Melchior

Which has actually been my point too. I'm not really saying the armored vehicle is disappearing, it never will as long as the gun continues to exist. What i'm saying is that the MBT may be on its way out. The proper "tank" as we know it. I mean Apocal is right too, muskets didn't get rid of Cavalry, they just changed them so drastically that they weren't the cavalry they used to be anymore. That's how we look toward the future in my mind.

Infantry didn't become obsolete, infantry lines did. The machine gun threw out over 2000+ years of tactics and thinking that came before it. All because it was now a 6 man team that could put out as much fire as an entire infantry platoon.

Aircraft will indeed engage targets the player's forces haven't identified or spotted. Choppers will engage whatever targets they end up being able to see but you can help them by having line of sight to more targets because they usually don't spot everything by themselves. Aircraft are largely the same. 120mm mortars will pulverize most of what they hit, and are quite effective against infantry in buildings. Specifically smaller buildings like houses. Larger structures can be brought down by heavy mortar fire, but require a large investment in ammunition to do it. Light mortars in the 60mm range are something else. They're basically oversized grenade launchers and while they're quite useful against targets without overhead protection they're not so great against targets with a roof over their head.

No, the more likely it becomes the Russians would wear the Germans down. More of them just die doing it. The longer the war goes on the more irreplaceable German soldiers die. Their was no greater threat to the Wehrmacht than time and the longer a campaign went on the more men would die. As it was the plan was to disband over 40 infantry divisions at the start of 1942 so those men could be sent back to the factories. They'd be needed to build the Luftwaffe's fighters to protect Germany from the planned swarms of American and British bombers that would be trying to do exactly what they did historically. The reason for this plan was that Germany could not sustain a large industrial workforce and the 3.7 million men of the Wehrmacht at the same time. Attempts were made to plug the gaps with slave labor which were actually pretty successful, and since you just expend the slaves after working them to death that all fit well and nice into the Nazi Murder Empire's hunger plans. Historically Germany's conquests did not contribute much to the war though. If anything they were a burden because as I said before, all of Europe was net food-importer in 1940 and Germany now had to feed all those mouths or undermine any potential benefits from its own conquests. In 1943 the French coal industry collapsed and Germany had to prop it up in order to enable the construction of the Atlantic Wall. By 1944 the rations of Polish workers had been cut so drastically that it was physically impossible for many of them to work on anything. Energy for many of them was as low as 400 calories a day. Maybe Germany could have achieved some kind of strategic equilibrium after France fell by just continuing to rely on Russian oil and grain imports. In order for this to happen though you basically can't have Hitler in charge anymore since he is invariably going to turn Germany east. Even so I know plenty of guys who still think the "Fortress Europa" theory was crank even without an Eastern Front killing very many Germans.

I agree on the first part. If Germany had to plan for a strategic war then the only plan would be to lose, because Germany could not sustain a long war where that sort of campaigning would be a factor. The Z plan was (lol pun) dead in the water long before it cast off. A big navy and reliance on the U-Boats didn't save Germany last time and it wasn't going to this time either. Hitler liked his big battleships but he liked his Panzer hordes more, and saw them as much more instrumental to his plans of Lebensraum than the Kriegsmarine. TBH the U-Boat menace in the WW2 was totally overblown by Churchill and British leaders in their post-war books. Though I think much of this came from how successful the U-Boats had been in 1916 rather than 1942. The U-Boats hadn't advanced much since 1918 while ASDIC and anti-submarine tactics had. Motivated by (apparently well founded) paranoia of another sub war. Just as the USAAF couldn't pummel Germany into submission with bombers as long as the Luftwaffe was around, the Kriegsmarine couldn't shut down and isolate Britain as long as the Royal Navy existed. Suppress maybe, but suppression sort of implies you plan on following up with a coup de'grace. Which Germany would deliver with...something other than He-111s and their enlarged Bayern class battleships I would hope.

