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I did a quick test on a 700 m map 4 HMG in bunker against one company without heavy weapons 121 men if i remember well. all troops are regular level In hot seat : no order for MG and the attacking infantry moving fast : 29 dead and 27 wounded with fire arcs : 18 dead and 10 w all this in about 5 minutes each time the infantry could reach and attack with grenades the bunker, not all the squads of course but one or two and all were at about less than 200 m of the bunker lines. In real time with Ai with targeting order for hmg : 23 dead and 23 w 1 bunker destroyed without order : 21 dead and 14 w about 5 minutes battle each time. the difference is that the ai stops at about 200 m and open fire to suppress the bunkers. the hmg had a pause between each burst of about 5 sec. For the german squads, the lmg gunner are expected to shoot 5 to 8 burst in 30 sec : this means 6 to a 4 seconds between each burst with about 50 to 60 rounds fired. I think in the game it's correct for mg in squads (bipods) but maybe not for HMG. It doesn't seem that emergency situations, infantry trying to assault bunker, change the pause time between each burst. I doubt that in real life infantry would have reach the mg positions in open ground without cover after 600 m of running and under the fire of 4 HMG with a lot of ammo. As i said, i have seen WW 2 movies, from the battle of Stalingrad, and they were firing without pause a lot of ammo, it was to pin down snipers in that case. I think reducing the pause time between each burst, when infantry is close enough to be a danger, and maybe increasing the suppression effect should help. It could be interresting to test with 0.50 hmg. I think the suppresion will be much higher and that the infantry would be pinned down. I noticed this in CMSF if i remember well.

That's what i love in this game. you can replay a scenario and try new tactics each time with different results. this makes me think of a discussion about flight simulators. People were talking about which airplane was the best. And this one is over modeled etc... I had found a tutorial about air fight tactics and in fact the best pilots online did not use the best aircraft but they knew how to use their planes the best way with advantages and drawbacks and good tactics. I would like to ask 3 simple questions : Are schurzen efficient against shape charge like bazzokas ? It's not clear when i look at the tank armor (for Panzer IV and stugs) Are shot traps modelled like in CMBO ? I think that one of my Panther in the demo was hit in the front turret and then on the top of the hull and the crew panicked and left the tank When hull down, your silhouette is smaller so it's harder to hit you. Is it also harder to spot you ?

From a British report, the only chance to kill a Panther is from the flank or rear. " The number of case where Panther were killed by our tanks is low" Henry johnson officer in the 66th armoured regiment " i saw them destroying our Sherman at more than 900 m but i never heard about a Sherman destoying a Panther at more than 300 m" One Sherman gunner : "i shot 2 ap rounds and hit without result and at less than 400 m." The only way to win is good tactics. There was a U.S. army study about 98 combat against Panters. In 84 % of the case the defender shooting first is making 4.3 x more kills than the attacker. When the attacker can fire first, in only 16% of the combat, he kills 3.6 x more tanks than the defender. The first who spots and shoot wins. So Panther had an advantage because they were defending from good position. Sherman 76 can penetrate at Panther turret at 700 M and the Firefly at 1 300 m. From the same study, American balistics experts said that the Panther is 1.1 x better than Sherman 76 in defense, but the same Sherman is 8.4 x more efficient than the Panther in defense. I remember a story about an attack of Panther of the Hitlerjugend in Normandy. They were taken by the flank by Shermans of the 10th Canadian armoured regiment with a few firefly. They destroyed 5 or 7 panthers forcing them to withdraw. The side turret is only 45 mm thick and only 40 mm on the side of the hull. So it's far from invicible.

The damages accumlate on tracks radio optics like in CMSF. the armor can get fragmented and hurt or kill the crew. Damaging tanks is another way to win. you don't have to kill the tank to disable it. In CMSF i totally stopped 3 T62 with grenade launchers. They destroyed the tracks and optics and the tanks were so damaged that they were not able to fight. This is why the Red Army used to shot at Tiger and Panther with every weapon from HMG to AT rifles and to guns. After the battle of Koursk Guderian reported that the main gun of some Panther was disabled by AT rifle hits and they had to leave the battlefield. There are many pictures were you can see hits by at rifles close to blocks of vision or optics of heavy german tanks. I think it's a great improvement compared to CM 1.

