LemuelG

Firstly, I have never claimed 'broken' - 'would be nice' is an adequate expression of my feelings here. I'm trying my hardest not to educate anyone, one would hope the grogs 'round here would be aware that every unit in a motorized division has it's own repair section - a small and relevant example I have at hand would be the 12th SS - which was formed with a recovery company for each of the armored battalions in it's Panzer Regiment. While mainly rear-echelon, elements followed closely on the heels of the armored columns ready to deal with any and all maintenance needs, if a repair was considered do-able within a space of four hours it was carried-out in situ. So it's not just about tracks, but any minor damage - of course I would like to see recovery vehicles, bulldozers etc... why not? "Too hard" is an acceptable answer, "outside scope of game" is not.

Beg? Spare me the condescending tones.. we have battalion-sized formations, four-hour battles, fields over two square kilometers in size, campaigns with carried-over forces, at what point exactly does the scope of CM become adequate to warrant the important tactical consideration of vehicle recovery? Without bothering to drag up the voluminous amounts of info surrounding the subject, I'll say it fully justifies being raised in the "things you'd like see" thread, your objections are pretty unconvincing to me.

Yeah, AP had it wrong - it was generally far too quick an operation; I want to stress that I thought it was mildly broken, but amusing and endearing all the same. But, Some prangs are easier to fix than others, and if I have >=1hr on the clock I'd appreciate someone putting in the effort - just abstract certain types of damage/boggings - is it irreparable? Or something fixable with a little bit of elbow grease? As commander I don't appreciate my vehicles getting bogged/disabled and having the crews do nothing about it - no point arguing that it didn't happen, even under fire. Vet crews could change a track in under half an hour, even on Tigers. These are things I think should be considered within the framework of this game, realism does not argue against it's presence - it demands it.

Yeah, but I'd like to see crews imbued with the ability to jump out and repair their tracks in the middle of a battle first, a la Achtung Panzer (nothing special, when the area is secure the crew hops out and starts wailing on their running-gear with hammers, a little while later they're good to go). And the way a broken track would unravel as the tank drove on, and leave it driving in circles was terrific. It's not like CMBN has nothing to learn from other games

Could just be a 'clean' and 'bloody' option? I'm not exactly pining for flying-limbs and showers of blood, but I wouldn't mind seeing guys being thrown through the air by nearby blasts, and if guys who had been killed by flamethrower weren't at least slightly charred it might be a bit disconcerting; what I mean to say, I suppose, is that excessive sterility detracts from the immersiveness of the game. I might argue that any intentional toning-down of the gruesomeness of combat is done in the name of 'entertainment' and only succeeds in trivializing the events depicted in the game (and I might not, don't bother calling me on it ). Blood - yes. Illumination - yes. Flamethrowers - yes. Most realistic Sim possible - yes.

Yeah, I gotta concede that - the manor building as it stands today is a pretty impressive stone structure, one of those French houses that looks like a little castle, it was exactly the same during the war (except it lost the front wall on D+1 to German howitzers). It must be noted that Dolan was not very specific on which building in the complex the Germans occupied, it could have been one of several. The cover of this book has a good picture as-it-was: http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=h3qgjf5AhT8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=no+better+place+to+die&hl=en&ei=mxQEToinNoPqrQe_0sGeDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false I took two things away from that account I think are relevant to this debate: despite their stoutness, and utterly dominant positions overlooking the bridge, at no point in the battle are the houses in the manor complex utilized for anything other than a hiding place for some lonely German conscripts, and later an aid station was established there in a blind-spot; the second is that the German defenders who did use the farmhouse were isolated and destroyed with much more ease than those who took up positions in the hedges on the Eastern approach to the manor. I have no personal experience with being in a stone house under fire, and no evidence on hand to back up my feelings but (much like OP), I imagine the stone would keep bullets in as well as keep them out, which (presumably) would create extra hazard due to stone splinters breaking off the interior and zinging around in any and all directions, along with all kinds of crazily-ricocheting bullets. Not exactly saying it's a death-trap, but certainly that there's no good reason to complain about your guys getting zapped when they holed-up in the second-story of a building in view of an enemy formation. I presume there are some mild abstractions involved in the cover and protection of buildings due to limitations of the 1:1 modeling (lack of furniture etc, troops exposing themselves unnecessarily). I would like also to know what is modeled concerning building-shrapnel, is it 'in there'?

Agreed. A little more humanity in the process would be nice, not necessarily crucial. It is not at all unusual for a tank to rotate, elevate simultaneously then lick a shot the very same moment it arrives in place. No pause to confirm, no adjustments, just whirr-vzzzt-kaboom! Again and again and again I see it, and it feels phony.

Rather assumptive. When one digs deeper it becomes apparent that the Germans in the area didn't regard the manor as much of a defensive position themselves . http://www.thedropzone.org/europe/normandy/dolan.html Fortunately this account is replete with details of great value to a scenario designer (and the description of the manor as a "stucco-type farmhouse" hardly conjures visions of a fortress-like position). With all due respect to Armchair General, that article was rather inadequate.

I called a 'heavy' 'maximum' on my own company (they had reasonably ok cover, a few hedges, all of them moving on 'quick' through the barrage area at the time) and took about half a dozen casualties, it was really quite pathetic - a well-used light-mortar could easily have trumped the rockets. The concentration of fire was, in my view, entirely inadequate for tactical use. I see why they're cheap, no beef with that at all TBH. If your idea of fun is blindly blanketing the map in random rocket-strikes, I'd advise you to do that, if that floats your boat then good for you.

Was it a 'big' bocage? If so it would be unsurprising due to the soldiers lying on their bellies being unlikely to see over the earthen berm under the hedgerow. Small bocage might be a different story?

I wish there were a condensed history of fortifications in CM games for those whom it passed by... I'd like to know the origins of the debate, and the design choices which lead to the current state of affairs. (anyone? )

Personally I hope BFC are working on resolving the FOW/deformed terrain issue sooner rather then later; like many I'm sure, I look at them (forts) with a bit of a cocked eyebrow... I'm not sure what to think really, though I do know they are currently not 100% satisfactory, for entirely obvious reasons.

I disagree, if your guys are being engaged by a reasonably faraway unit while in cover of some sort, 'hiding' is usually good enough to cause the enemy's visual contact to vanish, allowing you to make a discrete getaway (on their bellies). But yeah, it didn't do OP any good... I'm not surprised, for me it means "don't fire, don't spot, just lie on belly and keep head down", and I am glad for that. Shame bayonets aren't modeled, that would have been great at the end there... I mean, they pretty much had to jump in the holes with the Germans, and even then one survived till the end of video. So broken User error.

I hope this is a top priority for new features. Imagine it... give a formation an attack order, attach the condition: If (casualties>10%) Then withdraw, attack pointB; If (enemy touches positionX) Then team1 withdraws to line2, team2 flanks... it would be a revolution... surely it's pretty do-able with some bog-standard boolean expressions? Argh, I ache thinking about how great it would be.

No. I wish it were otherwise.

I'm not sure, a human would never have let me handle them so roughly. I thought the German dispositions were really good, the AI just proves incapable of reacting proactively to his flanks being turned. A StuG or ATG tucked in behind that road intersection (main road and farm road) covering those flanking positions would likely have stopped me moving up there so quickly... needs more traps

Thank the Lord. Will this also work with ground (i.e. when they're burrowing away at the crest of a hill trying to reach the center-mass of the hull-down tank behind, instead of aiming a bit higher)?

How interesting, which action? What kind of scale?

Correct, the gun was inoperable until the crew (in this case only two of it's youngest members) returned with it's mechanism; in-game it is already impossible for someone other than the gun's crew to use the gun (something I fully accept, but don't really believe is entirely appropriate), I'm not sure where the problem is here. I would rather crews use discretion, and avoid destroying their critical equipment at the drop of a hat, especially when it is possible and realistic for them to temporarily disable it (satisfying the goal of depriving it to the enemy if they do not return) and return later to re-crew it. Tank crews get to re-mount, why not gunners?

No wonder! I kept coming across solo Germans... IIRC, in Turnbull's my mortar team evacuated with 40-odd kills to their name

//spoiler I had the same experience, and also Les Licornets - the roads were absolutely free, particularly Les Licornets (The Labrynth at least had some squads covering the road in my play-through) - if one has a spare fifteen minutes they can see the results in this little movie I made for some pals of mine to show em the game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhbIdXtYUyY I thought it an obviously fatal flaw for the Germans in their defence, I only played it once so I'm not sure if there are other plans in which they lock down the road.

Bahaha, at least there is one objective truth in this thread

In real life your guys can navigate around a tricky corner without needing to have their hands held. I certainly don't see how WeGo is any more 'realistic' than pausable RT... because a potentially indefinite break in the action every sixty seconds is a totally authentic command environment?

Also, mortars, zooks and rifle-grenades will be able to draw LOS and fire on spots riflemen next to them can't. Try it out with Shermans at long range targets as well, they lob it pretty high and occasionally fire over walls or banks you might not have expected them too.

There are good and bad about fighting at night. Freedom from tactical air is a pretty good reasons; areas under enemy observation become livable again, allowing movements not otherwise possible/feasible during the daytime. If we have night battles, we should have hand-to-hand fighting as well, noise security for infiltrators.