Kaunitz

Yeah, but there is nothing wrong with that. Wow. The info on telescopic sight is not visible in the game. It's only mentioned in the manual. Are you sure that its effect are modeled in the game, ie. like you say, a weapon without telescopic sight is not that good at spotting at longer distances (and maybe also less accurate when firing?)?

I don't know what the motivtion behind the topic is: Making the gunner duck in order to survive longer or making him duck in order to make him cease fire. Is the topic about the defensive or offensive capability of the halftrack? In any case, once panicked I also think that the passengers should keep their heads down. I don't think that the halftrack is badly constructed. In my recent H2H game, I was very happy that my halftrack gunners were keeping their heads up and returning fire. In this case, the enemy's fire was ineffective (rifle shots from ca. 350-400m against the frontal armor & gun shield of the halftrack). Despite the halftrack getting hit by more than 100 bullets in a matter of perhaps 10 turns, not a single one penetrated or caused any casualties (video AAR will be available once the game is finished). The important precondition was that all bullets came strictly from the front. Combat Mission's cover mechanics are very detailed. As soon as the angle slightly changed, the gunner got exposed and shot, as the enemy was now able to fire "around" the gunshield. As always, distance/the laws of triangulation help to make it harder for the enemy to work around some piece of cover. And as always, you should not expose a weapon to areas that it can't control. In fact I think halftracks are extremely strong (if used correctly) for their point cost. Major advantages: elevated MG and eyes (better for spotting and firing over obstacles, but also harder to hide), radio good protection against light and medium artillery (a shell needs to land really very close for its shrapnel to have any chance to penetrate - protection can be increased further by proper positioning and sandbags; Note how elegantly the german halftrack is designed with the inwards bending upper armor plates of the passenger compartment - shrapnel striking upwards from the ground will hit the armor in a bad angle and be deflected just enough to protect the gunner) good protection against long range small arms fire from the front mobile extra ammo can transport troops Basically, you get an artillery proof mobile heavy MG with slightly less ammo (which can also be used as a small supply dump) and a radio included. If you buy an ordinary hMG (and add a trench for arty protection), you pay more and still don't have a radio and are not mobile. The only drawback is that the halftrack has no binoculars, which means that the mounted hMG is not that good at shooting on sight (prefer area fire). PS: The M3A1 doesn't even have a gun shield for its MG.

Well yeah figuring out what weapon uses which sound can be a tricky. Some time ago, I started a systematical approach, but I somehow ran out of motivation ^^

I'd be interested into sound mods myself. To be honest, sounds are the most underwhelming aspect of CM games, but luckily there are mods around that greatly improve the experience. I've tried to mod a bit in the past, but it proves to be rather difficult. There are several unsolvable problems: Weapons would sound differently depending on whether you're close or far away. In CM, you only ever get 1 sound for a weapon. This is particularly bad with some of the modded sounds that add some "out of ammo" sound (clip-*ding*). If you make the overall shot sound large enough, the *ding* can also be heard very far away. Generally speaking with increasing distance, you want to filter out the high/treble frequencies. Weapons would also sound differently depending on the overall circumstances (humidity, hills/echoes, etc). Again, in CM, you only ever get 1 sound file for a weapon. Then there are some handicaps that could probably be improved somehow: You run into troubles with any weapon that fires rapidly. If you add some echo to the sound, then the echoes of multiple shots will overlap and you'll end up with a very weird and artificial noise. Most weapons have several files (e.g. gun mg42 0, gun mg42 1, gun mg42 2, etc), but I don't know exactly how the game makes use of these additional files. I tried to use a burst sound (several shots in a single sound file) for "gun mg42 0" (i.e. shot nr. 1) and silent files for shots nr. 2-4 - I hoped that this way I'd only hear that one burst sound. But the problem is that the game seems to start the burst with any of the files - it does NOT iterate through the sound files per burst, so you could end up with totally silent bursts, or the burst sound setting in too late (with the last bullet fired) and going on for too long. The game seems to randomize the pitch of sounds quite a bit (too much imho). By default, all sounds are WAY too silent (i.e. they don't get played at all or only at reduced volume over distance). Therefore, if you want to get a proper battlefield atmosphere, sounds need to be very very loud (clipped). Clipped sounds mean more "noisey", low quality sounds. Take a look at any sound mod out there and you'll see that most sounds are clipped. It's really unfortunate and something which could be improved quite easily, I guess. So in the end, I couldn't come up with a good solution for the MG42. It bugs me out. Right now, I'm using the mg42 sound from Audigisil's sound mod. I think that for the MG42 it's the best of all the available sound mods.

