I bought FASCAM / MINELET arty but it's not appearing in the Bombardment menu. What's wrong?

There is a three turn delay built into the game to stop all FASCAM / MINELET artillery units from appearing in the bombard menu at the start of the game. This prevents a player from using these to box his opponenet into his start line. They will be available for use after turn 2 is completed.

What is a Commando, What is a <insert Unit>

See the Unit classes list in the Customising SPWW2 section and the Customising WinSPMBT section of the respective Game guides for a list of classes and special abilities etc.

Why do generated battles and campaigns play unbalanced when I use a very small force?

The AI has a minimum troop purchase that, due to built in variables, is anywhere from 150 to 250 points. That is the least amount the AI will buy. If you have a 200 point core in a campaign and are given a Human advance or assault the odds will end up being around 1:1 rather than the 2.5:1 they should be simply because the AI will not take less than it's minimum force, even if you have a minute core and omit to use the given support points. The AI requires a basic minimum to cover the defence (or it may end up holding the line with an HQ and a sniper!), and it needs a certain minimum to create a credible attacking force. We recommend that you play a campaign with a minimum of 450 to500 points for your core. This allows the AI a fair number of troops and will provide you with a better game. You CAN play with less than a 300 to350 point core but you MUST take the support points offered in a Human advance or assault or the AI will end up with a higher proportion of troops than they should have. 350 points should be the absolute minimum size for all campaign and generated battle games. Anything less WILL give you very challenging games in advance/assault, especially in MBT where vehicle cost is much heavier than in SPWW2. A WW2 Sherman would tend to cost 40 or so points. A Challenger is over 500 in MBT!.

What are those " ** "'s I see when I hit an AFV?

When a tank is hit and a penetration occurs it does not always cause an outright "kill". Occasionally, depending on the shell size/armour thickness ratio and the survivability rating of that vehicle, you may notice hit messages ending in ***. These are not new, they have always been in SP2 but it was not widely known that this indicates that damage is occurring to a vehicle. We have reworked the code to give more of these damage results under certain conditions. If you see these when your tank is hit you are taking critical damage and/or lost crewmen which affects the number of shots available and overall vehicle/crew performance. Damaging hits can also remove weapons, immobilise the vehicle and so forth (note that unlike the original SP series games, bringing up the information screen for an enemy AFV will not show you that, for example, the main gun has been destroyed for that vehicle!).

In PBEM, I never see my opponent's artillery on the playback, just new craters.

Unless BOTH of you have 'fast artillery' set to OFF then no history of the artillery barrages is saved in the PBEM file. Play PBEM with fast arty off, both of you, to see the shots and messages in the replay. And ensure you have animation turned on as well, or you will not see direct fire shots either. Additionally, any pre game bombardment in a PBEM (artillery plotted to drop in turn 0), only one side will be able to see the replay, because the game replay code is only set up to replay the one player's last turn, not "both players' last turns, saving a bit of turn 0 through your opponent's turn 1 and then adding that bit on at the front of the next replay". It is therefore best not to use any pre game (turn 0 arrival) artillery in a PBEM game, unless you are willing to sacrifice player 2 playback. Agree this as part of the pre game discussion with your PBEM opponent.

My aircraft seem useless, and cannot hit things with guns/rockets.

If you see the message "attacking hex" then your plane has not been able to establish LOS to the target hex. This is usually due to smoke and dust in the area, but sometimes it is because the target is tucked away behind a ridge for example. Try to target aircraft, especially if relying on direct fire weapons like rockets, onto targets well out in clear air, and preferably out in the open, on a flat plain as opposed to in a town, wood, or valley. Do not target artillery bombardments and planes on the same target area, this is a major failing of the AI. If you must hit a target in smoke, flames etc., Then try to use planes with bombs, napalm, or PTAB bomblets as these are area fire weapons. Still not as good as a clear attack, but better than random cannon strafing. Remember, very big bombs will kill infantry in the adjacent hexes as well (~1000lbs and more).

You will know if you got a good shot since the message will be 'attacking T-34' or similar and a percentage to hit is usually displayed on the yellow bar at the top of the screen.

Note that MBT aircraft, unlike SPWW2 planes, may have night vision sights, including Thermal Imagers, which may mitigate the smoke and poor visibility problems of WW2 aircraft that relied on the unaided eyeball Mk1.

