Melchior

I'm pretty sure arguments like precisely what name the Germans referred to an assault rifle under are the sort of thing that drive people away from discussion forums.

I'm convinced infantry in the game are too accurate with rifle fire. The British used to joke that it took a man's own weight in fire to actually kill him. Post-war research of both world wars revealed the joke was conservative if anything. Most weapons miss most of the time because the fact is marksmanship is an acquired skill and definitely not made an easier by the circumstances of the battlefield like artillery and weather and simple confusion. A man at 200m is a dot and if he's in modest cover he's smaller than that. This is why the machine gun was such a game changer when it came out. Other weapons at the infantry's disposal could hit a man out to 2km, theoretically. The machine gun was the only weapon that did, consistently. The circumstances of the game's scenarios, which are designed to be challenging and by virtue of that-fair-are what creates this situation. Thank god they do too the game would be no fun if the only thing I had to do to win was plaster a village with a howitzer for for hours. I get that's how the war was more often than not but naturally that doesn't make for very interesting play. For a while I didn't even know why the game had modeled trucks or half tracks at all, since they're only "battlefield taxis". On any map smaller than a km or so transport assets are pointless. The German campaign in RT will really fix that perception though. You really pick on the value of those barely bulletproof Hanomags when after several consecutive bombardments by Russian mortar fire you haven't suffered one casualty. They didn't need to be totally bulletproof. Splinter proof was huge enough in war where light artillery was so ubiquitous

They were for the time. That's why both the Russians and Germans equipped whole Companies with them, and would've equipped even more men with them if they could have. So you know, the Thompson was still in use with the US Army in Vietnam, and it was quite popular. The issue with the Thompson is that the ballistics of the .45ACP round are not very good beyond about 100m or so. The round loses energy too fast. Their is a reason modern machine pistols and SMGs prefer the 9mm parabellum round. Assault rifles replaced SMGs because they offer all the advantages of a compact machine gun with none of the disadvantages of a pistol cartridge. Older ARs used to be somewhat unwieldy in tight quarters but a modern M4 is about the size of the Thompson and weighs less. I hate hate hate these video-game esque K:D ratio statements. They totally gloss over the operational realities of the war and encourage people to remain ignorant of how fighting in a modern war works. I hope you don't frequently paint pictures of the war to laypeople like this. Really I don't because it's actually very irresponsible and unhealthy. You should try being shot at, half starved, and fresh out of a 200km road march if you want the truly realistic experience. Maybe if you're lucky they even let you fire your weapon in training! You should know that the developers are wary of "I think XYZ is too strong/too weak". Do some tests, come back with some figures, and do some research. I'm a little surprised that everyone is so befuddled with Russian SMG squads when they're no better armed than the Syrian militiamen we all played against in Shock Force. If you stumble into a killzone and don't cover sectors right than it barely matters if your men are armed with M4s or K98s, they'll get wrecked.

They were for the time. That's why both the Russians and Germans equipped whole Companies with them, and would've equipped even more men with them if they could have. The assault rifle's invention came earlier than people think, and was predicated on the invention of an intermediate cartridge between the power of a full rifle round and pistol round. Most nations couldn't change their standard ammunition dead in the middle of the war though. Just ask the Italians and Japanese how good that worked for them. The Russians waited until the war was past its decisive stage before they started fiddling with Kalashnikov's designs and the Germans were desperate enough to try just about anything. So you know, the Thompson was still in use with the US Army in Vietnam, and it was quite popular. The issue with the Thompson is that the ballistics of the .45ACP round are not very good beyond about 100m or so. The round loses energy too fast. It could kill someone much farther out but the trajectory falls off a lot at range. Their is a reason modern machine pistols and SMGs prefer the 9mm parabellum round. Assault rifles replaced SMGs because they offer all the advantages of a compact machine gun with none of the disadvantages of a pistol cartridge. Older ARs used to be somewhat unwieldy in tight quarters but a modern M4 is about the size of the Thompson and weighs less. I hate hate hate these video-game esque K:D ratio statements. They totally gloss over the operational realities of the war and encourage people to remain ignorant of how fighting in a modern war works. I hope you don't frequently paint pictures of the war to laypeople like this. Really I don't because it's actually very irresponsible and unhealthy. You should try being shot at, half starved, and fresh out of a 200km road march if you want the truly realistic experience. You should know that the developers are wary of "I think XYZ is too strong/too weak". Do some tests, come back with some figures, and do some research. I'm a little surprised that everyone is so befuddled with Russian SMG squads when they're no better armed than the Syrian militiamen we all played against in Shock Force. If you stumble into a killzone and don't cover sectors right than it barely matters if your men are armed with M4s or K98s, they'll get wrecked.

I've simply learned that German troops are best at stand-off distances. You may find the PPsh tough to contend with, but i'd rather have to deal with that than be on the receiving end of the MG42/34 family of GPMGs. Beyond about 200m or so it's just no contest. German troops have as much firepower as Russian machine gun teams and can plaster the approach to a town or objective from near complete safety at range. Inside about 200m or so conduct yourself cautiously. Use and abuse the hunt command and send small teams forward in bounding advance with most men retained back for the fire-element.

