domfluff

One per section, or group of three carriers. Full platoon is three sections, so nine carriers, not counting platoon HQ.

The kind of tactical-level recce that is possible in your usual CM scenario tends to be hasty and ad hoc. Clearly, the main objectives in the recon phase of a CM battle would be to find enemy positions, and in particular enemy assets - Armour, AT Guns and ATGM's in the modern titles. Armour is easy to spot, as are planned fortifications (whether they should be is a different argument). The real difficulty comes in spotting a well sited anti-tank asset, which tend to be quiet, and have no reason to give themselves away. Relying on eyeballs and binoculars to spot the enemy works well if they are moving - e.g., in meeting engagements and defensive positions - but is less effective if the enemy are static and you are planning an attack. In this "passive" sense, the right positions are those overlooking likely lines of advance, with decent concealment, and sticking short arcs on the scouts to hold their fire. Recon vehicles in this case are mostly used to move the scouts up to a defilade position, where they can dismount and sneak forwards. Clearly, the extra mobility can be extremely useful here, both for deep deployment, and getting out of there when things start getting hairy. A recon team with access to radios and in good C2 is very important, since half of their purpose is to clue in the player to the enemy dispositions, and the other half is to give the TacAI a hand, by passing around spotting information. The problem with the above is that this passive option doesn't help with finding quiet, static assets, such as AT guns. It seems to me that the active options available are to use recon by fire, or to actively infiltrate likely positions ("recon by face", if you like). Both will expose the scout team to danger, and both will need a plan for extraction. Dedicated recon teams tend to have disproportionate amounts of firepower (especially SMG's), so clearly they are equipped to win fire superiority in a close ranged, limited engagement, with presumably the intent of breaking contact as soon as possible (e.g., sprinting back to the vehicles). The element that actually makes contact shouldn't be alone - a supporting scout team should be in close contact at all times, to spot whatever the first blunders into. This second unit might also carry the radio set, or a third unit may be needed for that communication. What I'm currently musing is how sensible active infiltration could be. Recon by fire is certainly a good idea, but it does mean revealing the scout's position, so they'll have to relocate. Actually trying to sneak up to within 100m or so of the enemy seems extremely risky, but I'm not sure if there's a better way to uncover hidden AT guns and the like (and clearly, not spotting that 88 in the woods and losing a platoon of Shermans is more of a risk than losing a recon team or two). So... the carrier platoon in Commonwealth units. Carrier platoons are versatile, odd things, but one of their functions is recce, embedded at the battalion level. That means that C2 sharing is easy, since they already exist as part of the existing command structure. A carrier platoon is three carrier sections, and an HQ. A carrier section is three carriers, with a huge amount of firepower. Dismounted, they carry three Bren guns, a two inch mortar and a PIAT (so, approximately the same firepower as an entire platoon of rifles), and have 9-10 men in the section, with organic access to tracked transport, some limited armour protection and some extra ammunition. Only the HQ unit of the section has binoculars and a radio set, so the section has to keep in close contact, and can't wander off. I think that one section should be sufficient for a given recon task. Multiple sections can be employed, but they will likely be independent of each other.. This means that I think the SOP for any kind of active recon - or recon in contact generally, would be something like: (HQ - Bren, 1st team - Bren/Mortar, 2nd team Bren/PIAT) - HQ unit has a covered arc to hold fire. - 1st and 2nd teams advance a little, or recon by fire, and end up making contact. 1 is spotting whilst 2 is moving, and the HQ is spotting for both. - Break contact drill (possibly every time). 1st and 2nd team lay down suppressive Bren fire, with the mortar laying smoke on the target. The HQ unit is relaying spotting data up the chain. - Once the smoke has developed (probably inside of a minute), the HQ unit starts suppressing with their Bren, allowing both teams (one at a time) to extract to somewhere out of LOS (probably back to the carriers), followed by the HQ team themselves. That seems like a decent use of their capabilities to me - their comparative lack of radios and optics, coupled with disproportionate firepower and cross-terrain mobility.

There's always a degree of danger with doing that kind of thing. There were a few attempts to use strategic bombers (!) at the tactical level, which were pretty disastrous, but nevertheless could be represented at CM's scale. The problem with making that an option is that now that's an option in every Quick Battle forever, which can seriously warp the game, particularly in the competitive, multiplayer sense.

So... turning the icons off would achieve that. The downside is that you won't have any feedback as to whether someone has picked up a sound contact, or similar.

And yet... the system in Combat Mission is one of the best ones I've ever seen. One of the problems with aiming at a high fidelity simulation is that the limitations become extremely apparent - if cover was abstracted to a "+1 DRM in Light Woods", or whatever, then the bar is set a lot lower. Clearly it's not perfect, but the fundamental problem - how to stop the player acting on spotting contacts - is not one that has an easy solution, I think. As is, it's still a good idea to maintain good C2, or share around spotting information (e.g., running up an XO unit to pick up the spots from the recon team). That way, you're giving the TacAI as much of a hand as you can. Area fire can still happen, but blind area fire is inaccurate, and may not be the best way to deal with AT gun you just spotted.

