Brille

Maybe you mistake it for the M113 ? Sure the Bradley was very thinnly armored in comparison to today but one might expect that an infantry FIGHTING vehicle would at least take hits from the most common "small" arms placed on enemy vehicles. This would be 12,7mm MG and the 14,5mm MG on BTR, BRDM and AA MG on tanks. Later the Bradleys armor was upgraded to even withstand up to 30mm canon rounds, most likely because of the appearence of the BMP2 and wider usage of autocanons instead of heavy mg. That was the point where the Brad also lost his amphibious ability.

Being a general purpose machine gun I give the MG42 an edge over the Bren. Including to this is the belt feeding system. While in squads the germans usually would feed shorter belts, they at least had the possibility to feed longer ones or link shorter ones together, according to the situation they were in (Attack/defence). Assisted reloading might be a bit longer maybe but not that it would matter that much I would say. However you can say that you would need to change out barrels much more frequently which leads to longer down times. On the other hand you can say if you can put out bullets faster on target and pin or destroy it quicker (in theory) then that is a mission accomplished. Both have their pros and cons in the end.

Do you have a save file from this encounter maybe ? Usually your discribed way should lead to results in most cases but is not guaranteed. More info would be nice to actually give some meaningful help. Just a questions to be sure: You did open up your tanks right ? Trees can be also very tricky. Sometimes it seems to be sure that they would not block line of sight but they actually do just that and vise versa. Sometimes you think you are totally concealed by trees but one enemy tanker spots that 30cm gap and shoots right through it.

Maybe check your spam folder. I also got only occasional turn mails from Slitherine until I noticed that my spam folder got more and more messages in it. Turned out that I got all the notifications but it was framed as Spam by my Email provider.

Since I havent touched any CMx1 games as I started with CMx2 it shows that Im more attracted to it despite some things missing. I know that it is moving forward and sometimes in a direction that isnt 100% in sync with me. So I'm over her now...it ! IT !

While my CMx2 career started very late due to studies and low on money, I often read here on the forums on the progression of the games. So I noticed that changes were made and old features returned, at least to some degree. However there are still things that I miss but I know they will probably never return. Including the random map generator (even when those maps looked a little odd at times), command delay and the good old hunt command, which in the CMx2 games is just a simple "Move to contact" order which also existed in the CMx1 games on top. But enough of the old man blabbering (and Im only 36 ).

I feel you there. And it is sad because the old CMx1 games Had this one covered. First you saw visually when it was foggy and not just read it in the "conditions" tab and second the target line had much more facets in colors. Now you have either a grey line (Not all troopers can see that target), a blue line (all can see it) or a pink/violett line (No LOS/LOF). So roughly it only tells you If you can fire there or not, not how good they could actually see. In the old games you started from bright blue to very dark blue till almost violett which would change rapidly the worse the LOS got. So If you had foggy weather the Line would start with bright blue for the first few meters and would get less and less bright the further you would go from the troopers position. And it was not just determined by weather or sunlight. Vegetation would worsen the LOS tool too. This way you somewhat could estimate on how bad the visuals to a point were roughly. Sure in these games you definetely had a max LOS/LOF in fog and night battles opposed to the new system where you could see even further when your troops see muzzleflashes. But I would wish that this features would return to the CMx2 games. I play night battles/battles with low visibility very rarely and I have to get accustomed to it everytime again. This was a lot easier to just hop in in the older Games in my opinion.

By "AT weapons" you mean RPG7 or other assets ? I must say that I dont have that much experience with Bradleys vs HEAT rounds simply because I dont play CMSF2 that often and most of the times there are other things that destroy my IFVs. However the RPG7 also can have tandem warheads and so can the RPG29. ATGM systems are in another league and I almost doubt that a Bradley can survive those. Locate where the Brads got hit. If it doesnt say in the hit text "Hit reactive Armor" or something like that, it can be that it landed on an ERA free space. In my experience vehicles and tanks in CM are frankly often hit at the lower hull. That would be the place where the Brad has absolutely no ERA in place.

While I experience same results, often higher experience of the crew helps. Once one of my T62 (buttoned up) almost got the jump on a M60 TTS in relatively close range (rounds about 300m). They spotted each other almost at the same time but the TTS was just a little faster and killed my Tank. The T62 crews experience was on crack though. This might not sound like much but usually my encounters ending with the T62s getting shot bright up while they couldnt figure out what actually shot them. BMPs can be manned with an additional commander. This probably helps the BMP2 more than the Bmp1 because of the location of his seat. They wont get anything near eagle like sight for sure but it rises their combat effectiveness quite a bit in my experience. If I have some spare infantrymen or HQ units I often let some stay in these BMP.

