Bulletpoint

Hmmm.. are you part of the Viking subculture here?

I think the way it works is that ground conditions set in the editor change the overall state of the terrain, but this state is then applied to all the regular terrain tiles, so you'd have muddy grass, muddy fields, muddy dirt roads, and muddy... mud. Which is much more likely to immobilise your tanks than dry mud. So if I understood your post right, I think what you're asking for is already in the game... Not sure about snow though.

Actually I knew next to nothing about KG Peiper before starting to play this campaign, so it wasn't that I expected to take advantage of historical hindsight. It was more a case of "hit them as hard and fast as possible", since I did know the historical outcome was very dependent on keeping up the speed and taking advantage of surprise. But then after playing the scenario, I decided to read up a bit on what happened in reality, and I was surprised to see that the tanks I just fought in the game actually only arrived later. Of course, just walking into Stoumont wouldn't have been much fun gameplay either. And neither would a mission to defend Stoumont from US counterattack be, since the CM engine doesn't do defence well against the computer as the attacker.

Playing the KG Peiper campaign, I decided to rush as much as possible, which means my attack on Stoumont happens on the 18th of December in the afternoon. According to Wikipedia, the historical attack took place a bit later, at dawn on 19th of Dec. On the Wiki, it says a US tank battalion arrived during the day on Dec. 19th. However, in my game, I'm already finding the village defended by a lot of tanks. I was hoping that by rushing I would arrive before the enemy armour. Did the designer decide to place the tanks there to provide more challenge, or did I get the chronology wrong? I'm no military history buff, but Combat Mission is an interesting way to learn more about WW2...

Or maybe your story actually shows that it's easy to break something if you want to and you know how? It made me start to wonder how many tanks in WW2 just happened to break down conveniently while going to the front...

After thinking a bit more about this, I realise it would mean all vehicles would end up with the same end point, so they'd try to cram into the same space. This can be solved by making the copy/paste operation of waypoints simply ditch the last movement segment. While plotting the movement points of the first vehicle in the column, the user would just know that the final X points plotted would then end up being the final destination points of the following X vehicles.

After thinking a bit more about this, I realise it would mean all vehicles would end up with the same end point. This can be solved by making the copy/paste operation of waypoints simply ditch the last movement segment. While plotting the movement points of the first vehicle in the column, the user would just know that the final X points plotted would then end up being the final destination points of the following X vehicles.

Maybe it's time for a new profile pic then. You kept that in for a long time..

Found it finally. This is what I was talking about, not rounds hitting from the side.

That's true, but no different from how it works now...

One possible solution could be to make it possible to copy the waypoints of vehicle 1 to vehicle 2. It would work like this: You have 5 tanks that have to drive in convoy. 1: You click the first tank and give it the right waypoints for the movement path along the road. 2: You then select the second tank, choose a movement command, but then you click on the first tank. Just like when you order infantry to embark on a vehicle. 3: The game now plots a movement for tank 2 to take it to the current locaction of tank 1, and then from there it just uses the movement points of tank 1 that you already plotted. In essence, it copy/pastes the movement location data of tank 1 to tank 2. 4: You select tank 3 and order it to move "on to" tank 2. It copies the series of waypoints just like tank 1. Etc The advantage of this system is that there's no advanced group movement AI or road following code. It literally just copies the already plotted movement points from one vehicle to another, adding with an extra step to make sure vehicle 2 goes to the current location of vehicle 1 before setting out on the path of vehicle 1.

Thanks for the great replies so far. The pic with the shallow hit was an APDS round though, I'd like to know if the oldfashioned metal slug 75mm and 76mm AP could do the same. I'm sure I once saw a couple of pics of tank barrels that had grooves gouged out of them lengthwise but where the round didn't penetrate... can't seem to find them now.

