ASL Veteran

Residual Firepower was only necessary because ASL was a turn based board game, so you had to have some method of preventing other troops from freely moving through an area where your troops just fired. This was to reflect the simultaneous nature of the combat. Residual Firepower is not necessary in CM because everything is happening in 'real time'. On the other hand, the use of 'Firelanes' in ASL to reflect 'grazing fire' in MGs is not in CM because of coding issues. In fact, no other units can be hit between the target and the firer from what I can tell (which allows players to move tanks around in unusually closely packed groups since they know their own tanks will not hit each other when engaging a distant target for example).

Yeah, I agree that the views in CMBO above view 4 left a little to be desired. I haven't tried the high views in the demo yet, but if they altered the high views at all it would be an improvement to those. The top down view was just about useless to me - except for when you were trying to get that confounded way point adjusted into that building!! I just wish that view three was a little bit lower than it seems to be in CMBB because it is now a little too high to appreciate the glorious graphics. One other thing about CMBO is that the views would get closer or farther from the ground depending upon the elevation you were at. On some large hills it was necessary to go to view 4 in order to get a decent look around rather than view 3 because view 3 would be too close to the ground at the hilltop.

Wow, I did not know it was possible to change the actual camera angle too!! I might be learning some new things about CMBO too!! :eek: . Yeah, if I could adjust the camera angle in view 2 I might be able to get used to it. I can certainly see the irritation though if we couldn't keep that angle adjustment constant throughout the views since it is necessary to go to 3 or even 1 on occasion.

I play CMBO in View 3 the entire game - I almost never have to switch views. However, in CMBB view 3 seems closer to view 4 in CMBO and is too high so I have to play in view 2. But view 2 is a little low to the ground for my tastes (although possibly not as low as in CMBO?)... good enough for playing the demo vs the AI, but I'm not sure I could stay in view 2 playing a human in PBEM. I have to constantly switch from 2 to 3 then back to 2. Were the views actually changed or am I just going nuts over here? If the views were changed, I'm just curious about the reasoning for switching the views around as the old ones seemed functional enough to me.

There are several guns that have an HE MV that is higher than the AP. I don't have the exact MV for the Pak 36, but I wouldn't be surprised if the HE was indeed faster than the AP. Most HE rounds are lighter than the AP rounds (1.33lbs for HE vs 1.50 lbs for AP on the Pak 36), so you would have to use a reduced charge to make it go slower. The designer of the gun's ammunition must make a concious effort to make the HE go slower (which should improve accuracy as an infantry target is a horizontal one rather than a vertical target like a tank). If you use the same amount of propellant in both rounds it stands to reason that the HE would go faster out of the barrel, but it probably slows down in flight more dramatically because of its lighter weight and possibly the ballistic shape of the shell. I think MV is something you probably don't need to be too worried about. That data would be simple enough for someone like Rexford to obtain - and apparently he assisted BTS a great deal with CMBB. Ballistics is also an extremely complicated subject.

That's actually normal for the Soviet 45mm AT Gun. Most, if not all, German guns will have the HE MV slower than the AP MV. Not so with Soviet guns. For some reason there are several Soviet guns where the HE MV is faster than the AP MV. In fact, Soviet MVs are all over the map and lack the same consistency that the German guns seem to have. I thought it unusual too when we were discussing gun accuracy in a thread with Rexford about a year or more ago.

I was using this command frequently with the 2 KVs in the Kursk scenario, but when I first used it I was a little unsure about it. The second waypoint has the same color as a move command so it isn't clear what the tank will do when it scoots. I found that the tanks will reverse back into cover with the second waypoint so I think it may be better to give the scoot leg the purple reverse color rather than the blue move color. Unless the tank can scoot forward too?? I admit I never tried that. Maybe the AI knows whether it is smarter to reverse or to go forward??

Aaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhhhhhh

I actually just thought of an Uber Finn story from one of my games. It was in the scenario ... I think it was "The Borders are Burning" although it might not have been that one. It is the one with the Finnish Cavalry troops in the rear of the Finn positions with a small Border Guard detachment up on one half of board 4. Anyway, these border guards are Green Finn squads. I have like a battalion of Soviets with some tank support from some T26 tanks. This Finn border guard detachment manages to gun down all kinds (like two or three) of my squads moving in the open in front of the shack. I finally go up to the border guard shack and break his troops with concentrated firepower from all my rifle squads. I proceed to occupy the shack with a platoon of infantry. This border guard squad had routed back to the woods behind the guard shack - but then he self rallies!! As if the act of self rallying wasn't enough, they storm back into the guard shack in that very movement phase and crush my whole Soviet infantry platoon in close combat!! He then takes out a nearby tank with a Klorihartsi AT Mine!! Finally I managed to gun these Finn devils down with an application of massive firepower, but my will to fight was pretty much broken :eek: . Finn Border Guards .... oh the humanity!!

Winter Melee could never be converted to CMBB - well, not precisely anyway. The Paratroops can't drop in and the Cossacks can't ride their horsies. . We have had numerous close fights with that one - the paratroopers usually get trapped out in the open ground with all those German halftracks peppering them from all angles. You just put a squad with a minus leader and an LMG in a halftrack and you cruise around with 10 firepower in a mobile pillbox. The cavalry suffers a similar fate. The partisans are a little more difficult cause they aren't very exposed to those tactics. If it gets too hot you can just button up and they can't touch ya . I was playing "Disaster on the Dneiper Loop" once and I had a flamethrower halftrack. Well I was saving it and saving it for the whole game because I just knew I would break it the first time I fired it. Finally on the next to last turn I drove up to a Soviet squad (I think it was a conscript squad even) and blasted him with some double barrelled flame action ...... BOXCARS!!!!! Could not believe my eyes. First shot and the thing is worthless!! I managed to traumatize my friend for life in a game of "Bukrin Bridgehead". He had a German 10-3, the first one he ever had. He was sooo excited he could hardly contain himself talking about the great deeds his 10-3 was going to do. Well, I have this flak gun (I think it was like a quad 50 or somefink - I don't recall exactly) set up on this hill. First shot of the game I get a snake eyes on his 10-3 and turn him into powder!!! First shot of the entire game!! He is still disgusted about that shot more than 15 years later .... .

Could you be thinking of "The Citadel"? That one is set in Brest Litovsk and is very close to what you are describing.

I have a Dinant Bridgehead story . My friend and I were playing German against another of our friends who always played French. We were knocking the French around pretty bad so my German partner decided to have a little fun. He took Rommel out of his hiding location and ran him across some open ground in front of a French MG on the other side of the river just for giggles - the Victory Conditions said that if the French killed Rommel they automatically win the game. Alas the French couldn't pick him off and we got a crushing victory!! We just wanted to add a little insult to the injury that's all. I would definitely appreciate any volunteer testers. I will add your e-mail addresses to my address book. Sure would be nice if we had an ASL site again - like Col Klotz had . His site was first class!!

I was the victim of another glorious shot .... I'm cruising along in my KV2 in one of the early scenarios and I come up to my friend's Mark IV from the flank. He turns the turret and misses. He then attempts an intensive fire heat shot with another turn of the turret and scores a critical hit. Oh the humanity!! :eek: I once made my friend walk home ... about a two mile walk too! He was driving around in some open ground with this T34 .... I have a platoon of Panzergrenadiers in halftracks coming his way. He fires and misses. I drive my halftrack right up to his tank, unload some infantry, and place a magnetic mine right on his hull. Kablooey!! His cry of "Jon and his patented 5!!" rings out in frustration as he heads for the door and walks home. Then there was the time when my friend had his Belgian rifle squad dive bombed by a Stuka. My friend gets a Heat of Battle check on his squad and the Belgians both battle harden and create a hero!! His opponent's lament "I bomb you with my Stukas and you just get stronger!!" Ah the memories ....... I've actually found the force to space ratio reasonable for most of the scenarios I look at. I only do a scenario if there are at least company sized forces on each side. If you play the conversions alot you get used to it. I guess it is more of a matter of taste than anything.

Capture of Balta was converted over from SL to ASL a while back - I have both versions. Critical Hit also did a "Capture of Balta: August 1941" which is the version I think I will do. It uses more boards (6 - three of which are half boards) and the fighting will be a little more open.

Battle for the Warta Line horror story: We are playing with personal leaders and this was the first day of the war. My Polish opponent manages to light the stone building on board 3 on fire (the big one with the wall around it) and I have several broken SS squads burn to death because the woods are filled with wire and they can't escape. Later that same game the SS are mopping up the Polish remnants, so I take three SS squads into a Polish bunker occupied by a single Polish leader - who proceeds to mow down every SS man who enters the bunker!! :eek: Glorious shot story: I am playing as British in some scenario set in Greece (I don't remember which one it was exactly and I'm too lazy to sort through the scenarios). A full German platoon is moving across some low hills in front of my Matilda tank - one AP round into the group wipes them all out! My opponent is furious :mad: exclaming over and over again "How can one AP round kill 30 men???" I had no answers other than laughter at his expense! Chad - no, my conversions are as exact as possible. My boards will be flat. My friends are perfectionists and if there is any significant variation from the original they will complain and refuse to play it. I plan on doing Breakout from Borisov first.

Do'h, you are correct of course - it was the second movie!

For those unfamiliar with the Polovtsian Dances, a pretty big piece of it was played in the first Conan the Barbarian movie when the priests were going through the ritual of placing the horn on the statue and during the subsequent battle scene as the statue turns into the big monster. It was almost as though the director scripted that scene to match the different Polovtsian Dances since they play pretty much unaltered through most of the scene. The Slavic March (Marche Slave) was used as background music in Talonsoft's Battle of Borodino game of the Battleground series.

How about these fine selections: "The Great Gate at Kiev" Mussorgsky "Prince Igor: Polovtsian Dances" Alexander Borodin "Mars, the Bringer of War" Gustav Holst "Marche slave" Tchaikovsky

I think someone is working on a Korean War module. I think it was either Multi Man or Critical Hit, but I don't recall exactly who it was or what it's status is. It hasn't been published yet though so ASL hasn't tackled it - although there are a few Korean War scenarios already made that someone published a while back. Someone also published some scenarios for the Arab Israeli war of 48. I'm sure I have them laying around here somewhere, but I'm too lazy to dig them up right now .

The Soviets do not have magnetic mines in ASL. Only the Germans have them. I do seem to recall that SL had something about them, but if so they were later dropped.

Squads are shown as having X amount of them. It appeared that Grenades are also tracked now, and that a squad will only have X amount of grenades. There were also three slots for squad carried 'special' weapons rather than just the one slot that I think CMBO has.

From what I could see from the preview, you will be happy with the "close assaults vs tanks" features in CMBB. All of your questions / concerns were addressed.

Are you playing the one by Franko or the one by me? If mine, then the Americans get significant reinforcements throughout the operation before every battle. I don't know about Franko's so I can't comment on his.

I don't know if it was allowed in Crescendo of Doom, but in ASL you could voluntarily overstack a hex. If the shooter missed the intended target by 1 then he would hit the other tank in the hex or somefink. With infantry it gave you a DRM for every squad over the three squad limit. One tank in forty meters isn't all that unrealistic I guess - I think standard distances between tanks in a platoon was something like 50 to 100 meters apart for a wedge or V formation. Some of the later mapboards introduced roads that went along hexsides in an effort to narrow things up a bit in cities, but I have to agree with you on the width of the streets. The designers even commented on it somewhere in the rulebook IIRC.