agusto

LOL Look at that eye–hand coordination. That must be the DRUNKEN surgeon simulator .

The 75 mm L/70 gun of the Panther has a higher armour penetration with both the standard PzGr. 39 APCBC-HE and the PzGr. 40 APCR than the Tiger Is L/L56 with all available AT ammunation (including HEAT, if i remeber correctly) on ranges below ~2000 meters. One reason why this is so is because the longer barrel (5,25m) of the Panthers gun allows for a higher muzzle velocity than the Tiger Is 88 (4,928 m). At ranges above ~2000 meters, the Tigers 88 performs better penetration wise with both APCBC-HE and APCR because its larger and heavier projectile doesnt loose momentum as fast as the smaller 75mm projectiles of the panthers gun do. In case the armour of target was penetrated however, the Tigers 88mm APCBC-HE rounds would cause heavier damage than the 75mm APCBC rounds of the Panther, i guess. If the targets armours was penetrated with APCR projectiles, the after armour effects were probably about the same. EDIT: The Tiger IIs 88 L71 gun was better penetration wise than both the Panthers 75mm and the Tiger Is 88.

There is a very useful chart made by Marco Bergman: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=98847

i am in the 2nd battle now and find that is a very interesting campaign. love the unusual force mix and the really well made maps. it looks like every building, entrance and windows was placed intentionally to make a tactical challenge. thanks for making this!

I like Marco Bergmans silhouettes: http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314&func=fileinfo&id=2394

The british PIAT is the only hand-held AT 'rocket' that can be fired from within a building. Shreck, Bazooka and Panzerfausts cannot be fired fromm inside a building. This gives the PIAT an advantage in urban environments. The german Panther and Tiger and the JP V are in general noteably harder to kill from the front than most allied tanks and usually have more firepower, although there are exceptions. The british Firefly and the amiercan Sherman 75W for example both have a gun roughly equal to the Panthers 75mm and the british Churchill variants all have exceptinally thick frontal armor (even more than the Tiger). Wich tank wins a duell however very much depends on how they are used by the player.

Just depends on how mercyless you rape the pause button.

A target arc will cancel the previous target order of a specific unit.

In CMFI some small foliage that i personally wouldnt clasify as 'tree' also disapears with that setting when you are close by with the camera. I dont know exactely how CMBN handles this, but i think it is at least possible that there may be some small foliage blocking your tigers way and you just cant see it with the settings you play with. You could open the scenario file in the editor and check if there is really nothing blocking your path through that specific hedgerow. Also, could you maybe provide a savegame of the commandphase you took the screenshot from?

That is almost as good as ammo crates. Very useful info, thanks for sharing.

One time i had a german breech team and 2 scout teams ambush 2 US armored cars and 2 stuarts in a forest. The scout teams detroyed one of the stuarts with a panzerfaust and the my engineers killed the armored cars with demo charges. The surviving stuart retreated. So demo charges appear to be very effective against armored cars, if you can get your troops close enough. The handgreandes my guys thew at the stuarts first didnt do any damage, though.

I found the bypass mission really cool and exciting. I tried to avoid fighting too, only when the smokescreen lifted 2-3 minutes too early the german panzers i had in overwatch exchanged a few rounds with the enemy AT guns. I used the wespe battery to deploy a loooong smokescreen ~10 meters left to the highway and the italian arty i had left for surpressive fires on the enemy position (light/maximum/air burst fire mission). Instead of moving along the highway in a very long colum, i moved my trucks through the fields right to the highway, splitting up my convoys into several paralel moving short colums. The tanks were moving on the highway, having their barrels turned towards the enemy, so they could screen the trucks from possible enemy fires in case the smokescreen doesnt last long enough. I lost ~2 trucks and 1 panzer in the mission and scored a tactical victory, if i remember correctly. The italian campaign was one of my favorites of the CMBN/CMFI campaigns, although i really did enjoy the american campaign in CMFI too. The german campaign, well...i dont know, i didnt like it that much. The german missions all play pretty similar. 1) reconesaince, 2) destroy enemy AT assets with artillery/mortars, 3) use your armor to kill the defenseless enemy infantry. I didnt finish the german campaign.

Vinnart, that pic reminded me of something. Lately i have been playing shock force, and i really find that CMBN and CMFI style briefings like the one you posted are much comfortable than the ones in CMSF.

wow i just ate some kind of banana cake for breakfast....that was delicious! I think i might eat another piece, but now it is time to make some coffee. Its sunday 9:30 am here.

If there for example is a 3 story building, wouldnt the 2nd floor be the safest one to occupy during an artillery barrage? The shrapnel from nearby ground detonations shouldnt be able to come through the windows of the 2nd floor and hit the guys prone on the floor (except some richochets, maybe) and the 3rd floor will protect them from direct hits. I have no empirical data, but to me, it feels like i take less casualties on the second floor of a three story building than on the lowest one when there are artillery shells incoming.

Yeah, we should have more threads of this kind.

Use the 'Mark Mines' command after having detected a minefield. You engineers will stay in the mined action sport for 2-3 turns and then the red sign will turn yellow and you will be able to pass with much less risk of setting of a mine. This is only true for infantry though, vehcicles of all kind will always trigger mines, no matter if they are makred or not. If all mines of a minefield are detonated, the red sign turns into green and you will be able to pass without the risk of detonating a mine.

In an dense forest it is best in my experience to have your units advance in a loose line (split your squads!) using the hunt command. Use the 'target area' command to engage unconfirmed enemy contacts (the '?'). This way you can get more fire on the enemy than if you try to get all your units to move to direct visual contact.

I think the magical capabilities of the units you mentioned come from them beeing equipped with binoculars and magnifying rifle scopes.

You could try to place some small foliage in a way the false gaps are consealed.

Maybe they just survived a fierce battle and are now trying to dry their sweaty uniforms.

Use the microterrain to you advantage. An actionspot that has foliage in it will reduce the probability of beeing spotted yourself. Also, try to make contact with the smallest force possible (scout team). Then develop the situation (manuever) in a way you can engage few enemys with many of your own forces. What you did (have a some groupes of your force surpress the enemy and move another one around their flanks) is a good idea in general. Note that this approach can also be used for larger formations, like platoons or even companys. The movmement to contact you have described however (adavancing in a line using the 'hunt' command) only appears to be meaningful in terrain with low visibility, such as woods. And as Faelwolf did already recommend, watch these: http://www.armchairgeneral.com/combat-mission-battle-for-normandy-tactics-a-video-series

I cant agree to that statement of yours that all western media in general depict world war 2 completely free of all atrocities. Watch the german movie Stalingrad, for example. You constantly have body party flying around there, people dieing in agony (including all 5 german main characters along with all ~78 german side characters - in the end they are all dead), people freeze to death, people starve, civilians are executed. That was probably one of the most authentic war movies i ever saw (i have to admit though that i didnt see many). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWFvGIJmKac

i guess you would hard time setting up meaningful controls for users how would like to play combat mission with a steering wheel and pedals.

But where is that fascination for war and violence coming from? I think it is all about excitement and power. When you kill someone, this is the most direct way one human beeing can exercise power over another one. There is also probably nothing more thrilling than risking you own life in the attempt to kill someone else. These two are the "positive" experiences one can make in combat. In reality, they acompanied by the tons of negative experiences one makes when partcipating in a war and probably no sane person would say "yeah, that was worth it!". In a computer game though, war is effectively reduced to these to: exercising power by killing others and the thrill of risking your own life.