Tero

Originally posted by Sir Augustus: How do you know this? I have several cousins and friends that i'm sure of that would be willing to play this game if they knew more about it. (including me) So where do you get this? Tell you a story: we have a biweekly playing session with friends (all mid/late-30's of age). CMBO is out as a hot seat on one machine. We have set up LAN parties. Even then CMBO LAN game is not an option when picking a game. PS and PS2 are what we use. Why ? Because they allow the instant gratification of trashing your friend, many times, over the period of time it takes to set up and play out even the shortest of CM games. I have exposed my friends to CMBO but even having PG and SP under their belt they have not warmed up to it. [ May 03, 2002, 01:56 AM: Message edited by: tero ]

Originally posted by Mattias: Eh, you are not exactly bending over backwards trying to understand my post Tero, are you.. The damn back has been acting up lately. It never even entered my mind that there would be issues of "historical" and "geo-political" nature. Translating a manual for your car is easy. Trying to create the proper ambiance to get the mood right is easy. When you are doing it for a fantasy RPG. Then try to do the same for a historical SIMULATION. You get the markings on the machines right easily. This means even the German version of CMBB should have the Finnish tanks using blue swastikas. Wanna bet the Germans will see them running around in the current blue and white cocard taken up after the war instead of the proper swastika ? Apart from adapting to German law, CM is not taking any particular standpoint with regards to guilt and blame. And if you think being called a "German Ally" is bad, imagine what it is like to be called "German". Yes. It is easy to keep it focused and limited when there are really no grey areas. Sonderkomandos, Commissars shooting their own men and all sides mutilating their opponents is outside the scope of the game after all... Hmmmmmmm...... Soviet partisans are in. And they carry the stigma of war criminals here in Finland. My point regarding customers that normally do not buy war games is that there needs to be something drawing their attention for a while, in order for CM to have a chance at changing their preconceptions of the game. If you decide in advance only to market your product to only one section of the market you are unnecessarily limiting yourself. Your tactics need to be cost efficient of course but it is a fact that one of the main reasons CM:BO was so successful was because it managed to widen the appeal of a wargame. But there are thousands and thousands of customers out there who still do not know how much they would like it. These are the people, big, small, young and old that needs a little help finding CM:BB. Very true. But then there is the question of price. Would you actually buy Xbox just to try out the game they are hypeing up the machine with ?

Originally posted by illo: Here in finland... (there goes your never) I would say we were allied with germans and I can not see any insult in anyone saying that. When was the last time you saw the term liittolainen used (in print) when describing the Finnish relations with the Germans during the war ? Liittolainen is not equal with aseveli. You may not be insulted when talking in English. And that is the catch. When you are using different languages you switch also the cultural frame of reference (and more). Our four year old son asked the other day what koira syö koiraa (dog eat dog) means. It had been used in one of the localized cartoons. I could not explain the consept it without using the proper Finnish analogy ihminen on ihmiselle susi (homo hominem lupus - see, I can not translate THAT into English verbatim without switching the analogy or writing a two page essey on it. ). And that is the kind of sloppy translation I totally and absolutely abhor. Technical terms relatively are easy to get right. But the thing is even the terms infer minutely different nuances in their usage when you are using the proper native term in ist own language. If you go deep enough you will find you may not be able to use the native terms because they also entail embedded different tactical and doctrinal thinking that can not be accomodated in the programming. Politics are always compex, but it won't change a thing. Well, that is the case in the Anglo-American tradition. Unfortunately you are hard pressed to find this is the case when you are examining the Finnish tradition. Take the recent picture book on Finnish armour by Keskinen and Stenman. The Finnish captions use the old Finnish names for places in the ceded areas. The English captions use the current Russian names for these same places. Would you use the current names when talking in Finnish ? They did not. Neither would I. But they chose to use the Russian names when the translation was made. Why do you think they did that ?

