Bullethead

Goanna said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I think the combination you are looking for here in Neandro-luddite-grunt.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> By St. Barbara, I think you've got it! A combination of the staggering lack of imagination of neanderthal man, who chipped his rocks in exactly the same way for over 200,000 years, with the Luddites' intensely violent rejection of new technology. It's perfect -Bullethead

JonS said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Now we just need to convince BTS of the need to change the shape of HE explosions from a dome to a 3D 'V' shape. Methinks this won't happen anytime soon ...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yeah, how the center of mass of the fragment cloud continues moving along the path of the shell, which is why you really need airbursts, and thus mechanical time fuses, for best effect against troops -Bullethead

Steve said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The guys are shoulder to shoulder in two rows. If something ripped through the side of the HT it would splinter once through. As we all know, a BB sized piece of metal is enough to kill or incapacitate a person. So imagine 8 men, tightly packed 4x4, and something smashing in from the side. I would imagine at least 4 men becoming casualties easy.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I knew you were going to say this . OK, let's look at this in a bit more detail. Which 4 guys? It doesn't seem possible to me, due to the geometry, that it would be all 4 on the same side (unless they had their heads sticking up over the edge). So to get 4, it seems to me that some have to be on the other side. Which means that the fragments have to go not only through the armor on the entry side, but also through all the backpacks, supplies, and loot piled against the side behind the seat, then through some guys on the seat (who are packed shoulder-to-shoulder). Armor chunks dislodged also have to go through all this other stuff, and they have less energy than the shell fragments did. So hitting guys on the far side seems to me a pretty tall order for fragments. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>As for near total fatal hits on HTs, I don't often see them. Usually most of the crew and passengers get out OK. In fact, I have seen plenty of HTs knocked out by 81mm mortar fire with no casualties at all.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Just playing with LD some more, it appears there is more difference in effect between certain shells than can be accounted for by just the difference in shell size. Targets were placed within 100m of shooter and area fire target placed with #5 view directly under center of target vehicle. 75mm vs. 251 Usual result is no effect at all. After 4-5 shots, the halftrack is usually shown as "immobilized in crater," but I don't know whether the immobilization was from the crater appearing or from damage. Still no casualties inside. The passengers bail at this point but the crew remains inside. Continued firing usually has no further effect, but occasionally causes the crew to abandon by killing one of them. 88mm vs. 251 1 shot knocks out the vehicle every time, generally with 4-6 total casualties spread between crew and passengers. The lower casualty numbers most often occur when the passengers are teams instead of squads. So, on average, 1x75mm shell causes no damage at all, while 1x88mm shell always destroys the vehicle and usually inflicts significant personnel casualties as well. Given that an 88mm shell was only about 14-15% bigger than a 75mm in both length and diameter, this difference in effect seems rather extreme to me. The disparity is even more marked when you compare the 88mm shell to the 81mm mortar results you obtained. -Bullethead [This message has been edited by Bullethead (edited 01-18-2000).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Ah silly connon cockers... its been so long since they actually spent time in the front line that they don't realise that we no longer march into the cannons mouth.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Typical neandergrunt, he hasn't yet realized that anything on and a couple dozen clicks behind the FEBA is already in the Cannon's Mouth <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Military motor vehicles? All a true warrior needs is a pure heart and a K-Bar, bayonet or e-tool<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hmmm, maybe "neandergrunt" is too generous a term. Perhaps "australopithigrunt" is more appropriate, given such a throw-back attitude. I've encountered nothing like it since the 100 Years War. Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt. I bet you're the reincarnation of Blind King John of Bohemia -Bullethead