Exactly. What players want is a "correct answer". Their is none. Just look at the countless 'how do i clear the buildings with zero cas guys" topics. They don't want to feel challenged, they want to feel right.

Even Quick works fine with lots of way points. I had it wrong for years but that's really how you go about those final crucial steps advancing on a position. Their really isn't much the player can do beyond this for CQC because the game is not a shooter. Sure you can do really elaborate stuff like pre-plan arcs of fire and frequent pause stops, but in my experience all that goes out the window if something unexpected happens. In which case the AI becomes handcuffed by the player's minutiae control and desire to adhere to a strict plan. Then you get folks coming on the forum whining "nerf this" and "buff that". I think gamers have just been spoiled by years of mega-cheese games like Total War.

The bombing was keeping a large number of Germans at home fixing the damage all of the time instead of working in the factories or being sent to the Eastern Front. Germany industrial output rose during the war until 1945 when defeat was imminent but the point of strategic bombing was to prevent it from rising as high as it could. It was the suppressing effect of the campaign that produced the result, not the outright destruction. One might argue that this wasn't worth all the effort but I think the chronically under strength Divisions off in the Eastern Front might disagree. The Americans and British did not indeed, reap the benefits of their bombing until very late in the war. It was the Russians who probably seeing and getting the most from it. This is why I have no love for the "Russians/Americans/British won WW2" nationalist chest-thumping tripe. The war was won by the collective effort of the Allied powers. Not by the singular struggle of any one of them.

One of the nicer (probably only nicer) aspects of GTOS' UI is the LOS function which shows in a flat color absolutely every angle a unit can see. You don't need to target and point to check every line, the game shows you everything your men can see in one click. Also i'm sure it's been brought up but a formation control that allows vehicles and units to proceed in convoys down roads. Again, another feature GTOS has that works great.

Tanks aren't as numerous as heavy cavalry were either. That's my point. Since the Napoleonic Wars their has been a trend towards larger armies with fewer but individually more potent weapon systems. The Javelin is naturally a part of this trend, but then so is heavy armor. Anyway i'm not trying to argue that armor is obsolete. Tanks will never disappear, what i'm thinking might lose its role is the MBT because its protection is too difficult to provide for too little to gain. We've already seen a trend towards moving guns off of tracked chassis onto much cheaper wheeled chassis like the Stryker MGS and Centauro. One would argue all those fleets of T-55AGMs have been modernized with the same idea in mind (ie: gun carriers not battle tanks). OTOH the protection of MBTs might still be worth the investment because after all, if you're investing in a tank you've already gone far with your buck, might as well go a little further.

It's not that different though is it? Because at the same time most leaders still saw the pike and bayonet as the soldier's primary right up until around the 18th century. The Javelin isn't as common as a rifle sure but that's not the point. It doesn't have to be, it just has to be way more common than a TOW. So common that it's organic to infantry platoons rather than limited to specific anti-tank formations. Muskets had limitations too, like vulnerability to moisture, misfiring, inaccuracy, etc. All weapon systems have caveats. What matters is what they can accomplish for the investment.

They aren't making a point when all they're doing is whining.

People are just never happy that the game doesn't guarantee them a result they think they were entitled to.

Yeah but the armor became pointless for a reason. It was because it was a lot of work to manufacture and provide and no longer gave much protection from weapons any peasant in a levy could use. The horse continued as long as it did because as long as Armies were too small to construct proper frontlines (like the kind measured in 50+ miles) then maneuver was still relevant. Direct combat tended to produce a lot of casualties in Cavalry and it seems rather conspicuous to me that in the American Civil War, cavalrymen almost always fought dismounted. Once you've got a weapon that's ubiquitous and practical enough for everyone to use than the classic infantry-as-screen to some other core unit (mounted heavy cavalry/tanks) relationship reverses.

