Brille

Nothing substantial here but boy that is frightening. And yeah, soldiers most likely would not have been firing this way if not in immense panic or danger but still...

AR has been on a roll with helpful Combat Mission tips videos. His latest one is one bogging, so I think a link to it belongs in this thread.
 

Simple answer: The crew will move the MG with the tripod attached for a few meters for quick repositioning.
To give you a picture: Each soldier grabs a leg of the tripod and runs.
 
The weapon in this configuration is heavy and unwieldy. For the MG42 with tripod and ammo is, I believe, somewhat around 20-30kg. So soldiers probably won´t do this for longer marches. Though they could do it farther than it is depicted in the game but you have to set the rule somewhere.
 
I believe the sweetspot of when the soldiers will move instantly is around 30m (3-4 actionsquares). After that they will pack up the configuration in 2 pieces again.
 

So you want to know about (tank) tactics? That did not come over well from your Initial post.
 
With "Box formation" I guess you mean "massing tanks" ?
 
And yeah that is what is favored in real combat and it is what works best in Combat Mission. 
The problem is that you can't do that very often or just in a limited style in both realms.
Limiting factors are the terrain (swamps,forests, towns) and ressources at hand.
In your mentioned scenario "Cat and mouse" you dont need to fight at all...at least on the german Side.
But If you need to do it, it is best to have multiple Panthers to engage a spotted or suspected enemy position.
Overwhelm the enemy with local numerical superiority. Always consider that the other tanks shoot back and hit. So it would be beneficial to have one or two additional tanks that hopefully spot the ambusher and take care of him.
 
My general tactics are often to move the tanks in a pack pairs, so If one missed a shot or gets taken out, the other one can step right in to finish the job.
It is one of the simplest tactics honestly and a fundamental one that translates to mostly all encounters and to all categories:
Never let a unit walk alone!
 
That goes for tanks as it goes for infantry.
There may be some instances where a unit will turn rambo and actually achieve a thing but most of the time they'll get chewed up with no real gain.
 

Mounted assault



 


 


 
(Close) Encounter in the dark


 
Just as he was about to throw a frag grenade, the rifleman got hit. This were some bad news for his leader cowering next to him.

 
 
A halftrack formation gets blown to bits by one well positioned US 57mm AT gun.

 
Remember: Enemy artillery can be your worst enemy but can provide good cover too.
Without the previously created crater of the enemy artillery, this fire team would have been blown to bits.

 
"Herr Leutnant...wouldn´t it be wiser to spread the weapons of our fallen comrades around the squads ? They all just have those old bolt action rifles and...."
"God damn it, Feldwebel Heinrich ! When I say that you give the sniper rifle to the machine gunner, I mean it.
Don´t you dare question my leadership !"


 
 
Advance through the smoke.


 
A bit of posing for the Wochenschau.

 
"Hans, you said we should go the right path but I haven´t seen no friend nor foe for hours. Where is the front ?"
"Shut up Klaus and let me think !"

 

My rules are as follows and agree to most of the Community, I guess:
- No artillery or air raids in the setup zones or close to it for the first turns (except on defenders setup zone)
- No preplanned arty or air raids for meeting engagements. 
Just 2 simple ones Id like to have for every engagement. The last one can be discussed with the oponent, so it is not set in stone.
Everything else is optional. Some I like to take for more immersion and a more realistic feel, some I like to take to make matches more balanced. (e.g. italian vs everyone else )

In general I like that one but in my opinion it would be wrong to cancel area fire all together.
However I have sometimes seen players standing behind with their tanks and blast everything at an instant as soon as their infantry has found the enemy.
And while Im guilty of this myself to a degree I really try to play like that more often than not.
Keeping a good C2 between infantry and tanks to make them notice contacts faster is one way to go.
In general though I find the disadvantages of keeping no command structure not great enough.
Would be cool that you could only area fire with a delay when no contacts are noted by the unit itself. Imagine it pretty much like calling artillery. On the other hand you could call for fire at an instand when a tank knows that enemy troops are around that point.
Another thing I wish for CMx3...

