Brian Rock

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Doug Williams: Brian, I understand what you're saying, but the reason I suggested trapping the tank in a 20x20 area was to give the infantry some small chance. With this type of situation, one can observe turn after turn of the infantry platoon close assaulting the tank until, finally, the tank kills enough of them so they surrender.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I did understand why you did this, as a controlled experiment. The point I was trying to make is that the situation it is trying to create is basically so unusual that the CM team wouldn't have it as a high design priority. The reality is that troops without AT weapons just generally didn't try to take out tanks, and those are the sorts of battles CM is trying to simulate. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> If you want a more "realistic" scenario, simply design one with a few tanks facing off against a bunch of infantry on a random map. Take away the infantry's AT weapons (the supply convoy got ambushed or something) and see what happens. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Again I'd suggest that the infantry would stay low or bugger off, not prosecute the attack. Indeed I've read several cases of troops with AT weapons who couldn't get the courage up to take a shot for fear of the tank retaliating- eg in "Roll Me Over" by Gantner (sp?). <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> You say you have killed tanks with infantry who had no AT weapons. I have never managed to do this during an actual game. Every time I've tried, it's a massacre. Now, if my guys have panzerfausts or rifle grenades, that's a different story. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The two I can recall are in one of the Bulge ops (frankly surprised the hell out of me - I thought they'd die a horrible death) and The Last Defense scenario. It's interesting also how people's expectations influence their perceptions - my first reaction when my zook-free GIs killed a Panther was that I'd found a bug. I had to have it explained to me that this was deliberate. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> As for the explosive power of a hand grenade, I remember being very impressed with them when I went through basic training back in the '80s. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> You have the real-world experience advantage on me there. But given tanks are 60mm mortar proof doesn't it follow they'd be grenade proof? Or would you argue that in the latter case there is more discretion in where the grenade is placed? <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Anyway, like I said earlier, it's not really a big deal during an actual game, because you almost always have some sore of AT asset available. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Agreed. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Also, as was mentioned earlier, if armor seems a little too invulnerable to infantry close assaults, open top vehicles are much worse. It really shouldn't be that hard for an infantry platoon to KO a halftrack. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Not something I've really noticed, but I agree with your logic here. A grenade inside an open top could make a mess of the controls, to say nothing of the crew. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> This has all been gone over before, and Madmatt even ran some tests, etc. I believe the final word came from Charles, who said he wasn't going to change it. Perhaps it will be tweaked some in CMBB.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Which gives us all something to look forward to.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Doug Williams: So, Mr. Johnson and JasonC, you contend that 40 combat infantrymen armed with rifles, automatic weapons, and hand grenades, and swarming all over a tank have virtually no chance of doing any damage to it or it's occupants? If that is actually the case, then CM does indeed model close infantry assaults correctly. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Which raises the question of how often 40 combat infantrymen swarmed over tanks. Answer: not very. The general reaction of infantry when confronted with a tank is Be Elsewhere. You don't have to read too many histories to realise that for most soldiers tanks are very scary things. Not least because while the 40 infantrymen are trying to climb on the tank the tank is trying very hard to not be climbed on. It will fire machines guns, unload some HE, grind a few guys to paste, and various other amusing party tricks. Now a situation with an artificially immobilised tank is - well - an artificial situation. I'm not surprised that CM doesn't do a good job of simulating a tank stuck in the middle of a 20x20 patch of grass in the middle of the forest, because CM is not a tank stuck in the middle of a 20x20 patch of grass in the middle of the forest simulation. This is one of those fringey things that the game engine will struggle to deal with because it was not as common as portrayed in books, comics, films and such. Overall I've been pleasantly surprised how easily my infantry have killed tanks. I can think of two occassions off the top of my head where infantry without AT weapons took out Panthers. So maybe some of the differing perceptions comes from different experiences of the game. For me it's more common than I'd expect, but maybe you haven't had the same sort of luck.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Triumvir: (Incidentally, has anyone ever won an SPII game playing the Arabs against Israelis, apart from 1973 battles?) <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Actually, yes, in the 1967 scenario. I was playing a guy who was so delighted to be the Israelis he just couldn't resist chasing after my rapidly withdrawing Egyptians. Seems he'd never heard of the battle of Cannae, because he was absolutely gob-smacked when his lead brigade, which had advanced beyond all supporting brigades, was suddenly surrounded and attacked by a pile of weaker Egyptian units. I rolled enough to force him to retreat, and as he was surrounded the unit disbanded. Then I did it to the next unit. It died too. Then I counterattacked. I've never seen a player resign in such total disgust before. Best boardgame win I've ever had. [/brag]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Pvt. Ryan: Dogface, BTS stated that the release of CMBB will be announced by e-mail to each member of the forum starting with the lowest member number and working up. They will have 6,500 copies printed in the first run with 10,000 more copies to be available about a month later. So just relax and wait along with the rest of us.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This is one of the most brilliant bits of scuttlebutt I've seen on this forum. You're a legend, Ryan.

Another Aussie war-story: When I was in High School in the mid 70s (another survivor of Shepparton High) I mainly played boardgames. I was a serious SPI junkie, and S&T magazine's monthly game exposed me to a periods of warfare I never would have considered otherwise. We also had a few marathon Third Reich sessions at Mace's house, and various East Front games (the old Jedko game whose title I forget). One big attractions to boardgames was that there were no models to buy and paint. When I did play tactical boardgames they were (in order of playing time) Panzerblitz (east front), the AH game in the Western Desert (forget the name, but remember the hundred of die rolls), and the SPI series of WWII to modern tank games (name?). Generally most with tactical or operational games most of us had an east front focus. It was largely through this group that I think I developed my interest in the east. At uni the Monash University Wargame club was mainly boardgames, with primarily split fairly evenly between WWII and Napoleonics. The miniatures guys tended to be Napoleonics players, and the WWII boardgamers liked operational games. GDW's "Europa" was huge, especially "Drang Nach Osten", a divisional level game in the east. I never understood the appeal of a game that took longer to play than the war it was simulating. Interestingly I go to an annual wargame convention in Canberra each year, and there's been a clear swing to miniatures. There might be a few tables of boardgamers, but dozens of Warhammer players, quite a few ancient's tables, some Napoleonics, a smattering of Science Fiction (Stargrunt) and modern skirmish gaming, and maybe two or three tables of WWII armor (can't recall which theatre). Then in the next hall are about 200 PCs playing Counterstrike, but that's another story...

Outstanding stuff. Much more of a European feel to me.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Germanboy: First things first - Brian still does not understand the difference between 'evidence' and 'proof', unless Australians have a totally different concept for these terms.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Absolutely. "Evidence" is the stuff you bring to the argument, "proof" is the stuff on my side. But then I work in advertising, and we have our own unique way of looking at the world, irrespective of where we are from. (The other Brian, who refuse to take this debate at all seriously.)

Maybe he found the equation, but didn't have the mathematical ability to apply it. And why are we still discussing this?

A meeting engagement is when contact is made while both sides are moving. I've never encountered another definition. How else do people understand it? :confused:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Pak40: uh, why would this be considered gamey? Just because it's a ME doesn't mean that non-self propelled guns can't be used. If you truly believe that then I beg you to read some books on WWII, 1st person accounts especially.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> It depends on how they are deployed. If the guns were hooked up to trucks in a convoy, no problem. If they are all nicely deployed with optimised kill-zones I'd question whether this was simulating a meeting engagement.

