Hister

Hello it will be a year now that I discovered CMBN and this forum and  is time to intervene to say thank you
I'm not the only one to do it but the repetition is good
Since my childhood I have a dream, a desire, to see with my eyes this battle that has rocked my childhood, imagining to travel the battlefield like a drone.
I was born in Falaise in 1970 and my family suffered the battle : 4 killed, the house bombed, the exodus on the road, the strafing of the bomber fighters, the artillery, the fighting but also after the battle, the destroyed houses, the burning vehicles and corpses littering the battlefield were all family meal conversations. Here in Normandie this was an important trauma.
It always impressed and interested me, in a word: fascinated. I constantly asked for clarification and to question civilians or soldiers who had experienced these events.
All the film reports on the subject, I watched them. I think I have seen ¾ images known from the battle.
 I never stopped walking the battlefield, collecting vestiges and remaining some hours to imagine the events.
I used every means to immerse myself in this battle and the battles of the second world war in general. Movies, books and even games
Squad leader then Close Combat  that I practiced  a long time.
But although this battle has become my daily life because I have made it my job (I am a guide of  museum and even considered as an expert of fighting led by the Poles during the Battle of Falaise pocket), the time passing my imagination has declined. and little by little the image of these fights in my mind was becoming more and more abstract. I ended up consoling myself by telling myself that if I go to paradise there I  will can achieve this wish
i was not counting on CMBN
What a shock and even if it remains a game, my imagination work and as in my childhood events come to life in my head.
 After a year of practice my enthusiasm is not blunted my dream is somehow realized.
So for that:
thanks for this formidable game
thanks to the moder who improves even more are aspect,
thank you to  persons who animates this forum
thanks to the battle designers (for the anecdote I live on a map of the game !)
I'm begining to smoke again and  to say some nastiness on my neighbors, paradise has lost its appeal !!!

I believe your 'build' should work fine for CM purposes. Admittedly it is always 'expectations' that color how good something may be. For CM single core CPU performance is the key for smooth (or 'near smooth') gameplay. While AMD has gotten a bit closer to Intel in terms of IPC (Instructions Per Clock/Cycle), it is still a bit behind. This is something you'll see when 'single core' benchmarks are run. AMD somewhat makes up for this in being a bit more affordable for the horsepower you are getting. An equivalent Intel system may cost a bit more. If you are willing to spend more (and possibly wait for availability... the latest Intel 8th generation CPUs tend to sell out) an i5 8400 might be a bit better of a performer for CM. The 8th generation Intel Core CPUs had a major change in the number of cores the CPUs have, with the mainstream CPUs moving from 4 cores to 6. This would be of no benefit to CM, but it helps Intel combat AMDs latest CPUs. One other difference is that the Ryzen 5 1500x is capable of being overclocked, while the i5 8400 does not officially support overclocking (locked multipliers, etc.). So you could get a little more performance out of the Ryzen, though it is possible that the i5 8400 may still outperform the overclocked Ryzen.
Motherboard-wise an Intel board (Z370 chipset) will be a bit more expensive than the AMD B350 series (around US$30 - $50 on average). I believe you could use the same RAM, though you'll always want to check any memory QVLs (Qualified Vendor List) for a motherboard to make sure you're getting something compatible.
The video card should be fine. Video cards are part of the graphics performance equation for CM, but not nearly as much as CPUs. More horsepower in the video card can allow for better texture filtering and anti-aliasing. Perhaps future versions of CM can benefit a bit more from high performance GPUs than the series does currently.

I do wish passengers could at least return fire as they do in halftracks.  Just sitting there wondering what flavor is that item in your box of chocolates while the guy next to you just got hit (and turned into a big red cross..) is... just weird.  

On the other side of this situation, ain't it cool when dudes stand up in a HT and start firing back? First time I saw that I think I was testing some sounds, I must've watched the replay ten times.
 
Mord.

