[Can somebody answer some questions on Information Sharing?]

It could have been. Or another unit in the vicinity. That is why it is really hard to tell. It could have travelled up the chain to a senior HQ then across then down again.

But I have seen situations where I doubt that has happened. Playing Red Thunder the other day I am sure this happened as the units in question were quite isolated. But as I don't watch the video ultra closely (just once usually, or twice if it is a big a battle) I could have made a mistake.

And they are not newbie questions. The manual does not give specifics as to timeframes for this working. Search the forum for "command layer" and you will see the realism guidelines I have played with for the last couple of years now I think. Even playing like that it is difficult to quantify exactly how fast things occurs. I have not tested any of this in sandboxes using the editor so all this info is basically anecdotal (a lot of them).

At times information seems to spread ultra quickly, other times extremely slowly.

That said from experience HQs seems to be best and proximity helps. If I really want information to share then literally standing the HQ with the information next to the intended recipient for 1 turn (or 1:15 is a common pause time I use) will do the trick.

But more generally nothing but green lights and a good morale state should see information move around pretty quickly within a formation.

[Can somebody answer some questions on Information Sharing?]

For me this is in the anecdotal area and I have never watched it systemically enough to be sure exactly what is happening. I tend to unbutton but once anything touches a tank I button and leave them that way.

To be sure you would need to have two isolated units and the spotted target out of LOS of the tank. This is actually relatively rare.

But I know I have had many situations where I am expecting to have to unbutton a tank at the end of a turn and they already have the information.

[Can somebody answer some questions on Information Sharing?]

Yes. I actually think buttoned tanks get information a bit too quickly. I have not noticed a significant difference (this means within 1 minute) between buttoned and unbuttoned but for realism purposes I try and unbutton tanks if I am trying to share info. I feel it works faster for units not close or in the same formation but being buttoned isn't preventative from my experience.

Some models of allied tanks did have a handset on the outside at the rear which enabled infantry to talk with the tank buttoned up. This is from memory and it is a bit scratchy.

[Can somebody answer some questions on Information Sharing?]

Hi,

I play with some pretty full realism rules (search the forum for "command layer") and a big part of it is the information sharing model so I would be surprised if anyone has looked it this more closely at it than me while playing. That said Battlefront have never described timeframes for sharing to my knowledge so it is pretty vague and even with me watching pretty closing I have never really timed anything so some of what I say below is barely more than anecdotal.

I would not get too hung up on it unless you are playing with similar rules. Keeping guys in command speeds information sharing up but since the 2.? patch you want to keep guys in command so they don't break under fire.

1. Information is shared by both location and command, correct?

Yes. But units in the same formation tend to share information faster. The Kampfgruppe Engel campaign is a good example of this. The tanks and infantry are ALL part of the same formation and typically you see spotting contacts appear quite quickly between different units compared to say a squad of infantry and a tank from a separate unit nearby.

2. When information is passed through command, how does it flow up and down the ladder? I'm under the impression that it goes all the way to the top then is sent back down. So if this is the case then how does the game handle multiple battalions in QB or cut-off companies in an battalion. Does any information sharing come about when say I combine a battalion of tanks and an infantry battalion in QB?

As above. If you can put all the units under the same command structure they will share information better. If not they still share but not as fast and because they aren't in the same structure no radio contact so they need to be close to each other.

Haven't done enough QB to comment about it specifically.

3. Similarly, if the battalion HQ is killed, do all of the companies under it stop communicating with each other even when the company HQs are in range of one another?

No. If you have two companies on a map they will still share. It will just be slower and they need to be close as no battalion commander should mean no radio link to each other.

If I am playing a map where a company is reinforced by another company then I move the new company commander next to the commander already on the map. Typically after 1 turn he will have all the spotting contacts of the original then I move him on his way.

Also if your Battalion HQ is killed then the XO (or HQ support unit) should become the new HQ. This might be accompanied by an icon change as well (not sure as this is ultra rare for me). If you are not sure if this has occurred then select a subordinate unit then in the command area (red/green lights) click on the Battalion HQ and it will take you to whichever unit is in charge. With a change of command if possible you should buddy aid the killed HQ with the new to have a chance of retrieving the radio which will make staying in command easier.

4. Can information be relayed from squad to squad to squad rather than HQs? In theory if I span the width of a map with infantry, could spotting information be carried from one end to another without any command links, just infantry squads adjacent to one another?

Yes. But it will be slow and at the end of the day probably irrelevant. No sane plan should be relying on this to work.

