Bullethead

PeterX said: You're missing the point. The whole perceived "problem" stems from habits developed in CMBO. In that game, the terrain didn't vary enough to make much difference, nor did the forces and their relative strengths and weaknesses change significantly throughout the covered period. So with CMBO, regardless of the battle's parameters, map type, whatever, everybody knew how to play the game and things worked out in a consistent way. Thus, a constant A/D ratio worked fine. This NOT the case in CMBB, however. You've got the ENTIRE Ostfront, from Finland to the Crimea, from 41 to 45. The terrain varies extensively from north to south and the side with the relative advantage in units switches back and forth several times. In addition, some nationalities are only available in some regions (and only in certain time intervals) and then there's rarity on top of it all. As a result, there is NO FRIGGIN' WAY a single, constant A/D ratio will work across the board in CMBB. There are just too many variables involved that significantly impact the relative effectiveness of the units over time and region. So there's no way tweaking the constant A/D ratio will solve all "problems". Right now, the A/D ratio works fine in some situations but makes things impossible for the attacker in others. If you change the ratio so the attacker has more stuff and can thus win where he can't now, you make the current OK situations into attacker walkovers. The only way to avoid this problem is to adjust the A/D ratio only in those situations that call for it. IOW, apply a handicap that either jacks up the attacker or reduces the defender. There is already a QB option that does just this. I therefore suggest you use it. I'm not forgetting ladder games here (not that I give a rat's ass about them, or player egos, for that matter). Think about it. Suppose BTS made the major change necessary for the points system to look at factors besides unit stats (ie, point cost) and consider things like terrain as well. For this to work, the system would have to have a set of rules to determine A) when a handicap is needed, and how much handicap to apply. These rules would then be coded into the system so as to give the attacker X more points when a certain type of battle on a certain type of terrain in a certain region in a certain year between certain nationalities came. How is that any different from players doing it themselves with the handicap option according to their own agreed-upon set of rules? If all games in a ladder used the agreed-upon rules, there'd be no "chaos". The result is the same either way, whether the system is hard-coded by BTS or done manually by the players. In fact, there's a big advantage in doing it manually. Namely, it's a LOT easier to change your own rules than it is to get BTS to change theirs. So if after experience a group of players decides that the attacker needs more or less handicap, they can implement that immediately instead of having to wait for a patch.

Long-range, falling cannister would be very nasty if it hit you. Birdshot, as mentioned, slows way down and is harmless at very long range. However, don't try standing under falling buckshot. Even the relatively small increase in sectional density from #6 shot to 00 buck is enough for the latter to be fatal when it comes back down. It's about like a 9mm pistol bullet in that regard.

Tripwire6 said: Ah, I see you're already familiar with Senerachai's posts. You're definitely Cesspool fodder

LOL, just can't make people happy. In CMBO, everybody said the defense was too weak, with some justification. The major problem with this, wimpy MGs, was addressed in CMBO and now folks are whining that the defense is too tough. Question: had you never played CMBO, and thus become habituated to weak defenders and the use of certain tactics, would you feel the same way? IOW, if CMBO's MGs had been done right, would you be complaining now? A lot of folks have complained that CMBB grunts are "brittle" but I have to disagree. Squads can shoot it out for long periods of time with their own weapons. What they don't like to do is advance under fire, especially MG fire. Gee, big surprise there. Ain't that how it works in real life? The essence of CMBB infantry advance therefore is finding a way to shield your troops from fire until they get very close to the objective. If you can do this, your attack will succeed. If you can't do this, then your troops will go to ground at or near the LOD. Which is pretty much how it works in real life. So how do you protect your troops during their initial advance? There are 3 main ways: 1) suppressive fires, 2) smokescreens, and 3) concealing terrain. Failing these, you can always go for overwhelming numbers. In the context of a QB's unmodified points system, concealing terrain is the only method that really matters. If you go with the standard points ratios for say an attack, and the map is almost completely open ground or steppe, the attacker simply doesn't have the points to create numerical or fire superiority, or lay enough smoke for long enough, to cross 400m or so of open ground. Not only does the absence of cover leave the attacking troops exposed, but pretty much all the defenders can shoot at them simultaneously. OTOH, in areas with a decent amount of woods and/or hills, or at night or bad weather, the unmodified points allow the attacker to achieve superiority at the chosen point of attack and his troops are also shielded from fire during their approach. So the solution to the "problem" of "the defense is too strong", IMHO, is to NOT leave everything random when setting up a QB. If you do, you will fairly often face situations where the attacker lacks sufficient points to do the job. Nothing for it then but to ALT-A. To avoid this problem, I recommend always setting 4 variables when starting a QB: </font> Region: Appears to have great bearing on the amount of cover available for a given map setting. The further north, the more trees you get for say "moderate" setting, or so it seems to me.</font>Map Variables: Set the amount of trees and hills. Maybe set all the variables as well. This is especially true if you're playing another human--it helps get you in the proper mindset.</font>Battle Type: Not only does this set the basic points ratios for each side, but it determines which side is the attacker. You must know this already to set the final variable...</font>Handicap: This gives one side or the other more or less points. Use this to balance the forces based on the terrain chosen above. Experience will be the guide here. In time, the community will establish good handicaps for battles in different types of terrains and weather conditions, rather like CMBO's "Rule of 75". In the meantime, play knowing we're still in the trial and error period. </font>Anyway, that's my take on things. Many things have changed in CMBB vs. CMBO. IMHO, the need for handicapping points for the attacker, especially in open ground battles, is one of them. So give it a try and see if you like the results better. At least you have the power to change things yourself. Be thankful the handicap feature exists and start using it instead of whining and failing to adapt BTW, Michael emrys said: I have a counterexample. I set a battle in the northern region and got heavy trees by random. At least 80% of the map was tall pines and 10% woods. In fact, 1 thick belt of tall pines extended all the way from the north edge to within 1 tile of the south edge. This gap being right at the forward edge of the defender's set-up zone, naturally the AI put an AT minefield there. I didn't have any engineers so as a result, none of my tanks could even get an LOS to the objective area, let alone drive there.

