Brille

Man versus beast.
 

Tiger hunting
 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Let´s just say he had a bad day...
 

"Hey Hans ! Do you think their snipers saw us ?"
"Nah, we are fine Klaus. By the way are those some new ventilation holes in your panzerfaust ?"
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Man versus beast.
 

Tiger hunting
 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Let´s just say he had a bad day...
 

"Hey Hans ! Do you think their snipers saw us ?"
"Nah, we are fine Klaus. By the way are those some new ventilation holes in your panzerfaust ?"
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Man versus beast.
 

Tiger hunting
 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Let´s just say he had a bad day...
 

"Hey Hans ! Do you think their snipers saw us ?"
"Nah, we are fine Klaus. By the way are those some new ventilation holes in your panzerfaust ?"
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Man versus beast.
 

Tiger hunting
 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Let´s just say he had a bad day...
 

"Hey Hans ! Do you think their snipers saw us ?"
"Nah, we are fine Klaus. By the way are those some new ventilation holes in your panzerfaust ?"
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Man versus beast.
 

Tiger hunting
 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Let´s just say he had a bad day...
 

"Hey Hans ! Do you think their snipers saw us ?"
"Nah, we are fine Klaus. By the way are those some new ventilation holes in your panzerfaust ?"
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Tow/atgm vehicles are a difficult topic in Combat Mission if you want to shoot & scoot. 
In CM as long as you have a move order set, the Atgm will be deactivated. You can see it in the status panel of the vehicle too. The TOW launcher will be greyed out as long as you have some sort of movement order applied. Regardless if the unit is on Pause, it will not fire the atgm. Secondary/additional weapons will work though, if the vehicle has any (e.g. M2 Bradley). 
Realistically you can't fire most if not all tube launched Atgm on the move, so that's the way the game tries to portray this handicap,though it does it not perfectly. 
A work around would be that you give your vehicle a, for example, 30sec pause at the start of the turn, behind some cover and let it move to it's firing position. You should time it so that the crew has at least 10 seconds (or more) of spotting time in their new position at the end of the turn. 
In the next turn you can then decide if you want to move back/further or let the vehicle engage a spotted target. 
Usually the tac ai decides to back of and pop smoke (when available) on its own if they fired all their tubes and a threat is still present. 
Though that counts only for spotted threats of course. 
 
The only vehicles that can do a shoot and scoot with atgm are the ones that are able to barrel launch them, I believe. Bmp 3, T72, M60 A2 (Starship), to name a few. 

Tow/atgm vehicles are a difficult topic in Combat Mission if you want to shoot & scoot. 
In CM as long as you have a move order set, the Atgm will be deactivated. You can see it in the status panel of the vehicle too. The TOW launcher will be greyed out as long as you have some sort of movement order applied. Regardless if the unit is on Pause, it will not fire the atgm. Secondary/additional weapons will work though, if the vehicle has any (e.g. M2 Bradley). 
Realistically you can't fire most if not all tube launched Atgm on the move, so that's the way the game tries to portray this handicap,though it does it not perfectly. 
A work around would be that you give your vehicle a, for example, 30sec pause at the start of the turn, behind some cover and let it move to it's firing position. You should time it so that the crew has at least 10 seconds (or more) of spotting time in their new position at the end of the turn. 
In the next turn you can then decide if you want to move back/further or let the vehicle engage a spotted target. 
Usually the tac ai decides to back of and pop smoke (when available) on its own if they fired all their tubes and a threat is still present. 
Though that counts only for spotted threats of course. 
 
The only vehicles that can do a shoot and scoot with atgm are the ones that are able to barrel launch them, I believe. Bmp 3, T72, M60 A2 (Starship), to name a few. 

Tow/atgm vehicles are a difficult topic in Combat Mission if you want to shoot & scoot. 
In CM as long as you have a move order set, the Atgm will be deactivated. You can see it in the status panel of the vehicle too. The TOW launcher will be greyed out as long as you have some sort of movement order applied. Regardless if the unit is on Pause, it will not fire the atgm. Secondary/additional weapons will work though, if the vehicle has any (e.g. M2 Bradley). 
Realistically you can't fire most if not all tube launched Atgm on the move, so that's the way the game tries to portray this handicap,though it does it not perfectly. 
A work around would be that you give your vehicle a, for example, 30sec pause at the start of the turn, behind some cover and let it move to it's firing position. You should time it so that the crew has at least 10 seconds (or more) of spotting time in their new position at the end of the turn. 
In the next turn you can then decide if you want to move back/further or let the vehicle engage a spotted target. 
Usually the tac ai decides to back of and pop smoke (when available) on its own if they fired all their tubes and a threat is still present. 
Though that counts only for spotted threats of course. 
 
The only vehicles that can do a shoot and scoot with atgm are the ones that are able to barrel launch them, I believe. Bmp 3, T72, M60 A2 (Starship), to name a few. 

Tow/atgm vehicles are a difficult topic in Combat Mission if you want to shoot & scoot. 
In CM as long as you have a move order set, the Atgm will be deactivated. You can see it in the status panel of the vehicle too. The TOW launcher will be greyed out as long as you have some sort of movement order applied. Regardless if the unit is on Pause, it will not fire the atgm. Secondary/additional weapons will work though, if the vehicle has any (e.g. M2 Bradley). 
Realistically you can't fire most if not all tube launched Atgm on the move, so that's the way the game tries to portray this handicap,though it does it not perfectly. 
A work around would be that you give your vehicle a, for example, 30sec pause at the start of the turn, behind some cover and let it move to it's firing position. You should time it so that the crew has at least 10 seconds (or more) of spotting time in their new position at the end of the turn. 
In the next turn you can then decide if you want to move back/further or let the vehicle engage a spotted target. 
Usually the tac ai decides to back of and pop smoke (when available) on its own if they fired all their tubes and a threat is still present. 
Though that counts only for spotted threats of course. 
 
The only vehicles that can do a shoot and scoot with atgm are the ones that are able to barrel launch them, I believe. Bmp 3, T72, M60 A2 (Starship), to name a few. 

I don't think that the usage of the roof MG gave away your tank. I believe that the big Flash and smoke of your firing Main gun gave your tank away.
 
No serious: while firing a weapon in general makes someone notice your presence I guess it is rather a minor problem to the mg especially when something bigger was fired beforehand. 
 
Soviet tanks in this era rarely use this because they often have no remote controlled MG on the roof and the crew are often closed up so operating from the outside is out of the question too....most of the time though. 
 
I don't know if it is common military practice to fire heavy MG at tanks too but fact is that the tac ai in combat mission do exactly that if possible, regardless of the faction. 
 
And it surely can do some damage. Every subsystem on the outside can take damage if it got hit. This includes optics, smoke dischargers, roof mounted MG and anything else that is not armor protected. 
To the heavy artillery: (Very) Close hits have a chance to immobilize or destroy a tank, though the latter is more common to apc and ifv. If it hit directly on a tank, any other subsystem can be damaged or destroyed too, including the whole tank. But I would not call it a viable anti tank option if you ask me, at least not in that timeframe and without precision ammunition. 
 

Well for me it is the completely different line up the soviets have. Yeah the western allies have lots of different stuff too but all in all most of those are derived from the general sherman model if you concern only tanks.
 
The soviets have light SPG, medium, heavy SPG - and also light, medium and even heavy battletanks. Some of these can even rival the german heavies not just in armor but firepower too.
Even the T34/85 can be a sturdy one if hit from odd angles. And even if penetrated those soviet machines seem to be a little bit more survivable than any other. And due to their large he charge in most of their ap rounds, the enemies armor is pretty much done for after one solid penetration.
 
Another point are the small arms, especially soviet machine guns like the PPsH41. If you know that some of these MPi squads are lingering in a forest you might want to avoid the forest with the germans entirely...those are killers in close combat.
Then there are the anti tank rifles: Despite that they are far less effective than  a bazooka or Panzerschreck in their anti tank capability,  I always liked those as sneaky halfrack and scoutcar killers.
And as mentioned the maps are often far bigger so you can have some wider tank battles than in the other installments.
 

