A Canadian Cat

Minute 44-43: Nothing much happened. Artillery fell, tanks fired at the tower, 4 platoon advanced. Minute 43: Orders Same as before except one tank is dropping to MGs only. To do that I had to move it forward slightly to get a better angle.

As long as I don't run out the clock...

Good workaround - or have a friend do it for ya.

LOL hee hee. Naw I'm not saying that. What I meant by "All I'm doing..." is "When I test force selection all I'm doing is..." In other words any testing I do is looking for really odd off the wall force selections not trying to create some perfect force selections that will satisfy everyone.

Correct. I will spend a lot of time pressing the suggest button so you don't have to What I have noticed is that some people still don't like the auto selected forces. All I'm doing is catching the 9 AT guns or all armoured cars type errors. I make not warranty that the % balance between force type will make *you* happy Quite true. The OP was looking for a way to start with a combined arms force and then tweak it - that is all I was commenting on.

Minute 45-44: The tanks delivered some real hurt to any observers in the church towner. I’ll let them do that a little longer and then switch to the tank’s MGs. Figure 9 HE delivery Minute 44: Orders Move moving along the river… Figure 10 Moving along the river There is no sign of anything dangerous to tanks. So, time to see what happens. One tank will move up to a position behind the farm. This will expose them only to the village on the far right and a small sub set of the town ahead. We will see how that goes… Figure 11 One tank moves up

And with a promotion too - he is showing up as a Lt in this game But I'll just pretend it ain't so and keep calling him Sgt Jeremy.

^^^^ that and they don't have to just drive flat out down the road either. They can slip into the woods and stop for a while. I'm not saying that there cannot be TacAI improvements - just talking about ways, today, to make good use of recon vehicles while exposing them less to danger.

Actually some systems *do* know who is lazing you - OK the don't know who but the know which direction it came from. The M1s in game will spin their turrets towards the threat - this is because the lazer detection system actually *does* know what direction the enemy is in. So, that means that if you see one more more inferior enemy and you get lazed M1 crews would actually know if it was one of those visible contacts or some other threat they have not yet seen. Which means they can decide which of the inferior enemy to target first or decide there is an unknown threat out there and they should back off and find it first.

You got good answers except for this one. Yes, I know there are issues with the automatic force selection and I personally pledge to help make that better but you can press the suggest button and use that as a starting point. In games where the automatic force selection is not quite up to your standards push it again. And again if needed. Since we are talking about wanting a place to start I suspect that a few suggestions would yield a choice you can use as a starting point.

Oh I do not disagree with you at all - like you said when you are outside it is pretty straight forward to see / feel what direction the wind is coming from. I was just being helpful and pointing out a way to get your answer faster than you have been. You could make a good argument that being able to tell the wind direction is something that you can "just feel it and know" where as the direction you are facing might actually take a moment to consider - i.e. looking at your compass for a moment. At any rate that thing that is not a compass that people call a compass could be tweaked to show wind direction. That would be useful.

Well if you set them off you get a marker telling you that there are mines there. Mark mines allow your men to travel through the mines with much less chance of setting them off. I am still avoiding the mines as much as possible by with a Move order if some of my men stray a bit they will most likely not cause a mess. Not a guarantee but without marking them you can have a guarantee that your guy will hit them if they try to cross.

Wind direction and strength is listed in the conditions - and that info comes from the engine so you know it has it right. Use Menu | Conditions instead of Menu | Briefing, I think you will be happy(ier).

Yeah, its just rationalization / imagination but its all we got I suppose. I see what you mean about surrendering cutting off your ability to do buddy aid. Good to be a little attached to your pixel troops - it will make you a better commander IMHO.

