Aldaros

Alright, after a quick test, someone with a Thompson and .45 caliber ammunition will not trade the Thompson for a Garand. If you want to see this yourself, start a realtime quick battle with a couple platoons of tanks and a company of infantry. Bunch the infantry as close as you can, then use "friendly" area fire with the tanks to kill them. You'll have to target adjacent action squares, since the game won't let you place an area target directly on top of friendly troops. Finally, dismount one or more of the tank crews to conduct buddy aid. Thompsons will be discarded in favor of a BAR, but not for a standard Garand (i.e. one without a rifle grenade launcher). You'll also notice that tank crews never pick up extra ammo; they will take just enough to fully load their weapons once. So given a 5-man tank crew starting with only M1911 pistols, after each picks up a Garand via buddy aid, the crew will have a total of 40 rounds of M1 rifle ammo. 3 Garands, a sniper rifle, and a BAR gives 49 rounds of M1 (3*8+5+20). They do not appear to take any unused rifle grenades after scrounging a Garand with a grenade launcher, and they will only take a single rocket when picking up a bazooka.

Interesting. I've seen someone with a Thompson pick up a rifle grenade launcher, and I've seen plenty of sniper rifle trades, but I've never seen anyone swap a Thompson (with ammo, at least) for a standard M1.

Only the soldier actually giving the buddy aid will pick up weapons and/or ammo. In your case, the soldier with the Stg44 must have been giving the buddy aid, which is why the Stg44 vanished.

There is at least a basic ranking of weapons. During buddy aid, a soldier will only trade for a higher-ranked weapon (unless he's out of ammo, apparently; I haven't noticed that one myself). Pistols are ranked lowest, rifles and submachine guns together are the next rank up (so you'll never trade a rifle for an SMG or vice versa), and then sniper rifles, rifle-caliber automatic weapons (Stg44s, BARs, Brens, MGs, etc.), and explosive weapons (rifle grenade launchers, bazookas, etc.) are all in the upper rank(s). I don't know the specific differences in rank between the upper-level weapons are, but I would guess sniper rifles are considered worse than an automatic weapon, and from what you say it sounds like Stg44s are also ranked above rifles/SMGs but below the larger weapons. The only randomness is that sometimes a soldier will keep his weapon even though he would normally trade; IIRC this is to simulate the wounded soldier's weapon being damaged.

There is no magnify unit size command in CMx2 games. As I recall, the explanation is that the visible unit models in the CMx2 engine are also used for the hit calculations. In other words, making a unit appear bigger would also increase the "physical" size of the unit in the game, making it much easier to hit.

Sorry to bring up an old thread, but what ever happened with this? Is the three-squad option still planned for the base game?

Correct. All production P-38s had 20mm Hispano cannon (aside from the original YP-38s and P-38Ds, which had 37mm cannon, and the Lightning Is, which only had .30 caliber and .50 caliber machine guns). Only the original XP-38 prototype was supposed to carry a 23mm cannon, but I don't know if it was ever actually installed.

There were seven P-38 groups in ETO during Normandy; four in the 8th Air Force (20th, 55th, 364th, and 479th Fighter Groups) and three in the 9th (367th, 370th, and 474th FGs). The three 9th Air Force groups were mostly used in an interdiction/ground-attack role. The four 8th Air Force groups were used as bomber escorts, and would only have engaged in ground targets while strafing on their way home. From a CMBN context, the 9th AF groups could appear during a battle, but none of the 8th AF groups would normally be seen (since their targets of opportunity would be far behind the front lines). Relatively speaking, P-38s were rare in the ETO, and were largely phased out during the last year of the war; by mid-September 1944, all four 8th Air Force P-38 groups had transitioned to P-51s, and only the 474th was still flying P-38s at the end of the war. The main advantage the P-38 had when strafing was that all five of its guns were in the nose; wing-mounted guns need to be boresighted so that the rounds converge at a specific range (e.g. 300 yards in front of the aircraft). This makes it much easier to hit targets at approximately that range, but makes it much harder to hit targets at significantly longer (or shorter) ranges. Since they were already tightly clustered, the P-38's guns could boresighted straight ahead, and therefore retained a close pattern at both short and long ranges. As YankeeDog notes, there is no evidence that the 20mm cannon was good at killing tanks.

Then why not just issue all those squad leaders carbines? A Thompson cost, what, four times what an M1 carbine cost? Clearly, there must be some reason for giving someone a short range, automatic weapon. Furthermore, wouldn't squad leaders have SMGs specifically because they would be most likely to make good use of them? If a squad is charging/assaulting a position (which, as I understand it, is the most useful situation for an SMG), wouldn't the squad leader be up front leading the charge, instead of following the rest of the squad? I'll agree that officers really shouldn't be shooting much, but they aren't the ones carrying (and losing) Thompsons in CMBN anyway.

