SgtMuhammed

I always thought you mountain troops were strange. Mules Andreas? Here's one that shouldn't take much effort. Make Invisible VLs for the defense as well as offense. This way the designer can set areas to be defended without giving them away with a big flag. When combined with the attacker's dynamic flags this will give the realistic probability of both sides fighting the same battle with different goals. Happens all the time.

tooz thanks for the kind words and all the work. I am doing a few tweaks and may have to turn this into a static op to make the AI defend a little better. As it is he tends to abaondon his post after first contact especially if you hit him hard with tanks. I just played my new build using the default settings and blasting my way up the middle and it looks like the AI is about to surrender even though I try to ignore things I know are there. So far a couple of issues that have been brought up are the mentioned tendency for the computer to withdraw from his prepared positions as well as some experience level adjustments. These are being addressed time now. Again, thanks all of you for your efforts.

Looking for that one too. Specifically the early/mid model.

As long as this horse keeps popping up I will continue to beat it. As another view of Assault Rifles against the world one could look at the Soviet invasion of Afganistan.

Yeah, I tried that but it just didn't feel right. Now that I think about it there should be Katyuskas for direct fire as well. The Soviets used them more than the Germans did the Sturmtiger. I just hate having to make due when designing a battle or an operation.

Vesuvius had a big eruption in 1944, I demand it be modelled! </font>

I don't think even a Cray could handle this one. You might want to see if you can borrow Deep Blue.

I think you will find references to the 34 as a heavy tank scattered about. It seems to be in reference to its comparison to other Soviet tanks as well as its thick hide.

Why is there no Russian arty modelled in the game? At least there aren't for the Kursk timeframe. They were an integral part of the Soviet AT strongpoints.

An intel map during setup. 2D with vague spotting reports. Dynamic lighting. (BTW Matt, I think the darkest I have ever seen barring a German Tree nursery at night, is the desert with no moon. I could barely see the ground I was walking on.) During noon turns crews could get out and cook eggs on the fenders of their tanks. Dust trails behind rounds. Vehicles, dead or alive, provide cover. Push through minefield breaching. Steadily degrading sight conditions as the sand and smoke of battle get thicker (affected by wind of course). Erupting volcanoes as a big what if for Sicily. Infantry can fire from within or on AFVs. Variable density mine fields. More engineer options (lay mines, clear wire, blow roadblock, prepare structures for demolition). Tweek the infantry routines. Infantry do not flee in terror from the first thing that fires at them. They keep pushing towards the objective until it is absolutly impossible for them to move any further. Casualties count not only those wounded but the men required to care for them. This presents the posibility of "eliminated" squads returning for subsequent battles. More detailed control over AI for scenario designers.

Depends on how well each side is trained. Given identical training they would actually be quite even. A dedicated rifle has a longer effective range while a true SMG is handier in CQB. The AR is not a wonder weapon.

You heard the man. Send us the file.

That would have to be one hell of a crater. I'm talking aircraft bomb here.

I'll give it a shot if anyone wants to join me.

Thanks Brigadier for your time. I will send you the next build. I am tweaking the force levels a bit but I will wait for more feedback first. Any major problems that just jump out at you? P.S. I haven't beat it as the Germans either and I built the damn thing.

This is all well and good but considering that this is about the same time it would take to clear a real mine field the time factor doesn't seem to be all that important. Also, you can breach wire in a couple of minutes but not in CM.

In keeping with the current state of the U.S. legal system I am suing BFC for descrimination. The fact that I have neither ordered or payed for the guide yet should not be a factor in whether I get one or not. This is a base violation of my civil rights and I demand immediate restitution. P.S. I am also going filing papers due to the fact that I have never been sexually harrassed. Again discrimination and I for one will not stand for it.

I am using them in my scenario design as tank ditches. I don't really see why pioneers can't reduce them though. It takes about the same time to breach one as it does to clear a dug in minefield. It is faster if you have explosives and don't have to rely on shovels to cave in the sides. Then again they can't breach wire either and infantry can do that. Maybe in the next engine engineers will be more like engineers and less like satchel charge launchers. [ May 09, 2003, 09:54 AM: Message edited by: sgtgoody (esq) ]

Even U.S. assault courses are not run with full auto. At the premier CQB (close quarters battle) course in the army, the ones that the Special Ops guys go through, they are taught to use rapidly fired well aimed single shots.

