Pak40

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Panzerman: a hole squad.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> what's a hole squad?

Oh god have I noticed. I made a Son Bridge Op and a historical version of Arnhem Bridge Op (not the one that comes with CM). The computer AI is horrible with rivers and bridges. It seems as though the strategic AI doesn't even notice the river. Computer controlled germans will simply advance toward the opposite side of the board and run into the river, never really knowing that the bridge is the objective and the only way to cross. If BTS were to put victory flags in Operations then the computer controlled units would place high value on a bridge with a Flag, and as a result, you'd see the computer units actually moving towards the bridge. The Tac AI(which you're talking about) is a different story but I personally havn't had too much trouble crossing bridges with infantry.

Well, I always play with one of the preset force restrictions (combined arms, infantry, mechanized, armor) and never with the unrestricted setting that could allow a person to buy such a rocket arsenal. What's the fun in playing someone like this? The rockets are shot and then the game is over. There's no strategy or tactics or any actual combat, sounds pretty lame to me.

I visit the Generally Forum almost every day now. It's a great place for us wargamers to chat about other wargames and simulations as well as historic topics.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B: Yeah, I did this in a PBEM a while back. I used it with a 251/1 to nail a Greyhound on the first burst, but it was very short range, like 100m. It's the only time in recent memory I've used ambush with a vehicle (a practice I try to avoid).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> How on earth did you kill a Greyhound with at 251/1?

Scipio, You have valid points and I hope that some day BTS will address them. As for why they didn't code all of this into CMBO, it was primarily due to time constaints and resource constraints. BTS, a SMALL independent software company had very limited resources compared to your typical software company that has support from a larger and more powerful publisher. BTS had to draw a scope for the game to fit within their budget and time frame. I'm sure they would have loved to program all the things you mentioned (and hundreds of other things) but it just wasn't possible to fit it into their scope at that time. If they had attempted to make the "perfect wargame" then you wouldn't have seen CMBO until late 2001 instead of summer of 2000. BTS now has some more resources, although they are still very small, and an existing engine to build from. They also have a lot more experience AND a lot more help from us, the consumer than they did 2 years ago when CMBO was in full production. My point is that we should all wait and be patient because BTS is and will be constantly improving Combat Mission until it is molded into a more ideal or perfect tactical wargame. What you call "doubts" I call "anticipation" because I know that someday BTS will put these and many other features into Combat Mission.

As many before me have stated, the key to the Priest is to use it in an anti-infantry role. And the key to successfully using it as anti-infantry is to find that one little nook or cranny where your Priest has a LOS to an infantry target but is out of LOS of all your enemy's anti-armor units, using trees, buildings, and earth to do this. Always keep your Priest close to a quick escape route, for instance, backing him up 10 feet will put him completly behind a building or hill. Your opponent will obviously relocate his tanks to try and snipe your Priest but you must be one step ahead of your opponent and anticipate this move. Don't try and duke it out with your Priest, he has a slow rate of fire and bad accuracy. City busting is it's strongest role.

the forest will offer better concealment until you open up fire, but treebursts from artillery will kill the gun quickly. Hiding directly behind a stone wall can offer concealment unless an enemy unit gets within 200 or so yards, maybe a little less. He'll die quickly from gun or heavy tank fire unless he KOs the tanks first. I personally like the trees better, but it depends on the field of fire.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by YECoyote: a lifetime of a CD is about 10 years. By the time the CD wears out, BTS will probably release CMXXX:Conquest of Earth. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think that's more like 100 years for burned CDs. An unburned CD I think is more like 10 years before it needs to be burned. sunlight will damage a CD though.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Banshee: Not Surprisingly I find this thread infinetly more entertaining than the Peng thread. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Maybe they could rename this thread to "El Peng".