Just for clarification in case any new people read this what @MOS:96B2P is suggesting is this: Select the vehicle and delete all movement orders. Select the passengers and select the dismount order (special menu tab I believe). Then you can give additional movement orders to both.
The above does not work if the crew of the vehicle is shaken or worse.
Normally passengers execute their movement orders after the vehicle stops moving that way you can tell soldiers to get out at the destination and do something. Using the dismount command reverses this and forces the vehicle to wait for the troops to dismount first before following their movement orders.
 
LOL cool idea. A better one would be to not put your passengers in that situation in the first place

If I understand the situation you are describing I think the reason the passengers can't dismount is because the truck is still moving.  If you stop the vehicle the troops can then dismount.  If you are playing in WEGO, as I do, you will have to wait for the turn to end before you can intervene and stop the truck.  If the truck is panicked the best you may be able to do is relocate its movement waypoint to a safer area. 
If I think a vehicle with passengers may come under fire (or a tank with passengers) I will give the passengers a Slow movement order while they are still in the vehicle.  So if the vehicle is stopped by OpFor fire in the middle of the turn the passengers will dismount, get low and move away from the targeted vehicle. Then at turns end I can intervene and give whatever the appropriate orders are.        

I agree. From my initial fails I would churn it up to 60-70% meets the point after your arguments. Good job. 
 
Oh, I personally have no qualms with the way it is done in the game. I was just basing my observation according to what the Austrian pointed out were the main fails in war games and me merely observing what fails and what doesn't in CM according to how he set the "game rules" up. It would be ok if there wold be a plausible delay in conveying to the player what subsystems were damaged as soon as tank crew would understand what works and what doesn't but it is by no means necessary.  OK at least on paper, actual gameplay experience could annoy many. 
 
Aaaaaawww, thank you Mord.

Returning to the basic premise of what CM does right and what wrong in regard to historical plausibility here is what I came up with, point by point, as the Austrian laid it out:
 
1. All or nothing aspect
- CM portrays wounded and missing in action. 
- Damaged vehicles (but not a total loss) are modeled. 
- No soldier and vehicle "health bars".
- You don't have to always completely wipe out the enemy to win like in most other games (depends on the scenario of course) -> bloodiest historical battles where 40 to 50% casualty rates were logged can be replicated in the game easily, as well as simulating lower intensity encounters (but those are harder to come by). The caveat in CM is that losses are usually higher then what real life situations would be due to us players pushing our troops harder and being less careful with our pixeltroopen lives then what real commanders would do. Plus real soldiers would probably disobey suicide tasks that we easily execute with our pixeltroopen.

Notable exceptions are campaign missions which promote preserving your soldiers life (excellent CM George's Von Schroif campaign for example)
 
2. Only warriors allowed aspect
- CM is guilty of this aspect. Non combat units are represented only minimalistically in the shape of supply units (am I forgetting any other unit?). In it's defense the scope of the game is focused mostly on tactical battles where non combat units weren't present in big numbers due to them being delegated to the rear of the front. 
 
3. Total information aspect
- CM doesn't give you total information of your enemy and this is true for scenario briefings which wildly differ in how much info about the enemy you get and also in the actual tactical battles themselves where you can not even have the enemy number and composition estimates. Having a total information on your units is present though but I find it hard how the game of this scope could tick this particular point off the list without making the game too irritable to play.  
-CM doesn't provide hit chances to the player. 
- Moral value of units is available to the player but not in percentages or other numerical numbers so this is 50/50. I personally think the way game conveys this information is optimal in the given scope of it. 
- Omnipresence, certainty and precision differ wildly from scenario to scenario in CM but in sum are not as in your face like in many other war games. CM is especially good when it comes to battles themselves where if played on Iron mode the game really shines with it's stellar C&C information modelling. 
- Losing contact with your units is partially modeled in CM (units being more brittle, easier to scoop, lose morale, no enemy positions info being passed to them, etc.) but you can never lose the ability to command those units that are out of the C&C. You can for example order your mortar team that is out of contact of C&C network to strike a specific point that you as a player know sports a MG nest but your mortar team would not be able to themselves know about. House rules need to apply here in order to be able to really simulate this aspect of the real thing. That said CM to my knowledge is THE game that comes as close as possible to it while not inhibiting the player too much in gameplay itself.  
- Vehicles in CM are portrayed right by them being more blind then their infantry counterpart (true for CM ww2 titles) and are more successful when supported by infantry. 
- Vehicle damage indicator is fully known to the player and thus CM games are the same in this aspect as other games so CM "fails" in this regard.     
- Vehicle repair on the active battlefield is not possible so that is a plus for CM. 
- CM doesn't have production lines for vehicles, etc so knowing exactly when something will come off the assembly line does not apply to it. 
 
4. Total control aspect
- Troops (foot grunts, vehicles) in CM do not always blindly follow your orders (example no control when the unit's is pinned, moral plummets, etc.) but you as a player are still able to send units in a certain death outcome situation with no soldiers complaining so this is not fully covered by CM but still comes quite close.
- There is no country production efficiency modeled so the point about players having unrealistically omnipotent ability to streamline the country they play as does not apply in CM games. 
 
5. How enjoyable to play are realistic aspects of the game 
- CM rocks especially because the realistic aspects discussed here in the tactical battles that you play are very enjoyable, enhance the overall gaming experience in the positive way, make the game stand out a lot from the WW2 crowd and don't hinder the gameplay in any way. Players need to learn about these plausible game mechanics and learning them is a lot of fun and mastery of different game aspects is especially rewarding. CM offers a lot of educational value without the political/religious involvement of what is portrayed and what isn't with a little caveat that atrocities like killing civilians as a punitive measure for the partisan activities and setting villages ablaze of course aren't modeled (CMRT where such historical actions were part of the retreating German army tactics).  
 
ANALYSIS  
OK, these are most if not all the points the channel creator points out as far as I was able to discern out of the video  - there are 17 major points that he makes in total. Let's count point by point how many of these things CM games do right, partially right, how many fail to deliver and how many can't be applied to it due to the nature of the game in question:
- 3 of 17 points made are not applicable to CM games due to their nature/scope. 
- 1 of 17 points fails entirely in CM (vehicle module damage information could be improved in the game - player should not be given immediate info on what parts of the ingame vehicle modules got damaged or destroyed, for the most part that is).
- 5 of 17 points are done partially "right" (gameplay limits apply here so not much that can be improved here on most accounts).
- 8 of 17 points are modeled exactly as pointed out they should be by the channel creator.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Due to the nature/scope of CM games where only tactical level of battles are portrayed there are only 14 points that pertain to them.  Of these here is what the results tell us in percentages:
57% of these CM games simulate to the letter.
36% of these CM simulates partially, on at least 50/50 level if not more in the given gameplay limits of course.
7% of these CM games fail to deliver. 

This is why CM games are the king of those that do tactical battlefields. No other game comes as close to these numbers as CM games do to my knowledge. I'ts hard to bypass 93% done right or mostly right by other war game developers. 
 
Hope you guys enjoyed these number crounching as much as I did.
 
Cheers,
Hister

It might suffice. Clearly more $ would give better performance so here are somethings to think about:
 
CPUs:
CM is usually CPU bound (as long as you have a good enough graphics card you will get better mileage out of spending $ on a faster CPU) and you should favour higher speed cpu cores vs more cores. So for example you are better off with a faster i5 than a slower i7 that has more cores - for playing CM that is - clearly the i7 will excel at other applications.
 
Memory:
CM can use up to 4Gb of memory itself but that really only happens for large scenarios. So, 4Gb is workable but you will need to make sure you are not running much else and you might find large scenarios suffer a bit.
 
Graphics card:
You want to stick with Nvida cards over AMD and absolutely avoid Intel cards. CM uses OpenGL for drawing and Nvida does the best at handling OpenGL. Once you have a machine you can read up on posts like this for advice on setting up the card in post below.
As for the card itself, according to this http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/19/help-me-choose/hmc-aw-video-card the card in that machine is a GTX 950. That is pretty good. If you had a few more $ to spend I would put them towards more memory and a better CPU before a better Graphics card.
There is a small section on this FAQ thread dealing with performance if you want to read more.
 
 

That seems like a good compromise. As @Hister says the information shows up right away - even before the crew could figure it out. But as @Mord says the crew *would* know the condition of their vehicle.
The issue stems from CM's modelling of all levels of command. The tank crew should know the condition of their vehicle - perhaps not instantaneously - but the company CO, Battalion CO and the player gets too much information because they have access to everything.

Returning to the basic premise of what CM does right and what wrong in regard to historical plausibility here is what I came up with, point by point, as the Austrian laid it out:
 
1. All or nothing aspect
- CM portrays wounded and missing in action. 
- Damaged vehicles (but not a total loss) are modeled. 
- No soldier and vehicle "health bars".
- You don't have to always completely wipe out the enemy to win like in most other games (depends on the scenario of course) -> bloodiest historical battles where 40 to 50% casualty rates were logged can be replicated in the game easily, as well as simulating lower intensity encounters (but those are harder to come by). The caveat in CM is that losses are usually higher then what real life situations would be due to us players pushing our troops harder and being less careful with our pixeltroopen lives then what real commanders would do. Plus real soldiers would probably disobey suicide tasks that we easily execute with our pixeltroopen.

Notable exceptions are campaign missions which promote preserving your soldiers life (excellent CM George's Von Schroif campaign for example)
 
2. Only warriors allowed aspect
- CM is guilty of this aspect. Non combat units are represented only minimalistically in the shape of supply units (am I forgetting any other unit?). In it's defense the scope of the game is focused mostly on tactical battles where non combat units weren't present in big numbers due to them being delegated to the rear of the front. 
 
3. Total information aspect
- CM doesn't give you total information of your enemy and this is true for scenario briefings which wildly differ in how much info about the enemy you get and also in the actual tactical battles themselves where you can not even have the enemy number and composition estimates. Having a total information on your units is present though but I find it hard how the game of this scope could tick this particular point off the list without making the game too irritable to play.  
-CM doesn't provide hit chances to the player. 
- Moral value of units is available to the player but not in percentages or other numerical numbers so this is 50/50. I personally think the way game conveys this information is optimal in the given scope of it. 
- Omnipresence, certainty and precision differ wildly from scenario to scenario in CM but in sum are not as in your face like in many other war games. CM is especially good when it comes to battles themselves where if played on Iron mode the game really shines with it's stellar C&C information modelling. 
- Losing contact with your units is partially modeled in CM (units being more brittle, easier to scoop, lose morale, no enemy positions info being passed to them, etc.) but you can never lose the ability to command those units that are out of the C&C. You can for example order your mortar team that is out of contact of C&C network to strike a specific point that you as a player know sports a MG nest but your mortar team would not be able to themselves know about. House rules need to apply here in order to be able to really simulate this aspect of the real thing. That said CM to my knowledge is THE game that comes as close as possible to it while not inhibiting the player too much in gameplay itself.  
- Vehicles in CM are portrayed right by them being more blind then their infantry counterpart (true for CM ww2 titles) and are more successful when supported by infantry. 
- Vehicle damage indicator is fully known to the player and thus CM games are the same in this aspect as other games so CM "fails" in this regard.     
- Vehicle repair on the active battlefield is not possible so that is a plus for CM. 
- CM doesn't have production lines for vehicles, etc so knowing exactly when something will come off the assembly line does not apply to it. 
 
4. Total control aspect
- Troops (foot grunts, vehicles) in CM do not always blindly follow your orders (example no control when the unit's is pinned, moral plummets, etc.) but you as a player are still able to send units in a certain death outcome situation with no soldiers complaining so this is not fully covered by CM but still comes quite close.
- There is no country production efficiency modeled so the point about players having unrealistically omnipotent ability to streamline the country they play as does not apply in CM games. 
 
5. How enjoyable to play are realistic aspects of the game 
- CM rocks especially because the realistic aspects discussed here in the tactical battles that you play are very enjoyable, enhance the overall gaming experience in the positive way, make the game stand out a lot from the WW2 crowd and don't hinder the gameplay in any way. Players need to learn about these plausible game mechanics and learning them is a lot of fun and mastery of different game aspects is especially rewarding. CM offers a lot of educational value without the political/religious involvement of what is portrayed and what isn't with a little caveat that atrocities like killing civilians as a punitive measure for the partisan activities and setting villages ablaze of course aren't modeled (CMRT where such historical actions were part of the retreating German army tactics).  
 