Tripwire6 said: Gotta plug my own creation: Golzow . Try it as the Germans first. Starting a PBEM game is easy. Just pick a scenario or a QB and start the game as normal. But when you come to the screen where it asks how you want to play, pick PBEM instead of single player . Once you get through the initial set-up, the game stops and you save the PBEM file. Then you email that to your opponent. When he sends it back, you play it by selecting the "joing multiplayer" button instead of the "start game" button on the splash screen. PBEM games usually take a couple months to complete. The battle will have about 30 turns and each turn requires 2 exchanges of files between the players, so usually it takes 2-4 days to do one turn. Because of this, finding the right opponent is critical. It's a long-term commitment and all too often, your opponent will just disappear on you for whatever reason. I confess to this failing myself, so don't play me . I recommend instead that you jump into the Peng threads you see here all the time. Those guys are avid PBEMers, and the Peng threads exists for them to hurl inventive insults at each other as their games progress. So jump into the current Peng thread, hurl a few insults, get challenged, and go for it. Because of the time requirements of PBEM, I prefer to play TCP/IP. You can knock out a complete game in an hour or 2 this way. As for opponent skill, I highly recommend NOT fighting equally skilled players. Also fight guys better than yourself so you can learn their techniques.

The "death clock" is an FOW feature so you only see it when you kill an enemy tank. It comes into play when the target doesn't burst into flames when hit, so the only true indication that it's dead is when you see the crew bailing out, or the dust and smoke clears enough to show fatal damage has been inflicted. This takes a few seconds after the fatal hit, and it is these seconds that the "death clock" measures. The amount of time the "death clock" runs (ie, the time between the fatal hit and you realizing the target is dead) is variable and probably depends on the relative strengths of the projectile and target armor, and the amount of damage inflicted. The process works like this: You achieve a fatal hit on the target that for whatever reason makes the surviving crew decide to bail. But you don't see anything that lets you or the tac-AIs of your units know this has happened. No damage info on the hit, no drooping gun barrel, no change in the target's unit info box at the bottom of the screen. So as far as you and your units can tell, the target is still alive. So your units keep aiming at it and will shoot at it again if they reload before the "death clock" expires. When the time finally runs out, the target's info box says it's dead, the gun tube droops, and you see the bailed crew (assuming any are still alive--the shots during the "death clock" might finish them off). When one of your tanks goes into "death clock" mode, you know it immediately because it's your unit. When it gets hit, you see the words "knocked out" appear on the hit. Also, the unit's info box shows the crew as "bailing out", although they're still in the tank. Then you can gleefully watch the enemy continue to pump shells into the carcass while your other units blindside them . [ October 14, 2002, 02:22 PM: Message edited by: Bullethead ]

