womble

That'd be all fine and dandy, if that was the way TAs worked, but it's not (unless they've changed it in BS, at which point this is all out of date! But carefully watching your vid, I don't see any evidence that the gun "sweeps" its assigned arc). The turret swivels directly from its previous bearing to the midpoint of the arc, which is in the same place whether it's a 10deg or a 180deg (though perhaps a bit easier to judge with a narrower arc, granted) and stays there until it sees a valid target or the arc is cancelled. The crew don't scan any more or less with their optics; though the turret rotation does get the ones with a limited field of view pointed in a more useful direction, again this would be true with a narrow or broad TA. So given that you got the direction pretty bang on, the turret would never have to be "yanked back". A Target Arc is primarily a restriction on where targets are valid, rather than a "focus" to identify and prioritise seeking targets in that arc. 
 
It was based, also, on a flawed understanding of the way TAs work; it bears emphasis, since this is a common misapprehension. One thing you can do with vehicles is give them many short movement legs with changes of orientation of their TA at every opportunity. They don't stop at each waypoint, like infantry do, so it doesn't slow them down (assuming you make all the legs the same speed ), and it means you could even more precisely pre-lay your gun's bearing for "quickdraw" contests like this.
 
 
It's a perennial complaint about the turret rotation selection algorithms of the tanks. First, that they try too hard to get their glacis pointed at the threat, prioritising that sometimes over rotating the turret and taking the shot, and second that the turret cannot counterrotate to keep the gun bearing while the hull rotates. The models can only do one at a time, and that has saved my bacon on a number of occasions, and frustrated me on a number more. It's a game artefact that you have to take into account (by, for example, using TAs to fix the gun in the right direction and stopping hull rotation), and that the AI can't/doesn't is a contributor to its downfall as an opponent.

Ooooh, you so nearly overran that TA. Just a bit more momentum on the Abrams and you'd've coasted right past the T-90 and sat there waiting to be drilled. To avoid this, you can set as wide a TA as possible, but still with its midpoint oriented to where you want the tube pointed. There's no need or advantage to constraining your TA to only where you think the target actually is, in this case. Since you had a good strong fix on where the enemy was, you could also have taken a curved path off to the right then turning left to be pointing the whole tank at where you wanted to shoot. That might've been exposing vulnerable flank armour though, I suppose. Depends on whether you were worried about other threats that needed the glacis pointed at them; it's not like even the Abrams frontal armour would have done very much against a T-90's AP at that range.

Yeah, cos picking up someone's markup typos makes you such a great arguer. I couldn't possibly compete. Welcome to my very small... ignore list.

Yep. Higher Motivation will mean faster morale recovery, as well as the ability to continue functioning under greater pressure. Getting out of Rattled takes, as Hawkeye said, leaders and motivation, and I'll add time without negative experiences to that equation. Rattled -> Nervous takes a long time. Nervous -> OK much less. At least that's my overall impression, not having done any specific testing.
Given that your tank is still functioning, the +1 will affect its resistance to becoming a "morale casualty" in future turns. Far from irrelevant!

Indeed, but the rate of fire with a max rate max tubes mission can, with many arty modules, or if it's not at full ammo, mean that you have to cancel them the turn after they start falling in order to have any rounds left for other missions. Sometimes, even then, you end up with not enough rounds for an effective mission. In other words, the faster the mission, the harder it is to control, and the higher the price for having it set to max duration.

To be fair, just because someone can't find something on the storefront doesn't necessarily mean it's not for sale. While I appreciate the efforts BFC go to to keep the game updated and provide a choice of your content path, sometimes their documentation assumes just a tad too much familiarity with what's going on.

They got lucky. As far as I can tell, vehicle explosions don't affect things more than an AS or so away. So they were just far enough away. Saved by the armour on the mortar carrier deflecting the blast upwards just enough. For them.

While curtailed/adjusted "Maximum duration" missions have their place (a large place, IMO; I use them all the time at reduced RoFs and tubes-firing counts), there is a penalty for ending a strike short: it takes time for the message to get through and be acted upon, and in that time you will use more shells than you had decided you "need"; if your fire rate was high, this could be a lot of shells. The art of judging exactly how much early to end a strike is probably at least as arcane as the art of judging which preset mission duration to choose for a given target.

