BletchleyGeek

Anybody who recommends 1830 because they understand Black Scholes option pricing has a high chance of being a difficult customer.
I have:
CMBO (3 copies - one with a real printed manual)
CMBB 2 copies
CMAK 3 copies
CMBN - just updated to v 4.03 having not played it for about 5 years as I'm no good at it.
 
But basically I have had 20 years of happily blowing stuff up - and when I did have some trouble Shullen### helped me out.
So, I am a happy customer. But i still can't win "Cats Chasing Dogs" 

"As a gentleman with apparently 30 award view(?)" you seem very arrogant & childish to respond like that.

Anyway, a lot of people do not get that CM is a simulator, not a game. And no it's not an excuse, let me explain it.

What you see on screen isn't what's happening in the simulator. There's a lot more going on than what's visible or known to the player, for example a bunch of soft factors such as "Experience, Morale, Leadership, and other elements operate at the individual soldier level and collectively transform how units behave",  these factors go way deeper than you think, you may have noticed that already. 
About the LOS system, sometimes it bugs out, but I only had that happening 2-3 times IIRC. But it's not broken.
Soldiers can either be occupied, sending information trough (C2 Link), Tired, In shock, stressed out or the other soldier/tank sits still & is well camouflaged.
The LOS also isn't a simple ray cast as in RTS traditional games. A forest tile with trees on it for example has some randomness to it, I think it should be obvious why that is, if not; It's to simulate bushes/leaves/grass where a unit can hide in & look trough leaves. Spotting abilities & experience take a big role here. Take into account that most units are well camouflaged & are sitting still. It's thus very difficult to spot units in it. Buildings are even more tricky, as their layout is always unknown(Spoiler: it's not 1 room). 

I hope this gives you some insight to what level CM actually simulates. And please, don't compare it to RTS games x). 

@gallycadetWell you've caused some amount of aggravation no doubt due to clearly having an axe to grind and getting it out there by having a review of pretty questionable information that you've put forward as objective fact, like:
"The engine isn't designed for modern combat, it was built for WW2" (engine was literally designed for modern combat, Shock Force was the initial release)
"LoS is dice rolls" (it isn't)
"It isn't equipped for MOUT combat because I have to micromanage and can't just cartwheel my men forwards to victory" (actually laughed to be frank with you)
"It's not fun to not be able to take losses" (It's a simulator, realism is the focus over fun. Not necessarily a poor reason to not recommend but should be stipulated because some people find realism fun)
"Play CMO/Armoured Brigade" (Neither of those are CM)
 
I will grant you the distressing lack of engineering vehicles (although engineers can make minefields safely passable)
 

I strongly recommend you never go to Sandford, in Cheshire. It's attractive enough, in a cliché olde worlde way, but the crime level there is simply appalling.

Greetings everyone.
We at the Developer Dialogue podcast (A Single Malt Strategy Podcast) are hosting an interview with the Dev team of Battlefront.com.  We invite everyone to join the Live Interview to participate and ask your own questions to the developer.  
DAY: Sunday, AUG 23rd
TIME: 9 PM EDT
 
Here is the link -> https://discord.gg/Y4rgNN 
 
Developer Dialogue (Interview Podcast)
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/developer-dialogue/id1524192396
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/33DiH9pCrcV9bVw4WeDWmS
Google Podcasts: https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc3ByZWFrZXIuY29tL3Nob3cvNDUwNTYyMi9lcGlzb2Rlcy9mZWVk
 
Single Malt Strategy Podcast Streamer (Web Player) ‪
https://www.spreaker.com/user/single_malt_strategy
Apple Podcasts ‪ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/single-malt-strategy/id1148480371
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc3ByZWFrZXIuY29tL3Nob3cvMTkxNjA5MC9lcGlzb2Rlcy9mZWVk
Spotify ‪ https://open.spotify.com/show/2YMkUR638whzsK2QD19RjW?si=9XLld5uyQ4qgnRWNJZ9siw ‬

Engineers and specialized assault troops are the only troops in the game that can use explosive charges to "breach and clear". Rifle infantry generally do not have this capability. You can split teams or use the Assault movement order to compartmentalize losses but the reality is you should never send a single man anywhere you haven't already sent many bullets.  
Urban fighting or MOUT in American parlance is an ugly, complicated affair under all circumstances. Real life Commanders avoid engaging in city fighting as much as possible for many, many good reasons. Not the least of which is the potential for catastrophe such as the one you experienced, an example which stacks up rather well with real life examples such as Operation Gothic Serpent. 

