L.Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Epée: I will command an infantry battalion in CMMC (I cannot tell which side)...what should I expect to get?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Heh, I'll take pity on you, Epee. [i fenced epee in & after college, actually.] A generic infantry battalion will probably include 3 infantry companies and some kind of support company. Each infantry company probably has 3 platoons and a weapons platoon, and a platoon is three squads. So you'll have maybe 27 squads, 16 or so HQs, and some support weapons like MGs, light mortars and AT assets. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>How can I prevent this from happening again?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Don't skulk along the mapedge like a lemur; come to the middle and fight like a man! ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Big Time Software: Right now units can spot 'daisy chain' mines before any of them explodes, but buried mines cannot be pre-spotted like this. Charles<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hmmmm .... maybe what I saw was the Germans using several daisy-chains (I had plussed-up their force %). I'm sure none of the mines had exploded. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

The Germans in VoT get a "daisy-chain" minefield and one or more buried anti-tank minefields. The daisy-chain is just mines laying on the road, so they are easy to see and clear. My guess as to what happened is you cleared the daisy-chain but there were buried mines nearby and your Sherman found one, alerting you to the presence of more mines. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Scott Clinton: Leland: I think you are referring to the "daisy chain" mines. Those are just a bunch of AT mines strung together on a cable and dragged across the road...on the surface of the road. Any unit can see them because they are not buried and are in plain sight. They are also much easier to breach. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> No, or, not entirely. I did move the engineers up to clear the daisy-chain, but when they got there (while they were clearing them) more minefield signs popped up farther down the road. When I moved to clear them, a fourth sign appeared. IIRC it took 5 or 6 turns to clear them all. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Maximus: Actually John, you wouldn't believe it, but...in "Kelly's Heroes" Donald Sutherland's character called out for the use of WP in the marshalling yard scene.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> STOP THE PRESSES!!! BTS, how can you leave out WP in the face of this compelling historical evidence?!?! ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by G4A: I have a cold, a bad headache, and a fever right now, so I really have no idea what I'm typing. I just think sycophancy and unquestioning loyalty are irrational, immoral, and dangerous to society. No apologies for that. There is no absolute scale of cost-effectiveness that applies to everyone. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I've got a cold, but I'll have to spot you the headache, fever and hallucinations. I'll go along with you that blind loyalty is irrational, but I don't see the moral issue. As far as danger to society goes .... I think there are bigger problems for us to worry about. No question that value is subjective, particularly in the area of entertainment. I think what Ted was trying to say was that, in his subjective view based on what he knows about CM, he doesn't expect that he would feel ripped-off if he paid $100 for the final product. I'm sure that if BTS decided to charge more money, they would lose a lot of orders, but I think a lot of those lost sales would be knee-jerk "no game could possibly be worth that much money" reactions no more rational than the "I will pay any price for CM" attitude that others evince. Now get back in bed! ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Scott Clinton: My question is simply: IS IT POSSIBLE for ANYONE to detect mines BEFORE they explode? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yes. I played VoT as the US and moved my engineers down into the valley along the road and had them advance slowly. An A-T mine sign sprang up so I moved them up to it. After the sign was gone (and presumably the mines cleared) I sent them further along the road where a couple more signs appeared. The only way I've found A-P minefields is to step on them, but I haven't really been looking for them, either. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by G4A: Everyone would pay $100 for CM?? Absolutely no way. I'm sorry Ted, but that was the dumbest thing I've read this year. The fact that people can feel this kind of near-religious "loyalty" to a PRODUCT shows just how f**ucked-up society has become.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I don't that that's the issue at all. One measure of the value of a thing is what someone else will give for that thing. To some people, $100 is a lot of money. To others, it's just a nice evening out. In idle moments when I'm thinking about the return on my entertainment dollar, I compare games to other things I could spend money on. Movies are one example. Depending on where you are, going to see a movie will run you somewhere in the neighborhood of $3-$5 an hour. By this reasoning, if a game gives you as much entertainment as a movie and can sustain your interest for 20 hours, at a price of $100 it's just as cost-effective as a movie. (How much you enjoy movies is your own problem.) Or from a different perspective, if a game costs twice as much as other games, but you anticipate enjoying it twice as much, shouldn't it be worth the extra money? People are quick enough to claim that a game they don't like should cost less than the industry average; by extension shouldn't they be willing to pay _more_ for a game that they like a lot? [Hmm, as I'm about to submit this I see SuperTed also responded with more or less the same argument.] ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

