Rinaldi

Yeah Panthers (if not most tanks) will take longer to spot if the TC is buttoned up. Though as you mention having the TC capped by infantry small arms equally recues spotting ability!
The gun sight in the Panther gives a field of vision at 2.5x mag of just under 500m at 1000m (IIRC). Though the drill for Panthers was the TC spotted the targets and talked the gunner onto acquiring them. Though again I'm sure most tanks would sue that method especially given the sights used at the time and the primacy of the MK1 eyeball (with binos) in spotting. FYI Soviet doctrine was generally for attacking tanks to be closed up but from personal accounts I've read many Soviet TCs would still stick their head up to see what was going on.
I think you are right that area firing would indicate your position and it was this the SU crew most likely spotted and engaged on.
I'm not sure how good SUs are at spotting. In truth in playing the game they seem (personal impression NOT proven!) they seem on a par with tanks i.e. if TC unbuttoned then spot quicker, if TC buttoned then yup takes varying time depending on variety of factors e.g. experience, suppression, what potential target is doing, as in things moving and firing are always easier to pick up than something sitting quietly observing.
IIRC in Mit Karacho there is light fog and its not long after dawn so poor light conditions. The LOS/LOF tool indicates the maximum distance you can area fire to but spotting to that range is very variable and more likely for practical purposes to be very much less (although does depend on what activity the target is engaging in, if been spotted by friendlies and that contact shared etc). In short spotting is a complex process and has some degree of variability.
There is lots of advice on this forum about players take and approach to managing this. Mine? I use my tanks in pairs, if close terrain then keep them close in pairs and ideally team up with dismounts who can scout ahead and spot targets and then share that info.
So in short all of the above is modelled - though how much and how accurately is the stuff of forum debate. Note the game uses a 'spotting cycle' which can sometimes cause some weirdness.
But 'seeing' things is filled with weirdness. Just today a guy about ran out in front of my car (doing 20mph) even although he seemed to be looking right at me, and I spotted him from 50m and thought "hhm he's going to chance running" and covered the brakes. As I drew level with him he made to run but his missus grabbed him - he looked surprised and was obvious he'd not clocked the large white car meters from him. Spotting cycle must have been against him  

He! He! Thank you  I was aiming to tactical dilemma! I can’t mind exactly how the scoring works ( and away from my pc just now) but should be possible to do one or the other and still get a win, provided you keep your casualties down. I’m sure that’s the kicker scoring wise. Regardless though, I’m truly glad you enjoyed it cos I was also aiming for that

Excellent - enjoyment is key and glad you did  
re the result. 
does depend on casualties you suffered in the attacking force as well.
 
You’d lose points for not holding the bridgehead but getting Stransky and his guys out of Dodge should net you enough points. I’d have thought  but not if you lose a lot of the rescue force.
This is all about force conservation for the Germans. Just can’t afford to lose tanks and SPW in this. 
Cheers for the feedback if you have the final save file and don’t mind sharing please I could double check the scoring. 
 
Cheery!

It is one of George's scenarios and challenging from both sides.

Not all Panzer Brigades were created equal. What you play with in CMBN and CMFB is not necessarily the same as what you are using in CMRT depending on date. This is mostly around the Panzergrenadier Battalion component of the brigade but also what was realistically available vehicle wise when they were forming these units. There was plenty of discussion on this prior to F&R release. IIRC if you look at the Scenario Design info in the "Battle of Tukums" briefing for more info.
Short version:
Panzer Brigade 101 - 104 first wave of deployments, followed the initial concept and TOE laid out in July 1944 by Hitler. Only deployed to the Eastern Front due to fallout from Bagration. Shows up in CMRT - F&R module only.
Panzer Brigade 105 - 110 first wave of deployments but followed a second updated TOE that the German General Staff tweaked. Shows up in CMBN, CMFB and CMRT but the formations were introduced first by the Market Garden module.
Panzer Brigade 111 - 113 second wave of deployments were shrunken down Panzer Divisions. More tanks and panzergrenadiers than the first wave deployments (2x Battalions of each) but no supporting elements (arty, recon etc) or additional regiment of motorized infantry. These brigades operated around Lorraine / Arracourt battles and were soundly defeated. No need for unique TOE in game as they used standard Panzer Division battalion TOE's.
Most were gone by Nov 1944 as unique formations with surviving equipment and manpower being amalgamated into existing divisions. I think only Brigade 106 continued to operate into 1945 on the Western Front.

