MG TOW

Perhaps Battlefront has gone a Module Too Far

Perhaps in terms of quantity of content nothing has been decreased in that respect. Scenarios, quick battles and campaigns. Hours of game play is still there. But the focus has narrowed. Instead of being based on a complete theatre of conflict, the focus has narrowed to an operation. Took me a while to wrap my head around that, but it works me.

I was expecting leaves and foliage. No leaf textures either

Hetzers. Gotta have Hetzers. Flamin Hetzers too. And the one with the remote operated mg34 on the turret. Can never have too many Hetzers. Just sell them to the Swedes when the war is over.

I often wonder how things would have been different if the B29 Arc light was ever authorized to support Dien Bien Phu. Would it have broke the seige? The French urgently appeal to Washington for help. The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff now consider three possible military options: sending American combat troops to the rescue; a massive conventional air strike by B-29 bombers; the use of tactical atomic weapons. President Eisenhower dismisses the conventional air raid and the nuclear option after getting a strong negative response to such actions from America's chief ally, Britain. Eisenhower also decides against sending U.S. ground troops to rescue the French, citing the likelihood of high casualty rates in the jungles around Dien Bien Phu. No action is taken. Did the US (perhaps influenced by Britain) actually see the French as more of a corporate competitor than an ally. Perhaps figuring the worst case being a loss for france would leave a vacuum they could walk into at a later date. Or were the Americans just too war weary at the time with the Korean conflict having recently ended.

....notices a cloaked figure in the mist, sickle in hand.

Well here's a movie example of an italian medium mortar Ace. Its a 2 man crew setting up and getting their man in 2 shots. Not saying it is realistic or not. But it does pay attention to some detail. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=KEjdR-PwA4o#t=408s

that vid has made its rounds on the forums before. On the surface it appears to be an educational film for recruits to influence soldiers and help maintain their confidence against the German weapons. Nothing wrong with that, and they make some good points. But on a more insidious level it also tries the sell the M3 grease gun as a far superior weapon over the precision made Thompson submachinegun. I have to wonder if there was a lack of confidence in the M3, or was the US looking to sell its troops and allies a cheaper alternative SMG. Not saying the M3 was a disaster. I read accounts from Korea and Spec Forces in Vietnam that actually liked the M3's light weight and slow rate of fire compared to the 9mm alternatives of the day. Well suited for crews. But compared to a Tommy at target shooting... come on.

Well isn't line of sight literal to each soldier's facing in the game? So all you would need is 1. A soldier to recognize the edge of a building, and 2. a new animation for peeping around corners The rest would take care of itself. Use the hide command to not do this if you don't want to give away your position ofcourse.

Not to mention the Granatbüchse 39 grenade launcher, for lobbing those big arse grenades.

Checkers is a flat, single dimensional game compared to chess. AP has as much control and complexity as CMFI, IMO. Its implemented differently, but its there. The environment is more interactive in AP, doesn't affect gameplay but its cool to see wood bridges burn and collapse, tankers on fire in the dark, that sorta thing. The interface is clunky compared to CFMI, where it counts CM still comes out on top IMO.

Good battle. Very small by design. Smallest I've played to date but it works and effort was put into this. I liked the layout of the hilltop town, and positioning of the buildings. Played US vs AI. Odds favoured the attacker. Got a major victory with 15 minutes left. But I played cautious. An aggressive player could lose for sure. Spoiler Alert . . . . . . . . My only disappointment was finding out it was LW guarding the town and not mutants in spite of the title

Both games have very high merit and we should be happy to have them both. Now for the back hand. AP was pretty much killed for me after the last patch resulting in performance problems I won't go into detail here because its being worked on. Maps terrain looks better in AP, but there is no scenario design capability on new maps like in CMFI. Models of troops and tanks, I'll say close but CM wins. Animations AP probably wins that one, but its close. Honorable mention to TOW 2 for animations actually but now we are venturing off topic. CMFI wins for me.

One contemporary example of being co positioned with Cougar AFV's (a piranha with simitar turret). The cougars were left in an overwatch this night with their engines off. The crew hand cranked the turrets scanning their arcs of fire for two hours until we got the order to move out. Not sure about WW2, but armoured cars, may have been used in a similar overwatch, engines off. Or were starters that unreliable back in those days.

The Brits may not have had a semi-auto rifle during WW2, Korea too. But they more than made up for it when the FN Self Loading Rifle came out.

We used beer bottles as targets on the grenade range. We would toss the grenade near the bottle, then view the explosion through the ballistic viewing glass built into the throwing pit. After the dust cleared the bottle was still there, barely moved and ready for the next grenade. Eventually the blast would destroy the bottle and we would place another one for target. So grenades, very deadly to soft tissue, but conditions have to be just right to destroy or disable vehicles.

.....and a red on red Lapland war.

I could have lost, or at least ended with a stalemate scenarios against the AI that chose to surrender. Reviewing the battle field after a battle ends a typical situation is: I have a tank, but they have a hidden AT with an intact high morale crew, and an HQ nearby on the VL.

Tanks can hurt friendly infantry morale, especially when you are warming your hands on their exhaust and the crew opens their hatches to let out the steam from their pressure cooker while eating hotdogs.

Read a funny anecdote about Patton balling out a sherman crew for having a layer of sand bags strapped to the front chassis. He called them "yellow", and told them to get that crap off their tank. Turns out the tank commander was a Sergeant who survived and recently returned from the ill fated Hamelburg raid which was Pattons personal fiasco to rescue his son-inlaw. The Sergeant lost it, pointed out he was not yellow, was a seasoned tanker, and he participated in the disasterous raid. Patton let it slide

The m13/40 would be missed. My only interest in that is I wondered how one of these would fair in a duel with a stuart.

Right or wrong, most times this behaviour can be overridden by jumping on the cancel order command as soon as the HT starts backing up and countering the retreat with a move order, and a target order. i've grown accustomed to this. Yes HT back away from any tank or AT gun once spotted.

I wonder if those high bridge ramps catch bullets, protect passengers better.

In a WW2 context not too unusual. They do their recce, come back and debrief the commander. like the opening scene in cross of Iron.... Cpl Steiner says to his Captain on return of his reconnaissance: I expect you'll be hearing from the Russians very soon" or something like that. In the game context they are just a different squad on the TOE being thrown into the battle.

In theory this would take a crew. That ma deuce is a heavy one. A person to carry the gun, another the tri pod, which is also heavy, plus the cans of ammo. half tracks have a crew of 2 and I can't see any less the 3 men as crew/ammo bearer for this weapon. But, a follow up question would be did the half tracks also carry a tri-pod for the mounted M2. that I don't know.