Bulletpoint

No, its not temporary and it's a major issue.
So, the Mod Warehouse and Scenario Depot are completely fine and this is just an issue with the FGM forum.  I went to upgrade the forum software for security issues and was told I would need the latest Mysql - so I went to my hosts who said no problem we will upgrade it for free but it will mean migrating your db to a new db - once it is done all you will need to do is change the config.php file to point to the new db.
Ok...
So, I give it a couple of days and the site is still being copied over.  I raised a ticket saying 'Hey should it take this long?'  They said yeah it can take up to 2 weeks.  
I give them 2 weeks they say they will get their IT specialists in too look at it - couple of hours later they are like ok... all sorted.  Migration complete.
I went - redirected to the new db and it breaks my forum.
Brilliant - raise another ticket.  They said there is no issue.
I go check my phpmyadmin site myself and see that only half the db tables have copied across.  The migration didnt copy them all over.  I then ask them to redo the migration as the files were still there.
Well Ive since checked and the files (my backup) are no longer there and Ive went on a bit of a rant as technically the site is screwed unless they find that removed db.  They have not replied to me in the last 22 hours despite my repeated enquiries.
So as it stands at the minute... they are not replying to me... I think they know someone has fecked up.  Im left with no forum.  For a couple of hundred dollars I can get a specialist in to rebuild the site but there may be issues with it depending what tables have disappeared but the content would be back up.  Or I just rebuild a new forum and we all re-register, it wont cost me $200 but the content wont be there.
Bit of a conundrum.
Let the guys know Im still trying to figure this out.
Shane

I disagree with you for once. 
Per Jefferson: 
"We shall divert through our own Country a branch of commerce which the European States have thought worthy of the most important struggles and sacrifices, and in the event of peace [ending the American Revolution]...we shall form to the American union a barrier against the dangerous extension of the British Province of Canada and add to the Empire of Liberty an extensive and fertile Country thereby converting dangerous Enemies into valuable friends."
In conception and execution, the American project has been imperial from it's start. Modern America has been at pains to obscure that fact but the United States has been an expansionist empire and a relatively liberal one since 1865. Where it differs from the norm signally is in the 'converting dangerous Enemies into valuable friends' part. Relations with Mexico and Canada are, not coincidentally, quite close and extraordinarily friendly given how things began in both cases. Germany, Japan, Italy, Britain, Vietnam, Spain...it's hard to come up with anyone the US fought a hot war with who has not become an ally on paper or de facto. 
America was and still is an empire but with a big difference...it prefers friends to vassals and exerts more soft power than anyone since perhaps Rome (which makes sense given how obsessed the Founders were with what they understood of the Republic). If American wins this round of the global hegemony sweepstakes, it will be because we have leadership who understands this. If we get Trump, we will be carelessly knocking over a key pillar of our power. 

Ngl, CMx2 is very much something from the mid 2000s, and we're now in the mid 2020s. A lot of QoL features which are baked into modern games simply don't exist for CM.
My pet peeve is that it's very difficult and tedious to move units. In a battalion sized scenario in CMCW which I streamed, I had to make over 1000 waypoints in one turn just to get out of my deployment zone and through a chokepoint.

@Bubba883XL
This is the exact first comment you contributed to the conversation:
"sounds like a idiot"
 
What is wrong with you? Turn off your screen and learn how to socialize with people. 
Your claim to be a saint is hilarious when you were the person causing problems. Further, this post on the forums is completely unnecessary. 
To the rest of you - I suggest you do your own investigating before spouting drivel on the matter. 
 
On the subject of hotkeys - yeah theyre absolute garbage and need to be updated. I've already posted about this before on these forums. I said that the wack hotkeys are bound to dissuade people from playing these games. As longtime players of CM, you guys should know that theres a hotkey file that can be altered. And that should be mentioned. 
No other game has a hotkey pattern thats similar to CM. It's inefficent and confusing. It has to go. 

I get what you mean but when it comes to area fire you basically just need to shoot in the rough direction. I try to get it close but I don't think it matters at all.
If I am at rifle range and shoot at a target 150m and you are standing directly behind it at 250 to 300m with nothing else in between you won't be happy. If I have an MG or 9 friends doing the same thing you will be even less happy.
CM models the bullets and they fly until they hit something. Again most of my testing was close quarters forest problems but make no mistake those bullets fly a long way past where the target line finishes EVEN in close terrain when they have a higher chance of hitting things.
The vagaries of CM LOS (typically reverse slope type problems) shouldn't force you to limit area fire because you can't nail the exact action square.