Minute 46-45: Finally I spotted something. Yeah, my actually HQ team has a contact on a light AFV, so halftrack or light tank not sure which. Figure 6 First contact Minute 45: Orders Sgt Jeremy’s Troop of Sherman tanks arrived this turn. Excellent. First order of business get some real hurt delivered to any enemy observers in that tower. Second order of business stay tucked away in the trees for now. It will be interesting to see what the Sherman tanks can spot from their slightly higher vantage point. I unbuttoned them all and placed them nicely in the trees. Figure 7 Fire on the tower Figure 8 Ditto

Minute 19-18: Well that was a great turn for me. My men managed to get to the corner bocage before the German reinforcements did and they were able to break their resolve and send them running. First the tank fire ended just as the assault teams started moving into the open. Figure 137 Keep their heads down Other teams kept the fire up. Figure 138 Covering fire As the assault teams ran past. Figure 139 Advance The assault teams got to the next field in good order and immediately spotted the enemy moving in the next field. Figure 140 Already firing into the next field Where my men dealt out punishment in the form of bullets… Figure 141 The results …and grenades. Figure 142 Grenades I could not have asked for a better outcome. I caused at least two casualties and at team or two to run away. My men took no casualties and next to no fire even. I am slightly nervous that next turn might not be as good because there could have been suppressed Germans right in front of them that they have not spotted yet that can cause all kinds of trouble next turn. Minute 18: Orders Next set of orders can be summarized by – get a move on. Time to commit 3rd platoon to the road approach. These orders get them around the mines and up the road. Plus you can see some of the woods teams are moving for the road bocage as well. Only the part that has its LOS blocked from the trenches. Figure 143 3rd platoon on the move Also I’ll get the tanks to move up as well. They can help deal with any new resistance my infantry meet. Figure 144 Tanks move up

Sounds like a good technique. No I was not doing that because I was rushing I do that all the time. I either blast along the obstacle (with a fast move after even further along) so my engineers never go into harms way or I blast up to the obstacle and then run sideways. In lines like this the blast up to technique is bit tight so I used the along technique like I pretty much always do. This time it had a surprising result of taking out the hedge hogs.

That sucks? I suppose what you are saying makes sense but I cannot imagine the effort to make that change would be worth it. So my thought would be: stop thinking about it Yeah glib I know but the launcher could have just as easily been damaged and not recoverable just think of it that way.

LOL thanks for that - sigh. Let see if I can fix that earlier post

Excellent. Good to know. I have been avoiding do what you have setup here and using a tactic similar to @slysniper - which works well. Good to know there might me more flexibility available. You know I actually missed that - it just looks so normal to me I am glad you like them. Oh you have been missing out. Red Thunder icons have been around for a while: http://cmmods.greenasjade.net/mods/5153/details There is a set for CMFI: http://cmmods.greenasjade.net/mods/5165/details and one for CMBS too: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/118057-nato-tactical-symbol-icon-replacements/

It is automatic. It is a pretty rare sight - or at least it has been for me

Anonymous: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/anon(see the last definition)

Wow I'm shocked. Really I am. I definitely have had troops who were hiding wiped out without reacting hardly at all. I have to ask though how many times did you run this experiment? Also how was the ambush team at spotting the Americans? Hiding troops ability to spot the enemy has been in my experience where the problem with reacting lies - if you cannot see the enemy you cannot react. This proves once again that nothing beats trying it out. PS. BTW the "A Team" would *never* allow such a thing to happen to them

Not hiding troops no. I am not sure how that works with vehicles, which is the subject of this thread. I have never used hide on vehicles.

I imagine it happens pretty fast for crews in real life too. The game is already set up to pop smoke and pull back when a threat is detected except if 1) the crew is already in the process of aiming and firing, or 2) the crew has fast move orders, which the game AI assumes means you the player decided that moving forward is the safer choice. There was plenty of discussion during testing and real life tankers said just what @panzersaurkrautwerfer just said. So, the tac ai is attempting to simulate that now. I can say without reservation that this tac ai behaviour is so much better than the initial draft. I have been happy with the behaviour. Sure I have had some instances where I wish a crew did differently but I see that as what would happen - the company CO wanted X and half his crew got if right and the other half got close. Right now the tac ai will hold steady and fire of the aiming process has started. Although having said that I bet crew experience factors in. Are you saying you want that hold and complete the firing process decision should be moved back to just spotting the enemy? I suppose we could debate where in the decision cycle the call to stay and fire is made. I have to say, for myself I am currently happy with it as it is. But hey I might be happy with a different settled too) ;