Olle Petersson

That would be in March or April... No, wait, that's when the snow in Sweden is melting... Cheers Olle

And how many were deployed in frontline troops? The vast majority of KV tanks (in June '41) were assigned to divisions and brigades held in reserve behind Moscow. The German infantry divisions were up front. I'd say there were far more infantry guns within two miles of the front than there were KV tanks. Most of the KV tanks produced after the invasion were sent directly to frontline troops. Cheers Olle

I never stated that, only the definition of the term "effective range". If even lower hit rates are considered generally acceptable one could wonder why so much money and effort has been spent on increasing the accuracy and first shot hit probabilities on tank guns... That would be no sweat, 'cause the projectiles can be hurled that far. It would probably be a huge waste of resources though, since each shot is one weapon, and there's probably more efficient means at hand. Cheers Olle

Spin is a simple way to increase accuracy, as has been pointed out. The more spin, the more accuracy, to some degree. It's also so that the more spin the less effective HEAT. In WW2 HEAT was a novelty, and the warheads were relatively crappy to begin with. They were good enough to increase penetration compared to kinetic AP fired from low velocity (rifled) guns. After WW2 HEAT became more standard issue, design and manufacturing techniques improved. Then tank guns and the like were designed with HEAT in mind, and the rifling became less steep (meaning less spin) to increase the HEAT efficiency. Nowadays there are a couple of ways to reduce the spin of HEAT warheads fired through rifled barrels. The common ones are rotating bands or sleeve. The latter is used for the Carl Gustav grg m/48. The warhead is too narrow to grip the rifling, and behind it is a "skirt" that grip the rifling but can rotate freely relative to the warhead. Cheers Olle

How do do define "effective"? I would beleive 8400yds to be the range at high elevation, but not useful for hitting a small target. My definition, as used by the Swedish army, is based on hit probability. Effective range is the range at which a "trained" gunner (Not a marksman!) will have a 50% first shot hit probability against a specific target type, given that the range is known. Given this definition I'd say 800m seem to be a likely effective range for the BAT against stationary tanks. True, but post WW2 that hasn't been the primary design objective for most RRs. ... spending lot's of ammo to score a hit. Just like the Germans used their 88mm AA guns to hit tanks at 2km in the desert, with five to ten rounds needed to score one hit. That's beyond effective range. Cheers Olle

Of course you can do a camo mod. Just use the same file names (numbers). Then you can switch between the two at your leisure. Cheers Olle

Depends on who you ask. In Sweden we simply drop the "rifle" part, and make a clear distiction between "recoilless" (in practice meaning "backblast") weapons and rocket launchers. Furthermore I'm 100% sure that the AT-4 used by the Swedish army is not a rocket launcher. BTW, take a look at the projectile: Where is the rocket engine and where do you think the propellant is stuffed? _____________________________ The Bazooka was, IMO, a flawed design because it fired rockets that had burned out by the time they left the barrel. The positive side of this was that they had a better precision than if the rockets had burned for a longer time, and that the firer didn't get exhausts in the face. The downside was that the rocket engine made the projectile relatively heavy at the same time as the short burn resulted in a muzzle velocity. A backblast weapon firing the same warhead, less rocket engine, would have a higher muzzle velocity while needing a thicker tube. Cheers Olle

Minefields are good and effective! The trick is to realise that a single unit (or "patch" as I prefer to call them) of mines have just above 50% chance of hitting a crossing vehicle, and use them accordingly. To block a route you'll need to either force the enemy to pass more than one patch, cover the route with other AT weapons OR use road blocks instead. Mines also have a psychological effect. Once spotted vehicles tend to avoid them. Therefore Daisy-chains can be more efficient than hidden patches for blocking a route. Daisy-chains are no match to remove if the attacker has engineers available, but it's not always so. To conclude: Mines are good and efficient within their limitations. Plan the effect you want, and pick your type of mines depending on that. Then place them in a manner where they can perform the desired effect. Minefields not overrun are not a waste of points, but replace an ATG or other assets that would otherwise be necessary to cover that area. Cheers Olle

I'll second this. I'm trained in four different Swedish RRs; * Pskott m/68 (Miniman) now obsolete disposable LAW, about 65mm calibre. * Carl Gustav Grg, 84mm man-packed RR. I'm trained on the old steel version, but there's a newer made of composites. Standard ammo is HEAT, HE and smoke. * Pskott m/86 (AT-4), use the very same warhead as the reloadable version, but this one is single shot. * 9cm pvpjäs (Huggpipan, the Chisel), wheeled recoilless ATG. Ammo was HEAT only, in addition to the 7.62mm semi automatic ranging weapon. The weapons above were all rifled, AFAIK. The ATG was initially designed smoothbore, but got rifling and ranging gun to improve effective range. These were also all backblast weapons. For these it's a rule of thumb that about 2/3 of the propellant (gasses) exit rear, and 1/3 accelerate the projectile. (Bazookas are rocket launchers.) Cheers Olle

