MOS:96B2P

LOL No. I have not invested the time to learn how to make and post videos. I'm lucky I can do screenshots. @SLIM is the video guy.

You can open the editor and see what type of arty assets the OpFor had available and then make a informed deduction on what it was that hit you. Another way you can attempt to figure it out is by looking at the crater size. There are four crater sizes and the naming convention for them is a bit strange. As I understand it the craters are Large, Medium, Huge, & Super with Large being the smallest and Super being the biggest. If you look straight down from about zoom level 4 you can determine which of the four crater sizes you have. So for example German 81mm mortars leave a large crater. (I think all medium mortars do but have not tested it that far) German 120mm mortars leave a medium crater (which, is bigger than large). German 105mm howitzers also leave a large crater. However you can tell the difference between arty and mortars because you can see a mortar shell in the air where I think all arty is just the streak of light animation. I have read, on the forum, that you can also tell if the mortar is on or off map by the direction of the facing of the mortar shell in flight. If I remember nose down off map, falling sideways on map. In PBEM games I will sometimes try to figure out what my opponent had and ask him at the end of the game. Kind of a game within a game.

For what it is worth here is my current Flail Tank Drill: 1. Provide security for the flail tank. 2. Ensure at least two open A/S between infantry and flail area. 3. Consider having the flail tank Pop Smoke1. 4. Give flail tank Clear Mines2 order through the suspected minefield. 5. A path should be created of green signs with a white X. All mines detonated. Notes: 1) Wait until next turn for smoke to develop before advancing. A US Sherman Crab can Pop Smoke 3 times. 2) The Clear Mines order will auto button tank & rotate turret to the rear. This order can be activated anywhere, anytime. Some general notes as I understand minefields. Any advice or corrections are welcome. Engineers can Mark Mines in the same action spot as the mines or from an adjacent action spot. If engineers Mark Mines from an adjacent action spot they will crawl into the mine A/S when mine marking is completed. The more eyes in an engineer team the easier to spot mines. (5 man team finds mines easier than a 2 man team) I think. Veteran engineers, that are not suppressed, can mark one minefield action spot in 2-3 minutes. Engineers can most reliably and safely locate unidentified minefields using the Slow command. Marking a minefield substantially reduces the chance of triggering a mine for infantry traversing the minefield. Antitank minefields can be marked but there is no effect. Infantry can traverse them without risk and vehicles don't benefit from marking. Mines cannot be placed on bridges. They can go in the river bottom under the bridge but have no effect. US Breech teams contain engineers and can also mark minefields. Minefields can be neutralized by heavy artillery (150mm+), if it scores a direct hit. Minefields can be neutralized by a blast from a demo charge if there is a blastable obstacle (wire) in the action spot. Anti-personnel mines do not strongly affect vehicles. Red sign with a skull and crossbones = Active non-marked minefield. Off white sign with a skull and crossbones = A marked minefield. Green sign with a white X = Neutralized minefield (all mines detonated)

This would be interesting.

Several years ago @womble posted the below advice about picking units for the AI. I had saved and used this when playing against the AI. I play mostly PBEM now but as far as I know this method still works. I paraphrased some of what womble said below so any mistakes or inaccuracies are mine. When you're picking AI forces yourself, mitigate the "putting units in inappropriate groups" problem is by making sure there are enough formations in the force to have "some of everything" in each group. Rather than picking one Battalion "head", then chopping out everything but the AT platoon (4 guns) and a company (3 rifle platoons and a heavy platoon) of infantry, pick four Battalion headers and chop out everything but one AT gun, some Rifle squads and an MG or two from the Heavy Platoon for each Battalion. AFAICT, the AI assigns alternating Formations to the default 2 groups, and will leave one group empty if you just pick the one Formation. Or if you pick a Formation for infantry and another for Armor, you'll have all the Infantry in one setup zone, following one set of orders, and all the Armor elsewhere, operating according to a different timetable which probably won't support your infantry's route.

Very nice, well written review. Providing links to Combat Mission related websites was a great idea. Now people who are interested are more likely to follow up and do more research on the combat Mission series. You even provided a link to the free demo. Before they know it they will be hooked ................. nice .

I learned this, split teams in a certain order, method from a post womble made a few years back. I can say it works really well. Then in theory at least, the B team (with the MG42) would have helped suppress the AT gun while the A team (with the MP40 and most of the grenades) would have closed and hosed. I do sometimes use split teams for some German squads when the Germans are on defense and have two MG42s in the squad. This gives me two MG42 defensive positions. The reserve (counter attacking German squads) I still split assault team off first since these squads will be running and gunning (attacking) at some time in the fight.

Now that is some interesting outside of the box thinking. My understanding of the ammo in vehicles is that there are up to four kinds of ammo listed in the user interface. I will refer to the four as the vehicle weapons system ammo, extra ammo, crew ammo and passenger ammo (If the vehicle has passengers of course and this is listed only when the passenger unit is clicked on). The ammo count printed in green is for the vehicle’s weapons systems. The ammo count printed in white is the extra supply ammo that can be Acquired by troops. If the vehicle’s ammo runs out the vehicle will take ammo from the extra supply. The crew ammo is listed on the left under unit info panel / ammo. A vehicle will not take crew or passenger ammo. Crew and passengers can’t Acquire vehicle ammo. All can take or Acquire extra supply ammo. So the crew would be able to dismount the tank enter the halftrack and Acquire the ammo. However on returning to the tank the tank would not be able to take the ammo from the crew. If I understand correctly. Just did a quick test. The above appears to be how it works.

