Fire and Rubble DAR: BFCElvis vs Ithikial_AU - Public Comments (No Ithikial and no Elvis)

[BFCElvis]

I forget if this is normally done or not...Either way I always thought that it should be. Now that we are about 1/3 of the way into the battle it's time to open it up. This is a place for you guys to kibitz. Ithikial and I will not look at this thread and you can feel free to talk about what we've done right and what we've done wrong. Try not to be too cruel to us because we will see it when the battle has ended.

OK, I'm outa here unto after the battle is finished.

[Lethaface]

Just saw this one. So far not much discussion

Difficult to call who's going to win this yet. In the beginning I thought Ithikial, now my money would be on a draw. Elvis his rifle company attacking Beer could challenge the defense, but he needs to take out the German armor defending the Beers; I guess that will prove difficult. 

[Bubba883XL]

I Wana take part. Lol but I'm just enjoying the progress... cant wait for it to be in my hands! 

[MikeyD]

I hope 'ire and rubble' was a deliberate cheeky play on 'fire and rubble' and not a typo. Either way, you should keep it that way.  

[Glubokii Boy]

I think Ithikial has done very well so far considdering he only has green troops...

His initial agressive moves have been vital i belive...getting into possition first.

But can he hold it ?

Non of the players have been able to employ hand-held AT-weapons so far i belive...

The germans do not seem to have any schrecks...only fausts.

It would have been kind of cool to have seen the odd flamethrower (besides the russian tanks) included in the force mix...

[Glubokii Boy]

I think that ones these mastermaps gets slized up and used in scenarios...to include far more debree and piles of rubble...to provide cover and limit LOF as well as restrict vehichle modemet...

Infantry will play a larger part in the 'tankhunting task'...the life of a tanker will be more difficult ..

On this map LOS/LOF seems to be pretty far...making it a bit hard for the infantry to get to the tanks

[Erwin]

Have been greatly enjoying these threads.  Not sure why there is only light arty available as we know that anything under 150mm is unlikely to have desired effect in urban areas.  Why bother providing 81mm or smaller (unless there's a lot of smoke shells)? 

I don't know what you guys have in the way of smoke, but was surprised that it hasn't been used more in order to enable inf to safely cross streets.  I read that smoke has gotten blown away quickly in this scenario, but (assuming the AFV's have it) several AFV's blowing their smoke grenades and/or using smoke shells should have been able to create a smokescreen across a street that should have lasted long enuff to safely run across it.  

Edited June 26, 2020 by Erwin

[RockinHarry]

Nice showcase battle for F&R and wetting appetite. But beside that not quite a realistic setup and tactics are accordingly. I still see issues with protection levels of buildings which is rather sad. If you can so easily shoot out each other from (heavy) buildings and just slightly beyond hand grande range, battles like Stalingrad and comparable would´ve resolved in a matter of minutes instead of weeks or months.

Also nice to see efforts are beeing made on improving the TacAI´s "evade" behavior. But will it be a real cure or rather superfical symptom treatment?

[Glubokii Boy]

16 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:

  I still see issues with protection levels of buildings which is rather sad. If you can so easily shoot out each other from (heavy) buildings and just slightly beyond hand grande range, battles like Stalingrad and comparable would´ve resolved in a matter of minutes instead of weeks or months.

Also nice to see efforts are beeing made on improving the TacAI´s "evade" behavior. But will it be a real cure or rather superfical symptom treatment?

Yeah...i hope these new tweaks will find a nice balance....

[Lethaface]

6 hours ago, RepsolCBR said:

I think Ithikial has done very well so far considdering he only has green troops...

His initial agressive moves have been vital i belive...getting into possition first.

But can he hold it ?

Non of the players have been able to employ hand-held AT-weapons so far i belive...

The germans do not seem to have any schrecks...only fausts.

It would have been kind of cool to have seen the odd flamethrower (besides the russian tanks) included in the force mix...

I think in some of the last screens of Elvis, Ithikial got a T-34 with a Panzerschreck team.

[Macisle]

2 hours ago, Erwin said:

Have been greatly enjoying these threads.  Not sure why there is only light arty available as we know that anything under 150mm is unlikely to have desired effect in urban areas.  Why bother providing 81mm or smaller (unless there's a lot of smoke shells)? ...

Aside from smoke, in urban, medium mortars can be very useful for taking out infantry-crewed guns, point building suppression, knocking holes in outdoor walls for tactical maneuver, and with some luck, top-hitting enemy armor. Even if you don't hit the armor, you might get the enemy tank to bugger off for the duration of the arty. 122mm is fairly effective and the extra rounds make it sometimes preferable to 150mm. 105mm is better than medium mortars, but fairly underwhelming.

2 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Nice showcase battle for F&R and wetting appetite. But beside that not quite a realistic setup and tactics are accordingly. I still see issues with protection levels of buildings which is rather sad. If you can so easily shoot out each other from (heavy) buildings and just slightly beyond hand grande range, battles like Stalingrad and comparable would´ve resolved in a matter of minutes instead of weeks or months.

