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It's the first time I faced the T-34/85, and I was mightily impressed.

I found it a very challenging scenario playing as the Germans- I hope I'm not giving too much away by saying that.

Well, CMFI with Gustav Line has US, British, Canadian, New Zealand, and Polish troops. US Paratroopers, British paras, German Fallschirmjager, and Italians. It has snowy landscapes, dry semi-tropical landscapes, and mountains. Units with overcoats, which is cool to see. Italy and Sicily were very intense and, from a military historical point of view, fascinating campaigns. (Check out a book called 'Ten Armies in Hell' for an introduction.) If you end up buying it, you will not be disappointed by lack of content, I'll say that much.

Very cool. There's a similar page out there with views in the Eastern front as well.

A more general suggestion- play a few infantry battles as the defender, against an attacker whom you consider to be a good player. Watch how he does things. How he uses terrain, sets up suppression, arranges numerical advantage in an attack, etc. I think we learn well by seeing, when our own practice is not working out properly.

Nicely composed video. It looks like there are more than one possible AI setups in the campaign. Regardless of what the briefing says about not getting points for preserving your tanks, the player will still need their firepower during the fight, and in subsequent battles. And don't you think it's rather bad form to casually sacrifice any of your units, regardless of the circumstances? I found this a hard battle, and had to give up early any hope of keeping much of my infantry safe from casualties, as the briefing wants you to try to do. I did force the AI to surrender though.

They are all great games, and I am always happy to play any of them. But the most important differences for me are the in the feel of the landscapes, so I like the green lands of Normandy and Holland best. Not that there aren't great maps to be had in RT or in FI.

Seems a good idea. It might make the AI a bit more effective opponent as well, since it never deliberately does area fire after losing a contact. "Out of sight, out of mind."

For those interested in the pro's and con's of the Sherman and its role in the war, I think Steve Zaloga's book 'Armored Thunderbolt' is the most in-depth look. Some positive aspects of the Sherman, as far as I know- Easily mass produced. Fit on US rail cars (to be shipped to ports). Reliable. Good mobility. Good HE shell, three MG's on board. (Tanks spent a lot more time dealing with enemy infantry rather than enemy tanks.) These are all basically 'big picture' advantages, not tank vs. tank dueling advantages, and the war was a big picture.

My experience was with a platoon of PzIII's versus a platoon of Shermans in PBEM. About 400 to 500 meters range as I recall. The 50 mm shells simply wouldn't penetrate the Sherman's front armor, except in a small fraction of cases. The Panzers got about 8 or ten hits resulting in one Sherman knocked out. (Lower front hull penetration- the tank burned.) Several Pz III's were knocked out handily and I broke contact; the rest were killed by Shermans later in the battle. It was enough to discourage me from ever trying to repeat the exercise. Statistically significant? No. An impressive lesson? Yes. Hats off to those who've had better luck.

Yeah, facing Shermans with the Pz III is a losing bet. It's not impossible to KO a Sherman from the front with a 50mm gun, but your tanks won't live to celebrate that possibility. I learned this from experience- I too like the idea of fighting with the non-uber tanks, but they can't just can't slug it out from the front. I wonder how the PZ III M was doing at Kursk, facing T-34's? Not terribly well, I'm guessing.

I often have trouble figuring out slight terrain elevation changes on a map. (Perhaps because I'm a bit impatient.) But I have discovered a helpful trick to identify the important elevation changes, even when it's only a matter of a couple meters in height. What I do is go down to the lowest level, or just slightly above the lowest, and then place the mouse cursor right on the skyline (or horizon). Then, (without touching the mouse, keyboard command only)I slowly rotate my POV and watch as the horizon line dips below or rises above the cursor. This might sound kind of dumb, but this method makes it far easier to precisely judge the shape of the terrain, especially when it is crowded with high grass, trees, etc, which can be very distracting to the eye. And sometimes the terrain is sloping very evenly, deceiving you into assuming that you're looking at a level plane. I hope this is of some use to anyone who has regretted concluding, 'Heck, the map's pretty much flat; I'm gonna ignore elevation entirely on this one!'

