Mark IV

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Commissar: The Jagdpanther is nice and everything but the real champ of the TD is the Hetzer. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> They also bog a hell of a lot less. The best antidote to a Jagdpanther is a rainy day. Not so "uber" when the Stuarts start swarming around their backsides.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slapdragon: I think we need to have a Carolina get together for those of us in the heart of the states of succession.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> States of succession? Get a rope. Damned carpet-baggin' Iowa yankees don't know a cardinal from an ordinal (that'd be St. Louis vs. Baltimore, I reckon. Yup.) That's why Michigan had to bail your a$$ out of the Civil War. If they had succeeded, there would either be two Americas, or one following another. Since they Seceded, we had to fight to keep them in the Union, so that no matter what we will always be bigger than Australia, and have more and bigger Bass Pro Shops than anybody, even if China starts their own People's Bass Collective. Hope the get-together happens for y'all. Look out for Greenville, it's DRY. What a concept.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Joe Shaw: ...that foul stench in the nostrils of humanity Lawyer... we'll ignore his well known antipathy toward ME...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think it a cheap shot to slam Lawyer for the sole sentiment he shares with sentient, honorable readers of this thread. I hasten to congratulate Foobar to the ranks of the, well, rank. Soon there will be a sudkalifornische armeegruppe to be reckoned with, you limp-wristed easterners. Soon. Likewise to Roborat, whose semi-annual posts I have often scorned. I actually read one of OGSF's posts aloud today, and the neighbor's spaniel nearly died laughing. It has promised to paw it out in English for me. I will reciprocate by transcribing the Compleat Works of Peng onto a refrigerator magnet to affix to his little dish. Note to Peng: It is not suddenly overcast, say "incoming". I am not amused at Elite Rambonian halftracks that shrug off AT penetrations as "lower hull, try again later" and keep on coming. That thing stopped Tigers in their tracks in RL and I don't care what you modded onto that stupid HT's stinking hull, you are so gonna diediedie. All the best.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B: I have a screen shot of the endgame stat thing for every PBEM I've played (and finished). I haven't bothered to add up any stats though.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Same here, exactly. As the song says, "I know they'd never match my sweet imagination..." But they're probably alright.

Despite the popular subject matter, "Bugger Peng" is perilously close to the bottom of the page, while the insouciant Washingtonians drink their little guts out. I am still sick. I am still at work. I still don't have a final-final on the mortgage. Worse, I appear to have started a debate with a mega-grog on a subject so esoteric that I'm not even sure what I was disagreeing with, except that it appears bad tanks are better than good tanks in the long run. I cannot argue with the evidence. It's just not my best day. Turns out soon, I'm sure, may your putrescent corpses burst simultaneously. TGIF. Why not load your guns, grab a bottle, and go for a drive?

Jeez. It's a wonder they release anything at all. A bug in a picture... jeez.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Joe Shaw: Damn it Agua Perdido, did I teach you NOTHING as my squire? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hand lotion, really. Mental prophylactics changed my life forever, and I have practiced safe and mutually satisfactory thinking ever since. If only I could find a consenting brain....