It's a pity this has become so heated, as there has been quite a bit of provocative discussion over the last few pages. My perspective is that CM isn't broken, but that it could do with some adjustment at the edges. One point that I think needs to be made up front: I don't think anybody is denying that the 88mm gun was a better gun than the 75mm, or that the Tiger was a better killer than the Pz.Kpfw.IV, Sherman, etc. The debate is how much better, and how that should be represented in the game. What usually prompts these debates is someone has one or two experiences where they don't get the results they expected and this is generalised to "88mms are undermodelled". I'm not saying this means that 88mm isn't undermodelled, simply that a small non-random sample is very poor evidence for it. Part of the problem is that expectations are built on largely on anecdotal evidence, it seems to me that the uber-Tiger anecdotes are highly selective. Tiger-philes recount countless stories of a Tiger singlehandly blunting attacks by Russian divisions, but they never talk about the Polish tank commander mentioned in "Victory at Falaise" who took twelve Shermans up to 100 metres of sixteen German ‘Tiger-type’ tanks, killed eight and made the rest bugger off. The former is presented as valid evidence, the latter is dismissed as some strange anomaly. I once had a debate with some guy on the Talonsoft board who had a bad case of "Wehrmacht penis envy" (to quote Bolger), and he simply refused to even accept the stories of Tigers failing. His answer to these was to provide another case of Tigers achieving tactical successes. (He also refused to concede that the fact the Germans lost every one of these campaigns meant that the Tiger may not have been the operational uber-tank he wanted it to be, but that's another thread, isn't it?) The point is not that the Tigers weren't capable of exceptional performances, but how typical was it, and what are the variable that made these possible? I think JasonC's point about a large number of cases will eventually throw up some outliers that are exceptional at either end. If so any weapon system will eventually rack up a series of surprising kills, and a better weapon system will probably produce more extraordinary results at its end of the bell curve (eg a 37mm gun is going to struggle to kill 17 tanks at 1200-1500m unless you are prepared to run a very large number of trials). Now it may well be that we are getting too many at the "underperformance" side of the bell curve due to the gun being undermodelled, but I haven't seen any conclusive evidence that it's far off. The reasons I think the current model is close are: 1) JasonC's suggestion that units will take low PK shots when they can. This seems reasonable to me, and supported by data I've seen about ranges tankers will open fire. There are cases of units opening fire when they had PKs of 0% (!). Given this, if I was a Tiger CO I'd be quite happy to take shots at 2000m+ if I only had a 5% PK. Still, I concede that this in no way proves this is how Tiger COs did react, merely that it is a logical and tactically sensible response. This is probably the norm for most Tiger crews. In this case the current modelling is close enough for all practical purposes. 2) I also think it's reasonable that superior crews will get superior results (the "ace" factor). It is common for a relative handful or people to make a disproportionate number of kills, be it aerial combat, infantry fighting or armored vehicles. Some of this will be due to random variation, but it's also true that some people are just better at certain skills than others, and when we look at the truly exceptional experiences we are probably looking at less than the top .5% or so of the population. These units are undermodelled in CM. I'd have no problem with future versions of CM adding a new class of unit that represents the "best of the best" that is significantly better (we can argue the numbers later). I would also make them *hideously* expensive. On a separate note, I actually like Wreck's idea of "ghost" units appearing. I'd think this could be related to crew quality (green troops see more boogeymen) and environment (increased likelihood at night).

Very interesting idea. I think there are plenty of cases on the east front that would be better represented by a "breach" operation than by any of the current options.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>At a range of 1200 to 1500 meters he opened fire on the 40 attacking T-34's and KV 1’s, and every shot was a direct hit. Rampel destroyed seventeen tanks, causing the enemy to break off the attack.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This must be the most inept armor attack in history. If this story is taken at face value an entire tank battalion (+) was unable to advance more than 300 meters against a single tank. Surely someone somewhere has made a mistake and the Germans really did win WWII.

You have to realise Slappy is a TV producer (done some documentaries), academic and really lousy speller. He thought appointing himself Beelzebub would make him "Lord of the *Files*"... (OK, so it's a really lousy joke based on moderately obscure theology. It's late, I'm tired, and besides he doesn't deserve a good joke.)

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slapdragon: I just wanted to set the record straight, oh upside down one. You done good. Here is a dog biscuit.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Woof!

Not having played Squad Leader for about - oh - 25 years, can someone remind me why players use bad leaders? Are they intrinsically necessary for specific actions? In CM terms I think Jim R is right, that people simply wouldn't use them. The idea of not knowing the quality of the leader is interesting, but I'm not sure if that's quite right either. I'd expect the CO to have some idea of his subordinate's leadership abilities. Perhaps this could be handled with a "fuzz" factor, indicating abilities with a range (eg -1:+1)?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slapdragon: If you notice.... well I will call you Aussie since that is almost the worst thing I can call you... I posted an intelligent response right away that said the same thing but was *sniff* ignored.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Not at all. I acknowledged your first pre-Pengish reply in my earlier post. You know, the ones with the words "Slappy's right, the whole idea of a game is an abstraction". Cry-baby. Makes me wonder why I bothered.

Wow, an intelligent response. I was sure we were on the long slippery road to Peng-ism.

