Tonci87

Do the tree collisions only work on the new map?

Can you still shoot and fly through trees?

To be fair, that isn´t a huge problem. The high res texture DLC is just for vehicles wich look totally fine even without it. The DLC adds slightly better textures along with some weathering effects and decals. They made that DLC long after the initial release to get some money to continue work on mius front. You absolutelly don´t have to buy it.

With so many people here owning this game now I might focus more on showing why I do something and how I do it in the next episode.

If you click on the attack move button and the waypoint modifier window pops up, make sure that free formation is selected. Otherwise the units will always get in line facing the next waypoint

Yep, Ubisoft. Did anybody really think they wouldn´t introduce balance shattering microtransactions?

Well, those warning have become standart by now, Turkey has warned many russians planes to turn away as they were flying towards their border, the Russians have become used to it. Maybe they should have said "This time we´ll fire a missile at you for real if you don´t turn away."

Nice to see that the navigator is safe. I believe that the truth is somewhere in the middle here. I think the Russian plane did enter Turkish airspace, but I also believe that the Turkish claims are wrong. The couldn´t have warned the plane 10 times in that half a minute it was in their airspace. The Turkish fighter jet couldn´t have been able to get his orders, close in that fast and then fire his missile. The only sensible explanation I have is that A) The Turkish planes were waiting for the SU to reach their airspace and already had their orders on what to do and basically ambushed the SU. B) Had to follow the SU into Syria because I doubt the Russian pilot would have entered Turkish airspace with Turkish jets in close proximity. I guess the Russian pilot was thinking he can get in and out before the Turks have any chance to react and get close, he didn´t expect them to just wait for that move and be willing to follow him back into Syria. Basically to me it looks as if Erdogan wanted to show the world how "strong" he is, beeing fully aware that Russia can´t risk to retaliate against a NATO member.

Well we know that Russia isn´t too shy to manipulate or outright fabricate evidence (see Ukraine) but in this case I´m inclined to believe them. Maybe their aircraft did pass over Turkish airspace for a very brief time but that is no reason to shoot it down. Even if it did pass over Turkish airspace it was out of there so fast that the Turkish fighter must have pursued it into Syria to fire off it´s missile.

Yeah you have to be insanelly stupid to pull that kind of thing while all special police and AF forces are on full alert......

Fucking barbarians. Shooting pilots who are defenseless on their parachutes is not only bloody stupid, it´s also barbaric. Erdogan is a dick, I´ve been saying that since he came to power. And now that Russia has been pounding his allies in Syria his army wanted to send a clear message. I wouldn´t be surprised if tonight Russia will send a powerfull message of it´s own and blast that AA battery to pieces with cruise missiles. About that TOW footage. I don´t believe it is genuine. Why would CSAR forces land a transport helicopter and turn the engines off? You don´t do that. This looks more like someone edited together two completelly different scenes.

Yep my interest went out the window at "mmo". They are usually pure cashgrabs, especially if they are from unknown Russian studios....

What makes you think that you would pass such a psychological test vilas? Because I bet with that "I´ll try to get the evil terrorists myself" mentality you would fail the test pretty hard.

That thinking is pretty stupid Vilas. You know what would really happen n such a situation? The police would arrive, be a bit scared and confused, unsure what is really going on. They would see you armed, not know if you are one of the attackers and simply shoot you. In such a situation it is best for civilians to stay away and in cover and let the professionals deal with the threat. Anything else just adds to the confusion and puts more people at risk.