I am just trying to understand the flash of insight here which sweeps all our chess pieces from the table. We got from: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Armor grog differences are a tactical factor. They are important indeed at a small enough scale. But armies have enough ways of dealing with events on a small scale (reinforcement, echelon effects giving local odds, attrition and more rapid replacement, local or operational maneuver, concentration of fire support, etc) that they simply do not amplify upward to higher echelon effects. Instead, they are strongly damped as the scale of analysis increases. By the time you are at the level of operational, month-long campaigns, tactical gun and armor effects have evaporated - lost in the noise of other factors at that level. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> ...to a summary of inflated kill ratios from line units. The argument seems to be that tactics win battles, logistics win wars, etc. We are mostly familiar with that. But opposing an enemy with groggier tanks than your own requires greater logistical superiority and local effort, doesn't it? The Allies had that when it mattered, and yes, they won the war (the Most Telling of All Points which cannot be debated). But would they have won as handily with worse tanks? Would it have been shorter or less costly with better tanks? Surely you're not arguing that armor quality doesn't matter, but that costly imbalances on the local level can be dealt with on the operational level, provided the resources are there? If the guy with tactical superiority also had logistical superiority, his win would be far less costly. This is difficult to replicate, but Desert Storm does seem to fit the bill. If the guy with better tanks is at a logistical break-even, he's going to win. '67 and '73 Arab-Israeli Wars seem to bear that out. If OPFOR has better tanks, I will need more tanks and other stuff to defeat him than if OPFOR does not have better tanks. Many of your examples are of numerically imbalanced situations, and you simply extend the validity window until the Germans lose the war, the final judgement. But what if the breakout from Normany had been with Allied Panthers and the Germans had been defending with short 75 Shermans? Would surrender have been in May '45? Would Allied losses be the same? How many unsheltered infantry were parked under German HE for how much extra time, because of tank inferiority fears? Aren't better tanks, well, better? If the argument is that the Germans were doomed to lose by the sheer industrial logistics of the thing, no argument. But in CM terms tank quality certainly makes a difference, and the guy with lesser tanks certainly has to adapt his tactics to accommodate the difference. He should have higher losses, especially if he wins an attack. WWII was not composed of day-in, day-out CM level engagements, and some of your operational examples beg further analysis. The US and USSR were REQUIRED to make up the early shortfalls in technology with numbers. The fact is that they could. Had it been closer, battlefield technical superiority might have made the difference, as wars don't occur in vacuums. Had the whole affair become too costly, the US might have said "not our war, anyway" and gone home to shore up the beaches. That was Hitler's pipe dream, anyway. Perhaps you are arguing that tanks don't matter in the long run, as bombing/nuking/LRRPing/EWing/nonlethaling, etc., make the real difference. Maybe so, but I don't get it in the context of WWII CMBO. We had the logistics to get more metal across the Atlantic, but we needed to in order to make up the inequity on the actual battlefields. Overkill tank numbers at the end were the result of unchecked production running into the usual statistics of a disintegrating enemy in retreat with already-inferior home production methods in a shambles. Better tanks are more better. I am a little puzzled about your point, here.

Nomonhan was a case of much better tanks being led by a much better tank commander (Zhukov) in perfect tank country, against a fanatical enemy who had much worse tanks and less idea what to do with them. Both had lots of field artillery and airplanes, to boot. The tanks are what made the great Soviet encirclements possible, however. The 45mm Russki guns shot the junky Japanese tanks to pieces, and the Imperial forces were powerless to stop them (they had better luck with their version of Molotov cocktails). To an extent, superior tanks led to superior tactics, because the Russian realized what he could "get away with", operationally speaking. Net result of a huge month-long operation was a total Japanese defeat, which might well have been averted with an even comparable tank to the T-28s, BT5s and 7s, and ACs the Russians had (I don't think there were many- if any- T-34s in this battle). As with any operation this size there were many contributing factors to the outcome, but I believe the tanks made the difference (so did the Russian and Japanese commanders). If the Japanese had had the equivalent of a Pz III it would have been a lot different, and WWII would have changed dramatically if the Japanese had been victorious there.

The Bald One shot down my titles too! Why should the only person here with standards, be someone who is not here, I ask? I am still ill, but managing to send out turns, and never getting any back. The list of shame grows. Peng, jd, Joe Xia, Wildman... 'tis truly a world gone mad when Seanachai is the most reliable correspondent (only because he's blowing me up), and an assortment of scruffy nonpudlians.

