Gafford

While I clearly cannot speak for Steve I doubt that was directed at you as a put down. We have had this conversation about Eastern Front vs Western Front many many times and there are people that just will not accept the fact that Western Front games outsell Eastern Front games. You can already see it in other people's answers above.
Steve has had this argument with people before - he has actual sales date to go by. Some Eastern Front fans just don't accept that there are actual reality facts behind Steve's opinion.

Howdy,
Just wanted to post a heads up on a great AAR going on over at Usually Hapless YouTube channel. He is playing against General Sir Anthony, two very accomplished players in a PBEM turn by turn video. If you have not had the chance to watch this (thumbs up) I would highly recommend it. For a novice like myself this is like a classroom exercise on how to play this game, for more experienced player it has much to offer in suspense and just plan old entertainment. Being a minute by minute posting there is a lot of technique and strategy that is explained in each video. A great credit to both the players and the game. When finished this should become a required viewing for anyone interested in learning how this game works with all of its rich and varied game play features.
I will stop now as this is beginning to sound like a fanboy ranting.  Go see for yourself. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRPeh86LD2s
 

Also, the usual "trick" to fire in a direction with prone infantry doesn't work that well with large squads that occupy 2 squares. In most terrain types, prone infantry can't see that far and therefore has problems to fire. So what I do is to area-target a square at a very close distance, and if the terrain is flat, the prone infantry's fire can be very effective even without clear LOS. With large squads, this does not work as well because only the soldiers located on the "primary square" of the unit will fire according to the line of fire. The other soldiers (positioned on the "secondary sqaure") will fire at the targeted square's center from their current position. So you end up with an X fire pattern, with some of the fires deviating about 45° of the intended line of fire.
 
 

I don't know. Like so many things in the game, it's sometimes difficult to distinguish between how the game actually works and how you think it works, based on how you think it should work.

That thought has been echoing around my brain as I have been reading this thread. The real problem I believe lies in we megalomaniac war gamers belief that if only we had perfect control over every action of each of our troops, the world would be forced to concede that we are the greatest general who has ever trod upon his defeated enemies. I watched this kind of micromanagement craze begin and then flourish wildly during the heyday of paper games in the 1970s and 1980s with the growing profusion of "monster games" which reached its apex with The Campaign for North Africa...or whatever it was called. You know, there is a reason why armies have chains of command. There are fairly strict limits on just how much one man can think about and respond to. Generals do not generally concern themselves with the conduct of platoons, that is the job of lieutenants. You have to be able to trust that they in fact perform those jobs adequately. War is chaos, you just have to hope that it is worse for the other guy.
Michael

It was actually, right-click unit, left-click ambush, right-click the arc (in CC3 or later) to position the arc, then left-click again to set it.
Even in CC2 or earlier, you had to right-click the unit, then left-click ambush. That's TWO whole mouse clicks!
OR: You can left-click the unit, and press the "N" key...
OR: You can left-click and drag a bounding box (in CC3 or later), and order all selected units to ambush by pressing the "N" key, or using the two mouse clicks.

But hey, who's counting?

The reason it was important in Close Combat though, was because if you didn't have your troops set to Ambush, they would simply open fire on anything they could see and give away their position, or they would "Act on own initiative" after five minutes of inactivity, and run off at random to get shot in the face.

In Combat Mission, you don't often have the same problems, your men sit right where you tell them to sit, and generally only shoot at things they think they can hurt.

Wait, what are we talking about again? Tank tactics?

Yeah I created a Battlefront folder in my e-mail account. So all my Purchase Orders and Download details are stored safely and are easily accessible.

I already gave you an explanation.
Same here, upgrading to a sophisticated gaming rig didn´t give me that much benefit for CM which already was running fine on my low end systems. Same applies for dozen guys here running CM2 without a problem on mainly notebooks considered "crappy" by modern gaming standards.
Same goes for dozen other games out there. Graviteam Tactics (which surprise surprise runs on modern directx iteration without mac support) also won´t run that much better on a new high end beast and also goes crap when maxed out even on NORAD hardware without looking that much better. So no it isn´t a Combat Mission, OpenGL or whatever exclusive problem or issue and I again call this disputed claim happily B S.
Sure CM2´s engine is far from perfect . However I´ve seen no big performance issues observing it on countless (crappy) systems but people come here and leave melodramatic posts about how cursed the performance allegedly is. Sure there are people with real issues and there is a lot of room for improvement but I am pretty sure many here exaggerate. What I´ve definitely observed are plenty of guys trying to cruise on completely messed CM or system settings in CM2 who then love pointing fingers.
Stating the following won´t earn me Burke´s diplomacy award but in 8/10 cases the main problem is not in the CM2 engine but exists between chair and keyboard.

