Renaud

Posted this in tech support as 'manual errata', but no responses. The manual states that in Elite mode: This would be a great form of extreme iron-man FOW! However, as everyone has probably figured out by now, this is not the case. You simply click off the current unit (anywhere) and then all friendly units become visible to the player including those out of contact. Was this a last minute playability decision? As it stands, the friendly FOW is simply an annoyance as it doesn't add anything and forces you to do an extra click to select another unit. Is friendly-fire in the engine? This would seem to be the other great reason for implementing friendly FOW. Have seen no friendly fire yet. Another seperate issue is that the FBCB2 only seems to show friendly units as blue "?" symbols. I have not used the system personally, but doesn't it show exact unit ID and type on the touchscreen? I would think friendly FOW and fratricide for FCBC2-equipped units would be limited to cases where the FCBC2 was damaged, a very hairy situation, or a very bad judgement call. In CM game terms the FCBC2 unit models would always be visible in Elite mode (though not necessarily 'in-command' per the manual text). I'm curious as to how the game-design decision was made there, admitting I haven't researched the FCBC2 functionality.

I agree with istari, perhaps a feature which TIVO's the most recent 30 or 60 seconds to your hard drive for instance. This would be good especially in single player vs AI where you want to watch the action during a RT pause or WEGO orders phase.

Great map and scenario, thanks Schmoly! Somehow I got a minor victory though I bungled the entire operation from the word go. My BM21 barrage never landed...apparently they take 20+ minutes to complete spotting. 122's worked out fine though. Air force never appeared. DasNoogie: infantry AI is a little klunky still. Grunts are extremely fragile...same problem as TOW: the 1:1 modeling doesn't include a very strong sense of personal self-preservation. I had to move a bunch of tanks and APC's up into the woods and blast them out...6 vehicles lost or imobilized, but vaporized all the baddies.

The manual states that in Elite mode: This would be a great form of extreme iron-man FOW! However, as everyone has probably figured out by now, this is not the case. You simply click off the current unit (anywhere) and then all friendly units become visible to the player including those out of contact. Was this a last minute playability decision? As it stands, the friendly FOW is simply an annoyance as it doesn't add anything and forces you to do an extra click to select another unit. Is friendly-fire in the engine? This would seem to be the other great reason for implementing friendly FOW. Have seen no friendly fire yet. Another seperate issue is that the FBCB2 only seems to show friendly units as blue "?" symbols. I have not used the system personally, but doesn't it show exact unit ID and type on the touchscreen? I would think friendly FOW and fratricide for FCBC2-equipped units would be limited to cases where the FCBC2 was damaged, a very hairy situation, or a very bad judgement call. In CM game terms the FCBC2 unit models would always be visible in Elite mode (though not necessarily 'in-command' per the manual text). I'm curious as to how the game-design decision was made there, admitting I haven't researched the FCBC2 functionality.

Not if the Javelin is in direct-attack mode. I think the TOW-2B has top-attack mode, but it's not modeled in the game? The missile actually explodes while flying over the vehicle and directs a explosively formed penetrator 90 degrees down into the top of the vehicle. Tech grogs correct me if i'm wrong here or this never made it to production. Bringing back the ole' kill tracking would be great, especially since we can't watch the fun parts any longer what with RT.

I confirm the Syrian ATGM teams do have a single RPG 18.

I'm also tempted to wish that AI pathfinding 'intra-waypoint' be reserved entirely for computer-controlled units or cases where you have plotted a move across impassable terrain (ala cmx1), but i'm as guilty of 'counting the hits' and 'forgetting the misses' as anyone. In a few cases the intra-waypoint AI works out rather well and makes you feel that an actual soldier is behind the wheel (albeit, a very fallible and poorly trained soldier). In simple cases of moving units directly across open terrain or along a road there doesn't seem to be any benefit in the random directly changes (particularly regarding infantry teams which tend to bunch up along invisible 45 degree lines, in my testing with the demo at least). Perhaps the AI pathing could be left in, but tweaked to not intervene in cases of waypoints starting and ending on pavement, or plotted directly across the various flavors of open terrain. Anywho, enjoying the game immensely.