In the "uk". When you were "a school". Ah, that sums up life in Murdoch's Dictatorship of the Semi-Literate.

It's been a long time since I've played this but I remember beating it by just attacking straight down the middle with everything I had in one giant wave. I tried going up the right and left sides like you did and it didn't work for me either.
The right side has that little wooded hill and it's very difficult to get enough forces concentrated up there. I tried sending infantry up there and they got held up by bunkers and minefields and barbed wire and whatnot and the trees blocked my tanks from being able to support them.
The left side had too narrow an attack corridor and I ran into a similar problem with not being able to concentrate enough forces in such a small area.
So instead I massed all of my forces on the map into the big area in the middle, lining them up just behind the crest of that ridge going along the middle of the map. Then I called in a smoke screen right in front of the Germans, making sure to cover only part of their defensive line and not the whole thing. Then I went "over the top" with everything I had. The smoke screen blinded half the enemy force, allowing me to concentrate all of my guns onto the other half, dealing with them piece by piece.
After I went over the top, I had the whole force halt on top of the ridge and start shooting. The open ground in the middle of the map allowed more of my troops to get LOS on the same things at the same time, so I could concentrate much more firepower. I was able to knock out a lot of the German bunkers and heavy weapons before the smoke lifted, and then I turned my guns against the other half of the German line. 
After the bunkers were knocked out and the enemy machine guns were mostly destroyed or suppressed, I had my riflemen charge forward in one big human wave attack, supported by the tanks and mortars. The Soviets seem to work best without a bunch of fancy maneuvering and you just smash the enemy with one giant sledgehammer blow. I took a lot of casualties but I ended up smashing the whole German line and got a total victory. 
I made a video of this mission a long time ago. You don't get to see the whole mission since I was just playing with video editing software to make a cinematic video but you can see my human wave charge across the fields and the final assault on the German trenches. 
 

Below is how I use Imgur for posting screenshots: 
 
Sign into imgur.
Click Add images.
Drag the photo into imgur.
Click on photo (A menu will appear to the right).
Click Huge Thumbnail (At the bottom of menu).  (Original is same size as Huge Thumbnail) 
Click Copy – BBCode message boards & forums.
 Go to the forum
Right click and paste the photo into the narrative box
The URL will appear

but the october is Russian october(means november)
😉

It's like Star Trek ships moving at the "speed of plot"

But they used by them. Large Red partisan groups received its by the air like more heavy artillery guns. Maxims transported on carts or packed on horses. As I read UPA memories, they appreciated Maxims for precision and continuous long range firing, but because of their weight, these MGs mostly used for defense and for machine-gunners training. Usual MGs for riy (squad) and chota (platoon)  were DP-27 also in some less number used Hungarian 31M Solothurn, also happened Polish wz.28 (Browning M1916) and Chech ZB vz.26. MG34 and since 1944 MG42 considered more like platoon/company level weapon, though they could be and in squads. Interesting that in UPA exactly DP27 was favorite LMG. German MGs, especially MG42 had a problem, because of high rate of fire their barrels need of periodic substitution, but in conditions of parts supply impossibility, Soviet LMG was more firm in use. 
If we will back to Maxim type MMG, UPA also used Polish wz.30 (Browning M1917) and even WWI rarity probably Hungarian or Chech Schwartzlose M.07
In whole UPA used weapons of all countries, which units operated in Western Ukraine, so their equipment was very motley even inside one platoon or even squad. There is almost wasn't a problem to get and store a weapon in 1939 when Polish army collapsed or in 1941 when Red Army withdrew and left many weapons. Much more problem was ammunition to it. UPA High Command even was forced to limit a number of SMGs in squads, because ammunition for it shot out faster, than rebels could replenish stocks. Only when UPA was disbanded in 1949 and Ukrainian resistanсe crossed to small groups guerilla, almost all fighters in units got SMGs.
 

This was short-time episode in mid of 1944, when Germans were leaving territory of Western Ukraine and UPA High Command at last allowed to commanders to negotiate with Axis units and make agreements "weapon in exchange on neutrality and safe pass without confrontations and on recon information about Red Army". Before this decision the same High Command restricted any contacts with Germans and several local commanders were executed for betrayal, when they tried to make contact with German units by they own. Most good relations was between UPA and Slovakian units, they often supplied Ukrainians with weapon and ammunition and as a rule sabotaged any orders of Germans, directed against UPA. Most bad relations were with Hungarians and Russian Cossacs in German service, so weapon from them Ukrainians got only in battles.  
UPA was established in the end of 1942, so most of weapon until this unofficial pact in 1944 were got from old stores, partially from OUN members in Ukrainian Shutzmanschaft, which by the order deserted from German service and went off to the forests. Further the weapon mostly captured in different actions against Red Partisan, Axis occupation forces and Armia Krayowa. After 1945 most of weapon already was captured Soviet. 
Лента за лентою - this also could be Maxim %) Though, most of weapon in 1943-45 was German/Hungarian with some number of Soviet, taken in in 1941. Unlike Red Partisans, UPA as well as their enemy Polish Armia Krayowa, operated in Ukraine territory, hadn't centralized supply and solved a problem with weapon and ammunition and as they could.