Originally posted by Mattias: I'm willing to bet that if you manage to make the box stand out as a "Finland friendly" product you will get more buyers. One way is to translate the game, and be sure to slap a Finnish flag on it. I doubt it. Making it "Finland friendly" is VERY tricky. Take the very flag you mention. You can not display Nazi imagery in Germany. Simple. In Finland the swastika is still in the army heraldry. Our president wears a medal which is adorned with the swastika to formal occasions. You must not forget and you must take into consideration different geo-political histories. For example: the prevailing Anglo-American POV is Finland was allied with Germany. Here in Finland you never ever simply refer to Finland as an Axis ally. Never. The political horse trading was so complex and it has been so prominently represented as a prime aspect in our national survival. We are not ashamed of the fact we had relations with the Germans. Going over our heads and simply stating we were Axis allies anyway is insultive. So, when making the localization for Finland a Finnish swastika is almost a must. And the terminology must be ..... I think sanitized is the appropriate term .... to reflect and respect our POV on some aspects of the "truth". Yet the "sanitazion" should not be represented as a PC act. That is condesceding. Yet, one "Finland - German Ally" related remark slips in and there will be hell to pay. That can do more damage to the sales that the localization is worth otherwise. This will draw attention to the game and give it a shot at catching people who would otherwise have passed it by. "Elderly", "juveniles" and parents being obvious target groups. The elderly: do they have the know-how to operate the machine ? The juveniles: where is the instant gratification ? Boring -> uninstall. Parents- the mum: my son will NOT play such violent and war glorifying games. Pop: sorry son, I have no time for it (to play it with you, I have so many PBEM's going on we can not share the machine.) Ceterum censeo: CMBB should not be localized to Finnish. [ May 02, 2002, 05:04 PM: Message edited by: tero ]

Originally posted by Doug Beman: Blast, took one night off to do errands and get more than 6 hours of sleep, and this topic's out of my grasp. You mean you get some shut eye amids all this fun and games ? I will make one last post, a reply to something tero said back on Page 7. He said: Nope. That is not what I said. You cut off the quote at the wrong point. If you read the preceding sentence you see I am referring to the TRP marker. and the quote continues: And since that one particular spot is ranged for him a spot some distance to the side of this spot is not ranged and consequently does not apply as a pre-ranged target. No matter how the tank has moved prior to the shot the range data is updated automatically and the gunner knows exactly how far he is from that TRP but the range data to a spot (just as visible as the TRP spot) next to the TRP is not calculated similarly at the same time. Yet, you seem to demand this very thing from ambush markers in this post on Page 4: So, which is it, tero? Which is it what ? I am of the opinion the TRP targeting benefit for non-OBA assets should be transferred to the Ambush marker. Demand is a bit strong term. But I do feel TRP targeting benefits to non-OBA units are unrealistic and I do hope this could change for CMBB. Ymmärsitkö ? [ May 02, 2002, 04:30 PM: Message edited by: tero ]

Originally posted by Wisbech_lad: I did enjoy the comments about troops being given a briefing about "it will be 300 m to the woods on your left" before an attack. Come off it! I would suggest given the fairly well documented instances of entire units getting lost in real life, we have stronger ground to argue CM doesn't model correctly the chance of misunderstood orders/ units getting lost/ units taking a wrong turn. Stupidity and inability to grasp the finer nuances of orienteering are one thing, modern kartography another. Why do you think they persist on using things like scale and grid references when they are drawing maps ? [ May 02, 2002, 09:04 AM: Message edited by: tero ]

Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B: If you don't assume the tank always has a round already chambered for the first shot (or the correct round), yes it does. No, it does not. All things being equal (the Sherman sporting a fast turret and stabilizer vs no difference in optics quality and no bonus for ambush ) the FIRST shot hit propability should not have anything to do with the ROF. Incidentaly, how does the ROF affect how fast the first round is chambered anyway ? If you were serious about this you could easily test for it. But I know you're not No need for testing. I have played both sides extensively and I still have a feeling the Allies play by the hit propability and the Germans by the miss propability when talking about first shot hit propabilities. It's a red herring Are you sure ? Not a rare event, any rare event. I'm sure you can appreciate the difference. Yes. But when a rare event, for example a German AFV missing its first shot in a CM game, happens often enough I think it does not qualify for a "rare event" status anymore. [ May 02, 2002, 08:45 AM: Message edited by: tero ]

Originally posted by Caesar: Was this a German only practise or did other nations use this. Never seen any refrences to others using it. That does not mean nobody else did it. Were they rotating the tank on the spot or were they just driving in an agle towards the target. I think both. Moving forwards and backwards and turning while moving is better. Rotating on the spot a lot is liable to shear off a tread. Was this an advantage of their suspension I think that was actually a steering system design feature and not a suspension system as such. A higher ROF results in a faster overheated gun, this reduces the muzzel velocity and has direct negative effect on the accuracy. Also affects barrel wear. I would think that in most cases, if you are being shot at you are going to fire back as fast and accurately as possible irrespective of the long term well being of your tank. I think your near term survival would take precedence. True. But unlike the OK Coral fast draw shoot out gunner a fast shooting WWII tank is more likely to be blinded by the smoke and debris it is itself raising. Rapid opening of fire is essential. So is accuracy. Firing the first shot first and hit is good. However, if you miss the first shot the TC is better off scanning for cover and ordering reverse gear and bug out to an out of LOS location to rethink the approach than start gunning it out with the opponent. Especially if it is a knife fight and there is some doubt about the punishment the ride can take.

