Wilhammer

I am going to want to test the C&C system ASAP. Question about that: If the TC of 2 man turrets buttons up, is the loss of Command instantaneous? (I am of the opinion these guys should have a memory to a certain point, like "X" minutes worth of pre-plotted way-points that become increasingly more rigid to shift or change). Will the AI be able to decide to un-button (which it never does in CMBO)?

"sort of like what Grant did in the Civil War.. " Actually, this is an excellent example of bravery and a willingness to fight. Bullets cannot replace the will to fight. McClellan had the South by the throat, and his utter lack of will to prosecute the Peninisular Campaign to Richmond show his failings as a commander of a succesful military campaign. The Cival War could of ended 2.5 years sooner if the guy was not so afraid. 1. When Lee took charge, this scared him. He had overwhelming fear of the man's abilities. 2. He used Pinkerton to reinforce his imagination..his conjuring up of a confederate army 2-3 thimes the size it was. 3. He was probalby a very good strategic thinker, but on the battlefield he was horrible. Later, at Antietam, he was given the golden opportunity every great cptain wants, the chance to totally crush his enemy and the detailed enemy plans to pull it off. enter Grant. The guy was a ball room brawler. Totally fearless in execution; believing, correctly, that the best way to win the war was unrelenting pressure on th enemy, thus saving lives an treasure in the process. He ignored his critics, for Lincoln admired hid generalship. As Linclon put it, "the man fights." I feel that Grant and Sherman paved the way for defining what a great military captain was for war in the age of industry. I don't intend to slight Lee or Jackson, or other confederate generals. The south won many battles because of great generalship. If they had just been a bit luckier, they could of pulled it off.

Brian, How strange that we are in agreement yet again. MacArthur was way over-rated. He played politics more than he played General, and he was more than willing, even pro-active at it, to slight others to further himself. He, for example, made sure that every dispatch out of his command served him, and ignored the participants and the field commanders. The whole drive to the Phillipines is a fascinating bunch of history, but so much of it is buried under the guys ego. I think the guy is aptly named the "American Ceasar", for he was far more concerned with his personal glory than of the men of his army, his allies, and the war policy. One could make a strong argument that his drive to the Philipines was a complete waste. What ultimately defeated Japan was the bombardment of Japan, and that was facilitated best by the drive through the central pacific to capture island airbases. Maybe it was not a complete waste; it did divert Japanese resources, and the Phillipines proved to be the final battle that ended the military power of the IJN. But, one can't help but wonder if this defeat could not have been equally achieved with greater purpose off the coast of Japan. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ An excellent book on this topic's subject is "Their's a War to be Won". The most amazing thing about our military in WW2 is that a small dedicated bunch of future commanders served us very well by embracing mechanized war and practicing for it (The Louisiana Manuevers) and when war finally claim, how quickly we trained for it, and how quickly we executed our policy. Bravery was rampant. Most front line divisions suffered over 150% casualties in France for those who fought most of the campaign, and some had it even worse. The 29th Division commander in front of St. Lo made the comment that he really commanded 3 divisions; one in the field, one in the hospital, and one buried. I think that the preponderance of resources definitely helped. It gave us more options, and much elan knwoing we had them. Overwhelimg firepower was the order of the day. The description of the Elsenborn ridge battles is especially enlightening onhow effective this was. A battalion sized force was supported, IIRC, by 8 BATTALIONS of 155s, that just tore the SS to hell. The bravery of the stalking bazooka teams and the proven use of the American TD concept there was awesome as well. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ...stay tuned as this thread shifts to the GD forum... [ 01-29-2002: Message edited by: Wilhammer ]</p>

Gotta agree with Brian (did I just type that ) It would be nice to hear a few crickets, snapping sticks, rustling leaves, and far off storms.

It will be optional. Also, because of BTS's commitment to accuracy, the rarity system will provide us with a quick built in tool to determine what was rare.

I recall a smoke round landing smack dab in the middle of a squad once, and it took casualties from it. I guess smoke has a small blast charge. My best mortar kill was a 2 inch mortar that took out two 75 HTs on different turns, while they were moving.

Murph: Imagine that you have compass, and a focal point under the tank (or, more likely, under the platoon). So, if a focal point with a direction is set (say, North), then you turn the turret to set degrees off of a compass heading. So. point your body in one direction, and trun your head 90 degrees to the left, and imagine you have these markings on your head, and someone wants to look at your head to determine your exact facing. The same principle is used for turning Guns on mounts.

