eltorrente

Yup - in a PBEM, I had a section of engineers throw a demo charge over bocage and take out about 5 guys on the other side - winning that engagement for me.

HAHA that made me laugh.. well done, sir.

I thought it was a fine Mexican name, myself.

I see what you're saying, but giving 1000 rounds to a 10-12 man squad is 83-100 rounds per guy. It would suck to carry an extra 8lbs or whatever, but if you're going into a tough battle for your life, you'd be happy to have it. Given the choice of carrying 100 extra rounds into a battle a few hundred yards away - or having to leave a battle and run back to a truck, then run back to the battle and get back into position again - I'd just take the 100 rounds, myself. Also, I'm sure a commander would rather not pull 1/3 of his guys off the front lines to get ammo that they could have already had. Totally agree that they should tire a little quicker when carrying it. I would think that it wouldn't be a factor though, if using the "move" command on relatively flat ground for 500 yards or so. The weight would really be a factor on a hill though, even on normal move.

Good post. I agree. Maybe it takes 3 minutes to take care of a squad. Maybe there's a straggler and it ends up taking 4 minutes. It just isn't an issue.

Yeah, I know what you mean. If you are a beginner and still learning the game, jumping straight into campaigns is a tough way to learn. I would recommend learning on quick battles and giving yourself 2 hour limits, which is tons of time. You could simply use the scenario editor like others have stated. The one thing about learning to play by playing the campaigns, is that eventually you'll want to play the campaigns as they were setup - and by then you will have already practiced them over and over again, and you'll know exactly where the AI is setup, and the challenge is over. You will have spoiled the campaigns for yourself by removing the challenge. This is why I would recommend leaving the campaigns alone until you learn to play the game with single battles and quick battles.

It's not gamey or cheating. It's a mechanic of the game, and part of the setup process if you so choose. Otherwise, you'd have to drive trucks up to the front lines to replenish troops that have been battling for several minutes, and the trucks would get destroyed. Unarmed trucks have no business on the front lines, and are instant targets to practically every unit that sees them. Much more realistic and practical to give ammo to who you want before the battle starts.

They squirm around because their MG wasn't setup to face the direction that they need to fire. If you set them up with a face command they'll be ready to fire in that particular direction.

The main thing is - don't expose them too early. If the enemy has mortars, he'll target them. Use a portion of your forces to fight early and find out what he has. Use them when you are pretty sure his mortars are empty, dead, or non existant. Doesn't matter how big the map is. Don't try to put them directly on the front lines, either. Whether they are 800 yards back, or 100 yards back - keep them back from your "normal" troops.

Even easier than that is to do it during the setup phase.

No that won't work either. What he is talking about I'm pretty sure is to give a simple face command in the opposite direction and that's it. They are still aware of what is going on behind them, and will fire in that direction when there's a threat, but their primary focus is on the opposite side that they are setup at. If you give them a 360 arc, that will cancel the face command.

I keep them as far back as possible most of the time. All they have to do is add suppression, and maybe get a kill or two. They can do that from 800yards away or more. If there's a stone building, put them in there. Keep them hidden until the mortars are done pummeling your troops. Use a squad split into sections to draw mortar fire and what-not as bait, and when the mortars are done, unhide them. You don't need to have all your troops firing all the time, and give the mortars a choice of which juicy target he's going to kill.

No hide command if you're setting up an ambush. Yeah, they stick their head up sometimes, but they'll still stay hidden for the most part. People really fret about this, but I've found in many PBEM's that it works well. What I often do is to hide them initially when they get into position - if the enemy is still far away. When they start getting closer, give them a cover arc and unhide them, and the ambush will work fine most of the time. Keep a unit further back that is unhidden and will shoot at enemy from a distance, and draw their attention. Make it look like your forces are mostly in another spot.

If you hide him, he will hide and won't ambush anyone until he's under fire.. maybe. If you want to setup an ambush, use a small cover arc - hold shift down when making the arc and it'll make a 360. By doing that, he'll attempt to stay hidden until someone comes close.

I disagree. When he came walking out all freaked out, they all came to the realization that he was losing it at the same time. When he was told to chill and get back there - he did. The last thing any Captain or XO would want to do is replace the COB. It takes months for a COB and crew to gel, so no way they would want to bring in a new one - they are just too critical to the operation of the boat. That diesel operator was a badass and everyone knew it, so when he went back on watch, the incident was over and forgotten. Yup. That wouldn't have been tolerated - period. End of story. I didn't like that scene and it struck me as odd that they would portray an enlisted doing something like that, because he would have known better. Of all the minor things in the movie that were inaccurate, that was the only one that jumped out at me and bothered me. The COB would have been all over him, and he would have been punished severely. They were trying to show that since he was an outsider and "just" a correspondent, that he hadn't earned the respect of the crew yet - which is a valid - but damn.. no way they would have done that.

