I own both Combat Mission Battle for Normandy and TOW 2 Kursk and Africa.
TOW 2 has overall better graphics and the tanks' armour damage aesthetics are something CMBN doesn't have.
I'm talking about pieces of armor falling off a tank when it gets hit and holes in the exact spot where shells penetrated it.
In big open battles TOW 2 seems pretty realistic, it's just when the fight gets close (like in urban and house to house fighting) it gets very "gamey."
Urban combat isn't very good in TOW 2 at all.
Also the infantry in TOW 2 doesn't move together as in squads or teams. They move like ants across the field unless you micromanage them all. The tac ai (meaning the built in ai for every individual soldier and tank for taking cover, firing, popping smoke, retreating, cowering/keeping your head down) is not very good compared to CMBN's making it unrealistic and forcing you to micromanage everybody in the battle (Pause button ftw1!!1)
Fire Missions for artillery and CAS missions aren't modeled very authentically in TOW 2. On map artillery can fire anywhere on the map accurately without having to have a line of sight, just as long as the shell is able to land there.
TOW 2 currently does have more variety with more tanks and vehicles and is easier to get into since it's user interface isn't as complicated and battles can be won by simply "lassoing" sections of infantry and giving them orders to move. It's not entirely necessary to micro manage every single individual soldier to win a battle in TOW 2 but sometimes the missions are so hard that you might have to but it's fun to watch the battle with good graphics.
CMBN is my favorite game but i used to love TOW 2 and thought I could never get into the CMx2 series cuz of the graphics. But watching CMSF walk-through videos on youtube by a user named "tanit" convinced me that the amount of strategy and authenticity in the CMx2 series is far and away better than any other game I can find. :cool:
