Wilhammer

My reflection on the screen while playing CM

This just might be illegal, and is definitely unethical. Words like "no one plays" and "lower than normal retail sales" are damaging to products, and this assesment is based on no or guessed information. A nice phone call to the legal dept at Gamespot should correct this.

New Game? How can you find the time? Myself, married, 8 yr old son, 3 cats, 1 dog, a mortgage, and a career. CM is the only thing I play (except for EAW and MiG Alley, rarely). Seriously, I have been thinking about getting the latest flavor of TOAW, I played TOAW 1 a lot, esp. the Korean War scenario. In reality, CM is always new to me, and I relish every new PBEM.

In my heydays as a wargaming 15,16,17 etc year old wargamer, me and my little group advertised ourselves and our hobby by wearing Squad Leader and PanzerBlitz T-Shirts. We either found opponents to beat on, or got beat up for the effort. (Nerds were so uncool back then). So, BTS, will you all do some T-Shirts or will this have to be a Third Party Mod? I live in the middle of T-Shirt manufacture heaven in the Triad Area of NC, and we have some fabulous artists in the CM gamer pool, so, perhaps... Would anyone buy CM T-shirts?

http://carlisle-www.army.mil You find more interesting stuff there. These are HUGE pictures, so I chose not to embed them directly into the post. Here we have a mixed platoon of US Shermans. http://carlisle-www.army.mil/cgi-bin/usamhi/pixdata/presentpix.pl? pic=/Medium-Resolution/items/ww2/m4tnk.jpg and here we have a Sherman Flamethrower tank attacking bunkers made of straw. http://carlisle-www.army.mil/cgi-bin/usamhi/pixdata/presentpix .pl?pic=/Medium-Resolution/scenes/ww2/shermflm.jpg and finally "Dogpile throught Dragon's Teeth" http://carlisle-www.army.mil/cgi-bin/usamhi/pixdata/presentpix.pl ?pic=/Medium-Resolution/scenes/ww2/39inf.jpg Be sure to check out the the rest at this catalog link. http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usamhi/HPOL.html [This message has been edited by Wilhammer (edited 01-03-2001).]

jd, Oh Hell, another anti M3A1 fullsquad argument BTW, your Dad's AAR can be found at the Carlisle MHI site in Adobe Acrobat format. Perhaps his M3A1, being a recon vehicle, was differently equipped than a normal M3A1 for recon purposes. I would think that recon troops rode in their vehicles for long durations, and would thus need a more comfortable ride, and carry more stuff longer, versus an infantry unit moving guys into combat and carrying less logistical needs on board. Again, the problem with this M3X/M5X HT series confusion is that different use does not mean different models, the models were modified per unit needs.

Nice pic, tiger. BTW, that source of yours seems to quote verbatim the 1944 Standard Ordnance Catalog.

Now Jeff, I said this tactic was "I consider the below tactics to be valid military tactics, if just a bit risky" Some might consider it gamey, I do not. Feints are the best tool in the game to maximize firepower.

I had these timeouts myself, but managed to d/l them on the second attempt. (I have a cable connection). Suggestion, shut off support for pdf documents in your browser, (first take notice of the path to the document in question in the status bar of IE5.x), and durectly download it. I think Acrobat is the time-out bottleneck. I am compiling a CD for personal use of all the MHI documents, and have d/led as of last night all the WW2 related ones. They consume nearly 400MB. It took about 2 hours interspersed with cleaning the office, cooking dinner, eating dinner, and watching TV.

I have used gamey tactics myself only in retaliation or to test the game system vs the AI. That being said, here goes; 1. Distracting target. Used to be real bad with crews, but still works with FOs (after they shot their ammo), MGs and Mortar teams. Advance with your main effort and divide enemy firepower by providing juicy high dollar targets to snipe at. 2. The irritating spotter shell. A carry over from my old Sl/COI/COD gaming days. Drop a spotting round to perhaps cause the enemy to scurry. Against cracker jack opponents and the AI, it really does not work well, but against the nervous and unsure... 3. The unarmed vehicle recon, or other use. Use your gun damage vehicles in other roles. I think, in reality, a gun damaged tank probably withdrew. We can use it for troop transport, mad dash recons, cat and mouse spotting... Somewhat gamey; I consider the below tactics to be valid military tactics, if just a bit risky. 1. Run till they drop. Shock tactics, run, take an objective deep in the enemy zone (if the attacker, this can split the battlefield)and form a hedgehog defense. Even if they get wiped out, a good platoon can hold up a bunch of assets and a lot of time. 2. Spread them thin. Split squads, send them out to find the enemy by death, firepower or looking. 3. Armored car dash. The M-20 is very cheap and very effective with its speed and .50 cal. Sweep them deep and fast. Might get a few lucky kills and tank leader decaps. Nuetralizes guns very well if you are lucky. All of these tactics can be easily countered by compotent opponents, and I have seen them all fail.

You might be surprised to know that I live in a rural area of North Carolina. My phone service was horrible online. All those hops and iron drops made my 56K modem feel damn lucky to connect at 21600. I was shocked (and elated) when I found that Road Runner was available in the sticks O' Carolina.

Now, I would like to refer you to page 67 (page 80 in Acrobat) of -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I would love to look at this, but a 7 hour download for me is not going to happen any time soon BTS, Does this mean you have not even read the US Manual referenced above? Man this is a rich source of information, and was issued directly to the troops that needed to know. This selection of US Manuals cannot be overlooked; I might as well ignore the Chamberlain books because I don't have them 7 hour download time?!?!? My trusty roadrunner account grabs it in under 2 minutes. If you like, I will download the entire selection of manuals, burn you a CD, and Fed Ex it to you overnight.

To chime in with another pro-American A1 Squad carrying HT point of argument; Just how many M3/M5s became A1s in the field? The .50cal ring mount was apparently a field kit as well as a production item. One could also guess and may find the factual evidence to show that they modified them for .50 cals in other ways in the field.

Why is it not in the Simulator Category, or am I confusing the PC Game definition of the Simulator (as in operate a vitrual pice of combat equipment) with the old wargamers definition of an historically accurate war simulator versus wargame? Steiner STOLE my joke

Excepting some fanatics, a crew forced out of a vehicle (or a gun position) should not be combat effective, but should be armed for self defense. I'd say the best thing to do is to give them low combat "staying" power. Make them more prone to the algorithm that forces units to break off combat. It is reasonable to have them abanodon armed, run to the nearest cover, and then try to survive. It is not reasonable to have them form ad hoc infantry units and assault positions.

Why would the US Army issue extensive manuals into the field that specifically explain weapons/vehicle usage employment? I guess it is because the systems have a specific use. The manual as provided at the Carlisle MH site specifically states that the A1 varieties replaced the M3/M5 series in production for the purpose of transporting squads into combat and, incidentally, you gain a .50 cal mount over the assistant driver position. Why would they do this? Did they intend to lie to the US troops in the field? US soldiers bitch more frequently than most (must be that freedom of speech thing), and I do not recall reading about troops having been upset because the manual says you can carry a squad in a M3A1/M5A1 and they could not. Why are foreign sources more valuable than official US Army sources? I for one am very glad that the M3A1/M5A1 are correctly modeled in the current beta as concerns tranport capacity. Any change in the final release would be very wrong and very upsetting to the balance of many scenarios and the system. A lot of hay has been made about how the guys would transport so much .50 cal ammo. Hmm. External stowage box field mods? Production external stowage boxes? Trailers (not modeled in CM, but prevalent)? The loss of the M3A1/M5A1 as squad transports would seriously damage the realism of CM, IMHO. I would not like it. [This message has been edited by Wilhammer (edited 01-02-2001).]

Consider the overiding reason that zero was not the first year; the west, at the time, was not aware of the number 0. The Romans number system has no zero. Our months are Roman in origin, and not one starts with day zero. The Greeks had no zero. Which is why the "reasoning" behind Zeno's Paradox was so perplexing until Newton and company came along and explained zero to the west. So, in terms of logic and historical awareness at the time, it was not possible to have zero start anything. A Millenia is in thousand year increments, and is ancient in concept. Hence, our millenia has never began with zero and never ends witha 999 in it. Except, of course if you want to declare a millenia within the year enumeration system, then it is add a 1000 to whatever;, the Thousand Year Reich began in 1933 and was scheduled to last until 2033. It, thankfully, and for far too long, lasted 12 years. [This message has been edited by Wilhammer (edited 12-31-2000).]

