Bullethead

Phoenix- The other guys have given you a great list but I think I can add some to it . Phoenix said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I currently have A Time for Trumpets<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Excellent book by a great author. The same guy also wrote "Company Commander," about his own WW2 experiences (including when his company got overrun early in the Bulge as mentioned in passing in "Trumpets"), and "The Battle of the Heurtgen Forest," which are also very good. Another good, fairly recent book, is "Steel Inferno," by Michael Reynolds, about the 1st SS Panzer Corps in Normandy. Very well done, quite bloody. The US Army has also published some good books which are great scenario-design fodder besides being exciting reads. You can get them from government publication stores. One I know that is being used for CM is "Small Unit Actions." Another good one in the same series is "St. Lo" but there are many others. -Bullethead

Never saw any BTS response in the "Q about arty FO" thread, so... Will any guns have the ability to fire mechanical time fuses for airbursts? Moon tells me that some late-war US arty has VT fuses, but MT fuses have been around for over 100 years, were quite common in WW2, and are still used even today. Thanks. -Bullethead

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Except that in real life the FO more often than not does not ask for a specific number of rounds. He asks for a fire mission in fact he may just call for things like "immediate suppression" etc.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Well, that depends on the type of fire misson. In most cases, the FO does indeed call for a number of rounds, either as like "10 rounds" or as say "battery 2" (meaning 2 rounds per gun in the battery). Immediate Suppression is a special case--hit this spot, hit it NOW. But while the FO won't specify the number of rounds, the arty will have an SOP for such missions specifying how many rounds to shoot. Real FOs will know how many this is but grunt officers maybe won't. But either way, once those are shot, the FO can ask for a repeat if he wants more. But this might be more true for real arty. Maybe 81-120mm mortars would keep shooting until told to stop in immediate suppression missions. I don't know about that--that's grunt business . <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>"Us Jarheads do things a bit different..." AHh and therein lies the rub ... don't confuse Marine procedures as being synonomous with army porcedures or even those of other countries (Or modern proc. being the same as WW2) though PACWAR CM is hopefully coming soon!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> These days Marine cannoncockers, FOs, CBR sparkies, and FDC wienies all go to the Army's arty schools at Ft. Sill (and some Jarheads are instructors there). It was that way even at the height of Reagan's spending, too, so it could well have been that way in WW2. But anyway, Army and Marine arty types all get the same training these days so their procedures ain't THAT different (although Jarheads do it better, of course ). As to how this differs from US WW2, I don't think it does very much. Standard cannonballs still fly the same way and still have the same fire control requirements. Also, the organization of a division's arty regiment today is exactly the same as it was in WW2, with a DS battalion for each grunt regiment and some GS battalions extra. So it seems to me the US WW2 arty did the same types of missions our arty does now--it's just that lately we've added some new missions based on new types of ammo (laying mines, etc). Therefore, I'd expect US WW2 arty used pretty much the same procedures as we use today for the classic types of fire missions. As to other countries in WW2, I have no clue. But like I said way up the thread somewhere, all arty operates under the same set of rules so everybody has to use it in pretty much the same way. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>P.s. I was joking about the dead arty thing.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yeah, I know, but I couldn't resist . -Bullethead

Dittos. Gawd, I'm going to be out of town the better part of a week. I shudder to think how many posts there'll be here when I get back . -Bullethead

