Peregrine

Could simply see how to edit my post. This is a mistake. I had confused Hammer' Flank and Blunting the Spear in my head.

Haven't played CM for awhile until recently so haven't bought anything in years. You just sold a Fire and Rubble upgrade for them.

If you are just starting out it is probably a good idea to play a lot of scenarios first so you get better at the game before starting the campaigns. Most of the campaigns are challenging in many ways and while most have great replay-ability it isn't quite the same as the first play through. A good way to get experience quickly would be to pick a module then play a small, medium, medium then large scenario with the force your are intending to campaign with. "Looking for something smaller and easier" is difficult to quantify because most campaigns have at least one or two battles of considerably size/complexity. Blunting the Spear (CMRT) should be a no-no as it has some very big truly grinding battles. Kampfgruppe Engel I can't remember well but it has some really good individual battles and it is a little simpler than some others due to force composition and length.

Not as important for modern modules but for the WWII titles simple things like the presence or absence binoculars have a bearing for the initial spots of pretty much everything at longer ranges . These aren't necessarily present in every squad. If you are playing scenarios where AT guns are a menace having HQs with binocs and radios in good and sometimes prominent spotting positions is important to respond quickly to new threats.

It has been awhile since I looked at this closely but I think the following is broadly true. Units need to be in contact to share information. Voice contact extends to about 50m so at elite and iron units this far apart are essentially the same. Longer visual contact from 50 to 90m requires friendly units to "spot" the other. This is much easier than spotting an enemy but not automatic at Iron. The main issue slowing info sharing at Iron would be units not within 50m and either hiding, significant concealing terrain or blocked LOS preventing spotting. I have never directly tested speed of sharing between Elite and Iron but it is fast enough on Iron that I doubt you would be getting significant advantage on Elite. The determining factor would be spotting ability at that 50m+ range.

I think using the + / - buttons to cycle through your entire force will show you which platoon the halftracks belong too. I had a similar problem when I disembarked multiple crews to be medics and then couldn't at first figure out which halftrack belongs to which crew.

Built the "rules" (I prefer to call them guidelines) up over a long time and still use them. Haven't changed them for quite a time now. The game engine does a better job than ever of punishing out of command units taking casualties. Original post is over 5 years old now and the guidelines developed for at least 2 before that.

This was Panzer Marsch. Accumulated points but spotting enemy infantry. If you spot enough to get victory conditions I think the next scenario you start with many enemy as spotting icons for easier artying. Don't have it on my hard drive so I can't double check but the packaged campaign for CMSF Marines Module also had a similar mission to start with. Small group of marines moving through an urban area on the right and farmland on the left. CMSF also had a few other scenarios where you only had a small contingent to creep forward for spotting and arty purposes for about 30 minutes before the main force arrived. These for me were always better than the stand alone recon missions. The problem with the outright recon scenarios is that they are really hard to do well and have virtually no replay value. If the map is large enough that you can't really guess where you hit the opposition then you need to move really slowly for a long distance. This can give the mission an excruciatingly slow feel. And when you eventually find them you aren't expected to do anything else other the withdraw. Alternatively if the distance isn't that big then it feels more like you basically already know where the enemy is so why not be pounding that area with something more potent than a couple of infantry squads / light vehicles.

Area firing in the general direction of contacts is often enough to get suppression and cause casualties. This doesn't mean you need LOS to the target either. If a target is 100 to 120m away and your LOS is well short of this you still have excellent results simply shooting in that direction even if you are 70m short of your actual target. Your hail of bullets travel a lot further than you eyes can see. Clearing a forest is extremely ammunition intensive and you will take casualties.

v4 can't be the sole reason as I have seen the exact same occurrence with a different tank (German) from a CMBN module well before v4 came along. It could have even been before v3. The tank was also destroyed so something more than panicky crew is involved. It was a long time ago but from memory there is some type of penetration warning as well.

I have seen idetincal behaviour. Can't remember the exact vehicle but it was a turret less tank of some variety. It's appeared in the fourth mission of the Kampfgruppe Engel campaign. Wasn't amused. Pretty average losing a tank to rifle rounds in a campaign.

Spoilers but not really many. I keep a screenshot of my results and usually some very brief notes as much to let me know about replay-ability as much as anything. My notes were not great. "Chaos at Ferme Diedenhove - Major Victory as Germans. Bloody battle losing many troops and tanks. Very large force to attack with." Unfortunately didn't comment on the ability to play again but the fact I mentioned I lost "many" means I would not have been happy some things. From memory my attack had stopped mainly due to armour running out of ammo, KOed or mobility. Still had lots of infantry. I haven't played heaps of CMFB scenarios but in this one you do get some unique units/formations I suspect will not appear in other scenarios. Going through the forest to the North seemed more trouble than what it was worth and I think my "Targets Failed" was not killing enough stuff in there (memory may be wrong). It was basically an attack along the southern edge and I chopped off the SE corner of the forest on the way to Ground objectives.