Now that I got the time to test it too I must say you are right: The evade button functions much like the same as the "withdraw" button in the older games.
I remember that I´ve tested it at the beginning of my CM career and there it seemed not to work as intended for whatever reason. So I didn´t bother with it anymore and thought it was a short cut for the Real-Time players, especially because it isn´t an obvious command in the command panel, like everything else... 🤔
 
But yeah I made a simple test: 2 Platoons of german grenadiers get area fire from american MMG in bunkers. After a full minute they are all pinned for good.
Now I gave one platoon the fast order to another location and the other platoon I gave the "evade" button, while they are all still under fire.
 
The first platoon (with the fast command) didn´t move an inch, occasionally (I did more of the same test) one soldier will try it´s luck and ran but in general they were fixed to the position.
The second platoon (with the evade-command) will try to get up and sprint to the destined position. Some may lay on the ground for a while, while others get up sooner and run but at the end of the turn all the soldiers are transfered to the safe location.
 
Most of my tests I did on open ground with a wall as cover for the soldiers. I also did some tests in houses and witnessed that the withdraw order don´t always work even when they are in the upper floors.
 
So I can confirm that the evade command isn´t the same as the fast command and that the evade command is somewhat buggy in buildings. Another difference is that you will hear special audio if you press the withdraw button: The soldiers will yell "Retreat!" or something like that.
I would be glad if battlefront would attend to the problem in the next patch or so, since it is a very powerful tool.
 
Thank you for the revelation, @Chibot Mk IX !
 
 

Now that I got the time to test it too I must say you are right: The evade button functions much like the same as the "withdraw" button in the older games.
I remember that I´ve tested it at the beginning of my CM career and there it seemed not to work as intended for whatever reason. So I didn´t bother with it anymore and thought it was a short cut for the Real-Time players, especially because it isn´t an obvious command in the command panel, like everything else... 🤔
 
But yeah I made a simple test: 2 Platoons of german grenadiers get area fire from american MMG in bunkers. After a full minute they are all pinned for good.
Now I gave one platoon the fast order to another location and the other platoon I gave the "evade" button, while they are all still under fire.
 
The first platoon (with the fast command) didn´t move an inch, occasionally (I did more of the same test) one soldier will try it´s luck and ran but in general they were fixed to the position.
The second platoon (with the evade-command) will try to get up and sprint to the destined position. Some may lay on the ground for a while, while others get up sooner and run but at the end of the turn all the soldiers are transfered to the safe location.
 
Most of my tests I did on open ground with a wall as cover for the soldiers. I also did some tests in houses and witnessed that the withdraw order don´t always work even when they are in the upper floors.
 
So I can confirm that the evade command isn´t the same as the fast command and that the evade command is somewhat buggy in buildings. Another difference is that you will hear special audio if you press the withdraw button: The soldiers will yell "Retreat!" or something like that.
I would be glad if battlefront would attend to the problem in the next patch or so, since it is a very powerful tool.
 
Thank you for the revelation, @Chibot Mk IX !
 
 

Now that I got the time to test it too I must say you are right: The evade button functions much like the same as the "withdraw" button in the older games.
I remember that I´ve tested it at the beginning of my CM career and there it seemed not to work as intended for whatever reason. So I didn´t bother with it anymore and thought it was a short cut for the Real-Time players, especially because it isn´t an obvious command in the command panel, like everything else... 🤔
 
But yeah I made a simple test: 2 Platoons of german grenadiers get area fire from american MMG in bunkers. After a full minute they are all pinned for good.
Now I gave one platoon the fast order to another location and the other platoon I gave the "evade" button, while they are all still under fire.
 
The first platoon (with the fast command) didn´t move an inch, occasionally (I did more of the same test) one soldier will try it´s luck and ran but in general they were fixed to the position.
The second platoon (with the evade-command) will try to get up and sprint to the destined position. Some may lay on the ground for a while, while others get up sooner and run but at the end of the turn all the soldiers are transfered to the safe location.
 
Most of my tests I did on open ground with a wall as cover for the soldiers. I also did some tests in houses and witnessed that the withdraw order don´t always work even when they are in the upper floors.
 
