guachi

I'm not sure if I've seen anyone comment about this. I did some experimenting with the command radius of HQs. It seems there are two dependent variables for the command radius - LOS and command bonus. If the LOS between a unit and HQ is blocked the base radius is halved. A +1 command bonus gives a +50% radius and a +2 command gives a +100% radius. The base radius is 50 meters. No command bonus, LOS: 50 meters No command bonus, no LOS: 25 meters +1 command bonus, LOS: 75 meters +1 command bonus, no LOS: 37.5 meters +2 command bonus, LOS: 100 meters +2 command bonus, no LOS: 50 meters Jason [This message has been edited by guachi (edited 11-21-99).]

Steve, from what I see, the UBB code isn't working because there is a space between the last bracket and the link. This: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>www.microsoft.com/games/closecombat/update.htm www.microsoft.com/games/closecombat/cc2/downloads.htm <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Should be: www.microsoft.com/games/closecombat/update.htm www.microsoft.com/games/closecombat/cc2/downloads.htm Jason

I find that books help greatly to enhance the immersion factor. I've never been in the military nor am I likely to ever be in the military. So books and documentaries help greatly to get the history and feel of the game. When I read, for instance, that the MG42 sounded like ripping canvas it makes it really easy to pick out the sound in the game. Knowing that the M4's 75mm gun wasn't the greatest AT gun, I won't expect great things out of it against German armor. When my Hellcats showd up in LD, I yanked out my reference book. I read that it had very thin armor but was the fastest tracked vehicle used in action. I thought I would try to use their speed to gain an advantage. I find that books are great for history, context, and an idea of the capabilities and weaknesses of my equipment so I have an idea of what to expect of them. Jason

Sdkfz 9/1 and Sdkfz 9/2 were both used as recovery tractors. The 9/1 had a crane with a 6 metric ton lifting capacity. The 9/2 had a 10 metric ton crane. They were fitted with outrigger legs, an extra jib and some were fitted with a spade at the rear (lke on the Bergepanther). By the time production ceased in 1944 and was replaced by the Bergepanther the final version had the same engine has a Pz IV. The Sdkfz 9 was so big it cost half as much as a Panther did. Jason

While on the topic of display bug. The VG Heavy MG squad appears to have the Firepower of its two MG42s listed wrong. The numbers don't match up with all of the other MG42 LMGs. Jason

While on the topic of display bug. The VG Heavy MG squad appears to have the Firepower of its two MG42s listed wrong. The numbers don't match up with all of the other MG42 LMGs. Jason

I have a book entitled The Encyclopedia of Weapons of World War II. It's 50 pages long and hte cover blurb states "The comprehensive guide to over 1,500 weapons systems including tanks, small arms, warplanes, artillery, ships, and submarines" There are usually one b&w photo and one color illustration for each entry. The entries are short with a summary of specs for each weapon. It has everything from the Panzerwurfmine (with an illustration of how they were thrown) to the 70,000 ton battleship Yamato. The book only cost $25 but I think it is only available at Barnes & Noble. The book gives a good overview of just about everything and has given me ideas of things I want to learn more about. I also like the book because with everthing with its own entry it is easy to look things up. Jason

Producing a tank (or anything) generally breaks down into two parts, cost of labor and cost of capital. The Hetzer obviously uses less raw materials because it weighs less. I have no idea about how costly the various materials were but with the Germans, simple availability was a problem. I remember reading in one of my Econ textbooks that the Americans were bidding up the price and buying as much of a strategic metal (tungsten?) that was only mined in a few countries as possible to try and keep it out of the hands of the Axis. I don't know how long either of the two vehicles took to construct, but German vehicles were relatively complex. In any case, I would guess that the Hetzer was easier simply because it didn't have a turret. Does anyone have any information on how long it took to construct various weapons in WWII? Jason Just my luck. Steve and I were composing our comments at the same time. My message doesn't make as much sense now. [This message has been edited by guachi (edited 11-19-99).]

