Lee

NO. Will cause nothing but trouble.

Ah, Steve. Spoil sport. ;0 What, no good models?

Oh man, the notion of poking around in that town is frightening. Looks exceedingly dangerous...

Who needs to reload with a Sturmtiger? Hehe. Seriously, even if you only got 3 or 4 reloads in one battle, that is enough to have one big potential effect on the engagement when you are dealing with something of the power of a Sturmtiger.

007, Starfleet Command is an excellent translation of Starfleet Battles. It's not perfect, but then again, SFB is so complicated that you can't implement everything the first time out. And SFC II will have at least 4 more races and many more features of SFB added in. It will only get better as time goes on. If anyone here likes the idea of getting to fight detailed tactical Star Trek starship battles in space, then try out Starfleet Command from Interplay, I think you'll be impressed. There's a demo available, too.

I'm with Richard, the Sturmtiger is a must; it is just WAY to cool to not be in CM. You have to love any armored beast that hurls a 380 mm(!) projectile at you. OUCH! You don't want to be anywhere near where that thing hits.

Hmm, the best fight music ever? I'd like to hear it, give me your e-mail and maybe you could send it over to me? The address you have listed doesn't work.

Steve, I agree that having the tank crews do this each and every time at exactly the right angle is not the ideal way to simulate this tactic. I would fully support having it be a random chance heavily weighted towards more experienced crews (thus green crews would rarely use it, while elite crews would be pretty likely to use it). And you might also want to have a variable for the amount of offset that the tank commander decides to use, with the more experienced crews much more likely to use heavy offsets like 30 degrees. This variable number might be something like anywhere between 5 deg. and 30 deg. or whatever you think is a good idea. And, of course, you could also limit it to the heavier german tanks if you so choose. Just throwing out ideas here, Steve. But I think you're on the right track with making the AI's thinking on this a bit unpredictable.

LOl, Tom. I shall attend. P.S. I heard a rumor that Steve will be announcing tonight the recent inclusion of the Stuka G-1 in CM. And furthermore, it will be made available to my forces retroactively for my game with Fionn and will begin it's attack run on turn 10.

I like the implementation proposed by Fionn on this issue. This would very nicely simulate what I mentioned in my post about only the more experienced crews really benefitting fully from the use of this advanced tactic. By graduating the offset based on skill you simulate the difference between moderately skilled tank crews and real pros that would use maximum practical offset to it's full advantage. Of course, there is one issue that comes up when you add this sort of thing to the AI. What if you anticipate a threat coming from the flank where an offset would present far too much exposure to a clean high angle shot on your side armor? In this case you may very well want the crew to face the frontal threat square rather than take the risk of presenting an ideal flank shot to a threat that might pop out of the woods at any moment on your right or left front quarter. This could be addressd by adding a toggle command that could be changed for each turn (this would only apply to the order menus of tanks and such). The command would be something like "Use/Do not use armor offset". But, even if Steve and Charles chose not to add this additional menu command option, I think there's enough evidence and importance to this German tank tactic that it should be included in CM. And, on the whole, it wouldn't hurt the German commander in most situations to have it implemented. So the extra menu option wouldn't be essential. I think this is an example of where a tweak to the AI will really benefit the historical and tactical realism of CM. As to exactly which tanks this tactic was used in by the Germans, I don't know. But it would seem that it was at least used by the heavy German armor.

Hmm... As Steve points, out not all German tanks had the advantage of the tiger's impressive side armor, thus making the move more risky for lesser armored machines. I would say include this tactic for any German vehicle at or above the tiger's side armor level, but only for crews at the veteran or higher level of experience/skill. This would very nicely simulate the specialized training of the German heavy tank crews in this maneuver and yet only apply to crews with enough nerve and skill to try such a tactic. I think it's important to include this special tank crew behavior, even if it only apllies to a fairly limited number of tanks/tank destroyers. It adds another layer to that very important depth and subtlety of the battlefield environment that CM is becoming famous for (already famous for those of us in the know ). And furthermore, it's the sort of realistic refinement to the combat model that can and will have a significant effect on your average tactical engagement involving heavy German armor. Thus, I think it's well worth including.

I can tell you from firsthand experience that just a browning .30 cal. machine gun is a load. And the MG42 with a HMG tripod and a generous supply of ammo/barrels would be one daunting amount of weight for a team to be toting around, much less running with it.

Vetch, another option would be to use the TCP/IP connection option that will be included in the full version of CM. This, I imagine, will allow the extremely fast and easy sending of turns back and forth by the simple hitting of a "send" button. This, no doubt, will greatly ease the hassle of sending turns back and forth manually with an e-mail program. Also, hopefully once the file is sent it will be auto-uploaded by CM ready for the player to plot his next orders or watch the movie without having to tell CM to load the file by hand. This would make for a nice streamlined hands-off exchanging of files. P.S. I should add that the players should have an option for the file to not auto-upload when it arrives from their opponents, in case they want to just hold onto the file for use later when the games resumes after a break. [This message has been edited by Lee (edited 11-09-99).]

Ah, but John, you said you sent the *same* e-mail to player C. So, I was right.

This wouldn't work. Because both player B and player C would be playing the allied side, haha.

kt: Hehe. That is one tot cat. Ouch, must have been one nasty arty barrage...

Yep, I agree Jim, CM is the finest tactical WWII wargame ever (by far). You make smiley's by typing a colon : , then a right parentheses ) . And a wink is done by using a semicolon ; instead of the colon. Simple and intuitive. Hope that helps.

Lol. Hehe. See you tomorrow, PanzerShark.

Congratulations on getting the beta demo out, guys. I know you fellows must have put in some monster hours to get this out ASAP. Thanks for the effort, it's appreciated. I look forward to getting in some games with you guys from the board. A new age in tactical land combat wargaming has dawned this day, may there be many sequels to CM.

Nice to have you back, Michael. Nothing else quite like old comrades.

tgra: Battles can be 120 minutes long in CM, so there is more time available than you might think. But it seems unlikely that that much time would be needed for your typical battle.

Spraycans akimbo...lol, a sight sure to strike fear into the hearts of any foe. 8) I'm rather partial to the tommy gun, myself.

Sage: Hehe. I especially like the part about Brunhilde and the jap monster flick.

Thanks for the AAR's guys. They were a lot of fun to read, and were well written. One of things that I liked was the AAR's being written *as* the orders and action phases were happening respectively for each turn. This way there was no benefit of hindsight when writing your thoughts turn by turn, but instead we saw exactly what you were thinking and planning *before* you had the benefit of seeing how the combat in the next action phase would turn out. I think that made a big difference in the quality and immersion of the reports. And, of course, the AAR's gave me a good feel for what CM will play like (only a lot more so in person, I'm sure ). Sounds like tremendous fun. And what's REALLY cool about this whole thing is that not only will CM look great, sound great and have an incredible interface but it will ALSO be *super* realistic. Wow. There's never been a wargame of this sort that could really claim that before. Who says you can't have your cake and eat it, too?

I'll say this, that is one good looking battlefield. That's the thing about 3D, with current technology it can't be made to look as intricate and minutely detailed as really good 2D graphics. Well, not without mega horsepower, and PC's don't have that.