Bulletpoint

Funny how hindsight is so clear. The early Russian losses were enormous, and the task of relocating all their industry to the other side of the country must have been huge. If Germany had knocked out Russia quickly, like they did in France, they would have taken over vast resources and production capacity, while closing down the eastern front that ended up wearing them out. The Allies would have met a whole different Wehmacht in Normandy. Maybe the war could have gone differently.

Agreed. While CM games are graphically very primitive compared to some of the big titles today, I find they are really immersive.

I believe it goes like this: CMBN CMFI CMRT CMBS CMFB

What problems with the realism did you notice? Something about the gear or the tactics?

That's the whole East Front right there.

Some good ideas, but I doubt these are the reasons... If you make the whole vehicle 5 cm taller, you get a big increase in total silhouette. But if you only make the relatively small shield taller, the silhouette only increases by a very small amount. The shield would only be a bit taller, not wider or deeper. So it would not take up space from soldiers behind it even when turning. I think this might have some truth to it, but it would still be possible to stand up on the benches to look over the shield, and/or to poke the head out to the sides of it. A Sd.Kfz 251 weights nearly 8 tonnes, according to the wiki. How much more steel would be required to make the gun shield 5 cm taller? I don't know exactly, but it must be a tiny amount of extra materials and this investment would make the vehicle able to perform much better in its intended role. The US halftracks were never intended to be fighting vehicles, but the German ones were. Whether they were good in this role is a matter of debate, but obviously the intention was that the MG was to be used in a direct fire role, and that the gun shield was there for the specific purpose of protecting the gunner.

I wonder if they ever did field modifications to increase the shield a bit? The US tankers loved to put extra stuff on their tanks, so maybe the Germans did the same with their halftracks? I remember reading that they sometimes added logs along the sides to catch (spalling?) fragments, but haven't read anything about the gun shield.

I think you migt be on to something here. Just still seems a bit odd to me. Maybe it also has something to do with that bullets striking the very top of the helmet (at a really shallow angle) might bounce off? I know it's not thick metal, but due to the slope maybe. And I assume there's a liner or something inside the helmet that keeps a bit of distance between the skull and the metal part. The very top of the helmet as seen from the front might not be a critical hit area? So the thinking might be that it's a good trade-off to give the gunner the ability to pop up once in a while to see what's going on around him, then duck down again to resume firing? These are all just wild guesses. I'm no expert and I've never even been in one of these halftracks. Just curious really. The German approach seemed obsessed with engineering solutions, so I can't believe they just "forgot" to put a bigger shield on the gun.

Maybe since you have a book about these things, you could answer a question I've been thinking a lot about: Why didn't the Germans make the halftrack gun shields just a tiny bit taller so that they would provide cover for the top of the helmet of the gunner? It seems when a gunner is aiming down the sights, the shield won't cover his full silhouette when viewed from the front. Other German fighting halftracks (armed with 37mm guns and other weapons) did have larger shields. I know halftracks are not AFVs, etc etc. But it seems to me either you don't put a shield on the gun, because troops are not supposed to use it, or you put a shield large enough to do its job. Why the half baked version?

Well done. Nothing like a succesful Panzerjagd. You proved me wrong and probably taught your opponent something too.

I showed CM to a friend and he said "Oh, that's like Men at War". Then he showed me some videos and I thought "yeah... for grown ups".

Like the 4.0 update?

This made me wonder - did the US soldiers in WW2 hate the SS soldiers more than the regular kind? Were they even aware the German forces were divided into Heer and SS? As far as I know, the full extent of the SS crimes only came to light after the war. I read that some types of soldiers (snipers, flamethrowers) were often executed when they surrendered, but that seems to be about their role on the battlefield, not their political affiliation.

Cheers to that. That's how we all learn

Would be great if you could pull this off, but if your opponent has any clue what he's doing, he'll have some flank protection in that forest. And probably not just a lone team. He'd do well to place quite a lot of infantry in the two obvious forested approaches. Not sure from the screenshots how dense the forest is...

You already played this, so you know how it's going to turn out. My initial impression is that without real tanks, you're giving long-range control of the open ground to your opponent. That means you have to attack with infantry through a lot of forest. That's usually a bloody affair. Then you'll have to attack buildings with infantry in the forest, which also usually results in high attacker casualties. Not sure how you'll get die Brummbären up to assist if your opponent holds the open spaces. But don't let my gloomy analysis bring you down - go ahead and prove me wrong

I know you're being sarcastic, but try "Ten out of Ten" from the Scottish Corridor campaign. Interesting, frustrating, and challenging scenario.

Apart from troop fatigue level having no impact on combat performance. @Josey Wales tested it thoroughly some time ago.

Are you certain about this, or is it just how you feel things are working, based on your experience? I often see my 2-man scout team spotting enemies way off in the distance, through trees, while running using QUICK orders. I feel they spot way too good while running actually. I'd like if it works like you described, but I'm not sure.

Then again, those guys in 1944 did have illumination flares. I make a point of yelling "Fire a flare!" every time I press Alt+B

There isn't such an option in this game. I think maybe you are thinking of Graviteam Tactics. But what you can do is to do a target order and then move the target line around to get an idea about where your unit can fire.

We've all been there One of my first posts on this forum was why the game was so ugly and there were no trees or even bushes. Turns out they were turned off...

He also sits too far back.

@Hardradi I'm still on v. 3.12 and I don't have the vehicle pack. The scenario works on my end. Since your crash happens at exactly 5 minutes, I don't think it's a hardware problem. I could imagine it's because the Germans get some reinforcement at that time. It's the earliest possible reinforcement arrival time. To test this, I loaded the scenario a couple of times and ran it for 4 minutes, then checking what the Germans had. Then I ran it again for 6 minutes and ceased fire to check again what they had. It doesn't seem like they get any new on-map units, but it may be that they get new off-board artillery. If the game then tries to load this new asset, but there's a problem with the data files, this might cause the crash. The problems might be caused by mods, or by OOB changes since the scottish Coridor campaign was made. Try disabling all your mods and see if the crash still happens. If it does, try uninstalling the whole game completely, and then reinstalling it from the 4.0 master installer.

Wow, I managed to know something groggy.. all that time playing this game has paid off By the way, it's interesting how much of WW2 tech was actully a kind of continuation of medieval principles. Swords and axes were often made with a softer metal body to prevent shattering, and then a cutting edge of harder steel was welded on. Similarly, fin-stabilised APDS can be seen as basically a giant crossbow bolt.