Los said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Though it seems in the defense, things worked closer to BH's model than in the attack. Since it is the goal of the commander to mass his fires (and combat power) at the point of decision rather than water them down by spreading them out everywhere.)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> In the attack, the main difference in arty employment is that the GS battalions might be shooting closer to the FEBA early on, maybe even in the DS role, to help effect a breakthrough. And there's usually 1 grunt regiment in reserve so its usual DS battalion can be employed on other tasks until that regiment goes into the line. It might be helping break through, or it might be limbered up closely following the grunts and go into direct support of the lead regiments from on the initial objective, to cover the advance of the other guns. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>since there are no artillery TOEs in the scenario editor only spotters and their assigned rounds, this should be how the FOs are purchased (DS or GS) with associated variances in responsiveness and rounds available.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Well, they keep saying CM is still a beta, so maybe BTS is open to changing how you buy FOs, to reduce abstraction a bit . <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>A FO WILL know how many rounds and when they are coming in. But it may not be what he requested.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Right. And that's my problem with the way CM currently models OBA fire mission durations. Either the FO gets the number or rounds he asked for, or he gets less. But in either case it's a definite number of rounds for the fire mission, it's not a continuous barrage that goes on until the player cancels the FO's target. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>In fact the FO does not talk directly to the battery but talks to the FSSC (Fire support Coordination Center..nowadays sometimes called the FDC, though really that's the guys with the slide rules that actually calculate where the guns will shoot). Normally the FSSC is a battalion or brigade assets that draws resources from the pool of batteries that it controls.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Us Jarheads do things a bit different. FOs usually talk to the DS battalion FDCs but might get to talking directly to the battery the FDC assigns to the mission for actual adjustment purposes. Don't know if that happened in WW2, though. Also, to us the FSCC is a division-level thing, where you tie in air and naval gunfire support with the division's own arty. It's where you plan things like SEAD missions, which are beyond the scope of CM. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>After all, whene ths last time anyone ever saw a dead artilleryman? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Well, if you've never seen one, check out the last few pix at http://people.delphi.com/jtweller/gulfwar.htm . Seriously, it can be pretty dangerous to be a cannoncocker. The other side's arty and air have you as their #1 tactical target. This is because arty is THE decisive battlefield weapon. The side with a marked arty superiority is going to win because all those grunts and tanks are just cannonfodder . Thus, both sides try real hard to get arty superiority, which means at the top level, the 1st phase of a campaign the arty duel, the struggle for arty superiority. Once this is decided, it becomes pretty safe to be a cannoncocker on the superior side. The other side no longer has much that can hurt you. Then you can lay waste to all you survey pretty much with impunity, like the victorious God of War you are . Like we used to say, the battlefield has 3 zones from front to rear: where they do the dying (grunts and tanks), where they do the killing (arty), and where they plan the funeral (HQs). So, as to JonS's assertion about US arty casualty rates in France, it's not surprising they were pretty low. We had arty superiority almost from the get-go. First off, we had total air superiority. So our cannoncockers didn't have to worry about the biggest threat, enemy TacAir. Second, the German arty wasn't much of a counterbattery threat, either. Our air was strafing the Hell out of it all the time. And the Germans didn't have as much arty as we did anyway, so they couldn't go toe-to-toe in counterbattery wars. That said, you can see how much it sucks to be a cannoncocker on the inferior side. Just ask the Iraqis . -Bullethead

JonS said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>the FOs are a long way from the batteries, but they still now exactly how many and what type of gun are available, and approximately how many rounds and what types are available also<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> In the perfect world, yup . But sometimes the word doens't get passed. Also, the FO doesn't know how many rounds are "his" unless he has exclusive control of that battery. But IMHO more importantly, the FOs in CM are abstracted. Real life FOs belong to the arty unit and are just attached to the grunts. Because they work for the arty CO, they are better informed about the status of their parent arty unit. But also in real life, sometimes there ain't any real FOs left so grunt company and platoon commanders have to do the job. This situation might go on for days or weeks, depending on replacement supply. While this is going on, the grunt officer, being outside the arty chain of command, is unlikely to be in the loop about the status of the arty unit supporting him. I think I read somewhere that the CM FOs represent both regular FOs and grunt commanders calling for fire. In this latter case, which I think was pretty common, the amount of info available would be pretty limited. I've read many accounts of grunt commanders calling for fire only to be told, "We're bugging out right now. Sorry we forgot to tell you before." Or something like "OK, we can shoot that registration 200m to your front, but all we have available right now is 240mm. Keep your heads down." But anyway, this abstraction was one reason why I said reinforcing fires would be transparent to the FO. I was thinking of the grunt commander not knowing until the last minute what kind of support he'd be getting. The other reason.... <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I think it would be odd if the FO wasn't informed that he was about to get 155mm instead of 105mm.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Right. An oversight on my part, based on habits of thought acquired in an arty regiment that was exclusively 155mm in its last incarnation. But you're right, when we had a mix of calibers, you had to know what was coming. Problem is, I'm not sure CM allows for variable gun sizes to be called on by the same FO. If it does, then no problem, you pick the one you want and duck down accordingly . If it doesn't, then you'd just have 1 FO for each size of battery available. Hmmm. Interesting problem. But it only really comes up in the case of the reinforced FO, where different calibers might be available at different times. Especially if the FO was really a grunt commander. It would be pretty cool if the gun type available was random from turn to turn . -Bullethead