ANALYSIS  
OK, these are most if not all the points the channel creator points out as far as I was able to discern out of the video  - there are 17 major points that he makes in total. Let's count point by point how many of these things CM games do right, partially right, how many fail to deliver and how many can't be applied to it due to the nature of the game in question:
- 3 of 17 points made are not applicable to CM games due to their nature/scope. 
- 1 of 17 points fails entirely in CM (vehicle module damage information could be improved in the game - player should not be given immediate info on what parts of the ingame vehicle modules got damaged or destroyed, for the most part that is).
- 5 of 17 points are done partially "right" (gameplay limits apply here so not much that can be improved here on most accounts).
- 8 of 17 points are modeled exactly as pointed out they should be by the channel creator.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Due to the nature/scope of CM games where only tactical level of battles are portrayed there are only 14 points that pertain to them.  Of these here is what the results tell us in percentages:
57% of these CM games simulate to the letter.
36% of these CM simulates partially, on at least 50/50 level if not more in the given gameplay limits of course.
7% of these CM games fail to deliver. 

This is why CM games are the king of those that do tactical battlefields. No other game comes as close to these numbers as CM games do to my knowledge. I'ts hard to bypass 93% done right or mostly right by other war game developers. 
 
Hope you guys enjoyed these number crounching as much as I did.
 
Cheers,
Hister

That most certainly is, no qualms there. 

Speaking as an artilleryman, games overemphasize small arms.  In the 20th century crew-served weapons accounted for 90% of casualties.
CM gets this right. Machine guns, mortars and artillery are the big killers.

Thank you very much MOS. Like given to you multiple times for this.  

The 4th Tank Battalion Recon team moves into distant visual contact of the Recon Section HQ and from 330 meters reports the Armor & some friendly unit dispositions to the Section HQ (Vertical information sharing).  The Recon Team was given a Pause while moving so they would stop and kneel instead of stopping and going prone.  Kneeling facilitates spotting at distance and when in tall grass/crops.  
 
The Recon Section HQ is selected and displays the new contact icons. 
 
The Recon Section HQ radios 4th Battalion HQ with the contact reports and 1st Battalion unit dispositions.  4Th Battalion HQ then shows the contact icons when selected. 
 
In summary.

VERY COOL GAME!!!

The screenshots in the original C2 and Information Sharing topic were destroyed by Photobucket. As a result a REDUX C2 and Information Sharing topic was created with new screenshots. Some mods that will show up most often in the screenshots are, user interface (UI) and floating icons:  
Floating Icons – Cat Tactical Icons CMFI
User Interface – Juju’s TweakedUI CMFI V5
Some interesting topics have been started about how information moves through the C2 chain both vertically (up & down the chain of command) and horizontally (directly from one team to another team).  As a result I did some experimenting with C2 & information sharing.  Below are the results with screenshots from the experiment.  If anyone can offer a correction or additional information please do. 
Additional useful information and supplemental C2 rules:   
4.0 Engine Manual page 66 Command & Control.
@Bil Hardenberger Command Friction 2.0 -  http://community.battlefront.com/topic/125172-command-friction-20/
@Peregrine Command Layers - http://community.battlefront.com/topic/110861-command-layer-in-ai-battles/
 
