MOS:96B2P

Welcome to the world of Combat Mission testing my friend. I often replay an event from different angles and conduct multiple re-tests. Sometimes I find the cause of an incident is different than I originally thought. I generally save every turn when testing so I can refer back to it and share it to get the opinions of other testers. The important thing is you are testing and contributing to the forum. Thank you. +1 to your original post which has useful information. It seems you are interested in engineers and how they work. Below are some of my notes on Engineers you might find useful: Engineers can Mark Mines in the same action spot as the mines or from an adjacent action spot. Engineers can Mark a friendly minefield. 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) Regular engineers, that are not suppressed, can mark one minefield action spot in 3-4 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. Friendly mines will destroy friendly troops and vehicles. Mines cannot be placed on bridges. They can go in the river bottom under the bridge but have no effect on bridge traffic. AT and AP mines can be placed in deep water/deep ford/shallow ford and will detonate when a vehicle or infantry pass through the A/S. US Breach 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 have a cumulative effect on vehicle mobility. ie: Number of Action Spots a vehicle can generally cross in an AP Minefield before immobilization: Armor= 2 A/S, light Armor= 1 A/S, Transport= Destroyed. Red sign with a skull and crossbones = Active non-marked minefield. Off white sign (yellow in CMBS) with a skull and crossbones = A marked minefield. Green sign with a white X = Neutralized minefield (all mines detonated) Demo charges can be used to breach floors/ceilings but is impractical. There is always a passage (staircase) between floors so it is unnecessary to create a passage. OpFor can shoot through floors at the breach team. Try never to have a Blast order that incorporates "natural" troop holes. (If you blast a vehicle size hole in bocage, that includes a pre-existing natural troop hole, your vehicles may still not be able to traverse it.) When using demos outside you may use Face command with Blast waypoints. (Face command inside is not reliable) To use demos inside locate Blast waypoint on other side of wall. Including exterior above ground level walls. Engineer squads need to be split into teams or they will use multiple demo charges for a single breach. Test040517 In CMBS Breach kits (carried by non-engineers) can only be used to breach walls/buildings but not used against vehicles or barbwire. Engineer teams that are not suppressed have the following Blast times: Regular 15sec, Veteran 10sec, Conscript 37sec. Engineer teams can shoot while executing a Blast order. The time to Blast is not effected. Test040617 Non-engineer teams, with demo charges, don’t follow the standard engineer time limits for blasting.

+1. More excellent work.

I can't replicate it. I tried with them spotting and not spotting the friendly unit. CMFI v2.11 on Iron. I also did quick tests in CMRT and CMBN using US portable flamethrower & a German tracked flamethrower.

If I'm understanding this correctly; casualties caused by friendly fire from a flamethrower. Which CM title are you seeing this in? Also which flamethrower?

T-34/85 platoon in the counter Recon role.

No, sorry my friend. I have never seen that happen. @Schrullenhaft might have some ideas on what causes this.

It sounds like it is probably working as intended. If you are allowing your troops to "fire at will" or you are giving them a Target command (red line) on the OpFor teams what you are describing will happen. For the reasons explained above. Constant Area Fire is needed to suppress and maintain suppression. I often Target the action spot in front of the building or target the building. Don't target the OpFor teams (in this particular situation). Yes there are two general choices. The first is lead broom from a distance until the building is brought down or the OpFor displace or die in place. The second choice (when you don't have the ability for #1) is heavy suppression and close & hose. Both options need constant Area Fire and will use up lots of ammo. Nine turns is a long time to us players. In pixeltroopen game time that is only nine minutes. So it sounds like nine minutes of sporadic fire has been used. Five minutes of constant fire with enough weapons will generally get the desired result.

Depends on the vehicle. Also the wording can vary some. It sometimes says Wpn Controls. What vehicle is it?

That does sound frustrating. The below might be what is happening and how to get at the OpFor. Area fire is needed for suppression. If you Target an OpFor team, they'll duck. Then, with them out of LOS, your men will stop shooting, their morale will recover, they will pop up and shoot your guys, in turn your guys will shoot at them, they'll duck, recover, repeat. Area target will keep the incoming fire at their location even when they are out of LOS. This also gives you the option to move another team into grenade range while the OpFor team is suppressed. Also It takes approximately 30 seconds for a Pinned unit to recover once fire stops being directed at them. And Hand grenade range is 3 Action Spots but only 1 A/S for buildings (must be next to the building).

+1

+1. Thanks, John. Interesting stuff. CM Fulda Gap!!!!

The screenshots are from CM Red Thunder but they show some flamethrowers at work in the game.

This come up once in a while. A BLAST command shows as a QUICK move order. Workaround: If your first BLAST command turns into a QUICK move on placement, select the waypoint and hit the BLAST command again. It should change and stay a BLAST command.

+1 OUCH!!!

+1 Well played.

HQ Runner horizontally delivers tentative contact information to a squad that is out of C2. Every Platoon in the scenario has a 50% tank hunter team assigned as a runner. This is for players who want to use Hard-Cat C2 Rules v2. Or they can just hunt tanks. On the march.

The only surviving crew member of a PSW 223 walks to the rear as other platoons head for the front to fight on information provided by his recon. MP44 in action.

This is my experience also. If not through the bocage they could throw over the bocage like they do with tall walls. Below, in italics, is a post by @RockinHarry that describes throwing grenades over a tall wall. I paraphrased the post. You can get frags thrown over a high wall by simple use of short range (~10m) area fire beyond a wall. You´ll either receive a blue or grey targeting line, indicating that as long as a unit has a weapon able to reach over a wall (grenades!) it will use them, although the unit can´t actually see the area beyond a wall. The targeting unit’s soldiers attempt to area fire with rifles and such, but can´t. The game mechanic cycles through available weapons until a grenade is selected and then thrown. That means you need to wait until the game picks a random grenade throw from the area target cycle. Below is the drill for "Fire in the Hole" (grenades over a tall wall). 1. Quick a team, with hand grenades, to an A/S along the wall opposite the OpFor. 2. Highlight waypoint & give team a Target order over the wall. Notes: The AI will sometimes allow you to Target over the wall from 3 A/S (hand grenade range). The most reliable location is next to the wall. Smoke grenades can also be thrown over a wall.

The only exception I have seen is throwing grenades at open top vehicles from an upper floor. However, there must be the occasional exception since you witnessed it. For SOPs in drills I try to use what works best most of the time. When I find new / better information (often on this forum) I test it and see if it will work most of the time. I then modify the drill if the new information can be made to work most of time. I think it is fair to say for the best results, most of the time, in CQB vs Armor the infantry need to exit the building. I would never say 100% but probably 95% . Speaking of grenades check out the grenade chucking contest below. Somewhere on the eastern front.

Below, in italics, is a post by @YankeeDog that I have always found useful. Infantry will not attempt to close assault vehicles from inside a building; you have to order them outside. Also, NEVER give infantry a TARGET order if you want them to close assault a vehicle or bunker. The TARGET order tells a unit to use whatever weapons it has against the target, regardless of effectiveness. This can be useful, e.g., when you want a unit to shoot small arms at a tank from one direction to distract it, while another unit assaults the tank from a different direction. But the close assaulting unit should be left to make its own targeting decisions. Possibly a short cover arc to prevent it from engaging other, more distant enemy, but nothing more than this. Generally speaking, as long as an infantry unit is in good order and has hand grenades, it will use them on any armor or bunker that is in grenade range. Rule of thumb; a fire team must be outside a building to close assault. However grenades and demo charges will get thrown from the upper floors on to open topped vehicles. Below is my Grenade CQB vs Armor: 1. Use a fire team with a lot of hand grenades (typically an assault team). The fewer grenades the AI has it seems more reluctant to use them. 2. Give fire team a 360oTarget Arc1 of 24 meters. 3. Exit building. (teams must be outside to close assault vehicle) 4. Fast fire team to within 2 A/S of the flank or rear of the tank. 5. On their own the team will throw grenades. 6. Prepare for the tank crew to dismount shooting. (When they bail it will be like the OK Corral ) Notes: 1) An Armor Target Arc will not allow the fire team to fire on the bailed out tank crew.

I've not played this scenario but did open it. Some heavy off map artillery can only be requested by an FO. Even a HQ team can't request very heavy off map assets. In the CM WW 2 titles a scout can't request any artillery, on or off map. It seems all your heavy off map requests could be handled by only one team in this scenario. However, during Setup phase the FO team can request multiple fire missions from multiple assets against different targets. So the first turn all your assets could start firing at different targeted areas. I might give all the heavy off map assets a light mission with maximum duration against the likely OpFor avenues of approach. Then adjust during the mission. Be aware this adjustment will cause problems in some CM titles. This is because if you adjust one mission all the original (setup fire missions from the same spotter) fire missions will adjust onto the same new target. However the last I knew CMFI, CMSF & CMA did not have this problem. CMBN, CMRT, CMFB & CMBS did have this problem. If CMFI does now also have this problem I would probably still do the above. It's the only way to get all heavy off map assets firing on turn one in this scenario.

You can Acquire ammo and/or Share ammo. To Acquire ammo a team needs to be in a vehicle with ammo or in the same action spot of an ammo dump. Acquire allows for the taking of thousands of rounds and AT weapons. The vehicle does not have to be in the same platoon as the Acquiring fire team. Ammo sharing distance is two action spots (about 16 meters). Ammo sharing only takes place within an organizational unit (whatever highlights when you click that unit is a more practical definition). Basically ammo sharing is within the same platoon and within 16 meters. Sharing is done in small amounts, about a magazine at a time as @Erwin said. Probably the easiest way to observe ammo sharing is to move a mortar ammo bearer team (with mortar rounds) to within 16 meters of the mortar. Then move the ammo bearers away. In the user interface for the mortar you will see the number of mortar rounds available to the mortar team increase and decrease as the ammo bearers move in and out of ammo sharing range. In some cases a vehicle parked next to a building can share ammo with a fire team inside the building. For the fire team to Acquire ammo from that same vehicle they would need to enter the vehicle.

Here is one link. The mod works in all titles. http://cmmodsiii.greenasjade.net/?p=6150

There are mods that turn the casualty base into a puddle of blood like below: There is also the wounded mod which shows some bloody bandages.

You need LOS to detonate the IED regardless of type. You also need LOS for activation of Radio IEDs. The triggerman needs LOS and has to be within proper range of the device (the three device types have different ranges). The triggerman can't be "panicked". If the triggerman is suppressed to the extent that his LOS, to the device, is broken (fetal position behind a low wall) he will not be able to detonate. If the triggerman cannot activate the IED the Target command won't be available. If the IED is a dud then instead of showing Medium Radio IED (Activated) it will show Medium Radio IED (Malfunction). An IED can be activated and detonated by any triggerman. Example: A Wire triggerman can activate and/or detonate a cell or radio IED. Some vehicles carry radio/cell IED jammers so you can't send a signal to your bomb to explode as it passes. Only wire IEDs work on those vehicles. Bradleys & Strykers don’t have ECM jammers. Some UK vehicles have the ECM jammer (don't remember which ones). And just because I have these screenshots in my Imgur account. Small, medium, large & huge. Wire, cell or radio. And don't forget VBIEDs