domfluff

Good to hear man, you've been missed.

When I've run spotting tests with drones, the results have varied wildly between identical tests. Vehicles are reliably easier to spot than infantry, and moving vehicles are easier to spot than stationary ones, but that's all generalisations - I've had the same tests spot the stationary infantry long before the adjacent vehicles, and so forth. Based on that experience, I suspect that there's enough noise to obfuscate any differences between roles.

They get improved spotting. Judging how much is tough, naturally, since it's hard to figure out spotting mechanics precisely, but they are better at doing so. The Radar is a component of the BRM, which can be degraded or destroyed. There's no other component in CM which is listed for no effect - if nothing else, that's a big clue The purpose of the vehicle then is to use a combination of the radar and Constellation 2 to spot and share spotting contacts across the recon company.

I suspect the modelling in CM is pretty good on that front - the smaller crew in the Firefly will make spotting worse over the 76mm Sherman, I wouldn't be surprised if loading times were lower too. From subjective experience, I'm pretty certain the 17 pdr is less accurate than the 76mm and (most importantly) if you set the date to June 1944, you have access to Firefly, and not the 76mm.

It's not *just* WYSIWYG, and that's an important distinction. We know, for example, that line of sight and line of fire work differently. That line of sight is based on a system similar to Advanced Squad Leader, with intervening terrain tiles abstracting "hindrance", but the actual firing solution is calculated 1:1. The results of a hit are then subject to abstraction, including what we assume to be some kind of "saving throw". This flitting between 1:1 representation and abstraction is something of an ugly marriage - it'd definitely be easier to abstract more and represent less, since having a man to man representation means you can see when things don't play out as assumed (like moving into the "wrong" door).

The actual low-level TacAI will work the same for all forces, but that's not actually a problem - that comes down to things like when to throw grenades, what cover to take, or what weapon to use against a tank. The higher level stuff is scripted, so the real question is "How much do scenario designers understand different forces?" Clearly that's going to vary, but the combined experience is generally good to great there.

It's a really old reference - I'd not be surprised if it was unusual in the 1940s as well.

From 29: A "Mooncalf" is a foolish person. Term is derived from aborted/miscarried cow fetuses, which are obviously viscerally unpleasant and apparently random events, so obviously ascribed to the moon, being witchy and such. e.g., Stephano to Caliban in the Tempest:

Couple of thoughts from the above: - In the modern titles the soldiers are carry a lot more kit, and will tire out more. Unrealistic? Possibly, but I'm not surprised they tire out faster than in the WW2 titles. - Move is a really useful command. It's the only movement command where they'll also recover exhaustion. It's not a command to use when you're expecting contact - they'll change their next move order to Quick, which is often not appropriate - but it's very useful for getting about the place. They're also pretty attentive when moving - upright and slow enough to spot things, mines and enemy contact. I definitely wouldn't use it when the chance of contact is high, but if you have a lot of ground to cover on the foot, and there's a low (but non-zero) chance of contact, then I'm fine with it. I would pay close attention to what the result of contact will be though. - Hunt does protect them slightly better against incoming fire. Going to ground will present a lower cross-section, and will give them the best chance to react. Recently, I've been Hunting less and Move-ing more, as well as making more use of Fast. Hunt is great for any move where you're happy to be stopped at any point. This means it's absolutely the best move to make in woods, for example, but terrible for entering buildings - stopping in the middle of the street is a bad idea, and you can't control when contact is going to be made. Fast is best for when the movement takes priority over everything else, and you need to get to that position without compromise. Quick can actually be something of an odd one out - it's hard to make a solid case for why you'd move Quick-ly, since they won't be able to fight effectively, and they won't prioritise movement, so it's neither one thing nor the other.

In general though, it's the setup time that kills it. I don't think it's a coincidence that their use was phased out - 2 inch and 60mm mortars provide some kind of embedded artillery support, without the associated setup period. The rise of handheld AT weapons and an increase of mechanisation really cover your other use-cases pretty well. Later of course, ATGMs are very man portable, and even the clunkiest of them are more flexible than a WW2 Infantry Gun.

Double post. Stupid fingers.