Situation 1: Russian village surrounded by 2 x 4-gun batteries of 25mm, 1 x 4-gun battery of 37mm, and 8 M17s. A full squadron of 14 x HS-129B2s attacked. Results: All 14 planes shot down, 1 Russian M17 crewman wounded. Every plane was shot down on its 1st pass. Only 4 planes lived long enough to get any strafing done. No bombs dropped. Scores: M17s: 6 kills, each by a different vehicle. 37mm: 6 kills, 4 by 1 gun and 2 by another. 25mm: 2 kills by separate guns. ******************* Situation 2: Deleted all Russians except the M17s. Results: 5 planes shot down, 7 M17s destroyed. Scores: 1 M17 (the survivor) got 3, 2 others got 1 each. The survivor was never attacked. Many passes put in on previously destroyed vehicles. ************************* The guns seem similar to those in CMBO. The 25mm don't seem any more effective than the German single 20mm. Even having a ton of them doesn't accomplish much. Meanwhile, the Russian 37mm, like the German, kicks ass. The German quad 20mm has similar performance in terms of kills per gun. The M17s seem fairly deadly but suffer from very short range. While the bigger guns start shooting when the plane is still like 1500m out, the M17s only open fire when it's within about 300-500m. This is about the same time when the planes start shooting, so the M17 usually dies because it can't do enough damage quickly enough. This is why, I think, the M17s did so well when they were backing up the other guns. These damaged the plane at long range and the M17s finished them off. Without this prior damage, planes could overfly the whole M17 position and live.

Going back a bit further than WW2... One of my granddaddy's brothers was in the US expeditionary force fighting the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War. Way up north around Arkangelsk. (How many US citizens today even know this happened?) Besides freezing his ass off, the only story he told was how one time his platoon got surrounded and things looked grim. But then the revolutionary Russians had a "change of command ceremony"--they shot their officers and elected new ones. There was a lot of arguing in the latter phase and while the Russians were thus distracted, my great uncle and his boys snuck away. [ October 14, 2002, 01:52 AM: Message edited by: Bullethead ]

In CMBO, the armor balance was pretty constant. Not many new tanks came out during its covered period, and those that did mostly were just tweaks of those already available. So folks became accustomed to the same armor matchups and tactics in every game. Everybody knew how to play Shermans against Panthers and vice versa. In CMBB, OTOH, with 4 years covered, the armor balance swings back and forth several times. This is particularly apparent if you play with rarity on and mostly deal with the more common AFVs. To start with, you have PzIIs and such kicking ass on BTs and T26s. A bit later, it's KV1s and T34/76s ruling the roost. Then the long-tubed PzIVs and StuGs come out and stomp the T34s. Tigers and Panthers become available and keep things in the Germans' favor for a while. But then the T34/85s, IS2s, and such come along and things more or less even out for the rest of the war.

The following is based on the last beta I had, so could well be different now. However.... If you do NOT have an LOS to the desired target point, arty can fall up to 400m off target. In my series of tests, the average was about 200-250m off target. I never got a hit with blind fire on the desired point UNLESS I had a TRP, or unless I used the arty as a 1st-turn barrage. Morale to story: shooting arty blind is a COMPLETE WASTE unless you have a TRP. Get used to it guys.... Arty in CMBB is WAY different from CMBO. In a nutshell: </font> most delay times are significantly longer, especially for Russians</font>FOs move slowly and can't shoot immediately after moving</font>blind arty fire is useless unless pre-planned (Barrage or TRP) </font>The moral to the story is, then, to put your FOs in good OPs and leave them there for the duration. Moving them only exaccerbates the already long delay times, thus taking them effectively out of play. And if they can't see some area of the map, you'd better hope you have a TRP there. If you lack both TRPs and extensive LOS for your FOs, or if your delay times are extremely long to begin with, it's best to just shoot as barrages and hope for the best.

Cameroon said: Arrgghh!! I guess this is something that fell through the cracks. Until it gets fixed (if it ever does), use unlimited force selection.

Cordylus said: Having built the models from which the textures were made, I can assure you that YES, those are props and rudders . The T40 has them also. Sources say different things. Zaloga in Red Army Handbook says the T37s/T38s leaked so badly that they really couldn't be used amphibiously. And that the concept didn't seem to be useful so was dropped as a feature of later Soviet WW2 light tanks. OTOH, the blurb on the instruction sheet of the T38 kit said as late as 1944, a T38 unit used in an amphibious river crossing played a decisive role in establishing an important bridgehead later used in one of the final assaults on Germany. So go figure.

