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

After the initial "getting to know the gameplay" thing that's usually covered by the campaign in other games, it doesn't much matter, IMO, whether you jump into the campaigns or the scenarios... except that the scenarios might be something you want to play "sight unseen" against another human. Oh, and if you do jump into the scenarios, be aware that they too are not arranged in any didactic order, just alphabetically or by size, and small doesn't mean "easy" any more than "its codename is Aardvark".

Where the AI script approach is weakest is the QB. Since MarkEzra, who does the lion's share of QB map production, cannot know what force composition he's writing scripts for (even to the point of "will it be infantry-only or armour-only?"), the plans are necessarily generic. One of the classes of situations you're describing (persisting with trying to use the same chokepoint, when to do so involves nagivating a clot of burning wrecks would be addressable at the level of the AI. Choosing which hill to meander up and which to advance on with purpose, and how to approach the evolution, is down to the AI plan, with the planner needing to be assiduous about using multiple unit groups to provide overwatch and scouting. Such detail is very difficult to assign without knowledge of the force composition, so the QB AI is never going to be a maneuver challenge of the level that a scenario plan can be. Triggers are a big improvement. BFC have said they will continue to improve the AI. Branching triggers would be another step change in the ability to plan, but would, of course, have less impact in the field of QBs.

For now, though, it is a massive challenge to make the AI attack effectively. A challenge that is too much for the generic plans that can reasonably be created for QBs. If you're playing QBs, you would be well advised, IMO, to restrict yourself to situations where the AI doesn't have to maneuver too much, so no MEs and the AI defending against your Probe/Attack/Assault. If you want to defend, have the AI Assault and give it 150% troops. At least then the broken remnants might be able to take the VLs because you've run out of ammo.

It plays by the same rules as we do, with a couple of extra restrictions:

If it's firing at a TRP, a calling unit has to have LOS to that TRP. It won't fire at "assumed" enemy on the out-of-sight position, as a human player can and will.

I think there are restrictions on where the AI will fire its arty built into the AI plans. I'm not sure quite how this works... I'm thinking of painted "Support Target" areas.

What has a weak point under the turret got to say about spotting advantages? And doesn't that weak point represent the bit of the armour where that chance of survival got missed? Are you saying that the T-90 having to hit the weak spot makes the Abrams less well-protected than the Russian tank? And if the range is 1000m or less, how did you get to that range if the Abrams is static? Or are you saying that a moving T-90 will see the static Abrams before the Abrams sees the T-90? Reliably? And then you assume a gunner can automatically hit a precise targeting point. Or you're simply ignoring the fact that Macisle goes on to say:
In which of those areas of small advantage do you think Macisle is incorrect? Note that no one is saying the M1 is invulnerable or can't be destroyed by a T-90, just that the American system has an advantage over the Russian for any number of reasons, yet you appear to be arguing that the T-90 is at least even with the Abrams. Please say how the T-90's armour is less vulnerable to the Abrams, or how the T-90 will spot the Abrams faster, or something. Or bring another factor into the equation which counters the advantages that the Abrams measurably has. Rather than just spouting nonsense about WoT and how straightforward combat tank gunnery is.

If only such things were so simple.
Bounding overwatch doesn't always involve continuous suppressive fire. But if you want it to, in CM, you can assign Target commands from movement waypoints of either split teams moving alternately (use pauses to hold them still while their companion team is moving), or of intact Squads ordered to Assault (the static element should fire at the assigned target. Or you can leave it to the TacAI to pick targets for the static element(s).
The point of overwatch without continuous suppression is to be able to respond to enemy presence not previously detected in order to give the moving element a better chance of being able to survive because any surprise resistance will come under fire from the static element. There are many occasions when you want to move without firing, and if you're needing to fire, you probably shouldn't be moving the under fire element much (besides getting it to cover) until the enemy are properly suppressed.