The extreme situation is a meeting engagement. Meeting engagements aren't the most realistic of scenarios to begin with. That isn't a CM problem, it's a perennial wargaming problem - players want balanced, even fights, and reality doesn't work that way very often. Typically, the dominant strategy in a lot of meeting engagement scenarios to rush up to claim the objective early. That means that an AT or Infantry gun with a setup time of x-minutes may be worse than useless, since it might just be too slow to react. That means that their useful role is limited to a couple of obvious situations in the attack: If you have helpful terrain and LOS, they can be useful to roll up to a covered and concealed position sneakily, to provide direct fire support. This way they can perform the role of a more expensive asset, but the terrain has to be on your side. They can be used indirectly. Not all of the CM guns can be called in indirectly on-map, but most of them also exist as off-map assets. Obviously LOS and setup time is less important here, since the effect is similar. They can be used as part of a "second wave" - the first element can take the terrain feature, and they could follow on to secure it, and provide for defence, allowing the offensive elements to continue. All fairly marginal. An assault gun in general will be better for the role, but an infantry or AT gun will provide similar firepower at a much cheaper price point, sacrificing protection and flexibility to do so.

Personally, I think the balance is about right. Tanks are invincible, dominant forces on the battlefield, right up until the moment they aren't. That's true for close assault, handheld AT weapons and larger AT assets. Making any movement in a sufficiently dense urban environment is a die roll - you're taking a risk with each step, and it's something that you have to work hard to keep on top of. It's possible to do it flawlessly, and wonder what the fuss was all about, but it only takes a couple of dodgy decisions for you to be wrecked. There are parts of the simulation (gun elevation, for example) which are not modelled. Generally these are a little more minor, and the broad strokes of the tactical exercise remain intact. It's reasonable to argue about what's missing here, since there's definitely room for improvement, even if you end up with diminishing returns. The strengths of infantry over armour in an urban environment are the inherently short ranges of everything, which only favour the infantry, concealment, which only favours the infantry, and to a lesser extent the effect of elevation - getting hits in on open-topped vehicles or thin top armour with AT weapons. Not every AT weapon is ideal for that (PIATs are pretty exceptional in that environment), but they can all do it to some extent. The strengths of armour over infantry in the same environment is that they give access to a dominant amount of MG fire and HE on a mobile, protected platform, and therefore can shut down any firefight pretty quickly. So... yes. Tanks are amazing, and they're useless. Tanks are more vulnerable in cities than on the open field, but they're not immediately dead, and have a useful role to play.

This site is one of the better ones now: https://www.battleorder.org/uk-rifle-co-1944 BayonetStrength used to be the most solid web source for this, but the site fell over at some point. I think he's trying to put it back together though: http://www.bayonetstrength.uk/ The first site lists their sources, so that's where I'd go for anything deeper.

If they're within four action spots, there is (as far as I'm aware) no reason for zero comms between them - at least in terms of sharing spotting contacts. This doesn't happen immediately (I'd imagine it takes time to share the information between them). That time may well be troop quality dependent, and I imagine there's a die roll involved , since timing doesn't seem to be consistent. If there's a random chance of sharing spotting contacts each cycle, then it's possible you could just get unlucky and never share the contact. If so, that's not even unrealistic, I think - missing or patchy details are a thing. Incidentally, that's the correct way to use spies in Uncon forces, I think. Each spy comes in a group, and they'll share info via voice/visual comms if they're close enough and have LOS to each other. To get those spotting contacts across the map then, the best way is to have one of the team sharing info horizontally with a spy from a different team, overlapping their areas of operation. That way you have the best chance of sharing spotting contacts across the width of the map as quickly as possible. Since there's no overall structure, it's otherwise hard to co-ordinate Uncon C2 networks, so you kinda have to build them manually in game.

C2 is something you have to pay a lot of attention to with Red forces. Setting up networks to share info vertically and horizontally, with redundancies to cover yourself. I generally find it's a good rule of thumb to expect any given element to perform precisely one job, but that it's useful to make sure they're in pairs at least.

