ChappyCanuck

I have noticed this phenomena several times and it is maddening. HMG/MMGs seem to act on their own and voluntarily undeploy themselves in buildings. Does anyone know why this happens and how it can be prevented? Thanks

As a student and teacher of Canadian military history, tank riding was quite common in the Canadian army in WW2, whether it was Sicily, Italy, France, Belgium, or the Netherlands. There are dozens of examples of Canadian infantry companies and/or battalions/regiments riding tanks to battle, into battle, and during pursuit ops. Other than some Bren gun carriers/universal carriers (used mainly by the reconnaissance platoon) and trucks for supplies, Canadian infantry regiments for the most part lacked a vehicle/APC to carry them into battle. So in order to keep up with and support the tanks, it was quite common for the infantry to climb aboard them. And for the most part, it worked. Those interested should read Mark Zuehlke's books, detailing the campaigns of the Canadians in WW2. I think he is up to a dozen or so books now, and has emerged as our top historian in the field. All that being said, I highly welcome the ability to ride tanks...finally!

Thanks for the answers!

Hey guys, I have searched the rules on "acquire" but I have a situation here in a PBEM game that I was hoping someone could help me with. One of my mortar teams was destroyed by arty but the mortar and its ammo are still usable. I have another mortar team across the map who will need more rounds soon. If I moved that team over to the destroyed team, can I use "acquire" to pick up the rounds? Or would this happen just by moving over the destroyed crew (redistribution?)? Or will nothing happen? Thanks

sburke - thanks for your post. Again I am not a "techie" so I don't know what draws power and what does not, etc. I have since deleted the turn but if something similar happens again I will definitely send that to you. We all want our forces on the screen to behave the way we intend (and yes I understand actions under fire to be chaotic), but maybe the system should be simplified somehow to behave the way we intend. If I want my HMG to set up, site in and fire out a window, in RL it will generally happen. But with the game as it is now, I am not confident that I can make that happen - sometimes I can, some times I can't...and I have no idea why I can't and when I can't. And that bothers me

AKD - I understand that. But I was in a somewhat perfect tank ambush position and lost without even firing a shot. And if this had just happened once, ok well maybe something happened, like a bee stung my gunner? lol But there seems to be a rash of very wonky things happening (mainly spotting issues) that have caused me to raise my eyebrows on many occasions since I have purchased this game. And I just don't recall CMx1 having the same spotting issues....yes I know I am not supposed to compare those two systems but one worked fine for us. Womble - when I am paying hard earned dollars for a game system that is supposed to accurately portray WW2 combat, then yes I am definitely a glass half full guy. As I stated previously, I do enjoy the improvements, but there are key LOS & spotting issues that are driving me nuts (ie siting MGs, AT guns, etc) No one wants a game system to work more than I do. I thrive on simulations such as this. But I should not be getting frustrated by good tactics going wrong because of some algorithm.

For the record, there is no foliage issue at all for my Panther example...open field, flat as a pancake, engagement range 20-30 meters....the crew knew he was coming by sound and were waiting with fingers on the trigger. Totally focused on a small gap in the bocage line....noisy, high silhouette Sherman drives right up in the gap and brews my Panther....and I still can't see him....I can see no justification for this fault.

Hey guys, I would like to share two experiences that a buddy (retired armour officer) and I (retired infantry officer) observed while playing the awesome battle, "Huzzar!", and both occurred on consecutive turns. We thoroughly enjoy applying the tactics we learned through our careers to this game, so perhaps the occurrences described below may seem more bewildering to us. 1. My three panzergrenadiers were in ambush behind bocage near a gap. A Sherman drove slowly through the gap and they engaged it with 2 grenades. The Sherman stopped on our side of the gap in view (8 meters away). The dust cloud then caught up to the Sherman and obscured it for about 20 seconds - totally realistic. Once the cloud dissipated, the Sherman "reappeared", again 8 meters away, same spot. My "vigilant" soldiers, still on one knee and ready to pounce with their remaining grenades, did nothing. They stared at it. And stared at it...and when the turn came to an end the leader put his binoculars to his eyes. "Hey guys, do you see that tank?" "No sir." "Well then let me have a look with my binoculars". OMG we laughed, it was so ridiculous. End result - all 3 were gunned down next turn. Sure this could be a "lack of will to engage" problem instead of a spotting one (although they were keen on grenading the tank 20 seconds earlier), but putting the binos to the leader's head indicated to us that they couldn't see the tank. 2. My panther, on one side of a bocage line, sound spotted an approaching Sherman on the other side of the bocage line, travelling down the road. My panther was near a gap in the bocage. The crew was opened up, armour arc sighted through the gap, and non-moving. Good bye Sherman, right? Well the high silhouetted, noisy Sherman that was moving across the gap, stopped (invisible to my waiting crew) engaged, and destroyed my panther. WTF? There have been other such occurrences in other battles (my buddy has experienced them also) that just don't make sense to us. And I am sure you folks are having similar issues. We thoroughly enjoy CMx2 for its graphic and certain play-ability improvements (arty system for one), but these spotting irregularities are far too common. In all of the years I have played CMx1, I don't remember these kinds of things happening. And the result is that we are not enjoying CMx2 as much as we should - and its downright frustrating. I am sure you guys have experienced similar things and I may be beating a dead horse here, but why can't spotting be improved to more closely resemble reality? We are not techies in any way, and maybe itis a technical problem, but can't it be solved? And please, no "fog of war" rebuttals. We get that. Cheers!