Commissar said: Hmmm... I wasn't in on the final beta team and have yet to receive my final copy, so I could well be behind the power curve on my info here... But last time I saw CMBB, human was was ONLY available to conscripts. Basically, the totally untrained conscripts had the human wave order and green+ troops, with at least some training, did advance or assault instead. So you couldn't advance with conscripts and you couldn't human wave with regulars. I assume this is still the case, not having heard of any changes to this. So are you sure you're using human wave with regulars? [ September 25, 2002, 12:07 AM: Message edited by: Bullethead ]

Abbott said: Rarity is kinda complex. IIRC, standard rarity considers not only the relative frequency of a given unit in an entire army, but also varies with time and region of the front. Using standard rarity alone therefore results in a rather generic run of units, based on the assumption that units were evenly distributed along the front. However, this is modified somewhat by favored units like SS and Guards getting the better stuff. So standard rarity is sometimes less for these forces than for regular forces. Variable rarity adds yet another factor on top of the above. Basically, it recognizes the fact that units were usually deployed in formations of the same type. IOW, instead of being spread evenly over the whole front, the rare units would be found concentrated in isolated clumps. So while there might only be 10 Panthers in a whole Panzerkorps at some point, all 10 would probably be in the same company. So what happens with variable rarity is that there is a random chance that the cost for some of the rare units might be lower than normal in any given scenario. You never know which units this will affect or how much, it's just luck of the draw. Thus, variable rarity is intended to break up the monotony of the same old units for a certain point in time and region of the front.

aka_tom_w said: The problem with the German AA HTs in CMBO was that in that game soft vehicles were handled differently than armored vehicles in some way which made smallarms and explosives rather ineffective against them. This issue has been addressed in CMBO and now unarmored vehicles die like flies. It's not uncommon for German unarmored AA HTs to get wiped out by rifle fire at up to 400m. M17s, however are armored to the same extent as the M5 halftrack. As such, they have about the same protection from smallarms fire and small HE near-misses as other HTs, although I believe they're a bit more vulnerable due to the gunners being up above the side armor (not sure on this). So to kill them, you need something that's macho enough to kill light armor. Fortunately, CMBB is full of such things.

Tha_Field_Marshall said: <snicker> Welcome to reality CMBO's arty treatment was WAY too responsive and uber. CMBB has tried as much as the current engine allows to impose more realism. The answer to your problem is to do like WW2 commanders did and put a lot more emphasis on pre-planned fires than you're used to from CMBO. CMBB has 2 methods of doing preplanned fires: initial barrages and TRPs. TRPs have at last been fixed so there's no delay in adjusting off of them. In addition, you can shoot them blind and almost always hit them. So ALWAYS buy a couple TRPs, whether you're attacking or defending, and put them in places where your FO lacks LOS. If you luck into a map where you have total LOS, they'll be handy elsewhere.

Ain't arrived at my grid yet, and Isidore is on my doorstep also (West Feliciana Parish). Being a fireman, I'll be too busy for a few days to play it even though my station has a generator. But what I'm curious about is whether USPS will still bring, as their motto suggests, despite the weather

Commissar said: You don't tend to notice so much what's happening to the guys all around you when you're charging into the lead headwind. Usually, if you're lucky enough to reach the objective, you look around and wonder where everybody else went. As for CMBB's human waves in general, your situation is only one possible result. Just as often, it's the other way around: squads keep going when leaders get pinned. It all depends on who gets hit and who freaks out. So I suggest you play the game many more times and see for yourself . From my experience testing, I disagree. Human waves across any distance greater than about 100m are a sure way to utterly destroy your C&C for the duration of the game, and with it your chance of victory. Remember, we're talking conscripts here so their C&C and morale stuff sucks to begin with. Also remember that you can only give 1 waypoint in a human wave--the objective. So if you find yourself having to cross about 400m of treeless steppe, which isn't uncommon, and you want to human wave across it in 1 go, you've only got 1 waypoint 400m away. Now the troops step off. They take fire and some units of each platoon will get pinned or run for cover while the rest keep going. It doesn't take long for the units in a platoon to get WAY WAY WAY out of C&C range, what with some getting left behind and other scattering to different bits of cover in different directions, depending on when they got freaked out. The net result is a total scrambling of units between platoons and even companies. And being conscripts, it takes FOREVER for them to recover. And then it takes FOREVER for them to try to regroup when having to move from a non-C&C location. By which point the battle is over. So my advice on human waves is to use them only in short spurts. That way, hopefully those who fall behind won't be out of C&C. Also, use copious amounts of smoke and extreme overwatch fire from tanks, assault guns, and MGs.

