Anonymous_Jonze

You liked the previous incarnation of Battlefront's Normandy game, so I'd get Battle For Normandy. Most amount of content especially with the modules. You get a diverse nation selection, battlefield and weapon systems. There's also an extensive amount of mods and scenarios for it.

You liked the previous incarnation of Battlefront's Normandy game, so I'd get Battle For Normandy. Most amount of content especially with the modules. You get a diverse nation selection, battlefield and weapon systems. There's also an extensive amount of mods and scenarios for it.

Operation Bagration in full effect

Fire smoke at building.
Use the smoke to position your supporting weapons unmolested.
After smoke clears suppress the heck out of the building.
Fix bayonets.

I agree with this 100%. The way you could just sit back and shoot enemies off of hard cover before was silly. In real life it could take hours just to clear out a single apartment building. 
I'm reminded of the book The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer. He remembered spending much of his time in combat cowering in a terrified, delusional stupor at the bottom of his hole, unable to react or do anything except lie there while the bullets and explosions crashed around outside. He wrote that a lot of his memories of combat were just a blur because of it.
Green or conscript troops should certainly not be running around all over the place whenever they get shot at. I never liked how so many of the battles in Shock Force 2 consisted of the western forces shooting the poor hapless Syrians in the back as they ran away from their positions over and over. Every battle would end in a slaughter. I've always wanted the AI in CM to be more likely to cower and surrender, and less likely to run away. Now it seems I've gotten my wish.
If I put myself in the shoes of a Syrian conscript, handed a rifle, thrown into a hole in the ground and then told to fend off the invading army of a foreign superpower, I would probably not want to be running around outside. I imagine I would probably be like Sajer, cowering in the bottom of my hole soiling myself until enemy troops got close enough for me to throw my hands up and surrender.
One of the first scenarios I played with the new patch was a CMSF2 scenario where you're British light infantry attacking a battalion of poor quality Syrian conscripts in a small town. Their poor quality made them easy to suppress with just small arms fire, and since they weren't running away, it made them easy to capture. Most of the scenario involved my slow, exhausted British troops lumbering from building to building in the extreme heat rounding up large groups of prisoners as they went along. I ended up taking more than 100 prisoners overall, more than any other CM scenario I've ever played. It felt very realistic honestly, kinda like what I imagine a lot of the early Iraq War to have been like, with US troops moving from position to position, and after some token resistance, rounding up groups of Iraqi prisoners as they went along.

Shooting at a house for a whole day is literally historically accurate. Why do you think the US had to roll in 155mm self propelled guns to blast buildings at point blank range occupied by the enemy? Or the Soviets who had to create giant armored beheamoths to assist them with leveling buildings in urban warfare, fighting against Germans with no fall back orders who would refuse to give up the city block? Because you cannot shoot an enemy off of a position, especially in urban warfare. This is as true today as it was in 1944. I have no idea where the idea came from that all you have to do is fire a handful of rounds at an enemy position and they will just run away, but it is just flat out not true. 
No artificial intelligence is self aware enough to be able to realistically displace itself constantly, seeking new and better cover with all of the considerations that come into play. So the argument that the previous behavior was correct but just not properly implimented is a non starter. BFC is too small a company to develop an AI that would literally change the face of artificial intelligence. A human opponent remains the only true way to get the most accurate experience, but then again that assumes the person you play against knows what the hell they are doing. Many do not. 
Green troops with low motivation should absolutely stay in place. No one, regardless of training, is dumb enough to decide "hey, there are thousands of rounds flying around right above my head. Better run out into the open in the middle of it all cause that is the safer move!" It is completely nonsensical. Further, poorly trained troops are much less likely to be well trained enough to realize that they need to shoot, move and communicate in a firefight, let alone have enough training to actually pull it off.
Realistically, the behavior makes no sense. From a technical standpoint, it is not possible. 

in theory maybe, but what actually happened was that troops would just leave cover and run out into the open field or street to get gunned down. The game is not intelligent enough to make troops retreat in a sensible manner, so I'm happy with the way they now stay put.

Personally I think this is the way it is supposed to be.  A 10 minutes firefight between troops in good cover isn't shocking at all if their motivation is good. It is what we sometimes had before with soldiers just fleeing and getting mowed down in the open that was wrong. Now you need to actually maneuver to root them out or be prepared to have a prolonged firefight. I find it both more enjoyable and realistic. And it is not necessary to actually assault the position. A crossfire will usually do.

