LemuelG

I have found that a grouping of even one single tree of smallest variety per-square will pretty much totally obscure an area from an elevated observer. I would be lobbying BFC for some smaller trees (and 'medium' wall/bocage), but fortunately for them I'm lazy. I think one needs to be careful when placing trees, particularly for cosmetic/realism purposes, sometimes a tall bush is more appropriate than the smallest tree. As others say, have one every other tile, looks good and saves resources. Smaller trees please BFC

I see them as a 'spare' in the chain of command. If for whatever reason you need someone with some authority around, but can't spare any other HQs - the XO is there. Sometimes he directs light mortars left behind in the advance, sometimes guarding a lonely ATG, other times he might be found following attacking troops playing the 'beater' - trying to encourage cowering sections to rally; etc. Not sure just how much they make up for the absence of a unit's direct-superior, but I play like they make a difference anyway.

I guess my objection is that the CC model of strictly company-sized engagements in arena-like battlefields was fun, but this game is capable of much more. I remember the very simplistic online campaigns for CCIII - they were little more than crude QB generators and/or match-making service, but you got to use the same battle-group from battle to battle, and if you did well you'd have plenty of points to deck your company out however you liked (within the limits time-frame of the campaign you're in). Something like this might be quite cool, maybe even possible if BFC got in on it. Can't imagine the coding would be overly demanding - think of it like automatically choosing a random QB map and then importing the carried-over forces of each player to duke it out. Sometimes you'd end up with epically-experienced guys who'd killed hundreds and knocked out dozens of tanks. Losing such a hero was genuinely traumatic. This would actually be really awesome, you convinced me Cpt

Well that sounds proper to me. Panther gunner has no periscope, whereas Sherman gunner does - Sherman gunner has much better awareness (no contest, US gunner does not need to use his sight to acquire the target, using his wide-FOV periscope while German gunner must pan around using his 2.5x with laughably narrow FOV) due to this and can lay gun on the target quicker. The quality of the German optical sight may have been better, but that's not particularly helpful for target-acquisition unless the target happens to be directly in front of the turret.

Fair cop - I did say I loved CC, it was awesome to fight repeatedly over the same stretch of ground with all the craters, hulks and bodies from previous battles Head-to-head campaigns in the GJS and Stalingrad mods remain as my fondest wargaming memories. The problem always was, and still is, that AI is horrible at making well-judged military decisions.

Heh, marginal at best huh? Whatever, maybe I should have just hit up my cousin in Afghanistan? No loss, it only took like, ten seconds to Google. And yeah, I watched it. I watched all of it, possibly one of the best 'marksmanship for dummies' I have ever encountered. I saw plenty of very good reasons as to why the general ROF of the weapon could never hope to be more than a round every couple of seconds, it simply takes a certain amount of time for the gun to settle post-shot, for the target to be re-acquired (arguably the primary advantage of the SA over the BA is the maintenance of one's position between shots instead of working a bolt), and to use the correct technique for firing a shot - if you're not doing this you're not hitting crap. Is it not interesting that there was no drill for standing-position rapid-fire, as it was considered to be impractical due to balance issues? At over 4kg and firing a meaty round, shooting that sucker is gonna be laborious as well (something to ponder when we ask why soldiers may have been unwilling to fire their weapons). So, we see in the game soldiers using double-taps, and firing at over a round a second on occasion - there is 'emergency-fire' which healthily exceeds recommended (trained) rates, it's present in the game. OP has what he wants, but is too ignorant to see it.

Yeah, here's the incontrovertible proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBQrtzSdVDo Fix now Here's a neat contemporary training vid: http://www.archive.org/details/Rifle_Marksmanship_with_M1_Rifle_Part_1 'Rapid fire' techniques are addressed at 46 min. Most relevant points: taking position and firing the first shot is intended to take 9 seconds, no more, no less; rapid-fire 'cadence' training begins with 5-second intervals between shots, graduating in .5-second increments down to 3 second intervals at maximum. OP, do your homework. Your assertion that a shooter taking 12 seconds to drain an M1 clip being too long 'by a magnitude of 2-3 times' is utterly bogus, and when faced with primary evidence it falls apart completely. Case closed, or can we expect another thread about this next week?

