David Aitken

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Panzer Leader wrote: I once had a full platoon close assault a hetzer for 7 turns and all that happened was the Hetzer was immobilized on the first turn.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Can anyone who has attempted to take out a Hetzer with small-arms and grenades offer comment? As someone with no idea how vulnerable a Hetzer is to close assault, your results seem to make sense to me. The least difficult thing to do is blow the tracks off, which your men did. After that, what can you do? We need hard evidence, not speculation. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>YECoyote wrote: My point is that the tank should not be targeting the in-close infantry. It either die (eventually), or try to run away.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> There are various things a tank can do to fight off infantry. CM does not model a tank, for example, reversing quickly to get a snap shot with its MGs, or indeed attempting to drive over the infantry. Its ability to kill the infantry may be limited, but its ability to make life difficult for them is considerable. BTS have doubtlessly taken such things into account when abstracting the close-assault routine.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>CMplayer Since zooks often have to sneak into unscouted positions<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Oh look, someone else who thinks AT teams were suicide squads. Deadmarsh, you saw something bad happen once and you're demanding a code change. I'm sure every real-world military commander has seen plenty of ridiculous behaviour in their troops which defies explanation, but on the battlefield when your life is at risk, and you've got to make critical decisions in split seconds, sometimes people get things wrong, or indeed, can't cope and start to panic. CM models this.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Babra wrote: The ability, as mentioned a dozen times in this thread, to order a unit to obey the order you give it at the expense of what it perceives to be common sense or self preservation.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Oh, just that. I got the impression you were speaking in more general terms.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Babra wrote: A commander can't be everywhere, but he sure as hell can be somewhere.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> But in CM you play the role of every commander from battalion or above, down to platoon. I'm not sure it would make sense to have a function in the game which simulates your 'presence' or attention at one specific point on the battlefield, because 'you' are not just one person. If you can do micromanagement at all, it would have to be global. Limiting this would also be frustratingly inconsistent. And what exactly would you define as a 'micromanagement order'?

I might add that in SPR the tank commander conveniently opened his hatch to greet the paras. If he'd just stayed inside, as tank crews are likely to do in the midst of battle when there are a lot of infantry running around, the paras would have had a slightly harder job of taking the tank out. I also gather that shooting through the vision slits wouldn't work either, as these were covered with bulletproof glass. And SPR didn't actually use a Tiger, it was a T-34, and blah blah blah...

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>DasBaron wrote: There should be a command where the unit will try to stick out the command to the letter.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Then people would start complaining when their units disregard what they see as an obvious threat. It is up to you to get your units into a position to fight from, but your units will do the fighting. You need to allow for this, and not expect your units you carry out complex orders exactly as you imagine. The alternative is called micromanagement, which BTS intentionally avoids. For this reason we are unlikely to see a "don't think for yourselves" command. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>What was weird was that none of my tanks could target this AT gun which sat in an open field.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> If you are sure of the type of gun, I assume it wasn't just a Sound Contact. Did you have LOS? If the 'field' was a wheat field, this will block LOS in summer.

Yeah, and how come a 20mm cannon can't wipe out an entire squad in two seconds flat like it did in that film? Your answer is: abstraction abstraction. If you took out a tank and only lost two men, I think you're doing pretty damn well.

Officers have far too much to do on the battlefield to think about fighting. It is, of course, advantageous to have a handy automatic weapon to get you out of tricky situations. Carbines were developed for cavalrymen and officers who wouldn't be using them too much, and wouldn't want to lug a bulky rifle around. It seems to have been quite common in the Second World War for officers to get themselves a submachinegun for self defence.

As CM does not model individual soldiers, it is not possible for an officer to be taken out personally. An HQ unit is either functioning or it isn't, and it ceases functioning when the last man becomes a casualty. The only difference casualties make is the unit's firepower. If you're looking at the weapons, you can't decide that the CO has been hit, because the men of an infantry unit will usually retain the better weapons, even if their original bearer has been hit. Degradation of command power has been suggested before, and something like this may feature once CM's engine has been revised.

If you're short on alcohol or drugs but need to feel that you've just had a plutonium binge, you might be interested in my monitor distortion thread on the General Forum.

