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I did a test with infantry on building. The building was at 500 m of the snipers. 3 men on the roof, 3 on the third floor and 7 at ground level. Snipers had cover arcs but they spotted nothing. I ordered the syrians to move, no contact even for those on the roof. I ordered the guys on the third floor to move on roof and they were spotted : 2 men down. As soon as they do nothing, they are not detected. I ordered the seven guys to open fire. The first to be spotted was the rpg. The others were harder to spot and i could only see one or to guys in the same time. Snipers were invisible to syrians. To have an idea of what soldiers can see i made a 4 Km long flat map. 1 company of syrian infantry 3 M707 and a platoon of snipers. Syrians spotted the M707 at 2500 m but those who don't have binoculars (rpg teams) had only ?. Vehicules spotted the syrians at 2000 m and snipers just after at about 1800 m. Syrians did not spot snipers. I believe that spotting is related to movement, shooting and the type of weapon (rpg is spotted first), the number of men shooting, and equipment of course (binoculars). I don't know if snipers and humvee should have seen the syrians at more than 2 km. I didn't try with a tank. Maybe would it spot infantry at longer range. Maybe snipers should have a chance to spot infantry in buildings when moving inside. But maybe they have better results at shorter range.

Hi all, Today i did some tests to evaluate the snipers in the game in order to see what they can do and to use the best tactics to employ them. First, a few links to read to have an idea of what is done in real life and the tactics employed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniper_rifle#Maximum_effective_range http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Furlong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_snipers (See Matthäus Hetzenauer WW2 sniper. His longest confirmed kill was reported at 1100 metres .) I noticed that military snipers are not supposed to open fire at less than 300 m. You can see the details about the 2430 m shot made by corporal Rob Furlong. It seems that it took only 3 shots to hit the target, but that it was in exceptional conditions. For the .050 cal it seems that 1500 m to 2000 m is the effective range and 1000 m for smaller caliber. I made a 2100 m long map, flat, with to buildings. Best conditions of visibility and no wind. I had a full company of Syrian infantry (90 men) and one platoon of veteran marine snipers + 3 M707 Humvee. I gave the order to the syrians to move and they were spotted by the humvee in 20 seconds. The snipers had only ? but no identification. They spotted infantry at 1700 m. The first man was hit at 1580 m. I just let them do without orders. They hit 5 guys at 900 m, 800 m ,760 m and 720 m. The Syrians lost their cohesion and some refused to advance. At less than 700 m my snipers were hitting at least one man each minute. I started to give targeting orders and it was better for suppression.It's possible to eliminate a hq or a group faster because when they have to face heavy fire they panick and run away and you can have more kills when you use the target order.I guess they have better results when they focus on one target. At 700 m They were all panicked and i could not give orders (except to one hq and the arty spotter). After 20 mn, end of the "battle". 25 dead, 16 wounded (red), 25 missing. With targeting order i was able to kill a hq of 3 men at 720 m easily. As you can see, The Syrians lost 45 % of their men, and 75 % if you take those who ran away, only with 6 snipers ! I did the same test with the british troops.I had only five snipers and no vehicule. They spotted at 1800 m and started to shoot at 1400 m. First man down at 1320 m and second at 1100.Two were hit at 1000 and 900 m. Snipers were very efficient at less than 800 m but Syrians had less suppression and panicked soldiers. The result after 20 mn is : 20 dead, 20 wounded (red) and 6 missing. So, much less soldiers panicked maybe because the .050 caliber has more suppression effect. Regarding those results, i think that in real life or with a human player in the game, the attack would have been broken before the syrians reach 45 % of wounded/killed. Maybe the effect of panick should be more important (i used conscript troops) and for a longer time. The syrians never saw the snipers. But they were able to see the humvee at more than 2000 m. Notice that when they were moving they lost the contact (only ?). At 1500 1300 m if you stop your advance, the sniper will lose contact but if you are at less than 1000 