David Aitken
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Posts posted by David Aitken
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Tanks tend to be PzKpfw, of course. And let's not forget the KlPzBefw!
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Over hill and dalem wrote:
if "manlet armour" is what I think it is,<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Let's see... manhole... manly... mantle... man-to-man... nope, no mention of either manlet or mantlet. But then it didn't have odiferous either, so what do I know.
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Some Panzer Leader you are!
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Okay, Panther G ausf 2/L76 with face-hardened glacis and manlet armour vs. an alien spaceship in a room surrounded by 100 monkeys with 100 bazookas, who would win? And if the monkey HQ unit has a +2 morale bonus?
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I ran a test with five PIAT teams (ten men) against a German rifle squad (nine men), and again with 2in mortars. Teams in a semicircle around the squads, range about 2m, no ammo, everyone in command from a hiding HQ with no bonuses, all in scattered trees. The melée ability of the teams seems very limited. I though as the teams surrounded the squads, even if the squad took on one team, the others would get him. Even with 'low' ammo, of course, the squad can still fire, and this upset the teams quite a bit, but didn't always take casualties even at 2m. Typical German casualties were between none and four before wiping out the teams. Experience or command bonuses made no noticable difference, and even elite teams only had a slight edge against conscript squads. I think the decisive factor is the number of men in a squad or team. Nine men in a squad will work together, whereas five two-man teams will not, giving the squads a big advantage. So teams have only a very limited ability to defend themselves.
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The value of firing AT weapons at infantry is as much suppression as inflicting casualties. I think suppression is underrated by most people – I don't mean when a squad is 'Taking Cover', I mean just when it goes from 'Alerted' to 'Cautious' – this can make all the difference.
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Berli must be having a very slow month for souls, as Dzhugashvili's Vili needed more than just luck to take out one of my Shermans (I only had three, and they're green, but remain my only chance of success), in the dark, with regular troops, without LOS, using 105mm artillery. How I managed to maneuvre the tank into the exact spot where one of his shells was due to land is beyond me. My men are fine as long as they don't have to move and the enemy doesn't shoot at them, confirming the wisdom of my original plan of action: leaving the map at speed.
I have just spent a ridiculous amount of time ensuring that there is no chance of me failing to lose against Mr Allies Can't Win Defending Against The Assault himself. My first move was to forget to fill out my entire points allocation. However, this is shaping up to be maybe my most interesting battle yet.
I think I have games against Leeo and armornut, but they seem to be MIA just now.
PawBroon is claiming all my tanks are Tigers as an excuse for the fact that so far he's losing horribly. This rune scenario is technically a defence, but it started off more like a ME (I expect PB would have done things a lot differently had he known that).
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Stucco wrote:
Take a good, long look at yourself<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Isn't that the whole problem with these nasty little men?
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Mr. Johnny-come-lately wrote:
I do spend all of my days of recent dreaming of burning down your house and farm, raping your horses and pillaging your women.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Look at this fellas, one of them is showing signs of a sense of humour! I think we may have to have the other one put down, though, it's lively enough, but sadly lacking in redeeming features.
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Commanders carry pistols so that they look like commanders, and can be distinguished from depleted infantry squads. The people who carry SMGs are his staff/radio operators, so depicting the HQ unit with an SMG would be misleading.
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Jeff Heidman wrote:
There is a reason tanks do not like to attack in close terrain without infantry support. They tend to get destroyed.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
By infantry with AT weapons. What we are talking about here is infantry without AT weapons.
You may have a point about open-topped vehicles, though. I'd have to run some tests on that one. Again, simply citing one example where you saw something ridiculous does not mean you necessarily have a case.
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Mace wrote:
Almost time for a new thread:<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Twelve pages, you twit, not ten.
A certain SSN wishes those present to know that yours truly lost nine useless Shermans (one a Jumbo), a Pershing and some useless infantry to his four indestructible pillboxes (which don't die even when you put HE through the firing slit), assorted AT guns, at least one tank, and a score of MG bunkers in The Battle of Fort PantyLiner, well actually not quite a battle, more of a "WTF, you expect me to assault THAT with THIS? BANG BOOM PLINK PLINK PLINK PLINK PLINK ARRGGH". We have called it quits rather than endure nine more 15-minute lots of the same. I intend to get my own back by showing that the Allies (the British, of course, in my case) can actually lose horribly while defending against the assault... did I say lose horribly? Whoops, a bit of realism crept in there. But I have heavily biased the scenario towards myself, aside from giving the git something like 4000 points to get off on.
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I think the Polish equipment was due to come in by glider at Oosterbeek before the Poles parachuted in at Driel. From what I remember of Cornelius Ryan's book, the gliders were late, and I think most of the equipment was lost because the drop zones were being fought over at the time. What I don't know is whether AT guns were part of that equipment – it would make sense for some to be dropped with the paras, as apparently was the case.
