Hawkeye

OH AWESOME!!! I'm in a Peng thread! This is . . . this is . . . AWESOME!! Hawkeye ------------------ Check it out: I have a signature now--just like REAL members. Hah!

I, too, am interested in a quick way to find tcp/ip opponents. I tried the chat room at CMHQ, but my school firewall blocks that port unfortunately. Any ideas? Alternately, I'll accept any challenges sent my way. I'm usually available for at least one game a day. I'll play you sometime bluemx. Hawkeye ------------------ Check it out. I have a signature now--just like REAL members. Hah!

Perhaps I left out a few details. It was not one, but several barrages of artillery that were coming in. I myself am a great endorser of smoke, but the gun emplacements were so wide and far flung it would've required the use of too much artillery to effectively conceal my advance. I did actually have one "screen" setup, but it didn't preserve very man of my men. Furthermore, I had no clue where most of the guns were--not even sound contacts.

You know, having played the TacAI for most of my CM career, I've noticed from studying the tactics of other players online that they employ Indirect Fire much more often and with greater effectiveness than I do. I'm the kind of guy who, when given the chance to purchase his troops, maxes out his points on infantry. There's something enormously satisfying to me about purchasing a company, or better yet, a battalion of men. I mean sure, I'll usually get a couple of 81 FO's and maybe some 105's, but infantry are my workhorse. Fionn Kelly, on the other hand (at least according to the AAR's I've viewed), ADORES artillery. Thus, it has only recently occurred to me the potentially (very) large differences in style that one might see between Combat Mission commanders. I, like I said, love infantry, and, therefore, I look at all other units as a means to support them. Last night, however, I played my first 5000 point game against the TacAI (+1 xp bonus). I was the Americans attacking a randomly generated German-occupied town on a large map. I have to admit, it was a learning experience. I had a pair of rifle companies initiate the advance first with some light armor helping at point and some shermans watching the flanks. The result was this. Around turn 3 or so the first artillery barrage arrived. Around turn 5 both companies were reduced to about half, most of which had some nifty red exclamation points in their status boxes. Meanwhile, my light armor had been annihilated by hidden flak positions and I'd lost about half of my platoon of Shermans to hidden 88's. What was most frustrating, however, was that my infantry were effectively useless now--they were either too reduced in size or in morale by indirect fire. And they had never gotten a shot off. So I guess my question is this. After having witnessed the potency of a strong indirect fire defense (or even offense potentially) and the minimal risk that is involved in its use, I am inclined to believe the most effective commanders will spend their points on artillery rather than infantry or even vehichles. I wanted, however, to consult the CM message board grogs before I began overhauling my tactics to a less direct-fire oriented style of play. I guess what I'm really wondering is whether the direct-fire oriented commander can still oust his indirect-fire oriented opponent by anything but sheer luck. Essentially, which is better? I appreciate your comments. I hope I'm not too far off in my appraisal of things here. Hawkeye

Has anyone ever wished for an "abandon" command like I have? I mean, I often find myself (while defending) wishing that I could just tell my crews to abandon that AT gun because I know the arty strike will be arriving within minutes. Furthermore, I'd like to tell my men sometimes to just ditch that heavy MG or mortar because they're going to die if they stay within enemy LOS trying to lug that thing outta there. FURTHERMORE, I'd like my crews to be able to reman this equipment! I played a game last night in which all 6 men in my .50 cal crew were wasted by HE fire because they were trying to carry the gun across open terrain. If there were only some way I could've told them "Get the hell outta here! Forget the gun!"--but alas, dutiful men that they were, they lugged that thing down to the very last man who, in turn, was imobilized and then finally VAPORIZED. It's just not necessary! Those men don't have to die! I don't like casualties! Even crew casualties! I don't like being responsible for unnecessary deaths! Hawkeye

I prefer +200% forces and +3 experience against the AI in ALL scenarios. I am especially fond of doing so when defending with conscripted Volkssturm. Oh, and I always win too. Hawkeye

