Juardis

How realistic is it that a tank would take several penetrations and the crew still be able to function and the controls still work. I have no experience in this regard, but the thought of an AP round penetrating the turret, sending shell fragments all around, and not wounding more than one person or damaging key equipment is hard to believe. I can only imagine the carnage that 3 penetrations would cause, but apparently not much according to CMBB. So I'm guessing that when the game says turret penetration, it does not necessarily mean that it entered the crew compartment, just that some small amount of the shell breached the hull. Would that be an accurate statement?

Damndest thing I've ever seen. I'm playing a game where a Ju-87G has top turret penetrated either one T-34 twice or two separate T-34s. It or they are still alive and firing. I have penetrated a KV-1 3 times. One side turret, two front turret penetrations, from a Stug-III. The side turret from about 300m, the two front turret penetrations from about 100m. It is still alive and moving (no death clock here). So obviously I'm a little pissed at the moment. Even when I do things right it doesn't work out. I suck at armor, at least I do in CMBO. So I became really good with infantry. Now that infantry is worthless on the same field with AFVs, I need to improve my armor skills. I was hoping I would be better with armor in CMBB, but if this is what I can expect, I might as well hang up the AP and go play Magic Online or something. Anyway, I whine too much. Is it possible that even though it says turret penetration that it really isn't a penetration? And if so, what else is there to do? If I can't kill a KV-1 with 3 turret penetrations from less than 300m from a Stug-III, and I can't kill a T-34 from a tank-busting JU-87G, then what the hell is a) the Ju-87 good for and why shouldn't every Russian player NOT pick a KV-1 every possible time?

Cool. BFC, I want a spade mortar in the 1.02 patch BTW salt, you wouldn't by any chance be "old salt card carrying curmudgeon" from the comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.war-historical newsgroup would you?

Last week I upgraded my OS to XP Pro. In the process, I had to ditch my Voodoo5 . I LOVED that card. As Kump said, it was the most beautiful rendering of CMBO/CMBB. However, there are other problems with the V5, one being it took a long time to load the 3d graphics, two being you could not switch back and forth to the desktop without garbling the 2d text in the game (crucial if you have a bazillion PBEMs going), and three it tended to white out the screen when the video memory got swamped. But damn was it gorgeous. Anyway, the V5 is not supported in XP pro, so I broke down and bought a Ti4200 128MB G4 card. I set up 4xs FSAA, but it is nowhere near as good looking as the V5. Maybe I need to crank up the Anisotropic filtering to 8x as someone suggested. But the Ti4200 does load faster, doesn't white out (yet), and I can swap to the desktop with impunity. I wish it had the looks, but the performance makes up some for that somewhat.

that perhaps is true manchild. I have not done that extensive of testing. But the manual does say that you should look for the spotting round and if it comes in way off target, to retarget the same spot. That seems stupid to me since that is supposed to be the FOs job, but nevertheless, that is what the manual says so...

That's actually how I came to my conclusion. Although I did target an area in LOS, lost LOS when smoke fell, then my entire strike fell 200m off target because I lost LOS between when the rounds fell and when I gave the orders. That kinda sucks. I hope it gets fixed, but then again, knowing why is sometimes half the battle.

I haven't yet in CMBB. But in CMBO it seemed the bigger caliber was way more precise than the smaller caliber. But yeah, rockets are a crap shoot.

OK, I've done my fair share of whining about CMBB arty. I scanned the 1.02 list at Boots and Tracks but did not see any mention of arty being fixed, but admittedly it is only a partial list. I also saw where Steve said 1.02 is done and there will be no more patches unless a really horrific bug is found. So, here's hoping 1.02 will indeed fix the inaccurate arty, but if not, here is how to avoid it... My problem stems from the fact that once LOS to a target is broken, arty is very inaccurate. But even bigger I think is that retargetting does not improve the situation too much. Here's a test you can do. Target a point that is just out of LOS. Let the first rounds fall. Then readjust the target point a few meters until you do have LOS to it. You should get the green line saying you have LOS and the time should increase only slightly indicating you have requested an adjustment. Now, when the next rounds fall you would hope that they would land where you requested but you will probably find that they are still way off. On the surface, this seems ludicrous. I mean, you have LOS, you can see the rounds are not falling where they're supposed to, and your FO does nothing to prevent the precious loss of ammo. On the other hand, it seems that CMBB is making an adjustment to the original landing location. So asking for a 10m adjustment on a barrage that was off by 200m is not going to magically make the rounds fall where they're supposed to. That appears to be what is going on. Not sure how to get around this if LOS is ever broken. But I think everyone should be aware of this to minimize your frustrations. 1. Always ALWAYS plot a strike within LOS 2. Try not to do things that will block LOS between when the strike is ordered and when the rounds start landing 3. And if the first barrage is horribly off target, then don't even bother adjusting fire. Cancel it altogether and start over. That's been my observation anyway. Anybody have anything different? I'm especially interested in how to get the rounds to land where you want them to land if LOS was ever broken. [ February 07, 2003, 12:33 PM: Message edited by: Juardis ]

just a point of clarification. If you want smoke, you have no choice of concentrated or wide area fire. You have smoke and that's all. And remember, I said >50m away. It appears the center of the spread is about 90m away from the retargetted point, so I improved the accuracy from 180m to 90m by retargetting, or about half the distance. The closest smoke puff to my retargetted point is 30m away.