It's the "very close" situations where I've found Hide can help. Often. It's not perfect, but it can mean an extra team manages to get into position before the game is up and you have to tell everyone to go all "Mad Minute" on whoever spotted the last team in...
A downside of using Hide is that they will often not be able to spot out of the building, so you just have to "unhide" them and let them spot naturally and choose their own targets. You have to be judicious in its use.

Absolutely. Yes. Move Slowly in any building where the enemy can see the building.
Very. In buildings, if you move Slow, give very tight target arcs and Hide at the end, you can remain unobserved across even quite narrow streets. If you "Quick"ed in the same position you'd get spotted immediately. Behind vegetation, at least prior to the proliferation of IR vision aids, you can pretty much consider Slow to be as hard to spot as static troops, plus Slow keeps them on their bellies. In addition, Slow moving troops will retain much of their situational awareness, as long as there's not something solid they can't see over from their crawling posture.
Not as much as being dead or not having reached your firing point in time. My assessment is that going to Tired doesn't have much, if any, effect on accuracy, just stops you hitting Fast, which is a consideration.

One thing to be careful of is that if you blast a tank-sized hole that includes a pre-existing (in the map, not created by Blast) hole in the Bocage, there's a good chance your tanks won't be able to roll through it. I try never to hav a Blast order that might incorporate "natural" breaks.

While I don't disagree with your sentiment, it's worse than that. People want everything in the game to function how they think it would in real life, without considering all the factors and assuming that because one factor doesn't behave, in-game, how they imagine it would, that the whole model is broken, when, in fact, their whole assumed modality for the system is pretty much hokum.

I'd consider EE an RTS (rather than a wargame) because it involves building the units you're going to use, during the game, managing the "resources" needed to do so. I didn't buy it, after watching a couple of online vids of the gameplay. I'd probably enjoy it up to a point, but it's not what I'm looking for in a game. It's a "wargamey" RTS, but certainly, in my lexicon, not a "hardcore wargame". Pretty much all my friends and the people I bump into when with them are gamers (playing tabletop RPGs, LARP and computer games, online and off, multiplayer and MM). A few of them class themselves as wargamers, playing figures games alongwith the other media. Some of them play Flames of War. One of them has been persuaded to buy CM, and he just doesn't have the time to get to know the game, even to take up my offer of a sit-down tutorial; his experience isn't going to sell it to any of his friends, either, and he co-runs half a dozen FoW tournaments a year. He has time to play Battle Academy, which I'd class as a wargame, for sure, though. Steam wouldn't increase the exposure-rate amongst my gamer friends; they're not looking for the material in the first place.

I think it's just for emphasis. The yellow rectangle might be there to warn that the element isn't as capable as it once was; Tired troops cannot kick on to Fast, and Exhausted troops (red rectangle emphasis) can't move slower than Slow or Normal. I used to think that the yellow rectangle on morale meant the unit was "Brittle", i.e. more likely to react badly to incoming fire even when the morale state had rallied to better than "Shaken", but the rectangle appears on Rattled, without the unit having been Broken, and Rattled troops aren't as skittish as troops that have rallied from Broken; you wouldn't get anywhere in some scenarios if "Rattled" troops were automatically "Brittle".

I work on the basis that the rectangles are just emphasis, and haven't been surprised yet by the troops' performance.

My infantry pTruppen generally do have a bullets-per-kill ratio of less than 8000, but that quoted number is probably derived from the number of rounds manufactured divided by the number of deaths attributed to small arms fire or some such other nonsense. What it's ignoring is that (apart from the fact that not all bullets were used; the stockpiles in '45 were much bigger than in '39), many of those bullets were fired off in situations far less intense than the engagements depicted by the common CM scenario. It's also neglecting the fact that many bullets are fired by systems other than those carried by infantry. In CM games, I do my very best to run vehicular small arms ammo stocks down to zero, unless there's some consideration (ongoing campaign, briefing/VC) encouraging me not to. I would guesstimate that in a combined arms setup, the tanks might actually fire more than half the bullets sometimes, and I'd guess those bullets probably net less than half the reported ratio, since they're speculative area fire or suppressing already-Cowering troops. One kill per 4000 bullets probably isn't far outside the usual average. A purely rifle-armed element is lucky to get more than one combat victory (the modal outcome being zero), a team with a couple of MG42s might get 4; most infantry teams that rack up high body counts do it with SMGs and grenades.