m they still see you even when on the ground. Of course i imagine that with grass and other covers that would be different. It seems that the more they are soldiers on the battlefield the faster they are seen. I did a test with on only a group of 7 men and they were spotted later, even with the M707 humvee. Also, the more men you have the faster you spot and experience is important. I did a test with infantry inside a building at 500 m of the snipers. They could move and shoot and they were not detected. But move on the roof and you are dead. I don't know if they should be seen inside the building when they move, but maybe snipers should have a chance to spot them. I could see from that buildings the snipers with syrians arty spotters at 500 m but not with normal troops(insurgent). I finished with a test against vehicules. It took 1 mn to destroy a 4x4 at 300 m and a little more to destroy to others at 420 and 480 m (they were on fire). One UAZ was destroyed in 2 mn at 400 m and a BRDM 2 in 1 mn at 380 m (but mostly with grenades and not snipers). I think that against soft vehicule the .050 cal is not powerful enough or the 4x4 are to hard to kill because i saw many hits in the engine before the destruction and at short distance they were helped by the other rifles. It seems that on single hit in the engine is enough to stop a 4x4 and at less than 400 m that should be an easy target for a veteran sniper. I think that maybe this should be change. At more than 500 m it takes more time to destroy a 4x4 even when hit in the engine. I tried to hit a tank commander at 2000 m but no success. On the flank, a BRDM 2 had only light damage at 500 m or more. I don't know if incendiary munitions are in the game but it seems they are more effective in real life since one of the first mission of those rifles is to destroy vehicules. The armor piercing incendiary mk 211 that can be fired by M2 machine guns and M 107 sniper rifle has tungsten core and incendiary and explosive charge. I tried with heavy machine guns to compare. It took only 5 bullets and 4 seconds to destroy the BRDM 2 on the flank and they damaged a bmp 1 at 600 m forcing him to pop smoke.3 pick-up destroyed in less than one minute, with two on fire. My impression is that snipers should be able to spot at longer range, more than 2000 m in good conditions, but i don't know if the optics that spotter use are better than normal infantry and if they are modelled in the game. Another lesson is that if you don't want to be seen, don't move. Some soldiers were not detected at 500 m because they did nothing. I wonder if spotting is related to the number of men firing, one shooter is maybe harder to spot that a all squad. For those who are not asleep after reading all this , i think that snipers should be used at 300 m or more but not less (maybe 400 m for the syrians) and use them against valuable targets (HQ, rpg, etc...)with targeting order. They are very good at 1000 m or less and deadly at less than 800 m (for the syrians i would say 800 to 600 m). Using snipers at to short distance is the assurance to get them killed by rpg or the fire of automatic weapons, especially for syrians. Now i will stop with snipers, i learned a lot about them, but i would like to play the new british campaign . I hope that this was useful and will help other players for better use of snipers. If some are interrested i plan to do some testing with machine guns.

Thanks a lot for the link Dan. Very interresting. All my tests were made in hot-seat. The pick-up had only light damage to tyres. As the driver was killed at the first shot and also the guy who took the place just after, maybe the ai is targeting men instead of the vehicule. I will try at shorter range, but i'm afraid that the other member of the team might shoot too and make a wrong result. But if the story of the marine who destroyed a bmp 1 during the first gulf war at 1100 m is true, i could'nt reproduce it in the game. Maybe a problem of ammo type. I saw in your pdf that there was an armor piercing incendiary (mk211 mod 0) and i think it was that type that was used. The penetration table is for the ap ammo. Maybe it's better with the incendiary and the saboted light armor penetrator tracer can penetrate 34 mm at 500 m and 23 mm at 1 200 m. i found this on wiki : he BMP-1's steeply sloped frontal armour can withstand artillery shell fragments, small arms fire and existing .50 calibre (12.7 mm) heavy machine gun AP and API rounds over 60° of the frontal arc from all distances.