CMx2 tactical notes and observations

[PoorOldSpike]

TREETRUNKS BLOCK SHOTS

My Sherman (green circle) fires at a Stug (red circle)-





But the shot hits something invisible halfway there-




Toggling trees 'on' solves the mystery, the shot hit a trunk-
(Moral- if you've got trees toggled 'off', remember they're still there and might get in the way)

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ROCKS GIVE POOR COVER

My squad is on Hide, not moving or firing, but the Panther in the background still sees them and blasts them.

[PoorOldSpike]

PARTIAL LOS

My Sherman and a Marder are banging away at each other but their shots keep slamming into a slightly raised rail embankment-




The grey sighting line explains why; grey means they've only got partial LOS on each other because much of both machines is shielded by the embankment..




..meaning they can only see the top bit of each other-




The Marder lets one fly..




..and it drills the Shers turret, knocking it out, it had to happen sooner or later.
(Moral- Partial LOS will see most of your shots slamming into shielding terrain, but a killing shot will happen eventually)

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WHO CAN CROSS WHAT
(From the manual pages 120+, plus tests and ingame observations)

HEAVY FOREST- Infantry only
MARSH- Infantry only
DEEP FORD- Infantry only
SHALLOW FORD- Infantry + Vehs
BOCAGE and LOW BOCAGE- Impassable to all units (but look closely for small gaps as infantry can go through them)
TALL STONE WALLS- Impassable to all units
LOW WALL- Infantry jump over. Most vehs break through at immob risk. Impassable to Light vehs
WOOD FENCE- Inf jump over. Most vehs can crunch through at immob risk.
HEDGES- Inf jump over. Most vehs get through at immob risk.
FOOTBRIDGES- Infantry only
ONE-LANE ROAD STONE BRIDGE - Only medium and light vehs can cross the top.
STONE RAIL BRIDGE- ditto. Also in a test no vehs would go under it, but infantry would.
TWO-LANE ROAD STONE BRIDGE- Infantry and all vehs can go across top.

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LOW WALLS are impassable to light vehicles

I lay movement plots straight through the low wall-



But only the Sherman punches through; the others auto-plot their own routes skirting wide round the end of the wall-




FENCE
Halftrack and light tank break straight through, leaving gaps-




HEDGEROW
Halftrack scrunches through, creating a gap-




BRIDGES
Main picture-I give everything a move plot to take them straight down the rail line under the bridge and out the other side.
Inset- but only the infantry go through; the rest auto-plot around it-



But units can still shoot through bridges even though they can't move through them; here a Panther engages an allied column-

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SPEEDS

Good dry weather, flat ground, the tanks are PzIVH (lates), and the infantry are standard 9-man Grenadier squads.
I gave them all different types of movement orders and hit 'Go





At the end of the turn these were the distances covered. (Infantry circled yellow, tanks labelled white)
Note that the infantry squad on 'Slow' crawled prone, 'Move' is a walk, 'Hunt' is a shuffling crouch, 'Quick' is a jog, and 'Fast' is a run.
Infantry tire out quicker and their spotting ability worsens the faster they go.
The Assault squad split into two leapfrogging elements.




From the Manual and ingame observations:-The faster that units go, the poorer their spotting and accuracy becomes.
Tanks will fire on the move without stopping unless they're on 'Hunt' in which case they'll stop.
'Fast' and 'Quick' for tanks is apparently identical in flat dry ground like this.
Infantry will sometimes fire while moving, and sometimes stop moving. They'll always stop moving if on 'Hunt'.

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BOCAGE, LOW BOCAGE and HEDGEROWS (manual p.34)

This screenshot includes all 3 types.
Bocage and low bocage both block standard vehicle and infantry movement, and they both block LOS unless you've got your nose in it or are on a higher elevation or on the top floor of a building.
Hedgerows don't block movement or LOS.