That depends very much on the range, and what you call "standard".
The 105 is a howitzer with a loopy trajectory, and will only very rarely hit on the first round. And if you're close enough to risk the shot, you're probably close enough that the german 75-or-better will ream you out on his first shot. If you're far enough away that there's a glance chance, you'll almost certainly miss. The 105 isn't an anti-armour tank, it's an assault gun with desperation self-defense rounds.

If you define "standard" german armour as PzIV, just take a Sherman 75. The gun's accurate enough and powerful enough to have a slightly better chance per shot of killing the relatively poorly armoured IV than the IV has of killing the M4, at combat ranges you'll see on most BN maps. If you think you'll be facing kitties, take a 76mm (preferably the 17lber Firefly) or be prepared to lose tanks while flanking the panzers.

That depends very much on the range, and what you call "standard".
The 105 is a howitzer with a loopy trajectory, and will only very rarely hit on the first round. And if you're close enough to risk the shot, you're probably close enough that the german 75-or-better will ream you out on his first shot. If you're far enough away that there's a glance chance, you'll almost certainly miss. The 105 isn't an anti-armour tank, it's an assault gun with desperation self-defense rounds.

If you define "standard" german armour as PzIV, just take a Sherman 75. The gun's accurate enough and powerful enough to have a slightly better chance per shot of killing the relatively poorly armoured IV than the IV has of killing the M4, at combat ranges you'll see on most BN maps. If you think you'll be facing kitties, take a 76mm (preferably the 17lber Firefly) or be prepared to lose tanks while flanking the panzers.

The base development environment is OpenGL. A decision made at the inception of CMSF, I believe, which has now outlived its usefulness. BFC have mentioned that they intend at some future point to drop that and move to another 3D environment. If they'd chosen DirectX back in 2007, AIUI, it would have been impractical to produce a Mac client, which wasn't an option Steve would entertain, being a Mac user himself. They have mentioned what 3D engine they will be moving to, I gather, but can't remember which it is. They have not given any indication whatsoever of a timescale for the move. Until that unknown future day dawns, though, we are, I'm afraid, shackled to oldtech. There's a bunch of other architectural decisions beyond the graphics engine that need revising at the CMx3 point too, IMO.

And even then, it is possible for an HQ to be off-net; radios in WW2 are not 100% reliable.

A possible generic "ideal" approach for a platoon of American infantry, stepwise:Split off assault (A) teams from each squad Split off C teams (AT teams from squads with Zooks, and Scout teams from the other squad(s)) Give the AT teams a 100m circular Armour Target Arc Give the A teams a 100m circular Target Arc Give the B teams a 200m circular Target Arc Give the HQ and Scout teams 50m circular Target Arcs Move the HQ and all the A and B teams and the Scout C teams to one AS short of the hedge. Keep the AT teams back a couple of AS unless you know there's armour to shoot at; have them Hide to keep their heads down. Give the Scout and HQ teams target arcs which will not reach the next hedgerow once they're at the hedgerow you're approaching Slow move the Scout and HQ teams into the hedgerow you want to snuggle up to. At their destination waypoint, give them short (10m or less) Target arcs in a segment pointed through the hedge. Slow move the A and B teams up into the hedgerow, with an empty AS between all elements once they're in position; leave A teams back if you have to to make sure there's gaps. At their destination waypoint, they should have short target arc segments pointing them through the hedge, and Hide orders; your Scout and HQ teams are your eyes and all those riflemen crowding the hedge are too visible if they kneel up to see and potentially shoot. Give it some time for your eyes to see if they can see any enemy. A couple of minutes should do. If you see any targets, unHide your rifle sections and remove their Target Arcs. You probably won't be able to set any explicit Target orders because the Hiding elements are unsighted of the far hedgerow. They will engage as they spot, and will spot readily since their platoonmates have seen the target(s). You can also remove the TA of your scout team(s) if you want; they're just riflemen at this stage. Keep the arc on your HQ though. Their job isn't to fire and give their position away so they can be shot at. You might even want to Hide them if that won't drop any teams out of C2, just to keep their heads out of the way of stray rounds. If you don't see any targets, unHide your B teams, and optionally your A teams, give them Target Arcs that cover the next hedgerow (but not much further; you don't want them spotting something at extreme effective range on a hill and randomly opening up on it). Recon by fire using one of your Scout teams. Area fire somewhere on the opposing hedgeline. Any opposition which spot the Scouts and return fire will likely be spotted by your overwatching B teams and be engaged. If that doesn't draw any fire, move one Scout team quickly a short way into the field and have them go to ground (Hide). If you're against the AI at this stage and you've recieved no incoming, you can be fairly sure the far hedge line is clear and the Scouts can start making their Quick way towards the next hedgeline. Against a live opponent, the might have selected short firing arcs for their defenders, so you'll have to keep pushing your Scouts forward (all of them at this stage) until he drops the hammer. You'll probably lose scouts, but at least you won't be having the entire platoon cut down in the open. The above assumes that you're certain there's nothing opposing your advance into that first hedge. It also assumes that you're facing opposition appropriate to a platoon: a squad or so. If you discover that it's tougher than that, you'll need to break contact and get some help.