France and Poland 39-40. North Africa Another hell yes on the Fulda Gap.

I'm under the impression that forests provide cover and protection from a lot of things but artillery is not one of them. The way forest bombardments have been described a forest seems to amplify the effects of artillery fire. Rounds going off in the canopies of trees become airbursting rounds, and trees exploded by fire tend to spray lethal wood splinters adding to the overall fragmentation.

Point is that people often believe silly or foolish things because they feel threatened. They see threats from a lot of places too. Our culture just doesn't emphasize the values of mutual trust and understanding well at all. Lots of people just seem to feel like they're under attack all the time, and operate in this perpetually paranoid environment where nothing can be interpreted as a joke or a misunderstanding. It *must* be an attack because hey that's what i'd do in his position! Right? Good RTS games are not a recent invention. The good games have just always been about actual decision and consequence and not fantasy fulfillment via tech tree abuse and armor v pen spreadsheets. Lots of people love Starcraft literally because each side only has 1-2 play strategies of any kind and simply rehearsing this formula every time is really satisfying. This is a big reason why CM is just about the only strategy/milsim game I play anymore aside from tabletop games, which are often brilliant. Because the rule sets for many of those games have to be practical, robust, and unencumbered. Less style, more substance.

Maneuver is still the basis of Teutonic war. While a Russian guide in this vein would emphasize smashing an enemy with direct fire and an American guide would emphasize surgical precision strikes from air support and artillery prior to attack, the advice strikes me as quintessentially German.

People on the internet say crazy things sure enough. Somehow I don't think that is unique to the French though. The joke to me about French/American relations has always been the mirror of the two country's egos. Americans are so used to exporting their culture, power, and egos to the rest of the world that when we encounter a people who are just as narcissistic as us we're expected to feel contempt. Those people are too proud, too confident, and too arrogant! Not us no. But them yeah. Anyway the real crux of all this to me is that so few have figured out that arguing with the polarized tends to just make them more polarized. It's like the whole issue with the Confederate Flag lately and how banning that flag is somehow supposed to convince the people who wave it to suddenly stop seeing it as a sign of strength and actually as a deep-seated symbol of their emotional and cultural insecurities. Like confronting extremists head on has ever made them less extreme and doesn't just play right into their hands. God I can't get over how awful it looks either. 1999 is putting it optimistically I think, the developers were talking about "going back to the roots of RTS games" in an interview somewhere. Translated into english that basically means they're making the game as anachronistic as they possibly can.

I can only imagine the number of times in their lives those guys have been confronted by the American versions of those same lines. "Haha American stuff is 1000x better to save you from the Germans with and and the Europeans are all prissy croissant eating fags who blow off good military spending on welfare lolololol". Contention only breeds more contention sadly.

I'm pretty sure modern low caliber rounds are a little better than they were in 1940 thanks to better forming techniques and advances in metallurgy. Things like ballistic caps for example aren't really necessary anymore. Then again few KE penetrators these days are just big slugs. Lightly armored vehicles in World War 2 were barely what we consider "armor" today though. Vehicles like the Hanomag and M3 were bulletproof only in the barest sense. Modern 5.56 rounds have a high muzzle velocity and flat trajectory. At long range they don't have very good post-impact performance, but at shorter ranges the sheer muzzle energy enables them to penetrate light cover. I think at ranges beyond about 100m or so I'd hesitate to use an M4 against say, an Sdkfz 232 even with AP rounds. Course' the US Army has such a love affair with the M2HB just rolling up the nearest Humvee would fix fritz pretty good.

I'm curious to know too because I could swear marshes dramatically decrease the effectiveness of artillery fire. Conversely forests tend to be about the worst place to be in the game during a bombardment.

Unless they were motorized probably not. The war sort of revealed too that withdrawals conducted against the backdrop of armor tended to just degenerate into a mass rout. Units were usually better off standing their ground and hiding from or fighting off the armor. Basically just waiting for it to lose interest and look for bigger fish to fry. The Germans were helped, no, *saved* in no small part by the infamous Prussian Staff System in this area. In fact leadership in the low levels of the German Army was usually so good it was basically their fault that the war ended in 1945 and not 1943. The Germans were extremely good at corralling mixes of men and equipment and forming them into ad-hoc defensive arrangements on short notice and dire circumstances. This was a big reason why lots of Allied offensives would just bog down after initial gains gave way to exhaustion and increasing casualties in the face of mounting German resistance. It took until 1945 to really exhaust the German Army's pool of talented NCOs and Officers through years of constant wear and attrition.