Have made this mistake more times than I care to admit. 

I once made the mistake of assuming that a hit decal on a Tiger's gun barrel meant "job done". The big cat then took out two of my Shermans. The air turned blue.

Agree with all of this. Insofar as community scenario designers go, most will make scenarios they themselves want to play (this is certainly true of me, and I suspect, George) and these types of scenarios are rarely 'winnable' equally by both sides. Let me toss my two pence in. 
The simple truth is that the reality of combat means creating a properly balanced scenario is not likely to occur. A clever scenario maker can make the 'unwinnable' scenario winnable through allocation of points, but the reality of the fact is its not likely to be fun for the majority of H2H players. A perfect example is my 'Power Hour' scenario for Black Sea. It was designed to be played, primarily, as BLUFOR v AI but I balanced it and playtested it for H2H as well (to which I'm grateful to @IICptMillerII and @Saint_Fuller for their time and effort). The Russian player has the unenviable task of holding forward positions against a strong breakthrough force. They simply do not have the combat power to stop the attack if it is competently (if unimaginatively) handled by the US player. If they maul the force sufficiently enough they will win, as the US force has strict casualty parameters to balance things out. This is to simulate the fact that a sane commander holding a defence in depth would never presuppose that his forward units could actually stop an initial determined effort; a forward position's mission is to maul the enemy and get out of their way when they are no longer capable of doing so. That's a realistic mission....but not necessarily a fun one. 
When I designed the scenario, I presumed that:
a) the average human player would not particularly enjoy the experience of watching his Russian force get mauled; or
b) that a US player would appreciate how the strict parameters would translate against a human opponent.
My assumptions proved correct: the scenario got rave reviews from those who played it in singleplayer but got generally panned at the Blitz by Russian players, despite them winning more often than not. The long and short of this spiel is that its difficult to actually design a human on human scenario that isn't surreal and a 'realistic' H2H scenario relies on assuming there's masochists like myself or Fuller who are willing to play the 'tough' side and not balk at taking massive casualties. That's not everyone's cup.

Agree with all of this. Insofar as community scenario designers go, most will make scenarios they themselves want to play (this is certainly true of me, and I suspect, George) and these types of scenarios are rarely 'winnable' equally by both sides. Let me toss my two pence in. 
The simple truth is that the reality of combat means creating a properly balanced scenario is not likely to occur. A clever scenario maker can make the 'unwinnable' scenario winnable through allocation of points, but the reality of the fact is its not likely to be fun for the majority of H2H players. A perfect example is my 'Power Hour' scenario for Black Sea. It was designed to be played, primarily, as BLUFOR v AI but I balanced it and playtested it for H2H as well (to which I'm grateful to @IICptMillerII and @Saint_Fuller for their time and effort). The Russian player has the unenviable task of holding forward positions against a strong breakthrough force. They simply do not have the combat power to stop the attack if it is competently (if unimaginatively) handled by the US player. If they maul the force sufficiently enough they will win, as the US force has strict casualty parameters to balance things out. This is to simulate the fact that a sane commander holding a defence in depth would never presuppose that his forward units could actually stop an initial determined effort; a forward position's mission is to maul the enemy and get out of their way when they are no longer capable of doing so. That's a realistic mission....but not necessarily a fun one. 
When I designed the scenario, I presumed that:
a) the average human player would not particularly enjoy the experience of watching his Russian force get mauled; or
b) that a US player would appreciate how the strict parameters would translate against a human opponent.
My assumptions proved correct: the scenario got rave reviews from those who played it in singleplayer but got generally panned at the Blitz by Russian players, despite them winning more often than not. The long and short of this spiel is that its difficult to actually design a human on human scenario that isn't surreal and a 'realistic' H2H scenario relies on assuming there's masochists like myself or Fuller who are willing to play the 'tough' side and not balk at taking massive casualties. That's not everyone's cup.

