domfluff

Yeah, "command push" vs "recon pull". In the latter, you're starting a battle without committing many (or any) forces, sending out recon units to find the enemy, then developing the attack from there. In the former you start out by developing an attack on a position, whether or not there's an enemy there. Your recon is then focused on "fighting for information", since it's all happening at the same time as the attack. The advantage to the former is simplicity and speed of action - you can progress an attack way before your opponent is ready for it, and overwhelm a weak position or timid opponent with tremendous concentration of firepower. The disadvantage is that if you run into heavier opposition than expected, you'll lose a ton of people, and may not be able to make headway. You're trading flexibility for power. The disadvantage of recon pull is that you can end up defeated in detail, and waste a ton of people trying to catch up to an opponent three steps ahead of you. The important bit is that it's *not* about throwing troops into the meat grinder, although that can happen - it's more about committing to a tactical line and developing it to the best of your ability, with all the resources under your command.

The house rules that I find somewhat practical are: - No area fire without a contact marker or TRP ...and that's it, really. It's simple enough to follow, uses the existing mechanics, doesn't require book-keeping, etc. It's not perfect, but I think that goes a long way to making that work. In the case of an obvious-position for an observer, you could spend the funds to get a TRP at the start of the mission, and mark it up. Speaking of obvious positions though, anecdotally I was playing a PBEM game of Normandy, and had an FO in the top of an obvious church tower. There was no other good position, and he raised merry hell with mortar fire from there. For whatever reason, my opponent never directed fire towards that spot. Perhaps he thought it was too obvious?

Is the Reichstag on that Berlin map, or is it *just* off-map to the left?

So, I have, but it's usually a consequence of incorrect use. As a test, try setting up a quick battle with a US squad in a stryker against some uncons in a city, and just roll up the streets. If you're perhaps 100m away from an occupied building, the airguards will pop out and join in the fire. That's a terrible situation to be in, and the reaction is one of desperation - if any of those had an RPG, the squad would be killed, so I don't think it's unreasonable to put as much fire down as you can, right now. Naturally, Strykers should maintain range (or indeed, not have LOS at all) with any potential or known enemies, disembarking one terrain feature away. Their power is in mobility and (importantly) C2 - with careful management of C2 structure and scouts, your squads can have a really good idea (contact markers) about what they're going to disembark into. If the Strykers are used for their firepower at all, it's for long ranged supporting fires, preferably hull down, and often after the infantry start the engagement. Strykers are great. They're not Bradleys, BMPs or even BTRs, they're their own beast. Like a lot of things in Shock Force, they over-match a lot of the Syrian equipment significantly.

The only real reason to not split squads is to reduce the cognitive load. CM requires a lot of attention over a long period, and so shortcuts like not splitting, or the Assault command can be extremely useful to avoid mental fatigue. That means I'll often not split squads early in a battle, but it's definitely the case that you're better off with more control over the individual elements than with them combined. Fatigue isn't as much of a problem in PBEM (since you might be spending a few minutes per day on a game), but it can build up with a multi-hour single player scenario.

One element that has genuinely changed for the worse is the loss of ChrisND, and his twitch streams. Those were superb content, both in terms of engaging with the player base and highlighting upcoming releases. I can't make a claim that that kind of presentation is cost effective, but it's certainly missed.

The Day of Battle has been my pick. That whole series is pretty great. It's almost exclusively US-centric, which is a little frustrating.

Schwimmwagen. Schwimm... wagen. Schwimm (wait for it)... Wagen. 's got a lovely ring to it. Wagen. Schwimm. Canister rounds.

LOS is drawn from the eyes of the model. The LOS *tool* is pre-drawn from specific heights in the hex, to specific heights in other hexes. Crawling, Standing, Vehicle, Tall vehicles, etc. This lookup table is created when the map is made, and is the reason why LOS calcs from the tool are instantaneous. It also means that, sometimes, a figure can't see something when the tool says it can, and vice versa.

This is one of the weaknesses of the CM series in general. Ways around it: - Get the camera down to eye level, use the Zoom keys (Z/X) to judge what they can actually see - Use the Target tool from any suspect action spots - Take your time, and use safe movement techniques to guard against the unexpected - whether that's something happening you didn't intend, or to cover any mistakes.

