Thewood1

I have always liked how Steel Beasts does it for vehicles.
Select the platoon/company leader. Select the destination with an option for direct path, use road, or use cover.  Default is direct. Choose the formation...column for a road follow option.  Default is line abreast.  You can actually set default to column as the scenario default if you want. Set spacing as close, medium, far...default is medium.  With close, road movement faster than slow can sometimes create jams. Set speed.  Default is medium. You can optionally set SOPs if they spot enemy units, are direct fired upon, encounter artillery, etc. You can also set how the units deploy at the end of the path, as well as copy and paste the route to other units.  You have to put a little thought into it, but the order system is fairly easy to use.  But without SOPs and formations, CM would struggle with a similar approach.
I should note that there is a special task force convoy function mentioned at 4:50 that I have not used.  Just habit.  The video is from a version 2-3 years ago.  There have been a few significant changes since then.  I would play a lot more CM if some of these basic functions were available.
 
 

This guy is all over this forum and Steam looking for help.  He needs to read and pay attention a little.

So why are you posting in the Red Thunder forum on Steam?

This guy is all over this forum and Steam looking for help.  He needs to read and pay attention a little.

I'm always surprised at the low number of players that bring saves to discussions about bugs and issues.  CM is built on saves.  It saves EVERY turn.  

The comments about terrain are way over generalized as is the concept of battles in the Pacific and Korea.  Korea is mostly hilly open terrain, with a few areas of dense forests.  Korea was all about hills, rivers, and urban fighting.  The Pacific as a combat theater had a lot of non-jungle combat.  In fact, some of the largest US Army urban battles of WW2 were fought in more urban environments around Manila.  A large number of the island battles for the USMC were not in densely forested jungles.  The British fought large battles in Burma in urban and built up areas.  The Hurtgen forest and the Ardennes can be handled in CM so I would imagine it could handle jungles in a similar more abstracted fashion.
If we could just combine units from Downfall with Red Thunder, you could do the majority of Korean battles today.

It has a we-go mode where you can adjust the time the game runs and then pauses for orders.  Or, like CM, you can run it in RT.

It has a we-go mode where you can adjust the time the game runs and then pauses for orders.  Or, like CM, you can run it in RT.

I wouldn't mind if they just filled early war out with vehicle packs, scenario packs, or even map packs.  Could also give us a steadier stream stuff for the east front for example.

I wouldn't mind if they just filled early war out with vehicle packs, scenario packs, or even map packs.  Could also give us a steadier stream stuff for the east front for example.

I'm confused.  If the Pershing was in CMBO, we have been able to use it for 22 years with the Pershing.  CMSF1 has been out 15 years.  CMBN has only been out 12 years.

Noticed the manual for Downfall is up on the Matrix site.
https://ftp.matrixgames.com/pub/CombatMissionFinalBlitzkrieg-Downfall/CMFB Downfall Manual.pdf
Couldn't see one posted yet.

Noticed the manual for Downfall is up on the Matrix site.
https://ftp.matrixgames.com/pub/CombatMissionFinalBlitzkrieg-Downfall/CMFB Downfall Manual.pdf
Couldn't see one posted yet.

"The EXACT release date is up to Slitherine, but we're on track for an end of month release.  And yes, you cheeky little buggers, I do mean this month"
 
From Steve in the Combat Mission General forum.

Thank god there wasnt any wars going on in syria at the time of SF2s release!

I must say I disagree here. The amount of detail in Graviteam is incredible, and they just keep adding more and more. Just recently, they added simulation of exactly where each soldier gets hit by bullets and fragments. Some hits will kill immediately, some will wound, and some wounds will eventually kill - again depending on what part of the body gets hit.
And just to take it to the almost silly levels: I suggested to the developer that Soviet molotov cocktails might in some cases fail to burst if they hit soft ground or deep snow, simply because the bottle won't break. To my surprise, they actually went ahead and used my suggestion and changed the game code to do this.
Which is not only detail for the sake of detail - it means Soviet infantry is now less effective against infantry in snowy and muddy battles.
One can definitely make an argument that Combat Mission is better as a game than Graviteam is, but I think it depends on one's preferences. Both are worth playing in my opinion. CM has micromanagement, turn replay and also better urban combat. But Graviteam has much more detail and work put in overall, as I see it.

So is the only true comparison of CM an exact copy of CM?  I would easily put the graviteam games up there against CM.  And its wasn't stated as a copy of CM, complicated and detailed.  A far more complex wargame is CMO, by far.  Steel beasts is also far more detailed in many ways.

I criticize parts of their business model and some of the decisions made around games vs modules.  But one thing I completely grant to the BFC crew is that they have been building wargames and making money on it for 25 years.  If they didn't know what sells and what doesn't sell, we wouldn't be here discussing it.
And yes, your comments came across as snarky and butt-hurt.

