Baneman

Good links Diesel - from the first link, this quote also makes a lot of sense "If you move the muzzle of a gun 1" as you fire, how far off your aim point will you be at 300 meters? Now, just imaging being in a vehicle as it rumbles, jumbles and bumps its way across the terrain. The entire time the muzzle is moving every which way, where will your "aimed" shot go? If you plan to do more than recon by fire, the short halt is a must. This changes as stabilization system appear and improve for main gun/coax only" I'd say that if a target appears in an AFV's Covered Arc while it's on the move, it should stop and have a go. Otherwise, it should keep moving and not shoot at all. But shooting on the move doesn't seem at all realistic. That's just my opinion.

Personally, I'm willing to concede that BF have done good work on the accuracy - what I find strange is that a ( buttoned, mind you ) Panther moving Fast can spot, turn turret 45 degrees shoot and insta-hit-kill a Sherman without slowing down. That seems robotic CMSF type accuracy. Edit: Ha, co-post with Gryphonne on exactly the same thing.

I don't think it's hits that are the problem, but non-lethal penetrations seem to have no effect whereas they should at least generate a couple of seconds of "Phew" from the crew. And penetrations which cause a casualty should cause much longer delay - even if it's to swap seats around - I had a Sherman take 2 casualties from a single hit and that crew were supremely confident, driving on to the village, killing a PSW and so forth. Now I can't remember if the driver was one of the initial casualties or not, but you'd expect the crew to have to move the bodies and reorganise themselves at the very least. My Sherman was moving Fast and I don't think it even paused. ( Fair enough if the driver wasn't hit, you'd expect him to want to get to cover, so I guess it will depend on who gets hit too. )

Hmmm, I was plotting a sort of manual shoot-and-scoot in reverse - vehicle reverse, then forward to shoot at the end of the turn - but the 2nd waypoint, being under the vehicle, was then inacessible. Anyone know how to "click on it" ? - in CMx1, of course, you could turn vehicles off visually for this sort of tweakery.

Re. Question 4 : I recall someone ( Beta-tester ? ) saying that bridges can only be destroyed via Artillery ( and it could take a bit to get the requisite lucky hits ) - there isn't something like demolition charges in case that's what you were asking about.

Yes, perhaps default behaviour could be addressed as a "Quick Fix" which would be workable while the long-term Armour-Arc is looked at in depth. I of course have no idea if such a thing would be easier to code, but it sounds logical since there must be some sort of default behaviour coded.

Cheers. Do they get better from Broken or are you stuck with it ? ( sounds like it equates to the little red light they used in CMx1 which told you they'd routed at least once. ) Edit: A thanks, a read of pg94 helped a lot - seems like my CMx1 analogy is correct. Good to know. Thanks for the explanations.

It's Life During Wartime, people !

They already tried that, but 96 of the brains tried to take over the world and the plucky original had to kill them all. Govm'nt hushed it up of course, but there's rumours of a Hollywood script ... true story

Agree, would prefer to simply see "enemy infantry" as a generic label. If it's difficult to implement more detailed ID when the enemy is closer ( a la CMx1 ), I'd prefer to live without detailed ID throughout the battle.

Ok, I'm sure this one can be answered by the CMSF guys who seem to have the new GUI taped. How can I tell which of my units are about to break or are routing ? So far all I can see is that if I can't give them orders, they're routing. But the GUI information doesn't seem to add up - ie. I've had units that have "Rattled" in the GUI, but they wont take orders so are presumably Routing. Then I've had other units that have "Broken" showing, but they DO accept and carry out orders. And also - does a [-1] in the Rattled window mean they're more rattled than the guys with a [+1] Rattled ? Or is it the other way around ? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Also - is there any chance of someday seeing some sort of visual representation a la CMx1 showing healthy guys AND casualties for a particular squad ? Eg. you can't tell if you're looking at 6 guys whether their squad started off with 12 guys ( in which case they're likely to be pretty brittle morale-wise ) or 8 ( in which case they're not so badly off ). Even just a (12/6) or (8/2) simple number representation by, say, the unit name, would be useful. Cheers