I think the real problem is that the pillbox is treated as a vehicle and inherets some certain weaknesees of that classification. I think the reason that BTS did this is of the need for it to have weak spots. However, it raises 2 big issues; 1, Pillboxes do not block LOS. I used to hide behind them until very early on I found this to not be true. 2, Pillboxes die quickly from range. Would it of been better to model them as very strong buildings, say 4 times as strong as a heavy building for concrete ones? Probably not. The game system does not allow placing guns in buildings. Buildings do not have weak spots, per se, so aiming for the "vision slit" or rear door would be meaningless. In reality, the concrete ones are rather like immobile thick skinned vehicles. In reality, the American, at least, method for taking out pillboxes was to blast the vision slit while manuevering in to take it from the rear. The front hits rarely took out the gun, bit it did prevent the crew from firing it usually. Also, the crew would be distracted by all the flying concrete chips and the reverbs. While treated as a vehicle, the crew is not prone to leaving. If it was treated as a very heavy building, the crew would panic and leave, and then we have the thread "Do bunkers get abandoned too quickly?". But, the game abstracts the crew abandonment of the firing ports and slips with weapons kills, which seems too harsh. What we need is guys cowering in the bunkers and liable to recover and reman the guns. Right now, the safest method to take out a bunker is to sit back and take pot shots at it, preferrably on the move. The law of averages catches up and the box goes boom. If we had "cowering" crews, then the only way to be sure of a kill would be to get in with a combined arms team and take it out just like it was done in the real war. 1, Suppress, remove the supporting positions. 2, Blast the slits with mortar and gun fire. 3, Manuever around the rear 4, Flame, bazooka, demo or blast the rear of it from close range. According to Doubler, it took one tank (or often a heavy MG was all that was needed along with a mortar for stripping off camouflage), a squad or two with bazookas, a flamethrower, and an enginner team and 30 minutes to take out the average bunker.

Based on experience, the game models MG teams as Infantry units with only one weapon, thus following in step with infnantry units taking losses and generally keeping the better weapons. Mortarts, even light ones, seem to be treated as guns, and from many threads and much experience, they do get abandoned quicker, some say to quick, and I think the problem extends to relative mobility of man versus weapon, by that, I mean if a morale effect makes the unit move out of danger, if the determined rate of movement of the rattled troops exceeds the mobility class of the weapon, it gets dumped. Since no mobility class of "very slow" for any morale condition exists, guns get abandoned. For a light mortar, if the morale result forces a panic, the unit will have a fast order. The mortar can only be moved at the speed of a move order, hence it gets abandoned. Realistic, or so it seems. 1, Should gun teams have some kind of a "cowering" morale effect that is roughly equal to Panic but with much less chance to run. 2, Should abandoned guns be recrewable? Point 2 has been debated many times, and I favor such an ability, but I would prefer it to be very strict in that only the unit that "owns" the gun can re-crew it.

OK. Canada did assist in stopping the US twice from conquering Canada, the War for The Fourteenth Colony and the War of 1812. Mexico was not an issue in the Spanish-American War as Mexico was independent well before that (1820s ?). During the Mexican-American War of 1847 we did smash the Mexicans and we did keep (though we gave them money) over half of the country. Guess who advised and provided the model for a field army to the Mexicans? - hold on - it was the French!

Consider this guys - especially if the "bail-outs" have been recent - this is the holiday season.

Having lost 2 all of a sudden, I am looking to play PBEM Beta. I play to the bitter end.

And Bates, Mr. Hawkins is a great man who publishes his own work.

I am firmly in the "wait to you see the whites of their eyes" camp. The way to really fine tune it is to force the enemy to stop to fight, and then drop the Arty on him. This is also a good time to bring in your Priests or M-8 HMCs. Read about Wellington's tactics, or American "Indian Fighting" and you will know my methods. Good old Fionn called it "Don't fire at greater than 40 meters", for at close range, anybody will break, and German uber-tanks (excepting the uber-uber Tanks) are just as vulnerable as any Sherman, and the Sherman comes out on top as a result of its fast turret.

...and its my own damn fault. You see, I got me one of those shiny new 40 GB WD 7200 RPM HDs, and while I was installing it, the other 4 pin power connector touched my "soon to be old" C: drive and fried it, ans thus all info was lost. Niell Edwards, where are you? I have lost all my email contacts, as well as everything else. All other PBEmers have reached me. Neill, post me.