Huh, I've never seen weapons recovered after the battle. My experience has always been that, if someone doesn't pick it up via buddy aid before the battle ends, it's gone. Even if the enemy completely surrendered, and the dead BAR guy was lying right next to his squadmates. I've also had two cases where I lost machine guns between battles, after retrieving them via buddy aid. In the Road to Montebourg campaign, I had two M1919A6 teams where the team leader was carrying the machine gun at the end of the battle. When I got those soldiers back two missions later, both teams had lost their machine guns; the leaders had reverted to M1 Garands.

That's not at all what I'm asking, so I'll try to explain my reasoning again. What I want is the AI to treat a squad's weapons like a set of golf clubs. I want the AI to think, we've got a bunch of rifles, but no Thompsons now, so maybe I should trade my rifle for this. That way, my squad will have a better chance of surviving anything we might run into. That is, of course, the reason the squad leader had one in the first place; it doesn't make sense for everyone to have an SMG, but it's very useful for one or two people to have one. And more importantly, this is exactly what the AI already does with machine guns, BARs, and sniper rifles. All I want is for the Thompson to be treated like the specialized weapon it is. I'm not assuming that weapons are always functional. In fact, I've recently had several cases where BARs and M1919A6s weren't picked up by the buddy aid soldiers, presumably because they were broken. What I'm assuming is that, if the vast majority of large, heavy weapons are usable after their owner is WIA/KIA, that at least a couple Thompsons should actually survive intact as well. I've done buddy aid on at least 20-30 SMG users by this point, so clearly this isn't an issue of having bad luck with weapon damage.

France was neither ill-prepared nor ill-equiped. In the middle of an upgrade cycle, sure, but it was no Poland. They had a modern force and eight months to prepare it. The Germans, including Hitler, didn't even expect Case Yellow to overrun the entire country; they just wanted breathing room in the west and ports on the coast. Man for man, the German army remained unmatched throughout the war. And I certainly wouldn't agree that the German army fell to pieces. In the spring of 1945, maybe. But not until their entire country was already being torn apart around them. I agree that the German high command wasn't any better than Hitler, but it's still true that Germany lost because they didn't have any real strategic plan. Germany's military success has been based on short and highly aggressive wars for at least the past few hundred years. Their army was consistently unmatched tactically on the field. The problem was, it's leaders never understood that destroying the enemy in front of you may not end the war. And when neither the UK nor the USSR surrendered after losing badly in the field (to say nothing of arbitrarily declaring war on the US), Germany had no options left. The German army probably could have done better on the defensive, but they also could have done far worse; see virtually every other military involved in World War II.

Sure, as long as BFC has properly implemented RFC 1149.

As far as I can tell, turning radius while stopped isn't modeled in CMBN. When you give a stopped jeep or armored car a face order, it rotates in place. Wheeled vehicles don't need to drive ahead or reverse to turn in the game. Besides, this issue appears even when the vehicle should not be turning at all. Which is what makes it annoying; I don't mind having to line vehicles up myself to cross gaps. I do mind when the vehicle ignores my perfectly lined up waypoints, turns for no reason, and then blocks the half-dozen vehicles lined up behind it. This issue has certainly been brought up before, but I don't know if BFC has confirmed that they've found the relevant bug in the code. The Tiger bug was probably different, since this one seems to appear even when the vehicle in question has never been under fire.

I've seen this a number of times, including when the vehicle was stationary in front of the gap, and was already perfectly lined up, so it just needed to drive forward. I had one case with a halftrack where I lined it up, ordered it through, and came back a few minutes later to find it reversed in place. I'd already sent four Panthers and another Sd.Kfz. 251 through that same gap, so it was certainly wide enough. I should note that I only play realtime in CMBN, so I don't know if the AI will recalculate its path in WEGO after a charge goes off. It certainly doesn't adjust in realtime, if the move order is issued before the charge goes off (just tested to confirm).

Yes, they will use it; just double-checked by setting up a squad with three 66mm HE rounds and ordering them to target a wall about 70m front of them. The grenadier used all three rounds within about fifteen seconds. That said, they were missing their AT grenade (and had no casualties), so they must have already used that on some other infantry (there were no hostile vehicles on the map). I don't remember the last time I saw a squad use a rifle grenade without being issued a blind-fire target, though.