[12] The very high angle of the hull frontal armour increases the probability of ricochets, and the trim vane in the travelling position adds little additional protection. On most examples the front armor is immune to 20 millimetre Oerlikon KAD or HS820 auto-cannon fire from ranges greater than 100 metres, but armor quality varies quite significantly with the nationality of a factory. Examples of where the marks of factory certification firings are recognizable on all the major armor plates are usually better protected. The side, rear and top armor protect the BMP-1 from 7.62 mm small arms fire from most distances as well as smaller artillery shell fragments but do not protect the vehicle against 12.7 mm heavy machine gun fire from close distances or larger artillery shell fragments. Nevertheless, ground tests demonstrated that rear doors with fuel tanks filled with sand withstood hits from standard 12.7 mm rounds. In Afghanistan and Chechnya armor-piercing 7.62 mm rounds fired from general purpose machine guns at ranges of around 30 - 50 m sometimes penetrated the rear doors and hatches. During the First Persian Gulf War the armor protection of the BMP-1 proved vulnerable to the armor-piercing rounds of the US M2/M3 Bradley's 25 millimetres (0.98 in) M242 Bushmaster autocannon. During the intense fighting in Chechnya, no penetration of the BMP-1/BMD-1 turret front armor were noticed because the turret made for a small target and had relatively thick frontal armor compared to other parts of the vehicle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMP-1#Armor_protection (I'm not sure that a bmp would survive the 25 mm of a bradley in si frontal arc but i would like to try ) For the pick-up i doubt that they would resist to those ammo. I guess that when you hit the engine area there is a lot of chance that you destroy it or at least the radiator. After at least 5 shots in that area there was nothing to the engine at 500 m. I destroyed a pick up at long range (1000 m) after more than 12 shots but there was nobody on it. The last men disembarked. But maybe you are right and nothing important was hit. That's when i regret all the details about armor thickness and ammo penetration that we had in the old cm1.

I did another few testing today. To help my snipers in spoting, i put 3 M707 humvee with them. The Syrian infantry was at 1600 m. They were not spotted as long as they were not moving. They spotted de 3 M 707 at the first turn. After 5 turns i made them move and they were spotted by the m707 at 1500 m and by the snipers at 1400 M. Snipers started to shoot and i had one lucky shot at 1300 m one badly wounded (red) and on lightly (yellow). When the Syrians stopped moving, after one turn they were not spotted anymore. The M707 could always see them but not the snipers. They moved again and as soon as they were close to 1000 m one was shot dead. They remained spotted when they were not moving. I would say that the 0.50 cal can be dangerous at 1200 m and is efficient at 1000 m. The other sniper hit one syrian at 800 m in only one turn. Against vehicule, i wasn't as successful. against BRDM-2 i could only have light damage to tyres. At 500 m i didn't have armor penetration on the flank. But i must say that the shots were very accurate. On a pick-up at 500 m the first shot killed the driver. Almost all shots hit the target and the second driver was hit just on minute after the first one. I saw at least 4 bullets hitting in the engine area but that did not destroyed the vehicule. I had one infantry hq at more than 2000 m that was never spotted, but they didn't move. I tried to find datas about the Barrett M82. The maximum range is 6800 m. It's efficient at 2300 m. It can penetrate concrete obstacles, some type of armor, and destroy light vehicules. I found an article about the french PGM Hecate II. It was used up to 1800 m against vehicules and 1200 m against personel with good results. French paratroops used it against 4x4 in Africa and they reported that one single shot in the engine was enough to stop the vehicule (Ivory Coast in 2003). After all this, i would not say that snipers are not good since i hit 2 men in one shot at 1300 m:D. Maybe they should be able to spot infantry at longer range even if they can't shoot. I think the 0.50 cal is not powerful enough against non armored vehicules. With sometimes 5 shots in the engine area i did not destroyed a pick-up. As i don't know the power of penetration of those rifles, i can't say if this is "right" or not, but it seems that they are not as efficient in the game than in real life. I could not destroy or damage a bmp 1. It seems that it's armor is 19 mm in the hull, 23 mm in the turret max. I tried in the rear and side and obtain no good results.

