Bulletpoint

Thanks, interesting link. Though I think it says it's 200-250 psi where death is "usual": https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK202251/table/tab_3_2/?report=objectonly

The only way I can see this happening if the shell was a partial dud, so that only a small portion of the filling actually exploded.. I think that at 20 feet distance, the explosive force of a 155mm shell itself would have been deadly, not to mention any splinters.

Yes. You just select the unit in the transport and give them a move order. They will wait till the transport arrives and stops before starting to move to that location. Yes, you can give a unit orders to move unto a moving transport. I believe the infantry will move to meet the transport at its movement end point.

This is just waiting 15 seconds. Completely different thing.

A way this could be implemented in a simple way would be to add a "Pause Until" button. The first press of the button would make the unit "Pause until shoot", which would mean the unit stays where it is until it shoots, then the next order is carried out. Another press of the button would be "Pause until taking fire" - the unit waits until it takes fire or fire passes close by. Last option could be "Pause until friendly movement" - Unit waits until a selected friendly unit completes its movement path. Just by pressing one button a few times there would be so many tactical options.

Yes, I should have added the explanation for it too. I didn't want to make it seem they just nerfed artillery to annoy people.

I also read an anecdote from D-day where a shell hit very close to a guy, but the sand dune somehow dampened the explosion and he survived. Many things can happen in war. But in CM, artillery has deliberately been made less dangerous than in reality. That's openly admitted by BFC.

People will disagree strongly with this statement, but... I like pizza.

It's not just in CMBN. I found it in CMFB too. Probably it's across the titles. My idea is that maybe it's some feature from the modern titles that has somehow spread into the code of the WW2 games? Or maybe as Rockinharry says, it could be that the guns are somehow stuck in a buggy spotting rounds cycle.

double post

Odd thing in CM: when you look at shell craters, it seems all shells are delay fuzed, because those craters appear when shells are allowed to dig into the ground before exploding. But when shells hit buildings, they burst immediately upon contact, instead of penetrating. So buildings give quite a lot of cover, even against direct hits, which burst harmlessly on the roof.

Finally found it.

CMBN. The bocage in Normandy means battles are usually small and very infantry-focused. Taking 500m of heavy hedgerows can take a long time and a lot of casualties.

Decisions that affect what happens in the game. That seems to be the fundamental thing about whether a game is fun. It's another question whether the game is easy or hard.

No, I don't think he ever made any formal bug report. That's why I thought of doing it now. But can't seem to find the old posts - they were in some side branch of another topic. But I can confirm it's still there in the latest patch of CMFB. Haven't tested out all guns, but 7.5 cm LeiG and 150mm Grille at least.

Well in the dude game, I guess the decisions would be about what kind of voice and attitude to use. But most of the fun would come from being drunk and silly - and doing something a bit embarassing. Arguing about fun, I think part of it is semantics. In my language, we only really use our word for fun about activities or events that are "ha ha funny". Watching a comedy show is fun. Going fishing usually isn't. But in English, 'fun' is more of a broad term for enjoyable activities.

There are actually people who have tried to come up with a theory of what makes a game fun. https://www.amazon.com/Theory-Game-Design-Raph-Koster/dp/1449363210 Long story short, their idea is that all games are about presenting the player with a series of meaningful decisions. If the decisions are not meaningful - important to success or failure - the game is not fun. In a racing game, decisions will be to turn left or right, and how much to accelerate or brake. In Combat Mission, it might be how to assault a hedgerow position or a village - a decision that is in itself broken down into more and more subdecisions. One of the reasons CM is so fun (for a certain type of people like myself) is that it forces me to make a myriad of decisions, and that it punishes me really hard if I overlook something important. The tactical decisions are meaningful.

Also, I find that artillery (and big HE in general) causes much too little physical damage to walls, hedges, etc. Bocage should be quite tough, but not indestructible. Leaving it hanging like a rope bridge across the crater of an airplane bomb is just plain silly.

This bug has been hanging around for a long time - has it been logged? Conducting indirect fire missions from on-map assets (only guns of various sizes, not mortars), rate of fire is extremely slow, but accuracy is extremely high. All weapons fire with the same slow speed and high accuracy, from 75mm German guns to big 150mm howitzers. I know @RockinHarry also noticed this issue previously.

Yes, I've also noticed that artillery is very weak in these games as compared to reality. In CMBN I've seen 150mm airburst just above a scout team of two guys. One got "yellow wounded".

I wish this were better modelled in the game. Even when using HUNT orders, it often takes a very long time for infantry to go prone when fired upon.

400m could also be the stated safety range. In wartime, such things are often taken less seriously, depending on the situation.

Even if you mod it, it will still keep going nearly straight up in the air unless the wind is very strong. I'd like to see more smoke linger more around the ground and affect spotting.

Tank commanders is a separate issue though, and I think they behave so much better now though, compared to some years ago. They duck down much faster when taking close small arms fire. Most if not all tank commanders are now placed so that only the head pokes out of the turret. However, the same cannot be said about many halftracks and other more open vehicles. Here's an example. Notice the small black tube close to his elbow. That's the gun sights. His eye should be looking into that.

Funny thing is that they used to be placed even higher. They lowered him a bit in one of the patches or engine updates, I forget which one. Yes, I recall that. But they are still too high when you look at where their eye level is compared to the weapon sights. Same problem is seen with the gunners of many other vehicles. I've logged some bug reports about some of them but it doesn't seem like it's high on their list to fix. Also when you look at deployed HMGs etc. The weapon is too low compared to the guy firing it. So you get a guy too exposed and a gun maybe too low to get LOF.