Schugger

Since I've downloaded the Demo, I was almost exclusively playing campaigns (well, Dunkirque that is). I have yet to play face to face, but I really think that campaign gaming is the strongest part of the game. Now, with the full game installed (tataa), I immediatly started the Battle over Britain Campaign and was soundly trashed as axis. No biggie as I am getting used to it,but I observed something that is not clear to me. I attacke an 3/6 area with two He 111 and two Dive Bombers. The Heinkels were both damaged and the Stukas remained untouched. To my understanding the total remaining bombing points, 2 X 2 for the damaged Heinkels and 2 x 2 for the Stukas for a total of 8 bombing points, should have been enough for getting a devastating damage result. This did not happen and the result was either zero points for me and the AI or just 3 pints for me. Have I missed something here? Another thing I would really like to get implemented is to get more controls over those bombers. I do not like being able to change altitude, but I would really like to play out their cards myself and not by the AI. On several occassions I witnessed my poor Heinkels taking hits after hits without any reaction, despite the fact that their had four available cards. Is something planned in that way?

Moon, my copy arrived today and was sent (according to the postal stamp) from Ireland. My order was confirmed om 25th Otober and, considering that their was a weekend and All Saints Day between it, I think the delivery was quite fast. Thus, I am just a happy Schug.

My pilots my think differently, but I think that all those bots with Target Pilot are a big equalizer in the game. What I really do not like is the massive draw extra card assault when you face Bot Pilots. What about the idea of limiting them in a way that you can only draw one Extra Card in each game turn (One during the opponens phase and one in your phase)? Or am I kicking a dead horse here?

Well kuroi neko, I really mised that you can order the game in europe, I just hope that this is not a big deal. I have been told in my sales confirmation mail that shipping to western europe will take 3 to 10 buisiness days, which is not much of a difference (if at all) to the eight days it took for your order to arrive. I am glad that you liked my review, but I think that this forum is eventually a bit to general (it belongs to Germany's largest PC mag). A review at a more dedicated forum for strategy games would be more helpful, I guess. MantaRay, I keep my fingers crossed that my copy will arrive at the end of the the next week. I have played Dunkirque but I got a fatal error message after I have finished turn 3: Fatal Error 0001..Schugger won..no valid parameter..game will self destruct Woot?!? 'Tis gamey

Wrote up my review here It is in german, but hey! I just hope it'll issue some replies. @bartbert: After having send dozends of pilots to no return recon missions, I 've found out that checking the Manual for upcoming pilots (i.e.: the forum) is not a bad idea at all. Sometimes my 100XP pilots hold their ground exceptionally well with starting at low altitude and then going after the wingmen first. @MantaRay:Seventh game turn is usually my strongest one: sweeping the bits and pieces of the past hero and hitting the "create new pilot" button. Just wait until I get the full game and I'll show you how to dive past very low - with style.

anyway, just want to say that I enjoy the game immensely and I am just playing the Demo. Started with playing local games, created a few pilots and those poor boys soon found out that staying on the ground would have been a much better choice. Even those few who survived their first missions by some miracle, faced overwhelming odds when they finally reached the 100 EP cap and were put against the killing bots from hell. Just now, after having played local games for almost a week, I just found out that I could play campaign games. Boy, this is excellent stuff! While I wait for the game arriving at my mailbox (beware of interceptors!), I'llwrite up a small review on a german games forum.

Just out of interest, is there something in the US or British army like "Grussabnahme", roughly described as a strange ordeal where you have to prove that you can salute properly before you were allowed to, well, salute? I have some not so fond memories of this As far as I know, the words "Heil Hitler!" were not used with the military salute (hand to the temple), but only with the so called "Hitlergruss".

Could be that you have witnessed more turret hits than anything else, because most players prefer to maneuver their tanks into a hull down position when engaging the enemy.

Sorry marc420. I hope this would be more helpful.

The Pause command hasn't got anything to do with ambushs or fire in general. It is there to coordinate movement by adding longer delays. To set up a proper ambush use hide commands and covering arcs and read the trooper guide (read manual) even if it is in the non-portable pdf format as mine - it is your friend

Yup, I second that. Now that I have found out that it is much healthier to use the "advance" command instead of the "Run" command, I would like to find out how to handle the "Engage" command properly. My troops ordered to "Engage" an enemy mostly decide to stay where they are, even if they are not under fire, are 20m or so away from the enemy and are in good order and in command.

Would like to review a battle, preferably one designed as single player vs AI which is not too large. It has been a few months (or even years?) since I have been actively playing CM, I haven't got any bookmarks for downloading scenarios or any other stuff. Any input in form of links would be greatly appreciated.

As I am currently trying to get a grip on CMAK, take any of my advices with a grain of salt: 1) In most cases it is better to keep your tanks back so they can give support to your advancing infantry. Doing it the other way round, your tanks got usually wasted by anti tank weapons, satchel charges or a lucky hand grenade. 2) Check this thread for some nice tips on using mortars firing indirectly. 3) Depends on the situation. If you can afford losing a tank ot two you could try to flank the enemy tank going in for a side or rear shot. It won't always work, you could even end up with your closing in tanks being koed without any success. You could also try to block it's LOS with smoke, move your own tanks out of any imminent danger so they could give further support to your infantry. I generally prefer the second approach, knowing that I am a lousy tank player.

Downloaded the Demo, installed it and played my first CM game after several month. I missed CMBB entirely and have played the Demo once but never tried the full game (Booh! Hiss!). So what I knew dated back to the old times of CMBO. I could hardly remember when the AI has given me such a hard time as in the "Frühlingswind" scenario playing as Axis. Lost my PSW very early in the game but knocked out what appears to be two halftracks. Scouting by brewing up showed me a concentration of "M3?" tanks to my extreme left as well as two "Guns?" - I am lousy as a tank commander, something that will never change. My second experiance, which costed me dearly was that Infantry hits the dirt as soon as anyone farts at them, coward little Scheisserchens they were Something has changed about suppression since CMBO, I somehow liked it but at the moment, while I got my butt kicked royally by the AI I was not entirely happy of what was going on there, in North Afrika, at my computer screen. Scary. When my tank reinforcements appeared, along with more cannon-fodder I thought it was time to reconsider my tactics a bit. My first tank platoon has duked it out with the "M3s?" for a few turns, without much harm done by or to any side, with the exception of seeing none effective penetrations, obviously another feature. On my extreme right flank, the enemy was in a forward position along with one "Gun?", an MG and some infantry, digger in and in a somewhat isolated position, still busy of pummeling the remains of one of my Aufklärungs-heinis platoons. The 105 mm spotter had a clear LOS to that position and I gave fire orders and ordered one tank platoon along with a Panzergrenadier platoon to take up position behind the ridge. When the first shells landed, my tanks and infantry were in position and I first ordered the Panzergrenadiers to cross the ridge and enter the brush behind it. On the far left my Panzers were ordered to cross the ridge as well to engage the "M3s?" in a firefight to hopefully prevent them from shooting at my precious infantry. All went well this time, but I lost a IIIm in the tank firefighter but the artillery killed the Gun. Now the supporting tanks on the extreme right crested the ridge and together with their armored comrades on the right flank I enfolds the M3s in their position. No matter how they wheeled and turned, one tank platoon was always able to get side shots and thus they were knocked out within five turns. The game was a real mainliner, right from the start and it continued to be until the end. While I tried to deal with the Shermans hidden in the Oasis, they killed two of my tanks at point blanc range and it was two of the remaining Aufklärungs squads who succeed in killing them. It is still a highlight seeing tanks knocked out by infantry. In the end I got a respectable 64 to 36 win - but I lost the follow up scenario "Last Line of Defence", so I don't think the learning process is over. Great game, a must-have and will check out the stores as soon as possible.

Bought the german version of the game the other day (version 1.07) and experianced some strange graphical problems: Whenever a window appears in the game, like the game options window, end turn window, R&D window, the only open up very, very slowly taking several minutes in some cases. Exiting the game causes my desktop to crash (icons disappear or get "hollow") and I need to reboot my computer in order to get anything started. Being somewhat of an computer illiterate, I guess there is something wrong with my system configuration as I have ensured that there is enough space on my HD, run defrag, etc. My system specs: PIII600 Win98 3dfx vodoo card 512 MB ram directx version 9.0 Any help would be greatly appreciated

Hi Glenn, I don't know if there is a abbreviation glossary in the CMBB manual, but there isn't one in the CMBO manual. You will surely stumble over many acronyms used in this forum, so a short list here: AA - Anti Aircraft gun ATR - Anti Tank Rifle FT - Flame Thrower FLAK - Flieger Abwehr Kanone (see AA) MLR - Main Line of Resistance HKL - Mauptkampflinie (same as MLR but German) MBT - Main Battle Tank APC - Armored Personal Carrier AFV - Armored Fighting Vehicle ATG - Anti Tank Gun PAK - Panzer Abwehr Kanone (same as ATG) KwK - Kampfwagen Kanone (vehicle mounted Gun) PF - Panzerfaust MG - Machine Gun lMG - light MG hMG - heavy MG SMG - Sub Machine Gun MPi - Machinenpistole (same as SMG) FO - Forward Observer (artillery guy) FG - Field gun (or Feldgeschütz) lFG - light Field Gun hFG - heavy Field Gun HD - Hull Down (refering to the cover of a Tank) TRP - Target Reference Point SC - Scout Car (reccon vehicle) SdKFZ - Sonder Kraftfahrzeug (all types of german war vehicles) FJ - Fallschirmjäger (Parachute Troops) PG or PzGren - Panzergrenadier OPFOR - Opposing Forces KG - Kampfgruppe also: Karnevalsgesellschaft VF - Victory Flag MEHRttF - Map-Edge-Hugging-Rush-to-the-Flag AP - Armor Piercing (shell round) HE - High Explosive (shell round) PzGra(XX) - Panzergranate (date) german shell MV or V0 - Muzzle Velocity (of a shell) BNH - Brinell Hardness (determines armor quality) Schreck - short for Panzerschreck CAS - Close Air Support FB - Fighter Bomber Jabo - Jagdbomber (see FB) TC - Tank Commander HT - Halftrack mot - short for motorized TTV - Tarnen, Täuschen und Verpissen (avoiding trouble) SS - Schutz Staffel VG - Volks Grenadier XX KwK L YY - XX is the gun caliber YY is the multiplier number to get the barrel length, so 75 KwK L 70 (the Panther cannon) means the gun has a caliber of 75mm and the barrel has a length of 70 time it's caliber (here 5250mm). Almost groggish ETO - European Theater of Operations TD - Tank Destroyer JPz or JgdPz - Jagdpanzer (see TD) Stug - Sturm Geschütz (Assault Gun) StuH - Sturm Haubitze (Assault Howitzer) Bat - Battery Btl - Battalion FFE - Fire For Effect Stuka - Sturz Kampf Bomber (Dive Bomber) by no means complete, but a a start at least.

Can't offer much help here, markl. Basically I do it like you have stated, i.e. going down to view level one, skimming over the battlefield and using the LOS tool. A feature CMBO does not have is to click on some point on the battlefield and then check the LOS from that position, but you will develop some skill in determining LOS after you have some gaiming experiance under your belt. As you are still struggling with the demo (Valley of Trouble?) you might find it useful do deploy your field gun not in a position where it has a wide LOS.

Guten Abend, Herr Kruger. For locating the file at CMHQ; check the toolbar on the left side of the page, click "3rd party mods", click, then click the "Vehicles" section (fourth down from the top), click "German Support Vehicles/Guns", here download the first mod. For Tom's CMHQ click "mods" on the WalkieTalkie, then click "Axis Armor" and at the bootom of the page you will find the mod set. Downloaded it for a try and it worked for me. Be sure that you do not try to make multiple downloads at Tom's site and do not use any download accelerators (Tom has a warning pop up screen which opens when you enter his download section). Good luck.

You can find mods for the 88 Flak either at CMHQ here or at Tom's Combat Mission HQ here. Unfortunately the CMHQ site seems not working at the moment.

Troy Spiral, ages ago I had downloaded a zip file which shows a unit's exposure in any kind of cover available in the game. It even has detailed exposure numbers if the unit in question benefits from combinations of covering terrain (like foxholes in scattered trees). Kudos to Juju for doing that work. Unfortunately all these statistics are for CMBO and I don't know if they are applicable for CMBB, as I don't have the game yet. Basically I think they are still a useful piece of information for the game, even if the stats have changed somewhat in the new game. If you do have need for these documents (they are in Word format) post here and I send them to you via email.

Ok, downloading finished and checked them with my all time fav - Villers Bocage!. Got creamed (as usual) but at least the eye candy was satisfying. So, my old steam powered engine can handle CMBB? Ah well, noone escapes the spanish inquisition.

Thanks a ton, Edward. Looks like I am going to download for at least a few hours. As far as CMBB is concerned, well I don't know if my machine can handle it (P III 500, 128mb, 16mb grahic card). Even if it would run, then normal life would almost cease to exist, pretty much the fate of any CM devotee, right?

Didn't want to post "modslut looking for fix" in the header Well, I haven't updated my CMBO for a year or more or haven't even checked for relevant sites. Also, I am guilty of not regulary checking the board. Consequently, the CM gods weren't amused and punishment proofed to be harsh - My computer crashed. Reinstalled the mother of all games, but alas something looked not quite right for me as I really loved the eye candy the mod making demi gods have pleased me with. So if any of the true followers could show me the right path, I promise deepest atonement.

Well, that thing is already in the game.

That should be no problem. Just take a screenshot while playing, copy it on a disk, walk to your copyshop and you end up with a wonderful T-Shirt. Rumour goes that some fanatics have CM screenshots on their underwear (just to remind themselves where the Tiger is).