kverdon

Just a question to those testing v1.03. Since 1.03 should be out in a few weeks and since most scenarios are the most fun when played for the first time, I'm just asking if it would be worth holding off on playing the scenarios until 1.03 comes out? I've played about half the scenarios but I've found a quick mission can be a hoot as well. If 1.03 is worth waiting for, I'd rather just stick to quick missions for now. Thanks, Kevin

Thanks, That is pretty much what I did. The limmited Visibility of the scenario (dark) can help here. With the AT guns on my side of the river, I could engage the Enemy vehicles about the time they came withing Vis Range AND keep the guns out of most small arms fire. The Zook teams were able to hide in the area between the two bridges. The problems crop up when you are suddenly presented with multiple targets or if you miss or even if you tie an exchange with the german armor. The 105 Stugs can be deadly as can the German Mortars. What is does boil down to is quite a bit of luck. If your AT teams take out the german armor, you will probably win. If the germans get lucky and knock out a AT gun early you are toast. I went back and replayed this one about 5 times from the same save game. I got 5 different results. Won about half the time so it looks like a pretty balanced scenario, a real knuckle biter!. The fact that I could replay it five times with quite different results is a testiment to the system. Kevin

****SPOILER BELOW***************** I just finished SON as the US. OUCH! Are the US troops even suposed to have a hope in H*LL of winning this one? Played it 3 times finally winning the last time. Two of the Stug's never got into the fight. You have 4 Stugs, at least two armored cars, and about 5 half tracks to deal with. This with 3 bazooka and 2 57mm. I abandoned the farm outpost and deployed most of the troops behind the wall on the far shore of the river. I placed the AT's on the near shoulder of the small intact bridge. Even then it was touch and go. If those last two Stugs had attacked I don't know if I could have pulled it off. As I side note, I saw a zook team wax one of the STUGs, no one else could see it but they are listed at the end with no kills? Anyone else have a viable US Strat for this scenario? thanks, Kevin

Charles, Any chance of adding them in an add-on?

If BTS closes up this thread, we will forever lament the "Maledy Massacre". (didn't that involve the Belgian Bordetella Brigade???)

Add me to the list of those wishing for an M-16 or M-15. They actually did see a fair amount of action during the war. The Bulge for sure and some other actions. I just read an account of one and how it took out a German 50mm bunker at Omaha beach. They put a stream of .50 and 37mm thru the bunker slot and the shots ricocheted about inside. The bunker and gun are still there and you can see the damage the M-15 did to them. The is a plaque over the firing slit comemerating the AAA unit that landed there and knocked the bunker out. Has there been an official ruling form BTS on whether or not they will be added in the future? Add-on Pack? thanks, Kevin

If I recal correctly, the first use of "new" VT or radar proximity fuse in the ETO was during the Battle of the Bulge. Before that they had been forbidden to use them for fear of a dud shell falling into enemy hands. As pointed out, the air burst effect of these fuses was very effective against infantry. I think they used them earlier in the Pacific in the 5"38 AA guns. Worked pretty deadly to bring down night intruders. Kevin

In the few scenarios that I've played that take place in a city with blocks of contiguous/row buildings, I've noticed that if I order a squad to goto the next building that they exit onto the street and then re-enter the next building, often getting mowed down in the process. Now I realize that it is somewhat realistic for this to happen as most row buildings do not have openings into the adjacent buildings. However, from reading "Closing With The Enemy", I found that in fights for Brest and Aachen, troops leaned to breach the interior walls between adjacent building using explosives or bazookas. They could thus go building to building without exiting to the street and have their movement hidden to the enemy. Is is possible to do this in CM?. Is it something that could be added for a patch or CM2? Thanks, Kevin

Color me confused. I have not yet gotten the knack of using my on-board mortar teams. If I read the manual right they should be able to target units that are not in thier LOS but are in the LOS of a platoon Cmdr?. Direct fire works but thats not good odds for the mortar team. How does one correctly employ indirect fire with On-board mortar units? Thanks much, Kevin

Yep, me too. I've picked up about 8 or 9 books related to the subject matter of CM that I've been saving up to read once I got the game. This doesn't count the dozen or so model kits as well. Now to just find the TIME to read the books, assemble the kits and play the game Kevin

So, far I've only seen the mouse print-thru in the menu screens. Anoying, but not damning IMO. I don't seem to have any problems running the game at 4xFSAA and it looks great. The menu artifacts should be easily addressed by BTS or may be fixed when we see the next driver update from 3dfx. Kevin

Steve, Thank you very much for the invitation. I'll happily make that 111 . I'll drop you an email just so that you can get the correct email address in the system. The charge looks like it went thru ok. Glad to have a great game to look forward to. Thanks much, Kevin

Just checking. I ordered back in October and was charged last Fri., am I reading it right that I should give it until tues before emailing Battlefront?. Is it a problem that I changed my email address between when I ordered and now? Thanks, Kevin

I can add myself to the sackcloth and ashes group , ordered in October, card charged Friday, No CM yet . I don't think we got the shaft by anymeans. Just looks like the middle group of orders were the ones that got sidetracked in processing. Random luck, just like the game. Kevin

Us folk on the west coast are going to have to be VERY patient. My wife ordered a book from Amazon.com that shipped from the east coast last monday. They shipped it priority mail and it did not get here until friday. I'm betting Weds-Thurs of next week for my copy. Kevin