And since I had a lot of free time today, here is another battle. Not as spectacular as the first one but still fun. TURN 8 5.7.1942 14:00 Historical: Germans undertook a counterattack with two battalions towards Shilovo and Trushkino into the flank of broken through Soviet troops. At 15:00 tanks and infantry, to the extent of a battelion, started an attack on defensive positions of 110 tank bde. The battle lasted for about an hour. Well, we aren´t very historical anymore. Our fortunate capture and steadfast defense of Shilovov has clearly disrupted the great Soviet counterattack. Although, the part about the germans attacking, we can do that. Full on assault across the whole front. Primary goal is to smash through the remains of the Soviet tanks near Shilovo and drive towards the ford. Up north my troops will do their best to smash through towards the victory point. Shilovo is full of fresh troops. Three tank platoons and one platoon of mechanized Panzergrenadiers. They will crush the Soviets under their tracks. How will the Soviets react? The enemy is actually attacking too, the forest north of Shilovo, the town itself and the marsh south of it are their targets. Should I perhaps fight another defense? Nah... We should have enough tanks to attack although the enemy did bring up an artillery battery and one unknown unit..... Leaving Shilovo A simple all out attack. I´ll send my men forward and then react according to the resistance I meet. I have a nice variety of troops under my command, for example these Panzergrenadiers in their APCs. I have a lot of these. or this Recon platoon in their somewhat smaller APCs. This one has a 3,7cm Pak36 AT gun on it One platoon of Panzer IIIs with the short 5cm gun And one Panzer III platoon fielding the long 5cm. By the way, that wrecks stay on the battlefield and are visible in future battles is an amazing feature. And even one platoon of Panzer IIs The fighting starts, MGs supress the Soviets until a artillery barrage rains down on them, the Luftwaffe has arrived too. Oh no, not again....I really need to find that Soviet Air spotter. Tanks and halftracks are advancing, fighting the enemy infantry that is entrenched on the eastern outskirt of Shilovo. The SdKfz provide supressive fire while the infantry advances towards the trenches. My tanks advance down the main road and help to dislodge the enemy infantry hiding in buildings. An awesome display of firepower So far the attack is going well. I have lost some men and some vehicles but we managed to overcome the enemy defense line. Now that we are on the plain my tanks can show what they are made for. We´ll soon be reaching the ford We just have to push through this forest here. My recon squads lead the way. Oh crap! I have an artillery spotter nearby and quickly tell him to call in fire on that tanks position. After that I pull back the halftracks as fast as possible. I´m incredibly lucky, none of them gets destroyed. Maybe the tanks gun is damaged? My own tanks have almost arrived too. Yeah I think the gun is unable to fire, my tanks are able to drive up to it without getting shot and then put a few nice hits into it´s side. This game also features secondary ammo explosions. I have to be a bit carefull around burning tanks. Finally my recon troops reach the ford and claim it for me. With that I consider this battle to be a smashing success. I still have a flight of Stukas incoming that I called in halfway through the battle, let´s see if they will puick up something on the other side of the river. Indeed they do And they drop some presents too. With that the battle ends With that I have pushed up towards the ford and I also made a significant discovery. There is a Soviet Supply depot in Tavrovo! Wouldn´t it be a shame if something happened to it? :D I´ll still have to fight a defense down south although I´m not sure how the enemy wants to attack me since the bridges are still destroyed..... At least it will tell me what units they have down there in Yakovlevka The battle up north is next though.

