Centurian52

Yeah. You can get away with it against the AI. But they're almost always one of the firs things I shoot at. One of the lesson's from Monty Python's "How Not To Be Seen" is that you shouldn't hide behind the only bush in the field.
 

I meant to send this out yesterday, anyway my guess as to big announcement is that the next combat mission is going to be Combat Mission: Hello Kitty 40k. 
In the grim darkness of the future the is only rainbows and meows
 

Yeah. You can get away with it against the AI. But they're almost always one of the firs things I shoot at. One of the lesson's from Monty Python's "How Not To Be Seen" is that you shouldn't hide behind the only bush in the field.
 

I'm reluctant to use church bell towers for that very reason!

This little mini documentary shows how lucky Wittmann was.
Excellent work by the tank museum!!!!

Not gamey at all. Using fire to deny an area to the enemy is a real tactic. Free Whisky actually did a video on how best to use artillery in Combat Mission. He describes four types of effects that artillery strives to achieve in real life, and which can be recreated in Combat Mission:
Suppress: Keep the enemy's heads down.
Obscure: Prevent the enemy from seeing your troops.
Secure: Prevent the enemy from occupying a piece of terrain by making it too dangerous.
Reduce: Inflict casualties on the enemy.
There's no doubt a similar formal list of effects that you can achieve with direct fire, whether it be from small arms or tanks/IFVs. But as I haven't come across it yet, here's my somewhat less formal (and not necessarily comprehensive) list of what you can do with direct fire:
Suppressive fire: Keep the enemy's heads down.
Recon-by-fire: Find the enemy by shooting at suspected positions, baiting them to shoot back.
Secure: Make a position dangerous for the enemy to occupy by shooting at it.
Destructive fire: Inflict casualties on the enemy.
Fire is a tool. Ultimately we want to use that tool to destroy the enemy. But it has many other uses that can make it easier to reach that ultimate goal, or make it harder for the enemy to destroy you. If you can think of any way to use fire to manipulate the enemy into doing what you want (or not doing what you don't want), then that's a legitimate use of fire, and one that has probably been used at some point in the real world.
 

I have to echo @PEB14's point that the fewer house rules you have, the better. One or two rules might be necessary from time to time (no turn 1 fire into known or obvious setup-zones in meeting engagements makes sense to me). But the more rules you add the more it feels like a sport and the less it feels like a battle. I can see it easily getting to the point where you'd be walking on eggshells the entire time and unable to have any fun.

Ok that's definitely on me for not reading carefully enough. I still don't see the point. The enemy icons are there to tell you what your troops know. If you disable enemy icons then you know less than the game intends for you to know. It still just feels like a handicap for the sake of a handicap, rather than something that makes any sense from a realism perspective.

Yes! In fact that's one of the clearest signs that you're looking at a dictatorship rather than a true democracy. Democratic elections are competitive. Elections in single-party democracies* (a.k.a. dictatorships) are not competitive, and are really only conducted at all in order to provide the appearance of democratic legitimacy.
*A single-party democracy either only allows one party to run, or may allow other parties to run as straw-men but will only ever allow one party to win. Almost all modern dictatorships are single-party democracies. They provide an advantage over classic dictatorships if you are the dictator since you get a little extra legalistic justification for your rule, without ever really challenging your rule.

I often use a jeep in this fashion. To probe enemy lines and use it's speed as a defence. Then open up on any positions that fire at the jeeps with overwatching tanks.  It works 1/2 the time.  I didn't realize it was 'gamey'.
I am also notorious for using the Recon by Fire tactic.  I'm attacking a town in CMBN currently and one of the first things I did was hose down the church bell tower.

