A Canadian Cat

LOL love the hood ornament.

Nope. Close proximity does that not covered arcs.

The key word there is KNOW. How often do you know? There are times for sure. The issue I have is what you don't know. Given that target arcs for for preventing a unit from firing I usually don't want that. There is no behind the scenes bonus. None. But the spotting works in CM based on where the crew are facing. So, if you use a covered arc to turn a turret to face a direction other than straight forward it will change where the crew are looking. THAT does influence the chances of spotting something. Therefore if you correctly determine where the enemy will be and make sure your people are looking in that direction things will go better for you. That's to bad. I use it regularly now and get good results the vast majority of the time. You are not wrong and facing and covered arcs are not magic tools to decrease spotting times. They are magic tools to get your guys to be looking the right way though. And *that* does help. Your men spot based on what kind of optics or other assistive devices they have and what direction they are looking - compared with where the enemy are coming from. So facing and target arcs are important tools to direct your soldiers stance but they do not change what they spot and the do not prevent or alter their usual attempts at situational awareness. In other words even with an arc on they still look to their 6 and to their left and right from time to time.

A couple of thoughts. Starting with why do you want a target arc? My thoughts on target arcs is don't use them. The only exception is when you don't want a unit to fire. So, for example troops doing recon have short circular cover arcs so they don't start shooting at distant enemies. Infantry AT teams have a circular armour covered arc at a decent range for their AT weapon. That way they don't take low odds long shots and they don't start shooting at enemy infantry. Why would you want a tank to get into a hull down position and then not fire at the enemy? There is an alternative way to perform hull down. I personally don't do this because its scary to me. The other way is to set the hull down move order way point at the location you want to be hull down to. So instead of setting a hull down move order just over the hill you set it over the hill down the slope and into the tree line. The tank is supposed to move along the path and find a hull down position relative to the end point. The reason I find it scary is because if it does not find a hull down position it will drive to the end which by definition is where you expect the enemy to be. But if you are OK with that adding a cover arc at the end might be respected when the tank stops. I never tried it - I only ever tested this method of hull down and I never tried adding covered arcs into the mix.

This is the method I use - and I have also not added commands after the hull down command Bummer - I have used it the way @domfluff describes to great effect. I really like the command and use it lots. In fact the Sherman that scored the last PzIV kill in our game was positioned using the hull down command the right behind where your tank drove up. Re #4 I believe but have not tested this personally a target command will be cancelled once the hull down position is found while the target briefly command will be executed once the hull down position is reached. That lets you control if the tank area fires or not. I still typically only have on hull down command at the end of the other movement commands. If my first guess cannot get an area target on the desired area I just adjust the final way point and try again.

The activity here has picked up since the CMSF2 was announced. Honestly I never liked the idea of asymmetrical warfare. But I have to admit the conversation here is starting to win me over. I am still not pulling the trigger for two reasons - don't think I could stand the difference in features and UI and I know I will be annoyed with the licensing. That plus, I have more CM projects to do than I have time for already so adding a new game to the stable needs to be seamless not bump filled CMSF2 should fit that bill.

I am still not a SF owner waiting for CMSF2 but reading in the mean time. LOL yeah I hear ya. The study of economics is changing - they are moving from the broken "everyone behaves rationally" to a much more realistic "everyone's decision making is kinda interesting and not always rational even though they think it is". As a consequence economists are getting better results.

Another time I wish we still had the like button +1

Nice succinct list of resource links - bookmarked to share in the future.

Well the Economist is - this link is basically an opinion piece - if you read it, the issues they are talking about are already issues with Orthodox Jewish communities, Catholic parishes and even various Amish and other Christian sects. The true issues are that various religions have a habit of stomping in people's rights the Sharia that is actually an issue is no different at all. The real problem is there are political groups that like to twist it into some siren cry that our legal system will be swept away and there will be floggings, beheadings and hands chopped off in public parks. Which is utterly ridiculous. I'm all for getting religious zealots to stop telling Catholics they cannot re-marry or stopping the Church of S from shunning people and splitting families. If the focus was on those issues and they covered all religions the same... But they don't because their true motives are not about social justice at all. Just think about it - if the people spouting this stuff were serious about people's rights why do we not hear them go off about other religion's treatment of women, children and favour "men" in their dispute resolution. Just think on it - if you do you might see the truth. But we are getting even further off topic now.

LOL I think it speaks volumes about the human condition. Everyone's bias to see the head winds and not the tail winds: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-is-my-life-so-hard/ Many of us should find some things to be grateful for in general but here relating to CM. That last sentence will make sense if you listen to the Podcast.

I decided to host my images for posing on my own web site using Piwigo gallery. I now have that running on my site and I am using the extension Piwigo2Img to generate [ IMG ] tags or [ URL ] tags for insertion into posts. That gives me a solution nearly as easy as Photo Bucket but totally under my control. My hosting service offers support for Piwgo gallery so the install was a piece of cake.

But even then they would most likely come to the fight with some kind of weapon. Picking up gear off of enemy casulties would most likely be disassembled and cleaned first and used tomorrow instead of in the moment.

There are QB packs on the scenario depot: http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/tsd3/

Just to be clear there is no code that gives an advantage to unit based on its nation of origin. There is no code that gives an advantage to equipment based on its nation of origin. The values for training, morale and leadership mean the same for everyone and units with a particular value behave the same no matter what nation a unit is from. For equipment BFC have made an honest assessment of their capabilities based as much as possible on evidence and using educated guesses for any gaps. So if you could give the same gear to another nation and you then set their soft factors the same they would perform the same. The advantages you see in the game are because seeing better, reacting quicker matter and make a difference. So if its training that give a particular unit advantages over another or it has better gear that give them advantages they reflect reality not some code that helps out one nation over another. Let us also be clear mistakes have been made - many have even been fixed. Let us also be clear that many hear have, shall we say, interesting ideas on the performance of equipment. Those two things are not likely to change. We will have lots to discuss around what is a bug and what is not and whether <insert piece of gear here> really does perform that way in real life. By all means lets have those discussions - like I could stop you guys But do not forget the basic truth - there is no coding that makes units from nation X perform any better than units from nation Y.

This was always a risky proposition. Likely the converted map has something on it that does not exist in the new destination. You might be able to solve it by closely examining the map for possible candidate terrain, buildings or other features and delete and replace them. Can you actually enter the 3D preview in the scenario editor?

Wow, that was a bit over the top there. There is no prevailing anti Russian sentiment on there forums. There is a well earned skepticism of the performance of new kit and the description of its production. You also have a pretty strong contingent of people who are very much aware of teething pains. LOL the liberal media? Where the heck did that come from. Not only is that a massive myth it is not even relavant here.

I only found this scenario: http://www.combatmission.lesliesoftware.com/BattleForNormandy/Scenarios/TWC Purple Heart Draw.html and this campaign: http://www.combatmission.lesliesoftware.com/BattleForNormandy/Campaigns/Blue and Gray.html

An alternative way to find opponents is to join a war gaming club - here is a thread with several options:

This isn't rocket science guys. The ? contact icons represent a variety of "my unit thinks something is there". One team might hear an an enemy unit or they might see indeterminate movement in the trees. They tell their Lt who shares that with the Captain both of whom now get a ? contact icon that represents just being told one of their subordinates thinks they detected (in some way) an enemy unit. Ergo the ? does *not* just represent a sound contact it represents *any* type of contact. It is unclear to me what @SLIM would need to apologize for he just tried to explain how it works. Hopefully my attempt at it will work better for you but I thought his was clear and polite and helpful.

I tried them this morning. Even re-plotting your orders to stop on the one intermediate AS did not get the crew to do what you wanted - lazy bastards . Normally that is the way to get them to go the route you want - plot a move order ever AS between where they are and where you want the to go. Typically you don't need to hit ever AS but for this small patch of woods and short distance I would have. It didn't help though. My guess is the desire to push the gun over smoother terrain vs through the brush is stronger than a simple infantry team (who also like to take the easy way) and that is enough to get them to choose to go around. That is just speculation on my part. Bottom line I logged the bug. Thanks

Cool adding a graphics card will be a good thing (tm). Make sure your machine really does have a slot for an internal card and some cards take up the space for two (not because they actually have two connectors but because the thickness of the board is large). Just two things to be aware of. And yes adding / replacing a graphics card is pretty straight forward.

The Canadian army really started using drones for observation during the fight in Afghanistan. So, it all depends on the CMSF story line. If it is set in a 2007 where Canada has already been fighting in Afghanistan for years then they would have likely brought drones to use. We started using out own in Afghanistan in 2003 (before that we either borrowed or had the use of some from the US). For reference they were " Sperwer unmanned aircraft " see pp 7-8 of http://mdacorporation.com/docs/default-source/brochures/isg/surveillance-and-intelligence/c4isr/airborne-surveillance-and-intelligence-systems/historyuavs.pdf?sfvrsn=4

Yeah, those embedded graphics cards are problematic. I had a old work machine that would not play CM using the built in Intel chip but it had a "high performance" Nvidia card too so I could play when I had the game use that card. My current work machine also has a built in card but now "high performance" alternative. But it can limp a long and play the game. It sucks though so I don't bother. Does your notebook have an add on video card? If it does you can set the game to run with that.

Interesting. I recently had about five jeeps destroyed by small arms fire. I had no idea the scenario I was playing was an attack - thought it was a meeting engagement. So, long story shot, my platoon of jeep mounted paras that I dispatched to take a key cross road resulted in all hands lost and all jeeps burning wrecks. All from just small arms fire. They were US jeeps BTW - I just put the Brit paras into them for transport trying to get the SMG heavy paras into some buildings around a cross roads.