Bulletpoint

Visiting "Le Ham" on the "Road to Montebourg", I noticed the following problems with the 240mm howitzer artillery, making it seem a bit weak: Shells will not blow away bocage, leaving the hedge hanging across the crater. Shells will not blow away trenches, leaving them hanging across the crater. Shells will be blocked by hitting tree branches, destroying the tree but not producing a crater. Impact on troops under the tree unclear. While mortar bombs did indeed sometimes detonate in the branches, I don't think a 300-pound shell would. Shells will disable a wooden bunker with a direct hit, the bunker will not even start to burn however. There should only be a crater left. Trees disappear readily in the shelled action square, but trees a bit farther from the impact are very unlikely to even lose their leaves. A 2-story brick house took a direct hit but registered no damage - did not even get scratches on the walls.

Yes! No spoilers please But I would like to ask you about the briefing: It says there are minefields "to the north and south of your deployment area", but also that the enemy defensive line runs between the minefields. As the enemy line clearly runs east/west, I suppose the briefing should be "There are minefields to the east and west of your deployment area"? Also, the village on the map is called "Le Val", not "Le Ham". The briefing says the plan is to overcome the defensive line and then direct artillery on Le Ham from the high ground. Is this something I am supposed to imagine will happen after the battle (maybe in the next map), as there doesn't seem to be any high ground on this map, at least not with much usable line of sight (due to hedgerows and trees)...?

I think the most important is probably that you know the computer can use different plans. That way, you know the attack can come from different directions, so you can't just stack all your troops in the best side of the map. It could also be interesting if the scenario designer didn't place every unit at exact points, but rather designated "force areas", so for example could designate that "this area might contain infantry", "this area may contain bunkers".. as a kind of guideline for how the computer should generally deploy, but that you wouldnt know exactly where the enemy would be, or which units, even if you played the map before.

The problem with this particular mission is that I am given a briefing about enemy fortifications being located generally in a line at a specific place on the map. But I don't know where each bunker will be. Now, I had to restart the map a couple of times within a couple of turns, for various reasons (I don't usually do this), so I know where two of the bunkers are. But I don't want to use this ill-gotten information, I feel it would be cheating.

I always try to tend to the wounded, usually by sending back a bazooka team or split off a scout team (from the unit that took the losses usually) to go back and help out. It feels like the right thing to do, and, well, it also helps to have more men fit for fight in future maps I suppose.

I think what I don't like about games is if they require you to follow one specific plan, and where everything has to work out perfectly to win. Say for example that you HAVE to take a specific part of the map in order to flank a bunker to knock out a machinegun. If you don't do it, it will be impossible to win the map. You won't have any other tools for this job than regular infantry. And you only have one guy with a bazooka - if he gets hit you will have to reload, as you won't be able to get close enough for hand grenades. (this just as an example, I know you could scavenge the bazooka..) What I prefer is that it might be best to flank the machinegun, but if you don't realise it, or if you don't succeed, then you still have some chance to win the map, by smoke or by taking another route, but probably with higher casualties.

I didn't mean using it like that, but was asking if it's better to order a heavy barrage at a line target before the map starts, or to initiate a slower point barrage that can later be adjusted to fire at new targets, such as bunkers, as they are spotted by the troops on the ground? Rationale being: It takes a long long time to call in these guns once you're in the fight, so might be clever to pre-register some targets. But then again, you dont exactly know where the enemy fortifications will be.

Thank you, and yes, "Heavy" rate of fire in game-terms (=the maximum rate of fire), plus "Maximum" duration. Seems I had underestimated just how heavy those shells really are. 160kg! But somehow, even a direct hit doesn't destroy even a medium sized bit of hedgerow, even though it's left hanging in empty space across the enormous shell hole. That seems a bit silly What's the best way to use the 240mm guns? A "heavy" line mission with both guns, or a "medium" with just one gun, point target, and adjusting the mission as requiered as targets pop up?

I had the same problem, because I bought the game and installed the latest patch on top directly. The problem comes from the newest patch not including the content of all the previous. You're supposed to install all the patches one by one, but the website doesn't tell you this, as far as I have seen. Actually, I think I read somewhere that you just need the 2.0 patch and then the 2.01, but it's not true.

For the first time, I'm allowed to use 240mm howitzers, but they don't seem to fire corectly. I give the fire-order during setup, but when the game starts, I get the first 2 shells delivered very fast, then a delay of about 2 minutes, then the next two, then another huge delay.. and so on. On the info screen for the howitzers, it shows "firing 63 minutes", though they only have 30 shells in all, and I asked for maximum rate of fire. What gives? Is it because of the matchup level of the spotters? They are a dedicated FO team, but a red cross is desplayed for their matchup level. If their job is specifically to call in this artillery asset, shouldn't they have at least a decent level to match? The very heavy mortars I also have on this map fire their barrage just fine.

