rooibos

I had an abrams, 2 bradleys and an infatry squad firing at a building for at least 3 turns for some reason they still managed to pop off a round and imobilize my tank. oh well.

I don't get it really. Everytime I get air assets, that's an indication there's AA defenses somewhere- and that somewhere is usually buried at the back of the map so you'll rarely get a visual on it, at least until the game is nearly over. I was just playing the mission where you need to take the 3 villages, but at least 2 of those villages have eiter SPAA or tunguska, and i didn't spot them until the battle was nearly won. I didn't use my air assets even once (although a previous attempt had all 3 assets + both UAVS destroyed) am I missing something? Am I doing something really wrong in not identifying AA assets sooner? (I set an arty + mortar barrage to one of the areas but didn't neutralie the tunguska) Or does everyone here usually just risk it with their air assets and use them despite defenses present?

I was under the assumption that any unit with a PDA can "see" the UAV spot, but that doesn't appear to be true

Yup, saw this a lot last night playing Duelling Sashkas. Kept getting shredded by t90s after giving away my position firing missiles. Would be neat to have a bit more fine grain control over which weapons fire (would solve the occasional Bradley issue as well). Could also provide some interesting tactical choices; having different ammunition types fired from multiple points. In the Bradley's case, have 2 firing their autocannon to suppress and hit armor/optics while another queues up a TOW

You and Ithikial need to have a go at it!

Was just messing around with setting up custom battles. Decided to see how much destruction I could bring forward. Small map, lots of buildings- gave myself six battalion strength M777s (six per, for a total of 36 guns to bare) in addition to two supporting groups of F15s and 4 mortar tubes firing airburst rounds to clean up stragglers. Was expecting to lay waste to a whole neighbourhood, but what I found was that anything short of the F15's bombs did much to the buildings. After the barrage had finally finished there were only a handful of buildings which had collapsed from the artillery. Now I'm not complaining or trying to rag on the game, just something I thought I'd bring up. I did manage to kill almost two-hundred defenders though. Acting as an artillery controller is a lot of fun and probably one of my favourite parts of the game. I'm going to run a few more tests and see just what kind of hell I can unleash (might see how many guns I can add before my computer refuses to run). Might experiment a bit with changing up the HE and airburst mix, I feel like using them in tandem might be a good idea.

must be a range thing bradleys CAN defeat/damage/disrupt heavy enemy tanks from close up with their cannon so they seem content with it. It's too bad they don't just fire a full salvo, disrupt optics/ERA with cannon and whilst doing this, fire off an ATGM. they only seem to use their missiles at range.

that last pic. WHOAH

just played through valley of death again, much more successful. didn't lose much of anything (until i decided to counter attack past the valley) however, I did find my Bradleys really didn't like firing their TOW missiles. they fired them when the enemy T90s were on the other end of the map, but when ranges were a few hundred meters, i didn't see much of it. they generally preferred plunking away with their autocannons. got the battle saved right before the assault from the T90s so I'm going to be repeating the test

Obviously I know nothing of the coding involved, so let's just ignore that. Do you think CM would be playable with multiple opponents/allies (given of course that coding for such a thing were possible) From a gameplay standpoint, do you think it would be feasible? Practical? Would it just turn into a chaotic mess? I think it would be a ton of fun if it were possible. I've been thinking a lot about how this would work. One could delegate control of platoons/companies/etc to each player however they wise. However, would they share "absolute" spotting (as in both players can see each other's units and what they see) or would they only see what their units could see? I think that would be more fun and also adds the possibility of mistaken identity and friendly fire (except if there is a C2 link) then you'd benefit from that. Perhaps along with the red/green unit colour icon, there could also be a grey for something that hasn't been spotted yet. Hear some movement in the woods? Haven't confirmed it friendly or hostile, so it becomes a grey icon. See some vehicles moving far off in the distance but can't PID them? Grey icon. Having to put the responsibility of co-ordinating fires in someone else's hands would be a blast. No! I said shoot the big blue building on the RIGHT of the church! Tell Tankbuster_55 to hold his fire! It'd certainly make games A LOT longer. PBEM with 4-6 players would be a hassle and HTH would take forever. But sometimes I'm in a battle and I think...man it'd be nice if I could just pass off protection of my right flank to someone else right now.

one element of Ye Olde Close Combat series I've always enjoyed was its "effective range" indicators. It was the little bar in the unit panel at the bottom that showed the unit's overall effectiveness at given ranges. This was a very elegant piece of information displayed in a tidy, easy to read and easy to digest fashion. Much in the way that the armour indicator displays the effectiveness of various rounds, something like this could be a quick and easy way for players to quickly check some important info (ahead of memorizing various ranges, especially in later games like BS where there's all sorts of different devices). Or even perhaps, some sort of opacity change to the target line/bar indicator thingy (the one that trails your cursor as you click and drag) In CC it turned from bright green to paler yellow to red. While it doesn't *solve* the problem of ranges being a little wonky, it might help *address* it at least and make quick visual references much easier. Has anything like that ever been considered?

I'm still quite bad at this game. Don't worry give it a few weeks and I'll be complaining about everything being broken

oh mercy, I was a huge CC fan since CC1 though my love started to wain around CC4. the title is just laughworthy nowadays with their "new releases". that said, that anecdote about the devs stirring up trouble is shocking to me. I was a longtime member of the SSI boards and even a contributor to some mods (though I never got any official nods like some of the more prolific modders did like gs_marcks and others getting thanks in the notes of CC4 and CC5). That's sad to hear!

