Bulletpoint

Also, have any of you noticed the things that look like gun ports on the sides of some of the halftracks? Especially the one that has the number "132".

Is it just me, or does it look like their butts are levitating over the seats? From the war photos, it seems like only half their helmets should poke over the edge, so that their eyes would just be above the rim if they straighten up (and probably the whole head behind the armour if they slump just a little)

When I deploy before the game begins, there's an issue with all teams that have a light machinegun: Every time I move such team to a new location, the guy who's not the gunner decides to then crawl to the other side of the gunner. This happens on every reposition, and on every change of facing. Other teams are not affected: HQ teams, half squads (without LMG), tank hunter teams, scout teams... they all just instantly click into place and stay there. The problem with this crawling is that I have to wait till the guy's done ith his crawl before I can check LOS from the new position. While he's crawling, LOS will show as grey line, even though once he stops, it will sometimes turn to blue. The crawling wastes a lot of time during setup, because usually there will be many potential spots to check LOS from. Am I the only one to have or notice this issue?

I keep AA on in the game settings, it doesn't really cause me any performance hit - I believe it's because like shadows and shaders, these are all effects done by the GPU, and whatever keeps performance back is likely on the CPU side of things.

You might be right, but apparently that CPU works fine for CM, so if you're not going to get more performance from a better CPU, why pay more? (if we say we're building this computer ONLY to play CM of course). As @aleader said:

I think you're right. if we imagine that the troops are standing up and keeping one arm outside the halftrack to steady themselves as it rolls along. Incoming bullets might hit the side and get deflected upwards, hitting the arm and elbow, but would be stopped by a wooden log. And the log would give support to the elbow, giving something to lean on for balance.

It looks really roomy, would a man's head really poke above the amour when sitting on one of those benches? Even if trying to sit as straight as possible...

You could always hook up the computer to a TV and have a friend over. Before the internet, when I was a kid, I used to play a lot of computer strategy games with my friends, looking at the same screen and discussing what to do. We played X-com ('UFO: Enemy Unknown' in Europe) for example.

There will be a 1-vehicle pack containing only that schwimmwagen. Then a scenario pack where you are stranded (literally!) behind enemy lines...

I don't think anybody really knows for sure.

Thanks @RockinHarry, very interesting stuff.

Even though you can't set anything on fire with WP, I think it will still cause some damage to exposed infantry. But I read somewhere (in a patch note?) that this damage was turned down, so I'm not sure how effective it might be. Always wondered about it and never got around to actually test it.

Graphics stay the same when you look at tanks and soldiers really up close, but lower detail settings mean that stuff farther from the camera will lose detail. I also have a quite powerful computer, but I prefer to keep detail setting to "improved", which is just one notch higher than "balanced". Shadows and shaders I keep on, as I find them very important for the graphics, and also because they don't seem to impact my performance too much.

Ah, of course. Hadn't thought of that But still it will be 15 seconds against target point 1, then 15 against point 2, etc.. rather than sweeping bursts.

It's a topic that keeps getting asked, because most people are getting quite poor performance, despite powerful hardware. Try doing a forum search and reading the discussions, that will give you a good start. My belief is that to get the best performance from CM, you'd need a stationary computer with a CPU that has few cores but is able to turn up clockspeed a lot. Then you add a big fat cooler to it and overclock it as much as possible. This cheap CPU is probably perfect, because it will overclock a lot, but you'd need to spend money on good cooling: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pentium-g3258-b81-cheap-overclocking,3888.html

Wouldn't that be 4 targets per minute? Or am I overlooking something here?

While I generally agree with most of you sensible people, I must say I have also often seen some people act a bit rude and dismissive to those who raise issues with the game or ask for change. Using words like "whiner" or "moaner", portraying people with requests as ridiculous children who stamp their feet and demand that BF cater to their every whim, etc... It's rarely warranted. Sometimes, the tone of the debate seems like in the schoolyard, when there's a conflict involving the "popular" kid, and several other kids will jump to his defense. I wonder how asking for improvements to a game can raise such passion. I think deep down we all have a list of things we personally would like to see improved or changed with the game, but that doesn't mean that most of us are immature or unreasonable, even if our lists don't exactly match.

Definitely reducing realism, but there are many aspects of the game that have lower realism levels. Tank turning speeds for example. Spotting ability against hidden rifle shooters at hundreds of metres. Direct hits from artillery being very weak. Hand grenades going off among groups of running troops causing no casualties. A soldier getting hit by 10 bullets going straight through his body without dying (ok, this last one I actually formally reported as a bug, I don't see how it could be a design decision). I see where you're coming from though, as I also like to play devil's advocate...

I think what some people forget is that machineguns on halftracks would be highly effective at suppressing the enemy as you drive forward. In the game, you can't suppress more than a single square at a time (with a small effect in adjacent squares). And suppression effect evaporates quickly. I guess if halftracks were ever succesful in an assault, it was when used in a line and advancing while dealing out heavy suppression fire, which we cannot really recreate in the game. I don't think they were always succesful in this kind of assault, but I think they probably sometimes were used like this, and that it sometimes worked well. Especially against lower quality troops, suffering from confusion, low morale, and poor leadership.

It can actually hurt, because the time you're fiddling around with the faust could be used to shoot dead the enemy with your rifle... at 50 m distance you can hardly miss. But if the enemy is inside hard cover, then I agree with you.

The mission is not so tough actually, once you realise it's all about getting across the bridge fast while it's dark. If you wait till daylight it becomes pretty impossible. I think the reason people find it so difficult is that the game graphics show nighttime as a kind of half darkness, so that the player assumes his troops will be vulnerable, and fails to move fast enough.

Haven't been following the AAR, but I think firing panzerfäuste against infantry is a bit silly really..

Definitely agree, but I was talking in the context of the game. In Combat Mission, the shared contact info is always precise to the exact 8x8 metre square. Maybe it should be possible for a FO to call artillery on any enemy contact marker, but with a big hit to accuracy? Not sure if it would be good from a gameplay perspective, as it could become too much a game of luck...

To be fair, often the platoon spots something, and that contact marker then makes its way to the artillery spotter through the C2 network. Once the info arrives, the spotter would be able to pinpoint the enemy position on a map, even if he had no LOS to the location, himself.