Thomm

I mean it is not fair that people (such as Fionn ) get to play the full version and are not allowed to talk about it !!! [This message has been edited by Thomm (edited 01-17-2000).]

One capital N is enough ! (... or did I miss a joke here )

Dear Captain Foobar ! You asked: "Why do all the females rob themselves of this stuff ?" I assume they are scared away by reading statements like <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I REALLY hate to mention this but NOWHERE did Madmatt say that the "multiple penetrations" were all frontal !<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Maybe we should switch to LATIN for subjects like this ?!

May I add that it would also be most practical to have the last page of multi-page threads displayed instead of the first one ! This would save another download operation when the end (=the last posts on the last page) are of interest ! Regards, Thomm

Do not worry, it will pass I had a similar problem which is currently replaced by the thought of how to best render passer-bys combat ineffective after Jiu-Jitsu training sessions. Equally annoying ! The point is that a mind wants to be occupied ...

Dear John ! I always play with the colored figure bases turned on at realistic scale. You can zoom the view ... and simulate binoculars ! Please press the hot-key button to pop up the help screen for reference ! Good luck, Thomm

I would prefer to know the formulas behind these results ! Shall not get it, though

10 times 10 meter tanks ?!

Is the silhouette not depending on the view direction (front, side ...) ? How can one value suffice ? Thomm

And is it also common practice to play more than one e-mail games simultaneously ? I can imagine that this would be quite time efficient because one could compensate the time lags of different opponents. By the way, wouldn't multi-player games become quite easy to program if you use a chain e-mail that originates from player A, who sends it to player B, then is forwarded to player C and so on until it comes back to A for evaluation and the loop starts again ? Would be fascinating I think ! Regards, Thomm

Merry Christmas everyone ! I have a question for those who play by e-mail: how long does it take you to finish a game ? Can you plot your moves simultaneously ? Do you usually play in one session or with breaks (days even ?) ? The reason I am asking is that I finally finished my first CM game (Reisberg, Total Victory for me, the Allies ) and it took me about four hours, which is quite long (on a working day, at least). I found it very rewarding, by the way: mortar attack on a mis-identified gun (just an empty house), a commando raid on a 88, 3D stealth moves using 'trench cam' and so on ! Very interesting, indeed ! Nevertheless, I seldom have time to play that long in one continous session, so I wondered how this works with play by e-mail ! Regards, Thomm

... when itching turns into pain ... Pressure = Force / Area. If you multiply the normalized surface normal vector with the local pressure and the area of a small surface element, then you get a force vector. If you integrate all those (pressure) force vectors over the surface of e.g. an arm, you will get the resultant force vector ... which will rip off the arm in the worst case. This is what you mean and you are right. Now my point is: if there is no arm then there is no surface then there is no force, but there is still a pressure. Force is no variable to describe a state. Pressure is a state variable and the pressure jump in the shockwave is the proper measure for the effect of the blast in my humble opinion. The same is true for heat, for example. You cannot describe a state with 'heat'. Heat is a process property, such as force. The respective variable to describe the state is: temperature. Ahhh, I could go on for hours, but unfortunately I have to buy Christmas presents. <hr> MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR !!! Thomm

In discussions about shockwaves the term 'force' should be substituted with 'pressure'. A shock wave is basically an sudden change of pressure and velocity and the damage is done by the difference of pressure in front and behind the shock wave. But forces in the strict sense are not imposed. By the way: tell me when I am becoming a pain in the you-know-what with my definitions ! Thomm

Dear Fionn ! I know that a lot of kids out there read this board and we do not want to spoil them physics-wise: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Anyways the thing about blazer reactive armour is that it basically works on a variation of the basic physics principles of reactions.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Hmmm. I think the correct principle is the preservation of momentum. A fully inelastic collision of two bodies with equal mass and opposite velocity vectors causes both bodies to come to an halt. This principle could be applied to the atoms in the incoming plasma jet and the shockwave from the reactive explosion. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> E.g. If I push you with a force of 10 KiloNewtons and you push back at me with a force of 10 KiloNewtons the net result is neither of us move<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Not exactly. The result would be that we would start to move away from each other (acceleration = force / mass, Newtons Law of Motion). For the above to be true you have to ensure static force equilibrium. This, however, can only be achieved by imposing ground reaction forces. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> (assuming that the vectors of the forces we generate are exactly the reverse of each other).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>You do not have to assume this It is guaranteed by Newtons First Law (actio est reactio). Regards, Thomm

Dear Fionn ! I would not bother to make this post if it was not for the few drinks I had too much on our company Christmas party. What I am going to write next is basically meant as a compliment for Big Time Software and all posters that contribute to this game in terms of game mechanics. So: I really do not care all too much about World War II. Exotic weaponry is kind of interesting and some of the historical facts that are brought up here help me understand how things worked (out) during this conflict, but really, this is just a side-effect ! What I am really interested in is just what you, Fionn, considered "boring": the game mechanics ! Every day I have to deal with the problem of finding mathematical/numerical models to represent reality as "cheaply" as possible in terms of computational cost (I work in the field of computational micro-mechanics). For me World War II is not more or less than the perfect setting for an evaluation of algorithms for path-finding, threat assessment, tactical and strategical AI, and so on. We, the people, have a "feel" for how a human being should behave under situations it is exposed to in Combat Mission. The same is not true for any setting in the future or involving Alien species. Hence, it is much more complicated to do Combat Mission than Command and Conquer (e.g.). So, what I want to express is that even though I am not particulary interested in World War II, the achievements made by Big Time Software with respect to Modelling and Simulation of a historical conflict (with limited computational power) fascinate me. In the very beginning of my presence on this board I made some attempts to "attack" Big Time Software on their approaches and modelling strategies. Every time they came up with an explanation which completely convinced me and satisfied me intellectually . This is what attracts me about this game and this board. So, to conclude, the message of this post is that this game/board is not only of interest for World War II fanatics, but also from a standpoint of someone who has to deal with computer models in general. This is meant as a compliment !! Okay, I already wrote too much ... Regards, Thomm P.S.: By the way, the thing may be called "Raketenpanzerbüchse" Yeah, easy to be a smart-ass when you come from a German speaking country P.P.S: Although I try not to be too involved with all this World War II business .... IT WAS A F... GREAT FEELING TO STAND IN FRONT OF THIS JAGDPANTHER in the Imperial War Museum.

Dear Fionn ! I have to disagree strongly ! I think I would benefit much more from this kind of board than from playing the game itself. This sounds strange, of course, but to me the true beauty of this game lies in the careful modelling, the proper degree of abstraction and the clever algorithms. In all this weeks I did not even have the time to complete one single Combat Mission game (and I do not expect this situation to change anytime soon), but the intellectual satisfaction I gain from reading this board will eventually make me buy the game just to contribute to keeping the BTS team going. So ... what about this new board you mentioned Regards, Thomm

I have asked myself the same question ... but on the other hand: How do we know where the battery is supposed to be ? We only know where the forward observer is, but not the alignment of the "wide" and "deep" axes ! This is defined by the off-board location of the battery itself, which we do not know ! This may be an explanation ?!

Dear Reverendo ! Please consider that the moment you drop one of the (three, e.g.) soldiers representing the squad to the ground it becomes a separate entity and has to be considered separately in the line-of-sight checks to prevent you from seeing the results of firing blind ! This is even worse in the case of a death marker for EVERY dead soldier. And totally impossible for things like thread marks, foot prints etc. Please consider that the number of required line-of-sight checks would be too high ! Regards, Thomm

Remark: You can have a close look at the Nahverteidigungswaffe in a cut-away Jagdpanther in the Imperial War Museum in London.

Some additional thoughts: The forces necessary to handle the gun can be divided into: the vertical force necessary to lift the legsthe horizontal force necessary to accelerate the gunthe component of the gravity forces parallel to the surfaceforces due to friction, roll resistance, ... Under ideal conditions (ideal center of gravity - right over wheels, horizontal surface, no friction) 1, 3 and 4 become zero. If a gun of a mass of 1500 kg should be accelerated to walking speed (5.4 km/h / 3.6 = 1.5 m/s) within 5 seconds, the necessary force to achieve the acceleration of 0.3 m/s2 would be 1500 kg times 0.3 m/s2 = 450 N. That means that you would have to apply a force equivalent to the weight of approx. 45 kg to the end of the legs. Anyway, if one would have the exact location of the center of gravity (I should use COG here, just as a cool abbreviation ), one could calculate the exact forces necessary to move the gun over a given terrain. Miniature models could be used to determine the center of gravity. Regards, Thomm

Sorry, no idea ...

Yesterday I saw a documentary about the battle of Stalingrad (pretty depressing, by the way) and one scene I remembered was some guys dragging an AT gun (with tires) across building rubble. Now, the point is: they were not walking, they were runnning ! As fast as you could drag a push cart ! It looked quite nimble to me ! Regards, Thomm

Downloaded the CC4 demo, too. Had a few colleagues standing around when I started it. They were mildly interested. Then (like so many others before me) I set some way points: Tanks started to rotate in place when they should have just driven 10 meters across a bridge, a Königstiger went backwards towards the enemy for 100 meters ... and so on. People who had never seen Close Combat before shook their head, made a few nasty comments about the AI and went on with their work. It was pretty sad, actually. I have to admit that the reaction of this "reference group" to Combat Mission was much more enthusiastic in the Ahhh and Ohhh department !

Do not forget that you would also have to do a visibility check for each and every footprint and track on the map, otherwise traces would appear where you are not supposed to see them. Will take years before we will see something like this ...

Sometimes I feel that it would be nice to have an option to replace all the tree sprites with a big (transparent ?) wood cube, because especially in the case of shattered trees and trench view it is often hard to distinguish the different kinds of woods and where they block the line of sight. Different degrees of transparencies could represent the density of the vegetation. And if I want to take a screen-shot ... I would switch back to tree sprites.