Thanks Stikkypixie, that was indeed the issue. My friend purchased the game a couple of months after me so he was aware of the v@.12 download patch, while I had missed it entirely. Fixing that now. Thanks for your help!

I believe so, we have just both purchased the game within the last few months and installed the upgrades, etc.....but now that you mention this I will verify. Thanks!

From everything I have ever read, neither Churchill or Roosevelt would accept anything other than absolute unconditional surrender for Germany, whether or not Hitler was alive or dead. Kinda makes it a moot point

Hey guys. I have started my first CMBN PBEM game with a friend. He sent the #2 .ema file back to me...when I download it I cannot see it anywhere within the game. It seems to be invisible. I tried direct downloading the file to both the incoming and saved game file folders. When I look in these folders OUTSIDE of the game, the file is present. But WITHIN the game, it doesn't show anywhere. To make things more bizarre, I placed my #1 .ema file in my incoming file folder and I can view that file....but I can't view his file! Bizarre. Thoughts?

In CMx1, the casualties inflicted by each sub-unit was kept track of and easily accessed. I always found it entertaining, particularly during campaigns, when you had a fave AT gun crew, etc who racked up the kills. As far as I can tell, CMx2 does not keep track of this. Am I wrong or am I just not finding it anywhere. Cheers

well thanks for the clarification guys....I am glad I am not alone on this issue. Sometimes an improvement is not an improvement at all! Hopefully the powers that be will fix this so that soldiers that are hidden with covered arcs will engage without being told to do so. Cheers

Thanks guys. I was under the assumption that being hidden and having a covered arc worked the same as in the CM1 games: the gun crew is placed with good LOS, gun crew hides, gun crew is given an armour covered arc, gun crew unhides by itself and engages any armour that comes within the covered arc. So this is not the case anymore?

Two things. 1. I added a thread called "Bocage Problem" where I properly sited AT guns/MGs behind bocage. I had great lines of site. Then, when I hid them and started the battle, they had zero line of site. ????? 2. I was playing the battle called "A Delaying Action" as the defending Germans. My AT guns were sited and hidden. A troop of four "invisible" Shermans moved along behind the berm in that scenario, paralleling the buildings and road. They then proceeded to shoot up and destroy 4 of my hidden AT guns as well as my infantry soldiers hiding in those buildings. NONE of my soldiers could see these tanks, let alone return fire. It was amazingly stupid. I just sat there while the invisible Shermans shot up everything. There is definitely something wrong there

Thanks Ian. I will try this next time I setup.

interesting...I just clicked on the overall unit when setting up...I am sure this has happened to others before. Anyone else?

Hey folks, I was wondering if you could help me on this. I am playing the defence. During setup, I place an AT gun and MG42 behind bocage. While testing the line of sight behind the bocage, it is good. I start the game and suddenly realise that for both guns, the line of sight is suddenly blocked. What is going on here?

My thanks to the developers for bringing this ability back to the game

you are really blowing this out of proportion...it's soldiers on tanks....and it should be a feature...and it will be soon...over and out

hardly a pet game feature...and if they can figure out how many seconds it takes to deploy a 60mm mortar I am sure they can handle this

Vanir - great to hear they are bringing it back...hopefully they put into the previous games too.

I personally think that many of the questions you pose go far beyond what a CM game brings to the fold. I want my infantry to be able to ride tanks to a battle and I don't care if Private Jones twists an ankle while jumping off or the turret traverse is impeded. Just make it a non issue. I really don't care if the troops missed their "bully beef" issue either. There is detail, and then there is detail. But I don't think that just omitting a battlefield function that was fairly common practice was the way to go and I hope this gets "fixed". Riding trucks or riding tanks...it isn't that difficult to simulate.

Unless BFC is trying to be graphically stunning, I am not sure why they would omit this - it worked fine by me in the first edition games. Having infantry ride tanks is extremely useful for tactical mobility around the battlefield. Obviously they wouldn't ride into a set piece defensive zone, but getting there and/or exploiting a breakthrough was something I used quite often. In real life, I remember my own infantry company/platoons riding Canadian Leopards...what a smooth ride compared to our APC's at the time. We used rope netting to tie our gear onto the rear deck of the tanks and to hang on for the ride. Sweet memories.