well, i think it's time to take another approach. That's why i decided to make some tests. First, history : If i remember well, there was a similar problem when cmbo came out with AT guns. They couldn't spot tanks at very long range. It was a problem to reproduce shots at 3000 meters that were reported by germans and allieds. After modification by BFC, i made a test with 10 shermans at 3200 m and two 88mm guns. The first tank was destroyed at 3100 m and the last at 2900. I think the results were quiet "right" compared to real life. I did the same test in cmbb with the stuka equipped with 37 mm gun to compare to what Rudel did in real life. With 4 Elite stukas, i only obtain one immobilized tank. Conclusion : or Rudel was a liar, or The 37 mm was under powered in the game:). I made a test with vehicules and infantry against a sniper team of veterans marines. The map was more than 2000 m long, no wind, at 12 o'clock, very good visibility. The marines were split in two teams in the third and second floor of a building. Since a Marine destroyed a Bmp at 1100 m in real life i took this distance for my first test against vehicules. -Against an mg pickup, on the flank : detected in 2 seconds 10 shots with 50 cal = 2 missed and 2 casualties (driver each time) the vehicule was functional. - Same but on the front : 11 shots with 50 cal to destroy the vehicule. 3 shots missed and two casualties. I saw at least 5 shots in the engine area and the vehicule was destroyed at the last of the 11 shots. Each time, the gunner decided to disembark and was out of sight after a few seconds. Against a bmp 1 always with the 50 cal : detected after 2 to 6 seconds at 1100 m flank : 10 shots 3 missed light damage only to optics rear : 10 shots 5 missed light damage only to optics front : 10 shots 2 missed light damage only to optics I never had armor penetration. It seams that the marines who destroyed the bmp used ap/incendiary ammo and maybe they are not modelled in the game. It seams at least that the power of the 50 cal is not what it should be especially against the pickup. against infantry : I took an hq of 7 men at 1100 m same condition of weather and visibility. in five minutes without moving they took 3 deads but i didn't count how many shots it took. i made them run at 1400 m and they were spotted after 40 secs. They took 14 shots and only 3 hit the target. the result was 3 lightly wounded soldiers. At long distance they disappear when they stop moving. I did a last test with the same team, moving slowly at 1600 m. They were spotted at 1360 m by the snipers. I guess it's impossible to spot and shoot with snipers at very long distance at infantry (2430 m for the shot made in afghanistan by the sniper of the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry). Maybe the equipment of real life snipers team is not completely modeled in the game. I saw that in the united states marine corps snipers were instructed to use the Marine Air Ground Task Force Secondary Imagery Dissemination System (MSIDS). They use a computer and specials cameras that can take images night and day to help snipers in reco and target spoting. I will try to make other tests when i will have the time, but i think we can say that against vehicule, the 50 cal is not very efficient in the game at 1100 m and it's difficult to spot infantry at more than 1500 m with sniper teams.At 1000 m or less i think the results against infantry were good and the target did not vanish. My snipers were never detected by infantry or vehicules.

i think we should ask ourselves if the problem is sniper accuracy or if we don't use them the right way. I took a look in wiki and found that the best sniper Simo Häyhä was credited with 542 victims during the war against Russia. Zaïtsev killed 224 german soldiers during the battle of Stalingrad and Heinz Thorvald 225 during the same time and 400 during the war. I don't know how to evaluate the performance of the snipers in the game and if they can be compared to the sniper of world war 2. In this article http://le.cos.free.fr/evo-sniping.htm i found that the british norms for snipers are 70% of hit probability for a target of the size of the front of a car at 1500 m and for the size of a man at 1200 m. One sniper of the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry hit a man at 2430 m with is McMillan .50 Cal. Tactical, but it seems that results above 1500 m are not good on personel. 50 Cal were made to take out vehicules at first and one sniper of the United States Marine Corps took out a bmp 1 at 1100 m during the first gulf war. It seems the missions of snipers in the attack is to support other troops, make reco and take out valuable objectives. When defending, the snipers are used to destroy enemy reco. In the game we certainly use them to close and maybe like normal infantry. One of the problems that i also have is that the non sniper members of the team are using their rifles when i don't want them to and they reveal the position of the team. I think they should only fire when ordered or for self defense. If only the snipers were shooting maybe they would be harder to spot because it's harder to spot one single shot than the entire team shooting with assault rifles and grenade launchers.Maybe this could be done with target and targe light orders. With target light, only the snipers would shoot and with target all the team. This way, we would avoid case were the escort is shooting with assault rifle before the snipers even start one single shot. I had the same problem with at teams. I was playing with marines and my reco spotted a bmp3. I send an at team and targeted the bmp. Before the at guy was in position, the others started to shoot with assault rifle on infantry revealing the position of the team with very bad result for them when the bmp started to shoot. To go back to snipers, if the accuracy is good in the game, maybe we should change our tactics. I think they are good for reco, killing officers and other valuable targes (mg, rpg etc..), destroying light vehicles at long distance and support of other infantry units but certainly not for the missions of the regular infantry platoon.