'A'- I gave the tank a move order straight through the low boc but it ignored me and went round the left end of it, crashing through a hedgerow in the process.
'B'- I ordered the tank to crash straight through the hedgerows and it went straight through, creating gaps as it went.
(Incidentally the piles of rubble at lower left are the remains of a wall demolished by Sherman fire)


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STANDARD UNITS CAN'T GO THROUGH BOCAGE (Rhinos can)

I give our boy a move order straight through the Bocage



But he completely ignores me and goes through a gap-



Infantry ignored me too, and went through a small gap-



Some tanks (including light tanks) have wicked 'forks' welded to the front like this and are called 'Rhinos', they can rip through bocage, and other units can also use the gap.
In the setup phase in bocage country visually inspect your tanks to see if you've got any valuable rhinos among them, or you can inspect them quicker by selecting any unit and cycling through them with the '=' key to see if there's a 'fork' on any of their silhouettes)




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BOCAGE BLOCKS LOS UNLESS YOU'VE GOT YOUR NOSE IN IT (or can see over it from high ground or the top floor of a building)

He can't see jack because he's not near enough to it-



So he must get his barrel into it like this to disturb nesting birds (sky blue line denotes full LOS)-


[/QUOTE]

[PoorOldSpike]

Infantry too can't see through bocage if they're too far away from it..



although they might get the odd fleeting glimpse (grey partial LOS line) through it as they move closer-





But the only way to guarantee good LOS is to get their noses in it-






AT guns too have to get their snouts into the bocage to get guaranteed LOS-





"With fatal barrels gaping on girded Harfleur"- Shakesp's Henry V

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FORDS

They can be difficult to see, basically they're a gap in the riverbank where the grass comes right down to the water's edge.
The manual tells us there are two types, Shallow and Deep, and that infantry can cross both types, but vehicles can only cross shallows.
This below is a shallow ford, otherwise the tank couldn't get across. (I haven't seen any deep fords yet). I only found this ford below by accident, I never even knew it was there because they're hard to see.
I'd given the tank a move order straight across the blown bridge to see what he'd do, but he refused to cross it and veered off and found the ford himself!









(PS- maybe a mod has now come out to make fords more visible, i don't know)

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TOWED GUNS

Let's hook up. (i'm using the Waffen-SS mod because i like their kewl spotted shirts)
Give the gun a 'Move' order towards the HT, make sure the waypoint is sitting a few feet in the air on top of the veh to indicate a valid embark lock-
(Note- if the veh already has too many passengers you have to kick them out first to make room for the gun crew)-




The crew push the gun to the HT, limber it, then get in-




Give the veh any type of move order (yellow line) then give the gun a move order (light blue line) to where you want it to set up. Right-click an empty area of the map to clear your cursor, then click the guns waypoint to make it glow white and give it a 'Face' order (dark blue line)-




And finally give the gun a 'Deploy' order-




Start the turn. The veh moves off and stops at its waypoint and the gun crew unhook the gun and begin pushing it into position. Note its trails are still in the limber position for ease of pushing-





They then deploy it (trails spread). but it won't be ready for several minutes yet, you can click on it as turns tick by to check its progress, here we see the face order (blue line) is still pending which means they're working on it and presumably its not ready to fire yet, although I suppose we could cancel the Face order right now (Delete key) if we don't want to wait any longer





Finally ready to rock-

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WINNING THE ROADBLOCK SCENARIO
I thought I'd put this up as a noob tutorial to show how simple the play system is; I played it last year against the AI and won easily enough at about the 3rd attempt. I never even had to look at the manual during play, it's that simple. The key to victory was to wait til ALL my reinfs were on before going clobbering..:)







The start positions, they come ready-placed in this one. The objective is to occupy the crossroads at the far end of the map.
Note the clock at lower right, the game lasts 45 minutes at 1 minute per turn-





To begin, I toggle trees off to avoid clutter (ALT-T)
To select a unit I click on its floating icon and give all the units move orders into that field (circled); no need to micro-plot, just click a spot and they'll make their own way there, (but I did plot my 2 tanks through that gap to give them a bit of help)
I find 'Quick' is good for infantry because they'll jog at a nice steady pace without getting tired, although I do throw in other types of movement sometimes by way of experiment.
I'm still experimenting with tank movement, but for now I use 'Move' or 'Hunt'-




After a turn or two they're nearly all in the field.
(Inf units with flag icons are HQ units, I try to keep them a little way behind the front line troops but close enough to be in visual contact-

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I skip through a few more turns while they settle down, which also gives time for these reinfs to come on, so I order them into the field too-





And after skipping through more turns this final batch of reinfs arrives, so I order them to join their mates-





My whole force is soon assembled and ready to kick butt, my plan is brutally simple, I'll put everybody including the tanks up against that bocage in front (yellow line) and say to the jerries "right, analyse this!"





Top view (key 7 and mouse wheel zoom) helps with precise plotting, I try to get everybody's nose right up close to the bocage or they won't be able to see through it.
(key 3 returns to oblique view)





The move plots-





Bingo! my boys move up and it hits the fan as they begin slugging it out with jerry (note the tracer)
But I forgot to order one of my squads to move (foreground), duh-





It's neat the way infantry in CMBN auto-align themselves along the bocage in line abreast formation without having to be told-

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After a few turns jerry begins to get rattled at the other end of the map and abandons the shelter of this stone wall, the Shers have already punched a hole in it.
So far i've issued no fire orders at all, i've simply let my boys pick their own targets-





We can set targets if we want, like here. Incidentally, stretching the target line around the map like this is a good way to check all your tanks and infantry really can see through the bocage.
(If you didn't move them close enough to it they won't be able to see through)-





WTF? I hear a sharp clang on the Sher at left and the crew bails in panic!
But looking at the German icons down the map I can see nothing to suggest an AT-gun!
(PS-note the clock, 31 gameturns left, with 55 secs left in this turn)-





Next turn a Ger AT gun icon (circled) appears near the crossroads-





So I scroll over to the spot and there he is-





Okay it's payback time; I give my 4 remaining Shers a fire order on his position-

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They can't get a solid lock on him so i'll settle for Area fire..:)
(don't worry if the cursor jumps a few metres away from him when you click, as the blast will still get him-





He fires again-





But not any more after the Shers guns begin speaking-





Okay, with the AT gun out of the way (there's only one in this battle hehe), I can continue the advance, beginning with a reverse move by the Sherms followed by a second 'Move' waypoint to take them through the gap-





They go through and I toggle trees on (ALT-T) to remind myself where the trees are, they hamper LOS and movement-





By the way, I had two 60mm mortars but forgot to deploy them which is why this 'Not Positioned' message came up when I tried to call in barrages via the HQ unit (orange icon), duh-

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Hitting ALT-T again toggles leafy clutter off and you can see the tree trunks.
I order my infantry to advance, just giving them one waypoint per squad and letting them find their own way to it-





Some find a gap in the bocage and some go round the end.
German fire starts coming in from the farm, but my inf automatically return fire and the Gers begin to run.
The Shers couldn't fire because the trees were blocking LOS (toggled off again so I can see things clearly)-





Okay let's do what I should have done before and move the Shers out of the trees to that farm track-





I give them area fire orders against the farmhouse to finish off any dazed Ger survivors still lurking there-





Down it goes in a cloud of dust. Some running Gers are also spotted and blasted in some trees.
21 turns left on the clock-





The advance continues to the crossroads objective, I 'Move' the tanks forward and jog the infantry ('Quick)-

[PoorOldSpike]

That's my boys, you're soldiers now..:)





Suddenly I hear a telltale whoosh and see a puff of smoke as a panzershreck opens up but luckily the shot falls short-





His loader stops a bullet and goes down (red cross icon) but he stands his ground, no doubt bucking for an Iron Cross-





But not today Fritz, as Sher return fire rattles his eyeballs-





And he legs it, he had his chance..





