Brille

Well things I do constantly, despite telling myself I wouldn´t do this nexttime: 1.) Underestimating the spread of mortars (or arty in general). Therefore preventable friendly fire instances happen again and again. 2.) Forgetting to clear line of fire for canons/autocanons. For example my own infantry lay low in a forest line and directly behind them stands my Shilka. Those fools will almost always get peppered with small fragments as soon as the Shilka accidentally hits those trees, while engaging an enemy behind the treeline. But for my biggest mistake I have to explain further: Red on Red engagement (syria) early in the morning, so visuals are bad (for those who dont have night vision equipment). I had a full company of T62MV. My opponent had something around a platoon of T90 lurking behind a small ridge. The firing distance was very short. Me, somehow in strong belief that this black smoke from the soviet style tanks are somewhat multispectral blocking, letting those T62 build up a smoke wall to negate the T90s night fighting ability/thermal sensors. As I carefully planned and sent the turn to my opponent signs of misbelief grew inside me. So I looked up the facts in the forum and was totally shocked to read that my "knowledge" was false. So the next turn I witnessed the best turkey shooting those T90 crews would have in a lifetime. Only one of my T62 could penetrate the smoke wall and demolish a T90 as it tried to reposition itself. But this T62 died the heroic death too soon after. God that was embarassing.

Here are some of my screenshots from recent battles...

The questions I have reading this: 1.) How far are your forward observers from the nearest enemy unit ? 2.) How are you moving them into position and into what cover ? You should keep your FO at least out of small arms reach - meaning: 300-400m (not including hmg). At least at this distance any regular infantrymen should have a hard time effectively hitting your soldiers...but they still can hit something from time to time though. The more problematic topic would be getting them into position and knowing the terrain from where they can secretly operate. If you move any unit inside the line of sight of an enemy unit, there will be a chance that they will spot them. So you should avoid this situation at all cost. Use obstacles like houses or dense forests between you and the enemy. Use every small dent, rise or ditch in the terrain to move unseen. If you have to cross open ground in line of sight you have to make exposure time as short as possible, meaning be quick about it. You don´t want to slowly wander in complete view of the enemy. Your FO should use concealment, if they have reached their destination. High grass, bushes, undergrowth of a forest or buildings would be best for that. But note that you don´t want to simply walk into position because there might be a possibility that an enemy with binoculars will see them even at a distance. Better crawl (slow) the last 20 to 30m to your destination for maximum stealth and put a short cover arc around them. This way they won´t expose themselves by using their small arms if they see enemy infantry. A little hint here: Forests look more dense than they really are, so be careful when moving around the edges. Better put them on "hunt" for short paths. You can combine this with cover arcs and "hide" commands. Cover arcs will make them stop only for what they see in these arcs or enemy fire. The hide command makes them...well...hide...if they saw an enemy or were fired uppon. That gives you the opportunity to break line of sight/line of fire and sneak away later. If you play against a human opponent you should avoid any obvious positions to place your FO. For example single hill tops or church towers are the first things a player would take under fire, when spotting rounds are landing around him.

It is pretty rare in my games that I see one of those get fired. So I tend to forget them very quick. But when they do get fired I almost freak out. Last time it was in CMRT: A little T70 rumbled against my Panther David vs Goliath style. I was very amused by the looks of it. The little bugger then fired it's canister and turned the head of the commander, who was still looking out of his hatch, into Swiss cheese. Panicked and shocked the driver hit the reverse only to drive its side right into the cross hair of a T34/85...well.... But in general it looks scarier than it is in my opinion. At least infantry in cover (forests, buildings) don't get that affected by it, though they are Instantly pinned or worse. I guess the most effective use is to hit infantry in the open, especially if they are on the move or at least standing or kneeling.

Thank you for the effort.

Alright, thank you very much ! Tried 7-zip too with similar results.

Hello there guys and girls, I was informed by 2 people that there might be an error with the CMRT demo file in the battlefront database. They tried to unpack the downloaded file but failed to do so. So I downloaded the demo myself (3 times now) and tried to unpack the file. It gets started as you would expect but after file "CMRT_Demo_Setup-1e.bin" my system tells me that 2 more files are damaged. (see attachement) I´ve tried it 2 times even with deactivated active antivir protection, just to be sure. But it was of no help. How to best contact BFC that they can fix this problem ? Or are we doing something wrong somehow ? Besides: I tried the exact same procedure with the demo of CMBN, CMFI, CMFB and CMSF2 (guess I have to much freetime ). All of them worked fine so far.