PART 3 Let´s see what happened to my tanks first. One Panzer 3 with the long gun got taken out by the IL2s bombs. What happened to the other? Track and Chassis got damaged when he participated in my little counterattack. The crew is OK, the tank will be repaired. The command tank got hit twice during the counterattack and took severe damage. Track, engine, transmission and the chassis have been damaged and the radio operator was wounded. This will take some time to repair. This tank also participated in the counterattack and got shot at a lot. What killed it in the end was a hit into the turret that set the ammunition on fire. The crew didn´t survive. Same with this one, during the counterattack it too received a hit into the turret that detonated the ammunition. No survivors. This one is dead too. It got shot into the side a lot and the crew bailed when the turret got disabled. Sadly they were killed by a T34 shortly afterwards. This one we saw earlier, now we see how it got destroyed. A shell went into the turret and detonated the ammo. Again, no survivors. I also lost one halftrack to a tank round. Now let´s take a look at some of the T34s This is the one that got as far as the church before a tank and an AT gun stoped it by shooting of his track and then setting a fuel tank on fire. This one didn´t quite reach the church. The fueltank seems to be a real weakspot on the T34. It went up in flames after receiving a hit into it. This one got abandoned after having it´s track blown off and the turret disabled. My men in the nearby trench cut down the crew as it was trying to escape. One of the T34s that got stuck in a trench. The crew bailed as their turret had been disabled before that. Of course they didn´t survive that. The other tank that drove into a trench. The crew attempted to abandon it after one of my tanks put some shots into it´s turret, disabling it. Of course bailing into a trench full of angry Germans isn´t anything you do twice. All in all the trenches have been very effective. This T34 is a testament to this tanks great armor. It took a whooping 29 hits to kill this thing. In the end the fueltank was again the great weakspot. Two more T34s have been destroyed by my tanks, one got blown up by artillery. Their three tank vanguard actually survived the shelling but all three tanks have taken heavy damage, two of them lost one crewmember each and one has only one crewmember remaining. One additional tank is still alive because due to the damage it took during the last battle it couldn´t participate in the assault. One final picture of the town and the carnage within. I have lost 5 Panzer IIIs and a lot of infantry (the losses among my combat engineers have been huge). 2 AT guns, one halftrack and one MG42 have been destroyed. Still, the enemy has lost nine T34s and none of the surviving ones are still in fighting condition. If I can bring up new tanks I should be able to push onwards and finish them. Good news, one Soviet tank company has been completelly wiped out together with the command infantry platoon they had. Due to their shuge losses the Soviets cancelled their attack on the forest. This battle had it all, Infantry fighting, air support on both sides, tank battles and artillery raining down everywhere. But damn it was exhausting.

PART 2 Here come the T34s...and I count a lot of them. A whole tank column is driving towards the town. What their first tanks don´t know though is that the road they are on is a pre planned Artillery fire zone. Right now four light field howitzers are sending shells into that area with very high accuracy. The vanguard consisting of three T34s tries to turn and run but it´s too late. All three tanks are disabled in a very short time. They aren´t going anywhere with their tracks blown off. At least 8 more tanks are advancing towards me. This time they are more carefull, avoiding the road. The main street AT gun gets knocked out Now the tanks are fighting close up inside the village. Complete mayhem This T34 has just made a fatal misstake, he drove into a trench and got stuck. Shortly after he is peppered with AT grenades, satchel charges and tank shells. Still, the T34s are pushing on and one of my PanzerIIIs gets taken out. The T34s are paying a price for this attack, many of them are already dead. Like this one, it got shot into the fuel tank and is burning up. A counterattack by my few remaining tanks to kill of some of the detracked T34s meets stiff resistance. Well this T34 has a problem. A fuel fire convinces the crew that they might be safer outside of the tank. That is wrong of course. One T34 has made it as far as the church before beeing taken out. If you thought the town couldn´t look any more like a battlefield...yes it can. Burning tanks add much to the general feel. Since the Divisional light field howitzers are out of HE ammo I decide that they might as well shoot some whithe phosphor at the disabled tanks down on the road. I suspect that the crews were already trying to repair the tracks since I could hear the distinct banging of hammers. Well, that is over now. The battle ends

