MadDog0606

As a kind of a stop gap until what you request comes out (if it ever does) check out this and see if it is what your looking for: http://www.hpssims.com/Book.htm I quote off the page "This book will actually be extremely helpful in use with a variety of WWII tactical wargames, and not just HPS products." [This message has been edited by MadDog0606 (edited 08-18-2000).]

Willhammer - I agree, criticism is good if it is constructive. But this person didn't offer constructive criticism. All Duck did was shoot off at the mouth and yell lawsuit. If Duck hadn't wrote the second post in this thread I wouldn't have given the thread a second thought. I don't care for TCP/IP. Some people do and BTS has stated what their priorities are and where TCP/IP falls in those priorities. If Duck had even tried to do a search on TCP/IP Duck would have read what BTS said it was going to do concerning TCP/IP. I hope nobody writes that doing a search is to hard with the number of posts on the forum. Because it isn't. All it takes is a little patience and the ability to read (not spell, just read). By the way, Duck is a good handle for the guy (or gal) because now he (or she) has to duck to avoid all the crap he (or she) is going to get for that lawsuit post.

You just full of them negative waves, ain't you Jake? Lets see, your first two posts are both negative and you mention lawsuit against the creators of CM on a forum full of CM lovers (fanatics). Since you didn't put any smilies on that second post of yours I figure you just want to piss people off. That aint a real good way to start on this forum. What happen? Somebody hit you an the side of the head with a hammer? [This message has been edited by MadDog0606 (edited 08-16-2000).]

Engineers

I disliked a majority of my time in the Navy. Just because you can take crap from people doesn't mean your going to like it for 4 to 6 years. And believe me there are people in the Navy that are MASTER CRAP GIVERS. You can't quit if you get pissed off. And like fd ski wrote in a previous post if you get married or are married and you join the Navy, unless you get a shore billet for the whole time your in your family life will suffer. Unless of course you have a very very loving and understanding wife/husband then it will only suffer a little. If I had a second chance I would have looked into ways to have gotten some kind of grants and/or low interest loans to go to college. I did this after I got out of the Navy. I should have done it before getting out of HS. I will give the Navy this though. It taught me responsibility and how to have a good time in far away lands. Now if you don't listen to my advice, and why should you, and you still want to join at least listen to the following advice. BE SURE YOU DO NOT GET SCREWED BY THE RECRUITER. By this I mean that if you tell the recruiter you want to be a certain rate (job in the Navy) and he tells you "Sorry, your enterance scores aren't high enough", DO NOT take that statement as fact. You better verify the score and the score needed for the rating you want. I tell you this from experience. I wanted to be a missile tech but the Navy Recruiter said my score was to low and would Radar Operator be okay? I was a young and trusting lad back in those days and I said OK. Latter when I got on my first ship I found out my scores were more then high enough for me to be a missile tech, the Navy just needed radar operators that month!!!! If I could have found that recruiter I would have not have been very nice to him. But then again he saved me from an extra year in the Navy. But I got over it and learned not to be such a trusting individual again.

Yes, shame (double shame) on you!!!! I had to take time out from my work (VERY IMPORTANT WORK) to do a search. Took me a good half hour. A half hour I could have spent on my work (whatever that was, I forget now). I really didn't want to do my work anyway . So it was a good excuse not to.

You didn't search hard enough. But since I was curious I searched for you (I'm not going to do it again though). I'm being nice today. This is the discussion thread. If this doesn't work search for "Tanks and wire": http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/004163.html The thread is dated 05/05/2000 to 05/08/2000. That's just before the game came out (I think). BTS (Steve) said (wrote): "No, roadblocks can not be destroyed. I agree with Fionn about barbed wire being torn out by tanks. Matt is correct about movement. I surprised an AI controlled squad last week. It was going through some barbed wire when I had some hidden HMG42s spring into action. Whole squad, eliminated in about a half a minute. Basically the unit was "stuck" and in the open at about 200m. Easy target." I don't know if it's changed since then. You could do another search and find out if you want.

I've never fully trusted autosave for any game I've ever played. If I have a choice to save a game on my own I do it. That way if it screws up it's my fault. By the way the question was worded I had no idea of the way you were playing the game (Against the AI, Hot Seat, or PBEM). And I'm playing on a PC, so it might just be an iMac problem. Just a word of friendly advice (don't get mad at me or anything ). The next time you have a problem with a game (any game) you need to specify the type of computer (Mac or PC), graphics card (if a graphics problem), how much memory in the computer. Really just about anything you think might have anything to do with the problem. [This message has been edited by MadDog0606 (edited 08-04-2000).]

I'll give it a go for the Yes/No question. Have you tried different settings on your graphics card that have to do with how text is displayed. Do you have the latest graphics drivers for your card? I haven't noticed the problem and I've tried CM with a Voodoo2 and a Riva TNT2 Ultra graphics card. About your first question I guess I'm dence (just ask Fionn ) because I don't understand the question. When you say "If it's supposed to be the Axis turn, for some reason it shows the Allies" do you mean that when you play the Axis and save the game then restart the game, for the turn you are playing you are now controlling the Allies? I've never had a problem with saving a turn in QB. I always save the game with a title that is based on the type of game and the turn I'm playing. When I restart the game, the turn I'm in always corresponds to the title I gave the save game and it is for the turn I saved the game (Man, I hope you understand what I just wrote because I just got confused). By the way, you might be getting ignored because of the way you worded your request. You should have said "Something's wrong with the game save feature in QB on my computer".

Fionn said: "An absolute waste of ammo. 1 turn of HE arty is barely worth firing unless it is in the 150mm+ range (unless you are purposely going for a slow attritional style of arty usage... it doesn't sound like this is the case here though). Also, IF you fired HE first and THEN smoke you could fire aimed HE and by simply switching the sequence of the ammo your effectiveness will increase by a good 50%. Your SOP is highly sub-optimal." Well, at least you didn't call me an idiot and/or moron. I do appreciate that . And, I am still learning so do be gentle with me.

43

I didn't want to test a one-on-one against the possible Tiger with my Jumbo. That was the only Jumbo I had and I was still a long way from the victory flags. I'm not sure if a Nashorn has the same gun as a Tiger, but I've had a Jumbo taken out by a Nashorn before from 800 yrds. I also needed to practice how to use Sherman tanks. I had always thought Shermans sucked until I saw what the AI tried to do in an operation with one. During a turn in the operation I had one of my Stug III goose a Sherman toward two Panthers. I thought the Sherman would oblige me and move into the Panther headlights and take his medicine. The AI suprised me. The AI rushed that Sherman right between my two Panthers (they were on opposite sides of a road) and was about to shoot the ass off of one of them using that fast traverse speed of the Sherman (my eyes got so wide ) when luck came my way and he missed and the other Panther took that Sherman out. I played that turn back three or four times just to admire what the Sherman tried to do. I'm learning that all tanks are not the same. I'm learning how to maximize a tanks strength; Sherman speed over ground and it's turret traverse speed, a Tiger and Panthers long range hitting power. How to minimize their weaknesses; don't duel long range using a Sherman 75mm against a Tiger or Panther, remember to not expose Shermans to possible flank shots, remember the slow traverse speed of the Tiger and Panther. I'll discover other things as I play this game. I really don't look at this as a game, I look at it has a learning experience (yeah, that's what I'll tell my boss the next time he catches me playing CM). I'm learning new things every time I play this game. Of course, the things I'm learning propably wont help me during my next review period. I'm learning that you don't use tanks in the open, you don't mosey along with anything, and how to use smoke properly (I still haven't gotten the hang of the smoke).

I don't think the AI was conserving rounds. It fired smoke into that village for three consecutive turns. And it wasn't a little bit of smoke. That smoke covered the village so much so that my platoons could no longer see the AI troops to shot them. That would have been a smart move on the AIs part IF the AI had troops close enough to the village to take advantage of the smoke. The AI did not have troops close enough to take advantage of the smoke and it lost the battle. The AI still had a lot of troops on the its right side of the map. And if they were close enough could have done some major damage. I know that it takes a couple of turns for the arty to show up. By the second turn of smoke the AI had already lost all but one tank and the majority of its troops on its left. It should have just withdrawn what was left of its troops on its left side and then conserved its arty. But it didn't conserve its arty because it didn't use arty on me when I attacked the church toward the end of the battle. It seemed the AI wasted all its arty smoking the village. Don't get me wrong. I am not unhappy with the TACAI. Usually (80% of the time) it uses arty on me to its advantage. This had been the only QB/Scenario so far where I was confused on the way the TACAI used its arty. Also, my fingers ran away from me. I would not have mixed a little HE with the smoke. I more then likley would have shot one turn of smoke followed by a turn of HE. And I would not have shot the HE unless I knew where the BAD GUYS were. And your right. My revenge habit will get me in trouble sooner or latter. But I don't exercise that habit much. I know that arty is precious (even if you have a lot) and it is not to be wasted. I also don't do PBEM because I don't belive I'm good enough yet. And I need to get over my bad habits from Steel Panther games. I still need more practice playing the TACAI in CM in all environments. Only after I consistently whup ass on the TACAI (not any time soon) will I feel comfortable and confident enough to PBEM.

Since it was my HT post that was quoted I get to put in my 2 cents . I usually play QB's (I love that part of CM!!) with a village has the center of attention. When on the attack or a meeting engagement my FO's usually travel behind the lead platoon. I find the closest hill or cover (woods, scattered trees, two story house, regular house, anything but out in the open) that has a good field of view to the piece of real estate I want as my own. I place my FO at this location. I then send up a platoon to find and fix the enemy. If there are enough enemy to warrant some special loving attention (I don't waste no arty on a squad of troopies) I fire a turn or two of arty on them to make them go for cover and then attack with overwhelming force. I dont waste arty on individual buildings that are causing me trouble. I'll let a tank or assault gun level the damn thing. If I'm attacking a hill I'll lay both HE and smoke on the top and the reverse slope (even if I don't see anybody) before I send my little guys running up to the top. And if I have any tanks at least one tank is going up the hill right behind them with the other tanks covering. I do the same with the mortars of a company. I place all the mortars with the heavy weapons platoon leader (or the company commander if he has a higher command rating). I then follow the lead platoons with these mortars and if the lead platoons run into trouble, all I do is bring up the mortar commander so that he can spot for them. On the defense I usually place the FO's on hills with some kind of cover or in two story buildings on the edge (closest to the enemy) of a town/village so that they can have good fields of view to the likley avenues of attack. The FO's always have one squad of troops or a machine gun with them for protection. I only fire when I see a high concentration of units. And I hide EVERYBODY until the enemy gets close enough for me to do some damage. Now, my greatest fear in this game is the Allied arty (HE not smoke) because I know they have a lot of it and have had it used on me to great effect when playing the Germans. Now to get back to the quote from my post. I had no problem with the AI using smoke on me (I think the AI lost because of it's use of just smoke rounds though). I think it (the TACAI) should have thrown in some HE with the smoke. During the game, when I heard those arty rounds coming in, I thought for sure my platoons in town were goners (besides saying SH*T!! out load when I heard the arty whisling in). I was happy has all get out that it was only smoke because I knew by the sound being made by the arty that it was big stuff and if the AI was using it as smoke that was less rounds of HE that it could use on me. I understand why the AI used smoke. I would have done the same thing. But I would have also taken revenge and added a little HE to the mix. I know taking revenge is not logical and a waste of HE, but a lot of little Brits were killed by those HT's and I would have wanted some payback. The way the QB map was generated there was very little cover on the approachs to the town on the TACAIs'left, other then the sides of the road coming into the town. There was cover to the TACAIs' right and he did use this. But the damage to the TACAIs' troops (mortars, MG's, and armor) had already been done by the time it unloaded the smoke on me. Because of the lose of armor and mortars the TACAI gave up on the town and concentrated the rest of it's troops around the tall building and church (a victory location) that was to far away from me that I didn't bother taking. Until I tried toward the end of the game, and even then I didn't have enough troop strength to take it away from the TACAI. [This message has been edited by MadDog0606 (edited 08-02-2000).]

I don't think it is that hard to get multiple LOS on an enemy tank. I was playing a QB with moderate coverage of trees and small slopes. I was playing the Amis (so I didn't mosy along with my tanks). I moved the infantry platoons forward in bounds (moved one squad forward to cover, if not shot at then moved the other two and the HQ up). I had about 4 Shermans (1 Jumbo and 3 regular). I was comming up the right side of the map when suddenly from the left side a shot rings out and I lose a Sherman and a friggen Tiger tank is shown on the left side of the map. That damn Tiger shot between two clumps of trees. The little **** was in a good spot too. He was in a dip in the ground (hull down to me). Needless to say I rushed my Shermans out of his LOS. I noticed that there was a clump of trees on the very edge of the map to the Tigers south which had good LOS on him and places on the map that had dips in the ground that I could use to rush a tank to get a shot at him. I rushed the remaining 2 regular (75mm) Shermans off south of my position from cover to cover to get to those trees. I rushed them so that the Tiger could not track and get a shoot (the Tiger has very slow turret travers speed). That Tiger never got a shot at my fast moving Shermans. I watched him track them but he never shot at them. I had stoped moving forward with the Jumbo because that Tiger would have killed him because there was a lot of open space up forward. I kept the 2 Shermans hidden behind the clump of woods until I had that Jumbo in position on the safe side of another clump of woods. I figured I was going to lose somebody taking out the Tiger. I brought the Jumbo out of hiding to get the Tigers attention. I paused the movement of the 2 Shermans about 30 seconds then sent them out to get an angle shot at the Tiger that was engaged with the Jumbo. Well I got lucky and only lost one tank commander and the Tiger was only a Pz IV (FOW is a bitch) and he got toasted. [This message has been edited by MadDog0606 (edited 08-02-2000).] [This message has been edited by MadDog0606 (edited 08-02-2000).]

I don't know how much extra it would cost you but have you considered getting computer parts over the internet. I did this for the last computer I built. All I kept from the old one was the harddrive and the monitor and bought everything else over the net. You could go here http://www.tccomputers.com/ and check out the prices. The cost is shown in US dollars. After you check out that site and have an idea what you want you could do a search on the net and see if you could find something closer to home.

I've noticed a lot of questions from people (newbies) who are new to tactical warfare and have no idea how to use combined arms. I am NOT a poster that is looking down his nose on anybody. Hell, when I first started playing wargames I had no idea which way to point a tank. I'm just trying to help out and point people to a location where they might find some good information. The new people might want to consider putting down $20 and buying the Military Reference Library Vol 1, located in the products section of this site, offered by BTS. A lot of the manuals talk about modern warfare (also, the proper way to dig a latrine) but if you disrecard all the Anti-tank missile talk and think in ranges of WW2 warfare those manuals might come in handy. Now a side benefit to all these manuals is that you can dazzal the ladies about your knowledge on how best to execute a flawless assault on a house full of a platoon of hostiles . Hell, I bought a set of these when I bought TACOPS last year and I've been playing these types of games (board) since the early '70s. So don't feel shy about buying a set of these. [This message has been edited by MadDog0606 (edited 08-02-2000).]

Are you running from a PC or MAC? I'm only familiar with the PC. Are you starting the executable of the game from the CD? Did you create a shortcut and have that shortcut using the executable from the CD? If you are running the executable from the CD then you will not be able to save a game because it will try to be saved on the CD and that will not work and you will not get an error message saying this (at least I'm preaty sure that's what will happen). You need to run the executable from the location the installer placed it on the HD.

Echo, Your best bet is just to ask him via email or through his site if he is going to share it with the CM players. Maybe he'll post the textures on his site. This thread has gone off track from your original question. And I don't think it will get back on track. I learned a long time ago never to talk about the following unless your ready for a heated debate: 1. Religion 2. Politics 3. Taxes 4. The Morality of the use of Warez and Appz [This message has been edited by MadDog0606 (edited 08-01-2000).]

I don't know of any walkthroughs of the demo scenarios. But if you don't mind looking at a tactics primer based on one of the scenarios of the full game then go to this site: http://combathq.thegamers.net/articles/grafenwohr/grafenwohr.asp You might get some ideas, but it will spoil some of the fun of the Grafenwohr scenario from the CD. You could also try the tactics section of http://www.gamesofwar.de/

Okay, I'll put my 2 cents in. This might help and it might not. Whatever you do, don't use your tanks as scouts. Use a scout vehicle or infantry to find what's up ahead. Have them (infantry and scout vehicles) rush/move from cover to cover. Only have your tanks cover ground that have been scouted before hand. Never have your tanks mosy over open ground within sight of possible enemy units. If possible, always have your tanks rush from cover to cover (just like infantry). In the begining I lost a lot of tanks because I would use the Hunt command when traveling over open spaces. That's okay if you have a monster tank that can shrug off enemy shells, but a sherman can't do that. Once you find the enemy armor (or any enemy units for that matter) engage them to keep them busy and then send the appropriate type of firepower to get a flank shot on them (mutiple flank shots if possible). If your battling againt a tank either send one of your tanks (with a squad riding along) or an infantry squad with a bazooka to get a side shot at the bugger. The zook is good if the enemy tank is sideon to within 100yrds of some woods and you have the time to place the bazooka where you want it. You can also use smoke and infantry against an enemy tank. I've never done this, but here is the theory. Get some infantry close enough to the enemy tank (somewhere that the enemy tank has no line of sight, but within about 150yrds). Fire some smoke at the enemy tank. Rush your infantry at the tank so that they can take the tank out. I know that if infantry gets close enough to armor that the armor will be taken out because it has happened to me. If all else fails, you can always do a tank rush. The Sherman tank has a faster turret traverse speed than German tanks. Send a lot of Sherman tanks (at high speed and different attack vectors) at the offending German tank. While the German tank is taking out one Sherman tank there is a high propability that one of the other Shermans' will take the German tank out. Hope this helps you. [This message has been edited by MadDog0606 (edited 08-01-2000).] [This message has been edited by MadDog0606 (edited 08-01-2000).]

I really hope they don't get bought out by a Major Software Company. Because that Major Software Company will more then likely screw the game up to maximize profit and to hell with the customer. The Major Software Company will modify the game to appeal to a vast majority of people. Forget about what the people on this forum want. I don't think wargamers are a big enough group to cause concern at a Major Software Company if we complained about what they were doing to our baby CM2. Which means that the Major Software Company will more then likley take out all the hardcore wargame stuff and put major eye candy in instead. I don't want that. If I wanted that I'd buy a wargame from a Major Software Company. I know it would be good for Steve and Charles to benefit from their hard work. But, man, I'm being selfish here. I've been waiting a long long time for a game like this and I don't want to lose it now.

Check out the following sites: http://www.gamesofwar.de/ (checkout the tactics section) http://combathq.thegamers.net/ (lot of info here, should keep you busy for a while) http://wbr.thegamers.net/ (the Boots and Tracks section) And start reading the posts in the BTS forums related to Combat Mission.

No problem dude. Always willing to help a fellow gamer.

You picked a great game!! I usually wait until a game has been out for a couple of weeks and a few reviews have been posted (I've been burned a lot in the past 12 years of gameing). But since I have a love for tactical and strategic war games (computer or board; past, present,furure; it don't matter) I took the plung and put my money down in Nov 99 and never regreted it. Once you get it you need to turn the computer speakers up real loud (enough to rattle the windows), put on some music that goes good with war and let the shells fly. Oh, and gaffertape forgot to mention the lose of sleep from playing the game.