 
The distance information can be shared vertically (chain of command).
Voice C2: Up to six action spots, approximately 48 meters. If either unit is on Hide then the distance is reduced to approximately 16 meters.
Close Visual C2: Up to 12 action spots, approximately 96 meters. This is also the maximum distance a higher HQ can fill in for a lower HQ. Example: Company or battalion HQ fills in for a platoon HQ and provides C2 to the platoon's fire teams. 
Distant Visual C2: As far as the unit’s line of sight.  (In the experiment I had units in distant visual C2 at 40 action spots, approximately 480 meters before I stopped.)
Radio C2: Entire map.  In the WWII titles, CMSF & CMA - C2 via backpack radio is lost during foot movement. C2 is maintained during foot movement in CMBS.
The distance information can be shared horizontally (directly between teams).
Up to four action spots, approximately 32 meters. (Sometimes a team had to move to within 3 action spots)
Can information be shared horizontally between teams from different battalions?
Yes
Can information be shared between two different HQs that do not have a common higher HQ?
Vertically: No (With no common higher HQ there is no bridge for the information to pass over) 
Horizontally: Yes
The experiment was conducted on skill level Iron in CMFI v2.0 Engine 4.  I used two different US battalions on a custom made map for the experiment.  The 4th US Tank Battalion on the west (left) side of the map and the 1st US Infantry Battalion on the east (right) side.  A high ridgeline divided the two battalions.  HQ units are blocked from C2 Voice, Close Visual and Distant Visual with other HQ units. At the beginning of the experiment no units of the 4thBattalion were in C2 with units of the 1st Battalion.  An immobilized German Tiger and a destroyed Tiger were used as the OpFor unit to be spotted and reported.  
The Area of Operations (A/O) for the experiment. Note the highlighted scout team with no C2.   
 

He is still making content and does not want to try basically *the* war game that tries to portray a realistic combat situation?
I figured this guy was not writing any more or something.
How can you go on and on about wargames getting things wrong and not try ones you haven't tried yet? 

Me neither. I will now limit myself to only look every second of his awesome videos. Being more serious though I do think that by now he should have picked the idea CM games would be a perfect tool for his video creation process. Seems like a very stubborn guy with a fixed idea he has no time to play it while it could enhance his video creation quality 5 fold (but I understand it is time consuming to get the grip of the game and making something useful out of it). He shouldn't have asked for game suggestions in the first place and now he is complaining about the game being suggested to him.Guess he stumbled upon too enthusiastic viewers.   

That is indeed very sad to hear.  I was so excited that maybe we could convince him to try it. I love his content. Heck, he was streaming Hearts of Iron 3 last week. Figured he would at least give an opinion from the videos or something considering he is focused on this type of material. Oh well, thanks for trying guys. Maybe one day down the road we'll see something.

Ha ha, thanx. Do not hold your breath though, thumbs up might be just in order to get rid of the annoying fly - aka me... We'll see down the pipeline if this bears fruit. Again, thank you for the youtube suggestions. Josey Wales is now my favorite CM youtuber - didn't know about him for some reason beforehand.  

Edit: Seeing how he asks for support while he makes his content do you think any CM guys here would be willing to gift him a CM title in order to cement the deal with him? 

Me neither. I will now limit myself to only look every second of his awesome videos. Being more serious though I do think that by now he should have picked the idea CM games would be a perfect tool for his video creation process. Seems like a very stubborn guy with a fixed idea he has no time to play it while it could enhance his video creation quality 5 fold (but I understand it is time consuming to get the grip of the game and making something useful out of it). He shouldn't have asked for game suggestions in the first place and now he is complaining about the game being suggested to him.Guess he stumbled upon too enthusiastic viewers.   

I contacted him again explaining you guys suggested that I present him a couple of videos. Thanx to your suggestions I've sent him Josey's Bear Claws AAR, Road to Wiltz by Usually Happless and Armchair General videos.
He gave me the thumb up.

I contacted him again explaining you guys suggested that I present him a couple of videos. Thanx to your suggestions I've sent him Josey's Bear Claws AAR, Road to Wiltz by Usually Happless and Armchair General videos.
He gave me the thumb up.

I contacted him again explaining you guys suggested that I present him a couple of videos. Thanx to your suggestions I've sent him Josey's Bear Claws AAR, Road to Wiltz by Usually Happless and Armchair General videos.
He gave me the thumb up.

I contacted him again explaining you guys suggested that I present him a couple of videos. Thanx to your suggestions I've sent him Josey's Bear Claws AAR, Road to Wiltz by Usually Happless and Armchair General videos.
He gave me the thumb up.