Bud Backer

It is done.  There are no other living soldiers in the cemetery now, only Hans and his comrades.   Hans looks down at the dead Ami.  There is very little blood so the killing shot must have been quick.  Hans doesn’t know if it was rounds from his machine gun that ended this man’s life.  Not that it matters to the American, lying still in the dirt.  Small consolation that the soldier didn’t suffer.  That is what they all fear, a horrible death in agony – just let it be quick; Hans and his fellow soldiers feel the same way.
 
 

 
He stands near the dead soldier for a moment, silently paying his respect to a brave soldier who refused to leave his fallen comrades and now joins them in death.  The Feldwebel knows what Hans is feeling and gives him a moment. 
 
Then the call rings out.  Form Up!  Gunfire rings out beyond the quiet of the cemetery walls.  The war goes on.  Hans turns and leaves the dead behind.  He is tired again, and still angry, but now just angry at the futility of it all.  He trudges towards the sound of the guns.
 
Heinrich505

Penetration mark of a 120mm precision round on a T-90AM:
 

I think it varies between play-partners. For example, XxGunDocxX and I play with no deploy/spawn bombardment, but both of us use preplanned arty air and expect the other to use it. It's allowed for some interesting smoke screening early on. 

Back on topic...
 
I am amazed at the ways in which a digital wargame can bring so many people together over a common interest...people that are separated by such vast geographic distances.
 
Global concern over the current condition of Michael Emrys is case in point. 
 
Pretty cool, I say...

This is off-topic but I blame Kohlenklau
 
I still consider this to be one of the greatest scenes in military movie history, and the fact it actually happened makes it even better.
 

 
"We havn't the proper facilities to take you all prisoner, sorry!"

Hi fellas. On the phone for several hours. neighbors, police, churches, apartment manager, etc.
The bad news is he was reported to have been injured in some type of motor vehicle accident back around March the officer said.
Then he went to a convalescent hospital but they are unable to tell me anything other than "not listed as a resident at this time"...
Good news: property manager finally answered my 2nd call and she says he is doing well and she'll give him my number to call me.

Veteran panzerschreck  gunner Oberschütze Fell takes aim and lets fly.  The projectile can be seen along the left side of the picture.

A few pictures from the battlefield aftermath:
 

There's definitely a manual in the Mac version. It's a pdf in the Documents folder.


Applications>>Combat Mission Battle For Normandy>>Documents


If you bought CMBN 3.o you might also have a 3.0 engine manual pdf.

Well, that whole statement is, to borrow a phrase, deeply hypocritical.
 
"Good" Arab countries - what does that even mean? The ones that'll meekly do your bidding? The ones that'll provide resources at rock bottom prices? The ones that'll shaft their own population in order to get a cut of the profits made from allowing multinationals to run amok without regulation?
 


You're just playing this for the lulz, right?

I'm currently playing a Bulge PBEM and I can say that it is going to be worth every penny.
 
Unfortunately that's all I can say about it.  

And a tub of whale blubber...cause we gotta keep things going smoothly, y'know?

SovietPach...
Maybe you already feel this way?
I recommend that as soon as possible, make the break AWAY from playing against the AI. And never look back!
Get into the PBEM world using CM helper and see the game get so much more dynamic when H2H.
A short, small PBEM can maybe be done in an evening if you and your opponent hit it back and forth like a tennis ball.
Or do a long game of chess with a huge 2 hour battle that takes months.  
Bishop to queen's rook 7!

Heinrich505 (AKA Torch  ) posted an interesting screenshot (several actually) of flamethrowers in action at the below link.  
 
http://community.battlefront.com/topic/113260-rt-unofficial-screenshot-thread/?p=1606702
 
One of the screenshots raised the question, what happens if flamethrowers hit friendly troops.  Friendly tank fire, bullets (.50 caliber and larger), rifle grenades and bazookas will kill and suppress friendly troops.  Friendly fire smaller than .50 caliber will suppress friendly troops.  What will flamethrowers do?  Would they KIA and suppress or just suppress friendly troops.  Below is the answer along with some screenshots.
 
If anyone can offer a correction or additional information please do. 
 
The maximum engagement distance for the US M1A1 flamethrower, used in the experiment, is 44 meters or approximately five A/S.  (Different from the CMBN Vehicle Pack Manual which advises 36 meters or four action spots.  However the correct distance is listed in the user interface)
The US M1A1 flamethrower can fire up to 6 to 7 shots a minute with 12 shots total.
The flamethrower will not fire on Target light.  Instead the Team Leader will fire his M1 Carbine.
The US M1A1 flamethrower will not KIA or even suppress friendly troops.
 
I had the flamethrower team Target light to run the M1 Carbine out of ammo so it would not be a factor in any suppression. The range for hand grenades is three action spots (although and occasional odd one can land on the fourth action spot).  However I used the flamethrower at the maximum range of five action spots so the hand grenades were not a factor.  The 45 caliber pistol is only used after the flamethrower runs out of ammo.  (Even on a very short, 9 meter, Target light the team did not use the pistol) 

 
M1 Carbine empty.  Grenades and .45 will not be used.

 
3rd Section / B Team “volunteered” for the test.  Their Suppression Indicator is clear at 03:52:00

 
Multiple direct hits from the friendly flamethrower have no effect. 

 
I also did an experiment with a Churchill Crocodile flamethrower tank.  However there is no way, I am aware of, to make the tank fire just flame.  It alternated firing the main gun or a machine gun with the flamethrower. I could not isolate the flamethrower. I believe the small amount of suppression  in the below screenshot came from the MG which was also shooting. 

 
I think it is correct to say both man portable and vehicle mounted flamethrowers will not KIA or suppress friendly troops however supporting weapons fired with the Target command at the same time may.  
 
An even more interesting topic would be how this knowledge of the game mechanics can be incorporated into tactical standard operating procedures (TACSOP)s for the best in game use.  

Coming soon....



Click for a high-resolution view. You know you want to...

Copied from elsewhere:
I think it's weird and sad that so many people believe the point of a justice system is to exact revenge. The idea that when someone commits a wrong, they must suffer a comparable wrong, to balance out some cosmic scale or something, as if the only point of being here were to participate in some zero-sum game. It's sad because it's such a low bar. I want a justice system which actually seeks to repair the social fabric, to heal damage and prevent future wrongs. But nobody really believes that this so-called justice system can or will do anything like that. So we just settle for making someone suffer for their crimes. It's like being ruled by warlords or something.
 
And ...
http://www.theonion.com/graphic/tsarnaev-death-penalty-warning-any-other-religious-50451

Coming soon....



Click for a high-resolution view. You know you want to...

It's obvious you cheated Ian, BigCats are invulnerable to all fire from any direction, excluding of course the super rare Deathstar that fires laser beams straight down from orbit but we all know that was a German weapon as well. It's amazing the Allies got anywhere at all in WW2.
 
What I think Pete is talking about IMHO is that Allied tankers and big cats would not want to maneuver that close to each other to engage. The size of the map is very limiting considering they have a max range of, what, like 2 kilometers or so? Besides that the Allies would probably opt for air support first.  This seems like the tank version of a story I read somewhere about the Brits in Market Garden. A green German squad was walking down a road to reinforce the front lines, and as they walked they noticed a dirty, beaten down squad of Brits walking the other way with their heads down. They just assumed it was the troops they were relieving. As they came abreast of each other, one of the German troops asked them a question. "Bloody hell, it's the Germans!" they shouted, and the shooting began.

Hi Pete, 
 
Thank you for taking the time to elaborate, I appreciate it. 
 
You make some interesting points. I disagree with some, but that may be purely because I still feel I lack a lot of experience and am perhaps looking at things with a perspective that is not as well informed. Or maybe I'm right? Who knows? 
 
I'll tell you what I disagree with first - best to get the bitter stuff down before we more onto the sweet, eh?
 
You mentioned that you feel the map and meeting engagement in principal are bad for a study on anti-heavy armour tactics. This may be my naiveté but I feel the opposite (within limits - I recognize that whatever I do will not sufficiently in depth to be comprising a full gamut of tactics against the Big Cats). Why do I feel differently? Because, despite it's lack of some aspects of reality, it's almost like a training exercise - take one of the worst case situations: without prepared defences and without control of the objectives to deal with enemy heavy armour. I feel as if I can handle this, I can handle the rest. I'm giving myself what I think is a tough challenge to see if I can out maneuver my enemy and win.
 
