Bozowans

Just starting on the fifth mission now. I'm spreading everyone way out again, sending one company out through the fields and woods on the left and the other company to probe the villages on the right.  I've played the first few minutes so far and my forward scouts have already spotted a wave of enemy tanks coming right at me. This should be good. 

Very interesting posts. Here's a spoilerific post from the third mission:
I just now finally finished it. After the difficulty I had with the second mission, this one was surprisingly easy! It was a massacre. I took only 6 dead and 9 wounded, with one tank lost. The Soviets took about 320 casualties, 27 tanks lost, 35 other vehicles lost and even one of their planes got shot down, crashing a couple hundred meters from the AA half-track that got it.
After the big tank battle at the beginning of the scenario had died down a bit, I started advancing a very thin, very widely dispersed infantry skirmish line out on foot across the wide open fields toward the objectives. Since the scenario was an hour and 20 minutes long, there was more than enough time for them to reach the other side of the map just by walking. It was a nice image watching them walk by all the burning T-34s everywhere. The infantry got into a few shootouts with retreating Soviet troops and tank crews, sometimes at very close range, but the resistance was pretty light.
By the time my forward scouts had begun encroaching on the final objective, they noticed large numbers of Soviet troops, trucks and a couple of AT guns starting to pull back from the town, heading to the map edge to exit. That was when I ordered one of the Panther companies to speed forward ASAP and cut off their retreat. I had the Panthers encircle the town with one platoon cutting off the road the Soviets would have to cross in order to exit. Whole platoons of infantry got caught out in the open and wiped out. I had the infantry line start running ahead with more tanks to storm into the town, flushing out panicked Soviet troops to be mowed down by the tanks. There were Soviet troops running right past the Panthers just meters away, but they were too panicked to be a threat.
Some of their troops got away, but It was a slaughter. Just one of the tanks alone caused 44 casualties. I didn't even use that much artillery, but I had one observer shell the town and some Soviet mortar positions with howitzers, causing 35 casualties. It was an interesting battle. 

Very interesting posts. Here's a spoilerific post from the third mission:
I just now finally finished it. After the difficulty I had with the second mission, this one was surprisingly easy! It was a massacre. I took only 6 dead and 9 wounded, with one tank lost. The Soviets took about 320 casualties, 27 tanks lost, 35 other vehicles lost and even one of their planes got shot down, crashing a couple hundred meters from the AA half-track that got it.
After the big tank battle at the beginning of the scenario had died down a bit, I started advancing a very thin, very widely dispersed infantry skirmish line out on foot across the wide open fields toward the objectives. Since the scenario was an hour and 20 minutes long, there was more than enough time for them to reach the other side of the map just by walking. It was a nice image watching them walk by all the burning T-34s everywhere. The infantry got into a few shootouts with retreating Soviet troops and tank crews, sometimes at very close range, but the resistance was pretty light.
By the time my forward scouts had begun encroaching on the final objective, they noticed large numbers of Soviet troops, trucks and a couple of AT guns starting to pull back from the town, heading to the map edge to exit. That was when I ordered one of the Panther companies to speed forward ASAP and cut off their retreat. I had the Panthers encircle the town with one platoon cutting off the road the Soviets would have to cross in order to exit. Whole platoons of infantry got caught out in the open and wiped out. I had the infantry line start running ahead with more tanks to storm into the town, flushing out panicked Soviet troops to be mowed down by the tanks. There were Soviet troops running right past the Panthers just meters away, but they were too panicked to be a threat.
Some of their troops got away, but It was a slaughter. Just one of the tanks alone caused 44 casualties. I didn't even use that much artillery, but I had one observer shell the town and some Soviet mortar positions with howitzers, causing 35 casualties. It was an interesting battle. 

I thought this was a neat little encounter from the last scenario I played:
I ran a full platoon of Germans up to a stone wall and unexpectedly bumped into a bunch of Soviet stragglers hiding on the other side just a few feet away. Two Germans were gunned down immediately and a point blank firefight broke out.

 
One of the Germans dropped down and tossed a grenade over the wall.


 
The Soviet soldier tried to duck down but the grenade landed literally right underneath him. He went prone directly on top of the grenade, covering it with his body when it exploded.


 
The rest of the Soviet troopers were shot pretty quickly, with no further casualties among the Germans.

 
I couldn't be sure how many more of them were hiding behind the wall though, so tanks and more infantry were rushed forward in the next turn.


 
The fight only lasted a minute or so in the end. I don't think I had ever seen someone toss a grenade at an enemy so close to them in this game before. He could have reached out and touched the other guy. Usually grenades are thrown pretty far and not very accurately either.

