left clicking on the map. Right clicking brings you back to the menu. Deselect by can either be an Order, clicking he mouse wheel, clicking on the unit, or something like that. The result is this: left click selects units, and selects the actions. Right click brings the Orders menu up, or makes it disappear. Practically: One is not looking down at the bar at the bottom of the screen (the pop up Orders would be near the center of one's visual field), one does not have to sift through 4 different types of orders to find the right one--("Bail" is...which tab?), all the potential orders for a unit are can be seen with a right click. Bonus improvement: click on the unit at the bottom of the screen, and details of that unit pop-up. This means one does not have to cram ever more tiny info into those boxes at the bottom. Of course this requires "pop-up" boxes to be possible. Tell me that "tool-tips" are also possible, and one could put even more information at the gamer's fingertips. From a selfish stand-point, I actually would rate having an Armor Cover Arc as more pressing concern. The UI stuff is mostly to try to make CM2 more mainstream in its feel--and I don't think it is the info quantity which is the issue here, but smoothness in orders with the mouse. Oh, and adjusting what you see about the trees and such, click on a bar or button--and get rid of the "alt" stuff, which just seems dated.