Joachim

If the map is not deep enough, the defender can not effectively use reserves. Map size, visibility and terrain matter for this. 2km of flat open ground don't help, 500m with covered lines of comms work fine for the defender. If the defender uses his reserves and existing defensible ground well, he can concentrate on parts of the attacker, who is patiently moving, trying not to bunch up. Surprise and keyholing. Slowing down the attacker with stealthy long ranged wpns if the reserve is on foot. Attacking the AI with quality vs quantity (e.g. AI getting a 100% bonus) does work if you use gamey tactics like capturing one flag and then slaughtering the AI rushing to re-capture the flag. If the map is deep enough and the flags are far to the rear, the attacker will run out of ammo in CM, no matter how restrictive your ammo use. If a competent defender forces the attacker to spend his ammo, quantity will beat quality. [ June 07, 2008, 08:13 AM: Message edited by: Joachim ]

Static flags are the "usual" flags. Small ones are 100, large ones 300 pts. With dynamic flags the attacker chooses which flag he wants to grab. This flag gets all the points, the rest is nil. It is used to simulate that the defender usually does not now the objectives of the attacker. Gruß Joachim

John, I analyse Jason's posts regarding the data in them, not his behaviour. In WW1 owners of bayonets with sawtooth faced death when caught by the other side: A bayonet kills and wounds, but a saw inflicts much worse wounds. My battle plan is gamey. But I had reasons for that. Gruß Joachim

Guess then we all say the same, just at slightly different levels: JasonC: Even a pair of bolt cutters can kill a tank, so FTs can do, too. But not that effective. JohnK: Molotovs and FTs can kill tanks, but FTs are no primary AT wpns. Me: Even toothpics can kill tanks, if handled by the notorious UberFinns. But main usage of FT is AP (including bunkers). IIRC one of your recent links even mentioned a T34 surviving one of its (outer?) fuel tanks getting hit and igniting the rear deck. It is not the deadliness of a weapon that influences crew survival. It is the kind of death it deals. Burning alive is horror to many of us, and so we tend to retaliate to such an inhumane act. Guess that's why FTs got banned long ago. Regarding CM: IIRC I read an AAR in a MP-campaign where a 251/16 torched a T34m44 in a battle. Viz about 80m. But then... in similar viz there were Soviet sappers and THs killing tanks. All tanks were without close inf support. So Tux might stand a chance with his PzIII flamm. But for the same campaign I had an order ready to destroy houses before using them as cover. Igniting forward houses pre-battle to create permanent LOS blocks. Taking to the woods if necessary, but avoiding to defend "unprepared" CM villages. The reason for this was always massive direct HE before the attack came in. So Juste is pretty much doing SOP when flattening houses. IMHO setting up in them where they can receive direct HE was not a good idea... but it would be a shame to have no forward OPs, too. So you've gotta die one way or another. Once the flamers are id'd as such and the moment of surprise is gone, I suggest walls of fire to block approach routes, block LOS and make some cover useless. Which brings us back on topic. Gruß Joachim

While waiting for the next turns, I might ignite sumfink with the hint that the flic above is a German training movie. The crew is not excited but play the usual movie stuff - some freak out when facing danger but some cool dude remains cool and restores the situation. Given the range of FTs - including those in vehicles - I doubt they were intended as AT wpns. Reading about them a week ago it appeared that British wasps mostly had a psychological effect. PzIII Flamms originally intended to help 6. Army in Stalingrad were so "successful" they got their guns back after Kursk - a whopping 2-3 months after their late debut. It is interesting to note that American FT tanks were mainly used in the PTO - where they encountered few enemy tanks and weak AT weapons. The Brits had a heavily armored CS tank with a flame thrower but most vehicle based flamers were wasps (ie universal carriers). The Soviets had the FT replace an MG but left the main gun in the OT34 types. Read: The FT replaced an AP weapon. The Germans had the PzIII for a short while but otherwise used an obsolete chassis (PzII) - or the HT based variant. Gruß Joachim

My new Dell Inspiron 630 (XP, 2x1.8 GHz GHz) runs CMBB better than my old machine (98SE, 1.8 GHz) - but Alt-TAB freezes the system.

The fire might be started by the shell, not by damage to the tank. Just had a shell missing a HT torch a tile.

Another note - you don't hold 2 flags. It is a dynamic flag scenario. You hold one flag worth all the points and a clearly depicted bogus flag worth nil. If it was a scen, the attacker can select a flag he wants to attack and the defender doesn't know which one, so he has to guess. If the map was played as QB, the engine selects a flag but still only the attacker knows which one.

Me - just as a solution to the question whether I leave CMAK or CMBB in the drive .

In all the books I read (in German), I can't remember anything but a plain "Panzer 4" with the occasional "Panzer 4 kurz"(short) or "Panzer 4 lang" (long).

But they had the wrong anthem - correct tune is "God save the Queen" with a German text. Guess the correct melody would disturb some people. Regarding the "tin" - as long as you don't own it, it is worth a lot. Once you have it, there are several possibilities: a) You discover it did not change you - is it really worth so much as you thought before? You show it off everywhere - making you ridiculous. c) You wear it with silent pride - which will probably earn you the most respect. Yet case a) might still apply.

they certainly fought in groups like this tho</font>

a) Put bonus HQs near your guns. use guns in trenches behind small rises or walls so hiding guns are out of LOS. Use covered arcs so these guns do not unhide. Only area fire will keep his tanks focussed on the guns (gamey to some people, but 6 KVs is gamey, too - in '41 Soviet heavy tanks did not fight concentrated) c) create kill sacks. have mutually supporting positions that force him to expose a flank to one gun if he faces the other. d) Remember you don't need to defend near the flags. One TH team late in the game is enough if you can block the way towards the flags. Gruß Joachim

IIRC I once read about 9th & 10th SS fighting as one "heavy" armored division in the Ardennes: Both were far from their paper strength. "Heavy" was an euphemistism in that context: Making up one division from the remnants made sense, but probably nobody wanted to admit (to Hitler? the public?) that both divisions were unable to refit to full strength. For the 16th PD I'd expect the "schwer" as just a reminder to corps/army staff that the division was better equipped than the standard division. Maybe not an official designation, but once in use it would fulfill its role. Gruß Joachim

Pressed into service by Andreas. Gruß Joachim

Glad I usually don't have any speakers connected to my PC.

To be more specific: "German [pixel] troops [in CM] closing in often shout "Nahkampf" (ie close combat). So it is in the game." 00033500.wav and 00033502.wav in the German CDV edition of CMBB.

They (BFC) can't put everything in the manual. Real life battles are way too complex. Besides... if there was a complete list of all features the forum would have suffered from several breakdowns. All those grogs out there complaining what is missing and what is modelled totally wrong. Oh... and yes, with your line of retreat cut, you are more likely to surrender. This is in CM and was discussed long time ago (according to my memory).

Best wisher from here, too. Gruß Joachim

You are not promised 5 strafing runs. The plane has enough ammo for up to 5 strafing runs. But if it received some incoming it might be damaged or just too scared to risk another run for the little damage the strafing is realistically expected to do. Crack inf or ATG is usually way too much. Vets will do. If you want an extra punch, carefully examine and use your HQs for the bonus. E.g. a vet ATG with a +1 bonus combat HQ will hit like a crack ATG. A vet inf plt with a good bonus HQ will act almost like a crack plt. Green tanks react too slow. If you use them as mobile arty behind your inf, it doesn't matter much. But if you want them as AT assets, I'd suggest you buy at least regular tanks - if it ain't for the challenge. Gruß Joachim

Jason, of course it (almost?) never happened with Soviets in defence because vs a concentrated armor attack you will never achieve this ratio. Imagine 20 Soviet ATGs per km of frontage in the same echelon with somewhat overlapping fields of fire (or 12 per km with "neighbors" having LOS). They open up and minutes later they receive lots of incoming from any battery on call guaranteed to hit something - if the prep barrage did not already take care of the problem. Immobile troops can't concentrate like mobile units can... and avoid excessive losses. It would be more interesting what happened to the Soviet tank regiments attacking 5-10 tanks per km hitting 3-6 Pak (of course PaK being able to penetrate the attacking tanks) to examine that staff officers number. Gruß Joachim

I though the "meal times" which are more likely 9:00, 12:00 and 15:00 were favourable angles of an enemy tank when firing at that tank... ... or angles to avoid when you were driving a tank. Gruß Joachim

Jason - I don't meant that any given ATG can damage 1-2 tanks. Should have written more explicitly that this could happen with local odds between 1-2 tanks per ATG as in the mentioned 30 vs 45 case. Even in this case the 30 ATGs won't damage all of the 45 tanks - but some ATGs might survive and thus there would be an overall loss ratio of 1-2 damaged tanks per destroyed ATG.

On AFV loss ratios vs ATGs: An ATG won't reach a ratio of one ATG vs 1-2 TWOs - but it could damage 1-2 tanks so they can't push further. If you have 30 ATGs vs 45 tanks, there might be a solid chance of stopping the attack. On overall AFV losses: AFVs are not the only tank killer - especially defenders have other means. There are several effects when considering tank losses - The defender has the advantage of first shot - a successful defense might be able to finish off immobile tanks - the attacker has the advantage of overrunning repair depots - exploit forces have to abandon tanks when pushing forward or they might get trapped - with the advent of potent hand-held AT weaponry exploiting tanks suffer higher losses. - Superior German tanks (V, VI). The Soviets catch up (a bit?) late '44, but that is not enough to even the score for the period. Gruß Joachim

German troops closing in often shout "Nahkampf" (ie close combat). So it is in the game. To stop players from sacrificing crews BFC made crews more expensive and probably more fragile. It would be interesting how they compare against half squads low on ammo. I guess close combat with crews after the perimeter is overrun is an outlier in CM which suffers from the model focussing on improving more likely scenarios.