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You guys have been watching too many Total War Rome II trailers! FWIW your decision-cycle question's answer is 'it depends.' It depends on how well trained and experienced your BDE/RGT is, what their disposition is (deployed over how big a frontage? In contact? C2 from an established HQ/TOC or on the move? Where is the BDE CDR? Summoned to a DIV CG conference? etc...) Even today, BDEs have great difficulty with this. AFG and Iraq are poor testing grounds too, because C2 in a COIN environment has few similarities with what goes on in a high tempo fight. As our Army tries to 'get back into this high intensity thing' at our combat training centers, we now labor under a host of controls intended to support COIN and minimize risk and collateral damage, but which hamstring agile decision making. Think like routine calls for indirect fire taking 30 minutes+ to get cleared. The same problems - developing agile, mission-based orders that allow subordinates to use initiative and yet provide for flexible support - are what our Army strove towards back in the 90s. We will get back there, but it will take time. My recommendation for working this concept in CM2 is to keep your efforts discrete - in a nice little box. WWII had fights of so many different echelons that there is not a clearly definable break between tactical and operational. Nowadays that break occurs above Division, btw. Even your average tactical wargame at the counters = companies level will feature a couple hundred tactical events per scenario. Working out how each is decided and what gets resolved in CM will be key. In reading up on historical material for scenarios, I was struck by just how much of the average unit's war was NOT resolved in tactical engagements. It is amazing how many total casualties (people and equipment) were caused by artillery fires that had nothing to do with supporting an attack or defense - just day to day shelling. Figuring out how to 'fight' but still have some combats generate a CM scenario is what will be challenging.

Now if we only had the "Shoot that guy until he is dead, then get a SPOT on the guy we know is over there and shoot at him until the end of the turn..." command!

Bil - with that force mix, how would you plan on coping with the Elephant and Jpz IV? I suppose the Shermans could take it on, but it would be a tough nut to crack, especially if paired up smart with the MkIVs. The Elephant, if played right by the German side should make life very, very hard for the Shermans. Your mortars will be effective on the Pzgr but not the armor. How about a pair of Priests? HEAT rounds would work on all the German armor if you could ambush them, and 105mm in direct/indirect with TRPs should be fun against all the rest. No more of a challenge to keep alive than the M-10s.

Try picturing him as the SS guy in "Schindler's List" for a more visceral reaction.

I tend to agree with John. Any veteran combat infantryman worth his salt will have at least a shallow scrape complete in his first 15 minutes in any location he thinks he might have to stay in beyond a half hour. Most attended to this before their feet, equipment or food. In soft ground you can have a good chest-deep hole in less than an hour and a full fighting position in less than two. "Fox holes" in the game are grossly inadequate, and the lack of viable fortification for infantry, guns and armor seriously overbalances the game in favor of the attacker, especially with the fairly accurate simulation of artillery. Dug in infantry and AT guns and even (less prevalent in WWII than modern times, but still done some historically) tanks are MUCH harder to see/spot (camoflaged), and MUCH harder to suppress or kill than the folks laying around in the tall grass. I know I am preaching to the choir here, but in game it seems to me that foxholes are EASIER to spot than infantry in the open in the same terrain, and that is a major problem. I am hoping that improved defensive and even in-scenario fortification is something we can look forward to in future builds.

Vark - Have read several accounts of German crews in the war fighting through serious crew casualties on their Panzers effectively. Read the actions of one Waffen SS tank driver on the Ostfront who fought through and completed a designated linkup with just himself and the radio operator still fighting that tank. I think Allied crews were somewhat more prone to panic reactions when they took casualties, mostly based on experience. I am having a very rough time right now in a H2H match with a bunch of green German crews who won't do a damn thing after they get hit/hurt. I think the key is to look at the crew experience level and see if their actions match your expectations on the scale between green and elite.