I agree with you. With the demo, i tried to move marders in hull down position in front of the U.S armor and i had bad results (All 4 knocked down). i've been reading the thread about too accurate armor. Funny how players have different feelings about the game results. I have seen in one week of play many different situations : A panther crew leaving the tank after one hit, the tank was not damaged and i was able to put them back in combat, i think it was hit on the gun mask and then the shell hit the top of the hull by ricochet. One M10 TD was hit 5 times before getting killed etc... Compared to CMBO, i think it's not one shot one kill. I also think that heavy german tanks are very hard to destroy from the front, more than in CMBO, and i have seen shots by M10 or Sherman 76 hitting Panters or Tiger with poor results on the front armor.

Hi Erwin, I had the exact contrary impression. I played the Barkmann's corner scenario and he destroyed 12 shermans during the battle with only one miss shot. 4 more shermans were destroyed by infantry, and one was abandonned. With Stug's and Panzer IV i had very good results when tanks were hull down. Marder are not efficient at short range because of the too thin.armor. So for those tank hunters long range and or ambush. when you move them there si a high risk to be knocked down first (happened to me in the demo) i found some stats about probability hits evaluated by the germans : 8.8 cm pzgr 39/41: 100% hit up to 1000 m in exercice and up to 500 m in combat. In combat at 1000 m 85 % of hit and 43 % at 2000 m. 23 % at 3000 m. For the Panther : with Tzf 12 optics it was possible to acquire an objective at 4 000 m but after 1500 m the precision was highly degraded. It all depends of experience of the crew and who is shooting first.

hi guys, i was thinking exactly the same about HMG's. I did some search on my old books to evaluate machine guns. first the machine guns inside a combat group Lmg's : from the book german squad tactics we can see that : "german soldiers were expected to fire 50 to 60 well aimed shots in 5 8 round bursts in 30 seconds with MG 34. So i would say that this is correct in the game for German squads. From what i saw in a few QBs it can be devastating, and at more than 200 m, german squads can stop an infantry attack. I think that's the good way to model LMG's and automatic rifles like the BAR in the game. The problem is that HMG's are shooting the same way. During WW1 germans used about 12 HMG's for 1 Km of front : In 1918 the 27th American infantry division was blocked for one day by HMG fire, in 1917 51 Scottisch division nailed for hours by only 3 Mg's.... There are a lof of exemples . In 1916 10 vickers machine guns shot during 12 hours to avoid a german counter attack. A little less than 1 millon cartridges were shot and only 2 MG's had firing problems; I have seen real movies of WW2 were MG 34 and 42, on tripod were shooting a lot of ammo in one burst, servants did not aim and they just pull the trigger. Maybe there is a solution in the game. For exemple by reducing the delay between each burst, but only for heavy mg's. Maybe another option : target light = short aimed bursts target = longer bursts with less or no delay in between for suppression, for area target the same long bursts, only pauses to change the guns and ammo. It was the same with CMSF and i did some tests at that time. For the maximum suppression effect try to target units that are in line from the flank. I used to target not the first but the last unit of the line so you suppress all the squads that are in line. You can also hit 2 or more men in one bullet or burst because they go through the squads. I suggest to put MG's on ground level so the bullets fly in a straight line suppressing all squads in the area. Shooting from high levels of buildings will make the bullets go to the ground. For soldiers who don't use their weapons : General of the army George Marshall : "in combat only 15 to 20 % of our soldiers open fire on the enemy" Army ground force ETO reports : " in average, 1 GI on 3 with a rifle miss his target for lack of trainning or for religious reasons. So, for LMG's, tanks mg's i think it's correct. For HMG's (heavy on foot or on vehicles : half tracks etc...) increase the number of bullets shots and or less time between each shot. I also think that the fact that some soldiers don't shoot or not enough is also good. I think it would be unrealistic to have all the squads shooting at the same time especially with rifles.

I did another little test today. On a 520 m map with the exact same conditions : U.S. infantry spotted and open fire at 520 m German infantry spotted and open fire at 520 M British assault engineer spotted at and open fire 140 m I wanted to see if they had NV equipement and i gave the minimum ammo. They still had the same number of explosives charges. Only light ammo were affected. I used the explosives in the game and the NV is listed at the bottom of the list. They didn't spot irregular troops at the same distance than the other NATO troops so maybe there is something to change.