I think that what was shown in the video wasn´t a a very common method back then, since you exhaust pretty fast if you wield the MG like a bigger assault rifle. Guess the german mg-gunners simply fixed the shoulderstake under their right (or left) arm, while holding the bipod with the other hand, like in this video http://youtu.be/B57dW3A-DT0 At least this stance looks more like to that what the Bundeswehr still teaches it´s soldiers. So I would guess CMBN simulates this "firing position" but lacks the "right" animation for it. btw. Even the japanese got it right...well sort of.... http://youtu.be/kf5mWmrnxSo In the Kerberos- Saga the MG 42 is pretty much like the standard assault rifle in our world. It might be questionable why one should want to fire a full belt into one enemy but who cares...it looks cool...nothing to question about it.

Trying to give me some compunctions are you ? ^^ Ok, convinced, let ´em have their 20$ But right now where I´m ready to order, BFC and/or PayPal won´t let me. First the game is signed "sold out" in the WebStore....well... Any chance that there´ll be coming some more copies in the near future ? Or was it limited in the first place (I don´t hope so) ? And no, the DL-Version is not an option for me at the moment...I just need something "solid"... Second Problem is PayPal or maybe the two are somehow connected...dunno. However PP won´t let me pay due to a "collection authorisation" and since I`ve no credit card I don´t know how to pay these good men if they have a copy available sometime... Does BFC have an interest in souls maybe ?! ^^ Edit: OK...got it...the Steelbook is assigned as sold out...reasonable... Then there is just the problem with PayPal... :/

Are you sure it is germany ? So in fact I live in it I still have to pay 20$ for shipping ? At least the battlefront-order-form said so. Or is the "warehouse-stocking" still in progress ? Don´t get me wrong, the game might be worth it but since I have no gold****ting donkey around here I´ll just pay what I definitely must....nothing more. ^^ And yes, this game I MUST have.

Since you´re mentioning CMx1, Taki: Was it any different in that ? Back than I´ve had several encounters with my german PSWs against 50.cal equiped HTs/tanks/vehicles in CMAK and they were indeed dangerous for them up to 500m or even beyond. (depends on the armour they´re firing on) I would say that it was even "worse" in the older games, since "flexible" MG got almost no timedelay (from spotting to actually engaging) and could fire from positions they couldn´t in reallife. For example the various Tank AA MG especially that of the M10 which would be very limited on the back-turretsector of the vehicle but in CMAK it could fire 360° without a problem. Not to forget the collective knowledge of the TAC-AI which could bundle the 12.7mm fire (and any other) right at the beginning of a firefight just in the moment one unit spots the targeted enemy.

Was more fun to watch him though: I ordered the full squad to move through a hedge, across a street and they should rally on a bocage on the other side. So fine so good, they all ran over the street and got cover under the bocage....everyone but Hans. He ran through the hedge like his teammates did, crossed the street half way but then decided to turn back right to the hedgeopening from which the squad came from. He now stood there for some seconds, chintyping a few times, went some steps, chintyping again... But finally he ran back to his mates and took cover like he should have done earlier.... Would be interesting to know what he´ve lost there or found... Indeed. First I´ve thought battlefront is doing anything to make the game more believable and realistic that they even implemented a small percentage of having a Private Pyle (not the psycho version) in a group who mess up from time to time...for example forgetting to pull the pin before throwing. But now it just seems to be a real annoying bug. Ok ok i understand that there are no real reloading animations, like bolt working and so on but this is too much... I hope that some guys from battlefront-management had to take their hats for that.

Panzerführer Klaus wouldn´t need a binoc to see whats wrong on this grenade....never the less he got a taste of it´s splinters...

This Sherman failed in trying to outflank my immobilized Kitty. Hans:"To be or not to be..." Teamleader:"Quit daydreaming Hans, more enemies on the move !"

Nope, no AT-Gun in sight but almost as devastating: This Marksman hit right into the (open) driver´s slit and took him out right away. Shocked by the sudden halt of the vehicle the rest of the crew decided to bail out and flee.