A possible generic "ideal" approach for a platoon of American infantry, stepwise:Split off assault (A) teams from each squad Split off C teams (AT teams from squads with Zooks, and Scout teams from the other squad(s)) Give the AT teams a 100m circular Armour Target Arc Give the A teams a 100m circular Target Arc Give the B teams a 200m circular Target Arc Give the HQ and Scout teams 50m circular Target Arcs Move the HQ and all the A and B teams and the Scout C teams to one AS short of the hedge. Keep the AT teams back a couple of AS unless you know there's armour to shoot at; have them Hide to keep their heads down. Give the Scout and HQ teams target arcs which will not reach the next hedgerow once they're at the hedgerow you're approaching Slow move the Scout and HQ teams into the hedgerow you want to snuggle up to. At their destination waypoint, give them short (10m or less) Target arcs in a segment pointed through the hedge. Slow move the A and B teams up into the hedgerow, with an empty AS between all elements once they're in position; leave A teams back if you have to to make sure there's gaps. At their destination waypoint, they should have short target arc segments pointing them through the hedge, and Hide orders; your Scout and HQ teams are your eyes and all those riflemen crowding the hedge are too visible if they kneel up to see and potentially shoot. Give it some time for your eyes to see if they can see any enemy. A couple of minutes should do. If you see any targets, unHide your rifle sections and remove their Target Arcs. You probably won't be able to set any explicit Target orders because the Hiding elements are unsighted of the far hedgerow. They will engage as they spot, and will spot readily since their platoonmates have seen the target(s). You can also remove the TA of your scout team(s) if you want; they're just riflemen at this stage. Keep the arc on your HQ though. Their job isn't to fire and give their position away so they can be shot at. You might even want to Hide them if that won't drop any teams out of C2, just to keep their heads out of the way of stray rounds. If you don't see any targets, unHide your B teams, and optionally your A teams, give them Target Arcs that cover the next hedgerow (but not much further; you don't want them spotting something at extreme effective range on a hill and randomly opening up on it). Recon by fire using one of your Scout teams. Area fire somewhere on the opposing hedgeline. Any opposition which spot the Scouts and return fire will likely be spotted by your overwatching B teams and be engaged. If that doesn't draw any fire, move one Scout team quickly a short way into the field and have them go to ground (Hide). If you're against the AI at this stage and you've recieved no incoming, you can be fairly sure the far hedge line is clear and the Scouts can start making their Quick way towards the next hedgeline. Against a live opponent, the might have selected short firing arcs for their defenders, so you'll have to keep pushing your Scouts forward (all of them at this stage) until he drops the hammer. You'll probably lose scouts, but at least you won't be having the entire platoon cut down in the open. The above assumes that you're certain there's nothing opposing your advance into that first hedge. It also assumes that you're facing opposition appropriate to a platoon: a squad or so. If you discover that it's tougher than that, you'll need to break contact and get some help.