Wouldn't it be great to review an entire battle without having to click "join multiplayer" "load e-mail" 30 times? Any chance for the future? Hawkeye

Why do I never hear anything about this unit? I've had some really great experiences with it (apart from the risk of mortar fire). The 150mm cannon is a one-way ticket to ROUTED! status. Does anyone know how frequently/effectively these were used historically perchance? Hawkeye

Isn't it cool when you two shells hit a tank (or other AFV) simultaneously? It doesn't happen very often, but I had two pak 75's tear into a TD the other day at the exact same moment and it had to be the biggest explosion I've ever seen (in Combat Mission, at least). I dunno if that was just a coincidence or some special bit of coding. -Hawkeye

You know, the text file format of the PBEM games is really quite irritating. I mean, first of all, you and your opponent usually don't use the same format when you play. And second of all you usually have to navigate your hard drive everytime you save the file or send it. Wouldn't it be a lot more convenient if the game automatically named the files in their own directory and they had their own EXTENSION so that you could just double clik on them? After many a PBEM game, that's the way I feel about it. Hawkeye

And from 500 meters! Alright so it's not THAT amazing but it sure did put some spirt back into me. A couple of panthers and some pillboxes had occupied this one hill the entire battle. My shermans were camped out behind some trees and terrain after they saw what the 88mm pillbox and the 75's on the panthers were doing to their armor (A few burning hulks were currently smoking on the hill ridge above to remind them). I sent a platoon of stuarts along the right flank to draw their fire and pushed the shermans back over the hill for another go at it and when the panthers started grinding their turrets back towards the shermans one of the stuarts got a side turret penetration from 500 meters! I was a little bit flustered to see one of those beasts go down. Maybe I won't be so timid about pitting light tanks against german armor in the next battle? Hawkeye

Ahhhh... so he's Hawk huh? Guess he's not MAN enough to have an "eye" appended to the end of his name! I piss on your smilies Hawk! You inadequate HALF of my glorious name! HAWKEYE

OOOoooo!! A new operation! GOODY. (Send a copy my way pls) Hawkeye

I too am a little bit concerned about the "waiting on your slow arse opponent while playing tcp/ip" issue. But I've also noticed that I continue to move and plan faster the more I play CM (much to my delight! I'm so professional now!) I guess what peeves me is that I can play an entire game in 30 minutes which would take 30 DAYS against another person. Well the AI just isn't challenging and I want the best of both worlds dammit! TCP/IP vs. a fast opponent still won't be as fast as against the AI, but it will be a helluva step up. I send well over 10-15 turns a day and I STILL get frustrated at the snail's pace. It'll be quite a time committment to sit down and play some tcp/ip with someone, but I think I could find the time =). Hawkeye

I just read through 4 threads on the full representation issue. It seems people feel pretty strongly about it. I think we'd all like the game to be a perfect photorealistic recreation of WWII if the programmers had the time and our CPU's had the horsepower. I'd love to see individual shell casings, detailed hand to hand combat, all the differents weapons, thousands of soldiers on screen, etc. etc. But of course, like everyone else, I'm not ready to exchange gameplay for eyecandy. Surely no one wishes the game looked plainer? That's all I'm trying to say! Sorry I didn't do a search before I appended that afterthought, btw. Hawkeye

Kind of curious about the scale that other players give their soldiers. I personally prefer realistic because... well... it's realistic. Of course, that means I have to use those ugly bases, but still, their dimensions sure are realistic! And on a side note, does anyone else wish that squads were represented by the full twelve (or ten or eight, whatever) as much as I do? I suppose I just lust after the cinematic appeal of watching a full 120 + change members of my company marching to the front lines. I like the battles to feel big and stuff so that I can feel like I'm a really important person to be commanding so many infantry with such effectiveness. I mean, who DOESN'T want to see bodies flying when those 150mm shells start coming in as opposed to the little twitches the abstracted squads give? Sigh... I'm sure my cpu could never handle it but I would probably still watch it in its choppy framey glory. Hawkeye