I thought this was a neat little encounter from the last scenario I played:
I ran a full platoon of Germans up to a stone wall and unexpectedly bumped into a bunch of Soviet stragglers hiding on the other side just a few feet away. Two Germans were gunned down immediately and a point blank firefight broke out.

 
One of the Germans dropped down and tossed a grenade over the wall.


 
The Soviet soldier tried to duck down but the grenade landed literally right underneath him. He went prone directly on top of the grenade, covering it with his body when it exploded.


 
The rest of the Soviet troopers were shot pretty quickly, with no further casualties among the Germans.

 
I couldn't be sure how many more of them were hiding behind the wall though, so tanks and more infantry were rushed forward in the next turn.


 
The fight only lasted a minute or so in the end. I don't think I had ever seen someone toss a grenade at an enemy so close to them in this game before. He could have reached out and touched the other guy. Usually grenades are thrown pretty far and not very accurately either.

I thought this was a neat little encounter from the last scenario I played:
I ran a full platoon of Germans up to a stone wall and unexpectedly bumped into a bunch of Soviet stragglers hiding on the other side just a few feet away. Two Germans were gunned down immediately and a point blank firefight broke out.

 
One of the Germans dropped down and tossed a grenade over the wall.


 
The Soviet soldier tried to duck down but the grenade landed literally right underneath him. He went prone directly on top of the grenade, covering it with his body when it exploded.


 
The rest of the Soviet troopers were shot pretty quickly, with no further casualties among the Germans.

 
I couldn't be sure how many more of them were hiding behind the wall though, so tanks and more infantry were rushed forward in the next turn.


 
The fight only lasted a minute or so in the end. I don't think I had ever seen someone toss a grenade at an enemy so close to them in this game before. He could have reached out and touched the other guy. Usually grenades are thrown pretty far and not very accurately either.

I thought this was a neat little encounter from the last scenario I played:
I ran a full platoon of Germans up to a stone wall and unexpectedly bumped into a bunch of Soviet stragglers hiding on the other side just a few feet away. Two Germans were gunned down immediately and a point blank firefight broke out.

 
One of the Germans dropped down and tossed a grenade over the wall.


 
The Soviet soldier tried to duck down but the grenade landed literally right underneath him. He went prone directly on top of the grenade, covering it with his body when it exploded.


 
The rest of the Soviet troopers were shot pretty quickly, with no further casualties among the Germans.

 
I couldn't be sure how many more of them were hiding behind the wall though, so tanks and more infantry were rushed forward in the next turn.


 
The fight only lasted a minute or so in the end. I don't think I had ever seen someone toss a grenade at an enemy so close to them in this game before. He could have reached out and touched the other guy. Usually grenades are thrown pretty far and not very accurately either.

I thought this was a neat little encounter from the last scenario I played:
I ran a full platoon of Germans up to a stone wall and unexpectedly bumped into a bunch of Soviet stragglers hiding on the other side just a few feet away. Two Germans were gunned down immediately and a point blank firefight broke out.

 
One of the Germans dropped down and tossed a grenade over the wall.


 
The Soviet soldier tried to duck down but the grenade landed literally right underneath him. He went prone directly on top of the grenade, covering it with his body when it exploded.


 
The rest of the Soviet troopers were shot pretty quickly, with no further casualties among the Germans.

 
I couldn't be sure how many more of them were hiding behind the wall though, so tanks and more infantry were rushed forward in the next turn.


 
The fight only lasted a minute or so in the end. I don't think I had ever seen someone toss a grenade at an enemy so close to them in this game before. He could have reached out and touched the other guy. Usually grenades are thrown pretty far and not very accurately either.

Yeah I agree with this 100%. I played some CM1 scenarios not that long ago and it was interesting to see how different it was. It's not just the fortifications either. Troops in moderate or light cover like trees and bushes can be very resilient against even direct HE fire from tanks. In CM2 by comparison, it's not that uncommon to see entire bunched-up squads get vaporized by a single tank shell. CM2 is just much deadlier all across the board, while CM1 is so abstracted that you get casualties very slowly building up over a long period of time.
I've felt for a long time that the CM2 engine works better in the modern war setting than it does for WW2. The CM2 engine did start with Shock Force after all. The extreme deadliness of the weapons, the higher degree of control you have over your troops, the high casualties and even the higher numbers of KIA compared to WIA all fit with the modern setting better than WW2.
Even that "infantry running away from artillery" behavior that everyone complained about until the recent patch was more appropriate for the modern setting. If there is artillery or HE fire hitting near my infantry in Black Sea, I would WANT them to run away ASAP because chances are they are gonna get turned into meat paste within the next couple of minutes regardless of whether they're in cover or not. Infantry squads are smaller and more spread out in the modern setting too so it makes more sense for them to move around. In the WW2 games though, it makes no sense for a huge line of dozens of infantry to immediately abandon a long trench line and run away just because some mortars start hitting.