Researching for a scenario...came across what is apparently a huge error from a secondary source on the battle of 73 easting. 73 Easting actually refers to the 73rd 1000-meter grid square east of a designated 100,000 meter grid square (73,000 meters, not 7,300 meters). So for example the shortest-line distance between two points on 67 Easting and 73 Easting is 6000 meters (assuming both points are on 03 Northing, for instance). Correct?

Ahh, but the 105mm was sooo much handier. I hated those 120mm HEAT...65 pounds and almost too long to swing around in the turret. 120mm caseless is of course better despite my laziness.

No, 105mm uses a big casing (the entire silver part of teh round in above pic) which bounces around the turret floor after ejection. They melt your boots, hehe. Pretty soon you have to take a break and chunk them out the loaders hatch. *ah, M1A1Commander beat me by 2 minutes * and the cmx2 manual says it's the same as the original 105mm gun on the M1 and M60 series, which i've fired (dates me).

Also interesting! Sounds like this is abstracted. In order to move from the turret crew area into the driver position you must rotate the turret around to a very vulnerable position. You can't get in from the turret while it's facing forward. Unless of course they've redesigned the turrent since GW1...

No sweat. Sounds like they've really bumped up the tech on the Bradleys. Can't find the one i'm thinking of that was actual combat, but there's a bunch of 25mm shoots on YouTube. Search for "Bradley 25mm". You have to register because it's 'adult content' according to YouTube lawyers. After that I got distracted by Miss Reef 2007 bikini cmpetition videos...

Wow, that is interesting. I believe this is technically possible if 100mm APFSDS hit the drivers hatch area, turret ring, tiny gap between the turret and gun mantlet, or perhaps by passing through through the front roadwheel and into the hull side at an oblique angle. Could have also taken out the cupola, killing the TC and setting off the fire extinguishers causing the crew to abandon. What were the casualties like?

bradleydick, Did they add that to the bradly after 91? That's the last time I was around them. Do they have a ballistic computer linked to the laser rangefinder now? Wow! Many of the older Syrian tanks have laser rangfinders, but no ballistic computer to calculate a firing solution, adjust for elevation and lead...that's still done inside the gunners head. The 'guncam' footage from 25mm bradley is common on the web, not sure how they get it though. I'm aware there is no integrated gun cam..lol. The videos I have seen are taken through the TIS somehow. About 20 HE fired in one example to kill 1 bad guy planting a roadside bomb. fyi, my experience comes from 3 years with the 3rd ACR, but I might be getting a little dated as this was all cold war and GW1 era. So they have you guys firing at moving targets these days? (joke) I'm still of the opinion that we over-rate first shot accuracy in wartime conditions because we are jaded by perfect conditions found on a range, all systems operational and perfectly calibrated, nicely visible hot target panels, perfect weather, etc. I do think 95%-99% is correct for a complete, undegraded system set up by a skilled technician, firing at a stationary vehicle from a stationary location in good visibility. By 'complete system' I mean laser rangefinder linked to a ballistic computer, correctly boresighted, with TIS if a night shoot.

I agree with you if the troops are not conscripts, not panicked or otherwise pressured, using high velocity cannons at ranges under 500-800 meters (depending on the cannon), vs a stationary target, while the shooter is stationary with unobstructed line of sight or a good thermal image. That's a lot of "if's"... Remember that most of the older systems and some of the newer ones (including the Bradley 25mm) do not have laser rangefinders, stabilization or ballistic computers. At ranges well within the max map size of CMx2, these guns must be manually adjusted for elevation. My guess is this starts at around 500 meters for a 115mm gun. In the case of 25mm on the bradley, the first shots are 'ranging shots' which often miss. Once the gunner has the range and observes steel-on-steel, he can hit pretty accurately unless the target moves around, behind something, etc. See numerous bradley gun cam footage for examples. There is essentially no difference between the skill needed to use these weapons and that needed to accurately fire high velocity ww2-era weapons like the 3", 75L70, 88L56/71, etc. Even guns with modern gadgets miss more often than not in the hands of poorly trained or panicky troops (See GW1 examples). Other factors: damage to stabilization, ballistic computer, laser rangefinder, MRS, cross wind sensor and a host of other gadgets. In the case of the M1, loss of the rangefinder or computer requires you to fall back on the Gunners Auxilary Sight, which is a VERY basic sight and inferior to most late-ww2 optical tank gun sights. Your chance to hit really goes down the toilet in this case unless the target is within 600m or so and you can just put the deathdot right on top of the enemy vehicle. First round hits at 2500+ meters are quite difficult even with the best systems. Skill and visibility play a large part in determining the chance of first round hit beyond these ranges.

