Some proposals to enhance infantry control experience

[Taipen]

My 1st CM game was CM: Battle for Normandy, and in multiplayer I'm mostly playing in turn-based mode (cause it's impossible to achieve authentic feeling of tactical level command with such amount of troops under control in real time). And I found a couple of things that totally ruined my fun during MOUT (military operations in urban terrain). This game is great in many ways, but such lack of controls ruins tactical flexibility I cherish the most.

1. Buildings block line of sight/observation completely in CQB - nonsense. Your troups are stacked at the wall of the building, and can't look out of the corner? This is a must have feature in any urban environment, and it's absent in this game - can't tell why, nothing difficult to implement.
   
2. Chain of command, out of chain communication. There are 2 platoons in close proximity, one is observing enemy troops, one isn't. Suggest, they don't have communication via chain of command tree - and what now? They cannot communicate by voice and convey position of enemy troops one to another?
   
3. Inability to act directly on targets, known from chain of command communication. Here are those 2 platoons from previous example (2). But now they have connectivity via chain of command. One of them have spotted a tank, but other one - haven't. This other one was informed about the tank via chain of command a couple of minutes later. Now he knows there is a tank in close proximity around the corner. He could get it from behind with AT grenade, but.. You cannot issue DIRECT order to your AT team to "Go there and blow this tank up", you only can order them "Go there, hang there for a while in hope you'll spot this tank, and blow this up if you'll do". You KNOW there is tank over there, you DON'T HAVE TO spot it again, you SHOULD HAVE ability to give a clear mission description to your ATs to destroy it, because you have it correct position via chain of command - but game lacks this possibility.
   
4. Reaction to fire/contact. Totally absent. Well, in fact, we have to rely on AI for that - and he is very clumsy and unaducated while doing this. Just a couple of most frustrating examples:
   
   1. 
      
   2. You can split a recon team from your platoon, but you cannot easly organize joint movement with needed level of caution. When your recon team suddenly attacked, they often just keep pushing forward, to their deaths, so do the remaining part of platoon. While in real life scenario you sould have ability to instruct them to take cover the instant they got contact or become fired upon, and the other part of platoon - to stop advancing and take cover too. And "Assault" movement type won't compensate for this. Firstly, it's only available to platoon as a whole; while moving in assault mode, it's splitted equally in halves, but what if you don't want to risk lives of 4 people, and want to sent only 2 as a recons? And another one: in assault mode your troops will open fire on sight, but what if you planned to advance silently as far as it possible? This game lacks Reaction to fire/contact option SO badly!
      
   3. AT infantry section's behavior just awful. IRL, they HAVE TO use hit and run tactics to stay alive. So you HAVE TO have ability to order them like this: "go there, wait for 30 seconds/or until target spotted, fire your bazooka, fall back IMMIDEATLY or move to other fire position" Instead, we can only designate it a fire sector and specify target type "armor". Upon contact, their just keep standing there and fire again and again for at least a minute (until you'll get to controlls for next turn in PBM; in real time it's better, but you have to move them to other possiton manually) Often this results in its premature death.
      

This last one could be solved with "Reaction to fire/contact" options, which would influence behavior of your troops' AI in such circumstances. Not something excessively dificult to implement, either.

[noob]

1) Buildings block line of sight completely in CQB - nonsense. Your troups are stacked at the wall of the building, and can't look out of the corner? This is a must have feature in any urban environment, and it's absent in this game - can't tell why, nothing difficult to implement.

Ordering one single man to peep round a corener is not difficult to implement ?......that's good, i suggest you tell the programmers at BF how to do it as it would be a great feature.

2) Chain of command, out of chain communication. There are 2 platoons in close proximity, one is observing enemy troops, one isn't. Suggest, they don't have communication via chain of command tree - and what now? They cannot communicate by voice and convey position of enemy troops one to another?

They can in a way, if one squad can see a unit then you can, so you can order the squad that cannot see them to react to them.

3) Here are those 2 platoons from previous example (2). But now they have connectivity via chain of command. One of them have spotted a tank, but other one - haven't. This other one was informed about the tank via chain of command a couple of minutes later. Now he knows there is a tank in close proximity around the corner. He could get it from behind with AT grenade, but.. You cannot issue DIRECT order to your AT team to "Go there and blow this tank up"

Any unit with an AT grenade will fire it if given a red target line order, so you can order your unit to move to get a LOS on the tank, then add a target command to the last waypoint.

You can split a recon team from your platoon, but you cannot easly organize joint movement with needed level of caution. When your recon team suddenly attacked, they often just keep pushing forward, to their deaths, so do the remaining part of platoon. While in real life scenario you sould have ability to instruct them to take cover the instant they got contact or become fired upon, and the other part of platoon - to stop advancing and take cover too.

I agree, the game needs a move to contact order like the old version had.

AT infantry section's behavior just awful. IRL, they HAVE TO use hit and run tactics to stay alive. So you HAVE TO have ability to order them like this: "go there, wait for 30 seconds/or until target spotted, fire your bazooka, fall back IMMIDEATLY or move to other fire position" Instead, we can only designate it a fire sector and specify target type "armor". Upon contact, their just keep standing there and fire again and again for at least a minute (until you'll get to controlls for next turn in PBM; in teal time it's better, but you have to move them to other possiton manually) Often this results in its premature death.

Not true, a unit can be given an order to move to a waypoint, then a pause command can be attached to the waypoint of a whatever length you want out of 5/10/15/20/30/45/60/75 seconds, then another move order can be added so the unit will move back into cover, therefore an AT unit can be ordered to move fast to get a LOS on a target, pause for 20 seconds to get a shot off, then move back to cover all in one turn,

[Blazing 88's]

4) You have clicked on way points and given orders right? Ex. like at waypoint two, clicking on it you can give further orders to the unit. Ex. pause for 30 sec., or target briefly, or make an armor or target cover arc, or hide, etc... this applies to every waypoint.

[noob]

4) You have clicked on way points and given orders right? Ex. like at waypoint two' date=' clicking on it you can give further orders to the unit. Ex. pause for 30 sec., or target briefly, or make an armor or target cover arc, or hide, etc... this applies to every waypoint.[/quote']

That's right, target, cover arc, hide, pause and deploy can all be attached to waypoints, and each waypoint can be connected by different types of move order.

[Taipen]

4) You have clicked on way points and given orders right? Ex. like at waypoint two' date=' clicking on it you can give further orders to the unit. Ex. pause for 30 sec., or target briefly, or make an armor or target cover arc, or hide, etc... this applies to every waypoint.[/quote']

Here are two examples why it's very clumsy method:

1) Won't work in case you don't know (even approximately) how soon tank will show itself. What if you just need order them to "wait in this bushes untill armor have revealed itself, fire at it one time, then fall back immediately"? Or don't fallback, just go to other concealed position 50 meters away and wait here for another encounter, fire again, and fallback again?

2) Lets imagine this situation: you presume armor will show in 35 seconds. So you order your AT team to pause for 45 seconds covering some sector (35 secs waiting for tank, 10 seconds for spoting and firing), then run to safety. Surprise! Tank suddenly appears from around the corner on 5th second! Your team fires and fails to destroy it, then it will try to reload and fire again, because they paused fro 45 seconds! I've seen such situations a lot in this game, and in many cases the AT team just get itself killed

[Taipen]

Ordering one single man to peep round a corener is not difficult to implement ?......that's good, i suggest you tell the programmers at BF how to do it as it would be a great feature.

No, no need for THIS level of authencity This will suffice: when stacked at the building's wall in such a way that this building obstructs field of view, preventing from observing the long street around its corner, you can chose something like "Urban awarness mode" and your troops become able to spot tartgets and movement on this street which they wouldn't spot otherwise - this emulates your troops peeking around the corner, to the cracks in devastated walls, to the windows. Well, maybe with a somewhat increased chance to be spotted itself. And ability one or two of them to shoot around the corner would be greatly appreciated, as well.

They can in a way, if one squad can see a unit then you can, so you can order the squad that cannot see them to react to them.

Not exactly what I meant.

Any unit with an AT grenade will fire it if given a red target line order, so you can order your unit to move to get a LOS on the tank, then add a target command to the last waypoint.

I meant this: when you know about some target from chain of command, but don't observe it directly, you can't order your troops to "go there and shoot this target" command, game won't allow you to do it. At least in CM: Battle for Normandy. You can only give such an order for targets you observing directly

Not true, a unit can be given an order to move to a waypoint, then a pause command can be attached to the waypoint of a whatever length you want out of 5/10/15/20/30/45/60/75 seconds, then another move order can be added so the unit will move back into cover, therefore an AT unit can be ordered to move fast to get a LOS on a target, pause for 20 seconds to get a shot off, then move back to cover all in one turn

Another clumsy workaround, I've responded to it in previous post.