Could it be that the Ambush marker is considered to be an area fire target and when a real point target gets picked up in the zone the gun reverts to the normal programming concerning DF gunnery ?

Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B: There is a tendency to underestimate the frequency of rare events. Rare events happen all the time, both in real life and the game. What is the frequency of occurance that turns a rare event into a commonplace one ?

Originally posted by redwolf: I do think that the size of the target may factor in somehow, It is already reflected in the hit probablity that the LOS or target tool prints. A tank with silhuette 120 has a 20% (not percent point) higher chance to get hit than a silhuette 100 one, it is plain and simply linear. Hmmmm..... say both get a 78% solution on each other simultaneously the bigger tank gets 20% knocked off its accuracy because it is bigger and in effect the solutions should read 78% vs 58% (or 98% vs 78%) in favour of the smaller tank ? Does not sound really realistic. Or plausible. If this is the case I smell a fish. Which I hope does not turn out to be a red herring.

Originally posted by Doug Beman: The gunner's sighting gear was a binocular telescope (probably TZF 12a, also mounted in Panther), not quite identical to the rangefinders used in FlaK gunnery. IIRC the binocular telescope was installed to get better (if limited) coincidence range finding capability. Genuine FLAK gunnery is done using shell flight time calculation based on the altitude of the target aircraft. When you fire the FLAK gun in DF mode you use the proper sights PLUS you have the help from the gun crew member operating the range finder. [ May 02, 2002, 05:21 AM: Message edited by: tero ]

Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B: As you can see the differnces at short range are really quite small. I strongly believe these numbers show that the Sherman's greater effectiveness vs. the Tiger at short range is due mostly to higher rate of fire rather than greater accuracy. However, the higher ROF does not explain away why the Sherman seems to be getting the first shot hits down better. I have sometimes thought the Sherman fire accuracy calculation is done using the hit propability as the norm and the Tiger calculation is done using the miss propability as the norm.

Getting a Nashorn killed at 250 meters is not hard. Getting the Nashorn to kill at 250 meters is VERY hard. Well, it at least SEEMS very hard. I think the question should not be about doctrine alone. I agree a Nashorn in such close proximity to the front is folly. But was the 88L71 it carried really THAT inaccurate close up ?

Originally posted by Caesar: The silhoulette of the tiger is much higher than the sherman 120 vs 104 so you would expect that the sherman would hit more often. Actually, IIRC the Sherman was as high as or higher than the Tiger, the Tiger was most definitely wider than the Sherman. I would have thought that the turret speed should have given the shemans a slight advantage with getting the first shot off. Then again the German practise to turn the entire vehicle towards the target to speed up aimimg if preparing for a shot from the move is not modelled in. the fact that it would have to load the gun with the correct ammo..... Actually I think they would most propably fire the shot they chambered. That would be faster than reloading.

Originally posted by John D Salt: You wait for a bus and then three come at once. Yes. But you have not gone to the bus stop by chance. Also, the busses are supposed to be run according to a time table. If you happen to pass a bus stop and almost every time you see three busses going by I at least become suspicious the coincidence is too consistent to be a genuine one. The porrige of fate is lumpy. Lumpy is OK. But if the lumps are evenly spaced and in everybody else seems to have them too then the flour is propablyu not mixed in properly. One in a while, you go through a period of six consecutive misses. That is OK. But when was the last time you saw a Firefly miss six consecutive shots at the same target ?

Originally posted by redwolf: The game models zeroing in, I think I have the description in this thread. It is important to tell whether you get zeroing-in or not, because the 76mm with its higher ROF will zero in faster. Higher ROF is a big advantage, and it gets much bigger when zeroing in, obviously. What about things like recoil, obscured vision etc ? Shermans had a narrower base compared to their height than the German tanks had. Even with HVSS Sherman firing its cannon would litteraly rock more than German vehicles which had a more wider base. IMO high ROF should not give you an advantage just because you can in theory bracket a target faster than your opponent. There were also disadvantages. Have they been modelled too ? Read my tests in the article. In CMBO, the sluggy gun movement still hurts badly if you are roughly facing the right direction. Hmmmmm.... are the German gunners firing the first shot before they have gotten the target in the cross hairs ? I hope this is not the case. The armor doen't matter since both can penetrate each other, so and the lighter and higher ROF gun/carriage combination wins. I'm not convinced that would work in laboratory conditions. The lighter carriage should be more susceptible to recoil induced problems for example.