It's actually a really good idea in practice. I don't know whether they actually spot faster from a contact marker, but troops certainly turn to face possible contacts, which we know will have the same effect. Usually the distinction isn't all that great (e.g. you might still be better off area firing HE on known AT gun positions), but in a game series as brutal and unforgiving as CM, any tiny edge can help.

Yeah, this is probably the single most useful thread for any CM game - this definitely should be pinned. Arguably, it's the kind of information that should be in the manual as well, but that's a different (and much older) argument.

Shader mods make use of Movie Mode, and CMSF doesn't have Movie Mode (yet). When CMSF 2 rolls around, this should change.

Yeah, I don't think so. It is a shame. Broadly, there seem to be two kinds of CM scenario - narrativist ones and simulationist ones. The former tries to tell a story, typically with an unusual situation, or use of reinforcements, and the latter is more of the "You have a rifle company, secure that hill". Clearly there's a spectrum, and both extremes can be excellent. Some even manage to do both fairly equally, as with the excellent "Green 9" for CMSF. The really nice thing about FMB's campaigns is that they are campaigns revolving around a small group, which means you can easily see the damage and ammunition limitations carried over from one to the other - even without the narrative fluff in between, you're telling more personal stories, because you can get to know the individual guys. One challenge is writing stories at a small enough scale - it's tough to write a continuing story about an individual platoon in WW2, for example.

Cheers

Yes.The contact icon, at least, which may or may not be accurate by the time the armour rolls around. Having radio comms would allow for this to be shared more easily (i.e., scout unit can spot, relay information up to their HQ, which can relay information down to the rest of the platoon. Another member of the platoon may be able to share that information with the armour, horizontally. Not all recon units have radios of course - Italians ones don't, and two man scout teams usually won't either. That's why it's important that the platoon scouts stay in LOS with their squad at all times, and not get too far ahead. I'm not sure. Some early testing seemed to indicate that, but it's not entirely clear. Obviously US M10's are open-topped, and Shermans sometimes had telephones attached to the rear for buttoned-up communication. It does seem very quick - usually within a few seconds. Obviously anything like this is going to be an abstraction - something like "there's an MG in the blue building" seems pretty straightforward to me, but some things are rather more complex. I think I'm more or less happy with how this had ended up, but there is certainly room for greater fidelity (which is always the case in any hardcore sim, of course).

Horizontally, information is shared within four action spots. This is really important, since it means you can get spotting information with a scout team, then run it up to an armour platoon to give them the locations of AT guns or the like, which (it seems) makes it easier for them to spot them.

Getting to grips properly with the Hull Down command - it's a really powerful tool.

Nothing that has been said about CMSF 2 has suggested that it will be anything more than a port - essentially CMSF, running on Engine 4. ...and that's great. I would be unsurprised if this didn't involve *some* changes, particularly to TO&E, and possibly with drones or other assets, but primarily I think the expectation should be that it'll essentially be a desert-themed CMBS, circa 2008. I have no idea what they'll do for British mortars, trenches, forward observers calling more than one mission, pre-baked missions, etc. I don't know whether secondary weapons will be visible, or whether there will be more hardware variants, etc. There is clearly a huge amount of work involved. Steve has suggested previously that the intent was for older modules to work as-in. I have no idea if that's possible, but it does give you an idea of how restricted the margins are.

I'm certainly not well read on my Italian tactical doctrine, but I've been playing around with them quite a bit recently. Thought it was worth sharing some ideas, or at least being told how wrong I am. The Italians have some bafflingly dodgy equipment. No radios and limited binoculars mean that reconnaissance is extremely difficult (C2 sharing is mostly spotting with naked eyesight, then running back a team to share that information horizontally to another unit), a complete lack of anti-tank weapons at the infantry level, and a general lack of automatic weapons. The 20 man squads do have two LMG's (Breda 30's), with 20 round clips. That puts it more-or-less equivalent to the BAR as a suppression weapon. That's not completely terrible, but certainly worse than a Bren or MG34/42 at winning fire superiority. The HMG's (Breda M37) are even more baffling - they also have 20 round clips, which makes their job very difficult, if not impossible. On top of that, the Italian troops seem to be of a worse quality in CMFI in general ("Green" seems to be the default, but I could be wrong). So, how to use them effectively? What they *do* have is a high density of men, and large numbers of brixia mortars - they get nine of these per battalion, and each has 50 rounds, which is quite a bit. The rounds are small, but they can keep up a high rate of fire, and suppress their targets quite effectively, usually a lot more than the volume of HMG fire they can put out. They're structured into two 20 man squads, with 40 man platoons. A deliberate two platoon attack would involve leapfrogging one platoon over the other, with the squads performing similar fire + movement in and of themselves, since they have one 10 man half-squad with 2 LMG's and one half with none. Company level presumably is the same thing, but larger. This feels almost WW1-like, in that the aim in a deliberate, set-piece Italian attack is a conceptually simple steamroller - the HMG and especially Brixia fire is vital for suppressing the targets, and the infantry will push, push, push into close range, as aggressively and swiftly as possible. In close range, their numbers and grenades (which are as good as any) can wipe out any opposing advantages. This seems to make a lot of sense. It means that the Italians can be effective in planned, set-piece frontal attacks, preferably over a distance of 500m or less, with protected flanks. It also means that they are incredibly lacking in agility - they can't deal with unexpected outcomes very easily, and fighting in close terrain (cities, woods) will likely be a disaster. In some ways they seem similar to Soviet infantry, in that the tactical level seems simple and brutal, but effective. The emphasis then is on the larger scale, to make sure that the small scale can succeed.

