Brille

Do you have a save file you can post?

Is it happening more with specific tanks or just tanks with conscript crews overall ? I want to start a test session to compare individual experience levels and if there really is a difference. If it is significant as you say one should reproduce it in a way.

Or is it maybe just because the crew takes longer to get out of their (already destroyed) tank? I noticed that some crews take a long while longer exiting their vehicle after a devastating hit. Thought of it more of a random thing than to connect it with the experience of the crew though. I rarely play with conscript tank crews honestly.

In one of my last CMRT battle I had multiple T34/76 which survived at least one clear penetration of 75mm (Stug III) and even 88mm (Flak). Cannot say that they were combat ready in any sense after that but I could put tankers in there with some sort of functionality. I would not say that it is the most survivable tank though. I had many instances too where a Panzerschreck or any other at weapon fired at a seemingly unimportant part of the tank and it turned "knocked out" immediately. The fireball Cromwells I cannot confirm so far. I only fielded them in like 2 battles. Some of them burned, some of them did not. But in general I like these little fellows: low silhouette and fast. Not to mention their cube-shaped looks.

Well you clearly made other experiences than I did. I find most german tanks pretty fragile or at least as fragile as other tanks are. Usually they get knocked out after a clean penetration from a 75mm (or higher) round. Those 57mm rounds are another story. They more often than not need a few shots to finish a tank because they are lower in diameter (obviously) and don't generate that much spalling inside. Plus they don't have explosive filling and so have an even worse knock out potential. (at least on the British) I remember that some 57mm churchill of mine took multiple shots at Panzer IV. And while they surely took damage, they could drive away for the time being. Stug III (or any german tank hunter in that regard) I find even less survivable after a penetration. Even if the machine itself would survive the hit it often takes out the entire crew because of their cramped positioning. The tanks I find most capable to survive one or multiple penetrations are Churchill, T34 and Tiger. But even then it is more of a rare occasion to me.

A T34 platoon is hunting down a Stug that has been a big threat for a soviet column. In the same battle another Stug is taken out by mere luck: A PTRD 41 seems to have hit a vital spot.

Or you can create yourself a dedicated shooting range map. Just use the blank map that is given to you once you fire up the scenario editor and adapt it to your need. Some people I know even place some range markings on it or different sectors to test different things. I use that mainly to test what weapon can hit/penetrate a certain target at a certain distance. The editor is fairly simple to understand I would say, so setting something up should not be a big issue.

I just fired up a quick battle for testing. My US and soviet controllers could place a point and area target with any air support they had available at that time (jets and choppers). I even checked a scenario with airsupport in it but it was the same. Which version of the game are you running ? I don´t use CAS very often but wasn´t there even a "line" target at some point ? I could be wrong at that.

The hell I am! I like these kind of narration where you see both sides and their different views. But the difference in tank loses is really astonishing here. It seems like the soviets have won but lost their tactical mobility for the moment.... Well at least until the next batch of T34 arrive to start exploitation.

I'm totally open for that, though only via PBEM (play by Email). I have already helped a few guys in some matches with some notes and hints while playing. At least I hope it helped and didn't felt that annoying hahaha. In my opinion with a good human player opponent you'll learn more than you would against the ai. But you have to get used to get beaten regularly, at least until you get the basics. (which can take a while).

I have the feeling that this kind of problem occurred on a regular basis recently and it would be understandable if the new pbem ++ system requires this. Not just here in the forum but on the few good men forum too. Plus I had 2 instances in my direct surroundings where this problem occurred and could be solved as in this case. So maybe a little note at the right place could help people to get it solved faster. At least the people at the help desk should add this one to their troubleshooting routine.

@PEB14 Any AFV that has at least 40mm of armor protection should be safe against the soviet infantry at 100m and further. That's what a PTRD41 can penetrate at 100m on a plain armor plate, if memory serves me right. Anything else is safe when not in grenade range (20m). 50m should hit the spot if you consider that the infantry will jump you for a few meters. BUT (there is always a but) if the soviets have, like I've said, german made Panzerfausts available, I would set the safe zone up at 100m and beyond! They can have various versions of it: Panzerfaust 30k, 30, 60 aaaand even the 100series. I don't know how wide spread those tank hunters are in a scenario because I rarely play them, but in a quick battle I would assume that my opponent has at least a few of them. That means that the soviet infantry could kill any german tank on the field.

Do you have the fire and rubble expansion in your possession? If not you have to buy and activate it to get access to the content. The content of fire and rubble is included in one of the latest patch, so you already have it on your system but you have to unlock it. Edit: Here is the official purchase site: https://www.battlefront.com/red-thunder/cmrt-fire-and-rubble-module/

Best bets would be to attack them from the side. Even though they might have the armor skirts on, you can still penetrate them. The skirt is calculated in an abstracted way so it will sometimes penetrate and sometimes not. However I've managed only once to destroy a Stug from the side with an at rifle but that was just like 10m away at a 90°angle. Most of the time though you will probably just scare the tanks away with a pen, as they don't have much after penetration effects. Your other option with infantry only is close assault. Handgrenades due to their abstracted nature can do enough to let the crew bail out. I would say any tank that stands close and long enough to infantry will be either destroyed or immobilized - almost guaranteed. On the plus side soviet infantry in 1944/1945 often have at least one Rpg43 (didn't count it just yet) with them. This is simply a throwable hollow charge. They are not listed in the infantries inventory though and count just as normal handgrenades, but it is anything but. It comes with a bigger explosion and if it hits a tank proerly it is mostly game over. I've hunted isolated Tigers with small hunter teams successfully. But you have to use the environment to your advantage and need to avoid the frontal arc of a tank. In quick battles and some scenarios you even have the option to get your hands on different Panzerfaust models as they were regularly used, as soviets raided more and more german supply depots.