The main single-player campaigns for Red Thunder have a lot of really huge battles and it can definitely be pretty overwhelming. It's better to play some of the smaller single scenarios first, but once you get to playing the campaigns, you might want to play the Russian one first. The German campaign follows a huge mechanized force and you have dozens of tanks and halftracks packed with troops to deal with. I found it pretty overwhelming to deal with such a huge number of vehicles plus every infantry squad having its own carrier.
At least with the Russians, you have mostly infantry and can just move everyone forward in large groups. You don't even have to worry about casualties that much. You just drop down a giant artillery barrage and then start throwing waves of men at the enemy. Remember that you can double click on units to select their entire formation and move them all at once. So if you double click a company HQ, you will select the entire company and you can move everyone together with the same command. That can help quite a bit.

I thought this was an interesting firefight in the last game that I played. Russian troops attempt to cross a bridge under heavy fire from Ukrainian positions across the river.
The view from one of the Ukrainian positions:
'''
 
An RPG slams into one of the lead vehicles:

 
Seconds later, another RPG crashes into the middle of the infantry huddled behind the vehicles, causing four casualties:

 
The Russian APCs are all destroyed and the infantry are pinned down behind the vehicles, taking heavy losses. With the APCs down, more Ukrainian infantry emerge from hiding and the defensive fire intensifies. The bridge fills with dead and wounded.

 
The Russians have decided they have had enough and are sent streaming back across the bridge in disarray.

I don't think I would want to see this coming down the street

I was looking through my old screenshots folder and couldn't remember if I had posted these anywhere.
An advancing Soviet rifleman stopped to take a shot with his Mosin at a German AT gun across the street.

 
The view from the gun:

 
The gun fired and the shell flew through the wooden fence, between the guy's legs, then through the front door of the house behind him, and then finally exploded against the opposite wall. The shell was flying mere inches from the ground.



 
That was one lucky bastard! The gun crew was not so lucky considering what happened to them a few moments later. I thought that was one of the more unusual shots I've seen in these games.

Here's a lucky shot. I was just playing the U.S. Army, trying to be extra careful, advancing very slowly and cautiously, using dead ground to move troops forward and hull down positions for every vehicle and then everything went horribly wrong.
I parked an M1 tank in a hull down position along the side of a road when a Kornet opened fire on it. Here's the view from the ATGM position at maximum zoom:

 
The missile missed the tank, flying right over the top of it. It continued to fly for another 40 meters through the woods behind it until it just so happened to slam into a tree RIGHT in the middle of an infantry squad moving through the woods.


 
The infantry were in dead ground behind that road embankment and were not even visible from the ATGM position, and I thought they would be safe moving through the woods. The missile miraculously flew past several other trees just so it could hit the one right in the center of the squad. One man was killed, another incapacitated, and every other member of the squad was wounded except for two.

The next turn I tried to pull the tank back and hide it behind some trees, but part of its turret was still visible and it was knocked out from the front by a second missile. I guess you really don't wanna mess around with those Kornets. 

Yeah they don't explode when hit in real life. It's like shooting a metal tank full of water. It just punches a hole in the tank and the fuel starts leaking out. They don't explode in the game either.
I saw a WW2 flamethrower demonstration in person once. They are also much more silent than you might think. There is no big WHOOOSH sound like you hear in movies. At least not with the small backpack flamethrowers.
Flamethrower duty would still be very dangerous though because you have to get very close to the enemy. It's very hard to use them in CM for that reason. My flamethrower guys either get killed before they get close enough, or the enemy gets killed by other means before they get close enough. So they're useless either way.
Even if they don't explode, it would still be really awful to have to carry one in a real war. You can run with them but they're very heavy and awkward to carry and you probably won't be able to react or take cover as quickly. If by some chance you manage to get close enough to use it, then your exact location is instantly broadcast to everyone around you for a mile in every direction, like a giant beacon that says SHOOT ME.

I don't think I would want to see this coming down the street

I thought this was an interesting firefight in the last game that I played. Russian troops attempt to cross a bridge under heavy fire from Ukrainian positions across the river.
The view from one of the Ukrainian positions:
'''
 
An RPG slams into one of the lead vehicles:

 
Seconds later, another RPG crashes into the middle of the infantry huddled behind the vehicles, causing four casualties:

 
The Russian APCs are all destroyed and the infantry are pinned down behind the vehicles, taking heavy losses. With the APCs down, more Ukrainian infantry emerge from hiding and the defensive fire intensifies. The bridge fills with dead and wounded.

 
The Russians have decided they have had enough and are sent streaming back across the bridge in disarray.

