A Canadian Cat

A totally unexpected surprise wonders into the view of my Stug on the ridge above town. An Achilles breaks cover facing away from the Stug. Direct hit. And a second round to finish the job. Over at the farm the 95mm Churchill breaks over and picks off some of my men. The Stug that I thought would protect them did not spot the enemy tank. Not a big surprise with all that foliage.

There is a bit of excitement this turn at the other entrance to the town. My infantry screen there spot and engage a scout car. That would be a bit of a scary fire fight but there is a good chance with their automatic weapons they can come out on top, except… … that immobilized Churchill is too close and can provide fire support for the scouts. Rats I did not back the infantry spotter of far enough. The team that was sent to finish off the dismounted Churchill tank were caught in the open by a Stuart. It finished them off quickly. Fortunately a third Shrek team did the job. That tank is not going to be remounted.

Geiger’s squad continues to perform heroically. Literally staring down the gun barrel of the Churchill they continue their assault. Destroying the tank and forcing the crew to bail out and try to cut them down in a hail of bullets. That last part does not go smoothly. They take two casulaties. But they do manage to take out the crew men with the Sten Gun before they run off. I cannot complain about their performance. They have had a rough couple of minutes. Their platoon mates are coming to back them up. That crew will not last much longer.

My thoughts as well. I plan to pick up the new one because it looks interesting. +1 for NATO vs Warsaw Pact circa 1980. But don't worry I am not holding my breath.

Battle of the bulge will be a new game. Market Garden will be a module that will add on to Battle for Normandy.

I had not been watching for that so I will take your word for it for sure. They already had their heads down and in craters from a previous bombardment when that round came down. So they did have pretty good cover considering. They were shaken and started running away. Sadly for them they ran right into that tank. But they were brave and stared down the barrel of the tank's gun and kept on fighting. An excellent moment for sure. I have watched the next turn and their heroism continues.

Having that Churchill tank running around back there is not good. Since Geiger and his men are in good order and right there they decide to try to finish the job. Their platoon mates come to help. Given the fact that twice now tanks have left the town and attacked the infantry’s flank there, it is time to do something about it. I am sending 1 Platoon back into the woods. They have a Shrek team and several Fausts so hopefully with some careful scouting and positioning they can protect the flank. The artillery barrage that has not arrived yet was supposed to prevent that from happening.

Two solid hits from their grenades while under MG fire. They actually end the turn in good order. Not sure what the next turn will bring because that thank is still on one piece. Nothing much changed at the Orchard or the Farm – there was a small pistol duel at 20 paces with a tank crew at the far. Nothing a full platoon of infantry cannot handle easily.

Finally that Churchill in the town has been dealt with. But not without cost. As the turn begins the Tank shifts to its left and the AT team that was attacking it from my right is caught by the tank as they move into position. On the plus side that means the team attacking to the left get a better chance. This time they do not disappoint. One shot, one hit. The tank is not destroyed but the crew bails out. And my squads in the nearby buildings waste little time gunning them down as they flee. Only one crew man is left standing as the turn ends. Over in the woods disaster strikes. Geiger’s squad that was attacked by a Churchill tank leaving the town are nearly hit by a 150mm spotting round. Yikes that round is way off. Totally by luck, probably because they were taking cover from the tank attack earlier no one was hurt. But their morale was shaken and one the dust settles they run away shaken. Unfortunately they are out of the fire and run right into the pan. That Churchill tank has moved to flank them and they run right into it as they flee the artillery. Given what they have been through they have every right to want to give up. But they do not.

OOps should have read the rest of the forum posts. Welcome back none the less.

Oh good to see you on the forums again. Does that mean your modding itch needs scratching and you are working on some new cool mods?

That Churchill threatening my infantry entering the town will get a nice surprise from the side – if all goes according to plan.

Now that the Stug crew is back where they belong that last Stug can withdraw to the woods. I have decided that the Panthers need infantry along too so trucks arrive to pick up the rest of the platoon that never quite made it to the farm complex. I tried to call motar fire with 5 Company’s mortars but the cannot fire in the woods. The will redeploy behind the woods. I have had enough of this pesky Churchill tank so I now have two Shrek teams going after it. And they have pauses at their targeting way point this time too. I really hope they can get the job done this time. The attack from the other side.