I've had this experience too. Perhaps the ability to "Area fire" at a known AFV that your AT asset can't see is the first example of "Gamey" behaviour to see the light of day - since the Area Target command snaps to the Action Point and the vehicle is in the Action Point, it stands a good chance of being hit. I did this in Closing the pocket playing as the Americans. The 57mm AT gun could not see the PSW that the entire rest of their feckin' army could see ! Which is a trifle bizarre, since they're not buttoned AND they've got a guy with binoculars... But they could trace LoS and LoF to the spot it occupied. Having read on the forum about this very concept, I area fired at the spot and after 2-3 rounds dug in to the hillside, there was a very satisfying clang and the PSW reversed away with Wheel damage. To me it seems a bit gamey, but until you can see the dirty great big armoured car sitting on the dandelion you're looking at, it will have to suffice. ( Downside is that I then forgot to take them off area fire for 2 more turns, so they blew through a fair amount of ammo hurting that hillside )

In my case 1. Of the 4 crews, only 1 had taken a single casualty. 2. Yes, it took a few turns before the "Charge of the Tank Crews" developed. 3&4. Hmmm, dunno about this one, all 4 crews charged a good 100+ metres taking fire all the way ( they only took 1 additional casualty total during their mad charge before reaching engagement distance ). 5&6. Well, they caused at least 5 casualties to my guys before getting suppressed over about 3 turns. Now my hold on the town was tenuous and if the AI had had even a single infantry squad, the hurt the crews laid down could well have tipped the balance against me holding it. A human player could well combine crews with regrouped survivors to do that sort of damage. Ideally the solution would be to tone down their firepower (ammo?) ( my guys were in a building and they were in the open FFS !! ) and/or hardcode them to head to the rear. I can't see anyone seriously objecting to the latter solution ( I imagine that one could set this to apply only if their vehicle is KO'd, removing issues with scouting dismounted crew )

I've had a new oddity with my mortars - see pic - my HQ unit was in contact with his mortar unit, he had blueline LoS to the aiming point ( I gave him a target command to show that in the pic ), but he could not call in the arty strike at the point required. In game you get a little circle with a strike through it, but it doesn't seem to get captured on the screenie. He was able to get the arty targetting icon for about half of his total blue line, thereafter, nada. Hopefully someone can come up with a good reason for this one.

From comments that indicate that some stuff ( which may include textures ) was left out of the demo to keep the size down, you might have to redo these tests when the game proper comes out.

Hehe, I'd say it's probably in the bottom third if it's there, still, it would be nice to know if it IS there at all...

Well, I thought that enemy icons that are highlighted are the ones your selected unit can see. But sometimes my infantry or tanks had enemy highlighted and couldn't draw a targetting line to said enemy unit, so I'm unclear as to how this works. Also, an M10 took out a PSW which was NOT highlighted from his perspective ( I was playing Basic Training level so I could switch view to enemy units ). I'll wait for the full game before crying bug though, perhaps with some textures etc. left out of the demo, a few anomalies have crept in ( invisible trees/smoke/somesuch maybe ? )

MB's Compass mod is pretty sweet, I liked it the moment I started a new scenario and saw it up there - showing the view direction is inspired. No possibility of confusion.

No more commands than we had in CMx1 for 10 years - I think the experienced RT guys would find it familiar rather than more complex.

Excellent to hear !!

The AI-plan theory sounds plausible to me, hopefully some hardcoded "head for the rear and hunker down" script can be worked in for crew whose vehicle has been destroyed.

Fair enough, but a skull & crossbones on a vehicle is utilitarian, a bloody spot kinda makes you think the jellified crewmen are dripping out through the floor hatch... Hmmm, maybe it would work...

I had a Panther KO a Sherman at about 700-800m while Fast moving down the hill. It did not halt at all. I was under the impression that WWII era tanks rarely fired on the move and even more rarely hit if they tried it, due to non-stabilised guns. This guy fired and hit 1st shot at about a 30-40 degree angle off the direction of travel.

Agree, it looks good for infantry, but having it on vehicles reverses its utility. Pity

As I finished my first game of the Closing the Gap Scenario, I had knocked out 4 of 5 Shermans. Imagine my surprise when in a desperate attempt to wrest the VL's back from my men ( I imagine ), the AI sends the 4 crews to take me on. None of them had an SMG, only Colt 1911's. Imagine my amazement when they not only ran a couple of hundred metres, losing only 1 guy total, but they then proceeded to outgun my infantry for a couple of turns before being suppressed. Granted, on the flank where 3 crews attacked, I only had 1 team and a schreck crew ( who had an MG42 too though ! ). Now while I can accept the "Crews taking the guys who killed their tank prisoner" if they happened to be in the way of their escape and suchlike, the AI needs some looking at if it's using crews as assault infantry. I was playing on Basic Training level, but I didn't think that makes the AI "stupider". Screenshots :