I run the game in sli with two 7900 gt, dual core, drivers : 182.8 Resolution 1680 x 1050 x 60. First, you need to create a sli profile for the game. You should download nhancer 2.4.5 at this adress first : http://www.nhancer.com/ Then create a profile. There is a good manual on the site to explain all the settings and how to create a profile. These are my settings : Enhancements : AA multisampling 4 x Enhance ingame aa setting : on gamma correction : on super tranparency AA : on anisotropic filtering : 16x vsync : application Optimizations : Texture filtering : high quality Compatibility conformant texture clamp : off opengl control : multithreading on opengl multidisplay mode : optimized for single display mode cpu multisupport : multicore Sli mode : Alternate frame rendering no compatibility flags opengl flags : from 00 to 15 : on My game settings : everything maximum with vsync on. For opengl games, you don't have to activate the profile. This works the best for me, but you may have to experiment. This is why nhancer is very useful. I had sli problems with il2 1946 and i found a very good solution on a forum dedicated to this game. I took il2 profile as a start for CMSF. I hope that this may help you to find a solution.

Steve, Thanks for taking time to answer our question. I Really appreciate that:). It's great to have the opportunity to talk to the people who are making our favorite toys. I would like to take the occasion of this thread to ask a few questions about the physical model of the game. In fact very few things bother me when i'm playing. Some have to do with "physics" and the rest with the behaviour of our pixel soldiers. I will post a thread about behaviour (moral, reaction to stress etc..) later. I'm glad to know that there's a possibility to have that sphere around vehicle to avoid unrealistic use of main weapon. I did a test today but it seems i could target at on meter with a bmp. May i suggest a few meters for bmp and bradles and at least 10 meters for tanks ? I think this would be a good compromise. - Do you think that tanks will be able to crush walls and trees (with restrictions, of course) ? When i first played CMSF i was astonished to see that my tanks were stopped by tiny walls, huge difference with CMBO. I was really happy to see that trees could be destroyed by arty. May i suggest that with a fast move order, tanks could crush trees and with slow move they would try to avoid them just like it is now ? - It's now possible to shoot through friendly vehicle. When the same vehicle is destroyed, it blocks the shells and bullets. Would it be possible to have it all the time ? (I'm asking this because i think it would be interresting for tactics, infantry could hide behind vehicles and the last vehicle of a column would not be able to shoot through the first. A line of vehicles taken by the flank would have problems to return fire efficiently, this is why germans had sophisticated tank formations) - Would it be possible to have a minimum distance between to vehicles to avoid collision and strange graphic effects. - With the new engine, would it be possible for tanks to crush little houses ? A tactic used by germans was to make their engineers destroy a wall of a house to hide a tank in it (protection against aviation, ambush etc..) This could be also an interesting feature. Before CMBO i played with the close combat serie and i remember that you could have vehicle inside russians factories in Stalingrad. Do you think this could be the same in CM in the future ? - I think it could be fun to have our vehicles having mechanical problems (auto loader broken, engine, computer etc...). The frequency would be decided by the scenario designer for exemple or by the reliability of the vehicle, experience of the crew ... I was thinking about a Panther attack at the battle of Koursk for exemple, where you could loose more tanks due to mechanical problems than enemy fire.( I really loved when my last tank was stuck in the mud at the moment in needed it the most ) There was somthing like this in close combat : in winter the engine of vehicle could be frozen. Well, that's a lot of questions, sorry, but it was a long time i was waiting to ask them. Of course, i guess that you are working on many other things for the game (water, rain etc..) and i'm not asking for this now, but maybe in the future ? You gave us so many surprises and i think the new engine has a lot of great possibilities unexploited. Those features, i think, would bring much more tactical possibilities, more chaos on the battlefield and... more fun.