5. More so about C2, I see conflicting answers about what the green lights mean for C2 links. If a squad shows that the C2 link for company and battalion is green but not for platoon then that would mean that the squad is connected to company and above but not the platoon HQ correct? Or does it say that the platoon HQ is in C2 with company and battalion and therefore the squad is out of the loop with everything due to it's lack of connection with platoon HQ?

If you select a SQD and it is red for it's HQ and green for company and battalion it means that the unit is out of contact with it's HQ but that HQ is in command with the company and that company is in command with battalion.

If you select a SQD and it is red for it's HQ BUT it has a voice, close visual or distant visual icon then this means that while it is out of command of it's immediate superior there is someone else (company or battalion or in the case of support units like mortars this could be many different HQs) in contact by the means shown in the picture.

ODD THINGS

Sometimes units won't share or update information. If a tank gets whacked and the crew bail these guys are terrible information sharers. I have seen situations where minutes later they have shared nothing at all. Units under fire or broken units are not good at sharing.

Spotting contacts often don't update. Example - a friendly infantry squad and a tank are near each other and the infantry spots a tank and shares this information with the friendly tank. But the spotted enemy tank is moving and later on the enemy tank is again spotted by the infantry but MUCH closer. The friendly tanks original distant spotting contact is never really updated to reflect the tank moving. Bit annoying as the newer contact should help the friendly tank spot but as it's only contact is quite distant I feel that sometimes it is missing out on a benefit that it should have. Not sure though. Maybe the distant icon helps with spotting no matter where the tank is.

[Ghostly footsteps in the water]

It is a matter of opinion.

The walls, hedges etc MUST disappear for the battlefield to look in it's correct state and provide the correct LOS / concealment etc. But they can't do this subtly. Hence the FOW killer.

All he is saying that the footsteps don't necessarily need to be there at all and do kill FOW. And if you were to watch a battle and start criticising graphical deficiencies then the lack of splashing from people fording would be a long way down the list. If it wasn't included we probably wouldn't be talking about it all.

[How does one deal with hidden tanks defending?]

If you know the location of one threat and there is nothing else to worry about two tanks should be enough.

First have one tank move to it's flank. Make sure you give this tank a covered arc so the turret is always pointing at the threat. Make sure this tank is going fast when it first appears in the LOS. A tank moving quickly will have trouble targeting and even worse once it is stopped it will probably rotate it's hull towards the threat further delaying getting a shot off. So while initially driving fast to turn the threat's turret, at some point drive this flanking tank towards* the threat so it will fire more quickly. Probably at a point where the threat will have it's turret turned 90 degrees.

The second tank use "move" or "slow" to drive straight at the threat to where you think you should spot it then use "hunt" from there so it stops and fires. You want this tank to get into the LOS just after shortly after you think your flanking tank will get the threat's attention.

Ideally the threat will be a little slow to spot the flanking tank and start tracking it but will not get a shot off prior to your other tank moving forward and killing it.

*(This is important. Sometimes tanks put a big emphasis on rotating their front hull to a threat and this spinning on the spot can have a massive impact on firing quickly. If you don't do this you can have a situation arise when this tank goes unspotted, your straight up the middle tank dies, then this flanking tank instead of finishing the job spins on the spot for 10 seconds or so without firing and dies as well.)

ALTERNATIVELY - if you have three tanks to use you can just flat out drive straight at it. Use slow, move or quick commands to move into it's LOS. Hunt can a bad idea because if the lead tank dies first and the other two aren't close enough to spot then you have lost a tank for nothing. But again spreading these out can help and you should go one of for one.

[Disappointed in some crew issues]

One thing with weapons is I believe they can be damaged and not recovered. I thought this applied to more than MG and mortars.

It seems more prevalent to me that guys buddy aiding people with weapons I want (SMGs etc) don't seem to be recovering them as often since the 2.12 patch or the 3.0 engine. Pretty hard to test out though.

[Clearing forest full of infantry]

Doing what I did in the test above would typically result in 2-3 casualties after 1 minute. This is all before well before making visual contact. Then another 2 casualties the next.

But after this the squad is very much pinned and a much smaller target so more casualties tend not to happen until you get close enough to aim or the squad breaks cover and runs.

I also very much think assaulting is the best command as units will tend to stop and shoot more sensibly and I feel they are a little harder to suppress. Units with quick commands sometimes shoot significantly less and also may stop shooting altogether and "fast" to the next waypoint which is usually a bad move. But if you are shooting enough and you have the right ratio of guys to attack with then everything in front of you is suppressed so it shouldn't matter how much you move.

[Clearing forest full of infantry]

The main reason mismatches do better than they should is the TAC AI behaviour for units that don't spot anything. Even if they are not pinned from incoming fire and taking casualties they do not shoot back even though theoretically they must "know" there is enemy right on top of them.

Weapons sounds don't register a sound contact where movement (voices?) does and even then units won't fire until they actually spot something. I would love to see weapon sounds make contact markers at closer ranges and units to actually target these even if they can't see anything. Also units area firing at contacts before than actually spot stuff would probably help too.

But without this if you play WEGO you just have to accept some ugliness and hope you don't bump into trouble just after a movie starts.

If you have a slight idea where the enemy is area fire everything (at least at first). And do not get hung up on how far you can target. Your bullets travel much further than you can see and have an impact the whole way. Already knew this from CMBN but just ran some quick tests in CMRT to check how it looks in the forest.

I separated one German straggler SQD 80 metres from two Soviet 44 SQDs. Heavy forest, dense trees. I did quite a few different things but pretty much everything works if you shoot first and keep shooting. The LOS was a bit variable still (not sure why) but about 40m. Two squads targeting at range 40m in the general direction of a target 80m distant still has a big impact. The two Soviets squads targeting light and assaulting (3 action square jumps) will have the German squad pinned and inflict casualties the first turn and probably break them the second. Remember this is targeting a square 40 metres from you intended target. It doesn't even have to be particularly straight at them either.

Once they start running you start getting actual spots or contacts and then it is just a matter of shooting with one squad and chasing with the other. This does use a lot of bullets but it pointless to conserve ammo if your guys are dying.

[AI handling of tank riders]

Bumping this. Wouldn't mind hearing from Battlefront about how the troops decide to leave a vehicle.

Seeing a lot of situations where I think the TAC AI should be bailing the tank riders immediately and none where it feels like they are sticking it out correctly.

[AI handling of tank riders]

Haven't seen this in Red Thunder but something I saw recently in CMBN made me think mounted people need to bail from vehicles faster.

I had a fully loaded jeep bog and it so happened that an MG bunker could see it at a range of about 400m. The jeep started taking fire (couldn't move cause it was bogged). No-one moved for about 30 seconds while there morale crept up. Then after they took a casualty the squad broke (I had no control).

So the 4 surviving members sat in their bogged vehicle and all proceeded to die over the next four turns. The bunker was shooting through an orchard so a lot of bullets were getting eaten by trees.

The jeep never unbogged and the passengers were never unsuppressed enough for me to give them a bailout command. Ugly.

[Did I just discover a very old 'new' feature?]

Too funny.

[Russian Infantry Fragility]

MG42s are pretty good after the 2.? patch (forgot which one update MG suppression) so the fragility compared to what you may be used to is probably a result of the Russians not generating enough firepower in return.

[Waiting for the next module]

What is it with wargamers and their hard-on for roleplaying the worst war-criminals?

Cause they were well equipped war criminals.

[Space bar to pull up menus]

You can repair it easily.

Open both hotkeys.txt files in an editor: the one in MyDocuments and the one in ProgramFiles.

Then copy the Camera sections of the one in ProgramFiles to the empty ones of the file in MyDocuments.

(The Options menu doesn't write these sections)

I have had this problem too and BOTH hotkeys files had errors in them that were either there from the install or a result of changes I made via the GUI.

It is easy to fix. Just take the hotkeys file that Phil provided that is linked to above. Then (assuming windows) replace BOTH hotkeys files, one is in the game install directory and the other is under documents.

[Hotkeys aren't updating with the hotkeys.txt file]

Separate problem in another threat but there are two hot keys files.

The file in Documents\Battlefront\Combat Mission\Red Thunder\User Data seems to be the one sourced for the actual key mappings but if the file under the game directory has an incorrect format it can screw things up as well.

This looks like the first time they have done this for the CMx2 games (don't have CMFI).

[Eastern Front Exclusivity?]

So if Hitler didn't invade Russia in 41, would Stalin have eventually turned on Hitler? Would the Allied have been able to entice Stalin to turn on Hitler? What would they have to offer to get Stalin to turn?

Many have postulated that it wouldn't have matter anyway as the Americans would have just dropped the A-Bomb on Berlin.

Just started playing the tutorial. Is it me or does it appear the graphics are better? I also happen to like the new look of the game interface...

Hitler always planned to fight wars in the East. It was very much his philosophy to fight expansionist wars and he wasn't afraid to gamble. Remember some of his motivation stemmed from WWI. WWI a bloodbath and loss in the west (although many Germans didn't quite realise this) and Russia withdrawing from the war in the east. Against that back drop and pushing the English/French armies off the continent quickly in WWII it is difficult to imagine a scenario when he doesn't cross the border east sooner or later.