Why not both? I find the best learning comes from a variety of sources (in my case books, youtube, and simulations). The quality of the military history content on youtube has reached really spectacular levels. They usually have much higher research standards than traditional documentaries. Real Time History isn't even the best of it (as much as I enjoy their content, they tend to repeat common myths a bit more often than most of the other channels I go to, so their research standards seem to be a bit more on par with traditional documentaries). There is Eastory, Drachinifel, Military History Visualized, TIK, Military Aviation History, Usually Hapless, Battle Order, The Operations Room/Intel Report, Kings and Generals, Forgotten Weapons, The Chieftain, The Western Front Association, GI History Handbook, and so many more that I'm sure I'll remember in a few minutes.
No source is perfect, and I've caught all of these channels making the occasional mistake. There is just so much misinformation out there that it's impossible for even the best historian to filter out all of it. That goes for books as well. The format that the research is presented in has no effect on the quality of the research, so books will contain as many errors as videos. I was just reading James Holland's book on Normandy, in which he repeated the myth that the Bren was extremely accurate and the MG42 was extremely inaccurate (they actually seem to have roughly the same accuracy, about 4-5 MOA). I doubt anyone could say that James Holland isn't a good historian. There are simply so many myths out there that it's impossible for even the best historian to catch them all.

The comments about terrain are way over generalized as is the concept of battles in the Pacific and Korea.  Korea is mostly hilly open terrain, with a few areas of dense forests.  Korea was all about hills, rivers, and urban fighting.  The Pacific as a combat theater had a lot of non-jungle combat.  In fact, some of the largest US Army urban battles of WW2 were fought in more urban environments around Manila.  A large number of the island battles for the USMC were not in densely forested jungles.  The British fought large battles in Burma in urban and built up areas.  The Hurtgen forest and the Ardennes can be handled in CM so I would imagine it could handle jungles in a similar more abstracted fashion.
If we could just combine units from Downfall with Red Thunder, you could do the majority of Korean battles today.

The comments about terrain are way over generalized as is the concept of battles in the Pacific and Korea.  Korea is mostly hilly open terrain, with a few areas of dense forests.  Korea was all about hills, rivers, and urban fighting.  The Pacific as a combat theater had a lot of non-jungle combat.  In fact, some of the largest US Army urban battles of WW2 were fought in more urban environments around Manila.  A large number of the island battles for the USMC were not in densely forested jungles.  The British fought large battles in Burma in urban and built up areas.  The Hurtgen forest and the Ardennes can be handled in CM so I would imagine it could handle jungles in a similar more abstracted fashion.
If we could just combine units from Downfall with Red Thunder, you could do the majority of Korean battles today.

The comments about terrain are way over generalized as is the concept of battles in the Pacific and Korea.  Korea is mostly hilly open terrain, with a few areas of dense forests.  Korea was all about hills, rivers, and urban fighting.  The Pacific as a combat theater had a lot of non-jungle combat.  In fact, some of the largest US Army urban battles of WW2 were fought in more urban environments around Manila.  A large number of the island battles for the USMC were not in densely forested jungles.  The British fought large battles in Burma in urban and built up areas.  The Hurtgen forest and the Ardennes can be handled in CM so I would imagine it could handle jungles in a similar more abstracted fashion.
If we could just combine units from Downfall with Red Thunder, you could do the majority of Korean battles today.

The comments about terrain are way over generalized as is the concept of battles in the Pacific and Korea.  Korea is mostly hilly open terrain, with a few areas of dense forests.  Korea was all about hills, rivers, and urban fighting.  The Pacific as a combat theater had a lot of non-jungle combat.  In fact, some of the largest US Army urban battles of WW2 were fought in more urban environments around Manila.  A large number of the island battles for the USMC were not in densely forested jungles.  The British fought large battles in Burma in urban and built up areas.  The Hurtgen forest and the Ardennes can be handled in CM so I would imagine it could handle jungles in a similar more abstracted fashion.
If we could just combine units from Downfall with Red Thunder, you could do the majority of Korean battles today.

So Downfall is actually much more complete than I expected.  A rather quick look shows that compared to CMBN, the only non-infantry units missing in the end will be:
Early Pz IVs, early Panthers, early tiger, and Pz IIIG for German tanks AT bunkers from VP French/German funnies Early M8 Early US baseline M4s Even the early tanks marks still have more later versions.  From a non-infantry standpoint, you could recreate pretty much any CMBN scenario if you could port maps over.
 
 

The point was that a poster said its hard talking to people.  I'm just pointing out Steve obviously doesn't think so.  Everyone gets time off, but maybe instead of 10 posts a day in the Ukraine thread, 9 posts a day and one day a month post something on the games he produces.