Steve, I was quite sure that the answer would be no for gun elevation and that's not a problem for me. When i was playing with CMBO for exemple, i did not attach importance to this. If i do now, it's your fault You gave us a much more detailed environment with high buildings, and the new game engine is so much better that things that didn't matter before can now bring new questions. When we had three soldiers to represent a squad we could accept more abstraction. I think there was a problem like this when infantry could shoot through multiple floors of a building and you changed it. In CMBO, tanks were blind, so they had problems to see infantry in buildings. In many battles i could assault tanks from very close without being detected by the crew. Now that tanks "see" better this is much more a problem i think. In fact, i don't care about gun elevation I think this is not the problem. I joined this thread because a tank that was very close to a house killed my infantry which was on the third floor and i thought this was too unrealistic. Maybe if vehicles had a blind spot on their top or if they couldn't "see" through the floors this would avoid strange situations like this. If they can't see the infantry, they can't shoot it. Today, on a QB, one of my bmp's was in a very narrow street and there was no space on each side of the vehicle. I think that infantry hidden in a building beside this bmp would be out of reach. And it would be more difficult for a T72 with is long gun. This is why i thought that a minimum range would be a solution to avoid impossible shots from the side. Of course, i can understand that this can bring a lot of problems for programmers and that you don't want to spend time on this but i think there's a solution that doesn't need to have a detailed gun elevation model. I can accept abstraction as long as the result is not too far from reality. This can be a detail for many players and i understand this, but i love wargames and CM series because of those details that make them interesting and challenging.

If i remember well, we had the same kind of problem with the old engine. BFC team found a solution at that time to avoid the use of tank crews like infantry. I had to find my old CMBO manual to find the right words : those units are considered broken and they have a "!" maker beside the tag. Those units are permanently rattled : so they have much more time to recover from panic, and they usually run farther away from the fight. I believe that this could be done with the new engine. In QB, i often see tank crews attacking my position before infantry. I guess that they are not supposed to engage combat except if they are attacked and that they are too precious to be used like this. When you escape from a burning tank, you are shaken and i doubt that you are ready to assault ennemy position. So i suggest to consider that they are broken and that they only fight for self defence. I think this should be the case for all the vehicle crews when the vehicle is destroyed.

I think we should consider if this feature si worth the time that developers would spend on it and if the ai can handle it. I think this would change urban combat a lot. This is one of the great difference between the old cm and the new engine. I had to adapt myself and my tactics to a much more detailed environment. On one of the first scenarios i played, my infantry was stopped by snipers on roof of buildings, and i had a lot of problems to find a shooting position for my tank. I had to play it several times to find a good solution. Even without the elevation, it's harder to hit buildings and to find good angle. I feel it's frustrating when you defend and your infantry is destroyed by a tank placed at 2 meters of the wall and 3 floors lower. You can target a wall at 1 m, but what happens when you shoot ? If it's a HE shell, the result is an explosion at 1 m of your tank. You may damage your vehicle (optics, gun, ERA etc...). What would be the result with the 100 mm gun of a bmp3 and its thin armor ? If we take a humvee equipped with a grenade launcher for exemple. I think there is also a minimum range. The grenade is made to detonate at 15 m minimum to avoid the shooter being killed by his own weapon. During the war in Lebanon, Tsahal used canister against infantry. It was the best type of ammo for urban combat because you could shoot your own tanks without risks of damaging them. This would change our tactics to make them more realistic i believe. Tanks would keep the great roads under their fire, infantry would clean the area with the help of bradley or bmp, when the opposition is too strong, you would use arty or air support. In the game, you don't have to destroy all the houses to clean them, because you can use one tank very close. One shot and the game is over. If you compare to real life there si a huge difference. The Israeli had to destroy entire areas of a town to get rid of the defenders, and it was a long and hard process. If you ambush a tank by its side in a 3 m wide street, the tank cannot turn its turret to reach you. It's possible in the game and that's a great disadvantage for infantry. Minimum range would be an abstraction to simulate the fact that the tank cannot turn its turret in narrow streets. I believe that the AI can handle this because it must already do it now. It must find firing position and it must adapt to the changing battlefield. It could be a benefit for the AI by preventing it to get too close from buildings and attacked by AT teams. I'm not asking for the exact copy of real life, but i think that minimum range for guns and grenade launchers and elevation would make urban combat much more interesting, fierce and challenging.

