Supertanker

There are also many useful and educational article at warships1.com's technical page: http://www.warships1.com/default_tech.htm

There are a surprising number of sites that deal with naval gunnery. What follows is a quote from http://www.warships1.com/W-INRO/INRO_BB-Gunnery_p1.htm , The Evolution of Battleship Gunnery in the U.S. Navy, 1920-1945, by William J. Jurens. This particular quote is regarding firing 14" guns at a range of 12,700 yards, using pre-war fire control equipment (the author notes later that the fire control equipment deployed during the war increased accuracy remarkably): "Lt. Murphy, the gunnery officer, noted laconically '. . .The first salvo had an excellent range pattern of 250 yards [and] a good deflection pattern in the neighborhood of 100 yards. Two plane spotters stated that all the shots in this salvo landed so close together that it was difficult to distinguish the individual splashes. Unfortunately, the mean point of impact was 1,252 yards over . . .'" So, it sounds like CM is about right on the dispersion, but most of the patterns should just miss the board completely. Watch your toes!

Some of my favorite Clint and Terminator movie lines: "I'm comin' out now. If there's any man left out there, I'm gonna kill him, his whole family, and burn his damn house down." - Unforgiven John Connor: "The cops are here." Sarah Connor: "How many?" JC: "Uhh, all of 'em, I think." "A man's got to know his limitations." - Magnum Force "I swear I won't kill anyone." "Think of it as a seven-point suppository!" "He taught us to storm the wire; to smash those metal motherf**kers into junk!"

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by machineman: I'm sure the Allied tankmen going up against the Panthers and Tigers would have loved to have the various Generals and procurement knotheads responsible for their plight in the turrent with them for while.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I just finished reading Death Traps (btw, I returned it to the L.A. Central Library today, so whichever of you guys had it on hold, preventing me from renewing it, should have it soon.), and Belton Cooper places a lot of the blame on George Patton. He says that there was a critical point at which the US had to decide to focus production on the existing M4 or the new M26. Patton still followed the pre-war US doctine on tanks, which viewed them as the tool for exploiting holes in the line and rampaging in the enemy rear (classical cavalry role), NOT as an anti-tank weapon. Because of that, Patton saw no need for the M26 because he believed it to be less mobile (which Cooper says is not true for horsepower to weight, or ground pressure) and its 90mm gun unnecessary. Patton's vote counted for a lot, and the decision was made to go with the M4. As a consequence of that decision, Cooper notes that the 3rd Armored had a casualty rate of 580% among its tanks.

I don't know if this will work with CM, but in the hopes of inspiring someone with more spare time and money than me, there is a three-part guide to capturing game footage up on machinima.com. Here is the link: http://machinima.com/articles/video_capture_1/

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by M Hofbauer: Unlike the germans, who used the Panzerhandmine in large numbers and assumed the enemy would introduce similar weapons employing magnetic attachment and shaped charges, the russians never used anti-tank magnetic-attached mines (ATMM) to any noticeable degree, nor did the western allies. That's wy the use of Zimmerit was discontinued in 1944. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hey, I still learn something new every day. I had always assumed they were used heavily by the USSR (thinking back, this is probably based on playing original Squad Leader and a couple of accounts or pictures), but I never researched the issue. So, what did they use as infantry AT weapons? I have seen photos of modern day Soviet AT hand grenades (shaped charges, with a streamer or small parachute on the back to orient the charge), but don't know if there was a WWII version. Captured panzerfausts? Molotov Cocktails? A T-34? ------------------ I'm only interested in hamsters. - Madmatt