From my trusty Handbook On German Military Forces: 50-mm mortar Projectile weight 2.2 lbs 4.5 oz TNT 81-mm mortar: Projectile weight of 7.7 pounds 1.1 lbs TNT (Turner Network Television???) 105-mm mortar: Projectile weight 16 lbs 3.75 lbs TNT Nothing else listed weight of the explosive charge. You can see that only a small portion of the projectile weight is TNT. Assume that the amount of HE explosive is related to the blast FP number and that the 75-mm and 88-mm guns have a similar proportion of TNT to projectile weight. (These two assumptions aren't really correct but play along) This would give the 75-mm gun a blast FP of 28 and the 88-mm gun a blast FP of 46. These numbers aren't tremendously far off from the actual values of 32 and 48. Jason

Check out the blast firepower of the offmap 81mm mortar in Last Defense and the on map 81mm mortar in Riesberg. The Last Defense mortar has a blast FP of 10 and the Riesberg mortar as a blast FP of 17. Jason

I played Riesberg for the second time as the Americans today. First time against the AI. I tried to put some of the things mentioned in this thread into practice. They worked great. Final score - 88-12. I tried the same tactic I did the first time, swinging wide and attacking the town from both sides rather than frontally. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>A few points when attacking a position. First try and identify and use a covered and concealed route as far to the target as possible. (Surprise!)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Luckily, Riesberg has a lot of trees so staying hidden isn't much of a problem. I think I did a good job of maneuvering my platoons down the flanks with minimal contact (wiht one exception). <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Second, try and isolate the target from the rest of the enemy's defensive line. This can be done several ways, by laying smoke to block interdicting fire from other enemy positions, or by attack from a direction that keeps much of the enemy's defense from bringing fire on you, or by interdicting those key long range weapons with HMG fire or indirect fire.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The attack on the left needed the most support fire because of the 88 on the hill. I managed to pick off two squads before I hit the main body of resistance. I put the 88 under enough supressive fire from MGs and mortars that on the turn it was destroyed it didn't get off any shots before my M4 destroyed it. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Third, carefully position your support weapons to lay maximium fire on enemy positions for the duration of "the assault crossing" if there is one.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> My M4s mowed down 10 buildings to get a good LOS the the rear areas and interdict reinforcements moving within the town to the outskirts from whence I was attacking. I kept the MGs with the tanks and they also helped supress enemy fire from within the town. For the close assaults, I made sure that whatever enemy I was assaulitng was coming under fire from at least three units. I also tried to keep units moving forward into better cover fire positions. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>It's better to suppress everyone and kill no one than it is to kill a few guys but have others free to fire on your units. Save the real carnage for close assault and short range fire.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> There were a few times where I had to wait a turn or two before I began my assault. I tried to divide my fire up as evenly as possible and keep the heads of as many enemies down as I could. The ones I couldn't bring adequte fire on, I tried to move my units out of the way. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Your indirect fire is a precious resource. There is damn little to go around so use it gingerly. It should be used not when you see this or that target but when it supports whatever you are trying to do.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I wasted my 105mm artillery by firing it too early. When I realized I was firing too early I should have called off the mission and plotted another one. I think the M4s were useful, though, in providing direct support with their 75mm guns. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Don't go killing stuff just because you can see it. manuever around threats (i.e. like AT gun killzones) so that you can bring your combat power to bear where it is needed the most. (With ammo left)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I mangaged to move one platoon around suspected German positions on the right. The second one got caught, however. An 88 was positioned in the woods behind the pond. It caused 15 casualties before I had my platoon charge the gun. Thankfully, there were no support units around. My bazooka ended up destroying the 88 (Whoo hoo!) and I mowed down the escaping crew. But I would have rather avoided the gun altogether and attacked it later. Luckily, this platoon hadn't fired a shot yet so it still had all its ammo left. Thanks Los and Fionn for the tips. The attack was more aggressive and better coordinated than the first time. I took only 55 casualties and lost one mortar and no tanks. And no squad took more than 50% casualties. Winning 88-12 was my best performance yet with either scenario by one point. When I played Riesberg the first time as the Americans as a PBEM game I won 73-27. Jason

Try: http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/001055.html This is the thread with 100+ email addresses. Jason [This message has been edited by guachi (edited 11-18-99).]

I was thinking about this earlier today. When the game is finished, will BTS duplicate all of the preorders before they ship the first one? If they do it this way, everyone, except the overseas guys, will get the game at about the same time. Another question that popped into my head. As soon as the game goes gold, will the real demo be released? This would give us something to do while we wait for our copies of the game. Jason

Fionn wrote: > Well, my opponents will tell you I play > very aggressively. I counter-attack on the > defence and am prepared to take major risks > on the offence. > I got 3 platoons of US infantry into > Riesburg by turn 7 and have forced the > buildings already. See, a methodical > approach allows your opponent to shift > reinforcements around and resist you more > effectively. I tried a completely different strategy with Riesberg. There is only one objective in the front of the town; why bother attacking there? I swung out way wide to both flanks. I wanted to get my opponent to move his forces and perhaps expose his positions. He did and that pretty much doomed him. He thought I couldn't see him but I could. An attack on one platoon was done without any supression fire at all because I wanted to maintain surprise. It worked because the attack started at a range of about 50 meters. The LAST thing I did in the scenario was attack the fron row of houses. I'm not saying that my tactics are great or anything. But with only two scenarios I figured my opponent had played it a couple of times already so I wanted to try something he might not expect. The main reason I don't make quick attacks is that I'm not good at coordinating them yet. Fionn, I think you wrote some time ago that you had problems with coordinating attacks at first but have gotten a lot better with practice. I hope that with practice I'll get better at coordinating attacks, too. I hadn't really come up with a good plan on what to do with support weapons. I have no idea how they are actually used, so I just made a guess. I've used my vehicles to transport the slow moving support weapons so they can keep up with the infantry. I don't know whether this is a good idea or not, though. I'll try to keep them together next time and see how it goes. Los said what I was trying to say. I should have written that I thought the best engagement ranges for causing casualties is under 100m, or longer for MGs. My very first game I had the same problem that the first poster did of my units running low on ammo. I spent all of my ammo supressing and not enough was left for the assault. I still won because the AI isn't the most brilliant tactician. I'm obviously an amateur at this game, but I'll agree wholeheartedly with Los about concentration of fire. I was a believer after getting it to work for the first time. Squads just disintegrate under concentrated fire, especially the less experienced ones. It's fun watching an enemy squad spend its entire turn with its face in the dirt. Not so fun when it is your units. Thanks to those of you who are far more skilled than I for the good tips. Jason [This message has been edited by guachi (edited 11-17-99).]

You know you've watched The History Channel too much when you start seeing the same stock footage crop up in different documentaries. Jason

Don't I know it Steve. In fact, I'm watching The History Channel right now. It's a show about LA's water supply. I've watched an hour long show about the history of plumbing. PLUMBING!!! Jason

I had it work in Riesberg where I had my Sherman hunt over the crest of a hill and target the 88 in town. He stopped as soon as he saw the 88 and was nicely hull down to it. Probably what saved his hide during the ensuing gun duel. I've also practiced in hot seat games against myself to try and eye ball hull down status. I was trying to see if it was possible to get the German armor hull down to the Hellcats. (It is). I then noted how the tanks were situated so I could try and apply that to other scenarios. It was pretty tricky getting hull down to (at the time) non-existent targets. Jason [This message has been edited by guachi (edited 11-17-99).]

