gnarly

Lt. Hollaway sees the shell impact the front of the second halftrack. 
 
This time he roars to his men, “Pour it on, Boys.  Let ‘em have all ya got!” 
 
They are slightly above the open halftrack and they rip rifle fire into the exposed rear compartment.
 
 

 
If there were any survivors from the initial hit, there aren’t any more.   The lieutenant’s men are efficient and deadly. 
 
Hollaway is starting to get the dangerous thought that there might be a chance they’ll survive the rest of this battle.  Having that gun watching over them really saved their bacon.
 
 
Sgt. Egert says only two words to his crew.  “Don’t relax.”  No one does.  The war goes on. 
 
 
Heinrich505

Playing the Rolling Thunder scenario from the demo. My Bradley moves up from a flanking mission which have already seen one BMP-3 blown to bits when suddenly, at the start of a turn, a concealed Tonguska opens up with it's 30mm's, the Bradley doesnt spot it before being hit and the rounds immidiatly takes out it's optics and what not and combined with the smoke from the impact the crew of the Bradley never spots the Tonguska at all! The result is that for one ENTIRE turn the Bradley just sits there, getting showered with 30mm shells eventually taking out every single component, the next turn I order it to reverse out of harms way, it succedes but continues to get hit during the first half of the turn before reaching cover. In the end this Bradley have endured one and a half turns of continuous Tonguska fire, suffering what must be a couple of hundred hits...BUT NOT ONE SINGLE PENENTRATION! How that is possible I do not know, I never thought the front armor of the Bradley to be this strong 
 

 

This the one you mean Ken?
 

There is a MOD for that.  Will not hurt your frames and is not graphic-intensive. 

1. I think it is between 4 and 7 but I never spent the time to get an exact count and it does depend on the vehicle.
3. As far as I see the only difference is that they don't pop smoke once they run out.

1. No idea! Seems like a lot though. APS has certainly caused me a lot of pain this battle.
2. Two for almost all vehicles in Black Sea I believe.
3. It depends. I've found that once my units have used up their smoke, they're much less likely to reverse or respond to a laser warning.

I move my depleted platoon to take up positions overseeing the treeline and the route into the town.
 

 
My remaining platoon and my company commander move forward.
 

 
Abrams' and Bradleys advance cautiously towards the farm atop the hill.
 

 
An ATGM team targets a Bradley...
 

 
...who pop smoke.
 

 

 
An Abrams emerges from the treeline on my left flank. A T-90 fires a round, but it impacts in the trees.
 

 
What goes around, comes around. The Abrams' round explodes harmlessly in the tree in front of my T-90.
 

 

 
But the T-90's second round strikes home and I'm rewarded with a plume of smoke.

The second vehicle provides the only return fire, a brief ineffective burst before the vehicle is hit with an onslaught of fire.


As the tail vehicles halt before the ambush my flanking teams closed off the road from either side hitting them from the rear.  The slaughter is complete.

The next battle I will be paying a lot more attention to who leads and who covers, believe me. It's embarrassing at times to see this now, because in retrospect I'm catching many of my own mistakes and wondering, WTF???
On the other hand, I want to show the bad as well as the good honestly, so...

LOLs at your continuing use of HQ/leaders at the sharp end.... 
 
I was awaiting the demise of the FO in a similar context...

Minute 38-37:
With 3/1 squad and 1B/1 team in position I have them provide cover fire on the houses as well as area firing behind them in case the Germans have Panzershrek teams there.

RU079
They do a fine job of suppressing an HMG42 team behind one of the houses. Yes, the same one we saw running around earlier. This guy has a necklace of rabbit feet…
So my question to you more experienced gamers is this: What is that contact icon near the HMG icon? Can it be other team-members that I don’t see, or does it imply there are other infantrymen there from some other squad?