And my boys seize the crossroads. The odd Ger gunshots keep coming out of the trees for a few turns but my boys shoot back until with 10 turns left it's all quiet on the western front-







So I hit the Ceasefire button-





SUMMARY- I played it through with almost no micro-managing at all, I simply told everybody "go here, go there" and let them select their own targets most of the time and sit blasting away.
The trick is to STOP MOVING and return fire when you're shot at, then only continue the advance when you've neutralised or destroyed the enemy units that were firing at you.
Halt again later if new units begin firing at you. Neutralise them and carry on moving again, and so on right down the map.
The only times I issued fire orders directly was when I told the Shers to concentrate their fire against the AT gun, and when I ordered them to demolish the farmhouse with area fire.
So the system is very smooth, simple and noob-friendly and I like it..:)

[raz_atoth]

Thanks POS. Quite an interesting reading.

[PoorOldSpike]

Thanks mate, some of my screenshots are also in other gaming websites but their forum layouts are not as well laid out as Blitz and my shots are spread all over the place there, and members need something like a phone book to try to find them..:)


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BARNS
Units can apparently see through windowless barn walls-



Maybe the shooter knocked a firing hole through the wall-


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ARTILLERY TRAINING RANGE
Select a Forward Observer team. (the tanks are dummies) and click the gun icon (yellow circle)
Note the guy packing a radio to relay the FO's instructions to the offmap arty. (All heavy arty is off map)





And this screen will come up showing the FO is in contact with 2x 81mm mortars and a battery of 4x 105mm guns.
Let's take the 105's. There are 3 patterns available, Point, Area and Linear, let's select the Area Pattern.
Note there are 140 HE shells available, ha ha-





You then choose params like the duration of the fire mission, the intensity, the delay (short delays have an accuracy penalty), blah blah, click the desired impact point and drag an expanding circle over the area you want to plaster, then click 'Confirm' -




And in it comes-




POINT PATTERN:
(As before, select your pattern at the FO screen)
Click the impact point, and the shells will saturate in a tighter pattern, here a tank takes a direct hit-

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LINEAR PATTERN: click a spot on the map then click another spot and the pattern will fall along the thick line between the two clicks, ideal for duffing up a line of trenches-


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ARTY NEEDS NO LOS IF ASSIGNED IN SETUP PHASE

The Forward Observer team (circled) has no LOS to the farm-
(noob note, the blue foreground is the setup zone, click a unit, select 'Move' and click where you want to place it in the zone. The blue vanishes when the game begins)-





And because it's the setup phase the FO can assign arty in the usual way even without LOS-





And in it comes, it's only 60mm mortars in this case but will certainly frighten the hens-





IMPACT or AIRBURST
With some arty types you can choose 'General' or 'Personnel' shell types-





This is the 'General' type, standard impact-fuzed ground-bursting shells-





and this is the 'Personnel' type which seems to be a mix of impacts and airbursters.
Note the puff of dust on the ground underneath the two airbursts caused by red-hot shrapnel blasting downwards, lethal to anything in trenches, emplacements or open-top AFV's etc-

[Weasel]

Very nice work!!

[PoorOldSpike]

YOURS OR HIS?
It's sometimes hard to tell who artillery belongs to, especially if you and your oppo have both got barrages dropping at the same time.
Orient the view so that you can see the angle the shells are dropping at, here they're angling down from the righthand (German) side of the map, so they're German (ignore the raindrops)..





This barrage is coming in from the left (US) side of the map so these must be American-


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STOP IT!
To halt a barrage, select your spotter and click the Arty button (circled)-





Then click the Available Arty window, then the 'Cease Fire' button


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THE 'EMERGENCY' ARTY CALL IS A WASTE OF SHELLS
Let's select the offmap 81mm mortar-





And give it a 'Point' target smack on that small barn.
(Note that although I clicked in the middle of the roof, the end of the target line jumped to the nearest tile, that's normal for Cmbn arty and area-fire placement)
I make it an 'Emergency' immediate mission and begin the turn-





And less than a minute into the turn the shells start coming in, but impact hopelessly off target at top left





Now let's restart the test and use any mission type except 'Emergency'. I select a 'Heavy' immediate mission-





And start the turn. Nothing comes in until almost the end of the turn when the spotting round on the right arrives, followed by two more the next turn.
(Note- sometimes only one or two spotting rounds arrive, whatever the spotter thinks are needed)





Finally the first shell of the barrage arrives about halfway through the turn

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Quickly followed by the rest of the barrage smack on target-





Scratch one barn-


Summary- Emergency missions arrive less than a minute into the turn, but because they don't use preliminary spotting rounds, they're likely to be off target.
So tactically they're only useful if the target is spread across a huge area of the map, for example a zillion men and tanks coming at you, as no matter where the shells fall, they're bound to hit something.

Non-Emergency missions won't arrive for about one and a half turns/minutes, but they'll arrive on target, and you'll have to hope the enemy is still there.

Note- times may vary slightly from game to game, and might also vary according to what calibre shells are being called in)

(Incidentally if you plot any arty in the Setup phase, it arrives with no delay and smack on target even if the spotter has no LOS, so beware getting a bombardment on you on turn 1 if your oppo guesses where your start line is.

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DIFFICULTY LEVEL
I play at Basic Training level because it's the nearest to CMx1's 'extreme fog of war'.
I tried playing CMBN at 'Veteran' level but didn't like it at all because the f.o.w. was far too severe and unrealistic, I had enemy units vanishing and being replaced with question mark icons all the time even though they were near to my own units with clear LOS.
For examp here's a shot from a Veteran level game, there are two German question marks at lower left in clear view of my US tanks but I haven't a clue whether they're vehicles or infantry.
That's what I mean about Vet level (and higher) being too severe and unrealistic. If this was Basic Training level, they'd show as proper 3D units, not as question marks.



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BEWARE: ARCS PREVENT FACING
You can't normally insert a 'Face' order while you've got an arc like this, that's why the Arc order is dulled out in the orders panel.
So that means at the end of the move the tank will be unable to pivot, and although his turret is pointing down the arc just fine towards the enemy at the far end of the map, his hull will sit there for the rest of the turn suicidally presenting its weaker side armour to the enemy like this.
(Not until the next Order phase will you be able to cancel the arc ('Delete' key) to get your 'Face' option back, and can then issue the face order)



Now the RIGHT way; the tank will move AND Face all in one action phase in this second test.
Slap on the arc, place your waypoints, right-click an empty area of screen, then left-click on the final waypoint to make it glow white. This will give you the 'Face' option back, so just point the blue Face line down the map then start the action phase




Voila!, and now the machine has moved and faced all in one turn..:)

Summary- remember arcs won't allow facing unless you either kill the arc first, or click the final waypoint to attach a face order to it.
In fact arcs can confuse our crews during highly-mobile gameplay, so I tend to only use them when things are pretty static.

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M8 HMC's no good at long range [/COLOR]
(Old hands will already know that but I like to make my posts as noob-friendly as possible)
A line of panzers on that distant ridge are making mincemeat of my Shers and HMC's. This HMC (circled) is bravely firing 75mm HEAT rounds at the arrowed PzIVH which is so far away it's almost invisible-





But its shot hits the ground (circled) in front of a panzer. The arrow indicates the firing HMC.
Other long range HMC shots during this game have been just as inaccurate, either sailing over the panzers or going wide and rarely hitting at this long range, especially in these dull rainy conditions. That's because The HMC's stubby low-velocity gun is only good for shorter range work in thick bocage or cities where it can't miss.
(The same applies to all other HE/HEAT-firing guns too, such as the Sherman 105mm or Stug 105mm, their accuracy drops off at longer ranges)


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POSITIONING[/COLOR]

I order my infantry to jog on "Quick" to behind that low bocage





They arrive and auto-line up along it. (the sighting line is just to check they have LOS through it).
Inf will always automatically line up like that after arriving behind hedges/bocage.walls/houses





But often when they arrive behind something they might still be facing in the direction of travel, so give them a Face order like this to make them look square through the bocage. (Units spot enemies quicker in the direction they're facing)





and next move phase they'll turn to face like this. (loose guys such as the crawler often occur in CMBN, sometimes it takes 2 or more turns for them to decide to get into formation)





Alternatively you can tag a Face order on to the end of the move order like this; first place the waypoint then rightclick an empty map area to free up the cursor, then leftclick on the white ball and issue the face order-

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Now lets run them behind a wall





And bingo, they neatly line up along it when they get there..