Moon said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>VT fuzes are already in the game. Check the available arty in the unit menu of the editor. I can see at least two or three different guns with VT fuzes in there!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Very cool . And these guns (and all the others with the same role) would be the ones using MT fuses as well. -Bullethead

Very good points, Los. Los said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>"Well, considering you don't know the ROF of the OBA battery, you don't know how many turns the ammo will last." I didn't mean to minimize this issue, I have experienced it myself but after using arty enough have a pretty good idea of how long x amount of rounds will last<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> True, but that still leaves the problem of when the rounds start falling compared to how many you want to shoot. If the shooting starts near the beginning of a turn, then you can break the ammo up into turn's-worths pretty easy. But if the rounds start in the middle of a turn, then you're going to have to shoot 1/2 a turn more or less than you want to on that target. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Keep in mind that unless it's H-Hour on the day of an attack, TOT preps are difficult to coordinate to the satisfaction of the FO.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Right, during a fluid battle situation FOs have to take a number and get in line. Their missions go in the order the arty commander thinks is best based on his own concerns and appreciation of the situation. But even so that is, IMHO, the time when they have the most control over direct support guns. When a big attack is about to start, the arty prepfire is all planned out by the arty S-3 shop based on known target locations and the attack plan of the grunt commander. There might be a battery or 2 eserved for the FOs' emergency direct support use during the big shoot, but often it isn't until the prepfire is over that batteries get released to FO control. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>If there is to be a request to fire x amount of rounds per fire mission then I would recommend that the player not no how many rounds he starts out the game with since that is unrealistic in itself. Especially since in most cases you don't have batteries in direct support dedicated just to one FO or company but it is in general support to a number of companies or battalions.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Excellent points. The FOs are miles away from the batteries so have no idea how many tubes or how many of what type of rounds are really available. As to your DS/GS description above, I think you and I are using these terms to mean different things. Below is what I mean when I use them. This is how the US does things now (and seems to have done in WW2). Other countries (especially the Russians) could well have done things differently, but all arty is subject to the same underlying principles so this is probably pretty close for everybody. Many divisions include a regiment of arty. Usually, this regiment is broken up with a battalion in direct support of each grunt regiment in the division. These DS battalions are often equipped with the smaller-caliber and/or shorter-ranged pieces on the regiment's TE. Often these DS arty battalions are further divided so that 1 battery is DS for each grunt battalion in the grunt regiment, meaning that down on the firing line, 3 grunt companies are arguing over who gets the services of the guns right now. In addition, as grunts advance and retreat, DS batteries have to leapfrog to maintain the proper range, so some aren't always available. This is why FOs have to wait in line. If the arty regiment is big enough, it will have 1 or more additional battalions. These are the GS battalions, the only ones the arty regiment CO/division CO usually exercises command over. These are usually used for division- or corps-level fire missions; pre-assault bombardments, counterbattery, and deep interdiction, such as shelling road junctions in the enemy rear. As such, the GS battalions usually have the biggest, longest-ranged tubes in the arty regiment. The secondary mission of the GS battalions is reinforcing fire. This means they go into a temporary semi-DS role when the usual DS battalions don't have the macho to solve the current problem. What usually happens is that the GS battalion is subordinated to the over-worked DS battalion and is controlled from the DS battalion FDC. The DS CO/S-3 uses the GS guns either to hit additional targets in his queue that he doesn't have enough DS guns for, or adds their fire to particularly stubborn or lucrative targets already engaged by DS guns. Once the emergency is over, the GS battalions revert to their usual missions and chain of command. Because the DS battalion FDC handles reinforcing fires, it's transparent to the FOs. They are not in contact with the GS battalions, they just notice that their fire missions are getting answered quicker and/or with greater force than before. This is because the GS battalions don't usually have FOs of their own or, if they do, they aren't in the crucial location. And the DS FOs usually don't have the radio freq of the GS battalions anyway. (NOTE: helpful radiomen at the DS battalion FDC often inform the FOs that GS help is now available, but this is FYI stuff, usually not affecting who gives orders to the GS guns.) <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>the scenario editor there should be two types of arty support for each tube type, Direct Support and General Support. DS FOs should be costed at least twice as much as GS FOs. This represent the major resource commitment<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Excellent idea, but I'd modify the concept some and use different names for the types of arty support based on my blather above . Seems to me there are 3 basic cases: 1. The FO is calling on the usual DS battery supporting his whole battalion and has to wait in line with the FOs of the other companies. So this guy would be cheapest because he'd have longer delays in getting fire and probably fewer rounds available. Maybe call him a DS FO. 2. The FO is calling on the usual DS guns but the brass have decided he gets exclusive or at least high priority use of them. So he's more expensive due to short delays and more available ammo. Maybe call him a Priority FO. 3. The FO has GS guns providing reinforcing fires as well as the usual DS guns. He would also be fairly expensive--delays would be shorter than normal, although maybe not quite as short as having exclusive DS control, but he'd have a lot of ammo and some of it would be BIG. Maybe call him a Reinforced FO. Of course, this type of FO should only be used in "hitting the fan" scenarios, usually on the defending side. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>ANd to get even more realistic the general responisveness, accuracy and ability to control minutely the outcome of a fire mission should be adjusted by time of month<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I bet troop quality of the FO modifies the base delay time and also accuracy. Maybe you could abstract the sort of thing you're talking about by using higher quality FOs for scenarios later in the war. -Bullethead