RU080
1. The CO of 1st platoon gets aboard 1st Tank Plat HQ. I'm going to bring him to the farmhouse, where his platoon members will join him as they advance. The tank is given the order to move toward the houses while firing as shown. I want the nearest house to be saturated with HE so that any German infantry in there will not be able to fire AT weapons, and also kill my infantry. You can also see my FOO moving closer to the farmhouses but keeping to the woods. I want to get eyes on the German second line of defence ASAP so I can target the other half of my rockets. It takes 9 minutes for it to land so I need to be ahead of the action. Risky. Too risky...
2. The 2nd T34 in 1st platoon (remember the 3rd tank is an IS-2, and is on AOA 1, not here) is ordered to area fire behind the houses near where I can see infantry contacts. It stays stationary.
3. 2nd Tank platoon CO is ordered to advance toward the houses, riders aboard, and shoot up the houses as he rolls. He will stop near the rear corner of the closest house, limiting the directions from where he can be threatened. I realize in retrospect that I’ve just done it again - ordered my HQ tanks to advance rather than the platoon tanks. I WILL learn, I swear!
4. 2nd tank, 2nd platoon remains, riders aboard, in the cover of the trees to engage targets of opportunity. I do not give it any fire orders, I’ll let him pick his own.
If it's hard to see detail, remember you can click these images and see them much bigger.

RU081
Here we see 1st Tnk Plat HQ as it nears the farmhouses on KT 1, firing all the while it travels. Just like Bil’s CMRT Beta AAR against Elvis, where he had his T34’s charge and shoot at potential enemy positions, my T34 has its shots both hit the house and the grass all over the place. It’s very inaccurate, but sure impressive to watch on replay! You can see the ricochets from bullets hitting the houses, and much of the smoke around the tank is from blasting divots in the air from wild misses.
1A/1 team runs for the woods bordering KT 1 to join 1B/1 team, while both teams from 2nd squad (highlighted orange) remain stationary, in the hope they can see of the Germans have anything on the wood-line to the north (not shown).

RU082
As the 1st Plat HQ Tank reaches the first house it stops - and blasts for good measure, while the 1st Platoon CO dismounts and runs for the house. Not to worry, that house has taken so much fire he could beat any Germans in there with a pool noodle. At least, that’s the theory…

RU083
As 2nd Plat HQ Tank leaves the woods and rushes toward the farmhouses, an MG42 - still unseen - begins stripping it of its riders…
What could I have done to prevent this? I can't blast every possible hiding place, so what is a good improvement on my method here?

RU084
Here you can see the completion of this minute of action as most units reached their destination safely. Mostly? Mostly, because the HMG picks off a couple more men on the advancing 2nd Tank Plat CO tank.

RU085
On AOA 1 the IS-2 makes it as scheduled on the road, with great LOS to KT 1 and the farmhouses. No obvious targets yet, while the two sections of 3/3 squad carefully move in bounds in the Western Woods of KT 2, and take fire again from an invisible German HMG, thankfully without harm.

RU086

gnarly,
 
I started playing CMx1 back with the Beta Demo, and was at it until I belatedly (ordered late January of 2012) got into full CMBN (delayed by major resource constraint) just before CMFI debuted. While the facts that I was recovering a serious head injury and in a chaotic environment didn't help, the real issue was that CMx2 was for me an alien and even alienating experience. Overwhelming and utterly unfamiliar pretty much across the board. The workload was through the roof, dealing with infantry was like herding cats, nothing worked the way it did before, as in no command lines, no Cover Armor Arcs and no Ambush command. Morale worked completely differently, troops didn't rally as before. Nor was there any kind of global force morale meter. 
 
Terrain, whose military effects were known in CMx1, was no longer deterministic but very fuzzy. Dealing with spotting the new way (not the familiar Borg spotting) like to drove me nuts, as I wrestled with the whole business of something being there, then disappearing when I tried to shoot at it. No longer could I tell the tank to fire HE. Instead, I had to hope the AI, operating under Target Heavy, would do the right thing. And if you didn't pay close attention, you could easily run out of ammo, too. Infantry could and did run out of ammo. Bazookas would fire while well out of effective range. Men would wreck dawn attacks by shooting at some dimly seen target way across the map (didn't know about short radius cover arcs which everyone needed to have). Troops wouldn't fight from behind a wall but positioned themselves on the incoming fire side. If a tank bumped a bridge wall or abutment it would stick as though glued and would take a lot of effort to extricate. Not good in the presence of antitank weapons! The AI seemed to be able to find me at will and shoot me, while I stood on my head and wound up with so little targeting info I ran a Sherman completely out of HE and nearly did that for a second. Naturally, it killed the one remaining tank with a nearly full ammo load while leaving me with "Nearly Winchester."
 
