Baneman

Agreed - CM is so good sometimes at depicting the battlefield that we forget that it is a wargame and as such, the "player as god" issue cannot be eliminated without removing almost all the player's control which makes it not-fun ( or at least, not a wargame ).
 
When you're playing another human PBEM, you are both capable of the same somewhat unrealistic behaviour and that at least, keeps the field level. Against the AI the human has an advantage, but then you always will against AI ( at least until Skynet  )

Agreed - CM is so good sometimes at depicting the battlefield that we forget that it is a wargame and as such, the "player as god" issue cannot be eliminated without removing almost all the player's control which makes it not-fun ( or at least, not a wargame ).
 
When you're playing another human PBEM, you are both capable of the same somewhat unrealistic behaviour and that at least, keeps the field level. Against the AI the human has an advantage, but then you always will against AI ( at least until Skynet  )

Note that understanding Jason does not mean that I agree with him. Nor that I completely disagree with him. If terrain objectives are to be taken, it's much easier to do that if you've swept the enemy away with your lead broom. But you still have to take them, and to do that you have to know where they are, which implies paying some attention to the assigned objectives. Because if you forget to occupy an occupy VL and your human opponent refuses to Surrender, you're not going to collect the VPs for that VL.
 
Because this is a game we're playing, the scenario has to provide the operational context, and if that says you can't afford the losses it'll take to whup your opponent, you'd better not spend too much effort on the beat-down. But where VCs are simplistic and force matchups putatively "even", beating the tar out of the other guy is absolutely a way of achieving your objectives.

Combat Missions's scenarios aren't designed for textbook applications of tactics. They're designed to be challenging. In that light terrain objectives and short mission timers make perfect sense. I could see QB essentially being the place to go for a by-the-numbers approach. The scenarios, campaigns, etc should not be so easy.

This gets more at the heart of the issue, but your blaming wrong mechanic. 
 
The omniscient presence of the human player, and his ability to micro the battlefield is inherently not realistic. This is something that ALL RTS games have in common to some extent. You are managing a battle on a level that nobody does in actuality. A company commander rarely, if ever, tells a specific tank to face a certain direction. He also does not micro the movements of squad fire teams, or does a litany of other things that the player does in combat mission. The only true way to rectify this in a game would be to have it played like a first person shooter, with players issuing orders to other units and then those human units carrying them out, each unit only seeing what he can see from where he is at. 
 
In combat mission, we already have the most realistic approach you can probably get in a RTS, and it still be a RTS. WEGO. Wego limits specific orders to only occurring every minute, which in my opinion is a decent way to make C2 more realistic, as it makes it less possible for you to instantly micro units. If you want something else, then you wont get that from a strategy game, period. They are by nature exercises in theory, not C2 simulations. 
 
With that said, it is totally unfair to single out the "area fire" mechanic and claim it being abused. If you wanted to alter this in some physically unrealistic way to ostensibly reflect some C2 conundrum, you would still be left with a imperfect solution (as you said). But worse, you would have altered one specific mechanic unevenly when there are loads of other things you do in this game that benefit from the nature of the players abilities. If we tried to alter all mechanics like this, pretty soon there wouldn't be much for the player to do anymore, except watch the battle unfold. 

Really ? That's what you got from this informative thread about how the Germans used their forces differently to other armies ( and with useful CM-applicable tutorial ) ?
 
See here for the Soviet fanboism then : http://community.battlefront.com/topic/120450-russian-doctrine-in-cmrt/

Really ? That's what you got from this informative thread about how the Germans used their forces differently to other armies ( and with useful CM-applicable tutorial ) ?
 
See here for the Soviet fanboism then : http://community.battlefront.com/topic/120450-russian-doctrine-in-cmrt/

If you use HUNT for the unit that can see the Target, even if you forget it, they will ignore it instantly as they are the ones who can see the enemy unit

Personally I still prefer Elite - mostly because when watching playback, every time I select a unit to follow, I have to remember to unclick it in order to see the context in which it's operating ( surrounding units etc. ).
This becomes a chore and eventually irritates me.
C2 I can evaluate when selecting a unit or turning on the command lines ( which, incidentally, I find a bit odd in Iron with lines extending to ... blankness ).
 
