Bullethead

Somebody once posted that VT actually was just a designation that was a 2-letter code for the bureau that developed the fuze and the number of the project. I forget the details by you can find it if you search. But according to him, people just started calling it "variable time" by the coincidence of the code letters making that possible. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

There's an excellent article on leadership modifiers at CMHQ. It was written by Ariel and somebody else. Very informative with lots of figures and tables of effects. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

The Wespe is not a tank. It's a piece of self-propelled artillery. As such, it should only rarely be seen on the battlefield, in scenarios representing some sort of unusual situation. Most of the time, it was back behind the FEBA firing indirectly via FOs. Same goes for Priests and Sextons. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Binkie said: Sure, it happened all the time, especially for MGs (which had been doing it since WW1). ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Getting in the mood for CM2, I was just reading the story of Hermann Bix, a tank commander whose exploits are sketched in "Panzer Aces" by Franz Kurowski. The episode that caught my CM-tuned attention concerned the fight of Bix's company against a KV-1 in a village in November 1941. In this engagement, the KV was holding up the entire panzer company frontally, but Bix was able to maneuver around buildings until he was only 30m away on the KV's flank. He then blasted away at the broadside of the KV, including using "special rounds", but all to no effect. Meanwhile, the KV totally ignored him. In desperation, Bix finally shot at the KV's gun tube and ruined it, causing the KV's next shot to explode inside and knock out the tank. The book includes a picture purportedly of this KV. It has several dozen shot dings in the side of the turret and a shot hole clean trough the gun tube, which is bent slightly at that location. The turret still points straight ahead. There is a group of Germans looking at the damage with "Holy S***!" looks on their faces. The number of shot dings exceeds that mentioned in the narrative, but that's beside the point. The CM-related point is, I'm making a prediction. I predict that BTS will try to give the Russian tank AI similar reactions (or lack thereof ) because while the gun tube thing might be unique, there are a lot of stories of about oblivious Russian tanks. Can you imagine how this will go over on this board? I can already see the threads ranting about Russian tanks turning neither hull nor turret to face threats despite several turns of taking hits. And I'm willing to bet there will be more virtual venom on this subject than was generated by the recent hull rotation affair Remember folks, you heard it here first ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