Also nice to see efforts are beeing made on improving the TacAI´s "evade" behavior. But will it be a real cure or rather superfical symptom treatment?

From my urban map-making experience, CMx2 can do pretty realistic urban (when suicide rout doesn't pop up), but a different design approach is required. Basically, the stock map-making design approach limits things. However, the stock approach provides the higher speed of play and lower player workload that pleases the broadest swath of players -- which is why it is what it is.  So, Ben's excellent work captures the density and layout of the urban environment very well. However, the stock design approach means that there are a lot of independent buildings and single-width modular lines of buildings with fairly open lines of sight around them. Therefore, while the bird's eye view tells you that the density is right, the stock approach means that the buildings and general environment don't offer the protection and concealment that you would associate with a high level of simulation.

So, the Engine offers the tools to "thicken up" the buildings with multi-AS-width modular construction and tucking some kind of concealment terrain everywhere reasonable (low bocage, hedge, etc.), but doing so is going to dramatically slow down play and increase player workload. Also, ordnance levels become a much more important issue. T-34/76s rock, but many other vehicles (especially German ones) will find themselves running out of ammo before they can achieve much.

1 hour ago, RepsolCBR said:

Yeah...i hope these new tweaks will find a nice balance....

Yes, I'm very hopeful that some of the rough edges of infantry play have been smoothed out and that direct and indirect HE effects vs. infantry displacement are what I am hoping for.

[MikeyD]

Ever since CMBN came out I've paid attention to window placement when advancing my infantry. Some building types have windowless building sides. No door and no window on that side means you can walk your infantry right up to them.

City battles change dramatically depending on the density of forces on the map.  A few forces its a maze hunting game. A lot of forces and the same map turns into a merciless attrition contest. 'Maneuver' attempts turn into desperate fighting for every building

[Glubokii Boy]

10 hours ago, Lethaface said:

I think in some of the last screens of Elvis, Ithikial got a T-34 with a Panzerschreck team.

I missed that guy...seen it now

Thanks...

Thinking about it Elvis also managed to take out atleast 1 armored car with his AT-rifles...

Good stuff !

[Majick]

I'd quite like to have the game myself.  Has there been any news somewhere that I've missed or is it the big elephant in the room?

[Vacillator]

3 hours ago, Majick said:

I'd quite like to have the game myself.  Has there been any news somewhere that I've missed or is it the big elephant in the room?

It's not quite out yet, but this is a 'teaser' I suppose.  Good stuff anyway...

[Warts 'n' all]

Sadly, I think the British killed all the elephants in Berlin back in 1943.

[Majick]

11 hours ago, Vacilllator said:

It's not quite out yet, but this is a 'teaser' I suppose.  Good stuff anyway...

Men don't like being teased for too long

[Warts 'n' all]

1 hour ago, Majick said:

Men don't like being teased for too long

Bites puritan tongue.

Edited July 1, 2020 by Warts 'n' all

[kohlenklau]

I honestly appreciate the guys doing the AAR to show fire&rubble. I was admittedly, from selfishness, bummed that it wasn't a snow battle to show CMRT in a new environment, well officially in a new environment. Maybe something got tweaked because some early screenshots showed the usual Soviet uniforms from CMRT and then later I saw the quilted jackets. I didn't read carefully why that happened. Usually uniforms or vehicle mods are modtagged (or coded?) to associate to certain weather or ground conditions or timeframes or unit types (guards).

Oh, ok, I just reminded myself that maybe he purchased a certain Soviet unit and set "appearance" to winter uniforms or a mixture? I don't know.

Anyway, really excited to see it all once released...

 

[Ultradave]

Don't worry. You'll get your fix of snow and freezing cold in some of the scenarios. One I can think of almost makes you FEEL cold.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

[MikeyD]

Winter uniforms are kept going about a month longer in CMRT than CMFI, through April (in CMFI winter uniforms go through March, I believe). Once you hit May and those last eight day of war you get standard-only Russian uniform option. You can pick standard the other months too, of course.

Fun fact, the winter of 44-45 on the Eastern Front wasn't a particularly snowy year . The prevalence of snow in module scenarios is more 'artistic license' than historical fact. 44-45 Poland wasn't like being on the outskirts of Moscow '42. Western front did get a whopper of a blizzard right at the end of the Bulge battles, which is why you see such deep snow in Bulge photos (usually taken after the battles in January).

[chuckdyke]

Spoiler. My first minor success was in recon observed my first ever SU 100 Scenario "The Rites of the Spring". The Germans have 1 Stug IV with a 75 mm L70 gun. Strategy will be a turning maneuver, means looking for a route to my objective which makes his position irrelevant. Panzer IV and the Stug IV are outgunned by this beast. He may not be the only one.