Bulletpoint

It does, thanks. It shows that Steve thinks bunkers should be very hard to take out, but not impossible: Right now, bunkers are in fact very easy to kill. They give no better protection than small modular buildings. Well, that's it I guess. If that's not how bunkers are supposed to be, hopefully we will see a change in the upcoming patch.

IMHO rudeness is never fair. Well if I shouted "IT'S F...ING RAINING!" you could call me rude, and you'd be right.. but you might still want an umbrella

While Pericles was a bit blunt in the way he phrased his frustrations, his point still stands. A campaign made by Battlefront should ideally be quality checked to a higher degree than a user-made campaign. I'm not saying the editor is easy, and I definitely understand how errors can creep in. I made a good deal of mistakes, myself, and I wouldn't call anyone incompetent. But when I make mistakes, people generally forgive them, because they know I spent several weekends of my spare time providing a scenario for free. If I sold my scenarios for real money, I would also have to accept that people would get more frustrated with my mistakes. In that sense, I think Pericles has a fair point.

Please consider randomising the setup of the A1 group a bit - it makes missions so much more replayable

Yeah That's why I never bought more of the games than CMBN

Are there any modules planned for CMFB? I don't think any have been revealed yet, and since the scope of CMFB is quite narrow, I'm not sure what else they could add by a module.. Hürtgenwald maybe? But then again, that can be designed within the current toolsets - wouldn't need any new content, as far as I know. Maybe they would make it a campaign pack. Hmmm. This point comes up time and again on this forum, but I'm not sure why it should logically follow that a new engine would mean starting back in Normandy again? I think that line of thought belongs more with mainstream wargames, where you need to lure in fickle customers by using a setting they know from movies. CM is a niche product, and one of the good things about being niche is that it can go its own way. I could just as well imagine them opening with CM:Stalingrad, especially if a new CM3 engine improved city fighting by better modelling of ruins and finally solving the building targeting issues.

Unfortunately, we can't have reinforcements arrive ("spawn") by trigger. But you might be able to make the trigger move a spotter out of hiding and into a place that will have LOS to the church. He'll then need to actively spot the enemy before he will call any artillery though.

It's not about AI, because there is no AI. At least there is no AI that moves troops around. It's about scenario design. To me, it looks like the scenario designer gave a move order to a group of vehicles, but only gave them ONE square to move to. That means all the vehicles will try to move into that one 8x8m square, but there's not enough room for all of them. So they bunch up. In the end, the designer needs to understand the tools he has to work with.

Haven't tested all angles, but it seems no penetrations (or vision slit hits) are needed. It's the effect of the HE against the concrete that kills the inhabitants.

I did some tests that showed a Sherman will take out a 5-man team in a concrete bunker in usually less than a minute, firing from the front. Then I swapped bunkers for 1-storey modular buildings, and found they had roughly the same survivability.

By the way, didn't they say they would start in the late war and then work their way backwards, getting to the early war eventually? Or was it that the game families would go back in time, but modules would progress forward in time? It seems both the new games (CMFB) and new the new modules for exsiting games are now converging towards the end of the war. This seems a bit strange to me, because we will then fight the basically same situation in three different games: Nearly beaten Germany vs the USA (CMFB) Nearly beaten Germany vs the USA - but in Italy! (CMFI Rome to Victory) Nearly beaten Germany vs the Soviets (CMRT end of war module) I guess you could say it makes business sense to use the already developed content in as many products as possible, and a lot of the customers probably want to fight in the late war, with the most powerful tanks etc. I'm not saying those three settings won't be interesting to play. But for variety, I think it would be more interesting to branch out in different years of the war, where the relative strengths were different.

I've noticed that concrete bunkers have become very easy to take out with direct tank fire. Even 75mm Shermans take out a concrete bunker in a couple of shots. I remember concrete bunkers being very tough against direct HE, but at some point it must have changed. The concrete versions now behave more like the old "log" bunkers used to do. With the exception that tanks used to fire AP against log bunkers, and now they kill bunkers with HE. Is this working as intended?

Will this have an impact on CM? Maybe change it so that "rear facing" versions are turned into normal ones? Or maybe take away the 50cals from most Shermans, as it seems they were rarely mounted in combat, but stowed on the back?

Even if you flatten an area, there will still be survivors. I did some tests firing a full module of the biggest Nebelwerfers at a little village full of troops. The whole thing was turned into a moonscape, and of course lots of casualties were caused, but there were still enemies left to fire back.

Before you get too bloodthirsty, I'd like to add that usually a tank is not destroyed by setting off an AP mine, it's merely immobilised

I like the way you think about nudging players into a more careful, realistic style of play, instead of just rushing forward. Cool to see you try to work with what we've got, but hopefully we will see Battlefront pick up on the wish for a campaign system that rewards conserving ammo and pixel-lives - and re-introduces persistent map damage.

Another less elegant solution: If it's an AP mine field, run some tracked vehicles through square. Each will take track damage but also detonate some of the mines. If you detonate enough mines, the signpost will change to green, showing it's now safe to enter.

Wasn't it developed to defeat face-hardened armour that would sometimes shatter regular AP shot?

I'm not sure what you mean.. planting strawberries? Is that a symbolic gesture?

Would be nice with a "target special" command. It would be useful for all "odd" weapons systems. For example, there was a Sherman with rockets mounted on the turret. If we see that in the late-war game, it would be nice to be able to fire those rockets without the main gun or machinegun.

I think the gun was exactly the same, but in any case, it doesn't matter, because it's usually the HE that kills the bunker. In a couple of cases, the Sherman scored a penetration with AP shot though. In my test, the tanks and bunkers were exactly level, but in my current PBEM, there's been a bit of elevation difference, and it doesn't seem to make any difference.

Didn't make a separate post, because I'm still on 3.12 and didn't want to make a fuss if it's something that has been fixed in 4.0. But in short: CMBN 3 lanes 3 concrete bunkers: 1xshelter, 1xbunker(mg42) 1xbunker(Mg34) 1 German team in each (5 guys) 3x Sherman 75mm at 444m Shermans spot, fire, and destroy the bunkers within 2 minutes. The seem to start firing AP until they get the range, then HE until bunker destroyed or empty. Second test: added 3 more lanes with 3x 1-storey modular buildings, 1 German team in each, for a control group. After 1 minute, 5 Germans out of 15 were alive in the bunkers. 2 out of 15 were alive in the buildings. I only ran this test once.

In my test (using 3.12), it's the 75mm HE from the Sherman that destroys and/or kills the bunker and its crew. No casualties from the MG fire. I remember bunkers being tough to deal with, but I have a hunch that they were made weak around the time AT-bunkers were introduced. Maybe to give the AI a chance against those, but then again, what's the point having bunkers at all? I did an extra test that showed concrete bunkers now give comparable protection levels to small, 1-story modular buildings.

Nah, not everyone. While fascinating, they were used so rarely in the real war that using them in CM goes into fantasy territory unless we're talking scenarios about very specific battles. And then there's the gameplay issue that they don't really have any purpose in a game where even 75mm Shermans readily bust concrete bunkers at 500m distance in less than 2 minutes,. Yes, I just tested this out