Steve said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I've seen shots of KO'd HTs that showed clear signs of shrapnel tears in the main armor. Of course it is hard to say what did that, but 88 HE is no firecracker<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Oh, no doubt some 88 fragments could go through the halftrack's armor from a nearby shellburst. However, an 88 is a firecracker as shells go (at least from an arty POV ). I was really questioning the number of casualties. Not only the track destroyed but most of its passengers, too. Picture a shell exploding a few feet away from and centered along the length of the halftrack. The fragments come out in an expanding torus centered on the shell's axis. Due to geometry, less than half of the total number of fragments would hit the halftrack. Of these, a large percentage would hit at high angles, decreasing their ability to penetrate. And those that hit closer to plate normal are irregularly shaped. Those that hit flat would have significantly less penetrating ability than those that hit end-on, and in penetrating would lose a significantly higher proportion of their energy. And even those that hit end-on lack a hard penetrator tip so wouldn't penetrate as well as an AP bullet of the same mass and velocity. So you're looking at a fairly narrow band on the side of the halftrack, centered on its closest point to the shellburst, where the fragments will be able to penetrate or cause lethal secondary fragmentation inside. This area corresponds to a gore of the side of the unexploded shell, which is the source of all potentially penetrating fragments. Which for an 88 really isn't all that many, simply because the shell is relatively small in size. Furthermore, all of these will be hitting on a relatively small section of the target, compared to the total length of the target. Thus, IMHO, real damage to the halftrack and its occupants from a nearby shellburst should be concentrated in a fairly small area, the length of which in proportion to the length of the target depends on the size of the shell and its distance from the vehicle. And an 88 is small fry in the world of high explosives. I have no idea what the math is, but I wouldn't expect an 88 bursting within 5' to riddle from end to end a halftrack capable of stopping rifle bullets. Yet this is apparently just what's happening. In most cases, there are 6-8 casualties in transported squads, besides the track being knocked out. Maybe this is correct--like I said, I don't know the math involved here. But it seems a bit questionable to me, as if the whole squad was dogpiling one of its members, and by bad luck this lined up to the small patch where the fragments could get through. -Bullethead PS, if I have convinced you to look at and maybe change this, PLEASE save it for a patch

Fionn said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>And once it runs out of AP it fires HE. I killed two Stuarts with HE in one scenario. 128mm HE from a JagdTiger<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I've had StuGs kill grunts with AP, too. Reminds me of some cuirassier armor picked up at Waterloo with a 12-pounder hole through front and back.... -Bullethead

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>It's just that if our stuff doesn't work, systems die, and BIG cash payers notice.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yup, that's the key difference between "real world" software and wargaming. Not only do you have a lot more competition to live up to, but customers are in effect trusting you with their whole livelihood. If your stuff doesn't perform, people can get fired, businesses can fail, lawsuits can crop up, all that. I must say that my experience testing commercial software has been much more positive than with most game companies. I've had people actually call me on the phone offering help and wanting suggestions for improvements, for one thing. For another, some of these suggestions actually made it into the next version. It was almost as good as the way BTS does things . -Bullethead

Some ignorant grunt said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Spoken like a true cannon cocker. I spent 3 months with an arty bn... nice vacation from the real military. What's the saying "If we can't truck it, f#$k it?"<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I'm not surprised at this remark, coming as it does from somebody deliberately selected and promoted for his attitude that charging straight uphill into dug-in machineguns is a good idea. With this as a starting point, what else can you expect? This is merely the latest manifestation of the neandergrunt habit of rejecting all attempts to make his life both more pleasant and longer, as shown by these examples from history: The Celt: "Who needs armor?" The knight: "Guns are for wussies!" Only after entire generations of neandergrunts have been killed off by their own obtuseness does the next generation grudgingly adopt the new method, and this usually only because there is no-one left alive still teaching the old. But of course by this time the "new" method is itself obsolete. So here we have a neandergrunt rejecting the use of military motor vehicles, which have only been available since the early 20th Century. He'd still rather walk through mud and minefields. Oh well, there will always be a need for troops who enjoy marching into the Cannon's Mouth -Bullethead [This message has been edited by Bullethead (edited 01-18-2000).] [This message has been edited by Bullethead (edited 01-18-2000).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Simple deduction works where historical facts leave off<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Shabash, Flashman huzoor!

Frau von Shrad, Pleased to meet you. I commend your ability to post in here, demonstrating as it does your position as Boss of the Household (how else could you have pried Herr von Shrad off the computer long enough to post with his user ID?) If there's one thing us wargamers respect, it's firepower Unfortunately, I'm afraid you'll have little luck drumming up a support group in here . It's a sad fact of life but most wargamers are either hopeless batchelor geeks, bitter divorcees, or have had their spouses abandon them in all but name for more "understanding" companionship . Thus, the likelihood is small that other wargaming widows will pass this way. However, someone with your obvious martial prowess might well enjoy sinking down to our level. I for one would love to see a gloating AAR from you stating how you trounced Herr von Shrad in a game of CM -Bullethead bitter divorcee and proud of it

Kevi said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I have no idea why my text is formated so poorly... what gives... I just type into test box provided by the bbs ...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Don't hit ENTER at the edge of the text box, just keep typing text and let it wrap itself around to the next line -Bullethead

