Bulletpoint

And that's what you got to do. It's the kind of game theory decisions that go on during unit purchase every time .. If the map is open and I bring smaller tanks than you do, I'm almost surely going to lose. Since I don't know what tanks you will bring, I have to assume you're going for the biggest ones available, so I will do the same. I've won several games where the results were sealed by our purchasing decisions. That being said, I only ever brought heavy tanks to a PBEM once. Most of the games I play are on smaller, more dense maps, and I generally play with very low points costs. I find it gives more interesting situations, because the biggest tanks get left out.

Most of you already know this, but just for the record - You can turn down the amount of powerful tanks a bit by choosing stricter rarity setting.. most of the big German panzers have a pretty steep rarity cost.

Agreed. Also real troops would have situational awareness of ranges to potential enemy positions and the amount of incoming fire they were taking at any given moment, and make split second decisions to fire or duck back behind cover in the halftrack. Sometimes they would make the wrong choice, of course, but they would act less robotic and have a better "feel" for the tactical situation than our pixeltroops have. I see many halftrack passengers get hit and killed only after several previous shots have ben pinging off the sides of the vehicle. My personal opinion is that while fighting from a halftrack should not make troops invulnerable, it should at least be more viable than it is in the game currently. But we all know what a personal opinion is worth.

Thanks for proving me wrong. +1 I was very surprised to see this happen, because in the Aachen campaign I had two M36 fire a lot of AP shells at enemy infantry in a building. It seemed like the shell would pass straight through the enemy soldier each time, but causing no damage. So that's why I was convinced it was simply not possible.

Thanks But I think what we're seeing here is an AP shell with bursting charge going into the ground and exploding and the explosion then causes the casualty. I meant that AP slugs without explosive filling can't kill infantry in buildings just by passing through them.

I have never ever seen this, and I've seen many AP shells go straight through infantry in buildings. Not saying you're lying or anything, but I'd love to see a video of this happening if you have one?

The odd one out: I recently observed that the M36 will fire AP at buildings even though it still has HE left. I think it's because it's AP with a bursting charge, but it only triggers after the shell has gone out the other side of the building, so there's no effect. Unless the elevation makes the shell go into the ground inside the building. No effect, actually. Regular AP slugs never hurt infantry inside buildings. Though I think they were historically used against enemy troops.

You can call (off map) artillery support without being in C2 contact. It's assumed that there's a field telephone link.

What makes it a headache in Iron mode? It's not like you lose control of the units if they are not in C2...

If we ever receive a cryptic signal from an alien civilization, I'll call you to work on it.

I fully agree, and I have been experimenting with making a very large map with very few terrain features. The difficulty is to make it interesting both visually and tactically.

Hi, I just watched him and I think he covers this with his later comments that the Sherman was successful on the strategic level. So it was winning against these tanks. He even mentions that people focus on the tactical level. Which I think you might be falling into that trap? So in context of his talk you should view it at the strategic level. I.e yes for those tanks that had to face head on those uber tanks they needed a better tank, but by having more Sherman's that worked it meant that they were available for the whole front and every company fighting had support. While the German uber tanks were limited and could not be every where. They broke down / were bypassed. Just my interpretation of where he was coming from. I understand his strategic points and agree with them. It's just that I am surprised that reports would be coming in from the front that the 75mm was dealing well with the German heavy tanks.

I think the defences tab only shows that it doesn't have any extra fancy defences against HEAT. In modern era CM titles, there might be some ceramic armour or reactive plates. But still if the steel is thick enough, it doesn't need it.

At 54:25 he says the 75mm Shermans dealt fine with Ferdinands, Panthers, and Tigers, etc. in Italy, but if you read the reports, the Ferdinands (called Elefants at this point) were actually knocked out by artillery, mines, fell down rivers when bridges collapsed, or in many cases were blown up by their own crews. https://mikesresearch.com/2019/07/28/elefants-in-italy-1944/ (obviously this guy knows more about tanks than I ever will, but I thought it was odd)

I noticed that there is no sound of incoming shells before rounds detonated on the target area. I noticed the same, but then again I assume the camera is placed in a fortified box of some kind, as it seems to take several very close hits and keeps filming. Also the explosions sound quite dim. So I'm thinking the box dampens the sound quite a lot, possibly making it impossible to record the whistling... this is of course just guesswork on my part.

I can see myself making the leap as soon as any CM sequel comes out with real improvements to fix graphics glitches, building targeting issues, fortifications sitting on top of the ground, rendering performance, etc. That's not to say it's not already a good game. It is. But it's also a game I don't find myself sinking more money into. Just like I don't buy new chess boards every year.

Maybe, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Distance is key. At long ranges, infantry can survive a lot of small arms fire. At 300m+ in the open, rifle accuracy drops like a stone, and you can even survive surprisingly long against an LMG42 (its accuracy seems to be quite low). At 800m+, you hardly even take casualties from heavy MGs such as deployed Vickers. In a recent PBEM, I maneuvered a platoon under the noses of 4 vickers deployed on a hill. They were unable to even suppress my guys, and caused very few losses.

I played the campaign twice, and as far as I remember, that particular defensive mission is not as difficult as the previous ones. The key is to make sure you don't go head to head with the Panthers but rather keep your Churchills out of sight, use infantry screen to figure out where the enemy amour is going, and then jump them with your tanks at a place and time when it's to your advantage. Infantry in CM have magical ears that can detect and pinpoint the exact location of an enemy tank at hundreds of metres of distance, even in the middle of a town with several blocks of buildings in between. So if you just place a few forward observation posts, you'll know exactly where those tanks are. If you have a visual on them, you'll also know which way they are pointing - then you can do the "Maxwell's Silver Hammer".

I've noticed that both bazookas and Panzerschreks now often can keep firing from inside a building. Previously they were not allowed to at all, but then it was changed so they could do it - but got suppressed by the backblast. Now I'm seeing them in some cases firing and reloading shot after shot. But it's not consistent...

"“Low Latency modes have the most impact when your game is GPU bound, and framerates are between 60 and 100 FPS, enabling you to get the responsiveness of high-framerate gaming without having to decrease graphical fidelity. “ This is pretty much the opposite of CM, which is CPU bound, and with relataively low FPS for most users.

That would definitely be a glitch. Troops are never supposed to be allowed to cross through barbed wire.

This seems to be another bug or issue. I've documented it and reported it, but what happens next is anybody's guess..

There is some kind of bug where sometimes, the position of old contact markers are not updated as the unit moves, so that you end up with markers that stay even in locations where you have your guys sitting for many minutes. It looks like there are still enemies there, but the last enemy has run far away into a forest.

Yes, we should not take training films as historical documentation, but I still think that because it's a film designed to teach new soldiers, it's interesting they have that scene that clearly seems designed to teach that "when you hear an incoming shell, duck down in your trench, then stand up again with a smile, no big deal"