Peregrine

It is a good idea to have other units firing as well as MGs can pause to reload. On that mission particularly you have a lot of units so it is a good idea to have at least 2 units firing in addition to the squad that is assaulting the final part. Also some of the German squads are only armed with SMGs (I think) which limits the range that they will open up at.

Could you list the ones that are most useful for scenario design please. I am considering revisiting this now that we have triggers.

Just because one of your guys can spot the enemy doesn't mean they all can. It can sometimes be difficult to tell who can see and who can't unless your squad is totally unsuppressed and they are all shooting. This especially pops up in reverse slope situations. It is possible only a few of your troops actually have LOF and so your squad looks like it isn't shooting much. And if those few shooting get suppressed then you basically won't be shooting at all.

I don't know how the original poster could have posted and not been repeatedly accused of complaining about the game being "broken". The title is LOS mechanics testing my patience. Hardly inflammatory. He never once mentioned the game was broken but went to the trouble of making two videos. The second example is really bad. Shooting along a length of bocage if you are right next to it can result in odd things happening. Even if you seem to have perfect LOS/LOF. I have actually given up doing this as there are clear drawbacks and little benefits. Of course there are bad posts but this to me doesn't seem like one of them.

I wish the 360 arc had a direction to get the turret pointing somewhere then not having to worry about stuff creeping outside the arc.

SPOILERS I didn't write a turn by turn run down of the scenario. The first time I could look straight down the main road I spotted a panther at the far end. Very long range but for me this immediately rules out driving down there. Regardless of what the briefing says. Then I probed each side after I ruled going any further down the main road. After doing this for a little while I then committed to a side. I totally understand your criticism of the briefing. I can't comment too much on that though because I can't reread it right now. I mainly wrote the description because it is a very hard scenario and playing like I would have in CMBN doesn't even come close to working with this scenario. No where near enough time.

I think it is poor form telling people to get busy in the editor. People should be able to purchase a game and be allowed to be critical of it without having to spend an incredible amount of time in the editor actually attempting to design a scenario. The scenario designer did lay out why the tanks were picked though. I personally think this scenario is a good one but the time limit may be a little low. It is hard to get there without being fairly aggressive and take what "most" people (those that have played a lot of CMBN) would feel are reasonable casualties. PS JasonC has made scenarios in the past I think. His Kharkov CMBB campaign was one of my favourite. He put tigers in it, 4 from memory.

SPOILERS I have been playing the battles in order of ascending size and am the road at the moment so I can't say which one I am up to but after playing seven or so this is by far the hardest. I was under the impression this was a meeting engagement and the resistance is very spread out and very little is entrenched except for one of the clearly marked objectives. This is very much an armour map and if you mess up with your armour you will lose. One thing that works well is not engaging at long ranges and you shouldn't have to. The second is to attack with everything. I used the scout tanks to go quickly and when I thought I hit a line of resistance everything stops, line up all 11 tanks (is that correct 3x3 tank platoons, 1 Cpy tank, 1 Rgt tank, 3 more tanks are reinforcements later one). Then all tanks "move" at once from where they are to either a sheltered place past the enemy (to protect from flank attacks) or two approximately 200 directly in front of the enemy. I am starting to give up on using hunt with groups of T34/85 because I hate them stopping prematurely and they seem to able to shoot fairly well on the move. Doing this should see you trade 3:2 tanks in some scenarios and 1:1 in others. You will lose tanks but you should be able to make the end of the map. I am finding hunting and sniping against panthers doesn't work very well unless you have already flanked them. I didn't try and kill every German on the map. Once I committed to a side I stuck with it. The side doesn't matter as I have travelled down both. Right side for a loss: time limit, 5 more minutes would probably have been enough, my force was is good order as I was too careful. Left side for a win: different AI plan?. It played out for me to launch my attack down the left. Because I had previously lost I decided I would push hard so my tank force was ruined at the end. 1 immobilized (TAC AI decided to drive through marsh), 1 running on the objective, 1 damaged mid map. Still a big win according to the scoring. Getting to the map end is pretty much the be all and end all.

