Pak40

I have to say, Bigtime, that the demo battle between Fionn and Martin looks great. My mouth is really watering over Combat Mission. There is, however, one small issue that still bugs me personally. Others may not care as much as me. I'm still seeing towns laid out in this anytown USA grid pattern, which just isn't accurate for a vast majority of towns in Europe. My concerns probably don't matter much since you will include a map editor, I will be able to make my own maps to my liking. Maybe the maps I've seen so far are just placeholders or incomplete designs? Would it be too hard to redesign these town maps this late into game development? This entire situation reminds me of the movie "A Midnight Clear" about a recon squad in the Ardenness in 1944. For a long time I knew something was odd about the movie but couldn't figure it out. Then one day I saw an interview with the director of the movie, he said the film was low budget and had to be filmed in Utah instead of Europe. Then I figured what had been bothering me all that time -- Aspen trees. Not too many aspens in the Ardeness

Thanks, Martin and Steve, for clearing that up. It all sounds reasonable. At first it sounded like units would open fire if the enemy was within the maximum range, unless there was a HQ unit nearby. But I see now that is not the case. I agree, Steve, that the bazooka's max range was well over 100 meters and the max effective range is about 100 meters. Sounds like what I've read from other sources. BTW, would a Veteran bazooka typically wait until the target gets closer than say a green bazooka would? In other words, do veteran units set better ambushes?

Martin, Why do your bazooka men open up on halftracks at well over 100 meters? The maximum "effective" range of bazookas was something like 80-100 meters. anything longer than that was a "99%" miss, especially a moving target. Can't you tell them to hold fire until they're closer? Or do you need a HQ unit near the bazooka team to do this? If so, that's just completely ludicrous!

Hi Kwazy, yea, this would be a great utility and asset to CM. It would probably make any CC player wet their pants if bigtime doesnt do it then maybe you could, didn't you do the map editor for CC3? Planning any nifty utilities to develop in Cm?

Obviously there's a powerful replay feature in CM that allows the players to replay the action phase as many times that they want and from any angle. Question: can all of the action phases be saved and combined at the end of the game to form one continuous "movie"? thanks

I've got a cable modem also. I can hook up as many as 3 computers to the modem at once. If you have a second network card your problem should be solved, you have a true network in your house! Do you have @home or some other company?

Why don't you temporarily put your modem into your game PC? Should be easy enough.

In addition to "Seven Roads to Hell" by Donald Burgette, he has a previous novel originally titled "Curahee". I have the renamed copy titled "Screaming Eagles" (I think). This is a smaller book but describes his fews days in battle after parachuting on D-Day. He is currently writing his Market Garden experiences. Another book related to Ambrose's "Band of Brothers" is called "Parachute Infantry" by David Webster. Another good 1st person narrative of a 101st Airborne trooper. I also would have to add "D-Day the 6th of June" by Stephen Ambrose. A great account of D-Day from all sides and lots of 1st person quotes.

"Germans probably should get some sort of night fighting C&C/Morale bonus. They were much more used to fighting at night on the attack than the Allied forces were." This maybe accurate but then the US troops got used to these repeated attacks. Example: I've recently finished "Seven roads to Hell" by Donald Burgette, he describes several night attacks by the germans(tanks and infantry) on the town of Noville (outside Bastogne). These night attacks were also in thick fog. The visibility was so poor that german tanks would litterally stop in front of or on top of GI fox holes without noticing them. Anyway, these repeated night attacks were repulsed by the 101st AB and elements of a Anti-tank batallion and 10th armored division. My point is that US troops pretty much knew that the night attacks were coming and when they were entrenched could defend just as well if not better than during the daytime. [This message has been edited by Pak40 (edited 08-21-99).]

I just finished this gripping autobiographical account by Donald Burgett. He was in A Co., 506 Regiment of 101st Airborne (same regiment as Ambrose's "Band of Brothers"). There are some increadible details about the battles for Noville and Bastogne. This book ranks up there with Company Commander, Panzer Commander and any other 1st person account in WWII. A must read for anyone interested in what it was like to fight on the front lines.