Cool site. CMBO also made his list of Quintessential Wargames for Military Professionals Never saw this one before.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JasonC: Why did they pass over it anyway?... They should have spent the LAV money on more lift capable of using the Brad.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> One complaint of the Brad is that the gun is just too small for the urban warfare likely to be part of a 21st century mission. They want an air-deliverable building knocker-downer that will fit in streets. Like the Sheridan, or like the Wiesel, "the Ontos that works". Recoilless, non-wire-guided tubes with big HE capabilities, and no recoil to trip up a light little platform, has some merit. So do short big-bore cannon (for HE and cannister) with ATGM capabilities (for main battle tanks). The 25mm just doesn't make masonary disappear like the big guns did. Neat little vehicles, but the infantry still feels outgunned in urban environments.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JasonC: I have a different challenge. I would like those who think gun-n-armor grog stuff ever mattered at the operational level to name a single large campaign in which such factors proved decisive. Any front, any time in the whole war... In the such-and-such campaign, the ability of the Whatsis to defeat the Dosits led to this victory for the Whatsis side. You won't find them. They aren't there.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Nomonhan? The ability of the Red Army's superior armor to defeat the Japanese tanks led to this victory for the Soviet side. Oversimplification, I know... but you asked.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Spook: I disagree in principle...(snip) Thus for me, it is those patches (and downloading/using same), and the scope of the patch fixes, that instills a sense of obligation in me to follow through with CMBB, even if I wasn't interested in the Eastern Front.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Well, I wish everyone disagreed with me like that... you ended up in the same place I am. I suppose I should have used a smiley in the original... When I look at the computer games I've bought, divided by hours spent playing (and controlled for hours lost to bugs), CMBO is pennies per hour. Maybe per day. I once snagged Steel Panthers out of the bargain bin for $1.82, but I'll bet this still divides out better. To me Combat Mission has been the difference between a decent game about WWII, and a front-row seat with a backstage pass to WWII. Nothing else has come close. Peng ate my smilies.

I think you should wait and see CMBB before blowing it off altogether. You may find your interest in the eastern front growing, as so many have with the West just because of CMBO. Pure gamers with no particular historical affinities will have to love the engine improvements, the variety of units, and the sheer scope of battles in the East. If you mostly PBEM, who cares what kind of vehicle your opponent has, as long as it blows up real good? Of course the East is also where most of WWII was fought... but that alone won't make a satisfactory gaming experience for everyone. I think BTS can be relied upon to make a GAME even more exciting than CMBO, even if one's father or grandfather wasn't on one of the sides. Anyway, I think each of us who has enjoyed CMBO has a moral obligation to order CMBB, to make up for the original being so cheap.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lawyer: You already got a FREE movie from me.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I earned it, I won it fair and square. Not like it was lots of work, but merely corresponding with you is like bathing in tubs of flatulent maggots. As for the Big Lie: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>"Jake, you are the best CM player I have ever met!" <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> "I am not a crook, the check's in the mail, and I did not have sex with that Panzer." Have you no sense of (let's just skip shame, for obvious reasons) culpability? ...and if you act RIGHT NOW, get this free pamphlet with ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW to make your PzIVs COMPLETELY INVULNERABLE TO ENEMY BULLETS!!! Sound too good to be true? Find out what successful Panzer Leaders (god, I hate bolding that) have known for centuries!!!!! CALL NOW!!!!!!! Join the Mark IV club for men with this SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY OFFER!!!!!!!!! (Inquire about our BABE'S HALF OFF Lady's discounts!!!!!!!!!!!!)