To try out aircraft tactics it is best to set up a test game. Set up with both sides human player for everything, and give the side you are testing planes the advance, especially if you decide to let the AI run the targets, then it wont move! Go to the Preferences Menu and set up the air strikes item to at least one to ensure you can buy air. Then when setting up enter no passwords, and for the delaying (target) side, buy the sort of targets you want to test against. Set the target side up in interesting arrays, and its often best to set these up as preplanned bombardment targets ('gold spots') for the advancer to save time waiting for strikes to arrive. Now play the game; try out various plane types as desired on target types and arrays as desired. Because you are playing left hand vs. right hand, you can inspect the damage from the target's viewpoint. This method is also useful for testing out AA tactics and units as well. Or pretty much anything for that matter, before jumping off to a bulletin board, try a few experimental tests of your own. Many folk just do not seem to realise that they can in fact play both sides, so as to try things out.

I bought a 90mm AA (AT) gun formation with trucks but they cannot pick them up.

Some AT gun formations were provided with integral trucks, but the picker will let you choose any legitimate AT gun, howitzer or whatever. In this case there is usually a separate 'Heavy AT Gun/T' formation with 7.5 ton heavy trucks or similar. What can be picked up is a vexed question in SP. Look for the '*' after some guns, read the manual.

But the best way to see what fits what is to set up a test game, buy one of about every type of transport and load item, and try it out in the set up phase of the game, then quit before playing. This is especially true of some things like say USA mech. Infantry. You should be able to fit most combinations in to the vehicles some way but do not buy 76mm AT guns for example. If offered mortars, you should stick to the correct 60mm sections, as 4.2 inch mortars are both ahistorical, and likely will not fit, or not leave room for that final bazooka team.

There is no real easy way to screen out inappropriate choices (though the new classes for V3.0 will help), learn by experimentation, do not plunge into a game and then find out what lifts what when it is really embarrassing.

I cannot spend all my points/ buy any more support troops in a campaign game.

There is a limit to the number of units you can buy in total, this has been increased to 500 units per side in version 3.0, over about 130 before. In addition, there is a limit to the total number of formations (platoons formations, and a 1 man sniper formation is a platoon!, not companies). Also, in a beach assault you are limited to about 400 units, as the game needs space for the automatically bought landing craft, and in a river crossing assault, we have left about 90 free units to provide assault raft unit space for deployed infantry assault boats and deployed barges off barge carriers as these need to be created on deployment. In a campaign core, you can have 200 units now.

Once you reach either limit, you cannot buy any more units, even if you have a lot of surplus points. The formation limit means that it is best to buy in reasonable sized platoons of 4 or 5, not sections of 1 or 2. However, avoid things like the 10 tank Soviet 'Company in a Platoon' since when things start going bad for this unit, the leader is unlikely to be able to rally that many subordinates.

There is an 8cm-mortar platoon and a 12cm mortar platoon, what is the difference?

Usually, just the number of mortars (but with the new expanded mortar classes, the OB designer may have utilised these so the heavy mortars are in their own units, now). For example, 6 tubes in a German WW2 8cm platoon and 4 12cm tubes in that platoon, one off each in the battalion support company. Also, the designer may have provided formations using mortar section units (several mortars firing off the same baseplate) as well as individual mortars per unit type mortars.

The 'All Formation' key produces unusual results when I try to move a platoon.

This button has never really worked since SP1. Do not bother with it. Its only use is when setting an entire formation's range with the 'Y' key. Select 'all', select any unit of the formation set the range, and all the formation uses the range setting. It saves a few extra clicks. Then remember to turn the all mode off before moving anything or you will get a rude surprise. That's the only practical use for the ALL key in SP. By all means try the all formation key a few times for fun in a scratch game, the results are often interesting, but not what you desired even on flat ground. Note that the button was removed, and only the 'A' hot key remains.

I think artillery/infantry is too powerful/too weak

See the section on 'The Preferences Screen'. Experiment with the values till it suits your idea of 'reality'.

How do I call a quick repeat artillery mission?

Once the artillery unit has completed its mission it tends to keep its last x,y target location, unless it was manually cancelled, or was an aircraft. Go to the bombardment screen, and press the ID button for the unit. Do NOT click on the map, or you are calling a brand new mission in! press the HE icon (or smoke if that was what was wanted), and the symbol will appear at the last x,y location. Adjust if required, but the time will be much less than a new fire mission from scratch. This is how to do a 'creeping barrage', plot and fire, letting the battery finish, then call a repeat using this technique, and adjusting the line of fires forwards a bit.

How do I fire counter battery fires on enemy off map batteries?

You (the player) do not, your gunners will attempt to locate off map batteries themselves, and allocate any units in range to CB fires.

For a battery to fire CB missions, it needs to be idle (not plotted to fire missions), it needs its crew quality to be good (better than 60 or so, and the higher the better), have HE ammo to hand, and to have equal or better range than the enemy battery in order to be able to reach the target. It also has to pass a chance roll. Off map artillery units range is shown as a number usually in the 200 series or more, 209 is longer range than say 205. Range information is found in the encyclopaedia entry for that battery.