I've tried buddy aid on a wounded squad leader with another squad that already had 352 rounds of .45 ACP, and the soldier didn't trade his Garand for the Thompson, so I don't think it's an ammo issue. Anyway, since it looks like BFC isn't going to chime in here one way or the other, I guess I'll just have to disagree with the claim that an SMG isn't worth trading yet another Garand for, and leave it at that.

The AI is very consistent in picking up dropped rifle grenade launchers. It may help that the game seems to treat it a little differently; I've seen soldiers running around with an M1 Garand with M7 and no grenade, while carrying another Garand with the M7 attached and a grenade loaded on their backs. The two weapon thing isn't consistent, though; three maps latter in the campaign (after being reinforced) my grenadiers all appeared to be carrying a single weapon. Soldiers also consistently pick up sniper rifles dropped by dead marksmen, which IMO would be less useful than an SMG, and definitely would be harder to use (starting with the fact that the scope probably wouldn't be properly zeroed for whoever picked it up).

So, to return to the original question . . . is it intentional that buddy aid ignores "dropped" submachine guns with ammo, or is it a bug?

To clarify, yes, by "medic" I meant random squad members applying bandages/looting corpses, not unarmed guys wearing red crosses (none of whom are in the game anyway). Since Normandy is full of bocage, with lots of short sight lines and close-range firefights, I'd prefer one Thompson over an eighth or ninth Garand. And even if the game weren't currently focused on combat in bocage country, I'd still want at least one per squad at all times, to provide close-in firepower when needed.

Is it intentional that soldiers performing buddy aid never pick up a Thompson? They're always good about grabbing BARs, bazookas, sniper rifles, and rifle grenade launchers, but I've yet to see one pick up a Thompson from a dead squad leader, even when the squad leader had ammo for it, and the medic is just carrying a normal Garand or carbine. Seems like it'd be a favored weapon to take, since it's one of the few automatic weapons in a squad.

In my experience tanks only rotate their turret for a cover arc; they usually don't seem to rotate the chassis unless they're actively engaged.

In my experience, the vehicle AI has a consistent problem with continuing to rotate after it should have stopped. It only seems to happen while the vehicle is rotating in place near obstacles. I've seen a number of cases where the AI halts to make a sharp turn, starts rotating, and then instead of moving forward once it's lined up properly, just keeps turning. Also, how long was the reverse command? The AI usually seems to cancel vehicle move orders that are only a few meters long, and replace them with a rotate order. I've had a lot of problems with tanks that stop a few meters away from bocage, then won't move forward when I try to get them right up against it. They usually replace the move with a rotate, and start turning away. I play realtime, not WEGO, so I've never had the patience to see how far it will rotate before it gives up. I've found that reversing 20 meters or so, then moving back up again works much better, since the AI won't change the orders.

I'll bet the issue is that buddy aid causes the casualty's body to vanish from the game. While his body is still there, the game probably still allows ammo sharing with it (which seems reasonable enough, and is undoubtedly easier code-wise). Once the body vanishes, the soldier (and his gear) are removed from the game, and the ammo is no longer available for use by the survivor (or anyone else). I'd further wager that this is an unfortunate side effect of the game engine working as intended. You could test this by simply moving the survivor away from the injured ammo carrier before anyone performs buddy aid; if his ammo count drops after moving away several action spaces, the casualty is "sharing" his ammo with the survivor. Alternatively, moving another bazooka team near the body should result in their ammo count going up, for the same reason. Four rounds is probably all the survivor can carry on his own (which again seems reasonable, since he also has a Garand, rifle ammo, the bazooka itself, and all his other gear). Although, looking at the last picture again, the survivor only seems to have two rounds himself; does the rest of the squad next to him have any more rounds?

My friend (running the Windows version) was hosting both times, since I didn't have my router set up yet to host myself. We were using Steam for voice chat. The first time was playing the tutorial mission, him as US, me as Germans (and with me running the OS X version). When I was done positioning units, and hit the red pause/done button (he hadn't yet), his game crashed, and I got a message that the other player had dropped off. I restarted the game, and we tried again on a different mission (Breaking the Bocage, I think; whatever the German attacking one is), and didn't bother to move units. This time he hit the button first, I immediately crashed, and he got the player dropped message. At that point, I gave up and rebooted into Windows XP (Pro, SP 3, fully patched), and the tutorial mission worked perfectly, first try, with him hosting as US, and me as Germans. I'm running OS 10.6.7, again fully patched. I don't know what version of Windows he has; I think it's Vista, most likely also fully patched; still waiting to hear back from him on that. Anyway, once I've got his OS, I'll go ahead and create a BFC helpdesk ticket (I assume that's how BFC wants bugs reported). I mainly wanted to make sure that it should have worked, so that I didn't file a bug report about something that was actually working as intended.