What he said is correct as far as I know. CMFB (plus CMRT and CMBS I think) had scenarios designed after AI triggers were built into the scenario editor. These were retrofitted into earlier titles as I understand but the originally shipped scenarios/campaigns with the earlier titles were made with slightly less sophisticated tools. AI triggers don't necessarily make a better campaign.

I have the following and they are all good but they are definitely different types of good. These are my personal opinions and the general community may views things differently. I only play solo nowadays and don't play QBs. CMBN + Commonwealth Forces + Market Garden + Upgrade to 3.0 (did not get battle pack or vehicle pack) - Expanding your original purchase with these will 'complete' this period of the war for you and also provide you with access to in my opinion the best campaigns. CMBS - Each different game definitely has its own feel but this is by far the most different out of all of them. Main battle tanks that move quick and target well, javelins, air support that actually supports you (rather than random destruction a la WWII), drones and precision airstrikes. The campaigns are all good but each one (there are 3) has at least one battle that is either very large or you have an odd assortment of units to accomplish your task which makes me downgrade them slightly compared to CMBN + CF + MG. The scenarios are OK but as it is a fictional war it doesn't quite have the atmosphere of the other titles simply cause when I start a battle I have little idea how it fits in the overall scheme. The campaigns don't have this problem as there is a storyline that provides atmosphere. CMRT - If you like the Eastern Front then basically this is your choice. The battles are good and so are the campaigns*. * The Russian campaign has masses of units so this could be a problem. CMFB - I haven't played the campaigns yet but the scenarios are very good. Tendency to have more slightly higher armour to infantry ratio in the battles than CMBN. The tools for battle creation have evolved and the designers have too so expect this to have the most polished scenarios. CMSF - I listed this because it was mentioned above but I don't see this in the class of any of the above but if you want to see modernish (but not near future as CMBS) forces in the desert then this is OK. After purchasing CMBN if I could only get one of the above it would be CMBS but basically you can't go wrong unless you specifically have no interest in a theatre or timeframe.

Moved on from that mission but to me it looked like there was impassable terrain in the action square. Same spot.

Easter Bunny has visited Australia. The fight it had with my refresh monkeys was awesome.

The briefing isn't consistent now I have looked at it more closely but regardless the effect seems absent. Mist in a dawn quick battle the visibility starts out at just over 300m and using the LOS tool I can see it grows each turn.

Just had a thought - if mist is a morning phenomena that lifts then my QB battle may have been a useless test.

I don't time them but if anything they feel slower. Hardware doesn't seem to make a huge difference. Battlefront have definitely got the blue bar moving faster but the load times I suspect will remain slow. They also stated somewhere else that this process is multi-core as well.

Contains mini-spoilers. Disappearing tanks, AT gun problems and bazooka team KOing King Tiger in first three missions are all fixed. Mission 4 there is a problem with the mist it seems. - Briefing says mist limits vision to 300-500 metres. - Mist is present in the "Conditions" description. - Mist is not represented graphically (originally thought graphics driver failure). - But the LOS tool was working out to long ranges (700+ metres). Thinking mist was totally absent started to defend along this premise. - Units in village could spot tanks streaming across as they were close (within mist restricted range) but then realised none of my tanks sitting further back were spotting anything even though enemy were clearly within the 700+ LOS tool range. - At this point I go into test mode and specifically move the tanks forward and they start spotting at what I assume is the mist imposed range. It seems at least for this scenario all the UI tools (graphics and LOS tool) have mist absent. All the underlying spotting mechanics behave as if the mist is present. Also noticed some of my tanks doing the odd turret spin to targets that they have no spotting or targeting information on. EDITED - I started a quick battle on an open map with mist. Seems in this situation mist has no impact at all. Visually absent, AI immediately artied my setu-up area (poor form), tanks were spotting AND engaging at 1km+. While I am convinced that the spotting range was limited to the mist range in the Engel situation (I had too many tanks that had visuals on where I knew enemies to be) it is possible that due to crops and contours introducing vagaries to what I think I can see I could be mistaken. Either way mist doesn't appear to be working properly.

How is 3.12 patch by itself planned to be distributed? By itself or only as part of the battle pack?

If you are traveling in France I doubt you will find a better collection of tanks than the Musee De Blindes in Saumur. http://www.museedesblindes.fr/ Even people that don't like tanks will probably enjoy the visit.

Just posting quickly so didn't read everything above. If you feel they are not performing aid and they should be it is probably an action square thing. Sometimes I am sure they are in the same square but they do not seem to do anything as they are right at the edge. A trick I learned (playing we-go) is to give your potential medics a slow command to the action square that will have them cross the wounded/dead but also give them a 0:45s pause. This timing will have them very close to the wounded dead at the start of the next orders phase and at that point you cancel the slow command they are still in the process of performing. They should be closer to the men wounded and at about 55-60s in the next turn they normally do their thing.

Pretty sure you can replicate this by just starting the first mission then cease firing. Start of second mission your tanks won't be there.