Major SNAFU

Here are a *few* resources which reference the bocage field system and what was being grown in them, etc. http://www.christopherlong.co.uk/oth/farmstruct.html http://cghs.dadeschools.net/normandy/bocage/fighting.htm http://cghs.dade.k12.fl.us/normandy/bocage/overcame.htm http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=46171 The take home message is that most of the fields were livestock enclosures (BF give us moving sheep and cows or sumfink!) and orchards. There were some grain fields (I would guess these would be the ones with the larger openings). So there would not have been much demand for hoisting of harrows, etc. I am guessing that some of the grain field might even have been turned over manually by spading and adze work (which I have done and you can cover a surprising amount of area in a day - provided there is ibuprofen available )

I alternate between #3 and #4. It depends on the scenario, the day ( what kind of real life stuff is going on).

Perhaps I am misunderstanding the original posters meaning, but in regards to the diagonal road it sounds like he has placed the road, and then placed heavy woods to either side and then placed water to outer edges of the heavy woods. So, to my mind, the question is why are they acting like they are in any terrain except the road, when they have been given orders to travel along the road? If they are acting like they are in the heavy woods or marsh, why?

Thanks all. I think I see where I need to change my tactics. I was trying to suppress, but I think my chosen route to cross the ford made for too large a bound to allow me to suppress effectively. You've given me some good ideas. Thanks,

Hi all, I am finding this a tough nut to crack. I have played this through at least 10 times now and have about 50% in draws but no better. I have tried both right and left approaches and can pretty much get my unit up to the bocage at the rivers edge with little or no casualties. I have tried using what little mortar rounds I have early and late, trying to suppress the LMGs. I usually find the the Fast command gets most of my unit across the river intact with some covering fire to the left on the enemy CP. Where it all comes apart is after the river crossing. Any movement I make beyond the river bank is decimated by the LMGs. any clues?

And, as I have been learning, when you maneuver you LMG into a position where the LOS looks good, it is often the case that once the weapon is deployed that the LOS is completely different. There should be a way to determine deployed LOS when scouting out positions.

I realize that, but it also means that players need to keep in mind when making plans that they may have to pull mortars out of position and return them and this will affect the tactical planning.

Actually, I haven't had a single jam yet. Does this happen in CMBN?

So they way to envision this is that the mortar team commander, having run low or out of ammo, says "Hey, let's breakdown our equipment and all go back to get some more ammo, then we'll come back here and try to set everything back up just they way it was and resume shooting."

Although the addition of a stockpile option for stationary units would be great. Tanks used for preparatory bombardments would use ammunition stacked next to the tank for this part of the battle and then would use internal stores once on the move.

Hi all, I have been playing the platoon patrol scenario (have only achieved a draw so far). One of the problems I am having is that I command a unit to hide, but throughout the turn they keep popping up and occasionally getting hit. What do I need to do to get them to stay hidden? They are behind some tall bocage, but a LMG can spot them when they pop up. I am trying to alternate them suppressing the LMG and then getting down while I move other elements.

I just wish that these things (the second link) were all summarized by BF in a FAQ so it was all concise and transparent to players. I have been guilty of asking many questions both in CMSF and CMBN, not because I want it to be like anything else, but because I want to understand what it is I am working with here. I find it strange that the users have to be the ones to figure out the firing rates, etc when this should all be readily available so that one can concentrate on forming and executing a plan and not on learning what may or may not be modeled (and how) in a particular engine. This is not where I derive "fun". Does and artillery officer go into battle without being instructed on what his weapons can and cannot do and how best to implement them? There have been a few comparisons to CMBN to chess on the forum that I have run across. As a person with an avid interest in chess I always find comparisons interesting. I would say it is and it isn't. CMBN is like playing a type of chess where the player has been educated in the rules of standard chess (i.e. like people who are educated in real-life military tactics), and who then sits down and plays for an open position with the plan of maximizing the long-range potential of the bishops, only to spend/invest time and mental effort to reach this position and *then* be informed that in *this* game of chess the bishops can only move 3 squares maximum in a single move - thus making the whole implementation of the open position worthless and the time and mental energy expanded thus far a waste. This does not mean in any way that this game of chess is not good or fun, it just means that the rules were not clearly communicated before play began. I think CMBN is great, and I think BF does a great job with the development. I wouldn't own most of the CM products if I didn't. But I do wish that there was greater details on the rules in a concise and written form and transparency on what is and isn't implemented. Note that I haven't once mentioned "why". I don't care at this point why or why not BF implemented, included or occluded any particular thing. I trust that they know how to make the tradeoffs necessary to make the engine and the game viable, fun, and as realistic as possible and still playable. I just would like for the tradeoffs to be listed up-front, in detail, so that I can concentrate on playing the game (FUN) and not on figuring out the minutia of the engine (seriously NOT FUN - for me). To me, one good place to start (there are many) is to think about all of the assumptions that a person trained in military tactics might make concerning weapons employment, movement, etc. and then straightforward explain where the engine will require a re-think of those assumptions. This would, I think, eliminate a huge amount of the questions that come up on the forums again and again.

When you click on any unit, I would like to see vector lines pointing to where the unit believes it has received incoming fire for the last 2 minutes. If you click on an HQ, I would like to see the vectors lines for all units currently within command range, with a variable level of FOW employed. This would be a big help in general assessment of concentration of enemy fire.

But Clark's point,if I am understanding him correctly, is that in the conditions you describe if you fire your first 30 rounds of HE, both the HE and Smoke allotments decrease until you have 50 HE left and 0 smoke. This makes no sense from a time or total round allotted paradigm. It should go something like this: Firing HE mission first: 80 HE, 30 Smoke 79 HE, 30 Smoke 78 HE, 30 Smoke, etc. . . . 30 HE, 30 Smoke 29 HE, 29 Smoke (regardless of which type of fire mission it is.) . . . . 1 HE, 1 smoke empty OR Firing Smoke mission first: 80 HE, 30 Smoke 79 HE, 29 Smoke 78 HE, 28 Smoke . . continue firing smoke until: 51 HE, 1 Smoke 50 HE, 0 Smoke This would truly be mapping out a total of 80 rounds available, with no more that 30 of them being smoke rounds. If it is: Firing HE: 80 HE, 30 Smoke 79 HE, 29 Smoke 78 HE, 28 SMoke . continue to fire only HE. . 51 HE, 1 Smoke 50 HE, 0 Smoke Then this penalizes the player because it is saying either use smoke at the beginning or forfeit it. So to have smoke available for a withdrawal, you either need to have a separate battery just for this purpose or use very little of the artillery to reserve smoke. This doesn't seem realistic to me as all the reading I have done emphasizes that the US was profligate in its use or artillery almost as a matter of doctrine.

Is there any chance of getting an official comment? Clark's reasoning seems to make sense to me. If it is a total time allotment, the smoke should not decrease until the end.

This might explain an issue I saw last night. I had troops that could not get LOS, I saved the game for other reasons, and when I re-loaded it later they did has LOS to the area I had checked before. I also saw an instance where an OPFOR LMG has LOS to a location. I know because when I moved a platoon move through it they go hit. But they did not have LOS back to the location of the LMG that what hitting them. I reloaded this because I wanted to see if the platoon could make it through with a faster movement order without getting hit. At the same time, I placed a move way point from another platoon onto the location of the LMG, selected the way point and then discovered that there was no LOS from that position to the place where the platoon was previously hit. If the OPFOR LMG had been in a prepared position, because it was behind a bocage, that could explain why it had LOS and a new unit moving to that location would not. But my question is, I would expect that part of the deploy weapon command would include preparing the ground, etc. for the weapon to operate properly. Add to the setup time if it is uneven ground of the edge or bocage, but i should still be possible, right?

To this line of thought I say: +1, Amen!

And keep in mind that all of those way points you are plotting are non-editable once placed, so you have to make sure each one is where you want it.

Sure, if you only plot one move ahead at a time. For WEGO, that would mean lots of potentially under utilized time per turn. After I have plotted 4 way points and then realize that way point #2 needs to be tweaked, it is a PITA to have to re-plot 3 and 4. One of the reasons that I think this doesn't get more attention in the CMx2 series is that they did away with command delays. I, for one, would really like to have them back. But, because now deleting a set of way points back to zero and then re-plotting isn't costing the player in terms of a command delay, it is seen as not a problem. I disagree with another poster that this is probably high on BF's list, based on my perception that CMx2 has been out for a good while and this hasn't been addressed, but has been brought up multiple times. Perhaps it cannot be implemented because of the addition of RT as a playing option. Perhaps BF anticipated that the majority of players would migrate to RT from WEGO. I have been trying both and so far I see no advantage to RT over WEGO, if you take the time to learn how to maximize your movement in the 60 seconds per turn. But that is my style of play. Before others pooh-pooh the idea of editable way points, please play through a scenario in WEGO mode, if you have not already done so, and you will see why it would be helpful to have. It is a funny thing, but I am still often finding myself saying that I find it more difficult to move my units with precision in CMx2 vs CMx1, despite the fact that we have better resolution of the terrain. Hopefully this will go away as I play even more CMBN than I did CMSF.

I am, occasionally and only when I have attempted RT play (at least I've only noticed it then) had tanks and other units suddenly plot a movement order and move. This usually happens to tanks that are part of a particular unit which is engaged with the enemy, but the particular tank is not engaged and is most-definitely out of LOS from anything. I have seen then suddenly back up a long distance for no obvious reason. I have seen them move laterally to the MLR using hunt and slow with no input from me. Again, they are always out of LOS (often of their own units as well). In one slightly different case, I saw one move where I had set a waypoint. It then turned around, when back to where it started, turned around and then went off in another direction. The other thing that often puzzles me is a tank that I have plotted waypoints for will begine moving through the way points, then will suddenly turn around (taking forever) and then finally turn back to the indicated way point and continue. I have looked and looked at the terrain, but I cannot figure out what is triggering their behaviour of turning around in the middle of a road and then continuing on. These are always solitary tanks, so it is not a case of conflicting movement.

So, Within the constraints of CMBN, what would be the correct set of tests to perform?

Comment removed due to inaccuracy of post.

I would like to give your test scenario a try.

Amen and +1!

The ability to somehow visualize the openings in Bocage, etc. It is really frustrating to tell a unit to move to the other side of a hedge/bocage and then watch them advance 50m or more into the line of fire, just to go around the edge and then head back to where you put the way point. Or, if a long move is required do to impassable terrain, then the unit should always seek to take the path that is safest (meaning back the way you came and around). best would be that when you plot a course like this, the interface should show you the anticipated path of the unit and then you can take steps to avoid this problem.