While this is an odd spotting behavior it is not right on topic. Did or did they not get at least somekind of vague contact ? ("?"Symbol) That would at least tell If they received the Info from the Scouts or witnessed that there is "something" out there. And Im not that hasty to call it a bug neither as there are to little Infos to work with right now: What stance had the Scouts and the Javelin team ? What were the properties of the vehicle ? Partially/ hull down or in the open ? Was there any Vegetation around ? Weatherconditions? Day or night ? And a specific thing to the modelling of the Javelin itself: While I know that the Processing unit of the Launcher is used for scouting, I assume troops wont look through it all the time as it would consume battery capacity for cooling. Was this moddeled in CMSF2 or lives the battery long enough to not be considered for normal battle durations? Dont get me wrong, CM is known for its odd spotting at times. Sometimes a unit spots a thing where you would least expect it to and in other Times a unit spots nothing where one might think it should. However this goes for all the installments and is not specific for CMSF2 I guess

There is no aiming advantage as far as I know. "Only" the situational awareness of the tank and its spotting ability rises drastically because the tank commander has obviously a much wider field of view and can use his ears too to determine the direction of incoming shots. Doctrine wise soviet tankers were advised to button up once they have reached their combat area. In contrast western/ German tank commanders often stayed in the open hatch even in the thickest battle to keep the said advantages and to react quickly to incoming threats. Of course that came with the cost of lost lives or injured commanders. However how close the soviets followed that doctrine I dont know. But I read enough books that I can say that they followed it pretty much in the early stages of ww2. This lead sometimes to odd encounters, where soviet tanks rolled past german tanks just a few meters away. With more experienced crews (and better arranged tank interiors) this might have changed in the later stages to a degree maybe. In game you can say that often a Tank that has his commander on the look out will outperform another one that is buttoned up. The good thing for 5men crews in most battletanks is that you have a "spare" commander with you. So even If the original one is hit there will be another one to take his place. Though that one often comes with worse softfactors and you loose the bow MG in the process. So while I would not count for it it is nice to know.

As far as I know the anti tank gun in this scenario only has a narrow firing arc because of it´s positioning. So probably this should not be your main concern. Your main problem will be the machine gunners in the buildings that may snack away your infantrymen. So what I would do is ignoring the gun as much as I can and concentrating on positioning my Stuart(s), where it can provide good covering fire for the infantry and cannot be targeted by enemy anti tank. Later you can deal with the gun once you are in reach and storm it with infantry. But if you really need it´s destruction I would recommend an indirect firemission via an HQ. Firing at it directly with the 60mm mortar will attract counter fire by the gun itself or rifle/mg fire which will be lethal at this short distances...so not recommended. To get to know the positions of the enemy infantry you either need to give them something to shoot at, which should be smaller teams (split of scout or fireteams), while you keep an overwatch with other troops (peferably ones with binoculars). Or you could just shoot up suspected enemy positions with your light tank and mg to minimize enemy fire or to force them to fire back and to reveal them this way. Once they are pinned you can move in close with your main infantry force and storm the houses. Note that you don´t have to move within the forest line to the left to get closer. This may be some kind of deathtrap even. If you can put up enough covering fire you may be able to use the middle ground with lots of bushes to storm ahead. This will also conceal your troops a bit.

Yeah those soviets tanks can be very frightening and even those bmp too. In schock force they often are laughable easy to spot and taken out but in cold war without thermals and proper US ifv you get to understand why it was such a leap forward. I almost lost an entire M60 platoon to them once in a battle while they stayed completely hidden. In the same battle I got to know the capabilities of the T80s and only reached a stalemate with lots of luck and some good hits from the 2 M901 you got.

I can test this one again though Im pretty sure units "Talk" to each other even If they are not in the same platoon. Passing down information doesnt mean that one unit will spot what the other team has already spotted. They only get a good hint of the enemy position, so spotting can be quicker but it is not guaranteed. Most of the time though units will rotate to a known contact or tanks turn their turrets to vague contacts, which will increase their possibility to spot as well. But they have to find the targets themselves regardless. Experience and softfactors play a role in that. And while I cannot prove it (yet) I would guess that the "leadership" factor is important here. The way you call out a target, or as we say in the german military "Zielansprache", can make the difference if you spot a target or not or how long it takes.