I can tell you for free that 'designed with the idea of humans playing vs humans' is a false assumption.  The rule for bundled scenarios is that they can be played in all modes although exceptions to that rule were made for CMCW in relation to the Soviet Tactical Doctrine primer scenarios and a couple of others in that title.  None of those exceptions include H2H only.  There was no direction given to any of the scenario designers to optimise their scenarios for H2H for any title I've been involved with (CMSF-1 &2, CMRT, CMFB, CMFR, CMCW).
The challenge of following the rule, particularly when making a scenario based on a real action, is that the scenario has to be winnable by both sides in all three modes.  The get out clause is the one-liner in the 'Load New Game' screen where you can say 'best played as (insert side).'  Designing H2H is even more variable:
How do you know how skilled every single player is who buys the title? Which of those players is going to take Blue/Allied in your scenario? Which of those players is going to take Red/Axis in your scenario? Is one of those players going to play to their skill level or just have a bad day? Is one of those players going to have a good day and play above their skill level? Steve from Battlefront posted some time back that the data/feedback he has indicates that most people play the title in Human vs AI mode.  This would likely explain why the rule of playable in all three modes was introduced.  It also reinforces the point that your assumption is not well-founded.
Nonetheless, designing for all three possible combinations is achievable but it generally involves employing most of the victory point combinations, asymmetric objectives and time limits.  Achievable of course does not necessarily mean that your scenario is awesome in all three play modes.  It should be in one of the three and if you can do it in two, then so much the better.  If you can do it in all three then your name is @George MC
Linking the above to your point that designers 'boost' defenders with 'tons of points' - that is correct in many instances.  I 'boost' one side or the other or both sides with victory points in order to achieve the effect I intend.  As an example, to avoid a turn one cease fire resulting in a victory for a defending force that typically occupies all of the high victory point objectives that the attacking player needs to capture I will 'boost' the attacker by giving that side the equivalent number of victory points for friendly casualties at a threshold that will only be achieved by the defender's actions half way through the battle (ballpark figure for illustration would be 20% casualties).  The turn one ceasefire would; therefore, result in a draw.  The intent here is to make both sides commit to the scenario and play it through.  If both sides commit then the attacker will not get those victory points and is not intended to.  You confirm these thresholds by testing and adjusting as necessary if that 20% (or whatever) threshold is achieved too early.  Some of those 'boosts'; therefore, are never intended to take effect if the scenario is played with good intent by both sides through to its time limit or to a point where one player or the other genuinely elects to cease fire.

Someone should have bought Mad Addy a book about 1812. And then smacked 'im around the 'ead with it repeatedly. Not, to knock any sense into 'im, but just for the fun of it. As the old saying goes, "Never trust a man who goes into a beer hall and drinks mineral water".

Hard to argue with the analysis, in this case. The German's propensity to launch local counterattacks quite literally won us battles, or won us larger successes in what would otherwise have been a rebuff. Indeed, we began to plan around the certainty of a counteroffensive: 2nd Alamein, Epsom, Totalize, Tractable are all good examples.
Totalize would have been a success regardless, in my view, of the disappointing 2nd phase but the Germans just had to lay on the alter for us their last heavy armour reserve in a wild counterattack against strong positions, enhancing the scale of the victory and denuding themselves of any type of effective reserve in follow-on set pieces. 
In fact, off the top of my head, the only time the Germans didn't predictably dash themselves to pieces in a counteroffensive was during Crusader, and that's largely because they were so taken by the deception they refused to believe armour was en masse in their rear, we got impatient, and abandoned excellent BPs. We make such a pfaff about how flexible and dynamic the Wehrmacht was in Europe operationally, but in all reality they were predictable, and a predictable foe is invariably inflexible. 

That's quite unfortunate fella, stay hydrated. 

Nope.
Check out this thread which has an interesting discussion and this response from Steve which sheds light on how things actually work:
 

Hard to argue with the analysis, in this case. The German's propensity to launch local counterattacks quite literally won us battles, or won us larger successes in what would otherwise have been a rebuff. Indeed, we began to plan around the certainty of a counteroffensive: 2nd Alamein, Epsom, Totalize, Tractable are all good examples.
Totalize would have been a success regardless, in my view, of the disappointing 2nd phase but the Germans just had to lay on the alter for us their last heavy armour reserve in a wild counterattack against strong positions, enhancing the scale of the victory and denuding themselves of any type of effective reserve in follow-on set pieces. 
In fact, off the top of my head, the only time the Germans didn't predictably dash themselves to pieces in a counteroffensive was during Crusader, and that's largely because they were so taken by the deception they refused to believe armour was en masse in their rear, we got impatient, and abandoned excellent BPs. We make such a pfaff about how flexible and dynamic the Wehrmacht was in Europe operationally, but in all reality they were predictable, and a predictable foe is invariably inflexible. 

@JasonChas written at length, in this forum and on BGG, on the Panzer Brigades, and what he views as the German cult of the panzer attack.  As oldsters here know well, Jason is a genius macro-thinker, but he also tends to contemptuously wave away counterexamples (micro) that don't fit his Macro thesis. Nonetheless, there is a great deal worth pondering. For those interested, here are some snips:
1.  The Germans placed great emphasis on using armor offensively and on concentrating it, and they were the first to understand the need to support it with all arms - motorized to keep up and organic to the PD to ensure effective command and cooperation etc. However, very few men on the German side fully understood the technical details of how and why they had been so successful in the early war period, from 1939 to 1941....
Early in the war achieving an initial break-in was a more important thing to achieve, because the defenders against it mostly didn't know what to do about it.
But the Germans did not ascribe those earlier successes to the Allies being dumb at the time. They ascribed them to their own doctrines and what they thought of as the power of the offensive.
2.  As a result, they had an extremely offensive minded doctrine about the use of armor. Armor attacked, that was its essence. Letting the enemy attack first and then counterpunching was needlessly forfeiting initiative to enemies whose armies were still viewed (in some respects, rightly) as unadaptive and rigid, and therefore brittle. They believed mass employment in multiple-corps level attacks was the only possible way to employ serious armor. So whenever they accumulated any to speak of, they attempted another such attack.  Later in the war the offensive emphasis became a terrible liability.
The German armor doctrine had worked in 1940 and in 1942, and they didn't adapt well to it no longer working. They were forever throwing away their magnificent armor on useless counterattacks because they did not have a defensive armor doctrine. By the time a PD was allowed to defend tactically speaking, it often had half or less of its tanks remaining. 
The higher ups snapped up any armor at all fresh and not immediately in the line, for counterattack schemes.  The right place for them would have been just off the line in local reserve, ready for action in any direction, linebacker style. But putting a PD in reserve off the line was an engraved invitation to have it transfered out of your command to somebody else. It was a big ad saying "not needed to hold the front, immediately".
It was a general disease - have armor -> attack -> lose armor -> defend. 
The Germans should have husbanded their uber armor and used it as linebackers, smashing the most forward Allied probes. But defending with armor was simply a heresy. Armor attacked. That was its reason to exist.
3. The 1944 Panzer brigades were the latest and worst example of the armor offensive disease.  Worst, because at least a rebuilt PD retained experienced cadres and had all arms in the right proportions. Panzer commanders recommended using new tanks to refit existing Panzer divisions, to get their cadres, experienced staffs, and all make use of their remaining all arms support. But OKW overruled that,and made new KG sized formations instead, out of green men. Hitler wanted more armor formations on the map, psychologically, perhaps. But more likely, they wanted to control the commitment of the new armor, and in particular to ensure it got offensive missions.
The Panzer brigades had cadres, certainly, but they performed absymally, and a large part of that has to be put down to green formations. The men hadn't worked together, and a lot of the rank and file were raw. They also tended to get committed piecemeal, and as I have stressed here, on overly offensive missions.  Until wrecked - remnants were allowed to defend but not the full strength formations.
In the September 1944 Arracourt battles in Lorraine, Hitler thought he was pulling a repetition of Manstein's famous "backhand blow" in the Kharkov counterattack, early 1943. OKW thought the Americans were as logistically overextended after grabbing France. Which was largely true, in the gasoline area at any rate. But the US army wasn't a horsedrawn affair.
Panthers charged every morning in fog, to avoid Allied air power. The result was a series of knife fights at 200m, which the US won hands down. They were more often in their own defensive zone, better visibility, TDs heard the Panthers coming, Shermans flanked them, etc. 
They still managed to get initial break-ins easily enough, even against later Allied defenses. The problems they encountered typically had to do with breakdown of combined arms when infantry got stripped off the tanks by artillery, or getting lost in a deep defended zone and hunted by reserves while buttoned, or having roads cut, mined, bridges blown, etc.