Troops behind Bocage hedgerows do tend to be pretty well hidden and well protected, to boot. If you move Slow the last AS up to the hedge, the enemy will be less likely to see you arrive. That will all be for nought though, if your troops start hammering away with their small arms as soon as they see anything on the other side, since firing weapons are much easier to spot (and the troops getting themselves in a position to fire out can be more easily seen and fired upon, than troops just peeking. So give your hedge-humpers short covered arcs if you know there's not going to be any resistance immediately next to the hedge which will need eradicating. That way, your troops won't fire the moment they spot a target, and you'll be able to keep them hidden and unspotted until you've gathered enough force to be able to win the firefight once it starts. It can be effective to have only some troops up and spotting, with the others kept under Hide orders. This minimises the chances of you being seen (use small teams and ones with vision aids) until you want to open up, but has the disadvantage of probably not allowing you to give area target orders until the next opportunity after you've "unHided" them.
I'm not sure how you're getting slaughtered behind Bocage by rifle fire... I'd hazzard a guess that you're trying to hide behind hedges rather than Bocage; not so useful, as they represent a small "box" hedge or something equivalent, so unless your troops are prone (can be arranged with "Hide" after a Slow move approach) they offer little concealment, and they offer as much cover as you'd expect from a piece of topiary (namely little or none).

Then you're up against some high quality troops Generally, I find that trading fire between bocage lines on anything like an even basis is pretty ineffective wrt causing casualties. The pTruppen stay kneeling and the berm/hedge combo gives them fair protection until they're suppressed, and once their heads are down they're unhittable, by and large.

Then you're up against some high quality troops Generally, I find that trading fire between bocage lines on anything like an even basis is pretty ineffective wrt causing casualties. The pTruppen stay kneeling and the berm/hedge combo gives them fair protection until they're suppressed, and once their heads are down they're unhittable, by and large.

That's interesting/odd. Usually people complain about their TCs being too tolerant of incoming smallarms fire... Were the PzIV particularly low experience or morale? But if the Shermans were unbuttoned, they might well have the spotting advantage over buttoned IVs, so the oddness starts to shift towards, "Why were the IV TCs so chicken?"

Did a bit of a test to see. A British MG platoon with both its MMGs dismounted and other elements used to man the UC-carried MGs inflicted casualties at about 3x the rate on individual "houses" compared to individual "churches". The targets were 3-storey with an unsplit squad of Grenadiers on each storey. The Grenadiers were Elite, Fanatics with +2 leaders. The MG platoon was Regular Fanatics. The shooters never saw a single German; this was all area fire. While the Germans were "Hide"ing, they didn't take any casualties. As soon as they "unhid", they started taking them, in both building types.

Another test with Conscript grenadiers as the target dummies didn't change the casualty rate noticeably, nor did it mean the Tommy machinegunners saw anything more of them; still not spotted at a range of 200-250m after minutes of hammering away.

Well, you've outlined your options as the designer. One thing to consider is whether the "100 yards deep" minefield was actually 12AS-deep contiguous mines sown as dense as CM will let you. But something else you have to consider if you're planning on having the mines marked while under fire is that they probably won't be. And they certainly won't be marked in a consistent timescale. That's because the engineers doing the marking will be stopping and restarting their marking as they experience suppression. My opinion is that the best option is to have marked gaps on the map beforehand. The assaulting airborne didn't have any option as to where their colleagues had marked the paths in the real action, after all; when they arrived at the perimeter, late, they had to deal with the situation the sappers handed over to them. Consider also, that finding a way through a 12 AS deep field is going to take pretty much all of that half an hour, so you'll have to change that time parameter anyway if you elect to have the field cleared "on screen". It's also worth noting that a Marked AS is still potentially dangerous, just much less so than an unmarked one, and follow-up troops will need to be slow crossing, or, almost inevitably, given the number of AS they need to cross, suffer the calamities of landmine detonations.

