Dietrich

But is it still the case (as in CMSF, that is) that AI pixeltruppen will never not move quickly (i.e. run/jog) from one zone to the next, even if they're not in contact and they have plenty of time to get to the next zone? In other words, is it still impossible to have AI pixeltruppen move cautiously (i.e. Move/Hunt/Slow rather than Quick/Fast/Assault), as actual patrolling infantry would?

Coincidentally, last night while playing theFightingSeabee's new and excellent Pointe du Hoc scenario a down-to-just-three-men Ranger rifle squad of mine was hurrying through a gap in the barbed wire when one of the GIs went down (KIA). I frowned in puzzlement, wondering what got him — and then I heard the ripping-fabric sound of an MG42 from about 450 meters' distance.

The first casualty in any squad performing an Assault move order is the squad leader. Except when that casualty is the gunner.

These look great! =) I really look forward to using these!

Sure, but Hedy Lamarr wasn't photographed from behind in a bathing suit. Also, Hedy Lamarr wasn't blonde. IMHO, Rita Hayworth takes the cake. =)

IIRC someone made a mod for CM:SF that added a centerfold to the interior rear wall of the Abrams's turret. Considering what got painted on the exterior of USAAF bombers, I wouldn't be surprised to see a pinup stuck (with chewing gum, I would imagine) to the interior of a Sherman's turret.

Not enough stand-off.

As per Normal Dude's "Official briefing graphics on the Repository" thread:

Indeed — I once saw a B&W photo of a multi-lane highway meandering through a rural landscape with a VW Beetle in the foreground, and I thought "Somewhere in the Midwest in the early 1960s?" Nope, 'twas actually somewhere in Germany in the late 1930s.

Thanks very much for putting this together, Mord ol' pal! =) I hear ya, man. Since the full game has come out, I've done as much fiddling with mods and brz's — in particular swapping voice files (hint-hint) — as I have actually playing the game! =P

<good-natured sarcasm> I call that the Bradley (IFV) syndrome: a fully armored vehicle takes a hit which only does slight damage to anything listed on the damage tab (i.e., it's not immobilized, hasn't had its main weapon knocked out, etc.) and which doesn't even wound any of the crew, but somehow the vehicle is thus "destroyed". </good-natured sarcasm> Seriously, though... could it be that perhaps the Tiger wasn't "destroyed" but the crew just panicked and bailed out?

Looks excellent, FightingSeabee. I very much look forward to playing this. *salute*

gibsonm, Coming after your penultimate post, I can see why my observations came across the way they did. Actually, though, I wasn't referring to Steel Beasts Pro; my comments were regarding what you commented about what LLF said. That said, I ought to have quoted LLF's post so as to be clear. Sorry 'bout that.

My two cents: I surmise that with pretty much any FPS — no matter how much its makers strive after (or at least claim to strive after) realism/verisimilitude — "style" will always trump "substance", at least to a certain extent. Contrast that with CMx2. Someone who's used to playing the latest and prettiest FPSs will look at CM:SF or CM:BN and think "When was this game made, 1996?" Yet CMx2 is built (not that I work at BFC or am a programmer) for substance over style. Which isn't to say that CMx2 isn't nicely detailed: just yesterday I zoomed in on the Panzerfaust slung over a Landser's shoulder and saw that I could actually read the warning/instruction sticker on the shaped-charge head!

My first time playing "Barkmann's Corner". LOL I suppose it didn't help that it was an M4A3(76)W which was the first tank which encountered the Panther. But the Panther's gunner wasn't even "Aiming" when the Sherman fired the shell that "only" schwacked poor Barkmann himself. Oh well.

How good it feels to fire up the editor and see lush green (with blooming flowers, no less) under the boots and tracks of one's forces!

If red contrasted well with black, military flashlights wouldn't have red filters for map-reading at night. That said... Vin, I applaud your continuing efforts to help improve CMx2's UI. *salute*

Can you do a good bellowing "Gebt Sperrfeuer, Männer!"?

akd, Could you explain why a squad can be out of C2 to both its parent platoon and company HQs but still (according to the UI, anyway) be in C2 to battalion? I overlooked this in CMSF, since I figured a unit with a radio could theoretically have contact with other units with working radios, which could include the battalion HQ (even if in any given scenario it's actually off-map). Or is just a UI oversight, and a unit with no comms ought to have an "x" for each level in the chain of command?

*shrug* It's better than moving the camera inside a tank and seeing just the exterior textures reversed (like in CMx1). =P

"Last one there gets no beer tonight!" "Let zem taste Krupp shteel [sic]!" "You're paid to kill, not dig trenches with your face!" "Don't vorry... veel get you patched up, Jürgen!" Seriously, though... there's a certain popular WW2 game from which I'd love to mod voice files into CMBN. I also have some German voice files I got from some reenactor website way back when I still played CMx1, voice files with appropriately loud (actually shouted, suitable to combat environments) voice acting. I would've modded them into CMSF:NATO, but they seemed more suited to the sort of full-on, lead-flying-everywhere, assaults-led-by-bellowing-NCOs combat of WW2.

When first playing as the Germans in the "Closing the Pocket" scenario, I found that my on-map mortars were out of C2 in their original position, because the section HQ has no radio and the platoon HQ is on the far side of the German starting area near the company HQ. Wanting my mortars to be out of enemy LOS yet still be clear to fire, I set them up behind the copse in which the company HQ was camped out, then I positioned the section HQ about halfway between the mortars and the company HQ, and thus the mortars were in C2. When I used the company HQ to spot for the mortars, I interpreted this as the company HQ verbally passing targeting info to the section HQ, who in turn passed it on to the mortars (which, due to their position, didn't have LOS to the company HQ).

I can't claim to have noticed any accent oddities in the German voice files, but the work of the one German voice actor (the one who voiced for on-map units as well as calls for fire) was blighted by "quiet shouting" (like when in normal conversation you harshen your voice to indicate that something was shouted rather than spoken in a normal tone). For CMSF:NATO I replaced the "quiet shouted" German voice files with ones from CMBB/CMAK. For CMBN I'll no doubt work up a sort of Landserstimme mod; and if so, I'll certainly upload it. And I sure hope good ol' Mord does for CMBN what's already done for CMSF in terms of very-immersion-enhancing voice modding.

Not if said Apache is a code-talker rather than a helicopter gunship.

I actually sorta liked the original CMSF music. *ducks away from hurled tomatoes* But since Lon Kaiser posted his alternate tracks, I've been using those—and enjoying every bar. If he composes alternate tracks for CMBN, I'll be more than glad to check them out as well. Granted, since switching to Windows 7, for some reason the music cuts out a few seconds into the loading screen anyway...