But the originally quoted post is largely agenda-laden bobbins, especially when you're talking about BN.

As far as your AAR goes, I'd say play it as you normally would, and get the enjoyment you normally would out of playing the game (rather than crimping your enjoyment by trying a style you're unfamiliar with and might not get on with). Getting enjoyment out of writing it up is going to be a very personal journey. The two contrasting AAR styles being used by Bil and pnzrldr over in the BS forum show a couple of ways of approaching it. If you like "roleplaying" the troops, imagining their reactions and thoughts, pnzrldr's style might suit you, whereas if you're more about the analysis and tecnincality of playing the game, Bil's approach might work better.

You have won. The Germans have nothing that can stop your tanks. Assuming your intel on the enemy is correct. Don't get within 150m and they'll empty their shrecks before they kill enough of your platoon to stop you murdelating them. 
1. Get infantry as far forward as they safely can.2. Drive your entire T-34 platoon up to 200m from the nearest enemy position your infantry can see and stop. Start neutralising resistance from there.

It's not that gamey. Just because there's no "?" doesn't actually mean they can't see anything. It can just mean they haven't communicated the presence to you yet, especially given the poor Soviet comms net. There are times when a unit will open fire (i.e. have a solid spot; they don't shoot at "?" on their own recognisance, ever) at a target that you don't have an icon for yet.
Even if you still think it is "gamey", bear in mind that the scenario designer will have had in mind the parameters of the game when he was designing it, and will be expecting you to use the tools available to you as a player.

And beyond that, you've enough MGs to blanket large areas of "suspected" terrain. Shooting at a place often gets a visible reaction. Staying still will improve your spotting. You probably don't have enough TCs to risk unbuttoning to get a better look.

Do you have any smoke available from company mortars (do Russian infantry even have mortars at the company level?) or the tanks? Are you absolutely sure that the entire approach route can fired upon from all possible enemy positions, or is there any declivity which will mean you can advance infantry into the face of the guns of only a part of the defense, a part sufficiently small that you can blanket it with T-34 fire? If you do have mortars, can you sneak a spotter into a place to call missions on key MG nests, in order to make a hole you can exploit? You just have to cut the number of long range guns down to a manageable number.

But most of all, get to "just outside effective infantry AT range" and sit there like turrets blowing up Germans.

He did put something of his own in response to Ian's post. It just got caught up inside the quote box. Have a compare of Ian's post and Lucas' reply. Note the last line in Lucas'.
 
I do not like the markup in this board. It is too difficult to break up a block and address things point by point and too easy to lose the termination of a quote section without good indication that you have. I've looked for a markup help page but not found one and would be happy if someone could point me that way.

He did put something of his own in response to Ian's post. It just got caught up inside the quote box. Have a compare of Ian's post and Lucas' reply. Note the last line in Lucas'.
 
I do not like the markup in this board. It is too difficult to break up a block and address things point by point and too easy to lose the termination of a quote section without good indication that you have. I've looked for a markup help page but not found one and would be happy if someone could point me that way.

Yes, Pause only affects movement. It won't "pause" a unit's firing. Pausing to fire is a major use of the function, especially now the progrmming oversight of having Paused vehicles receive penalties as if they were moving... Otherwise all "popup" attacks would have to happen in the dying few seconds of a turn, so you could end a unit's movement path at "up on the firing step" and order them back down into defilade during the orders phase... A Paused unit behaves in many ways as if it has no further waypoints, for the duration of that pause. The only exception I can think of is that its passengers cannot dismount, but there may be others.
 