My guess would be that the range would be from radical to minimal and you can't know unless you actually look which sort of spoils the point of the exercise. But most scenario designers would want feedback. If you play a scenario by someone who frequents these boards you could probably ask them and they might give you some information.

Currently you don't. You would need to go to the editor and pick one first and then track it from there.

It is gltichy. Had the same problem trying to get it to area fire. And by the time they are close enough to flame anything the slow reaction and their heads being exposed usually results in the gunners getting zapped first.

That is not a bad idea. If you load a scenario in single player after you have picked your side you have the option of the AI plan being either random or AI plan 1, 2, or .... (or however they are referenced). Not sure how simple it would be as I have never looked at how to put together the AI plans but as CM stands now prior to playing a scenario you could open the editor and look how many AI plans there are. Then make that make that many copies of the scenario. Then open scenario 1 and chop out all but the "first" AI plan then repeat so you have multiple versions of the scenario each with a single but different plan.

For problem 2 with the firefly I would recommend not having the firefly as close to the bocage. Common sense says in reality you should try and tuck tanks in and peak around corners and not overexpose themselves but in CM things tend to go astray in this situation and somehow LOF gets obscured even though your eye thinks everything appears alright. I would guess that 80% of my odd* situations with tanks not spotting and shooting is exactly this. If you have the map and take it to the editor to replicate the situation I would be suprised if what you saw doesn't happen over and over. Then replicate the situation but move your firefly so it is part on the road and it will smash the panther like it deserves to. The proximity of the bocage was most likely wrecking things. The sacrifice is typically several more seconds move to or retreating from the position. While it sometimes feels dumb I don't try and conceal the tank up against bocage like you did anymore, odd things happen and while it looks better tucked up against the edge I doubt you have any concealment from spotting benefit and you well know the downside. * - rage inducing.

I wouldn't mind if even after a soldier was buddy aided that they were still referenced just to help keep track of how many casualties each squad was taking.

This does make it awkward but do not underestimate how effective fire in the general area can be. With buildings shooting the floor above or below should help (haven't tested this though) but from other things I have seen I would expect it to be more useful than doing nothing at all. From lots of tests I have done in woodland firing 40m in front of you (LOS limit) will impact units at 80m (didn't test for longer because I didn't think it necessarily) in a slightly expending cone that is 3 action squares wide.

Do you mean that 85 HE shouldn't have enough force to shake the more fragile systems loose?

At some point it probably seemed a good idea. Didn't necessarily work out that way. With halftracks if there is AT stuff on the map then they are near useless. With no AT stuff keeping them at minimum 200m from enemy should allow them to use their MG and not get whacked immediately.

If you have a PC tower and start banging the outside of the case with a hammer the vibrations will probably break the most fragile piece inside. This may not necessarily be the piece closest to the impact point. Just think of tank damage the same way.

A new movement command won't necessarily help and I would be surprised if we were one were included. There was a thread recently about fighting in forest which touched on many of these points. I think that the short comings you are experiencing are probably short comings with the TAC AI rather than a specific movement command. While this comment is more pertinent to forest combat it applies to close combat to a degree as well. In CM if a unit has not specifically spotted a unit it won't fire. This results in many units not blazing away in front of them which can result in the attacker while having a big advantage in firepower not actually shooting enough. If you are moving into these situations then area fire with every unit possible. Not doing this is relying on the TAC AI to shoot the minimum amount of bullets at possibly questionable targets. You will use a lot more ammo but this is better than hoping that overwatch units open fire on the biggest threats if they appear. I personally would also like units to use grenades a bit faster (my own, not theirs). But I have no idea how close or far off to reality grenade use actual is. Sometimes it happens fast, sometimes extraordinarily slow. Don't fully understand what is happening there.

They probably weren't suppressed because of fire, they probably broke because of casualties and definitely the better result. This still happens and sometimes makes assault better than running a split squad separately into the same situation. If half a squad is cowering (not casualties) then if somehow (remember I am saying that it is pretty hard for one element not to share the same impact as the other since the 2.12 suppression boost) than can shoot back. But as my post above, units is close combat trouble rarely shoot themselves out of trouble. They need friends to the side to do that.