Each to their own though.

Personally I still prefer Elite - mostly because when watching playback, every time I select a unit to follow, I have to remember to unclick it in order to see the context in which it's operating ( surrounding units etc. ).
This becomes a chore and eventually irritates me.
C2 I can evaluate when selecting a unit or turning on the command lines ( which, incidentally, I find a bit odd in Iron with lines extending to ... blankness ).
 
Each to their own though.

Although, when the Bulge game comes out, you're supposed to have traffic-jams !

haha and 1.03 of BS was supposed to be in final release candidate and out within a week for 6 weeks. If they release it too earlier everyone will character assasinate them like they did on ALPHA screenies (lookin at u wiggum) and feankly I wouldnt blame em for not releasing ANYTHING until its done the way childish wailing was exhibited over alpha screenies and wild conjecturing about how bfc was scamming us was being tossed around over those three screen shots.

Anyone who might be able to give us news has probably run screaming from your avatar !

I almost always play as Russians. Recently with the loss of 8 T90s 2 khriz and some men i got a total Russ victory against a very ezperienced opponent. Wiped out his infantry, killed six abrams ( a few catastrophically) and 8 bradleys. In several other PBEMs Bradleys are the easiest ATGM and tank targets its the Abrams that are the really satisfying kills. I completely disagree with Jammersixes assesment.

Thing is, the flak you take for not releasing information is always exceeded by the flak you take for missing a published date ( even IF it was a "rough guess"   ).
 
Ergo ...

I absolutely hate the sun irl
 
Honestly, the heat-death of the Universe can't come fast enough for me.
Apparently, I'm genetically engineered for cold weather.    A nice pleasant 12-14 degrees is T-shirt weather for me.
 
And there's still 2 months of this year's 6 month summer-hell to go    

Nope, a squad of 9 men could theoretically engage 9 discrete targets if the circumstances allowed.
 
Just as spotting is calculated from each set of eyeballs, so targeting is done per man. Each guy may not even be able to see the same target as his mate etc.

Yeah and also if you fight as Russian, you must fight like a Russian. You must make liberal and well planned use of  automatic grenade launchers (AGS), RPO units and massive amounts of Mortar and artillery fire. Russians believe in heavy firepower, not aimed rifle fire. WHen you do that, they are very difficult if not downright impossible to fight against in infantry-centric battles. Dont use the russians as you would with US infantry. That's fighting on US terms and you will lose. Fight on YOUR terms.

Thing is, the flak you take for not releasing information is always exceeded by the flak you take for missing a published date ( even IF it was a "rough guess"   ).
 
Ergo ...

Well they have an list of which modules / games get worked on in which order.  But one of the immutable laws of software development is that things always take twice as long as you expect (even after you take this law into account).

Looks great Tanks
 
 
Remember that the stock game ( incl. textures ) is designed to be able to run on the slowest computer that customers may own.
Increasing texture definition raises that "lower bar".
 
But hey, with great modders like Tanks out there ( and others ), we get the best of both worlds.

Veteran squad leader Schlaffer has found his squad in a bad situation.  They were advancing to cover and are now caught in the open by a charging Ami halftrack.
 

Lol! Have your men rifle through the hq's pockets. They may find some vodka or binos.

Tanks can help infantry. Just sayin'.

Just a guess, but probably for gameplay limitation purposes.
 
It may be realistic to be able to moonscape any part of the map you desire, but it makes for a much less fun game.

I hope you still have time to get the infantry Co HQ on a tank.  I like to match up my infantry HQs with their supporting tank HQs in CMRT.  It is one of the benefits of tank riders.  When possible, I will put the infantry Platoon HQ on the HQ tank of the supporting tank platoon.  (Same with Company level units.)  This facilitates the flow of intel between the infantry unit and tank unit.  Just have to be careful not to get the inf HQ shot off the back of the tank.  Good luck with that.    Infantry without radios can also use the tanks radio to stay in C2.  With the lack of Russian radios this is often useful.  The screenshot below demonstrates infantry/tank cooperation & C2.