Calibration

I'm looking forward to the more detailed modelling of attrition on AFV capabilities. I can already see how it may begin to affect your defensive AT tactics. I don't suppose you can modify what you shoot at, i.e, specifically target running gear and so forth which was a known Allied tactic?

The penetration tables in CMx1 do not just inform the tactical choices of the player. For me they give much added value to the game because of their educational aspect. Whether BF wish to have them or not in some incarnation of the CM:BN series is their commercial decision of course but you can add me to the lobby wishing for them to be included in some form.

Of course, CMx1 is full of abstractions but after all my years of playing it I still gnash my teeth when I get told my tank has achieved a turret penetration on an enemy AFV only for the latter to fire back a few seconds later and nail you in return with one shot. Of course, when it's the other way around it's great It's the relative high frequency of such events which seem anomolous given that I've never come across such an incident in any description of RL WW2 tank combat. Then I again, I can't claim to uber-grogness in my reading. I also question a bit the overall lethality of the smaller AP (i.e. with less bursting charge) rounds in CMx1. My personal record for the most penetrating hits in one minute failing to kill it's opponent is 7 by an Italian M13/40 on a Stuart. In an other thread Steve mentioned that infantry combat in CM:BN should "feel" better than CMx1. I'm hoping the same will be said for tank combat....great though CMx1 is overall.

As I understand, but not really what I was asking It's the effect on crew performance I was interested in.

Certain aspects of modelling the effect of an AT round hitting a tank are tractable if non-trivial problems. Penetration probability is a question of physics. The probability of causing a crew casualty one assumes can be derived or extrapolated from RL casualty statistics. What strikes me as very hard to model is the non-lethal effect (noise, concussion etc.) on the crew of sitting inside a steel container as a round slams around inside it. In CMx1, in essence, a non-lethal (i.e. excluding a crew casualty or mechanical damage) penetrating round has no significant influence on the combat performance a tank. A very temporary raising of the alert status is all you usually see if anything. I may be in a minority here, but it has never felt right to see a tank receive a penetrating hit (or multiple hits) and continue to be able to shoot with no loss in accuracy or efficiency of its own fire. So, I'm curious about how CM:BN addresses this issue if at all. All the best.

But the command delay system was meant to in part represent the time taken to interpret the chain of commands from the highest level trickling down to the individual unit as well as the interpretation of those commands by the unit was it not? Whilst your argument accounts for the latter to some extent it doesn't account for the former. No problem. I apologise if someone else has mentioned it in this thread (I have read it but I may have missed it) but would I be far off the mark if I said that one philosophical difference between CMx1 and CM:BN appears to be that in former the player firmly represents the overall commander and in the latter he essentially becomes each unit as he selects them?

I think the CMx1 command delay system could have been tweaked a bit. If you assume that the delay is related to the complexity of the order you give a unit, then it would be reasonable in the majority of cases to assume that a command stream containing the same order types is less complex than one with different order types. i.e. typically FAST-FAST-FAST-FAST is a less complex order than FAST-FAST-MOVE_to_CONTACT-REVERSE. What you could have done is made the additional delay shorter if a command is the same as the preceding one than if it is different. Thus the first command sequence above, which in the vast majority of the times is what you give to a vehicle ordered to drive down a road, would take less time than the second which is what you might give to a tank to move to a rise and then scout ahead and reverse if it spots something. I think this would have given a better overall experience in the majority of cases where you need to issue multiple command sequences. Also, imho, lessening the command delay in some circumstances does not significantly weaken the already huge differences between conscript and crack troops as mentioned above. The system as implemented in CMx1 was frustrating at times but CMx1 would have been a much poorer game without it. I haven't played the new engine yet.