Using armour arcs is a double-edged sword. A big "map-covering" circular arc is good for making sure your tank isn't distracted by infantry, so not much problem there. A smaller "segment" arc, though, can sometimes be drawn too small, and the movement of the hunter or the target can take the target out of the arc, meaning the seeking tank doesn't fire on it, or even doesn't stop its "Hunt" move when it does spot the target. Given that assigning a Target Arc doesn't "focus the unit's attention" beyond rotating the turret so the better optics are aligned with the axis of the segment, ATAs are mostly useful for having the turret pointed in (roughly) the right direction at the point there's expected to be a firing opportunity that's off the hull's fore-aft axis. To achieve this orientation, a very wide, just sub-180 arc is sufficient, though more difficult to judge the central axis of. However, firing over your side armour at a target means that any return fire hitting your hull will be hitting your hull's side armour, which is a waste when you've got that lovely thick sloped glacis that has at least a chance of deflecting or mitigating the impact.

So the best way to approach your firing position, if it's possible, is to move in a way that presents your front armour to the enemy when you break cover, which will also mean your gun is pointing at him if you've set a map-blanketing target arc. No chance of the target not being in-arc, and you have the best chance of surviving any return fire.

Second best is the "short pop-out" where your turret is pointed at the target, meaning your engagement time is short enough that you can reverse back into cover before the enemy can rotate to bear. This needs good observation on the target to make sure his gun isn't pointed at where you're going to pop out before you show yourself.

Thanks for the compliment, but I have to say it sounds like I've failed to dispel the misapprehension that TAs help your pTruppen do anything like "zoom in" on anything. All they do is point the turret. While that does mean that more optics are pointed approximately the right way, it doesn't mean they are solely looking at the area of the arc, or anything like. And it's even arguable that it's a less-optimal thing to do as the range increases, since the arc rotates with the hull and a smaller angular deflection is required to throw the arc completely off the target if the arc only just covers it. You should be using broader arcs at longer range, not shorter.
On the whole, the concept of "zooming in" is one you that should avoid associating with TAs in general.

Using armour arcs is a double-edged sword. A big "map-covering" circular arc is good for making sure your tank isn't distracted by infantry, so not much problem there. A smaller "segment" arc, though, can sometimes be drawn too small, and the movement of the hunter or the target can take the target out of the arc, meaning the seeking tank doesn't fire on it, or even doesn't stop its "Hunt" move when it does spot the target. Given that assigning a Target Arc doesn't "focus the unit's attention" beyond rotating the turret so the better optics are aligned with the axis of the segment, ATAs are mostly useful for having the turret pointed in (roughly) the right direction at the point there's expected to be a firing opportunity that's off the hull's fore-aft axis. To achieve this orientation, a very wide, just sub-180 arc is sufficient, though more difficult to judge the central axis of. However, firing over your side armour at a target means that any return fire hitting your hull will be hitting your hull's side armour, which is a waste when you've got that lovely thick sloped glacis that has at least a chance of deflecting or mitigating the impact.

So the best way to approach your firing position, if it's possible, is to move in a way that presents your front armour to the enemy when you break cover, which will also mean your gun is pointing at him if you've set a map-blanketing target arc. No chance of the target not being in-arc, and you have the best chance of surviving any return fire.

Second best is the "short pop-out" where your turret is pointed at the target, meaning your engagement time is short enough that you can reverse back into cover before the enemy can rotate to bear. This needs good observation on the target to make sure his gun isn't pointed at where you're going to pop out before you show yourself.

Did a bit of a test to see. A British MG platoon with both its MMGs dismounted and other elements used to man the UC-carried MGs inflicted casualties at about 3x the rate on individual "houses" compared to individual "churches". The targets were 3-storey with an unsplit squad of Grenadiers on each storey. The Grenadiers were Elite, Fanatics with +2 leaders. The MG platoon was Regular Fanatics. The shooters never saw a single German; this was all area fire. While the Germans were "Hide"ing, they didn't take any casualties. As soon as they "unhid", they started taking them, in both building types.

Another test with Conscript grenadiers as the target dummies didn't change the casualty rate noticeably, nor did it mean the Tommy machinegunners saw anything more of them; still not spotted at a range of 200-250m after minutes of hammering away.

What they didn't point out was that was an average...