AntiApplicability

I have found that urban defenders are very much a digital proposition instead of an analog one. Up until the point you break their will, anything you do against them will be bloody. After you break their will, they'll abandon buildings after receiving comparatively light fire. The trick of course, is to get them to show their hand early so you can do most of the will breaking at ranges that aren't suicidal. Give it a few minutes of a winning firefight before you try anything fancy, and I bet it becomes much easier.

History Lover, It seems to me that both of your god-like issues really come down to the ability to act outside of the sergeant on the ground's knowledge. Why blast the hidden gun if no one has told you to blast it? Why go up to the second house on the left if your orders were the first house on the right and nothing seems different? The answer I think this is that this the price of actually getting to control your units at the squad/team level while playing anything larger than section/platoon. Because the ability as a WWII BN commander to tell 2nd squad, 3rd platoon, A Co to move up to that hedgerow right there, and have the tank support him, is inherently godlike. Non godlike, you would have told A Co to advance to Phase line Iron, and may not even know that hedgerow exists on your map. Maybe the orderly drew the grease pencil line wrong and A Co is actually at phase Line Gold, which is actually 300 meters west of there. 5 minutes of CM action may have happened before you get anything more than what CM would qualify as a "?" contact, and it is in the wrong spot by half a small CM map. Commo is bad? Make that an hour for a runner to find you and tell you 'A Co is in it pretty thick at phase line..uh..i think the captain said Iron". Your big decision is "can they handle it, do I need to help them with assets, is my staff making sure that the appropriate assets are being sent, and is there a way to change this fight for the better without spending stuff I might need later or in a more important place" That's about it. Company commander? Option 1: You get a radio message of "contact, east" from the 3rd PL. That goes with the firing from the hedgerow one field left. Well, this map is pretty useless...its green for "light farmland." Better figure out if I need to send second platoon. Option 2: Yep, that's definitely contact. You suck mud and try to make a tactical decision about where to send second platoon, and if you need some assets from BN, while peering through some brambly bits of the hedgerow in between the ducking. Either way, not once did you tell 2nd squad to go there, do this. But because you can tell teams and squads what to do,and that tank how to hunt, and see through the best eyes in the world that means that every corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, captain, major, and colonel is linked into the borg mind - yours. And it is inevitable that you are going to make the moves that are tactically sensible for each part of your borg collective. That is the price of avoiding the second paragraph. However, I do concur that command delays of some sort, or other C2 limitations on elements out of command, would help with the issue without necessitating a rework of the fundamental nature of a squad sized unit game with Company + forces.

Handy that

So, as it stands I have a few people on the Christmas list who would be excellent candidates for CM. However, I cannot seem to find how to gift the downloadable versions. Any ideas?

Of interesting note, different nationalities embraced different infantry formations during WWII, something which is often lost in the NATO standardization afterwards. The Germans in particular were fond of moving in the file with a machinegun near the front (though not on point.) This allowed for superior use of the terrain and faster movement to minimize their firepower superior enemy's ability to detect the target. When they did make contact, the file would ideally be dispersed enough that the machinegun at the front could suppress (the literal translation being beat-down) the enemy and allow the rear element to either find advantageous firing positions, maneuver, or break contact and not be decisively engaged from the get go. In addition, well trained squad leaders could rapidly rotate a file or move it to a position where inherently all the soldiers had to do was face left or right to create an immediate line with maximum firepower. The Americans preferred a wedge-like formation which probably allowed for better overall security than the German file, but was slower, harder to mask with small dips and such, and while provided a reasonable base of fire with the weapons at hand, invariably meant that at least four to five men would be immediately exposed and decisively engaged. Given they did not have a true LMG like the Germans, they probably needed the additional rifles and BAR up front. In all cases, this presupposed the troops were reasonably well trained and at least moderately experienced. Green troops on both sides often pulled the CM gaggle...it being noted by German defenders in the bocage of their opponents, and in reverse many units defending against the Volksgrenadiers during the Bulge reflected that their opponents uncharacteristically seemed to come in large masses of men.

I should add I rarely use the pause feature in RT, as I tend to find that defies the point of having to prioritize your attention and choose where to exert command influence. I generally only use it where the system is inadequate - trying to tell a convoy of vehicles to roll down the road without crashing into each others tails for example. I can see how if you used it liberally it would lead to the perfect orders always scenario, complete with ability to review everything.

I'm in GMT -5 and have severe life disruptions away form the internet at times, but if you can live with that...

I find that one of the items not mentioned in favor of real times realism is the coordination factor. In we go, you can perfectly coordinate. Everything. Precisely on time and with little more than an orders delay. Don't get me wrong, I love WEGO as a CMBO, BB, and AK vet. For anything larger than a reinforced company WEGO is practically mandatory anyhow. However I find that at the company level and below real time is often a better simulation for the platoon that reaches the wood line and then can't seem to report in because the CO is busy listening to contact reports form 2nd platoon. Of the platoon leader who is thrown into a hasty attack because, by god, they said we need to go NOW, we can't find the perfect route..sergeant, take your men through the woods that way, we need to move. Of the defending machinegun team leader who sees that those guys just got into his flank but can't think fast enough to process that means a close assault is coming...largely helped by suppression. For the forward observer who realizes he called cease loading, not cease fire, and 1 more round is coming in form those guns...but the assault boys just jumped up and started rushing anyhow. It, in effect, creates the vast chaos that gets jammed on a limited net with limited information. At just about the right resolution for a company.