We lost all flame weapons. Trenches, formerly invisible before until quite close and providing great protection to things like ATGs, were now visible from the get, and targeted accordingly. We lost practically every antiaircraft gun. To keep ATGs alive, you had to put them in tall grass. Talk about counterintuitive! Rather than slit trenches, we wound up with huge ones easy to drop projectiles into and sitting at only half depth into the ground, hugely increasing occupant exposure to fire.  I was quite unnerved by taking deadly tank fire through considerable dense woods, something flatly impossible in CMx1. The AI could thread the needle with shots I couldn't begin to expect, because there was too much info to process and, unlike me, the AI never blinked, never wavered in its focus and attention to detail. In truth, the one thing I was really good at was handling artillery. There, I was murderous.
 
I did the training scenario okay, but when I thought I'd be getting a fairly simple, small force size one next. Because the scenarios weren't organized starting with the smallest but alphabetically (?) I found myself in "Can't recall the title" with loads of infantry I didn't know how to handle and kept forgetting to move some, Sherman tanks practically nose to tail on a narrow road with Germans seemingly everywhere, yet unseen. A massacre ensued, and it was only by dint of good coaching that I learned to find battles of a size I could handle. Where I got repeatedly slaughtered! There were whole categories of capabilities missing from CMx2 which were in CMx1 and, yes, the very real claustrophobic effects of the bocage, which were so bad that simply looking at one of those scenic CMFI maps made me feel better--and CMRT's lovely steppe better still--got to me.
 
Weapon siting was outright insanity inducing for me. To the point where I raged, cursed, nearly punched the screen in total frustration. What was trivial in CMx1 became a Sisyphean ordeal in CMx2. The Pak-40 I carefully keyholed at a wall corner mysteriously repositioned away from the corner, rendering the position useless. The gun would wind up protruding through a stone wall or simply into and uselessly, the the wall of a house. If I carefully sited it in a small gully with the barrel close to the ground, the gun would either move to the bottom of the gully with no LOS or put itself at the top in plain sight. Fortunately, by the time I got the full game, it was much more capable than the still to be updated from (gasp) 1.03 demo. Infantry would leave the gully and parade about in front of the gully and get gunned down. And the only way to avoid that was to micro manage the movement of every single idiot of a soldier I had. 
 
And while dealing with all these things, I was having all sorts of maddening computer problems and intermittent health stuff, sometimes simultaneously. Consequently, every time I started to have some small grasp of the game, I'd wind up being unable to play, at times, for months. I'd then, because my memory was having injury related and medication side effect issues, keep having to pretty much start over. I play intuitively, and bocage warfare is meticulous business in which a single lapse can result in devastating losses.  I eventually got to the point where I finally beat the AI, but that was with armor, "Cats Chasing Dogs", not infantry, something true for quite some time. I got my infantry chewed up, butchered and turned to hamburger, "18 Platoon," "Attack at Dawn," before finally winning outright with the paras in Bridge at Varreville. A glorious day!  The below OP and thread should give you some idea of how vertical my many times restarted learning curve was. I got to the point where I felt flat out stupid and wondered why I was torturing myself trying to play a game I characterized as user hostile at times. The manual definitely met that criterion. coming from such crisp, clear efforts as the CMBO Manual, I found CMBN's to be the utter triumph of style over functionality. Low contrast, blurry and only available online, not shipped with the game. Even the best version in my copy of the game (sepia on white BG) still has major issues, notably the various screenshot inserts.
 
http://community.battlefront.com/topic/104277-john-kettler-vs-cmbn-the-learning-curve/
 
It took me essentially three years of sadly very intermittent play to get to the point where I had my first PBEM in CMBN. Three years! Granted, that's not remotely typical, but if you read the thread, it took one guy 20 games to get to the point where he could really PBEM. And that PBEM for me, "Bridge Number Seven" vs SLIM, had to be called because of some unfixable problem with getting into a turn--with 18 minutes left on the clock. Gah!
 
You now probably wish you hadn't asked, but you should have a very good understanding of why I used the word "slog." I can't recall ever, and I've been wargaming since age 12, going through anything to rival the exceedingly protracted, practically across the board maceration and pulverization I've undergone to play CMBN. Amazingly, though, I've found CMBS, which does stuff at lightning speed compared to CMBN and is vastly more complex, to be quite approachable. But it helped I had at least a basic understanding of how to do things in CMx2, transferable readily to V 3, as well as a lifelong interest in modern warfare and 11+ years of total immersion during my days as a professional military analyst. that said, I'm in a long game of catchup ball, since many Russian weapons in CMBS didn't exist or were own in the most rudimentary, and even wrong, of ways. and let's not get started on learning to think of these weapons in terms of GRAU designators!
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

I started this project more than a year ago. At the time, I was playing a lot of Shock Force and was thus inspired to put some aftermarket slat armor on. Well, the slat armor didn't work out (anyone who has succeeded with that, good on you). 
 