I think a little more flex in the entire ammo resupply piece should be built in. Would not cost much to put options in for trucks/jeeps/kws etc... with various loadouts. Especially on the US side, it was SOP for CO 1SGs to execute ammo resupply missions in contact for everything up to and including mortar and ATG rounds. Having an ammo bearer as the only option for that is kind of rough. Of course, I am still a bit of a noob and may have missed it in the TOE, but based on discussion here I'm assuming that the standard load for trucks/jeeps I've seen in stock scenarios is all you get, right? Surely 'ammo truck, Company' couldn't be that hard a TOE add, with maybe three or four load out options. The trucks I've seen so far in scenarios are only carrying like eight or so total ammo cans of ammo! On a full size deuce and a half!!! I believe that executing ammo resupply in contact is difficult enough in the game to be both fun and realistically challenging. Encouraging it with more ammo carrying options would improve the game. Would also serve to highlight one of the real drawbacks to being a paratrooper in post-drop scenarios, as obviously they have no trucks.

Bil, Is that in Photoshop or some other program? I want to begin setting the stage for the AARs I would like to do and such pretty scribbling on screenshots will be needed for a quality product. ;-)

One of the things I love about this game is the - near true to life - randomization of some events. The Brummbar fired the sIG 33 shells 38kg/84lbs total throw weight - very similar to the size of our modern 155mm projo, with likely a roughly equivalent burst radius and frag pattern. You could reasonably expect that having one land within 8m of your current position to put a serious crimp in your day. However, small irregularities make all the difference. Let that shell land on the far side of an 18 inch high fold in the ground and it could easily deflect the bulk of the blast and frag above you, leaving you 'shadowed' and relatively unharmed. Conversely, let it strike a tree on its way down and detonate 80m away but 4m up and you could be buzz-sawed by the frag. CM seems to me to model random effects fairly well, and that is one reason I love it. I've had shells cause casualties at range, when nearer personnel were unharmed. Totally believable.

"An obstacle, not covered by direct or indirect fire, is not an obstacle." This is the first great tactical mantra of the old NTC OPFOR and 11th ACR. The second is like unto it... "If you build it, he will come..." The final mantra is to always, "make him fight in two directions at once." You said he had a lot of points. I would think a TRP and two batteries or more of 105+mms would make those tits less than comfy to hang onto. A real thinking opponent would try to figure where you would go after the first spotting rounds, shoot mortars to get you to light off the hills to cover, and then put the nasty TRP where he figures you are going to. These AARs are fantastic. This game should be mandatory at Maneuver BOLC.

See the Niscemi Highway AAR (both sides, but esp. allied) for some good examples of artillery dodging. Demonstrates how to track the spotting rounds, estimate the likely target and TOT time and bug out the potential victims. On the other hand, worth noting that our ammo limitations on artillery represent only some of the real world limitations on it. We don't seem to suffer from counterbattery much (though I've seen some of my off-map mortars suddenly indicating crew casualties?) and certainly I've never had an off-map asset taken out or lost priority of fires to another notional element. I've also not had my assets suddenly say, "sorry, can't shoot, gotta pack up and move!" I griped in another post about how we cannot 'repeat' a target and get repetitive effects on the same location - have to wait another full series of spotting rounds. This is an artificial limitation on arty effects which is significant, especially with limited ammo. Means you have to guess, accurately, just how much to shoot to get the effects you want or else you will have to wait another full target series to hit it again. Real world, you just say "repeat" into the radio and (if they have ammo) they keep right on shooting. I want illum rounds though...

I just got into this thing - friend back in the day was into CMAK and I was not. Now I am a die-hard believer and my wife is a "Battlefront Widow." I bought CMFI first, but was disappointed in the amount of content available. BF and non-BF forums just don't have that many folks hanging scenarios yet. So I bought CMBN/CW/2.0 upgrade. That is mostly what I am playing now. Have added numerous visual mods (need to find the 'trees' one for CMBN still) and love the force mix and depth of scenarios and discussion on CMBN. That said, CMFI is much more visually stunning and the terrain offers a lot more flexibility tactically. I too hate bocage, and note that it leads to sort of 2 dimensional tactics. If you think you can immerse in a smaller batch of battles and a couple of the good campaigns that come with CMFI until Gustav Line comes out, I would just go that route for now. If you want the full meal-deal menu of stuff to play - especially community-generated, as soon as you finish the download, I would go for CMBN, but make SURE you get the 2.0 upgrade. As an aside, I had to work some vid card magic when I did the CMBN 2.01 patch. Followed a tech support thread to a list of settings for my Nvidia card and it worked like a champ. Good luck!