Javelins have incredible spotting, which makes the launcher useful to carry around, even without missiles or hard targets to fire at. That's the reason why the launcher has an slot under equipment - the thermals are a powerful resource, and one you should pay a lot of attention to. I haven't noticed an issue with FOs or TOWs, but then the squad sizes are usually lower than with scouts and HQs. Fewer eyes are going to spot worse, inherently, since quite aside from covering a wider area, the die roll that goes into each spotting cycle is going to happen a lot more with more dice to throw. Same reason why larger vehicle crews will spot better, or why BMPs with mounted troops have better situational awareness than when dismounted (so you have have situations where you accept the risk of losing the squad for a better chance of fighting with the vehicle itself).

1943. It happens quite a bit in CMFI, against Panzer III/IV. Also happens with the Jumbos in CMFB, but yeah, those are mostly edge cases.

In addition, map sizes are far from uniform - several "tiny" maps are massive. MOUT is a different story - dense terrain belies the physical dimensions of the map.

Wow.

Heavy forest tiles do act differently, even if there are no trees present, but the presence of trees will have an additional effect. Trees are (sort of) WYSIWYG - or at least the trunks are, and they will block shots. The tile alone will affect movement, concealment and (apparently) provide a "saving throw". Same is true for rocky tiles (the ones with rocks that spawn on them). Fortifications seem to only be WYSIWYG (but that's mostly speculation/observation) - the physical object will block shots, but that means that distance and angle is important - i.e., how much of the soldier is exposed, relative to the firer. That might also explain why you've seen better results in the open, since lying prone presents a much smaller relative target than being up on one knee.

Yup. This is problem with most points-buy systems in general though. Interesting alternatives include DBA's system, where instead of army lists you have all armies consisting of exactly 12 units, and the composition is what sets them apart. An easy option you could do alongside CM right now would be to co-opt something like the Combat Commander Random Scenario Generator tables. For CC, you roll for things like Year and quality of troops, and then can choose from a now-limited selection of formations, one, two or three platoons worth. These formations have attached equipment appropriate for them. The less you spend, the more likely you are to be the defender (so it's a blind bid, essentially). After choosing, the low bidder can then spend points to make up the difference from period-and-quality appropriate tables (say, artillery support, fortifications and assigned weapon teams). If the lower bidder goes over the high bidder's limit, they get the same opportunity. There's a little more to it than that, but that's the main thrust of it. It helps with balance that there's no armour in Combat Commander either.

The extremes definitely narrow tactical options. That's pretty common for most WW2 sims really - if you've a situation where there's an infantry platoon with a supporting tank, the battle is typically going to have two distinct phases, before and after the tank is destroyed. Losing on the setup screen is something that's common for any kind of points-buy system. It's a (difficult) skill in and of itself, and it can mean that you end up having a battle which is essentially a waste of time. In the case of CM specifically, the time spent is pretty significant, so I do see the value in sensible house rules or some kind of social contract.

(We'll gloss over Metz here). Standing directly on an obvious, isolated point is handing the initiative to your opponent. You're giving them all of the time and the space in the world to plan for their attack, and you're making no effort to interfere with their decisions and processes. There are still reasons to do that sometimes - co-ordinating an attack or a counter-attack is hard, and with low quality troops (e.g., Syrians in CMSF), you may have little option. That's partly why defence in depth is a good idea - if you can replace in-battle manoeuvre with pre-battle positioning, you don't have to worry about your troops pulling off something complex. Instead, if you're creating novel tactical puzzles at each layer, forcing your enemy to adapt and making them work harder than you It's true that uber-tanks are very powerful (and easy to use). There's a reason why every version of CM ever has had competitive games held with "no tracks" houserules and the like. Certainly elite armour shortens the range of tactical options and limits subtlety. I do continue to reject that the above was impossible for the defender to win - I only have the screenshots to go on, but I do not believe that King Tigers on that map make for an unwinnable situation.

Having said that King Tigers are powerful - they're definitely easier to use than they are to counter. It's pretty common with anything competitive to have the easiest stuff dominate early on in a meta-cycle - the easiest stuff puts up positive records early, before the techniques or builds that requires more finesse can develop.