Fionn said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>up to 105s with time fuses. AAA with time fuses (not the small ones though I suppose (20mm etc... how the hell would you time fuse all the shells with the speed at which they fire? ) No rocket arty.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Today 155mm uses a lot of MT fuses. I'm sure they had them in WW2, but probably mostly for the shorter-ranged howitzers and less common for the Long Toms. Primary mission of the guns would be the deciding factor, I'd say. Those guns intended mostly for direct support would have them for sure but those dedicated to general support might not have very many, if any, available. Light flak was, from what I understand, impact-fused. Due to its rate of fire, it was expected to get actual hits on the planes where bigger guns had to rely on fragmentation from near-misses. However, I know the 40mm Bofors AA shells had a timer that automatically blew them up after a few seconds if they hadn't hit anything. This might have just been a naval type of ammo--the purpose was to keep stray rounds from falling all over the taskforce--but the same concerns would apply in land settings. I never heard of any rockets with MT fuses but that don't mean there weren't any. -Bullethead

SimonFox said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>For a start most of the crew couldn't get to the TC.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Then how could the crew change places? -Bullethead

Los said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>First off TCs don't go around with just their heads poking out like Kilroy, they usually are exposed most of their torsos<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> If you're talking about studying the frequency of wounds in various places, could be. But I can just say what I've seen. The fights I was in, if the TC's hatch was open at all (usually wasn't, doctrine be damned ), he was only up high enough to get his eyeballs clear of the hatch rim. I sure never saw anybody standing tall in the hatch (or anywhere else) when bullets were flying. The same instinct that makes grunts unconsciously stoop over everywhere in the battlezone whether being shot at or not also apparently affects tankers . Read a book by a Tiger commander named Carius. He had beaucoup kills and the Knight's Cross with accessories, so I assume he knew what he was talking about. He said he exposed as little of himself as possible, especially after he got shot in the neck one time when he came out too far . In his book are some pictures of him engaging some T34s, taken by his buddy in another Tiger just behind him. You can just barely see the top of Carius' head above the hatch rim. Looks just like what I saw in the Gulf. OTOH, Carius was a very short man so maybe he couldn't have gotten much higher up even had he wanted to . <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>If your buddy is wounded the first priority nine times out of ten WILL BE to see to his welfare and first aid. SO If all these issues are abstarcted into no CE after a TC is hit then that's a pretty good thing, IMO.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I agree. -Bullethead