Andreas, if I understand you correctly, I should be happy to get arty to fall 50m from where I want it because that's about all I can expect? I don't understand this. Again, it is the job of the FO to get rounds on target. If he's happy that it's off by 50m, then he's incompetent. If 50m is as accurate as you can expect, then buying arty is a waste of points. But I suspect that an FO CAN get arty to fall on a point. It may take longer and more spotting rounds to make that happen depending on (in game terms) the experience of the FO, the size of the ordnance, and maybe the country firing it, but it will land on target. And he will not waste 75% of his loadout before getting that to happen. And I say again, if he has LOS when he gives the order, then a spotting round should land regardless of whether he loses LOS or not. Now, whether the spotting round lands in LOS or not is another question, but a spotting round will land. If he does not see a spotting round is the FO going to say "well, I didn't see it so it must be ok, go ahead and fire 50% of your loadout"? I don't think so. He asks for another spotting round.

Excuse me? Is it not the job of the FO to make sure smoke falls where he wants it? If its off by 50m, that means the units that are depending on that smoke will not benefit. That means the attack will fail. I find it hard to believe that a FO will allow this to happen. He would not have allowed the first barrage to be >150m off target and he would not have allowed the second barrage to >50m off target. He might take longer to get it on target, but certainly not waste 75% of the rounds available to him. If you want to argue realism, then the current system models incompetent FO's just fine in which case my original assertion stands - ARTY SUCKS!!

Sheesh, go away for a day and your thread gets hijacked Anyway, went back and watched the PBEM turns. Here is what happened with my 120mm smoke. I targetted a spot for smoke at the begginning of turn 2. Estimated time was 4 minutes for the shells to land. Well, smaller caliber smoke obscured the target point during turns 2-5, but the target point was clear again by the time the rounds started to land. Unfortunately, the smoke barrage landed >150m to the right of where it was supposed to, indicating to me that: 1) since the target was obscured for a period of time the game decided that the target should be considered out of LOS and consequently dropped smoke on the other side of the map 2) a spotting round may have fallen, but since it was a smoke round and there was still smoke on the battlefield, it could have been "lost" or, if the target was considered out of LOS, then no spotting round would have fallen. So I retargetted the original spot (in LOS again) and the smoke landed >50m to the right of the target. Now I'm down to 14 shells and still have not hit the target. QUESTIONS: 1) after the initial target is given, why would it becoming hidden change anything? The order is already given, what happens after that shouldn't matter. So if a building blows up and the dust cloud obscures the target, you're screwed. If a tank brews up and obstructs the target, you're screwed. There are too many things that can happen that would break LOS that this is both frustrating and unrealistic IMO. 2) why DO I HAVE TO RETARGET? My FO should do that automatically!!!! 3) and finally, even after I retarget, why is it still off?

wwb, My FO was within LOS when the target was given. Whether it went out of LOS in between, I don't know. I said normal QB, not a normal battle. Of course ME's are not normal IRL, but in CMBB battles, ME's ARE the norm. Jason, makes sense to me. And finally, in CMBO if you did target something out of LOS, the spread would be huge, say maybe all the shells would fall in a 100m radius. In CMBB, if you target something out of LOS, you still get a tight spread, it's just well away from where you targeted. I don't have a problem with that. The target was out of LOS afterall. My beef is with targetting in LOS. My FO should do the job for me, I should not be required to perform that level of micromanagement, particularly if I have to watch for the damned spotting round. I can see TCP/IP play now if I have to hunt for spotting rounds that may or may not show up.

And to offer a solution, I suggest that if you insist that arty is inaccurate, then fine. Have the spotting round land wherever. Have the FO readjust as necessary, as many times as necessary. If the spotting rounds lands spot on - excellent, commence the bombardment immediately. If not, then adjust and see where the next round lands. If that's still off, repeat the process until arty lands where it's supposed to. I cannot fathom a FO allowing 20-30 rounds of HE to fall 200m away from his designated target. Allowing for the spotting rounds to readjust is more realistic and will probably result in an additional delay, but again, more realistic than dumping 50 rounds of HE in a swamp.