[noob]

1) Won't work in case you don't know (even approximately) how soon tank will show itself. What if you just need order them to "wait in this bushes untill armor have revealed itself, fire at it one time, then fall back immediately"? Or don't fallback, just go to other concealed position 50 meters away and wait here for another encounter, fire again, and fallback again?

Ok, put the AT unit on hide in the bushes with a cover armor arc (Armor arc is in CMFI and will be in CMBN when upgrade 2.0 is released), then try and calculate when the tank will reveal itself, then set the pauses and the retreat move path around that number, however if you want an order that will allow an AT unit to move as soon as it has fired, i suggest asking BF nicely, however if that never gets implemented it isn't a game breaker IMO, there has to be a limit to the amount of micro management one can achieve, and at the moment the only thing i know there is a consensus on is the Move to Contact order.

[noob]

No, no need for THIS level of authencity This will suffice: when stacked at the building's wall in such a way that this building obstructs field of view, preventing from observing the long street around its corner, you can chose something like "Urban awarness mode" and your troops become able to spoot tartgets and movement on this street which they wouldn't spot otherwise - this emulate your troops prying around the corner and to the windows. Well, maybe with a somewhat increased chance to be spotted itself.

I like this idea, it could be used in buildings as well, to simulate someone peeping over the window sill rather than standing up to look out, how difficult this would be to programme i have no idea.

I meant this: when you know about some target from chain of command, but don't observe it directly, you can't order your troops to "go there and shoot this target" command, game won't allow you to do it. At least in CM: Battle for Normandy. You can only give such an order for targets you observing directly

Ok, the only way is to order the AT grenade guy that hasn't a LOS on the tank to move to an area where it will have a LOS, then see if it fires the rifle grenade, it should do, however it wouldn't be difficult to test to see if it will do this without a target order.

[akd]

Chain of command, out of chain communication. There are 2 platoons in close proximity, one is observing enemy troops, one isn't. Suggest, they don't have communication via chain of command tree - and what now? They cannot communicate by voice and convey position of enemy troops one to another?

AFAIK, units in physical proximity will share information, even if not linked by C2.

Inability to act directly on targets, known from chain of command communication. Here are those 2 platoons from previous example (2). But now they have connectivity via chain of command. One of them have spotted a tank, but other one - haven't. This other one was informed about the tank via chain of command a couple of minutes later. Now he knows there is a tank in close proximity around the corner. He could get it from behind with AT grenade, but.. You cannot issue DIRECT order to your AT team to "Go there and blow this tank up", you only can order them "Go there, hang there for a while in hope you'll spot this tank, and blow this up if you'll do". You KNOW there is tank over there, you DON'T HAVE TO spot it again, you SHOULD HAVE ability to give a clear mission description to your ATs to destroy it, because you have it correct position via chain of command - but game lacks this possibility.

Nonsense. This is not a hive mind. If the unit has ? mark on the enemy due to information shared from another unit, then their chance of spotting is increased. You can control engagement with target arcs.

[Taipen]

AFAIK, units in physical proximity will share information, even if not linked by C2.

Can't quite remember why, but I was shure this only so within a platoon or any other unit (soldiers inform each other within their element), and won't work between different units.

Nonsense. This is not a hive mind. If the unit has ? mark on the enemy due to information shared from another unit, then their chance of spotting is increased. You can control engagement with target arcs.

Well, and how about this: you know from CC about tank around the corner, but game's mechanic doesn't allow to to specify it as a target, not until you'll be able see it directly. So you decide to send yout AT team near it hoping they'll spot it. You set them a route (with a lot of PAUSEs cause game lacks proper "Reaction to contact" controls :mad:; and even with pauses, if they encounter enemy troups, they will continue to push forward, you can't order them to lay down and hide as reaction to such encounter), at the ent of a route - cover arc, approximately covering its position, and press End Turn button. But what if upon arriving they spot, say, damaged armored truck, which will be closer to them, than tank, and arc will cover it too? I can't be shure, but they can choose it as a target, no? And waste perfect opportunity to get from behind a really nasty german Tiger, what a shame - just because game won't allow you to specify WHICH EXACTLY armored vehicle you want to be blown up. And again to reaction to contact - how will you deal with this situation? Set them be paused at the last point of route for 20 second hoping this will be enough to spot and fire, then retreat? Often when I did it this way they just sit there, spot nothing and began to retreat. You can't predict how much time they will need to spot target, and you don't have controls to instruct them retreat ONLY AFTER spotting it and firing once-twice.

