Brille

Usually the halftracks come with a 2 men crew, one gunner and one driver. Sometimes though you can have just the driver available. If so you can put any infantryunit in the halftrack and the first one to enter will be the gunner of it. I often split a scout team of a squad and let them embark if I truly need the firepower of that mg. The gunner will choose it´s own target and automatically mans the gun if an enemy appears. So you don´t have to set them on "open up". The advantage however would be a better situational awareness if you let him keep a look out but he exposes himself if he does. And don´t be mistaken: Even though they have an armored shield they can be very vulnerable to counter fire, especially from MG. If you don´t "open up" the gunner will pop up when he sees a target and fire away until it is destroyed or out of sight. After that he ducks down into the vehicle again for maximum protection.

In my understanding if a tank gets stuck (bogged) and then immobile shortly after, the crew has done everything in their might to unbog it but failed to do so. So the vehicle got either to deep into the ground or some vital components got destroyed or damaged in the process (clutch, final drive, engine) So either the crew has to do a lot of digging or some field repairs with heavy machinery has to be done, which might be not wise while still in the hot zone. Plus it would probably blow the timeframe of most battles. So I guess battlefront (after all those years) will not throw something like this out of the window or alter it that way. Consider it bad luck, we all had it at least once. I cannot say how high the chance is for a King Tiger or any other vehicle to get stuck. It heavily relies on the ground conditions, the vehicles properties and the crews experience. You can lower the chance of bogging by the movement commands (to a small degree) and your choosen path. So if you have the chance to use paved roads or roads at all: take it. (especially on a rainy day with muddy or wet conditions) Though you can get stuck on dirt roads too, it's just not as likely as on normal ground.

Well If the germans would have had sufficient numbers in tanks and crews that would match or come close to the T34 I'm quite certain that the eastern front would have went in another direction. But the thing is that the germans did not had the resources nor the manpower to do it. Most of the German tank force were still designs from prewar. Updated designs sure but they were at their limit and the newer soviet armor was more than a match. There is a reason why some heavy Panzerformations were called "Feuerwehr" (Firefighter) as they had to rapidly close gaps in the fronts that had been breached by the soviet armor because of lighter resistance there. So your teast might be a bit misleading in that regard. Maybe try a 1:1,5 or 1:2 ratio for the soviets to match the actual numerical superiority. Now you are jumping conclusions there. Because of some tests that did not match your expectation it is now wehraboos and German bias? I know CM has flaws and all and to some, certain things don't go in the direction they have imagined but I doubt that BFC is in any kind "infected" by this "desease" as lots of my burning Panzers show. But well the German army was in my opinion one of the best armies back then. And that would concern training and technological tier they had. That doesn't make them in any kind unbeatable but otherwise they would not have gotten as far as they did. They had many flaws on the contrary too that all played a role in the endgame, like bad logistics, over engineering and well... Hitler. If you just alone look at the battle of Kursk and watch the casualties and compare them there must be something to it. Sure T34/85s and JS 2 weren't a thing there but still. Keep in mind that the soviets knew that the germans would be coming and had enough time to prepare themselves: build up ATG positions, entrench themselves put up reserves etc. pp. The germans lost the battle because they didn't achieved their main goal but the death/kill ratio for an attacker is astonishing. As you mention Wittman so much: Maybe you are underestimating green and regular troops to much maybe? What makes a regular trooper any different to an elite one? Accuracy? Of course through more firing in battle conditions you should be getting better or fine tune that ability but as a regular you already should have some decent gunnery skills. You should know the advantages and disadvantages of your given weapon, how to maintain it and how to solve simple errors if something went wrong... At least if you consider a normal training time. I know these were shortened at some point in the war. I'm no tanker but looking back at my conscription time in the German army I could hit a target with my G36 at 600m without much effort considering the scope was zeroed properly. I could disassemble and reassemble my rifle and the MG3 pretty fast and blindfolded. I could build up the MG3 in a tripod position and make it a good covered MG position. That are your traits as a soldier, you learn that. Does it make me a veteran fighter? Surely not. Now the difference between a trained soldier and a battle hardened (veteran, crack, elite) one is to be on the actual battlefield. Experiencing and overcome battle stress like being under fire or witnessing death all around. Making those fast decisions while under fire. Know when to retreat and when to attack and maybe being a bit reckless from time to time. So while accuracy surely is a point and is represented in CM it is not the main thing that defines an experienced soldier. It is the battle brain if you can call it that and the endurance to keep on fighting while being fired uppon. At least that's my opinion on the matter. To the subject Panther VS T34 again: To get a better insight on why these two tanks, which are somewhat similar, perform so differently I would recommend you some videos where people actually have an insight into the tanks. People like "The chieftain" that make complete walk-around videos that sometimes have multiple episodes. I remember that he and other mention that the T34/76 and the T34/85 (though it being a good upgrade to the former) are not very pleasant to be in. And that would also reflect on the performance of the crew, be it in spotting or actually shooting.