Fionn said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Get some source data, come up with a best guess of which guns would have had mechanical fuses ( the Flak88s yes, the Pak 88s no etc). And then send it in to BTS<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> On the plus side, BTS reads this board. On the down side, I can't look up every gun (I haven't even seen a list of what all guns are in the game). So I'm afraid all I can offer here are generalities. Mechanical time fuses were invented before the turn of the century and were standard arty equipment by WW1, when they were used extensively for shrapnel and gas shells. By WW2, they were much more efficient and reliable and were used extensively on HE shells (with shrapnel shells being obsolete). However, setting the fuses correctly requires the fire control assets of artillery units. Thus, infantry guns generally didn't have mechanical time fuses, even if they used the same gun type as the arty units. Neither did anti-tank guns, as you mentioned. In addition, mechanical time fuses were very rare for guns bigger than 155mm because the real heavies were primarily used for reducing stronpoints, not mowing down troops in the open. Flak guns were a special case. Time-fused HE was their primary ammo, to make all those black puffs you see in bombing pictures. And they usually had really fancy fuse setters built into the guns themselves, hooked directly to the fire control computer system. Stick the nose of the shell into the socket and voila! the fuse is set to go off at the proper distance. The arty usually had to make do with setting the fuses by hand. So flak guns were more likely than arty to get the fuse set right for a perfect airburst. Especially because the high MV of flak guns made for flat trajectories, meaning they were usually shooting direct fire. Very nasty indeed. So in general, in WW2 you had infantry guns and ATGs using direct fire and point-detonating fuses, light-medium arty that could use indirect mechanical time fuses to good effect vs. appropriate targets, and flak guns that could be devastating with direct fire airbursts. -Bullethead

Los said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Well in a way by cancelling the fire mission manually you are pretty much doing the same thing. I guess it's a minor abstraction but then again this isn't an FO simulator.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Well, considering you don't know the ROF of the OBA battery, you don't know how many turns the ammo will last. And if the firing starts in mid-turn, you can only stop it at the end of that turn or 1 full minute later, if you want to conserve any. Pretty hard to make the ammo come out right and far less control over it than an FO would have in real life. As to this not being an FO sim, sure. Don't make the player have to adjust fire. Fine. But IMHO arty deserves more detail than it gets in most wargames. After all, it did cause way more battlefield casualties than all the grunts and tanks put together. So a bit less abstraction is in order, IMHO. Fionn said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I think basically Potitz fuses were only issued very late in the war if at all so I think that automatic airbursts aren't being modelled.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I've read that although they'd been used against planes for some time, the 1st *authorized* land use of VT fuses was during the Battle of the Bulge. Specifically, the defense of the Elsenborn Ridge on the northern shoulder. The arty had had VT fuses available but hadn't been allowed to shoot them for fear the Germans would find duds and copy the design. HOWEVER, all the time before and after that, right up to the present, mechanical time fuses were available. This is how you get airbursts w/out VT fuses or tree branches. You know where the gun is and where the target is, you know the trajectory of the shell, so you know the time of flight. This is all given or you couldn't shoot the mission at all. So you then set the fuse accordingly. True, this doesn't give you as consistently perfect airbursts as VT fuses, but it works well enough. In fact, today's arty still shoots a lot of mechanical time fused shells because you can jam the radar in VT fuses. Anyway, IMHO airbursts from mechanical time fuses were very significant. It's what you shot at troops in the open. And it's why the grunts hated the 88 as much as tankers--being a flak gun, it had a lot of time-fused HE shells available to airburst over grunts. -Bullethead

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>'Oderint dum metuant' Bullethead, shouldn't your handle be Caligula?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> That's the motto of my Air Warrior squadron, the Cactus Air Force. I use that picture as my signature in our own message board. -Bullethead