I assume the terrain choices will lean in favor of gameplay. Read the BTS CM FAQ on, "The Allies had so much of everything, how can you balance scenarios?" (Since I know someone will ask, just click that little cartridge over on the left marked "FAQ" and scroll down.) It would be easy to make unbalanced scenarios in CM1, but they didn't. I would guess the same will apply to CM2. Scenarios will likely focus on battles for cities, villages, and other terrain where infantry played a vital role and had a good chance to take out armor. Personally, I've got a few dozen virtual sticky bombs that bear the hammer and sickle and are aching to be applied to some German armor. They didn't apply Zimmermit because they thought it looked cool! If there is a lot of open terrain, well, Red Devils is right - there should be a LOT of Soviets, too.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Michael emrys: Just wait 'til we get to CM2 and you find out about the ISU-152. You're gonna LOVE them! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I'll just take an M12 in a patch or expansion disc, please. Speaking of "Death Traps" & M12s, the author writes, "In one incident, an M12 gun carriage with its 155mm GPF rifle loaded came around a bend in the road and suddenly found itself face to face with a King Tiger. Fortunately, the 155 was pointed directly at the base of the King Tiger's turret. The fun commander gave the order to fire. The 155 struck the King Tiger at the base of the gun mantlet where the turret joins the deck. The explosion ruptured the thin top deck armor and blew the turret off the tank, instantly killing the entire crew. Had the shell struck a few inches lower on the front glacis plate, it would have exploded harmlessly, and the King Tiger would have been able to drill the M12 from end to end with its high-velocity 88. Such were the fortunes of war." (p. 171.)

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by L.Tankersley: I agree with many of these points. (I don't think I disagree with any of them, but there are a few I'm particularly fond of: Changing your mind in the orders phase - yes, yes, yes. This is damn annoying, it is inconsistent with all other orders issued in the orders phase (which can be changed/edited without penalty), and there's no compelling reality-based argument for it. Doubly so since as Grognerd points out, you can reload the PBEM file (or a handy saved game) and issue the changed orders without penalty.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hear, hear! Moving the aiming point to force delay and exit/reload to avoid delay are both things I do to get around what I perceive as a limitation of the game system. To me, when players have to come up with workarounds for a feature, that makes it eligible for removal or change. I also monkey around with the delay in order to better coordinate my troops' charge with the end of the artillery barrage, not just to conserve ammo. Bullethead, do you have any suggestions for improvements in this coordination, or am I making my troops follow the barrage too closely? I'd like to be able to give my FO an order to watch the friendlies approach, and then stop the barrage when they are within a certain distance of the target point.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Kitty: I know this thread is really old, but I had to respond to it 'cause Mark IV is the first person other than myself I've ever met, not that I've met him for reals, that's been there<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I've been there too, on my 21st birthday Trip of Vice . We figured automatic weapons were a good addition to the booze and gambling (though not at the same time). Of course, we stayed at the Dunes, which was where Bellagio now stands (IIRC) so that should tell you it has been a little while. Better than that, there was a shop in Phoenix (this was about 1985, dunno if they are still around) that would take you out to a desert shooting area they owned, and they would have the guns chained to their truck. That way, you could have a little more freedom than on a range, and the guns remained in their control, so no violation of their federal Class III license. Either of these systems provides an important educational experience about the use of automatic weapons. Oh, man, that reminds me of the time I just barely missed out on MP5 training with a client's police department. It was a last minute thing to let us lawyers come along (since part of our job would be defending suits alleging wrongful use of said MP5s). No, we weren't the targets. I had been in court, and if the judge had stopped talking just a couple minutes earlier I could have made it back to the office in time to leave.

I love these things! An M7 is a wonderful tool for shredding dug-in infantry. Cheap, and plenty of ammo (88 pts for a regular one, IIRC). Sure, the Sherman 105 and the StuG42 carry the same main gun and have some armor, but they can't match the M7's price. Besides, as an allied player, I prefer the challenge of working with properly screened soft vehicles. I just used on last night to root out the AI's crack rifle squads. The M7 was one of the main units I wanted to play with in the game.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slapdragon: I am free, no more Wintel for me!!!!!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Sorry to stray off topic a bit (as if the thread isn't already) but I don't understand people's hatred/devotion to one company over another. I guess it depends on what you mostly do with your CPU time, but I don't understand why any gamer would be happy to not have a good Wintel box around. To me is is a simple matter of having the right hardware to run the games I want. When it comes to Wintel in particular, no matter the number of headaches that Bill & Andy have caused me, Half-life and Counterstrike more than make up for it. On the other hand, the good games that never come out for Mac, or come out a year later, are legion. If there were some great Mac-only games, I would buy one, but the Mac section at the game store is a little lacking these days. It wasn't always that way, and I have spent many an hour gaming on a Mac. I have a Dreamcast so I can play various sports games, and I will probably get a PS2, X-box and/or Gamecube if they have some killer proprietary apps. I'll buy a Mac again if they can do the same. The games are the key.