My first PBEM game was Riesberg as the Americans. I stood off and pounded everything in sight with my Shermans. I maneuvered my platoons around to get in close and launched assaults at close range. I wiped out one German platoon in about a minute and another in about 2 and a half minutes. My opponent surrendered and after looking at the map told me that he was surprised at how many casualties he had caused. The casualty ratio was about 1.5:1 in my favor. One benefit of short, decisive combat that I hadn't considered was that my opponent wouldn't get good intel on my squads. I won that scenario by fighting the battles n my terms. Make the opponent react to you and not the other way around. Think of it like sports. If you control the tempo of the game and can dictate the style of play, you will likely win. I wholeheartedly agree with Fionn's last statement. You can't play mind games with the computer but you can against a human so use that to your advantage. By the same token, don't let your opponent rattle you. Check out the AAR between Fionn and Martin to see what happened when Fionn got rattled by Martin's artillery and ground attack aircraft. Specific answers to your questions: (Note: Unlike Fionn, I'm not an agressive player. I am extremely methodical. I am playing LD PBEM as the Germans and I'm trying to be aggressve. It's only turn 3 and I'm failing miserably at it) 1. Here is some data on the strength of squads at various ranges. Data has been normalized so that each squads' firepower at a range of 40 meters is equal to 1.00. 40 100 250 500 Rifle 44 1.00 .51 .22 .08 Rifle 45 1.00 .55 .25 .10 Platoon HQ 1.00 .49 .19 .06 Company HQ 1.00 .41 .12 .02 Battalion HQ 1.00 .34 .07 .00 M1919 MMG 1.00 .79 .48 .32 M2 .50 HMG 1.00 .80 .55 .43 VG 1.00 .56 .25 .12 VG SMG 1.00 .31 .01 .00 VG Heavy SMG 1.00 .49 .20 .11 SS PzGren 1.00 .62 .30 .16 SS Motorized 1.00 .63 .31 .16 Platoon HQ 1.00 .34 .05 .01 Company HQ 1.00 .32 .03 .01 MG42 HMG 1.00 .81 50 .34 ***I've tried twice now to get the above numbers to line up in nice, neat columns. I'm obviously not succeding. Can anyone help me get figure out how to fix it?*** The squads (except for one) pretty much follow the same pattern of 1.00, .50, .25, .1 for their firepower. The one notable exception is the VG SMG squad which is useless at anything past 100m. The SS squads fare a little better than the others because of their 2 inherent LMGs. The HQs fare miserably past 100m because of their lack of long range automatic firepower. The MGs, on the other hand, fare well even at long ranges with each having a firepower curve of roughly 1.00, .80, .50, .35. With the exception of the SMG squad, there really isn't a range that you can gain an advantage over the enemy at. Against the SMG squad, you could sit back at 100+ m and fire at a squad that can't really harm you. To me, the best engagement ranges begin where the ratio is .5 or higher. This is roughly 250m for MGs, 100m for most squads, and 75m for HQs and the SMG squad. With MGs, I try and find a good spot and keep them there. They are slower and have more ammo than other units that moving them around, unless they can be transported, seems to me to be a waste of time. If you can get an advantage of, say, 1.5 or 2 platoons attacking one enemy platoon, press the attack at as close a range as possible. It ends the battle quicker and prevents the enemy from reinforcing or retreating his units under attack. Conceivably, given CM's one minute turns, you could have an assault started and finished before the opponent even has a chance to react. The long range assets (MGs, mortars, arty, AFVs) are used to suppress the target before the attack. When the attack begins you can either keep up the long range support fire or switch it to enemy units that might interfere with the attack. 2. Might as well disperse them. In LD the Germans have 3 platoons, 3 FOs, and 3 HMGs. I just divided things up evenly and gave each platoon one FO and one HMG. In Riesberg, I think the Americans have 4 platoons, 3 mortars, 3 MMGs, and 1 HMG. I gave one platoon the HMG and divided up the others evenly. I also separated my tanks enough to try and provide as much coverage of targets on the town as possible. I did get lucky, though, in picking a good spot for my one spotter playing Riesberg. He had adequate LOS to the town and my opponent never spotted him. 3. In Riesberg, my tanks were the only thing firing for some turns as I moved my platoons into position. So naturally they drew fire. Sometimes I left them buttoned because all they were doing was area fire against buildings. I wanted to make sure I could unbutton them when the time came to fire at live targets. Otherwise, you might as well unbutton them. It increases the risk to the TC but it also increases the effectiveness of the tank. I suspect a buttoned tank would have a hard time spotting a PS/bazooka team. Jason [This message has been edited by guachi (edited 11-17-99).] [This message has been edited by guachi (edited 11-17-99).]