I look forward to co-play of any kind...that will be just awesome. I liked the old cmx1 command delay system well enough. It was better than nothing. The only problem with it was that the player always knew to the second when his units would start moving (unless the unit got suppressed in the mean time). Randomized and hidden delay 'ranges' would fix that...but my suggestion is only one of many possible systems. Worth noting that for me realism and simulation = fun. The better I can model a historical engagement, the happier I am...yes, i'm a nut. My posts over the past 8 years prove that much at least...

Quick Question: Will saved games and scenarios built using the editor with the shipped version continue to work normally with the 1.3 update?

May I suggest variable random command delays, the range and min/max of the delay being related to the quality of the unit commanded and the commanding unit in contact (penalty for being out of contact with a commander, just as in CMx1), and morale state of the unit. Furthermore, the delay applied by the system would not be visible to the player. So you would not know exactly when your guys are going to start moving. For example, ordering 1 green and 2 regular t72's to hunt forward. Regular tanks would have 4-8 seconds delay. Green tank would have 6-12 delay. In other words, both quantity and range of delay increases as the troop quality declines. This would make it harder to coordinate crappier troops as they would be more likely to move out at significantly different times. An out-of-command conscript tank crew with shaken status might have a horrible delay range, something like 24-72 seconds. It would be virtually impossible to achieve any kind of coordinated move with such units. Conscripts would move out at totally random times, usually 1 at a time with a large time gap between each tank. An in-command elite crew on the other hand might have a delay range of a mere 2-3 seconds. You could perform highly coordinated manuevers with groups of such elite units. Note that the random command delay would be hidden at all times, so you couldn't just keep trying until you got the delay you wanted. This would be both realistic and necessary to make the system work. The exact delay numbers and ranges would need to be carefully tweaked during testing.

Pretty close to a BC anyway. They were saving effort on some peripheral models. I made a scenario that features a few of the Malaxa's. They are part of the Romanian cavalry regiments that made up the bulk of 'Brigade Groddek' during operation Trappenjagd. linky

Sheesh...can't they just color a flat tile dark blue-gray (or mud-gray), make it impassible to all units and label it 'water'? That would suffice for me. They could go the extra mile and make it passable to amtraks which graphically sink in about halfway when crossing.

I must be thinking of the AT-3...you could fire that remotely via a long wire (forget how long, no more than 30m I think). Very handy for avoiding return fire. Problem is if you were too far away from the missle it was hard to aquire it and it might just fly into the ground before you got control. Does the full cmx2 feature the remote launch capability of the AT-3?

that's a liiiiittle more information than we needed Hawkmek...

I thought the javelin also had a remote launch feature...you could set up the missile some distance away and launch it remotely. Does that feature still exist in the javelin?

Weird...I don't have the full game yet so I haven't experienced this. Just eyeballing the top of an Abrams without calculating the exact areas: about 1/3rd of the surface area is virtually unarmored and would result in a combat ineffective M1 if hit by a javelin in top-attack mode - maybe half of those resulting in a total vehicle & crew loss. About 1/3rd of the area would result in a mobility kill or gun damage. The remaining 1/3rd would hit very thick slabs of armor along the front 30" of hull or turret armor, or the side 8"-12" of armor around the turret sides, probably thick enough to shrug off the hit. All this assumes a mathematically random distribution of hits. If the javelin tends to hit centermass with regularity (which I think may be the case judging from videos), this would dramatically increase the chance of a total kill since the center area of the turret top is virtually unarmored. Anywho, best-case, 2 out of 3 javelin top attack hits will either totally KO, immobilize or gun-damage the abrams. Those are not good odds. Worst case, I would guess 5 out of 6 times a single top-attack javelin will KO the abrams.

I played a few games of CMBB this weekend, 600 point QB's, attacking with german infantry vs. +50% Russian infantry July '41. CMx1 is truly the best wargame ever made. We will probably never see a WWII tactical game of this scope, detail, accuracy and breadth again in our lifetimes. Remains to be seen if future WW2 CMx2 module(s) can take the crown, granted on a much smaller scale, but we have to hold out hope.