L.Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Doug Beman: A tank-destroyer is defined as a vehicle possessing a powerful, high-velocity anti-tank gun in a turretless chassis. An assault-gun is a vehicle with a large gun that is not necessarily a tank-killer, in a turretless chassis. DjB<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Weeelllll ... many TDs had turrets. US TDs tended to be lightly armored with open turrets but powerful anti-armor guns to help them with their doctrinal role of killing enemy tanks. The Germans built loads of turretless AFVs as an expedient to allow them to mount heavier guns on light chassis that couldn't support the same gun in a turret mount. Also, turretless AFVs are cheaper and easier to build, which was of concern later in the war. The distinction was really one of design intent, I think. Tank destroyers, as the name suggests, were intended to kill enemy tanks. Assault guns were designed for infantry support and the ability to quickly rotate the gun wasn't very important, so turrets weren't necessary. Since pretty much all of these guns could fire both AP and HE rounds, however, almost any AFV could serve in either type of role with varying degrees of success. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

LOL. It figures, doesn't it? ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

Hmmm ... I tried replying to John's post earlier, but my message hasn't showed up in the thread. Using the "Post Reply" button for the thread instead: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>the font is tough to read and having to read that spindly font as white on black is a real bear. It gives me headaches, in fact. Also, how are we supposed to print out Fionn's pearls of armor wisdom without gobbling up a printer cartridge per page? After all, we're talking printing white on a black background using white paper. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. I'm running Netscape Communicator 4.5.1 on a gen one iMac.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> John, go to your Netscape Preferences and look at the page for "Colors" (under "Appearance"). There's a checkbox there that says "Always use my colors, overriding page." Check this box, and pick some non-offensive colors for text and background (say, black and white ). Note you can do something similar in the "Fonts" page to override the page-specified fonts. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by John Kettler: Also, how are we supposed to print out Fionn's pearls of armor wisdom without gobbling up a printer cartridge per page? After all, we're talking printing white on a black background using white paper. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. I'm running Netscape Communicator 4.5.1 on a gen one iMac.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> John, go to your Netscape Preferences, select "Colors" under "Appearance." There's a checkbox that says something like "always use my colors, overriding document." Check this box, and also set more reasonable text and background colors (say, black on white). Do this and you should be able to print just fine. Note that you can do something similar to override the document's fonts with your own preferences. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jdmorse: (besides we used to play in 5 feet of snow, barefoot! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I'll bet you always had to attack uphill, too, right? And when you had to retreat? Uphill, unless you were trying to establish a commanding position, in which case the enemy had the high ground. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by schott: Re. Fenwick, I don't think I have given the snipers enough time to do their job. I get in a hurry to get the copters in and end up losing several. Do you guys think it's better to land right in the center or off to the side and "walk" in? The time I did the latter seemed to take too much time, and I lost too many guys before I got to the buildings. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I played this scenario last week. I held the Blackhawks and infantry back for quite a long time (around 15 minutes I think). I set up a mortar team on the hill to the NW with line of sight into the compound. By directing its own fire, it gets to accuracy 3 after one salvo, plus can observe for the off-map arty. Lay down a bunch of TRPs. I focused the snipers first on the SAMs and then on machine-gun teams, with arty/mortars to suppress the rest. Once the SAMs were dead, I popped the Apaches up to take out the BTRs (otherwise their machine guns can make life miserable for the recon teams). While this preparatory work is going on, send your AT assets east to be ready to bushwack the enemy reinforcements. When the enemy air defenses are pretty much eliminated, saturate the area with smoke and send in the Blackhawks. Note that even OPFOR infantry squads can take out the helos without too much difficulty, so don't linger. I'd run some helos up next to an objective, jump the troops out and then skedaddle. Be sure to shift your arty back to suppress troops firing on your assault force. This worked pretty well -- I still lost several Blackhawks due to moving a bit too aggressively, and a bunch of my HMMWVs were lost to BTR MGs when I forgot to shift a smoke mission to keep them hidden (if you have time, set up some TRPs on the east edge so you can quickly shift fire over there when the reinforcements arrive). Remember, smoke is your friend. Particularly when you have thermal sights and your opponent doesn't. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

I was in a hotel at the Paris airport several years ago and flipped on the TV. What should I find but "The Dukes of Hazzard," dubbed into French. ::sniff:: I ... I'm still not recovered. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

Two months?! I can do two months standing on my head! It looks like the CM Gold Demo will be out just about the time I get home from my honeymoon. That's probably best for everyone concerned . BTW, anybody have any suggestions for "must-see" items on Malta? ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

Just so Lloyd doesn't pull his hair out looking... there is no group move command in the beta demo. The final version will have such a command. Welcome aboard, Lloyd! ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

Even in ASL, a bazooka hitting the side or rear of a Tiger has an excellent (> 50% IIRC) chance of scoring a kill. From the front, it would take a lucky shot (but still probably a 5% chance or so). ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

I pretty much started with ASL, other than a few SL games played early in my wargaming career. I don't know that I'd say SL (including all the expansions, errata and so on) has significantly simpler rules than ASL. It's true that most published ASL scenarios are quite a bit smaller than the old SL scenarios, but that doesn't mean ASL can't support the larger scenarios -- I'm part of a playtest group that's working on updates of original SL scenarios to ASL, and they play just fine. (Jim Stahler is playtesting these scenarios for the second time now .) As far as accuracy of ASL tables, first I'll assume you're asking about armor and gun penetration rather than the IFT. ASL is full of abstractions. I seem to recall the armor values are based on thickness of armor (it's in the footnotes somewhere), probably with a seat-of-the-pants adjustment to account for things like slope. The gun basic TK numbers are probably similar. What you're proposing is an abstraction of abstractions from several games, which certainly isn't going to get any MORE accurate (other than by blind chance). That said, I think the ASL numbers are decent for the game's scope - since you're using 2 dice to determine all chances anyway, the resolution of probabilities doesn't need to be that high. Unlikely events are probably more likely in ASL than in reality, and "sure things" in real life probably fail more often in the game for this reason. If you're really concerned with accuracy, you should start digging for primary sources (as BTS has done) rather than using data that has already been processed and massaged by others for specific purposes. That's a lot of work, of course. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jochen: Here in Germany, most people are shocked by the word "wargame". As i read in the statements above, the same happens in the states? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Jochen, I don't think it's that people in the US are shocked or offended by the idea of a "wargame" as much as the market size for hardcore wargames is much smaller than the market for family games, arcade games, first-person shooters, RTS games and the other more popular genres. Publishers are reluctant to sink a lot of money into a title that is virtually guaranteed NOT to be a big success (in terms of sales). <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> The next point is the community of "Hardcore-Wargamers" like me. The best example is Falcon 4.0 - too less people are interestet in this "difficult" game - most people like to play on the surface not in the depth. So Falcon and it´s future is stopped - reason of shareholder value? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Pretty much the same story here. There are a few of us that like the ultra-realistic, difficult-to-master simulations. But the vast majority of the gaming public is looking for a "quick fix" or a bit of light fantasy escapism rather than a hardcore military simulation. Because of that, I find it hard to blame large publishers for not wanting to sink money into titles that will almost certainly lose money. ...but I'm sure glad BTS is here, too. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

I remember the Ancient Art of War -- played it on an old Mac 512 in college, IIRC. I can tell you how to improve your performance: we called it the "Bob Hope" technique. My memory is a bit hazy, but basically troops in the game got fatigued when they fought, and when they were tired, they moved slower and fought less effectively. This effect was used to balance (or unbalance) the game at higher difficulty levels (i.e. against "better" opponent generals). So while you could beat up on Gen. Mortimer Snerd (forget who the incompetent general was) and hardly lose any stamina, any battle against Sun Tzu's troops would leave your men panting on the ground. To counter this, my friend and I came up with the "Bob Hope" technique. This approach relies on the ability to split units up and rejoin them. Before a battle, we'd take a single soldier and detach him from the army (call this soldier "Bob Hope"). The rest of the army goes and fights, and afterward they are panting and wheezing. Enter Bob Hope. The fatigued army joins Bob Hope's unit, and presto! they are all back up to full strength again. (It's important not to have Bob join the army or else you don't get the benefit.) That was a pretty neat game, and came with a map/scenario editor that added a lot to replay value. There was a similar game, Ancient Art of War at Sea that I have also. Won't run on modern systems, of course. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by -Kevin-: I was thinking along the same lines. What are the copyright implications for distribution - if any? I hope there is not a problem exchanging converted scenarios as freeware.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Disclaimer: I Am Not A Lawyer (well, except the rules kind). The only area I think you're likely to run into possible copyright infringement issues when converting SL/ASL scenarios is in the scenario title and the situation descriptions/aftermath. Plagiarizing those couple of paragraphs is almost certainly a violation, and could potentially land you in hot water. But as far as copying the situations, general OBs or terrain layouts, I don't see that being a problem. Note that Avalon Hill has in the past, um, "expressed displeasure" at independents for copying the AH scenario card layout and counter art, among other things. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by spider: steve, before i buy/order game, will direct order be cheaper than the retail in the computer store price? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> CM will not be sold in stores; it will be available only by ordering from Battlefront.com (for the reasons, check out the BTS manifesto elsewhere on this website). I doubt very much that BTS plans to hike up the price after the game is released (although they did offer a little bonus for preorders for awhile where you could get a goodie for free). Why preorder? Well, you might get the game a _bit_ before people that don't - a difference probably measured in days rather than weeks. You could probably do just as well holding off on ordering until after the game has gone "gold" and is off to production/distribution. So why else? The reason I preordered the game (so, so long ago now ) was in the hope that it would help give BTS the confidence to persevere. Distributing a game this way entails a lot of risk, and Steve and Charles have that risk squarely on their shoulders. My preorder is intended as a reassurance that "if you build it, I will buy it from you." One preorder doesn't mean much of anything, but if a lot of people are willing to make that slight committment (slight because an order can be cancelled at any time) it gives BTS some small degree of confidence that they will actually make some money off of this effort in the future. They still have all the risk, but at least they have a bit more information about the likelihood of the dice coming up "craps." Oh yeah, and because I want the game as soon as humanly possible. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley [This message has been edited by L.Tankersley (edited 03-15-2000).]