I did say directly which is exactly what I meant. You can shoot directly over you own troops with no real impact to their suppression. Your own bullets from your own squad only become a problem when bullets are actually impacting near your own troops such as hitting bocage, walls, buildings. Flying over their heads is fine. I don't think my previous post was worded well so I will try again. This is mainly based on testing forest combat. Sort of the same in that it is close combat but not identical. 1) Assault isn't close assault. Assault is move in bounds. At one point as someone said above it may have given a slight morale boost. I am not sure if this is still applicable but I feel like this occurs. This command isn't for close combat anymore than any other command. Fast, quick and assault when charging an enemy position often yield similar results although they tend to play out different how they get there. The definitive factor in charging close and surviving was how suppressed the enemy was first, not the command that actually brought you close. 2) In general when units get close to each other the TAC doesn't look as good as it normally does. Also the TAC AI will NEVER area fire. This can hurt attacking formations when new enemies appear but aren't spotted by everyone. 3) Getting close to a enemy that isn't really suppressed is a bad idea. Grenades start flying and that never ends well. Ideally lots of fire should break the unit before you get anywhere close. If this doesn't happen and you charge someone you are rolling the dice big time. 3) Suppression has a big impact to units not necessarily the direct target of incoming fire. This makes assault a BAD command if you are relying on the overwatch unit helping out the lead unit if the threat is close and directly ahead or just to the side of where you are moving to. Both the lead element and trailing element will likely be subject to the same fire and all end up cowering. If the lead element takes significant casualties the unit will probably break. If it doesn't and the trailing element is somehow OK, all it will do is run into trouble and suffer the same fate. 4) A unit in trouble in close combat rarely shoots itself out of trouble. This makes assault a bad decision if you are attacking with ONE unit. When attacking with one unit split the squad and the movement element runs and the other area fires at the greatest threat region continually. If you have multiple units then assault works better. With two units versus one spread them out, have them both area firing and moving at the same time. If you don't have a 2 v 1 advantage then getting close won't and probably shouldn't work.

I think I know the battle too and keeping them back doesn't really help too much and if anything you want to close the range. I think I lost all my tanks and 1 tiger survived. Still won the battle easily because of how the objectives were arranged. Was frustrating having the tiger driving around unmolested though.

I still break out Janes F/A 18 on occasion.

I think you need to look closely at what is happening if you think one element is being unfairly suppressed while assaulting. If you are assaulting directly at a target and that target shoots at you it is likely BOTH elements will be suppressed. Bullets travel a long way and anything shot at the first element will likely have a very similar effect on the second. I use assault a lot (mainly to avoid micromanagement, partially to avoid morale hits) and since the increased suppression of the 2.12 patch rarely are the two elements far enough apart for fire to cause only the advanced element of the squad to "cower". Even though they are one squad if an element isn't taking fire then the guys not getting shot at shouldn't be cowering and therefore in a position to shoot back, and then probably run to where they ARE taking fire and end up cowering too. If this is happening it is more likely your aren't suppressing whatever is doing the shooting well enough before going. Also a big part of target selection is totally up to the TAC AI. The TAC AI is pretty fair for the most part but it does tend to look worse as opposing units get closer together. Particularly when units are very close and under fire moving another square can make a massive difference between easy survival or total annihilation. Conversely sometimes stopping immediately and shooting is clearly the better result. Target priority can also be iffy. These are TAC AI short comings pretty much unrelated to the commands issued. Not quite the same thing but these are some observations from a quick sandbox of two squads assaulting one enemy squad in a forest. 1) Area firing at a hex 40m away will impact units 80m away in that direction. I tend not to do long bounds. I am guessing it is unusual for assault elements to be more than 40m apart. 2) Running (fast, quick, assault) a squad to within 30m of an enemy that is not heavily suppressed will result in multiple casualties. If the enemy has nades and multiple automatic weapons it is likely everyone will die. 3) Once the enemy is suppressed no command out of fast, quick or assault seemed significantly better but assaulting squads tended to look a bit more sensible when they moved and when they stopped. This was totally dependent on the enemy being suppressed first.

In a book about Goodwood I am sure I read that a Sherman bumped into a tiger and fired a HE shell at close range that hit the turret. The tiger crew buttoned up apparently unscathed.