Freyberg

It's unusual to see German high velocity round 'bouncing off' a low budget Sherman at any range. Those very basic M4s can't take much of a hit. They may not lose their crew (a well designed tank for crew survival), but being still combat capable after a hit from a PzIV or Stug, even at range, requires pretty good luck.

There are plenty of great QB and Master Maps - I think it's peculiar if first engagement ranges, especially between tanks are less than 1000m - quite often longer. As I say - I mostly play attack scenarios - ME is a historical outlier - and a defender that doesn't have AFVs well positioned in the 1000m range (or more) is already at a tactical disadvantage. Think Operation Goodwood...

I usually play Allies, attacking against the AI - I find all German tanks pretty lethal - you can't match them 1:1 even against the AI - and the Stug is right up there; it's a bitch

That's a fair comment, but the vehicle points-weighting is not map-specific, nor could it be. Besides, in a bocage map, the Germans have a major infantry AT advantage, so it should kind of balance out.

The advantage the German AFVs have over budget Shermans is significant, but it's an advantage that mainly exists at longer ranges, which are more typical of tank engagements. If you're unhappy with the balance of your QBs, perhaps you should choose more appropriate maps for your tank battles.

That would be fabulous - I love the editor, but there are certainly ways it could be made easier and better.

There's lots of fun to be had in the editor. The first use I made of the editor was to edit CMBN QB maps. Being such an early release, a lot of them came to look a bit featureless compared to later maps, especially the rural ones, so I would add fences, bushes, footpaths, vary the ground cover and so on, just to make them prettier to play on. Another really fun thing is to make QB maps from Master Maps. The newer titles have excellent Master Maps (CMRT/FR is my favourite for this) - and you can find interesting tactical challenges in them, and throw together a really fun QB map in less than an hour.

I'd go further - isn't the whole point of the Master Maps to give people material to create QB maps and scenarios...? Using things for their intended purpose is hardly 'parasitic.'

I dunno - 100m isn't very far in real life; and 100m is definitely the limit of the effective range of SMGs in Combat Mission. WW2 SMGs were a heavier weapon firing a bigger bullet than modern SMGs; and even a smoothbore musket in skilled hands had some sort of accuracy at 50m, so I don't 100m range for SMGs is an exaggeration.

If you want to play urban or close-quarter maps with SMGs, the best way to get your fix is to play as Soviets

The impression you get from his book is that he was traumatised from the loss of so many friends and had a death wish...

Super-interesting Thanks

In CM1 it was called 'move to contact.'

That was a big plus - I've really enjoyed playing Indian Army, including Sikhs.

Keep playing, get better at the game and at tactics, and 'random bugs' will happen to you less often...

I've never had that problem - and I've played a lot of Combat Mission.

I first found CMBO when I experiencing my first 'mid-life crisis' - and I started searching the internet for a computer equivalent to the tabletop wargames I loved when I was a kid. CMBO and CMBB were exactly what I was looking for and the games just keep getting better. I have never felt CM really lacks anything. Hi res shoot-em-ups completely bore me - the gameplay is infantile. The occasional fudge factors in CM don't bother me - they're like dice rolls. You can't have a wargame without them. They make it more realistic, not less - the realism is in the risk and the randomness. If everything always happened as it 'should' the game wouldn't be realistic at all.

I know I post pointless things like this too often, but I just can't get over the incredible wealth of fun I get out of the Combat Mission games. I've been playing Commonwealth and minor Allies in CMFI so long - with huge enjoyment - that now I've started a few QBs with US forces they seem brand new. Meanwhile, I carved off a few slices of the gorgeous CMFR master maps, quickly threw together some QB maps and started playing them - late '44, early '45 - which are a terrific challenge and hugely enjoyable. The AI does such a good job with a good map that you can put together your own fun QB map on your own chosen terrain with relative ease, without any idea of how the battle will unfold. And I'm still scratching the surface of CMCW, which offers a whole new unfamiliar world of units, vehicles and capabilities which are engrossing and offer a whole new historical learning curve. Plus of course I still dip into the other titles (I've still to properly explore CMBS and CMFB - and after all these years with different versions, I still love the extended versions of CMSF and CMBN). Through all kinds of ups and downs in life, Combat Mission has been my 'happy place' for nearly 20 years!! 20 years FFS!! That's beyond unique for a computer game. Sorry - I'm a bit drunk, but I just had to say wax rhapsodic...

I always find your insights worth reading

It was a hard battle with high casualties even when I played it, which was not long after CMRT was released. It sounds like subsequent updates have upset the balance of the game and perhaps made it unwinnable. Plus, some of the campaigns are really bloody hard. I've had other campaign in other titles that I gave up on, because I couldn't be bothered replaying one battle for a second or third time...

It's been a long time since I played this, but I remember the Nazis being, as always, tough but brittle. I played the way I usually play - a really big 'skirmish screen' across the whole frontage - because I need to know where everything is - then the rest of my infantry and heavy weapons, moving quickly but carefully; tanks following in tight bunches, not too far behind but VERY carefully, relying on a lot of infantry eyes up front, so even when I'm surprised, I quickly know why. Like you, the left flank was where I broke through, but I recall some strongpoints on other parts of the line, with good overwatch, that needed to be eliminated before the left flank was properly open

Some few years ago, when I had the time and energy to play PBEMs, I found good opponents on the Blitz forums. Having said that, it's been about 5 years...

Your assumptions are both churlish and groundless. And why don't you start your own thread and get that locked down, instead of doing to thread where other people are having an interesting discussion.

I really think that would have been enough. By the time the freezing temperatures came, Hitler had destroyed a huge part of the Soviet armed forces - the remainder were hanging on by their fingernails. Zhukov's Siberians had the advantage of being winter-trained and equipped, which would have counted for little or nothing if the encirclement of Moscow had begun 6 weeks earlier. Without the ice-road, Leningrad would have been fully encircled too. Kiev, Leningrad and Moscow accounted for most of the USSR's industrial capacity, and European Russia contained almost all the Soviet population. They would have had no human or economic resources left. The morale effects of such a loss might well have broken the extremely precarious hold the Communist Party had on the Soviet people. And with Siberia denuded of its garrison, why wouldn't the Japanese have attacked from the East - with nothing to stop them? Truly the fate of the world hung in the balance in 1941...

Yes, that was well said, and you're so gracious Danfrodo - such a rarity on any forum Yeah, the Schlieffen Plan was undone by falling just a little behind schedule; and the evacuation at Dunkirk hinged upon a German pause of mere days. Hypotheticals are inherently incalculable, but six weeks seems like a long time in operational terms to me.