I've posted evidence on these forums WITH hit markers showing that 203mm direct hits to the top abrams armor failed to damage anything other than tracks

You dont need to get a hit on the top of a tank to kill it in real life. 
And the abrams is straight up broken with artillery. Multiple 203mm hits to the top and subsystems arent even damaged... and tank isnt destroyed. 

I don't have LOS with a FO, so he cannot fire, but he can designate that tile as a target, so he has some kind of line of observation.
It would be good to be able to use that "code" (LofO) for MGs (specially HMGs, but ,actually, every unit, including ATs; as the AI is firing with them at everything, anyway). That would be a better use of suppressing fire and solve the "building issue": You see the house in front of you but cannot target the building because of a tree or because you cannot see the "right" part of the building.

It's just broken 

As @Anthony P. rightfully pointed out, there are so many German squads configurations in terms of weaponry and number of men…
As I already stated, I'm only concerned with the 2-LMG, 2-teams, 8-men German squads. No issue with the others whatsoever.
 
I didn't know that, thank you for pointing it out. I have played the Italians only once and it was more than one year ago…
 
Sure, but its not as critical as it may seem. By example, the US rifle squad is divided into three teams, whereas officially there is only one squad leader and one assistant squad leader. Who is supposed to lead the third team? The German squad also has one Gruppenführer and one Stellvertreter Gruppenführer: it's completely similar to the US one. Same for British rifle section.
One can asume that any "specialist" teams (LMG, Tank Hunter, Scouts) has its own "natural" (if not official) leader. AFAIK it's already modelled in the game: generally, when you lose official leaders (squad leader and assistant), the leadership modifier of the squad decreases, reflecting smartly the loss of leadership.
 
Absolutely, but adding a third team to German 8-men team completely fits into the game mechanics.
The possibility to uncombine squads proposed by @chuckdyke, however, probably doesn't. Unfortunately.
 

Hi,
(I post this in CMRT subforum but it basically applies to all WW2 games)
In a previous post I complained about Panzergrenadier squads that I didn't like. Playing again and again with the German, I've discovered that, in fact, I don't like playing with German infantry at all, for the very same reason: their 2-teams squads.
And thinking about it, I really believe that the game fails to model late WW2 German squads. Let me explain myself.
 
From a very broad point of view, one can divide squads into three main categories.
1) The Allied, big squads, that are divided into three teams. They are by far the more flexible.
2) The Russian and Italian squads, that cannot be split or can with potential penalties. Minimal flexibility.
3) The small squads, that are divided in only two teams: mainly the German squads.
There is a very realistic rationale behind the two first types, related to doctrines and the quality of NCOs. By example, Italian NCOs were notoriously bad (as far as I could read), and Russian ones were delegated relatively low initiative. On the opposite, in 1944 the US NCO were well-trained and empowered with more responsibilities.
What about the Germans? As far as I know, they have the reputation to have had the best NCOs during WW2; additionally, more initiative was delegated to lower ranks officiers and NCOs in the Wehrmacht than in any other WW2 armies. While this may not be as true at the end of WW2 than it was at the beginning, one should nevertheless have at least as much flexibility with German squads than with the Western Allies ones.
But in Combat Mission it is not the case. Send German scouts and have them killed, you get stuck with big 6-men squads that are no more flexible at all, and which additionally  are perfect preys for handgrenades, US light mortars or soviet smgs.
From my (limited) experience, it makes the German squads less flexible in attacking that any other (save for the Italians, obviously) army. In defense, it doesn't matter, but when attacking you basically either scout with full teams, or assume the risk of losing squad flexibility forever - which is completely unrealistic.
The solution to what I consider to be an issue is very simple:
Let's file a suit for BFC to split the German squads into 3 teams !!!
(In fact, I believe it would be better and even more realistic not to consider scouts as teams, but that would mean adding a kind of fourth team to all nations and hence heavily modify the game engine).

I don't even think you use the blast command against bunkers? Just getting the engineers close enough should see them throw the demo charge automatically.
But yes, the whole thing about panicked bunker crew or tank crew coming out fighting from a destroyed vehicle is just silly.

@Bulletpoint Beat me to it. He's spot on with both his "points".