Yes. I've seen and reported this in the gold demo and at least one other has as well. By any chance is your opponent on a PC? (In the two reports I've seen the problem was seen on a Mac playing PBEM vs. a PC user). Workaround is abort the scenario and reload the PBEM file. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Renaud: I played a game as germans vs the allies set at +150%. The allies came at me with an amazing 1000+ infantry of all sorts and 10 tanks. The huge mass of GI's rushing the center village was unstoppable. I caused hundreds of casualties...dozens of little dead figures littered the ground. My 150 fired into a massive cluster of them. The effects were horrendous. I managed to pull out a draw...point spread was only like 2 or 3 between us. -Ren<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I'm impressed -- I played VoT as Germans with the Allies getting +100% and it wasn't pretty. The US started with 6-7 M4(105)s. I tried to hide my bunkers behind slopes and still none survived past turn 6. After the US reinforcements arrived I could see 15 tanks. Plus the first shot against the Panther hit the tracks and immobilized it, then the US used ALL their artillery to smoke it in for 9 turns. The high point of the scenario for me was when a Sherman hit an antitank mine. The only way I kept any men alive was to hide them. I don't think any German unit survived more than one turn after firing - the combined firepower of an entire company of tanks was phenomenal. There wasn't much left of the town of Plomville. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

I live in Montgomery County & work in Fairfax. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

I understand. What I'm talking about is accidentally deleting the wrong waypoint, or too many waypoints, or waypoints from the wrong unit. Once you've deleted a waypoint, you can't get it back without incurring the "new move order" C&C time penalty, and that's what this feature would address. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

It would be very nice if there was an "undo" or "revert" command during the orders phase. Fairly frequently I will make a mistake when issuing orders that ends up being irrevocable. Examples: deleting movement paths (you can recreate them, but you incur the C&C delay penalty), shifting artillery targetting (again incurring a targetting delay). If you're playing PBEM you can reload the last email file but then you lose any orders you have already issued for the current turn. Against the computer, I thing you're out of luck unless you've saved at the start of the turn. If every unit stored its orders at the start of the orders phase, a "revert to original orders" unit command should be easy to implement. This wouldn't affect PBEM file size or change any file formats, either, so I think it should be rather easy to implement. Yeah, I know, it's a bit late for this. But it's been nagging at me for quite a while and I finally thought to mention it. Maybe it can make it into a patch or failing that, CM2. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

I saw this reported here a couple days ago -- IIRC the blame was put on MacOS 9.x. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

I was wondering about the DD tank because not long ago I was playtesting an ASL conversion of an old SL scenario, "Bridgehead on the Rhine." It featured some British troops (the Black Watch IIRC) surrounded in a town east of the Rhine, with a column of troops moving to relieve them. The Brits also got a platoon of DD tanks that have to swim a river to join the battle. The scenario is based on an actual engagement, and the scenario designer probably didn't just throw in the DD tanks for grins. It's a little thing, but I was curious. I guess the desperate could build a "river" of fordable tiles that the tanks could successfully traverse. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

I know there are assault boats -- don't know about landing craft. Paratroops are in, but I don't think you can actually have troops parachute in during a scenario (although you might be able to simulate something close with clever use of reinforcements). I'd like to know if the Sherman DD tank is in the game. Anybody have any info? ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jgdpzr: Clearly, you're not in the states, from your apology about your English.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> That's right; Americans that speak English poorly never apologize about it! ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by tom w: are you currently playing SS_PanzerLeader?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Negative. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Hey, your name is in VoT. LT Tankersly lead one of my most brilliant infantry charges in the scenario...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Two 'E's in "Tankersley," soldier! My namesake hasn't done much for me at present, but I'm only 6 minutes into the game. At least he hasn't died yet. ;p ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by tom w: I must note that every time it happened to me I was playing on a Mac and my opponent was on a PC /Wintel box<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hmmm, funny ... I'm on a Mac and my opponent is on a PC. And interestingly, the same problem occurred again on turn 4, and the same unit was affected. Once again, reloading the pbem file fixed the problem. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