Today I have a real treat for you, a really awesome battle. Due to it´s lenght and ammount of stuff happening it will be divided in three parts. Tank Duel in Shilvo Part 1 Here we go then, again we have to defend Shilovo but this time we have some tanks. Our forces: 4 Panzergrenadier platoons who are all understrenght and low on ammunition, one of them has a MG42 squad attached to it. 2 Combat engineer platoons of wich one has suffered heavy losses. An air spotter is attached who will call in a flight of Stukas. 1 AT gun platoon with four 5cm Pak38 guns and one MG42 squad. 2 Halftracks with artillery spotters. 1 Tank platoon with 7 Panzer III (only two with the long 5cm gun) and one Panzer II. Enemy forces: 2 Tank companies with an estimated number of 14 T34s in total. Unclear how many of those are operational. 1 Artillery battery with one gun remaining 1 severely depleted infantry platoon 1 AT rifle platoon that has almost been wiped out. Possibly two unknown units. I left some infantry up in the forest to hold there although they won´t be able to do much if they are attacked by a large force. Almost all of them are very close to beeing out of ammo. Most of my Troops including my Tanks are in the town with the exception of the Panzer II that will guard the road to nothern Shilovo (it´s almost useless as a tank anyway). The small town is looking worse with every battle. Destroyed houses, rubble in the streets, the wrecks of T34s that I destroyed in the previous battle... Even more trenches have been dug throughout the village. These ones are occupied by some of my combat engineers and will offer them much more protection than a house would. Not only is it much more difficult for a tank to shoot into a trench, it is also much more dangerous to drive into it. If the tank isn´t carefull he might get stuck and then he is easy prey for AT grenade and other AT weapons.. Speaking of tanks, lets see what we got. This is the little Panzer two that is guarding the nothern road. As you can see it is very small but also very deadly against infantry and very light armor due to it´s 20mm autocannon. It should stay away from T34s as far as possible. This is the tank platoon commanders Panzer III, dug in due to the presence of my combat engineers. It is one of those with a short 5cm gun. The crew has opened up all hatches to observe their sourroundings. Up on top is the commander, inside the turret are the gunner and the loader. The callsign of my tank Platoon is Anaconda And here is a Panzer III with the long 5cm gun dug in on the edge of the graveyard. I only have two of those in this platoon, they are very valuable and my best weapons against the T34s. I have to keep them alive. Here comes the Luftwaffe, just in time as the first enemies are sighted. The enemy infantry has actually dug in on the eastern outskirt of Shilovo, mere 200meters away from my own trenches. And it´s those trenches that are now on the receiving end of the Stukas first attack and bombing run Majestic Oh for fucks sake, not them again. IL2s are arriving. My Stukas bugger off, they are not equiped to deal with that threat. My troops in their trenches are getting some gifts delivered to them..... Thankfully this was a miss. This one is going for a rocket run, thankfully this also misses. These ones won´t miss though. Holding your ears won´t save you I´m afraid. The blast sends debris, objects and men flying everywhere, it also hits the Panzer III with the long 5cm gun that was dug in near the graveyard, knocking parts off his back and killing the crew inside. A huge loss for me It also kills the crew of one AT gun that was close by Groundfire from my troops sets one IL2 on fire. Take that you bastards! After that the IL2s retreat. I send out a tank to deal with some enemy infantry that is moving through the marsh and start to hit the enemy trenches with artillery fire. The tank also takes out a mortar that was shelling the town.

That is why you get it in a sale! It´s bloody expensive without one.

You gather information by fighting the enemy. Before you fight an enemy unit you will only see a questionmark on the operational map, after fighting it at least once it will be identified and you will see some information about troop strenght and ammount of heavy weapons if you hover your mouse over it. However, those numbers are estimates be carefull with them. If you manage to take prisoners you will gather much more information. On the deployment map you can expect the enemy to set up as he was on the operational map and carry out the attack as he planned it. However how he is going to use his troops is entirely up to him. Expext the unexpected, it´s war after all. That is why in my Shilovo defense I always made sure to guard the road coming down from the crossroads in case the enemy tries to sneak behind me (they do that sometimes). Yes the game does level up surviving units. If you open the squad statistics (either by right klicking on a squad symbol, or the button with the three heads) you can see some information about your troops. Columns from left to right Troop symbol/ Troop description/ Rank (used for command structure)/ Veterancy/ Morale/ Empty (never had anything there)/ Number of men (Available / killed or heavily wounded)/ Heavy Weapon out of service (destroyed/repairing)/ ammunition status and replenishment cost/ fuel status If you hover your mouse above something in this game you don´t understand it will usually display a tooltip.

