ianc

Well gents, I've created and conducted a bit of a test. It consisted of 8 3200 meter long fire lanes separated by trees. At one end of each lane: a conscript MkIV G, dug in. At the other end, elite Stuarts with no ammo. I ran two series of three tests, one with the Stuarts starting at 3200 M, the other with them starting at 300 M. In each case, 4 of the Stuarts were given symmetrical 45 degree zigzag fast movement orders toward the MkIV's. The control group was just given straight fast movement orders. In Each and every case, the Stuart making it closest to the MkIV was always the one having straight movement orders. It appears as though Vanir is correct, and that Jinking does no good; at least with armor. Infantry may be a different story. This actually surprises me somewhat. If a target is moving absolutely straight at you, there's no need to correct for azimuth, you simply ram in the shells and fire as fast as you can. The other case requires constant azimuth correction and pulling lead. Even given that the zigzagging Stuarts approached the targets more slowly, their constant changes of course were still insufficient to throw off even conscript gunner's aim to any degree. I must say that the Stuarts seemed to drop their speed to nearly nothing when negotiating even a 45 degree corner as well, and this probably contributed to their demise. I'm not sure I like the results of this test. It just doesn't make intrinsic sense that a target moving straight toward you should last longer than one jinking wildly around while you're trying to aim. What does anyone else think? Can you spot any hole in my testing theory that I may have overlooked? ianc

Gents, I've gotta give kudos on the dedication and work required here. Fantastic job on both the mods and the page! This is what the old SL/ASL snuffies have been waiting for! Me kowtows to Michael... [Edited to include some screenshots taken at 1024x768 (reduced to 800x600) with (shameless plug) the 'Campbell Variant' of the command interface displayed in shot 3. Many, many more goodies courtesy of Michael within] ianc [ May 12, 2002, 01:58 AM: Message edited by: ianc ]

Gents, Yes, I searched on the topic here, but only got three unrelated or unresolved hits. It doesn't seem as though it's been mentioned before. The descriptions of Boelter, Bix and Wittman's handling of their tanks seemed to suggest that this was a fairly successful technique for them. The accounts also seemed to indicate that the more successful commanders on the attack were able to rapidly assess and simply 'drive into' a situation quickly enough to upset the Russian's plans and gain the initiative. I suppose the German radios were decisive for German company and platoon commanders in this process. I'm very anxious to see the effects on combat tactics resulting from CMBB's treatment of this difference. At any rate, I believe you are right on the question Michael. The core of the issue is exactly how (or whether) the engine penalizes to-hit chances when the target's movement deviates from head-on to Firer's LOS. I was thinking of the effectiveness of a fast zigzag sprint followed by a short firing halt versus a straight dash to the same place, and will try to devise some basic tests to determine the effectiveness of this. ianc

Hello Gentlemen, I've just finished rereading "Panzer Aces" again. I couldn't believe it when I found it in paperback down at the local Borders for $8 or so. Anyway, many of the accounts talk about the commanders zigzagging wildly over the field on their attack approaches and in the midst of battles to throw off the enemy's aim. Will this tactic help to lessen the hit chances in CM? I haven't actually tested this myself, but I'm wondering if CM takes into account the proportional component of a target's motion that's perpendicular to the firer's LOS? It seems to me that if a target is moving straight towards you on flat terrain, the effect of its movement would be a negligible factor in the to-hit calculations, whereas if he's moving perpendicular to you, it would have considerable effect. I remember the old AH game Tobruk used to take this into account (I think with an optional rule) by forcing you to add 1 to the to-hit number required for every hex moved perpendicular to the LOS. Conversely, if this effect is not accounted for and one attempts to zigzag, one could actually be making things worse by spending more time in LOS... Any thoughts or observations? ianc

Vielen Dank fuer die hilfe Walker. You rule! ianc

Was bedeutet 'gestirgen'? Ich kan dass nicht finden... ianc

Hi Michael, I'll take a whack at it (loosely). I'm sure someone else will step with better: Volunteers move into the Panzer Grenadier Divison 'Grossdeutschland'. ---------------------------------------- The Panzer Grenadier Division 'Grossdeutschland had its big day on Tuesday, Jan 25th, when it took a large number of volunteers into its midst. After the reception, down to business.

Moon, was ist Jaegerdeutsch? Ich habe von das niemals gehoert?