Oh well that section passed my eyes. Thank you.

@PEB14 While I like these kind of tests to try out armor protection or penetration verification on various distances, I do not like these for spotting or accuracy tests. While it gives you at least a rough direction on what you can expect on the virtual battlefield, it often turns out otherwise in the end. Never the less to get a better picture of it you should perform these tests more than 3/4/5(...) times to form an actual middle ground. But considering your tests I cannot say that much more other than that it is somewhat plausible to me. The heavy soviet losses do come from somewhere. Surely not only by the big cats but still. Thank you for the clarification. Never the less I always had a bitter taste in these scenarios as the ai always seems to hit better. But maybe that's just my Cmx1 ptsd.

I would say the acquire layer includes everything after a solid contact was made till the the "open fire" command. So turning the turret, traversing the gun and aiming. To avoid the acquire state of an enemy tank it could mean to stay mobile. Only go out of cover for a short time, then retreat back into cover and so on. It is a good tactic especially for the modern era combat where atgm are seemingly behind every corner. Yeah tree armor is still the best armor in CM. But in this case it was a tree behind the Panzer so he was not in the path of the projectile. Do you play against AI only ? I don´t know for the ai in CMx2 but in CMx1 the ai was known for cheating to a degree. It had an omniscient view on the battlefield and knew when you were about to get into it´s line of sight. Plus it had some minor boost in hit possibility which made (for example) T34/76 sometimes better at hitting at long range than specialized german long range tank hunters. Maybe they have something like that in the newer engine too ? That´s one of the reasons I don´t like to play against ai since back in the day.

Maybe there is the "problem". Those combat ranges are very short even for ww2 standards. So there may be an occasional miss by a tank gunner from time to time but usually even a regular should home in at the first or second shot, especially with the more advanced AFVs in the final years of the war. As you are right that both battlegrounds are diverse in their shape it is often stated that the north africa one is best suited for large tank formations due to the open ground. Of course you don´t have it all the way through but more often than not. In the soviet union you had the seemingly infinite steppes which offer wide lines of fire too. But you also had huge areas covered in woods or hills. But I didn´t meant to compare these two fronts against each other. My point was more that in the forum you linked the people discussed the ammo consumption per kill more on the african front and your implication (at least I interpreted it this way) that it should translate to combat mission accordingly. I don´t play that many scenarios but the ones that I did often didn´t had such ranges like 1km+. And if they had my opponents (I play mainly PvP) often gave me no opportunity to fire long enough on their tanks that I would score many hits beyond. Plus CMRT projects a later stage of war were the potential killing power of the weaponry is higher in general and has a greater range. So maybe test your theory on more longer ranges and see if real life observations meets combat mission. Well as I´ve read leadership seems to add up to the spotting ability too or at least speeds up the transition from a vague spot to a solid one. If it wouldn´t be so cumbersome and if I had more time I would test it to prove or disprove it but oh well... I had a very similar occasion yet with a totally different outcome: My T34/85 (open up) moved into a hull down position in a forest. 500m away in another forest is a Panzer IV (buttoned up), looking almost directly in the direction of the T34. The T34 spotted him first (partially due to good infantry-tank communication ) and hit him with his second shot. The first one was a bit to high and got stuck into a tree behind him. The Panzer IV never saw it coming....at least he didn´t react after the missed shot. But yeah spotting a target first is a big step to victory. That goes for combat mission as it goes for actual (tank)combat. Never heard of the "tank onion" ? (see attachement)

Is there an official reason why universal/bren carriers can not tow AT guns around? Wasn't that one of their key roles? At least they should be able to carry the trusty lightweight 6pounder, wouldnt they ? I've seen pictures where they did just that and they also did it in the old Cmx1 titles if I remember correctly...

@PEB14 I sometimes find that the T34/85 and even Sherman can withstand shots even from Panthers if they got hit from 2oclock/11 o clock. I would never count on it but it happens and in my experience much more than to a Panzer IV because of the non sloped armor. What are your usual combat ranges in CM? CMRT has the widest maps of all the titles but still engagement ranges on my battles rarely exceed 800m. That would be pretty close in tank fighting terms. So I guess it won't take that long to get actual hits in. In one of my running games I have multiple Pak40 against T34/85 on mostly open ground. They usually took 3 rounds to range in while the 4th one was a killing blow. After that they took maybe just 1 to 2 rounds for following T34 because they were now zeroed in at that range. Your posted discussion link only helps little in the matter because as it seems they focus more on the Africa campaign than anything else. This battlefield however is in its own league I would say: The engagement distances were usually wider, so much more room for misses and the guns used there weren't as evolved as in the later stages of war (with the exception of a few). So the kill power on an initial hit was far lower if it even penetrated at all. So more ammo consumption there is plausible. In the Cmx1 titles in the early stages of war you often could pummel one tank and even penetrate him multiple times but he would still move. That shifts at the time more and more (longer) 75mm and bigger guns are introduced and more widespread. Then it is more like: 1 penetration =1 kill I won't say much to the spotting subject. I agree that it can lead to very weird situations at times. But it works more often than not at least for me. I had countless keyboard biting moments myself (those things don't taste that fun)... But as you mention the experience of the crew I guess we like to undermine the other factors to much (yeah myself too), like morale, leadership and motivation. I don't know exactly if all of these are taken into account in the matter and how deep they do but at least leadship is important to get the eyes and gun on target. At least that's what I'm strongly assume by my own experience and due to reading different posts to different subjects. And it would make sense. A good leader can "walk" the gunner in on his spotted target and maybe takes a few seconds to do so accurately. A bad leader however maybe makes bad call outs for the gunner to understand. "There is an AT gun at the house! No not that one, the other one!No, more to the right! I mean my right!" "It's a village. It is full of houses you dummy! Which one? " Just for notice.

The biggest problem is to actually get them in range. So you have to avoid any tanks or guns along the way or make sure they are eliminated beforehand. Even then there are anti tank rifles and, in the later stages, panzerfaust wielding soviet troopers that makes traversing difficult. So you should have over watching units close by to react. Suppress known or suspicious enemy locations with MG fire from other units before getting in with the flammwagen. Unsuppressed enemies will make short work on your halftrack gunners as soon as they pop out their heads at this range. In the limited instances that I used these vehicles, I did it in a kind of "drive by" fashion: I rushed to the target destination (like 25m from the enemy line) and draw multiple "slow" movement way points along the area I want to spray. So let's say a line of forest or a line of buildings,always making sure that one side of the halftrack is facing the enemy. On each way point I then gave it a target or target briefly command, so it would shift the fire to another target on each way point,while still slowly on the move. I can post a screenshot later on to maybe make it more understandable. Never the less, once they finished a "spray run" they either disengage to their lines to avoid counter measures or they make a U turn and go for another run. After that your own infantry should have no trouble taking the burned ground as the enemy should be either dead or in a very bad mental state.

That is certainly untrue as I´ve never seen my own vehicles as "knocked out" or enemies as "destroyed". It is either one or the other. But I agree that it makes no real difference in gameplay logic: The tank/vehicles is out of action and will add up to the AAR screen at the finish....end of story. I don´t know the reason though to make such a difference. Maybe BFC wanted to implement another mechanic there that went finally overboard ? Or since CMx2 was always intended to play even Blue vs Blue or Red vs Red it is to distinguish each other (dead) forces ? A similar topic by the way would be abandoned/destroyed heavy weapons. Either way they are lost and no way to reman them but still they make this distinction.

@Daniel Prates well in these 20min you can get your other troops into position as quietly as possible. Get those snipers a good position to observe and fire from. Put them close enough that they can observe effectively but not too close so that they are easily spotted and engaged. Better let them engage when you decide to start your main attack, so the germans are more occupied to fend of those and leave your snipers alone more or less. A suppressed /stressed out sniper is far less effective. The rest is mainly platoon/squad sized attacks 101 (yeah easier said than done) : You have a overwatch /suppressing element (the team with lmg) and a moving element. The problem with partisans is, like with the combatants in CMSF2, due to the lack of proper combat gear, they can't hold much ammo. So you have to get as close as possible and hit hart. So yeah, for a better win chance (or a chance at all) wait for the lmg team, suppress the building while moving in close with the teams that have smg. Important in this scenario as it is in any other: Isolate the enemy so you just have one resistance nest to worry about at a time and not multiple.