Honestly I dont handle soviets troops that much differently than I would do with german or american troops. However their vehicles,especially the cold war ones, have the tendency to loose "spotting battles" against the western tanks. So either play against doctrine and keep the commander in the open hatch and/or bring a bunch of them with you to increase their spotting ability. The Last one though I would advise for every nation. With tank duels you are on a good way of loosing the engagement. Try to overwhelm the enemy locally with more forces. Facing those big kitties up front is still a bad idea. However you have some toys where they have to rethink if they want to face you. Speaking of JS2 (later variant), JSU Series, SU 100... Those are some big guns that can make big holes. The downside is that they take time to reload and, as Ive said, the spotting is a bit worse than western tanks. With a good command line though you can let the infantry do the dirty work to spot the Kraut tanks and let that information reach your Tanks. They will now reveal those Tanks a lot quicker... usually. Dismounting Tank Crews can be advised for all nations and not just for the soviets. However I used this only If I had noone else to do the spotting instead. Note that infantry will "Talk" to nearby friendlies about certain danger. So If the hatch of a Tank is open and infantry with crucial informations stands besides it or rides on it, they will pass that Info sooner or later to the Tankcommander.

With only one pair of NV goggles spotting should take much longer as only one guy is actually seeing anything. Same is with binoculars just not as crucial maybe because in daylight every soldiers can see at least to a certain distance. This one is easy to compare: Just take british/Common wealth infantry in the ww2 era for example. Normal infantry squads dont come with any binoculars at all. The next one to have a pair would be the platoon leader. Spotting at farther distances or revealing enemy troops in prepared positions or concealment is very decreased in comparison to a german or US squad for example. Target acquisition for the rest of the squad members however should be at an instant more or less. So as soon as the squad leader has a solid spot, all the soldiers that have a line of fire, should open up closely after. Though I dont know how much impact on the accuracy it has when there are no additional nvg. If the Commander then dies the goggles/binculars are gone and so the spotting decreases further, thats right. But if you buddy aid said commander you have the possibility to regain the equipment and so regain some spotting capabilities.

Picking up an smg however is only possible If the crewmember is equipped with a pistol only. If they have anything better they will just simply ignore it. US 60mm mortar Crews are as far as I know exclusively equipped with M1 carbines or Garands. Though they can put up good firepower on their own at closer ranges. So on normal quick battles I always consider those crews as extra footsoldiers If the need arises. The mortar is light enough to not be as much of a burden in terms of mobility.

I used the hull down command for some time once but I turned back to "eyeballing". With the target method it worked quite good actually, and If you dont want to micromanage that sort it could be an option especially with many units. However I have 2 problems with it: 1.) You cannot always draw a target line on a desired position. In Syria with sparse vegetation there is not much obscurance but in France with high hedges, wheatfields, high grass and bushes it can become a problem. 2.) The hull down command can't be used within a command chain. As soon as the requirements of that order is in place (reaching a hull down position) it cancels everything else out. So you can't use it in a shoot & scoot kind of way. Yes you could try it so that the tank reaches his position at the end of a turn so you could plot the scoot part at the start of the next one. That would be to much guesswork for me so I better stay on manual. And as started: Once you get the hang of it it doesnt require that much more time to do so.

The Hetzer and later Stug III variants had an mg that the crew/the commander could operate from inside of their tank. As far as I know: No. It is not modelled in the games. Infantry can only operate vehicle based weapons in something like a jeep, APC and such. Some M5 halftracks for example have a rear facing MG that they can use and fire once inside it. And while you probably will have a hard time actually using it, the MG will fire once enemy infantry or soft skinned vehicles will come into their arc.

Most of these MG are placed at unfavorable positions to actually use them against enemies or would need a crewmen to step outside the tank to fire it. And while they were used to some degree in reallife, the usage is not properly or just partially modelled in CM. For example the MG on a M10 tankdestroyer is usable under certain circumstances. However this would be far from being practical ingame.

Just a quick note: In this battle most of the german Panzers are veteran with +2 leadership, while the soviets are mostly regular with +1 leadership. And while this sounds not like much it can give the germans an clear edge in spotting, especially if they keep their heads outside the hatch while the soviets may not. Truth be told the soviets should have the advantage since they are defending so they are usually static, while the germans have to move. But it is too complicated to get more into detail with the provided information. I played this map not so long ago as the germans and was totally hammered by the soviet player, who also fielded SU100 (besides other). They were totally frightening as my poor Panzer IVs didn´t seem to be able to penetrate them up front.