Hmmm... Quite true. I agree 100% with the second part of this quote, but I'm scared to death that someone actually even suggested it, since BTS used exactly this same logic in not including a 'Unit Navigation Screen' that would allow you to see your unit list and jump to a particular unit by clicking on it. Keeping fingers crossed for its NON adoption as a possible solution... ianc P.S. Yes I know I'm a snivelling little thread-hijacking bitch. Sorry...

Hah, second damn post... Another thing I miss and would love to see is those famous SL/ASL leader names. How many times did Lt. Stahler (9-2) route the red hordes for me? Is there a way to change the leader names in CM, or are they hard-coded? ianc

Dammit, that is friggin' fantastic! I must have it! Deanco, I luv ya, but that brings back such old memories that I just can't live without it. Michael, can you email it or something? (me kowtows to you) ianc

Realistic it may be, but it's just not sporting old chap! ianc

support.microsoft.com

Hmmm... I guess I'm just not doing a good job of explaining it. Being an infernally lazy git, and not wanting to hijack this thread any further, I'll decline to carry it on. If I can summon sufficient vestiges of gumption, I'll try to start a new thread on this in future to better get my point across. Thanks for the comments Andreas and Moon, ianc

Here's how: Reality - I'm in a house next to a grove of trees. I look at the trees and cannot see out the other side. Hence I know that unless there is someone actually in that grove, I can safely move behind it out of enemy LOS. CM - My unit is in the house, and it sees the grove of trees there. Since trees are just represented by a dark patch on the ground and few tree models, the unit can't immediately tell whether it can be seen as it attempts to move behind the trees. Make sense? The impreciseness of the graphical treatment of the terrain can lead to problems or uncertainties which would not be encountered in real life. ianc

SlowMotion is correct: since CM uses DirectX, changing the openGL settings won't affect CM. You can go to the Direct3D settings tab and you should find something similar there which you might want to play around with though. I think you should be able to do this fairly risk free. Nice desktop! ;-O ianc

SlowMotion is correct: since CM uses DirectX, changing the openGL settings won't affect CM. You can go to the Direct3D settings tab and you should find something similar there which you might want to play around with though. I think you should be able to do this fairly risk free. Nice desktop! ;-O ianc

This sort of ties in with my pet peeve about CM I think, and that is that what you see on the map or through a unit's viewpoint is not necessarily what you get. I mean by this that in real life if you were in a particular spot, you'd know that you couldn't see through some trees, and therefore it would be safe to move behind them. In CM, you see trees, or a couple of bldgs, but you don't know whether or not they'll provide an LOS obstruction until you get behind them and use the LOS tool. I realize that there are technical constraints behind this and that a WYSIWYG battlefield is probably not obtainable at this point. Still, it irks though... ianc

I recently reread Cornelius Ryan's 'A Bridge Too Far', and although I refuse to hunt down a specific page # for you, I'm quite sure he mentions at least one instance of this occurring with the British 1st in Arnhem, much to the operating trooper's detriment I'm afraid... ianc

Very interesting. Good show! ianc

Shouldn't that be 'somefink'? ianc

Finns! I'm dying to create those Steel Panthers scenarios I used to play with my friend: Ski troops with satchel charges stalking his KV's through the dark snowy woods... ianc

Ack, I'm devastated! I guess my request for this must have slipped of the pile last January of whenever the hell it was... ;-( ianc

Jesus that is gorgeous! Sign me up! ianc

My dad was an art professor and he took two sabbaticals when I was 5 and 12 (in '67 and '74), both for over a year. We travelled for about half the time and stayed in one spot for half of it. The first time was in Denmark, and the second in Holland in a little town called Heusden (which I visited last year for the first time in about 25 years). My young Dutch friends and I would ride our bikes over and walk along the tops of the dikes there, and in those dikes were many artifacts, including many little shards of stems and the bowls of those long curved ceramic pipes the Dutch smoked long ago. We also found many Enlish and German bullet shell casings, and I collected them, even then being a grognard in the making. I still have the best ones and the best two are sitting on my shelf right now, with 43 and 44 stamped on the bottom of them. The story went that as the allies were closing in on the town, the Germans locked many of the townspeople in the town hall and burned it. Hence, the 'Duitsers' were not well looked upon in that part of the world, and the town hall looks rather newer than the rest of the buildings in the town square. My best friend's father was a river policeman on the Maas, and he found an MP38 and a tommy gun over the years, but he sold them both. He let me steer the boat, but relieved me (quite rapidly) of the responsibility when I couldn't keep it straight. ianc