Having opposite experience from majority so far regarding graphics and slowdowns since patching. Running a fairly decent 2.5yo Alienware 15x w/ Nvidia card and it had no issues prior to patching. Crushing slowdowns and definite decrement in detail since install. Will try the shader quickfix to see if that helps. Anyone else experiencing this?

Well, that is worth a chuckle. 7.62mm MGs are ridiculously easy to shoot fairly well. Our BN trains USAF and USN guys to shoot them. Previously untrained doctors, lawyers and log guys can usually manage to knock over targets out to 600m without undue difficulty using a few bursts to get oriented. A trained machinegunner would have great difficulty missing a man sized target out to 1000m with 3 or 4 bursts to get dialed in. However, the game assumes you are being shot at and that conditions are less than a nice bowling alley range. I would presume that some aiming issues are introduced to enhance gameplay. Well trained machinegunners are lethal enough that one or two well emplaced ones who cannot easily be suppressed might make a scenario unwinnable without armor. In juxtaposition, I've also noticed in CMFI that 60mm mortars are rather startlingly accurate. While as the attacking Ami's I appreciate the ability to diabolically land 12 consecutive bombs in the immediate vicinity of the appallingly non-camouflaged Pak, I cannot imagine anyone getting quite that performance out of that weapon. I have seen some guys who are pretty good, but.... I suspect that MG performance, like Pak camoflage, are gameplay tradeoffs. If your butt is truly on the line, you simply won't go there, but we want to play a scenario in an hour or two, so the designers introduce a few balancing workarounds that are close enough to real world to be absorbed into the full montage of combat they are creating. I'm a latecomer to the series, and bought CMFI first. Downloading CMBN 2.0 as I type.

First, thanks much to Battlefront for responding to my post under 'The Titanium Bunker.' Interesting and appreciated. Would like to comment on the darn good artillery model and make two recommendations about control. First, the spotting, timing and adjustment methodology for field artillery seems very good and highly realistic. Depending upon the proficiency of the relevant command nodes and FDC and the degree of pre-planning, delivering accurate fires really can take as long, or even far longer, than depicted in the sim. The lethality and suppression effects seem extremely close to real world. I've seen some soldiers in the game KIA from a shell when at least one other soldier was closer to the blast and unharmed, and this is perfectly believable given the rather random blast/frag patterns most rounds produce. Effects on terrain and buildings also seem quite close to real world. Shells quick-detonating in tree tops, and throwing lethal air burst frag is just awesome. However, I've been frustrated in two regards in attempting to refine control of indirect fires. First is in the method for mission volume. Why do you use the harrass/light/medium/heavy thing? Why not let the observer specify desired rounds? At least if it is a US forward observer? If I know my Company or BN mortars only have 30 rounds, I am going to monitor actual expenditures very carefully as the CO - and expect our FOs to call for specific round-count volleys, ie. "Battery 5" meaning 5 rounds per tube? Most FDCs assign round counts to missions based on target description (if no specific count requested by the observer), and "medium" concentrations against troops in the open would get a lot less rounds than "medium" against tanks in a woodline. I think the light/med/heavy thing works ok for rate of fire (although you generally cannot influence ROF much as the observer/FO) but think a specific round count should at least be an option. Maybe an option only available to trained FOs? Love the option to specify 'general' or 'personnel' target effects, btw. Second is my frustration with trying to repeat already fired missions. In the real world, nearly every "end of mission" from an artillery observer to the FDC is followed by the words, "record as target." This means that if I want that same spot shelled again the data is immediately available. This in effect creates a 'TRP' where each mission falls. We should be able to send a message to our arty to "repeat" a mission on the same spot, either during or immediately following execution, that doesn't incur another several minute long wait for more rounds. If the guns are already laid on my target, the crews simply recommence firing that data. We should further, be able to get fairly rapid adjustment missions from previously fired missions. Why not do what we do in the real world and assign TRPs (we actually call them "targets") numbers? Number the initial setup TRPs, and then as each mission is fired, place a new numbered TRP (or TGT) on the map where the rounds fell that can be adjusted from and utilized for more rapid, accurate fires? Further, when the 'emergency' command is used if the rounds fall off target you would then have at least some way of adjusting them back onto the target more rapidly than calling a whole new mission. This would admittedly increase the power of artillery and probably only models US/UK/GE doctrine - less capable/well-trained Armies might not receive the same benefits. But given the limited ammo available (realistically) for light mortars, precise round control and recording TGT data would go a long way to enhancing their effectiveness and rounding out their utility in the sim. If I can control how many rounds my former jeep driver, now ammo bearer is pulling out of the back of the deuce-and-a-half to resupply the forward .30-cal, I should be able to more precisely control my artillery assets.

