Bulletpoint

If we focus on the test where it's close range and only Stg44 on the German side, we find that the Germans took 12 casualties, and the US took 16. The US started with more men: 39 vs 27. So, with roughly 25% fewer men, the Germans caused 33% more casualties. Each German caused 0.59 casualties. Each US guy caused 0.30 casualties. While it's only one single test run, I think it's a good indication that I was wrong about the Garand being superior to the Stg44. At least at very close range. So thanks for testing it out. However, the results seem skewed by the fact that the US guys started to run away very quickly, then getting gunned down in the open. To improve the test, it might be an idea to make two firing lines using only fanatic scout teams, to make sure only the right weapons and equal numbers are used, and that the running away behaviour doesn't affect the results too much.

Interesting. But most of those guys are armed with MP40s. And what happens when you close the range to 40-50m as in this battle?

Actually I opened up the firefight by some recon by fire, so both sides were stationary. Still, I don't see any big advantage of the Stg44 in this game. It's not useless, but not very useful either. If I had a choice to have a squad armed with Garands or Stg44s, I'd go with the US rifles. At close range, eight fast aimed shots are better than 2-3 wildly inaccurate bursts of fire.

Well, I'll believe you since I don't think I checked it very thoroughly. It still means that there weren't very many of them, which was the point of the sentence. I apologise if it was unclear. It's just that I have been wondering if it's an error that they have 12. But nobody has been able to answer it so far.

triple post

double post

I thought there were 12 per battalion? At least in the game, there seems to be...

I've found similar problems when trying to make small infantry teams deploy randomly. For example, painting a random setup zone on a field along a hedgerow, the infantry will always choose to set up in the hedgerow. If there is a tree in the hedge, they will go there. I assume they get drawn towards cover, but it's a bit annoying when trying to do a variable setup that they will tend to always turn up in the same square. So, in your case with the mines, I assume there is some similar logic at play behind the scenes. The only way I found to make the deployment truly random was to make sure all the potential squares are the exact same type. Basically giving the game no choice. So if you paint 10 squares along streams, the game should be able to choose a random placement among those, but if you include a square number 11 that the game "likes" more for some reason, it will always put the mines there instead.

I'm pretty sure that is in fact a T-34 model, not a skin. A skin/texture is just a surface that's 'painted' on top of the model. In this case, I think he managed to swap two models around. To do the landing boats in this way, there needs to already be a landing-boat-like model in the game.

Final positions My plan was to push up the left side of the map with two squads, and one on the right to capture the intersection. I spent the first many turns advancing very carefully, using bounding overwatch, creeping forward, carefully placed MG teams to cover fire lanes, etc. Eventually I realised that the visibility was so low that I could probably move faster. I did some speculative fire with the StuG and later found I managed to knock out an MG position that way. However, I also spent quite a lot of ammo shooting at positions I later found empty. Got a sound contact for the first US squad and plastered it with HE and MG fire. Losing 3 guys to friendly fire shell fragments... It was effective though, later I found a whole US squad destroyed there. Then, once I advanced and did a tiny bit of recon by fire, all hell broke loose and both sides lost a good deal of men. About your intention that the Germans have superior firepower to make up for the visibility; I am not sure that's true. The German Stg44 doesn't really give much advantage even in a close fight like this - probably it's better than the K98 but it is very inaccurate and mostly it just makes noise. Meanwhile, the US Garands, tommy guns and mounted machine guns are also murder at these ranges, so I'd say no side had the advantage in small arms firepower. I had expected the US to have bazooka teams, so was surprised to find AT guns hiding in the hedges at these short ranges. At this point, I started making mistakes and thought I could easily flank the first AT gun with a small team. When that was wiped out, I tried sending another from the other direction, but with the same results. Finally, I tried to rush the gun with a StuG at close range - well, it did manage to knock out the gun, but turned out it had a good friend a bit further up the road that took out my StuG (and of course it was the best one with the most ammo left). At this point, I realised I was not going to win any points for casualties, and that I could say bye bye to the tomato seeds However, I pressed on, and finally made it to the point on the upper left side of the map where my two remaining StuGs could get LOF to the building. I then secured the rest of the final objective and called cease fire because I did not want to risk more casualties hunting down the last US teams in the forest.

Happy to report that updating the driver made half refresh rate work again ...and starting crashing randomly again...

Interesting, didn't know that. But it seems both the Wasp and the early Russian flamethrower tank had twice the range?

I don't think they released it yesterday; I just had not updated my driver in a long time (if it is not broken, do not try to repair it)

Or wait until hell freezes. Hm, probably a real choice in Denmark. Unfortunately not... Well, waiting is. But DK winters are just rain and mud. In any case, I prefer waiting forever than play scenarios where I have to imagine a Schwimmwagen is a landing craft. Reminds me too much of those tabletop wargames I played as a kid, where I didn't have money for all the stuff and then just pretended a bottle cork was a tank, a book was a hill, etc.

Oh darn. I just installed the latest driver yesterday, thinking it might resolve the problem...

A modded game gone wrong.

@CanuckGamer When barrages go off target like this, it's because the spotter didn't spot (enough of) the spotting round impacts.

The battle is just for fun and if the trees on takes away the fun factor, feel free to turn them off. I only suggest playing with them on so you can get a true understanding of what your men are actually seeing in battle. I'll take it as part of the challenge - after all that is why I stepped up

Ok, I now booted up the battle, and... it's going to be a tough one. Forest, heavy snow, darkness means really poor LOS, and that retreating US units could appear anywhere means I have to be careful about overwatch. I'm itching to toggle off trees to better get an overview of the shape of the ground, but I will honour your conditions to play on Iron mode and with trees permanently on. One strange thing: The unit portraits for the German infantry shows a tank commander poking out of the hatch. I guess it's because they are Begleitsgrenadiere?

Yep, but then you have an assault boat with light armour and tracks to travel over land. It would still behave like a Schwimmwagen, just look like a halftrack... but yes it would be able to drive on land. It's not a very nice solution, and I would prefer to not play such scenarios, and instead wait for the real deal.

You mean like a halftrack maybe? Could sort of look like an assault boat..

I'm no pump expert just comparing with other contemporary flamethrowers...

Hm, in his Malta mod, @kohlenklau used a Pz IV, to simulate a captured T34. I.e., used the Pz IV stats and model and „threw“ T34 bmps over it. The result looked great (and like a T34), but it behaved like a Pz IV. Don‘t know, if there is much of a difference. I think the point is that modders can switch one game model for another game model, but they can't introduce new models to the mix. So you could make the Schwimmwagen look like a bunker or a tank, but it would not really improve much

I think probably they will give us real amphibious vehicles in one of the upcoming modules. Would be easy now that the coding is done for the modern titles as @rocketman just said.

+1 This is an interesting idea and may be the closest we get to assault boats. Then with the red vs red in the editor the Soviets could also use them. I don't think modders are able to change the vehicle model though. So the assault boats would look like Schwimmwägen