Steve: "Seriously, since a fairly good sized battle is based around a Battalion, there is not much call for TO&E beyond that." The graphics I've created are for an entire division, however, the battalions have details all the way down to squad size units. And it all fit onto an 8.5 x 11 page. You could just cut out the batallions and discard the rest. E-mail me and we'll talk more. I wouldn't mind doing a few German Batallions, it would only take a few days to do. Jeff Roland

Steve, I've created Unit of Organization tables for some U.S. Divisions (nice graphics too!). They're pretty well researched and from a variety of sources. If you have a fax # I'll fax them to you. If you like them I wouldn't mind if you used them. Jeff Roland jroland2@home.com

"Possibly that will include battleship artillery so I'll need to exit the Tank and dig a pit under my Tiger just to live. " judging from the crater size of 16 in guns, you'd better dig pretty far under that Tiger

Some Questions: 1) Was the .30 cal U.S HMG (watercooled) more effective than the aircoolded version, as far not changing the barrels are concerned? 2)Didn't the BAR have a quick barrel change? Although the CC2 MG42 may not sound like the real thing, it really had a bark when it broke the silence. The CC3 MG42 sounds a lot flatter and not so dangerous. Is the CC3 MG42 more like the real deal? Maybe you could post a sound file?

The screenshot are looking quite good. I'm seeing realistic looking European terrain. Tanks look great too!

I think the propellant is ignited by an electrical charge. Therefore smacking the bottom of the round would only "arm" the warhead. I don't think mortar rounds had timed fuses, rather the round goes off on impact with the ground. Just a theory.

"I find it amazing that 32 HTs were used to tote around nothing but supplies, cooks, mechanics, etc. Since there doesn't seem to be any organic infantry, I suppose they were used to haul around the mortars or some bazooka teams. " IMO, the Cav. Rec. Squadron had a lot of halftracks and supplies because: 1) Every battalion in a division is supposed to be self supportive, at least for a few days. Supplies for over 900 men for several days is A LOT of supplies. Since this unit only has 20 large trucks, that leaves the rest of the supplies are in halftracks, jeeps and trailers. 2) The Cav. Recce Squadron, since part of its job is to probe the enemy, may have lots of contact with the enemy. Usually, they are only to fight as much as they need to but sometimes unforseen circumstances arrise. This means the unit must be very self supportive in case they are cut off from the rest of the division. Ken, FYI, those stats were from the WW2 Order of Battle and the TOE is from the US Army Handbook. check the earlier post for the authors.

"I am also curious about the large number of bazookas. US armored infantry were issued larger numbers of bazookas than regular infanty. " "I'm guessing only dismounted infantry used bazookas." The large number of bazookas dont surprise me. Other units have large numbers of bazookas: Armored Division Artillery - 120 bazookas Tank Batallions - 35 bazookas each Signal Company - 24 bazookas usually these units were givin a large number of bazookas because this was there only defense against an armoured breakthrough by the enemy. I wouldn't be surprised if some of these bazookas "found" there way into some of the rifle companies. These bazookas were issued to the recon saquadron because it was basically their only defense against medium tanks. 37mm cannons dont have much AP punch, so bazookas could be used if the situation was desperate enough(which was probably a rare occation). Since a Cav unit has good speed, sometimes a it is used to get to a place fast and hold it until reinforcemnts arrive. Bazookas could come in handy in this situation.

Ken, There are definitly no organic infantry units in the Armored Rec Squadron just as there are no organic infantry units in a tank batallion. In fact, the only oragnic infantry units in the entire US Armor Division are in the 3 Armored Infantry Battalions. The point I was trying to make by listing all of the equipment in the Squadron was this: There were so many support personell in the squadron that could easily be pulled off their jobs. There were over 900 men in an entire squadron but less than half did the actual fighting and recon. The rest were HQ, support, supply, maintenance peresonell. The passage you quote about the 12 man ouposts could easily be supplied by any of these personell. Another good example is an Infantry Divison: About half of the 13000 men in an Infantry Division did the actual fighting. The other half were artillery, supply, HQ, medical, engineers, cooks, clerks etc... In times of dire need any of these personell could be pulled of regular duty and told to defend or attack. This makes them infantry for the time being but I wouldnt call them organic infantry.