Originally posted by Soddball: At the moment, Shermans (fireflies, 76s, 75s) significantly outperform Tigers at ranges below 500m on a chance-to-hit basis, and that doesn't make sense to me. You are not alone, my brother. How can a gun get less accurate as the range reduces? It is perfectly reasonable to have slow/non turreted vehicles acquiring targets more slowly than fast turreted ones, especially if the gun does not happen to face the enemy vehicle already. Keeping a moving target in the cross hairs is a bitch (I went to refresher training last week end and we practised using LAW's. Leading a moving vehicle IS hard ). The closer the target the harder it is. However, a sitting target you have acquired and gunning for, no matter what the range, should not give you any penalties just because you have a slow turret and no stabilizer.

Originally posted by Puff the Magic Dragon: In CM I always see the shells fly far to the left or right. This is - maybe - only an 'optical bug', or it is wrong modeled. I would not say the modelling is wrong as such. The scatter effect is propably straight from the appropriate (flat, 2D) arty hit propability chart where the epicenter (which is in our case the target) is surrounded by 25% hit propability quadrants. But if you are right then I do think that the model is inappropriately applied to the DF guns. When aiming at the center of a target the distance, ie the elevation, is more vital than the lateral placing of the aiming point. Having a DF gun have its shots scattered to the left and right of the target as if they were fired from a indirect fire gun is not really appropriate. If you order a DF gun (or a tank) to open fire and you get a 75% hit chance reading it would mean there is a 25% miss chance. In other words 3 out of 4 shots would score a hit. Yet at least I think the statistical consistency to miss the first shot is out of whack with this hit chance. It is as if the miss chance is what gets picked, not the hit chance. If you have a 25% chance to miss the first shot then this is what you will most likely get. At least if you are not sporting a fast turret and/or a stabilizer. Tanks got often badly damaged by several hits before they were really taken out. ÜberFinnish AT gunner using 15 PAK40 AP shots (all hits) to kill a single T34 does seem overkill. Then again the fact a bon-brewed up tank was more likely to be recovered and returned to duty the next day did predispose the gunner to prefer to kill the monsters dead even after they had stopped moving. Beside that, the damage model for tanks is very limited. Track hit = immobile. Gun hit = gun damaged. Penetration = 95% knocked out or abandoned. Also realistic crew casualty modelling is definitely missing. One of my early surpises was the musical chairs the crew did when losing a member. The driver does not get killed if the front hull is penetrated. That would immobilize that tank for at leats 5-10 minutes when they are hauling the driver out. The gunner is not disabled if turret is penetrated. The TC is always the first to go no matter who would be killed/disabled IRL.