The Jeep body and windshield are damned near photo-realistic. Extremely talented work here. Please send me your latest draft! billwood@triad.rr.com

Wacky, you would be those "Flatulence" candies they hinted at in the movie. We are all Nerds. Have you tried those Nerds on a rope? My son brought them home. They are yummy.

Hopefully Steve is an "ever-lasting gobstopper".

I find that regulars and greens are the best scouts, especially if the squad is split. They tend to run away when fired upon, and thus survive longer than vets and above. Once they recover, send back out to scout. Their sole job is to get shot at anyway, so why not send the worse? Pretty soon, they will become morale basket cases, but then they become useful for holding VP sites. The recon that runs is real useful in preventing some attrition to your forces and seems to increase the chance for the enemy to expose itself through firing simply because the guys are running away, thus staying in their sights, and since they live longer, staying in their sights. As they run further away, they increase the likelyhood that other enemy units will also expose themselves. Vets and above tend to follow insane orders to their death, and the regulars and greens tend to run from stupidity. The above is my work around for lack of the order "Go there, if you get shot at, withdraw". Because of this, I tend to think the perfect company sized attack infantry force is 1/3rd scouting fodder, the rest earmarked for fire support and assaults. The 1/3rd is split up as skirmishers to find the enemy, and moves out as a cloud in front of your attacking column. At night or fog, this changes, for the greens and regulars, or any troop for that matter, forgets what is behind them and turn their routes into suicide runs for enemy occupied positions. From a 'real history' viewpoint, regular and green squads are the norm, while, the Veterans are rare, and the Cracks are almost non-existent, and the Elite are one in a million. As for tankers, I prefer that at least one guy be Veteran or above, and the rest regulars, simply because tanks die so quick in this game. The best defence against tanks is not other tanks, but V/C/E RLs and Sharpshooters. Tanks are best used as portable HE dispensers. However, you just might need a great tanker to keep an enemy from being able to do standoff HE attacks with impunity. The best fun (and 'realism')to be had in a QB, IMHO, is to let the computer purchase both sides. [ 10-16-2001: Message edited by: Wilhammer ]

it could be me.. against the same opponent, at night, I had a 75 mm armed German HT fire it's one 'C' round (the first thing it fired during the game) at a moving Sherman that was about 60 degrees deflection headed at me, when I one shot-killed it a range of about 110 meters. ...maybe I am just lucky.

Just to further define what happened to me... The Hetzer had it's gun turning towards me, it was about 60 meters away, and I was about 10 meters higher than it was. It had just stopped to rotate after moving in reverse. The Actual shot to target angle was about 5-10% off the Horizontal, and 60 long/10 high meters (about 15 degrees?)in the vertical. My question, was when did it decide to load tungsten? The TacAI knew that a Hetzer was in the area, as an infantry platoon had stumbled on it, and I had ordered the Sherman to target it (out of LOS). The Hetzer, next turn, backed out of the scattered trees into the street between two buildings, when the Sherman spotted it. The Sherman had been sent on a manuever to go down the same street to flank the Hetzer, but the Hetzer backed down the hill first. So, not only was I lucky with the Tungsten, but both target and Sherman were moving. It is my understanding that CM models the "chambered" round swap out. The Sherman had fired nothing but HE until this happened. I was wondering if it reloaded between when I told it to go Hetzer hunting and finding the little bugger. [ 10-15-2001: Message edited by: Wilhammer ]

Recently, in a night scenario, a Sherman with one round of Tungsten first shot-killed a Hetzer at under 100 meters with it. The first ever Tungsten round I can recall firing.

Please send: billwood@triad.rr.com

Stokesdale, North Carolina Just north of Greensboro near Highway 220 and 158, also known as "Ogburn's Crossroads".

I have always considered the "run away" model of morale results in wargaming to be suspect. My reading suggests that well trained and/or experienced troops rarely, if ever, did this. Most of what I have read suggests the real problem is that units "freeze" more often and get killed by staying frozen.

"1- There is a small delay between the shot calculations done by the program and the actually video representation on the screen." =============== Sounds like a bug to me... I have seen this happen, all in relation to slopes, not terrain obstacles. "2- A known bug, there are some positions where you can put an AFV so near the building that there are some LOS errors, like being able to see/fire through that building... This can be best managed within the deployment turn, nevertheless be warned, this is considered cheating ( I know, some times it happens, TacAI reaction movement)" =========== This seems to support my "Octagon" theory.

Timing. A winter QB, my enemy is going to go down the roads with vehicles and infantry, and I know how fast they move. I deployed spotters (sharpshooters, light vehicles) to spot approaches, and I plot artillery fire timed to fall about where they would be after X minutes. Eventaully, I spotted some unknown units doing as I expected, plotted the arty, and waited. I put up a small blocking force at the expected place of first contact to help the enemy decide to halt. The arty came down with perfect timing. HTs full of men, tanks, dismounted soldiers, all hit by an intense 155 and 105 barrage. Many kills out of LOS. Opponent surrendered. After battle viewing show nearly a company of infantry blasted, several HTs burning, a platoon of AFVs in various states of damage. It is a strange visual site to see a vehicle burning without seeing the vehicle.

How to keep tank turrets pointed in a different direction of hull movement: Plot area fire into a spot that will soon be out of LOS; as your tanks move, they will still target the spot even if they cannot see it. In Meyers 2, I have a mess of Pz IVs moving across the front with guns pointing towards the expected enemy spots. It looks like a procesion of warships with guns pointed at the expected enemy battleline to come. I am in effect, about to cross the "tee" with concentrated firepower on expected enemy positions with broadsides ready. Of course, you can also do this by targeting a known enemy unit out of LOS, but the Area Fire method seems more "sticky". Ditto on the area fire thing against nearby units. I have taken out guns, HTs, etc using that method. It is a form, unintended, of indirect fire.

I have a theory, and pardon me if it has been identified before. I do not recall. A friend of mine is concerned that I can shoot through a building to get his units. He argues that would not be possible in reality, and he is right. Sure we have the chance of shooting through a window, but is shooting through a window modeled? I say No. My theory of terrain LOS blockage in CM: Terrain has a percentage value for cover from weapons fire. It would seem that the same holds true for LOS density into terrain. Based on my observations, terrain is rated for its LOS blockage by a percent blocker that increases with depth. Let's say that 100% is clear LOS, and as you penetrate some terrain with a rating of 10% reduction for every meter of penetration, at 10 meters into it, LOS is blocked completely. It is a nice approximation, but it is not correct, for at the edges of terrain, the unexpected; real world solid objects are, in CM effect, translucent. Lets say our hypothetical terrain is a building, and you are tracing LOS through a corner. If the distance along this LOS line does not reach the 10 meters (or whatever the value is) to guarantee 100% blockage, you can, in game terms, see through corners! The end result is that a building, though drawn as a square, is in fact a "fuzzy" distorted octagon. This is where the window argument falls down, for it is rare for buildings to have windows in the corners, they tend to be a few meters from the corners for structural and aesthetic reasons. The same holds true for all terrain. It also explains why you can see through wheat fields near corners, it density rating is something like 1.25% per meter, so that it is not opaque until about 80 meters. Get the picture? It is not Greek Realism, it is modern impressionism. BTW, objects have another visual rating; spotability. I am not sure how it works in detail, but its effect is that certain terrain is more spottable than others. This is why we can see the foxholes in the trees, and buildings far away in the fog or dark, and not the troops. [ 09-24-2001: Message edited by: Wilhammer ]

Reinforced concrete; Concrete itself is all strength in Compression. That is why it is great for foundations. In tension, a little bit of flex, and it cracks and fails. Steel is great in tension, that is the reason for beams. In compression it is good, but to be useful would be too expensive. Concrete + Steel is strong in compression and tension. A Blast might crack concrete, and if it was unreinforced, it would crumble. The steel holds it together and resists tensile action. As for bunker busting, one thing that should be considered is resonance. Sound travels through solid bodies much faster, and travels differently in steel than it does in concrete. This will eventually cause failure as the bond between concrete and steel can be broken. No bond, and reinforced concrete fails (which is why you should avoid rusty steel. A patena is fine, but not flaking).

How about miniMEs? On a small map with small forces, it boils down quickly to an unsure brawl at close range. Other than that, house rules.

Volatile when mixed with Oxygen, often stored under water to prevent reactivity. Can react with water by reacting with Oxygen. Details below: http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/phs103.html

Persitence refers to affecting the TERRAIN, in essence the effects of the weapon LINGERS. I would think it would be like temporary mines. Your units generally avoid it once discovered, but some men may still stumble into it and suffer damage. I think it should last no more than a minute, unless it sets the terrain on fire, then it is treated like any other burning tile. WP would work well as a special ammo type for ALL sides, with increasing/decreasing availability as needed. All sides used it, the Americans happened to have far more of it. The problem added to it all is that it seems to have been a wepon of choice for some units, and unheard of by others, but general knowledge on it did spread. The other problem is BTS has said they WILL not update CM:BO, period. So, we are lobbying for CM5, BO Returns (or, what happens when your deodorant stops working .