First time I´ve heard that fatigue stands in correlation to the spotting mechanic. As far as my experience goes fatigue has no or at least no meaningful impact on spotting and accuracy. The level of fatigue just represents of what a unit can still do in movement terms. Tired troops cannot move fast anymore and fatigued ones can only use "move" or "slow" for example. @topic: Scout units cannot see or hide better than other troops. In game terms they are often used as just a cheaper (and less powerful) version of the standard units. Their real purpose is not well presented in combat mission because it is out of scale in those games. However if they are embedded in a proper formation they often come with their own, sometimes unique, equipment. In some armies they have specialized low profile vehicles or additional equipment that other formations don´t have or at least not in this extant. For example in CMBS russian recce troops come with their BRM vehicles that make use of ground radar technology. This helps with spotting and aiming. In Cold War every squad of soviet recce infantry comes equipped with a radio. In standard infantry formations only the squad leader has a set of it. This way you can use those more spread out and form a wider observation line. Often these troops also come with lesser man power per squad. This can make them sometimes more stealthier than standard infantry. But if you often split your squads into fireteams you have the same if not better effect. Never the less the rule also applies here: The more eyes you have, the better the spotting will be (especially if optics come into play).

Well I can't deny that I would like to see the french or the italian forces in that time frame... so not a small dlc at all.

Well you are totally right yes but would a real depiction of US airforce make it any better in terms of "fun gameplay" (at least thats what Simcoe was after I suppose). It is a simulation indeed, so it should be in some way as realistic as it could be but on the other hand it is still a game and should be playable by two sides with a good possibility for both to win. And I doubt that it would be much fun if one side gets hammered down while you cannot even do a thing about it. Yes you could add some off map extras like long range AA (SAM, S400) and such to lower enemy air activity or fiddle with their aiming but it would be as random as it is now, just with some variables switching around. The depiction of aircrafts in CM by the way hasn't changed that much since CMx1. In CMRT it even is pretty much the same. The question is how or can you improve much on that without loosing the focus of the game ? Originally these games revolve around the combat of ground forces where CAS is "just" a off map tool like artillery. And If I remember correctly BFC wasn't even that keen on implementing aircrafts at all. One way could be to give players even more control over aircrafts either by more vague call orders or by controlling a real (3D) unit just like with tanks. The questions here would be what those orders could be and how much effort would it cost to code everything in. And in the end it still matters if it is all worth it and playable. Aircrafts are still just a tool in your toolbox.

Well but isn´t that exactly what happens in real wars ? If you have AA assets like manportable rocketlaunchers, you surely can end the threat often before it even begins. We can see it in the actual ukraine war: Where anti air units are fielded the losses in aircrafts of all sorts rise rapidly to the point of one faction keeping the usage of them to a minimum or very cautiously deployment. I understand that there maybe should be some tweaks here and there but in general it would not change the outcome that much. For example I have the feeling that MANPADS have a to quick reaction time when an aircraft passes. I would guess in a combat zone as CMBS where each faction knows that the oponent has anti air assets, proper flight tactics would also be used (low and fast). Plus the MANPADS rely heavily on eyesight and are mostly not radar assisted. At least not in the actual spotting/identifying of an aircraft. So I would guess that they would take a bit longer to actually take a shot, unlike AA vehicles like the Tunguska for example. Sure those are bukier weapon systems but they have radar and probably would have got a small blip on their screen beforehand to know that aircrafts are around. Plus they know directly if that aircraft is either friend or foe. All in all however aircrafts feel like they should, at least by the scale that combat mission depicts. Maybe BFC could add jetfighters into the mix to hunt down enemy CAS or to limit their effectiveness (aircrafts can not stay in the area for to long - reduced gunruns). But that would also lead to more randomness (which is not a bad thing entirely). Other than that is just to communicate with your opponent to not use air assets at all. For the new PBEM++ system however it would be really nice to maybe introduce a check list of options of what you want to have in your game, as you have no way to communicate there. But well that is more likely to come with CMx3.... As I agree that the spotting in CM is sometimes a bit too random (especially talking about forests), I find it to be working most of the time. No offense here but if you loose an entire company of tanks in a turn without gaining anything, you either had bad tanks and/or low quality crews (compared to your opponent), bad tactics or you must have been very very unlucky. If you have fielded T62 tanks against more modern ones (for example) you either start digging their graves already or you bring a huge bunch of them with you and even then you probably get beaten up pretty bad. They are not that much more better than a WW2 tank after all so that seems about right. In CMCW they surely can compete with M60s until they get their TTS upgrade but that´s mostly the end of it. Random spotting has not much to do with that. Fielding them with more experienced crews and keeping the commanders out for observation (against doctrine) helps a lot though. And I also lost a full company of them once in 1-2 turns in CMSF2. But that came down to the lack of knowledge I had at that time and because it is an outdated tank even when upgraded. I got to know the hard way that their smokebombs don´t block IR imagers. Oh what a fine turkey shooting my oponent had.