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CM:Normandy wonderings


Dietrich

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Some wonderings in advance (well in advance, I admit) of CM:Normandy:

- How will air support be handled? Will it be pretty much entirely TacAI-controlled, as in CMx1? In WW2, as I understand, it was a pretty much a matter of "the major says a couple o' fighter-bombers will be over our area at or near H-hour", rather than someone on the ground having more or less direct communication with the aircraft. To what extent -- if at all -- will ground units be able to request air support? Secondarily, will shadows of aircraft look anything like the aircraft they're meant to simulate?

- How will artillery support be handled? Will calling for support be limited to forward observers? Will HQ units be able to call on and/or spot for artillery (presumably not as accurately or quickly as FOs)? Will units with C2 to their parent HQ be able to ask for artillery support (with perhaps an even greater accuracy/promptness penalty than the HQ itself requesting said support)?

- Will on-map mortars need their own LOS to a given targeted area? (I suppose this would apply more to 81mm/3-inch "medium" mortars than 50mm/2-inch mortars.) Will mortars be able to fire indirectly (though presumably with relative inaccuracy)? Will HQs be able to spot for mortars within their command radius?

- Will units in prepared positions have field telephones? In other words, will radio-less units which are out of visual/voice range of friendly units have some means of communication? TacAI-controlled signal flares, perhaps? (According to a post by Steve, inter-unit runners will be abstractly simulated, which I think is a good subtle aspect of C2 pre-FBCB2.
:D
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- Will TO&Es and unit purchasing be CMx1-like or CMSF-like? Will we be able to give units particular names (and with an HQ's name reading "Lt. Murphy" instead of "Lt. Murphy HQ"*)?

- Will unit ammo supply be adjustable (such as to simulate stock-piling of ammo in prepared positions)? Will tactical resupply be an option? If so, how might that work? (Sure, halftracks and other vehicles -- at least for the Germans -- were more rare than some scenario designers would have you believe, but surely a Panzergrenadier squad would carry a few spare boxes of belted 7.92mm ammo in their SPW, right?) Will handgrenades be included in tactical resupply?

- Will bailed-out tank crews be able to man other tanks? For example, say I have a Crack tank crew and their Panzer IV gets knocked out but they are unwounded; could I have them 'commandeer' another tank in their platoon crewed by guys who are merely Regular? (In ToW I used this to good effect when my best crew's tank got its track blown off or its cannon damaged.)

- Will hand-to-hand combat be simulated, even just abstractly? Will handgrenades always explode on impact (as they apparently do in CMSF)? Will infantry be able to pop smoke (whether for expedient concealment or for signalling)? Will smoke-popping be aim-able?

That's all I can think of at the moment. Feel free to add your own wonderings to this thread. Please understand, though, that I don't mean to imply "if the game lacks any of the above-mentioned things, I think it will be broken"; I'm just musing out loud and wanting to stimulate thoughtful (and respectful :)) discussion.

* By the way, I noticed that in the CMSF scenario "Bomber Takedown" (thumbs up to the scenario designer, by the way), several of the units had specific names like "Sgt. James Wheeler" and the unit leader's name (the name by the upper left box beside the unit portrait) was the same (i.e., "Wheeler"). I thought it wasn't really possible to make the unit leader's name a particular name; I thought it was more or less random. Any ideas?

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Some wonderings in advance (well in advance, I admit) of CM:Normandy:- Will bailed-out tank crews be able to man other tanks? For example, say I have a Crack tank crew and their Panzer IV gets knocked out but they are unwounded; could I have them 'commandeer' another tank in their platoon crewed by guys who are merely Regular? (In ToW I used this to good effect when my best crew's tank got its track blown off or its cannon damaged.)

This is already possible, but only with certain vehicles. Not sure why this is the case. For example, you can "bail out" two LAV-25 crews and have them trade vehicles, but you cannot "bail out" two LAV-AT crews and have them trade vehicles. Likewise, you can bail out Bradley crews and have them switch with eachother, but not tank crews.

I agree that for Normandy this should be possible with all vehicles including tanks, but the real value would be keeping unit leaders in the fight. When a tank unit commander had his ride shot out from under him, he typically would switch to another tank and keep going.

I do not, however, think that any unit/crew should be able to commandeer any friendly vehicle (which I think may be the case in ToW).

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I agree that for Normandy this should be possible with all vehicles including tanks, but the real value would be keeping unit leaders in the fight. When a tank unit commander had his ride shot out from under him, he typically would switch to another tank and keep going.

I do not, however, think that any unit/crew should be able to commandeer any friendly vehicle (which I think may be the case in ToW).

Agreed. That's why I said "'commandeer' a tank in their platoon", since it would be one of the same type. In a Villers-Bocage sort of scenario, one would certainly not want your "Michael Wittmann" crew/HQ to be useless simply because his Tiger got its track knocked off by an errant 6-pounder shell. :D

In CM:N, having a bailed-out tank crew commandeer a jeep would, I think, be functionally no different than an HQ team jumping into a Humvee in CM:SF.

(In ToW, you can have, say, four guys from an infantry squad climb into an empty tank, but if none of the guys has any "driver" skill, then they won't go anywhere, and if none of the guys has any "gunner" skill, they won't fire the cannon or MGs.)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Since this thread has elicited no response from anyone official (particularly Battlefront's eponymous Steve), consider it bumped. :D

I found it ironic that the first reply elicited by this thread and its pseudo-rhetorical questions was:

Maybe. I'll let Steve comment further.

In creating the thread in the first place, I was in fact hoping to elicit some response from Steve, even if said response is comprised only of monosyllables (of the Yes/No variety). :)

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