Awesome, thank you.

That's with a little desaturation and a fair bit filtering after the fact. Only mods visible are the FX. I just liked how much stuff was happening in that shot, it reminded me of a Lady Butler painting. Depicted is mission three in GL Foiling Fustian, which is a frontal assault/WW1 meat grinder of a mission. Combined losses in that battle were 550 dead and 240 wounded (!). Original image:

3) Semi-deployed MG's are handheld/using the bipod. They can still fire, but with reduced accuracy and rate, as you might expect. 6) Spotting is incredibly complex, and fairly obtuse. The unit can know precisely where the enemy is, but may have no way of shooting them (line of sight but no line of fire). One (semi)common example of this is where a tank crew member can see a target, but the gun cannot rotate to point at them since terrain is in the way. An easy example here might be armour with only a working front-mounted MG, behind a wall. The unbuttoned commander may well see the enemy from his high perch, but the MG can't fire over the wall to get to them.

I'm certain that Bren carriers protect their crews better than 251's - if nothing else, the Bren gunner doesn't need to expose themselves to fire, so they have increased protection and can suppress more easily (since there's no lag time with the gunner dying and being replaced). I also believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that the Universal carrier offers greater protection than the 251, quite aside from being a physically smaller and lower target. I'm less convinced that the passengers are less vulnerable in the Universal Carrier, aside from the reasons noted above, and there being fewer of them to hit - a missed shot is unlikely to hit anyone else. I've spent quite a long time trying to understand mechanised infantry in the WW2 CM games, and I think the outcomes are about what I'd expect. I've certainly had halftrack gunners be nearly invincible at times, with a combination of the protection of the gun shield, suppressive fire and a decent distance in between the halftrack and the target.

The main uses of the halftrack as a fighting vehicle are strategic (i.e., you can keep up with the tanks on a large-scale advance over rough terrain). Since that's not relevant to CM. a large reason for their existence is nullified. The armour does provide some protection against random small arms or mortar fire, but it's best to think of that as "resistance" - APC's of all eras are taxis first and foremost. In game terms, Halftracks (or any of the early APC's) seem to have two main uses - they provide tactical mobility for a mobile reserve or flanking force, and therefore the tactical space that your reserve can control is increased tremendously. Foot infantry in the defence are often stuck in fairly stationary positions, but a reserve mechanised platoon can react to the area of the battle where they are required. This is tremendously useful, and has little to do with their armour protection - trucks are almost as effective as halftracks here, although their offroad capabilities are less. The other main use is the machine gun, which is far more of a defence than the armour. Stationary halftracks provide a stable platform for an MG, which means it can project accurate fire over very long ranges (potentially 1-2 km). In the context of a mechanised infantry platoon reacting to fire on the move, the halftrack can often out-range and therefore win the firepower contest with the element it's come into contact with. The armour can help here, but the MG is the real star. For this to work, the halftrack needs to be at a significant distance - if you were encountering an enemy squad, you'd ideally want to only be in range of their LMG, if that. That immediately pushes you out to 400m+. Full-on Panzergrenadier assaults, with suppressive MG fire and supporting armour ("shock and awe" if you like) can work, but they are usually a roll of the dice. They require correct assessment of the elements under attack, and the knowledge that your attacking force over-matches them significantly. It's very easy for this to go horribly wrong, and there isn't an easy way to stop this kind of attack once it starts - so you can easily end up throwing away a full platoon.

Glad to see they've fixed the Firefly and Carrier Platoon bugs

I've finished my match (Bootie's not publishing scores, so I won't tell you the result right now), but I did enjoy this - playing back to back is weird, but it's the easiest way to ensure balance in a scenario based game. The imbalance of forces therefore doesn't matter all that much. I'm not entirely sure I like the specific scenario criteria (points only for objectives), but since everyone is playing by the same rules, that's probably okay. Tournament games (in any medium) are a different breed automatically - you're playing with a different set of expectations. I'm not sure that CM is really all that suited to formal tournament play, but it works well enough for the occasional punt.

That said, I think the fundamental concept here - the simplicity of the plan and it's execution - is fine, and you did achieve the results that you needed, albeit at a higher price than you'd probably have liked.

Are you sure he didn't just use a Rhino to push through? That would make a gap in the bocage...