Thrust forward with a whole battalion of Panthers at once, down 2-3 roads a company on each, and what happens? Do you get through the front line battalion? Sure. So what?
Now you are in bazooka land. You can't drive through an enemy army without showing side plate. Every hedge and wood needs to be scoured by Panzergrenadiers, but they are being blasted by American 105s and 155s. 
The Allies could "countermass" with artillery fire on the narrow breakthrough areas. Allied fire support and fire responsiveness increased drastically from early war to late. The German infantry could not 'shoulder' through the holes to widen them. Once the tanks were stripped, they were hunted rather than hunters.
4.  Did the German command learn from this fiasco? No. The commander of a storied PD who fought his whole army out of the trap of the south of France took control of the remnants of a shattered Panzer brigade, a fresher one that hadn't done well the last few days, cadre from another PD, and his own PD with a reduced number of runners. For days he battered away at a US combat command, trading Panthers for Shermans and not getting even 1 to 1. He was clever about arty and night infantry attacks helping out, to keep it up as long as he had. But he was down to 30 runners, having used up essentially all the armor in the whole theater. So he called off his attacks - and was promptly reprimanded for showing insufficient offensive spirit! Not by some political brown nose at OKW, but by a picked old Prussian Rundstedt protege. 
With the armor the Germans sent to Lorraine, fully re-equipping the crack 11th Panzer division, the 21st PD, giving 17th SS one panzer battalion, likewise for 3rd and 15th Panzer grenadier, plus TDs or StuGs for all of the above as well, and all of them employed defensively, the PDs as monster backs and the Pz Gdrs as sinew behind river lines and between the woods and cities held by the infantry - you could have fought 3rd army to a standstill, while keeping that massive force intact.
Instead they attacked and attacked throughout September until there was nothing left. 
****
More from Jason on 'Panzerleute disease', for those interested:
The question they should have been asking was: where and when am I going to destroy his armor? Because then, it is obvious enough a kill sack or Pakfront in your own zone is a more promising location for it, than off in his.
If instead you are trying to win the whole campaign 1940 style without having to face his armor, you try to hit where it isn't. Expecting to paralyze, pocket and kill whole armies again, as in the glory days.
Well, that didn't happen and it wasn't going to happen. Offensive spirit did not produce those successes. Enemy weaknesses and mistakes did. The Allies weren't that dumb anymore.
You couldn't beat them without fighting them, you had to kill them by fighting them. In particular their armor. And that requires a different way of thinking about what armor can do for you, to consider it the "heavy wood" in a frankly attritionist battle of material, rather than thinking of it as exploiting cavalry that was going to make the enemy 'evaporate' by driving around him and shooting up his supply lines.
German defensive armor 'doctrine', such as it was, was the net outcome of a lot of (often superb) tactical skills applied, improvising with whatever remained on hand after the counterattacks bled out. That was all twice as hard and half as effective as it might have been, since the German armor was already decimated at lower exchange ratios than it could have achieved.

I don't think I've been intimidated by Panthers for a long time, but every so often they will pull off something like this and remind me there's a reason to fear. 
https://imgur.com/a/HNTnnEY

"Russia didn't become communist" Well you're right there, The Bolsheviks failed miserably to create a communist society, in the words of one Czech socialist back in '68 they only established a "party oligarchy". Of course, I was too busy watching Man Utd win the European Cup to bother about such things. I know that Ricky Lenin, Terry Trotsky and Stevie Stalin did go on to play for Felchester Rovers but that is a tad outside of the realm of CM.

Poking some fun at a PBEM opponent who has gotten textbook BCO (Big Cat Overconfidence) syndrome. 

Poking some fun at a PBEM opponent who has gotten textbook BCO (Big Cat Overconfidence) syndrome. 

Scratch two Shermans…
 

 

Poking some fun at a PBEM opponent who has gotten textbook BCO (Big Cat Overconfidence) syndrome. 

Poking some fun at a PBEM opponent who has gotten textbook BCO (Big Cat Overconfidence) syndrome. 

+1.   I'm often surprised by the little details that I find when moving around the battlefield down at level one. 
Below are, I think, directions on a panzerfaust. 

 Cool game.