Death of a Panther
Minaev's T-34 stalks an unsuspecting Panther that has just shot up his platoon mates.


He spots and fires first, narrowly missing the Panther.

The Panther panics and starts to reverse...

Minaev's gunner adjusts his aim whilst the loader slams another shell into the breech.

Minaev's gunner does not miss the second shot. A flash and the Panther starts to burn...

 
 

Is no one playing CMBN anymore ?
Well lets try to kick start it with a few pics of my most recent and still ongoing battle:
 
 

Cromwell and 6pounder guarding a bridge.


Rivercrossing with suppressive fire from the Cromwells.


German Panzers guarding any entrances to the objectives.


Mortar battery ready !


Smoke covers the rivercrossing and a Cromwell transitions to another fire position.


A Churchill Crocodile clears out a german held forest. Screams are heard somewher in the woods.


In the back a Sherman Firefly keeps a overwatch from the woods.


One Cromewell climbs out of a trench.


Another Cromwell was not lucky at all. He spotted a Panther, retreated a bit back and bogs down. This is where the Panther spotted him....

Is no one playing CMBN anymore ?
Well lets try to kick start it with a few pics of my most recent and still ongoing battle:
 
 

Cromwell and 6pounder guarding a bridge.


Rivercrossing with suppressive fire from the Cromwells.


German Panzers guarding any entrances to the objectives.


Mortar battery ready !


Smoke covers the rivercrossing and a Cromwell transitions to another fire position.


A Churchill Crocodile clears out a german held forest. Screams are heard somewher in the woods.


In the back a Sherman Firefly keeps a overwatch from the woods.


One Cromewell climbs out of a trench.


Another Cromwell was not lucky at all. He spotted a Panther, retreated a bit back and bogs down. This is where the Panther spotted him....

Is no one playing CMBN anymore ?
Well lets try to kick start it with a few pics of my most recent and still ongoing battle:
 
 

Cromwell and 6pounder guarding a bridge.


Rivercrossing with suppressive fire from the Cromwells.


German Panzers guarding any entrances to the objectives.


Mortar battery ready !


Smoke covers the rivercrossing and a Cromwell transitions to another fire position.


A Churchill Crocodile clears out a german held forest. Screams are heard somewher in the woods.


In the back a Sherman Firefly keeps a overwatch from the woods.


One Cromewell climbs out of a trench.


Another Cromwell was not lucky at all. He spotted a Panther, retreated a bit back and bogs down. This is where the Panther spotted him....

Is no one playing CMBN anymore ?
Well lets try to kick start it with a few pics of my most recent and still ongoing battle:
 
 

Cromwell and 6pounder guarding a bridge.


Rivercrossing with suppressive fire from the Cromwells.


German Panzers guarding any entrances to the objectives.


Mortar battery ready !


Smoke covers the rivercrossing and a Cromwell transitions to another fire position.


A Churchill Crocodile clears out a german held forest. Screams are heard somewher in the woods.


In the back a Sherman Firefly keeps a overwatch from the woods.


One Cromewell climbs out of a trench.


Another Cromwell was not lucky at all. He spotted a Panther, retreated a bit back and bogs down. This is where the Panther spotted him....

Well usually I post my mentioned 2 houserules to my oponent and see if he agrees to them or not or if he wants to add anything.
When we do more games and rather frequently then we may add some more or not...depending on how serious we want to get. It´s just that simple for me. I don´t want to turn it into a religious contest or so. It is just to make clear that we are on the same page.
 
Well...it is unrealistic for a tank to instantly know and instantly shoot (by manual orders) at a place where a fireteam just encountered an enemy squad, especially when he is not seeing a thing. Artkin is right in that regard.
The command structure may be as good as it can be but it comes with a delay for sure. Just imagine you are sitting in a tank 500m away. Maybe you see the fireteam attacking and getting mowed down in the street, but no signs of the defending enemy. You could plaster the **** out of the area but you don´t know nothing at this moment. You don´t know where exactly the rest of the friendly platoon is, you don´t know where the enemy is. IF the platoon is in good radio contact with your tank you maybe get a clearance of the situation in the following minutes and start firing.
The thing is that CM don´t reflect the blindness of tanks and lack of situational awareness (when closed up) in this way...or let me say with players bypassing the spotting system it hardly feels that realistic.
And I don´t mean to offend somebody, I played and still play this way myself sometimes, just the way how serious I and my opponent want it to be. But calling it realistic is not right by any means.
I don´t want to ban area fire because there are realistic applications for it but reacting to troops the tank doesn´t know anything about is not it.
 