Yes!! Very cool. Another CMSF scenario to fight! As soon as our internet finally gets stabilized (lightning strike) I will download this one and give it a spin. Always nice to have a high quality scenario to play.

Yes. This. +1

Hmmm ............... I don't know. Was there an actual change? I know there was some discussion but I don't recall anything definitive. This would be something nice to know and then a follow up question would be, if there was in fact a change, if said change would eventually be introduced into the other titles. My SOP has been speed makes either no difference or so little difference that I travel at the speed I think appropriate for the tactical situation. Typically Fast. Now that was funny!

Wow. Sorry. You guys are correct. It has it right on page 27 of the manual. The same page I copied the PBEM info from. So @yfighter01 you can play the game real time with your friend. I play PBEM and obviously don't have a handle on the real time stuff so before I post inaccurate information again I'm going to go screw up a different thread . @SgtHatred and @kinophile understand the real time game play and know what they are talking about. I would trust both their knowledge and opinions on the subject matter. Off I go .................

This is a great idea. +1 I especially like doing this against the AI. It has the added benefit of helping out the AI and getting yourself a more realistic challenging fight.

LOL. That's funny. I have been out of C2 myself for awhile. The tower that provides internet for our rural area was hit by lightning Tuesday night. They just got it back to working intermittently a few hours ago. So I can confirm ............ no C2 is a bad thing.

There is Real Time play but it is single player vs computer AI.

@Kevin2k reported he has WinXP and the demo worked. So it will work we just need to figure out your particular situation. This computer stuff can be frustrating. I would try what @Ultradave said above and maybe submit a help desk ticket. It hopefully is something simple. An adult beverage or two may help also .

You can play by e-mail (PBEM) and play by LAN/Internet. I play by email so I am not familiar with the LAN/Internet way of playing. If you use PBEM you will want DropBox and CM Helper or DropBox and Who's Turn is it. All three can be found for free. For PBEM on page 27 of the manual. (Page 26 describes LAN/Internet.) Play by Email works exactly like Single-Player Turn-based play, except that once a player completes their commands and actions, a special save game file is generated. The player emails this file to their opponent who loads it on their end, executes their commands, watches the results of the previous turn, then saves a file and returns it to the first player. Here is a more detailed explanation of the process: 1. You pick a Game and are prompted to create a password. This creates Game file 01 which is stored as an Outgoing file. You will find this file in (Title Name)/Games File/Outgoing Email. You send this to your partner. 2. Your Partner gets the 01 file and saves it in his Incoming Email Folder. 3. He starts the game and finds file 01 in the Saved Game portion of the Opening menu. 4. Partner puts in password and a new file 02 will be generated to be sent to you. By saving and swapping these files via email, the players advance the game from turn to turn at a pace that the players can adjust to their liking. The gameplay itself, i.e., the Action Phase, still takes place in real-time - just like in Turn-Based Single Player mode. Note: If the PBEM files are too large for email transfer, you can use a number of free services on the internet allowing you to upload and swap large files online.

Thanks, more interesting information. The Brit. way seems to make a little more sense in the bigger picture. Not sure why we used the S (tradition?) since we always qualified it with the command level of the Intel. shop we were talking about. - 3rd Brigade S2 requests this, 1st Battalion S2 wants that etc...

Very cool! Looking forward to this.

Excellent point. This is a very useful TacSOP. The Slow movement command on the last short leg of the movement works well and made me remember something I noticed about the Hide and Deploy commands. I have been attempting (most of the time successfully) to Slow a team into the last waypoint and Hide the team with the above discussed short Target Arc wedge. Then in theory, when everything is set, cancel the hides and drop the Target Arcs. I recently noticed that when it is a team with a crew served weapon the Deploy and Hide will not work together at the same waypoint on the same turn. The Deploy command seems to cancel the Hide even though both Deploy and Hide toggles will highlight during the command phase. (For awhile I thought I was just forgetting to hit Hide.) So now, when it is still relevant, I come back the turn after deployment is complete and order the unit to Hide.

At the terminal waypoint I have learned to use a short Target Arc in the direction I want the team to face. This gets them facing the correct direction but keeps them from shooting before the entire team is in place and ready. Especially if it is a weapon that also needs to be Deployed. This is not perfect but it is the best way I know to get any team into position (fire team, LMG, HMG etc.).

Interesting. I didn't know that. Always learning new information on the forum.

To add to what @Michael Emrys said: Brigade and Battalion are S1, S2, S3, S4 etc. Army, Corps & Division are G1, G2, G3 etc. And, at least In modern times, the national level equivalent J1, J2, J3, ect........ Not sure if they used the J designation back in WWII.

When playing as the US I do not use drones because the Tunguskas just shoots them down. The US has one drone that can only be hit if it attacks but that one cost to much purchase points to be worth it. So when US no drones. The Russian Zala is a god drone and can only be shot down by AAA which the US does not have. (As a result some PBEM players have house rules against this drone). I have always used area search.

CMFB product detail reads System Requirements MINIMUM: Operating System: Win7/Win8 With Windows 10 recommended. So I would think not. However I am no tech guru. If you are still using Vista for the other CM titles maybe it would work for CMFB? However just based on the product details I am guessing no.