[LongLeftFlank]

I think you're overestimating a single man fleetingly peeking around the corner as an effective way to spot enemy infantry hidden in buildings or behind rubble, etc.

If you're really determined to find out what's there, detach a scout team and have them Fast dash across the street to a patch of cover. If they get shot at or shot, well, mission accomplished! But that doesn't necessarily tip off the other guys in the squad as to exact enemy locations.

[Taipen]

Ok, put the AT unit on hide in the bushes with a cover armor arc (Armor arc is in CMFI and will be in CMBN when upgrade 2.0 is released), then try and calculate when the tank will reveal itself, then set the pauses and the retreat move path around that number

Won't work, you can't in most cases predict future with such accuracy

however if you want an order that will allow an AT unit to move as soon as it has fired, i suggest asking BF nicely

Exactly what I'm talking about. Well, thats why I created this thread, wasn't been able to find "Suggestions and proposals" form on http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_contact&Itemid=3

[Taipen]

I think you're overestimating a single man fleetingly peeking around the corner as an effective way to spot enemy infantry hidden in buildings or behind rubble, etc.

I'm not asking it be super-effective, just a little info on what happens down the street will help a lot. Well, they could introduce some kind of lag - to emulate that your soldiers won't be peeking out constantly, only from time to time, so this tank you see as transparent silhouette, can be gone long ago. Currently to know this you have to step out of the cover.. and encounter armored halftrack with machinegun, and lose a couple of man; when IRL you would have only to peek out for a brief moment. That's just stupid.

If you're really determined to find out what's there, detach a scout team and have them Fast dash across the street to a patch of cover. If they get shot at or shot, well, mission accomplished! But that doesn't necessarily tip off the other guys in the squad as to exact enemy locations.

Yes, I tried. But:

1) You can easily run into currently unseen enemy troops and lost your men - remember, game lacks reaction to contact, they will continue to run even under massive automatic fire, you can't order them "run, but if fired upon - cover immediately or fall back"

2) Dashing can be not enough if they got MG42 on 50m distance - recons will be killed on spot.

3) That's just tedious. To get a simple option like this you have to implement this stupid and risky workarounds again and again. Same as in case of cautious movement - PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE, then your troups encounter a couple stormtroopers with mp-40s, and get butchered, because you can't set them fall back as a reaction to contact.

[Michael Emrys]

The game is not perfect and there is certainly room for improvement. What constitutes an "improvement" and how easily it can be implemented may be a different matter. Taipen, I think some of the points you raise are valid or at least interesting. But I also think you may be forgetting something. It sounds as if you are frustrated because you cannot precisely control the behavior of your squads (not platoons) as you would wish. Okay, as a game player I can understand that. But consider, how much control did a real life commander actually exercise in battle? He gives orders and these orders may or may not be carried out in a very approximate fashion. Battle is chaotic. It is very chaotic.

I claim that CM already provides us as commanders much greater powers of micromanagement than was ever enjoyed by our real life counterparts. This is partially to compensate for shortcomings in the Tac AI, which you have touched on. But it is a delicate matter to judge how far to go in that direction. A change of the sort you appear to be suggesting might have the desired effect in the situation you describe, but also come with undesirable effects in other situations. Imagine the frustration of the designers if they invest considerable programming time in implementing some requested feature only to have it turn out in playtesting to be a complete mess in ways that could not have been foreseen. In fact, how are we to know that something like did not occur already regarding the situations you are concerned with?

I'm not trying to put a muzzle on you. If something about the game does not satisfy you, by all means bring it up and let's examine it. Maybe it can be improved. But I hope that you do not assume that because some feature that is "obvious" to you is missing that the designers are stupid or careless. That would be a mistake and probably counter-productive to the ends you seek.

And BTW, welcome to the community.

Michael

[Taipen]

The game is not perfect and there is certainly room for improvement. What constitutes an "improvement" and how easily it can be implemented may be a different matter.

That's why I created this thread. I love this game, and it saddens me to see that almost unique as it is (yes, we have plenty of tactical level wargames, but not so spectacular and intuitive; I know only one another project of that kind, but it currently lacks multiplayer), it lacks some (not so many, as you see) features, which could create much more realistic environment. That's why this frustrates me so much - it almost finished masterpice, but it needs a couple of finalizing moves.