Waiting for the next patch, i was playing with the british troops. I noticed that assault engineer did not spot very well at night. i did a test with U.S. troops on a small map with a few irregular syrians. They were spotted at 300 m. The same with british infantry. But when i took assault engineer, they only spotted at less than 100 m in the same conditions. Can someone else confirm this ? Is it a bug or are they not equiped with Night vision ? The vehicules spotted at more than 300 m but not the engineers. Without vehicles they spotted at less than 100 m.

Thanks to you both for the answer. If i remember well, the Marines used to shoot a lot of grenades and i was astonished because i did not see a lot of grenades flying on the target as usual. I tried area fire and i did 3 QB's with the same result on infantry and vehicles. I will try at shorter range.

Very interesting thread. There are a lot of questions about snipers. I did a test a few months ago with all the snipers of the game, except NATO. you can find it on the repository, it's called sniper test. Some people have real life experience of sniping and it may be great to have the opinion of specialist about the results. After the tests i noticed that it seems that you can't spot moving infantry at more than about 1800 m. Do you think it's realistic ? I was able to hit a target at 1800 m but i think there are very few chances to do it in normal game. I think that the L115A3 is maybe under evaluated. I was able to hit targets at 1300m max if i remember well. It seems that this rifle has a record of the longest shot with 2475 m. Impossible to test in the game. I also think that the effect of the M107 0.50 cal on vehicles is not correct. They should be able to stop a civilian vehicle with one shot i think. I've seen a test on TV and read interviews of Marine snipers and this weapon is used very efficiently against light armored vehicles. I did my test with veterans level troops. I think that having too much cracks and elite is like having an army full of Kurt Knispel or Hans-Ulrich Rudel in WW2 . I have no doubt that Nato troops are very good professionels, but i think that cracks an Elite should be reserved to a very few individuals. I try to use my snipers with caution. I never shoot at less than 300 m, except against poor infantry. It's hard to use snipers with all the vehicles we have in CMSF and maps are often too small. I also prepare at advance a solution to leave the position very fast if they are detected. I use the pause button and give a move order. When situation is critical, i hit the pause button and they change position immediatly.

I have a question about weapons like LAW and AT4. Most of the time, combat groups use to shoot all the rockets they have on the same target at the same time. I tested it with the British troops and the Marines. Sometimes you can have up to 6 rockets fired on a single BMP. I don't think it's realistic, and after one shot, the squad doesn't have any AT weapon. I don't know real life use of those weapons, so i may be wrong, but i think that it could be better if one or two rockets were shot and after a short delay, if the target is not destroyed they should use the rest. It seems also related to the number of weapons the soldiers have. The more they have the more they seem to waste ammo on the same target.

I have just played with the Marines and i noticed that the rate of fire of the M 32 grenade launcher is slower than before. From what i remember, Marines used to shoot a lot of grenades and now it seems they use less this weapon ( just like the m 203 grenade laucher on rifles). Am i wrong ? Did someone noticed that ? Last question, if it was modified is it more realistic ?

I'm also sure that there was the launcher in Marder with 1.30 version of the game. I see a few things that should be corrected : 1 launchers for panzerfaust for german troops 2 the time to dismount a weapon before the team can move 3 Troops shooting all AT light weapons (AT4, LAW etc..) in the same time on the same target. I did a quick test with British troops. One group shot 6 rockets at the same time on a bmp 2. Question : is it realistic ? is it possible to shoot 6 rockets from inside a building without problem ? I think it's a waste of ammo and that there should be a delay between each shot. Always with the Brits : grenade laucher respect a delay to dismantle the weapon but not the machine gun teams. So if there is a 20 sec or less delay why don't they respect this ? It's the same for Milan and Gill AT team. I did not check for other heavy weapons team. I think the javelin is a fire and forget weapon so why is there a delay of 20 sec to dismantle it ?

I did a few Quick battles to test 1.31. German troops in Fuchs have the rocket laucher and the rockets. In Marder there are only 2 rockets but no launcher. Panzergrenadier can't use panzerfaust without the launcher. I thought they already had it but when tanks came, they only shot grenades. There is no icon for the launcher. I tried with the AT team only but the 2 guys only had the rocket and they did not use them. they started to use grenades with very bad result for them. I noticed that in other vehicles, you have the laucher + rockets, but not in the marder. And there is also the time to dismantle Milan and Gill AT missiles...

After a few battles with the new 1.31 patch i noticed that something is missing for panzergrenadier. They can take panzerfaust rockets in the marder but there is no launcher. Is it a mistake or does it mean that panzergrenadier won't have any AT weapon. ? Milan, Gill, and Javelin teams have a 20 sec delay, to dismantle the weapon before moving. When i give a move order, they move without delay, is it a bug ? If it's not a bug why give a delay to those weapons ? Will we have another patch to correct those little problems ?

I've been playing for three days now, only QBs to see how the game works with the new module. The good things : A lot of new equipment with different tactics for every nations. Playing with the British troops was a different experience and that's the case with the three new nations. You can now open fire with infantry inside of bmp's and other light Syrians vehicles. Dangerous but can be useful if you fight against light infantry without AT weapons. Rpg, javelin, panzerfaust etc... teams won't reload if they have a move order. VERY useful. I tried to ambush vehicles and managed to avoid the returning fire. When in position, use the pause button and give a move order. When the rocket, missile is flying, clic the pause button and your team is leaving without reloading. I still think that an emergency order should be useful for infantry, maybe with a moral penalty like in old CM. The new QB's map and AI plans are cool. I was attacking with Gemans and everything was fine and i reached the target without any loss, destroying one BMP and one squad. Suddenly, the two other BMPs came to attack me from my rear.They destroyed the vehicles i had left in the back, thinking they were safe. The couter attack surprised me and what was an easy battle became a fierce fighting to keep my objective. Things that i regret : Infantry is sill using light anti-tank weapons in one salvo. I saw 5 rockets flying in the same time on one single tank. I think it's certainly unrealistic, i don't think that a squad would fire all its weapons from inside a building at the same time. It can be a problem because you are left without any AT weapon after one shot. I did a lot of testing with sniper rifles and nothing was changed. I still think the 0.50 cal is not well modeled. I did one test with 3 rifles against 3 light vehicles equipped with AA gun. I noticed that each time, the first thing that was damaged were the wheels. After a few shots, one had is wheels destroyed but no other damage. I noticed impacts on the engine but no damage, strange. I would like to know if the damage model is like for tanks, with localisation of impact or if it's random. I think that at 600 m it's easier to hit the engine that the wheels. One single shot in the engine should stop the vehicle. I was watching the Mythbuster program on tv a few weeks ago and they made a bulletproof car with phone books. The "armor" was 3 phone books thick and they had dummies inside the vehicle to see if the passengers were hit. They tested many weapons from 9mm to 7.62 and everything was fine, no damage to passengers... Until the use three 0.50 caliber rifles. One shot from the flank in the engine and the car was stopped. One bullet went through the vehicle, passing the 2 doors and 2 time 3 phone books. The passengers were all hit. So in the game this rifle should be used against soft vehicles very efficiently and even against light armored vehicles. I saw in interview of Marines in Irak saying they used this weapon to destroy objectives inside armored vehicles. Against tanks, they should be able to damage optics, ir etc.. Guderian reported that during the battle of Kursk, some Panther tank had their main gun damaged and had to leave the battle due to AT rifles shots. The QB system for selecting troops was not improved. Possible bugs : The new campaigns,scenarios and QB maps were not installed in the good directory and i had to copy paste them to find them in the game. The Gilll AT missile has a 20 seconds delay to dismount the weapon and move. It seems that they move without delay. I had 5 of them placed in ambush on the flank of a Syrian attack and when ordered to move they started without delay. So, a great module for me, except a very few frustrating things, i hope there will be other patch to improve the game, for exemple troops and vehicles moving for cover when catched under artillery fire like in old CM. I think that we can expect to have new scenarios and campaigns much more interesting and challenging. Thanks a lot to the Battlefront team,for this new module and for improving the game. Very promising for the future modules, i can't wait to see Normandy.

After playing a few QB's, i decided to play NATO campaigns but i could not find them. The same for the scenarios. There are directories for each language, English, French, German... and the files were in the English directory and i use French in the game. I had to copy and paste the files from the campaigns, scenarios and QB maps to find them in the game. They were not in the French directory.When i started the game again i had the Nato campaigns and scenarios. The game is in versions 1.30 and i think that for the other files, the directory is the same for every language, so it seems that ther rest is fine. Maybe other players will have the same problem if they don't play in English.