I think it would improve the simulation in urban combat. If a tank is in a narrow street, and infantry hidden in a house beside the tank, in the game, the tank turns its turret and kills the infantry. If we have a minimum range, in that case, the tank cannot shoot the guys in the house because it's too close, and, with the length of the gun it cannot rotate its turret. If the infantry is on the roof of the house, it can shoot the tank and the tank cannot return fire. For the AI, it is the same as for missiles. If it's too close, it can change the tank position, and just like in real life, sometimes the tank simply cannot shoot when is too close. I think that infantry would be less vulnerable this way when defending a city. It si certainly more difficult for gun elevation. I only play in real time and i do not have the problems of the turn based mode but i can understand that it is more difficult in that case. Maybe if we had a tool to check the line of sight like in the cmx1 serie this would solve a part of the problem. I don't know if the AI can be changed to handle this, but i guess that there are situation where it must change the position of a tank to shoot another if there is an obstacle between them. So maybe it's possible to do the same when the tank is to close. If you look at old anti tank missiles, in some case they are useless and cannot shoot because of the 500m minimum range. This does not mean that they are always useless. Tanks are too powerful in some case in urban fighting because they can shoot without restriction. When infantry doesn't have good anti tank weapons you can just put one tank close to a house to clean it without problems. Israeli troops used anti aircraft vehicles for urban combat because tanks have to much dead angles. There would be also advantages for vehicles like bmp and bradley or for tanks equiped with a remote mg.

I few days ago, i was reading a detailed article about the T62 tank. The minimum range for the main gun is 20 meters and 19 meters for the coax mg. A part of the problem may be solved by having a minimum range for tanks just like we have for missiles. This would be more realistic, and would also simulate the problems that tanks have to use their guns, rotate turret etc... in mout combat. Yesterday, in a quick battle, i was defending with infantry against a tank attack in a small village. One tank was a few meters from a house where i had an rpg team. They were on the third floor but they were killed by the coax mg of the tank. This would be impossible in real life and i think that with minimum range would solve this problem. When i was looking for minimum range for other tanks than the T62 i found an article about the war in Lebanon in 2006. It details the tactics of israeli troops in urban combat. You can see pictures of the town of Jenine before and after the attack. They used a lot of air support and arty and the result is the destruction of 140 houses and 200 houses uninhabitable. Here is the link for those who would like to take a look (sorry, it's in french)http://liban2006.site.voila.fr/stratego/stratego.tactique.combat_zone_urbaine.htm In the game, you can put a tank near a house and kill the defenders too much easily, especilly in narrow streets. I think that if that was so easy in real life, that's what israeli troops would have done in the battle of Jenine. I think it would be great to have gun elevation in the game because it can be use as a tactics for infantry to kill tanks or for tanks to kill another by a belly shot. I saw this tactic in a U.S. field manual. You use a tank wall or tank berm and you can shoot the attacker in the belly while is climbing and unable to return fire. On one of the first battles i fought with cmsf, on of my M1 was killed by an old T55 in is frontal arc. I'm not sure but when i took a close look to the position of my tank i believe that it was a belly shot.I was trying to find a hull down position but i exposed the lower hull of my tank. I must say that i think that in this position, in real life, my tank wouldn't be able to return fire. I think it would be great to have those two aspects simulated. It would balance the fight against tanks, especially with insurgent, and would force the player to use combined forces to win in mout.