MengJiao

This is similar to my experience. When I want to get to a spot parallel to the present one and still facing the enemy, I reverse for at least 20 meters and go back up again, just as described above. In RT at least you see instantly when the AI refuses or changes orders because of problems in getting to some of the waypoints.

I agree that Haig-bashing is not particularly worthwhile. If you look at what he thought he learned at First Ypres (ie, keep hammering because the defense is close to breaking), some of what is read as his mistakes becomes more comprehensible. Even so (perhaps ironically), WWI was what Montgomery wanted to avoid. Normandy was definitely a horrific fight for the UK and Canada because they faced an in-depth defense on a very narrow front and nowhere else to go, while on the Somme, eventually some tactics for limited attacks were evolved and there were other options (stop attacking -- not an option in Normandy, switch elsewhere -- not an option in Normandy, use tanks -- not much of a novelty in Normandy). I thought ritual abuse of Montgomery was more popular than ritual abuse of Haig these days.

I occasionally have infantry target a tank either to keep the crew from getting back into it or to kill the crew when they bail. Other than that, I mostly take the side of the US Army and if they occasionally do something right I'm very happy. I haven't seen a bazooka kill anything yet, but the troops have been firing them a lot and that seems like about all you could ask for. In general, I have little idea of what anyone is actually shooting at, but when I give specific orders, the results are usually pretty satisfactory versus armor.

Yes, I think advance to contact is the trickiest thing to manage in RT and it is essentially what slows down the game. In RT, I hesitate to commit a platoon into an unclear situation since I'm not going to be able to supervise every minute and I usually over-compensate with an extra round of scouting and support fire and that takes time.

Essentially you are right: RT players (if they are like me) don't give as many orders. For me that is one of the attractions of RT; you give orders as you see fit. I'm not sure about the realism, but for me it seems more immersive to give orders and watch them play out. Of course eventually, when things get rough, you end up giving a lot of orders and taking a lot more actual time than a WEGO player can at that point. So, in my experience, in RT you spend more battle time to fight a battle (perhaps that is realistic?). It can take roughly an hour and fifteen minutes of game time to get an infantry battalion to take a village against a moderate defense, and that is if all goes well. That's roughly a 500 meter advance against moderate opposition in one hour, which seems about right.

Maybe just add half an hour? So that WEGO is 30 and RT is 1 hour on up to WEGO is 1:30 and RT is 2:00

When they were knocked out, which is all anyone seems to bother noting about Shermans. If both sides were moving or the Sherman was stationary, then all the advantages go to the Sherman (at least to the Sherman with the 76mm), but since under those circumstances Shermans did perfectly well, no big losses occurred and no big stories resulted.

According to some sources, the Sherman with a 76mm gun was 3 times as effective as the Panther, mostly because it was easier to operate and stayed in service at a much higher rate. The faster gunner on target time for the Sherman due to the gunner's Periscope also is noted in other sources. The areas where the Panther was superior didn't make all that much difference in battle where spotting and firing first are more important than the exact parameters of armor and guns.

Good points. Especially about the apple day dream. I think the swearing commanders thing is a theatrical convention that sometimes gets literally transposed into real life by confused commanders. Hence 2 points off for swearing as a commander.

That's the guy! Here's in White Christmas with Dean Martin and Fred Astare. He says "It's just so crazy it just might work. Let's put on a show in the Barn."

I had the opposite experience. 57mm kills Panther. It blows up. Nobody gets out. In fact, i haven't seen Panther crews do much but jump out and run for it when their tank gets knocked out. The M10 crews have proved a little zestier. At least in one case they re-manned their TD when they could see 3 Panthers from where they were hiding. Then they lollygagged around in their M10 while the battle clock ran down. What do I do differently? 1) don't deploy the AT guns until you have some idea where the Panthers are 2) then detach them and let the crews position them 3) keep up suppressive fire from any infantry you can find 4) keep up suppressive fire from any artillery or mortars you can find 5) keep hunting with bazookas and other infantry weapons 6) target tanks with small arms when you can

You can specify dry conditions in your scenarios. I've been setting my scenarios in mid June right after the big storm so things are still wet or damp, but no longer muddy. Which reminds me I have an August scenario set to damp. I might want to fix that.