Heh, that's not sporting! I guess this scenario is what's known as "an opportunity to excel." ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

I'm curious to hear how (or if) people are beating the Team Krempp (I think) scenario. This is the one where the US light infantry platoon has to clear an OPFOR BTR infantry platoon off a hill. Looking at the scenario, the forces are roughly equal (US: 3 squads, 2 MGs, 2 Javelins, a HMMWV mortar section; OPFOR: 3 BTRs, 3 squads, and a grenade launcher-ish thing (APG17?) - maybe a SAM team as well). But the US forces have to cross open ground and assault dug-in defenders in a treeline with limited time (either 45 min or an hour to go a couple kilometers IIRC). Depending on the OPFOR setup, the US forces can get to the hill and cross the crest line more or less simultaneously, but after that my offensives generally stall. I've tried using smoke from the mortars to screen an advance but the smoke doesn't last long enough and there aren't sufficient rounds available to maintain a screen wide enough to protect the troops sufficiently. Any advice or suggestions? ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Madmatt: I have covered MANY times issues with the site speed. CMHQ and The TGN servers are actually much better than the average website. Chances are the problem lies with your own ISP or with the route thats being taken to the TGN servers...Do a search on related topics and you will find SEVERAL posts from me going into detail about what can cause slowness... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Actually, I don't think the problems are (directly) connected to TGN's site at all. It's the <expletive> banner ads that slow the site down. I'm on a T1 here at work and today the ambush special page wouldn't load for several minutes - it was stuck trying to contact banners.orbitcycle.com or something like that. I've seen this on occasion at other sites -- the ad server isn't responding and the rest of the page won't load until the ads are displayed. I understand the advertisers want their material to be seen, but I think after 10-15 seconds the page should just give up on the whole notion as a bad job and maybe come back after the actual content is loaded.

I figured there was something like that at work behind the increase in firepower from 40m to 100m (I was thinking along the lines of close-in targets requiring more weapon traversal to engage, reducing the effectivenes of a crew-served weapon) but I still don't get why 2 MG42 are worth less than ... oh. I get it now. ::bonks self on head:: I guess it would technically be a bit more accurate if you kept the Mg42 firepower constant but removed the firepower of the assistant from that of his buddies, but this is probably cleaner from a coding standpoint and should give the same results. Also, this way you would correctly penalize the MG42 firepower when it's fired without an assistant (i.e. when the unit is down to one man). ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

I'm curious....why is the 1 MG42 of the Pattern 44 squad worth 50 at 40m range, while the 2 MG42 of the Heavy VG squad are worth only 40 at that range? ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

Tamiya makes lots of military model kits. Their website www.tamiya.com has links to dealers (mostly hobby shops) that carry their kits, organized by state. Also check out www.ghqmodels.com - among other things they have a WWII Micro Armour product line (1:285 scale pewter miniatures, about $8 for a pack of around 5 vehicles). They were recommended for use in Deluxe ASL. Hmmm ... I'm starting to salivate ... ::checks credit card balance:: ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Big Time Software: I'd like to but there's only so much we can do in what short time is left. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> ... I'm not saying anything, but you know what I'm saying. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

BPCleary, I think the problem you might be seeing is due to the appearance of reinforcements. I seem to recall some people reporting the game "hanging" when reinforcements arrived, when what was really happening was the dialog box that informed them of their appearance wasn't visible for some reason and so the game appeared to be locked-up. I think one workaround was to kind of click the mouse around the general area of the center of the screen in hopes of hitting the invisible 'ok' button. I suspect there was some driver issue that was the ultimate root problem but I don't remember now. You might try doing a search here on the forum for something like "freeze" or "hang," looking for topics that came out around the time of the demo (late November). ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Germanboy: Ek - no longer true. They have v2 as beta for Mac. Unfortunately our university proxy server does not seem to work with it (or else I am too stupid). Also like iCab http://www.icab.de Very fast. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hmm, must have missed that on their site. Thanks for the tips; I'll check them out! ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley

No webwasher yet for MacOS. I've found that you can just stop the page loading and click-and-hold in the main content area, and choose the "New Window With This Frame" option. That will open a new window with the CMHQ page but sans the slower-than-molasses-flowing-uphill-in-winter banner ads. [by the way: check out my 30 seconds of fame in the Games Domain preview article - the selected unit in the screenshot showing off the command menu is Cpt. Tankersley. :: preens ::] ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley [This message has been edited by L.Tankersley (edited 02-23-2000).]