It's a philosophical issue, but I suspect a lot of history is determined by chance. Later, we can try to analyse why something happened or didn't happen, but the opposite might also have happened, and then we would be discussing that instead.

WW2 continues to baffle me with its scale, horrors and not least logistics. Lots of questions popping up, sorry if this is a bit ghoulish, but it's about war after all. I have been thinking about what happened with all the dead soldiers. Were they left lying in fields and rubble, or were they gathered and buried, and if so, who did that, if their company had to move on? Who had the task of pulling out charred remains from armoured vehicles? What happened with the enemy dead? And were letters sent home to each fallen soldier's family? If so, who wrote all these letters, was it really the squad leader who took the time from fighting to write individual letters? What if the squad leader was also dead? Did they write truthfully, or did they just make up some heroic propaganda? Did they write individual letters, or did they just use some copy/paste standard ones?

I once snuck a bazooka team behind a Stug and they caused a penetration with their second shot. After a little while, the three crew came out of the tank in good order, and started firing leisurely at the bazooka team with their pistols, killing one of the AT-guys at 86 metres range almost immediately and paralyzing the other with fear. I only saved the day because I had more troops waiting nearby. I just assumed the crew were fanatical nazi marksmen, but in hindsight they might have been robots from the future...

Well, as the guy who burst in here recently, rashly denouncing "amateur" campaign designers, I thought I owed you to say that I am now somewhere towards the end of the Road to Montebourg, and that I have enjoyed the challenge very much so far. Sure, at times I have been very frustrated, but it is very rare that this has not been my own fault. In hindsight, I should really have known better - based on the mission briefing and the map layout.

That has to be a hard letter to write to the folks back home...

I think it's a great way of playing, but sometimes things just happen that are ridiculous. Yesterday for example I tried to send an assault team through a clear gap in a hedgerow, but they refused to cross that point and took the long way around instead. And got shot down for that. I later tried again with another unit, and they also refused to cross the gap. Seems there was an issue with the map, so the gap was shown but didn't really exist.. In those cases, I would be OK with reloading (I didn't though)

I don't like the idea of "play prentend" wire comms. If it's to be in the game, I would prefer to have the option of having a squad leader send one of his men back to the headquarters to fetch the wire roll. You would then have to wait as the guy runs back (along a route you define) and then more slowly rolls out the wire back to the starting point. Once established, the endpoint becomes a C2 link and a nearby platoon leader is able to call in artillery from that area. But really, all in all I would prefer to just have to take care of my radios. "No arms, no cookies", as we say in my country. No radio, no artillery.

That's a great tip, I am often reluctant to use area fire because I think it will "lock up" the targeting of the squad for a full minute, which might be a problem if an enemy MG suddenly opens up. Will try out the TL command more.

That's a bit disappointing to hear. I always kept an eye on the radio operator, thinking that if he went down, so would my ability for fire support. So after a mortar strike, I would check and sigh with relief that it was only the executive officer who got hit. Being a civilian myself, I have no idea what the EO actually does, and I assume he is some paper pushing bureaucrat who tags along to bother, nag and bog down the actual decisions on the battlefield

I think maybe my experience with this mission was a lucky fluke. By setting up ambushes I was able to grind the German advance to a halt - the three AFV's went straight into the line of fire of my AT-gun on the right part of the map, and were destroyed quickly one after the other. The german infantry took some losses from the ambushes, but they could have easily crushed the defenders if they had continued to advance. The right flank was held by three men only, the center by 4 or 5, the main mansion with Turnbull was never approached. None of the victory zones were touched by the Germans, their attack stopped dead in its tracks and eventually the time just ran out and I won a decisive victory. I was surprised, and thought it must be an AI problem of sorts... but maybe it was their poor morale? The story of Turnbull the hero and the short poignant line about him dying the next day from a banal random mortar was food for thought.

No, they have not been under fire. As far as I can see, most of my platoon leaders were just not issued radios... It's "Hell in the Hedgerows" from "The Road to Montebourg". Or maybe the radio operators were killed in a previous map, and were never replaced?

Alright. I thought that GIR stood for Glider Infantry Regiment

Interesting, never thought of that. But then again, I only play against the computer, so that kind of tricks are not needed..

But the suppression effect will be less, as units will have more time to "sober up" between shells?

Yes, that is my point.. you don't know if your "Medium" mission will lob 12 or 18 shells. Speaking of fire missions, any point in using anything but "Heavy"? After all, you want the shells delivered as fast as possible, right? Maybe it's more accurate to fire slower?