Vark

Shows how most tank v's tank is a question of stalking and killing a target who probably isn't aware of your presence. Something CM2 does better than CM. Also shows why soldiers are burned out after two weeks of combat, the stress of having to watch everywhere and watch out for everything is etched in their faces. It's why professional soldiers endlessly train, so it becomes second nature. I'm aware of changing points of entry or observation, but after 2-3 days of little sleep and the stress of combat, I'd probably forget and get my head blown off. Either that or they have been watching too many Rambo/Chuck Norris movies (very popular in the ME)

Thought the advantage of playing a PC game was to avoid the scourge of rules lawyers who manoeuvre for any advantage so they can win. Now we are talking about pre-nuptial agreements for QB's and making sure we don't get rolled by somebody in the pre-game phase! Can we just play for fun? GAJ and Bill are setting a fantastic example of just playing a game, for its own sake, and giving a lot of people a lot of entertainment. Personally, I think Bill has the harder task, simply because he is expected to win, GAJ on the other hand has a certain latitude, afforded by being the underdog.

Can you restock grenades? A pet hate of mine in CMSF, given their prodigious use during FIBUA. Do your pioneers carry more grenades? Simulating this http://www.mp44.nl/t/rgb01.jpg

Would be great for English players, they could write in DAR/AAR's that they opened up with their attached battery of TOS'ers. Though given the accuracy from some of my pixel spotters I think I already have those deployed!

I doubt a gunner would hit a tree 20 odd metres away, for one its trunk would appear to block a considerable portion of the reticule. Secondly, the trees in CM are invulnerable, so if he did hit a tree, there would not be a tree to stop the second shot!

Poor old Italians, all the attention soon transfers to the Germans and they get forgotten, rather like real life!

There still seem to be the shell-attracting tree bug I see.

No wonder the IAF call it the Ra'am, awesome, literally.

pretty amazing shot! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nhOnm3tYY0

I've seen a picture of a Sturmpanzer IV at full elevation, during the Ardennes, engaged in a fire mission, so some sort of indirect fire could be used, not sure how common though.

God I hope we never get to full realism, I want to see my sons 10th birthday! The main limitation would be the still pretty feeble AI which all games still have, and Cm's is better than the majority, so no realistic autonomous decisions can be played out. As has been said the balance has to between playability and 'realism', but I do find the CM2 C2 system allows far too much flexibility, especially when gathering intelligence.

I normally found they'd suppress themselves, which was ok if they hit their target, not so good if they'd just annoyed a T-34. I'd try to give teams a delayed sneak order before firing.

If you place a squad a tile away from the walls they cannot see more than a short distance out, trouble is neither can they be seen, except at close range. Great way to ambush, especially with a short cover arc and hide command. For that reason I'd fire HE blind, just into buildings, before the assault squad went in, or give a few blasts from a flame thrower. I found out the hard way what happens if you fire an AT launcher in a small wooden house during the height of summer!

Hmm, wonder if this is kosher? Bit too analytical, during the heat of battle, unless you bought an elite statistician with your points! Part of CM, for me, has always been the WTF moment, and desperately trying to work out why your prized piece of armour is a smouldering heap! Once wondered why my overwatch Panther did not fire, only to notice the dreaded skewed turret and a burning SU-85 on a hillside!

I was using VT as timed fuse, around since pre-WWI, will be more careful of using terminology. The 88's timed fuse was particularly feared as its HV shell exploded before the muzzle report warned any of its firing. I was reading of an account of an Australian section being caught out, in Tobruk, the shell catching soldiers out of their defences, not a pretty outcome.

I thought it was tree bursts and VT fused shells that killed the crews. Can you select airburst? The 88's were know for firing them and tanks would skip shells to get a de-facto effect.

Going to get interesting as GAJ is gradually compressed into a more restricted area, he will not be able to trade so much space for time now. Rather like playing battleships, NAI*, miss, NAI** hit!

Easy, whose countable infinity of countable infinities is bigger!

Yup, Bil's always planning ahead what to do with his roving hands!

Partisans have the reputation of being hard to see because often their local knowledge allows them to extract the maximum concealment from terrain. The US Army, IIRC, had to change the standard NATO training target, for troops about to be deployed to Afghanistan, to something far smaller as the Taliban (the local ones, not the Pakistani imports) would lie down, behind micro folds, and reveal a far smaller target. It's also why Cretans armed with muskets and WWI vintage weapons slaughtered a company of FJ's, who were dropped away from their DZ. Perhaps this local ground knowledge could be represented by higher combat factors?

Take care about counting minutes to victory. Sometimes the initial probing of the front defences, by its very nature, takes time, the subsequent dismantling less so.

I remember in CM1 days AT guns in rough terrain were unspotted till they fired, or infantry were very close, CM2 seems to be far unkinder for concealment purposes.

Before telling me to read other posts follow the same advice, I'm agreeing with your reasoning, my objection is still not answered. In real life, the commander would have a basic map which gave far less topographical info than being able to roam around your enemies frontline, whatever the resolution on screen. GAJ, do you think your AT gun would have survived longer, if you had entrenched it?

That's just what the Mujahedin did, in smaller scale, in the 80's. Ambush a convoy and mine all the places they predicted the Russians would move to or set up support weapons. the Taliban try to do that now, especially trying to predict likely dust off points, to catch soldiers trying to evac wounded comrades, or where soldiers will take cover from ambush.

I'd love a game that had a pre-game recce phase, and from their final positions LOS could be drawn and enemy positions mapped, even though they might not know they had been detected. How disconcerting it would be to have your reverse slope ATG's KO'd by a mortar strike, because a patrol spotted them, in the scouting phase! It certainly would punish defenders who had no outposts before their defensive line. Michael I was thinking roughly the same thing, with perhaps pre-agreed recce points, where LOS can be sourced from, could be bought like TRP's are now, the number and location (perhaps dividing the map into zones) depending on the tactical posture of both units. John, ever play this game? http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/7112/nato-division-commander