How do I recrew my vehicle/Gun etc. ?

Once the crew has stopped running away, walk them or transport them back to the same hex as the gun or vehicle they abandoned, and leave them there for a while. Provided their morale is good enough, and the item to be crewed is not too badly damaged, they will mount up. NB, the original crew for the abandoned unit is the only one which can recrew it.

How do I get things into the same hex as one containing another unit

Whether friendly, enemy or wrecks, select the unit to be moved, then hold the SHIFT key and click into the target hex containing other units. (Enemy units in the target hex may object to this!). Barges will allow you to load from the hex alongside, otherwise units would have had to drive into deep water!.

How do I get an enemy squad to surrender?

Enter the same hex as the retreating or routed squad, and blaze away, when approximately 2/3 of the crew is gone it will tend to surrender, depending on nationality and morale, though occasionally a squad will run away even from such a pinning attack.

Alternatively, provided you are shooting the unit up, and it cannot find a hex to retreat to, it may surrender, i.e. Typically it is surrounded by your units which have shots left AND are in good morale, an enemy squad may run into a hex containing a retreating unit of yours, or just may panic and enter an enemy held hex regardless. Note that rivers for example, can block retreat paths, as can minefields.

How do I turn a unit in place?

Select the unit, then RIGHT click into a hex which is clear of wrecks, friendly or enemy units in the desired direction then the unit turns, and the unit LOS in that direction is shown by dark and light hexes. Use the clear dark function to remove the dark hexes. Some units like pillboxes cannot turn (other than when being placed in deployment) and barges and other watercraft need to be moved to turn, they cannot turn in place.

What is the LOS from this unit?

Please refer to the question 'how do I turn a unit in place?' above.

How do I destroy a bridge?

Use typically an engineer unit with satchel charges, anti tank mines (can represent hollow charge demolition munitions) or a Churchill or centurion AVRE with demolition gun fitted (165mm), and area fire onto the bridge hex. (Z key). It may take several attempts, especially for stone bridges. Very large artillery can destroy bridges, as can aircraft using large bombs if they drop these onto the bridge hex (bridges are valid aircraft target hexes, give a plane a bridge target hex and it will tend to attack that in preference to any bystanders). Generally, crater causing artillery (about 120mm up) is needed to drop wooden bridges, and 8 inch or greater artillery to have a chance on stone bridges.

When a bridge collapses, all units on that section are destroyed by falling into the river, and this can be very satisfying when you catch a massive traffic jam of the opposition's units on a rickety wood bridge with some 122mm...

How do I deploy a barge or raft?

When beside the water, with some MP left, attempt to 'drive' the barge carrier into the water, or 'walk' the infantry squad into it (if it is carrying a raft!). A barge carrier will appear in the water or the squad will transform into a raft carrying itself and armed with the squad's primary infantry weapon. To unload, 'drive' the barge or boat onto the river bank or beach side. If in -1 depth water, barges can now unload into the water if desired.

What sort of forces and maps will the computer player pick?

The AI pick list code is adaptive, and randomised in places. This gives a far richer AI force structure than in SP2 and SP3 where it got to the point that you could pretty much predict the AI force, given the points allocated.

MBT AI pick will be affected by some or all of the following: Battle type (Different if assaulting than defending), points available, the battle date, the particular opponent (e.g. Russian AI pick vs. a NATO country will differ in structure from playing against Mujadeen), air strikes available, AI Tank Heavy switch setting, and sometimes the battle map (may de-emphasise long range ATGW in a city fight and buy more leg infantry and mortars, and less tanks perhaps).

The best way to look at what the AI buys is to experiment with test game setups.

Select your points, air points if desired and the date and players and also battle type just like a normal battle generator battle with the following exceptions.

1) Set Computer as the player in both cases

2) Select computer buys forces for both sides

3) Set both sides to human deploy

Now hit continue. Select human deploy or computer deploy for side 1, and examine what was bought. [If you want to look at AI deployments - use auto deploy, repeat several times to see several alternate deployments]

Now exit this side's deployment and examine the second force as above.

Finally - in the second force, choose exit game, or you will get to watch an AI plays AI game!. If this happens - hit the space bar and the game will allow you to break in at the next end phase.

Repeat the process of examining AI picks at various dates and force levels as desired. When you have done this a large number of times for any opponent pairing, you should have a good idea of what to expect.

Also each battle will select a new map and these can be examined as well, as for many nation pairings we no longer limit you to but one battle location as with the old SP2 and SP3 games. Some of the possible maps can be quite rare as well, so you may need to run quite a few test games before seeing these.

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