An interesting thing about CM night battles, at least with green troops, is that there seems to be a lot of wild firing. By this I mean a squad can inflict casualties on nearby friendly units even if it never targets them directly but is always aiming at an enemy unit and no enemy units ever fire a shot. I agree, however, that CM's modeling of night combat could be improved in many ways. And I see nothing wrong with pointing out specifics from CM1, because even if CM1 has seen it's last patch, we can always hope the improvements will show up in CM2. Thus, I see (and I'm sure BTS feels the same way) suggestions for improving CM1 as actually suggestions for CM2. AFAIK, CM2 will use the same basic engine as CM1, so CM1 tweak discussions are relevant to CM2. That said, the 2 big things I'd like to see in way of improvement to night fighting are battlefield illumination and the ability to use direct fire weapons beyond LOS range. The latter also has applicability to the sadly lacking defensive virtues of MGs, so is worth doing for its own sake ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Mad Mike said: Well, you got me there. This does seem a bit fishy. On the face of it, it's hard to reconcile these observations with BTS' repeated statements that the AI abides by the same FOW rules as we do. I don't see this happening in 1-off battles so I figure there is probably something different going on in an operation, perhaps unintentionally. Let's see (just talking off the top of my head here).... In an operation, units that fought in a battle start the next battle in the same position they had at the end of the prior battle. But you can then reposition them inside the set-up area. We know that more info about a unit than just its position also carries over into the next battle, such as casualties and ammo. And the AI's knowledge of the unit must also carry over to some extent to allow the AI to make plans with some sort of continuity. Suppose that one piece of AI knowledge that carries over between battles is a unit's location if the AI had an LOS to that unit at the end of the prior battle. This knowledge retention seems almost to be required to prevent unrealistic, massive AI redeployments between battles. So assume that somewhere, the AI keeps a list of spotted units and their locations that carries over between battles. Now assume at the start of a battle that the player redeploys a unit that's on the AI's list of known targets. This should take the unit's spotted status and its location off the AI's list, leaving only the mere fact that the unit exists. However, suppose there's a bug that doesn't remove this info from the AI's list, and in fact updates the unit's location with its new position after redeployment by the player. In such a situation, the AI would know exactly where the target is even without an LOS from any of its individual units. And when the AI knows where something is, it tries to kill it, probably without asking itself how it knows the target's there. In these night cases, it can't use direct fire because that won't work without an LOS, but it can use arty. And the times reported for the arrival of the shelling indicate that the FOs don't have an LOS either. So, here's a theory that fits all observed results: guns get shelled when they shouldn't and BTS hasn't deliberately made the AI cheat. What say ye? ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Ksak said: This is a good point. But OTOH, those damn AI keyholes can be anywhere. With my luck, by going around the hill, I'd find an ATG with a 2-mil arc of fire boresighted right there ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Dirtweasel said: Well, in real life, leaders have to practice a lot with moving their troops around in tactical situations to learn how long it takes them to get from point A to B in various types of terrain while trying to avoid getting killed. This knowledge is absolutely essential for proper coordination of different elements of the force. So making CM players do the same thing is IMHO much more realistic than being able to put in delay times at various waypoints. You can't do that in real life anyway, at least nowhere nearly to the extent you could if this feature was added. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Cos said: I'm assuming you used this gun in the 1st battle, so the AI knew you had it and considered it an important threat. Thus, it would make an effort to destroy it. Part of the AI functions on a higher level than the immediate tactical engagements. This makes the AI capable of using arty for other than direct tactical purposes, just as you and I can do. I think it's a reasonable assumption that enemy reserves often shelter in the rear, especially things that battlefield conditions make impotent at the moment, and I believe the AI can make a similar judgment. So just as I often shell rear areas on general suspicions, I think the AI does as well. At least it seems blindly to shell my rear areas sometimes. Thus, even if you put the 88 back there in the set-up phase, there's no reason to assume the AI had to have known where it was. It could easily have just decided to shell there because it looked like a good hiding place for your reserves. Which IMHO is just realism I'm glad is in the game. Moving an 88 requires a vehicle, which usually creates a sound contact at night. Sound contacts don't show up exactly where the vehicle is, but the AI could easily figure out the true location because the shelling shows more or less where it started from. Hence, 5 turns later, more arty on the gun. The 5 turns is critical proof here that the FO did NOT have an LOS. The "normal" time US arty FOs is 2 minutes, which is at least doubled when the FO lacks an LOS. Thus, this 5 minutes is exactly what you'd expect it to take to get the fire moved to your new location if the AI ordered that shift immediately upon hearing you move and you moved further than 100m from the initial impact area. Contrary to popular belief, LOS has NO EFFECT on the shape of the impact pattern. The only thing that changes pattern density is using the command Target Wide (about a 200m diameter circle) instead Target (about 100m x 50m ellipse oriented E-W). So if the AI's FO was using the Target command, its shells would have fallen in exactly the tight same pattern whether it had an LOS or not. The only difference that no LOS causes is that every so often, 1 or more shells will fall WAY (up to several hundred meters) outside the normal pattern. This happens while the FFE is going on and can often pass unnoticed, especially if the stray rounds fall off the map due to shooting near an edge. But if you don't notice these strays, there's no way to tell whether the FO has an LOS or not just by looking at the impact pattern. So anyway, I think your example here started out with bad luck. The AI decided to shell your rear area on general principles and happened to pick where you'd stashed your gun. When this fire flushed your gun out of hiding, the AI noticed and adjusted its fire. Simple as that. No "night vision", no cheating AI. Just realism not often found in an AI. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria. [This message has been edited by Bullethead (edited 03-03-2001).]