Part of this is also a demonstration to my opponent who feels that the allies have a bum rap in the game and that short of overwhelming superiority they cannot really fight the Germans. I want to show him that what he expects is unwinnable is not the case. I hope I can succeed in this - to if nothing else, stop the frequent debates about imbalance. Partly also, to put my money where my mouth is, and show that I wasn't lying when I said that I've had other opponents play the allies and pound my Germans into dust VERY effectively, Big Cats and all.  
 
Ok, with that out of the way, onto the agreement bit!
 
You also mentioned that in IanL and MG's game you felt that the way things were set up, the one with the best choices would win, and that in this battle, its more down to luck - who spots first, who shoots first. I have a hard time disputing the former, and I can see the logic of the latter. You have a good point there, but I do hope that either I or my opponent will need to exercise skill, intuition, and planning in setting up that first (and second and third) shot that leads to eventual success. I do see that our battle does rest on the edge of razor, and that it can go from balance to disaster in an instant. 
 
I do get your point about the map. Really, a very large map which would require more recon, more maneuver, where we are not in immediate frontal penetration range would be much better. I concede that completely. 
 
I played Wittman's Demise - it was my first PBEM game and I was utterly trounced by the German opponent. I felt totally paralyzed and shocked at how I could not deal with the Big Cats. As a learning experience, it wasn't effective, because I found the size (read: numbers of units) of the battle overwhelming. But...it might make an interesting scenario to play now that I have more experience with the game. 
 
Gamey tactics is a dicey proposition to discuss because what is gamey to one is not to another. I like my games to feel immersive, to make me feel I'm there, that it's real, and in that regard, I try to avoid stuff that -to me- appears gamey, but I might well be doing stuff that someone else will consider ridiculous. It's not on purpose but that's where agreement on what is gamey becomes so essential. I don't like to win (or lose) by hiding one man somewhere on the objective to force my opponent to search for 10 min for the one guy that keeps him from winning. I do not have a problem, on the other hand, with someone who uses map edges to move about, etc. To me anywhere on the map is fair game. Others feel very differently on both issues. 
 
I think anything that allows me to win by default is pointless, as there is no challenge to that. I'm not here to tally a score of wins, I want to have fun feeling like I'm living the battle I play, and win or lose, that it makes me think and struggle to survive. Anything less is not that interesting. So I completely agree with you on that! 

http://oglaf.com/moonshine/

^^^
And if you do that right perhaps someone will come along and feature your map in a comic book or something

In terms of functionality, they all work the same way, so if you like the way things are done in CMBS you won't be disappointed.
I don't want to detract from what @Bud_B said because it is a great overview of the WW2 titles and what he says about all the games working the same way is mostly true. However, Shock Force (CMSF) is a bit of the odd duck out.  Not that there is anything wrong with it it just has not been updated in a while while the other games are all based on the same core engine CMSF is not quite there.
 
By way of background CMSF was the first title created using BFC's new engine.  They had lots of growing pains and did a lot of work to patch it and get it into a good place.  With the introduction of Battle for Normandy (CMBN) they did a lot of work on the way the game was structured internally including the ability to upgrade the core engine as new features were added (although at the time they did not tell us about that).  So when Fortress Italy (CMFI) came out some of the features were not Italy specific and were made available in a upgrade package for CMBN (target briefly, armour target arc, 2D map overlay to name just a few).  Then they did the same thing with Red Thunder (CMRT) came out offering an update for both CMBN and CMFI too.  But CMSF was never equipped to benefit from this kind of upgrade so it is still using the same core engine it always did.  Just so you know and to add a bit of the background.

They died well Bud and made Mother Russia proud!

In my humble opinion, I think there are three pitfalls that many designers stumble into:
 
First is making the scenario too big, with enormous amounts of troops. While this is fascinating, I'm probably not alone when I say such scenarios can be absolutely mentally exhausting to play, because CM is a game that requires at least some micromanaging of your forces, which scales fast with map- and army sizes.
 
Secondly, lots of designers go out of their way to design perfect defensive setups, which were very rare in real life due to terrain limitations, fog of war, limited resources, human errors, etc. As a player, it's much more fun finding the chinks in the armour than running up against a solid wall of machineguns.
 
Thirdly, please resist the temptation to design the terrain itself for a specific type of defense. I prefer to play on maps that look like real places, rather than custom made death traps where it seems god almighty has created the landscape specifically to give the defender every possible advantage Create the map first, then set up the defense, rather than the other way around.