No actually I am basing my position on 10 years as an infantry squad and team leader as well as about 17 years of serious research. Because most are unwilling or unable to teach their soldiers how to shoot. During infantry training (in the U.S. Army at least) the only time you fire on burst or full auto is during field exercises and even then Drill Sergeants will tell you to go back to semi and take aimed shots. If the reason for adopting the assault rifle is the superiority of fully automatic fire then wouldn't one think that it would be the primary methode of firing taught to those who are going to use it? Wouldn't you think there would be at least a little instruction on how to control your weapon while firing on full auto? This is not done because it is pointless. Burst fire does have its uses but every army knows it is better to actually hit a man with one round than to tear up the air around him with 5. They also know that 9 out of 10 soldiers will not fire that 1 round so they might as well fire the 5 and hope for the best. Don't let your experience with CM fool you into thinking that soldiers are automated killing machines. Most of them are scared kids who can barely remember their name in a firefight much less the fundemanentals of shooting.

Not really. The change from single shot weapons to magazine fed resulted in not only a massive increase in total fire but a massive increase in effective fire as well. For an example of just how fast and deadly a well trained force with bolt action rifles can be I would point you to the BEF at the battle of Mons. They fired so fast and with such effect that the Germans were convinced that the British had brought up a large number of machine guns. Unfortunatly for the British this level of training and proficency was a product of their reliance on a small, professional army. When they had to switch to a quickly raised mass army the level of marksmanship went down and the number of machine guns went up. The British army of WWI was a direct result of their experiences in the Boer War. Many countries studied this conflict, which saw the first wide scale use of magazine fed rifles (the Lee-Enfield I believe) and drew the conclusion that they needed to increase the overal firepower of their infantry. They did this by changing from the single shot rifles of the time to various magazine fed firearms as well as adding varying numbers of machine guns to the TO&E. The British, however, decided that to increase their infantry's effectivness they would attempted to increase the effectivness of each individual. The Brits succeeded but only while there army was small and long serving. The bolt action rifle has a high enough rate of effective fire to make the change to semi-auto an evolutionary change rather than a revolutionary one. A soldier in normal combat conditions (ranged fire at between 100 to 300 meters) armed with a bolt action is not under as much of a handicap vs a semi auto as would be a man with a single shot against a man with a bolt action.

One of the problems with this though is that in a real life situation you generally do have more time than say 15 minutes to take your company over a kilometer of wooded terrain and then take a defended town. You might not have very much intel but you do generally have a lot more time to work with. Then again lots of things take much longer in RL than in CMBB like clearing mines or clearing a building.

Personally I love operations both from a playing and a designing standpoint. As others have stated though, they do have their faults. You can't set VLs on a sliding map for one, which really affects the behavior of the AI. There also needs to be more precise control over reinforcements. Having map linked reinforcements linked to the front line rather than the map sliding would help or being able to put units on the map regardless of whether that part of the map is exposed would be a great help. Hopefully the next rewrite will give scenario designers more control over the process. Like allowing them to set the AI's general behavior (defend in place, fighting retreat, etc.).

Omaha had a layer of shingle just below the sea wall. Utah was a nice gentle slope into the flooded fields beyond. [ May 08, 2003, 02:51 PM: Message edited by: sgtgoody (esq) ]

The average soldier in a foxhole attacked by ten enemy troops will hit exactly 0 of them while expending all the rounds currently in his rifle. 10 years in the infantry and twice that time in serious research has shown me how true this is. The fact that most troops are now armed with automatic weapons has done little to increase the casualty figures since the introduction of magazine fed weapons. What makes the most difference at the tactical level (forgetting arty and such) is training. A well trained man with a bolt action rifle will be much more effective than a schmoe with a machine gun. Even with ARs aimed fire is done from the semi-auto setting which argues against the need for full auto on individual weapons. Armies use automatic weapons because most soldiers in combat will not keep their heads and will not be able to hit a house. It is better to spray 5 or 6 rounds at a time than 1 if it is not aimed. BTW: I loved the G3. Whenever we would train with the Bundeswehr I couldn't wait to go to the range with them. I love my silver Schutzenschnur (I think it looks so much better than the bronze or gold).