sburke

BFC leaves the soft factor to you. Experience, morale etc are all at your fingertips. If you think the US infantry are more effective than reality -as has been noted before make em green. Broadsword does a very good job using these and fitness to alter the capabilites of a unit to very good effect. I strongly suggest playing around with these till you feel the balance you expect. Even the same unit at a different time and place may want these tweaked - did they have to march all night to get into position, has their leadership changed, had they suffered a reversal the previous day and are in disarray. Leaving the units always with standard settings is missing out on a major portion of having to learn how to fight a unit.

OOps you asked.... Do not need excessive detail, but the folks I PBEM against are really hoping the issues we have seen with PBEM turn generation get resolved and of course the Hotel California Fuhrer Festung Bunkers. In Steve's analogy, that would be like getting Chocolate ice cream with hot fudge... and maybe even whipped cream.

Yankee Pot roast more likely..... :-P

As JonS says, there are a lot of different ways to do this and having someone run the op layer who is not directly involved leads to more FOW. In my case the person doing the OP layer generally takes the Americans. I take care of the Germans in the tactical battle and provide feedback from the German perspective for the op layer, but not final decision making. There isn't nearly as much FOW, but I don't find that much of a hinderance. My opponent and I are both capable of playing from the perspective of the units involved including allowing them to make mistakes if they don't have proper intelligence on their opponent. It is fairly interesting to try and get into the mindset of what the company or BN commamnder would think and play from that perspective and only change your plans based on intelligence acquired in the battle itself. The point is to get some perspective on how the larger battle plays out not necessarily get tied down to the win/lose proposition. We don't even assess the battle based on CM victory conditipons but rather take the results and apply them to the op layer to figure out the next turn. for example I may lose a battle, but cause so much damage to the attacker that when applied to the op layer a larger offensive begins to unravel. Unfortunately right now I am on the road and not getting any CMBN time at all so all this talk of op layers etc is mostly wishful thinking .... heck I can't even consider the procreation part either....dang!

I have been on the receiving and sending side of those. if you know it is part of an op layer there is still good reason to fight even when totally outnumbered. Also if the scenario creator allows for a withdrawal it puts pressure on the attacker. Winning and losing take on a whole different meaning. Personally I have found this strategy layer to add so much more to the dimensions of a battle that the force ratios aren't even so important. What I look for as the defender is what should I be doing to influence the larger battle, last stand at the Alamo or fighting withdrawal.

Well it is Valentine's Day. Anyone send roses or take them to dinner?...no?..damn I bet the CW module gets delayed now.

Part of the issue is things are far more complicated than any of us generally like to deal with. Iraq is a really good example of just how wrong things can go if your assessment is predicated on your own reality and not the one that exists on the ground. Most of the "nations" of the middle east are entities created in the breakup of the british and french colonial empires. The assumption we have in the west about a national identity isn't necessarily that firmly rooted and intervention that doesn't take this into account can create a power vacuum. Granted the powers that be may be ones we abhor, but before you consider removing or neutering them, you'd best have a plan in place to establish security to allow the populace to develop the institutions they need for peaceful government. The surge in Irag was essentially a years late policy to try to do what Shalikashvili had told Bush from the start. You need boots on the ground. Personally I think if we intervene in Syria without being willing to help establish security, we may feel better about not sitting idly by but I am not so sure it will necessarily turn out for the good. On a more CMSF related note, I used to get annoyed hearing the constant repetetive chatter from the Red forces, but after watching these videos....well let's just say maybe it is more immersive than I realized.

ROTFLMAO Fava beans anyone?

Gives one a bit more to think about when assaulting up hill....

Check crew experience, maybe just a dunce at the controls

As noted by others, what counts as good and bad are what your design goals were. An issue of gradual failure to the Soviets was likely not an issue. The catastrophic loss of the tank would obviate the gradual breakdown of any component. Considering what everyone else was fielding in 1941, the T34 was THE act to follow. At that point in the war the Soviets design teams were less likely worried about the gradual component issues as they were losing armor so fast they'd have never noticed. Their issues were more about how to field them than how to design them. The Germans on the other hand were just realizing how far behind they were in design and only made up for it by superior understanding of how to use what they had. It is interesting to see how the various combatants designed around their own view of how to employ for better or worse and then whether they met their own goals in their design. I'd have to say I think that the Soviets won that competition hands down even if I don't really like their model for overall design (not the vehicles, but the how they were employed).

I'm buying it to fill out my geeky little collector case...and in the hope that sometime soon I may actually have time to load it...

You have my full sympathy. RL job travel has kept me from a decent h2h game with my normal opponents and I am feeling pretty bad that I am letting them down. Just no way I can maintain a game with this schedule. I at least do eventually have an end in sight. Hope your situation changes as it isn't so much just the game but your personal space you are losing. Life is short and I want my CMBN time!

Try as I might, I couldn't find the Sherman or the Panthers......

Outstanding! Now if I could only find the time to look them over.....

Maybe they just think the chart goes by one star being number 1 A perfect. Either that or they are trying to keep you from getting a big ego. Don't matter to me though, I don't look at your rating, I just check to see if you have uploaded anything new.

Hell no, if I wanted to abuse myself that much I'd join the Peng Challenge Thread. Well I'd apply, I am likely too sane...or maybe too insane to be accepted...nah it'd have to be too sane. They'd never turn away a fellow nut case.

Nah this would be her older sister....not so memorable. I think her motto was something like "you will all be assimiliated... okay maybe not you guys."

While I agree technically - there is no way to recreate the true fog of war that the comabatants would have faced nor the oddities of "sh*t happens" that can impact the flow of a battle, I nevertheless love the attempts to recreate a situation so I can more fully understand some of the difficulites faced. I think Broadsword and LLF's maps both give a much better feel for that than any generic QB battle will present you. Having experimented with making a Huertgen map gave me a much better feel for the 28th ID divisions fight for Schmidt than any 2D map has been able to present. So keep at it undercovergeek. While I think all will appreciate your work there are those of us who are really into the attempts to recreate histroical situations that really love the extra mile of effort. I still marvel over LLFs work on Ramadi and look forward to his going back to that for additional scenarios.

it's all a matter of imagination, you can already apply this if you'd like. If you strictly adhere to letting your units only do what they would be capable of doing without the god effect of your command level, you have a ready made mechanism to create your own story there....you gotta be willing to have that Tank role right into the crosshairs of that AT gun you know about but the tank itself doesn't though.... Look at campaigns like devil's descent as an example of what is possible already.

Kind of like this?

rotflmao - needed that. Sitting on a loused up server migration in Singapore while the office is being moved at the same time - lots of guys wandering around banging on sh*t, yelling in about 6 different languages. Now they are all looking at me wondering why I suddenly started laughing my ass off. It's all good.

Send him off to the peng thread!!! That'll teach the boy! Seriously though I do get MikeyD's feeling on the response. It might have been better if the OP had started with "I am having an issue that I don't understand, can someone please ..." rather than CMx2 sucks compared to CMx1 because I don't understand why this is happening. However given the 18 post count he apparently hasn't gotten involved in any of the detailed discussions that have gone on about the AI pathing, relative spotting etc and he obviously likes the game. Cut em some slack and off to the Peng thread with you Mikey! We'll let you out... some day....just keep banging on the door, some noob is bound to wonder what the racket is and open it at some point. Interesting to note there is a HT bug with movement at rubbled walls - that in and of itself was worth the OP posting. Besides I recall we seem to already have a high priest of of the church of fanboi-ism around here somewhere, but as I haven't attended services in a bit I've forgotten who it is....

Less of a who and more of a state of mind... or mindlessness..ess.ess. Really we think it is just the background noise seeping through from the institute for the criminally insane next door. Unfortunately listening to it can have a seriously unhealthy impact on your... oh wait you have been listening haven't you.... sorry to hear that. No wonder after CMBN has been out a half year you are still a confused buyer.