Looks nice! How big is the map? Is it true to scale?

Here is a diagram I've quickly tossed together, showing the effect of distance and muzzle height in relation to the aimpoint. If your aimpoint is at a different height than your muzzle, increasing the distance to the aimpoint results in a flatter trajectory, which can be used for grazing fire. Note that for the two muzzle points at lower height (red + blue), the intended grazing zone would be reverse-slope and could not be targeted. (Of course there is always some random inaccuracy/deviation from the "ideal" lines. This is not shown in this pic.)

Well, I suppose the problem with larger maps (apart from the technical/performance issues it might bring) is that the scales would get mixed up. In some instances, I wished the game had turns of 30 rather than 60 seconds and smaller/more action squares. If we'd have larger maps, however, most of the 60 second-turns would still be utterly boring. So gameplay would really suffer from the mix of scales. A very fine resolution of time and space fits to the tactical, but not to a grand-tactical/operational scale. Also, to a certain extent, positions that are farther away are already represented by offmap support, even though it's nice to see these units as 3D models on the battlefield. So it's really hard to draw a line here. I prefer relatively large maps with relatively few troops. The larger maps are just enough to allow for properly spaced-out support positions. Give me more troops and I'm overwhelmed by the load of micromanagement. Give me smaller maps and it feels "bottlenecked" and a bit unrealistic. I also have to admit that I think that CM is set on a very small tactical scale, which primarily is about playing it "right". Of course landscapes differ a lot in the real world. So I'm not denying that in some situations, maps can be small without any loss of tactical complexity. But overall, my gut feeling tells me that the engagements are a bit too crowded and close in Combat Mission. It's interesting to compare CM engagements with those that another game I like to play, Command Ops II, creates (in terms of distance, troops involved, duration of engagement, losses caused by engagement). Command Ops is set on the grand-tactical/operational level and also features maps that are true to scale. On this scale, scouting makes perfect sense. (And also, you'd rarely attack with infantry in daytime in Command Ops, which is standard for CM - well, it's because of all the graphical eye candy again, I guess ). I think that the problem, if you want to call it such, becomes more noticable with the "modern" titles (Black Sea). The more the operational and tactical spheres are intertwined in reality, the more problems you run into with a game engine that is designed to represent only the tactical sphere.

In my eyes, "large" CM maps are just medium maps, really. Small maps usually lack ("cut off") observation and support positions. This in turn means that many units suffer disproportionally, especially scouts/observers and other recon elements as well as support elements (assault guns, infantry guns). Due to the tiny size of many maps, these units are forced into closer, uncomfortable ranges to the "frontline". Ranges at which they're spotted more easily and at which the opponent's shots miss rarely. Also, since the overall number of positions is limited on a small map, artillery can be extremely dangerous - there are only so many positions where the enemy can hide, which again increases the weakness of the aforementioned units which are typically only lightly armored. Anyway, back on topic!

If both tiles have the same height, it could work, especially since there is always some random dispersion? From my understanding, given a perfectly flat terrain, your bullets will cross through the "effect zone" at a greater height if you aim "behind" the zone. As soldiers tend to go prone (reduce their height), such a fire might be less effective . If you aim short of the effect zone, by contrast, your bullets will cross the effect zone at a lower height, if at all (if they don't hit the ground in the effect zone that is), which is more dangerous for prone soldiers. But really this depends on the exact height of the "aim point" which is unknown?

