Bulletpoint

Obviously it slows down to an appropriate speed to navigate the difficult terrain (the foxholes) - just like in Combat Mission when a heavy tank has to go through a plank fence, it also slows to a crawl

Thanks, very interesting. Much of it reminds me of situations I've seen play out in Combat Mission. From the part where they manage to cross the road under fire, to especially the bit about the two-man "scout team" that was maybe sent out only to draw fire and make the enemy reveal themselves. Thanking my lucky stars I grew up in peacetime.

Yes, that's why I added:

I noticed I see a lot of "stair stepping" on maps. It's caused by the way the map editor models the terrain between two manually set elevation levels. If you don't put in a lot of control points, you tend to get jagged hills that offer a lot of dead ground in between. The observer "|" gets dead ground at "x": ___ \xx____ \__________|__ This is of course a terrain feature that is also found in real life. I just think it occurs much more often in this game, due to the way the terrain gets generated.

If we get a coronary, it's because we are getting old, not because it's a bad idea I don't think anybody said tanks are too accurate with their main gun. The question was about their machineguns. I don't think anybody said that either. We're discussing tanks killing AT-guns they haven't spotted and haven't got a clue are even there. I think most people here agree that it's one of the best things about Combat Mission that "borg spotting" was removed. It just still lingers a bit.

But which house is it coming from? What part of the forest? If the tank sees enough tracers to pinpoint the approximate location of the enemy, that is what the game represents by giving the tank a contact marker at that location. And then it would be perfectly fine to start area fire. The game already has such a cool system for keeping track of which units know what, and how that information is passed along and spreads through the chain of command. It would be really great if that system would be used more actively to restrict the player a bit. Then he would have to send a runner to the tank to tell it about the enemy - I actually did that in a recent game, and it was a really fun thing to do, too. Very immersive

The good news is that you can quite easily find a laptop that gives you a decent framerate. I think a GTX950M would do the trick just fine. Even low-end modern laptops graphics cards are massively more powerful now than back when the CM engine was developed. The bad news is that you probably won't find any laptop that gives you significantly better performance. There seem to be some bottlenecks in the game engine that holds it back. So don't go overboard. At least not if CM is the main game you want to play on the go. Also, CM can't really use multiple cores, so go for the CPU with the max clock speed - that will often be the one with the fewest cores.

There's a trend to look at the losing side and say they lost the war because they made stupid decisions and their tanks were bad. But the winning side also made bad decisions and their tanks also had many problems. Total war is about total production, and history is about hindsight.

You could say the same thing about heavy machineguns deployed on a tripod and equipped with a telescopic sight We can discuss a long time about real life military tech, but my point was just that tanks and infantry seem to follow different targeting rules. Is that a problem? I'm really not qualified to say. I just wanted to mention it in this thread, as it's about the relative strength of tanks VS infantry in this game...

Yes, I understand, but I was not talking about area fire, but about accuracy when firing at actively spotted enemies. It looks like shooters are actively trying to miss. And the relevance to this topic is that when tanks fire, they behave differently: They actually aim straight. You don't see a tank fire a shell that hits 30m to the left of a target, then 30m to the right, then left again, before finally after several minutes, randomly just get lucky and score a hit. Tanks fire a couple of shots to get the range, and then they are usually bang on target.

But should they also fire left and right when they are not doing area fire, but firing against actively spotted infantry in the open? I'm assuming it's a gameplay balance thing, where they don't want infantry to be massively lethal. But that's usually handled by giving soldiers a "saving throw" to represent micro terrain. I think it looks a bit odd to have several LMG42 firing at 3-400 metres against an enemy team in the open and not hitting anything for several minutes.

Try setting up a test. I think you will find tank MGs are much more accurate on both close and long distances than deployed infantry MGs. When tanks fire (both main gun and HMG) it seems they always point the gun directly at the enemy, but they just need to get the range right. With infantry MGs, they fire many bursts much to the left and right of the target.

Yes

Agreed, but I've played against Kaunitz a couple of times, and he is definitely a capable player. So let's not talk about his tactics, but keep focus on his main questions: Should area fire be restricted to contacts the tank actually has C2 information about? The game has a great C2 sharing system. But it can be disregarded completely for area fire. Should trenches, foxholes, and bunkers provide more protection from direct fire? And I will add a point of my own: Should tank MG fire really be massively more accurate than infantry MG? That's how it works now, and that also makes tanks (and light AFVs) much more powerful.

Define "with no problems"

While waiting for my opponent to do his turn, I'm looking around in the Quick Battle purchase screen, and I came across a couple of oddities. Doublettes? In German Heer roster, infantry only tab, formations, some formations seem to be doublettes: There are two "Fusilier Company", two "Fortress MG Battalion" and two "Panzerschreck Company". The contents seem exactly the same when expanding their roster in the editor. Points costs are also exactly the same. Haven't checked in-game if there are any differences. Maybe wrong name for Fusilier Company? When I click to expand the Fusilier Company, what I find there is that they don't actually contain Fusilier troops, but Sturm Squads and Heavy Sturm squads. They look exactly like mis-labeled Volksgrenadier companies. When I open up a Fusilier Battalion, I see that they contain Fusilier Companies where the troops are labeled as 'Fusilier'.

Overcast. Daytime, by the way.

This battle is in October 1944, Germany. Ground conditions are set to "damp". Maybe it was extremely cold in Germany in October? I don't know.

Currently playing a PBEM quick battle. We chose a map that has temperature set to "cold" in the editor. When selecting the map for the QB, the little info screen shows the temperature of the map is 1 degree C. But after the game has set up and we start sending files back and forth, the info that shows when I select the incoming savegame (but before clicking 'load') says temperature is now -19C. After loading the game, I click the MENUS button and choose "conditions". It now shows "Temperature: Extreme Cold". So, somehow it seems that when you set temperature to "Cold" in the editor (middle setting), you end up with "Extreme Cold", the maximum setting?

Here's another one: "And yet, the Germans only ever built a single aircraft carrier despite their need to support operations in North Africa, and built the Bismarck, a gigantic battleship (that cost as much as 20 submarines), which proceeded to sit in harbor and then be destroyed by air raids. " I think they mean the Tirpitz.

What are the weather conditions and temperature in the scenario? What terrain did the squad move through?

I'll be very interested to hear your findings.

That's because bogging risk is not liked to movement order Paging @Erwin

You could go for something else in the toolbox.. Combat Mission: Red Drill (with the subtitle "This is Not a Drill") Combat Mission: Red Saw (if you make a module set in Poland, you can call it "War Saw")

I'm not really sure WP actually does any damage. IIRC the damage from smoke shells are actually from the shells themselves throwing shrapnel. I remember reading in one of the changelogs that the damage from WP had been reduced a little. So it's apparently meant to cause some casualties. I've never seen it actually happen though, but then again I haven't tried much. Most of the smoke rounds I see are not WP.