Childress

Should damage to a tank's treads be cumulative or sudden and unpredictable? My impression from desultory reading is that the latter was more common.

One supposes that's the reason why no one has attempted a Rapido River scenario. Unless watching American soldiers mowed down in hecatombs, Omaha Beach-style, exerts some kind of macabre attraction. There should have been court-martials in that one. WIKI: The Rapido was the site of a bloodily repulsed and ill-conceived assault by the U.S. 36th Infantry Division, led by General Walker from January 20–22, 1944 when the Allies were attempting to establish a bridgehead in the vicinity of the town of Sant' Angelo, to launch attacks on the Gustav Line near Monte Cassino.

It seems you wandered into the wrong room, Pandur. The Kumbaya forum is two doors down on the right.

This is a very ambitious scenario, and Jon has paid meticulous attention to accuracy, terrain, actual formations, etc. He's also a certified grog. Maybe his ouevre-in-progress will, if discouraging to rank beginners, stimulate designers who already have some some modest scenarios to their credit. Especially if they're retired on a generous pension or trust fund.

Me neither. Jon's account may prove more discouraging than incentivising for would be designers. What a detail-sweating and time consuming endeavor! You need to understand the game inside and out. A good read, tho.

Nope. Now it's impossible I think. One's troops crawl around looking for a place to die... BTW, love your nick. Tres apropos.

I think my post was relevant. If you're requesting damage decals on enemy tanks as well as your own. John K summed it up well.

Sure about that? You, as the player, want absolute graphical assurance that the enemy Stug at 800m distance which has sustained a hit is out of action? Because it's stopped moving? The amount of time before it is recognized as killed is random and is called the Death Clock (introduced in CMBB, iirc). It's part of the Fog of War. You want realism, right? Hint: if it's smoking, it's dead.

My thoughts as well. Maybe they haven't had time to wrap their massive collective brains around this holdover feature from the nineties. On the other hand it be could be that this command is primarily there for AI use, it in a similar manner to the Assault command (assuming most players split squads). Can a scenario designer even assign Cover Arcs to units? I have no idea.

True, but Cover Arcs will accomplish the same result. And what good is a Hiding tank on defense? I say ditch the HV command and substitute a camouflage bonus* for AFVs that remain stationary from Setup. And it's historical. *- provided the vehicle is sitting in some kind of cover.

The effects are murky. The issue, for me, is that there is no noticeable 'downside' for routinely commanding every single AFV to Hide at the end of every single turn. Unlike, say, ordering a Weapons team to Deploy at the conclusion of a turn: you're sacrificing mobility, and rifle fire for 20 odd seconds. Every quality game should confront the player with well calculated trade-offs, something the CM series normally do exceedingly well. Except, apparently, here.

The recent Primosole Bridge scenario illustrates this conundrum. It features a big, wide open map but the attacking British paratrooopers are heavily armed with Stens which were close range weapons.

Not necessarily. You may be underestimating Battlefront. Part of the game's challenge is not always knowing when an AFV has been KO'ed.

Why on earth would a tank- a defending tank- be revving its engine? It's preparing to leave a covered position? Boys just being boys? You're clutching at straws. There's no apparent trade-off for not Hiding a tank. It's in the interest of the player to Hide every AFV on the map at turn's end. Whether attacking or defending. On the other hand there exists abundant photographic evidence that show tanks- on both sides- resorted to camouflage. A splash screen in CMBN depicts an Allied tank buried in foliage. BF could eliminate the Vehicle Hide command (minimal coding) or refine it to plausibility (lots of coding). Either way I believe the game enhances its simulation credentials.

Units never suffer from fatigue on Move. Nor do they recover from existing fatigue on Move. A design decision, no doubt. Edit: Michael, you should actually try 'starting' a topic one of these days. The pain is transitory.

You missed my drift. Certainly BF can make achieving better fine tuning of ammo distribution a reality with an additional option or two. Which, historically, they tend to resist. I shifted the topic a bit toward the risk/reward ratio of carrying greater and greater loads on unit fatigue. The effect is currently under-modeled in my opinion.

I'm guessing every single AFV in CM sized battle is moving or idling. All the time. You cannot reduce 'idling' to a lower noise profile.

In the middle of an open field? No cover?

Right. Unless a BF rep chimes in with an plausible explanation. We could be missing something. In the meantime, I think I'm the first poster to request the simple 'abolition' of a feature. :cool:

I've posted on this subject in other threads but decided, despite the lack of groggy credentials, to start a topic. What's the purpose of the Hide command, particularly for tanks? What's going on? The driver presumably cuts off the engine. But there's no penalty for restarting; a lengthy procedure in most WW2 tanks. And turret traverse? T-34s had an electrical traverse but the German hydraulic systems were directly dependent on engine speed. But there's appears to be no target acquisition penalty for turreted AFVs on Hide. Or Tank destroyers or assault guns for that matter; they must be at least at idle. So what does one infer from the Hide command? Why, therefore, shouldn't the player issue a Hide command to every vehicle at the end of every turn? In the same way you'd issue a Deploy command to a Weapons team at the last way point when the Deploy bug was in force? You have nothing to lose. One questions whether the Hide for vehicles command should even exist if it implies the absence of engine power. That's a very limiting and perilous state for an armored vehicle when action is imminent. Perhaps if AFVs simply enjoyed a camo bonus similar to AT guns if they haven't moved since turn 1?

You're right. But, as I mentioned, there's minimal downside in game terms unless ammo levels are tight. It's analogous to the Hiding state for vehicles. The cost/benefit dilemma appears absent.

Togi, I haven't read through the entire thread but in case no one mentioned it, here's the solution to your problem. You inadvertently enabled 'ATI left-click compatibility' in the Options screen. Disable it. Edit: Ninja'ed by Underfire.

Agree in principle, but not in CM reality. They may as well load up to the max unless conserving ammo is a priority. There's a 'tiring' penalty for heavily laden troops. However, this penalty seems currently excessively mild, imo. Over several hundred meters teams *may* drop a level when schlepping huge amounts of stuff. It's scarcely noticeable. Quick moving uphill is more punitive.

Indeed. Be careful what you ask for.

Short of a dire fuel shortage, I can't think of a situation in which a tank's engine should be cut off in the heat of a typical CM-sized battle. Too many downsides. It's just too dangerous. Therefore I submit that BF should eliminate the Hide option for vehicles.