IntelWeenie

I think a lot of folks have gotten the idea from various flight sims that it's easy to make "precision attacks" with WWII-era a/c. Get inside an airplane (even a Cessna) and fly around at 1000 feet and try to pick out specific targets. It's hard to do and that Cessna is only moving 1/2 as fast as a typical warbird and no one's shooting at you. Well, maybe they are depending on where you live. I have to side with Andreas on the uber-weapon thing. Being able to designate a target (even within a hundred meters or so) is not a trivial excercise. Give the ability for precise targeting like that available to Arty FOs and I think it would not be historically accurate. I like the idea of designated a/c FOs, but only to the extent that they would give the TacAI a boost to aircraft attack accuracy and help prevent friendly fire. Sure, air attacks were scary for the troops to endure. But I'd guess that guys on both sides of the line ducked when they heard a plane coming in...

I think I've always detected AT mines by running over them... :mad: Something I'd like to see (for CMX2?) would be variable concealment for mines and other fortifications. Conscripts would not do as good a job of properly placing and camoflauging them as Veterans and above, making them easier to spot. The quality of emplacement could be figured using the average quality of the defending forces.

Use the + and - keys to scroll through units. It can be a pain if you're in a large scenario, but it's a good way of selecting units that are jumbled with others (and making sure there's no one off in a corner of the map you missed).

I like the "empty bunker" idea, too. If it was coded more like a building (with the important exception of being able to contain guns), this shouldn't be too hard. Of course, there would need to be different sizes available so a "small bunker" couldn't hold an 88 FLAK. Forgot to mention: They must be able to be reoccupied unless "totally" knocked out. Guns would have to be immobile inside a bunker, though. [ September 04, 2003, 11:43 AM: Message edited by: IntelWeenie ]

Units won't engage a marker since it only represents the last known location of the enemy unit. So the original spotting unit wouldn't fire, either. Find a way around that and this idea might have some merit. 2 different types of unit markers? "Spotted-isolated" (only targetable by the spotting unit) and the regular "last known location" markers? Might be too confusing. Maybe display the enemy unit like normal, but put this extra info in the unit iformation area at the bottom of the screen? It's not a 100% solution, but it's a start and would definitely help take care of the gamiest situations where enemy units spotted by an isolated unit are instantly visible by all. True, an isolated platoon (with the Plt HQ) would be "in command" and get past this, but like I said, it's a start. I don't mind talking this or any (well, almost any) topic to death. Borg Spotting is one to the biggest realism hurdles for CM and I think all suggestions should be at least thought through before being dismissed because "it's been talked to death".

The Germans used many types of gliders and developed them until the end of the war. There were even a couple designs (Junkers Ju322 Mammut and Messerschmitt Me321 Gigant) that could carry a tank. In addition to using the various types for glider-borne assault, they were also used for things like carrying supplies to encircled troops. AFAIK, the Mammut never got past prototype and the Gigant was never used operationally in an assault. The Gigant design was later modified to have 6 engines and used as a regular transport. The Fallshirmjaeger units were used quite often as regular infantry on all fronts, so armor could be allocated to support them like any other unit.

I personally would be reluctant to use WP in the wilderness since it has this nasty habit of causing fires and burning people if it gets on them.

I think the AthlonXP line has reached it's limts, too, but I still bought one. I think the AthlonXPs will still have quite good value for about another year, in fact. Most PCs sold today are still in the 2.0-2.6GHz range (quite a few Celerons, which means only about 66% performance of an equivalent P4). Actually, if you'd decide to switch to a P4 soon, you can most likely still use your current RAM, since motherboards for both CPUs support the same kinds of memory. AFAIK, the only RAM you might be stuck with is RDRAM (Rambus), which was really only seen on a couple of Intel P4-only chipsets. In fact, there are 3 separate categories for P4 that are mutually non-interchangeable (socket type and/or bus speed)! Intel's nex family of CPUs (some are calling them P5s) will change bus speed and socket again, so it never ends... :mad: Yes, I think AMD is concentrating on Opteron and Athlon64. They're doing that because they are banking on 64-bit computing taking off in the next year or two. If you look closely, though, both AMD and Intel are making sure their 64-bit CPUs will still retain 32-bit compatability, so I think we're safe for a few years.

