PEB14

Bloody sky…

Deep in the forest…

 
Overwatch

 
Handgrenade!

Bloody sky…

I decided a while back to replace one of the house textures (the one with large grey blocks) with something a little different and ended up adding four new house skins along with two new modular building skins.  While I was working on the files, I also added basic weathering to the tile roofs for all buildings.  You can download the file from the link below and place it in your data/Z folder.  
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OjN0AcVIsFzEthIbAaTBq2CXrhVbLQTN/view?usp=sharing

Of course, he's evil. He lives in an antipodean penal colony.

I had even worst spotting experience (and I'm probably not the only one). In at least one mission of the "Scottish Corridor" campaign, after neverending turns of spotting, the spotter finally FFEed in a location which had absolutely NOTHING to do with the area initially requested... At least he didn't fire on friendly troops!
CMBN terrain is generally very unfavorable for FOs (poor and short line of sights).

-2 Leadership Otherwise a regular FO. We could blame the leadership-2 as a plausible explanation. 

A caller can call artillery slightly out side their LOS - over a hill for example. So, no they do not need to see the ground impact. They do have to see something so your original suggestion of see the explosion effects are likely true. My guess is its more of an abstraction than actually see the displaced ground in the air.
However if the spotting round falls too far away or behind other obstructions then additional spotting rounds will be called in. As per what @Ultradave is talking about.
This is why if your FO has crappy key holed visibility it will take longer for FFE because the have to wait for something to land where they can see it to give direction. As per @MikeyD
My experience makes it seem pretty reasonable overall. If your FO has great visibility the spotting to FFE proceeds quickly and smoothly. If your FO has poor or spotty visibility it takes longer. If your FO has really bad or no visibility then it can even never resolve. 

Not sure what you mean. How may the designer have any influence on the FO spotting performance (apart from leadership and training level settings)?

That's a good observation. You would expect the casualty rate to jump up and down with major battles, lulls, and mass surrenders, rather than be completely smooth over time. Which means that either this video has greatly simplified things, or there is some reason why our expectations don't quite align with reality in this case. Either of those is possible, but I think the burden of proof rests on anyone who wants to assert the latter.

Don't forget that a VERY significant part of casualties came from prisoners, which are obviously much more numerous on the losing side (here, the defending one).
The case of the battle for Cherbourg is significant. According to the wiki page of the battle, the US forces lost 22 000 men in this battle, against 38 000 for the German. Of the German tally, 30 000 were captured. Which means that, if you remove the prisoners from the casualties, the US attackers suffered MUCH more losses than the German defenders (22k to 7 or 8k, that's 3 to 1), even though the battle was fought under total air superiority and at naval gun range for the most part.
By the way, however spectacular and technically well done, I find the video poorly convincing from this point of view (casualties seem to be spread out smoothly  over time with no major increase during major battles or after significant surrenders).

Don't forget that a VERY significant part of casualties came from prisoners, which are obviously much more numerous on the losing side (here, the defending one).
The case of the battle for Cherbourg is significant. According to the wiki page of the battle, the US forces lost 22 000 men in this battle, against 38 000 for the German. Of the German tally, 30 000 were captured. Which means that, if you remove the prisoners from the casualties, the US attackers suffered MUCH more losses than the German defenders (22k to 7 or 8k, that's 3 to 1), even though the battle was fought under total air superiority and at naval gun range for the most part.
By the way, however spectacular and technically well done, I find the video poorly convincing from this point of view (casualties seem to be spread out smoothly  over time with no major increase during major battles or after significant surrenders).

Lots of vintage armour in this victory day parade including a T-28 and T-35.
 

Good rules to live by.

Remember what @Vergeltungswaffe said:
"Never send a squad anywhere a team hasn't been. 
Never send a platoon anywhere a squad hasn't been. 
Never send a company anywhere a platoon hasn't been.
Never send armor anywhere infantry hasn't been."
I wonder if this applies to jeeps?

I would agree that it's gamey.
What's easy to miss is the recon outside of our CM games. Breaking out of Normandy or the such, yes, definitely send jeeps racing through the countryside, that's a question of finding out where the Krauts are, where they're still defending and where you can go to bypass them and keep up the tempo.
But CM games aren't that large, and there's never (very rarely at least) not going to be a significant enemy force to fight: the jeeps, scouts, etc. have already done the job of finding out that "yes, there are indeed Krauts here. We've done our job, now you do yours: go mop them up".
PBEM games will invariably be single battles, starting within the geographical constrains of one battle, and with a fairly good idea of how the enemy force looks, what it defends/seeks to occupy and usually with at least a rough idea of where they're at. What recons remains is low level/tactical, e.g. "if we go down that alley, will the company be chewed up by presighted mortar and MG fire?"
I don't think calling up a different, dedicated scout unit to go check it out. I'd hazard that the recon you'd do at that time would be more along the lines of Willie and Joe:
 

Well, size matters too (or so I'm told).  Ours is Huge with a capital H...

looks like it was fleeing the bazooka team

Wow!  I'm running on a £1500 4060 laptop.  It's okay 😉.
I agree with what you say.  But even with what we have right now there's nothing better IMO.

I use the slow movement command for vehicles if I want to try and force my way through something and I am not sure I can do it.  Plus placing waypoints as described on either sides of the feature.  That way, if the tank crew decides that it is better to travel 1 km out in the open to get to the other side of the hedge, by using slow command, it has hopefully not yet moved out into a dangerous position, and I can cancel the order and try something else.

My understanding is that the low and high bocage blocks movement in CMBN. CMRT and CMFB both have low bocage (but not high) except it does not block armour. Having said that if you want your armour to cross it you need to place a order way point just on one side and the next one just on the other. Otherwise the pathing system might decide to go around or through a gap some distance away. 
When i am trying to get vehicles to cross any obstacle I always place a way point around 5m away from the obstacle and another way point 5m or so on the other side. That tells the TacAI "I want you to drive through / over this". I do this for streams, hedges, walls, bocage etc. So, also for jeeps, trucks etc. not just tanks.

Preferably with some real news.

News from Vire:
A Panther roams at th end of the street…

 
Fierce fighting have also occured in the cemetary:

 
Even the surrounding countryside is not spared…

 

If there is an upcoming CMFI battlepack, then I hope is that it features more fighting from late 1943/early 1944 which was arguably the embodiment of the war in Italy (mountains, mud, bad weather, and not yet a strategic backwater) and is currently not very well-represented in the game.
The New Zealanders and Indians at Cassino?
The Free French leveraging the Gustav Line?
The Canadians at Ortona?
The Americans at San Pietro which was made famous by the 1945 John Huston documentary film?
 

The riflemen are basically ammo carriers for the MG42 and keep their eyes open for enemy forces to snipe at them to protect their firepower which is the MG42. Also keep them as long as practical in their Hanomags aka Halftracks they are mobile Foxholes to keep formation with the Panzers. Against enemy infantry especially Soviets keep their tactical range at 300 meters and avoid allowing enemy infantry inside 200 meters.