OK, there are of course lots of variables here, so or simplicity's sake let's say a Sherman fires at a Panther nearly exactly from the front. It doesn't hit the muzzle brake, it hits the actual barrel. At what angles should one expect the shot to deflect alongside the barrel and hit the mantlet of the tank, and at what angles would it go through?

Sometimes, I split off a scout team from a German squad, and it gives me a team of 4 guys. I expected 2. Is this doctrincal or some issue with the splitting logic? Also, the 4-man scout team gets the squad Panzerfaust, which I think should remain with the squad leader, unless I split off an AT team. They also take 8 out of 12 grenades with them, and sometimes demolition charges too. This is happening in CMFB with an SS Pioneer platoon in the KG Peiper campaign.

"An example of its use was during early September 1944, when MG Lawton J. Collins conducted a major reconnaissance-in-force with his VII Corps, employing three divisions on-line to conduct a limited attack to penetrate the enemy defenses in the Aachen-Stolberg corridor and to seize bridgeheads over the Roer River in preparation for exploitation advances into Germany. The operation failed to achieve its initial objectives; however, it did develop intelligence about the defending German forces that paid future dividends." So basically if your attack fails, you can re-label it as recon-in-force and your superiors will be happy Joking aside, this is interesting stuff, also from the defender's point of view. Very useful in CM too. +1

I think the liner refers to the metal lining inside the shaped charge warhead.

Not the brightest bunch.. wouldn't the guy in charge be the one who actually knew stuff?

I like to play Civilization once in a while, but I quickly get bored of it. The core gameplay seems to have grown steadily more complicated in recent releases, but more subsystems to keep track of don't always lead to deeper gameplay. I think a lot of it is just gimmicks. But the series is always worth picking up when it goes on sale.

I don't either, I hope that was clear...

That's a warcrime, in case you weren't aware. Also interrogating them, according to what I can read on the Wiki: "Articles 5 and 6 covers what may and may not be done to a prisoner on capture. If requested, unless too ill to comply, prisoners are bound to give their true name and rank, but they may not be coerced into giving any more information." I'm sure it was often done in practice though.

Yep, it seems semi-random.. sometimes it will play fine for five minutes, other times it will flicker like mad, and most of the time it will be a barely perceivable flicker that just drives me nuts. So, the solution was to use fixed refresh instead. G-sync is brilliant in all other games I played though. There's a world of difference, not only with screen tear, but just overall smooth map scrolling in for example Civilization. Also in the Witcher 3, I immediately notice if it's off, because of the screen tear from the many houses/castle towers/trees.

I have a G-sync monitor and I love it generally BUT I sadly have to disable that feature for Combat Mission. The reason is that it causes strange flickering ocasionally, and only in that game. I've been trying to figure out why, and it seems G-sync has problems with games that have wildly fluctuating framerates. Once in a while, the FPS drops to near zero for a short moment, and that trips up G-sync somehow. Instead, I play with adaptive refresh (fast mode). Available in the GPU settings if you have an Nvidia Geforce card.

I like this idea but it seems like it would raise more problems than it solves--e.g. what about an attack plan that revolves around blind fire? (e.g. "HMG platoon moves to the edge of the woods and places area fire on that hill to cover the infantry while they outflank it." Or, defensively, real-life MG final protective fire lines.) Fair enough, but maybe it could be fixed by allowing MG fire at any target point, while tanks and anything else firing high explosives would only area fire with the main gun if there's a contact icon at (or close to) the target point? Another option could be to allow the player to plot area fire orders while deploying, just like we can order artillery on any location during setup.

I think this is very sensible, and I respect people who play like that. Actually I would love to see it added as an optional realism setting - not least because I don't quite have the self control to strictly enforce it, myself, and because it would be interesting for playing against other people, where you're not always sure if they have the self control to enforce it either.

I mix and match a bit, e.g. "Unter den Bloody Linden!" if something goes wrong when playing as the Germans. I reserve "bloody" for His Majesty's Virtual British Army. Also "Oi", but I don't know if that's historically correct.