[nodlew]

Thank you, Speaksie, again for your responses.

I have read most of the manual, but, like many, I skip over parts and skim through to the stuff I'm worried about at the moment. I'm very glad to hear that I can toggle the icons off, thank you for informing me.

I know the .30 cals don't move. I don't use the RRifles much, but in one particular mission I know I couldn't get it to move. When I had the trouble with the .30 cals, I remembered I couldn't move the Rifles, so I assumed the same bug was affecting both units. It could have been a momentary glitch, or caused by something else. I'll try the Recoiless Rifles again.

Since learning how to use the CANCEL button, I have no trouble with the HOLD FIRE command. As you said, I use it in combination with the CANCEL button-- CANCEL then HOLD FIRE, or the opposite would work. Works great. The trouble I was having was that I was confused about what the HOLD FIRE command and the CANCEL ORDERS commands were for. I thought that the CANCEL ORDERS command was merely a command to order moving troops to halt--the result of the hand symbol which I interpreted to mean simply "Stop". And I thought that the HOLD FIRE command was a CEASE FIRE command--as in most games a HOLD FIRE order doubles as a CEASE FIRE order. Not a problem, just an eccentricity of this game I needed to become aware of.

Also, the game is much more pleasing to play since I tried using the CLASSIC SELECTION MODE. The default selection mode makes it very hard to reorganize units after they've taken casualties, or to combine different units. I almost posted a long complaint about that--glad I tried the other mode first. I don't like wasting people's time. More than that, I don't like being wrong. Who does?

A further note on the turret armor of the M46 which I said was very weak--I just played a mission in which a group of American tanks moved into my area trying to link up with the units defending the village I was assaulting. My tanks were stationary, in decent defensive position and shot up the Shermans and Chaffees, but at that range, the M46, though apparently immobilized (anyway, it stopped), was impervious to to all of my guns and I had to order my tanks to cease fire to prevent wasting AP ammo. I was able to close on the Patton using the terrain for cover in a SU76, and fired on it from quite close range just behind a little ridge. The SU76 scored multiple direct hits on the M46's frontal turret armor and gun mantlet with every available armor piercing ammunition type, including APCR and HEAT, without noticeable effect. The turret continued to function and the tank continued to fire on me, though my SU76 expended all of its AP rounds, as I said, hitting the Patton over and over again. I couldn't destroy the Patton until I had it decoyed to engage the SU76 and shot it at very close range through the side of its turret with an ambushing T-34.

So maybe not all that weak at all, is what I mean. I think what was happening to my Pattons when I was playing them is that they were getting hit at ranges where just about any gun is effective against any tank. At a stand-off range, the Patton looks like a very tough nut to crack.

They still need machine gun ammo though.

I'm having a ball playing this game, I have to say. Some really interesting, surprising, and even hilarious things can happen. One mission I was attacking a village as the US vs. the USSR. I thought I had things well in hand when suddenly my M36 and two M4s were jumped by two Russian tanks. The SPG and one of the Shermans was destroyed, the other Sherman not having been spotted. I had a goodly number of infantry in the village ahead of my tanks and the Soviet armor just went medieval on them, machine gunning them, blasting them, and crushing them beneath their tracks.

The situation was not good. I ordered my remaining Sherman to move up and ambush the enemy tanks, but they rolled forward a short distance, and then bailed out of the perfectly good tank in terror. What do I do now? My infantry was being slaughtered the whole time.

So I ordered the crew of an immobilized Sherman farther back to bail out and run to the abandoned tank in the village, which they did. With that tank we ambushed the Ivans, destroyed the enemy armor, and won the battle, although not unscathed as I had expected.

I haven't had a game give me wonderful little moments like that since CLOSE COMBAT. This game is a real treat and I will do whatever I can to help advertise it.

Oh, and yes, I have tried the damage overlay which is a very nice feature, very much the same as I remember from playing Steel Fury. Same Co, I know. What can I say? I love 1C games--all of the ones I've played--Steel Fury, Soldiers, Heroes of WWII, Men of War, Red Tide, the other more recent Men of War game, the one that was set in Kharkov...probably some others. I have to say, I think this game is a real step in the right direction, especially grapically. It looks so much better than the Kharkov game, which was very dark and ugly, though the gameplay was great. I just wish this game could incorporate some things from the Men of War series--like commanders riding open hatch, using their heavy machine guns. The hatches open--couldn't this be implemented? The infantry models in this game are truly fantastic when you zoom in to take a close look, and the maps/landscapes are beautiful and very fun to fight in. Seems to run much much better than previous TOW games as well. I don't have much problem with slow downs in Campaigns. In Mission Generator missions, with hordes of enemy attacking all at once, my computer can slow down alot until the fighting dies down a bit. But I have accepted that this is due to all of the ballistic calculations, damage calculations, angle calculations, etc that my CPU must process and not a result of graphics detail. The game seems to run as well on the highest graphics settings as it does on the worst. From what I have read, the performance of the game on my system is equal to or better than its performance on some other much better computers with more ram, better cpu's, and better graphics cards. So, like I said, I'm making allowances for some slow downs when the action is very intense.

Game crashes are still a real issue however. I just lost about two hours of progress in my last mission because the game crashed when I tried to call in a mortar bombardment on an enemy tank. I'm getting into the habit of saving the game regularly, especially when it starts to act up. If the graphics start flickering, I have to save, exit and restart to prevent a crash and stop the graphical glitches. Have any idea what causes that?

Cheers.