Shoot them to me and I'll either take a swing myself, or make my subordinates do it as training! Ha!

FWIW - from a tanker. I've been in a Sherman, though never fired the gun, I've seen sights and the stadia reticle. I've fired M1IPs and M1A1s using the GAS (stadia reticle, ala 1944). At 100m or less I would say that the chance of burst on target gunnery resulting in a hit (round entering bunker through slit) by the third shot exceeds 90%. Based on my experience with 105mm and 120mm, I would describe a 75mm cannon as roughly equivalent to shooting a .30-06 with a scope - it is after all a rifle with a good optical scope bolted to it. The big difference is you can nearly always see where the 75mm round hits, and adjust that hit onto your desired target for second and following shots. How many rounds would you need to hit a pie plate at 100m with your favorite rifle? This assumes the tank gunner and TC have 30 seconds or so to concentrate on his three shots and sense each round. If you cannot hit a pie plate at 100m with an tank cannon, you will have no hope whatsoever of hitting a tank at 1200m. Parralex might make you miss the first shot (because you are so close and boresighted your gun at 800-1200m), but not the 2nd and 3rd. By 20 you would have put 15+ into the bunker with certainty. As to behind armor effects, the bunker would be unlivable with AP entering from the strike on the rear wall kicking spall and dust. Concrete dust lingers - dark - cannot see out. Decent chance of killing or wounding occupants (leaving aside the real likelihood of hitting someone in the chest with the round itself) Any HE detonation, whether on the rear wall or embedded deep in it, would incapacitate everyone inside. You simply cannot overstate the magnifying effect of enclosure/compression on HE. They might not be dead, but they would be out of the fight with near certainty. A single hand grenade that gets through the slit and isn't kicked into a grenade sump would do just about as well. However, I have had a 25lb plastique IED go off three feet from my right foot - with just armored HMMWV between me and it - and I wasn't more than rattled and made viable combat decisions within 3 seconds. Armor (or concrete) directly between you and BANG is GOOD! So I presume hits on the outer glacis, even from decent sized HE, would have limited effect. If the concrete is less than 2 feet or so, you might get penetration with AP - folks with hard pen data on the historical rounds would know more. If it doesn't penetrate, net effect is near zero ("yark, that was close!") but if it does penetrate, it is worse than a rear wall hit, as spall will be much more significant and you may get the actual AP round to fragment as it comes through. Bottom line - whether a bug or a modeling glitch, the circumstance described in the beginning is extraordinarily unrealistic and detracts from gameplay realism. I just played the Casa Nostra scenario though, and thought the bunker model was fairly good overall. Hit one from behind on the door with a bazooka and caused partial fatalities on crew. Hit one from direct rear with a demo charge and KIA everybody. MGs from front penetrated about every 3rd burst or so and caused decent suppression. Will hope for a patch that helps with cannon vs. bunker model. Also concur with the post regarding visually acquiring bunkers. Worth noting that not every engineer deserves the title and some bunkers stick out like sore thumbs. However, some like the VC or Japanese on Guadalcanal you don't see until you literally trip over them. Would expect the game model to cover the gamut. Lastly, I'm curious about the direct fire model in CMFI. I'm a newb to CM, and haven't thus far seen direct fire weapons doing "burst on target" (BOT) gunnery. First round miss, adjust, second round bracket or hit. Does the game model this? Most common form of direct fire gunnery training in WWII, and a underdeveloped skill in our Army's current gunnery training (because we now have sexy sweet ballistic computers that make us lazy - until they break). Anyone got a link to a thread on this?