Stalin was a bit harder to guess what he would have done in alternate situations but it becomes moot to a degree because even if Hitler didn't attack in 41 it is hard to picture a situation that results in Russia attacking first.

[RT Unofficial Screenshot Thread]

You sure three ducks didn't just steal the helmets.

[So does mark mines do anything?]

I do not think I have ever seen a casualty from a marked mine tile. So you should be able to do whatever you feel like.

But it is a good idea to split your guys and be careful anyway because sometimes large sqds will touch unmarked mine tiles next door to marked ones and it can get real ugly from there.

Supposedly units in the vicinity of unmarked mines have a chance of spotting them (engineers have a higher chance) but it is pretty rare and I think I have only seen this once which was a couple of days ago.

[Eastern Front Exclusivity?]

Having a clear preference for the east and not buying any of the previous modules are different things. I doubt there are many people at all that have done that.

I wouldn't underestimate the importance of the front or war. Can't imagine an Iran / Iraq war game selling well no matter how awesome the engine. There is a reason they always start in the west.

CMBB had a massive scope (not repeated in Red Thunder). So if you could only play one of the original series CMBB would have been my choice. It's engine was a big improvement over CMBO and not that different from CMAK.

The bloodbath that is often CM head to head battles feels more natural in the east.

If you like tanks then the east is the place to be. I think the armour match-ups are much more interesting.

[My biggest gripe: the timer!!]

The timer does feel artificial but it simply has to exist to put some pressure on a human player versus the AI. A well designed scenario should give you enough time to achieve your objectives.

While everyone has felt robbed by the clock at different times the reality is the AI does not usually punish bad attacks effectively enough.

Also part of the trick of CM is knowing when to be moving quickly and when to be careful.

If you are losing scenarios due to time, your troops are in good order and the scenario appears balanced it can help to mentally picture one of these things happening to account for your loss:

(1) My attack was too slow, appeared not to make progress and the CO called it off.

(2) My attack was too slow and gets shredded by artillery. Typically in-game artillery doesn't account for enough casualties and slow moving attacks are obviously more vulnerable.

(3) My attack was too slow, looked threatening but took so long a pile of enemy reinforcements turned up. Remember in CM you aren't really given un-winnable situations but in reality bad slow moving attacks could be countered by a defense they could not overcome.

(4) My attack was too slow, looked threatening but wasn't decisive at pinning the enemy. Getting terrain is one thing and destroying the enemy is another. In CM not many scenarios are set-up in a way that the enemy melts away. I have no doubt triggers will give some clear flow to AI movements which will make battles look a lot more real.

(5) My attack was too slow, didn't actually look that threatening and the units off-map on my flanks (which are entirely secure by the way) copped a belting for one of the above reasons instead of me. So the company still had a bad day I just didn't see it.

The above five things are very tricky to or aren't simulated in CM very well.

It is a long way from a perfect or totally accurate example but a fairly accessible example of the important of speed on attack is the Foy episode in Band of Brothers.

While everyone from the top of the chain down probably wants more time to prepare for an attack, more arty in the pre-barrage, more fire support etc I doubt once the shooting has started that the actual riflemen at the pointy end thinking are "I hope this battle goes for as long as possible to give us the best chance of winning." So another way to think of the timer is as morale gauge. Given the current state of your troops and situation the timer is as long as they are prepared to fight. You don't make it in time your guys pack it in or your CO pulls the plug for you.

[Trying to decide -- CM or ToW, can you help?]

Definitely look at the demos. The German scenario in the CMBN demo is great.

While the engine may not be up to date as someone said above it isn't a radical departure from the most recent version.

As for "pause-able" don't be too quick to right off the we/go mode. It is pretty unique to watch a little movie of the action and worth looking at as you probably haven't seen anything like it before.

[[WIP/PREVIEW] Juju's 'Red Thunder UI' discussion thread]

I don't like visual far being binoculars.

While I think it is obvious enough what it denotes it will be possible for units in-game to be in command at visual far but not actually be carrying binoculars. This jars a little.

[Will 3.0 unbalance older scenarios?]

Does this mean all the CMRT updates (ie triggers in the scenario editor) will be retrofitted back into CMBN?

['Target briefly' command request]

Increased time options would be good but if I had to pick an improvement I would prefer being able to stack target briefly commands without having use movement orders. Having a target light briefly would be nice as well.