Not gamey at all. Using fire to deny an area to the enemy is a real tactic. Free Whisky actually did a video on how best to use artillery in Combat Mission. He describes four types of effects that artillery strives to achieve in real life, and which can be recreated in Combat Mission:
Suppress: Keep the enemy's heads down.
Obscure: Prevent the enemy from seeing your troops.
Secure: Prevent the enemy from occupying a piece of terrain by making it too dangerous.
Reduce: Inflict casualties on the enemy.
There's no doubt a similar formal list of effects that you can achieve with direct fire, whether it be from small arms or tanks/IFVs. But as I haven't come across it yet, here's my somewhat less formal (and not necessarily comprehensive) list of what you can do with direct fire:
Suppressive fire: Keep the enemy's heads down.
Recon-by-fire: Find the enemy by shooting at suspected positions, baiting them to shoot back.
Secure: Make a position dangerous for the enemy to occupy by shooting at it.
Destructive fire: Inflict casualties on the enemy.
Fire is a tool. Ultimately we want to use that tool to destroy the enemy. But it has many other uses that can make it easier to reach that ultimate goal, or make it harder for the enemy to destroy you. If you can think of any way to use fire to manipulate the enemy into doing what you want (or not doing what you don't want), then that's a legitimate use of fire, and one that has probably been used at some point in the real world.
 

Yes, agreed 100%. Keep it tight and simple. Preferably so simple there are none. A way more interesting and fun thing to do is introduce a few rules on how you manage C2 - for example the Hard Cat rules  (https://community.battlefront.com/topic/135087-hard-cat-rules-v2i-simple-to-use-command-control-rules-updated-01-june-2022/ ) Those don't create expectations that opponents will not do things to hurt you it just limits some of the god view flexibility. 
 
 
Yep, for me if someone reaches out with a bunch of rules it's a major red flag they are going to be no fun to play against. Not to mention I would hate to accidentally break a rule I agreed to because I simply forgot - I usually have a few games on the go after all. So hard pass if a new player starts saying "oh and do not this... and don't forget not to that...".
Now having said that, a long time playing partner who wants to experiment with something, that's a different kettle of fish I'm all in on trying something interesting. That's not what we are talking about though.
One of the great things about CM is rules lawyers are not successful because a truly impartial judge is keeping the game rules - the computer. One that you cannot wear down and befuddle. I suspect there are people here who have played war games with the people I call rules lawyers and don't want to repeat the experience. It used to be you were required to play with who showed up. Not any more 🙂

I think I've mentioned before that I strongly disagree with this one. You can't implement realistic tactics without area fire. Without area target you can't maintain suppression on enemy positions when the enemy takes cover and your own troops lose the spot, you can't conduct recon by fire, you can't use speculative fire on suspected enemy positions, and you can't use fire to deny an area that you think the enemy might want to go. Fire is a tool with a lot of uses. Only one of those uses is aimed destructive fire against clearly identified enemy units. If you disallow realistic tactics then what's even the point of playing the game?

??  One has to assign all "prep fire" in the setup turn.  The only choice (for offmap arty) is whether it is "immediate" or starts 5, 10 or 15 minutes later.  Prep fire from an onmap gun is always "immediate" (onmap arty fire cannot be delayed).
I cannot see how firing on possible approaches is gamey.  The only house rule that makes sense is "No firing on known enemy set-up locations on turn 1."  (How would one know where the enemy set-up locations are without first loading the game as the enemy player?)

Yes! In fact that's one of the clearest signs that you're looking at a dictatorship rather than a true democracy. Democratic elections are competitive. Elections in single-party democracies* (a.k.a. dictatorships) are not competitive, and are really only conducted at all in order to provide the appearance of democratic legitimacy.
*A single-party democracy either only allows one party to run, or may allow other parties to run as straw-men but will only ever allow one party to win. Almost all modern dictatorships are single-party democracies. They provide an advantage over classic dictatorships if you are the dictator since you get a little extra legalistic justification for your rule, without ever really challenging your rule.

