Bulletpoint

I've seen the Panther tank use its close defense weapon against infantry, it's basically an endless stream of little grenades that didn't really seem to be doing anything to my infantry sitting 1 square away. Not even suppressing them. I think you need to get close enough to touch the tank before they cause any harm. And since infantry can throw handgrenades at a tank from 30m distance, I don't see how the tank's self defense would ever really come into play..

I think this may be one of the rare cases where everyone on the forum agrees that a bug is a bug

I think the only way to be sure is to make some tests in an editor - make a row of different houses and shoot 76mm shells at them, and count how many shells it takes.

Hahaha, yes sometimes it took some time to find a good squad, but I had many good experiences after a bit of patience. Even the worst rounds of PR seemed better than the best rounds of non-modded Battlefield at least.

Yes, that is my humble opinion. But foxholes still have use against artillery, it's a pity not more attack/defense scenarios use them, especially for multiplayer where you often have to play pre-planned artillery mind games against your opponent. I think they should be extremely common in any scenario where the defender has had just a bit of time to prepare (unless it's hard frost maybe).

My personal opinion is that yes, troops are too exposed in trenches and foxholes. Half their body is above ground. In real life, the attacker would often have to get close enough to hand grenade each foxhole to clear it out, or use flamethrowers. In the game, you just need to get to some reasonable cover within a couple hundred metres and then let your troops sit there and shoot the enemy when they pop up, like whack-a-mole... eventually the enemy will flee, leaving the safety of their foxholes to run across the open ground and get shot down.

Wow, I didn't even know that. It's been a long time since I played PR. Will definitely keep an eye on it. PR was pretty much the first person shooter equivalent of Combat Mission

Better ruins, where (some) walls stay standing around a ruined lot. Oh, and collapsed buildings generally killing all occupants except in very rare cases. I find it silly to encounter squads happily firing away from the pile of rubble that used to be the house they defended.

Squad looks a lot like the amazing mod called Project Reality for the game Battlefield 2. Highly recommended.

Yes, it's very useful for many things. Also for watching the flank. Or even just to have one more team to create more contact markers for the enemy and cause confusion.

I agree, but often, doctrine meets reality. Maybe as a player, I'm supposed to undeploy the MG team if the combat takes place at close ranges? In that case, the gunner would fire the MG as "semideployed", and the rest of the team would also fire. I guess at very close ranges you don't need the extra accuracy of the mounted machinegun... maybe. I wonder the same thing, until now I just assumed it was a doctrinal difference. Surely if the AI can handle American MG ammo carriers being separate teams, it should also be able to handle the Germans the same way. Or so it seems to me.

They're green with neutral soft factors (neither negative nor positive)... Of course green soldiers are slower to spot and react, but in this case, they had definitely spotted the enemy and were opening up with their machinegun.

Leader, loader and gunner are of course busy But the German MG team has 5 members. I was wondering why the other two guys didn't shoot. If they are trying to keep their eyes open to prevent flanking, that would make sense, but then why are they not looking the other direction instead of looking towards the target?

Apparently not in my current game... maybe they only do so at exreme close range? (in my game the enemy is at around 60-70 metres distance)

I just checked and can confirm that off-map 81mm mortars fall while horizontal until point of impact, while on-map mortar bombs change their orientation in flight (but stay a bit too horizontal). I've now reported it as a bug through official channels and made sure to set priority to VERY HIGH, with a note to please fix this game-breaking bug before any of the issues raised by @Thewood1. Just kidding...

Are there any enemy armour contact markers in the direction where the turret is facing? I'm thinking maybe the tank crew is ignoring your command because they feel threatened from the other direction?

That's interesting (well, to me at least). Will doublecheck later to make sure it's not just me imagining things.

:)

I'm looking forward to your constructive comments on anything you deem worthy to discuss

Would be nice if the ammo fetchers stayed low, and just the gunner and the guy with the binoculars took up position...

Never claimed that the game was broken. It's obviously a pretty insignificant bug. I just wondered if I'm the only one seeing this.

I just noticed something odd: When you have a deployed machinegun and it spots an enemy, only the actual machinegun opens fire. The rest of the team just stands around, even though they would have a clear shot with their rifles. Although they run to windows to take up positions as if to open fire, they never do. Is this intentional, and if so, why?

I like to think so too, but I'm pretty sure somebody did a test of this and found that movement speed makes no difference to bogging risk. Was it @IanL maybe?

Oh, by no means. Balancing risk and reward is what makes good gameplay, as I see it. I would also like to see tanks able to go through tall walls and low bocage, but with a bigger risk of getting immobilised than when going through low walls and fences. Again, risk and reward.

But there is already a risk of getting a tank immobilized while going through fences and forests, and even a (tiny) risk while driving over clear, open, dry ground. I haven't seen any outcry over any of that. Why assume that players are unreasonable? The vast majority of people here seem very rational to me. And even if there are one or two players who do throw a tantrum, well, why should that stop the game from improving? It wouldn't be the first time someone disagreed with BattleFront's game design, I don't think they would lose any sleep over it..