My PC is always a work in progress. It is a hobby, plus coming up with a couple of hundred dollars here and there is a lot easier than $2000 in a big chunk. Next upgrade is the video card, followed by another identical HD and a RAID0 card/configuration. PIII/550E@733 + Thermaltake Golden Orb cooler Asus P3V4X (Via 133A chipset) 128MB Mushkin Infineon-based PC133 (CAS2) Addtronics 6896A case +4 fans (hence the machine's name, "The B-17") Voodoo 3 3000 AGP Western Digital 20.5 GB ATA/66 7200rpm HD SBLive! soundcard Toshiba 32x CD-ROM Sony 8x4x32 CD-RW Viewsonic V75 monitor (it does 85Hz at 1024x768, which is what I really care about, though I am close to stealing my wife's Sony 200ES Trinitron because I prefer the Trinitron tubes) Cable modem service via Time Warner/RoadRunner (averages about 2 Mbps).

Really, either chip is not going to be the bottleneck, it is going to be the video card. A 16MB TNT Vanta? That card is a couple generations old now, is a stripper model (the Vanta), and should cost about $40 new (I did a quick check on Pricewatch). There are a couple of other things that strike me as cheesy as well. For instance, the 85 software titles (either outdated or free - they list Internet Explorer & Outlook Express for God's sake), the financing rates (up to 28%!), and the mail-in rebate requirement (instead of a straight discount). The lack of meaningful specs on the hardware tells me they are cheaping it, too. I haven't bought a factory PC in a while, but have you considered any other vendors? I bought my last factory PC from Cybermax(www.cybermaxpc.com), and it was a good machine for a good price. I had some monitor problems, and they sent me two new ones at no cost to me, including paid return shipping. You probably will get more machine for your $1500 there - have a look at the Enthusiast 2. I also always recommend the Dell outlet (www.dell.com/outlet). These are the refurbished return machines, so the inventory constantly changes, and there can be massive bargains. Several of my friends have purchased from there, and the machines continue to run well. $1500 plus shipping gets you about a PIII/733, 128MB, GeForce (1 or 2), SBLive, a CDR or DVD, and a 17" monitor (you have to buy the monitor separately, and a 17" is about $200 on average, so find a system around $1300). Good luck with the shopping/purchase. ------------------ I'm only interested in hamsters. - Madmatt

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Stuka: One thing that never ceases to impress me about the UK is how you have to pay to park at shopping centres for the privelege of spending your money there.....<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Welcome to Los Angeles. Some places will validate you for an hour or so if you buy something, but not always. Worse yet, I have to pay to park AT WORK! It costs $150 a month to park in our building, and the firm only pays $110 in parking allowance. So, assuming 24 work days, I get to pay $1.67 a day for the privilege of driving to work. This is why I have my wife drop me off as much as possible! ------------------ I'm only interested in hamsters. - Madmatt