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>What happens when a FO team dies?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Good question. Hope it gets answered . Brings up another point. Seems to me in CM that when an FO calls for a fire mission, the OBA battery will keep shooting and expend all remaing rounds unless you cancel the target. Now, in my *modern* experience, an FO isn't going to set up a fire mission that way. First, that's too open to wasting ammo. Second, you need to stop shooting periodically to let the smoke and dust settle enough so you can see if you need a repeat. So instead, the FO's going to specify a specific number of rounds of FFE (as well as type of round and fuse). Once the FO gives the signal to FFE, the battery will shoot this specified number of rounds (if available) and then stop. I'm pretty sure WW2 FOs did things this way, too. Is there any hope of getting this feature in CM? It would really help in conserving OBA ammo if we could specify the number of rounds to shoot. Also, will it be possible to call for airbursts with mechanical or variable time fuses? -Bullethead

Having the crew unable to unbutton after the TC buys it seems good to me. It may not be the ideal solution in every case, but I think it's quite accurate for the great majority of situations where the TC dies. SimonFox said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>You're getting mortared, the TC is wounded by shrapnel but the barrage ends or a near miss knocks the hatch down on his head but you take out the gun firing at it. In all these circumstances plus many others (which are far from exceptional) the immediate threat which caused the TC casualty has gone or ceased and in a lot less than 15 turns.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yeah, but what's to stop the enemy from shooting again if somebody else pokes his head out? You already know they can bring effective fire on the TC's hatch. Also, the other guys in the tank probably didn't see what blew the TC's head off. The loader can't see outside at all, the gunner has total tunnel vision in his sight, and the other guys aren't much better off. And with the noise from the engine, tracks, and the tank's own weapons, plus all the other shooting going on and various debris and stray rounds hitting the tank all the time, sound isn't going to help them identify the threat, either. So they usually have no idea where the threat is or what it is. Is it a sniper in a distant building or a guy standing on the back deck with a pistol? Was the TC's throat ripped open by a mortar fragment or a deformed bullet glancing off the turret top? You've already seen what it did to the boss--are you in any hurry to see if it can do the same to you? As for the tank being immobilized for a while, that seems reasonable to me. Tankers have to assume they're always under enemy observation due to tank size, noise, and threat/target value. So it's generally a safe bet that anything that CAN shoot at them IS shooting at them (which is why grunts usually hate tanks next to them--they draw a LOT of fire). Odds are, therefore, whatever got the TC wasn't a serious anti-armor threat--otherwise, they'd probably have a new hole in the armor. So that means they're in a relatively safe spot right now--no ATGs or tanks shooting at them. Thus, it would be better to stay put while getting sorted out again instead of blundering blindly into the killzone of a big gun. As for the apparent contradiction of BTS saying "the crew is reshuffling" but nobody new subsequently appears in the TC's hatch, there is still a lot of "reshuffling" needed even if nobody permanently changes seats. Whether dead or wounded, the most-likely head-shot TC is going to be flopping and kicking around inside the cramped confines of the turret, spraying blood and brains all over the optics, controls, and other crewmen. The gunner and loader are going to have to secure the body (and bandage it, if still alive), pass it down below out of the way, and clean up the mess enough to be able to shoot again. The guys below in the hull will also be involved in this process. This will all be more complicated if a wounded TC is screaming or gurgling loudly on the intercomm, making coordination of these tasks very difficult. So, a few minutes later, you have the TC's remains all squared away. Dealing with this has absorbed your total attention so you have lost track of what's going on outside. You now have even less idea how dangerous it is out there than you did before. You have the TC's blood all over you. Are you going to stick your head out? I don't think so. -Bullethead

Fionn said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>As for Myth I'm one of those who owned neithe Myth nor Myth II./ They're real-time you see and I don't do much real-time strategy gaming.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I get this a lot whenever I bring up Myth amongst grognards . Bungie called Myth an RTS game because it's sho'nuff realtime and it's definitely not historical. I guess they did this to cash in on the C&C/Warcraft RTS mania going on at the time. It must have paid off for them, but it had the unfortunate effect of keeping wargamers away from it . Deal is, Myth is a purely tactical wargame. DYO your force for that particular stand-alone battle and go for it, none of that RTS base-building crap. Myth is basically the same thing as Close Combat or Sid's Gettysburg. The only thing it has in common with the C&C-type game is realtime. Of course, Myth isn't a serious wargame. It's all about how big a pile of body parts you can make . Still, it's a wargame and a lot of fun. Real tactical principles apply, etc. You should try it when you feel the need to let your hair down . -Bullethead