Taipen, I think some of the points you raise are valid or at least interesting. But I also think you may be forgetting something. It sounds as if you are frustrated because you cannot precisely control the behavior of your squads (not platoons) as you would wish. Okay, as a game player I can understand that. But consider, how much control did a real life commander actually exercise in battle? He gives orders and these orders may or may not be carried out in a very approximate fashion. Battle is chaotic. It is very chaotic.

I'm uderstand this, what I want is not a totall control, I want some means to designate general patterns of behavior to my troops, this is known as "ROE", "Reaction to contact/fire". This is real world practic, and without that, in current AI state, they just behave as mindless drons in situtations, described above.

A change of the sort you appear to be suggesting might have the desired effect in the situation you describe, but also come with undesirable effects in other situations. Imagine the frustration of the designers if they invest considerable programming time in implementing some requested feature only to have it turn out in playtesting to be a complete mess in ways that could not have been foreseen. In fact, how are we to know that something like did not occur already regarding the situations you are concerned with?

Well, I don't see how it can spoil gameplay. Features I've proposed should plug some holes in rudimentary AI's behavioral patterns, they won't change balance or something, they shouldn't even force developers to rewrite code from the start - just to add some controls to GUI which will allow player to tweak its algorithms a bit.

I'm not trying to put a muzzle on you. If something about the game does not satisfy you, by all means bring it up and let's examine it. Maybe it can be improved. But I hope that you do not assume that because some feature that is "obvious" to you is missing that the designers are stupid or careless.

I don't think they stupid. I think they just could have other priorities, or that there are not so many peoples playing PBEM - in real time you just can microcontrol all your troups while paused. Or maybe those questions have been rised already in past, but then there were some more critical developments to do, maybe now it's finally a time for them to appear in schedule. Well, at least I've tried.

And BTW, welcome to the community.

Thank you

[winkelried]

I claim that CM already provides us as commanders much greater powers of micromanagement than was ever enjoyed by our real life counterparts.

You touched an important point Michael - we really have to be careful how far we push micro-management - we risk that the game becomes hard to play. especially in larger battles.

I believe, a bit like Taipen, that TacAI needs a little boost to handle some standard situations better and to remove some of the micromanagement (e.g. getting the old shoot-n-scoot order back or the move-to-contact with a clear behaviour at the end). the current fiddling with pauses etc are just crutches IMHO - although I have developed my own approaches which work out pretty well ;-) . BFC always lends an ear to these things - in CMFI we got the armor cover arc back and we now have target briefly etc ...

On the other hand Michael you are right, that BFC should not invest too much in this stuff - there are other things I believe should be handled first (e.g. scripted AI, triggers for AI, fire, flares ...).

[sburke]

Not the first time this has been asked for, won't be the last. It may happen, but you'll have to be patient as it is a lot of work on the TAC AI and despite all the repeated claims that this should be easy, it isn't. Still, wishing for it can't hurt.

[Michael Emrys]

I'm uderstand this, what I want is not a totall control, I want some means to designate general patterns of behavior to my troops, this is known as "ROE", "Reaction to contact/fire". This is real world practic, and without that, in current AI state, they just behave as mindless drons in situtations, described above.

Also known as SOPs. Yes, I have been advocating those for about 14 years now, if memory serves, and I am not alone in that. BFC has adamantly rejected that approach all along. Their latest explanation for why almost convinced me, but it still seems like they have chosen an unnecessarily difficult path to get to the same place, if in fact we ever do.

Michael

[Vanir Ausf B]

[*]Buildings block line of sight/observation completely in CQB - nonsense. Your troups are stacked at the wall of the building, and can't look out of the corner? This is a must have feature in any urban environment, and it's absent in this game - can't tell why, nothing difficult to implement.

Agreed. Peeking/shooting around building corners is one of the most commonly used urban combat tactics.

I won't comment on how difficult it would be to implement this. Most likely if it was easy to do it would have been done by now. Then again, adjusting US rocket QB point values would take about 5 minutes and they haven't done that either.

[*]Chain of command, out of chain communication. There are 2 platoons in close proximity, one is observing enemy troops, one isn't. Suggest, they don't have communication via chain of command tree - and what now? They cannot communicate by voice and convey position of enemy troops one to another?