I think it's pretty easy to accomplish the pop-up attack by making use of the time stoppage between turns to issue the order to reverse back down your side of the hill. I think this gives me better flexibility because after my tank's been on the crest for a while in the previous turn, he might have solved the problem so should now advance instead of pulling back. I like to keep my tanks on the crest for about 30 seconds, enough for 2 shots in case I miss with the first. I figure to be hull down up there so I'm comfortable with the risk--I plan on the enemy needing 3 shots to kill me, the 1st being a clean miss and the 2nd being a short thanks to me being hull down. Sometimes I'm unlucky but this 30 second exposure seems to work most of the time. But I've also got the AI on my side here, because if it doesn't like what it sees when it gets to the top, it will often back down immediately. I normally play with regulars, which seem to require 13 seconds or so to respond to new orders. Thus, I try to have my guys reach their firing position about 45 seconds into a turn, so they get 15 seconds that turn. Next turn, I order them to reverse and they respond about 13 seconds later (but usually fire a 2nd shot beforehand), moving out of sight shortly thereafter, for a total of about 30 seconds. To get the tank to arrive on time, I have previously positioned it at an appropriate distance behind the crest, depending on the slope. I use the Hunt order to move up because that is almost as fast as Move Fast but has a better chance of stopping when reaching a hull down position. I know how long it takes the tank to cover X amount of distance uphill at this speed, so that's where I put my tank the turn before. I also use the Pause command as needed to juggle arrival time. Another advantage of doing the pop-up relatively late in the turn is that this gives you about 45 seconds to distract the intended target with something else, like the advance of a rifle platoon on the forward slope of a hill towards cover at the bottom. In Hell, this is what they call "tank-infantry cooperation". But seriously, if you hold up your grunt advance just because an enemy tank can shoot them from several hundred meters away, you cede the initiative and lose time, both of which are usually irreplaceable and thus cost more than a few grunts. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Splinty said: Yeah, that would be way cool. Ten years after. Huzzah! 10th Marines, 2nd Marine Division here. Anyway, yeah, it usually goes straight up through the hatches. I've seen the fried husks of TCs still standing in their turrets after such events. Sometimes though, the propellant fire also generates enough pressure inside the tank to levitate the turret a few inches, allowing the pink fire to balloon out sideways a few feet before it goes up. Then the turret drops back down, often slightly askew. CM already has this skewed turret thing on knocked-out tanks, so having matching death graphics would fit right in . In both cases, though, the intense pink propellant fire leaps up almost instantly to 2-4 times the height of the tank, then it suddenly turns into thin, mushrooming black smoke, followed by the thicker black smoke in a straight plume from the burning wreck. This latter stage is well-done in CM as it stands, it's just the propellant fireball and mushroom cloud that are missing. Oh, and the propellant fire makes a sort of WOOF! sound instead of an explosion's boom. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

I agree with Jeff, I'm sure this was (and perhaps still is) quite possible and probably happened fairly often. It might still, for that matter. So why don't we hear more about it in memoirs? Probably due to lack of survivors Opposing tanks did in fact aim at each other in real life. Look how many you see with holes in the front of the turret. Out of all such kills, I'm sure there were quite a few where the tanks fired close enough to simultaneously to kill each other instead of just one dying. BTW, my favorite simultaneous kill in CM was a Tiger I vs. an M4A3(105). The Sherman fired first by a considerable margin but because its shell is so slow, the faster 88 round killed the Sherman before its own round reached the Tiger ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

