Bulletpoint

Having the graphics show what the actual conditions are. How dark is it? How foggy is it? Right now, we have to guess, because nights are always a sort of twilight, and even heavy fog only shows as a kind of mist at long distances, but these things have huge consequences for the battle. Also, I would love to see an update that fixed the graphical glitches such as shadows popping on and off, houses flickering between shaded and full-bright depending on the angle of the camera, etc.

I've read that some 75mm HE had more explosive filler than other shells. For example, the short barrelled "Stummel" supposedly had a 75mm shell that packed more of a punch, since the low exit velocity meant that the walls of the shell could be thinner, allowing more explosive filler. Is this modelled in this game, or is 75mm HE always the same?

I think that in realtime, any player can pause the game, so there's plenty of time to discuss and tell each player what to do ?

Co-play sounds great in theory, but I don't think it works out in practice. In my experience with boardgames, it quickly turns into "Argument: The Game", where players constantly communicate and discuss in detail bicker about what each player should or should not be doing. So you end up with both sides' forces acting like a big coordinated blob anyway. It could be fun if one of the players were the battalion commander and issued general orders to company commanders - advance, retreat, take objective, etc. but I think it would quickly turn into detailed orders like "Move your tank forward ten metres so it has LOS to hillock A". Individual players would be reduced to counter pushers.

According to the guy in the video, the Panther commanders rarely ever opened the hatch completely to poke their head clean out of the tank (like in the game), so the easy solution could be simply lowering the commander's unbuttoned position significantly...

In your case, it worked out well and looked like a movie scene, but I think it's actually caused by a kind of bug or issue with the squad cohesion programming. I've seen the same thing happen many times; that members of a squad will sometimes run back a good distance and then run forward again. Usually, I see if happen when I move asquad across a field and up to a hedgerow. When they get to the hedge, they take some fire from the other side, and then 1 or 2 squad members will turn and run back into the field, then turn and come back.

There are two main problems here: 1: The remaining lumped-up squad is too big and cannot split further. 2: The German squads are built around the MG, designed to split into two teams, each with one MG for mutual support. After splitting off the scout team, I'm left with one huge team that has both MGs. Obviously that team has a good bullet output, but it also easily gets suppressed. The loss of tactical flexibility far outweighs the concentration of firepower. I'm tempted to start using halftrack drivers, mortar ammo carriers etc. for scouts, but that just seems a bit gamey.

Lately I have been playing a lot more CMBN as the Germans, and found many of their squads can only split into two teams. This means that when I split off a 2-man scout team, the rest of the squad will stay together as one big blob. If the scouts get killed, this blob will stay together for the rest of the mission, severaly limiting the tactical options and making the squad vulnerable because it's so bunched up. With the US forces, sending out one scout team still gives me the option to split the rest of the squad into two teams. So, how do I do recon as the Germans (and other factions that can't split squads into 3 teams)? I've found that I started sending out scout teams much less, instead splitting squads evenly and then going forward like that. It makes me take higher casualties though. Any ideas? I don't have v.4.0 yet, but I read it has a consolidate squad button. Does that give back the ability to split into teams, even after the scouts are gone?

If you place a point target on a building, the fire mission will automatically cancel when the building is destroyed. I believe this also goes for targeting sections of walls, so be careful to target the ground if you want the fire mission to continue even if the wall is destroyed.

Thanks for taking a look at it. It just seems to me I have had tanks fire from similar positions many times in the past - both US and German tanks. Not sure what about this particular hedgerow setup that would make it different...

Not saying CM gets anything wrong. Not doubting artillery was the major killer. But I think comparing artillery kill rates over the entire war to small arms kill rates on any given day where a soldier goes into direct combat is making an apple to oranges comparison

There was an old Amiga500 game where each of your little dead soldiers would get a little cross on a hill on the opening screen. As you kept playing, the number of crosses would grow. Maybe CM could do something similar, so we could at least save some of them from getting a cross there. No, of course I'm not really serious. But I thought it was a poignant touch for an arcade game back then. Made my little stupid kid brain start to think about more than beating the highscore.

Isn't this mostly because the artillery toll includes lots of shelling of rear areas, troops during road movement, etc? Whereas CM only deals with the actual battles where soldiers get close enough to use their rifles.

To be honest, I had a bit of a "Hitler reacts" moment that evening, so I quit the game without saving But since you offer to take a look at it, I will try to see if I can recreate the situation.

Ok, after thinking about this some more, I think it must have to do with the tank's vision cone. Tanks get a restricted arc of vision when they drive up to bocage. Maybe it's possible that the TD was just off the main gun's cone of vision, but that the hull MG, being placed further forward, would get a wider cone of vision through bocage, and thus being able to target the TD? Meanwhile, the TD, not being in bocage, would have 360 degrees of freedom to fire, and thus be able to target the Panther. It just seemed like the TD was not that far off to the right. I've been playing this game for years, and it seems to me that I have been able to target before in those situations.

I checked for trees, because I thought maybe the hull gunner could draw LOS under treetop foliage that would block LOS for the main gun. But there were no trees (yes, I made sure to toggle trees ON ) Target line was grey, and I was able to manually target the TD. However, no shots were fired.

So, I drive up a Panther to a tall hedgerow in order to kill a tank destroyer on the other side. The panther spots the TD, but only opens up with its hull machinegun (shooting at the exposed crew). It doesn't fire its main gun. I check the targeting line; it's grey. There are some low hedges and bushes between the panther and the TD, so I guess they interfere with the targeting. BUT how can it be that the hull MG can shoot, and the main gun cannot? Surely the main gun is located much higher, so it should be able to shoot over the bushes, whereas the hull MG should have its vision blocked? I leave the Panther in position for a couple of turns. After the TD crew button up, the Panther stops firing. After a few turns, the TD spots the panther and fires at it. So there is LOF for the TD but not for the Panther. How can this be?

There's really no reason to get into a groggy discussion about weapons here, because user1000 answered his own question in his first post: If a scenario gives the Germans high motivation and the US low motivation, of course the Americans will cower and the Germans fire back. It's just how the scenario was made.

And it even has "kolonihaver"

It's a really great city map. I played the other scenario built on it: Seizing Ciembienne. Also highly recommended.

Unless the vehicle is hit from the front where the windshield protects the passengers

Anyone here have the problem that shadows flicker on and off when you move the camera? I'm not the only one who has it; I've seen it in AAR videos as well. It's definitely my number one graphical issue with the game ...

Maybe we will see this in an upcoming Rudyard Kipling expansion module? When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains and the women come out to cut up what remains Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your god like a soldier

Well, that disproves my theory I guess. Thanks for testing this out. I wonder what causes the apparent constant "reloading" of textures then.

I'm guessing here, but I could imagine maybe the engine is programmed to automatically switch out resources such as textures and sounds if the player changes the viewpoint a lot? ...and that this behaviour is hardcoded, not taking account if your computer is much more powerful than the hardware available when the game was launched? *shrug*' I don't know. Just seems the sluggishness is much worse when panning around using right mouse button. Using the keyboard to navigate is slower but doesn't make the computer struggle so much as far as I can see.