Broadsword56

I just wanted to be sure you didn't take my post about my view of "gamey" tactics personally, and didn't think I was questioning your expertise in CM or real-world military intel.

No offense intended. The AAR is a delight to follow, even as it makes the wait for the game all the more excruciating.

Point well taken...so maybe a player's incorrect assumption about "last" tanks accurately simulates the false assumptions that real WWII commanders and G-2 guys would make back in their HQ, while the troops on the line had to carry out the resulting orders and pay the consequences.

Also, it's more realistic (and safer) not to "count tanks" as we see the players doing in this AAR. It's not only gamey (like counting cards in blackjack), but has led the players into some wrong guesses already. The real troops had no idea whether they were facing the "last" 2 tanks of a platoon or the lead elements of a whole battalion and had to just deal with the developing situation as they could see it, so personally that's how I like to roll.

Can snipers in CM:BN pick off TC's standing in an unbuttoned turret cupola?

Let's say you were the US commander and had to assault those 75s or 88s on the distant ridge using Shermans. Ideally, I'd do it at night. I saw an episode of "Greatest Tank Battles" recently where that's exactly what they did, forming up in a great big armored phalanx, following the little dot of each other's tail lights. By the time the Germans could react, the Shermans were already in the midst of their positions and were overrunning them, and the range advantages the Germans had were all negated. Would an attack like this be possible to re-create in CMBN? We have the ability to fight at all hours of day or night, right? Do we have illumination effects?

This AAR has been a revelation and hugely entertaining to read. I hope the rest of us in the player community post some of our own like this once the game is out, because reading a juicy and vividly depicted AAR is almost as fun as playing the game (especially when you're at work at can't play!).

This also makes me think that if the Wehrmacht had been allowed to retreat from Normandy sooner and been able to save its Panzer formations (instead of losing them to attrition, air attack, and the final slaughter in the Falaise pocket and the hopeless Mortain counteroffensive), they would have given Allied armor a much tougher fight at the longer ranges and open spaces E and SE of Normandy where the Operation Cobra spearheads ultimately broke out and raced through. OTOH, the more open country would have made the Panzers even more vulnerable to air attack -- so maybe they were doomed anyway (?)

It just gets better and better!

I referenced this on the reading reference thread the other day (and it's written by a CM player, too): *Steel Victory: The Heroic Story of America's Independent Tank Battalions at War in Europe, by Harry Yeide (Presidio Press, 2003). The "independent" in the title refers to those battalions that served in direct support of infantry divisions throughout the 1944-45 campaigns, rather than the ones in armored divisions.

Just was looking for where I read about the TC's and their small arms, but can't find it. The way the game does it sounds just fine, and I'm sure it was a matter of considerable debate even among the real tankers whether it was better to be in or out. Maybe the overwatching TC was an early practice that faded after enough TCs got shot and they became more savvy about self-preservation than projecting a courageous image to their crew.

Of course this is smarter and the preferred tactic -- IF the tank is still alive after spotting the AT team and the TC is still alive and has the time to button up, order reverse, call out target to the gunner, etc. But we're talking ambush situation here -- so in many cases it's crucial to spot the AT team and lay down some fire immediately so they can't get off the first shot. Then the tank could still button up and go for the kill. TCs actually did get themselves shot all the time (or all too often). Even so, at least on the Allied side, they chose to stay unbuttoned while traveling in possible ambush situations (if no infantry was nearby to support them), because they felt it gave the tank better overall odds against hidden infantry AT teams.

This buttoned/unbuttoned discussion prompts another question: I've often read about tank commanders keeping an MP40 or grease gun in hand while standing in the open hatch, during travel through close terrain, to quickly spot and suppress/kill any bazooka/panzerfaust teams that might be lurking in ambush nearby. Does CMBN model this, so that a tanker in the open hatch can use small arms while still inthe vehicle against dismounted infantry? It would seem so, since we've seen that the game lets crew members and even passengers shoot while mounted in halftracks. But I just wanted to know for sure. I hope so, because this would make the tank vs. AT weapons balance more realistic and ambushing a tank much harder if the tank is unbuttoned.

