Duckman

Interesting experiment. The difference may be partly due to the lack of foxholes in CM, like others have said (probably the biggest missing piece in the game in my opinion). The WWI-style trenches should be a lot more vulnerable to artillery. As for improved field fortifications, simple overhead cover is probably not a big issue since airbursts were rare in WWII (only the US had proximity fuzes, from late 1944 and in limited numbers). However given time troops could of course construct log bunkers and the like which are much better protected.

I really like including the exotic German Alarmeinheiten. As to the argument that they're only flavour, well for me flavour is a large part of the game. If urban combat is included (as it should be given the terrain at Arnhem bridge) I'd say that's a significant novelty for the series as well. Oddities like the US 90 mm gun are best left out, in my opinion. Most countries (including Italy and Japan) had AA weapons comparable to the German 88. It was doctrine, training and support equipment (the Brits had an unsuitable tractor, for example) that kept them from using it in the same way and the game should reflect this even if there was the odd exception.

Great! Thanks.

I'm just wondering if you can play PC vs Mac in multiplayer, i.e. one player on Mac and one on PC? (Apologies if this is in a FAQ somwhere, but I couldn't find it.)

This was the conclusion they reached in WWI as well. They started the war with high-powered rifles that were supposed to shoot salvo fire out to 1000 m, but quickly found out that at those ranges artillery (using direct-fire airburst shrapnel) dominated. Thus started the evolution towards trenches and, eventually, modern infantry weapons and tactics. By the time of WWII it was recognized that the MG provided the bulk of the squad's firepower and the role of the riflemen shifted towards carrying ammo for the MG, protecting the MG, and close assault. The odd man out was the US with the Garand.

I doubt the German early-war motorcycle battalion actually rode into combat. From what I could find it seems the motorcycles were rather a substitute for trucks. Of course recon elements especially could and would advance mounted to contact, but for the majority of motorcycle troops it seems it was just a means of road transportation.

Even if a lot of the improvements were in doctrine and command, equipment still made a significant contribution to the British turning things around by late 1942. 6-pdr antitank guns (with factory-raw weldings), Grant tanks, and 5,5-in guns to complement the howitzers all made a difference in the desert. Hammond spends a lot of time defending Auchinleck, who he seems to feel got an undeservedly bad rep. However he does give Monty credit for providing clear and steady leadership, even if a lot of what he did was already set in motion by The Auk. Indeed, a lot of early WWI was simply spent catching up. The German head start was in a large degree due to the fact that they had to do less of this. In the interwar years the British were distracted by colonial policing, while the French took a wrong turn doctrinally and the American army contracted to an embryonic state. That pretty much left the Germans and the Soviets, and after the latter started to self-destruct the German position was quite good despite the Versailles treaty. A number of fortunate circumstances meant that they basically continued on from the work done during WWI instead of starting over; as Frieser points out the panzer divisions were basically the old infiltration and stormtrooper tactics in mechanized form.

It was both a doctrine/training problem and a TOE issue. Early and mid war British armoured divisions were extremely tank heavy, only one or two motorized infantry companies to an entire tank brigade I think. On top of this the infantry had very weak organic support and no halftracks until 1943 when American ones became available. Infantry divisions, on the other hand, had no organic self-propelled support like the German StuGs and instead relied on attached tank units. However given the poor state of cross-formation communications, let alone training, this did not work at all. So even if British tanks were perhaps a bit better than they are usually given credit for it was still undone by utter failure at combined arms early in the war. To be fair to the British the Americans did have a few more years to prepare and absord lessons. The basic American armoured division TOE was very sound though, with a good balance between infantry and tanks as shown in the Combat Command concept. US problems were in replacement and rotation policies and perhaps in the reluctance to form armoured corps.

That makes excellent sense. I guess the only remaining question then is how they will treat the Axis minors.

It will be interesting to see where they go with the East Front after Bagration. Given that each module has to have some new content I think Lvov-Sandomierz would probably have to include the Hungarians to make it worthwhile. That begs the question how marketable they are outside Hungary and the hardcore. Another option would be to go late-war and add maybe the Hetzer, Jagdtiger, and some vehicle variants. Or head towards Kursk.