*super necro powers* As it has been mentioned elsewhere, grazing fire (and theoretically also indirect fire) is possible right now in certain situations. You can let your units fire in a "flat" manner over ground if you position your units properly and the terrain is suitable. So it's not really a feature, but rather a very complex work around. From my observations, it depends on the height of the firing weapon in relation to the height of the aimpoint on the area-targeted tile. Draw a line between those two and you get the path/angle of the projectile. If the line continues close to the ground for a long distance "after/behind" the tile you've aimed at, what you achieve is grazing fire. They bullet stays dangerous as it travels on. Since the aimpoint is hardly ever on the exact same height as your muzzle, the distance between the muzzle and the area-targeted tile plays a major role. The higher your muzzle, the greater the distance to the targeted tile needs to be in order to achieve a "flat" trajectory. Therefore, it's pretty much impossible to get a flat trajectory with the main gun of a tank atmedium ranges. A prone infantryman with a MG, however, can get a flat trajectory at medium ranges. At extremely short ranges though, even the prone MG will get a "negative"/downwards pointing angle, firing into the ground at the area-targeted tile - so I assume the aimpoint must be slightly lower than the muzzle-height of a prone infantryman. To sum it up, you need to consider the height of your muzzle, the height of the tile you're targeting, the distance to it, and - importantly - the shape of the ground "behind" the area-targeted tile. You want your bullets to travel close to the ground after it passes the targeted tile. -------------------- Of course you still require a LOS on the tile you want to target. So, while small muzzle heights are generally good for grazing fire, they also suffer from terrain that obscures LOS (from my observations, each terrain type has a LOS-reducing value and a "height"). If you're on a hill or in the upper floor of a house, you have an easier time spotting enemies (as your LOS travels above most terrain tiles and thus cuts through fewer terrain tiles), but you trajectory is not flat. It's also worth mentioning that the distance to the aimpoint affects your rate of fire. Before firing a shot or burst, a unit needs to aim, and the time it takes to aim depends on the distance to the aim-point (for a regular XP unit, I suppose it's ca. 1 second aiming per 100m distance). As you're generally targeting tiles that are much closer to you than your actual target zone, using the grazing fire method described here will result in relatively high rates of fire (and ammo consumption). I also need to point out that due to its high ammo consumption, this method of grazing fire is not really usefull except for very few situations - mainly for MG flanking fire along the path of the attacker. With "target briefly", it can also be handy to make some impression on distant targets that pop out only for very short durations - if you don't use area-target, your units' aiming takes too long so they don't fire at all. Last but not least, it could probably be used for heavy MGs, whose capability for indirect fire is underrepresented in the game (also due to maps being too small in many cases). It would be interesting to place a heavy MG on the reverse slope of a very gentle hill. The MG would have many tiles in front of it, with the height increasing very gently from one tile to the next. This would allow you to fine-tune the elevation of the gun (by area-targeting different tiles). And then you'd need to observe where the bullets "land" (affected by bullet drop) for each elevation. Interesting idea, but probably not very practical . The only thing you'd really need to make intentional grazing and indirect fire a real thing in Combat Mission is some form integrated gun-elevation. E.g. you should be allowed to target reverse slopes if the circumstances (1) terrain, 2) max/min elevation of the gun, 3) bullet or projectile drop, distance to the target) would allow an effective line of fire on that tile (one that is close enough to the ground to inflict suppression). It would make a lot of sense for MGs and also infantry guns which, by the way, are also also underrepresented in the game right now (they suck because you can't make them fire indirectly!). Right now, you need to elevate the gun by firing at a tile that has a suitable height (if you're lucky enough to have one within your LOS...).

Yes, I've noticed this too. Seems a bit weird. I knew the devs are neglecting fortifications! With offmap-artillery it works fine (only experience affects point costs, all other stats don't matter).

On topic: I've already found an opponent! (at The Few Good Men...)

I've posted these observations some time ago in my Gerbini scenario-topic, but I think they deserve a better spot and some discussion, so here we go! Some short notes on dust in Combat Mission I have not conducted serious tests, just some quick hotseat-experiments in Combat Mission: Fortress Italy. What raises dust? Vehicle movement over "dusty terrain". The faster the vehicle goes, the more dust is thrown up. Firing large calibre guns (AT guns, tank guns, etc) from "dusty terrain". MGs are okay. Shell impacts on "dusty terrain" Whether a terrain is dusty or not depends on the ground condition (no dust if wet, eg.) and on the type of terrain. E.g. the ploughed field tiles don't raise any dust, most crop tiles do. Also consider different road types. Who can see dust? Dust generated by shell impacts can be seen by the opponent. Dust generated by firing or moving can only be seen by the opponent if he has spotted the unit generating the dust (confirmed contact required). Note that the enemy can only see the dust that is created from the moment on at which he has spotted the source (i.e. "older" dust generated by the source is not shown to the opponent retrospectively). On the other hand: once you've spotted dust, it stays even if you lose sight of its source. Effects of dust? Dust reduces/blocks LOS. For example, if you have 5 tanks on a sanddune fire, they will literally disappear in a cloud of dust. This is a two-edged sword and something to consider if you want to area-fire. Fire --> dust-cloud --> No LOS --> no area fire until the dust dissipates. This also raises an important question: Do dustclouds that my enemy can't see (because he has not spotted the source) still handicap his LOS? In order words: Is it possible that he can't see me because he's looking at a dust-cloud of which he is totally unaware? Can you be fooled by an invisible dust cloud? Another highly interesting question: I don't know whether dust raises the chance of getting spotted (as an unconfirmed contact at least, even if you're shrouded in your own dust-cloud?). Behaviour of dust? Dust travels with the wind (scenario condition) and dissipates at some point.

