DougPhresh

Great job! In porting maps to CMBS I've had a very hard time placing brides correctly. Did you figure it out? Additionally, I find every title except for CMBN will port maps to BS, and even then MG and the battlepack port, which leads me to suspect hedgerows are to blame.

I would like to know that if field divisions are coming, the HG will get a second look.

This whole "time" excuse is bizarre. Here are two very small, very complicated, niche wargames. How much "time" are the developers wasting by posting updates? Because they have been hitting their release dates, while updating the community and listening to feedback. http://nws-online.proboards.com/thread/1445/rule-waves-2-developers-journal http://forum.game-labs.net/topic/22735-work-in-progress-dreadnoughts/

I'm not talking about the content, I'm talking about communicating the content. Is that really much different than an update on a CM title would be? or this https://unityofcommand.net/blog/2017/05/02/developer-diary-10-performance/#more-2339

Here's a one-man wargame that was well-received by RPS and Wargammer and he manages to post on a regular basis, explain how progress is coming along, explain why his updates are occasionally infrequent, and otherwise take the time to engage with the people who will buy his product. http://www.armouredcommander.com/blog/

@Erwin you're going to pretty fantastic lengths to excuse bad communication. As several people have pointed out numerous times, we're not asking for much more than a couple sentences every so often, which would maybe take five minutes to compose. "In CMRT's next module we will be including the Polish First Army as a Soviet force. We had the units and oob largely in game already and used voice files from the other titles. Polish vehicles will display the white eagle crews often painted, rather than the red star."

I don't think anyone is asking for huge dev diaries here. Although if you're looking for an example of a niche company absolutely killing it in once-a-week posts, https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-122-planetary-rework-part-2-of-4.1115992/ In any case, I think people are more asking for simple, general things. - What kind of changes are in the patches - What kind of additions are coming to CMFI - What (broadly) will be coming to CMRT - What bugs/TOE/OOB/suggestions by the community have the devs noticed, and what has been passed on to developers An example of this done right is how BTR's great post in the CMBS tech forum was received What would bring this to a level I think would absolutely impress the community is to say, "Coming with the CMBS patch are the changes pointed out to us by community member BTR back in 2015!" with a side-by-side of fixed models.

The Canadian army had armoured Mercedes trucks in theatre, but we mostly used Bisons (Like the LAV but without turret) for logistics outside the wire.

I'd just like the fortifications to not be scattered all over the map when I start the deploy phase of a QB. It would be so much easier to have them neatly organized like units were, and how they were in the CM1 titles.

I don't mind that things are delayed, I mind that the customer base is often left in the dark, often for months on end. This has admittedly gotten much better in the last few weeks, but it has been months of waiting for the 4.0 patch. I can't say for sure how this is effecting the player base but look at how posting has died off for CMFI and CMRT - titles I personally really enjoy. There are threads detailing bugs and TOE/OOB errors and omissions from 2014 that have still not been commented on. Are they being fixed in the next patch? Who knows? If BF is aware that for example FJ gun transports in CMFI carry 50mm ammo regardless of the gun in the platoon, and it's being fixed in the next patch, then that's something I don't have to worry about, if they let the customers know and then I don't have to resurrect dead threads from 2014 in the hopes that it will be noticed, only for there to be no response because nobody is posting in the CMRT forum, lest of all devs. In my opinion, it's not the big things like delays with the website or CMSF2 being a little later than expected, and certainly not major additions like France and Italy being added to CMSF2 at launch, it's the lack of patches and dev blogs on the existing titles. Little things like the graphics issues with the BMP-2M in CMBS, generated many, many community posts and were met with silence. Would it be so much to say "We're aware of that, we're fixing it, it will be in the upcoming patch for the 4.0 engine". The responses to the question about CMBS bugs persisting into CMSF2 and asking if they will be addressed in a patch for CMBS is a ray of hope, I can only hope that there is a more organized way of doing that going forward. Maybe have pinned threads in each of the titles' boards and one day a week (if possible) have someone a dev or beta tester come in and give a little update on what's being done on the title, what the known issues are, maybe even solicit help from the community if there is uncertainty about a TOE or OOB. So on Tuesday say, go into the Development Thread in CMFI and say "You know, we looked at that Italian infantry handbook you guys posted back in 2013 (and was reposted in 2018!) that mentions the squad breaking down into 3 man teams, but we think that was just for running in bounds and the Italian rifle squad was fundamentally a LMG section and a rifle section and couldn't maneuver as smaller elements than that." and then on Friday post on the CMFB board and say "Yeah, we're aware that the availability dates for HVAP for the 76mm gun might be off, we'll address that" (No more specifics needed, 10 seconds to post!). The following Tuesday, if there's less going on in the development of CMFI maybe just check in and say "We didn't really take the time to go back to look at the Italians after the engine updates, since they were in the initial release of CMFI and we couldn't just port over assets from other titles when we added AAA. We'd like to add stationary Breda 20mm guns to give Italians the ability to have AA units, and luckily we already have this modeled in game on the AS. 42. We'll hopefully have time to add this as a small patch to CMFI between CMSF2 shipping and Rome to Victory" I know people like to say customers ask for too much. I disagree. We're not asking for detailed weekly dev diaries, just some indication of what is being done. I know people say that posting on the forum takes away from development time. I disagree. Just say something like: "Not only will Module 1 for CMRT bring the timeline to the end of the war and add German formations and equipment, but the Soviets got a second looks too. So now Cavalry Uniforms are a selection as appearance in the unit purchase screen instead of a mod tag. Oh and since we already had Polish voice files from other titles, we're adding the First Polish Army to the Russian side". That took about 30 seconds and covered questions raised in dozens of threads and hundreds of posts dating from 2014.

Not trying to knock you, but I'm trying to puzzle my way through the situation as well. I'm obviously far more familiar with the Canadian side of this equation! Without posting pages from the manual, since you are not conducting a battalion or regimental eschelon attack, would it make more sense to go "by the book" for carrying out the initial phase of a meeting engagement? Move to contact, and then "pile on" with the elements of your force, which is approximately a Forward Security Element and parts of an Advance Guard? If I'm reading the pam right, you would need about 3 vehicles to establish contact, and then can start an attack with 10 vehicles, 4 tanks, 6 mortars, 6 guns, all of which I think you have.

The smallest combat unit that carries out independent action is the Regiment. In the Combat Mission scale, I wouldn't use anything less than a Battalion for an attack. Now, if we take that into consideration and look back at the briefing for this scenario: And the fact that the scenario is a probe, we might re-evaluate the appropriate doctrine. I would suggest that we treat Mike's force as either an ad-hoc formation acting as the Regimental recon screen, or a first echelon force. In either case, there is doctrine for this kind of engagement with roughly the forces Mike has.

While I have always admired your ability to use western techniques like the recon pull, this illustrates issues that I see a lot of gamers facing when using Eastern Bloc forces. Attack by echelon is brutal, simple, predictable and effective. I would suggest focusing on a command push, using the forces you have at hand, and using the appropriate doctrine for them. A T-72 is not a worse Leopard, it is a lethal weapons system when used in its intended role. This post by JasonC in the CMBB forum fundamentally changed how I think about Soviet forces and has made me a much better player at not only CMRT and CMBS but any wargame that puts me in command of units that start with "T" instead of "M". And from US Field Manual 100-2-1 The Soviet Army: Operations and Tactics. In summary, use the tactics developed for the equipment you have. By analogy, I often see players in CMFI complain about Italian forces. While there are obviously shortcomings with the equipment and organization of the Italian Army in the Second World War, many of the complaints stem from trying to accomplish missions using doctrine tailored for other forces. Take for instance the Infantry Battalion: The Italians do not have MG focused squads like the Germans, and do not break down into small 4 man teams like the Germans and Western Allies. This breaks down the fire-and-movement tactics at the squad and platoon level players are used to. Instead, the Italian Army has an exception light mortar in large numbers that provides the base of fire for platoon attacks and medium mortars and heavy machine guns used to support the company and battalion attack. The Syrian Army will always lose if using tactics developed for NATO forces. As demonstrated in the Golan, and even more-so by the Egyptians in crossing the Suez, Warsaw Pact equipped forces can beat Western forces if used with the appropriate tactics.

Strangely this has only happened on maps I converted from CMFB and CMFI, maybe that could play a part. I keep having BMP-3Ms with only the 30mm disabled, sometimes as much as 30% of my total force.

Two issues with the Pak 36 in CMFI - GL. First of all, the gun tractors for the Airborne AT platoon carry the correct 150mm HEAT ammo, but the remainder of the ammunition is 50mm and not 37mm ammo. I believe this is also an issue with the recoiless gun ammo sections. Additionally, the Gun does not rotate to fire at targets.

I wish it was just a bit easier to make quick battle plans. It's one of the things that could really open up the game.

Phone posting, double post!

With Field Divisions making an appearance, will the HG Division finally get a second look? Their depiction in Sicily is great but once the fighting moves to Italy it’s fairly apparent that their uniforms are a copy-paste from CMBN. HG in mainland Italy often had cuff titles and wore SS Oakleaf camoflauge smocks. Additionally, their ranks were white and not green as in Field Divisions. This applies to both the unit skins and the unit information screen.

It’s a very small thing compared to AFVs, but having lend-lease jeeps, White scout cars and half tracks available would make a big difference for conducting recce on the big maps. The T-70 is just not a good recce platform and carrying out recce on foot on a 3km x 3km map is laborious.

It would be nice if, in addition to Target, Target Light and Target Timed there was a way to select which weapon to fire. The BMP-2M comes to mind which has an Autocannon, LMG, ATGM and AGL. The first thing that comes to mind is having something similar to when you place a move order on a building and you get the little pop up that asks which floor. Simply have that come up when you place a target marker and have a list of available weapons, with the default set for all, which is I think the current behavior.

I’m itching to hear more about the patches. If we are still in the window where we can report bugs, it would be nice to know which ones the devs are aware of.

A small but I think significant thing I’d like to see going forward is the ability of Russian vehicles to generate smokescreens through their engines. This is a valuable capability to add in-game. The lack of smoke grenade launchers on AFVs and slow call for fire times are represented in both CMRT and CMBS, which is great. However the alternate way Russian forces add obscurants to the battlespace is not, which leaves them without that capibility altogether. This naturally has implications for Syrian forces in CMSF which use Russian equipment. Every major Russian AFV in CMSF should be able to generate smoke. Aesthetically, I would like hit decals to appear on AFVs with ERA. If you use the camera to clip through you can see the impacts and penetrations on the actual hull armour, but not on the ERA tiles. Easiest example: BMP-3M with ERA takes autocannon fire, you have to clip through the ERA to see where the vehicle was hit, it otherwise looks undamaged. I would also like clarification on if the turret ERA behind the rubber skirt is modelled on the BMP-3M with ERA.

Anecdotal, but the C9A2 was filtering into battalion at least in '04. The manual also specifically includes the C79 as an integral component of the weapons system. http://biblioteka.mycity-military.com/biblioteka/Diemaco/C9 Light Machine Gun.pdf

Of course now that there is a Sherman Crab, I have hope for more engineering vehicles.