Pak40, I think the point Fixture was making was that the game already handled similar maths, and therefore that it wasn't something the engine shouldn't be able to deal with. In any case I think people have missed Bil's post that Steel Beasts already does this. And yes, it is cool.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I suggest we post for 10 pages on this exciting subject, and invite some Australians in to make personal attacks on us just for kicks.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> OK. Dorosh, you beaver-sniffing maple syrup eating dropkick. I had a dream I was in Calgary the other night and immediately woke up and shot myself. Fortunately I dreamt I was a Canadian paratrooper and missed. Nothing you say matters, ever, simply because of who you are, and that's as personal as I can be bothered to get. Execpt for the beaver-sniffing stuff in the first para. With love from Sydney... On a more serious note: mg42, Slappy's right the whole idea of a game is an abstraction, it's just a question of what level the abstractions should be a I think dalem's question is a good one. Which abstractions annoy you the most, and how would you prefer for the engine to handle things? Eg do you want squads represented by individual soldiers? Do they need to be invidually mapped to the nearest meter? Do we need to represent postures on a soldier by soldier basis? Would you ideally go so far as to define them by bodyparts, tracking the effects of light wounds vs serious ones? Even the last one, although far more detailed than I imagine you are asking for, is still an abstraction. Not a flame - just trying to get some clarification and what the problem is for you and the reasons why.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JonS: Brian True, but did the Russians have decent-to-poor tanks and decent doctrine to round out the rest of your analogy? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> No, the Russians had superior tanks and decent doctrine. I'm not saying the situations are strictly analogous, simply pointing out that it's not a given that a good tank will make up for lousy doctrine.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mark IV: If the Japanese had had the equivalent of a Pz III it would have been a lot different, and WWII would have changed dramatically if the Japanese had been victorious there.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I don't think that follows at all. Quite apart from the poor tech specs of Japanese tanks they had no sensible doctrine for how to use them. If decent-tanks/poor doctrine didn't work for the British and French in June 1940 I see no reason why it should have worked for the Japanese at Nomonhan.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by machineman: Maybe then more accurate to say that the biggest killer of German tanks on the Western front was the fuel and supply situation, a 'Materialschlacht' or however that word is meant to be.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Or maybe even more accurate still to say the Germans were defeated by the operational and strategic capabilities of Allied weapon systems. There's not much point in winning the tactical battles if you lose the campaign/war. It's a point that often gets overlooked by people who get fixated on gun-and-armor stats. Shooting up the soft units was easier and more effective than going head-to-toe with heavy German armor - although admittedly not always an option.

I suspect when figures like this are quoted they are referring to 15 minutes of combat. For planes I believe it was total flying time, which was logged. For ground-puonders I'm not quite sure how you'd actually calculate this. Is if from the start of the battle? When the unit first takes fire or fires at the enemy? I suspect it's one of those numbers that doesn't really mean much of anything. [ 08-24-2001: Message edited by: Brian Rock ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by tero: Originally posted by Brian Rock: [qb]What I've seen are arguments that CM is correct in giving the M1 a marginal increase in effectiveness. Why is the increase correct ? Because it is an American weapon ? Water cooled HMG's (Vickers) get shafted eventhough they were superior in many respects to the air cooled LMG/HMG hybrids. [ 08-23-2001: Message edited by: tero ][/QB]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> It's at times like this that I remember why I usually ignore most of the discussion that occurs on this board. Tero, I didn't say it was correct. Neither did I say that it was incorrect. What I said, in answer to Brian's allegation that "the M1 Garand is the wonder weapon its portrayed to be by most Americans", was that I hadn't read anybody claiming the M1 was a wonder weapon. I said there were people who believed that there was an argument for it being marginally more effective. Do you dispute that this is true? If you somehow interpreted this as my saying there was a consensus, that was not my intention. Please note I did not, do not, and have no intention of ever saying that everyone agrees with this. Accusing the CM community of achieving a consensus on anything would be an error only the greenest newbie would make... I presume from the way you shoehorned the reference to the Vickers, and your comment that the GM1 is judged to be better "because it is an American weapon", is meant to be evidence of a pro-American bias. Whether that is true or not - and for the record I don't think it is - it has nothing to do with what I wrote. I am intrigued that you and Brian agree the M1 is over-rated for pretty much the opposite reasons. He argues the Americans had poor fire discipline and wasted ammo by blasting away aimlessly, whereas you argue the M1 was underutilised because the Americans would only shoot if they had a target. Seems to me like a damned it they shoot, damned if they don't argument. No doubt this will lead to further hair-splitting and mis-interpretations of what I've said, but as the soapboxes are clearly permanent features, it's after midnight, I've had more than a few drinks, and I'm prepared to watch the fireworks with a certain degree of detached amusement, go for it.