Well the advantage to stay in the vehicle are... protection (duh) and the height of it in terms of spotting. The commander can view things from a different position and angle and can see behind hedges and walls to a degree. Going on foot is obviously the opposite of all of it. Yeah you have more men to watch and a better situational awareness overall. But they observe mostly from a kneeling or prone position which makes it harder to spot. So both have disadvantages and advantages. But don't be mistaken: It doesn't matter much if the unit spotted the target themselves or if they get the information transfered to by another formation/unit. The possibility to spot/respot the target because of the previously received information stays the same. So while this is an option indeed I would use it only when I have no other options left like mentioned before.

I do this from time to time actually. Especially when: - I lack infantry to do the scouting - the tanks/vehicles can not communicate with the infantry either verbally (not in range) or via Radio (not in the same formation) In one game I bailed out the company commander of a panzer IV company and put him on a hill, while the other tanks positioned behind it. After he gathered all the needed info (T34 lying in ambush) he got back in his tank to share it with the rest of the company. Cannot say that the attack worked smoothly but it certainly helped to know enemy locations. If you have the time and space to do it I don't see a reason not to do it.

This topic goes as far back as Cmx1 itself but I stand with my opinion : It is more for the feels and does nothing significant. You see that the driver of the vehicle starts his "unbogging" process right then when it gets stuck by turning the wheels/tracks back and forth. User movement input is blocked for the time being. It is hard to test this to either approve or disprove this. How often does a unit bog down? And from this instances how often do they free themselves? To be 100%sure we would need to have a programmer insight. But either way I say that your unit just got lucky in the "unbogging" process-dice roll and it has nothing to do with you putting it in reverse.

Not in my games, no. The mentioned battalion commander for example fired his revolver at maybe 60 to 80m. So it was still "far" away for a pistol but within it's hard-coded limits. Maybe they use their sidearms more the closer they get, that I don't know. .

In my experience this occurs often when the soldier has to reload his main weapon. If he has a secondary that can reach the target, he rather switch over to this one than to reload. This happens also with panzerfausts and other equipment: In some games my smg gunner emptied his full magazine at close range and then directly fired a faust into the enemies face before reloading. Occasional this happens also when there is no reload needed, that´s right. The last time I had a soviet battalion commander, who fired his PPSH41, switched to his Nagant revolver, fired 2-3 shots and switched to his smg again and fired some more. I don´t know if there is a deeper reason behind it or just a bug but in my immersive thinking I would just assume that the PPSh maybe had a malfunction of some sort or he needed a free hand to slap one of his cowering subordinates.

While in general you may be right I doubt it depends on the ammo alone. Though there seem to be internal algorithms that checks how much (potential) firepower the soldier has on their effective range. Or it is as simple as: if you have "weapon X", then always take "weapon Y" or "weapon >X". I made a few simple tests and it seems that sniper rifles stand above all else, so it seems accuracy over distance is a factor too. I´ve seen a squad leader dumbs down his Stg44 to get an scoped G43 scoped or an combatant (CMSF2) throwing away his PKM for a Dragunov. Machine gunners on the other hand are a special case: They seem to be the only ones to be able to carry 2 main weapons, which would make sense because they have a pistol with them that they could "swap" to a better weapon. But even if a normal trooper, who normally has no pistol, loots one MG42 of a comrade, he keeps his rifle or smg in addition to the machine gun. So sometimes I have a machine gunner, who also has a sniper rifle as his secondary. Which makes it even more hilarious when seeing him swap back and forth through his weapons. "Now I want to spray and pray and now I´m a super stealthy sniper." But one might be careful on what to pick up because the tac ai only chooses the weapon it may pick up. But it will not check how much ammo for this weapon it still can gather. So you could end up with a sniper rifle with only 8 shots left. This was the case with the picked up Dragunov.

Well yeah there were some factors the military wanted the introduction of the Sturmgewehr in a larger scale. You would have a weapon that is good for close but also good for long range. Also you would have an easy to use and easy to produce weapon. Plus you would concentrate on one ammo type (excluding the MG), that would also streamline the logistics and production in that matter. And by the way: While SMG can not be picked up by most soldiers (only the ones with pistols equipped), the Sturmgewehr 44 will be happily picked up by any rifleman.