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ben Galanti: PFs can be fired at a 'non-targeted' unit. So the squad can be taregtting some other infantry unit, and it may still fire it's PFs.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Horrible memories... pinning a German squad in the woods in front of the church in Chance Encounter with infantry fire, a hot firefight taking place between them, when a P'faust arcs at right angles from the Axis unit's firing line and ignites the whole friggin' church. Didn't know they could do that. I had most of a platoon inside ready to open up from the unprotected angle... needless to say they ran like chickens with their heads cut off (RLCWTHCO?) directly into the LOS of known, oblique MGs about 50m away and died a lot. Been much less of a church(and building)goer ever since. Damn you JWorthing wherever you are.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally regurgitated by MrSpkr: Isn't there a more appropriate place for this sort of twaddle... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Well, now it's here twice, isn't it? And that's because we didn't edit our post, isn't it? Rather like sniffing it, touching it, tasting it, and then being glad we didn't step in it... eh? I am not sure MrSpkr is modeled correctly. Please fix, eksetera, as the Sooners say. On to other things: I have a nasty cold or a flu or a touch of leprosy or have whiffed some Sarin. Therefore, I am rather cross, as much as if to say it has had little effect on me at all, other than an increasingly phlegmatic outlook on these denizens. If any of you are lucky enough to receive turns from me, I recommend wiping them off a bit before proceeding. The timely arrival of my latest installment of "Band of Brothers" prevents me from hating the mortgage community as completely as they deserve, the little leeches. It was because of them that Lawyers had to be invented in the first place, and the cure turned out worse than the disease, as they offer the washed masses of the Outer Board FREE BEER, but we, who tolerated them when no decent folk would, get NOTHING. Atchoo. Obligatory CM content: Most of mine enemies are AWOL or killing me or else not. Mostly not. Seanachai has had some success by attempting absolutely nothing, especially things involving motor vehicles. I was unprepared for this, as the routine preparatory destruction of his entire armored force has preceeded all our earlier battles. This time he has just scrapped them all ahead of time to throw me off. Atchoo.

All their MGs aren't necessarily disabled, only the coaxial MG. The coax mounts in the same fixture as the main gun and points wherever the main gun points. It is also sighted with the same optics. The gun hit apparently has jarred the mounting/aiming/shooting stuff for the front of the turret, and thus affects everything that is controlled from there. Gun hits don't just model bent barrels, but anything which renders the gun inop, including hits to the optics. Once they're gone, they're gone for all the coaxially mounted weapons, including the cannon AND the coaxial MG. Bow MG should still work fine, if so equipped. I now consider a gun hit-tank a wholly disabled tank, and retreat him off the battlefield unless he is in the thick of enemy infantry, because that is what a real tank crew would do. Otherwise they are expensive bullet magnets which can no longer contribute to the battle, but which could be returned to active service another day with some relatively minor maintenance.

Yep, it will fire smoke sometimes. Was the Gun Green too? You could picture this: Gun: Well, those greenies are screwed now, here comes a Vet Ami platoon. Cmdr: Shoot that house and collapse it on them. Gun: That will take numerous shots, because houses are too strong, and the most of the Vets will survive, because houses are too weak. They will be unhappy and shoot at ME. I will shoot smoke instead and protect my own breechblock ‘cause those greenies are screwed anyway. Greenies: AHHaahharrgh. Arty: Guns! We hates guns! Gun: AHHaahharrgh. Sounds like there was a bit of trouble in Greenville already....

Jake, you have the tactical acumen of a ground squirrel in traffic. I can't collect the beer, so the truth must be told. But you owe me one for bumping your thread, in support of drinking CMers and CMing drinkers everywhere.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Elvis: OH...and did I ever mention that I find numbering of turns to be both annoying and unnecessary.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> If we start disqualifying things on the basis of being annoying and unnecessary, most of the thread (not to mention the Outer Board) would be gone. Nearly on page 2 as it is. Where's me turns, you offal sacks? I'm going to have to start reading books if this keeps up.