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Hey, when was that picture taken? When I saw the Bovington Camp JT (9 years ago) it was painted base yellow with standard green and redbrown camo on it. That looks to be the very late war grey-green job that was applied to many.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> That picture was taken in June 1997. I was also at the museum in December 1991 and didn't see the JT then. However, at that time they were driving the tanks around inside the building rearranging exhibits and most of them were all jammed together against the walls--hard to see even something as big as a JT . But I got to see them move, hear the noise, smell the smells, and even got to help guide some into position . The museum does periodically repaint things, though. Their JP in 97 had the paintjob you describe for the JT, but in 91 it had a really strange tan/brown/white stripe job. -Bullethead

Fionn said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>http://combathq.thegamers.net<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Thanks. I'll be sure to victimize you with whatever crap I create -Bullethead

Steve said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>BTW, you should discover the joys of UBB's quoting parameters...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hey, at least I had the initiative to improvise my own field expedient method . <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>AH! Now I see what you mean ... you have a warped mind like Fionn<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I KNOW you've got to be a closet WW2-Myth crossbreeder, too . Whenever somebody camped on me in an LMOTH game, I always wished from some off-board arty to teach him a lesson. And can you imagine the point-blank schlachtfests around the rim of the volcano crater on a map like "For Carnage" ? -Bullethead

Moon said: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Captain, check out the message board FAQ section...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Now you've created a monster This is me at the Tank Museum at Bovington Camp.

Scott C said: >>>>>>> I think I may hold the record - 97-3 as Germans in Reisberg. <<<<<<<< Awesome! I'm also interested in the relative value of casualties and objectives. I assume the scenario designer can set the points value of objectives, but how many points are units worth so we can have some basis of comparison between them and objectives? It looks like US grunt/crew/team casualties are worth about 1 victory % point (not final score point) each in Riesburg, but is that a constant thing in all scenarios and for all types/qualities of troop? BTW, I have seen the AI Germans counterattack to defend the main Riesburg objective before I quite got there. The has resulted in some NASTY grenade duels at 10m and less range in the heavy woods right across the street from this building . -Bullethead

Fionn said: >>>>>>>>> I think that I'll simply make 3 or 4 categories ranging from "I researched every single tank type and used satellite maps for the map-making" to " hey, I had a cool idea about what would happen to 25 Shermans vs 2 JagdTigers... Here's the scenario " <<<<<<<<<< Very good idea. For future reference, where can we find this place? >>>>>>>>> I for one would love to see people converting lots of conflicts modelled poorly in other games to CM <<<<<<<<<<< Or even well-modeled boardgame scenarios that you just want to see in CM. Yup, I plan on plagiarizing all my favorite SL and ASL scenarios . -Bullethead

Steve said: >>>>>> Bullethead .... I think you totally underestimate how many "plausible", but not historical, scenarios you can make. <<<<<<<<< I guess I didn't express myself well on this score. Sure, with all the different types of units included in the game, the number of believable confrontations you could make is very high--much higher than we'll see get uploaded, I'm quite sure . What I meant was, despite all the variation you can have in OOBs and terrain, you still have only a few basic types of fight happening. Mostly meeting engagements, raids, attacks/advances, deliberate assaults, and a few others. IOW, although your tactics each time will have to be based on the units and terrain involved, you still have one of the same old missions to accomplish. True, this is a limitation imposed by the nature of war, not due to any feature of CM itself. It's what you see in real life, and as such, it's what you see in all wargames. Nothing wrong with this--lotsa fun, gives you realistic tasks and decision-making, etc. etc. This is why we all play wargames. And CM's ability to deliver this with such quality is why we're all in a state of rapture over it. But, even so, it WILL be nice to break the mold once in a while. CM's editor will give us the ability to invent totally new mission/battle types that have no basis in reality, except for the units involved and the mechanics of how they interact. Just-for-fun stuff. While I certainly plan to spend the bulk of my CM time playing historical or plausible scenarios, I also plan to embrace the off-the-wall potentials of the game wholeheartedly . -Bullethead