Me too. I'm pretty sloppy though, so I have to make my own scenarios and play strictly alone. There are plenty of good moments though in the individual unit management area. I'm never surprised when things go horribly wrong, but on the other hand pretty amused when they go strangely right. For example, I had one M10 drive sneakily into town and kill a Panther at under 50 meters, but after that he was too rattled to do anything else. He would not even reverse out the way he had come in. seems about right.

I had some hot work with a 57 recently. I unhooked the gun well after the battle started. The crew could push the gun and carry 25 AP rounds. Doing all that, they managed to sneak up on a Panther. I had them target the tank from behind a hedge and they apparently took their time. They had what looked like a clear shot about 200 meters down the sleepy mainstreet of a sleepy provincial French village and after what seemed like 15 minutes they started shooting and promptly bounced half a dozen shells off the back of the tank's turret. Okay, some shots penetrated, but the tank didn't seem too concerned and it began rotating its turret toward the pesky AT gun. The AT gun got another half a dozen hits and the tank became more thoughtful. After the gun was down to 6 shots, the tank blew up. So that's about 19 hits from behind. Probably only the first 10 or 12 were really necessary. I looked for ATG ammo teams, but didn't locate any (the fighting had been heavy and maybe they ran off or something).

Yes. I'm extremely happy with a game that essentially has a model world and not a game map, just as I am with a game that has processes that move away from frequentist models of how events happen. I play in RT and I just order formations to go do things. If they get lost or confused or shot to bits, well, I must have read the terrain wrong or the formation (usually as it happens the hapless Company C) is just not very fortunate. Essentially, the game can be played as a model more than a simple war game.

Interesting delaying tactic: just hidden positions with nothing hidden in them.

C company. Very unlucky. I found one platoon that still wasn't rattled, but I could not locate the lieutenant. Then I saw him running across a field pursued by 120mm mortar bursts. Well, he was panicked. I could not turn him and run him out of the line of mortar bursts. I gave up on rescuing him and just as I did, a 120mm mortar shell hit him more or less right on top of the head. BOOM!

It seems the CM1 probabilities are inherently frequentist and the CMBN probabilities are pretty Bayesian in that if you hit the gun once, you are a lot more likely to hit it again (because the hit model is a specific prior). So they aren't mathematically equivalent since the CMBN retains (it would seem) a Bayesian prior in its model.

That's the guy. Sneaky with entrenchments and swordsment and acquibusiers in 1503. Brilliant!

Most recently, I solved almost all of my mortar problems by leaving the Company or Battalion CO in the mortar area. The poor Germans from Turkestan with serious digestive problems took quite a beating BUT due to some kind of command break down (I assume the COs were too far from their Platoon commanders) everybody in the front line was too nervous to close in and finish off the poor Khazaks. I suspect the poor Khazaks weren't keeping up much fire on the spotters, but I'm really not sure why I had fewer mortar problems than usual.

Exactly. If the function of the graphics is to wow an audience that apparently rarely looks at the real world, then, first of all those graphics are not really functional as representations and second they could not deal with representing a complete, battalion-size action with all the functional details -- which is what CMBN's graphics do.

The British 88mm gun-howitzer (the 25 pdr) had an AT round that was effective in 1941 at least.

Or even in the 16th. When things got tough, a tercio would assemble the best swordsmen and mass them for a night attack...a "camisado" (white shirt event?). The Great Captain (whose name I can never remember, but who won some very tough battles in the very early 16th century and was the idol of all the Conquistadors) had a famous white hat and white shoes.

I understand the problem with the HQ support unit. It seems the player should be free to have it do the job. I don't understand what's wrong with an empty jeep with a radio doing the job. For all the game knows, you put that jeep-with-radio there for a reason.

What other game (big market or no) has complete battalions on the battlefield covering 3-4 square kilometers or more? I don't think there are any. Given that there is nothing like them, the graphics are infinitely effective.