Well, I get home from my honeymoon and I see the Gold Demo has been released! I guess the honeymoon isn't over, after all! I've noticed one minor problem, though -- I'm doing a PBEM game of ... one of the scenarios, and while I was issuing orders for turn 2, I was unable to issue any orders to ... one particular unit. I could select it fine, but no matter what order I issued I got the "invalid order" beep. Same thing when I hit the space bar to bring up the order menu. Other units of the same type could get orders just fine. I reloaded the PBEM file and the problem seemed to clear up. Not a show-stopper by any means, but thought I'd report it just in case. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

It's been asked whether you could have damaged or depleted units in the OOB at the start of a scenario, and the answer is "no." But, seeing Steve's response gave me an idea for an approximation that could be used in certain situations. I offer it here with the thought that perhaps some budding scenario designers might find it useful. It is possible to split squads in half and recombine them later. These half squads are less effective than a full squad due to their lesser manpower and firepower. You can also restrict particular groups of units to specific setup zones. In a battle where many units are significantly below-strength, it would not be unexpected for a reorganization to take place (e.g. combine three or four reduced-strength squads into two full-strength squads). If the scenario designer splits some squads into half-squads and places them in different deployment zones, the player will not be able to immediately recombine them. If the zones are a significant distance away, it might prove to be fairly difficult to get the half-squads to reach each other and rejoin. This obviously won't be feasible in all situations, but it is another tool to put in our scenario design toolbags (unless there's a reason it won't work). ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Black Sabot: When you issue a group movement order, can you alter a specific units orders for a brief moment in its movement and then return them back to the group? Example: I issue a GMO to a platoon, they move out together, along the way they enter a patch of woods, Now i alter the squads to zig-zag from tree to tree to take advantage of cover, then the platoon leaves the woods still under the GMO.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> No. My understanding is that the group move order is just a shortcut to automatically generate a set of movement orders all at once. These orders are exactly the same as if you had manually selected every unit and clicked out the orders individually. Think of it as having a staff weenie by your side when you're playing CM and you tell him "Move this platoon from HERE to HERE because I'm too lazy to do it my own self" and the staff weenie in turn selects every unit you indicated and manually clicks down some movement orders for each one to move them generally between the points you selected. When he's done using your mouse and keyboard you can select each individual unit and see the orders he issued and tweak them as desired (moving waypoints and so on). But unless the ability to insert orders in the middle of a unit's order list has been added since the beta demo, you won't be able to do that for orders generating using this shortcut. I think it kind of defeats the purpose anyway -- if you're going to bother selecting the individual unit anyway, why not just issue the commands manually? ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ol' Blood & Guts: When we draw the little boxy thing around a group of units and issue them an order, can you then order a unit within that group to breakaway sometime during the 60 second turn to do their own thing, or are they "stuck" in that group move?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> My guess is the "group move" command will issue a string of orders to every selected unit. If you want to order a unit to split off, seems like you would select the unit and delete the automatically-generated orders until you reached the point you wanted to split off at [from?]. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

The M3 Medium Tank had a hull-mounted 75mm gun and a turret with a 37mm gun. The 75 was on the .... right side of the hull (IIRC) and I'm pretty sure it was in one of those sponson things with limited traverse. It wasn't really in the turret, but I can see how it might look as though it sort of comes out of the base of the turret given the high profile of US tanks of the period. [To sort of tie this in with the thread on Tanks, AGs and TDs, this was a sort of stopgap measure to get a 75mm armed tank in the field without having to immediately solve the problem of mounting such a large gun in a turret.] ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley