L.Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Treeburst155: Would an entire platoon pack into 20 square meters of cover? ... I just thought I'd throw this out to see if I can stir up some more debate on gaminess. I enjoy being a troublemaker.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Actually, that's 400 square meters of cover. I enjoy being a nitpicker. Is it possible to put 30+ men in a house? Of course. Could they all fire effectively in one direction? No, but they can't in CM either. Units in one corner of a house have pretty restricted LOS. I think the current system is a reasonable abstraction -- it's not perfect, but I can't think of a solution that wouldn't have equally troubling problems without dramatic changes to the game system.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by printt: Am I missing something here or is there a real difference?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> If you "Place" a unit it retains its facing. If you "Move" it, you have the opportunity to change its facing after you put it down, saving you the time and trouble of issuing a second "Rotate" command. (Sometimes you don't get the rotate automatically when moving; I suspect a minor bug.)

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by aka_tom_w: Am I way off base on this one? Or have other folks seen mulitple squads in the LOF of a MG receive fire and injuries from one one MG in a turn?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I have seen a single MG fire on a unit and had a couple other units moving nearby become alerted or suppressed. I don't remember seeing actual casualties taken by other than the targeted unit.

Is both. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

I don't. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

CMHQ has moved to www.combatmission.com POCs for CMMC are: James Bailey, JBailey@ResoluteCapital.com Matt Hyra, citizen@wizards.com ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

1. Certainly no hurt feelings here. My solution is certainly one of "high-risk, high-reward" -- if things go well, they'll likely go quite well, but if things go south it could get ugly. Again, this is something you can live with in a game, but commanding real troops not the best idea unless the prize is REALLY worth it. 2. I don't mind doing more attacks, but I would be interested in a defensive situation also. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

A few more solutions are up now, I see. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

In an operation I'm currently playing as a German defender, an allied plane showed up a couple of battles ago. I was a bit worried, but he ended up expending all his ordnance on a PzIV that had been knocked-out in the first battle and which was now several hundred meters behind the (Allied) lines. He never came close to attacking any of my live units. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

Most likely. I've heard several current/former Army types refer to artillery "Targets" as TRPs, and I need to deal with these people (preferably not looking like a fool when I do so). So I'm actually interested in using the correct nomenclature and understanding the subtle distinctions. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

What I'm thinking of may be solely an artifact of the digitization process, then. I know that if you issue a call for fire from FBCB2, it gets routed to AFATDS and eventually a TRP symbol will show up on your local digital map display irrespective of whether or not there is any readily-identifiable terrain feature at the target point. Your quote specifically refers to battalion level and below; I wonder if things might be different at higher echelons? It makes some sense for TRPs at battalion or lower echelons to be designated primarily for direct-fire weapons, since that's primarily what is on-hand. Perhaps the term is used by higher echelons in a different or expanded sense, or at least without the primarily direct-fire restriction. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

Senor, search for a recent thread started by Bullethead; he used to do this for a living and had extensive comments on the TRPs in 1.12. ScoutPL, are you sure about TRPs being control measures vice preplanned targets? My understanding is that when a call for fire message goes out and gets routed to AFATDS, eventually a message to observer comes back with a target reference point and associated alphanumeric identifier. Subsequent messages can then refer to the TRP by identifier. For units without AFATDS, preplanned TRPs are plotted on fire support overlays as C2/general maneuver graphics. Maybe the infantry has co-opted the term for their own use? ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

Well, if they're oriented to the west and not covering the obstacles with fire, then the engineers should be able to breach and enter the village unopposed. Plus the main effort will be coming in behind their defenses. If the reinforcements are early, then they're early, but I have to fight them either way. With a platoon of hull-down tanks on one side, and a couple 76mm AT guns pretty much guaranteed to get flank shots on units crossing the bridge, plus a battery of 105s on-call, if I _do_ get to the bridge first I think I can keep the bad guys bottled up on the other side. Shut up and eat your mushy peas. Lights out in ten minutes. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley [This message has been edited by L.Tankersley (edited 03-26-2001).]

Mmmm, could be. But I don't want to surrender the crossing to the German reinforcements and let them defend in the town. If we arrive at about the same time, we'll have a meeting engagement east of the village which I still prefer to assaulting the Germans in prepared defensive positions. If our reconnaissance is really off or we're delayed in our advance so the Germans are already across the river and possibly in a hasty defense at HUCK, then we might have a tough row to hoe. But I think I'd still prefer this to a frontal attack across the obstacles in the face of German infantry, AT guns and tanks. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

Moved to www.combatmission.com. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

Unfortunately, when the enemy surrenders the vehicle simply shows as "Abandoned." If I had saved the game before then I could have surrendered myself to check, but I didn't care that much. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

??? ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

Great! Only problem is, the zip archive doesn't include the .cmb scenario (map) file. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

I thought I'd share this because I found it amusing. I just played a small QB against the AI, computer-purchased forces. I got a platoon of Vet US Engineers, a 105mm Sherman, and a couple of halftracks. [Also a couple of 60mm mortars that never fired a shot, both being knocked out by 75mm arty later in the battle.] The map was high at both ends (the setup areas) with a low valley in the middle. At setup I could "see" (global spotting) a Puma in the village, but didn't have LOS to it. So I fired a couple of HE rounds as close as I could to it. Soon thereafter the 105 was immobilized by a light flak gun (which took several turns and most of my HE loadout to kill). I then did a cautious advance across the valley and into the village. I had an attached bazooka team which eventually snuck into a building next to where I knew the Puma was and crawled into LOS. The Puma just sat there, buttoned. So the next turn from a range of 30m Bazooka Joe fired and missed with 3 shots before being pinned and suppressed by small arms fire from German troops. The next turn I fired two more shots, finally hit and got a penetration but didn't kill it. So the Puma finally decides to back up. I follow it with an engineer squad, who lob a satchel charge at it but fail to kill it. The Puma backs up further and the squad is panicked by other Germans. Forward goes Bazooka Joe again. He fires, hits and penetrates again -- still not knocked out. Joe misses with his 7th shot, but connects with his last round -- another penetration, and STILL not dead. The Germans surrrendered at that point; I was about to run a halftrack behind it to try my luck with the .50. During all of this, the Puma never fired a shot. I'm guessing that I shocked it and maybe damaged the gun with my initial HE salvo from the 105. That or the crew REALLY needed their morning coffee. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

Thanks again for doing this. A few comments on your critique: First, your link to the "scraps" document gives me a permission violation so I can't see your picture. When I was developing my plan, I was troubled by the separation of the elements also. Early versions only had 2 squads and the Platoon HQ with the SBF element, leaving the third squad in the assault element under the Company HQ. But as the routes took shape I decided I might need that extra squad with the support element, particularly for attacking ZEPPO. HARPO came about as an intermediate step on the way to ZEPPO. I didn't like the idea of crossing the wall and wheatfields immediately in front of the southern setup area, because I was afraid of MG or other fire coming from the tall buildings pinning the support element down before they got anywhere. I was also shying away from the east-west road, possibly more than necessary. Route 1 is pretty well covered from the crossroads until you get to HARPO, and once there the mortars could use HE or smoke against enemy forces at the crossroads as well as supporting the attack on ZEPPO. I can't see your red routes, but I'm guessing that your solution has the support element doing more of a direct assault on ZEPPO moving along the side of the road, possibly with the assault element moving a bit further south in the early going so as to be able to assist if necessary? My solution is admittedly "gamey" in that I know that playing this scenario out in CM I won't run into serious coordination or control problems that would make this scheme difficult to implement in Real Life . I will try to be more honest in future games. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

It's worth noting that that range figure is an approximation. While others have said that rarely will units fire a panzerfaust at that maximum range, I have seen a PF-30 fire (and hit) at a range of 35+ meters. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

It is well-known that humans are not particularly good (in fact, they're very, very bad) at estimating probabilities unless they've been specially trained to do so. (Two professions that are good at this: meteorologists and bookies.) If you say you've seen a certain unusual event in 25% of the games you have played, I immediately suspect that it's more like 5% or 10%. Not because you're dishonest, but because of the way memory works. It is much easier to recall salient (interesting) events than it is run-of-the-mill events. Also, it should be considered that everything that happens in CM is based to some degree on luck. There is randomness in how long it takes units to start moving (not much, it's mostly determined by experience level and command bonus, but there's a random variation in there as well), when targets are spotted, how effective fire is, whether a vehicle bogs in this particular tile and on and on. There are probably thousands of pseudo-random-number draws made every turn in a moderate-to-large scenario. Remember too that a particular shot is not "lucky" or "unlucky;" rather, it either hits the target or misses. If the actual hit chance is say 5%, there is no difference between "rolling" 6% and 99%: both times, the shot is a miss. Was the 6% roll "luckier" than the 99% roll? But to get back to your example numbers, for you to expect to see a "1% event" occur in 25% of your games, then there would have to be a chance of that event (that is, a random draw made to determine whether the event occurred or not) occurring roughly 25 times per game. If the event in question is an unlikely hit/kill of an AFV, this means that many shots would have to be taken over the course of the scenario. This number isn't out-of-line even for fairly small scenarios. And of course, this notional "1% chance" is just a number someone pulled out of thin air. We know very little about the detailed probabilities of occurrance of any of the events CM models. And finally, as others have pointed out these chances are independent. If you get a weak-spot penetration on your first shot of a scenario, this has absolutely no effect on the likelihood of your panzershreck team hitting a fast-moving hellcat at 200m on the next turn. [Actually, with a pseudo-random-number generator the events aren't really independent, but with a good algorithm they are effectively independent, and more importantly they are not predictable without knowledge of the state of the algorithm.] ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

This is something I'd be interested in. It's always good to get some feedback from the professionals. Sorry to hear about the demise of the Bn defense series; I guess that's the fortunes of war. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

... with which I concur. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

Of course, if the US player does this, they lose the 5% (?? - maybe it was 10%) discount on buying larger formations. [This is one of those exceptions to the general "points are based only on combat value" rule.] ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley