c2yeung

Thanks IanL. I tried your suggestion and it worked. yes, it does require at least 2 barb wires to start a chain of interconnecting barbwires in a straight line. however, they seem to orient themselves either along the north/south or east/west axis, not at a slant angle.

How do I change the orientation of barb wires so they all lined up and connected together? I couldn't seem to be able to rotate them in any way. I tried holding the right/left mouse button on the arrow of the circle on the barb wire, neither right or left mouse button worked. please help.

thanks for all the input. I decided to watch the full length of the video replay of an anti-air asset to monitor its reaction to air strike. yes, it did fire its weapon. it is amazing to see the smoke trailed behind the missile towards the target.

I am new to anti-air weapons in Cold War and need some help in using them effectively (hand-held and vehicle-based). how to deploy them? do I need to issue any combat command? I played a couple of scenarios both as US and Soviet and placed anti-air assets on the roof and open ground. There were definitely some air attacks throughout the game but not once did I see my anti-air assets fire their weapons during video replay. did I do something wrong? please advise.

I don't mind playing big battles with mutliple units, it usually gives me enough time to plan and execute tactics. However, it would be very very helpful if AI movement can be improved. Simply moving a column of tanks/troop along a road/path requires micro management of individual tank to make sure they all follow the path. That is a lot of mouse click. I was also very surprised at the Russian retreating with their back exposed when playing that battle. It certainly makes my job a lot easier.

I find AT guns difficult to spot especially from afar. They are lethal. Usually, the time they are spotted is when your tank either got destroyed or shot at a few times and damaged. On a one tank/one AT gun duel, AT gun wins most of the time. I am prepared to trade anytime a loss of 1 AT gun for 1 enemy tank destroyed. More than 1 tank destroyed would be bonus for me.

I have played a few campaign battles and noticed that empty Russian trucks are out in the open. My panzers were on "hunt" and shot up the truck nearby. Before the crew had time to congratulate themselves on their kills, they got shot up from multiple T34s from afar. Have any one of you fallen on the same ruse? Is it meant to be a trap set by the designers?:eek:

I love big map and long battle. It give me the time to properly set up, manouever and execute attack plan. The open field allows plenty of room for panzers to flex its muscle at long range. I have played a few campaign battles and have found myself fighting battles in 2 stages, first is destroy the enemy's armour, then move my foot soldiers on transport forward to deal with their infantry supported by my panzers.

I hear you. I have brought up the same subject about fighting in the woods in CMBN and practice what I have learned from other players with some success. I do find RT is much tougher. Whoever moves first dies. Usually, I would lose a few men and the survivors hunkered down. For at least a turn or 2 at least, I cannot locate the enemy, the icon without ? to area fire. So I sacrifice a few more men to hopefully make the enemy expose himself. I guess you area fire as wide as possible blindly in front of you while moving guys slowing ahead to get close. The key to me is to surround the enemy so that when they run back whichever way, your men will be waiting. Otherwise, you will be repeating the same vicious cycle of hunting them down. Area fire is very important, it can either pin them down or flush them out. It is most effective if you can cover as many sides as possible to get a clean sweep of the woods. Be prepared for a loss ratio of at least 3 to 1.

The same thing happened to me playing a campaign battle. The AI defense is tenacious, well camouflaged and cunning. My tank killed some of the defenders and the rest scattered and retreated deeper in the woods. I moved my guys forward to mop up that area (thinking AI must be shell-shocked or panic), got mowed down by their lethal SMG from unknown positions. Without actual counting, I would venture to say I probably lost 4 to 6 men to one of them fighting in the woods. Same picture with my armour, their AT guns destroyed 3 of my tanks before I could discover their location. If I continue this battle of attrition, there will be nothing left to fight with.

Are you guys saying fighting in the woods is worse in RT than in other modules? If so, how so? My past experience tells me the casualty ratio is about 4 to 1 in woods. The defender has the advantage of firing first. Hopefully, the flamethrowers will help.

I use them pretty much the way you described, nothing more than a glorified truck. However, I usually load up my troop with ammo first. In a large battle filed, I do use them to transport troop forward to another staging area when I am pretty sure the way is cleared.

It reminds me of me growing up building scale model mainly made by Tamiya. The store I bought the kit from would have all kinds of individual vehicles and dioramas on display. The details were incredible, the weather effect, the paint job, the weld seams of a tank, the badges and insignia of uniforms and the soldiers' facial expression, skin tone etc. They are mostly 1/35 scale. If those models shown are smaller scale and yet contains so much fine details, that would be truly amazing.

Regarding acquiring ammo, the squad also has to be split up to fit in vehicle, then regrouped again after they are done acquiring. Moving and keeping a platoon( 4 squads plus commander) along a path with bocage on both side is another very tedious process. Invariably, a squad or 2 will start moving off the path, through an opening of a bocage and exposed. I had to set multiple waypoints for individual squad along the length of a curvy path.

I have always played against AI and found that AI defense is pretty decent, especially the placement of its forces. They are well positioned and inter-connected to provide mutual fire support that costs me lot of time and manpower/equipment to chip away bit by bit. AI offense, on the other hand, leaves much room for improvement. It is either very recklessly aggressive or very docile (at end of scenarios, I sometimes saw a sizable force sitting idle way behind the line). What I would like to see is a more reactive and dynamic AI that will think on the fly depending on battle situation. I am not asking for AI level equivalent to the IBM "Blue" that plays chess with Kasparov as an equal. A most robust AI will definitely make the game more enjoyable.

On this note, do buildings catch fire too? The "scorched earth" tactics adopted by the retreating Russians of burning everything down to the ground, thus leaving nothing useful for the Germans.

From all your replies, it is good to know that the infantry guns can be used in indirect fire mode with of course with a forward observer with LOS provided the guns are placed correctly, I guess that means open terrain with preferably no obstacles in their immediate front so as to allow the shells to travel in a arc. When using them in direct fire mode, I found I have lost the guns' advantage of long range engagement. In indirect fire mode, I can place the guns way behind the front line without exposure to enemy fire other than counter battery.

I always use infantry guns as direct fire weapons. When used in on-map indirect fire mission, the shells for their flat trajectory hit obstacles, be it a tree, a building or higher ground, in front of the guns. The guns do not operate like howitzers. Questions: Did anyone use them successfully as on-map indirect artillery? If they are not meant to be used as indirect artillery, they should not be made available on the artillery menu. Correct?

My 3 HTs and a Tiger got stuck on a big bridge in the open and got destroyed. I have the latest patch. You are right, the surest way to navigate around the bridge area is to move (slow or hunt) with many short way points. What caused my AFV to stuck on the bridge was that I plotted a long straight way point to move my tank through an underpass and the tank ended up on top of the bridge where the underpass is and got stuck there. What seemed to work is to stop the tank just in front of the entrance to the underpass, use level 1 view and move again through it. The same problem applies to soldiers except that I can move them out of the bridge.

I have had the same experience fighting allied paratroopers in urban environment.They are usually highly motivated and fire first with their automatic weapons which are lethal in close quarter combat. I find it helpful to split up your platoons, and engage them in multiple angles. The idea is to dislodge from their present position to an area where your other squads can ambush them. If you engage them one-on-one in a firefight, you will lose.

I ordered a HT to move through an underpass and instead it moved up on the bridge and since then remained stationary. It would not move no matter what order I gave it. It seems to me that the game is treating the bridge and the underpass as 2-dimension. Sometimes it treats the bridge as the "surface" or sometimes the underpass as the "surface". When I move a unit on the bridge, the blue line runs underneath the bridge. To overcome that, I use zoom 8. Have any one of you experienced this? Any other way to work around that? By the way, in the same game I positioned a AFV just on the edge during set up and it has refused to move since.

Sorry for the confusion. I do mean split my squads into teams.

All good suggestions. I do split into 3 or 4 squads and to order them to hunt abreast to cover a wide path without a big gap and to provide mutual support if enemy encountered. Using smoke for my squads to gt closer to be on even ground is worth a try. Using arty fire is out of the question as the encounter is usually too close for it, that is assuming I even see a ?. In my recent fight in the woods, I got harassed for 2 full turns without a clue where ? is. Slow crawl towards and area fire at the general direction of suspected enemy are noted. I thought area fire can only reach as far the faint target line can reach. So far, I would sacrifice by charging a squad or 2 toward the suspected position hoping to flush them out. Once they are spotted, my other squads will pursue and finish them off. It proves to be very costly but saves time. Mind you, it only works if you are only dealing with a single source. If there is a hidden enemy close by, my pursuing squads will get ambushed and the vicious cycle begins again.

Thanks for all your good advice and insight. I am itching to try out PBEM. It is good to know that online players generally do not expect to play through a whole scenario in one shot because I simply cannot commit the time to it. I am looking forward to the challenge. I am sure it is very different from the rather static and set-piece tactics of AI.

I have always been paying against AI. Is H2H the same as PBEM? i.e. against another human. I surmise that PBEM (email) is I review replay of previous turn, issue orders, save it and email it to my opponent and he does the same thing and email his saved file to me and on and on...? I wonder how long do human players take to do one turn and how many turn on average do they play in a day? It takes me a few hours to play a scenario of 45 to 60 turns against AI. Therefore, playing a human may take a few days unless both players are willingly to sit in front of a computer for a few hours.