Berkut

Well, I have a group of T72's coming in on the flank of a group of 3 M1's. They are now 523mts away and simply will not fire. Checking on one group of these tanks shows it as having 199 tankgun rounds? It just seems odd and is very frustrating

Thanks for the reply. They are mostly ignoring the M1 tanks. It is possible that they know they can't take out a M1 from the front and are refusing to fire, but it won't explain the occasions where they have side on shots and still won't open fire. But even if they did know the capabilities of that tank, I reckon they would still fire in the hope of driving off the enemy or disabling him. As for the targeting options. It has been ambush zones, and specific units being targetted. Alhtough never at the same time. One final comment, I have Ko'd a number of his tanks through infantry attacks. They seem more than willing to do the job. But the guys in my tanks don't seem willing at all.

I am playing taksforce peterjohn, I drew short straw and am going the iraqis. Despite the weather and the decision to allow arty smoke to block thermals, he has knocked nearly 50% of my armour. However I have observed a number of occasions where unsuppresed iraqi tanks with clear los and at some cases within 500 mtrs of a target are unwilling to open fire or return fire when fired upon. I have checked to ensure that the firing priorities are not set too strictly. I don't think it can be the map, because it is occuring in too many spots. Now is this a potential bug, or has a certain level of incompetence been coded into iraqi units?

Now that is cruel and unusual treatment of your fellow grognards, shame on you.

Well I had a closer look at the replays. In the two examples there was a combination of extreme range and terrain. The other examples a number of firing units did get supressed...so it appears to be a newbie rant after all thanks for being patient. I'll try a few more before attempting pbem!

I should have made the post more detailed, apologies in advance. I do understand the elevation rules and the impact it has on LOS. Yet these situations occured in areas that I picked because they had clear LOS to were I expected OPFOR units to appear. I have to state that I did not spot this happening all the time, just towards the end of the game. Units were constantly appearing as they moved forwards. They would retreat from LOS and reappear in other areas were I had units nearby, as you would expect. I did notice some odd LOS quirks.... The first time it happened, it occured on level ground between the two large hills that dominate the map in TF craig. I had several units that all had unrestricted LOS to these OPFOR units. I was also pounding the area with arty HE/ICM and I did a lot of damage. Some OPFOR units that survived the onsluaght (consisting of APC's with infantry on board) approached the small village constantly uunder fire, they then disappeared at the end of the combat phase. At first I thought they were KO'd, then during the next phase these units with unloaded infantry had advanced into the outskirts of the village. I thought it could have been smoke being popped but there were no smoke graphics on the map. It was a suprise. The second instance was on the second hill. OPFOR had decided to cut across the hills rather than chance the roads. I had a number of units in place with LOS going out to 3000+ metres in someplaces. I spotted a number of tanks, APC's coming across the center of the hill. Using the lOS tool I could see past them some distance. I targeted the tanks first and then clicked on begin combat phase. The tanks and APC's vanished from sight. They reappeared during the combat phase of the next turn, having moved a little more forward than when last sighted. The third instance was the suprise appearance that I spoke of in my first post. My troops were so suprised that they never fired a shot during the initial encounter! I rechecked LOS and later clicked on F8, it shows no features on the map that could have obstructed LOS. Now LOS is constantly readjusted as enemy units come into view of your forces and then pass from sight. I accept that. To have units in clear view with nothing nearby to retreat to or that would obstruct LOS does strike me as odd. I am not trying to attack the game. I really do enjoy it. But felt I should point this out. This feels slightly lame, but it did happen and I did not imagine it.

My first proper post here since I got the game last year. I find myself with the time to learn how to play tac-ops and after the tutorial played task force craig variant 1. Now, the game ran the full 120mins. I had suffered a 62% casualty rate with opfor suffering 75%. It does have to be said that 50% of my casualties occured in the last 60 mins as enemy T80's appeared on the scene. Air power was largely ineffective. It was a good battle and considering what I was facing, feel it was a good first result...you are free to disagree of course But now I come to the real reason of this post. I may be betraying my ignorance here, but I have some issues with LOS. I kept coming across situations were opfor units simply vanished from sight, only to reappear later on. One particular unit of mine in a nice ambush position was suprised to find 3 T80's and three sqds of infantry appear right on top of them, how these units managed this feat of stealth, when my units had all round LOS up to a 1000mtrs escapes me. Easily to explain thefore a pointless rant or some odd quirk of the game code?