I think I've mentioned before that I strongly disagree with this one. You can't implement realistic tactics without area fire. Without area target you can't maintain suppression on enemy positions when the enemy takes cover and your own troops lose the spot, you can't conduct recon by fire, you can't use speculative fire on suspected enemy positions, and you can't use fire to deny an area that you think the enemy might want to go. Fire is a tool with a lot of uses. Only one of those uses is aimed destructive fire against clearly identified enemy units. If you disallow realistic tactics then what's even the point of playing the game?

Yes! In fact that's one of the clearest signs that you're looking at a dictatorship rather than a true democracy. Democratic elections are competitive. Elections in single-party democracies* (a.k.a. dictatorships) are not competitive, and are really only conducted at all in order to provide the appearance of democratic legitimacy.
*A single-party democracy either only allows one party to run, or may allow other parties to run as straw-men but will only ever allow one party to win. Almost all modern dictatorships are single-party democracies. They provide an advantage over classic dictatorships if you are the dictator since you get a little extra legalistic justification for your rule, without ever really challenging your rule.

That's a more polite word then I would use. 
 
Kim Jong Un is elected over and over again. Surely the Democratic People's Republic of Korea isn't a dictatorship. I mean, it's right there in the name. Kim Jong Un and his father and grandfather are simply the inheritors of the Baektu bloodline and therefore are/were chosen by the minjok of North Korea in proper, totally above board elections.

It certainly seems unlikely at this point that the Chieftain will hold up better against 125mm or 115mm HEAT or APFSDS rounds than the M60. Though maybe once we have it in CM the various unusual angles that it might get shot at from in dynamic combat will show that it's actually more resilient than the youtube simulations suggested (maybe its frontal armor can bounce a 115mm APFSDS round if it comes in from about 30 degrees to the left while the tank is in a hull-down position that is tilting the hull up a bit to put the upper front plate at an even more extreme angle...or something).
In any case, I think one of the first things I'm going to do when we get the module is set up a Chieftain and an M60 on a shooting range and see if I can't find something that the Chieftain is more resilient against than the M60. It sure would be a shame if it turned out that all of that extra armor was nothing but a waste of steel and hp/ton. But based on what I've seen so far, my current guess is that the French and Germans probably had the right idea with their light armor/high mobility designs in the AMX-30 and Leopard 1.

I don't think so. The Chieftain hasn't gotten its newer better L23 APFSDS ammunition yet in the game's timeframe, so it's still using the L15 APDS that it had when it first entered service in 1965. I believe that performs better than the M728 at certain ranges, but not better than the M735. In practical terms the chance of hitting a point on the T64 that it can penetrate should be exactly the same as for the M60, though it may be more accurate than the M60A1.
They aren't that slow. Their mobility certainly doesn't stack up well compared to a modern tank. But I really don't think modern standards are the right standards by which to judge Cold War equipment. The M60's mobility feels about on par with a WW2 medium tank to me.

This is reminding me of why it took me so long to even give H2H a try. I want a challenge. I want to face an enemy with human-like intelligence and flexibility. I just wish there was a way to get that without having to interact with actual humans (I'm not complaining about any of my current opponents, you have all been great so far). The only really satisfactory solution would be a better AI.

You may insist on that rule for your own opponents. I, and I expect many others, will never abide by it. 

And you've ended up playing me 😂.  I am reasonably flexible.
On a serious note I think playing other humans is the best way to be challenged.  You may or may not find that with me, but you surely will with others.

One of the reasons I started following CM back in 1999 was I was tired of the rules lawyers in ASL.  This just seems like the same thing, with extra steps.

I think I've mentioned before that I strongly disagree with this one. You can't implement realistic tactics without area fire. Without area target you can't maintain suppression on enemy positions when the enemy takes cover and your own troops lose the spot, you can't conduct recon by fire, you can't use speculative fire on suspected enemy positions, and you can't use fire to deny an area that you think the enemy might want to go. Fire is a tool with a lot of uses. Only one of those uses is aimed destructive fire against clearly identified enemy units. If you disallow realistic tactics then what's even the point of playing the game?