In certain campaign battles, there is short time limits on purpose to force you to take an objective at a certain time frame, which is realistic. Certain scenarios are designed that way from the start. Taking an existing scenario and getting rid of the time limit to make it easy is defeating the purpose of the scenario or campaign. That being said, I've honestly never had an issue with time limits, because there's always enough time. If you had all day to take a hill or whatever, there's not much of a challenge. Sometimes they want you to feel rushed, and are expecting you to lose forces by moving forward quickly, and that's built into the campaign. With no time limit, You could move "slow" a few meters per turn, rest for a turn, move slow, etc. You'd be able to sneak into every perfect spot without being seen, and would win easily with no challenge. The AI is pretty dumb, so you don't need any help to beat it. Once you play another human in a PBEM, you'll see quickly that time limits don't factor in much at all. 45 minutes is more than enough time, even for Huge or Large battles on a huge map.

You should get in the habit of naming your games something like GerryCMBB vs Rommel 001 or whatever. Otherwise, there's no way to tell the difference between the different games..

I use heavy MGs in most of my games, and I honestly don't remember having any issues with LOS with them. If a spot seems like it'd be good to put an MG, then I just send them there and it seems to work every time.

Yes, I agree with you. I love the scene when the Diesel operator loses it for a bit, walks in to the control room all wide-eyed, and it's like, "O.k. man take it easy your alright" sort of thing, and he just kind of nods and heads back aft. I also liked the subtlety of the XO's nervousness. He simply didn't like gong to test depth (and beyond), whether in a battle or for a drill. The movie didn't focus on his reactions necessarily, but it was there. Also, the Captain himself essentially gave up when they were on the bottom, and he was the saltiest of them all. Just an excellent movie all the way around.

I didn't like Upham either, but I know what you're saying. Even the toughest vets were shown to be freaking out in the final battle. I liked that they showed that side of it, and not everyone was a fearless hero the entire time. I also liked Tom Hanks' shaking hands. His nerves were getting to him, he was war-weary, but he did his job to the end. I thought it was a poignant moment when his hands were shown to be finally still and at peace.

SPR was a great war movie because of the effect it had on civilian's perceptions of war. The fact that actual WW2 veterans, and specifically Normandy vets, were moved to tears and anxiety while watching it says a lot. Sure, you can find holes in the story or characters or whatever. It was the realistic violence and gore and terrible situations that soldiers found themselves in, that was the main point. A bunch of random guys working together trying to survive and get home, tasked with a strange mission, and what they went through to carry it out. You can make fun of the actual mission, that is was unrealistic - but the character's themselves also thought it was crazy.. which was the whole point.

Sometimes, when I'm going to purchase an extra platoon to go with my company, I decide instead to just beef up my other platoons instead. I'll attach a scout team, 1 or 2 light MG teams, a mortar, a sniper or whatever. Maybe a bazooka for a little backup against tanks. Each platoon becomes quite powerful when loaded up with specialists. I use Breach teams sometimes. They can be used to blast stuff, of course, but they can be used to scout and to hold a position without tying up a squad or section. You might even use them instead of normal scouts. Always useful to have demo charges. Whether knocking a wall down, or blowing through a house. Also, they'll throw their demo charges at tanks or infantry when close enough, whch is usually devastating. A lot of times specialist teams get used away from the main body of the platoon, so it's a good idea to bump them up to +1 or +2 leadership, so they won't get scared when their platoon leader isn't around to comfort them. I always see if there's units in my heavy weaps platoons to strip out and use. Remember that it's usually cheaper to use the units purchased as part of a Battalion than it is to purchase them on their own. I don't use AT guns much on offense, unless I'm playing the AI. I play mostly PBEM games, and humans are too good at targetting those things if they see them moving around at all. I like to just find a spot quickly and set them up and hope for the best.

Speaking of bumping up certain units.. I almost always make my HQ support unit crack or elite/High/+2. I use them as medics for the beginning phase of most battles, and keep them out of harms way at first. Often times they pick up an MG42 or BAR - a couple times they've ended up with 2 MG42's, plus their SMG. Usually when a platoon has been chewed up and are barely holding on, I send them up to hold a key position. Kind of like in Band of Brothers when Winters tells Spears to take over the attack, and Spears just runs straight into the battle with no questions asked. I swear they always make a difference. In one of my PBEMs I have going, my HQ support is the strongest, most capable unit at one of the VL's. I had suffered horribly from a mortar attack that decimated a platoon, so I sent Spears running over there, under fire, and they just kept going and arrived fresh and motivated and have allowed me to hold on to a crucial spot. In another PBEM, 2 of them were killed by a Sherman, but the leader with his MP40 is still "ok". Stuff like this makes the battles more fun to me, when I have certain units that I care about.

Heh - yeah. Usually I make them the same level as the platoon, but if I have extra points left over, I go in and bump up certain units a bit. It's fun to have certain units that are badasses.

When I pick snipers, I usually attach them to Platoons and they support and scout for the Platoon. Every now and then, I'll get an elite/fanatic sniper that's attached to the Battalion that I move around independently - just for the heck of it. Snipers aren't like super soldiers, just so you know. They are no better than the average soliders in your infantry squads with scoped rifles.