Bulletpoint

Yes, you are correct. IG 18 howitzers.

Sounds like somebody mixed up the accuracy values etc. from one of the modern games with WW2.

I think your uncle is actually suffering from depression. A healthy dose of pessimism helps me to enjoy life. Everything in moderation.

I solved it: I had originally put the fire support company commander next to the guns to provide comms. He has a radio, so comms buttons showed all green. I thought that would be enough. But calling for fire support only works if it's the platoon commander of the infantry gun platoon sitting next to them.

I actually found my life improved a lot after I started to err on the side of pessimism. I'm now more often pleasantly surprised.

Welcome, and thanks for replying to my thread. It's definitely one of the good parts of the game that there is some uncertainty about how troops will react in different situations. I think we all agree on that. However, when troops consistently refuse to shoot in certain situations, but immediately start shooting once I push a button to split or combine the squad, I think it's probably not a simulation of human behaviour, but an issue with the game code. I've been doing some more testing, and it mostly seems to affect squads with two teams and a small headcount - German recon units in this case. Is this important enough to look into? I don't know. I just bring it here in order to help improve the game.

In a scenario I'm building, I have deployed 4 on-map infantry guns. They all have green dots in all levels of C2 up to Battalion commander. However, when I choose any distant HQ and try to plot a fire mission, I get "out of contact" for the 4 guns. Even when I select the Battalion commander himself.

The correct possessive is "whose", also for the singular case: 'The woman whose dog peed on the floor...'

I guess you could say the same about the late war, but the other way around?

I've done some tests on this and I have savegames if anyone's interested. Armoured cars often won't shoot even when having a good LOS/LOF to a good target (enemy infantry). I don't know why they don't. Interestingly, it seems it also works in reverse - the enemy teams in the forest won't shoot at the unbuttoned AC commander. Infantry often won't shoot in dense terrain. I have an idea why this happens: The infantry squad is not split. It consists of two teams. The squad has a solid spot and a grey target line to an enemy team 80m away. Here's the interesting bit: The infantry squad will not open fire on its own. BUT if I select "combine squad", the LMG gunner immediately opens fire. So there is some kind of issue or bug at work here. A "hand brake" that keeps squads from reacting to contacts if they are not split and if only part of the squad spots the enemy.

You're a fount of good information. Thanks for sharing.

Yes there are many different factors that could be affecting this. I just started to notice something seems different from what it used to be, and I've been playing for years. Thanks for letting me know if you find something similar.

I thought it might be a soft factor thing, but I've seen it happen both with "good" and "bad" quality troops, negative and postive leadership/motivation, etc. But haven't done any proper testing - I simply don't have time for that. So to begin with, I just wanted to hear if other people have noticed the same.

Nope, not being shot at at all. Just sitting there, looking at the enemy. With infantry, I think it might happen especially if you have a squad that's not split, and then one team spots an enemy, but the other team doesn't. I still think it makes more sense for the team to start shooting, even if not everybody can join in. But it also happens with vehicles.

Since 4.02, I'm seeing several cases of my troops deciding to not open fire on enemy troops, even though they are actively spotted and within range. In the beginning, I thought it might be a case of the targets being out of range, but while designing a new scenario, I'm definitely seeing several cases of infantry not shooting at enemies in forests at 80m range, and armoured cars not firing on infantry at the range of some hundred metres. The funny thing is that I can manually order them to fire, and then they start shooting. So they definitely have LOS and LOF. They just decide not to use it. Has the TacAI targeting logic been tweaked recently? Anyone else seeing the same thing? If there's interest, I can of course provide save games, but I wanted to hear if it's something other people have noticed. I'm posting this in the general forum, because I think it might be a fundamental thing with 4.02, but I'm seeing the behaviour in CMFB.

That's what I did. It just seems there should be an option to dismount them like the other guys. That's all.

When purchasing an Aufkläring Battalion 44 (motorized), it comes with a lot of Kübelwägen. For the regular infantry platoons, I can choose "dismounted" to get rid of the unwanted vehicles. But the (4th) heavy platoon cannot choose this option. Is this by design? It seems they should have the same option as the Aufkläring infantry.

I think it would be a perfect fit for the game engine actually. Flushing out static, stubborn enemies seems a lot like combing bocage for Germans in CMBN.

Which is actually interesting. Where did all those US casualties occur? When I read stories about the Bulge, it always seems to be how the Germans were stopped almost effortlessly.

That's a good idea. An alternative would be to make all the player's forces spot objectives. So you'd have a pretty powerful battalion of troops, tanks, etc, but the more you commit, the bigger the points penalty. You'd have to make decisions such as "Do I really need to send in third company? Is there a reasonable chance they will be able to take that last objective? Or should I just call a ceasefire now and not get the points penalty?"

I think this is very true. Another idea I had for a battalion campaign would be to have, say 3 to 5 battles one after the other, where you get the whole battalion to command in each battle, but that there will be no reinforcement or resupply. However, enemy resistance in each of the battles would be lighter than normal. So you have a good advantage in numbers but your force gets worn down as you go along, thus increasing difficulty. I'm sure this is not a novel concept, but I haven't really seen it in Combat Mission much.

Yes, this was the idea. Basically setting it up as three smaller scenarios in one. But I was thinking about giving the whole battalion to the player at game start. Letting him decide whether to follow the plan of committing the companies one at a time, or leading with two companies, one in reserve, or any other combination. I think many scenarios are a bit too "scripted". Also, I was thinking about doing something I call "armour on demand". You start the game with, say, 5 tanks/assault guns in reserve, and the enemy gets points for spotting them. So if you think you need armour support, it's your choice to commit the tanks, but it will decrease your final score. This would be to emulate you as the battalion commander having a bit more to say than a company commander who just has to accept and play the cards he's dealt.

I think designers should be more worried that their scenarios are too hard than too easy. Even a basic static defence can be very challenging to overcome in this game.

That's good advice, but I am not asking because I want to please everybody. I'm asking to learn more, in order to make my own decisions. I think that sometimes, asking a question is seen as a sign of weakness. In this case, it's not.