Ultradave

Nice, but it's not really how things are done. The observer making the call for fire specifies the target description and the fire direction center decides how many rounds of what type. At least in the US Army. Can't speak for others. Dave

The answer is there is not a "follow" command. A while back there was an attempt to add one (with the big engine 4.0 update I think? can't remember when for sure). It was thoroughly tested and it just did not work well enough for release. It sort of worked but had enough quirks and times when it didn't it would have just generated a ton of complaints/bug reports. It's something that many would dearly love to have, especially at the beginnings of scenarios where you tend to be lined up and want to move quickly somewhere to deploy. What you did is to issue the same command to the group, which means they all turn at the same TIME, not the same PLACE. Turning at the same place is the dream/desire. Dave

It's not just "The Yanks" I spent several years living in the UK as a consultant (along with about 15 other Americans) to their nuclear submarine program. Until we got used to it, we had a flip chart in meetings with abbreviation equivalents, with a lot of good natured banter as to whose term/acronym was the "correct" one. The UK MOD/submarine program has just as many abbreviations and arcane terms as we do. Easily. Dave

Before changing anything, you would need to first make a copy and save the hotkeys.txt file in your installation. Rename the original something like hotkeys-orig.txt. If you want to revert, then just trash your hotkeys.txt file and rename the original saved one. If you've already changed some things and want to revert and didn't save it, then just copy one from another CM installation. Dave

I tried the provided save and it did crash on me just as @liamb described. Started a new game of my own and the same thing happened to me. I did not play this one myself in beta testing (busy with others). I have Big Sur 11.3.1 Confirmed with a PC beta tester this appears to be a Mac only issue (no idea why that would be). I've logged it in the bug reporting system. Dave

Do you have a save you can post. I"ve not had this problem, if fact it's the first thing I do in that scenario, along with snagging every LAW available.

One up to date point. There is a difference between the direct download from LnL and the version on Steam. Steam version is newer (stable beta build working toward next full release) Presumably when there is a new full version they will sync up. The beta on Steam is better as it has some fixes that are worth having. Also, multiplayer exists. One on one with a real time opponent. As @markshot says, it doesn't lend itself well to turn based pausing. I've never played multiplayer but it's there. Dave

Thanks. 10 years as a US Army Field Artillery Officer. I was a FIST Chief, Fire Direction Officer (FDO), Inf Brigade Fire Support Officer, and FA Bn Asst S-3/Bn FDO. Late 70s and 80s so the period covered by CW. Dave

For those who just got it, take a look on the LnL forum for a couple of outstanding AARs that are downloadable as pdfs. Really well done graphics give you a good feel of how to plan. Also, Dave's walkthrough on YouTube of the Return to St. With demo scenario is a good intro to getting up and running with the basic concepts. Dave

I predict more CO2 players coming up

OK, I see what you mean. Cannon Battery is a name. The piece, for example the US 155mm Long Tom in CMBN, is a gun, as opposed to a howitzer. A gun has a higher velocity, lower trajectory than a howitzer. Both are cannons. As a newly commissioned officer, you would attend "Field Artillery Officer Basic Course" and then "Cannon Battery Officer Course" Cannon is an encompassing term. In the game, using CMBN to check, a US 155mm howitzer battery when Personnel is specified, fires a mix of airbursts and ground bursts together, and so does the 155mm Long Tom, which is a gun. US 105mm, and 75mm pak howitzers will also give you the same mix of air bursts and ground bursts if you specify Personnel. If General is specified for the target, then you'll get ground bursts (Point Detonating). The way this is done is similar to reality. The FO specifies the target - "infantry company in the open", "infantry in trenches", and the FDC picks the fusing. VT fuses were valuable and even in the Cold War era we didn't have a ton of them - maybe 25% of our load. The majority was PD or Time (for calculate airbursts as opposed to VT which goes off when the round reaches a height). A Time fuse is calculated to go off 7 meters in the air at a point where the trajectory crosses over the target. Takes a little extra time to calculate because you have to figure the target hit firing data, then adjust that to be higher and calculate the time of flight to the target point on the new higher trajectory. VT you don't calculate time - just the new trajectory. For mortars, there were no reliable VT fuses until 1983. Since mortar shells are coming down at extreme angles, having a fuse that is precise enough to detonate the round 3-7 meters off the ground was quite a technical challenge and mortar VT fuses didn't enter production and distribution until then. In general VT fuses in WW2 were used for AA guns long before they were used for field artillery. Less chance of the secrets falling into enemy hands from unexploded rounds. Time fuses for mortars don't work well. The time increments are 0.1 seconds and with an almost vertical trajectory that 0.1 seconds is a huge margin of error. Same with howitzers firing high angle - you can hit the same point by elevating the howitzer below 45deg and above 45deg. Guns can't do that. But for the same reason as mortars, it's not recommended to use VT or Time fuses in a high angle mission. Trajectory is too high for it to work the way it's supposed to. Dave

A howitzer is a cannon so I'm not sure what you mean here. Did you mean artillery but not mortars? Dave

GHQ Micro-Armor on the screen, with terrain tiles and all.