Here are some screenshots of my recent battles: While receiving heavy casualties, my russians move on. An Abrams is creeping up a ridge but is soon discovered and engaged. But the turret cheeks won´t let the round through. The Abrams rereats into safety right after the impact. A BMP2 sneaks onto the side of a Bradley. But despite all the hits the Bradley also retreats into safety, damage unknown. An immobilized T90 keeping a look out for enemy AFV. 2 T90 gang up on the side of another Abrams, destroying it. 2 BMP2 surprise an Abrams. Though the killing blow comes from a T90 from the Abrams right side. Another battle: Disembarking right into the hot zone. Destruction after auto canon and tank canon fire.

Interesting topic so far. Well I´m pretty divers in terms of gaming and can play games in any direction be in simulations, roleplay, action adventures and so on. But coming to CM took a while back then. I guess the first step in this direction was with Sudden Strike , which wasn´t by far a serious wargame sure but that one I played very often at a friends house. After that we transitioned to Blitzkrieg which was a pretty similar game but with a more realistic touch to it. I played that one to the bone with it´s addons, be it in singleplayer or LAN against my friends. (ah the good old LAN parties). After that I got to Soldiers:Heroes of world war 2 (predecessor of Men of War) and Codename Panzers (Phase 1 and 2). Those 2 games couldn´t be any different. The first one had a good realistic feeling to it with it´s damage model and ballistics (especially with mods). And with the direct control of units it had a unique gameplay for strategy games at the time. Codename Panzers was a more arcadey approach to the matter and the most played on actual online multiplayer at the time by me. It had some decent story in single player too though. But it was at that time I got notice of the CMx1 games. Since Sudden Strike, Blitzkrieg and Codename Panzers were published by the same company (CDV), I was more or less active on their forums. And it turned out that they were publishing the Combat Mission series for the german market too. But my younger self being spoiled by better graphics I viewed it as an very oddly looking game series at that time and not worth of my time. It then so happens that a guy prepared a narrational Combat Mission:Barbarossa to Berlin event on the forums (GAGAExtrem where are you ? ). He would play a battle with units that the community would choose and those units would be named after those participants. They could also choose what to do with the units and he would translate that into the game. My unit was a Panzerschreck team by the way. (And I even got some kills ) This event with all it´s pictures and videos was an eye opener for me and I just needed to have these games. That´s when a few days after I got myself the Combat mission anthology, CMBO, CMBB, CMAK combined. It just feeded my need of realism with good overview and control over situations. And I sticked to these games ever since.

Thank you very much again !

I guess many players don´t consider to fire artillery at tanks in the ww2 games. It takes long to arrive, if no trp is available at the location, and vehicles/tanks are usually mobile enough to outrun concentrated fire. So even if artillery is used against tanks, most players would do the most logical thing and move them out of the way. Arty is known for its area denial ability, not just against infantry but this is rarely used in game. But if one pushes it´s luck and let the tanks stay in the hot zone and bunched up together, one is asking for trouble. In my CMx2 career I witnessed maybe a handful of incidents where one of the opponents or my tanks got hit by artillery and destroyed in the same way. But as far as I remember I never intentionally used artillery against tanks ... at least in the WW2 games (open topped vehicles are another story). One incident that sticked in my memory was against the ai: It was in CMFB in the KG Peiper campaign. I had a line of Panthers parked in a town, waiting for the infantry to clear some enemy held buildings up front. Suddenly the ai unleashed a concentrated 105mm artillery barrage that landed directly on my Panthers. 2 of them where totally destroyed and burning and 1 got immobilized. I rage quitted that battle for the day hahaha.

Thank you for the offer, I would gladly take it. This would be the ones that are missing:

Well while ww2 arty wasn´t as accurate as nowadays it could pose a big threat to tanks, once they are on target. And it seems that the Panthers in this match were bunched up pretty good. Tanks in general could avoid artillery due to their armor and mobility but if they stand there stationary it would be just a matter of time until they get obliterated. Even if the rounds don´t penetrate, it can do enough damage to the exterior that the tank is rendered useless. And by the way the Panther was never classified as heavy tank according to the german side. I know the soviets and other allies tended to see it this way but it wasn´t. The Panther was a medium tank that should replace the Mark IV (which it didn´t). A heavy tank at this stage would be more likely to be equaly or at least better armored all around, just like the Tiger and King Tiger. The only well armored part on a Panther was it´s front alone. From all the other sides even smaller ATG could put some holes in there at a reasonable distance. The roof/deck is no exception to that: There were only 16mm of protection...no problem even for HE shells. In comparison there were 25mm of protection on the Tigers deck. So yeah, surely possible. @Minefields: Well I guess no soldier would be eager to be commanded through a known minefield and so would be their direct commanders (exceptions prove the rule). There may be maniacs but even those understand usually that there would be no gain in legless screaming subordinates. Never the less I still tend to see combat mission as a game so I would say "nah" to gamey here. Sure, soldiers wouldn´t do that normally but there are many things that Pixeltruppen do were real soldiers would deny that order or at least question it. It all depends on the commander (hapless) and what he is willing to risk. Though I must say that I would see it better if mines in general put maybe a bit more stress on the soldiers. Not only got a comrade of them wounded there, the rest of the squad/team are now faced with the fact that they could be next if they move one step further. Plus they also hear their screaming comrade. In CMx2 I have the feeling that soldiers shake off their minefield experience to soon. But maybe that´s just me.

The condition "flurries" are just a few snowflakes raining down from the heaven, so it won't bother with your vision that much I would assume. I had it in some battles now and it did not make such a noticeable difference. In nighttime though it may be different since the sky is overcast. So no chance of moon light to enlighten the battlefield. And don't get fooled by the LOS tool. It shows you your potential view distance right now but if the enemy is not firing he may stay unnoticed until he is in grenade range. That's the spooky thing about night fights. First there is only silence, then there is a spot and a brief trade of shots and then all hell breaks loose. That's why I often use short cover arcs in the dark to not reveal all of my troops for one single scout team.

@BFCElvis @Sunbather So I bought the game and hoped for the best: I installed the main game (v.1.01) and it says during the install that 2 files are corrupted: "Ambush in the gully.btt" and "Desperate crossing.btt" are those files/scenarios. But there seem to be missing some more scenarios because in the overview it says "15 standalone battles" but I only count 11. Guess I can get to the files via another player, no problem, but is there something you as Battlefront can do about it in the near future ? Never the less my previously mentioned problem still persisted (Ver 1.01). So I installed Ver 1.02 and then 1.03 (don´t know if just the 1.03 would do). And what can I say ? It runs now as fluid as any other CMx2 game, so thank you very much @BFCElvis.

@BFCElvis Well I've been thinking some time now of getting CMA myself to complete my collection. I've loaded the demo and it seems that I have somewhat of a similar problem with WASD. If I keep pressing one of these keys it moves me one bit in this direction, stops for a brief second and then moves again but most of the time at a normal/faster pace. Mostly this happens if I press another key or rotate the camera at the same time. I don't have this kind of problem in any of the other Combat Mission games. I also tried to switch fast processing off in the options for better mouse/keyboard input (I believe it was stated in the options) but the results stayed the same. I have a desktop pc with a Geforce 3070ti,drivers are up to date. Could it be that the demo itself has this problem? I see that it is at version 1.01 while the main game can be upgraded to 1.03. I cannot see into the changelog right now but maybe it was addressed in the patch?

While Cmx1 was THE thing for me before Cmx2 came out, it can't hardly compare anymore. I'm not saying that it's bad, which it isn't but Cmx2 is far closer to reality than it's predecessor series. You could do very gamey tactics stuff in Cmx1 you couldnt do in Cmx2. Like the "tank centipede" or exploiting the borg spotting. Especially in terms of line of sight (Los) and line of fire (LOF) there are huge differences. Where in Cmx1 small arms fire have an area of effect, like a blast of an he shell: It only effects units within the targeted area around like 20m or so. Plus it heavily relies on a "firepower" value to actually cause casualties. In Cmx2 however each individual bullet is calculated from the moment it leaves the barrel to the point where it hits. So every enemy that is in its path can be wounded or killed. That makes crossfire very powerful against an infantry formation over relatively open ground which it didn't in Cmx1. So you not only have to watch your spacing between each squads/teams , you also have to watch where the fire actually comes from so that not all soldiers are affected by the bursts. What I want to say by this is that Cmx1 might be not suited good enough to understand Cmx2, especially in terms of applicable tactics. Like Herr Oberst said: Get accustomed to the hardware/formations of each battlefield. Watching YouTube videos of those or different tactics of each era helped me the most. Combat Mission is not taking you by the hand by any means. Ah and by the way: Welcome to the Combat mission community.

You can use smoke in more different ways than just to obscure your own front. It is a nice way to temporarily shield of the flanks without getting to much of your own forces involved. But you need to know when it wears of because otherwise you are caught in the open. And if you lay it just in front of your self you have at least a chance to move in closer to get more effective fire on the opponent. Though in general you are right. I don't like it myself to run against an unbattered foe. But sometimes you just don't have enough artillery to bomb all suspicious positions. @zasgard George has already posted some good stuff so nothing left so say here other than: If you have specific questions, just ask them. Best way for me back then was finding me a good sparring partner who is open for communication and not just after competition. This way I learned the most because I could see directly what effects my troops had (or not) with some lecturing by my opponent. I guess I don't have to say that I got beaten regularly by him.