At the farm things are quiet. In the orchard the dismounted Stug crew gets back no board.

There is almost an exciting moment early in the turn. My Shrek team finally gets a bead on that Churchill tank. I expect a beautiful explosion only my heart sinks when they decide – “nah this is too good we need more of a challenge” as the run off back to cover. That tank has been a sitting duck for, how many turns now, and I cannot finish it off. Grrrrrr! I think what happed is that the tube guy was bringing up the rear. Any time I have seen this move work with no pause the tube guy arrives at the way point first. While he is waiting for his partner it is enough time to commit to firing and he will take the shot. This time, for whatever reason, the loader was leading the way and therefore when the tube guy got there it was time to go. Now this was too close. Spotting rounds for my 150 land right near the lead infantry in town. Way to close for comfort. No one is injured by several teams are suppressed. More bad news, another Churchill tank is sneaking out of town and threatening my infantry entering town. Clearly this tank is going to be a problem.

This is not unreasonable advice but I tend to take it easy on guess work area fire. The problem comes, if during the turn, a better target appears your men no have to choose between doing what you told them to do and doing what they would naturally do. To often they keep doing what you asked them to do, to their determent. I have been using the new Target Briefly command for this. It allows you to put down some area fire but frees your men up for most of the turn in case something develops.

+1 for that choice.

Well CMBN 2.0 has all those enhancements too. Thing is map overlay image, road and wall routing makes map making easier but the other improvements give the author more flexibility with the AI they do not really make programming the AI any easier.

No way, Large Rocks are impassible to Tanks (and other vehicles). Many maps have hills with large rocks *do* have gaps her and there that create paths that tanks can get up the hill. In that case the AI pathing system will "find" them and allow a tank to go from the bottom of the hill - and that process will be "reluctant". Even if you hut for the gaps your self and plot a good path it is painful to watch the tanks pick their way along. Probably appropriate but still painful.

Wait a second this is the latest version of CMFI - doesn't that mean it probably has the updated MG characteristics ala CMBN 2.01? Are you just trying to see that new MG behaviour in action?

I am still working on this: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?p=1391571&posted=1#post1391571 The AI is proving trickier that I expected (and I expected it to be tricky). This is my first go at programming the AI - I will get there.

To me the average looks pretty much the same (the slow test does show some early damage with one platoon of tanks though). I chalked this up to 15 runs not being enough to smooth out the bumps and what Vinnart said about the tanks showing down when they approached the wall (i.e. they are all really going slow over the wall). Anyway my take away is the same as what I was already doing - spread the wall beaching around amongst your tanks. Don't let one tank keep breaching walls. When a tank gets to yellow their breaching days should be over (except for emergencies). Trust me you do not want to watch a tank drive around with orange track status.

Agreed - can you comment on if this is suitable for H2H play and which side has AI plans?

Ninja'ed by Vinnart but I will post my quick testing anyway since it took me a while to create it. This was done with 15 PzIVs (three platoons). They ran on a course of about 1km with three types of walls (brick, stone, rural stone). First, the type of low wall made no noticeable difference. There is quite a bit of randomness involved but patterns emerge that I suspect will hold out over more test runs - but I am not doing any more. It looks like on average 5 wall breaches will cause a PzIV to get to yellow and 10 will take it to orange. But sometimes it only takes two walls to get to Yellow. In the thirty runs only three tanks took no damage running over their first wall. The other thing I noticed looking at the raw data was that just because your tank had early success or early failure does not mean it will be one of the tanks that beats or exceeds the average. In two cases (look at the slow tank 2 platoon data) the HQ and number 1 tank managed to get to yellow after two wall breaches but then went the next 8 and 6 walls with no additional damage and ended up right on the average for getting to orange. Raw data. Fast tanks saved game Slow tanks saved game

It would be shooting via a TRP so there would not *be* any spotting rounds. I wonder if the hatches are modeled to that level of detail. I say go for it and find out.