God I like this game…
(Whining mod start)
But there are a few things that make me crazy. One of those is the "Blast" command. Having it as a move command is really a bad, bas, VERY idea. It leads to so many stupid situations!!!
The last one in my case: busting a bunker with the Blast order. Once the bunker gets blasted and destroyed, the blasting unit runs like crazy against the bunker wall. Obviously, the bunker inoccupants get out, but whereas the bunker busting unit shall have ambushed them, the fight turns into a senseless melee and the bunker inoccupants gain the upper hand !!! (They got shot by other units in the vivinity, but the blasting team got wiped out). Completely irrealistic (I mean, it could happen, but it happens in CM nearly every time…)
Not the first time and certainly not the last, but the "Blast" command is certainly one of the first command to revamp!
(End of whining mod…)

Yes, that is what I realised after writing the first reply. Everything looks like it works perfectly as long as you are inside the editor, but the moment you actually play the scenario, the problems appear as you described.
The FO cannot call in the mortars as long as he is out of C2. This works as excpected. But the mortar section leader can call in the mortars even when he is out of C2 and far from the mortars. This does not work as expected. All commanders can call in mortars over radio while moving, this also doesn't work as expected. But it's unrelated to the problem you reported. I recommend that you report this as a bug. I don't think any beta tester will realise that this thread is about a bug, since the word "bug" does not appear in the title, so they will probably not see it.

Yes that's my point. C2 is not enough (apparently not even necessary), radio shall be close enough.
I've not tested whether the radio must belong to the command chain or if any radio can do the job.

Not sure what you mean by "in C2."
In my test, C2 doesn't matter. If the Platoon HQ (Radio) is not close enough from the mortars (e.g., a couple of tiles), NO indirect fire allowed, even if in C2.
In my understanding, for a mortar to be in C2 he must see or hear its Section HQ, not Platoon HQ.
According to my tests, It's only the presence of the platoon HQ radio in the immediate vicinity of the mortars which allows to use them for indirect fire, not the C2 status of the mortars.

I've always found that 81mm German mortars are a pain to use so I made a quick test (which should work for any of the three other WW2 games as the 81 mm platoon structure is similar).
The unit structure of the infantry battalion's mortars is the following:
   Company HQ (radio)
    - Platoon HQ (radio)
    -- Section HQ (no radio)
    --- Mortar squad (no radio)
(There are two sections per platoon and two mortar squads per section, but it doesn't matter for the test).
I tried to call for the mortars indirect fire using either any of the HQs above or a FO attached to the company.
It appears that there is only one condition to be able to do so: the platoon HQ must be placed next to the mortar squads.
Section HQ have no importance in the process, they can be at home drinking a fresh beer, which means mortars' C2 status has no influence on its hability to fire.
 
It leads to a weird situation: as long as the platoon HQ is next to the mortar squads, you can have the radioless Sections HQ out of view of the mortars, calling indirect fire !!!
So the fact that the Section HQ has no radio forbids it to call for indirect fire if the platoon HQ is too far from the mortars, but the Section HQ can be on Mars or Venus and still call for its own mortars's indirect fire through some mysterious channel?! Weird, weird, weird…

Q: What is a Flavor Object disaster?
A: It is flavor objects appearing randomly at unassigned locations and/or one type of flavor object replacing another.
Q: How does it happen?
A: There are two causes both relating to the underlying code which we need not go into to avoid the problem.
A1: When a master map has been created with flavor objects and that map is cut into smaller pieces for use as a scenario map, the flavor objects positioned on the discarded portion of the map may or will attempt to reposition themselves on the scenario portion of the map.
Solution 1: Do not position flavor objects on a Master Map.
A2: When a map has been created using modded flavor objects that increase the number of objects over the vanilla number (e.g. Mech Gato's tall tree stumps) and that map is loaded into an unmodded vanilla game, the game will be unable to find the additional object and will substitute a vanilla object. For example, Mech Gato's tall tree stump might be replaced by a tool shed or telphone pole. If the map is saved in this condition the situation will be permanent, irreversible.
Solution 2a: Create all maps exclusively in vanilla with vanilla flavor objects, or
Solution 2b: Include a WARNING with the map and/or scenario that specific mods must be installed to  use the map/scenario AND include those mods for d/l with the map/scenario.