One of our dearly departed brethren once described the "Newbie With Attitude" (NWA). There is abuse of newbies, and then there is abuse by newbies. I don't recall seeing many newbies attacked here on the basis of being newbies alone. The attacks (much too harsh a word, in most actual cases) come when a newbie shows up to set BTS/the rest of us straight, as though we had all just fallen to earth. "My (dead unit) got killed, this sucks." "If you modeled x, then why isn't there y?" "Why didn't you ever think of (pet feature)?" Many of the old-timers were here before the demo was released, and some were actually discussing WWII before CM was even thought of, and many of them really have heard it all before. To be fair, a REAL FAQ with a great honking button at the top of the forum screen would go a long way toward reducing these incidents. In the meanwhile, a moment's reflection before hitting Submit would spare a lot of feelings: "Let's see, WWII fanatics have been living and breathing this game for the last 2 years... is it even possible that they may collectively arrived at this same conclusion, and/or dismissed it, before I arrived?", and so forth. Even without this insight, most newbies have been welcomed with open arms and relatively gentle and reasonable pointers to Search, which admittedly sucks, these days. It's all about attitude.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by GravesRegistration: ...the Psychic link that guns and tanks have on the map where they all turn and fire onto a single building. (often with units downstairs that no attacker can see)... ...And what shocks me the most is i have now seen many builings go down from 20mm or a hand grenade. (including knocking down a building entirely with 20mm) Hell if a 20mm can drop a 4 story department store block made of stone and brick ...If the new CM does not take care of the cardboard buildings and 2 dimentional rubble, battles like Stalingrad will be impossible to even attempt to simulate. Additionaly the most MISSING thing when one of these flimsy buildings explode is that they leave NO dust or smoke or anything... Hey and whats up with there being NO AA mg's on ANY german vehicle.. by 1945 almost every kraut AFV had an AA mount as they had completely lost air superiority.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Wonder if we're playing the same game? What kind of AA is missing from German AFVs? They (mostly) have roof-mounted MGs and they shoot them at Jabos, always have, provided they're not suppressed. The problem with 20mms and grenades dropping 4-story buildings must be due to the mods you're using (mine are all 2-story???). When a grenade drops a building in CM, it is already "**" from other sources, and the grenade was just the last straw. A real 20mm would chew up a light one-story building in CM pretty quick. The .50 doesn't have HE loads. You must be using 20mms a lot. Tsk, tsk, gamey, you know. The big bubble when the building "explodes" IS the dust cloud, not the explosion. It is not persistent for LOS purposes like a real dust cloud, but it is not a 5 kiloton shock wave either. Dunno where the psychic link comes in, or if you're referring to the AI or PBEM opponents, but the AI is not one to indulge recon by fire much. If he is firing live ammo then he's spotted something. AI's biggest failing is firing smoke at things he should be throwing real bombs at. Answer? Play humans (the bastards). These have all been discussed and are often a result of a first-generation sim that was breaking a lot of new ground. BTS has acknowledged some areas that fall short of perfection, and alluded to advances yet to be seen in CMBB. You completely missed the American robin call, for instance... [ 09-22-2001: Message edited by: Mark IV ]

With all of the considerable respect due BTS, a Search that worked better and an upfront Battlefront FAQ would forestall a lot of this rehashing. Maybe after CMBB? The only way a newbie is really going to do something that is "terribly gamey that might drastically effect a game" is to terminate himself early, through lack of familiarity with the weapons and tactics of WWII. The exception would be buying an army of "heavies" in violation of a gentleman's agreement to force restrictions, which is really a different issue. I really don't understand the general objection to setting buildings on fire or blowing them up. There are some obvious gamey possibilities, like encircling a VL with flame, although I have never seen that done (and doubt that many others have, either). A commander is always free to use, or waste, ammo as he sees fit. If I was a covering force for a retreat, and in pulling out of the position could deny a heavy building to the following enemy with a flick of the Ronson, I would. It so happens that the only function for doing this is with a flamethrower (well, you could fire a bazooka a couple of times ). I don't really want to debate that here, other than to point that if that's considered gamey by some, then all that that proves is there are two schools of thought on the subject, like so many others, and thus enough doubt to err in favor of player creativity. People started fires in WWII. Charging MGs: We know that Run abstracts some of the lowest-level aspects of squad movement, including leap-frogging within the squad, taking advantage of obstacles too small to appear on the map, etc. As attackers it is incumbent upon us to take MGs out. We cannot simply surround them with crime-scene tape and skirt them to avoid offense. I like to wear them down, suppress with a mortar or my own MG, then bring them under close fire with one squad while rushing with another. If they are unsupported, they SHOULD be overrun, since that is how many were taken out in RL. When they model variable rates of fire in CMBB I'll probably do the same thing, just a lot more carefully... you can't just concede the map to the enemy because he has an MG parked in the handicapped space. CMBB sounds like fun. I think I'll buy it.