Bud Backer

Very true, but I’d break that down further and say that not all of Normandy is bocage either so really one can have the experience one finds most interesting.

Spending all your time in bocage country is really not what happens in CMBN. CMBN + Commonwealth was my intro to CM in general, and I recall many battles that had no bocage at all. This only is more true if you buy the Market Garden add-on. There are over 900 maps if you buy the entire collection and while there are plenty of bocage maps to satisfy those who want to slog through the early days after d-day, there are even more that have no bocage at all.

You’re very welcome! And welcome to the forum. If you need some direction as to what title might suit your interests best, make a thread about it and I’m sure you’ll have lots of suggestions to comb through.

As someone who’s done cooperative play in CM games, I can say that while the game does not officially have a coop system, it is actually not difficult to do, as long as your partner is someone you can rely on cooperating with you, and following whatever division of resources and activities you agree upon. It’s a lot of fun..

Not at all. The chart is more useful for comparing one vehicles resistance to damage from the same category to a different vehicle, than to compare resistance to damage between weapon types. HEAT still has limitations. Also, there isn’t enough granularity in the chart to differentiate between say, a bazooka which won’t burn through 80mm of armour, but will through 50, because it also has to represent (for instance) 105mm heat too (which will also struggle with the elefant’s armour). You can see this granularity issue in a more obvious way if you look at the Sherman's armour. The armour resistance values for large AP shells represents a 50mm Panzer III gun, capable of penetrating, say, 60mm armour, as well as a long 88, capable of penetrating over 150mm. Same values in the chart for quite a performance difference.

The download only option has the game plus all manuals as PDFs. You don’t need anything further unless you want a physical Paper manual - “download plus Manual” disk (PC or Mac not both) - “download plus disk” Each of the above bullets - “download plus manual plus (PC or Mac) disk” I also recommend backing up the downloaded file, as well as the licence key. All the Current CM games share the same engine, covered in the Game Engine manual. They ALSO have unique manuals for each game in addition, as those manuals cover the non-common elements - eg: CMBS will have stats on Ukrainian units, CMSF2 won’t, but it will have stats on German units. From the text you quoted it sounds like the extra $8 gets you the engine manual in printed form, that is already in PDF in the downloaded installer. So only buy it if you’re adamant about having a paper copy.

Damned annoying. I’ve lost more assets to my opponent’s mines than to his fire. But he has to be hurting now. Bad. It’s a large objective area. I’m not sure I can clear it all in time to win if he keeps up the hide and seek. On the amusing anecdote side, in a trench fairly close to the edge of the village he’s been keeping a bazooka team hidden. It pops up now and then, then disappears into a contact. Now pint of area fire would draw it out or kill it, so I drove a king tiger right onto the trench in the spot where I saw them. THAT worked. They freaked and ran and...died.

If I recall correctly, the frontal armour on the Elefant is 200mm. No gun in that era can penetrate it. Bazookas will not have much success penetrating it from any side. Your 76mm should be able to penetrate it from the side or rear. 105mm HE relies on the explosion to cause damage, it has no penetrative capability so it will be unlikely to cause much damage with just such a small charge. To kill this you should use your 76mm gun from the side.. The Elefant is not very maneuverable, and has to turn to aim its gun. Try to use that to your advantage.

The battle progresses. I’ve destroyed quite a number of buildings. I’ve seen several of his infantry scramble from ruins or trenches trying to flee as I area fire, but none have actually escaped. I’ve ordered a fire mission in the last objective and diverted part of my force to ready an attack once the arty lands.

Yes they are wonderful at shredding exposed infantry. From a current project:

I think this is key. Otherwise defenders would lose automatically because they are outnumbered, yet that is obviously not what happens.

Would you be able to say what is audible with artillery shells? Do they “whistle” before striking or are they silent (aside from if one can hear them be fired of course).

I saw the first words of the title of your thread and mistook it for my own initially! In addition to what others suggested above, I would recommend trying to find keyhole positions. In case you are not familiar here is one of @Bil Hardenberger’s excellent blog posts about that. https://battledrill.blogspot.com/2017/06/battle-technique-keyhole-firing-position.html The idea here is that you as much as possible try to position units so that they can only be fired on from a narrow angle that required the shooter to expose themselves in order to do so. Your field of view may be narrow, but if it is well sited, it may reach some considerable distance across the map, which enemy must cross and have limited resources to engage you with.

I agree with you. There are a number of reasons for what you see: 1. I am using zoom, and that makes everything look a lot closer together than it really is. 2. The lead tiger has a disabled gun. I am using it as a mobile MG bunker. The following tiger is fully operational. 3. I could not originally move the tanks to the right of the picture because my opponent had ATGs all along the treeline that you see beginning in the upper right of each frame. That would risk a penetrating hit in my side armour. Secondly the hellcat was position as such that if I tried to go right I’d be taking a shot in my rear armour. In this case the two tanks were exactly where I wanted them in order to catch the hellcat wherever he moves. 4. Both of these tigers are covered by a third to the left (off frame) as well as multiple MG- and autocannon -equipped halftracks. Incidentally, on the far side of the village is another king tiger. Had the hellcat reversed, it had a view just between the buildings to catch it. It never really had a chance, but I desperately wanted it to move. Keep the suggestions coming!

All right so here we are 4 minutes after my artillery started landing. I’m dropping 2x Nebelwerfers (they have 130 rounds each I believe originally, about 140 between them now), 2x 120mm mortars, combined about 40 rounds, and 1x 81mm. I am leaving about 50 smoke rounds in the Nebels. All my armour is tightening the noose. I’ve destroyed his remaining ATGs (I devoted 50% of my allotted time to careful, slow recon with several scout teams). The artillery must be making the units antsy. Like this the remaining Hellcat. Or he figured he’d lose it to arty so he moved it deliberately. I call this suicide by Tiger... I now can move around with impunity, as long as I keep some distance to make bazookas struggle to hit.

Yes, I was using the artillery somewhat sparingly but now that I know where he really is and what he is doing, and with the guidance I’ve received here, I’m moving in.

It’s now 2 minutes later. My arty has started falling on the village at the end of the turn. I’ve advanced three king tigers with the fourth on overwatch. As two tigers moved closer I began to spot some infantry in a nearby trench. The tank’s TacAI took them out pretty instantaneously. So far so good...

I hope to squeeze him from two, then three sides. My concern is his remaining ATGs and the Hellcat. I hope to freak him out when every bit of artillery I have lands on the village in one go. It lands in 2 min as I have a TRP there. I’m keeping back until it does as I don’t want any friendly fire casualties.

A company of infantry is only 9 squads, so it's not quite a huge number of units to split amongst 18+ buildings, plus the half dozen trenches. I have scouted the woods to either side. The AT guns were in the tree line you mentioned, they have been destroyed. He has some more in the trees behind the village but I am taking them under fire. They have hit one king tiger 20+ times but I'm still chipping away at them. I can't guarantee he has a company there - it could be more or less but there are no units of any significance anywhere else. I for a time was wondering if he was doing something weird like buying a crazy amount of arty to hammer me once I enter the village but that seems less likely to me than that he wants to demonstrate to me how infantry is going to be impossible for me to remove. Guys, I do want to add that I find any comments useful - they jog my memory, make the reconsider, or consider for the first time, things you bring up. So please don't take my responses as defensive - they are not. I'm trying to process what you're saying and reacting, but everything said here is worth reading. I ran out of upvotes/likes for the day... I will catch the rest tomorrow.

Well, I wasn’t just sitting watching all that time. I did fire in several buildings but he never had anyone fire back. I hoped to elicit response. He probably set his troops as high experience and morale. Time remaining on the clock is about 27 minutes.

I do need to take the village, yes. An interesting suggestion but the bulk of his forces are there so while I have lost no vehicles and only a 8 men so far, I haven’t killed enough of his forces to make it a victory for me. In any event, even if I had, this is a useful place to see how handle this problem. What bothers me so much is that I don’t see almost anything, and I expected I would. I do have direct HE available. I don’t believe it is sufficient to knock down most of the village buildings. But it may allow me to clear the trenches and then let artillery do some more work. I don’t have huge resources of artillery but I may as well use it. Does no good having rounds after the battle ends.

It doesn’t happen often but Artillery definitely can penetrate roof armour - this is it wrecking my Brumbar.

Here is a screenshot of the current situation:

These are useful and interesting comments, thank you. I did not think of isolating some defenders from the others with smoke. I have to see how much I have. The weird thing I am experiencing is that I am simply not getting even contact icons (one or two, but I know he has a much larger force here). So I have a host of small buildings, plus scattered trenches everywhere. I can’t hose everything with prep fire as there are too many targets and I’m scared to walk my men right up to him. I’ll be ambushed.

The situation is a follows: I’m fighting a player using US paratroops that are dug into a village. They have trenches and building to hide in. From a distance I’ve destroyed his ATGs and while he has one of his two Hellcats still working, it’s boxed in and the moment it exposes itself it will be destroyed by my King Tigers. I have a two platoons of Panzergrenadiers mounted on half tracks, 4 king tigers, and assorted artillery. I’ve hit the town with my artillery (Nebelwerfers and 120mm mortars). I believe the losses to him are not significant. He has approx a company of paras, all set with short target arcs, and despite my having many eyes on the town for quite a number of turns (like 20+) very very few reveal themselves. I have some arty ammo left but used more than half. If I ride into town I’ll lose stuff like crazy to bazookas and so on. Surely there has to be a way to deal with this with the resources I have at hand. How can I dig out those paras without catastrophic losses? I’d appreciate ideas, and the debate that will follow.