coe

This might be a new bug but on the set up, I've split several squads into teams...(second battle of operation hubertus)...so I have 3 squads in three houses. Each of the houses have 2 teams (of the same squad)...then I decide to merge 2 teams in one of the houses by moving on team closer to the other...those teams merge but so do the other teams in the other houses.... Conan

xerxes, Well i'm trying to figure out what happens if all your other squads are a full manpower and you only have one squad which is depleted...there isn't anywhere for the depleted squad to get absorbed to (unless it is assumed it gets sent back for rest and refit (which if I were the lone survivor of a squad I'd welcome heartily)). Conan

I have read accounts of other city battles - berlin, aachen, Kharkov, Voronezh etc. and it seems the bitter street to street fighting lasted less than a month. What made Stalingrad so special that despite several months, the Germans never took it - was it larger? more built up? Were the Germans not was well equipped? or was it because they didn't surround and cut off the city? Second question is at the time of Operation Uranus - lets say the Germans did deploy as well as they could (i.e. didn't concentrate all forces in stalingrad, had reserve, buffed up the satellite armies) was the line as held generally untenable and over extended? So that any russian offensive in the area of the size of Uranus would probably have caused a situation that the Germans probably would not have been able to recapture all the lost ground? Conan

hmm you want to have firebases all over y'know 105s and gunship support just kidding (well if you could have firebases and gunship support you would use them wouldn't you?) Conan

Ok lets say I have all full strength squads at the beginning of the battle (of an operation) - at the end of the battle all my squads are still 100% except 1 squad which was badly hit and only has 1 person remaining. In the usual case where there are other hurt squads, - the badly hit one gets assimilated into them. But in this case with no other hurt squads, what happens to the badly hit one for the next battle - does it disappear or get more soldiers? Conan

hmmm what about having an offensive and defensive rating for the commanders?

I have two tanks facing eachother - one at the highest possible level, one at the lowest possible level - essentially if the ground were level they'd be like nose to nose (so whatever that is for a cliff). Could the tanks hit eachother in CMBB, CMBO, CMAK? Conan

tank hunter teams seem to be pretty effective with the Panzerwurf mines - while lacking in range compared to the Faustpatrone 100, it's much harder to spot the tank hunter team that has used the mine than one that just fired the panzerfaust + the team doesn't get surpressed if it lobs a mine from inside a building.

sorry I meant gun as in larger caliber (i.e. cannon) e.g. Pak 75/40 20mm/55 etc.

In a CMBB scenario I had an MG42 kill a SU76 from 10m (I think the SU76 has 0mm in the rear) but it was rather amusing to have the MG42 have a tank/SP-Gun kill. It took several bursts - I assume the MG42 crew was so excited to have the opportunity it got nervous or something like that. has there been any instances in CM series where like a 6 man HMG/MMG crew gets wiped out in one shot (not like from massive artillery - but like from a tank round - in theory it should be possible much like when a gun gets hit.

on a humorous note, sometimes it's better to stay hidden and hope the beast(s) passes you by especially if you have only two panzerfausts and there are 3 tanks I thought the part in Saving Private Ryan (aside from the whole German daylight attack not getting pounced on by allied airpower immediately and that the SS unit wasn't even in Normandy at D+6) where the American soldiers were prancing about the tiger like rabid squirrels (despite the presence of German infantry) was rather amusing. Of course the party got cut short by a supporting 20mm which decided that it could fire at its big kitty friend without hurting it to prevent any acorns from being shoved inside the tank.

question for you all, how hard would it be so that you could choose earlier weapons that weren't in real use later in the war in the late war era, or even stuff like having a few Pak 75 tungsten rounds in 1945. Couldn't one rig things so that in a normal QB you couldn't select it but in designing a scenario you could (and maybe on the list it would merely indicate that the weapon etc. was technically unavailable then so that if you wanted historical accuracy you'd know not to choose it). the other thing is, lets say you have a company come in as a reinforcement over several turns - is there any way to have it so that the platoons coming in are not all independent OR perhaps have an adhoc company of different types of platoons but under the same company commander? e.g. let's say for a kit bash german kampfgruppe thrown together with whatever is available - Co HQ 1 pioneer platoon 1 panzer grenadier platoon 1 hapless conscript volksturm militia While I know the company commander can control all of them it'd still be neat to be able to designate the units as part of the same company. Finally, any way to have squads appear without a platoon command unit (e.g. like a leaderless swarm).

Meach you have to remember that the squad sitting there to the rear or side is just an abstraction - in real life the squad is a bit more scattered - the dudes with the AT weaponry might be actually in the not quite at the rear or have to work to get to the rear of the tank. Plus the whole scared to the high heavens thing. I assume that "built in" to the AT hand held weaponry is the "hesitation" that one gets knowing that their stuff sometimes doesn't work. German grenades and grenade bundles aren't the best AT stuff. Now the wurfmines and teller ones - that's more like it!

well I guess I opened a can of worms: Basically I thought that perhaps the kill model for the hulldown or nonhulldown Pz IV (or any tank) was more like a two step process: 1. Determine if the shell hits the tank at all. (thus perhaps hulldown lowers the probability of a hit) 2. If it hits, determine what part of the tank it hits (thus hull down increases the probability of certain parts getting hit). If in general it makes sense for any tank to go hulldown rather than stay out open, then the effect of going hull down must be greater in step 1 than the effect it has on step 2. e.g. assume that non hulldown is a guaranteed hit and that the only way to kill the tank is the turret and that in non-hulldown the probability (once it is determined the tank has been hit) of the hitting shell to strike the the turret is 1/3 (as opposed to any other part of the tank). therefore in non hulldown mode: 100% * 33.333% = 33.333% chance of a kill. but now lets assume that in hulldown mode there is no longer a guaranteed hit but instead only a 50% chance of hitting. Assume however if you hit the tank you can only hit the exposed parts - assume for simplicity sake that the only exposed part is the turret. Thus the probability of nailing the turret given that the tank is hit to 100%. therefore in in hulldown mode: 50% * 100% = 50% chance of kill. Thus in this example, going hull down wouldn't pay off. However if going hull down reduced the chance to hit the tank at all to less than 33% it would be better to go to hull down. Anyways, that's my take on the model. Coe

question on the effects of hull down. Let's say you you have an AT gun shooting at a PZ IV and the AT gun can kill it. Statistically will the PZIV last longer in hull down mode or non hull down mode. I know that in hull down mode theoretically the AT gun must aim for the turret but since that is a smaller object wouldn't it be harder to hit? Likewise in a non hull down PZ IV would the AT gun just aim for the center of the mass? So in summary, does the supposed harder to hit probability of a PZIV hull down compensate for the fact that a hit (in the turret) is more likely to kill?

infantry attack across open ground? eeek.... A nice rolling artillery barrage might work somewhat

hmmm what about the paint schemes of uniforms and vehicles, does that give an inherent advantage?

On visual examination of camouflage it seems that in the later war years the Germans paid alot more attention to it than the Allies (paint schemes, brushes on everything etc. etc.). Did this mean the Germans were better at it, if so are there inherent bonus qualities the Germans get for concealment or is it only through the platoon, co, battalion leaders (and also what about the vehicles?)

that makes sense...hmm a heavy mg harder to damage though? (ok besides that it is smaller?) C.

I've kinda wondered about this: any thing that seems like a crewed weapon (seems to be pretty vulnerable when spotted), however, the HMG is a squad and only gets eliminated when then last person becomes a casualty. So assuming firepower or ROF diminishes with the number of casualties (is this right - does this happen in the game), would it be more realistic to model the HMG like a crewed weapon - that is it becomes disabled with lets say a direct hit? Conan

I believe there was a 12.7mm machine gun mounted on Luftwaffe aircraft and that some of them were converted to infantry use. The interesting thing is, however, in the CM series, the 20mm guns can be taken out rather quickly (i.e. by a hit) then you have the crew milling about whereas the 50 cal. keeps firing until its crew is gone. This makes 50 cal or whatever the russian machine guns on wheels incredibly hard to eliminate. On that note, head to head the 20mm vs. the 50 cal I'd take the 50 cal just cause it can "take more hits" and still last fire. Coe

ok I never found this out but what in the dickens does Sdkfz stand for and what is the translation? On a funny note, I had a pioneer lob a demo charge at the enemy - the blast killed like two of the enemy but also killed the pioneer. Conan

hmmm, I wonder if there would be those big battles of encirclement going on - I mean with the exception of the sweep across france and the stuff towards the end of extreme end of the war it seems lots of WA v. German battles were small gain here and there type of stuff (this is puzzling, as I wonder w/o the whole airpower thing going on would France have seen the same type of mobile style warfare as in the east?

I have to add something here, (I was bored the other day and I thought...hmmm what about the Imperial storm troopers vs. the Enterprise redshirts?). From what I understand, the Russians were running low on men, and also had a lot of stuff coming in from lend lease. I suppose that Western allied airpower might have had a decent advantage, plus the nukes, plus the navy. That aside, there'd be some interesting shocks. For some reason, the Germans did seem to have trouble dishing out large amounts of casualties against the West as they did in the east. Maybe, some of those recently surrendering Germans would have been given back their weapons and maybe a few bazookas (which I assume they might ditch for any panzerfausts lying around). It'd be interesting though. No doubt initially the West would have been in for a bit of a shock, but the West did have stuff to defeat things on the level of King Tigers...which I presume would have been able to in some conditions take care of IS-IIIs. Now I don't know about large massed formations of well supplied IS-IIIs...that's a different story. Ah well.

hmm as for the fire one then get the hell out of there, or a hit that target then go back to hiding (for AT guns)..... in the panzerschrek thing, it's hard to time the fire and move delay - especially if you don't know when the enemy will come within your target area. Thus you could start running before even firing...(that would be bad)....as for the AT gun, if you hit and kill the enemy vehicle early in the turn, you might want it not to start firing at other things that come into view towards the end (especially if they are like in packs of 5 or more)....it's kind of the pick of the isolated one then hide again.....or it is the hit one and destroy it before everyone else has a chance to figure where you are.