Hi, If you don't find the campaigns maybe you have the same problem that i had. the campaigns and new scenarios are called "Nato...". I couldn't find them when i launched the game. The problem comes from the installation of the game i think, if you don't run the game in english language. The new files were in the wrong directories so i copied and pasted from the english version to the french one that i use. the same for QB maps. You 'll find the Nato campaigns, scenarios and QB maps in the english version file, just copy them in the good directory, depending on the language you use.

I tried a few changes with nhancer (ambient occlusion, AA, Aniso, opengl compatibility) and there is no change : lot of flashing at night with every source of light (explosions, shots). I will tweak settings for a few days to see if i can find a solution, but there are so many options that i think it would be luck to solve the problem. If there is a way to fix it with nhancer...

well, i've just install the new n'vidia and still flashing at night. When shooting with a Warrior on a building, the light is flashing on all the buildings around. i tweaked the AA and Aniso filtering and used different settings, no way to get rid of the problem. So, jcmil, i don't think that this could be only AA and Aniso. Could you please give more details on your system and also what you change with nhancer so that i can try to see if i can also find a solution to the problem.

Strange, i tried the 258.96 official after the beta and i had the same flashing problem so i went back to my old drivers. jcmil, i also used driver sweeper and nhancer and i cleaned my system with cc cleaner also before installing the new drivers. It would be interesting if you could tell us what kind of profile you are using. I tweaked a lot with nhancer and i never had the chance to get rid of the flashing effect. I will try to reinstall the new drivers and see if i can solve the problem like you did. I have a dual core, with win xp and a gtx 275 card. With nhancer you can save a profile and maybe it could be useful if you could share yours.

I have just tried the new 258.96 beta drivers from Nvidia and the flashing problem is still here. I don't think that we can expect better results with the next official drivers. Each time i tested the beta, the official drivers had the same problem.

2 Sheppy, I can explain you but you must keep in mind that this shot was made during a test on a flat map, no wind, no cover. Make a 2 100 m map and order the Syrians to move fast with "I" shortcut. They will be spotted at about 1 850 m. If you use the move order "N" they will be spotted at "only" 1 500 M . Make the Syrians move parralel to the snipers positions so they have the time to aim and that's it. The longer the range, the more it takes time to aim and shoot, and the slower the rate of fire is. If the Syrians stop, you will certainly loose contact and have only "?". I would say that in normal situations, 1 500 m is a more reasonable range for M107 rifles in the game. I had few hits at this range while testing. With the L115A expect 1 300 m . The snipers were veterans so you may have better results with Crack or Elite troops. I have uploaded a document called sniper test on the repository. You will find more details about my sniper testing and maybe i hope interesting informations.

2 Jonny(FGM) Totally agree with you, i try to have a minimum range of 300 m for snipers, and i plan alternative position so i can move them fast when they are spotted. I've been reading on wiki during my search for the test that military snipers used to have a minium range of 300 m but i also read an article about the snipers of 82nd airborne in Bagdad the "widow makers" (very interesting, with details on rifles, optics for spotter etc..) and another about U.S. snipers in Irak and it seems that they rarely engage at more than 300 m the longest range was 550 reported one of them. But that's against insurgent and no exactly the same situation you'll find in the game. They used the M24 SWS and M14 rifles. With the AN/PVS 10 sniper scope it seems that they could engage at night at 600 m. Few more infos : M24 SWS can engage up to 1 000 m, M 110 1 000 m with faster rate of fire (i think that's the case in the game), the M107 "normal" range in counter sniping is 2 000 m. One thing in found interesting when looking at the test i have made is that the M 107 can use Those cartridges : M33 AP, M17 tracer, M8 AP incendiary and the M962 SLAP (saboted light armor piercing). They could engage targets hidden behind walls, tree, cars or inside lightly armored vehicles and even in certain cases through concrete (all those informations reported by U.S. soldiers in the two articles.) That's something that i found a little bit disappointing about M107 in the game. I'm not sure that the anti-materiel effect of this rifle is well reproduced in the game, maybe because of the type of cartridge. To go back to the game i cannot go back to Wego. I played a lot of RTS and i think that i have too much control in Wego. So, i try to plan everything before the battle, i almost never use the pause to give orders. I like when i loose the control, when tanks get bogged, troops refuse to obey my orders .... I feel more "in" the battle, when i must react in emergency, than when i have the time, so i try to have alternative plans or solutions, a reserve or troops etc... But there are no better way to play the game. When CMBO came out i really enjoyed the wego system. A great advance in comparison of older wargames.