I really like the camera - hold LMB to scroll and RMB to pan, elevate with mouse-wheel, TAB to units after clicking their icon etc. My only beef is with elevation via mouse-scrolling, it should be smoother rather than it's slightly jarring 1-2-3-4-5-6 progression. CTRL-clicking tends to frustrate as the camera resets to a default position and disorients me, I've gotten into the habit of zooming right up into the sky first, then the scrolling-time to your desired location is much decreased.

As much as I love CC, and I really do - whether you're talking CCIII or CCV it's campaign-system is pretty terrible and overly gamey, I see no reason to have anything like it in this game. Force pool? I'd rather just get the whole battalion on an extra-large field. Not to say that some things couldn't be lifted - every soldier should have a name and I should be able to see it in my squad-list; in fact, make the squad-list a little more like the CC version. Which reminds me, the GUI should be collapsible, and capable of only displaying only the info you desire - maybe you only want the squad-list displayed, for instance, all else will be hidden until the player recalls it. Also, soldier-outlines (like CC, you can choose whether they display cover, suppression, morale - whatever); gamey, but dispenses with most of the need for a giant block of info taking up half the screen. And medals for over-achievers.

I second this - great suggestion.

I thought he made model tanks (and very nice ones too) then wrote about them in magazines. Does this somehow invalidate his research? Or have you gone over the edge and and consider writing esoteric articles in niche magazines to be 'populism'? You oughtn't be so flip about his contribution to WWII historiography, what have you done lately?

I was wondering about this, but didn't want to start a thread over it - colour me impressed. Anyway, you can find this kind of guff all over any video-game forum you care to visit; generally it's essence can be distilled to someone throwing a disgraceful tantrum because their (often delusional) personal expectations weren't satisfied, no surprise that most folk roll their eyes and say: "WTF would you know anyway? You've got the social grace of a spoiled two-year-old" Of course, the way tanks firing while moving is pretty close to broken, OP - you were not the first to notice. You act like we're about to come to our senses - "hey, he's right! OMG SO BROKEN!!"; yeah, you're a month or so late on that one - welcome, please calm down.

Nice, am finally tempted to de-vanilla my game.

I watched a bazooka round fired at a StuG from a 45 degree angle bounced off the running-gear and into the fighting compartment from underneath the small side-section which overhangs the hull - the round hit near the sprocket and ended up killing the gunner. I was deeply impressed.

Playing on 'warrior' in RTM campaign I got a lot of leverage from the heavy guns/mortars by taking my time in setup and making a plan, using time-delayed barrages on the locations which I want my troops to occupy/attack. The maps are not large, and the best defensive positions are pretty obvious - I estimate, how long will it take me to get B company in a position to launch an attack on hedge-line X? So I give them ten minutes to make it to the jump-off and get maximum leverage from the fire-support, any delays can be accounted for by setting the barrage to 'maximum' length, and cancelling it when your guys have arrived and been ordered to assault - hopefully they will be hitting the objective just as the last few shells are falling, no time for the defenders to rally. If you have ample support (and in RTM you almost always do) you can pre-plan multiple strikes staggered along the map and create a rolling-barrage to sweep your path clear. It works good, save your light-mortars for delivering the coup de grace to suppressed enemies, fighting from the front line by aimed-fire.

Attacking AI is balls. Always has been in every game ever. If sitting back in the positions given to you at the start isn't your bag why don't you use some initiative and get aggressive? I can't think of any tactical game in which I enjoyed purely defending against the AI, nothing new here. Plans have eliminated almost all of the truly horrible and game-wrecking AI foul-ups of games-past, now designers need to be able to imbue groups with decision-making ability and we'll be cooking.

Oh dang, I laughed - wasn't expecting that! Wait for those 17-pounders to show up before you start complaining; not enough uber in your mensch?

Yeah, I've been eating & drinking this battle for a few weeks now, the La Fiere map (I eventually decided to do Chef du Pont separately ) is currently 2.5 square kilometers; combat elements on both sides for the day of the American assault are > regimental size and fire-support is at a divisional scale. There are navigable flooded fields and swamp, a sunken road from the railway embankment (for the attempted infiltration on the night of the 9th), "Timmes' orchard" and "Grey Castle" are included - the map terminates on the high ground on the eastern outskirts of Amfreville, and about 1km west of St Mere Eglise. If it is ever finished I will be sure to share it

Terrific job! Lovely details and some really good play.

It does seem less than desirable huh? Unfortunately for the guys asked to do the job, that's exactly how it played in reality (La Fiere causeway, June 9th 1000 jump-off). And yeah, it got pretty hot. Yeah, there are hedges and a raised berm running along either side of the road. I dig what you're saying - every man makes the same decision to use the same piece of cover in the same way, this could explain the precision with which they emulate each-other's pathing on their straight sprint, even down to making the same weird detours and swerves. Anyways, long story short: squad-formation status-variables, would be nice/realistic, game still quite playable without

Point taken, yeah, you expect a bit o' that - the worst is when the guys following far behind get suppressed by the fire directed at the vanguard and start moping around at the jump-off - usually the first guys across do ok, and the ones following end up crawling around in the kill-sack 'till mortars put em out their misery (more-or-less what actually happened in reality). I'm more focused on the actual behaviour of the running guys, and they really are uncanny in the way they follow the footsteps of the guy in front as closely as they are able, I am certain it's a liability, at this point I can't be convinced otherwise - are there ways to mitigate it, yeah, but there could be better - I remember reading that HE was 'nerfed' to compensate for the squad-compression-syndrome (SCS, freshly-coined)? It's not like a line formation is something particularly exotic or unusual (or that this hasn't been done by a CM competitor), and having several small columns advancing in a line is not exactly the same thing. Are you saying you'd never find a use for proper formations? I bet you would

Firstly, yes they do - it is leading to extreme casualties from MGs in a scenario I'm designing, one which involves a certain 500m-long causeway. Yes, sometimes on quick and fast they can become separated (some guys faster than others), but when running along my causeway they will invariably take the exact same line as the guy in front - running along the ditch on the sdie of the road (mostly, occasionally there are bizarre detours through hedges and back onto the road), sometimes they cross to other side of the road for unknown reasons, again every single man will dutifully follow the steps of the guy in front. The HMGs covering the road go to town... an accurate burst down the length of the causeway is usually good for 2-3 guys 'cause they have such a hard-on for the guy directly preceding them and eat the same bullets, it's a real horror-show. Something as simple as a 'line' (advancing abreast from each other) formation would cut down on casualties enormously. And yes, splitting squads does help, now you only lose a third of the section instead of all of them, it's a start, but it's been a few battles since I deployed an un-split squad anyway due to their tendency for huddling together in a pile. My Dawn-of-War playing flatmate is getting good now, all it takes is a coupla light-mortar shells out of the blue and you can kiss your whole section goodbye.

Yeah, quite simply this is one of the most important things on the 'to-do' list, if what we want is as realistic a 1:1 tactical game as possible. "Line', 'column', and 'scattered', as status-variables which apply to all movements; I could live without anything more complex, but will have 'wedge' etc if it were simple enough to do. Splitting squads does not help, neither does facing orders or anything else, this one has to be coded. (edit) oh, and a 'one-at-a-time' movement order - one guy 'fasts' to the waypoint, when he arrives the next guy sets-off, and so-on.

I have seen something like this - a tank ordered to fire smoke at the exact spot he had been area-firing upon for 30 seconds and move on to smoke another area refused to fire on the first target but hit the second (definately had LOS to both), even though he had been hitting it with MG and cannon just fine a moment ago. Didn't think much of it, though it puzzled me briefly.

It has to be setup to fire; there is an order: 'deploy', it takes a moment for them to do, but it should immediately become available to anyone capable of giving it orders via audio/visual/radio. I doubt your demo is broken somehow, check first that floating icons are turned on - 'alt+I' is the toggle.