welcome to the forums GRUMLIN, whenever you touch on a subject like this, it is very much like lighting the blue touch paper and retiring;) Your initial problem has already been addressed by BTS themselves. It's the AI No computer wargame can reflect reality 100% The game is well designed (thats why we play it)but it does have it's problems. Vehicles will behave erratically, they won't use tungsten or HC, even if that round was clearly the best in a given situation. They will reverse when spotted rather than go forward into cover that was closer. They will "forget" the enemy if they lose LOS from one round to the next. It has been well covered in the CMBO forums believe me. As for the other subjects dealing with russian heavy armour? Hail of fire will work on the heavy tanks, but it really needs to be a hail of fire...not a light drizzle. The quality of the crew is also a factor in how useful this tactic is. As for getting into a better position? Think of the comment made by Jason about Guderian. He simply attacked were the enemy armour was not concentrated. Taking this doctrine to CMBB means trying to avoid hitting him where his armour is stongest and hitting on the flanks or in the rear. If you know your tank guns are not up to the job at certain ranges, you will try to close that range if you can. Either by flanking them or pretending to withdraw and letting them close with you into an ambush(a tactic that was used to good effect against the British in North Afrika) Thats why you find many Tank vets describe tank combat as if it were sea warfare. When you have a situation like this it will often come down to things like using terrain and the skill of your crews and how they use their equipment...radios, optics, smoke..whatever. I am sure the Germans were shocked when they first saw KV1s, but they did develop tactics and weapons that allowed them to deal with these russian heavies. As did the Russians, later in the war learn to deal with Germans heavy tanks. When we come to what a tankgun could or could not do, we do tend to forget the biggest variable of all in penetration, and that is armor quality. I am not a 100% sure on this subject, I am not a metallurgist. Of the books I have read that discuss this subject I recall one that said that Buckling failures only occur when tanks are hit by large-caliber artillery shells, sizable bombs, or are exposed to similar conditions. The common failure mode when impacted by a conventional AP shell, one of the solid-slug shells or a shaped-charge device was small-area penetration, or sometimes non penetration but high-velocity spalling of metal inside the tank. CM gives all armour a rating on quality. But how is that figure derived at? The countries involved did use different methods of producing and shaping steel for tank production. As the war continued quality would vary. Early russian armour has been described as very poor and quite brittle. I have not tested for this but how effective is CM in handling situations were armour is hit by heavy HE rounds. Apart from panicking the crew and giving them tinnitus, wrecking the main gun or the tanks mobilty...can the sheer force of a large calibre HE round overwhelm the tanks armour? Apart from a bomb impacting on the turret, I suspect it would not work. Which means we come back to the comment I made earlier about the accuracy of any computer wargame. In the end, despite what history tells us, the game code no matter how skilled the progammer is, may not be able to deliver everything we know to be true about how things "really" were back then.

This occured in the game I played up till turn 18 (see earlier post concerning at rifles)2 were hit on the move, one was hit while in the cover of the dry-river bed. the others were hit when I thought they were in cover in some trees. I checked LOS and was seeing ranges of 700+ metres. The last time I played a surviving PzII was hit after cleaning out farm 44 by a rifle from the treeline of hill 174. I would guesstimate that range nearer 800+ metres. It got a partial penetration :eek: and panicked the crew. I had to hunt down all three of the little bastards using the technique described in my AAR...wonder why they phased a weapon like that out if it could do that kind of damage at those ranges...did they have tungsten shortages as well? or is this weapon a little too accurate? I have since moved on to when worlds collide. Have you noticed that tanks with tungsten ap rounds seem reluctant to use them? I remember a similar problem in CMBO [ December 30, 2002, 07:20 PM: Message edited by: Berkut ]

Well I restarted the game and went through 47 turns with only a minor victory to show for it I did read your AAR, demoss. I would say a broadbrush approach than moderately detailed I could replay it and replay it till I knew were everything is and get to the crossing faster but that sort of thing never appeals to me. There are a lot of unpleasant surprises in this battle and when you consider the need to save a lot of your force for the exit, it can slow you down considerably. Warning spoilers, detailed AAR now follows----------------- * * * * * * * * * * 1. expect to lose all but a couple of your pzII's you'll need these to smoke out the 45mm guns hidden in the tree line at the base of hill 171. You could wait until your heavier tanks arrive but considering their value in this game you may not want to risk them. I used the 81mm FOO to knock each gun out before sending him with the rest of the recce force to scout out farm 44. 2. You must eliminate the threat posed to your flanks by farm 44 before advancing to the hill. It has two 45 AT guns and a platoon of russian riflemen for support. You could eliminate the guns and bypass the farm considering how worthless the flags are for the germans. 3. Russian anti-tank riflemen are setup in the treeline of hill 174 and one more in farm collective 44. These can and will knock out halftracks at considerable ranges and you simply cannot afford to lose to many of these. So you will have to clean these buggers out. They are as elusive as snipers so put smoke down and send some troops up in haltracks quickly and hunt them down. You could use arty, but I found that it was not effective as they were well spaced out & well back from the treeline with a clear LOS of the steppe. So use smoke and race a platoon of PzGrenadiers up there quickly. 4. The hill can simply be overrun with the firepower you have. The russian will fold quickly. but do not be too hasty in going over that hill. 5. Across the Olnye there are two 76.2mm guns they are very accurate so be careful. I sought hulldown positions with PZIV's and used their HE to knock them out, but this exposed me to... 6. Armour...yes there is some and yes they capable of chewing you up if you are careless. I was able to deal with them but lost 4 very valuable tanks in the process. 7. The river crossing itself is clear of anything that can harm your tanks. but there are two 25mm cannon in the woods nearby and they will make mincemeat of your halftracks. If you are lucky you will have time to spot them and knock them out. I lost two before putting down smoke...more time & points lost. Also pray you don't have any vehicles bog down in the crossing....if that happened there it would really make things frustrating. In the end I simply ran out of time and could not get everything off the map. Losing vehicles that need to exit is also badnews considering how much needed to be got off. The effect of the stukas on the enemy was negligible, there were also incidents were they strafed my forces, I'm just lucky they had used their bombs. It is winnable...perhaps not the first time you play it, as stated earlier there are nasty surprises for the axis player.