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DOG: “Games in the US(new) run between $40-$60 dollars. CM with shipping is $53” What sells for $60 US. That would make it about $110 Aus dollars, nothing in Aus costs that much (game software), maybe you guys are getting ripped off. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Diablo II. When the big publishing houses know they have a sure hit, the shelf prices go up accordingly. The going rate at brick & mortar stores for Diablo II was $59.99. Anyone pay $40 for Opposing Force, the Half-life expansion disc? That wasn't even a full game, but it sure was priced like one! Any bets that Baldur's Gate II will hit the magic $60 line? I usually divide the number of hours I use a game (or any other diversion) by its cost to get an "entertainment cost per hour" number. Movies here in Los Angeles are $7.50, so they cost around $4 an hour. Ripoff. Combat Mission cost me $53, but I have played it for at least 106 hours (conservative estimate!), so it costs $.50/hour. However, other games come and go (the aforementioned Diablo II comes to mind), but I keep playing CM. Eventually, its hourly cost will be so low I will be forced to round it down to zero. So, you see, Combat Mission is by far the best entertainment deal out there because it is technically free! ------------------ I'm only interested in hamsters. - Madmatt

As I mentioned in this thread: http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/007781.html , I made a version of SL3 (Stalingrad) using Col. Klotz' map and American equipment (hence the name, Rooseveltgrad). I didn't think it worked too well, as the MGs (even in 1.05) don't pin movement enough, and the AI seems timid (which is bad on a map that requires both sides to attack). Nevertheless, it can be kind of fun. I took away the German's fausts since they were not in the original scenario, and the Americans have too many leaders, so I removed their bonuses if they were not representing one of the scenario-specified leaders. Otherwise, I think gave +1 and +2 leaders one of each bonus, and +3 leaders two of each. I played it a couple of times, but never made any effort to balance it. I'll send it to a couple of you, and feel free to share it and work on it. ------------------ I'm only interested in hamsters. - Madmatt

May as well join the chorus. Like the report from 3dfx, it is worse with hi-res on large battles. With my vast knowledge of PC graphic systems, I assume that since more data is moving around, it creates more opportunities for the bug to rear its blank white head. Turning trees off, or to setting one, seems to help. I just finished a 5000 point attack vs. the AI, on a large map, moderate trees and hills. With trees turned off or on setting one, I never had a problem. With trees cranked up all the way, the bug would show up every few turns. My system: PIII/550E@733 Asus P3V4X motherboard @ 133MHz (driver 4.28, IIRC) 128 MB Mushkin/Infineon 133MHz SDRAM V3 3000 AGP with latest non-beta drivers SoundBlaster Live value with Liveware 3.0 and latest drivers. CM version 1.05

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Valdor: When do I get to meet '7 of 9' <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Well, you are about 1 billion of 1 billion in line now, so it might take a while...

I'm in the middle of reading "Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II." by Belton Cooper (thanks to whoever recommended this, it is a great book). Cooper's duty was to coordinate the recovery and repair of damaged equipment with Combat Command B of the 3rd Armored Division. He says their loss rate of tanks was 580%, and is very critical of the Sherman, saying it was inferior in every way to the German tanks. When the Pershings arrived, he was quite pleased. I don't know how accurate his recollections are, but he did see plenty of knocked-out armor to judge things by. Cooper's unit received only one Super Pershing, and he was trained as a naval architect, so the task of adding armor to it fell to him. See pp. 230-234. He writes that they found a German steel-fabricating shop, and it had several pieces of 1.5" thick boiler plate which they attached to the Super Pershing. "We wound up with four inches of cast armor on the original glacis plate and two inch-and-a-half pieces of boiler plate with an air gap in between. We thought that even though the boiler plate was softer, the lamination and the lowered angle of incidence would help German projectiles ricochet." [He says earlier the added plate was angled at 52 degrees.] "We then cut a section from the faceplate of a knocked-out German Panther and trimmed it to three and a half inches thick by five feet long by two feet wide. We cut a large hole in the middle to accommodate the gun tube and two smaller holes on each side to accommodate the coaxial machine gun and the telescopic site." My favorite part is his story of testing the T15E1 gun, which he says had a muzzle velocity of 3,850 fps, "some 600 feet per second grater than the 88mm KwK43 gun mounted on the German PzKw VIb King Tiger." [i don't know if those numbers are accurate.] They used a knocked-out Jadgpanzer IV as a target, glacis plate toward the Super Pershing. "The distance to our target was approximately a mile and a half." The first shot was a hit. "When it hit the target, sparks shot about sixty feet into the air, as though a giant grinding wheel had hit a piece of metal. [Paragraph] When we looked at the target, I was dumbfounded. The 90mm projectile penetrated four inches of armor; went through a five-inch final drive differential shaft, the fighting compartment, and the rear partition of the fighting compartment; penetrated the four-and-a-half inch crankshaft of the Maybach engine and the one-inch rear armor plate; and dug itself into the ground so deep that we could not locate it. Although we had been told by the ordnance officers from Aberdeen that the tank gun could penetrate thirteen inches of armor at a hundred yards, it was still difficult to believe this awesome power. We all realized we had a weapon that could blast the hell out of even the most powerful German Mark VI Tiger."

