[nodlew]

Sneaksie,

I appreciate you taking the time to reply to my post. I had just about given up hope that anyone was ever going to.

Having played the game some more I'm beginning to appreciate some of the finer points. Some of my frustrations were the result of my not being aware of some physical realities being modeled in the game. Once aware that it is being modeled, and in what way, I can learn to work with it. For instance, the severe effect that skill levels have on the performance of my units. Bad drivers are really something to watch in action. I like it though, it gives me more details to obsess over, like switching out crew members to get the best possible crew in a tank that has an especially dangerous and important task to accomplish.

I'm beginning to get the hang of how the unit icons are reflecting how well a targeting unit can see the target, etc.

I still don't like it when I am looking dead at an AT gun that I've been stalking for 45 minutes and I'm finally in perfect position, just peeking out of cover to blow it away and it literally vanishes into thin air, then reappears. I know it's an attempt to make things realistic and challenging, but...anyway. It has forced me to make better use of my infantry so that I have a low-silhouetted target under observation from multiple vantage points before I move in to kill it. Those AT guns and SU 76s are really just plain deadly--difficult to hit, and they reload much faster than my tanks do.

edit--I think I understand why the Devs implemented "disappearing enemy". In game I am looking at not what I can see, but what my units can see. Units that duck, turn, scratch their testicles, etc. might suddenly lose sight of the enemy unit and if no one has it in view at that moment it "disappears" so that I cannot see it either. I actually like this now that I understand it, although when it happens to you for the first time it seems very strange, almost like a bug in the game. The effect of this is that I as the commander can only make tactical decisions based on real time info on the battlefield. If a tank is lost sight of by my units, I might think I know exactly where it is and make decisions based on that, but there is a possibility I could be wrong--it might move. As I sneak up on it, I might find it sneaking up on me. So that's fog of war, its good for gameplay.

I still cannot use the Campaign Generator to create a campaign that starts later than 1950. The date selection button lists only 1950, so I still cannot play a campaign that allows me to use M46 Patton tanks. I'm good with the Shermans, etc. I've won a campaign against the Russians on Veteran Difficulty without too much, trouble, but, damn it, the Pershing series of tanks is my favorite kind of tank and I want to play a campaign with them. Anyone else had this problem? Anyway, with Historical Units Off, I should be able to choose from all of the US units, shouldn't I? Is this a bug or what?

I've Googled this, but not found any references to the issue as yet.

After reading, I've learned that the Shermans were quite vulnerable to the 45mm AT guns. Still, they seem a little TOO vulnerable.

I placed the smoke screen between the AT gun and the path my tank followed. I used multiple smoke rounds, the gun should have been blinded. Anyway, I'll have to experiment.