Lola Rennt, please! The only terrain where you should order your troops to run for long distances (say over 100m) is open ground or roads. Running in other terrain is, in my opinion, an emergency measure. Of course, besides tiring, there are other issues to account for – in particular, you want to know if the woods are clear of the enemy before you send your troops tearing through them. Running is tiring enough, running with full army kit is a completely different proposition, and I certainly wouldn't want to try running through woods or over uneven terrain with army kit. If you want exact distances, run some tests, and keep in mind that troop quality and weather conditions will affect your results.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Joe Sham wrote: I'm so depressed right now that I'd have to cheer up considerably just to be able to consider suicide.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Showoff. Now if anyone recognises this man, please let me know. I've got a feeling it's one of you, and if I've been developing subconscious images of anyone here, I need to know so that I can shut off contact immediately, and call in a 14" naval barrage on their general locality. Now excuse me... I need to be unconscious for a few hours.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>tiborhead wrote: The map is is short in length but long in width<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Our enemies are weak, now is the time to strike and overthrow the Main Board once and for all. No wonder his girlfriend is beating him.

A life? I've been meaning to get one of those.

I'm rather partial to a mug of Aitken's Special Brew. Two thirds boiling water and one third milk. I sometimes even use a teabag when I'm in need of a real kick.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Panty Liner wrote: Emma you are so sweet.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Aaarrgh!! Now look what you've done! Rule no.1 of pathetic little whining gits: they will latch onto even the slightest indication that you sympathise with them. One minute they're nicely on the way to drinking themselves into a stupor, and then hopefully going for a stroll on a busy road, someone points out that they're maybe having a hard time, and then BANG! they go all sickly sweet on us. Anyway, I shall return you all to your discussing about gin, which seems to have occupied the past 50+ posts almost without exception. Oops, I had to go and spoil it, didn't I? Well I'm British, what do you expect.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Dzhugashvili's Organ wrote: "Odiferouos" doesn't exist??<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I would suggest 'odious', which is far more appropriate in the context.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Colonel_Deadmarsh wrote: Um...I have no freaking idea of what you're talking about. I may have been around awhile but I am still naive about WWII terrain, units, soldiers, you name it.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Damn, he admitted it. Now I can't accuse him of being an idiot any more. But... but... wasn't this the same guy who claimed that soldiers shouldn't be hurt by falling masonry, or should countermand your orders when they know there's a chance that they may be killed in the next few minutes, or something like that?? Maybe I won't let him off quite so easily. [ 06-24-2001: Message edited by: David Aitken ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Stalin Orgasmed: odiferous<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> For once, a word I had to look up that doesn't actually exist.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Panty Liner wrote: I can't particularly think of any other reason right now why I would be so despised (remember, I'm drunk) so how about this: Mayhaps it would make you all feel better about yourselves* (and I know it would!) if you could maybe put into print why you loathe me so.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> *I thought at this point that he had suddenly got a clue, but then it turned out he was making a request, not a statement. Yes, I did read it. No, I may never recover.

Let's see... <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Captain Morgan ... drunk ... Peng Abortion ... RAUCOUS! ... Steve Martin joke ... 'you suck' ... LONG BORING POST ... Thank you and goodnight.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Nooo... I don't fancy wading in any deeper.

Yeah, thanks for warning us. He seems to be learning his place, don't you think?

What's this, a well thought-out and efficiently executed thread is abandoned in favour of a slipshod monstrosity such as this? Is there no justice? Thankfully, in the case if Panty Liner, there is not.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>YK2 wrote: (Hmmmmm wonder what Aitken looks like in a kilt)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Down Emma! I've tried explaining to ignorant Yanks such as Lawnmower the difference between Scottish, English and British, but they're far too feeble-minded to understand. This is why they made their part of the continent one big country, and divided it up into country-sized 'states' – so that no matter how far they go, as long as they don't go north, they never have to worry about ending up in a different country. Even if they do go north, and the border patrol doesn't manage to shoot them before they contaminate the land of their unfortunate neighbours, everyone speaks the same language with a similar accent anyway. None of this damned political nonsense, the sooner the entire world is just one big USA, where you're never more than fives minutes' walk from the nearest McDonalds, the better it will be for the only people on the planet who actually matter, ie. Americans. Witness the National Missile Defence shield, designed to keep Bloody Foreigners and their dirty Commie boats and planes the hell away from the USA, even if it means destroying the entire world to achieve it. So, as I was saying, trying to explain to an American that there are individual countries across the water where real people live, and have done so for a long, long time, is rather a futile exercise. Anyway, the only thing they'd do on acknowledging the existence of other countries is to immediately draw up battle plans for a McDonalds invasion. We'll just leave them to their own illusions.