If you accidentally hit the Spell Check button instead of the Submit button at the end of typing in a post, DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, close the spell checker's window while it still displays the word "Loading...." This can lock up your computer. Win98sp2, IE4.72.blahblahblah ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Right now, we have 1 set of explosion graphics for everything. I'd like to see 2 sets in the future, one for "dry" and one for "wet" explosions. By "dry", I mean explosions on the ground, in the air, or for collapsing buildings. The amount of orange should be minimal if not totally gone and replaced by a very small amount of red. It should almost all be a cloud of dirt and smoke. There should also be a winterized version that's got a lot of snow in it. Also a night version that's mostly invisible due to darkness but has a small, brief, red flash in the center, but bigger than the daylight amount of red. "Wet" explosions, OTOH, would be for catastrophic vehicle explosions. These should mostly be bright pink light verging on white for the propellant fire, but this lasts only the first few animation frames. Then it all turns to black smoke in a mushroom cloud, followed by orange flames and black smoke on the wrecked vehicle. As for sound, undamped explosions like airburst shells, satchel charges, most mortar shells, and grenades should be very short in duration but extremely loud and sharp-edged. BANG! or POW! things. They really seem like ice picks jabbing into your ears. Most shell explosions should have a faint, fading swishing noise seguing after the burst noise for the fragments tearing through the air, although this should only be audible near the explosions. Damped explosions like arty shells that bury themselves in the ground a bit have a duller, longer sound. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

And as Murphey says, "tracers work both ways". ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Martin Cracauer said: I've never gotten the impression that airbursts were rare in WW2. Look at the photos of bombardments going on and you'll see a lot of them. This is because most bombardments try for a mix of airbursts and groundbursts, the former to spray any troops exposed and the latter to break up defensive positions and obstacles. Plus they tend to support each other on troops in the open. Against only airbursts, experienced troops will keep standing up to present a smaller target area to the descending fragments, but this makes them more vulnerable to fragments from groundbursts. So by shooting both at them, they're screwed either way. But anyway, because most bombardments contain a good mix of airbursts, there's no need to mention them specifically--if you say you're being bombarded, you're saying you're getting airbursts because they'er included free of charge The only times I've read of airbursts coming as a surprise is when troops were exposed to direct fire airbursts from previously unknown flak guns. The shells arrived before the sound of their firing or travel, so all of a sudden, BANG!, an airburst right on you. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

tero said: The "beehive" round is a totally different concept from that of the Shrapnel shell. The beehive is just the modern form of grapeshot, a big shotgun shell where the little pellets start to disperse at the muzzle. With Shrapnel, there was no dispersion until the shell burst somewhere far downrange. And as for close defense of guns, just as thin-walled HE is better than Shrapnel for airbursts far downrange, so is it also better for airbursts close to the muzzle. Same technique mentioned--set the fuze time to minimum and work further out with successive rounds. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Why is it a problem seeing the enemy's area fire targets? If you can see the enemy, and you can see him shooting, you can often tell what he's shooting at. I mean, you ALWAYS see the enemy's point targets when he's aiming at one of your units specifically, so why shouldn't you be able to tell when the enemy unit is firing into open ground? ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Brush seems to impose not only an LOS penalty at low level but also a movement penalty. That is, brush is like tangled vines and sticker bushes, so is harder to move through than crops. Another thing: the effects of crops are seasonal IIRC. Depending on the month the scenario is set in, the crops will range from seedlings to full grown to post-harvest stubble. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

