Bullethead

I had to get it today--was forced on me by a new game that jacked with my DX6.1 w/out my consent. Still too early to really say if there are problems with 7.0a but at least all my 3D games still work . -Bullethead [This message has been edited by Bullethead (edited 12-21-99).]

Steve said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Thanks guys for the info ... I'll pass it on to Charles, but I can say for sure that nothing is going to change at this point<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> No problem, just get the game into my nicotine-stained fingers . Save more detailed arty for a patch or CM2. But please do it someday. The God of War deserves it . -Bullethead

JonS said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>You were USMC right? We've probably used some of the same equipment.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Our M198 155mm gun-howitzer is a Brit design as I understand it. I think what happened was there was a shoot-off and the Brit design won, but politics meant that instead of buying it from the Brits, we got some US company to clone it . I was always comforted knowing it was a Brit design--they've always made good guns. Sure is a BITCH to tow, though--overloads a damn 5-ton truck . And yeah, I vaguely remember that computer. That was just coming in as I was getting out so I never fooled with it much. The one I remember most the BCT, which looked like an olive drab iMac with a red LED touchscreen. You programmed it up with the forms of standard messages, hooked it up to a digital burst radio, and could send orders to other BCTs in a few milliseconds. Really came in handy in counterbattery quickdraw duels in the Gulf . -Bullethead

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Does anyone remember a pocket game set in the future about two mining companies battling it out on an asteriod that was actually donut shaped?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Oh yeah, that was called "Black Hole." Man, I thought I was the only person who'd ever bought that one. Loved the way you could fire missiles to "spiral" around the map . Talking about innovative maps, one of Metagaming's early games (mid-70s) was "Godsfire," a full-fledged strategic space wargame. The map was unique in having big squares arranged in staggered rows to have the same arrangement as hexes. Within each square was a spiral of like 15 steps to give you a 3D map. -Bullethead

JonS said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>We usually train in VERY hilly terrain<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> No kidding there . We called them "chocolate finger prints" due to all the close-spaced brown contour lines on the map . I guess that's to be expected, though. The only places that get used for arty impact areas are places totally unfit for any useful purpose. And meaning, of course, that the impact areas are surrounded by land almost equally worthless, where the troops have to live and maneuver. Always a bitch being in the field in such places. Always seems to be a hellish desert or a bug-ridden swamp . -Bullethead

Steve said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Bullethead, how many guns would it take to make for an effective pattern? Just asking because a CM FO only has control over a single battery. That doesn't seem to be enough guns to do much with.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Like JonS said, 1 battery is all it takes. The size of the pattern on the ground, of course, depends on the size of the guns, meaning the effective casualty radius of their shells. That is, the individual guns are aimed so hopefully their shells land with the desired spacing for the desired area coverage with splinters. Generally, the choice is between having either their kill- or wounding-radii overlap. But it only takes 1 battery to do it. I guess my mention of the WW1 massive box barrages was somewhat confusing in that regard. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>In any case, we aren't changing CM to allow for patterns. The seem to be only usefull for large scale bombardments, which CM doesn't support.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Well, that's too bad. The patterns are for small-scale tactical things mostly, a tool for every occasion. You can have your shells land along a ridge- or tree-line, land tightly on a small patch of woods or a few buildings, or spread out over a big field. Again, my WW1 reference was probably a bad idea--I just meant it to show such patterns were possible even with WW1 guns. But anyway, patterns are part of what makes artillery so effective. The existing system is OK I guess for mortars (arty snob-ism here--I doubt grunts could figure out how to shoot pretty patterns ) but arty is considerably more flexible than mortars due to having much better FDC assets. -Bullethead

Madmatt said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>However, just this morning I was thinking about adding a sub-section to the Archives area which would have ALL the old DYK's and QT's so people who missed them on the first time around could catch them again, and these 'expired' taglines would NOT scroll.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think this is a good idea. That would make it effectively the same as the "hints" section Pheonix suggested . I use IE so can read scrolling text. I must admit, however, that I'd rather just have it sitting still, at least for long sentences or messages of more than 1 sentence. If you miss a piece of it, it's a pain having to wait for the whole thing to come around again, as opposed to being able to see the whole thing at once. BTW, I'm glad you turned off the scrolling in the Heroes' Corner. Some of the smaller lines were going by too fast for me to read . But all these are very, very minor nits IMHO. I'm quite grateful for all the info at CMHQ, no matter how it's presented. All the DYKs have been worth the wait to read several times . Keep up the good work. -Bullethead