Yeah, that is basically it and not all of them are working any more. There aren´t many mods for this game but my needs are already covered by those two I use.

Yeah the Volokonovka campaign is smaller in scope (not so many units to manage) and therefore easier, at least if you play as Germany. Playing it as Soviet is actually bloody hard. I ended up in a desperate defense of Odintsov completelly encirceld by the germans without any means of ressuply and had to hold on for many turns until reinforcements arrived and lifted the siege. I once started Taranovka as the Germans and saw that it is indeed bloody hard (mostly due to those bloody lend lease british Mathilda tanks that you almost cant destroy with your weapons.). Then I decided it might be best to play the campaigns in their chronological order and now I´m in the second Fall Blau campaign after winning Volokonovka with both the Germans and the Soviets :D Progress is a bit slow atm due to work. For now let´s take a look at the tanks that will be present in the next battle T34 mod.1941 This was a great tank and one that presented the germans with a huge problem. It´s sloped armor allowed it to survive hits that would have penetrated if it wasn´t for the slope. In 1941 it was the best protected tank in the world. Their 37mm Pak36 AT guns wich were the Wehrmachts main AT weapon until mid 1941 proved to be almost completely ineffective against the sloped armor. The German tanks also had problems dealing with the new threat. The Panzer 3s of the Wehrmacht at that time were mostly variants with 3,7cm or short barreled 5cm cannons. Those weapons were also almost completelly ineffective against the T34. At that time the long barreled 5cm high velocity guns that some Panzer 3s and the Pak38 were fitted with could reliably penetrate the armor at ranges shorter of 500m. Not only was the T34 better armored than the German tanks, it also packed much more firepower, fielding a dangerous 76,2mm gun that could penetrate Panzer 3s and Panzer 4s at combat range. The T34 was also much faster and more mobile than the german tanks. In conclusion, the Soviet T34 was superior in armor, firepower and maneuverability compared to the German tanks of 1941. So why didn´t they crush the German Wehrmacht? How could the Germans advance all the way to Stalingrad and Moscow when faced with those mighty tanks? For all it´s great features the T34 had a few mindboggling disadvantages wich the Germans learned to exploit very fast. For starters the sights were pretty shit and didn´t even come close to what the German tanks had. This affected the accuracy and the ability to engage targets at range. It also made it pretty hard to find targets in general. Situational awareness was also very bad when compared to the German tank designs. The commander only had a small periscope (with terrible sights) and a viewport on each side of the turret. German tanks had a commanders cupola witch provided excellent allround visibility. The Germans noted the following: „T-34s operated in a disorganised fashion with little coordination, or else tended to clump together like a hen with its chicks. Individual tank commanders lacked situational awareness due to the poor provision of vision devices and preoccupation with gunnery duties. A tank platoon would seldom be capable of engaging three separate targets, but would tend to focus on a single target selected by the platoon leader. As a result T-34 platoons lost the greater firepower of three independently operating tanks.“ Another great dissadvantage was that initially Soviet tanks didn´t have radios unlike the Germans. A tank platoon commander had to use signal flanks to give orders to his other tanks. Imagine a battlefield with bullets flying around everywhere, explosions, smoke tanks driving around, and then the hatch on one of them opens and two hands frantically wave some flags around. In conclusion Soviet tank commanders had to keep an eye on their lead tank to not miss any signals instead of scanning for targets. Add to that that the commander was also responsible for loading the gun..... All this gave German tanks the possibility to maneuver around the Soviet tanks and shoot them up from the sides or from behind. The Soviet crews were initially not very well trained unlike the germans. Then there was the typical Soviet disregard for the wellbeing of their crews. The turret was very small and the americans, who received a few T34s for testing, couldn´t understand how two people can fit inside that turret during the winter when they have to wear thick clothes. As a result of that German tankers could reload much faster and typically got of three shots for every single Soviet one. The elctrical mechanism for rotating the turret was also very bad. The americans noted that the motor is very weak, overloaded and sparks horribly. The poor driver very often had sparks from the turret drive raining down on his head and into his clothes. It was also prone to breaking. General reliability of the tank was also very poor. This is what a Soviet tanker noted: „From the point of view of operating them, the German armoured machines were almost perfect, they broke down less often. For the Germans, covering 200 km was nothing, but with T-34s something would have been lost, something would have broken down. The technological equipment of their machines was better, the combat gear was worse.“ And the Americans noted „Judging by samples, Russians when producing tanks pay little attention to careful machining or the finishing and technology of small parts and components, which leads to the loss of the advantage what would otherwise accrue from what on the whole are well designed tanks. Despite the advantages of the use of diesel, the good contours of the tanks, thick armor, good and reliable armaments, the successful design of the tracks etc., Russian tanks are significantly inferior to American tanks in their simplicity of driving, manoeuvrability, the strength of firing (reference to muzzle velocity), speed, the reliability of mechanical construction and the ease of keeping them running.“ Later on in the war the T34s only managed to stay effective due to their large numerical advantage. German Panzer 4s and assault guns had no problems penetrating them. Panthers and Tigers wiped the floor with them in one on one combat. Panzer III The Panzer 3 was the German main battle tank up until 1942 when it became clear that it simply didn´t have enough firepower and armor protection to compete with the Soviet designs. The tank was all in all very well made, reliable and offered many advantages when compared to Soviet T34s. Better sights for example. A larger crew (5 men: Driver, Gunner, commander, loader MG gunner/radio operator) which allowed the commander to focus on commanding and scanning for targets for example by using the commanders cupola which provided good situational awareness. All Panzer 3s were fitted with radios. The armament was lacking though. Initially most Panzer 3s only had a 37mm gun or a short barreled 5cm gun which were quickly replaced by long 5cm guns when the Wehrmacht encountered T34s and KV1s for the first time. In the picture you can see a short 5cm gun tank in the background, and one with the long 5cm high velocity gun. Almost no Panzer 3s survived the war, many were converted to the Sturmgeschütz design in 1944-1945 with could be fitted with a 7.5cm gun. In this battle we will have Panzer III ausf. J tanks with both the short and the long 5cm gun to fight Soviet T34 mod 1941 tanks. Here is a short data comparison of only the armor and main gun stats of all three tanks.