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You don't remember, you don't remember
Why don't you remember my name?
Off with his head man, off with his head man
Why don't you remember my name? I guess he does...
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I don't taunt. Most of those present are insufferable windbags who couldn't tactically maneuvre (or attrit) their way out of a paper bag. I, on the other hand, am an insufferable windbag who can devise extremely complex and thorough plans of action for getting out of a paper bag, and still fail miserably. There is a difference. You are in the process of learning this difference courtesy of my unforunate Poles.
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>CMplayer wrote:
Have you ever seen this kind of headless chicken panic?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I would agree with you here. On one occasion I was defending a bridge, and was surprised to find a squad a couple of hundred metres from the bridge, but on the opposite side of the river from where I had last seen it. It must have decided the nearest cover was a certain patch of trees, but the river happened to be in the way, so it ran up to the bridge, across the river, and all the way back to the trees it had been heading for. It's not so much bridges but water that is the issue.
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I'm Scottish and I'm very happy with the 'British' voices, even if they are all cockney. It's quite unusual to get a small American company making a game that pays heed to other countries at all, let alone gets wee details like voice accents correct.
I've heard some of the voices from CC2, and someone seemed to be deliberately trying to vary their accent, with unconvincing results. I wouldn't have been at all surprised if we'd got stereotypical posh English accents instead of cockney.
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Rifle grenades are antitank weapons – the US equivalent of the Panzerfaust, although technically dissimilar.
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>CMplayer wrote:
it's amazing how a whole squad of 12 guys panics, and runs screaming all together in the same incoherent direction.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
This is a necessary abstraction, but it's more realistic than you may think.
A full squad does not 'panic' all at once, in the same way that a 'pinned' squad does not contain ten 'pinned' men. As experience is averaged, so is morale. A 'regular' squad may contain half green troops and half veteran, and a 'pinned' squad may comprise two cautious men, five pinned and three panicking. Once the majority are panicking, the status changes to reflect this.
Also, as I have said, panic is contagious. One man gets up and runs, and suddenly the resolve of everyone else is broken. Someone else who was just managing to hold himself together would then break and follow suit, and soon everyone has lost their nerve and headed for the rear. So it's not completely unrealistic for a whole squad to be running away together.
Finally, a 'casualty' is not necessarily a wounded man, but someone who is no longer functioning as part of the squad. This includes missing troops. So the next time you see a squad take a casualty under artillery barrage, maybe he was hit by shrapnel, or maybe he just lost his nerve and disappeared.
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Stacheldraht wrote:
Better to move a couple feet forward to a treeline and hit the dirt than bolt screaming across an open field.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
That makes good sense, but the question is, when someone panics under fire, do they think rationally? The whole point of panicking in CM is that it makes the difference between taking cover and holding your ground, and just snapping and running away. Troops in good cover often panic and run away, because their instinct is to get away from danger. Instinct does not tell you the most sensible course of action when taken under fire by X number of troops bearing Y type of weapons from Z range. It tells you "danger, run away!".
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Trying to close-support green troops at night with tanks is hardly going to do any good. Tanks without the infantry, now that would make sense (especially now that I've seen what the infantry accomplished, ie. getting killed or routing).
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Dzhugashvili's Vili wrote:
but of course he's got all the co-ordination of a myopic hand-transplant patient and so his brave Polish infantry is getting slaughtered.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Correction, my Polish infantry are not brave, and are getting slaughtered because they are green and it is dark. Weight of numbers is irrelevant when all of your troops turn and run when someone drops a shell or fires a gun within half a mile. BTS, fix or do somefink!
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Mark IV wrote:
I think a tweak is in order, to split the team and have the brave guy with the bag of rockets hold his ground.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
But of course, will the brave guy in a two-man team continue to be brave on his own? Panic is contagious...
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I just ordered Stalingrad on DVD from Amazon.de. It's only available as dubbed VHS in the UK (although I bet they'll release a subtitled DVD next week). I managed to register an account and place an order in German, but will I have a clue what's going on once I get the film?
I think I ought to learn German once and for all. I started in school, but didn't get much further than "Wie komme ich am Bahnhof, bitte?" and "Du bist eine große Dummkopf!"...
And I get the impression some forum members have been watching Lola Rennt with English dubbing. Oh dear.
The Twelve Step Program to the PENG Challenge!
in Combat Mission Archive #3 (2001)
Posted
Never mind the bazookas, looks like we're onto chaisaw-wielding Russians with hockey masks and blood dripping from their pointy teeth. And I'm holding out for a feature in CM2 whereby you can climb an infantry squad onto an enemy tank and knock on the TC's hatch, and you are prompted to type in a name for your men to call, and if you are lucky enough that you choose the name of someone in the tank, the hatch will open and you can lob a grenade in. I also fancy a Heidman unit for the Germans which can destroy any unsupported armoured vehicle with its bare hands in 10 seconds flat.