Originally posted by Doug Beman: Keeping in mind the non-scientific nature of this evidence, in all my reading about WW2 I've seen/read maybe 2 or 3 pictures/accounts of tankers using dedicated rangefinder gear apart from gun optics However, AT guns were artillery and it would stand to reason to have them guestimate the range better than their esteemed armour crew counterparts. Also, even infantry is trained to guestimate ranges by telephonepoles and other objects without actually having to pace the distance. If you see a man standing at a distance you can apply the "rule of the thumb" and basic trigonometry to roughly guess the distance from your position to that man. So a tank, which might have been driving around the battlefield for a few minutes, stops in a stand of pine trees. Its commander picks out a spot "over thataway" as an AMBUSH marker. Suddenly, the gunner has an exact ranging to that spot, just as though that exact spot had been measured before the battle and the gunner had calibrated his gun specifically for that spot. Then, the tank moves again, coming to rest behind a house. The commander picks another spot "there," and POOF the gunner has perfect knowledge of that spot. This is of course infginitely more unrealistic than having the gunner get the perfect knowledge of the spot from data prepared by a FO team (he has never heard of and propably never will hear of) prior to battle. And since that one particular spot is ranged for him a spot some distance to the side of this spot is not ranged and consequently does not apply as a pre-ranged target. No matter how the tank has moved prior to the shot the range data is updated automatically and the gunner knows exactly how far he is from that TRP but the range data to a spot (just as visible as the TRP spot) next to the TRP is not calculated similarly at the same time. Sorry, can't buy that. This would presume that every point on the battlefield had been measured to a standard and thoroughness so as to give a vehicle knowledge of range etc from any other point on the map. Not so. The OBA arty pukes do not move their guns that often during a 30-60 min battle. The TRP represents target coordinates preprepared to match the firing units positions coordinates. Off shore naval fire support would be able to fire at the TRP location even if it moved around. That is because they have integrated fire solution and fire direction capability. Having a tank update its location data all the time to match the TRP cordinates for a firing solution with increased hit chance is, well, plain unrealistic. Maybe ambush commands should include the TRP-like accuracy boost, but only in cases where vehicles start out with LOS to that point, and don't move at all. Once they move, and lose their frame of reference, the work of measuring the range from vehicle to TRP (whether we're talking ranging shots, pacing off, or simply knowing the optics/gun characteristics) will not apply. I think it is a question of crew quality and time frame. Having a green crewed tank sit still for 10 seconds and get increased first shot hit chance is not on. Having an green crewed tank sit still for 60 secs focues on a specific terrain feature and get increased first shot hit chance is not that unrealistic. Nor is having an elite crew focus on a terrain feature for, say, 30 seconds. If so, these points would be purchased assets, similar to TRPs but cheaper because they're specific to one point on the map, and only affect on-map DF guns. Once placed on the map, they're locked on the map, and only vehicles that start out w/ LOS may use that spot as an "ambush TRP." That would not be very unrealistic. Prebattle preparations often take into account possible ambush locations. If you are attacker and you are going through your battle plan suspected/propable ambush locations are one thing you look for. For example nobody drives through a gap between two rock faces or hills into an open field if there are more inconspicuous routes to take and if there is no hurry or need to take that particular spot.

Originally posted by Jarmo: Not finnish made as such. Rather something with finnish writing on top, maybe in style of "sotiemme sankarit". Note that none of the finnish made games tries to show themselves as a finnish product. All english covers. Then there are companies like Nokia. The name points towards the East, but the company home is not THAT far East.

Originally posted by nipa: Seems totally unrealistic, there are several screenshots of finns being shot to death. Unless they're shot at by other finns... That too. For the people who do NOT read Finnish: the site sports the term screenshotit in the site navigation, which is easy enough to translate. However, the proper Finnish term would be Kuvakaappaukset. Just goes to show why there are differences between a proper translation and a proper translation. :mad:

What would the CMBB called in Finnish anyway since we did not officially take part in the Barbarossa and our troops were never pushed back all the way to Berlin ? Here are some abominations for you to vomit over: TTKV, Taistelu Tehtävä: Kannakselta Viipuriin, translation Combat Mission: From the Isthmus to Viipuri (which is in the Isthmus anyway so the name is illogical) ? TTBM, Taistelu Tehtävä: Barentsinmereltä Mustallemerelle, translation Combat Mission: From the Barets Sea to the Black Sea ? TTIR, Taistelu Tehtävä: Itärintama, translation Combat Mission: Eastern Front TTJS, Taistelu Tehtävä: Jatkosota, translation Combat Mission Continuation War Incidentaly, would Finnish made scenario and order text crap out in non-Scandinavian machines if they included ÅÄÖ's ?

A mighty tasty bone this one. Looking at the infantry made me wonder about the use of helmets in the Eastern Front. All the infantry units are wearing them in all the pics so far. However I have read they were not use as extensively as they were in the Western Front.

Originally posted by Big Time Software: But what if the translation was excellent? That is the only kind of translations we do If you outsource it you are liable to get a woman who can not tell the difference between a mortar and a mortar. Unlike a dubbed movie there would be no loss to have things translated. We are not like the French or the Germans. Or even the British and the Americans. And since Finnish is not a Romanic language the terms would not be anywhere near what they are in English even in spelling. If the traslation is done REALLY properly that is. There is enough Finglish about in the games magazines already. For exampe AT is widely used in the rags instaed of the proper Finnish abreviaton PST. Propably because they are translating straight from English magazines. Reading the game in Finnish would not be a good thing since we would always be wondering what the term is in English. Or are you trying to oust us from the board because we would be using the Finnish term instead of the English term and nobody but us would know what we are talking about. Tero, a PDF is one option. However, there is a substantial cost to translate the manual and game elements. So if no Finn really cares about it we just assume skip the expense of both translation and printing. From a marketing point of view I too do not think you would boost sales by localizing the game. On the contrary, it might drive prospective buyers away. [ April 29, 2002, 03:44 AM: Message edited by: tero ]