Ultradave

The main single-player campaigns for Red Thunder have a lot of really huge battles and it can definitely be pretty overwhelming. It's better to play some of the smaller single scenarios first, but once you get to playing the campaigns, you might want to play the Russian one first. The German campaign follows a huge mechanized force and you have dozens of tanks and halftracks packed with troops to deal with. I found it pretty overwhelming to deal with such a huge number of vehicles plus every infantry squad having its own carrier.
At least with the Russians, you have mostly infantry and can just move everyone forward in large groups. You don't even have to worry about casualties that much. You just drop down a giant artillery barrage and then start throwing waves of men at the enemy. Remember that you can double click on units to select their entire formation and move them all at once. So if you double click a company HQ, you will select the entire company and you can move everyone together with the same command. That can help quite a bit.

We don't normally agree on much, but you hit the nail right on the head here, fella! 

Here is exactly the issue, no one reads the threads, even the ones they start.  UltraDave already answered that.

Yes. If  you post something that clearly sounds like a bug in the title, beta testers will key in on it. If you can add a saved game file that reproduces it that's ideal. That's not always possible, I know. Or some good screenshots. If it's something like TO&E that's incorrect, just a detailed description is probably enough.
The beta testers do have an application to submit and track bugs. So fire away if you've got something.

He probably meant: CLOSE THIS THREAD, DAM# IT! I JUST WON'T PROVIDE SCREENIES FOR ANOTHER SIX MONTHS.

Beware the IEDs of March....

I wish I still had them. All in all, they were the most fun I ever had with a joystick.
Michael

That makes sense. That is how it's supposed to work. Glad you got it up and running!!

Thanks. The old one was my unit - 2/321 FA (Abn).  Of course from the crest that's hard to tell what it is, except to me. This is more obvious. 🙂

@Ultradave  I like your new avatar.  +1  AIRBORNE!!!

That makes sense. That is how it's supposed to work. Glad you got it up and running!!

Thanks for this. This helps a lot. I ran your saved game using my FB 2.0 installation and saw the same behavior you did, just slightly different end results but pretty much the team running around panicked.
Then I loaded it in the patched beta version of FB and the behavior was markedly improved. In fact, I'd say, exactly what you would want. The team stopped at that row of bushes (not really a hedgerow), either kneeling or prone, took a couple shots at an enemy soldier in the stone courtyard in front of them, who then appeared to run off, then took a couple rifle shots at a Sherman that suddenly appeared far off through the trees - presumably to make it button up. Then they hunkered down. All four guys in the same place, no running in circles, screaming and shouting. Proper behavior.
That should cut through the remainder of the above discussion.

Thanks for this. This helps a lot. I ran your saved game using my FB 2.0 installation and saw the same behavior you did, just slightly different end results but pretty much the team running around panicked.
Then I loaded it in the patched beta version of FB and the behavior was markedly improved. In fact, I'd say, exactly what you would want. The team stopped at that row of bushes (not really a hedgerow), either kneeling or prone, took a couple shots at an enemy soldier in the stone courtyard in front of them, who then appeared to run off, then took a couple rifle shots at a Sherman that suddenly appeared far off through the trees - presumably to make it button up. Then they hunkered down. All four guys in the same place, no running in circles, screaming and shouting. Proper behavior.
That should cut through the remainder of the above discussion.

Thanks for this. This helps a lot. I ran your saved game using my FB 2.0 installation and saw the same behavior you did, just slightly different end results but pretty much the team running around panicked.
Then I loaded it in the patched beta version of FB and the behavior was markedly improved. In fact, I'd say, exactly what you would want. The team stopped at that row of bushes (not really a hedgerow), either kneeling or prone, took a couple shots at an enemy soldier in the stone courtyard in front of them, who then appeared to run off, then took a couple rifle shots at a Sherman that suddenly appeared far off through the trees - presumably to make it button up. Then they hunkered down. All four guys in the same place, no running in circles, screaming and shouting. Proper behavior.
That should cut through the remainder of the above discussion.