Hear, hear!

Done...  before I  even got to your post. Trolls like this are a major reason why I rarely post on any forum.  The anonymity of the keyboard gives far too many a presumed right to be asshats  obnoxious.  I'm far from thin-skinned, but I doubt he's spoken with too many people in that vein

This is a really good summary, and has always been my understanding of what Combat Mission is trying to simulate. CM does not simulate the road march, or even the assembly area. CM starts at the line of departure. 
Yes, its true that some battles "spill over" from their initial battlespace and develop into larger battles. For example, the Battle of Mogadishu went from an operation centered around a building with 4 secured corners (essentially a city block) to a sizable chunk of the city itself. CM can simulate this. Instead of having the entire Battle of Mogadishu in one massive map, it is simply broken up into the phases of the battle. The first battle would be centered around the target building. The second would be centered around the Rangers moving from the target building to the first crash site. The third battle would center around securing the first crash site, so on and so forth. Would it be more fun if you could just do everything on one massive map with unlimited time? Arguably. The fact remains, that whether or not this would be fun, it is beyond the scope of Combat Mission. 
Steel Beasts is a fantastic tank sim, and one that I personally enjoy very much. However it is very important to keep in mind what the purpose of that sim is. Most casual players of the sim only fight battles, however this is far from the actual purpose of the sim. Steel Beasts is designed to teach tankers and tank formations how to conduct all possible operations, which includes road marches, how to drive in formation, etc. In fact, the combat in Steel Beasts is secondary to the 'learn to maneuver' element. Steel Beasts has large maps because it wants to simulate both moving to the assembly area, then the attack position, then the line of departure, as well as simulating the actual combat that occurs. Combat Mission is NOT designed to teach the player how to road march a battalion, or how to establish a forward command post, etc. Combat Mission is only designed to simulate the actual fighting. 
The fact is, the vast majority of armored warfare from its first battle to most recently, all happens within an average distance of 1.5km. The average armored engagement in the Gulf War was roughly 1.5km, despite the misconception that much of the tank fighting happened at 4km+. This simply isn't the case. Combat Mission can currently simulate a map that is 4km x 4km. That is more that double the average armored engagement range. Can battles in CM get a little close for space? Of course, especially when you are dealing with modern vehicle heavy formations and you have more than a BN on either side. CM can still do it though, and I have had more than a few battles in modern CM titles at this scale where everything behaved realistically. It's also worth mentioning that CM is not designed to simulate warfare past the BN level. You can do it of course, but you are going beyond what the simulation has been designed to do. You can do the same in Steel Beasts by simulating a division level action. Can you do it? Yes. Is that what the sim was designed for? No. (For the record, I have never tried to simulate a division level action in Steel Beasts, and I'm not even sure it would run on a modern computer)
There are numerous definitions for the term maneuver. There are numerous definitions for the term maneuver that apply exclusively to a specific level of warfare. There are numerous definitions for the specific levels of warfare, and most military forces in the world have different definitions for the same terms based on their own perspective and doctrines of warfare. None of these definitions have agreed upon hard stopping points. Where does the tactical level of combat end and the operational level begin? Someone from the US and Russian military would give you a different answer. Further, someone from the Soviet and Russian military would give you yet another different answer. All of this is irrelevant sauce that DoD analysts and S-2's alike love to get lost in, rarely yielding any results. 
The fact is this: at the level of warfare that CM simulates, there is maneuver. On a 4km x 4km map(or any sized map for that matter), any sized combat element on the battlefield can maneuver to a completely new location on the map. That for all intents and purposes is maneuver at the scale of warfare present in CM. 
Finally, if what CM provides is simply not enough for you, then just don't play it. I personally think CM is the finest tactical combined arms simulator out there, with no other sims/competition coming even slightly close. This does not mean I am not critical. I am no fanboy. There are more than a few posts and threads by me here on the forum to prove this. I wish that everyone who was interested in warfare at this level could appreciate CM for what it is. I wish that everyone who is in the profession of arms could appreciate CM as a valuable conceptual tool of understanding tactical warfare. This isn't the case, and never will be. If CM was perfect in every possible, there would still be people out there who would dislike it. Human nature I suppose. The point is, I hope you can learn to understand what CM offers and appreciate it for what it is. If you can't then that's too bad, but that is due to your own subjectivity, and not a fault of CM.
With that, another Miller essay is in the books, here for everyone to ignore! 😄

I am not a military expert but have played combat mission on and off for more then 3 years. More lately. I started with SF and progressed to BN. My responses to all this.
1 - It is a game. You want a simulator go to the high end stuff, but you’d need a PhD in military science to play it and a computer degree to understand it. I bought a couple of those “games” - not a lot of fun. (Plus most computers can’t handle the number crunching and the crash often)
2. Combat mission was originally designed for war world II - yes things more faster and fire at longer ranges now with more lethal charges to them - so fitting modern warfare into this engine is not optimal but playable (key word “playable” - people are not really dying) Does work better with wwII - more grunts on the ground.
3. There are “wider based” games that call themselves tactical out there - i.e. gravitan , total war, and others (I probably have them all or have played them at some time) They have bigger maps - more maneveurability and are all very good but lose something in the individual commands to troops. Every game I’ve played (started in the 1980’s with text base) give to get. So being a game you get what they say.
4. As for graphics - I think most “casual” gamers (i call myself that and most players are) actually don’t have computers to handle higher graphics. FPS like Steel Beast or Battlefield must have bigger graphics to immerse the person as overall group composition and movement is not as important.  I don’t think many people complain about the graphics - can they be better - I don’t know but my computer wouldn’t handle it. (I know some turn down graphics on most games for playability which to me is first and foremost. (Still the movements are very realistic with no freezes)
Like I said if you’re looking for high end simulations there are a bunch out there - look at HPS - but keep ten books next to you and be ready for crashes. (I recently played in a multiplayer online game like that) each move was taking me 7 hours. Wasn’t a lot of fun. (I think I subconsciencely committed suicide to get out.)
I believe CM is one of the best tactical games I’ve played (more so in WWII. 
Just the a different view from a casual observer.
 
 
 
 
 

Quite simply, the thread should have ended right here.

Every week I hope this will be the week...  ;-)

As noted before Steve has said he will not do this.  As I recall one example he used is suppose you and I are going to play a PBEM.  How do I know you have not edited the ToE?  That was just one example of how this becomes impractical pretty quickly from their view.  CM is not the game you are trying to turn it into.  As with all of us who have wish lists (me included), you have to compromise them based on what CM really is not what you or I wish it was.

Dunno where this idea comes from that Infantry Divisions had no G41/G43. For instance, the 352nd Infanterie-Division of Omaha Beach fame reported 395 G41s in February 1944. These do not show up in the 43 kstn, but IIRC there was an amendment saying that 2 were to be issued to each squad if available.

Cool  look forward to that

Didn't sound like he attacked anybody to me. Sounds like he is trying to bring some positivity to the table in the midst of all the negativity that's been posted lately. But apparently you aren't gonna let the rotten b****** get away with it.
 
Mord.

These slight elevation changes is one thing that COMBAT MISSION does very well imo. They actually do matter  !! (most of the time 😎)..
Other games might look better but very few have a simular level of detail when it comes to these kind of things.

Nice to see CM get some interesting reviews that aren't trying to weight what is good or bad versus this game or that but simply looking at the game and the kinds of issues you can run into.  Hey if Bil feels it is worth chiming in on it, it's a good sign for me.  

I noticed it before Engine 4 was introduced, so i don't think it is that. Whether it comes from an AI plan not taking into account impassable terrain I'm not sure. To be honest, I need all the help I can get playing CMx2, so I'm quite happy to blast rear facing tanks.

LOL you are letting him get to you too much.  You should know by now what he wants - CM should intuitively know exactly what he wants to do with a single mouse click.  All scenarios should be 10,000 sq km maps with recon phases and he should be able to get a total victory while still being challenged by an AI more powerful than Deep Mind. Simple.  Why are you getting so worked up?

Yup, it's a really useful, and very powerful tool. Much better than just doing it by eye.

As with most CM commands, a lot of it is understanding the consequences of the commands - "Slow" isn't just slow movement, it actually means "crawl", "Hide" isn't "Ambush" it's "get down and stay there, whilst one guy occasionally pops up to spot", etc.

It's tough to choose the right level of automation, especially since CM covers quite a few different scales. Battalion sized battles can and should have different concerns to Company and Platoon scale fights, and CM caters for them with the same degree of fidelity - since there are interesting decisions to make on the level of a single *squad*, commanding an entire battalion can be a laborious process.

This command forces you to read the ground, find a good location to site the armour and engage sensibly. Armour tactics, basically. What the automation *does* is it allows a well chosen spot to be used properly by the AI - it lets them take advantage of the micro-terrain in a way that is difficult or impossible for a player, especially one confined to 8m action spots. I certainly couldn't have reliably estimated the correct position to place the tank in the above example, by eye.

Obviously, you don't have to use it. Personally, I think it's a superb addition to the game.