zinzan

I was just able to finish the entire article and wanted to say another well done! I really appreciate that you cite your sources and include them at the bottom. Aside from it lending credibility and support to what you're writing, it also provides readers with some good book recommendations which is always a plus. 
One of the many reasons I like CM so much is how well it simulates soft factors, such as suppression and morale. Most games don't even bother to include these factors, and most that do try to simulate them fall short in my opinion. Speaking of those soft factors, @Josey Wales put together an excellent video series detailing how the soft factors work. Highly recommended for those who have not seen them. 

The more I learned about the realities of combat in WWII the more I wondered how on earth men withstood it. I found, however, that sometimes they didn’t. 
Below is a link to an overview of battle fatigue in US forces in WWII. I found some rather astounding numbers, and also that the army studied the issue of men’s breaking points very meticulously. Given the numbers involved, they had to. 
The morale model in Combat Mission’s WWII titles are remarkable in their reflection of reality. There have been studies that found that the “soft factors” that determine when and why men will break are not as abstract as one would think. 
Battle fatigue in WWII is a fascinating - even if heartbreaking - topic that I thought deserved some study. Figured you guys might be interested as well 
 
https://battlelines.blog/2019/01/09/the-spirit-of-the-infantry-battle-fatigue-in-the-second-world-war/
 

I haven’t finished all of your post yet, but so far it is fantastic. Really appreciate you posting this here so we can see it!
i remember the first time I read a book that covered the extensive effect of battle fatigue and how common it was. The book was With the Old Breed by Eugene Sledge and covers his experiences in the Pacific theater during WWII. Highly recommend to any here who have not read it. 
In the ETO, many are aware of the manpower issues the Army faced, and how replacement depots were hastily put together in an attempt to solve the issue. But what I think many do not realize is that the Army wasn’t suffering a manpower crisis because of KIA/WIA (though the numbers were quite high) but due to the psychiatric casualties suffered. 
Anyways just wanted to say well done on the write up and thanks again for posting it here. Very much looking forward to finishing it, and to future writings by you!

People have gotten used to the Steam process where games are kept up to date automagically and you don't have to go download stuff from someplace. They don't remember the times of yore when you had "read" or "make a tiny effort" to update software. 😃 Or if you didn't have good internet, you might have to wait for your favorite game magazine to put the patches you need on a CD (or, gasp, a floppy disk!) that you could buy at the supermarket. BFC may not be as slick as Steam, but it's still much better than the old days. 😃

But isn't it funny, CM2 sucks so bad that 12 years later they are still playing and b****ing about it? Some of them even create scenarios and mods. When a normal human dislikes something they usually ignore it.
The solitary dude whistling in the empty room is Lewis, he's been banned more times than a taco in Karen Carpenter's kitchen.
 
Mord.

Cool, I'll meet you half-way for sure!
Oh, sure, when I figure out what the terrain is I can more or less guess at what kind effects it has, but I'm guessing. Also, in a scenario set at day break or night fall, it's *really* hard to tell what you're looking at.
 
So, there are lots of different reasons for wanting to know, Cover/Concealmentm Bogging, effect on infantry movement, effect on artillery blast. I'm certainly not planning tile by tile and, most of the time you have multiple tiles of the same type contiguous anyway. At least in my experience.
 
Never thought that the Y in "Grass Y" stands for yellow!  LOL. Duh.
Interesting stuff guys. Didn't think my innocent question would spur so much conversation, but it's cool and educational for me. Thanks.

BTW. Great map, Mikey. When I first scrolled down the page I thought that was a blurry photograph of a real place that you were gonna tell us you used as a guide for making real life terrain.
 
Mord

Well there ya go. I thought you *were* talking about having the manual describe all the combinations or the game UI showing you all the detail of what is under foot. So, no it would not be bad for there to be a set of pictures identifying what each ground type was. Honestly though, I am not sure it really would change much.
 
Actually I would argue that the UI does do a good job - you can look the environment in game and see that there is a house a shed a wall and trees on some kind of dirt with grass.
Mission accomplished the game has show the player everything they need to know about the terrain at that location. Exactly what a soldier walking up to that house would have. Seems good to me.

Ah - missed it, my bad, I was too irritated by the spelling of boundary to concentrate properly. Apology in triplicate to follow once you do your lines: I must spell boundary with an 'a'. Just 50 of those as I'm feeling benevolent … or we could call it quits and let you get on with some modding and me to crank scenarios out - I know which I'd prefer my friend 

Ha HA!
"So, for anyone keeping count, that's a red dirt tile, with half a house in the action spot, a low wall, two trees, a shed, some brush, and an extra tall grass and weed tile bleeding into it."
You can see some just to the right of the shed and in the background.
I'll take me apology in triplicate!
 
Mord.
P.S. But what I did forget to add to the mix was the ground condition settings.
 

Too lazy to put brush on there as well? Disappointed just doesn't cover how I'm feeling right now … 😏

I built this little map tonight after supper as well. It is the field beside my house shown worked on the left and then they way it looked this spring as a lush field of hay on the right. The farm has a sand ridge, several wet holes and about 4 different soil types in the 25 acres, in game 150 meters by 600 meters. The view here is from the west looking east. The first time I worked this field, I assumed it was all dry and good to go because the east portion of the field was fit. The field was covered with corn stubble after a near record harvest so there were no areas of the field that had drowned out and were without plant material, a typical giveaway of a wet hole. At the Northwest edge of the field, the sand ridge was dry but not the little hollow between the sand and the pond. The disc I was pulling got bogged down in the wet ground and I almost got the tractor stuck. Fortunately, I was able to get out without assistance but made a big mess. With the ground worked, it is fairly visible, with a full growth of hay... good luck finding it if you didn't know it was there. Can you even see the wet hole in the field on the right? I was travelling at 4.5-5 mph when I noticed the problem and still was lucky to stop in time. If you were in tank, cruising at 15 mph+ and hit that wet hole, for sure bogging is an issue.
For my two cents, I think the game give you all the details an actual trooper would have. Look at the ground conditions in the game, and then recognise any ground other paved surfaces has a chance of bogging if conditions are damp or worse. Make an effort to stick to the higher ground and ground with some sort of vegetative cover. The hay field on the right will have a reduced chance of bogging due to the root structure of the plants. But if the conditions are wet or muddy, that won't make a big difference. Remember, crew experience goes a long way to preventing bogging. Just like at work, all the new inexperienced guys seem to find the wet holes....

 
Here is a link to the file if you wish to check out the terrain types used.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4ftkpyl7j8sgbbb/Terrian Example.btt?dl=0
I would also like to add, I hope Battlefront seriously considers adding another ground condition to the game for all the upcoming modules, and that is thawing. At work today we were trying to plough some of our last soybean stubble. It has been a wet fall/early winter and we have a couple fields left to go. This morning there was a good frost in the ground and the first few hours went real well. Around 10 am the sun came out strong and started to melt the frost. We broke a chisel plough tooth and it took half an hour to fix it up. In the time we were fixing the chisel plough, the ground became to soft to continue. The reading I have been doing the last few years about the Canadians fighting in Holland, this same thing happened to them. The tanks could support them for the start of the day but as the sun warmed things up, the tanks bogged and had to be left behind. Attacks would falter and need to be tried again the next morning when the ground was frozen enough again. I would love to see the same kind of thing happen in game. Start the battle and vehicles can drive just about anywhere, but as the fight drags on more and more will be lost to bogging. It would be a great way to add a time element to the battle as a reward for those who move quickly and it would hinder those who take too long. I know the game already models this with regards to rain, so I would hope it would be easy to implement with frost.
 

That right there is beautiful!

Your Welcome !...Now, Just make sure to post your 'Jane's Defense News' here on a periodical basis as a Thank You to BF :-)..I hear it's the Chinese turn for being up to no good :-[

Yesterday i wrote to BFC support if i could upgrade my Paradox boxed copy of CMSF 1 to CMSF 2. Problem was i purchased it years ago so i don't have any proof of purchase anymore. But I also bought two modules directly from BFC. I provided order no. of those purchases and today i received a new licence no. for CMSF 1. BFC assumed that since i bought two modules, i must have also purchased the base game, even if there's no way to verify that.
That is what i call an exemplary customer support.
Thank you!
Now, off to the store to get me a CMSF 2😁

I can't speak for the campaign's designer. But, US 7th Armoured has a high reputation amongst historians, and game designers alike. AH even went so far as to create a game based solely upon them (Patton's Best). Being a general of far superior quality than any colonial, I suspect that their "Elite" status be be a tad generous.
Exits stage right drinking Devil's Advocaat ------------------->

My understanding is that this is how things are IRL.
However the game does not do this - to avoid the inevitable "why was the tank running around with a clearly wrong munition in the breach, surely the TC should have know X" posts. The game behaves as if the round in the gun is the one the TC wants. Which is why you have not seen the above scenario. Call it Schrödinger's ammo.

Bleeding brilliant!

I do wonder how often players these days go into the editor to play. You only see a few people (a.k.a. tpr) doing 'test scenarios' to test theories anymore. You certainly don't see many players excitedly uploading a new scenario they just built for everyone to try. Which is a shame. The editor is your playground.  Here's a screenshot of a scenario map I threw together just last night after supper (no, really). If you're worried that opponents will take unfair advantage of you because of their better knowledge of terrain, I'd bet most players wouldn't have a clue which terrain type was under feet on this particular map

Charles XII as well...just for a full set.

Charles XII as well...just for a full set  (with the right quote this time!)

Have two likes mate.

I think maybe this was directed a bit at my previous comment. After reading what I wrote again, I admit it was too blunt and not entirely reasonable. Bugs and mistakes happen everywhere in any production, and I didn't mean to come across as that cranky.
Also, I appreciated the many news updates lately.

You know that old phrase "There's many a slip twix the cup and the lip". I've gone over soon-to-release Beta builds from top to bottom with a fine toothed comb and found nothing wrong. Then the title gets compiled for the installer just before release and suddenly its "Hey, where did that piece of art go?" or "Hey, I thought that behavior got fixed long ago!" or "Hey, why is the game now crashing when this happens?" Testing and retesting can't counter 'gremlins'  sabotaging things for spite in the most obscure corners of the game at the last minute. And it happens every time.  Most of the time the alarm bell is sounded and things quickly get re-fixed and re-complied. But those gremlins are sneaky little buggers.

One of the companies that we got some COTS radiation analysis software from - small company - called me their Charlie tester. Just when they thought they'd covered everything I'd stress the code a little farther and find something no one thought of. To be fair to them, I was finding new ways to use their code on unique problems, so they aren't really to blame. 🙂