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Were the Thompson sights ever refitted to be 50 yards and 100 yards? I saw an interview with Ken Hackathorn were he states they were 50 and 100. My initial thought is that he is just misremembering information but again the 100/250 seems very optimistic, and the Thompson sights being updated after WW2 doesn;t seem incredibly far fetched.

@Sgt.Squarehead Thanks the 1928A1 video had the information I am looking for. 100 yards and 250 yards. Which seems more aspirational than practical to me.

I'm in a discussion with a few folks about the M1 and M1A1 Thompson. Specifically what are the sights ranged for? They have a fixed sight with an aperture and notch but I cannot find any information about what they are set for. I've seen comments that they are 50 yards and 100 yards (aperture/notch), 100 and 250, and even 100 and 50. Can anyone answer this for me?Insert other media

It looks like after the initial ranging shots the gun essentially is only ever off by its own inherent accuracy. As the gun fires and the gunner corrects you should likely see some amount of drift on the point of aim. Especially at long ranges. Since you are now dealing the the gun's recoil, any vehicle recoil/settling, and possibly the gunner moving the point of aim to reacquire the target. Now like I said this is the one I'm most unsure about, but the current results feel a little bit too robotic.

I've reread the post a few times and collected some thoughts. 1. The gunner's sights are likely too accurate at range At the longer ranges (depending on the sight) you would not be able to accurately place the gun onto the center mass of the target. Just based on the inability for the gunner to accurately use his sight picture to do so. Meaning that even if a target is spotted at an extreme range the ability to accurately fire would be impossible. This would be similar to shooting with a rifle. Your rifle is going to be physically more accurate for a much longer range than the shooter is capable of seeing/accurately lining up the sights. 2. The gunner likely has too much knowledge of the target The gunner continually hits the center of mass when in reality they may not know where the center of mass is or even mistakenly identify the center of mass. For example, a Tiger is situated in heavy woods and is spotted by an opposing vehicle. The shooter may see a portion of the Tiger but they may not know what portion of the vehicle they are seeing. Resulting in them firing repeatedly into a random portion of the Tiger or totally missing if they incorrectly identify the orientation of the vehicle. 3. The gun should likely become increasingly inaccurate as the gunner continues to shoot. I may be wrong here but while the gun, if perfectly stable, should have perfect accuracy based on its qualities, the qualities of the ammunition, and the qualities of the environment this should not be the case in the field. As the vehicle or gun would move around due to the recoil forces of firing repeatedly on often uneven ground.

I've played various sims and more arcade style games and at longer ranges something I've noticed is that when engaging hull-down vehicles (or even infantry in cover) its often difficult to actual tell the shape of the target. However, when watching the hull-down clips here its clear the vehicles know the exact shape of the enemy. I wonder if that might not add to the accuracy we are seeing. Since spotting then gives the crew perfect knowledge of the size/shape of the enemy. Whereas in reality they may be aiming at a muzzle flash or an unclear shape. Possibly putting rounds into the vehicles cover under a mistaken belief that it is part of the vehicle.

If you look at a Rifle Company it would have somewhere in the realm of ~28 MP40s. About 21 of those would be in the Rifle Platoons. If you wanted to create "Assault Platoon" it would be feasible to concentrate them in a single Platoon. 1 SL (MP40) 1 FTL (Mp40) 1 MG (MG obviously) 1 AMG (K98) 5 men (MP40) Multiply that by three and you would have the 21 MP40s required. Six natural MP40s within the platoon, seven requisitioned from the Company HQ and Weapons Platoon along with an additional eight from either of the other two platoons. This would still leave each sister platoon with 3 and 4 MP40s respectively. Although I'm not entirely sure that you would want to replace every K98 with an MP40 even if you could. Whether the Germans ever did this I don't know but I have read accounts by U.S. infantrymen of squads being overloaded with additional BARs or Thompsons and one Canadian report of a Company deliberately organizing an SMG heavy platoon before combat. I have noticed that in the Soviet accounts I've read they tend to mention SMG gunners far more often than just about anyone else. I wonder if that isn't a translation quirk?