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lawyer: I subscribe to PC Gamer. They favor the games on store shelves that place ads with them. Trotter is good, but he serves his master (paycheck).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Trotter lost all his credibility with me during the Ascendancy situation. I still enjoy his writing, I just don't trust his recommendation (or lack thereof) of particular products. [This message has been edited by Supertanker (edited 09-07-2000).]

I can see it now: "I know what you're thinking. Did he fire 35 shots, or only 34? To tell you the truth, in all the confusion I kind of lost track myself. But seeing how this radio ties into a 155mmVT battery, one of the most powerful artillery batteries in the game, and would blow your butt *clean* away, you have to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, Fritz, do ya?" Joking aside, I don't think this idea works on a practical basis. It assumes that you know how many observers there are and what kind of batteries they control, and by the time you have cleared the FOW enough to know that, you have probably enjoyed the impact of all the artillery already. There was an episode of Magnum PI where Tom Selleck was trying to figure out how many rounds a guy shooting at him had left. He started out thinking the guy had one left in a six-shot revolver. But he could have a .45 automatic, in which case he has two more. Or he could have a double-stacked 9mm, giving him eight or ten more. Or he could have two guns, or reloaded. Oh, forget it. I've played enough now that I do have a rough idea if there is any artillery left from a particular observer, especially on large maps where they tend to be spread out, with each one covering a certain region. I can tell if there will be lots of little explosions, or just a few big ones. Also, don't forget to count the airbursts during the replays, since they don't leave craters.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Kanonier Reichmann: The problem with the "holy" piston was if you put it back the wrong way around (after cleaning say) the holes didn't line up or something & then all you would get is one shot off before it stopped firing! (from memory). I was just interested in the American rationale for changing what was a tried & tested design. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I remember watching some documentary once about recon marines or something like that. In an exercise, the allegedly elite forces were given the mission of defending against a small landing force. The head of the recon platoon spent a lot of time bragging about how great they were & that they expected to lose, but at a high body count for the attackers. So, after spending a day or so preparing positions & checking weapons, the attack comes. They then show the platoon leader in his foxhole with his M60, firing one shot, working the action, firing another shot, working the action - Brainiac the Braggart had assembled it incorrectly. The documentary makers did not comment, but I thought it was pretty funny and a good comeuppance. With regards to why the MG42 was not adopted straight across, there is always the issue of "Not Designed Here." From what I have read, it is very difficult to get the US military to adopt a design from another country. This may have been magnified since the perception of the MG42 might have been that it was a "damn Nazi gun." Pressure from other NATO countries has resulted in some common equipment (the M9, M249, and Rhinemetall 120mm come to mind), but the Pentagon prefers to design its own stuff.

It is in the new October issue, with the very orange cover.

Maybe I'm feeling bad because of my new .sig (nahhh!), but I thought I would point out that there is a nice blurb about Mad Dog's Mod Packs on p. 155 of the new Computer Gaming World. There is also a story on CM strategies on p. 94. Alert the CMBorg to be ready for a new wave of converts. ------------------ I'm only interested in hamsters. - Madmatt