FWIW - from a tanker. I've been in a Sherman, though never fired the gun, I've seen sights and the stadia reticle. I've fired M1IPs and M1A1s using the GAS (stadia reticle, ala 1944). At 100m or less I would say that the chance of burst on target gunnery resulting in a hit (round entering bunker through slit) by the third shot exceeds 90%. Based on my experience with 105mm and 120mm, I would expect a 75mm cannon to be roughly equivalent to shooting a .30-06 with a scope - it is after all a rifle with a good optical scope bolted to it. The big difference is you can nearly always see where the 75mm round hits, and adjust that hit onto your desired target for second and following shots. How many rounds would you need to hit a pie plate at 100m with your favorite rifle? This assumes the tank gunner and TC have 30 seconds or so to concentrate on his three shots and sense each round. If you cannot hit a pie plate at 100m you will have no hope whatsoever of hitting a tank at 1200m. Parralex might make you miss the first shot, but not the 2nd and 3rd. By 20 you would have put 15+ into the bunker. As to behind armor effects, the bunker would be unlivable with AP entering from the strike on the rear wall kicking spall and dust. Concrete dust lingers - dark - cannot see out. Decent chance of killing or wounding occupants (leaving aside the real likelihood of hitting someone in the chest with the round itself) Any HE detonation, whether on the rear wall or embedded deep in it, would incapacitate everyone inside. You simply cannot overstate the magnifying effect of enclosure/compression on HE. They might not be dead, but they would be out of the fight with near certainty. A single hand grenade that gets through the slit and isn't kicked into a grenade sump would do just about as well. However, I have had a 25lb plastique IED go off three feet from my right foot - with just armored HMMWV between me and it - and I wasn't more than rattled and made viable combat decisions within 3 seconds. Armor (or concrete) directly between you and BANG is GOOD! So I presume hits on the outer glacis, even from decent sized HE, would have limited effect. Lastly, I'm curious about the direct fire model in CMFI. I'm a newb to CM, and haven't thus far seen direct fire weapons doing BOT gunnery. First round miss, adjust, second round bracket or hit. Does the game model this? Most common form of direct fire gunnery training in WWII, and a underdeveloped skill in our Army's current gunnery training (because we now have sexy sweet ballistic computers). Anyone got a link to a thread on this?

Curious - Someone in this thread mentioned Panzer Elite. That was just about my favorite gaming experience of all time. I am an Armor Officer by profession, and that sim actually had me doing the things that I do in the real world to fight and command - at least at the PLT to CO(-) level. They are the only ones I know of that got the scale of terrain vs. time correct. "Driver, move up about three meters. Stop. Hang on, gotta check my binos. Nope, a little more driver. Gunner, scan that woodline at 11 oclock. Hang on, gotta check my map - what is this grid square? Black Six, Red One, grid 3598 looks clear, preparing to move to checkpoint A4. C'mon wingman, look at me. Okay, move out over there, where I'm pointing! I have cover from here. " I really miss that. If you were a good tank commander, you were good at that game. I assume vice versa as well. I am not overly addicted to eye candy, but am bored with high-end production games and want to try something that has depth. Used to play Close Combat but got bored at the repetition and artificial scale. A friend of mine turned me on to CM back in CGSC in 04-05 and I thought it was just okay. Think he was showing me CMAK. What would you gents recommend I try (not into struggling w/ Russian and clunky interface) in the CM world? Is CMBN the right way to go? I don't typically play much of anything against other folks so need at least some rudimentary AI to get my fix. Any opinions appreciated. Oh, and yes, this post is off topic and my first on this forum. Apologies to admin, feel free to delete it, move it, etc...