On the flip side, I just played that battle (it's the final one on the list) where you're an American recon element holding off a Russian thrust. I got too confident. Hit the town and treeline with arty, had a good spot on some tank locations with my UAV so I started to roll forward. Got pretty ballsy and fast moved my bradleys and abrams right on through the fields ignoring laser warnings feeling really confident I was about to steam roll the town when two separate thrusts of T90s came out of the tree line and completely overran me. 30 vehicles all furiously charging towards each other and firing like mad at all of 80 yards... whoah.... I got shredded of course as they had 2 t90s for every vehicle I had. Looking forward to replaying that one. I still can't seem to wrap my head around this spotting thing. I'm not sure why two whole columns of armour moving speedily across an open field weren't noticed by the spotters I had positioned in the bushes I think some of my problem with spotting is due to bushes and not being able to get a good low angle with the camera. It hovers at about above-head-height. I can't force it right down to the ground and spotting crews like to lie down a lot making their spotting effect just about null.

Played it last night, decided to advance hard. Rushed most of my BMPs around the middle hill which allowed me to put considerably fire on the infantry waiting to the left flank. Was able to sneak a spotter team up the hill and cover the area in airburst rounds and managed a spot on 2 of the tunguskas. Wasn't a able to PID them with a bmp despite sitting right next to my spotter and being in 2 levels of communication, So i spent 2 or 3 turns just area firing on the area and managed to take them out. By this point though there were only about 40 mins left, the left flank hadn't fallen yet and there was still a lot of infantry that needed to be rooted out so I didn't bother continuing. If I had another 20 turns or so I probably would have been more easily been able to advance on the bunker and airstrip. Oh well, a good lesson. I lost a few bmps and a bunch of infantry but managed to inflict fairly heavy infantry casualties and destroyed 2 tunguskas whilst maintaining a good strategic position along the wood line.

whew. good to know. I dunno how I'm supposed to push over this ridge without getting shredded from reverse slope fires. If I had something more effective than some lousy mortars (I can't even see beyond the ridge anyway due to the valley) It might be easier. Looking forward to leaving work tonight and fighting through it

Playing through the Interdiction mission. Lots of bad guys hiding in woods and perched on hills raining death down on me, and I can't seem to do a thing about them. Disembark infantry from their BMP2 (except leaders who stay in for protection) and I move them at a snail's pace. Sometimes going 5, 6 turns not moving and just having them spotting. Nothing. Not a thing. Not even a sound contact. Then I'll inch em forward and they spring an ambush or get shredded from a few men on the ridge. I'll have my various spotters (mtn infantry with binocs and sniper rifles, american FOs and JTACs in the mission) perched on top of a high ridge, tucked away into some woods for concealment with excellent vantage of the surrounding ridge- and they'll be there for 10+ turns and don't spot a thing. Now I know spotting gets complained about a lot and the usual reply is "You're doing it wrong", but I just can't seem to figure out what I'm doing wrong. I've dedicated whole groups to spotting, in good vantage points and they turn up nothing so I move at a snail's pace. The mission is half over and I'm not even 1/4 across the map. I try to blitz with my bmps and they quickly get reduced to burning wrecks from invisible RPG locations while my skilled US FOs look right at them. My BMPs weapons' are nearly depleted from firing blindly into suspected enemy locations. My attack has blunted solely from my inability to see anything.

killer. been real busy with work and excited to reattempt this.

jesus, iron difficulty? i must really be bad at this game

beat it today, but it wasn't much of a victory. i still lost most of my tanks to their pzivs. that last group up off to the left i can't seem to do much about. i managed to slow down the group coming from the highway from the right, took out the lead tanks and immobilized the rest. this kept them in a strong overwatch position. managed to slink my final tank behind it, was literally 60yards behind it, shot at it 3 times, each hit, but produced nothing. started to turn his turret- i had run out of ammo so i pulled back. 2 shermans surviving, 1 with no ap ammo, and 1 with main gun destroyed. still some scattered infantry, repulsed their attack on the villa but they had a few hiding in the bushes which i didn't see- gave them the victory on that condition but i took the rest. still, 1 pziv immobilized and a great view and 3 perfectly intact pzivs somewhere roving around on his rear. also, the ai sure likes to cover their mortars with mgs. made the mistake of rooting out their mortars with a small team, crossfire from 2 hmgs. assault gun took out most of my .50s in the villa, couldnt get much fire on him. dropped my remaining arty and 2 mortar barrages to try and stop him, no luck. that 150mm gun wrecked alot of my men. managed to get to him with my sherman. really enjoyed ferrying around men in my jeep and halftrack. found more favourable position with my guns hidden in a small grove, got a ton of kills and took out a many italian tanks can i complain about my sherman shooting the pziv thrice from behind at point blank only to have them bounce off?

cool, thanks for the replies. i think i was being too aggressive with my counter attack. i wasn't away that the m2s could take ot those italian tanks, knew they'd make them button up- but i'll be sure to bring more fire to bear on them

enjoy this game but i'm wondering if the full version has a few features: campaign map: as in, is the campaign just a series of connected battles or is there some form of force-manager ala Close Combat (close combat 4 and up) with a basic form of strat map after action report: i'd like to see my individual soldier's post-battle breakdown (again ala CC) mostly to see how effective they are when i'm not watching them

loving this game. also enjoy the difficulty. having a real tough time with the niscemi highway map seemed like i was gonna win it tonight, most of my forces holding the hill destroyed, but my 3x tank reinforcements assaulting the orchard, most italian tanks destroyed, and then they get a reinforcement of like 6 pzivs? counter attack deflated. suggestions? my howitzers get leveled pretty quick, and i feel like i'm too spread out with just 4 lousy shermans to defend the joint and very little other AT ability.