Well CM sometimes have some odd "geographic occurances". I once had it to that even a tank clipped though a building while traversing the landscape. Or one time at the scenario Riva Ridge in CMFI : I was about to clear a trench with my germans. I took on the Brazilians in close quarter and got them pretty good but one of them refused to die. And that was not in a heroic kind of way by any means. He just couldn't die because my troops couldn't hit him while he was cowering. My men fired for more than 2 turns at ranges under 8m so there was hardly any luck involved on his part. I guess his hit box sunk into the ground a bit so the game could not register a "hit". The germans had to push on and leave him for a bit. He backstabed 2 of my soldiers as he recovered but as he was upright now, the other germans killed him for good this time.

1. Yep suppressive fire has somewhat of an area effect on buildings. So if you target the 2nd floor of a building, 1st and 3rd floor will be affected too though maybe not as strong as the 2nd. If you want to be sure to really suppress certain floors, you should fire on all of them individually. 2. The passing bullets have to be close to the enemies heads but yes you can do that because the path of bullets are tracked individually. But it adds to the suppression if the bullets hit something over their heads. So if some bullets hit some trees in close proximity to the enemy squad while other rounds pass straight over it has more of an effect. I find this tactic especially useful in areas with hills. While you might not be able to area fire the tile the enemy unit is standing on, you might just be able to target the rising slope of a hill just behind them. You can work with ricochets as well, though it might be not as practical. It is at least good to have it in mind. Bullets can bounce off of stone walls, vehicles, the ground and buildings and will have a suppressive effect on anything that is in their path... and of course they are still lethal. I had one 7,62mm M60 round (CM Cold War) that bounced of of 2 BMP making somewhat of a 90° turn and injuring one of my advancing soviets.

My experience is that the passengers of a halftrack only start firing once an enemy is pretty close, lets say around 100m ( not tested). So you could see it as more of a self defence action to suppress the enemy as the halftrack passes on. At least that´s what they do automatically. If you manually select the passengers and give them a direct target or area target within their range, they will shoot at it. Note though that the squad portable machine guns will not fire from this position. If you are really interested in the exact range from which they automatically fire, you can simulate it via the scenario editor and build up a shooting range. If you give the vehicle the "open up" command, the passengers should be affected by this too. In some occasions however I had to manually set them to open up. Maybe it was because the infantry squad embarked the halftrack somewhat later and were not present as I gave the vehicle that order.

Considering the small arms tests of drifter man, everything that has a high rate of fire tends to kill more and faster. And soviet smg have the highest rate of fire in their category so that is one point. I also read that the rounds of these smg, though not very powerful, were more aerodynamic than the 9mm, the western nations used. So in theory they may be even more accurate at a certain distance at least. Though I don't know how "accurate" that would be and especially on the edge of its effective range. I lost too many halftracks gunners myself to these things that I wouldn't call it realistic. But that is just me. The StG44 however should do everything that a Submachine gun already could do but also would have an extended range like a rifle. So the tests are pretty surprising. Still it beats the MP40 in range though. But considering you don't have much ammo for it and even resupply trucks/halftracks don't have an enormous ammount: Who really wants to shoot it over 200m?

Didn't knew that. Thanks for the info. Though how do you mean "works as designed"? (guess that the abbreviation for that) I would find it a bit more logical if some kind of circle or "bubble" would be drawn around the first spot of an enemy unit. And if this unit stays in this bubble it would be easier to spot it again. This would simulate some errors by the scouting unit and by the receiving unit, searching for this target. Simply said it would be just a rough description of the units location "Watch out for a tank in this area/around the barn/around that forest" But the way it is "designed" as you say (and the way I understood it) hints more to like "Just watch out there is a tank on the map somewhere" This would make the whole spotting and inormation transmitting process a bit to simple for my taste. But it works good enough I guess.

Do you have a source on that or testing results? I would have thought that these "spotting beacons" were somewhat bound to their location and their properties would fade over time. Just like they do it visually: slowly fading away with each turn until they can hardly be seen. It highly depends on which way you mean it. Cover arcs in general don't give a spotting bonus, like that the unit will be more concentrated to watch a certain area. But you will orientate the turret crew to a possible enemy position, so that all eyes are oppon it. This may help in spotting because more eyes can see more and units will always spot better to their front. Never the less it works like the "face" command in this way, only that the turret/facing of the unit will return automatically to it's set parameters once no enemies are around. Covered arcs however are tricky to use,so better not set them too narrow. If an enemy unit pops up on an unsuspected angle, slightly out of the arc, the unit tends to ignore it. Even if they are under fire by them AND see the enemy firing at them they will not shoot back most of the time. Only if they reached a certain mental state (shaken, panicked), they will drop the cover arc on their own. But getting a tank crew this far often means that either their tank got penetrated already or they lost a crew member.