From what I know, smoke, recognition panels (even ones with swastikas) and other means (including radio and flag signals) have been used since early on in WWII for coordination of battlefield tacair strikes. The problem is not everyone might have the same info of what the smoke might indicate (friendly or enemy positions?). I'm sure there were SOPs, but if that were the case, why were there any friendly fire incidents?? Throw in general battlefield confusion, weather conditions, etc. plus the fact that it's hard to ID targets when you're moving at 200+ mph and maybe more worried about not hitting the ground then you are hitting the right target.

I think "friendly fire" is nearly as common today as it was back in WWII, precision munitions be damned. They only make the mistakes more costly (deaths instead of injuries or just a scare). I distincly remember a blue-on-blue from Gulf War 1 where an Apache blasted a Scout Bradley and a GSR(Ground Suveillance Radar) team in a M-113. Anyone who's seen documentaries about Desert Storm has probably seen the gun video. That GSR team was from a different company in my Bn., so I got quite a few details about the whole thing. They weren't mixed up or in a shootout with any Iraqis; the nearest ones were kilometers away. The pilot of the Apache(the Apache Bn. commander, in the air against direct orders of the commanding Gen.) had out of date info on the location of friendlies and fired away without waiting for confirmation of friendly locations. Both vehicles were total losses and there were several dead and wounded. This was just one incident of many during GW1 and since. I think that CAS friendly fire during WWII would be at least as prevalent, especially when the forces are so close (less than 2km).

I just upgraded the major guts of my PC (Mobo - Abit NF7 w/onboard GeForce4 video, AthlonXP 2600+, 512MB PC2700 CAS2 RAM), so I don't have much room to quibble, but I would like to see CMAK and beyond stay within reach of the older, less capable systems. I think BFC has done a good job of this so far just by providing simple options like being able to turn weather effects on/off, adjustable quality smoke, etc. The mod community has taken care of the rest, making both hi- and lo-res mods of terrain and vehicles. I disagree that BFC providing two levels of graphics would be the wrong move. I think it's the right decision for them based on their consumer base. As we've hear time and again in the forums, there's been many wargamers that enjoy the game because the action is realistic. As long as the graphics are adequate, they'll play the game and enjoy it. Also, there've been many stories of people that are so used the hyper-relaisic graphics that drive so many mainstream games taking one look at CMBO or CMBB and saying "It blows" simply because BFC doens't have a 30-person graphics art section. These people will probably never be happy with CM no matter how hi-res the BMPs are.

This is more "God-like Command and Control" than Borg Spotting. Sorry, I don't see where this would prevent the case where one uint (in C&C) spotting an enemy makes it visible to all friendly forces (in C&C). I think the TacAI does enough to modify unit's actions to react to enemy actions even when you don't want them to (like Greens and Conscripts not staying hidden too take a potshot at some guy 200m away).

To pile on here, if it was so great the Germans would probably not have found the need to experiment with 50mm and 75mm guns on Hs-129s (and some other aircraft, too). IIRC, they were not standardized rigs, but did see a bit of action and were obviously more capable of taking out the heavier tanks. I also seem to recall something about a huge recoilless rifle (~280-300mm?) that was strapped to the bottom of a Do-217 and tested as a bunker/tank buster. Needless to say, firing it nearly tore the plane apart! :eek:

Unless I'm mistaken, they are supposed to represent armored cars that had long range HF sets for communicating with Rgt/Div when they were 30-40km behind enemy lines. Nearly all aircraft used VHF sets, so they wouldn't be able to talk to aircraft. In NW Europe, I know the Allies used "contact cars" which were armored cars specially outfitted with radios that could communicate with the flyboys. They usually had a pilot with them to speak flyboy-ese and better guide the pilots in. I don't know if this ever was the case in Russia. [ August 28, 2003, 11:11 PM: Message edited by: IntelWeenie ]

I second this motion. In fact, I think it would be nice to have it as a runtime option so you don't have to spend several minutes copying BMPs when/if you want to switch from a small hi-res battle to a huge lo-res battle. In fact, if the graphics were organized into directories by type (Allied, Axis, Terrain, Interface, etc.) it would be easy to just make a mirror image lo-res terrain folder that the game could switch to on the fly. (Allied, Axis, Lo-Res Terrain, Hi-Res Terrain, Interface, etc.) Take that one step further and the terrain could also be divided by theater. Finland, North, Center, South for example in CMBB. CMAK could have N. African, Tunisian, Sicilian and Italian terrain. That would be a neat way around the problem of getting buildings to look different in Benghazi and Naples... :cool:

Don't forget that infantry units occupy an area, not a point. That's another reason why they can see out from deep within a building. Even though the center point of the squad seems like it should not have LOS, some parts of the squad will be considered closer to the edges. For a good example of this, place a large squad(10+ men) in one corner of a small building then try and move another squad in the middle of the building. Even though their "points" will be a few meters apart, they won't stay there because the areas they occupy will overlap.

The concern should be "ground cover BMPs". Whether it's grass or some other substance (like steppe), it covers the entire map. Since there are different BMPs for each shade(elevation) of grass, that can come out to a LOT of texture memory being used. This will hold true of sand as well since there will be the same number (even more since there might be more elevation levels available?) of BMPs as in CMBB for each base terrain type. I think dust will be handled differently; more along the lines of how fog, rain or smoke are now.

It will come out right after all my Christmas bonus is spent (by my wife). Dec 12, 2003 You guessed it, I get my bonus on the 11th...

It will come out right after all my Christmas bonus is spent (by my wife). Dec 12, 2003 You guessed it, I get my bonus on the 11th...

And do they get "Littlejohn" adapters?

Once, we got 19 people on a Hummer (M1037; no troop seats). Anything above 5 MPh people would start to fall off. Plus, the driver couldn't see where he was going since there were people sitting on the hood (and hoping it wouldn't break) The T-60 photo looks a little staged, just like our Hummer ride was. I've never been a big fan of even the full-sized tanks being able to carry a full squad, since squad size varies so much. (I can't picture 12 fully equipped grunts actually hanging onto the back of a Sherman doing 15-20MPh cross-country.)

I have read in many sources that British tankers (in both "male" and "female" tanks) during WWI would often drive up and straddle a trench so they could rake it both ways with fire. Since their weapons were mounted in side sponsons (due to the "lozenge" design of the tracks around the hull) this was a most effective way of using them to swepp out trenches.

Bumpity-bump

OK, I'll sleep on the counter-batter stuff and see what (if anything) I think about it in the morning. Must get the kids to bed anyway... What about the way FOs are currently modeled? Any thoughts? I think they're pretty accurate for Bn and Rgt level support, but they don't feel quite right for higher level support. Does anyone have documentation on how the different armies allocated artillery support especially at the upper echelons? Were FOs allocated to units for support from the big guns, or did they more often fire according to pre-arranged plans?

I would think given the normal timeframe of a CM battle (30-45 minutes), that "scratching" would be a better way of handling it. Delay due to c-b fire would seem to imply time taken to move and resite the guns. I would suggest that in most cases, the time to do that would far exceed the time restraints of a scenario, especially for larger guns. "Scratching" would then not necessarily only represent actual losses of guns or crews, but that relocating took too long for the battery to be available again during the scenario. Edited for spelling... Hard to type with a 2-yr old on your lap! [ August 26, 2003, 10:32 PM: Message edited by: IntelWeenie ]