So I can confirm that the evade command isn´t the same as the fast command and that the evade command is somewhat buggy in buildings. Another difference is that you will hear special audio if you press the withdraw button: The soldiers will yell "Retreat!" or something like that.
I would be glad if battlefront would attend to the problem in the next patch or so, since it is a very powerful tool.
 
Thank you for the revelation, @Chibot Mk IX !
 
 

Never said they are one-shot wonders. Nothing that uses tungsten ammunition is, actually (ww2 era). The effect after the penetration is minimal, so the rounds need to hit something vital to have an effect. Never the less they do hit something important from time to time. May it either be a crew member or the engine or something else. They keep those halftrack/light armored vehicles up their toes and backing up is sometimes all you need from them.
It is the best weapon you can have against those thinn armored targets at a distance. Heavy machine guns often fail to penetrate and to reveal a gun for a halftrack or an Panzerspähwagen is a waste.
 
Once I even destroyed a STUG III from the side with one bullet. Rare instance I know but it can happen. So they have their worth if you can deploy them right.
Edit: and the opponent has at least some thin skinned vehicles...

Never said they are one-shot wonders. Nothing that uses tungsten ammunition is, actually (ww2 era). The effect after the penetration is minimal, so the rounds need to hit something vital to have an effect. Never the less they do hit something important from time to time. May it either be a crew member or the engine or something else. They keep those halftrack/light armored vehicles up their toes and backing up is sometimes all you need from them.
It is the best weapon you can have against those thinn armored targets at a distance. Heavy machine guns often fail to penetrate and to reveal a gun for a halftrack or an Panzerspähwagen is a waste.
 
Once I even destroyed a STUG III from the side with one bullet. Rare instance I know but it can happen. So they have their worth if you can deploy them right.
Edit: and the opponent has at least some thin skinned vehicles...

I also have the feeling that the hidden lesson in these kind of missions are that you have to be aware of soviet anti tank rifles. 
In the western front games you kind of feel save if you stay out of bazooka/piat range and know that there is no other vehicle or canon around. There is simply no such small infantry at weapon you can use at a distance. 
These rifles are pretty mobile and sneaky and can ruin the day of those SPW very easy. 

I also have the feeling that the hidden lesson in these kind of missions are that you have to be aware of soviet anti tank rifles. 
In the western front games you kind of feel save if you stay out of bazooka/piat range and know that there is no other vehicle or canon around. There is simply no such small infantry at weapon you can use at a distance. 
These rifles are pretty mobile and sneaky and can ruin the day of those SPW very easy. 

Well reinstall it is then. I wanted to switch the CM games over to my new ssd anyways.
 
Thank you all for the confirmation! 

As far as I know they were out of service by the time any CMx2 game takes place...
A quick search on the net also confirms this: Starting in 1942 they were withdrawn from frontline service due to their insufficiant effects on the battlefield.
They were used however by occupation forces till the end of the war.
 
I like to play the brits with their 51mm mortars. They are more reliable to hit anything and have a wider range in comparison to rifle grenades....maybe a bit to low on he rounds.
So I would like to have a german counterpart.
 
That´s another reason more to finally give us some early war games or modules !!! 😆
 
 

The MG in the back is not meant for offensive usage, more like a self defence/ anti air purpose.
 
To use this mg you would have to turn the vehicle at least 90° to the enemy, exposing the rest of the crew on the gun.
The MG will fire when enemy units pop up behind it but you have no direct control over it.
I guess it is rather an engine or gameplay limitation. Some people maybe would use it driving backwards to the enemy to fire the MG, once the ammo for the gun ran low.
This would be hardly realistic because you would expose the other crewmembers, the gun and the vehicle itself.
 
It is the same with some US tanks, that have their roof mounted MG in an odd direction or mount. They may be able to use them but only very limited, since their main purpose was in an anti air role. (M10 for example)

Firepower:
1.)
High caliber machine guns, machine canons or MGs with armor piercing rounds can penetrate buildings all the way through, especially those which are lightly build. (e.g. wood) 
This way you can reach enemy infantry or soft targets even if they take cover behind a house.
Especially weapon systems like the shilka are best for that since all of their ammo is AP-I. 
2.)
In addition to the first point:
In the ww 2 games the german halftracks are equipped with the ap rounds for their MG. It is possible to equip the riding infantry with it too. Those usually only come with the standard ammo, which often don't have the force to penetrate brick walls.
I often give my Panzergrenadiers at least a belt (250 rounds) with them so they have a slight advantage in built up areas to pierce cover of the enemy. 
 
3.)
Some units like the soviet BTR will not use its main armament to fire at infantry in the open or on area targets. 
But if they notice that the enemy is in or behind cover (behind trees, in houses) they will use it. 
If you area target a building with them and they have ammo for their heavy mg, they will use those most of the time if not always. 

Do you still have some he rounds left or have you already fired all of those? 
I remember that the game tells you weird stuff like that when the unit don't have any he rounds left. 
 
But you should be able to place the smoke target regardless. And as long as you are in the mortars limits (minimum/maximum distance) it should work properly too. 

Smoke:
1.)
If your avenue of advance happens to be the same direction as the wind you can use that to your advantage. 
Place a smoke fire mission (or lay smoke via tank smoke rounds or smoke grenades) and watch how the smoke "walks" slowly in the wind direction. If the wind is not that strong it will stay relatively dense for quite a distance. 
So you can advance your troops directly behind it. 
But be careful that those rounds are not WP (white phosphorus) rounds because those will disperse very quickly even without any wind. 
 
2.)
With vehicles that have "smoke mortars" or "Nahverteidigungswaffe" (for the germans) build in, you can lay lanes of smoke. Simply give one of this vehicles several short movement commands, each 20 to 40m apart and put on each of them a "pop smoke" command. On each way point it will pop out up to 3 smoke grenades. 
In comparison to external smoke dischargers (who have maybe 1 to 3 charges - ww2 standard at least), smoke mortars can be reloaded from within and they have a huge amount of smoke bombs. So you can put multiple lanes of smoke with one vehicle. 
 
Directing fire:
1.)
If a squad is in a house/cover you can direct/switch their fire. 
Give them a target command and a pause like 30 seconds. Then give them a movement command on their exact same location and draw another target on another enemy position. 
So they will fire for 30seconds on one enemy, then they move maybe slightly to get on target and then they will fire the rest of the turn on the second enemy unit. 
2.)
Always keep in mind that you will negate any cover arc or target command with the "face" command. 
The thing I often do is "hunt" into a position (like going up into 1 or 2 story building) while putting the hunter on a short cover arc to not reveal himself for distant troops or go prone on first enemy sight. After the unit has reached its position I either can give him another cover arc at the last way point or a face command, which means that he is free to engage on the spot. 
3.)
A rare thing players seem to be aware of or use is the cover circle, a addition or alternative to the cover arc. 
Especially if you don't know from where the enemy is coming from and you don't want to reveal your tanks to simple infantry, you can activate the "armor arc" and press shift. Now you can draw a circle around the tank on the distance you want. (or draw it over the entire map to be sure :D) 
It works the same with the normal cover arc too. 
 

 

Firepower:
1.)
High caliber machine guns, machine canons or MGs with armor piercing rounds can penetrate buildings all the way through, especially those which are lightly build. (e.g. wood) 
This way you can reach enemy infantry or soft targets even if they take cover behind a house.
Especially weapon systems like the shilka are best for that since all of their ammo is AP-I. 
2.)
In addition to the first point:
In the ww 2 games the german halftracks are equipped with the ap rounds for their MG. It is possible to equip the riding infantry with it too. Those usually only come with the standard ammo, which often don't have the force to penetrate brick walls.
I often give my Panzergrenadiers at least a belt (250 rounds) with them so they have a slight advantage in built up areas to pierce cover of the enemy. 
 
3.)
Some units like the soviet BTR will not use its main armament to fire at infantry in the open or on area targets. 
But if they notice that the enemy is in or behind cover (behind trees, in houses) they will use it. 
If you area target a building with them and they have ammo for their heavy mg, they will use those most of the time if not always.