yeah, been reading old threads on the accuracy of arty, or lack thereof, and now I wish to add my voice to the complaints. Plain and simple - arty SUCKS in CMBB. The only good thing I've seen is that barrages land on target and TRPs work. But in a normal QB (i.e., ME), TRPs and barrages are unavailable. So you're left with FO's like we had in CMBO and targetting like we had in CMBO. Problem is, you can't count on arty hitting the target. My most recent example is my 120mm FO (in a probe mind you). It only has like 50 rounds so arty is precious. I want to drop smoke. It lands >200m to the right of where the target was. So I'm down 20 rounds. I retarget, it lands >100m to the right of where the target was. Now I'm down to 14 rounds. 14 FREAKING ROUNDS!!!! Who's job is it to make sure the lead hits the target?! Is it mine? NO!!!! I count on my FO to make sure that happens. I should not have to hunt around the map looking for a spotting round to see if the fire will be on target - THAT'S MY FO'S JOB!!!! In my example above, I did not get a spotting round, so retargetting wasn't even plausible. WHAT GOOD IS THE FO if he can't adjust the fire without me intervening?! Where is the realism in this!? OK, thanks for letting me vent, I do NOT feel better though. Are there any plans to fix this? And yes, I do think it's a problem that needs fixing. And yes, I did a search and did not find an answer (which probably means I didn't search for the right combination of words).

I see. Thank you for that clarification. So is this the norm then that arty is so freaking inaccurate? I mean, my regular 120mm FO gave a target, surely he can make sure the smoke lands on that target. It makes no sense to me that my FO would allow 20 precious rounds of 120mm to fall so far from its intended point. I should not have to micromanage this. I have to re-target the correct point and incur a 30 sec delay while the FO adjusts fire to the point he should have adjusted it to the first time!!!!! Bah!

Situation: 120mm FO with los to a spot where I want smoke rounds to fall. Smoke falls 300m to the right of where I wanted it covering part of the map I wanted to see and leaving a devastiting fof in part of the map I'm probing into. Resolution: Per the field manual, I should be able to press the R key to reset the target. But I do not have that option. So I end up re-targeting the same spot incurring a 30 sec delay in the process. What, if anything, am I doing wrong? I thought I was supposed to be able to Press the R key to get better accuracy on my arty - be it smoke or HE - but I don't even have that option.

obviously if you fight your way to the flag and capture it on turn 20, then congratulations. But if you decide to race unsupported tanks to the flag and hope to hold on for 2-3 turns, then that is taking advantage of an artificial limitation on the game. As Fionn already stated, IRL, there are no time constraints. So if vadr wanted to grab the flag and hold on with his tanks, then he should do so much earlier than turn 20 of a 20+ battle to simulate that the enemy has plenty of time to recapture the flag, destroy the tanks. So being gutsy with your tanks on turn one is quite acceptable because it simulates that ballsy commander that decided speed was the best option but also simulates that same ballsy commander having to defend that which he just captured so easily. Waiting until turn 20 takes the 2nd part of the simulation away (i.e., he doesn't have to defend). Here's another thing. Vadr already said it was 1942 and organic AT capability is non-existent in Russian troops. So his same logic for rushing the flag on turn 20 is just as valid as rushing the flag on turn 1. Why not do it on turn 1 then?

Good thing I decided to read the entire thread before posting, because Fionn said what I wanted to say after reading the first page of this thread. If vadr had rushed his tanks on turn 1 of 20, then the tactic is valid. Waiting until turn 20/20 is a cheap way to get a victory. All IMHO that is.

And here I thought you were going to say that they backordered the game before it was even finished :lol hint: the date is 1/17/02 that it was backordered

Panzertruppe, I've been at that park and sat on that Sherm Bent barrel and all. I love that park. The museum rocks too with all the small arms in there. Edit: my mother lives in Davenport, me in Charlotte. I don't get there too often. [ January 03, 2003, 04:16 PM: Message edited by: Juardis ]

Update - not a bug. Checked last night, 2 man turret T26/M33. Buttons when he targets, unbuttons when he loses LOS. Most frustrating. Should I just leave it buttoned you think? Seems like it would shoot sooner if I did.

Hmmmm, good point about the 2 man turret. I'll have to check tonight. But yes, I am the russkies and it's early to mid-war (42 or 43, can't remember). I guess I never thought of that but it does make sense.

Not sure if it's a bug, but it seems like one to me. Not sure if it's been mentioned already, but I didn't see it in the bug list Matt posted. So here goes. Playing a QB PBEM battle. I'm being probed. I have a tank that's unbuttoned waiting for the enemy to show itself. My tank spots an infantry unit 440m away and buttons up. No shots were fired. My tank loses LOS of inf unit and unbuttons. A few seconds later a different inf unit comes into LOS 420m away. My tank buttons up again. What's up with that? I certainly don't want my tank to button and the likelihood of taking fire from 400+m away from a moving infantry squad is nonexistent. So I can see no reason that this is intentionally done. Thus I conclude it's a bug. BTW, my tank is in open ground. Anybody else see this before? [ November 13, 2002, 11:52 AM: Message edited by: Juardis ]

yep, your experience is very similar to mine. I spent half the game trying to figure out what the hell the russians have that can fire AT rounds at approximately 15-20 rounds/minute. I haven't done any testing, no QBs, not even the demo. This is my first game and it's frustrating as hell not knowing what I'm facing. I feel almost like a true WW2 CO