Beautiful screenie ! Let me now tell you the Story of a real heroic Panzerschreck-Team: First they got involved in a serious firefight together with first Platoon (which was slaughtered half away) and therefor were also in a bad Condition. Later they stalked a Sherman, which hidden himself in a small ditch surrounded by trees. In my merciless I´ve ordered the Team to run, lets say 100 meters, over open field, hoping that the sherman wouldn´t recognise them, since he was firing at one of my other infantry groups. But half the way through he saw them and hailed some coax MG fire at ´em. Knowing that their Moral is at the edge I almost canceled that team and already thought about other ways to take out that damn tank safely, but then it happens: The tank was still firing but the Team still kept moving on with tracers all around them. They got closer and closer and almost reached one tree and just in that moment the tank commander got scared, poped a lot of smoke and ordered a complete pullback. Too late for him - the schreck-gunner peeked around the tree, raised his weapon, took a deep breath, fired and hit it in the turret. Seems that the tank commander twinkled first. But that wasn´t the end of that story: Although the tank was destroyed, the tank crew were not. All 5 men jumped out of their vehicle and immediately started firing at the team with their 1911´s. Now The Schreck-loader saw his time to come: He ran a few steps ahead of his comrade and started firing his infamous Kar98K at point blank range, taken out 4 men in the process. While the firfight was still on, the Schreck-gunner supported his friend with a potatomasher with demoralising effect. In the end one Crewmember tried to flee from the scene but a well aimed shot of his Walther made a stop to this attempt. Mash those potatoes ! David - 1 Goliath - 0 At least they had their chance...

Playin some testrounds in the training mission atm. Damn those idiotic Schreckcrew mess up again...to low this time... As expected right into the ground...but what the.... Gotta love "physical round-paths". But wait...why didn´t they saw this Sherman in the first place ? Disabled cloak on impact ?! And gotta love high grass too... Unfair in this one though, because the commander got hit few rounds before. But the tank was still active...a routed group running over the open field can approve that...

...eh...well and don´t even think of supporting your men with close smokelayers from your tankguns...could hurt a little... Butchered a good group until i noticed that my casulties came from those near impacting smokeshells instead of enemy fire. Do these shells really fragment that strong on impact or what is the reason ?

This lucky fellow managed to stay unspotted til the end of the battle... Hopefully none of my germans want to go for a pee at night in one of those barns... He (the sherman of course) never saw what hit him... Abandoned due to shredded tracks and equipment.

Stealthy bastards Do you see him ? Well, this cracky Commander did ! They almost made it but an incoming Panther took the shot...unfortunate seconds later they were taken out by an unseen pineapple thrower.

The 8-wheeled terror. And for the Americans: Imagine all those tracers hailing into an infantry filled hideout. >)

Well for the desert it is one of the fastest tanks you can roll up with and it still has it´s punch. So if the Germans advance with less than their "70 to 80 uparmored-front" tanks you can still hurt them even at a distance. (but be sure to better outnumber them ) Not to forget their light AA-ability... In Italy I use them as "oneway"-reconnaissance, vehicle hunters or for infantry support, and because of their hailing MG-fire and canister shots they still can itch those Landsers.

Thats true but the possibility of beeing spotted was nevertheless quite high (lets say still about 50% for example). But I was talking about rather less percentance...maybe 20% or even 0%. Just remember Bil´s AAR, standing with his tanks in "deep forest". It should only be possible for planes to spot the enemy tanks if they fly on really low altitude with the vehicles standing at the edge of the forest or if they´re "directed" by groundtroops (radio, smokebombs, tracers, muzzleflashes whatsoever...).

Friendly fire would be nice......back in the CMBB/CMAK-days it was and it is always fun to watch a Jabo going down on it´s own men...well...watching from the opposing front of course. Speaking of air support: Now that we have "physical" trees and nice spotting mechanics...will it be possible to hide tanks under trees, making it nearly impossible for any aircraft to spot them and of course to shot them (directly) ?

Friendly fire would be nice......back in the CMBB/CMAK-days it was and it is always fun to watch a Jabo going down on it´s own men...well...watching from the opposing front of course. Speaking of air support: Now that we have "physical" trees and nice spotting mechanics...will it be possible to hide tanks under trees, making it nearly or even completely impossible for any aircraft to spot them ?