Use the TARGET WIDE command to get the wider barrage spread that resembles your second picture. The actual pattern the shells fall has little to do with how the guns are spread. IIRC, forward observers were usually able to request either a tight barrage(TARGET) or a wider barrage(TARGET WIDE)- I forget the actual terms for these (convergence?), maybe someone else can post them. I know I've seen this before in another thread. As for the wood bridge and the Heavy tanks, you do have a point. However, I think most stone bridges could hold a KT. It all depends on the each bridges construction and condition. It wouldn't be practical to model thousands of different bridges just to account for the different weight capacities. [ 07-12-2001: Message edited by: Pak40 ]

Well, theoretically the bazooka should have a better chance to hit since it's able to be shot farther. In other words, what's long range for the piat will be more like upper-medium range for the bazooka, medium range for the shrek, and short range for a puppchen. But this theory can be proven/disproven if you make a scenario with all of the AT teams equal distant from and enemy tank (use tanks that have similar silouette ratings). use the target command to get the % to hit, then see who comes out on top.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Another interface change is the addition of hierarchical military structures, the ability to mark a unit as "1st Squad, 1st Platoon, E Company, 3rd Battalion," rather than make do with a generic label. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> How could Robert Meyer mess this up? I'm sure he knows that E company was in the 2nd battalion.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Fernando: Stanton, Shelby L., "Order of Battle, U.S. Army, Worl War II". ISBN 0-89141-195-X<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Amazon says this book is out of print. Fortunately I bought it a few years ago. It's got good detailed equipment tables down to the battalion size unit. For example, If you want to know how many .50 mgs were allocated to an armored battalion then this is your book. But below the battalion level there's no more detail.

Using Maastrictian's post (above) as a basic guide, I'd like to fine tune and elaborate on some of his U.S. suggestions. 57mm AT gun was issued 3 per infantry battalion, so it will be the common AT gun. The 76mm AT guns were only part of Tank Destroyer batallions (usually one TD bat. per infantry div)and since the vast majority of TD battalions were mobile, then it's much more likely that you'll see one of the mobile TDs. The M18s were getting to be common(replacing the M10s) by the end of 44 and there were some M36s by then also. M10s become uncommon by FEB 45. For infantry divisions, there was always a chance that they might have tank support, although unlikely. If they were on defense then, the divisional command usually held the tanks in reserve so that they could quickly get to where they were needed. By this rational, it should be fairly common to see tanks used as reinforcements to defending infantry in CM. Other vehicles were rare, maybe an occational jeep. For all tank battalions (Armored div. or Infanty div): There should be a 3:1 ratio between Shermans and Light tanks (Stuart or Chaffe). The stuarts were starting to be replaced by the M24 Chaffe in 1945 as the standard light tank. There were maybe 2-3 105 shermans per tank battalion, making them uncommon or rare. By the end of 44 it should be common to have one 76mm in a platoon of Shermans. For all Armored Divisions there will be lots of the various halftracks. Armored divisions also had their own recon troop, complete with Greyhounds, other armored cars, light tanks, various halftracks. There was also a TD battalion attached to all armored divisions.

CM does a pretty good job of this but there are a few irregularities with the CM OOBs. For example, CM has the U.S. Heavy weapons Company with 8 M1919 mmgs when the table of organization calls for 8 M1917 Hmgs. Also the HW Company in CM has one 81mm FO which only represents 4 81mm mortars. In official table of Organization it should have 6 81mm mortars. The U.S. rifle companies are perfect in CM. this is all nit picking if you really want an exact OOB. I don't know any web sites off hand, but they're out there. You're best doing a search for "Order of Battle" U.S. infantry division, or something like that.

That's an amusing test as well as informative. Unfortunately, in real battle situations I've seen nothing but dismall results of bazookas against infantry. In fact, I've yet to see a soldier injured or killed by a bazooka or schrek round, and I've looked closely every time I used one or had one used against me. The only thing I've seen is maybe some surpressing results, that's it. I've yet to see a infantry casualty caused by a hand grenade also. I've looked closely at every close combat situation I've been it and have yet to see one. I would have begged to BTS that these "bugs" be changed but it seems that others have seen these things happen quite frequently so there must not be any bugs. It's obviously a conspiracy mounted by my copy of CM and my computer [ 07-03-2001: Message edited by: Pak40 ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Dirtweasle: Fire does not improve vision in CM, and actually the opposite is true. A burning smoking thing blocks LOS.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Uhh, the bulk of the smoke travels upward and the ground is relatively clear, maybe a little hazy, but clear enough to see that the entire area is lit up around the burning object.