Germany actually had the same kind of doctrine as the much-maligned American one, i.e. tanks were primarily for soft-skinned targets while AT guns and TDs were supposed to take care of enemy tanks. It worked well for them early in the war, particularly in the desert. The odd man out was Britain, where the infantry support tanks were given (at the time) credible AT capability with the 2 pdr in the Matilda in order to protect the infantry from tanks. Unfortunately this meant abysmal HE capability. I'm reading El Alamein by Bryn Hammond right now, and it's interesting how weak infantry still was against tanks by late 1942. There are numerous occasions where British tank or AT gun support failed, mostly due to catastrophic interservice cooperation. In several cases the German tanks simply drove on top of recently captured positions and forced the infantry to surrender. Given even modest portable AT weapons this would have been much more difficult. Tank-infantry cooperation proved very hard to solve, probably because it was a low-level problem that required lots of people to cooperate effectively. By contrast the British quickly fixed their artillery by reintroducing centralized fire control à la WWI. This proved very effective and several German-Italian attacks were stopped cold at the start line by the British quickly dropping huge amounts of arty on them.

Just a little book tip for those of us who use this thread to profess their love for crap tanks: http://www.ospreypublishing.com/store/Tanks-of-Hitler%E2%80%99s-Eastern-Allies-1941%E2%80%9345_9781780960203

The development of laser-guided bombs was a direct effect of Vietnam. They were used very successfully in 1972, as were helicopter-launched TOWs for the first time.

Things were indeed moving quickly in the 1930s. The T-26, for example, was king of the battlefield in Spain and Mongolia but obsolete just a few years after. Given the pace of development there was bound to be mismatches and failed projects; things like the failure to upgun the Sherman in time and the Panther's reliability problems should also be seen in that context.

Well it was built to take a hit...

The biggest difference between early and late war in CM terms is probably that there are none or very few "if you can see it you can kill it" weapons. AT and tank guns were relatively puny, as already mentioned, which means your Panzer 35(t) will have to maneuver to get a shot at the Renault FT 400 m away. With a little luck we might still get that in a future Barbarossa module (or with the Axis minors who used their old junk until midwar, if one dares to dream). Kursk is a bit of a sleeper here as well, with large numbers of Panzer IIIs and T-60s.

Realistically: 1. Bagration 2. Bulge 3. North Africa Unrealistically: 1. Axis minors 2. 1940 3. Pacific

What stands out to me is the horrendous amount of light tanks the Soviets lost. They presumably made up a lot of the ones destroyed during 1941. The 2.45 ratio in 1943 is decent, all things considered, and probably comparable to the Western Allies.

Tiger units had above average personnel and often fought under quite favourable circumstances in 1943. Compare this to the Panther which was introduced later, had extensive teething problems and from at least late 1944 equipped quite a few below average units. In other words, you have to look at statistics in perspective.

Amazing pictures! Where? I found the beaches here: http://normandyheritage.com/ but not much inland.

SS leaders have correct poncho camouflage pattern. Finally!

I think a big part of the reason why attacking is a easier in games than Reality is that command, control, and spotting are easier in our virtual world. This in turn means that attackers can manage with something close to 1:1. CM does better in those aspects than most or all other games, which is why attacking can be pretty hard going and lead to historically accurate situations like "where the hell is X platoon?" or trying to sort out a tangle of units. Putting in even more restrictions - à la Ironman mode - will probably come at a great expense in playability. It seems better to work with force mixes and "soft" factor levels, as suggested in this thread. TRPs are also a good way to give defenders a realistic advantage; up until recently premeasuring ranges for arty as well as other heavy weapons gave the defense a decided advantage.

To be fair to the Germans their industrial base should probably be compared to Britain rather than the US. It's true that there were some glaring efficiencies up until Stalingrad, like still working single shifts in factories, but they were also putting a lot of resources into building plants that did not come online until later in the war. The bomber offensive should also get credit for shifting a lot of German production capacity towards aircraft. Historians have generally focused on the failures of the bomber war, but that seems to be changing. As for the Soviets, their totals are impressive but also hide the fact that they were producing a lot of light tanks and obsolete aircraft. That shouldn't detract from the huge success they had in massproducing the T-34 throughout the war, but it does skew comparisons somewhat. Speer's much-touted (not least by himself) production miracle was also partly achieved by keeping older models in production.

Conventional intelligence gives an estimate of "pretty soon" based on gut feel and reduced volume of communications that usually precedes a release. Statistical analysis shows a mean time between modules (MTBM) of approximately one year. This also indicates an imminent release since the CW module was released on March 5th 2012.

Cool idea, sort of a prequel to CMSF.