 
 

Is no one playing CMBN anymore ?
Well lets try to kick start it with a few pics of my most recent and still ongoing battle:
 
 

Cromwell and 6pounder guarding a bridge.


Rivercrossing with suppressive fire from the Cromwells.


German Panzers guarding any entrances to the objectives.


Mortar battery ready !


Smoke covers the rivercrossing and a Cromwell transitions to another fire position.


A Churchill Crocodile clears out a german held forest. Screams are heard somewher in the woods.


In the back a Sherman Firefly keeps a overwatch from the woods.


One Cromewell climbs out of a trench.


Another Cromwell was not lucky at all. He spotted a Panther, retreated a bit back and bogs down. This is where the Panther spotted him....

My rules are as follows and agree to most of the Community, I guess:
- No artillery or air raids in the setup zones or close to it for the first turns (except on defenders setup zone)
- No preplanned arty or air raids for meeting engagements. 
Just 2 simple ones Id like to have for every engagement. The last one can be discussed with the oponent, so it is not set in stone.
Everything else is optional. Some I like to take for more immersion and a more realistic feel, some I like to take to make matches more balanced. (e.g. italian vs everyone else )

In general I like that one but in my opinion it would be wrong to cancel area fire all together.
However I have sometimes seen players standing behind with their tanks and blast everything at an instant as soon as their infantry has found the enemy.
And while Im guilty of this myself to a degree I really try to play like that more often than not.
Keeping a good C2 between infantry and tanks to make them notice contacts faster is one way to go.
In general though I find the disadvantages of keeping no command structure not great enough.
Would be cool that you could only area fire with a delay when no contacts are noted by the unit itself. Imagine it pretty much like calling artillery. On the other hand you could call for fire at an instand when a tank knows that enemy troops are around that point.
Another thing I wish for CMx3...

My rules are as follows and agree to most of the Community, I guess:
- No artillery or air raids in the setup zones or close to it for the first turns (except on defenders setup zone)
- No preplanned arty or air raids for meeting engagements. 
Just 2 simple ones Id like to have for every engagement. The last one can be discussed with the oponent, so it is not set in stone.
Everything else is optional. Some I like to take for more immersion and a more realistic feel, some I like to take to make matches more balanced. (e.g. italian vs everyone else )

In general I like that one but in my opinion it would be wrong to cancel area fire all together.
However I have sometimes seen players standing behind with their tanks and blast everything at an instant as soon as their infantry has found the enemy.
And while Im guilty of this myself to a degree I really try to play like that more often than not.
Keeping a good C2 between infantry and tanks to make them notice contacts faster is one way to go.
In general though I find the disadvantages of keeping no command structure not great enough.
Would be cool that you could only area fire with a delay when no contacts are noted by the unit itself. Imagine it pretty much like calling artillery. On the other hand you could call for fire at an instand when a tank knows that enemy troops are around that point.
Another thing I wish for CMx3...

You can shoot out of buildings, even though they have a backblast but it is not always the best way.
Usually when you fire it indoors everyone in this floor gets pinned which makes follow up shots difficult and gives the enemy a chance to retaliate.
So rooftops, ruins, foxholes, craters etc. might be a better option if they are available.
There was a time in CM where it was not possible to fire those weapons indoors but BFC patched it out later.
 
No offense but I call this a myth or maybe it was patched out as well some time ago... I don´t know.
In all my matches I never had a wounded soldier because of the backblast of those weapons. They get pinned or even panic but I doubt that they can be wounded this way (even though it would be realistic in some cases).

