Rinaldi

In my experience they have. I don't know about the rest of you, but I try to squeeze every drop out of my QB purchases; which usually means buffing leadership and experience for individual units. I once had enough points left over to make all the 76s in an armored company "Crack" - but their rarity skyrocketed as a result. It made me experiment; you also take a rarity hit in June if you try to make a regular rifle unit 'crack', for example. Its not disastrous but it happens.

Finally finished off all my matches in Normandy, and got to doing a PBEM with my go-to opponent in Black Sea. He loves to play as the Ukrainians, and so the stage was set. Caught the game-winning attack: Black Sea makes it too easy; IR, APS and Rolling Smoke basically meant there was nothing the enemy ATGMs and infantry could do but keep their heads down and hope to survive the airbursts. T72B3s bypassed the Ukrainian infantry to savage their defenses in-depth as Motor Rifles come up behind and mop up. The battle lasted 17 minutes. Liked Black Sea, now that I got a MP battle under the belt, love Black Sea.

Please! I can't get enough of them; great way to pick other people's brains.

Honestly, in all the reading I've done, I haven't found mention of platoon level radios for AIRs. Most of the tactical manuals as well seem to be avert to spreading a Company out on as much of a frontage as a regular rifle company, but then again the manuals are all a bit out of touch with the reality in the ETO. Its made even more confusing because those same manuals stress that Halftracks should only be used as fire-platforms in the most ideal circumstances; so they anticipated constant dismounted action. A few minutes of google-fu doesn't seem to give me anything that contradicts this, but I'm really not sure. C2 can only be maintained from the mount, yeah. Normally it would be a bit of an issue, as the strong C2 links for the Americans are what I consider to be an advantage in game, but AIR platoons are large and make up for the lack of squad level firepower with the 60mm and double MMGs. They're hands down my favorite unit to play with, even in poor armored terrain, and I've never had problems co-coordinating fire support for them, but my Captains are often up front.

It has changed, as you suspect and found out. This was brought up recently in a thread, if it interests you. It changed with 3.0; my suspicion was and remains that its just them incorporating a feature from Red Thunder (as in Soviet rifle platoons, the HQ is attached to the 1st rifle squad). Historically its a decent abstract. The Armored Rilfe Platoon's PNCO often traveled in a different halftrack for security reasons in practice but on paper they were deployed thusly. It also is one less team to micromanage when mounting/remounting units. Pre-3.0 the 1st Squad of this formation was under strength and led personally by the XO, who was one grade in rank above the other squad leaders.

Battle Details: --------------------------- Map - Hell's Highway Open Theater: France, August Rarity: Standard Size: Large No Attacker's Handicap. House Rules: Anything Goes Made this thread so we don't clog up the screenshots thread with discussion. Any questions or observations are welcome, enjoy.

Well Red Thunder puts you in the unique position to do that a few times. "Hunting for the Bug" is a good example mission, you only start with a few tank rider units but with a plethora of armor on the field, including T-70s. Alot of treelines overlooking a km+ of rolling wheatfields made me think it was wiser to scout dismounted than risk exposing the full tank. It paid off as a few turns of observing showed me a 88 a ways out. I will be making my own topic for the video soonish, so I won't muck up the screenshot thread with text posts any further. I'll be open to critique and questioning then.

Eh, depends. Sometimes its a disaster. I've had the most amount of luck in Red Thunder doing it, terrain far more suited to do that on Steppes/Rolling farmland. Not as common as it is in Normandy.

Thanks Heinrich. I do my best to try and mix top-down with up-close, though editing this one was a pain, I may reupload a more carefully cut version when I find the time. While I often do this on open maps, this wasn't the case for that crew. Their tank was essentially a tractor from stummel fire, everything but the hull machinegun having been degraded or knocked out. I dismounted them in the rear so they could be an extra pair of eyes...when suddenly a handful of survivors came out of that bypassed farm.

A Video AAR of my latest PBEM. A bit of a riproarer for me. I may make a separate thread in a few day's time to discuss it, we'll see. For those who are handicapped for attention, the big booms begin around 26 minutes.

Ease of production. Barbarossa needed quantity to equip 4 million assaulting troops, alot of existing designs were simplified (like the PanzerBusche), and alot more planned designs were accorded low priority, like the Pak40, which didn't enter production until 1942 as a result.

This is always the most interesting part of an AAR for me; the break down and self-critique. No. 1 reason to play CM: Its good mental floss. The entire AAR was great to follow and read, thanks for doing it. I agree with the mortar assessment, I love IGs but its not something I would reinforce a Zug with unless it was for zone defense and in a prepared position. Surest thing to take out enemies behind a hedge is indirect fire, you'd be surprised how much of a beating you can take; my latest match saw a local counterattack by my opponent; about half a platoon supported by a Stummel. He ran into a blocking force behind low bocage and couldn't dislodge them despite sustained howitzer fire, only a handful of men lightly wounded. On that note, I just want to point out how rare it is for me to see a German rifle platoon actually sustain more casualties than a "defender" in a victory.

No worries. I use mainly 'junk science' when I come up with these solutions rather than any intuitive grasp of how the game ticks, but it hasn't backfired yet. More often than not you're only going to find out about a minefield when you take losses; so use judgement and time if its on your side when moving into areas ripe for mines. Mines that are detected are rarely cleared through and through as well; rather the sign will remain yellow, meaning that some mines are cleared but the area is still hot. I rarely try to force minefields but rather look for a gap or bombard the area with high caliber shells if available to cause cratering, the only time I ran into a minefield I was prepared to force was in Shock Force and the mission ended before I could do so.

1) It not foolproof and can lead to blasting where you don't want it, but try putting it next to, rather on the other side of, a hedgerow. 2) Break off a scout team, and move carefully, hunt through a suspect field and stop for 30-45 seconds at every action spot. They must be adjacent to the action spot that is mined for a while to spot the mines. Adjust time paused according to Engineer's skill and leadership.

Oh this explains so very much. An aside though...at the risk of derailing this thread even more; Luke are you the same LukeFF from subsim? If so, thank you for all your work on the RFB mod. Just recently got into SHIV on the suggestion of a friend and have been loving every moment of RFB+RSRD.

You need to gather your remaining volkgeiste and make a stirring come-from-behind.

The problem with the Bulge is that it gets over-focused on the Southern-Shoulder and Bastogne; where the Germans had all their initial scraps of success, and of course where the media ran hog-wild. The Northern-Shoulder is far more interesting, imo. Many German units never got off their start line; like the 79th VolksGren which actually got counterattacked and destroyed after repeated failure. 2nd Panzer also attacked more towards the North and was the closest to the Meuse, if memory serves, before being blunted and destroyed by the 2nd Armored. Alot of interesting stuff for the community to do between the Bulge and Nordwind, I just hope its not all tired and already-visited areas.

Some people can't be pleased Womble. Ever. Perish the thought that its the very first screenshots we've seen of something that is so clearly a work in progress.

Oh baby...

Oh for heaven's sake... Some people will never be satisfied, I'm beginning to understand why there's so much delicious passive aggression when the developers respond to posts like this. Edit: Here it is, I'm glad I decided to read on after downing some stiff drink to steel my resolve; Lipsmacking.

When I decide to film, this happens all the time. Especially with PBEM matches, thankfully my usual opponents have the patience of Saints.

You have a competent and aggressive opponent; you should be thankful - makes for good material!

Cheers, will check it out.

If anyone could point me in that direction; would be appreciated. I'm coming close to finishing the Road to Monteburg and am chomping at the bits for some movement.

One good round from the leIG may equalize things. Its so tough though to keep them on the gun and able to fire.