Regarding the drawbacks of the British and Commonwealth infantry section's weapons- Those rifles might seem more adequate in less intense fighting. It is often noted that CM players push their units and take risks and casualties to a degree far beyond what was usually done in the actual war. If there were fewer mad assaults, less holding to the last man, and more engagements from longer, safer distances, the British weapons might make a bit more sense. Not that I would try to claim they are superior. I do like the 2 inch mortar in the game. It's the only weapon I count on to really hurt or suppress or dislodge dangerous opponents like guns or HMG's. And if you have extra 2 inch ammo in your vehicles, so much the better.

Reviving this old thread- Has anyone played this scenario H2H? I can't quite tell if all the previous posts are talking about fighting the AI. And has anyone won as the Germans against a human opponent? And how did you do it? I'm not going to say why I'm asking...

If the target is relying on a building for cover, it would be a shame if the building got flattened by shellfire. As the man says in a certain Monty Python skit, 'Things break, y'know...'

Even if HE doesn't damage a tank, it can cause a pretty impressive suppression of the crew, and the dust raised by the shelling can effectively blind it. (You learn this by seeing it when it happens to your own tanks.) These effects can allow you to get your attacking tanks into position more safely. Also you can sometimes get HE hits on a tank even if it is out of LOS, by firing at terrain where you are likely to get some overshots. HE hits sometimes seem more likely to make a tank retreat than AP hits do. You can eventually strip away concealing foliage with HE too.

I waited a long time before playing other people (in the earliest Combat Mission games), and ended up wishing I'd not waited so long. I have great admiration for a friend of mine, whom I beat about six times in a row, in his first games, and was still having too much fun to get discouraged. A good example for all players, new or old.

Head to head- playing against people rather than against the Artificial Intelligence of the game. It's much more challenging and much, much more rewarding. But it is appropriate to learn the game at first by playing the campaigns, which can not be played h2h. Glad to have your enthusiasm here; it is entirely warranted.

Thomm, I will keep the save games.

It's an abstraction, then. Maybe the effect that startled me, "Surely x component was destroyed given the path of the shell, but it's not.", could be reduced by not having the shell represented so often going all the way through the vehicle. You would see the shell go in and what happens inside is up to the gods of armored warfare. As it is now, shells pass all the way through in what seems to me a high proportion of the time, and the paired hit decals are creating an expectation of component damage that isn't being met. Let me say that I am writing this in a spirit of overall admiration of the game, and wanting to help reduce the instance of things that look 'off'.

This T-34 has been penetrated all the way through the hull by an 88, and it is still running and mobile several minutes later. Check the location of the entry and exit hit decals- there's no way the shell could have missed the motor (and transmission). So if the ideal is 'what you see is what you get', I humbly suggest that the way damage is calculated needs a new look. If this issue has been raised, touched upon, or flogged to death previously, I missed the thread. If a save game file is needed, I can provide one of the tank moving, and possibly the older file from when it got hit. (I only recently noticed the exit decal.) http://imgur.com/mlJyrU1 http://imgur.com/pbhFJYB

I just read 'Ten Armies in Hell', which I recommend for anyone interested in Cassino. Tells the importance of the French (North African) contribution to the battle, of which I had known little. British Pathe on Youtube has some pretty amazing footage of the terrain during the battle, for all you scenario designers. Just search 'British Pathe Cassino'.

And in an assault QB the attacker always gets some intelligence (icons) of the defender's units. At least in CMFI it is so.

Seems like a good suggestion. A delay in firing, or a penalty to accuracy, when a tank takes a serious hit.

Also in some cases, if not all, the appearance of wood or brick is just cosmetic and doesn't affect cover.