And you can issue a Face order





to make them face square across it..



1479587]Running them behind a house. I tried to place the waypoint centrally behind the house but it jumped to the left, it happens in CMBN and there's nothing we can do about it-





They arrive and auto-line up along the wall, although one guy went too far and is exposed-





Let's run them into that house, there are more windows upstairs than down, so we'll send them to Level 2 where they'll have good views. The waypoint jumps to the house centre, that's good enough..





They arrive and cluster in 3 groups around the 3 windows. LOS is good so I don't think there's any need to issue a Face order to fine-tune things..





What happens if we run them into empty ground?-

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they arrive and adopt a basically line abreast formation in the direction of travel-




Tip- click around to locate the available waypoints, I'm expecting the enemy to come down the red arrow so I think the circled waypoint is the one I want-




Cancel the waypoints and issue a move order to the one we want-





Hopeless! the squad prefers to huddle behind the wall, and their LOS can only see directly left, not able to see round the house at all-





So I pull them back to try another waypoint..





Okay,after re-facing that seems to looks alright, they can see down the side of the house-





But as we sweep the LOS line around, we see the squad has only got 'partial' LOS straight down the side, which means only part of the squad can see there.
Partial lines occur frequently in CMBN, it's realistic and we have to decide whether to accept it or try another waypoint. This will have to do-



Let's try ordering a schreck team to that position-





Hopeless! Like the infantry squad, they prefer to huddle safely behind the house, so I issue this order to pull them back to a new waypoint-

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and after re-facing them they can now see reasonably round the corner. Tactically speaking, the house shields them nicely from the full might of the enemy force, and hopefully they'll be able to pick off enemy tanks one by one as they come poking their noses around the house-


Summary- Trying to fine-position units in CMBN is like trying to play a guitar with gloves on, it just can't be done and feels clumsy and awkward, but also provides an interesting challenge to us as commander to put our boys into tactically-good positions where they can strut their stuff.
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MAIN GUN AND MG CAN ENGAGE DIFFERENT TARGETS
Here my PzIV kills an M8 with its main gun while at the same time machinegunning infantry with its bow MG



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ENDGAME TRIGGER
I'm finding in QB's v AI that if a side has taken a hell of a beating, the computer usually automatically stops the game around turn 10 and awards victory to the other side.
But in this one my Germans have inflicted terrible losses on the US armour and all shooting has ended, yet turn 10 has come and gone (clock lower right) but the computer is letting it go on
[img]http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/sub3/mp2.gif]/img]

So I reverse my Marder into the bright yellow Objective Zone, (in some games it's bright green) toggle it on/off with ALT-J



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NOTE:- remember Battlefront might bring out updates, patches and mods from time to time, so future graphics and gameplay might differ slightly from what you're seeing in these screenshots.
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[PoorOldSpike]

Another thing:- if you see the occasional spelling mistake or broken image link in my posts, the forum software won't allow me to edit or correct it, sorry
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[PoorOldSpike]

Had a dabble with the SCENARIO EDITOR, plonked a bunch of buildings surrounded by a ring of trees-





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PASSENGERS
The halftrack has 12 passenger seats (grey dots, circled) The two blue dots are driver and gunner




And the US squad has 10 men, so there's more than enough room to get on board.
Select the squad and click any type of movement (i'll use Fast) and set their waypoint onto the vehicle,
you'll know it's correctly placed when it's sitting a few feet off the ground on top of the veh-




Start the turn and they'll pile in




Give the htrack any type of move order to where you want it to go, i'll use 'Fast'-




Then give the infantry a movement order to where you want them to go.
I'll send them into the barn-




The veh races into the farmyard and lurches to a stop, and the men auto-jump out-




And run into the barn through the door-

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And take up a position looking out the windows on the far side



Sweep the 'Target' line around to check out their LOS-




Later I run them on, and they auto-use the door-
Notice the two windows which they crowded round when they were in there-


SUMMARY- you don't have to wait for the veh to stop before ordering the men to get out; you can issue their move order while they're still aboard and they'll automatically jump out the instant the veh stops.

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