So, I ditched the slat and just went for the general armor-less build. I thought about putting some ERA blocks on to mimic a "Black Sea" up-armored M1126 styled variant, but couldn't find any decent kits. 
 
After some digging around, I found a unit that appeared to operate slat-cage-less Strykers in Afghanistan at some point in 2009, so that is what this one became a tribute to. 
 
After putting the finishing touches on tonight, I am pretty happy with the outcome. I am definitely still learning a lot with modeling. A few mistakes here and there, a few things I would have done differently. Thankfully all the images of Strykers in Afghanistan show these vehicles just plastered with dust and sand, so heavy weathering was helpful to hide any blemishes. 
 
Anyway, any critique or comments would be welcome!
 

 

 

Combat Camera has been called away to another battle, having been denied further photo ops for want of new material in this one. Am afraid it'll be that way until some solution can be found which will decloak the turn I've now sent him thrice and allow his game to at last see the blasted (or is it blasting?) thing. Right now, a Time Stop has slammed down upon our entire battlefield, and neither of us is at all happy about it. Please stand by.
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

Putin has pulled out all the stops, and Sublime, now Polpovnik (LT COL) I.P. Sublimovitch, but an embittered junior lieutenant in GSFG when the Wall came down, is positively gleeful to do his part in Putin's plan to forcibly reincorporate Ukraine into the Rodina. He is attacking, in great strength, while I, as Major Kettler, defend in sector a key road junction which is the sole VL. This is the biggest battle, in terms of force size, I've ever fought in CMx2, and there are lots and lots of moving parts and things to do. Marshal Foch famously observed: "No plan survives contact with the enemy." Based on what's happened so far, I'd say he's an optimist.
 
There was no lull before the battle, for my men , with the help of some combat engineers who didn't stick around, had registered fires, dug foxholes, erected barbed wire barriers, planted AT mines (Americans have only AT mines) and worked out, on the fly, an intricate series of defensive fire keyholes. Just as well, for barely had they dashed into their holes when...
 
Artillery began to fall on the village (the VL) on the wooded areas to the front of the village and in the gaps among the various woods. The village got hit with HE in Fuze SQ mode. Painful. Smoke blossomed all over the place to my front. I've left off the usual all caps from the body text of the message traffic.
 
OP 1 SPOTREP
 
Confirm est. platoon of Romeo dismounted infantry attacking Sector Alpha (my left) with apparent Bravo Mike Papa Tango Two platoon in support. Out.
 
OP 2 SPOTREP
 
Confirm est. platoon of Romeo dismounted infantry attacking in Sector Bravo (my center) with India Foxtrot Victor platoon in support. Dust clouds suggest possible tank support as well. Arty smoke is beginning to obscure Point 2 (primary gap between woods).
 
OP 3 SPOTREP
 
Confirm presence in Sector Charlie (my right) of One Bravo Mike Papa Two and Tango Seven Two tank near house Zero Zero One in Sector Charlie. Wait One. Correction. Tank is not. Repeat. Not a Tango Seven Two. Tank is a Tango Niner Zero Alpha Mike. Repeat. Tango Niner Zero Alpha Mike! Out.
 
My remarks
 
While at first it looked like a most unwelcome dismounted attack with IFV support, I now know I'm facing a full blown combined arms attack. Artillery is raining down, and the telltale signs of an est. 120 mm mortar firing have been noted. And where there's one... It appears my gut reaction to trucks appearing at map rear as carriers (and towers) of heavy weapons is correct. Must do something about that. Meanwhile...
 
Battle was joined from the start, with an unholy chorus of Bushmaster and Woodpecker firing. What at first I thought was first blood to Sublimovitch when I observed a Bradley burning fiercely on the ridge in Sector Alpha turned out not to be alone, for on the other side of the map a BMP-2 spectacularly ceased to be (cause unknown) and two others came to unplanned abrupt halts. It was about this time...
 
OP 1 SPOTREP
 
Urgent. Be advised previously reported Bravo Mike Papa Two platoon is mixed force of est. tank destroyer and Bravo Mike Papa Two with Kilo Oscar Romeo November Echo Tango. Repeat. Tank destroyer and Bravo Mike Papa Two with Kilo Oscar Romeo November Echo Tango. Out.
 
My remarks
 
T-90AM, TDs and Kornet armed BMP-2? It's going to be a very long day. Or maybe a very short one! Remember all that careful DF fire planning? Let's see if it really works!
 
"On my command. Fire!"
 
Across my front Javelins take enthusiastic wing, Bushmasters hammer away and MGs begin to chatter. Some broken transmission comes in on the higher command link. "Air Threat Condition Red! Repeat. Condition Red!" At which point the sky fell on my head. So abrupt was this and so busy was I that I couldn't tell you whether or not I was able to say "Weapons free!" before the Frogfoot brace jumped all over me. Nor were my Stingers quick off the mark.
 
"Air raid!" "Air Raid!" As the very sky tore asunder and the village exploded.
 
My remarks
 
Fortunately for my ears, with my rig's sound levels still set for online program watching, I was on I.S. Sublimovitch's end when that airstrike hit. This pointed reminder on protecting one's hearing resulted in a crash volume reduction. Screenshots to follow. Have some doozies!
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

Great write-up Bud; its becoming the start of my daily read at work!
 
Just want to say that I'm new here, and haven't as yet purchased any game; still trying to find the time to work through the various demo versions, to find the one that really grabs me (bub on the way, so spare time will be next to zero, so no chance of affording/playing multiple CM's for MANY years...).
 
But it's nice to find an AAR that has started after I joined the forum, so I can read it in 'real-time' (as opposed to playing catch up with 10 or 20 pages of old posts before I get the to the current one).
 
I'm learning lots as well!  many thanks and keep it up.

Great write-up Bud; its becoming the start of my daily read at work!
 
Just want to say that I'm new here, and haven't as yet purchased any game; still trying to find the time to work through the various demo versions, to find the one that really grabs me (bub on the way, so spare time will be next to zero, so no chance of affording/playing multiple CM's for MANY years...).
 
But it's nice to find an AAR that has started after I joined the forum, so I can read it in 'real-time' (as opposed to playing catch up with 10 or 20 pages of old posts before I get the to the current one).
 
I'm learning lots as well!  many thanks and keep it up.

I was going to post a reply, but MOS basically hit the nail on the head as it were.
One of my basic rules of thumb is: if you don't need to take the building intact, a pile of rubble will do nicely.

Minute 41-40: Part Three
 
As the approaching rockets can be heard in the distance, that sole surviving armoured car in the west spots another HMG. Not the one that fired on 3/3 squad; this HMG is more east toward AOA 2

RU057
The IS-2 is speeding West, covered by the ridgeline. It will be another 2 min before it is revealed to the enemy.

RU058
And then it begins…

RU059

From reading the rest of your threads I think you have figured this out already but just in case someone else reading this has not figured this out yet: ^^^ that is one scary screen shot.  Two of your most valuable asses are up there where they should not be - the CO and the FO.  It would be much better to see a platoon of infantry ahead of them with the armoured cars close behind and the FO and CO behind that.
 
The old adage never send a squad where scouts haven't been, never send a platoon where a squad hasn't been, never send tank / company where a platoon hasn't been etc culminates in never send the FO unless a whole crap load of your troops have already cleared the area.   You want your FO to slide into place next to some of your infantry who already have eyes on the target.  Not just because you want the way to be clear of the enemy but also because you want any enemy contacts to be worrying about the platoon with armoured car support so they don't spend time paying attention to the FO.

I hope you still have time to get the infantry Co HQ on a tank.  I like to match up my infantry HQs with their supporting tank HQs in CMRT.  It is one of the benefits of tank riders.  When possible, I will put the infantry Platoon HQ on the HQ tank of the supporting tank platoon.  (Same with Company level units.)  This facilitates the flow of intel between the infantry unit and tank unit.  Just have to be careful not to get the inf HQ shot off the back of the tank.  Good luck with that.    Infantry without radios can also use the tanks radio to stay in C2.  With the lack of Russian radios this is often useful.  The screenshot below demonstrates infantry/tank cooperation & C2.
 

I've done two Comic AARs, and always dreaded the idea of work involved in doing a classic one. Until I discovered just how much work the CAARs were. Combined with all the AARs I've read here already trying to improve my tactical knowledge and skills, made me really want to give this standard format AAR a try.

The battle is a 45 minute duration attack by me on a German opponent in PBEM. My partner doesn't participate in the BF forums so this AAR will not be mirrored from the German perspective.

I am a graphics dilettante compared to Bil Hardenberger. I recommend you read his AARs, and visit his blog. His AARs were to me highly educational as well as inspirational. The concepts of planning, reconnaissance, and how to present it to readers in graphic format are all things I've learned from reading them. By no means can I approach his tactical or graphical skill but I hope you will still find this enjoyable to read and contribute to the thread.

Womble, thanks for your explanation.

I see that my comment wasn't justified. Mainly because of a lack of really understanding the way spotting works and partly because of my
never ending impatience. (Splitting platoons? Yeah, sure, no time for that. Going "SLOW" for the last AS or two? Come on, slow is for
girlies! Moving "SLOW" inside buildings?? Can't do that, I've got to run. Target arcs? No way, Jose!)

If I use your splendid advice, I might get more out of the game.

I do appreciate the relaxed and friendly tone of your reaction. How nice would this forum be if all posters would be this civil..

This is simply untrue. LOS is reciprocal, yes: as soon as you might see the enemy, they might see you. If they're both the same number of high quality troops in poor concealment, then there's a high chance that the two elements will see each other at the same time. But there are many occasions when one side or the other has a spotting advantage and will succeed their "roll to acquire" sooner (on average) than their reciprocate. An obvious example is a two man Elite sniper team with binos in a church tower at 600m from a green rifle team with no binos in an open field: the poor grunts will get picked off one by one without ever seeing the sniper. In the last campaign turn I played, an element of mine stumbled upon a lone straggler and it was a good quarter minute before they were spotted back, and they were Quicking across an open field (it's KG Engel, and the player Germans are quality troops, against piss poor Amis).
 
If the AI always spots you at the same moment you spot them, then you need to work on your cover exploitation. If it's not "always" then what's the problem? It's plain to see that "sometimes" two units will spot each other simultaneously.
 
 
Then you need to work on your movement drills and understanding of how concealment works. It is entirely possible to generate lopsided spotting situations where you can see and spot the enemy well before they see and spot you. The AI sometimes even manages to reverse the tables. But you have to generate them, they won't just happen. Both sides use exactly the same LOS and spotting algorithms; there's no "AI spot you when you spot them" rule (I know that for sure, because I constantly get situations where my troops shoot first, against the AI).
 
So, some advice to help you get on the right side of the spotting algorithms (in no particular order): 
Small teams are harder to spot (because there's less of them to spot, and they fit more easily behind concealing terrain features What's between the target and the spotter (every metre of it) matters more than what terrain the target is in. Example: Light Woods tiles give a concealment advantage; if you are in the "last" tile before open ground, your element has an average of 4m (anywhere from 0-8m, depending on where the individual troopers position themselves in their AS) of "Light Woods tile level concealment", whereas if you're in the next row back into the Light Woods patch, you'll still be able to see out, but you will have, on average 12m  (a guaranteed 8m, for the complete AS, plus the 0-8 for the AS the unit is in) worth of Light Woods between you and the observer, or three times the concealment advantage. Often, you'll be able to be even further back and still see out. Tree models do not give a good indication of the concealment they provide. The tree trunks block LOS, but if they're planted in "short grass", the concealment offered versus eyes on the same level by being underneath them will be minimal; if the canopy is high enough, so that the foliage doesn't preclude spotting, fire can completely ignore a "well-kept orchard" if it's aimed down the rows. Shooting teams are much easier to spot than teams which hold their fire. If your intention is "looking, not reaching out to touch", give your unit a short Target Arc, either circular or oriented the way you want them to bias their cover and shooting opportunity seeking. That way, they won't open fire the instant they see an enemy inside their effective range, giving away their position and attracting attention, causing an instant recipro-spot and return fire. If you're coming up to the "last piece of cover" between you and potential eyes (a bocage line, or clump of bushes at a crest, say) use Slow to move the last AS or two into the cover. This will minimise the chance of your arriving team being spotted by the observing enemy on the other side, because you're moving slowly and keeping low. If you want to spot without being spotted, give the moving unit a short covered arc as above so your scout team doesn't instantly engage the platoon they spot forming up in the field they just got eyes onto. Barns are poor concealment (and negligible cover, but that's a different issue). If you're moving about inside a building the enemy can see, you'll be spotted unless you Slow (or maybe Hunt). If you take this advice in consideration, you might find that you can ambush the enemy a little bit* more than 2-5% of the time.
 
* If there's such a thing as hypobole, this is an example of it...

I think he means 'made a few sales' in that they have sold a few games.  Sale being used in the transactional sense not the discount sense of the word.