>>>>>>>>> My personal theory is that women in the military are in it for the OTHER women in the military <<<<<<<<< My own conclusion is the opposite. At the risk of offending any woman foolish enough to enter this den of thieves, the women I met in the service were in it for the guys, because that was the only way they could get them. The babes in the recruiting commercials are all squirreled away by the generals at division HQ, leaving the lower echelons with, um... those not ready for prime time. But when you go to a place like Saudi, where the natives are DEFINITELY off limits, or pull a week of guard duty at some forgotten ammo dump way out in the sticks, well... Let's just say I know a few girls who got busted trying to mail home seabags full of small bills, and have seen entire returning guard detachments in line for the silver bullet. I lived with The Bitch for 2 years, then was married for 6 years, 2 months, and 12.5 days. Of HELL. Not that I'm bitter, mind you . Sure, there were some good times. I just find it hard to remember them when I don't have to clear 200 pounds of makeup bottles and tampax boxes off the bathroom counter to brush my teeth, etc etc etc. So I much prefer being single--I'll take Miss Right Now over Miss Right any time . -Bullethead [This message has been edited by Bullethead (edited 12-18-99).]

>>>>>>>>> THere are plenty of photos of IG gun lines and high angle firing positions. <<<<<<<< When are the odds highest that a gun will be photographed? When the friendlies are holding still in defensive positions, or when they are moving forward on the attack? -Bullethead

>>>>>>>. Umm, I'm not much of an arty-head but I always supposed WW2 arty wasn't quite accurate enough to have FOs select the exact pattern of rounds fired you know? <<<<<<<<<<< It's been physically possible, in terms of gun accuracy and gunner skill, to shoot in all kinds of pretty patterns since WW1. For instance, in WW1 they shot box barrages combining many batteries' fire into 3 connected lines to isolate the section of trench being assaulted. Beautiful things . In terms of calling for specific patterns, the mechanics of all of them are pretty much the same. The FO tells the battery what the target is and what pattern he wants on it. During the spotting rounds phase, the battery shoots 1 gun and the FO adjusts it into the desired place. This gun is used as a reference point in the FDC. Because they know what the FO is trying to do, they can figure any required aim offsets relative to that reference point for all the other guns. They do this while the adjusting is going on. Then, once the FO is happy and calls for FFE, the FDC guys take the firing data from the adjusting gun, add the offsets, put the result on the other guns, and blast away. So, shooting a linear pattern is technically almost the same as shooting an open sheaf. In both cases, the other guns have some offset from the adjusted point of aim to cover a bigger area. But instead of the other guns being dispersed radially from the reference point, in a linear pattern they're strung out along a designated line. The FO supplies this line when he calls for the mission by giving the FDC the coordinates of its endpoints. -Bullethead

Zamo said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I'd totally chuck N. Afrika and Italia for a chance to see-saw across the Pacific. Maybe it's just a Marine thing. You dogface's probably wouldn't understand... Semper Fi!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Amen, bro! And the whole CM "operations" concept lends itself so well to PTO battles. Hell, you could probably put most of Betio, or the north end of Saipan, on a single CM map. Oh yeah, and Chesty was WAY more flamboyant than Patton. What was it he said? "There's a fine line between a Navy Cross and a general court martial." Guess he'd know, he got 5 of them . -Bullethead Semper Fi

Reverendo said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>There are so many things we Scotsmen will never understand about America...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hehehe, most of my Scots ancestors were from the Border. They're officially on record as not being worth the cost of the rope to hang them with--the government would just drown them in the Teviot . Those that escaped drowning and some of their equally evil neighbors, with names like Turnbull, Elliot, Graham, Kerr, Scot, and Armstrong, came over here and colonized this corner of the US together. So what's not to understand? -Bullethead