A couple of ways Pause can be used:
 
During infantry advances, having the element Quick or Fast a movement leg a couple of Action Spots long, then attach a Pause to the waypoint of 10s or so, with a target order, if you know where you want them to shoot, followed by another 2-AS movement leg at good speed lets a unit "advance by bounds". If you have two elements, give one a 10s pause at their initial position, and you can have them leapfrog each other to advance in bounding overwatch or caterpillar overwatch.
 
An AFV in defilade can pop up (preferably to Hull Down relative to the expected enemy positions) to a waypoint that has a Pause attached, long enought to acquire a target, fire one or two shots and then reverse back down the slope or back behind the building.
 
An AFV can advance, pause to fire on a target, then advance again.
 
It's worth noting that any leg that's "Hunt" mode, where the unit stops because it's spotted something or come under fire will cancel all subsequent movement legs, so it's not possible to "Hunt" up to a crest, using Hunt's "reactive ability" to stop just in sight, and back away having fired on a spotted target, since the act of Hunt stopping the movement will cancel the reverse-once-fired portion of the order sequence.

Yes, Pause only affects movement. It won't "pause" a unit's firing. Pausing to fire is a major use of the function, especially now the progrmming oversight of having Paused vehicles receive penalties as if they were moving... Otherwise all "popup" attacks would have to happen in the dying few seconds of a turn, so you could end a unit's movement path at "up on the firing step" and order them back down into defilade during the orders phase... A Paused unit behaves in many ways as if it has no further waypoints, for the duration of that pause. The only exception I can think of is that its passengers cannot dismount, but there may be others.
 
A couple of ways Pause can be used:
 
During infantry advances, having the element Quick or Fast a movement leg a couple of Action Spots long, then attach a Pause to the waypoint of 10s or so, with a target order, if you know where you want them to shoot, followed by another 2-AS movement leg at good speed lets a unit "advance by bounds". If you have two elements, give one a 10s pause at their initial position, and you can have them leapfrog each other to advance in bounding overwatch or caterpillar overwatch.
 
An AFV in defilade can pop up (preferably to Hull Down relative to the expected enemy positions) to a waypoint that has a Pause attached, long enought to acquire a target, fire one or two shots and then reverse back down the slope or back behind the building.
 
An AFV can advance, pause to fire on a target, then advance again.
 
It's worth noting that any leg that's "Hunt" mode, where the unit stops because it's spotted something or come under fire will cancel all subsequent movement legs, so it's not possible to "Hunt" up to a crest, using Hunt's "reactive ability" to stop just in sight, and back away having fired on a spotted target, since the act of Hunt stopping the movement will cancel the reverse-once-fired portion of the order sequence.

And "Zoom" or "View Height".
Ooo. Wonder if BFC could let you "unit lock" an ATGM in-flight?
 
 
 
Indeed. It's not like the opposition don't know  that they can be killed from kilometers off, so it'd be a most uninteresting scenario where you had a few smug ATGM platforms lined up hull-down behind a ridge overlooking a 3-click-wide valley and the enemy MBTs declined to roll over the other lip and be summarily destroyed (not that this is a given, with the advent of APS). And then the UAV spots you and the precision munitions start popping your missile trucks.
 
 
I'm sure such sweeping vistas exist. I'm also sure they won't be attacked across very often. And your other points mean ATGMs probably won't be taking "snap shots" at that range. What's the flight time for the missile, and how good are modern systems at spotting the incoming? The original article is quoting firing range accuracy against static, unaware targets. It's a given that there will be more misses at long range in a battlefield environment, because there's more chance for something to interfere with the missile's flight on a long reach. Yet more evidence that the poster Destraex is quoting doesn't actually know very much and has less critical faculty. Or is pushing an agenda.