Are there any controls/settings related to Rosetta2 that can be adjusted or is it a black box and just runs the software when you start it? I'm not sure an Intel based MacBook Air would do a creditable job running CM, but I've only had MacBook Pros so I'm not sure. I don't believe any beta testers have Airs. Looking at the description though and comparing to a MacBook Pro it *looks* like it should run it well. Perhaps Apple needs to tweak Rosetta2 after people have experience running their Intel applications. Sorry I can't be very helpful. I won't be getting an M1 for a while yet. I have a 2018 MacBook Pro and it is just great for what I need now. Dave

Keep in mind that it can take a large number of indirect fire rounds of any kind to get just one direct hit. Dave

Have you installed the patch and still seeing it? Dave [edit] Anything more on this? As far as anyone knows this was fixed in the patch. If you still see it somewhere please post a save so it can be looked at. (make sure your game is up to date first!)

Long time player of CO2 (and 1, which was just CO). Better than OK, it's an outstanding game. I suppose you could use it for scenario creation, keeping in mind that in pretty much any CO2 scenario, you'd have to play to some point and then pick an interesting section of the overall battlefield and slice it to be a CM scenario, due to the map and unit sizes of CO2. There is plenty of detail under the hood listing all the equipment and personnel of every unit and their casualty state, which you could take and apply to force selection in CM. What you'd be doing is taking an existing historical battle/mini-campaign, playing it out partway using your own methods, and then at some point stopping to select part for a semi-historical/what-if scenario for CM. Getting all that info from CO2 to CM would be kind of tedious, but you could do it. Plus you'd have to create your own map based on what you sliced from CO2. The fidelity of the maps in CO2 is nice, but not the level of granularity of CM. Anyway, CO2 is a lot of fun. Different level, but a pretty capable AI, and there are many scenario sets available. Also if you check the LnL forums there are some user made battles that are excellent. There's a 3 or 4 scenario Caen campaign that's really great (and huge!). Dave

Can you provide some screen captures to illustrate what you mean? Dave

You should tag @BFCElvis and @Battlefront.com for this request. They would have to approve/make it happen. (no need since I just did - they'll see it). Dave

No infantry body armor is likely one cause. We had nothing but our fatigues, helmet and web gear for protection then. Never once saw any kind of body armor, flak jacket or any other kind of protection. Dave

"Splash, over" and Splash, out"

Exactly.

I think we watched different saves. In 55 I agree with you. They ran to a wall I think. In 53 they ran out of the building, over a broken wall, into the open in front of a bunch of enemy. And died. Dave

After discussion in the beta forums the consensus is that these guys uncontrollably panicked. "They chose poorly". Looking at the whole map closely, several things may contribute to it. 1. They are under heavy small arms fire. 2. The truck right outside catches fire (may soon explode, who knows?) 3. At the same moment the truck catches fire they become aware of a MG in the woods behind them. 4. The whole complex of buildings is surrounded by enemies. No safe places to run. (but "we're gonna die if we stay here!") 5. They appear to be fleeing toward the friendly map edge, where there are large numbers of friendly troops. Yeah, there are enemies in the way, but they are making a dash for safety. I'm assuming that's the friendly map edge due to the large number of reinforcements/relief troops on the edge of the map and troops will try to flee toward the friendly edge. Can't tell for sure with just the save. The fact that this panic is isolated to a couple instances is good. Most of them chose to stand and fight/die. Ben wrote up a nice little storyline to go with it, if he'd like to post it here. It's pretty entertaining. Dave

Well, good question, because this is the first time any of this unwanted behavior has been seen that I know of since they thought it had been fixed for the updates for each game. In fact there were Russian troops in the German campaign who ran toward German troops from a building in the first scenario and it was seen to be fixed. In fact, the general behavior across all the titles has changed to troops in good cover being very hard to dislodge. So I'll report this with the saves and we'll see what happens. That includes troops changing levels. What is supposed to happen, and seems to, is that under heavy indirect fire they will go to a lower level, but shouldn't for small arms fire unless maybe they are poor troops and are panicked (these guys were panicked). Dave