@AdamPraha Just to be clear: What are we talking about ? (On map) cannons or off map artillery ?
 
Anti tank guns and infantry guns need to have a direct contact that they aquired themselves. It is pointless if or if not another trooper of their formation has seen the target before. No contact, no shooty shooty.
Information can be shared by soldiers but that only means that the unit will have it easier to spot the enemy. It is not automatically visible nor is it guaranteed that he will spot the enemy too even with the same Line Of Sight. (LOS)
Infantry guns and some howitzers may be called in like artillery while being on map. However most maps are not big enough to use them properly (minimum trajectory).
Guns will only shoot automatically once an enemy appears in their sights and when they have a chance to destroy it (unit in effective range, proper AP-ammunition and so on).
 
Mortars are almost the same. If you are getting them up front they need to see the enemy for themselves to automatically engage them. Otherwise you need to set an area fire command on the desired place or you call them in via the artillery-setup option with an HQ unit.
The forward observer you mention is mostly there for artillery pieces like heavy guns and mortars. They usually can call those in faster than normal HQ teams and is therefor an important asset.
He won´t do any magic in terms of spotting. He has binoculars...that´s all.
For some heavy artillerypieces you even require a forward observer. Otherwise you have no access to it and therfor cannot fire it.
But again: Artillery will also not fire automatically, it needs a straight up input from you.
 
 

That´s not how things work here.
Every unit needs to have a solid spot for direct fire. Units will carry their information to another units in their proximity that is right, but it only assists spotting nothing more.
Each unit has to see the target with their own eyes (or optics) before they can fire at it.
You mean some kind of so called "borg spotting": One unit sees a target, so everyone sees the target.
This was the system in CMx1 more or less, the older games, but in CMx2 it is no longer the case.

It depends... The range of communication between units is drastically reduced besides the inferior spotting. Imagine that a unit on hide keeps his head as low possible, maybe occasioanally looking Up to scout a bit and only whispers to others to not reveal its position to possibly nearby enemies.
So if the gun/unit is close enough they may still be able to communicate with each other but only at a short distance.

Do I understand your problem correctly ? You are wondering why the STUG won´t area fire at a point while being under canon fire, right ?
If Iam: Isn´t this kind of obvious why the Stug don´t want to be hit in the side ?
It is a general TacAi behavior to face the vehicle in the direction of enemy fire or vague enemy tank/anti tank asset - contacts. More so the TacAi can call for a retreat when bigger shots are intercepted by the armor and the crew cannot see the source of it.
And this would make sense as the crew should have some self preservation instinct in them. Staying in there longer the next hits may penetrate the armor or damage important components of the tank.
So the best idea would be to displace to another position as your current one has been compromised.

Do I understand your problem correctly ? You are wondering why the STUG won´t area fire at a point while being under canon fire, right ?
If Iam: Isn´t this kind of obvious why the Stug don´t want to be hit in the side ?
It is a general TacAi behavior to face the vehicle in the direction of enemy fire or vague enemy tank/anti tank asset - contacts. More so the TacAi can call for a retreat when bigger shots are intercepted by the armor and the crew cannot see the source of it.
And this would make sense as the crew should have some self preservation instinct in them. Staying in there longer the next hits may penetrate the armor or damage important components of the tank.
So the best idea would be to displace to another position as your current one has been compromised.

You cannot mix the gameversions with each other (BFC and Steam)...at least not directly. You need to get your free Steamkey for the main game first, before it can merge with the module there
How to you get the Steamkey for the main game you can read in the first posting of this thread from BFC Elvis.

Perfect. thx👍

Better open up a ticket at the Battlefront helpdesk
 https://battlefront.mojohelpdesk.com/
The chances of the right person to see this here in the forum would be rather lucky than anything else.

Little off topic here:
Praise to BFC for the attention to detail:
The Panzerfaust 60 looks pretty much identical to the Panzerfaust 100.
Yet BFC correctly put the different labels on the warheads with their names on it instead of just copy and paste.
This way you can see what soldier is carrying which faust if you look closely (when they are mixed in a squad)