I find the most effective way of getting HMG crews to set up so they can fire out in a given direction is to actually assign them a specific target order at the end waypoint. Next best is to give them a Target Arc, but Face usually suffices. Sometimes, though, it just turns out to be too difficult to do on the tactical timetable. Whether this represents reality (the MG needs something fairly steady to sit on; perhaps the crew can't find anything to hand to raise it over the sill, or the floor is all gone and they can't just sit it on the exposed joists and expect to be able to fire it.

For the first, I'd suspect the overuse of "Hide" orders. For the second, "Hunt" provides no concealment advantage and it's very likely indeed that you're misinterpreting the terrain your men are Hunting in, and somewhat likely that you are, in addition, expecting too much concealment of too little vegetation depth.
 
To expand: if you're using Hide in foxholes, your troops will be face down in the dirt and even the ones occasionally "Spotting" may well not peek over the rim of their scrapes. They will spot very ineffectively. The enemy could have spotted your troops with an asset other  than those that are advancing on you, on a well-concealed elevation out of effective weapon range (if it was within effective range it'd be firing on you and you'd know about it).
 
As to the "Heavy Woods" thing, you first have to grok that "lots of trees" does not equal "good concealment for the troops among them". Then you have to refine your understanding by recognising that the terrain under the trees is the important thing; it can vary from bare dirt to heavy woods. Heavy woods is rare; most terrain under trees is "Light woods" which gives some concealment, or lesser levels of vegetation which might give almost none to standing/moving soldiers. You can identify the heavy woods action squares if you have vehicles by selecting a vehicle, choosing a movement order and hovering the mouse over wooded Action Spots: Heavy Woods ASs will change the mouse cursor to "impassable". The third element of the terrain troika is the depth of the terrain. What matters is not what terrain your troops are standing in, but how much concealment-providing terrain is between your most visible troops and the observer. If your team is in an edge AS of a light woods patch, there's probably only a couple of metres of concelament between your most exposed pTruppe and any watching eyes. Being one row back in the woods will make that more like 10m. The average goes from 4m to 12m.
 
This is not your normal wargame where puting an element in a "woods hex" gives your harrassers a "-2". It's orders of magnitude more nuanced than that.

It's his last resort, that. And given the OPEC decisions on production lately, a lever that's getting shorter by the week. Beeb are reporting that the massive interest rate hike by the Russian central bank has done little beyond persuade currency traders that the Rouble really is junk, along with all RF government bonds. The wheels appear to be coming off.
 
Just riffing of what Steve said about financial predictions: it is often said by bankers that they need to offer generous remuneration to attract the "brightest and best" to their particular banking centre (the City of London, f'r'ex), and yet they don't seem to notice that the very same bonus package will equally attract the greediest and most willing to deal unethically to get profits. I'd contend that the historical reward model for careers in finance is better at the latter temptation than the former, as shown by the number of scandals in the banking sector (LIBOR, PPI, junk derivative products etc et endlessly cetera) compared to the success of the sector in predicting and dealing with problems before they get out of hand...

It's his last resort, that. And given the OPEC decisions on production lately, a lever that's getting shorter by the week. Beeb are reporting that the massive interest rate hike by the Russian central bank has done little beyond persuade currency traders that the Rouble really is junk, along with all RF government bonds. The wheels appear to be coming off.
 
Just riffing of what Steve said about financial predictions: it is often said by bankers that they need to offer generous remuneration to attract the "brightest and best" to their particular banking centre (the City of London, f'r'ex), and yet they don't seem to notice that the very same bonus package will equally attract the greediest and most willing to deal unethically to get profits. I'd contend that the historical reward model for careers in finance is better at the latter temptation than the former, as shown by the number of scandals in the banking sector (LIBOR, PPI, junk derivative products etc et endlessly cetera) compared to the success of the sector in predicting and dealing with problems before they get out of hand...