Bulletpoint

This is actually a mission where I have pretty good pre-battle intel. So several of these guns have been prep-fired from onboard 81mm mortars. I did knock out some, but there were several that surprised me by popping up later and starting firing. And that was after I had counted a couple of what seemed to be direct hits against their contact marker. It's not really a rare occurrence either. I find it's quite common to see very stubborn AT guns hang on for a long time before getting knocked out or abandoning the gun.

It's not a very well designed campaign. The overtime is something that makes sense in scenarios for play against a human opponent. It discourages last-minute jeep rushes to "flip" objective zones. In a campaign scenario that can only be played against the computer, it doesn't make much sense. Another example of less than optimal design in this campaign is that the last minute has artillery scripted to come in automatically and suppress key locations. Great idea. However, the designer apparently wasn't aware of how this actually works in the game. If you paint an artillery support target, the arty will just choose one random spot in that zone and hammer it with a point mission untill all ammo is expended. So the intended "suppress this whole ridge" effect is lost.

You just learnt something. AT-guns are crazy tough in CM. In a current game, I just saw an AT gun take a 75mm HE on the gun shield and keep fighting. And that was after getting pummelled by mortars and HE area fire for some time.

I've seen that many times. AT gun crews are often strangely impossible to rout. Not always, but they sure sometimes stick to their guns. I think the reason is that sometimes, the gunner has "fanatic" morale. Even if you play with regular morale troops, individual soldiers can have other morale settings (a guy from Customer Service once told me this). So, if that guy happens to be the gunner, I think that means you have to physically neutralise him before he will leave the gun.

Also, note that the mission starts before sunrise, and it's pretty dark for around the first half hour, impairing spotting. CM graphics don't really do a good job of showing the actual visibility conditions.

Like most of the battles in this campaign, it's basically an exercise in overwatch and reaction fire. Try putting your tanks as close as possible to suspected enemy positions (but stay out of the 200m PzSchreck range). Then advance small scout teams closer, baiting the enemy to open up. If the enemy opens fire, your tanks should have a good chance of getting a spot and fire off 1-2 rounds. Reaction fire against spotted contacts in buildings is much more effective than regular area fire. After your tank fires at an enemy on, say, 2nd floor, the next turn you can do a 'target briefly' against the ground floor. Usually the enemy team will retreat down to the ground floor immediately after taking tank fire. If they are very shaken, they might run out the back door though.

If you have an Nvidia card, you can also go into the Nvidia controls and reduce the "digital vibrance" a bit. I did that, and I find it helps a lot. Colours are less winegum-like now, both in this and other games. I'm sure AMD has something equivalent.

There's one final thing to say: Nearly everyone has CMBN. So if you want to have a friendly game with someone, that's the title people can usually meet on.

A bird in the bocage is worth more than ten Russian divisions on the roof..

Would be nice if the ping would be lower volume than the bang though.

I think that was me. The good thing about the campaign is that the missions are not "puzzle like" - they are just straight up assaults, and you get a very generous helping of armour and artillery to help do the job. The difficulty is very low compared to most campaigns I played, and I think that's a good thing. I'd recommend the campaign to a new player. Definitely better to start with this as practice and then get on to the good bits later.

If you love infantry and bocage, then CMBN is the way to go. It also has a lot of user made content. Also there are some good campaigns that come with the game (Road to Montebourg and Scottish Corridor (Commonwealth module), among others). If you prefer more long-range tank warfare, then one of the other titles is a better choice.

Stay in the modern time with all the fancy toys to save your butt. You wouldn't last 2 minutes in the bocage, boy.. Nah, just kidding. If you're really into WW2, I think you should at least buy one of the CM WW2 titles.

Well, I'm no expert, but according to what I can read on Wikipedia: "About 23,000 American military personnel were killed or captured, while Filipino soldiers killed or captured totaled around 100,000". So if that's correct, the "US Army" they lost in the Philippines was more like two divisions of actual US soldiers. Obviously not enough to cause defeatism in a country of the size of the US, when you consider how many casualties smaller nations were able to stomach and keep fighting in WW2.

Calling @John Kettler Maybe you have some info on this?

Is it the original camouflage paint?

Or maybe he got it mixed up with the church of Remi, in Champagne-Arden? That's what pops up when you google "Remichampagne church". And it looks like the one in the game . As for the campaign, I don't think it's bad. Some missions are better than others. Remichampagne just seems like a very rushed map, with very little resemblance to the real place, and very little in common with the layout of real European villages. The roads even have those rough edges where the tiles are not joined right (insert OCD emoji here) In short, the campaign seems like a "bonus" campaign - the real meat of CMFB is the Peiper and the Aachen campaigns. After playing those, the Courage Conquers campaign seems a bit bland.

I agree with you. And I think it would also be nice from a gameplay perspective, so that you had to balance speed with the risk of bogging. Also, it would make bogging less frustrating for the player, because he now has some kind of say in it, compared to just having to hope it doesn't happen. Now, whether or not it was actually a bug back then, and it was fixed after IanL's testing, I don't know. All I know is that I always move vehicles FAST, and I don't see much bogging (and hardly any immobilisations) on damp ground conditions. I do avoid problem areas such as mud and forest tiles though.

Also interesting to see how lightly it drives across the terrain. Doesn't sink into the soil at all, and hardly disturbs the forest floor. Maybe if it starts turning, things will look very different...

Sure thing:

I see your pedanticism/pedantry and raise by: Holland 1 noun another name for the Netherlands https://www.dictionary.com/browse/holland

I think it does have zimmerit, it's just the video compression that blurs it out...

Nice catch. I think it sounds quite shrill/turbine-like in the game.

It's one of the undying myths of Combat Mission. @IanL tested it and busted that myth long ago

But unfortunately the leader's leadership modifier doesn't carry beyond his own little team..