Gents, the other day I found this documentary about the last weeks of the war in Westfalia. Basically from crossing the Rhine to closing the Ruhr pocket at Lippstadt. So, perfect for a not yet covered aspect of Downfall.
The docu is based on pictures and films taken by the US Signal Corps and narrated in German. It has been produced by the Landschaftsverband Westfalen Lippe, a public organization, tasked to suport communities in public welfare, social, education and health topics. So, it is certainly a serious documentary.
Though the docu is obviously quite general and "high level", I found it quite interesting in many details. Having some structural engineering background, I liked the sequence with the pre-assembled modules used for temporary bridges. I´ve never seen those before.
And, of course, the "look" of buildings and countryside in the area should be helpful for modding.
You can find the movie on YouTube, in eleven 5-minute clips, or get the whole thing here:
https://westfalen-medien-shop.lwl.org/dvds/93/dvd-als-die-amerikaner-kamen?c=8
The LWL sells the docu on DVD for little money, but also offers a free download option. One needs to register, though.

 

Come on mate. It's not too late and the weather is great.
Summer is here and the pub is near so your mission is clear.
Forget the game and all those flicks. 'Tis the time to go out with chicks

I sit alone, my sighs unheard,
A lonely, sad computer nerd.
The tears I cry, they silently glisten,
Shed for no news of Combat Mission.

Again, here is the thing…maybe they were.  We never tested our c-ATGM doctrines beyond exercises in Europe…and shockingly the mighty tank (we had spent billions on) was still relevant.  Much like the lessons observed in the wars leading up to WW1 we basically ignored stuff that did not fit our model.  If that model was never truly tested, and it wasn’t, then one cannot simply say “ well tanks were relevant because we kept using them”.  I mean, sure, human history of warfare is not full of examples of us hanging onto military capability well past its expiry date…he says reading about cavalry wearing shiny armor in WW1.
And then there is the inconvenient fact that ATGM technology developed a lot in the last 50 years while the tank really hasn’t evolved that much.  We stuck on some better armor and a computer in the gun.  They also got larger, heavier and burn more gas.  APS was about the only major development and it is lagging ATGM capability, let alone drones.
Then in 1991 we had one of the largest confirmation bias events in military history.  We looked at the Gulf War and said “the system works!”  While conveniently missing the fact that the Gulf War was not a peer-on-peer conflict.  We beat up a one eyed goat with developmental challenges and went “see, now let’s spend another few trillion on this stuff.”
And then when we saw weird stuff happening in places like Chechnya, Nagorno Karbak, and Ukraine…we went “silly Soviet doctrine”.  So going all the way back to the last real peer on peer tank actions we see the major impact of small, smart and precise missiles and go “meh, Israel still won and we kept using them…so they must still work.”
Tanks may have been put on the endangered species list back in 1973 but we ignored it.  Here we are in 2024 watching all sorts of weird evidence over a two year period and the analysis is still. “Meh, Ukraine is winning enough…they must still work…we will keep using them.”  Probably the last thing Austro-Hungarian Cavalry said after shining their breast plates in 1914.
For me this war is an Ostfreisland moment, and frankly I think it is for most modern militaries.  And what happens next will likely follow the same pattern:
”The leadership of the US Navy, however, was outraged by Mitchell's handling of the tests; the 2,000 lb bombs had not been sanctioned by the Navy, which had set the rules for the engagement. Mitchell's bombers had also not allowed inspectors aboard the ship between bombing runs as stipulated by the Navy. The joint Army–Navy report on the tests, issued a month later and signed by General John J. Pershing, stated that "the battleship is still the backbone of the fleet."[62] Mitchell wrote his own, contradictory account of the tests, which was then leaked to the press. The sinking of the battleship sparked great controversy in the American public sphere; Mitchell's supporters exaggerated the significance of the tests by falsely claiming Ostfriesland to be an unsinkable "super-battleship" and that "old sea dogs ... wept aloud."[62] Senator William Borah argued that the tests had rendered battleships obsolete. Mitchell was widely supported in the press, though his increasingly combative tactics eventually resulted in a court-martial for insubordination that forced him to retire from the military.[63]”
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Ostfriesland

I just don’t like being in a propaganda bubble. I like to listen to different opinions

On that, I sometimes think about it. That even in the event of russian  nukes, the West won't reply nuclear and risk mutual annihilation. But imo Russia will never strike outside Ukraine. This is their only playground. 
In that (unlikely) scenario, NATO will probably send all their airforce in Ukraine and strike mercilessly russian forces. If they don't and agree to ceasefire to save humanity and accept split of Ukraine then the nuclear drop will stay in history ala Hiroshima and Nagasaki and maybe some "smart" people will say :
"Putin dropped the bomb and with that way he saved 1 million of lives and ended the war"