Extra shrapnel?

There is a saying about the British Army: they tend to lose evey battle, except the last one.
 
Of course, it's only the last one that really matters.

Hi,
I'm always playing turn based. It's great, however certain action which is possible in reality is not available in turn based. For example, when my Javalin team shot a missile, they should immediately break contact to avoid return fire. Or when the point team being engaged, they should not just try to continue moving to the destination without return fire or seek cover.
If we could define a conditional action for these units, these problem could be remedied a lot. For example, The javelin team can have a conditional action: after firing missile, fall back. Or the point team can have a conditional action: when engaged, fallback(or seek cover). 
So I suggest to add in such function to make turn based order more flexible and (maybe) more close to reality action.

German and US is APHE.  British is AP solid shot (or unfilled AP).  In theory, APHE should generate a smaller number of larger fragments that have higher penetration and travel further, so you’d really need to do some extensive testing versus HE to determine a difference in outcomes based on range from the burst.

Single player run through on the Dutch scenario.  Last vid to be done on my ancient computer.  Next vid on new gaming rig.

This is from memory:
(1)  I tried the normal patch upgrade that everyone uses.  It said I had to reactivate and couldn't.
(2) John gave me something to reset and then reactivate.  It still didn't work.
(3)  John gave me the complete installer for the latest version.  It still didn't work.
(4)  John gave me something to reset some internals and my system and a game EXE to replace the installed one.  It still didn't work.
(5)  In all cases, I am getting some error 216 and it says "activations exceeded".  He said that this has increasingly been seen by others.
I have all other titles, and they work fine.  The former CMFI worked fine.
I understand this may be a third party issue.  I understand this may never be found.  I once found a 1 byte bug in 3 weeks with 3 teams working on it.  Why?  There was a hard contract to move data centers.  In only a few more days, my employer would have been forced out of business.  My search started with 50,000 lines of post-mortem dump which in plain English is 50,000 lines of numbers.
Point of fact.  No one has sent me a one line update for more than 2 weeks.
Point of fact.  No one has been willing discuss an exchange of similar value which would be acceptable to me as compared to maybe waiting months.
It think my 20 years deserves better than the above.
What do you think?

Testers here are highly resistant to anecdote-based complaints due to repeated instances of following up on anecdotes with time-intensive controlled tests and finding either a non-issue, or results nearly opposite to that claimed in the anecdote (i.e. something claimed as happening all the time is actually statistically rare).  Users are very prone to confirmation bias regarding failures and negative events.  If the failure or negative event involves something where probability is a factor (like artillery casualties), not an always / never event, you really should try to set up a test to confirm.
But that is just general commentary.  On air bursts vs. trucks, I did setup a quick 155mm (point, heavy, quick) vs. mounted platoon in 32x32ish square test and the results did not diverge significantly from same test with "general" fusing.  Trucks and troops in trucks are certainly not immune to air bursts.  However, it does feel off in several ways:
Neither airbursts nor ground bursts seem to deliver sub-system (radio, engine, wheels) damage to trucks even when they are causing casualties to passengers.  Trucks appear to either be fine or KO'd with nothing in between.  The distance threshold for a hit to be likely to KO a truck seems to be the same for air bursts and ground bursts, maybe a little tighter for air bursts.  Might be a bug in this, or maybe any sub-system damage results in immediate KO? (If the latter, then trucks are definitely not taking sub-system damage as would be expected.) Because air bursts never directly strike trucks, all air burst KOs appear to be without damage.  Trucks won't blow up / burn from air burst KOs.  Also noticed that sometimes the KO would happen a turn or so later, further giving the "no effect" feel. Troops in trucks appear to have higher protection vs. artillery bursts compared to troops in the open on the ground.  But if their trucks are KO'd and they exit, they go down much faster to air bursts than to general.  