Scenario - Yes Campaign - No Jason

When the time comes, you certainly have enough posters to do a variety of voices for ANZAC forces. There are even a few Finns here if you need voices for Winter War scenarios. Me, I'd find it a little freaky if I heard my own voice talking back to me from the computer. Jason

I like what John Hough proposed in his original post. It allows for totally unbalanced scenarios and all that matters is that you did better than all of the other people in your position. I think a system like this would add much more uncertainty to the game if you knew that the games didn't have to be completely balanced. Ultimately, I think that multiple tournament types would be fun. Single elimination on a set map with predesignated forces. A tournament where each player gets to choose his own forces. And a duplicate bridge type with the possibility of wildly imbalanced forces. I've played a bunch of Magic tournaments and the same type of tournament over and over gets boring. After a while, those of us who played frequently devised all sorts various ways to play a tournament (Swiss, single elimination, double elimination,. teams ...) and playing restrictions (mostly involving limits on what cards could be used). It kept things interesting and each different tournament type required different strategies to win. Jason [This message has been edited by guachi (edited 11-16-99).]

I have a horror story worse than needing to install Windows98 to fix the problem. My system locked up WHILE INSTALLING Windows98. When I called customer service and told them what my problem was I was sent right to the head of the line. The conversation went something like this: (After going through the rigamarole of Name, serial number, blah, blah) "What problem are you having with Windows98?" "It locked up during install and a window popped up that basically said, 'You're screwed. Must reboot your system.'" Pause "I'll connect you right to a Service Technician. This won't count against your 90 days of free customer support." I think I was on hold for about 10 seconds. Did you know that you can install Windows98 from your hard drive? Like a computer game, with the right cheat codes you can avoid a lot of the dumb stuff Windows makes you do. Jason

My take on the AI is the same as what someone up above said. Equivalent to an average human but unimaginative. Of course, a small scenario doesn't give the computer much of a chance to do unusual things. But there is no way that a computer can do the wacky things a human can and you can't use psychological warfare against the computer. In sports, it doesn't take much of a difference in team ability to turn a game into a total rout. That's the way I see it against the computer. We are likely better players than the AI and we get the added intel of reading the scenario briefing or playing the scenario again. But just like in sports, occasionally an inferior team can beat a superior team. I think I'll look at the games against the AI as more of a practice and learning experience. There are so many things that I think most of us have to learn and practice. Figuring out the capabilities of the multitude of vehicles and squads. Knowing the composition of all the squad and company types. Guaging ammunition usage. Figuring the best use of terrain. Knowing where to set up emplaced fortifications. Timing artillery strikes. Coordinationg movement of units so they don't have a traffic jam. I could probably go on and on. But practice isn't about winning or losing, it's about learning. And as long as the AI doesn't do completely ridiculous or unrealistic things I should learn a lot. The real test is playing against a human. Jason [This message has been edited by guachi (edited 11-15-99).]

bpp = bits per pixel A bit is either on or off. 16 bits means that each pixel has 2^16 possible colors. Or 65536 colors. Jason

Does anyone listen to music while playing CM? I like Big Band music and I finally got around to listening to it while playing CM. I put on some Glen Miller. It seemed appropriate since he was a Captain in the Army, I think, and toured around playing for the troops. It didn't seem to fit, though. It was entirely too upbeat. It's kind of odd listening to 'One O'clock Jump' or 'Stomping at the Savoy' while a Tiger and a bazooka team have a gun duel at close range. I then decided to only play the music during the plotting phase and that worked a little better. When the Big Band CD was done I put on Nine Inch Nails and that worked just fine for the chaos of combat. Jason