I also used to think this was how it worked. But someone did a test showing otherwise and it so happens that i just concluded a series of tests that confirmed it. In fact, if 2 units not in the same C2 chain are within 1 or 2 action spots of each other and one of them spots a unit the other has no LOS to the unit out of LOS will often get a generic enemy marker at the exact same time (the speed with which the information is passes varies randomly with variation increasing with distance).

[*]Inability to act directly on targets, known from chain of command communication. Here are those 2 platoons from previous example (2). But now they have connectivity via chain of command. One of them have spotted a tank, but other one - haven't. This other one was informed about the tank via chain of command a couple of minutes later. Now he knows there is a tank in close proximity around the corner. He could get it from behind with AT grenade, but.. You cannot issue DIRECT order to your AT team to "Go there and blow this tank up", you only can order them "Go there, hang there for a while in hope you'll spot this tank, and blow this up if you'll do". You KNOW there is tank over there, you DON'T HAVE TO spot it again, you SHOULD HAVE ability to give a clear mission description to your ATs to destroy it, because you have it correct position via chain of command - but game lacks this possibility.

Disagree. The god's eye view the player has gives the player a much greater ability to coordinate action based on information than any real world force would have. In the particular example given, the ability to pass spotting information to nearby units is a close approximation for what you are asking for.

[*]Reaction to fire/contact. Totally absent.

Not totally. You may want to try a Hunt command combined with covered arc. But it is true that our options are very limited. All I can do is echo the points made regarding SOPs.

[Paper Tiger]

I think the Tac AI will get tweaked at some point in the future so that it is better able to handle city fighting. There hasn't been much of it in the WW2 CMx2 titles so far but I expect there will be a greater need for improved behaviour for the East Front title which will necessarily cover the Battle for Berlin. So there's hope. But I doubt you'll see any changes for a while yet

[Michael Emrys]

I think the Tac AI will get tweaked at some point in the future so that it is better able to handle city fighting. There hasn't been much of it in the WW2 CMx2 titles so far but I expect there will be a greater need for improved behaviour for the East Front title which will necessarily cover the Battle for Berlin. So there's hope. But I doubt you'll see any changes for a while yet

If they really want to do Market-Garden correctly, they are going to have to tackle urban combat in a big way. So it might come earlier than you are expecting. But who knows, maybe they just won't be able to get that one together in time for its scheduled release and it will have to wait for the v3 upgrade.

Michael

[John Kettler]

Taipen,

Welcome aboard!

So, you first got into CM via CMBN? Color me impressed! What did you play before that which allowed you to apparently master a very complex, complicated and demanding game? I ask this from the perspective of someone who goes clear back to the CMBO Beta Demo and is more or less trying to avoid drowning.

winkelried

What do you mean MAY become complicated? Would say we're long since there. I have no idea how people play CMBN or CMFI at battalion level, as some do. I'd be thrilled to be able to competently run a platoon of infantry or a company of armor. Guess everyone has o start somewhere. Not looking forward to real city fighting, where things get even more complicated.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Paper Tiger]

If they really want to do Market-Garden correctly, they are going to have to tackle urban combat in a big way. So it might come earlier than you are expecting. But who knows, maybe they just won't be able to get that one together in time for its scheduled release and it will have to wait for the v3 upgrade.

Agreed. However, it would be foolish of me to speculate that it might come in time for Arnhem . TBH, I'd say the focus is more likely to be on getting Arnhem finished than on addressing the existing issues with urban combat so I'm not going to hold my breath. Version 3 sounds more realistic to me too.

[Michael Emrys]

And I suppose we should keep in mind that the next module for the BfN family is not only about M-G and Arnhem, it is to cover what else is going on in the theater at that time. For instance, clearing the Scheldt Estuary is of even greater strategic importance in the end.

And before we even get there, I'd like to backtrack a little and get more into the pursuit from the Falaise Pocket to the Seine and beyond. That was the most exciting phase of the whole campaign. At about the same time there is the Franco-American invasion of southern France with the drive up the Rhone Valley.

And then going forward in time again, there is all the Lorraine Campaign to get started on.

Michael

[stikkypixie]

Can't quite remember why, but I was shure this only so within a platoon or any other unit (soldiers inform each other within their element), and won't work between different units.

The in-platoon rule is only for ammo sharing. If I remember correctly, any unit in close proximity will share C2.