SheepNZbed muled: Ever hear that song "Turning Japanese"? That applies to Gerbiltoy, I really think so ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Martin Cracauer said: The German MT fuzes for arty and IGs were called "Dopp Z" fuzes. They were a combination timed and impact, so if your time of flight calculation erred on the long side, you'd still get the ground burst effect. So knowing this, the Germans would figure things on the long side and back off rather than have their airbursts too high. Flak guns seemed to have had either impact or time fuzes, but not the combination. OTOH, due to their flat trajectories, flak gun airbursts would have been direct fire so didn't need FOs. Also, if they didn't get an airburst, they probably wouldn't see any misses hitting kilometers away from "overs". So the lack of dual purpose fuzes probably wasn't a problem for them, especially given their range finders. Also, flak guns probably had more time fuzes than any other type given their designed role of shooting down airplanes. Shrapnel shells (with all the little balls inside) were developed due to limitations in metalurgical and explosives technology. Basically, metalurgical technology prevented the used of modern-style thin-walled shells because such shells would have broken up in the gun using 1800s metals. So shells had to be pretty thick-walled back then, and the only explosive was black powder. So although explosive shells had existed for centuries by the 1800s, those for field pieces (as opposed to low-velocity mortars) had to be thick-walled, and black powder made them break up into a relatively small number of relatively big chunks--not very effective fragmentation. So the purpose of the Shrapnel shell was to provide ready-made fragments in the form of musket-sized balls. The charge broke the shell open into the usual big chunks, but the balls filled in the gaps in the fragmentation pattern, leading to higher casualties per shell. This is naturally a rather inefficient method because the balls took up room inside the shell that could have been used for explosive, so the velocity of the balls was low, leading to a relatively small casualty radius. But regardless, Shrapnel was better than just plain explosive shell back then, so remained in use for about 100 years. But by about 1900, both metalurgical and explosives technologies had advanced to fairly modern standards. This allowed the introduction of thin-walled, high explosive-filled shells. And it was found that when these exploded in the air, the shell casing broke up into tiny splinters traveling at fairly high velocity. IOW, they produced a dense pattern of fragments over a larger area than even contemporary Shrapnel shells. Thus, true Shrapnel shells became obsolete, although they continued in use for lighter guns throughout WW1 due to military conservatism. So today, the word "shrapnel" continues in use as a synonym for fragments, but actual Shrapnel shells were pretty much gone from inventories by the time of WW2. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Scot hands were firm, their hearts were true The shot into their guns they threw O' course their dreaded claymores drew On that fatal mairnin' The English gave a great 'Huzzah' An' marched out to the guns o' war They wavered, turned, an' run awa' Like sheep at shepherd's warnin' Now footman faster than horseman flew Red coats were mixed with bonnie blue The dirks were wet but no' wi' dew On that deadly mairnin' The Roman legions tried in vain The Saxon, Dane, an' Norman came But noon o' us could they contain Or heed this gentle warnin' Roon, roon, ye gangrel crew This mairnin's work ye lang will rue The bonnie blue bonnets are after you To wish ye all good mairnin' ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria. [This message has been edited by Bullethead (edited 02-27-2001).]

And the Lords of Light spake dire Words, and caused a Lock to appear on the Gates of Peng. But the Dark Gods could not be contained and burst forth anew, spewing their bile upon the multitudes yet again. So let it be written, so let it be done. Amen. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

Scipio said: Oh Gawd, you touch on one of my pet peeves.. As others have pointed out, true VT fuzes were an Allied monopoly and the Germans just had mechanical time fuzes. However, as you point out, the whole airburst shell thing was very ancient. It dates back hundreds of years and the real Shrapnel shell (containing a bunch of small balls for added airburst fragmentation effect) was invented in the early 1800s. Once more or less modern types of shells were developed in the late 1800s, however, they had to also invent mechanical fuzes to create airbursts because the new shells sealed the propellant fire behind the shell so it couldn't light the old "firecracker" fuzes any more. So mechanical time fuzes were definitely a mature technology by the time of WW2. They'd been around 50-60 years and had gone through extensive combat refinement in WW1 at least. The Germans used them extensively for causing airbursts on the battlefield, both with indirect artillery and direct fire from heavy flak guns. In fact, they had such fuzes for nearly every gun in their inventory, including pre-WW1 ex-naval guns used for coast defense. And German fuzes were extremely reliable with great accuracy of setting--so much so that they didn't even have time markings on them, you just dialed in the time on the fuze setter. Despite this, however, BTS decided not to include any form of airbursts except for VT fuzes. ------------------ -Bullethead In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.