Bulletpoint

My impression is that at least some of the performance problems in CM are due to the engine constantly loading and reloading textures, sounds etc. from the harddrive, instead of just caching them on game load. I'm no computer expert, but I base this hunch on how the game often seems to drop down to minimal graphics detail (texture quality/draw distance) for a moment, stuttering a lot, then redrawing the graphics. The problem of general lowish FPS might be some bottlenecks with the geometry rendering stressing the CPU. Which could be the reason we are seeing performance depend so much on single-core speed. I'm wondering if it's partly because of a lack of LOD scaling. Vehicles and trees have levels of detail, but I don't think the infantry have? Which would explain why big city maps such as Aachen with loads of buildings and trees are generally playable, but if I play a couple of battalions on open steppe, performance drops like a stone.

You seem to confuse this game with reality. In reality, hull down is a good thing for any AFV. In this game, it's a bad thing for certain tanks. But play it your way.

Yes, Graviteam has a free moving camera that doesn't affect performance by itself. In CM, when I move the camera rapidly and turn it, I get a quite big performance hit. One example is tank shells and even machine gun tracer bullets hitting the ground at shallow angles and skipping off. You won't see that in CM. The vehicle damage model is also much more advanced than in Combat Mission. Tracks come off, making tanks veer off course, they can spill fuel, and the risk of the tank catching fire is based on the exact percentage of fuel left in the tank, etc. But this is not a sales pitch for Graviteam. Those games have plenty of their own problems too. I was just answering the question about the CM poor graphical performance.

I suggest not too high resolution actually. The CM interface doesn't scale, so if you go hi-res, you'll end up having really small text and buttons on the screen. 1920x1200 should be fine, unless you have an enormous monitor.

Try playing Graviteam games. Smooth performance, insanely complicated calculations. More realistic ballistics than CM. (but worse interface and gameplay) Please stop propagating the myth that the CM performance problems are due to simulation calculations. Those calculations are not going on while the game is paused, but still the performance is the same, whether you pause or not. The honest answer is that CM is based on an ancient engine that does not take advantage of modern CPUs and graphics hardware. And no, that's not an attack on BattleFront. It's just how things are. The only thing you can really do to improve performance is going for a computer with very high single-thread performance. Usually this means going for as many GHz as possible, rather than multiple cores.

I think WW1 is not a good fit for the CM engine. It would be much more suitable for Graviteam games.

The Tiger that took out the Pershing with the broken muzzle break. But please stay on topic. We're going in circles here.

The OP started by writing this in his first post:

If I were facing a reloading Tiger a close range, then yes... I'd take the shot. Being a soldier in WW2 was a lot more dangerous than being a soldier today, and they often took crazy chances. In this case, I don't think the bent muzzle break would do much to stop a 90mm AP round leaving the barrel. A quick HE fuze might be a different question.

Sure. But this thread is about the barrel.

I use Windows Defender on Win10 and I have not noticed any problems with CM in that regard.

Calm down man. I was just making a summary of the claims made in the thread to help keep discussion on topic

I don't know for sure. But anecdotally, I have never noticed very small vehicles such as jeeps being more difficult to spot than large tanks.

True, but I've seen quite a lot of photos of knocked out tanks. They liked taking pics of them, and especially of curious and unusual damage. Several of those pics show barrel penetrations, but only from the side. I can't prove it never happened from the front at shallow angles, but I can only say I've never seen or read any evidence that it did. Possibly. That's what I assume. It's not that every shell digs into the barrel - it just seems to me that too many do, at too shallow an angle.

Which campaign is that?

I think it should be up to the scenario designer. In some cases, it would make sense to have reinforcements arrive immediately, or very soon after triggering.

We completely agree. My point is not that tanks should be invulnerable. I don't think anyone in this thread thinks so. And yes, there are a lot of tanks in most CM scenarios compared to your average WW2 engagement. My point was only that there seems to be a problem with the modelling of the way shells penetrate gun barrels at extremely shallow angles.

I'm not seeing a gun barrel penetrated in this pic. I'm seeing a damaged muzzle brake that would likely not prevent the gun from firing. You might want to read my post again. I was asking for pictures of gun barrels penetrated from the front, not damaged muzzle brakes. It is not helpful to dismiss feedback to improve the game by insinuating players are incompetent. Or by muddling the discussion with strawmen arguments.

Still witing for you or anyone else to show me a photo of a WW2 gun barrel penetrated from the front.

You keep missing the point. Nobody ever said extremely rare events ever happened.

I think it approximates QUICK

When I look at US foreign policy under the last three presidents, to me it seems more like basic incompetence than any realpolitik. The US seems incapable of setting a goal and working long-term to achieve it. You've lost so much credibility - from both friends and enemies - and accomplished so little. And just for the record, I am not anti-american. Bush: Showed the world that the US military is not invincible. It can invade a country but cannot win an occupation that turns into a terror war by proxy. Calling allies to war based on a lie about weapons of mass destruction is a card you can only play once. Obama: Showed that US "red lines" mean nothing. International rules of war - such as using chemical weapons - can be broken with impunity. Trump: Completely unpredictable. One moment he hates the North Korean dictator, next moment they're best buddies. Ready to scrap international agreements on arms control and withdraw from organisations such as the WHO that were important instruments of American soft power. Tore up the Iran nuclear deal without presenting any other real plan for how to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. There used to be an international order, and the US was the leader of that order. There were some years where Russia and China tried to fit in, which would mean democratic reforms, free trade, etc. Countries had a choice between accepting democracy and enjoy wealth, or languish in the swamp of socialism. Now, they realise the US has become a paper tiger, and they have also realised that it's possible to have economic growth without democracy. Not through socialism, but through good old autocracy. That's why they have now changed their strategy to be one of subverting the international order. This weakens the US and Europe immensely.

What article in The Lancet are you referring to? All I can find is an article that links Gulf War Syndrome to a substance given to soldiers as a preventive treatment for potential nerve gas, which was, as far as I know, never used by the Iraqis.

I tried downloading "A Rifle Behind Every Tree", but I get an error message - the file is no longer in the dropbox. Does anyone have the file and want to share?

I doubt the US has a current plan for the invasion of Antarctica... The US likely has plans for how to influence the China/India conflict, but probably not for a Himalaya airdrop.