Unfortunately CM only have the TD versions of StuG III F/G represented, and the default ammo mix is fixed (with a minimum of randomness). There were StuGs in TD battalions, as represented in CM, and in assault gun battalions, sporting a higher percentage of HE. The MG should be used for close defense only, which it isn't. Therefore the ammo doesn't seem to be enough. Cheers Olle

What do you mean "the game does not allow"? I've never seen any limitations when I've designed scenarios. Also, the 3-1 number is in men and material when the defender is fortified. To attack a platoon that's dug in behind barbed wire and mine fields you'll need a company. I think the regular QB generator will allow that. (Attacker: ~300pts rifle company Defender: ~100pts rifle platoon, ~100pts fortifications.) Cheers Olle

Don't forget another factor: Longer barrel => higher muzzle velocity => more accuracy. BUT Longer barrel => more barrel whip => less accuracy. These two factors have a tendency to cancel each other out, so guns with generally same design but different barrel length have about the same accuracy. Cheers Olle

As mestioned above, Shift-V will hide vehicles and allow you to target underneath. Unfortunately there's no such feature for leg units. Then your ambush setup is flawed in some way. The reason your intended victims shoot first is either that your ambushers hold their fire until after having been spotted, or that the enemy is doing some "recon by fire", shooting at suspect locations. To solve the problem your troops should start shooting at longer range and preferably from the enemy flank. This will be looked at for CM II. That's a feature known as "Fanaticism". You have some control in this matter; - Selecting between "Cover arc" and "Cover armor". - Manually pick a specific target. - Hide units that you don't want to shoot at all. The AI usually do some sensible choices as well. I think this is a fix for a problem often encountered in CMBO. Units did run to the closest "cover", which quite often was the area occupied by the enemy. Why do you think it's better to run into the enemy than to retreat? How do you know that the "cover" in front of your troops is free from enemies? The CM engine can't handle such abstract thinking, yet. Only if attacked... Keep them unnoticed and/or suppress enemies within LOS to the attackers. The percentage is calculated on the information presented to the player. That's known kills, own losses, assumed flag control and so on. Flag control is seen as the effect of your troops (all known) and spotted enemies. If both players have troops close to the same flag and these troops haven't spotted each other, then both players will see the flag as theirs. Since spotting depends on many factors, randomness being one, it's way too complex to do a table unless BTS release the used equations (which they most probably won't). Then you'd be able to do a table of probabilities. I recall Jason C did a test to see the typical ranges at which some ATGs would be spotted, but doing this for all units is too cumbersome. Someone made a table on exposure percentages, which is what you want. Unfortunately I can't remeber who or where. Do a search. See the table mentioned above. Foxholes bonus all leg units and towed guns. Dug in vehicles receive a 360 degree hull down bonus. Not sure what you mean. I suppose you mean on board mortars with a spotting HQ. Then they shouldn't (and don't) get LOS, but will still be able to target the area seen by the spotter. Your mortars get LOS to what they can actually see. Perhaps with CM II, implementing your request in point 3, there will be some superimposed marking of the area seen by the spotter when checking LOS for the mortar. Because the gunner is extremely stressed. If there's a relative motion between gun and target it's also very difficult to track the target properly at that range. Because they follow their orders to continue moving. You'll rarely see it happen when they have a good player commanding them. It's a function of the tach AI that care for all units independently of each other. The followers are not effected by what happened to the front unit, other than secondarily through loss of global morale, even if it was in plain sight. There was a long thread about this recently. Think about that penetration is only an issue if you hit, and German gun sights are better. Therefore it's more likely that the German gunner score the first hit in a one-on-one battle. If the situation is "many vs many" it get worse, because the TachAI see this as several "many vs one" battles, where the "one" (which actually is all of them) under TachAI control is likely to take defensive actions. The reason is explained above. You can only shoot through vehicles (which include bunkers and pillboxes). A known glitch stemming from the need to keep CPU usage down a bit. You don't spot enemies as soon as they get within LOS, unless you play with FOW off. Once a unit is spotted it will be seen by everybody in sight though, but it may still take some time, at least for AFVs... Because that unit is seen as the major threat at that moment. It can't have been a confirmed kill more than once, unless it was attacked by aircraft. There is of course this "death clock" feature where the shooter don't get a confirmation of kill until a) the crew abandon the vehicle, the vehicle starts burning or c) some random time has passed since the killing hit. The time needed is typically less than a minute. And that target was still fully functional, from a technical point of view! (Albeit with a panicked or broken crew...) Not if used correctly. Too complex to give a straight answer. No. I've never had my troops attacked by my aircraft. It might be a problem if all enemies are hidden and the friendlies in plain view though. Cheers Olle