Teutonic said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I have to say if I was asked again I probably wouldn't test again for them. Anyone else have this kind of experience?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Here are a couple of "good" ones: 360 Software: Harpoon, from the very beginning in the early 80s until 360 went tango uniform. This was a game where they built the graphics engine first, then tried to build the combat engine around it. EVERY ONE of the major bugs (crashes, teleporting air bases, planes homing in on the north pole, ships sailing through land, etc) was in beta #1 way back when. And never ever fixed. Subsequent versions merely added new bugs. I'm not shown in the docs as a tester, and I don't usually mention that I was. SSI: Fighting Steel was the game where they assembled the beta test group in November 1998. "We'll have a beta for you real soon, but for now please comment on the gunnery model." Then nothing more--despite previews appearing in magazines, they kept telling us those were all alphas and they didn't have it to beta form yet. By May 1999 when I no longer had the free time required for testing, we STILL had not received the game. Nobody in the beta group ever did. Yet the game came out a few weeks later. It listed "beta testers" in the docs, but none of them had been in the group. -Bullethead

Mark IV said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>There is no way to write a complex piece of interactive software and hypothesize every possible combination of things a user might try to do with it. Getting someone with the mental discipline to go over and over the same things in detail and DOCUMENT what they are doing is very difficult.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> No argument. I've been involved with a number of "open beta" projects as well and all the bad tester types you mentioned have posted copiously on the related message boards. And it's just as bad from my POV as yours, because it seems to me that often quantity of posting is what sways company opinion, not quality. I'm sure this is a decision made by short-sighted marketing dweebs who will never have to use the software or deal with its consequences, but in any case it results in crap for me as the user, more work for you as the producer, and much heartburn all around. A thousand curses on open betas. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>In fact, it is because of these insights that I have placed my spare time at BTS' disposal though my test version must still be in the mail....<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yeah, I too am using this thread as advertising for my ability and willingness to test CM2 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>By the way, the other truly amazing thing is the pressure from our customers to release new software as soon as they see a beta version- "how bad can it be? You can just fix it later...". And when it takes a dump and a system quits working, O the howling and pain and accusation... "don't you guys test this stuff?"<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hehehe, same here. Such customers shoot at everybody. You for "rushing" it out, me for "willfully negligent testing". -Bullethead

The CM demo seems pretty generous to me in terms of the effectiveness of HE against light armor. For instance, you can run LD as the Germans and have your Tiger shoot HE at your halftracks. You can't target them directly, you do area fire at the ground under them. A single near miss from 88mm HE will destroy the halftrack and kill most of the people inside. Perhaps this is because the fragments are coming up through the belly armor, not the sides. OTOH, I had 2 StuGs shoot at all their HE at each other with no effect other than buttoning. Not exact by any means and the real game may do things differently. -Bullethead

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> I just read the otherday where a Sherman 75 short "took out" two King Tigers by shooting the tanks with white phosforous rounds<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think this incident is open to a Flashman interpretation: To the outside world: a brilliant tactical insight, give the guys a medal. To the tank crew: a sheer panic move--all they were trying to do was prevent the KTs from being able to see them. Which was it? The world may never know -Bullethead

Kevi said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I bet most beta testers and designers feel bad when they are forced to drop out because its a challenging commitment that is fun to them.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I've been testing wargames pretty much continuously since the early 80s (as in being an official tester, not just a shafted customer ). In all that time, I've only had to drop out once and that was the fault of the developers for assembling the test group and then not giving us the game for 6 months (BTW, the game hit the shelves about 3 weeks after I dropped out...). I felt bad about it, but only because it ruined my perfect record . I had long since given up hope of this game being any good. IMHO, the main reason people drop out of wargame testing is due to problems with developers similar to the above. In my experience, wargame developers go to some trouble to try to only pick guys who have a genuine interest in the genre and really really want a good game of this type due to their scarcity on the market. So most testers I've worked with have been knowledgeable, enthusiastic (at first), and dedicated (at first). Just the type of guys customers would want doing the job, guys who will be happy to devote a lot of unpaid late hours to the project. But then the developers/publishers shaft them. Reported programming (as opposed to modeling) bugs, even very serious ones, don't get fixed. Modeling errors (as opposed to design constraints or deliberate abstractions), proved by thorough research, don't get changed. And perhaps the most damaging, the testers often don't get credit for their work--no mention in the manual, no free copy of the retail version, etc. "It's by baubles that men are led," you know. And then the game hits the shelves, and sucks, and the poor testers get blamed for all its problems (which is one reason I usually don't mind being left out of the manual ). No wonder folks drop out in-process, or don't volunteer for another project. I doubt very many feel bad about this, either. This, of course, varies with developers and publishers. In my experience, the bigger the company, the worse they treat testers. In some cases, such as the one I bailed on, I've gotten the impression that the testers' main purpose was to serve as a practice group for training the customer support personnel to ignore everything. If they can be deaf to very knowledgeable, enthusiastic people honestly trying to help, they can handle any type of complaints from customers OTOH, I've really enjoyed working with some smaller companies and lone wolves. -Bullethead [This message has been edited by Bullethead (edited 01-17-2000).]