"and each Platoon consisted of 3xM8 Armored cars and 6 trucks (quarter-ton). My guess would be that the trucks carried infantry." quarter ton trucks are jeeps, you can maybe fit 4 men in a jeep without any other materials. It's not exactly a good infantry carrier. But in this case these jeeps were scout jeeps(that's why ther're in the Scout Section). probably had .30 cal mg mounted on them and only carried 2-3 people. If there were an infantry platoon in the TOE, then it would show. For example, look at the TOE for an Armored Infantry Battalion. It shows Rifle companies with rifles platoons.

Hi Ken, "These passages suggest some sort of infantry component. Steves mention of 32 halftracks may indicate an infantry component. " Here are just a few stats on an Cav. Recon Squadron: 861 enlisted men & 48 officers. 52x M8 armored cars. 8x 75mm how. on motor carraiges 17x light tanks 32x Halftracks 4x Halftrack Ambulances 3x 81mm mortars 36x 60mm mortars 29x .50cal MG 68x .30cal MG 37x bazookas 20x 2.5 ton trucks 1x wreckers, heavy 107x .25 ton trucks(jeep) 3 Tank Recovery Vehicles Take in to account there there are also food, ammo, gas, repair materials, personal gear. Everything else to support a mechanized battalion sized unit. All of these halftracks, trucks and jeeps are supporting the fighting vehicles. They carry the supplies necessary to support 17 light tanks, 52 armored cars, and 75mm howitzers. Every man is issued either a rifle, smg, or carbine. And of coarse, any man can be pulled out of his regular duty and be told to man a fox hole. This is where your 12 man squad came from. They were pulled from either a HQ section, maintence section, or ammo and supply section. They even could have been cooks.

Fionn, "Even your stats below show they had infantry. Otherwise who did the jeeps and half-tracks carry?" The jeeps' primary use was recon, they maybe had 3 people in one jeep (scouts). The half-tacks were ambulances. Many other jeeps had tailers that carried supplies. There were NO infantry in these units. There's no infantry platoon listed anywhere in the TOE. My sources are: 1)US Army Handbook 1939-1945 by George Forty 2)WWII Order of Battle by Shelby Stanton The first book you can buy at Barnes and Noble for $10. The second book is harder to find.

"If you mean Armored Cavalry Recon Squadrons... my TO&E (which is just totals for the whole unit) show 32 HTs and 20 trucks. So certainly they have infantry. This also make sense because no armored formation that I know of is supposed to operate without an infantry escort." You're way off with these numbers. Here's a typical Armored Cavalry Recon Squad: 3 Recon Troops, each containing: M8 Armored cars, a few halftracts, and several jeeps. 1 Assault Gun Troop: Consisting of 4 platoons of M8 75mm How.(2 each) and support vehicles. 1 Light Tank Co.: 3 Tank platoons of M5 light tanks(5 each) plus supporting sections. There was also the HQ section and the HQ Service troop which supported the entire squadron. There were no infantry attached to the squadron. This is suppost to be a recon troop, fast mobility, rarely staying in place. It was not meant to be a "slug it out" type of unit, therefore, infantry would only slow down the unit. There were some cases in the Ardennes where these squadrons were told to defend the front lines. In these cases the men usually removed .50 cal MGs off of their jeeps and mounted them in fox holes, taking the role of infantry.

Seems like beta testing a game like this would take more than 3 months. That is, if they want to release a relatively bug free product. Then again, I can't ever remember playing a bug free program off the shelf.

ahhhh, but will they be wearing those cute little skirts into battle?