There are a few ways to do this. Shipmonkey's method is one of them but your team must get it's shot off before the end of the 1st turn because the next turn your squad will Withdraw without pausing for command penalties. Other situations might warrant this method: Sneak him up to the edge of the woods and hide. On the next turn's orders, unhide hime and order him to run back to the rear. The command delay will give him enough time to squeeze off 1 or 2 shots. He wont be revealed until he shoots that 1st shot, so it should work like you want it to. Possibly another method would be for your AT team to WALK towards the edge of the woods and then they will fire as soon as they have a good shot on the target. Then, on the next turn, use the Withdraw command.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Offwhite: But then you'd get complaints like "my Tiger stopped area firing to engage a Firefly moving on his flank, but when the Firefly went behind a house the Tiger rotated back to the original target. Five seconds later the Firefly emerges and kills my Tiger! They should have known he was coming out! BTS fix or do somefink!" <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> CM targeting already accounts for this sort of occurance. If your tank has targeted a moving vehicle and it loses LOS because the vehicle goes behind a house then your tank will continue to track it for several seconds usually long enough for it to appear on the other side of the building.

Sounds quite realistic to me. Think of it as a dice roll of 12 (in Squad Leader terms) and your squads morale failed. Anything's possible in war.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DasBaron: Infantry is close behind. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> There's your first problem. If your tanks are in front of your infantry then your just begging for your tanks to die. Try putting your tanks at least 50m behind your infantry. That way, both enemy infantry AND enemy tanks are in the same general direction and your tank's turret doesn't have to travese very far to switch between inf. and tanks. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Well suddenly enemy infantry pop up near the tank and behind. So what does the tank do? Turn around and fire at them while leaving its tail in the direction of enemy tanks. 1st of all, there is no way a tank crew is going to expose itself like that for real, second, how exactly did this buttoned tank see enemy infantry behind it? third, even if it did see the infantry, it would let the friendly infantry which is close by deal with the situation while it responded to orders <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I know exactly what happened. At the exact time your tank decided to target the enemy infantry, it did not have a clear LOS to any enemy tank. You may have seen a tank yourself because another unit spotted it but your Tiger did not see it, therefore it did the most logical thing, fire at the closest visiable threat. If you had put your tank behind your infantry, this wouldn't have happened(you tank still would have targeted the infantry but it wouldn't have had to turn around to engage them). BTW, Tigers have vision slits and periscopes that allow it to see in all directions. Also, sound would alert the crew to infantry behind it. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> I have lost tanks because of this. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Doesn't surprise me at all. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> There should be a command where the unit will try to stick out the command to the letter. As in the example above, if this command were available, that tank would have ignored the enemy infantry and stuck to the more important task of destroying enemy armor. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The TARGET command does just that. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Perhaps this strict command would be involved within the rotate command. If I tell armor to rotate to face a certain area, it should stay in that arc until either moved or changed. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> They've added this command to CM:BTB but I think it's used in a defensive context. It's supposed to be the command that replaces the AMBUSH command. [ 07-01-2001: Message edited by: Pak40 ]

You should put a picture of your X-girlfriend as the TRP. That will double the pleasure of watching a barrage coming down on the enemy

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by M-8 Greyhound: All right, I concede the point about the K98. But what about the MP-44. It has less firepower than the BAR at 40m, yet it is lighter, easier to maneuver and has a larger ammo capacity. Perhaps the FP rating for the MP-44 should be raised by 5 or 6 points at 40m.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> You might have a point, but there are two things I'd like to bring up: 1) the BAR uses a full rifle .30 round, the same as the Garand and Browning MGs (someone correct me if I'm wrong). This makes the BAR a powerfull hitter. The MP44 uses a shortened round (not as powerfull as a K-98 or MG 42), therefore it's punch isn't as great. 2) The BAR was often used with a bipod, increasing it's accuracy in a light MG role. The MP44 never used a bipod. As for the submachineguns, I guess they are more powerfull than the BAR and MP44 at 40m because they have a larger ammo load which means less down time due to reloading.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Wilhammer: [QBThe FO defends itself by plotting fire on my unit, just one meter way, and it kills my HQ and it gets away![/QB]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The increadible thing about this is that this sort of thing really happened. I've read several accounts of men calling down artillery on their own position. I think Audie Murphey was one of them.