John1966

Well they can but the first sign of returning fire and they're off. They won't charge headlong into withering fire in any kind of sustained way. They're quite concerned about remaining live pixeltruppen.

Well, quite. But if they hadn't all been crack, they'd have broken and ran. Which seemed like the sensible option, all things considered.

Funny I came across this thread today as the scenario I played last night had me thinking about the subject. I was on the defence against German paratroopers and in 90 minutes I was aware that I had killed an awful lot of them. Finished with a major victory but I'd taken a lot of casualties myself because the assault was relentless. In fact, suicidal. So suicidal, in fact, that I'd killed or wounded 632 Germans. They had little more than 100 men left as "OK". That's ludicrous. I'd practically wiped out a battalion. Why did they keep coming at me? Well I reviewed the map and practically all the surviving Germans were "crack". That's why they kept coming. A whole battalion of crack troops? Is that realistic? I'm guessing that what's going on here is that as the AI isn't great attacking (there were several moments when they were coming at me without any suppressing fire), the scenario designer made them all crack to give them a chance. If they'd been regular (or even veteran) they'd have had none of it and given up the attack. So the cause of the high casualties in this case is the AI limitations necessitating an unrealistic set up right from the start. Of course, maybe my boys wouldn't have defended so hard in RL. "These Germans are nuts, let's withdraw", would have been a reasonable response. But that, of course, is the problem with one-off scenarios. Successfully defending the objectives was the whole point. So not trying to do so makes the whole exercise a bit pointless. So campaigns should be the way round this. But that only works if there's a sense that not every scenario in the campaign is a do or die affair that has to be replayed to get you through with enough to win the next one. Some of the missions should be routine. Ones you can win fairly easily and the only measure of your success is whether you kept your casualties low enough to make life easier in the next one. Some campaigns achieve this, but some deliberately set themselves up to be difficult and it doesn't work. One-off scenarios will always be do or die so you'll get bloodbaths. Mind you, I'd also add that including casualty parameters in the victory conditions is another weapon to make a realistic scenario. Make the objectives fairly easy but you can only win if it doesn't cost too much in lives (and, indeed, vehicles). That thought was so profound I put it in bold.

Light wind, if I recall. But the only reason I really noticed was because I had some mortars using "target" on some 20mm AA nasties (which were priority targets for me) and others using "target briefly" on an MG team (in the same scenario). The ones using "target" were getting their rounds bang on target within the first minute but the ones using "target briefly" never seemed to home in on the target even after a couple of minutes of firing. When an 88mm was spotted I just used "target" and again the rounds were on the money within a minute. Gave up on the MG after I'd already wasted too much ammo on it.

I'd assumed that. But not sure that's actually what I'm seeing. Hence the post. Anyone tested it?

Is Valley of Decision yours by perchance? That was the one with 22 phantom pixeltruppen at game end.

From what I've observed (and I've not tested it), it looks like they start again every 15 seconds. In other words, they never get anywhere near the target. Yet with "target", they're hitting every time before the first minute is out. (Before my break from CM, I hadn't upgraded to get "target briefly" so this is all new to me)

Well I've learned something new. I had always assumed that "target light" for a mortar team meant fire your small arms! Mortar teams are infantry after all. As a result I've never used it. Except when they're out of mortar shells in which case I use "target" anyway. Thank you for that.

Apologies if this is a much-covered thing but I'm sure this has been tested by someone. Since the introduction of "target briefly", I use it a lot. In fact I often click 4 times to give a full minute of firing (which I repeat in the next turn if required). The reason I do that is in case I forget the "clear target" and empty the ammo box on a long since neutralised target (which I often used to do). But I've noticed that with "target", mortars will hone in on the target until they're getting it right in the pickle jar (or foxhole/trench/whatever). With "target briefly", they never seem to get closer, even if the fire is continuous for several minutes. Have I noticed this correctly or is it a figment of my imagination?

Playing 20 years but had a period off due to work pressures. Covid has given me loads of extra fee time.

Well that one went right to the end turn with no surrender. No opposition on the map yet went to the final turn. I'm painfully aware that was definitely the case as I lost quite a few exit points due to, er, pathfinding issues.

About 20 years of playing. Could be quicker.

Yes, I had exit zones. I'm talking about the opposition in the OP. They didn't have exit zones.

Ah, that makes sense. Well for one of them at least. There were exit points available so an early surrender is awkward. You may have seen another thread I started about a scenario in which I lost the exit points for my entire force because the opposition surrendered with 45 minutes remaining.

Two scenarios I played recently and I couldn't find any bad guys. It appeared I'd got them all and expected a surrender that never came. In both cases, when the victory screen came up, it said they had a number of men "OK". But upon reviewing the map after game end, they were nowhere to be seen. One was a tiny game in which there were supposed to be six. Last night it was medium-big and there were 22 men OK according to the screen. But there were none I could see in the map review. Have they routed off the map? Because I'm buggered if I know where else they might be.

I only play WWII titles so (if it is an issue) then it's not just CMSF2. Snipers seem to have similar problems. One failed to spot a Tiger that spotted him recently. But I was thinking about this last night and occurred to me that if the issue is the number of people (eyes) in the team (in which case, why can't they communicate with teams in the same AS? - they manage to do it with those in C2 even if it's just sideways and down rather than up), then that would mean, with spotting being such an important aspect of the game, that splitting your teams isn't quite as clever as I'd always assumed it to be. One 10-man squad has more chance of spotting a thing that three 3/4-man would.

I've had a lot of frustration lately with binocular-equipped teams apparently worse than non-binocular equipped teams at spotting. You know something's there because a regular squad spotted it but you can't can't call in arty because the guys with the radio can't see it from the same spot. I'm led to believe this is because squads are bigger. More people looking. Maybe only one has spotted it. But you'd think they could point it out to the officer in the same action square.

In which case you might get a tank if they drive over it. But if you're using the mine as a boobytrap to injure engineers, it's still a bit of a waste on an AT mine. Surely anti-personnel minds are better used for that?

Well I've learned a thing here (although I'm still not sure why no mine warning sign appears after). But I have to say that boobytrapping AT obstacles with AT mines to wound a few engineers seems a waste of a perfectly good AT mine. Sticking and anti-tank device under an impassable anti-tank barrier means the one thing you're guaranteed to do is to not get a tank with it.

I must admit that by the size of the explosion I was surprised there were only four lightly wounded.

WWII (CMBN) Yes, setting off an AT mine occurred to me too. It was on a road and there'd been AT mines elsewhere in the scenario. It certainly looked like an AT mine explosion (and they're quite distinctive). But... a) Who'd put an AT mine under an AT obstacle? b) There was no red mine sign afterwards. c) I thought only tanks could set one off. Now, I suppose that perhaps satchel charges can set off AT mines. But I've never read that anywhere (and certainly never seen it). In fact I was reading a post just yesterday about it turned out (after testing) it was really hard to clear mines with munitions in the game. And I suppose that it could be that are mines set off by explosions might not leave a red warning sign. Because, when you think about it, it'd be a pretty rare occurrence in-game (unless we start doing it deliberately). Which is why I raised it. I wondered if anyone had seen it before. But I don't think it's in the manual.

But have you ever seen engineers take casualties from their own satchel charge? That's a new one for me.

First time I've ever seen this. Engineers with a satchel charge and I give them the Blast command to remove some tank obstacles. When I expect the traditional controlled explosion, there is a HUGE bang. Much bigger than you normally get with a satchel charge. Looked exactly like an anti-tank mine explosion. Dirt thrown high in the air. It was such a big explosion that I feared mass casualties. Four were lightly wounded. Walking wounded. The rest, fine. Satchel charge gone and tank obstacles remained. Anyone seen that before?

Arty often comes down in the set up zone. Are we counting that? (In the Scottish Corridor there's one that can practically wipe you out)

Panther (Early), France, late July 1944. Definitely not a direct hit on anyone. All four were some distance away from where the shell hit the ground. (That's the incident in the OP, not the other earlier one with the 57mm)