More spoilers perhaps?--------------- I should not really have started this post so close to xmas. Just not possible for me to check in on the threads. I have replayed it since and stopped around turn 18. I have noticed a couple of things that concerned me. This is not directed at the scenario itself but the way certain things are modelled in CMBB. I was able to deal with the two 47mm AT guns and was in the process of dealing with farm 44 when my recce sqds spotted two more AT guns lurking in the woods near the collective. I was also in the process of dealing with hill by moving a force of panzer III's and IV's with the long barreled IV's in overwatch positions when my half tracks came under very accurate fire from the treeline again. Despite 105 arty being laid down and the tank guns blazing my units could detect the sounds being made by three units (anti-tank rifles) from ranges of around 600-700 metres as they left the cover of the ridgeline. They could not see them, but could hear them? at that range?...do these russians go everywhere accompanied by martial music? The other problem was the fire from the rifles was extremely accurate considering the range and they were successful in knocking out 5 halftracks in two turns. So there was no possibilty to rush the flag in the farm, because there is another one of these little sods lurking in along side the two AT guns. How accurate was this weapon? I don't think it had any advanced optics and at the ranges it must have been fired at; operating at the limits of it's effectiveness. Has anyone else playing this scenario observed these situations? [ December 28, 2002, 07:54 PM: Message edited by: Berkut ]

-----------Possible spoilers----------------- * * * * * * * * * * * I have not had time to play through all the scenarios in the Stalingrad pack and have just started with the first. Into the void features an attempt to secure vital highground and an equally vital crossing over a river. A vast portion of the terrain is very open and any attempt to cross it will be observed from the hilltop. Also of concern is a village near a dry riverbed. Your initial force consists of a recce unit of 6 PZII's and a recce platoon. for artillery you have a 81mm FOO. Stukas are roaming around to take out any targets of opportunity. Now I have played...or should I say started to play this on 6 occasions now. Each time I played saw 50-70% of the recce force being knocked out by two 47mm AT guns within 5 turns. Which I'm sure many would agree is some very accurate shooting at ranges in excess of 700 mtrs. I am playing with the scenario defaults and full fog of war. Has anyone here found similar problems with these scenarios or been able to beat the AT guns without significant losses to their force? How does it handle when played as a pbem?

-------Spoiler?-------------- I have not had time to look through all the scenarios in the Stalingrad pack and just started with the first. oops misclick, moved to stalingrad pack thread [ December 23, 2002, 07:30 AM: Message edited by: Berkut ]

The entire order of battle Michael? I gave a run down of the initial force that anyone would see if they opened the scenario themselves. I have not commented on other forces for the axis side nor have I given any comment on what the russians have, because as stated in my original post I don't know what they are Had I done so, then I would be guilty of giving away the entire order of battle What I felt i had written was a description of the mission and your intial force, the terrain to be crossed and the presence of two very accurate AT-guns. I did not comment on precise locations, enemy infantry or armour support(if any) because in my initial post I stated I did not get far enough to discover what they were. I gave no solutions, or any information that I deem to be spoilers about the scenario. I thought the post was safe. clearly to some here it was not. I am not going to get into any semantic arguments and will direct my queries to the appropiate thread. Kingfish: The damage is done and see no point in editing the post. If I had admin rights I would delete from the board or lock it, but thats not my job.

I hardly think it's worth tagging with the heading spoiler. I give no positions of the guns or solutions to the scenario itself. Information about any other forces present because I never got that far. But heyho you live and learn;)