Single players can, to an extant, experience this by giving themselves too much mental load. I'm using my spare time currently to play through War in the East for the first time. The Soviet Grand Campaign in particular as I felt that learning the game while playing the Soviets would make thematic sense as during most of 1941 I didn't really understand the game particularly well and am becoming more confident now that 1942 has rolled around. However, because the scale is so large it has been difficult for me to utilize the global scope of information I do have to always make optimal decisions. For example, I spent much of the Winter '41-'42 counter-attacking around Leningrad in grueling battles to create more depth around the city. It was only with a few weeks of winter left that I realized that a significant portion of the Southern Front around Odessa was held by Hungarian and Romanian troops, and that by attacking there I could cause far more material damage and relieve pressure around Leningrad. My eventual attack in the South pocketed a few Divisions but the spring thaw left me largely empty handed. In a smaller scenario I would have been more able to "math out" the game and make optimal decisions but because the scale is so large that doing so is prohibitive you start to add back in soft factors that can give you some insight you wont normally get. Within the context of CM you can generate a similar overload if your computer can support Battalion+ engagements on large maps as the complexity can start to obscure what would be obvious in a Platoon scale match.

Yea Ripper, that is what I usually do too. I still remove the suppressive fire when my men enter the same action square as the enemy. Which is where I most often see the issue I brought up earlier. Erwin, while it is a game it would still be useful to have a command that emphasized shooting over movement. Which is something we do not have right now. The shooting emphasized orders are all binary.

I'm speaking in respect to friendly fire. Small arms can only do friendly suppression but cannot kill friendly troops. HE on the other hand will both suppress friendly troops and kill them.

The game mechanics are such that small arms can only produce suppression and cannot cause casualties. There really isn't a system wherein AI tries to avoid friendly fire. HE fire can always cause friendly casualties. As to why I do it: * HE will still produce wounds * Small arms will still produce suppression * It often makes more sense to life suppressing fires to new targets that threaten the infantry as they take the position. * Against the AI especially I find it cheap

That is exactly what I do. 1-3 action square (so 10-30 meter?) bounds depending on terrain tied in with anywhere from 5-30s pauses. For example, if I am pushing a platoon through deep woods with low visibility bounds are one action square with 20 second pauses on average. This allows all elements of the platoon to advance with supporting elements being able to see them and the long pause time gives everyone a chance to spot an enemy. However, a consistent problem I run into is that men using QUICK balance movement and shooting. Often choose to move over shooting. A command that emphasized shooting over movement would be a fantastic tactical addition as its not something we have access to right now. An example from a scenario I am currently testing. Soviet infantry enter a trench system with suppressed German infantry within it. The suppressing fires lift at the last moment to avoid fratricide. The first soldier into the trench system spots a German soldier but runs over him. The follow on men in the Soviet section also ignore the German soldier. The men stop their movement and then began to slowly rotate to look back at the suppressed German soldier to engage him, however, at this time the German has become sufficiently recovered to engage the Soviet infantry with his MP40. Resulting in multiple casualties before he is killed.

Can no longer edit... But by shooting I mean any sort of engaging the enemy. Be that shooting rockets, small arms, grenades, etc... Of our commands right now we have none that allows for reliable movement and fire which IMO is a problem since the game has gone 1:1. Within a squad or even fire-team it would be reasonable for a handful of men to stop for a second and fire before continuing on. Be that to stop and engage a visual target or a suspected target. Especially in a WW2 setting where a single SMG gunner might have more firepower than 4-5 other men. MOVE: does not reliably cause your mean to stop to fire. Often the result to FAST. QUICK: is the only order where your men will stop to engage sometimes - but I've repeatedly seen troops run over (yes over) enemy troops and fail to engage them. FAST: deliberately reduces the odds of firing for speed SLOW: In my experience men will not engage enemy while crawling. I suspect its partially to do with the fact that they are not looking forward while crawling severely reducing their spotting chance HUNT: Is actually move to contact and is unsuited for situations where you do not want to move to contact.

The ASSAULT Command isn't a true assault but is just bounding overwatch. This can be done far better with QUICK and PAUSES but neither are true assault commands. What is really needed is a command the prioritizes shooting over maneuver. Which we have none of right now.

Yea I've always felt some sort of proper assault order would be beneficial. Especially because we can't edit orders with SOPs like in other games. An order where troops would move forward at a decent pace but stop consistently to fire at spotted enemies, enemy markers, and be more likely to throw grenades and so on. Essentially Quick but if you see someone or think you see someone shoot them immediately. The actual Assault Command is pretty bad since it doesn't seem to make troops more likely to fire at targets and both the moving team and the overwatch team share morale. I've had multiple occasions where the movement element have become suppressed resulting the the overwatch element also becoming suppressed. Allowing the movement element to be destroyed. Not to mention that you can't offset the elements so if any direct fire comes in it hits both groups.

CM is such an old game that its base coding is holding it back from better performance. You aren't really going to eek out much more regardless of what you do.

IMO its undeniable that stronger Federal leadership would have been beneficial across the board. Leaving to individual States and sometimes individual Cities is not the best way to battle a nation-wide epidemic. Trump, unfortunately is not the sort of President who would make any sort of self-sacrifice to better the Nation and would never be ahead of the curve in something like this because it could have damaged his relection chances. Which is one of the most damning things about Trump as a leader, and I think a direct result of his previous occupation as essentially selling his personal brand. If you are making a living essentially on your name you necessarily need to protect it even if that means making poor decisions. More broadly I do not trust business men moving into government as I'm not at all convinced it prepares you for the requirements of high office. However, Donald Trump is even worse off because his business is essentially a personal dictactorship wherein he sold his brand to make personal real-estate deals. He obviously doesn't deal with long-term planning, supply chains, markets, etc...

Hmm that is interesting. I've never done tests but played hundreds of hours and have noticed that a single shot will often kill or wound on metalled roads while in other terrain they can often take no damage from an intersecting shot.

This sounds like the game gives grenades a relatively high hit rate but a correspondingly high save rate. IIRC the throwing save for paved surfaces is almost nil.

Its quite clear that people don't care about personal or even family corruption so I don't see any issues with Biden's family. I guess you could make the argument that Trump is uniquely immune to being pinned for his abuses of power but I don't think so. His popularity is largely within a core Republican base. There is panic and reasonable caution and preparation. Essentially what we are experiencing is the lack of reasonable caution and preparation. Its the CM equivalent of not sending a forward element in front and then wondering why your entire column of soft-skins got trounced in an ambush. Yes if there had been absolutely no threat you wouldn't be having a problem but it is obvious that there was a threat. See the S. Korean response wherein they quickly ramped up testing and had federal leadership. --- Generally I think Biden is a weak candidate against a standard Republican but against Donald Trump I don't see him as particularly weak. Trump is unique but that also makes him uniquely vulnerable. IIRC during Ebola the National Stockpile had nearly 100 million masks and the balance of those were handed out and not replenished after the fact. Partially that had to do with funding and preparing for other more dramatic problems. But I would think the full power of the United States Government would be at least as aware of potential issues as early as December if not sooner. Simply buying up some additional stock as a precaution would not be financially devastating or particular difficult that early.

If anyone is interested Rising Storm 2 has a Winter War mod just released.

We'll see what it looks like in November. If this keeps up for ~6 months and becomes the new normal...

It would be nice if the squad communicated on what action they were doing. Right now it appears that each soldier is thinking independently so you will see scenes wherein an entire squad all throws their grenades at once or fires off every panzerfaust /AT-4 in inventory.

Take a bit and slow engineers around the minefield to ID the locations. Each mine covers an 8x8 meter action square. You should be able to inch vehicles along either side of the mines quite easily. That is what I did on that campaign mission and experienced no issues.

Thanks for the tips! I have been worried about my placement of the companies. Especially 1/1 and 2/1 in the towns I'll take your advice and move them out of those positions for now. Part of the challenge is that I don't recall many scenarios in CM where fortifications play a large role and where the attacker will be getting lots of artillery. So I really don't know what the effect will be on target. Once I get the initial line done I will likely run some tests to get an idea of what to expect. I've been using Slaughterhouse The Encyclopedia of the Eastern Front to build out my Grenadier Division in defense (well Regiment thereof). The book makes no mention of the Division's AT Battalion having anything other than towed guns. However sources I've found online tend to state that the Divisions AT battalion should have a Company of Assault Guns. My gut feeling is that the online sources are leaning towards what should have been while the book is reflecting actual facts on the ground. Anyone have thoughts on this? While the scenario (if I ever finish it) will not be historical I would like it to reflect a rather generic Grenadier Division. Additionally what I've found describes the Regiment as having an integral AT company. Is this correct or would that company be coming from the Divisions' AT Battalion?