Well, looking back at the challenges BF faced with the fans that somewhat turned into enemies, has in the long run proven that BF made good decisions and those that tried to tear them down were unsuccessful in their vengeful actions.
The game is still a masterpiece for what it is and there is plenty of us that see it for that. 
I am confident that we will see more come into the ranks with this new available platform as to purchasing the game.
the only thing that is sad is that it has taken this long to make it available on such a platform. But then on the other hand, it has not actually been all that long since CMSF was updated to CMSF2. So maybe the timing is not all that bad.
Now if they could just make enough money so they can relax and really focus on the next level of the game and come out with CMx3 with all the insights they have now gathered over the years.
 

I bought CMBO/CMBB/CMAK/CMBN/CMFI/CMRT/CMFB (and all expansions) even when I didn't have time to play, because I liked the company and the community.
You can check my membership date goes back to 2000.
In July, I reported a problem that CMFI would not update properly (opening up a ticket), I tried every suggestion I was given in various permutations.  It still does not work.  My last communication from Support (John) is more that 2 weeks ago.
I am a retired software engineer and understand that some problems are really hard to solve; and solving a single customer's problem may not be a cost effective for the business.  Although it was hinted others are increasingly seeing the same problem with CMFI being unable to activate after updating.
I AM THE 20 YEAR LOYAL CUSTOMER.
I expect that "thank you" is more than just slick marketing, but sincere.
I expect to have someone respond to my 3 ticket queries for status.
Customer service is about making the customer whole and maintaining a positive relationship.  Ideally, that would be making CMFI work; however, I am open to discuss other options, since I understand that $500 USD in paid hours cannot be spent just working on my problem.  So, we might discuss other possibilities.
John, BFC,
Am I really a valued customer over 20 years?  Is someone going to step up to the plate here?  I felt it was in bad form, not simply to reply "We are working on it, and give it 4 weeks, please."  Perhaps, it is bad form for me to post here, but I have invested 5 hours trying to install.  And would like to see some good faith from BFC, then just dropping me, because it cannot find a technical solution.  (I never chose eLicense.  You did.  I never pirated your game.  I paid you directly full price.  So, I don't know why I am the loser here?)
Thank you.
Your loyal customer of 20 years.
PS:  I have taken the liberty of making backups of everything in case I should accidentally delete something of consequence.

There are actually people who have tried to come up with a theory of what makes a game fun.
https://www.amazon.com/Theory-Game-Design-Raph-Koster/dp/1449363210
Long story short, their idea is that all games are about presenting the player with a series of meaningful decisions. If the decisions are not meaningful - important to success or failure -  the game is not fun.
In a racing game, decisions will be to turn left or right, and how much to accelerate or brake. In Combat Mission, it might be how to assault a hedgerow position or a village - a decision that is in itself broken down into more and more subdecisions.
One of the reasons CM is so fun (for a certain type of people like myself) is that it forces me to make a myriad of decisions, and that it punishes me really hard if I overlook something important. The tactical decisions are meaningful.

Thanks @akd for wading into Twitch and coming up with a direct link to Steve & @ChrisND demo session. Very interesting to hear Steve's voiceover (it's good to put a sound to the written word!). As usual, when you listen to a creator talking about their work, there's nuance and a smattering of detail that you don't get from text alone. So I learnt a couple things about CMx2 that I didn't before. I think every fan of these games should watch that demo.
What was the feedback and questions from the professional audience like? It is a crowd that, speaking in very general and broad terms, is not very fond of high fidelity simulators, and prefer manual wargames as they don't need to jump a big technical barrier in order to tweak the models.

Minor update of sheer and utter madness because I'm sure if he hasn't already BFCElvis has started to gloat (I know I would have).
Ithikial's grand Panzer plan falls dead in a heap. The two Panzer IV's take lead and pincer the known Sherman. It's facing towards OBJ Beer to the south. It's utterly confused spotting both Panzer IV's he poor commander and gunner are shell shocked. The turret finally begins to move. The Sherman at 'Dead Tank Corner' gets the first aimed shot off and instead of going for the rear of the turret places one directly in the centre of the hull! It ricochet's off the hull.

Sherman slowly moves it's turret and single shots the Panzer IV. Immediate catastrophic explosion.


The JzPzIV directly behind then takes a hit in the rear engine and is knocked out. I think my last JzPzIV(A) is safe since there's literally four tank wrecks lined up between it and the offending Sherman.
Meanwhile behind the other Sherman has a panic attack (the crew are rattled) and pops smoke and begins to reverse rather than taking a shot at the rear hull and turret of the Sherman!

Luckily for me it's the end turn and I quickly put a stop to that nonsense. You will stand and fight or your will die. I'm not nice to my pixeltruppen.

Now to go grab a drink.