Hey JoMc67! Sounds interesting except for two points: 1) CMBN: It's the only game in the series I don't own. 2) Meeting Engagement? I'd prefer fixed roles. Also, is there any particular reason you want to set the motivation, leadership and equipment of the troops to specific settings? Can't we just leave it to "typical"?

Don't judge me! ;D

As mentioned, I've joined them in the past, but I always get auto-deleted due to inactivity. I'm waiting for confirmation of my new account right now.

My first and last multiplayer defeat is already two years old (https://youtu.be/EyulMh2b5Dk)! I've overcome my "Mad Mike" trauma and would like to try once more! So if you're interested please let me know. (I know about The Few Good Men, but I need to re-register because they periodically delete inactive members...). Terms and conditions I'm in Austria, Europe and should be able to play 1-2 turns per day, especially in the early (boring) phases of the battle. But if you prefer larger intervalls, I'm also fine. No hurry! I might create a video-AAR of the battle. Including captions in horrible english. I have Black Sea as well as all the WWII titles and modules except for Battle for Normandy. I'll play any of them. WEGO/turn based only, no real time. I'd like to keep it at small-medium size. Absolute maximum for me is an infantry company + some support vehicles. I'm not a fan of tank only battles. If we play BlackSea, I'd really prefer a very small battle. Quickbattle, no scenario. I'm a fan of fixed attacker-defender roles as I think this is just more realistic. I'll play either role. I also think that the attacker could get some initial information on the defender's dispositions (--> assault battle type) to reduce the boring time spent on scouting and shadow-boxing in the early stages. The map should be comparatively large and not cause too much paranoia (no woods only, no fully urban map, e.g.) as this tends to greatly increase my planning-efforts and slows down the action. We should review the map together and check whether the objectives are fair and set the time limit accordingly. Once we have agreed on a map and type, I might need a few days to select my force and create a super duper genius master plan. No bombardements on the attacker's deployment zone. I think it would be interesting if we agreed to use only "typical" troops (not boost everything up to veteran/fanatic). But I'm fine either way.

To my ears, that sounds pretty sophisticated! I have the impression that "deco" props (fallen trees, etc.) can also stop bullets (and probably shrapnel). I don't have anything to back up that claim, except for my experience from my CM:BlackSea MG-position: I placed a MG gunner prone in a crater behind a fallen tree. Despite a lot of bullets coming his way, he survived very long, and his MG (which - being on the trunk, not behind it - was more exposed than he himself) got shredded by the enemy fire.

I'm still hoping that the infantry's inability to use cover (in particular depressions in the ground, ditches) while retaining good LOS will be fixed by a glorious patch some day! The more I tried to make it work and delved into the problem, the more it became a deal-breaker for me, which affects all CM titiles and makes infantry die like flies. The problem is described (including some screenshots) in my Gerbini project, especially in the posts on page 3:

I'm probably not contributing directly to the main question at hand (how much protection should the shields of ATguns provide) but may be interesting for the side-question (did AT guns manoevure when exposed?). Here is a British brigadier's reflection on how to use AT guns after the battle of Gerbini 19743, where - after a successfull night attack - the British failed to bring up their AT-guns (according to the British doctrine mentioned by Josey Wales) in time to repel the German counter-attack the next morning and were therefore beaten back to the starting line. I've marked the more interesting parts (concerning the usage of AT guns in an attack context) in bold: "2. In view of this experience it appears that our arrangements (contracted in the desert) for reorganising the A.Tk defence of a captured position requires thorough overhauling. In the desert the enemy was generally completely evicted from the captured area, thus allowing some hours of darkness and quietness for reorganisation. In this battle conditions were, as already described, quite different. It seems now that the A.Tk plan for reorganisation down even to the sighting and responsibility of each gun should be worked out beforehand. A.Tk defence should follow up the various stages of the attack, making good ground as it is captured. Guns, particularly Pheasants [=17pdr AT guns], should be sited in the vicinity of the start line to fire well forward; not only in an A.Tk role but also in the close support role firing HE. Support A.Tk guns should be pushed well forward to reorganise on the reserve coy positions when captured, and in turn also to provide close support to the forward coys. Forward A.Tk guns should then be pushed forward to carry out their pre-allotted tasks in the area of the forward coys when those areas are captured. All guns should be carefully camouflaged before the attack, so that they can, should it be necessary, give support initially from exposed positions. The forward movement of the guns should be controlled by a very responsible officer (in case of Bns the 2nd i/c) who should have by his side an arty officer, prepared, should it be necessary, to bring down smoke to cover the forward movement. All ranks in the Bn should understand this procedure so that they can cooperate to the full extent to aid this move forward if [recte: of?] A.Tk guns either by smoke or fire. Finally it seems imperative that each A.Tk Bty should have at least one troop of S[elf]P[ropelled] A Tk guns for quick reorganisation in forward areas."Read more: http://51hd.co.uk/accounts/gerbini_combs#ixzz5KHLj6EUt Also, you may like to check out the 61st AT regiment's journal from July 1943: http://51hd.co.uk/accounts/61_anti_tank_sicily

Hello, kindred spirit! Although it won't make me stop working on my scenario, the discrimination of infantry is certainly my worst (and only really major) gripe with the CM series. The lack of proper defensive assets and the inability of infantry soldiers to use the ones that are in the game (because of bad positioning, bugging-out when arty strikes close, etc.) severely handicaps infantry and leads to implausibly high casualty rates in my opinion. In modern warfare, infantry and defensive works need to work as an integrated team. Infantry alone doesn't stand a chance. I will run some more tests to confirm, but as far as I can remember, using smaller (split-up) units didn't really change a thing. It seems as if soldiers are randomly assigned eligible positions within the action square. I'm really excited to hear about new ditches in CMSF2! Can you point me to more information? -------------------------------------------- Real life got in the way a bit, and there are ups and downs of motivation. Also, my desire to understand how the game works gets in the way repeatedly. But then again you need to understand how stuff works if you want to create an interesting scenario, right? I'll be back soon!

Thanks! I guess the titles scared me off until now, but I will definitively take a look! What I found most interesting in the accounts I've read so far is how slow and steady WWII still was. For some reason, I expected more manoevre, when in reality, the front moved only so much (until a general retreat, in which case total chaos broke loose). Every day, officers did their recon in the morning, throughout the day battalion areas were shelled (positions are judged based on the average number of shells they receive per day), patrols were sent out into no-man's land, the enemy was constantly observing your trenches and you were observing his. If you made good some ground because of the enemy's retreat or because of your own (rare) attack, you dug in instantly in order to secure your gains. I just find it interesting that from my impression of the WWII accounts, it was still so much dominated by trenches + artillery.

ability to buy ammo bearer teams. If you buy AT guns, IGs or MGs or similar weapons as "specialist teams" (not as part of a "formation"), they come without ammo bearers. IN WWII titles, it's really bad for AT guns and IGs, as the ordinary supply trucks and ammo crates don't have the appropriate ammo. So you're really stuck, with the initial supply of the weapon. Maybe I missed it somehow, but you can't "remount" man-handled weapons like AT-guns after you've "dismounted"? Better soldier placement within action spots. Right now, trenches/ditches are ineffective in terms of protection against artillery due to the way individual soldiers place themselves. For more information please refer to this post in my Gerbini-project: Not a feature but rather a bug: soldiers leave the protection of trenches (the ones you can buy as "fortifications") in order to hide in craters. As craters tend to be created during artillery barrages, you can imagine that this rather hurts.

Note: The problem that units leave the trench seems to be related with craters. 1. The unit stays in the trench. 2. Artillery shell hits close to the trench and leaves a crater. 3. Unit is unscratched, only half-suppressed, morale is okay but still it leaves the trench and runs to the crater to hide there. So it seems as if craters need to have a lower priority as cover than trenches. The behaviour is very suicidal as usually the infantry catches another shell on its way from the trench to the crater.