In the GUI screenshot, are those 5 blue dots on the tank icon representing the 5 alive crew members? Or do the dots represent something else? In the roster box, I see "asst" listed on the bottom tank. So that's the radio operator, then? There's no "asst" listed in the top tank. So has he become a casualty?

The US force has armor + some infantry (Airborne), the German is all armor.

I like the variations in the way the different tanks' skirt armor is displayed (some missing panels, not all the panels perfectly aligned, etc.)

Since you show Tanks 1 and 2 taking hull-down positions, that raises a question: Did you give them some sort of "seek hull down" order in that vicinity of the overwatch location? Or did you pre-scout the terrain in your preview QB mode with a ground-level view to find this little ridge, and then order those tanks to that specific spot manually? I would prefer the automatic hull-down, since getting tanks into just the right spot can be very fiddly (and often times the game units can see and "know" their own microterrain better than we the players do). In so many other games (AP:K, PC, TOW2), I've gotten very frustrated trying to get tanks into hull-down positions, only to discover that I've overdone it and they can't even see over the ridge to shoot. Then I tweak and tweak to get them a LOS, only to accidentally expose them and watch as they take a fatal shot to the hull or belly. These sorts of experiences can spoil an ordinarily good game, since it's something the tank crews themselves should have the AI to be able to do without a lot of micromanagement by the player. Hope this is true for CMBN!

If the US infantry stay well under cover and concealment in the trees and hold their fire, the German tanks shouldn't spot them. But that could still be rough for the infantry if the Germans try "recon by fire" or call in some indirect artillery on the treelines.

I predict the Shermans and M-10s will do well in this kind of terrain, with lots of cover. Having some infantry should also help the US hold terrain, something the Germans will have trouble doing with just tanks.

Just to bide my time until CMBN release day, I popped over to my local library and pulled a volume* off the history shelf. Settled down to read it, looking forward to having something to briefly take my mind off the excruciating wait for what promises to be an epic game. Then my eyes fell on the first sentence of the writer's preface: "I was inspired to take up this task by Combat Mission:Beyond Overlord...which, at this writing is the best computer war game ever written -- period. The player experiences in near real-time many of the challenges faced by the American tank-infantry team of World War II..." Aaaaaaaaaaggggghhhhh!! Oh, what's the use? My torture is complete. Mr. Yeide, if you're lurking here: You're one sadistic scoundrel! *Steel Victory: The Heroic Story of America's Independent Tank Battalions at War in Europe, by Harry Yeide (Presidio Press, 2003).

Steam is the best way I've ever found for setting up MP games, no matter whether the game is actually published by Steam or not. The reason is because once you join a group and ID people as "friends," you can see at any given moment who's online, who's ingame (and what they're playing), and send/receive a spontantous message with them or invite them to chat, join a game, etc. It's great when you can just log on at 10pm some night and want to see who's around and might want to play right then and there.

ROTFLMAO! You just made me flash back to a (very) early wargaming disappointment I had after swallowing the bait in one of those comic book ads: Action battle set with hundreds of authentic Revolutionary War soldiers! Stunning lifelike combat poses! (etc.). The set of miniatures turned out to be VERY miniature, comprising blue and red silhouettes of vaguely recognizable Rebels and Redcoats in brittle, 2-D plastic. Oh, and the final insult was that the mold-seam along the bases of the soldiers made it impossible for most of them to stand up.

I understand the rationale. But since CM puts us in many game roles simultaneously -- not only the overall force commander, but the leader of squads and platoons since there's no real lower-level command AI -- then waypoint adjustments could simply represent the squad leader carrying out the general order from above (e.g, "take that hill") with more specific verbal tactical orders of his own ("OK guys, to take the hill we're gonna turn right at that house over there, infiltrate through the orchard, and then flank left when we get to the stone wall...") What do you think?

I'm already checking this forum 4 times a day and drooling over every morsel of news. (How pathetic...but I think I'm in good company)

In Achtung Panzer:Kharkov the wolf/coyote howls gave a nice extra chill to those moonlit night turns on the snowy steppes -- it was perhaps slightly overdone, though.