KEEF888 said: Yeah, cuz that's what it shot. I believe "ampul" is Russian for "ampule" or "bottle".

Uedel said: Correct. Strange as it may sound, the ampulomet was a direct-fire anti-tank weapon. It was not intended for anti-personnel or area-denial fire. So it should work like an ATG, direct-fire only, instead of like other mortars.

Originally posted by M. Bates: Um, this is what happens in real life. It's been that way since the rifle replaced the musket. If you expose yourself on the battlefield, you die a lot. Most times, you see only a small percentage of the enemy force while they're alive. The rest are just muzzle flashes spurting from some piece of cover. The only time in real life where this is not the case is when there is no cover to exploit, such as in the desert or the steppes. Bottom line is, weapons are deadly things and real world tactics have evolved to avoid their fire as much as possible. Cover and concealment are 2 of the main things that the whole fight revolves around. Defenders try to position themselves in cover where attackers must cross open ground to reach them. If covered avenues of approach are unavoidable, defenders guard them, mine them, and/or register arty on them, so the attackers won't be able to use them. Meanwhile, attackers use whatever cover is available as positions for support weapons, as means to get assault forces close to the defenders without taking effective fire, and as safe avenues to outflank defensive positions. Both attackers and defenders often find that natural cover and concealment is inadequate, so they make their own with smoke. Defenders fire smoke behind assault troops to mask their supporting weapons. Attackers fire smoke to allow their assault troops to cross open ground as safely as possible. So basically, in real life, it's all about LOS. This is because most battlefield weapons are direct fire. Hell, even with arty, you have to know the enemy is there to call fire on him, which means you have to see him usually. So all that fire and movement stuff is totally LOS-dependent. If you can't see the enemy, you can't shoot him. If the enemy sees you, you can't move without getting shot.

Michael emrys said: Can't believe you hadn't heard my rants about TRPs since this change happened. I bring it up at least once a month . Anyway, it's like Jarmo said. Prior to the TCP/IP versions, a TRP worked realistically. You got fire on it ASAP because the spotting rounds were done before the game to create the TRP. Then you could move (aka "adjust") the on-going FFE off the TRP within the green spotting line and have minimal delay, just like you can for FFE on a non-TRP target. However, the newer versions do not let you move FFE off a TRP at all. Any movement, no matter how small, starts the delay timer all over from scratch at the non-TRP level. I find this completely unrealistic. A TRP is a known point because both the FO and the guns agree on where it is. The TRP creation process assured this. Once you have a known point like this, it's much easier to adjust fire off of it than it is from an unknown point. There is no justification for disallowing quick FFE adjustment off of a TRP.

I still use a pre TCP/IP version from time to time because its TRPs work much more realistically. Subsequent versions ruined TRPs.

Scott B said: Could be. I've just never been able to find anything on this family from WW2. It didn't replace the DShK in the AAMG role until post-war and I can't find any wartime AFVs that used a 14.5mm MG. So if it was anywhere, it looks like it would have been as a ground mount. If there's no 14.5mm HMG in CMBB, at least there'll be 14.5mm ATRs. Those should tear light vehicles up quite nicely But anyway, we agree that the DShK wasn't 14.5mm BTW, I left a Soviet MG off the list of stuff I can find references for: the SG family of 7.62mm MMGs. Anyway... The Russian and US 12.7mm rounds are pretty much the same in dimensions. This is why their performances differ only by a few percent.

You all seem to be confused. The DShK isn't 14.5mm, it's 12.7mm. The 14.5mm thing is an entirely different weapon (the ZPU series). In fact, I think it's a post-war thing because I can't find any references to it in WW2. Just the DP, the DT, the DShK, and the Maxim. Anyway, as to the DShK (as in 12.7mm), I've shot both it and the M2. I rather like the M2 better. The DSkK has a slightly higher ROF but, because it's gas-operated, it has a slightly lower MV. Hence, slightly less penetration. This also makes it more subject to jamming, due to powder fouling blocking the little gas ports. Eventually, not enough gas gets through to fully work the action. Finally, while the DShK is significantly lighter than the M2, this lightness makes it bounce all over the place when firing, while the M2 is rock solid (this assumes both guns are properly sandbagged and all). [ March 23, 2002, 12:26 PM: Message edited by: Bullethead ]