Thomm

The starting AND the ending point for you would be to read and to try to *understand* what all the helpful people wrote in response to your questions! The problem was solved simultaneously by 1) historical research 2) sybolic computation 3) graphical methods. I do not know why you continue to beat the poor dead horse. Must be a psychological experiment ... Regards, Thomm

No, no Scott, you got everything right, just as the others (asok, JonS, ...) before you (including, of course, the historians). In fact, the graphical solution gives the necessary hints to simplify the symbolic calculation, it just has to be translated to the respective algebraic expressions. I do not think this is necessary, though, because there are enough excellent diagrams and statements floating around already! Regards, Thomm P.S.: Cool Homepage!!

I will not comment on these statements (some of which I consider bizarre, some of which I consider insulting), because it will certainly lead nowhere. But I cannot help but wonder why you try to devaluate posts which SUPPORT your statements with mathematical proof with an "I told you so" attitude! Regards, Thomm

I respectfully disagree. It is "all this calculating stuff" that makes the system work. You could describe the problem to a mathematician and he would tell you that you need at least 3 microphones to solve the problem without ever having heard about CB. In fact the mathematician, therefore, will tell you how the real life system HAS to look like to actually work. Regards, Thomm

Yes. A third microphone! [ February 13, 2002, 11:48 AM: Message edited by: Rollstoy ]

Yes. The third equation does this and is "consumed" in the process. This leaves you with 3 unknowns x,y,r1 and two equations -> and the problem is still not solvable. Math (and grogs) sayz: you need THREE microphones! Regards, Thomm

Neither r1 nor r2 is known beforehand, only the difference between the two (as long as you rely exclusively on sound measurement). So there is basically no sensible way to know that the sound traveled 1.18 s to the first microphone. For this reason I came up with my own example based on three microphones and (what I hope) realistic distances. Regards, Thomm

My example: Mike1 (-2500, 0) Mike2 ( 0, 0) Mike3 (+2500, 0) Source (+1250,10000) Relative Timing Errors: +0.01 s for Mike2 -0.01 s for Mike3 Yields absolute position error of 178.7 m. Regards, Thomm

I can verify this! If you have two mikes (x1,y1) and (x2,y2) and a time=distance difference dr12 then you have three equations r1^2 = (x-x1)^2 + (y-y1)^2 r2^2 = (x-x2)^2 + (y-y2)^2 r2 = r1 + dr12 for the FOUR unknowns x,y,r1,r2 If, however, you have 3 mikes and an additional distance difference dr13 then you have 5 equations r1^2 = (x-x1)^2 + (y-y1)^2 r2^2 = (x-x2)^2 + (y-y2)^2 r3^2 = (x-x3)^2 + (y-y3)^2 r2 = r1 + dr12 r3 = r1 + dr13 for 5 unknowns x,y,r1,r2,r3 Hint: Do NOT try to calculate a closed form solution for the system of equations. It would fill several pages! Regards, Thomm

This neglects the shear forces between "plug" and tank body.

If wargaming taught my anything then it would be to get my butt as far away from any war as possible!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think that flanking fire should result in higher exposure numbers depending on the position of the soldiers (prone, standing) and the nature of the cover (building -> little influence, trees -> strong influence). Unless the precise meaning of the term "firepower" is revealed it is maybe inappropriate to suggest specific changes to this value.

Doesn't this concept rely too heavily on the idea that the unit maintains a specific formation, namely `line'?!

Hi PawBroon! I was browsing your site to find larger images of this Flakpanzer, but I did not find any. I found, however, new mod comparison sections and want to express my heartfelt thanks for this interesting resource! It is very well done and invaluable reference material for everybody interested in mods, "skinning" and digital art. Thanks, Thomm

Ahh, you just have to stick around long enough to be able to cite YOURSELF at least 5 times! Then the effort is endurable

For not-even-wanna-be Grogs like me it was interesting to browse through the vehicle lists of Close Combat III: Russian: http://www.atomic.com/new/page/units/russian.htm German: http://www.atomic.com/new/page/units/german.htm CMBB seems to have more vehicles AND in full 3D. A remarkable effort! Regards, Thomm

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by JasonC: ... just stop spinning it out in your imagination and pick up any decent history of the subject).<hr></blockquote>I do whatever I want, and no, I will not pick up anything! Replace fighting in my post with "movement within the time scale of a CM battle". Regards, Thomm

I can imagine that city fighting took place mainly on the streets and not inside buildings. As far as buildings are concerned I think that the most important ones are those placed at a T-crossing which face a road along its axis and can, therefore, project firepower on it. As the attacker is starting to suppress such a building (picture SiG 33) the locical route for retreating is out through the back door, which should be well possible in a normal city block with an inner court. I do not know if a building is even allowed to have more than two fire walls. Regards, Thomm

Some more questions: 1) Will the 3-man groups align with the trench, that is, will they form a line when stationary and a column when moving, even around corners? 2) Will they be submerged to a certain extent so that only the upper body is visible when they stand upright? 3) Will it be possible to integrate gun pits in the trench system? Regards, Thomm ad 2: I think it should be possible to move the base level of the models according to position: if they are prone, move them upwards such that they are still visible. If they are upright, move them down so that the illusion of them standing in the trench is kept. This vertical movement could be performed simultanously with the corresponding animation.

This is a very beautiful and interesting web site! Please continue the good work! Regards, Thomm

THANK YOU! Thomm

KwazyDog, I know I am too curious, but could you please describe the process of creating a colored texture from the picture of an uncoated model?! I assume the first step is to convert the pic to a greyscale image, which will then serve as a brightness channel for a flat camouflage texture. But is it really that simple? What other postprocessing steps are necessary? Is this procedure `state-of-the-art' of graphic artists or are there tricks of the trade that are not common knowledge? Just curious ... Regards, Thomm

I do not know about the image processing procedure at BTS, but wouldn't it be possible to submit pictures of unpainted models, which show the proper lighting and shadows, and are then painted electronically with the respective camo scheme. This would, for example, prevent the hiding of fine surface structures by thick layers of paint (see Panther road wheels). Also, various camo jobs could be applied to the same basic texture. I do not know if this is possible, but it would probably give the BTS artist more freedom in the creation of camo schemes. This grey painted model goes in that direction: Excellent lighting, by the way! Regards, Thomm

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by tero: An interesting question: can they fire the gun if they are "hull down" since they have no turret ? If they are immobile Stugs then being hull down is not really a good thing since it rarely happens and they are more likely to be spotted but they can not fire than they being able to fire back at the enemy.<hr></blockquote>From what I have read the gun is in the unobscured upper hull while the lower hull is unexposed. Therefore, a hull-down tank-destroyer can engage the target it is hull-down to. Regards, Thomm

Hull down status should, in principle, be measured against the location (e.g. center of pivot) of an enemy gun, be it a gun in the turret of a tank or a AT gun. "Hull Down" with respect to this gun would then indicate that this particular gun is currently unable to hit the (lower) hull of the considered tank. It should be very possible for CM to calculate exactly how much of each (vertical) section of a tank is exposed to a gun. If the exposure of the (lower) hull is 0% than the tank will receive the hull down label. It depends on the sophistication of this calculation whether it gives reliable results even for extreme conditions, that is, for example, extreme tank orientations. Personally, I would not bother with extreme cases and treat the tank as being perfectly upright in the calculation. The tank simplifies to a stadia rod under this condition, and to calculate how much of this rod is visible to the gun is a fairly straightforward process. Regards, Thomm