A "safe spot" where they are taking casualties is not a safe spot, by definition. It might still be better than running into the street, of course, that's an AI/map geometry thing. Especially in complex terrain this is always going to be a little suspect. The key to an ambush is overwhelming firepower - you want all of the fire to be heading in one direction, all at the same time. That typically means short covered arcs. Typically I'll set very short arcs to hold fire and open up manually with the Target command to maximise this.

In-game, it'll go up and down the chain, but not efficiently. No amount of radios will be as fast as some GI running up and have a conversation a little like: "Oi guv'nor!, bloody Jerry tank right over there" "Excuse me, why are you British?" "Issa war, see, it does odd fings to a chap"

Yes, the hull down point it's tracing to is actually a couple of metres off the ground. It still works fine with the above though. The old ways (hunt commands to a ridgeline or eyeballing it) are worse, and it's a very useful command to use. Sometimes you won't want to - it's hard to know precisely where you're going to stop along that path, and you could get tripped up - but in most cases it's a massive improvement.

I think that's valid. The thing I really like about CMFI, especially around Sicily, is the comparative power level of everything - there's fewer super-units in general. Anti-tank guns and Armoured cars are of much greater utility.

Hull Down is really powerful, but I didn't find it as much use on this particular scenario as normal. There are two ways to use it, but I only use it the second way. For the first, the command is used like a move command, and it means "move until you are hull down to this spot, then stop". If you are never hull down to that spot along the movement path, you won't stop. That's why I don't use it that way. The second I use like this: I.e., a Hull Down command, followed by a target command. This means "Move along this path until you are hull down to the targeted point". This is also a move command, so if there is no way of being hull down, you'll move until the end of the hull down command. This means that the above example is actually too far forward, and in practice I'd move it to a safer point, just behind the hill crest.

Nah, it's just tough. I had a Total victory on my quick run through, but it didn't feel "total". Is fine though - end of the tutorial being "This is what the rest of CM is going to be like, forever"

The 3(?) Panzer 3s aren't so much of a problem - the 50mm guns will mostly bounce off Sherman glacis, but they can get lucky shots. That means priority one is identifying and isolating the Panzer 4s. In the above I say I lost two tanks - I actually lost one that was sniped on the approach, and another was immobilised before the crew bailed (but I got them back in). Some of the others took minor damage, and I lost a couple of crew to partial penetrations and the like, but had three mobile, mostly fully functional Shermans to take the forward objective by the end.

Oh, and above all, patience. If you're in a good position, there's no need to move to another one. You're defending, and not in a rush. Wait for the spots to happen, and don't chase any armour you've driven off - they have low walls, woods and hills, and you'd be advancing into a worse spot.

The Marine campaign was uploaded to fix an issue with a unit - I think there was a NATO module-only truck in there somewhere, or something of that ilk. Won't hurt to download it, but it's probably the same as the one you have.

Righty, just cease-fired my way through the tutorial to have a look at this one, and the armour fight isn't trivial. One issue is that it's tough to fight unbuttoned, as German artillery was hitting the objective at about the same time as the Shermans got there. The way I approached it was to combine forces in the centre, and split up the German armour temporarily with smoke from the rightmost on-map Howitzer. That way you're getting temporary armour superiority, which you can turn into something permanent. Wind direction is important, but it's from right to left (from the perspective of your lines). Once in spots where I could gain LOS (even when they don't have spots), I'd bound them forwards, gingerly. This is still tough - I lost two of them - but took out all of the German armour.

1. Canister... (holds breath) 2. ???? 3. ROUNDS!

It's just a nervous tick. Sometimes you get hit by them when you don't expect it, and thereafter you end up posting "Canister rounds?" every so often.

He's editing it out. It's a shame, it would be very helpful for videos and the like to have the option to turn it off.

Task Force Thunder is long, but the missions are generally quite small - platoons and companies, for the most part.

I believe that's correct, yes. Again, based only on subjective observation, and not even intensive testing.