Silent Tears Like Rain, Fall Upon My Desktop My Mailbox is Empty You guys have really gotten me in the mood to play Shogun Total War while I await CM. <G>. Kevin

Well I had one of those "Near Combat Mission Experiences" today. Came home and there was the right sized Priority Mail package on the doorstep. I rushed to open it and it was a book my wife ordered from Amazon.com. PHOOEY!!. Really got me as I've never had Amazon.com use priority mail. Kevin

I had the game set to 1024x768 4x FSAA and it was perfectly smooth on scrolling about the map. I've got it running on a PIII 600 (non coppermine) overclocked to 648 with 192mb ram. Looks great too. The card will run you $250-$300 depending on where you get it. I don't yet, have the savvy to get 3D screenshots and I've heard its a bit tricky on a V5 as you have to grab the right area of the card memory to get the FSAA in a screenshot. Hopefully someone can clue me in or perhaps someone else with a V5 can do it. With other prgrams the V5 is quite nice. Everything I've got will run at 800x600 with 4x FSAA and some programs even 1024x768 FSAA. Don't let this fool you. I cannot see much of a difference between 800x600 and 1024x768 in most games but when you enable 800x600 4xFSAA WOW!. 800x600 4xFSAA certainly looks better to me that 1024x768 without it. Having said that, there are a few caveats. FSAA only works for rendered 3d objects. What this means is if you have a program like a simulator that has a 2d cockpit or frame, then the cockpit/frame will not get the benefit of FSAA, the rest of the screen will however. Even M1TP2 looks pretty good with 4xFSAA and its 640x480!. Did not mean to turn this post into a 3DFX commercial but I did want to let people know that CM does look GREAT on a V5 with FSAA. Kevin [This message has been edited by kverdon (edited 06-09-2000).]

I've died and gone to heaven <G>. Just installed my 3dfx V5 5500 Vid Card and enabled 4x Full Screen Anti-Aliasing. All I can say is WOW!!!. If you thought CM looked good before, with 4xFSAA its drop dead gorgeous!. Now to just get the full game in my hands. (Think work would get suspicious if I called in sick for a week <G>). Kevin

Fionn, Here are the links for the AMPS reviews of Tamiya Kits. Handy to have. http://www.amps-armor.org/Reviews/AmpsReviews-06.htm and http://www.amps-armor.org/Reviews/AmpsReviews-07.htm

Fionn, So you've added model building to your list of Vices <G>. Like I can Talk!. Since CC4 and CM demo have been out I've been working on USA armor. So Far I've built a M4A3-75(W, M4A1-76, M24, M10, M18, M3A2 Halftrak, M1 57mmAT and 105 Howitzer. US armor is Sooo easy, Just a coat of OD and your done <G>. Next is a M12, M7, M8 (armored car), Duce and half, jeep. Should keep me out of trouble for a bit <G>. Now that you've figured out the Oil and water bit <G>, you may want to look at acrylic paints. I use the Pactra Scalecoat paint and LOVE it. Gives a really nice finish and cleans up with water. I thin it with Testor's Model Master thinner and it works great. I don't know the availability of Acrylics in Erin but its worth looking into if you can. One of the major points of Airbrushing are KEEP THE AIRBRUSH CLEAN. If you let paint dry in it you will be cursing for a long, long time. BTW before you get the 251, let me email you a link to a AMPS site that does a review of most, if not all, the Tamiya models. Tamiya makes a couple of Sdkfz 251 kits, If I remember rightly there is one that is pretty good while the rest are down in the poor category. I think I've got the page bookmarked at work. Will either email you or post the link here. Good luck building kits. Kevin

I'm not positive but I doubt that you could email it home. Most email servers, especially work ones, have a mb limit (ours is 10mb) on attachments. Kevin

Von Lucke, Yep, unlike the 3DFX cards where the FSAA is setup on Hardware, the Nvida FSAA is a software solution. This can really eat up CPU cycles. Also it uses a different form of FSAA where it renders the imaage your looking at to something like 1600x1200 and then re-renders it down to the resolution your currently at. It also, being a software/driver solution is not as compatible with existing software as 3dfx s hardware solution. As I understand it you can toggle FSAA on/off on the 3dfx cards on the fly. Kevin

Hmmm, FSAA (Full Screen Anti-Aliasing) is a way to oversample a video image and get rid of the "blockiness or jaggies" you see in a 3d image. The V5 5500 will allow 4x FSAA at 800x600 and 2x at 1024x768. I'm seen some say that 640x480 with 4x FSAA looks better than 1024x768 without it. Here is a link I got from SimHQ. http://www.systemlogic.net/articles/00/04/12/ Kevin

Boy don't I wish this was a review It occurred to me that the release of CM is just about the same time that we'll see the release of the 3dfx V5 5500 and Full Screen Anti Aliasing. Now the graphics in CM are fantastic but I'm wondering what, if any, the effect of FSAA will be to enhance them. I've seen the screen shots of what they do for Falcon4, now if they do that for CM as well (Drool)..... See you in the bocage, Kevin [This message has been edited by kverdon (edited 04-17-2000).] [This message has been edited by kverdon (edited 04-17-2000).]