Armored Divisions are notoriously difficult to kill because they're just so damned resistant to the infantry's primary means of fire. The artillery. The formations move too fast to pin unless you can corner them in bad terrain and the tanks are hard to kill with any indirect fire lighter than 105mm. Pre-planned bombardments are no good against mobile units and that's sort of problematic when that was how most armies handled artillery fires. You could mitigate it somewhat by pressing artillery guns into duty at the front as anti-tank guns, but this is not ideal for a couple reasons. One, the guns are arguably just as valuable as the tanks they're being used against and are extremely vulnerable to overrun and loss on the line. Two, it removes them from their other really important job.

The Soviets did not liberally equip rear area troops with light machine guns. Officers usually got sub machine guns though like the PPSh and occasionally some PPD-40s were probably still hanging around too. I'd expect an SMG or two per platoon maybe. I don't think the Soviets saw mortar teams as stand-by infantry like the Americans and Germans did. They were equipped to defend themselves from stragglers or bad luck and hope for the best. Course' in many Armies even having rifles for the rear-echelon guys was luxurious. You'd be surprised how many Armies sent men to the front with pitchforks and fists for the men and a pistol for the Corporal leading the team.

That Panther is in great condition though. Maybe a living history museum or reenactment society will get it and restore it to running condition.

Thy next foe is... In the land of the vast green fields... Rows of guiding graves... It is giant indeed but fearful, it is not.

Never stay in one place for very long. The M1A2 and most modern MBTs are basically this.

Armor proofed against spitball rounds. What are the Germans going to do now?!?!

It has its caveats. More than once I got super lucky with the mortar fire starting up too slow. Spotting rounds caused 75% of casualties I think and at least once a round landed right in the middle of a squad and just blew a guy's hearing out. Some of the wet swampy areas just absorb HE rounds. It was necessary to send at least one platoon to clear the patchy brush areas west of Manckowce. The Russians had only HQ teams and ATRs there so it was easy but on more than one occasion the platoon was unmasked to an SG43 that covered the approach. They were never fired on by it for some reason. It's super important for the Germans to just smash the planned entry area to a town with artillery or tank fires before entering. One guy with a PPsh stands to do a lot of damage and while the Germans don't have to worry too much about that outside of 200m, it just so happens they have to fight a lot closer than that. The Russians will not be eager to announce where they are until you happen to be inside St. Valentines Day Massacre Range. So the best thing to do is just pummel the approach so not much fighting occurs for buildings and houses. Once inside structure German infantry are way way way way better off against SMG fire and are allowed to have higher situational awareness. Machine guns and snipers are best dealt with StuG fire. The biggest issue with this approach is that I was late to attack Blota. I had to rush 11th Company to attack the town with many "Fatigued" and "Tired" boxes on. The StuGs had been pretty preserved until now though so again I pummeled the approaches to the town. Clearing the town took the remaining time of the mission (26min) and I did not clear Blota west before zero time. Cease Fire at time gave me a Tactical Victory but I've noticed the mission has some variable time left so i'll see if another minute or two will allow me to clear Blota west soon.

Radio chatter would be an ideal way to alert the player about things like that. The game already does it for fire missions. Now you know how an actual Battalion commander feels in a fight ie: overwhelmed. One of the things you should learn to live with in CM is that disasters will happen. Casualties are routine but we're all going to have those "one guy with a PPsh wiped out a squad and repelled a platoon" moments.

This is why an early war game should, in my opinion, compensate for low market draw by having a large breadth of content. A Combat Mission: Black starting in 1939 and going to 1941 featuring the Poles, French, BEF, and Russians. A whole game about the early war period might not draw enough attention if it was just about France or Poland. It might with enough breadth though. Issue is such a game will naturally be a big burden to make content for and might not be as successful as previous releases for less effort. The games always do well to feature more "risky but bold" stuff that enables players to maneuver right to edges of what we think the "rules of war" are.

The right hook worked. Entailing everything I was expecting. The Germans can hold their own against the mighty PPsh if they can get inside the town and use cover better than some shrubs. The Manckowce route was slow, and yes invited very much artillery fire but 9th and 10th Companies did not suffer unacceptably heavy casualties. In fact I was able to grab a platoon from each and send them to attack Biali Blota w/11th Company which made the attack all but foolproof. Six StuGs supported the infantry with heavy fire moving through the town and the pre-attack bombardment from the Wespes contributed a lot too. The west hill was never unmasked once and not a shot was fired by any ATG on the map. The average Russian infantry formation is at a severe disadvantage against armor. The PTRD-cool as I think anti-tank rifles are- is no replacement for a good Bazooka/PIAT. Whereas I would've had to be way more cautious attacking Allied troops in places like Normandy and Italy I did not have to be so cautious here. The primary cause of casualties was, as usual, from mortar fire.

I'm positively dying for a North Africa expansion for FI with emphasis on the Italian North African Army. FI could've gone for even more emphasis on the Italians because i'm really, really fascinated with playings sides and using troops of nations we don't often hear about. Imagine if the next expansion for RT let us use the Romanians or Hungarians even. Fo real. It would've made it a release-day purchase for me than a year-later purchase that's for sure. Their simply are not enough games focused on the war's early years. The 1944-45 stuff just sells better I guess.