I was looking through my old screenshots folder and couldn't remember if I had posted these anywhere.
An advancing Soviet rifleman stopped to take a shot with his Mosin at a German AT gun across the street.

 
The view from the gun:

 
The gun fired and the shell flew through the wooden fence, between the guy's legs, then through the front door of the house behind him, and then finally exploded against the opposite wall. The shell was flying mere inches from the ground.



 
That was one lucky bastard! The gun crew was not so lucky considering what happened to them a few moments later. I thought that was one of the more unusual shots I've seen in these games.

Here's a lucky shot. I was just playing the U.S. Army, trying to be extra careful, advancing very slowly and cautiously, using dead ground to move troops forward and hull down positions for every vehicle and then everything went horribly wrong.
I parked an M1 tank in a hull down position along the side of a road when a Kornet opened fire on it. Here's the view from the ATGM position at maximum zoom:

 
The missile missed the tank, flying right over the top of it. It continued to fly for another 40 meters through the woods behind it until it just so happened to slam into a tree RIGHT in the middle of an infantry squad moving through the woods.


 
The infantry were in dead ground behind that road embankment and were not even visible from the ATGM position, and I thought they would be safe moving through the woods. The missile miraculously flew past several other trees just so it could hit the one right in the center of the squad. One man was killed, another incapacitated, and every other member of the squad was wounded except for two.

The next turn I tried to pull the tank back and hide it behind some trees, but part of its turret was still visible and it was knocked out from the front by a second missile. I guess you really don't wanna mess around with those Kornets. 

Here's a lucky shot. I was just playing the U.S. Army, trying to be extra careful, advancing very slowly and cautiously, using dead ground to move troops forward and hull down positions for every vehicle and then everything went horribly wrong.
I parked an M1 tank in a hull down position along the side of a road when a Kornet opened fire on it. Here's the view from the ATGM position at maximum zoom:

 
The missile missed the tank, flying right over the top of it. It continued to fly for another 40 meters through the woods behind it until it just so happened to slam into a tree RIGHT in the middle of an infantry squad moving through the woods.


 
The infantry were in dead ground behind that road embankment and were not even visible from the ATGM position, and I thought they would be safe moving through the woods. The missile miraculously flew past several other trees just so it could hit the one right in the center of the squad. One man was killed, another incapacitated, and every other member of the squad was wounded except for two.

The next turn I tried to pull the tank back and hide it behind some trees, but part of its turret was still visible and it was knocked out from the front by a second missile. I guess you really don't wanna mess around with those Kornets. 

Here's a lucky shot. I was just playing the U.S. Army, trying to be extra careful, advancing very slowly and cautiously, using dead ground to move troops forward and hull down positions for every vehicle and then everything went horribly wrong.
I parked an M1 tank in a hull down position along the side of a road when a Kornet opened fire on it. Here's the view from the ATGM position at maximum zoom:

 
The missile missed the tank, flying right over the top of it. It continued to fly for another 40 meters through the woods behind it until it just so happened to slam into a tree RIGHT in the middle of an infantry squad moving through the woods.


 
The infantry were in dead ground behind that road embankment and were not even visible from the ATGM position, and I thought they would be safe moving through the woods. The missile miraculously flew past several other trees just so it could hit the one right in the center of the squad. One man was killed, another incapacitated, and every other member of the squad was wounded except for two.

The next turn I tried to pull the tank back and hide it behind some trees, but part of its turret was still visible and it was knocked out from the front by a second missile. I guess you really don't wanna mess around with those Kornets. 

Here's a lucky shot. I was just playing the U.S. Army, trying to be extra careful, advancing very slowly and cautiously, using dead ground to move troops forward and hull down positions for every vehicle and then everything went horribly wrong.
I parked an M1 tank in a hull down position along the side of a road when a Kornet opened fire on it. Here's the view from the ATGM position at maximum zoom:

 
The missile missed the tank, flying right over the top of it. It continued to fly for another 40 meters through the woods behind it until it just so happened to slam into a tree RIGHT in the middle of an infantry squad moving through the woods.


 
The infantry were in dead ground behind that road embankment and were not even visible from the ATGM position, and I thought they would be safe moving through the woods. The missile miraculously flew past several other trees just so it could hit the one right in the center of the squad. One man was killed, another incapacitated, and every other member of the squad was wounded except for two.

The next turn I tried to pull the tank back and hide it behind some trees, but part of its turret was still visible and it was knocked out from the front by a second missile. I guess you really don't wanna mess around with those Kornets. 

I know I've been playing too much CM when I'm driving around and see a field and wonder how many hundreds of meters there are across it, or whether that building way off in the distance is within rifle range or not.

I know I've been playing too much CM when I'm driving around and see a field and wonder how many hundreds of meters there are across it, or whether that building way off in the distance is within rifle range or not.