Steve said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>we changed the way artillery works after the demo. There is now a definate box pattern in relation to the friendly side that the artillery is coming from.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> OK, guess I was confused. The screenshot we were talking about is on CMHQ and purports to show post-demo arty fixes. Definitely not very box-shaped . So you all must have tweaked it some more since that shot was taken. However, that very long linear pattern in the shot would be useful on occasion. Would it be possible to call for that shape instead of the box? -Bullethead [This message has been edited by Bullethead (edited 12-16-99).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>weren't shields used, even on IF artillery pieces, to help protect the crew from CB fire? Doesn't the lFH 18 have a shield? It is not an IG.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Actually, no. The shrapnel from CB fire on a battery's position can come from any direction. To protect against that, you have to dig the guns in . Shields on non-IGs had 3 purposes. First, some were holdovers from pre-IF days when all non-siege arty could be considered IGs. Second, shell fuses of all types in the era around the turn of the century weren't particularly trustworthy. Shells exploded in or just out of the muzzle often enough to warrant giving the crew some protection from splinters. And third, sometimes the gun was just so friggin' huge that the crew needed muzzle blast protection to remain effective. Look at those "Big Bertha" mortars the Germans used in WW1 at Liege. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Also, weren't the 7.5cm IG and 15cm IG equipped with IF sights as standard equipment?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Sure, just like today's M198 155mm gun-howitzer, a divisional IF piece, has DF sights standard. Not something you use every day but nice to have sometimes. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Wasn't the role of the IGs to give an Infantry battalion or company commander an artillery piece that could not be taken away from him?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> That's what light and medium mortars are for. IGs were usually regimental or divisional assets. And like I said, they were more like assault guns than arty. Sure, they were there to give grunts a quick-response, heavy punch of their own. But grunts find targets that hit them with direct fire, so they shoot back with direct fire. IGs typcially had neither the range nor the FDC assets needed to do effective IF except in special circumstances. -Bullethead [This message has been edited by Bullethead (edited 12-16-99).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Fionn is correct. In order to get some nice shots, I made a random map and then looked for a good spot to place the FO on, not paying attention where the friendly map edge was. Sorry, my fault...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Then I have to agree with JonS that the pattern seems a bit too stretched out. That in the picture looks like something deliberately called to be a linear pattern. If it was just shooting at a point, then the pattern should be considerably more oval IMHO. I say this also partially because the game now does some spotting rounds. The purpose of spotting rounds, of course, is for the FO to give corrections. Thus, by the time of FFE, a lot of that extreme range error bias shown should have been eliminated. Think about registrations--same process, just done in advance. -Bullethead [This message has been edited by Bullethead (edited 12-16-99).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I'm going to be reviewing Smolensk 41 as soon as I get my copy (assuming no-one else at TGN bags to review it first)..<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hehehe, Fionn, go easy on my ol' bud Greg Smith. This is his first game where he's done more than research and data entry . Think of his poor wife "Deathbunny" . Dunno when we'll see it, though. When I ordered it, they were hoping to ship 2 days ago but I haven't heard whether they did or not. -Bullethead

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Tiger has 88mm gun with muzzle velocity of almost 800fps (about the same as a .45 ACP round)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think maybe you got your units mixed up here. I bet that's supposed to be 800mps, not fps. Remember, the 88 began as a flak gun and needed a high velocity to get up to high altitude quickly enough to have a chance of hitting a plane moving at a couple hundred knots. -Bullethead

JonS said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>AFAIK, ALL guns are designed to have some DF capability.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Heheh, there were a couple of bad days in the Gulf when we had to use our (shieldless) 155mm M198 gun-howitzers in direct fire. Amazing how SLOW the elevation handwheel's gearing, designed for minute corrections at extreme range, lowers the tube when tanks come out of the smoke a few hundred meters away . <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The M101A1 was, I think, the standard US divisional direct support artillery piece in WWII, and as such equipped 3 of the 4 artillery battalions in an inf division. It had a 105mm calibre and a range of ~11km.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think it was called the M2A1 for the shielded version and the M3 for the light version. At least we called ours the M2A1 and it looked just like the ones in WW2 pictures. And yes, the USMC of my day still used them. In the mid-80s, they were the standard weapon of the direct support battalions. By the early 90s, however, everybody's weapon was the M198, although we had the 105s available in depot for special purposes. For example, smaller helos can carry the M2A1 but not the M198. But back to this whole IG IF thing.... To use modern parlance, IGs were non-selfpropelled assault guns. Their main purpose was direct fire support of grunts in the attack. And some very manly cannoncockers would harness themselves up like mules and drag the IGs forward through the mud as the troops advanced. Naturally, this didn't work well but was the best thing available until a tracked chassis became available. Sure, IGs could shoot indirectly at need. But this wasn't their primary mission. It was only possible on the defense or as part of a planned bombardment where somebody could work out the calculations, not something they could do off the cuff. I've seen some photos of Sherman(75)s and even M10 TDs parked on slopes doing IF. This wasn't their main job, either, but they could do it at need. I haven't heard BTS say these vehicles can do IF, I don't hear anybody asking to let them do it, and I seriously doubt this feature will ever be in any version of CM. But letting such vehicles do IF is exactly the same as asking for IGs to do IF. The operational problems involved are the same. The only difference is folks see an IG, it looks like a conventional IF artillery piece, so they think it should be doing IF all the time. That's why I say IGs are assault guns. Think of them as very slow StuGs, not on-board arty pieces. -Bullethead [This message has been edited by Bullethead (edited 12-15-99).]

Fionn said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Against a shattered enemy a flametank is terribly powerful but against a well dug-in enemy with a good defence it is awfully vulnerable.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hehehe, I've always considered them a sort of mop-up weapon. The lazy man's way of bayoneting the wounded . -Bullethead

Reverendo said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>have you notice that bad habit of the American's? They seek not to conquer, but to destroy<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> But then we rebuild everything with better stuff than we have over here. Spend $gazillion on the war, then 2x $gazillion on repairs so our erstwhile enemies can kick our economic ass 10-20 years hence . -Bullethead

RE: HPS games Fionn said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Used to play. Hell I pre-ordered the original TOP 1 via trade magazine from across the Atlantic<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yeah, good ol' TOP1. I fired it up the other day... 4 colors, EXTREME low res (hexsides about 10 pixels wide ), but still a good game. I was a tester for PITS and TOP2 because Greg Smith of HPS was the CO of my Air Warrior squadron. Man, those are really good games. But CM kicks their ass in immersion. I kid Smith that CM is PITS only with sound and graphics . -Bullethead

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>On the "vote early -- and often" theory, I once again support CM in the Pacific and in Korea.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Same here. PTO for sure. And you all have convinced me, a Korean version would also be great . <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>And Korea ... had no landings at all.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I guess Inchon don't count? {G,D,RLH} -Bullethead [This message has been edited by Bullethead (edited 12-15-99).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I'm not saying that the muzzle blast would effect anyone 20 meters away... but when your 5 meters from the muzzle being fired AT.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yeah, but the increased size of the blast from the bigger guns makes up for the difference in range to some extent, I'd think . <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I know that in civil war re-enactments ... when they fire the cannon blanks, they need to have people clear of a 45 degree cone out to about a range or 15 meters, inside that cone, ... the force is easily enough to knock you out, and I'm sure (after watching these things shoot) that it would EASILY kill a man at less than 10 meters.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Well, blanks ain't safe things--they fire out chunks of whatever contained the powder. These leave the muzzle with enough speed to penetrate your body and kill you, although they are very light so slow down within a few meters. There's also the danger of flash burns near the muzzle. This, I'm pretty sure, is the main reason for the safety zone you describe. What mechanism would the concussion use to kill you? As I understand it, to kill somebody by external force you need to seriously reshape parts of the body. Either crush him, or puncture him, or break his neck. Vital organs are pretty well protected by bone, you now. So sure, you can have a wave of air hit somebody in the head hard enough to knock him out, just like you can with your fist. But it's a long way from that to crushing his skull or ribcage. There have been a lot of people killed by concussion from very near misses of very big shells and bombs. As I understand it, the pressure crushes their abdominal cavity and they die slowly and painfully from internal bleeding without any serious external damage. But this sort of thing requires serious firepower: 8" and bigger shells landing very close, or being next door to an Arclight impact area. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Think about it, that concussion is strong enough to send a five-pound shell at 700 fps... that's a lotta force, enough to ruin some poor sucker's day.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> But it can only throw a round when focused into 1 direction by the guntube. The expanding gas follows the path of least resistance, so if you set off the same amount of powder in the open air with the round sitting on top, you wouldn't get nearly the velocity and range out of the round. Likewise, once the gas passes out the muzzle, it's free to expand in all directions (even backwards if the gun has a muzzlebrake). So it rapidly loses its concentrated force and, because gas is very light, it also slows down very quickly. -Bullethead

>>>>>>>>> Thanks. However, I do think a battle like that would be kinda cool. <<<<<<<<< Well, the HPS game "Panthers in the Shadows" allows in-game airborne landings. You might want to try it if you can stomach its complete lack of sound, hexes, and cardboard-style graphics after seeing CM in all its 3D glory . BTW, PITS and TOP2 are the yardsticks I'm measuring CM's realism and detail (not eyecandy) by. CM seems to be holding up well in that department. Any other HPS players out there? -Bullethead

Thanks for the pix, Matt. That does look impressive. But what lit off the whole horizon before the ambush in the pix? -Bullethead