Heretics! Blasphemers! BTS is actually located in the Garden of Earthly Delights. There your harem of scantily clad houris attends your every need, bringing you unlimited supplies of beer and munchies, while you do nothing but play the latest version of CM all day -Bullethead

US: The T10 Mine Exploder (only 1 built). This was an M4A2 with a reverse tricycle undercarriage consisting of 8' diameter, 3' wide, multi-disc mine rollers, instead of tracks. It was 13' 1" high, 12' 9" wide, and 28' 3" long (the rear roller assembly stuck out behind), and weighed 124,400 pounds in total. German: The Jpz38 Hetzer, one of the few AFVs to ever really live up to its name Ruskie: The T-35-1 with 5, count 'em, FIVE turrets Brit: Gotta love the Churchill French: The Char 2C(75)--too bad they got bombed before they got into action Italian: The Semovente 90/53, pretty much equivalent to the Nashorn. Japanese: CHI-RI type 5, rather Pantheresque, but only 5 built -Bullethead

>>>>>>> "Never in the field of human conflict has one weapon system been spelt so badly by so many people..." <<<<<<<< I wonder what the panzer crewmen called it. Surely this was a mouthful even for them . And HELL NO I ain't searching for this answer . -Bullethead

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>BTW..why is it almost completely a "Male thing" to play these games? Why do all the females rob themselves of this stuff?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Don't question this divine providence, just count your blessings. Kipling said it best, in "The Female of the Species": <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>...When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man, He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can. But his mate makes no such motion when she camps beside the trail For the female of the species is more deadly than the male. ...Unprovoked and awful charges--even so the she-bear fights, Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons--even so the cobra bites, Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw And the victim writhes in anguish--like the Jesuit and the squaw! So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer With is fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands To some God of Abstract Justice--which no woman understands...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> -Bullethead

Big Al said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I disagree... If you have 30 units and you put yourself in each one's place to give them orders then one minute per unit is not unreasonable at all... It seems that alot of people think that, in a game like this, they are the overall commander, when in reality they are the leader of each and every small unit... The role of the higher level leader is abstract and secondary...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Couldn't agree more. This is why using realtime completely scuppers realistic tactics. Realtime places a totally unrealistic command burden on the player, forcing him to ignore some units and tankrush others. A thousand curses on Close Combat! Kudos to BTS for having the courage to stand against the tide of realtime madness . So in a similar vein, we have time limits on turn-based cogitation. The whole point of stopping the flow of time is to give the player a chance to think about what he's doing, so he can keep his units realistically coordinated. And remember that in CM, you need time not only to order units, but to watch the movie from several directions (and probably several times), if for no other reason than to marvel at the coolness of the spectacle . So while it's courteous in ICQ games to do your orders fairly quickly, I don't see time limits adding anything to the game. On the contrary, I see the negative effect of causing tactics to degenerate into mob warfare a la the RTS genre. -Bullethead

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>any word on when I have to talk the wife into letting me get this game?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> You can do that right now. CM won't be available in stores but only direct order, which you can do today. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I was wondering what was the game that turned all of you towards the "make your wife a widow because you never get off the computer disease"?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The original version of PIRATES! Nothing better than putting squids to the sword, cities to the torch, and your liver to rum -Bullethead [This message has been edited by Bullethead (edited 01-16-2000).]

[bH fires up some microwave popcorn, pours a big glass of whiskey, and sits back to enjoy the show] Thanks for livening up the place, guys

Well, I'll take a stab at this one 1. The game will ship with an editor, so you'll find dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of new battles and operations on the web for free. And you know Wild Bill and his boys won't quit making them just because CM shipped, so some of these be just as "official" as the ones in the game. 2. CM2, 3, etc will be other theaters and so will include new nationalities and units. I believe Steve's said repeatedly that adding new units is such a chore that it has to await completely new versions. However, take a look at the vehicle list in the online FAQ here at Battlefront. And there are literally dozens of different types of grunts for each nationality, too. So I don't think you'll really be feeling a lack of unit types in CM1. 3. Various people are already making new texture sets. Check out Colin's site, for example. You can also make your own--the textures are all right there in the /bmp directory. 4. The editor also makes maps. 5. If by update you mean patches, no doubt there will have to be some, and maybe we can sweet-talk BTS into adding some new features between CM1 and CM2, like we got them to make us a 3rd demo scenario. I do know that TCP/IP capability will be added in a patch. 6. What more could you want? -Bullethead

You know, Madmatt, that if you're really convinced it's your own cable provider that's the problem, I'd be happy to try my luck from my dial-up ISP. Of course, I'd need your tools, especially the latest version of CM, so I could do the job properly -Bullethead