Troof. I'm still not really sure which way things are going for the future. Everytime some new anti-tank gadget comes out a chorus chimes in claiming the days of the tank army are over, the and MBT has been relegated to infantry support. When you make a better sword someone just goes and makes a better shield. First it was the shaped charge, then the attack chopper, then etc etc. Now the problem is the Javelin is different. It's not bulky and immobile like a TOW, it's way more common than an attack chopper, almost any rifleman can wield it and strike out at a tank from a range some tanks can barely reply from. Maybe it's the musket and tanks are the Knight. :v

If WW2 was any indication of how things go down when peer air forces meet, you just don't see much in the way of CAS until well after one side's air force has been reduced to a non-factor. It's way too risky a job while an enemy can put fighters up in the air. Historically the US and RAF didn't really loose those P-47/Typhoon hordes on ground targets until it was obvious the Luftwaffe wasn't going to say much about it. Any operation in conduct of ground support already has enough to worry about in the form of anti-aircraft. It's downright impossible to do CAS while trying to dodge that *and* air cover at the same time. Not without very specialized frames like the F-117 or B-1. Those airplanes come with a host of their own limitations too. Like short loiter times or minimal payload.

The impression BS is giving me is that modern tanks are basically Gundams nowadays. It's like we're circling back into a time of the Guderian-esque tank army. Infantry screens can't hope to win everytime or even very often. Just to get lucky every now and then. The AT-4 must be the Boys rifle of our time.

And here I was thinking their was no future for "the big gun" on the modern battlefield.

You have successfully stopped what I am doing for 4:21m.

If the AI could be adjusted with triggers to a sort of "post battle" state then it could actually be pretty interesting. Presenting a "scenario within a scenario" sort of thing. When i've won or lost the larger battles i'm often still interested in the periphery stuff that is still happening or undecided. Now that you've won the mission do you reclaim taken objectives? Take prisoners? Recover hardware? A post battle AI trigger might cause the AI to head for an "exit" back in its own setup area. Or maybe you would want to try and extricate as much of your own force as possible from an operation gone wrong? TBH I feel that whenever a scenario makes a point of casualty figures being relevant to score their should be exits for the forces involved. Tactical withdrawals were a real thing.

Worse than oil even was food. Which caused Germany's defeat in the last war. A big reason for the Holocaust came down to Germany just snuffing out as many mouths as possible so the Aryan race wouldn't have to suffer for food. All of Europe was net food-importer in the 1930s-40s and Germany had made the super smart decision to go to war with all 3 of its major suppliers for industrial fertilizers and grains. This ended up ruining Germany in 1918 and the Nazis were keenly aware of this. Hence their overwhelming push to murder as many people as possible in a short span of time. I don't think i'll have the problem here, but anyone who doesn't believe me can simply look up the Wannsee Conference. Germany did not build a strategic bomber because the Luftwaffe wasn't configured for it. It takes a lot more than just oil to build hordes of B-17 fleets. The organization must be built top-to-bottom for that sort of thing. For one, you need to have a highly organized and efficient industrial base that's already found its way in mass producing lots of multi-engine, high-payload aircraft w/facilities to support those kinds of planes. Who builds the engines? Who builds the airframe? Who builds the countless small parts and complex bits of machinery that make this airplane practical? The Nazis were utterly inept at achieving the kind of industrial cooperation that prevailed in the US.

You can't? When units in the game identify each other they typically do everything possible to destroy each other. Unless the unit is suppressed, crippled, or just totally over matched (infantry team vs a tank) they attack with what they have. What kind of order would one give to your BMP anyway? "No no no not regular kill, SUPER kill!" You setup the circumstances of an engagement and then hope for the best. Fighting is the troops' job.

I thought the deployment loop was an abstraction for being unable to find a chair or table and convincing Pvt. Timmy to let us use his shoulder as the tripod.

Yeah much of the game is about accomplishing what you can with what you've got. Some of the really great scenarios in my mind explicitly make it very tough to accomplish every objective and attack every point. Impossible sometimes. Bypassing or attacking a point is a major role of the player because ultimately you are "the brass" and you are now in that situation making that decision.

Half tracks are heavily protected taxis, not true IFVs.