Thanks for this. This helps a lot. I ran your saved game using my FB 2.0 installation and saw the same behavior you did, just slightly different end results but pretty much the team running around panicked.
Then I loaded it in the patched beta version of FB and the behavior was markedly improved. In fact, I'd say, exactly what you would want. The team stopped at that row of bushes (not really a hedgerow), either kneeling or prone, took a couple shots at an enemy soldier in the stone courtyard in front of them, who then appeared to run off, then took a couple rifle shots at a Sherman that suddenly appeared far off through the trees - presumably to make it button up. Then they hunkered down. All four guys in the same place, no running in circles, screaming and shouting. Proper behavior.
That should cut through the remainder of the above discussion.

Thanks for this. This helps a lot. I ran your saved game using my FB 2.0 installation and saw the same behavior you did, just slightly different end results but pretty much the team running around panicked.
Then I loaded it in the patched beta version of FB and the behavior was markedly improved. In fact, I'd say, exactly what you would want. The team stopped at that row of bushes (not really a hedgerow), either kneeling or prone, took a couple shots at an enemy soldier in the stone courtyard in front of them, who then appeared to run off, then took a couple rifle shots at a Sherman that suddenly appeared far off through the trees - presumably to make it button up. Then they hunkered down. All four guys in the same place, no running in circles, screaming and shouting. Proper behavior.
That should cut through the remainder of the above discussion.

Thanks for this. This helps a lot. I ran your saved game using my FB 2.0 installation and saw the same behavior you did, just slightly different end results but pretty much the team running around panicked.
Then I loaded it in the patched beta version of FB and the behavior was markedly improved. In fact, I'd say, exactly what you would want. The team stopped at that row of bushes (not really a hedgerow), either kneeling or prone, took a couple shots at an enemy soldier in the stone courtyard in front of them, who then appeared to run off, then took a couple rifle shots at a Sherman that suddenly appeared far off through the trees - presumably to make it button up. Then they hunkered down. All four guys in the same place, no running in circles, screaming and shouting. Proper behavior.
That should cut through the remainder of the above discussion.

Maybe I'm wrong, but this doesn't seem like something you'd want to admit in a public forum.

Doesn't need to be present day with all the cool toys either. I was an artillery officer, before the days of GPS and digital anything, so my experience is actually much closer to WW2 and Korean War techniques than present day. We would call fire on grid coordinates that were not observable. You can calculate firing data to anywhere. Look at the map, hear some vehicle noises and conclude they MUST be coming down that road that's behind the treeline. Of course, both in CM and real life, you could be way off, but it takes no longer to compute firing data to an unobserved point than to an observed target. Either way, the FO is passing grid coordinates. The difference is that unobserved, you FFE immediately. No adjustments possible. Another example would be looking at the map and making an educated guess as to where their mortars are set up, like at the edge of a far treeline. Linear FFE on the treeline.
Now normally on offense or defense you would have recalculated TRPs, and then could call shift missions off of those, and you can do that in game. Not too many scenarios give you TRPs, but in QB they are certainly available to purchase.
So there's my FA perspective, from someone who was a FIST Chief, Battery Fire Direction Officer, Brigade Fire Support Officer, FA Battalion Asst S-3 (S-3 is operations), and Battalion Fire Direction Officer. I've called for, planned, calculated a whole lot of explosions  (this pedigree is for the guy in the other thread who seems to be under the impression that BF had never talked to a military or former military person 🙂  )

Doesn't need to be present day with all the cool toys either. I was an artillery officer, before the days of GPS and digital anything, so my experience is actually much closer to WW2 and Korean War techniques than present day. We would call fire on grid coordinates that were not observable. You can calculate firing data to anywhere. Look at the map, hear some vehicle noises and conclude they MUST be coming down that road that's behind the treeline. Of course, both in CM and real life, you could be way off, but it takes no longer to compute firing data to an unobserved point than to an observed target. Either way, the FO is passing grid coordinates. The difference is that unobserved, you FFE immediately. No adjustments possible. Another example would be looking at the map and making an educated guess as to where their mortars are set up, like at the edge of a far treeline. Linear FFE on the treeline.
Now normally on offense or defense you would have recalculated TRPs, and then could call shift missions off of those, and you can do that in game. Not too many scenarios give you TRPs, but in QB they are certainly available to purchase.
So there's my FA perspective, from someone who was a FIST Chief, Battery Fire Direction Officer, Brigade Fire Support Officer, FA Battalion Asst S-3 (S-3 is operations), and Battalion Fire Direction Officer. I've called for, planned, calculated a whole lot of explosions  (this pedigree is for the guy in the other thread who seems to be under the impression that BF had never talked to a military or former military person 🙂  )

Doesn't need to be present day with all the cool toys either. I was an artillery officer, before the days of GPS and digital anything, so my experience is actually much closer to WW2 and Korean War techniques than present day. We would call fire on grid coordinates that were not observable. You can calculate firing data to anywhere. Look at the map, hear some vehicle noises and conclude they MUST be coming down that road that's behind the treeline. Of course, both in CM and real life, you could be way off, but it takes no longer to compute firing data to an unobserved point than to an observed target. Either way, the FO is passing grid coordinates. The difference is that unobserved, you FFE immediately. No adjustments possible. Another example would be looking at the map and making an educated guess as to where their mortars are set up, like at the edge of a far treeline. Linear FFE on the treeline.
Now normally on offense or defense you would have recalculated TRPs, and then could call shift missions off of those, and you can do that in game. Not too many scenarios give you TRPs, but in QB they are certainly available to purchase.
So there's my FA perspective, from someone who was a FIST Chief, Battery Fire Direction Officer, Brigade Fire Support Officer, FA Battalion Asst S-3 (S-3 is operations), and Battalion Fire Direction Officer. I've called for, planned, calculated a whole lot of explosions  (this pedigree is for the guy in the other thread who seems to be under the impression that BF had never talked to a military or former military person 🙂  )

Doesn't need to be present day with all the cool toys either. I was an artillery officer, before the days of GPS and digital anything, so my experience is actually much closer to WW2 and Korean War techniques than present day. We would call fire on grid coordinates that were not observable. You can calculate firing data to anywhere. Look at the map, hear some vehicle noises and conclude they MUST be coming down that road that's behind the treeline. Of course, both in CM and real life, you could be way off, but it takes no longer to compute firing data to an unobserved point than to an observed target. Either way, the FO is passing grid coordinates. The difference is that unobserved, you FFE immediately. No adjustments possible. Another example would be looking at the map and making an educated guess as to where their mortars are set up, like at the edge of a far treeline. Linear FFE on the treeline.
Now normally on offense or defense you would have recalculated TRPs, and then could call shift missions off of those, and you can do that in game. Not too many scenarios give you TRPs, but in QB they are certainly available to purchase.
So there's my FA perspective, from someone who was a FIST Chief, Battery Fire Direction Officer, Brigade Fire Support Officer, FA Battalion Asst S-3 (S-3 is operations), and Battalion Fire Direction Officer. I've called for, planned, calculated a whole lot of explosions  (this pedigree is for the guy in the other thread who seems to be under the impression that BF had never talked to a military or former military person 🙂  )

Doesn't need to be present day with all the cool toys either. I was an artillery officer, before the days of GPS and digital anything, so my experience is actually much closer to WW2 and Korean War techniques than present day. We would call fire on grid coordinates that were not observable. You can calculate firing data to anywhere. Look at the map, hear some vehicle noises and conclude they MUST be coming down that road that's behind the treeline. Of course, both in CM and real life, you could be way off, but it takes no longer to compute firing data to an unobserved point than to an observed target. Either way, the FO is passing grid coordinates. The difference is that unobserved, you FFE immediately. No adjustments possible. Another example would be looking at the map and making an educated guess as to where their mortars are set up, like at the edge of a far treeline. Linear FFE on the treeline.
Now normally on offense or defense you would have recalculated TRPs, and then could call shift missions off of those, and you can do that in game. Not too many scenarios give you TRPs, but in QB they are certainly available to purchase.
So there's my FA perspective, from someone who was a FIST Chief, Battery Fire Direction Officer, Brigade Fire Support Officer, FA Battalion Asst S-3 (S-3 is operations), and Battalion Fire Direction Officer. I've called for, planned, calculated a whole lot of explosions  (this pedigree is for the guy in the other thread who seems to be under the impression that BF had never talked to a military or former military person 🙂  )

They did and they did.

Ok, here's a couple:
1. Vehicles get dropped from airplanes (called "heavy drop"). Rigged with several parachutes, they are strapped to steel platform skids, with honeycomb cardboard crushable padding. The battery commander's jeep and trailer (with all his belongings), each get one small skid and parachute. Occasionally we lose a vehicle when the chutes malfunction. Occasionally. Two drops in a row, the only casualty was the BC's trailer. Tent, all his personal gear for a deployment...  BOOM.  Upside down. Nothing but the flat bottom of the skid visible.  Two times in a row. On another occasion it was the #3 gun. #3 is always the senior gun chief, and the gun we use for registering the batter, adjusting fire before FFE. They are the most experienced and best performing gun. SSGT Perry was looking for his gun. Its parachutes had detached as it slid out of the plane and it fell 1200'.  BOOOOM.  Upside down into the sandy drop zone. SSGT Perry almost started to cry when we told him "It's under there. That's your gun."  It ended up on display in the motor pool after they dug it out. It was about a foot tall, wheels out sideways, gun tube cracked in the middle and driven down into the chassis. Incidentally, it's for this reason that in training the vehicles drop first, then the  people drop. In a real situation you'd drop the people first to secure the drop zone, then the vehicles, but as you can see, that can be dangerous.
2. Two gun raid.  An artillery battery is comprised of 6 guns. In the 82d, back then we had M102 105mm howitzers. Nice guns. Towed by M561 Gamma Goats. But being a 105 the range is somewhat limited. A two gun raid takes two guns, and a couple of people from the Fire Direction Center (the LT and one enlisted man) forward with the two guns.  The FDC LT gets to play Fire Direction Officer and XO at the same time (calculate the firing data and lay the guns). The guns get slung with enough ammo for the mission, the two gun crews and us (The FDC - I was the LT), ride the 2 Blackhawks that are carrying the guns (Hueys early on but then it took 4 to do it). Placed forward in the front lines to be able to hit a lucrative target in the enemy rear, you set up, shoot, and rig up to be removed again, all very fast. In peacetime, Ft. Bragg, NC, you have strict range safety. A firing box to fire into from a specific surveyed firing point. When the helicopters set us down and flew off, the senior gun chief and I huddled with a map and quickly realized they had set us down on the wrong spot. We were a mile down the road from where we should be (and where I had safety data for), with no transportation. Radio silence, the choppers would return in 30 minutes. So we lay the guns, calculated the data and dry fired for the practice. No live rounds - that would have been a disaster. Had we fired the mission as given from the wrong location we would have fired rounds onto a road. A real road. Luckily the sergeant and I were familiar enough with the area that we could tell we weren't in the right place.  If it was real it wouldn't have been much better because back then with no GPS, you are dependent on doing your own survey.  We were in the trees with no readily usable landmarks. Who knows where the rounds would have gone, except not where the target was. And in real life we may not have recognized the error. 
3. And I've already told the story of the final protective fires. Danger close with infantry company mortars (I was a FIST Chief then). Rounds kept creeping closer to us. They were already close and getting closer. So we radioed "Check Fire" and received the reply "Rounds Complete".  Mortars are quick firing with a long time of flight. There were still about 15 rounds in the air. We bugged out. The last rounds hit our former position. The mortar baseplates were sinking in wet ground with every shot, causing the tube to rise, which shortens the range. They hadn't noticed until it was over. So we had good FPF fire but had to retreat in a hurry anyway. This one could easily be applicable to CM games due to the close quarters of most battles.
Not very exciting stories, but examples of if something can go wrong it will.