LOL! Von Brizee! That's hilarious! I'd forgotten how effective snipers were at hand to hand in cc2! My buddy and I would always joke about it along the lines of: "fortunately all my snipers are extensively trained in several forms of martial arts and hand to hand combat." I can remember several instances where entire rifle teams were lost charging into a building occupied by a single sniper. You'd sit there and grit your teeth while you listening to the little fist fighting noises and watch the rifle soldiers dying one by one. They really were amazing at hand to hand! Able to take on 6+ guys at once and come out on top! Send me a copy of that screenshot if you still have it. Hawkeye

I played a game yesterday where my panther was a good 100 meters away driving perpendicular to a 'zook. The damn thing had to lead my panther (which was hauling arse) about 10-15 meters and it STILL hit it and penetrated the side! ARGH!!!!!! As to bazooka penetration... I had one of mine fire into the front side of a panther 4 times before it finally penetrated. This was at close range. Hawk

I uhh... ran a search on the board... Suggested updating directx. Works great now. Good thing I only spent half the day on this problem. =)

Whenever I press esc or alt-tab I drop back to the desktop. But when I go back into the game the display flickers between the game and the desktop and I can't control anything. This sucks most especially because I just reinstalled CM on a fresh hard drive and it didn't do this on the old one. Video card is using the same drivers I was using last time. I don't get it. Help? Hawkeye

It reminds me of a campaign I played against a friend of mine in Close Combat II. He had a german sniper named "Vugahol" (I still remember his name because he was so infamous). Anyways, it would've been a real hit to German morale if I could've wasted old Vugahol but he was just too slippery. I'm sure he logged maybe only one or two kills in his entire career but man, I sure would've liked to have nailed that prick. It's refreshing to see that sharpshooters are so much more effective in CM. Hawkeye

What's YOUR favorite brand of rifle infantry? What for? Hawkeye

Yeah, I can picture my CO now. "Now listen to me son. You see that patch of trees up the hill there? I want you to drive your jeep full speed INTO those trees. We suspect a HEAVY enemy presence and we need you to root them out..." "-- but Sir! If you think there's enemies there why don't you just fire into--" "-- DON'T interrupt me son! Now if it turns out there ARE infantry hiding in the foliage then you should probably abandon the expensive jeep that the US army has provided for you and then try to run back down the exposed hillside. Be sure to zig zag so that the mg42's that are only about 30 feet away don't hit you. If it turns out there ISN'T an enemy presence then you will then proceed to drive your jeep into the next cluster of trees where they might be hiding until you're forced to abandon your expensive vehichle. Is that clear?" I think that this kind of behavior would definitely encourage confidence in the CO's which is probably why there were so many kamikaze jeep recons during WWII. Anyway. I think it's gamey. If you want to simulate realism then you should show some concern for the lives of your men and for the preservation of army equipment. Hawkeye

Well... I don't have any really bad horror stories from PERSONAL experience... but I can volunteer one for a friend. It's his first PBEM game (actually it's my first one too) and he hasn't really played too much CMBO. So he sets up all his troops in a nice thin little line across the entire map Close Combat style ya know (he's defending)? He says he didn't even see my troops until an entire company and a half basically stepped on top of one of his platoons that was hidden in some woods. I, of course, came pouring through the hole. His troops were sprinting across open fields trying to get to the fight. He ended up surrendering over 200 troops. I felt bad for him. Oh well. Hawkeye

I was playing South of Sword yesterday (Lord! what a hard scenario!) as the Allies. I can remember my full platoon of tanks cresting that hill..... and watching them pop like balloons. Needless to say, I was a bit demoralized. Oh, and then I had to organize a careful retreat for the rest of the battle. Argh. Hawk