I recall reading in a Russian tactical theory book that sometimes a single stubborn mg nest was enough to hold up an entire battalion's advance. And that's why they fielded monsters like the ISU-152. Its annoying during gameplay but its a genuine tactical problem.

Why don't you all be quiet so this thread doesn't get locked. I think most would like to see previews of content not get into a debate.

Placing so many flavour objects is not good for performance. It would be better if this detail were included in the wall object itself. I don't think you'd ever find a wall broken like that without some debris at the base.
It's called "Fire and Rubble". We're not getting any fire - at least give us a little rubble.

I definitely have an interest in making some scenarios for the community. I really enjoy creating the map but I find creating AI orders daunting. I suppose I just haven't found the time to read up on how to create an interesting scenario. Especially when I have so many campaigns and scenarios to play!

I hope not. I would rather see the CW 44/45 Expansion of Final Blitzkrieg after Fire+Rubble. However we might learn in the next 2 months what the plan will be.

Given the limitations of the now 13 years old gfx engine, that is perfectly fine for me. The game is full of abstractions. Not that this is a bad thing.
Please bring up those nice little screenies. That makes it easier for those who wait.

this is ridiculous.  It's classic old fascist claptrap where they say "what about Stalin"  when they are really saying "Hitler had the right idea" but know they can't say that out loud so do it this way.   And then we have memoirs of captured german soldiers who complain how badly they were treated by the soviets -- after having killed ~15% of the soviet population.  they were treated horribly and suffered terribly, but no worse than what was done to those hundreds of thousands (millions?) of soviet prisoners who the germans let die in 1941/42.  So let's not play the "who was worse" game. 
yeah yeah yeah, we all know Stalin was a murderous monster of unbelievable proportions.  I read a book on Stalin and was shocked that he was even worse than I thought when I already thought he was an incredible monster.  Which somehow gets Hitler off the hook, and also shows that the allies were hypocrites, and we should've allied w hitler to stop the commies, blah blah blah. 
But all that really matters here is some russian folks made a movie that has lots of 45mm AT guns shooting at some realistic-looking german tanks, and that's all I really care about.  I am not watching this for it's literary elegance or great moral enlightenment or historical accuracy (other than the gear, which has to be right).  I just want some CM-looking battles on my TV. I usually fast forward through the pathetically scripted non-battle sections anyway (who can write such drivel?).  So they made it into russian propaganda? who cares, everyone does that -- as if hollywood never made nationalistic, propaganda-filled war movies.  Just show me some good battles. 
And herbert hoover never had to make the choice of which monster to back, so it's easy for him to throw stones later.  If the soviets had fallen how long before the US was facing armadas of german Uboats sinking all our commerical shipping?  What choice did we really have other than to back Devil #2 to fight Devil#1?

Yep, coming from that region, I would love to see a TF Welborn scenario. As I recall, this was the last larger tank engagement of the war and therefore certainly is some sort of „milestone“. There were one or two scenario attempts for CMx1, but they were not very convincing.
Otherwise, I remember a pretty good Northeim campaign for CMx1, which I would love to play with CMFB.
And the Harz should offer room for small scale actions in extremely difficult terrain.

Echoing what Aragorn has said; There's zero hype for this module because they haven't released anything in the last 6 months to keep us interested. I don't see how that's a good marketing strategy. I might forget to buy it because I simply wasn't reminded that it's on its way. Give us a real bone already or tell us what's up with the development.

Echoing what Aragorn has said; There's zero hype for this module because they haven't released anything in the last 6 months to keep us interested. I don't see how that's a good marketing strategy. I might forget to buy it because I simply wasn't reminded that it's on its way. Give us a real bone already or tell us what's up with the development.

Yes, but I agree that it is nothing new. What I want is more news about the coming module, new screenshots and an update on the progress made. And I don't want to hear everybody is working on the scenarios and campaigns, because as Frederic the Great would say that's not more than their verdammte Pflicht und Schuldigkeit (damned duty and guilt).For God's sake, it's December and we're still kept in the dark. What are you afraid of, BF, that the Chinese steal your module, make a copy of it and release it before you can? Is all this secrecy really necessary? Just finally release this module and do it without pre-ordering as a gesture towards those who waited for so long. Or are you indeed as Rocketman suggested planning to release CMRT and this module on Steam and is that the reason for all the endless delay?

I would not call that a "bone" since we have already seen it.  Good stuff though...

Elvis, if you threw some bones in here they wouldn't get so off topic. 

Bridge at the Rhine...would be cool.  M-26 Pershing being employed would be cool also.

So another year drifts past and still no "Fire & Rubble".... no communication, no nothing.

DW makes good stuff