The mortars "simulate" a pile of ammunition beeing left at their initial point of deployment (so do AT and artillery guns). So depending on how far away you moved, it may be that it takes some time for a runner (the game simulates that, there is no actual runner) to run back and forth and bring new rounds. As for the ammo supply: Indeed one of the biggest challenges is to keep your men supplied with ammo. Disband squads (not platoons) that are low on men (over 50% loss) and their ammo will be transfered to the other squads in the platoon. Don´t get drawn into very long firefights if you are the attacker. If you have an ammo depot on the map it will deliver ammo to all units it can reach on its own (preferably via roads since this will mean that ammo gets delivered in greater quantities). If you have a ammunition supply convoy it will distribute ammo to all units around it on the operational map (a circle will indicate the range). If you have neither of those.... well good luck. Often an ammunition convoy will become available later on in the campaign. By the way, wich one did you finish? Volokonovka? The german or the soviet one? I can recommend to you a few mods: Authentic Battlefield Sound Mod 1.2 by Whiz and Skin Mod Ostfront Kharkov by night_postman+config files

Something happened in Paris again early this morning. French RAID forces tried to storm a house in the nothern suburb of Saint Denis, not far from the stadium. One Woman blew herself up, other suspect were arrested. Apparently there is still gunfire in that area.

John Oliver has something to say to those terrorists