Sublime

I love all the original Cmx1 games. But theyre definitely retired in my mind. Like Sergei said, little details such as individual soldiers shooting at things, with perhaps the AT man engaging a tank make it so much more realistic, flexible, etc. The 1:1 soldier represenation makes suspension of disbelief so much easier. I also honestly think that it'll make some of the crossover crowd (not grogs, but people who like military history but usually would play... sudden strike etc) easier to understand this game and appeal to them. When I used to introduce CMx1 to people I'd have to start explaining abstractions before I even hit go. Even at the most basic level I'd have the explain how the soldiers were abstracted. Its just a turnoff to 'normal people'

In response to the title question.. yes and no. I seem to remember hearing somewhere that the Soviet Forces had more troops in East Germany during the height of the Cold War than the US military had worldwide. Massive military. So you get the full spectrum. Some elite troops. Lotsa decent ones. And a buttload of conscripts who are more interested in torturing their squaddies, getting drunk, and sniffing out local hash dealers and whores..

I think its WAAY better. Much more realistic. Individual soldiers are represented. This makes the battlefield look way more real. And it plays out a lot more realistically. And when theres an attack gone wrong, you see the bodies to really prove it. As far as infantry firepower - Its way better - it matters who gets hit, sometimes you get lucky and kill the mg42 gunner in a german squad, and they're half neutered until one of his buddies can grab and reman the mg. things like that.

heh. Interesting Ive heard about the bazookas hitting the rear engine compartments and not penetrating either. WW2 is my favorite, but god some of the stories from Korea can make your skin crawl. Chinese hordes with whistles, and the 'bugout route'. I wonder why bazookas never caught on in the Ost Front? The Russians certainly like fausts enough to use them as inspiration for the RPG

Definitely use any machine guns or even just infantry squads. they'll get firing slit penetrations and supress, and eventually kill the bunker occupants. Of course you need to outnumber them, to try to face off one inf. squad vs a mg bunker would be stupid.

Yeah they have to be from the same platoon. However you have to pay close attention. Specfically with the 60mm mortar ammo bearers (maybe its only in PBEMs) but often enough, especially with airborne troops my mortar teams already have all the ammo, with the bearers carrying nothing. I've often seen this happen with 81mm mortar teams as well. Not that I mind really, I always can put a few riflemen somewhere... =D

Sergei - yeah I know all about libraries and wikipedia and google. obviously but the best info and anecdotes always come from grogs on places like these - someone will remember a line from a book or a story they heard 30 years ago or something. whats the point of a msg board if every question is met with " look on google " ? wtf are we here to discuss then?

Paper tiger. Im very glad you changed your mind. I love your road to dinas campaign, to think when I orignally had started it I almost didnt play it because of your warning about how it was armor centric. I love the idea of red vs red, or even blue vs blue. Maybe you could explore this further when the CW module comes out, US vs Brits! or Waffen SS vs Wehrmacht (I like the first idea better). That said, red vs red, infantry centric, sounds fantastic. Plus with more ancient equipment, it just seems more realistic, and it takes more strategy and tactics, without perfect troops and weapons etc. And I also second your suggestion about red airpower. Its very rarely seen, in fact besides Bier und Bretzel and CM Afghanistan I never saw red air power used. Even road to dinas used apaches and cobras...Id love to get some hinds flying around again like In CMA. Apaches are cool, but hinds are just evil.

You're right of course Vark. It'll be almost impossible. That being said, CMBN is light years ahead of what I even could have contemplated (beyond like virtual reality) back when I used to play Close Combat 2 and 3, and eventualy heard about something called Combat Mission on the forums for CC3...

oh and also. the PzFaust. Any interesting anecdotes, info etc? When were the 60m and 100m issued anyways ? any hopes of getting the 60m's in my troops paw's by Arnhem?

Yeah. My solution as far as the onboard AAA was a quick fix, so it wouldnt become some long drawn out thing. I understand they're rare in CMBN, however when they do show up, they linger and theres absolutely nothing you can do about it. Add this to the fact that the aircraft (I always use the area target command) can seem to spot groups of 5-10 infantry quickly and dispatch them in a burst makes them a serious event when they show up. At least I'd feel better if I could shoot back. Even if they dont model AAA, I think in interests of accuracy the 20mm AA needs to be added at some point, I can remember reading about them fairly often as far as equipment goes. For right now its not a biggie, but once we're past CW, into Arnhem, or possibly beyond, it'll start to be odd to not have them included. Especially if we're going to have theoretical equipment added.

Interesting. I'd like to continue this thread, but I cant seem to think of a lot of other questions about zooks. So Shrecks! What kind of models? If it was a copy basically of the bazooka why'd they upgrade it to 88mm? Typical German engineering? Couldnt help themselves? Also why'd the Soviets not follow suit and introduce RPGs or anything until a few years after the war? They just didn't have the technology? I always wondered why we didnt lend-lease bazookas? Or did we? I dont remember hearing about that..

Not a bad idea. A reinforcement option for QBs is actually a pretty good idea. Would add a lot to QB games IMO. of course there'd need to be some tweaks to prevent gamey tactics like having reinforcements burst out behind enemy lines or something,

Yeah. I've had a lot of experience with HE vs tanks. you can do a lot with it. In desperate times Ive ordered 60mm or 81mm strikes on German panthers. Ive immobilized them before with such action. Never gotten luckier however. I've killed marders with mortar fire. I love using Priests, and often I engage enemy armor with HE after their one or two HEAT rounds are expended. It depends on the range and a lot of other variables, but 105mm seems to be big enough to really jar the tank crew around a lot, a few hits and they usually panic, plus the tank will always take pretty heavy optics, tracks, etc damage.

like everyone said above. basically to select area fire is just to order a target or target light on a piece of ground or whatever on the map, as opposed to clicking on an actual enemy soldier or vehicle.

unfortunately as I understand it no. I wish they could at least simulate AAA firing into the sky and having each turn it engages have a mounting % of driving the enemy air attack off. thats my idea, which i posted somewhere else before. however that being said, I dont program games and I have no idea if it'd be anywhere as near cut and dry as all that.

So was the 90mm 'super zook' the m9a1 or...

Well yes a mortar is simple in theory. Still, you'd be amazed at all the little improvements that could be made to almost any weapon system over time. It was just a simple question. As far as the T-34/Panther issue - the Germans made wide use of captured T-34s. and were extremely impressed by them. Not only that, but the Panzerschreck began as a copy of the bazooka and then ended up being an improvement. I guess you could say the idea of a bazooka is about as simple as a mortar. But improvements can be made to any design. As far as to the question 'why copy T34s when they had Panthers as the answer' Well Im sure when this issue came up, with T34s in 1941 they didnt immediately say 'Oh dont worry, we have designs for panther tanks that will deal with these.' Im sure they tossed around several ideas about how to deal with this problem, and settled on Panthers, Tigers, etc. It just seemed to me that it may have been simpler to copy T34s.... Probably not in hindsight, but then again maybe it would have been a smarter move than making Panthers, Tigers, Tiger 2s, Elefants, Ferdinands, etc etc etc...

From how Ive come to understand it, any type of explosion will injure friendlies. EXCEPT for 'blast' issued commands. This must be because its a planned explosion and everyone can be told to get down. As far as smaller caliber weapons, anything with bullets will not cause FF. I remember the old friendly fire in CMx1. And no I havent seen this happen in CMBN. I dont think even .50 cal will injure friendlies.....

I was surprised when I saw a live bazooka shot in the show Triggers on the military channel (not bad btw) that you had to basically attach wires and touch them at the end to ignite the whole contraption. Amazing how far technology went from that even to the end of the war, let alone to nowadays. Also interesting was in the show they had a screen on the zook. It was explained it was a guard against bits of sparks and flames from the rocket. that was interesting too, because I never see those mounted in actual war time pictures.

Interesting. So the German 120 is a direct copy of the Russian? I wonder why they didnt add any improvements, or anything else. And if they had no problem copying that, I wonder why they didnt say copy T-34s for example..

Well I have a few suggestions. Get average quality US troops, dont let them get a ****load of support. Get good quality syrians, who are well motivated. give them a good amount of support. arty only to be more realistic. the map should be heavily built up - urban. You're going to have to run ambushes. hit and run. It's doable. Obviously the better player should be the Syrians. It'll be very difficult at best but IT IS do able. A good ambush with arty screaming in can decimate any force.

So I brought this up before, but dont recall an answer. few questions - I asked Schultzie about this before, and he said as far as he remembered the difference between the two models of these US bazookas was the firing wiring was different, the M9A1 being more reliable to fire. Is this modelled in game? Any other differences between the two? I also recall reading about the Korean War, and how US troops were initially horrified because their bazooka rounds werent penetrating the NKA T-34/85s. Apparently 'super bazookas' were brought in, designed at the end of WW2 for heavy german armor, and they did the trick. I seem to remember them being 100mm or something. I dont want a smart assed reply about google, or forum search (which i never can use properly it seems anyways) I just wanna know about the differences, about the super zooks, and any other groggish info or stories this stirs up

a little off topic but IIRC the Wehrmacht adopted and designed 120mm mortars after initial experiences vs Russian 120mm's in the Ost Front. Correct? How similar are the two designs?

odd. i wonder if its a glitch, or if its just the way it happens. I wonder if you had the original HQ unit buddy aid him - if it would have changed things?