I've tried using that sort of 3d glasses with CMBO. It was great for feel of terrain, but 2d stuff like text, order lines and unit bases seemed a little out of place. I also had a way too slow computer to use higher resolution or flip-screen. Recently I tried to use anaglyphic stereo with CMBB. It sort of worked, but the colours were off and the problems mentioned above exaggerated. Cheers Olle

Regarding how crappy the Soviet soldiers were: I recently read the story about a Soviet rifle battalion that defended the southern outskirts of Moscow in December '41. The ground had just frozen solid, with a minimum of snow, thus providing perfect conditions for tank combat. The rifle battalion were to put up a hasty defence in a small village on one of the main routes to Moscow. They knew that at least one German armour division was heading their way. They had previously been badly beaten and were down to a total of 29 men. To fight the tanks they had 100 Molotov coctails and a 37mm ATG that had 7 AP rounds. There was no time to do any fortifications and they had no mines. At dawn they could hear the German armour and soon spotted the first PzKw III a few hundred metres away. Before closing in the tanks shelled the village in some "recon by fire", causing lots of damage but no casualties. Then the Germans got closer and the battle started... After the battle all 29 Russians were dead but 14 German tanks knocked out. Trying to recreate this in CMBB has failed this far, with only a few German tanks destroyed in spite of the fact that I've made the map more favourable to the defenders. Cheers Olle

From a general point of view a curved armour have better integrity and is therefore better at withstanding a blast that hit all of the surface at (nearly) the same time, like when a large shell detonate some distance away. Cheers Olle

I think skiers are poorly modelled in CM. Military skiing is not much different from fighting on foot.</font> There's no problem sneaking or crawling.</font>There's no problem hiding or ducking for cover.</font>Heavy equipment, such as MGs and mortars, is easier to transport on sleds than to carry. For MGs the sled can support the tripod for fast action (albeit at lesser stability).</font>None of the above is possible in CMBB! I have a nice picture (in a book) from the Winter war, where a Finnish HMG team crawl through the snow while wearing skis. I'll see if I can scan it... Cheers Olle

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I think you've found a bug! The data you want should be in the "Orders" section, but isn't. Cheers Olle

To honor this day I've made a simple scenario starring Valentine tanks. It's a simple shoot 'em up scenario and nothing fancy, but if you want it you can get it here. Enjoy! Olle

The scenario I described above assume that proper recon has been done, to find the MLR. The enemy is fortified with trenches and wire, possibly some mines as well. Infantry strength is about equal in numbers for defender and main assault wave (a company per side). Some enemy ATGs and most infantry AT weapons are still around, but not any expected mobile armour. Then conducting the main assault with armoured infantry, supported by a platoon or more of tanks or assault guns, will overwhelm the defenders. (Five or more HTs per ATG is more than sufficient at close range...) Notice that the five extra halftracks you get with a German company are useful to replace other bogged and shot up ones during the advance. Cheers Olle

Standard issue for the Jäger (=Light infantry) divisions, as mentioned above. Non-standard for just about anybody else. Cheers Olle

I don't think you overdo it. One sharshooter per rifle platoon is my upper limit. (Based on modern organisation rather than WW2.) Cheers Olle

It's usually possible to get LOS by pointing further into (which translates to "higher up on") the building. Cheers Olle

As the others have stated it depends on terrain and situation. I've had success a couple of times (mostly in CMBO, mind you) by; 1. Shell the enemy position with medium artillery. 2. After a few turns of shelling mix in some smoke with it. 3. Switch to full smoke on the enemy as you run your halftracks on top of (or even just behind) them, MGs blazing to suppress any spotted enemies. 4. Stop the artillery as the APCs reach their goal. 5. The infantry disembark and finish off the enemy by themselves and by (borg-)spotting for direct firing support units in the rear. The halftrack MGs are *good* for suppressing the enemy during the assault, and the M3/M5 HTs even have a 360 degrees field of fire. Cheers Olle