Lethaface

Thanks for the links!

Good luck and enjoy! I'm really enjoying the PBEM, although it can be quite the task of playing a turn. There's like 3-4 battles going on at the same time.

Great! Was just asking for a BETA AAR Interesting to hear about the backstory too. Following this closely!

Indeed! quite different probably.

Ordered. Pretty excited too! About as excited as I allow myself to be regarding video games. Nice Surprise all in all! And, great initiative by Bill & The Capt! This obviously calls for a new 'stronk' type of BETA battle AAR!

Alice: nosey lil' fella you are.

Playing it in PBEM at the moment. I think it's pretty straight forward what the orders are: some parts need to be occupied, other parts 'touched' as in to clear the way forwards. Historically the tanks went by themselves and moved to the orchards to attack from there. Also historically the US forces lost quite hard and the attack failed after very bloody streetfighting. Obviously I didn't follow the historical approach for my PBEM playthrough ;-). Against the AI you could try a historic approach but don't be surprised if you lose a brigade worth of pixel forces.

Looking great!

Plus I guess it caught many of us off guard (including me), all the better. Don't forget to relax after the crunch!

Good. I guess that all the Fulda threads and votes over the years did eventually reap results And between 1979-1982 so almost all of the options are there.

Although the M60A2 was already phased out of service by then (81 according to wikipedia at least, and noted by Monkeyking who seems to have some expertise in the kit of this era). Countryside looks typical central Germany to me, although it seems the bus stop sign has Arabic text. Guess they borrowed those from Syria ;-).

Great surprise! DPICM layed by MLRS?

Well if it's hard or not to take advantage of will be decided by the operator of the BMP. Basically it says that the BMP lacks gun depression so can only make limited use of hull down on reverse slope positions etc. So facing BMP on potential hull down positions you can take advantage of this knowledge as in it has to show much of itself before it can fire on you (if you're positioned lower relatively).

In a recently concluded PBEM I killed a T-72B3 by luck with a 120mm barrage. Forward top hull without ERA. However Oplot I got different results with 152mm test a while ago:

I think the issue is more with modern tanks; I had an Oplot in CMBS survive multiple 203mm / 152mm direct impacts.

From what I remember large trucks used to have like 15+ gears 1abc2abd [...]5abc (try to drive those!), but not sure if the army trucks are similar. I'd expect they'd put up requirements more like a 1,2,3,4,5 gearbox. And 2021 style is more towards automatic gears I'd expect. Edit: backing up while maneuvering with trailers is a bitch though (even with normal car). Driving those large trucks properly is a profession for a reason.

Lol, I bet you wasn't the only victim of their practical joke Enough people nowadays have issues driving a stick shift, let alone low gearing / special setups for trucks/terrain vehicles etc. Although I'd expect at least decently trained soldiers to be able to operate (basics) of their regular transport/lorry vehicles.

I would be interested in that. On CMx2 level in essence it isn't even that different compared to trying to keep all platoons under command organized and in c2, which is beneficial to performance anyway (although the structure of forces becomes more important I think). Actually considered/had plans with one of my regular PBEM opponents to play our next game with these rules. But we have gone for huge games since and while it could be technically very well possible to play huge games like that, I think the challenge of playing those in regular fashion is/was large enough to not seek 'extra challenge'.

Tbh and because you perhaps don't realize: you did. 'People who make nonsensical rules', which is somewhat ironic because you basically say that you like to play in a similar fashion as what much of the rules are about. If you said you didn't agree with some subset or that you don't understand the rationale behind the arcs, that would have been a response that can be considered 'constructive'. But that's not what you said.

I'd agree fully with that one as well. Sometimes orders for a couple of games can become quite the workload. Although I don't want to admit that to my younger brother, who doesn't want to get into the CMx2 I gave him a while back. He calls it 'work', even though he never worked an hour yet (he's still studying and he's lucky/lazy/his study doesn't allow working on the side).

Correct, good guess!

Or ruins the gearbox and clutch, immobilizing the vehicle What is strange though is if/whether anyone can operate a halftrack but not an Opel Blitz (I haven't tested it and not really a big concern imo, but it would be strange).

And that's all fine! I think the 'hardcat' rules are a good workaround for the issue. But I think we agree to disagree.

I just argue against it being more realistic and explain why/how I think that the implementation would not work as intended. If someone has an idea, others can have idea's about the same subject. In an utopia world everyone has their own version of things, but I think it is good to discuss idea's and make clear the pro's and con's.

Of course it was a bit tongue in cheek regarding the not liking looks of buildings. And we all have our rights to opinions. But I would highly dislike it and think of it not as an improvement but rather the other way around. So: infantry, crew served MGs, tank coax & .50s, artillery are allowed to suppress where we want to, but if the barrel happens to fire HE it isn't allowed? That would be very weird for players from a usability perspective as well (apart from not being realistic imo) The problem is that the player has too many hats so he knows about stuff from hat A when he is actually giving orders for hat B. The 'solution' too disallow area fire with HE all together is that there are too many cases where this would artificially limit players to do what they would do when they were a particular hat. Obviously there will be mention in manuals to conserve ammo when you can. But there are also mentions in various doctrines and manuals to use ammo because conserved ammo doesn't help you in the afterlife. Especially on the attack. And yes taking out a building which blocks LOS/LOF and or allows ambushing by enemies is a common thing. You don't have to see something to suspect something. For example in a PBEM I'm playing I'm defending as the FJ against US combined arms. I have ambushed tanks using Pz Schrecks from buildings. They are on hide with covered armoured arcs to prevent giving away anything until the time is ripe to fire. My opponent has about 9 tanks left and he is rightfully / wisely shelling the other buildings with anything he can muster (mainly 75 HE) before he moves close to them. Now in an ideal world he would only be able to 'know' about this ambush when commanding troops who witnessed it and or in C2 with troops/tanks who witnessed it. But imo the cure is worse than the illness if we would disallow his tanks to shell the other buildings and either destroy them or suppress potential other Schreck teams etc waiting for him. Could he use the .50 or infantry small arms for suppression? Yes and no, because his infantry is getting fired upon by MGs and snipers, same goes for his unbuttoned TC's. Were I in that situation in one of those tanks all buildings in the village would be suspect and I'd shell the hell out of them with the most effective weapon I have on hand (in this case the 75mm HE). Another RL example; look at video's of tanks fighting in Syria. They come under attack by RPGs or ATGMs from a certain direction, but didn't see the actual unit firing. So they put 125mm HE and or 30mm HE in every window that could have possibly been used to attack them. Your suggesting that they should use MGs for that because... Anyway I guess my point is clear enough. This discussion has been had a number of times on this forum IIRC.